Revolutionary Road--Warning

I'll do my best to avoid requiring a special spoiler alert but I just feel a duty to warn my fellow wives and mothers about Revolutionary Road.

I went in completely blank. I could tell from the trailer that it was some kind of heartbreaking/aching look at suburban life...but that's it. It might have been funny in parts, it might have been uplifting, it might have been any combination of suburban life and anything else. I wasn't quite sure. I did know enough to know that I wasn't really looking forward to seeing it. When was I going to feel like spending two hours away from my kids in a dark room watching a young vibrant couple deteriorate?

And then it went and got all mentioned at the Awards shows... and I ended up deciding that it was one of the movies I should see.

I went with another mom when the kids were at school on Thursday. We sat in a row behind Lauren Hutton--and I spent a little bit of time wondering if I should tell her that I was her personal shopper at FAO Schwarz about eighteen years earlier, and that I remember she had an eight year old boy with her who was in to Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and that I hand-delivered her purchase to her Noho loft, and then decided not to.


I won't give away any specifics about the movie, but I can say that when the lights came on again a few hours later my mom friend and I turned to each other in tears and said 'at least we live in Brooklyn...that's different, right?'

The movie's stayed with me these past few days. Every now and then I feel myself slipping into despair about all the dreams I had when I was younger and about how having children means that I won't ever realize those dreams, and I shake a mental fist at the movie for putting all that pessimism into me at such a vulnerable time.

I had breakfast with another mom the next morning and was telling her why the movie depressed me.

It hit me in all my weak spots, I said.

Like what? she asked.

Well, before my third child was born I had this idea that my husband and I could do a house swap for some portion of the year, and everyone kept telling me that I couldn't do that because of school. And I really hated hearing that because, like, who makes up those rules? Why can't we just live somewhere else for awhile and not get all trapped by the limitations of the school year and testing and stuff. And I half expected and fully hoped this friend to agree with me that anything is really possible and that I shouldn't feel like I can't have these enriching experiences just because I have children.

But she didn't. But you can't do those things once you have children, she said definitively and in a tone that made me feel like a silly little girl for thinking I could.

And I want to be strong in the face of it...just like Kate and Leo with their schadenfreudey neighbors. But it's winter time, and my mood is low, and even though I have the life I want and I'm even getting to do some great travelling in the midst of it, I've let go of certain dreams, dreams that people told me I shouldn't bother to have, but that I wanted to have anyway. And that's what depresses me.

So be warned, if you're thinking about going to the movie. Yes I live in Brooklyn (not Connecticut) and yes I saw the movie in a row behind Lauren Hutton which probably doesn't happen in the suburbs too much. But it got to me, and I can't let go of it. It's going to take a whole lotta lighthearted date movies (He's Just Not That Into You? anyone?) to bring me out of this funk.

So Long, Sarah

I have a secret to tell you, my four year old whispered to me on the couch a few weeks ago. She got up on her knees, cradled my head with her hot little hands, and managed the following, very serious statement:
Sarah's not real.

Wow. For over a year we've been hearing about Sarah. First Sarah lived in Africa. Then Sarah lived in a house in the woods somewhere near the Hudson River (she pointed it out as we drove over the Bear Mountain Bridge one Sunday in the fall). Sometimes Sarah lives in Manhattan--"Muh-hattan."

Sarah's parents were dead. Sarah has an older sister and an older brother. Sarah is much smarter than anyone else in our family.

When we were driving back from Ohio after Christmas we used our new blackberry/GPS device to find a family style Italian restaurant a few miles off the interstate. As we pulled up to it, the four older people in the car (ie. everyone but the four year old) were admiring the curtained and cozy little brick building--we were all so grateful for a change of pace from the same-old same-old service area places.
My daughter was unimpressed. Sarah brought me here when I was two, she said, dismissively.

It's been hard to keep up with Sarah these past two years. Sarah knows so much more than any of us do. One time when my daughter and I were butting heads about dressing warmly on a cold wintry day, I told her that it was going to be cold all day.

No, she said, it's going to be sunny.

No sweetie, the weatherman just said it's going to be freezing cold.

Well Sarah said it's going to be sunny.

Well maybe Sarah didn't see the news this morning.

No, she told me it was going to be warm out. And she told me--and then she paused for effect, and she slowed down her words so there'd be no mistaking her--before YOU were born.

So Sarah was a big know-it-all who breathed all kinds of words of wisdom to my four year old daughter, over forty-two years ago. It was pitiful watching my little one--the baby of the family--try to keep up in this world of taller smarter people, and kind of heartwarming that she'd invented this Sarah--a clear attempt to level the playing field a bit.

I'd often wondered how far to take the Sarah business. There was no evidence that my girl knew that Sarah wasn't real. While we never brought Sarah up out of nowhere, we did nod along and pretend to believe most of the stories that involved her.

The name Sarah would pop up here and there as well. Any new doll or stuffed animal was instantly named Sarah. And once, when recalling the day she was born my daughter told this story:

I was born at the dentist's office and you came to pick me up. And I wanted you to name me Sarah but you didn't so I was sad.

Sarah had hair like my daughter's (blonde), but then once it turned out that the lovely Asian dancer spinning in front of my family as they sat on a curb watching the Macy's Day Parade go by was Sarah.

It was hard to keep track of Sarah, and yet some things always remained the same.

I got worried one day when I was handed the telephone and told that Sarah was on the line. If I pretended to talk to Sarah wasn't I going a bit too far? Turns out Sarah wanted my girl to come for a sleepover. When I expressed concern that Sarah's parents had died so the two girls would be all alone, I was told that before they died they'd told Sarah that my daughter could come sleep over.

So, this Sarah isn't real comment was a bit of a jolt. Clearly my daughter was ready to put her to rest. The big question is: Am I?

Have you been waiting a long time to tell me that? I asked sympathetically.

Yes, she nodded.

Should we tell anyone else?

She glanced towards the kitchen where her brother and sister were doing their homework. No, they might miss her if we tell them she isn't real.

Well then, do you want to keep pretending that she is real. Just only sometimes? I asked--adopting her 'just-only' phrase, another thing I'm not sure I'm ready for her to be done with yet. She shrugged. We didn't hear about Sarah for about ten days after that.

And then, her PreK class went ice skating on Tuesday, and when I asked her about it in the car this morning she offered this:

There were lots of animals with us. And I only fell down once. And there was a unicorn, and I got to ride on it. And the animals weren't wearing ice skates, they just slid around on their hooves, and Sarah was there and everyone wanted to hold her hand. But she just only held mine. And when I fell down, I did a flip, and I landed on my feet.

I was glad to hear that Sarah made an appearance. They're much fewer and farther between these days.

Of course it's sweet that the unicorn was there too. None of the parents who chaperoned the outing mentioned that part to me.

The Downside of the Loftbed

We hear it from the moment our baby boys are born. Older people (and even younger people with older kids--who always end up feeling like older people) seem to love to tell us mothers of little boys that they'll grow up and leave us someday. My sister in law used to say she wanted daughters 'because they never really leave their moms.' It all kinda creeps me out, like there's some set rule out there. It's odd to think that my unique little baby boy could ever just become one of those grown up guys these women love to tell me about.

What a love affair it's been with this little boy! And to top it off he was kind of shy and preferred to be with me, hanging out, with us, in our living room, at home, than anywhere else. He wouldn't even take a class that didn't involve a parent being right by his side (we settled on rock-climbing, with his father spotting him). Of course we'd roll our eyes like everyone seemed to think we should and complain about his lack of independence, but frankly I didn't find anything wrong with it, plus I was perfectly content to hang out with him at home as well.

A few years ago his shyness morphed into an extreme self-awareness--almost like he was watching himself be a little boy, instead of just being one. By second grade he started to ditch us at the corner, half a block away from the school building. It was heartbreaking to watch, especially since I knew that he was aching to be with us. But I totally got it. I remember not wanting to be seen with my parents when I was a teenager. Sure, it was happening to him sooner, but the feelings still seemed the same--hyper-awareness of who he was in the eyes of the other kids, and a need to appear to have separated from his mom.

I stopped reaching for his hand when we'd cross the street. I stopped ducking back into his classroom to tell him things, I stopped waving hello to him if I saw him with his buddies in the school yard. Of course I'd keep my face open, waiting to return any gaze he'd send my way, but I wouldn't initiate anything. I respected his need to create his own little existence.

In our home he has the tiniest little bedroom at the top of our stairs. His two younger sisters share a larger room, and my husband and I have a medium sized room in the back. His room was so small that his door would bump into his bedframe when we opened it, and you had to sit on his bed to get the right leverage to open any of his dresser drawers. At one point, in a fury of adding things like floor-to-ceiling bookshelves and other desperate space-saving measures, we realized that if he had a loft bed that ran parallel to his back wall, he would have an entire room to play in, to celebrate all this new independence.

Some great workmen from Queens designed and built a really high bed, with a ladder leading up to it, and a built in desk underneath. When their work was done we all painted it, and the walls, a Shrek green. His favorite color. His room seemed enormous. The door opened all the way, he had his own little universe under the loftbed (he can stand straight up underneath it)--with his desk and his globe and his drawers and his chair and his desklamp. A little green paradise!

And then it came time to say goodnight. And I stood below him and watched him disappear up the ladder--almost like Jack climbing up the beanstalk. By the time he got to the top and pulled his barefeet off the ladder and onto the bed he looked teensy and very very far away. I tried, on a couple of occasions, to climb up with him, but the ladder was too vertical and while going up wasn't a problem, I had a genuine fear of getting in the right position to climb back down again.

The best I can do now, when I go in his room to say goodnight, is to reach up and grab a toe and wiggle it and say "I love you kiddo,' or something lame like that. There's no such thing as snuggling up with him, lying in his bed reading to him, or even stroking his forehead if he feels sick, or waking him up with a kiss.

Why didn't anyone tell me about this?

To make matters even worse, he's now a self-assured fifth grader, who will reach for my hand on occasion, even when his friends are around. Who wants to snuggle up and read, who wants me to come on his class trips, who gives me spontaneous hugs. I'm aware that this might be one big last push of closeness because he's sensing all the growing up that's just around the corner. But whatever it is, it's really there, and it's really great, and yet this crazy loftbed just makes some simple parenting moves feel impossible.

His loftbed makes him seem very very far away, which is kind of too bad since pretty soon he really might be really really far away, but right now he isn't, but still, he is.

Teller No, Teller yes

this originally appeared on nycmomsblog on December 11, 2008

This time of year is tricky, what with all the online shopping and packages that can never be received during regular daytime hours. I'm always either playing 'tag you're it' with the UPS and FedEx guys--scrawling notes on the backs of their slips with sharpie and rigging them to the door so they won't blow away but will be noticed by them on their return, or playing hide and seek with these same clever deliverymen who will sometimes take pity on me and find crafty places to hide my packages. Of course it always takes me awhile to think to read their handwriting, usually I just assume I've missed the package yet again. One guy leaves my boxes down in the stairwell (a dramatic word for the two steps down) of the garden apartment. Another guy sneaks the package between my garbage can and our neighbor's stoop, which makes me nervous because that's where we put recycling, sometimes, when our inside area overflows. Of course they only do this sometimes, and most of the time I just have to hope the planets line up and someone will be here to receive.

But the worst thing is to come home and find the vomit colored beige-pink slip from the post office several blocks away. Did they pick that gross color on purpose? How much different would it be if the slip was a pretty green, or a mango-yellow?

Of course once I read the fine print and realized that it wasn't just a plea to come try to find the package at the post office but rather, an invitation to a dialogue about how I might want them to attempt to redeliver it, even those ugly slips didn't seem so bad. I'd simply sign the back, stick it back on the door (again with clever rigging since it has no stickiness on it), and wait for the Post Office guy to bring it 'round again.

This morning however I got an email from Amazon stating that my post office had attempted delivery of my package (full of 'word combination locks' for my children--one of whom is anticipating a locker in middle school next fall, and the other of whom has taken up ice skating and so will need to become familiarized with the lockers at Wolman Rink, and the third of whom will need one just because the others have them) but that no one had been here to receive it (duh), and that it would be waiting for me at the post office.

This was confusing to me because I didn't expect the package for another few days, and because I never received the little slip notification from the post office.

After I dropped the kids off at school this morning I did a few errands and then attempted to return home only to find that my entire street was being blocked off for tree pruning. So when I set out to find a parking spot on another block my mind was doing its usual calculations about how I could maximize this unexpected extra mileage. I remembered the package at the post office.

I drove over and parked nearby and braced myself for what would no doubt be a really long and angry line. At one point my post office was rated 'worst in the city' and I heard a rumor that it was rated 'worst in the country,' but I never found evidence that that study had been done. There's no organization whatsoever, and long lines are often compounded by the fact that people who've gone to fetch something (like an ID) tend to be allowed to barge back into the building and go straight to the next available window ahead of the people in line. Sometimes the package slips are handled at the regular windows, and at other times, just as I'm about to get my very own teller, some new 'packages only' window will open up and I'll find myself forking over my slip along with about seventeen other slips and then they just come out in whichever order the grumpy teller deems fit.

When I got there there was no one in line. Hallelujah. I had no slip but I did have ID so I figured there'd be no problem. The woman however, wasn't interested in taking me at my word that I'd gotten an email from Amazon, even though I knew that the combination of a package with my name and address and my ID with matching information should have sufficed.

"We have a new system, since four weeks ago." She explained. Great. I needed the tracking order. A 'fine' escaped my clenched jaw and I turned to leave, visualizing the next hour or so, of looking for a parking spot, printing out my Amazon email, returning to find that dreaded long line, etc. All of this was feeling extra emotional to me since we only found out (yesterday!) that my four year old won't have school tomorrow, so my second day 'off' of the week wasn't going to resemble a day off at all (so much for slipping into a movie theater for a half price matinee while the kids were at school).

As I approached the door I found myself wishing there was some way to get that tracking number without going home and just as I was inventing a little handheld device that could access the internet it dawned on me...I already had one of those! I've had this Samsung Blackjack II now for about a month and despite the fact that it's been fun to check email on the fly (and depressing to realize that I don't get that many interesting emails), my main issue with it has been that I don't get reception in building where I teach three days a week--seems at&t doesn't work, t-mobile works fine, and Verizon works in all areas, even the basement and the elevator. So I've owned this little at&t device but because of the at&t poor-reception complication it hasn't felt like a life-saver yet.

Until today.

I whipped it out, and within minutes I'd called up the Amazon email, followed links to the tracking page, and was writing the tracking order down on paper for the teller, who seemed a lot friendlier this time around.

She was able to locate the package (eventually) and even called me 'sweetheart' as I left. There were tears in my eyes as I left, but not the same kind that I'd fought back moments earlier when I'd turned away in defeat, cursing the inhumanity--distraught at the fact that I could prove who I was and where I lived but that that wouldn't hold a drop of water in the face of their new and impersonal 'numbers only' system.

So an enormous personal victory today at the post office. Hard to believe I'd ever write that sentence. Anyone who lives in this part of Brooklyn would understand.

I Love You But...

this post appeared on nycmomsblog.com on November 16, 2008

I love my family. My husband, my kids, my sister, my in-laws, my nieces, my nephews. I love my dad. I love my mom, my sister... I love my friends. But on the first Sunday of every November, every year, as I stand on the sidewalk just around the corner from my brownstone, I am struck with the realization that I probably don't love them enough.

For My Dad With Cancer! screams the permanent marker scrawled across the back of some NYC Marathon runner's purple shirt.

Running for My Mom!

In Loving Memory of (fill in the blank)! And so on and so forth.

The NYC Marathon becomes a blur of fast-moving, dedicated, people who love their families more than I love mine.

As I stand there applauding and shouting out the name of every person who bothered to draw their name out of tape on their shirt "Go Lucy! Great job Robert! Lookin' good James!' I feel like less of a human being. Do I even have a heart?

Probably not.

It's possible that the voice in my head that doesn't want me to work out is stronger than my capacity to love the people in my life. The few times I've tried to run more than a few blocks (and of course, I have to be wearing the exact right no-bounce bra--one that's earned 5 barbells in the Title Nine catalog--or I can't even attempt to dash across the street) my head is filled with this:

Oh, come on. Give it a rest. What's the point. You hate this! It'll never be over. This is going on forever. Nothing about this is good. Everything hurts. Just stop, why bother?

Stuff like that.

So family members and friends, I've said this to you every November, and I'll say it again. I will be so sad and sorry for what happened. I'll miss you more than I can ever explain. I will be filled with grief and I will pull the curtains closed and eat chips and dip in front of the television for months. I'll shave my head, I'll get a tattoo. I will go to a thousand dark movie theaters and sob away, in between milkduds. I will be unable to get out of bed.

I might consider moving to the Seychelles and starting over. And I might consider going about my life, business as usual, but with a hole in my heart, eyes that will never see the same way, and a brain that will be forever altered. And I might consider doing something heroic in your honor. But training for and then running twenty-six-point-something miles? Forget it.

I'll draw your name on my shirt. I'll wear that shirt all the time. I love you, everything I do will be for you. But I won't do that.