I Finally Got it Right

Sexiness wears thin after a while and beauty fades, but to be married to a man who makes you laugh every day, ah, now that's a real treat. ~ Joanne Woodward

For the Obviously Beautiful

Dear Woman/Child –

I don’t have any children. I didn’t want them when (according to my mother) it would have been as easy as to accomplish as sitting on a toilet seat. When I finally changed my mind, nature, that grand cheat, wouldn’t let me have my way. It’s difficult to realize that sometimes, even when you wish upon a star, the universe answers, “No.” Even so, you know that I take delight in my joyful life, that I have, somehow, found everything I need, and that happiness reigns.

In your brand shiny new blog you said that you think of me as a second mother. Your words made me cry because nothing would make me as proud. You said you’d like to have a life like mine. Be careful what you wish for – those stars are tricky, and sometimes the answer is, “Yes.”

You’re right – my life so far has been full of twists and turns. I’ve been incredibly self-indulgent, sometimes forging ahead even when the little voice that whispers softly in my heart tells me to slow down and be careful. At times I knew full well that I would crash and burn, but stubbornly forged ahead anyway, bumping and bruising myself along the way. I even had the impudence to feel surprised when I nearly burned up in the fires of my own making. But failure isn’t in the falling down. Failure is when you don’t find the courage to stand up again – even if it’s very, very hard. Success isn’t always getting your way, but rather it is your search for wisdom and joy.

Be proud of yourself. Examine your heart and find what you believe in. Fight for your core values – even if it sometimes makes you uncomfortable or unpopular. Stand up for what you think is right and just, and always remember that there are those who need your voice because they don’t know how to speak for themselves.

Remember not to demand perfection of yourself, but exertion. Don’t expect victory every time, but expect to struggle. And remember that the definition of a good person is not he who has never erred, but he who is not so arrogant as to believe himself to be any better than any other of the world’s beloved children.

Live your life with pride and with exuberance so that, in your dotage, you don’t look back at your time on this earth and wonder what you missed. Don’t question what you might have been, but rather celebrate who you are. Be open to joy. Love back. Live so that, when you are gone, the memory of your happiness delightfully remains in the hearts of those you leave behind.

Maybe the universe isn’t such a grand cheat after all. I got my way in you, and love you like my own. So happy graduation, my darling. Go out and fulfill your sparkling promise and your potential for great joy.

You can’t always get what you want, but if you try sometimes, you just might find you get what you need. (Thanks, Mick and Keith.)

Today

Normal day, let me be aware of the treasure you are. Let me learn from you, love you, bless you before you depart. Let me not pass you by in quest of some rare and perfect tomorrow. Let me hold you while I may, for it may not always be so. One day I shall dig my nails into the earth, or bury my face in the pillow, or stretch myself taut, or raise my hands to the sky and want, more than all the world, your return. ~ Mary Jean Iron

Walker & Sassy

Walker



Sassy

Sigh

I don't know if anyone still wanders over here anymore, but I should scramble to the surface to say hello. I've been sick. I'm getting better - lots. Know that I've missed you and that I'll start writing again as soon as I can. No worries. I'll see you soon.

The Key to March 5

Well, I told you I'd be back. I'm not really, but thought I'd put this here in the meantime.

(1.) Tina
(2.) Kerri
(3.) Annie
(4.) Junie
(5.) Sophia
(6.) Stephen
(7.) Bonnie
(8.) Dmitri
(9.) David
(10.) Paula
(11.) Stephanie
(12.) Bill
(13.) Nathan
(14.) Fran
(15.) Charles
(16.) Tim
(17.) Deb & Phyllis
(18.) Lynn
(19.) Sam
(20.) Rose
(21.) Robert
(22.) Matt
(23.) Lucinda
(24.) Tony
(25.) Don
(26.) my Beloved

I wouldn't be here without this list.

I'll be back. Soon, I hope. But work is hard. I promised you that it would be. But I miss you and hope I'll be back soon.

Love,
C

Where Am I?

Please forgive me. I've neglected you. Well honestly, I've neglected more than you. I've neglected me, too. And I have to continue to be neglectful of us for just a little while. Our season opens June 9th and this is absolutely my busiest time of year.

And so, please have faith that I'll be back soon and often - but not until after the first show opens. (By the way, the Cats picture above is from last year. This year we open with Thoroughly Modern Millie, if there are any musical theater aficionados reading...)

Like Arnie, "Ah'll be back!"

Hugs and Misses to you all.
-Concetta

Part 4 - Back to the Beginning

The next part. Now we’re getting to the good stuff. I figured that this would be the right moment to write to you about some happy times. A nice way to make me smile – and maybe you, too.

If you don’t know the story, you should probably read Parts 1, 2 & 3 first. They’re dated October 12, October 20 and January 29. Come back here when you know what’s going on. Nothing worse than missing half the movie.

Of course, before you get to the good stuff, sometimes you have to go through some bad stuff again.

………

Once upon a time in a land far, far away … don’t all good fairy tales start this way?

Ok, things had been bad. Mind-numbing, wrist-slitting, wrap-it-all-up-and-call-it-a-day bad. And then they got better. There were babies and dogs prancing around, flowers in the garden, and people all around to give me what I needed. Mostly. Love mates came and went. Some lovers stayed around longer and became friends. My steely heart was locked away in a private box in the attic, wrapped in a black velvet ribbon with dust settled into the creases of the double knot. I’d given it away one too many times, so this time I wasn’t taking any chances.

Once upon a time in a land far, far away … we have to flash back to the very beginning, so you’ll understand.

I got married when I was very young. Good Italian girls don’t leave home until they’re either married or dead – at least that’s what they told me. They also said I couldn’t get married until I was 20 years old, and since I decided picking out a wedding dress seemed more fun than picking out a casket, I got married to my High School sweetheart. I was 20 years and 7 days old. It was a very hopeful choice. We were friends and lovers, and sweet on each other as only first loves can be. The damage we caused each other didn’t come until later. The first days were fresh like the scent of daisies tucked into my waist length hair, everything filmed in soft-focus. But of course when it’s time for young men to join the war parade, some of them have to go. Two months after our champagne toasts were over, his unit was shipped overseas. He taught me to play chess before he left so we could play long distance games from 6,944 miles apart. I went back home to my parents’ house, no better off than I was at 19, but I held the “Mrs.” in front of me like a talisman.

My High School Sweetheart Husband was sent on an un-accompanied tour to a security base. Sugar-sweet love letters were filled with longing and chess moves. Two months later I bought a one-way plane ticket, packed two very large suitcases and shipped a couple of boxes filled with important things like an electric frying pan, a hotplate and a couple of canisters of Johnson’s Baby Powder. (I was sure a security base where wives were uninvited wouldn’t stock up on Baby Powder. And a girl needs her Johnson’s Baby Powder in hot weather.) I told him I was on my way. I thought he might be happy about it.

When I arrived in the steamy summer, I climbed onto a rickety civilian bus already filled with people with straight black hair and whose language I didn’t speak. Suspicious eyes. A crate of chickens. We all bounced on wooden benches past mountains jutting up to the dazzling sun, past shanty houses made of torn down billboard signs and corrugated tin roofs. We bumped and waddled for thirty-five miles from the city and into the impoverished countryside. At the gated entrance to the security compound the bus squalled to a stop and spewed me out into the dust.

Up until that moment I’d felt pretty entitled by my American citizenship, Unlimited Entrance and Length of Stay Visa and “get-out-of-jail-free card” obtained by an uncle in the exalted echelons of the State Department. But being tall and fair with waist length, wavy hair, a pink mini skirt and high heels gives courage even to the frightened. So I strutted into the compound, a little more swagger in my step than I felt. I’m sure – even now – that it was the miniskirt and heels that gave me courage. Young men leaned out of their windows, whistling and howling as I swayed past the barracks and into the Captain’s office. “Hi! (Pale green eyes flutter black lashes, and the pink mouth turns up in a coy smile. An ever-so-slight soft Southern drawl.) You don’t know me, but I just flew in from the States. I’m married to your company clerk. I just thought I’d check in with you – since I know I’m your responsibility while I’m here. I’m going to live in the city, and I’d sure love to be able to live with my husband, but only if it’s ok with you that he has off-post living privileges, of course! If that’s something you can arrange, I’d feel so much safer. But if not, I completely understand. Anyway, I just wanted to check in with you. Nice to meet you! Any chance I can say hi to my husband while I’m here? I’ve traveled so very far. (Flutter. Smile.) (I should be forgiven. I was young and appealing, and knew well how to get what I wanted. My momma always told me to “use the gifts you’ve got.”)

That hug and kiss – even in the middle of the OD Green Battery B Field Office – felt like a sweet, soft-focused, daisy-haired dream. Of course the dazed Captain arranged for my soldier boy’s off-post privileges the next day. Every night my boy climbed on the bus and lurched home to our city apartment, and every morning he lurched back to base. But the sweetness was as delicate as cotton candy – delicious and ethereal. And like cotton candy, it quickly melted into faint, bittersweet nothing.

I’m tired now. I’ll write more later. Promise.

Laughter

I believe that imagination is stronger than knowledge, myth is more potent than history, dreams are more powerful than facts, hope always triumphs over experience and laughter is the cure for grief. ~ Robert Fulghum

Dianna

Dear Ones,

Sorry to disappear. I’ve been sad. The kind of sadness that creates chaos and commotion. But there’s no easy way to explain, so just settle in and be patient with me.

My friend died. Well, not my friend, really. My cousin. No, that’s not right either. My brother’s mother-in-law.

Well, here. I’ll explain.

Before she married my dad, my mom’s young first husband was killed on a battlefield by an exploding grenade. When a soldier dies, you hold his family close. The soldier’s niece, Dianna, was my mom’s favorite. Mom loved the curly-haired farm girl with the rosy apple cheeks. Dianna loved her Aunt Dorothy with the adoration of a star-struck child.

When my dad popped into the picture years later, he understood. My brother and I learned to love the fresh air and sunshine of their country farm and they learned to love our glittering, big-city east coast life. We were different but the same, and grew up as cousins, knowing we weren’t. Not really. But we knew we were family.

The generations were off kilter – my parents married un-fashionably late in life and had children even later. The farm where Dianna grew up seemed to encourage young marriages and plentiful babies. Dianna’s marriage (with my then six-year-old brother by her side, wide-eyed and nervous as he held the wedding rings in his sweaty fist) expanded the family with three beautiful daughters born in quick succession. Only 5 years separated the oldest of Dianna’s children from her Aunt Dorothy’s youngest.

As the years flickered past, Dorothy and Dianna dreamed – as mothers do – of how tidy it would be if Dianna’s oldest child, Tammy, married Dorothy’s youngest child, Stephen. A silly dream. Children rarely behave as you want them to.

Dianna and her girls came east, crying at the church as my brother married his high school sweetheart. But sometimes sweethearts can’t make things work, even when there’s a beloved baby between them. My brother’s marriage shattered. Not long after, my mom swiftly died after acute leukemia reared its ugly head. (Maybe we’ll talk about that later. For now just understand that it was hard. Still is.) And so Stephen and I flew west to the farm, seeking the shelter of the long-loved smiles of our farm family. I didn’t stay long – had other comforts waiting for me in the east. But my brother stayed, coddled and healed by the familiar warmth. “I’d like to introduce you to my cousin, Steve,” Tammy used to say. It didn’t take long for that to change to, “I’d like to introduce you to Steve.” A few months later, “I’d like to introduce you to my boyfriend, Steve” was followed by Tammy’s bubbling giggle and shy smile.

Stephen and Tammy were married a few years later, with Stephen’s daughter, Stephanie, by his side, wide-eyed and nervous as she held the wedding rings in her sweaty fist. In the length of time is takes to say “I Do,” Dianna changed from “cousin” to mother-in-law.

From on top of her heavenly cloud, Mom kept orchestrating the lives of the children she loved. Later I’m sure she must have cheered as her family grew larger with the birth of Stephen and Tammy’s sons. They’re growing strong and true, basking in sunshine and hay.

Dianna died 2 weeks ago.

Too young to leave. Only 10 years older than I am. Diagnosed with cancer on Sunday and dead on Thursday. Death is a dagger left in the hearts of those left behind.

“Why did she have to go?” we cried on the shores as Dianna sailed away. I’m hopeful that Mom was on a far away shore crying, “Yay! Here she comes!”

Happy Easter.

A Way to a Lover's Heart

Cooking is like love. Both should be entered into with abandon or not at all. ~ Harriet Van Horne

Rainy Days and Pancakes

The end of winter is a bit dreary and I'm tired of grey skies. I long for Italy's sparkling sunshine and and the scent of her lemon groves. March has occasionally tempted me away to sunny southern Italy but more often I'm here, pouting and dreaming of lemons. I'm sulking a little today, so offer you these to sate my senses:


Lemon Ricotta Pancakes with Lemon Curd and Fresh Berries

Serves 2, because that’s how many people live in my house. If you want more, increase the recipe accordingly and make more!

3/4 cup all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons sugar
1 cup ricotta cheese
2 eggs
2/3 cup milk
1 lemon, zested and juiced
Non-stick spray such as Pam
1 (11-ounce) jar prepared lemon curd
Fresh berries, for garnish – use whatever kind you like: strawberries for me, blueberries for my beloved, huckleberries for my native Inland Empire friends, raspberries for my Yankee friends. Make yourself happy and use your own favorites.
Confectioners' sugar, for garnish


Whisk the dry ingredients together in a small bowl – that’s the flour, baking powder, nutmeg, salt, and sugar.

Whisk the wet ingredients together in a large bowl – that’s the cheese, eggs, milk, lemon juice and zest.

Gently incorporate the dry flour mixture into the wet ingredients until just combined. DO NOT OVERMIX or your pancakes will be tough. Just gently incorporate the ingredients together, don’t madly stir or beat them. Pancakes, like children, are delicate creatures and don’t respond well to beating. Set the batter aside.

While the batter is sitting there patiently waiting for you, preheat your griddle. If you use the batter immediately after mixing it up, your pancake batter will expand on the griddle and your pancakes will rise too high and be too fat – like weird little soufflés. Pancake batter needs a few minutes to blossom, its ingredients melding in the mixing bowl before it hits the hot griddle.

When you think the griddle is hot, dampen your hand with a little cold water and shake a water drop onto the griddle surface. If it dances and evaporates, it’s hot enough. If it just sits there in a tiny puddle, the griddle is not hot enough. If the water droplet immediately fizzles into a wisp of smoke, the griddle is too hot – remove it from the heat for a minute and then check it again.

Spray the griddle with non-stick spray. I suppose you could brush it with melted butter or canola oil if you want, but I don’t want. I’m saving my butter to plop on top of the hot pancakes where it will melt into a golden puddle. Yum. For each pancake, pour approximately 1/4 cup measure of the batter on the griddle and cook on both sides until light golden brown. You know how to do this, don’t you? Spoon your measure of batter on the griddle and leave it alone. You’re only going to flip your pancakes ONCE. When you see little bubbles forming around the edge of the cake and a couple of tiny bubbles pop on the surface of the raw dough, it’s time to flip, flip, flip! With luck and practice, you’ll have golden brown pancakes in front of you. DO NOT flip it again. All this over handling will make the little darlings tough.

Repeat until no batter remains. Keep them warm in a single (!!!) layer on a rack on the oven or warming drawer. Don’t stack them or the residual heat will steam them in the oven and ruin your nice pancake texture.

If you’re good at multi-tasking, you can do the next step while your pancakes are cooking. But if you’re better off doing one thing at a time, do this next step while your little pancakes are waiting patiently in the warming oven.

Empty the contents of the jar of lemon curd into a small saucepan and warm over low heat. You can also take off the metal lid and warm the jar directly in the microwave oven if you want – on 50 percent power for 2 minutes, stopping after 1 minute to stir the curd. Drizzle a few tablespoons of the curd over the pancakes, top with fresh berries of your choice, and then sprinkle everything with a little confectioners' sugar. I have a friend with an over-the-top sweet tooth, and she drizzles these with (real Vermont Maple) syrup. That’s too sweet for me, but it makes her happy. Please yourself. I always do.

Yum. Yum. Yum.

Today is a cloudy and drizzly, so I’m going to the kitchen to make these right now. I'm even going to garnish my plate with a few slices of fresh lemon. I'll stop pouting soon.

Hope you have a fun day, too!

Here's To Us! Who's Like Us? Damned Few!

A blog friend posted a list that I thought was quite fun – a list of her blogger friends she identified simply by writing a line or 2 to describe them. No names – the blogger friends had to guess who they were. I liked it a lot and was especially flattered since she listed me as one of her new friends. But her list made me think – I wouldn’t be able to make a list of blog friends. To be sure, I have a few cherished friends, but not the 27 that my buddy Natalie listed. Popular girl! So what do I have that you might find interesting? Hmmmm. I have a list of friends you don’t know, some of whom lurk in and out without leaving comments, some of whom send me private email to talk about my blog thoughts and some of whom don’t know about the blog at all. Some of them also wend their ways through my stories and poetry – for good or ill. By knowing a little about them, you’ll know a little more about me.

1. My partner and friend. If I could snowboard, what fun we’d have! If you loved musical theater, what fun we’d have! And still, every day with you is fun.
2. You were my sunshine and now you bring your sunshine to other lucky people. Thanks for encouraging me to start this blog in the first place.
3. A new friend I’d like to know more and more of. It’s wonderful to have a girls’ evening with sisters – grown up girls with the hearts of sorority sisters.
4. My friend from the day of my birth to the day of my death (some long distant day in the future!). I love you for our past, present and future together, and I love you for the roots you give me to my own history. I love you forever.
5. Even though you are daughter to my friend, I’d be proud to have you as my own child. It’s breathtaking watching you grow into a beautiful woman, touched by Mediterranean sunshine. I’ll miss you this summer as you stretch on newfound wings.
6. My baby brother, who pokes at me to see if my head will spin off. My baby brother, my friend. We are part of each other. Alike but not. Different but the same. You grew up to be a wonderful son, husband, father, brother, man. I love you always.
7. You wore two different colored sox. A mixture of giggles and fears, we laughed at the world.
8. With you I learned to give voice to what I want instead of accepting the wants of others. I learned to fight – not always fair. And I learned to fly, loving the shriek of peepers in the dusk and the scent of summer nights.
9. You taught me to see color and to look at the world differently. We were like an unfinished song left in a piano bench. No longer my love, still my friend.
10. The state of your birth may be black and white, but you’re Technicolor. Long talks from the heart go better over ginger martinis. You’ve added giggles to my life and three people to my family of choice.
11. The power of genetics. We look like vaguely out of focus photos of each other, one version younger than the other. You have my twinkling sense of humor and my belief that hair is a coloring book. How much more alike would we have been if so many miles hadn’t kept us apart? I adore you.
12. We were children playing at being in love. I still have some leftover dreams that, like worn out, discarded jeans, would only fit on you. Another long ago love, now a cherished friend.
13. “He was born with a gift of laughter and a sense that the world was mad,” may be the opening line of Scaramouche, but I think Raphael Sabatini might have been describing you. We share a twisted sense of irony, arrogance, laughter and exile.
14. East Coast tough as nails on the outside, tender hearted on the inside. If I ever need an advocate, I want you by my side. I’d trust you with my life, too.
15. Leaders like you are born and I’d follow you into a foxhole. With a dictionary and a thesaurus just to be on the safe side.
16. Sometimes I long for who we used to be in the old times when we clung only to each other, like flowers dying in the rain. But I’m proud of the way we grew and the way we learned to love. Missing you feels as though vital parts of me have been amputated.
17. I’m so glad you turned out not to be cousins so we could love the same children. Great companions through travel and through life. My expanded family.
18. Bravery to fight on, without a knight in shining armor, you never let fear stop you. Cooking and singing and dreaming for more, you don't talk the talk, but you sure walk the walk.
19. You saved me from myself and taught me to look at the world as if I were seeing it for the first time. I wasn’t helpless after all, because you helped me.
20. You make everything more fun – museums, movies, cooking, laughing and being Italian – and most especially, shopping! I can’t wait for you and your wonderful kiddos to visit!
21. We love the same boys and the same children. You’re my brother and brother-in-law of choice rolled into one.
22. My five-year-old friend in the grown up clothes, what a grand father you’ll make!
23. I was determined not to love you but fell for you anyway. My friend and arbiter and sister-in-law of choice.
24. Brother of choice, I’ve spent more holidays with you than with anyone else, and they’ve all been far happier than the ones of my past.
25. We’ll be together again. Our story is far from over. After all, it’s only a plane ride. You made me feel safe for the first time. You are my family of choice – my friend, brother, mother, husband, sister, conscience and heart.
26. My heart. My peace. My secret smile. My laugh-out-loud-'til-tears-run-down-my face. My eyes wide open love. My safety. My strength. My forever life.

There are more, of course. I’ve left out the young ones – youth embarrasses too easily. I’ve purposely left out some other very special people, too. You may meet them another time. We’ll see.

In between the lines of this well loved list, you’ll find bits and pieces of me peeking out from behind this curtain of friends.

Banana Bread, Prozac, Elavil or Paxil?

I’ve already discovered that sharing happy things on a blog is pretty darned fun. Well, THIS is certainly something that makes me pretty darned happy. Ok, more than happy. The kind of happy that’s misty eyed, replete and content. I know it will make you happy, too. And misty eyed, replete and content.

With Banana Bread, Who Needs Prozac, Elavil or Paxil?

4 over-ripe bananas, smashed lightly with a fork
1/3 cup melted butter (Yes, butter. Don’t substitute. That would be silly.)
1 cup sugar (In truth, I actually use a bit less – down to 3/4 cup if the bananas are nicely sweet.)
1 egg, beaten
1 teaspoon vanilla (Don’t ever – EVER – use fake vanilla substitute. That wouldn’t be silly, that would be just plain criminal.)
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground ginger
Pinch of freshly ground nutmeg
Pinch of salt
1-1/2 cups of flour
1/2 cup dried cranberries (I suppose you could use raisins, but they’re a bit sweet for me.) (optional)
1/2 cup toasted walnuts, chopped coarsely (optional)

The really spiffy thing about this recipe is that you only need one (ONE!) bowl and no special equipment of any kind. WooHOO! You can also change the amounts of spices and optional ingredients. Don’t want nuts or cranberries? Leave ‘em out! If you’re a purist and don’t want the cinnamon, nutmeg or ginger, leave ‘em out! Add a jolt of orange zest or a tablespoon or orange juice or rum into the wet ingredients if you want. I prefer it as above, but (and if you read the chili recipe on October 23, 2006 you’ll know I’m repeating myself here) please yourself.

Here. I’m pasting a very gently edited snippet from the chili recipe below that I really want to make sure you believe:

“In life and in cooking, it’s important to use whatever quantities and combinations of ingredients that please you. Luckily we don’t all have a taste for the same things. Just keep trying cooking – and living – until you get both just the way you want them.”

So. Time for banana bread. You don’t need anything other than some measuring tools, a fork, a spoon, a bowl and a loaf pan for this dandy recipe. Oh. And an oven. If you can stir, you can make this yummy bread.

Preheat the oven to 350°F.

With a wooden spoon, mix the melted butter into the mashed bananas in a large mixing bowl. Don’t mash the bananas into baby food – leave them a little bit chunky. The banana texture is lovely when the bread bakes. Mix in the sugar, egg, and vanilla (and any other wet flavorings if you’re using them). Sprinkle the baking soda and salt over the mixture and stir them in gently. If you’re adding the optional cranberries or nuts, toss them into the measurement of flour and coat them with the flour. The coating of flour around the fruit and nuts helps them suspend themselves nicely throughout the batter without sinking before the bread’s baked through.) Last, add the flour (along with those cute little raisins and/or nuts) into the bowl. Mix gently. Don’t stir it too much, or the texture won’t be as nice. Just incorporate the ingredients.

Pour the mixture into a 4x8 inch loaf pan sprayed with a cooking spray like “Pam” or “Pam for Baking.” (Ok. I don’t actually do this. I put that part in for you. I use my wonderful Pampered Chef loaf pan. It’s made of clay and is naturally non-stick and bakes the bread evenly and beautifully. If you want to know how to get one, email me and I’ll be happy to tell you.) Bake in the center of your preheated oven for about 1 hour or until a toothpick inserted into the center of the loaf comes out clean. Cool the pan on a rack for about 10 minutes, and then gently take the bread out of the pan and let it cool it completely on a rack. I know the waiting is hard. Your home will smell wonderful and you’ll want to eat it right away. Don’t. It’ll crumble and fall apart. But when it’s cooled, you can slice it easily – and eat it all up.

Repeat as necessary. Of course you should check with your doc before you toss your Prozac, Elavil or Paxil into the trash heap, but I’m sure this banana bread will un-depress you. And has fewer side effects.

Go. Make this. Be happy. And full.

Of Course You Can Trust Me. Really.

Start to trust a man
And they take you away
At the end of the movie.

Procrastination

Oh my gosh! I'm dawdling in blogland when I have so much work to do. I love being here, browsing, chatting, reading, laughing and being inspired - by you. Thank you all, new friends, old friends and friends yet to be. But I MUST get to work!

Like Alice's White Rabbit:

I'm late, I'm late for a very important date!
No time to say hello, good-bye, I'm late, I'm late, I'm late!

I run and then I hop, hop, hop, I wish that I could fly.
There's danger if I dare to stop and here's a reason why:

I'm over-due, I'm in a rabbit stew.
Can't even say good-bye, hello,
I'm late, I'm late, I'm late!

For My Mini Pixie Friend

Time out to send a virtual hug to a very long distance friend.

To Paula,

Be proud because you had the courage to take a difficult path. This quote is to remind you that doing nothing when you see a wrong is even worse than the wrong itself. Sleep well, knowing you had the courage to do the right thing.

The world is a dangerous place, not because of those who do evil, but because of those who look on and do nothing. ~ Albert Einstein

I Wish

Do not spoil what you have by desiring what you have not; remember that what you now have was once among the things you only hoped for. ~ Epicurus

Ten Things

Ten Things I Never Thought I’d Do:

1. Use my blog as a tell-all journal (I did, according to my 2/13/2007 post and it looks as though this embarrassing trend may continue.)
2. Live overseas. (I taught English in Korea when I was young(er) and still thought the world wanted me to save it. I later learned it didn’t and I couldn’t, but it was a fun time never-the-less.)
3. Cut my hair. (I did in January - ten inches! - and even think it looks rather cute. Perhaps even a bit cosmopolitan. Still, it’s weird to wash and brush … seems to stop long before my brush thinks it should, and so it keeps on brushing even after the hair stops. Silly.)
4. Ride motorcycles. (I do, and seriously love them. Love them enough to buy my own a few years ago. Vroom vroom. An intoxicating mix of freedom and speed, privacy and exhibitionism, as you slice through time astride a rumbling, tooth-shattering roar, whilst enveloped in a cone of silence.)
5. Have my voice be recognized throughout a goodly portion of the US and a pretty fair share of Asia and Europe. (Around the globe, recordings of my disembodied voice instruct and exhort listeners to press 2 for a name directory and 0 for help – as though anyone is really listening anyway.)
6. Be owned by another cat. (I’m allergic, but she was cute and I had a mouse in the house. She swiftly dispatched the mouse – naming herself “Assassin” for it. Well, “Sassy” for short. The mouse is gone but the cat’s still happily here, tormenting the dog who owns me and purring.)
7. Drink steaming tea in London and slurp noodles in Seoul. Eat sushi in Tokyo and salmon in Anchorage. Eat wedges of golden gouda in Amsterdam and spicy chuchitos in Guatemala City. Eat Madeleines in Paris and wild boar in Umbria. (No explanation needed. Travel lust periodically grabs me by the throat.)
8. Fall in love … again.
9. Move 3,000 miles away from the people and places I love in order to live in the opposite side of this vast country where I knew no one – except one very special person. An alien, east coast snob adrift in the friendly, straight forward west.
10. Live happily ever after.

So I better tell you the next part of the story soon.

I start my new job in a week and am eagerly scared of it. Scared that it will take a lot of time and energy. Scared that I’ll neglect the blog and my blog friends as I have this past week. I’ve been reading and learning and trying to get a head start on this supersized, yummy new job.

I’ll go write the next part of the story soon. I promise. In the meantime, tell me about the things you never thought YOU’D do…

What's in it For Me?

The stage is not merely the meeting place of all the arts, but is also the return of art to life. ~ Oscar Wilde

Never Say Never

Ok, well I was never going to do this. But I guess I am. You’d think I’d learn – there are so many things I swore I’d never do and then I leap right in and do them anyway. Sigh. I guess I’m going to do this, too.

I never wanted to use the blog as a journal. Never wanted to say, “Today I made a cake,” or “Today I’m going on vacation.” I mean, I’m just not that interesting. Surely no one wants to read about the daily comings and goings of my wee life. I just wanted to post things I write and let you have glimpses of who I am through my writing. I really started this as a kind of anger management device. My job was wretched and I wanted somewhere else to put my brain. Didn’t want to think about the work that was making me unhappy. Made myself promise I’d never write anything about work or theater or marketing or development or bad finances or bad shows or bad choices or toxic workplaces. So I haven’t. I just keep posting other random thoughts that rattle around in my little brain.

Then I stopped working at the place that caused me to have screaming fits alone in my car, and life got sunnier. The clenched fist inside my head relaxed and I learned to breathe again. Twinkling summer sun brought fresh air and calm. I cooked for friends and family. I wrote. I played. I sang. And, uh, there was the occasional glass or two (or three) of wine. (I live darned near wine country, after all, and should be forgiven.) A lily of the field, I neither toiled nor spun. Which, of course, was the problem. No toiling or spinning, no paycheck. Ok for a while, but not as ok after six months. Things have been kind of tight around here and I’ve been worried.

What if no one hires me to do the job I love? It’s been seven and a half months. There aren’t all that many theaters around here – I no longer live in metropolitan east coast theater heaven. And I do love this job. I love theater and the business of theater. Of course a non-profit theater isn’t a business, but it needs to be run like one. We don’t sell shoes or ships or ceiling wax – our product is magic. Our job is to touch you and bring you a smile, a laugh, a tear or a thought. Our job is to change you somehow. But the business doesn’t run on magic and so we sometimes struggle and sometimes our work is hard. Our ability to change a human life makes it worthwhile. But that isn’t what I want to tell you. What I want to tell you is that I love the business of theater – marketing and publicizing, developing audience, finding money. And I love the art and the joy that you can (sometimes) find in a theater. Emotions on steroids. Even after working much of my life in theaters, my heart still races on opening night. The smell of an empty theater still makes my tears well up.

Today I got a new job.

I’m excited and happy and giddy and and and… And all that. I am the new Director of Operations, Marketing & Development for a wonderful professional theater company. Shiny bright promise. New troubles will come, to be sure. But the beginning will be filled with the heart racing passion of new love. And I think there will be magic, too.

I just wanted to tell you, even though I said I wouldn’t. Happiness likes to be shared.

Illegitimate

I’m not sure
But I think
That the same people who believe
Marriage will legitimize
Lovemaking
Are the same people who believe
Divorce will legitimize
Anger.

“No, I’m Just Going for a Walk”

Why is it when people feel they are losing
Each other
They always leave
Each other?

Why do people walk away from their houses
When all
They have to do to get home
Is turn around?

She's Not Getting Any Younger

I don’t know what it’s like
To be old,
But I think
It’s living long enough
To make a joke of the things
That were once
Breaking your heart.

The Children

Cool Slideshows

(You can click on a picture to see it larger and then click it again to put it back where it came from.)

Family

A happy family is but an earlier heaven. ~ George Bernard Shaw

Hormones Rage and Babies Boom, Part 3 (a.k.a. Family Friends)

Ok. A number of folks have asked what happened next. This gets a bit harder to write because I’ll have to publicly acknowledging my dopey-ness. Oh well. What’s a little dopey-ness between friends? Be sure to read Parts 1 and 2 first, so you'll know what's been happening. They’re dated October 12 and October 20, 2006.

I let him move back into our townhouse that spring. He said he wasn’t seeing her anymore, and that she didn’t mean anything to him. I was The One. I just figured it might work out ok. My friends Tim and Don exchanged little sad looks when they thought I couldn’t see.

We tried. Well, *I* tried. But persistence can’t always make things work out the way you want. He told me he hated looking into my eyes and seeing sadness. I guess my acting skills weren’t in peak running condition. Of course it didn’t work. Everyone knew from the beginning that it wouldn’t work. I knew, too.

It was as though we were both holding our breath, waiting for the inevitable. I learned what the bizarre phrase “like walking on eggshells” felt like. (Who would really want to walk on eggshells? You wouldn’t be able to find your footing. Wouldn’t that hurt? Ahhhh. Yes. Yes, it does.) Was afraid to speak my mind, afraid to plan a future beyond next week. I could only smile from the outside, not from the inside.

Finally, the unthinkable conversation. Things happen that you don’t think you can live through. You can. But it’s not easy. If you listen carefully, you can almost hear the splintering of your heart.

When it was over, I called Tim. Misery wanted company and the arms of a friend.

“Hi.”

“Are you ok? You’re crying. Did he finally leave you? I’ll be right over.”

“She’s pregnant.”

Crushing silence.

“He’s still here. I told him he had to stay in the guest room, though. He said he’d leave in the morning. He doesn’t have any place to go tonight, so I told him he could stay. Was that stupid?"

"Yes. I'll be right there."

I wasn’t The One after all. I never was. The 19-year-old girlfriend was two months pregnant. I was still in my doormat stage – with sadness unhidden behind my eyes - so it was Tim who finally told my husband to move out the next morning. Later we mentally kicked ourselves for not thinking to erase his beloved hard drive when we had the chance. You have to take your fun where you can find it.

Friends Tim and Don tended me like an invalid that summer. (Funny…that word... kind of like in valid.) They worried, and never left me alone. In valid. Lots of Kleenex got balled into soggy little wads of sorrow and thrown around my room.

I cried a lot. I’m the one who’d checked my temperature every morning, I’m the one who’d had the surgery, I’m the one who’d prayed. She’s the one who got the baby. In valid.

The carnival came to town. Send in the clowns. To cheer me up, Tim, Don and I traipsed off to the midway. Nothing’s like whirling lights, cotton candy and the hard-edged glitter of forced amusement. Tilt-a-Whirl, Farris Wheel and Scrambler can help a girl find her balance. Well, of course you also need the Palace of Wonder and the Last Supper in Wax show. Oh. And clowns. You always need clowns.

If you don’t get the family you think you need, it’s important to create one.

Don, Tim and I moved in together that winter. We spent all hours and times together - laughing, cooking, eating, drinking, dancing and passing the Kleenex box to one another as we watched a lipsticked, black and white Joan Crawford strut around in shoulder pads. (Oh, you know as well as I do that clichés don’t come out of thin air. No one chooses to be gay because the food’s better, but we did spend a lot of time trying recipes, choosing paint colors and watching Joan Crawford sneer at Bette Davis.)

A peculiar thing began to happen. My friends treated me like a person, and so I became one. Didn’t treat me like a girl or a wife or a mom. Or a vessel. Treated me like a person without an ID tag. A whole person. I carried groceries, emptied trash, lugged luggage. I learned to plant my own garden instead of waiting for someone else to bring me flowers. Ok – I also learned how to fight (usually fair). Gave voice to my thoughts instead of tucking them away in little, festering shadows of my brain. Learned how to define myself by what I wanted instead of what I could do for someone else. Found my equal voice.

When I was in my 20s, a wise friend in her 70s told me that the best intimate relationships were ones where both people could stand on their own – two people with four strong legs. Protection against toppling over. It was in that house of friends that I tried to stand on my own. I still wobble pretty often but I’ve finally learned that I really am strong and can stand up to what comes. An offshoot of person-hood, I think.

I learned to answer only to myself, too. I bought a motorcycle and discovered the sensual freedom of riding through soft evening air surrounded by crimson sunsets, the scent of warm spring earth and the distant screeching of newborn peepers. Ok, ok – the thrill of speed was pretty enticing, too.

It was also in that house of friends that I began to dip my toes back into the water to see if there really were too many fish in it. Dated all manner of people, some good, some bad, none ugly. No one touched my heart, but a few touched other places.

Tim fell in love with Stephen and moved out. Don fell in love and moved Robert in. With each addition our circle grew larger. We’d created a family – filled it with love and laughter, warmth and security. Brown-eyed children chased around after a romping dog in the back yard. A picket fence. Hydrangeas. Maybe not typical, but an American family, to be sure.

Different people supplied the things that made me smile - some for the brain, some for the body, some for the heart. Some for sickness and some for health. No one person supplied everything I wanted, but it was all there for the asking. Everyone has their own skill.

I was happy.

Then the rug got pulled out from under me. I’ve already told you I’m not a believer in mystical moments or psychic flashes. I leave predestination to my ancestor Scots and mystical curses to the Sicilians. But things really did get out of control. I’ll have to tell you about them later. I promise. Really.

Bonnie

Once, in a rush
She wore two different
Color sox.

They matched perfectly.
It was her style.

Authorized Use of Force

Soldiers don’t cause wars,
Governments do.

We simply employ soldiers
To do the dying.

He

He
Had no quarrel with life.
But when it was time
For young men to go to war
He joined the parade.

Vietnam is a far cry from Indiana.
(A nice place to visit
But I wouldn’t want to die there.)

He
Was only a name.
No boy belongs
To that name
Anymore.

He
Was the first boy
Who ever kissed me.
We were twelve, I think.
My neighbor saw us
But never told our mothers.

Later that summer,
He wrote me a love letter
And spelled my name
Wrong.

He
Was simple and uncomplicated.
And then he joined the war parade.
He killed three men.

But once
I watched
him climb
a rain spout
to save
a sparrow.

He
Was only a name.
No boy belongs to that name
Anymore.

Mutiny

I never could decide upon a name.
Always she was like a myth
Even as she was coming true.

I still feel her,
Restless, round and round,
Like a dog, circling
To find the right position.

Don’t think I wasn’t grateful.
I was. Even for a chance
To have a chance.
Maybe it was the Tabasco, or…

Who knows why a baby breathes
And then deflates into
Anonymity forever,
As though the very air were poison.

I’ll never know her.
Whoever she was, she was restless,
A renegade embryo.
Unforgettable,
Maybe only to the body that carried her,
But unforgettable nevertheless.

Fruits and Vegetables

Some men spoil like lettuce
If not preserved immediately.

Really ...

Some lettuce
Properly refrigerated
Can last longer
And taste fresher
Than your average 30-year-old actor.

Oz

I'm not looking for answers anymore
But for something to remember.

Tour Book

I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I ended up where I needed to be. ~ Douglas Adams

Rainy Days and Mondays

He lives here.

If I wanted to
I’m sure I could find him.

But somehow
It just seems enough
Knowing he’s alive and well nearby
And that today
We are both walking around
In the same rain.

S.O.S.

She thought men were her saviors
And looked for more in them
Then they had.

She needed to rescue herself
From those she prayed
Would rescue her.

Time Passes

Dad walks slowly.
Not because he’s tired,
But because
No one’s waiting
Anywhere.

He doesn’t wear his watch
Because he never has to know what time it is.

When he stops to talk
Or touch,
He leaves me slowly.
Not because he’s tired,
But because
No one’s waiting
Anywhere.

Cheers!

Promises, Promises

A promise
is just a wish,

A way
to dream out loud.

Language is only intention.

Merry Christmas

It's only when we're in love
Or when we're little
That Christmas really comes true.

In between
It can break our hearts
With expectation.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Thanksgiving Preparation Ain't All It's Cracked Up To Be

Where Do We Go From Here?

It is only possible to live happily ever after on a day-to-day basis. ~ Margaret Bonnano

Boo!

Politics as Usual

At times one remains faithful to a cause only because its opponents do not cease to be insipid. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche

Adjust According to Taste

If you’ve been reading along from nearly the beginning of the blog, you know I used to own a small catering company. [If not, you can read the post “Feeding the Hungry” dated April 21, 2006.] The backbone of my little company was constructed out of chili. Gallons and gallons of chili. But things change and I now think I shouldn’t be eating huge quantities of beef or fat, so have adjusted a couple of my recipes accordingly. Maybe – just maybe – this version is better than my original one. And so because several folks have asked for the recipe lately, I thought I’d just stick it up here – have fun and eat well. In that order.

[I’m going with the assumption that you already know that t = teaspoon, T = tablespoon and c = cup. If you didn’t before, now you do.]

2 pounds ground turkey (in place of the ground beef I used to use)

2 coarsely chopped onions

3 minced cloves garlic

(You could add a medium chopped green or red pepper, too, but I don’t like them so I don’t. No accounting for taste.)

In a large Dutch oven sprayed with non-stick cooking spray, sauté the onion until it’s wilted. (I used to brown everything in about 4 T of corn oil. I don’t any more – would rather save those fat grams to butter my cornbread.) Add the garlic and sauté a few minutes longer, but do NOT allow the garlic to brown. Burnt garlic is nasty and bitter. Bleugh. Add the ground turkey and sauté until barely browned, stirring often to make sure the garlic and onion don’t scorch. If things start to scorch or stick, deglaze with a little wine, chicken stock or water. Don’t add fat, even though you’re tempted to. No point in defeating the purpose here. There’s still cornbread and butter to eat, and beer to drink.

Add to the barely browned turkey:

5 T chili powder

2 T ground cumin

½ t hot red pepper flakes (Or more. Or less.)

1 t kosher salt

1 t ground black pepper

½ t ground nutmeg

1 t ground cinnamon (no big surprise, garam masala works really well here instead)

1 scant t onion powder

1 scant t garlic powder

2 T brown sugar (I prefer dark)

1 T cocoa powder (No, I’m not kidding. Think molé sauce)

1 c red wine (whatever’s left over from last night’s dinner is fine – do not use that nasty stuff at the grocery store called “cooking wine.” Shudder.)

Stir everything into the browning turkey and allow everything to sauté nicely as you stir often to crumble the ground turkey and prevent sticking. When everything is nicely caramelized and aromatic, add salt and pepper to taste. (Remember I told you that garlic burns and gets bitter very easily? Same with black pepper.) The measurements above are only suggestions. Spicy or mild – adjust to your taste.*

Then add:

3 14.5 ounce cans undrained diced tomatoes

1 T red wine vinegar

1 14 ounce can undrained black beans (See note below about undrained beans)

2 14 ounce can undrained dark red kidney bean (Or use pintos or light red kidneys if you prefer. I just like the dark ones cuz they’re pretty.)

1 14 ounce can undrained white beans, such as navy or pea beans

(Use whatever bean combination you like, but the three colors are nice together. You can easily substitute garbanzos for the white beans. Do what you want. I do.)

Simmer on a VERY low heat for several hours, stirring every now and then. It scorches pretty easily, even on a low heat in a heavy stainless steel pot, so don’t let it burn. Correct and adjust the seasonings to your own taste. I suspect you’ll want to add a bit of salt. If you eat it the same day it’ll be pretty good. If you eat it the next day, it’ll be fabulous.

When you’re ready to eat, squeeze a wedge of lime onto the chili in your bowl and toss the lime wedge onto the top of it. (No, don’t eat the darned thing – it’s just pretty and adds a bit of additional flavor as it sits there.) No one seems to feel ambivalent about cilantro. Love it or hate it. I love it, so I always sprinkle a bit of chopped cilantro on top of my chili. If you can handle the fat, garnish with a dollop of (low fat?) sour cream and/or some grated cheddar cheese. A couple of (baked) tortilla chips and fresh salsa on the side are pretty dandy. A bowl of chili, a piece of cornbread and a cold beer just make my night.

Important Notes:

All chili recipes are intensely personal and I sure don’t want to get involved in the controversy about what constitutes “real chili.” Beans or no beans. Texas-style, New Mexico-style or Cincinnati-style. Alone or on top of rice or spaghetti. Cubes of beef chuck, pork roast, ground beef or turkey, or no meat at all. Don’t know. Don’t care. This is just what I like. Happily, a lot of other folks have also liked it and perhaps you will, too.

The phrase “adjust the seasoning to taste”* used to intimidate me when I was a young(er!) cook. Just remember that (unless you’re a professional chef) the only taste buds that matter are on your own tongue. Fiddle with the seasonings any way you want and make it your own. I’ve happily added or changed the seasonings with these randomly combined ingredients – to taste!

Toasted cumin seed

Bay leaf (Remember to fish it out of the chili before you serve.)

Dried basil or marjoram

Minced toasted chili pepper

Chipotle chilis in adobo sauce

Espresso powder (I know. Sounds weird. It isn’t. Try a scant teaspoon.)

My Midwestern mom used to chop up a kosher dill pickle and stir it into her bowl of red. Then she’d drizzle a little bit of pickle juice over everything. She liked the zippy crunch of the pickle to cut the chili’s heat. I’ve never tried either, but she loved it so I’m passing it along. Again, no accounting for taste.

And, because it’s occasionally good to feel righteous, I’ve also used the next little fat-lowering tip when I’m feeling particularly chubby:

First, barely brown the ground turkey. Then scoop it into a colander and rinse it off. Yep. Honest. Rinse it off. Most of the fat just slips down the drain. Let the meat sit and drain while you sauté the onion, garlic and peppers if you’re using them. Add the rinsed ground meat back into the pan with the sautéing vegetables and proceed as usual. Losing this fat lets you eat another piece of buttered cornbread.

Now, about the undrained beans. I know this sounds like sacrilege. I understand that when you rinse the beans you’re rinsing off salt and oligosaccharides (the complex sugars that cause, well, you know, flatulence). You’re also rinsing off a lot of flavor. Just remember, when you buy canned beans (or anything else!) read the label. If there are lots of preservatives, additives, salt or sugar listed in the ingredients, choose a different brand. If you decide you just have to rinse the beans, add some more liquid to make up for the loss. Chicken stock, water, tomato juice or wine are all good choices.

If you’re going to freeze the leftover chili, (I never have leftovers, but I suppose you might.) remember that in the freezer, the pungency and heat of garlic and hot peppers increases beyond your wildest imagination. Use less of both if you’re going to freeze. Bitter personal experience – literally and figuratively. Ooof.

In life and in chili making, it’s important to use whatever quantities and combinations of ingredients that please you. Luckily we don’t all have a taste for the same things. Just keep trying chili making – and living – until you get both just the way you want them. But for heaven’s sake, don’t use all these ingredients together or your taste buds will fall off.

No. I don’t know how many it serves. How big’s your bowl? How hungry are you? It makes plenty for you and a bunch of other hungry people. As a matter of fact, writing this is making me want to brew up a batch. Tomorrow will be a yummy day. I’m heading out to buy the beer now.

Hormones Rage and Babies Boom, Part 2

You should read “Hormones Rage and Babies Boom, Part 1” before you read this. The post is dated October 12, 2006.

………

I’ve been trying to figure out how to tell you about Part 2. Do you want to know what happened next to my raging hormones and quest for a child, or do you want to know what happened next to my heart? Maybe you want to know all of it. Or none. Those days are intertwined and some of those stories are hard. They’ll take time to tell. We’ll see.

I’ll tell you a bit more about The Quest. The heart stuff will have to wait.

We became friends while planting garden annuals. We shared a common condo wall, a common postage stamp yard and a common love of children. My realtor was wrong, though. They weren’t really cousins. Oh my heavens … LESBIANS!

We’re about the same age, so all of our time-bomb hormones were raging and crashing around at the same time. There was so much estrogen bouncing off our townhouse walls that it’s amazing male visitors didn’t grow breasts.

The lesbian baby boom was in its early days, and they were just starting the delicate dance, negotiating with adoption agencies and with each other. Their own baby quest was very different from mine. (You now know – or should – that my journey on the motherhood train was more traditional, and derailed.) They hired an international attorney and international adoption liaison, and so, three months later, got a call to go to Brazil to meet their daughter. They rushed around, packing suitcases and money belts, and loading up with Pampers and penicillin, adrenaline and hope.

The flight to Brazil seemed never-ending to the moms-to-be, fraught with “Oh my Gods!” and anxious second thoughts. After arriving and hastily stashing their belongings in a barren rental apartment, they rushed to the adoption liaison’s office. There, the solemn-eyed, curly-haired baby girl erased all second thoughts.

But as so often happens in all good fairy tales, there were dragons to fight along the way. The baby was sick. No pre-natal care and four months of orphanage life took a toll on her tiny body. The lung infections were probably the result of burning tobacco fields, and the scabies and boils a result of … well, you decide. Whatever miseries you imagine are probably right. American money and drugs immediately charged to the rescue. Without them the doctors said the baby would have died that night.

The Brazilian government required a forty-five day stay before the baby could be taken out of the country to her new home. While the new little family walked along Brazilian beaches, 4,153 miles away I was setting up the baby’s new room with rockers and teddies and blankies, oh my. Nesting seems to be my particular skill – a way of controlling something when everything else is spinning out of my control.

As proof of my lack of control over anything real, my baby’s intended father-to-be (loosely defined as my husband) left me for his 19-year-old girlfriend the very week my next-door-friends brought their baby daughter home.

Now, I can’t explain this at all, and I’m not much of a believer in mystical moments or psychic flashes, but as she got out of the car, one of the moms put her beautiful and exhausted crying baby daughter into my arms and The Quest ended. Just like that, my baby burn disappeared. The fire just fizzled out. Poof. She stopped crying and snuggled into my arms and heart, where she’s been all these years since. My God-daughter now, she filled in all the blanks. I suppose it might be possible to love a child more, but I can’t imagine it.

A year or so later, another of my dearest friends decided it was time for him to become a father. As a gay man his daddy options were a bit limited, but his strong mother raised him with the surety that, “Happiness is about raising a family.” He was pretty sure that his own baby quest could be quenched only by a biological child of his own, and so we talked about having a child together. I chickened out. My hormone-driven baby daze had vanished and I quickly reverted to my pre-raging days of baby ambivalence. And of course my God-daughter was already prancing around my living room, playing gleeful tag with my dog and giggling, as she filled the voids in my heart.

After watching me with my God-daughter – birthed 4,200 miles away by a woman of another ethnic background and color, and mothered by middle-class suburban lesbians – he changed his mind. He watched as this girl-baby mimicked me as well as her moms, and it became difficult to see where one influence began and the other ended. And so he and his husband adopted their daughter from New York, where she was put into her dads’ arms at birth by a loving nurse. She’s brilliant – a reflection of them, as well as of the woman who chose them to be the parents of her birthchild. And maybe, just maybe, she reflects a dollop of my love, too. (I suppose it’s possible that she was born instinctively knowing the words to “I’m Gonna Wash That Man Right Outta My Hair...” but I’m willing to admit that it might have been me who taught her the song.) Another one of the children I can’t imagine loving more.

But even biology doesn’t guarantee a parental mirror. Every now and then, even the well-intentioned can be ignorant and hurtful. A friend of mine from the Midwest married a dark-haired, black-eyed, olive-skinned man from a Mediterranean island. Their children (much as my brother and I do) reflect their parent’s genetic melding and prove (again) that opposites attract and make beautiful babies. Her daughter’s swinging black hair, fiery dark eyes and sun-kissed skin carry the promise of Mediterranean sunlight and laughter. Her appearance is as different as night and day from her auburn-haired, amber-eyed, fair-skinned mom. “Now, I know she’s not your real daughter. What country did you adopt her from…?” It never occurred to the woman (who nonetheless felt it perfectly within the bounds of etiquette to ask such a personal question) that my friend carried her daughter for nine long months and then gave birth to her in the heat of a sultry Midwestern summer.

Who is it who decides when a family becomes “real?” And is it the children or the parents who become Real? Maybe the story of the Velveteen Rabbit is right – "Real isn't how you are made. It's a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real."

Pressure to parent is strong, and occasionally that old joke is dead center true – almost any guy can become a father. I think it’s often just a matter of aim. But the decision to adopt a child is just that. A decision – a process. Intimate interviews replace intimate caresses. No one can accidentally adopt a child in a drunken moment of careless passion. Now, I’m not suggesting that biological parents be interviewed for parental fitness, their finances and backgrounds scrutinized. Smacks too much of a brave new world to be comfortable. But how different life would be if all children were deeply and truly wanted.

Somewhere in here there’s an unspoken essay about gay rights, international and domestic adoption, nature versus nurture and the definition of family. Will they look like me? Will they act like me? Will they BE like me? … Will we love each other? … Maybe it’s all just the luck of the draw, and both biology and adoption are a crapshoot. Perhaps with luck and love everything really does turn out ok. I know that these adopted children – and their more recently added siblings! – are bonded to their parents and to me. (Although I must tell you that I’m deeply grateful I get the love and not the tuition bills.) My life is filled with many prancing children who exuberantly love me back. I have crayon drawings on my refrigerator door to prove it. And I know that my hormone-driven baby quest blazed hot and then burned out, leaving in its place the special love an armful of children.

And then I did a really stupid thing. I let my absent husband move back home. He said he didn’t really love her after all and that I was The One. Of course there’s more to this story, too. Maybe later.