her able hands

In my fevered state Wednesday I snagged a few Young Adult novels out of the teen section at our new library. Of course, I didn’t have my list of suggestions from all of you helpful readers, so I had to wing it. Yesterday I read Saint Iggy by K. L. Going. I don’t know why I was worried about writing for teens about subjects like sex, drugs, crime and finding one’s way. I loved the fast pace of this story, and the huge challenges this 16 year-old boy has to face in his day to day life. Born addicted to drugs, father always drunk and high, mother often drunk and high and also often “gone visiting” for long weeks with no contact. Slow learner–especially in terms of common sense and how to play the game at school and how to stay under the radar. But he makes the most of what’s put in front of him when he gets it that he’s hit rock bottom.

The one thing that I kept getting hung up on was the use of the verb to be in the narrative. The story’s told in the first person, by Iggy.

I think, Oh, so terminated means over. And it is not like I didn’t see this coming, but this time I can tell it is real so my mind wanders and I start thinking how the girl wasn’t even that hot and my parents will never show up to a hearing and what will I amount to anyway?

We know Iggy struggles, that he comes from the projects in New York City, but he narrates without very many contractions. About three pages in I started to get annoyed that the kid is thinking in such perfect English, that it sounds stilted, an extra syllable where it should just spill out onto the page smoothly. Or ride across my brain seamlessly. I know, it’s a small nit, but it popped up on just about every page. I loved the story enough to make myself ignore it. I’m glad I did, it was a fulfilling read. But it’s something to think about in my own writing, in trying to make Henry’s voice believable, because really, I have no idea what I’m doing.

I’ve put K. L. Going’s other books on my TBR list.

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Something I’ve had a hard time with in my life is accepting the choices I’ve made. Deeply accepting them, in a way that feels true, and safe, and certain. There’s always a period of self-doubt, remorse, doubling back, and sick stomach after big decisions and changes. I don’t know how to just embrace my choices and then let them go. I think way too much.

Reading the book Your Heart Knows The Answer, How to Trust Yourself and Make the Choices That Are Right for You by Gail Harris, has given me so much insight into my patterns of fear and self-doubt. I haven’t had time to implement all of the exercises, but I have thought a lot about how tricky it can be to differentiate between the voice in my heart and the voices in my head. How hard it can be to notice the subtle ways in which the mind snares me with my own best intentions, wanting to do the right thing, she throws a million doubting questions at me.

But apparently the heart knows, and it’s just a matter of learning how to listen. So I’m going to keep listening to the dialog that’s going on inside of me about going back to work full-time, putting my kid back in the public school system, putting my other child into daycare, and letting go of my vision of a small, community, organic farm (for now.) I’m going to use this opportunity to connect with what my best self knows is right for me and my family, to hear her clear notes singing softly under the cacophony of doubts and fears always ringing around in my head.

The book has also reminded me of a lot of practices that once made up a daily routine for me, of meditation, exercise, breath and affirmations. I’ve strayed far from taking good spiritual care of myself, and I’m glad to be thinking about these things again, especially in terms of living the best life I can live. It couldn’t have come across my desk at a better time, and if you’re looking for some guidance to finding your own within, I recommend this book as a very gentle, kind, loving tour guide to your heart.

Technorati Tags: Gail Harris, mind, heart, meditation, affirmations

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I know, it’s all book tours around here lately, and we’re one of today’s stops for the It’s A Girl: Women Writers on Raising Daughters blog book tour. This book is the follow-up to the provocative and inspiring It’s A Boy: Women Writers on Raising Sons, both edited by Andrea Buchanan, author of Mothershock.

I was terrified of having a boy when I was pregnant with Tyler, but I knew in my heart that the squirming fish who spent the last four months trying to break out of me by way of my tender ribs with flying fists and kicking feet was a boy. I loved him the moment I set eyes on him as he combat crawled his way up my body on the delivery table to find my breast, but really, I had no idea what to do with a boy.

I feared repeating the mistakes I made with my little brother Derek when he was a small kid. I yelled at him in near despair for doing the things he did, for his boyness that I didn’t understand. Like taking a pee with his best friend, the two of them crossing “swords” to make a “V” and laughing so hard they made a mess all over the bathroom. Sorry D. You know it’s true. His energy was so different from what I was used to, constant motion and chatter, an ongoing dialog with himself or anyone who seemed to be listening. Tyler is so much like him, it’s spooky. They’re both beautiful in a thousand ways. I can’t believe how lucky I am to have them both in my life. Boys. Definitely not girls.

I gobbled up It’s A Girl over several late nights, Lila curled up next to me, her soft snores the snare drum to her father’s big bass boom, often with tears leaking onto my pillow. I loved reading Jennifer Margulis’ essay, because she swore she would eat her hat if the baby was a girl, and I said the exact same thing. I know, I know, I’m mentioning Jennifer again. I can’t help it. I love Jennifer. I want you to love her too. But not too much, because then she might love you more than she loves me! We can’t have that.

Anyhoo…I couldn’t convince Chris to take my surgical cap off and hand it to me after the Dr. finished wrenching the small body from my womb, via the side door. The Dr. said as if it was no big deal, as if none of us would have thought differently, because he’s said it several times a day for many years, and to him it’s just one more, “It’s a girl.”

I burst into tears, choking on myself, and said, “No waaaay.” I didn’t believe him at all, I was so unwaveringly certain another boy was coming into the world through me. I was ready for him, another boy child who wouldn’t need me for anything deeper than the basics (food, shelter, and transportation.) With the spinal drip morphine already making its way into my system I fixated on the idea that I’d lost the bet and here was this little girl, so now I had to eat my hat. I only got to look at this brand new female creature for a minute, and touch my fingers to her round cheek before she and Chris made their way to the nursery, where he apparently kept his hand on her the entire time, a look of surprised bliss on his face. It was described to me later, by my support crew (Mom, Julia, Kate, Sabine, Lorin…) that he looked like he had just discovered what love really is.

In the meantime, I was stoned in the recovery room, chatting with the nurses about the fact that I could read their nametags even with my eyes closed, and they said “Heh, another one. That happens sometimes with the morphine, you can see through your eyelids.” I kept asking for my cap or a hat of some sort because I lost the bet and had to eat it, but they ignored me and bustled about the dark room, peeling sticky tape electrodes off of my skin, adjusting my IV drip, talking about their July 4th plans for the next day.

I rediscovered love for myself, in a whole new way when I got to hold Lila hours later. She fit into my arms and latched onto my breast so simply, with such hunger and need. She pushed her warm skin against mine with every cell in her body. My girl, I didn’t expect her. My heart and body were ready for her without even knowing it.

Joyce Maynard’s essay, “The World’s Most Beautiful Baby—Take Two” made me feel less embarrassed to admit that I am so smitten with my daughter’s beauty. I can look at her for hours and hours, and often when she’s difficult, I can pull myself out of the irritation by noticing the wicked arch of her dark eyebrows, and the way her chin comes to an elfin point. I get lost in the forest of soft curls that spiral across her strong shoulders, the hair fine and silky, streaked with golden white stripes the minute she steps into the spring sunshine. I think of the money spent to achieve that stripy look, and hope her hair stays like that forever. It’s vanity in the extreme, not for myself, but for this small person who is only just beginning to form likes and dislikes, and to feel her uniqueness.

She likes to wear jeans or overalls with a tunic style dress, and her worn out, thrift store ladybug rain boots. A baseball cap on backwards, her hair spilling out of it in tendrils, she’s a vision. I cannot look away. Girly and rough-and-tumble both, the perfect mix of pretty and strong already and she’s not yet three. I am so in love.

I can’t stop myself from telling her how gorgeous she is, how beautiful. It’s a constant running commentary that just flows from my mouth unconsciously even while I’m showing her the practical things in life. “Let’s go down to switch the laundry, pretty girl.” “Can you help me chop these mushrooms, gorgeous?” “Sit here and make your letters while Mommy finishes writing, sunshine girl.” Her cheeks always hold a blush, and her lips are a cliché, a perfect rosebud surrounding a wide toothy grin, topped by a pert nose.

I know I give enough attention to her mind and her spirit too. Witnessing her explosion of learning, the groundswell of new connections she makes every day thrills me to no end. Her personality strengthens all the time, and I am so happy to see her becoming so independent, but staying so tender. I want to steer her clear of the crushing perceptions of beauty in our culture; the perfect size 4, geometrically balanced features, unhealthy associations with food, and dependency on external approval in order to feel whole. Yet the words tumble from my lips day and night, and now she talks to her baby dolls, “Oh, you’re so sweet, pretty girl. Don’t you look lovely.” What if I’m creating a monster? Such a pretty monster.

Raising a daughter and a son is like having a double sided fun-house mirror hanging in front of my face day and night. Like any mother willing to look, I’m constantly meeting my own reflection in my children’s words and habits, having to own the aspects of myself that they have taken on by osmosis, genetics, and maybe also in order to teach me to be a better mother. Reading this book has me thinking about so many of the parts of my life that often go unexamined because life gets too busy, and because sometimes it’s too scary to look that closely. I cannot recommend this book, and her brother, “It’s A Boy” enough. They’ll take you places you didn’t even know you wanted to go.

Technorati Tags: It’s A Girl, blog book tour, It’s A Boy, Andrea Buchanan, Joyce Maynard, daughter, beauty, son, mother, Reading

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The blog book tour for Jennifer Margulis’ latest book, Why Babies Do That: Baffling Baby Behavior Explained stops here today. I don’t think I can top the entry Mrs. Kennedy did for the tour over at Fussy,* so if you’re in the mood for a good laugh, get your butt over there and read it. My funny bone isn’t working up to speed these days, but I’ll try. I can tell you that I wish this book was out when Tyler was a baby, because it’s the perfect antidote to the often terrifying What To Expect books, with their end-of-the-world scenarios, and chronic, fatal diseases lurking on every other page.

Too often, I picked up What to Expect the First Year (each time with more dread,) seeking some bit of information about my small alien who needed so much from me, if only I could figure out what, and why, and how to give it to him. I didn’t want to know most of the stuff in that book. In order to find the answers to a simple question like why my infant was covered in white heads like a Mountain Dew-swilling, Doritos-munching teenager (a look that has begun to reassert itself this year,) I had to mine the facts out of a dark cave full of gloomy predictions of toxic waste, bad mothers who eat the wrong foods, and babies dangerously susceptible to every allergy known to man. I’d put the book down and wonder if I should get to the emergency room post haste. Because it might be a serious liver or kidney malfunction. Not baby acne.

None of which stopped me from squeezing that one big, irresistible, whitehead Tyler had on his chin when he was a couple of months old. I was such a bad mother.

How great it would have been to be able to pick up Why Babies Do That and bypass all of the medical emergency stuff. The book explores the many baffling behaviors of new babies, from finger grasping to eye crossing, to popping out all over with tiny whiteheads like a hormonal teenager. Jennifer’s writing is factual, concise, and humorous, tying in true stories from her own experiences with her children. Each item is accompanied by a gorgeous photo of a baby, often doing just the behavior being described. I’d like to know how many months of shooting it took to get such great photos.

This is the perfect book to add to that gift basket you’re giving to a new mother, along with one of my handmade bibs,** of course. Her other book, toddler is another must-read. Thanks for letting me talk about the book, Jennifer! Sorry I didn’t do a Q&A, but there was just no way I’d come up with better questions than Mrs. Kennedy, and it seems like everything else has already been asked.

*Chris and I once had a waiter in a favorite Mexican restaurant here in Ohio tell us that we could turn up the volume on the oral by about 956 notches with the use of Listerine Breath Strips. No, I’m not telling.

**Not until August, please. I’m out of bibs, and have put production on hold until after we move.

Technorati Tags: blog book tour, Jennifer Margulis, Why Babies Do That, Fussy, baby

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Dawn has an incredibly well-written and moving essay about her open adoption up at Salon.com today. She speaks to a lot questions I have had about what an open adoption would be like for everybody involved. I know life happens differently for each person, and we all have our own filters, but this writing is so beautiful she makes the story accessible to all. Grab a box of tissues and please go read her essay.

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