Since you asked...

A barely sun-kissed Saturday morning and I already have one kid's hoop win on the books, taken in from the top row behind an extra large pumpkin coffee, cream only. The other kid rainbow-loomed her way through four quarters and into another bracelet to tourniquet her wrist while I cheered (embarrassed the daughter) and thumb-wrestled with a few dreadlocks that showed up on my head sometime in the middle of the night, defeating all attempts to brush them out before game time.

After finger combing them out into a rage, I look like Questlove.

Anyway, I'm overdue to tap out an update and since I've got this tiny window between the girlie's sleepover and afternoon all-star practice, I thought I would use the time to answer a few questions I've been asked since I was offered the chance to participate in The Daily Love's Writers Mastermind retreat in November. I've had some of the most interesting, odd, heart-wrenching, mind-blowing, pass-the-Kleenex conversations since being selected for this opportunity just a few weeks before Thanksgiving. I look forward to these conversations because no matter which side of the fence y'all sit on (and trust me, there are plenty of people who have expressed dismay, concern and eyebrow-raised wise-assery about this opportunity), I am supreme-priced fueled by both my supporters and my naysayers alike. Continue to ask away.

Here are some answers to the more frequent, entertaining things I've been asked so far. Please feel free to add any additional questions and thought via email, Facebook, or in the comments below. I'm eager to ponder, answer, or get into the ring with you Lucha Libre-style.

1. "Crowdsourcing? Why?"

This question often has an additional question or comment attached:

"Don't you have a credit card?"
A shrunken apple-faced "I'm not a fan of crowdsourcing campaigns."
"Can you take out a loan?"
"What is the timeline for your campaign?"
"Do you have to earn all of your goal to keep the money you've already raised?"
"How much is GoFundMe making off your campaign?"

The quick answers, in order, are:

...because I need financial help and I want to keep it organized and legal.
...no, I don't own a credit card. Collateral damage from the divorce.
...I'm sorry you don't like crowdsourcing campaigns. It's OK. You can unpinch your face now. In the words of the late, great Leslie Nielson, "Move along. Nothing to see here."
...I am looking into loans, but right now, the outlook isn't as favorable as I would like it to be. (Please see divorce collateral damage comment above for details.)
...my campaign doesn't have an *official* timeline, but I need to raise almost $1,800.00 a month to make my room/board/tuition payments from now until May (my last payment's due date.)
...no, I don't have to raise my entire goal in order to keep my donations. GoFundMe allows me to set a goal, but I get to keep everything raised since I didn't choose to do an "all-or-nothing" campaign.
...the GoFundMe folks (and their payment platform people) make a combined 7% of my earnings.

The short answer? I'm crowdsourcing because my financial circumstances humbly require it.

2. "How did you get selected for this opportunity?"

It really all started with my daily read of The Daily Love and an overpour of Malbec.

I had been half-eyeballing the application link in my peripheral vision while I was reading one night. Half ignoring it. I was certainly struck by the lofty idea of actually finishing my book, which sat in bits and chunks on a Mozy cloud somewhere because my computer pulled off Fred Sanford's threat and suffered the big one, Elizabeth. The Virgo in me hates unfinished business. The INFJ in me deeply desires to create things designed to help others. One thing was certain in my mind that night. If I was ever going to finish this thing, I would need specific help dealing with the messy, emotional stuff that was preventing me from getting this project done. More than Cadbury Eggs and lingering kisses where my neck and shoulder join, I craved an opportunity like this.

So I poured more wine, clicked and typed. I submitted the initial application, made it through that and the following that came along after, and ended the process with a very exciting final phone interview frantically tucked into a work lunch break where I also unknowingly chewed off both thumbnails.  I didn't think I stood a chance.

But then again, what the hell do I know?

3. "Does the world really need another memoir about divorce?"

Hell if I know. I just know that I need to write one.

I've been trying to write this thing for years without an ounce of decent discipline, a proper editor, and with a head quite complete with reasons why I shouldn't be writing this.Yet, I also have been troubled with ticking Tourette's thoughts about this; thoughts regularly reinforced by a variety of people and situations in my life.

Thankfully my muse isn't afraid to elbow her way through my resistance once in awhile. She has shown up on baseball sidelines as an acquaintance who commented on my co-parenting approach, asking for advice. Sometimes she'll show up as a friend or client wanting me to speak with someone who is struggling with divorce, an affair, or parenting. My favorite is when she arrives fisted into a beautiful compliment punching fast into my always tightly-wound chest.

"You should write a book."

So guess what? I'm writing one.

3. "Is this a scam? I'm worried this is a scam. Who is running this thing, anyway?"

At ease, skeptics. It's O.K. I'll be working with Kelly Notaras, who did editing and publishing with Harper/Collins/William Morrow, Penguin USA, and Hyperion for the past 15 years before opening her own full service book studio. I'll also be working with Patricia Verducci, who wrote and directed "True Crime" and has written screenplays for Touchstone, FX, and Disney/Pixar. Her documentaries have been on HBO and Showtime and she teaches screenwriting at UCLA's Creative Writing Program.

I will be writing and workshoping every day with these women and 29 other writers. Most importantly, I get to work directly, daily with The Daily Love's Mastin Kipp to deal with my baggage and resistance issues, which might be the biggest lure of all for my insecure, shy self.

It's legit.

4. "How much is this going to cost you in the end? Why does it cost so much? Why don't you go to (the Cape, Vermont, a cabin, some secluded hotel [Shining, anyone?], your locked bedroom, The Pavilion) and just finish this on your own?"

In my estimation, this thing will likely run me $15,000 total, with the Mastermind portion costing about $10,000 of that. This cost takes care of my room for the entire month as well as all of my meals and 28 days of individual and group mentoring. It's all-inclusive in that aspect. The rest of the associated costs will come from renewing my passport, plane fare, and the costs to run my household while I'm away on this unpaid sabbatical. It's not cheap to spend a month studying with mentors half way around the world. Once in a lifetime opportunities can be pricey. This is obviously one of those cases.

The location has been chosen for creating perfect immersion in a highly creative, healthy, spiritual cocoon. Biorhythms beware. The time zone and structure will eliminate distractions from social media and family--although withdrawals from both could easily kill me in the first 48 hours and this could be all for not. This will be very intense, accelerated, life-altering, mental shackle-breaking stuff. Stuff that I certainly can't do on my own in a week on the Cape or a cabin in Conway.

There is no doubt I will be delivered a wilting bouquet of long-stemmed regrets if I do not pursue this opportunity. So suck it, FTD florist. I'm going.

5. "How else can I help?"

I am still trying to sort through kindhearted offers for fundraisers in the form of music house parties (fun right?), a night of local music where proceeds will be donated, a Family Fun Night Out hosted by my kids and their adorable friends that will likely include some sort of auction. I'm trying to be as creative and non-annoying as possible while rallying enough inner courage and funds to make this happen without losing my mind somewhere along the way.

If you have a thought, suggestion, raffle donation, a friend with frequent flier miles to spare, a positive comment, a lottery win, a certain paranoia about online donations and you want to donate via snail mail, or should you happen upon an IRS return windfall and you believe in this opportunity and care to share? Well then. Paula Abdul and I are forever your (deeply grateful) girls.

6. "Are you scared?"

Some of the time, yes.

The last year plus has rolled out it's share of half-assed Spooky World moments including pending cancer testing results, 10 months of unemployment where I somehow made ends "sort of" meet, and varietal breakdowns of vehicles, conversations, belief systems and love. Just last week, I had a verbally secured and committed entire March Bali payment pulled out from under me. Poof. Gone. That scared me a bit. Right now the notion of leaving my kids and paycheck to fly solo half way around the world for 28 days to gut myself open for others to see and criticize makes me want to launch my feta and spinach omelet all over this keyboard.

I try not to look back too much at things that frighten me. I try. Thankfully, the rear view mirror is small and my eyesight blows. I am more forward in my fear facing. I try and look at fear with the same sociopath's stare recently demoed to me in my personal life. On occasion, I'll even flip out and "Marcus Smart" fear back into his second row seat. Sorry, you might have to Google that if you're not a SportsCenter fan.

It's also been scary to ask for help in such a public way. I've been feeling, however, that it would be a bit hypocritical not to ask--especially since I have learned that when I'm able to help others, it truly sets fire to my insides. It's why I do the work I do. It feels so good to be able to pull someone out of poverty's swamp, to walk with them through the horrible shit they're facing, and help them to GPS possible paths out. For some of my participants, it's the first time they've been given permission to dream. It's a remarkable feeling to make that kind of difference. So in theory, I guess it makes sense to be brave enough to ask for help and offer others the chance to make that kind of impact in my life and buy a share of my dream.

Finally, to the folks who have asked the question "so, what's in it for me?" I guess that's ultimately for you to decide. I mean sure, I've built in some small incentives for donations. But I can't really say what's in it for you. I know why I have personally GoFunded and KickStarted others' projects squarely in the ass. Like my welfare-to-work clients, I want others to know I believe in their artistic vision, in second chances, and in their daredevil dreams. If I had more cash, I would do it every day, all day long. If you don't happen to feel that way, especially about my particular gig, no harm, no foul.

Regardless of how you feel about this, I hope you find or participate in something that lights you up brighter than a firework barge, gives you a sense of community and belonging, and allows your heart, mind or belief system to expand in some way. I hope you submit that application, take that risk, say those words, endorse that dream. I truly hope you choose to invest in something that allows you, and perhaps another, to be a little bit more.


You can help here:

http://www.gofundme.com/5n5b98

Dream on.

Gosh.

It's been awhile since I've posted anything here.

Not that I haven't been writing. It's just that lately it has been restricted to grant applications, standard operating procedures, and pen-to-paper scribbles in my journal. It's been a little easier to stick to those particular things these days, especially since my personal computer decided to call it a day after limping through summer with apparently enough trojans to prevent teen pregnancy in the U.S. for the next three months.

This is a quick post to get me back in the game. Hopefully, consistently. Although tonight I'm currently distracted by the time and an annoying case of Reynaud's that's still bothering me even though I'm wrapped up in fingerless gloves, two pairs of socks, and an infinity scarf that's wound so tightly around my face I look like a wooly pink ninja. I'm also oddly distracted by the combination of RufusWainwright and Snoop Dogg serenading Billy Joel at the Kennedy Center Awards.

But that's a subject for another day when it's not so late and my fingers don't feel like I've been hanging in a bobhouse ice fishing for a week.

I thought it would be wise to start using my blog to update y'all on progress regarding getting myself to Bali for The Daily Love's Writers Mastermind next November. Sure, next November might seem like a long way away, but let's face it. Time flies like those crazy, shockingly-handsome adrenaline junkies that were flinging themselves off mountain tops in nothing but flying squirrel costumes on 60 Minutes tonight.

Next November will be here before you know it.

Before I tuck myself into bed, I wanted to give y'all an exciting update before I start truly lambasting you with GoFundMe promotion. I'm almost at 20% of my goal in just 10 days of starting this campaign. I know the site says I've been campaigning longer, but that stat is incorrect. While I created the template of the page at an earlier date, I didn't start to promote the site until 10 days ago. Since then, 28 people have generously tossed in almost 20% of my goal.

Unfathomable. Cartwheel material, really. Especially since, while doing hours of stone-fingered grant and scholarship research today, it has become even more apparent that this GoFundMe campaign is going to be more important than I had anticipated. As you might have gathered, this whole sabbatical will actually cost more than my GFM goal. (How many of you are laughing at this acronym right now? Raise your hand...)

Anyway, my original plan was to fund what I can, which has already included the down payment to secure my spot in class, to raise money via GFM, and to tap into art and writing scholarships to supplement the rest.

But guess what?

All NH State Council on the Arts Arts and Entrepreneurial Grants and Individual Artists Fellowships are suspended  for FY2014 due to insufficient resources.

All of them.

My heart cracked a little. Not for me, I might add. I'm actually more inspired than ever to raise the required funds. But I did feel a bit banged up when I read this.  I mean, here we are, on the verge of perceived newness--a new year lined with shiny new budgets, dreamy possibilities and an armful of Danielle Laporte-inspired goals with soul. And damn it, like a March reality check when January's resolutions fall and face-plant in the slush, there is simply no money available for a single individual artist in 2014 through the NH State Council on the Arts. Not a penny.

How the hell are we supposed to get our "Virginia Woolf" on when there's no way to afford a room of our own unless it's attached to a Section 8 application?

All I know is this. If it gets to that point , I'm putting in an application for a 4 bedroom so I can move my muse in.

Sweet dreams, dreamers.

S.

Dream with me here.

The Promise of a Hero

Thursday's horrifying elementary school shooting has everyone throwing up thoughts on social media pages like an over-served pledging fraternity boy. Heavy sadness, anger, and grief hurls from guts and those of us who were fortunate enough to be able to pick up our elementary school kids from their “safely” locked building on Thursday afternoon mop up the remaining mental mess with held breath and not nearly enough Fabreezy thoughts to make this terrible thing go away.

Everything is within six degrees of Sandy Hook. Second amendment flags wave and snap too soon, stinging like locker room towels against a quarterback's behind, NRA haters flail fatality statistics, mental illness advocates tell I told-you-so stories, and the West Baptist Little House of Worship Horrors prepares for a Connecticut debut. Some angrily equate this event to the US drone strikes that have killed innocent children in other countries, while others post beautiful spit-shined, toothless school portraits and interviews of young children who were ushered and begged to shush in dark closets while Adam Lonza walked their school halls and killed 20 of their school mates and 6 beloved educators. Even the most talented of surgical hands couldn't stitch this unthinkable mess back together without leaving a scar as thick and as glaring as the one Roger Daltrey bravely dared to bare when his buttons finally bid farewell during “Love Reign O'er Me” during Wednesday's concert for that other horrible Sandy incident.

How can I even begin to explain this to my kids?

To the best of my knowledge and ability my children have not seen a single news report of this event. We've been on media lock down for the entire weekend. I chose to have a very brief discussion with them on Friday, reassuring them with a voice jacked up worse than Hepburn's that while they were very safe and sound, something unusual and terrible had happened at a school in CT and because they may hear others talking about it over the weekend, I felt I needed to mention something. I explained that before I went into any great details I was going to wait a few days for accurate information to surface and that before school on Monday I would tell them things I thought they might need to know. While I would have preferred not to have said anything, I am very well aware that every family handles news like this a bit differently, and some children have quite likely been allowed to watch news coverage along side of their horrified parents. Knowing there were basketball games to attend and kid conversations to take place all weekend long, I wanted to be a little proactive. I'm quite certain by now many children are now prepared to report a third-grader filtered version of whatever their horrified parents posted on Twitter. I decided right away that I wanted to be the one to try and address this before the playground chatter served this up through a gaggle of confused and unsettled children over Monday morning's game of snowball tag.

In true press corps fashion Miller reminded me Sunday morning that I was due for an official news briefing.

I didn't serve up more information than I was asked for, and even that felt like too much to share with my eight and ten year old children who were unfortunately growing up a little bit sooner this morning and right before my very eyes beginning to think of Monday's school day and the world very differently. They are so curious. They ask away and we talked in very general terms about the horribly perfect (and thankfully very unusual) storm caused when a mentally ill person gains unfortunate, inappropriate access to unnecessary assault weapons. We talked about the brave people who helped save so many lives. We talked about all of the ways we work to keep ourselves safe at school and at home and it wasn't long before Jackson had his fill. He is well aware of his limitations regarding things like this and decided it was time to take a personal time out. Miss Miller, however, was just getting started. She waited behind while her brother left to process things over a game of Madden '13 and knowingly shut the door behind him to protect our exiting empath who was suffering enough. She returned to sit on the edge of my unmade bed where this whole conversation was carefully unfolding like a flag before hanging. She stared at me for a good minute before saying anything at all.

“So children died?”

“Yes. Children died.”

We stare again for what feels like hours. We both are putting forth a valiant effort not to cry.

“How many died?”

I don't want to answer. I tell her so. I tell her just one is too many and that the numbers don't matter.

“Well like a hundred?!” There's a bit of panic in her voice.

No, not one hundred.

“Well how many then?”

 

She is not going to let this go.

I inhale deep, hold my breath like a balloon and eventually exhale a loud slow soul-deflating hiss. I really want to do the right thing here. So I'm stalling. I'm a firm believer in honesty, but I also know it shouldn't always be ultra-specific. I am tired and emotional and completely off my game. I begin to think I'm fucking this up royally. She's waiting, but her patience is running out.

“How many mom?”

I panic. I mumble the word twenty and immediately regret it.

I watch her brow furrow as she sits quietly and does some mental math. “That's like my whole class. Like almost everybody.” I imagine from the look on her face that she's thinking about her classmates, her friends, their faces, and trying to process something like this happening somewhere on her third grade wing. I am pissed that I gave her an actual number and envision pulling my hair and smacking my forehead like the late, hilarious Chris Farley interviewing Paul McCartney saying something like “Remember....um....remember when elementary school was fun? And, uh, you used to only have to worry about being scared that your cranky music teacher with the very high waisted pants might yell at you? Yeah. That was so awesome.”

Miller is still staring and I'm totally failing to find my “The love you take is equal to the love you make” moment.

Cue Farley's “IDIOT! You're so STUPID!!” I want to prat fall into the empty moving boxes that still sit in my room and be done with this. Suddenly, I'm ripped from my fantasy SNL debut by Miller's voice.

“I don't want to die at school, Mom.”

I can't stand it. My eight year old child--barely a year beyond most of the children who lost their lives Thursday--now has to consider the possibility, no matter how slight, that someone could somehow figure out a way to get into her locked elementary school, bust open the door to her classroom and do the previously unthinkable. I watch a bit of innocence evaporate as she stares back into me. Life and love are so not for the faint of heart. I reach over and tighten her pony tail and we sit quietly while I search for some brave new words.

It wasn't long before Miller interrupted the silence to ask me for the impossible. She wanted some sort of promise that something bad like this wasn't going to happen again.

Using the word promise is a really big deal in my house. For me it is a sacred word and it couldn't be clearer. If I use the word promise, my children know that I am guaranteeing something. It's going to 100% abso-fucking-lutely happen. Or not happen. The end. So if I promise I will be home by 9:00 pm to kiss them goodnight, that I will sew the strap onto a dress before Tuesday, that I will not forget to pick them up from a play date, or that I will bring in Newman's lemonade juice boxes in for the holiday party, it's happening. Drink up, Johnny! A promise is a promise. They know this.

This has worked to every one's advantage. I'm no doubt still successfully pulling off this pending Santa business because no one has (likely strategically) elected to officially ask me about the big guy using the P word. No one has dared to ask “Do you prooooomise you're not Santa?” I suspect they are fully aware of the potential implications of that question, and so while they are willing to ask about my “involvement” with Santa, I'm able to act like his half-assed accomplice a la Lt. Debra Morgan and just bumble horribly through half-truths and fibbish responses until they leave me alone.

I'm suddenly well aware that Miller is using a little reverse strategy here. She is in desperate, deserved need of a promise right now. One I so very desperately and deservedly want to give her. But I can't. I mean I could lie, but I can't lie. I can't look my kid in the eye and make a promise that I can't guarantee.

For the last two nights I have barely been able to sleep thinking about the myriad of mentally ill children I have worked with over the past 20 years and how we continue to cut resources for, quickly diagnose, over and half-ass medicate, and isolate these children and families. As someone once responsible for coordinating services for some of the neediest families in our state, I simply could never in my heart promise that something horrible like this is not going to happen again because I am soberly aware that it could happen at any moment in some of the most precious and unthinkable places.

“I can't promise something like this isn't going to happen again. It hopefully won't. I think there's less chance of it happening now that we're all talking about it. I think we'll all work hard to try and make sure it doesn't ever happen again. But I can't promise something bad like this won't ever happen again. But here's something I can promise you. Principal Boodey and Mrs. K and Mr. Roux and Nurse Claudia, and your librarian and Mr. Charlie and allllll of your teachers are your Woodman Park heroes. They are there everyday to teach you and to protect you. You have a school full of superheroes on your side every single day. Teachers are heroes. That I can promise you.”

I'm just getting on a roll, back on my game, prepared to tell her a simplified version of how I can also promise her that I'm going to contact our legislators and advocate more aggressively for the elimination of assault weapons and for better mental health services. But before I can continue, she suddenly stands up.

“OK, Mom.”

She leaves, but not before grabbing the wipe board and orange dry-erase marker she propped up against the wall before we started out chat and says “Let's go, class.” You see, just before this discussion Miller was jotting the names of her stuffed animal students and playing school, as she does in literally every spare moment. My daughter longs to be a teacher. A hero.

Still.

“Are you OK, Mill?”

“Yeah. I'm OK.”

With that, she disappears from sight. And as her feet pad down the hallway carrying her very well behaved “students” back to class, I whisper the question I didn't dare to ask straight to her beautiful moonie face for fear of her answer.

“Promise?”

Letting Go Of The Grass.

"Hey, Mom. Can we die together? Like at the same time. Or at least on the same day?"

This sudden, scratchy inquiry emerges from the eight year old snuggled under my armpit. One minute we're howling at what Miller inadvertently called Christina Aguilera's "calluses" (she meant cleavage, but noticing how rough around the edges Xtina looks tonight, I think calluses might also be a pretty accurate descriptor) and the next we're having our quarterly "Revolt Against Death" talk. Just one of several heartsick habits here.

"I really want us to die on the same day, Mom. If we can. Because I don't think I could go on without you. That would be too sad for me." Voice now quivering, she is on the verge of tears and I quickly pull her closer so she isn't hit by my falling jaw.

It's at this moment I give brief thanks for the fact I have started feverishly biting my fingernails again. Because that's likely the only thing that's currently preventing me from being able to claw into my chest cavity with my own fingers to pull out my aching heart. Cue my mental Iron and Wine montage. Geese sadly fly south over autumn's ending while I'm quietly whispering the likely sad truth my heart wants to share as beautifully as Sam Beam.

"One of us will die inside these arms

eyes wide open

naked as we came

one will spread our ashes round the yard..."

"That's not the way it works, Miller. It's not up to us. Plus, if I have my way, you are going to live many, many years beyond me into what I imagine will be your really beautiful, wonderful life." That's about all I can muster before I start biting into the east side of my mouth to defer the pain from my chest. And look! Calluses Aguilera is back from her commercial break and so it appears we can thankfully start the laugh tracks again.




"So has anyone ever tried hanging on?"

This was another couch question tossed at me a few weeks later, seemingly from left field. Well, actually from my left armpit where the always curious blondie was again snuggled deep in my side while windshield wipering the top of her lemon Italian ice with her spoon.

"Tried hanging on? Hanging on to what? And who is hanging?" I obviously have no idea what this kid is talking about right now. But if you've ever held court and conversation with an eight year old girl, you know this kind of confusion isn't uncommon.

"You know, like when you die. Has anyone ever tried to hang on to, like, the grass? Or a tree branch? You know...like right before you die and before you're sucked up to heaven or the sky or wherever you go. Has anyone ever tried to hang on to the grass?" She musters up what I imagine is supposed to be some sort of a death face, eyes crossed and rolling up into her noggin while she pretends to grab at something.

How absolutely sweet and amazing and hilarious and wonderful. How absolutely,  annihilatingly Miller. I begin to imagine people frantically hanging onto garden gnomes and grasping flamingo necks...people white-knuckling tree branches and grasping onto fistfuls of grass and I can't help but laugh.

Thankfully, she starts laughing too.

"I don't know, Miller. I just don't think that would actually work, do you?"

She pauses to give it more consideration and smirks.

"Probably not. I mean, I don't see a lot of people hanging around. So that probably wouldn't work even if you tried, I guess." She seems a little bit sad as her raspy voice trails off a bit, but soon we both start a low-grade church giggle that thankfully lasts for the next several minutes and lightens the air.



Death and dying questions and conversations happen frequently in this house. They originate from both the boy and the girlie, who are each pretty thougthful and sensitive souls.

"Why are we even here if we just have to die and leave after? That's just really sad."

"Does everything have to die?"

"What happens when you die?"

"How many dead people do you know?"

"Have you every touched a dead person?"

Most often, when the death chatter comes, it's in response to a very overtired, melancholy voice simply stating the obvious.

"I really don't want to die."

This is probably a great time to give credit and thanks to Leo Buscalgia and Daniel, his calm, knowing leaf, for arming me with some simple, lovely language to comfort my little fretting "Freddies." Death can indeed feel very big and scary if we linger too long, molding our mental death masks.  Instead, let's acknowledge it and move on, loves. Let's try to concentrate on living our best life and doing our individual and collective jobs. Better to "experience the sun and the moon, the wind and the rain" and to "learn to dance and to laugh."

Because in the end, once all this wonderful living takes place, Daniel the wise, wide leaf gently reminds us, "Everything dies."

That's how it's beautifully described in Buscalgia 's book "The Fall of Freddie the Leaf."  That's the way it's ideally supposed to be.

But as we know, and are sadly reminded, that's not always the way it happens. We were reminded of this recently when a very bright, lovely, and promising 16 year old took his own life as it was seemingly just entering the starting gate.

He was extended family, the son of the cousin of my former husband on the Batchelder side of his family, which comes flanked with an unspoken "once you're in, you're in" motto. Sicilian mafia style. So regardless of things like divorce and time, our family tightly remains family and my kids saw first hand several adult hearts fracture as we all baked and fondled Kleenex and tried to grasp this magnificent loss and what it meant to all who loved him dearly and were left behind to cope.

This prompted the kids to ask some really difficult questions. Being naturally curious and slightly obsessed death themselves, they really wanted to understand why a person would feel the need to end their life. Why would someone actually choose to die?

"But why, mom?" (repeat eight million times)

There are sadly established things that can't be properly compartmentalized with words. Suicide is one. Especially when from the comfortably-seated audience you only see a successful, wonderful, hopeful motion picture playing out. So I've tried to carefully navigate this, explaining that one of the most beautiful things about teenagers is they are often boldly brave and incredibly impulsive.

However, one of the most horrible thing about teenagers is that they are often boldly brave and incredibly impulsive.

I keep telling my kids that it's OK that it doesn't make sense right now. I hug them tightly into my chest, smell their beautiful heads, and tell them how much I love them. Maybe even too much for their own good. I tell them they can, and should, keep asking me questions and that I will always try to help them find the right answers. I will also help them cope with the fact we may never find all of them.

I keep hoping that's enough.

A few weeks after the funeral, the kids randomly asked to see Cody's 16th birthday video again. We sat on the couch, arms and legs tangled, watching on the tiny screen of my phone. The chorus to Fun's "We Are Young" played and both kids began to quietly sing along. I could barely hold my 4.7 ounce phone up. "He was really handsome, Mom," Jackson remarked. I couldn't muster more than a cracked half yes from my throat, which I followed with a nod and a squeeze to his hand. I could feel Miller move her giant blues from the video to my black streaked face, which would have no doubt given Alice Cooper's a solid run for his money back in the day, and she watched and waited as I pushed my sweatshirt sleeve around to mop my face up, soaking the cuff.  She sweetly patted my back to reassure me as the video ended, and with one small, perfect sentence, this eight year old defined this horrible heartbreak better that any adult could on their most articulate day.

"I think Cody just felt like he needed to let go of the grass, Mom."

Independence Day

It's 2:00 in the afternoon and here I sit after refereeing a tug of war match between two adorably destructive groundhog babes and my delicious dill plant. Tom Waits is hoping he doesn't fall in love with me and I'm drinking lukewarm coffee from a chipped Salmon Falls mug, looking for an "area of opportunity."

To be more specific, I'm LinkedIn-ing and Monstering about, searching for new employment.

How appropriate it seems to "Groundhog Day" back here a minute to a few Thursdays ago when the garden dill had no teeth marks and still stood favorite-leather-knee-boots high. I was happily employed until 1:00 that afternoon when I was suddenly asked to join a meeting which presented me with an unexpected, yet oddly familiar, story about the economy, big business practices and the necessary reduction in force which was erasing my position. All of this was very kindly accompanied by sincerely-said sorries, a manila envelope with a final paycheck, and two empty W.B. Mason boxes to pack up my four month old office up in. There we were--my wonderful ED, our lovely VP of Ops and me, awkwardly making jokes and smallish talk while untacking and packing my kids' wallpaper art collages, one adorable zombie crayon kitty, three appropriately dark, wonderfully obscure photos from the very recent ex, my wilting magnolia plant and the same chipped mug I'm currently sipping this horrible coffee from.

Thank you life IT department for the auto upgrade to unemployment v.2.0.

I'm a bit familiar with this crazy carnival having been through the same thing only eight months earlier with the same company. Cue the circus music, kids! Please draw your attention to the center ring! Fun under the big top begins with getting the Malbec and coffee stains buffed from your molars and dragging your kids along to hang in the oddly mesmerizing waiting room of the local breast imaging center to get things literally handled before your dental and medical insurance runs out at the end of the month.  Hurry! Hurry! You won't believe your eyes! Marvel at the severance options and a few potential internal job opportunities.  Step right up! Test your stomach and skills on the roundup of resume rewrites! Watch as they're dangerously done without an editor in the early afternoon over a basil gimlet because you're unexpectedly unemployed and you should not drink Malbec and risk staining your newly cleaned tusks!

Maybe I can get a temp job barking at the Stratham fair in a few weeks.

The 48 hours following the RIF had me shaking my fist at the universe from various places--from under my jacked up CRV while changing the pancaked tire preventing me from commuting my kids to school, from the drive thru window at Dunkin Donuts where they were out of half and half (and NO young man who looks as though he's enjoyed a full bottle of Lorazepam, I would certainly not like skim milk instead. Look at me for a second, dummy. Do I look like I drink skim milk?!) and from the unemployment office where I sat nodding off next to a man smelling of road tar and pipe tobacco waiting for what seemed like a week to get confirmation that I would not be getting any unemployment benefits for some time. There's nothing like having a few days unravel like this and then, after dragging yourself from the unemployment line to the car, having your iTunes shuffle up The Drams' "Wondrous Life." I briefly considered wandering out into the middle of Old Rochester Road into an oncoming Coast bus.

Yeah. I see what you're up to, universe. Time to cue the awesomely talented stiff upper lip, because unlike moments when I might actually fall for a flirty Basil Hayden-fueled text sent at 1:00 in the morning, I'm not falling for this. Plus, I'm out of tissues to wipe any potential mascara streaks. Oddly enough, they were used to clean up the horrible, sans-skimmed burnt coffee I spilled all over myself after jerking my car out of the Dunkin Donuts drive thru.

After hearing I was looking for work for the second time in the past year, a fabulous friend took me to lunch and ask me if I was getting tired of it all. She's known me for a very long time. You MUST be sick of it by now she challenged, hands quickly miming her fret and frustration (or showing off what I'm guessing would be white belt karate skills) while highlighting what she apparently sees as my constant, convoluted struggles. She also made a quick side note that she's quite convinced that I'm due to fall apart at any moment.

I didn't even bother argue that last point. Because some days I feel like my head might actually launch from my shoulders.

Instead, I told her that what I'm really most tired of is having to talk about it sometimes. It's really hard to tell your friends these parallel tales. Oh sure "it's their job"--a sad, grossly unpaid one--to listen sympathetically, unaffected, and to chant "rah rah" comments while clinking rocks glasses or sending you job leads and nominating dating candidates. And sure, I'll bet there's been days when I must have said some of those same certain words and phrases my friend was using to describe my life in her same silly astoundment. Affair! Divorce! Single! MY POSITION HAS BEEN ELIMINATED!

How astonishing!

Lately, however, I find I'm saying some of these very same words that were perhaps once shared in dismay with a new, slightly reckless and perhaps dangerous sort of exultation.

"Yay! Unemployment!"

O.K., it's not like I'm behaving as though I've been cast in an episode of Glee or living out a horrible scene from the very underwhelming Rock of Ages. Sure, you can thank me later for that. I just really, really, really don't want to be totally identified by these unfortunate events. I would rather be amused by them. I would rather you all be kind of amused by them as well.

Let me be clear for a sec. I do have moments when I feel it's really very unfortunate that I can't change some of the things that have happened to me and my darling deductions.

However, let me also take a sec to thank sweet baby Buddha that I can surely change who I am in relationship to it all.

I've recently watched some of my favorite people redefine themselves. How incredible to watch them move quite gracefully, some rather abruptly, beyond big personal despair or over various roadblocks towards a promissory note of something better. One tossed up a self-proclaimed (and completely beautiful, I must add) Hail Mary and was brave enough to break his own heart and leave the ones he loved because he knew he couldn't stick around here a minute longer and be the person he deserved to become. One friend taught her already sickeningly talented self to make the most amazing silver jewelry that you should immediately go and buy for yourself or for me or for someone you love because it's as strong and beautiful as her spirit and generosity. Another dusted off his former garage band bent and soon discovered that a zillion talented people, and at least one who can't sing for shit, would all love to go and get a room with him. I watched a truly beautiful Miss Somebody pull herself away from an almost deadly deadly siren song sung by a boy in now-tired NY rock boutique finery and sporting a very pretty, shiny Gibson that never held tune to her much shinier charm and class. She walked away and became the hero of a far more well-written, beautifully self-penned love song. I've watched and admired all of these people. And I've taken a few notes.

Father time can shut his pie hole. When you think about it, time isn't really running out. It's here. Right at this moment! Happy fucking Independence Day, kids! And until I make my next career move, I'll invite you watch me as I just allow things to decisively and beautifully fall apart a bit. Just look! Today finds me able to actually write something down. It's been months and months since I have had the ability to sit and focus long enough to write anything other than a grocery list. Let's face it. Some jobs have a terrible way of exhausting us. Some slowly, unknowingly kill important parts of us. Some take a pillow filled with the money needed to knock off the items on that sad bit of flash writing currently known as the grocery list and will push it slowly into our creative faces and asphyxiate the dreams we want to chase most.

I know it's temporary, but damn it's nice to be able to push that pillow off my face for a bit. I'm hoping some of you might get the chance to come for air when you can. Unless you're really into that sort of thing--and more power to you should that be the case. I'm more of a handcuff girl, myself. Either way, let's all try and be brave and even a little bit reckless when we're forced to find the next version of ourselves. Which means I shall now daringly hit publish and hang tightly on to the very alluring thought of being able to do something I love, even for just this day.

I'm telling you, that one thought is my life raft.

Did you just say something?

Gut.

Funny to note this word has been consistently showing up this past year. In both the most heady and lowest-of-brow conversations. I've been sucking and tucking it in, using it as a term of endearment and also as a hilariously sharp, knee-jerk slam with my closest friends. But mostly? I've been trying to listen to and respect that pleading voice. The serious one that lies well beyond the one that points out it's likely time to do some additional weighted crunches.

I have been a little bit pissed off at myself this past year. For not really respecting and listening to my gut.

Because that guy always knows.

You really don't have an appreciation for that when you're an 18-year-old college freshman, first away from home and being smartly groomed by a Lambda Chi senior for your first, and thankfully only, physically-abusive relationship. I have long forgiven that very foolish girl for ignoring her inner gut and sticking with the sinewy, spiteful guy who could indignantly pin her down by the neck with his forearm, choking her face red while pulling off her jeans without permission.

That young girl hadn't really had the opportunity to develop her listening skills (I suspect she already thought she knew everything) or the strength and inner confidence required to push aside the familiar fear and bruises fostered by that debilitating relationship. Let's face it. Even though her gut and her friends screamed till they were likely hoarse, all involved generally agree that the fragile, anxious undergrad deserves and gets a pass for her stubborn, nieve choices.

But that was over two decades ago. Now the girl is an adult with an 18+ year relationship/marriage in the rear view mirror and priorities that include two young children. Yeah, if you've read my past rambles you know how that tired old story goes. But we all survived. Quite well, in spite. The gut and I came out from behind the perfect facade that politely hid our flaws and we were properly armed with a much better understanding about the convoluted, profoundly beautiful and sometimes fucked-up nature of relationships.

Therefore one might also think I'd be ready to successfully use my post-divorce mulligan, being fully-armed for the next round with all of these fancy life and love lessons now stuffed like clubs in my golf bag. Without the stupid visor.

But no.

With my gut knowing full well what is right and good for me, I still almost completely screwed up my do-over with a giant scary divot.

How terrible.

I blogged about the end of that relationship a bit. My mulligan. The one that hit the green on the first swing and was a seeming lovely near miss. I considered it my first real chance to start over. To hopefully do, and get, better. But if I am being completely honest here, my gut was always poking me (instead of me poking at its overhang). Instead of paying attention to the wise, knowing voice trying to caddy me through this sand trap, I repeatedly beat my gut's intuitive echo down with a Callaway Hot iron.

I'm telling you your gut always, always knows and gnaws when you are making a bad choice. Or being a foolish dumb ass.

Sure, you can ignore its pleas with creative justifications. I was pretty fantastic at that, actually. But the centered, smartest and truest place inside me always tried to remind me I was doing the wrong thing. I just didn't have any real trust in that voice. Or in myself. I never fully listened.

I went through such profound sadness when that relationship ended. The kind that cripples your insides and outsides and inspires (forces) your friends to show up and shove Kleenex in your hand while dragging you out the door for a day of retail therapy even though you look so horrible that you have no business showing your frighteningly pouty face in public. Unless you are going to Walmart. Which we were not.

At first glance it looked like all of the horrible blubbering and sniveling was rooted in the loss of the guy and the fairy tale ending and came with the certain realization in the first 24 hours post-guillotine that there was absolutely no winning this round.

I'm certain some of it was because of this.

What I soon realized however, with a little distance and perspective, was that I was actually most sad and pissed off with myself. For not listening to my patient, reiterating gut and for ignoring the voice that became so loud that perhaps the other guy heard it loud and clear and chose to listen on my behalf and save us from a costly, horrible next round. Perhaps.

But that part doesn't really matter.

What matters right now is that my gut and I are happily shooting under par these days. I'm guessing I'm a better listener these days and I actually like what it has to say most of the time. And while this isn't a self help or advice column, if you're sweet enough to be reading this, I likely know you and probably give a shit about you in some way so I kind of hope you take the time to carefully listen to what your gut has to say when it talks to you. And I'm also hoping in the future, when it has something really important to offer up to either one of us, it doesn't require an air horn or a titanium sand wedge to the noggin to get our attention and keep us listening.

Jackass + Golf + Air Horns =You're welcome...

He is Superman. And he knows what's happening...

My dad is Superman.

No really. He is.

He doesn't wear the tights and flowing red cape. Instead, he's the hero who would quick knot a turquoise beach towel around his neck and skip through the house bare-chested and arms flapping wildly a la Chris Farley to save us all from a deadly serious or boring moment.

I say this all the time: I am certain about life's uncertainties. But I am quite certain my dad is Superman. I am also certain I am beyond lucky to have been able to ring up my dad today and hear his very kind, sweetly mellow voice on the other end.

For those of you who know my dad's health history...well, you know. For those of you who don't, my dad has kicked cancer's ass in no less than four separate steel cage death matches since he discovered his first lymphoma lump weaseling in under his armpit when he was only 32 years old. Over 30 years ago. He was told it was terminal, was told to get his affairs in order, and was given only 90 days to do so. Instead, my dad informed the doctors he had some things he would need to be tending to besides this cancer business, one of which included making an appearance at my high school graduation ceremony, which was still several years off.

And he did.

More recently, my dad has miraculously survived two open heart surgeries in the last seven years which were necessary to deal with the nasty effects of the massive amounts of radiation blasted at his tic tac toe-scarred chest over the years. And while having your chest cracked open to fiddle about with the very organ required to keep you alive is never a cake walk, it is particularly complicated for a man with only one kidney and only a few decent, sturdy veins required to do these sorts of things successfully. But he survived, and in his true wise-assey fashion was fighting through his anesthetic haze several hours before medically scheduled to slur a sleepy "MOOOooooOOOOooo" to the nurses to celebrate the new bovine valve that was now helping to keep him alive.

He's a very cheeky Superman. I'm not kidding.

So today is the day we celebrate our dads and I've started this entry, oh, a half million times. I'm tired and frustrated. I do not want this to sound too heavy, because that is so not my dad's style. Today I want to find a way to thank my Superman, because as Michael Stipe sings, he knows what's happening. My dad has obviously learned a few important life lessons and I feel lucky enough to have payed attention to a few. Far more attention than I paid in World History class, which I was thankfully able to squeak through, and therefore graduate so my dad could actually see that ceremony he beat down round one of cancer to attend.

So thank you, dad, for these lessons listed in a rather random, quick but very heartfelt manner. Mainly because I really need to get outside and finish the raised beds I'm building (side note: you would be proud. I've only said the f word twice. And I don't think the neighbors heard.) And because I've already been lucky enough to tell you over the phone today how much I love you. And that's what's most important, right?

1. It's not just about you.

The night before my dad's first open heart surgery I drove up to Portland to meet my folks for dinner. We met at the hotel, nervously joked with dad about where he wanted to go to eat for his potential Last Supper, and after my mom and I talked up our Mexican cravings, dad decided on Margarita's. While settling up the check after eating more guacamole than any person has a right, I noticed the large amount of food still on his plate. I asked if the nerves about the surgery had ruined his appetite.

This was when I learned my father doesn't really even like Mexican food.

WHAT?! My mother and I were just gobsmacked. Why in the HELL were we shoveling tortilla chips and pico into our faces then? Why were we here and not somewhere else shoveling penne a la vodka down and chasing it with Malbec if that's what he preferred?!

Because he wanted to make my mom and I happy, that's why. Sometimes it's not just about you. Even when perhaps it should be.

2. Best fashion lesson? Wear your heart on your sleeve.

My dad takes the side of Rosey Grier over Robert Smith. It's alright to cry, boys. Whether it's exuberant tears of joy when your son gives his acceptance speech for winning the coveted Fitzpatrick trophy, tiny tears of gratitude when your daughter tells you she is expecting her first child,or whether it's tears of profound sorrow like the ones we shared yesterday when his best friend lost his own courageous battle with cancer, "Blubber away." And while you're at it? Scream joyously from the high school stands, shake your fists furiously at the TV when the "Red Flops" lose,tell people you love them, because in spite what some songs say, the word is NOT overused. Step in when someone is being bullied and be angry with your children when they fuck up. Accessorize your sleeves with the true emotion that propels you through each day and moment.

3. Be Loyal.

My dad believes in loyalty. Unlike pro athletes, most politicians and those people who marry knowing they can simply file for a divorce if shit goes south, my dad has those beautiful old school notions of loyalty. As far as I can tell he's been completely loyal to my mom, every employer, his friends and his family. Even to Giants football. See? When he pledges to do something, he means it. He does it. Shouldn't we all?

4. Everyone should have a good nickname.

You know you have truly arrived in my dad's heart or on his shit list if he has appointed you with a nickname. This isn't so much a life lesson as it is one of my favorite things about my dad. Every neighbor, family member, squirrel at the bird feeder, bad driver, or unethical politician had a nickname granted by my dad while I was growing up. They still do. And there is nothing like hearing my dad tell a random tale without calling a single person or pet by their actual name:

"Big news. Pomp's scagdog was hit by the snow plow last night. Looks like spacedog will be running the neighborhood now, huh Gerbis?"

It's something endearing and rather hysterical. It's also likely the reason why our guinea pig currently goes by a million other names (including Little Manny Manatee) instead of his real name, Oliver.

5. Send in the clowns.

Be mature enough to know you don't always have to be mature. You know, tell your brother when he shows you a picture of his colonoscopy and mentions it looks like outerspace that you think you can "see Uranus." Watch Beavis and Butthead. And then quote them. A lot.

Find ways to laugh. At life. And at yourself once in awhile. It really just might be the best medicine.


6. Believe.

This is the last, but probably the most important lesson my dad and my mom (who as you might imagine, has some of the most fabulous nicknames thanks to my dad)etched into my noggin. Well. This and the infamous "don't you DARE run away with that German carnie blaring Sweet Emotion from the DJ booth in the Raupen-Bahn, because he is still a GD carnie!" lesson.

But anyway. Yes. Believe in stuff.

You should start with yourself. Believe in your abilities. And in those of your kids, family and friends. Believe the USA can win a gold in hockey and that the Red Sox can win the pennant again. Believe that something bigger might be at hand. Believe things can and will improve. Believe in a day when you'll get to see your daughter bobby-pin her Bulldog blue graduation cap on her noodle because she somehow passed that awful test on the Visigoths. Believe you will get walk her always anxious, sweaty hand down a wedding aisle, and believe you will get to wrap your weathered hands gently around your first grandson. And then your granddaughter, who follows.

When life hands you kryptonite news, kind of like Fox, my Superman reminds me it never hurts to believe otherwise.

Thanks for all you have taught me, Dad. I hope you know I love you more than this ramble likely shows.

And Happy Father's Day, Superman.