There are about half a dozen things that MUST be done at the moment:  dishes that need washing up, my quarter two Human Biology assessment that I’ve got to complete in the next week before my dad arrives for his first visit ever to the UK, cleaning that should be done before said visit, laundry, and so on.  There are also a million and one things I WANT to do in my “me time” this evening: enjoying a glass of wine and finishing up A Brief History of Time, leveling my character in Star Wars: The Old Republic, or perhaps watching a movie I never seem to get around to.  But right now, I’m doing what I NEED to do: and that’s playing with Play-Doh.

Do kids play with Play-Doh because they are stress-free or are they stress-free because they play with Play-Doh?  It seems to be the latter.  I could feel the stress of the day melting away as I concerned myself with the shape of my sea turtle’s shell, thinking to myself how Moo was still too young for such hobbies (she lost interest when she realized it didn’t taste very good) but she totally wouldn’t mind if I played with her Christmas gift in the meantime.   Upon opening the first container I did what any adult with a childhood connection to Play-Doh does:  I brought it to my nose and inhaled deeply.  It instantly conjured up memories from long ago, sitting at the dining room table with my brothers, making a whole world out of our own imaginations and a little bit of colored dough.

I think a lot of the time we forget, as adults, how to properly relax.  Can one truly relax with any form of electronic stimuli? Are we, as adults, destined to shoulder a perpetual stress with no complete release?  It feels that way to me sometimes.   Yet tonight, for the first time in a very long time, all the niggling little “to do list” items went away, that clucking, disapproving internal voice was silenced, and in the void empty of all my adult concerns there was just me, my imagination, and a little bit of colored dough.

A few months ago I bought this box set of classic Sesame Street episodes for Moo, episodes which span the first ten years of the show (1969-1979).  She instantly fell in love as did I, watching some of the very clips that were still in circulation in the late 80s when I was introduced to the show.   However, there is a warning at the beginning which reads:

“These early Sesame Street episodes are intended for adults only, and may not suit the needs of today’s preschoolers.”

What?

It’s something I’ve contemplated over the last few months, watching and earnestly trying to find out why anyone would call these episodes of a children’s show unacceptable.   Was it the children riding their bikes without helmets?  Was it the slightly non-politically correct jive-talking muppets in the “Roosevelt Franklin Elementary School” sketches?  Was it the kids running through an unattended construction site with reckless abandon?  Perhaps.

I know it’s easy to say now without having reached this point in our parenting careers, but Mark and I are adamantly against censoring Maddie.   Years down the line, we would rather buy Moo video games about shooting zombies and have that conversation with her about gun safety and reality vs. imaginary than deny her only to have her play it over a friend’s house, without the opportunity to talk to her about it.   That being said, we’ve paid no heed to the warning on the DVDs.

But it’s a bit disconcerting that we live in an age where even certain children’s television programs are considered to be unsuitable, as if being a kid today means something different to growing up in the 80s, 70s, and 60s.   Roosevelt was taken off the show in the early 80s as his jive-talking nature was deemed to be “racist.”  And do they even do the Spanish segments on Sesame Street anymore or have even those been banned (after all, Americans hate pressing 1 for English)?

It feels like, in a lot of ways, Sesame Street has lost it’s original intention. I’ve not watched a great deal of today’s episodes, but you need only look at the set: they’ve turned Sesame Street into an upper middle class white neighborhood.  Does anyone remember Sesame Street in the 70s and 80s?  Graffiti, old posters, garbage bags and cans, and general scruffiness.  It was a show originally intended  to reach more underprivileged, inner city kids and that’s what Sesame Street reflected: despite being a wonderful kid’s show it was still a fictional street in the inner city of New York City.   Today it feels like we’re all worried our children might be subjected to a small dose of reality before they’re twenty, you know?  God forbid they see litter or graffiti or an African American muppet.

What are YOUR thoughts?  Do we over-censor our “overly sensitive” kids?

“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.” -Mark Twain.

The first time I read that quote I had just moved to the UK, a newly married American girl still in the foggy haze located somewhere between ecstasy and immense stress, and I remember being moved by those words.  If my life wasn’t the embodiment of those words, I don’t know what was.  Surely moving halfway around the world to a foreign land was sailing away from one’s safe harbor, right?

The summer before we became pregnant with Maddie I was distinctly aware I had reached another point in my life of comfortable equilibrium, a time filled with the routine of work and marriage, with a few hours of gaming in the in-between. We had discussed what it would be like to start a family, if we could handle the status quo and the addition of a baby. We toyed with the idea for months until finally coming to the conclusion that we should wait, conditions could be more optimal, and we had to do a few things to do first, like getting my degree and purchasing our first place. That was a cold October day two years ago and, unbeknownst to us at the time, we were already pregnant with Maddie.

Maddie brought us out of that safe harbor, she brought changes to the rut I had been in, she brought to us a reason to explore, dream, discover once again.  All those initial fears we had , the one that kept us from actively trying to start a family, the thought that having a baby meant not completing my degree, meant not traveling, meant not living… how incredibly wrong we were.  Having Maddie doesn’t stop me from earning my Biology degree, in fact she INSPIRES me to do it, to do it well, and to push myself in ways I had not thought possible.   I think of her oftentimes as my muse, the reason for getting my degree, the inspiration behind my photography, the push to become better for betterment’s sake.  She has taught me how to slow down, how to appreciate the quiet moments, how to capture (both in memory and in photography) the small details I used to completely overlook.  And I have done more living in the last year than in most of my life before her.  She taught me how to live, how to breathe, how to see, and how to dream, and became my reason for it all… all starting from the day she was born which, in many ways, was the day I was born as well.

This evening I sat at my desk and looked at Maddie’s keepsake box for several minutes, reflecting on the items therein.  I had already managed to fill most of the box with items I believed I could not part with: my favorite PJs of hers, her first shoes, her hospital tags, the banner of photos I made for her first birthday… all things I had saved as though I could hold onto these fleeting moments all the more for having had so many of these sacred talismans.

Maddie’s keepsake box conjures up strong memories of the numerous brown boxes lining the shelves of the closet when I was little: box after box of artwork and report cards, Popsicle stick houses and wonky clay bowls.  Looking back, my parents always treated everything we brought home as invaluable works of art, proudly displayed around the house and that’s something I want to always do for Moo as well.  Yet I know when the time comes and the artwork starts covering the fridge and piling up along the shelves we WILL have to part with some things that our daughter CREATED … and that’s hard.

Then  I had a thought: what if I could fit eighteen years of her life into this one box?  What if I worked within this 18 x 12 x 12in space to create a gift I can give to her when she’s older?   So I’m going to do just that.  For now it will be those special PJs and hospital tags, later it will be her first report card, and later still the ticket stub to her first concert.  And what I cannot save in bulk I’m going to digitally archive.  It occurred to me I could set aside a memory card, a name both literal and figurative, used only to photograph a painting or small wonky clay pot. It would be forever kept on this card so, when Maddie is older, she can walk through a digital art gallery displaying her life’s work if she so chooses. Just a small contribution in a small box where the richness and wonder of her life is seen, in some small part, in that tiny sock or those pink elephant pajamas that became my touchstones back to those early days.

And memory cards don’t take up much space at all.

Today was one of those days where, after Moo was in bed and all the toys picked up and cleared away, I gave myself a well deserved mental high-five and was able to say “today I did it, today I was a good mother and a good wife.”    Today I maintained the juggling act, today I managed to keep Moo happy and occupied whilst still getting bits of the housework done.  Today we went outside and enjoyed the sunshine.  Today I finished the whole 60 minute workout despite wanting to shut it off halfway through (and again at 40 minutes, 45, 50….).  Today I made good decisions regarding food.  Tonight I am cooking chicken parmesan for dinner, a favorite of my husband’s.  Tonight I relax knowing that my harshest critic, myself, had nothing to say about the course of the day.

I suppose, in a previous life, I never really pictured myself being a stay-at-home mother / housewife (at least, part time).  It never occurred to me that I’d be cut out for anything other than the academic lifestyle: classes, endless degrees, years of devout study, an eventual career.  Yet on a daily basis I am challenged to go to the very edges of my mental and physical endurance… it’s hard.  Very rewarding, but very hard indeed.  Today was one of those days where I managed to do it all. I overcame that nagging voice in my mind that tried to make excuses for why I shouldn’t do my workout today (and I pushed harder because of it). I kept Moo happy despite her overall crankiness due to a runny nose (and possible a cold).  My dishes are clean, my laundry finished, my house orderly.  Moo is bathed, in clean PJs and a clean sleep sack, tucked away in quiet slumber in the next room, and here I sit: laptop in lap on the couch by the window, reflecting on my day.  Next week my classes start at university, and today has left me with a “BRING IT!” attitude.

I’ve started “meditating,” a term I’d use loosely as I’ve not read on the hows, the whys, or the optimal conditions… I’ve merely started doing what feels right.  TurboFire’s stretch classes have left me with a new found love for stretching, so after Moo has gone to bed this past week I’ve made my way upstairs and, in the fading daylight, I stretch, breathe, and reflect.   I let go, in so many ways, and wind down from the hectic day.   Today I was surprised to find myself removed on Facebook by someone I consider a friend, but really… life’s too short to even devote time to the whys and the motivation behind it, which is not the attitude I would’ve had a year ago, or even six months ago.  What happens is not changed by our analysis, our self-destructive thoughts that pick at the ego, that nominate personal flaws for why someone would want to cut contact.  But what I can do, what is within my power to do, is to simply reflect that maybe it doesn’t matter, in the grand scheme of things, and that I am a pretty awesome person regardless.

Today was a good day.

This evening as Moo and I walked the short block and a half to the seafront I couldn’t help but notice how fall had somehow managed to creep in, catching us unawares.  Leaves crunched underfoot as a few trees had already begun to shed their foliage and settle in for the long winter ahead.  Leaves do not change to bright golds and fiery reds here the way they do back home in the US; no beautiful array of autumnal color, no final fanfare before winter… just green to brown to dead.  The smell was there, though: that crisp chilly air combined with smell of the fallen leaves, signalling summer is well and truly over.

Today was one of those days where I had a funny five minutes about leaving the house.  Throughout my PPD last year I became afraid of leaving the flat and, whilst I am much better now (better mentally and emotionally than ever before, really) I still have that odd, occasional day where it takes a really good internal pep talk with myself to make the move, get Moo and her diaper bag together, and head out.  Once I am out I find it hard to believe I was even debating it in the first place: the crisp air, the setting sun, the beautiful seafront (complete with a breeze and windsurfers out on the water), the healthy two mile walk and music on my iPhone made for the perfect recreation right before Moo’s bedtime.   Occasionally we’d pass people sitting in their cars, watching the sun set, and I’d wonder why they wouldn’t prefer sitting on the beach.  But perhaps they are having a funny five minutes too… we all have our own struggles.

Last night we turned our heat on for the first time this season and tucked Moo into one of her sleeping sacks (because even though she is 14 months old I am still scared to death she’d suffocate herself with a regular blanket).    Soon enough we will have a fire in the fireplace going, and soon after that another winter will begin, another holiday season, another year completed.  My mother always warned me these years of my life would fly by, but I had no real concept until I became a mother myself.  As I put Moo’s jacket on her today and zipped it up against the chilly wind I could distinctly remember where I was this same time last year:  just beginning to fight the PPD, just beginning to take my daughter out on walks, zipping up her little bear snow outfit to ensure her warmth and heading out.  And it seems like yesterday, not an entire year ago.   I had thoughts about Christmastime approaching, and then a small, reassuring voice in my mind stating it’s only August and I’ve got plenty of time.  But it’s not, I reminded myself, it’s September, and even September is almost gone.  My daughter is fourteen months old and growing, walking, developing… and all at once I felt overwhelmed.  How do we keep up?  How do we watch our minutes carefully to ensure they do not keep slipping by?   How can I ensure I don’t simply “wake up” one morning and realize I am in my 30s or 40s or 50s when just yesterday it seems like I was in my mid twenties, chasing after a toddler?   I suppose that’s the big question, isn’t it?  But I’m not sad, nor depressed… simply reflecting.

I’m ready for winter this year.

Do you remember the very first thing you wanted to be when you “grew up?”  What was it? Did you achieve it or was it some silly notion that seems to never come to fruition beyond adolescence?  Did you want to be an astronaut? A farmer?  President of the United States?   One of the very first things I can remember wanting to be was a paleontologist, or “dinosaur scientist” as we knew it as children, and it was a notion that stayed with me all the way up through high school.  It’s also one I’ve returned to now at 26 years old.

When I was little my parents subscribed me to these wonderful TimeLife  books that came in the mail once a month, each on a different subject within science:  space, insects, animals, Earth, etc.  Then came one on dinosaurs, and I was hooked.  I was convinced that, around the tender age of five or six, that this is what I wanted to do with my life.  I KNEW this is what I was going to do: I was going to visit dig sites and work in a museum and research prehistoric life.  Other ideas on what to do when I “grew up” came and went, among them odd and fleeting ideas such as FBI agent, but my interest in science, particularly Biology, never diminished.

In high school I took my first psychology course and, for the first time, found something that rivaled my interest in the harder sciences.  After the second psychology course, I decided to major in that instead.  So that’s what I did: I went to university (McNeese State in Lake Charles, LA. A far piece from my home in Cincinnati, Ohio) and started majoring in psychology with a sociology minor.  Yet university was also my first true “real life” experience, and it ultimately put me off of the subject.  I can distinctly remember the exact moment in time that it dawned on me I didn’t want to be a psychologist:  I was working in a grocery store at the time and, whilst stocking shelves, a customer came up to me and started flying off the handle because we had both long and short grain rice, but no medium grain rice.  As I stood there staring at him, watching his double and triple chins quiver in his rice-induced rage, it occurred to me that the types of people able to afford privatized therapy sessions are the types of people with “first world problems,” such as the grocery store running out of sodding medium grain rice, and I didn’t want to spend my professional career listening to that… or interacting with people at all really.  What to do?

Luckily for me I was given all the time in the world to decide, as Hurricane Katrina’s lesser known sister, Rita, slammed into the Texas / Louisiana boarder just a month after Katrina… causing the university to shut down for a semester and destroying the apartment I lived in with my ex at the time. Long story short, I moved home to Ohio and took an educational break in favor of some soul searching.

Last year I completed a full year course circuit of all the hard sciences: Biology, Chemistry, Physics, Geology, Astronomy, etc.  This past week I took the next step and registered for my next year at Uni:  Human Biology.  And I find myself excited for freshly sharpened pencils and crisp, clean notebooks all over again.  I have a renewed sense that this is what is right for me: the major, the path, the eventual end.  A bachelors in Biology could very well one day lead to a doctorate in Paleontology, and the more I think on it the more it seems my inner child was right all those years ago.

When was the last time you let YOUR inner child call the shots?

“Ugh,” she said breathlessly, flopping onto the couch, slouched and motionless, “finally a break.”  She hesitated a glance at the clock only to reveal it had just gone seven in the evening, late for dinner and early for bed.  The caffeine from the day’s three Redbulls had worn off, leaving only the inevitable crash that followed… and just as well she was done:  she had just spent several hours in the kitchen, first cooking nearly two weeks worth of baby food, and secondly cleaning up the mess such an endeavor left behind…

So here I am: up at 5am for work, back at 3pm, and several hours later I finally finished Moo’s food with a sigh of exhaustion and a mental note to never (NOT EVER) make “chicken balls” again for fear the monotony of rolling millions of small, breaded chicken spheres may kill me.  In another tab on my browser I am casually browsing university courses, researching the workloads and carefully planning my next excursion into academia.  Next to me sits my completed application for a learner’s permit (just need to get a money order) so that I may learn to drive here in the UK, and scattered about the desk are a myriad photography prints and a few bits and pieces I’ve ordered for Moo’s impending first birthday party.

Tired.  So tired.

Had someone approached me back when Moo was only a sparkle in my eye with a knowing smile and the question of “how would you do if you had everything you currently have on your plate and on top of it a baby came along?”  I’d have probably laughed and dismissed the question altogether. Work, school, adjusting to moving halfway around the world, visa applications and life in the UK tests, physics to chemistry, AND A BABY?  Surely you jest.  Yet it did happen and, in that grey spot halfway between nervous breakdown and superwoman strength, my life adjusted.

I adjusted.

Days like today where seven in the evening doesn’t look too bad for a bedtime and getting up to get a drink of water is a chore I wish I could somehow call that strength back at will.  Sometimes I look back to these moments and think to myself, wouldn’t it be great to bottle this motivation? This drive? This ambition? Keeping up a long distance relationship, getting married, applying for visas, working doubles at the restaurant to save to move halfway around the world, making it work, going back to school, moving house, having a baby and losing almost 40 lbs and all of these things seemed like insurmountable mountains on the impending horizon. As well, when far enough past they still looked big and scary and I silently wonder how I did it in the first place.  But at the time, in the very moment when it came down to conquer or run, I could move the mountain if I tried.   I wish I knew where that came from, and I wish I knew how to capture it, how to drink it in and savor it, use it to it’s full potential.   Yet I know when I take that next step, register for that next course, next step on the scale, begin the process for citizenship, what have you… it will start again, and the insurmountable mountain will become smaller.

Or perhaps it is I who becomes bigger.

(Rosey cheeks and bed head: just woken up from a nap)

Last week whilst sitting back on the couch, just home from my second day at work and covering Moo in kisses, I listened to Mark recount his first full on two days with Maddie.  I listened enjoyably as my husband told me tales of her going to breakfast with her great granddad, charming the pants off everyone in the grocery store, and walking along the seafront.  I listened as he told me about the ups and downs of the day, and one exciting new development: Moo crawling (Honestly, I’m with her every day of her entire life and she waits until I leave the house to pull this out of her bag of tricks).  And I listened as he said, “I got nothing else done, this little one” he gestures to Moo “is full time, every minute.”

“Yep.  And I do it every day.  I also get the dishes washed, the laundry done, the house cleaned, and dinner on the table.”  I mused, half serious, half rubbing it in.

“I know.  You’re amazing.”  And I knew he meant every word as I looked into his kind and serious face.  I could feel inside the weight of such sincerity, and I beamed.  It was one thing to be able to logically deduce the time and effort something requires and completely different to experience it.   I felt appreciated, in a way one can only feel when the acknowledging party knows exactly what it is they are appreciating.

Did you know Moo has the power to heal?  It’s true.  If ever I feel down and out, as I was quite inexplicably yesterday afternoon, all I need to do is scoop her up and hold her close and suddenly nothing else in the world matters.  Yesterday afternoon I picked her up off the quilt her grandmother made, where she was playing peacefully with her toys, and held her.  I placed her upon my hip, one of her tiny hands on my shoulder, the other in my palm, and we twirled in the living room to the setting sun and the sweet vocals of Billie Holiday, and everything else faded away. We twirled and twirled until we were both giggling, and my soul was restored.

I always find it weird when told “I read your blog,” as I’ve been recently told by several people upon my triumphant return to work.  I think it’s perhaps that I write, and I take photos, and I put it out there for the world to see and expect no one to take any particular interest in it, which is why I am always shocked to have more than two readers (Hi, Mom and Dad!).   But at the same time I am grateful that people do, and moreso than the anonymous readers but people that I KNOW, that I work with, that I am friends with.  And not only to read but to take the time to tell me how much they enjoy it or that they liked a particular photograph.  I am always unsure how to respond (again, I’m never expecting much of anyone to actually read it) but I find it amazing.

On the wardrobe door hang a pair of jeans, one size smaller than what I am currently in.  I can get them up, zipped, and buttoned, but will need to be smaller still to wear them in comfort.  But I know I will, and one day soon.  Just like the jeans I wore today, and just like the jeans one size bigger than the ones I wore today, and just like the pair even one size beyond that I will eventually get to wear them.  One day I will write you a story about my weight loss, long after I’ve hit my goals and longer still since having had to buy new clothes for my shrinking form; but for today there is only this pair of jeans, hanging on the wardrobe door, that I will wear soon.

Today smelled like summer.  There is a unique smell that I believe only European kitchens can muster:  last night’s cooking (but not in a stale, bad way) and fabric softener.  Often with flats in the UK the washer and dryer are located in the kitchen, leading to this very odd but pleasant combination.  I’m not sure why I find the smell appealing, but it strongly reminds me of summer and warmer days.

I’m not entirely sure how to end this, so “so long, and thanks for all the fish.”

Photography is my Zen, my meditative state, my peace and calm.  Busy stimulants, racing thoughts, persistent niggles  all fall silent in that moment when one stops failing to see the world through the haze of thought and desire, schedules and ever elusive time, and begins to truly see it with all it’s wonder.   Everything all at once collapses into singularity and you get that incredibly rare moment that seems to last forever.  Nothing else in the world matters but the content of your viewfinder, the image of your subject.  The world takes on a whole new clarity as you begin to see the tiniest detail and the sharpest contrast.  You see flaws that perhaps you wouldn’t have noticed otherwise, and you appreciate the subject matter that much more, not in spite of those flaws but because of them.

You breathe differently when your eye is at the viewfinder.  Breathing is to be timed with the shot, slow and even, lest one create the slightest shake in the lens at the point of capture.  Every movement, every inhale is slow and controlled, relaxing in it’s very practice.  Trigger finger poised, you seek out the shot.  Perhaps you saw the shot in your mind’s eye long before this moment, perhaps you merely feel it in the seconds before, but you chase the idea… catch it, run with it.  You immortalize it forever, a single second in the span of time, represented forever as art and memory.

This is where I find my center.

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