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I bought a large container of buttermilk this week because I thought we’d try to do spontaneity and have some friends over for pancakes, or I thought Jerri would be home and we’d have her over for pancakes since she’s just getting back from her nephew’s funeral, or I thought we’d have some others over for pancakes because their kids play well with Tin. And instead, since we came home at 2AM and slept in, we opted to just have family pancakes.

As I was in the kitchen cooking, I looked out at the bayou where school kids were walking with bags as if on a clean up day or on some mission; there were about twenty five of them walking by. Tin was in his crib, refusing to get out, his latest on taking control of his life:

The sun was shining on the bayou just right, not glaring into the house like it has been in the summer, and the kids were in a jolly mood with their big white plastic trash bags, and Tin was humming in the back, and we had the folk playlist on, and I had one of those incredible moments of joy and I know joy having experienced it before and I have this to say about joy, it is a very now feeling, you can’t have joy except in the moment, and when you have it, it is a very declarative feeling that envelopes you and let’s you know that you are alive right now, in the best possible moment, surrounded by love and beauty and the riches of life.

It’s a pretty astonishing feeling and it makes all the yucky feelings of uncertainty and sadness and anxiety and fear pale in comparison because joy trumps everything else in that moment, and though it is oh so fleeting, it is oh so powerful.

I’ve heard tell that Nina Simone was a troubled woman, a diva but not in a traditional sense; she was complex and haunted and you can tell by her voice as she sings lines that resonate with lines between the lines … how she seems to carry a weight of life older than her years.

Do the greatest artists spring from roiling and turmoil or is it possible to see and sing life from the vantage point of comfort?

Hard to say. Here is a snapshot of Tin with a horse on his head.

Last night we went to our friends’ Absinthe party, the one which was supposed to help us forget, but instead it helped me remember, remember why I love New Orleans, its people, and my friends’ parties. Their parties are always the embodiment of diversity – gay/straight and black/Asian/latin/white and fat/thin and tall/short and everything in between and outside those divisions, from artists to professors, from musicians to writers.

Sometimes we’re treated to a show like one time when they had a burlesque show and this time when Chuck Perkins recited three of his very up to the minute spoken word poems about corporate greed and selling our souls. It’s at these parties where I’ve made friendships with people I might normally not run into and also at these parties where I’m reminded of why people need to get together, to mingle, to be part of something collective.

We’re all here trying to figure it out for ourselves like my friend told me as I sat on her back porch yesterday. I’d gone for career advice but ended instead with both of us crying because I’m grieving my mother as the one year anniversary mark approaches and she is still grieving her daughter. I looked around at her house – a beautiful pool in the backyard that is lush with tropical foliage and told her I feel overwhelmed by my responsibilities, by the maintenance on the LaLa, by life and I said I don’t know how people do this. She said, “They’re sitting in their friend’s backyard asking the same questions you are.”

Perhaps how this is done is by riding the waves, sometimes alone and at times with a little help from my friends.

My West Coast work husband is leaving and his going away party was today, another friend said we’re having a party to keep from crying. I said that’s what we do best down here in the Crescent City, dance to our grave. So tonight some friends are holding an Absinthe party, the want to make the cocktails that help you forget we’re still in a recession no matter what the headlines tell you. My hair stylist said all of his clients from a wide swath of industries are bemoaning the recession – even a pediatrician, who you’d think would be recession proof, said for the first time in his decades long profession, they’re suffering a downturn. Then on Saturday night is another party, a wedding of sorts, and another fine reason to forget all your troubles, forget all your cares.

I’m all for this notion seeing how Tin’s nanny uses deflection as a matter of course when his wee view of life gets too rough. “Why don’t we read a book?” “Why don’t we draw a pumpkin?” And then when you get older, “Why don’t we have a party?” It works for me.

My friend slept so good the other night after all, I’m the one who had nightmares. It figures. I think those of us who are left behind during an enormous change – a death, a leaving, a divorce – are the ones who sit on the sidelines trying to figure it all out.

Author unknown…
A woman in a hot air balloon realized she was lost. She lowered her altitude and spotted a man in a boat below. She shouted to him, “Excuse me, can you help me? I promised a friend I would meet him an hour ago, but I don’t know where I am.”

The man consulted his portable GPS and replied, “You’re in a hot air balloon, approximately 30 feet above ground elevation of 2,346 feet above sea level. You are at 31 degrees, 14.97 minutes north latitude and 100 degrees, 49.09 minutes west longitude.

“She rolled her eyes and said, “You must be an Obama Democrat.”

“I am,” replied the man. “How did you know?”

“Well,” answered the balloonist, “everything you told me is technically correct. But I have no idea what to do with your information, and I’m still lost. Frankly, you’ve not been much help to me.”

The man smiled and responded, “You must be a Republican.”

“I am,” replied the balloonist. “How did you know?”

“Well,” said the man, “you don’t know where you are, or where you are going. You’ve risen to where you are due to a large quantity of hot air. You made a promise you have no idea how to keep, and you expect me to solve your problem. You’re in exactly the same position you were in before we met, but somehow, now it’s my fault.”

My left foot was itching today and I’ve heard tell that means I’m going to travel somewhere I’ve never been. Then almost as if in answer to that a dear friend in Zagreb sent me this photo he took while he was on the island of Vis this summer. Yes, this is where I want to go, I want to plunge off a white washed stone into the wild Adriatic sea. Cast my lot to the fates here at the end of the earth:

When I was boo hooing and reminiscing about my friend who is leaving, I came across this photo taken from the cabin where I spent seven birthdays in a row at a place called Sheep Dung Estates in Yorkville, Mendocino County, California. I used to look out the window on my birthday and cry, “VALHALLA!” because indeed it is. This is a place I’ve been and there is a good chance I’ll never go back (they sold Sheep Dung to private owners), but I carry around those memories with me always:

I was thinking about all the advice I’ve gotten about babies and kids and if I had to highlight the best ones they would be this:

1) The Baby Whisperer said if your baby is not sleeping through the night, interrupt their sleep rhythm. Go in a couple of hours before they normally wake up too early and gently wake them by putting your hand on their chest and rocking them slightly. This worked like a charm for Tin.

2) Your baby is going to wake up in the middle of the night, and he best be in the same situation he went to sleep in, in other words: not being rocked, not with the light on, not with a bottle or a breast, not on mommy’s shoulder. Your child needs to know that when they wake up they are safe and that means putting them to sleep in their own crib, with the lights out, and happy. So many parents can’t make the leap to letting their child go to sleep by themselves and in the end everyone suffers.

3) Let them have as many binkys as they want for as long as they want. It doesn’t ruin their teeth and it comforts them.

4) Don’t fight about food. If they are not hungry, then they are not hungry. If they don’t want a food, then they don’t want it. Introduce a new food item ten times before you decide they don’t like it (it might just be the moment that they are refusing it).

5) Get that kid off those jars of crap as soon as possible – baby food is crap – give them real food – meat, vegetables, starches, fruit.

6) When you are transitioning from bottle to sippy cup – never put anything but milk or water in the sippy cup. Do not put breast milk or formula or juice in a sippy cup.

7) After 12 to 14 months they have to get off the bottle if it is formula because there is sugar in the mix and other items that break down tooth enamel and cause long term dental problems. They are ready to get off now anyway as they can’t sit still (and no longer, sigh, stare into your eyes the way babies do).

8) Draw a circle of respect around your baby – when you are bathing, changing, or in any way manipulating the baby’s body, remember to tell the baby what you are doing and to do it slowly – everything you are doing is new to the baby and they have no control over their body so don’t induce fear, instead tell them what you are doing and support them while you are turning them or laying them down.

9) Wear your baby – humans are not ready to be born, they come into the world unable to feed themselves, walk, clean themselves, hold anything – they are not ready to be independent – so strap that baby on and take them with you for walks, around the house while you clean, or whatever – this is an incredible time for you to be close to your baby.

10) Breast or bottle feed naked when you can – babies are sensuous creatures and they love feeling your skin against their skin.

11) Start your routines early – reading every night, not in the bedroom, but on the sofa or in a rocking chair but read to your baby every night and they will develop a love of books. Plus you will be enlarging their world by introducing so many characters and places and names and words.

12) If your child gets croup or a cough, steam up your bathroom and feed him his bottle in the steam bath – this helps enormously.

13) Your baby doesn’t understand pronouns for a long time so talk in third person – Mommy loves Tin, is Tin hungry?

14) I’ve heard but didn’t do this that teaching babies sign language gives them mastery over communication before they can talk which goes a long way to help them transition. I wish we would have done this.

15) Read as many different types of discipline and understanding children books as you can and come to your own strategy. If you know the phases babies are going through then you can help them and help yourself to not get aggravated by spoons thrown on the floor and tantrums. Education is a wonderful tool.

Somewhere around 5 o’clock yesterday afternoon, I started crying and couldn’t stop. I had received sad news day before yesterday and it’s meaning was deeper than its surface. A chapter was closing in my life, one that has been filled with rancorous challenges, excitement and all in the company of like-minded people who I’ve come to regard as my family. I started looking through old photographs of us, these people, and each photo is punctuated by laughter, by insanity, by living life to its fullest and sadly as I got to one photograph in particular I counted all the people in it that are no longer in my day to day life and it shook me.

T made us dinner with candlelight and I had a glass of a delicious Concannon Petite Syrah that my neighbor had left on my doorstep (one of those anonymous gifts that seem to show up in my life when I need them most – call me lucky). I ate the Vietnamese shrimp salad and talked about how this is a sad time for me, losing these people from my daily life – it’s not like they’re dead or anything, it’s that we are no longer working together and this signifies an end to an era in my life and its passing is like mourning someone dead.

In the middle of the night, I woke because I dreamt that I had three dogs – Lucky, Sangi and Moes (all friends’ dogs) and had to take them to pee at night and when we got outside to the dark outdoors, I saw Moes lying on the grass with two of his arms pulled off and bleeding. I picked him up and cradled him to me and yelled, “Call 911!, Call 911!, Call 911!” and Tatjana shook me out of this ghastly dream and it took a while for me to recover my senses.

My dreams have always been transparent just like me and that dream was a riff on something I had said earlier in the day, that when one of my friends had left late last year it was like I was severing my right hand, and now with this other news, my left hand is severed. My friends (my friends’ dogs), moving from the light and comfort of the house into the dark and uncertain outdoors, the disembodied, the blood-letting, the cry for help, and the anguish are all manifestations of the gloom that grabbed ahold of me and has not let up.

Unfortunately, there is no one to answer 911 and I realize this too will be a turning point in my life, a chapter closing, and I must gear myself, open myself, and get ready for the next chapter rather than stay curled up in a ball bemoaning the end, because all joy rides have to stop at some point or else you run out of gas.

My horoscope this morning – as always – appropriate:

September 23, 2010

1. Taurus (4/20-5/20)

   After days of mulling things over, shuffling around the house in your jammies (okay, and maybe pouting, just a tad, too), you’re ready to stop this nonsense, get the show on the road and let those feelings out. You’ve kept quiet for long enough — it’s what’s keeping you in hibernation, after all, if you admit it to yourself. It’s time to say what’s on your mind and free yourself up. Make the appropriate calls.

When we were trying to adopt, I would read baby books and they didn’t make sense. Then Tin came around and I had to start reading in a hurry, three books at a time, and most of them were very helpful. Recently, E recommended some books for me written by Louise Bates Ames and James Ilg – titled simply Your One-Year-Old: The Fun-Loving, Fussy 12-To 24-Month. Then there is the Two, and Three, and etc.

Well perfect timing as last night, I brought Tin to the porch to sit on my lap in the rocking chair and look at the full moon for a few minutes before bedtime and he stiffened like a board and refused to sit. It wasn’t but a few weeks ago that he would sit in my lap all evening on the porch. I started reading Your Two-Year-Old, Terror or Tender, and it said, just like when he was 18 months old and wouldn’t sit in your lap anymore but instead stiffened like a board.

Answers in the back of the book – go figure.