My yoga instructor, Michelle, said agitation is good because it acts like a washing machine and pummels all the dirt as it cleanses. And agitated I have been, but through the agitation came a new clarity for us.
Sartre said that genius is “not a gift, but the way a person invents in desperate circumstances” and Michelle told us, we must learn how to bend so we don’t break.
It means be prepared to alter your path.
Okay, I’m done being sad. I want to move on. I want a baby, I want to be a mother, and I’m getting old. I want all of these boys in this picture sitting at my dining room table waiting for the macaroni and cheese.
Oprah is want to say that failure is a way of saying you are on the wrong path. BULLSHIT. My motto is try again. But first grieve, then deep breath, next think about what was working last time and what wasn’t, and calibrate for the next step.
That my dear is life. Too old to wallow. Too young to give up.
I was walking Loca to the park this morning in a daze, and at the corner of Carrolton and City Park burst into tears. A friend was driving by taking her child to school and she rolled down the window and asked if I was okay and I blurted out the birthmother changed her mind. There wasn’t much she could do or I could say more than that so I kept walking into the park.
I started to run to lose myself and Loca was behaving better today than yesterday – animals feel stress and yesterday Loca was a nutball because I had woken up with an apple in my throat. Then Loca slowed down because she had to go to the bathroom. I watched her wrangle and circle and circle until I just said, “Loca, why can’t you go to the bathroom like a normal person?”
But then I thought how would I like to go the bathroom while being on a leash. Good grief. And I thought about PETA and how the real radicals out there think owning a pet is a horrible thing. Akin to slavery. And even though I think I am all nicey nice feeding, loving, and shelthering this wild dog, really I’m nothing more than an unenlightened worm.
Yesterday, while I was trying to deal with the grief of learning that our baby due in a few months was no longer coming to live with us, I thought what the fuck does it take to have a baby for godsakes? I mean ten miscarriages, four attempts for T to get pregnant, and now two birthmothers who have changed their minds and decided to keep the baby and I’m like what? I went online and seemed to encounter one too many websites that are vehemently opposed to adoption – in PETA fashion almost insinuating that there is something disgusting about a person like me wanting someone else’s baby.
And I wondered, am I an elitist imbecile for believing that there are children out there who might benefit from having me as a parent? Are kids meant to grow up in worn torn families, with drug addicts, or violent mothers and not here in the comfort of the LaLa with neat lesbians and loving animals?
I got back to my desk and went through the normal course of work and a friend called and again I just blurted out that the birthmother changed her mind and started crying. I asked my friend if she thought adopting is some ridiculous thing that stupid people like me engage in but really children shouldn’t be adopted? She said that I am really overreacting.
So is it bad to own a dog, a cat, a pet? Is it bad to want to be a parent when you can’t have your own baby? Is it crazy to be sick to death of wondering what the fuck is wrong with this universe when I have so much to give a child and yet this remains the most elusive child on the planet.
Give me that old time religion where Moses floats down the bayou because the mother knows she cannot provide and she recognizes someone who can. And get me out of this modern world where everyone is so self-absorbed that a mother would hand over her baby to a man with a serious addiction problem because he is pounding his chest and roaring in the jungle.
Da Capo
Take the used-up heart like a pebble
and throw it far out.Soon there is nothing left.
Soon the last ripple exhaust itself
in the weeds.Returning home, slice carrots, onions, celery.
Glaze them in oil before adding
the lentils, water, and herbs.Then the roasted chestnuts, a little pepper, the salt.
Finish with goat cheese and parsley. Eat.
You may do this, I tell you, it is permitted.
Begin again the story of your life.
Jane Hirshfield
Last night, someone was telling me how to get in touch with a doctor who would prescribe me as much Vicodin or Xanax as I could ever want. Really? I thought. Why would I want access to all the Vicodin I could ever want?
Today I was speaking to another friend about the day and the way the adoption was (not) going and he said in a manner of speaking that it would be okay. I told him it fell in the category of whatyagonnado – as in I’m 50, I’ve had my share of disappointments, do you know what I mean?
It took me seconds to hit send on the chat screen and then I realized just who I was speaking with – a man who lost his partner to cancer and recently lost his job. His response: “You have more equanimity than me.”
I said really? I was raised by a violent father and an alcoholic mother, for some reason this makes me want to parent, who am I to say I know anything about equanimity or what my fate should be? But this I do know – life sometimes doesn’t give you want you want but it gives you what you need. And then it’s up to you to make the best of it.
Last night we went to Chickie Wah Wah to hear Evan and the trio play, only the trio was minus James Singleton (sadly) and plus a guitar player and other bass player and later two young Japanese musicians. One of the Japanese musicians was a young very cute girl who had a tee shirt that said “Living Well is the Best Thing” – and today after conversing with a friend about our adoption taking a turn for the worse, my friend said of the father, “What an egotistical asshole! Addicts can be so fucking selfish!!!! COÑO.”
Well, that is the tee shirt that I will sport – ADDICTS CAN BE SO FUCKING SELFISH – I need to get one made right away. Since I’ve spent my life the daughter of, wife of, sister of, friend of an addict, I am here to tell the world that that my dear is the real truth – ADDICTS CAN BE SO FUCKING SELFISH.
But back to the innocence of the tee shirt the young Japanese clarinetist had on – in the end that is really all you can fall back on – living well – even in the face of adversity.
The babydaddy wants the baby even though he has no means to take care of her. The babymama is stuck in the midst of a quagmire in a relationship with a man who has addiction problems and no means to take care of a baby that he is now hell bent on killing a lot of people over if he doesn’t get. This is not to mention he does not support the son he has or the fact that we now have learned there is yet another woman pregnant with his baby.
The babymama’s family all have different sets of interests – a sister who couldn’t have her own who whips god’s words about homosexuality and the devil, children with their own naivete about what having another sibling really means to their mother, a grandmother who wants to try all over again with this baby girl. Sandwiched into this equation are two generations if not more of teenage pregnancy, absentee males, and poverty.
Then there is us – baby mamas – who just cannot understand why there are so many babies out there and yet having a baby seems to be the hardest thing in the world – to us.
But what do we know, it’s a full moon. And today, our birthmother has decided she cannot oppose the birthfather so we are at an impasse and therefore our contract is void, our relationship in a void, and us, well:
It’s crying time again.
Tonight is a full moon – ah woo is all I have to say – Loca was psycho in the park this morning, I kept trying to run and every time, she would start barking with this squeaky irritating shrill noise. Then I just gave up and started fast walking. I wanted to go back around by the lagoon because alas, it’s March, and the pelicans will be leaving soon, but as we rounded the bend, I saw to my surprise IRISES, white, purple and lavender, blooming all along the banks. Spring has sprung I said to myself with a song in my heart. And just at that moment Loca tried to eat a white mooky poo type dog and ruined my entire joie de vivre.
Today is officially Barbie’s 50th birthday and I spent the morning reading about how the West, namely, the United States, is the culprit for branding skinny and the world has responded with eating disorders, anorexia, bulemia, diets, and body hatred. Barbie’s body and lack of anatomy have been the subject of much vehement discussion about just this topic, but I think she has been vilified for no reason. I played with Barbies endlessly when I was a little girl and didn’t think I wanted to look like her or be like her. My sister and I built elaborate houses for Barbie with the dining room table protectors that folded out and became the walled universe whereby everything was rife for a piece of furniture.
Last night we were watching the final episode of the L-Word and it was interesting how at the end when they showed a cameo of each girl, the girls who were watching it with me all oo’d and ah’d over Shane, over Bette, over Kit. From pencil thin to robust, there wasn’t a body type that wasn’t attractive or hot.
Barbie doesn’t have an eating disorder, she is just naturally thin because she doesn’t have time to eat – she’s on the go, driving her corvette, wearing her glamorous clothes, at the beach with Skipper, or entertaining with Ken. Happy birthday girl – you are marvelous!
I try to describe my work days as having a feeling of accomplishment, but mostly what I gage as success is a moving target. I love interviewing and speaking to clients and of course, like some people, loathe administrative tasks. But one thing I overheard yesterday afternoon while I was ass up in my garden were two people riding by on their bicycles and one said to the other, “It’s just the same endless routine there. Nothing ever changes.” The glorious part about being an investigative reporter is things change constantly.
Today someone sent me this and asked if I might be a workaholic:
Daily LaunchTip, March 9, 2009
March 8th, 2009 · 1 Comment
From Victoria Colligan, Founder and CEO, Ladies Who LaunchBeing addicted to your work is as much an addiction as any other. Apparently, as with any addiction, the “workaholic’s” brain becomes triggered by a rush of adrenaline and feel good chemicals (the high), ultimately resulting in a crash or let down when these chemicals wear off. From what I understand of addictions, the experience of unintended, consequences that are negatively life altering is what separates addictions from passions. Isn’t it funny that the line between passion and addiction can be so fine? I’ve examined this workaholic tendency in myself and other entrepreneurs for quite some time now and have recently come to a somewhat startling conclusion: True work addicts create chaos and actually thwart their own success in order to feed their work addiction due to an unresolved fear that they might have “nothing to do” and “not enough adrenaline” in the absence of such chaos. So if you are wondering if you might be afflicted, the only question you have to ask is: Are you doing this to yourself? Only you can provide the answer.
Uh, a resounding yes, it is defacto that I am a workaholic and I have been trying to overcome this need to constantly do and learn how to simply be. I have guilt when I am not “accomplishing” something, anything. I know that Tatjana came into my life to help me learn how to simply be but sometimes when I am running back and forth and watching her just be, it all seems so otherworldly how she can be so still, so focused, so relaxed. It’s almost mesmerizing if I could stop long enough to observe her.
Maybe success for me will be feeling entitled to relax without first thinking I have to earn it.