Tag: postaday2011

yoga and my manic mind

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At the end of yoga class today, when the lights were turned off and the meditative music was turned on, my mind did not automatically rest. I found myself composing Facebook status updates, mulling over possible writing topics, questioning my kids’ afterschool activities, on and on.

Today, in addition to the sound of slamming lunch trays in the adjacent cafeteria, I was also distracted by a baby crying right outside our class.

yoga class from creative commons

Jen, my teacher, said, “Breathe and repeat the word, ‘Inhale’ on your inhale and ‘Exhale’ on your exhale. This will help you block out the noise.”

At first, I didn’t mind the sound of the baby’s cry. Not too much. Until after a while. Then it was really irritating. Inhale. Exhale. Breathe. “Will someone feed that child? Give her a binky!” Iwanted to yell.

The good thing about hearing a baby cry is that eventually the crying stops. Sweet relief. Thank you Jesus!

And eventually, my manic mind stopped fretting too. For a minute at the end of yoga, I drifted. Got silent. Like the baby, I descended into a place of contentment. It was really nice.

I forgave myself and everyone for everything. I felt only love for the whole wide world, even, and especially, that crying baby.

The Mother in the Movie — Secretary or Fighter?

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Over the last couple of weeks I’ve seen some mind-blowing performances by women in Hollywood films that make me question what it means to be a mother — Diane Lane in Secretariat and Melissa Leo in The Fighter. Yes, these are very different mothers but they are both very strong, passionate and powerful performances.

I wondered which of these two mothers I am more like.

No surprise! I hope I am more like Diane Lane in Secretariat. Good God, the woman is gorgeous. I loved her wardrobe. But let’s look at the content of the performance and not just the deliciousness of its style. Lane is an awesome actress. She plays Penny Chenery, a gritty mother of teens who time and again, has to (wants to?) choose her horse over her kids.

There are moments in the Disney movie where Lane breaks down and then buttons herself up. This is me. On a regular basis, I fall apart — teary, weary, girly, helpless. Then, a moment later, I’m back to myself — capable, energized, womanly, in control. I will write that article or pay my bills, I vow, and don’t try to stop me. I love the strength of a working mother.

Chenery and I, we do not have the time or luxury to fall apart. There’ s work to do — horses (and children) that must be fed! Other workers depend on us. We have a family business to run.

On Sunday, I ran into Margo Martindale at church. I told her how fabulous she was in the movie Secretariat. Margo played Elizabeth Ham, Chenery’s assistant and another strong character — caregiver for the ailing father and secretary for the dwindling farm. (I need a Ham in my life.)

Margo Martindale and Diane Lane in Secretariat.

I told Margo, “You and the film were absolutely amazing.” I gushed that I was so glad to see it with my kids.

“It reminded me — especially as a mother and as a writer — that it’s okay to pursue my passion,” I said.

“Not just okay. It’s essential,” Margo said. (Love her!) She said the cast had a lot of fun making the film.

The other mother I’ve been contemplating is the Academy Award winner Melissa Leo in the Fighter. She, too, had some inspired costume pieces, and, I ask you, Are there really any mothers with figures as awesome as Lane’s or Leo’s? I don’t think so.

As the mother of dysfunctional brood, Leo was strong. Yes, and scary, controlling and chain-smoking. Like Lane, she let her guard down, but she did not button herself up. Or zip up the hurricane of her codependence into a less destructive path. She needed a job other than as her son’s manager. (Mothers, take this word of warning: Look at what happens when you live through your children’s successes and failures. Look at Alice Ward. Good God!)

These women — Lane, Martindale, Leo — are forces of nature. Strong and passionate. Hard-edged. I loved them. I know them. I am them.

I saw these on Netflix. I know, I’m a beat behind and they came out a while ago.

Melissa Leo as Alice Ward in The Fighter

Celeste Victoria and 9/11

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Cat was watching a Linda Ellerbee Nick special. I frowned. She explained, “I want to know what happened.”

“Turn it off,” I said.

“It’s okay, it’s on Nick. There will be no upsetting images,” she said.

I left the room. A few minutes later, I heard H. tell Cat, “Turn it off. This show’s upsetting me.”

Cat turned it off and came into my room. “Why does it upset you? Do you know anyone who died?” She asked.

celeste victoria“I did. I knew this great, nice, fun mom. Celeste Victoria. Though sometimes I’d get her name mixed up. And I’d call her Victoria Celeste. But she’d laugh that off. She worked with me at Manhattan Neighborhood Network. She was incredibly kind to everyone. Seriously. I remember telling her that too, ‘You’re so nice to EVERYONE. To all the crazy people with cable access shows.’

“She helped me with my show. And it was just so unfair to me that someone so incredibly nice and beautiful would die. She was a single mom, about my age. Her little daughter would be with her at MNN sometimes, doing homework at the reception desk. She was such a nice little kid too. It was just crazy that her mom would die.”

Back in my MNN days, I’d heard Celeste’d gotten a job in the corporate world and had left MNN. And I learned Celeste was helping to staff a breakfast at Windows on the World that morning. I thought of how she must’ve found it lovely to arrange a breakfast there and probably had looked forward to it. I always loved going to Windows on the World with friends or family, especially when I was in college.

All during college I worked as a front desk clerk the Vista Hotel in the World Trade Center. I walked through the concourse hundreds of times, ate my lunch in the windy, sunken courtyard between the buildings.

It’s really too much. The commemorations are everywhere you turn this week. On every newspaper cover, on every TV channel, on every announcement in the my workplace elevator, there’s some kind of ten-year anniversary reminder, prayer service, discussion group. Christ! And then there are the images — ghost-like light beams of the twin towers at night.

If I have to remember 9/11 at all this week, and apparently, I have to, I’ll remember Celeste Victoria and her smile.

I don’t want to be re-traumatized. I don’t want to return to the incredible beauty of that morning.

Maybe it’s okay, it’s raining all week. It’s fine to be depressed.

Dreary’s fine. Eventually we’ll get sunshine. We won’t get Celeste. But we can be like Celeste — hard-working mothers who are friendly to everyone, even (and especially) the crazy people.

This was the sunset over the Hudson the other day.

Why I Couldn’t Sleep Last Night

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I tossed and turned, my sheets wrapping around me and my melancholy.

I’ve said it before, Mommy needs a good night’s sleep. And last night it just wasn’t happening.

Here are some reasons:

  • I had worries about getting up early to buy and deliver breakfast to 22 kids at the church lock-in at 7 this morning.
  • I do too much.
  • Chris, my husband, is returning home tomorrow after a couple of weeks of being away. It’s an adjustment.
  • I am worried about the expense and commitment of getting Chris help with daily tasks of living for his Parkinson’s Disease.
  • It’s 9/11 weekend. It’s depressing.
  • I’m not exercising much, because of my foot pain.
  • I’ve focused too much on the kids and establishing their back-to-school routine.
  • My bedroom is too hot; the air conditioner is too loud.
  • I went to a MeetUp last night for writers who perform; had a couple of beers. Felt a little jazzed.
  • I did not write much.
  • I have anxiety about work and the possible downsizing of our agency.

I guess that’s enough. I finished Donald Miller’s Blue Like Jazz yesterday. I so identified with his discovery that we are open to forgive and love other people way more than we accept ourselves. The point of everything, every encounter — even our encounters with ourselves in the middle of the night — is love.

That is, instead of withholding love to change somebody, I poured it on lavishly. I hoped that love would work like a magnet, pulling people from the mire and toward healing.

This is tough. I have to find a way to love and forgive everybody, including myself; I need more help. Some problems can be resolved with more help and more love, and some with healthier behaviors. Here’s how I answer myself on last night’s worries:

  • I had to take one of the girls to the pediatrician's office for her ear infection. This was in the waiting room. My thoughts, like cogs, go round and round.

    You delivered the breakfast.

  • You like being busy. Being busy and happy pays off.
  • You’ll adjust to Chris’s return. You have your own travel plans.
  • Just spend the money to get Chris help.
  • This weekend will pass.
  • Exercise any way. Swim. Bike. Run. Do yoga. Do physical therapy for foot.
  • The kids are doing great.
  • Leave the air conditioner on.
  • Decompress with a book or herbal tea, not a beer.
  • Write more.
  • Let go of the work worries; there’s nothing to be done about them any way.

Writing all this has helped. I need more coffee. Maybe later, I can sneak in a nap. (Or exercise.)

Five Minutes

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For the last couple of weeks, every night some time between eight and nine, I’ve been sitting down one-on-one with my kids just to listen to them. The first night, it was amazing. Each of my daughters opened up with floodgates of emotions. We cried together.

We bonded. Then the timer went off. “Our five minutes is up!” We wiped away our tears and hugged. We moved on.

While the girls have embraced the attention, my 14 year-old son just lay there, refusing to talk. “We talk all the time. Why do we have to do this? Did you read this in some book?”

In fact, I did. The book is What Did I Just Say by Denis Donovan and Deborah McIntyre. “The Five Minutes” is a tool to get parent-child conversations beyond nagging, logistics, correcting, ya know, the ways parents usually talk to and at kids.

As our five-minute sessions have worn on, the girls have begun to use the time to lobby me for what they want — a new backpack or a trip to Maine. I don’t think that’s the point. They can talk about anything and that’s what they choose?

I believe in small solutions to big problems. A small group of people can change the world. A small amount of time can make a big difference on a project. A one-day-at-a-time attitude can get you through a lifetime of worry. I’m going to keep at it. Like blogging, it only takes a few minutes, yet it clarifies my thoughts.

I love the useful nuggets found in self-help books. I read that self-help books are just as effective as therapy. They’re cheaper; you don’t have to schedule them; and they provide tools for better living. Sure, I’m an intellectual and I love to make fun of how-to books (Do What You Love and the Money Will Follow? No, I do it for money and the love will follow).

Turning my attention, even briefly, to my kids’ agendas instead of my own is very relaxing and informative. The Five Minutes is not a cure-all. But it’s an active way to be present and to let my kids know I care and I’m there. I’m listening.

Summer’s End

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School starts tomorrow and I am so glad. Today I’ll buy the kids pencils, notebooks, all that crap. I’ll fold laundry. I’ll get organized.

I’m glad the darlings will get off the couch and get back into some semblance of a routine. They know they play their iTouch, Xbox, Café World too much. They can’t help it. My kids feel about their games the way their mom feels about cocktail parties. They’re delicious.

So yesterday I forced them up and out. We biked to church. We pedaled to Riverside Park. In my bike basket was a blanket, the newspaper, their summer reading books — Septembers in Shiraz and The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle.

We lay under a willow tree; got comfortable.

Then we freaked out. Above us somewhere was a really loud rattling, rattlesnake-like noise. It sounded mechanical and crazy.

I explored the branches looking for a stereo speaker. Could this be some new art installation in the tree? That is honestly what I thought, We’re in someone’s art exhibit. In Manhattan, you cannot escape the street art — the sidewalks, the streets, the parks are teeming with art! I love it. But I wanted to turn the speaker down and read my Sunday New York Times in peace.

Cicada from Creative Commons

But it wasn’t art. It was one frog-sized cicada making all that racket. The kids said they couldn’t concentrate on their books. “That noise is weird. It’s too hot. I want to go home.” So we packed everything back in my bike basket and rode home.

The kids lay on my bed in the one air-conditioned room in this messy apartment, reading their books, eating cookies in my bed, making more mess. They put in the required time with their books (an hour). Then they returned to Farmville and Fallout 3. And later, we all went to a cocktail party/barbecue!

Summer’s winding down. But the cicadas are still making noise.

Saying No to a Culture of Criticism

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“There are too many noises in the apartment. The dryer buzzer just buzzed. It’s supposed to buzz three times. It only buzzed once,” Coco woke me from a deep sleep to tell me this. I walked her back to her room, laying beside her in her twin bed.

I thought about my last couple of days.

I was so proud to have gotten published in Salon and so unprepared for the barrage of criticism. My mind drifted to my workplace book club where my women colleagues had so many negative things to say about the Think: Straight Talk for Women to Stay Smart in a Dumbed-Down World by Lisa Bloom. I thought the book was awesome. I loved how Bloom attacks tabloids and reality shows. And, of course, those conflicts are manufactured for our entertainment.

In my lunch time book club, all these brilliant coworkers trashed Bloom because she was writing about the failings of mainstream media while she was a part of media herself.

At Salon.com all these people criticized me for my story when I never asked what they thought (but I guess Salon asked by opening the comments to a free-for-all.) I wrote more about this on my writing blog yesterday. http://gettingmyessayspublished.wordpress.com/

Last night, comforting my daughter, holding her hand as she drifted back to sleep, I thought, we live in a society of criticism. We constantly criticize one another. I’m not sure if it’s the vitriol of reality shows, politics or our own insecurity over jobs, relationships, parenting, whatever.

Trash talking bonds people together. “Look, isn’t Bloom an idiot!” “Yes, I agree.” But the whole thing leaves a bitter taste in my mouth. Not a sweet one.

An article popped up on my Twitter feed this morning — about happiness helping productivity (Do Happier People Work Harder? by Teresa Amabile and Steven Kramer)  http://ow.ly/6kXqQ

Employees are far more likely to have new ideas on days when they feel happier.

Yes! True for me. When I delight in criticism of other people I internalize it, get in a habit of criticism and then criticize myself and hold back on my creativity and kindness — as if we should be stingy with our happiness. As if joy in life, in our accomplishments were a weakness not a strength.

I struggle every single freakin’ day to be happy.

While I’m criticizing our culture for being so critical, I’m also happy there are writers like Bloom, Amabile, Kramer, and even me. Who ask, What do we need if not more criticism? The Times article says we need to “support workers’ everyday progress.” Simply pay attention to one another’s well being and stop the barrage of negativity. Simplistic? Maybe.

I go back to my rules, especially my rule learned from improv. Say yes! Happiness is harder but encouragement is essential. I like to take the difficult path.

Coco was fast asleep in her twin bed by now. The dryer had stopped tumbling. I was falling asleep myself. I unwound from her blankets. As I pulled my hand away, she squeezed it. Thanks!

My Salon

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I never asked what all these commenters thought. I never really asked what anyone thought except for the writers in Joanna’s and Charles’s classes, where I had workshopped the story.

And yes, I wanted to know what an editor thought.

I’d sent the story to the Salon editor late Wednesday, thanks to the query challenge from Robert Lillegard. (See the comments at: http://gettingmyessayspublished.wordpress.com/2011/08/30/the-westport-workshops/)

SH replied on Thursday over my lunch hour. I got her email while sitting in the hairdresser’s chair. She said my story “had potential.”

Nice! A new hair cut and a potential piece at the best literary and intellectual site online.

SH asked if I’d intended to publish under a pseudonym. No. She’d begun a line edit. She had legitimate questions about chronology and adding a “message moment.” That is, a moment to give the experience a meaning, an Aha! She was right.

I worked on the story; she worked on it. In a few hours, we were done. But commenters don’t take hours, months, years to write their comments. They dash them off.

I was surprised by the comments. At seven am, on Friday, I read the first seven. Then I stopped reading. I have very little experience with negative comments. The people who’ve commented on my blogs may spin out their own thoughts, but they don’t rip me.

I asked a couple of people what the comments said. My aunt (Ellen Wade Beals) emailed me; she said some of the comments were funny, some complimentary, and some snarky. One friend told me a lot of the commenters are commenting on each other’s comments. I didn’t need to go there. (And my sister emailed me with one direct message: don’t comment back!)

My only experience with negative comments was long ago on my article in the New York Times City section in the form of a letter to the editor. It was from an ASPCA representative quibbling with the way I’d represented their agency in my funny essay about the squirrel trapped in my airshaft. Fair enough.

At that time I took pride in the ASPCA’s letter to the editor. Aha! A letter to the editor meant my NYTimes story hit a nerve or was controversial. And now, I’m trying to take pride in the comments (that I’m not reading) on my Salon.com story. It’s a badge of courage to be criticized, commented on, and then survive (to blog about it.)

My cousin Susan Elster Jones sent me an amazing email last night. She said, One of my best professors once told me that the work isn’t really finished until you share it. And the more uncomfortable that feels-probably means the work is really strong. Thank you for sharing!

So, go ahead, comment away. Sure, I’m feeling defensive, sensitive, uncomfortable, but also proud, strong, happy. Uncomfortable.

Bus Stop

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image

Here was my internal dialogue: “Wow that lady looks my friend Jenny! But her hair’s a little too blonde. Maybe it’s Geraldine Ferraro? No, couldn’t be. Ferraro’s no longer with us.”

Then I scanned the text: “Gynecologic cancer….”

“What the –That sounds like Jenny – her one-woman show, I Got Sick Then I Got Better!”

It was my neighbor and fellow writer Jenny at my bus stop. Still I prefer the real Jenny. Lucky me, I get to see her IRL (in real life) around the neighborhood walking her one-eyed dog.

But if I ever miss her ’round the hood, I can see her at this bus stop — bigger and blonder than ever!

More about the fabulous Jenny Allen and her one-woman show: http://www.jennyallenwrites.com/

The Westport Workshops

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Went well.

I love when people open up — give me stories about your divorce, depression, cancer treatment, or dysfunctional childhood. And then half-way through your writing, lay it on me about how you handled the whole thing with faith, resilience, humor, or alcohol.

Better yet, write about your most embarrassing moment — the time you felt so humiliated you thought you’d never crawl back into civilized company again. You’ve got an epic fail? You’ve got an epic tale.

The stories of our struggles are the ones that will get published, get a laugh, get a tear, get a friend to open up on her crappy/crazy/resilient/hopeful life.

I’m not saying we wrote about any of these things (Maybe we did, maybe we didn’t!) at the Westport Creative Writing workshops, which I offered the last three Saturdays of August 2011 at the Heritage House.

But even if we did, I wouldn’t tell you, because the rule in my writing classes is confidentiality.

I will tell you generally what we wrote about — in the first class, among other topics, we wrote about a safe place from our childhoods; the second class, we wrote about our mentors from high school; the third class, with Hurricane Irene on her way, we wrote about riding out a storm (literal or metaphorical).

At the first class, we had 6 people, then 3, and then at the last class, 8. Hooray! It felt great. There were so many brilliant writers with brilliant life stories. It was an honor to be a part of and facilitate a creative writing experience for non-writers and professionals alike.

I believe there is something healing and transformative about writing your life story. It is sometimes unbelievable, but never never dull.

I will offer these “Story of Your Life” workshops (inspired by Dan Wakefield’s book of the same name) again.