Category Archives: family

gift

Last winter our family was completely upended.  John left me just before Thanksgiving.  Then, much of the month of December I was in residence as a research Fellow at the Huntington Library, which meant I lived in Pasadena.  This was a mixed blessing:  it allowed me space to grieve the loss of my marriage and it gave John time to find an apartment and remove his things from our (or rather, my) home.  But it was also hard to be on my own in a new-to-me-city.  After having been a wife and a mother for nearly 20 years, it was quite bizarre to be alone in the evenings after the Library closed.

The children joined me in Pasadena for the week of Christmas.  I knew it would be strange for them to be in a new home away from everything familiar for that week, but it also seemed somewhat apropos because nothing was routine about the rhythms of our lives anymore.  Because of my Fellowship obligations (and the crazy-crunch of dissertation-writing in December), right up until Christmas Eve I continued working in the research library for seven hours a day while the kiddos wandered the gardens of the Huntington.  In the evening we’d meet in the gift shop, just as the facility was closing down, hanging out there for a few minutes together reading books or giggling over tchotchkes.   Then we’d head over to my favorite cafe for dinner.

Christmas morning was humble.  My biggest presents for the kids (furniture for their room at their Dad’s new place) would arrive after the new year, so they just had few stocking-stuffers to open.  And there were a few gifts from my Mom and siblings.  While I’d steeled myself for the realization that there wouldn’t be any packages with my name on them that year, it was still a harsh reality to face on Christmas morning.  Which is why I felt both surprised and puzzled when the kids passed a square white box in my direction.

I opened it to find this sparkly turquoise ball nestled in tissue paper.

I bawled so hard as I opened the package, I think I scared the kiddos.  But they wrapped their arms around me and held on until I was done.

At some point I must’ve shown the kids the turquoise-blue ornament in the Huntington gift shop that was my favorite.  It wasn’t particularly fancy, but was blue like the ocean that I missed so much during my Pasadena month.  I’d gone to the gift store to buy it for myself on the last evening before Christmas.  My disappointment at not finding it in the basket next to the cash register where I’d seen it everyday all month long, seemed par for the course.  It was such a silly thing to buy anyway–an ornament–when there were so many other pressing needs in my life.  

I hung the blue orb in the over-the-sink window of my last home and now it sits permanently on the mantle of my new one (much to the delight of the kitties who like to bat at it and watch it roll).  The ornament reminds me of that time in my life when I felt the most alone: I’d walked away from my religious community (and, to some extent my family-of-origin) and then my spouse walked away from me.  Though many friends offered to ‘be there’ whenever I needed them, it just wasn’t the same as having one special person who wrapped something ‘just for me’ to open in the morning.  And it wasn’t really about the lack of a package–it was about facing a future of mornings when no one would even know whether I was awake, and the loss of that someone for me to cling to through the long dark nights.  That the kids understood that even in the midst of their own grief over the changes in our family, meant so much.

This Christmas we put up all the familiar decorations from years’ past, but everything feels different, a bit off-kilter from the very deliberate holiday preparations of prior seasons.  I’m so busy with work that there won’t be Christmas cards and goodies.  Gifts for extended family won’t be handmade.  It’s doubtful that we’ll host our annual gingerbread decorating party (but oh, remember just how fabulous those were sometimes?…).  And while it’s possible that we’ll still have our annual Astro-Veggie Tree decorating extravaganza…I just don’t know how much retro-goofy creativity is left in me these days…

But this may well be the last year with both kids living at home, so I feel like making the most of whatever familiarity remains, even knowing that it’s not the traditions that matter at all.  They’re just the vehicle for sharing our love with each other…one ornament at a time.

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thankful

As I consider how to express my thankfulness at this season, I’m overwhelmed. There’s so much to be grateful for, so many surprises and pleasures and joys.

But mostly, I’m grateful that…
-my house is quiet and clean and peaceful
-the light coming through the living room windows is perfect for morning coffee & contemplation
-the kitties are endearing and soft (even when fighting over the perfect sunny windowsill spot)
-I have enough of everything
-there are two maple trees in my backyard showing their colors
-my children are happy
-my work is rewarding
-even in times of stress, like last week when I was in a car accident, things seem to work out well (I’m fine, my car repairs are fully covered)
-there are many friends in my life, who like to chat and cook and exercise and giggle
-I feel safe and loved
-my body is healthy and stronger every day
and…
-my mind is full of happy memories and hopes for the future.

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in the sun…

This year the holiday season hasn’t been something that I’m looking forward to much. I dread the social obligations and complications. The decor and music is already gotten to be too much for me and it’s not even Black Friday yet (sigh).

But my friend Heather shared this video today and I realized how ‘on board’ I was with Tim’s vision of the holidays. I can’t say how much I’m looking forward to being with the people that I love. Sitting in the SoCal sunshine sipping a glass of wine sounds the perfect way to pass the time…

Tim’s rendition of Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah is also well-worth a listen. It’s such a joy to listen to someone who really ‘gets’ that song…

Them “gay” books: a response

My daughter’s photo accompanied a BlogHer post this week, that same image of our old living room bookshelves that the  New Yorker online featured awhile back.  As I read the BlogHer post and looked at the photo, I suppose it was really the first time I thought about our bookshelves as “gay.”  I mean, these shelves were in the living room of a heterosexual married couple with two children.  Suburban, middle-class normal, not-gay.  Kind of.*

The author of the post used the photo of our living room to illustrate her discussion of why she doesn’t encourage (or allow?  it’s a bit unclear) her child to read “gay” books because she doesn’t want her to be “exposed to alternative lifestyles,” especially books that might depict intimate interactions between same-sex couples.

I grew up in a home with “traditional” values where I was often told not to read certain books because they had ‘inappropriate’ sexual content.  True confession: whenever I was told not to read something, I went right out and got my hands on a copy of that book and read it to try to figure out why it was forbidden. Perhaps this was because I found the world that I was growing up in to be awfully confusing.  My family belonged to the LDS church and we lived in the Bible Belt–there were so many arbitrary rules and restrictions in my home and in my Christian friends’ homes that it was hard to make sense of it all.  Books allowed me to either escape my own world, or to help me understand it better.  The school librarian was a close friend and she would let me read books on my lunch hour instead of going out to the playground with the other kids.  Sure, I read a lot of stuff that I didn’t understand–much of it about sex, which was a complete mystery to me having had to piece together a bit of schoolbus crudeness with some rudimentary biology lessons and nothing of that connecting well at all to the romantic scenes that played out on the pages of the novels that I read.  For example, I remember reading a scene in one of those ‘forbidden’ books where a girl and a boy started kissing at a party, and it mentioned him putting his tongue in her mouth.  I wondered about that a lot–I’d never seen anyone kiss like that and it sounded pretty gross.  But the girl in the book liked it.  Liked it so much that she then let him put his hands inside of her clothes.  Again, confusing.  I wondered why she let him do that.  Why it felt good to her.  And more than anything, why that was so scandalous that I shouldn’t be reading about it.  I probably thought a lot more about that scene (and others like it) than I would have otherwise–simply because I knew I wasn’t supposed be reading it.

So because the whole censorship thing didn’t work all that well on me, I decided that when my own kids started reading, I simply wouldn’t censor them.  Ever.  I went to the library with them and we talked a lot about the books they chose.  And on the shelves in our living room were books with explicit sexual content right next to books written by Mormon General Authorities (ok, truth: I did that on purpose sometimes–BoydK could really benefit from some time next to Nabokov, IMO).  There was always a mix of all kinds of stuff–nothing forbidden.  Occasionally I’d find my kids reading something that I thought warranted a conversation that went something like:

“I saw you were reading Such and Such.  What did you think about that?  Were there any parts that you found confusing or that you’d like to talk about?”

Interestingly, the only books that I remember causing me some alarm as my daughter read them, was the Twilight series.  I didn’t forbid it, but instead I did read along with her and then had a conversation about why it’s not okay for a dating partner to stalk you in your bedroom or to treat you violently during a sexual encounter.

Was it “gay” of me to let my teenagers read anything that they wanted off of our rainbow-colored family bookshelves?  I don’t think so.  Are my teenagers “gay” now because they read books with gay characters?  Well, they’re no more or less gay than they were before, I’d say.  Just like they’re no more or less heterosexual than they were before they read books with heterosexual characters.  But I’m also not invested in any particular outcome for my kids’ sexual expression.  They can be gay or not-gay or gay-ish or whatever suits their desires.  I suspect that they might approach their future relationships a bit like they have their reading material–pulling various items off the shelf and reading for awhile to see if it’s compelling enough to continue.  Maybe realizing that one is not right and putting it back and reaching for another.  Sometimes choosing a favorite genre and sometimes something in a new vein.

But the bookshelf analogy breaks down pretty quickly when you compare texts to people–humans can’t be as easily ‘read’ or ‘shelved’ as books can.  And maybe that’s the most important lesson that I want my kids to learn from those rainbow shelves: there’s a big colorful world out there and as they move out on their own they’ll come across all kinds of ‘content’ that challenges and provokes their point of view.  It’ll soon be their job to filter through all of that and choose the path that makes the most sense for their inclinations and passions.  And just like I can’t control the use of Creative-Commons-licensed photos of my daughter like the one above, I also can’t control my kids’ future choices.  Instead, I simply have to trust that they’ll be wise about the decisions that lie ahead as they select their relationships.

*Maybe we were gay–we did like rainbows and a bit of cross-dressing and were strongly engaged in the fight against Prop 8.  🙂

looking back (not a 9-11 post)

One of my most unglorious public moments was when I gave a talk at the Sunstone Symposium a few years ago, about 10 days after having surgery on my left leg (surgery necessitated by the mysterious bacterial infection that I’d been fighting for 6+ months).  I looked like shit when I gave my talk, and was so weak that I couldn’t stand for more than a few seconds.  I was taking painkillers all day long to even make it through the event, and was quite emotionally fragile.  I’d also gained quite a bit of weight during the months I spent immobile on the couch, too–ugh.

But what I like about this video is that I can look back and see how much has changed since that hard time in my life. I’m now healthy and strong–emotionally and physically. My body’s immune system is so robust now that I’m rarely ever ill.

As a historian, I’m rather obsessed with marking change over time, with creating a narrative of how the past has impacted the future.  So when I watch this video and think about how awful that time was, or how it hurts to see myself declaring love for a spouse who’s since left me, it can be a bit…hard.  But it’s also validating to see just how much change has happened in my life since the Fall of 2008.

I want to put my arms around my then-self and tell her that life is going to be more amazing than she could have ever imagined.  That she will recover from the surgery and walk confidently again.  And before long she will paddle to off-shore islands and fly in small planes and travel to the places she could only dream of.  I want her to know that she will finish her dissertation and be a professor and nail a job that will make her happy everyday. I want her to know that she will experience tenderness and unconditional love from new friends and partners. And although she knew then that her children were divine, I want to tell her that this will be even more evident as they grow and make wise choices with their lives.

But most of all, I want her to know what she learned about “what has to be done” will be the most important lesson of her life, and will get her through all of the challenging days that lie ahead…

plastic

How to charm me:  Hear yesterday’s dramatic story of GameBoy and the dropped bottle of mayo (glass & goo everywhere) and then a few hours later, ever-so-casually let me know that there’s a new jar of mayo (plastic, not glass) in my fridge now…

holding hands


Will be taking a bit of a break from blogging for a few days.  Because I need some time to just be with the people that I care about–for walks on the beach and hand-holding and long talks and pie-baking and sitting around the fireplace (as well as for finishing to unpack from our move and to get acquainted with our new foster-kitty, Demeter).

Such happy reasons for an online absence.   🙂

Legacy: “About” and “Return”


Almost a decade ago, I started keeping a blog at enivri.com. My first “About” is below. So much has changed, and so much is the same…It’s a bit painful to see how strongly I defined myself by who I was married to–if you’d have known me then, you would have realized that more of my conversation was about my spouse than about me.  My entire world revolved around him…That’s one thing (among many) that I’m working to change in my current and future relationships–letting them add ‘spice’ to my life without letting them dominate every facet of it.  But there is still some little-girl part of me that could easily let herself be swept away by a Prince Charming again, and invest every bit of herself in him.  That thought scares me more than just a little bit…

I wear a facade for most of my day-to-day interactions. This façade self is fairly aloof and businesslike. However I am lucky enough to have several people in my life who know the ‘real me.’ One of them is my husband of 10 years. We married very young, when we were both 21, because we knew we’d found a good thing. We’ve weathered some pretty rough storms, yet always managed to surface together. Perhaps it is not ironic that one of our favorite recreational activities is tandem kayaking where we synch our paddling rhythms together to reach a destination. I have several women friends, most of whom I correspond with via email. I don’t like talking on the phone, but love the Internet–I’d rather carry on a conversation in text than by voice.

If you were one of my best friends you might know that I enjoy gardening, waterfalls, and I only go to the beach in the winter. I’m peso-vegetarian, I love black & white movies and the smell of vanilla. Some of my favorite pastimes are listening to the music of Sting, eating red grapes, and taking naps lying on the living room floor. I don’t own a TV. I am very sensitive to violence. I hate to cry in public, but often feel like I want to–especially when parents are cruel to their children. I am a pacifist, anti-capitalist, and an environmentalist. I have ‘synesthesia’, which means that I have overlapping sensory experiences. For example, when I look at paintings in art gallery, I hear music. When I feel intense emotions, I see the colors and shapes of my feelings in my mind. My strongest sense is that of smell. I am very picky about fragrances, detergents, and so forth because the wrong one can be quite troubling to me.

Just about anyone who knows me knows that I am passionate about literature. I own thousands of books and read 4 or 5 new ones each week. I have a perfect job–I am the ‘Review Editor’ for a literary journal. This means I have dozens of books shipped to me each week that I have to read and write about, or to assign to my pool of reviewers. Through my job I get to hobnob with many excellent wrDSC_3626iters and attend literary conferences.

And here’s what I wrote, way back then, about our move to UCI–when I started back to school and ceased being a full-time, stay-at-home Mom.  I knew then that the move to campus and to graduate school would alter my life in dramatic ways.  I didn’t know that I would leave the Mormon church and divorce.  Had I known then what I know now, I’m not sure how or what I would have done differently.  My now-self thinks that my then-self was awfully brave to start on an academic path.  It has not been an easy one…

8.20.2002

Return

Our family is moving this week. Not to a bigger house (like my friend Brenda who showed me her palatial new 5 bedroom home today). No, we’re moving to an apartment just one building away from where John and I lived as young (and impoverished) newlyweds.

Why are we doing this? Good question. The move is borne of years of planning, prayer and hope. About 3 years ago John and I realized that our lives weren’t satisfying. John was on the corporate ladder, making a fine salary with the promise of vesting in a profitable company. I was a SAHM with 2 perfectly wonderful kids. What could be wrong? We realized that we’d lost the idealism of our youth–when the corporate world and middle-class America paled in comparison to the world-traveling, educated college professors that we intended to be. Two kids later, with college loans to be repaid, the lure of IT jobs, etc., the dream had evaporated.

Then a family vacation to the UK, a re-examination of our marriage commitments, and another family member diagnosed with terminal cancer. We realized that life was just too short to be pursuing goals without passion. John downscaled his job and started working for the university. I re-entered school part-time to take the classes I would need to prepare for grad school.

And now here we are, just three days away from the final leap–a move to campus housing at the university where I will be enrolled full-time this fall. Yahoooo!!!

by myself…

I’m a firm believer in the power of community.  I believe that none of us should be afraid to lean on each other or gather support from a network of friends.  But, I’m also learning that there are moments that I need to stand alone…

My move this week is a big step for me.  I’ve never signed a lease on my own or moved myself without aid.  As a matter of fact, I’m sure that for most of my life I felt that I couldn’t have done either of these things successfully, which is why I’ve eschewed nearly all offers for help on this move.  Although I’ve had many friends stop by and keep me company as I pack, and have had many friends drop by empty boxes for me to use, I’m going at this on my own (and thank you, all, for your kind offers–I appreciate them so very much).*

Perhaps it’s because there’s still a lot of my ex’s stuff to sort through or perhaps it’s the need for a very clean break with this move, but whatever the reason, I needed to not have help with this.  I needed to know that I could do it with my own two hands and my own strong back.  I’ve planned ahead for weeks and packed small, liftable boxes.  I’ve taken load after load to the Goodwill and the dumpster.  I’ve given away many of the larger pieces of furniture.  A friend with a truck will come and help me schlep some of the furnishings that require more than two hands to carry, two neighbors helped me move the beast of a file cabinet out of my storage closet, and the kids have carried some loads to/from the car–but the bulk of this I’ve done by myself.  At this point I’m on the tail end of things and I wouldn’t be honest if I didn’t admit to some level of exhaustion.  But the end is in sight and I can’t believe how smoothly it’s gone so far.

window laceI realized, in chatting with a friend last night, that what I’m the most afraid of with this move, is of failure.  I’m afraid that I might’ve made a mistake in arranging for this home to live in.  I’m afraid that I might’ve bitten off too much to care for (this home is at least twice the size of my current place, though still small-ish by California standards).  I’m afraid that maybe I can’t actually afford the extravagance of a home (even though it’s still well within my means).  I’m afraid that I might not be ready to move away from the block where I’ve lived for 15 of the past 20 years (oh, that is huge change!  Huge!).

But as I sat on the edge of my new-to-me bed last night and looked out the window (the one that looks out over the deck and garden) and felt the cool night breeze on my face…I lost much of that fear.  It’s time for this change, I know it.  And I’m ready for whatever consequences will come of it.

*the one exception to this is my kids’ stuff–they are packing and moving their own things.

And, for your listening pleasure….here’s the song that’s become my mantra for this move.  I love humming along to it while packing.  🙂

dependence

the living room
I was chatting with CatGirl the other day when the subject of dependence came up.  I took the opportunity to explain to her what the consequences were of the choices I made to marry young and start a family at age 21.  That it meant that over a decade ago, when it became obvious that my spouse was not as trustworthy as he had seemed, that I was stuck.  At that time I spent all day caring for my two young children.  He took our only car to work everyday and our neighborhood wasn’t well-served by local bus routes.  Which meant not only was I confined within the walls of our home nearly every hour of the day, but I was also ‘stuck’ in a larger sense.  I’d never held a full-time job and my bachelor’s degree wasn’t in a marketable field.  Even in college when I’d applied for crappy part-time jobs I’d usually been turned down because of my disability (this was back in the day when they could tell you to your face that “We think you just aren’t physically capable of this job”–which meant that somehow my artificial leg would prevent me from answering phones for an office?).  And as a cancer survivor, I was also insurance-dependent, knowing that the only means I had for acquiring my expensive prosthetic limbs was via my spouse’s policy.  The fear of losing my mobility loomed large.

What I didn’t explain to her then, but will someday, is what followed.  After celebrating my 30th birthday I started wearing black all of the time because I felt frumpy and old.  Soon, I stopped eating, and then I spent most of the day staring listlessly into space while sitting on the back porch, or curled in a ball leaning against the washing machine and feeling its comforting hum.  I thought too often about matches and knives and wanting my life to be over.  My chronic bronchitis developed into chronic laryngitis.  I whispered and wheezed.  And over time I grew smaller and smaller and smaller…

So I told my daughter that I would always support and respect her choices for the future, but I hoped that she would never-ever-ever put herself in a position where she was as dependent as I was.  Because everyone deserves mobility and opportunity for employment–even spouses who choose to stay at home and care for their children.

She was listening carefully as I spoke, and she agreed.