Woman

My good friend, the Incredible Exploding Head, just wrote a great piece about being a Woman. Mostly having to do with being a Mother vs. Not. She got me thinking about my own mother-ness.

I had a rough day. I’ve had a rough series of days. I shouldn’t: I have a sweet, funny baby who is very easy going, a devoted and kind husband, a comfortable home, some interesting work. Even friends. In town. Nearby!

But I have very little time that is my own. Which I expected when I decided to have a baby. But I didn’t realize how intense it would be to be needed all the time.

I think of myself as an introvert and an extrovert. I usually feel shy, not quite knowing what to say, but at the same time, wanting to be with people. I used to (wait, I still do) work/write at a cafe, not in my home office (what home office – ha!). I like taking classes. I like sitting in audiences. I don’t really like talking in front of people (acting is different…).

The introvert part of me needs alone time to reboot. A 7 minute shower every morning isn’t enough.

Most people don’t talk about this part of being a mother. The part where you stop being you.

I keep thinking to myself, when Abraham goes to school, I will practice yoga for real. I will start a theatre company. I will read books quickly. I will be me again.

This is a terrible approach. I am me. I am the same person who wanted to have a baby in the first place. If I put myself on the shelf (sorry for that rhyme), how can I be a good mother, dare I say my ideal mother, for Abraham? How can I be a good wife, step mother, friend, anything? Much less artist, teacher, leader…

I feel terrible every time I leave Abraham with a babysitter or even David, because I love leaving. I love going to the coffee shop with my laptop and writing. I love going to the yoga studio and teaching. I love meeting my friend for lunch and brainstorming theatre ideas for the company we want to get off the ground.

Which is not to say that I don’t love being with him. I do. I do so much. I love watching him discover the world. I love that when he cries a little, it shocks me because I think of him as a person not really a baby. I love watching him eat, sleep, poop, laugh, read…everything. But I love it most when I feel most like myself. Which is when I spend some time taking care of my, not him, not David, not anyone else.

I wish I could do both and not feel bad about either.

So, like the Head, who got my brain going in the first place (Head, you are so good at that. I miss you!),  I want to make the next part of my like pretty fucking cool. In Reading, PA.

I’ve got to figure out how to start.

Local

I’m trying to get my friend Kirsten to move to Detroit because I can’t move there. She lives in Ann Arbor and could get a job in Detroit. She is an artist, a yoga teacher, and a compassionate, creative soul. She could do great things in Detroit.

Then I remembered that I live in Reading, a city that could use some compassion and creativity.

Then this morning, I read this article. And I remembered that I could do great things here.

As much as I actually don’t like growing up, I do like discovering the beliefs that matter most to me. If I observe where my own actions lead (because I believe in the cliche that actions speak louder), commitment to local is high on the list (close to importance of family, open time, thrift, and other things). When I worked at Touchstone Theatre, my favorite projects were always the very local pieces we created ourselves. The very personal/local transcends and becomes relevant to everyone, everywhere.

That is what I want to do in Reading.

Natural

Abraham was recently pictured on Natural Parents’ Network on their Wordless Wednesdays feature about food. After he was pictured and I shared the link with my family and friends, I wondered to myself if I am actually a natural parent. What does that really mean?

There is a long list of what it means to be a natural parent on their website.

I prepared to have a natural birth at a birth center, but I found on my due date that Abraham was breech, so we had a c-section and it wasn’t so bad.

We went around and around about the decision, but we circumsized Abraham because we are Jewish and that heritage is important to us, even though we still wrestle with our choice.

I nurse Abraham and intend to as long as we both are enjoying it, but I also supplement his nursing with formula to keep him on the right weight track.

He sleeps with us, but I’m looking forward to getting would love to get him to sleep on his own so I can have a little space and time back to myself.

I fed him food at 4.5 months old (which is a bit early) but he was full-body-lunging for it. I also give him food that is not organic or local. Local is preferred, but the child loves avocados, which aren’t exactly native to Pennsylvania.

I have 3 different baby carriers, all of which I love to use, but damn, it is nice to push him in a stroller in this hot weather.

We are vaccinating Abraham on a regular schedule. We feel it is our responsibility to him and to our community to ensure that diseases that have died out stay gone.

What is most true is that I hate all of these parenting labels. They are shortcuts, sure, but they are also pegboards. I never have enjoyed being pegged (though I think I’m pretty predictably peg-able…) in any position, especially being a mother.

So that’s it. I’m a mother. I’m a step mother. Those describe my relationships to my kids. That is all. Every choice I make as either is not because I’m a natural parent, a free-range parent, a whatever parent. It is just because I’m a parent and I’m always trying to do the right thing for each of my kids.

High School Again

I just finished reading Sweet Valley Confidential, the ten-years-later book about the famous identical twins, Elizabeth and Jessica Wakefield. I read the Twins, High, and University books as a tween and teen, so obviously I had to read the adult version.

I loved it for the memories it brought up. It is not a great piece of literature, but it isn’t supposed to be. It was just what I needed to read to get me back to reading.

Reading it of course brought me back a decade or so, and reading about their drama makes me remember mine. And makes me so glad that I am not in high school anymore. I loved high school – I learned a lot, I had great friends, I did lots of theatre and dance – but I hated all the drama.

And then I found myself facing a little high-school-esque drama today. Or was my imagination clouded by the memories brought up by this book…?

I have been teaching a yoga class for post-natal moms. Babies too, though they mostly lie around or nurse. But the moms can come and do basic yoga and if the babies cry or need to nurse, it is no big deal. Ah, so nice.

But some of my students reminded me of the girls in high school who I always felt didn’t like me. I don’t want to assume, so I will own the feeling. Something about the way these students treated me, talking during class, taking photographs of their babies (who were totally adorable and photo-worthy), coming late…it was weird.

I am super sensitive. They were probably not being intentionally rude to me. But wow, I felt like I was back in high school. I never know what to do in those situations, so  I do nothing. Doesn’t seem to help.

I overheard them telling another student that they aren’t taking the class during the next series. And I felt relief.

In high school I would have felt so sad, for it would have been a sure sign that they hated me. Now, I don’t care, and I’m glad to feel confident in my own class.

But still, I hate that I can let other people get me down.

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How am I writing this posting at 9pm? Abraham is sleeping alone and David is on his way home from work.

Post-Poop Happiness

 

Cycles

When I worked at Touchstone Theatre, Ysaye M. Barnwell of Sweet Honey in the Rock came to work on a community project, gathering songs and stories from the African American community in the area. She is an inspiration musically, communally, and personally.

I was just doing some research on creative additions to the Brit Milah (ritual circumcision) and came across a Kahlil Gibran poem that she put to music. It is beautiful, but more something I’d give myself rather than give my son.

I was struck more than anything on the cycles of life. How this lifecycle event (my child’s bris) put my memory back to my work at Touchstone and with Ysaye. I begin my official work writing a play tomorrow, January 1, to fulfill my obligations for the grant I received. I want to get The Reading Theater Project up and moving again, even if in baby steps. The religious school I run needs a lot of creative and leadership support right now. And I’m going to have a baby any day now.

I could use a little creative inspiration right now. I need to find my creative voice anew, as a mother, as a stay-at-home whatever I am, as an independent artist, as a leader.

If the inspiration comes from the memory of working with a brilliant African-American woman and her music, all the better I say. We are all connected, all the same, despite our differences.

BFF

I just read an article that, with some alterations of name and location, I feel like I could have written.

It is called MWF seeks BFF. Girl moves to a new city for Boy. They Get Married. She feels like she has no friends there.

Sigh.

I so not mean this as offense to any people in Reading/Berks County who are my friends. I do have friends here. But not Friends. Not yet.

Without school or a full-time job, I’m not spending huge amounts of time with anyone. I don’t have a yoga community or a Jewish community here (yet, I’m working on it). Besides David, who I don’t count as a friend because he is the ultimate friend, my closest friend is around 60 and a man. And I love them both (in different ways, obviously) but still.

I need some ladies.

UPDATE: David said this post will offend my lower-case friends. That isn’t what I mean at all. I hope all of my friends become Friends. We just aren’t there yet. It takes time. And I’m shy.

Value of Art

Americans for the Arts‘ ARTSblog had an interesting article about Art/Artists working in and with Communities.

I tried to leave a comment but was unable, so here are my thoughts:

I have seen, through my own work, that the arts are deeply connected to our communities, through art for art’s sake that is also art for humanity’s sake. I prefer when art is both – why can’t art be quality, creative, and meaningful to more than just us, those who make it.

The challenge I have faced, working independently or as part of a small ensemble, is that artists don’t often have the knowledge to “prove” their value to granters or community leaders, nor do they have the finances to pay someone else to do it.

It is exciting to hear that HUD and Kresge are thinking more broadly about change and encouraging relationships between communities and artists. I hope that it reaches all levels of artists, not just those who are big and known, but also all of us who are small but creating great work.

As I work toward revitalizing the Reading Theater Project, I have these conversations with myself a lot: what is the value of art (of theater)? what kind of art do I want to make? do I want the art to serve the artist or the community? What I keep returning to is YES – I believe that art can do all of these things and we don’t have to choose. We can produce a place, write a play, develop a performance as an ensemble; it can be high quality art and highly creative AND be meaningful to the community we live in.

This is my goal. Maybe I am naive. Maybe it is possible with the right people.

Commandment

As the birth of Raspberry approaches, I find that his Bris (Brit Milah, ritual Circumcision) is not as easy and obvious as I thought.

For starters, will his brother and sister be able to come? They are young, but they are his family. And others of their family will be here. We don’t want them to miss it (though they’d obviously be in a different room than the actual event), but we cannot predict the date of the Bris.

Which made David suggest to have the Bris not on the 8th day, but on a convenient day. To which I, without even thinking, said, “No.”

And then I thought about it. Why is this commandment so important to me that it must be done just so, when there are many, many commandments I don’t follow at all.

So why do the Bris at all? Maybe we could have a Brit Shalom or Bris B’li Milah (meaning Covenant of Peace or Covenant Without Circumcision), which is a new adaptation of the traditional ceremony that involves the blessings but not the cutting.

I have both a positive and negative visceral response to this. I’ve been ingrained from a young age to believe in Jewish traditions and belonging to a Jewish community. I’ve also been ingrained to act thoughtfully and in peaceful ways.

I find myself rubbing up against my personal beliefs and community beliefs a lot lately. Part of it may be that I don’t really have a spiritual home here in Reading, neither with yoga nor Judaism. I’m working on finding or building them, but it isn’t easy in a small, conservative town. Part of it is certainly that as I get older I have to face more and more difficult decisions that affect not only me but my family. Being a bio-mom (because I am already a step-mom with its own set of responsibilities) is a huge responsibility and one that I am so looking forward to, but I can see already that so many decisions are not so easy to make.

I’m a Gentleman

In college, my friend Rob always called me a Gentleman because I hold doors for people. I didn’t think action of mine was so revolutionary. I just didn’t want to let doors slam on people behind me. Apparently, this intention makes me a gentleman.

I kept hearing from other pregnant women and those with small children (the carrying not walking kind) that people will hold doors and do other gentlemanly things when you are pregnant.

When I was 3 months pregnant and looked like I ate too much at lunch, I could understand why no one held doors for me. They were probably thinking “that woman could use some exercise” and were happy to give me the opportunity to hold the door for them.

Now that I am 8 months pregnant, clearly pregnant, and not looking like a pregnant teenager now that my skin has cleared up and my grey hairs are shining in the autumn sun, I was actually looking forward to people holding doors and offering to help me with things.

I am sad to report that Berks County is full of non-gentlemen. I have one friend who is a gentleman and will barely let me hold my own purse when we are together. He always holds doors. But he always did.

Everyone else still lets them slam.

Sigh. I suppose I’ll put this on the ever-growing “con” side of the Living in Berks County list.

Theatre

Last night, David and I went with my dear friend Joel to see a The Marriage of Bette and Boo, a play from the 80s by Christopher Durang, at the Ephrata Playhouse.

The play was about marriage, children, family, and all the absurdity and sadness that goes along. It was as funny as devastating. I like this about art – its ability to make you laugh and cry at the same time.

The theatre is an excellent community theatre, where I would be interested in volunteering to act (no actors get paid in community theatre), except that they rehearse at night. No way that is happening any time soon.

It keeps becoming more and more clear to me: If I want to make theatre in Berks County, I have to do it myself with the artists I respect and trust. Which is exciting and at times overwhelming. How will I meet more of these artists if I am not out in the community doing theatre? How will I connect with any amount of audience if I am not out in the community doing theatre?

And am I insane for committing to make new theatre when I’m 33 weeks pregnant?!