One toe in

I dare not say "I'm back."

I don't even know where I've been. Writing in my head only again, for months, it's now so full of words I feared the explosion would take out a city block.

I feel fake and false sharing the days' small trials and triumphs, the trivia that pile up to assemble my life right now -- meals and homework and mountains of laundry and paperwork, attending to my children's mental and physical health -- when throughout flows this raging undercurrent of grief, still; ten months in.

Ten months.

More than enough time to gestate. And yet what do I have to show for it? This egg-like orb of nothingness that is the palpable absence of my mother, lodged under my chest; barely dissipated, still.

But I feel I cannot yet either wear my mourning on my writer's sleeve. Even though it suffuses everything subtly, the constant filter on my lens, as a topic it is gray wisps, ghostly vague, deadly dull.

I am well aware that to go on and on about missing my mother now will likely incite impassioned and compassionate admonitions to "look forward" and "move on" which will make me want to shank my well-meaning readers.  Never a good place to be.

And Thanksgiving coming up.

Last year with my mother and uncle. This year without.

I almost can't look at the photos, the longing they engender so great, I fear the molecules of the screens upon which the images burn will burst apart from my desire to hold those people again against my actual body and not just in my metaphoric heart.

Mom and Uncle Walter, Thanksgiving 2012

So here I am.

Once again with all these little stories I want to tell, yet they remain untold.

I know it's okay to smile and laugh in the middle of grief, and I do, every day. I know that my mother, of all people in the world, would want me to enjoy each and every moment with my children with all my soul. And I do. Every day.

I hope the floodgates open soon (yet can make no promises).

Until then, here, now, is my one toe back in the water.

It feels good.

Even if it is just a pool of tears.

And now for something completely different...

I know.

It's been such a long time since I last posted on my blog, something I never thought would come to pass. And yet as the days stretched on it became harder and harder to post. Once again there are a thousand half-written posts in my queue, ten thousand in my head.

But today, finally, I have pushed through the quicksand to bring you....

A recipe.

Wait... What? Have I lost my mind and suddenly turned into another person?

Nope.

I know you're thinking "What about the end of summer and Ethan's camp and Jacob's camp and the annual family vacation in the Berkshires and my mother's birthday and back-to-school haircuts and back-to-school and the whole middle school transition thing and school bus nightmares and... and... and...?"

Well, yeah. I have all those stories, too. And maybe some of them will get to spill out here. But I can't keep going backwards, I can only slog forwards right now.

And I have to start somewhere, and so that's today...

And so here's my recipe for Banana-Cranberry-Panic Muffins:

Wake up at 5:30 AM

Try to clean up as much of the kitchen as possible, unloading the dishwasher and reloading it, making a neat pile in the sink of everything that doesn't fit in, so that there's room to wash the strawberries and fill the filtered water pitcher.

Wash the strawberries and fill the pitcher.

6:00 AM Wake up your autistic son for school, who is, thank goodness, in a very happy mood this morning, bouncing around and wanting to to talk to you about everything. Wonder if this is because you ran out of one of his medications and so he didn't get it yesterday.

Consider whether there is a viable trade off here -- he is definitely more hyper/bouncy/distractable. Yet also happier and more related, talking and pointing and wanting you involved in everything he is thinking and doing. Great eye contact.

Make note to call psychopharmacologist to discuss. Also his teachers to see if he drives them crazy today or not.

Get your son dressed, fed, packed-up and on the bus.

6:55 AM As you go over the morning schedule for you other son in your mind - early school day, as its the "Back-to-School-Meet-the-Class" breakfast in his homeroom this morning - PANIC as you realize that you are supposed to contribute baked goods to this breakfast and you forgot to buy anything.

Calculate that there is no way you can get to the store and back and still be on time today. Also understand that there is no time to pick stuff up "on the way" and that there is no great bagel & coffee place right around the corner from his new middle school like there was at his old elementary school. Silently curse change again.

Have a brilliant idea: it only takes 10 minutes to whip up muffins and they can bake while you get your son up/make his lunch/get him ready/get husband up/get yourself dressed.  And so maybe you'll be on time and with still-warm home-baked muffins in hand, and so his homeroom teacher will continue to like your son, and you will not fail the Mom-game today.

Remember you have some frozen over-ripe bananas, so banana muffins it is!  When you open up the freezer to get them, a bag of frozen cranberries falls out and misses your foot by and inch. Kismet! Banana-cranberry muffins then.

And begin.

<*> <*> <*>

As is usual with my cooking, I looked up a coupla-three recipes to see what the basic ratios were, what they had in common and any interesting variations, and then I winged it with what I had on hand.

We arrived (nearly) on time. The muffins were a big hit. Ethan said: "Mom the sourness of the cranberries goes great with the sweetness of the muffins!" And he ate two. Win!

And so here, finally, is the actual recipe:

Varda's Banana-Cranberry-Panic Muffins:
(you can skip the panic if you prefer)

2 cups whole wheat pastry flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 really ripe bananas, pulverized
2 eggs
1/2 cup milk - Buttermilk would be nice, too. Or almond/soy/rice milk if you want them dairy-free.
1/3 cup liquid shortening - I used coconut oil. You can use melted butter if you like.
1/2 cup sugar - white or brown or combo is fine. I used raw turbinado sugar.
2 tablespoons maple syrup
1 teaspoon real vanilla
1 cup cranberries

Mix dry ingredients together & set aside. (Most recipes say "sift" and you can if you want to. Me, I'm too lazy for that and besides, I lost my sifter two moves ago.)
Mix everything else except the cranberries together, well.
Fold the dry ingredients into the wet and stir until just combined (don't over-mix).
Stir in the cranberries.

Fill lined or greased muffin tins to just under the top.

Bake in 350 degree oven for approximately 25 minutes.
Note: I made full size muffins. You can make minis or a loaf if you want. Bake time for mini-muffins is probably10-15 minutes, for a small loaf I'm guessing 35-40. You'll figure it out.

NOTES:
When my bananas get over-ripe I just pop them in the freezer, skin and all. To use, I microwave for 30 seconds, peel off the skins, remove any yucky bits and then microwave for another minute or so in a bowl until completely thawed.

I used frozen cranberries that were a bit old and wrinkly - to restore them I just filled a bowl with hot water at the start and popped the berries in for the 5 minutes while I mixed the rest of the muffins up. When it was time to add them they were plump and thawed.

<*> <*> <*>

Hey, that was fun! Maybe more recipes with stories to follow... maybe not. No promises, but let's see what the future will hold.

(And its nice to be back.)

Three funerals and a wedding

Last night I was at a friend's daughter's wedding, this morning at a friend's father's funeral. Three dear friends of mine lost parents this past week. You hit a certain age, and this is what the landscape starts to look like, the odds tipped towards death. I understand. (But I don't have to like it.)

Everyone who died was quite old, in their eighties and nineties.  They had rich, full lives, a long run, loving children and grandchildren by their side. These things are all good. These deaths are sad, not tragic. I know.

And yet, as a daughter who has lost a mother, I feel it all so keenly, the tears streaming down my cheeks for men and women I barely knew but whose daughters' hearts are currently breaking, as they now face the world motherless or fatherless for the rest of their lives.

Even the wedding was not free of minefields for me. It was a lovely affair, the bride in her 20s, our friends - her parents, so proud and happy. There was food and wine and dancing. After the hora, the DJ hit a nostalgia pocket, and when he dropped the needle on "In the mood" I suddenly fell to pieces, quietly sobbing on Danny's shoulder.

I had suddenly been transported back to my childhood,my mother teaching me to lindy-hop in the kitchen -- table pushed back against the egg-yolk yellow walls, kicking up our heels on the gray linoleum tiles, the cats looking on in bemusement from their warm perch atop the water-heater cabinet.

I loved and missed her so much right then.

It comes in waves like that, unexpected, never unprovoked, sometimes unwelcome, sometimes a gift. They are entwined, like that -- the loving and the missing.

And for now, I'll take it, since its all I've got.

Birthdays come and birthdays go

This morning it was just me and Jacob, his brother away still, at camp; his father off at a comic convention in Chicago.  When he woke up at the ungodly hour of 6:30, I plopped down next him on the sofa. "So is there anything you want to say to me this morning, Jake?" Expecting.... I didn't know what.

"Happy birthday, Mom!" he piped up, the first of many birthday wishes from him today. Most delivered with a big hug and a kiss too.

It was odd not having Ethan around, as well. Though we had celebrated our birthdays last Sunday on camp visiting day -- his a week late, mine a week early -- it was still not quite the same as spending the actual days together.

But the biggest, oddest absence is, of course, my Mother.

This was the first birthday of my life that I didn't see or speak to her, she who has been there since the beginning, she who birthed me. It felt so odd, that sense of "something missing" hanging about me all day. That phantom limb whose faint ghost-pain keeps the bite of absence keen.

"Who else called to wish you Happy Birthday? Dan asked from Chicago when we finally connected to catch up.  "Not my mother" was my immediate reply.  "It just feels so strange to have a birthday without at least a happy birthday call from her."

"Well, it would be stranger if she DID call, wouldn't it?" He shot back, parrying with the gallows humor that those of us with dead parents use to lighten grief's load.

And yes, I laughed. And that was good.

And thus this was neither the best nor worst birthday of my life.  Fun was had. And the melancholy came and went, as it is now wont to do.

My brother-in-law and sister-in-law sent a luscious, glorious floral arrangement that took my breath away (and I then spent the day fending off the cat from devouring it).

Friday night I was taken out to dinner by a small bunch of good girlfriends.  We had a completely lovely evening, full of laughter and talk and wine and good middle-eastern food.  Conversations swirling on, we bounced from movies to kids to husbands to jobs and back around again... getting older, middle school transitions, summer reading lists... travels or lack thereof (one of us confessed to sitting on a park bench and crying whilst reading the Facebook status updates of another of us from Paris, and I could so relate).

Presents came: handmade, floral, yummy, bejeweled, and from Paris.  Many many hugs were given and taken;  my heart light as a breeze, the whole walk home.

And no, my parents never called. Not my Uncle Walter, either.

Never again.

And yes I know it's just the price of growing older, of becoming the eldest generation, as countless families before me have so evolved.

I don't like it.  I don't have to like it.

But it surely beats the alternative.

On brevity being the soul of wit, and all that rot.

Flying home from BlogHer13 in Chicago

If you know me, you know I tend to be "long form."

What I usually call a post, most sane bloggers without perfectionism / obsessiveness and time management issues would call three posts.

But it has also been true that the same forces that lead me to such excessive verbosity are, at the moment, shutting me down. I have barely posted in the last six months. And while I am not happy about that, I also know I don't have the wherewithal to devote the same energy to my blog at this moment as I have in the past.

And, truth be told, I'm still struggling with the emotional aftermath of my Mother's death. Ironic that this blog began as my father was dying, of my need to speak from all the jumbled pain therein. That opened the floodgates that fed my writing.

And now the fallout from my mother's death has dammed up my words again. But not completely. A trickle is still flowing through.

So I am considering this: trying to let myself write really short posts for this month.

At our LTYM BlogHer breakfast in Chicago last Sunday, I was sitting across from Lisa Rosenberg (of the blog Smacksy) and when it became clear that another woman at our table didn't know her work, Alexandra and I fell over ourselves gushing about how much we love Lisa's blog -- how adorable her son is, how lovely the writing. Alexandra mentioned how refreshing it was that the posts were so short, just a perfect little slice of life.

And it got the wheels turning... maybe I can do this... write short posts with just one thought, one story, while waiting for the longer ones to come.

I have so, so many bits of writing sitting in my "unpublished" queue that I have been thinking of as "half-written posts." What if I just call them posts (with a little polishing of course) - hit the "publish" button and move on?

Would the world stop spinning on its axis? Unlikely. (But don't blame me if it coincidentally does.)

There is so much that has gone on this spring and summer that I haven't talked about yet here... graduations... rites of passage... summer camp... visiting cousins... Bat Mitzvahs... new babies... Jake's evolving development... even a recipe I wanted to share.

Also there is one very important, very PARTICULAR half-finished post that I have pushed myself to complete, even if it is less complete than I think it should be.  I have actually put it up on my blog just before this post - backdated, of course, to July 29th, the only proper day for my boys 11th birthday post, since it was, of course, their 11th birthday.

So you can read that here: They go to 11!

See, you get two for the price of one today. (A bargain!)

And so now, of course, I have written an un-short post about how I am going to be writing short posts.

(But then again, isn't that so me?)

More to come soon, I (sort of) promise.

They go to 11!

Summer 2013: Ethan, off to camp!

Summer 2013: Jacob, waiting for the school bus!

Today my boys officially become Tweens! (Though, truth be told, Ethan has seemed like one for some time now.)

Eleven years ago today, right now, I was being wheeled out of surgical recovery and into my room, groggy but eager to hold my new sons tight and never let go.

I had fallen in love the minute I'd seen them, floored by the fierceness of the lioness awakened, that feeling that I would fight tooth and nail, would die to protect these tiny beings I had just officially met moments before.

Though of course I knew them already, intimately, for months as they swam inside me, tumbling about, tussling for space, occupying my every waking thought and visiting my dreams.

And now, of course, it's time to start letting go. And it has begun.

Ethan is off at summer camp this year. Two whole months.

The strangeness of mornings and evenings without him still shocks. I miss him sharply, and on this day most keenly.

We have visited once, and will again before he comes whirling home, tanner, taller, grown and matured in ways I cannot yet know.

Jacob is once more at his school's Summer Academy, which, joyfully, they make as much like camp as school. They tackle academics in the morning, and then the afternoons are for fun: swimming, art, cooking, playgrounds, plus a weekly all-day field trip.

Jacob keeps asking where Ethan is, even though he knows. And while he is now getting the lion's share of my attention, he would still rather have his brother along for the ride.

And now, today their birthday, it will feel so odd to celebrate with Jacob alone, Ethan phoning it in, as it were, the call from camp scheduled for 7 pm.

But I suppose it's just a shadow of years to come when Ethan has flown the coop while Jake is still here with us, moving ahead at his own pace, tethered by need as well as love.

On birthdays we look back as well as forward, and the years have just whipped by, haven't they?

I documented this last year, with pictures from every birthday leading up to their tenth, in my post: Counting up to TEN! as well as telling you about their Last Day of Nine.

And two years ago, I shared more details of the day of their birth, here: Nine Years and Counting.

And the year before that, I wrote my boys a love letter on their eighth birthday: A Good Day to be Born


So, Happy Birthday, my beautiful Boys!

It's been a wonderful eleven years with you and I can't wait to see what this next year has waiting for us around the bend!

Telling stories

"Tell me a story about yourself, Mommy, tell me about you, Varda," Jacob asks at dinner the other night.

And although he only listens to the first three words of my answer before he's on to his next question, it's a start.

A big start.

He's been talking a lot about family lately.

"Mom and Dad, you're my family." He says, with an intonation halfway between statement and question.

"Yes we are!" I confirm.

"And Ethan is my brother." He ads.

"That's right, Jakey."

"We're a family!" I reinforce.

"Daddy was a boy? Now he's a man? I will be a man?" (Right on all counts.)

"Daddy and Mommy get married?" (Yes we did.)

"Get married you can kiss the bride?" (smooching sound effect included) (Yes, we did.)

"I will grow up and be a man and get married." (Dear God I hope so)

"Yes, Jakey."

And now, lately: "Mommy I'm going to marry you!"

And while I smile and explain that I'm already married to someone - Daddy - and he will have to find his own special person to marry when he grows up, I'm secretly glad he's said it while we're home. When he makes statements like this when we're out and about, I can see people doing a double take.

Unless Jake's been especially flappy or grimacey, they probably haven't expected him to be anything out of the ordinary, "passing" as it were, until the oddness of our conversation begins to become evident.

Also I'm mentally ticking off that box in my mind on the page of developmental milestones: Oedipal age - check!

In a "typically developing" boy that comes on about age four, and I seem to recall Ethan having similar romantic notions about me 'round about that time. And it also fits with where Jacob is in a lot of other ways, "socially/emotionally," as they say.

I kind of forgot how completely exhausting four year-olds can be...  the thousand questions, the need for constant attention, the wanting to do complicated things themselves, and then the tantrums when it doesn't work out as planned.

That all this four-year-oldness comes wrapped in the body of a 120 pound, 5 foot tall, near eleven year-old makes it all the more unsettling for strangers to witness. Though of course that's just normal for our family, things being other than they would appear to be at quick glance.

"Blue Bear needs his family to go to bed with him!" Jake firmly asserts at bedtime tonight. And so I round up the white, turquoise and sky blue bears that we have long ago designated to be his mother, father and brother (although sometimes it's a sister, depending on Jake's mood), tuck them in beside him, sing them all to sleep.

"Mommy, sleep with me!" says Jake. And though I know I can't stay, that my presence will be too exciting, will keep him awake, I lie beside him for a few minutes as he recounts his day to me, telling the stories as he remembers them:

"Mommy and Jacob went to the movies and saw Turbo. We saw the credits and the music and it was 20th Century Fox."

"And Jake and mommy went to the grocery store and bought three things." (More like 20, but who's counting.)

"And then I laughed too much and said the stupid bad words and Mommy got cross. I caused confusion and delay. Mommy is going to fire me."

"No Jakey sweetie, you needed to calm down because it was bedtime, and I'm not cross, not mad, you are NOT a bad engine, just a bouncy one. And you can't be fired."

I stroke his head, drop another kiss upon it. "And even when I do get mad, Jakey? I never, ever stop loving you, not even for an instant."

"Know this: I will always be your mom, you will always be my son, and I will always love you, forever and ever. Nothing can ever change that."

And we lie quietly for a moment.

One moment's silence.

And then I kiss him again and ease my way out of the room.

"Goodnight, Mother" he lofts at my back as I slip away.

"Goodnight Jake, I'll see you in the morning."

And I will.