Almost 12. Already.

at the end of 11 years old.

At the end of 11 years old part two.

Next week, well, to be precise, in just a few days, my daughter turns 12. I am, as I always am around this time of year, a puddle of feelings. Friday is, unbelievably, the 10th anniversary of my father’s death– a loss that seems very long ago and still fresh and not quite believable to me.

Last year, right after my daughter turned 11, I wrote that 11 was going to be a big year. And I was right, it has been a big year in outward ways that signal bigger kinds of changes too. My daughter grew tall and filled out. She is now taller than D, her former babysitter and our close friend. She is tall as or taller than my partner, taller than most other girls in her class. For this particular daughter– as a girl in an urban setting with her own particular interests and strengths and struggles and understandings of the world, 11 has held many milestones besides height. She is different and consequently I have shifted and am still shifting and adjusting my expectations and my understanding of who my daughter is. Not as a person really, but as a person in the developmental scheme of things.

Over this past year she became not only willing but sometimes anxious to run out of the car while I double parked to pick up something from the store, the dry cleaners, carry out food, etc. Last summer she and her friend made lemonade and baked cookies and collected a small TV table and some folding chairs as well as her working toy cash register– and went out on one of the most oppressively hot days of the year and set up a lemonde stand/ mini-bakery. Without my partner or me. She and a particular friend of hers have loved going the two blocks to play, without an adult in tow, at the toddler park that she practically grew up in. We have some rules related to safety and she carries a cell phone, but she plays in that park on her own. That fact represents for me the two threads of where we are right now. Young enough to want to play in that park, old enough to go without me.

This past set of changes are bittersweet and thrilling and unknown. Watching her change before my eyes is touching and deep and then raises all kinds of question marks about my own future and identity. For now, I’m very much a mom, but it is very different from before. I’m a little off balance in a way similar to but so different from the off-balance of having a new baby in the family.

As a mom I think strategically. But it’s no longer about those infancy questions about how I’ll get a shower or feed myself, or the toddler questions about how I will get some time to myself but quite the opposite. I see certain struggles of hers and I figure, I now only have about xx years (still figuring out how many) to really get in there with her and have some influence. But now she and I and she and my partner share jokes, confidences. And now, 12 nipping at our heels.

The other night, she grew sullen and upset about something between us. I had some real attention and I sat her down and said, warmly, openly– tell me, tell me about all the disappointments (in me– and related to what we were talking about)– “I want to hear all of it”, I said. And I meant it. She had a kind of loosely knit set of things, and she talked to me for real and I listened. She has been a child who always wanted me very near, who complained if I wasn’t near enough. But the other night among her complaints she said, “…and I want more priveleges, like going home after school alone…”

She had never walked to or from school without an adult, nor ever wanted to do so– but she suddenly felt constrained and injured by the lack of this. So yesterday she walked home from school with her friends and spent an hour and a half alone with two other 11 year old girls, before the first adult walked through the door. And today she rode a city bus across town with her friend to go to the friend’s house before her mom came home from work. Ready or not she’ll be 12 on Monday. And I cannot imagine, and I can– whatever will come next.

The gym, the f-word and the mama

For me as a mother, besides fighting against racism and sexism, besides homework, besides working with her school on issues large and small, besides cleaning and keeping food in the house–there is my own body.  I know a number of mothers who go to yoga and zumba classes and my sister gets up at a ridiculous hour to go to boot camp.  I do none of it so far.  I do know for many of us women/ mothers– there is a real battle to even get keeping our physical selves in good shape– onto the to-do list.  What I’m trying to say is women’s health is a feminist issue and I am slowly coming to realize that this is an important frontier in my busy, all-female household.

Over the Passover holiday I asked my sister, who was part of the out-of-town Pesach team, to go with me to the gym– where I’d gone exactly once since I started my job in February 2012.  My sister has been very into exercise in the past year or two.  She goes to boot camp and doesn’t do her thing at a gym– she doesn’t even like gyms, but for me, she obliged.  We made several trips to the gym.  That routine fell off the map after she left but will be back on again starting this weekend when I meet with my new trainer.  I am trying to bring some semblance of regular exercise, strength and flexibility back into my life.  I want to be in better shape, I really want to be stronger and much more flexible and I want to model being a woman who does this and who enjoys it– for my daughter and the other young girls in my life.  I want to take better care of my own female body.  For me.

So the other day, I called the male general manager of my gym to clear up something about a few personal training sessions that I bought but haven’t used.  He was very nice, much nicer than the last general manager I had dealt with at that gym.

After we got clarity about personal training sessions I said, ”By the way, I’m a woman, I’ve been a gym member for two years now and I really want some of your regular groups and classes centered on people over 45– for strength and stretching and cardio.  I don’t need to be only with people in their 40s and 50s and 60s– but I’m tired of being the only one over 45 in a sea of 20′s and 30′s.”  He still sounded interested and courteous and he said ,  ”There’s a class on Tuesdays and Fridays at 9:30 a.m. called, ‘Aging with Elegance’”.  We were on the phone so he didn’t see me wince and roll my eyes.  I think I also actually snorted a little.

In his defense, he sounded like he knew this wasn’t really going to fly when the sentence started out of his mouth but he didn’t have anything else.  I decided I would set aside sarcasm and try to educate him.  He seemed attentive and earnest and was being nice to me.  He had only just begun to seem to me the littlest bit condescending but maybe he didn’t make up the name of the ’Aging with Elegance’ class.

I said, “Look–I am sort of out of shape, and I could use to shed some weight but I want to give you a picture of where I am in terms of my physical activity level.”  I wasn’t defensive– what do I have to defend?   I said– “I have an 11- year-old daughter and she weighs about 110 and I play-wrestle her often.”  I went on.  ”Also, I live on the fourth floor of a walk-up with no elevator (really the 3rd floor, but we park and enter in the basement)– therefore, I carry ridiculous amounts of groceries and laundry; I carry small and not-so-small pieces of furniture of all kinds; cases of seltzer water, potting soil and other things up and down three flights of stairs about every day.  But I’m not a 28-year-old who pumps iron four days a week or runs marathons.”  With that I heard him wince a little and felt him listen with renewed respect.

I paused so he could digest all this.  I closed with, “And one other thing is this.  I work a very full-time job for our legislature and I am definitely not ever available at 9:30 a.m. on weekday mornings.”  I could tell he was embarrassed by the class he had offered and he said he’d think about it and talk to some of their early morning teachers.  He meant he would try to figure out something that might  work for laundry-grocery-trash-hauling-wrestling- moms like me.  Obviously I don’t know where this will go– so we’ll see.  In the meantime I’m heading off to see Trish, my new trainer, on Saturday.  She just had a baby I hear, so she will either be a little on the stiff, sore, exhausted side herself– or she’ll be a remarkable female specimen capable of having a baby and returning to spinning class that same afternoon.  Either way, I hope we’ll like each other and once in a while I’ll write about my progress on this– another feminist project.

laura writes comes home again

As it turns out you can’t work full-time, parent a school-aged daughter, keep in touch  (what really feels like occasional, too-infrequent, keeping in touch these days)  with friends and family and a college-going nephew nearby and put on a Passover Seder for 19 people in your respectably sized, but not-so-big apartment, followed by a very small and short and sweet visit and Seder with your daughter’s sister and her mom– and still write about any of it.  Or about anything, for that matter.  As it turns out you can’t even start writing about the Seders or the other things happening for weeks– you’re too tired.  Or too something.

I did do all that, those two Seders and more.  Then somehow I just fell off the planet– well not literally and not even figuratively, but some part of  me just disappeared.  Most of all I woke up nights and early mornings, worrying that I was inadvertently breaking up with my blog.  You, my little blog, are actually a piece of lifeline for me.  But whew, here I am.  Back.

As I tend to do, I start with lists–my lists are like the sherbet I’ve heard is served between courses in a multi-course meal– which, I am told, having never had such a meal, clear the palate to taste the next course fresh, clear of other tastes.  My list clears my mind.  Allows me to focus on one or two things.  I make lists on my iPhone and I still keep at all times a huge pile of unlined, white 4′”x6″ index cards around for all kinds of lists and big notes to myself.  So here is my mind-clearing list.  It covers only a fraction of where I went while away from the blogging planet.

1.  There is a still-unwritten post about racism, the kind very subtly aimed at my daughter and the kind she noticed and about which she said for the first time (of a teacher in her life) “I think he’s kind of racist, and A. (her friend at school) said she thought that too.”  I’d thought it about this teacher but not said anything much about it to her and I’ve talked about it a lot– the racism she encounters–some with her and some with my partner and trusted family and friends.  But this time she said it.

2.  As follow-up to that, I could publish the letter I wrote to school– not to the offending teacher, but to a counselor and an assistant principal both of whom I trust.  I wrote after careful thought–and long delay.  The letter doesn’t say race or racist– because I wanted them to be able to hear something.  So I talked about class and culture– the noisier kids vs. the meticulous rule-followers.  It may have been a mistake to not say racism directly; I will have to live and learn, but it seems to me that these days if you say “racist” white people think you are calling them Klan members.  We white people feel so crummy about ourselves and so crummy about racism and get so defensive about being kind of racist as we are (well not kind of).  I got an amazing short response from the (Latina) counselor– saying it was a wise letter and that she read it very, very carefully and we should talk more.

3.  There is a lot going on in my local legislative work world in the governance of the school system in my city that has me riled up and ready to write.

4.  I had a visit with a very special and really one of my two (or maybe three) only– remaining high school friends.  It was wonderful to see my friend– she was great then and is great now.  I am feeling age– time passing.  I said to her when we said good-bye–we can’t wait 20 years this time–we will be officially old women by then.

5.  There was a visit with my older daughter, former foster daughter, younger friend/family (don’t know what to call her) and F’s husband and two-year-old son, both of whom we all three really adore in addition to our love for F.– all those relations quite something and worthy of a nice blog post itself.  F. says I am permitted to tell one of my versions of our story.

6.  And I did get to go with daughter and partner to an Atlantic Ocean beach for four days of my daughter’s spring break after missing all that last year because of the budget season in my legislative world.  But we went and rented a decent sized one-room place, right out on the ocean and we loved it even though it was raining and was parka-weather cold much of the time.  I woke up in the middle of each night at some point, stumbled to the front window and listened to and looked at the vast ocean just about 100 yards or a bit more away.  Then back to sleep.  Ocean is ocean and not at work is not at work and all packed into one room is very, very good, even if you don’t get to write on your blog.

Happy International Women’s Day 2013

My mom and me.

My Mom and my sister, J.

Today is International Women’s Day.  You may be weary of this kind of caveat, but this will be a short post, not nearly all I want to write.  By way of explanation, I worked through the night Wednesday, until 5:30 a.m. Thursday morning, preparing to staff two hearings at work yesterday.  I was focused and effective yesterday and I pulled off a job despite having severely misjudged what it was going to take to prepare… but I did not go to work today–Friday. (I sometimes have Fridays “off” as the lingo goes when a working mother stays home and works at home rather than at her paid job.)

But.  I could not let the day pass without honoring International Women’s Day and reminding you to do so too.  So, here are a few thoughts for this auspicious day.  My first awareness and celebration of International Women’s Day was March 8– I believe when I was 19.  I was a student in Madison, Wisconsin at the time and I think it was about 18 degrees that day.  I remember the cold and the brilliant sunshine of that day, vividly.  In honor of International Women’s day, there was a day of workshops and talks and hands on activities at the Wilmar Neighborhood Center in Madison.  I remember many things about that day, but the thing I remember most was the sense of joy and energy and invigoration of being a young woman, celebrating International Women’s Day with many other young women.  My mind opened further that day.

This morning I drove my partner to work and remembered what day it was, just as she was getting out of the car and I wished her a happy International Women’s Day.  She paused and sat back down and said how lucky she felt that she had married someone (me, and no we are not married, but that is another story) who was a strong feminist.  She said she couldn’t imagine her life if her partner had not been a strong feminist as she is and as I am.  It was a wonderful, brief but deep talk and then she went on her way and I went on mine.

Then I called my old friend– a friend who was my housemate for many years in Madison.  We were friends and we were sisters together in feminism, and in figuring out many things for ourselves as young women.  She went with me that cold day to that International Women’s Day celebration when we were 19.  She didn’t remember the event at all, but was so glad I called.  We had a long-ish talk about her having made the decision to care for her mother at the end of her mother’s life which she did, intensively, for about 7 or 8 years and about the job of mothering.  We talked about what an honor it is to take excellent care of someone.  This fact is made complex by sexism and by the de facto requirement of sexism, worldwide, that women be caregivers without fully getting to choose and without pay and generally under impossible conditions.  Having this conversation with a beloved woman friend was also a good way to honor the day.

One of the important things I do every year for International Women’s day is simply this.  I remember that it is International Women’s day and I talk about it.  So.  Let this be a reminder to us, to take ourselves and our sisters and our daughters and our mothers and our women friends seriously.  Let us fight for justice and not ignore the injustices of our own lives, nor those of other women– in our neighborhoods, of our own race or other races, in our own country or far from us– let us see and let us fight for justice.  And let us enjoy our lives as women right now.

That’s it for now.  Except for one more thing.  I’d like you, today if you read this today, or tomorrow or a week from now, to do this, in honor of International Women’s day.  Remind someone that today is/ was International Women’s day and then spend a few minutes and each take a turn and have the other listen.  In each turn each of you should tell the other the names of five women in your current life and five women you don’t know (total of ten) you admire.  And why.  That’s it, just do that.  For me.  For you.  For all women.

Here today, just today at this moment, with my tired, fuzzy mind, here is my list.  It is not exhaustive (though I am exhausted).  It is not in any order.  These are not the women I admire more than others, it’s just my list for today.

A few Women I know and love and admire:

1.  My mother, R.

2.  My sister, J.

3.  My daughter, N.

4.  My partner, M.

5.  My friend and former teacher, Evi Beck

6.  My friend and family, Urvashi Vaid

7.  My friend and family A.S. in Wisconsin and L.C. and her daughters in California.   (I cheated and did seven-plus, you can also if you like)

From the famous and not known personally or no longer with us category:

8.  Adrienne Rich

9.  Audre Lorde

10.  Dolores Huerta

11. Hillary Clinton

12.  My beloved and so many others’ beloved, Grace Paley

13.  Courageous female union leaders: Mary Kay Henry, Randi Weingarten and Karen Lewis

14.  Senator Tammy Baldwin

15.  From the Torah, Ruth and Naomi– for sticking together

That’s my list and that’s it for today.  Make your list out loud with at least one other person and be sure to appreciate yourself  (if you are a woman) and be sure to appreciate many, many women in your life.   Happy International Women’s day.

Sisters. part one.

Two sets of sisters.  Me and mine, my daughter and hers.   This post is her (daughter) and hers (her sister).  Another to follow about me and my sister.

We went on a very cold, kind of dreary day, to another city, about an hour away to see my daughter’s sister.  Two weeks ago tomorrow this was.   Sister and her mom (a single mommy) life about three hours away, but the grandmother of my daughter’s sister, a grandmother called by the Yiddish name, like my mother is called– Bubbe lives in the city an hour away and we agreed to meet there.

We were all nervous and filled with different emotions, but at the same time we all– my daughter included, I think– felt a little bit like old hands at this.  We’ve known her brother and his two moms for almost four whole years now.   It’s an interesting set of things you become expert at if you have a family by adoption.  The occasion was no less profound, no less heart-stopping, no less scary or beautiful or amazing by virtue of our experience.  But it wasn’t quite brand-new unknown, mouth-hanging- open, tremblingly new.  It was a familiar kind of heart-stopping if that makes any sense.  On the way in the car, there was some kind of fighting and upset about what time we left, when we should have left, whose fault it was but I cannot remember it now.  Happily it passed.

What have I said, not said?  This sister of hers is a sister.  She is Jewish, like my daughter.  She is Latina, brown skinned, dark eyed and gorgeous– like my daughter.  They look– not exactly alike, but like family, like sisters.  We got a little twisted around heading to the specific meeting place and called the mom several times on the cell phone.  She was warm and reassuring and we relaxed a little bit.  We drove to the supermarket parking lot where we agreed to meet.  When we finally got out of the car and spotted them and began to walk toward them, younger sister was holding her mom’s hand tightly and jumping.  Jumping up and down.  Jumping.  My daughter was suddenly the 11 year old who was thrilled, and touched, but doesn’t jump up and down.  She chuckled.  She laughed (not at, but in pleasure) and gathered her small gifts in hand and sprinted ahead of me.  And they met.

I am not going to tell the whole story of the day, but it was a good day.  A good day.  Not good, like in, “have a good day.”  But good like in the Torah, good like in biblical references.  ”And then G-d did such and such.  And it was it was good. ” I loved the mom again, as I had when we met almost exactly two months earlier.  I loved the Bubbe and they both loved my big girl, which is always a big hit with me.  And N. and her little sister, they bonded.  They did things together, they hung out, they talked though I don’t know exactly about what.  There were wonderful things that happened and normal things, like the tuna fish salad and green salad and challah dinner that was delicious and familiar and that we ate at Bubbe’s table all together.

But one of my favorite moments was this.  A moment that made me laugh inside and out because there is something about the spirit, the temperament of these two girls that is so similar– down to the expression of it.

N’s younger sister had just gotten– and the girls decided to watch– her new Curious George DVD.  My daughter who will watch a lot of DVD recordings of tv shows almost anytime she is given the chance, has grown a little old for Curious George.  But sister, at age 8 is not too old for it.  They watched episode after episode after episode.  I worked at the dining room table drafting clues then walked throughout the apartment and building–  to create a scavenger hunt for them, that would take them out into the halls, the elevator, the lobby of the apartment building.  I wanted them away from the tv, in league with one another, whispering, conspiring, laughing, moving around.  My daughter, who can take a lot of tv, was about spent, but patient– wanting to be with her sister.

Finally, at the end of one episode, I intervened.  ”How about you both pause it now and do the scavenger hunt?  Then you can watch the rest of the episodes later.”  Without missing a beat sister said brightly, “the pause button is broken, we can’t stop it!”  and that was that– she plopped herself down and my daughter gave me a look like “what’s an older sister to do?” sighed and in her generous, good-natured way, sat down to watch the rest of the Curious George dvd.  Then later, eventually, the scavenger hunt ensued.  They ran around, flushed, laughing, with the modern day twist of hiding but calling on a cell phone, and had a great time.  That was their/ our beginning.  I look forward to more of the spirit, the warmth, the stubborn singleminded- ness and humor of this new girl in our lives and to seeing the two girls and their brother too– grow and play and and scheme and laugh and occasionally cry, together.

Reassurance

It has been an extraordinary few weeks in ways happy, joyful, excruciatingly sad and also mundane.  Two weeks ago yesterday was the sudden and unbelievably speedy death of a long-time acquaintance, a good, good woman who I always liked in a deep way, and who in much more recent years became the partner of a closer friend.  G’s death– rocked my partner’s and my world into stunned heartbreak.  Last week was the second half of a week of Shiva  (the observance of a week-long period of mourning), and saying Kaddish (the Jewish prayer of mourning), for the woman who died and of rolling up our sleeves and doing things that were needed– particularly for L, the surviving partner.  My partner and I were both profoundly saddened and scared by this death– and turned both inward and outward– in our sadness.  We stayed especially close to each other and to others too.

There are many things I am not good at, but one thing I am good at is knowing who is the clearest thinker in a given situation and knowing how to follow the lead of someone who is doing the right thing.  My working class partner is amazing at knowing how to roll up her sleeves and do the work that needs to be done.  She does this often and without fanfare or expectation of thanks (something that she can and often does overdo, to her own detriment) but I always follow her lead when she is doing the hard work and the hard work is the right thing to be doing.  So we sat Shiva and then visited with people and then we did dishes, packed up food, rearranged the refridgerator, the furniture, carried out trash and recycling and went home.  There is nothing quite like doing dishes and cleaning someone else’s kitchen in the face of a death– and I mean this, without the slightest bit of irony.

On the more happy side of the ledger–one night I brought my daughter with me to Shiva.  She was understandably a little afraid to be there with all these grieving adults, but she did something at the Shiva for my friend, the surviving partner of our lost friend– that touched me so deeply and made me smile, I kvelled inside and a little bit outwardly too– my big-hearted, big girl/little girl.

We are also excited and hopeful as we are planning for a visit, coming this weekend– at which my daughter and we will meet, for the first time, her younger sister.  One day last week was her sister’s birthday.  It was bedtime when I told my daughter that it was her sister’s birthday and she disappeared into her room.  After a while she returned– with a pristine stuffed panda, a gorgeous jeweled, sequined little box with a ring in it, and several other objects– and she said, “I need a box.”

So we wrapped them all up and packed them all up and sent them off to her as yet unmet sister.  Sister’s mom called me the other night either in tears or nearly in tears– I could not tell.  She said, “your daughter has a heart of gold.  It was like opening a box full of love.”  What could be more reassuring for a mom (this mom, me), than to hear another woman talk about her daughter that way?  She is right, and nothing, really, nothing could be more reassuring.

And finally, my daughter had an unusually busy weekend with a Friday afternoon middle school dance, a Friday overnight at our synagogue and a day full of activities at the synagogue on Saturday, a sleepover with a friend of hers at our home when she returned Saturday night and then off to Girl Scouts for several hours on Sunday, so I barely saw her.

I miss her when she is gone and I am slowly getting my mind around the idea of returning to doing certain things I love and enjoy that have not so much been part of my child-raising years.  My partner and I both had busy weekends and not mostly together.  But we made it a priority to take a long, late afternoon walk together on the closed-on-weekends road in our wonderful, large city park.  On our walk we came across this, the kind thought, the imagination of some other thoughtful walker, a message to us and all others passing by– which made me so happy– the finder of a lost red fleece glove stopping to send us all this word of reassurance.

Peace sign, red fleece glove on sapling, February 10, 2013.

Poetry and Hope, for many reasons

There is quite a lot of inauguration buzz around me these recent days.  For me, the thing that stands out about this election and this inauguration is that in some major way we won.  An important win.  The racism of Mitt Romney’s and others of the Republican campaigns was so virulent, so wide open, so vast, so carefully calibrated to pull at people’s fears and confusions.  But it didn’t win.  We won.  

Two friends have pointed me to this recently.  One, a beautiful, tireless and hopeful activist, a close friend–posted this quote on her own website as she works, and I do mean works, at caring for herself and keeping life in order as she goes through treatment for cancer.  The second, another beautiful woman, a Jewish woman, just sent it to me this morning.

 It’s Adrienne Rich, but no one has yet been able to identify for me what poem this is from.  If you know where it came from please send the poem’s title and/or the title of the book it is from as a comment or email me privately if you prefer.  

On Monday at the inaugural ceremony we will hear from Richard Blanco– a Latino gay man who will read a poem of his own creation and mind.  I don’t know him or his poetry, nor do I know whether I will love the poem or not.  But I will love that there will be poetry there.  And with Obama’s inauguration and inaugural poetry, more hope and more poetry to come.

What would it mean to live
in a city whose people were changing
each other’s despair into hope? 
You yourself must change it. 
what would it feel like to know
your country was changing? 
You yourself must change it. 
Though your life felt arduous
new and unmapped and strange
what would it mean to stand on the first
page of the end of despair?

Adrienne Rich 1983