wait a minute-- strike that-- reverse it

ah, isn't it funny how the ego interferes in our lives? in my last post, i closed with this "realization":

"teaching him all of it--what to do and what not to do-- from walking to eating to pulling on the cat's tail. no small task. and i am ready."

how quickly i forget what he teaches me. the pure light which we all really desire to achieve is within him. it is within all of us, of course, but the jaded years of cynicism, the difficult lessons, the fear-- they take a toll.

he teaches me to throw my head against the back of the sofa, let out a laugh, smile until my face hurts, give a round of applause. are there any greater lessons to learn?



*a special thanks to karen maezen miller and her blog, cheerio road-- where would i be without you?

my wild thing is ONE

he is ONE. one revolution around the sun.

here is a flickr set of the month by month development of this person, my child....birth to year one. pupa to chrysalis.

i feel like i am at a high point. the only thoughts that creep into the deeper, scary parts are the thoughts of regression. of going backwards after we have come so far. what if something were to happen? if he slips away and this groove upon my torso where he lays becomes just an empty ditch on my body, unfilled, concave?

these thoughts are few and far between. this is a good thing, because they can be paralyzing. more than this, i celebrate the days with him, and the evenings holding him close, rocking him, his eyes getting heavy, putting him down. watching him sleep. walking into his room in the dark mornings to him smiling and bouncing, gripping onto the rail of his crib. ready-- READY-- to face another day and seek more adventure.

teaching him all of it--what to do and what not to do-- from walking to eating to pulling on the cat's tail. no small task. and i am ready.

does anybody really care?

not me, apparently, because i forgot about my own experiment! the first few days, however, i think i did feel like i was giving more thought and consideration to others. at times, though, this morphed into not being entirely honest with my thoughts and feelings, being dismissive of things that really did bother me. is this less than compassionate? i felt a little like i was taken back to catholic sunday school....to the idea of "impure thoughts".

therapy has taught me otherwise: FEEL and SAY what you MEAN. it is ok to BE less than ok with things that are, frankly, not ok.

this is my new creed, however jumbled. i hope it sticks.

livin' the ten in ten

or: "is anybody really out there? does anybody really care?"

so i had this vaguely weird idea of trying to live the ten commandments as i see that they apply to me for ten days. let me backtrack:

while i am not really sure exactly what i believe (i am a seeker), i can say that i am pretty sure that i remain unconvinced that the bible is the one and only true word of God with a capital G. no offense to readers who believe otherwise, but this is my personal belief or lack thereof.

anyhoo, somehow i got the hair-brained idea that while i DO believe that the bible is perhaps inspired by god and divine in the same way that so many other books are divine, i decided to try to embark upon this little experiment. of course, this required brushing up on what the ten commandments ARE (as i am a little rusty). according to different parts of the bible, there may be some requirements that should be pretty easy to live with, such as "You shall not boil a kid in its mother’s milk." (exodus 34:26). the verses of deuteronomy from which the ten commandments are partially derived are also not doing such a hot job of convincing me that they are not simply a work of, to put it kindly, inspired fiction and without any bearing whatsoever on my life or that of anyone i know.

but faith is the belief in things unseen, so in a nutshell, let's take a look at the challenge set before me (and we'll add in a couple from the qur'an which i think are important and timely):


1) I am the Lord your God-- You shall have no other gods before me-- while i can't say that i believe that there is one true way with 100% certainty, i will do my best to not join any wiccan covens over the next ten days

2) You shall not make for yourself an idol-- this may present a challenge. i think i will need to abstain from reading trashy celebrity crap for the next ten days, which will do me nothing but good, for sure. i will also try not to put those i love and care about up on a pedestal of unreasonable expectations.

3) You shall not make wrongful use of the name of your God-- this will be a challenge for me. maybe it will keep me mindful of...something.

4) Remember the Sabbath and keep it holy-- in this day and age, i read this commandment as honoring one's need to take a break once a week. honor your self with that much.

5) Honor your father and mother-- i fall short with this a lot. patience, patience, patience.

6) You shall not murder-- easy. and remember people-- meat is murder.

7) You shall not commit adultery-- easy, but i will add flirting to the mix (though i don't really flirt much, truth be told). i will also try to limit the number of impure thoughts i have involving don draper from mad men.

8) You shall not steal-- not a problem. i will include sleep from my husband as well as his thunder under this category.

9) You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor-- as in lying?

10) You shall not covet your neighbor's wife/ You shall not covet anything that belongs to your neighbor-- easier said than done in new york. we are very much a culture of have's and have not's.

additionally, from the qur'an:

"And make not Allah's (name) an excuse in your oaths against doing good, or acting rightly, or making peace between persons; for Allah is One Who heareth and knoweth all things."

love this. LOVE IT. this, to me, is truly using the lord's name in vain.

-Be neither miserly nor wasteful in one's expenditure-- very important.
-Keep one's promises
-Do not be arrogant in one's claims or beliefs

so let's see how this goes. ten days of not wishing i was kelly osborne on dancing with the stars (have you checked out her moves?), of not being jealous that people like jenna bush will never have to worry about whether they can make their rent or bills, or send their child to a decent school. ten days of keeping my promises, of keeping my arrogance in check. of eliminating even white lies. of being kind and compassionate to my mom and dad.

let's see what we're up against.

good reads

i am on a reading kick. first anne lamott's operating instructions, which blew my head off, and now the mother trip by ariel gore.

ladies, where have you been all my life, or at least for the last ten months of it? in fairness, my sweet beezie sent me both of these pre-max, but as i said before in a lame attempt at an excuse, i have been a little preoccupied reading up on the sleep books, the development books, and the occasional bad mystery/thriller/courtroom drama fluff thrown in for the sake of escapism (i'm looking at you, jodi picoult) .

but oh, ariel gore. you SPEAK to me. i mean, the first page of the book contains this quote (and only this quote) smack dab in the middle:

"One must have chaos in oneself to give birth to a dancing star."
-FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE, Thus Spoke Zarathustra

i know that ariel is the voice of the new mamas, the old mamas, the mamas who are finally standing up and saying, "this is crazy."

but really, a dancing star? who is more a dancing star if not master maximillian wolfeinelli? this i ask you.

oh ladies, thank you for coming into my life. anne and ariel and each and every one of you.

grammy in the house

my mom left today. she hopped on her grammy plane and into her little grammy car back to her grammy house.

i am looking around this place that i really do love, how despite the stained mauve 80's carpet, the wood paneled hallway (and not wood paneled in a kitschy, cool 70's way--wood paneled in the same old awful, cheap, dark way), the spots of peeling paint on the ceiling-- despite these flaws, she shines, this old place. it makes me feel like the grinch from the grinch who stole christmas, as i squint my eyes, give them a rub, and peer in to take a closer look:

she came and she scrubbed-- the toilet, the tiles!
she cleaned out the cabinets, the sinks, the files!

she swept and she mopped, washed dishes, made beds!
she held crying babies, walked dogs, kept us fed!

she took us to dinner! she scooped up the litter!
she stocked up our fridge! she dusted! she swiffered!

but seriously, y'all, my mom ironed my comfy pants.

who does this?
love is an action.

more will be revealed...

cryptic title, isn't it?

i have decided to adopt this way of thinking, give it a good home in my psyche. pre-max, my sister gave me a copy of anne lamott's operating instructions, which between sleep books and preggo books and no-need-to-panic-and-call-the-doctor type books i hadn't gotten around to reading.

silly me.

of course, it would have pretty much rendered this blog obsolete, because sweet annie says in her hilarious and infectious voice everything i have been feeling over this last year, but much more eloquently. one of her yummy morsels of wisdom comes from her AA friends (the author is a former addict herself), who remind her that "more will be revealed". how true these words are in the context of, well, everything, but especially so when one is dealing with addiction and loved ones.

what are lies? what is the truth? my husband has spent so much of the last twelve months or so trying to sift through all of this-- trying to catch her in her lies, to trap the rat and make it speak the truth. and in time, over and over again, more is revealed....more ends tied up so that confusing behavior, requests for money, excuses, failures, crises, twisted blame-- all are revealed and more will be to come.

my poor husband. how much he gives and gives until he just can't take care of this phantom whisper of a real person any more. yet he forgives and he tries again. and again.

max is turning one in less than a month. i can't believe it. i mostly can't believe that i am sitting here thinking, "where has the time gone?" when the days i have spent have at times felt like a small eternity. yet this little larvae of a person is crawling around me at the speed of light, laughing until he can hardly breathe, taking it all in and then some. my sister told me once that you can't expect it to be easy, having your heart running around outside of your body.

september song

it's a rainy september 12 and it was a rainy september 11. fitting-- i always feel funny when september 11 is a beautiful day in new york.

max is a little man of many teeth (five and counting), a crawler, a drummer, a smiler, a hugger, a CLIMBER. we are starting to deal with the heart-wrenching and all too frequent occurrences of head bumps, falls, and overall dangerous behavior (like standing in the tub, slipping, and busting tiny rosebud lips on ceramic soap holders). yet he soldiers on and lives to explore another day.

i am learning as he learns. it is my job to teach him everything. i am learning that i need to let go. that a great mom is a flexible mom, and that i have no choice to be otherwise if i want to be happy. i am learning that love does not always equal happiness, and that is ok. love can equal loneliness and isolation, but you love those little ones so much that you just do it. you do it all anyway and somehow it just makes sense.


(my boys swimmin' this summer:)