Sneaky Words

Lately I've been thinking about words.

Duh, you say.  Isn't that what you writer people think about all the time?  Isn't that what you, like, DO?

Well, yeah.  But I mean I've really been thinking about words.  Sneaky little bastards.

See, words can let you down. The words, they hang back when you want 'em most.  They play coy when you really need them to put on a big show, to SAY exactly what you want them say.  You stumble over them,  they twist up in your ankles and make you feel clumsy, inept, inarticulate.

Like small naughty children, they run away from you.  Or, they can get all stopped up in your head like a toddler refusing to potty train, and then, hoo boy - all hell can break loose when they finally do get out. Everyone around for a 40 foot radius is sorry when that happens.

The words, they hang around in your head doing gymnastics:  first carefully choreographed into this sentence, then into that one, then flipped around with all the words in different order. Then, pile 'em all up and watch them collapse into a heap of garbled nonsense when it's time for the big show.

Sometimes, sometimes, the words play double agent.  They attack with slicing dicing precision,  they say exactly what you had in your head, they escape with a will of their own, and wreak surgically accurate havoc.  Before you know it, you've scorched the territory around you with the words you used, so helpless were you in their power-driven onslaught.  Betrayed, you are - betrayed by the megalomaniacal words.

But oh, the mystical moments of transcendence:  the fleeting seconds when the words become your lovers, do your bidding, understand your every intention, want to please.  They band together, they create something so much bigger than they are individually.  They create chemistry, magic, intoxication.   They bare your heart in all the right places, they lift you up beyond yourself, make you know what it is to be Better.

This is why we write, us writing people.  Looking for those words that make us - and you, when you read them - Better.  Bigger.  Best.

Wordless Wednesday

You want my whole world, in one photo? Here you go.

(Don't those Nilsens scrub up good?)

You make me laugh

Maniacal giggling as they scheme to overturn their grandpa's float in the pool.

Happy shrieks as they chase the Westie around and around and around in circles.

Silly guffaws as Daddy slays them with ridiculous knock knock jokes. 

Sly chuckles as someone wonders if they'll get busted breaking the rules of Candy Land.

Snickers from the adults as a series of entirely inappropriate double entendres get tossed above the kids' heads.  

Uproarious, gut-aching laughing at the dinner table as we remember stories of other childhoods, of other grandparents now gone, of other family vacations together.

I posted a few months back about wondering where my sillies had gone.  I found 'em this week.  They were right here - right with the same 3 kids that I scold all week to pick up laundry, hang up towels, and take dishes to the sink.  My sillies were right here in the minivan on a 12-hour drive that could only be survived through fits of giggles and a suspension of all seriousness.  They were right here with my husband, snorting with laughter late in the night as we tripped over small bodies in sleeping bags to get to our bed.  They were right here with my second grade girl as she and I swam like seals and slipped on our bellies on top of pool floats, off into the water.   There were here with my aunt and I as we traded dirty jokes about yoga poses and ended up laughing hysterically. They were here with my uncle's dry wit, my dad's tragic puns, and my own quirky take on the world. 

Yep, that's right.  I found my sillies. 

My grandmother,  profoundly wise woman that she was, would often wipe her eyes after a good chuckle, and say "it's no laughing matter, but its no matter if you laugh."  I can't offer anyone the recipe for success, the no-fail technique for a happy life.  But I have the most distinct hunch that a crowd that can laugh - laugh so hard your sides ache and tears squeeze out of your eyes - is a crowd that can make it through most things.  

"You make me laugh." - it's ultimate compliment around here.

This post is linked to Bridget Chumbley's One Word at a Time blog carnival on Laughter.  How could posts on that be hard to read? Go check 'em out!!

Ending

it's Saturday morning, and NilsenLife is late again. It's the time of the week when we stretch our creative writing muscles over there at Red Writing Hood, and this week's assignment was a narrative poem about family dynamics. Better late than never, right?

**************

Ending.

you had orange juice. i had coffee.

we sat at the breakfast table, you and i.

like every morning for forty six years

we sat and the sun poured in onto our chilly hearts.

you had orange juice. i had coffee.

we sat at the breakfast table, you and i.

you stared into the woods

i stared into the street, watching neighbors kiss morning goodbyes.

you had orange juice. i had coffee.

we sat at the breakfast table, you and i.

you pushed papers across the table, and said

i think it's time.

you had orange juice. i had coffee.

we sat at the breakfast table, you and i.

i stared into the woods with you, and said

yes. i think it's time.

you had orange juice. i had coffee.

we sat at the breakfast table, you and i

like every morning for forty six years

and agreed we were done.

**********

**UPDATE: please remember with all this creative writing that it's fiction. Mr NilsenLife & I are doing just fine, thanks. (And, we've not been married for even half of 46 years!)

Swimming Laps

If twelve hours in the car with 3 small children and their grandma, way too many snack food products and driving through the night fueled by coffee doesn't leave you in need of a dip in the pool, I don't know what will.

I slipped into the cool water intending just to swim a few laps. For the first few strokes my triceps and biceps moaned loudly about how old I'm getting, I decided this was a terrible idea, I thought I might as well stop there in the middle and start doing old-lady water aerobics. It took the next few strokes to silence the chatter of voices in my head - all of the 'should dos' and 'why didn't I's' slunk quietly away.

stroke stroke stroke breathe..... stroke stroke stroke breathe...... stroke stroke stroke breathe.

the habit, the rhythm, the cadence of the stroke took over, and my muscles repeated the movement over and over, up and down. I wasn't counting laps, or speed, or time. Just swam up and down the pool, over and over.

stroke stroke stroke breathe..... stroke stroke stroke breathe...... stroke stroke stroke breathe.

I watched the sun refract at the bottom of the pool into a million watery squares, like so many scales of a rainbow fish.

stroke stroke stroke breathe..... stroke stroke stroke breathe...... stroke stroke stroke breathe.

I registered with a shock this was the first time I'd swum more than ten uninterrupted laps in close to ten years. I thought about how much time I've spent in the water in my life, how many hours, and then thought about how few hours I've spent by myself in the water recently.

stroke stroke stroke breathe..... stroke stroke stroke breathe...... stroke stroke stroke breathe.

Treading water - that's what I've been doing. I've spent my recent years treading water - working my arms and legs as hard as they'd go, keeping my head above water, keeping my focus on what needs to happen next. Treading water isn't the same as floating - treading water is work. It's a holding pattern, with a distinct subtext of survival in there.

stroke stroke stroke breathe..... stroke stroke stroke breathe...... stroke stroke stroke breathe.

But in recent months I've been.... surfacing. Not working so hard to stay in one place. I've been getting ready to swim: to strike out in new directions with long strong strokes. Turns out the strokes are second nature to me - I haven't forgotten how to do it.

stroke stroke stroke breathe..... stroke stroke stroke breathe...... stroke stroke stroke breathe.

The long brown arm that crooks high above my head and then slices back into the water stops being part of my body and instead beckons as it hovers above me for a second, then propels as it pulls underneath me.  'C'mon - this way!' it says. 'Keep moving' it says 'you'll get there.'

stroke stroke stroke breathe..... stroke stroke stroke breathe...... stroke stroke stroke breathe.

Fifty minutes later I flipped over on my back and floated in the baking August sun. Closed my eyes, pointed my face to the sky, and smiled as I floated. I'm not treading water: these days, I'm swimming.

Pickles

So it's supposed to be a Friday thing. It is.  But I have to tell you, I can't just walk away from a week's worth of noodling & then a bunch of writing, deleting, and more writing.  So I'll just go ahead & link up. I'm participating in a creative writing meme called the Red Writing Hood. Ericka from Alabaster Cow and Cheryl from Mommypants are hosting it over at The Red Dress Club. Join in, link up, check out all the posts! 

************

She's six feet tall, for God's sake - she's not hard to miss.  I whip around the corner just to grab a jar of pickles, and there she is:  all seventy two inches of her.  She stands, with that ridiculous perfect posture of hers, squinting at the shelves of canned goods. She's mumbling 'butter beans...butter beans....butter beans...' under her breath.

The exhausting memory of the last time we talked assaults my brain:  I remember the long pauses as she'd furiously searched for the words to make clear to me precisely what a fuckup I was.  

Why her? my friends had all asked the first time.  Seriously?  She's cute and all, but she's a little....boring.  Hell, we were fifteen.  Straight edge, rocker, geek, freak - the labels had barely settled on kids that young. She was.... none of those things. She was just.... not me. Not like me at all.

Why her? my friends all asked the second time.  Only that time it was different friends, a different town, a rougher life.  These friends couldn't understand either, what it was about this plain-vanilla suburban girl that fascinated me. How could I explain to these people that by choosing someone who was everything I was not, and nothing that I was, I could clean the slate? That I could make it all possible, all over again?

This girl - so different.   She was crazy smart, used complicated words to say simple things, made every phone call a challenge to follow complicated metaphors and long-winded ideas.  I wanted it to be simple: her + me = happy.  She wanted.... more than that.  She wanted so much, she was used to so much, and in her quiet way she made me feel, every time, that I hadn't said enough, hadn't said it right.  I was messing up the clean slate.

It was a long hot summer.  I said the wrong things, she said mean things.  Her face soured in the stuffy apartment, and I wished for us that we could be anywhere but stuck in this humid angry city.  I wished we could've found a chilled vacation-y place of possibility, but instead we'd found ourselves in the dead-end alley of unmet expectations.

Any second now she'll turn around and catch me staring.  Of course she'll recognize me.  Maybe she'll smile the fake white-girl smile of HeyHowAREYou?!?!, or maybe she'll give me the flat angry stare she fixed on me that last time.  I really don't want to find out.

At the last second, I look past her, to her cart holding a giggly toddler, crinkling her nose and eyes with a grin that drills a hole in my heart - a smile exactly like her mother's.  That smile I remember, fifteen years later, the smile that made everything right.  I ditch the pickles, turn on my heel, and walk away.

What I want

What I want to do is write. 

What I want to do is sit at my desk and write the Red Writing Hood post that I've been noodling over since Tuesday.  I want to write the article for Classic Play that my extremely patient editor has been waiting on for, oh, say,  TWO WEEKS. [yes - deadline - come & gone.  lost in the wind.]  Hang on:  rather, let's say I want to re-write that article, because I've written it in my head about 46 times, and it's making me crazy, living in there. I want to curl up on the sofa with a glass of wine and write in my journal - write out all the tangly thoughts that won't work themselves into real ideas, write out all the complicated words that are too much ME for the rest of the world to have to suffer through.

But what I want to do is not going to happen.  Not this week. 

Instead, what I will do is my day job.  My day job that's also my night job which is my morning job which is my evening job.  I will drive to and from Vacation Bible School, providing canned good donations on Thursday and snacks on Friday.  I will come home and put stuff away and wash popsicle stains out of t-shirts.  I will nurse one out of three kids all week - they will very politely take turns with their illness, and leave a space of about 2 hours between one recovering from a 103-degree fever and the next falling on the couch holding their head.  I will read stories and practice math facts and clean up grilled cheese sandwiches and wonder about soccer in the fall and wonder about when exactly it was that I got so desperate for time to myself.

I will remember that it was always - that before kids it was work and before work it was school and that there was always something that had to be done, and that this idea of endless hours to pursue one's passions is abso-freaking-lutely unreasonable.  Nice to imagine, but completely without base in reality.

So - I will do what my friend Cheryl so charmingly calls 'putting on my Mommypants.'   I will suck it up and I will do it and I will make long lists in my head in my head of all that I want to do, all by myself.   For that long dreamed of and oft-mentioned Next Life.

Fourteen

They didn't think anyone was listening.  Two waiters, gossiping over the canape trays whilst they waited for more bruschetta and mini quiche.

They're so cute, aren't they??
Yeah... they are.
You know, a lot of these gigs you totally know the couple's not going to make it past five years.  But this couple?  You can just tell they're going to make it. They're for real.

Two catering waiters, maybe working a summer job to get back to Georgetown in the fall.  They passed judgement on this young couple, in the midst of the happiest night of their life, passed judgement without emotion, without investment.

What they didn't know was that the best man stood directly behind them, waiting to refill his gin & tonic from the secret stash in the fridge (woot! for non-alcoholic weddings).    He heard them, and his heart swelled.  Because he knew too - he knew this couple was the real deal. He knew that they would fight and they would cry and they would laugh - laugh so much -  and they would be broke and they would be rich.  They would be rich in all they needed.

He knew they would make it.  And on the eve of their 14th anniversary, he emailed this:  "happy anniversary my dears. love you guys!  you have - and are going to - make it."

see the brand-spankin-new wedding band? ooh, shiny!

Happy Anniversary - happy anniversary to the man who makes me laugh, who makes me crazy, who is my biggest champion and my very best friend.  This year we earned it, my love.  May fourteen be the smallest drop in a huge bottomless bucket of anniversaries.

My BlogHer '10 Post

Did you ever plan a trip for more than four months?

Did you ever look forward to something so much that you woke up in the middle of the night excited about going?

Did you ever plan a trip that was going to be a really amazing 4 day weekend with some of your favorite people in the world?  A trip that would involve a nice long train ride with a dear friend that you hadn't caught up with in like, forever, and have a few juicy stories you've really needed to tell her?

Did you ever psych yourself up to meet people who intimidate the crap out of you but that you were dying to meet anyway?

Did you ever buy a bunch of new clothes for this kind of trip, wanting to find stuff that looked exactly like 'you'?

Did you ever plan a trip that was going to be completely on-your-own adventure in New York, with restaurants and cocktails and museums and hours of writing and coffee with the ladies and... and... everything else lovely that you could pack into a girls weekend?

AND THEN, did you ever send an email to your friend, asking what time the train left on Thursday and have her write back and say "you mean next Thursday, right?" with a little smiley emoticon?

AND THEN did you ever have your heart sink right down to your toenails (those toenails scheduled for a pre-trip pedicure) as you double-checked your calendar?

AND THEN did you realize that for FOUR MONTHS you've had the big trip (organized around a huge conference) written on the wrong place on your calendar?  That you've planned this entire trip on the WRONG WEEKEND?

AND THEN did you realize that the only other weekend that you're out of town the entire summer is the weekend of the actual conference?

No?  Yeah. Well.  Me either.  ME EITHER.

Nothing new under the Sun

I put up corn yesterday.

Do any of you even know what it means, when I say "I put up corn" ??  Maybe you do, if you've been reading your kids the Little House on the Prairie series this summer.

It was me, my mom, and SIX DOZEN EARS OF CORN, fresh from the farmers market, in the kitchen yesterday.  95 degrees outside, two huge pots of boiling water inside, and two women never more glad of the decision to install air conditioning in the Great Money Pit Renovations of '05.

We shucked - and shucked some more.  (No child labor laws were broken.)  Filled a whole laundry basket with uncooked corn cobs.  Dropped corn in boiling water - no longer than 3 minutes, per the matriarch! - and then plunked unceremoniously into an icy bath in the sink.  I was in charge of separating millions of kernels from cobs - spraying corn juice and stray niblets all over the kitchen.

Maybe it felt a little throwback.  Maybe it felt a little excessive, bagging and freezing 72 cobs' worth of corn for the winter months when you can buy a tidy little pound bag of frozen corn at Trader Joes. (Ooh!  Another trip to TJs?  I'll go! I'll go!)

But I'll tell you.  What felt exactly right was standing in the kitchen with my mother, slicing kernels in the same way, with the same knives, that my grandmothers did.  I listened to my mother's stories of canning and freezing with her mother, her mother in law - my grandmothers.  I heard tales of my great-grandma that were entirely new to me (imagine your mother chaperoning you through college! Out of state! For four years!)

What felt exactly right was taking my place in the rhythm of things.  Repeating the patterns, traditions and activities of generations before me, and living lessons for at least one generation after me. This, this is how we preserve the fabric of history.  We remember what has gone before.  We value what has gone before.  We re-live what has gone before, even as we learn - daily - all of the lessons required of us in this brave new world.

As wise old Solomon told us, there truly is nothing new under the sun.  And the sooner we learn to celebrate that, the wiser we all will be.

Wanna Go Deep With Me?

A while back I told you I'd have to explore the meaning behind water's elemental call sometime later, when things cooled off a bit.  Well it's the third week of July, and we're looking at another week of high 90s, high humidity, and I'm still angling to spend the majority of my days in the water.

So I thought maybe we should just dive right in. Ha!  Today I'm guest posting over at Katdish, about an early memory of being alone in the deep water.

Can I just tell you, I'm still hyperventilating a little bit about this, not just because Kathy is a tremendous writer herself, but because she also takes the time to find and really encourage new writers who are just starting to dip their toes in the writing pool.  I was floored and a little overcome by her offer of a guest post, but I was all over it like, well...... like sunscreen on a red-headed toddler.

Random fact:  she was also one of my very first Twitter peeps.  She's on fire on the Twitter machine, let me tell ya.

There's a lot to be said about water, and its profound call to our hearts.  Maybe we'll have to do a little bit of thinking on this in the next few weeks.  Bit of virtual cooling off.

But for now, go on over to Katdish and check out Going Deep - join me in the murky muddy pond water, won't you?

Busy weekend?

Why yes, yes it was a busy weekend, now you mention it.

Let's see... swim team potluck & pep rally (Friday night) :: swim team photos (Saturday a.m.) :: swim meet, 7.30 a.m. to 1pm :: lunch with grandparents :: big manly chainsaw project :: Tour de France Junior party, complete with a red dotted hill-climb jersey, flags to wave, and Gallic cocktails for grownups :: early Sunday 4-mile run :: church :: lunch at Grandma's house :: Slip n' Slide on grandma's front lawn :: dinner with friends

= EXHAUSTED.   

And no clean up time.  At all.  The entire weekend.  Wanna see?

This is our front hall.  The place where Every. Single. Blessed. Item got DUMPED as we walked in the door this weekend.  Dumped, forgotten, and abandoned as we moved on to next activity, next activity, next activity. [Do you love Mr NilsenLife chilling in the middle of it all?? Oh yes, I do too. Mmm hmm.]

Clearly, I have no shame.  My poor mother will be mortified when she sees I've published this evidence of my slothful housekeeping.

But just wanted to say that even people trying to keep it simple sometimes....... don't.

Have a great week y'all!!

Magic and Meatloaf

Today – and every Friday – I will be participating in a creative writing meme called the Red Writing Hood. Ericka from Alabaster Cow and Cheryl from Mommypants are hosting it over at The Red Dress Club. Join in, link up, check out all the posts! This week’s prompt is to begin a short fiction piece with the words, “Your mother.”  Disclaimer: First attempt at genuine fiction since a very fraught experience in college. I'm generally much better at -ahem- stretching the truth. 

MAGIC AND MEATLOAF

Your mother was magic.  Mine was meatloaf.

Your mother knew you were going to propose, and still she screamed into the phone when we called with our news.  My mother smiled, and murmured approving words.

Your mother let me try on her wedding gown, and even as we laughed at how badly it fit me we both knew the moment had marked our hearts in a happy way.  My mother looked confused when I asked if she had her gown:  "who has the space to store that sort of thing??" she queried incredulously.

Your mother gave a giant picnic basket as an engagement gift:  real linen napkins, champagne flutes, diminutive salt shakers.  My mother gave us a juicer - purchased in the 80s, she'd given it a good wipedown and it was practically new.

Your mother lobbied for engraved invitations, and when we hesitated at the cost she graciously agreed you could scarcely see the difference anyway.  My mother furrowed her forehead in confusion as I searched for the perfect typeface for the program.

Your mother enthused on long-distance phone calls as we described our tiny newlywed apartment, and sent napkin rings in the mail - "to make your dinner table pretty!" the note inside cheered.  My mother visited, and sat quietly as I served roasted vegetables on our wedding china.  "I like the view here" she volunteered.

Your mother kept hugging me with tight hugs when we visited, even as the brightness of happy newlywed anecdotes faded.  If my mother noticed the lack of news, the increasingly-tense emails, the solo visits home, she never mentioned it.

Your mother sent beautiful cards, inscribed with simple messages of love, forgiveness, patience.  My mother came to the apartment one bleak October day and wordlessly packed the china, the napkin rings, the picnic basket, and most heartbreaking: the photo albums documenting our years together.  Certainly, there would be no album documenting our coming moments of leave-taking.

Your mother was magic.  My mother was meatloaf.  Neither was enough to make Us.

Corner of One's Own

So long as you write what you wish to write, that is all that matters; and whether it matters for ages or only for hours, nobody can say.  - Virginia Woolf

And such is the mission of the blogger.  The evanescent thoughts that flit through a scattered brain - the half-ideas that seem to be the tip of the iceberg of Something Good:  these are the domain of the online writer.  The writer of things that may last just a few hours - but a writer nonetheless.

In Virginia Woolf's mind, "a woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction."  The blogger might not create fiction, might be writing the ideas that skate somewhere between truth and fiction, and as such she might be obliged to make do with a (just a little bit of) money and a corner of her own. 

Here's my corner:

What do you find in a Corner of One's Own?

:: my Mac (much loved but as-yet-mysterious) ::
:: blankets, warm with memories and woolly smelling ::
:: an ancient apple-picking ladder from a once-upon-a-time farm ::
:: my well worn mini-Moleskine notebook (1 of 3 on the go) ::
:: iPod shuffle ::
:: pretty folders. because who can pay bills out of ugly ones? ::
:: a favorite painting by Jeremy Satterlund - a friend & incredible artist ::
:: a banged up old table repurposed for My Corner ::

:: my wedding picture, and my grandmother's.  Two very different weddings, two very similar women ::
:: my collection of pens - black ink preferable, rollerball required ::

I choose to ignore the stack of papers to sort on the *other* side of the desk.  I'll ignore the laundry piled in stacks on the table behind me.  I'll ignore the morass of electrical cords snaking out from under the desk.   I'll celebrate the small spots of happy in my corner, and I'll write.  Today, I'll write.

*******

Speaking of writing - maybe even [gasp!] fiction - why don't you head on over to check out The Red Dress Club?  It's a new site for writers looking to take chances, regardless of the state of their Room.  (Or Corner.)

Summer. And then not.

I only just caught it, out of the corner of my eye.

The air was still - stiller than still, and heavy with mid-July humidity.  The cicadas hummed and clicked their summer song, children around me splashed and burbled in the deep water, and as I caught the hurtling toddler in my arms, I looked up over the lip of the pool's edge.  I saw a little boy staring up into the sky, past the pool fence, transfixed.

I followed his gaze up, past the top of the tall oak trees,  into the cloudy greyish skies of a 90-degree day.

I watched the single yellow leaf twirl down amidst the lush greenery of the woods - the little boy and I watched the one yellow leaf make its way to the earth.

It was the single moment - the moment in which you know the end is coming, that the season is making its shift. It brought to mind the same quote I shared back in November:

It is in the nature of things to change.  Nothing can last beyond its given time.  And I think that instinctively we know what that time is.  What is it that makes us know when the summer turns?  The smallest shift in the light? The slightest hint of chill in the morning air?  A certain rustling of the leaves of the birches?  That is how it is -  suddenly, in the midst of the summer heat, you are overcome by a tightening of your heart.  The realization that it will all come to an end.  And that brings a new intensity to everything:  the colors, the smells, the feeling of sunshine on your arm.  [p. 72, Astrid & Veronika, Linda Olsson]

What?! I hear you cry.  The summer's barely started!  True.  It's barely started, and it's begun its end.  

But don't you see?? Now we can focus on the "new intensity": now that the single leaf has been spotted, we can love even more the antiseptic smell of the chlorinated water, or the briny brackish smell of the sea.  The scream of a child shooting off the end of a slide.  The croak of frogs and hum of crickets in the summer night.  The white-hot glare of the midday sun.  The green earthen smell of fresh-picked tomatoes. The dripdripdrip of watermelon juice from your chin.

I watched the single yellow leaf fall, knew instantly what it meant.  But I love the millions of green leaves that remain.  It is in the nature of things to change, and it is in the best nature of humans to embrace the changes.

****

This post is linked to Bridget Chumbley's One Word at a Time Blog Carnival on, you guessed it, Summer.  Go check out what the rest of 'em have to say about this intense season.

Reading You Loud & Clear

I spent the early morning catching up on all of the amazing writing that my blogging friends are producing. Don't know what's in their Wheaties, but Mommypants, Bungalow 56, Mylestones, Chatting at the Sky, and Heather at the Extraordinary Ordinary were breaking my heart in a good way, with words, photos, and well.... inspiration.

I commented as best I could - to let them know what they are doing is finding receptive hearts - and wondered (as I always do) how it is I can conceive of blogging when there is so very much tremendous writing out there without my small efforts.

The coffee finished brewing as the the inky thoughts dripped through my own mental filter, and I grabbed a cup from the shelf without thinking.  Set it down to go find the milk, and when I turned back to the coffee pot I had to laugh out loud, all by myself in the early morning silence.

Here's the cup I chose:

Whether you believe in the Divine, or simply being open to communication from the Universe, it seems to me the message was pretty direct today.  I sort of think that the Divine & the Folks @ The Universe have combined forces because Mrs NilsenLife seems so learning disabled when it comes to hearing what They've got to say.

In My Next Life

My legs were always my 'thing.'  You know, the one part of your body that you didn't loathe at 17 (when really, in actual fact, at 17 most parts of a girl are pretty damn good.)

So I was having one of those silly conversations with my husband about this (the kind of convo that husbands don't really enjoy, but are willing to humor you in if you're not offended that they're watching Jon Stewart at the same time.)  I complained about the sheer injustice of the fact that most guys aren't really into legs.  He laughed out loud, and said Well you can't DO anything with legs! 

Hmph.  Well, said I.  In my next life, I'm going to have stumpy legs and a prize winning rack.  [Crude, I know.  I don't quite believe it either. And here she's supposed to be an inspirational blogger?  What's in the water at the Yellow House?]

I decided that as part of my Independence from the tyranny of What If, it is time to name all that I want for my Next Life, to allow me the freedom to love what I got in this one. So.

In my Next Life I will:

:: be petite, brunette, and have beautiful long curly hair. Fine - I'm going to look like my sister in law. [Actually, if I were to look like any ONE of my 3 sisters-in-law, it would be a great Next Life. But that's a whole other post.] [I digress.] ::

:: go to law school ::

:: take the trip to Thailand, Laos & Cambodia with my oldest friend after college ::

:: ask out the guy in my Critical Thinking class [if for some reason I find myself spending a semester at the University of Maryland AGAIN in my Next Life] ::

:: do the Ironman - and tear it up ::

:: stick with piano lessons, and skip cheerleading ::

:: live in New York City.  And then in London ::

:: embrace my inner goth and wear all black ::

:: wear bikinis more often (see first point) ::

:: worry less, act more ::

:: never attempt scrapbooking ::

:: drink Scotch and eat lobster ::

:: subscribe to the Economist and nod sagely whilst deep within its pages ::

:: not waste a day wondering What If ::

:: have stumpy legs and a prize winning rack ::

Of course, it is entirely possible that in my Next Life, I will be a stinkbug.  Or a skunk.

So what about you??  What's on YOUR Next Life list?  Go on, just give me one.  I'll even let you watch Jon Stewart whilst you're thinking.

The Gift of Quiet

My mom gives me all kinds of stuff.  She gives me extra avocados when she's bought too many, she gives me sweet sheets for the kids' beds, she gives me flag pillows to make my lawn chairs cuter for the 4th of July.  She's been known to buy a pair of shoes for me when I dither too long about 'spending on myself', and I always leave her house with a shopping bag or two full of little prizes collected from her basement.

Last night she gave me the best, most meaningful gift of all.

Last night, she gave me the Gift of Quiet.

She and the kids cooked up a scheme for a sleepover - just an overnight, and we'd all be back together in time for a 9.30 swim team practice.  Nothing momentous, no major adventures planned.  Just time away. I watched the back of the car drive off at dinnertime.

Packed & ready for Grandma's

The beautiful gradually-cooling evening stretched ahead of me.  I didn't feel the typical exhaustion that cripples me when faced with concocting a summer supper for hot and grumpy eaters.   I faced the prospect of sixteen hours without a single demand, without a single complaint, without distraction.

It was magical.

I would argue that the profound shock of Never. Being. Alone! is right up there in the Top Five Completely Sucky Things About Parenting That No One Mentions When You Get Pregnant.   For an introvert like me, it is - on occasion - physically painful to answer yet another question about the Lego Jr FanClub whilst helping a Polly Pocket out of her rubber gown and supervising the creation of one's own canopy bed using curtains and scotch tape.

I love what I do.  Love it, and love that I'm fortunate enough to be doing it.  But my current 24/7 career makes the stolen hours of solitude (yes, it absolutely is illicit in nature) feel that much more delicious.

I got my sixteen hours to escape.  Sixteen hours to think, to imagine, to create.  A gift of sixteen hours.

[Thanks, Mom.]

Water. Where Else?

Spent the day in the water today.  Really. THE ENTIRE DAY.

Baltimore came close to breaking ALL TIME RECORDS today for the heat - local experts put the official temp at 104 degrees Farenheit.

I made the executive decision that nothing productive could happen in weather like this.  Oil change?  Forget it.  Laundry?  For another day.  Endless hours on the phone with phone company? Postponed indefinitely.  We had to hit the water, and stay there.

Kicked the day off at 9.45 with swim team for the big kids, and survived that hot 50 minutes by splashing in the already-warm baby pool.  But the minute the all-clear whistle blew for the big pool, Little Miss Two made a bee line for the deep end, and launched herself off the wall bellowing CANNONBALL!!!!!!!!

And so it went, hour after hour.  In the pool, catching one small child, one medium child, one tall child, over and over and over.  Mommy played Dolphin (swimming along the bottom with child hanging on for dear life around my neck.)  Mommy played Tidal Wave (standing firm whilst child tries to drown her with 'giant' splash.)  Mommy watched as the big kids hurled themselves from the diving board, attempting dives and flips and tricks inspired by the hallucinatory heat.

The only food that anyone wanted to eat was watermelon and fresh raspberries.  Peanut butter sandwiches weigh heavy when you need to float on your back in the diving well.  Temperatures above 100 require many doses of freezer pops - homemade AND purchased with our stash of Snack Bar Dimes.

The heat?  Nigh on apocalyptic.  The water? The balm which will stave off the End Times.

The meaning, the metaphorical significance of the elemental, primordial call of water?  It'll have to wait 'til it cools off a bit.

Declaration of Independence

Happy FIFTH of July, everyone!

Thought we could preserve a bit of the holiday spirit here at NilsenLife by joining the fabulous Girl with Moxie in her annual Declaration of Independence - declaring her own personal independence from something that's keeping her down. 

In her words, "Like our Founding Fathers, we need to have a tangible reminder of what we are saying we will no longer tolerate, whether it’s in our leaders or ourselves." So, with apologies to those Founding Fathers, I give you the First Annual NilsenLife Declaration of Independence.


When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one person (your friendly blogger) to dissolve the fruitless trains of thought which have distracted her too often, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the peace of mind to which the laws of nature and of nature's God entitles her, a decent respect to the opinions of humankind requires that she should declare the causes which impel her to the dissolution.

Which is to say that in 2010, I hereby declare my independence from What If.


One of my favorite posts from last year considered the conundrum of What Is.  Some of you may remember it - the one where we talked about celebrating What Is, and the peace that comes with accepting that your situation just IS.  At the end of the post, I asked "Where is the path of peace, between What Is, and What Might Be?"

I spent the last five days crafting a post that explored the world of What Might Have Been.  It was a funny, thoughtful little piece all about how instructive it can be to mentally travel those roads not taken.

Something didn't sit right though - regardless of how often I wrote & re-wrote it, I couldn't escape the idea that no matter how entertaining, the world of What If was crazy making.  Allowing yourself to revisit your past - to question your decisions, to spend your energies wondering what might have been if only you'd chosen 'X' over 'Y' - becomes paralyzing.  If the path of peace lies between What Is and What Might Be, the path of worry and unrest lies with What Might've Been.

I, therefore, the representative of NilsenLife in the world, assembled (along with my mental faculties), appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of my intentions, do, in the name, and by the authority of the good people of the Interwebs, solemnly publish and declare, that my mind is, and of right ought to be a free and independent place; that I am absolved from all allegiance to the question of What If, and that all connection between myself and the State of Wondering, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as a free and independent individual, I have full power to levy war (against a rumpled state of mind), conclude peace, contract alliances (with other future-oriented individuals), establish connections, and to do all other acts and things which independent thinkers may of right do. And for the support of this declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, I mutually pledge to my readers my thoughts, my vast blogging fortunes and my sacred honor. 

That is all.


Finally, if you haven't read the original Declaration recently, I would highly encourage you to do so sometime today.  It is a beautifully constructed piece of writing, and the words stir me every time I come across them.

Inspiring. Whodathunk.

Yesterday brought the VERY unexpected news that this blog was nominated for a 2010 BlogLuxe Award, in the 'Most Inspiring' category.  Wait, what?  Inspiring? 

I have to tell you: as of Sunday night, I'd decided to stop blogging. I don't say this to be sensational or melodramatic. The reasoning was pretty simple. When hashing it out with Mr NilsenLife, I uttered these exact words:  I don't think I'm inspiring anyone with what I'm writing - least of all myself.  

To quote a favorite phrase, again - 'the true miracle is in a changed perspective.'  Finding out the very next morning, that what I write is considered inspiring - to even just a few people? That right there is a little Monday Morning Miracle.

Now:  in these awards, there are many MANY incredible bloggers nominated.  Some of my blogging peeps have been nominated right along with me - shout out to Mommypants and Squashed Bologna! - and of course one of my own inspirations, Heather of The Extraordinary Ordinary.  If any of you are looking for some good writing, the sites listed in this category are pretty much the Blogging Hall of Fame.  So I've no illusions that I'm on tap to win this thing, but I'm so honored to be nominated alongside such incredible writers, and in a category that tells me the simplest things can be inspirational. 


Head over to the 2010 BlogLuxe Awards page, and check out all the amazing bloggage that's out there.  If you're so inclined, you can follow the easy steps to cast your vote.  You can vote every day, from all forty-six of your email accounts.  If you're so inclined.

I'll just get back to blogging here.

Raised by Wolves, or, What A Girl Learns from Brothers

It is late. The kids are very tired, and up way too late. Big Sister and Baby Sister are in full voice, weeping about the injustices of the world and OneLastBinkWatah!!

Mom lays down the law. Insists the lights are going out and the noise will stop. It is quiet for a brief second.  The Brother - the Lone Male in the room - mutters Well. That didn't achieve much, did it?


The silence is deafening - at least it is until Mom's snorts break up the whole off-to-dreamland vibe.

So I started thinking about the lessons you learn from brothers - in my case, two brothers.  It might be a stretch to argue that you learn everything you need to know about the human condition from male siblings, but there is a fair bit of core knowledge to be gained.

To wit:

Drama is generally off-putting to a guy.  Especially drama for the sake of more drama.

There will be smelliness.  There will be a lot of sweat.  Most likely some naked smelly sweat in your life.  And not in a good way.

When boys get mad at each other, they hit each other.  They'll probably yell, loudly. And then they're over it.

It's not all about you.  Sometimes, in fact often, their perplexing behaviors have nothing to do with you.

Occasionally, they just don't want to talk.  At all.  Not about feelings, not about what's for dinner. (doesn't matter how much you've got to say.)

Dirt is a good thing.  Dirt is a tool, a plaything, an occupation all of its own, and its removal will be just as messy as its acquisition.

Climbing trees has merit.  As does climbing rocks, but these are less readily available.

There will always be some sport in which a guy takes interest.  Probably several, but always at least one. [Corollary to this: there will typically be at least one machine or mechanical item in which a guy takes interest.  This might be an iPhone, this might be a chainsaw, this might be a sewing machine.  It is the mechanics, make no mistake.]

I had my little brother visiting today, and he made me cry laughing, remembering the time he & my older brother decided I needed to snap out of my latest Mood.  Imagine trying to be your Most Pissed Off 16 Year Old Self, and having your brothers croon this to you:

Kiiiiiirsten, your conscience is calling yooooooou!

Don't be so sad and blue! 

Time for a cheery you.

Yeah.  Didn't really work for me either.

Now, I've already posted about some of the things I might've missed out on, not having a sister.  And really, what can you do about birth order and sibling gender?  You just gotta suck it up.

But readers:  have I missed anything big? Anything glaring?  Now's the time for those guys who keep *saying* they read the blog to step up & tell me everything I missed - or even better, what you males learned from your sisters! Time for the girls who loved (or tolerated) their brothers to let me know how they changed your life.

If you don't tell me I might get my brother to make up a song about you.

Going all Retro with a [gasp!] JOURNAL

Do you remember your first journal?

I'm not talking about a Dear Diary sort of thing, not one with dates and days of the week that required details of every day.  I'm thinking about the blank book - hundreds of empty pages waiting for anything that you're willing to commit to paper.

My first ever journal entry, dated June 12 1985, was 2 lists: Guys I Love and Movies I Love.  (Kevin Bacon & Footloose topped both. Sigh.  They're still up there.)

The very last entry in that same blank book was the night before I got married - in that one book I have documentation of the most intense, silly, and emotional years of my life.  (And no, now you mention it I'm not sure where it is.  Yikes!)

What, me? Write a lot? Um... maybe?

So I've been trying to unravel a bit of a knotty issue in my head in recent weeks. (Not naughty, sadly. Just...knotty.)  The sort of thing that's isn't front & center in your brain, but the kind of abstract thinking that pops right up if you have a quiet moment in the shower, or as you drive to the pool or wait for water to boil.

I find myself eyeing my current journal - the leather-bound thick-papered book that has laid on my bedside table since I was pregnant with Cecilie.  Haven't written a blessed thing in it since I was newly pregnant with Annika - almost exactly three years ago.  And yet my thoughts lead me to the creamy blank pages:  waiting for lines of slanting black ink in which I slowly untangle the mental morass.

Is there really a place for journaling when there's a blog?

Up to this point, I would've argued No.  I would've argued that blogging is quality-control - a necessary check on the maudlin, the whiny, the self-indulgent.  It forces a discipline on the writing that ultimately makes the content more interesting not only to a reader, but to me.

But awareness of your audience also forces the writer to leave certain content on the sidelines.  Believe it or not, even a blogger has limits about what she'll share.  Here is where a journal leaps up for its time in the sun:  a journal offers total, open acceptance.  It's just me, the page, and the pen.  Honesty - and ideally, a little clarity - is the only way forward.

When Your Story Starts

Came across this picture over the weekend, sorting through boxes of old photos:

It's my high school graduation.

My clearest memory of that day is the ache of my cheeks from smiling that much - as broadly as you can see in the photo - for the entire day.  Every single waking moment of it.

Don't get me wrong:  my high school years were pretty happy years - reasonably straightforward, filled with a lot of sports, a group of truly amazing friends (see you Thursday ladies!!), and a couple of great boyfriends.   I had nothing to complain about.

But on a deep, depths-of-the-soul level was always the feeling that there would be more - that I would be more.  I never felt that I wholly fit the skin of a perky suburban cheerleader, and I lived through those years with the vague sense that there was so much more Kirsten yet to discover.

This was not the dark emo-angst that leads one to carve in bathroom stall doors, or start wearing Sex Pistols t-shirts.  (In fact, when I flirted briefly with an all-black goth look my mother just laughed and said it was cute.)  Rather, it was as if I'd been let in on part of a Big Secret, and that all I had to do was bide my time until all would be revealed.

The day I graduated, the thought that ran through my head on a constant loop was this:  "Now is when my story starts.  Today is when everything starts."

I was headed out into the world, and I was so ready to make it mine.  I wanted to travel - and in fact had booked a EuRail Pass to depart a week later.  I wanted to expand every horizon, to live in ways I'd only read about in books.  I knew with total clarity that I was on course to meet the person I'd always wanted to be - that the coming years would be challenging, maybe scary, but they would be MINE.

There is a point to all this reminiscing (beyond it being June, and graduations happening all around me.)

My oldest had a rough time at school this year - the social dynamics of first grade these days are as complex as anything I ran up against as a 10th grader.  I have watched her transform, as a result, into a very different version of my Cecilie-girl - more introspective, more cautious, much more sensitive to the judgement of others.

Part of my heart breaks that she's learned some of these lessons so early.  But part of me wants to tell her about my graduation day - to tell her that there is so much living yet to come.  SO MUCH that she will learn, so much in which she'll triumph AND fail, so many areas in which she'll grow.

What I would tell my 18-year old self that long-ago day in June is pretty much what I would tell my 8-year old now:  every day is when your story starts.  Every day can be yours, on your terms.  All I had done, that June day, was reach the point where I was ready to see, and ready to grow.   I hope Cecilie is ready for that sooner than I was.

Happy Father's Day

It is an incredibly disturbing thought to a 21 year old.

You're hanging out with your new-ish boyfriend, he's helping you babysit two funny little boys that you've watched forever, and instead of taking the odd moment to notice your guy's broad shoulders or razor-sharp cheekbones, the thought that pops into your head, entirely unbidden is I bet he'd be an incredible father.


What?!?! Where'd that come from?

It took a little over seven years from that day to see his parenting in action.  But from the very first day - the day our baby arrived five weeks early and Torbjorn had to hop on a plane from Ireland to get to the hospital on time - from the very first day he has been incredible.

Kids love this man:  he's sillier than a 5 year old, he'll almost always read 7 stories instead of 3, and he has no hesitancy in doing a diving roll on the grass to announce his arrival home from work.

Under all the fun, however, are the qualities that make him an incredible father:  his fathomless patience, a quirky perspective on the world, a curiosity that trumps caution [yes, it's a good thing because I'm cautious enough for the both of us], and at his very core, a profound love and respect for the state of childhood.

He is a tremendous father.  I'm lucky to be along for the ride.

Supertasting - the NC17 post

Don't know if you saw this in the news today - a little piece on 'supertasters', and a study that has been released indicating that genetically, certain people are more likely to prefer highly salted foods.

Tonight, in honor of all those salty supertasters out there, I thought I'd offer you a few links that are a little (ok, a lot) saltier than you would typically run across here on the NilsenLife posts.  I'm not just being sensational - a few of these really are outrageous, but they made me laugh until I snorted and then maybe I laughed some more.

Seeing as how I've been stalking the friendly guys over at Trader Joes, it brought to mind a long-ago post from Sweatpants Mom: Soy Rage - The Dark Secret of Trader Joes.  Apparently, things are much less friendly in Californian Hawaii-shirtland. This one, not so salty - maybe just ... savory.

These next two posts are for the ladies. If you were thinking about the swimsuit season and how one might [ahem] prepare, I give you Mommy's Still Fabulous's take on things: A Little off the Bottom.  And if that isn't enough to convince you of the rewards of heading south, try Blog Dangerously's The Girl from Ipanema or, How to say "F*** THAT HURTS!" in Portuguese.  


And finally, Valentine's Day is long gone, but this post from Redneck Mommy about a gift her husband heard about through "the boys at work" had me weeping - literally weeping - with laughter.  It is truly truly beyond the pale for some of my more refined readers.  Don't say I didn't warn you.

It's Wednesday.  What else were you going to do??

More than Lovers

All this chat about long distance letter writing might lead you to think that it's strictly the torrid paper romances that weigh heavily on your friendly blogger's mind.

But actually, my thoughts on letters have lead me to the many beautiful friends around the globe that I have loved and then been obliged to leave.

Life has taken me on so many paths - to places far flung and places extremely local - and at each stop I have made what Heather at the Extraordinary Ordinary calls 'heart gut friends.'  These are the friends who own your very spirit almost from the beginning:  the ones who inspire honesty, who call out your wickedest sense of humor, your noblest sense of compassion, and your drunkest protestations of loyalty.

All the chat about letter writing reminds me that I haven't written nearly enough to these friends - not paper, not email, not Facebook.  As they travel the world - to Yemen, to China, to Holland, to Togo, to Germany, to Azerbijan, to Australia - I have tracked their progress, known where they were, but maybe at times have lost the heart-gut connection.

Doesn't mean I've forgotten them.  Their marks on my heart are deep, and permanent.  Before my last big move, from Europe back to the States, my lovely friend Esther (she of the most beautiful heart in the world) protested but how can you move?!? I feel that you will be moving out of my life, not just the country.  As much as her words hurt my heart, I knew it was true that I might not see her for years (and I haven't.  Seven long years later.)  But what I had to tell her that day, what I have to believe, is that my heart-gut friends will only be around the next corner, always.

When I see them, we will pick up immediately where we left off.  When we meet, we will offer great strong genuine bear hugs, and maybe cry and definitely laugh and know that there will be no recrimination for unwritten letters, for un-dialed phones, for unsent emails.  We will sit down immediately and eat and drink and laugh and drink a little more and remember all the things about each other that bind us forever. We will meet new partners, new lovers, new children, and in all likelihood we will love them immediately too.   We will go to sleep - maybe camped out on someone's couch, maybe all tucked up in a newly-remodeled guest room - glowing in the knowledge that we are back with our People.  People who get you, who love you, and will welcome you back into their lives at a moment's notice.  More than lovers:  these friends are My People.

No matter where in the world they are tonight, they are mine.  Y'all know who you are.

Long Distance

Generation X doesn't have many claims to significance.  But, if pressed someday, I will say with confidence to my kids "my generation was the very last one to conduct a relationship through the mail."

It's a unique thing, a long distance love affair managed through envelopes, stamps, ink and paper.

There's the long wait for something to arrive in your mailbox.   There's the initial disappointment when said letter is only one page, two pages, maybe a stack of pictures and not many words.  (No matter how long, it is never long enough.) There is the breathless devouring of the contents, searching for magic phrases and inspired ideas that will remind you of why you're so crazy about this person.  You hunt for the ambiguous phrase, the ones that will stay with you for days and days as you wonder 'did he mean that?'  "if he meant this, then surely he meant to imply that?!"

There may even be a turn of phrase that confuses you - sends you down a rabbit hole of doubt, confusion, misunderstanding.

But here's the thing: the only resolution is your letter in return.

You might have stewed for days, about this little phrase.  You might have obsessed long into the night over what the words meant, specifically.  You have turned it into a proposal, a rejection, or a double entendre, just depending on the hour of day.

But when you write back, you have to play it cool.  You have to keep all options open, whilst trying to make your meaning clear between the flowing lines of cursive.  You play with words, you offer several scenarios, without committing to any of them, all the while trying to craft a letter to triumph all letters - the one that will get the true meaning out, the one that will be the ultimate love letter.

With each successive missive, you do the same thing.  Over and over - until the letters get gradually shorter as you get closer to meeting in the airport, the train station, the bus depot. 

There is an enforced delay, between dropping the letter into the red postbox adorned with Air Mail stickers and a variety of stamps and the m.a.n.y. days whilst you wait for response.  The delay in which you wonder if you made yourself clear.  In which you wonder if he'll answer the Big Question that you'd tossed in there so casually.

It's nothing less than Art, this long-distance relationship.  And it's an art that my kids will never know.   When their time comes, when they meet a heart-breakingly gorgeous Scandinavian who approaches English in a whole new way, they will have Skype, text, email, instant messaging.

Actually, who am I kidding?  By the time they're doing this, Skype will seem as antiquated as the rotary phone. My kids will never be forced to imagine what might be going on in a continent 6000 miles away, will never be obliged to craft a whole Parallel Theory of Post Feminist Romance from the book Grapes of Wrath in an effort to not be obvious, will never be forced to wait for days and weeks to find out if you bared your soul to the right person.

Those relationships will always miss something that mine had. Has.  The alchemy of paper, words, and distance:  the stuff that romance is made of.

Bloggers - Are you my new pen pals?

I write a damn good letter.  I just have to put that out there.

Back in the day, I used to buy special stationery, chosen specifically for the intended recipient.   I would mull over the contents of the letter for days, finally writing AN OUTLINE (!!!) to guide me as I wrote, and man, did I write.  Page after page of carefully crafted prose, words upon words upon words.  Always made sure to include a small bit of humor, a few heartfelt anecdotes, and the luckiest recipients got hand-drawn illustrations in the margins - little cartoons of all that I'd gotten up to that week, or winding vines painted in watercolor.

Yes, I was a complete nerd. And I can imagine receiving one of these intensely crafted mini-novels might have been a little...overwhelming.

I had a friend scan & email me a letter this week - one she'd found in her archives, one that was vintage NilsenLife, actually, way before I even imagined a NilsenLife.  I'd photocopied pictures of me and a boyfriend, and mused at length about what the relationship meant (before digressing to discuss a recent trip to Paris, and plans for post-grad life as an English major.)

Got me thinking.

There really aren't any letters like this being written anymore.  At least, not by my peeps.  Not even by me.

You come across old books in a used book shop - entire books devoted to the correspondence between one dry old Victorian botanist and his mentor.   Sometimes I think about these sort of books as I fire off the 493rd email of the day - what if someone were to collect all the emails I send?  What if I become outrageously famous for.... I dunno, my chocolate chip cookies, say, and someday someone wants to piece together my Early Years.  Really?  All these million emails I send will serve to give someone a picture of who I was, way back in the early part of the century?

It's a little sobering.

I will say this:  I'm pretty wordy in my writing, even still.  In a society driven to shorten to 140 characters or less, I continue to get hung up trying to use my big words on Twitter.  I continue to send over-long emails asking a whole series of questions, and cover all manner of Big Ideas.  But instead of waiting anxiously to see if you got a return envelope in the mail that day - or the next, or the next - all you have to do is make the smallest 'click!' on the margin to check one of your many virtual inboxes.

In a way, it's instant gratification.  In a way, for those letter writers among us, something's been lost.  The craft of the letter - gone.

Maybe the blog is the new letter? 

********
I have more - much more - to say about this.  I might need to take you down memory lane tomorrow, to tell you all about the searing heart-on-sleeve letters my poor husband used to get in his mail cubby.

Morning Person

It is 5.30 in the morning.

Who gets up at 5.30 in the morning?

I do.

Now.

Any one of my college roommates would snort with laughter if they knew this.  My husband can vouch for it, as can my kids:  I am not a morning person. For the majority of my life, I have been slow to wake, grumpy for at least the first hour I am awake, and before coffee entered my life (O Happy Day!) I don't know how my family tolerated me.

but this is precisely why I am up at this hour.

I've asked myself often in recent weeks - how is it that you've convinced yourself to crawl out from under the duvet at dawn? The answer, when it came, sweet & simple.  This is the hour I am most Me.  The hour when I am Kirsten - thinker of thoughts large and small, teller of jokes, reader, writer, runner - and yes, Mom and Wife.

It is silent.  I have the time to start my engines - to sit quietly, to think, to dream. Most days I go for a run, and come back to a still-sleeping house.  This gives me the chance to stretch, to wash my face, to pour a cup of coffee before I ever have to have a conversation with anyone.


Carving out this hour at the beginning of the day - these minutes where I am not asked for anything except for honesty with myself - has changed everything.  I start the day having reached cruising speed, not lurching from the starting line awakened by the screams of a toddler wanting MOMMMEEE or a 5 year old putting his index finger in my ear.  I start the day having checked in with myself, having made sure I know I'm still in there somewhere, and then can spend the rest of the day being all the other Kirstens that people need me to be.

What about you?   Do you have a point in the day where you feel most like You, instead of Mommy/Sweetheart/MrsNilsen?  (Well, I hope you don't feel like Mrs Nilsen, because that would be, you know, weird.)

Empty

I've decided to stop feeding my kids.

Now before you get all twitchy about this, and go calling Child Protection Services, hear me out.

I'm not saying I'm going to stop cooking for my kids.  Not saying I'm going to stop shopping for nutritious food for our house. (And miss a trip to Trader Joes?  Fuggeddabouddit.)

I'm just not going to feed them. I'm not going to have the discussions at every meal about how many more bites count as 'done.'  I'm not going to insist that they eat carrots AND tomatoes.  I'm not going to serve up pasta with the sauce and noodles separated.  I'm definitely not buying special snacks that I know they'll eat so that they "have something to get them through."

Maybe they will feel exhausted by 10am without any breakfast on board. Maybe they will feel the pinch of the looooooong stretch between lunch and supper without snacks. Maybe they'll go to bed hungry.

I am constantly reminding my kids to be so grateful for the food on their table (even whilst assiduously avoiding the time-honored "starving children in Africa" Mom Speech.)  I can sermonize all I want about how kids in our country, in our town, maybe even our neighborhood lack the resources to get food three times a day, never mind snacks. But do they ever hear it?  Do they ever wonder what it might be like to live hungry?

My own crazy little theory is that it might not be the worst thing in the world to know what hungry is.   It might be the best illustration of all, to know the feeling of your stomach trying to eat itself. Knowing EMPTY.

I think all of us could do with a little bit of Empty in our lives, one way or another.   Whether it is the pain of an empty belly, the twitchy silence of a room empty of media noise, the unsettled feeling that comes with an empty shopping cart in Target - we could all do with a little Empty in our lives.

*****
The inspiration for this post came from the prompt of Emptiness at the One Word at a Time Blog Carnival.  A week later, I'm not sure it counts as part of the carnival, but I wanted to give credit where credit was due. :) 

Trader Joe's & Desperate Housewives

The first time it happened to me, I shook it off as a fluke.  The college-aged kid behind the register took forever to slide my celery, frozen waffles, and edamame across the scanner.  He asked me whether I'd tried the the Cuban-style black beans before, and asked if I thought they were healthier than standard black beans.  He stopped.  Literally stopped, looked me in the eye and waited for my answer before scanning a bag of dried mangoes.

Meanwhile I was thoroughly distracted by his paw-like hands.  Seriously.  They were just enormous. He was a tall guy, but his hands - totally out of scale.

The next time, I thought it might be a joke. This day, the checkout guy was maybe post-grad age, dark haired and serious. He asked me about the weather outside - it was early spring, and just starting to warm up.  I hesitated, then ventured that the heat was ok, I guess. He stopped short, made full eye contact, and asked in a sincere way why I wasn't sure about this beautiful weather.  Mumbling about having already put away winter gear,  I was feeling a bit flustered.  Again, stopping short with the scanning he looked me straight in the eye and with a shy smile murmured I wish someone would sort my clothes out for me.

This is when I started looking around to see if there was maybe a Punk'd camera down in the frozen aisle. What?!?!

People?  I'm 37.  The days of picking up grocery-store checkers is long gone - oh wait, I NEVER HAD THOSE DAYS - and let's just say I'm nowhere near the league of Real Housewives of New York.   I really haven't been hitting the aisles of Trader Joes in some sexy skinny jeans and a low cut top. You will forgive me if I thought I was somehow part of Ashton Kutcher's show.

I approached my next trip to Trader Joes with trepidation.  I selected my items for the least conversational value, and dragged all three kids along with me.  Just wanted to test a theory here.

Rolled up to the shortest line:  lo and behold, it was Mr Unsorted Clothing.  Several weeks later, there's no way he recognized me as his Clothes Sorting Mom, and he starts chatting with me about books.  Books, people!   Have I read To Kill a Mockingbird?  Atlas Shrugged?  Love In the Time of Cholera? He starts talking to me - at length - about an ethics course he took, and how it changed his life.  Meanwhile I'm bagging my own groceries and wondering about the parallel universe I've entered.

I'm in the wilds of suburbia, trying to buy Gorilla Munch cereal and organic apples, and I am part of this kid's spiritual journey.

Today took me over the edge.  Was just trying to buy a can of coffee.  The kid at the checkout examined the label, and wanted to know if i thought his brother, who was a real coffee snob, would like my brand. And did I think it was worth it to buy the free-trade kind?

I've been too bashful to ask other mothers-of-a-certain-age if they have experienced this phenomenon.  But now I've just got to come out - to tell the world that I am a HUGE FAN of Trader Joes' HR policies.    Chat up the rumpled housewives - tell 'em your darkest secrets.  Apparently, they'll be so confused you can load up their bag with the 42 extra packs of Cinnamon Flavor Soy Crisps without them even registering.

The Truth about Eight Year Olds, And A NilsenLife Guest Post!

Last night I think my head might have spun around on my shoulders and I just *might* have birthed a few aliens from my throat.  I was THAT MAD.

A brand-new pair of swim goggles had gone missing:  a mere 48 hours after purchase.  A mere 24 hours after being the subject of a long lecture on the value of said goggles, and how important it would be to keep track of them the whole swim season.

As I demanded to know where they might possibly be, I was met with blank stares.  I huffed.  I puffed.  And I BLEW the house... no wait, wrong story.  But I did huff and puff, and ask the stupidest question that a parent ever asks:  "WHY?!?!?"  

But wait - this time my eldest was ready with an answer.

Because, Mommy.  I lost them because I'm seven and half, and that means that I'm almost eight.  You see, seven year olds are lovely children, really sweet and good at not losing things.  But eight year olds are dreadful, Mommy.  And that's why I lost them.


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Some days are better than others, in this parenting gig.  Some days I'm able to snort with laughter about the comments like that.  Other days, I hit the wall at 7.30pm and literally count minutes until I can be alone.  Until I can stop being everything to them.  Until I can sit quietly and try to think sane thoughts.


I'm guest posting about one of those nights over at my friend Cheryl's blog Special Sauce in the House today.  Click on over, show her some love, and read about my Crazy Eight Card.