she pulls out her hair

But when she twists her hair and pulls it out, it hurts me. At first, I thought it was because it annoyed me. Then I thought it was because I was totally powerless over the behavior. Then I thought it was because I felt I was a failure as a mother -- how could a child with such a loving, consistent, healthy, and attentive family be so anxious that she'd give herself bald spots?

I had to trim one side to even it out after she'd pulled out so much she looked lopsided.

Now I realize it's not that I'm a failure, or Josh, or that we're not meeting her needs somehow. What hurts me about her habit is that it's so public. People can *see* her anxiety. It took me a solid 15 years to be almost okay with sharing my own fears. And here is this beautiful, happy child walking around with a flashing billboard that says, "I'm actually really, really worried."

I wish I could wash away every worry.

The pulling started just a few days after we told her she was going to have a new baby brother or sister. It's completely understandable.

I've Googled it, and the OCD-related habit also happens to run in our family. So, I'm almost able to understand she just can't help it. I talk to the other twister/puller I know and have learned more. I try to let it go, have faith that she will find other ways to help herself with her anxiety. But when I see her worries in those bare patches it's all I can do to not sweep her up into my arms, maybe put her in a sling, and keep her close to me forever.

Yummies, yum-yum, noo-noos, moo-moos...

Our family is on the lookout for a good word to teach the new baby (comes in May) to mean "I want to nurse." Maya used "nah-nah" which evolved into "neen," "neenies," or, "neen-beans."

The point of the "code word" is so I'm not in the middle of the supermarket next year with a child hanging on me saying, "boobies!" or "I want to nurse NOW!" or some other obvious thing... (Not that I mind people knowing what the kid is asking for, but I've been in situations where other people would have been really uncomfortable if they had known what Maya was asking for...)

Ideas?

Maya likes, "nummies."




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What I did with all that kale

At the market a few months ago we bought some kale. Our family loves the stuff. The checker at the register held it up and asked, "what's this?" I explained it was kale, sort of like spinach or, I dared say, collards. (No, she didn't know collard greens either.)

Now that the season has started, our CSA, Wolf Pine Farm, gives us healthy helpings of kale most weeks, especially towards the end of the season when the cold starts in. There's a trade table where people put items they don't want and pick up something they do. We tend to load up on all the "left" kale and let people have our mixed salad greens or tomatoes (we grow our own tomatoes so they're not as precious).

Why do I bring up our love of kale? (See our bumper sticker in this picture -- our only bumper sticker until our recently added Obama '08.) Wanting people to eat more kale goes beyond health or taste issues. Kale is a hardy, inexpensive, delightful dark leafy green vegetable too many people don't appreciate. Either they've never tried it (ignorance) or they haven't had it cooked well (inexperience).

Ignorance and inexperience are at the root of most of our social problems today. When I say "our," I mean everyone and everywhere. And when I say "today," I mean always. Ignorance and inexperience lead to fear; fear leads to all kinds of irrational and dangerous attitudes and behaviors.

Examine any human conflict and you'll find fear. Fear of others, fear of losing what's ours, fear that different might be better, fear that seeps into just about every facet of human consciousness. Why not try diplomacy? We're afraid to appear weak/we're afraid it will seem we support them/we're afraid they'll blow us up. Why not build affordable housing? We're afraid of crime/we're afraid poor people equals irresponsible neighbors/we're afraid our homes will lose value.

Get past ignorance and inexperience and it's easier to find peace.

Let's start somewhere simple. Why not try some kale? Here. I'll tell you what I do with all that kale we get (from Wolf Pine Farm and from our own gardens).

First, when I have a batch of kale, I don't assume I'll use it in time. I know me and I'll forget it's there. And, while one of the beautiful qualities of kale is it lasts easily up to a week bagged in the refrigerator, it's really best to eat (or freeze) vegetables immediately so they don't lose too many nutrients. So, as quickly as I can, I do a "quick boil" of these luscious greens.

I learned the easy care and treatment for all our leafy greens in my all-time favorite cookbook, Feeding the Whole Family, by Cynthia Lair. I will generally describe what I do based on my fuzzy memory. If you'd rather have precise directions, check out this web page (but please ignore step 4, no need to steam after you've just boiled!).

I fill a pot with water. A big pot is good. A little pinch of salt (I like kosher for the grab-ability). As the water heats up, trim the stems off your kale. I find the easiest way is to fold the leaves in half so the stem becomes sort of a seam on the back that's easy to chop off, leaving a long v-shaped notch in the middle of the kale leaf.

I usually prep all the kale I've got and do several batches. Even the firmest greens shrink a bunch when boiled, so you'll be able to fit quite a bit in the pot. By quite a bit I mean something like... 4-8 cups of loosely packed raw kale leaves (depending on how curly the leaves are, how much volume they'll take up).

The water comes to a boil. Put the kale in the water, tuck it in nicely so it's all covered. Set the timer for 3 minutes (or remember to check back, though I *never* remember without the timer). Feel free to poke at it every once in a while.

It will come back to a boil. Just let it go. After about 3 minutes, start picking out pieces now and again and tasting them. They should be bright green and tasty. Kind of nutty. A little spinach-y. Texture a bit like the seaweed that floats in typical miso soups. Mmmm. Here's a picture of some from my last batch:

I think the color in this picture doesn't do it justice. It was a brighter green in real life.

Now here's a tip I like. Instead of dumping the whole thing into a colander, use a slotted spoon (I used one meant for a wok) to dish out the kale into the strainer. You'll be able to reuse the water for more greens. Or, at the very least, you can water some plants with it when it cools for a very healthy plant treat.

Immediately dunk your kale in cold water (using actual ice cubes with the water is a good idea if you're in the mood) will stop the cooking process and keep the kale tender and lovely. Once it's fully cooled, squeeze it out and chop it into bite sized pieces. Grab handfuls of the cold, wet kale and stuff it into freezer containers (we use plastic bags) in your family's serving size portions.

Throughout the year you'll be able to grab a batch of the frozen pre-cooked kale and saute or braise it with... garlic and olive oil, soy sauce and sesame oil, balsamic vinegar and olive oil and garlic, sesame oil and sesame seeds, and I'm sure the list goes on.

I hope you try it out if you haven't before. The bang for your buck you'll get as far as nutritional value is immense. Knowing you're doing your part -- assuming you bought your greens locally -- to support sustainable farming will also feed your soul. When we eat our kale we sometimes pause to consider the larger idea of education (defeating ignorance and inexperience), and how that does add flavor! If you can experience just an ounce of the umph we feel when we enjoy our kale (including our five year old whose favorite food for her young life has frequently been cooked greens!), the world will indeed be a better place.




Oh, and if you're wondering if kale is really all that healthy? Please please please check this out: http://www.nutritiondata.com/facts/vegetables-and-vegetable-products/2462/2

Waking Up.

The late-night drive-through attendant passed me two cheeseburgers without judgment. Her emotionless (empathetic?) gaze was better than therapy. Finding myself camped out in the middle of the king-sized bed, computer on my lap, remote in one hand, 3 Musketeers in the other--it took two hours of dazed terror before I realized I'd been there before.

This time, I was in a hotel without my husband or daughter. That time, over ten years ago, I was alone heading toward the worst of my drunk and stoned life. This time, life was mostly full of joy, balance, and serenity. That time, chaos and loneliness led me in endless dark mazes.

I had no idea being away from my daughter overnight for the first time would be so brutal. It kicked my ass for those two hours. When I recognized where I had arrived (desperation, lack of clarity, obscured reality) it was an easy shift into pleasure. Ah ha! Look what's happened! And, immediately: a bubble bath; guilty-pleasure television with the volume up; doing what I wanted, when I wanted, how I wanted. And, most of all, sleeping harder and deeper than I had in years.

It's as if life is a continuous set of spirals, lines flowing up and around, higher and higher until the coil is too tight. With each forward movement--it's always moving forward--the next unspringing is more gentle. Ten years ago every lesson devastated me, as I believed in perfection and an impossible ideal. These days, I usually recognize the signs of an impending challenge or lesson and I just hold on and breathe.

Four and a half years ago our daughter came into our lives through a gash in my abdomen. She wanted to come out feet first. There was no convincing her to turn. On that first night, she lay among my IV tubes of antibiotics for the post-op infection and Pitocin to stop the hemorrhaging. She nursed enthusiastically. She slept with us then and has ever since.

Sleeping in our grand king-sized bed is full of reconnecting, snuggling, giggling, and love. Sure, she'll sleep in her own room someday but, for now, we all love our arrangement.

So, for all of her sweet little life, any time she's needed me at night, I've been there. I am breathing with her, laying with her, and always within reach.

As we work on less dependence on me and more acceptance of comfort from her Daddy, we realized the best thing for us was me spending a night away. I was desperate for a good night's sleep (being needed throughout the night had finally caught up to me), and we were both desperate for Josh's chance to be "the one" she needed. My physical presence, because of the patterns and habits we've set over the years, was problematic. Maya didn't believe she would be okay without me. What a terrible lesson to teach a child: you'll fall apart if I'm not there. So, it was with some anxiety but mostly excitement and confidence that I packed my bag for this overnight.

A massive burlap sack filled with wet sand smashing me across the room was how I felt when I first left our house. I actually thought I might vomit because I was "leaving Maya." My perception of my importance, and ultimately Josh's ability as a father, was skewed. Twisted. Distorted. Reality was again obscured.

Thankfully, it just took that bit of time for me to recognize just how fucked up it all was. As if Maya would fall apart without me. Intellectually, I was sure I didn't believe that. But those two desperate hours were close cousins to the last few months of my darkest drugging and boozing. This time, I had solutions at my disposal. Easy tools to use to fix this mess. I simply said, "Oh, hey, god? Shit, I'm totally fucked up again. I think I'm way too important and I think I'm a piece of shit. Would you fix all this?" And POP up I sprang from the bed to run the bubble bath.

Clarity. Clearness.

It's all so simple if I don't make it complicated. And, holy crap, did I sleep well that night.

Ophelia's Ride

Lately, the evils of four year olds has me losing perspective. I keep telling myself, "they're four, they're only four, they're just four year old little kids!" But, when my sweet daughter Maya tells me a classmate said, "you can't play with us" within some particularly nasty context (playing doggy, no one would be her owner) I want to rip out the classmate's hair and throw her into a locked dark closet. Would that be inappropriate?

Life is like ocean waves. My self-awareness and understanding always reaching and finding new sands, new treasures. Always uncovering new old rubble. I've come to love The Ride even when storms make it scary. The Ride always rocks and rolls me. I'm always safe.

From this perch, I've been revisiting what it was like. What it used to be like. My happy tendency these days is to live in what it's like now, finding the past an ordinary place with the present full of mystery and joy. Then these little brats came along. These little excluding and nasty and superficial little crap heads.

I've started reading Reviving Ophelia. No matter what parents do, Pipher reports in Ophelia, young girls risk losing their authentic selves. It's only by being "high in acceptance and strong in controls" that we parents have a chance to find our daughters reclaiming themselves in their later teens. Apparently, our daughter is doomed to begin hating herself and hiding herself at around 11 years old, just like every girl I've ever known. The parents are not to blame.

Overbearing parents, absent parents, cool parents, geeky parents, they're all facing the same thing. Girls who used to be outgoing, unabashedly intelligent, confident, and creative turn into little puddles of quietude, bitterness, or fear. Everything the girls are is wrong -- their hair, their bodies, their thoughts, their words.

Early on, I was entirely a Good Girl. I didn't get in trouble, I followed the rules, I did my homework, I was Responsible. Before junior high, I was an artist. I wanted to be an architect, among many other things. Then on career day, an older woman groaned at me when I told her this and said, "Oh, no you don't, dear! You'd have to major in math and science!" She said this in an honors seventh grade math class. Not only was she not accurate about the "majoring," but she was talking to someone who (at the time) loved math!

In the seventh grade I decided to become popular. I set about it like I would any homework assignment, I read books, magazines, studied up. I realized I'd have to drop the friends I had, even the ones who were hoping to climb the social ladder with me. It would only be by publicly rejecting them that I'd move into the cool crowd. I did what it took. I began flirting with boys, too, and found them flirting back. My life began revolving almost entirely around how others perceived me and I did, as Pipher reports as so common, lose track of my real self.

In the 9th grade I wrote a play in AP English as a class assignment. I have no idea why I thought it a good idea, but the play ended with me, standing alone in front of the class saying, "I'm lonely." It was meant to be a Waiting for Godot flavored performance, but I look back now and see that I was speaking the truth.

There are other pivotal moments that shoved me into the typical self-hatred so many of us experienced in the brutal years of junior high and beyond. For a while in my 20s I blamed my parents, of course. But I think Pipher's on to something in her position that it is our culture, our misogynistic surroundings that damn girls (and boys, I could argue in another essay) to the Hell of self-annihilation. Blaming the culture may sound like a cop-out. But now that I'm living life as a parent of a child, and now that I'm reflecting on my own history from this perspective, I see no other explanation.

Now I'm examining my role as a grown woman, a mother. How can I help Maya survive with her Self intact? Or, help her have a chance of reviving her true self when the storm of adolescence calms?

I've already strayed. When Maya went to a summer camp (mornings doing crafts and music) I began to pack little "treats" in her lunch box that felt inconsistent with who we are. I bought the little sugar drinks (claiming to be yoghurt, with Disney characters on the bottles) or pre-sliced cheese. I included bits in her lunch bag I knew "all the other kids" would have. Already I was concerned about her experiencing the ostracizing that comes from having the "wrong" foods in a lunch bag. I was giddy doing this, knowing I was "helping her" be one of the "cool" kids. Oh my god. What was I thinking?

Last week I again packed a lunch for Maya, but this time I was grounded. I was joyful and held true to our family's priorities. I did pack a little treat, but it was some plastic spider rings we got at the dollar store last year (the lunch was on Halloween) rather than some crap food that would only make her feel tired. The environment for this lunch was also not typical -- I knew that in this group "cool" was actually healthy and wholesome and genuine. Authenticity and kindness are the norm and the children are much less likely to say, "eeeew" to Maya's lunch choices (as they did when I once included a box of carrot juice).

Just as I am revisiting this insane pressure to be what others expect -- the same pressure that forced me over the cliff into self-hatred as a young girl despite my loving supportive family -- I'm finding my own life to be a comfortable, firm, and perfectly fitting shoe (is there a prettier more accurate metaphor? I'm sure there is...). I am coming into being myself, fully accepting and pleased.

As a mother, I think I've caught myself early enough -- I'll do my best to focus on being true to myself, modeling the self-respect I want for Maya. I don't need to buy the Disney. I will also focus on supporting Maya's choices, encouraging her to realize that she has choices, that she alone determines her value -- no matter what those around her say.

Acceptance is the answer to all my problems today, I've read. What I got from the Ophelia book wasn't despair or hopelessness. I got guidance. The book recalls a study done on strong and successful women like Eleanor Roosevelt. She describes a common theme for all the women was intellectual curiousity about something and a generally lonely adolescence filled with solitude or social rejection. Armed with this information, I feel encouraged. If Maya turns out to be a girl who loves horses, or a girl who loves Broadway musicals, or a girl who loves field hockey, I'll be overjoyed. Passion for something, no matter how unfamiliar or even distasteful to me, will be her go-home-free card. I also won't let myself get sucked back into the "if she's liked, she'll like herself" trap. As I begin experiencing the pain and joy of watching my daughter work her way through the system, I'll try to remember to let go. I'll practice having faith that everything will turn out okay.

Tonight a friend asked Maya who her best friend at school was. Wouldn't you know her answer was that very same girl who had so wretchedly spurned her before? I can't say I'm pleased about this since I am still nursing a tidy resentment. However, I am more comfortable remembering that not only is she only four, she's out there practicing life. She's learning about who she is just like I am. All I can do is just hang on for the ride.

"She's Black, she's Black, she's BLAAAAACK!"

"She's Black, she's Black, she's BLAAAAACK!" was just about all my brain could handle. Maintaining a simple and polite conversation was barely possible. No matter how much we had in common, no matter how likely a future friendship, I could think of nothing but that amazing dark skin, the transcendent hair texture, and my entire personal history of race relationships. Oh, how I wanted to prove to this woman that I was not like just any white woman! I knew, of course, it was just this level of self-consciousness that would make me utterly annoying to her. But, I just couldn't help myself.

Helping myself, though, is really what race relations is about for me these days. I do care about the greater socio-political issues (shocking disregard for people's lives all across the continent of Africa, overt brutality in our country, job discrimination, and of course the list goes on). However, my personal journey with racism now centers around me, my husband, and most of all, my daughter.

When I sat for coffee with the "she's black she's black she's BLACK" woman, I was reminded of a time in college in the late 80's when a fellow student raged at me something like, "I am not all black people! I can't solve your problems!" The disgust, the tears, and the absolute giving up I felt from her did change me. I was so ignorant, so inexperienced with people who were not white-upper-class-and-highly-educated that I lumped anyone unlike me into a group. This group, I thought, would be my source for how to fix the world. Surely, they knew what I could do to not be like a bigot, a racist, a slave owner.

It was then I began to try and get over myself. Trouble was, I just didn't have anyone to practice being just a person with. There was no one in my life I could intentionally not discuss race relations and curing the world of injustice. There was no one in my life with darker skin, or fancier hair. There wasn't even anyone I knew whose family had struggled financially, dark or fair skinned. And, yes, I recognized how this desire to not look to someone for all the answers was just a different side of the same coin.

I don't believe in the concept of being "color-blind." I find it offensive to everyone involved. Why should anyone pretend someone doesn't look the way they do? How is that respectful? One constant in my life is my need for authenticity. Facing tough issues by talking about them; I don't do well with elephant's snoozing on the throw rug nearby.

It my own need for honesty and clarity that had me obsessing, desperate for an intense and intimate conversation about race every time I ran in to this woman. Entirely annoying, of course, since I knew I was just doing it again. Not seeing her as a woman, a mother, a wife, a writer, a social justice activist, but only seeing her Blackness. I really didn't want to, but I knew if I pretended I wasn't, it would just make it worse.

In college, I studied and fell in love with "Symbolic Interactionism." Put forward in force by Herbert Blumer but made real to me by Erving Goffman, the idea that we all together strive most of all to maintain a coherent sense of reality. The "presentation of self" is disturbed when an individual becomes obsessed with their own performance. Smooth interactions between individuals are the goal of most players in life, most of the time throughout our daily lives (most don't walk down a crowded busy street intentionally slamming into other people, we work together as individuals to keep the peace).

I know in my past I have suffered from white guilt and that has prevented me from behaving naturally. It's humiliating, really, but, it's my own shit.

Playing with dollhouse toys, my daughter announced one afternoon that she called one set of dolls the dark-skinned dolls. She didn't say that the other set was the light skinned dolls. I gathered myself together enough not to launch in to a whole history of race issues in the USA. She'd made a simple observation. We've tried to always be sure she has characters in books with lots of different backgrounds, tried to always have dolls that are not only blond and white, knowing every little thing is part of the greater picture. We talked to her about melanin when she first asked about darker skin after visiting my parents' church. We've done everything we can to not make a big deal, but to still keep the option for deeper discussion open. And, yes, I am probably over-thinking it way too much. But, then again, I'm really not.

We live in a state (Maine) where it's not common to see people who aren't white. Economic status is more varied than where I grew up, but trying to recognize those differences takes a judgmental frame of mind, not easy for a four year old to pick up on. We visit Boston (awfully white city, but relatively International) and come across families speaking other languages, wearing interesting clothes, looking remarkably different. It's nice, and we talk about things with her, but what will help Maya most?

I tried signing her up for a Kwanzaa celebration class for toddlers, but was vastly disappointed when the instructor slipped up and asked the class if they knew about the country of Africa. I do believe that experience with people with darker skin, with different languages, and with different cultural backgrounds is the best thing we can give Maya (and ourselves). But, how can this happen and not be contrived?

I've written previously about my six grade field trip on a bus into Hartford where the teachers showed us "urban decay" and "urban renewal." They actually stopped the busses in stressed out neighborhoods and said "this is urban decay." I guarantee you there were people around those streets. How can Josh and I be sure that signing Maya up for classes or working to have playgroups where the kids aren't just white isn't a lot like that? I suppose it makes a difference if there is a genuine interest in the topic, or if the playgroup participants are actually friends. Knowing I have the motivation of "exposure" however, is what feels too close to that old frame of mind ("these people will give me the answers, ease my guilt").

Today we went to the toy store where Josh and I very blatantly purchased an excessively expensive and annoying toy strictly for bribery (you reach this milestone, we'll celebrate with this toy!). We reached the shelves and the Baby Alive toys available were only the dark skinned, curly haired dolls (sort of African American looking, though I think they all look like aliens). We had watched a movie on the computer that morning as we whetted her appetite for the thing where the freakishly large-eyed blond baby says, "uh oh, I made a stinky!" I flinched at the shelf. I wondered if I should be prepared for Maya to say, "That isn't the doll we saw, I want the other one!" I was really hoping I wouldn't have to say, "It's this doll or no doll," because I didn't want the darker doll to be the disappointing choice.

Maya didn't say a word about how she looked different (even though the doll was surrounded by the blond dolls of the "pee-pee only" version). She hugged the box to herself. She has been cherishing the boxed doll all day (she gets to open it after she reaches her milestone).

On the way home from the store, this is what she said, "The company that makes these dolls must really want children to buy them!"

"Yeah, hunny, why is that?"

"Because she has dark skin and dark skin is the most beautiful."

"Dark skin is beautiful, hunny, yes, they must know."

Inside I'm not afraid her pale-skinned self-esteem is suffering, I'm doing a touchdown dance with fireworks. Thinking, at least at the moment, she's making good associations.

A few months ago (a year?) I said to the "she's black she's black she's BLACK" woman who I had come to know on some deeper levels, "It's so nice to finally know you as a just a person." I honestly don't remember if we went forward with that conversation at that point, or later in safer email, but, it's true that she's the first Black woman (and Latina, it turns out) who I consider a friend. And, it's most definitely true that while I have fleeting thoughts of "wow, that hair is so cool," or, "her skin is so stunning," I realize I have thoughts like that about all of my friends in different ways ("how does she pull of those knit caps?" "when does she have the time to shave her legs?" "her hair always looks so clean."). They are fleeting and I'm not obsessed.

Josh doesn't have the same hang-ups I do. He grew up in a much more culturally diverse world (Southern New Mexico). He's also blessed with an ability to not over-think things. But, he knows what I'm talking about when we try to decide how to help Maya not think that this world (Maine) is typical of the rest of the world. He knows how gross it feels to imagine signing Maya up for a playgroup or class only because we know she'd meet kids who aren't white. I suppose, like everything, I'll have to turn this over to faith. Trusting that it will all work out because God's in charge and I'm not.

I don't know the answers. I don't know how I can help Maya make friends without having an internal explosion about race or class issues go on in her brain. For this day, for this moment, I'll take Maya finding the "dark skin is the most beautiful" as a pretty good start.

Writing.

Anne Lamott really pisses me off. In fact, when I saw her Operating Instructions: A Journal of My Son's First Year in the parenting section a couple years ago at the Harvard COOP, I actually gave the book the finger. Such was my resentment at some writer journaling in public about motherhood, like I could. Or, like I should.

It must be trite, it must be drivel, it must be painfully common. How presumptuous to think she had something unique and fascinating to say about parenting.

The fact that my resentment blossomed and exploded with physical force (the middle finger jammed up at the softcover book) didn't elude me. I recognize jealousy. I recognize fear: Afraid. Really, really afraid. Here was this dream and someone else was living it and how could I possibly ever do it if other people already are. I only want the path less traveled on; I won't be a sheep or a lemming.

So it required great bravery on my part last week to pick up the book, purchase it, and open the cover to read. I finished it in 36 hours which says a lot as a parent of a 4 year old.

That weekend as I read, I began feeling rumblings in my body. Discomfort. A loosening of my glue.

I turned to the wisest person I know. I turned to this four year old who has spent her life facing her fears and asked, "Sweetie? There's something I really, really want to do but I'm scared to do it. But I want to do it, but I'm scared. What should I do? How can I do this thing? How do you do it when you feel this way?"

Very seriously and with several long long seconds of contemplation, she looked at me with those ocean-deep eyes and gave me the answer. "Mommy, I listen to what my body is telling me. I might need to give myself more time with my Mommy first, but when my body tells me I'm ready, I just do it."

Later that day, lying on my back finishing up the Lamott book I spilled empathetic laughter every few minutes. With my four year old audience demanding it, I read the funniest portions out loud (meatball-like poops rolling away, slapping an infant for fear it wasn't just sleep overcoming him but rather a seizure). Most items made Maya giggle, too.

Years ago (1996 to be exact), I began writing a weekly column and posting it online. This was before I knew the term "blogging," and certainly the activity of blogging hadn't reached the masses. My self-imposed deadlines kicked my ass, really. I took them so seriously. I remember many a Wednesday evening sweating and twisted at the computer screen researching "What in the hell is going on with the Hutu and the Tutsis?" Or simply commenting on my latest self-revelation that I somehow imagined might interest someone.

For the past year, I've known an intense magnetic pull bringing me back to writing personal essays. I left them when I became suddenly embarrassed at how self-obsessed I knew I seemed to some.

I've found the courage to begin reading these kinds of things again, Anna Quindlen, Barbara Kingsolver, (and of course that beastly and fabulous Anne Lamott), most recently. In their words I've found not only camaraderie but also inspiration. Much of why I drink their words with such abandon are the feelings I get of a Shared Experience. As I approach my own writing, I feel a permission to address the day-to-day.

Each essayist has a unique voice and experience, no matter how common the theme. Knowing I can say "what's already been said" and have it still be new and unique simply because it comes from me frees me from the sheep and lemmings fear. Any path I choose will be less traveled because the path belongs to me.

I'm falling apart from the inside out. I'm unhinged, unglued, and frighteningly free floating. My writing days return like a herd of buffalo. Knowing I seem just fine, perhaps a little tired, but as if I'm a functioning member of our simple world, well, that's just craziness at it's strangest. How these feelings can be mauling my insides while I stroll through the pumpkin field with my darling daughter and my dreamy husband? I know it's all because the writing is coming.

I know it because my body says I'm ready.