Frozen

If you’ve been anywhere near New England this winter, you’ve been cold. You’ve been chilly, freezing, frigid.  It’s made other people cool, icy, bitter, closed up.

The landscape is white, gray and black. The sky tries to be blue, but gives up around 10 am and goes back to light gray. The sun makes a similar attempt; but also gives up and heads back to Florida.   People are starting to work the excuse, “it’s been a long winter” into their reasons for not getting things done, not getting enough exercise or simply not smiling. And it’s true--there’s nowhere to go to do anything. (Fine. I could join a gym. Whatever.) Did I mention it is also making people cranky?

Then, the other day when I was babysitting for Luca, I had had enough. I was tired of being grouchy and immobile. Apparently Luca was, too. When I got him dressed, he didn’t like the corduroy pants, he didn’t like the navy pullover. None of the clothes I put on him felt good, or so he indicated in his very clear two-year-old way: crying. He didn’t want to do anything but play with the puzzle game on my phone. But I wanted my phone. He’d taken to walking around the house saying, “I can’t do this” and holding his little face in his cupped hands. I know how he felt. It got to the point where I was about to serve up the merlot, the Lindt chocolate truffles and watch soaps for the rest of the day...for both of us. (Don’t be silly. I wasn’t going to give Luca wine. There wouldn’t have been enough for me.)  We had to get outside. Now.

Luca was up for the idea. The temperature was hovering around 30 degrees and the sun was doing its usual half-assed attempt at shining, but there were enough passages through the glaciers of frozen-solid  snow that we could at least go for a little walk and get some fresh air.

At first he wouldn’t let me put on his jacket. Or anything. We weren’t going to actually be playing in the snow, just walking around next to it, so I skipped the snow pants and snow coat and put on his fleece jacket, hat and gloves. He didn’t let me put on his boots, either; I’d put one on and he’d kick it off as I got the other one on.  I recognized the problem - in March, one gets tired of putting on all the equipment just to go out the door. I skipped the boots, too, and grabbed his sneakers. 

Then we were outside. We breathed in the fresh air and walked down the driveway, skirting the bunches of ice and snow that escaped the plow and shovel. We made our way to the back gate and wrestled it open where there is a thin, shoveled path to the back door. Luca held on to me, but I was afraid if I went down, I’d take him with me so I kind of shoved him ahead of me while keeping a tight grip on his jacket, slipping and sliding the whole way.  The cleared off space by the back door is simply an uncovered flagstone, about 2 feet by maybe 3 feet.

“It’s nice out here!” Luca said and a smile grew on his face.

I cracked a triangle of ice off of a drift and gave it to Luca to play with.

“Thank you!”, he gushed.

We stayed outside for about 20 minutes or more. Luca would have stayed out longer, playing with his icicle, surrounded by snow, breathing in fresh, cold air, but it did start to get a little chilly.  And I have to admit, it felt pretty good to me, too.

It has been a long winter. We’ve had more snow and below freezing temperatures than we’re used to for such long stretches. It wears on everyone and if it wasn’t enough to have to see ice and snow all around us, the local movie theater has “Frozen” on its marquis. Brrr. The only ones  who seem to be thriving in all of this are the robins hanging around the yard. To be more precise, they are hanging around the neighbor’s apple tree and getting enormously fat on months-old apples.  We think it can’t possibly snow anymore and then there’s a forecast for another storm. 

But it’s March. Soon we will leave coats and jackets in the closet and head outside without 15 minutes of prep. The sun will try harder and the sky will be blue and we’ll uncover the toys in the yard and we’ll play trucks, shovel dirt and make chalk drawings on the flagstones. We’ll warm up, survive the winter and all will be well again.  (But I’m hanging on to the wine and chocolates, just in case.)

Snowed Under

I got nothing done this past week.

I didn’t plan it that way, I didn’t wish for it. There are many items unchecked on my To-Do list.  My body hurts. And it was my birthday. Cue whining. I think it’s the snow. 

My birthday fell on a Tuesday this year and the weekend before I went out of town.  There were no birthday-related activities planned--I went to Buffalo with Annie for a baby shower and all the attention was on the new mother to be, and then Luca when we were back the in-laws’ house. As it should be.  It was nice, even though I wasn’t the center of attention because I didn’t have to lift a finger the whole time I was there. I even finished a book I was reading. Easy-peasy weekend for me and a lovely way to welcome Birthday Week. Until the drive home.  For each of the 370 miles between Buffalo and Watertown, snow fell on our journey.

We made it home safely, until, at the very end of the trip, literally pulling in to the driveway at Annie’s, we got stuck in the snow. That pushed all of us to our max and we unpacked the car, ate dinner and I went home with Angelo. (He didn’t come to Buffalo. He stayed home and made sauce and brought it over to Annie’s, fortunately for us.) It was the last straw syndrome--you can have a great time until that last thing tips the balance and suddenly you realize that you’re done.

But my birthday was on its way and people wanted to celebrate and who was I to stop them? On Monday, my friend Trudy took me to a wonderful lunch at a restaurant I had always wanted to go to. It was perfect. (There really is something to this going out to lunch thing. I need to investigate it more thoroughly.) On Tuesday I had a really nice celebration with my family and got cake and presents and wine.  So, when I say I got nothing done this week, I wasn’t talking about celebrating. I did get some celebrating done. But the snow wouldn’t quit.

By Thursday, we had another snowstorm and work was canceled, my class was canceled and there was only shoveling to do. No writing, no planning, and definitely no cleaning. Why clean the kitchen floor when more snow and salt and sand will be tracked in within the hour anyway? That’s how I look at it.

By Friday I was simply at loose ends. It was Valentine’s Day, more snow was predicted.   More cancelations, more digging and plowing. I couldn’t keep track of what I was supposed to be getting done (nothing) and I couldn’t decide what to do next. I had cabin fever and writer’s block all at the same time. Because this year we keep getting more snow. Snow covers every inch of our world except for the thin, grayish-black margins of the roads.  The icicles hang down like prison bars around the house and also act like nature’s security system; if they fall on you, you’re dead! When I look out my doors and windows, there is only snow. Isn’t there something about going mad in the snow? I think there is. 

On the other hand, I do live in Connecticut. It snows here. Especially in February. Every year on my birthday, when I talk to my dad, he says, “I’ll always remember the day we brought you home from the hospital in that blizzard!” I should be used to it.  So I’ll just consider this past week a vacation week. I got nothing done but I did have a nice time not doing it.  I celebrated with family and friends and had some delicious food and tasty drinks. And I didn’t get sunburned. Or go (completely) mad.

"I'm in print!"

 This was delivered to my house the other day:
 

 And this is what I looked like:
 

After all the writing, rewriting, designing and waiting, it was here.
I actually looked more like this:

And now the real work begins. Wait, that's not entirely accurate. It was a lot of work to write a book. I think mine was easier to write than for most authors because mine is a bunch of short essays.   But, if I thought I was done with my book when I typed "The End", I was sorely mistaken. I also didn't actually type "the end" at the end; I'm being metaphorical. (That's what we writers do.)

First there were the thousands of edits I needed to accept or reject. I don't know how authors did before the Word track changes function; all those corrections and retyping must have been mind-boggling--just keeping track of all that paper. It's best that my dream didn't come true until the 21st century so I could take advantage of all this electronic assistance. I would have been a disaster if I had to manage reams of paper and typewriter ribbons and remembering where I left off. 

Once the editors were done with me, the layout folks put it all together, nice and neat. I still had to review it three times before it was deemed "Final". After that, it was time to work on the book cover. I searched high and low for images that I liked to send in to the designer who then put together a cover that hopefully represented my wishes. It does.

I had to find people to write blurbs for me to include on the back cover.  Fortunately, I know some wonderfully generous and supportive writers who gave of their time and experience to help my  book along its way. I am so grateful to them, I am going to name them here: Gina Barreca, Jan Coffey and Steven Parlato. You should definitely read their work if you haven't already. (I mean, after mine...)

Then it was time to wait. "For what?" you ask? Well, the publisher decides the Pub Date and it was still about five months away. It seemed to me like an eternity, but as I came to find out, it was no time at all. I had Things to Do. Lots of Things. And that's what I mean by the real work because from here on out, the focus is all promotion, publicity and marketing so that I can get people to read my book.

That's the goal, isn't it? Once a book is written, it would be nice if folks bought it, read it and said nice things about it. (I am not even going to indulge in my fantastical imagination of appearing on the Today Show, so don't worry.) Once upon a time, the time when all this stuff was done on a typewriter, the writer wrote and other people peddled the book. Now the writer has to get out there and promote, promote, promote!

So, that's next for me. As much as I'd like to stay safe and sound here at my desk and write all day, the next few months are going to require my learning some new skills. Like picking up the phone and calling people I don't know. And convincing them that they should carry my book in their stores or sign me up for an appearance where I can (yikes!) read from my book and convince even more people to buy my book. I'm already nervous!

As Navin Johnson says, "Things are going to happen to me now."  I am looking forward to the whole experience--however it turns out. It's what I always dreamed of, even if my dream didn't think to include this marketing part.  It is my dream and it came true. And that, my friends, is already awesome.

Oh, come on!

My husband sent me an IM the other day (because he was downstairs and I was upstairs - why shout when you can chat on the Internet like civilized people?). The information contained therein was a link to an article about Kale. Specifically, using it in juicing, which I do about 3-4 times a week. I am drinking green juice on those mornings so I can become more healthy, of course. I drop a lemon, several thick leaves of kale, a cucumber, a couple of stalks of celery and a green apple into my Breville juicer and drink up. So, so healthy. Health just oozes from this beverage.

In addition to drinking green juice on most mornings, I have cut out most artificial ingredients from my diet. No fake sweeteners, no "natural flavors", and no ingredients over 10 syllables. I am having a little trouble with the white flour/white sugar eviction, but whole grains can usually be found in my home and most of the white stuff is in my baking. Like I'm going to stop baking shortbread.  This has been my goal for almost a year now in an effort to rid my body of toxins. If I can't be thinner, I can at least be chemical-free. And to top it all off, I eat broccoli as often as I can get it. I read, from Maria Shriver no less, that broccoli is good for warding off Alzheimer's disease and cancer. So that goes on my plate, as often as possible.

Until this dumb article. The writer appears to be in my boat because the first thing she pointed out is that kale is not good for people with hypothyroidism, with which she had recently been diagnosed. That's what I have. I read on. There are more things that are not good for hypothyroidism. First on the list? Broccoli.

The tone of the New York Times article is similar to my own complaint: Wahhh! What's a girl to do? Eat right, cut out additives, get a little exercise - just when you think you're on to something, some doctor or expert or study comes along and admonishes you for not doing enough to stay healthy. First it's the foods you eat, not the amount of exercise you get, so you review your meals with a nutritionist's sharp eye and cut out fats and sugars and carbs and color. But wait! There's a new study that says you can eat anything you want, as long as you adopt the exciting new 7-minute-a-day exercise drill. And there's an app for it all to make it so much easier!

Until the next thing.

What I always end up coming to is this: They're all right. Broccoli is always going to be a better choice for me than, say, a slice of chocolate cake. (Dammit.) Walking to work more times a week is always going to be better for me than taking my car. And it's more embarrassing that I don't walk more because I live merely a half a mile away from my office. It's even shorter if I cut through the apartment complex behind my backyard.

Even with my hypothyroidism, I can make healthy choices that will keep me going a few more years so that even when I make not-so-healthy choices (Second glass of wine? Yes, please) it won't take me too long to get back on track. I think getting older helps, too. I'm not an indestructible 20-something anymore; I have aches and pains! (Probably from my indestructible 20s.) Being older makes me wiser and it is required of me to make better choices now. But I'm not giving up on green juice yet. Or chocolate cake.

Have a little faith

Faith

noun

1 complete trust or confidence in someone or something: this restores one’s faith in politicians

2 strong belief in God or in the doctrines of a religion, based on spiritual apprehension rather than proof

• a system of religious belief: the Christian faith

--> a strongly held belief or theory: the faith that life will expand until it fills the universe  I've been thinking about this word a lot lately. Not in its usual meanings as described above. In fact, I tend to shy away from the word because I'm not religious or devout and quite honestly, my faith in politicians has not been restored. (Don't get me wrong, I'm still an Obama-girl through and through, but they can all go peddle their papers as far as I'm concerned. When one of them takes down the insurance companies, then I'll listen.) That is the Faith that requires great devotion and lasting commitment and a capital letter F. It's big faith. 

It's the little faith I am talking about. Small faith. Lower case f. It's the faith I need when I walk into a bookstore and see shelf after shelf after shelf of beautiful shiny covers, smiling author photographs and world-wide acclaim and I think to myself, "I'll never be able to do it."

My very first book is being published in April. It's already a real book; it's been edited, designed, pitched to a distributor. It now falls to me to get it into the hands of readers. I've been advised to hire a publicist, but that's not in the budget right now; I can do that  work myself. They are all tasks within my realm of ability, if not my expertise. I can call radio stations and send off my PR info. I can talk to bookstores and submit articles to magazines. I can do it all. But will I be any good at it? Will my book sell? Why would anyone want to read, much less pay for, my book with all of these other really great, well-written books available?

It's not just the book, either. There are countless daily opportunities to question my decisions or second-guess my efforts. In my work with parents and families, for example. Did I offer the right advice? Have I missed anything during a visit that I should have reported? The weight of responsibility to make sure I guide these families in the right direction can stagger my confidence some days. They are already in enough trouble; I don't want to add anymore.

How about teaching? Every time I walk into a classroom I wonder if I am conveying the information in a way that my students will understand. Am I presenting myself in a way that will give my students the confidence to question me if necessary and will I know how to respond to their inquiries? (Often the answer is no. One thing I've learned along the way is to admit when I don't know the answer rather than blunder ahead with a made up one.) Will anything I do make a difference in the lives of the people who are counting on me to help them? I wish I knew.

Do I even dare consider my own parenting and relationships? I think you see where I'm going here.

It's not just moving forward and trusting that everything will be okay. I can't see electricity. I have to take the first step without seeing the staircase. That's the big Faith. My daily struggles require the little faith. The tiny little bit of me that is with me all the time. The stalwart, stubborn sliver of my self that doesn't go away when overshadowed by fear and insecurity. And I always forget it's there.

I need that little faith. In myself. Every day.  Not just with the book. (I almost wrote "books" to be optimistic.) It still might be hard, it still might require being comfortable with the unknown. This little faith that I created from all the love and memories and successes of my life has already been in all those places and has survived. Like a nugget of gold or sparkling ruby, precious and eternal. It is astounding how often I forget to count on myself and let the dire forecasts of others influence my anticipation. And yet, time after time, it is the little faith that I have in myself that eventually gets me to my goal.

I'm going to have to remember that.

Chloe

Monday, April 17, 2006
 I am really happy that I was so nice to her the day she died. Of course I had no idea that it would be the day she died, I just know that in hindsight. Other days I had not been so nice: “Jesus, Chloe! Shush! Who do you think I am opening this can for?" or “Don’t rub up against me - you’ll get hair all over my black pants!” But that morning I chatted with her as I got dressed and let her run in front of me down the stairs instead of trying to beat her so she wouldn’t trip me. In the kitchen, I cleaned out both her food and water bowls, which don’t necessarily need to be done very often since she is extremely good at licking them spotlessly clean. When I left for work that morning (and made sure she was still in the kitchen and not sneaking a nap on our new blue sofa), her last imprint of me was that I was nice to her.

Chloe died while we were having her groomed. We’d never had her groomed before, but she’d been on medication that dried out her skin and made her fur all icky and flaky. Annie moved home from California with her cats and we were preparing Chloe to meet them. They were sniffing at each other for a week behind a closed door; we read that it was the best way to introduce cats to each other. Occasionally they caught the random glimpse through a quickly opened and closed door, but after a week, it was time to arrange the meeting. So it was off to the groomers for Chloe’s first professional bath. But she didn’t come home from the groomer – not inside anyway. And Bella and Cali, who were now allowed out of their room, walked around with what looked like a curious expression on their faces as if to say, “wait a minute…we know we smelled her. Where is she?” Chloe’s loss was experienced by animals and humans alike.

Chloe, who my mom always called “Cleo”, came to live with us with her brother Joey (get it? Joey and Chloe?) soon after I became a single parent so it was one of my first Single Parent decisions of some significance. Annie had picked Chloe out of the litter weeks earlier, but when we went to pick her up, there was some fretting about whether she would be okay alone, if she’d be lonely and would it be better with 2 kittens rather than just the one, tiny one. Just about then, Christopher walked up to me with Joey in his arms and said, “could I get a kitten, too?” And we became a family of five.

We lost Joey after about 5 years, when we moved out of our apartment and into a house with a yard. He died practically the first day he was let out of the house. He ran across the road to play in the field and on the way back got hit by a car. After that, Chloe, who had been the original scaredy cat, started becoming downright friendly. One night after Joey died; she came into the den where we were watching TV. Suddenly we heard a strange noise, like the refrigerator exploding or the furnace going on the fritz. We muted the TV and listened.  Chloe had come into the room and was looking at us. It dawned on us that the noise was coming from her – she was purring! We decided that she was channeling Joey and soon, she took on some of his other traits, too. Joining Annie or Christopher in their beds at night or keeping us company in the den if we were watching TV. And at our next home, coming outside on the porch and hanging around, never going far, mostly staying above or just below the porch just being with us. She had turned into this great cat. Quiet, friendly, funny and smart. She would eat her food in the morning with her paw. She chewed the ribbons off of our birthday and Christmas packages and ran to the door to greet us when we got home. Even after she got sick and had to take medicine, and it made her fat and uncoordinated she mostly just liked hanging out with us, sitting in front of the fire and sleeping.

When you lose a pet it’s hard. It’s not as huge as losing a human loved one because that can be all encompassing. This loss feels just as deep, but like it’s inside rather than outside. My husband said that maybe it means that I am more able to contain it, and I guess that sounds right. But I still miss her. Her presence was a constant and although I didn’t anthropomorphize her, I counted on her being there and she was kind of like – a friend. After I met Annie at the groomer we took Chloe to the vet – just in case. But they made the final diagnosis and gave me the option of paying $50 to bury her with other pets, $75 of having her cremated and buried with other pet ashes or $150 to have her cremated and returned to me in a little cat ashes urn.  Or,  I could take her home for nothing. We brought her back home, still wrapped in the groomer’s fluffy blue towel. We picked out a place in the back yard, found a sturdy wooden box and placed Chloe in the ground with some treats, her pillow and a little Christmas ribbon. I think that was best. That way, she'll be right there in the back yard, just hanging out with us.

Home for the Holidays

One of the emails I got in the early weeks of Black Friday Month (or “November” as it used to be known)  was a plea from a politician to support his bill to make retailers to pay their employees three times their regular rate if they were forced to work on Black Friday Month’s 4^th Thursday (or “Thanksgiving” as we called it in the olden days.) It was then that I realized things had gotten a little out of hand. (“Really?” you ask. “Not the mobs in the Walmart parking lots beating each other with their own children?”)

I’m as surprised as you are.

My usual mode of handling this stressful and challenging time of year (Black Friday Month and Shoppingmas) is avoidance. During the years of single parenthood I had to nearly beg borrow or steal the gifts my children found under their bright and shiny tree decorated with love. This of course means it was largely decorated with handmade ornaments. Empty paper towel rolls, remnants of last year’s ribbon, buttons that never got sewed back on to sweaters were all fair game if they could be glued onto construction paper and threaded with red and green pipe cleaners. When the time came that the kids “knew” and didn’t expect Santa-wrapped presents under the tree, I relaxed a little. I didn’t have to go out there and battle crowds and my poor-parent’s guilt to fashion some sort of holiday out of my meager income. You’d never know it by looking, because my wonderful kids were always happy and appreciative of their bounty and if they weren’t - they didn’t let on. (Thanks, kids.)

Time rolled by and my income wasn’t always so meager, but my feelings about gifts, giving and holidays began to change. What I liked about the holidays was that it was a great excuse to have everyone together in one room. Eating, drinking and laughing was an extra added bonus. The old-fashioned Thanksgiving and Christmas were whole days that I didn’t have to do anything. Well, clean a little. Maybe go grocery shopping. Oh, and cook. But the family would be there and that was all that mattered. To me, anyway.

I know people who like to shop. Like? LOVE to shop. Some right in my own family. They have barely digested their pumpkin pie before they’re out the door to get the best deal on cashmere sweaters or martini shakers. And you know what I think about that? Good for them. And good for the stores that open up and let them. I don’t think that those big, bad box stores are the 21^st century’s version of Simon Legree. I think they just want to run a business and if they have employees who would like to have a turkey sandwich and come in and make a little money, then that’s okay too. The reason I think it’s okay is that not everyone is lucky enough to be able to sit around at home moaning about having eaten too much. Maybe some of those folks need the extra money for their kids. Maybe some of them are alone for the holiday and working gives them something to do instead of sitting around an empty home. Of course there are some jerks out there who are unfair to their employees and make them do stuff that they don’t want to do. Like work on a holiday. Being a jerk isn’t illegal. But we don’t need a bunch of politicians getting their hands all over a Thanksgiving minimum wage. You guys want to legislate something? Legislate insurance companies.

At this time of year, I like to buy very little, eat very much and be grateful for all the things I have--mostly people, but I’m grateful for my new furnace, too. (I’m not kidding - we had to turn the heat DOWN the other day! Yippee!) Happy Thanksgiving. Merry Christmas. Happy New Year. If you don’t like my opinion on this, that’s okay, too. You know where to find me. I’ll be home for the holidays.