Slippery When Wet

I have to tell you, I thought I was hot shit whenever I wore the t-shirt in this photograph. I had it all going on; rockin' the Levi's®, ponytails, acne and the “I know it all” half-smile. At this time in my life, my brothers were gone (college!), and I was forced to adopt the solitude I think of when I consider only children. Thank God I spent hours and hours talking on the telephone, rearranging my room and chasing neighborhood boys, but I still felt lonely. I remember eating out at restaurants, and vacationing at Disney's newly opened Epcot as a tidy, downsized version of my real nuclear family. Alone with my parents wherever we happened to be, I lived for the occasional, albeit shallow interaction or sighting involving random cute guys. And since my family has always loved to dine out, these “cute guys” were usually waiters. Guess what? I still love eating at restaurants!

Words

The other night I was sitting with my husband, debriefing about the day. After the kids go to bed, the rhythm of our nights usually includes streaming some new episode (Sherlock is our latest addiction) or watching a repeat of 30 Rock for the tenth time.  Whenever one of us has something important to say, we pause the program (lots of stops and starts). One night last week I must have been fishing for a little validation. It turned out to be one of the nicest moments in my marriage to date. Brendan turned to me and said, “Your best is yet to come and you know it.” It's really amazing how many words people exchange, especially couples (married or not). And sometimes, words can really stick. Not only that, but they can have weight. I've smiled while reflecting on my husband's words a hundred times since he said them. You never know where those sticky, weighty words will come from next.

Can't Pick 'Em Anymore

Nora with her cousin Erin, a healthy relationship that
doesn't depend on me for much of anything.

I bet many of my peers can relate to what I've come to terms with recently. There was a time when the social lives of my children were almost completely orchestrated by me. I held the power position to pick and choose playmates on their behalf. And it all depended on whether or not I felt like picking up the telephone to arrange a meeting at the park. If I was really ambitious (ambitious enough to clean the whole house), I might ask someone I hardly knew into my home, replete with all the awkwardness generated by two strangers getting to know each other. 


When you are parenting very young children, this daily scheduling effort can be as much about your needs for social interaction as it is about theirs. And if you happen to be in the market for a new grown-up friend, with any luck and a little effort, you may find one (or two, or ten) - all this while playing matchmaker for your child. 


So now my oldest is in middle school and I realize that my reign as supreme wielder of friendships and play dates is over. Admittedly, I feel some relief. For one thing, the pressure is off. I no longer have to wonder if my motivations to have my child gravitate toward one friend or another are transparent. They can choose for themselves. And now I'm off the hook. I can celebrate much greater freedom by spending time with those whom I truly enjoy, without considering the impacts on my children. I no longer have to limp along through conversations in which I'm not vested. I can concentrate on myself a bit more these days, and it's nice. 

Alone on Christmas

My father, age 85.

My dad has been married twice. His first marriage to my mother lasted 32 years. His second marriage is barely limping along at the 22 year mark. Last spring, my oldest brother and I took my dad to lunch. During our time together, my father was quick to abandon his usual topics and began listing some unusual "new" behaviors that characterized his wife.


For our benefit, he enlisted a bold palette to color a vision of a woman who washed her towels and bed sheets every day, threw clothes away as fast as she could buy them and loitered by the clothes dryer late at night to drown the sounds of clandestine phone calls. He shared with us that his wife had recently refused to wash his clothes, shop for his groceries, prepare his dinner or clean the bathroom where he bathed. She had also become a fan of sending and receiving text messages, at all hours of the day.  The two had become room mates and one of them, apparently, had a secret. While my brother and I heard oral confirmation that his wife was indeed a crazy bat, a notion I had held since I met her, my father suspected infidelity.


My brother offered three words to our father: cell phone detail. The devil is in the details after all. Four days later, detail in hand, my dad telephoned me. He had highlighted a suspicious phone number, tallied the minutes, and noted the times of day. With minimal sleuthing, my dad had also identified the owner of the phone number. The next step was confrontation. Not prone to controversy of any kind, my father decided to leave the cell phone detail on the kitchen counter.


Since then, volatility has been the only accurate measure of their marriage and his wife has "left him" and returned on a number of occasions. Her abandonment pattern is unpredictable and ranges from just a few days to being gone for more than a month's time. This story is still unfolding.


What have I learned? I have learned that love dies slowly and deliberately.  I realize that loyalty enjoys a mystical place of honor that cannot always be rationalized or explained using words.  I know now that people cannot be talked out of love. There are more lessons here, but I'm not sure I'm ready to express them.


My dad spent this past Christmas alone. His wife was in abandonment mode, and despite my earnest invitation to include him in our holiday, he opted to go it alone. 

The Great Antagonist

We can be sure that even Charro has antagonists driving
her to look this good in her 60's.  Photo snapped
 by me in Times Square in the winter of 2011. 

If you find yourself looking over your shoulder as you're about to be lapped again, or maybe your nemesis was just named person of the year, don't despair. Instead, take stock in yourself and remember what you're made of. You are NOT meant to merely breathe the dust kicked up by others.


For many of us, most days are about going about our business, keeping our house in order. But we're only human. Count on having days when you feel jealous instead of generous, or envy when you want most to feel gratitude. Everyone has days like this, even the most kind and giving among us, when we lapse and our egos shrivel to a sad, deflated state. When this happens, we become easy targets for other folks which can make us feel small, unworthy and  unsuccessful. It can be difficult to see ourselves as the powerful, unique individuals that we are. We needn't consider or defer to others when going after our dreams. We should never compare our achievements against those of our neighbors, but we do. Oh how we beat ourselves up.


If you have a tenacious antagonist in your life, remember that antagonists are like motors, reliably driving us forward to our next destination. The antagonists in our life make us great (and most of us have at least one). So next time you feel jealousy or envy, relabel that feeling and call it drive. Drive yourself forward to make yourself great. You can do it.  Remember, every story worth reading has a great antagonist. What's your story?

Memories of Mom

Backside reads in her script:
October 1972 Claudia's Birthday
Claudia & Mommy

A day doesn't go by that I don't miss my mother. And why should it be otherwise?  When I think back, trying to harvest bits of my past in an attempt to bridge time with memory, I'm always left wanting.


There are certain things I can remember with almost no effort. For instance, I remember when, on multiple occasions, my mother would come home with a bag (or bags) filled with clothes from Marshalls®. Those red stickers made me giddy. The more clearance items my mom saw that she thought I might like, the bigger the bag. "You don't have to keep anything you don't like," she'd say. She had such great taste. 


Most of my memories are non-specific. I remember the kind of music that always played in the background when she was in the room. She instinctively connected with music and blended it into our life. Big band and jazz standards set the perfect mood for impromptu dance lessons in the kitchen, in between chopping one thing or another.


I remember the two of us getting take-out pizza and practically inhaling a large between us. 


And whenever one of life's barbs would cause me pain, I remember the way she held me. She held me tightly and completely, whether I was two or twelve.   And despite my predictably brazen show of tears, her impressive calm restored me, every single time. 

Splendor in the Grass

My mother was 38 years old when this image was taken. My family rented a lake house during the summer when I was too young to remember. And while I don't recall ever seeing this photo, it was taken while my family was on vacation. Of course, right away, I marvel at how flat her stomach appears just ten months after giving birth to me. 


For the time, I was a late-in-life baby. My brothers were born in 1958 and 1959 respectively, and then there was Martin, the brother I never knew, stillborn, who bridged the span before I came along in 1968. My mother always seemed old to me, but mostly because I was surrounded by friends with much younger parents.  


Seeing this picture of my mother is bittersweet. On the one hand, it reminds me why I'm the kind of mother I am. You see, I do that - I lie on the grass when the sun is warm. I wrestle my dog to the ground and do cartwheels on the lawn. For me, this pose is standard fare. 


She looks relaxed, so carefree. I wonder who held the camera. Was it one of my brothers? Or could it have been my dad? Could he have had the sentimental insight to capture this rare display of my mother's calm, centered connection to her younger self? 


She died when I was 23 and never once did I see her lie in the grass.