Arms out for balance...

I am not an easy person to live with. If there were report cards given for the ability to cohabitate, mine would read "does not share well with others" and "must work on compromise and control issues". I would get failing grades for taking too much time in the bathroom, eating ice cream out of the container, and not sharing the remote. I need my space and my time, and I need things to be put where and how I want them. Some days are better than others, when I really make the effort to rein in my selfish habits, but other days I just don't have the energy to try. I am moody and demanding, a lot of take and not so much give.

My husband and I celebrated our fourth wedding anniversary last week. This sounds like a small thing, not a huge milestone. And I hope that years from now, looking back, I laugh at how I thought four years was worth mentioning after reaching more significant numbers. To me, though, four years seems pretty darn remarkable right now. Given what I just told you about me in the above paragraph, mixed with the fact that I despised my husband when we first got to know each other, plus the daily trials of raising a toddler...well, four years may as well be twenty.

Marriage is hard work. I used to hear this from couples on talk shows and I would think what's so hard? You love each other, you make each other happy. Easy peasy. (This from a girl with divorced parents, no less.) Well, marriage is hard work. So is parenting, and earning a paycheck, and maintaining friendships, and keeping a house. Unfortunately the marriage gets shoved to the end of the line too easily; it's easy to assume a spouse will just be there when you get a minute, because they promised to be around forever. I am sometimes reminded of this a little too late, when neglect has gone on a little too long, and I have to make amends.

My husband is more than I could have asked for. He is patient and giving, helpful and strong. He is a master of compromise. He is quietly loud. He is centered and calm. He is my daughter's father, my teammate, my best friend. I do not take him for granted. I work hard to keep him at the top of the list, with failures and success. Sometimes my efforts are obvious; sometimes too subtle to be worthy.

Maybe there are many keys to long, happy marriages; maybe it's as simple as love and happiness. Who knows. Right now it's all about balance. Putting as much "give" on the one side of the scale as there is "take" on the other. I'm learning, just like my daughter in her gymnastics class. She's been very focused on mastering the balance beam. "Arms out for balance", she says, her latest mantra. I'm borrowing it and very much looking forward to year five...

Give me a minute...

I want a do-over. The days when I was scanning websites for the items to put on our baby registry-yeah, I want those back. I spent too much time looking for gear with the highest ratings and gadgets that no one said would be completely useless. I would sweep the whole list clean and simply ask for more minutes. Not the Verizon-more-minutes...I mean more minutes.

They say time is a gift. I don't know who "they" are but I agree. Time is indeed a gift. I won't go into more cliches about making every second count and seizing the day, yadda yadda. Those phrases make me crazy; of course we should live it to the fullest. But when you're like me (and most folks, I imagine) and you're plugging away putting in forty hours a week somewhere you'd never be if it weren't for that paycheck...well, those sayings instill a lot of feelings of guilt and failure. Failure to honor the gift of time.

So I'm turning the tables on that and saying the lack of time is also a gift. When you only have so much time to actually start seizing anything, let alone a whole day, you are forced to prioritize. To figure out what's truly important at that moment. Children, spouses, chores, friends, errands, health...big stuff or little, what comes first? What comes last? Does the laundry need to get done or do we go splash in the creek for the afternoon? Do we get up at 6 am to walk off those extra ten pounds or do we sleep that extra hour to have energy for the day? Do we blog because we haven't done so in a month or do we read that library book that's overdue but not finished yet?

No one can answer those questions but me. I am doing what I can to keep everyone and everything in my sights and on my radar but there will always be something that falls behind. It's regrettable but necessary and coming to terms with that is my challenge. So forgive me for not being here contributing to my project lately. I will move it up a few notches on my priority list and be more consistent with the scribbles here. Just give me a minute...or five...

The first day of summer...

Well, here we are...almost at the end of June already. My annual beach trip has come and gone, and I am harrassing my husband into planning our next adventure just so I have something else to look forward to...taking Bean to the zoo, an amusement park, a museum...or should we go explore another city, like Boston or Providence or Honolulu? Okay, maybe not Honolulu. But give me a little something to hang my hope hat on. I fold shirts all day for messy tourists, remember?

My girl has had a rough time lately, which means Mommy has been having a rough time lately, too. Seems she's in a bit of a 'mommy' phase and, while it blows my ego up like a balloon to know I'm the only one who can soothe her, it is exhausting. I strive to be that wheeee-anything-goes mom, the one who is always silly, always attentive, always "on". But instead of always, we'll have to settle for mostly. The more she clings, the more challenging it is. This, too, shall pass. When the ego balloon pops because she's turned her affections to her Daddy, I will know that I did what I could during my turn, for better or worse. And then make another deposit in her future therapy fund to make up for my shortcomings.

With vacation over and a cranky, clingy daughter, the outlook for summer is grim. Throw in my disdain for my once-beloved traditional summer thrill, cycling's Tour de France, which has been tainted by scandal and cheaters, and I don't have much going for me for the next couple of months. But why complain? Well, because I'm quite good at complaining, thank you...but I won't. I will turn once again to the things that are providing a pleasant distraction from the sound of the sad trumpet playing in the background (can you hear it? wa wa waaaaaaa...) and make a happy list. Here goes:

• I've discovered a new-found love for all things coconut. Mocha coconut lattes, coconut M&Ms, Whole Fruit coconut popsicles, even coconut-scented moisturizer for after the shower. Just the word makes me happy: coconut. I may need an intervention.
• Speaking of interventions, the new season of "Intervention" has just started on A&E. Along with "Hoarders". My husband wants to know why I insist on finding entertainment in shows that portray people at the lowest points in their lives, and so now has given literal meaning to "guilty pleasure". Sheesh, I love those shows. But the new season of So You Think You Can Dance has me daydreaming about twirling around barefoot, receiving high-pitched squeals from judge Mary Murphy for my brilliant interpretations of choreographer Sonia Tayeh's routines...oh, yeah. That's the stuff. I may even text a vote this season.
• Have you heard that I'm not so fond of my job? I try to make the best of it but it's particularly hard in the summer months, when my friends are free and living life, and I'm left behind picking up after busloads of bargain-seeking shoppers. Closing shifts are the toughest, but the drive home is always a relief. To meander home in the dark with the windows down, listening to Bon Iver, is the perfect antidote. Haven't heard? You should. At night. Accompanied by stars.
• I haven't the time or the funds for pedicures, and I am jealous of all of those pretty toes peeking out of cute sandals (which I also can't afford). Especially since I had my first spa pedicure last summer and crave another like no one's business. But we women must maintain ourselves, musn't we? So I fake it with Essie nail polish in "Too Too Hot". It makes me smile. And it's the color of Bean's kick-off into the world of polish, brushed onto her little toes for the first time, much to her father's dismay. Don't even think about removing it, and every morning she checks to make sure it's still there.(Psst...hey, folks at Essie, did you like that little commercial? Maybe some samples could be arranged?)
• I promised myself I would put some time and energy into my neglected creative side so I am toting around my new Olympus E-P1 camera everywhere and trying to remember to actually use it. I'm far from a genius photographer and will probably never use the thing to its full potential, but it sure looks cool in my bag.
• My bossy girl enjoys playing hide-and-seek in our backyard, which is fun for no one but her. She tells whoever she's playing with where to hide, and counts while watching you "hide" so she can run right to you saying "FOUND YOU!" as if you are just no good at hiding. So when she asks for bubbles instead, I am more than happy to oblige. I could blow bubbles all afternoon. She pops one or two and is finished, but I would keep on keepin' on until the bottle's empty if she'd let me. Maybe one afternoon at naptime I'll do just that.

Well, that ought to hold me for a while. Feel free to share what your simple pleasures are this summer. Maybe I can add them to my list and have even more fun. And if you know of any job openings in bubble-blowing, pass 'em on...

Oh! I do like to be beside the seaside...

Nothing suggests "home" as much as a mailbox at the end of a driveway. It says this is where we live, here is where you can find us. It's not a common sight in a town by the shore, in a grid of streets lined with houses that rotate their residents weekly. But there it was, a big black mailbox in front of the house across the street from our rented beach cottage. I can never remember all of the seven big bad sins, but if envy is one of them, then I was guilty of that every time I saw that mailbox. (I believe gluttony is another so we won't mention all of the M&Ms and mocha coconut lattes that passed my lips all week.) While we packed up the car to return home and leave the sand and surf behind, that mailbox taunted me. Those folks didn't have to leave. They could store their suitcases and not worry about keeping track of all their kids' toys so they wouldn't leave any behind. They could get up and head to work knowing they would return to their ocean view at the end of the day. Can you imagine? I can. And it makes my brain hurt with envy.

I find a whole lotta inspiration at the beach. What is it about the sound of the waves and the feel of sand in our toes that makes us feel reflective and stripped down to our bare bones? Maybe it's being at the edge with nowhere else to go, who knows. It just feels right. When it's time to leave after our week's stay, I am not someone you want to sit next to in a car for four hours. I am miserable. But once I'm home and unpacked, and have slept in my own bed with the sounds of my neighborhood outside the windows, I feel revived. I want to improve everything. My house, my job, my attitude. (This will last for a day or two, usually fading with the first grumpy soul I have to face when I return to work...) I wonder if I would hang on to that fresh, positive feeling every day if I lived near the shore? And will I get the chance to someday find out? Do I want it badly enough to make it happen?

I chose the path I'm on. I chose to not go to college, to work where I could and get the bills paid. I chose to rack up some credit card debt that I'm still paying for, and I chose to live in the moment and not the future, which is now. I chose to have a child, and I choose to do what it takes to keep her healthy and happy, which for now means settling for a unremarkable job that helps put the food on the table. I'm responsible for where I am, and I'm okay with that most of the time. I will keep on doing what I have to do to get my life and family in order. But sometimes...oh, sometimes. The if-onlys creep in and my mind bounces around in the coulda's, shoulda's, and why-me's. They bring out the worst in me, and I let them for a few minutes, and then they are gone. It's so easy to make ourselves victims and forget that we choose our own endings, like those books we read in junior high. I want my chapters to lead to a mailbox that has fewer bills and maybe some sand inside.

I really should start packing...

And so it begins, the annual gathering of way too much stuff to be crammed into suitcases and bags for our week at the beach. After twenty-plus years of doing this, you'd think I'd have it down. I guess I do, but there's always the second-guessing. Do I really need to take three pairs of black flip flops? (Um, yes.) There's the last-minute do-I-have-enough-music panic, loading up the playlists with songs that don't get listened to because I end up hooked on one that I can't get enough of. There's the packing of the whole wardrobe--because you just never know--only to wear the same uniform all week. So why am I sitting here typing when I literally should be getting my crap together? Good question.

I look forward to the week at the beach all year, starting the moment we pull out of the rented beach house driveway to head home. Some years have been better than others, when the long year between trips didn't seem so endless and mundane, and I didn't dread going home so much. But I always couldn't wait to get back, and this year is no exception. Except...

Our family has changed, for better and for worse, and so must tradition. My aunt, the grand dame of our beach babe quartet, will...well, I was about to type that she won't be with us. But that is far from true. She will be with us more than ever. We will quote her when we go out for ice cream, when we search the horizon for dolphins, when we open the refridgerator and see how much food we have left. We will see her strolling the shoreline, head down, looking for shells. We'll hear her up first in the morning, making her cup of coffee, trying not to disturb anyone. She will be helping with the jigsaw puzzle, showing us her finds from the antique shops, guiding us to the least crowded spot in the sand for sunbathing.

Our clan owes our love of the sea and shore to our mothers. From our Nana to my aunt and my own mother, from Manasquan, New Jersey to Bethany Beach, Delaware. Get us all together and you will be sure to hear a beach story or three. It's a part of who we are, and I hope I can uphold the legacy and instill the same fondness for sea air in my daughter. This will be her third year going, and I think the brainwashing is working. She has been talking about it for awhile now, and I hope she bores everyone to death with stories of her trip when we return. But for the endless photos, she won't remember much of Bethany. We want to start looking for new adventures and places to discover and share with our Bean, so she can have her own sense of tradition and family trips to pass along one day, and always tying up one week of limited vacation time with the same destination hinders that plan. And so we move on.

So, in my rambling way, I suppose that's why I'm using this as an excuse to not deal with the beginning of the end, the packing and the prep work. But here is where I will try to lay to rest my thoughts on this being the final trip. I will now start looking forward to my annual week, and all of its usual activities like puzzles and bicycling and dolphin-watching and shopping. And I will go fill up my iPod with good intentions...

My date with Alexander McQueen...

As I attempted to watch a bit of CBS Sunday Morning yesterday, in between trying to feed my daughter breakfast and keep her from tripping over her own feet for the fourteenth time in as many minutes, I caught a glimpse of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the banner for the Alexander McQueen exhibit. Suddenly, my kid's clumsiness and short-attention span were not at all amusing. I imagined a Sunday free from work, free from parental responsibilities, just...free. I missed the days when I could see a reminder for a museum exhibit and not have to think of the list of reasons why that exhibit is off-limits. Child care and grocery lists would be someone else's Sunday problem.

When people mull over the do-we-or-don't-we-want-kids quandary, the fear of lack of freedom almost always rears its head. We won't be able to take that trip to Rome, the motorcycle will have to go on Craigslist, how will I ever find time to write my novel? All of our dreams and possibilities will get thrown out with the baby's dirty diapers. But if we dig a little deeper, maybe we'd see that the motorcycle was getting a little rusty anyway. Maybe our hopes and dreams aren't always things we literally aim to fulfill. Maybe they are just hopes and dreams of who we want to be: someone who could write a novel or be adventurous enough to hop on a plane and see Rome the way the locals do. But, to quote When Harry Met Sally, "the thing is, Joe, we never do fly to Rome on a moment's notice"...

And the thing is, I wouldn't go see that exhibit before I had my Bean. I would talk about going, and maybe even see who else wanted to go. And it would leave the museum without me having been there, and I would shrug it off. But gone is the possibility of that girl who could afford to dream of going, who could add it to the endless options on the "what to do on Sunday" list. Once I realized this, I felt both foolish and hopeful. Foolish for being so cranky over something so small (forgive me, Mr. McQueen...but really, in the scheme of things in my life, your fabulous creations have to be placed far down on the list) and hopeful because why do I have to let that girl go? If anything, I should be resurrecting her for my Bean. She should see me as I see me, and that's impossible if that "me" stays in my head.

When I returned home from my solo trip to the grocery store, my girl's eyes lit up and she gave me her usual "Mommy! You came back!" Yep, little one, I sure did.
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My husband and I have made plans for a date to go see the works of the late, great Alexander McQueen. But in the meantime I did what I could. I went to that exhibit...on the Met's website. And it was amazing.

Family is my favorite word right now...

You can't choose your family. This, for me, is a good thing. I am a poor judge of character and almost always make the wrong assumption after a first impression. So to say I have been richly blessed and fortunate to have received the family of which I am a part is an understatement. I have had to spend more time than usual with my relatives these days, and although the circumstances for these gatherings have been most heartbreaking, it has been time well spent. It has reminded me of who I am, where I come from, and my good fortune in this family lottery.

My Aunt Colleen was more than just my aunt. It's hard for me to write about her, because I don't want this to get too mushy to the point of incredibility. We tend to over-romanticize our loved ones when they leave us, but she was a sweet place for me to feel comfortable and loved. She was family, the one person (second only to my Nana) that I would mentally picture if I was talking about relatives or family reunions. She was a witness to most of my life's happiest moments, from vacations and holidays to my wedding and my daughter's birthday. She always looked at me with love, and always greeted me with a warm hug and soft laughter. She was my mother's constant closest friend, despite their age difference-a relationship that continues in their daughters, as my cousin, who is a decade older, is like a sister to me. She was an artist who probably would never have called herself one, despite much evidence to the contrary. She fretted too much, but giggled more. She was quietly strong, brave. She deserved to be looked up to, and I obliged.

There are so many physical reminders of my aunt, from old Hollywood musicals to used books found for a quarter in a thrift store, vintage tablecloths and handkerchiefs to a tin pail filled with seashells. These were things she loved and collected, and her apartment was her treasure chest. But the real reminders are in her children and her grandchildren, who have managed to absorb all the best of her character into their own. They are all confident and funny, strong and respectful. I seldom heard my aunt call attention to her accomplishments, but I hope she was able to take a minute or two and appreciate what an influence she has been and will continue to be. She'll be missed, but she will never be far.
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This is one of my favorite pictures of my Aunt Colleen, and she would maybe hate me for showing it off. She had just finished chemo, and was enduring its nasty side effects. But her spirit is all over this moment, from her flip flops and her scarf to her smile. I hope she is at the beach now, and I hope she leaves us some sea glass...