Connection, Schmonnection

I came across this quote this week on BookRiot from Pulitzer prize-winning author Jennifer Egan (author of A Visit From the Goon Squad and The Keep:) 

But, she said, the “fetishization of connection itself” fascinated her.


“Who cares that we can connect?” she said. “What’s the big deal? I think Facebook is colossally dull. I think it’s like everyone coming to live in a huge Soviet apartment block, [in] which everyone’s cell looks exactly the same.”


I'm getting sick of Facebook myself.  But I can't cut the cord yet.  I keep thinking I'll miss out, be even more out of the loop than I already am as a new mother.  Plus, honestly, I like showing off pictures of my cute baby boy!  But half the time it's just updates about what so-and-so's listening to on Spotify (turn off notifications, dude!) and updates from people I don't actually TALK to, you know, with my VOICE, like EVER.  So I'm mulling it over.  I think I need to impose a limit on myself about checking Facebook, and then it wouldn't get on my nerves so badly.  If someone really needs to contact me, what the heck's wrong with email?  Or a phone call? 

Half the time I don't want to be "connected" anyway.  Not in the modern sense.  I want connection that involves hearing a friend's voice or sitting across a room from someone, sharing our lives over cups of tea and baked goods.  With a squirmy, squeaky baby rolling around on the floor between us, of course.

Thankful List, 2011

So many things.  Sooooo many things. 

Parents who love me, who always loved me, who always tried to do their best for me.
Marrying into a wonderful, sane family.
My affectionate, intelligent, hardworking husband.
My sweet-natured, healthy, adorable little boy.

A job I like.  Some things about it I love, some things I don't like, so it averages out to Like. 
A pretty, safe neighborhood in which to live.
My health.

Peace in my nation -  that I don't have to be a refugee or victim of war crimes.  Lack of famine, that I might be able to be fed and feed my child.

And now, the sillier things:

J.R. Martinez, champion of Dancing With the Stars season 13.  I started watching a lot more television once the baby was born - who has energy to do anything else, especially at first?  For some reason I began watching DWTS, and I fell in love straightaway with J.R.  His joyful energy was a delight to watch all season.  And Bruno's ridiculous judge's comments are always fun too!

Tina Fey, Mindy Kaling, the cast of "Modern Family" (another recent television discovery.)  Reruns of "The Office" and "Seinfeld"   - for making me laugh on a regular basis.

The New York Yankees.  Not a championship season, but fun to watch nonetheless.  Baseball season is the best three-quarters of the year - it's springtime, then it's summer, then it's early fall.  I married into a passion for the Yankees, and it's really been fun learning all about the mechanics and history of the game.  Baseball is definitely a game for nerds, so I fit right in the demographic.  (Although I'd be more thankful if we'd never gotten rid of Johnny Damon or Matsui.  And if we could gently unload A.J. Burnette.)

The patience of my friends for looking at all the pictures of Baby I post on Facebook.

The 30 minutes a day I get to read, uninterrupted, on my lunch break at work.

Cute baby clothes with wry, silly sayings on them, like the Halloween onesie that says "Take Me to My Mummy."  They didn't have such things when I was a baby.

Coke Points, which allow me to subscribe to magazines I otherwise wouldn't bother subscribing to.


Good warm bread spread with butter.
Mmmm, butter. 

I am going to eat so much food tomorrow.  :)

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

Old Friends

Sarah, an old friend, is visiting this weekend. It's been such a good visit. We met in the fall of 1995, when fate placed us in the same dorm at our small Midwestern college. She lived on the first floor, an all-women's floor, called "The Nunnery" by the students. I lived on the third floor, with boys right across the hall. (No air conditioning! Carrying boxes of crap up three floors in the early September heat!) Sarah was one of those girls you just couldn't help but notice. Actually, she's still that girl. We pretty much instantly became friends. She used to work the front desk in our dorm's lobby and I'd go downstairs and bug her all the time. She introduced me to Shawn Colvin's music, for which I will always be grateful. We were DJs together on the campus radio station on Saturday mornings. We were sleepy, goofy, and played awesome women's music like Joni Mitchell and Ani Difranco. Sarah was (and is) hilarious, generous, fun.

The relationship with an old friend is comparable to a marriage. You know each other really, really well. You love one another, even though on occasion you get on each other's nerves. You learn that the other person doesn't need to think exactly like you do about everything, and it's still okay, the bond is still intact. Too much distance can fray a bond, but regular communication does wonders to strengthen one in spite of the miles. It's comforting beyond measure to know that even though people can't help but change and grow in different directions, the core of who you are remains enough to maintain that connection.

Fifteen years. That's a long time to know someone, longer than many marriages! Not having any siblings, I've always taken refuge in my friendships. They are my security blanket and my joy. Life gets in the way too often, and there are gaps I'm feeling right now with some of my friends. It's funny how I live in the same town with someone and don't talk to them for months, yet I can talk every week with a friend who lives three states away. My hope for this summer is to reconnect with dear friends far and near, and to be awake enough to appreciate all the wonderful people who bless me with their love.

This Is My Life

Usually this time of year is an exciting one for me. My birthday is May 10. I'm turning 33. My birthday usually feels like a big deal, probably because such a big deal was made of it for so long - I'm the only child, the only grandchild, the only niece. I was a spoiled little princess when I was a girl - heck, basically until after I graduated from college and got a lick of sense in me.


I love this time of year also because of Spring. It's my favorite season, the renewal after all the time spent inside in the darkness and chill of winter. Honeysuckle always blossoms around my birthday, and it's one of my favorite smells in the world. I feel blessed to have a birthday in a time of year when friends and family can gather outside, and have had many parties outdoors over the years. I like that my birthday falls on Mother's Day some years - it's nice to be able to celebrate two happy things in one!


This year, my birthday week feels strange. I am caught by that most useless of emotions, guilt. (I'm also sad, but sad feels purposeful somehow.) My grandma lives in middle Tennessee, and her house was badly flooded on Sunday when Drake's Creek, a tributary of Old Hickory Lake, overran it's boundaries. I haven't had a chance to talk to her, or to my uncle, who lives with her. I'm getting information from my mom, when she can get in touch with them. Would you believe in this day and age, they don't have cell phones? As much of a technophobe as I am, I am profoundly thankful for cell phones, and this situation makes it clear how useful they are.

My uncle said that the water came up to the doorknobs in the house, which means that all the furniture, appliances, bookcases, floors, walls, everything waist-down is ruined. Their outdoor cat was swept away. They escaped with just whatever they could grab, the water came up that fast. The creek has never flooded that badly in the 40 years she's lived there.

I have some good memories from my childhood visits there, especially when my grandfather was still alive. He was a sweetheart of a man, gentle and funny and loving. I was 7 when he died, so I didn't have an adult sense of awareness to be able to really know him. But I loved him with my whole heart, and the rest of my family did too. When he died the family really fractured. It had been coming a long time, and that's a REALLY long story, of which I still don't know all the details. But after he died, all the joy started going out of visiting Hendersonville.

I've never felt close to my grandmother, not really. I don't even know why. She can be mean to other people, but she's never been mean to me. My aunt, who I sort of idolize, has a horrible relationship with her, and I'm sure that's influenced my feelings. The physical distance between us, although just 3 and a half hours drive, didn't help either. Mamaw's sort of a cold person. She can be funny, and generous at times, but distant. Now she's sick - she has Alzheimer's disease. She's in the middle stages of it, and we've all hung back, not knowing how to make her see that she needs to make some tough choices about her future.

My uncle's a sweet person, but weak. He has had one bad relationship after another, he's been addicted to drugs and alcohol, he's been in jail. I do not think he's a bad person. I just think he never felt strong enough in himself to make good choices.

There is much sadness in that house. There has been for a very long time. Maybe something good will come out of this flood. It forced the issue that was hanging over everyone's head: what to do about the house now that Mamaw's Alzheimer's is getting worse. It's ironic that all the stuff my Mamaw has hoarded over the years, the stuff we couldn't get her to throw away or go through, is now waterlogged. I am sad that the house where my family used to be able to come together is basically gone. But it's really been gone for a long time anyway - at least in my heart.

I feel guilty for not being there to help, guilty for not really wanting to go over there at all, guilty that I don't have a better relationship with Mamaw. I am prone to guilt, even though I know it's an emotion that doesn't do anyone any good. I am trying to get out of this head-space. I am trying to pray, to grieve, to meditate, and to think of constructive ways I can be of help.

I read something in Julia Cameron's book The Right to Write today that struck me - about owning one's life, and writing as a way to do that. I thought, this is my life. My family's screwed up, relationships are strained or broken, people that I care about are pretty much crazy. But it's the only life I've got. I've managed to make it this far with these crazy people around me! And for all their faults, I've never doubted for one second that they love me.

Precipice

"Fearfulness is a mind habit." - Sylvia Boorstein



I took turkey bacon slices out of the cast-iron skillet, set them on the paper towel to drain, and said, "I want to have a kid." Husband asked, "What brought that on?" I replied, "I just think we'd be good parents. I think it would be fun."


And by fun I don't mean a party all the time. I mean challenging, rewarding, scary, hard, exhilarating. I mean pushing myself to see what I'm made of and really getting to know myself and my partner and all that messy life stuff.


Natalie Goldberg says that when something scary comes up in your writing, go for it. "Otherwise you'll spend all your time writing around whatever makes you nervous." So when I get down to what really matters, the stuff that freaks me out, pretty high on the list is mothering. Me becoming a mother. I've been wrestling with when to try and have a kid for at least a year now, and I keep putting it off. There are surface excuses - I want to lose weight, I want to gain self-confidence, I want to have more money - but it really all boils down to fear. What am I afraid of? Let's see:

Sleeplessness. Selflessness. A changed relationship with Husband. What if we have no money? What if I lose my job? What if I'm no good at mothering? What if she cries all the time and I resent her? What if I get fat? What if I have no time for me? So many questions, so many ways my mind can spin in loops.

But. I inch forward. I want, in my heart, to have a child. Someone who is part me and part my husband and something totally new all at once. Some sweet spark of God/divinity in her. I want to sing to her, read to her, teach her how to bake cookies and plant tulips and recognize the birds and the trees. Push her to try new things. Advise her that it's okay if you're not always comfortable or happy. At 32 I am finally figuring out that we won't die if we're afraid or uncomfortable! It's how we grow and get to know ourselves.

I think it's okay to acknowledge ambivalence about mothering. It's okay to be scared. These days I'm trying to operate under the premise that if it's something that would be good for me, for someone I know, or for the world in general, and I feel mostly capable, then just be scared and do it anyway. I'm totally freaked out about taking the leap. But excited too. So we inch closer, towards the biggest mystery/challenge/excitement we may ever be privileged enough to experience.

Forever, stamps.

When I was in college and went home for summers or winter breaks, my friends and I wrote each other letters. Letters on actual paper, in actual envelopes. I went to a small Midwestern liberal arts college in a small town about six hours from my hometown. My friends also came from different parts of the country and scattered accordingly on breaks. We wrote each other about trying to adjust back to parent's rules and high school friendships. We pined for crushes back on campus. We were bored; we missed one another and the cozy nest of our small campus.

It seems terribly quaint and old-fashioned now looking back on our chosen form of communication. Email was pretty much in its infancy for much of my college years, and texting had yet to be invented, I think. No one I knew even had a cell phone during college. This wasn't during the dark ages, this was a mere 10-15 years ago.

I miss letters. I'm the one at my house who gets excited when the mail comes. It's mostly bills and solicitations from charities. I have more address labels with my name on them than I'll ever use.

Yesterday I got a little thrill over a small note card-sized envelope addressed to me. I didn't recognize the handwriting, but couldn't help wonder which of my friends had been thoughtful enough to write me an actual note.

It was a card from my hairdresser, telling me she'd switched salons.


Surely I'm not the only one who longs for real mail? I confess: I don't send texts. I'm a Luddite compared to most of my friends. My cell phone is basically for emergencies and I don't even have Internet at home. This level of technological backwardness in someone my age is a little embarrassing.

Once in a while I send a letter to a friend, a snapshot of my state of mind and what's been happening in my life lately. Usually I never hear anything back. I do hear from far-flung friends - on Facebook. Sometimes I think, did I really mail that note card? Is it lost in the mail?

I can't get angry or hold grudges about the lack of paper flowing my way. People get busy. Partners (and babies) need attention. People have stressful, time-consuming jobs (I don't, but others do.) I understand.

There's a letter I've been meaning to write for months now. A friend moved, we don't talk, I didn't come to see her on her brief last visit to town. It's an old familiar story, I'm sure. I feel badly about dropping my end of the thread of our friendship.

Maybe this wish of mine to return to the age of letter-writing is more about wanting to return to deeper, richer connections with friends. It really does get harder and harder to stay current in one another's lives.


This weekend, with the forecast threatening snow, I'm going to sit with pen in hand, get out my pretty little notecards, and try again.