If My Life Is My Message

Poppies

2012-01-22T13:01:00.000-08:00

I love poppies. I love red poppies, opium poppies, wild poppies, California poppies. I love fields of them, waving on their slender stalks. I love that they are so vibrant and alive, yet cannot survive for long once picked. They love to be outside--don't mess with them!

You know this--this is my picture here.

Today we plant some in our front yard and pray they will come up in spring.

It won't be a field of gold, or a hillside of yellow, or a waving valley of red. But it will be a tiny carpet of California poppies in Whitley Heights--a small ode to this state I love.

Some Things My Husband Taught Me

2012-01-22T12:52:00.000-08:00

The great thing about a spouse, or a best friend, is they bring things, ideas, philosophies and ways of being into your life that you never ever could have adopted on your own. And then they become part of you--but you always know they gave you those lessons as a gift.

So here are three from my husband. They are part of why I love him.

1) Always tip street musicians. Good or bad. Talented or Suckass. They are putting music out into the world and sharing that beauty. Give them a dollar. Or five. Buy their CD. Tell them you love what they do.

2) If you think someone is cool, or smart, or great, or inspiring, or can teach you something, or you just want them in your life, take them to lunch and pick up the tab. You will never forget it, and neither will they.

3) When some great opportunity drops into your life--do not hesitate--leap and jump in. Perhaps the timing is not right. Perhaps it is scary. Perhaps it costs money you feel like you do not have. Perhaps it is not the plan, the dream you had--even if it is really cool. But do not walk away, and do not take it for granted. Those opportunities that truly change your life only happen once in a blue moon--maybe only a few times in your life. When they come, there is no negotiating--you are in or you are out. You have to jump, jump in, and seize the day. Later you will wonder how you ever thought of NOT doing it. Stay open--or you will miss these moments--and you will never even know what passed you by.

What about you? Did anyone you love ever teach you some great lesson that changed how you live?

Sick Sick Sick

2012-01-17T13:33:00.000-08:00

My boys are sick--fevered and vomiting and coughing, and watching waaaaay too much television.

I am up at night mopping fevered brows and taking boys to throw up in the toilet, or giving more advil to keep fevers down. Then I rise and go to work, and pray that my head-ache is something else--not coming illness.

All weekend we were still and quiet. I read stories, and cuddled and coddled and nurtured. We ate soup and went to bed early and barely moved at all.

And it felt like the sweetest, most luxurious time, to lie in bed with my boys, to sip tea, to read chapter after chapter of a good book without falling asleep or having to rush off.

Sickness, yes, but sweetness, too.

The Season of Yin

2012-01-17T13:22:00.000-08:00

We are a culture of yang--that is what I learned in my one Chinese medicine class before I dropped out. We are about constant action, with no rest, no respite. We do not believe in that--and when we lag we feel bad, or we medicate, or we drink more caffeine (my preferred route).

If we are still, not moving, not thinking, we feel compelled to justify, to explain, to make excuses. Because for us, being still is not valued.

Yoga studios get that. That is why you pay $20 for that final five minutes when you lie on your back in shivasana in total stillness. Some yoga studios do not even have shivasana, because they say that some practitioners cannot stand the stillness at the end of the class.

I feel guilty. I am the daughter of a Navy man who prowled the house and thought anything not active was a crime. I am mostly active, but I desperately need my stillness, my alone time. At 45 I have finally accepted something. January 6 to March 1 is my Yin time. I sleep more and get chubby. I still exercise and move--because as much as I would like to hibernate like a bear--alas, I cannot.

But I will rest, stay home. I will indulge my desire to be still, to read, to think. I believe, deeply believe, that all great things follow both periods of activity,and periods of rest. Because in the periods of rest seeds take route, things start to happen, ideas grow, and travel. Like winter, those periods feel like everything is dormant, but actually, beneath the surface, the most important things in the world are happening.

That is what I am trying to believe is happening right now.

In my season of yin.

How about you?

Marriage Is Hard

2012-01-08T15:46:00.000-08:00

I wanted to be a mother. Being a mother feels natural to me. I wanted to be a wife. And I want to be married. I really do. But being married is hard. Or being married being well, loving my husband well, is hard. For me.

Send me a prayer. Or a good wish.

Please.

Target Missoni!

2012-01-07T10:38:00.000-08:00

Back in September, when the Target Missoni madness gripped all fashion conscious females in America, I missed the boat. I didn't even hear about the Missoni collection the day it launched until 9 a.m. when there were already news stories that the entire collection was already sold out.

I was devastated. I never would have gotten up at 5:00 a.m. to wait by the computer and log on like a feverish Sixties femme fatale, but still.

That night, tho, I logged on to see what I had missed. I was so sad. I had missed a lot! But it all felt like an historic moment--a moment I was part of. So I sought out every item (clothing, not housewares) that was still there, and bought two things. They don't even look Missoni, but they look cool. A pea green sweater with fuschia striped trim (for real!) and a miraculously chevron pleated black skirt that looks unbelievably elegant--if not Missoni.

Months went by. Target told me first it would be a month or two, then they told me I could give up if I wanted. But I stood by--like I had invested in the stock market, or wine futures. One day, I knew, the items would come. And I would be happy.

Well, they came. And I love them. I am wearing my pea-green sweater now, and I wore my pleated black skirt to work this week. It was a hard week, but just knowing that I could get up and wear my gorgeous Missoni products made life better. Am I superficial?

J told me I looked like a Sixties co-ed in my sweater. And I look like an elegant Roman housewife in my pleats.

Is there anything better than a cheap bargain version of a beautiful thing?

Good gracious me, I do not think so.

Old PIctures

2012-01-07T10:21:00.000-08:00

In the Japanese tradition, on New Year's Day we dove into our house and tried to deeply declutter. Only two closets and two rooms in we had about eight trash bags of stuff to go, and were sneezing from old dust. LIberating. Freeing. Today the purge will continue.

BUT, in the midst of the purge I came across an old roll of film. (film. remember film?) J snuck off and developed it this week and it was like a time capsule from four years ago. It was a series of photos from Xmas of 2008--we estimate. There are clues, but we cannot be certain.

There are our boys, in their footie pajamas. Theo, already himself in hair, personality, expression. But Benji, so different. And I remembered again, how odd Benji was. He emerged into the world so clingy, so needy, so uncertain. Even Theo picked up on it--there he is with that Benji expression, mouth open, staring slightly dumfounded into the camera, as if to say. "Why am I here? Why do these people drag me to these strange places? Make me wear these strange hats? Who are they and what do they want?"

He used to not meet Jonathan's eyes. He did not talk until he was nearly three. He was unbelievably clingy--always leaning, needing, wanting, even in his sleep.

It was if he were born with a cloud over him, some shadow from a past life. It was as if he had a horrible past life, and he could not believe he had to return and do this all again. Life. He was born weary. Not wanting to be here. But then around three or four the cloud dispersed. He became himself. He started to talk. To be mischeivous. That lost, mouth-open why-am-I-here expression disappeared.

He is here now. Ready to be here. Still snuggly, but not in need of warmth on his cheek from the mama every second. He is in this life and believes life can be good. The shadow of his past life--or whatever that was--is gone.

I Twitter: Tweet Tweet

2012-01-02T15:58:00.000-08:00

I signed up. I tweeted three times. I have one follower: my devoted husband, who indoctrinated me, brought me along on his journey, and got me excited. We are the last in America to tweet and the technology was surprising, thought-provoking. I leaned over his shoulder here and there, taking it it, editing his tweets, offering recommendations. In a day he had 30 followers, in a month close to 200 (am I hallucinating?) A lot are porn stars, with names like waxmyvagg. I don't know if I will get them. He said the porn star ratio stays pretty steady--more followers also means more porn star followers.

It is reductive. Yes. It distills you to your very essence. If you love all the messy details of life you are in BIG trouble. And yet, you do get to the nub of people. Boring when you are only promoting. Unless you are promoting how funny you are--that is funny. Some are brilliant, delightful, like a daily vitamin. They just leave you happy, like a bite of chocolate. It's fleeting, but a pick me up. Mine is not personal. Mine is to promote VoxHollywood. Twitter seems best for that: a one note advertisement on a single message. Stay on point. The perfect sound bite. You edit it yourself.

I am still an oval on a square--later I will put up a logo. Still, I am excited. It is a small, real step towards the paper. I KNOW I can do 160 characters three times a week about Hollywood. I can establish my voice, experiment (just me, my husband and my porn star followers--if I am lucky...).

Sad posts are supposedly funny people who are not funny. Or supposedly cool people who are not cool. You want to avert your eyes. You feel embarassed for them. It is worse than facebook.

You know it leaves some people isolated in a narcissistic universe where it is just them, alone, living for thousands, but really, no one cares, at all. It allows them to keep up the illusion. Should tools like that be allowed? Is that healthy?

But some people have voice in 160 characters. They really do. They provoke. They recommend. They delight. They make you think. They make you grateful. They make you laugh.

Even I do not know what will come out of me. Will I hate my twitter personality? Will she bore me with her observations? Or sicken me with her earnestness? Will she revel in the brevity, since she never gets to do that? Will her tweets be like poetry? A running commentary? Filled with self-importance (GOD! I hope not!)

I am not a natural tweeter, but I am up for this. I am diving into the future, and this is just one more funky body of water. Shallow water.

Akemashite Omedetou Gozaimasu!

2012-01-02T15:41:00.000-08:00

To all of you who do not speak Japanese: Happy New Year!

If you are here I love you, and I thank you for your presence in my life, the gift of your attention in a distracted world.

I had an amazing year. A hard year. A rewarding year. A year of massive change. I know everyone did. At a New Year's Eve party the other night someone called 2011 a two, a zero and two middle fingers. Wow. Mine was not THAT bad.

There are years of crazy change and discrete goals and achievement, of catapulting and shooting to new places and aiming for things you have never done like an arrow sailing towards a target. Then there are years where you maintain, not coasting, but shifting, improving, upping the quality and the ante, being better. I think this year will be that for me. I hope. It is a "be better" year. It is a year to look deep inside and remember the big, long-term goals and slowly shift the Hilary Mother ship back on course.

Here is what I aim for. Not resolutions, exactly, just a roadmap:

To start VoxHollywood (twitter account officially launched today. I can do 160 characters a couple of times a week--I know I can). To manage my monkeymind and stay steady. To do a yoga workshop with Rod Stryker, itinerant yoga guru extraordinaire. To go to England and find the Family Castle. To get better at my job, and to make a difference for the kids of Los Angeles. To grow a great garden. To get a dog. To support my husband. To learn to play the guitar well. To eat more plants. To buy veggies in a bag from school again--and start the program myself if I have to. To make time for friends, and to love them and support them. To dance. A lot. To nurture my boys and enjoy them and spot their unique talents and foster and see and support them. To paint with oils. To save money to take my boys to Naples. To publish four stories somewhere (and my blog does not count) for money. To try to start a book--to be open to any type--to have a project like that. To write and write and write for my life.

You? What do you want to do?

I'm Going to Run Away and Join the Circus

2012-01-02T13:07:00.001-08:00

My sister-in-law can read the desires of my soul almost as well as my husband and last year she got me some classes at Cirque School--a circus school in Hollywood run by former Cirque de Soleil performers. It took her gift, and my husband's perseverance, but after a year we went--all four of us.

We entered through a small alley in East Hollywood--less than a mile from the Kodak Theater where Iris is now playing--but a world away in terms of environment. The school is across from a hip little Latin cafe, wedged between Thai and Mexican restaurants that no white person ever really ventures into. It is a still undiscovered part of Hollywood. More ethnic, less glam, but full of beautiful old buildings rich in history.

We walked down the alley, past a magnificient mural of lions and fantastical creatures and there was the room. A whole gym, set up just for us. There were trapezes (low) mats, crash pads, gauze curtains and rings suspended from the ceiling. And there was a beautiful man with a perfect body and a great sense of humor ready to train us. He is a performer, when he is not teaching classes for ordinary, inflexible people like us.

We ran around and warmed up. We stretched--a lot. I am so tight from my desk job that after my first back bend I wondered if I would complete the class. He had us do somersaults and cartwheels. All of us! Then we did dive somersaults, then we dove through a ring and did a somersault. Then we dove through a ring of fire and did a somersault! Just kidding on the last one--but we were ready. We had signed papers saying we would not sue if we broke our necks or fell from trapezes, still, I was amazed at what he encouraged us to do.

Benji flew through the ring like a boy shot out of a canon, he did not even do a roll. Theo was fantastic. Jonathan and I were awkward, but delighted with ourselves. The Fernandez Family Circus!

We turned to the trapezes, where our teacher with the hot, sexy accent and the huge muscles flipped upside down and showed us some tricks--effortlessly. We got on our trapezes and hung upside down and looked at ourselves in the mirror. We hung sideways (Mermaid) and hung sideways with one leg hanging down (Angel Mermaid). We hung upside down in a straddle, no hands.

Some of it hurt. The rope dug into my ankles when I hung upside down on the trapeze. Our teacher nodded. "In Cirque we say the more beautiful, the more painful." I will never look at a Cirque show the same way. It all looks effortless when they do it, but even the simplest things require an immunity to pain. Even if you ARE flexible. And strong. And a contortionist.

We went to huge gauze hammocks and flipped around, hung, suspended ourselves upside down, and were guided through pretzel like routines, then dropped out free. We were amazed.

We tied gauze around our feet and hands and lowered ourselves and suspended ourselves in fabric from the ceiling--and in my case I let the boys flip on my arms. Wow. That was an excellent spinal stretch.

We all had weak spots. Places we knew we would break if we tried. Our teacher encouraged, but did not push. He seemed to have an innate sense of where our aging bodies might snap, or get stuck--forever.

We ended up on a hoop in the middle of the room, spinning like a top right side up or upside down, or sideways like Mermaids, playing to the invisible crowd that was crying out our names. Our teacher spun so fast, so beautifully, he was like a gyroscope, a perfect blur of beauty. Jonathan went slow and beautiful. Theo, too. I spun like the teacher, pushing my legs out to spin slow, then pulling them in and straightening my body like a pin to go fast. I spun so fast the world was a total blur. They told me I was not going that fast. It was thrilling, and also nauseating. I got off and stumbled. Our teacher told me to jump up and down to stop the spinning. I did, and it did. But I was slightly queasy for an hour.

Still, it was heaven. To flip. To defy gravity. To spin. To stretch. To swing on a trapeze and sail through a hoop. No matter what you look like -- and really, you do not want to see yourself--it is a thrill.

And to get to see a real Cirque performer do a private show for you to demonstrate the moves--that is not bad either. I just imagined my head on his body, spinning perfectly in the air.

If only I were born small, flexible and airborne. Maybe I really would have gone to Cirque School.

On a Quest to Find the Family Castle

2012-01-01T11:41:00.000-08:00

I am a MacGregor. That does not mean much as a MacGregor, except my father loves to sport a kilt, we always had a set of old, malfunctioning bagpipes stashed in the bottom of our hall closet, and my father likes to tell stories about the long-armed warrior Rob Roy every 10 years or so (less, now that my sister is dating a man who really is named Rob Roy, who is sweet and solid, but short, not long-armed, and not a warrior).

Suddenly, though, I feel a desire to see the family castle in Scotland. I asked my mother about it this fall, when the vision came to me and she said: " Castle? There is no castle. Just sort of a cottage at the end of a road, and a rose garden, and the dowager MacGregor."

Disappointing, but still I would like to go.

Then, yesterday I talked to my brother, who lives in England. We will visit soon, and quizzed him. How far to Scotland? Had he been to search for MacGregors? What did he know? He said only 4-5 hours to Scotland, and seemed to know more than I. He thought there was a fortress with a moat, at least, even if no castle. And someone--not our mother--had told him it was an incredibly beautiful part of Scotland, and could not believe he had not gone. He was up for the journey. Perhaps two families of MacGregors, in search of a castle.

I know this is embarassing to his wife, who is British, and is puzzled and ashamed of Americans who cling to their Scottishness for generations, though they know nothing about the place except their family tartan. Yup, that's us. But she is always always game for anything, so I bet she will come along.

But then, last night, it was as if the fates lined up. We went to the most magical New Year's Eve party I have ever attended. There was a table set for 24 in a hunter's cottage in Laurel Canyon--heart of the Seventies music scene in LA. It was an under the sea theme and I sat beside a towering Scot named Lachy--short for Lachlan MacKenzie. I heard his story and he heard mine. I told him we were thinking of going on a quest to find the family castle. i told him I knew, yes, that there would be no castle. Maybe a cottage. Maybe, if we were lucky, a moat.

Oh, NO, he said. There will be a clan seat. Every clan has a seat. And MacGregor is a big name. There will definitely be a castle. My hopes soared, with the bubbles in my umpteenth glass of champagne. "Really?" I asked. "You think so?"
"Blimey," he said. "Absolutely. There will be a clan seat--every clan has one--and a castle--and a village of people who look just like you, only they speak differently, like me."

The idea was absurd, delightful, unbelievable! Then my husband jumped in to say Lachy looked like my father--tall, a little gaunt, Abe Lincoln-ish. Lachy said we could be related. There was a lot of inbreeding between the clans.

My vision was getting blurry with drink, but it felt like destiny, that Lachy would sit beside me and make me believe there really IS a castle out there. He did not think it crazy that an American would go in search of their family castle. He thought it was crazy that I had not been yet.

I hope we will go--two families crammed into two cars, driving down rambling country roads through mountains filled with history and magic--in search of MacGregors, our story, our family, our descendants.

And I hope we find a village full of people who look like us--but talk different.

I will wear a tartan scarf, or bring a tartan tablecloth for a picnic. And we, the next generation of MacGregors and our children, will find what there is to find.

Sometimes You Hear Something...

2011-12-01T19:18:00.000-08:00

Sometimes you hear something so beautiful you want to cry.

Theo has been singing in chorus for two years. It seems they work on the same songs for years, and, if I am totally honest, they don't seem to get much better. They sing fun songs. They try to do harmonies. It is never quite good enough to pull off for the concerts. So why does he keep doing it? I love the chorus teacher.

Plus, Theo loves to sing. He wakes up singing every morning and he always has--even before he knew any songs. That is just how he opens his eyes to the world.

But yesterday he sang "Ben," the Michael Jackson song. I never knew it, or had even heard it. But it is an incredibly beautiful song--and happens to have the name of my second son.

Theo began to sing in the sweetest voice I had ever heard him sing with. He sang this sweet sweet song about a boy named Ben--but he might as well have sung to his brother.

It was beautiful. So so, soooo beautiful. Michael Jackson would have cried. I swear to you.

I wish you could hear him. Right here.

I Wish My Name Were...

2011-12-01T19:13:00.000-08:00

The other day Benji, first grade, had a fun assignment. Come up with a name for yourself, and say why. They were looking for He-who-runs-to-the-top-of-the-mountain, or He-who-eats-spinach, or He-who-scores-goals. Something Indian-ish. Instead, Benji wrote, "I wish my name were Eliot, because it would be fun."

He has never known an Eliot, met an Eliot, seen an Eliot. How did he even come up with it?

Jonathan poitned out he actually has a half uncle (who none of us have ever met) named Eliot.

i have been wondering about it for two days. Where did it come from? And why?

Into the Deep Middle Ages

2011-11-16T21:26:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I turned 45.

Just when I felt I was getting used to the Forties, I am heading towards 50.

I loved 44. I am a double digit girl and always have been. Double digits bring me luck and they run through my life like a magical current. I was born in '66, graduated from college in '88, and until a few days ago I was 44. (And yes, I loved 11-11-11, and it was a very good day).

It was a good year. A lucky year. A year of fruition after lots of years of slow, quiet and important growth. I ran a marathon, got two of my best magazine articles ever published (and the ones I am proudest of), hiked the Grand Canyon Rim 2 Rim 2 Rim, got a new job that is cool and different and doing some good for kids and schools, and am making the most money I ever have, when I wondered if I would ever make real money again.

I am growing, I am learning, I am lurching a little.

I am tired, I am excited, and I love my life.

A strange astrologist trained in an arcane system of Indian astrology told me in a small garden tea hut last January that my life would start getting better and more productive in the spring. Or at least new things would start happening. And that is true. He predicted a super productive five years (as long as I wore a moonstone on my wrist to balance my energies, which I am not doing).

I am still here and glad to be alive for one more year on this sweet earth.

For my birthday we went to Yosemite, the four of us, and spent two nights in a little tent cabin in Curry Village, with a heater and a single light bulb. We worried we would freeze, but ended up hot. The boys threw snow balls of dirty left over snow and prayed for a blizzard, and the Valley smelled like fall. On Saturday Benji said he felt like the next day would be Christmas. We hiked up to Vernal Falls and then Nevada Falls and my boys were so amazing they became celebrities on the trail. We ate dinner at the Ahwahnee, in the grandest dining room I have ever seen-one that bears an uncanny resemblance to Hogwarts.

Yosemite is one of my favorite places in the world, and after a weekend of hiking and climbing and soaking in that beauty my bucket is full and I am ready to forge on and do my best in the world. I will post a picture here, I promise.

This year I hope I will start my newspaper--for real!--fix my bike at the bike kitchen and do a triathlon, take guitar lessons and become really good at guitar, and go somewhere amazing I have never been before with my husband and boys. I hope Jonathan and I will start some amazing and bold venture together--something creative and different that will grow and do good and make us a good living.

To all who make my life rich, and sweet, Thank You. I am grateful.

Signing off for now, from the Middle Ages.

Follow Your Jealousy

2011-11-06T10:54:00.000-08:00

Joseph Campbell tells us to follow our bliss. I believe in that--but sometimes I also believe you should follow your jealousy. If someone is doing something that makes you crazy with jealousy, with longing, that makes you agitated and restless and like you need to go running or DO SOMETHING!@#$#@! then maybe, just maybe, you should be doing more of that yourself.

I like my life. I do. I am grateful for so much.

But occasionally pricks of other realities come poking through and I have a glimpse of roads not taken, things not done, passions not pursued, lives not lived. An alternate Hilary universe.

This week it happened twice, and it was most uncomfortable.

First, my brother and his family went to Naples, Italy, where we lived when we were young. After a lifetime living in a villa on the Bay of Naples, our godparents (I claim them as mine, but really they are only godparents to my two siblings) will most likely leave their home (and our fantasy escape) forever and move to New Zealand. All three of us are filled with memories of Naples so deep and evocative that you can see that Italian influence laced through all three of our lives in different ways. Me, I live in a home that looks Italian on a hillside looking out on another hillside full of twinkling lights like a Neapolitan cliffside. The neighborhood is even slightly chaotic and dilapidated, like the Naples I knew as a child. At night, the smells are similar to a Neapolitan evening, and the herbs and plants and lizards that grow here are like the Italian city that seduced me for good when I was young, and left me searching for them ever since.

I am so happy for my brother, that he took his family to our beloved place. That his girls danced and explored and played hide and seek and pretended to be Roman statues just as we did. I love knowing that the taste of Neapolitan pizza and Italian gelato and Pompeian adventures is now stuck in their heads, too. When I saw his girls playing where we had played I was so happy it is hard to convey. I want that for my boys, too. I want them to eat zucchini pasta on Capri and to climb the Phoenecian steps. I want them to skip and run over Roman ruins and to see vespas with handsome men, beautiful women clinging to their waists, screaming up cobbled streets. I want them to look at Vesuvius looming over the Bay and to know what a real Neapolitan pizza tastes like.

Then, last night, Jonathan invited over a BBC correspondent and his new wife. They had moved here from Thailand, where he was a correspondent, and she was some sort of diplomat. They were wonderful, smart, worldly, curious and well-traveled. I guess they are what I was once--and what I thought I would be. And they still delighted me. I felt the jealousy surge--wasn't my life supposed to be like this? Full of tales of Thailand and Libya and celebrity and adventure?

I lived that life for awhile. Then stopped.

And here I am.

I can still go to Italy, and I will take my boys. I hope they will fall in love with Italy the way my brother's girls have. But the life of a foreign correspondent is dead to me--an option that has been truly shut down and put to sleep. I may travel again, and live abroad, but my former profession is dying and I would not put myself in danger with kids.

I love my choices. I love my screenwriter husband, my Hollywood life, my boys. I love California, the national parks, the sound of Spanish in this my unlikely, but adopted home of Los Angeles. I love our charter school and the life we have created here.

Still, for one week, as I approach my 45th birthday (eek!) I felt the surge of not-quite-regret, but of some slivers of dreams lost, choices made, options closed. Not forever. I can break them down and try to pick out the parts I want. But I guess it is a part of middle age that you come to terms with where you are, you do not lie, or fool yourself with promises of what can be. You look with cold hard eyes at what you have. Then you thank the world for all the things you have (and I have so much!) and figure out the essence of those things you wish you had, the source of those pricks of jealousy.

And you take them, and work towards them, to make them happen, before you die!

In the Land of the Zombies

2011-11-01T20:00:00.000-07:00

The days are getting shorter, the mornings darker. Still, in a feeble attempt to keep my sanity I rise at 6:30 and try to run a couple of times a week before work. It keeps my nerves in check, and my breathing steady. I dread getting up, but it makes me happy.

When I started the day was bright, the sun up. I could see downtown when I crested my final hill. Now, I set out in the pitch black. I am running in the moment when the street lights have gone out, but the light has not yet come.

I run across the Hollywood Bowl parking lot, under the freeway underpass, and across into a sweet little neighborhood called the Hollywood Dell full of cute houses, lots of hills, and, early in the morning, coyotes, rabbits and sometimes deer.

But as the economy gets worse, and the mornings darker, I am seeing other wildlife. I am there when all the homeless people rise from behind their bushes and rocks and park benches. I am there when they come out of the woods and parks dressed in black, with their hoodies still pulled tight over their heads. They are half-awake, just like me, stumbling out of strange places to begin the day.

I do not scare easily. But the other morning, I suddenly felt I was in the land of zombies. All these people, who feel groggy and half-dead, and invisible to the world most of the time, were awake, with me. Alone on the streets.

Is this why zombie movies are so popular right now?

Because when you are awake when the rest of the world sleeps, this is the world you see?

Fiber Arts

2011-10-10T19:40:00.000-07:00

Necklaces, bracelets, hats, ropes. My boys have been compulsively finger-knitting, competitively finger-knitting, for every spare moment. During quiet time, on the sidelines of their soccer games, early in the morning, in their rooms late at night. They have knit long enough tubes to go across the San Francisco Bay--or at least to stretch from upstairs, down the stairs, around the corner and across the living room. It is competitive, it is creative, it is fun!

This One's For You, Ruth!

2011-09-14T18:42:00.001-07:00

Here is the new do!

And another view!

Ruth, I hear the man in your life does not love your hair as much as I do. Well, the men in my life don't love my new short, sassy do either. But I did it for me! I cut my hair as a metaphor for change and a sign that things are going to be different and I embrace that--with my hair!!!

This was in the salon, the day it was cut, blown out and cute. I felt good.

Since then my hair has flipped out--it does not know what to do with itself. I look wacky and weird and have strange lumps after I sleep. Still, I am happy. And I saw your hair, and I like yours, too.

Across the ocean, we are receiving similar hair messages--cut it short, swing it around, be a sassy, smart woman.

You look cute, sweet niece. Send me another picture of you and I will post it here, on my blog!

New hair for a new life! That's my motto!

Vacation! After Just Two Days!

2011-07-02T20:11:00.000-07:00

We broke the news to the boys that I would be going back to work about three weeks ago. They were vaguely interested. They know I write stories sometimes, and am preoccupied. Perhaps they thought it would be like that. All out, then quiet again.

So on the second day, (a Friday) Theo said:

"Are you going to work again?"

"Yes," I said. "I am."

On the third day, (a Saturday) he asked again:

"Are you going to work today, too?"

"No," I said. "It's the weekend."

But I realized, for him, my work is a brief sprint, when I seem distracted and absent, and then, soon, it is over.

This will be different. I cannot even bear to tell him how different.

Not yet.

One day at a time.

Back to Work

2011-06-30T21:16:00.000-07:00

Today was my first day at my new job: I am chief of staff for Tamar Galatzan, School Board Member. I am thrilled to be working for her. She is smart, a clear-thinker, wants to do good, and cares. She is also tall and strong, an Amazon like me. She is cool. You can read more about her on her web site.

The job came about through a series of coincidences so bizarre that though I never intended to go down this road, I swear I felt I was being sent a sign from God. I care deeply about the issues, the pay is good, Tamar is awesome, and this is a chance to learn about LAUSD from the inside out. Oh, the access! It is a journalist's dream! I am, officially, classified. On a completely classified floor, in fact. Security feels tighter than the Pentagon. I kid you not.

It is a chance to effect change, in a completely different way than as a journalist. But I will use many of the same skills, too--writing, investigating, asking questions, getting out in the field and finding out what is really going on, then fighting for that cause, through writing, attention, diligence, truth-telling.

My heart is a little twisted, and lurches here and there. I am excited about the job, thrilled in fact, but also emotional about leaving my boys for so much of the time. What will it be like? How will my heart handle it? I have been such a full time mother. Withdrawal symptoms will be severe. And though I wish it were not so, I happen to believe the greatest kids do have someone who loves them in an extraordinary way around most of the time.

I am also, for the moment, suspending my dream of starting my community paper. This caused me so much distress I took to bed for a week. But I have vowed to myself that I will keep forging ahead with my dream, and try to launch more slowly on line this fall, with no ads, build a reputation, and then be ready in the future to take it out in print. I have a logo, dear readers, and soon I will post it here. Remind me of this dream, devoted readers, fellow writers, all lovers of stories and news. Because beyond this immediate job, I feel starting this community paper is something I am meant to do in this life. I just need to help our family achieve a little financial stability in these tumultuous times. And to have a little money socked away for me to put up those initial investment costs without panicking. You know what I mean. I know you do. But I beg of you, hold me to my promise.

I will try to write still, yes I will, indeed writing here may be even more important than it has been. But perhaps this blog was a record of my time at home, my time with my boys, a journal of the quiet moments of motherhood that are not glorified by society, but are so beautiful they can make your heart ache. It was a record of both the joy and the loneliness of making the choice to be a stay at home mother in a society that does not value motherhood.

Or perhaps this blog will be a place to record what it is like to go BACK to work, after being off.

I am not sure yet.

I do not know.

But I will keep you posted.

Right here.

Promise.

Happy Birthday Benji!

2011-05-24T11:11:00.000-07:00

On Guard!

My boy is 6.

Here he is, KIng Benji, armed with his magic sword.

He had his party on Sunday--with his entire kindergarten class and parents and siblings. No lines. No exclusion. Just for one day, all were invited. It was a castle party and they came as queens (I was the Queen Mother), princesses, knights (Theo and many boys), jesters (Jonathan) and other royalty. They bounced in a medievil castle bouncer, and we played Castle-themed games (What Time Is It Mr. Dragon?, Treasure Hunt, Jump the Moat, Capture the Flag, Dress-Up relay race -- Magicians vs. Jesters), canonball (water balloon) toss.

He was delirious with joy, even if, at the end of the party, he went and sat alone and exhausted in the Mini with all his gifts, crown still on his head, sword in his hand. It had been his day, for once, and it was his mountain of presents, for once.

It was hard for Theo, who has had many large parties (and wanted them, Benji was too shy). Theo came up with most of the games, but then could not stand that this was not HIS party. Ah, to be the oldest child on a day like this. So hard to give up the power, the attention, the gifts. And for once, Benji got gifts Theo wanted. It was a test for the big boy, and he did not do well.

But to my boy, today is the real day.

We had crepes and nutella for breakfast, and one gift, just one, and a Happy Birthday banner in the breakfast nook.

He was so happy.

And I am so happy he is here.

I love his sweet, sweet heart, his giant puppy feet, his little lisp, his crazy belly laugh, his 6-year-old earnestness, his guts (he will try anything), his freckles, his blue eyes, and his blond eyelashes. I love his snuggles and his self.

Parking Karma

2011-05-20T17:41:00.000-07:00

This is one of the entries, influenced by reading too much Haruki Murakami--of a life where things are so placid on the surface, but underneath you imagine great heaving changes, and a whole other strange world of curious characters and destinies.

So all my life I have never had great parking karma. Not bad. Just not good. And I don't really are. I don't mind walking a bit. I don't usually use valet. I have gotten my share of tickets, for sure, and I tend to push the limits of legality--a trait I inherited from my father.

My father would circle blocks praying: "Oh, Lord, please help me find a parking spot." When he did, he would always lecture us about how God cared about even the smallest thing, if we would just ask. I wondered why God would waste his energy on helping my father find parking places when there is so much to be done in the world. I would never waste a prayer on parking.

So it went.

But parking has started to become a major issue in Los Angeles. Street parking is expensive, hard to find, and now the meters have sensors telling the parking dudes when to pull up and just WAIT until the meter ticks over to zero. Jonathan just sets an alarm on his cell phone telling him when time is up. But me, I just wing it.

That is the backstory. Never had bad luck, never had good, never really cared.

But suddenly, what a change. I have found miraculous parking places day after day, with an hour right on the meter. I have had people open gates for me, let me in, then shut gates behind me.

I do feel the parking Gods are looking over my shoulder and taking care of me.

Not significant, but what a boost. And it feels like movement, good luck, heading my way.

The universe is aligning with me, pushing me where I want to go, just like a character in a Murakami novel.

Three Things

2011-05-19T09:26:00.000-07:00

Here are three small things that never, ever fail to bring me joy.

1) FRESH VEGGIES: My farmer's market basket that arrives at school every Wednesday filled with fresh, local produce of the season. "Benji, Theo and vegetables," the principle says into her walkie-talkie in the car-pool lane. I dig in, inhale the dirt and green and fruit, and then I put my hand into the produce grab bag like a pirate to see what surprises, what treasures lie within.

2) HARUKI MURAKAMI: Every time I pick up one of his books, and disappear into his strange, bizaare Japanese detective novel/psychological thriller/journey into the unconscious novels I am thrilled and all my love of life, of mystery, of Japan, is restored. He never, ever lets me down. For me, he is the perfect novelist.

3) MY BOYS: Watching them go down the steps in the morning, their backpacks on their backs--Theo gripping his wand and the Harry Potter tome du jour, Benji just skipping, checking his strawberry plants, and looking at the sky. Then all of them piling into the little red mini with Jonathan like clowns, and zooming off down the road listening to the Beatles and doing math challenges in the car.

Time

2011-05-17T16:04:00.000-07:00

Sometimes it feels like the world is on fire and everything is happening at once in every direction so fast you can't even keep up but you are scrambling and trying and it is good, so good, and you just keep running and praying you don't fall down.

That was last week.

Sometimes everything slows so completely to a stop that it feels like the world has died, everyone you know is asleep, and you are on hold, alone, forever, outside of time, outside of place, in a place where nothing ever happens at all.

That is this week.

Too Dry!

2011-05-02T10:37:00.000-07:00

After a winter and spring of wet it is dry, unbearably dry, in Los Angeles.

Everything is still green and lush--for maybe a week more-but the air is so devoid of moisture I wake up every hour at night with my throat parched and sore, reaching for water.

The weather is beautiful, with cloudless blue days and gorgeous golden light, but my lips are chapped and my nose keeps bleeding.

I long for Maple trees and blue lakes and green places, where I think my body might be happier.

I am not meant for the desert.

Checking in with My Gardening Muse

2011-04-28T14:13:00.000-07:00

It's year two of my garden and I feel less fear. I have also given less attention.

But I do feel different; I have faith the plants will grow, some will die, and most of it will not be my fault as long as I turn up and water. That is just the cycle of things.

I tried not to overcrowd my plants, because last year I crammed so many plants in each box that the plants had to grow OUT of the boxes seeking sun, and some died beneath the leaves of others.

I had compost this year to use for planting. A year of vegetarian trash has been converted into deep, loamy soil filled with earth worms. I was amazed. Jonathan really could not believe it.

Also, after two years at LCW and gardening classes, Theo really is confident in the garden. He knows what he is doing, and he does it without fear. He shakes out the roots and plants them tenderly. He grows potatoes and plants seedlings. He could work in a nursery. He just inspires confidence.

I put in peas and tomatoes (a big variety, no neurotic heirlooms) and squash and cucumbers and eggplant and zucchini and three sweet caroline watermelons (a weakness: sometimes I pick my plants just for the poetry of their names)

I went up to visit my fledgling garden on Sunday and nothing seemed to have grown. Animals had dug holes, and a few plants had lost their lives. It was neither exciting, nor depressing. But I was nervous to show Jill Tanner, my gardening muse.

But today I invited her up for a look. She climbed up the terraces in her stylish black top, designer sunglasses and black flats, and praised me and encouraged me.

Oh, I lapped it up like child.

"Your garden looks great!" She said. "Great job with the compost! Oh, your plants look so healthy. Your peas won't survive, you need some new watermelons, plant them in the other corner for more sun, and I would err on the side of overcrowding. Yes, I will give you a sungold seedling (our most favorite tomato--so sweet it tastes like candy). Oh, you are doing so well!"

I felt like an initiate. Still a beginner, but more confident. I can do it.

This weekend, watermelons, pole beans, and some wacky strains of cucumber (last year I fell in love with an Armenian cucumber, all prickly and lemon-flavored).

I feel proud. Very proud.

Pictures to come. I promise.

A Thought...

2011-04-28T11:58:00.001-07:00

If I pushed myself as hard as I pushed my boys, if I planned for myself as much as I plan for them, if I practiced something myself as much as I work to make them practice, if I did as much homework on something every day as I make them do, what would happen?

It is only fair that I should try. Don't you think?

Recession Gourmet

2011-04-28T11:22:00.000-07:00

I love to cook.

This does not mean I am a great cook, but I do love to cook. I love to be in the kitchen, surrounded by people I love (a restless husband, children drawing or doing homework, or girlfriends sitting at the table and telling me great and funny stories.) I like to sip a little wine, crank up some really great music to annoy my neighbors, throw open the windows and doors so the late afternoon spring sunshine streams in, and offer tastes along the way to all the hungry people waiting around. (boys, friends, husband). That really does make me happy. Like I am feeding the world.

At least my little world.

When I first had people to cook for (first a husband, then some boys) I was so happy I probably went a little crazy. I could no longer live on yogurt and aglio and olio. I had people to cook for! To nourish!

Back then, when cooking for people still felt new, I loved to pick exotic recipes and then hunt down the crazy--and obscure--ingredients--from all over L.A.. It was a great way to tour this town of ethnic districts. Indian spices in Atwater. Fish in Glendale. Weird Asian vegetables in Thai town. Expensive European ingredients, Whole Foods and the Mayfair. Armenian specialties, my corner market.

It was my own personal city-wide scavenger hunt.

But I am more tired now, and poorer. I can no longer approach each meal as an excuse to travel from one side of this sprawling city to the other and spend extravagantly on hard to find ingredients from high end cookbooks.

I have to be creative, and make do.

A note on this: my mother was creative, and made do. In some ways this was cool. She grew vegetables, made yogurt from cultures, made jam (that never really hardened, but tasted soooooo good), and could open a refrigerator of nothing and create something delicious. Sometimes I was filled with wonder. Sometimes fear.

She was so frugal that often her eighteenth century approach to saving everything to make something else could go wrong. Like the time she made two giant containers worth of homemade chicken broth and froze them in our basement refrigerator. One turned over, and leaked out onto the floor, and began to putrify. We could not identify the source of the horrible stink in our house. I think our dog found it.

By the time we did find it, the smell was so awful that my father and I had to put handkerchiefs over our mouths like we were running through tear gas, run and get the plastic pitchers, run them outside, dig a hole, and bury them under two feet of dirt. I could not eat chicken broth, or chicken, for twenty years. (Is this what made it so easy to be a vegetarian???)

So you can see there was some trauma in the creative use of food.

But now, with a family of my own, and less money, I have to do some of the same things (minus the rotten chicken broth). When I make a chicken, two days later I make chicken soup. When I cook vegetables, a few days later I dump the leftovers into spaghetti sauce, or risotto, or soup. Often the first round was wonderfully spiced so the flavors travel onto the next dish like a secret hidden spice capsule--hard to detect, but there.

This is a work through the leftovers week, so I am thinking of all this, and how I have changed.

I still love my scavenger hunt for the perfect ingredient. But I also love pulling something leftover from the refrigerator and making it the base of something totally new. I mean I get turned on! I want to dance around the kitchen and cackle! I feel gleeful -- like I pulled one over on somebody.

Today I took our perfectly spiced easter lamb leftovers and threw them into a pot to make harira, the ramadan staple, made of lentils, chickpeas, lamb and other spices. The only ingredient I had to buy was saffron.

I feel so delighted with myself. So resourceful and creative and frugal--but also gourmet.

And I think, this is probably how those women in Morocco felt when they made their harira. They were not running from store to store across a city a million miles wide to get each ingredient. These were ingredients in their house they could pull down in a pinch and slow-cook to deliciousness while they went about their work.

It is a private pleasure--no one can really appreciate but me. I don't want to brag about my frugal creations. But it is a wonder--to create something magnificent out of something that was nearly ready to be thrown away.

And I wonder what my boys will think of me, and my cooking. I mean I know they love it--they cannot help it--it is home. That is a perk of the (mother) job.

But will they remember the scavenger hunts (those can be so fun) or the frugal recreations?

I'll get back to you in 20 years and let you know...

What is YOUR Heroic Symphony?

2011-04-26T11:15:00.000-07:00

Last weekend we went to one of the fabulous children's concerts at Disney Hall, put on by the LA Phil. These concerts are so wonderful that last year Jonathan and I were practically in tears over the beauty of the music.

So last Saturday we went again (with the boys still dressed in their new baseball uniforms).

The day's theme was "Heroic Composers."

It began with Beethoven's Heroic symphonies, but then highlighted four "heroic" pieces composed by students who had been studying composing on a special two year program. The students seemed to be college age or just past. Or just before. Young.

Each piece had a well-thought out theme, which the conductor explained before it played so we could listen for it. Then the conductor told us what to listen for. For example, the first piece was based on a Nordic creation myth, about the Gods bringing two pieces of driftwood to life. The piece began with "woodwinds," the Gods were represented by magical metallic sounding rhythms and melodies, and "life" was represented by drums--which slowly grew into a hearbeat.

The second piece, written by a video game aficionado, was about an oppressive ruler, an oppressed people, a strain of a folk-song that kept their souls alive, and finally a rebellion. You could hear those things happen!

The third song was about a hero trying to hear his own melody, his own soul, among all the distractions of life, and the modern world. So the beautiful melody was often drowned out by the cacophony, frenzy, allure of the loud, full symphony. But the hero's melody kept coming back, gradually finding itself, and growing. Nice. It reminded me of Jonathan and Theo.

The final hero's journy was about a regular person/hero. This piece was about a hero who had a series of adventures, all separate, barely linked--at least in no obvious way. They were simply movements, separate, beautiful, only vaguely connected. At the end, the "hero" is dying, and at last finds peace, as he looks back at his adventures.

That felt like me!

I know that storyline is in all the myths, but it was so good to hear it as a symphony. That is how I feel about my life. It is composed of a series of adventures. I know they are supposed to build off each other, feed into each other, reflect some larger, well-laid plan. But for me, that has not happen. I have had many "chapters" or "adventures," and the only thing that seems to link them all is me. But I love them all--all my chapters, my adventures--I would not trade one of them in.

I exhaust myself sometimes, looking for some pattern that I hope is there, that I believe is eluding me, and will only emerge later. But for me, I think the only common thread is a sense of adventure, of my own desperate attempt to experience all the world has to offer--in whatever way I can.

And that is enough.

I do not need to find a thread of meaning.

I hope that I, too, when I lie on my deathbed, will feel peace about my adventures.

I also hope I never stop having them.

I say that, because I feel like I am transitioning to a new adventure right now. Funny. This adventure is not grand. There is no leaping from a cliff, climbing on an airplane, growing a baby and birthing it, involved.

But I feel I am on the cusp of new things, new challenges, new ways of being. A new chapter.

And I feel like I need go out and find my Heroic symphony. I will not hold myself to actually writing it--but at least some piece of music that I love, and that seems to speak to some part of my soul.

Perhaps Chopin. Perhaps Mozart. Perhaps Stravinsky.

I will let you know when I find out.

What about you?

What is your journey? What piece of music tells your story? What is the soundtrack of your life (as they say at KCRW)?

Tell me, please!

Musings on Mothering

2011-04-19T17:24:00.000-07:00

My mother was a good mother--mostly--there are many things I am grateful for: her creativity, her intellect, her curiousity about the world (if not about us).

But I also often felt ignored. Like nothing I did mattered. Like my mother was either overwhelmed by my astonishing energy level, or tired of being an (often) single mother, while my father was out at sea, or like she just didn't care. Even now I am not sure if my mother is deeply interested in anything I do. Except my children. She cares deeply about my children (and for that I am grateful.)

But as a parent, I do want my kids to feel loved, like someone is interested in them, like someone sees them, their talents, their gifts, their soul.

The thing is, I have no healthy model.

I was allowed to pretty much run free. There were high expectations of a vague sort set (get the highest grades, be polite, don't be vain, be helpful like a girlscout). There were no real life goals (and I still lack them in some weird sense) and no real personal attention. If anything I think I bored my mother.

I cannot let my children run totally free. That is impossible in the world I live in, or I suppose, I have chosen to live in. And I care deeply that they feel cared for, and seen, as individuals.

But how to do that?

Take today. It is vacation. They are home. I have cooked them a great meal, played chess with both, done a little work on paper mache puppets, done their laundry, and read one of my favorite books to them.

But still I wonder, is it enough? How much is enough?

I have friends whose mothers worked full time who felt seen and beloved, and others like mine whose mothers were home, always there, but did not feel seen.

But where is that line?

As I try to find my line, how much time I am ready to work, I struggle with these questions. No doubt, time itself with children matters--whether passive or active. Maybe not in any IQ type way, but definitely in a sense of self, comfort at the core, I am not wracked with a weird kind of anxiety way.

But then, don't kids just deal with what they have to deal with?

As for me, how do I ever know I have done enough for them. Or is that just motherhood. The loveliness and the trickiness of it. You can let it take over your whole life, and later feel devastated it is over, or you can do bits of this and that.

I have no answers. I just wonder if, for some people, that question of how much is enough, is easier.

OK, off to clean a little, and cook a little, and love a little. I hear a child building behind me, getting ready to ask some questions.

A Day for Me

2011-04-17T16:39:00.001-07:00

Yesterday was my day.

All mine.

I meant to get up and edit a story I was working on. I failed.

I drank two perfect cups of Cuban coffee with cream, dressed in nice clothes, and headed to Beverly Hills for a haircut with my favorite Antonia. She has cut my hair for 11 years and I love her. Just walking into her salon--even if it is only every six months--makes me feel well-groomed and high-maintenance. I love it.

I walked out feeling like a million bucks--my hair blown dry, my split ends long gone. I swished my hair and imagined all the men of the world falling at my feet as I strode by the bistros of Bev Hills.

I hopped in the little red mini and zipped away. Already I was getting pangs of withdrawal. I am such a full-time mother that when I actually have time to enjoy myself, without a list of tasks and must-do memorandae I feel lost, and a little sad. I broke down and checked in. Baseball practice was good and the boys were heading to a friend's house for a dip. The brisket was bought and J had hunted down the sole I needed for my French dinner.

I drove downtown along Sunset, watching the neighborhoods change, through all my favorite parts of LA--Thai Town, Los Feliz. I stopped at Yuca's -- a tiny taco stand I read about in a book about cooking by a British artist--and ate one perfect carne asada burrito and a coke in she sunshine, pouring on so much picante hot sauce my lips were on fire. Ay qhe ricco!

I cruised downtown, my lips still tingling, and found free street parking (Yes!) a few blocks from the Dorothy Chandler Pavillion. I stashed my computer out of sight, and walked Grand Ave.-Eli Broad's dream creation, a stretch of magical architecture consisting of an amazing charter school built by a world famous German architect, Moneo's cathedral, the music center, and down at the corner, Disney Hall. The school is a travesty--a million dollars a classroom in a city where teachers are pink slipped every year and there are over 40 kids in some high school classrooms. But it is beautiful! I had never been so close. It is inspiring. I would have killed to have gone to high school in such a soaring, imaginative, creative space. It changes you.

I walked to the music center, and all of black LA and I were there to see Alvin Ailey. I got a ticket on-line through Goldstar. I have made a decision to honor my great loves. Not just for me (which is hard) but to teach my children to do that, too. I love dance. I love doing it, I love watching it. Deep down I feel I was meant to be a dancer--I love movement, self-expression, music. A psychic once told me that was my intended destiny. That resonated. To me, dance is one of the most beautiful arts.

I sat in my discount orchestra seats and listened as the black audience went crazy like a Gospel service. They were rowdy, appreciative, on fire. The dancers were so beautiful I cannot describe it here. I felt refueled.

I drove home near sunset, L.A.'s best time, and walked into my stocked kitchen and cooked asparagus wrapped sole in a tangerine buerre blanc, with ingredients and a recipe from my farmer's market bag. The dish was so good I shocked myself. And Jonathan. Our kitchen was like the best French restaurant in LA for one perfect meal. I was possessed by a great chef for one evening.

I sipped my wine, put my boys to bed, lay in my bed with the windows open, and listened to the sounds of Rod Stewart and Stevie Nicks wafting through my window from the Hollywood Bowl.

I know I appreciated the alone-ness because my life is so full. If that were my life always I would be slightly sad. But it is different--and wonderful--to move through the world alone sometimes. To see differently, to feel differently, to follow your own loves and impulses in the moment, with no negotiating with little people, no shepherding of boys, and no sales pitch to a sometimes reluctant husband.

I am grateful. Now ready to dive back into all that must be done.

Advice from Someone Better than I. Please.

2011-04-15T10:53:00.001-07:00

I have someone in my life who is hard for me to deal with.

She drives me crazy, in fact.

The way she drives me crazy is inappropriate on my part. She should not. But she does.

A wise person once told me, after listening to me rant, that the problem was mine, not hers. I needed to learn how to deal.

And I do.

But I cannot. Or I have failed so far.

My normal response would be to walk away. Because having her in my life is not my choice. But in this particular case I cannot. I can minimize contact, but complete avoidance is not an option.

I try to summon compassion, because compassion is needed--for her, and for myself. But those flashes of gentleness only last for 30 minutes or so.

I am mystified, and also curious. What is it that drives me so crazy? Is it that I am rejected? Is it that I cannot deal at all? It is not much time.

Too little detail, I know. But if anyone, anyone at all out there has some deep wisdom on how to deal with someone you want to avoid, but cannot, please, please, please send it to me.

I am open. And desperate.

Too Much?

2011-04-15T10:46:00.002-07:00

This year we have two weeks off for spring break, and for me, it does not feel like too much.

I know, if you are working it is a royal pain. And yes, I had plans, magnificent plans, of all I was going to get done during this period, and need to get done during this period. And will not get done this period (each night I must console myself and tell myself it is OK, I cannot write stories, interview people, edit a magazine story and care for boys all at the same time).

But my boys are tuckered out.

I could feel our engines on low.

I could barely get the boys to do homework or practice piano the weeks before break, and I was getting tired of riding them, too. The math homework doubled right before break and I thought Theo was going to go on strike. And he loves math.

We skiied for three days, that was our super duper extravagant wonderful treat. And now, the boys do not want to do a thing.

They do not want to go on adventures. They do not want to get in the car. They do not want to go to the library, see exhibits, or even go to the park. They are cool with things that we can walk to. But they just want to draw, play chess, sit around in their pajamas, stay up late reading, cuddle and play endlessly with legos and magnatiles. Sure, they get feisty at the end of the day when they have not done enough.

But their need to be bored, to stay still, to not move, to be lazy, outstrips their need to do anything at all.

So I am giving in. Which is hard for me.

We are recharging.

In our pajamas.

2011-04-15T10:46:00.001-07:00

Spring Break

2011-04-15T10:45:00.001-07:00

Chess in pajamas and underwear, 24/7. That is spring break, 2011.

Stories

2011-04-14T11:48:00.000-07:00

Tuesday night we drove back from Mammoth in the dark. The sun set, the road was two lanes and narrow. There were no lights, except cars shooting toward you in the opposite direction. The great dark hulk of the Sierras lay to the right like a sleeping monster. Driving took concentration, and we still had a long way to go.

So Jonathan came up with a game. The boys would come up with the elements, and we would tell the stories. Jonathan asked questions: Funny, funny-scary, or scary? (funny-scary, said Benji). Real or unreal (unreal, said Theo). Fable or fairy tale or science fiction? (fable, said I).

Then you are on. You have to think on your feet and keep weaving your tale, judging your audience reaction by giggles, complaints, and sighs of pleasure and satisfaction. When the story goes off track the audience chimes in to complain. (That is not a fable! or That is not very funny!) Because the goal is to pass the time, you also have to keep the story going as long as possible, so the miles fly by, and hopefully, boys will be lulled to sleep. Jonathan's was great, about a strange visitor, who makes all sorts of wonderful things happen, and solves all the family's problems. But in the end he was not real. The moral: You cannot wait for a stranger to solve all your problems. You have to figure it out yourself."

None of us saw that coming. We were disappointed. The imagination part of the story was very alluring.

Then it was my turn. I got three words: Weird (Theo), Ocean (Benji) and cat (Jonathan). I got to suck in my breath, imagine a setting, then dive in. It is like a strange sort of mental exercise--perhaps the way improv goes if you are really good. I started, and Theo yelled out (you are copying a book, and I know which one!). Harsh audience!

But I wove my tale, about a blue cat who takes to the sea, and eventually saves his mother. There is a lot more to the story, and I will not bore you with it here.

But in the end, I got the most gratifying reward.

I finished, and Benji let out a long, perfect, contented sigh.

"That was good," he said.

Oh, it was the perfect gift for a night-time storyteller. I had cast the spell and he was smitten.

"Did you like Blue?" I asked. (Blue was the name of the sea kitten).

"I want to be Blue," he said.

Oh, be still my beating heart.

No amount of money could compensate me for that perfect appreciation.

Teacher Conferences

2011-04-14T11:38:00.000-07:00

It is that time of year, when parents meet with teachers to see how their children are doing. Of course we hope our children's teachers will see the essence of our children's souls, will recognize their brilliance and uniqueness, just like we do.

Things went smoothly. Our children are good students, well-behaved, well-liked, a delight. And even with 22 kids in a class, since our school keeps children with the same teacher for two years, teachers really do get to know your child inside out, and witness their specialness, their unique way of learning.

We were proud of our boys.

But I was surprised. For Theo, the thing that made me proudest of him was not that he is brilliant at math and reading, which I already know on some level (though he does not seem to know...). What made me happiest were a few choice details I could never know without a teacher telling me.

One was that he loves reading so much now that he always has a book in his hand now at school. Every transition, every wait for other children to be quiet, every minute when he finishes his work and has a few seconds to spare, he whips out his book of the day and starts reading. Other children told on him and complained, but the teacher said it was fine. Let him read. That was a sign he was quiet and ready.

Once the teacher said that a movement began. Now there is a group of students who walk from one place to another with their noses in their books, never lifting their heads. Just the idea of it makes me giggle.

The other thing that delighted me was that Theo is the class problem-solver. The teacher, Cassandra, said she throws out problems, and asks the kids to come up with solutions. She said mostly the kids just whine and complain. But, she said, Theo always sits and thinks, and throws out a solution that really helps. The evidence of his solutions was all around the classroom. She showed us lines of tape on the floor with student names--a solution Theo came up with to keep people in an orderly line. Or a solution to who should be the line leader (make it the newly elected student council members, that is fair!)

Cassandra said that if Theo were not there to try to solve the problems she does not know what she would do. Now he is always looking around the classroom for new problems to solve, like a little Ben Franklin looking for ways to improve his immediate environment.

May he always be that: a problem-solver, rather than a whiner.

(p.s.-I am not ignoring Benji here--he is just still less academic--)

My Boy

2011-04-06T09:37:00.000-07:00

My boy is a cipher.

Not just to me. To everyone who knows him. And loves him.

I am talking about Theo, here, my highly articulate, hyper-intelligent, wise-beyond-his years, highly intuitive child.

It is not that he does not talk. He does talk. About space ships and clone wars and things he wants to build. About magnatile constructions and contraptions and stories he has read. He can talk and talk for hours. But the times when he actually opens up and reveals an emotion are so rare I could count them on one hand.

When he does, they are so powerful I am left reeling--either because he has held all that inside, or because his thoughts are so sophisticated.

Fine, you say. Why worry?

I don't know.

I know he is happy. I know he knows he is loved. I know he is surrounded by friends and family who appreciate him.

I also know he is highly sensitive. When we talk about powers that the boys have (and make them like superheroes) Theo will say: Benji has a super nose, and I have super ears and super-emotions.

"What do you mean?" I asked him. It was such an unusual superpower. Nothing you see on TV or read in a comic.

"I can tell what people are feeling," he said simply. And that is true.

But no one can tell what he is feeling. I worry only because I want him to have somewhere to turn. I want him to know that talking can make him feel better. I don't want him to hold all his worried and fears inside his eight-year-old self. I want him to practice talking and knowing others are there for him. When he is sad I want him to tell me what is bothering him so I can help. I am close to having super-emotions, too, so I can tell when he is down. But most of the time he will not say what it is that makes him blue.

Sometimes I worry that Benji gets all the loving. We still cuddle him like a baby and he asks for it, indeed demands it. Theo cuddles in the morning, but he is older and we let him go off and read. But when I do go to him and cuddle him, or hold him and hug him, he is happy, but he does not say a word.

This morning, overcome with worry, at 6:45 a.m. I snook into his room and slipped into bed and cuddled him. He slipped right into my arms but did not wake up. Then he lay there until about 7:10 when he rolled over and I suddenly realized he had been awake all, if not most, of the time, just pretending to be sleeping in my arms.

"Were you awake the whole time? I asked.

"Yes," he said. "I just wanted to keep cuddling. You are so cuddly."

And that is so him. He loves it. He needs it. He wants it. He wants it so much he is afraid if he says he is awake it will disappear. But he will not ask. And perhaps I do not give enough.

I must watch myself.

Jonathan says this quality in Theo will make him a great actor. He holds so many emotions in his eyes you cannot tell what he is thinking. He has layers and layers there. You could look in those brown eyes forever and be uncertain. They are shifting and moving and ultimately unreadable--but not closed. Inviting. Just right when you think you have nailed what you are seeing he shifts, and he is something else.

But for me, his mother, I just wish I knew what he was thinking.

I want him to feel safe. Loved. Ok.

My Paper

2011-04-05T12:21:00.000-07:00

Did you know the Wright Brothers published a newspaper? And Ben Franklin did, too?

I am telling you this because I am going to get my paper up and running by this summer. Wherever it leads, wherever it takes me, whether this is a stage, or a class in the college of life, or a resting place, I am going to do it, too. My ideas are evolving. At times my terror/excitement rises to a point where I cannot sleep. But I am meeting with local businessmen, talking with my amazing, talented, stylish designer, and moving forward.

If I ran the marathon, I can do this. If I have to learn on the fly, I will.

If I stumble along the way, that is OK.

I am going to do it.

Stay tuned.

I am a Walking Billboard for my Beliefs...and for Alix!

2011-04-05T12:08:00.000-07:00

One thing Jonathan and I have thought a lot about is where our money is going, and what we are supporting in the world, both consciously and unconsciously. For example, I know that my money in the stock market is going to companies whose goals I do not support. I try, on a lazy, not very informed level, to steer clear of the most egregious abuses by corporations. But I have no idea where my small stocks in emerging economies fund at USAA is putting my money, or what I am really supporting. I sometimes find this unnerving.

Add to that that my sons are constantly being given or receiving clothing that asks them to advertise. I try not to let them wear it, but it takes determination on my part to keep company logos off their person.

Still, I try. I try to support things I believe in, and promote them, and to steer clear of bad things that make the world worse. Hard.

I have a dear friend named Alix, who I have written about before. A silversmith who trained in Israel, she runs a jewelry company and transforms found objects into whimsical and beautiful jewelry.

I have given her work to many people. And I always think that she should come out here and sell her stuff. Her intelligence, whimsy, style and eco-consciousness would appeal to the L.A. demographic.

So yesterday I received a box from Alix filled with jewelry. There is a swizzle stick bracelet made of swizzle sticks from all over California (and Doug's auto body shop!), there are necklaces and a charm bracelet and earrings made from used counter tops (counter culture). I am overwhelmed by her generosity. But also believe deeply in her products, in what she is trying to do, in her approach to art and life. I love them!

And so, I have committed, for one month, to wear a piece of Alix jewelry every day. Of course I will go into stores I think would love to sell her stuff. But I am going to be a walking billboard for my friend, and I am going to carry her cards in my wallet. I am going to wear clothes that show it off to advantage, and wear my hair back so you can see the earrings.

I am going to talk about it, and sell it.

Click around her web site. And if you have any questions, ask me. I am a spokesperson, too!

I

Gratefulness Journals

2011-04-05T11:58:00.000-07:00

People swear by them. Happiness scholars say that keeping a gratefulness journal can significantly boost happiness. The reason is, it shifts your mind from a focus on what is lacking, to a focus on what is good. You remap your mind.

There are studies supporting this thesis. And following my cancer therapy experience (for my not yet scheduled to run story on an integrative cancer center at UCLA that is doing groundbreaking and fascinating things) I kept one to try to manage my underlying anxiety.

It feels like nothing for the first few days. Someone like Jonathan could never do it. The only rule is: you cannot say the same thing every day. It has to be specific and thoughtful. I could not write each day: I am grateful for Theo, I am grateful for Benjamin, I am grateful for Jonathan. Even if that is true I must write something specific and evocative of that day.

Here is what the exercise does. Or at least what it did for me: it showed me what really makes me happy. I think that what makes me happy each day is my ambition, my perceived achievements (or lack thereof), how much money I have, or other cliched but also true, eternally human concerns.

But what really makes me happy are the feeling of the spring breeze on my face, hearing my boys sing Dear Prudence, listening to Benji read Little Bear, playing the piano myself, badly, playing chess with Theo, hearing my boys laugh really really hard, sitting while Jonathan cooks dinner, or planting my garden.

This is empowering, because I realize that most of the things that I savor every day are simple, accessible, do not require money, and no one can take them away from me. And the simple fact is, no matter how much I want to be successful, or not have financial worries, or write the best story ever, or publish my newspaper, these little moments are what make my life rich.

And they are always there if I pay attention.

That is liberating.

What about you? Where do you stand on the ubiquitous idea of gratefulness journals? Have you ever kept one? What did it do for you?

I Am Healed

2011-04-05T11:55:00.000-07:00

My body is recovered. My blisters have peeled away. My mango rash has subsided. Only my black and blue toenails remain as evidence of my marathon madness, but this week I will go and get them painted at my local nail salon and I will look almost as good as new.

And a confession: I still have no desire to run a marathon EVER again...but my body wants to run. It is strong, it is addicted, and now that spring is here and the hills are green my body is saying run, run, run.

2011-04-05T11:54:00.000-07:00

Monogamy Waltz

2011-03-29T09:48:00.000-07:00

If you swapped cars with your husband for a day, slipped into the driver's seat, looked across to the passengers side and saw an unprofessional looking CD called, the Monogamy Waltz, what would you think?

If you turned on the car, the stereo came on, and said unprofessional CD was playing those monogamy waltz's, where would your mind go?

I scanned the package. No names I recognized. No reasons. Nothing.

What is going on with my husband?

This feels two steos awat from the promise keepers.

I will keep you posted...

Mango Rash

2011-03-29T09:41:00.000-07:00

When I first tasted a mango, I fell in love. I lived in Seattle, was shopping at the PCC, came across it, cut it open and sucked it right out of the skin.

It was, quite simply, the most amazing thing I had ever tasted. I plunged my face into that fleshy fruit and ate it and sucked it and devoured it.

Twenty four hours later--or less--I developed a strange rash all around my mouth. I made no connection. But I looked really weird and contagious--like a sick clown.

When I went to the U Dub clinic they said I had mango rash. Unbeknownst to us of the colder climes, mangos have a toxic agent in their skins like poison ivy. If it touches your skin--or at least the skin of sensitive people like me--it causes a rash, just like poison ivy. Only on your lips. Horrific!

The doc called in the residents and they all stood around me and stared and probed and looked. Amazing. What a mango can do.

That should have been the end of mangoes for me, but I love them too much to steer clear.

And now my boys love mangoes. I hate peeling them, and I always tell them the story of mango rash, and I cut them far away from the skin, because they, too, have sensitive skin. Especially my fair-haired Benji.

So the other day we went a little crazy. We had two or three mangoes. The Mexican and the Indian, the yellow and the red. We compared and savored.

And today, as I woke up and licked my lips I felt the tell-tale itching around my lips.

Shoot!

So itchy. So awful. And I still don't think I could turn down a mango if someone handed me one.

(I will NOT show you a photo).

Today I am Tired

2011-03-25T14:09:00.000-07:00

The endorphins carried me through Thursday. My body is no longer sore. I did yoga this morning and stretched out. But I am tired. So tired.

I feel like I could go to bed now and not wake up til Sunday.

Recipe to Beat the Blues

2011-03-25T13:58:00.000-07:00

If you are down, or beat, or blue and need to get out of your funk, I invite you to come to LCW for morning sing.

There, every Friday morning, 88 kids will sing with their wacky/cool music teacher Matt. Parents line up along the back and sides, sipping coffee, holding younger siblings, dragging visiting grandparents, and they try, they just try NOT to sing.

The children sing Willie Nelson, Miss Piggie, and A LOT of Beatles.

When you hear a school full of five to nine year olds belting out "Dear Prudence, won't you come out to pla-a-ay" you cannot be sad. You sing, too. And the world just feels sweet.

A-F-F-E-C-T-I-O-N

2011-03-25T11:29:00.000-07:00

Affection was one of Theo's spelling words this week and though he spelled it correctly, his sentence showed he was confused by the meaning. Perhaps he thought it meant "infection"?

I looked at his sentence and asked, "Do you know what affection means?"

He said, "I don't think so."

He was sitting in the nook, doing his homework at the kitchen table. I said, "Slide in."

I said,"This is affection."

I put my arm around him, snuggled close, and kissed him all over.

I said, "Do you understand?"

He said, "I am going to say I do not understand what it means so you will keep doing that."

So much like Jonathan! It could have been Jonathan.

Now that he has mastered the meaning (along with the spelling) he has put it to good use. He asks me at night before bed, and in the morning before school, and when something get him down (like losing his second student council race...): "Mommy, can you give me some affection?"

I say, "Spell it!"

And then I give him some loving.

Good-Bye Elizabeth!

2011-03-24T10:33:00.000-07:00

I never knew you in your rapturous heyday, I was too young. By the time I came of age, you were just tabloid fodder on grocery newstands.

But I love your passion for life, love, food, men, and your gorgeous lavendar eyes.

And I love these two quotes, which I feel from the heart, and absolutely plan to adopt as my own:

"Enough is never enough."

"My personal philosophy of beauty is to always believe something wonderful is about to happen."

Yes.

Marathon Aftermath

2011-03-24T08:51:00.000-07:00

I was going to upload a picture, but too gross.

First, I was going to upload a picture of my marathon toes. One black and blue. Then a huge blood blister on another toe. And a third that just looks inflamed and sad. But I will spare you.

Then, I was going to upload a picture of my running shoe.

After the marathon as I sat in the car and the rain poured down, flooding the streets, I asked Jonathan if I should take off my shoes. No, he said. Don't.

But my feet had been in soggy shoes for nearly five hours, so I took them off. My left sock was bloody, but so wet I could not find the source of blood. Later I realized I had a huge blister on my heel that rubbed til it bled. But seriously, it never hurt. I guess my body, while ranking all the various pains, said, that blister bleeding on your heel is nothing. Nothing compared to your muscles your chafing torso, and the rest. You know how that is, sometimes you are so in the zone that it is only afterwards that you look down and see the wear and tear on your body. Shocking.

After the race I put my shoes outside, in hopes they would dry. It has really never stopped raining since Sunday--not for more than six hours--so my shoes are still heavy like lead. This morning I decided I would put them in the dryer. They are special shoes now, marathon shoes.

I lifted them up.

My left shoe--the one with the blister and the bloody sock--is so disgusting. It looks like someone wearing the shoe was shot in the leg. The entire back of the shoe is drenched in dry blood. Red, caked, and a lot of it.

They are like dead man's shoes.

Incredible I could run through that.

I think I will take another day off to rest.

Pick Yourself

2011-03-22T14:00:00.000-07:00

Ok, I am secretly addicted to the blog of Seth Godin, a new-age, rah rah, smarty pants publisher/entrepreneur. I do not even know what he is exactly, but I like his blog, his wisdom, and his big bald head, which you click on to get to his blog (this delights me every time). For where I am right now, he speaks to me.

Yesterday (or sometime in the last couple of days) he wrote this.

It was exactly the topic Jonathan and I have been discussing endlessly these last few weeks, as we did our taxes (how depressingly low our income is!) and assessed our life (we are so happy, but we need to make some serious changes!)

We have always been picked. Picked by the teachers, picked by our friends. We have been picked for great colleges and picked for great jobs. We have been picked for scholarships and honors and friendship. We are grateful. But perhaps being picked keeps you passive.

No one is really being picked right now. If you are waiting to be picked, no matter how talented you are, you could be waiting a long time. You could write books, have a child, train for a marathon, learn a language or an instrument, in the time it might take you to be picked. It didn't used to be that way. But the old institutions are dying, no one knows what is going on, or where the world is going, or what the next model of ANYTHING is going to be, so all the traditional pickers are frozen, unable to do any picking.

This can make you feel really bad about yourself if you are waiting to be picked.

And it is hard to change, if you are used to being adored, courted, told you are smart. If you are used to sitting and waiting for someone to say, "I want you!"

Those days are over. If you want to do something, do it yourself. If you want to make something happen, start now. If you want to be picked, pick yourself.

Seth Godin says it better than I do. But maybe if I write it twice, and you read it twice, we will all do it.

Just in Case...

2011-03-21T17:00:00.000-07:00

You didn't see, here is my Op-ed (no opinion, no editorializing, I promise) about my marathon training.

And, though I never saw them, here is the inspiring story of the two winners.

And just in case you fear I exaggerated the weather conditions on marathon day, check this out.

But if you were here, you know.

Monsoon Marathon

2011-03-21T10:10:00.000-07:00

This is me, Mile 16, shot by Erika Quinn, who then jumped in and ran the last 10 miles with me and saved my life!!!!

I finished. I did a marathon. My time was slow, I was so wet I weighed about 800 pounds, and I started crying when I crossed the finish line--combined with some strange emotional asthma attack. But who cares? I finished and I will never do another. I am checking that off my bucket list. Done! I am wearing my marathon medal right now as I type. I think I will wear it all day...even if I go grocery shopping.

The day was insane, from the minute the clock ticked over to 12:01 a.m..

Jonathan returned from a day of writers guild negotiations, and two crazy birthday parties at 12:30 a.m.. At 1:30 a.m. Benji came into our room, stood beside me in the dark and said, "Theo is crying, Mommy."

I went in and Theo was crying in his bed, saying his belly hurt. He is tough, so I knew he hurt.

At 2 a.m. he vomited up three servings of my carbo-load dinner--that is acres of spaghetti, all over his room. I was scared to touch it, because I was so worried I was going to catch a virus in the night.

We cleaned him up, put him to bed by the toilet, and went back to sleep. At 5 a.m. I got up and put on my marathon clothes. J rose with me and drove me to Dodger Stadium in the dark. There was a traffic jam at 5:45 a.m.. He dropped me off and there I was, standing in the chilly pre-dawn darkness with thousands--all of us trying to go to the bathroom one last time!!! J handed me some pepto bismal and I took it. My nerves were out of control.

A woman beside me who had run so many marathons she would not even reveal the number (at least 10, because she rattled off a bunch) said she had decided to run on Thursday to raise money for the Red Cross in Tokyo. How cool. Apparently a bunch of Japanese people were supposed to run a marathon in Japan last week, but with the tsunami, they did not get to run, so Honda, who sponsored the marathon, paid for more than 100 Japanese runners to come to LA to run. They must have thought the tsunami followed them to California when they ran through that deluge. I hope it did not trigger panic again--it was so much rain and cold.

The woman told me to go out slow, and stay conservative until mile 20. Then if I felt strong, go.

The race started late. Then, right as they shot off the gun, the rain started to fall. Big huge drops. Some people shed their Hefty trash bags, so we were running and tripping over them. I kept on my sweatshirt and my big, blue poncho, fished from my ancient bag of backpacking stuff. It was so big you can put a backpack underneath it. It could also function as a sail. We ran down through downtown, China Town, Little Tokyo. It was starting to rain harder, but all of us believed it would end soon. We were happy, and full of energy. There were supposed to be bands and entertainment all along the course, but I think the big bands were afraid they would be electrocuted--so a lot less than was promised. Still, the people who were out to play for us were so amazing it brought tears to my eyes.

On Olvera Street a mini Mariachi band played, all squeezed under a tiny tent. At the top of the hill by Disney Hall a huge band of Kodo drummers slammed out their magnificent rhythms. In the middle of Little Tokyo a strange eccentric man set up his own stage with weird instruments and contraptions and pipes--and played the pipe and the drums and the organ in the rain--belting out "You are my sunshine!"

And the people. They were amazing. The support from all these Angelenos. Of course there were the official volunteers--who were amazing. But there were also all the other people. At Senora de Los Angeles--basically the church for the poor down on Skid Row, people you knew were homeless or barely not, stood and handed us all water. I was so moved.

In Echo Park Latino women chopped up a gazillion oranges as fast as they could, put them in big cooking pans, and stood in the middle of the street handing them out. It felt like pure love.

In Silverlake Jill and Dave and Vivian and Violet came out and cheered me on. Energy!

At Mile 8 I stopped to go to the bathroom. The men went anywhere, on walls, on Dorothy Chandler pavillion, in highway underpasses--but women had to stop, and you had to wait a long time. It was raining harder and harder. When I got out of the bathroom--my enforced 15 minute break--I saw two guys who had started next to me. They were running a mile, then walking for a minute, my exact training schedule. So I latched onto them and we ran.

In Hollywood my beloved husband came out and handed me oranges and ran down Hollywood Blvd. It was starting to rain harder and harder. By now, mile 10, it was getting to be a joke. The rain went between really hard, and torrential. When people threw their cups down after drinking, they would slide into the water and rush along the edge of the road like they were on a river. Just running down Sunset you had to cross pools of water it was so deep it felt like you were fjording a stream in the wilderness. Every drop of us, down to the deepest layer, was wet. My phone wouldn't work--or only intermittently--because it was raining so hard. And J said the entire marathon web site crashed, as millions logged on to try to check the course, and the location of loved ones.

But Erika Quinn, the amazing Erika, jumped in at Mile 16 and ran with us. Now we were four. My running buddies--Rick and Brian (don't know their last names) and Erika. We ran on. She infused us with new energy. She had done a marathon before--but also stayed up til 2 in the morning singing karaoke at a party I had skipped.

On and on and on. My newly forged running buddies said that if we could just make it through the VA hospital grounds at Mile 20 we would be home free. But that place, they said, is the equivalent of LA's heartbreak hill. Just long, slow, uphill, right when you are most exhausted. And it was. We took an extra long walk break there, after the final uphill. On the grounds were what looked like a bunch of semi-deranged vets in camouflage, mostly helping out. But one, who looked especially fierce, saw us, and yelled. "No walking on VA grounds. You gonna walk, get off my property." He was so serious, and so intent, that we started laughing and began to run again.

At Mile 21 I started popping Cliff shots--these weird gummy bear like cubes that are packed with caffeine and who knows what. They are a dangerous, radioactive looking blue. But they did the trick. Erika was supposed to leave (her husband was waiting, trapped in a car in the rain, with three kids five and under) but she was worried J would not make it to the end, so she kept running with us.

At Mile 23 miracle of miracles, Jonathan found me, just as he had promised, without phone or tracking device, and ran the final three with me. Rick ran ahead to beat his time, and Brian, our steady pacer through the whole race hung right behind. We were so close. I knew I would make it. I could feel it. The wind was getting stronger and stronger and stronger.

There was no Mile 25. No marker. No water. And so, for the last two miles, everyone yelled out, "One more mile." But they said it for so long, I began to think I was hallucinating. I was going to be trapped in Mile 25 forever. No matter how far I ran, people were still yelling, "One more mile!" Brian disappeared. Jonathan disappeared. I was alone, and people were still saying, "One more mile!" One guy said, "800 meters!" I could have kissed him. But then the next people were all yelling "One more mile."

The Gods were laughing at me. I was going to die at Mile 25. Worse yet, the rain got harder, and the wind was like a hurricane on the final straightaway.

I finished. I just started crying and had some weird asthmatic attack. All my people were gone. But I did it.

Even now, almost 24 hours later, I cannot believe it.

I guess these were the most insane conditions for any LA marathon ever. It really was like running a marathon through a hurricane. It has never rained this hard for this long. Jonathan said that when he and Benji drove over the Sepulveda pass to Santa Monica it was raining so hard they could not see, and the two of them just starting laughing at the absurdity of it. I ran through that!

I came home. I could not take a cold bath to freeze the lactic acid out of my legs. I was too chilled. J made a fire. I took a shower. I crawled into bed with my sick child, and I lay there, as the rain poured down, and Jonathan cooked barley soup downstairs. I have never smelled anything so delicious in my life. I smelled each ingredient as it went in--mushrooms, garlic, sherry.

I do not know the names of my running companions--but it turned out that the three of us were on KTLA's marathon broadcast. (The boys saw me at home and Benji waved at the television!) By slowing the frame down on Tivo, I was able to get Brian's number--22755. Maybe I can search him down like a detective. Or maybe they can find me through my op-ed piece in the LA Times.

I never saw Gonzalo. I pray he finished well, and that someone he knows sees the story about him and tells him to read it.

As for me. I am basking in my accomplishment. I have never done anything that feels so complete. Usually, when I accomplish some goal, I think, "I want to do that again." Or, "I could have done better." Or, " Next time..." But this time I feel like I did my very best, and I am done. I am moving forward to the next thing. But I regard it as one of my great accomplishments. I NEVER feel like that.

My feet are blistered, I have chafing blisters all over my torso from wet clothing, my body is sore, and I have stuck temporary heating pads on my ankles and knees to relieve pain, but I am proud!

I ran LA's first monsoon marathon!

All Out Body Freak

2011-03-17T17:41:00.000-07:00

At the end of a yoga class last week a man warned me: Your body does crazy things in the final week before the marathon.

He said the week before his he ate carbs, felt bloated and off, and basically felt worse than he had during his whole training period. I will be different, I thought. My body just needs a break.

But here I am. I have done my last training run. There is nothing else I can do. My only job is to rest. And my body is freaking out. Or is it my head?

I have a stomach bug that keeps me up and makes me feel slightly nauseous. I can barely eat. Daylight savings time was last week and I can't sleep, no matter how early I crawl into bed. I can't get up in the morning, either.

And after four months of my knee never twinging a bit in the tearing meniscus region today it started feeling weird. I can't !@#$#%# believe it?

Can my hyper-imaginative head with new extra energy be causing these problems? Am I hallucinating? Or is pulling back actually allowing my body to break down--like when you fall apart after exams because your body is done.

Is my body giving out too early?

I haven't run yet!!!!

I will keep trying to eat good food, go to sleep early, take aspirin to keep swelling in my knee down. Perhaps I will just wear running shoes everywhere I go.

I am flummoxed. But there is nothing I can do but rest.

The germs, the knees, the training--it is out of my hands.

Send me good vibes. Oh, please, let me finish this race! (In one piece, not permanently damaged...)

Three Days to Race Day and What Do I Eat?

2011-03-17T10:38:00.000-07:00

Three days to race day and I am panicking. I did not do as I was told and practice eating various powerful, chemical substances to power me through my superhuman quest to finish the marathon.

There is much disagreement about what to eat, but the one thing EVERYONE agrees on is this: do not mix it up on race day. Stick to what you know works for you or things could seriously backfire and you could have who knows what running down your leg.

Our supersonic babysitter, who is a nutritionist, actor and two-time marathon runner suggested going natural. She said drink coconut water, eat dates and oranges. The natural sugars will convert to energy fast. She said after 90 minutes you need something. I tried her recipe on my 20 mile run. It was the first time I had eaten anything and what a difference it made. I felt great. For my next few runs I stuffed dates into my jog bra and munched a date a mile for the final five or so.

Oranges are good, too.

But when I quizzed her more she admitted that she never actually ran a marathon on all natural substances. That was before her high nutrition days and she ate power bars as fuel. If she did it now, that is what she would eat. Untested.

Everyone else I know eats gu, or some chemical gel loaded with caffeeine. Even my internist, who turns out to be a marathoner, told me caffeine shots can improve your time by 7-10%. I was starting to panic.

So last weekend I bought a huge supply of Gu. I slipped gu into my new running fanny pack Sunday (my final long run), with six little elastics especially designed to carry gu. When I reached for the gu at mile six it was gone. I think it fell off my belt before I left the house.

So Tuesday morning on my second to last run I decided to try it pre-run. I ripped open the packet and squirted the tri-berry caffeine gu into my mouth. The taste was so awful it made me gag. I almost threw up! I literally cannot get it down.

Now I was scared. What if I start to collapse and I cannot consume these chemical substances that keep everyone going? What is wrong with me?

In rising terror I messaged my cousin, who has done more marathons and triathlons that I can count. He responded by writing me this hilarious and clever poem.

I will carry his poem with me when I run. I will read it to my fellow runners at the starting line. I wish I could post it on the LA Marathon web site.

I have a stomach bug now, so all I can eat is coke and crackers. ARGHH.

But at least I have a poem. And some wise advice.

Thank you, Michael.

Love at 5

2011-03-09T12:59:00.000-08:00

Theo found his soul mate at Canyon School, when he was three years old. He can still see that girl all these years later and they have some deep bond that no one can touch. It is as if they knew each other in another life. We adults all step back in awe. When you see it, you cannot deny its existence.

But Benji never had a soulmate like that.

Until now.

This year in kindergarten he found Avery. She is so cute that everyone who sees her is smitten. Teachers, parents, other children, every boy in her class, and the principal, too. She is half-Filipino with red red cheeks a heart-shaped face. She is quiet, but then smart and intelligent like an adult.

Benji says she is his best friend. And yes, she says he is hers. They sit beside each other at their table, and on the carpet.

She has come over to play a few times.

She came over Friday, and I got to see my proud son in courtship mode, showing her everything that matters deeply to him.

"These are our plants," he said, showing her our herb garden. "Do you want to water with me? I will water the strawberries. You can water everything else..."

Then, as they sat eating popsicles Benji finished first.

"Would you like me to play a song for you on the piano?" he asked her. He laid out all his music books on the floor and asked her to pick one. She did. And the serenade began.

"Mommy, sing with me," he shouted imperiously, like a night club performer. So I stood behind and sang. Then Avery sat perched beside him on the piano bench like a Forties film star, legs crossed, sitting almost side saddle, leaning into him while he played.

They finished off playing with Benji's remote control car. Benji would control it and try to catch her, chasing her around the house with his remote control dune buggy. She shrieked for joy and laughed uncontrollably.

Love at 5.

It is the sweetest thing ever.

I swear, it nearly broke my heart.

May he always be so free and open with his emotions, sharing his plants, his music, and his remote control technology!

Words of Comfort from Dr. Seuss

2011-03-01T13:43:00.000-08:00

(stolen from Theo)

"You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself, any direction you choose."

"Today you are you, that is truer than true. There is no one alive who is youer than you."

"From there to here, and here to there, funny things are everywhere."

"Don't cry because it's over. Smile because it happened."

"Today is your day! Your mountain is waiting. So...get on your way."

"If you never did, you should. These things are fun, and fun is good."

"I meant what I said, and I said what I meant. An elephant's faithful, one hundred percent."

"So the writer who breeds more words than he needs, is making a chore for the reader who reads."

"And will you succeed? Yes indeed, yes indeed! Ninety-eight and three-quarters percent guaranteed."

"Sometimes the questions are complicated and the answers are simple."

And, if you want to do the assignment...which do you like, and why?

Words of Comfort from My Hubbie

2011-03-01T13:42:00.000-08:00

"Sandra Day O'Connor took five years off to be with her kids. Enjoy it."

Marathon Memories

2011-02-28T08:58:00.000-08:00

Sometimes I feel like running this marathon is fate. It is a fate I have tried to deny, but in the end it won out.

And, like everything for people of my generation, I waited until the last minute, until the window of possibility was almost closed, and now I am going to try to tinker with nature and sneak through that closing window...

I waited until the last possible minute to get married, and the last possible minute to get pregnant. I have tried to leave every option open for as long as possible, until the option itself is about to disappear.

I am the daughter of a a man who ran before running was hot. My father started running in the early Seventies so he could eat butter. He wore flat shoes that wore out fast. He has had yellow runner's toenails for as long as I can remember. As a child I rode beside him on my bike as he ran through Mystic. He would push me up the hills when I got tired.

Amby Burfoot, the legendary runner, whose words now appear as a blurb on every real runner's book, used to run by our house in Mystic when I was a child. He had won the Boston Marathon and he would sprint down Noank Road in bare feet, with nothing but a pair of skimpy seventies running shorts, with a big beard. He looked like the Indians we heard used to live in the woods around our house. He had a long, beautiful stride and we would rush to the edge of our yard and watch him go flying by. A clump of slower runners, less beautiful, with shoes on, would come huffing along behind him.

When I was still in elementary school my father decided he would run a marathon. He was still on a submarine, on land for only three months at a time. So he started training on board the submarine, running in place in some grey corner on his submarine. I imagine him trying not to bump his head or his six foot frame on the pipes and doorways inside the ship. When he got home he trained for three months, then ran.

I did not go to the marathon itself. But I remember my mother driving him home. He lay prone in the back of our Vega station wagon, his legs sticking out the back like a big corpse. He could not walk for days. He is in the camp that believes if you cannot run a marathon in the threes, why bother.

Then there are my Ironman Aunt, Uncle and cousins. My Aunt and Uncle co-created the Hawaii Ironman Triathlon. Doing grueling long distance events seems to be normal for them. They are slow. But they keep pushing it.

Every cool friend I have known, practically, has done a marathon.

And Wellesley, my alma mater, was the half way point for the Boston Marathon. On the way to college my mother and I sat beside a man on our transcontinental flight. He asked where we were going.

I said, "Wellesley. You probably haven't heard of it..."

And he said, "Wellesley.." I thought he would go off about the brilliant women who had graduated, how his mother had gone there, all the things that people who know Wellesley say.

But he said, "I love Wellesley. It is the half point of the marathon and those women have saved my life. They are young and beautiful and at mile 13 they surround you and cheer for you and it is so incredible it keeps you going to the end..."

I ran the half marathon for two years after that, just to experience that Tunnel of Love. It was like a hallucinogenic experience. One year I was on such a high after the screaming, beautiful women that I kept running and forgot to stop for two more miles.

I digress. But the point is, though training for this marathon has taken far too much of my time and life, to the point that I am ignoring some other important things--I do feel like I have been working towards this point for a long time. A lifetime.

And it feels so good to be back at the top of my game, doing something I have never been able to do before. At 44.

Whatever happens now, and I pray my body holds strong, already this training, these miles, have been a victory, a gift.

Wahoowa!

2011-02-28T08:49:00.000-08:00

I triumphed over the fears and fatigue. I ran my 20 miles. I did not die. And I can walk.

I was scared so I asked advice of everyone I knew. And I got a lot of good tips.

My mantra as I ran was: Don't get injured. Finish.

Everything else was beside the point.

It was a perfect day, clear and gorgeous and clean. On the way over I saw Gonzalo running down Los Felix Blvd in his red running shorts. I honked and shouted his name but he was in the zone. Still, it felt like a good omen. My running sage was still going. Maybe I will run into him on race day. That would be so cool.

I stashed a little container of sumo mandarins (my new favorite fruit) behind at wall at what would be my mile 6 and my mile 14. I carried dates on my person, plus a map and my music.

This time I did not listen to music. I had played the Lion King in the car and I sang to myself mile 1-10. After that I was quiet. I stopped more. I stretched a lot. I ate dates and oranges like fuel, and I stopped at every drinking fountain I saw and I drank. I did not experience euphoria in the drug-induced endorphin sense. I did not feel universal love, or one with all runners. But I did start crying as I crossed the street at the final traffic light.

Now I know I can do it. I was slow. Slow as a snail. But I know, even if I have to walk, I will finish.

Half-way through my return trip in Griffith Park I saw a woman wearing a T-shirt that said: 20 miles. Race Ready!

I want one!

I soaked in an ice-bath post run, per the advice of my super athlete friend Doug Robson. And I feel OK.

In bed all night my legs tingled. Not a bad tingling. Just tingling. And when I closed my eyes I was still running--the way you are still skating when you take off your skates.

All I have to do now is taper, and I know I can do that!!!

Some Things I Have Noticed

2011-02-25T11:26:00.000-08:00

Running makes my head clearer, my skin clearer, my cravings more healthy. It makes me sleep better and it makes me appreciate my life more. It allows me to be truly still, something I can rarely do. (Even when my body is still, my mind is still running...)

Running so much also makes me tired. I realize this is a vanity project of sorts. I am pushing my body beyond where it wants to go to prove to myself that I can run 26.2 miles. I am not doing it for charity, as my sweet sister in law suggested (why ELSE would you do it? I am sure she thinks). I am not doing it for health reasons, really.

I guess I am doing it for a boost of self-esteem.

Today a guy in my yoga class told me that right now in my training I should be at a place where I am on the cusp of injury. That is right, but it also means I have to be really really really careful. If my body starts twinging this weekend (yes, I am obsessively nervous about the 20-miler) I should stop. I should not be afraid to walk. Whatever I do, do not push through injury. At this point I have no time to heal.

I am at the cusp of injury. Fine. but on the edge of fine. I can just feel it.

Today I promised myself that if when I am running, on the actual day, I am really hurting myself, I will stop. I will not risk a life-long injury for a day of glory in my own mind. This could be my biggest challenge of all. I am good at pushing, but not so good at pulling back.

It is a lot to balance in a mind.

If you have any marathon wisdom, please forward it here.

Daily Tune In

2011-02-25T11:20:00.000-08:00

Yoga teachers always say to tune into your body at the beginning of class. It will let you where you are.

True. Sometimes I am strong, ready to try any arm balance, even if I smash my nose onto the floor and want to cry. Other days I am stiff, and can barely raise my body off the floor for a backbend. Sometimes I feel invincible. Grateful. Wow!

But this is even MORE true for running. My daily (or semi-daily) run is the ultimate check-in. If I drank the night before, My God that run is a slog. If I rested, I feel light and happy on my feet. If I feel blue, it will take two miles to get me out of my funk. If I didn't eat enough I will run out of gas part way through.

If I eat fruits and vegetables and greens and nuts, I really do feel better.

Running so much has also shown me that my blueness often starts with my body, not my head. Interesting...

Of course I know that food and sleep affect physical performance. But to tune in daily and see what that really means in an endeavor that I cannot coast through is astounding. It all matters. It all matters more than I want to believe. It matters sooooo much. If it matters that much I am a fool for not paying attention. Even when I am not running.

Don't you think?

I need to pay attention.

My body is trying so hard for this endeavor. I need to respect it and help it out. No more martinis the night before a long run.

One Thing That Is True

2011-02-23T12:15:00.001-08:00

I feel better when I write every day.

How about you?

The Mythology

2011-02-23T11:54:00.000-08:00

We are a nation dissatisfied.

Our entire nation, our entire economic system, is premised on cultivating dissatisfaction, and then commoditizing everything that could make you happier.

I am aware of this.

Still, the rivers run so deep. And the lies.

This past Sunday I flipped through the Sunday New York Times Magazine. There was an article by a Dad, who cooked for his family. Healthy food. Every night. After he got home from his high powered job writing food columns, I guess. This article was his swan song, his chance to say his true thoughts on the subject, before he said Goodbye to us, the readers, forever. You can read it here.

I read it. I liked it. I pushed it to Jonathan.

In it, the author, confessed that once he had been a good cook, even wooed and won his wife with his spectacular kitchen cooking skills. But he confessed that cooking joyfully for his kids and wife, at the end of a long day, in a household with two working parents, was pretty impossible. He got home late. He still had to get ingredients. Sometimes his kids were crying on the floor in hunger as he dipped his filet of sole in egg, then batter.

He confessed that, although he wrote this column encouraging parents to cook healthy meals every night, (and probably making a lot of people feel really bad in the process) that it was hard, close to impossible, and he advocates more healthy instant meals.

So when I read it, I thought: Thank you. I am not even a working parent. And I appreciate that on a typical weeknight in today's world, it is hard to cook a perfect healthy meal every night, and even the simplest meal does take time. Probably at least 45 minutes. And with kids and homework and exhaustion, that can be a lot to ask. Not including the time to get the food...

I was grateful that he came clean.

But Jonathan was enraged.

He saw the guy as a hypocrite, who made his money making other people feel bad for not living up to this standard that he promoted, only coming clean in the final column that he could barely make it work himself. J saw it as one more step in a society that creates these impossible standards to make everyone feel bad, and promotes them (in this case, not even as an ad, but as a professional journalist).

It made me think.

I guess I am at a place where some friends are struggling. They are struggling to do everything that society tells them they are supposed to be able to do: raise great kids, all in the 99th percentile of everything, have a fantastic loving marriage, on five minutes a week, have two parents working full time at jobs they love with no commute, home for dinner every night, have a wonderful circle of loving friends, and working out daily and eating healthy food.

Hopefully doing a little social service for the causes you feel passionate about, too.

And the truth is, I believe in all of these. They are my standards. But when you cannot do them all, you feel so bad.

And so I got J's point to the author of the offending column. Don't promote and celebrate a lifestyle that you yourself cannot maintain. Don't pretend this is possible, when it is not. Live truthfully. 'Fess up. Be real. Break down the mythology and help people out with some compassion.

In the end, I agree.

What about you?

Fatigue

2011-02-23T11:41:00.000-08:00

This weekend I run 20 miles.

I am already nervous.

For the first time I wish I had a partner, a best friend, a coach, a companion. Anyone!!!

I have no idea what I am doing.

Because I have been running alone, with the exception of my chance meeting with Gonzalo, and a video, book and pacing metronome about ChiRunning from my bionic Aunt and Uncle, creators of the Ironman, I feel at sea.

I have not gotten injured, a victory in and of itself. And I no longer get sick--now that I rinse my nostrils with a neti pot post-run per the instructions of a G.P. who recommended it to get all the LA toxins out of my nose. I have run farther than I ever have in my life--lots of times.

But I am getting sooooo tired. I am getting tired like some one injected me with a sleeping pill on slow release. I am getting tired like all I can do when I wake up is think about when I get to go to sleep again. I am weary. Not my body. It is strong. But way down inside, in my bone marrow, I am so tired.

It is fatigue. Last week I texted while running--my friend who ran the New York Marathon in October. "Did you get tired near the end of training? " I asked.

Tired FROM running or tired OF running?" he texted back. For him boredom set in, but no fatigue. I have been running the hills in perfect spring weather and doing different trails so I am OK on boredom frong, but my GOD, what to do?

Yesterday I panicked. I pulled out multi-vitamins, fish pills, B-12 in droplet form, all of it. I loaded every pill and tablet into my body. I think I am eating well, but maybe I need to eat even better. It is not that I am losing weight. I am the same. Just stronger.

The author of Born to Run, a journalist turned ultra-runner (not me) said he started getting so tired training for an ultra-marathon his doc told him to start eating salads for breakfast. Huge piles of kale and chard and spinach. I just don't think I can do it...

If I can get through this weekend's long run I am home free. And I guess I should experiment with eating Gu, or Power Bars, or nuts, or something. I do not run with a belt of water bottles, or stash little packets of carbohydrate rocket fuel along my route while I run. But perhaps I need to.

W.W. G.D.? (What would Gonzalo do?)

If you have a secret energy source for a depleted running mama, please post here!

Italy Is Calling Me!

2011-02-19T16:21:00.001-08:00

I think Italy saved my life. I think Italy saved my family. I think Italy saved my parents' marriage and brought my sister into this world.

I think I might be dead if there had been no Italy in my life.

Italy was sunshine and joy and perfect fruit and Vesuvius and buried cities and turquoise waters and people who loved beauty and loved food and loved life. It was an antidote to America.

Italy has sustained me through hard times. I eat her food at least four times a week, and a bowl of pasta always make me feel restored, grounded and back to myself. And now, my boys, too. I have gone back every few years to refill my soul. Jonathan was the first man I took there (and look what happened!)

It has been ten years since I last went. When I can't sleep i think of the Bagni di Tiberio, or walking up the Phonecian Steps, or walking out to the Faro, or floating in the blue, blue water. That is how much Italy, and Naples, and Capri, are inside me.

Theo is seven. The age I was when I was there. I want him there. I want to go back. I want to eat pasta and pizza and lie around fat and happy in a too small bikini. I want my children's cheeks to be pinched and I want them to be loved and adored by every Italian that walks by, like I was.

I feel Italy calling to me. And I feel my soul crying out, "You need to go, Hilary. You need to go. This is important. Now. Don't wait."

But we are poor. We cannot go now. So I guess I will eat my Italian food, listen to my Italian music, smell the smells of my garden and neighborhood, which, through no coincidence, look, feel and smell like Italy.

Oh, Italia, I hear your call and I wish, how I wish I could come.

Ti Amo!

Ilaria

Overcome

2011-02-19T13:59:00.000-08:00

This morning I woke up blue. I was blue from something Jonathan shared with me last night. I was blue because I hate winter and long days and cold--yes, even in California. No amount of caffeine or running or reading or sleeping can bust the mood.

So I walked into the Y for Benji's basketball game, and went to deposit Theo in childcare so he would not have to sit in the bleachers trying to read Percy Jackson. There on the wall was a picture of one of my favorite childcare ladies. Her name is Harriet. I have known her since Benji was born. She has loved my boys and appreciated them and loved me and been a wonderful presence at that Y.

When she asks me for money for the Y, I always give. She was older than the rest of the childcare people. I could tell she did the job simply because she loves kids. She noticed them, delighted in them, loved them. And I loved her.

Well, she died.

I hadn't been at the Y for awhile because I have been running. It didn't seem like long. But there was a picture of her on the wall, with a note that said, "Rest in Peace."

I felt sick. I felt sad. I felt heartbroken. I didn't get to say, "Thank you." I didn't get to tell her that I want to be like her when I am older. I will want to work in childcare to be around children, too. I didn't get to tell her how much I appreciated her smile and her cheerfulness and seeing her. She made me feel like part of that community.

And now she is gone. I took a month off and she is dead.

I ran to Ricardo, my favorite swim coach to find out what happened. He said she died suddenly. She had leukemia, but no one really knew how badly because she did not talk about it. Her body just gave out, and they found her alone in her condo. Ricardo said the day before she died she had gone around hugging everyone, as if somehow she knew.

Her turquoise Y shirt was laid out to go to work.

I am devastated by her loss.

She was not a major person in my life. She was peripheral. But so wonderful, so cheerful, and yes, so important. I stood at the desk at the Y with tears streaming down my face. I saw another mother crying, too.

I miss you, Harriet.

I can't believe you are gone.

Yes! I'm a Mom! And Trying to be Proud of It..."

2011-02-16T11:27:00.000-08:00

A famous dad from our school recently made this video about the Larchmont Schools: You Tube: YouTube - LarchmontCharterWeHo's Channel

I love it.

Of all the snippets woven together, the part that makes me weep every time are the immigrant parents saying what they want for their kids, and why they are grateful. Their need is so raw and naked. They all speak English, but for this, they spoke in their native tongue (with subtitles) and it felt more powerful.

One of the mothers who speaks is the mother of Theo's best friend, Stephen, a truly great kid. I don't know the exact situation, but I do know that his father has returned to Korea and is NOT in the picture, and that he means the world to his mother. I know that he is smart, kind, amazing and beloved.

In one email to her about many things (playdates, birthday parties) I told her I had seen her in the Larchmont video, she was great, and she is one awesome mama.

She was so happy I said she was a great mother. She picked that out of everything I wrote and took it as the highest possible praise. It meant the world to her. That was obvious.

And I was jealous. I was jealous that she could take my comment at face value and it brought her joy. I have been so warped by my Wellesley education, by 21st century America, by rebellion against my father, and by American social values, that if/when someone says I am a great mother (it has happened...) I feel a flurry of emotions.

I feel suspicious. Are they saying I am lazy, and I am so lucky to be able to stay home with my kids and my husband must really spoil me rotten? Are they saying, must be nice? Are they saying, it is so nice you can do that, but I can't believe you are not working? Where is your self-esteem? Are they saying, OH...you are one of those scary mothers who once worked but now focuses all her insane over-educated mother energy on raising her kids and makes everyone else feel really bad about themselves? Are they saying, how self-indulgent..to just mother full-time? Are they saying, I can't believe you don't work...

Never, ever, do I consider that maybe they just mean it at face value.

And I cannot accept it as that. My own feelings about motherhood are far too conflicted.

And yet, the truth is, I do care about being a good mother. I do believe it is one of the most important things I will do. When I tell another woman she is a good mother I mean it deeply and sincerely. I see the effect on her child and I am amazed and awed. I want to be a good mother.

But the very word "mother" has been so demonized, so polarizing, so contaminated, I am scared of it.

And so, when Stephen's mother responded so simply, I was moved, and wanted to be like her. I wanted to simply acknowledge without shame that being a good mother is a priority for me. I do not hate it, or feel put upon by it. Having children is absolutely one of the greatest joys of my life.

I think it matters, and I can see it in my children. But I do not feel valued by society. And that affects me, as much as I try not to let it.

I envied her clarity, her sense of self-worth, her lack of conflict about the whole motherhood issue.

Sad. But true.

Too Late

2011-02-11T14:54:00.000-08:00

Last night when I logged on for my once monthly facebook session there was a message waiting for me from someone I had never really known: a guy who dated my friend Natalie.

He dated her long ago and began what I consider her sad dating period, when she hooked up with a bunch of guys who were outwardly pursuing enlightenment, and spoke the New Age lingo, but were really nothing more than horny assholes reaching middle age who realized that there were some pretty awesome women out there and they had a shot.

They met at Esalen. He made my friend happy for awhile. She really liked him. They went on some fun trips together, and he made her laugh. He was funny. But in the end he cared about his job, didn't want to settle down, and didn't even want to date just one woman. She was into him, so it broke her heart a little. But what can you do?

He emailed me asking if I knew how to reach Natalie. He said he wanted to make amends.

That was a LONG time ago. Like eight years go. Still.

I sent him an email. I wanted to say, "Too late, asshole!"

But I just wrote, "Natalie is gone. She died three years ago. If you want to talk more, please call."

By the time I walked downstairs to get my tea, the phone rang. It was him.

Of course he was shocked. And sad. He wanted to hear about her. All about her. He wanted to have his own private memorial on the phone. He wanted to comfort me. And tell me how much I had meant to her (I knew. I was there.)

He told me a beautiful story, about a trip they took to British Columbia. He told of how they were on a boat crossing some Sound when suddenly their ferry was surrounded by a hundred viking boats, with sails billowing, heading in the opposite direction. It was some weird subculture of people who made viking boats, and they were sailing them. He said it was one of the most beautiful things he had ever seen, and the two of them stood in the front of the boat on the prow, on this sunny day, with hundreds of boats going by like something out of the past.

It sounded like Natalie. She found the beauty, and she threw it up for you to see. She could be annoying, but she never stopped looking, and when I think of her I think of my moments like that with her, too.

So I will hold that image of them on the prow of the boat yelling for joy into the wind.

But I also thought, act now! If you hurt someone, or broke their heart, or were unneccessarily harsh, don't wait eight years to tell them. They might be gone. As in his case. But even if they are not. It is too long. Act now to correct the pains you caused. Don't wait for the perfect time. It may never come.

Four More Days...

2011-02-07T10:30:00.000-08:00

until the dirty green boot comes off.

After the swelling stopped, my boy has been an angel, never complaining about his foot. He has hopped around in a special high-speed run hop he developed, and even hiked through gardens without whining.

He has read like a maniac and built hundreds of lego constructions.

His toes are so black that even scrubbing leaves them only a lighter brown. His cast is wearing through and his little cast shoe is worn down to the nub. Perhaps no cast-bound child has ever been so mobile.

Friday the cast comes off. Sunday he sword fights at his own birthday party.

Will my eight-year-old peg leg still be able to hold his own with pirates and fellow fencers?

We shall see.

Arty Photos

2011-02-07T10:28:00.001-08:00

A night at Le Figaro with Meg and Joe.

Me and Flea!

2011-02-03T13:41:00.000-08:00

I just found out Flea is running the marathon, too!

He is running it to raise money for his Silverlake Convservatory, an amazing community music school he created to give affordable (and scholarship) music lessons to any kids who want it. He graduated from Fairfax High and he regards his school as a way to help keep music accessible to any kid who loves music, since the arts have largely been cut out of public schools.

Theo took lessons there, and I have been there when shipments of old violins have come in from orchestras, to give to kids. I am going to give to Flea and the Silverlake Conservatory. You can, too!!! Go to Crowdrise (created by Ed Norton) and find Silverlake Conservatory.

Factoid: The great musician himself does not listen to music when he runs. He listens to his heartbeat, his footsteps, the world around him. He hears music in the world. I love that!

Standing Up For Myself

2011-02-03T11:56:00.000-08:00

Standing up for myself is so hard.

I am interesting because I am not weak or confused. I am not cowardly, or afraid to stand my ground. I am not deferential, or scared. But when someone I disagree with vents some intolerable opinion, I do not stand up for myself verbally. Especially if I think speaking up will make no difference.

On Tuesday I took my boys to piano lessons. Their lessons are high on a winding hill street above Hollywood. I pick them up straight from school, where they get to play outside a total of 20 minutes on a schoolyard that is looking smaller and smaller as my boys get bigger and bigger. They can only play outside during limited hours because an angry neighbor behind the school is so irritated by the cries of children playing that the city has said OK, no playing outside at a school before 10 in the morning, and not within 20 feet of the back wall, because that could be really irritating to you, you one grouchy person.

This is relevant.

The road in front of the piano teacher's was crowded Tuesday, so I pulled up and parked illegally in front of a beautiful old Moorish apartment building. Benji had spilled popcorn in the back of the car, so I brushed the spilled pop corn onto the street (the birds can eat it, I reasoned) and shepherded the boys into the house with their piano books. They leapt and laughed and raced in.

I walked back out to my car quickly, was scribbling checks on bills I have to pay before shooting down to the post office, when an older man came and tapped on my window. I could just tell it would be bad news.

I opened my door. "Yes?"

"Are your children students of Gigi?" he asked. Yes, I said. "I am a writer," he said. "I live here because it is quiet. Your youngest child just ran screaming across the street at the top of his lungs."

I searched my memory. I recalled no screaming.

"The shouting of children, the barking of a dog, can interrupt a writer."

Still, I listened. "I live here because it is quiet."

He stopped, and waited for me to respond.

I recalled suddenly that I had heard this same man a few weeks earlier venting to Gigi as we went in, going on and on about how no one disciplines their children, it just shows how bad parents are today. Some other parent sat in the car outside their house for an hour with a screaming child. How do they put up with it? Parents are too scared to step in, blah blah blah. It is so cliched and curmudgeonly I had no time.

I said, "I am searching my memory, and I do not recall my child screaming."

He said, "Your child was screaming. We all have different thresholds. It may not sound like screaming to you, but it is to me. And we need to co-exist in this world."

I knew what he said next would be the same tirade he had unleashed on Gigi the last time, so I kind of tuned out. He finished with, "I am not going to tell you how to raise your children. I know better than to wade into that territory. But people need to learn to discipline their children. To set standards."

I was so angry I feared for his safety. But still I did not speak.

Then he pointed to the popcorn. "And that." I said yes, I am sorry. "My dog could eat that," he said. "He could get sick."

I said, "Fine, I will pick it up." I got up and picked up the 10 pieces of popcorn. He said, "No. No. I can get a broom." I just picked it up and put it in the trash can. I said, "Next time I will drop my children off in front of Gigi's door."

Then I walked away.

He shouted after me. "I love children. I have a daughter. I have a grand-daughter..."

I did not turn around. I did not respond. I got in my car and drove away.

I was furious.

Why was I furious?

I was furious because I did not tell him off.

The minute he began with "I am a writer..."

I wanted to say, "I am a writer, too. And so is my husband. And this is a public street. If you want silence you should move to the wilderness. You have chosen to live in an apartment building in the middle of Hollywood. The shout of a happy child is not criminal. If your ideas are so fleeting that the shout of a child drives your brilliant thought from your mind, it must not have been very brilliant. Writing is made up of life. And children, and dogs, and cars, and birds are part of life."

I wanted to say, "Yes, we need to co-exist. But your standard is not real. No on one in the universe would say my child was wrong for running happily across the street with a shout of joy in the middle of the afternoon. Not midnight. Not at dawn. We have different levels of tolerance, but yours is not realistic."

And when he said, "I like children. I have a grand-daughter." I wanted to say, "And I have a father. And he is an asshole."

(My father is not an ass hole. And my father would NEVER say the shout of a child distracted him. He thinks more children should run shouting through the streets for joy. I am not kidding.)

The point is, that when people like him, angry, bitter people, feel the need to vent, I stand silently and listen, while words and sentences and counter-arguments run through my head like mental subtitles responding in real-time. Each word he says, my response ticker-tapes through my mind, while I stand silently.

He knew I was mad. It is not that I did not make my feelings known.

Still, I was angry at myself. I stood up for myself, but I let him stand unopposed, with his warped view of the world intact. I tell myself I will never change his mind, so why bother, and that is true. But I can also offer him another point of view. I can not be verbally bullied. And I can make him pause before he balls out the next person who walks by his house with a child, or a dog.

And I wonder why I do not stand up.

I worried about Gigi. He is her neighbor, and I don't want to screw up her neighborly relations. I feel it is hopeless, because I will never change the angry, self-righteous man's mind.

And my father made me feel like standing up for myself was disrespectful. Like he had the right to say anything outrageous he wanted, and I could not fight, or I would be punished. I learned that my response could hurt others, and I should always think of them, first. (When I did respond he would say, "You have a sharp tongue, Hilary. You really hurt people." He acted like it was some evil gift channeled by the devil, which he does happen to believe in.)

It is probably one reason I like to write. No one can stop me on the page. And ultimately written words have more power than spoken ones. If the words hit the target, it knocks them over.

But in this case, I should have stood up for myself.

He was a jerk, and if he is going to tell me I am a bad mother and my children are bratty and noisy, I think I have the right to tell him, you are an angry old man and a sorry-assed writer who cannot sustain his concentration. Lame. Or, shell out the big bucks and buy some Boze headphones.

I will have to practice. I will have to give my subtitles a voice. It is a small thing. But big, too.

It is probably why I love Italian families. They all just shout what comes into their heads, then cry and laugh and it is over.

I say nothing, stew, review what I should have said, but never do, except on this lonely little blog he will never read.

How about you?

Do you speak your mind? Do you call jerks on their shit when it flies out of their mouths? Do you unleash your intellect to take arrogant, superior, self-entitled assholes down a notch?

Tell me you do. And tell me how you got that way. I need a training program!!!

My Boy is Eight

2011-02-02T12:08:00.000-08:00

Picture to come, I swear, of my eight-year old and his green cast.

We had crepes for breakfast, and a birthday sign. He had a candle in his crepe, he played Happy Birthday to himself at piano and we sang along (me, Benji and Gigi) and we had lasagna and Capri cake for dessert, with vanilla ice cream. He got a mountain of books and legos and he is so very happy. No homework for a night.

I asked him how seven had been.

"I liked it," he said. "I can pretty much do everything now."

"Like what?" I asked.

"I can make food, I can grow food. I can read. I can swim. I can do pretty much everything I need to do."

It was wise, and true.

I am not ready to leave him, we have so much more to teach. But if he were on his own, abandoned, or we died, he would be fine. Not just fine, he would be great. He could survive in the shanty towns of Rio, or the streets of Hollywood, or in a forest. I am not saying it would be easy, but he can read people, do math, sell things, find good people, and navigate. He is good and has a moral compass. He could take care of his brother, too.

He just feels grown-up.

He has brought so much joy into my life. Oh how I used to roll my eyes when people said that childhood flies by. But my boy is almost eight--halfway done. Holy Macaroni!

My Sage from El Salvador

2011-02-02T11:27:00.000-08:00

I was running on Sunday in Griffith Park. It was a 15-miler and I was scared. The last time I had gotten sick, and I as I mentioned before I have weird superstitions around this distance. It is when my body gave out in training last time and I was so ill after 13 miles. I played games in my head. Maybe I would only run 14 miles. Maybe 13. Maybe I would walk the last one.

I started and I felt good. I had eaten a big protein filled breakfast which turned out to be good because I could not run very fast without getting a cramp. It pulled me back. Important!

Griffith Park is filled with runners in training because it is the one beautiful place you can run on this side of town. Packs of runners go by in every direction. Some fast, some slow, some overweight, some training for marathons, some escaping their wives. But it feels like a secret community of runners, and it is cool.

I am always watching people trying to figure out if they are training for a marathon. Sometimes people ask me. Usually when I am near the end and probably look like a soldier coming back from war.

At around mile 3 a man saw me, smiled me, then ran across the road and started to run with me. He was really warm, probably in his fifties, and had a beautiful smile.

His name was Gonzalo. He said I looked strong, and really good. (It was not a pick-up line, I swear.) He has run 30 marathons and had run 20 miles the day before, up to the top of some inland mountain I have never heard of (He kept trying to show me.) Sunday he was doing his recover run--of 12 miles!!!

He had run since he was a teenager in El Salvador. He really loves running. You could tell. He kept telling me I would definitely finish, and I should run up the mountains, to make my legs stronger. He suggested 12 mile runs where the first three miles are all uphill. "It is so beautiful up there," he kept saying. "And it really strengthens your legs. It is the only way. Do the hills and mountains."

I listened and asked him for advice. He gave me lots, in a kind, not overbearing way.

Then I asked him:

"Do you think the marathon is about the mind or the body?"

"Oh, the body," he said. "The mind has nothing to do with it."

If you are strong enough, if you have put in the miles, you will finish. If you have not, you will not.

I don't know why I found this so deep. I guess because I think the marathon is all about the mind, about pushing yourself, about managing your head, about using your mind to keep going when your body is giving out. But he was saying the opposite: If you do not train, and prepare, and put in the miles, there is nothing your mind can do. You will not finish.

It is very practical. And demystifying.

And true for so very many things, don't you think?

So I leave you these words from Gonzalo, for whatever endeavor you are undertaking:

"Put in the miles."

Good luck!

Committed

2011-01-29T12:08:00.000-08:00

I am a commitment phobe. Whether it is a playdate or a professional endeavor. I am not a commitment phobe for all the ordinary reasons. I am not waiting to see if something better comes along. I am not leaving my options open.

In my case it is about declaring your intention publicly, and then a fear of public failure.

I KNOW that a public commitment itself makes your chances of success greater. And yet, I would rather work quietly, silently, appear out of nowhere, and if it works I will be totally open--Hey, I poured my heart and soul into this and it is all I cared about. It is not like this was effortless. I am not a liar. I do not pretend whatever it was was not hard.

But failure. THAT is hard for me. If I might fail, I would rather silently undertake, and silently fail. If I do, I will silently retreat and silently lick my wounds and no one will ever know and life will go on.

But commitment is important. To me, and to all around me. And in most things, it is the commitment that gets you over the hump. Because 99% of most endeavors is fear.

Practically speaking, I Knew that any day the marathon could sell out. There is no final countdown when it gets close. It is just done. No more spaces.

So I signed up for the marathon. Officially!!!! No refunds. No transfers. I am in.

I was going to wait until I finished this weekend's run, a 15 miler, which scares the bejesus out of me. Thirteen made me sick. Or I got sick. And I have a strange superstition around these distances, because I injured myself last time around 14. I guess I wonder if my body is just not designed to farther than 13. It falls apart here. But is anyone's body designed to go farther?

I took a week off. I am better. I pulled back. I modified. I went off the schedule. And I still think I can do it.

I committed.

EEEEEEEEEEKKKKKKKKKKK!!!!

Are you scared to commit? What makes YOU scared?

Spill it HERE!

Yes. This is What It Has Come To.

2011-01-26T13:07:00.000-08:00

I loved Obama's speech last night.

As Jonathan said to me afterwards: "He was talking to us, too."

Yes, he was. We need to re-invent, re-invest, innovate and educate.

Many things touched me (because I am feeling all weepy and vulnerable) but the thing I woke up thinking about this morning was the woman in her Fifties from the Midwest. At fifty-something she was going back to school to get her biotech degree. She said she was doing it to inspire her children and show them that education matters.

These days, thinking of what my boys will think is the only thing that moves me forward. Otherwise I might just lie down and go to sleep.

When I am tired, or lacking confidence, or feeling like I would rather engage in some escapist activity like reading or seeing a movie, or scrolling through housing swap sites looking for a perfect apartment in Paris, or staring at the ceiling and feeling sorry for myself, I think of what message I want to be sending my boys. I think of what I am modeling.

I don't know the answer to that. But I want to model a person who is brave, who works hard, who is a leader in the community, who stands up for what they believe in, even on little things. I want to model a person who dares to dream, even when things are tough, and they are worried. I want to model a person who is humble, and will buckle down and learn what needs to be learned, even if it is totally new, and someone that age should really be successful and set up for life. I want to model someone who is not a victim, but an opportunist (Thank GOD they have Jonathan as a model on this one no matter what, because this may be hardest for me.) I want to model hard work and determination towards a goal that is larger than just me.

Believe me, I point out other people to model and admire. But I know that in the end it is those closest to them who make the biggest impact. So I am trying.

State of the Union Picnic

2011-01-25T21:16:00.001-08:00

We set up our MacGregor tartan tablecloth and set the table on the floor of the TV room.

We had a State of the Union picnic, and watched our president speak.

"There's Obama, there he is," they shouted, as he came down the aisle to the podium.

What is the economy? What is the government? Who is that man? Why do so many of the people look angry? What is a Democrat? What is a Republican? What is he talking about?&^%$$%???

I could barely answer and listen.

Still, I hope they remember. I hope they remember to listen, to care, to be informed, to take action.

Make Beauty

2011-01-24T12:19:00.000-08:00

Sometimes we are just a conduit for the brilliant words of others. Today, that is me.

I went to City Yoga today after school drop-off because I had to do yoga to stretch out from running, and I wanted to see if Sally Kempton, meditation guru, is really coming to teach a workshop there (She is, and I will do it.)

I am a 100% Y-yoga girl these days. The teachers rock and it is free. I love it.

Today I was in class with Anthony Benenati, founder of City Yoga. We sat in a gorgeous tree house of a room, that floats above Fairfax, all wood and brick and windows and light. It is a perfect room, on a perfect day in Los Angeles.

He told us to make beauty.

He told us not to sit around and bitch about dirt and garbage and shit in the world (my words, not his) but to do something. Make some beauty ourselves. Mostly, he said, that involved stripping down, and seeing clearly. And of course, a lot of hard work, and mess, and wasted energy, until it all kicks in, effortless and beautiful and self-sustaining.

OK, I am really summarizing here. I am sure the master would want to edit me, but you get the idea.

But it was a beautiful message, so beautiful I wanted to pass it on.

My beauty for today? I think I will hang two pictures and pick a flower. And try to write some beautiful things, and move forward on my newspaper, which I believe is a beautiful idea.

You, too.

Go make beauty.

You ARE beautiful.

Green Eggs and Ham

2011-01-24T12:06:00.001-08:00

Our brilliant school principal always reminds us that for all the hours and methods teachers spend to learn to try to teach children how to read, no one knows exactly how it happens. It happens between ages four and seven, and different children really do learn different ways. But what makes it all finally click? Educators do not know.

It is, I suppose, a kind of miracle.

The craziest part is we usually return to our own childhoods as a check and reference point. But try asking any adult about when they learned to read. Most adults do not remember learning. And a lot of adults do not remember not being able to read. Only that suddenly they could, and the world opened up.

Theo's world has opened up.

Benji is standing on the threshold, wanting it more than Theo ever did, because he knows it is something his brother can do that he cannot. He knows it is so close, but he cannot quite do it yet. Oh, how he wants to.

I am mellower this time around. I know it will come, and I know he will be brilliant. Even though he is so different than Theo in all things, in this I have absolute faith.

Last night we read Green Eggs and Ham. It was the end of a long day at the end of a long weekend. I tried to make him read a little. At least the words he knew. We could read it together. He resisted. He said he didn't want to. He said I said he didn't have to read any more after page four. I pushed a little more. But I was worried I was going to traumatize, so finally I pulled back, and only made him read words like "the" and "a" and "I." His so-called popcorn words, because they "pop" out everywhere. (Even on our walls, embedded in giant pieces of popcorn his teacher has made.)

I put him to bed praying I was not pushing him too hard, and into hating reading.

But a strange thing happened.

This morning he crawled into my bed at 6:55 fully dressed, clutching Green Eggs and Ham. I was not even awake. He got into position and started to read. He read through page three, then four. He stumbled sometimes, on words like "would" or "could," and sometimes he asked for help.

But he read that book right through. He said his throat was so dry he could not go on. I was worried he was going to get a brain aneurism from effort. But he persevered, right through until the end.

I was astonished.

Where had that come from? I felt his synapses bending into shape as he read, making connections. I was witnessing the miracle of reading.

His grin was so wide it could have wrapped around his head. Oh, was he proud. He jumped out of bed, and ran to tell Theo (still sleeping.) He said he wanted to call Jonathan (away.) He ran around with the book.

I had seen it come together.

Will it be there this afternoon? This evening? Tomorrow? I don't know for sure.

But he did it. It is in there, and he knows it and I know it.

He read. He really read. And I was there in the moment it all really really came together for the first time.

It is a wonder.

I am awed.

By him. By our brains. By how this happens.

You Heard It Here First!

2011-01-20T09:46:00.001-08:00

Hello, Friends. I am announcing it here first, to my three loyal readers. I am going to start a community paper. I am modeling it on my friend's great product, and I think I can do it. I have been shadowing, thinking, procrastinating and learning for months. Now it is time to out myself and make myself accountable.

Much easier to say I am doing the marathon, than this.

Why?

Fear. Excitement. Desire. Caring too much.

I wish someone would write up a schedule for me, just like Hal Higby did for the marathon. Week one, do this Hilary. You may be feeling this, but move on. Week two, Up the Ante. You can skip one little task, but you have to do the big one. Week three, pull back. You are right on track, give yourself a little rest. Congratulations.

I am realizing. I always think it is the doing that matters. But I am realizing, it is the plan that matters even more. And planning is not my forte. OK, this is a procrastination effort in and of itself.

I am determined to do this.

Send me power, and wishes of success.

I want to write great stories, cover my forgotten neighborhood, train new young journalists, and advocate for what needs to be done. I also want to make some money, and I think I can.

Yes, you heard it here first!

Sick Day

2011-01-20T09:21:00.000-08:00

I feel like a dog. My chest his heavy, my cough is bad, my head hurts and my ears ache. Oh, yeah, and I have a sore throat so bad I take aspirin so I can swallow. I have been in a holding pattern, hoping it will go away. It hasn't.

In an hour I go to the doctor.

I am so American. I want the doc to just say, "Take this pill and you will feel like a million bucks. In an hour."

I hiked a mountain with J to talk about our future. It was a hard talk, with lots of issues and no resolutions, for now. He was great. But mid-life in a recession is scary. Lots of opportunities. Lots of room for fear.

I am so strong due to my marathon training that I motored up the mountain like a billy goat, and my super perceptive husband couldn't even detect my illness. He still doubts. He is slightly incredulous. It is like a strange disconnect-of a sort we rarely have.

Couldn't he see I didn't want to jump in the water (I always do!) Couldn't he feel that I was waaay better at listening and a little blue? (Maybe I am always like that!) Didn't he notice that I did not lead him up the hardest path to the top, but only went that way after he suggested it (usually I do not even ask).

I burned dinner because I was so busy trying to self-diagnose. The house smells like charred broccoli.

I went for a massage on Tuesday and my sports-massage woman scared me. She said if I do not get better and take care of my illness I am stressing my body so much with marathon training that my cough, etc., could drag out for months. I had not thought of this as being related to/bearing upon my training. I don't want to drop out because of my undiagnosed illness.

She recommended an acupuncture tune-up. My husband diplomatically did not comment.

What to do, what do to?

Doctor first. Then decisions.

Half Marathon!

2011-01-17T14:12:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I ran 13 miles. That ties my all time distance record. I am a little sick, with heaviness in my chest. And I was nervous. I had to keep telling myself, you are so slow this is like a two hour hike. Just keep going.

I did the distance.

But it was a LOT harder than 12 miles. My toes felt calloused. My toenail wore a hole through a new sock in a single run (I have since clipped that primitive nail-blade). For my final mile I listened to Raam Das, because I felt I was in some altered state. I took a bath then fell into bed.

It was hard.

No great insights. No great breakthroughs. All I can really say is: Mission Accomplished. And thank GOD this is a pull back week.

I did think this, though. Running a long distance is like peeling back the onion layers of your psyche. First few miles I go out too fast, and I have to really really really try not to go too fast, because the experience will not end sooner if I run faster, I will just run out of gas. Hard for me.

Then I start setting weird masochistic goals for myself: drink some water every two miles. You can't go to the bathroom until mile 5. No headset while you run by the drumming circle. Once I get to half way I know I will make it, one way or another. Then I just run for awhile. That is the best part. Then, around mile 9 I started getting really really tired. I can't listen to music. I can't think. All I can say is, "Go. Go. Go."

But, since this challenge is all about the metaphor, it is working. I do have too much energy when I start out. I do need to learn to pace myself. I do play a lot of mental games at the beginning. And in the end, it doesn't matter how I finish. It just matters that I put in the miles and cross the finish line.

May that happen!

Feeling OK on Monday.

Coming to Terms with ME

2011-01-13T09:42:00.001-08:00

I am sitting down, coffee cup in hand, to fill out an application. It is all on-line, with boxes to describe your life. The part before kids is all neat and cool, and fits so well, so impressively in the boxes. THAT was a high-achieving person. I like her. I would pick her.

The part since kids does not fit in the boxes. She has done so much, and all with such passion, but it does not fit, and there is no room to explain. And if there were, who wants to read it anyway. (There is an essay portion below where I can eloquently and elegantly weave together the narrative of my life, as one continuous strand of emotional and career growth).

And I am faced with this: Do I deny the motherhood part in the "your resumee as a series of boxes is your life" section? Do I just pretend it is not there? (That is what I am asked to do. That is how our society counts it. You can do it, but if you do, hide it, write around it, make it invisible.)

Or do I take it on, and put, right at the top: Motherhood, Self-employed, CEO, CFO, COO. In charge of a team of four employees. Laid out a vision, ran corporation (at a financial loss, but with a lot of long-term investment), trained and developed new talent...you get the idea.

I don't know what I will do yet. But I do know this: It is just brutal to turn from the cocoon of motherhood to re-entry, where none of what you have done, however important in the larger scheme, counts for anything at all. I am happy with my choices. But confronting my life as boxes (someone else's boxes) is an exercise in pain, discomfort.

That is the life of making your own choices, following your gut, being unconventional, in even a small way. But on mornings like this, as I obediently fill in the boxes to try to make some team of judging and evaluating people far away like me, I second guess myself. Or at least I wish I had operated with the looming boxes waiting for me out there in mind.

I guess all I can do is tell the truth. No massaging, no pretending, no kissing ass to tell them what they want to hear. Or what I wish I could tell them.

(Hilary continued to get double digit raises, write incredible, life-changing and award-winning stories, nurture her husband and her marriage and raise amazing, well-adjusted children. She also paints giant canvases and performs at Disney Hall in her spare time and has led volunteer efforts throughout the community. She really is a modern-day superwoman.)

Ok, I was never even close to that person.

The truth. I will write the honest truth. I never fit in the boxes anyway. Nobody does. Here goes.

Zlateh the Goat

2011-01-12T12:42:00.001-08:00

Two nights ago, as I was tucking Theo in, he said, "Mommy, read this story. I like it a lot. I want you to read it and tell me what you think."

He passed me "Zlateh the Goat," a short story by Isaac Bashevis Singer. The book itself is a gift from his poet, intellectual cousin Susan.

I opened the story so curious. He has told me about stories, before, and asked me questions. But this was different. This was like when you are older, and you give a story, or a music tape to someone you love. You are telling them, "Read this, Listen to this and Know me. Hidden in these words, this music, this art, is something very important to me that I cannot put into words. Also, I love it and I want you to love what I love."

The story was beautifully written. Several cuts above most children's modern literature. It is a touching story about a Russian boy who must take the family goat he loves to be slaughtered, because his father is a furrier, the weather has been warm, no one wants fur coats, and they have no money. The whole family loves the goat, but the boy most of all. And it is he who must lead this animal he loves to his death.

So the beginning is awful. You know the goat is going to die. And you know the boy's heart is going to be broken. And the goat is going along so happily, trusting the boy completely, because it is his very best friend.

But shortly after they set out for the next village a horrible blizzard arises and they get lost and they have to take shelter inside a haystack. They are there for three days and three nights. The goat eats the hay, the boy makes the hole. The boys finishes his food, but then the goat lets him drink milk from her udder, which the boy squirts right into his mouth. They survive. After three days the storm stops and the boy digs out. He has made up his mind. He returns home with the goat. HIs family had given him up for dead, and he is alive, and the goat gets to live, and because of the snow his father gets lots of furrier business and all is hunky dory.

It is a very moving story.

Still, I asked Theo what he liked about it. He said he liked the adventure. He said he liked the surprise in the story, that it did not turn out the way you expected. And he said he liked that you thought the boy was going to save the goat's life, but instead the goat saved the boy's life.

All true.

It is hard to put into words. But I do feel like my emotionally enigmatic boy shared some deep part of himself with the story.

I am grateful.

Has that ever happened to you?

Marathon Advice

2011-01-12T12:32:00.000-08:00

Week 8 and I am hanging in. Truth be told my twingy knee is doing better than before I started. Maybe my leg is getting stronger and I needed to be running. Maybe I am getting lighter and my body is happy. Maybe I am always sore so my knee doesn't stand out as much. Anyway, I am so delighted my body is holding up, and I have now run farther than I have since I was 33.

Here are tips that wise friends have given about how to keep going without getting injured:

Alison Shore-Lopez: Don't do too many miles. I did too many miles and I was completely addicted, and I did not need to run that much and I did not get to do the marathon. Postscript: Alison, an amazing runner, is still suffering from a pinched nerve or some such and trying to recover. She is tough, and my cautionary tale.

Goldie at the Y: Eat lots of protein. I did two marathons on carbs and one on protein, and my body broke down much more slowly on proteins. Always drink water. I was so dehydrated when I was training I started just drinking all the time, even when I was not thirsty. (This happened to me, and her advice made a huge difference). Run hills. Then when you hit a hill in the marathon you will not mentally collapse. (Don't need hill work for the LA marathon, but still great advice). Swim for an hour a week. It makes a huge difference.

Doug: Don't run too much. I ran the New York Marathon and people were limping across the finish line like it was a war. It was not good. My bad leg held up (he broke his leg as a college student) but my good leg, which had never given me trouble, freaked in the race. It was really really hard. This is not really advice, except to say, do not injure yourself.

Tired today, so I cut my run a little short, but I am hanging in!

Weather is beautiful and warm and clear, and the sunlight was sparkling on the reservoir, the path smelled like warm pine needles and the Sierras. I love being outside.

Barnsdall Lives!!!

2011-01-08T11:59:00.000-08:00

After a year of up and down, budget cuts and not, endless meetings and rallies and letters and begging and crying and weeping and nashing of teeth, the good news is, the Barnsdall Art Center lives. Classes are offered this winter session, starting January 22.

If you have not partaken, these classes are one of the L.A.'s great treasures. Classes are held in East Hollywood at the Barnsdall Arts Center, willed to the city by Aline Barnsdall, independent woman, thinker and lifelong supporter of the arts. Her Frank Lloyd Wright Hollyhock house is right next door for inspiration.

Classes are affordable, come in manageable 6-week chunks, and are taught by truly top of the line, working artists.

Today was registration day for kids classes. I arrived exactly when the flyers said to, at 8:45, and I was last in line. The hard core Korean mamas had been there since 5 am, camping out with fuzzy blankets, Ugg boots and folding chairs. I heard in the past the line has gone up and around the block. But with the center under seige for the last year, the public has grown confused. Lots of people don't even know classes are underway again.

So I am putting the word out. Sign up. For the foreseeable future Barnsdall and all its amazing teachers are here to teach us about what they love. Art will make you happy. I promise.

Try it.

A Little History

2011-01-07T13:46:00.001-08:00

The following is excerpted from Time Magazine, 1938, about Guild Strikes:

Southern California journalism is dominated by two aged titans, William Randolph Hearst (Los Angeles Examiner and Herald and Express) and Harry Chandler (Los Angeles Times'). A lonely liberal voice in the midst of this die-hard desert is the little Hollywood Citizen-News, published by a pious progressive from Minnesota, Judge Harlan Guyant Palmer. Publisher Palmer likes the New Deal, dislikes the utilities.

Read more: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,771095,00.html#ixzz1AO92Te4M

I love it. And I love the gorgeous art-deco building. I long to be inside it.

Let the tradition continue.

Oh NOOOOOOOOO!

2011-01-06T20:30:00.001-08:00

Three days from the end of the year my billy goat child was leaping down stairs in the Skirball garden when he landed wrong and fell hard. He broke his ankle.

I heard him and sprinted across the landscaped riverbed to my boy's side. It is hard to explain what that cry of pain from a child is like to a mother. This was different than any cry before. I got there and he was crying and crying, but also rocking back and forth. All he could say was: "I wish I could go back in time. i wish I could go back to one minute ago. I wish this never happened."

So true.

At the time we thought it was a sprain. My father told him to walk on it. The security guard gave him ice and we sat in the lobby with his ankle on ice and his head on my lap. An old Jewish man who looked like he had survived the Holocaust was working as a docent. He had a soulful kind face so open it felt young again. He comforted Theo, then turned to me like an oracle. "You will dance at his wedding," he said.

We went to the doctor and got an X-ray, all family members in tow. They could not see anything. That night Theo crawled to the bathroom on hands and knees, never complaining, and in the morning he hopped around the house on one foot. We took him to an orthopedist who felt him and said it was broken. Not shattered. A hairline crack so small she can't even see it on X-ray. But the way he jumped out of the chair when she touched it she knew it was broken.

On went the cast, a little boot wrapped in green. But then he could walk again. Already he can run and hop so fast I bet he could beat half the kids in his class across the playground in a race. And he is still trying to leap off things--with one foot!!! He spins around on the bottom of his cast like a ballerina, delighted with himself. So fun! At night his foot swells up inside and he cries.

But the doc says it will heal. At this age she said it is better to break than to sprain. A hairline break like this in his growth plate will heal completely. Ligaments never really do.

Couldn't write about it until now. But it stirs you up somewhere deep when your child is injured. I cannot even imagine with something permanent, or possibly permanent, or whatever.

He is OK. That is all that matters.

"Maybe he will stop leaping around like a madman now," Jonathan said. "He needs to learn. To be more cautions. To know he can hurt himself."

Maybe he will stop. Maybe he will not.

I don't know.

Right Under My Nose

2011-01-04T11:35:00.001-08:00

For Christmas my mother gave me this book:

Written by Charles Fleming, it lays out 42 walks around Los Angeles, up and down historic steps. The day after Christmas my mother and I did a walk that starts a half mile from my house. I take pride in knowing my 'hood, knowing the secret staircases, and knowing the local history. I did not know ANY of this. We did walk #35, Temple Hill, 45 minutes, two miles, 2.5 difficulty (out of five). The walk went right by our piano teacher's house, a street I drive every week, but most of what I saw was new. Or else I got a story I have been searching for, but never found.

The walk begins with this explanation:

This is a most spiritual walk, a hillside stroll without too many stairs through an area once dotted with temples, monasteries, retreats, and church buildings.

I won't give it all away, you have to buy the book and do the walk yourself, or come and do it with me. But what joy, to finally find out what all those houses with the onion domes were from (Theosophists!) or to walk into a tiny incense-filled chapel practically under the freeway (Vedanta!). Walking, rather than driving, these hills I could feel the spiritual energy. The power is as strong as Ojai, Sedona, Esalen, Big Sur, and other places in the West (you know them, if you live here, you have been). I drive it, I move through it, and most of the time I am blind/unmoved to/by it. But when I got out and walked, I felt it. I wondered if that is why I am drawn to this place, as to the others. I am not even conscious. But I feel the pull of the earth, and its power.

I am in a sacred place.

We can pave it, cover it with neon, but the power is still there.

This morning after my run I dropped by the Monastery of the Angels and bought some pumpkin bread, baked by Dominican nuns.

Not fresh. But I toasted it and nibbled while I drank my Illy coffee. Yum.

Happy 2011

2011-01-04T11:16:00.000-08:00

I just KNOW 2011 is going to be great. I do not feel this every year. I did not feel this last year. But this year I feel it.

Each year everyone in the family puts their resolutions/goals/dreams in a dream box I made years ago at the Skirball Noah's Ark exhibit. We write them in January, the check them in December. All of us do it. Last year I had accomplished fewer of my goals than I could remember in recent history. It didn't feel so great. There were reasons. Benji was bored out of his mind at Canyon School. It was the end of an era and I felt nostalgic. I began laying groundwork for things that will happen this year, but have not happened yet so they do not feel complete. Check off-able.

This year I hope I will run the LA Marathon, start a community newspaper, and take my boys to Italy--because they are the age I was when I lived there. And the place changed my life. The light, the food, the spirit is in me, and I want it to be in them, too--even if in a different way. I also hope we will travel to Baja to see the baby whales. It is a big trip, a time-consuming trip, and under the current political and economic conditions, perhaps a dangerous trip. But I want to drive to the end of the world, set up a tent, go out in a little boat with some Mexican naturalists, and watch the mama whales nudge their babies up to the boat. For me, this is one of the great wonders of the world, like seeing the Monarchs in Morelia, and I want to go before the world gets too polluted and sick to support the whales anymore.

I am the kind of person who scours the world for inspiring quotes. Because words, music, art and nature are the places from which I draw my inspiration. I can return to them when I am sad and they give me such strength. So here is my quote for 2011, cribbed from another web site (the happiness project) where it was excerpted from an interview with a British author, who quotes his favorite Japanese psychotherapist (who knew there WERE any Japanese psychotherapists???):

"Give up on yourself. Begin taking action now, while being neurotic or imperfect, or a procrastinator or unhealthy, or lazy, or any other label by which you inaccurately describe yourself. Go ahead and be the best imperfect person you can be and get started on those things you want to accomplish before you die."

--Shoma Morita

Perhaps this quote is appealing to me because I am a) a perfectionist b) feeling all my imperfections and c) now in the second half of my life, so I think about the end-point.

How about you, brilliant readers. Do you have a quote to hold onto for 2011? Will you send it to me? Will you share? What gives you strength when you are stumbling, moving forward, dreaming, acting?

Share your wisdom. Post your quote here!

One Foot...

2010-12-09T10:24:00.001-08:00

In front of the other.

I am so tired, I have a cold, I have to read about ad rates, which I dread.

But I must put one foot in front of the other. That is what it takes to run a marathon.

This morning the hills were red gold and the sky was blue. Our beds were cozy and we all are battling sleepiness and bodies that feel like lead. But I got up, put on my shoes, my brand new jog bra, my sweat shirt, grabbed my music, and headed for the reservoir. My feet were so heavy, my muscles tight. My training manual said this was a pull back week, a recovery week. Oh, Lordy, please let it be so.

I got out on the path, and the air smelled like pine needles, the Hollywood Sign reflected perfectly in the stillness of the water, and my city lay below me wrapped in mist (and smog). (I tried to photograph but impossible to capture).

Not the Sierras, but beauty in my backyard.

I was slow.

But I did it. I ran. I finished. My head is clearer. And I know I have it in me--the energy to force myself to just move a little when I don't want to. To put on my shoes, head out, move foward.

And look what I found:

One of nature's treasures.

Fodder for a Christmas card.

Writing Is Like Sculpting

2010-11-23T14:41:00.001-08:00

Everyone is different, but for me, writing is like sculpting.

First, come up with the point of my story, and write my top, really tight. I really hone that, until it is sharp and clear and I can return to it like a roadmap whenever I get lost in the mess that I know will follow.

Then, I vomit everything in my notebook out in one giant, messy regurgitation that verges on incomprehensibility. The only thing I make sure I get perfect is my quotes. No sloppiness. I go long so I can cut them back later, but I have everything down. I have completed that stage on the story that is now plaguing me and giving me nightmares, and that I am literally using this blog to procrastinate from.

Then I wait a few days (if I have the time) for my mind to clear, and sort, and organize on auto-pilot, without any input from me. During those days I am jotting down points I do not want to leave out, and details I am afraid I forgot to put in, and larger themes that I think need to be enhanced. I also agonize. A lot.

Then I wade back in, with a giant cup of espresso and cream, and read through the run-on mess that shames me to death, right through to the end.

Then I take notes again, on what each section is supposed to do, the function it is supposed to perform in this story. I weed out redundancies and move things around. I start whacking away at all the verbal weeds, so I can see my story more clearly.

And then, like a sculpture emerging from rock, it begins to show its form. When it does, like right now, I start to get really excited. I can see it. I can see the form. I think it is going to be beautiful. I get a rush of energy. I drink more coffee. I also get depressed. My God! It is going to take so much work to hack the beauty and meaning and truth from this hunk of verbiage!

I realize how lazy my words can be, how ill-conceived many of my steps. I beat myself up a little, for not being one of those people who writes out a perfect outlines, then sets to work and creates a nearly perfect draft.

But I also start to have fun. I cruise through and see some sharp little phrases and surprising emotions that glitter like little gems in the mess. I pluck them out and polish them and try to build around them.

I am starting to see a little beauty, a little sense, a little logic.

I have so much more to do. I am still whacking with large clumsy instruments trying to get to the form, the big, beautiful form that will carry the whole narrative. But I know it is there. I can see it and I will not lose it again. This part is actually fun, even if it takes forever, and it pains me to think of what my time is actually worth on a story like this.

How about you?

What is your writing process?

Please do tell, because I really am so curious, and would love a break from my own neurotic writer's mind.

Posting It Here!

2010-11-23T10:29:00.000-08:00

...So I will be accountable.

I am taking the plunge. I am going to try to run the L.A. Marathon.

Every year the runners go by and I clap so hard and so long my hands are still beating for hours afterwards. I cry with the emotion of it all and pledge that yes next year, really, next year, I will do it.

But I never do.

Part of it was that I always knew I could. It was not a serious challenge in the way that I wanted a challenge. It would just hurt. A lot.

At 44, it will still hurt a lot. But now I wonder if I really can do it. And the truth is, I don't know.

I trained when I was 33 and I pulled my hamstring a month before the race. At that time I had never injured anything in my life, so I was quite surprised. Now I have injured a lot of things, and I do not want to injure more, nor destroy my body for this. So my pledge is that I will train consistently, gently, but not to excess. If my body is breaking down, I quit.

In my mind I am still a kick-ass runner, but I have realized in the last year that many of my images of myself are woefully out of date. This is the misery of middle age. I think I am a cracker jack reporter and an awesome athlete. I remember myself at my peak, the day I dropped out of whatever it was I was doing to move onto the next stage of whatever it is I am doing in my life.

But re-entry is hard! Bumping up against the truth is brutal!

The reason for my marathon training is not just a last gasp of clinging to youth, however. There is a larger purpose. I am doing this to discipline my body, and my mind. I am doing it to teach myself to keep plugging along, keep putting in the time, keep going when I get tired, or depressed, or worn out, or discouraged. I am doing it for the metaphor.

You see, I have a bipolar approach to life. I like the high highs and the low lows. I like the maniacal bursts of energy followed by the collapse that comes from putting everything you have into a project and then falling in a dead, worn out heap. I really like that. That is why I travel, do journalism, create strange, masochistic deadlines for myself.

But, I know from the vantage point of middle age, of motherhood, that life is more of a marathon. And, for what lies ahead of me, I need to cling to the marathon image rather than the Mt. Everest image. I need to wake up, put one foot in front of the other, keep on keeping on, and stick to the schedule, all emotion aside. If I do, good things will happen. I will finish the marathon.

If I don't, I will pull a metaphorical muscle, injure a metaphorical part of myself, or, worst of all, give up. And so I dive in, pledging to not run too fast or too slow. To pace myself. To stick to my schedule. To run beautiful places and reward myself with weekend runs that uplift my soul (and wear out my body).

I am doing Hal Higdon's Novice Program. It is the easiest training program there is, designed for people who literally have never run in their lives. But for now, that is perfect for me. I just need to get to the finish line.

I bought my new running shoes (turquoise, with foam form soles) and set out for my maiden run around the reservoir this morning.

Wish me luck. Eighteen weeks to the big day!

Dino is Dead

2010-11-12T16:05:00.000-08:00

Yesterday Dino DeLaurentiis died. He was 91.

He was born outside Naples in Torre Annunziata and lived through the poverty of post-World War II Italy. He had his own studio in Rome, and then built a movie empire here in Hollywood.

I never met the man but I feel like I did. Jonathan worked as his assistant and producer for two years and I have lived off crazy Dino stories for years. When I am sad, or in need of diversion, I still turn to Jonathan and say, "Tell me a Dino story."

I have, of course, also seen many Dino movies.

I even feel like Dino made Jonathan love having just a little Italy in his life, a niche which I am happy to fill--because I am just a little Italy.

I can't tell you Jonathan's Dino stories here, because they are his. But I can tell you this, Dino's influence lives on in my life. As a result of Dino, when we went to Italy the first time together I told Jonathan to dress casually, and err on the side of pastel-colored cotton shirts, like all the young Italians in Naples. Instead he wore a well-cut Italian blazer, and nice button-downs. When we got to Rome he realized something: He was dressed like a 60 year old Italian man. Why? Because the only Italian he knew was Dino, and that was what Dino wore.

When we got to Naples we went to a great, but also totally ordinary little ristorante in Spaccanapoli. On the side-board, near the antipasti was a spaghetti pie. Jonathan went crazy. He said he had been looking for those ever since he left Dino, when the Italian cook would sometimes make them. It made me laugh. They are the quintessential Neapolitan leftover meal--made with extra pasta, eggs and parmesan cheese all whipped together and fried up as a warm pie. But I have made sure to cook it for Jonathan lots of times.

But more than that I know that Dino DeLaurentis lives on as a man who was hard-working, daring, and willing to risk everything he owned to finance a great movie. Sure, sometimes he was slimy, or crazy, or mad, and Jonathan had to sue him to get his final pay check, but he loved movies and his passion for great stories, for movies, infected my husband.

Yesterday, the day Dino died, Jonathan got preliminary funding for a movie he wrote from a movie company that is small, independent and bold--a lot like Dino. The producer and director are both cut of the Dino cloth.

Symbolic? Who knows.

I wish I had met the man. But I love the version of Dino that lives on in him through Jonathan.

I mourn his passing.

If you can: Have a perfect afternoon espresso in his memory.

Election Update

2010-11-10T11:20:00.000-08:00

For all you election watchers--no hanging chads--just at home licking our wounds.

Theo did not win for Student Council.

I think Jonathan and I were more devastated than he.

Life goes on.

Obama lost his first election, too, so there!

Election Day

2010-11-02T12:57:00.001-07:00

Take your kids and vote today. Teach them it matters. Remind them that no matter how bad the candidates and, in California, how corrupt the props, this is our chance to educate ourselves and have a say. If we do not step up our state, and our country, will be hijacked by angry people and corporate interests. Vote.

Meanwhile, down LCW way, there is an election today, too, for Student Council. Above is the picture of Theo that he put on his campaign poster. Something like 10 kids in second and third grade will be elected.

When Jonathan and I heard there would be student council races at school we inwardly groaned. Isn't this too young? They always turn into popularity contests, no one ever does anything, and it brings out the Tracy Flick in everyone. Save our sweet children a little bit longer.

But here is what I love: out of 88 kids in second and third grade, 38 of them ran for student council. They all designed posters and they all wrote speeches. Yesterday they all read/spoke them from a podium made of a cardboard box, with a real microphone.

There were rules. No negative campaigning, no promises you can't keep. Focus on what you can do, not what you can't. That means concrete ideas (Crazy Hat Day! Pajama Day! A Trip to Somewhere!)

If only real politicians had to follow those rules!

Theo wrote his speech himself, and at Jonathan's urging practiced it nearly nightly.

It was good.

It went like this:

Hi. I am Theo. I am running for Student Council and I was thinking it would be fun to go to Descanso Gardens to see the nature, the flowers, the trees, and the animals. I love LCW. Do you love LCW? I can't hear you. Do you love LCW?
If you have any ideas or concerns I will listen and I will bring them up in Student Council.
Vote for me. Thank you.

On election day I worked lunch and there was a palpable buzz. One boy was wearing a white button down and a red and blue striped tie. He looked like a real politician--third grade style. I felt a pang in my stomach. I hoped my boy would be OK. I did not want his heart to be broken, his ego damaged. OK, a little projection here. But I worried for him. I prayed his speech delivery would go smoothly.

When I drove up to get the boys yesterday the principal, who has trained all of us not to talk in line to any of the walkie-talkie clad herders, spotted my car and rushed up to me.

She stuck her head in my window.

"Theo had the whole school cheering," she said, giggling for joy.

"What?" I was disoriented.

"During his speech! He got the whole school cheering!"

Theo climbed in. I asked him how his speech went.

"Good," he said. That was it.

"Did you get the whole school cheering?"

"Yes."

He does not even know how cool that is.

I think I am just from a low self-esteem, uncool generation. I never could have done that in second grade. Not what any of them did.

I told Jonathan about Theo and he was so delighted he asked me to tell him the story over and over and over again. I should add here that my brilliant husband is a rousing speaker and does have some latent political ambitions. I think he felt pride in Theo's speech the way I felt when Theo got up on a surf board. A little "That is my boy! He got that from ME!!!!"

And there is no doubt about that.

At dinner, just like all the weary politicians across America, we toasted Theo for doing his very best in a tough field.

Now there is nothing to do but wait.

I will keep you posted as the votes come in! Polls close at three, Pacific time.

Stay tuned. You will hear it first here!

Words to Live by

2010-11-01T10:45:00.000-07:00

...via my Life Coach. I know not who to attribute them to...

"Vision without action is daydreaming. Action without vision is chaos."

Someday It Will Be A Good Story...

2010-11-01T10:31:00.000-07:00

Saturday night we went to a party in Malibu.

We felt so cool.

We stood on the veranda, looking out over the ocean. It was a perfect fall day in California, when everything seems lit from within the air is perfect, and you remember that at its best, California really is the most glorious place in the world to be.

We ate dinner at long table filled with beautiful people. Our children played somewhere. We sipped our full-bodied red wine from big glasses and blissfully ignored them.

Suddenly our older son ran up behind us.

Benji fell in the hot tub!

Good God!

This super cool couple had a gorgeous hot tub on their deck overlooking the ocean. When we saw it we knew someone would fall into it before the night was through, though I was betting on a tipsy woman in high heels, not one of my nimble billy goat boys.

I leapt up from the table and rushed inside.

"Oh, it was YOUR kid who fell in," someone shouted as we rushed by.

There was Benji, wet from head to toe, still warm from the jacuzzi. He was crying and crying. He was surrounded by a tribe of wailing and soothing Greek women (the party was held by a Greek family and we were eating Greek food and it was very dramatic like a Greek tragedy). He was wrapped in towels and crying and crying as this band of maternal women held him and dried him and loved him.

I grabbed him and took him into the bathroom. He had hit his head going in. The only thing not wet was his face. He was mortified because he had no clothes.

The hostess, who happens to be a designer of cool, comfortable surf clothing, which she sells in Malibu and Paris (I can 2) , swept in with a super soft T and a cool woman's-sweat shirt (Live, Love, Malibu, it said on the back).

Benji cuddled in my arms, warm from his dip in the hot tub.

And I wondered: Will this be part of his mythology? When I was five my parents were drunk at a party in Malibu and I fell into a hot tub with all my clothes on??? They didn't even notice??

Now that it is over, and the bump on his head is gone, and the Greek women have all kissed him and said good night and cooed over how cute he is, and he has a new super soft T from a Malibu clothing designer, it all seems good. Funny even.

But what a crazy night.

Cultivating Gratitude

2010-10-31T12:22:00.000-07:00

They say a refrigerator is a window into a household's soul, and here is a snapshot of mine.

Chaos.

Art. Letters. Soccer schedules. Postcards. Important phone numbers. Mismatched magnets. Cousins. Inspiring quotes. And yes: this bumper sticker from Cafe Gratitude in Marin County.

More on that another time.

But at the cafe, after you have eaten your gourmet raw food meal you must have a real conversation with your waiter/waitress, about what you are grateful for. You can be ironic, smart-alecky or closed, but they are always open, and for one brief moment you bare your soul to a stranger.

I like the exercise. As you can see, I bought the bumper sticker.

I make the boys say what they are grateful for each night at dinner before we eat. Benji always goes first, and he goes on and on and on. He really is grateful for every little thing. He always ends with: And I am grateful for you and you and you. He breaks my heart every time.

Theo eats while Benji talks (we have had to put a time limit on him, because he really could go on for half an hour) and then says: I am grateful for my family, or something else quick and cliched. On special nights he is very grateful for one fantastic thing. And then he is heartfelt and sincere.

Jonathan always tries to get out of it (the cultivation of gratitude is something he appreciates, but somehow cannot quite get himself to dive into. He likes to be around it, but not to fully engage in it. When forced, he always says: My family. Or, My health.

He means it, but because he always says the same thing it loses some punch.

By the time it is my turn everyone is so hungry I barely have time to speak. And that is OK.

All of this is to say, we play the gratitude game, and I believe in cultivating gratitude. I know it is easier to be cynical and skeptical, and harder to appreciate. Corny, even. Such outpourings are definitely veering into the realm of the flaky, the hippy dippy and the slightly stoopid.

I grew up around a lot of negativity, so I like the exercise, even if it is just a window onto a possible different way of being.

But now, as part of my all around tune-up for my story (from meditating to diet to reframing how I think) I was actually given a prescription by an extremely intelligent doctor. Part of my homework, to reframe, in the style of cognitive therapy, is to keep a Gratitude Journal.

Now this concept has gained such credence among the New Age crowd I feel sort of over it before I have started. But my job now (since this is all part of my story) is to use myself as a guinea pig. I must suspend my disbelief and just do it and see what happens.

The gratitude journal idea comes from Robert Emmons, a reknowned positive psychologist, who teaches at UC Davis. On his web page is his picture: with him grinning so widely it looks fake or drug induced. But his studies, and the reason for his studies are fascinating. And the upshot is, medically speaking, cultivating gratitude can help heal you, and can likely prevent some disease.

(Indeed, my cultivate gratitude prescription was part of my "keep-your-body-cancer-unfriendly" action plan).

So I chose my journal, one with textured recycled paper and a pear on the front. I have only written in it for three days now. I cannot say my mindset has changed in any deep way.

But here is what is fascinating to me. The journal, where I simply list three things a day that I am grateful for, is teaching me so much about myself. It is separating out for me what I believe makes me happy, from what really makes me happy. It is breaking down my own mythology on some level, about who I am and what I want.

Ok, perhaps I am jumping the gun here. But here is an example. I am the kind of person who limps along with slightly broken things for too long. As long as it still works, I am OK. I do not go take care of it.

But in my three days I found that fixing things, or getting things fixed, is actually something that makes me very happy. Something that tops my day.

Maybe I need to pay more attention to that.

Also, writing these things down, only three, reminds me of how much joy my children really bring me. Every day. I mean, on some level, sure, I know that. But every day, something that one or both of them does, ranks as the highlight of my day. Top three.

In a world that does not place much value on motherhood, mothering, the value of mothering, just this simple listing of daily gratitude reminds me: whatever kids do for anyone else, my boys bring me joy every single day. Not in the abstract. Not in the "but of course they do" way, in a concrete, deep, ephemeral, "that-was-a-beautiful-moment" kinduva way.

That is a sweet, sweet lesson.

What about you. Have you ever kept a gratitude journal?

Did it feel frivolous? Interesting? Did it change you over time?

Do tell!