The power of "Why?"

Through searching, magnetic eyes I can see the question being formed. Her lips become a perfect pucker ready for it to come forth, "Why Mama?" The first why is mostly easy, a simple description of my views on the subject at hand. The second why goes a little bit deeper, explaining with more depth how something works. By the third why I do not have an easy answer, I imagine this is where most parents feel the urge to give up, I definitely have thought like that. Weird, archaic phrases flash before my mind like "Cuz I said so." This especially happens if I am in the middle of doing something else that requires my attention, which is about 80% of the time when the series "Why?" questions come up.

I don't act on my urge to shut off her questioning. I take a deep breath and consider the third why. This usually means explaining a subtle, adult, societal norm that she does not understand yet. Breaking it down to a level she can understand without putting a lot of judgment or feelings on it. Its hard to explain this stuff, without to much detail, just enough to guide her understanding and make associations without leading her into my opinion on it. Sweetpea gets a lot of my opinion on stuff just by listening to me talk to daddy, out friends and the people around us. When the "Why?" questioning comes up I try to answer it directly not just through my personal lens.

This evening the why took the form of why do people have belly buttons? My first answer was that we all used to get food in our bodies through our tummies when we were inside our mama’s bellies. I pause there and see if that satisfies the curiosity. With an inquiring glint in her eye she continues, "Why we need to get food from our belly button in our mamas tummy?" "Well, I continue, we have a tube in the womb that makes the food good for tiny babies to eat. When the baby comes out it does not need the tube anymore." "Because the baby gets nana's! (Our word for breast feeding)" she chimes in. "Yes, so the doctor or midwife cuts off the tube and what we have left is a belly button."

To further explain my point I take out her baby book and show her a picture of her taking her first bath. She has a piece of plastic holding her cut tube/belly button in place. She is fascinated by the picture and wants to know every detail of why the baby has to wear ankle bracelets and why her belly button has a bracelet too? I explain that when you are at the hospital you have to wear a bracelet that says your name so they know where you belong. My mind is ticking away as I explain this I am asking myself why the hospital needs this info at all times? why are we so misplaceable in a hospital? I want to do more research on when the bracelet thing got started. I think of all this but do not say much of anything else.  The why's have stopped for now, we have moved on to a game involving a bunny rabbit swimming around in my tummy and entering through my belly button.

I love my kids "whys?" They get me to think and really evaluate why I do things, it reminds me to not take knowledge for granted. I get to watch her brain work and look at things afresh. I also hate my kids "whys", they throw injustice in my face and cause me to examine things I sometimes would like not too. Sometimes I desire to just have an experience and not have to explain all of what’s going on. Ultimately I am getting better at answering her questions. Daddy and I like to listen to each other explain things and pick up cues from each other on what angle to approach the next, "Why?"

The Cherished Root

In my mothers garden grows a weed. The weed is some sort of wild carrot with a tap root the size of a root vegetable and pure white. My mother has never identified this weed but considers it the bane of her gardening experience. She has reaped the soil of our front yard home for 31 years and counting. At one point it was a lawn surrounded by a white picket fence. Parts of the lawn were flower beds. Later in my childhood there was a vegetable patch and stalky, spiny tomato plants ripe for the picking. For the last 10 years or so it has become an art installation, a cacophony of flowers, pottery, old chairs and plant dreams. Elves for sure live in this place as well as stalks of peppermint, black eyed Susan's and  the largest, brightest bulb flowering I have ever seen in a tiny square patch. The garden is full of love and eccentricities, like my mother. It is an effort of community that keeps her out there making a patch of beauty on our pretty New England street. It is messy and youthful, full of bright color and mystery.



For the past two years I have had the privilege of clearing her flag stone path through the middle of it. There is nothing like getting down in the dirt with long, slimy, worms and the fragrance of peppermint filling my nose as I work. Sweetpea joins me, picking the petals off the black eyes Susan's, studying the worms I dig up and helping bag all the grasses I pull up. She gets the sensual experience of weeding a path, she can probably see the fairy lands created under the ark of Iris stalks. My wish for our family is to have a similarly crazy, well attended garden. A small farm with plants that grow along side us. I want to find my unidentified wild carrot root, the one, like an old familiar friend that keeps coming back to remind me of this place. The place that I can call mine, the place that is home.

We are on this journey, finding a bit of land to tend for awhile. The tides of change are upon us once again and the red, shaken, earth of Oklahoma is calling. My dream is to plant fruit trees and tend them to maturity, to create an eco system that supports the little wild things of a city neighborhood. To be able to teach, learn and grow with Gaia. Every place I have lived in my young adult life has had a garden of some type. I want to see soil go past its two year mark in maturing and come to its own. I want to see the land bust out magnificent food for us to live on.

I will find my cherished root, I just have to keep believing in it.

Buona Pasqua! Easter in Italia part 2

There we were, in front of my favorite church in Italy. The Duomo of Siena. We had just finished a traditional slow foods Tuscan style meal at a jam packed restaurant, elbow to elbow at a long table with every kind of family bumping into us. A true Italian delight to be able to smell and stare at all the food you did not order as well as enjoy the succulence of your own meal. The main thing I remember was a fava bean soup that had bread in it as well as some delicious cured meat. 

Are tummies full on delicious food we strolled in the rain to the Duomo, up steep medieval curves of the old walled in city of Siena. We knew it would not be open this late at night but we just wanted to catch a glimpse of the striped church we had loved 11 years ago.

As we stood in the majesty of its courtyard looking up at the facade in the inky, blackness of night I felt tingles down my spine. I love cathedrals. I always have. I love that humans came up with the idea to build giant, gawdy spiritual elevating buildings on honor of deity. I love that they are buildings designed to make you feel awe struck, small in a huge universe and connected to something greater then yourself. I love that I can stare and stare and stare and still not see all the art and detail crafted into a building that took 500 years to construct. That this building started in the mind of one person, the spark of an idea. That the folks that came up with the original plans hardly ever saw the project to completion. I want to think big like that about my projects. That projects don't have to be done quickly that I might not even be able to see them till the end and expect that they will be completed by the next generation. I think cathedral makers our lovers of life, big dreamers and have faith and trust that they could leave a mark on the world, help shape a culture with their work. That is the kind of artist I aspire to be.

There we were, standing under an umbrella in the halo of light of a near by street lamp, Honeybee reading aloud to me from our guide book about the construction of this ancient Catholic temple. That's when we we started to see people walking up the stairs and pacing in front of the closed doors. Honeybee dismissed them as silly tourists who did not know the church would be closed at night. I thought there might be something more to it. I had us move closer, the people were speaking Italian, these were not tourists, these were Sienese families. Then the miraculous happened. The church doors opened up. We reluctantly and giddily followed inside with the other folks, uncertain we were supposed to go in. No one stopped us. I tried to walk as if I belonged there, poorly holding in my excitement of getting a chance to go into our Duomo. As we walked down the side hall trying to remain inconspicuous I realized this was midnight mass! This was the Saturday before Easter Sunday and we were some of the first attendees of the late service they would hold that night. I had not done midnight mass sense I lived in Seattle. A friend was going through a Catholic phase and I had attened this service one Easter at a small, modern church near our house. I had not thought about going to anything like this sense.

What luck! Here we were in one of the most outrageous and beautiful buildings in the world on a holy night where we practically had the place to ourselves. Most of the building was not even lit up, it was like being in a museum after hours, I was taken back to one of my favorite childhood books "From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler." We explored quietly, admiring the giant Easter Lily display on the alter, the Duccio fresco's in back of the high alter. Even the creepy busts lining the inside of the Duomo ceiling, the faces of all the popes in Italy staring back at us.

Services started at 11pm, we were given candles and a thick order of service filled with the stories of Christ's resurrection in Latin. We sat in a pew ready for the priest to begin. After the choir sang their first hymn, everyone got up and started walking to the back of the cathedral. At the front of the procession was the priest and alter boys holding one large candle. Not only did they walk all the way to the back of the cathedral they stepped outside and this band of faithful Catholics surrounded the priest in the sprinkly, spring darkness of Saturday night. I turned my head and the whole cathedral was dark again, all the lights were turned off. The Catholic chanting began, call and response in Italian. Honebee and I hummed along. The priest held the large candle in the middle of the circle, he took long golden pokers and stuck them into the top, bottom and sides of the candle, each time he placed a poker we would chant something, honoring that moment. He lit the candle and passed the light to each follower holding our candles in a personal, sacred quiet.

The priest and alter boys parted the crowd like the red sea and started the procession back into the church. As we turned to follow in the party stopped. A chant filled our throats that rose to soprano heights then the lights came on filling the tiny space our bodies inhabited in the glory of this Duomo. We walked along filling each crevice of the church with light bringing Christ back from the dead. We re awakened the space, fresh with raindrops in our hair and song in our hearts.

We sat through some of the very long and droning service, but eventually had to go back to our room in the town, to sleep and let the beauty and magic of the night soak in.

On our walk back home we passed other smaller churches lit up with the welcoming news of Christ's rebirth. The glowing halo of a Madonna welcomed us home.

 

Buona Pasqua! Easter in Italia part 1

--> As he jostled the key into the lock on the slick, green painted, wood of our doorway Josepy said "Don't miss the Luminaire procession tomorrow night in honor of Good Friday. "It was Good Friday, the streets were open and empty." The lyrics of a Coco Rosie song mumble through my head. Luminaire, the words spark memories of hand crafted lanterns in the shape of fish and other animals lit from within and marched down the walk ways of young, Olympia streets to ultimately surround the small lake over looking the capital. I was giddy with the news. What would a luminaire procession be like in Italy? How lucky we were to find ourselves in a pretty seaside small town on this momentous night.

Half way through dinner at a small fish restaurant I heard the whispers of chanting on the wind. It was pouring rain, we asked the waiter if the luminaire would still happen in the rain? He assured us it would. The owner of the eatery kept coming in and out as excited as a puppy waiting for the sun to go down and the procession to start. Finally we heard the clang of a bell. We wiped our plates clean and headed out down this village's one main street. We were greeted by the shiny backs of Italian villagers, huddled under raincoats and umbrellas in small groupings all with their eyes locked on the thin pathway through the middle of the road. It was dark, wet and magic. Suddenly the man next to us broke out into a choral song in thick Italian, five women surrounding him joined in, we mumbled along as if we knew the song. As we hummed a small procession could be seen at the top of the hill. A ghostly looking gathering of white paper covered candles held by most of the town’s people slowly processing down the hill singing along in the strong and beautiful Catholic hymnal music. They would move forward a few steps then stop and sing, a new verse each time. Then stop and repeat. It seemed that the verses corresponded to Jesus journey to the cross or being taken back to the cave where he had his ultimate resurrection.

As the procession got closer we could see village boys dressed in white hoods and robes, I saw them as symbolizing the Holy Ghost. They walked in front of a small entourage of young girls dressed in white carrying a casket holding a crucifix. Jesus’s body was exposed to the chill and rain of the night. Looking down at his body in the rain stirred a sad emotion within me. To be present with the pain he experienced was eye opening and sorrowful.

We made our way to their tiny church right on the water. Compared to the Gothic Renaissance churches of the rest of Italy, it was simple and almost barren. Being rebuilt from a terrible storm a few years earlier they had only been able to rebuild the pews and alter in front. We gathered into the damp and frankincense scented church and sat on the hard, familiar, wooden pews. The service was short, consisting of many calls and response we could not translate but hum along with as we had in the street. We sang a little and then it was time to go.

 The town folks gathered in a line down the middle to give their blessings to the recently processed crucifix of their church. I walked with them, making my way to Jesus. I did not know what to expect, just that it made sense to give my blessings to this holy man on this day. When it was my turn I went up with an older women. She put her hands on his head, she cradled him like a newborn baby, kissing his forehead and holding his hand. Watching her comfortable and sentimental gestures with this statue made my heart melt. I put my hand in his thin, glossy, statue hand and stroked his cheek like I would my daughter. Tears welled in my eyes, I remembered how much I had once loved Jesus, and I forgave him in that moment. I forgave a hard childhood, my anger at the Catholic Church, the concept of original sin. I forgave all the shit people put on him and do in his name. I just filled my heart with love. I kissed his cheek and left that church feeling more alive, like I had turned a leaf in my adult life. Making peace with Jesus.

A Glimpse of Italia

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I made this book in honor of my dearest friend Melissa. Melissa has seen me through all my biggest adult life journeys. She has been there for the birth of my daughter, maid of honor at my wedding and adventure explorer on multiple trips. She has seen me through all kinds of phases including living with me in a one room artist loft, taking me to my first drag show, supporting me in my decision to date a man and go to college. Two things I did not see in the cards in my early 20's. She is solid as a rock in my ever changing life and I feel so lucky to have her. This is for you Honeybee, may we be this close forever.

And Sometimes Mama Gets A Break

I am dusting off my back pack, shouting so long to the old USA and diving into the thrilling sport of adventure and travel with my dear friend Honeybee. We leave next week for the olive groves, red tiled roofs and picturesque piazzas of Italy. Landing in the romantic city of Venice. This trip has been six months in the planning yet I still can't believe I will be boarding a plane alone next week to have 10 days of kid free time. I feel like I am getting away with something I should not be. Like once you become a mom that is your identity something you can't peel off like a satin dress. its like a pair of plaid pajamas you will wear for the rest of your life. The freedom of my early 20's was washed away. I now get my thrills from the domestic existence of mostly full time parenting and being in a partnership.

Well, I love my plaid pajamas, especially the sweetest M family, but sometimes it is just right to get back into that satin dress, dawn some fresh lipstick and step out sans child roaming the world the way I used too. Sure I am scared, scared I will miss Sweetpea so much, that she will miss me, that something will go terribly wrong when I am gone and I will be too far away to do anything. Scared daddy will be resentful of my full freedom, that at work, my students will forget me and we will have to re-invent the wheel when I return after getting to such a good place. Will all this fear stop me? No way. Thanks to the advent of Skype I will get to see her sometimes. She gets to be with her loving grandmother while I am gone and be with her adoring daddy. I will also get the chance to hit the refresh button on our relationship. Parenting a toddler requires a lot of refresh.

We start in Venice staying right off the grand canal. We move on to Cinque Terra and stay in the town of Vernazza. After this we head to Florence to rent a car in Tuscany for Easter weekend. I have never ridden a car in a foreign country I am scared and excited. After this we cross our fingers that the Uffizi Gallery in Florence will be open Easter Monday, if not we will see the Duomo and enjoy the renaissance architecture. We then take a train south to Sorrento in search of sun and beach on the Amalfi coast. We will end in Rome, a city I have been to most recently while filming Travel Queeries.

This trip marks a friend anniversary. 11 years ago two travelers in back packs with train passes and a hint of whimsey transversed most of Italy in 2 weeks. Now 11 years later with roller luggage we take on a  smaller chunk of the country hitting the highlights. A focus on good food and relaxation. As I grow older and see how easy it is to value my family life over my friend life I am happy to make this exception to the rule.

Toddler Tantrum

--> We are in the midst of a painfully hard growth period. Sweet pea is asserting her power and will and her just as stubborn mom is not cowing to all her desires. It is exhausting to have power struggle after power struggle. The inner voice says there must be some amazing life changing advise. If I was just doing this method or that she would listen better, I would have the upper hand, parenting a 2 1/2 year old would be easy and delightful. Instead I am fraught with anxiety about what’s around the next bend, what hump are we crossing now, how to get us both out of deep water without drowning.

Her daddy's approach is to avoid power struggle. He coaches me on distraction techniques, offering choices, giving her as much say in the thing without doing all of it. Example, letting her hold the candy that she wants to eat instead of just giving it to her so she has control of it but does not eat it. His method does seem to work some but doesn't always sit well with me. It goes along with giving her a lot more sugar and watching tv then I would like. It also looks like avoiding and distracting away the feelings that I know will bubble up no matter what we do.


I consulted friends and family via facebook about it one morning. I got a lot of good tips including foot massage after a tantrum to ground us both, following a stricter schedule so she knows what to expect, offering her choices and new objects to fiddle with as we go through a transition. Also just setting the party line and dealing with the volcanic eruptions of having a boundary placed on her. They were all good ideas and I will probably use a mix match of those ideas when confronting tantrums but it all seems to come down to what will uniquely work for my kiddo.


I have had to face my own feelings when she tantrums. Embarrassment: Luckily I have let go of a lot of feelings of embarrassment but still some linger when she throws an on the floor fit in the grocery store. Jealousy: My kid can wail, and damn, it feels good to wail. To show how freakin' hard it feels. Why does she get to take up that much space and I don't? I am not saying I want to throw a fit in the middle of the grocery store but at the end of a particularly hard work day I have been known to roll down the windows, blast the music and scream while driving to pick her up from pre school. I think she gets it honest. Fear/Sadness: Seeing my baby struggle like that is hard, it brings up fears that I am raising her wrong. Why did I decide to bring another life into this heavy harsh world? What values am I sending her when I lose it while she is losing it? How can I teach her empathy? That not just her desires matter? 


Facing all of this is difficult and complex and I am still figuring out how to work out these emotions in a healthy way and separate them from when she is having her big feelings. Still sometimes we both end up on the side of the road crying as I explain to her through sobs she can't scream the entire time while mommy is driving.


For now what I have figured out for my dear sweetpea is a lot of one on one and family time, this seems to lesson the desire to act out for attentions sake. Also when going to an overwhelming place like the grocery store letting her fill the cart with what she wants then at check out separate out the stuff and tell the cashier we don't need those things. It’s an extra step for the awesome grocery store employees but seems to make all the difference. Hopefully this will be a temporary need. I also let her pick out varieties of things for us like fruit and veggies. Getting a lot of emotional support and making sure I am getting down time and alone time. I am always ready to take on her big feelings after a good sleep or artist date by myself. We also do a lot of talking out the situation and offering something exciting at the end. Like explaining if she puts her shoes on now we can then skip over to the big tree and climb it together. 

The thing I am the most proud of is we always talk about it after the tempers have settled. Even when I lose my cool and shove her into the car seat, or pull the thing out of her hand without coaxing it away, Sweetpea has an emotional language. We talk out how she was feeling and how I was feeling. We can identify the emotions together and hug afterword. This kind of intimacy and communication makes me believe we can make it through any hardship together.