All the Figs.

Well, this started a whole thing this morning, this tweet from fellow writer, fellow mom, fellow weirdo, Cari Luna:

Billy just went upstairs to be alone, as if that's actually an option as a parent.

I think about this a lot. Not because I don't love my family, but because mothers are so rarely alone.

I am, by nature, a loner. If you've hung out with me, you might think otherwise. I'm social. I'm not an introvert. I like a party. But an essential part of me being able to think or create is being alone. I hike alone, or with my dogs. I've always gone on long walks alone. I'm fine eating a meal alone, or sitting at a bar alone, even when I don't appear to be trying to do something else, like reading, or texting on my phone. If I'm just sitting there, I'm ok. I'm listening.

When I was a kid, my mother was always doing something. The thrum of the sewing machine was ever-present in our house. She sewed, she painted, she made crafts. A lot of the things she worked on she also sold, so there was a money-making element to it. She was working. 

But I know it bothered her. I know, from her frustration, her irritation, that she wanted time to work alone. Sometimes, just our presence -- coming into the kitchen where she painted, or wrote, to get food or run the sink, or go out to the garage -- bugged her.

We're probably not supposed to be bugged, as mothers. It's not in our list of virtues, our best attributes.

So how are we supposed to get anything done?

Last week, I saw this comment from Miranda July, about her husband's work schedule, and their three-year-old son. No one asks the dads -- what are you doing with the children while you work? How are you managing to work your job and get everything done -- with the children?

Years ago, after a graduate workshop, when I had a then two-year-old and an eight-year-old, my professor asked me how I was getting anything done.

I ignore them, I said.

He answered: That's an excellent way to raise children. And he meant it.

I wish there was a typewriter in front of her.

I'm lucky. I get time away. I have places I can go for retreat. I take the train into the city. I am not working another job (although a lot of the time, this doesn't feel terribly lucky; it feels rather broke). I have a partner who shoulders a lot of the chores, makes lunches, walks dogs, does dishes. But that doesn't mean that I don't often feel like a possum with her children attached.

Because what I'm talking about is a feeling, not a list of chores. Look at the differences between Mother's Day and Father's Day: Fathers get the day to spend with their children, at a barbecue, at the lake. Mothers want a spa day to themselves.

I never wanted to be selfless. I never wanted to be that mother who gives up everything, who exists only to fulfill her children's needs. I cringe at mothers who identify only as "Someone's Mommy." And while I admire the fuck out of Julianna Baggott -- who manages to write in a scrum of children and dogs -- I never wanted to be that either.

I just want to be left alone.

Maybe this has something to do with queer motherhood -- with lying outside the bounds of good and godly heteronormativity where the mother, in her patience, wisdom, and thrift, is "worth more than rubies."*

Or maybe it has to do with my own peculiar artistic temperament, a need to create in a silent storm and then emerge to pack that's loud and laughing, and loves hard. A lot of it is about being good enough, about having enough, and doing enough. It's about guilt, and fear, and perception (both self and other). About having a made bed, a roast in the pot, and a manuscript underway.

It's about the fullness of agreeing to more than one fig at a time.

*Proverbs 31:10, obvi

No Fear, or Obligation

Here's another thing that happened in 2012: I came out on Facebook. In the least creative way, on National Coming Out Day and by posting this picture. I don't know what a creative way would have been. Maybe a Lady Godiva-style ride through the village with a rainbow sash.

Apparently, it caused a kerfuffle, and included some speculation that it was a mid-life crisis, when Geoff, my husband, posted the question You're What? in response to my admission.

He was kidding.

It's not a mid-life crisis, and Geoff has always known.

GK 95

Here's my least favorite reaction, when you do tell people, and maybe this is why sometimes, I don't tell people: But, you're married.

That's right. I'm married, and I've been married for a long time. Almost 17 years, and we've been together since 1994. When we met, I was batting about 60/40 male / female on the dating. I was skeptical. Not because he was male, but because he was cool.

I got lucky. We belong together. Not because the government or the bible says so. Not because we are male and female. Because we are who we are. We are people who belong together. And for us, that was lucky. It meant we could get married without a battle. It meant that when we decided we wanted kids, we had them. (Which is lucky on more than one count; plenty of heterosexual couples can't, or have difficulty conceiving.) No one gave us a hard time.

But. It certainly wasn't a choice based on ease. In fact, I'm not even sure it was a choice. People are given to you. By what, you decide, or discover. Me, I prayed to the Virgin for my people. Both my partner and my kids.

So why bother saying it? Let me ask you this, you who have been married or partnered a long time, who are straight but still look at, desire or think about the opposite sex: you do sometimes think about the opposite sex, right? Guys: I know you look at women. Girls: Come on. We had a fair debate over Channing Tatum versus Ryan Gosling. Your desire for other than your partner does not fade away to nothing because you have paired off. You are still your own sexual being.

And so am I.

I've had significant relationships with women. I've fallen in love with women, and I've fallen in love with men. Here's one of my favorite quotes about it:

In itself, homosexuality is as liming as heterosexuality: the ideal should be to be capable of loving a woman or a man; either, a human being, without feeling fear, restraint, or obligation.  -- Simone de Beauvoir

There's me. Don't put me in your box.

Your deal.

In All Things

Way back in elementary school somewhere, Kieran was asked to tell the things he was thankful for. I don't remember what grade, but it was early, pre-K or kindergarten maybe. He listed two things: the moon and my body. Probably, that's all anyone ever needs to be thankful for.

A lot of the beauty of Thanksgiving is lost in all the chaos: the sales, the turkeys being pardoned, the too-early Christmas music, parades, football, gluttony.

So, really simply, here are some things I'm thankful for.

My kids. These guys slay me with beauty and sadness, with their wicked (and very different) senses of humor, their talents and their perfect faces. I can't believe I made them. I can't believe they're sort of mine. (Because really, any parent knows you are just shepherding them through. They belong to something bigger than little old you.)

My crazy family. That's right. And when I say crazy, I mean certifiable. But in the spirit of real thanksgiving -- in everything give thanks; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you (1 Thes 5:18) -- I wouldn't trade them. Even the really crazy one. It's hard to practice being thankful in all things, but I believe in it. That said, I'm also thankful for modern psychiatry and anti-anxiety drugs.

My own body. I hate it a lot of the time, but it works really hard for me. Tugging the dog uphill, working outside. It's sturdy, and it's healthy. And someday, I should probably send a thank you card to my liver.



Sunshine. Just that. Me, and the dog.
We love some sunshine.

This guy. Because even if we were the last two suckers on earth, we would figure it out, and it would be ok, as long as we were together. Which, also, incidentally, is why we should probably do The Amazing Race.

Happy Thanksgiving.