Month: July 2011

Make Something New

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I have seen way too much of my kids since they went to camp a week and a half ago. I have been with them in the emergency room, the health clinic and the outdoor chapel.

Charlotte had some kind of panic attack/low blood sugar/migraine/mild seizure that landed her in the ER. Catherine had an ear infection. And Hayden popped out of a sea of navy blazers after the outdoor chapel service to beg me to get him his iTouch.

I was supposed to get away from kids and responsibilities when they went to camp. Instead, I am in need of a vacation from this vacation. I honestly can’t wait to get back to work.

Wait. Not quite yet.

I’m making art. I’m making something new. My first class was with Linda Kemp. It was about negative space painting, about painting the space behind what you see, and not what you see.

Maybe through making art, through finding something in the negative, I will find what I am missing. And it’s not the kids.

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Church A Day

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With the kids off to camp, I was planning to visit a church a day. I was driving solo to the art workshops that I’m attending with my dad, his lady friend and my sister over the next three days.

I drove by this Vermont church. It looked like a good solid church. I could begin my church visits there, I thought. Yes, I could be born again. I could pray.

No, I couldn’t. The church door was locked. I tried the side door. Also locked.

Creative Writing Improves Health

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Through a screen, this is this morning's view as I write in my journal.

I write about feeling unnoticed or unappreciated; I also write about feeling grateful and lucky. Today’s list was long.

One of the things I’m grateful for is this daily habit of writing. I journal every morning.

Here’s why:

Writing provides clarity. I come to the end of my three pages of handwritten catharsis with a deeper understanding of some of the puzzles of my life. Nothing’s resolved, but the clean sheets are hung out to dry. I can see what I’ve got.

Journaling improves health. The physical effects of journaling are similar to the effects of meditating. My breathing slows down. My attention turns inward.

Writing documents the journey. I can reassure myself that things aren’t that bad, or confess that they are worse. My written words, once laid out, give me a benchmark if I should ever look back. But I never look back.

Journaling taps into my unconscious. Writing first thing in the morning, I dump my dreams on the page. They make no sense, yet are telling me something, some bubbled-up, mixed-up message. In looking at my dreams, I take the position that I am every character. I am more than me.

This blog is about health and fitness. Journaling is part of my mental and psychic fitness. It is my therapy. And journaling every morning is cheaper and more convenient than talk therapy. I began this morning habit ten years ago following the path of Julia Cameron’s guidebook, The Artist’s Way. I heard her speak years ago at Marble Collegiate Church. Loved her then. Love her now.

I write a lot more about creative writing at my blog, The Connected Life. http://gettingmyessayspublished.wordpress.com/ There, I document unplugging the kids from their media and all things writing.

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The Red Hats

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I spotted these ladies at the Marina in Westport, New York the other day. When I’m a bit older, I want to wear a red hat and a purple shirt. I want to share a laugh and a cocktail with other silly ladies. I want to sit with a gaggle of women.

They looked like they were having a heckova lot more fun than the married couples who’ve eaten together so many times they’ve run out of things to say.

A couple of years ago, I arrived in Miami before the rest of my book club. I sat in a café and watched the South Beach vacationers. Near me sat a group of women. When they talked, they looked in each other’s eyes. They touched each other’s shoulders like comrades. They talked over each other. The married couple stared out at the ocean; they complained about the waiter’s service.

When the group of young women got up, they walked down the street and bumped into each other. They bent over in laughter. The married couple walked in single file, not talking. The man walked in front; and the woman, behind.

In South Beach I noticed all of the married couples looked miserable. The groups of women looked ecstatic.

And that’s why I’d rather wear a red hat on a hot day as I sit near the water.

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Happy Campers

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I tagged along yesterday as an older and wiser camper took my daughter on a tour of her new sleep away camp. We visited the arts and crafts cabin, petted an old horse in the stable and walked to the archery range.

But the most happening stop on the tour was at the stage set. The crew was painting, building, finding props for the production of Charlotte’s Web. Or maybe it was The Ugly Duckling. I was only half listening to the tour guide, hypnotized as I was by the young women working.

The campers and counselors were totally in the zone, like bees building a hive. Each doing their own thing, but doing it for a greater good. Work can be like this — like parallel play; like, we are doing our own thing, but we are side by side. And it all comes together in the end.

When I taught drama to kids, I tried to teach them that the lead role in a show was a small piece in a much bigger puzzle. The real world and work of theater is about collaboration. There are box office managers, set designers, costumers, musicians, lighting engineers, a variety of skilled craftspeople.

Theater is about craft — not about celebrity. It is about being in community and building something even brighter than the brightest star. Theater is about snapping the jigsaw pieces together to create the production.

As our tour guide and my daughter drifted ahead, I dawdled. I wondered if parenting, which often feels like my work alone, is a collaborative project, like a theater production. And maybe this is why I like sending my kids to camp. Yes, they are the brightest stars in my personal production. But they are, like all of us, workers on a set in a production even larger than I understand. They are co-creators of a new show. And I have to let them go.

As parents and as campers, we play our bit parts. We help build the set.

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Becoming a Stricter Parent

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On one of the first days of Middle School, my twin daughters did not return home. It was 5 pm. Then 6 pm. My attitude moved from mildly worried to wildly apoplectic.

I walked over to their school, wondering if they’d stayed after drama class for some show in the auditorium. The police officer at the front desk (yes, NYC public schools have cops at the entrance) told me that all the school kids were gone from the building.

It started to rain. I walked down Amsterdam Avenue peering into the Jewish Community Center, wondering if they’d stopped in the café there.

I called home. My son told me they hadn’t come home yet. My phone rang. It was the pastor from Rutgers Church. I do not remember why he called.

But I blurted out, “My girls are missing. I can’t talk. I have to find them. I’m sure they’re fine.”

“Strict yet loving,” he told me. “As a parent, you must be strict yet loving.” I loved that. I especially loved how he said it – with his Czechoslavakian accent.

I have the loving part down. The strict part? Not so much.

My phone sang. My son reported that the girls had wandered into the apartment, unaware that they were late. The girls had stopped at Cosi’s café with a new girlfriend, keeping her company until her mother came to pick her up.

I got them on the phone, “Thank God you’re safe. But you are not to stop anywhere but home after school. For any reason.  Without asking me. Got that?” They agreed.  “Okay, I’m stopping in at the JCC for the support group. I need it. You kids make me crazy.”

I aim for “strict, yet loving,” yet actually deliver “make you feel guilty yet loving.”

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This post is partly a response to my previous post — about how I feel sorry for my kids so I let them off the hook in terms of chores. And then I feel resentful and exhausted because no one but me does any damn housework. i.e., just yesterday, I worked all day, hosted the kids at the cafeteria for lunch, then came home and worked all night, including packing their stuff for today’s 7-hour train ride to the Adirondacks. (Fun! http://mybeautifulnewyork.wordpress.com/2011/07/17/trains-are-better-than-planes/ ) Then last night at 11 pm, they wanted to wrestle on my bed, where I had finally settled in for ten minutes of Me Time with a book.

“I’m sorry I’m done for the day, my friend,” I told my littlest darling. “You are too. Go to bed.”

I suck at setting boundaries.

That reminds me — I have gotten into some conversations after that post on making my kids do more housework. I know I have to make them work harder around the house. It is not easy for me. I have to try. I have to be strict yet loving.

Trains Are Better Than Planes

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This board is from the Museum of Modern Art exhibit on typography.

Here’s why I prefer train travel to plane travel with kids.

No security line.

The conductors’ uniforms. The Amtrak conductors just look official and yet like normal people.

I like that you don’t have to wear a seat belt.

I like that you can see the terrain you’re traversing.

I like that there are smart older folks, volunteers from the National Parks Department, giving juicy lectures in the food car about the history of the Hudson River and the region. (Can you imagine anyone getting in the food galley of a plane for a lecture on the region’s history by plane?) Here are some facts from today’s lecture:

  • Did you know that National Geographic called this Northeast Corridor rail line from NYC to Montreal one of the Top 10 Most Scenic Train Rides in the country?
  • Did you know Bald Eagles are no longer endangered?
  • Did you know that this rail line was created in 1851?
  • Did you know Franklin Roosevelt had a secret ramp in Grand Central Station to board the train and presidents still use that secret passage today?

I like that you can move around the car (not the cabin).

I like that there’s never a time when you are forbidden from using electronic devices.

I like that you can plug your computer in.

Leg room.

I like that just before you reach your station, you’re encouraged to stand up and move towards the exit. (Unlike on a plane, where you’re told to stay seated until the plane has come to a complete halt.)

I am thinking about this because this week I flew to and from Chicago with the kids. I would not want to take a train with them to Chicago.

I’m writing this as we travel on Amtrak to the Adirondacks for summer camp. Six hours on the train is perfect.

What do you prefer? Train? Car? Plane?

I love Amtrak

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The train conductors are service people who do not check their personalities at the door. You get to know them when you take that seven-hour train up or down between NYC and the Adirondacks.

One conductor had a plate of homemade cookies from a station mistress.

I was ogling them, smiling.

“Do you want one?”

“I’m on a diet,” I said. “I shouldn’t.”

I got up to use bathroom.

When I returned to my seat, there were two cookies beside my computer.

They were seriously the best chocolate chip cookies I’ve ever eaten.

I love the Amtrak conductors. The guy then railed (!) at me about how some people spread out too much on their seats when new passengers need those seats, then he started spouting how too many people are politically correct and he’s a huge fan of Rush Limbaugh’s. Okay, I tuned out on this last part of his diatribe.

I am a huge fan of political correctness and common courtesy. And you’d think the conductor would be too, especially if he wanted passengers to share their space well.

But I didn’t get into it with him. Not with the sweet taste of chocolate chip cookies still melting in my mouth.

Visiting Museums with Kids

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Sometimes when traveling, you follow the leader. Just this week when the kids and I went to Chicago, my mother led us around the Museum of Contemporary Photography.

I loved the exhibit about infrastructure and public works at this free and open to the public museum, http://www.mocp.org, right off Michigan Avenue.

“How cool is this place?” I asked.

“Not so much,” they answered. One of my kids wanted to shop. Another wanted to swim at the hotel pool. And this one, just wanted out.

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Harry Potter Line Up

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On the way back from a mani-pedi and on the way to pick up the girls from Monte Carlo (the movie), I noticed our neighbor was waiting in line for Harry Potter (the movie).

She’d gotten there at 5 and the movie starts at midnight. It looked like a fun, festive scene. But I’m glad I’m in bed and not waiting in line for two more hours.

“It’s going to be amaaaaaazing,” our neighbor said.

“Yes,” I said. “It will be.”