Lesson

As Ellis approaches his first birthday this weekend, I contemplate the first year of being a mother. I have learned so much. Maybe because of this one year anniversary of becoming a mother--or maybe because it was her birthday a few weeks ago-- I have been experiencing a new wave of sadness about the loss of my mother. After the first big tidal wave of pain, that is how it happens: in waves, when you least expect it. You think the wound has scabbed over, and then there it is again. Ellis is in a transition phase...somewhere between sleeping and not sleeping, a routine and chaos, nursing and solids, teeth and no teeth, walking and not walking. I am tired. I am too tired to sit down and try to work on a strategy to address any of these issues. I can't think big picture. I can't read books that outline dogmas about weaning or not weaning, cry it out or let them be. I just move forward. I just get through the day. At these moments, I miss being mothered. I miss someone standing ahead of me and telling me that I will ride this wave, that this phase will pass, that this is how it all works, that I am doing a good job.

There was no time for my mother to tell me how to mother.

But one day, when she was in the hospital, during her last weeks, she suddenly offered up a mothering lesson. I listened intently, but at that moment thought, there will be enough time for this later. She will live to see my children. I had told her a few weeks before that we were going to start trying to have children, and so her rallying cry those weeks in the hospital was "I want to see those babies..." And I really thought she would get her wish. I suppose it is almost impossible, even with all evidence to the contrary, even with all the doctors and their bad news, to imagine the world without your mother, until she is suddenly gone.

So that day I thought, there will be time.
But there was not.

This is what she told me. She said, "Really, all you need to know is this: always believe that the child is good. Always orient from that point. They may do bad things. They may make mistakes. They may drive you crazy. But always believe that they are good to their soul. And the child will see that belief reflected back at them in your eyes. And they will become the good person you believe them to be, that they are in essence. They will know that they are loved. You are going to mess up... but if they know they are loved, they will be able to survive anything..."

And that is how I survived my mother's death. Because I was, am, loved. Because she believed in my essential goodness.

A year has passed, and this is what I have learned: Forget the books. Forget the dogmas. Forget people's strong opinions about what you should feed your child, how long you should nurse, when a child is supposed to do this or that. I am going to publish a pamphlet with my mother's words on it, and distribute it to all the mothers I know. It was all she had time to tell me, and all I really needed to know.

This one goes out to...

This one goes out to my husband... A partner in parenting. He cooks us a healthy dinner every night. He takes on the bulk of the childcare. He curates art shows. He fishes in a one man kayak on rivers in the middle of nowhere and lakes in the middle of cities. He teaches photo, sculpture, digital art, graphic design and public art. He cans and freezes and has ambitious plans to "live off the land" this summer. He introduces himself to the bands we go see (Hi, I'm Dave. You guys were absolutely amazing tonight.) He makes this life we are living possible in so many ways. I watch him with Ellis, and see what an amazing father he is and is becoming.

He has begun his life long conversation with Ellis, has begun to teach Ellis about the things he cares about. I have the privilege to eavesdrop on this dialogue...

-This winter in an art museum, with Ellis in the baby bjorn, Dave narrating and explaining. "Pablo Picasso, Ellis" "One of the first photographs ever taken, Ellis. Can you say daguerreotype?" "This one's by Chuck Close, Ellis. It looks like a photograph. But its actually a painting.” "Francis Bacon, Ellis, All of his paintings have glass in front of them. He wanted everyone to see themselves as they looked at his paintings.”

-In an used book store, the Ramones start playing and Dave leans over Ellis in the stroller and says, "The Ramones, Ellis, three minute songs. In and Out. They don't mess around."

-By the lake, last week, after catching his first fish of the season, Dave brings the fish over to Ellis. "This is a bass, Ellis. A beautiful bass. But now we are going to let him go."

-Every night Dave and Ellis take a bath together. Last week, Dave put on the Beatles as "bath time music". From the other room, I hear Dave say, "This is a George song, Ellis. George wrote the best songs."

This is what my mother once said about him: "I am so proud of you for choosing him. It is a wise choice that will come back to you again and again, each and every day."

Firsts

I am trying to reconcile with the fact that time is passing. Everyday Ellis disappears and appears in front of my eyes...Perpetual change. This is why mothers make baby books, photo albums, are the photographers in the family... Trying to make these moments stand still.

Things Ellis just started to do:
-When we are playing "block/toy/bowl on the head" he puts the item on his own head himself.
-He can bend down from a standing position to pick up toys he has dropped.
-He makes and opens and closes a fist over and over in the direction of something that he wants
-He can make it any given outlet in about five seconds
-He throws his weight/ body in the direction he wants to go
-He holds unto my fingers and walks around the apartment, leading me from room to room
-Stand for a second on his own...though he often doesn't notice he's doing it


New things that made Ellis laugh in the last weeks:
-When you blow into a beer bottle it makes a low noise
-My eyebrows going up and down when I am nursing
-Tickling his toes when he is in the highchair
-Throwing a kleenex up and having it float down to the ground

Things he experienced for the first time in the last weeks:
The Mississippi River
bubbles
bagels
a kazoo
pineapple
going down a slide
"petting" a chicken
a mouthful of dirt
Easter

And then this week, the tip of his first tooth appeared....
And so we did the math. And so I met with my boss, and asked if I could work four days a week instead of five. Its a risk with both of our jobs unstable...We should save...We should play it safe...We should buy a house.
Or we can have more time together this summer. Or I can be there for a few more of Ellis' firsts.
And so I take a sharpie and write one of the things my mother used to say in big letters, and put it on our refrigerator:
"We're rich, and someday we may have money too."

Missing

As a little girl with a kitten



With my brother Anton. She bought him the pink shirt, XXL.

On her wedding day in a cape and white boots

Last day with her first grandchild

Camping in Big Sur, she couldn't believe the stars

She had a pony when she was little. The pony had a cart.

Sailing in the Netherlands, I was 16.

She ran away to go to college. It was worth it.



In Paris in berets. Cracking ourselves up.



Dancing in the kitchen at my wedding, 3 months before

working motherhood

Ellis' first swing ride. He is so fun these days. So curious and happy to see new things.

I asked a fellow working mother if it gets easier to be away from your baby all day.
No, she said, it gets harder.

I didn't believe her. I thought that as he got older and as he enjoyed his social time with the kids at daycare, or the afternoons with his father...it would be easier to leave him.

I was wrong.
Its breaking my heart.

He starts to whine when he sees me packing my laptop away, getting my coat. He army crawls over to me. He wants to be held.

I know that after I leave he is fine. I know that his father takes good care of him, that the eight hours a week he spends at daycare with other kids are good for him.

I know that I have to work.

I know that we are lucky that he doesn't have to go to daycare every day of the week, that we have friends to trade childcare with, that he is healthy and happy and social, that we like the caretakers at our daycare, that our daycare is at Dave's college, just down the hall from his classroom.

Still, as I see how fast he is growing--a new skill mastered everyday--I understand how precious these days are. And eight hours away from him seems so long.

My relatives in the Netherlands have many options. They have subsidized childcare on site at their workplace. They have year long maternity leaves. They can job share with other mothers so that they have time off during the week. They have options.

I have a very flexible workplace. I shouldn't complain.

Still. There should be a value placed on mothering. A value that is reflected in labor laws, in company policies, in government subsidies, in our collective common sense.

Everyday in the news, another story about someone getting overpaid for a job they did badly, while public school teachers, social workers and parents get underpaid for the difficult jobs they have committed their lives to, jobs they are doing well.

All the price tags have been switched around.

I don't know how to write policy, but this is what I know to be true: No one can take better care of a child than its own mother/father/caretaker. Invest in ways to allow mothers and fathers to stay home with their children and you invest in your future citizens.
This is obvious to me.

I like going to work...

But I would like to have options.

I would like to be living in a country that gave me those options, that supported me in my efforts to raise my child. Tax credits are all good and fine. But they don't give me back those eight hours I miss everyday of watching him grow, of getting to know him, his preferences, his budding personality.

I miss him, everyday. I miss him.

http://www.momsrising.org/

Ellis Island

Today, Ellis in the highchair, eating his cheerios. Dave and I drinking coffee. Dave is sketching out his family tree. He is looking back, trying to find the source of the sadness he sees in many of his family members. He writes notes next to each person; little haiku's that sum up the lives of each family member. "Divorced. Sad. Drinks."

He puts a smiley face next to Ellis' name.

Ellis babbles and eats unaware of his loaded lineage. Between Dave and I's family there are a lot of powerful narratives that each new generation hears and retells. These stories define how we think of ourselves. They define us in ways we don't realize.

Dave is looking back and looking forward. As parents, we can chose new ways forward. We don't have to repeat the patterns. But it requires consciousness of those patterns. It requires that we sketch out our family trees on Saturday mornings, and look for the codes, the repetition, the continuation of behaviors from generation to generation. And then it requires that we change course. Deliberately. This is harder than it sounds.

My great grandmother came through Ellis island in 1913. She was pregnant on the boat, miscarried soon after arriving. After that she gave birth to two stillborn children in the space of three years. The light went out of her. She was a hard woman to live with, my grandmother told me, she lost her ability to love. This affected my grandmother, and in turn affected my mother.

My grandmother's first child died in her arms at five months, because my grandfather refused to take the baby to the doctor. The impact this had on my grandmother and grandfather's marriage, affected my mother, and in turn affected me.

My mother's father died when I was six weeks old. The shock of this dried up my mother's breast milk and I screamed for days, my wailing the soundtrack to those first days she lived without her father on the planet. And then my pregnancy in the wake of my mother's death. One heart stops beating and one starts. What do I do with all of this death at the moment of birth, birth at the moment of death?

These stories seep into our skin, permeate our view of the world. We wonder why we feel sad for no particular reason, and then remember, we are carrying the sadness of the people who came before us.

The choices of my grandmothers have affected my trajectory, and now Ellis'. My grandmother herding three children through Ellis Island, ultimately resulted in Ellis. He is a combination and culmination of all of our choices, and all of the things out of our control.

When we were children, we were passive recipients of our reality. Now as parents, we are the deciders. We get to decide bedtimes, activities, which religion to endorse, what to make for dinner, the politics we preach.

I always told my mother that she did the work of many generations in moving us forward. She drastically changed our course. She ran away from home to go to college. She shook off the conservative religion she was given. She rejected her family's belief that women were inherently inferior. She moved away. She moved abroad. She broke all the rules.

The miles she traveled outside of her comfort zone, and the battles she fought against limiting ideas are the gifts she gave Ellis on the day of his birth.

Today the weather is finally warmer. Its been a long winter. We need Spring badly. I can't wait to take a walk around the frozen lake today. There are many things I want to teach Ellis, many things I want to tell him, the good stories and the bad stories, the folly of his ancestors, the wisdom of my mother.

Today's lesson: When the sun is shining, go outside.

Somehow I've Got to Find Some Kind of Peace of Mind

In our old office, whenever I needed to pump, I would have to clear everyone—staff, artists, interns— out of our one room office. Having to request this mass exodus, and calling attention to my milk laden breasts every three hours was far from ideal. When we moved into our new office building, I asked the facilities manager if there was somewhere private that I could pump during the day. She gave me the keys to the “Health Realization Training Room.” She explained that this was the office of the Health Realization outreach worker, who was never there, since she was always doing health and wellness outreach in the community.

A small luxury in the middle of the day. Privacy. Alone in a room. A moment to take a breath.

Then a few weeks ago I bumped into the Health Realization outreach worker. I told her that I used her office to pump. Wise, calm, centered. These are the words that came to my mind when I met her. “Doesn’t that room have great energy?” she said.

I had never thought about it before, but yes, it had a good energy.

Last week I was a wreck. Everything seemed to be conspiring to undermine me. My mind wouldn’t stop racing. I wasn’t sleeping. Spinning thinking – this is what my mother used to call it. Round and round we go:

What if I don’t get another job? What if they cut the state budget and Dave loses his job? Is Ellis healthy? My body aches, I need to go to yoga, I don’t have time for yoga., I miss my mom, How is my brother really doing?, We haven’t properly mopped the floors in weeks, Is Ellis eating enough? What if I don't get another job?

My anxiety levels were soaring.

Then, on Thursday, when I went to the Health Realization room to pump, I found this chart that diagrammed a busy mind and a calm mind. There are always photocopied handouts lying around the office, but this chart was dead in the middle of the table, in front of the chair that I sit in to pump. As if it were waiting for me.

Health realization, it explained on the back, is the theory that our thinking creates our reality. If we change our thinking, we change our reality. If we learn how to calm down our thinking, we have access to the health that is within us all (“innate health”).

I have never heard of “health realization” but I am familiar with these concepts. This theory was very important to my mother and her practice of psychology—she used it with her clients and in her own life. I never knew the technical term for this body of thought.

My mother took every chance she could to remind me that I could change my thinking, and therefore change my world. Still, I needed it charted out and placed in front of me in the Health Realization room. My mother finds me in all sorts of places.

Remember the things your mother told you: Still your mind. Real-ize your power. Make your own real.

I took the busy vs. calm mind chart to my therapist, like you take a picture of a haircut from a magazine to your hair dresser.

Here, this one, I want this mind, I said. The calm one. The one that gives me access to my creativity. That helps me see innocence and opportunity, rather than dysfunction and obstacles. This one.

Ok, she said.
Start by breathing.
Deep breath in. Deep breath out.