Category Archives: Mental Health

Take Your Monster to Work Day

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I had a new weekly meeting on my calendar for 10:30. I left on time but forgot that the conference room is blocked by construction and requires a detour, so I got to the meeting at 10:31 and they were already rolling. UGH. Strike one.

During the meeting, my phone buzzed with notifications of missing assignments at school then texts from G about all the Very Important Parenting Interventions we needed to do tonight. Bzzt, bzzt, strike two.

After I clarified what the team needs from me (not much, it turns out), I bolted out of there down a back staircase. I’m pretty sure I’m not authorized to use it because through a door I saw something vaguely surgical looking then the stairs deposited me outside next to some very explosive looking medical gas tanks. But I made it outside…where it was raining and I didn’t have an umbrella. Plink, plink, plunk, strike three.

The anxiety that had lurked over my head like a little black storm cloud all morning sank to my shoulders and wrapped around the top of my lungs and tightened up my heart. And the mean voice started.

A smart person would have remembered her umbrella. A dependable person would have gotten to the meeting early. A good mother would have kids who don’t need any talking to about turning in homework. A healthy woman wouldn’t get out of breath hurrying through the rain.

Under the pecan tree outside my office building, I felt the pull back towards my desk, where stacks of work awaited. But for a second I let myself wonder, “Where would I end up if I just kept walking until my legs gave out?”

The straight answer is, “rural Oconee County with wet shoes and a chafing problem” so I dragged my soggy ass back inside.

And that’s where I was greeted by a little vignette of my own making, a reminder to my stressed out self from my healthier self:

Out of frame: actual work stuff that needs doing

That sumo mandarin is a healthy snack because I do take care of myself, even if I could stand to work in more cardio and less cakie-o.

That list of dinners for the week is me being a good steward of our resources and making sure everyone else eats healthy too. Cabbage soup is Vivi’s favorite and Carlos has been curious about curry. I am a good mom who does her best to delight.

That purple pin from Emily McDowell is the “Didn’t Please Everyone” prize that Wise Heather gave me a few years back.

There’s stress relieving antibacterial hand gel because I have to stay strong and calm.

And a teeny tiara because I’m a queen, dammit.

The fellow in the middle? He’s my Anxiety Monster and I have put him in the place of honor because he commands the power to make me lighten up.

We went to a comic-themed Family Day at the Georgia Museum of Art last weekend. Cartoonists from Athens were there taking requests. While my friend waited for a “wolf dragon” from Abby Kacen, I got in line for David Mack, because his sign asked…

I blurted, “An Anxiety Monster, please.”

In little more than a minute, David knocked out a pencil sketch of this perfect blob of quaking and blushing nerves who’s a tad wobbly because he’s balancing altogether too much brain under the flop sweat but he really really really wants the world to like him. He’s a monster who’s trying quite desperately to be scary with the horns and the big teeth but GAH he can’t seem to manage fearsomeness what with the wobbling.

He’s the perfect monster for me.

It was a privilege to watch an artist engrossed in his work, all action and no pondering. He was the mirror opposite of the thing he was bringing to life with his pen. Create, don’t ponder.

David inked in the sketch, shook it a couple of times to dry the ink, then passed a large white rectangle over the surface. “Is that like a blotter for the ink?” I asked.

“Nah, just a big eraser, to get rid of the guidelines,” he said while handing over my monster.

Because even Anxiety Monster hides his rough start, afraid to let anyone see the messy parts.

How Did You Learn Resilience?

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I stood on the dusty road at Washington Farms and worked through my work Inbox on my phone. As each long yellow school bus pulled into the gate, I checked for my kid and his class and if it wasn’t them, I got back to work there in the dust and the sunshine. Because this is what you do when you have a busy job but your son really really really wants you to go on the field trip.

We had a fantastic time at the pumpkin patch–a hayride, bouncing on the trampoline, playing in the corn box, petting donkeys and bunnies, even learning from the farmer how pumpkins grow. Carlos and I giggled through it all together. I took selfies with the quiet girl and tied one boy’s dusty shoe and listened to a wide variety of opinions about corn and whether it was good or nah.

But when the clock struck noon, I told Carlos that I had to get back to work. “Noooooo! I want you to stay!” he howled. I pried myself from him and made the long, lonely, and guilty walk to the car. I sat in the quiet for a minute and had a little cry about how hard it is, balancing work and life and kids and responsibility.

It HURTS to be absent sometimes when my kid wants me present.

It hurt a little less when we all got home, him with his tiny pumpkin and a string of stories about all the fun he had after I left.

He was fine. I got a little better.

Then I forgot to ask him to help cook tacos. The meat was already browned (his favorite step) and the lettuce already rinsed (his second favorite step). I was being efficient again and forgot that this was something special my boy and I do together. As he says lately, “I like three things–cooking, clouds, and nukes.”

I apologized for the taco incident and we went on with the evening. I made time for clouds since the cooking was a wash.

In the half hour after bedtime, Vivi had come out of her room five separate times with questions or to track down a lost book or to get a cup of water or to or to or to too. I was pretty frazzled with it. Carlos wandered out into the den and plopped down on the sofa. “It’s after your bedtime,” I snipped.

“You mad at me?”

“No, I’m not mad but I am frustrated that you and your sister seem to be having some trouble with staying in bed tonight.”

He rubbed his eyes and I saw that he was crying. “I’m not mad–go back to bed.”

He did, but a moment later, G came out and told me, “He’s crying because he said he’s going to miss you when you go on your trip.”

Well, dammit. There I go being efficient and not making room for my kid. ARGH.

I went back to Carlos’ room and sat on the bed with him in the dark. He told me that he was sad about missing me while I was gone. I told him that I was sad about missing him too, but that I was also really excited about this adventure and I needed it. We came up with a plan for how I would text and call and leave him notes to read every day that I’m gone. His tears dried up and all was well again.

And then I went to my therapist the next day to unload it all on her couch.

She was a working mom too, back in the day, and is familiar with the feelings. But her kid is grown and healthy now, so she also has learned that it’s important to teach our kids to be resilient.

She asked me to think about how I had learned to be resilient.

What’s resilience? It’s the “capacity to recover quickly from difficulties.” Toughness. It’s the wisdom you acquire by going through challenges and coming out the other side, knowing that you are OK.

Our conversation reminded me of a really low moment in my life, after Richard died and I was alone in our house. Specifically, I was alone on the kitchen floor curled up in a ball of snot and rage. I felt so alone and so tired of thinking I was safe and loved only to find out that I was neither. I remember howling, “I am always going to be alone. I am never going to have anyone to rely on. It’s just me.” And then I snot-laughed because I had a flash of insight. “Well, if I had to pick one person to rely on for the rest of my life, I WOULD PICK ME. Because I never quit.” I got myself off the floor and went on with my life.
Yes, my heart aches when my boy says he will miss me, that he would rather be with me than without me. I feel the same way–but I haven’t apologized to him for going on this trip. Both of us will be learning how resilient we are. I’m challenging myself with the newness of a foreign land. He’s challenging himself with the newness of 13 days without a physical hug from Mama.

We’re going to be OK.

Well, my shuttle to the airport leaves in an hour. I’ve written this to keep myself from curling up in a ball on the kitchen floor because it was so hard to give him one last hug at school this morning and hear him say, “I love ya, Ashley. I’ll miss you.”

Stop Breathing. Now Breathe.

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Before I even tell this story–I’m fine. It’s all fine.

Today was such a stupid day to cap off a long long string of stupid days. G had a horrible toothache and had found a dentist who could see him at noon. I’ve been out sick for a couple of days but was finally starting to feel better. Then Carlos said, “My tummy hurts” at bedtime last night.

You know how that sentence turns out. Lots of laundry and not much sleep. So when G and I were deciding how to manage today with a sick kid, we stood over our phones and hashed through the calendars.

“OK,” I said, “I can stay home this morning but I have two things this afternoon that I can’t move or miss–at 1 and 2:30.” He checked his phone. “That will work. I’ve got a few things this morning then dentist at 12:30.” We’d hand off Carlos at noon (Lord willing and the breakfast doesn’t rise).

Everything worked out fine. I logged in to work from the love seat while Carlos had some yogurt and screen time. Carlos got to play in a warm bubble bath until he was wrinkly so that I had time to diagnose form submission problems, send mass emails, post news stories, reschedule appointments. I kept the wheels on the bus and the boy hydrated and the laundry going. Like moms do.

By the time G got home, Carlos was dressed and fed and ready for an uhventure (to the dentist’s office!). I got myself dressed and fed and ready for a follow-up diagnostic mammogram.

The regular one I had on Monday didn’t get the thumbs up from the radiologist. Instead of getting the thin pink envelope in the mail that says, “All good!” I got the call from a very neutral sounding scheduling secretary to come back in for another look. OK. No big deal. Hooray for good insurance and 3D imaging and all of that. All of that stuff I never ever ever want to think about.

It’s weird when you work at the place where you get your healthcare. It’s not anonymous. It’s Monita taking my insurance card and Odessa printing forms and Cathy doing the scheduling. Vickie walks by and Connie is the boss and everyone knows my name. Even in the waiting room, I sat next to the mother of Carlos’ kindergarten teacher. It’s another day at work, except I’m remembering that sometimes it’s not good news.

She positioned my right breast and compressed the plastic plates. I watched the digital pressure reading–30 lbs. I stood calmly, doing as I was told. It’s not that bad, the squeezing. It’s better than not knowing. She steps behind the clear screen and as the imaging arm moves and clicks and whirrs, she says, “Hold your chin up high and breathe….stop breathing.” Three clicks.

As I’m holding it all together and focusing my eyes on a screw on a conduit clamp near the ceiling, everything stops.

Stop breathing. What if this is the first paragraph in the story where I stop breathing? I don’t want to stop breathing.

I tell myself that I’m being dramatic. That this is normal. That every time we upgrade the machinery, I need a new baseline. That I have about a 20% chance of developing breast cancer in my lifetime.

“And breathe.” She comes out from behind the screen and we move on to the next series of images. She spends more time on my right breast and I start to get suspicious. I let my eyes move to the screen where the digital image is displayed and a giant white constellation burns its way into my heart.

I’m held fast in the machine again and I don’t want to cry but I saw what I saw.

“And (whirr) stop breathing…(three clicks)…and breathe.”

She assured me that the images were going straight to the radiologist, and if he wanted to get an ultrasound they would do that right away, today. This was starting to sound serious. I sat in the waiting room with a copy of Oprah’s gift list that smelled too much like Elizabeth Taylor perfume. And I tried not to think about Christmas next year or this year and what it might look like for my little boy, who loves the tiny tree in his room so much that he falls asleep in its soft glow every night.

Then Molly stuck her head in a different door and called my name. Out in the hall, she said, “We’re going to go ahead and do an ultrasound today.”

As I lay on the table, the computer behind Molly cycled through the screensaver of slides that I publish for the hospital–meetings, recognitions, announcements, reminders. All that stuff I spend so much energy on. All that stuff that fills up my days. I stared at the mural on the wall, a hexagonal window with a white orchid resting on the sill. Molly began clicking and tapping Enter and clicking and dragging and tapping again. Taking the measure of things. That sound that I hadn’t heard since my babies were growing inside.

Then I waited for the doctor to look at whatever Molly had marked. I stared at the picture of an orchid in the picture of a window in a quiet room so that I wouldn’t think about the white constellation inside.

I hadn’t even told G where I was going–he had a toothache. I had a 2:30 meeting to get to. Would I go there, relieved? Would I go there knowing that I had a biopsy scheduled in a few days? Would I not even show up because it’s really hard to care about a meeting when you might have cancer?

Cancer. I started thinking about that quiet wait when I sat in one room while Richard sat in the other to hear The News. I laughed at those old cancer pants (that are still in my closet). I looked down at my plain black pants and then said, “Stop this. You’re being stupid.”

Or you’re not. OK, fine. If this is it and everything in my life is about to be flipped upside down, I’m not giving up. Little Gay will be the first person that I call. It’s her awful job in our family–being the doctor.

I wouldn’t be alone. I started naming all the women I know who are years and years and years past this quiet room where you wait on the doctor. Jo and Chris and Debbie and the other Debbie and Susan and the other Susan and Dominique.

And Gleam. And that friend’s mom and the other friend’s mom. Wait wait wait, don’t think about them. I cry. I cry for the tiny red and white elf Christmas ornament that Gleam brought me from Europe, that last trip she got to take with her daughter.

Don’t worry about things that aren’t true. Don’t. Just breathe.

And stop breathing.

Because the doctor walks in. Molly is with him and I brace myself.

He waves the wand and studies the screen. He declares it nothing to be concerned about. It’s dense tissue and some kind of cyst something something and I can’t hear because all I can feel is the breathing going in and out and my breathing sounds like laughing. I say, “Are you sure sure? Can we do a biopsy just to be sure?” He tells me to come back in six months and quit worrying about it.

Then I tell him that I’ll need to explain this to my sister and he rattles off so many Latinish words that I get lost in the glory of it. Words are breath and laughter is breath and I am breathing until I stop breathing.

And breathe.

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Coming Back to My Senses

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G caught me flapping my hands and muttering to myself this morning so he asked what was up.

“Carlos needs to get dressed, Vivi’s lunchbox is missing, I need to get the house organized because the cleaning lady is coming today, oh and the guys are coming to stain the deck, so Huck needs to be cooped up in the basement, which reminds me the pool is turning green but I don’t have time to take a water sample in at lunch today because I have an all-day class and we are out of groceries.”

G went back to getting dressed. I added “carry around a big load of resentment” to the list. Then, like most every other day, I got all that taken care of and managed to get myself ready for work.

By 3:30 p.m., I was in the office restroom crying into a paper towel and trying not to make any noise. This time of the day, this time of the week, I’m getting overwhelmed with feelings. Orlando. Senate filibuster. Cheeto Jesus. Father’s Day.

Father’s Day. At lunch, a friend had asked, “What are y’all doing for Father’s Day?” and before I could brace myself, I thought, “Nothing–I don’t have a father anymore.”

By 5:00 p.m., I was sitting in my car trying to remember what I did last Father’s Day for Daddy and all I could be sure of was that it wasn’t enough.

Back at home, there was the green pool and the deck guys who never showed and the groceries to unpack and the and and the and and the and.

I stood at the kitchen sink trying not to cry while getting dinner together. I couldn’t find one happy thought to hold on to, not one safe and still place to let my heart rest.

I rinsed the potatoes that came in the produce share from Collective Harvest. I was reminded of the first time I watched Daddy dig up potatoes in his garden. I’d never seen them growing and was delighted by how they hung down in a crowd from the plant that he’d lifted out of the soil with a wide-toothed hay fork.

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I pulled from the block the little paring knife that Daddy and Big Gay gave me for Christmas that year after Fartbuster and I split up. I had asked for a sky diving certificate or some good knives. They decided the knives were less dangerous. I carefully cut into the small purple potatoes without using a cutting board, the way I had been taught. The jeweled inside of each potato reminded me of a fig. I’ve never been one for figs, but that reminded me of Daddy laughing about how Grandmama Eunice loved figs so much that she would stop the car and climb over a three-strand barbed wire fence if she came across a fig tree standing in a pasture. It wasn’t stealing, because that fig tree had to have been planted by some farm family long ago. Even if the house just a memory, the fig tree deserved to be loved and Grandmama Eunice wasn’t about to let figs be wasted on cows.

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With the purple potatoes cooking in a little oil, I turned to snapping two handfuls of green beans. The texture of fresh green beans takes me right back to being a kid with an afternoon’s worth of beans to snap or purple hull peas to shell or corn to shuck. We had BIG gardens. The scratchy green surface of the bean, like a kitten’s tongue. The rewarding crisp ripeness of some and the floppy meh of others. The distinctive SNAP. The summer smell. The clatter as the pieces fall back into the collander and dinner grows step by step. When we were kids, the worst possible thing to hear was “Y’all get in the car–we’re going to the garden.” Now I ache for a peck basket and a row of green beans to work my way down.

 

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A pretty pint of blueberries and the rest of the strawberries from the fridge. I scoop a handful of the blueberries gently into my fingers and pour them into my mouth. Most of them perfectly sweet, but always that bitter one. Farm fresh blueberries take me back to a late June trip to Maine with Richard. We ate breakfast on the hill overlooking Bar Harbor. He ate a cinnamon roll as big as his head (I have the photo to prove it) and I devoured a blueberry muffin made with the biggest blueberries I had ever seen. We took our traditional “feet picture” with the sailboats and bay in the background. That photo turned out to be the last one of a long series. Memories. Most of them perfectly sweet, but always that bitter one. I ate another handful of blueberries then stirred the supper.

I can’t say I suddenly felt happy at that moment and all was right, but I felt more solid. When my brain is racing far ahead and my heart is twisted and panting with the struggle to keep up, I have to come back to my senses. Sight. Touch. Sound. Smell. Taste. Memory.

My Life As a Drab Queen: Thoughts on Makeup

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I sat in my car a few minutes before 11 a.m. this morning and watched one of those wonderfully Athens scenes: on one side of Hancock Street, tidy white families hurried up the hill to the Methodist church service while on the other side of Hancock, two glamorous drag queens welcomed guests to brunch at The National. Jacqueline Daniels and Yasmine Alexander serve on the board of the Boybutante AIDS Foundation, which has raised over $800,000 for AIDS services in Northeast Georgia. My kind of people, plus brunch.

Yasmine Alexander and Jacqueline Daniels. Photo by Josh Payne for Boybutante AIDS Foundation.

Yasmine Alexander and Jacqueline Daniels. Photo by Josh Payne for Boybutante AIDS Foundation.

Even though I spent all day in bed with a stomach ache yesterday, I wasn’t about to miss brunch with Bryn and Jill. So I slapped on some stretchy clothes and put my hair in a pony tail…as usual. But as I sat there in the car, knowing that these queens had been painting up for HOURS to get ready for the show, I figured I could at least put in a teensy effort to look festive.

I reached in my purse and unzipped the makeup pocket. I’m surprised there weren’t cobwebs blocking the zipper. I haven’t worn makeup for months. I put on a little bit in the car on the way to Daddy’s memorial service, and when I turned around to speak to the kids, Carlos grinned in wonder and asked, “Mama, what you do to your face?”

I drew a narrow black line across my upper lids then skooshed the corners a bit with the tip of my finger. I considered the “Wine With Everything” lipstick but thought that might be a bit too steep of a leap, so I dug around in the bottom of the bag to find a Burt’s Bees with a little bordeaux tint to it. Two lines across my eyes and a swipe across the lips and I made my way down the sidewalk. There are drag queens…and then there are drab queens, like me.

Most of my rebellion against makeup is that I think it’s ridiculous that I have to draw lines above my eyes or color my lips to be considered “finished” or “dressed” in this world. In the words of writer Erin McKean:

You Don’t Have to Be Pretty. You don’t owe prettiness to anyone. Not to your boyfriend/spouse/partner, not to your co-workers, especially not to random men on the street. You don’t owe it to your mother, you don’t owe it to your children, you don’t owe it to civilization in general. Prettiness is not a rent you pay for occupying a space marked “female”.

I’m not saying that you SHOULDN’T be pretty if you want to. (You don’t owe UN-prettiness to feminism, in other words.) Pretty is pleasant, and fun, and satisfying, and makes people smile, often even at you.

But some of my disuse of makeup has come from seeking out invisibility. I’ve been depressed lately and my therapist has pointed out before that I recede into black clothes, pony tails, and blank face when I want to disappear. That’s my Drab Queen attire.

I don’t know if it was hanging out with drag queens, or with my friends, or the mimosas, but I got in a really good place this morning. Jill and I talked about writing, Bryn smooched everyone in the house. I clutched my pearls while Lacie Bruce proved that she’s got all the right junk in all the right places:

Lacie Bruce gettin' all about that bass. Photo by Josh Payne for Boybutante AIDS Foundation.

Lacie Bruce gettin’ all about that bass. Photo by Josh Payne for Boybutante AIDS Foundation.

Looking around that room, I realized that nobody there gave a shit about whether I painted my face or didn’t paint my face. Not my old friends, not the strangers, not the artists who had been painting for hours. Nobody cared whether I had more junk in the trunk than I did twenty years ago. People were there to enjoy themselves–having some fun for a great cause while Peter Dale served brunch. And all I had to do to participate was….participate.

After the show, we hung around on the sidewalk so the restaurant crew could prepare for the afternoon seating. We talked about 80s hair and Aqua Net. We talked about the vagaries of boobs and gravity. That led to talking about our grandmothers. The delightful Lori Divine told how her grandmother could roll a Virginia Slim’s 120 from one side of her mouth to the other as she painted on her blood red lipstick. Then Jacqueline said, “One thing I love about drag is the Coty powder. It reminds me of my grandmother.”

Oh. My. Goodness.

Just the other day, I was thinking about Grandmama Eunice and that little round cardboard box of Coty powder that she kept on the edge of the mantle in the dining room, right next to the makeup mirror and the good light from the tall window. She wouldn’t have left the house without her lipstick on straight and a little dusting of powder. I wanted to smell that powder again because that’s what she smelled like when I hugged her.

That moment on the sidewalk was beautiful, because of the makeup. I love how if you talk to anyone and tell stories long enough, there’s always that moment of connection. Where your story and my story cross paths and we learn that we have something in common, even if it’s the smell of our grandmothers’ face powder.

I might just draw two lines across my eyelids tomorrow in homage to these queens. I might be ready for the world to look at me again.

Yasmine, Bryn, Lori, me, Jacqueline, and Jill. Just gals hanging out and talking about makeup.

Yasmine, Bryn, Lori, me, Jacqueline, and Jill. Just gals hanging out and talking about makeup.

Isaac Newton’s First Law of Depression

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Newton’s First Law of Motion: “A body in motion will stay in motion, and a body at rest will stay at rest, unless acted upon by an external force.”

Once you’re up and moving, it’s easier to stay moving. But you’re not going to get moving without a good shove.

Once you’re at rest, it’s so easy to stay at rest. This is what we call “inertia.”

And this is what’s so hard to remember when depression pulls me down. It’s so easy to stay stuck. So easy to sit down on the couch after the kids are in bed and stare at my phone until midnight, then wake up tired the next day.

Newton's 1st Law of Motion, also known as Galileo's Law

Newton’s 1st Law of Motion, also known as Galileo’s Law

This morning, after I took Carlos to school in the rain, I pulled into my garage and turned off the car. The sadness wasn’t too close to me at that moment–I didn’t feel like crying. I wanted to be still. I closed my eyes and leaned my head against the seat. The quiet of solitude settled around me. It only took a few seconds for my monkey mind to start jumping around. Need to fill out benefits forms. Carlos left his jacket at school. I should take the dog for a walk, get the deck refinished, call a tree guy, check on my neighbor. I should quit saying should. I wrote about that..right? I gotta learn how to do SEO. It’s time for breakfast. What’s for breakfast? How many Diet Cokes are left in the fridge? Oh wait, I’m supposed to be meditating. What was that meditation app that Casey mentioned? What’s my data limit? I need a new phone. Well, I don’t need one, I want one. I wrote about that too a while back. And this car needs power steering fluid. On and on and on.

I tried to nod to each thought with loving kindness then lead it off to the side. Focused on breathing until I couldn’t get a deep breath. Two minutes, sitting there in my car. I couldn’t quiet my mind for two minutes, even as my ass became one with the warmed leather seat.

That’s when I realized the vast difference between stillness and inertia. Inertia is being stuck. I’ve mastered inertia and the couch has the ass-groove to prove it. My body is at rest and it will stay at rest until I give it an equal and opposite shove in the direction I want to go. But my mind is in motion and will stay in motion.

Stillness isn’t just sitting on the couch staring at my phone. Stillness is a generative state, a place to grow. When I am still–if I ever reach that place again–I will be fully present in my stillness, with quiet mind and some space to just BE.

So I gave my body a shove today. More stairs, no elevator. More steps, less sitting. Use the incline on the treadmill…shoot, even use the treadmill. At the same time I’m focusing on moving my body, I’m also learning to quiet my mind. I stared out the window some instead of surfing websites. I put on headphones to listen to the hum. I went for a massage and made a point of not talking. I let the therapist work on my ears, my neck, my face. I sat still and breathing came easy.

Thus ends today’s lesson in Newtonian physics. Move your body; quiet your mind. And here’s a puppy to recap:

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Start With a Good Shove

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The previous owner had neglected the yard for years, so when Richard and I bought this house, there were plenty of projects to keep us busy. He was happier than a pig in slop because his project-loving self had been cooped up in an apartment for many years.

One of the first projects he settled on was taking out a dead dogwood tree. It sat near the corner of the house, too close to the power lines for his reckoning.

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“I think we should call a tree surgeon.” He rolled his eyes at my suggestion. It wasn’t THAT big of a tree. But it was too big for a hand saw, so we went over to Home Depot and bought a little chain saw.

I made him buy eye protection too and he laughed at me.

Back in the front yard, he yanked ivy away from the base of the tree while I watched from the safety of the front steps.

“Have you ever used one of these before?”

“For cryin’ out loud, Ashley–yes, I know how to use a chain saw. We used one every summer at Camp Greenbriar.” When I still didn’t look convinced, he reminded me that the army allowed him to blow stuff up for many years, way bigger stuff than a dead tree. Still.

Before he pulled the cord to crank it, I yelled, “WAIT!” I ran inside the house and came back with the phone, so I could call 911 if anything horrible happened. Again with the eye rolling.

Richard studied the space between the tree limbs and the power lines and decided on the angle he needed to cut to get the tree to fall in the right direction. I clutched the phone and braced myself. He placed his hand on the crumbling bark gave it a little shove to make sure none of the branches were ready to fall right on his head.

The tree moved a good three inches. He looked up at me on the porch and grinned.

He put both hands on the trunk and gave it a good shove.

The tree fell flat over onto the lawn with a whump.

The trunk was so rotten that the ivy had been holding it up.

We laughed. God, how we laughed.

“Well, I’m glad we didn’t call the tree surgeon.” Then I went back inside and put the phone on the charger.

So much of my life has been like that episode with the tree–the hours spent in worry and planning, buying safety goggles and wondering if I shouldn’t leave it to a professional. When I finally get around to attacking the thing, it’s a whole lot easier than my mind has made it out to be.

I haven’t written in eleven days, because I didn’t know how to begin. How can I stop writing about my grief when I’ve barely scratched the surface? But how can I write again about grief when last night was Halloween and it was lovely to see my tiny Iron Man run from house to house? Today is All Souls’ Day or All Saints or Dia de los Muertos, depending on where you grew up. Terri is walking the labyrinth; Brantley and Luis built an altar in their home. The picture of our friend Spencer is right next to the photo of Lola the pup rescued from Taiwan. But I don’t want to write about that–I don’t even want to think about the ones who have passed through the door.

This little story about the tree seemed as good a way as any to get my fingers moving again. To get myself off the porch. To start with a good shove.

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Hello, Friend. I Am Afraid of You.

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Me on Day One of my first BlogHer!

Me on Day One of my first BlogHer!

Two years ago, when I went to BlogHer for the first time, I didn’t expect much. I’d only been writing for a few months and I knew that I knew pea turkey squat about the world of blogging. I met this one really cool woman, Heather, who was starting a blog, too. When I asked her what she wrote about, she said, “Well, I’m not really sure what my niche will be…” I looked at her with my gob hanging open and replied, “You’re a lesbian vegan parent of multiples, one of whom has special needs…and YOU can’t find a niche? I’m screwed.” Heather and I were standing on the Expo floor, surrounded by sponsors who wanted to establish relationships with bloggers–maybe like us?– who could generate content about their products. Air freshening candles, tapioca pudding, car seats, vibrators, seltzer water, hair care products from Best Buy…what the ever lovin hell?

I couldn’t figure out where I fit in. Then on Friday night, the Voice of the Year keynote blew me away. In the midst of all the expo noise and the SEO tips and the social media optimization strategies, these women were recognized for getting up on stage with a microphone and telling stories. I had found my niche. Telling stories.

20140725_210343So last year, I went for it. And I got a spot on that stage with that microphone. The entire trip to BlogHer14 in San Jose centered around that seven minutes on the stage. By that time, I knew I could sustain my blog. I knew I could tweek widgets and self-host and run ad code and learned even more about those things at the conference. But the whole conference was pre-VOTY nerves and post-VOTY high.

Something different happened after last summer’s conference. I kept my place at the blogger table on social media. I friended other writers and I followed people so I can learn from them. My friend, Dee, said, “Why are you liking stuff on a site about natural hair for Black women?” Because Patrice at Afrobella is a pro. I’ve been watching how these women build community by participating in their communities on line.

In the days leading up to BlogHer15 in NYC, I’ve found myself more anxious than I have been at the previous trips. And that’s completely weird because I know far more about blogging and branding than I ever have before. I’m not looking for a niche, or the spotlight this year.

I’m looking to meet my friends.

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I want to hug A’Driane’s neck because for a year I’ve been learning from her about how to raise boys with quirks. I want to see what shoes Luvvie will be wearing and I want to vote for her Red Pump Project HIV charity to win The Pitch. I can’t wait to see the dress that Alexandra ordered from China–it’s a gem of a clustercuss. I want to talk happiness with August and books with Thien-Kim and parenting with Vikki. I’ll listen and learn from women who aren’t like me. I’ll go to the Queerosphere party and I’m going to dance at killer karaoke like a white woman who learned her moves from Molly Ringwald sometime in the mid-80s. I want to hug the ones who are hurting and promise them that they will be OK.

All of those connections that we’ve been building over the interwebz for 12 months will have to step out into the light of day. I don’t know what anyone’s voice sounds like. I don’t recall who is tall (well, Arnebya is) and who is short (Queen of Side Eye…ahem). I know Casey is handsome and her daughter is fancy. I’ll find these dear people in a crowd and then…

I’ll be me. Simply me. And I’ll be present. And I’ll be OK, too.

Because what I realized today is that this anxiety stems from some whack idea that when I am seen in the light, I will be revealed as that awful person that the voice inside my head sometimes tells me that I am. Even if that person isn’t real, if they don’t exist anywhere except inside my head. I might be the sum total of the worst parts of me instead of the best parts of me.

Hello friends. I am afraid of you because of how I might judge myself in your presence. But I have found my niche among this band of storytellers and I am thankful for the place at the table.

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The good fortune I took to San Jose

 

The Space Between Things

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Last weekend, the Cool Kids were hanging out in the deep end of my pool. Floating there on foam noodles and drinking wine out of plastic cups with girlfriends–a little hour in heaven. Wise Heather shared the news that her new job was pretty much a done deal. Good for her, but sad for us who were hoping that she would work someplace close enough to meet for lunch.

I asked, “Is the drive going to bother you?” and she dropped a truth bomb: “It’s nice to have 30 minutes in between BAM and BA BOOM to think my own thoughts.” Ain’t that the truth?

She got me to thinking about the space between things, the moment when we’re going from Point A to Point B (and if you’re like me, using that time to anticipate out all possible problems that might arise between Points C – ZZ). I think my days have left me short of breath lately because I’ve shoved more and more work and worry into the space between things.

This little gem floated into my Facebook feed last week: tumblr_n74fyou6W81r0sn0fo1_1280

Well, hell. I haven’t observed Items 1-4 since my kids were born. Trying to, but…damn. I pride myself on answering emails while I’m on the phone and checking Facebook while I’m walking the long way to a meeting so that my Fitbit will approve of me. Multitasking is supposed to be a good thing, right?

Not so much. Not when it’s ALL THE TIME.

Today at 4:55 p.m., while I adjusted user permissions on a site and posted news stories and sent an optimization idea to the developer and questioned the life choices that have led me to use words like “optimization,” I also texted G to see who was picking up Vivi from day camp. Ding! He was already on the way. OK, I could get a feeeeeeew more things done before fetching Carlos.

But I made the mistake of glancing at my desk calendar and seeing BLOGHER in big yellow letters next week. NEXT WEEK? Shit, I need business cards. So I flip over to a website to design and order something fresh and amazing that’s going to be The Ticket To Next….but the logo I want to use isn’t the right dimension and the website warns me that my design will have “possible white space.” No worries. I can fix it with some clever cropping in this other application over here…

Next thing I knew, I looked up and it was 5:25 p.m. and the Mom Guilt kicked in. “Please don’t let my baby be the last one waiting in the room, sitting over in the book corner while the teacher mops the floor.” I grabbed phone off the charger, chugged down the last of my 100 oz of filtered water, slapped the Fitbit to see how many blinky dots I racked up, sighed in disappointment, shoved the stack of bills that I meant to pay on my lunch break back in my purse for another day, I turned to the whiteboard behind my desk and crossed of ONE DAMN THING from the long list, even though I kept the hammer down for the last seven hours, since I got to work after my early morning dentist appointment for a filling.

I turned out the lights and locked up the office, Mom Guilt squeezing my chest until there’s no room for breath. Turned left to take the stairs and walked past the scale that stands in the hall. Checked the Fitbit again. In the stairwell, I held on to the railing because no one would find me there if I slipped and fell. Last one leaving. Then the “You’re going to die alone!” fears stop in to say hello because why not? All my kids will remember is that they were the last ones picked up from daycare and the smell of mop water will trigger depression for the rest of their lives. As I stepped out into the sunlight, I tallied all the phone calls I need to make…that I never seem to have time to do. Like to check on my own parents.

Two minute walk to the car. Just enough time to catalog all the things I meant to achieve between last year’s BlogHer and this year’s. And I forgot to lose fifty pounds. AGAIN.

Got in the car and the gas light came on. I need to find a way tomorrow to drive across town to the place where I can save 50 cents a gallon on gas with my fuel points. That’s like eight bucks. That matters.

It’s a three minute drive to get Carlos. The first thing I see is a note taped on his cubby, and it’s not just a note, it’s a note with a STAPLE in the corner, a multi-page record of his transgressions. He’s been fine for months…now this shit AGAIN in the last month before he starts Pre-K.

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He beams to see me and gives me a gigantic hug. Four other kids line up to get hugs, because I make time for that. As we make our way to the car, the weight of the note makes me think that I should start the “Good Choice/Bad Choice” speech and break it to Carlos that he’s not going to have screen time tonight, but part of me just wants to have a few minutes of happy with my happy kid while he’s actually happy instead of immediately talking about that time six hours ago when he was angry.

Where is the space between things for a working mother? In music, it’s called a rest. In painting, it’s the negative space. In graphic design, white space. Where is the space between things that gives me room to breathe? That, in its emptiness, gives the heart a place to stand in order to see the life as I’m living it?

Sometimes when I find myself standing in front of the refrigerator, foraging for junk, I realize that what I’m really hungry for is a big gulp of breath. A heaping plate of rest. A space. A pause.

Know what I’m saying? What do you do to maintain the space between things?

IRONIC POST SCRIPT: I looked up the principle of “the space between things” in art. The Japanese have a word for it, and that word is…………..”Ma.” I guess my kids have been yelling at me about theories of Japanese spatial design for all these years.

Seabiscuit’s Best Pal

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Have you read Seabiscuit: An American Legend by Laura Hillebrand? I enjoyed that story of the 1938 Horse of the Year so much that I once rattled the silverware on the lunch table when I got so into a race scene that I was banging on the table and saying, “GO, BISCUIT, GO!”

Seabiscuit wasn’t supposed to be a champion. Even though he came from great stock….he turned out kind of wonky looking. He ran funny, with a gait that looked like an egg beater. He was small. In his early career, he had some tough times and they turned him a little bit mean. He was almost worn out before he really had a chance to shine. By the time he ended up in the care of the trainer who would take him to glory, Seabiscuit was 200 lbs underweight and so high-strung he spent most of his time pacing and pacing and pacing in his stall. He was a mess.

Seabiscuit and Pumpkin

Seabiscuit and Pumpkin

Then along came Pumpkin. As Hillebrand describes him: “Pumpkin was amiable to every horse he met and became a surrogate parent to the flighty ones.” High strung Thoroughbred race horses do better with a calm and gentle “lead pony” around. These companions keep the race horse company and walk with them out to the track to calm the nerves. Pumpkin had been a Montana cow pony–there wasn’t much he hadn’t seen but none of it had turned him mean. So the trainer knocked out the wall between two stalls and moved Pumpkin in with the Biscuit. After a little sniffing and conversation, the scrappy little champion and his soothing yellow companion remained bonded for the rest of their lives. And Seabiscuit went on to take his place in the history books.

Guess which one is the international superstar?

Guess which one is the international superstar?

American Pharoah, who won the fabled Triple Crown just last week, has his own companion pony, Smokey. This buckskin Quarter horse was the second most photographed horse at the Belmont Stakes. He goes everywhere with the champ, calming his nerves and giving him a shoulder to bump against in the crowd of flashbulbs. We all need somebody.

So why all this barn talk about lead ponies? I have a friend who is an absolute Thoroughbred. Just like these magnificently powerful creatures, she’s fast and strong and smart and beautiful. And sadly, like Seabiscuit, she hasn’t been cherished in her early life for the powerhouse that she is. She’s been used and pushed too far and almost got worn out. Her nerves are jangly and she’s pacing and pacing and pacing. She has so much potential and power but gets overwhelmed by the rush of it all.

When she and I talk, I imagine myself as Pumpkin, calm and amiable. I try to channel that unflappable cow pony who ain’t scared a nothin. I want her to draw comfort from my friendship, to feel the steady power of a companion who will always be right by her side. She has great things ahead and already possesses everything she will need to find her place in the history books.

Horses are so much like us in a way–sometimes it’s the mental game that holds us back. Having a few friends around you can make all the difference. They encourage us to run.

Am I writing about you? Maybe so. What’s holding you back, Biscuit?

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