Category Archives: Writing

G is for Gratitude

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Gratitude

This gratitude craze bugs the shit out of me.

Yeah, yeah, I’ve read the research, too. I know that counting your blessings lowers your blood pressure and elevates your mood. Plus, unless you’re so insufferable that you’ve driven everyone away, a grateful attitude usually means having lots of loved ones who can actually stand to be around you.

The fact that it works infuriates me even more.

Apparently, I’m not alone.

 “’Dear Amy,’” writes Needs a Hug. “. . . I realize that in the grand scheme of things, I have a very good life. Still, . . . I get a little blue. . . Many people seem to feel . . . I will perk up if reminded how much better off I am than others. . . . I feel as if I have no right to feel tired, sad or overtaxed. If I hear one more, ‘Well, at least’ statement, I could fall apart.’”

Tell it like it is, Needs a Hug. Maybe your happy-talk friends just need a knuckle sandwich.

Speaking of sandwiches, remember Café Gratitude, that venerable landmark in the corporatization of self-esteem?  In its heyday you could indulge in “I Am Cheerful” veggie burgers or “I am Fabulous” lasagna, washed down with an “I Am Eternally Blessed” milkshake.

Forgive me, but I am nauseated, and it’s not because of an overabundance of goddess-kissed food.

Call me old-fashioned, but I am suspicious of any feeling that has a menu item named after it. Perhaps I’m being unfair, though. After all, Café Gratitude is merely the logical outcome as the Positive Food and Positive Psychology movements join forces. Merging “You Are What You Eat” with “You Are What You Think” perfectly embodies the trend toward self-esteem as commodity.

This instills in me not so much a feeling of gratitude as the desire to launch a competitive franchise. Maybe I’ll call it Café Curmudgeon. How delicious to imagine the chains battling it out on rival street corners, like Starbucks and Peet’s!

Now don’t get me wrong. Through nature and nurture, I am a cheerful and optimistic person. But just as Heaven is flat and boring compared to the juicy degradations of Hell, life without cynicism and darkness is depressing. What would Peanuts be without Lucy, serene in her crabbiness? Besides, maybe she wouldn’t be so cranky if her sanctimonious little brother, Linus, would just stop radiating goodness all the time. Can’t he give it a rest?

Where would the world be without the temperamentally morose? The evolutionary advantages of depression are clear: after all the more outgoing people have killed one another off, those emerging sluggishly from the cave to take a piss can repopulate the planet.

But once outside the cave, do we really want to live in a lobotomized world? The Stepford Wives depicts a society of happy, grateful people. There’s just a slight catch–harmony is achieved by killing off real women and replacing them with zombies. This seems a bit much, even for the suburbs.

Gratitude, positive thinking, relentless cheerfulness—maybe it’s all part of the same Stepford conspiracy to sanitize authentic emotion. As my friend Avvy says about our horror of dark feelings, “Wash out all aggression. Rinse and repeat.” But woe to those who are not so fastidious about their laundry.

At a Brownie meeting when my daughter was five, I took exception to the part of the oath that demands “A Girl Scout is always cheerful.”  Heedless of my daughter’s social standing, I told the other moms that, in my experience as a therapist, many of my clients’ problems stemmed from exhortations to be cheerful no matter what. There was dead silence for a few beats before one of the mothers said, “Maybe Girl Scouts isn’t for you.”

My therapy clients, too, have been banished by families who do not welcome their lack of good cheer in response to difficult childhoods. They hear, “You’re so sensitive. It’s water under the bridge. Can’t you just let it go?” Well, no, actually. My clients fear that letting go lets derelict people off the hook. It’s not that they want to feel angry and unhappy, but premature gratitude is like a thin coat of whitewash that seals in the toxins.

My clients have read the research, too, though. We know the hazards of lingering in the muck. Shouldn’t we at least try to put on a happy face? Fake it ‘til we make it? If only it were that easy. Now my clients not only feel miserable, but also guilty for making themselves sick, trapped by their inability to choose gratitude.

Yet there’s hope for ingrates and curmudgeons alike, if the annals of restaurateuring are any indication. Café Gratitude’s vast empire has shrunk dramatically ever since disgruntled employees sued them for questionable labor practices. In a letter announcing the closure of most of their restaurants, the owners explained:

 A series of aggressive lawsuits has brought us to this unfortunate choice. . . . We were happy to . . .  sustain ourselves on the transformation and personal growth of our people, while providing local organic vegan food to our community in an atmosphere of unconditional love. That commitment is under attack and we are not able to weather this storm.

 

Now that’s delicious!

F is for Family Life

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bunny-crib-beddingI just became a grandmother. Pepita, as we affectionately call her, sleeps a lot, nestled in her bunny-bedecked bed. She is tiny, her head a perfect oval, as bald as an egg.

Maybe that’s because Pepita is an egg. My 13-year-old daughter Ally just brought her home as part of Family Life’s attempt to prevent teen pregnancy. All eighth graders are charged with 24/7 responsibility for their hard-boiled infants. No sleep-aways in the refrigerator next to the leftovers, no cracks or substitutions, no transformations into egg salad allowed. During PE class or nights on the town, a reputable eggsitter must be found. Ally even has to read 20 minutes a day to Pepita. Unlike with real babies, no pages can be skipped, and the egg’s grandparents must vouch in writing for this exemplary parental behavior. Also unlike with real babies, the experiment with teen parenting lasts only five days, and no college tuition must be salted away.

My neighbor, whose kids are much older than mine, had warned me about egg babies years earlier. She described how all the eighth-grade girls fussed and cooed over their charges, spending hours planning play dates and making little outfits for them, while the eighth-grade boys pretty much left their children in their lockers for the week. Since I have a lot of friends my own age whose parenting styles parallel this gender divide with only modest variation, I was dubious about Family Life’s ability to transcend hard-wiring.

I am happy to report that my daughter is breaking gender stereotypes. Ally tends more to the neglect side than the cooing side of the parenting spectrum. True, she deigned to decorate Pepita with a marker-drawn bow, big blue eyes, and rosy cheeks. But soon after coming home with her new baby, she was trying to unload her on me.

“Can’t you just keep her in your purse?” Ally wailed as we prepared to go to a photography exhibit. “I don’t want to lug her around, and you’re bringing your bag anyway!”

“You’re the one who got pregnant!” I countered. “Deal with it.”

Pepita spent her first art opening crammed into a linty, airless pocket of her sulky mother’s sweatshirt. After that, she’s been pretty quiet. You might almost be tricked into thinking how easy it is to have a baby around the house (or locker). After all, eighth-graders have to read 20 minutes a night anyway just for English.

One thing’s for sure, although I didn’t need egg babies to clinch the case: At 13, my daughter is way too young to become a mother.

And having only recently liberated my purse from carrying around snacks and extra socks for my own kids, I’m way too young to become a grandmother.

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I wrote this several years ago. Now Ally is a language assistant teaching English to babies and toddlers in Barcelona (or maybe she is “exposing” them to English, just as they are exposing her to constant viruses). According to Ally, exposure to the real thing–germs and all–is an even better preventative than egg babies! 

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What are your experiences with efforts to prevent teen pregnancy?

E is for Easter

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I thought I would take another day off and recycle an old post today, but I am refreshed from Sundays off on the A to Z Blogging Challenge. How appropriate that this first Sunday happened to be Easter. I guess you could say I’m experiencing a resurrection of the writing spirit!

I was raised as a Unitarian, where Easter meant church and a new spring outfit, complete with hat, coat, and shiny shoes. There were also, of course, drugstore chocolate bunnies, jelly beans, and dyed Easter eggs. We hid the jelly beans as well as the eggs around the house, and 15 years later when my parents  emptied the bookcases for a move, dessicated sugar orbs fell out from between the pages.

Now I’m a lapsed Unitarian, which means my Sunday mornings are my own and I don’t get fancy new duds for spring. The family I helped create is more apt to celebrate Easter with a hike, preceded, of course, by eggs and baskets with better chocolate and strict rules about jelly beans.

Now I have even given up the baskets–our daughters are 26 and 24, with one in Barcelona, where it costs a small fortune to mail anything. The other one, who has recently moved home, was horrified on Easter Eve to hear that there would be no chocolate rabbits in store for her this year!

But we still hike. We got out before the rain came–just a sprinkle on Easter itself, with more forecast for later this week. Here in California, where we are suffering through the worst drought in history, the weather itself feels like a miracle of resurrection.

I’ve included some pictures from the altar at which we celebrate. The ones at the top are my iPhone-gathered bouquet from my Easter morning walk around our neighborhood. And these are from my favorite place in the world, Point Reyes National Seashore (our Easter weekend hike happened to be Muddy Hollow to Estero/White’s Gate to Glenwood trails and back):

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How did you spend your day off? What rejunevates your spirit?

D is for Dog

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Button puppyMy husband and I are cat people, but our daughters failed to get the memo. Despite a menagerie of two felines and an assortment of rodents, the lobbying for a dog began in earnest when Emma, our eldest, was in second grade. In between constant replays of “Homeward Bound” and “Milo and Otis,” Emma vowed to take care of all things puppy if only we would grant her wish. She even promised to pick up poop.

We’re bad parents: We said no. So Emma brought out the heavy artillery: Begging. Whining. Pitching fits. After a solid year of this, our firm “no” turned squishy. Not only did we fail to hold the canine line, we also failed Parenting 101 by caving in the face of  her atrocious behavior (unsurprisingly, this soon became our m.o. for dog-rearing as well).

Of course, I was the weak link. If it had been up to my husband, we never would have accepted even one of those “free” goldfish foisted upon families at school carnivals. But after Emma went to work on me, I went to work on Jonathan. On a long, romantic hike I outlined why we should overthrow reason and do something crazy, like get Emma a dog for her ninth birthday. “Besides,” I concluded my pitch, “Maybe we could surprise ourselves and let in new love.”

Jonathan, who pays attention to research saying that marriages fare best when husbands agree with their wives, knew he was doomed. But at least the birthday girl was thrilled with the promise of a puppy as soon as we got back from our summer vacation.

Upon our return, we headed straight to the Humane Society. Emma was in heaven when she saw their brand new litter. Who knew that Rottweiler-Pit Bull puppies could be so cute? Still, it was not the mix I had in mind, even though Emma saw no need to look any further. This time, I did not cave, resolutely removing my screaming, betrayed child from the premises while simultaneously saving my marriage.

Fortunately, the next day there was an ad in our local paper for a litter in a nearby town. We knew we’d found our puppy as the mellowest little black-and-white guy yawned and waggled his tail. Thus Button entered our lives and our hearts.

Emma and her younger sister, Ally, were enthralled as Button waddled up and down the stairs after them. They were less enchanted by his needle-like puppy teeth, and spent Day Two climbing into the lower branches of a tree to avoid his nipping enthusiasm. Many days thereafter they ignored him completely.

In his intemperate youth, Button chewed through one sofa, several shoes, and two pairs of Jonathan’s glasses. Neither girl ever picked up any poop.

But one promise was kept: We could, after all, let in new love.

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Button lived to a ripe old age. He had a great life, a great death, and we miss him. He was the perfect dog for our imperfect family. How have you handled kids and pets?

C is for Coffee Conversations

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Starbucks Race Together

 

Clueless. Condescending. Clumsy.

These are some of the kinder things that have been said of Starbucks’ attempt to start a conversation about race by having baristas write “Race Together” on coffee cups.

Not since healthcare.gov has there been a more disastrous rollout. At least this ill-fated campaign was a goldmine for comedy.

Starbucks has long been the object of derision. Years ago I saw a bumper sticker that read, “Friends don’t let friends drink Starbucks.”

I must confess a guilty secret: I rather like Starbucks. Although I get my daily latte at the kind of local café that might champion those bumper stickers, I don’t mind going into the belly of the beast. For one thing, I like my lattes milky. I never have to specify “extra hot,” since their baristas seem to know there is nothing worse than having to suck down a latte in one slurp before all the heat drains away.  Plus, Starbucks pays its employees a semi-decent wage, offers healthcare coverage to part-timers, and started an education initiative to help pay for college tuition. All of this is a drop in the bucket in redressing an economic system that is way out of whack, but still, it’s a start.

So even though I understand the enraged and mocking response to Race Together, I give CEO Howard Schultz credit for trying.

I’m actually a big fan of clumsy efforts to talk about race. As a poster child for white privilege, I have inadvertently made many mistakes and committed many microaggressions. It is tempting to remain silent to avoid chastisement or embarrassment for saying the wrong thing.  But I am trying to shed my cloak of oblivion and silence. So I appreciate pioneers of clumsiness.

A few months ago I wrote about the furor that erupted last fall when Daniel Handler, aka Lemony Snicket, made a racially insensitive “joke” at the National Book Awards.

In a recent interview on KQED’s Forum, Handler was asked about the incident, and replied that he didn’t mind being “the idiot . . . or the clumsy person in the room.” Handler continued, “The subject of race in America—that’s something you have to take on. I would rather make mistakes . . . than decide that I’ll just erase it entirely as race has just been erased entirely from so many conversations. . . . If I can be any kind of example that can lead to conversation and insight, . . . that’s more than worth making a fool out of myself.”

I appreciate this, just as I appreciate Howard Schultz. Maybe he’s a mix of cynical corporate capitalist, insensitive person of privilege, and well-intentioned fool. But he did start a conversation.

Besides, as one Facebook commenter put it: “Nothing unites people like a shared joke. In this, Race Together is a success.”

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Join the conversation about Starbucks and conversations about race!

B is for Boomerang

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Boomerang

“Bite your tongue.”

That’s advice I’ve been taking to heart ever since our 26-year-old daughter Emma moved back home right before Christmas. Emma spent two years as a starving artist in Brooklyn after college and a temporary job in Russia—she loved living in New York City, except for the starving part. And the weather. So now our little fledgling has come home to roost.

Just as Brooklyn is the thing for young adults to do, so is boomeranging back.

For someone who spent as much time as I did mournfully anticipating the empty nest, then moping around once I actually had one, you’d think I’d rejoice at Emma’s return.

But it’s surprising how quickly you can fall in love with a clean house. Not to mention the husband you’ve neglected over the past couple of decades.

Just as Emma had grown fond of her independence, so had we. Now we’re all like not-quite-roommates who are trying hard not to engage in nagging and eye-rolling. (Guess which habit matches which generation!)

There’s nothing really wrong, exactly. Emma is sweet, and definitely more mature than when we packed her off for Adventures in Young Adulthood. She tells us that she was the one in her Brooklyn household who always turned off the lights and kept the place clean (I’d really hate to meet those other housemates).

But it’s true that she now leaves smaller debris trails than she used to. Emma also cooks dinner for us once a week, chips in for gas and groceries, has found work, and takes her art seriously. She seems to be following some inner plan, although what it is and on what time line the plan will unfold is anyone’s guess.

Still, having Emma back is a tough transition—for all of us. She misses coming and going as she pleases without parents wondering if she’s lying dead in a ditch somewhere. I miss turning off the radar on that particular nightmare. On a more mundane note, I also miss being able to get into the car knowing that NPR will come on instead of some horrible noise from a different preset. I miss dishes done on my timetable. I miss towels that hang neatly from the towel rack. I miss not feeling like a control freak who is constantly resisting the urge to nag. I miss my unbitten tongue.

In the meantime, I keep reminding myself how lucky we are to have a child we love and who loves us, and who feels secure in the knowledge that she has a home to come back to.

Two children, actually: Emma may soon have company. Her younger sister, Ally, has been living in Barcelona, but she, too, plans to move back at the end of the summer while she figures out what comes next.

I used to say (and even mean it!) whenever the girls visited for holidays, “There’s nothing I like more than having everyone here under the same roof again!”

Be careful what you wish for.

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 Anyone boomeranged back into your empty nest? How have you weathered the transition?

A is for April Fool

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At least I feel a bit foolish committing to a month of daily blog posts with only Sundays off. When it comes to describing my writing practice, A words like avoidance and ambivalence spring to mind. A few years ago when I cut back on my work life to devote more time to writing, and people asked how it was going, I had to confess, “Well, it turns out I’ve freed up more time to avoid writing.”

Not only am I undisciplined, I have also made a sad discovery: The Spirit—the one I rely on to speak through me as if I am just taking dictation rather than toiling away —also suffers from writer’s block.

But rather than throw in the towel, I have thrown myself into the A to Z Blogging Challenge. I’d heard about it a couple of years ago from my writing friend Claire, who participated. Then last year, the Write On Mamas, to which I belong, participated in the Challenge in a kind of round-robin way, with the members each contributing a letter. (Mine was E is for Empty Nest, which I reveal here with some trepidation in case I want to recycle it for this year’s Challenge. On the other hand, recycling is a conscientious choice for a planet threatened with environmental degradation, so if you see it here again in a few days, it is not because I am ambivalent and avoidant—aka lazy—but because it is the ethical thing to do.)

As part of our writing group’s effort, I also wrote a post on my own blog called A-Z: A Writer’s Alphabet. I was not yet ready to take the plunge, but I could at least come up with a line pertaining to writing for every letter of the alphabet. I had gotten into the habit of writing one line, a far less daunting task, with my friend Mary’s encouragement.

Then the aforementioned Claire said, “You really ought to do the A to Z Challenge! It’ll be good for you.” (Actually, she said “A to Zed,” because she’s British, which makes everything she says sound persuasive.) So now I am trying to think of writing as just a bunch of lines, strung together. One line upon another building into a paragraph, a post, an essay, an article, even a book. Or at least a month of daily blogging.

As you can see, my blog is called Shrinkrapped. It’s not about therapy, but I am a therapist, so psychology suffuses my world view. I’m particularly interested in how the personal, the political, and the psychological come together.

Some of my current favorite obsessions include: Motherhood; The Empty Nest (and, since my daughter has recently moved back, the not-so-empty nest); Politics; Psychology; Friendships; and Ruptures in Women’s Friendships. Plus, since everything is copy, one unwelcome obsession: What I’m calling my Cancer Detour, a new muse that showed up in my life in September 2012 (I’m fine now).

I hope you enjoy Shrinkrapped. Let the Challenge begin, and please chime in!

 

 

 

 

 

Empty Nest Projects

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Picture of nestFrances McDormand, speaking recently at City Arts and Lectures about Olive Kitteredge, referred to the HBO miniseries she stars in and produced as her empty nest project. Already mourning her son’s not-quite-imminent departure when he was 14, McDormand cast about for something to take his place. She bought the rights to Elizabeth Strout’s Pulitzer-Prize winning novel, shaped it with screenwriter Jane Anderson and director Lisa Cholodenko­­­, and insisted that Richard Jenkins be cast as Olive’s “tyrannically cheerful” husband. When McDormand’s son left for college, she left for Gloucester for three months of filming.

I, too, dreaded my kids’ departure long before they left home. My empty nest project was writing. I had dabbled in words before, but aside from churning out a clever holiday letter every year, my oeuvre was pretty non-existent. Writing was the one thing I looked forward to, not just to fill the void, but as something just for me after years of tending to others–my consolation prize for the planned obsolescence of motherhood.

It was also good therapy, as writing usually is. I poured my anxiety and grief onto the page. “Soon we’ll be leaving the emerald hills and spring-soft skies of the Bay Area to visit faraway New England colleges, icy sirens that entice my baby away from home,” I began. This turned into my first Perspectives piece. Like most things that well up from the heart, the words came spontaneously, easily. They struck a chord for many listeners, though one felt compelled to write that my daughter was lucky to escape my neurotic clutches!

Olive Kitteredge was accused of much worse. But where would be without our neurotic clutches? They are the wellspring of creativity. Equanimity does not hold one’s interest for long. Nor does it provide good copy. The bulk of my personal essays are about the empty nest—anxiously awaiting it, grieving it, then enjoying it. I knew I was through the mourning process when I began to tire of writing about it.

On to new things. Now that Emma has moved back home after being gone for so long, perhaps my next endeavor will be the Boomerang Project. And looking forward to seeing what comes next for Frances McDormand.

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How have you transformed your struggles with creativity?

Muse on Strike

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On Strike signSince everything is copy, we writers appropriate everything—conversations with friends and colleagues, snippets from eavesdropping, news, movies, domestic and geopolitical dramas. Sometimes this habit of appropriation tempts us into being inappropriate.

Mothers who write, especially those who find their children to be a reliable Muse, face even greater challenges. Such as, “How do I mine all this rich material without leading to (a) lawsuits; (b) children needing to be in therapy all their lives; or (c) children writing another Mommie Dearest, assuming they’ve benefited from all that therapy and have inherited a knack for writing and retribution?

Caution is the watchword, at least once your child learns to read. Just as adorable nude shots of your toddler must be removed from photo albums before dating commences, so, too, must the experience you co-opt not be too embarrassing or revealing. Remember, just as some zealous Walgreen’s clerk might misconstrue your innocent pictures and report you to the child pornography hotline, so, too, may your writing land you in trouble.

Long ago I acquired a fig leaf of maternal decency by asking my daughters how they felt about my writing. Emma said, “I don’t care what you write as long as I don’t have to read it.” Ally, always the go-getter, said, “I don’t care what you write as long as I get a cut.”

I took that as full license. Exercised with great sensitivity and familiarity with libel laws, of course!

Recently, though, Emma remarked, “I read somewhere that you should never write about your children.”

A better mother might have responded, “Oh? Tell me more.” Or, “How are you feeling about my writing (which you never read) these days?” Or even, God forbid, “OK, I’ll stop.”

Instead I cried indignantly, “You’re changing the terms!”

Looks like it might be time to renegotiate the contract with my disgruntled muse before she walks out on me altogether.

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How do you handle writing about your kids? And what’s it been like to read about yourself in someone else’s writing?

V is for Village

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Write on Mamas Co-founder Janine Kovac reads her essay, “The Next Prompt,” at Mamas Write Book Launch, Diesel Bookstore

It happens to be V-Day for the A to Z Blog Challenge, which I did not officially participate in except for carrying the letter E for a tiny stretch of the blogging relay on behalf of my writing group, the Write On Mamas. Unofficially, I cheated, and wrote a single blog post with just a lazy line or two for each letter of the alphabet to help kick-off our new anthology, Mamas Write: 29 tales of Truth, Wit, and Grit. WOM co-founder Janine’s initial entry for the official blog was “A is for Anthology.” You can read what she had to say then here, and what another WOM co-founder, Claire Hennessey, has to say today, in “V is for Victory.” (You can also read all the other letters in between on WOM’s blog.)

Victory because we had our first Book Launch event last night at Diesel Bookstore in Oakland, and it was a blast! The place was crammed with people who laughed and cried through the excerpts we read. The overflow crowd gobbled up the books almost as fast as the chocolate-zucchini bread from Bittersweet Cafe, the same treat that over the last few months had fueled the creative juices of our editing team, Janine, Mary, and Joanne. (Chocolate Muse, anyone?)

Just as all our children were once gleams in our eyes, so the anthology was once a gleam in Janine’s eye. Two years ago, when she threw out the idea of the Write On Mamas’ publishing an anthology, I thought, “Yeah, right, this will never happen.” The initial working title was “Writing Our Motherhood, Mothering Our Writing,” which none of us really understood. But wanting to be a team player and also to fake my way into productivity, I signed on, submitting a somewhat shitty essay before moving on to other projects. Why invest in something that was going nowhere?

The great thing about the Write On Mamas, besides the wonderfully talented, competent, and supportive mothers (and one dad) who constitute it, is that nobody else thinks that way. Or possibly everybody does when staring at the blank screen or page in isolation. But the alchemy of the collective transforms inertia and demoralization into something altogether different. It’s easier to be there for others than it is for yourself, and MUCH easier to be there for others when others are there for you. As the saying goes, many hands make light work (even though a small WOM core did the bulk of the heavy lifting). The Goddesses of WOM would not accept why bother, would not accept shitty. They kept at it, coaxing, inspiring, never guilt-tripping anyone through two years of submissions, rewrites, fundraising, professional editing, PR campaigns. And they did all this while also coaxing, inspiring, and never guilt-tripping their own children!

It really does take a village, particularly one blessed with kick-ass village leaders. I am so grateful to be a part of the WOM village.

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Check out WOM’s website for more book launch events and a whole lot more. Maybe you even want to join our village. And if you can’t find Mamas Write at your friendly neighborhood bookstore, you can always do the Amazon thing. Thanks!