Self Help

When I was a tween, I had this recurring dream where I was driving on the side of a mountain alone with a little kid. In the dream, I was a grown-up woman and the kid was my kid. And we were going on an adventure. We were living in Mexico. We were in Greece. We were in the desert. We were high up and there was a sea below and it was joyful.

I also remember dreams about flying. I would always fly low to the ground, swooping and hovering. 

I have had no such dreams since I was a child.

When did I give up on myself? Why do I think I need to be with someone else and not myself? I think I am happiest when I am on my own. I think I'm going to become a dog lady. I got a dog. I am a lady. I think I can be a dog lady without being a lesbian (not that there's anything wrong with it - that's a Seinfeld joke). Dogs are safer. They don't criticize. They will follow you anywhere if you have snacks. They like hiking. 

I always thought I would be alone and I always thought I would have kids. I never ever imagined a man in the picture with me. I couldn't then imagine any man would ever want to kiss me, let alone love me. Is there a part of me that still believes I am unlovable? And that the love of my lovers has all been faked? Like a sci-fi movie of emotions? I still see that vision of myself with my kids, alone. 

In Fat is a Feminist Issue, she writes that fat is a way of walling off the world. Perhaps this is the reason I've gained 15 pounds? Perhaps I am living on brownies and peanut butter M and M's to keep men away? I would like to keep everyone away. I pretty much want to sink into my couch and never leave. The brass ring is always just out of reach. But I'm better on my own. I don't like to share my cake. 

Flying shmying. 

But what about that adventure to Mexico with my kids? They are with me. I am not alone. But that's different.

The Palace of Tears

The Palace of Tears

Pushing my youngest child in a swing was like being in a time warp of joy.I grabbed her feet as she flew toward me, the little leather slippers with owls stitched on the front. “I got your toes,” as she giggled in delight. I remembered the blue ones with cars my oldest son had 13 years ago. Each time she came toward me, excited with a little drool slipping down the one corner of her teeny mouth, I was in the moment, my heart rising up a little with the black rubber baby swing. Each time she slipped away, I had this sense of the younger parents next to me and of all the years that had come before this, all the times I had pushed a baby on a swing, coached a toddler to reach his little legs out and in, and reach for the clouds with your feet, reach for the branch, reach for mommy’s hand held out just beyond the reach of their toes. It was like I couldn’t make sense of being 43 with a one year old, like I couldn’t understand how I could have a baby and a teenager at the same time, gray hair and nipples leaking milk. 

 The baby’s eyes crossed as the swing slowed. She pulled her hands from the metal triangles attaching the rubber seat to the chain and clapped them together. How much her father would enjoy this, it killed me not to have him here. I looked over at the couple to my left, pushing their chubby little boy with dark curly hair who kept giving them rasberries. They were arguing over who had left the towel on the floor. “I just felt caught off guard because I thought we were in good shape for the open house,” the wife was saying passive aggressively, “So I freaked out and shoved it in your bottom drawer.” She made a clucking noise to the little boy, avoiding eye contact with her husband. “So, y’know … just so you know.” She grabbed the swing, pulled it up to her chin, locked eyes with the baby and said, “Ah, ah, ah … ah-choo!” and let the swing go, the baby giggling and kicking his little feet. 

 I didn’t feel so bad to be alone anymore. 

 Probably the best sex we ever had was by a swimming hole he wanted to show me. We had talked about it for a while, doing it outside, and I had been obsessed with 10,000 Maniacs that summer. And we had wildflower fever. We had to lay down where they grow… But the honeyed haze with which I now remember those 20 minutes seem impossible, like somebody else’s movie. I remember the sweat dripping off of him, the bees buzzing around us, how amazing it was to jump into the water after that. I was 41 but I could have been 14. I could not have felt any younger, more free. Then there was the time I wanted to go swimming in the city pool the next summer, when I was pregnant. I was so big and he had been moving in for months, the whole summer it seemed. It was taking forever, just a few boxes at a time, but each time a new load came in it was like my house’s pants felt tighter after a big turkey dinner. We worked all day without the air conditioner to save on the bill. It was dark and dank in the house and humid and bright outside. Come on, I said, it’s the weekend. Let’s take a break. I have to jump in the water. He said he’d be out shortly. I waited and waited, trying to bite my lip, to be patient, shifting my hips around on the stoop to ease my sciatica, but he didn’t come. Sorry, he finally said as he walked out onto the stoop, closing the front door behind him, but he didn’t mean it. We got in the car. He was silent and dark. I kept pointing out the items I’d brought to make it pleasant: towels and water bottles, snacks and sunscreen. I heard my voice go up and octave and I hated it. This is how I’d been with my ex-husband, trying to cheer him out of his moods. 

 When we pulled up to the pool, it sounded like a party in there with hip hop thumping like a sound cloud around. It was one of the few city pools with trees in the outer park, and it looked shady and inviting while the pool seemed blue and crowded and cool. I unbuckled my seat belt. “No fucking way,” he said. “What?” I was so close to relief. “I’m not going in there.” I felt ready to cry. 

I know what I should have done, of course. Had my therapist been the little angel on my shoulder, I would have looked at him calmly and said, suit yourself, I’m hot as fuck and I’ve given up my whole damn summer to help you move in, bent myself over backward to make you feel welcome and clear out all my stuff and my kids’ stuff you can have room for your own, and now I’m going in the fucking pool.

But of course, that’s not what happened. If it was, I wouldn’t still need therapy, would I? Nope. Not at all. Instead, I said, okay there’s another location on 4th and Washington, but it might be closed by the time we get there. He drove, slow as molasses, and parked and as I got out, I heard the lifeguard blow the final whistle of the day. Everyone got out and went to their towels. I got back in the car, choking back tears, and he said sorry but didn’t mean it for the second time that day.  

Elegy for Fashion

 It's not just the Pandemic. That's a big part of it, of course. You can't exactly get excited about wearing the same leggings and T-shirt ... again. Or putting your baby in something cute when she's only going to visit the living room. That alone makes me sad and hopeless.

But it's also the rest of the fashion world. It's like a Peter Paul and Mary song: Where have all the magazines gone, long time passing. It's not going into stores, not trying things on, not flipping through catalogues. The only catalogue that ever comes to my house anymore is L.L. Bean because I bought the kids slippers there a few years ago. Let me announce to the world, I have never bought or worn clothing from L.L. Bean and I never will (okay a pair of socks, but they were sooooooooo cozy!). But I find myself pawing through it as I sip my coffee because there is nothing else. Why oh why, Victoria's Secret, have you not sent me photos of impossibly thin women wearing ridiculous underwear? I won't buy it and certainly wouldn't wear it, but at least it wouldn't be so damn depressing as mom jeans and turtlenecks. Turtlenecks!

And listen all you hopeful, bright-eyed millenials, do NOT try to smooth this over by telling me A) 90's fashion is back (to that I say, Like gag me with a spoon!) or B) well, I just look at all these great fashion blogs on my phone. Instagram is not a magazine. Suddenly all these lovely mom friends of mine who used to post cute pics of their kids or amazing yoga poses are trying to be influencers. Please! I do not want to see you in athleisure. I do not want to know about what face cream you use. I really just want to see the dumb pictures of you and your kids at the beach. I really just want to see your attempts to capture a sunset. 

In the famous words of Carrie Bradshaw, fashion is my cardio. It is also my bedtime, bathroom, morning coffee, and coffee break reading. It is my subway read. It is what I do when toddlers are playing around my feet so I don't go insane with boredom but also don't get so engrossed in what I'm reading that I can't pay attention when they start to climb the stairs or stick forks into electric outlets. It is not the same on a phone - you don't get free perfume samples and you can't rip out pages for your recipe books or your "one day i'll find this on sale at Loehmann's folder.

I find myself jonesing for fashion these days like a sugar fiend, which is what I've become. I have gained 15 pounds in this pandemic, stripped of all cardio, not just the fashion kind. And wandering from room to room between the baby and toys and un-folded laundry and re-folded laundry and various Chromebooks and wires, trying to get organized and never really being able to get anything done and never needing to actually get anywhere, which might force me to actually get something done. 

It feels like, why bother cleaning my house? Why bother putting on earrings? In fact, why bother putting on pants? I used to be a shoe person. I - gasp! - wear shoes in my house and invite others to do the same. Also in the spirit of Carrie Bradshaw, shoes are part of the outfit, and I don't feel fully dressed without them. Slippers are not the same. I just feel so frumpy in slippers or flip flops, like my bra is hanging out, like I'm in a bathrobe or what my grandma used to wear - a housecoat. That's what it feels like these days, like my grandma at the end of her life, in shapeless house coats, never going anywhere, never feeling the need to wear a bra. But she was a woman in her 80's she deserved a break.  She wore a girdle for decades for gods sake! She stood on her feet taking orders in a bakery for decades. She got dressed up for holidays and dinner parties and early bird specials. She earned her housecoat. 

But as Woody Allen said, It's important to make a little effort once in a while. I am not 80. I am not done living. And for me, fashion is about living. It is hard to care about an extra 15 pounds when I'm not planning to put on a dress for a long time. I'll lose it then, I say in my head, though I fear I won't. I feel like my life is on hiatus because my wardrobe is. And along with it has gone all sense of self-care. I've stopped exercising, watching what I eat, even showering regularly. There were even a few scary days when I wondered if it were really necessary to brush my teeth. 

So how to come back from this? Is it COVID sensitive to do an emergency trip to Anthro? Or Lucky? I'll even try on the size I really am at the current moment (and stare longingly at the size 4's I know I truly am way down deep beneath). Or, you know, I could just stop buying carrot cake in a cup from Acme. Please - I need to care about something again. And I don't mean spirituality or my fellow man. I mean skinny jeans and ponchos. HELP fashion gods! Help!

A Fran Leibowitz Life

 I felt the need to write today and decided to do it as a blog post. I vaguely remembered that I had a blog out there once upon a time, but I was surprised to log in and find that there were so many posts and that they actually went until quite recently. I must have started this thing when I was pregnant with my oldest, who is now almost 14!!! Reading these old posts was like being a time traveler. I thought I might be reading someone else's thoughts, but indeed, I do remember some of these events and definitely know my own writing style, so I guess it was me all along.

Me. Who is that person and aren't we supposed to have that figured out by the time we are 20? 25 at the latest? I think I might still be discovering this person.

Don't get me wrong - I have a very solid sense of self, but we are not all Fran Leibowitz, and some of us have self-doubt. Especially those of us who were bullied as kids, were pressured into pleasing our fathers all the time, and who generally felt out of place our whole lives. As an adult, I embraced that outsider quality and used it to find friends and a community of like-minded people. After my divorce, I felt even more sure of myself. I loved meeting new people and saying, here I am. This is who I am, fuck-ups and all. Take the whole package or feel free to shop elsewhere.

But I have always been so SO susceptible to other people's views of me: My ex-husband, my son, my sister. I seem to fight with EVERYONE. All the time. So much drama. I am in therapy with literally every member of my past and present family. Except Eli, who probably needs it, too.

So? If I have so many problems with so many people, who is the problem? Who is at the center of all of these problems? Me. 

My son keeps telling me I do inappropriate things as a parent and I make poor parenting decisions. My ex-husband seems to agree and has hired a lawyer to tell me so. If I'm not fighting with my dad, it's my sister or my sister-in-law, or my mother. My daughter tells me every day she hates me. My boyfriend seems to generally like me, but I think I make him mad plenty. 

I just want to run away for a long time to someplace warm. Help me Fran Leibowitz, help me!