Saving My Marriage from Facebook

Sometimes I absolutely hate Facebook, i-phones, and the prominence of technology in my life and home. The way my husband and I are glued to our phones and the Internet each night, you would never guess that a mere four years ago all we had was dial-up. That was back when we lived in a cabin with a woodstove for heat and a composting toilet on the back porch. That was back when it still felt like a novelty for me to even have a cell phone (which incidentally didn’t happen until 2004).

When Matthew and I lived in the cabin on 50 acres outside of Olympia, our time together was mostly technology-free. We had the occasional DVD night up in the loft where the T.V. lived (that could only be used for movies), but mostly we just hung out, made dinner, listened to music, drank wine, and stared at the stars—both metaphorically and literally. Dial-up was, of course, frustratingly slow, but because of its very slowness, it forced me to get on, do my business, and get off. No mindless surfing, no long detours into someone’s life story or web links, no wasted time online. Sounds ideal.

Of course, I also love the Internet, my i-phone, and Facebook. I would feel cut off and disconnected from the world without them. And without a fast connection, I would never have the motivation to network or do Internet research. I might very well withdraw into my old insular ways.

But what I hate sometimes, and I mean loathe, is the way these devices pull us away from the moment, pull us away from our living room, from our child, from each other, distracting us and eating away at the precious few moments that we have to connect at the end of the day.

When I come out of the bedroom at the end of the night, my son finally asleep, dinner eaten, the house quiet, a feeling of relief washed over me, I want to be able to sit down next to my husband and have him look up at me, put aside his laptop, and ask me how my day was. I don’t want to have to ask him to do this, but if I don’t ask, and instead decide to just go get a glass of wine, sit in the chair across from him, and get online via my I-phone myself, then it might be an hour before we finally look up at each other and attempt to converse. Or, we might just skip that part altogether and decide to watch an episode of Mad Men or what have you, since we only have an hour now before it will be time to go to bed.

To be fair, there are times when my husband comes into the room and I am the one who is engrossed in something online, and not immediately willing to shut it down and tune into him, or us. To be fair, I am sure that I check my email way more than he does his. And to be fair, I am probably every bit if not more addicted to Facebook than he is.        

My excuse: I’m home all day with a toddler. Some days go by where I don’t talk to a single other person besides a few words exchanged with the grocery checker. My days are devoted to meeting the needs of a two-year-old: to feeding, changing, and clothing him, to providing him with enriching, stimulating environments and play. But are these activities stimulating to me? Not very often. Perhaps in a mild, satisfying “that was a fun way to pass the day” kind of way, or in a random intensely delightful moment. But seldom in a way that actively engages my mind and creative longing.

And so? I turn to Facebook and to my email. I check them over and over again, a mindless reach of the fingers, to see if anyone new has written me, if anyone has commented on an update, or posted interesting links. It’s like candy. (Or chips, if you go more for the salty.) It’s little morsels of fluff and occasionally glimmers of opportunity or interest that inject a bit of the outside world into my day. Since I can’t just decide to take a break and go be alone, or sit down and watch a few minutes of t.v. (if I want to be a good parent), or talk much on the phone without my son trying to get my attention, then I turn to Facebook which provides the perfect take it or leave it morsel of a break that I can get away with in between activities throughout my day.

My husband’s laptop sits right next to the couch, right next to the spot where coincidentally one of us is usually planted. We also use the laptop to listen to music and stream videos, so it makes sense that it lives at the center of our living space. But sometimes I wish it weren’t so, because I know that the ease to which I can click the button, scan a few posts, and turn it off, is not always an asset. It’s a distraction. It pulls me away from my son, who is here and wants my full attention. It pulls me away from my husband. It pulls me away from myself.

And with the i-phone, it’s even easier to click on and off, wherever I am—in the bathroom, in the yard, in the car. I never wanted an i-phone, but now I’m addicted to it. Again, it’s like candy, or a cigarette, or anything you might rationalize giving yourself as a little “treat”, a quick fix, because “you work so hard you deserve it”. Never mind that it doesn’t really matter if you read that message now or later at night (when you know you’re going to check your email again anyway). It’s just habit. It’s an addiction.

I know I am hardly the first here to decry the ways in which technology is pulling us apart more than together, but I feel compelled to write about it because, like I said earlier, sometimes I really do hate what it’s done to us, and I mean HATE in capitol letters or italics, whichever you prefer.

I hate it when I realize that one of the reasons why my son probably begs for Elmo so much is because I am constantly getting on the computer, and thus reminding him of Elmo (for we stream it via Netflix). And I hate it when I want to just be with my husband, but it feels like he would rather be with his virtual fishing buddies online.

Once you’ve developed a ritual where you are used to checking certain sites every day, the process becomes like a litany of sorts, and the day feels incomplete unless you’ve done so. My husband and I both developed our habits in large part during the year and a half that he worked on the road during the week and we were both alone during the evenings. That’s when my love affair with Facebook and my online community of friends really began. Almost every night, I’d sit down with my dinner or my wine and enjoy Facebook. If it happened to be a night where I felt chatty and had posted a status update (or two or three; I tend towards either binge updating or silence), then my chattiness would no doubt be rewarded by that perky little red flag of correspondence, with new comment or ‘likes’ boosting my inner extrovert and desire to connect. Other nights, when I am not feeling that chatty, my time spent online is shorter, although I still loyally scan through the new posts, looking for those few that pop out at me with interest.

Loyalty. If you want to love it, and keep loving it, Facebook demands a degree of loyalty. Leave it for too long and it might feel like no one cares about you, no one cares what you have to say, and you were really just talking to yourself the whole time in the first place. Facebook rewards those who reward Facebook. Leave a bunch of comments, post a bunch of updates, and lo and behold, red flags will abound and your interactions will begin to feel that much more personable, conversational. But if your own interest wanes, if you couldn’t care less or be bothered to comment, then after a while, you might just find that the whole endeavor feels like a giant waste of time.

I’ve only gone on one Facebook purge since I started; it was during the three weeks I spent at Hedgebrook, a writing residency for women on Whidbey Island. I could have still checked it each day in the main farmhouse or “pumphouse” if I’d wanted, but I chose to leave it behind. It was easy. I sunk into my writing mind and the environment around me instead. I didn’t post one thing, and on the one occasion that I did glance at it, everyone’s updates suddenly seemed so… inconsequential. Petty. Striving for something to say. Striving for connection.

I’m not trying to sound all high and mighty, for it didn’t take me long (at all) to get reengaged, but what I recall here is the feeling of what a complete organism the world of Facebook is, the way it sucks you into it’s chatty, interesting, sometimes political, often apolitical, sometimes passionate, often ironic world, and makes you want to be an active part of it, makes you want to stand out and be noticed, makes you want to be followed and liked.

Sometimes, there’s nothing wrong with this. Being ‘liked’ and otherwise encouraged and patted on the back can feel great, especially after a long and difficult day. But if we come to expect this, or go to Facebook for our “quick fixes” of approval, don’t be surprised if Facebook can then also offer the opposite effect. Ever notice what happens when no one comments or likes what you post? It can be a mild let-down-- whatever, Facebook, it’s not that great, you shrug it away. Our own disappointment or delight is fed in accordance with our own expectations. But our addiction for more “positive fixes” keeps us hungry for more.  If suddenly something you write gets twelve likes and nine comments (or adjust your expectations accordingly here)—wowzas! It makes you kind of perky. People like you. Or like what you have to say. People notice you. Or people want you to notice them. Be their friends. Like them back. It’s middle school all over again.

Have you ever noticed how seeing the red flag of correspondence gives you a little zip of anticipation? And how seeing nothing gives you a mildly deflated kind of blah feeling? Of course, it’s often no coincidence that it’s exactly when you’re feeling blah, that your updates are then blah, and therefore so are your comments. And it’s when your feeling all, “Zippity-do-dah, the world is great, and I just won the Pulitzer!” that people love to give you virtual high fives. It makes me wonder how much we unconsciously (or consciously, for those of us who have thought about it) start to post things that are happier or perkier or somehow easier to “like” because we’ve learned that it elicits a response. For me, I often just don’t feel like posting anything unless I’ve got something particularly funny, exciting, quirky, or poignant to share. Or else, be prepared for silence. Mostly though, I’ve just figured out by now that I mostly only care to actively engage with Facebook (as in post on it) when I’m feeling relatively good about my life. Otherwise, all that chatter on Facebook just starts to depress me. And who wants to be a bummer online?

I know I’m never going to swear it off—the benefits of Facebook and the online world in my life are too great. Beyond the distractive qualities, I find that it can and does actually connect me to people in ways that I wouldn’t otherwise have the time or means to do. As a natural introvert (or perhaps an introverted extrovert), I benefit greatly from this way to know more people. I do end up feeling like a part of a greater community—whether that’s across the world or in my own city or amongst my extended family, other writers, or other parents. I have forged and cultivated real, in-person relationships via Facebook that otherwise wouldn’t have come about.

So call me a diehard fan, and I won’t deny it. But then what are these intense feelings of hatred that Facebook can also evoke in me? I think it comes from the same hunger to connect that draws me to Facebook in the first place. It’s the recognition that no matter how stimulating Facebook might be at times, it can also leave me feeling disappointed, distant, and sad about my lack of real-time, right now, connection. It’s that mild dissatisfaction that almost all of us feel now and then, if not every day, that feeling like, this is it? This is my day? My month? My year? Was there something else I was supposed to be doing with my life? Was there some promise that I made to myself long ago that I’m not fulfilling? When did I forget about how nourishing practices like yoga or sitting meditation can be? When did my husband and I forget that we might actually be able to do some of those important and restorative activities together? Why does it have to be just “my time” (spent writing) and “his time” (spent fishing), and then “our time” sans child, becomes the rare afternoon visit to a pub or the beach, or more like the nightly veg out state on the couch—checking our email and watching T.V.

The ultimate irony is when my husband and I are sitting in the same room at the same time and both on Facebook, and one of us attempts to ‘chat’ with the other or else comments on the other’s post. Sometimes this is humorous, but more often than not, it’s just depressing and a sign that we really need to get offline NOW.

When did we become one of these couples? When we moved to the city? When we had a child? Yes, I could blame it on child rearing, the easiest and most obvious target. But even without children, I think all couples start to sink into these levels of complacency, forgetting all the hard internal work you might have done while you were single and alone, pining for your soul mate, and then sliding comfortably into a lazy space where you don’t push each other to grow—and even more than this, you don’t push yourself to grow as a couple. You do what you can do to keep the peace, stay sane, pay the bills, reward yourself with treats. But couples therapy or retreats? Save that for when the marriage really gets rocky; that’s salvage and reparation time.

Most of all, my husband and I just need more time together. And time that is NOT being interspersed with checking our emails, Facebook, and texts. Because our lives are already marked by a decided shortage of time to do the things we need and want, it is baffling to think of all the time that we both freely give to acquaintances and distant friends online; if we were to add up all of it, I know we would be appalled. I’m quite certain that we give more time to Internet rabbit holes overall than we do to sitting down and chatting about our day. And THAT is truly sad. THAT is what makes me want to institute Facebook or Internet-free moratoriums when together—try for an evening, a weekend, a whole week even! But just as I know my husband would be hard to convince, I know that I too would want to make exceptions. This is called bargaining. This is called an addiction.

So when that familiar feeling of stifled frustration comes over me when I see you sitting there online, and barely looking up to acknowledge my presence walking into the room, I will try to remember that it’s in part my frustration with my own addiction that makes me so resentful of your own. And I will also try to remember that it is in my power to not be angry but simply be honest and forthright.  To tell you what I want and need, even if I feel like I’m repeating myself again and again. And to tell you this because I love you, because I want to be with you, and because it’s our job to keep reminding each other why we are here, together, in the first place.

The Awesome-Crazy-Hard Plunge into Becoming a New Mother

I’m getting excited to facilitate my first PEPS meeting next week. To welcome this group of mothers and babies into my home, to drink in their tender new beginnings.

As a new mom, PEPS was extremely helpful to me. Although I had other moms and drop-in parenting groups I gathered with on occasion, PEPS was one thing I could count on each week, my one structured commitment in what was otherwise a blur of feedings and naps. Coming together with a group of women who knew me through my emerging identity as a mother and who understood on some silent level what I was going through, helped me to better process this intensely transformative time. It helped me give voice to concerns I had and to articulate what was going on for me and my baby.

The format was simple. Each week we met for two hours in one of our homes. We all lived in the same part of town and we all had babies within a few months of age of each other (PEPS creates groups based on your zip code and due date). A volunteer (also a mother and PEPS alum) facilitated. Each week we would begin by sharing our high and low points of the week, and then go on to discuss some pre-determined topic, like sleep, feeding, or shifting identities. Babies would cry, feed, and sleep during meetings, and moms learned to grow more comfortable tending to a fussy baby in a space outside their own homes. Resources were shared and sympathy given, yet PEPS is not a therapy group nor a parenting class. Mostly, it’s a place to form community and feel more supported as a new mom. It can help normalize what otherwise can be an incredibly overwhelming and isolating experience.

Some PEPS groups continue to meet for years after their formal group has ended. Others, like mine, gradually disband, because women go back to work, schedules conflict, and everyone become more busy. Regardless of the group’s future, however, I believe that the value of belonging to a group like this for even just three months can be enormous.

Motherhood has been such a profound, transforming experience for me, and I’ve spent so much time over the last three years reading, writing, and learning about so many facets of the experience, that I like the idea of sharing some of the resources that I’ve garnered. But more than this, I like the idea of helping other moms to process and talk about the joys and challenges they are going through. My role as a facilitator is not to be a ‘teacher’ (especially since I can’t remember a fraction of what I once knew about each particular stage of development), but rather to be a conduit to help the group form their own strong connections.

PEPS philosophy, as well as my own, advocates that there is no one ‘right’ way to parent. In a culture which inundates pregnant women and new mothers with well-meaning but often unwelcome not to mention judgment-ridden advice, sometimes what we most need is just for somebody to listen. And it is often through feeling heard by another that we can actually begin to hear for ourselves the precise nature of what is actually going on inside. Have you ever had someone say to you something like, “That sounds hard,” after you’ve relayed a story, and then, for the first time, you feel tears brimming in your eyes, tears that key you in on just how hard it actually has been? That’s what I’m talking about.

The other day I went through my roster and called each woman to welcome her to the group and see if they had any questions. In the background, I could hear babies crying, breast pumps wheezing, and the muffled voices of the women themselves that suggested they might be holding a sleeping baby or simply existing in that slightly altered time-space of being holed up with an infant for days, weeks on end.

I try to remember those first days and what they were like for me, still coming off of the drugs from the cesarean, lying down or sitting in the recliner, my breasts heavy with milk, my hair uncombed, the heat turned up high. Visitors would come now and then bearing food that was greatly appreciated, taking their turns holding our newborn, but mostly we kept to ourselves, venturing outside for a walk to the neighborhood pond only after the first three weeks were spent solely indoors, save for a few steps out into the yard.

I also remember how nervous I was when I had to drive the baby alone for the first time, and what a relief it was to arrive. When you are caring for a newborn, there are a million little hurdles like this to get over—first night, first bath, first day caring for him alone, first time away from his side. Actually, I think this statement could probably be said for caring for any aged child: parenthood is a continual succession of ‘firsts’, and although it may not feel as daunting and I may not feel as raw as I did during those first months, parenting continues to grow more challenging and complex in other ways. Although some of the early demands (sore nipples, woken all night, fears of suffocating your baby, seismic identity shifts) might have diminished, there are always new stages and concerns to worry about, and new joys and milestones to celebrate, as well.

Let’s just say it: parenting is really fucking hard. (Only the f word seems to do justice to the gravity of this sentence). If anyone claims otherwise, they are employing a selective memory. It’s tiring, all-consuming, non-stop. It is a constant challenge to carve out enough time alone with your partner; to carve out enough time alone with yourself; to negotiate a sense of equity with regards to how you divide childcare, respites from childcare, and chores; to maintain your friendships, especially with those who do not also have kids. For those who go back to work, it can be hard to be away from your baby for so much of the week. And for those who decide not to go back, it can be hard to leave behind huge chunks of your identity that were tied to the work that you once did out in the world of adult interactions.

Parenting, and motherhood in particular, is challenging on so many levels. But it’s also filled with so many transcendent moments that are equally piercing when they come over you. Beyond the exhaustion and tedium that parenting can bring on, each day we are also privileged to witness a new being coming alive, discovering the world for the first time. Discovering its hands, toes, tongue, voice. Discovering lights, sounds, textures, tastes. And this discovery keeps going, never ends. It is amazing to witness and realize all the stages of discovery  that go into becoming a person, all the skills and ordinary miracles around us all the time that we adults take for granted in our daily lives.  Holding and witnessing a newborn, a being so new, so tied still to some other world, we are reminded of the pure awesomeness of life, of how each and every one of us was born and came into this world.

Together, new mothers and babies are an inseparable unit, existing in this vulnerable, other worldly state. New mothers have just gone through the exhausting and traumatic feat of giving birth, only to then plunge into a blur of days and nights spent caring for their newborn. Their hormones are careening, their bodies healing, their emotions reeling, their former world and life turned inside out, and they don’t get time to rest to recover-- they just have to dive in.

Mother and baby both recognize each other on some level—recognize each other’s presence, experienced now from a different perspective—yet they are understandably also in a state of inexpressible awe about where and who they now are. This is a magical time; this is a crazy time. This is a fragile time, a painful time. This period of brand new motherhood can be so many things; everyone experiences it slightly differently, but no one can deny how intense it is-- and how precious it is—because it is also so fleeting. One stage, one age, one crisis, one delight, one day merges into the next. And although you may still feel like you are in survival mode for many months or even years, where it feels like enough just to manage to eat, to sleep, and shower (if that), somewhere along the way it can be so important and illuminating to carve out the time to step back from “total immersion parenting” and give voice to your experiences. Whether this voice comes forth through talking to a friend, writing in a journal, or joining a support group, it can be so valuable to find the words to express what you are going through, what we all go through albeit in different ways, as mothers. For it is through this process of reckoning-- of mourning our losses, proclaiming our discoveries, and speaking our truths (and yes, even garbled, sleep-deprived, grasping for truths)-- that we can begin to step more gracefully into the demands of motherhood. In naming and honoring all that we have gone through and are going through, we can learn to see our experiences through a clearer lens, with more perspective, and hopefully with more acceptance, self-compassion, and trust.

Toy Envy, Consumerism, and What We Really Need

Lately, an article from Wired magazine about the 5 best toys of all time has been circling the net again. It’s a good article, but if you don’t want to read it, I’ll tell you what the list consists of: sticks, boxes, string, cardboard tubes, and dirt.

Of course, I'm all for reducing consumerism and fostering imaginative play, but it occurs to me that only someone who already has plenty of money and toys for their kids can make these kinds of assertions. The popularity of this article speaks to the culture of materialism-overload that it comes from. But for anyone who doesn’t have the means to buy special treats for their kids, to suggest that they already have the ideal toys for their at their disposal, strikes me as a bit… privileged.

Kids like variety, they like being exposed to new things, and toddlers in particular have notoriously short attention spans. There are lots of activities that don’t require money that can help keep them entertained, but when it comes down to it, having the money to buy a diverse range of experiences for your kids—whether in the form of toys or enriching activities—is pretty damn helpful.

Like many parents these days, when I was planning for my life with my child I imagined that I would limit the number of bright, plastic noise-making toys that entered our home, and instead collect (expensive) wooden toys that would last much longer (and be less of an eyesore). I would fill baskets with natural objects like shells, pinecones, and stones, in lieu of plastic doo-dads, and we would start painting and making arts and crafts as soon as developmentally possible.

Well, first of all, I was not accounting for a generous aunt who spent months scouring Goodwill to collect for us a big box of plastic noise-making toys-- a Leapfrog “piano”, a bilingual “guitar”, a talking cookie jar shape sorter, a singing “Alphabet Pal”caterpillar, a singing plastic book, a talking dog, and then some. Next, add in the grandparents and others who’ve contributed over time: a musical, flashing ring stacker, a musical dump truck, a singing bear, a singing Easter bunny, a musical remote control airplane, a musical activity center, a singing train, and before you know it, we are one of those families whose house is chock full of plastic, noise-making toys.

The truth is, Cedar loves these toys, and most babies and toddlers do. It's the parents they drive crazy. Some are not that bad—in particular the ones that play music without words. The ones that drive me mad are the ones that sing, talk or giggle in syrupy sweet, incredibly annoying "kid-like" voice. Why do manufacturers think that kids will only respond to such voices? You can sound friendly and sweet without being nauseating.

In any case, since the relatives have bought Cedar plenty of toys, I have not felt the need to buy much-- until recently that is. We've reached a point where Cedar is not very excited about any of his toys (unless of course another kid comes over and starts playing with them). And while I am somewhat proud of the fact that I've only ever bought Cedar a handful of toys (mostly from Value Village) and I think this makes it that much more special for him to experience new toys when at preschool or friends’ homes, I also have recognized that I get toy envy when I go other parents’ homes.

Mostly, I get wooden toy envy. Wooden toys are more expensive and harder to find used, so we don’t have many. I covet those cute little Plan Toy xylophones and shape sorters, those Melissa and Doug puzzles and blocks, those expensive push toys and wooden kitchen sets complete with wooden fruits and vegetables that can be cut apart with a play wooden knife. I also covet those sturdy little easels, those velvety plush beanbag chairs, those tunnels and tents for toddlers to crawl through. And the more I’m exposed to, the more I start wanting more stuff for Cedar.

One built-in limitation is that our home is small (850 square feet), so there isn't room for us to collect too much, without it feeling like utter chaos. There isn't much storage space to store stuff away, so we have to live with it all in sight.

Our other built-in limitation is that we simply cannot afford to buy a lot. Instead, I borrow a lot of board books from the library, trade toys now and then with my neighbor, find random things in the house for Cedar to play with (radios, flashlights, dominos), and scan Value Village now and then for a treat (more of a way to help pass a long day, than anything).

Enter the Christmas season. I wasn't planning to get Cedar much; I figured he'd get plenty from the grandparents and this would be enough of a toy windfall for one month. But somehow, I've gotten suckered into the materialism of the season, and found myself buying more than ever. A few books here, a used few puzzles there, a couple things from Fred Meyer (yes, plastic), a set of wooden stringing beads (relatively expensive), and some stickers and dot paint tubes from the art store. Once I caved and started to spend, suddenly it was as I'd given myself permission to access a long-harbored, unconscious list of coveted things. This toy lust was compounded by a few Amazon searches prompted by my dad who requested a Christmas wish list, not to mention my joining a new mom’s list serve with daily deals and offers.

I’ve felt a tad guilty about my recent splurge, but I've countered this with an entitled sense of “I/we deserver this” to at long last be the one to pick out a few special toys for my son. I've spent about $100, and depending on who you are that may seem like nothing or like a whole lot. For me, it's a lot to spend in a few weeks, with the purpose of giving it to a child all at once, so I am spreading it out. A few of the presents have already come out of hiding in fact-- we've been having some looong afternoons, and I've needed it. Why wait till Christmas, after all, the day when he'll have way more than enough to keep him stimulated? It’s not like he knows what Christmas is yet.

For now though, I'm done. I highly doubt I will buy him another toy for many months. I'd rather put money towards going to a music class together, or to check out more drop-in play spaces. We need to get out of the house every day, preferably for several hours, and not just to the grocery store; but with our rainy weather in the NW, we can't just rely on playing outside at parks—or sticks, boxes, and mud.

It's important to point out how we don't need lots of expensive toys for our children, and how they can be happy with much less. But the truth is, it's hard to get around needing money to keep a child entertained. After all, we all need a break from parenting, especially stay-at-home parents; none of us can be entirely present, patient and engaged if we are on 24-7. So, there are a number of ways we get these breaks. If we have plenty of money, we can pay for babysitters and daycares to get our “recharge/adult time”. We can also pay to bring our kids to enriching classes, which we may or may not participate in ourselves. Or, if these are not viable options, we can buy more toys or, evil of evils, turn on the T.V. (a subject of its own).

Sure, the most creative and resourceful amongst us will create budget-friendly craft projects for our little ones, and although I don’t consider myself outside the realm of those who might do such things, I do have my limits. A 20-month old's attention span is not long. When I'm tired, I don't really feel like getting out messy paints for what might be a five minute project. I can only invent so many new games or find that many new household objects that might be interesting to my son for two minutes of a day. And so, I’ve found myself resorting to letting him watch an Elmo video or Sesame Street clips on youtube more and more. Or-- I find myself realizing the value in having a healthy supply of toys. Enough toys so that you actually have enough to put a bunch away for a while, with the idea that they’ll seem “new” again when you cycle them back out in rotation.

There is, I believe, only one true antidote to feeling like you need to spend lots of money on your child-- and that is being surrounded and supported by a strong community. That means: relatives who will babysit for free, trustworthy neighbors with similar-aged kids who will swap childcare, and friends who will meet up often for playdates to make full-time parenting a bit less mundane.
Finding and sustaining this community, however, is harder than it may seem. As a relatively new stay-at-home mom, I’ve taken my child to plenty of play gyms, storytimes, and music classes, participated in PEPS (a great support group for moms in Seattle), enrolled my son in a toddler co-op preschool one morning a week, and reached out to lots of old friends and acquaintances who have kids of similar ages, but despite all this I still find it hard to create the kind of community I seek.

Everyone is busy—working long hours, caring for multiples, keeping up with complicated schedules. Everyone is tired. And it takes effort to foster a connection that goes beyond a familiar face you exchange a few pleasantries with at playgroups. Even if most of us parents end up passing long afternoons at home with our kids during which we wish we had a more creative option, for some reason getting a playdate on the calendar- and following through- can still be a hard feat to accomplish-- especially if your kids have different nap schedules or once we’ve entered the season of perpetual colds. Although I feel fortunate to know a good number of moms in Seattle right now, sadly, much of this community remains online and via good intentions. There have been many with whom I’ve wanted to nurture a friendship, but after too many failed attempts to get together, I’ve let go of my former hopes.

Community is the true secret to enjoying parenthood and childhood—not toys, whether of the natural or manufactured variety. But it takes a lot more than having kids of a similar age to foster a sustaining connection. Sometimes the viability of a connection does come down to scheduling, proximity and convenience; sometimes, for example, driving all the way across town for a playdate can seem like more effort than it’s worth. But ultimately, creating community has to be something that is mutually sought out and desired. All too often, it ends up being easier to go into default mode—which for our culture means staying isolated within our own nuclear families, sticking to what we already know, and buying stuff to fill in the voids.

Gratitude: A List of Things I Love

1. Coffee. I still can’t have it all the time or Cedar’s tummy gets upset, but I have it enough to know how much it can help me through a day.

2. Cheese. Ditto on the above, can’t have it all the time, but when I do, let me tell you, I enjoy it! The best was the cheese plate at the overpriced wine bar with its miniature slices. But did I care? No! The size of those slices was perfect for me and mirrored my savoring-every-small-bite approach. Speaking of which….

3. The wine at said wine bar was damn good, too. Thank God I haven’t had to cut out wine from my diet. Enough said.

4. Okay, on to less oral delights… I love…. the way my husband lets me sleep in on Saturday mornings. The feeling of sinking back into a deep, uninterrupted sleep for three hours, and the ability to sprawl my limbs across the wide expanse of the flannel sheet-covered mattress is downright heavenly. With the aid of the white noise machine and earplugs, all outside noises of small children are blocked out, and although I emerge from this dream-laced stupor feeling groggy and out of sorts, this ability to catch up on my sleep on the weekend has felt physically necessary, what keeps me from getting sick, what keeps me sane in the midst of going on 20-some months of continually interrupted and inadequate sleep.

5. What else? I love… my son’s silliness. The way he cracks up in hysterics when we blow on his tummy, or the way he copies us and blows on mine. The way he says his new word “no?” like a question. Running my hands through the curls on the back of his head. The way he likes to kick and stomp his feet, and turn in circles when he “dances”. The way he chases our cat through the house, screaming “Mao, mao, mao…”, cat in Chinese. Witnessing him absorb language, new words left and right. His recent obsession with candles—requesting (more like demanding) that I light a "ka da" whenever we are sitting at the table. There are worse things for a toddler to demand. Like…. “Elmo! Elmo! Elmo!” Okay… too much Elmo may get annoying, but those folks at Sesame Street sure are clever—ever seen Feist’s “1, 2, 3, 4…” song or Adam Sandler’s song about Elmo? How about India Arie’s alphabet song or that British guy singing Elmo a “lullaby” with a pounding punk guitar? Uh, huh. I’ve watched these video clips on You Tube many, many times, and more often than not, I’ve got one stuck in my head. One more, you say? Okay, baby. And another? Why not. Half an hour’s worth? Well, alright, just this once...or twice. Then mama can wake up and drink her coffee.

6. Obviously I could fill this entire list with things about my son. After all, he’s the center of my universe right now. The center of my universe forever? Perhaps. So let me just pick one more thing I love about him, then move on. I love…the way he runs around the house with a plastic stir stick meant for my husband’s beer brewing. I also don’t like the fact that this has become his new favorite toy, pushing it in front of him on the wood floor like a vacuum, but I do love how this current excitement of his speaks to how children can find enjoyment in the oddest of things. He likes this plastic stick too much for me to err with my cautious side and take it away from him (lest he trip and it jabs him, or it trips him). Whatever. It’s not sharp and pokey. There are worse things for him to attach to. So of all things to love, I pick the stick. Really, I just love watching him discover the world, I love his incessant curiosity. I love (and sigh about) how he wants to hold and copy every last thing that we hold or do. Nothing  escapes his notice. He makes me see the world of mundane objects anew.

7. What else? I love… watching him connect with his grandparents. Watching him play hide-and-seek with my mom. Watching my mom run down the hall or army crawl behind the dining room table—my serious, often grumpy, yet wonderful mom, morphing into the silly, delightful child that she also is. I love the fact that Cedar has so many people who love him, so many people with whom he can feel safe with, so many people he knows. I love seeing him lift his arms up to a new friend to be held, I love seeing the delight in their faces as they feel chosen by him, having passed the energetic test: you are safe, you are kind.

8. I love my family, love my friends, love my community, even if I often miss them because they are far away or busy. Oh, so busy. Everyone’s so busy. But still, even though I haven't yet, I love the knowledge that I can take the train down to Portland with Cedar some day to visit two of my oldest soul sisters (our own little adventure), and I love the morning weekend drives that I've made with my husband to Olympia en route to visit Grandma and family. I love that my sister now lives only a few miles away, and I love the fact that we have a small growing nucleus of families with babies next door, families that we will no doubt BBQ and have playdates and drinks with all the more. I love how I have been trading childcare with my neighbor—once a week I watch her daughter for a few hours, in exchange for the same. This is how it is done! That whole village thing. It really matters. We are all so tired, we don’t have the energy to drive across town once we’re cozy in our homes. But we do have the energy to walk next door! And often the morning goes faster caring for two than for one, when suddenly all the old toys become interesting again.

9. Okay, I lied. Back to Cedar. I love watching him interact with other babies and kids. Whether it’s his 16-month-old buddy Cecilia next door (who adores “C” as she calls him), or the 19 other kids at toddler co-op preschool who we spot more and more around town at library storytime or at the park. I love how he is forming his own little community, and I love trying to imagine what it feels like for him to realize that the world is  populated with little people just like him! I love showing up at school every Friday morning and seeing the new (to us) imaginative toys and activities set up in the room, and watching him roam around at will, every so often calling out, “Mama, mama!” and running into my arms for a hug, before darting off again to explore some new corner. I love knowing that he feels safe to explore the outer limits of his environment, yet also knows to come back and check in and get some loving. I love loving this little boy. He is so full of love. I inhale his whole being into my heart when we embrace, drawing as close as I can to his essence.

10. I should wrap things up here or this list will get unwieldy! So here goes… I love… my husband. My dear, poor husband, who often feels picked on, neglected, nagged. Yes, dear, I have my gripes, but never forget how much I love you passionately. I love your fish smoking and beer brewing ways. I love how you embody my favorite season, fall—building a warm fire, chopping wood in a flannel shirt, baking apple pies, sitting at your table under the lamp tying flies. Yes, we are different. You don’t like to read, and I like things a lot tidier, but somehow those things are not so important when it comes down to what we enjoy most out of each other and life. Like our ability to just sit on the couch and listen to music and talk (or NOT talk!) for hours. And if I haven’t said this recently, let me tell you again how much I love watching you with Cedar. I love the throaty growl with which he’s decided to intone your name (Baba!), and I love the mischievous light in his eyes and yours as you chase him through the house, running to dive onto the bed, collapsing into tickles and laughter. I love your gentle and patient, yet firm ways. I know we will be good partners in compassionate discipline. I know we see eye to eye on parenting, and this is not something to be taken for granted. What else do I love about you? I love… your deep sensitivity to nature and to life’s evolving flow. I love your ability to stay calm in the midst of chaos and change; I love your ability to stay open to inner growth and always on the lookout for taking on new opportunities that scare the shit out of you, but that you know will be good for you. I love your humility, your down-to-earthness, your country bumpkin redneck hippy meets urban commuter technological music fiend. I love you, honey. I love our life, as much as I like to complain about it. I love our story, our past, and I love dreaming together of our future. I love this life, this breath, the eternally unfolding expanding and contracting mystery embodied in this moment.

This moment. I love the unknown possibilities inherent, ripening, ripened: waiting for us to show up and take hold.

Owl Cottage

Not long before Cedar was born, I went on a writing residency for three weeks at Hedgebrook. Located on Whidbey Island, Hedgebrook is a paradise for women writers. Seven of us were each given our own cottage in the woods, complete with a large desk, comfy window seat, woodstove, sleeping loft, bathroom, and kitchenette. So much attention to detail is built into these cottages, from the stained-glass flowered window in the loft, to the wooden pegs used to hold together beams, to the owl carved into my wall. The cottages are spaced apart so that when you look out of your windows at night, you can see the light of at least one other cottage as a reminder of the community of women you are working within. At the same time, there is a sense of complete privacy as you go about your day. You are free to be alone and do what you want—and, naturally, I wanted to write. 

I’d wanted to go to Hedgebrook ever since I’d first applied back in 2000. Hedgebrook welcomes emerging and established writers, and has grown more and more competitive over time. I waited almost ten years-- gaining more faith in my voice and vision, honing my craft, and waiting for what felt like an ideal time in my life-- before I finally applied again, and to my delight, was accepted. 

When I applied last September, I was pregnant and due in late March. You can apply to stay for one to six weeks, anytime between February and November. So that left the month of February for a potential residency, which felt like it might be cutting it a little close to my due date. But who knew when I’d next have a chance to get away on my own for weeks at a time? And who knew how much writing I would manage to do as a new mom? Probably not very much. This could be my last chance to make a huge push on my newest writing project. And if I could take big strides with this project, then hopefully I’d be inspired to keep going once my son was born, in ways that I might not otherwise feel motivated. 

In my application, I said I would work on my project about a couple, Els and Frank, whom I grew up next door to, and how when Frank died, he left me their home, along with decades worth of their letters, journals, slides, and artifacts from their lives. I wanted to delve far enough into this project that I would have a stronger sense of what it was about-- beneath the surface, what underlying questions was I exploring, and what structure the story would inhabit.  I hoped to make enough progress on it that by the time my three weeks at Hedgebrook were up, I would not be able to abandon it, and I might be able to even call it a book.

I arrived on a Friday afternoon and was kindly shown around the fifty-some acres of fields, wetlands, gardens, woods, cottages, and other buildings. I looked forward to enjoying the bathhouse with its radiant heating, hand-painted tiles, private shower rooms, and old claw foot tub. The farmhouse was where us seven women would convene each night to be served a delicious meal prepared by a gracious chef, sitting around one table to listen to stories from each other’s lives. Our homes spanned from Cortez Island, B.C. to San Francisco; from Santa Cruz to rural Idaho; from San Antonio to L.A. We ranged in age from our late twenties to our sixties. We wrote novels, short stories, screenplays, spoken word, essays, and more. We were working on projects about Palestinians and their land, about growing up sixteen in Berkeley, about interracial marriage, about illness, about gangs in Texas who break out in song (a Mexican-American adaptation of Carmen), and then some. 

Most nights, after dinner, we’d retire to our cottages to continue writing, or to do whatever we chose to do. First, though, we’d pack our wicker basket full of homemade granola, fruit, eggs, coffee, cookies, dinner leftovers, jars of milk, and plastic containers filled with gourmet soups, sandwiches, quiches, and salads—breakfast and lunch for the next day. Everything was provided for us, and the farmhouse was always open for us to grab a few more cookies from the jar or check out the library filled with the works of alumni. I’d heard that some groups at Hedgebrook gathered after dinner for readings or critique sessions almost every night, and others didn’t. Ours opted to write at night more often than we’d socialize, but as the days went on, some would linger to chat or watch a movie in the cozy, pillow-laden living room of the farmhouse. A couple nights we also read to each other from our work to share more of ourselves, but not so much to seek a critique.

I was eight months pregnant and pretty tired by the time we were done with dinner each night, so most evenings I retired early to my cottage where I’d lie in bed, listen to music, and read old letters between Els and Frank. I felt the pressure of my impending due date and how much I hoped to accomplish in the three weeks I had at Hedgebrook. I knew my main purpose there was not to make new friends, as wonderful as the women were around me. 

Instead, I sank deep into my writing in a way that I hadn’t for years. I kept odd hours, sometimes sleeping in if I’d gone to bed late or gotten a poor night’s sleep, and other morning’s waking early, even before the first light. I rarely did this at home, and I loved the quiet concentration of those early morning hours, settling right into my work with a cup of tea at my side. Some mornings I heard the bard owls calling to each other from the limbs of the firs and cedars that surrounded, and one morning I looked up to find one staring at me through the window. This felt especially fitting, since I was staying in “Owl Cottage,” though I was not the only one to whom the owls paid a visit. One night an owl swooped down and picked the black hooded scarf off of my fellow resident Tamar’s head. Amalia got out her broom and started yelling at the owl up in the tree to give it back, which it eventually did. After that night, we took more care to be aware of our surroundings during those hunting hours of dusk, as we set out down the path with our empty baskets towards the farmhouse for dinner.

What a gift to be freed from all responsibilities-- cooking, cleaning, phone calls, and emails for three weeks. What spaciousness begins to open, a different kind of relationship to the unfolding passage of a day. Most days, I’d work for three or four hours, then read over what I’d written as I ate lunch, then go on a walk down to the wetlands of Deer Lagoon and the beach at Useless Bay. If it was raining and I didn’t feel like venturing far, I briefly wandered the wooded trails behind my cottage, inhaling the damp moss and spring’s first shades of green, before returning to stoke the coals in the woodstove which kept my cottage warm. Then, I’d make another cup of tea and work for a few more hours until the dinner hour of five rolled around, for which I was always hungry. I liked how an early dinner hour allowed for enough time afterwards to still put in a good night of work. 

Before Hedgebrook, even though I had plenty more time, I was happy if I put in a few hours of writing a day. Chores, cooking, shopping, research, emails, phone calls, job searches, publishing quests, and the ways in which so many things at home can distract and clutter the mind ate up so much my time. Now, with the exception of the couple hours of chatting over dinner and a nightly call to my husband, my entire day was devoted to the muse. Thankfully, too, there was no internet in the cottages; you had to go to the main farmhouse or to the “pumphouse” to check your email, and they discouraged you from doing this too often. While at Hedgebrook, I only checked my email about once a week, and weaned myself completely from Facebook; I had no problem staying away. I felt myself eager to drop away from all the mental chatter that goes along with maintaining an online presence. My days felt long and full.

Three weeks passed quickly, and within this time I gained the confidence and vision to begin referring to my project as a book, receiving a wellspring of enthusiasm and support from the others for its potential. I churned out pages of new material, carefully edited and combed through old drafts, and slowly, a structure began to emerge. I was so thankful that I had decided to stay the full three weeks I was offered, instead of only staying two which I’d considered. But Hedgebrook turned out to be a perfect place to spend this last stage of my pregnancy. I ate incredibly well and felt so nourished by the food, by the women, by the extra wood stacked on my porch, the extra protein loaded into my basket, by the land, and by the understanding, respect, and care lavished on us as women writers. 

Never before did I feel so honored as a writer, so validated and understood. I’ve considered myself a writer and committed myself to this process and craft for fifteen years now, and yet, because I lack impressive publications, not to mention a book deal, I often still feel like I haven’t yet “arrived” at the level of “writerhood” that I aspire to. At Hedgebrook, however, I knew I had arrived. I knew that my application had been selected out of hundreds of talented women, that I deserved to be there, and that this was my time. My time to write, my time to trust, to celebrate and to flourish. The universe was giving me a clear message, a gift to inspire and counter all of the doubt and rejections I had otherwise plowed through to stay true to this path of writing. The universe had also given these other six women this gift, and together we could understand on some level all that it had taken for us to get here, without even having to share the intimacies of our story.

On my last morning at Hedgebrook I finally wrote in the journal in Owl Cottage. There were already ten or so journals on the shelf, filled with long rambling entries of those who had been there since the early nineties, when Owl Cottage was built. I’d read through almost all of them during my stay, filled as they were with interesting rants and revelations; with city girls who’d conquered their fear of the woods; with women who had bonded like sisters; and with others who felt misunderstood, left out, or resentful. For most of us, Hedgebrook had been an oasis of creativity and retreat, but there were also those for whom it did not live up to their expectations.

Fortunately, I had nothing but a positive experience at Hedgebrook. Yes, this was my time. Pregnant, on the cusp of motherhood and a whole new way of life. Welcoming these changes, at the same time that I reaffirmed my commitment to writing and to my beloved rhythms of solitary retreat. 

Tucked away in the letters between Els and Frank that I’d brought along to read, I’d found a couple postcards with my cabin’s namesake: the owl. Throughout my stay, I’d gazed at these owls, perched on the windowsill above my desk, the only adornment against the otherwise pleasingly empty walls. Now, on my last morning at Hedgebrook, before diving into the undoing process of packing and cleaning and goodbyes, I glued them into the journal. It felt right to leave them behind rather than to take them with me back to Seattle where they’d soon be forgotten again, tucked within the pages of some book. Then, with smooth flowing black ink, I took a breath and left my mark amidst the others, giving thanks to everything that had brought me here, and welcoming the next woman who would arrive.