Tuesday, December 23, 2008

A Year in a Life

I can't believe it has been a year (a YEAR) since this house was in upheaval. Chaos rained and reigned. Love was kicked around. Dreams were tinkered with until they no longer resembled themselves. Expectations fell down to basement level and were still not met. Every day was an adventure but not the good kind. These adventures were dark and dangerous. Violent. Empty and hollow. Jesus...I can't believe that was my life for so long.

“Faith is to believe what we do not see; and the reward of this faith is to see what we believe.” St. Augustine

The fact is I don’t want to spend time with him this Christmas. I faked it last year. I don’t want to do it this year. And the nice thing is I don’t HAVE to. I am exercising my right to not have to.

“Yet it is not enough to seek the truth or even to know the truth. We must give ourselves permission now to live the truth as we understand it, with all its myriad implications for our lives.” Marianne Williamson

I believe everyone’s trying to find their equilibrium. Nature automatically looks for balance. We adapt ourselves to situations so we can survive. Like Darwinian fish, we try to find out feet. But much of the diversity of our world comes from genetic mutation. Not careful baby steps but totally random fucking shit (TRFS).

“Even cowards can endure hardship, only the brave can endure suspense.” Mignon McLaughlin

There’s something about being on the tightrope I really like.

“I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.” Thoreau

My favorite word is freedom.

My favorite number is 4 because it is twice my actual favorite number which is 2.

Someone called me super mom today. Someone else said I was their hero. Someone else said I was full of love and the kindest person ever. Best. Year. Ever.

“After the final no there comes a yes
And on that yes the future world depends.” Wallace Stevens

An aside: not for the squeamish…

One piece of advice: never ever ask your husband to look at your vagina after you’ve had a baby to “see if it looks alright.” It does not look alright and he does not want to see it.
I believe maybe that was the beginning of the end with the dh and I. Maybe. Free advice.



“We’re all on a sinking boat.” Me to Soph Jan. 2008

Sunday, October 19, 2008

Health of the Mother

I like having other people write for me:
http://flotsamblog.com/2008/10/16/more-wounded-that-eloquent-im-afraid/

Wednesday, September 24, 2008

Monday, September 22, 2008

Hope Is Never False

Four years ago, post-presidential election, was a very disturbing time for me. It seemed that it was impossible for Bush to remain President for another four years and I remember when Kerry lost feeling very distraught, grossly disappointed, confused and pessimistic about the future. What choice was there but to just kind of check out and move on? I felt terrible for the people who gave their time to get Kerry elected. If I felt bad, how must they feel? How depressing I thought, and I wished I had done more but, oh well. They'll always win, I secretly believed.
Then along came Barack Obama.
I love Barack. Love his power and grace. His calm and his fury. His ability to relate to everyone. His heart. His smarts. His willingness to dream. So I wanted to get involved. Wanted to. But how?
Last week, the kids and I drove to Culver City and I attended an Mama Camp Obama. I met leaders in the Democratic party, field officers who got Obama through the primary, people just like me who have dedicated their time and energy to change OUR world.
I remember one of the speakers mentioned that there were 45 more days till the election and whoosh! A fire was lit under me and I knew now, now, now was the time. It is not too late. Now is the time to act. To get involved.
Now is when you can get in people's head and make your little voice stay there till election day.
This last month could easily decide the election.

No one wants more of the same. We as a country cannot take it and therefore we cannot allow it.
We must act.
Now.
A bumper sticker is not enough.
Forwarding an email is not enough (although I hope you forward this one).
Every vote counts. Every person you talk to.
The next forty two days determine our future.
Commit.
An hour a week at a phone bank.
Better yet: have one at your house with five of your friends.
Be positive. We want to unite this country.
Be a good example to others.
Talk about Obama with enthusiasm and pride.
Don't get suckered into petty arguments about McCain and Palin.

Do this instead:
Visit: www.my.barack.obama.com and join a group or search for events in your area.

Contact your local Obama office right now and volunteer. Check out:
http://my.barackobama.com/page/content/actioncenter

Don't live in fear of the worst case scenario.
Do something.
Take control.
Let's push Barack up over the top.

I decided to have a Mama Camp Obama right here in the Valley next week so more moms could come and get trained in this grass roots effort.
Here's the link to my event.
http://my.barackobama.com/page/event/detail/gs7htc
(Men are welcome too.)

Please attend and pass on the information about it. In fact pass on all this information. Seeing these people at the training camp made me realize that, as usual, they are just like us. They have kids. They're busy and tired and overwhelmed. But this is our country and our future at stake and nothing less. Every vote counts. They are people just like you who could have thought to themselves, I can't make a difference.

But they are and so can you!

Watch these Women for Obama videos here (very inspiring!):
Women from all walks of life, coming together for Barack Obama:
http://link.brightcove.com/services/link/bcpid900837095/bclid900609698/bctid1757661310
http://link.brightcove.com/services/link/bcpid900837095/bclid900609698/bctid1317865535

Here's the blog about the event I attended: http://my.barackobama.com/page/community/post/sarahgallagher/gGgY9M

It is NOT too late to get involved. In fact right now is the PERFECT time. Only 42 more days and you won't have to do it anymore. Imagine how you will feel when there is a ground swell of support for Obama and you know YOU made that happen. Now imagine how you'll feel when Obama wins!

Here's the address for the SFV Valley Obama office:
San Fernando Valley Office
14529 Archwood Street
Van Nuys, CA 91405
Phone: 818-995-DEMS
Hours: 10AM - 6PM

Here is a website to make sure you are registered or if you need to request an absentee ballot: www.voteforchange.com

Here is a website to use when making calls or just talking to people. Acquainte yourself with the issues! Stay positive and know your facts!
http://www.fightthesmears.com/
or/and
http://www.barackobama.com/issues/
or print out the great one sheet below and attached to this email.

And just for fun, here's a site I love for printing out Obama stuff or posting art to your blog or getting cool wallpaper.
http://www.barackobama.com/downloads/#

Here's the blog about the event I attended: http://my.barackobama.com/page/community/post/sarahgallagher/gGgY9M

Thank you for reading! We can and will do this! Please feel free to email me with questions!
LOVE & PEACE & COURAGE PEOPLE!

Wednesday, September 10, 2008

Sarah Palin vs. Malcolm X

This is my response to an article on Salon about the republican party lecturing us about sexism, the future of feminism, and of course, Sally Palin. Here's the link to the article and below, my letter.

http://www.salon.com/mwt/feature/2008/09/11/zombie_feminism/

What's really sad is that it's a woman we feel we can't root for. I always envisioned our first female president to be maternal, wise, witty, deeply instinctual and intelligent, peaceful, strong...not snarky, snot-nosed, insecure, inexperienced...
I want a woman I can root for.
That being said, and if you are still reading, I feel we must as women support all women. Before you think I'm putting flowers in my hair, read on.
It's like this: to be truly free is to be whoever you want to be. Blacks, women, gays...any person who feels un-heard, un-seen, mocked and ignored within the system. That person must be free to reinvent themselves, to be totally and uniquely themselves WITHIN the group. Even if they become someone that brings the group down. That shoves its face in the dirt.
Even if it is someone who brings shame. Even if it is someone who pretends to be something they are not. Even if it is someone who REJECTS THE GROUP.
To be shackled to the need to do what your group would want you to do is not freedom. It's not fairness. It's not liberty.
The right to be different, to be an individual, to write your own story, to make a mistake: they are all human rights. To not fit in. To not fit the bill. To fail.
Every woman has that right.
Every man.
Being a woman on the presidential ticket does not mean you have to be a feminist. Does not mean you have to support women's issues. You don't even have to have a clue.
Irony is that's the promise of the feminist revolution for every person: Self-empowerment. Self-expression. Self-realization. Self-reliance.
Now it's biting us in the ass.
No, we don't want to take her out for cocktails.
No, the suffragists wouldn't have invited her to lunch.
Yes, she makes me cringe. But that's beside the point.
When there is so much on the line, when the game gets this big, it's always this way.
Look at MLK. He had his Malcolm X.
Naomi Wolf has Camille Paglia.
George Bush had his John McCain. And look what they made McCain do.
Castrated him. Let's not do that to Palin.
Let her have her day. Take all the rope she needs.
Listen, someone is always there to tell ya you're doin' it wrong. But SP just be doing it her way.
(Cue Frank.) Her way.
Her fucked up, stinking way.
But that's her right.
And I applaud it.

Now let's get back to solving the real issues like real women do, shall we?

VOTE OBAMA!

Saturday, August 23, 2008

You Mean the Wordle to Me

Thanks Karen for this awesome site. Here's my blog on Wordle. Shit yeah.

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I Quit

I would like to formally announce my retirement.

It was all just getting started but I feel my best is behind me.

And in case you don't know, writing is hard.

That's why writers drink. I have, tonight, seriously considered leaving the house and getting myself some Bushmills. (My favorite liquor.) I don't understand why I don't keep my (favorite) liquor in the house. Everytime I want some whiskey I don't have it. And there is just something a little desperate about buying liquor when you are really, really craving it. Like everyone can see.
Like when I buy ice cream, I think at the convenience store they are thinking, "Here comes that fat girl. Coming to buy ice cream AGAIN. What's she so sad about?"
See it's different if I'm at the grocery store and my cart is full of peaches and beans and ice cream and cucumbers and cereal and whiskey and peanuts and juice boxes. That makes sense.
But to just go buy a bottle of hooch or a pint of ice cream...it's like telegraphing my sorrow to the world.

Ok.
I just realized that is what I'm doing here. Right now. However! To write this, I did not have to put on a bra or go find my shoes or check if I have any cash. (Cause using a debit card to buy a 3.00 carton of ice cream is just a whole other thing.)
So there.

Back to why my cupboards are bare of the essential whiskey.
Today has been a rough day. I set aside the entire day to write about this something-something that is quite emotional for me (this isn't it). Just jotting down some notes on the subject really stirred my pot of insecurity and unloveableness and failure and suddenly I just couldn't deal with anything.
It's okay. It's process. I get that.
Anyway I'm feeling a little better now. And that will get written whenever that gets written.
Still I'd like to sip a little whiskey at my retirement. (Oh, yeah. I guess it won't get written.)
But I have no whiskey.
So instead I ate my weight in chocolate. Peanut butter cups to be exact. So maybe, I'm theorizing, that is why I don't keep whiskey in the house. Cause I'd drink my weight in it just as I have the chocolate.
And I ate my weight in chocolate holed up in bed while reading David Sedaris' new book. And that my friends is why I am quitting this writing business.

Writing makes you sad.
Which makes you want whiskey.
Which you never have.
Which drives you to chocolate.
Which you eat while in bed with the new David Sedaris book.
Which you realize is the funniest thing ever written.
Which means all hope is lost for you in the funny writing department.
So why bother.
I quit.

Sunday, August 17, 2008

Part Two - Raining Maitri

This is the second half of my original post but I wanted it to be separate. More people than ever may be reading this blog (ha, ha, I hope...getting ahead of myself?) and I like that but it's scary and it threatens to edit me, change what I want to write. At a time when I am trying to expand my damndest I am exposing myself all the more!!!! Aack!
Oh. Duh.
Right. That's how that works.
So I'm asking you to be patient with me. You might not like it. I have some strong opinions. Could be different than yours. But hey, that's fine. Just know I am trying to break out. And be me.
And be free.

Picking up from last time and jumping off the subject of fear, let's move on:

You (I) try to get to the point where you (I) no longer resist. Ekhart taught us this in "Power of Now." To be present. To not give in to thinking and the urges of the ego.
Dissolve that damn pain body.
Burn off the synapses that go to it.

I got it. I should no longer push against the circumstances of my life. And so I have learned to accept them for what they are. I've given in.
Given up.
Surrendered.
And to some degree and for some time, I kind of tolerated that practice. I practiced. I TRIED. But I can't say I embraced it. I can't say I lived it.

Then over an inexplicable time/divorce, I found myself looking from one mountaintop to the next. I saw that the next goal was to go beyond non-resistance and to be able to welcome pain into my life.
To expect it.
To be curious about it.
To be compassionate.
To lean into the sharp points.

TO NOT BE SCARED.

I had learned this once before. Well, twice before.
I am very fortunate to have two children as well as having had the experience of having my kids at home au naturale.

This was the experience of labor for me.

In my opinion, birthing children is the most under-valued and/yet most-ecstatic experience in modern human history. Birth is to labor, to bleed, to lactate, to provide, to pass, to create, to replicate, to sacrifice your very body and being for the continuation of the species, for your kin, for your kind, for your spawn, for your baby...your BABY.
To love your baby is to know real love.
So you do it all for your baby. You love so much that you can welcome more pain. You can know the experience of going to your end. And then to go past it.
That's to die, isn't it? To pass from one realm to another.
In birth, the woman brings the source of life into this realm. She transports a life from the un-seen, un-knowable place before birth into this bright, fast-moving reality in contrast. Into a modern world through an ancient path. The transportation takes place with grunting, shape-shifting, ripping, expectation blowing, running and hiding, boldness and courage, screaming and crying, laughing and climaxing. A warrior. A goddess. A vessel. Through this: a mystical. material, physical, animal/Godly person arises. A new person. Two new people.
That said. My friends:
I have to ask you.
Why would a woman want to be drugged for that? To not totally be able to feel the most empowering moment possible in life? I think it is a shame that our medical system doubts a woman's ability to manage her pain. That they feel the need to control her. To silence her. To numb her. And sometimes dumb her.
Women can take it. They're smart and strong. She is nature. She is the creator.

She can stare down fear.

Sure, it makes your blood run cold, empties your brain cache and creates you new. But it is a woman's birthright. It is her path.

Birth is an experience that is common throughout the world and over the centuries. Yes. But the opportunity to experience birth for myself was rare.

That's why I made my choice. And it taught me that I can do anything.
I can ask for more pain. I can ride the waves of that pain. Ong Namo Guru Dev Namo. I can bow to the divinity inside of me. I can rely on it. I can let the animal in me take over.
I can present myself: naked and vulnerable, stripped down and eternal. I can beg/scream for deliverance and mercy and strength and all by myself, I can carry my baby and me through death and into life.

Raining Maitri Part 1

My friend TD and I "i-chatted" (or something) on FACEBOOK today.
What the hell is this? Or should I say what fresh hell is this?
In some ways, it's like that nightmare I used to have in college where every boy I had ever kissed suddenly converged at a party all at once and they met and shared stories and realized they'd all slept with me and as I turn around in slo-mo, I see them all staring at me.
That's FACEBOOK!
(I must say, and I don't want to break the mood, that OVERALL I'm friggin loving it. Ya'll got to do it. Seriously? Phillip S??? Crazy!)
Back to the cautious mood...
Tonight we're dealing with insecurity, fear, happiness, self-acceptance. All of it. For good. We're figuring it all out.
Cause you see...some of you know too well cause you actually have to deal with me, I'm a woman who hasn't written in like months and I lost my one day a week nanny/love Rosa (Saint Rosa) (Am I giving you any idea what this woman meant to me???) and it has been summer. Summer. Summer. Summer. HSM2!
Moms? High five. Summer sucks. Slap. Slap. Slap.
Oh yeah, back to TD, a mom friend on Facebook.
So TD and I were i-chatting and she was talking about how she feels/fears she'll have to get a "real job" (she's of course had the very real job of mothering her son) but she feels she'll have to get another job and then she won't be able to pursue her dreams of having a production company.
I totally get where she's coming from. It feels like there's so little time left you just want to get there.
I live it too. I teach yoga classes, looks like I might be selling Arbonne, doing whatever it takes to try to pull something together financially but damnit that's just not the whole of it. Not the whole of who I am. There's a much bigger picture. I want to write and direct films. Nothing in my life except the words that I type here resemble that possibility in any way. (Chew on that.)
I will be a director. I am a writer. Baby steps. Whatever. Being on a time table? What-ever.
We think we're chasing this dream and it's part of a different life and once that dream comes true we'll have this "other" life: the dream life.
it's really hard to see that there's just one life. All ya get. You better get busy living, or get busy dying. All the little things, the seemingly abstract things are all on "the path." It's all to pursue the dream. When your dream is living. Live it all up. It's messy. It's funky.
It even smells funky. (I'm in the throes of potty training.)
But it's human and divine.
Let me ask you this?
Do you see how we always seem to default to the position, to the observation, to the analysis (sweet analysis) that beats us up the most?
I'm unlovable.

Well that's mine.
Go get your own.

And how is beating ourselves up getting us any closer to our dream?

Earlier this year, I decided to try to get some more yoga classes going. I rented a small space for a couple hours a week (I pre-paid for three weeks) in a cool dance studio in North Hollywood. I was very excited. I emailed everyone (everyone!) I knew and invited the clients I already had and put up posters and made some calls.
Very excited.
First time: no one shows.
Ouch.
That's ok. It was good to have a practice run.
Second time I email, call, but no one shows.
My clients don't show.

My best friends don't show.

I'm fucking bombing at YOGA.

Oh yeah. This was gonna be grist for the mill, this was going to be good meat to chew. The ego does luh-huv to chew.
And mill sometimes. Mill the grist. Grist grain. Wheat. Whatever.
So I'm in the car, driving (milling) to the third class and I know, I KNOW, no one is coming to this class.
I am raining shit on myself.
I am worthless. Stupid. I'm humiliated and I have to go cancel this time with the studio and everyone there KNOWS no one came to my class.
What is wrong with me?
And I was rushing to get there in the car, in the damn traffic on the 101, in the shit rain, when...WHEN...
i was struck by the idea that "This is my life." It was like a whisper and a slap in the face. It was new information yet something I always knew. "This is my life."
Why in MY life would I do this to MYSELF?
My beautiful self.
I must take a commercial break and say that prior to this incident I accepted for certain, partly from watching "The Secret" (say what you will, it changed me, I highly recommend the DVD)--
I accepted that my life is entirely my creation. I already believed this. And that is a joyful thing. A burden at times and a challenge every other time? Yes. But joyful. It's Good News my friend. Good news.
"Ain't that news? Ain't that good news? Man, I know that's good news." (That man can sing. We are soul brothers.)
Okay, wrap this up. Mama's glass needs a re-fill.
Okay.
My friends, my sentient and holy beings:
Don't do this to your self!
Love yourself!
I love you!
Every single one of ya!
Make this YOUR life.
Speak YOUR life.
Live YOUR life.
Claim YOUR life.
Your life is this world all around you.
Very vast too. It's nice that way.
And you created it.
You continually re-create it.
Make it exactly as you want it to be.
Did I want to live in a world of humiliation, shame and judgement?
No.
Ok. Great...snap...now I don't.
Just like that.
Snap! Snap! Snap!
This is your life.
Joy. Joy. Joy.
End of story.
I walked into the dance studio with my head held high. So, the yoga classes didn't work out. Okay. That's the end of the story. Don't need to add to it.
And guess what?
What?
The people at the dance studio were lovely. And warm. They treated me as I would like to be treated (hhmmmm...).
There was no judgement on their side. It didn't work out, they said. They actually SAID that.
So.
End of story. They wished me luck and I went on my merry way and that was that. I was a changed woman for it.
And it hasn't left me. I can still, when I remember to, just click into that. Into that feeling I had in the car.
Peace.
When I feel some daily (ok, minutely) insecurity or embarrasment or God forbid, judgement, I can step back and say: "Your Life, Woman."
I project traffic on the fucking freeway and I'm stressed and running late: "Choose Your Life Riley." (I know.)
I eat like shit all day and I'm fat and I'm a lousy mother and aack! the house is a mess?
"Fucking Sue Me, This Is My Life."
So...I'm leaving it there people. Part Two of this strange saga manana!
Goodnight.
Check out a little thing I found tonight. She's eloquent and one of my heroes:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7s-rRMUl04I
Love you.

Wednesday, May 28, 2008

Well, Hello Dolly!

I have to get this blog written in May or there will be NO May posts. Holy canoli. Where did the time go?
I really have no good reason for not blogging. Let's blame Dancing with the Stars and American Idol and leave it at that (damn you David Cook!).

Where to start?

A non-sequitor.
I had the most amazing experience on iTunes the other night. I looked up the 1978 compilation and every song, I mean EVERY song moved me to the core, hit me like a ton of bricks and transported me to a different time and place. It was like time traveling. I give you Jefferson Starship's "Count on Me" and Dan Hill's "Sometimes When We Touch" and Gerry Rafferty's "Right Down the Line" as some deeper cuts. This is but a tip of the iceberg my friends. 1978 was an unusually rich year for all kinds of music.
I've always known that at a young age I had a watershed of musical interest. Suddenly, I was aware of all the songs on the radio. I began to understand the emotional pull of music (thanks in large part to the "Saturday Night Fever" album I bought my mom for Mother's Day - for MOTHER'S DAY - hilarious!). I must have been 9 years old because the music of 1978 just SENDS ME. I suggest you check it out.

It's been fun.

I've also been cleaning a lot. A LOT. Along with that comes the admission that my house has been DIRTY. You see, first off, I can longer afford my twice a month housekeeper. So a few months of my doing the cleaning on my own has caught up with me. Then we got a dog. Then my kids had the stomach bug that kept them going at both ends. There was a week (those who are queasy of stomach might want to skip ahead) when I had my hands in the puke and poop of both my kids, my cat AND my dog. Enough already.
I feel almost obsessed with cleaning my house. Like the acceptance of a little dirt I had been working on suddenly plummeted and my baseboards, my baseboards, my baseboards! Who painted them black? Is that DOG HAIR? Is that DOG HAIR in my CEILING VENTS? Oh, and then I got cockroaches. You know how I had all that stuff in storage and then sitting in my garage for a year? Well, I finally got it put away and I was so happy and relieved for like a week, cause then it turns out all my stuff came back from the storage unit with cockroach eggs. Yes it did.
So I had to pack all that stuff back up and PUT IT BACK IN MY GARAGE so the nice man in the mask could come spray my house with poison.
While I was packing up my kitchen at 2am in a fog of bitterness and resistance all I could do was pray. I mean, Jesus! I don't want to do this, but I have to do this, but I don't want to do this. GRRRR. And then I had to slap myself. What am I COMPLAINING about? Moving all the wonderful stuff I own from my wonderful house to my wonderful garage and back again, okay...and back again?
Sometimes I just don't know about me. But, nevertheless, there I was. All ego. All disconnected. I was pissed. So I prayed. I prayed and packed. I gave it up. Gave it up to those without stuff and houses and garages.
And finally, I had the break-thru. I am cleaning up a lot of messes.
Sometimes if I take that one refrain that goes on and on in my head and just listen to it, really listen to it, without emotion (whining) and resistance, just listen to it objectively, the message can get through.
Yes.
I am cleaning up a lot of messes.
Yes.
I have a lot of messes to clean up.
Yes.
Things are a mess.
Yes. They are. They still are. And that's okay. This is a large mess to clean up.
Luckily I have a lot of experience cleaning messes and I can clean up this one. It just takes time.
Oh, that's my kicker. It takes time. It's a process. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. I'm listening now. It takes time. It's a process. I have a big mess to clean up. My life right now? It's about cleaning up messes. Got it.
But, I did finally get smart and put on a pair of rubber gloves so my hands can still look pretty. You don't need to have red, chapped, old-looking hands just cause your life is a mess now do you?
No you don't.

Saturday, April 5, 2008

Mommy Wars (Give Peace a Chance)

This is my response to Salon's review/interview re: the new book, "The Ten Year Nap" about stay-at-home moms. Here's the link to the story:
http://www.salon.com/books/int/2008/04/03/meg_wolitzer/index.html?source=search&aim=/books/int
And my response:

If someone gave you the chance to live a six or so year adventure where you’d get to live your life’s dream and go to exotic places and grow like crazy, but you had to leave your present job and take the opportunity right away because the chance wasn’t going to come again, wouldn’t you take it?

That’s what motherhood is for me. I always dreamed of being a mother. Mothering has taken me places I’ve never dreamed of. I’ve grown into a woman and it has changed me for the better in every way.

Wolitzer makes some smug cracks about the lives of stay-at-home moms. I must ask: since when is caring for someone not an “intelligent” or "purposeful" act?

It takes incredible intelligence to be a parent. And the areas in which you are not intelligent, shine through straight away, let me tell you.
Our society measures success based on the amount of your paycheck. The higher the paycheck, the more important the job. And since mothering doesn’t pay, well, you know what that means.
No respect.
Mothers aren’t "going" anywhere. We’re not really "doing" anything.
Well, I don’t give a damn what society has to say. Mothering actually gives you a wonderful excuse (read: opportunity) to opt out of society’s standards and processes.
I don’t care about moving forward. I don’t care if I’m “losing ground.” I challenge myself with boredom and tediousness. I push myself with the day by day. Like a monk, I sweep and cook and wipe butts and kiss boo-boos…and five minutes later I do it all over again.
I live a life of passion and intelligence. I’ve learned when to laugh and when to cry, when to empathize and when to discipline, when to give in and when to stand firm. I’ve learned negotiation skills that they should apply in the Middle East.

My everyday is lived with instinct, compassion, awareness, joy and heartbreak. Some days I recognize the freedom of my choice; some days I’m face to face with its limitations. No different really than any job. Except you get no respect. Just a Hallmark holiday and Orpah’s applause.
So please know, that just because I hang out with toddlers doesn’t mean I am a toddler.
I’m busy. I serve others. I’m a good citizen. I volunteer. I teach yoga. I help my friends. I accept their help in return. I write. I blog. I take photos. I try out new recipes. I garden. I talk to my neighbors. I recycle. I juggle the bills. I clean house, load the dishwasher, clean the litter box and do the laundry.
I dream.
Motherhood is my passion. One of many.
I’m passionate about living this short time in sync with my kids, walking in step with them on our journey. It will not, does not, last long. I have a seven year old and a two year old and already their babydom is a blip on the radar.
Now that’s heartbreak.
I’m not a corporate lawyer but I don’t need to have a high-powered job and an expense account and carry a briefcase to measure my intelligence.
God, no.
Patience is intelligent. Empathy is intelligent. Being in your highest self, holding space for your kids’ emotions and keeping a ten-point to-do list in your head at all times is intelligent. Just installing a car seat takes both an enormously high i.q. and the diligence of Thomas Edison. I’m in awe of my friend JH who instinctually can work her way around every car seat made by man and she has yet to get her degree in engineering…
But then mamas learn the best way...by doing. Trial by fire.
There are no degrees needed. No institutions of higher learning. You have nine months and however long your labor is to figure it out. Welcome to the rest of your life!

So don’t question my intelligence. Don’t question my passion. I am no dumb bunny. The days are long but the years are short. I know my time with my kids is limited. They will some day not be interested in coloring with me. They will some day not be interested in making cookies with me. They will some day not be begging me to attend their assemblies or assuming I know where their superhero cape is or looking to me to nurse them, bathe them and read them a bed time story.
I believe in nursing my babies.
I believe in sleeping with them.
I believe it makes a difference who reads that bed time story.
I believe it should be me.
I want it to be me.
I believe I make a difference.

Yes, caring for young children can be mind numbing, but all jobs can be mind numbing. And I’ve had other jobs. Lots of them. None as flat-out rewarding.

I don’t need to defend myself or my life. I know I’ve made the right choice for my kids and myself. Other people make many different kinds of decisions that work for them and their families and I respect that. We’re not the same. We’re different. Different things make us happy. Thank God.

So, for now, I love my job. And it is a job. A career, even. One I’ll never, ever regret.
No matter the other dreams I will chase in my life, being a mother has been an honor and a privilege and I’m a better person for it. Leaving my film "career" (har, har...as it was) for a full-time job as mom made some people in my life scratch their heads. To those people, I just quoted my Dad:
"If it begins and ends with love, it's okay with me."

Sunday, March 30, 2008

A Somewhat Different Week

Got back in town late Monday night. (The trip was nice and the kids always have a great time, but trips are tiring and I was thrilled to be home.) Hit the ground running first thing Tuesday morning. Got home from dropping Molly off at school to find Andre (my foster son who left my house last year) in a police cruiser in cuffs. Six police cars had responded when his adopted "mother" and he got into a fist fight outside my house. I talked to the sergeant and spilled the whole story of him being removed from her custody and her violent tendencies, my restraining order against her. The police took Andre out of custody and out of cuffs thank God. They then asked ME if he could stay at my house. Did I not mention the RESTRAINING ORDER?
WTF????????
No, I'm sorry, but I don't think so. Evidently my number is the only one listed under L.A. County Children Protective Services because criminally, they sent him home with her. He ran away immediately.
That was Tuesday.
Wednesday was my writing day which went very well. Very productive.
When I came home, Andre's "mother" was outside my house again and yelled at me in front of my kids, breaking her restraining order. More calls to the police. Then I had mediation with the dh.
I was a half hour late due to terrible traffic. That's 100 bucks down the drain. On the way there I was panicing as I was so late but also because something terrible was starting to happen in my gut.
Cramping. Cold sweats. Must. Keep. Driving.

If you take something huge and horrible, like, mmmm...my marriage say, and you force this huge, horrible thing through a small space, like a coffee grinder, and it's so huge and the space so small that only a thin and vicious liquid can escape...that was what was happening inside my body.
I barely got into the mediator's office where they were waiting for me. I had to immediately excuse myself to the tiny bathroom.
That feeling is unlike any other. My insides were suddenly trying to escape through the southern route. I only wanted to be alone with my God, begging for mercy, but instead I was at mediation. I was late. They were waiting for me. It was like hurrying through labor with someone you're divorcing on the other side of the door asking, "Are you alright?"
Oh, the humanity!
I rolled my sweaty, tear-drenched face along the cool tile on the sink in front of me, one cheek and then the other, trying to comfort my soul. What is it with bathrooms and breakdowns?
I get myself in the room only to have my life, my marriage, reduced to a printout from a divorce software program. I hear my dh say he wants the kids half the time and I see myself fired from my job as mother. I keep crying and they stop and look at me.
"Are you alright?"
I continually excuse myself to allow a few more innards to grind into acid in the bathroom.
I do my trick where I picture my Jesus there. I see him sitting at the mediator's desk chair, playing solitaire on his computer, giving me the thumbs up. I'm here, he says. Always here. And you're doing fine.
When I hear the dismal financial picture, I envision huge piles of money falling all over the table.
My dh and the mediator view me skeptically. I'm not following along on the printouts...which I couldn't understand anyway under the best of circumstances. I'm checked out, praying for this meeting to end.
Thursday.
I'm so tired. I still haven't finished un-packing. I'm also a little depressed. JH invites me to the park with BC and then lunch and it's nice to be out of the house and in their company.
BLT pizza at CPK. Life's good.
I return home and see some stuff out of place in my bedroom. Weird stuff Ray doesn't usually get into but that's how kids are. One day they do something they've never done before. So I pick up the bedroom a little and since Ray's napping I go into the office to work on my computer. Only thing is my computer's not there.
It's been stolen.
Someone has broken into my house.
I call the police. I call JH. I call AL. I wait for help.
I wait to breathe.
In the end, I lost my laptop (a month's worth of writing), a couple diamond rings (my first ex's wedding rings - how ironic considering I've posted about those, and a promise ring my present dh got me on our first year dating anniversary), two digital cameras and a stereo speaker...couple small things too. It's all too weird to get into but the situation is all the more insane because the break-in was most likely at the hands of Andre or his "mother." Freaky. Crazy. Not cool.
I must shout out to SV who dropped off a spare computer that very night so I could have e-mail and blog. Thanks chica. Thanks also to JH who babysat my daughter AGAIN (you are officially up for canonization) and for AL for giving up valuable super-hero party-planning hours sitting and drinking wine with me.

I feel on one side like this stuff is gone forever and there are huge inconveniences and financial issues with that.
Then on the other side, there are the desperate emotional implications. My computer was a friend. A lifeline. My ticket to freedom. My rings were important to me. The digital cameras held pictures from Christmas we'll never have back.
Then there is the third side, the rarely viewed side, the metaphysical side, where I question my whole fucking life. What am I doing? Am I doing something wrong? I don't feel like I am but, man, the present situation seems to be reflecting some messedupness. And it could be residual, maybe...but was I that messed up even a year ago? Or do things happen randomly and without meaning? If so why do look for meaning in anything??? Because that very night I found that my grandmother's precious rosary was missing from my luggage. Most likely lost during an airport luggage search. There just can't be meaning in that. And if there is, I don't want to know it. I want the rosary back. I've slept with that thing for two years and I want it back.
But no.
These are the questions, this third side, this fucking doubt, that sticks in my craw the most.
Cause I feel alright. I feel okay. I feel taken care of and blessed and grateful. Now don't get me wrong. I cry all the time. All the time. I rush sometimes to get myself alone. Be it in the car or at home in the back yard or in the shower just so I can break down for a minute.
But I still maintain that I'm on the right track.
Am I kidding myself? Can I trust myself? Is this an aneurysm I feel coming on??????

Friday.
JH and HL and I go to UCLA and hear Annie Lamott and Elizabeth Gilbert be their totally hilarious, smart, crazy, cranky, alive selves and all is alright. There is a God. Annie said so. Faith is alive. Prayer is the best course. Crazy is a normal state of affairs for most of us alive enough to realize it.

I ride this razor edge between joy and a little shy of devestated every day. It's been like this since December. Every day.
But joy wins out by a landslide.
And many of my tears feel like strangely happy tears. I laugh a lot when I get to reframe this shit with my friends (that includes you) and then it's reframed forever. It gets posted on the joyful side of the ledger (my printout if you will) and there's one more less thing on the side of devestation.
Maybe devestation is just a little pissed about that.
It will never win. I know that. And it can just keep falling short of its mission.
Because I'm unfazed and less than impressed with sadness and depression, shock, agression, resistance, self-consciousness and despair.
In fact, they can all just take a hike.
Might as well.
Cause I'm going to drive to the beach.

Friday, March 21, 2008

TGIF (Part Two)

Back to our New York story...

My man Tom has hired me to help him publicize his short film at the New York Expo. I am having the time of my life and it keeps getting better!
My amazing, think-of-everything friend has gotten us tickets to the Independent Spirit Awards being held in Manhattan to coincide with the Expo. At the awards show, the IFC presents a lifetime achievement award and guess who the lucky recipients were that year? Well, since this is cleary MY WEEK...it's the inspiring, iconoclastic, personal heroes of mine: The Coen Brothers!
As my email address suggests, Spielberg helped me identify that I wanted to be a filmmaker. Watching E.T. and Raiders of the Lost Ark cemented my desire to direct movies but the Coen Bros pictures allowed me identify the KIND of filmmaker I wanted to be. Blood Simple, Raising Arizona, Miller's Crossing and Barton Fink catapulted me into the world of independent filmmaking and my vision has never been the same.
The big night arrived and Tom and I got ALL gussied up. The event was at an old elegant hotel. There was a red carpet and Sigourney Weaver walked ahead of us so all these flash bulbs are going off all around us. We drank and smoked at this long old-school dance hall bar and everyone looked like a glamorous star out of the 1940s. John Turturro introduced the Coen Brothers and they made their typical short and humble speech. It was indy filmmaker heaven!
Then a dance band took the stage and everyone was shaking it on the floor.
Dancing!
And you know how I love to dance.
I danced with Tom.
I danced with Marc.
But I wasn’t done there. No. I, ELLEN PASQUALE, wanted to dance with Joel. Joel Coen.
Why the hell not?
So I went up and asked him. He looked down at me and said, “Uh, let me ask my wife.”
Joel checked in with his wife.
Frances McDormand.
She said, "Oh-kay," and smiled that sardonic smile. Thanks Frances!
So the next thing you know, I’m slow dancing with the guest of honor, Joel Coen! And the things I said to him, if I may be un-p.c. for a moment, were so retarded.
They were actually on the other more retarded side of retarded. I won’t quote anything I said. Let’s try to keep this positive.
The next morning I felt like friggin’ Cinderella with a Marlboro hangover. I had quit smoking a couple years back but had suddenly developed (quite by accident...) a pack a day habit. My mouth and throat were in physical PAIN every day. But it was worth it. Back in the convertible, back to work.
Work was wrapping up though (devastating!). To lessen the blow, on the evening of the last day of the Expo, there were going to be some killer, blow out parties. Three in fact. A fruit and cheese affair at the Angelika. A dinner and dance party sponsored by Kodak down at the piers. And then a kick-ass, after-hours party thrown by Miramax in a three-story club.
Tom in his infinite wisdom (only a filmmaker could organize so well) got us a couple hotel rooms in Manhattan so we wouldn’t have to worry about driving back to Jersey all hammered (again). We check into our rooms after the last film and put our going out clothes on again.
I had started promoting some other folks' films too during the Expo and had some stuff to wrap up. Tom said he had something to do as well so Tom suggested we meet up in a couple hours at the TGIFridays in Time Square.
TGIFridays?
Okay.
A couple hours later, when I got there, I saw the TGIFridays was a two-story affair. The second level housed a ginormous bar and it was all glass with panoramic views of Times Square. It was cool in a TGIF/Time Square kind of way.
I walked up the stairs to the bar and saw my handsomedapperdarling Tom sitting at the bar with a bouquet of roses and two glasses of champagne with strawberries on the rims. Tears jumped into my eyes. He turned and it was like the greatest scene in the greatest movie. The gesture was so unexpected, so genuine and sweet--the strawberries on the rims of the glasses slayed me.
To this day, it is the single most romantic expression I have ever experienced.
He had written a letter and he read it to me. He thanked me (thanked ME) for the greatest week ever.
It was.
For both of us. It is not too often in this world that two people get to experience their dreams in tandem like that.
We sat and sipped our champagne and had another. We re-lived every great moment and toasted our agreement that it would never get any better than this.
We canoodled so long at TGIFs that we were late to the next party. We hopped in a cab and it had begun drizzling and it was Manfuckinghattan and it was dark and the stars twinkled. We were buzzed on champagne and looking GOOD. I felt like Frank Sinatra.
The cab stopped outside the party at the pier. People milled around looking terrific and the music blasted onto the sidewalk. Tom helped me out of the car and I spotted Marc also looking charming standing on the sidewalk in the bright sprinkling rain. He grabbed his heart in that movie way (it was one big movie!) and then touched his finger to his watch.
“Where have you been?”
Wait. I have to take this in for a minute. A man, a cute man, is WAITING FOR ME IN THE RAIN OUTSIDE A TERRIFIC PARTY. Waiting for me.
“Where have you been?”
I turned to Tom as a way of explanation. Tom patted my back, smiled and pushed me slightly toward Marc.
“Have fun,” he said in his sly Sid way. Because when you are very, very married, away from your husband for one short/long week and you’ve already turned into a big ho, it’s nice to have your friend Tom turn into your friend Sid and refuse to pass judgment. Yes, it’s nice to have Sid around.
So he bee-lined it inside to the free drinks and Marc and I stood a moment, in the dark night, in the rain, under the sparkling lights of the restaurant and he said:
"Shall we?"
And I said, "Certainly," and he turned and behind his back, picture this please:
He extended his hand to me behind his back without looking.
Just reached his hand back without looking so I would take it and he could lead me into the party. Just like that. I'll never forget it.
Two romantic moments in one night. He wanted to hold my hand. He was confident I would take his hand. We were TOGETHER.
At that moment Frampton's “Baby I Love your Way" began to play from inside.
Who was writing this movie? God?
Indeed.
Certainly.
I took Marc's extended hand of hope and let him lead me inside.
The night rocked. We partied. Par-tayed. Marc was a great dancer (duh) and we danced from the pier to the after-hours party. Everyone we had met during the week was there. Robert De Niro was there. I did not ask him to dance (something tells me he's not a dancer, but for that matter, either is Joel Coen. SNAP!) Anyway I was busy. In a private room.
Yikes.
Later that night, God helped me talk my way out of having to spend the night with Marc. I wasn’t quite ready for that. I was Married. And even if in my mind I knew it was over, my dh didn't know that yet. It's fine line but it's a LINE okay?
The sun came up as Tom got back to the hotel and we decided to forgo sleep and get some greasy breakfast food, smoke, and re-hash the whole week one more time.
Tom drove me back home that night.
I was different on a cellular level. I walked back into my house a stranger. Who's house was this? Who's husband was this? No kids thank God. Who's cats were these?
I secretly called in sick the whole next week and listened to 70s Freedom Rock non-stop while my dh was at work. I smoked. Wrote. Processed.
When you have a spiritual epiphany, it's sometimes called an AWAKENING. That is what it was for me. Literally. I was awake. More importantly to me, at the time I was awakening I realized tragically:
I had been asleep.
I married someone while asleep. How could this have happened?
That's a shame I still deal with.
But once you do wake up, there's nothing you can do about it. Not that I wanted to. I was incredibly grateful. Astoundingly alive. I started writing that screenplay about the waitress. (It's called "Loserville.")
I spoke to Marc on the phone once for closure.
He said he wasn’t into married women.
Fair enough.
Me either.
I knew my marriage was finally, truly over. Now to tell him. I couldn't. A smattering of unforeseen events would keep our separation from happening for another, believe it or not, 6 months. But it was okay. I had already started my new life.
I am forever indebted to Tom. He saved my life. I love him dearly. We lost touch almost immediately after the Expo. But he’ll forever be in my heart.
I’ll never ever forget that champagne in TGIFridays, that rainy NY night.
God bless you. May you remain forever awake.
Love,
ellen

Thursday, March 20, 2008

TGIF (Part One)

A little story to tide you over while I work on processing the last couple weeks!

As I have mentioned in a previous blog, I was married before. I got married at 22 years old (I know, I know…but at the time it didn’t feel so young). Things weren’t good from day one and improved not one wit over the next two years. Nevertheless, I was in the marriage for the long haul and tried to make it work. My ex-dh and I even bought a house together hoping that would cement our future.
I was working as an assistant manager at a Christmas gift shop and as a bartender/waitress at a barbeque joint by night…anything to not be home I guess. My dh was a graphic/comic book artist who suffered much for his art. By day he worked as a manager of an indy music store where bitterness was bought and sold at a high price. Suffice to say I was not doing any writing. I was also not pursuing film work although I had just graduated at the top of my class at Penn State. I had really lost my way.

But there was one week that changed everything. Changed my whole life. Changed it so much that I could never go back to my old life again.
It changed everything.
One week.

As “backstory,” I received a call from a good friend from college saying accusingly but truthfully, “What are you doing with your life? When are you going to get back to writing? Have you given up on film altogether? Are you just a bartender now?”
Ouch.
I did like bartending. And in my MIND I was working on a screenplay set in a restaurant. Still, his call struck a chord. He was right. I needed to get back to work but I had no idea how.
Calling the universe…

A short while later, I got a call from my friend Tom Manning (this is his real name and I don’t care who knows it. He’s my hero.)
Tom Manning said that a short film of his was accepted into the New York Film Expo. Filmmakers bring their independent films to the Expo for publicity and of course ultimately, to sell them. The films are all screened at the Angelika Movie Theatre in Greenwich Village over the course of one week.

One week.

He asked me to go with him to the Expo and help him publicize his film. He would cover my expenses and pay me $300 for the week! I accepted immediately. I thought it sounded fun and I never said no to a new experience.

I had no idea what was ahead of me.

Tom and I spent nights in his parents’ house in Jersey and then commuted into Manhattan every morning in his old convertible, smoking, talking, laughing and listening to Dylan and Springsteen and Paul Simon (“The Boxer” will forever be our song). It was magical. Tom’s a great talker, a great listener and wickedly funny. We’d listen patiently to each other’s stories, waiting the whole time for our turn to tell a story that we’d secretly been writing in our head the whole time.

We’d drive into the Village and go hang out at the beautiful and historic Angelika all day, drinking coffee, smoking and networking with other filmmakers. We quickly found out that by supporting other people’s films you could get them to support yours. Hand out flyers for your new friends’ movie on Monday and they would pass out fliers for your movie on Thursday. And the best thing you could do was attend screenings. Everyone wanted a full and enthusiastic audience for their film so we got to see lots of movies, every dang day!
It was ah-mazing for me.
I was a filmmaker again (by proximity). I watched films no one else had seen yet, met indy filmmakers from all over the country, elbowed with famous actors, directors and cinematographers, and partied every single night with all my new friends, for FREE. Cause here's the icing on the cake: every night of the week, after “work,” in the city of cities, in some fabulous, chic and trendy restaurant or club, a party would be thrown just for us Expo participants, totally gratis and sponsored by some industry muckety-muck, thank you very much.

Just for fun, let me spell that out for you at home.

Free fancy drinks.
Free fancy food.
In fancy-schmancy Manhattan.
Surrounded by oh-so-cool indy filmmakers and the like. And I was like one of them.

I. Was. Getting. Paid. For. This.

Plus, Tom and I were totally bonding. We were living out our individual yet conveniently mutual versions of heaven. We pinched each other and gaped and drank and smoked and laughed. We watched movies and promoted movies and talked about movies and partied on the movies.
Every day fell into a wonderful pattern. Joy streamed like the morning sun on Tom’s convertible. I lived in the Village for a summer during college and it was great to be back in the Big City. Every song from Tom's car, every song in a bar was like the soundtrack to our lives. Tom and I "worked" all day, partied all night and dragged our asses back to his parents’ house to nurse our hangovers for another day.
I was 24.
It was heaven. Heaven!
And I was just a little bit developing a huge friend crush on my man Tom.

Let me explain something about “Tom.”

Tom and I went to film school together at Penn State but I actually MET Tom the summer after my senior year back in Lancaster, PA.

We graduated from different high schools but I was dating a guy from his alma mater, so Tom and I would often be at the same parties that summer. Back then, “Tom” was known as “Sid.”

“Sid” was a drunk, arrogant asshole that I couldn’t stand. He was always in my face at parties, challenging me, harassing me, being totally rude. I thought he was such a dick and I made no secret of it. (Little did I know that Sid wasn’t the dick, the guy I was dating was the dick.) I remember at one party, late in the summer, Sid practically spit at me in a loud, drunken stupor that he was going to Penn State Main Campus like me. “Ha! Ha!” he laughed, enjoying himself at my expense, “I’ll see you there!”
Oh gawd. Gag me. I rolled my eyes at him and walked away.
Well, good luck! I thought. At least among 30,000 Penn State Main Campus students, Sid and I stood no chance of running into each other. Ha ha yourself Sid. Joke's on you.

Well…imagine my surprise when it turned out that “Sid” was ALSO a film student! But “Sid” went by “Tom” now and so Tom and I got (re)acquainted. To his profound credit, Tom immediately acquiesced to being a jerk to me back in Lancaster, apologized and we started anew. We became good buds and he was always the funniest guy in the room. He was still acerbic and direct as hell but I really liked that about him and realized I always did.

And NOW! Now to be able to spend all this time side-by-side my man Tom/Sid was a complete compliment to my karma.

About mid-week Tom and I met a group of filmmakers from Chicago. A group of cute, fun, filmmaker guys. We did the whole cross-promotion things for them and met up at that night at the nearest Expo party. One of the guys was Marc.

Marc was a guy wholey different from anyone I would ever imagine being attracted to. He was pretty slick and a real jokester and short. But he was cute and clearly into me.
Into me. Into. Me.
Me.
This was a shock let me tell you.
After a couple years in a pretty much love-less, sex-less marriage it was a shock to be into-ed. I had gained 40 pounds in the first year and half of my marriage. Somehow I managed to find the strength and self-control to pick my face out of the Oreos and lose all the weight and then some. Still my self-esteem was pretty shattered from my relationship with my dh and it had not yet caught up with the new hotty I was...or so I thought.
You see, I think when I hit New York (and ya gotta HIT it) I suddenly felt like a SOMEBODY and all this shiny, new-found confidence just showed up one day. But I didn’t REALLY know that until I saw it reflected in Marc’s eyes.
As he watched me.
Sing karaoke.
To Ms. Aretha’s “(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman.”
In a basement bar crowded with industry folk.
Such a wallflower, right? Well, Marc thought I was something. And it was wondrous to me.
So Marc and his posse started joining us all the time. Now I had two dates to everything!
Cowabunga!
Tom and I were becoming closer and closer in that truly amazing, miraculous way you become totally intimate with someone in a very short period of time. He was funny, kind, generous and the life of the party. And he was taking me on the ride of my life.
And Marc! It was like having a boyfriend just while on vacation. While you are at your happiest and most relaxed and most attractive.
One night, the boys and I took a nighttime cruise around New York Harbor. Oh my sweet Lord!
NY Harbor on a boat in the dark of night. All the lights of the skyline sparkled like a million stars above us and their brilliance was reflected in the dark, murky water around us. As the boat cruised along the harbor, the captain gave an intimate, detailed audio tour of all the precincts and neighborhoods and their histories. We got up close to the Brooklyn Bridge and then, and then, we’re suddenly looking up from our watery G&Ts and staring up the nose of the Statue of Liberty. Ellis Island. It was beautiful and majestic and friggin HUGE.
There were all these American flags blowing in the night wind and as the captain shared stories of those early comings to America, we all got a little teary-eyed. And suddenly Marc pulled me in his arms and kissed me. Right under Liberty Enlightening the World.
Oh. Wow.
I was like an immigrant myself, discovering freedom and enlightenment in a new world. In New York.

Stay tuned for the exciting finale!

Monday, March 10, 2008

Eat, Pray, Love, Dance

Some people need to go to Italy to Eat.
Some people need to go to India to Pray.
Some people need to go to Indonesia to Love.
But we just have to go out our own back door.
Cause here in "the Nuys" we got it all baby. And then some.

I was a 30-year-old pregnant girl when I walked into my first La Leche League meeting. Before my baby (Mollster!) was even born, I had attended many meetings. The instant camaraderie, mutual respect, empowerment of women, the love, friendship and support...it was un-like anything I'd ever experienced...from women anyway.

And now, 8 years later, I have at least thirty wonderful women in my life I consider MY FRIENDS. 15 of them showed up at my house on Friday night to shake their booties DOWN. It was freakin' awesome. I love them dearly. I am their self-appointed social director and I am humbled to be so.

I didn't invent any of this, but when I walked into that LLL meeting and I felt it. Well...I knew one thing.
I knew I wanted more of THAT.
I needed more of THAT.
And so I got it.

So we EAT.

At restaurants, that have liquor licenses. First Thursday of every month. Come in your jeans. Gussy up. Give it up. Gossip. How are the kids? Tell me what your man did last night. Order more drinks.
Tell me how fat you're getting (you're not).
Tell me how skinny you're getting (size 6--shut UP).
Order dessert. Come on, we'll share.
Tell us you're pregnant, you're not, you're married, you're not.
Come on, we'll share.

We PRAY.

At the altar of ocean. At the ashram of sand. At the temple of sky. At the mosque of sun. At the church of friendship.
Beach Fridays every day of the summer and then some. Free Zuma. We're claiming it for Van Nuys! You think the dolphin show is something until you see the moms fly ass over teacup into the surf frantically but with much aplomb pressing their children to "stay on their feet."

The weather is always good over the heads of good friends.

Plus, it's a magic beach. Magic to me because of our good friend JJ (hope you don't mind, girl).
JJ was going through a divorce and the requisite financial crisis. She talked about, if not had decided on, moving herself and her two boys all the way back to Texas to be near her family.
I had her one morning in my kitchen and I could hear in her voice and see in her tired eyes that she had reached/hit despair.
Oof, despair. Oy.
In the hope of at least lessening her pain, I quickly asked the moms in our immediate group for a donation. She needed money now. There was rent and utilities to be paid and a dead beat, blah,blah,blah. She needed us.
In one day I raised $700! That's a lot in our little part of the world.
I gave it to JJ at Zuma the next day and it was so moving.
I mean MOVING. The earth MOVED people.
She was touched, obviously, but also inspired, changed. It was moving.
She realized in that moment that she HAD family...RIGHT HERE.
She didn't have to up-root her life there.
She had a life here.
The great thing about living like this...caring for each other without limitation, this total experience of friendship, this generosity that reaches out to take care of each other from a point of view of RESPONSIBILITY...is that we get to experience each other's moments. When JJ realized that we were her family, we realized it too. Standing next to her I moved right along with her. Her reaction, a sigh, an exhale, pushed my heart around inside my chest. All around. I felt the strong bonds of family like the big roots of a tree, like the perpetual pull of the tides at Free Zuma Beach. By the simple act of giving.

So we LOVE.

We love our babies. We love breastfeeding and natural birth and making the best of situations that don't always go our way. We love to push each other, to catch each other, to buoy, to banter, to cajole, to comfort, to laugh, to love each other.
We love our community, our world. We want to protect our children, our environment, all women's rights, all human rights.
And we love each other. We are different, different, differerererererent women. We CHOOSE to love each other.
We live each other's dreams.
I think this is something revolutionary.
I see it on Oprah sometimes. You know she gives these women cars, makeovers, shopping sprees, new kitchens, new houses and we, the women at home, not getting shit, are ecstatic for them! And I mean over the moon, crying tears of joy, clapping on the couch, you GO girlin', like it is happening to us.
This is what we do. We really live each other's dreams. And this is revolutionary, I think.

And now we DANCE.

We shake our hips, our shoulders, our tits, and our heads loose of the constraints of our everyday lives. We are sexy, free, funky and oh, so fabulous! We are mighty good at celebrating each other. I have so much to learn from these diverse, and between you and me, very dirty women. It is my humble desire that they continue to teach me and to dance with me.

I learned that fun is more contagious than the flu. (Watch out - it's fun season.)
Black leather boots and Sinead O'Connor are still hot.
Back pain and blisters mean you tore it up last night.
I'm not the only one who needs more of this.
And I learned that when you are surrounded by friends, those women you love, adore, fetishize and cradle, you let everyone wear the hat.

How do you get some of this you ask?

Dream their dreams.
Be their family.
Share their dessert.
And let them give you lap dances.

Eat, Pray, Love, Dance with me,
Your Little Red Corvette

Thursday, February 28, 2008

Make 'Em Laugh

So I thought it was time to share some lighter stories.
You know how when you got funky things going on in your life you attract funky random energy? That keeps happening to me.
First let me share the story of being at Hugo's with the flu.
I woke up after, let's see...chest infection in December, strep throat in early January, yes then the flu (later would develop into a full blown sinus infection - yeah me! Hey when does this get FUNNY?).
So my ds and I wake up feeling wretched on day five or so of the flu and my dd is over the flu but has woke up with some kind of FLESH-EATING infection on her chin. Most of her poor pretty chin is red with the skin peeling off.
We're off to Urgent Care!
So we meet our friend JH (bronchitis) and her ds (pneumonia - what's going on? When does this get FUNNY?) there and get seen pretty quickly. I have the flu and there's nothing (NOTHING!) to be done about it. Same with ds. Dd gets an antibiotic at my insistence. Whatever this is on her chin, it's not good. Must have pretty daughter!!!
After Urgent Care, I drag my sick-sorry-sniffling butt to the drugstore to get prescription for dd filled and some antibiotic cream for me. I actually also have these sores inside my nose from blowing so much and they are killing me. I'm worried about flesh-eating bacteria spreading from dd's chin and into my aching nostrils. So I bathe my red noseholes in this antibiotic cream. Very greasy stuff by the way. Read: NOT ATTRACTIVE.
While we wait for ds's prescription I have a great idea. Let's have breakfast at Hugo's!
Yes. Let's take our sick-sorry-sniffling behinds to a RESTAURANT.
(Seriously, what is wrong with me?)
Ok. We get to restaurant.
(Wait! Wait! Who makes it their business to go from URGENT CARE to a RESTAURANT?)
Just let me tell the story!!!!!
So. Ok. We get to the restaurant and get ourselves seated. I'm already starting to think this is a bad idea as we get seated next to Ione Sky. You know, Ione Sky, the celeb actress. She's super cute and nice...her daughter Kate went to Neighborhood School when my dd was there. So we wave.
"Hi!"
She's clearly sitting with some industry/rock-n-roll types. You know but they're all like friends and family and all ensconsced and they totally do this all the time. They love to just, like, eat (not much) and drink teas and juices with exotic infusions, and talk and be rich and cute and skinny, all while Ione's kid thrives at a fabulous school!
I, on the other hand, travel everywhere with my two sick kids, one with oozing blisters on her face and me in my stretched-out, old yoga pants with a hole in the crotch and a big, stained sweatshirt and some greasy ointment all over my red, burning nostrils. Attractive? Yeah, right. Way down deep inside, SOMEWHERE. Maybe.
"Hi Ione!"
I'm so NOT happy to be here. Well OF COURSE I am. Every instinct in my body must be screaming "Leave! Leave!" But do I listen? No. I just sweat.
I sit down. Smile at the trendy, skinny, rich, happy Hugo's clientele.
I pass out paper and markers for my dd. My ds has two new trucks to play with, just purchased at the drug store. I'm no slacker. I'm a good mom.
"Hi Ione!"
Suddenly, my SEVEN-year old dd throws the markers at me. "Why'd you bring these stupid colors? Why'd we come here? I hate it here!"
And I yell back:
"Shut up!"
Yes.
I said the "s-u" word. Out loud. In Hugo's.
Heads SNAPPED. WHIPPED, even.
Cue sound of crickets.
I am a bad mother. I didn't actually choose to make eye contact with her, but I'm certain Ione was looking. And judging. As she should.
God knows I was. I wanted to crawl in a hole. A long dark wet hole with TiVo and a box of truffles.
My poor, beautiful dd will be chin-less by day's end and forced to eat through a hole in her throat, and what do I do? Yell at her to "shut up" in public.
The waittress braves the social strata and approaches us. I quietly, discreetly, ask to be moved outside.
Happily re-seated on the porch, away from staring eyes and curious ears, like good little lepers, my children proceed to continue their rebellion and leave 8.00 of scrambled eggs untouched. Good Lord.
Thankfully, my angel AL arrives to at least prove to the Studio City social elite that I do have friends. She and I drink coffee and laugh and get through breakfast.
Okay. We go outside and she walks me to my car. My car is parked straddling the white line. Reason being, as often happens at Hugo's and other places with perversely small parking lots, people squeeze in wherever they can leading to an anarchy-ruled parking lot where lines are completely ignored.
Let me just say for the record, I did not design the parking lot at Hugo's in Studio City.
So AL and I are hugging goodbye at the car. She may never see me again because I truly feel I am dying. I am so sick and I'm still facing picking up a prescription at the drugstore. It's that kind of sick and tired when you just feel like begging to see St. Peter NOW!
Suddenly this strange woman is in my face. She's tall and oddly gorgeous in this exotic, foreign way. She could be French, Persian, Spanish, who knows, but she's got lots of hair and she's all eyes and cheekbones and a big nose that only looks good on really tall, skinny women and she has some kind of rug or blanket wrapped around her that probably cost $2500 and she giving me WHAT FOR.
What for?
I'll tell you what for.
It seems I didn't park my car between the lines and this is causing her and her friend in their car some consternation as now there is no clear place for them to park. And since as my bronchitis-y friend JH would say, "the sun rises and sets on my ass" this woman is giving me an earful.
"Have you seen what you've done? Look what you've done! Look! Look!"
I am so feverish I can't look. All I can see is a nose wrapped in a blanket, wagging a finger at me. My angel AL, queen of decorum in all situations, swoops in and begins handling it for me. So I just haul my kids into my car and within seconds my friend and this sherpa are now, like, best friends.
The sherpa walks away and AL pats my back as I drag myself into the car.
"Crazy bitch," she says.
I wonder, "Is she talking to me?"
Oh, well. Doesn't matter.
I'm now asking myself in all situations: WWID?
What Would Ione Do?

Monday, February 25, 2008

I'm Not Telling - Part Two

It pains me to keep writing. It pains me to face this all. But Jesus, it's what I prayed for isn't it?
The Big Reveal.
With a side dish of betrayal.

This is crazy because it all just plays right into the very abandonment issues that have now been put on display. Like some crazy fucking someone from your past dragged into the courtroom as a character witness assassin while you're on trial for your life. Here! See? She's CRAAAAZZZZY.

So...
I freak when I get my mom's e-mail saying basically that she doesn't trust me, care about me or whatever. She's siding with my dh any way you cut it. She's made a choice. Marriage 1. Ellen 0.
I don't think I have talked to my mom for two whole hours since this thing even began.
Fickle mommy.

Mommies should not be fickle.

I write her a very calm e-mail asking for her love and loyalty and for her please not to speak to the dh.

She does not respond to this e-mail. Instead, she calls my brother??? who calls me to talk about it. It was a long, loving but difficult conversation. It's hard to hear people make assumptions about you. It's even harder when they act on them. It's hard not to be trusted by those closest to you. Not to be FIRST. God, that's a thing for me.
Yeah. Now I know why.

We get ourselves through the conversation but I've been yelling on and off, outside, in the rain (staying out of earshot of the kids) for 20 minutes so I say my goodbyes. As an afterthought, my bro says, "You know, take comfort knowing that your dh did most of the talking." "Yeah?" (Go figure, I think.) "Yeah," my bro says. "He even told Mom all this stuff about you having issues about your adoption."
Time stops. Rain freezes in place. The birds are quiet. It's cold. Color drains from my sight.
My brother's voice continues in my ear.
"I told Mom that isn't true."
I hear myself say, "It is true. I have to get off the phone now."
The world is literally tilting. I walk up and inside the house.
Place a call to my therapist's cell phone.

She and I are in the middle of negotiating a way for me to get out of the house without conversing with the dh (he has a visit with the kids that night) when I turn and he's standing right there. Listening of course.

God, I hate him.

I hate to hate. But I do. I do.

My mother's e-mail takes shape. Like words coming out of a fog. "When you were a child..." "You're depressed..." "You're the one who needs therapy..."

I leave. Get in the car.
Howl.
THAT WAS MINE! IT BELONGED TO ME!
He climbed the scaffolding of my growth, of my work, to get leverage with my parents. He crossed a sacred trust. There are things I have told my dh that I have not told any one else. That is sacred whether you are married or not.
He stole. He stole any moment I may have chosen to tell my parents in. He stole my privacy. He stole my growth. I can't think of any other more accurate way to describe it. That belonged to me. It was MINE. Not his.
You see, my adoption has two stories. One good. One not-so-good. One the story of a woman who has a great (?) family, who has been provided for and loved. The other story is of a six month old child abandoned repeatedly by her birth mother.
It's great that my family really doesn't "see" me as adopted. It's assumed I'm part of the family like anyone else. It is simply NOT AN ISSUE. That has its advantages. The disadvantage is it can lead to some insensitivity. But that's not their problem. Not until I chose to clear it up.
On the surface, one story does not negate the other. I had not yet felt the need to correct my family's version. It's not un-true. My version came after many years of therapy. It is the very definition of personal. It is a battle I have fought within myself. It has made me what I am today.
It is also not un-true. And it is certainly, CERTAINLY, not a SOMETHING to be batted about lightly. There is a hard nub there of un-worthiness. It is the dark, tainted, left-over stain of my self-loathing. A condensation of self-hate...for a BABY. But I have taught myself to look at it, and even at times, love it.

It is ironic that in the moment of this reveal...the reveal of my tissuey, pre-verbal issues of abandonment that I am actually, really, in the flesh abandoned.

There really is nothing to say more about that.

Let me just add, for the record: I would have done anything to save my marriage. It was of paramount importance to me. I loved it. I loved my husband. I trusted him. I will miss my marriage.

Remember, from the moment we're born, we climb aboard a sinking boat.

Bon voyage.

I'm Not Telling - Part One

This post is going to take many drafts I think. Or maybe I'll just let it fly. Either way, you won't know the difference and I'm not telling.

I'm an angry bitch (if this stays in then I didn't edit). And I have good reason (editing fuck out between good and reason).

We're born alone and we die alone. I know this thought can make some sad, but for me it's actually comforting. First off, it's true. And I've been praying for God to remove my blinders. Please Jesus, wash away any and all last bits of untruth that I harbor. The mis-conceptions, the prejudices, the hurtful ignorance. I pray this prayer because I don't want to go through all this growth and truth and then trip on a blind spot.

My Jesus is swift. And I am open. Read: be careful what you pray for. Because my eyes have been opened. Doesn't mean you're going to like what you see.

I've learned/remembered how much I dislike having my life run by other people. I hate in fact not knowing the truth about my life. This is all very circular isn't it? I pray to know the truth and then find the truth being hidden from me. Infuriating. And then some.

Wednesday: Mediation. Went pretty well I thought. On the long drive there I was really nervous. Trembling. A tape ran in my head:
This is the end of my marriage.I have to sit withmydhanddiscusstheendofmymarriage.
Oh,God.Oh,God.Oh,God.
Then I stopped. Breathe. Breathe. I stroked my soul. I love you. Breathe. I told myself, It's okay lady. Don't be scared. Remember this is what you want. And grace, sweet divine grace, descended on me. No more trembling. A smile even? This is what I want. I want free. I've wanted freedom for a long time. And I'm getting it. It's basically done. Wow. Totally different attitude. Yes. I say yes.

Where do I sign?

So I was able to walk in (still) very, very nervous but my soul was intact and my heart was sure and my mind was sound. My dh says immediately, "You sure you want to do this?"
Answer: Inside: resounding yes. Outside: "Yes? Why are you asking me this right now?"
He shrugs.
He's so bizarre.

The mediator is terrific. A real pro. I feel like my heart is going to explode and my dh is sighing loudly every few minutes. But the mediator is calming and diplomatic and his eyes are on the big picture. Like hospice nurses and sanitation workers...who signs up for this job? And thank God they do. I felt confident about the process. He said stuff like "You don't want a judge making life decisions for you" and "Your children will thank you for going this route on their wedding day." Wow. My dh and I just have to be open and able to trust each other and we can get through this and provide the best life for our kids. Okay.

"Trust each other." Insert sound of throat clearing. Or maybe one of those record scratches. Or brakes screaching. Yeah. That's good. "Trust each other." RRRRRRRRRRRRRR.
Son of a bitch.

My dh called me on the way home from the mediation bitching at me about an e-mail my brother sent him. I try to be kind. "Don't worry about it," I say. "It doesn't matter. Why do you care what he thinks?" But in typical dh-fashion he keeps coming after me.
I wonder about him. I mean mediation went WELL but I'm still REELING from the experience. The last thing I want to do right now is FIGHT with someone. Does his engine run on pain or what?
I finally say, "I have to hang up now" and he says, "What am I supposed to do with all this shit?" And I think, well there it is. His modus operandi. His reason for raging. He just doesn't know what to do with his shit.

Next day, Thursday. I e-mail my mom to assure her that mediation went well although my dh is acting kind of strange. She e-mails me back that she knows why dh is upset. SHE TALKED TO HIM FOR TWO HOURS PRIOR TO MEDIATION.

That explains dh asking me if I really wanted to do this because my mom told him it was her understanding (ha!) that I didn't want a divorce. It also explains dh's threatening e-mail later that day which says that things I've said to my mother will "come back to haunt me for years to come."

Back to my mom's e-mail (we're doing this through e-mail!?!?!) - despite having told her and my Dad about the abusive nature of my relationship, despite spilling my guts which was very hard to do while feeling broken and vulnerable, despite telling them the recent truths about dh closing our financial accounts, etc., my mother, MY MOTHER, tells me that I should get back together with my dh. That I am throwing away my marriage. That I should get back in therapy with my dh (and here...she goes on about something that I can't even understand so I blow by it...kinda like how they say the Indians couldn't see the Pilgrims' ships because it was something they couldn't even comprehend. Yeah, like that.) So I skip those sentences and go on to the finale. She writes: You need to do what's best for all FOUR of you.

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.

That's a moan people. A MOOOOAAAANNN. Later, in Part Two, there will be a howl.

For now, a digression.

I read a book recently called "The Traveling Death and Resurrection Show." It's by Ariel Gore and in it she tells her narrative by weaving in stories of the saints. (Aside: I liked her other novel/memoir "Atlas of the Human Heart" a whole lot and she is the editor of the cool zine "Hip Mama.")
In "The Traveling Death and Resurrection Show" Gore offers invocations for individual saints, including Mary Magdalen.
(Backstory: I've always loved Mary Magdalen. My cat's name is Magdalen. Mary and I even share an astrological sign - her feast day is July 22nd.)
As I'm sure you all know Mary Magdalen was portrayed as a prostitute for most of history. But 30 plus years ago the Catholic Church said once and for all that no such thing was true and that the bible didn't support the claim. Dan Brown took it one step further in "The Da Vinci Code" to say that the whole thing was a smear campaign to keep women from challenging the patriarchal system of Catholicism. (I couldn't agree more.)
Ho or not, what is know for sure is that Mary Magdalen was the first one to meet the resurrected Jesus. She showed up at Jesus' tomb the day after His Crucifixion and burial to find the stone rolled away and His body gone. She saw a man walking in the garden and asked him if he saw the body removed from the tomb. He turned to her and said, "Do you not recognize me Mary?" She didn't. And then.
And then.
She did. She moved towards Him.
"Do not touch me Mary. I have not yet ascended." (Happy Easter!)
Mary was the first one at the tomb and Jesus chose to reveal Himself to her first. That's a special lady.
I decided a couple weeks ago to order a Mary Magdalen medal to wear during these dark days. It arrived on Thursday - HOURS before this shit hit the fan. I was glad to have it.
Now dig what the fabulous Ariel Gore had to say about how to pray to Mary Magdalen.
Pray:
"'So that I may not waver at the sight of the divine.' To honor her, learn how to express your grief as well as your joy. Watch the sunrise or sunset and say our loud: 'I am fully and radiantly myself, IMMUNE TO SLANDER. I offer my unique gift to the world.' Stay open to inner vision and refrain from judgement. That woman you're calling a whore may just be the Lord's favorite apostle, and that gardener you hope to underpay might be God himself."

Riiight?

Reviewing the post I noticed that I neglected to give another reason why I take comfort in the thought that we're born alone and we die alone. So...
Secondly, it relieves me of the burden of finding a someone else to trust, to align with, to confirm my existence, to reflect my godliness. People might let me down. Even those whom I have entrusted all my love and respect, those who I have attached myself to with a taped-together umbilical cord.
Those people live their own lives. They're in their own sinking boat. They have their reasons.
And so it's a comfort to not lean, but to stand tall and firm on my own two feet. And know that no one can knock me down.

I'm getting a little ahead of myself.
More...now.

Wednesday, February 20, 2008

Tell Me About It

The kids and I arrived home last night to find Andre sitting on the curb. (For those who don’t know, Andre is my 15 year old foster son whom I had custody of from Dec '06 - March '07. He was returned to his original home in October...which is right next door to me...a story for another time.)
He didn’t look good. He literally limped over to me and it was clear he was sick. He was waiting for his ride to take him to therapy.
He said he was sore from basketball, but he just didn’t look well to me. I had groceries in the car and offered him some nectarines which he gratefully took. I can’t tell you how wonderful it felt to take care of him, just for a minute. To give him a hug and a kiss and tell him I love him. To see him cup two nectarines in each hand. To feel his soft cheek on mine and see him smile.
And I love that boy so much.

This morning my daughter asked me "When is Daddy coming back home to live?"
I was rushing around, doing the morning thang and the question came at me like a bullet. I knew there was no dodging it, and that “I don’t know” was no longer going to cut it. (As my therapist said, “If YOU don’t know, who does??” Good point.) So I said, “Daddy’s getting an apartment.” She was not having it. She stomped her feet. “I know that but Daddy can STILL come home. And Daddy IS coming home to live! It was just a FIGHT Mommy! I don’t care about this “ADULT” stuff!”
Oh, man.
She left the bathroom (my kids LOVE to talk to me in the bathroom, particularly when I’m GOING to the bathroom) and set to pitching a fit in the living room. I held her. Let her cry. What else can I do?
There are no words to explain.
Hell, someone explain it to me, PLEASE!
I kissed and stroked her soft hair. Squeezed her.
She said, “It’s just so hard.”
I said, “It’s one of the hardest things you’ll ever have to go through.”
And my lovely little lady looked up at me, tears pouring down her round cheeks and said:
“Tell me about it.”
And we both kind of laughed.
God, I love her.

My friend S (and my friend J!) is going through a similar experience in her marriage right now. We both can’t believe it. How did this TNT go off in both our lives at the exact same time? She has been available practically every single time I’ve called, and I call her a lot.
She makes me laugh and cry and then craugh and ly until it gets all mixed up. We both understand that this is EXACTLY what life is. The dark and the light. The tears and the giggles.
We crack each other UP and we confirm our fabulousness each time we talk.
It seems we say to each other every day: "It’s all good." And with a friend like her, that continues to be true.
(BTW, I could write twenty times twenty blogs about all my terrific friends and just might someday...so thank you EVERYONE!)

Tonight is mediation. Session 1.
Holy crap.
I find it hard to breathe when I think about it.
My dh sent me an e-mail yesterday that was quite nice. It said a lot of stuff about how great I am, and how much he loves me, and how sorry he is.
I really couldn’t read it though.
First, it just plain old hurts too much.
And two, it doesn’t make any difference if I read it or not.
I can’t/don’t put much faith in this kind of love letter anymore (I’ve gotten many through the years and I can see that is part of the pattern now too…he’s very good in print).
Don’t get me wrong. I’m glad he feels this way. It does make me feel nice inside. Temporarily. It’s better than being hated certainly. But it is not symbolic of any kind of shift in him. I can’t afford to hope that this changes anything. He could still go off at any moment.

And third, somehow, between the lines, I can still read his criticism of me and that causes such a flare up in me that I have to mentally throw ice water on myself.
He writes, for example: "I know you don't want me anymore."
AS!
IF!
I WISH that were true.
Gaaaaawd.

One other line jumped out at me:
“The greatest, most loving challenge of my life is to let you go.”
I’ve been thinking about this.
For me it initially begs the question: “You’re letting me go? As if you had me to begin with.”
But that’s no way to be.
Yet, I look at that line and think: the greatest and most loving challenge he could have attempted would have been GETTING HELP for his anger and depression.
Can I get a witness???
And I keep coming back to that "letting me go" bit. Gotta think on that some more. Something sticks in my craw about that.

Then again, on some level, I agree with the comment too, because letting my dh go has been a great expression of my love. But an expression of my self-love. My love for myself has provided me with the strength to let go of my love for this man and for my marriage.

And here's how you let go of your marriage:
I had to fill out an intake form for our mediation tonight.
Damn. I mean, really.
A FORM.
A form that asks questions like: "Who was the initiator of the separation?"
"Was the other party initially opposed to the idea?"
"Is there any interest in reconciliation?"
"Do you anticipate a dispute concerning your children's welfare?"
DAMN. Damn. damn.

Perhaps I should just forward them to my blog?
I mean, REALLY!

Love,
Ellen

P.S. OF COURSE, I'll let you know how it goes!

Sunday, February 10, 2008

Mirror, Mirror - Part Three

It’s the first week of December. Crunch time. I just had, in one week, four, count ‘em, FOUR major birthdays, THREE of which required presents and cakes and special dinners and of course, PLANNING. And my parents were visiting and there was that holiday, Thanksgiving. All the while I’m barely holding my marriage together. And now the slipperly slide to Christmas.

AND my dh announces: he’s taking time off from work. Three weeks. Vacation.
“VACATION.”
What the hell is that?
Shit.
We barely keep our asses together while he’s at work. Now he’s going to be home???
So a few days into dh’s “vacation” a friend of his offers to take him to Europe for three weeks right after Christmas. Dh says to me. “Of course I told him I can’t go. You’d divorce me.”
His. Exact. Words.
Are you k-k-k-k-kidding me????
“Go! Please! And not just so you can get out of my house but so you can come back a new man. Find yourself. Find your calling. Release your depression. Fuck a Roman. I don’t care. Just come back different!”

But he said he wanted to spend time with his family. With his children. With me.
With me.
With me???

So far on this vacation he had not spent a minute with me.
He spent his days on his own, doing God knows what.
About this time I got a wicked chest infection – shocking I know! While I did the kids and did Christmas with the worst illness I had in years, my dh did what? Went to the movies? Went for hikes? I really don’t know where he was or what he was doing. He would take off in the morning and come home for dinner without nary a word to me.
He wasn’t helping me.
He was disassociating I know that.
Cause the crazy thing is, if he was off watching movies and taking hikes, and not helping me, I could almost deal with that. What I couldn’t deal with was his doing all this while claiming the whole time that he wanted to be with me, connect with me...and again the whole time he’s keeping his whereabouts a secret. One day he told me he had to get the cars smogged and what not and he’d be gone all day. A few days later he let it slip that the cars only took about 30 minutes and he had actually gone to see Golden Compass?? He had been gone ALL DAY! And who doesn't MENTION to their wife that they went to the movies? I mean just for the simple fact that it makes interesting conversation?
That was the first two weeks of December.
Then the kid got off school too. Oh Joy to the World. Everyone home for Christmas.
I’m laughing to myself right now just remembering it. What sweet holy Christmas hell!
So I make myself some mommy time. Make a dinner date with a mama friend. Shout out M.M.! (and sorry, again…)
The night of the dinner, the dh gets mad that I made the date without ASKING HIM FIRST. Say what Mr. Vacation? And you guessed it.
He rages. So bad I can’t leave him with the kids.
I have to cancel on my friend and I’m furious. I say it again. We have to divorce. Dh says ok. We’re on the floor. Crying. But it’s done. It seems it’s almost an everyday occurrence this breakdown.
I spend literally the entire night crying on the bathroom floor. (Paging Elizabeth Gilbert!) I stumble through every repercussion. Every depressing future moment of my broken family. This is forever. It is tragic. It is real.
I wake up with boxer’s eyes. Have I damaged them forever? Will a plastic surgeon be able to put them back? I wonder, as I gently tug my lids out of my line of vision.

But…but…but…the next day, I can’t do it. We can’t do it. Molly makes us a beautiful drawing of our family. The word “FAMILY” written across the top. My dh and I look at each other. Tears pour down our faces. Molly says, I want you to stop crying. So we do. We spend the day as a family. For real. And yes, we re-commit ourselves…God it sound like a joke now but in the moment it was true. And it was possible. And I knew I would continue to breathe life into the moment until all possible avenues were completely blocked. My dh brought home an expensive bottle of champagne to toast our new marriage at a special dinner I was going to make the next day.

The next morning, December 23rd. It was time to visit Santa Claus at the mall. Oh, how many marriages I wonder have ended on the way to this mecca of stress? Anyway, that morning was bad. Having a hard time with my daughter and more realistically with myself. I just couldn’t get myself together. WHY WHY WHY I wonder? Maybe because I was resisting a little thingy called reality? Oh, retrospect. But I know I was just living moment to moment (not unlike what I’m doing now, gentle reader…)
So I was really struggling. Feeling frustrated and depressed and spent and not wanting to take it out on my little girl but somehow needing to get us dressed and presentable for St. Nick. She pouted in her room. I sat at the table drinking tea trying to find my center. How could I use more reflective language? Be a more patient parent? How could I be a better mom I wondered and I cried in my chamomile a little.
Enter dh stage left.
He sat next to me, ignored my tears…such an expert at that he is…and he launched into a diatribe on how we need to punish our daughter more. We (read I) never follow through, I never discipline. Our daughter needs more consequences to curb this behavior of hers.
Well, I just couldn’t hear this right now and I said as much.
The dh does not like not being heard.
So a big fight ensues on top of EVERYTHING ELSE. I lose it. Crawl in the closet (my big dark womb) and fall into the abyss. But a few minutes later I crawled out. Must go on. Must fight inertia and the need to smoke cigarettes and listen to Pink Floyd for next four hours.
Kids must see Santa.
The kids’ clothes are found and put on. Tears dried. Hugs shared. We had just re-committed the day before, right?
On the way out the door, sniffling back my last tears and self-respect, I lean in to give my handsome if troubled dh a kiss and he pulls away.
He PULLS AWAY.
Like, no, don’t kiss me. Like, recoils. Like, don’t touch me.
Oh, no.
I lose it AGAIN. It’s all knee-jerk stuff now.
I have to retreat back into the house and fucking tear it down AGAIN.
Cry AGAIN.
Make the kids wait AGAIN.
It is not lost on me that this is bad. Not the life I want for me. For the kids. I’m a wreck.
But with love, sweat and tears and prayer I pull it together and actually get them in the car and to the mall. But my dh won’t be so easily dissuaded. He can’t speak to me or the kids at the mall. Won’t get in the Santa photo with us…oh, to have that picture now in Kodachrome…to be enjoyed for many a nostalgic Christmas. I’m laughing. I hope you are too! Stay with me!
At the mall, we get some mall food and the dh is GONE. At one point I ask him “What is wrong?”and he yells at me in front of the kids, God, the carousel worker, in front of everyone: “What the fuck do you think is wrong? We’re finished!”
A few minutes later, after my daughter doesn’t get the carousel horse she wanted to ride, she is running down the length of the mall yelling “FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK!”
Is Christmas over yet?
So we get home and dh has one of his WORST RAGES EVER. In front of our children he calls me a “fucking liar who never loved him.”
Okay.
I know.
It’s over.
I see you God.
I see Jesus.
He’s nodding. We’re nodding together. I understand. And what’s so confusing is that I made pot roast.
There’s pot roast in the crock pot.
It’s one of Dh’s favorite meals and I had put it in the crock pot that morning for us, for our special evening. Our special dinner.
Our marriage ended with pot roast in the crock pot. How can anything bad happen with pot roast in the crock pot?

I called my friends. Implored them to bear witness to my pain. They assured me, assuaged me. And I made my peace. I would cry no more. I would damage myself no more. I would put my kids at risk no more. I would put myself in harm’s way no more. I would lie to myself no more. No more. I hear you Jesus. No more.

Not even for that great bottle of champagne.
Not even for pot roast.

My dh disappeared till 2am the next morning.
The kids and I went to the bookstore and got hot chocolate. Drove around looking at Christmas lights. Came home and ate pot roast together. It was Christmas Eve Eve.
I love my kids.

I love you.