Magic Carpet Rides

A little more than nineteen years ago, we moved our not yet complete family from Chicago to suburbia. I was kicking and screaming, but not as wildly as I had been months earlier when, stopped at a red light near our townhouse, I watched a boy, no more than ten, stare at our sleeping children in their car seats and pretend to whip out a gun. Sitting ducks, trapped with no room to swerve. It was time to migrate north.

Three days later, when I finally stopped shaking (the Chicago police laughed when I called, and the boy was gone when I drove myself over to the intersection -- to do what, I don't know -- but it's not as if I felt any safer), we began our search for a new life. A life where the kids could run free, where we could feel secure, where we would not have to pay exorbitant private school tuition to protect our children from the diversity of an urban school system. We would move to a place where there was a fraction of a minority student in the local school, and, as far as I could tell, he was a Chinese Jew.

My third one was not yet born, not yet even a fully formed idea. My older two were three and four, still best friends and constant companions who needed nobody other than mom and dad and each other, needed little but their own mutually fed imaginations to occupy themselves for hours. They seemed excited about our soon-to-be new digs, running up and down the wide hallways when we visited as if they had broken out of cages and finally been set free. Their favorite room was the bathroom in the hallway, where they each had their own sink.

No matter what game they were playing back in those days, they usually dressed in their Aladdin and Jasmine costumes. My son wore off white harem pants and a purple felt vest, his bare protruding belly jiggling as he ran amok with his fake sword, his rosy cheeks puffed out around his perennial smile filled with even rows of what looked to be Chiclets. My daughter paraded around in Jasmine style glitz, her sparkly green costume topped with a jeweled necklace and a matching headband tucked around her unruly curls. I bought them each a bath mat emblazoned with a picture of the Disney couple soaring through the air on a magic carpet. On our next visit to the house, they placed the mats on the floor by their respective bathroom sinks. Workers were still putting the final touches on the house, but my children had landed in their living quarters and were ready to stake their claim.

On the day we moved in, one bath mat had mysteriously disappeared. The violation was not quite as severe as the boy pointing a fake gun at my sleeping children, but still, I have always wondered who would take a child's bath mat and, more importantly, why. Nevertheless, our young family's magic carpet ride began, and the four of us set out on our new life together. My daughter, who had always seemed to march quietly but bravely through life, almost as if she owned the place, suddenly got jittery. If I disappeared around the side of the car for a couple of seconds in the grocery store parking lot, she panicked, thinking I had left her there. I don't know whether it was the parking lot or suburbia in general that scared her, although I have my theories.

On balance, though, we thrived, and we grew up together in that house, once so new, now a bit ragged. We adjusted to public suburban schools that, even with their fraction of a per cent of diversity were still more diverse than the private schools downtown. At least admission was guaranteed; we did not have to go through an application process more rigorous than the ones they would eventually go through to get into college just so they could have the right to finger paint. Their baby sister was born, and they wore their Aladdin costumes less frequently; she was too small to be the genie, too angelic to be a villain, so the whole thing just wasn't going to work anymore. We would ride by the high school and I would point and tell them that one day they would go there, even though I never really believed time would go so quickly and they would all pass in and out of that building in a blink of an eye and sail off on their own magic carpets to places and adventures as yet unknown.

I am cleaning out the house in suburbia now, getting ready to move on as soon as my youngest, the baby, leaves for college next year. Our carpet, hardly magical, is stained with dog pee and other delights, including a big burn in the shape of an iron (ouch; must be why I don't do that kind of thing anymore). Going through the hallway closet, I found the surviving bath mat, rolled up neatly and stuffed in with some long forgotten bedding. I unfurled it and looked at the young pair, perched confidently upon their magic carpet without even holding on as it hurtles through the sky on what appears to be, come to think of it, quite a bumpy ride.

My ruthless emptying of the nest has its limits. That mat is a keeper.

I Got No Rhythm

I heard recently that seventy is the new thirty, which, according to my calculations, puts me at about thirteen. Frankly, I'd rather be thirty, and I am hoping my formula is a bit overly simplistic. Numbers have always confused me, particularly when it comes to seasonal time changes. I usually have to sit down with a pencil in one hand and my head in the other to figure out whether the bump forward or backward is good news.

Like everything, it depends. When my children were babies, I lived for the day the clock would spring forward, turning five a.m. into six. Though morning would arrive faster that Sunday, the new wake up time sounded far more palatable. It never occurred to me that human circadian rhythms adjust almost instantaneously to things called zeitgebers, environmental cues such as, say, daylight, which couldn't give less of a shit about what time it says on my adjustable digital clock. And so, within a day or two, wake up time for the babies would still be five, even though I still considered that to be four.

As the kids got older and they would sleep until they were physically dragged from between the sheets, I looked forward to the Saturday night in the fall when the clocks would "fall" back, giving me an extra hour of sleep. Again, back in those days, I was not an insomniac and did not spend my time in the wee hours scanning Wikipedia for if not useless then entirely forgettable information about circadian rhythms and things called zeitgebers, so it never occurred to me that the extra hour of sleep would negate itself very quickly.

These days, between circadian rhythms (which I appear not to have) and bouncing hormones and the competing side effects of pills for anxiety and leg twitches and bloating and muscle aches and, yes, sleeplessness, time changes throw me off completely. Yesterday and today, with four thirty abruptly becoming the new five thirty, I woke for the day at three, which is the old two. Four thirty, which is the old three thirty, is suddenly looking awfully good. I'm sure it will all work itself out, hopefully before the autumnal time change rolls around to once again wreak havoc with my already addled system.

Life is confusing. I should have felt joy, the other day, when my friend's first grandchild was born. Joy for the parents, joy for the grandparents and surviving great-grandparents. Joy for the baby because, no matter how shitty things can seem sometimes, life is a gift. But my friend is not here for the arrival of her first grandchild. In the six years she's been gone, she's missed lots of milestones, but this one, for me, stings the most. Waking up at three which is the old two when I should have woken at five thirty which is the old wake up time of four thirty is baffling enough. My friend's absence for the birth of her oldest daughter's son is beyond comprehension.

As is the case with everything, I suppose, the new abnormal will become the new normal and life will go on as it always does. The new baby will have his own circadian rhythms for a while which, coincidentally, seem to have nothing to do with zeitgebers of any sort, certainly have nothing to do with his parents' need for a bit of rest. Sleeplessness will become their new normal; they will quickly forget what life was like when the clock actually meant something.

Stranger things have happened and they keep happening, and it's not even just about the numbers. Walk into any women's clothing store and you'll see that not only is seventy the new thirty but horizontal stripes are the new black. Really. Sleep cycles and untimely death I can understand, but horizontal stripes, well, that's a hard pill to swallow. Especially with all the crap I'm already taking. Side effects are bad enough, but widened love handles?

Give me a two o'clock wake up call any day. Or at least a good old fashioned zeitgeber to make it all go away.

Points of View

Yesterday I met a friend I have not seen in a while for lunch. She has a corner office overlooking the river. When she went to the bathroom I snuck a few minutes in her desk chair, popped my feet up on the desk, enjoyed the view.

Things always look better from the outside looking in -- or, as the case may be, from the inside looking out. I was green with envy. The space was filled with her family photos, sparkling images lit from both windows by the southern midday sun. Her desk was just cluttered enough to make her look busy and important but not crazed. Accordion files filled to overflowing with documents lined the shelves not occupied by family photographs. Her briefcase sat on the floor, tossed there haphazardly with one flap slightly open, a testament to her productive morning in court. A borrowed space in a rented office, yet it seemed to me a most desirable piece of real estate.

She laughed when she returned from the bathroom. I jumped from her chair as if it had suddenly sprouted thorns. Tricky and alluring, like a rose. My friend's journey to the corner office has not been a fast-track-straight-shot vertical climb from one cubicle to another in the same firm in the same building. It was far more arduous. Traversing the hill may leave you less breathless, but it takes longer. She is smart and determined and she is good at what she does. I watched her, her face calm as she flipped through the pleadings sitting on her desk and signed each one. If I had only stuck with it I could be like her, sitting pretty in a swivel chair, surrounded by windows, signing documents, handing the stacks over to a waiting secretary who would take care of the less glamorous part of the process.

Minutes later, as we sat across the street in a chic Italian joint being fawned over by cute young waiters who kept calling me Senorita, she filled me in on the few years that had formed a gap in our friendship that was actually longer than the friendship itself. Struggles. Not the same as my struggles, not easier or harder. Just someone else's shit. I gazed back across the street at the imposing tower, the building housing that prime piece of real estate that is her office. The windows were as opaque as brick, offering up no hint of life inside. Shadows played against the glass exterior, the building seemed to sway. Solid and as impenetrable as a prison, yet flimsy as a house of cards. My salad was small; I left feeling hungry.

Hungry and full of "shoulds." I should reinstate my long inactive law license, I should re-enter a world that has survived and changed drastically since the last time I wandered through a courtroom door as an attorney, not a client. I should re-educate this brain that still cannot figure out how to coordinate all the remote controls for my family room television, train it to understand electronic discovery and databases and all sorts of research that never has you turn so much as a page. I should claw my way into the world of corner offices and swivel chairs and important looking documents that become extremely important when someone like me signs them. My friend did it, and she looks pretty damn good. I was exhausted thinking about it.

Back in bed with my laptop that night, my dog's ass on my pillow, his fat torso making all sorts of gurgling and threatening noises while his back end had my face in its cross hairs, it was not lost on me that blogging was never going to get me into a corner office, much less pay the mortgage. But then I received an email from another friend, a dear old friend (and, by coincidence, a successful attorney as well) who's known me since the beginning. It was a link to an article about Nora Ephron, written by her son in the months after her death. It was about Nora but it could have been about anyone with a passion. So many Nora quotes, words I wish I could have come up with myself. So much about life and what it's about and how awful it is when you realize you have to give it up. So much about how one person's passion and talent can live on in so many others she touched.

I thought about the corner office, but I brushed it away. I emailed my dear old friend, a friend who knew, somehow, how much this article would move me. We have promised each other a date, to go see Nora's last play. There will be no swivel chairs in the cramped theatre, no desk to kick my feet up on, no spectacular views of the river. But, more than anything, this is the view I need.

Armed and Dangerous and Thirsty

Slow news day. The media frenzy about the storm of the century bearing down on D.C. resulted in the complete shutting down of D.C. for a day that was completely devoid of snow. A breaking story suggests we might soon find out the date on which the conclave of Cardinals will convene to begin chit chatting about the identity of the new Pope. I'm on the edge of my seat. And Rand Paul had to pee. Note to self: always go to the bathroom before a thirteen hour filibuster.

One can only hope that the apparent absence of anything interesting to report led terrorists and other garden variety psychopaths to stop watching or reading before they found out about the new TSA rules loosening restrictions on what folks can bring on an airplane. It's official; you can now bring weapons on. Not just the dubious weapons like hockey sticks (I'd like to meet the person coordinated enough to get a full swing going in the two inches of space not occupied by seats and excess carry-ons that folks bring on to avoid the exorbitant bag check fee) and pool cues (which I suppose could be used to poke a flight attendant in the butt when she refuses to move the damn cart for a second so a passenger can go pee), but knives of all shapes and sizes. Well, small knives, to be fair; you know, the kinds that can be concealed and take somebody completely by surprise. Machetes and three ton medieval swords are still not allowed. Seems reasonable.

And, thank goodness, water, bottled water, is still prohibited. So what if a lunatic who cannot spend a few hours without a sharp blade close at hand might be sitting next to you while you try to doze. We can rest easy knowing his water bottle was purchased at a premium from a vendor inside security, or, better still, we can keep sleeping, secure in the knowledge that he couldn't afford a water and won't be getting up constantly to pee.

My guess (and, I admit, my fear) is there are some knife wielders out there who are not exactly boy scouts who have managed to catch the story on the news. And I bet they're already busy polishing and sharpening their blades. To be sure, they pose less of a threat without the bottled water, but everybody has to pee at some point so if they're in a window seat they can still, at the very least, be a royal pain in the ass. But who cares? North Korea has just threatened nuclear warfare. For a change. Again, not really news, but if there's anything worse than a knife wielding and very thirsty soul seeking some attention on an airplane it's a North Korean with a finger poised near the missile launch button.

I wonder what the TSA is going to do when the NRA starts getting huffy about all this. If you're going to allow small knives, why not small guns? What's the difference? They're easily concealed and people who own them feel secure when they're close at hand. It's not as if a pearl handled pistol is dangerous. It's certainly no water bottle!

TSA? NRA? WTF?

Weather. Or Not.

Something seems off.

It's Tuesday morning in Chicago, late morning for me, even late for folks whose sleep cycles are more in sync with the sun. My right eye is staring out the window while my left eye reads (I'm double jointed). "When the Chicago area awakes Tuesday," my up to the minute on line news tells me,  "it will find itself in the midst of a [monster] storm." In the midst, it says. My right eye blinks. Well I guess, to be more accurate, it winks. Other than cars pulling in and out in front of Starbucks, nothing is moving. Nothing is falling from the sky. Once again, the storm of the century -- and, given how many of those we've had already this is going to be a really long and dreary century -- appears to be a tempest in a teapot. Or maybe the Chicago area just sleeps until noon.

Nevertheless, schools everywhere are closed. My daughter was as focused last night as I've ever seen her, watching her untouched mountain of homework with one eye (she's double jointed too) while her other eye and ear awaited news of the closing. Her powers of concentration have never been more impressive. It gives me great hope.

We watched the nightly news together. Quality time together as a last resort; it gets boring watching a pile of homework not getting done, even more boring watching someone watch a pile of homework not getting done. Apparently, there was nothing going on in the world last night, nothing worth discussing anyway, other than the storm about to bear down on the Midwest. Thank goodness a storm of the century spawns a lot of side stories. Like the fact that everyone in the Chicago area was rushing to the grocery store and then to the hardware store to stock up on emergency provisions. Everyone except us that is. My daughter and I looked at each other, exchanged a silent "oops." I tried my best to look unconcerned, but when she wasn't looking I ran to the pantry to make sure we could survive. Phew. Plenty of chocolate. And I think I still have some glow in the dark tubes from her bat mitzvah in the freezer.

My computer screen is sticking to its story, despite a notable absence of precipitation outside. I wait. I schmooze with the other morning regulars. We laugh about people who "do the right thing" -- like stock up on provisions before the storm of the century or write thank you notes. My right eye starts to twitch and it gazes out the window again. Lo and behold, I see flakes. And snowflakes too!

I have nothing against being prepared; I just don't like to waste time doing it too far in advance. Eventually, my survivalist instincts kick in, and even if all the canned goods have long been plucked off the grocery shelves, I have a plan. I pack up my things, treat myself to a second overpriced cup of caffeine (who knows, I might not be able to count on my car as a snowplow this time), and race across to the store to stock up on chocolate.

Though I normally dread being stuck in the house, I occasionally look forward to a chance to hunker down and catch up on things. Like thank you notes. And eating all the old chocolate to make room for the new. Hopefully I'll get it all done in time to watch the nightly news. I'll want to hear about the storm's aftermath, find out about the clean up plans. And whether I'll need more chocolate.

Motherhood: State of Grace

Everybody loves a list.

I couldn't resist peeking at the two most recent newsworthy compilations on line the other day: the ten happiest states to live in and the ten unhappiest ones. Shockingly, Hawaii is number one on the happy list, and has been for some years. I was hardly surprised to see Colorado in the top five (everybody loves a mountain) but then again West Virginia made it to the bottom five, proving that not all peaks are created equal. John Denver notwithstanding, of course.

None of the states I have lived in made it to either list. Mediocrity has always been a way of life for me, so I am hardly surprised to learn that I have always resided somewhat unremarkably among the middle thirty. Not that it matters anyway. Statistics show (this was a very scientific study) that the happiest states are populated by greater numbers of employed people with relatively high median incomes; unless they're happy and stupid I doubt they're gonna move any time soon. And it's not as if the folks in the unhappy states can afford to pick up and relocate, so it seems to me people are pretty much stuck in the state they're in.

I don't know where this latest study puts the rest of us who didn't make it to the top or bottom ten. We're neither happiest nor saddest, which could mean we're just perpetually confused. Sounds about right, at least in my case. Chicago's my kind of town, but I've always got a bit of a New York state of mind and I'd love to come to Boston for the springtime. Sometimes I don't know where I am, and more often than not I have a hard time figuring out who I am. Until recently, I've thought of myself first and foremost as a mother, but kids get older, life gets complicated, and, as my friend's daughter recently pointed out to her  when she wondered why she was not entitled to the same sorts of courtesies as everyone else, "you don't count." Yes, it certainly seems that way sometimes. But if I'm not, first and foremost, a mother, who the heck am I? If I'm a daughter or a wife, I'd like a redo on both. Same with my various careers; I am still struggling to figure out which letters should get top billing after my name on a resume.

Desperate times often call for desperate measures. Calling my mother credentials into question (along with everything else), I emailed my own mother this morning. I rarely confide in her these days; I still live in abject fear of the occasional I told you so, even though I have not heard one from her in years. I shut her out, and she leaves me alone, but when I need her, really need her, she hits it out of the park. It's what mothers do, and they do it best, and if I know my mother the way I think I know her, she's having a really good day today because I looked for her and she was there. And a really bad day too because she knows I was confused.

She told me what, I suppose, I have always known. Mothers (at least mothers like us) have an amazing capacity for unconditional love, and an equally amazing incapacity for letting ourselves off the hook. At eighty-two, she still worries about the time, when I was three, that she didn't realize I had a terrible ear infection and wouldn't let me sleep in her bed. (I assured her that she has done way worse things since then, but then again, so have I.) It sucks sometimes, but as "they" say when there's nothing else intelligent to say, "it is what it is."

Sometimes I couldn't even tell you what state I'm in, but motherhood stays at the top of my list wherever I go. It is what it is.

Mrs. Toad's Wild Ride

The best thing about a fantasy is it beats the crap out of reality. The worst thing about a fantasy is that like all good things, it must end. And so it is with my dreams of fame and fortune (and a good nosh at a wedding in upstate New York). 

My fledgling relationship with the young Craigslist fellas seemed so promising. I thought they kind of liked that my appeal was in my personality and not my appearance, that I was in it for the money and the glory and not for a chance at a no-strings-attached roll in the hay. Sex they could get anywhere (I've seen pictures of them in shorts). But a low budget screenplay -- now that's something you don't come by every day. Okay, so I've never claimed to be all that intuitive. It explains why I'm going to be one of those old ladies who walks around with lipstick smeared all over her cheeks and lives with a dozen cats. And I hate cats. 

Things went well at first. The fellas responded to my initial counter-proposition with enthusiasm and great speed. Later in the day, they asked if I'd be willing to make a telephone appearance on their friend's podcast. With the other finalists, I could only assume. I agreed to let them call me after receiving assurances that I would not have to put on makeup or change out of my flannels and do the Skype thing. Then, nothing. No exchange of so much as a fake phone number, no firm appointment. Zero. The fantasy Oscar I had been hanging onto all day was slipping through my fingers, about to drop, no doubt, right on my toes. Back to the resume with all the taunting white space, back to the real estate classifieds to search for my new double wide. 

There's a bright side, I suppose. I was wondering how I was going to explain to my mother that while she was winging her way from New York to Chicago for Passover a day early just so she could visit with my older daughter I was winging my way to New York from Chicago with that same daughter for a double blind date at some goyish wedding. Then there was the issue of having to buy a new dress, since I'm fairly certain I would not be able to tuck all my newly cultivated back fat into the cute little number I wore six months ago. And, really, an entire evening spent explaining to people that I was not my date's governess -- who needs that shit? 

As always, there will be other adventures, probably when I least expect it. Starbucks may introduce yet another new coffee blend. (I hope so, because I'm feeling kind of silly every time I go up to the counter and ask for a tall blond.) I might, one day, come across a pair of boots in the Nordstrom shoe department that doesn't resemble anything in my closet. Maybe I'll learn to cook and I'll find somebody out there actually willing to eat it. Maybe some genius will discover a foolproof cookies and ice cream diet. Maybe pigs will fly. The possibilities, as always, are endless. 

They say life is a journey, not a destination, so even though I won't be landing in upstate New York later this month I'm keeping my seat belt fastened. I could still be in for a wild ride.