I’ve had too much time on my hands for the past two months. Old habits are creeping back. I sleep too much. I eat lunch out too often. I obsess over things I want and sometimes buy them when I shouldn’t. I’ve been counting things and avoiding cracks but it isn’t alarming or OCD, just something for me to watch. I’m getting a little weird and I don’t like feeling weird. Too much time is almost worse than too little.

I had this boss years ago who was kind of a jerk but he did once say something perfect. He explained that when he first started the job his guns (an unfortunate analogy in these times, but still) were ablaze, cowboy fashion, and he was rarin’ to go. Two years later all they could do was go “pppppptttthhhhhppppp. ppppppttttthhhhhhhpppppp.” That’s how I feel right now. Deflated. A little despondent. Ugh, I think I’m having a mid-life crisis.

A person, well, this person, needs more adult conversation but I’m better at losing friends than keeping them so that can be a problem. I rely, as I’ve said on numerous occasions, heavily on my mother and sister and sometimes they aren’t available to chat. So I eat out. I go to our neighborhood thrift stores, and then I sit here doing fuck all. But that’s not really true; sometimes I shop. Last month my mom’s best friend gave me a gift certificate to an expensive store for my birthday and I bought a pair of nice black jeans. They look good, or at least better than the ones I’ve been wearing. When I got back I found discounted pairs online and bought them in two colors; a bright fluorescent green and a warm brick orange. They are snug without being tight. They are cozy, soft and beautiful and they make me feel attractive and put together which is no small feat. The first day I wore the green ones a Dominican man I know, a man who has never once given me a compliment, told me they looked good – that I looked good – and that was all the incentive I needed to race home to buy the only other two colors available in my size. Luckily I stopped at four pairs even though there are now more colors (oh, mulberry…)

Three weeks ago my kids both independently learned to ride two-wheelers just like that. In the midst of the pride and relief – I was feeling guilty that I hadn’t started to teach them – I had fantasies about starting to ride a bike again myself, something I haven’t done in ten years. I went to the basement to assess the condition my Rock Hopper was in. I bought it 24 years ago this July when I first moved to Boston. It looks like crap. It’s covered in dust and barricaded behind too much junk. The tires are flat and brittle. It isn’t pretty and it certainly isn’t sexy. I made the mistake of looking online at new bikes and became smitten. I wanted a bike. I wanted a DUTCH bike. I wanted a beautiful work of art of a bike. A hauler. A workhorse. I wanted it badly. They’re so beautiful with their fat white tires. With their ability to carry cargo or kids. They come in such lovely bright colors. I posted about it on facebook and daydreamed. I started to pine and lust after it the way I would with a bad crush. I resisted the urge (and insanity) and the desire has passed, thank goodness.

I wrote something and sent it out. An essay! I thought it might get published but it didn’t. I waited and waited and then got a very polite rejection email so I stopped writing. I entered a few contests with my photographs and nothing happened. I hoped I would be discovered but I haven’t been. Well-meaning friends post links on my facebook page to beautiful photo essays of people and their favorite objects – the subject I’ve been working on – by photographers who can travel to exotic places and know how to light things exquisitely. It makes my stuff look like crap so I’ve stopped photographing. It’s a pity that a tiny bit of rejection can put such a damper on one’s passion. I have to fight it. Fuck it. Really. Everyone deals with it. That will be my next project; toughen the hell up.

I got home from my first day at work yesterday and cried. It will take some getting used to but it will be okay. I will brighten the place up with a little plant, some drawings my kids have made me, and some photographs of my beautiful children. Maybe a small table lamp. The people are nice and the work will be something I enjoy; regularly updating a website, blog, and facebook page, and putting together and sending out weekly newsletters. I will answer the phone and I will open the door when the bell rings. I am not sure it’s where I thought I’d be at this age – cobbling together an assortment of jobs like I did in my twenties – but it gives me time to spend with my children and that’s what I’m after. It could be worse. Last weekend we went to NY for mother’s day. My brother Ralph and brother-in-law Tim politely listened to me talk about my anxieties about starting a job after not having had any real constraints on my time for 3.5 years. I complained about how the first day would be a long one. “How long?” my mom asked. “Six hours!” I answered. Ralph and Tim looked at me and just laughed. Oh please. Tim has to leave his family to work in NYC, two hours from home, and he works twelve-hour days. For weeks on end, when he’s busy, he only sees Catherine and their boys on weekends. My brother drives 70 miles to work and 70 miles home each day. I am being a baby and I will buck up.

Speaking of babies, my kids are great. I was complaining to our family therapist last night, in hushed whispers, about how I’m feeling like a failure. I’m barely getting by and it’s getting old. I’m getting old too. I am not sure who I am or what I want to be. He said “you are a mom, and just look at your children!” It helped me remember that the past year has been all about getting the three of us to a better place. We did it. We are here. I ran into the therapist they see at school recently and she gave me a giant hug. She got teary when she told me how extremely well they’re doing; how much progress they’ve made. They talk to her now, a lot, and everything they say is positive. They’re happy and engaged in their lives. We rarely yell or fight, though it certainly still happens now and again. Violet’s progress report was full of praise. “Violet continues to do very well. She is reading well above grade level and she got a high score on a fraction test. I am most proud of her social growth. She has learned to accept responsibility for her decisions and she can work in large and small groups. Violet, you have grown so much and it’s so nice to see you happy about it. You are moving to 3rd grade!”

My turn.

It was yesterday, actually, but that’s not a good title. Twenty years ago on April 11th, on the eve of my 30th birthday, I was offered my first respectable full time job with benefits. It felt good to start a new decade in such a fashion. No more scrambling to make ends meet. No more running around like a chicken with its head cut off trying to piece together freelance work and being under-employed and broke. The job offered stability, structure, and a place to belong. I loved it there and stayed for fifteen years. I made some lifelong friends. I had great managers and colleagues until the last year or so: it was a good run but I was ready to leave when they gave me the boot. I prefer my more bohemian lifestyle of freelance photography work but it’s not quite enough to reliably live on so, about six weeks ago, I set out to find a very flexible part time job.

When what you have to offer is friendliness and good will but you’re not the professional type it can feel daunting to find the right fit. Who will not mind my wearing of jeans and grey sweatshirt day after day? When I want to dress up I wear earrings and a little make up. Who will not mind my sometimes colorful language? Who won’t mind that I wear my heart on my sleeve publicly? Who will allow me the flexibility to take care of my children when they are sick and to switch my schedule around when a photo job comes up? Where will what I do matter in some small way for the greater good?

Someone I don’t know very well, but who is kind and friendly, read my ramblings and contacted me once she made her plans to vacate her part time job official. I asked her if she thought I should hide cautionary trails or take it down and she said no, this organization will more than likely celebrate who I am.

Exactly, to the day, twenty years later, on the eve of yet another big birthday, I was unofficially offered the very flexible and interesting 16 hour/week job she is leaving. Ask and ye shall receive. When I interviewed I felt like myself. When I unofficially accepted the job, one of the people sighed in relief and said, and I paraphrase, “Thank god, we really wanted someone GOOFY!”

I had forgotten. I love Sunday nights. I clean my kitchen on Sunday nights. I get ready for the week on Sunday nights. I wash lunch boxes and run the dishwasher with water bottles and the weekend’s mess. I cleared the table and gave it a good scrub and that’s no small feat in this house. I am doing laundry. I picked up the ever-growing pile of sweepings, long ignored, and put it into the trash. The recycling is ready for Tuesday. It looks nice in there. It has been several years since I’ve had a Sunday night like this but I’m on my own again and it’s all up to me. It’s easier to get things done knowing that.

He only had one drawer here. A pair or two of socks and a shirt. Some pajama bottoms that I had bought long ago for a nephew who I never saw at Christmas so they lived in the attic until he wore them. Not so hard to put that all away. Cleaning the kitchen tonight I found a coffee cup he drank out of with the silt still at the bottom. It’s soaking now. Before long there will be nary a trace. Poof. Gone. I feel bad for my children because they don’t understand about people growing apart. At least he hadn’t been around much in the past months so it isn’t a giant black hole for them but it’s still a loss.

Ending a dying relationship is a positive thing but it takes some time to come out on the other side. Stages to go through and all – especially when he finds someone shiny and new just like that and you’re pretty certain you won’t. Maybe it’s enough to put on a little mascara and be noticed while grocery shopping. I may be in the not-so-young department but I look okay and it’s always nice to be checked out unless by a creeper, as my kids would say. It’s probably best to leave it at that for now.

I often hope I’ll come back in another life as someone who marries their high school sweetheart and lives happily ever after. I used to love seeing the photographs on my old neighbors’ wall: they married young and I marveled at all the hairstyles they had been through together. I used to want to come back as a gear head so I could have a muscle car and know how to fix it. That was in my twenties. In my early thirties I wanted to come back as a dog with a really good owner. Then, in my late thirties, I just wanted to come back happy.

And I did. Mostly. Ralphie and Violet give my life shape and meaning. I may have more sass in my future and other frustrating and hard times but there are these two wonderful, affectionate, and loving creatures lying in my bed waiting for me to snuggle in between them. Clean sheets. A path cleared to the bed. Perfection. Off I go.

When my stepfather Quin died there was a lovely memorial service at Columbia University where he had been a professor for decades. My entire extended family was there and it was a little crowded with his friends and colleagues. When everyone was sitting down I realized no one had thought to save a seat for me. I sat alone on the other side of the chapel with strangers. I had been very close to him; he was the best parent I had back then. He paid attention to me. He’d listen to me for hours on the phone when I’d call him up in the middle of a panic attack and the panic was constant. I remember sitting scrunched up in a phone booth at Purchase, scared out of my wits, talking to him day after day. He never sounded distracted or irritated when I called and he was always there. He was my lifeline. I lived with him through college and for several years after I graduated but once I stopped being able to ride the elevator to the 8th floor I knew I had to leave. My anxiety always has a pretty obvious source. Sudden fear and claustrophobia in his building’s elevator told me that there was a sort of claustrophobia in living with him; I was 25 and needed to start the process of learning how to be on my own. I felt responsible for his happiness and I knew he liked having my company but eventually I moved out.

Quin and his feral cat Moo

In the last five or so years of his life he kept a diary which he was writing for posterity. He never read from it or talked about it much but there it was. When he died, we all took turns going through his apartment to get our stuff out or claim the things of his that we loved or would remind us of him. The cockroaches, long resident in apt. 8N, had taken over in a scary way so it was not only sad but also pretty gross. I’d open a drawer of his dresser and the fuckers would scurry every which way. They were everywhere but they particularly loved warm places like the oven, toaster, and dishwasher. Once, when Quin was still alive and well, a repairman came to fix the dishwasher but had to leave immediately upon opening it up and seeing them en masse, moving as one, when he removed the cover. He just couldn’t deal. I can still picture the look of horror on his face. Once a guy slept over and complained that a roach had crawled across his face and I laughed, there were no roaches in my room! But the next night one crawled on me. I still can’t sleep without a pillow over my head lest something crawl into my ears.

Fifteen years later I still haven’t opened the boxes I hermetically sealed with many, many layers of the strongest packing tape I could find. Each box contains a few roach motels in case any bugs snuck in while I packed. The boxes are in my basement filled with memories I probably shouldn’t let out. If I do, it will be outside with a shoe nearby to squash anything still alive.

One day I was in his apartment alone packing up and I noticed his diary. It was just sitting on his desk so I sat down to read it, looking forward to hearing about how much he had loved me. It was about thirty pages long and it was all about Catherine. Catherine was his only child. Ralph, Sarah, and I were stepchildren. I didn’t think there was a difference in our case but there was, apparently, and once I read his diary there it was as clear as day. I appeared twice; once to say he wished I’d come get my shit out of his closets and another time to say that my dog had been killed. That was it. I was stunned. It was beyond hurtful and, as I’ve said before, anger trumps hurt and it consumed me. The anger helped with the enormous grief of losing him but it isn’t much fun. I know Quin loved me and cared about me and he showed it all the time. I know I mattered to him and he mattered to me. When bitterness threatens to overtake me I remember that. Context is everything. The years he wrote in his diary I wasn’t around much and we didn’t talk as often. We can choose to feel sorry for ourselves or to move forward and remember that there was plenty of good to balance out the sad and the hard in our pasts.

Even when we all lived together as a family in the horror that was our lives in Dobbs Ferry – my mom, Quin, Sarah, Ralph, Catherine, and me – there were good times. Sarah, Ralph, and I have had many a conversation about the fact that we simply raised ourselves. We didn’t have parents. We didn’t have rules. I came home stumble-drunk, sometimes bloody and bruised, at least five nights a week from the ages of twelve to fifteen – until I went away to boarding school. I can remember all that, and I do, but I can also remember my painting class at the Hudson River museum, the modern dance class my mom took me to that I was too shy to take part in, the games of kickball on Southlawn with the neighborhood kids, and our lovely dog Phoebe who always stayed close when I was sad. It wasn’t all bad.

Anxiety and depression, they say, come from anger turned inward. It’s hard being human. We all have our pain. Even in my family my brother, sisters, and I all have our own very distinct and personal hurts and grievances. I have made peace with most of mine, to the best of my ability, but they color who I am in every way. They have made me, at times, numb to everything – a walking automaton – with nothing inside and very little to say. When I was in nursery school the teachers thought I was catatonic. I probably was. Now it’s all coming out in an orderly way and it helps me see and feel. The things that made me feel so alone, left out, and sad are now my strengths, at least in the realms of writing and photography. I am lucky to have found a place for it all to go. The wounds long open and painful are healing and closing up.

This is only the second time in my life – well from the age of twelve on – that I don’t want a boyfriend. I just don’t. I don’t want to kiss anyone. I certainly don’t want anyone to see me undressed. No thank you. And I don’t want to diet excessively or try to do something about my wreck of a stomach. My abdominal muscles were cut horizontally twice and vertically they split during my pregnancy. As a result, a large part of my body is a shaking ball of jelly and that’s just the way it is. Thanks to a long winter and a love of butter and cheese, my clothes don’t fit but I’m soft and comfortable for my kids. I don’t want them to grow up fixated on or worried about their bodies so I’m careful never to say “I’m so fat!” or anything disparaging in front of them. When they jiggle my tummy and laugh I tell them it was their home for nine months and now it’s a soft pillow for them to rest on.

I spent so much of my life pining for someone or other, real or fantasy, and it ate up so much time. When I had a boyfriend I felt normal somehow. If I could say “oh, my boyfriend and I…” I felt I had an identity. Someone’s girlfriend. Someone who somebody loved. I liked saying it. When the relationships with guys I loved or didn’t particularly love ended I ran out of time and went for the babies on my own, as anyone who reads this already knows, but I didn’t quite let go of the dream of being happily in love.

Even when I was seven months pregnant with my twins I went on a date. He was a plumber and we sat outside at a local restaurant and I got scolded by the waitress for ordering a glass of wine. I figured the babies were splitting it and my doctor said it was okay so I drank it despite the waitress’s earnest but unwelcome urgings. The guy was handsome, divorced, and had two kids but when it was all said and done I think he just wanted the job he had bid on at my wreck of a house. Or it might have been a mercy date. Speaking of houses, I was huge. The nice young pharmacist in our town still blushes when she talks about how I was the biggest pregnant woman she has ever seen. I got laughed at as I waddled across the street. I ran into a good friend when I was out grocery shopping and she actually dragged the pal she was with to see the shape my swollen ankles were in. “It’s like elephantitis!” she said excitedly. It kind of hurt my feelings then but now it just makes me smile.

Once born, my children filled all my needs for love and affection for about three years. I felt emancipated; I was happy and content. I had a new and respectable identity. I was a mom! I had children! I wasn’t a nobody or a nothing. I was a something. It felt so good not to wonder who I’d sit next to on the train or whether or not the cute guy across the room would notice me. But when my kids were verging on four I hit a wall – being a mom was no longer enough. I was bled dry. Just done. Toast. Finished. Nothing was coming in and everything was bleeding out. It was a certain kind of hell but then I met Scott – I’ve summarized our relationship a little too glibly in my last post. When I met him and we talked about our plans to get married I loved that I was going to be a wife. I fell in love with the idea of joining that club; I was going to be a person who got married. Not a loser loner sad sack but a mother of two beautiful children and someone’s wife. It made me feel so normal. I wanted so badly to feel normal.

Many of my family members are wrecks. No one is doing particularly well for a variety of reasons, none of which are my business to discuss. It’s hard and intense. Worrisome and sad. None of us can fix each other but we would if we could. I wish we all lived closer by but we’re scattered across three states. I could use some family now and then. When people tell me that their dad, sister, mom, aunt or really anyone is coming by to watch their kids I just want to cry with envy. Sometimes I do.

I felt completely out of control crazy for the past few years and that became another identity; a woman on the verge, sometimes dizzyingly close, of a nervous breakdown. Now I’m actually sort of content to be me. I don’t need another person to define me. Here I am! And I am decidedly not crazy. Anxious, yes. Depressed, not so much. A burning ball of anger, now and again. Crazy, no.

We had some awful backsliding this past weekend, and no school on Monday thanks to Boston’s made up holiday to get St. Patrick’s Day off, and then yesterday was a snow day. I was insane by the end of the night last night, speaking of done, but today has been good. It’s such a necessary treat to be alone for the day to enjoy the quiet and start to get caught up with some long overdue work. I answered emails, wrote up the terms of a contract, applied for a very part-time job, cleaned and organized, and made headway in three of our six rooms.

I have a big birthday coming up and no plans. I bought tickets to a show but don’t know who I’ll go with. I’m kind of lonely and aimless but thank goodness I’m not filled with longing for someone who may not exist. I’ve got 55 photographs, all ones I’m proud of, in a book that will be published this spring by 826 Boston. The portraits are of high school students who’ve all emigrated to the USA from a variety of circumstances and countries. The’ve written very moving essays about their most meaningful objects and I’ve photographed each student with their object. I’ve also got a portrait commission coming up which will culminate in a large exhibit. Things really are okay.

I am doing it ever so slowly – defining myself all on my own – and it may just finally be enough.

Onward and upward or, a as a wonderful college professor of mine wrote in a book he gave me, “spring every year.”

It’s nice to wake up and feel like crying for joy. The sun is out and the birds are singing. We planted bulbs with Scott last fall and I can see the green spikes of daffodils, hyacinth and tulips already poking through, some several inches tall. I am afraid the crocuses are still in a bag in my glove compartment, alas: it would have been nice to have some early color. I bought narcissus bulbs in December but never found the shallow bowl with stones we use to steady them as they grow. They languished on the dining room table until Violet found several plastic containers and robbed soil from all our house plants. It was a lovely effort but nothing bloomed – the slightly moldy remains are littering our kitchen table right now. My kids, however, are a different story. They’re blooming and blossoming and planted solidly in their lives. They have friends and regular play dates. We aren’t fighting at all, or barely at all. I am less stressed and, as a result, so are they.

Scott and I have broken up. It was a long and difficult process and I didn’t quite realize how angry I’ve been feeling until it ended. Knowing where we stand is better than the grey haze we were living in. He has his own three kids and a lot of overlap with his ex. They share a house, a garden, a dog, chickens, and their children, and they do a lot together as a family. It’s great for them but I never got used to it and it never shifted even though I needed it to. If I had an ex it might have been different but I don’t. I don’t have anybody for anyone to feel jealous of. I don’t know what it’s like to have a family with someone and have it end. I don’t even remember what it’s like to have a partner. My family consists of my kids and me. I have decided to distinguish it all by calling myself an only parent rather a single parent – it’s much more to the point.

When I met Scott three and a half years ago I hadn’t said I love you to a man in 15 years. That’s a damn long time. He was generous and kind. He can cook and he brought me bread he had baked and fresh vegetables from his garden. We had met a few months before his marriage ended and I thought he was friendly and nice. When he and his wife broke up somewhat unexpectedly he invited us over for a picnic. He had cooked at least eleven different beautiful and delicious vegetarian dishes (he knew we don’t eat meat) and they were displayed on his kitchen counter when we arrived. We dreamed of getting married. I imagined us living in a big house somewhere with his kids with his ex half the time and half with us. It was nice to be taken care of and loved. It was wonderful except when it wasn’t. The separation never came. The animosity turned to friendship and he continued to care for his wife. It worked for them but it didn’t work at all for me.

When things start to break down the walls go up and I’m an expert builder. I’d feel hurt and stop giving something or other (affection, food, whatever) and he’d stop bringing bread. Brick by brick we built our fortresses until there was no common ground. Resentment brewed in me and with it came the anger. I need clear and distinct boundaries with a person’s ex, I know that now. I knew it early on but held out hope that somehow things would change.

My kids miss his kids so this past Sunday we had a plan to go to his house for the day. Sunday morning I found myself in a fury and snapping at my children left and right. I hadn’t done it in a long time. It took about half an hour for me to recognize that it was because of our plans – unresolved feelings have an ugly way of turning an otherwise nice person into a rabid beast. I remember years ago when I lived with my stepfather Quin he was as lovely a man as I could hope to be around. He listened and he cared. He cooked square meals. He made art. He was solid and whole. Once in a while a switch would flip and he’d turn on me as if out of nowhere. With time I realized it only happened when my mom visited. She lived a few blocks away and they were trying to be friends. Anyway, I apologized to my kids and gave them a watered down explanation of my mood. They understood. They’re smart and very aware of nuance.

We drove to Scott’s house and walked in. The first thing I saw was the piano with all the family photographs on top. We never made it into the mix. The one of him and his wife and their kids was never taken down. I realized I didn’t want to be there so I dropped my kids off and left. Enough already.

Last week I went to the bank to take out one hundred dollars and the nice teller sheepishly handed me a slip of paper on which she had written negative $1100 balance. I had also blown through my overdraft amount of $600. Auto payments scheduled, bills coming in, food shopping on the horizon, gas tank close to empty, kids lost their damn gloves… Fuck, being a starving artist isn’t all its cracked up to be. I ran home and gathered up the remainder of the savings bonds I had purchased way back in 1999 and 2000 when it was no sweat putting $25 away each pay period. I cashed them out and the great big scary black hole didn’t even stop to chew. I scrounged around for some checks I hadn’t cashed. Gobble, burp, but, c’mon miss, I’ll need a lot more than that. I took $7000 out of my retirement fund to start to pay off some credit card debt and bring the bank balance back to a manageable and less stressful place. This sucks. I am very busy with work. I have two interesting freelance projects that I love and that are great for my resume but the cash flow thing is killing me; they don’t all pay right away. I have things to sell. I could create an etsy store for goodies I collect but certainly don’t need. Stuff. I don’t want to sell my stuff. I love my stuff.

I delivered two pieces to a gallery today to be part of an exhibit. An exhibit! It’s happening ever so slowly but there’s so much to do and so many directions to be blown in. Apply for grants. Work on my own projects. Offer a series of mini sessions at a reduced rate to pay next month’s mortgage. Refinance so mortgage can be lowered. Get more freelance work. Make sure my kids are okay. Keep the house tidy-ish. Stop buying crazy things like the lovely little Heywood Wakefield side table I bought a few days ago because I couldn’t resist its elegant lines and surfboard shape.

But, reality hits. I need a job. Just a little one. Just enough for groceries and gas. Fifteen hours a week would be good. Just to get through these rough patches while my business grows without having to call my mommy.

Warnings abound about recent college grads needing to have their online presence cleaned up professionally before they can look for work. Employers scour the internet looking for dirt on potential employees. Facebook. Blogs. Websites. Twitter. If they happened upon my writings and read just a little, they’d know at least these few things; my house is messy; I am a single mom of two quirky and wonderful but somewhat difficult kids; I deal with some unpleasant anger issues now and again, and I curse too much. What they might not get is that I’m friendly, caring, helpful and very outgoing. What will they think if they read this blog? Maybe this will need to come down.

But it’s my lifeline and it has been a helpful refuge getting through a year starting with the somewhat insane purchase of a camping trailer last May. April had been a bad month for all. We were frayed, worn thin. Catherine’s surgery was two months prior and she was just beginning to heal, if only physically. She was in the midst of intense daily radiation treatments and my mother had had just about all she could take. Of four adult kids I don’t think there’s ever been a time when more than one or two of us have been okay simultaneously. It is relentless for her. Whoever thinks parenting gets easier when one’s children become adults is dead wrong when it comes to us. She was full up; saturated from worry over Catherine, whose cancer was considered extremely aggressive, and she had taken up with her old pal bourbon. None of us should drink; we’re icky when we’re drunk but on occasion a body needs what it needs and at this point in time my mom was drinking heavily, all day long. She and I had a very ugly encounter in front of my children and I vowed never ever EVER to sleep in her house again. I can be a bit impulsive and I was hurt and angry so I threw myself into thoroughly researching campers and then, as is obvious, I bought one the next month. It’s time to sell it. I think we can sleep in her house again, if only for a few days at a time.

I bought an old KitchenAid stand mixer a few days ago for $30. It’s a heavy old beast, made in the USA, with a stainless steel bowl. Its owners were moving across country and it’s just too heavy for them to take along. I don’t think it has been used for years because the woman had to plug it in to make sure it works. There are scrapes and rust on it but it’s still a beauty and fits right in with the other relics in my kitchen. I have always wanted a standing mixer in a keeping up with the Jones’s kind of way but the price tag of a new one kept me away. I also didn’t really know what they were for; I have an egg beater, I have hands, and I have a sizable collection of bowls. But I love beautiful objects, and old or new, this is a pretty thing and now it’s mine.

I make biscuits 4 or 5 times a week for my daughter Violet so she gets some protein. She eats them for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and snacks. They are the mainstay or her diet, supplemented these days with apple, yellow pepper, or mango slices. Sometimes they’re soft and crumbly and other times they’re like hard tack. I grind oats, flax seed, raw almonds and whatever goodies I might have lying around in the coffee grinder; add the salt and baking powder; a 1/4 cup of plain old white flour goes in for good measure; I cut in a stick of butter, and pinch, pinch, pinch, coating my hands with butter and flour, until the mixture resembles gravel. Small chocolate chips go in next. Adding the milk in and mixing it all together glues clumps to my fingernails and I need a good scrub when I’m done. The process takes a precious 15 or 20 minutes of getting-ready-for-school time and I end up covered in dust or dough. I have to discourage my kids from helping in the interest of time and sometimes it hurts their feelings. Lunch boxes need washing and filling with new foods, same with water bottles. Homework needs to be collected and children need to be managed. It’s a mad dash. I make them in the morning on school days because Ralphie only eats them hot out of the oven, and only once in a while. They’re chock full of protein, fiber and fat.

This morning I made the biscuits with the mixer for the first time. I ground the ingredients, as usual, and threw them in the bowl. Grrrrpppp grrrrpppp grrrrppp went the mixer, making a perfectly blended collection of dried stuff in about a minute. I added the butter. Pfffffffph pfffffffph pfffffffph went the mixer and made a perfect sandy mixture as I did some chores. I poured in some milk. Chug chug chug… within 30 seconds the ball of dough was ready for patting down and cutting. My hands were clean. I wasn’t tied down to the kitchen counter. I walked over to see the circuits Ralphie was building. I could check on Violet who was sprawled out on the living room floor completely hypnotized by the television. I was free. I am in love. Utter and total love. I had to gush to my mom, and whoever else I was able to get on the phone, about it. I got goosebumps when I talked about the process. No plastic, not made in China, old, strong and steady with a bowl that bobs up and down as needed. The simplicity of it all. One bowl, one blade, the clean hands, the solid sounds it makes. Years ago my friend MA was driving a 1960s red Corvette around. She picked me up in it and we went to visit my brother who lived a few blocks away. He looked on in awe as we pulled up. She revved the motor once or twice, showing off, and my brother said, turning red, “Stop doing that or I’ll get an erection!” It was an innocent and wonderful reaction from a twenty-something twenty-something years ago that I’ll never forget. I don’t think I quite got it until today.

Somehow this still feels private to me even though it isn’t. It’s my family’s business and I choose to share it. It helps exorcise my demons to write and the act of writing alone doesn’t do it; I have to release it all to the universe and then move onto the next thing. It’s my form of confession. But the universe is filled with others and some read what I write. This morning I got an anonymous letter, handwritten, in the mail. The woman says my blog fascinates and horrifies her. I do imagine that to be the case with many who read this; it is horrifying at times. She wonders if that’s what I’m after. Not at all. I know some must read it for the train wreck value and that knowledge upsets me, but not enough to stop. As I’ve said before, I need this forum and I know it is helpful to at least a handful of other parents who struggle with anger, hard kids, life…

No one said being a parent was going to be easy and it isn’t. We all have our own personal brand of crazy we deal with and then there are our kids. The anonymous writer asks, among other things, “So my question is, are you worried about fucking up Violet and Ralphie, who already seem to have what people politely refer to as ‘issues’?” I worry about fucking them up period. Don’t we all? I hope it won’t upset them to read what I’ve written. I’ve read a few posts to them and they get little smiles on their faces. It’s fun to be noticed and feel important. They know I love and adore them no matter what. They know they are my life. They feel my love strongly and I feel theirs right back. We may fight, we may have bad days or even weeks, but we’re a solid and steady little family and our love is fierce.

As for “issues”; lots of children suffer from sensory stuff, many grown ups do too. So, some mornings Violet can’t put put on her socks or shoes. Does that make her mentally ill? Not one bit. So she has had some trouble socially in school. She has made enormous progress this year thanks to her wonderful, caring, and involved teacher. It’s hard when you aren’t a follower or a leader. It’s hard when you’re not a mean girl. It’s hard when you don’t feel like you fit in. It’s hard to know what to do with hurt feelings. It’s really hard when just about everything hurts your feelings. Some kids, like my extra-sensitive girl, try offensive on for size. I have done that too, and continue to when I’m not being careful. It doesn’t work, of course, but she’s just learning about her world and eventually she will find a comfortable place for herself, with all the help I can give and get for her. I don’t fit in either. I’m not a follower or a leader and it’s lonely sometimes but isn’t that the lot of so many of us? Aren’t writers and artists often temperamental, moody and a little different? Don’t they sometimes feel isolated? It’s what drives them to create. If I write or make things I exist. If I hide my head under the pillow and go to bed at 7 pm every night I don’t. I have a baby artist. Other parents do too. It’s heartbreaking watching our children struggle with enormous sensitivities but we guide them the best we can and hope they grow up strong and solid. My kids and I talk about it all the time. I tell them over and over that my goal is to give them deep roots to hold them steady. We talk a lot.

The anonymous writer wants to have a blog but worries about the privacy of her (why do I assume she’s a woman?) child. I think berating someone publicly, calling them horrible and terrible names, and/or hating every second of parenting would be hurtful. I think writing about the struggles and triumphs, however small, is not. I think if you aren’t able to sign a letter to someone whose entire blog you’ve read, having your own is probably not going to feel comfortable to you.

Calm breeds calm. Therapists have told me that it isn’t the parent’s fault when a child has a difficult temperament – just compare them to the easier child and there you have it. They’d both be hard if it were all my fault, but it really isn’t that simple. One is fine in most situations and the other is not. One is like me and the other is not. The past three weeks have been wonderful for both of my children and it is a direct result of how I have been. Yesterday morning Violet was being stand-offish and I stayed steady. My kids fought and I barely got involved. I kept making biscuits and doing other morning chores and eventually she came in, jumped into my arms, and said “I’m sorry mommy, I’m sorry.” I held her and we stood quietly for a few minutes nose-to-nose and all was well. If I had reacted negatively to her behavior we’d all be upset. I have been able to say, almost in a whisper, “stop yelling at me” instead of the almost comical “STOP YELLING AT ME!” of days gone by and it works. It truly does.

Last week I was peeking in the window during Violet’s ballet class. I saw her trying to get attention by parading around her double joints; I always make a big deal of it when she turns her elbow inside out. No one noticed or said anything, they were concentrating on other things. I saw the teacher’s assistant high five a spritely little girl over and over and I had to walk away. I knew how that was going to affect Violet and it was just too painful to watch. Minutes later she left class. She didn’t want to talk to me but said something wasn’t fair; some minor correction she was given had hurt her feelings. The teacher came out and convinced her to go back to class but she left again. Twice. The teacher came out each time and gently spoke to her; I really appreciate that she took the time to help a child who, from the outside, looked unapproachable. When we left, instead of chastising her for leaving a class we had paid good money for – something I would have done a month ago – I talked about how tired she must be. How hard it is to have a class so late in the day and how she wasn’t quite over her version of the flu that’s going around. How it will be better next week and what yummy snacks I’ll bring to give her more energy. A grandmother, who witnessed the whole ballet incident and my treatment of Violet’s small tantrum, was walking out with us as I was gently talking her off the ledge. She looked at me with disdain and told me I had better nip that behavior in the bud. Sorry dude, tough love decidedly does not work. I’ve tried it for the past seven years – been there, done that, as they say. Love and gentleness does, at least with my kids and I suspect it does with all.

I ran into someone I barely know yesterday and she told me that she had had a “mommy dearest” moment recently too. I assumed she had been reading my blog and was referring to my parenting skills. It horrified me that someone would think of me that way but I can see why; I do write a lot about what’s hard and what I do wrong. Sometimes I want to take this whole thing down, I feel embarrassed and exposed, but then I remember the handful of people I know who, like me, struggle with anger. They tell me that what I write helps them feel less alone and it makes them feel brave about admitting what’s going on in their lives so up it will stay. We all, or most of us, just want to do the right thing. We want to be proud of who we are as people and if we’re lucky enough to have little ones in our care we want to do right by them. That’s really what I want above all else; to raise my children to feel loved, confident, and happy.