My Divided Self

On Monday my husband got the news: he was picked to write an amazing project for a super cool actor you all know. It is an historical drama about New York City with all the ingredients and characters for a phenomenal movie. It is right up Jonathan's alley. He is a cracker jack researcher, a brilliant man and has an incredible grasp of history. He knows New York as an academic and as a flesh and blood New Yorker who grew up on the East side, moved to New Jersey when the crime got bad. He is the child of a New York baker and the grandchild of a baker and real estate mogul. His family has ridden the wheel of fortune up and down in New York--through feast and famine, booms and busts. His family's story is one lost fortunes, feuds, Oedipal challenges, murky pasts, deaths in uncertain circumstances and strong, powerful, often cruel men. New York City is in him.
This project is the culmination of years of effort. It is a return to what he is truly good at, and the reward for a dogged and clear-eyed pursuit of the kind of work he wants to do here in Hollywood, at a time when everything in this city is uncertain. He never lost faith. He was the dark horse candidate and he got this job because he kicked ass and blew everyone away!
He came home the night he got the project (a huge relief after this year following the strike) so excited he could barely sit down. We drank champagne and he smoked a cigar. We talked it through. We celebrated what he--and WE--have accomplished.
He kept saying that after 20 years he felt like he was back on track. Like when he was at Harvard he was in the right place at exactly the right time and it felt good, pure, and in the flow. He was being true to who he was. He has had a wild and fascinating career--which I will not go into here, and could be a best-selling memoir in and of itself--but since Harvard he has not felt he was on track, he said, going where he was supposed to be going. Not like now.
He just kept marveling. Grinning. He is more excited about this than anything he has done so far. It almost broke my heart to see him so happy. Even I could not have anticipated how much this would mean to him.
I listened proud, relieved, excited--and fascinated. And then, I am embarassed to say, a little jealous.
I am not jealous of his success. I have worked with him on this, supporting him, encouraging him, urging him to be brave and true to his vision, trying to keep him from taking crap projects just to keep the family afloat, as our bank account drew down. To see him alight like this would make anyone smile, especially me, the one who loves him. And I know he will do the best work he has ever done on this. I believe he will win an Emmy.
I was jealous of the feeling that he is at the peak of anything he has ever done. This is the best so far. And it is going to get better. And I will be beside him believing him and helping him.
It was this.
I was jealous of that feeling that all I had done had led up to something bigger than what had come before, bolder than anything I had done yet. I was jealous of that feeling that the world was finally giving recognition that you have done something really cool.
I love my life. I love the privilege of getting to be with my children. I was sick with missing my children when I was working. Just ill some days. And my profession is dying anyway. I am getting to try out incredible things I never had time for. I am getting to experiment, to play, to celebrate, and, for a little while, to nurture, something I never did, and find I really love.
My life, my time with my children, is a blessing. I know absolutely that being with them right now, for this limited time, and supporting my husband in reaching his dream, is what I want right now. I know this is a brief period that will fly by and I want to savor it.
And yet...
Oh, to have that feeling of WOW! I did this! I have never done anything like this! Stretched myself like this! Accomplished this!
My victories, challenges, successes these days are quiet, often visible to no one but me.
Last night at bookclub, over too much wine, and prodding from good friends, I vented my feelings.
One friend was incredulous:
"What do you want, Hilary? Do you wish you were bitter, single, childless, still working at the Times?"
Good question. And it shook me back to reality, to being grateful for what I have. How many astounding blessings I have in this life.
All I am saying, is that for one night, as I watched my husband, aglow with his success, I envied him that feeling of being on a path to somewhere great. Of knowing he was the best he had been so far.

Do you ever feel like this all you mamas out there?

Bookstores Make Me Happy

To me, they are glorious places--my cathedral, my shrine, my sacred space. Shelves and shelves filled with books I haven't read. I love the smell of the paper, and the various cover art. I love that people just keep writing and writing and writing. I love that you could pull out ANY book and it would break open some magical world you never thought of. You might hate it, but it is a portal to a different place. Bookstores make me feel the world is full of potential, of compassion, of stories, of hope. Bookstores make me feel that all i want is to get a book in print--to hold a book in my hand that is my creation, my vision, my contribution, on thick white paper, between two glorious covers.

...Just an Observation

I am much more patient when I am with my children all day, then when I am not. When I am with them all day I move at their pace, eat at their intervals, move to their rhythms. When I have a day to myself I move like an adult again--fast, furious, efficient, maybe a little humorless. And when I return to them I am angry that they cannot move fast, eat fast, dress fast. You would expect the opposite to be true.

History of a Cake

When I was six years old my family moved to Naples, Italy. It ended up being one of the happiest times of our lives. Who could resist the Neapolitans, Mt. Vesuvius, the joyful chaos of the ancient city, the stories, the ruins, the Romans, and most of all, the food. Naples changed our family's diet forever. We still live--all five of us, scattered all over the world--largely on pasta, parmesan cheese, garlic, tomatoes, red wine, mozzarella, basil and every other Italian thing we can get our hands on.

One find that changed us forever was Capri cake. This is the Neapolitan version of the flourless chocolate cake, dense, rich, packed with ground almonds, and sprinkled with confectioner's sugar. You see them in every bar and pastry window, and they rarely let you down. My mother learned to make them, and we loved them so much that after she cooked them she had to chase us out of the house until dinner time so we wouldn't pick away at them before dessert. Once she locked us all out to protect the cake and our three-legged springer spaniel somehow found a way to leap up onto the counter top. When we came back into the house for dinner the cake plate was empty, with nothing but a few crumbs remaining. Grendel lay in the corner groaning. Chocolate is very very bad for dogs, and this was a lot of chocolate.

For his wedding, my brother wrote to my mother and asked for her Capri cake recipe so he could send it to a local baker. On this continent I was doing my own search for the perfect Capri cake recipe. I finally found it in Naples At Table, a fabulous ode to Neopolitan cooking. I can read the introduction to that cookbook and salivate and cry for nostalgia. I had found my recipe. For my fortieth birthday I made two immense Capri cakes to serve all my friends. And for my brother's 40th birthday over the holidays, I cooked him a Capri cake. He is a gourmande with finicky tastes and demands for the highest quality ingredients. But he was happy.

Since then Theo has been asking for Capri cake. Mommy, for my birthday cake I want the cake that Ian had, he keeps saying. I tried to bribe and distract him with promises of chocolate frosting, lemon icing, butter icing, something more sugary and childlike. But he stood firm. No, Mommy, I want the cake Ian had.

And so the love of Capri cake is passed to the next generation. I can't say I'm not happy. Someday I hope I can give Theo Capri cake on Capri, but for today, I will go downstairs, grind up a pound of almonds and a half pound of bittersweet chocolate and make a flourless chocolate cake to spoil my boy, and celebrate the birthday of a dear friend.

Long live the cake!

And the Final Choice Is...

No. No one from the paper menagerie...



Nope. No princess, fairy or mermaid.



It's a four-foot high T-Rex, which is currently living in Theo's bedroom.

Pinata Alley

One of my favorite things about Los Angeles is that you could parachute down into some random block of this endless desert expanse and feel like you are in a different country. One of those blocks is at Central and Olympic downtown--ground zero for the world's most fantastic pinatas, north of the border. For an hour you can feel like you are in Mexico. There are thousands of pinatas in a half dozen stores. There are tiny domestic pinatas, fit for a small apartment, and HUGE five foot high pinatas to hang from towering oaks in park. They are disney characters, beer bottles, stars, giraffes, lions and burros. If you go in the morning, truck after truck rolls up and starts unloading MORE pinatas. From where? I don't know. But they pour out of pick up trucks and little delivery trucks, handed into owners and lifted up to hang outside, or inside on the rafters, where you can look up for 40 feet into a sea of pink, orange, blue and yellow streamers and pinatas.

Even if you don't have a birthday party, a quincineara, a wedding, a graduation party or a birth to celebrate, it will lift your spirits just to walk among the colorful pinatas. I swear to you!

And maybe you will realize you need to have a party just to get a pinata. Or you could just decorate your house with a huge, joyful, brightly colored piece of folk art.

Party Is Off!!!!!

We had to cancel Theo's birthday party because he got sick. He vomited all night and woke up smiling, begging to have the party. I asked him to do ten jumping jacks as a test. He did them then crawled into bed with me so sad and said snuggle me and cancel the party. I'm tired. So we did. Same time, same place, next week.