Amendment One - Work with me through this one.

I am an unapologetic social liberal BUT… I am doing my best temper that fact for the purposes of a hopefully diverse audience so that I might appeal to you all.  However, at the same time, I realize that this is not entirely realistic.  That said, let's see if we can marry our perspectives for a moment and see if we can find a common ground because this is important.  I believe in the rights of all men and all women of all races, all colors and all creeds to live their lives as they choose.  I believe in the rights of all people to be free to live and to love in the purest capacity they they possibly can.  I believe that this freedom to pursue a truth of spirit and of soul… that this is the ultimate goal for all of humanity - to be true to our most honest selves.  Many people believe in a more rigid, prescribed code that interprets this ethos differently.  It would be hypocritical for me to condemn those whose beliefs and moral codes are in opposition to mine or to try to force my world view upon them given my previous statement.  While I don't personally subscribe to an interpretation of ethics that can be boiled down to a simple right and wrong or sin and righteousness, I acknowledge that that perspective exists and I know that this chasm is great and my words are more than likely not powerful enough to bridge such a vast divide.

So this is who I am.  These are my values.  They are set in stone for me and I can not imagine a scenario in this life that could possibly change them.  There is little chance, no matter who you are or how long I've known you or what life experiences we have shared that they are exactly the same as yours.  Here's the thing;  THAT'S OKAY.  I have this belief structure and it is so important to me that I feel a soul-wrenching obligation to live a life and to raise a child who, God willing, will share and reflect these things that I hold sacred.  I fully expect and respect your right and responsibility to do the same.  Perhaps, with patience and open hearts and love  we will fortify intelligent discussion and rational arguments that will allow us to grow together to be an increasingly self-realized people.  So this is our mantle and we wear it every single day of our lives.  We do this because it is important, it is critical and it is who we are.  I acknowledge all of this.  What I don't acknowledge and what I hope will give you pause, is a need for political legislation to affirm my belief structure.

This afternoon, I spoke to a dear friend whom I love deeply.  This friend is about as conservative as conservative gets.  I typically dance on pin heads to avoid political discourse with this friend because we are so very diametrically opposed.  Going out on a limb, I said, "I hope you will vote against Amendment One" (for those of you reading not in NC, this is  a very high profile amendment that will eliminate rights of same-sex partners and all civil unions).  I braced myself.  This friend responded with something to the effect of the following "You know, this country was founded by the most brilliant minds that have ever existed and the constitution that they created, founded on Christian values of course, is the most amazing document every created.  It is perfection.   I embrace the Founding Father's ideals and I believe that they were Christian men founding a nation on Christian values and they did a damn good job of it.  I am sick to death of politicians trying to corrupt something that is so inherently pure."  

Politically, this friend and I could not have less in common and that's okay.  We agree to disagree, we have lively debate and we respect each other as intellectuals and human beings.  He lives up to his responsibility to live his life according to his beliefs and I try to do the same.  He will likely be voting against Amendment One. 

Here's my point:  I believe in the rights of human beings to love and to live in the best way they they can and advocate for those rights given any opportunity.  From my perspective, God knows this world needs all of the love it can stand, so I will do everything in my power to raise my daughter, who will grow up in an essentially theocratic state which is as conservative as it gets, to respect and hopefully share those same values; That's really all can do but I don't need legislation to tell me that's right for me; I know it in my heart and in my soul.  I don't need legislation to make me feel more secure about my beliefs and I can honestly tell you, no legislation is going to make me feel less secure or doubt what my heart tells me to be true. 

If you are opposed to same-sex couples sharing the rights of couples who have a traditional marriage, that's obviously where your world view has taken you and its unlikely that any statistic or scenario that I could throw at you is going to change that.  Its also your personal belief and not mine.  Obviously that's fine and its your responsibility to live accordingly, to raise your children accordingly, and to make sure that your actions and your contributions to our society reflect that belief structure.  I champion your right to do so.  It is your God given right to exercise your freedoms in this way.  Utilizing this freedom to further restrict the freedoms of others, however is incredibly counter-intuitive.   Trying legislate morality and legislate belief structures is a basic cry of insecurity and frankly, hysteria.  We have so many crosses to bear as human beings.  There are so many people who suffer from hate and abuse and neglect - lets focus on building each other up instead of wasting our time with personal insecurities to break each other down.  

All I ask is that you think about your own responsibility to be accountable for your own morality before you cop-out in an attempt to legislate it for those who dissent.  Minds and hearts will not change.  People will continue to live their lives as they see fit and when its all said and done all that will have been accomplished is an excess of unnecessary red tape, state legal fees, and an era of divisiveness with less and less hope of resolution and reconciliation.  Less love.  More hate.  Please think before you vote for Amendment One.  As a parting note - if you can't get over the gay marriage things, here are a few other points to ponder:   

Turns out my latte is not pregnant. Whew!

So, I'm back on the road and true to form adventure and hilarity are keeping me company on what would otherwise be a very lonely trek across the United States.  I'm used to the security circus.  Enough loops through the hoops and you get the hang of the monkey dance.  Belt off, liquids appropriately sized, shoes off, hole in sock... cold, dirty floor, don't think about it... just keep moving.   I have even procured the mother of all carry-ons.  This thing is a BEAST.  Its a roller bag that converts into a back pack.  It fits under the seat, in the overhead and down the aisle and I'm pretty sure I can get at least 3 days of travel out of it...maybe more.  It has pockets for kindle, ipod, cell phone, passport, chap stick. It even has a detachable clear bag for the infamous 3oz liquids.  To describe my relationship with this bag as a love affair is an understatement.  To seal the deal... FLIGHT ATTENDANTS drool over this bag.  I. Love. This.  Bag.  So, yes, I have no qualms about zipping up to the "professional traveler" line and yes, I'm that jerk who looks at you with total disdain if you forget to take your change out of your pocket.  I am that person. All that said, I experienced a whole new level of violation and intrusion from the FAA today.

My typical routine leaves me 30 minutes for security, 10 minutes for starbucks, 5 minutes for bathroom, 5 minutes to make absolutely sure I'm in the right place and 10 minutes to breathe before getting on the plane.  This morning, my routine was perfectly executed.  I had just wrapped up my 10 minutes of breathing time and was beginning the boarding process when I was stopped by an absolutely ridiculous FAA agent wearing goggles and what looked like a chemistry set strapped to her back.  Let me tell you something.... An FAA agent who looks like she's moonlighting with the CDC is NOT something you want to see ambling toward you as you're about to board an aircraft.  This rogue lab tech approached me, pulled me out of line, and proceeded to- brace yourself- proceeded to give my triple skinny latte a pregnancy test.  Not kidding.  She whipped a little test strip out of her science kit, hovered it over my coffee, "tested the vapors" and then we waited for the results.  Fortunately, for all of us, my coffee was not pregnant.

Really, FAA?  You didn't violate me enough when I came in?  You have to continue to harass me after I have run your gambit and jumped through all of your ridiculous hoops with flawless execution?  Its bad enough that every time I go to the airport I have to leave a half of a pot of coffee on the counter and wait the dark and dreaded 30 minutes before I can throw myself at the mercy of the corporate machine and wait for them to feed my addiction; now I have to worry about not only the proverbial levels of toxicity in my cup-a-corporate but the literal levels of toxicity as well?  Can't you just hang out behind the line and test the vapors as they come out of the drip?  Lord knows, they could use an extra body back there.  

Once we determined that my latte was only harming my soul (and wallet) and was not an agent of death and destruction.  I was allowed to board the plane and am now in lovely Minneapolis.  What a great and underrated city!  Thanks to a shout out on facebook, I was directed to a truly phenomenal local brew pub and enjoyed some exceptional craft brew as well as a moderately life changing almond butternut squash bisque and the best sweet potato fries I have ever had.  I'm staying in the heart of Minneapolis right next to a tiny little coffee shop called Dunn Brother's coffee located in the basement of a stone building built in 1887.  Granted, I walked 4 blocks out of the way in the absolutely FREEZING Minnesota night air to procure this lovely Americano but in the end, I realized that the theme of today penance.  Penance for subsisting on soulless caffeine.

The good news is, I'm pretty sure I'm square with the house.  Cheers to you!

An Appeal to the Angels of our Better Nature - A blog on the Defense of Marriage Act

The planets have officially aligned.  Its Friday afternoon, work was light, Emerson requested a late afternoon nap, and we are having a very rare Salt Lake rain shower that is seriously whetting our whistle for the impending Autumn here in the Wasatch front.  What a truly magnificent start to the weekend... and I'm about to launch into something very ... uncomfortable.

This week, in particular, I've been thinking a lot about people.  And culture.  I've been extremely disturbed by recent political developments in my home state of North Carolina this week.  NC passed legislation that brings the state that much closer to passing the Defense of Marriage Act, which, as I'm sure you know, specifically defines marriage as an institution between exclusively one man and one woman.  As I'm sure you also know, this legislation aims to bar many of our neighbors, friends and loved ones from legally entering into the one of the most basic and true expressions of human love and partnership: Marriage - which  is ideally a loving partnership of two consenting adults who want to spend their lives together loving and growing in unity (and all of the institutional benefits (and drawbacks as the case may be)) that go along with it.  

While, I fear that my feelings on this issue are so impassioned that I will not be able to adequately articulate them on the page, I need to throw this out. I've struggled with whether or not this blog is a waste of time and breath but someone was kind enough to point out to me yesterday that even if it falls on deaf ears, we have a responsibility to check in and be present when we feel things are going off course.  So I write this if for no other reason then, I feel I have a responsibility as a mother, an advocate, and a member of the human race to do so.

The way I see this, the issue breaks down into three pieces - legality, religiosity, morality.  Let's ease into this:

Legality

In its most basic essence, a marriage certificate issued by the State, is binding legal contract between two individuals.  The contract is not signed or sanctioned by the church any more any other legal document -  a birth certificate, death certificate, or for that matter, a state tax return.  I find it interesting that the symbol of our justice system is a blind fold.  When it comes to basic contractual law, on which I am admittedly no expert, morality, religious doctrine, sex, or social status, play no roll.  I'd love to expound on this point but the truth is, from a purely technical perspective, its pretty simplistic.   Questions of personal religion and personal ethics have no place in a legal contract issued by a non-theocratic state and to introduce them corrupts the very necessary black and white (gasp!) protection and responsibility that a contract is designed to provide.

Now the hard stuff:
Religiosity
As much as we'd like to say the bible is clear on homosexuality, the truth is - its really not.  As I am so passionate about this issue, I've spent a lot of time researching this.  Yes, there are two Old Testament passages about homosexuality being unclean: one in Corinthians I 6: 9-10 and one in Leviticus.  The Corinthians passage simultaneously calls out idolaters, adulterers, male prostitutes, drunkards, slanderers, and swindlers in addition to homosexuals.  Last time I checked idolaters, adulterers, male prostitutes, drunkards, slanderers and swindlers can all still get married, bless their poor spouses... I'll be honest while I haven't encountered any male prostitutes, I can name pretty much someone in every other category that is legally married in the eyes of the state.  The Leviticus passage (20: 13) simply calls for a man who lies with a man to be put to death.  I ask with a mild attempt at hyperbole, "while we're at, it where do you draw the line at your literal interpretation of the scripture?" 

In the new testament, Paul also mentions the sin of homosexuality in his letter to the Romans.  I could go into the context of Paul's letter to the Romans and explain my understanding of how the politics, audience and circumstance of the time in which he was writing shaped his message, but that's another blog.  The real point is, Jesus Christ, in whom most of the people driving this legislation profess their faith, never mentions the issue of homosexuality in his teachings.  Ever.  Not one time.  He does, however, have quite a bit to say about loving one another, and about treating each other with fairness, and kindness, and humility.  In fact, he built his ministry on these teachings.  He talks about all of  humanity being equal in the eyes of God from the lowliest among us to the most fortunate - the lowliest, in fact, being more favorable in the eyes of God. He talks about forgiveness and not casting stones.  He gives us one of the most simple and one of the most challenging directives ever issued to human kind- Love thy neighbor.   

I understand that faith and religion are very personal things and there are probably no two people on the planet who have the exact same interpretation of their faith.  I understand that people believe what they believe and I respect that very much.  What I don't respect is when others try to force their personal interpretation of what is holy and what is not upon the general population.  What I view as an abomination is people who use faith and religion as a weapon to create hate, to create an "other", and to punish their fellow man. 

Morality:  
There's a fine line between religiosity and morality.  When I say morality I am specifically referring to the argument that homosexuality is a "choice" or that it can be "cured" like a disease.  To be honest, I don't really understand how this argument is the slightest bit relevant.  I quite frankly view it as a cop-out and a distraction that people hide behind so that they don't have to address more difficult questions.  I disagree with these perceptions of homosexuality (as does science) but I also always come back to the question of "does it matter?"  In a free society, whether an individual chooses to share their life and love with someone of the same sex or of a different sex should not make them more or less entitled to the same rights as every other citizen in the United States.

So there's my 2 cents, my soap box if you want to call it that.  I know that it might not line up with the ideals of 100% of my readership, but I hope you will respect my need to speak out on an issue that is incredibly important to me and I hope that you will take the time to consider a different perspective on this divisive issue that, in one way or another, effects our human conscience.  Whenever I think about this issue, I always hear the below quotation from one of history's most admirable leaders spoken in another time but a time also wrought with difficult questions of unity and freedom and equality:

"I am loth to close. We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stre[t]ching from every battle-field, and patriot grave, to every living heart and hearthstone, all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature." 

~Abraham Lincoln

We've done it before and I hope as a nation we can again find the strength and courage to appeal to the better angels of our nature.

Beannacht

I was fortunate enough to encounter this blessing/poem last night which, as I understand it, is an old Celtic blessing that has been revised by John O'Donohue (whom I had not heard of until this poem).  Regardless, I found it to be incredibly beautiful and was moved by its simple rhythm, emphasis on natural strength and beauty and the sense of stillness and peace that it seems to communicate.  I hope you enjoy!

Beannacht

("Blessing")

 

On the day when
the weight deadens
on your shoulders
and you stumble,
may the clay dance
to balance you.

 

And when your eyes
freeze behind
the grey window
and the ghost of loss
gets in to you,
may a flock of colours,
indigo, red, green,
and azure blue
come to awaken in you
a meadow of delight.

 

When the canvas frays
in the currach of thought
and a stain of ocean
blackens beneath you,
may there come across the waters
a path of yellow moonlight
to bring you safely home.

 

May the nourishment of the earth be yours,
may the clarity of light be yours,
may the fluency of the ocean be yours,
may the protection of the ancestors be yours.
And so may a slow
wind work these words
of love around you,
an invisible cloak
to mind your life.

 

~ John O'Donohue ~

 

(Echoes of Memory)

This life... so far... THE ESSENTAILS

So, I seriously wrote the best blog the other day.  It was my "come back blog" if you will.  It was an ode to Emerson's 15 month birthday (so it was several weeks ago), but it wasn't really about Emerson, it was a list of things I've learned about myself over the past 15 months.  I wrote it on a flight to somewhere.  I'm sure it was to the East Coast, as that's where I've spent most of my summer and it was a rather lengthy and well thought out blog, which requires several hours of uninterrupted focus which, lets face it, is only available when I'm encapsulated in a vessel with no child, vacuum (yeah I don't really spend that much time with the vacuum), or Internet connection (read: work email).  So I wrote it and then I wanted to spend some time editing it and then my hard drive crashed in an epic sort of way… and now its gone.  Frankly, I hadn't planned to recreate it but… look what I did:

1.  You are the sum of the parts that are formed when you're not paying attention
This parenting thing, man - seriously, its no joke.  I find myself saying, sometimes apologetically, the following words "I'm doing the best I can, there's really no instruction manual for this".  What I'm finding though, is that the most important aspect of parenting is not so much your cumulative approach to discipline, or what you allow your child to watch on TV, or whether you breastfeed for x number of month/years or whether or not you let your child "cry it out" or "co-sleep".  Its what you do on a lazy Saturday morning.  Its how you shape your family dinners.  Its bed time stories, lullabies and goodnight kisses. Its going for a walk around the block when you don't have the energy for the orchestrated play date (I'm so bad at play dates) .  Where am I going with this?  I have come to realize I can analyze and second guess those big picture parenting decisions and read all of the books that I want to, but where I am really driving home my hopes and expectations for my daughter and for my family is during the times when I'm not necessarily thinking about it.  It really is the little things, not the big things, that set the tone of this life - that define our value structure.  I'm not saying I have figured this out or that I have answers, in fact, I'm saying that I haven't and that I don't - BUT…. what I do know for a fact is that a 9 a.m. pajama dance party to the Allman Brothers and Van Morrison laced with maple syrup, black coffee, and bare feet is as important, if not more so than how we approach any of these other big picture parenting decisions.  Granted, it can't be all fun all the time - obviously.  Sometimes the little things are the things that you let go, its an argument with your partner or spouse that you pass on because in the scheme of life, it really doesn't matter.  Its making the decision to pass on that extra hour of work even though you really need to put it in.  Sometimes, its the decision to put in for the extra hour for the sake of sanity.  Its declaring, "today is going to be a movie day because I just don't have it in me for anything else".  It's dragging yourself out of bed to volunteer when you all you want to do is stay in pajamas and have breakfast.  The point is, for what its worth, there's truly not much in the life that can't be fixed by banana pancakes, good music, and fresh air.  The point is, this world can be overwhelming and can absolutely bleed you dry and if I can raise a loving human being who is grounded enough to value the simplicity of a Saturday morning, well then… its a small thing, but I'll count it as a win.

2.  Plugging In.
I mentioned volunteering.  Obviously, the week of Emerson's birth is burned into my brain.  One of the things that happened that week was the gulf oil spill and several coincidental subsequent local oil spills in local parks and wild life refuges.  It was a very emotional time for me as you might imagine, and bringing a new human into this world that seemed to be drowning in the residue of assault left me feeling this massive sense of responsibility.  Here I was, in my rocking chair, shielded by lullabies, warm and comfortable with more food and clothing for my healthy child than I knew what to do with.  For the first time in my life I felt the true meaning and frankly the true weight of being "blessed".  That feeling was heavy because it came with the weight of fortune in the face of the people around me who were hungry, cold, sick, suffering.  I felt a sense of obligation that I have never before felt in my life.  It was so overwhelming it was almost paralyzing.  Since then, I have become a regular volunteer at a local food pantry.  Its a very small thing (on my behalf - the pantry itself is a PHENOMENAL resource).  I try to volunteer every other Saturday morning for a few hours.  To be frank, I started volunteering here as a response to this new found sense of obligation.  Since then, the pantry has become a service to me.  The Saturday mornings that I drag myself out of bed and into the shower instead of lazing around and having breakfast with my family are painful… until I get there.  What I have found is that I get as much out of those Saturday mornings behind the line of the pantry as anyone on the other side of the counter.  I am a part of my community.  I am a part of this world.  I am better for it, my perspective changes, my world view is altered, I am grounded.  I am a better person and a better mother when I plug in to my community.  What's crazy is, it has very little to do with having or not having or volunteering and charity - its all about plugging in and experiencing the world around you in the best way that you can.  


3.  Be true to who you are, not who you think you should be
This is probably the most difficult.  It seems like the moment you announce that you are pregnant you become public property.  Suddenly strangers on the street feel perfectly justified in telling you what you should and should not do for the health of yourself and the health of your baby.  There is a never ending stream of spoken and unspoken judgement that doesn't appear to end once the child is born.  Example:  How much weight you gain, whether or not you advocate natural child birth, breast feeding, length of maternity leave, decisions about child care, baby food, discipline, potty training… it. is. un. believable.  I have decided the following: Almost every mother you will ever encounter is doing the absolute best that she can.  Support her.  I made the decisions that I felt were the best for me, my family, and my baby and I feel good about them.  I have to remind myself of that somewhat regularly though, not just for peace of mind, but to keep myself from slipping down the proverbial rabbit hole as it were.  For example, I chose to maintain a job that has me traveling away from home about 50% of the time.  This is can be incredibly difficult for me and for my family BUT - this job also allows me to work from home and keep a flexible schedule.  I also (yeah, I'm going to say it) enjoy travel.  That does not make me a bad mother (I say that more for me than for you).  The truth is, I need a change of scenery sometimes.  I need 4 hours on an airplane to read a book or write.  I need 3 hours in a car to listen to guilty pleasure music, get lost, and take pictures of fields of wild flowers or pretty barns… because this is who I am.  Its tough, because who I am doesn't always jive with what is ideal for my family but I feel like if I chip away at these things, I'm not jiving with my family anyway.  These things are difficult to balance and I'm still figuring it out myself but one thing I do know is that I'm a better mother, wife, and person when I'm being honest with myself… and that's the best I can do.

4.  Love Yourself -
 Sense a little conflict in #3?  Yeah, balance isn't easy or intuitive.  I'm a work in progress and I'm more ok with that now that I ever have been.  There are so many things I wish I was better about - I wish I did more exciting things with Emerson, I feel like we should spend more time going to parks and the pool and the zoo.  I wish I made more time for exercise.  I wish I had more self discipline.  I wish I could stay up later.  I wish I could for once in my freaking life beat Hunter and scrabble… The list… is… long…  The truth is, Emerson and I have fun dancing and walking around the block.  I'm exercising more now than I ever have in my life.  I've made a lot of progress with the self discipline thing and you know what, indulgence is a part of life.  I get up a 5 a.m. so that's something and, well, Hunter has it coming.  Its like the little voice in my head that is always nagging me has been given a megaphone.  I read this great book though called "My Stroke of Insight" which explains that voice in a very physiological way.  It also explains how that voice is controllable and that its presence is component of the left hemisphere of our brains and that we voluntarily let it into our thoughts or make the choice to quiet it.  Since reading this book, I've gotten much better and telling that little voice to stuff it and choosing to focus more on my progress and achievements instead.  Its a daily battle, but its at least its an active battle and not a passive assault.

5.  Frustration -
My hesitation in publishing this the first time was, I don't want to this to read "preachy".  Like I've got it all figured out.  I wish I could communicate how far from the truth that is.  I see, in an abstract way what seems to be workable for my family and what doesn't but implementing it and remembering it every day is another matter entirely.  I find myself more and more frustrated as this journey continues and I'm trying to figure out why.  Is it just because I'm tired?  Is it because its impossible to be all things to all people all the time?  Is it because I don't make enough time for myself?  Is it because I don't make enough time for my family?  Is it because I sleep too much?  Don't eat well enough?  Do we have too many pets (trust me, with 2 dogs and a cat, you think these things!).  Another dynamic is that I spend A LOT of time in my head, working from home tends to make you excessively introspective.  I was bouncing this off of an incredible friend who knows me inside and out earlier tonight and his response was simple.  "Write".  Duh.  This has always been my outlet, my forum, and my connection and without it… well… that's a big void.  So here I am.  I've recycled the lost blog as true to form as I can get it.  A "state of things" if you will.  So I hope this will be a jumping off point.  Winter is just around the corner here in Salt Lake City and a beach combing southerner trying to navigate 3 feet of snow is always good fodder if nothing else.   Thanks for your ear, for your time, and for your support.  That said…

6.  You -
if you're reading this, any sanity that I've found in the past 17 months is attributed in no small part to you… my friends, my family, and even my network of people who I haven't seen in years but have shared kindness, experience, and encouragement.  Its true, it takes a village and in this day in age, its a big, scattered, hodgepodge village, but a village all the same.  Thank you.

Mother Daughter Bonding Time - (or "Oh lord, help me... when does your father get back!?!?!?")

I know I have so neglected Shades lately.  My goal was to keep this from morphing into a mommy blog by creating a separate blog for our daughter, Emerson, elsewhere. However,  I have discovered, for the first time in my life, compartmentalizing is no longer an option.  I'm not saying every post will be adventures in motherhood - but its without a doubt the most all encompassing role I have ever held so you're just going to have to grip the handlebars and work with me on this completely insane course onto which my life has veered.

Hunter and I have spent the past four months positively desperate to get Em into a routine and now that we're there, we both looked at each other last night, exasperated and agreed that having every single moment of your day budgeted just completely sucks.  Now, I will admit we do have about 4 or 6 moments that are not scheduled or consumed.  We use these moments to close our eyes and catch our breath or lean up against a wall and take a 30 second nap.  We occasionally splurge and try to get through 15 minutes of The History Channel's Pawn Stars (the only TV show we have the mental capacity for these days) and I do try to get in a few pages of reading before losing consciousness at the end of the day.  Just in case you're wondering - I'm re-reading the Harry Potter series.  Yep, that's right.  I'm pretty sure this is the 4th  time I will be reading the entire series.  Harry Potter is comfort food in the Best household.  Pure-T Comfort Food  (Though I will say, Ghost Written by David Mitchell may have to intercede between The Prisoner of Azkaban and The Goblet of Fire).

Don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining.  This has been the most amazing and magical four months of my life.  Every single day this beautiful little girl does something new that just takes my breath away.  She makes a new connection, she gets her hand eye coordination controlled enough to reach out and pet Bodhi, her giggle gets a little more defined, she wraps her little arms around my neck and squeezes with a soft little 'coo' in my ear.... and I will tell you, each of these tiny little milestones leaves me just completely breathless and fighting the urge to go out and buy a celebratory red velvet cake (we celebrate with red velvet in this house - we cope with chocolate in any form).

Last week, Hunter took a much deserved mini-vacation; (Don't worry - my turn is coming... oh yes... one day) a road trip with his friend Jon with the ultimate destination of Telluride, CO for a two day Phish concert.  I was kind of excited about kicking back and just relaxing with Emerson.  I scoped out all of the parks I wanted to visit, I got a good bottle of wine before he left, I went to the grocery store to pick up the ingredients for a few recipes that I've been wanting to try.  I figured I could knock the recipes out during her 3:00 nap, take a stroll to the park before bed time and then spend my evenings after putting her down kicking back on the patio with a glass of wine, catching up on long over due phone calls.  It'll be fun!

(Every time that overly enthusiastic, excessively perky voice in my head exclaims "It'll be fun!" I really should just go get in bed and hide under the covers.  Why haven't I learned this?  It's my inner voice for crying out loud?!?!)

Let me just break it down for you like this.  The minute Hunter walked out the door - the child started teething.  At least I think she's teething?  She's producing about 2.5 gallons of drool a day and gnawing on her fist like a fried drumstick from Mama Dip's Country Restaurant.  (Has anyone else noticed how food oriented this blog is?)  Maybe its not teething and is some sort of new personality quirk.  If so... we'll love her anyway.  So as soon as Hunt walks out the door Em begins to teethe which made her usually sunny disposition a little ... shall we say... cloudy?  Stormy? Torrential? Gale Force? Category Five-God Save us All-Hurricane?  Okay, she wasn't THAT bad but she was less than beaming.  She also decided that she was completely done with the 3:00 nap that she has taken every single day of her life.  (That blessed nap that allows me 45 minutes to transition from work to mama with just enough grace to pass muster.  Good bye grace!  There goes those recipes I wanted to try.... fortunately I had enough bread to get me through these tenuous four days with sandwiches.  *Glances sideways at spoiling tomatoes*)

Around this time, the dishwasher also quit.  Well, it didn't so much quit as it flooded the kitchen.  At first I thought it might have just been Emerson's drool, but after further inspection, it was definitely coming from the dishwasher.  I know this because you can turn the dishwasher off and the encroaching river of water would stop.  You can't, however, turn Emerson off and make her encroaching river of drool stop.  We would later find that we somehow burned a hole completely through the base of the dishwasher's tub.  How did that happen?  You've got me.... I'm mystified.  (By the way there goes my evenings with a glass of wine and a phone call - its hard to talk on the phone and wash dishes at the same time and that's about all I had the energy for at this point.)

So - screaming, teething, sleepless child... CHECK!  General need for a snorkel... CHECK!! Broken coffee maker... CHECK!!!

"WAIT!?!?  WHAT'S THIS??? BROKEN COFFEE MAKER!??!?! NO!," you exclaim.  "Surely you jest!," you cry out.  "Not the coffee maker!!!!!!!  Anything but the coffee maker!!!!," you wail. (You don't mind if I dictate your end of this conversation do you?)

Yes, the coffee maker just added insult to injury.  It didn't just break, it would take two agonizing hours to brew 4 of the 12 cups of water I put in the hopper.  Like a slow, cruel, torturous taunt of coffee that came out the consistency of what I can only imagine would be equivalent to these tar balls we hear so much about.

Woe. Is. Me.

PS:  As a post script, I should let you know... I survived and Emerson won't remember it.  Hunter returned home to an exhausted but functional family, a new dishwasher should be installed by the end of this week (meanwhile we've switched to disposable EVERYTHING because WE'RE THAT LAZY) and my savior of all things caffeinated walked me through a do-it-yourself emergency maintenance on the coffee maker that, all told, was truly the crux of my survival...  live to fight another day my friends!

Awakening

Hey there!  First of all, welcome to any new readers who stumbled up on Shades of Gray via Casual  Kitchen and Cheap Healthy Good.  My blog on breaking the cycle and raising a daughter with a healthy body image is definitely one of the most intimate and poignant pieces I have written in a long time and it moves me deeply to see that it resonates with so many others.  It sounds like more and more people are working diligently towards adjusting their mentality on this issue.  My hope is that if we stay committed, we can be a generation of healthy women raising a generation of healthy daughters, emotionally and physically.  Thank you for sharing your stories and struggles with me, you are beautiful and thank you for stopping by.

There has been so much on my mind these past few weeks since Emerson was born that I need a few days alone with a coffee pot and a keyboard to make sense out of it all.  Unfortunately, those days are a little more difficult to come by lately.  Most days, by 3:00 p.m. Em and I have both grown a little weary of the rattles and bells so we load up in the car and take off for a driving exploration of Salt Lake City.  We put on some Iron and Wine, Em finally succumbs to a nap that has been waiting in the wings for hours and I drive aimlessly, acquainting myself with the hills of Deseret and writing blogs in my head.

I have found since having Emerson that my tolerance for Cable News has gone from minuscule to non-existent and yet I spend hours, upon hours picking and choosing my way through the New York Times on my blackberry in the dark of night and wee hours of the morning... kind of the equivalent of poking one toe at a time into the water until you think you can handle the temperature.  Its been a completely new experience to have the combination of immobility (while nursing Em) and seemingly endless amounts of time, darkness and silence with which to digest this world in which I have actively chosen to raise a daughter.  However, at the same time, cradled in the safety of our rocking chair, shielded by our lullabies, the madness of this very same, often broken world seems so very removed and far away.

It started with the oil spill.  I believe Emerson was born on day 5 of the spill.  I'll be honest, we had other things on our mind and had no concept of the magnitude.  Who did?  When we came home, while we fiercely cradled our own little tiny, fragile miracle in our arms, the news in Salt Lake was consumed locally by the tragic and brutal death of a 4 year old little boy.  I couldn't handle it.  I was forcibly banned from all news outlets for several days. Then, the oil wasn't going away and the Dow dropped below 10,000 for the first time since February.  Then the oil was getting worse.  Then.... facebook changed its privacy settings.  Facebook changed its privacy settings and the world stopped and wrote about it.  This was when I started to tune back in.  My "blog in my head", as I was tooling around the grocery store to kill time with a sleeping baby, consisted of:

 (abridged), "Hey!  DISCRETION!!!!!!!!  If you're not comfortable with your parents, grandparents, teachers, or bosses reading it, don't send it out into the ether.  Put some clothes on, expand your vocabulary, and if you must talk about last Saturday's debauchery, either pick up the phone or, if that's too much human contact for you, send an email to your 20 closest friends."  I was irritated and I don't think it was hormones.

So, my frustration with facebook's privacy policy dominating the news cycle during a period that seems to be of "Darling, you were born on day 5 of the worst man-made disaster our planet has ever known significance" got me thinking (though, yes, I was following the story on facebook... privately):   At some point we must come out of the bubble.  To really seal the deal, there was an oil spill of 500+ barrels about 2 miles from my home that has poisoned every natural water source in my immediate vicinity (you might not have heard about it, but that's over 25,000 gallons of oil in my little creeks and rivers).  For lack of better terminology, the chickens have come home to roost.

The pelicans and geese are dying, people hurt children, families fear about putting food on their tables and this morning, the state that I now call home, paid 5 individuals to shoot a man to death for crimes committed over a quarter of a century ago.

Here we go again, what do we do.  Do we pace the nursery, wringing our hands?  Do we talk over coffee about how distraught we are about the fact that our babies might never sit for hours in the tidal pools of southern shores watching the tide magically bury their little legs with sand?  Do we sleep even less; agonizing over injustices, terrified in quiet places of our minds of faceless, invincible enemies?  Yeah, a little.  I don't know.  What else is there?

I think step one is to pop the bubble and keep singing but stop hiding behind the lullabies... try to find a way to balance functionality and awareness?  Autonomy and activism?

It's a process.... it will take some time, at least for me at this juncture in my life.  That said, I think I can start by opening my eyes, talking... educating... writing... initiating a dialog and amongst us, maybe we can change something, do something.  I'll be honest, I truly believe that together, you and I, the two of us,  WE really can change the perspective from passively reactive to passionately proactive., and if nothing else modify the generation that we are raising to simply be better than... to be greater than....

All that said, let's start by opening our eyes, then our minds, then our mouths, then our hearts.  One day at a time.

So very much love,

Julie