I’m feeling that right now is a ‘now or never‘ point in my life…I know, I know, it’s old news and it’s been said and before, but…things that I really think I want to be different I need to make different OR I need to  accept.  Sort of like put-up or shut-up as it’s said.  I’m not getting any younger, there is no way to add time to my meter.  There are MANY things that I would do differently if I could do them over, and MANY things I would not do at all, if I could go ahead and just, well, un-do them…but that is not how life works.  That is not how any of this works.  There is no pink pearl eraser for our actions.  There is no eraser to get rid of what you want to change.  Remember that joy, as a kid, when you got a fresh new rectangular pink eraser, with Pink Pearl printed on it, for the new school year?  Any mistake you made you could just erase away, blow off the paper, sharpen your pencil, and begin again.  It was so easy to un-do what you changed your mind about or got wrong!  To be clear, I am very well aware that I can begin again anytime, and I can write this til my fingers are numb, I can think this til my thinker is sore, and I can shout this from the rooftops til I have a frog in my throat, and still never change a single thing, but that’s my choice too, to act on the thoughts or not.  We all have the choice to act in a way that brings us closer to peace, to erase and start over, or not.

If anything is itching at your soul and making you feel that you are not at peace, if any words are bouncing around in between your ears and making you feel that you are not at peace,  if you’ve let people into your life and they’re making you feel that you are not at peace,  isn’t now as good a time as any to erase these feelings of unease and move towards the comfort of a peaceful life?  What are you waiting for?  Do you think you’ve got time to keep waiting?  The facts of your life up to now are the facts of your life up to now and they don’t change.  How we perceive them, and how we go about working with, or against them, is what makes life tolerable, horrible, or enjoyable.   Your story is what it is.  Whether or not you accept the consequences or the results of these facts of your life is one way to measure the quality of your life, if that’s something you want to do.  There is no pause, no stop, there’s no rewind button or backspace tab, there is no option to Ctrl/Alt/Delete in life.  We can only go on, forward, move ahead, from here.  Wherever ‘here’ is for you at this moment…we can’t go back to any point before right now, no matter how much you or I might wish that to be true…‘everything would be peaceful if only’…well, that isn’t an option…YOU ARE HERE.  STARTING NOW.  On your Marks, GET SET, GO.  We can’t grab a fresh pink pearl and erase, smudge free, the mistakes, or undo the did and begin again…only in science fiction stories can we change what is done, what has happened thus far is the truth of our story.  Wish all you want to the contrary, that’s the truth.  Not my truth, THE truth.  There is no pink pearl to undo what is finished.  We can only go from here.  It’s simple, and sounds simple but some  fight it, some dwell on the “what ifs,” I know I sometimes do which serves no purpose whatsoever.  Some “rue the day” over lots and lots of days, but it’s all for naught…now is from where we start.  Each and every one of us has no other option to begin again than this moment right here.

You can certainly claim, or state with an authoritative level of certainty that something is true, and if it IS in fact true, nothing else matters.  BUT if you are claiming something as true, but it’s really your interpretation of an event or situation then it’s not THE truth.  It might be your truth, or it might be perceived as ‘something that is true’ by other people, but argue with me all you like, it is not the truth, it is your perception…the point I am so inelegantly trying to make is that we all have and live with our own truths and points of view, the consequences of our choices, the splendid luck, or in some cases the extreme misfortune of belonging to the families we grew from, BUT we also all live on this planet together where we have to juggle and move through the tangles of the truths and untruths of all our combined stories.  We have to figure out the best way to tackle the day in a way that makes us feel happy, satisfied, joyful, complete…peaceful…whatever words you want to insert here are applicable, but there is no erase if we decide later that THIS is not what we wanted to do, or to have happen, but we’d rather it have been THAT…we have only here and now to begin another beginning.  Say what you will about all this “starting over nonsense” but I personally think it’s awesome!  ANY minute can be the minute that we start over.  Any day we wake up could be the day that we change A, or B, and maybe C, or perhaps AB&C in one swoop.  It doesn’t matter, it only matters that it’s our choice to act and to live and all we have is now, THIS life, this moment, this time in our bodies on this planet, and no pink pearl eraser can undo any of what is already done, we now just go on from wherever we are, however far we might be from where we wanted to be, planned to be, or hoped and wished and worked so hard for…none of it matters, it’s all just here and all just now and peace is right in front of us for the taking.

I fully admit and acknowledge that I’ve made some terrible choices and I don’t shy away in embarrassment over some of the dreadful decisions I’ve made.  I have said some dreadful things and I have done some terrible things, and I am fully flawed.  I suspect that anybody who claims they haven’t is either lying to me or lying to themselves, but that’s not the point of this story.  I believe that when I seek peace, either in my thoughts, through my words, or evidenced by my behavior, I am creating a life that is as free as possible from discord.  I also believe that despite how uneasy you may feel, how distressful your truth might be, seeking peace will bring you closer to where you want to be.  You know those folks who always seem annoyed, or have continual drama, or are easily provoked to anger?  I think they are constantly focusing on their irritants instead of their joys.  I repeatedly see with my own eyes and hear with my own ears examples of this truth, that when we focus on what is disagreeable we drift further from harmony.

I spent Saturday afternoon with a group of 11 women; some I know better than others, one I did not know at all, and all of us playing different roles despite our closeness in age. Some of them have been in love with the same person for decades and some of them are still looking for the one to make their heart sing.  Some of us had wallets that were bursting and some of us had wallets that were empty.  Some of them have lost so much and some of them have lost so little.  So many similarities among a dozen women, and yet so many differences…twelve individual women with twelve different truths and twelve unique paths to peace.  All of us, despite our efforts and our choices, have a few things we would like to do better…next week, or next month, or maybe next year.  No matter how good life is or how difficult, every one of us could make some modifications.  I’m excited to think that even though there’s no pink pearl big enough for all the things some of us wish we could erase, there is a new line to call your starting line, ANYwhere you want it to be, and ANY day you want it to be, for all of us.  Sure there can be next year, next week, later, or ‘not now, I’m not ready,’ OR there can be OKAY now!  meaning? you guessed it, now is as good a time as any and it’s all any of us have.  I don’t have many answers to the questions of how to make your life more peaceful or pleasant but my suggestion for you, and for me too, is to simply  sharpen our pencils, and begin again.

I have lived my adult life thus far as a relatively healthy person.  I don’t take any daily medication, I have neither a disease nor any ailment for which I regularly see a doctor.  I generally get a cold every other year at most,  and I’ve never been “sickly” and rarely feel unwell.  It was curious and interesting to me last winter, shortly after I turned 48, that my body began to behave in a way that was not “right.”  Things that were normal and natural and easy to deal with were becoming wonky and annoying and not at all manageable.   After a few doctor appointments, ultrasounds, a biopsy, my first MRI, and two blood tests,  I learned in September that there was in fact something of a mutiny going on inside of me, things were most definitely not right, and I was going to have surgery shortly after my 49th birthday.

So the morning after my daughter arrived home from her blissful two weeks in Bora Bora for her honeymoon, and my two weeks of Super-Nana duty and child care was over, my boyfriend drove me to the hospital to have an adventure.  My surgery turned out to have some unexpected complications and I will tell you that my boyfriend’s face was one of love and relief when I finally awoke.  I had a magic button attached to my wrist, and my nurse told me to hit it every time I woke up, and that sleep was the best remedy for healing, so I spent my first 14 hours after surgery in a drug induced haze.   My surgeon was very sorry for the complications and my discomfort but I felt I was getting very good care, and I was grateful.  My first week home was more uncomfortable and stressful than I had anticipated but it was manageable.  Today is day 15 and I feel more “me” than I had anticipated in such a short time.  Before my operation I had read some dreadful accounts from other women of their own experiences on a forum I found on the internet, so I knew some women have pretty horrible recoveries, and I feel like mine is going quite well.  While I still have occasional intense stabs of pain across the bottom of my abdomen from this 11 inch gash across my body that looks something like a magician’s ‘cutting a lady in two’ trick gone awry, I feel better than I expected to.  I was able to slowly walk upstairs yesterday to do my online banking and here I am today, upstairs, doing one of the things I love best, typing.

Relaxing, or doing nothing,  is not something I do particularly well, however last Monday afternoon, at day six, when my first batch of staples were removed I assured the surgeon that I was doing nothing more strenuous than walking down my hallway.  On Monday at day 13, when the last of the steri-strips were removed I assured the surgeon that I was doing nothing more strenuous than walking the children to and from the bus stop.  I am allowed to drive starting Monday next, and the Monday after that I can resume “regular physical activity but lift nothing heavy until I see you after Christmas.”  So the doctor and I  made a “deal” that I will follow his orders, and I take this job of mending and healing very seriously.

So I am waiting to be back to “normal”  but this experience has changed me in a way that I was not expecting.  There is not a normal anymore.  My connection to the phases of the moon is now gone and my interconnectedness to the universe, something uniquely special to the female body, is gone.  It’s a strange feeling.  I feel like what was normal before is perhaps not what I want to be normal now.  Did I have an anesthesia induced epiphany on the operating table as the giant alien-like mass of ick,  that 31 years ago grew and housed my perfect daughter, was removed from my body?  Maybe.

I am waiting to be fully healed and know that I want to be a person who cares more about her wellness now, both of my body and of my mind, than I used to.  Some of you might laugh and think, “DUH? who doesn’t?!”  BUT, I really never put much effort into wellness.  I just joked that I have a family full of good genes and winged it, but I feel pretty strongly now that I need to navigate my future differently, make better choices with what I do to, and put into, my body.  Am I going to give up drinking, no, but I am not going to drink as much. Am I never going to eat devil’s food cake or a TastyKake lemon pie again, no, but I am going to have sugar more sparingly than ever before.  Am I going to give up steak or never have tacos al pastor again, of course not, and I won’t say that I will never again buy a Wawa soft pretzel when I buy my coffee, but I am determined to make this next half of my life one where I care a whole lot more about this vessel where my spirit lives than I cared before.

I am waiting to be able to sit up, lie down, roll over, or stand up without “feeling it” and that’s okay.  I am waiting to be able to button and zipper a pair of jeans, although living in yoga pants and long cotton skirts these last two weeks has been very cozy.  I am waiting to be able to lean down and kiss and squeeze my granddaughters without being so careful of my middle.  I am waiting to sleep close to my boyfriend and not flinch every time I move from my back to my side, and to sleep on my belly again will be a joy.  I am waiting to be better but more importantly I am waiting to be better than I was before, and there is always room for that.

There are several reasons I voted on Tuesday, two of them live next door to me.  There are several reasons that I felt sad on Wednesday, two of them live next door to me.  I am angry, I won’t write scared, but I am in many ways, angry though in more, that my young granddaughters may very well suffer, and suffer mightily, by our country’s future policies towards equality, women’s reproductive rights, and environmental protection, now that we have a president elect who chose a backwards thinking gay conversion therapy promoting and seemingly homophobic vice-president, has said in interviews and in the debates that he is not pro-choice and does not want to support planned parenthood and will put a conservative judge who is also not pro-choice on our Supreme Court to possibly reverse a 44 year long right to choose, and who seems to think that climate change and global warming are some sort of smoke and mirrors trick played on us by liberal scientists and environmental protections of our water and our air are part of some sort of tree-hugging agenda.  I believe that these policy changes which may be implemented by this new administration coming at us this winter will be taking us tumbling 40 years backwards over the next four years!!!  It was not anger and sadness on Wednesday that the side I voted for did not win, as much as that the candidate who did win, has said nothing in all six debates that I watched, that spoke to me, that resonated with my soul, that sounded remotely to my ears like anything that mattered to me about the future of this country where we live and in which these little girls will grow up to be women…I don’t care so much for ME anymore, but I care a lot for THEM!

So my heart has been heavy. News and social media stories filled with so much negativity, division, anger, and hate, that I can’t really stand how it has made me feel.  Ill and stressed actually are the first two feelings that come to mind.  This being said, I feel like there is too much negativity in my life right now and through no fault of my own…so I am taking a few steps back from social media and am going to focus on all that I CAN CONTROL.  Raising good humans into beautiful good people is something I can control.  I am helping my daughter raise her children; every day I am the one who gets them on the bus, and many times a week I am the one who gets them off the bus, I am involved and invested and interested in their lives, and the conversations we have about what matters, to me and to them, what life is like for them now and could be for them later, are the important conversations that are going to help shape the kind of women they grow up to be.  This is my power, this is my voice, they are our future.

It’s my wish and more significantly I suppose, my obligation, to help raise them into women who choose inclusion and equal rights for all, over exclusion and inequality, to believe it matters how we treat our neighbors, both in our community and between our oceans, to think it matters very much how we tend to the planet we live on and how not to waste natural resources that won’t magically reappear when more are demanded, to understand that judging those who are less fortunate, or less financially stable, or let’s be blunt, less lucky, is not showing human kindness or compassion, and teaching them that the words “and justice for all” does not mean for only the wealthy and the privileged.  These conversations are important for the betterment of us ALL.  These girls are the future and the way they are raised could likely make a difference someday in the future of our country.   YOU may not care what the future of America looks like, but I suspect your children or your grandchildren will ultimately care very much.

So to say that there is much that is not going “right” in my world right now is true, BUT,  there is much going on in my life right now that is in fact fabulous.  I can love life at the moment or loathe it, the choice is mine, just three letters make all the difference.  I have decided that the only way to handle how I am feeling over these last couple days is to zoom in on what matters most to me, my role in the lives of these two little growing girls, and just marvel at the marvelous.  Focus on what is right instead of what isn’t, and you will find, as I did, a much clearer picture of the world and your role in it.  By this I mean that you can dwell in all that is shitty and mediocre or scary and bad, or you can dwell in the wonderful of every little amazing bit of every minute of your day.

Thanksgiving will be here soon and feeling grateful for anything, feels good.  Start there.  Being THANKFUL for anything that makes your heart sing, feels good.  We can be grateful with whatever good we have, however small it might sometimes feel, or we can be grumbling and annoyed with whatever is not good, however big it might feel.  This is something of a social experiment, a dare perhaps.  I dare you, in fact, I double-dog-dare you, to dwell for just today in every little amazing bit of your day.  I think if I can help generate some peace in this time of unease, I am doing what I can.  Guess what?  Despite what you might think, I am willing to bet that when you get into bed tonight, you will have an overall feeling of peace as your head hits the pillow.  Loving, loathing, gratefulness, or grumbling…we control what we think, and peace on earth starts right between our own two ears.

So…it is here and now, the first day of the last year of my forties.  I have never been a person who cares much about her age, or the age of anybody in general, but today, this morning, I am thinking about time; time I have left, time I have wasted, time I have treasured, time I wish I could do over, time I regret…Remember how much Hook hates the sound of Tick-Tock Tick-Tock Tick-Tock??  The warning that the crocodile is near?  I feel a little bit like that today; life is happening, time is flying, and I am thinking about the reality that I am in fact more than half-way through my life, and what am I going to do about it, if anything??  The answer is probably nothing different.  My father has always used an expression that ‘you have to be ready to go‘ and I really do strive to live “pure-of-heart” in that way; no need for confession, cleansing, forgiveness…trying to do right all the time so that I never have to apologize or feel bad that I’ve acted wrongly.  Kind of strange to live like I am always ready to die, but I think it makes for an easier way to be a human on this planet.

I am alone here in my loft this morning, thinking and writing.  My boyfriend is still in Connecticut after performing two shows last night with his band,  my daughter is on her honeymoon in Bora Bora and still has more than a week of paradise adventuring to go, and so I am currently playing my 14 day starring role as both Momma and Nana, in addition to all the other parts I play, to my granddaughters, and here I sit, contemplating….nothing in particular is on my mind, I’m not feeling rueful or melancholy, just reflecting I guess, in a quiet recognition that this is the first day of the last year of my forties, and wondering if it matters at all?  Is it any different from any other birthday or year?   Tim Burton says that “every story has a beginning, a middle, and an end. Not necessarily in that order” and I like how that makes me feel…like it matters not that maybe I started in the middle instead of the beginning, or that I had an end long ago and am working backwards to something new and different…there are women my age with children in elementary school, my grandchildren both have friends who have moms who are my exact age, so their beginning, middle, and ends have been vastly different from mine.  When many of my friends were seeing the world and having parties and dating and being “wild” if you will, there I was keeping house, working full time, going to college full time, and raising a human…so my now, my desires for the life I want to experience “now,” could be more in keeping with the experiences that my friends had twenty or thirty years ago…so there is no defined end, middle, or beginning to any story…we all have our own unique narrative and I suppose all of us might have done things at one time or another that were very much out of the order of the norm…and that’s okay with me, I like being on the less crowded side of the mean anyway…

I could write that I have a bucket list, but that isn’t true.  I have wanderlust for sure, and I’ve traveled so little, that just about any place I get to go that is new to me excites me, but I’ve not got one of those detailed lists some people make, that might include jumping out of an airplane, running a half-marathon, or walking on burning coals.  That sort of Type-A thrill-seeking adrenaline rush ‘wish list’ is not my thing, or at least I never felt that it was.   I honestly got more delight than I think I ever could have imagined, driving to Buffalo with my boyfriend last month, and getting diverted with the gps onto long, winding, and hilly country roads, and seeing one fabulous red worn down barn after another, and the wondrous changing colors of the leaves on the trees.   I honestly felt more joy and pure happiness, than I think I ever could have imagined, helping my daughter with the decorations and details of her dream wedding and watching her get married to a man who treats her like a queen.  There are actually many things in my life that are “more than I think I could have ever imagined”  so I guess more than anything this morning I am feeling lucky.  I think that if we all just took a little more time, and made a little more effort to “notice,” there really are so many of those joys and gratitude inducers that are more than we thought we ever could imagine, in every single day.

My little business is truly little, and I am not “successful” by most anybody’s standards, including my own frankly, and while I earn enough for me to live, I don’t earn any to save, or to create the life I always imagined I would be living at this age.  But…worrying too much about what I will do for a job as I grow older, where will I live when I have to sell my house because the property taxes are just not affordable, how will I pay for anything if I can’t work,  just makes me sad and very stressed, and I don’t like to feel sad, and I certainly don’t like to feel stressed, so I try not to think of any of those things, and strive to do that whole ‘living in the now‘ business and being thankful for whatever fills my soul and my presence in the present.  When I really think about life and living, and only about myself, not comparing myself to my neighbors or my family or my friends, all of whom are far more successful than I by society’s standards, I notice that I have more love and more laughter and more beauty in my days than I probably deserve, yet, here I am, getting it, day after day.  Sure there are some presents I might like, but honestly nothing I need, and frankly, when you live in a really small house like I do, you find that ‘more stuff’ which you accumulate, and don’t actually use or need, is just clutter, and there is no “gift” in that…Honestly, this morning I got to thinking that despite my longings for travel, and wishing for some things to be different than they are, my reality is such that if I had to name right now what is missing from my life, or what things I would wish for when I blow out my candles tonight,  the answer is nothing…and I don’t know that a person could ask for more of a birthday present than that…to need nothing…that’s a gift in itself…

I once read a quote that said something like, “be the kind of man you would want your daughter to date.”  It’s pretty powerful isn’t it?  For some men, the way they have treated their girlfriends or their wives, well, they would never want that for their daughters, would they?  It’s a good guide, for keeping one’s behavior in check, if you would not want a man to do this to your daughter, then don’t do it to your partner…that thing called karma, that’s real.  I have a new son-in-law, since about 4 o’clock last Sunday, and while he does not have a daughter, he has shown me, time and time again, that he is the kind of man he would want his daughter to date if he had one.   He does however have two sons, and by the way he treats my daughter, now his wife, he is showing these growing boys how a good woman should be treated, and how to become the kind of man anyone could wish for their daughter, all I could have ever dreamed for mine…

It’s not just the ten days at The Four Seasons in Maui seven months after their first blind date, a brilliant matching set up by my sister and brother-in-law I might add, nor is it the enormous addition he built on their home, practically as big as my whole house I might add, of a master bedroom and spa like bath-suite and family room, and it’s not that he took them to Disney World last year, and it’s not just the stunningly shiny and perfectly flawless diamond he surprised her with in front of the  fountain at the Bellagio in Las Vegas last October, surprised all of us I might add, as he’d only told his sons that he was going to propose, and it’s not the new Yukon he bought them to have a “family” vehicle that all six of them could comfortably ride in, it’s not the giant pool and park like setting he created in their backyard, and it’s not the dream wedding they just created together, and it’s not the two weeks in Bora Bora that they will start enjoying as their honeymoon begins next week…no, it’s not one of these things, nor any of these things I might add, that have “value” or cost money, in fact, it’s none of the above…   No, it’s the way he looked at her, that moment he first saw her last Sunday afternoon…my lovely daughter in her exquisite ivory lace wedding gown, with her veil shimmering in the afternoon sun, and the light breeze gently swaying it across her bare shoulders…he looked at her in a way that any parent would want for their daughter…and it melted me.  It made me feel like the luckiest woman on this earth, to know, to feel it in my bones, that this man loves my daughter this way…It made me love him very much more than I already did, and not for any of the things he has bought her, or for how much better, easier, and more fun her life has grown since he’s been part of it…all of that makes her life good; I loved him more for the way he looked at her, with a fondness that perhaps can’t be defined, and an appreciation, an honor even, to share his life with her…all of that which makes her life even more beautiful than it already was…

I am the daughter of a great man, and I am the daughter of a great romance.  My father still looks at my mother like he thinks he’s the luckiest man in the world.  That my daughter now has a man in her life like this, so much like my father in a number of ways, fills my heart to overflowing.  When I was a little girl I often looked upon my parents in such awe and wonder…I would see the way my father looked at my mother, or laugh when he said, as he still does, “she’s the best wife I ever had” and I would think, “that’s the relationship to wish for.”   To wish for a partner that good & deeply loving, to be on your side in life and love, in work and home, is a big wish…and now to think that my granddaughters will have those feelings too, as they continue to evolve and grow, and watch their mother in this new role as new wife, well it makes me cry the happiest of tears…

Sure, there will be some evenings that my son-in-law will wish that my daughter was cooking their dinner instead of organizing her shoe closet or grading papers, or some afternoons that my daughter would rather him be home vacuuming with her than out racing his dirt bike with his friends, and certainly sometime one or the other of them will be annoyed that the other did not go food shopping…real, real, life happens…I’m not so naive to think they will be so fond of each other all the time, for all of their days.  Surely that expression “well, the honeymoon is over” must have come from somebody who became unexpectedly well aware that the wedding ‘high’ eventually ends, and real, real, life restarts …that my granddaughters will watch him some night, at the dinner table perhaps, looking at their mother the way my father looks still at my mother…and maybe he’ll tease her, or joke around and laugh with her, or poke her in the ribs or kiss her on the forehead and they’ll laugh together with some private grin, and those little girls will see that they can want this for themselves someday…real love based in friendship, filled with respect and admiration and appreciation…this man, this new son-in-law of mine, has brought into my life two boys and a big boy dog, but more than anything, he has brought into my life something I only dreamed of for my daughter and her daughters, and my thanks and my gratitude to him, for that,  is too big for words…

I often call her The Little Blonde Wonder, and she is. We walk to the bus stop together every day after her mother has left for work and before I do, and sometimes we chat, and sometimes we look for bugs, (her nickname since she’s been quite small has been “Bug”) sometimes we talk about our dreams or the book we read at bedtime the night before, and sometimes we just walk in silence, knowing that we simply are together.  Although she reaches up to kiss me as soon as the bus comes around the corner, she still turns and smiles at me the moment before she steps on, and I love that she takes those extra two seconds to wave and to catch my eye.

When told that the violin was one of the hardest instruments to learn, she wondered “why” and later explained that she found it hard to believe, since she learned all the notes on her first lesson, and by her second lesson could play Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.  She does most of her math homework in her head and seems annoyed when she is told that she has to “show the work.”  She can look at just about anything and draw it, and has an imagination that is so full of creativity that I often wonder how I ever lived without her in my life.  She is witty in a way that is way beyond her years, and often beyond the comprehension of most kids her age.  She says hilarious things all the time and uses sarcasm with such skill and timing that you’d think she is surely something of an ‘old soul.’  There is something about her heart that is pure gold,  much like her ringlets, which are slowly growing out of her growing head, as the baby blonde gives way to darker “big-girl” hair.   She is the baby of my baby and today she is 9.

I was staying in North Carolina the week she was born, helping my daughter with her toddler and preparing for the birth of the new baby.  I loved that I was self-employed and had the freedom to spend a month to help with this baby as I did with the first, two years before.  I stayed overnight in the hospital room the night she was born, her father went home to be with her sister, and I didn’t want my daughter to be alone, or have to get up and tend to a day old baby, and I fell asleep in the chair with her in my arms, and woke up startled, positively terrified that I could have dropped her.  You forget, quickly, how tiny new babies are, even the big ones!  She sucked her thumb with her pointer finger resting on her nose, just like her mother did, and she was, just like her sister, a very easy baby.  When she was about a week old, my daughter and I were remarking about how her skin always looked so tan.  The pediatrician told us to hold a piece of computer paper up to her face, and we did, and she was not tan at all but yellow, gold actually, and we wondered how we did not know anything about jaundice!  We were relieved when we were instructed to follow specific directions and she would not have to be hospitalized, and follow them we did, and she whitened up!

I struggled at first, on the eve of her birth, wondering if I would have enough love inside of me to love two children and if would I understand how to do it…having only had my daughter, and not being overly fond of children in general, I was sort of scared…did I love her big sister so much that I would not have enough to love her too???…It might sound silly to read, and seems silly to me these nine years later, but the fear was real those days in October, awaiting her arrival on this earth.  The first morning after her first night home from the hospital, I was on the sofa, giving her her early morning feeding, and her sister sleepily walked out into the living room, sat beside me on my right side, and as I had the infant in my left arm and the toddler at my right hip, I became overwhelmed with the understanding that ‘yes!’  I had enough love inside of me to go around!!!  It felt so big, for these humans so small…

She sends me random text messages that say things like, “I just can’t stop reading tonight” or “Nana I am just loving this book” and usually sends me a photo of the cover.  I often wonder if she simply knows that I am fond of smart kids who read, or if she really is fully forming a great love of books and reading like her sister and I have, and just wants to share her joy.  She loves words and from the time she could reach the shelf, her favorite book in my house has been my red dictionary from college.  Even before she could read, she would get it from the shelf and sit with it on the sofa and then open it, pointing, and asking me what words were.  I never tire of her company, even when I am really tired.  Much like her sister, she really is one of my favorite humans and I choose time with her, with them really, over time with most other people.  Truth be told, when their mother is on her honeymoon next week, for 14 days, and I am on full momma/nana duty for those 14 days, it’s certainly possible I will become agitated or irritable or short-tempered, but I don’t expect to.  I really do find each of them to be joyful company.

This little blonde wonder walks to my house every morning after her mother leaves for work.  Sometimes I sit up here in my office in the loft and she sits at the desk beside me and plays Nancy Drew, or Insurance Agent, or some other activity she’s made up, creative imaginary things where she uses that brilliant little brain of hers playing make-believe.  I asked her a few weeks ago what she would like to do for her birthday, and she said, “well, I’d like to go to a museum.”  You know how you can like some people but not really want to be around them?  Well she is not one of those.  I find her charming and engaging and fun to be with.  I call her The Little Blonde Wonder, and she mostly makes me wonder how I got to be so lucky…

When I was in college and participated in debates; while not ON the debate team and not part OF a debate club, I always got an A grade when I wrote a debate, even when I had to argue a point I disagreed with, and I never, not once ever, said the words “believe me” during the minutes I was speaking.  One, because I learned, perhaps in middle school, that when you are making a case for a position, or making a point, or stressing a topic’s worthiness or uselessness, the facts that you are using to argue your point, or that you believe will state your case and stress your position, must speak for themselves.  And two, because the words ‘believe me,’ are generally understood to be included when a person is lying, trying to appear to know more than he or she actually knows, or is so self-absorbed and of the know-it-all mind-set, that they say the words ‘believe me’ to simply put the emphasis on the me…ego stroking oneself.  I learned that  the term “believe me” is more like a phrase one would hear from the snake oil salesman, rolling into town when so many are sick or down on their luck, in his brilliantly adorned wagon, with over the top decor and thick velvet draperies with tassels of the finest ribbon…oh…well, wait…

You see, I was taught in junior high, high school, AND college, that if one uses a term like “believe me” during an initial position statement or rebuttal, I most certainly would not receive a grade of A, and if I was ignorant enough to use that term more than once in my presentation and did not use  facts, statistics, scholarly journals, court cases, registered documents, published research, or books, I would perhaps get an F.  A big fat F.  Kind of like a big fat bubble, ready to burst, kind of like a big fat loser sitting in bed wasting his days as a computer hacker trying to get into the emails of the DNC.  That kind of big.

All I know for sure is that what I watched last night was so painfully juvenile in its delivery that any thinking person, any informed person, any person with even basic levels of knowledge of the world in which we live and how it works, whether in all its many failures or all its many successes, would be positively mad to think that this person last night on television performed well, or let me go out on a limb here and write, even acceptably, considering the “prize.”  This is not an effort to get an A in debate class.  This is an effort to demonstrate to the undecided voters of our country that this choice is what they want and the other choice is what they don’t.  It was an opportunity to sway some of those who are confused and I don’t imagine that it was a success.

Believe me, it was embarrassing to think that about half of the people with whom I share the title of ‘registered voters who vote’ will be voting for this person in November.  If I was from another planet and these believers, these purchasers of the snake oil, these people who think all will be great again if they drink the Kool-Aid, were from their own planet, I’d more easily believe that this was happening…but some of these people are people to whom I am related and love, they are people who live in my little neighborhood, they are people who shop at the same grocery store I do.  Believe me, I am shocked that, after last night, they could still think, or believe, that this person is a good choice, or who represents their best interests…but here is the biggest shock of them all…some of them are so sure they don’t want the other person, and know without any doubt who they will vote for in November, that they likely did not even watch…and today they will watch their news programs and listen to the sound bites and nod their heads and just believe that somehow this person is going to shake things up in a way to put our country in some other, better, direction…that anything will be better than what they have had the last eight years…I believe that for those who did watch last night, the majority already knew who they would vote for in November anyway and they just wanted to see how it was going to flow.

Believe me, what I saw last night was horrifying to my understanding of both the English language and grammar in general, and debating in particular.  Believe me, I went into last night’s event feeling a bit disheartened anyway, because the person for whom I did vote in the primary, and did believe was the right choice and the best choice for the country in which I live, was not the candidate speaking for my side, but I still thought it an important, meaningful, and valuable way to spend some time…I care about the country I live in, I care about the earth that feeds me, and I care about the universe that we all share.  Believe me, if you did not watch last night, you should have.  Believe me, if you still think this person is the right person for you to vote for in November, after watching last night or perhaps reading the transcripts today, I am shocked by your brain and how it processes information, but because I respect that we all have a right to think what we think and believe what we want to believe, I accept it.  I respect your right to be wrong, just as you must respect mine.  I don’t know if any undecided voters were guided last night to leaning in either direction.  I don’t know if anybody who watched last night would have her mind changed by what she heard, or lean in a new and different direction by what he saw.  I don’t know how one side’s people can claim the debate a success after what I saw and heard last night, because to me, it was clear that one person had facts, statistics, and clear details to support the statements made and ideas put forth, and the other person had only the powers of the purported ‘very good brain.’  If I was a college professor, and last night I had two students in front of me and I had to write in my grade book today, one would get an F and the other would not.  Believe me, with all that time to prepare, I’d think that student who got the F, did not really care what I thought.

15 years ago, my nephew was four and absolutely obsessed with planes, trains, and cars.  He loved to design entire train tracks, villages, towns, and cities, and all of his construction projects involved all things that moved.  He loved all things transportation.  My sister, his mother, and I had taken him to train museums, train stations, air shows, car shows, steam engine rides, 30th Street Station, fire department shows, police car parades…you name it, if it involved planes, trains, and cars, we had weekend road trips with this little blonde boy who loved all of it.  So…15 years ago, as I turned on CNN for the background noise I liked to have while I worked in my home office, when I saw smoke and fire coming out of the top of a giant building in New York City, my first thought was, “oh, wow, Shawn will love this!” and I immediately stuck a tape into the VCR to record what was happening, knowing he would be fascinated…I did not, for the first few minutes, even think about what this scene on my television screen implied.  I did not, for the first few minutes, even think about the fact that this was not a movie, not a retelling of an event.   For the first few minutes, all I thought about was that my nephew would think all this fire was wild, and that fire engines and police cars involved in the excitement of a big tower in a big city that was aflame, would be really exciting for a little kid who loved big things…

…then, after several minutes, my brain adjusted…my ideas of what a cool aunt I was, to have thought to put a tape in the VCR to record for him this big news story on a random morning, turned to…oh, there are people at work, in that building…oh, the building is on fire, and people were there, at their desks working, or getting ready to turn on their computers at their desks, as I was just about to do as well, but now their office is exploding…and my excitement for this tape I was going to make for my nephew became stomach turning disbelief, that I was watching, live, people burning to death…then as I sat on my giant purple sofa, I watched, with my own eyes, the camera angle that was on this burning building, as a plane, flew low, and smashed right into the building next to the one that was already on fire…AND by then my brain and my heart and my stomach were in complete alignment, and I became nauseated and was afraid I might throw up because I had watched, on tv, from my giant purple sofa, next to my cozy home office, not only lots of people dying inside a building, but then many more people dying on an airplane that had just smashed into the building next to the one already engulfed, and I began to cry…

The excitement that I felt for being such an awesome auntie to have quickly thought to record a big city event for my little pre-school aged blonde genius nephew, became the unbearable heaviness of indescribable sadness that on live television I was watching people die in a horribly gruesome and surely terrifying manner.  I did not move from that giant purple sofa for more than an hour.  I drove to Wawa and bought cigarettes and sat on my back deck and smoked until I could think clearly and wondered what on earth was happening…and as I sat, dressed in my work clothes, and wearing my fabulous jewelry, sitting, smoking on my back deck, and not working, I began to think about a woman in north Jersey, or Westchester County, who might be my age, who might at this very minute be sitting on her back deck, smoking a cigarette, and realizing that on live tv, she just watched her hard-working husband burn to death, at his desk, at work, and that her life as she knew it was never going to ever be the same…I thought for many minutes about, how would you tell your children, when they got home from school that their father left for work before they had woken up for school and there he died, at his desk, because a plane smashed into the building where he worked?

Needless to say, I did not get any work done that day that I recall…I typed up some reports and although our job had us on major deadlines and we had to have a minimum number of reports completed per month, I felt pretty sure that nobody that day was going to want to have a phone interview with me that morning about their jerk of a neighbor, collecting disability benefits because he hurt his knee on the job, but how he plays basketball in a men’s league under a nickname.  I felt pretty sure that no judge’s assistant wanted to discuss a case that had been sent back again, for more evidence.  I felt pretty sure that no person I talked to that day would want to talk about anything other than what was happening on CNN right before their eyes in real-time…

The tape ran for six hours or so, and then I stuck another blank tape in.  I could not stop watching the television.  I could not stop crying as I watched all those brave men and women running around in total chaos trying to help.  Over the next day I could not stop crying…seeing teenage girls weeping while being interviewed that their dad was a fireman and that he went to the call yesterday morning but that they have not heard from him since…the children’s loss those first few days was beyond heartbreaking to me, to us all.  We, I think I speak for us all, when I write that we had been, and still to an extent remain, very isolated from the world’s violence…there are places on the planet where terrifying things happen regularly, and people just deal with it as best that they can…we all, that morning were shocked and perplexed and confused, I think more so than scared, because things like this just don’t happen to us…

Six weeks later, on the morning of October 22nd, my girlfriend and I were at Newark airport, on our way to see Pearl Jam in Seattle.  I looked at every person in the seats around me in a different way…not suspiciously necessarily, but bewildered perhaps…and felt amazed by how you can be seated right next to somebody who is wearing the same Converse high-tops as you, and has the same JanSport back pack as you, but they are a deranged psychopath and you can’t know it by looking at them…I still have the tapes, all of them, recorded on a long ago tossed vcr, labeled with purple electrical tape that says simply September 11th, and I never once watched them after I took them out of the vcr, and I never once showed them to Shawn, and now he is 19, and stands six and a half feet tall, and has lost his boyish love of planes, trains, and cars…but on Friday afternoon, after I got my granddaughter off the bus, she said, “Nana I want to interview you. We have to ask a family member where they were on the morning of September 11th and what they remember.”  …And the thing I remember most was dropping that tape into the vcr, knowing my nephew was going to think, “wow…”

I love this week…the end of summer and knowing that fall is just ahead…When I was young we had a surf shop in our town called Things-U-Like, and they sold  yellow t-shirts, that read in orange lettering, “it’s better in September” and here at the Jersey shore it’s true.  We still have bright sunny hot days, but the humidity is significantly diminished and we have fewer beach flies and even fewer greenheads here near the bay.  We still have restaurants and stores open but we have fewer cars and even fewer traffic lights, and we can finally drive over 35 mph and get to where we are going a bit more easily.  Sure, the sunsets are earlier but we still have a month of what we call Local Summer.  Over the last few days, the weather channel and the local Philadelphia news channels had us on high alert for a tropical storm, but if you looked outside and did not know this, you would think I was joking…it’s been gorgeous out.  It is just the best time of the year here.

As autumn begins, I really enjoy my coffee out on the decks as the sun peeks up from behind my tall cedars, without that heavy feeling on my skin, sickly & sweaty with that overall dead-of-summer coating of “ick.”  I’ve always loved the fall, I appreciate the mix of colors that the trees start to give us, and I live on a road that is just about the most beautiful one in our whole town…rural, and full of such a wide variety of different species which change color and texture throughout these weeks in a way that gives us a new show every day if we take the time to notice.  Some wooded areas go from green to brown in a couple of days and then just look bland and sad for months, but not this road; this street delights me every time I pause to look, and revel in nature’s art project this time of year.

My joy for this season ahead feels muchier than usual, for a few reasons I suppose, primarily that this begins my last year of life in my forties; I feel something like a pull to start living that “now or never” way of life that many I know have mastered, and I have failed to even start.  Anything that I think I ought to be doing, or feel like I should have already done, kind of needs to be addressed…this is the last year of my 40’s and any changes that I want for any aspect of my life feel like now is the time or I had best stop thinking about them and accept them as they are…that “old dog/new tricks” business…I’ve said and written for years that I want to travel more and I am so excited that my boyfriend’s part-time job as a professional percussionist with a nationally touring tribute band has provided us with lots of opportunities to travel, and while I don’t have the freedom or the means to go to all the places he is getting to play, I am excited that I’m getting out of my small circle of life a bit more than I ever did before, and my list of places we get to see this year is getting longer and longer with every new gig that they book!  This week starts the first year my daughter works in her new career as a school teacher, this season starts the first year of having my new son-in-law as part of this family, it’s the beginning of our Sweet-Ti’s middle school experience, and it starts the little-blonde-wonder in the gifted program at school with some violin lessons on the side, and although my heart is heavy for her, as it’s the first time she’ll be going to school without her sister, she’s so lovely and adaptable that I suspect it will just fall into place for her, and honestly, when you think about it, things somehow do always fall into place don’t they?

My only difficulty (if I allow it) this time of year (if I let my brain dwell on it, or recognize a difficulty at all) is KNOWING, or I guess I should say anticipating with dread, that my small business becomes positively tiny, and grinds to a H A L T…a really, and I mean R E A L L Y slow, and I mean so S L O W, few months loom ahead of me…and I start my annual fall panic…the ‘what ifs’ of my world…what if I don’t get any new customers for next year, or new work for the off-season…I can panic and freak-out until my eyelashes fall out (which has happened during several fall seasons) but I’ve learned, or begun to understand, that this dreading and worry does nothing but upset my being, it positively serves no purpose whatsoever, and weakens my soul…and so I am trying, already, even though it’s only Labor Day weekend, to not have any bad vibes about the months ahead.  I promised myself, during my nightly chats with the universe over this summer, that I was not going to let worry get to me, or let stress consume me, and instead I am only going to focus on all that is good…AND there is so much, so very, very much, that is good.  Just because fall is the time of year that I normally worry, there is no reason I have to do it this fall, or ever again for that matter!!  Using the super powers of my brain to stop this chatter that begins to fill the empty spaces of my brain is going to be another of my new autumnal habits!  Practice makes perfect, right?!  I’m going to be excited about walking my grandchildren to the bus each morning, I’m going to be excited that I have neither “boss” nor office which allows me to be home in time to get them off the bus in the afternoons if need be, or available to drive little humans to dance classes and violin lessons, I’m going to be excited that I don’t have to find somebody to “cover my shift” when I get to go to New Hope, Bridgeport, and Niagara Falls to watch my boyfriend make music magic with his band…I’m practicing to notice all that is good and right and easy, and not be bogged down by the worries and thoughts of what is not so good or far from easy.  I have many friends who meditate and who have trained their brains to not get lost in the thoughts that serve no purpose, and I find that the more I practice these daily gratitudes, and the more I practice my presence, I am less and less inclined to even notice, let alone dwell on the worry…and honestly, what is better than falling back in love with your own life?  It’s the best kind of falling there is…

I did poorly in maths in high school, but in my first year of algebra in college, it “clicked.”  It was either my maturity level or interest in truly learning, or maybe the skills of the professor and how he conveyed the information, but something made sense that had not made sense before.  It was one of the first times of my life when I understood that every problem really does have a solution, that solving for X may not always be obvious, and frequently has too many Y’s to seem manageable, but is for the most part, able to be figured out.  Much of my adult life, well, to be honest, all of my adult life, has been figuring stuff out…sometimes in a dread filled way, as in, “how in the heck did I get myself into this mess?” and sometimes in a joy filled way, as in, “how the heck did I get so lucky?”  but regardless of the highs and the lows, my years of adulting on this earth have taught me that most of what we do, every day, is in some way or another, just figuring things out…

I’ve worked at jobs that were easy and jobs that were not.  Before these recent years of self-employment doing work that is physically challenging, I worked for a big company where the work was mentally challenging, and before that I had 20 years of retail, which I loved, and at times was both.  I knew the corporate world of insurance fraud investigation was no longer for me, despite the giant paychecks, paid vacation, medical coverage, and a  401K, when I sat down one morning for work and my hands were shaking uncontrollably.  I literally could not stop them from shaking.  I could not turn on my computer or pick up my phone.  My eyelashes were falling out daily in clumps and I was not feeling “me.”   Mind you, I had the amazingly good fortune to have gotten a job in Maryland, and worked from home…SO despite having the giant paychecks, paid vacation, a health-plan, and retirement contributions, AND getting to work from a home office that my dad built me off of my laundry room, I was NOT enjoying the job at all.  I did not know what to do.  It was early June, my daughter was in high school, I had a mortgage and a Pathfinder payment, and I just quit.  I turned on my computer and sent an email to my manager, the human resources lady, and the boss…I thanked them for the opportunity and for the five years of employment but explained simply that I just could not do the job one more day.  My LexisNexis account was closed immediately, my email was shut down and I was told to mail my computer back the next day.  Investigating insurance fraud and having correspondence with lawyers, doctors, judges, hospitals, and insurance companies provides you with a LOT of personal information about a LOT of people and so once I quit, it was like they erased me…and the last paycheck was the last paycheck…

THEN, later that morning, after another few cups of coffee came the realization that I was in a situation that might not be figure-outable…I had a daughter in high school, a mortgage, a car payment, and now as of that morning, no more giant paycheck, paid vacation, health insurance, or 401K.  OH MY GOD!  WHAT DID I DO??  I don’t remember if I cried.  BUT what I do remember, is that after a few hours I realized that my hands were not shaking, and my breathing felt like normal breathing, and although I was worried sick about what I was going to do, I felt healthier than I had felt in years.  WHAT a shocking discovery.  I discovered that my super good corporate job was making me positively miserable.  I loved that it afforded me the ability to buy a house and a Nissan and to take my daughter to Nordstrom’s whenever she wanted, and to own ridiculously overpriced handbags, but at what cost?!  I guess that was my eye-opening realization; I figured out that I was doing a job that did not make me feel good and the only thing good about the job was the money.  Did I really think that?  As if money didn’t matter?!  Money matters.  We live in a world where it pretty much is all that matters when you break things down into basics.  We live in a world where you need it for every basic NEED, never even mind the WANTS.  Here in New Jersey, my property taxes each year are more than I spend on my mortgage.  Food, clothing, shelter, can’t be bought with my positive outlook and cheerful disposition, I need money.  Also, being single and having no partner to share the expense of the food, clothing, or shelter, meant that I was the only bread-winner in my household, and if I did not figure something out there would be no bread, and there would be no house…Although that was 13 years ago, the thoughts of trying to figure it out, and the worry associated with those thoughts, are still clear.

In my experience, it’s always people who have money who say that money does not matter.  I have walked to 7-11 in January to use the payphone with my baby in a stroller and had $11…No car, no phone, empty oil tank on the side of the apartment where I lived while my job was closed for the off-season, so my baby was wrapped in all the blankets at once and wearing two footed sleepers, with $11…to avoid having to tell your parents how terrible your life has become, you stand in 7-11 in a January of 1987 and figure out how to make that $11 buy some food and baby formula that will last through the end of the week and you hope that your husband will show up sometime soon and that he will have money…talk about figure-outable…That was of course during the darkest days of my life, my bad-sad past as I sometimes call it, and when my family and friends helped me from that life, it got better very quickly, but it still was my life at that time, and so unless you have ever been in that kind of bad-sad situation, it might be easy to think that money does not matter very much.  So, anyway, back to my point, those are big things to think about, there is sometimes an immediacy to a situation that must be figured out…

When I left the hospital on a cold January Saturday in 1986, a nurse handed me my big fat healthy baby, but no instruction manual, no how-to booklet, just a pat on my arm with a smile that seemed to say, “you’ll figure it out.”   When that baby was 17 months old and I was away from my bad-sad life, I decided that I had better figure out what kind of future I might have, so I signed up to take two classes at the county college, three nights a week, after work, and there was no guide-book to tell me how to work 40 hours a week, take care of a baby, and do homework.  That I lived with my parents and my sister at that time was a blessing. After the Associate’s Degree, when I found out that to apply to a college to get my Bachelor’s Degree I would have to take a full-time course load or I’d not qualify for financial aid, there was no self-help brochure to tell me how to work only four days a week so I could go to school three days a week, and still afford my house and expenses and do it for two full years, including independent study and summer classes, while raising a little girl.  And while all of this seems a lifetime ago, it was all of this that lead me to where I am now…someone who somehow figures it out.

In these years since I dumped the big-deal job, I’ve had some months, many to be honest, where I was robbing my left hand to pay my right.  Solving for X became how to pay all the bills coming in with the paltry sum of income coming in.  Figuring it out becomes a necessity, not just a wish to get an answer right.  Some months you just have to figure out how to pay for the roof over your head, and the gas to heat the space, and the electric to illuminate it, and not go hungry.  Some months are filled with more figure-outable moments than others.  Some months, like this one, there is money to pay the bills, have a sushi date with my boyfriend, and buy a new washing machine.  Had my washing machine died in the dead of winter, either my parents would be buying it for me as my Christmas present or I would be using a washboard and a galvanized bucket!  Being self-employed is scary sometimes, a lot of times actually.  It’s only August 4th and I am already beginning to panic that I have no big jobs lined up for after Labor Day, let alone work scheduled for the winter, but I suppose I will just figure something out as the summer comes to a close.  Sometimes it is quite terrifying.  Having nobody to depend on but yourself is often daunting, despite some of the perks; like being able to leave work at 2:30 three days a week to get your grandchildren off the bus during the school year, like being able to work several nights in empty houses so as to leave work early in the busy summer season to go with your daughter to the bridal shop for her wedding dress fittings, like being able to take off a Friday in August to go to New York state because your boyfriend and his band are performing at the famous Daryl’s House.  I have to work on Saturday morning, two houses need to be cleaned and readied for renting, so most pressing on my figure-outable scale is how I am going to drive home from Dutchess County New York in the wee hours of Saturday morning and be lively and energized for work a couple of hours later…but I guess I will figure it out when I get there…