NaNo-ventures

{{Deep breath}} Okay, my fellow NaNo-ers and lovely PNN friends, as this is my first time really writing fiction, I decided to follow JennyAppleseed's lead and let you see a bit of my NaNo-venture.  I would love to hear your constructive criticism - what works so far, what doesn't, what you want to read next, do you like the main character so far?  (Please note: this has NOT been edited so expect grammatical errors, typos, etc. which I will address later).

We’ve all had them.  Moments where we start to rethink our place in life.  I wouldn’t call it regret…more like doubt.  Did I head in the right direction when I'd stumbled upon a choice between two totally divergent paths?  Of course this is precisely what I was thinking about moments before I was shot.

By all accounts, I shouldn’t be alive any longer.  The gun used on me was one normally saved for large game.  But, as often happens in life, people use what they’ve got.  What this guy had was a large caliber hunting rifle, usually reserved for taking down rhino or elephant.  Me? I’m just about 100lbs soaking wet, so overkill is an understatement.

Lucky for me, I wasn’t alone…though my luck turned out to be the downfall of others. I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to let go of that.

The shift nurse, Abby, walks in with a silly grin on her face, “You’ve got a gorgeous visitor coming up...do you want help sorting yourself out?” 

“Um, yeah, wait, no, I’m in hospital for chrissakes, I can’t be worried about make up!”

“Really? Alright…”

“Well, okay, just pass me my handbag, I’ll put on some lip balm”, I sigh.

Moments later as Abby finishes fussing around with my annoying IV drip line, I hear the crisp footfall of men’s dress shoes stop outside the room.  Abby straightens up and squeaks a quick goodbye as the door opens.

It was then that I knew exactly where I wanted to be…and, sadly, it was no where near here. 

No doubt about it, the man was good looking.  I’d fantasized about men like him most of my life.  Tall and masculine without being too butch or too pretty;  he’s just so totally pleasant to look at with his dark wavy hair and light eyes, slightly crooked smile and straight, but prominent nose.  Devon had a way about him that just made you smile when you saw him.  And believe me - he used this gift to its full advantage. 

Swinging through the door, his shoes allowed him to almost slide into the room as if on ice.  He turned to wink at Abby as she slipped by out the door, before turning his full attention to me. 

“K, sweetheart, I hope you’re up to having a visitor?” he asks without a hint of uncertainty about what my answer might be.

Before I could help myself, I felt the corners of my mouth lift in a mirrored smirk.  I wondered how I was going to face the conversation ahead, but realized I truly didn’t have the energy to fight his beguiling energy.

“You know I’ve always got time to chat with a good looking guy,” I say skipping a beat, “have you brought someone with you?”

Devon pulls a straight-backed, thinly padded hospital chair over to my bedside, “Oh darling, don’t beat me up, I’ve practically taken the whole day off to come and entertain your decadent little bed-ridden body!”

The problem is, despite whatever witty repartee we might be able to easily indulge, we both know that there are serious issues ahead and neither of us has been particularly keen to confront them before now.

It’s quite surprising to me, to be truthful, since even growing up I was a practical little girl who liked to get serious talks out into the open – much to the chagrin of my childhood friends.  Let’s face it, no one really wants to have deep discussions at all hours of a slumber party when you could be talking about your fantasy life with the latest Tiger Beat cover star or playing M-A-S-H to find out your future home life with the swish, swish of a bit of folded paper.  No, I wasn’t the most popular girl for my proclivity to discuss matters of a metaphysical or ethical or philosophical bent.

But as I grew up, and finally moved past my irrational fear of talking to boys, I had discovered quickly that “boys” whether they are truly youthful or just emotionally stunted, did NOT like to have serious discussions about personal issues.  I can’t say for sure if this was the reason I’d had such a hard time hanging on to a guys for longer than the blink of an eye, but I can’t deny that it might’ve played a major part.

Help Wanted - Friends Enquire Within

Have you ever seen a job ad that seemed meant for you?  But then you start to second guess yourself, coming up with multiple excuses not to apply…

”There are too many other applicants”

“I’ve not got enough time to garner support”

“I don’t want to step on anyone else’s toes”

“And besides, I’m sure another perfect job will come up...”

Too often I let that little voice inside my head rule the roost, but thankfully my work here has changed my perspective…allowed me to turn down the volume on that voice of insecurity and trepidation.  I honestly think that the friendships I’ve made on PNN and work I’ve done as part of Brene’s Audacity of Authenticity workshop have allowed me to move a step forward – I’m immeasurably grateful for all of you.

What does all this mean?

Well, I wanted to let you know that I’ve applied for the Nature Made SAM-e Complete Good Mood Gig (an AWESOME job)! To get me through the first round, I need as many votes as possible and time is running out!

I gave the other contenders a big head start and have only 2 weeks to get as much support as possible.  Only the Top 20 get to go on to Phase II to show everyone what they really have to offer. 

I’ve loved writing my blog, but I think it would be pretty great to finally get paid…as well as share my tips and tricks about getting into a good mood!!  Of course, I would continue to regale my gorgeous PNN-peeps with my stories of Aussie adventures and new-and-improved Idiot Moves, but it might just be time to spread my wings a bit.

Will you help me?  Click here http://bit.ly/29WWsG and GO BACK EACH DAY (a clever friend of mine set her Outlook to remind her each day)!  Thanks to those of you who have already started to spread the word – not only has this process given me the opportunity to make new friends-of-friends, but a few distant relatives have already gotten in touch to say they’re supporting me as well. 

Thanks and I’ll let you know how I go!! J

Stop Killing My Koalas!

I don’t want to freak you out, but you’re killing my koalas.  No, seriously!  Okay, they may not be mine per se, but they’re mere inches away from dying off and it pains me just as much as if they were my personal pets.  The problem is I suspect you didn't even know you were leading them to their demise…but you are. And we are all responsible.

As part of Blog Action Day www.blogactionday.org I wanted to highlight the plight of the other animals who share our Earth - those that are being driven to extinction by climate change.

Global warming has far reaching and potentially catastrophic effects on many of the beautiful and unique animals all over the planet.  Would you be surprised to know that climate change is playing a major role in our farewell to polar bears, gray whales, hundreds of species of frogs, arctic foxes, walrus, many types of bird and more?  In fact, among the list of animals affected on The Top 100 Effects of Global Warming is the Aldabra banded snail.  This snail is now extinct, dying out as global warming caused a significant decrease in the rainfall in its habitat.

The fact is that we have the power to make changes in our daily lives that can directly impact the course we’ve taken.  If you’d like more ideas on what you can do to lessen your own carbon footprint, take a look at this great list by David Biello from Scientific American.

Because at the end of the day, do you really want to be responsible for the demise of such a cute and cuddly (looking) creature? 

Aussie Travel Log Entry #2

Soon enough we’re off the plane, making our way with twitchy boys through immigration, baggage claim and customs.  We strap the little one, without cooperation, into the stroller and make our way out to collect the hire car.  Do you know that strange feeling you can sometimes get as you balance precariously between waking and dreaming?  Well, that sort of how this felt as we wandered around Brisbane airport. 

I’d been back to Australia two years ago, just me with the little one when he was only 3 months old.  That trip was less a holiday and more business as I was there to organize the sale of our flat in Sydney.  Plus, travel with a breastfeeding baby is, ironically, about a million times easier than traveling with one that can walk, talk (back) and run like a maniac through security areas.  This time, we were back as a family and that punchy feeling from sleep deprivation gave me an added unreal fog. 

Once we got the keys and grabbed coffee (when in Oz, I highly recommend getting a flat white – like a latte, but less milk and no foam), its all beginning to sink in.  Of course, this corresponds with the boys melting down.  But we’re on the road, GPS directing us to an apartment 30 minutes north of Brisbane - offered to us for free by a very generous previous employer.  It’s drizzling…and I couldn’t care one little bit!

Simply driving along the motorway brings a flood of memories as my hubby and I had enjoyed many road trips along the Bruce Highway in the five years we'd lived in Oz.  Roundabouts, wide roads and a surprising mix of eucalyptus and evergreen trees seem to greet us as we feel ourselves slowly relax.  We arrive at the apartment – beach front and modern - unloading the boys and luggage as swiftly as possible. 

Our hosts are running a dive resort in Papua New Guinea and have let us stay in their apartment…their entirely adult apartment.  An amazing number of glass windows, glass doors, glass side tables and attractive décor gathered from Asia, Africa and the Pacific Islands fill the sleek, but warm home.  I’m freaking out…how can I possibly protect everything?!?!  I resign myself to the thought that our budget will just have to include replacements of home wares and try to settle in as best as possible.

The view from the Redcliffe apartment: straight out over the Pacific, fringed with evergreen trees, bordered by a walking path and a short beach filled with tumbled stones and a variety of sun-bleached shells.  Even when the sun isn’t shining, this is such a calming sight.  Having grown up on the coast of Southern California, I have a connection with the ocean and the smell of the sea is tantamount to smelling mum’s famous homemade chili…it makes me feel like I’m home.

We made sure to hit the local shops to fill the cupboards – equal parts familiar items for the boys and reuniting with Australian staples that you don’t realize you’ve missed until you see them again.  Thinking back now, the rest of the day went by with the four of us in a daze, but we tried to stay up for as long as possible to adjust to the new time zone.  Sadly, the boys still woke at 3.30am, but with a bribe of warm chocolate milk, things remained calm until the sun began to rise.  The plus is that, being on the east coast of Australia, we got to experience more lovely sunrises than we’re likely to see again for a long, long while!

For me, the next few days were all about trying my best to find balance.  On the one hand, I want us all to enjoy a proper holiday, but on the other, I am constantly on alert trying to protect our host’s belongings and preserve (or reinstate) our boy’s routine.  Any mum with active kids will know routine can be the key to sanity – for parent as well as child.  Trying to keep to the normal rules from home is challenging, but it felt necessary for me.  This meant trying to stick to normal nap times, hold firm to reasons for time outs and even offering some of the same food.  Our biggest problem? At home the boys have their own rooms and on holiday they share.  Let the games begin…

I’ll finish this episode with our first mis-Adventure.

As with many adult-only homes, the carpet in this lovely apartment was on the lighter side…light as in spotless cream colored.  So we’re on our third day in Oz and still feeling frazzled, but resolute in our decision to follow through with normal discipline rules.  My oldest had been put into time out (god only knows why…running around banging on glass tables with sharp knives? Yeah, probably something like that).  He was crying all the way and still wailing 3-4 minutes later without stopping.  I decide that I’ll release him from the “horrible prison” that was the boys’ shared bedroom and, as I open the door, I am sprayed with blood.  And so was the carpet. The light and perfect cream colored carpet. 

Honestly, that boy took a walking tour of the room, maybe just to get full coverage. Or perhaps he’s a Pollack-in-training and he thought, “Hmm, red drips here – Yes, yes! And red drips HERE!”  Nah, the poor little guy was just freaked about the spontaneous burst blood vessel in his nose.  He, unfortunately, takes after me in this way and it’s happened before, but not in quite this spectacular fashion.

The bad news…well, the mess, obviously.  The good news (ding: silver lining)…I discovered a wonderful new concoction that can take yucky stains, wet or dry, out of carpet.  Of course, I ran around like crazy first, ringing carpet cleaning companies, wondering if I needed to ring the hosts in PNG, doing mad searches on the internet.  But, by the time we left, you couldn’t even tell.  Well, I could, but by then my eyes were as trained as a CSI black light.

Stay tuned for next time…when we introduce the boys to the local wild life!

Aussie Travel Log Entry #1

Traveling with children is like taking a crash-course in learning how to adapt.  And now that my family has taken our biggest trip to date, I have also found that somewhere along the road of life I’ve learned how important it is to truly search out that silver-lining with every dark cloud.

Our adventure is a full one and the story likely to take a while, so for your safety (and my sanity) I am breaking it up into episodes

The journey begins before take-off…

We started early on our drive to LA for the late night trans-Pacific flight.  Knowing that we’d be driving for hours, we figured it would be best if we got to LA early to enjoy some time at the beach and park to let the boys get some energy out.  The drive was pretty painless with the portable DVD player entertaining the boys with the 1,001^st viewing of Ice Age.  Stopped at a park near Santa Monica airport – if you have boys there is no better combination than a park with airplanes flying overhead.   A short (and surprisingly sweaty) trip to the beach, a quick snack of unexpectedly delicious gourmet sandwiches at a small bistro just off the promenade and we made our way to the airport.

Excitement tends to lend a bit of a buffer to any hassle at the start of a trip.  We eventually found long term parking, caught the shuttle and managed to lug our bags and jumpy children into LAX.  The anti-climax comes once we get through security and realize that we still have 2 hours before the flight leaves. 

Here we get our first lesson in distraction.  Food – yes, that’s a good one…and chicken nuggets are always a winner.  So we got the boys set up with their chicken, French fries and chocolate milk at a lovely (read: tiny) table surrounded by other weary travelers.  The boys were definitely distracted, so much so, that one of them manages to spill their milk all over our table. In a spectacular feat, the milk splatters over our bags and finds its way to the leg of a woman at the next table.  Her pants were white, her accent French, her demeanor less than pleasant.  Good start!  In our defense, we offered napkins, we offered wipes, we offered Tide-to-Go. But like Meryl Streep in The Devil Wears Prada, she gave us an effective, dismissive head shake and a look that said, “You can’t make up for your unruly child’s horrible faux pas, so don’t try”. 

Cool, so we have only WHAT 1 ½ hours until the plane departs?!?!  But really, we did the tag team bit – one parent takes one child, then switch, walking round the departure gates as if we’re on our own private carousel, multiple trips to the potty and, finally, a hit of Benadryl.  I’m sure the fact that Milo was screaming his way down the gangway didn’t provide other passengers with much confidence.  Thankfully, once we got settled into our seats and with only a bare minimum of tussling between the boys, the plane took off and the boys fell asleep. 

An interesting discovery: I found out that Milo is a fitful sleeper (like a sleeping dog running away from his dream-enemy) so I spent the time he slept keeping a hand on him so that he wouldn’t fling himself to the floor.  The best part about this flight (13 hours) is that its night time schedule means that it fits within our natural circadian rhythm and the boys were able to sleep for over half of the time.  Suffice to say, we survived the second half of the flight – I won’t tell you how, other than to say Qantas is great to have seat-back TV screens with Wiggles and Dora on demand.

Excitement builds again as the wheels hit the ground on Aussie soil and as we peer out the windows of the 747, we can see the sun coming up on a lovely Brisbane morning…

Won't you take me to...Bloggy Town

Is it just me or do you have moments of being overwhelmed by the sheer volume of information that now swirls around us 24/7?

It’s no secret that I am a fan of PNN (duh) and Twitter (it panders to my ever shrinking attention span), but I also have a fascination with a few news sites (BBC, CNN & SMH). Most recently, though, I find myself drawn to follow numerous blogs that I have discovered through random (if not inspired) people – artists, writers, academics, entrepreneurs.

What I have realized is that my active boys are no longer my biggest hurdle to writing my own blog – my biggest hurdle has become my addiction to reading!  And, whilst I’d like to say that my mind is flooded with material as I read about the epiphanies and tribulations of others, the truth is that I am just so enamored with these other creative voices that I lose my own.

Now, you might think that this missive is meant to talk myself down from the stories-high ledge of blogs I’ve climbed upon…but instead, for now, I’d like to add more! 

Please tell me, what are 3 of your favorite blogs to read and why?

My new natural high...

My heart is beating a little bit faster than usual.  I feel a bit euphoric – singing pop songs with my kids at the tops of my lungs, smiling more, generally feeling cheery…and even a little bit giddy.  Let’s face it - I’m on a bit of a high!  The best part is that this is an all natural feeling; it’s one that I get when I’ve made a new friend.

Many women quickly discover once they’ve had their first child that time with friends often gets cut back dramatically.  Where before you may have been able to meet up for a casual lunch or dinner or a night of drinks and dancing at least once or twice a week, the demands of a newborn mean that those breaks take a back seat to the hectic schedule of a baby who eats, sleeps and poops…a lot!  And unfortunately, friendships can suffer.

I was recently reminded of the struggle that many of us go through with making and maintaining friendships as adults when talking to a great friend who is struggling with this right now.  My gorgeous friend had recently moved across country, away from all her friends and family, and almost immediately gave birth to her second son. 

She was just getting the feel for the new suburb they’d moved to – working out where all of the necessities are: grocery, café, parks, etc.  A fantastic benefit of living in Oz is that there are government sponsored wellness centers that organize groups for new or relocated mums.  She joined the local mum’s group just a few weeks before her second son arrived. 

Luckily, one of the things that could have negatively affected your older friendships can actually help you to form new ones!  As my friend in Oz did, meeting up with other new mums can be a wonderful outlet and opportunity to create lasting friendships.  The fact that these other ladies are going through similar experiences can help form en empathetic connection immediately.  Playgrounds are also a place where casual conversations are easily started – especially when the little ones compel introductions when they “make friends” with one another as they play together. 

And this is exactly the type of situation that got me feeling so fired up today. 

I’d taken my boys to a purpose built water fountain pad just off The Strip, the sun was beating down and temps were over 105°.  This particular play area is one of the best free spots in the area –surrounded by high-end shops and restaurants – and includes a mini-stage with curtains, multiple playhouses, a tree house, merry-go-round, slides and a full hedge maze. So, as my boys began to streak across the water pad, I sat down on a bench next to another mum trying to avoid the sprays of water coming from the bigger kid’s karate chopping the water as hard as they could.  Just as a particularly large splash landed on our laps, we glanced at each other and I said, “Well, so much for sitting on the sidelines to stay dry, huh?” and that was that.

Will our friendship progress past a few shared text messages and a playground meet up or two?  Who knows…and, really, I don’t mind.  The rush I get from the potential friendship and the first blush of finding someone who seems as interested in hearing my stories as I am to hear hers will get me through a lot. 

The Write to be Shame-less

I chose this inspirational piece because of the vulnerability it shows, as well as illustrating the incredible ability that we all possess to be able to move on and grow through some of the most painful moments of our lives.  One of my favourite authors on this site...

 Jenny Appleseed (aka Laurie Boris)

Lives on the East Coast and writes about health and wellness, as well as fantastic fiction and mesmerizing memoir.

Blog page(s): http://jennyappleseed.pnn.com, http://laurieboris.pnn.com

Shame

I didn’t have a regular doctor back then, because I was young and felt immortal and didn’t see the need. Also, my health insurance sucked. Yes, I’d be covered if I stepped into the street and got hit by a pizza delivery guy, but for the regular stuff? As my father would say, “Well, pally, you’re on your own.”

So, on a cold Saturday morning in October, when the itchy, burning welts marched across my vulva like an army of fire ants, I knew where I had to go. I threw my journal and a paperback book into my knapsack. Then walked (very slowly) to Beacon Street and took the Green Line to the clinic at Coolidge Corner, where I was prepared to wait as long as it took in order to see the doctor of the day.

After I had (very slowly) undressed, submitted to a painful exam, (very slowly) dressed and met him in his nondescript office, he looked up from my file and said, “You’ve described your symptoms well.”

Schmuck, I thought. I live in this body. How could I not know every prickle and ache? Plus, when the first blister erupted, and the itchy bastard stung me every time I moved (I could have killed whoever invented jeans), I got out my trusty hand mirror to have a look.

It was not as I expected. Not a blister, like the ones you’d get from a bad sunburn. Not the angry red bump of a mosquito bite. This looked like a tiny head of cauliflower. An odd, but precious little thing. All by itself, it might have been fine. Eventually, it would heal. But I’d made the mistake of scratching it, probably in my sleep. And now it had bloomed into a garden of pain.

“Do you know what genital herpes is?” the doctor asked me.

I shook my head. Less at my lack of knowledge than at my lack of preparedness. A child of sex-ed instructors, I thought I knew everything. I’d seen slides of gonorrhea and syphilis. I knew about using condoms. I knew about the vas deferens and the prostate. I knew that the part of me that hurt like the fires of hell was the labia majoris, and wouldn’t my mother and the ladies who wrote “Our Bodies, Ourselves,” be proud? But herpes? As far as I knew, it was what you got on your lip, a fever blister, right?

Technically, yes, the doctor said. He described it, said it was called something different when it “presented” below the waist. He told me how the virus was transmitted from skin-to-skin contact, told me how to care for the outbreak, because the blisters were contagious. He gave me a brochure containing more information about how to handle future outbreaks. And how not to transmit it to future partners.

Each word hit me like a slap in the face. Future outbreaks? Future partners? Contagious? I could get this again? I was contagious? And if I was contagious, did that mean… no. My boyfriend, who I’d been living with for the past three years (who never had a single fever blister on his lip, at least that I saw), gave this to me? My throat felt like it was closing up. He…cheated on me?

The doctor asked if I had any other questions. Yes, I thought. Millions of them. But none that he could answer. Choking back tears, I shook my head.

At the receptionist’s desk I wrote my check and left. I stood frozen to the sidewalk in front of the clinic, while happy Saturday people bustled around me, oblivious.

I thought of what I was supposed to do next. I couldn’t go home. Even though he was back on the road, this time with a traveling circus (the year before it had been a ski lodge, the year before that, a beach resort), the idea of “home” felt like a joke. It was already a joke - a cramped, roach-ridden studio apartment we shared with a cat, two doves and a conure that crapped on everything but screamed its feathers off when locked in his cage. But now it felt even filthier. With one doctor’s diagnosis, everything that had been remotely romantic about living that way had been poisoned.

Then I saw the drugstore across the street. A card in the window promised a two-for-one sale on Halloween candy, so I bought a couple bags of those tiny pumpkins shaped out of candy corn goo, and stowed them in my knapsack. Instead of hopping the Green Line outbound toward my now tainted apartment, I got on the trolley going the other way.

When I got settled, I tore open the bag of candy pumpkins, and, while staring out the window, ate one, then another, and another. Stuffing myself was a kind of armor against the world. I couldn’t bear to look at anybody and feel them looking back at me. I was a contaminated woman. Typhoid Jenny. Not only had my (what I thought had been) loyal and loving boyfriend of three years slept with somebody else, but now I wore the physical scars of it. Even though it was hidden under two layers of clothing, I felt as if the entire world had seen what that doctor saw as I lay spread-eagled on his examination table. My cauliflower garden of shame.

I took the Green Line into town, and changed at Government Center for the Blue Line. I took the first train north to Revere Beach. The ocean had always brought me solace, and I felt pulled toward it as if magnetized. Even though it was a cold October day, and the wind blew, and the beach was littered with used condoms and spent hypodermic needles, with fossilized dog crap and cigarette butts, it was still attached to the ocean, and it was still good enough for me.

I got off the trolley and picked my way through the pale sand and found a place that was relatively free of anything dangerous. My gaze melted into the Atlantic. As each wave rolled in and rolled out, I willed it to wash me free of shame. I wondered how Virginia Woolf felt as she filled her pockets full of rocks and wandered into the surf. I wondered if I could do it.

I don’t know how long I sat in the sand, mesmerized by the water and the lumpy, gray-white clouds. But eventually, I saw him. A man, not much older than me, sitting atop one of the picnic tables at the nearby portico, his feet on the bench. He smoked one cigarette after another, the smoke almost indistinguishable from the sand and the sky.

Eventually, after the dog walkers and diehard Frisbee players went home, we were the only two on the beach, and we started talking.  We talked in that way of two strangers who find themselves in an odd place at an odd time. After all, who just sits alone on a cold urban beach at the tail end of October? At first we talked in generalities. Then he asked if I was seeing anybody. With my heart congealing in my chest, I told him I’d been living with a guy for three years.

His eyebrows shot up. “Don’t you get restless?” he asked, stubbing out his current cigarette against the top of the picnic table. He said he’d been living with a girl for four years, and he didn’t know if he could stand it anymore.

We chatted a while longer – nothing deeper than a quarter-inch or so below the top layer of contaminated beach – and he invited me back to his house, because he said it was getting cold (I was just starting to notice that) and because he makes really good hot chocolate.

I said yes. I didn’t stop to think about all the things my mother had taught me about going off with strangers. It just felt natural. Normal. We got in his car and no warning bells dinged in my head that this was something I shouldn’t be doing. After all, I didn’t know the neighborhood. I didn’t know where he was taking me. I probably should have been worried, but maybe in that same sense of being young and feeling immortal, or just wanting some human comfort, I didn’t think to question it.

He told me that she wasn’t home. He made hot chocolate and we stood at his kitchen counter. I warmed my hands on the hot mug – he really did make good hot chocolate. He told me he felt trapped in his current relationship and didn’t know how to get out of it.

I nodded. I felt trapped, too. But it was a trap of my own making. I tried to be the perfect girlfriend. I thought that’s how you got someone to stay with you and love you forever. By doing and being whatever he wanted. I bought his type of peanut butter, his type of bread. Everything was done his way. Now I wasn’t perfect anymore. I bore the Scarlet A of his infidelity. But I didn’t tell the stranger that.

When the gaps in the conversation got longer, I got nervous. His fingers played against the mug. Did he… did he think… I’d come here to sleep with him? And then it hit me like one of those gray, dirty waves. I was contaminated. I didn’t sleep with strangers, but even on the off chance that I wanted to do something spontaneous, either of my own accord or because I wanted revenge for my boyfriend’s cheating, I couldn’t. I was poisoned. And it wasn’t like gonorrhea or some “simple” sexually transmitted disease, where you could just take some antibiotics and it would be gone. I was contaminated forever. I felt filthy, and the itching, burning shame of it intensified between my legs.

“I need to get home,” I said.

He seemed genuinely surprised. “Are you sure?” he said. “I mean, we just got here.”

I thought about putting on my coat but realized I’d never taken it off. “Sorry,” I said. “But I really have to go.”

Considering the situation that I was in – alone in a man’s apartment in a neighborhood I didn’t know – I was lucky. It could have gone another way. I could have become one of those girls who simply disappeared. Instead, he grabbed his keys, and said, with no trace of malice, “Okay. Let’s go.”

He let me off at the Revere Beach T stop. We exchanged a few pleasantries, and wished each other luck. There was no kiss goodbye, and I never saw or heard from him again. I don’t even remember his name.

I went back to the place that was no longer home. I carefully washed and dried my flaming cauliflower lesions the way the doctor had described. And then I ate candy pumpkins until I made myself sick.

The Write to Parent with Love

Writergrrl

Egg on my face...

Idiot Move of the Day #4035

Never try to ensure your hard boiled egg is "really" cooked by popping it into the microwave for an extra 6 minutes.

This morning my husband left me with one lonely little egg after he made brekkie for himself while I dropped the oldest at school.  Having decided that I was really serious (again) about losing those last 10 lbs, I thought I would hard boil that last little egg for my own brekkie. 

I put it on the stove in a little pot and let it boil for 10+ minutes. Then I left it to rest for a minute or two.  When I laddled it out of the pot, I gave it a little shake and thought I heard the yolk moving around a bit. I do NOT like soft boiled egg, the runny yolk makes me squeamish.

So I thought to myself, "Hey, why not use the microwave to make sure it has a perfectly hard center!"  I proceeded to place said mostly-boiled egg into a micro safe bowl filled with hot water.  I popped it in, hit Express Cook 6 and happily turned to read some more blogs. 

Suddenly, the door EXPLODED open and watery egg bits came flying out in every direction.  Hmmm, clean up was challenging and entailed the use of toothpicks, paper towels, wet wipes and a two-handed "Stay back, stay back" mantra to keep my toddler out of the mess.

Apparently, this might not have happened if I'd put a pin into the side of the egg before causing it to go nuclear.

So, there it is, I will continue to practice idiot manuevers so that you don't have to!

I'm still hungry...

Love - bloggy style

Great news!  I’ve fallen in love with a blog!  Oh, won’t it be wonderful, all the time I can spend reading, laughing, writing, feeding the blog grapes, then it tickles me and gives me a sly grin….

What? Wait a minute…I can’t have an affair with yet another bloody blog!  I can hardly keep up with the ones I’ve already got going, not to mention all of my lovely ladies on PNN.  Plus I think I'm having trouble keeping up with my family and feel only marginally involved in real life.  I mean, if I don't start actually doing stuff where am I supposed to get content?

Which has led me to this question…Why can’t my time on PNN and other glorious blogs be spent within a “Time Free Zone” – you know, in a vortex where no time passes and you can spend all the time you want reading brilliant posts (or random, nonsensical comment threads)? 

Today for example, on just my first email download of the morning, I got 95 emails!!  And the worst part is, I can’t even follow all of the blogs I’d like to – I shudder to think of all of the insightful pieces I'm missing from women I admire.   (Blog readers, meet Guilt, Guilt meet my blog readers – Guilt and I go waaaaay back). I mean, I had a life, er, have a life outside of the internet, PNN, Twitter, Facebook...well, I do, don't I? 

I have children to be "present" with and you know feed, nurture, keep healthy…all that stuff.  There is a husband who, because he has been primarily working from home lately, expects me to be available for, I don’t know, wifely duties and whatnot.  Plus, it is rather difficult to keep up with groceries, laundry and personal grooming when I spend a lot of my (supposedly) free time reading and offering support, or my own nonsensical comments, to fabulous people online.  Something tells me that I’d do well to get some sort of  Professional Life Organizer that magically helps me find a way to eek out 5 more hours in a day.   I could’ve sworn I saw them for sale on QVC for $19.95+s/h, I should look into that when I'm suffering from insomnia tomorrow night.

Listen, people, I know I’m not the only one in this quandry, so I’m just wondering…how do YOU make it work?

The wisdom of a preschooler

Parenting is hard.

No doubt about it, it is just plain hard some days.

But then there are the moments. You know, the moments that seemingly erase all the other struggles you might be going through.  In fact, they can be many and you can learn to not only spot them, but actually create these moments several times throughout the day.

Many times, the difference between struggle with a child and unadulterated fun with a child lay on a very thin and flimsy line.  And the difference comes down to realizing the way children experience the world…before life’s trials teach them to reminisce about the past or look to the future for their happiness.

Live for the moment.

It is said all the time, but truly good advice bears repeating. When we stop thinking about what we need to do, what we forgot to do, what we think we should do, what we did yesterday and what we’ll do tomorrow, we might give ourselves a chance to enjoy what is going on right now.  And this is the secret to creating more magical moments with your children.

Rather than always living our lives to a regimented schedule, ticking things off a list until we fall down into bed exhausted at the end of the day, we need to allow ourselves to veer outside of the lines for an inch or two.  Get involved in the activity your child is doing, help them piece together a puzzle, ask for their advice about something you’ve been planning for the household (and actually listen!), or just give them a hug, a tickle and an authentic ear-to-ear grin.  By giving yourself permission to live in the present with your child, you are also telling them that you see THEM and not just another cog in the wheel that is either turning easily or making your life more difficult.

Think of it as a way to take an adult sort of time out – except this time you’re doing it to share and grow through love and laughter.

It may seem miraculous, but as you continue to consciously take the time to enjoy your child(ren) several times a day, these moments will increase on their own – a sweet smile, an unexpected hug, a silly story about their imaginary friend, Walter.  You will find yourself recounting more happy times at the end of the day, rather than feeling relief that you simply survived.

And, that is what raising young children should feel like.

Words to live by...

There are words with which I think I might just like to have a passionate affair. Some of them are words I have used in my posts and others are those that you have used when commenting on something I’ve written…

Synchronicity. Serendipity. Clarity. Compassion.

But one of my all time favourite words and, therefore, one that seems to have entwined itself throughout my life like a beautifully fragrant creeping jasmine…

Authenticity.

Having read so many heartfelt posts by so many eloquent and insightful writers here, I felt compelled to pass along a website that I came to unexpectedly (ohhh, one of my favourite words in action!)  I think that so many of us are reaching out, testing the boundaries, sharing and supporting each other - all in a sort of organic movement that I’d not actually identified. 

Then I came upon a beautiful blog, though it is much more than that.  It exemplifies all sorts of things that I have been struggling with in my life and, I suspect, things that many of you have struggled with as well.

I don’t want to water down or merely reiterate anything that she has written herself, so I have chosen to simply post the pledge and a link to the site.

Mamma Mia, here I go again

I don’t want to make it seem like I think the world is ending, but today I feel incredibly emotional and frightfully overwhelmed by the misbehaviour of my 4 ½ year old son.

He has always been smart and learning things his obsession. From the time he was 18 months, he knew his alphabet.  Not long after, he mastered his numbers to 20 as well as most shapes and colours.  He wasn’t early to speak, but always had a certain sense of perfectionism that meant he preferred to wait until he was sure he knew something, before he shared his new found skill. 

His preoccupation with learning new things meant that I just couldn’t keep up.  So when he was about 2 years old, he started preschool.  We quickly discovered that he was still most receptive to actual learning (new words, sign language, more numbers), but tended to have difficulty listening once things moved more toward crafts or circle time.  Luckily, by the time we decided that the preschool he was attending wasn’t a great fit for him, we were also planning a move out of state.  An assistant at the old school suggested that Montessori might be a positive move since it was based more on independent child-led learning and also a strong focus on personal responsibility.  We had high hopes.

Starting a new school within a few weeks of the move was never meant to be easy, but I think it went rather well.  In general, he had only a few smallish issues around listening and sitting still during circle time.  Then there were the incidents of taking coloured pencils off the paper, drawing on tables and bookshelves and, since his favourite thing to write was his own name, there was no chance of him feigning innocence there.  Just before the Christmas holidays he had trouble listening again, but my husband quickly instituted a series of “talks” around being Respectful and the problem quickly subsided – the teachers were impressed.  Fast forward to today. 

Every time my mobile phone rings now I brace myself as I sneak a peek at the phone number.  I say a silent prayer, “Please don’t be the school, please don’t be the school, please, please, please…Don’t Be The School!” 

It was the school.

Ms. Marie was ringing to say that unfortunately my son made the choice to hit her again (strikingly similar to last week’s string of embarrassing capers), he was in the head mistresses office and we must come pick him up.  It is so bloody disappointing!  After his misadventures last week that saw us pick him up early 2 days (where he was sent directly to his bedroom, do not pass go, eat dinner alone) we had high hopes for this week.  We’d created a new reward chart called Max’s Respectful Chart and each day that he came home with “a thumbs up” from his teachers, he would get a star.  At the end of the week, 5 stars would mean he would get to choose a prize.  This concept has been working really well with keeping his potty schedule on track, so why shouldn’t this work with improving his behaviour at school?

Truthfully, I had an idea that things might go south even as I dropped him off this morning…something about entering the school yard seems to pump him full of adrenaline and give him a certain glint in his eye.  He suddenly tears off toward the play structure in the center of the courtyard and, bark chips flying, squirrels away in a hidey-hole trying to squeeze in a few minutes of play before going into the classroom.  I’ve experienced this before and, whether I let him get energy out for a few minutes or immediately start my mean-mommy-mantra “please come here, it’s time for school, please come here, it’s time for school”, he runs away like his head is on fire and I’m a natural accelerant. 

So as the phone rang this afternoon, I almost knew it would be someone from school.  I am just incredibly mortified that my son, despite the new plan (which I’d told the teachers about this morning), went straight back to not listening and going so far as to hit his teacher again (and laugh afterward, might I add). We’ve tried talking about what feelings he’s had at school and he said it is boredom.  I have a hard time accepting this explanation from him as I know that they have plenty of activities and most of the time he gets to select his own topic of learning. Do I just take him out of school a few weeks early and deal with a bored and misbehaving child at home?  Or do I need to suck it up and keep on with the reward chart/time out routine we’ve set up? 

Suddenly the thought of summer vacation just doesn’t sound as sparkly as it used to... ;-)

Going home again

I want to be upfront with you right here, right now.  If you’ve had enough of my tendency to wax on about Australia…well, hit the Back button now.

“You can never go home again”, or so wrote James Agee.  But I’m gonna prove that guy wrong if it’s the last thing I do.

This past weekend, my husband and I talked about whether or not we should take advantage of those deeply discounted air fares to Oz. This entire concept went against plans we made earlier in the year, worries about building up a decent savings cushion (let’s face it, more of an issue of mine) and our plans to visit his family in Spain next spring.  But after having chatted about it and looking at some accommodation in our favorite beach-y locale, we’d written it off – just not practical.  Inside I was disappointed, more than I let on.

You see, I have a special relationship with the island nation.  I find it perplexing, the way I find it near impossible to describe.  It’s like a connection that you have to a person that you’ve just met, like fervently and instantly…but without knowing exactly why.  I’m not under any illusions about it being a “perfect” country – there are social issues that need changing, politicians can be corrupt or, at least fallible, and some people still like to have a good whinge about, well, just about anything.

But the people overall are incredible, hard working and down to earth. There is a deeply held belief in the concept of a proper work-life balance.  The landscape is beautiful, the animals incredible and, let’s face it, the accent can be pretty damn sexy!  Are these the reasons I have such an affinity with this country?  Is this why I became a naturalized citizen?  Maybe…or maybe it is something more, something that I will never be able to identify because it goes deeper than my psyche, residing warmly, burrowing deep within my heart.

My husband said, “Book the flights.”

Jubilation is a sorry approximation of the feeling that bubbled within me at that moment. I was still unsure about accepting the joy, like a child being offered candy, but fearing it might be ripped out of her hand just as the wrapper grazes her fingers. “Really?”, I ask. “Yeah, let’s do it!”, says the man who knows how to make me really, really, really happy.

Since then my mind has been positively racing with plans, ideas, and thoughts about where to take the boys.  Whilst I don’t relish the thought of the long haul flight with two small ones at just under 3 and 5 years old, I am thrilled at the prospect of being able to share the day-to-day of life up on the Sunshine Coast. Well, for 12 days anyhow! We’ll take them to places that we love – Steve Irwin’s iconic Australia Zoo, surfing or splashing about in the waves with other little nippers in Noosa, smelling the wonderful foods and proper handmade espresso along Hastings Street, searching through the amazing arts and crafts of Eumundi Market, maybe even finding a proper rugby or cricket match.

And just breathing in the experience, the essence that is Australia.

Women Rule the World

So just in case you were wondering if this global water cooler thing was staying put in the US, you’ll be happy to note that women abroad are leading the men in the blogoshpere stakes as well. 

It seems Australia’s women have followed the lead of the US phenomenon with their own onslaught of blogs: http://www.smh.com.au/lifestyle/lifematters/women-rule-the-blogosphere-20090409-a1qk.html

Mummy-blogs have hit a sweet spot with women across Australia and for good reason.  Many new mums have found themselves in uncharted territory - at home with baby after many years in the workforce.  And in their need to reach out, they have found a perfect way to connect with other women – locally and globally.

While some of the bloggers have years of experience writing books or editing regional versions of well-known international magazines, others are women like you and me, who simply felt the need to create something new and communicate.

Especially in these times of high stress and financial uncertainty, feeling validated and understood is more important than ever.  Our standard support system of friends and family might feel overstretched, but thankfully our own global water cooler here at PNN lets us reach a new audience and a new group of friends…wherever in the world they may be.

So keep those fingers tapping the keyboard, ladies, ‘cuz the world is reading…

All Aussie Adventures - part 1

I’ll admit that it may have been because we’d just been on a plane for fourteen hours, but as we sat in my friend Julia’s car, driving away from Sydney Airport on that dazzling day in mid-September, we felt euphoric and unreal.

We’d been preparing for our arrival in our new country for a few weeks and the fact that we were arriving in the middle of the Summer Olympics was a bonus beyond belief.  This is a perfect example of the added benefit of going with the flow of life! Somehow I’d managed to get tickets to see some beach volleyball at the famous Bondi Beach, though we still had to collect the tickets.  Being dropped in central Sydney with little sleep and no map wasn’t inspired, but luckily the generous mood of the city itself saw us being helped to the nearest train station, then bus station and then sand.  The place was alive, the sky sunny and the sandwiches expensive, but we couldn’t have been happier.  So we spent our first afternoon sitting shoulder to shoulder in the stands, cheering for our new homeland, watching the players’ lithe and gleaming bodies leaping about like dolphins on land.

And the next day we got the hell out of the celebratory mayhem.

Heading north toward Brisbane, we thought it best to enjoy the rest of the games on TV while exploring more of the country before my hubby had to buckle down and start working.  So armed with only our backpacks, a guidebook and the notion that we would take on adventure as we saw it, we flew up to Queensland.  Traveling this way can be hit-or-miss, but it also lets you meet new people and get recommendations from locals and other travelers leading you to experiences you’d never have found otherwise.

Only made it one night in Brissie (slang for Brisbane – I apologize in advance for falling into slang while writing about Oz…just go with it and message me if something really stumps you) having survived the night in one of the most disgusting hostels I’ve ever stayed in.  Just seeing it in the dark the night before, I’d opted to sleep in my bag on top of the bed.  Apparently it was much worse in the stark light of day.  My husband said he was thankful that I wasn’t there when he stripped the beds on our departure – no man wants to spend his entire holiday reassuring his wife that he doesn’t see nits in her hair.

So having escaped without picking up any bed bugs, we took the train up to the Sunshine Coast – Mooloolaba, to be exact.  Touristy, but sweet, this town had everything we could want.  A great new hostel (it even had double rooms for couples!), walking distance to food, shops, a delicious beach and our first adventure – sea kayaking!  We spent the week in heaven.  The first few mornings we had kayaking lessons followed by a yummy lunch laughing with our new friends. For the rest of the afternoon, we would simply flop our water-logged bodies onto the sand and daydream about our new lives. 

Romance is easy to find in paradise.

Of course, the fact that we were in the domain of the Crocodile Hunter hadn’t eluded us either, so we took a shuttle west into the hinterland to get our first glimpse of fair dinkum Aussie icons.  Understated and unlike US theme parks, Australia Zoo was laid back and easy to fall in love with.  Close encounters with kangaroos, wallabies (like mini-kangaroos), kookaburras and koalas abound.  Thankfully, the same cannot be said for the crocs…though it was fascinating to watch (from a distance and behind a fence) these prehistoric relics being fed.

"I never go into the outback without a decent supply of water, and the general rule for how much you'll need is three litres per day, per person, per man, per degree over 25 degrees celcius, per kilometre if walking on foot, in the winter months dividing it by two, plus... another litre... at the end." - Russell Coight

Loving living abroad...

I've always had the travel bug.  But mine went a bit further – I felt like I should be living somewhere else.  It even became a sticking point in therapy during my college days.  Somehow I couldn’t get past the point that the people who grew up and stayed in the same town their whole lives could actually be happy.  My counselor would repeat, “But they are not YOU – not everyone wants to travel to or live in another city or country.  You do, so why don’t you?” 

Most of my life I have lived to a schedule, a routine, a plan. Only after my first foray into living abroad did I discover the value of going with the flow of life.  Sometimes the plan you make isn’t the right one. How can you tell?  Doors close - trains break down, tickets are sold out, restaurants are closed, hostels are full.  If you find that everything you planned seems to be going to pot…well, this is when you need to start walking down a different path.  So when Americans now ask me, “How did you find a way to live overseas?” this is the advice that I give – be open to the opportunities that present themselves every day.

When I first moved to the UK, I didn’t have a plan.  The entire momentum surrounding my move overseas was spontaneous and not well thought out.  I’d just gone through a contentious break-up…with someone who I was forced to see each day at work.  I was unhappy and slogging away in a job that, while I was good at it, gave me no pleasure. Out of the blue, I got a letter from a close friend who was on a work exchange in London.  She wrote that things were great, she was working at a pub in central London and if I ever wanted to visit, I could stay with her. 

The next day I bought a ticket to London.

When I had trouble getting her by phone, I left a message that I would be visiting soon.  She wrote back, “Are you just coming on holiday or will you be working over here like I am?”  My ticket was for a 10 day trip, but I decided, then and there, that I would sell anything of value to raise money and then MOVE.  Now mind you, I had no work visa (nor did I qualify for one at that moment), but I’d made up my mind and that was it.  For now I will simply say that once I arrived, I was able to organize something so that is how I found myself living and working in London for 7 months.  And then, again going with the flow, I was able to find a job in Italy for a few months before heading back to the US.

If you’ve made the leap once, seizing opportunity becomes easier to contemplate.  And so, when I moved back to the UK a few years later to marry my husband, we’d already agreed that we didn’t want to stay in the cold and rainy climate for too long.  I loved living overseas and he, raised in South Africa, wanted somewhere sunny (his childhood home too violent a place for us to consider), so we agreed on Australia.

Neither of us had even been there on holiday, but that didn't stop us.  Luckily, we decided to go when the technology market was booming and, since my husband was in IT, it took very little time for three companies to come courting.  They were so keen, in fact, that one company interviewed him by phone while we were on our honeymoon in Mauritius. Within 4 months of that interview, we were packed up and moving halfway round the world.  

To be continued…

Finding inspiration in animation

So you may think I’ve lost my mind, but I’ve decided that my newest life advisor is Dory. Yep, THAT Dory…the blue fish from Finding Nemo.

But before you call the boys in white coats to come and get me, you should know two things.  One – I have two small boys who have forced me to watch said movie many, many, many, many (no room for the number of times I should add the word “many” to illustrate the exact head thumping times I’ve been forced to watch this movie) times.  And once you have seen a movie so often that you can run through the dialogue and sound effects without consciously thinking about it, you gain the ability to see more depth in certain characters…and you realize that there was a message hidden in there just for you to hear right at this moment.

The second thing you should know is that I have, of late, realized that I need to make a big step in my life.  The challenge is that I am unsure about the step to take.  I’m in a wonderful place in life where all of my basic life needs are met (or exceeded).  I have a deep, loyal and genuine love with my husband.  I have sons who, like all children, are growing (quickly) and soon enough will be leaving me at home while they go to school. We’re (so far) financially stable, live in a sedate suburb and just generally get along quite evenly in life.

Something about this year has started a buzz inside me, letting me know that now is the time that I need to begin something new or find something more meaningful.  I find that it is often in the lulls of life that I can hear the soft call coming from deep inside…to make a change.

So back to my newest inspiration, Dory.  The other day as I was listening to the movie, contemplating how I might manage to discover my next move, trying to decide how I might find the bravery and insight to take a step in an unknown direction, I heard the voice of Ellen DeGeneres saying, “It’s time to let go – Everything is going to be alright!” “But how do you know something bad isn’t going to happen?” “I don’t!”, and then she let’s go.  For those of you who know the movie, remember that all of this is taking place inside the mouth of a whale – and it would seem that this is the end of the line for the two little fish, as the whale tips his tongue back to draw the fish into the back of his throat.  The pessimist (or realist) of the pair thinks, “I don’t want to let go; I don’t trust moving toward a dark place where things could get better, but more likely they’ll get worse. I’d prefer to stay stuck where I am - not moving forward, not growing - rather than take the chance that something bad could happen.”  Dory, my new guru, thinks along the line that the Universe will see her through, that what is meant to happen will happen and that good things are in store, if you just open yourself up to the possibility.  There are no guarantees – something bad could happen, but you will never move upward and onward if you don’t take a chance.

So here I go, ready to let go and be lead where life would like to take me…and, like Dory, I am choosing to see the good that is out there and have faith that positive things are about to come my way as I take a step toward something grand.  And I’m wishing the same thing for all of you as well…

I can see clearly now...

I had a revelation this week. And it didn’t come on like a light switch – darkness one minute and then *flash*, everything illuminated.  This particular realization took me slowly.  As if I had been sitting in a dark movie theater and had become so involved in what I was watching on screen that I didn’t realize that the space around me that used to be inky black was now light, even bright. 

Reading the other blogs this week, I was struck by a common theme that I’ve felt when reading some writer’s work.  And it is a theme that was prevalent in my own life, my own writing, for many years...so much so that I had no idea that it had dwindled.  This feeling, the one that I’m so disconnected from that it now feels foreign, is insecurity about my place in this world.

I was a classic over-analyzer.  As a shy-type, I would often rehash conversations that I had with people - my Super Ego telling me what I did wrong, said wrong.  I would get anxious about what sort of impression I might’ve made, what I needed to say next time to make up for every perceived misstep I’d taken.  I spent A LOT of time worrying about whether people liked me.  And I did this even when I wasn’t entirely sure I liked the other person!  I know that many women reading this will be able to say to themselves, “Yes!  I’ve done that, too!”  I used to wonder to myself, “When will this end?  When will I stop caring so much?  How will I stop obsessing about my personal idiosyncrasies?”  It was virtually incomprehensible that I could move from a place of almost constant anxiety to one of fairly steady contentment.

As I thought about the readings from this week, the dimmer was turned up and I realized that somehow - when I wasn’t paying attention, when I was too busy living my life - things had changed.

Anyone who has read my work here knows that I put myself out there with new people.  I try to work against my predisposition to be a wallflower.  But now I understand that I am focusing on these new friends in the present moment without replaying conversations in my head later.  If they respond to me, great! If they don’t, well, I probably wouldn’t notice one way or the other as I spend my time enhancing the fledgling friendships that are coming along naturally.

How did this happen? How did I become a healthier person without doing the hard work?  Surely personal growth takes concentrated effort and applied insight?!?!  The short answer is - I don’t know. And the longer answer is that I think it must be an organic process – a combination of age, stability in my romantic relationship, and just being plain busy as hell trying to raise 2 young boys. 

Regardless of how it happened, it is a feeling that I wish I could easily pass on to some of my favorite writers here.  These are writers who have tremendous talent, absolutely endless possibilities in front of them - along with the passion and energy and spirit to accomplish more than they ever dreamed.  I wish I could pass on this confidence, but of course we all know that’s not possible.  The only thing that I can give is the message that this insecurity or vulnerability, this lack of meaning in the every day, this fear that you’re not following the right path, can be extinguished. 

Just like the lights going up in a darkened theater, you will find that you can see yourself and your path clearly and that YOU matter - that everyday you make contact with others has meaning. And you will worry less about the people you don’t reach, seeing more clearly those that you do.   

Be Fri and St End revisited

I’m having a love affair, but it’s not what you think!  No, I’ve not strayed from my lovely husband.  My (renewed) love affair is with friendship.

I have often appreciated how there seem to be friends for every aspect of my life. Friends for deep conversations and mental growth.  Friends for watching movies or having drinks or eating out. Friends for working out or just letting everything spill out.  If we’re lucky, we have a few friends who reach into many places within our hearts and help support us in any number of ways in our life.

When I was in grade school I had just one best friend.  She and I met in 4^th grade after I transferred schools mid-year and I had an instant fascination with her…something about her perfect blonde hair and dimples, perhaps.  Luckily, she was curious about me too and we quickly became attached at the hip.  We loved playing silly girl games; would stay up all night at sleepovers pretending to be newscasters or making up pledges about the boy we both had a crush on (On a side note, I’m ashamed to say that despite the many, many valuable pieces of information my memory has lost over the years, I still remember that school girl pledge!).

The downside to our lovely friendship is that I refused to play with anyone else outside of school unless she was also there.  So if the Be Fri to my St End wasn’t available, I was stuck at home (and complaining to my mum).  My mother undoubtedly gave me the same lecture every time this happened – “Peanut, you must make friends with the other little girls so that you can play with someone else when she isn’t able!”  And I tried, really I did.  But when it came down to it, I just wanted to play with her, or wallow in my own misery.

Luckily, I grew out of this.

I now enjoy the fact that I have friends of varying closeness and women who couldn’t be more different from one another.  I enjoy rekindling old relationships (Facebook is valuable for this, if nothing else) as well as continuing to start new ones.  Have you ever heard that lame excuse, “Yeah, I’m sorry, but I just don’t have room in my life for any new friends right now”?  As far as I’m concerned, that’s not possible.  At best, it’s just not accurate – perhaps you have no energy or interest or patience for a new friend, but “no room”?  Doubtful.

Not to say that I collect friends like a hoarder collects everything from rare antiquities to last week’s TV dinner tray, but the fact that I’ve moved so far and wide in my life means that I’ve got a decent Christmas card list going.  There is exhilaration and trepidation in the first blush of a new friendship as I try to discover if this person enjoys my company as I increasingly find I enjoy theirs.  But there is also a feeling like warm molasses drizzling over my heart that I experience when I phone an old friend and (fingers crossed, time zone checked) get them on the line.

In the end, I must confess, my love affair with friendship has come bubbling back up as I read posts here. While I don’t think that relationships were meant to be acted out entirely electronically, I have a special affinity for the openness and authenticity that I can read in the posts and comments in the blogging community.  So thanks – you have, and continue to, inspire me!

The only way to have a friend is to be one - Ralph Waldo Emerson

Money, Money, Money

Okay, it’s happened.  On some level, I think I was sort of waiting for it – I mean, considering the downturn in the economy, it’s really a bit of a surprise that it took this long.

A family member has asked us for money.

Money is a hot button issue in most marriages, but what happens when another family member or friend asks for money?  Normally, I have a pretty hard line when it comes to loaning out money – I don’t.

There are very few times that I might break this rule and most have to do with whether or not I think I will (or need to) be paid back.  Personally, I think that other than parent/child relationships, the lending of money to loved ones is a bad idea. 

Being asked for money can feel awkward and sometimes bring up feelings of resentment.  And asking for money when one is an adult and supposedly self-sufficient can be a huge blow to the self-esteem.  And the shame in having asked can cause someone to be more withdrawn and possibly depressed.  Keeping the relationship healthy can be a struggle, trying to move past such personal and deep-seated feelings and this is only compounded if the “giver” isn’t happy to be helping.  It has always seemed like a lose-lose situation to me.

But at a time like this, when the worldwide economy is experiencing such strife, our hard and fast rules don’t necessarily apply.  Is there a limit to the amount you would give?  Would you want to draw up a contract for repayment or just leave everyone to their word?  What might you do if the friend or family member came back for more?  Would you want to see what they were spending the money on?  What if you’d found out they purchased something you consider a “luxury item”? Or would you just give the money as a gift, not expecting repayment?  Or would you simply decide that, no matter what, you just wouldn’t be comfortable in loaning the money?

Obviously, I’ve asked many more questions than I’ve decided to answer.  And that’s because this is such an individual issue – and each relationship as unique as the people involved.  But if we’re gonna make it through tough times together (hopefully, with stronger relationships as a result) it’s time to think about how we’re going to give help…or receive it!

For the love of food...

Like many women, I’ve always had a bit of a contentious relationship with food. 

As a toddler, I had some serious power struggles with my dad over cleaning my plate and eating my veggies.  Common was the sight of me, curly blonde hair and dressed only in a nappy (diaper), sitting alone at the table in front of an increasingly soggy pile of canned spinach, refusing to eat and being forced to sit alone at the table until I’d finished my dinner.  I was often threatened with said slimy spinach as breakfast, but my stubbornness was complete and by lunch time I had a handy little sandwich to see me through.

Over the years my palate changed and my repertoire of acceptable and enjoyable foods increased dramatically (it helped when I found out that spinach came fresh and not from a can) and I was a risk taker, willing to try almost anything.  I often didn’t understand what I saw as the hard line my dad used to take with me…and, predictably, resolved never to force my own children to eat food that they found offensive.

Enter my teen years; I call them “The Golden Years”, when I could easily eat a big breakfast, fast food lunch, share a pizza with a friend after school and then eat dinner normally, all while keeping my petite figure.  Sure enough, just like the bitter lady I worked with after school used to tell me, my metabolism changed once I hit my late 20’s.  Suddenly, the contentious part of the relationship returned, but this time because I couldn’t eat everything my mind and body might crave – well, I could, but not if I wanted to fit my clothes. It is about this time that much of my day and brain power started to be spent thinking of food. What could I have? Oops – now that I gave into that craving for the 32oz smoothie, what would I have to sacrifice in the rest of the day?  I found this difficult as a newly married girl. Thankfully, my husband never had any misconceptions about my lack of enthusiasm when it came to cooking and, therefore, last minute and unconventional dinner plans were par for the course. 

And then came my kids... 

To be fair, the first 6 months of my older son’s life were fairly easy.  Meal planning went into overdrive as I tried to lose the baby weight, but overall, it was rather simple as I’d, by this time, figured out which foods I could get away with making for my husband and I that fell into the “well balanced meal” category.  Starting solids was a bit bumpy, but nothing unexpected and he ate his fruits and veggies.  The problems really began as we tried to transition away from puree.  Short cut to now, 3+ years later and it is a struggle to get him to eat a single fresh fruit or vegetable. I joke (to myself) that he must’ve been an astronaut in a past life because he loves freeze dried fruit or veg.  But let’s just say, this is not the route I wanted to take. 

Suddenly, I had an extreme appreciation for the position my dad was in when he tried to get me to eat Rice A Roni (it might’ve been the San Francisco treat, but I was not a fan) with raisins and beef chunks all those years ago. 

My younger son has been easier – his personality more laid back and agreeable most of the time.  Only glitch there is that with his 2^nd birthday, he has begun having random tantrums.  I understand his pushing as he explores his newly perceived independence from me, but it doesn’t make mealtime much fun on his off days.

Which brings me to this last weekend...

I had a friend and her daughter visiting.  Her 4 year old is precocious, bright and beautiful…and eats a nice variety of foods.  She is one month younger than my oldest, but is taller and healthier.  And this is the crux of it.  If my sons were above the 25-50^th percentile (those bloody scales do my head in!) then perhaps I wouldn’t give picky eating a second thought.  But because they are small (as was I), it makes me feel as if every nutrient they aren’t getting is going to have a larger impact on them and it’s my fault.  Is the fact that I never took home-ec at school coming back to haunt me? I’ve bought the books, tried the tricks and, truly feel as if I’ve “been there, tried that” to no avail.

So after this last weekend, which saw me throw a tantrum of my own at Sunday dinner when my sons refused to eat pasta shells with veggies (while the golden haired daughter of my friend ate 2 helpings) with their BBQ sausage and steak, I have decided that the last resort has arrived.

I resolve to let go.  To spend some, but (god help me) not too much time thinking about what to serve for supper, make it, put it in front of my boisterous boys and…LET IT GO. I’ve got my fingers crossed and duct tape for my mouth in case a “Come on, just one little bite!” wants to escape.

Wish me luck…if you’d met my clever boys, you’d know how much I need it!

Making Friends in Foreign Lands

I’ve always loved making new friends.  Though on the shy side (really!), I was often the first to befriend the new girl in school, trying to make her feel comfortable and welcome within the new surroundings.  Invariably, she would move on to friends with whom she had more in common or those who would help her to boost her reputation.  Even in those difficult tween and teen years, I tended to be the “go to” girl who would stay friendly with the latest girl who was being shunned for some apparent slight.

After all of these years making new friends, though, I discovered that Australia is my favorite place on earth to make new friends. 

When my husband and I first arrived, the city of Sydney was enjoying the first blush of excitement that was the 2000 Summer Olympics.  People everywhere were smiling – even when queuing to get tickets!  At one point during our first few hours in town, standing stupidly on the sidewalk, we must’ve been looking confused because a man walking by stopped to ask if there was something he could help us find.  Usually, looking dazed and confused on the street in a major city will cause you to get mugged, but on this day it simply got us some friendly advice on how to find the nearest train station!  Amazing, but we put it down to the Olympic spirit and resigned ourselves to the inevitable – once the Olympics finished, the city would change into a beautiful, but surely, colder place.  My how living in London had jaded us! 

Within a month, we’d made some new friends – it was easy…ridiculously so! Why?  Because we were paying them? No. Because we’re such fabulous people?  Well, maybe, but probably not.  We made friends Down Under so easily because Aussies are willing to take a chance (cue Abba).  They’ll invite most anyone to share a beer or a glass of good Barossa Valley red.  What’s the harm?  If you don’t get on with each other, you don’t have to meet up again.  I have found that I made lifelong friends there faster than anywhere else on earth – the Aussie personality tends to be outgoing, adventurous, up for a laugh, straightforward, laid back and most have a refreshingly irreverent sense of humor. 

Okay, okay…Obviously, all Aussies are not the same and there are always exceptions.  But I still think Australia is one of the easiest places on earth to make and keep friends… and I’m not the only one!  http://www.forbes.com/2008/12/09/relocate-world-countries-employment08-forbeslife-cx_ds_1210friendly.html

The Spark Remains - OR - My Love Story

Growing up, I never thought marriage was the best idea.  Between them, my parents have been married eleven times.  Nope, that wasn’t a typo.  And, while my parents were obviously optimists at heart, they weren’t very realistic.  I was, or at least I had hopes that I would be.  Of course, my early dating life was characterized by stereotypical unrequited love. Even those boys that returned my affection could only do so for a short time.  In fact, my relationships tended to last no more than 2 months - and that was a stretch!

Being a realist was difficult, especially as I have a romantic heart.  With each broken relationship, I vacillated between a sense of relief (Brain says, “Of course, I expected this!”) and a sense of despair (Heart says, “Doesn’t anyone love me?”).  After one such painful ending, an ending that saw me move more than 800 miles to put distance between myself and my latest mistake (not the biggest move I made to escape, by the way, just the last), I found myself moving back in with my mum. I had the idea that I would be saving money to start an adventure travel company, free to pursue an individual life. I would take lovers when necessary, but I’d resolved to live a fully actualized and self-supportive life. No more drama for me (says my brain).

The first weekend home, I couldn’t bear to go out with my high school friends. Nothing wrong with them, they’re lovely. But having lived overseas and on my own for so many years, the fact that I was living at home was shameful to me. So instead of having fun with real live people, I decided to go online and laugh at the photo personals that came up with my search engine. 

It wasn’t the first time I’d done this, and granted, not the nicest thing I could be doing. Somehow, I think seeing all of these people (read: men) that were also alone and searching gave me some relief.  I couldn’t imagine what sort of person would be brave enough to put their photo up for scrutiny by the whole, well, worldwide web!  So I trawled and giggled to myself for ages; then I saw it.  A witty title got my attention “English Patient Seeks Kristen Scott Thomas Ladette”.

Reading through the profile, I smiled to myself and even braved the thought, “What if I wrote to this guy?”  Brain takes over, “Are you serious? This guy is in the UK and you’re in the US – sure, a long distance relationship is JUST what you need!” So for the next week, I keep going back to his ad to re-read and torture myself.  The odd thing is that he’d changed his ad.  Not what it said, just the way it was said…the flow was off. And I knew that, had I seen this revised version first, I wouldn’t have been as moved.

Finally, after a week of cyber-stalking, a friend convinced me to write, “What do you have to lose?”  And that, as they say, was it.  I got my first response on May 18, 1999.  Those first emails filled me with an electric feeling and we quickly moved to phone calls (thank goodness for cut-rate phone cards) that would last up to 4 hours at a time.  He was a skydiver and had already booked a week-long trip to the US  for August.  We became so close so quickly and, he decided to change his plans a bit, using a drop zone near my house. 

That first meeting was odd – I remember waiting in my Jeep Cherokee along the beach, “casually” reading a book to keep my mind from spinning out and my body from sweating profusely.  I kept scanning the street to see if I could pick him out.  We’d seen pictures of one another, so it wasn’t like a blind date, exactly.  But there is such a difference when you are within someone’s presence – energy, an aura, their chemistry mixing with yours. Finally, I see him walking toward me, he’s wearing a white t-shirt and jeans with a dark blue button down shirt over it, open and sort of flapping in the breeze.  Here was a man that I’d already said “I love you” to…and I kind of freaked out.  The first few days were just slightly better than awkward – we just weren’t acting like ourselves. But after a little bit of counseling from my mum (who is, let’s face it, a bit of an expert), I decided NOT to decide on the rest of our relationship in that week. 

And then I fell in love.

The final two days of his visit were as movie-like perfect as I’ve ever experienced– a gondola ride at sunset and then tandem skydiving in the morning. Nothing like champagne and a huge adrenaline rush to bring two people together!  That first week after he returned home to the UK, he proposed over the phone.  He came out to see me one more time in October, but that was essentially that.  So after 56 hours of phone conversations, over 200 emails and a total of 3 weeks spent in each other’s presence, we were married on January 1, 2000.

And it just keeps getting better…

Text Addiction - Time for an Intervention

Talking to a close friend the other day, we began to wonder again about the brilliance and complication of text messaging.  No one can deny it’s helpful in our rush-around lifestyle and, really, who doesn’t like the almost instantaneous gratification that a bit of thumb movement can give you? 

But what if your friend, relative or co-worker is so addicted to this fabulous convenience that they use it too much? Or what if the culprit is *gasp* YOU?!?!

While many of us appreciate all of the things technological advancement can bring us (heck, I might not have met my husband without technology – another story, another time), it is also true that it can create a horrible barrier between our relationships.  If we use technology to distance ourselves from decisions we’ve made, we’re also disconnecting from the feelings those messages evoke. 

In one particular case, my friend told me about a guy she knew that, despite having just sent a text saying they should catch up, would refuse to answer his phone to have a “real time” talk.  After weeks of this ridiculous behavior, she finally sent a text response to the effect of: “If you want to speak to me again, it had better be with a real conversation – no email, no text; don’t even bother replying to this bloody text!”   Once she finally cornered him, live and in person (and somewhat inebriated), she asserted her theory on his OCD text issues – fear of commitment.  By utilizing text alone, he was able to keep several girls on the pull and feel as if he were successfully handling an active social life.

Well, if my friend’s response was anything to go by, he’d been quite far off the mark.  Considering that up to 93% of communication effectiveness is via non-verbal cues, it is little wonder that relationships conducted primarily by text and email are suffering.  Using today’s technology can not only cause you to let valuable friendships wither, your co-workers might start to think you’re not a team player.  With fear of job loss on the rise, being seen as an integral part of your work team is more important than ever.

Now, I would never assume to tell you to let go of that precious PDA, but perhaps, just this once, you might give your thumb a rest, dust off your ears and get your index fingers to do the walking…

When friends say, "We've gotta talk..."

In other posts, I’ve talked about building friendships or even honoring valuable friendships, but today I started thinking about something truly difficult – ending friendships. 

How do you break up with a friend?

Of course, there is no easy answer to this…so many things can affect how we decide to approach (or not!) a friend we’d like to see less of.

A few years ago, my husband and I were living overseas and just starting to make new friends.  At that point, we were eager to make all the friends we could and seemed to work hard at finding the commonalities between ourselves and others in order to build our social network.  One of the friendships my husband started to develop was with a co-worker and, when we met up at a work function, I met his co-worker’s fiancé.  For our purposes, let’s call them Pete and Sandy.  Even on that first night, I knew that Sandy and I weren’t a friendship match-made-in-heaven, but who cares? She seemed nice enough to share a drink with.

And there it starts…They invite us to their house for a birthday BBQ, so we return the offer and have them over to our house for a night out.  I won’t go into specifics, but each time we met, the chasm between who we all were as people was more and more apparent to my husband and I.  Probably the most difficult thing to wrap our heads around was their racism.  I don’t expect, or even want, for my friends to think and act exactly as I do, but stark differences in morals and ethics are near impossible to overcome. 

So despite our subtle attempts to distance ourselves, the invitations kept coming. Until one day, we got a call. Pete wanted my husband to be an usher in their wedding and, strangely, by the time the call was complete, I was going to be one of Sandy’s bridesmaids!  Talk about awkward – I still didn’t understand why Sandy would even like me since I never had anything to talk about when we were together (note: you may have guessed, this is not an affliction I usually suffer).  We got as far as spending an excruciating day shopping for bridesmaid dresses, where I found I was the only other attendant, before something had to happen. Perhaps it is just us, but we thought that standing up at the wedding of a couple we didn’t want to be friends with was just going too far.

In the end, since my husband had the longer friendship with Pete, he was the one to call and say that we were very sorry, but just couldn’t be in their wedding.  There were excuses made (truth, but not the whole truth) and a call from Sandy asking if it was something Pete did, but that was the end of it.  No more uncomfortable dinners or forced conversation.  Some months later we saw an article in the paper with a picture of their small ceremony. Honestly, I was glad that they had a lovely day. But I was also glad that we’d “broken up” when we did.

A great PNN-er, Sally G, has a brilliant blog related to this.  In this case, I prefer to think that we were in each other’s lives for a reason – even if it was only to learn the lesson that some friendships have a definitive lifespan…and that’s alright.

The point is, for my husband and me, life is far too precious to keep a friendship that is so negative.  Breaking up with a friend can be painful and awkward in the short term, but in the long term you will be doing yourself and the ex-friend a favor.

Friends - Guardians of our Authentic Selves

These days it is a wonder any of us have time to ourselves.  Busy career woman, hectic home maker, devoted mother, passionate partner, loving daughter, sister, cousin, etc, etc, etc.  There are so many roles we must play. And, for many of us, we are happy to play them.  But most of us have to admit, there are times when we just want to take a break, stop pleasing others and try to remember, “Who really knows who the hell I am anyway?!?!”

I’ll tell you who – your friends.

If you’re anything like me, you may find that you are so busy in the day-to-day of living that you let some friendships fall to the wayside. It can be difficult to stop and catch your breath. But just as you feel yourself going over the edge, there is one surefire way to find your center again. Spend some time with your friends. Admittedly, it’s not always possible to be in their presence. As someone who has lived on 3 continents and tends to make friends who move almost as frequently and as far away from where ever I happen to be as humanly possible, I know the struggle.  But as others have said before, you don’t need to talk to or see your truest friends often to get back to the core of what binds you. 

No matter what roles you play in other areas of your life, your friends can help to distill the authentic you. The You that makes them laugh. The You that can cry unabashedly at the chick flicks you can’t drag your husband to anymore. The You that knows that embarrassing thing they did that time at that place with that person (and they know the same about you). The very best part about reconnecting with these true friends is that we can finally drop the pretense of perfection that so many of us feel the need to put on when we face the rest of the world.

So stop what you’re doing (or turn down the volume on “The Colbert Report”), get out your phone or laptop and call, text, FB or email at least one of those beautiful people right now and set a date to meet up, let go, have a drink and reacquaint yourself…with yourself!

A friend is a gift you give yourself -- Robert Louis Stevenson

Friendship etiquette in the age of FB

My relationship question of the day is this: Can you keep friendships going when the norms of etiquette are different on FB than they are in person?  

In the days before social networking sites such as Facebook, it was relatively easy to keep the door closed between political beliefs and happy friendships.  Ever since I became "politically aware", I have known and enjoyed the fact that there were friends and acquaintances who saw the world differently.  But for many years, I felt safer keeping my views quiet, as I knew that being so forthright with one's political beliefs can unintentionally color the friendship.  It was easy to remain polite, I moved a lot and, let's face it, the political world was relatively quiet for a few years. 

The past 8 years have been tumultuous around the world and politics have come to have a strong bearing on most families in one way or another.  Where you used to be able to sit back and be passive, this past political season saw a great outpouring of support for both major US political parties.  But there is an uncomfortable side to this sudden upswing in communication about our very personal beliefs.

On one hand, I've always enjoyed being friends with people who have opinions different to my own. But on the other, I have a hard time when people are openly offensive and derisive about things that I feel are quite important.  Political commentary and critique are important parts of being a citizen in the US, but lately, I've found that some people are not being critical of the politics so much as they are mocking the everyday citizens who support particular politicians. Using status updates to make political comments makes me think that perhaps these sites, in addition to allowing people to network successfully, may cause people to think less about common courtesy than they would if they were in face-to-face company. 

I think the best way to approach a friend who may be posting offensive comments is to start by sending them a personal message to let them know, as delicately as possible, that some of the things they are writing have disturbed you personally.  In the first instance, they may not have realized that their comments were crossing over the line of normal sarcasm.  If the comments are coming from those who are not direct friends, you may want to post your own comment stating that not everyone sees things exactly as they do - perhaps that alone will get them to pull up the reigns a bit.

Friendship is borne out of mutual respect and, regardless of how we choose to communicate, we need to give others the room to be themselves without allowing ourselves to be cut down. The beauty of friendship is that, in our differences, we can sometimes come to appreciate each other even more.

Friendship for Free?

Is it possible to enhance new friendships without spending any money? 

This is the question that keeps coming back to me as I think about how to help foster a budding friendship in these, let's face it, depressing economic times.

Having recently moved to Sin City, I have made a few new friends with other mums at my son's school.  Living in an area surrounded by oppulence, where living in gated communities or Country Clubs is de rigueur, it seems that spending money on nights out, private school school fundraisers, and huge birthday parties for the littlies are all part of the daily show. 

On the surface, one might imagine that scheduling home or park-based playdates would solve the problem.  But as many mothers know, it is virtually impossible to hold a complete conversation while trying to keep track of troublesome toddlers (i.e. attemping Cirque de Soliel-type acrobatics from sofa to ottoman to table and back...all over a tile floor).  Often, much time is now spent trying to capture short bursts of thoughts and ideas via text and email.  And, while I obviously embrace the beautiful marriage of technology and the written word, I have to face the fact that the biggest leaps in friendship tend to take place with shared experiences rather than shared despair at the direction the new season of "The Bachelor" seems to be taking!

So in these times of tightened budgets, where we've turned to Mr. Coffee instead of Starbucks and brown bagging instead of lesiurely lunches, a new direction needs to be taken when trying to socialize...and if someone has an idea that also takes care of childcare, please comment!