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On kindness – there are times in your life when you know that you have been through something, you know you have grown and tested your mettle, you know that you are on a new plane and in a new awareness. You just know. Today in chanting one of the yoga sutras about truthfulness and about knowing who you are and standing up for it, I felt like I was on a different plane than I have ever been before. A rocking mama as my yoga teacher called me.

Again a perfect yoga moment to meditate on as my day progressed to a surprise phone call from a relative who I adore. When I saw the name flash on my cell I was delighted. I mistakenly thought it was a call about how is Tin doing, how is being a mom going, how are you?

That wasn’t what the call was about.

What I have found at the end of the day is that you can’t have true happiness in your life unless you know who you are. And I know who I am. I know that I’m not perfect nor do I want to be. I know sometimes the best way to act and sometimes I don’t act that way. I know in the end, I will continue to work towards my own self-actualization and there will be collateral damage.

But I know most of all that at the end of the day, it’s those people who love and support this imperfect me who I will love and I will love the imperfections in them back.

The Ogden Southern Museum here in New Orleans has a Thursday night music event where they set up in the lobby and the musician plays and then answers questions from the audience. It’s really a wonderful venue, and tonight T had gone to her Thursday night coffee shop time and I was feeding Tin when my neighbor called and said let’s take the kids to the Ogden to see Andre Williams. I dressed Tin in his Shanghai vest and when Williams came out in his white on white pinstriped suit and opened the set with Rolling on a River. Tin got down on the floor and started grooving. Awesome.

After watching the Hurt Locker, I had a hard time with the fact that we, as a country, are in two wars. I just don’t see the point of any of this. Meanwhile, this morning because I woke up late having been awake for two solid hours last night for no good reason, I just walked Loca around the bayou and skipped the park. It was crisp but sunny outside and we ran into a fellow bayou walker with his dog and Loca and the dog played and played. He said that his son was headed to Iraq for a one year tour of duty and that his son-in-law was already in Afghanistan. I just couldn’t imagine living with that sort of weight on my shoulders. He said, “I guess I stay here and just walk around the bayou every day and wait for them to return.” I wanted to say something pollyannish to him about it would be alright but it sounded trite. Then he said, “It will be alright.”

When I was coming home, I thought of Tin learning karate like T and I were talking about, or learning music like we hope he has a predisposition or talent for, and I thought about him traveling the world with us. What I couldn’t imagine was him going off to fight a stupid war.

Tin already has his own friends. One stopped by yesterday to say hi and sit with him while he ate his chicken and dumplings. We’ve been using mealtime as 123 and ABC time. T continues to speak to him in Croatian and me in English but we’re throwing in some Turkish and Spanish when we can. They say raising a child bilingual delays their speech but it does help them develop language more easily as they get older. He is saying “cat” and “Tin” we think, and T’s mother is coming for three months to reinforce his Croatian.

Every time I think we have nailed a schedule with Tin, it shifts slightly. Since he’s growing, his needs are changing daily. Now that he is walking, he burns more energy. But when he is overtired now, he is way overtired. And naps – well we read that he only needs one long nap a day but he still wants to go down for three naps so we haven’t exactly left behind the infant napping schedule and we aren’t quite on the toddler napping schedule, instead we are on Tin’s schedule which is organic and it jogs to the left when you were expecting right and then swerves to the right when you were anticipating left – this is why it is near impossible to plan anything or show up on time. So you might as well just give up trying and roll with it.

A friend was here the other day and I was lamenting this schedule thing to her and she said, “When I was pregnant every time I had gotten used to what was happening, it would change, and a friend told me that was to prepare me for parenthood because that is what is like – constantly evolving and changing and you can never pin down anything.”

I’ve noticed that when you tell people that you’ve given up alcoholic beverages for Lent they become defensive. But I have to say that it is very nice to get on the scale this morning and have lost one pound without having changed much else about my lifestyle. Also, I’m sleeping pretty good through the night as sometimes a glass of red wine has the same effect as a cup of coffee for me. Let’s face it, I just overall feel better without having my usual wine or champagne on the weekend, and the occasional wine during the week. I have more energy and more wits about me.

Now I’m not advocating a life of no wine – god no – that I would never propose, but it’s nice sometimes to take a breather from a routine and see what it is like on the other side. As I age, my body tolerates less and less, but it takes me while to register just what it doesn’t like. Well it doesn’t like carbs that come from bread, it doesn’t like red wine without a solid meal accompanying it on the way down, it doesn’t like prolonged days of spirits like vodka as it bloats up my face, it doesn’t like when I don’t stretch and exercise and it hates when I do too much, it doesn’t like when I don’t start my day with a walk, and it doesn’t like when I sit in front of my computer for ten hours.

But what it does like is feeling good and so it’s constantly adjusting this or that to make it all work in harmony. And in the end I gain from these adjustments by reducing the aches and pains associated with aging.

Bit from Possible Origin of Punch & Judy Show

Adam meets Eve
And before he even
Hears her side of the story,
He gives her up

To the prosecution.
Then he turns his back
On her, tossing behind him
A too-small fig leaf,

Muttering “Cover yourself.”
She puts the leaf
In front of her face.
That always gets a big laugh.

MARY LEADER

Work – check

Play with son – check

Walk dog – check

Make Chicken and Dumplings – check

Install Skype camera – check

There is a sign plastered to both sides of the electrical box on Orleans Avenue where Jeff Davis become Moss and it has a big mermaid on it and says, “What if God sent his daughter instead of his son?”

Instead of Jesus would we have Esmeralda and then would she have been a carpenter too? Dike affect instead of fey Jesus that we know? If matriarchal societies would have won out, would life be different now? The Amazons were the fiercest warriors.

A lot of what ifs beg big questions. Stay tuned.

I was wondering why I’ve always been attracted to this Hindu deity – well, I have a thing about elephants of course, and although I’ve always known this deity as the Remover of Obstacles, I learned today that Ganesha is also the Lord of Beginnings. And since today we’ve had another first, it’s appropriate that my yoga practice was in honor of Ganesha.

Today T became a mom too! Legally Tin’s mom, that is. In a state where we cannot marry or co-adopt, legally T was able to become Tin’s legal guardian and therefore mom as well.

So Tin really does have two mommies! Thank you Ganesha for removing the obstacles and lording over these auspicious new beginnings.