on making art

we sat on one end of a long farm table huddled over the same sampling of cheeses from hours earlier. the blackened entree that rested in the oven had long been neglected, just like the bottle of champagne, which was uncorked and three quarters empty. we continued to pick, but despite the intermittent bites and sips, conversation never broke.

the house was quiet with the children asleep in their beds and the glow from a strand of lights that adorned the mantle gave off a warmth that matched the sense of security that comes from being with people who know you. it was a night of dreaming with my fellow dreamers: getting lost in all our stories; talking about the past, laughing at all the painful discoveries and failures we made (and still make!); sighing at the memories of our triumphs and joys; sharing our present frustrations + disappointments; and revealing our future hopes + ambitions.

they say whatever it is that you are doing at midnight on new year's is what you will be doing the rest of the year. i was among two of my truest and dearest friends, feeling the most understood and the most inspired as perhaps i ever have.

two of us with new families and the other with a new career, we are living very different lives from the one we shared nearly ten years ago as flighty coeds, but there is at least one point where we still intersect: we are creatives. no matter the circumstance, there is art in what each of us are doing - working full time, parenting overtime, being in a romantic relationship, being in a loving marriage, building a home, building a community, writing blogs, writing books, teaching, coaching, observing, photographing.

the makings of a good friendship comes from people who don't impose limits on your happiness, but from those those who encourage you to test the boundaries. from those who will sit at table with you and simply say "no, you must take everything you do seriously!" when you've just offered the opposite. from those who are earnest in their work and unapologetic about it because futile or not, it's the work they chose and as their friend, it is work you sincerely support. from those who share in your excitement, not necessarily because it is something exciting to them, but because they can relate to your enthusiasm. we derive energy from our surroundings and a night in honest company reminded me that.

minutes before midnight, i jumped up from the table to wash grapes. according to custom, we had to eat twelve - one for every wish for the year - before the clock's final strike. as we frantically choked the fruit and our laughter down, i only managed to make one and it is one that i wish for you: live in it, whatever you are doing. make art of it. let it drive the intention in anything you do because the truth is, at some point we all intersect. we all create.

on endings + great beginnings

would you look at that poise? that up there is the image of self-assurance, of independence. moments after this picture was taken, i asked august to hold his grandmother's hand as we walked on the canal. he obliged for an instant before reconsidering and then declining with a polite albeit frank, no. we laughed at his candor, then watched as he wandered over to the bank of the adjacent canal to throw sticks into it. it's pictures like this one that have me emotional lately and you'll have to excuse those emotions for the ensuing ramblings.

sometime in the last couple of weeks it seems, august has grown into a little boy. it's happened (and continues to happen) right in front of me. you know how when you see someone every day, you don't notice the changes so much? it wasn't until i came across this picture that it hit me (well, it was the picture + all the emotions). 

during the week while andy and i are at work, august spends his days with marina - a little girl who is about sixteen months older than he is - and their shared nanny, vilma. most nights when i pick august up, i sit with vilma for a little while to catch up on her day with the children. she tells me stories, like how they all went for a ride in the double stroller and august unintentionally kicked at the back of marina's seat (which drove marina nuts but was also something she had coming because she did the same to the other little boy vilma used to watch before august). or i'll hear outrageous tales, like the time when marina helped august "escape" from his pack-n-play one afternoon when he should have been napping - a puzzling mystery until vilma caught it all on camera. lately, the stories are about how marina is teaching august all the things big girls (and boys) do, from feeding to dressing themselves.

at first, august didn't like the new responsibilities that came with being a "big boy". in fact, when vilma called him that he reportedly burst into tears and cried BABYYYY! that was weeks ago though and he is starting to take to his new role. i think he may even be a little bit proud of it now. 

the other day, after being scolded for spewing water from his sippy cup, i watched august take a drink from his cup, place it on the table, and say to himself: no baby, big boy. my heart broke a little bit at that moment. i often catch myself watching august like that, observing as he continues to discover, understand, and challenge the world around him. he's becoming more of a boy every day and it's happening right in front of me. still, for every new word or gesture of independence, there are moments that remind me that although he's not a baby, he's not quite a boy. a little big boy, maybe.

in the mean time, i've been changing too. i've reached that stage in motherhood where my role has shifted from nurturer to molder. i know i've mentioned it before, but i guess what's more striking is how that role has affected me in a more basic sense. 

for a long time now i have been living for august. i was his and he was an extension of me. in a very literal way, my body has existed exclusively for him the past two years. suddenly now, i am all "mine" again and at first it felt lonely, empty.

there is always an emptiness whenever something comes to an end. sometimes it fills itself and other times you have to do the filling, but in either case, it needs to be replaced by something better for the emptiness to truly be gone. since all these thoughts and feelings coincided with the beginning of a new year, i immediately turned to goal-setting, which is fine and grand until i remembered a quote my dad always used to tell us: it's not what happens to you, but how you react to it that matters. that's when i realized what's been happening all along, right before my eyes: august is becoming an independent little boy!

the end of a thing doesn't have to bed sad, when it is beginning of something great.

to 2014, in solidarity

in college, i dated a boy who was obsessed with the band u2 and thanks to him, the same song gets stuck in my head at the beginning of each year. it's not a bad song, but there's always a danger of having too much of a good thing (case in point: bono's hair in the video) and the song has been on infinite repeat in my mind for the past two days now. so...  

the lyrics, they're starting to haunt me.

nothing changes on new year's day

interpreting those words too literally can evoke cynicism because if you think about it, everything really is the same at the beginning of the year - even if the number on the calendar has changed. you wake up new year's day and the same commercials are on the tv from the year before of the local gym pitching "new year, new you" ads and offering contract-free membership. it's enough to want to throw the remote at the tv. but i believe in non-violence, so i disdainfully talk to the tv instead.

really. i feel like bill murray in that movie groundhog day when he keeps waking up to sonny and cher singing "i got you babe" and it's the same day all over again. at first, the repetition is maddening and his self-indulgence is annoying - there are no consequences for his actions so he gratuitously takes advantage of it. but it's bill murray, and he's hilarious, and the predictability of each day becomes funny, if not comforting.

the end of a year can feel a lot like that. old traditions are dusted off with the decorations that were brought down from the attic; holiday parties and gift baskets arrive with bells on; and everyone is celebrating so it's hedonistically tempting to just go for it. you've got a fresh start coming after december 31st anyway, right? well that was my thought process this year.

feeds from, i know, instagram were taunting my ambitions with depictions of rockwellian proportions (which is to say, ideal that can only be imagined). but those visions just ended up right where they started: up in my head, having a huge dance party with the sugar plums. so what did I do? threw my hands up and ate them.

hey, at least i was dreaming, right?

when i woke up though, there was no fresh start. the slate hadn't been wiped clean. come to think of it, i'm not sure it's even possible - there's to much that's built up over time. but i've realized that it is ok because residue shows use. it's evidence of a life that hasn't been idle. some people (me) still buy into the "clean slate" mentality, but the way sentiments are trending lately, it seems as if the majority is tired of the burden of starting over. i'm such a contrarian {hair twirl}... either that or i'm just always two steps behind. womp, womp.

i've read dozens of articles about people griping about resolutions. NO MORE RESOLUTIONS they protest, GOALS INSTEAD. then it's, GOALS ARE DUMB, INTENTIONS ARE MORE REIGHTEOUS. but aren't they all the same thing? or is there a distinction? like resolutions are concrete and too much of an of an obligation, so goals seem more feasible until you realize they still require some end, so you set an intention because that's more of an "attitude" and less tangible. meh, it's all semantics.

me, i'm a goal-setter and since now is a better time than never, why not pick 1/1/20xx to reassess your life?  i recently came across this writer who offered a workbook to map out the year ahead. even though i wasn't the creative mind behind the manual, i share it in solidarity so that we can all try giving 2014 a run for it's money {you can download the elegantly designed pdf HERE}

so to wrap this thing up, let's get back to the movie: there's a turning point (naturally) when bill murray realizes that the bizarre situation he's found himself in, is actually a gift. he keeps getting chances to make his life right and when he finally does, the loop breaks and time moves forward.

this is where bono starts singing again.
all is quiet on new year's day
a world in white gets underway

it is also where the beginning of a new year comes in. why? because it offers a continuation. because when it comes down to it, i think we all want second chances. we're human, after all and no one is going to get it right the first time around (or the second, or the third...)

auld lang syne

well that was an abrupt end to 2013.

the baby went to sleep early and without a struggle - a minor victory my husband and i quietly celebrated as he pointed up with his finger and i met him in the air for a chest bump. with the last few hours of the year left to ourselves, we got after it like bonified new parents: one minute we were throwing back some sparkling, playing a raucous game of scrabble, with hoda and kathey lee obnoxiously gabbing in the background; and the next minute i was in bed - still fully dressed in my new year's sequins - riding some quickly forgotten dream straight past midnight.

you're shaking your head, aren't you. such tom foolery with a baby in the house! don't worry, it reads a lot more debaucherous than it actually was. i knew i wouldn't make it to see the ball drop - called it early in the day when i was sharing our plans with some friends at work - i can hardly hold on past eight most nights and not even a second cup of coffee past my standard 3pm cut-off could change that.

part of me woke up this morning, lamenting the early night and longing for rowdy days of yore, when we didn't have the obligations of parenthood. but that was mostly out of habit because up until seven months ago we were just a family of two. i'm still getting over the fact that i am a mother to an amazing little boy. but THAT is when i forget the old times and fondly remember the more recent times passed.

and so i present to you a montage of my 2013:

last january we had just learned the gender of our baby and he was barely evident to anyone but me. the winter blew by, cold and fast while i was swimming laps indoors at the community swim center. "training for baby" i kept telling my six a.m. pool buddies. we enjoyed our final months as a couple sans bebe, daydreaming about what our little boy would look like or how we'd really be as parents. when memorial day weekend came, i joked with co-workers that i'd probably be back in on the following tuesday, waddling around the office. but unlike his mama, our baby punctually arrived on his due date and what was the most memorable day of my life. don't roll your eyes, i'm being honest. it was amazing. the weeks passed and he kept growing, while i transitioned into my new role, but i eventually found my stride. there were some struggles as i tried to redefine myself, but that's partly how this blog came about (so there you go: self reflection). i went back to work and thanks to amazing support have managed to juggle all the responsibilites (at least, most days). i'm still trying to figure out this whole sharing thing but i thank you all for joining me in the journey and for all the encouragement. here's to exciting and hopeful new year!

we danced the sleep right into this little guy before he tapped out and left us to our shenanigans