Summer Lovely

The air in the room is warm and the closed blinds cast shadows across a still unmade bed at 3 p.m. I paw my way to the pillow, and the smell of sunblock and baby lotion intoxicates me. I press my eyes into the soft fibers of the pillowcase and I remember why I used to love this little cocktail of rest and heat called summer. Summers used to be a wide open Mason jar, clean and clear at first and then suddenly brimming with green grass and lightning bugs and finally all mud-smeared and full. The residue of long days holding melty popsicles, soft leather baseball mitts, and waning innocence. The day you have to trade in your free summer pass is not one you will remember, no one is fully aware it's being traded for air-conditioned office spaces and vacation days that require approval and paperwork. The trade is never fair and the loss never reclaimable. Baby Girl is sleeping for the moment and I am wishing her all of the pleasures of summers to come, all those and more that I get to experience vicariously as I am re-learning what it means to truly live in the moment, to bask in summer as a child.

Getting Real

There's a post I've been hesitating to post that has been written in my head for about a week. After I read this amazing woman's post about Getting Real, particularly about motherhood, I thought that I had to take the rosy-tinted veil off and do the same. Get real. The spirit of this website is a spirit that desires to brighten your day. And anyone who knows me knows that I am not quick to complain. But the desire to inspire and the tendency not to bellyache are in cahoots. And they want to tell you that sometimes I struggle. Like anyone, I have serious struggles with my own personal demons. David Asscherick has said that it's good to struggle, because struggling is a sign of life. If that is true, then there are abundant signs of life in my own!

Here are just a few struggles, aka "signs of life:"

- I struggle not to be cross with my husband on a daily basis. I almost feel as if I pour so much love into my tiniest family member that I am too spent to extend the same to the person who has an equal share in the reason why the tiny one is here.

- I struggle to accept my body as it is right now. I think this is the definition of woman. I am trying so hard to cut sweets out of my diet, and I am literally kicking my own butt to exercise. I am waiting to read about myself in the Police Blotter. WOMAN KICKS OWN BUTTOCKS RUNNING UP HILL; KICKS SO HARD, CHARGED WITH DISTURBING PEACE. But when I go look at my summer clothes, I feel as though I need to punish myself more to fit into them. That if I don't punish myself, I will stay like this with the kangaroo pouch on my belly forever.

- I sometimes think that God makes special exemptions for me to not have to do my devotions because He knows I have a sucktopus attached to my person during the hours when I should be doing my devotion. I think this is terrible in that I need God more than ever and yet I make a god of sleep instead.

- I have two more semesters of school left and I struggle with the fact that when I am done, I will no longer be a student. Sometimes I cling to this identity. People ask me, "So, are you just at home now?" like staying home to raise my child should always be belittled with "just," and yet I am quick to say, "Yes, but I'm still in school part-time," so clearly I am the one who is struggling with my own belittlement.

- When I am done with school, I will have a master's degree from one of the preeminent schools in America and yet I struggle with the fact that I will then have to do something with that degree, other than drive a bus and write stories about the people I meet, which is really what I want to do.

- When my daughter wakes up from a nap, all the blood seems to rush out of my body and I suddenly feel deflated that my solitary time is over. I struggle with my selfishness and feel convicted daily of its cancerous quality.

- Sometimes I feel like my daughter is so dependent on me that I am therefore this amazing provider, and because she depends on me and is so rarely disappointed with me, that I am not still God's child in need of reproof. I struggle so much to be reminded of my sin, that I am a sinner, and that even though I am a provider, I really need God's grace.

- I am constantly mindful of suffering in this world now. I've never been more conscious of how much I have in terms of support, resources and yet I struggle to see the transference of my gifts to the world. If much is expected to those whom much is given, what, other than caring for my family, am I meant to do with these gifts?

- I struggle to believe that I will make friends with other mothers. When I go to a strollermom group or the like, I never think that there are other moms who feel awkward and socially limited. I always assume that they are perfectly at ease and that I am the only one struggling to be relatable.

- I struggle with the fact that there are people who read these thoughts who will never meet me, or who have met me and will think of me as a selfish person who takes her life for granted.

Hot Child in the City

One of the most common questions we are asked as parents is whether or not we are going to stay in the city. This question is delivered in myriad forms, raised in various tones, laden with varying weights in judgment. Do you live in the city? Are you going to stay there? What's the neighborhood like? Think you'll send your kid to public school? While I know a question is just that, a question, sometimes it can become an awfully wearying one. I was raised to assume that people generally have the best of intentions in asking a question, and I should answer it accordingly. But it's hard to answer the same question so many times and not become a little bit agitated. It's hard to respond to a question about where one is choosing to live and, moreover, raise one's child and not feel as though the life we are making is under the microscope.

If I'm perfectly honest, my answer right at this moment is that I'm so torn that I'm trying to just focus on today. I adore the home that we live in, the home that we purchased before we knew for certain we would be parents. It's a functional condo with very little need of repairs. It is comfortable for our family and we do not feel put upon when guests stay for a week; it's commodious.

I like our neighborhood. People talk about the charms of being able to "walk to get a coffee." I do it almost every day (Decaf, natch). I like that I will hear three different languages on my way to get coffee. I like that I see just as many races represented. I like that my daughter will hear and see this and consider this a neighborhood which is a small slice of our world.

I like this city. People keep it real here. I don't encounter much of the plasticity that I know is prevalent in other parts of the country, nor the xenophobia or flagrant racism that seems to be almost culturally acceptable in still other geographies. I like the consciousness here, I like the newspapers, I like that most every part of this city is very viable, rather than a ghosttown after 5 p.m. I like that I can take the train, with stroller in tow, to all of my favorite places, to meet my favorite people, and, roundtrip, it costs 1/3 of the price of a gallon of gas.

These are all the merits of this place where I live that I am not yet ready to trade for another set of benefits.  Of course there is crime, the increased chances of Baby Girl developing asthma, the astronomical cost of living, the devastatingly far distance from any family that continue to weigh heavily on our minds and hearts as we "evaluate our values proposition," whatever that means.

But this week marks six years since I arrived at Logan airport with all of my suits and a floppy disk with my resume and took a cab to my then boyfriend's apartment and as I saw flimsy panes of sunlight wavering up and down along the Charles River, I thought, "This is where I get to live!" and that rapture has not left me, not entirely yet....