Dancing Queen

So I did actually just watch "Mamma Mia" two weekends ago, but that isn't exactly inspiring this post. It's a few weeks of using our new YMCA membership that has my spirit tripping the light fantastic. Our local Y has an in-house babysitting program, which means that Noah can happily play with other kids and zillions of toys in a secure room with trained adults while I spend one hour moving my body as much as I can in the cardio room upstairs. This has already proven incredibly freeing and energizing for me, after two-and-a-half years of parenting without regular play groups, programs, classes, or childcare.

I quickly created a routine at the gym, half an hour on the treadmill and another twenty minutes or so on the bike machine, devouring whatever magazines were left on the shelves there. This was great for the first several visits. Although I don't necessarily have lots of baby weight to lose in terms of pounds, there has definitely been a redistribution of things since having Noah, which doesn't feel great. So I quickly was feeling hopeful about that, after a long time of lowered energy, coupled with the inevitable winter-will-never-end physical shutdown.

Then last Thursday I introduced music into my workout. I dug out my black and yellow walkman from the packed up boxes in the garage. It has a radio and tape player in it. I loaded new batteries in it. I also found my two boxes of cassette tapes, some dating back to high school, which include a wondrous stash of mixed tapes. Many of these are from college, including the music lineups from some of the best campus-wide parties. Even more are from after college, during the stretch of years when I danced at Zootz in Portland at least once a week, even after I'd moved back to central Maine.

So my first cassette selection was a mixed tape of dance music I heard at Zootz all the time in 1994. I felt a smidge self-conscious on the treadmill because the women on either side of me had tiny ipods smaller than credit cards, and were wearing ab-baring tops and shorts to my Adidas sweatpants and white men's v-neck. I felt righteous too, but old. Parenting has a way of making me feel that way at times. Used up. Not an ounce of hip left in me.

It took me two songs to figure out how to make the headphones work, which meant I missed hearing "Move This" by Technotronic, and "I Want You" by Julie Roberts, but then it kicked in when I accidentally hit a switch on the walkman that I didn't remember about. A dance beat! Loud! I started running much faster, and grinning at the memories flowing from each song. "A Deeper Love" by Aretha Franklin was poignant, as she just sang at the Presidential Inauguration earlier in the week. My heart was working much faster, and endorphins flooded my brain. I was dancing and running, and fantasized about everyone in the gym noticing how attractive and hip I really am, and giving me an ipod as a group gift so that I wouldn't have to listen to the old walkman any more. It's amazing how music and dancing can torch up the inner flame. I used to feel this way when I'd go out, caring less about whether I interacted with other people all that much, and more about getting this natural buzz going. I used to go to Zootz and dance from 10 p.m. to 2 a.m. straight without stopping, and usually without alcohol.

I felt like I could run on the treadmill forever, even though I had to tap the right ear piece regularly to keep the sound streaming on that side. "Life" by Haddaway. Ace of Base, often described at that time as the next ABBA, but really, not so much. I went a half hour, and then the walkman ate my tape when the first side ended. I had to slow to a fast-walk so I could pull on the ribbon and get the twist out. I felt a smidge self-conscious again. Proud and embarrassed to be so old-school. But I fixed it, and ran again. "Good Vibrations" by Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch. I wondered if Mark Wahlburg looks back fondly on his beginnings. It's a great song, and I ran another twenty minutes. I picked up Noah downstairs in a state of total euphoria, and recreated this bliss for myself on Friday, and Sunday.

So, all to say that in the frozen wasteland that is Maine right now, the passion exists again. These few weeks of getting physical have helped me recapture a small amount of that old strut after way too many years. It's not just parenting, and the stress of going back and forth from feeling that glow of parenting a perfect child to wanting to commit terrible violence to myself so they'll have to take me away from here in an ambulance. It's years before, of doing difficult violence prevention work, dating people who didn't dance, seeing my wardrobe change from mostly interesting clothing to mostly conservative, growing up and leaving clubbing behind... But it's amazing what dancing did for my body, and how it elevates me. Latest lesson learned. If anyone out there is feeling less than, find that song that rips it up, and let it move you.

Tagged by My Sister, In More Ways than One

So this is a first for me, blogging in response to a prompt from another blogger. Usually these posts come from the internal wellspring, with a large assumption on my part that they stay pretty internal because I cannot imagine that people tune in to my one-blog-a-month pace. My sister Sarah just "tagged" me. Here is the format for this little game:

1. Link to the person or persons who tagged you.
2. Post the rules on your blog.
3. Write six random things about yourself.
4. Tag six people at the end of your post and link to them.
5. Let each person know they’ve been tagged and leave a comment on their blog.
6. Let the tagger know when your entry is up.

Normally when I receive these little quizzes via e-mail, I fill them out and e-mail them back to the one person who sent it to me, but I do not send it on. One reason I'm responding here is because I've never created a link to anything from within a blog post and it's time I learned, so here's to Sarah for providing me my technology lesson for today. Sarah, Sarah, Sarah, (okay, they make links pretty easy for us), my older sister who will be joining us a second time over online with a new website soon, showcasing her beautiful paintings for viewing, drooling, and buying.

My Six Random Items of Interest (and these will be about me, not Noah, although my tendency these days is to find my son way more interesting than me):

1. I am in the process of purging 75% of my clothes closet, in hopes of only keeping the few items of clothes that I really love to wear. It started when my family recently moved, and continues. Another two sweaters came out this morning. Last month I brought my high school prom dress to a consignment shop.

2. My favorite food is the Maine crabmeat roll - I grew up on them at Perry's Snack Shack in Washington County, and now especially love the ones at The Sea Gull on Pemaquid Point, the restaurant and gift shop owned and operated by my mother-in-law.

3. In the 20+ years that I have been writing poems, I have not created continuous breathing room for myself to put them together into manuscripts, but my hope is to someday publish books of poems.

4. I'd also like to take guitar lessons.

5. I drive a bright green 1995 Geo Prizm with almost 304,000 miles on it. And yet, somehow I have days when I feel more worn out than my shiny car. It is the first and only car I've ever owned.

6. My dear mackerel tabby cat Sidney as of this morning weighs 18.5 pounds. Our new holistic veterinarian suggested that we phase Sidney off of the Newman's Own organic dry food because of the heavy carbohydrate content, and begin trying to feed him raw food, as in, raw chicken and ground beef, with bones in there too for calcium. I am disgusted but also strangely excited.

I can't expand from my pattern of not sending on quizzes to anyone, unfortunately, because I know very few other bloggers, but I managed to do this much at least while Noah sleeps upstairs. May others carry the torch onward.

Thanks, Not Tanks

It's been two months since I've blogged - I've thought of it many times because I could now easily supply another Top 10 most incredible things I've heard out of Noah's mouth, or share details about the miserable process we've gone through to get to the closing on a beautiful parcel of land and construction loan, or in the bigger world could talk about the fact that we now have our first African American President-Elect and the country may be extricated from the nasty war we've been fighting the past several years.

But today, amidst cleaning house to prepare for thirteen dinner guests tomorrow, and reading Noah story books before naptime, and thinking about running away by myself for a few hours to buy myself multiple pairs of earrings, I have one echoing experience to capture here.

Noah has been sleeping with us again. I find it quite ironic, because Matthew couldn't wait to get him out of our bed back in January or whenever it was. He'd had it with cosleeping, and to be fair, none of us were sleeping well at that point. Noah did not, and still does not, like covers, so would kick them down and we would get very cold while he lay perpendicular between us, a wedge, which he was becoming of sorts.

Since being in our rental, I've done my best to keep Noah in his routine of sleeping in his room, but after a stint with a cold, a few rainstorms with fierce winds coming off the water, and his father eagerly inviting "Do you want to sleep in Mommy and Daddy's bed tonight?" it's been about two weeks now that we just put him down to sleep in our bed at night.

The downside of this is that I now have even less time in any given 24-hour period to be a little bit free of his energy. Time when my own center can stretch and inhabit the space a bit more. This is also known as "A Break". And A Break when unconscious still counts as A Break.

The upside, which is a major upside and the point of this post, is that I get to wake to his face again. His two-year-old face and his immediate song and chant, "Maki, maki, maki, I want maki, Mumma, maki." The Milk Song. His round cheeks and chin. Every morning, even if I am squinting as I was this morning because we had a massive wind and rainstorm last night and the vent on the kitchen stove sucked air and went "Bam!" every seven minutes, I wake and feel like it's Christmas. Noah's blue eyes, his sweet words, big head of orange-brown hair, smiling and ready to enter another day, full steam ahead. And seeing Matthew excited to experience Noah of course doubles my pleasure of the whole scenario.

Whoever dubbed this stage "The Terrible Twos" when discipline and structure are all-important - bring out the tanks and heavy artillery - left out the way a two-year-old can make any grinchly parent's heart grow three sizes, and grow again, and again, and again. On this Thanksgiving Eve, Santa is surely on his way very soon, but has a tough act to follow with these special mornings when my husband and I wake to our beautiful son.

Spilt Milk

In the past six or seven weeks, my husband and I have continued to search for a home to buy, in the area of his new job - Waldo County, Maine. We were fortunate to have our own home go under contract - something that seemed sad and monumental the day it happened and now seems like ages ago and not anything to worry about. As our closing date has crept closer and closer, we've had a series of fits and starts, trying to press forward with some places that just weren't right, then falling back and assessing and starting again. We now are looking for land upon which to build, and have fortunately just days ago landed a rental so we will actually have someplace to go when we leave this place.

And really, it isn't just someplace. It's actually an incredible custom-built home on the water in Belfast, Maine. Belfast is a town we didn't even consider looking for a permanent home, because the taxes are so high. Why we are able to affordably rent such a palace, but can't find a modest home to buy, is kind of beyond me. I have stopped trying to figure out the real estate market. Our last back-and-forth with a seller this past week involved him stretching the negotiation out the whole week, all so he could tell us that he would drop the price on his land from $44,900 to $44,400 - what whopping generosity.

Finally in this last three days, comes the actual inspiration for this post - we have begun PACKING. I've been anticipating it for so long, it's actually been fun most of the time so far. I love to sort, organize, pare down, and purge. Carrying four thumbtacks from the kitchen, three rooms away to the box which contains all the materials from our desk drawers, and putting them into the thumbtack container I've already started there, brings me inner peace. A sense of calm knowing that things are in their places. For the most part, now that we are in the midst of the move, I have not run into any emotional walls, and have done well working over our candle cupboard, the bookcases, and kitchen cabinets. I banged my head against them (the emotional walls, not the kitchen cabinets) for most of the summer and the early part of this month, so moving forward finally through the change has been a welcome relief.

Until today, when Matthew and I tackled the basement. While we've spent the past year sorting and selling things from down there, it still caused the mover to say "Wow, that's a lot of stuff," when he came a few days ago to give me an estimate. So we chipped away all day today and actually packed about three quarters of it. When Noah got up from his nap, Matthew went up to put together the Christmas train set that Noah spied and had to unpack, and I decided to empty our chest freezer.

Now, we are just a little bit famous in our small circle for having a lot of organic beef in our freezer. We used to do half-cows, but a year ago we bought an entire cow. People can't get away from a visit with us without having some beef in their hands. One Christmas we gave away frozen roasts at a holiday party. This fall, however, in anticipation of our move we didn't buy any beef, so now we have an amount left that would fit in the side-by-side refrigerator we have in our kitchen. I brought it right up. The only other things of note in the chest freezer were the bags and bags of frozen breast milk that I once so carefully packaged and labeled. It was all over a year old, well beyond when the books say breastmilk is still good, and I knew months ago I should have taken care of it. Not until today was I ready to deal with it, and it still was the last thing I took out of the freezer. I unloaded the bags into a wire rack and carried the rack up to the kitchen sink. I thought I would just let it sit there and melt, but five minutes later I came back and ran hot water over each bag, sliding the icy lumps out. I felt all slurry, a good-bye registering - to this time, to Noah's babyhood, to this place that brought us together as a married couple and a family. Good-bye to the spot of many wonderful celebrations and the best day-to-day life I've had so far. I slowly emptied all the bags, and it was done. Nothing else to do but turn off and unplug the freezer. Isn't that just like time, to come so heavily into the room, and then walk out like nothing happened.

Now here I sit just a little while later. Noah is in the living room, playing along with his Christmas train and singing a song amidst bare walls and boxes, and I feel ready, thankfully - on the other side of some line that I've been shrinking away from for months. "I thought I could - I thought I could - I thought I could," is maybe what comes to mind. Our transition continues, but we are definitely off, onto another adventure together in a new and beautiful place.

Forgiveness

A book I am reading, which I have to unhappily say I don't think is well-written but does have some helpful ideas in it, reminded me this morning that the true purpose of forgiveness is to reopen the door inside myself that lets positive experiences in. This is relevant because the past few weeks have been difficult ones in my little part of the world, and I've increasingly taken refuge inside myself, building a pretty tough reinforcement between me and the outside, between me and my husband, even between me and other parts of myself.

On the most positive view of things, Noah turned two last month and has begun swimming in language, sometimes repeating what he hears, but mostly tumbling, screaming, exclaiming his thoughts as he has them. He also has taken up basketball, golf, tennis, and soccer, with a joy that is infectious.

Another positive development is that after a year of searching, my husband has found a new job in another county in Maine, and started July 1st. It is over an hour away, so we have put our house on the market and have been looking to purchase a home closer to that neck of the woods. We've been anticipating this change for such a long time, and then suddenly it arrived. I have mixed feelings about it all - the decision to relocate for his job which also brings us closer to the ocean is one that feels right, and yet leaving the home where we married and where I have all my memories of Noah's life so far, is painful. In my own small way, I feel like a homeless refugee, even though we certainly are not in those circumstances for real. I'm upset about it, and I'm upset about all the fleeting summer energy it's taking to go through this transition. I don't know where I belong. Right now I'm nowhere.

As the weeks have gone on, with long days of me looking at houses with Noah while Matthew works, I've worn down. Trying to fit in some summer fun here and there has been difficult while all this other stuff sits in the wings, asserting that it is the real star of the show. Having any time with my husband has been impossible, so all the time we have together is either reentry or preparing to be apart - we are not usually at our best in these times. When my birthday came and went this past Thursday I wanted the day to be over, something I don't think I've ever felt in my life. I'm very sentimental when it comes to celebrating birthdays and other special occasions for myself or others. It was a hard day for me, in the end, when usually I spend that day enjoying things and visioning about the year to come. That added a touch of bitterness to my already foul mood this week.

Now a few days beyond, I understand that what I want is for this TIME to be over, this time of looking and not knowing, of having my roots exposed while we look for our next home, of having too many things to focus on, all while the beautiful but dratted fall air is already starting to fold into the mornings.

And today I guess I am getting tired of feeling lousy. So as this book discusses, the one I mentioned at the beginning of this post, since my valve to outside positive experience has been seriously closing, the answer, to begin to enjoy again, to be thankful for what is behind and what is to come, is to forgive right now. Forgive sounds like kind of a hefty action for some mostly circumstantial happenings, but isn't it all circumstantial? Isn't the slight over breakfast just as big or small as the grief of leaving my home? Isn't it all, as a dear old friend used to say, (and pardon the curse word) just AFGO - Another Fucking Growth Opportunity? It sure is easier to get angry at Matthew or someone else than it is to stay focused on the choice, the one I've made, to leave this dear place I love so much - close to my work, my friends, the place I've centered my life for years. I'm sorry that this feels like it does, I'm sorry to leave this place, and I hope the move happens soon so the equilibrium can right again - I need the outside circumstances to reflect the leaving I'm already doing.

The Grass Is Greener

This afternoon I was down at Long Pond swimming with Noah. He gazed longingly at a pair of orange goggles that a little girl had slung up on the edge of the lake, and also admired her glittery flip flops. I asked him to leave them alone, when the girl's mother said, "Excuse me, Miss? It's fine if he plays with any of that stuff. We don't mind at all." I said thanks and managed a few other lines of conversation, but was in somewhat of a daze as my head replayed and struggled with "Miss? Miss?" I haven't been called Miss by anyone in a long time. I think it was in my days as a bank teller when I was always being called Miss by the customers. I connect this lakeside experience to one I had earlier this week when I was carded in line at the grocery store when I brought up a bottle of wine to celebrate with my husband, who has just gotten a new job. I looked at the woman at the check-out incredulously and told her that I'm turning 39 next month. She said she never would have believed it.

Now on one hand, I think 38 is a fine age, and I wouldn't take my 20s back for anything. On the other, I honestly received a small thrill from being seen as younger than I am. What this really told me (other than how I am sucked into the yucky culture that values youth over experience), is that suddenly I am on the side of the line where I know loud and clear that I am no longer young.

I have a partially-burned candle in a kitchen drawer from my 30th birthday, shaped like a gravestone, that bears the words "Here lies my youth." I got it for myself as a joyful good-bye to the decade that had been less than fun to get through. It was wonderful sarcasm, because I was leaving an "old" life behind, and heading into a much fresher one. And my reality continues to be that I enjoy aging, especially in recent years. Becoming a mother has, on the whole, made me feel more young inside. So has has getting to know myself better as an adult and letting youthful confusion and inexperience, and the misery it can produce, slide off me.

And now as I head forward in this time, Noah marches along beside me, his flags waving. This Friday he will turn 2. Tonight as Matthew used a knife to cut cheese for crackers, Noah said "Knife, knife?" and I explained briefly for the fortieth time that knives weren't for babies and that when he was a big boy he would be able to use a knife. A few minutes later we were talking with him about his upcoming birthday, and I told him that he would be 2 years old. He thought for a minute and said, "Knife?" There it was, he had it - the yearning to be old enough, to be able to do life more fully, like he sees everyone doing it around him. Coupled with my yearning to find my own simple truths again. There we sat, side by side on the stools in the kitchen, holding hands. It's another reason why being a mother is so wonderful - this child gives me the roadmap back, while I give him the one forward.

Kate Who?

On one recent morning Noah and I sat on my bed after his bathtime, and I was playing our name game with him. "Who is your brother?" Noah made a "c" with his hand and yelled out "Co-Co!" which is his nickname for his 16-year-old stepbrother Colby, who now also goes by "Coke" and "Colby Doo", bless his heart. "Who is Matthew?" I asked, and Noah thought for a second and responded "Daddeee! Daddeee!" with no small amount of glee in his voice. "Who is Sidney?" Noah made the sign for "cat" and said "Catncatncat." Finally, I asked, "Who is Kate?" Noah concentrated very hard for quite a few seconds, and then said with excitement, "Peow!" I laughed and said "Yes, Katy is a plow, isn't she?" (See Katy and the Big Snow, by Virginia Lee Burton, one of Noah's favorite books right now.)

This was both a delightful and sad moment for me. I love the book too, and this plow Katy is one serious go-getter, not unlike myself at times. I also was struck by how I am so totally Mumma-Mommy-Mum now that it's rare for me to ever hear my own name spoken in my home. Even Matthew addresses me as "Mum" a lot of times when Noah isn't even in the room. As I write this, I remember reading in a magazine blurb many months ago that this is a sure sign of impending doom in a marriage. But I digress.

As Noah approaches two years old, and shows his excitement more and more for everything around him, I feel like my own motivation for anything other than him is creeping along like an old camel who has decided she really doesn't need water ever again and she'll just live on whatever she's got stored up in her hump for the REST OF HER LIFE. I am tired of my old mental loops of thinking about how and when and what to do, which personal goal or project to push forward with the minute amount of "free time" I have when Noah naps...How to make it happen for myself, some modicum of my old productivity, doing things for others or myself - that goes beyond getting clean and dressed. I feel today like giving up on all that and just being Mommy. Trying to be anything else often leaves me down and tired, more tired than the regular exhaustion that comes from being a parent. Cosmically tired.

There are days like this when I imagine myself to be the mythological Tityrus. He was chained to a rock for his crimes, while a vulture fed upon his heart and entrails, which were ever renewed as fast as devoured. The doctrine of endless punishment was born and suits me well when I need to see my husband Matthew as the vulture, reaping the benefits of me over and over and over again - me the co-parent, childcare provider (for those times when I know what I'm doing doesn't rise to the level of parenting, but is much more like just keeping Noah alive until someone who can be more responsible comes back to help out), grocery shopper, housekeeper, master organizer... And of course, it's me who's the real vulture, bitterly attacking myself again and again with mean and useless messages, which I really can't be affording to do given that I need to raise this dear boy and don't have a lot of energy for other things, which is the whole point.

My old life is so over. I can't really even pretend sometimes that I have parts of it, and I think that's the way I've been approaching things so far. The endless cultural conversation about mothers doing it all and of course looking good while they do it is a paradigm that is not only unattainable, it seems to me to spell out a formula for not being present with my child, my partner, and myself. On some level, it's absolutely impossible to be responsible for a tiny person's safety and security and to enjoy that little life, and still expect to exercise, celebrate regular intimate moments with my partner, contribute to society, and be socially and politically active, unless I make them part of some new paradigm together. They can't be compartmentalized and ticked off a list.

When I planned my return to work after three months of maternity leave, I proposed to come back at reduced hours, and Noah would be with me on-site. As Matthew helped me strategize how to plan that time and what work to focus on, he said something brilliant: that I could approach it as doing the same job with less time, or I could approach it as a completely new job. This was an incredibly novel and helpful way to think about things, and I know that it applies here. Being a mother, and wanting to get outside in the long overdue warm weather, and moving forward with projects through my consulting business, and oh yes, making time with my husband, they all have to overlap now and have something to do with one another in a big, messy, mudpie sort of way. I can't just barrel through until it's all done, in that Katy snow plow sort of way that I used to do. I have to more intentionally find the counterpoints in the day to being Mommy, Mommy the rock, Mommy the thing that Noah can love or safely rage against or whatever else he needs to do. I have to find Kate in this new place, Kate as my source, Kate as my reference point, this new woman, Kate.