Posts from — July 2011

Thank you for the free therapy this week.  I would love to see a therapist (I was about to say “real therapist,” but what is a therapist other than a human being who listens to your thoughts and helps you make sense of them.  And isn’t that EXACTLY what you do too, minus the training?) but since time and money are factors keeping me from that, I am quite grateful for the free therapy.  It is helpful to hear your words in a different way or to hear about another person’s similar experience.

Please know that I will be foisting more free therapy on you in the future.  You’re that good.  I’m still mulling over everything you said.

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 My friend, C, and I loaded up the kids in the car this week and shuttled them all to the beach for a holiday.  It was one of those things that sounded great in theory, then we both grew dubious as the day approached, then we actually got there and theory prevailed.  Yes, the car was packed within an inch of its life.  Yes, we got bitten up by mosquitoes.  But damn it, beach trip 2011 was so much fun that we made reservations to do it all over again in August before we left the hotel.

I knew I would have a good time with C and that being together would make all aspects of the trip easier.  I think what was amazing was how the kids rallied, especially one day when it rained on-and-off and we had to keep shifting our plans minute to minute.  At home, all three kids would have fallen apart.  At the beach, it was an adventure.  They created a circus in the hotel room.  They didn’t even blink an eye when we scooped them out of the pool, threw them soaking wet in the car, and drove out to the beach to give it another try.  They didn’t even comment when it started raining and we announced that we were indeed staying on the beach.

A long time ago, I took my eighth graders to Ireland for a little over a week.  While in Dublin, we lost track of our tour guide.  I had just been to Dublin the year before and knew it fairly well, so I left the group at a restaurant with the other teacher, jogged across town to a visitor’s center, booked time at two different churches for the afternoon, and led my own architectural tour.  At first we told the kids that this was totally planned; we meant to take a little break from Mike the non-helpful tour guide.  But on our way to the first church, the kids were acting up on the sidewalk so I took them into a courtyard and leveled with them.

“You guys, we’ve lost the tour guide.  I’m not worried because we all have to end up at the hotel tonight, and I have planned the most rockin’ afternoon for us.  But I need you to pull it together and act for the rest of the day exactly as one would act if they knew the adults in their group were in over their heads.  In other words, help us out.”

Without another word, the students organized themselves into two single file lines.  For the next six hours or so until we got back to the hotel, they were perfectly behaved and perfectly quiet.  They took pages of notes while I spoke.

That was exactly what our kids did, but they did it without the speech.  Without the missing tour guide.  They just somehow sensed that the adults were in over their heads and they pulled their shit together for the entire trip (with the exception of a few moments here and there.  They are, after all, kindergarteners).

I didn’t think it was possible, but it made me love them all even more.

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And now the blogs…

But first, second helpings of the posts that appeared in the open comment thread last week.  In order to read the description before clicking over, please return to the open thread:

• “We Share the Same Ominverse, Please Clean Your Room” (The Guild of Knitting Kninjas)
• “I Don’t Have a Title for This…” (The Bloggess)
• “Worth It” (Two Kayaks)
• “Bite Me” (Baby, Interrupted)
• “Enjoy the Ride” (Dear Stevie)
• “Sadness is My Boychick (or Girlchick)” (Raising My Boychick)
• “Understanding and Supporting Pregnancy Loss” (The R House)
• “Dos and Do Nots” (The R House)
• “The Grieving Process” (The R House)
• “The Other Side” (Bio Girl)
• There was another post, though the blog was password protected, so I couldn’t link to it.

Okay, now my choices this week.

I also thought Baby, Interrupted’s post “Bite Me” was amazing.  The post meanders a bit, and you read it wondering how everything ties together, and the ending packs a huge punch.  I was especially moved by her comparison to helping someone give birth and helping someone die.

Waiting in Sunshine has a post about what a gallon of milk means to her.  How it became a symbol through her infertility journey.  And how life has changed — from being able to go food shopping without feeling that pang of sadness in the dairy section to the joy she feels at purchasing her own gallon of milk.

Les Terres Fertiles has a post about starting a new cycle.  She admits: “I know what at least part of the problem is.  I’m one of those people who builds things up in my mind and heart so much.  I expect so much and I hang all my hopes on something doing what I want it to do when I want it to be done.  I know this just sets me up for let-down.”  And yet, how can you talk your heart out of feeling something?

Lastly, Slowmamma has a post about seeing into two worlds.  While she can give advice to others about having a second child, she can’t apply the same advice to herself.  She knows too damn much and the same rules don’t apply.  It’s about finding beauty and happiness in your own reality as well as finding beauty and happiness in another person’s reality.

The roundup to the Roundup: Thank you for the therapy.  Great beach trip.  And lots of great blog posts to read.  So what did you find this week?  Please use a permalink to the blog post (written between July 1st and July 8th) and not the blog’s main url. Not understanding why I’m asking you what you found this week?  Read the original open thread post here.

Welcome back, Free Therapists.  I am so glad you guys don’t charge an hourly rate.  And you let me unload this crap from my head.

Over spring break, I went on a day trip to Salem with my sister and our families.  I wanted to see the House of Seven Gables, not realizing until we arrived that it was a formal tour vs. a do-it-yourself-old-fashioned-gawk.  I was very pro-gawk and not so into a formal tour, so we all used the bathrooms before hitting the road again. (My sister is very patient with me when I do shit such as drag everyone across the city to see the House of Seven Gables.  I am lucky to have her.)

As we waited for the last batch of our group to finish peeing, we were examining a sign of the top ten houses in America according to architects, counting off which ones we had seen.  They were Falling Water, the Gamble House, Monticello, Taliesen West, Biltmore, Mar-a-lago, the Breakers, Hearst Castle (San Simeon), The House of the Seven Gables, and the Glass House.

Falling Water.

It’s a gorgeous space and part of me would love to take the kids there, but we have never been back to the Deep Creek Lake area since it became a location casualty.  It’s up there with crickets, mayonnaise, and zombies — three things I absolutely can’t deal with.  I’m not sure if you also have these places, but there are two spaces on earth that have been ruined for me, and I can’t even think about them without getting a physical sensation of dread.  I would rather hang out with the snake than go to either of these places, and they’re the Deep Creek Lake area and Bucks County. (Apologies to people who live in either of these spaces.  It’s not the space itself — it’s what happened there.)

I have had to go back to Bucks County many times since and it’s always awful.  I spend the entire trip mentally back in the overwhelming depression I experienced when the place was ruined for me.  Therefore, I haven’t forced myself to confront Deep Creek Lake.  If I know that it upsets me to go to Bucks County, to feel the remnants of my depression again*, why would I choose to go to Deep Creek Lake? (To explain — we don’t choose to go to Bucks County.  We have to go in order to visit people who have started to go there years after the space was ruined for us.  I’m sure they have no idea the thoughts going through our heads while we’re there.)

And then I thought about the fact that my kids would grow up, just a short drive from these two incredible architectural feats and they would never see them due to my fears.  Which seemed silly when I put it in those terms.  Surely I could suck it up for a weekend and take them on the trip.  What’s the worst that would happen?  I’d feel crappy and stare out the window and cry?  It’s not like they haven’t seen that before.  And what’s the best that could happen?  Just like those marches that are meant to take back the night, I could wrest control of the space.  Reclaim it again in an “I Will Survive” moment.

But is it worth it?  And how do I determine worth?

I’ve written about this Real World episode before which I always mentally return to when I need to make a decision like this.

There was a Real World episode — Real World London (where people stop being polite and start getting real) — where the 7 roommates had to complete an Outward Bound-like course. One of the activities was jumping from a platform to catch a pole/branch: a trapeez-like move. It was a psychological thing because you were rigged up with ropes, and you wouldn’t actually fall to the ground. But it was nerve-wracking to jump forward off the platform, even knowing you couldn’t get hurt.

Person after person got up on the platform and jumped. Finally, it was Sharon’s turn and even though she had seen person after person jump and not get hurt (even when they missed the branch), she couldn’t do it. She got up there and cried, and they cut to all of the roommates talking about her behind her back in the “Confession” room and then back to them cheering her on and finally, after many minutes of screen time and cajoling, she jumped, missed the branch, was fine, and it was time for the next person to go.

Neil was sitting below the tree and looked up at the platform and said something to the effect of “Nah, I’m not going to do it. I don’t like heights and I gain nothing at the end of this activity except to say that I conquered a fear I didn’t need to conquer. Think I’ll sit this one out.”

And everyone was pissed at him, but he calmly shrugged in a way that said that he wasn’t going to budge or be bullied into trying something he didn’t want to do. And I have to admit that this Real World scene has played over and over again in my head since 1994, always there in the background when I am pushing myself to do something I don’t want to do “just because.”

It is, of course, cowardly. We’re taught brave is good and cowardly is bad. But why? Really — do we need to always push ourselves and work through fears? It would be great if we could all grab life by the balls and never let fear get in our way, but so many other things get in our way, why not fear too?

It’s not a decision I need to make immediately.  I could sit on it for a year.  Or eight.  Or I could just suck it up and throw them in the car and let them see the house that architects have determined is the most influential space on architectural creativity in America.  It’s a low-stakes fear, one that I don’t need to get over because the stimuli is highly avoidable.  And I miserably suck-it-up and visit Bucks County once a year, though the lead-up to it is always terrible.  So I can do it, if push comes to shove.

But how many of our fears do we really need to get over?  It’s sad that I won’t take my kids there, but it’s not a tragedy.  I’m not keeping them from their passion.  I’m just keeping them from a really cool experience.

*I’m obviously whitewashing the extent of how I felt when I label it “depression.”  I was sad all over the place during infertility.  I was in emotional hell when I was in Deep Creek Lake and Bucks County.  But for the sake of the twins possibly reading this in the future, let’s just label my emotional state at that time ambiguous “depression.”

You have officially steered me away from hermit crab hell — thank you.  I’m not sure which pet we will get, but I can promise you that it will not molt or cannibalize its friends.  We have a pretty low bar to clear at our house, but those two facts about hermit crabs do not clear the bar.

Anyway.

It’s free therapy week at Stirrup Queens.  So settle in, Free Therapists.  Hunker down in your cushy armchair.

We went to a baseball game last week — a Frederick Keys game, which is a minor league team.  When we got home, I reached into my pockets to empty them and found that while my house keys and thumb drive were there as well as a handful of change, my car key was missing.

Josh had his own copy of the car key and had used that one to get us home, hence how I could travel all the way to our house without noticing that it was missing.  I mentally went through the day, trying to remember any time that I actually used my copy of the key, and the only thing we could come up with was that it fell out of my pocket when I handed my house keys to the kids.  At Frederick Keys games, there is a point where you are supposed to hold up your keys and shake them.  Which meant that my car key was somewhere at Harry Grove Stadium.

All in all, this was a fairly low-stakes loss, all things considered.  Either it would be turned in by the cleaning crew to lost-and-found or it wouldn’t.  If it was found, I could pick it up this week because I had another copy of the key and still had access to my car.  If it was lost permanently, I could get another copy from the dealer.  It was an inconvenience, but a situation that was completely fixable with the cost of a little time or money.

And yet whenever I lose something, whether it is an item of value or a misplaced copy of a CD that I could easily burn another copy of within minutes, I get the same looping anxiety reaction.  I replay my steps in my head, I run around the house looking in highly unlikely places on the chance of a “what if.”  I literally can’t focus on anything else until the lost item is found.  I gave up a writing day trying to locate a video tape recently.  I literally spent the entire afternoon going through random boxes around the house.

Losing something becomes like a burn on my hand.  I can put the ice on and it numbs it temporarily, but the moment the bag of ice comes off, my skin is buzzing again.  And that is how my mind works with missing items.  I can be distracted, but the moment my brain shakes off the distraction, it returns to obsessing about the lost item.

This has only gotten worse over time.  Now it extends to missing computer files or forgotten words.  I can obsess for hours over a word I can’t remember.  Or if I can’t recall a name, but I can remember exactly what the person looks like.

I need to feel like everything that is mine (owned knowledge, tangible items or people) is here and in its proper place in order to relax and let go.

Am I the only one?  Is it a fear of aging and growing forgetful — a natural byproduct of old age?  Is it an outgrowth of loss?  Clear your throats and analyze.

The end of the story: I begged Josh to go outside with a flashlight and search the ground in case I dropped them on my way into the house that night.  He found them on the floor of the car.  No explanation of how they went from my pocket to the floor of the car, but what was lost was found.  Though I also know that finding this item will do nothing to stave off looping thoughts the next time I lose something.

Someone just asked me my favourite author, and it just occurred to me that I don’t have favourite authors insomuch as I have favourite characters and I’m willing to follow them anywhere, through any series.  I can’t think of one person that I would literally read anything they wrote beyond Josh.

I love Harry Potter, and I’d follow him or some of the other characters through a new series.  But if JK Rowling started writing books set during the Civil War, I can’t say that I’d follow along (nothing against the Civil War; it’s just not my cup of tea time-period-wise).  I like Neil Gaiman, but there are a bunch of books I’m currently avoiding because the plotline doesn’t interest me even though I know in his capable hands, he’d probably make me interested if I could just leap past the first few pages.

I also don’t have a favourite musician.  I can’t think of any musician where I own everything they’ve done.  I tend to wax and wane through a musician’s career — even the bands I love the most tend to have whole albums here and there that don’t interest me.  I also don’t have a favourite actor.  I can’t think of any actor that I would follow into any movie regardless of plot. (Again, sorry anyone who makes films set during the Civil War.)

Just me?  Is there any fine artist (writer, musician, actor) you would follow through to any place and back without a moment’s thought?  Or are you more tied to characters and particular albums?

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I feel like I always sound old when I use the term “album.”  That’s probably not the correct word anymore.  Or is it?  Will albums always be albums regardless of the medium (record, CD, digital download) used?

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We are getting a pet hermit crab this week unless y’all talk me out of it.  I have agreed to this because it seems like a good starter pet for two children who claim they’re going to feed and love a guinea pig but have a terrible track record of follow-through.  We’ll start with a hermit crab and work our way up to things with fur.

But it occurred to me after I agreed to the hermit crab that I have no idea how to care for a hermit crab.  Do they need a companion?  Live better alone?  What do they eat?  And… er… how long do they live?

So I Google hermit crab care and found not only a handful of websites where people have an intense (I am talking INTENSE) love of hermit crabs, but also some fairly scary facts such as the fact that pet hermit crabs can live easily to 25 years (those not in captivity can live longer).  This doesn’t sounds correct.  I don’t know anyone who is still caring for a hermit crab after their children leave for college.

I don’t want to sound cold and I certainly don’t want a dead hermit crab on my hands, but I also don’t know how I feel about caring for a hermit crab when I’m in my sixties.  Can you imagine me leaving the mah jongg table because I have to get back to the hermit crab?

So, um, could anyone give me any insight on hermit crabs as pets.  What they eat, what they’re like, and er… how long they live?

I keep a pack of post-it notes on my bedside table where I jot down thoughts either so I can place them somewhere and get to sleep or because they seem so brilliant at 3 am that I know I will want to cogitate on them in the morning.  Half of the plotlines in the books are jotted down on those post-it notes.

And then there are the gems that are unearthed in the morning or whenever I page back through the chunk of sticky notes.  Such as this random one:

Creamy caramelized onion soup

He had spent equal amounts of time thinking about how to get out as he had trying to stay in.

Foer told me to rub the soap around the leg but children rub soap up and down.

I didn’t remember the dream until after I read about it again on the post-it note pad, but I had a dream where Joshua Foer (author of Moonwalking with Einstein and fellow Washingtonian) pointed out that children always rub soap in an up-and-down fashion over their bodies even though parents bathing them since birth circle the soap around each body part.  It was supposed to be a deep parenting discussion.  I’ve never met Joshua since he was so far behind me in school, and I’m not even sure he has children nor thinks about their soaping habits.  Nor do I think that my dream Joshua Foer was onto something even if I have enjoyed what I’ve read so far of Moonwalking with Einstein.  Nor do I think, if he does by chance read this, that he should begin analyzing children’s soaping habits.

It’s not the dream that is the point at all.

It’s the fact that I found it important enough to write that down on a note at 3 am.

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My Josh (the one of playwriting but not book or soap-analyzing fame) decided recently that he’s now a Nationals fan.  He has not left behind his love of the Yankees, but he’s ready to commit to a DC team and it’s going to be the Nats.

It’s been slowly building over time, but his love is now spilling over and he has become obsessed with watching the Nats.  I was (note the past tense) not a baseball fan at all — I’m not a fan of any sport — but I decided to become a Nats fan too in solidarity.  Except that I skipped over normal fandom and went straight to superfandom.

If Josh is willing to zinc oxide his skin red, white, and blue, I am willing to get a permanent tattoo on my face in the same colours. (He has promised me that I will still need sunscreen if I do this and it will be very expensive, so I’m holding off for the time being.)  He will wear a Nats t-shirt.  I will shave a W into my hair.  He will call encouraging things to the players on the television screen.  I will scream obscenities at the screen.

See?  Superfan.

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And now the blogs…

But first, second helpings of the posts that appeared in the open comment thread last week.  In order to read the description before clicking over, please return to the open thread:

• “Am I Delusional?” (Diaries by Lucy)
• “When a Tori Amos Song is Really What You Mean” (Creating Motherhood)
• “After Life” (Here We Go Again)
• “In Heaven” (Mrs. Spit… Still Spouting Off)
• “An Unusual Father’s Day Blessing” (Four of a Kind)
• “For Better or For Worse” (Once a Mother)
• “Growing Old(er) Gracefully” (What I Really Meant to Say)

Okay, now my choices this week.

Hannah Wept, Sarah Laughed has a post called “At a Loss for Words” about the thought process she goes through before she posts something.  She explains that as much as she can be outspoken, there are plenty of topics she doesn’t write about; things she worries will offend someone reading her blog.  The side effects of this are far-reaching, but she deals with the inherent problems of censoring herself because of her fear of failure.  It’s a really interesting read, and I’m positive she’s not the only person who feels this way.

Bio Girl has a post about jealousy when she sees large families at the pool.  She explains: “Those babies are not MY baby. They have nothing to do with me. They are hopefully very wanted and loved, just like my baby would be. But somehow yesterday it felt different. It felt painful. Any maybe because leading up to this point, we had a plan. We were still working out OUR baby.”  It’s about trying to be happy with your current life while releasing the old dreams.

Not a Fertile Myrtle has a post about getting a tattoo with two other infertile women.  It’s a good story, but I also love the ending: “I can’t tell you how much I love these ladies.  That’s one thing I’m glad infertility gave me… their friendship.  Now I just need to tell my mom that I got a tattoo!  Any suggestions?”

Lastly, Small Bird Studios has a post about revisiting the emotions of losing her daughter.  She has been gone for two years, but she can still re-enter those feelings.  She writes, “More than two years later when I let myself FEEL again for her loss – even for a moment, the longing has not dulled one bit.  It’s a good place to be momentarily.  To remember.  To cry.  To feel.  To embrace the storm that visited my life.”  It’s a beautiful, heartbreaking post.

The roundup to the Roundup: My best writing takes place at 3 am.  I have become a Nationals Superfan.  And lots of great blog posts to read.  So what did you find this week?  Please use a permalink to the blog post (written between June 24 and July 1) and not the blog’s main url. Not understanding why I’m asking you what you found this week?  Read the original open thread post here.