The Twists of Time

I was lucky. When my two girls were young, I always had some work/life balance owing to always working around various part-time work schedules. Both my daughters accompanied me to my office job until six months old; the youngest started at nine days old. I was never home full-time. But I was home plenty enough to need sources of entertainment outside of home. Fifteen years ago in my hometown, that was easily achieved between the public library, the parks, and the living rooms of other young parents. We saw amazing puppet shows, musical guests, plays and artists at both the libraries within walking or transit distance from home. We conducted leaf science underfoot on numerous occasions walking to and in city parks. We made paint messes throughout our house and others. All in all we were quite busy and in my mind as cultured as we could be compared to my disappeared independence of college-educated adult gal. In those days my number one criteria for sources of entertainment: no fee.
Eventually our social entertainment playground included annual gift membership destinations such as the zoo, the science museum or the children's museum on a revolving basis. And the grandparents also provided symphony dates, but in truth my own out-of-pocket entertainment expenses for years were nil.
Nowadays, from the periphery of tween and teen social strata, it appears there is no end of cultural, engaged hobnobbing available to the young and their keepers. There are still fabulous free shows and guests to be seen at the library (although capacity is limited and one tends to have to arrive early to get a ticket), the parks are older and more majestic throughout the seasons and have updated playgrounds, and no doubt households are teeming with young guests and socially-deprived parents in need of camaraderie and conversation. Additionally, there are crops of cafes and indoor play palaces catering to these folk - places were congregation is popular and often comes with admission or at least the price of coffee. I can't help reflecting how impossible it would have been for me to participate in this expanded culture. My earliest recollection of feeling panicked by the prospect of paying to play was when a family asked us to join them at the Burlingame McDonald's indoor play structure when it was a hot spot, pre-PlayDate PDX and JJ Jump and all the others. I was conflicted and horrified that I had to patronize an establishment I wouldn't otherwise visit to accept the invitation, and I was challenged that it would cost money. It was the slow dawn signalling that though the library would forever anchor our reading habits and weekly habits, we would outgrow the free entertainment resources it offered.

Of course, and luckily, resources do evolve over the years. Eventually children demand a debut on the consumer scene and just as importantly need to learn to value the costs and balance of social life. Without a television at home, we may have craved movie-going by the tween years more than the average person. That came after hosting art camp with my daughter among 7-year olds and realizing she was the only one at the lunch table who could not participate in the popular conversation because she hadn't seen the programs or the movies de rigueur. I will always proudly own that my version of screen-time with a toddler was sitting on the floor in my daughter's bedroom with my head buried in the first Harry Potter book while she emptied every dresser drawer and played laundry contentedly. Movies were one of the first - and ongoing - expenses of parent-child entertainment I adopted. Now it's just plain a guilty pleasure to share a movie date with either of my daughters. The big-screen is still a novelty for us and happens pretty rarely. I love that so many movies these days are unoriginal scripts, as in borrowing stories from the literary masters and moving them to the screens. I love that we aim to read any book before we see it, or get excited upon discovering a book version exists so we can go back to the source.

But funding entertainment doesn't mean I forgo the freebies. In fact the stakes seem so much higher now, finding satisfying things to do together when they'd so often rather be with their friends, or in the case of one daughter, at home in her own element. Things that won't break the bank. Fast forward to yesterday, when I bucked our tradition of walking to a neighborhood lot for a Christmas tree we would typically launch to home on the old wagon just days before Christmas so as not to eclipse the pre-holiday birthday of my oldest daughter. In an effort to extend the adventure, we drove out to a farm to choose and cut our tree. It could be that I was the only one expecting to enjoy this. It could be that I was the only one prepared to enjoy it. While it seemed plausible to wander the cultivated woods and emerge with a tree that made at least two if not three of us happy, it was a chore. There was cold, there was anger, there was species disharmony (Grand Fir vs. Noble Fir vs. Douglas), there was too much brown in the middle of every favorite tree. There was dispute over how tall a tree could or had to be. There was insolence and yelling and chaos. There were furrowed brows and impatience. It's really quite a workout to saw through a standing tree with a mediocre borrowed handsaw. I about died when one of the potential trees had a trunk bigger than my upper arm. I actually worked up my sweat over two trees, as my dad was with us and had no trouble at all choosing the tree he wanted. 

I'm not sure that my kids will ever remember this effort fondly. I know my dad won't especially remember it at all - with Alzheimer's robbing his brain of the ability to make new memories and hold them. But I had a great time. And in this twist of time, my number one criteria for sources of entertainment don't always have to be free. They have to produce feelings. I scored all around this time.

You Are the Everything (Of Course)

Mix tapes. Those time capsules for the ears and hearts of youth.
When people made custom music collections for each other and called them cryptic things that must have meant something, those were the days. To catalog a few, I  remember making cassettes called Voice of the Eyes, and I received a two-volume set called Immortality for M.E. They now live in a box with others called Canon of Proportions, Masala of Nift Bresiliance, Truckin' and Shake Well Before Using. And others. Does this still happen? Is there cover art for play lists? How does one collage or hand-letter these auditory feasts?

A few years back when I received a playlist, it came announced in an email that it was in dropbox for me, and it was called Miss Hailey Sings the Blues. It was a bit of a chore to download and discover it, but the thrill was pretty much the same. Minus the handwriting and cover art.

As I recall, mix tapes were magnificent tributes to something you had, something you wanted, or something you never wanted to forget. I took a closer look and listen to my Immortality collection on a long drive tonight, a double cassette collection of a pure slice of the early 1990's. It was an 18th birthday present. Remember how important it seemed to hear and mean every word of every song on tapes like that? That thing about decorating the covers and listing some songs with twisted words, and messing with the artist names to be clever, or ending with a ghost track that ignited either panic or pleasure with it's surprise appearance.......the patience it took to make a reveal like that! It sounds like an archaic form of communication considering the ubiquitous handheld device days upon us now.

What I remember about Immortality from back in the day was that it was eclectic and surprising and loud.
What I loved about it tonight, 21 years later, was how eclectic it managed to be with its ballads, lullabies, nostalgic nods to music from our parents' era, loud and contemporary and even local (Completely Grocery, anyone?) and hallmarking pretty much everything it was to be a teenager that year. REM figured prominently, but so did The Beatles. Along with Led Zeppelin, Live, Simon & Garfunkel and Hendrix and Marley. It was a fabulous birthday present with staying power!  I had not listened to it in nearly two decades, but I could still sing along arguably well to every song there on the auditory feast. Even with the forgotten ghost track. "Oh, you know, I will." Those magical Beatles ;).

P.S. I wonder, is there such a thing as a mix tape from the 90's that doesn't feature at least one track from the Indigo Girls?

Holding Space for Dirt and Chaos

I like vacuuming. And I like mopping my kitchen floor, which is much quieter.
Heck, I even like hand washing the dishes (I love hand washing the dishes, actually).
I find it satisfying that for the effort of half an hour I can produce a visible difference in tidiness by racing a loud machine all over the floor, or getting it wet and moving the water around. It's crazy, but I often start an ideal Sunday morning that way. It's my way of getting ahead and making my morning mess in a neat place. It's so much more fun to mess up a tidy space than a disheveled one.

But I haven't vacuumed my home since my house guest was here.....six weeks ago.
It's not too awful, but I can tell. 
And today I told a doctor I sometimes vacuum - when she asked me about exercise.  I said so because it seemed funny, but it also struck me that I probably vacuum more regularly than I intentionally exercise. And then I thought how crazy that was, because of course the afterglow of a quick run or long walk or hour of yoga or dance easily outshines a thorough vacuum.
But I digress. Because despite how much I like the afterglow of a good prance-around with the sucker-upper dirt-collector, I simply haven't done it in ages.

The practical part of me knows this is mostly because it is loud, and I most often notice the need to vacuum when I am sitting down, which is usually early in the morning or after dark - neither of which are noise-friendly vacuum traffic times. But I have had a handful of conscientious moments in broad daylight when I have stared down the debris on my carpet instead of storming it in the past six weeks.

The philosophical part of me thinks this has something to do with holding space for dirt and chaos. When I have a little chaos around, it's oddly comforting if I know that there's more than me feeling disarray. It sure is nice to know and see that not everything stays all neat and tidy all the time. I know this is going to change in a fit of momentary need for a tidier living room floor, but for the meantime I am holding the space for dirt and chaos.
If my carpet has some inanimate affliction, it feels less lonely that I have some too.

The day the greatest gift in my single parenting life was my daughter's boredom

On a Friday night when the internet had been out for a few days, my teenage daughter found my love letters.
She was bored. She went looking for one of my journals she remembered finding a few years previously that had first clued her in to realize that I was a human being with similar worries and fears at age 12. Neither of us knew where it landed. Instead she found one box of high school mementos filled with correspondence from my family when I was away at summer camps, play posters, locker signs, a journal, and a few inches worth of letters from friends. The contents of this box hadn't been missed or exposed for 20 years. Not that I had particularly forgotten about the histories these letters told, but I hadn't thought a lot about them either.

My daughter is nearly 16. She is a little bit younger than the era from which the contents of this box survive. Reading letters from my little brothers and sisters and my parents when I was young deepened her sense of appreciation for family ties. Reading letters from beaus and friends showcased the histories of friendships I had - the kinds of friendships she hasn't yet had for herself. Some of these friends I have to this day.  And those that I don't have still showed off the fact that people can be important in your life even when they ultimately go. I know when I was young I didn't want to believe for a second that someone that meant the world to me would one day be just a memory. There were actually a few letters I screened first and moved aside, but for the most part it was a pure delight to share these time capsules. I asked her to read them aloud as she went so I could enjoy her saturation and see the moments that arrested her most.

I never anticipated this moment. Sure, I kept these things because I live for the seduction of fiction that one day these letters and posters and mementos might tell a story I never told to someone who cared about me. I also don't have the guts to mess with my own sentimentality. But I didn't see this particular episode coming. I never planned to read my love letters with my daughters. So for my teenage daughter to swoon over an extinct me and fall a little bit in love with my friends and their feelings, that was a gift. As she read, she expressed a lot of desire for building similar relationships. It was heartbreaking and wonderful all at once. And for me, it was purely thrilling to note one thing that hasn't changed about me - the value of verbose and vocabulary I adore still. I'm a sucker for a man with vocab and feelings and a handwritten letter. Like my daughter, I swooned a little too. But even more than that, it isn't that I want these people back in my life: I got to re-admire and share the notion of people with these qualities in my life, and now I get to share liking and wanting this with my daughter. We got a little closer to being friends that night, and all because she was bored.
So the fact that my daughter and I wouldn't be likely high school friends doesn't matter much. We have really rocky moments. We clash in very big ways.  The fact that we get to start being friends now, that matters quite a bit.

A roll of wrapping paper seduced me at the mall last night.

Yes, a roll of wrapping paper seduced me at the mall last night.
Which is to say, I bought it.
I wasn't shopping, I was exiting the building at a regular walking pace when the item of note caught my attention. I stopped, touched and admired.
It was simple and efficient and satisfying, like any good seduction.
Which is to say, it was also notable.

Making rapid undeliberated purchases is a relatively unexercised muscle for me. I consume plenty of things, but not many that are bought new in the package. And not often without hemming and hawing a fair bit first.
Not much more than a year ago I was operating a family food budget based entirely on food benefits from the state. Which means it wasn't really a budget, it was a sum that lasted as long as it lasted and when it ran out that was the food allowance for the month. My bank statement data is infrequently longer than two inches not because I prefer cash but because I stick to the essentials. I dread buying sponges and dish soap. I have purchased paper towels twice in my life. I have a pretty solid habit of ignoring things that would be nice to buy but not entirely necessary, which isn't so difficult if you ignore the places where these things are sold...and the internet....and glossy magazines....and pretty much the general way of society. I'm that person who it took three visits to the local IKEA to digest the appropriate amount of desensitization needed within the building to actually see any of the stuff begging to be bought, whereas I have a kid who begs to be immersed in the possibility all that unpurchased stuff presents.

So when I saw this wrapping paper, I wanted it, and I instantly proceeded to buy it. Not so bad for a former mall-phobe. Never mind that I have since reinforced my rapid decision with appreciation that a two-toned polka dot pattern is practical and will wrap a gift for most any occasion appropriately, provided it is dressed in the right ribbons for the occasion. I let that roll seduce me.
Who says the mall isn't cathartic?

Dating Grey's Anatomy

I've had this thing going on for the past several months.
I found a thing I really enjoy.
It makes me laugh some, cry some, and it keeps me wanting more. 
It's attractive and endearing and pretty addictive. It also delivers well with occasional surprises and plenty of innuendo.
I like to do as much of it as possible. Sometimes I'm so eager I rush regular things to get more time with it.
It definitely influences my decision-making -- sometimes I also make time for it against my better judgement, like after 10:00 p.m. when I'm already tired and would normally go to bed. So I lose sleep over it too.
I stay up with it instead of sleeping well. And I like my sleep, so that's when I know I need to temper my affection.
When I take a break for a few days, I think more clearly and enjoy coming back to it all the more.
I kind of want to hold onto it and not let it go.
But best of all, I reserve all the rights to make it stop and make it go.

Yep, I'm definitely dating Grey's Anatomy

And I intend to see it through.

Those 3 Things That Make People Sexy

It happens.
People get arrested by completely, inexplicably invigorating people whose curb appeal is elusive but whose sexiness is unbearably present.
Thankfully, it happens!
With some recent pause to figure out the Why when Sexy is the first compliment on my mind, three distinct and time-honored traits kept rising up. Surprise! Not a one is a physical feature.  I tend to love these things in men, but I find women share these traits when they strike me as sexy too.

1. Confident
 There is no greater frustration than a person without conviction. This is about where to meet, when to finish, even what to wear. It's a huge headliner if/when intimacy appears in the relationship. Someone who knows himself and willingly states it is a huge attraction. As a bonus, sharing time and space with someone who knows what he wants provokes me to share what I want as well.
And then there's the fine line when confidence becomes cocky and arrogant. It's still oddly attractive that  someone can so fully possess self-presence, but this is the time to take note when confidence errs more heavily toward inflexibility and self-serving or selfish desires.

2. Smart
The thinker has got to be smart and able to communicate what he knows. Words and sharp vocabulary are my particular Achilles heel. Put me in the company of someone who can make something interesting to me even if I'm genuinely disinterested, I'm sunk. I was once asked by an ex-boyfriend what made someone most attractive to me, and without pause I replied, "Tete-a-tete." He didn't know what that meant. And that's why someone who was otherwise incredibly thoughtful and giving of himself was by then an ex.

3. Curious & Inquisitive
The sneaker traits. Someone asking questions about you? Inquiring about your past or just plain able to find your soft spots in casual conversation? There is no way around the attractiveness of someone who bumps into my heartstrings. In fact it feels so incredible when someone taps into those categories of things that often seem like over-sharing, it can be blindingly desirable to hold on.

At a glance there are other things that make people sexy. But these things, these are the ones that take more than a glance and make every conversation worth that chance.

What is equitable when it comes to first teachers?

I love my job.  It’s fun, energizing, open-ended, social and inspiring. It’s also challenging, as it requires constant problem-solving, critical thinking and organizing. It demands patience, creative resourcing, interpersonal dynamics navigation, role-modeling and time.  It boasts the accomplishment of building foundations of community, life-long learning, and social success.  It asks these skills of me when working with both children and adults.  Any idea what I do?
I’m a cooperative preschool teacher!  It is a job like no other, extending far beyond the hours of a preschooler’s classroom time.  And thank goodness for that, because a lot of the more challenging elements of the job happen outside of classroom time, including resource building and mentoring families through the dynamic early childhood experience.  The role of a cooperative preschool teacher as a guide, visionary and institutional memory of a school is unique – and vital – to school longevity.
Any idea what this job is worth?  The majority of my colleagues who teach in cooperative preschools would probably use all the descriptors I used above and more.  It sounds like a pretty full job, likely demanding of personal time, and certainly not a job for the faint of heart or weak in spirit.  It sounds like a job worthy of a living wage.  It sounds like a hard job that could pay pretty well!   Yet as I sat in a meeting among fellow cooperative preschool teachers last fall, I heard several people state very candidly they could not afford to work in this field if they were not supported by their spouses and partners.  Discounting the variety of lifestyles a room full of people could desire, it bears mentioning that is a pretty heavy statement and reflects on how society values the undeniably important role of early childhood education.  I very nearly cried.  Is this the real value of the women and men who fill the role of first educator in children’s lives?
I’m a single mom supporting three people on the income of two part-time jobs, primarily the income of my job as a cooperative preschool teacher.  Any member who takes a look at the school’s budget distributed monthly to its members doesn’t need rocket science to determine that paying three employees a total of $31,000/year isn’t going to translate to a gold mine, or even a standard that barely fits into the federal income levels for poverty for an individual, let alone a family.  More importantly, does it translate to an equitable wage for the work that cooperative preschool teachers do for young children and their families?
With honesty and grace I can tell you that I don’t make anywhere near enough money to put my employer or the members of my employer ahead of my family.
As annual contract negotiations come into view for another preschool year, I think it is time to begin engaging the idea of society’s value on this kind of job, a family’s value on this kind of job, and what kind of employee would be attracted to the existing demands of the job and the existing compensation that accompanies it.  Is it sustainable to attract young, energetic teachers to a job which may have to be a stepping stone toward further or other employment for financial security?  How does teacher retention factor in to your perception of a school?  Is it fair for teachers to subsidize the actual cost of care through inequitable wages and minimal, if any, benefits?

Old Enough to Know Enough What Not to Compromise

On this typically wet and gray spring morning, I was feeling inflexible about kicking off my birthday week with a hike with my daughters. It was raining and chilly, so I opted for an easy walk that could be brief but beautiful and with some luck would incite appreciation. The last time I coaxed my children to said natural area, my teenager was in a backpack. I knew I had to promise not to herald the medicinal delights of wood violet, cleavers, fawn lily, rosy plectritis, trillium and camas in the pouring rain. And so the editing began.

In truth, I wanted to revisit these plants; I had been here a year prior with my fellow plant medicine student companions. I wanted to practice what I knew, point out the duck's foot and licorice fern and wax educated about mahonia skirting a meadow of camas lily, the abundant native food source once common throughout the Willamette Valley on grassy plateaus. But my daughters were out with me in the rain grudgingly, and I knew it was in my best interest to keep quiet about the glorious spring drizzle and color and bloom. Editing, with reasonable cause.

There's something about editing one's intuitive self that reaches a very tender place of identity. The diplomat in me doesn't want to employ this filter at all. The realist in me lacks patience with those who can't handle people for who they are. The optimist in me wants to be myself, at all times. The mother in me knows  it's my job to press boundaries of exposure and experience....as well as sacrifice when necessary. Some editing falls within reason. Like today: I could relinquish sharing my knowledge of this special place to my daughters. I could edit myself for the sake of a pleasant loop through the wet open meadow and oak savannah in the rain. I could compromise.

And then there's the other kind of editing. The editing that compromises scruples and natural inclinations and thoughts. Invigorating and attractive people can inspire this kind of editing of self.  Recently I caught myself in one of these compromises too. I found myself wondering if I was playing by the right rules of the game, even though I didn't think I was playing a game. Of course I did this with enough consciousness to believe I was getting something valuable in return. And I was. Until I wasn't. I was editing for leverage.

So what's the difference? It was pretty clear by the way I felt in each of the above situations there is an important difference. Editing for pleasantry = permissible. Editing for leverage = unsustainable. Editing myself for leverage or compromise revealed inflexible manners and rigidly reduced possibility. Inflexibility and rigidity are a short jaunt to bad. Tolerating bad = compromise. Which led me to wonder, how much compromise is too much?
In the words of my favorite fella, "We're too old to care for people with bad manners."  I couldn't agree more. Compromising manners and simple acts of respect are too much editing. I won't edit myself for the sake of an adult's inflexibility or comfort. The realist and the optimist in me, they know enough to work it together.

#1 Not-so-Secret Relationship Survival Skill

I like people. As opposed to those who dread human interaction, if I worked without it I'd go nuts. But as much as I like people I am terrible at making space for them on a purely social level; the demands of my work and parenting life against other people's demands of work and family life just don't afford much time for that. Imagine how spare this makes dating and relating to new-found folk. Desert-like.

For the lexicon, anyone you know and with whom you enjoy spending leisure time qualifies as a Relationship. I have at times unwittingly found myself comparing my behaviors to the qualities of friends' ex-girlfriends. All kinds of relationship deserve intentional thought and scrutiny, not just those that land in the bedroom. I have discovered that boundary compatibility is a helpful scope of reference in weathering relationship survival.

Previously I wrote about some of the personal merits of my recent experience with a blind date. Those were securities that accompany the kind of date you don't need to see again. Then the day comes you meet someone you truly enjoy. You know the one: the one you begin editing your consideration for how early or late you can call or text. The one you want to put to the Weekend Test. The one who keeps you curious like the lasting sensation of nettles once the stinging discomfort wears off. The one you want to talk to your girlfriends about.

Needless to say, this doesn't happen to me very often. I rarely rub shoulders with someone who interests me this much. It would be dangerously distracting if I hadn't discovered the survival skill that makes it all reasonably survivable. Business equity.

As in equitable busy-ness. The not so secret survival skill that makes it all enjoyable with less the stress is just plain compatible time availability. I have come by this nugget the long way. In college it was a wonderfully kind boyfriend that taught me we make time for the things we truly want to make time for, so busy-ness and availability are always subjective measures of attention. In that case, I was on the sorry end of not making enough time for someone I thoroughly enjoyed but who deserved much more. A few years ago I had the privilege of sharing several months with a generous someone who set the bar of amazing....but was too available. It took a lot of our combined tears to illuminate that injustice (and if he's reading this I know he has forgiven that inadequacy), a flooded plain later. It takes a lot of patience to grow time with someone, anyone, to whom I want to give my time. Busy is on my side this way.

Surrendering to the sweetness of it all really requires disciplined compartmentalization. Rather than resent how busy I am, I just know it. I have gratitude that I'm not the only one with unusually slim social availability. And I take the rest as it comes.

2 Surprising Things Blind Dates Taught Me

Is there even such a thing as a blind date anymore?
Last time I had one on the books, my wing man mentioned that of course I was going to Google the poor guy first. I have to admit, I wasn't going to. But then I did. And I regretted it......though not so much as I regretted that during the date, date told me he posted it was happening on Facebook and how much attention it got. To each his own, I suppose.

A blind date always sounds like a lot of fun, right up until the week goes raw and the day of is such an unrelated nightmare that the idea of hobnobbing and chitchatting with someone you only have stalker-information about looms like a massive chore. In my most notable case, and one that taught me a most surprising thing, I really wanted to hibernate in a dark cave and speak to nobody. The hermitage had nothing to do with the date itself. It had everything to do with a rotten week and a climactic, ironic mom move the same afternoon in which I unmistakably burnt my daughter's brand new dress which she intended to wear to a semi-formal dance that night. Yes, I did. There was no fixing it. She thought perhaps she would wear it with her lovely long hair covering the despicable crisp, but she couldn't. At any rate, I certainly didn't shove off from that predicament feeling chipper and engaging. But I did go.

I went, and I was early, and upon arrival I was seated at the "date" table - the one surreptitiously set with 4 chairs and 2 place settings positioned to easily look out the window. My date was late. And he texted me to tell me what he was wearing - despite the fact that one of us surely would be the first seated at the table that he reserved. (It's only fair to say I have learned more than two surprising things from blind dates, but some of them are merely amusing and not the important points).

Despite the stacked deck, I felt seasoned and confident going into this dinner. I even enjoyed myself. But what I enjoyed  most was the revelation that I truly liked myself. There I was, looking at pictures of someone else's kids, expressing reasonable interest in things I knew nothing about, chatting smartly and knowledgeably and all-around feeling genuinely interesting. I was proud of myself for sticking with the plan despite the rotten day, but I was even more proud that I was fun and charming and articulate. I swear the server wanted to join us. And, interestingly, it was pleasant enough but there was no remorse about ending the date and going home to be alone with my awesome self.

And then there is the other thing. It's the other thing that sobers me.
I'm atypically challenged and don't spend a lot of leisure time with adults. It's a hazard of my working mom single-hood. So it could be that this other thing is more a condition of my circumstance than a byproduct of blind dates, in fact I am kind of hoping so. This other thing I have learned is that the people who bring out the best in me, who draw out my true social self, the me I like - these people don't rivet me. They are pleasant, and they make good company, but I don't yearn to get back to them. That is not to say I don't know people who I miss and never seem to get enough time spent with them - no, that is not so at all. But I like to be enchanted and mindfully mixed up in heady conversation and excited by people - it is very hard to keep these people's attention. But I like it, I really like it! It excites a very fun, creative part of me that I need fired up to offset my deficit of leisure time. I fear I have a habit of choosing these people over the ones that really seem to exert to know me.

In truth, I didn't need blind dates to show off these things I know about myself. But blind dates have a way of magnifying and drawing attention to themselves. It's impossible not to notice what is felt and seen and heard at such a lovely ritual of folks practicing at knowing new people, any given day, any given way. If it hadn't been a date, I probably would have cancelled on a friend when I earned my place in mom hell burning that dress. And I resultingly would have missed the chance to like myself that very day, and to consternate over why the people who make me shine leave me always wanting something a little more.

Dollars and cents

I predicted my 2013 income within $46.90.
This surprises me to a degree because my income is an amalgam of two part-time jobs, one that carries a lot of flexibility and is based on hourly wage at different pay scales depending if I am working in the office (more valuable by the hour) or out in the field (less financially valuable). Interesting, eh? Real-time interfacing with people is less financially valuable than organizing details and schedules and problem-solving and interoffice politics.
It also surprises me because I experienced a significant shift in income this year. My basic and not-so-luxurious expenses shifted right along with my paychecks, so it could be said everything is moving in the right direction.

So I was $46.90 shy of my projected annual income. In some ways this is negligible because it's not large enough to affect any eligibility gaps or brackets. But the reason I was in a position to project my income in the first place was related to potential support and subsidy for the new health care. As could be expected, it also influenced other subsidized benefits. You are entitled to as much thought and opinion on what you think personal choices have contributed to the individual financial circumstances of any individual, but I am here to tell you I now fully understand why people purposefully linger in low income brackets.

There is a certain amount of stability that comes with social assistance. I have never done anything but put in my time working hard and consistently yet I have also consistently qualified for social services. And I was grateful to accept them. Now that I have managed to climb out of the most deplorable income bracket within my fields of employment, which seemed upwardly mobile and desirable, I work more and harder than ever. It never occurred to me the toll would be less to work with month to month.

I recently caught a glimpse of a definition of poverty that stunned me. The federal poverty index, while being adjusted for inflation and cost of living, has never been reviewed for the definition of what qualifies as essential expenses. So while the valued tools of social acceptance have changed drastically over the last 50 years, they are not factored into the index of expenses. Social acceptance is measured by what the average person has access to to integrate socially and meaningfully with others. The most obvious strike is the momentum of technology over those decades. Telephones, cell phones, internet access, data plans are all considered normal aspects of social integration these days. They are not factored into life expenses on the poverty index. This definition of poverty is directly linked to being able to keep up with the Joneses.

Keeping up with the Joneses doesn't aspire to qualify for social services. I won't be asking for an income reduction (this has been suggested to me). I will be eating more rice and beans. I will also continue to worry that when I look at job posts for which I am qualified but ask for current earnings on which to base potential salary, the upward climb feels long and arduous.

Whereas I once would have said nobody really aspires to qualifying for social services, now I am not so sure.

Practicing Nostalgia, Finding Fun

While many people marked their new calendar years with resolve and commitment to introspect and delve, I went clandestinely with embracing perspective. I went backwards. On purpose.
I intersected winter's rest revisiting an old habit: I took my girls to a show they had seen dozens of times in the theater where I started to work when the oldest was a toddler. Yet it had been at least five years since being there. Admittedly, I was looking to excite memories of an easier time. Pleasantly, that transpired.
And sitting there in the soundtrack of a previous employment as the theater darkened and I watched recognition and memory awash my children's faces, I came to mentally recollect the perks of this job, and all the jobs I have enjoyed as an adult. One indubitable theme emerged: fun.
Every job I have had as an adult has been fun.
There, at the theater, I had the great pleasure of not just raising my girls with backstage access but bringing loads of guests to see masked theater productions, bundling whole birthday crews into shows, and even staging our own abridged version of The Nutcracker on a real stage with lighting cues followed by cookies and cocoa in the lobby for 6-year-old birthday treats.
Another longstanding employment: field trips for grandpas and grandmas. Yes, I think up what and how to have fun within a two-hour driving radius from town, packing a walk-on passenger van full of senior citizens as a captive audience. When people ask me how I come up with our destinations, I honestly answer that I figure if I think it would be any kind of fun then others probably will too. And I absolutely enjoy pressing people's boundaries - I love pulling people to a working farm and spending an hour on chores on setting a table for community lunch, or highlighting a hidden cultural history in a local legacy center, and in general making new things accessible through the passion of the people who do them.
Sometimes I am a little ahead of myself and don't even know it: twelve years ago I started a supper club for senior citizens. Each month we meet in a restaurant for a 3-8 course meal I have coordinated with the restaurants. If only I had been writing up these monthly dinners before the foodie map caught up with this city. Nevertheless, it gives the 20 people (and 20 more on waiting lists) something social and delicious to share month in and month out. And it guarantees me a dinner date once a month. Fun!
Perhaps most significantly over the past eight years, I infuse a cooperative preschool with mess-making, surprise, and socially-studded play-scapes. They call me a teacher.....yet a more distinct misnomer ever existed when I think about my primary scope of teaching being offering an example of place and independence for the youngest social citizens of our city. It's never entirely predictable, it requires flexibility and I probably hear "I love you" in my work day more than most people. Any job surrounded by fans, no matter their age, is a clear winner.
I have also played in sales, peddling artisan clothing and jewelry for local makers. Really, there's nothing un-fun about indulging people who want to buy themselves or others a gift. And while I can't generally stand the sort of sugared sincerity that lures kids like my teen into her favorite sundry shops for brand loyalty, diplomacy in honesty is enjoyable to deliver.
So, when fun is a consistent part of the work-a-day, I must be on to something.
I'm not entirely sure it replaces the security of benefits, but on the occasions I have gotten closer to the inflexibility of un-fun jobs, I practice nostalgia to notice that fun has its benefits too.

Coming Home Can Be the Best Part of Going Away

I say this with trepidation. Lest you get starry-eyed for the home state apple of my eye.
Three winters ago, in Boston between big snowstorms, I was asked if I ever considered moving away. Retrospectively, it was a Big question, not a superficial query, but that's hindsight for you.
The city in which I live is growing at an astronomical rate that drove up the housing market, rent and makes it highly unusual to meet someone here who isn't from somewhere else.
I'm a rare breed, a native.
My city is a Best Place for sustainability, retirement, bicycling, parks system, livability, and a zillion more things that make people keep wanting to move here. We're still an outpost of affordability to those coming from other places. Of course several factors influence a big move, and in my case it is made even more complicated by having kids and they have a dad. So without having seriously considered it previously, my answer proved to be a simple as well as a definite No.
But then I started to think about it.
Why wouldn't I move? I like my city, I had visited others, but I had never been compelled to relocate for a job or a significant other or family. So I never went looking to improve my geographic relevance. I never questioned the weather's role as a governing character in my life charade. (I have a resounding memory of comprehending that people only talk about the weather if they are not clever enough to talk about anything else; however, as an adult I came to understand that where I live the weather is a defining factor in the blueprint of any day). Really, I like where I live. I like the moody weather and the spare golden months of the year when t-shirts are nearly sufficient enough in the evenings.
I don't love how the flood of transplanting citizens drives up the cost of living and the proliferation of part-time job opportunities replaces the full-time ones. I'm pretty disturbed that anyone finds it somewhat glorious that young people come here to retire. It's too easy to get distracted by all the work of each day to even notice why people keep coming here, moving here, and creating this expensive mayhem.
And yet.
No matter how much you like your home, getting away has a therapeutic value all its own. It's almost negligible where one goes, getting away. Because when you get away, you also get to come home. And coming home, no matter how many people have raced you there in your absence,  is often the best part of going away.