Fear, Friendship and The Closet Woman

When Liz stepped out onto the stage, the closing performer for the stage production Expressing Motherhood, I felt like I was going to burst out of my skin.

It was the final night of a three night run at the Durrell Theater in Cambridge, MA.    There were twelve women in the cast, all Moms, none of whom were professional performers.   They each told a story, with only a microphone and a spotlight as props, about motherhood.   They spoke of love, loss, lust, laughter and redemption.   It was a roller coaster ride of emotions:  side splitting laughter followed by free flowing tears.

As the spotlight bloomed to life and surrounded Liz in a halo of light, my heart swelled with anticipation, pride and love.   She had done a dry run of her piece for me, which made me laugh, and then cry, and then laugh some more, but nothing could have prepared me for what it was like to see her up on stage, telling the story of her daughter Eden's birth and mysterious illness that plagued her first few months of life.  

She spoke about Eden's delivery, and the terrifying complications that followed.   How all she could do was lie on the operating table and endure.

She spoke about how she faced her deepest fear one horrible night seven weeks later, when the doctors could do no more, and she went home to cradle her desperately ill infant close to her chest and pray.  

She spoke about the culture of fear that surrounds mothers these days, about how when she lets her two oldest daughters go an aisle away in the grocery store to bring back milk and bread, they are invariably returned to her by an accusing stranger who hisses, "I found them wandering in the dairy aisle."

Where is the line?  is the question Liz poses.   How do we raise children to be independent, confident people if we're living in fear ourselves?   It would be easy to succumb to fear, hover endlessly over and around our children, mistakenly believing we can prevent any horrible outcomes by sheer attentiveness.  There are so many things outside of our control; our children will get sick, hurt and have to suffer through their own trials and tribulations.   The best we can do for our kids is to choose not to live in fear ourselves.

Liz had to face fears of her own to do the show:  stage fright and speaking publicly about a raw, vulnerable time in her life.  She stared those fears straight in the eye, squared her shoulders and dug deep. 

She was radiant.  

The stories of Expressing Motherhood are the soundtrack to our lives as mothers.  How we navigate the waters of fear, loss and frustration.   How we celebrate the simple moments of joy and awe.  How we struggle with identity and purpose, and feel like the woman we were before becoming a mother fades from our reach, hides away in some back closet of Things That Used To Be.

She doesn't fade completely away, though, this Closet Woman, the one who tackled the world head-on, without fear and hesitation.   The woman who ran board meetings, or earned a graduate degree, or built a company of her own, or traveled the world, or worked two jobs to put herself through school.    She lives inside all of us, and I saw her up on stage last night in each and every one of the brave performers, who put a little of themselves out there so we would all feel less alone, less afraid. 

~~~~

Liz asked me to design a bracelet and earrings for her to wear onstage.   I obsessed about it; I wanted to create the perfect piece - something funky and yet not too over-the-top.  After creating two bracelets and cutting them apart because I felt they weren't good enough, I realized this was so important to me because Liz is so important to me.  

She was my first mommy friend, all those years ago when our daughters were born within nine days of each other.    Together we figured out new motherhood by making mistakes and celebrating successes.   We weathered endless New England winters holed up at her house, or our friend Karin's house, huddled together against the long, cold afternoons.   Huddled together against the fear.  

Her loving, level-headed friendship has helped to pull me through some of the darkest days of my life.   What she taught me is that we're not supposed to be perfect, we're just supposed to love our children without reservation, without fear, and do the best we can.

So I didn't create the perfect piece, because it doesn't exist.   But I created something straight from my heart, something fun, classy, colorful and with a little sparkle.   Just like Liz.

In honor of the Expressing Motherhood performance, Liz is hosting a giveaway of a duplicate set of the bracelet and earrings I made for her.    

To enter and read more about the performance from Liz's perspective, go here.

Thank you.

Monthly Giveaway - New Item!

Congratulations to Christine, who won last month's giveaway - the green quartz earrings!

Thanks to everyone who entered!

This month's giveaway is the Robin's Egg Wire Wrapped Ring:


To view more pictures of this ring in my Etsy shop, click here.

To enter, simply leave a comment below indicating you would like to participate in the giveaway.

Please leave an email address where I can contact you if you win. If you're more comfortable emailing me directly, please do so at: ellieandsteve@verizon.net.

This giveaway is open internationally.

The winner will be chosen at random on November 1st (my daughter picks a name from a hat).

~ ANNOUNCEMENT ~

Please note the new tab at the top of the page: Current Giveaways. Over the next couple of months I'm doing a "giveaway blitz" - and I will list all the active giveaways on this page. Be sure to check them out! Not only will you be introduced to some terrific bloggers, but I'm offering special discounts to participants of these giveaways.

Every giveaway will be different - some will have specific pieces, some will be gift certificates, so be sure to check them all out!

If you're interested in hosting a giveaway, please send me an email!

Thanks so much!

Wired and Inspired

I'm creating jewelry again.

Over the summer I stopped creating new pieces because the kids were home full time and we were so busy. I kept up with the orders in my Etsy shop, which chugged along during the lazy days of summer at a reasonable pace, but I hadn't made anything new in weeks.

I didn't realize how much I missed it until I started creating again. That spark that lay dormant for months sprang to life; I found myself waking up in the middle of the night with ideas, sketching them down on a pad I keep next to my bed for just such a purpose.



It fuels me, this creative energy. For the first year and a half or so I felt almost apologetic about my jewelry business, like it was some cute little hobby I did on the side. I was unable to mentally commit to it, to call myself an artist, to dream that maybe - just maybe - this is something I could actually do for a living.

Finn starts Kindergarten next fall, and I want making jewelry to be what I do for a living. I will need to be working - not just for the needed additional income, but for my own sanity. I'm looking at the next year as my opportunity to really invest time and attention into getting Shining Stones up and running.

As some of you may recall, my husband made me a store. He cleared out our seldom-used dining room, and created attractive jewelry displays and a pretty sun-splashed work station. One of my biggest joys is having customers and friends stop by to shop and pick out ready-made jewelry, or poke through my selection of stones, beads and crystals.

I've been making a lot of custom jewelry, which I love to do, using stones that carry special meanings and messages for people who need a lift.


So I'm squaring my shoulders, owning my creative spark, my artistry, and losing myself for hours in creating new pieces, stocking up my store and my Etsy shop. I'm having a ball.

Part of this, of course, is facing my fears about marketing and promotion. It's something I've always struggled with, but if this is going to be what I do, I'm going to have to get over it.

So I'm looking for ways to get the word out there. If you are interested in advertising Shining Stones on your blog, please send me an email. For the next couple of months, I'm also having a 'giveaway blitz'. If you would like to host a giveaway of a piece of my jewelry on your blog, I'm providing discounts and other incentives for your readers (and you!) and I'm really excited. I've had a great initial response to my tweeting and facebooking (totally a verb) about it, so if you're interested in hosting a giveaway please contact me and we can talk about it further. My email is ellieandsteve@verizon.net.

Thank you!

Do It Anyway

I'm going to Los Angeles - actually I'm going to Ojai - in mid October to attend Creative Alliance '10.   It's a blogging conference, of sorts, with an emphasis on creating authentic, meaningful alliances in the online creative community.   

I will know some of the people there - my good friends Heather and Robin will be attending, as well as other incredible women I met at BlogHer in New York City who I've gotten to know a bit better over the past several weeks. 

When Lee mentioned this conference to me at BlogHer my first thought was:  of course I'm not going.   Not simply because of the time and expense involved in getting myself to LA, but because my gut chimed in to tell me I'm not a good enough blogger -- I'm too small, too inexperienced, too inconsequential.    There are only 40 attendees, and the core group of organizers reads like a list of my most favorite bloggers ever.   I'm in awe of these women, of their raw talent.   

My ego began whispering in my ear:  you can't afford to take the time, you hate to fly, you won't fit in, you'll feel worse about yourself if you go, you can't afford to go chasing dreams right now,.   It's the same voice that whispered to me about my drinking:  go ahead, have another, you don't amount to much anyway.  

I'm so tired of that voice.   I know in my gut she's dead wrong, but shoving her away is more difficult than I'd like to admit.

See, I love blogging.   I don't know why, but I feel an embarrassed tug when I admit that out loud.   I mean, what good does blogging do?   How is it additive in the world?    It amazes me that I prattle away here on this space about whatever is pinging around in my brain, and people come read it?   Why does anybody care?   Why do I care?

I know the answer, of course.    I care because of the incredible people I've met, the inspiration and hope I get from reading other peoples' blogs, the healing I feel when I write, the connection I feel from comments and emails.

I'm intimidated because the women who will be going to Creative Alliance '10 represent, to me, the cream of the crop.    They aren't caught up in boasting rights for readerships, they aren't in competition with each other.   They cheer each other on, and have a balanced approach to what it means to be successful in this crazy space.

I want that.

If I want that, I have to set aside my fears and insecurities and just go.   If you want to learn to ski, you don't go join a class of people who ski worse than you do just so you can feel better about yourself.   You draft behind the really talented skiers and try to keep up, so you can watch and learn.

Here's how the core team describes their objective for the conference:

The Core Team of the inaugural CA ’10 will help facilitate discussions and encourage conversation so we can all share with each other our expertise and experience from our individual online journeys.  The goal is to have all of us engage in meaningful conversation in a relaxed environment so we can build lasting alliances as we each work to make our creative business ventures exactly what we dream them to be.

For me, blogging is only meaningful if it's building a community around a shared purpose.  In my case - both here and at Crying Out Now - it's a space to share humanity, struggles, courage and hope.   Whether it's about addiction and recovery, or the trials and tribulations of parenting, or weight loss, my objective is to create an honest, safe space for sharing our experience, strength and hope.   

Networking and marketing to promote my blog will always make me uncomfortable.   I'm not doing this to build popularity or validation (okay, maybe a little validation); I'm not focused on the numbers, I'm focused on the quality of the connections and friendships.  

I feel even more strongly about this when it comes to Crying Out Now.   But the path is clearer for me in that space:  I want more people to know about it, to come read, to submit their stories, because I believe in the incredible healing found there.    So I'm going to CA '10 to learn how to do this - how to stay true to the cause, build a meaningful community around a collective goal, but also grow this community safely and purposefully.    I'm thrilled Robin, who is a co-moderator of Crying Out Now, will be there to experience this with me. 

So I'm ignoring those whispering voices.   I'm going.   And I'm mostly excited about it.   I'm not the biggest fan of flying, so that is a challenge for me.   It's so easy for me to succumb to the irrational fears:  you have no business putting yourself in danger just to go to a blogging conference, what if something happens and you leave your kids without a mother?   You are so selfish.      THAT'S the kind of crazy that lives in my head.

But it's far too easy to take the cheap, easy, fearful way out.   In all aspects of my life I'm trying not to be driven by fear, but by hope.

What A Girl Wants

When I asked Greta a few weeks ago what she wanted for her birthday, she sat and pondered for a few minutes, then looked up at me shyly and said, "I don't know, Momma. You know what I want.  You know me."

You know what I want.  You know me. 

Such simple statements, and yet they echoed through my heart, transported me back through the past eight years.

I remembered sitting in the car with Steve after we left our 22 week ultrasound appointment, clutching the black and white photo in my hands.    I traced my finger along the silhouette of her little scrunched up face and whispered, in awe: we made a girl.  

When the nurse placed her in my arms mere seconds after birth, I felt two things simultaneously:  unbounded joy and sheer terror.   She was perfect.    How on earth was I going to do this ... this motherhood thing?    I had mistakenly assumed that if my body could produce a whole baby and know exactly what to do without any prior instruction or experience, that somehow the same intuition about how to raise a child would mysteriously appear in my brain the moment she arrived.

I kept thinking that one day I would get it, intuitively know exactly what I was doing.    It didn't matter how many times more experienced moms told me that every new mother is overwhelmed, that nobody knows what they are doing.   Especially not with their first child, and especially not when they are babies.

Greta was colicky, cried a lot, slept very little, and nothing I did seemed to soothe her.   As my anxiety and sleep deprivation grew they eclipsed any feelings of joy, wonder and confidence.    I was not one of those mothers who could sit and stare at her baby in awe for hours on end.   I felt like a cat in a cage - everything that had been familiar to me was gone:  my body, my career, my peace of mind, my happiness.    She would wail and wail, and I would lock myself in the bathroom and scream into a pillow:  WHAT?  WHAT IS IT?  WHAT DO YOU WANT FROM ME?

I was miserable, and my misery stoked the fires of guilt.   Wasn't I supposed to love this?   Wasn't I supposed to know what to do?   I didn't know how to ask for help, how to express my feelings about what I perceived to be my copyrighted failure.    So I retreated into a bottle.   Over the next few years I escaped from her neediness, her dependency on me, her love, the only way I could find.   I drank.

When I emerged from the fog of alcoholism Greta was almost five.    As I got to know myself sober, I had to get to know her, too.    As I pieced myself back together I had to learn not only how to be a mother, but what motherhood meant to me.    I pushed through my feelings of guilt and told myself the truth:  I was scared. 

I looked that monster in the closet dead in the eye and said:  I'm scared, but I'm going to do the best I can.    I finally understood that my fear was born out of a fiercest love of all:  mother-love.   I loved her so limitlessly, so deeply, that I could never, ever live up to everything I wanted for her.    But I could finally answer my own question, screamed into a pillow all those years ago:   What do you want from me?  

What she wants is me.   She doesn't want some version of me that I'd like her to see.   She wants me, with all my fault lines and laugh lines.    For all those years I couldn't give her the one thing she wanted, because I didn't know who I was.  You can't give something you don't have.

Greta turns eight on Wednesday.   And she's right - I know her.   I feel her, right down to my very core.   I don't really remember who I was before she came along and made me a mother.   I no longer mourn that version of me.  I had to figure out that to be the best mother I can be I had to make peace with myself, first.    Once I start over thinking, I'm in trouble.  If I hold myself up to some blueprint of motherhood, compare myself to anyone but me, of course I'm going to come up short.    I acknowledge my mistakes.  Actually, I embrace them.   Because inside a mistake, if I'm paying attention, is growth.

Now I don't come from a place of fear, because I understand my own limitations.   I simply don't have the kind of power I thought I had.   She's her own person.  

I know her, but I also know she isn't a mini version of me.   She's a mini version of her.    I'm here to cheer her on, prop her up, pass on what I've learned of the world so far, and love her.   

The rest is up to her.  And she's doing a damn fine job.

   

Happy Birthday, Greta.

Pieces of Life. In Pictures

There are little pockets of my life that become so ordinary to me that I forget to remember how much they mean to me.   Every day, ordinary things that bring me pleasure, simplicity, peace, or companionship.   

I can't describe these things easily, so I thought I'd show them instead.  Pieces of life.  In pictures.

I love it when my fridge is full.   When the shopping and the schlepping are done, and each shelf is chock full of healthy (er, just ignore the Redi-Whip... and the chocolate sauce) fresh foods.   And that little container on the second shelf down, on the right?   Those are fresh eggs.   From our chickens.    I love that.

This is Coffee Corner.   Because one coffee maker simply won't do, I have two.  Because sometimes you want just one cup, a little pick-me-up - hence the Keurig.    But some mornings high octane coffee, and large amounts of it, are necessary.   Hence the 12 cup coffee maker.    And tucked on the left there are Tension Tamer and Sleepytime teas, to bring my frazzled nerves back to baseline in the evenings.   Heaven.

Why does this jumbled mess make me happy?   Because it's the Everything Drawer.     It never lets me down.  Where else can I put my hand on three different kinds of ointments or cold remedies, a plethora of hair implements, toothpaste, tape, thermometers, extension cords, light bulbs, missing lego pieces, chap sticks, pens ... well, you get the idea.    MacGyver ain't got nothing on me.

This is the Whiteboard of Certainty.   It is my new best friend.   I've complained on this blog several times that I have trouble with organization, but this little $12 purchase from Target has plugged most of the holes for me.  Each week, I write what I need to remember (where the heck are the kids?  who are we picking up?  when is soccer/girl scouts/basketball?  who is coming over?)  on the Whiteboard of Certainty, smack dab in the middle of my fridge where I can't miss it.   If it needs to be done, it's there.   And I just swipe a paper towel across it when it's completed, giving me the sense that I do, in fact, accomplish something on occasion.

This is Buddha corner.   No matter how crazy or messy the rest of our bedroom gets, Buddha corner always looks just like this - serene, simple, peaceful.    In the morning, the sunlight streams in through the window just right, creating the perfect spot for some quiet reflection before I start my day.   

My husband found this at a local consignment shop; it's an old typesetter's cabinet.   There are about thirty drawers, each with dozens of little compartments.   Each compartment is filled with semi-precious stones, pearls, crystals and charms, sorted by color.    It is my own personal paradise.  

A bunch of books at my bedside.  I'm always reading three or four books at once.   One can never have too many books.   Ever.

Our dog, Casper.   She's a nine year old Slovensky Cuvac (pronounced "chew-vatch").    Steve and I got her before children, the first year we were married.   She's getting on in years, now, and is most likely to be found snoozing in a sunny corner, sighing happily.     She is such an important part of our family, but all too often she gets forgotten in the hustle-bustle of life.   So these days we're trying to give her extra hugs, to remind her that we love her.  

Has there ever been a sweeter sight than your own sleeping children?   I love that even though Finn could have his own room, they still want to be together.   It won't be for much longer now, I don't think, so I'm soaking it in while I can.

And every night, without fail, I tiptoe into their room and give a prayer of thanks.   For everything, big and small, for all the richness in my life. 

Because it's important to remember.

Sorry, I Couldn't Hear You Over All The Crinkling

I had one of those moments the other day, something that has been happening more frequently.   I was talking to a friend of mine and we were joking about morning hair.   I was laughing about how when I woke up that morning my hair looked like the lead singer of the Flock of Seagulls.

"What?"  she said.  "Your hair looked like a seagull?"

So I busted out an 80s dance move and said, "You know..  I raaaaan.  I ran so far awaaaaaay,"  and she looked at me like I'd lost my ever-loving mind.

It hit me that she didn't have the first clue what I was talking about.

"The band?"  I clarified.  "Flock of Seagulls?  They were huge in the early 80s?"

"OH!" she said, and I sighed in relief until she went on to say, "Sorry, I was born in 1978."

She's thirty two?   NINE years younger than me?

I have this habit of thinking everyone is just like me.   I meet you, we become friends, and I just presume you're my age because we get along so well.   Sure, maybe I notice you must have a better anti-aging cream than me, because you don't have one frigging laugh line.   But it never occurs to me that you might just be younger than me.

With one exception:  I can't figure out the age of anyone under twenty-five.   I'll think someone is barely out of their teens when she'll casually mention she's in her residency at the local hospital.   She's about to become a pediatrician, for crying out loud, and I was about to ask if she had a driver's license.

Suddenly everyone is impossibly young.   At the second grade open house I was introduced to a lovely young woman - I'm thinking she's a nanny, perhaps? - who went on to explain that she's the TEACHER.   I went to have an annual physical and the doctor's dewy, unlined face was more than a little disconcerting to me.   Call me old-fashioned, but I want my doctor to be downright craggy, weighted down with life experience and tomes of medical knowledge.  

I was chatting amiably with my dentist a few months ago, rambling on about my children, and I finished by saying, "But what are you going to do.  Kids, you know?" 

"Actually, I don't have kids yet," he said, aiming for my mouth with a terrifying pointy instrument.  "I'm engaged and getting married next year.  Open wide!"

Don't get me wrong.  I'm not worried about aging, or getting older.   I loved turning 40.   It felt liberating to be at a life stage where I didn't have to wring my existential hands and wonder what the heck I was going to do when I grew up.   I am the grown-up.   Right?

The kids don't help, though.   The other night we were having dinner, and Finn was talking about how he wanted to be a Dad one day.

"But then you'll be the grandmother, Momma,"  he said.

"I can't wait to be a grandmother," I smiled.

He was quiet for a minute, poking at his peas, and then he looked up sheepishly and said, "But, Momma?   Could you try not to get too crinkly?"

Sure, kid.  I've got hundreds of dollars worth of facial creams upstairs that are trying to do just that. 

"Everyone gets wrinkles," I said.  "It's natural."

"It's okay to get a little crinkly," he replied.   "Like the ones you have around your eyes?   Oh, and your mouth?   And those right there on your forehead?  They're okay.   But, if your neck gets really crinkly that would be too weird."

Last weekend we went for a walk on some forest trails on a beautiful autumn afternoon.   I felt alive, vibrant, kicking my feet through the leaves and breathing the cool air.   Greta and Finn were walking ahead of me, shoulder-to-shoulder.  I commented on how cute they looked together.

"Oh, we're tour guides,"  Greta said casting a glance my way over her shoulder.   "And you're our customer."

"What a lovely tour!"  I exclaimed, falling into my role.   "What gorgeous leaves!"

"AND THIS HERE IS THE TRAIL THAT LEADS TO THE WATER," Greta boomed.

"Why are you yelling?"  I asked.

"Oh," she said.   "It's the Senior Citizen tour.  I wanted to be sure you could hear me okay."