One Week Left!

Last year we visited Grandma for the holidays.

This is what I love about Grandma’s house. The day we arrived she said, “Nothing is breakable in this house that will be missed.”

Which is good because seven minutes after she said that, the twins started fencing with the candles from the centerpiece.

On Christmas Eve she said to my four-year-old, “Let’s bake a birthday cake for Jesus! Shall we bake a yellow cake or a chocolate cake?”

When my daughter dropped the open bag of yellow cake mix all over the kitchen floor, Grandma didn’t skip a beat.

“Well! I guess we’ll make a chocolate cake!”

When the boys banged on the piano, she said, “Look how much fun they’re having!”--a phrase she repeated when the boys tried to lick the dogs.

After a long day at the museum, Grandma calmed our over-stimulated and cranky kids with the magic words: “When we get home, let’s have hot chocolate.”

When one of my sons came down with a fever and suspicious spots, she said, “This is the number of a really good urgent care center.” Two days later when the other son had a fever she said, “I can go to the pharmacy for you.”

When I was busy attending to the sick boys, she read books to my daughter. When I was busy on the phone she put the twins on her lap and watched Elmo videos on youtube with them. She played the movie "My Fair Lady" for the oldest grandchild ("I just know you'll love the costumes," she told her) and walked the dogs with the youngest grandchild.

And when I alluded to the noise level in the living room—the combination of laughing, crying, screaming, and that dancing chipmunk who sings the Macarena—as chaos, Grandma shrugged.

“That’s what families sound like,” she said.

Thanks, Grandma.

8 Days Left!

What I want to remember about today:

I want to remember that the twins haven’t adjusted to the time change yet. They pitter-pattered into the room and snuggled with us. Michael stroked my forehead.

I want to remember that William insisted on wearing his sister’s old ballet shoes to bed last night. And we let him.

I want to remember that one boy wore his fireman’s helmet and the other wore his Easter Sunday fedora.

“You’re a fireman!” I told him.

“No. I’m just pretending to be a fireman,” he replied.

I want to remember that we woke up early enough to put hair in braids. I don’t want to remember that it’s because there’s a lice scare at school.

I want to remember that we waved to the garbage collectors.

I want to remember that the whole family drove 100 miles for a forty-five minute Little Angel rehearsal. We had a picnic on the tables outside Safeway. Matt brought cloth napkins and plastic cutlery for everyone.

I want to remember that we started a new game: someone yells out a word and the kindergartner tries to guess what letter it starts with.

“Nose!”

“N!”

“Cowboy boots!”

“K!”

I want to remember that the twins started finishing each other’s sentences and that they played tee-ball in the driveway with Daddy.

That the “Naked Parade” is getting shorter and shorter each night.

That our new lullaby is “Take Me Out to the Ballgame.”

I want to remember that it took me a very long time to settle down and write tonight, but I eventually got there.

Day 28 Blog-off: NINE Days Left!

Nine days left? Eight days? I’m confused. This is the 28^th day of the Blog-off of a campaign that’s only 35 days long with either nine or eight days to go. Somewhere, someone’s math is off.

Today’s Generous Soul post is an Open Apology to Cleo, my downstairs neighbor. Written in haiku, because I’m versatile like that (and I want to show that I can count a little bit.)

Dear Cleo,

We are so grateful
Five pairs of feet can be so loud
Even on tiptoe

We forget to help
You take out the trash for us
Every Tuesday night

When you go camping
We feed fresh food to your cats
Hoping to clear slate

And now you have twins
We wait to return favor
They are so quiet

With our used onesies
Maybe we can make amends
Thank you, The Kovacs

The Blog-off: Only 10 Days Left!

I’ve started three different posts for today’s Blog-off. I keep scratching over my words. One potential post was a continuation of yesterday’s post. I’ve been reading On Our Own: Widowhood for Smarties. I keep putting it down to digest what I’ve read. Then ten minutes later I pick it up again because I’m hungry for more. That made me feel grateful for what I have and that made me want to blog about Thursday when the Greater Good Science Center asked me to come and film a segment about gratitude.

And that made me think of the online gratitude journal they have that is part gratitude journal/part data collection. (It’s different from this gratitude journal that is also part of the Greater Good Science Center.)

And that made me think of my gratitude for the day, which is that I am grateful for the "book rate" at the post office. What a fabulous idea that I always took for granted until I was in the habit of mailing books. And what a lovely bias towards books and learning!

I mean, think about it! To value the shipping of books over, say, regular consumer goods. Somebody said, "We need to make it cheaper to mail books. Otherwise people will have a disincentive to mail books. We must make it cheaper to mail books!" (I was mailing this book and this book.) 

But the real reason I have started three blog posts (but haven't finished any of them) is because I am tired. I am tired of writing. I am tired of cutting and pasting posts to different blogs. Quite frankly, I am a little tired of pitching the Indiegogo thing and the Write On, Mamas anthology. We’ve done well enough so far, right? We’re 35% funded. That’s more than what we had 27 days ago. I can stop, right?

This is the hump. The place where suddenly all kinds of valid reasons and plausible rationalizations grow into giant robot-people. The giant robot-people stomp through your brain and crush your will power. They pee on your self-discipline, which makes it rusty. I’m not making this up.

The giant robot-people come by my house a lot. So I know how to deal with them. You admit that you are tired and you write anyway. You gripe a little and then you cut and paste and share links. You sigh. Maybe you have a glass of wine. The giant robot-people don’t go away, but at least you keep your will power and your self-discipline. And if you’re lucky, while you’re writing you’ll come up with an image—like giant robots peeing on abstract ideas—and you’ll say, “Hey! I like that. I can go to bed now.”

Day 26 Blog-off: Nina Abnee, A Generous Soul

If you’ve been following along at home, then you already know why this is Day 26—because it’s the 26^th day of our Indiegogo campaign and I’ve committed to write one blog post a day for each of the drive. And you already know what our Indiegogo campaign is—it’s our fundraising campaign to craft and publish an anthology of our work by Write On, Mamas. And of course, you don’t even need me to remind you who the Write On, Mamas are—a group of awesome mamas (and one papa) who write. And read—such as here at Lit Crawl. And listen—such as here at our monthly events.

And if you know all of that you know that I try to write a “generous soul” for all my wonderful friend and family who donate to the cause.

Today’s Generous Soul post goes out to Nina Abnee (Louise Abnee’s mother).

I got my copy in the mail today—Nina’s anthology On Our Own: Widowhood for Smarties.

I love anthologies. They’re like a potluck dinners. Everyone brings something to the table—something uniquely him or her. I know editors agonize over the order of the essays in an anthology, but to me, the wonderful thing about collection is that you can just read where the book opens. Today this essay or that essay. Each one is a separate dish.

The book, as the title suggests, is about life after loss. It’s not like a potluck dinner; it’s like a box of truffles. Even though the topic is death, each essay is so full of...life. They are about love and longing and these brief moments in time where exposed souls connect, not just in life but in afterlife. Those moments—these essays—are like electricity.

Love. Grief. Gratitude. Depth. Words that remind us that love is deeper than death.

Thank you for your words, Nina.

Day 25 Blog-off: Aunt Rita, A Generous Soul

Today’s Generous Soul post is about Aunt Rita. Everyone needs an Aunt Rita.

When the twins were a day old, my husband’s Aunt Rita sent an edible bouquet to the doctors and nurses who took care of them. Rita claims that it was just an ordinary flower arrangement, but the nurses described luscious blossoms cut from pineapples. They swear that they had never seen anything like it. They still gush about the bouquet that was devoured in twenty minutes.

Why would anyone bother to thank people for doing their jobs? I wondered. I wouldn’t have bothered. Not on Day One in the NICU when the boys still had a hundred more days to go.

I was the mother who wasn’t ready to care yet, the one dancing in the “why bother” space. I didn’t stay there, of course. NICU life is too demanding. One moment you are carefully cultivating emotional distance, the next you are in awe of the wonders of technology and the strength of tiny humans. Then a machine with flashing lights beeps. Panic and confusion attack the room like emotional ghosts. Finally, the machines stop beeping and your son starts breathing, turning you back again to awe.

Rita’s bouquet did not affect the way the doctors and nurses cared for my babies. It did, however establish the nurses’ perception of me. They saw me as gracious, generous, and optimistic. They saw me as a mother from those urban legends who lifts cars to rescue her children and never has a shred of doubt. The one who notices everything and appreciates everyone.

They mistook me for my aunt. 

We imagine that our identities get molded in our minds and that’s what we project as we traipse about in the world. But in actuality, our identities are formed for us. What people believe about you shapes who you become.

I was set to start each day in the “why bother” place and ready to retreat back into it each evening. But because Rita’s gift arrived in the NICU before I did, no one ever treated me as if I were a mother who could not yet care. And so I never acted like one. 

Friendly reminder—we have two weeks left of our Indiegogo campaign. We’re collecting funds to self-publish an anthology of our work. Most of the funds we raise will go to an editor to help us shaper our stories. Then of course, there’s the graphic designer for the cover, the print costs, t-shirts for all you $125-level donors. The funds that are left over will help cover our costs for becoming a 501c3 nonprofit organization. If we make our goal, we pay a small percentage to Indiegogo for helping raise funds in the first place. However, if we don’t make our goal, Indiegogo doubles their cut. We did a careful analysis of how much we needed and how much we could raise from friends and family and lovely people such as yourselves.

But as you can see... we are not quite there yet! Click here to help us reach our goal!

Day 24 Blog-off: Louise Abnee, A Generous Soul

Today’s Generous Soul is Louise Abnee. The image of Louise that is burned in my brain is a picture of her in her crimson red bridal saree. She’s stunning in it. She’s wearing a flower garland that looks like a lei on steroids and like any bride (well, many brides) she is beaming.

Inspired by my fellow Tuesday Sister, I imagine Louise 70 years from now, sitting in an armchair by the window waiting for her adult granddaughter to visit. On the end table next to her chair is a collection of holograms (because photographs 70 years from now will be all holograms, don’t you know). One of the holograms is of Louise and Mayank on their wedding day.

From across the street, the granddaughter gets out of car. She locks eyes with Louise. The rest of the post is written from the granddaughter’s point of view.

My Grandma had one story she would tell over and over again—the story of the girl and the starfish. A young girl is walking with her father along the beach. Hundreds of starfish have washed up on the shore. The girl picks up a starfish and throws it back into the ocean.

“Sweetie,” the father says. “Look how many starfish there are. Throwing one starfish back isn’t going to make any difference.”

“It made a difference to that one,” the little girl tells her father.

I loved this story. This was my grandma’s story. And when I would stay over at her house, she would tell me about the little girl and the beach full of starfish, sprinkling it with new details every time. Sometimes it was summer and the girl and her father were walking back to the house to make lemonade. Sometimes it was fall. Sometimes there was an adjunct anecdote about a dog and its footprints. But the tale always ended with the little girl telling her father, “It made a difference to that one.”

I walk up the stairs to the house and unlock the door. When Grandma sees me, she smiles with her whole face.

"Who did you save today?" she asks with a wink and a grin.

In case you haven’t been paying attention, the “Blog-off” is my way of giving during our Indiegogo fundraiser. I’ve pledged to write a blog post a day (minimum 100 words) for each day of the campaign. Then I decided to take it a step further and write a “Generous Soul” post for each friend or member of my family who donates to the cause. (“The cause” is publishing a collection of essays by our Write On, Mamas)