Charts from Hell and Crossing Guard Therapy

G-d must have a really great day when she/he created crossing guards. At least when Millie, our crossing guard, was brought into this world. If not for her, I would never have survived Tuesday morning. If life had a rewind button, by 8:05 a.m., I would have worn it out.

Tuesday morning was a disaster. To say that getting three girls out the door, not to mention one mama to work, is not an easy task would be the understatement of the century. Getting three girls and one mama out the door when there's only one functioning bathroom takes some planning. We have shower charts, chore charts, music practice charts, pretty much charts for about everything. But still the mornings are chaotic and stressful. So, after a particularly difficult Friday morning, I came up with what I thought was the chart of all charts, the chart to top the charts. In other words, I had created the holy grail of charts.

The concept was simple and based on something near and dear to our family's heart - baseball. We watch a lot of baseball and almost exclusively, the Colorado Rockies. What makes the Rockies such a pleasure to watch is the remarkable lack of ego display and overall inspiring team effort. I want our family to be like the Rockies. And I want to be as calm and collected as Rockies Manager, Jim Tracy. And with these two goals in mind, I created the Home Run Morning Chart with four easy steps to encourage self-responsibility and to reduce the over-dependence on Mama as our household morning Sisyphus, pushing my family up the hill to their day and having no energy for my own day.

I picked up the color laminated charts and explained the concept to the girls. Every morning you can hit a home run by just doing four things without any prompting, nagging or more likely, yelling from Mama. Choose to not do one of the tasks and and you lose the chance to hit a home run. Hit a home run every school day and the team will win a prize.

Monday went smoothly. So smoothly that we even did the Rockies high five line before we left for school and work. And then Tuesday happened. Or didn't. And I was not a happy camper. To keep the sports analogy, I was more like Billy Martin or Bobby Knight. Not a great start to the day.

I won't go into the details - they're too ugly and too exhausting to recount. All I can say is that by the time I dropped the girls off at school, their heads were hanging low and all of us had red noses and eyes from crying. No one, including me, was going to hit a home run that morning.

I parked the car near school and we waited at the corner for our crossing guard to signal that it was safe to cross. The four of us walked across the street, said our teary good-byes and I sent the three on their way, feeling pretty crummy that all of our days had started out in such a bad way.

As I crossed back across the street, Millie, our much beloved crossing guard, asked me if I was all right. Millie is from the Bronx, is a mother and grandmother and has lived in the neighborhood for over 20 years. She sees everything and doesn't miss a trick. She gives the kids candy on Halloween and Valentine's Day and comforted me on the first day back at school after my dad died. If all that was not enough, Millie is the only person I've ever known who can get my ex-New Yorker husband to wait at the corner and stop a lifetime habit of jaywalking. She's a classic, real New Yorker, gruff and soft, warm and funny. So when she asked me if I was all right, I knew I could give her the real answer.

She slowly nodded her head and told me it was going to be all right. She'd been through the same with her kids, and even though it was perfectly normal, it was important to set the bar high and hold them accountable. She put her hand on my shoulder and said, tomorrow will be better. And I believed her. In less than two minutes, Millie had restored my belief that hard mornings get easier and to not take it all so seriously, but to commit seriously to the work of being a good parent.

I've been in lots of therapy. Talk, somatic, rebirthing, couples and lots in between. I believe in therapy as a a kind of personal oil change that I seem to need once every decade. But I'd never had Crossing Guard Therapy and I've got to say, it worked like a charm.

By the time I picked up the girls from school that afternoon, we were back to our usual selves. We talked about what had gone wrong that morning. I told the girls that while Monday was a high five effort, we had to remember that one game doesn't make a season. What makes a season is showing up for each of the 162 days with the same attitude as the first day of the season. And I realized that besides the immediate need of more order, less chaos and an easier time for me in the morning, the larger lesson I'm trying to impart is how important it is to show up for yourself. In Judaism, the first prayer of the day is one of thanks for the opportunity to have another day to live, make mistakes, love and all the rest: Modah Ani Lefanecha, Ruach Chai, Vekayom. Another chance to show up and try to get it right for yourself, your loved ones and the world.

By Wednesday morning, we were back on track, just like Rockies' gut-wrenching win after two horrendous losses. No high five line, but when Millie asked me how the morning had gone, the smiles on all our faces was all the answer she needed.

Thank you, Millie - for delivering my kids and all the other kids who've been lucky enough to cross your street to school with safety, love and that watchful, knowing nod, that I realize now is intended more for the parents than the kids. And thank you for your Crossing Guard Therapy, which delivered this all too often over the top Mama back to my day with wisdom and humor.

Modah Ani Lefanecha, Ruach Chai, Vekayom.

Selah.

Saying Yes to Saying NO!

Most women have a hard time saying no. At least most of the women I know. I know this because I'm one of them, or am trying not to being one of them. I'm 50 years old and am just beginning to learn how to understand and respect my limits. I'm concerned about my three daughters and how quickly they are learning what they will have to work hard all their life to unlearn. But this week, my beloved mother taught me a great lesson in listening to and saying yes to that voice inside of us that usually is screaming, NO!

This has been a rough year for my mother. Her husband of 55 years, my father, died last October. She thought she had already grieved, but soon realized the grief she experienced before his death wasn't about his death. It was the grieving of who he was - the vibrant, energetic, incredibly capable man. It was the grief of acceptance that her best friend was going away and there wasn't anything she could do about it.

After my dad's death, grief took the form of a compromised immune system that left her ripe for stubborn and recurrent staph infection in her finger. She's withstood three surgical procedures and almost a solid year of heavy duty antiobiotics to knock this infection out of her body. Finally, the infection seems to be gone and she is ready to begin her life again. Her courage in re-imagining her life without my father, without her lover and best friend, is inspiring and keeps me going on those dark days when my dad's absence becomes too much.

Last Sunday, my mom adopted a dog. We grew up with dogs and she's always had a very special bond with them. Dogs love my mother. In a room full of people, most dogs will immediately be drawn to her. When she called and told me about the two-year old black and white poodle mix she had chosen, my brothers and I sighed a sigh of relief. She's back! She's ready to step back into life! A dog would give her someone to care for, someone to look after.

But around Tuesday, I could hear the tension and exhaustion in my mother's voice. Her arthritic knees hurt from the multiple walks this energetic little guy needed. Her scoliosis-ridden hip hurt from walking up and down three flights of stairs. Her wrist hurt from his aggressive barking and pulling toward other dogs.

She also talked about how much she realized my dad had done in taking care of the dogs. He was the one who did the night time walks, the first pee of the day walks. And when both my dad's health and their second dog Zelda's health was waning, it was a comfort to my mom that they could look after each other when she went out.

By Friday, she was in tears. It was like another wave of grief had been unleashed with the presence of this dog, who by this time had chewed up a hearing aid and whose initial stellar housetraining skills were slipping away.

We talked about training and how much improvement dogs can make. She said she'd call the dog trainer and see if they could get started the next week. She told me of outrageous prices (it is LA after all) and of an oddball conversation with a trainer who told her dogs needed to be treated the same as teenagers with a drug addiction. Tough love. Ignore them. Gates and crates and weeks and weeks of training.

You have to understand. This may be self-stereotyping, but Jewish families are not really known for their dog training acumen. Dogs were walked, fed and allowed on the furniture. My father used to remind me to save a portion of my meal for the dog, despite knowing it was not good for their health to have human food. I can't even count the number of times my parents called me by the dog's name before remembering I was the daughter with two, not four legs.

Saturday night, she called me, again in tears, to tell me she just couldn't handle it, that it was too soon and too much. And you know? She was right. And I told her so.

This afternoon she called me and told me she brought the dog back. She wrote a letter to the foster dog center explaining he needed training and that she had underestimated just how much work a dog would be for her. She chuckled as she said the dog was so engaged in barking at the other dogs that he didn't even notice when she left.

And then she said the most wonderful thing to me. "Lisa, I've come to the realization that I have to stop trying to please everyone else. I have to know my limits and this is the time for me to figure out what I want in my life." After raising three children, running an incredibly efficient and clean home, dedicating herself to her marriage and to keeping my dad on this planet for almost 97 years, she's ready to accept the limitation of just being herself. She's ready to accept and embrace that the only being she needs to take care of, look after, is herself. At 78 years old, she has come up against an incredible challenge. After a lifetime of taking care of everyone else, she's facing up to the difficulty of learning what she wants, not what others who love her with all our being and with good intentions, want for her.

The dog will find the perfect family to take on his training and love him. The dog will be fine.

And so will my mom. Here's to reaching our limits and learning from them, whether we're 9, or 50 or 78 years old.

Thanks, Mom, for showing me that the best way to yourself is to walk right into the wall. The next time, and I know there will always be a next time, my nose is about to bonk into that all too familiar wall, I will think of your bravery in saying yes to saying no.

Bravo!

Yard Sailing Away...

The last time I did a yard sale was six years ago. The twins were about 1.5 years old, DD about 4 and I was much younger. This was also about the time when I used to breastfeed while cooking lasagna for dinner parties of twelve.

My father-in-law and my DH had been tasked with watching the kids, at least that was the idea. Things were going well until a well-meaning person pointed to my porch. I shook my head and said, no, the table on the porch wasn't for sale. She shook her head back at me and pointed again.

I turned around to see one of my twins standing on the porch, with her pull up, full with a few hours of pee, down by her ankles. I completed the transaction (a sale's a sale, after all) and ushered her into the house with rather loud instructions to the two men to get with the program or take over the sale. Running a yard sale with three kids under three was hard enough. With a distracted husband and father-in-law to boot? I swore I'd never do one again.

But why, six summers later, have I gone back on that vow? It's about a garage I'm coveting. A red brick two car garage that has been filled with the overflow of our lives for the last ten years, ever since we moved into our little dream ranch house in Longmont. When we moved in our oldest was just under a year old and we literally opened the door and threw our belongings into wherever they would land. And I'm still looking for the things I misplaced.

But this summer, after deciding that my consulting business, One Purpose PR & Communications (yes, shameless promotion), was worthy of being expanded into what I'm doing for the rest of my life, I also decided that the red brick garage would be the perfect office, studio and private mamazblogging space. Problem was that every time I entered into the garage, I had an anxiety attack. The stuff. So much stuff.

But just as I was undaunted six years ago by yard sales with young children and breastfeeding twins while cooking, I rolled up my short sleeves and started going through all that stuff. I organized it, sorted it and catalogued it into storage boxes and decided, that after a six year yard sale hiatus, it was time for another one.

That was in June. Today's date is August 22.

In between, the girls have negotiated hard for the return of their unused by still loved Beanie Baby shelf, but only if they agreed to sell the pink Barbie car. Items were played with one more time and then reluctantly put back into the yard sale toy bin, but only with the promise of BIG BUCKS.

I woke up this morning at 6am, made strong coffee and began dragging out the boxes. DH woke up a little bit later, then the girls and before I knew it the whole family was pulling together to get the yard sale open and ready for business. The twins helped hang the posters that they and their sister had made the night before. We fought over whether to put directional arrows on the signs, with our oldest storming off claiming creative integrity. I tried to talk our oldest into letting me use her allowance money for our starting bank, but she stood firm and they held down the fort while I went and got cash. By 8:28 a.m., we had come together as a family with minimal insanity and the yard sale was ready.

And then we waited. And waited.

Having a yard sale is a lot like throwing a party. The anxiety of getting ready, of waiting for the guests, or in our case, the customers, to arrive. Worrying if they don't, or what to do with them if they do.

And they did. First customer was a mother who literally squealed with glee when I told her the priced to move deals on girls' clothing. Our first sale.

With a bittersweet feeling, I watched a young mother put our oldest's first bike in her car for her three year old. A pregnant woman bought a much loved and worn, but still very chic shirt I wore during, between and after both pregnancies.

I'm not a great negotiator. Never have been and probably will never be. As far as sales transactions go, I'm motivated by movement and I wanted to move the stuff off of my yard. I balked at a Russian woman who responded $2.00 to my $2.50 counter offer so forcefully, that I caved in and then went ahead and just asked folks to pay what they felt was fair. And they did.

And so the stuff went. Not all of it. Not for the amount we had dreamed of cashing in on. But what I found out today is this - that what we make in a yard sale is not the point. What we make are connections with strangers who no longer were strangers by the time they drove off, whether they bought something or not. Some of the connection were through broken English and my not-even qualified as broken Spanish. Some of the connections were made by those who just wanted to stop by as an excuse to have some conversation. Like the older gentleman who took out his wallet not to pay for anything, but to show me a lovingly worn photograph of his oldest grandson and grandaughter in-law, both of who are being deployed to Iraq next month.

Yes, I'm exhausted. More exhausted than I am after a rigorous 90 minute Bikram class.

But at the end of the day, my red brick dream office is about half-way closer to being ready to move into. Our take for the day? A grand total of $75.

Would I do it again? Yep.

Tomorrow seems like a perfect day for meeting some more folks and yard sailing it forward.

Yard sailing away. Yard sailing away...

Smile. Breathe. Learn.

The first day of school is less than eight hours away. The mystery is over. After two and a half months, we know who is in what class, which friends from last year, which new faces to get to know. It's a new school year and as always, I've been on the verge of tears for days. I might joke that the Staples back to school ad is based on my own gleeful skipping down school supply aisles (which I begin right after 4th of July). I might exchange eye-rolling glances with my DH as the energy level in the car borders on bursting out the windows, and not from the music being too loud. I might complain about the endless "I'm bored" and "what are we going to do today?" that have grown louder and more frequent as June became July and July is now August. But in reality, I'd like the summer break to last longer. Why, other wide-eyed climbing-the-wall parents ask me? And until today, I didn't really know, other than living vicariously through my kids' open-ended days.

But today, as we entered the school door and read the class lists, visited the new classrooms and saw how much everyone had grown over the summer, I realized why summer breaks exist and why we all need them, even if we only get to experience them through our children.

Summer is a letting down of the taut schedule that takes over our lives: school, homework, PTO, activities, religious school, rehearsals, performances and all the rest that make up the craziness that is the school year. I don't remember it that way, but then again, I went to elementary school at a time when extra-curricular activities involved hanging out playing tetherball and then going home to watch The Three Stooges and Speed Racer with my brother on Channel 52. Homework was something you did in junior high.

The letting down happens along with the lengthening of the days. If we let it.

Relaxation. Warmth. Sunshine. Farmers' Market. Ice cream. Swimming. Going to bed late. Sleeping in. Reading whatever you want for however long you want. Watching baseball. Planting a garden and eating the first tomatoes and romaine lettuce.

But that can't last forever, can it? Boredom sets in. Restlessness of how we're wired for progress, learning, whatever drives us forward to not sit still.

And is it my imagination, or do kids just grow that much more during the summer? Maybe it's the very act of relaxing that allows for the sudden growth, as if their bodies are just following the season's lead. That once all the holding it together from the school year is let go of, their bodies just open up like sunflowers.

Last week I felt the sun receding. I woke up at my normal early bird time of 5:15am and the sun had not beat me to the punch. I made my coffee in the dim dark and started to cry. Because I

knew the letting down was coming to an end.

You see, even if I couldn't step away from my job during the summer, at least my kids could step away from theirs (which is often what school feels like, right?) and at least a third of the household could relax. And I soaked it up, from the time I walked in the door until they careened into bed at past 10pm.

Don't get me wrong. I know that the ending of the endless summer is a good thing. Some of it is practical, some of it physical. All the growing has to be put to some use and it might as well be to get smarter. We wouldn't relish the long, warm nights if they were here 365 days a year.

But what can I take from this summer? To turn off and turn away from my computer. To make sure that enough ice cream is consumed in a given day. To delight in day-cations 20 minutes from home. To devote time to doing nothing. And to enjoy how much fun it is to be around my

family.

Tonight, as I cuddled with my girls, I talked to each of them about their goals for the year. And I shared with them my wishes for their new school year. The wishes are deeply inspired by a prayer by Thich Naht Hahn, which my wise and loving mother-in-law, Lila Greene, shared with me:

Breathing in, I calm my body.

Breathing out, I smile.

Dwelling in the present moment,

I know it is a wonderful moment.

This prayer is how I can keep the summer inside me all year long. And how I can teach my girls to do the same. Here is to a peaceful school year, one with the shared blessings our teachers bestow on us, the ones we take in willingly and the ones the seep in despite our resistance.

Smile. Breathe. Learn.

How many first days of school do you remember?

Filling in the Gaps

My dad taught me a lot of things, but one of the most important things he taught me was that you are never too old to learn new things. And considering he lived to be just about 97 years old, I think he probably knew what he was talking about. Another important thing my dad taught me, more by example and the way he lived, was it felt good to be your own boss. From the mid-1930s until about 2002, my dad never worked for anyone but himself. He was co-owner of Tranks Furniture and Jewelry on Florence Avenue, in South Central Los Angeles, first with his older brother Irving, and then joined by his younger brother Uncle Sam after WWII and Uncle Zvi/Harry after the Seven Day War. The store was a testament to family and neighborhood. And to sticking with things no matter how difficult they got. When the store was burned down during the Watts Riots, my dad and his brothers were there, along with their employees and most of the neighborhood, to sweep away the broken glass and rebuild. On a Labor Day weekend in 1974, when a pair of robbers were done stealing TVs, radios and whatever else they could get their hands on through the hole they made in the roof, they decided to torch the store. By this point is was just my dad, his employees and the neighbors. Irving had died and Sam and Harry had gone into business for themselves. My dad never wanted to give up on Florence Avenue, through many changes and challenges. When the gangs arrived, he stopped them from putting graffiti on his walls by hiring them to paint a full size mural of the Virgin Mary. Not bad for a secular Jewish kid from Eastern Europe. But when crack arrived, we knew it was time for him to get out and then it was only after he ran after a robber, already in his 70s, and luckily for all of us the robber's gun turned out to be a toy. He sold the business and retired. For about two months.

After that, he returned to his original career roots as a watchmaker and opened up a little shop specializing in antique watch repair in the LA Fairfax area. He quickly became one of the most sought after in the city with a celebrity filled clientele. It tickled him, as he used to tell me, that he had been working on the same watches for 50, 60 years. And I knew, even though he never told me, that most of all, he liked working for himself.

I'm about to take a leap of faith and as I stand poised on the brink of fully stepping into my own business, my dad's presence is with me constantly. He's my chairman of the board. And as my chair, he's advising me to be patient, slow down and most of all, to learn what it takes to run a business. And in finally listening to him, I realize that while I'm outstanding at what I do, can spin a press release faster than you can say Britney Spears and Jessica Simpson in one breath, and can foster lasting relationships with key press folks, my how-to-run a business skills lag behind. Not an easy thing to admit, at least not for someone like me who thinks she has to know everything even when she's never been shown how to do it!

Happily, here in Colorado, options abound for those of us taking this leap of faith and I've found what looks to be a gold mine of a resource - the Colorado Small Business Development Centers, who run ongoing classes for people in all stages of their business development. So I've signed myself up (and my DH, as the low tuition covers two!) for "Jump Start Your Business," starting on August 6th at the Front Range Community College Westminster Campus.

Thanks, Dad, for being such an awesome example of humility, persistence and quiet fortitude. For teaching me that it is all right to not know everything and that life is about learning, always learning. And mostly, thanks for being my silent partner. I guess it's time to learn what I don't know. I came across a wonderful quote today that is good to keep in mind as I take this leap of faith:

"A man who carries a cat by the tail learns something he can learn in no other way" - Mark Twain

When Did I Forget to be Brave?

We had dinner last night with old friends, the kind of friends where the light lingers until it becomes night, when the wine bottles are emptied long before the conversations are done, when the talking continues past even after the mosquitoes have given up and gone to sleep. A perfect summer evening. So why did I end up crying as I said my good-byes? Was it just because I miss my friends and was sad to leave? Or was it because somewhere between the home grown tomatoes, mozzarella and basil and the seemingly endless bowl of cherries, I realized I was soaking up more than good food, drink and friends. What brought tears to my eyes, was this - I realized I had reconnected with the oldest friend I had. Someone I really enjoy and admire and who I used to look up to for her bravery. Who did I find? Myself.

As a mother of three young children, I've lost my artistic bravery. The process started slowly. People who I used to have passionate discussions about art stopped talking to me about anything other than being a mother. It was different for my husband, who continued to be seen and treated as a writer.

Over the last almost ten years, my artistic bravery has gotten misplaced between the unfolded laundry, the carpooling to music lessons and camp. It has fallen between the cracks of doing what I have to do to put food on the table and what really feeds my purpose. Some people look for their mojo when they hit my age. Me, I just want to learn what it is to be brave again. And to never trade in that bravery again.

What a luxury it was to sit on a flagstone patio surrounded by such warm, creative and generous people and understand that this is where I belong, this is where I left myself about 5 years ago. The kids were happily playing with one another, rediscovering each other. The conversation among the adults around the table swung from the personal - my father's death, my friend's nephew's illness, school choices and how big our children had grown - to the transcendence of art - Simone Forti, Allen Ginsberg, Merce Cunningham, Picasso's older works and so much more - people came and went, new people arrived and glasses were cleaned, plates filled and the talk of art continued.

We laughed about good-byes, about the difficulty in saying good-bye to family, to parties, to friends. We watched a video Allen Ginsberg made in the 1980's, titled "Household Affairs." The film was like a meditation to good-bye, the camera rarely moving, but allowing the visitors to enter into the space, the tender way Ginsberg preserved and archived the everyday movements of drinking coffee and cooking hamburgers, snow on Lower East Side fire escape landings and headlines from the New York Times.

I used to be brave. I used to take risks with my artistic self. I was an actress. I left the safety of my parents and moved first to Chicago and then to NYC. I switched to writing and to studying a remote body-awareness practice while my theater friends were all doing TV. I left NYC to pursue a graduate degree at Naropa University.

I kept up my writing for about three years into my early mothering, writing at night at my computer with first my oldest and then the twins nursing at my breasts. I co-wrote two screenplays and authored a collection of essays and produced quite a bit of work. But somewhere when the twins turned two, the balance between making a viable living and being an artist couldn't be sustained. My writing partner, also the mother of three children and including one the same age as my twins, had to go back to work full-time just when we had finished our second screenplay.

Don't get me wrong. I'm proud of the fact that I've been able to take my creative skills and translate them into a career, into working with good and creative people dedicated to impacting the world in a positive way. I want to teach my children that it is a good thing to know how to function in the world. I'm glad I've provided a strong example of woman firmly in the world. But in the slippery midsts of fulfilling family responsibilities, and promoting other people's dreams, I traded in my bravery for something else that leaves my mouth dry.

But last night, in that garden with dear, dear friends who first and only knew me as a writer, singer and performer, that old friend emerged with a surprising ease and I suppose I just didn't realize how much I missed those parts I had neatly categorized into my life before motherhood.

The only time I've felt brave in the past 5 years was when I went ziplining in Costa Rica this past December. Swooshing across the top of a rain forest, I discovered I love the feeling of standing on the brink. Today, I'm at a different kind of brink in my life where bravery seems to be the road best taken. And I wonder, as I stand on this brink, what bravery will look and feel like. What does it mean to be brave? I have no idea who I will be, but if I'm anything like the woman in the garden from last night, I think I will be very pleased.

Who are you when you are your most brave? To the brink and beyond!

Today, Grief is a very sore hip

Grief is not a one size fit all emotion. It is a sea shift, a personal tsunami. For my mother, grief is a recurring staph infection three surgeries and six months of antibiotics haven't been able to remove. For another, it is a constant restlessness, an inability to give permission to settle into life without that person. For me, grief is in my left hip. Two days after taking the last of my dad's belongings down to the garage in black plastic bags, my lower back started to talk to me. Scream at me, to be more exact. Sitting, standing, walking, breathing hurt. Only after sleep, a wonderfully caring massage and many tears did the pain subside, but a few days later grief emerged again. This time deep in my left hip. A dull ache. A throb. Any touch on its surface and I cried. Deeply.

The pain brought me back to loss. Feeling lost as my body struggles to find it's center, it's foundation. As I lay on my stomach for another massage, my tears fell through the face pillow and all I could think was - I'm lost, I'm lost.

I've had this kind of pain before - 15 years ago when I was training to be teacher in the Alexander Technique. Years of physical and emotional holding were coming undone and it hurt like hell. A simple walk down the street became an act of courage. It took about six months for the pain to resolve itself, which it did and I was a different person, inside and out, after it was done.

As I drove the other day, I was moved by Lloyd Schwartz's piece on "Rivals in Renaissance Venice," the new exhibition at Boston's Museum of Fine Arts. He spoke of Titian being the first to use canvass instead of wood and stone, of the sensuality canvas not previously allowed by flatter, more non-absorbing materials.

Mr. Schwartz's words about the weave of fabric, the small square pores serving as an appropriate surface to absorb paint as flesh, as form, brought me some comfort. I thought about my grief as a kind of paint brush, rough bristled and dry, taking many coats to cover the canvas.

If I were to paint my grief right now, it would be a Seurat - little dabs of color all joining into some form, which I have to stand far from to understand it's form. But I'm so busy painting that I can't stand back. Dab here, fill in the weave there. Red, black, brown, green. I look forward to when I can stand back a little and see what I've created. But for now I keep dabbing.

Pain is a mixed blessing, but it is a blessing. It reduces me to tears, breaks down my normal barriers of fortitude and pushing through. And because I trust that it is temporary, I can stand it, let it in, breathe through it.

Grief is another thing entirely. Because I see no end in sight, only some days where the ache is duller than on other days, I've worked really hard to keep it out. I've committed to the rigors of Bikram Yoga, built up my business, gone back into therapy, but I haven't let grief take hold. Until now. The thing about grief is that it finds its own way in. First in my sacrum and now in my left hip.

As I wait for my mother to come out of the fourth surgery to get the staph infection out of her body forever, the pain in my hip has subsided. It's almost becoming a memory as I sit here and wait.

But despite the discomfort, the pain, the tears, the immobility of the past two weeks, so much of me wants to hold on to it, having finally let it in. I already feel my dad slipping into the realm of memory, his clothes now gone from not only the closet, but from the house, except for the few pieces I captured and brought home.

I resist the memory of him, of my father receding into that slippery place. I want the shape of his life, of his life in my life. But for now, I'll take the pain in my left hip, or wherever grief travels next in my body.