Lovely Day

Alt-J covering Bill Withers

Maybe after 41 years it's normal for the the sheen of every day life to wear off. Daily interactions and friendships loose their luster. I almost feel like I know the truth behind the curtain and can't play the part anymore. Those magic things that happen during the day get glossed over too. Even if I do catch them, the conversation gets steamrolled by something and I rarely get to share them with loved ones. The upside is I've started to say "fuck it" a lot more and move on when things don't work the way I want them to, rather than taking them personally.

Someone recently reminded me of an energy I used to have that I lost. It fell to the wayside in the mix of having babies and becoming soft-urban. I realized that the energy I bring in to a situation really affects how life plays out. It started one early morning in December when I could have chosen to go down a road of dark imaginings but instead I chose to think, "I believe in you". It all went up from there. 

That one pebble of a thought has created ripples in me ever since. Yoga also came flooding back into my world. It's been a revolution of sorts. It's an enthusiasm for life and a sense of hopefulness about each day. I am feeling my old energy more and more, but with a tempered lens. 

Sure it's just a number but I've earned these 41 years. They deliver a wisdom the youth can never possess. I used to be to cool (and I've still got some shine  left in me) but that's not what I'm about anymore.  

I now understand the feeling of gracefully surrendering the things of youth. I'm the invisible 40-something in a field of millennials. I'm also the accessible soul in a coffee shop making friendly conversation with an even older, understanding soul. 

I can now look back on the slow subtle shift of everyday living and see some true transformation. These days I find my smile in the mirror and a grip of wrinkles surrounding it. I'm the old friend looking back to keep me company. I walk softer and welcome any semblance of grace I can muster.

"Our silent desires can fuel the most powerful experiences we live. It's about how our presence is what really brings people joy." 

I know now that although I might not like the song that is playing, I can find a new spin on it that makes me feel alive. It's my choice to make it a lovely day. 

Deep (Holiday) Thoughts 2.0, Chapter 2

Mom if you're on the naughty list, I'll be nice to you.
I don't think that's how it works. 

Mom here's another gift for you. Open it. 
We don't open gifts until Christmas.
We'll this is a different gift. It's a Kwanzaa gift.
(I'm actually pretty proud of her diverse approach to the holidays).

You changed again. Why?
'Cause those goddamin' clothes don't fit me.
What clothes?
Those goddamin' clothes. I hate them. 

What do you want to get Dad for Christmas?
A handful of kitties.

Parenting 101

The moments that will win me an award...

You're going out to dinner tonight? I want to go!
You can't go; it's for adults.

Yes. I can go. I'm grown up.
No you can't. Where I'm going is only for adults.

Where are you going?
Out. Just, out.

Where?
The Children's Museum. (but it was a retirement party.)

Still a lifetime to live

It's no secret I've been meditating on turning 40 these past few weeks. Who knows how much more juice I have in me but I like to think I've got at least half a tank. My dad made it to 76, so his forty was a fairly good mid-mark. I wasn't even born yet in his world. He turned 42 a little over an hour after I was born. This birthday, I wanted to find an image of him at 40 but I couldn't find a photo mark from 1975. There is a great one of him at 38 rocking' a mustache at an All Souls event. Still, I found these two shots which I fell in love with immediately and felt kin to given my current daily life. 


There are so many things about the first image I love: the horizontal camera, his never changing physique, the metal thermos of water and Deb's reflection in it (as I'm sure she's the one taking this photo). Dad taking a photo and one being taken of him in that mustard yellow top and this white pants. Though it's hard to tell, I'm guessing my mom is pregnant and I can't say I've seen many photos of her pregnant. It's ironic to me that their up in the mountains "hiking". I have never known either of my parents this way, though I've always wished they were more like this.  


I often ache for conversations I wish I could have had with my dad about parenting. In looking through old photos I constantly feel a sense of longing for how much love he gave us all. Not perfection, just presence and affection. I like seeing this guy in his 40s with young kids, schlepping through the days of breakdowns and bottles and carrying toddlers. That's where I'm at and since he's always in my heart, I feel he's here too. I like to think he understands every parenting failure and the small wins. I hope somehow he can sense the sheer joy I have in each of miss M's freckles (since every new one of mine was an insult to me that he always declared he loved). There are moments with miss A that I know my dad had with me. With both my kids I can see what my dad saw when he looked at us. I take comfort in the fact that he wasn't perfect either and I still loved him madly. I anchor to the idea that if my kids can have that same sense with me, I will have succeeded. Happy Birthday RAC! Cheers to discoveries left to come that help me channel you.

Feeling Forty

Turning 40 is a mind trick. Whether you're right or wrong, it's hard not to mark this birthday as the halfway point; give or take a few years. I've tried to encompass it all. A few months ago I think the inevitable march toward the "middle" held me up more than it did on the actual day.

Still I find myself trying to make sense of what turning 40 means. It's funny to watch people celebrate this milestone. 40 is a reason to do something major and I felt it for a while - the need to go big. And then I had a serious talk with myself about getting out of debt and being responsible (ah being an adult). I guess that's what turning 40 feels like and why I dreaded it on some level. I really can no longer lie to myself. In the past few weeks though, I've come to enjoy the honesty I'm facing.

But 40 also feels like two girls giving me hugs in the morning as we eat cake for breakfast. Two girls growing so quickly and the silent aching joy I get watching freckles pop on a 5-year-old face. The pride I have when a 2 year old fights back and the terror I feel imaging that teen. Hearing "I love you" and believing that's the true gift (and knowing I got myself the gift I really wanted instead of waiting for someone else to give it to me).

40 feels like a quilted blanket of friends from many phases of my life. Fifteen years with the same partner and so much learned about commitment. Friendships have come and gone. There are also those just getting woven in to the pattern. The past few years, I've hated coming to understand that inevitable evolution of all friendships. Now I just hold pride in the moments we have together - however brief or long. There is a warmth of a lifetime of memories already. And still, a lifetime more of memories and friendships to come.

I took a quiet moment of gratitude this weekend. Thanking my body for all the years it has never failed to carry me or do the things I asked or demanded. I'll take the trade off for all the times of competitive play, climbing 14ners, Saturday runs, pregnancy and on a yoga mat. I can think back through many moments over this lifetime where I never worried about what my body could do (except breastfeeding - that was BS, body) and as I grow older, I realize the sheer indulgence of that.

It would be no surprise to say my life to this point hasn't had much grace. But the beauty part about turning 40 is I'm okay with that; I'll wake up tomorrow and try again. I've stolen moments in the mirror looking at the sunken places where my eyes come to rest. As of late, I've come to focus more on the darkness and less on the blue of my eyes. Though now I approach the mirror as an old friend. Not a place of validation for my hard-earned physique or a place of despair about what I am not. As I raise two girls, I understand how utterly important it is that I greet this face as positively as I do theirs every morning.

I feel young and old at the same time. A long deep breath in and a long deep breath out. It's taken me forty years to sit in one spot and start to train my mind as much as I train my body. I can master my existence. I wonder how much I can shape what will happen? I'm too old to ignore the moments that have taken place; the choices I have made; the person I am. I'm too experienced not to believe in life's ironic unfolding. I'm too young to loose hope in what still may be headed my way.

Lesson Number One

Miss M has been asking to take a singing class. For weeks I would offer "dance" and she'd say, "no, singing". I couldn't find a group kids singing class. The closest I could get was a theater class in the spring. So I found a one-on-one session to try. I of course loved the teacher, loved the situation. Miss m? not a peep. Literally not a peep. Some scrunched up head nods and glances (at me for 25 of the 30-minute meeting) in response to the teacher's questions. In all honesty, we were in an under decorated sound proof room the size of my cube at work. Needless to say she was too young for the experience. If she wants, we'll return down the road.


For the time being, I have chosen to focus on singing songs with her that expand out of my 50/60s pop and indie band favorites to identify newer, cooler pop and other more more up-to-date tunes (also more females). The other night we picked Lesson #1 from Mulan II (which if you're dying to know is not as good as Mulan - lesson #1 might be the best part). She knew a fair amount of the words already but still it was fun.

In any case, it's all about exposure. Sometimes she'll say phrases unknowingly and I'll need to show her the irony of, liking "dancing in the dark". This lead to a Saturday morning Bruce Springsteen concert.

Miss A has begun a phase of showing off all the cool things she can do. It involves moves like putting her coat on the ground and flipping it over her head to put it on. More recently, she regalled me with walking backwards into daycare. She was doing it tonight (right in to the kitchen table) when I realized she didn't know what moonwalking was; miss M either. How did they parent in the 70s without Google?!

As we were watching the video, all sorts of questions popped up. I found myself trying to explain that MJ doing the moonwalk during Billy Jean live at the Mowtown 25th Anniversary was history in 1983. It was then that I realized, move over Mulan, I have some lessons of my own.

Miss M asked, "Is that a boy or a girl?"
"A boy but his voice is high like a girl's, right?"
So what do you think?
Great. Can we watch something else like, "Shut up and dance with me"?

The time has come

I feel like this poem speaks to what I'm working on lately. Hopefully I won't be 60 before I feel it resonating with where I actually am. I'd welcome some form of my 40s though. Dear heart, I haven't forgotten you. Again and again I return in fits and more giggles these days.

LOVE AFTER LOVE
The time will come
when, with elation,
you will greet yourself arriving
at your own door, in your own mirror,
and each will smile at the other’s welcome,
and say, sit here. Eat.
You will love again the stranger who was your self.
Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart
to itself, to the stranger who has loved you
all your life, whom you ignored
for another, who knows you by heart.
Take down the love letters from the bookshelf,
the photographs, the desperate notes,
peel your own image from the mirror.
Sit. Feast on your life.
∼Derek Walcott

Deep Thoughts, Chapter 10


Are you lucky? I'm lucky.
You are lucky. Do you eat Lucky Charms?

I like pictures. It's like I'm dancing in the dark in my underwear.

I look different in different clothes.

Our current resident toddler is retiring this month. She's moving on to the greener pastures of being a big girl (aka 5). Not to worry though, we have a replacement whose already been vetted out and groomed for the gig. More Deep Thoughts, Version 2.0, to come.