One year later

A year ago, Chad and I planted two apple trees in our front yard and I snapped a photo of Tate standing next to the taller of the two. It was just a twig, and so was he. If he looks a little sullen in the photo, it's because about an hour later he began retching...and didn't stop for nearly three days. (More disgusting details could follow here, but won't.)

I can't get over how teeny he is here. 

A year later, here they are again. The tree looks like a teenager -- spindly and gawky, but it has its first wee apple buds starting to grow, which thrills me to no end. And Tate is still holding on tightly to his toddler belly but is getting longer and leaner everyday. 

Who knows how long we'll stay in Portland and how long I'll be able to document my son's growth versus the growth of a certain Pacific Rose apple tree. I have visions of him coming home from college or even high school -- this strapping lad that rests his arm on the sturdy girth of our blossoming apple tree -- we snap a picture, post it on our blog, and all go inside to eat homemade apple pie. Because of course, in dreams like this where boys come home from college to see mom, apple harvest is in springtime.

Flora, Fauna, Taters

In the two years of Tate's little life, I have made it a priority to get him out in nature as much as possible, to teach him to appreciate all of the different flowers and critters and trees of the great Pacific Northwest. Ever since we moved to Portland, we have gone on weekly hikes in the spectacular Forest Park and the whole time I prattle on about flora and fauna, greeting all that we see. "Hello, moss. How are you, slug? Hi there, yellow finch." For the first year, he bounced along silently in my trusty (and indispensable) Ergo, seemingly more interested in pulling my braid than anything else. But lately, he is looking outwards more. And apparently, he has been listening. Here is his current list of correctly identified living things that he himself can point out in the wild. Domesticated and zoo animals have not been included but for the record, he is bananas about otters. 

Finches, blue-jays, crows, chickadees, seagulls, and twice now, bald eagles. Spiders, bumblebees, ladybugs, slugs, squirrels, moss, ferns, tulips, daffodils, crocuses, dandelions, and his favorite -- lavender. He will spot lavender from a mile away and run towards it, full tilt. Okay, a block. He loves the stuff. My mom used to take me on walks as a child and point out the names of flowers (as her father did) and I have always appreciated that.

He can only learn as much as I can teach him and sadly, I am reaching my limit. My list is sort of similar to the one above....I know my flowers, a handful of birds, some plants, and hardly any trees. It's kind of embarrassing. Oak tree, maple tree, cypress tree......uh, big tree, little tree. I'll have to get a guidebook of sorts to help me keep learning as this kid is gaining on me fast. I love it, though. I hope to teach him to hear a bird song and know what it is, to take a hike through the woods and to truly appreciate the company of the trees he is among, and to learn all of the sweet lessons that non-humans have to teach. 

Motherhood: The Great Humbler

Ah, it's Mother's Day. I never considered Mother's Day to be a day for me until one day it happened, and there was Tate, gripping a little box in his three month old hands as a hand over from his papa. It sort of floored me - that I was suddenly a member of this group of women that I had always honored. Since then, it's been one of my favorite days of the year -- maybe after Thanksgiving and the Christmas-Tree-Cut-Down-Day. 

I have pondering Mother's Day all month this year. Reflecting on all of the women in my life who have shaped me and who continue to be enormous, inspirational influences in my life. Today as I was running in a park and wished another woman a Happy Mother's Day, I realized that somewhere along this journey of female-hood, all competition between me and other women melted away and they truly became sisters, teachers to me. I am pretty sure that it was the same time that I became a mother myself, although some of the women in my life that are my teachers are not necessarily mothers themselves. Perhaps this is because motherhood is the great equalizer, the great humbler, and I opened myself up to their lessons. 

It's a time in life when you are so sleep deprived that you are sure it should be illegal for you to share the road and when you find yourself sleeping on a carpet next to a crib, straining to recall the last refrains of Michael Row the Boat Ashore because your toddler is mumbling "more, more." Women go through the weird wonders of pregnancy and the barriers begin to break down as you laugh about how you can't sneeze without peeing your pants and how this-weird-thing-happened-today-and-is-that-okay.  And then when the baby is born, you find yourselves leaning over cups of steaming tea with wide eyes, whispering about chaffed nipples or the time that you lost your patience with your toddler or how terrified you were when your child had a febrile seizure or the horror you faced when you had a miscarriage or the time that you were so overwhelmed with the love of your child that when he took your face in his sweaty little hands and said, "Hi, angel", your heart burst into a million pieces. 

There was a time in my life when I cared if Girl A made a 98 on an English paper when I made a 93. I actually used my elbows against girls when running the 1600 back in high school, and yes -- they were pointy. When you are a child, none of that competition exists -- if they are on the playground and so are you, well then it's a good match. It creeps up when you are in high school, college, and then a bit after. But then when the gravity of things so much bigger than yourself creep onto your lap, you find yourself looking across the table and asking each other for help, for understanding, and for grace. This has been one of the biggest gifts of motherhood to me: genuine sisterhood with other women. 

My mom has taught me that she has such an abundance of love to give me when I open up to her. 

My sister has taught me that when I am in trouble, she is the first person to have my back. And she will call incessantly until I am better. 

My sister-in-law, Erin, has taught me about the strength of being gentle.

My dear Molly has reminded me to stay true to myself, to the Leslie that hung upside down with her on the monkey bars in my backyard for most of my childhood.

My lifelong friend and mentor Lynne has shown me an incredible example of happy individuality, happy motherhood, and a happy marriage. She has been both a rock and a soft place to land on when I'm exhausted. 

My grandmother has shown me strength in her ability to be more vulnerable, more seen, even as she gets older.

My friend Bekah has shown me what courage there is in admitting that you need help when you do, and what freedom and joy comes as a result of that.

My friend Erin has taught me about the joy of providing a wholesome, warm, peaceful environment.

These are just a few that I wanted to share. Tonight, in addition to the wonderful blessing I have in my sweet Tate, I am thankful for these women that have taught me so much about being a woman, about being a mother. 

Everything Shows

On Saturday night, Chad and I watched the wonderful classic Frank Capra film - You Can't Take It with You - and turned it off feeling re-aligned, having had the two life choices about preparing for happiness or simply being happy now  - placed squarely in front of us. We were going to be the ones in the film playing the harmonica when chaos abounds, taking the elevator down from an unsatisfying job and not coming back up. If you haven't seen the movie, do -- it resonates with a struggle that has been going on in America for nearly a century. Plus, I don't think you can have too much Jimmy Stewart in your life.

We turned it off, ready for bed, when amazing footage flashed across the screen. Pristine squares of carefully tended farmland and rows of neat little homes were being ungulfed by silent, calm waters. Like toys in a bathtub, cars and trucks and silos and airplanes swirled in tidal pools. It was so different from watching the destruction of a hurricane, which shakes its fists and curses and kicks the door at you. The tsunami didn't seem to have anything against the land or people. It was simply following the rules of nature, simply doing what water is supposed to do. As we watched this spectacle on live television, we realized that this gently flowing mass of water was taking lives as we watched from our living room. There was silence from the television, but somewhere in that mass of destruction, someone was crying, screaming, gasping. What a helpless feeling to sit and watch from your couch with a bowl of popcorn next to you.

Yesterday on NPR, I listened to a first responder talk about the calmness of the Japanese people during this tragedy. "Is there still mass chaos?" the interviewer asked. "Oh, chaos isn't how I would describe it" the responder replied. "People are orderly, calm, patient, obviously devastated - but following rules and order and being just - well, very patient." I recalled the words of my Georgian mentor in Peace Corps after her own country was torn apart by civil war and the country had shut down its banks, lost its power, its water source, its gas lines -- and mass poverty and hysteria resulted. "In a disaster, everything shows" she said. People who, until that time, had been normal and good citizens - began stealing earrings right out of the ears of women if they looked valuable enough to take, while others began opening their doors to others, even if they had very little to give. Everything that is inside a person comes to light. If you are a hero, it will emerge. If you are selfish, that will come out too.

Then, I remembered Hurricane Katrina. I think that that disaster gave me an opportunity to see both sides of my own soul. I evacuated first to College Station and crawled into bed at my dear friends' home, considering my situation. In the morning, my friend Ginger tapped on the door and said, "Leslie, the levees have breached." I turned on the television and saw those now iconic images of New Orleaneans slogging down Canal Street, belongings on their back, and was aghast. My heart broke at the sight of the Superdome. But as the day wore on and the coverage turned to the looting and violence that was taking place, I am embarrassed to admit that my compassion turned into shame and disgust. I had recently had some incidents in New Orleans that had hardened my heart to some of the people  in New Orleans, and let's be honest - this was the poor, black population. (I had been chased down the street by a crazy woman who had taken her shoes off and was threatening to hit me with them for no apparent reason, I had been harrassed by a masturbating man in his car near my house, and a car of teenagers had thrown stuff at me while running.) And here they were looting. And then here they were, on their rooftops with their misspelled signs. I was sorry for them, but I also felt a sense of justice that the very people who had terrified me, were now terrified. My heart hurts now, remembering the ugliness of my reaction. But, I'd like to be honest. My sense of entitlement reigned supreme.

By the end of the day, it was apparent that my work and schooling at Tulane University would be cancelled indefinitely, so I hatched out three plans for what to do with myself:

1. Go to Colorado and run the Boulder marathon, which I had trained for, then find work and play and just wait it out.
2. Go to the Harvard School of Public Health, who had extended an offer for me to attend, and get a head start on my schooling.
3. Work for Emergency Corps, a branch of Peace Corps that had set up in New Orleans to respond to the disaster. They too had offered me a place within their organization.

I considered each carefully. And I chose option #2. I attended Harvard for one semester of my life and had an incredible experience living in Jamaica Plain, spending my days studying at Harvard and my evenings sipping cappuccinos in the Italian north end. I got a boyfriend, ran the New Hampshire marathon, and just had a jolly good time. Everything shows. I still regret that I did not choose option #3.

When I say that "everything shows" -- I don't mean that because the people in Japan are calm and orderly and the people in New Orleans were hysterical, this means that one population is superior to another and we should cathect one and and despise the other. What is inside -- your internal resources -- are not something you should be praised for having or blamed for not having. Maybe the Japanese patience and order comes from the confidence in their government to take care of them, which the New Orleaneans lost when the  government failed to respond, day after day. And maybe the looting and violence that took in New Orleans was out of a lifetime of desperation of not-having, or maybe it was because that internal voice of what's wrong and what's right had not been sufficiently developed. I'm not going to judge. When we are given the opportunity to view our internal resources, the state of our souls, we can note if we feel that we have an abundance from which we can give to others, or whether we feel a dearth, a need to take from others.

To have the former, I believe, is to have true wealth. And those without it should not be blamed, but provided for with compassion and grace.

Sweet Taters

Tate is two years old today. It is unbelievable to look back at the changes that have happened to him (and to all of us) in the past year. Every day, slowly, slowly, he comes more into the world. On his first birthday, it seemed that he was just "waking up" to all that was around him, and he has been sinking his hands into it ever since. Here are a few of my favorite photos of him over the past year that remind me of the aspects of his character that never seem to change, like his palpable joy, curiosity and affection -- and others that seem to never stop changing, like his belly. Enjoy.

 

 

 

  

Costuming

After a great vegan dinner last night at Blossoming Lotus (how nice of Chad to tolerate my ever-changing dietary experiments), we drove down to Mississippi Studios to hear live music. We walked into the Bar Bar (no, I didn't stutter - that's its name) that serves as its entrance, shut the door behind us, and gasped at the alternative universe that surrounded us. Willowy, pale-faced hipsters slunk around us exhibiting an enormous range of facial hair styles. "Is he wearing fishing lures on his lapel? See there, on his leisure suit?" Scarves, hats and leg warmers abounded. "Did they all walk here?" Chad asked, concerned. (Probably.) Cousin It sat at the bar, quietly drinking her flaming coffee. We wondered if we had unknowingly stumbled into a costume party and decided to pull up a seat.

I dug through my purse for a pen and paper and began scribbling notes. This place was unbelievable. At a nearby table, two guys in identical outfits (red wool beanie, flannel shirt, long beard) sat drinking Pabst, and I held my breath for them to burst out in laughter and turn to me and say "WE FOOLED YOU! Haha, it's really Lumber Jack Day!" But, they didn't. One the two guys, the clearly better looking of the duo, seemed to be at a disadvantage with the ladies. I suspected that they were actually turned off by his handsome face and wondered if they snickered about it in private: "He's nice, but he looks like such a frat guy underneath that beard!! I'm just so not into that." His poor genetic blessing had turned into a curse. And a guy that was truly NOT at disadvantage was sitting behind me, facing Chad. In any other city, he would have been labeled homely. But, here, truly, he was captivating. Coiffed, gelled curly hair. Handle bar mustache. Brown rimmed glasses that were so large, they extended half-way down his cheek. Bright green vest, almost life-vest-like. Chad was entranced by him and his initial laughter melted into admiration. "Wow, mustaches are really making a comeback," he whispered, stroking his goatee thoughtfully. "That green vest is actually pretty cool."

What was so fascinating to me was that it seemed like everyone was in costume and that we didn't get the invite. We were still wearing the costumes from our last party, which was at a decidedly less funky place, but required costumes nonetheless. At Texas A&M, I thought it was a hoot that all of the girls there wore bobby socks, white shoes, silver and leather belts, lots of jewelry, denim, and big hair while I wore tie-dye and Doc Martens, still in Maryland mode. And in Georgia, we laughed that men were ubiquitously in black leather when apparently the American multi-colored look was far superior. Every place has its dress code, its way of delineating tribe members from non-tribe members. And here, in my circa 2004 Banana Republic pants, I am clearly still an outsider. Sometimes being an outsider is a wonderful blessing, an opportunity to look at all of human nature and ask why it is that we behave in these adorable and hysterical ways. Beneath the big bangs and handle bar mustaches, peeking out at me through thick layers of scarves, my eyes met those exactly like mine at that age.Searching, shy, nervous, hopeful, and exhilarated with this life. And it was just so sweet.

Getting Ready to Celebrate

Ah, so much to be excited for in the next few weeks. First, Chad comes home from a long work trip, then it's Tate's best friend's birthday party, then Valentine's Day, and then Taters himself turns TWO. Nuts.

However, before any celebrating can be done, this little turtle needs to get a whole lot better.

He has been fighting a nasty cold for about a week, but it seems to be turning for the worse. It's 11:30 here and he has woken up nearly every hour since 8, hacking and crying and refusing water. It's so sad. Tomorrow we may be paying a trip to the doctor. Send him good healing vibes.