A'stir

I feel heavy right now, weighted with angst and disquietude. It didn't help that I awoke this morning in the midst of a nightmare that felt anything but; its realistic nature has left me skittish all day. I tried to exercise and cook away this prickly feeling, but have had little luck and find myself looking forward to tonight's slumber simply for its escapist possibility. One of my children has been terribly vexing since I returned from Italy, his behavior a peculiar blend of familiar impishness and atypical aggression that has us all on edge. I have spent so much energy attempting to understand, manage, counsel and repair that there's been no space to simply enjoy him. I've not met with any success in better understanding and feel only slight more adept at managing his outbursts. I wonder if my methods of handling things are right. I wonder what's at the root of all this. If it's "normal" or not. If it will pass quickly, or if I need to gird myself for a long stint of rough waters.

New negative behaviors tend to fluster me. Parenting is so hard anyway, a demanding job in the calmest of times. When stuff arises and I can tell it's fire ants versus lady bugs, my heart sinks a bit because dealing with it is going to take extra. When extra becomes the status quo, it's exhausting. I don't feel like my little family sails in glassy pools too often. No, we seem to push or be drawn towards the rougher swells, and frankly, I'm really over the watery roller coaster right now. I'm motion sick and in need of stasis. I simply want to enjoy my kids, enjoy the Christmas season and not feel like most of each day takes quite so much effort.

After delivering the party food tonight, I went to school for a community meeting about what's been going on in Ferguson and New York. Because the boys attend a Quaker school, this was a quiet meeting with no moderator; if individuals feel called to speak, they're welcome to; otherwise, silent reflection is the agenda. Tonight's was the most active meeting I've ever attended. It was profound and moving and thought-provoking. My heart was in my throat not five minutes in, beating assertively as if ingesting and then trying to process the pain and fear and frustration and hope reverberating throughout the room.

I wanted to say how heavy my heart has been since the Garner decision came down, how despondent I felt in hearing some of my co-parents' stories and concerns this evening, how grateful I felt to be sharing space with so many incredibly people, how responsible I feel for raising my boys so that, in their own little ways, they can try to make a positive difference in the world. I again tasted the bitter pill that is racial privilege, learning anew some of the things that I haven't much thought about because I haven't had to. I can't imagine worrying about my son's safety every time he left the house simply because of his skin color. What a grotesque, unjust burden. And how unfair that I (and my family) am exempt from that because my skin is white.

The comments shared tonight put many things in perspective, and I am thankful for that. But I still feel awfully churned up. When will my quartet find a better-paved groove in which we can coast, if only for a bit? When will our country finally reckon with truths too many wish to keep packed away, a behavior which benefits only a few at the dramatic expense of many? There are growing pains and there are pains that come from being bound and stunted. Both are difficult to endure, but only one offers hope and a positive outcome afterward.

Christmas, hear me roar

I have a real "Hear me roar" feeling about Christmas trees. This feline response to them began many moons ago, when I was a singleton in The Big Apple. One December night, as I strutted home after a late evening out, high heels clap-clapping up Lexington Avenue, I was drawn into a well-lit bodega like a moth to a lamp. Out front was a small selection of Christmas trees, and, as I had my own place for the first time in New York, I had to buy one. A lovely man cocooned my chosen fir into its transient netting, sold me a cheap stand too and seemed convinced by my assertions that of course I could lug it all home. My skirt and tights and heels and new purchases were no match for my enthusiasm and will, and I think he got that.

Off I went, further north up Lex, dragging my tree behind me along the cold sidewalk. Up the flights to my fifth-floor walk-up. And then to the corner where my fir regained legs in the red and green metal stand. On went a few decorations, enough until I could buy some more. Perhaps never had a tree made me so happy before, and, perhaps, never since. In that moment, I knew I had made it. I was supporting myself in New York City, on an educator's salary and with a Christmas tree to boot. All by myself.

Each year since, I have eagerly awaited the turn of November into the year's final month. I'm usually one of the first, of folks I know, to buy and erect our annual tree. Every year I delight in turning the Christmas carols up loud, stringing the lights and going to town with my beloved collection of ornaments.

Tom is fairly meh about the whole tree thing but my -and the kids'- enthusiasm is unbridled. They pimp the tree out to the nines, loading each branch so full that none could ever make it through the season, much less a few days. After they've had their fun and are asleep, I cull and relocate, strengthen and secure. I can always blame changes on weak branches or the pets.

In recent years, I have taken to buying the tree on my own with the boys. Not because I don't love Tom's presence and help but because doing it alone or with the kids reminds me of that long-ago me in New York. That girl who could certainly buy, drag home and set up a tree all by herself. My first maiden voyage in Life as Mom was, interesting and in unplanned fashion, made while wearing a skirt, tights and flats. I'd been volunteering at school and on the way home thought, "Hey, you have just enough time, if all goes well, to get a tree and put it in the stand before heading back to get the boys. What a grand surprise that'd be."

And so I did.

One of my favorite images in all the year is that of trees strapped to car roofs driving toward their respective homes. It is so festive and warm, so jolly and lacking in cynicism. If snow is lightly falling and the car's driver is wearing a fuzzy woolen hat, all the better. Even though I never wear a fuzzy woolen hat and don't want to. It's just the visual of the package, you know?

Because I cannot safely get a tree off my car roof by myself, I acquiesce to shoving it in the trunk and through the console of the back seat. This is fun too and if the trunk is tied tight, there's no worry about losing the tree on the drive home. The boys and I did this yesterday, and although Ol wailed like a lunatic the whole way because we'd not bought the tree with a giant hole in the front, the fresh fir scent and the sheer festivity of the whole affair made my jovial buzz insuppressible.

The tree went up but then, tired, I decided to wait until today to start decorating. I got the lights on while the kids were at school, put on a few fragile ornaments and saved a bundle for the boys. One of Ol's friends came home with us. He's Jewish, had never decorated a tree and said in the sweetest voice, "It's my first time. How do I hang them?" We all demonstrated and he and Oliver went nuts on the branches at their height. It's like ornament vomit about three feet off the ground, but it's very dear, and I'll only cull and relocate a bit.

Black Lives Matter

Yesterday, after the announcement that the grand jury in the Eric Garner homicide case decided not to indict Daniel Pantaleo, the officer who killed Garner, a friend of mine shared this on Facebook:

Her daughter, a third grader with Jack, drew it.

Jack and Oliver are drawing pictures of butts and light sabers. Their big concerns are the shape of the pasta I'll cook for dinner and whose turn it is to do the advent calendar. No, I haven't told them about Ferguson or Staten Island, I've kept from them all the school shootings and other general societal shittiness, but I can choose to safeguard them from that information. I can choose to keep them a bit younger for a bit longer.

I am extremely pissed off and heartbroken that my friend's daughter has to process all this. She and her brother are growing up black in America, and this is what they're drawing on a Wednesday afternoon. What heavy burdens for young souls. To be black and write out, "Black Lives MATTER!!!" I cannot fathom what that must feel like, but I know it must hurt and pound and ache and confuse. It must enrage and sadden. It must do so many things.

My friend was stunned and saddened too and sat down with her kids to talk. They had many questions, which were "naive but perceptive" in my friend's words.

"Pres. Obama is African American. Why is he allowing this to happen?"

"Why do they need to do an investigation when there's a video tape of the whole thing?"

"Would this have happened if Eric Garner were white?

"When is it ok for a policeman to kill somebody? Does the person have to threaten the officer first?"

"Is it legal to choke a guy just because he's selling cigarettes? Even if the guy did something really bad...like steal something or do drugs...isn't there another way to punish him? Isn't that why we have jail?"

"Isn't there a way for the police man to shoot but not kill a person? Can't they shoot to scare a guy? Or shoot to stop a guy in his tracks?"

"Does protesting ever work?"

Truly, y'all, I am just speechless. I don't know what to do with this sort of injustice. The Garner case seems infinitely more clear cut to me than Ferguson. A man is choked to death ON VIDEO and there is no indictment?

What message is this sending to all of us? It doesn't suggest to me that black lives matter. Not all of them, at least. Not to certain people.

I have sought advice and think I am right in not telling my kids about these events. And part of me feels extremely let off the hook by that because not all parents get that same freedom. I would be so ashamed to tell the boys that one man killed another for no good reason at all and didn't even lose his job.

This is so bleak.