Study in yellows

nbtb-study in yellows

I.

Jane: When I have my next mid-life crisis, I’m totally getting a Vespa scooter.

Flora: What did you do the last time you had a mid-life crisis?

Cinder: The less said about that the better.

I kind of agree, but I whack him on the head with my purse (not full of rocks) anyway.

Cinder: But you know, you won’t. You’ll do the math, and you’ll go on a trip instead.

Yeah. Probably. But on my trip—I’m gonna ride a Vespa scooter…

(In a garish, girly colour. Lime green. Hot pink. Sunshine yellow. Oh yeah.)

You: Not a Harley?

Me: Been her, over that.

II.

I’m working in a café, and there is a table of three women near me mapping out a strategy for their business. It will be immensely successful. Because of the youngest chica in the group, the most intense, most passionate, most dominant one.

Except… that youngest chica? The most intense, most talented one? I’m pretty sure she’s going to drop dead of a heart attack by 35. I want to prescribe meditation. Medication. Or a torrid love affair.

Maybe a Vespa. She looks like she’s due for an early mid-life crisis…

III.

Why, yes, I have decided that writing blog posts in very short Roman-numeral numbered verses is my new thing. I’m doing it for your ADD.

And perhaps, mine.

IV.

Ender: Mama-my-mama-mia-mama, FEED ME NOW!

Jane: Will! You! Stop! Yelling! At! Me!

Ender: I! Can’t! Help! It! When! I’m! Quiet! You! Don’t! Listen!

Fuck.

Busted.

V.

Sean: Does it count as date night if we’re both sitting next to each other at the kitchen table working on the same project on our two different laptops?

Jane: Yes. So long as we’re drinking wine, yes.

VI.

Have you ever noticed how, when you have so much work to do it’s overwhelming, paralyzing, and you’re pretty sure there is no way in hell you will ever get it done, instead of attacking it in small, manageable chunks, you kind of ignore the whole thing and decide THIS is the weekend to paint the kitchen?

No? Never mind then.

xoxo

“Jane”

“The child weaned from mother’s milk…”

I.

“Don’t grieve. Anything you lose comes round
in another form. The child weaned from mother’s milk
now drinks wine and honey mixed.”

Rumi

Rumi’s translator, Coleman Barks, calls the poem that begins with these lines “Unmarked Boxes.” It resonates.

II.

Confession: I’ve just read my first parenting book in near a decade (see The Day I Stopped Reading Parenting Books): Anthony Wolf’s I’d Listen to My Parents If Only They’d Shut Up: What To Say And What Not To Say When Parenting Teens.

This is not, incidentally, a book review, but if it was, it would say, “It has good parts. It has bad parts. Read with a critical filter, take what’s useful, discard the rest.”

III.

I have a teenager now. I am still as much in love with him as I was with the newborn who woke me up every two hours. I will be more frustrated with him than I was with the toddler who pummeled everyone in sight… but that’s fine. That’s part of the package (It doesn’t get easier). My love for him has redefined how I understand, feel, experience love. Myself. The universe. I love him, unconditionally, and I will love him, unconditionally, until my experience of the universe ends.

Here’s something most parents don’t want to hear: he doesn’t love me unconditionally. No child loves a parent unconditionally. Meditate on that.

IV.

Whenever you tell me you love me. I think about what you might possibly feel for me, and what I think I feel for you, and compare it against what I feel for this child, for his siblings, and… if that is love, this is not.

You: Semantics. Always, with the fucking semantics.

Me: Words are important.

You: “What language does so spectacularly is lie, that silver-tongued projector of illusions.” That’s Coleman Barks, so you know it’s true.

Me: Fucking poets. Always telling the truth with their lies.

V.

That Rumi poem, the next line, it goes,

“God’s joy moves from unmarked box to unmarked box…”

(I was going to be a petty atheist and replace the first words with an ellipsis. But, I didn’t.)

I’m not sure about the metaphor. Is my son an unmarked box? Am I? Mostly, I am very literal—and there are still three unmarked boxes of loss in the space where I create.

VI.

I make my nocturnal teenager crepes and carry them up to his bedroom two hours short of his preferred waking time of noon.

Cinder: Best! Mother! Ever!

Jane: I know. Now wake up and get your sibs out of the house so I can work!

xoxo

“Jane”

photo (14)

P.S. Rumi, same poem: “I don’t want to make anyone fearful / Hear what’s behind what I say.”

Mosaic II

NBTB-mosaic ii

I.

What happens today is that I’m spending some time thinking about one year ago, but no time at all thinking about one year from now, which, on the whole, is an improvement.

And I’m not thinking about one year ago that much. Just a little. And mostly, the memory is accentuating my gratitude for today. Which is as it should be, right?

One year ago, I was 365 days poorer.

II.

“Moooom! Look! I made a giant poop in the toilet! I made you a birthday POOP!”

“Oh, sweetheart! I! Am! So! Happy!”

…and if your five-year-old had undergone a more-than-two-year-long toilet training regression, you too would think this is the best birthday present ever.

III.

Twenty years ago, I turned 21 at an R.E.M. concert.

IV.

In this precise moment, I’m listening to Leonard Cohen (but not crying) because instead of sitting in the bathtub in the dark, I’m sitting on my balcony in the sunshine, drinking Awake! tea and feeling mildly guilty—but not really—about all the work I didn’t do today. But fuck it, it’s my birthday and +22 and sunny and so, no. Instead, I roast hot dogs with my kids over a firepit for lunch while wearing my new dress (thank you, baby, your taste is immaculate) and I listen to that song again (oh, yes) and my fingers are covered with all the new shades of pastels I now have to play with and I don’t look in the laundry room once.

But I do the dishes and clean the kitchen. Because. Adult.

Leonard Cohen is telling me it’s closing time and to lift my glass to the awful truth which you can’t revealed to the Ears of Youth, and I laugh. There’s a note in my in-box from an editor, asking me if I’d like to spin a column about the rates (high) of depression among Millennials in the workplace.

Meh. Today, only give me cheery things.

xoxo

“Jane”

Mosaic

I.

I am 3,400 km away, and my phone pings, and it’s Flora, and she writes:

Ender was being a pain in the butt so we had to lock all the doors and he escaped with Maggie so Cinder got Ender and gave him to me and he went to get Maggie so we have now locked all the doors to keep them inside

I laugh. And write,

Oh, no. But well done.

And then text Sean:

When are you coming home?

He’s five minutes away. It’s all good.

II.

I am working out of town this week, and my village is looking after my children and my fam, and it’s okay, they’re okay, I’m okay.

Ping. It’s Flora.

We just got back from a walk at Bragg Creek we found a really cool rock

I send her a picture of me in a boardroom, surrounded by piles of papers.

This is what I did today!

(There are photos of pretty, shiny things I could send her, but I don’t want her to think I’m having too much fun without her, you know?)

She’s not impressed.

“wow so fun”

the sarcasm drips from the texted letters.

What she doesn’t know: it sort of is…

III.

The cab driver wants to know how old my children are. “Almost 13, 10, and 5.5,” I tell him. Funny thing: I have to scrunch up my forehead to think about their “numbers,” as Ender always puts it. (Not “How old am I,” ever, but “Mom? What’s my number? How many am I?”). Ender’s number is 5, closer to 6 than to five now. And Cinder, Cinder. Almost 13. I’m about to become the mother of a teenager. How is that possible?

When I swing by his office, the ‘elder statesman’ asks me the same thing. “Almost 13, 10, and 5.5,” I say easily, prepped by the cabbie.

“Do you remember,” he says, “the first time you interviewed me, you brought your baby with you?”

“Really?” I say. “Which one?” We laugh. I think it must have been Flora. She who could not bear to be out of my arms or far from the nipple for the first three years of her life, and who thus lived in wraps and slings and puked on several Armani suites (and once in someone’s gym bag) as I went from interview to interview…

But it might have been Cinder, who had his diaper changed in dozens of Bay Street boardroom, and who once peed on my publisher’s carpet…

IV.

Gods, in this moment, I miss them so much there is a searing pain in my belly in my heart between my eyes.

V.

But in this very next moment, life throws down the gauntlet and I leap at it, grab it, and run with it, and I am so happy, so alive, so me, I don’t even think of them at all…

VI.

A text from Flora:

3 days down! 2 to go. We miss you so much, Mommy!

VII.

The thing is—this is THE thing, THE secret—I wouldn’t be nearly as good at my job if I didn’t have them, love them, miss them. If I didn’t exist in this constant state of tension-negotiation-trepidation, if everything I did wasn’t a weighted judgement call, if my reality did not consist of consequences-chaos-choices-a-tightrope-of-demands-screw-this-I’m-taking-a-break-NOW-oh-no-I’m-not-DEADLINE… if I didn’t live at the intersection of all these frictions, fragments, conflicts… I wouldn’t be the writer I am.

(Nor the type of mother I am, for better or for worse.)

I wouldn’t think the way I do, negotiate the way I do, perform the way I do…

The tension, the chaos, the anxiety are my fuel as much as they are a challenge, an obstacle and a distraction.

Sometimes, there’s too much…

…but when there’s nothing? When it is all calm and tranquil?

I’m bored.

I’m boring.

Flat, unmotivated, unmoving, unproductive.

VIII.

Up at 5 a.m., in cab by 5:30, boarding by 6:20. Caffenaiting. Meeting one, two, three, four. Yawn. More coffee. Run. Think. Juggle. Ping.

Good morning, mom.

Heart swells.

Good morning, little love. Look at the view from my “office” today!

Meeting five, six. I am running a marathon, I am adrenaline, I am so exhausted, watch me collapse—I would draw a bath but I’m worried I might be so tired I might drown in it, ah,screw it, I’ll probably live.

IX.

(I lived.)

X.

They will all be waiting for me at the airport, and I will drown in their love.

I will be exhausted. But also: motivated, moving, productive.

Juggling. Always juggling. Appreciating, celebrating the tension, the chaos, the anxiety as my fuel. And dancing on the tightrope.

For a while, anyway.

xoxo,

“Jane”

nbtb-mosaic

“There is no such thing as reproduction” + “Our children are not us”

I’ve just started reading this: Far From The Tree: Parents, Children, and the Search for Identity by Andrew Solomon (2012), and I think you will enjoy it. Listen, this is how it opens:

 There is no such thing as reproduction. When two people decide to have a baby, they engage in an act of production, and the widespread use of the word reproduction for this activity, with its implication that two people are but braiding themselves together, is at best a euphemism to comfort prospective parents before they get in over their heads.

In the subconscious fantasies that make conception look so alluring, it is often ourselves that we would like to see live forever, not someone with a personality of his own. Having anticipated the onward march of our selfish genes, many of us are unprepared for children who present unfamiliar needs.

Parenthood abruptly catapults us into a permanent relationship with a stranger...

We depend on the guarantee in our children’s faces that we will not die. Children whose defining quality annihilates that fantasy of immortality are a particular insult; we must love them for themselves, and not of the best of ourselves in them, and that is a great deal harder to do.

Loving our children is an exercise for the imagination.

…

Our children are not us: they carry throwback genes and recessive traits and are subject right from the start to environmental stimuli beyond our control. And yet we are our children: the reality of being a parent never leaves those who have braved the metamorphosis.

The book examines horizontal identities and… love. Ruminate.

xoxo

“Jane”

nbtb-Ender running by river

P.S. This is what I will be reading next: This is The Story of a Happy Marriage by Ann Patchett. Because, this:

“The tricky thing about being a writer, or about being any kind of artist, is that in addition to making art you also have to make a living. My short stories and novels have always filled my life with meaning, but, at least in the first decade of my career, they were no more capable of supporting me than my dog was. But part of what I love about both novels and dogs is that they are so beautifully oblivious to economic concerns. We serve them, and in return they thrive. It isn’t their responsibility to figure out where the rent is coming from.”

and, this:

In my mind, fiction and nonfiction stayed so far away from each other that for years I would have maintained they had no more a relationship than fiction and waitressing. … But I’ve come to realize that while all those years of writing fiction had improved my craft as a writer across the board, all those years of writing articles … had made me a workhorse, and that, in turn, was a skill I brought back to my novels.

and, fuck, this:

“For me it’s like this: I make up a novel in my head (there will be more about this later). This is the happiest time in the arc of my writing process. The book is my invisible friend, omnipresent, evolving, thrilling… This book I have not yet written one word of is a thing of indescribable beauty, unpredictable in its patterns, piercing in its color, so wild and loyal in its nature that my love for this book, and my faith in it as I track its lazy flight, is the single perfect joy in my life. It is the greatest novel in the history of literature, and I have thought it up, and all I have to do is put it down on paper and then everyone can see this beauty that I see.

And so I do. When I can’t think of another stall, when putting it off has actually become more painful than doing it, I reach up and pluck the butterfly from the air. I take it from the region of my head and I press it down against my desk, and there, with my own hand, I kill it. It’s not that I want to kill it, but it’s the only way I can get something that is so three-dimensional onto the flat page. Just to make sure the job is done I stick it into place with a pin. Imagine running over a butterfly with an SUV. Everything that was beautiful about this living thing — all the color, the light and movement — is gone. What I’m left with is the dry husk of my friend, the broken body chipped, dismantled, and poorly reassembled. Dead. That’s my book.”

Interlude: May Sarton on fallowness

“I always forget how important the empty days are, how important it may be sometimes not to expect to produce anything, even a few lines in a journal. I am till pursued by a neurosis about work inherited from my father. A day where one has not pushed oneself to the limit seems a damaged, damaging day. Not so. The most valuable thing we can do for the psyche, occasionally is to let it rest, wander, live in the changing light of a room.”

May Sarton, Journal of Solitude

Stumbling On Happiness: First, find a squished beetle…

NBTB-Stumbling on Happiness

So she writes and says, “You haven’t been funny in a while, whazzup?” And I get all defensive and spittle goes out the corners of my mouth—she’s so lucky she’s writing from far away and not sitting across from me. But then I think… haven’t I? Perhaps not. It’s probably Joan Didion’s fault. That, and too much poetry, not enough television. That’s it. Ok. Funny. Funny, funny, funny. I haven’t forgotten how to do funny. Here you go, love:

I.

So we’re walking down the street in the coolest ‘hood in YYC and they’re skipping and I’m skipping and all of a sudden Flora’s in tears, tears, tears, because—squished click beetle, so-very-dead, on the sidewalk.

Cinder: “Look! Another sign of spring!”

And that just makes it worse of course, tears, tears, what to say, wah, I don’t know, must say something, so I say…

Jane: “Sweetheart. Don’t cry. Someone will eat it and it will be part of…”

Flora: “Ugh! That is so gross!”

Cinder: “Betcha Ender will eat it.”

Ender: “Eat what?”

Cinder: “The dead beetle.”

Ender: “Mmmm… maybe?”

Jane: “I meant a bird or something! Not one of you!”

Flora: “Are you sure, Mom? Cause you’re kinda disgusting…”

And also, tricky. D’you see what I did there? Tears—gone.

Click beetle—not eaten by one of my children. But it’s not there when we walk back.

Jane: “See? Someone ate it.”

Cinder: “I bet it was that guy. Look—he’s a-chewing something…”

Ew, ew, ew.

Birds. I’m sure it was birds.

II.

Wow, I think that was it. I. Got. Nothing.

Too much poetry.

III.

…

yeah… nuthin. Nuthin, nuthin, nuthin funny coming out.

Sorry.

xoxo

“Jane”

PS I’ve just finished reading Daniel Gilbert’s Stumbling on Happiness—brilliant, get it, read it, devour it—and, here, have a joke on Dan:

Two psychologists walk into a bar. One says. “You’re fine. How am I?”

Funny? I don’t know. But this video by Gilbert is funny AND it will tell you why you keep on making choices that don’t make ya’ happy. It won’t tell you how to stop doing that… but, you know. He had to save something for the book:

Original Gilbert TED talk on TED

PS2 Actually, if you’re gonna read the book because you want to make better choices, let me save you some time: you’re kinda screwed, you’re not gonna… but at least you’ll know why. And it’s fatalistic. But if you’re not gonna read the book, at least read this: The Psychology of Your Future Self.

PS3 Why are you still here? Go get off your laptop or ‘fone, find a squished click beetle, stake it out, and see who eats it…

Days of the Week

I.

Yesterday was the day I wanted to brush Ender’s hair. (I do brush their hair, sometimes.)

Jane: Where the hell is the hairbrush? … OK, so I last brushed your hair, right here, in the middle of the living room. Um… what are the odds that I would have taken it back upstairs to the bathroom?

Cinder: Pretty much zero.

Flora: That doesn’t sounds like something you’d do.

Ender: Didn’t you throw it across the room because you got so mad at me?

We find it. In the Lego tub.

Jane: I definitely did not put it there.

Flora: Don’t look at me.

Cinder: It was probably Ender.

Ender: Sounds like something I would do. So Mom couldn’t find it.

II.

Today is the day that I explain to the children that reading a 700 page book of poetry backwards-and-at-random while listening to Leonard Cohen is something I NEED to do for WORK. IT’s WORK, dammit.

Flora: It. So. Is. Not.

Jane: Pretend it’s the Government of Canada’s Technical Guidance on Reporting Greenhouse Gas Emissions and LEAVE ME ALONE!

III.

Monday was the day I locked myself in my office (it’s a metaphor; I don’t actually have a door) (I don’t exactly have an office either) (but whatever, I make it work) (it works) (I work) (I write) with Philip Larkin, Mary Oliver, Anne Lamott and The Edge Foundation’s favourite maverick scientists* and then, for a while, abandoned them all for Sufi poets and philosophers. I sucked on the end of a fountain pen I was not using and threw chocolate wrappers at my computer screen, and called it work.

Intermittently, Sean brought me down food, coffee and chocolate.

He didn’t once ask—“Did you finish?”

Nor, “Did you start?”

IV.

Tomorrow is the day Stella’s mom looks after my children in the morning and afternoon and Baby M’s mom will look after Stella in the evening because that’s the way the web of a community works.

V.

Sunday is never a day of rest. But I stop moving, for a while. I have a bath in the dark, with Leonard Cohen.

Ender: Mom? Where are you? Mom? Come outside with me?

Jane: I’m in the bath. Not wearing any clothes. So, um… no.

Ender: Are you crying? Why are you crying?

Fact: You can’t listen to Leonard Cohen in the dark and not cry.

Fact: You can’t cry in front of your children FOR WHATEVER REASON and not freak them out.

Ender: Daaaaddddyyy! Mommy’s crying in the bathroom!

Sean: Um… Jane?

Jane: I’m fine. I’m listening to Leonard Cohen.

Sean: Wouldn’t you rather listen to some happier music?

Jane: No!

I turn on the lights, dry off, get dressed, and take Ender outside. I’m not done NOT moving yet. I lie on the brown, damp grass, soak up the sun.

VI.

Saturday was the day on which Flora slept over at Frederica’s house and Stella had a sleep-over with Ender, and we played Cards Against Humanity and laughed and when the night ended my lungs hurt and maybe, possibly I had broken a rib.

VII.

Monday. Tuesday. Wednesday. Thursday. Friday. Saturday. Sunday. They blur and knock into each other and I try to find their rhythm and sometimes I do, but too often it eludes me. An email, phone call in the morning sabotages everything.

You: But you thrive on chaos, right?

Me: That story is running out of juice…

VIII.

Today or tomorrow or maybe yesterday, I will go for a walk with Rumi in my pocket and try to photograph the wind.

IX.

Cinder: What are we having for supper today?

Jane: Oh, fuck. Probably… food. What’s in the fridge?

Flora: Food. An assortment of food.

Jane: Good. Food. We’re having food for supper.

Flora: Some of it’s slimy.

Cinder: Don’t worry. If it’s gross, I’ll bake cookies after.

X.

Today’s the day everything happens, and tomorrow’s the day it all begins again. And I can’t quite remember what happened yesterday. Right. I wanted to brush Ender’s hair, and couldn’t find the hairbrush. But then did.

I have to go now. Leonard Cohen wants me to take another bath with him.

xoxo

“Jane”

nbtb-days of the week

PS I now desire a Blue Raincoat.

*This Idea Must Die, edited by John Brockman (Harper Perennial 2015)

“Boys only want love if it’s torture…”

nbtb-boys only want love if its torture

I.

Snapshot: Flora and I are careening down Deerfoot, singing along to Taylor Swift’s Blank Space.

Now, you might infer from this that I like—the singer. Or the song.

Truth: I couldn’t care less. I live under a pop culture rock. I don’t think I could pick out Taylor Swift from a line up. And, thoroughly unmusical that I am, I can’t tell you whether the song’s good or bad. It just exists.

Fact: Flora, 10, LOVES it.

Truth: I LOVE her enjoyment of it. It thrills me.

I think: She loves that I love her loving it, and she’s thrilled that I’m singing along with her.

Truth: We love doing this silly loud thing TOGETHER.

Bonus: When we scream…

“Boys only want love if it’s torture
Don’t say I didn’t, I didn’t warn ya”

…the boy children in the back seat make puking-and-dying-noises.

Everyone’s happy. Win-win all around.

II.

Ender’s six-year-old friend Stella is staring with disapproval at Cinder, who’s standing on the kitchen table, in order to reach something way up on the wall.

Stella: Jane? I think you need to come up with some rules for your kids. Like, they shouldn’t stand on the table, and…

I actually have some rules. Such as… You must wear pants at the table—after the horrible penis-in-hot-soup incident—and no vermin at the table after the traumatic “I lost a mealworm… I think it’s in Daddy’s salad” incident.

And also: Do not make fun of things your siblings love. You don’t need to love Barney (gods know I don’t), because you’re a cool 12 year old, that’s fine. But don’t ruin your little brother’s enjoyment. Don’t mock it. Don’t dis it.

Say, “It’s not my thing.” “I don’t really enjoy that.” “Not to my taste.”

Not: “It’s stupid.” “It’s lame.” “I hate it.”

There are so many things my kids love to do that I really, really don’t enjoy.

Playing video games (any).

Watching iCarly.

Playing Munchkin.

Eating Jelly beans.

“Mom, will you play Battleship with me?”

“You know, sweetie, I don’t really enjoy that game. Could we play something else instead?”

But sometimes:

“Yes, I would love to watch iCarly with you. Tell me, who’s your favourite character? Why? Really? Why do you think she acts like that?”

(Just to be sure I’m not misrepresenting myself: Most of the time it’s—“I’d rather not.” But it’s never, “Why would you waste your time watching that stupid show?”)

(yes, sometimes… I really, really want to say that. But I don’t.)

III.

Flora: Are you watching Pride and Prejudice again?

Jane: No. Downton Abbey. It’s like Pride and Prejudice, except without the hot guy.

(Sorry. Dan Stevens can’t hold a candle to Colin Firth.)

Flora: Is it boring—I mean slow—like Pride and Prejudice? I mean, are there any murders and things in it?

Jane: Well… there’s deaths… but yeah, it’s pretty slow. I don’t think you’d like it right now.

Flora: Well, maybe when I get older I’ll like boring, I mean slow, stuff too and I’ll watch it with you.

Jane: I look forward to that.

Flora: Me too.

IV.

Jane: Boys only want love if it’s torture

Flora: Don’t say I didn’t, I didn’t warn ya

Cinder: Mooooooooom! Aaaaareeeee you trying to kill us?

Jane: No. Just torture you a little.

Cinder: It’s working! It’s working!

(It’s not necessarily that he hates the song. It might be that I’m a really bad singer. But you know. He won’t say THAT either.)

xoxo

“Jane”

 PS Want to sing along with us? Do:

It’s not negligent parenting. It’s sanity parenting

NBTB-Sanity Parenting

I.

Meet Stella. She’s six, and, for a few more weeks, an only child.

Stella: Eeeeeeender! You never share! You do not understand what sharing is! Sharing is when I want something, you GIVE IT TO ME!

So I pee myself laughing and text Stella’s mom. She ROLFs. “Is that my fault?” she asks. “Probably,” I tell her, because I’m a bitch.

II.

Stella: Ender wants to build a fort, but I don’t want to build a fort. I want to play Minecraft and Ender wants to watch Good Mythical Morning. We can’t agree on anything!

Jane: You guys are together for four hours today. I think you’ll have more fun if you find something you can agree on.

Stella: I’m not going to agree on anything TODAY!

Jane: Then I guess you’ll have a miserable day.

Stella: I! Will!

So here comes Flora, who can’t bear if anyone is determined to have a miserable day:

Flora: How about if you two…

And here comes the intercept by an un-helicopter mother:

Jane: Baby? This is so not your job or responsibility. You have things to do. If the littles do not want to play together, it is not your job to make them.

Flora: Is it yours?

Jane: Fuck, no. I have things to do too.

(20 minutes later, they’ve figured it out. Yes, there was screaming. But no blood. This time.)

III.

Stella: My mom is way nicer than you.

Jane: I know.

Stella: But you’re a way better cooker.

Ha. By the way, beloved, that’s because I feed them lemon meringue pie for lunch.

IV.

Today’s story does have a moral.

Do you see it?

If not, go meet he who became my new favourite love in the summer of 2014—and then come back, and read this piece again.

xoxo

“Jane”

From my inner bitch to yours, with love

nbtb-inner bitch

Do you remember, it was such a long time ago now, our big ones were our first-and-only ones, and we were walking and talking  and you said, “I just wish I knew, is it PPD or general incompetence or my inner bitch unleashed?” and I laughed and we pondered how much more breastfeeding there was ahead of us, because the inner bitch could sometimes be soothed into submission with an excess of wine?

(Do you remember, when that joke stopped being funny, the year that I said, “I think I’m drinking too much,” and you said, “Says who?” as you were pouring a glass of wine, and I cried and drank water and you drank wine and it was awkward, until it wasn’t?)

Do you remember—I’ve been thinking about this so much lately—do you remember all our discussions about mood and responsibility and agency and volition and choice and victimhood and “the only person over whose behaviour I have any control is myself”?

You: The only person over whose behaviour I have any control wants to throw the world’s most obscene, outrageous tantrum right now.

Me: Mine too. Shall we let them? Or will that be the end of the world?

It might be. So, instead, I ask your inner bitch if she wants to go for a walk with my inner bitch. I promise I won’t talk.

“It’s definitely not PPD now, is it,” you say, a little wistful, a little ashamed.

“Anomie, ennui, life?” I answer.

“You said you wouldn’t talk,” you snap. I stop. We walk.

There are places on my hill where you can go and walk and no one will see you cry, but you choose the most public paths. You want witnesses. To what? My silence? Your exertion of self-discipline?

It doesn’t matter.

Do you remember the first time we stood here and looked at this view? You don’t. Perhaps I don’t either. But I tell the story anyway. It involves squirting breastmilk, a diaper change gone bad, and toddler vomit on my shoes. You laugh. But then:

You: You said you wouldn’t talk.

Me: I’m sorry. I will be silent.

I remember when talking to you about mood and feeling and responsibility and vulnerability and frustration and fear and life and agency and volition and pain was the only thing that kept me sane. Do you remember?

And I remember when being silent with you, face wet with tears, was all I needed.

My inner bitch is here. Whenever you need to talk. Or walk in silence.

xoxo

“Jane”

“Love is disgusting.” But you knew that already.

nbtb-love is disgusting

I.

How I know he’s mine:

Jane: Cinder? Could you take out the recycling when your game’s over?

Cinder: Is it urgent?

Jane: Well… it’s not urgent right now, but the cupboard’s stuffed full and barely closing, and so next time someone opens it, all the recycling will flow out, screaming, “Freedom! Freedom!” and make a mess on the floor and…

Cinder: So how about, as soon as I hear it screaming, I take it out?

Jane: Ok. Works for me.

Cinder: Just so we understand each other—you’ll scream “Freedom! Freedom!” if you’re the one who opens the cupboard?

Jane: Yes.

Cinder: But you won’t do it on purpose. Only if you actually have to try to stuff something else in there.

Jane: Yes.

Cinder: Ok. Works for me.

II.

How I know she’s mine:

Flora: I can’t believe this. I! Can’t! Believe! This! The only likeable character in the book, and they kill him off—and there’s like a third of the book to go! What the hell? Who does that? What’s wrong with this writer? I am never, ever, EVER reading anything by this jerk again!

Jane: Where are you going?

Flora: I’m going to rewrite this chapter the way it should have been written!

III.

I don’t know where the hell he came from:

Ender: I! Love! Boogers! I! Love! My! Boogers! I! Love! Your! Boogers! I! Love! Everyone’s! Boogers! Sooooooo! Muuuuuuuch!

IV.

How they know they’re mine (even though they’re not):

Flora: He’s so disgusting.

Jane: It could be worse. When Cinder was his age? He used to feed you his boogers.

Flora: Jeezus, Mom, seriously? And you let him? What’s wrong with you?

Cinder: She didn’t let me. I mostly did it when she wasn’t looking. And only if you were awake.

Flora: That’s supposed to make me feel better?

Cinder: Well, at least I never puked on you, Ms Lazy Esophagus!

Flora: I didn’t… Mom? Did I puke on Cinder?

Jane: Yes. Kind of incessantly. Don’t feel bad. It’s very common. And he peed in your ear. So, you know. It all balances out.

Flora: Children are really disgusting. Like, the most disgusting thing ever. And that’s not even counting the bloody birthing part.

Jane: Pretty much.

Flora: But you’re happy you had us?

Jane: There is no meaning or purpose to my life without you.

V.

I’ve read Joan Didion’s Blue Nights last week, and it almost killed me. Listen:

“When we talk about mortality we are talking about our children.

… Once she was born I was never not afraid.”

…

“A question: if we and our children could in fact see the other clear would the fear go away? Would the fear go away for both of us, or would the fear go away only for me?”

…

““You have your wonderful memories,” people would say later, as if memories were solace. Memories are not. Memories are by definition of times past, things gone. … Memories are what you no longer want to remember.”

…

“I no longer want reminders of what was, what got broken, what got lost, what got wasted.

…

In theory these mementos serve to bring back the moment.

In fact they serve only make clear how inadequately I appreciated the moment when it was here.”

…

“I do not know many people who think they have succeeded as parents. Those who do tend to cite the markers that indicate (their own) status in the world: the Standford degree, the Harvard MBA, the summer with the white-shoed law firm. Those of us less inclined to compliment ourselves on our parenting skills, in other words, most of us, recite rosaries of our failures, our neglects, our derelictions and delinquencies.”

…

“I tell you this true story just to prove that I can.”

I am changed.

VI.

They are loved.

They know they are loved.

Ender: Mooom! Hug! Kiss!

Cinder: Don’t do it, Mom! He was eating boogers!

Ender: I was not! I was only pretending. I was feeding them to Maggie.

Flora: Well, at least it wasn’t me.

Ender: Next time, I will share… My! Boogers! With! Yooooooooouuuuuuu!

Cinder: That’s my little bro! High-five, man!

Flora: Groooooosss! Moooooom!

Love. Disgusting, innit? 😉

xoxo

“Jane”

PS Of course he took out the recycling. Of course.

FROM THE ARCHIVES: There is such a thing as loving nature too much, or, more proof that children are disgusting.

“Is it important? Yes? Then don’t text me.”

I’ve instituted a new rule in my house. You’re welcome to copy it. It might save your marriage. It is thus:

DO NOT TEXT ME ABOUT ANYTHING IMPORTANT.

This is my compromise on the rule that I initially proposed, which was the draconian:

DO NOT TEXT ME.

This is because—ready? Revolutionary!—we do not speak the same texting language. AT all

Example A:

I’m working out of the house. Ping.

Sean: We are out of milk.

My reaction: Why the fuck are you interrupting my work flow with this inanity? (I don’t text it. But I THINK it.)

What he meant:

“We’re out of milk; could you pick some up on your way home?”

My reaction to which would have been:

“K”

But instead I’m pissed, my flow disrupted, and I wonder why I didn’t turn off the phone?

Example B:

I am out in the wild with the children and I see something beautiful-ugly-heartbreaking and I take a photo and I send it. Ping.

Jane: [Image]. Heart-broken. Sobbing. Despair.

Sean: WTF? Are you ok? What happened?

What he wishes I had said:

“Look at this disturbing picture of [X] I took. Doesn’t it make you think of heart-break? Despair? It is so evocative!”

What I want him to say in response to what I actually said (didn’t say, implied, experienced, tried to convey with fragmented words):

“God. Baby. Beautiful. I love you.”

Example C:

Jane: 2 out of 3 of our children want to go swimming and I’m going to force the other child to cooperate. Should we wait until you get back home so we can go together?

Sean: Walking from Bridgeland to downtown. PS Forgot to take out the steaks to defrost.

Jane: Does not answer my question.

Sean: I also have to go print photos after.

Jane: You! Still! Have! Not! Answered! My! Question!

But he thinks he has…

Right? He’s said:

“Here are all the things I’m doing and have to do.”

But he hasn’t said, what I need to hear, which is:

“There is no way I will make it back in time, go without me.”

Or even, you know, I’ll accept this:

“I really don’t want to go swimming. Just go with the kids; I’ll see you at home later.”

Dedicated to that girl I love, so far away now. You know who you are. Who insisted I should get a cell phone. And ruined my life. ;P

(Not really. But. Don’t you sometimes wish you could go back? I do…)

nbtb-is it important don't text me

xoxo

“Jane”

…but research shows…

I.

The rather annoying thing about having me as a mother:

Flora: Mom? I made my bed yesterday.

Jane: And?

Flora: And what?

Jane: Is that the whole story? Did you find something, break something, think something, learn something?

Flora: No. That’s it. I made my bed.

Jane: That totally doesn’t work as story.

Flora: Does everything I tell you have to have a plot or a climax? And character development?

Jane: Yes.

What? I’m busy. And I like to be entertained.

II.

The kinda awesome thing about having me as a mother:

My 10 year-old can define plot or climax. And character development.

So can the five-year-old.

III.

The really annoying thing about having me as a mother:

Flora: Ok, let me do this again. Mom? I made my bed yesterday.

Jane: I’m waiting…

Flora: Did you know that studies show that people who make their beds are happier than people who don’t make their beds?

Jane: What studies?

Flora: You know. Studies.

Jane: Where did you hear about these studies?

Flora: You-tube?

Jane: Did you know that most people who say “studies show” or “research says” are just making shit up? Whenever someone says, “Studies show” without referencing the specific study, what they’re actually saying, “I read this article on the Internet once and I’m now passing it on to you as proven truth, assuming you’re just as lazy as I am and will not track this information to its source.”

Flora: Does everything I tell you have to be supported by evidence?

Jane: Yes. Except when we’re talking about unicorns. Where are you going?

Flora: I’m going to Google the fucking bed-making study.

Jane: Good.

IV.

The really awesome thing about having me as a mother is that I’m going to loom over her shoulder as she scrolls and tell her: “Not a real source. Not real science. This is a blog—this is a blog post, and that is not research. Yes, this looks like a journal article, but what does it say, right here? See? ‘Research shows…’ What research? Yeah, this one’s not worth anything either. Keep on going… OK, now that one’s better, but what institution is he professor at, exactly? Let’s check that out… ”

My kids are going to know that typing search terms into Google is not research.

Research shows that children whose parents take the time to explain this sort of thing to them make better researchers. ;P

xoxo

“Jane”

nbtb-research shows

PS My original headline was “Research shows people who make their beds in the morning don’t understand climax is necessary to good story” but apparently it had subtext.

 

Facts of Life

I.

Ender hatched from an egg. That’s how they tell the story, anyway.

Flora: It was the cutest egg ever. Orange, all orange. But I’d decorate it with purple squiggles and rainbows.

Cinder: …and we all took turns sitting on you. Like, when Mom had to go somewhere, or even take a shower, Flora or I had to sit on you. But sometimes, when she was out for a long time, instead of sitting on you, we’d just throw you back and forth like a ball. You’re so lucky we didn’t smash you.

Flora: Mom was so mad was she caught us doing that once…

They’ve told him the story so many times, they’ve even got these details down:

Flora: …and after you hatched, I tried to keep the egg shells for my museum, but Dad said it would be unhygienic and he threw them out.

Cinder: But I kept one. Want to see?

(and the mystery to why he was rooting through the garbage earlier for chicken egg shells, and through Flora’s room for an orange marker, is solved)

Flora: You were the cutest little baby.

Cinder: Well. The cutest little maggot. You were all white and squirmy. You didn’t really look human until you pupated. That happened when you were two.

(he might have crossed the line here. Yes. Yes he did?

Ender: Mooom! Did I pupate when I was two?

What would you say? What should I say?

Isn’t all life just a really long metamorphosis?

II.

This is 100% true: While Ender was in the womb, we called him Two-Horned Rainbow Merlin Stinky Socks Marsh.

So it’s all our fault, really.

III.

I’m in a café, working, and there’s a new proud father at the table next to me, showing off his progeny to co-workers. “She’s such a good baby,” he says.

What he means is “easy.” And “convenient.”

She’s four months old.

In three to six weeks, he and her mother will look at each other, and one will ask the other, “When do things get back to normal?”

Ha.

Normal.

What they mean is “the way they were before.”

What they don’t want to hear: Never.

IV.

Jane: Do! Not! Call! Your! Brother! A! Maggot!

Ender: Yeah! I’ve pupated!

Ha.

xoxo

“Jane”

NBTB-Facts of Life

 

February Spring

I’m stumbling home in a February spring, coat open, gloves off, a warm wind winding in and out and around me. I am half-happy, half-mad, all-exhausted. Each step takes effort, is so slow—I want to want to run—but I can’t—I can barely walk—one foot in front of the other, and suddenly, dizzy, I stop…

I’m tired. I’m so-to-the-bone tired, an exhaustion I’d tell you I can’t describe except it would be a lie, because that’s exactly what I’m doing now. I’m so tired, I can barely walk, I can barely think.

I’m stumbling home…

I’ve spent the morning writing and juggling. First, loving the morning-loving-Ender, negotiating with him my need to write Morning Pages as soon as I wake up no-matter-what-no-I’m-not-going-to-build-Kapla-or-make-you-an-omelet-here-eat-an-orange-when-I-am-done-I-will-make-you-eggs-what?-yes-I-can-get-you-cold-spaghetti-from-last-night-but-you’ve-got-to-let-me-write…

Then, walking, so very quickly, to a café—I cannot work at home today, it is oppressing me, squeezing me, reprimanding me with all the things it wants from me and I hate it, I need to run away, will-you-watch-the-children-thank-you-I-promise-I-will-come-back.

Coffee. “Dark? Medium? What size?” “Surprise me. I have no superfluous decisions left in me today.” And it’s only 9 a.m….

(She gets me a large latte; I feel bad I don’t have money for a tip.)

You come to visit me for a while, and we talk about EVERYTHING, and this time, neither of us cries, and we laugh about it. You’re my fix of… what? Something undefined, but needed. I appreciate it. An injection of energy that gets me moving, and after you leave, I write.

I’m writing about a woman who’s going to change the world. As I write, I believe it. I love her, I envy her. When I finish, I despair. I’m pretty sure they’re not going to let her. They’re going to destroy her.

(Can I stop them?)

I have more to write. Difficult things, technical things, uncreative things, necessary things.

I’m suddenly tired, uninspired and I don’t want to.

A text. “Can you be home by… I need to…” “OK. I’m done writing anyway.”

In a minute, in a second, in a moment of time shorter than that, this happens: I switch from writing-producing-thinking-happy to… fallow-done-exhausted-barely-alive. The fog envelops me and deepens as I walk towards home. With each step, I get heavier. Slower. More stupid. So tired. Where does this exhaustion come from?

I stumble home, into the house, crawl up the stairs—I have a window of perhaps 20 minutes before kids—I fall into bed. Eyes closed. So-exhausted. What do people who cannot nap do?

I don’t know if I sleep. I simply don’t move.

Ping.

“Dropping kids off at the top of the hill, can you meet them?” “On my way.”

I am still tired. Stupid. I think, the thing I wrote this morning? Worthless. The things I still have to write? Pointless. When will I do it? How? Despair.

I stumble out of the house. One foot in front of the other. February spring, wind.

Oh.

I inhale.

An idea…

One foot in front of the other up the hill I see three little bodies, arms waving, legs and arms pumping, oh-the-energy, infect me!

We walk home together. I am still tired. But I am not stumbling. I am not stumbling.

There is food on the stove (I text: “Thank you, my love”). I do some things. A request: “Sit beside me, Mom.” I do. I open the lap top. Caress the keys. Maybe what I wrote this morning wasn’t so bad.

Maybe what I write next isn’t pointless.

“Hey, Mom, do you want me to make you some green tea? You look like a zombie.”

I am, just a little, tired.

But no longer so-to-the-bone tired I can’t walk-or-think.

Still. I am looking forward to bedtime. Immensely.

nbtb-Feb Spring

xoxo

“Jane”

P.S. You really liked this post: Dear un-Valentine: the way you talk to your partner tells me more about you than the way you kiss. Thanks!

Dear un-Valentine: How you speak to your partner tells me more about you than the way you kiss

It’s Flora’s fault.

She’s sensitive, empathetic, and ruled by her heart. And she’s only 10, so her heart makes black and white rules. Wait. I’m telling this story wrong. I should have begun… never mind. Let’s start with Flora. And what Flora says is,

“But how can you like someone if you hate the way they treat their husband or wife?”

I’m not sure how to respond to that—I’m never sure how to respond to anything she says, really. And she goes on:

“I mean, how can someone be a good person if they treat the people they’re supposed to love badly?”

And I still say nothing, but I don’t need to, Flora is following her own train of thought, and she finishes:

“If you’re mean to your own wife or your kids or your husband—and these are the most important people in the world to you, the people you love the most—how will you treat me? If I’m a stranger, and you don’t know me at all, and don’t love me?

I would want nothing to do with such a person.”

And then she takes a carton of green tea ice cream from the freezer, and moves on to other things.

Meanwhile, her mother stands in the middle of the kitchen, phone in one hand, spatula in the other (I was making tacos—not that it’s important, but, you know, if you’re trying to assemble a full picture of the moment), and stares off into space, and ponders…

…that what Flora said should be true. Right? I mean—to flip it a little—that the way we treat the people we love the most should be the best we’re capable of.

Except it’s not, is it?

So often, the people we love best… they’re the ones who get the worst of us. Get treated the worst by us. Day after day after day…

Why?

There are three reasons for this ass-backward behaviour, I think.

First—when we love unconditionally and fully (or just a hell-of-a-lot, because most love is conditional, but we’ll talk about that another day) and are loved in return, we trust that love will be there no matter what. And so, when we trust, we let ourselves go. We snap, snip. We let our loves see us at our worst—and they still love us—and so we do it again… and again…

Second—husbands, wives, children, lovers, families—we’re together all the time, in each other’s faces. We rub against each other in the stress of hurried everyone-get-out-the-door mornings. We’re in each other’s faces in the I’m-too-exhausted-to-give-a-fuck evenings. We’re out of energy for politeness, manners. We snip. Snap. Again… and again… and again…

Third—we do it again… and again… and again… and then it’s a habit, and the majority of human behaviour and interaction is, simply… habit. And so… we do the nasty thing, say the mean thing again. And again. And again…

We say things to the people we love the most that we would never, ever say to more casual friends—to strangers—because, Christ, how unthinkably rude, cruel. Nasty.

We accept hearing/receiving these unacceptable behaviours from people who love us, because…

Actually, so here’s the thing, because—why, exactly?

Because they love us? And so it’s ok for them to treat us disrespectfully?

Because I love you, it’s okay for me to mock you? It’s ok for me to knock you down, undermine you, speak to you in a tone so disrespectful I would never, ever use it on a co-worker (not even that really, really annoying one)?

When Sean comes into the kitchen, I’m sitting in the middle of the kitchen, phone and spatula on the dirty floor, taco meat burning.

“What’s wrong?”

he asks, and I love him. I can’t put it into adequate words, so I put it into bad ones. And then, add:

“Do I ever speak to you like that? Ever?”

I don’t think I do, gods above and below, I hope I don’t, but does one ever hear oneself? Does she realize what comes out of her mouth? Does he know what he’s really saying when he says something so…

“Never. God, never, ever.”

(He’s lying. Because he loves me. I know that sometimes, when something he’s said or done triggers me, I react much less… kindly, tolerantly, lovingly… than I would had a less intimate-to-me person said or done the same thing. But I let him lie, in that moment, and I try to believe it.)

“If I ever do… stop me. Hard. The first time.”

Habit.

As Valentine’s Day comes up—my third least-favourite faux holiday—lovers all through North America will be exchanging flowers, chocolates, and Hallmark-sanctioned expression of love and affection.

I refuse to celebrate Valentine’s Day.

I prefer to show that I love—and to be shown that I’m loved—every day. Mostly, in little things, you know what I mean, the tiny stuff: “thank you for doing the dishes, my love” and “I’m so sorry you had a lousy day” and “I missed you, come sit with me” and “will you do this for me, it’s driving me crazy” and “this poem made me think of you” and “I’m so happy you picked up cream on the way home” and also “god you look good today, I want to devour you” (delivered when I feel spent, exhausted, and so unsexy, and I’m pretty sure you’re lying, but oh-it’s-so-good-to-hear).

I choose to show that I love by how I talk to you. To him, to her, to them. The people I love best? They deserve me at my best—or at least… trying, conscious, aware, fostering, building.

And when I slip up? Call me on it. The first time. Hard.

Don’t let me treating you disrespectfully—because you love me, and I love you, and so it’s all ok—become a habit.

Because it isn’t ok to treat the people you love the most the worst.

Flora said so.

And she knows.

Happy un-Valentine’s Day.

xoxo

“Jane”

NBTB-Dear un-Valentine

PS I have some un-Valetine’s Day presents for you. First, 15 Compliments for Your Valentine, Courtesy of  Erotic Artist Dorothy Iannone. Kind of awesome.

Second, 3 Misconceptions that Ruin Great Relationships by Kelly Flanagan from The Good Man Project. It’s essentially an essay AGAINST the grand gesture and for… habit.

Third, my friends and I have been debating for the last god knows how many weeks whether love is what you feel or what you do, and we’ve been reading and arguing about, among others, these:

You’ve probably seen one or both pieces already. If you haven’t, they’re worth a read.

Fourth, Good Daddies Are Hot.

Fifth—the original title of this post was, “Dear un-Valentine: How you speak to your partner tells me everything about the type of friend you’ll be. And it tells me you’re a jerk, and I want nothing to do with you.” But I decided it was a little… wordy. Jane out xx

Risk

Making the first mark on a blank page, typing the first word—letter—on a blank screen. Beginning, commitment. Do you know, the place before that first stroke, be it with pen or fingertip, how seductive that place is? It is BEFORE. It is potential. Everything is possible. Nothing is chosen. Nothing is wrong.

Nothing is risked.

It is intoxicating-frustrating. It’s… it’s like that moment, when you’re falling in love, pheromones teasing—but before the first kiss. Will you dare? Will she? How will he respond? What will I feel? What will happen next? Will there be fireworks? Or rejection?

The place of “nothing risked, all potential, I took no wrong steps, I made no mistakes” —oh, that place is so seductive…

I have ways of breaking through it in my work. I type: Client Name-Project Title. My byline. I type the names and titles of the people I interviewed. The page is no longer blank. I haven’t really risked anything yet—but I’ve started. It’s like… oh, cautious physical contact before that first kiss, you know? A hand on the shoulder, brushing oh-so-casually against a hip-but-not-lower as you leave the table: “I’ll be right back.”

But then, the choices, risks have to start. The words have to come. In an ideal scenario, they just come: the piece is written long before I sit down to let it out. It writes itself in my head while I walk. Drive. Scrub the kitchen floor, reorganize the books I’ll never read but must own. I know this—this is why, often, I’m so reluctant to sit down at the computer until I know exactly how it begins and how it ends.

(The middle, generally, just takes care of itself.)

But “ideally” is… aspirational. It does not always happen—it does not happen often enough. There is no time for a walk that settles everything, there is no space for it all to plan itself out as it would like to. Because, deadline.

And so, I sit down with the laptop. Blank screen, blank page. I type. Client Name. Mock Up Headline (usually bad). Names and titles of people I interviewed. Key idea. Fuck. I have no key idea. I have no idea what I want to say.

The clock ticks, the deadline looms, and I stare at the screen and I’m pretty sure that no matter what I write, it will be pure and utter crap, and so… I don’t. I don’t want to.

I want to stay in this safe space of nothing risked…

I look at the time and it’s later, the deadline’s closer, and the kids will be home soon, and dinner, and…

I should probably go for a walk—a fifteen minute walk, a five minute walk, it would be more productive than this I am so stupid so lazy why have people not realized this and why do they keep on giving me work and why do I say yes to stories I can’t write, projects I’m too flakey-flighty-dopey-right-brained to comprehend?

I open another window. I type:

“Making the first mark on a blank page, typing the first word—letter—on a blank screen. …”

NBTB-Risk

I write. I make choices. I warm up. And, mid-sentence, starting to run, I switch windows.

“My key message, what I need to nail down in this column is how the gut feeling that comes from the limbic fight and flight response that entrepreneurs get during a crisis, a downturn: what your gut tells you to do is wrong. That’s the limbic brain telling you sabre-tooth tiger over there, wants to eat you, stay very, very still. Paralysis. And you know? A moment of paralysis, of standing still? Do it. Don’t react too quickly, stupidly. But take that moment of frozen-still-scared… to think. Analyze. Evaluate. And look for opportunity. Because it is in crisis, when all the rules of the game are out the window, that innovation thrives, that you make that bet-the-farm play…”

It’s not good. It’s not at all what I want to say. It’s not a fireworks-producing kiss, a bold declaration of love that could be unrequited. It hardly ever is.

But it’s a beginning. A first step. Something risked. A sense of where I need to go. Where to next?

Choices. I keep on writing—the clock, relentless, keeps time—we keep on kissing and that first awkward “I’m not sure-is this ok?” kiss is now forgotten. I think there might be a firework coming—and, oh, yes…

“Mom! Where are you, Mom?”

“I’m writing! Hush! Almost done!”

“Mom! We’re home!”

“Five minutes, and I’m yours… Maybe ten… hold on… just one more sentence… ok, one more after that… and… I’m…”

…done. Fireworks? Not always. Not this time. The earth did not move, and it won’t when you read the final product—although, maybe, you’ll smile, a little, and remember that one line when I almost managed to bring it over the top? Will you? Doesn’t matter. It’s done. The clock doesn’t mock me anymore, time is not a terror, the page is not blank.

I put the laptop away. Choices made. Risks taken.

Story filed.

xoxo

“Jane”

 

“Smoking is all the rage, but it will kill you,” mixed messages, and boring people

I.

Flora: “I can’t stand bossy people. But boring people, they’re okay.”

Jane: “Really? How do you figure?”

Flora: “Well—bossy people, obviously—they always tell you what to do, and who likes that? But boring people don’t force you to do anything. I mean, yes, you have listen to them talk if they trap you in a room, but thanks to you, I know how to totally zone out and just think my own thoughts while they blather on.”

So… I’m not sure. Parenting win? Parenting fail?

Yes, I’m a little bit defensive. Yes, I must own this quality and technique: she learned it from me. My disassociation capabilities are legendary. It’s how I stay sane. (Not to mention, productive.)

Still, it’s not the sort of thing you put on your resume, right? Or a quality that endears you to… um, well, boring people. Because every once in a while, they stop and ask you a question—just to check if you’re listening to their boring story.

(BTW, darling… are you reading? I’m still writing here…)

And when you’re not…

Flora: “Fortunately, we don’t know that many boring people. Why is that, Mom?”

I think it’s because we live in this really awesome community in this really awesome neighbourhood in this really awesome creative-edge bubble and…

Flora: “I guess it’s probably because you’ve offended and alienated most of their parents. Good work, Mom!”

Parenting fail. Definitely, parenting fail.

Sarcastic little titch.

She gets that from me, too.

II.

I’m chasing happy. It’s right there—right there—just within reach—just two, three tasks away. 500 words away. A load of laundry away.

Ah, screw it. I jump. Grasp it with both hands… hold on to it for 30 seconds. An hour. Yes.

Let go. Put in the laundry. Write the words. Do all the things.

Happy.

III.

I’m writing so many things right now, in so many different voices, sometimes, the different voices start to shout at each other in my head.

Jane: “Shut! Up!”

Cinder: “Mom, please treat your computer with respect. And speak in an inside voice.”

Sarcastic little titch.

I don’t think he gets that from me. Oh wait. Yes, he does.

VI.

NBTB-Smoking is all the rage

Flora: “Mom! Take a picture! The caption is: ‘Smoking is all the rage,but it will kill you!’”

Parenting fail? Mixed messages. Mixed messages…

V.

Flora: “Sometimes, I wish my life wasn’t so easy and so ordinary.”

Jane: “Really? Sometimes, I wish my life was…”

…so I was going to say, boring. More ordinary. But… really? No. I’d be lying. I was, truly, wishing for boring in the summer, fall of 2013.

But, I’m done.

Jane: “I accept the consequences of needing to live an interesting life.”

Flora: “What did you say?”

Jane: “Nothing. Why do you think your life is so easy and ordinary?”

Flora: “Because I don’t suffer. At all.”

Jane: “I can probably change that. I mean, if that’s what you really want.”

Flora: “Um… on second thought… I’m so glad I have an easy and good life.”

Parenting win.

xoxo

“Jane”

Because, life.

NBTB-because life

I.

In the category of things I’d never thought I’d hear:

Ender: And Mom is driving AND eating bacon! That’s just wrong. And dangerous. Aren’t you going to stop her, Daddy?

II.

In the category of things I’d never thought I’d say:

Jane: Do! Not! Use! Your! Butt! As! A! Bookmark!

III.

In the category of things I hope other people don’t hear them say:

Cinder: Mom! Construction workers in the middle of the street! Go to ramming speed! Mom? Come on? Please? You can swerve to the side at the last second…

IV.

In the category of “This my life”:

Client: What we’re really looking for… See, how can I put this… Have you any experience… have you ever dealt with someone completely, totally irrational, unreasonable and prone to throwing temper tantrums at the least provocation—and you had to deal with them, and work around them, and get the job done in spite of them, because firing isn’t an option, and killing them is wrong?”

Jane: Yes. Yes, I have some experience in working with people like that.

V.

I’m in the shower and I’m writing bad poetry in my head and life is really, really good.

That’s all. There’s no punchline. Maybe this: and nobody interrupted me.

Bliss.

xoxo,

Jane

PS Eating bacon while driving is NOT dangerous. Eating salted caramel ice cream, however, is.