Category Archives: Relationships

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I Have Had Delight….

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“I have had delight…” said the old man, as he was taking his leave.  Before he even finished his sentence, I threw my arms around his waist and embraced him.

This is the tail end of a dream I was having last night.  I was singing, in harmony, with a bunch of friends as we walked, ran, skipped along toward…some place.  We were singing “Chattanooga Choo-Choo”, and the old man was striding alongside, enjoying our spontaneous fun.

Disjointed happy feelings!  This is definitely the result of spending an evening with my Approximate Daughter and her First Mate.  AD has only recently changed her name from The Approximate Chef, her blogging moniker.  Her life has become filled with other pursuits, and so the blog lies dormant (unlike a yeast bread, I doubt it will double in size with the inattention).  I’m not sure what the adjective means when it modifies what kind of  a daughter she is…

I regret not bringing my camera along last night.  My daughter, who is all of 4 feet, 11 inches tall, was wearing patterned stockings, high boots and a mini skirt.  The night before, she had a gig with the punk performance art band she’s in.  She radiates energy and fun and intelligence in a combination that is the absolute antithesis of the depressing Goth style.  I would have taken several pictures of her.  Instead, they are locked in my memory.  Especially one, near the end of the meal, when she was laughing at something Steve said about an idea he has for an avant garde restaurant.  She was positively lit up – pert pixie hairdo and megawatt smile – in a way that reminded me instantly of her toddlerhood.  You know how 2-year-olds laugh with their mouths wide open, their eyes crinkled up, and their tiny bodies just wriggling with delight?  Somehow, my daughter is still an excited toddler.

I would also have taken a picture of the restaurant.   Well, actually, I would have taken a picture of the building across the street from inside the restaurant.  “Graze” is located on the square in Madison, across the street from the capitol dome, which is floodlit at night.  The entire face of the restaurant is glass, modern lines, minimalist decor, and the place was packed with people.  So imagine the ultra-swanky mood lighting inside, silhouettes and sparkles, and outside, the huge monolith of a granite dome bathed in greenish light.   It made me feel like one of the “beautiful people” just being there.

Photo courtesy travelwisconsin.com

And I would have taken a picture of the food.  It was artfully delicious.  Madison is celebrating Restaurant Week where establishments offer a three-course prix fixe menu, and  Graze features food exclusively from local farms, so it was all very elegant and very fresh.  And the cocktails were amazing!  My daughter ordered The Big Small: Small’s gin infused with rosemary, lemon thyme, black pepper and capers.  So fragrant and savory!  Her First Mate ordered The Center of the Universe: Cane & Abe rum, chamomile honey, lemon juice, raspberry liqueur and cinnamon.  Steve had his standard vodka martini, I had my standard gin & tonic.  We had deviled eggs as an appetizer with that, and talked about the nearby Mustard Museum.   I had a beet salad with a delicious vinaigrette, warm blue cheese fondue, and walnuts.   Steve and First Mate had cod cakes with fava beans.  AD had BBQ ribs with a square of mac and cheese…very Wisconsin.  That was the first course.  For the second, Steve & I had the Lamb Pappardelle, FM had the pork schnitzel, and AD had the most delicious tofu dish I have ever tasted.  It was called Crispy Smoked Tofu and was served with caramelized sweet potatoes and cauliflower, roasted red pepper, shiitake mushroom, leeks, wild rice, curry shiitake sauce, peanuts and cilantro.  I would love to find out where or how they get smoked tofu…and then purchase a truckload for myself!  We drank a bottle of Bonny Doon shiraz (a winery I’ve actually been to; it’s about 30 miles from my mom’s house in California) with that course, and then got dessert.  Steve & I had bread pudding with chocolate sauce and vanilla ice cream, and I didn’t even taste the others.  I was absolutely giddy by the end of the meal.  Fine dining puts me into a “happy place” like nothing else…probably because of childhood memories of my father taking us out and being proud and pleased and well fed.  When he was in a good mood, the universe was all in harmony for me.

My father died of Alzheimer’s in March of 2010.  Maybe he’s the old man who said, “I have had delight….”  in my dream.

Me, too, Dad!  Thanks for teaching me how to enjoy food and family.

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Self-Assessment Saturday

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Without a nature center engagement this morning, for the first time in 4 days, I allowed myself to sleep in and have some pillow talk with Steve.  Basically, that amounts to an intimate conversation about where I’ve been emotionally and philosophically while I’ve been active socially.  And now, we’re heading off to Madison to fete my oldest daughter for her birthday.  So, this is it for today’s post.  More anon…..

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27 years ago today – My Greatest Adventure began

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I crossed a threshold.  My life was completely altered, impacted, and enhanced by a single event: I gave birth.  What that has taught me about myself, from biology to personal philosophy, and about the rest of the world by extension, might fill a future book.  Today, I’ll just touch on a few categories.

Biology – I was 21 when I got pregnant, 22 when I gave birth.  I weighed about 105 lbs. starting out and 128 lbs. at delivery.  Baby Sooz weighed 7 lbs. 4 oz.  I had never experienced so much physical change in so short a time, and each new symptom and sign astonished me.   I remember looking at myself in a full length mirror and thinking that I looked like a road map, every vein in bright blue following the landscape of my pregnant body.  Weird!  I read every bit of literature the doctor handed me with utter fascination, and photographs of babies in utero by Lennart Nilsson kept me spellbound for hours.

Family – My mother had given birth just 11 years before me, and that had been the most exciting thing in my life at the time.  I would rush home from school every day to play with the baby.  I read all the baby magazines that came in the weekly diaper service delivery.  At 22, I wanted to be as confident, as devoted, as blissful a mother as I found my own mother to be.   My father helped me pick a name.  I had originally intended to name my first daughter after my sister who had died at 20, but then, the thought of using that name all the time for another person began to seem odd.  Then my father told me that he dreamed about a little girl named Susan, and that name sounded just right with my sister’s name following.  And, of course, she got my husband’s Italian last name to add the exotic touch.  First grandchild on both sides.  Three generations assembled for her baptism.  A whole lot of expectation going on.

Personality – Just after delivery, I was wheeled to the recovery room with the baby in my arms.  The baby.  Susan.  Not my baby, not my daughter, not my family’s latest addition.  Susan.  A person I had just met.  She had a bunch of dark hair on the top of her head.  My husband and I were blonde.  I looked into her completely alert brown eyes and told her, “I love you.”  It was a conscious act of will.  She hadn’t done anything, yet.  I didn’t feel anything, yet.  I was stating my intent for our relationship, for my own benefit.  I don’t think anyone else was paying attention.  I wanted to start things off with a pledge to her, and I wanted to leave room for her to be herself.  I remember being conscious of that position when I spoke to her for the first time.  I love that she has been teaching me about who she is ever since.

As Tenebrous at The Faerie Festival

Education – Showing a young person the world for the first time is an absolute joy – a shared joy, too.  I’ve always loved teaching.  I’ve always loved learning.  To have the opportunity to engage enthusiastically with new experiences day after day is the greatest part of parenting, I think.  Language acquisition, scientific experiment, art, music, dance, games, literature….oh, wow!  The truth is, I was afraid to take her out into the world outside much.  We lived in a rather nasty section of Southern California.  I didn’t feel safe in the neighborhood, so we spent a lot of time indoors, truthfully.  I did take her to my college town a few miles away for outdoor exploration pretty regularly, though.  What I remember is a lot of time together looking at books and that when a friend asked to test her IQ just out of curiosity, her gross motor skill were the only ones that weren’t advanced for her age.  So, she’s not an athlete.  But, man, does she read!

Literature – My father delighted in bringing literature into her life.  When she was able to sound out words of three letters just before her third birthday, he wrote her little stories containing only words of three letters or less.   He sent her cassette tapes of family readings of Dr. Seuss books and various musical selections.  We visited the children’s library every week and took home as much as we could carry.  Very early, it was Richard Scarry for vocabulary, Peter Spier for detailed illustrations to talk about, A.A. Milne for poetry and stories.  Later, I remember going through all of Dr. Seuss and Bill Peet and Chris Van Allsburg and Steven Kellogg and Robert McCloskey because it was quicker to just find their stuff all at once and check out…this was when I had younger kids in tow.  Then the day I knew would come finally did.  She surpassed me.  Her reading speed and voracity and curiosity outstripped mine.  She read Stephen King’s It at the age of 9.  I hadn’t read it, and I didn’t want to read it.  She was on her own.  (Not that she didn’t do that earlier; she probably did.  But this was the one I remembered.)

Psychology – This section would require her approval and collaboration.  Suffice it to say that we have learned a lot together about who we are, who others are, and how to be in relationship.  We have always “gotten along”, though, and shared a remarkable honesty.  As adults, we really enjoy each other’s company and we genuinely like each other.  We stimulate each other in all sorts of ways…like sharing a history that enables us to reference entire concepts and discussions with one or two words.

I think that our first conversation was prophetic:

“I love you.”

*brown eyes alert, gazing back, positive*

Stay tuned for Sunday’s blog, where I’ll probably write about how we celebrated her birthday in Madison the night before….

one of those arm's-length self-portraits she took of us on our road trip to Massachusetts

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Happy Chinese New Year, Happy Magic Flute, Happy Ethiopian restaurant

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I just got back from my visit to Chicago to see my youngest child, take her to the Lyric Opera, eat dinner and sleep over.  Had a grand time, and stashed my camera in my purse so that I could share the event on this post.  So, here are the characters:

Scillagrace, actually wearing make-up and a new scarf from the Fair Trade store

 

...and Mema, who is always too fabulous for words

 

And here is the Lyric Opera House in Chicago….

Grand staircase with gold banisters and red carpet

Iconic fire-proof curtain screen

Theatrical gold chandeliers

Patrons people-watching over the balcony

The matinee performance of Die Zauberflote (imagine 2 dots over that ‘o’) attracts a younger audience and satisfies the anticipation of spectacle by including plenty of flashy pyro effects, disappearances through the trap door, animal costumes, flying and gliding set pieces with people on them, and all that good fun.  The hyper-vengeful Queen of the Night was a tad disappointing.  Her famous raging aria was not always on pitch (actually sharp on a high D!) or facile in the fast passages.  She’s a younger singer, not as seasoned.  Pamina was exquisite, however, showing superb control in her dolce pianissimo.  Mema felt the chills!  And Papageno was an expert clown as well as a spot-on baritone who had the audience eating out of his hand.  Bravi tutti!  On to dinner…

A little Ethiopian restaurant with only 8 people in it besides us.  I’ve never eaten authentic Ethiopian food before.  It is served without utensils.  You break off pieces of the spongy, sour flat bread (injera) and grab the spiced food with that.  I ordered a lamb stew; Mema had a vegetarian platter which took up half the table!  Five different spiced vegetable dishes on one huge round of injera: squash, green beans, mushrooms, chick peas, and salad.

The injera is sort of like a damp rag...but tastier

Delicious, and new!  Toddled off to Mema’s apartment to get into comfy clothes, cuddle the cat, watch a video of my late husband (her dad) singing a recital, have a few drinks and a good, cathartic cry before going to bed in the king-sized cushy bed that used to be mine….

I love my daughter, as a person as well as a family member.  I love that we can talk honestly about everything, share on the deepest level, feel genuine affection for each other, and play together!

One thing I noted, however; nighttime in the city is noisy!   The elevated train rumbles by, rattling the brick building; the floors sag and creak when anyone walks through the apartment; the cat purrs loudly next to my ear.   So, now that I am back home, I’m going to take a nap!  Toodles….

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Existential Sunday

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I mentioned yesterday that I was moody.  I come around periodically to a place of existential crisis, and I’ve come to believe it’s good for me.  When I was raising children and nursing a sick husband, I rarely got this privilege.  I always had someone to pour my heart and soul into and frequently felt that my existence was thoroughly used up on a daily basis.  Trouble is, this way of living was often an unexamined habit that I could go through sleep-walking.  I kept my head down and convinced myself that everything I was doing was noble and important.  It may have been, or it may not have been.  I wasn’t really paying attention that closely.

Living with Steve is different.  It’s challenging.  He doesn’t want me to pour my heart and soul into caring for him.  He wants me to fly on my own.  I blink, open-mouthed.  Fly?  On my own?  What the heck does that look like?  He redirects my attention from outside of me to inside…all the time…and I keep imagining an empty room.  What if I don’t have any inner life?

So I sit with that.  Emptiness isn’t a judgment.  It can be the beginning of openness.

I went poking around on the internet, looking for an answer (from outside, again…old habits die hard) to “what is important in life”.  I actually found something kinda cool:  this community project.  An abandoned building in New Orleans is covered with chalkboard paint and stenciled with the prompt “Before I die, I want to ___”.  Chalk is provided.  People approach.  Existential assessment goes on, and the sentence is answered.  I imagine myself standing there…clouds gather, rain falls, people pass, children grow up…and I’m still scratching my head.

I thought of re-phrasing the question, changing “What is important in life?”  to “What are two things you cannot live without?”  They’re not exactly interchangeable, I discovered.  I also discovered a great irony: I lost the two things I thought I couldn’t live without, and I’m still living.  So, either they weren’t that important, or I’m not really living.  Or I didn’t answer that truthfully.  I thought I could not live without my husband.  I thought I could not live without my Christian faith.  I was wrong.

Okay, dammit, what IS important in life?  What about the obvious answer…’life’?  As in, “Before I die, I want to Live.”  I want to live, be alive, be awake, be aware, spend myself, give my love, explore my autonomy, visit that inner room and see what’s there.  But not in an ego-driven way.  In an open way. The Western way prompts me, “Yes, but what will that look like when it’s all finished?” as if there’s a finish.  It wants a goal, a check list with little boxes to tick, just to keep track so that it can say, “Good…I’ve done it!”  That’s ego talk.  The Eastern way says, “Forget the goal, the check list.  You don’t need to keep track; keep open.  Engage with life and have a relationship.”

That’s where I’ve gotten to so far today.  How about you?  What is important in your life?

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Bridal Wave of Memories

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On this day 28 years ago, I was married to my high school sweetheart in my parents’ church in northern California.  I was 21 years old.  Jim was 23.  I wore the veil that my mother and grandmother wore on their wedding days.  I wore the hoop petticoat that my mother wore in 1955 under her similarly long-sleeved and high-colored wedding gown.  I also wore the wedding present Jim had given me a year before: a beautiful cameo pin that he had purchased on the Ponte Vecchio in Firenze.  My dress had been made by a local seamstress using pattern ideas, material and trim that my mother and I had picked out.  My mother and I selected the caterer, the photographer, and the florist together.  My mother secured the musicians: a flute player she knew to play in the church with our organist, and a jazz trio to play at the reception.  My parents issued the Banns of Marriage in the bulletin of the mass the week before my wedding, inviting everyone in the parish to attend.  The reception was held in the Parish Hall behind the church.

My bridesmaids included my two older sisters and two friends.  Jim’s groomsmen included his half-brother, my brother, and two friends.  We selected other friends to participate in reading the Scriptures.  Since we knew so many semi-professional singers personally, we decided not to have any soloists.  Instead, we included congregation hymns that we could all sing together.  The whole affair was pretty simple, but elegant, and definitely traditional.  I did not have a manicure or pedicure, I did my own hair and make-up, we did not have a DJ or MC or dancing.  I did throw my bouquet, but I gave my garter to my husband…to keep.  We did have lots of champagne and loaded the unopened bottles into the station wagon (nothing like a limo) when we took off afterwards for our honeymoon, driving back down to Southern California where I would continue the second semester of my senior year at college.

My grandmother was appalled that Jim and I arranged to meet each other the morning of our wedding day to drive out to a county arboretum and spend some time together.  She kept insisting that it was bad luck for the bride to see her future husband before joining him at the altar on her wedding day.  She also kept asking if someone was going to sing “I Love You Truly” at the service.  These were not the traditions that we were interested in honoring, though.  We were not about superstition or sentimentalism, or so we thought.  We wanted to be sacramental and sincere.  I suppose there are slippery slopes and fine lines involved in those distinctions.  What I do remember thinking about is how to conceptualize a lifetime together.  I figured that might be 50 years or more.  I could barely conceptualize the two decades I had actually experienced.  I realized that it had to come down to faith.  I couldn’t imagine or predict what our marriage would be like.  I could only promise  to live it moment by moment as lovingly as I could “until we are parted by death”.  I did that to the best of my ability, I believe.  That parting occurred almost four years ago, now.

January is often a month of looking into the future, making uncertain plans, vowing to try to live in particular ways.  “Pointing your canoe”, as we like to put it.  Don’t let it frighten you.  Paddling is slow work, with plenty of time to correct, re-align, look around, and get inspired.  You can even drift for a while, if you like, without causing harm.  Forgiveness can arise.  Consequences will arise as well.  There’s no need to cast blame.  Look lovingly on the scene, on yourself, on your partner, on the world.  I enjoy marking the milestones, and I’m finding I even enjoy moving on.

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A New Year – 2012

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I really enjoy my No TV New Year’s celebrations.  My late husband was a habitual TV user.  He grew up that way, so New Year’s Eve with him always included some televised ball drop with interviews and pop music.  My parents stored the TV in the den closet and brought it out on for certain occasions like National Geographic specials and episodes of Masterpiece Theater and Monty Python.  Steve and I don’t even own a TV, so once more I am back on my original footing.  What do we do instead?  I’m so glad you asked.

Yesterday afternoon, after some homemade lentil soup, we snuggled up in bed with the laptop on the breakfast tray to watch another installment of the DVD we borrowed from the library: Simon Schama’s “The Power of Art”.  The featured artist this time was JMW Turner.  Epic skies, light, emotion, chaos, romanticism.  The photography in the film paralleled the visual of the oil paintings quite effectively.  It was a scenic feast.  The sun was setting while we watched and cast its last rays across the bed as it ended.  We discussed the experience for a while, and then I excused myself to nod off for a nap.  My brain was over-stimulated, I think, and I needed to close my eyes to let the images settle.

I awoke about an hour later.  I was thinking about a book on photography that my son had been browsing on Christmas.  I went downstairs to find it and fix drinks and appetizers.  Steve joined me and brought a book on Turner that he had found in his stack.  So we nibbled brie and Gorgonzola on crackers and sipped vodka martinis while looking at pictures and discussing art.  The attempt to point to something beyond ourselves, to depict holistically the experience of living in body, mind and soul…how do we do that?  Reality isn’t all realistic…impressionism, expressionism & romanticism try to get at something more, something beyond, some movement and change that is hidden but implied.  As we talked, the salmon fillet was baking and the brown rice simmering.  We moved on to dinner and talked about memories.  I was recalling the last heart surgery my late husband had and how I tried to manage my anxiety as I looked out the window in the atrium of the cardiac wing.   Consciousness and fear, peace and presence.  What is reality, anyway?  I drained my glass of the last drops of Chardonnay and cleared the dishes.  We then settled on the couch with James Joyce’s Dubliners to read our favorite story, “The Dead”.  I first read this aloud to Steve our first Christmas together.  We had gone to a bed & breakfast place in Whitewater, Wisconsin called The Hamilton House.  We had “The Pisarro” room in this 1861 mansion, and I read to him from the satin-covered four poster that night.  I remembered enjoying a chance to use my theatrical British accent and reveling in the details of the text that reminded me of my family’s Christmas celebrations.  I had absorbed the atmosphere and the dialogue, but didn’t really catch the arc of the piece that first time.  I had been curiously surprised to find Steve in tears as I finished.  So, last night, I paid particular attention to the end of the story, the widening of scope in the main character’s vision.  The story is brilliantly crafted.  “His soul swooned slowly as he heard the snow falling faintly through the universe and faintly falling, like the descent of their last end, upon all the living and the dead.”  I read the final line and looked up to see Steve wiping his eyes.  He spoke a while about the expansive feeling of love that story illustrates for him.

Subdued but happy, I rose to check the time.  It was already NYC midnight, so I brought out the bottle of champagne and the fruitcake my eldest sister had sent.   Now, I know what you’re thinking.  “You had me up to the fruitcake!”  But listen, this recipe has been in my family for as long as I can remember.  It’s Julia Child’s version, I think.  It’s dark and rich with fruit and nuts and brandy and rum.  I topped our slices off with a little hard sauce, too.  (You know, brandy and sugar and butter…like frosting.)  Forget your prejudices and work with me, people!  So we ate fruitcake, sipped champagne and talked about our year together.  I moved in with him last January 10; he’d been living alone almost his entire adult life.  We had my daughter’s cat for the first 8 months of the year.  We took a 4 week road trip to the West Coast in April.  We entertained family and friends for dinner and “sleep overs”.  We have changed, danced, been with each other in all of our facets and moods.  It’s been a beautiful year.  The digital clock on the stove shone out 12:00 and we kissed.  We finally put on some music to accompany the new year.  Steve selected the movie soundtrack from “2001: A Space Odyssey”. We skipped the Richard Strauss and listened to the atonal and dissonant Ligeti pieces and then the Blue Danube waltz.  Mysterious, elegant, spacious.  Our world is huge.  I don’t like to imagine it being shut up in a box on TV.  I am looking forward to sampling it all year in different ways, through all of my senses.

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New Year’s Eve

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The social tradition in this country is to spend New Year’s Eve with the person who is most important to you, someone with whom you’d like to spend your future.  That first kiss of the New Year is supposed to impart good fortune for the year to come.  For many Americans, then, it’s off to parties to drink up and link up in an attempt to avoid the curse of loneliness for the rest of your life.

Yeah, well, I’ve never seen it quite like that.  You see, New Year’s Eve is also my mother’s birthday.  We always spent it at home, having a family celebration.  When I got married and moved out, my new nuclear family did the same thing.  We dressed up in prom gowns and tuxes (and sometimes like pirates) and danced in the living room, sipping champagne and listening to the weirdest music we had.  Kisses were passed between husbands and wives and fathers and daughters and mothers and sons and sometimes siblings.  Our future was with the family; our past was with the family.  The two were intertwined, and we liked it that way.  We watched the ball drop in NYC some years, and sometimes we just let the kids run outdoors with big spoons and pots and pans and make all the noise they liked at midnight.  One year, we were visiting Jim’s best friend’s family, and the kids had a silly string fight in the middle of the street that afternoon.  They made a huge mess.   Which makes me wonder: who cleans up the confetti after New Year’s Eve in NYC?  How much gets recycled?

New Year's Eve 1992 or 1993?

Who do I want to be next year?  My future is rooted in my past and lived in the present.  I will always live with my family legacy coursing through my veins, pulsating in my brain.  I am my father & mother’s daughter, Jim’s lover, my kids’ mother, and that will stay with me year after year.  I am also Steve’s partner, a writer, a budding naturalist.  I hope to become a home economist & ecologist.  I want to keep on practicing awareness, appreciation, attitude and action.  Ultimately, the person with whom I will spend my future is…myself.  At the stroke of midnight, I’ll look myself in the eye and say, “You and me, kid!  It’s gonna be a great year!”  Hopefully, I won’t feel cross-eyed and alone when I do.  And I promise I’ll clean up after myself.

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Nerd Love

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Last night, we watched the 1955 Academy Award winner for Best Picture, “Marty”, starring Ernest Borgnine.  The year this movie was released was the same year my parents graduated from college and got married.  My mother could have played the heroine, a gentle, intelligent young woman with a narrow Celtic jaw and a fabulously stylish but thrifty wardrobe.  Except she was just 20 when she got married, and Clara in the movie is a dangerously spinster-approaching 29.  Marty is “the stocky fellow”, an Italian butcher and a bachelor at 34.  My dad was “that cute boy on crutches” who was a little soft around the middle due to a bum knee that kept him from vigorous exercise.  The social game of the day in New York City was to go to The Stardust Ballroom, a dance hall “loaded with tomatoes”.  Marty and Clara are the kind who get turned down for dances.  He owns up to the fact that they are “dogs”, but awkwardly, tenderly, they begin to treat each other like real human beings.  They speak honestly together while Marty’s Italian family covers up true emotions with white lies and secrets and his buddies pretend machismo.  The two of them create a little oasis of sanity in the desert of social confusion.  And it’s charming, really.

Happy nerds on opera night

All of us who grew up believing “that love was meant for beauty queens and high school girls with clear skin smiles who married young and then retired” (Tara Mclean) might find a champion in Marty, who recognizes a chance for happiness in being himself, like Motel in “Fiddler on the Roof” who asserts that “even a poor tailor is entitled to some happiness”.   Why does our society put so much pressure and competition into the process of discerning your identity and living authentically?  I suppose that our economy runs on producing that neurosis.  “You couldn’t possibly find love or happiness without our product!”  Maybe there’s a lurking sense that civilization is actually advanced by feeding that neurosis in order to produce those marvelous, gorgeous, socially admirable types.   God forbid that the misfits should breed.  And so, the universal theme emerges: misfits and nerds are humans, too, and we all belong in that category, really.  The “in crowd” and the “out crowd” are fantasies.  We are ‘the crowd’, that’s all.

The Italian mothers in Marty’s neighborhood keep up this refrain: “You oughta be ashamed of yourself.  34 years old…when are you gonna get married!”  Shame.  God, what a horrible thing to put on someone.  I am a mother, I oughta know.  I used it enough.  Now I feel like shouting out, “Never mind what I said before!  Be happy!!”   Aren’t we all entitled to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness  as long as we aren’t harming anyone?  Ah, yes, it can get complicated.  The pursuit of my happiness might impinge on the pursuit of your happiness.  It happens.  I can’t be a happy Italian mamma unless all my sons are married to Italian women and producing grandchildren that I can feed.  Maybe happiness has to be a responsibility that doesn’t require someone else’s participation.  Can I be a happy Italian mamma all by myself, cooking for myself, caring for myself, doing things I enjoy, entering into relationships by mutual agreement, not by obligation?  Marty’s aunt keeps saying, “I’m 56 years old, a widow.  This is the worst time of life.  I’ve got no one to cook for, to clean for…”  Marty’s girl suggests that she take up some “hobbies” and the old women stare at her as if she’s just shot a hole in her own forehead.  God forbid I should take responsibility for my own happiness!  No, make that “God require that I should take responsibility for my own happiness”.

Be happy, people!  Live happy, love happy.

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How About Love?

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My December countdown was completed yesterday.  I did not have a chance to post about the gift of love because I was living it.  My four children plus two “significant otters” came over for feasting and gifting and sleeping over.  All six of them ended up on the living room floor under mountains of sleeping bags and pillows and blankets, just like they used to when they were kids in a cousins pile.  Except now, they’re all adults — beautiful, interesting, caring, amazing adults who actually like each other.  And me.  How did I get to be so blessed?  This morning, I repaid them all for years of running in and jumping on my king-sized bed full of eager energy at an early hour on Christmas.  I dived onto their sleeping bags one at a time and gave them a great big hug and kiss.

We have lived through a lot together.  And we have lived through a lot separately.  Their lives matter to me in a way that I can barely describe.  Steve keeps challenging me to come up with ways to articulate what this is.  He has no children, and philosophically wonders why family is esteemed so highly.  “Oxytocin,” my daughter replied one day.  That explains one level of it, I suppose.  My biology has loaded me with hormones that make me love my kids.  My religion loaded me with beliefs that urged me to love my kids.  My experience of life has loaded me with the joys of loving my kids.  And my kids are just plain lovable.  I can agree with the reasoning behind his argument that all people are equally valuable, but I just can’t help feeling that my kids are more valuable…to me.  Yes, I’m playing favorites shamelessly without really understanding why.  Is it possible that evolution favors fiercely loving families?  Do they tend to be larger and survive better?   This might have negative effects on the planet in terms of population.  Would it be better for the world if we were less filial and more agape in our love?  Less sentimental and more altruistic?

Table fellowship

I don’t think that I am going to do justice to the topic of love in a scholarly way when I am full of mince pie, chocolate, and happy memories of the hours I just spent.  I am starting to sink into that melancholy that bubbles up when all of the guests have gone home and you ask yourself if you can be truly happy without that rush of energy and affection.  Of course, I am happy and even more peaceful living without all my children still under my roof.   I am in love with the world, in love with my partner, and in love with my children every day.  And it is marvelous.