Becoming Write-Handed

Typing One-Handed

I typed this entry in September. I thought I lost the draft when Typepad re-platformed, but today they prompted me to recover my changes so I can actually share this with you!

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"I can't wait for you and Steve to experience parenthood," my sister Rachel said a few months ago.  "It's such a hard feeling to describe, and I'm hoping the two of you, being writers, will be able to put it into words."

At the time, Rachel's comment seemed like part compliment and part assignment. I was flattered, and I thought I'd have no end of words to share to describe motherhood. In fact, I looked forward to talking about, and writing down, my feelings on being a mom.

Like so many things in my life B.C. (Before Children), I was wrong. Well, not wrong, just wholely unprepared. It turns out I had no idea how to describe what this feels like, until today. Marisen's a month old now, and I have learned many tricks for moving through a day at home with her, one of which is to cuddle her in one arm and answer email or sort laundry or brush my teeth with the other hand.

I laughed when I realized that "Typing One-Handed" is the perfect progression for my musings on motherhood...from "Becoming Left-Handed" as a bride to "Becoming Write-Handed" as a very amateur writer to this, the ultimate juggling act, the most important feat of balance and dexterity, the most challenging test of one's ability to live two lives at one time.

That's what it feels like. It feels like I am now split in two, with my attention and brainpower and heart and soul divided so they can be shared with this tiny little girl. She is like a solar system unto herself and I revolve around her, even when I am trying to function like a normal adult individual. I feel like I now do everything one-handed, and everything in my life that is not Marisen gets just part of me.

We've done some "normal" things since she was born, like going out to dinner, to a party, to the mall, to the annual Tour of Homes. It's just that now, it's anything but normal. Or maybe I'm anything but normal.

Ordering dinner? Trying to do it while wondering if Marisen likes garlic. Buying a birthday gift? Shopping with the car seat over one arm, the diaper bag over the other, and wondering if I should sign Marisen's name to the card. Reading a magazine? Listening for her breath, or a sweet little baby sound from Marisen's bassinet. Talking to a friend? Attempting to keep up with the conversation while I worry that Marisen's getting too warm in the stroller. Relaxing? Watching the clock, timing Marisen's feedings, wondering when she'll wake up hungry. Watching TV? Interrupting every commercial to brag about Marisen gaining weight or smiling or sleeping four hours.

Holding my daughter? Feeling like both my hands are full, both my "selves" become one again, and I breathe in a profound sense of wholeness to have my family in my arms.

I'm Not Sorry

I've read many blog posts by authors who feel guilty when their posting takes a back seat to their busy lives, or when they hit a case of writer's block and don't blog for a while, or when they choose other forms of social media (like Twitter) to express themselves at the expense of their blogs.

I'm not going to apologize for my silence here. Writing is something that I often leave and come back to in my life, and over the past several weeks (okay, months) I've been preoccupied with other things. And that, as usual, is a good story. The best part is my writing bug is always with me, and the ideas are always flowing, even when I'm not capturing them.

My husband and I are having a baby. That's the beginning of the story (actually, that's the beginning of more than one story, isn't it?) And in the process of finding out about our blessing, I also discovered I needed a different job and so ... in this brave new world of blogging and Facebook and Twitter and LinkedIn, I opted to keep my pregnancy a secret online as long as I was interviewing in this admittedly small town.*

What an impact such a secret can have. I learned how much those online connections meant to me, and I learned how "free" I'd become on the pages of my blogs.  Writing the experiences of my own life has been a way for me to process and learn about myself, and I hope, offer some insights into the human experience.

I missed a chance to write some heartfelt entries about my feelings on becoming a mother. I also missed a few hilarious opportunities to lampoon the various indignities of pregnancy.  For example, when I polished off two months of morning sickness with a bad head cold, and said rather pathetically to Steve, "Um, honey, there are cracker crumbs stuck in my Vicks VapoRub," we laughed as we agreed there was a blog entry in that statement somewhere!

I can't promise to catch you up on the past 6 months of our lives, but I will look forward to more frequent posts here as I get back into storytelling mode, in advance of the greatest story of my life being born in August.

*I'm happily back at my former job now, where blogging is part of our DNA and everyone knows my "secret." :)

How I Spent My Summer Vacation

The last three days of amazing weather have brought cool nights and refreshing mornings, almost like autumn. This weather, combined with the fact that I bought new office supplies last week, and the local high school football teams have begun practices, and I saw a few mum plants make their appearance on the store shelves, signals Back-To-School time for me.

Normally, Back-To-School time comes and goes and I barely notice. But this year, it's different. This year, I, too, am heading into an entirely new adventure after a long break. I, too, am nervous and excited and wondering if anyone will offer me a seat a the lunch table. I, too, have a new teacher to impress and a new curriculum to learn and a new routine to develop, and even, a new bus route! I am starting a new job tomorrow: Director of Communications and Culture at The Women's Fund of Central Ohio.

I've had 10 days off since I left my job at Resource Interactive. We spent 4 days in the Finger Lakes with good friends, and then last week, I had a mini summer vacation all to myself in our new house. What a concept - a whole week to myself with no travel, no planning for travel, no family visits, no obligations, and no schedule. It felt as delicious, and at times, as endless as those 3 long months of lazy, hazy summer days we used to enjoy each year between grades.

So, in the spirit of Stephen King's dreaded personal essay, here is how I spent my precious summer vacation.

I slept. I mean I slept the sleep of a woman who has been moving non-stop for almost 10 years. The sleep of a woman who has moved 8 times in those years and finally, finally finds herself "home."  I slept late and took naps every day. Wednesday I took 2 naps. 

I made friends with our house. I have always been fascinated by the afternoon light in houses.  I think this is because I am never in houses in the afternoon. If it's a weekday, I'm in an office, where the afternoon light is the same as the morning light which is the same as the midnight light from fluorescent bulbs. If it's a weekend, I usually see the afternoon light in my car, or in a restaurant, or in a mall, or in traffic. But afternoon light in houses is magical. It is somehow quieter than all other light. It is gentle, and it suggests a sense of home that can be found nowhere else. This house has amazing light at all times of day, as I learned last week.  

I made better friends with our neighbors. I walked to the coffee shop one day last week with Joanie and Annie, and their daughters, Adeline (6 weeks) and Soleil (5 months). I've met these young mothers before, but this time we talked about New York and photography and the school system, and I felt like part of the club.

I ignored my list. Oh, my gosh, the things I meant to "get done" last week. Well, most of those things are not done. But I discovered how little that matters. The list is still there, and all the things will get done eventually.  

I got a library card and already burned through 2 books in 4 days. My one excursion for the week, apart from visiting my new office for an hour, was to go to the library down the street and get a library card. Words cannot describe my exhilaration at walking into a library. Now the process is automated completely from card application to book checkout; but the charm is still there for me because they allowed me to choose which color of library card I wanted - I picked the orange one.

I started walking 4 miles a day. I found a lovely walking route to the park, a romantic little shortcut that eliminates noisy old High St. from my walk and puts me on the trail much faster. I walked, and breathed deep, and prayed and meditated, and realized I'm way out of shape if 4 miles can make me that sore!

I got a sunburn. Not a deep burn, but a lovely pinky-reddish-tan with white shoulder straps. This is momentous to me because I avoided the sun last year for fear of a tan line showing in my strapless wedding gown. This year, no such worry held me back, and I read and rested in the sun as much as I could.

I weeded the pepper patch, the flower beds, and the driveway. We will soon be enjoying peppers from our own garden (improvised flower bed) and I can't wait to taste them. Last week I waged a ferocious battle against the weeds that, quite frankly, I've been letting win all summer.

I finally found something to blog about. Believe it or not, I sat down at this computer each day last week to write an entry. And nothing would come. No ideas, no clever opening lines, not even any silly stories to share. I think I was dried up completely. But a week off, and a new chapter in my life, and long list of things still undone ought to give me lots and lots to blog about.

Wednesday

By my Columbus clock, it is 1:17 in the morning. I am in a corner hotel room on the 6th floor of a fancy, overpriced Chicago hotel. I traded a room on the 20th floor for this, a few precious minutes of wireless internet connection in which to blog, connect via email, and bask in quiet personal solitude in the magic that is our wedding pictures.

Last night, I spent 20 minutes on hold with tech support, trying to get online in my 20th-floor room. At one point, I was on the floor, with a flashlight, looking at what I thought was the modem box conveniently hung behind the desk, the phone to my ear, with horrible static on the line, just absolutely sweating the fact that I couldn't see my precious pictures.

Now, I realize that this is not an actual crisis. I realize that, with the death toll climbing around the world from disasters beyond my imagination, internet access is a decidedly low priority. And yet, I couldn't help but feel that it is the wedding pictures, the birthday cakes, the emails and blog comments from loved ones, the funeral songs, the well-intentioned should-haves that truly make up family life. These are the important things because these are the artifacts we have of one another.

I spent 13 hours today interviewing consumers who meet certain criteria, on behalf of a certain global brand, and I realized something incredible. I realized that we are all, each one of us, part of God. And God is part of us. And listening to people, well, that's perhaps my one greatest skill.

My second-to-last interview of the evening was with a young woman who speaks Gaelic, of all things. And one of my favorite novel series, Outlander, uses Gaelic terms. So after our interview on the corporation that is my client, I picked her brain on Gaelic pronunciation. What a treat! I also heard from her some great sources for non-profit jobs in the country, so I will look that up ASAP. My last interview, the 12th in a long line of interviews, was with a gentleman who interviews subjects on behalf of a columnist at the Chicago Tribune.

I know my research is not personal. It can't be, with cameras rolling and clients behind the glass. And yet, a stone's throw away from Oprah's studio, I can't help but think that there's something to this whole interviewing business. I love hearing people talk. I love thinking about their lives, about my own life. I always, inevitably, turn the research into a personal discovery or awareness or lesson of some kind. I can't help it. Tonight, I felt humbled by my Gaelic-speaking, non-profit working respondent. And then humbled again by the gentleman (there is absolutely no other word for him; his speech was so low and unassuming that I doubt the camera even picked up his voice) who interviews prison guards and police officers and Asian shop owners so his columnist can publish a great piece. I felt humbled by the people who work harder than I every day, for less money. I felt humbled by their totally unsuspecting views of corporations for whom I have the privelege of working and yet fight with the ethics of representing.

And so, the wedding pictures. It is now 1:32 a.m. in Ohio. And I am going to shamelessly spend the next hour watching a vain, gluttonous slideshow of those lavish images - those tender, precious reminders of what love looked and sounded and smelled like on one October evening last year.

It's the Half-Packed House

**To the tune of "It's the Hard-Knock Life" from Annie**

It's the half-packed house for us!
It's the half-packed house for us!

'Steada closing
We get stuck

'Steada packing
We get drunk

It's the half-packed house!

Got no contract, far's we know
It's the cardboard chaos show!

Tape and markers
'Steada tools

Empty boxes
'Steada full

It's the half-packed house!

Don't it feel like the seller's always winning?
Don't it seem like nothing's gone our way?
Once a day, don't you feel like fucking quitting?
It's easier where rent's already paid

No one's there when your nightmares leave ya homeless
No one cares if you walk ... or if you close
No one calls when your nerves get short and frayed
From the darkness you'd think this place's a cave

Ohhhhhh!  ohhhh!!

Empty cardboard life
Dumb chaotic life
Stacks of rubbish life
What a grumpy life

No one really gives a crap
When you're in a house, half-packed

It's the half-packed house!

"You'll stay up ...
until this room...
Fits in these boxes!!"

It's the half-packed house!
It's the half-packed house!
No one really gives a crap
When you're in a house, half-packed
It's the half-packed house!
It's the half-packed house!

Cardboard Castles

We're moving to our first house in 5 days.

For one awful week (that felt more like a year) we thought we weren't going to get our house.

In shock, we stopped packing.

When the deal came "back on" Friday night, and we realized we had a week to pack up our lives, we kicked into high gear. Cancelled plans with friends. Skipped church. Bought boxes. And began the process of putting our lives into cardboard.

I personally hate packing, especially at the beginning. But somewhere near the middle of the process (which we hope to reach today) there suddenly comes a feeling of freedom. As if to say, I don't need all those things anyway, and now they are out of my way and I can just be.

And, "just being" is something I'm working on this week. I met with my minister Thursday to discuss troubles I've been having at work and how I really, really don't know what to do. And he just asked me if it's okay not to know. Okay to just sit with that uncertainty and not try to do anything about it. Okay to just accept what is and try to live in the moment, even when it's uncomfortable.

And so I'm trying to live in this moment, this complete chaos, and just be okay with the feelings of frustration and anxiety that arise over the sight of all this mess and the knowledge of what this week (and month) will be asking from us.

Book Idea

Maybe it's the fact that yesterday, my internet strategy job took yet another turn for the meaningless as I sat in a circle with my teammates and we [literally, I am not making this up] cheered for each other in turn for doing our jobs.

Maybe it's the fact that I really, really like wine. 

Maybe it's the fact that the universe has conspired to bring me in touch with 3 authors recently who went to Italy to discover themselves and publish books about it.

Maybe it's the fact that of the 100 people at our wedding, at least half of them said they had never been to or heard of the Finger Lakes. 

Or maybe it's the effect of spending the last 4 hours on the couch, sipping coffee and chatting with my beloved, all the while staring at John Francis McCarthy's photograph of the golden vines above the Finger Lakes.

Whatever the reason (or combination of reasons), today I am burning with my latest book idea. I get them all the time, book ideas. Not only do I not write the books, I also never write the ideas down. But something about this idea is different. This idea is screaming inside my head so I must write it down or I will have no peace today. And if you believe all that self-motivation mumbo-jumbo, writing down our dreams might actually be the first step to realizing them.

"So what's the idea?" you are probably wondering. "If it takes her this long to write her idea, how will she ever write a book?"

I want to write a love letter to the Finger Lakes.

 

Actually I just want to finish it, since it started about 7 years ago the first time I visited Lucas Vineyards.

The letter continued last year in some blog entries I wrote while we were traveling to the Finger Lakes for our wedding planning trips. I wrote some of those things down because they were so memorable and amazing (and frustrating, and funny) but many of our adventures never got penned.

 

I don't think I wrote about the vineyard where we considered having the wedding until we saw their port-a-potty accommodations for guests (and I visualized myself trying to fit my wedding gown into an outhouse).

I don't think I wrote about Paul, Hammondsport's lovable party animal who congratulated us on our wedding night when we walked into the town pub. I don't think I even wrote about Sheila,the only non wedding guest to share our rented house the week we tied the knot. 

And now, with the desire and urge and absolute necessity to write just burning a hole through my heart (and much of the rest of my life in the process) I am starting to brainstorm a book.

Could I go to the Finger Lakes for one weekend each month the rest of this year and pen my memoir, personal essay, whatever it would be called? In the spirit of Frances Mayes, Elizabeth Gilbert, Sabrina Ward Harrison, and Peter Mayer, all of whom wrote about the areas of the world (mostly European areas) that inspired them?

I don't know that I can ... I mean, I know I can, it's a free country, but I don't know that I can. Can I afford it?  Can I manage it?  Can I turn my life and career around in one passionate undertaking?  Is this the thing that I need to do to shake off this incredible sense of my life going the absolute wrong direction? Is this my "calling"? [Don't think I don't know how corny that sounds!]

The minister at our church (quoting Frederick Buechner) says that God calls us to the place where our great gladness and the world's great hunger meet. In my case, perhaps it's the place where my gladness and the world's great thirst meet? Over a glass of wine in the breathtaking hills of Upstate New York?

Leaves of Change

There is a huge oak tree along my route to work that sticks out like a sore thumb on a street lined with huge oak trees. All the others lost their leaves in the crazy winds of our very late autumn last year. But this tree ... this tree is still stubbornly clinging to all its brittle brown leaves, flanked by bare trees on both sides of the majestic street down which I drive.

Yesterday, during my 4-minute commute, I saw that tree and I wondered if his neighboring oaks are thinking that he is a dinosaur, unable to change with the seasons, unable to keep up, or maybe just unwilling to let go of the past. Maybe they chide him for thinking his leaves are still beautiful. Perhaps they whisper, through their bare branches and dry limbs, that he just doesn't get it. Summer is over. Autumn is gone. This is the time for complete hibernation in preparation for the new leaves of spring - what will my tree do then? Where will he put the new buds when they want to pop out on his still-full branches?

What struck me most about the tree was that I know how it feels. I feel that way a lot.

I used to think that being set in one's ways, or stubbornly clinging to what used to be, was a trait of older people. And of course, by older people, I meant older than I. But here I am, young-ish and a product of nothing but change in my generation and my life, and still I fight the urge to cling to what I know.

In the 3 years I've worked in interactive marketing, I like to say I've never had the same job two days in a row. I've changed studios, gotten a new boss, gotten a new title, gotten assigned a different career focus three times, and watched my clients go through the same churning in their businesses as the struggle to cope with what the Internet means to them.

In the last two years of my personal life, I've changed my name, changed my hair, changed my marital status, changed my banking and budgeting system, changed my perspective on being a bride, changed my living arrangements, and deeply altered my emotional terrain to make room for a husband. I've watched my friends' lives ride the same waves of change.

So how to cope? How to not become the tree still dressed for a football game when everyone else is attired in austere winter fur?

The secret lies in being open to what comes. The funny thing is, being open to what comes is based on being aware of what is. I am one of those people who worries about tomorrow and the next day and the next day. I mean, I get in the right lane 2 miles before the exit for God's sake!

But lately, through an article, a prayer class, and a couple of very profound books, I am learning that being open to the present moment is actually the secret to coping with change.

So this year I refuse to say "I can't wait for spring." Instead I am enjoying winter; embracing, reveling in, and absolutely idolizing winter.