Got the cards in the mail today. Bought big bundles of sugar, flour, butter and eggs — the baking will ensue imminently. A “possibly historic snow storm” is predicted for tomorrow. The kids awoke to a dusting of snow this morning and asked, quite excitedly:  Is it winter now?

In trying to get my house ready for the season — and feeling as though I am failing miserably at it, no matter how exhausted I am each night — I keep waiting for some spunky grandfatherly fix-it man to appear, someone who wants nothing more to do with his copious free time than to put insulation in the crawl space under my ill-placed hot water heater, take down screens and put up storms, remove the remaining summer stuff from my yard — all for the price of cocoa and hot bowls of soup and games of checkers with my kids. Such a man, however, does not appear to exist. Not in this corner of Iowa, at least.

In lieu of this – and when I’m not beating myself up over the insulation or my lack of a job come late-January – I’m working on my Single Mom Christmas List.  Hold the diamonds, thanks very much. And perfume makes me sneeze. This is a much humbler list than all that.

10. An official pet door opener, feeder and walker. My dog and cat are driving me nuts. Two more creatures that NEED me. They can live here, but could someone else just deal with them? I’m especially annoyed by the way in which they sense when I’ve finally sat down – something I do very little of –  and one of them suddenly requires the door to the outside be opened.

9. A half-day long bath in a giant perpetually hot tub with a VIEW and a stack of magazines and books. Calgon really did know of what they spoke.

8. A night in this bed. I don’t know where it is. I just found it while trying to find bathtub pictures, and I fell in love. I can tell it’s warm there – but not hot. The sound of crickets or waves or a burbling creek is outside. The smells are fresh. The food eaten near here is fresh and cooked by someone with love and wit. The best night’s sleep ever could be had here. I am sure of this.

7. Healthy, yummy school lunches. We qualify for free school lunch, but a lot of good this does us when pretty much every day is a meaty, greasy, sugar-laden mess. My kids choose one meal a week off the menu, and sometimes they have a hard time finding that much. This means, that every morning – while yelling sweetly encouraging missives to them — “Please brush your hair!”  ”Put your homework in your backpack!”  ”Eat your oatmeal – NOW!” — I’m in the kitchen trying to put together a lunch that doesn’t completely resemble yesterday’s lunch and which covers at least a few of the food groups. Some days, I fail miserably – a bag of cold cereal, a dill pickle, and a box of raisins stolen from the Halloween bag. My friend Tonya and I call these “Orphan Lunches” and they’re the days when I feel as though my kids have “Single Mother” written on their foreheads in Sharpie. Need more convincing? Watch Ann Cooper on TED.

6. More babysitters! Better babysitters. Fun babysitters. Clever babysitters. Babysitters without anything else on their schedules! Babysitters who will work out of the goodness of their hearts. (Ok, here’s what I’m really wishing for but am generally too fearful to utter aloud:  A grandmother who would ever ever ever put her grandkids to bed.)

5. More yoga. I manage to get to a class once a week – and this, my friends, is just not enough. I know I should be glad for this, proud even, but I’m sorry – it’s not enough. While I’m not suggesting a move to LA, I am pretty sure that if I could go to Bryan Kest’s yoga classes twice a week – or even one of his and one of another topnotch class in the area – that I’d be a changed woman. A calmer, happier woman. My house might even somehow be neater, just through proximity to my absolute relaxed self.

4.  Writers who craft stuff like this should be hired less, and people who write earnest, heartfelt pieces like this should get more and better paying work. (Ok, that was all a bit self-serving.)

3. Paid junkets to Paris.  Really, you need an explanation? Look at this image. Even in a driving rainstorm, I can taste the glass of red wine and the piping hot perfect omelet.

2. Someone to cook. Someone to cook with. Someone to cook for me. Someone to love food and cookbooks and to create dishes that aren’t kid-friendly. These qualities are definitely what I miss the most about Alex. My life – or at least my tummy – was richer with a cook in the house. In the meantime, I troll Chowhound when I can’t sleep.

1. By far my biggest need and the thing that keeps me awake at night is my need for a 3/4 time job with benefits that uses at least some of my multiple talents. We hear over and over and over that American workplaces are deaf when it comes to the needs of families. I’d say that’s doubly true for the 40% of American families led by a single mom, or the 2/3s of households in which women are the primary or co-breadwinner. (For more stats, see The Shriver Report, which came out a few months ago) We need to make a decent wage — you know, enough to eat and maybe get a new roof put on and just possibly to save a tad, too.  We desire to do so in a manner that actually uses our talents – of which we have many. We possess college degrees and past work experience, not to mention the vast array of managerial skills the average mother learns on the  job. But we also need to be present for our kids. And doing so is a win-win for everyone. I can put my kids in an afterschool program a few days a week, but every day? And before school, too? If I were to get the average full time job in my area, that would mean 8-5 hours (we’re Puritanical in Iowa), which would translate to having my kids at school  nearly an hour before the doors open, and picking them up two and a half hours after school. After our joyful reunion, we’d speed home to quickly make dinner and cram in home work, all during which I’d be in a lovely mood. I’m sorry. But no. No, no, no. IN lieu of this, I”m currently applying for jobs in the $10/hour range – jobs that allow me to work when my kids are in school and be home with them when they’re not. Jobs that will leave us eligible for Free Lunch for years to come and jobs that really don’t utilize my 4-page resume. There’s got to be a more humane solution. Again, I’m not even asking for the tiniest cuticle of a Goldman Sachs bonus. Just living wages. That’s my greatest wish for 2010. And, I fear, for 2011. And 2012. And ….

Cold and tired. I guess we are nearing the solstice. It’s been good to have the kids back after they were away with Alex and his family for six days on the east coast. It was odd to see the photos posted on FB of them with the cousins who I now realize I won’t see grow up – except in photos. As an only child, they were my only chance at ever being an aunt.  Nor will I meet the new boyfriends and girlfriends of Alex’s younger cousins. But I also won’t have another fight with Alex while at his family’s, or feel like the odd bird out – the non-Jew, the non-suburbanite.

While they were away, I got together with friends one night — all PTA moms who were counting up results of the fall fundraiser together. There  was wine and I’d just come from signing my divorce papers, so I raised my glass, told them the news. The only other person there who is divorced, said, “Oh, I’m so sorry.” And I could see from her furrows brow how deeply she meant it.  She would never go back to her ex and is very happy with a new man, but she knows the ways in which a divorce is never over, the ways in which kids always pine for what was or what might have been, and how even the adults involved wonder if there was another option.

Was it my fault that we fought when we visited Alex’s family? Did I not try enough to fit in? Was I not a loving enough aunt? I know – silly questions. Such small things. And yet all part of the incomplete whole.

Boy, this sure struck a nerve.

Vanishing Point

by Freya Manfred

The moment arrives when you say,
“I don’t dislike this man,
but how did I marry him?”
Something about his wintry voice,
the way he can’t or won’t show his face,
and how small and alone you feel
out here on earth’s curve,
driving day and night,
never reaching a destination,
until you realize you’re running parallel to him,
and you’ll never meet.

Yesterday I stopped by my lawyer’s office and signed the stipulation. My lawyer wasn’t there. Alex wasn’t there.Not even the entire stipulation was there – just that one page needing my signature and the date. Just me and a notary in a festive sweater. It was the definition of anti-climactic.

A few hours later, I drove the kids and Alex to the airport in a menacing rainstorm. At one point, as I squinted at the nearly indecipherable windshield, Alex said, “I just wanted you to know that I signed today.”  ”Yeah, me too.”  Pause. Then  Thomas from the back seat:  ”Do you think we should really be flying in this?” Good question, Thomas. Good question.

So it seemed done. But then today – a flurry of emails from my lawyer, who clearly isn’t concerned that tomorrow is Thanksgiving. For reasons that aren’t entirely clear to me, he’s suddenly found ways to get the child support up. It’s now nearly double what it was a month ago — or even days ago, for that matter. It’s at a number, that while still low feels within the realm of the possible, within the realm of Realism. We have left Kafka-esque behind and are inching toward do-able. I am sighing with relief. And, dare I say, celebrating?

Tonight at the grocery store, I bought cheap hot  house flowers and champagne. I am taking a bath later. I am saying thanks that this whole process is coming to some end. We are entering a new phase, moving from divorcing to divorced. A phase that will bring its own challenges, but a different phase. And for that, I am definitely thankful.

Too much.  Toooooo much is on my mind.  And it’s not turkey. Here’s a sampling from the swamp that is my emotional innards.

A medical condition – if you will – and other people’s reaction to it. To which I just want to scream (yes, scream – I’m not feeling particularly nice):  ”Mind your own bees wax! Go out and get your own condition and do with you will with it; but as for me and my body –  hands off, and most definitely, opinions off!”  Grrrr….

Work work work and applying for jobs – dreamed last night of making my way through a wooden and vined  mazed in the middle of a gorgeous housing  complex from 18th c. England. A very successful and beautiful friend was in the lead; I was bringing up the rear of our small party. The “prize” at the end was a job – a perfect job that would make me very happy. Even though I kept hoisting myself over every wall, scraping my knees and bloodying my elbows in the process, it was clear that I was not going to be rewarded with a job at the end.

Ahimsa – part of a code of conduct in a number of traditions, including yoga, Buddhism, and Jainism – which demands that we  do no violence toward others. Many people have used ahimsa as reason for practicing vegetarianism, and it’s certainly used as a reminder of kindness toward others. But what I’ve been meditating on is the practicing of nonviolence toward ourselves. I’ve been thinking about this, because frankly, I suck at it!

Children on planes – my kids are flying out east with their dad tomorrow night and will be gone for a week. I’m an inveterate flyer, as are they. I’m proud of the fact that can practically do 21st century airport security with their eyes closed. Bea even reminded me this morning to buy tiny bottles for the solution she needs to take to clean her new pierced ears because the bottle she has is too big for airport security. But suddenly I have visions of airplanes falling from the sky. I have visions of no vision of them ever again. And it stops me cold.

Cooking a birthday dinner for my ex – This fun, fun, fun event is tonight. And, I’m sad to admit dear reader, that it was my idea. It somehow seemed like the right thing to do. Now, however, that I’m not eating meat, that I”m broke, that I need to work late at my job, and that I need to go out and buy tiny bottles, it’s an idea that seems particular poor in timing and, well, in my earnest desire to see it through.

Kick boxing – the need to take out some very real, very physical anger is looming large. I’ve always walked away from anger – considered it a lesser emotion, one that a better person would not linger in. The Dalai Lama does not get angry, so neither will I. But at the moment, I’m marinating in the stuff – like some white trash turkey swimming in PBR – and I need to find a way to do battle with it. Suggestions?

Ok, the old dog needs to be walked. I promised my son I’d bring him a PB & J because he doesn’t like the school lunch selection after all. And I”m late for work.

Slipping

On my shoes,

Boiling water,

Toasting bread,

Buttering the sky:

That should be enough contact

With God in one day

To make anyone Crazy.

- Hafiz

Abstaining from the “patience pills” I’ve been taking for five years now.

Abstaining from meat after a calzone in New York City filled with four different kinds of animal product left me cold – and sick.

And I spent several weeks abstaining from touch.

I’ve momentarily considered abstaining from sugar and alcohol, but this weekend’s brownies and two glasses of Shiraz indicate that’s probably not immiment.

I’m re-embracing sexual touch, but feel a long-time disassociation coming on from the former two. I’m following my heart – and my gut – and wondering where it will lead. A healthier me? A happier me? A more me me? I’m not in unknown territory, but it always takes awhile to remember what it’s like. And of course, I’m not the same me. (“The same me” – hold that thought… we’ll get to that more in a moment.)

I didn’t eat meat for nearly a decade, but when I got pregnant with Thomas, I started craving it. Preferably covered in mustard. Suddenly, I was having hamburgers every other night after years of not even accepting soup with chicken broth. As for anti-depressants, my first go-round with them came at age 30. After years of talk therapy, my very caring therapist had to admit that the fact that I had to stop at the end of every lap while swimming in order to empty  my goggles of tears was something that might warrant extra treatment. She sent me to a psychiatrist who, as pretty much was the case circa 1995, prescribed Prozac. When I came back to see her two weeks later and she asked if I was feeling better, I said it was hard to tell. “Do you feel more you?” she asked, clearly not understanding that she was dealing with a writer who could have riffed on that question all day. What is “you”? What is “more” you? Is a happier you necessarily a more real you? Perhaps the girl who was filling her swimming goggles was the realest you possible.

For now, I’m remembering that I cry a lot more easily when I’m not on anti-depressants. I cried all over New York. I cried last night. I shudder and sob and am amazed that that well still exists. I’m also shorter of patience. And I’m not long on it to begin with. So this is my work. This is the part of the “real me” that needs to recognize her limitations and find ways to stop and breathe and be with the feeling.  To not necessarily push it away, but to see if she can also be with it in a tender enough way while remaining drug-free. (And yes, in such moment, I entirely get that a glass of wine becomes a drug. A plate of brownies is a drug.)

I guess the art of abstinence is not about suffering but about winnowing away the barriers to seeing ourselves.  When you’ve drunk to the last drop and there’s nothing left to pour, what is left?

I have been traveling—away from my kids for about five days. Over the weekend, Alex sent me photos he took of them and they looked HUGE—Bea especially. Suddenly, she looks on the cusp of adolescence. So big, so fast. How could this have happened? If I blink, will they suddenly be in college?  Last week, holding a friend’s 8-week old baby in New York was another reminder of how much they’ve grown – how much we’ve changed as a family. “It must seem like you were here just yesterday,” said my friend as she breastfed baby Juniper. “Actually, no. It feels like eons ago.”

Eons since I grappled with a stroller. Eons since I fretted over the meaning, or lack thereof, of an infant’s tears. Eons since breast milk bottles sat upside down next to the sink, cleaned and ready to be used again. Eons since I’d dealt with that weird yellow poo that stains the backsides of newborns’ onesies.

Eons. That’s also how I felt when I opened this photo of my dad with Bea and Thomas. I was cleaning up my computer desktop and came across it, then had to do the math: Christmas four years ago. Four months before he died. I can parse the numbers so many other ways: Five and a half years after Bea was born. A year after Alex and I first separated. Forty years after my first Christmas with my dad. Nine months after he was diagnosed. Numbers. Irrelevant really. They’re easy to focus on, to stare at them and try to learn something from them. But like my kids’ current ages or weights or heights, they are irrelevant. What matters is the reminder – hard but in some ways incredibly sweet – that nothing stays the same, all is changing, every second.

I just got off the phone from talking with Alex. The divorce should be final this week, if all goes ok. Neither of us really understands the process, but we’ve each done our bit and there’s nothing left to hold it up. A four-month legal process. A 16-month process from separation to the final final. Or, do I start the clock on April 30, 1994 – the day we got married?

Math. It doesn’t matter. What matters is that we’re now in a different space with each other – discussing our kids, his work, my work, our elderly dog. It’s a relationship that will continue as long as each of us is alive – be that four months, four years, or four decades. But its tenor, its purpose is changed. And I guess it will change again. And again. At some essential level, that’s ok.

I still forward more NY TImes articles to Alex than anyone else. I wonder if this will still be the case ten years from now. I wouldn’t be entirely surprised. Or sad.

…more reasons to get along with my ex.

“Yet a mother’s support of the father turns out to be a critical factor in his involvement with their children, experts say — even when a couple is divorced.”  from today’s NYTimes, Fathers Gain Respect from Experts (and Mothers)