thankslisting

Gabriel spent the week prior to Thanksgiving at home, sick with a persistent fever and remarkable congestion that lasted long enough that my worrying wore me down and I took him to the pediatrician, who told me that he had a virus. I guess I knew that. He needed rest and fluids. Yes. Right. Just as he was finally behaving - and eating - like himself again, Beatrice succumbed. 

She developed a fever on Thanksgiving, and the congestion was so awful that she had a hard time breathing. All she wanted to do was nurse, and it was impossible, which was terribly frustrating. The fever worsened, and the two of us were up most of the night. My poor sweaty, snotty little girl. Every time I resettled her in the portable crib at the foot of our bed, I would lie there, staring at the ceiling, listening to her awful breathing noises and coughs, torn between exhaustion and wanting to pick her right back up again.

That little conflict never lasted long because within minutes she'd begin crying again, asking for me. And really, who wouldn't? If I felt like she sounded and my mother was a few feet away, I would call for her too.

Luckily my mom was, in fact, a few feet away! The next day as I talked with Mike about leaving a day early because Beatrice was so sick, it suddenly occurred to me that that was utter insanity. My mama was here, making us popcorn while we watched movies and offering to bring me tea. She was taking my big kids out to lunch and sharing her big fluffy dog with them. When my kids are sick and want me all the time, I often dream of my mom's caring presence. Caregivers are in serious need caregiving.

So in the scheme of things, the timing couldn't have been better. No work/child care scrambling, no neglecting the other children, just enforced down time with a hot little monkey who wrapped her sticky hands around my neck and could not bear to be parted from me. 

Usually visits to Lancaster are full of visiting friends, trips to Central Market, knocking on neighbor's doors, and stops in my favorite shops, cafes, and galleries. I'm so happy to be there; I want to soak it all in. Oh yes, I tend to overdo. So to spend three days on my mother's couch, pinned beneath my flushed-face little one, watching the snow fall, snuggling with my family, talking with my aunt - it was different. 

All that sitting and holding and sleep deprivation inspired a meditative mood. I kept noticing. (One of the perks of the stillness and singletasking children sometimes demand, especially as newborns). I kept noticing little things - everyday things - and sometimes, as I noticed, I felt awe before them. Wonder. Maybe, even, gratitude. Here are a few of the things that beckoned to me during the long weekend:

-the vertiginous sight, up through the bay window, of heavy white snowflakes falling through the gray sky

-miniature marvel: a perfect, smooth, shiny acorn

-my husband's clear eyes (true windows if ever there were a pair)

-the sunburst pattern of melted snow on the windshield, water beading out in every direction as we drove home, and the pleasure of anticipating Gabriel describing it to me, knowing he would also notice (and he did, within moments)

-the fast-paced drama of the East coast late autumn sky

-listening to the Beattles, those prolific wonders who supply my children with seemingly endless favorite songs, watching all three of their faces

-wily, wonderful, irrepressible squirrels

-Frances playing the piano with pride and pleasure

-a photograph in a large frame tucked behind my mother's armoire, discovered on one of my lingering visits to her sanctuary of a bedroom: a portrait of my great-grandmother Viola. In her face I saw my mother, my aunt, my sister. Maybe even myself. It was arresting. 

-my children's growing bodies, ever longer and leaner

-my mother's profile

and finally, 

-creamy pumpkin pie with a gingersnap crust. 

I hope you also had a beautiful Thanksgiving. 

xoxo

john cerutti and all the saints

As we headed out on our walk to school yesterday morning, Gabriel looked over at me across the stroller handles with November in his eyes. He sighed heavily. "First Peepiceek, then the Car Talk guy, and now John Cerutti, too."

What do Frances's mouse, Tom Magliozzi, and a former Toronto Blue Jays pitcher all have in common? You guessed it. They're dead. We cared about them, and they died.

Last week Frances and I found her mouse curled up motionless in the bedding of his cage. She wept, then didn't believe it, then wept, then repeated over and over: I want him back. Bring him back. It was agonizing. My heart broke for her. Her remaining mouse, Reepicheep, has become the object of much worried attention.

When I heard about the Car Talk guy's death, I thought immediately of Gabriel. I've always had a bit of a love hate relationship with that show and assumed others did, too - but Gabriel surprised me not long ago by confessing that he just plain loved it. I turned it off a couple of weeks ago and he protested. This is a great one! I want to hear what they say about her car!

...You do?

He did. He loved how they laughed. He loved that they were brothers. On our walk we talked about how he seemed like such a happy person, and that made it somehow less sad that he had died.

John Cerutti is oddly the loss I feel most deeply. We've been using his baseball card as a bookmark for Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince, and we used it for that endless tome of an interminable story Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix too. That's a long time to hang with John Cerutti's eyes squinting in the sun, his day-old beard, his good natured, relaxed expression. Over the weeks we began to wonder about him. The card is from 1988. It states he went to Amherst and enjoys oil painting, music, and drawing. Often we would address him directly, a retired ball player, out there somewhere: John Cerutti, who are you? Where are you? Are you puttering in the garden? Painting a landscape? Are you happy, are you well?

Finally Mike Googled the man. He died ten years ago, at the age of 44. That's how old my dad was when he died. Cerutti had a heart condition. The Wikipedia article on him ends thus:
John Cerutti was known and admired for his exemplary character, good will, and sportsmanship.

When Mike and Gabriel told me what they'd learned the other night, I surprised myself and nearly cried. How can he be dead? How can he have been dead all this time? But he was so young!

What is it about just now? Proximity to All Saints Day? The sudden change in weather and shortened days, shifting from golden, warm October to wet, dark November? I feel an openness to grief, a susceptibility to sadness. We all do, in our own ways.

Tonight I read In The Night Kitchen to Beatrice before bed. It was the first time she'd seen the book. I find it to be magical, not only gorgeous (an aside: I have long dreamed of a poster designed from the illustrations to adorn our walls. Ever seen one?) but true in ways I still do not fully understand though I have probably read it hundreds of times.

Beatrice also seemed entranced. We read it once, then twice (with Frances and Gabriel, who also cannot resist). Beatrice was getting tired but insisted on reading it AH-DEN, so I perhaps stupidly turned to the beginning just once more. But as I began to read I noticed Beatrice's lower lip was trembling. She began to cry, sorrowfully and fearfully. Mickey is tired, she said. He will sleep. More tears.

Am I reading too much into it when I say that she felt her first intimations of mortality tonight? She kept crying, kept insisting on finishing the story. She became focused on his bed, his leaving his Mama and Papa sleeping tight (Mama! Papa!) and finally I had to close the book and say it was bedtime. She kept crying and talking about Mickey. While she nursed she pulled off repeatedly, that sad tremble still in her voice, saying Mickey ...okay. He is okay. Mickey is okay. She couldn't stop thinking about him.

He's not leaving his parents forever, he's not alone, he's not scared, he's not going to die. Right?

After I shut the door she wailed so miserably I had to get her out of the crib and bring her downstairs, where she ate Girl Scout cookies with her brother and sister, snuggled in my lap, and eventually calmed down.

What a few days it's been. What sadness there is in the world! Those unsettling, mustachioed bakers say "we bake cake, and nothing's the matter!" These are the same bakers who put Semitic, chubby, capable little Mickey into an oven. Something is the matter, alright, you nasty bakers. Something is very wrong.

Surely by now Mickey has died. So have his parents. Maurice Sendak has died. My dad, my grandparents, Mike's grandparents, Pete Seeger, Tom Magliozzi, John Cerutti, Frances's first pet. Name yours too. All the saints. It makes the grief even more excruciating sometimes to share it with one's children, but in that sharing it can take on a beautiful, holy quality. Blessed are those who mourn.  

hummus, deconstructed

Sometimes I think it may represent some messed up martyr-like parenting burnout wish, but despite the addition to our lives of one more kid (a kid who, at an adventuresome and wily 19 months of age, creates a stunning amount of chaos in her wake) and a pretty substantial and demanding part-time job, I cannot give up the dream of dinner. I cannot resign myself to the frozen section of Trader Joe's. I want to cook.

Take back that martyr comment above. Truth be told, the children would be quite happy with fried balls of macaroni and cheese on a Tuesday night. (There actually is something to that effect in above mentioned Trader Joe's aisle, and Frances never walks past it with begging me, please, just this once, just get the mac and cheese balls, Mama, just PLEASE, I know I love them.) The children would, at least in the short term, be a lot happier at dinner time if I snipped and heated Thai dumplings and tofu nuggets and called it a night. But I can't bear to. Even if time is short, even if Beatrice is hanging onto my legs, head thrown back, giving herself over entirely to the conviction that all will be lost if Mama doesn't pick me up right now and Frances is repeating her story about what appalling thing so-and-so said at lunch and Gabriel is moaning dramatically over first grade homework at the table, even then I am determined to somehow pull together a real dinner. This is despite the fact that though I regularly and, it seems to me, heroically chop onions and simmer quinoa in the midst of so much activity, I always brace myself when the children ask me the dreaded What's for dinner question because chances are high they will be disappointed. (And express their disappointment.) (And apologize to me when I tell them that hurts my feelings). And even though Beatrice will announce she is ready to sit in Mama's lap three minutes into the simple meal that took just about all the inner resources I had to make materialize on the table, and I will haul her out of her seat and she will climb all over me and try to feed me resulting in a great mess, even then it seems worthwhile to continue to cook - and eat - the real dinner I really made. It's absurd, but there it is.

That said, I am always trying to figure out ways to cook and eat real food that won't stress me out. Some recent developments: making a big pan of baked oatmeal on Sunday afternoons that I can slice and reheat during the week for breakfast; keeping lots of salad greens on hand so I can pack lunches that make me happy (rather than the desperate yogurt cup/granola bar/apple sort of thing that only depresses); making lots of dinner when possible so we'll have good leftovers on hand.

I've also been experimenting with my slow cooker. It's never really found a comfortable place in my kitchen. But lately I've been making dried beans in it during the day (so superior to canned, right? so worth the effort!), which brings me to the subject of this post. In its own small way this meal felt triumphant, so I wanted to share. Here's what I did: a few mornings ago I realized I would come home that day on the late side and there'd be nothing obvious to make for dinner. So first thing, I quick-soaked a bag of chick peas (covered in water, brought to a boil, and left for about an hour). Just before I left for work I drained them and put them into the slow cooker with water to cover, salt, and a glug of olive oil.

When I got home with the kids that day, the house smelled great. I decided that in the hopes of transforming a mountain of cooked chick peas into something that seemed like dinner, I would prepare them like hummus - minus the blender. I put some grains on to cook, and in a little bowl whisked lots of tahini, lemon, olive oil, salt, and garlic together. When the grains were finished, I mixed them with the chick peas and poured the tahini sauce all over everything.

And though nowadays I have less time to conceive, gather ingredients for, and prepare meals myself, I do have a nine year old I can send out to cut chives with which to make a rather plain dish a little more exciting. And a six year old who will (sometimes) cheerfully set the table. And a toddler who will search the house calling Papa! Dinner! Sit here! and so miraculously, amazingly, that night we all sat down to real dinner together and I was not a frazzled mess. Success.

Ah, readers! Remember when I used to post about these little life challenges all the time? And you would comment and share your extraordinary innovations too? Maybe this one was fueled by a bit of nostalgia for that era. Indulge me, won't you? What was your latest real dinner triumph?

With solidarity, love, and wishes for excellent meals shared with cooperative children,
xxoo
Meagan

on aging

It is so rare that we feel up to the task of watching an entire movie. And I'm not even talking about the movie theatre. I'm talking about rustling up the focus and energy to select and then watch a real movie all in one go, snuggled up on the couch downstairs after the children are in bed.

But on Saturday we watched God Help the Girl, a film by Stuart Murdoch (the Belle and Sebastian guy). The music, the story, the sweetness and honesty - it was good. I'm not sure what I expected. There are so many bands, artists, and writers that I paid a lot of attention to in college and the years after - before parenthood - that I have not plugged into for a very long time. Some narcissistic part of me assumes they all just stopped writing songs and making dances when my attention waned. Around 2005, all over New York and Paris (and in this case, Glasgow) artists could be overheard saying, Oh, Meagan isn't listening to our new albums anymore? Ah well. What's the point? We may as well settle down and get jobs and have kids too.

I still listen to the old albums I loved. Belle and Sebastian has been a constant in my life since my senior year of college, and I associate If You're Feeling Sinister with falling in love with Mike, visits to New York, and a sense of yearning possibility. I can't hear Judy and the Dream of Horses without my chest swelling; I can't sing along without my throat constricting with the peripheral presence of tears. What are those tears about? Nostalgia, loss, the strangeness of time passing? I feel so connected to that moment: being twenty and in love and in a perfect city, newly mine, listening to Belle and Sebastian, unsure about what to do and who to be. Was it really seventeen years ago?

After we watched the movie - about beautiful young people in Glasgow and how their new friendships, pop music aspirations, and troubles all mix up in a moment before anything big has happened, before any particular direction has been established in their lives - and the credits played out and we were sitting in darkness, Mike asked me if I felt sad that we were no longer young. I heard myself answer yes, accompanied by a surprising sense of tranquility. No need to be defensive, no need to regret anything, just yes. Yes, it is sad that that time in our lives is over.

What was it like? For me, a mix of vague yet passionate ambition, persistent self-doubt, powerful experiences of friendship, an uncertain, faltering, yet determined desire for creative expression, spiritual longing, confusion, love. A yearning for authenticity; for all that seemed true, good, and beautiful. I lost my dad when I was eighteen. I fell in love with Mike and graduated from Swarthmore and moved to New York when I was twenty. I was always in such a rush to figure it out, to grow up, to grow out. I had absolutely no idea what I wanted to do with my life. As I considered options, depending on my mood, either the prospective path or my own flawed self seemed lacking.

It was stressful and wearying, worrying so much about myself and my relationships. It's such an inward time! After Frances was born, I remember a conscious sense of relief. In my focus on her, I got a break from myself. Finally. 

But. But but. Nine years later, I still spend most of my emotional energies worrying about my kids. Do I work too much? Do they have the support they need? Are they growing in all the ways that they should be? Am I helping them to become themselves, in all their strangeness and glory?

In the rush and pull of everyday life, it is so easy to neglect to look inward every now and then. It's easy to not give myself the time and quiet to think about the person I am - good gracious! - still becoming. Maybe some of the sadness, in missing my youth, is missing what in retrospect seems like luxurious amounts of self-reflection. How to make the space for discovering what is good and true and beautiful? 

The truth is that I prefer who and how I am now. Even with my gray streaks and residual perioral dermitis (sigh!), I know I would never choose to be twenty-three again. But it's good to be reminded of what I wanted and what I still want - to grow in love. And though there is a temptation to focus so fully on my children that I slip past and around whatever difficulty is stirring in my own heart, good people and music and movies remind me to resist that limited kind of relationship. Ultimately, I think, loving my children wholly leads me back to myself.

In a good way.