Beach Drive

Often, when I am too tired to go through with the bedtime or naptime ritual, I drive my son to sleep through Rock Creek Park (luckily Sami transfers very well). Rock Creek Park is one of Washington, DC's best-kept secrets. The streets of Rock Creek Park snake through the city in strange and unfathomable ways, suddenly switch directions at rush hour, and are never included in Mapquest directions. Yet it is invaluable to know the twists and turns of this scenic route. Not only do you get through the city avoiding traffic lights all together, but you are blessed with the most lush and peaceful greenery on all sides.

My favorite place to drive Sami to sleep is back and forth along Beach Drive, one of the park's main arteries. The peaceful thoroughfare winds along the creek itself, and I always feel a sense of relaxation as I drive along it. Tonight as I was driving, we saw some deer grazing on some grass along the road. "Look at those deers!" Sami shouted, and then promptly fell asleep.

I myself was too intimidated to drive through the park until about five years into my residence here, and even then I usually relied on my on my ex to navigate the park, especially at night. Now I am an old pro, having explored my way around maybe a hundred times as I drive my son to sleep. I know all the shortcuts; all the back-roads, all the time-saving ways to get from here to there through the park. It has been worth the effort.

Beach Drive seems like a metaphor for the way I have approached life. Although I've always liked to think of myself as a feminist in theory, because of my fear of getting lost, I have allowed the men in my life to do most things for me, even many things I could have easily taken on. In the process, I have missed out on the experience of discovering uncharted territories for myself.

These days, I like to imagine myself as Rosie the Riveter with child.



My new motto is, "I can do it!" I am strong and nurturing at the same time. I haul a 38 lb toddler-almost-preschooler around and I have the biceps to prove it.

I don't need a man.
I repeat:
I DON'T NEED A MAN.

I want to shout it from the rooftops. Now this sounds like something out of the fifties, but it is a revelation for this girl, who married at 23 and who has always had a boyfriend. I have literally never been on my own. Like women in the fifties, I married straight out of university. I went pretty much straight from the care of my family to the care of my husband. Our relationship really was like that. He took care of me, and I allowed myself to be taken care of.

It has been an intense winter and spring, but as summer approaches, I feel myself mastering my own personal Beach Drive. Mastering the initially intimidating twists and turns of this life. Appreciating the beauty of these efforts. Today as I drove, my IPod blasting Lee Ann Womack's "I Hope You Dance," (a very sappy but inspirational country ballad) I was surprised by happy tears.

It has been such a long journey, this agonizing, roller-coaster separation, such a long, dark night of the soul. And now the home stretch is finally in sight. I've truly come a long way, baby, from the perpetually frightened mother-child I was when he left in September 2006.

My ex's teeth

A light blue cast of my ex's lower teeth sits on top of my toilet, a bizarre bit of sculpture that I can't seem to part with. Every time I go to the toilet I think about putting them away or emailing him to ask him if he wants them for future dental-related issues. But I do nothing, and so there they sit atop the porcelain goddess.

Sami is oblivious to the presence of the teeth, as far as I can tell, but he has started asking about his father again. The other day, we were parking in Dupont Circle and he saw this house, which he insisted was daddy's house. I gently explained to him that it was not daddy's house and he seemed to be satisfied with that. I just try to validate his questions without a whole lot of addition on my part.

Where's daddy?

I don't know, where is daddy?

He doesn't usually have an answer for that, but in the past the answers have included, "Daddy's sleeping," or "Daddy's working."

I have to admit -- I am actually starting to enjoy this life of totally single motherhood. I no longer see myself a pathetic victim, and that is huge for me. Just a few months ago I would have been spewing all manner of self-pitying, self-righteous pablum regarding this situation. Today, I feel differently. I love that I don't have to quibble about visitation like so many of my divorced friends do. I don't have to think twice before making plans with friends or travel or any of that. The only thing that dampens my enthusiasm is the knowledge that Sami is growing up without someone he still obviously loves very much and who remains in his thoughts. As someone who grew up mostly without a father, I could project so much onto Sami, but the truth of the matter is that I have no idea what is in his head.

Since Sami was born, I have had this enormous fear of damaging him or messing him up in some way. Perhaps it comes out of my historical sense of my own brokenness, fear that early childhood traumas have left me "damaged goods," all of which is slowly shifting over time. But it also occurs to me that he is always watching me for his own emotional cues. As Scott Noelle, one of my parenting gurus, wrote so eloquently in a recent email, "children ALWAYS cooperate." If I am calm and connected, his storms tend to pass much more quickly. If I am agitated, he senses that immediately and does whatever he can to participate in the party.

So when it comes to the absence of his father, I am very relieved that I have gotten to a place of acceptance, and maybe even joy, for now. Perhaps other waves of sadness and darkness will envelop me in the future, but for today I understand that neither Sami nor I need to be scarred by the experience. Not that I think it will be thrilling for him possibly to grow up without a father, but all I can do is to model my own acceptance of the situation and hope that he will absorb that energy.

I feel like one of the most important jobs I can do as a parent is to take care of my own emotions, to let them flow through me, to "clean up my vibration" in New Age-speak. I want to teach him that joy and connectedness is always within our grasp, regardless of external conditions. We do not need for the outside world to cooperate with us. It is only human to react negatively to things we perceive as negative, but perceptions of what is "negative" and "positive" all depend on our limited perspective in any given space and time. It's all mind-stuff. Potent mind-stuff, to be sure, but it's all ephemeral, all labels that we attach to the events of our lives.

For today, my ex's teeth sit atop my toilet, silent and blue. Sometimes I look at them and I imagine him smiling at me. I don't know how, but his teeth remind me that divorce, father loss, single parenthood, all of these experiences are simply "grist for the mill," as Ram Dass says. Everything that happens to us in life is useful if it allow it to be so. Everything points to awakening, if we are willing to follow along the dimly illuminated trails life blazes. I hope that I can continue to remember this, for it is so easy to forget. Without a lot of boring talking to him about it, I'd like simply to live this way as an example for my son.

Special Time

I am currently taking a course on Positive Discipline for Preschoolers through the Parent Encouragement Program (PEP). So far it has been really illuminating and the basis of it is about being present for yourself and your child. The class introduces a lot of techniques like reflective listening, giving children choices, encouraging rather than praising, and overall treating ourselves and our kids with respect and kindness. It is a really thoughtful, reflective, and empowering way to parent and really emphasizes the dignity of both parent and child.

One concept I really like is "special time," which is the idea of dedicating a set amount of time each day to being truly present with your child. When they are old enough to grasp the concept of time, you schedule it together. During special time you focus on your child with no interruptions -- no checking email, no answering the phone, no multitasking of any kind. (The only thing you're "allowed" to do is answer the door.)

Sami is a little young to grasp the concept of scheduling, but one way I have been spending special time with him is to go to the pool in the early evening after I pick him up from day care. He absolutely adores being in the water. He is so comfortable in it, it's as if he was a fish in a former life. I call him a "little fishie" and he just laughs. In the pool, we are simply having fun and relaxing together. I hold him and we dance and play in the water. He loves to climb up the side and jump into my arms. He is fascinated by the water coming out of the vents. All of it is just remarkable for him, and I get to vicariously enjoy that sense of wonder. We also enjoy the ritual of taking a shower before and after the pool. He has grown to really love the shower and never wants to leave, until I coax him out with the promise of popcorn from the vending machine (I'm in big trouble if they ever run out!!). It's also a good opportunity for him to practice getting dressed and undressed.

After our time at the pool, we feel clean and refreshed and just...content.

These special times also make me realize all the other moments that I am not present for him -- when I am trying to get random things done, or noticing something that needs to be put away, or answering the phone, or checking email when the sound of new mail beeps out of my computer. Or just simply worrying about various things. Special time is like a "parenting meditation" for me. I'm present, and by definition, I'm present for Sami. I get to just be with my child, and there is nothing better in the whole world. At the risk of sounding terribly hokey, that quality of presence is a huge present for us both.

I think I will never again smell the scent of chlorine without thinking of the special times we spent together in Sami's precious toddlerhood.

Immanent/Imminent

A friend noticed the typo that I made in my last post title, "Divorce is immanent." I meant to type "imminent" but I was tired and not thinking. Sometimes great insights come from that not-thinking place, don't they?

According to the American Heritage Dictionary, "immanent" means:
1. Existing or remaining within; inherent: believed in a God immanent in humans.
2. Restricted entirely to the mind; subjective.

vs. "imminent," which according to Dictionary.com means
1. likely to occur at any moment; impending: Her death is imminent.
2. projecting or leaning forward; overhanging.

So there it is, the divorce, immanent/imminent. The divorce is inside me, indwelling, as is all the beautiful memories of our years together. It's outside, in the works, ready to culminate in a court room somewhere.

And life goes on. Oh does it go on. Today was the most beautiful spring day yet, I think. The emergence of the sun after days of monsoon-like rains did wonders for my gloomy outlook. Today I chased toddlers around playgrounds and stepped in many mud puddles and ate the most exquisite Ethiopian vegetarian combo for dinner.

Life goes on.

Divorce is immanent

I got a letter in the mail the other day stating that my divorce hearing will take place on June 12. This November would have been our tenth wedding anniversary. I have only begun to heal from the dissolution of a relationship that spanned my twenties. That, of course, yielded my son.

My divorce is simple. It will be over in five minutes, my lawyer tells me.

As the date grows closer, I find myself approaching a place of acceptance. There is truly no other choice, although the mind comes up with so many diversions, doesn't it? I am not looking forward to this day in court, although the closure is necessary, emotionally as much as legally.

Once the raw grief, rage, and pain of these days burns away (and I know it will) I would like to find a way to appreciate it all. I would like someday to look back on even the darkest times as a blessing. Perhaps the painful moments are the most extraordinary blessings of all. Light shines through the cracks that are made when things break.

Mother's Day 2008

Dear Sami,

I write to you on this Mother's Day -- the little guy who made me part of this tribe.

I remember when you first made your presence known, in the form of two pink lines that formed an "x" on the pregnancy test. I hadn't "planned" on you but you had planned on me, hadn't you? From the moment I found out about you, I knew that you had picked me somehow. I didn't feel worthy--and sometimes I still don't--of the awesome job of being your mother. But I put that aside every day and I do what needs to be done. I change your diapers and I try to feed you and I try to show you how to love yourself and to be kind to others. I try so hard to be a good person myself and I screw up all the time, but I love you so very much.

Today you spontaneously said to me, "I love you," and I don't know if you even know what it means, but you said it in a way that felt so natural, I think you must. It was the best Mother's Day present anyone could have given me -- your simple words of love.

Sometimes I feel sad because you don't have any living maternal grandparents. I wish you could have known your grandma. She was an amazing woman. She was creative, like you. Strong-willed, an anti-authoritarian, like you. Her "no's" were shut down by her parents, who were doing the best they could at the time. But I am trying to appreciate your "no's." I recognize and applaud your healthy desire for autonomy and independence, which will show up in different ways at different times. I will do whatever I can to say "yes" to you as often as possible, and to be a compassionate witness to your upset when things don't go as you'd wish them to. Your grandma would have approved of that, I think.

In the year before you born, I was in an MFA program for creative writing. While it seems silly, I was sort of stunned at how absolutely everyone, professors included, was writing about their mothers -- the myriad ways in which they were molded, shaped, and almost always damaged by the women who gave birth to them. I was pregnant with you as I wrote about my own mother and read the stories others had written about theirs. In those months I felt a renewed awe at how deeply, how irrevocably, we mothers impact our children. I wondered, what might you write about me in twenty years? Would I give you plenty of material?

Right now, I am the largest nation in your world. I am your comfort and your home. You go off exploring, sometimes farther than I would like, but in the end you always want to come back to "snuggle mama." My little snuggly boy. As you grow, you will need me less and less, I know. But I want you to always remember that I would like to be a home for you, a refuge. I would like you to see me as a place where you can rest and just be when the rest of the world might be trying to make you into a somebody whom you are not.

"Happy capitalist, Hallmark-created, flower-and-chocolate purchasing Mother's Day to you," said a friend in a message on my voice mail today. I had to laugh, because she is so right. I have bestowed so much importance upon this day. Before I became a mother, it was the day to call your grandma, the mother I barely knew, to write her cards and letters. After she died, it was my day to grieve her loss, to grieve what never was. For years after she died, I still wrote to her on Mother's Day. Now I write to you both.

Isn't every day Mother's Day, really? When you become a mother, it is every minute of every day. It is forever. I will never be the same person I was before I pushed you, screaming, out of my body, and they laid you, screaming, on my chest. And I wouldn't have it any other way.

Now that I am both mother and daughter, I am more sure than ever that every day is a day to celebrate the women who breathed for us for nine months, who released us from their bodies when we were ready to breathe on our own. Every day is a day to forgive them when they hurt us terribly, out of their own ignorance and pain and yes, their misguided love for us. Despite our very human flaws, we are the vessels through which life emerges. There is nothing more sacred than that, and nothing more mundane. Birth happens all the time, and it is so very miraculously ordinary. Life is everywhere we look, isn't it? And isn't it wonderful?

May you always know your own everyday beauty as a human, a son, and perhaps someday, as a father.

Thank you, Sami. Thank you so much for picking me to be your mother. I will do everything I can to be worthy of your choice.

With all the love you can every imagine (and then some),
Your mama

Essential hopelessness

Tonight, the spring wind shakes the trees outside my bedroom window. It is one of those blissfully temperate spring nights that makes me want to be full of hope. I feel summer approaching, unfurling warmth, fecundity. I long to hope, but I remember that hope can be a dangerous thing. I am learning to relax into the groundlessness. I have single mamahood to thank for that. This experience is a powerful dharma door.

I have to laugh at my ambitions. Today was a daycare day for Sami, theoretically a work day for me, and I had so many ideas about What I Was Going to Get Done. Even with child care, so little of it happened that I had to marvel at my own shocking lack of productivity. This morning I had a job interview for a mental health social services position and found out that it paid even less than my worst imaginings. So little that it took my breath away. People work so damn hard in that field - how on earth do they survive? I did a quick mental calculation of how much I would take home after child care, and it was six dollars an hour and I wanted to wail with disappointment.

While I was waiting, I watched the men and women at the facility where I interviewed -- many of them homeless, many of them struggling with mental illness beyond anything I can imagine. One man kept asking for his meds. He seemed to have something complimentary to say to everyone in the place.

He asked the receptionist what her name was.

"Nikita," she said.

"Nikita. That's a beautiful name. Who gave you that name?" he asked.

"My mom."

"Is she still living?"

"Yes."

"Praise the Lord," he exclaimed, with full sincerity.

We got into a short conversation and he talked to me about how he left his housing because it was a fire hazard, and also because people were buying and selling crack and he was trying to get clean. Now he is back out on the street.

My own kind of high-end poverty seems ridiculous in comparison. Yet on days like this I nurse a sense of impending doom. In my bleakest moments, homelessness seems like a possibility. People in better situations than I have had their safety nets crumble and have ended up on the street.

I will only allow myself to wallow in self-pity in small doses. Like hope, that stuff will kill you. So I wrangled my single mama friend into a free jazz concert this evening at UMD College Park. It was a ridiculous idea. Neither of our kids had slept at day care and both of them were in quite a fine state by 5:30 pm. We battled traffic and wailing toddlers to get to the concert. I ended up chasing the wired and tired kiddos all over the courtyard as jazz music played quite beautifully in the background.

There was also a grisly tinge to the evening. Sami killed a caterpillar by accidentally holding it too tightly and ended up with streaks of orange blood on his hands. I got a little frustrated and accused him of killing the caterpillar. He of course had no idea what I was talking about. Death is a totally foreign concept to him. We also encountered a dead bird on the grass, and Sami's little friend proclaimed it "sleeping."

A man who saw me carrying around my cranky and whining child and offered Sami a slice of pizza. I was so touched by his act of kindness. He was like an angel of mercy. I experienced about three restful minutes as he ate his pizza and we watched the band close up.

In my three minutes of peace I noticed that everywhere around me was youth -- college students who must be chock-full of hope and ambition. I remember being their age and I was sure I could and would accomplish everything I dreamed of. I was going to be successful and doing something amazingly prestigious and ambitious. Here I am, ten years out of college and living a life I never could have imagined then. I am certainly not famous or accomplished in any conventional way. But in the eyes of my child, I'm a superstar. And that's pretty awesome.

Tonight I sit with the kindness of pizza for a crying child and dead birds and bleeding caterpillars and jazz and and a smile from a man who may be living on the street tonight and yes, the possibility of my own homelessness. I am also mindful of my desire to know and expect certain things out of this existence. Life doesn't owe me anything. It's not personal. I remember what Suzuki Roshi said: "in the Beginner's Mind there are many possibilities, in the expert's there are few." I can be open to all the posibilities that life holds.

Anything is possible when you abandon hope.