I Believe In Ladybugs

I believe in ladybugs.

I throw salt over my shoulder when I spill it.

I am immune to black cats, having owned one myself, and I don't set much stock in the rumors swirling around the bad-luck potency of the number 13.

I believe in the power of the moon, as it moves the ocean, and we are, all of us, 90% water. How could we not be swayed?

When my nose itches I wonder who is talking about me, and who is coming to visit when my ears tingle. Or the other way around. I can never remember.

I believe in the irrefutable power of the first kiss. That flutter means something, and if it's not there, well, that means something, too.

I can tell you for sure that when a bird flies into a house, someone is going to die.

I believe in signs and symbols. I think the universe talks to me, if I can just shut up enough to listen.

Today at the coffee shop I force myself to go to at least once a week, right after I hit "send" on an application for a job that I really, really want, this ladybug landed on my coffee.



S/he circled the rim, playing hide and seek as I tried to snap a photo. When I finally got this picture, s/he fluttered down to rest on my sweater and got cozy until I stood up to leave, when I finally placed him/her on the table.

I believe in ladybugs.

Do you?

Single Parenting: Don't You Yell At My Child!

It's funny, but it is only just now sinking in that I am a single parent. How strange is that? I would read articles online about the struggles single parents face and think to myself about how hard it must be for all those single parents out there. Which is ironic, because with one parent of the parenting team dead you don't get much more single. I have been a little slow for the past 24 months, but I finally got it.

I am actually a single parent, and it sucks in one really unexpected way: no one will ever share my child with me the way Dane did.

Yes, dealing with financial worries and plumbing and the stupid fucking computer and discipline and The Teenager's crushes is really hard. Yes, I have friends around who will give me a break and willingly take The Teenager when she is being awful or will let me sit at their kitchen bar or table and drink really delicious cocktails or work in peace when I just can't take it anymore. Yes, the practical parts of being solely responsible for the life of another person is sometimes crushing and requires huge sacrifice, but that's not the hardest part.

The hardest part is that no one will ever share The Teenager with me on a cellular level. No one will ever look across the room when she does something amazing and feel the same kind of pride I do. No one will love her the way I do. The only other person who was there THE WHOLE TIME is now in a box on my dresser. The only person that shares the birth story (and, well, the conception also) is no longer here.

I am not currently dating anyone because I am a hermit and strangers are awful so how will I ever meet someone, but in the event that a miracle occurs and I suddenly become less critical and judgmental and meet a dude to date, he will not understand that when I say, "I just want to poke her in the eye!! What a jerk!!" that he is not really allowed to say, "I know! She's a total jerk!!" Dane could say she was a jerk and get away with it because underneath there are all those little cells that make her part of us in a very physical way, a way that prevents us from meaning too deeply what we say when we call her a jerk.

A stranger, some new dude, won't have those cells. He won't know on a cellular level about the time when she cried for five hours straight and almost fell off the bed because she refused to just LAY DOWN AND GO TO SLEEP. He won't get how compassionate she is, even when she pushes the dog away, because he doesn't really know her. He won't know when she is nervous just by looking at her hands, or how happy she is by watching her walk.

And when she is being 100% teenager he might be tempted to criticize the way she thinks, acts, or dresses, but he won't have the right to do that. To be clear, no one really has the right to do that, but some dude thinking he can waltz in here and insert commentary should probably just waltz right back on out of here.

Dating after divorce (really, the more common form of single parenthood and the whole reason for this blog, as a friend of mine is going through this right now) is probably very much the same, especially when your ex- is a shitbox. My friend's ex- is a dangerous shitbox, so in addition to being on edge when her kid is with the ex-, many states away, she has to deal with knowing that her boyfriend is happy the kid is away for awhile. I don't think it is possible to describe in words how deeply hurtful that is. It's also not grounds for a sustainable relationship, knowing that the person you are with is biding their time until The Kid is out of the picture.

Newsflash: The kid is NEVER out of the picture. Maya Angelou said that having a child is like consenting to have your heart walk around outside of your body, and I can't find a better explanation of this type of love. The kid may be off at college or in the world, but they are forever a part of you in a way that is real and true and inexplicable. When someone insults The Kid, they are insulting you, even if you are the healthiest, most non-striving parent who is not living through their child. And the insult is not a flesh wound; it's deep, slow to scab, easily re-opened with the smallest conflict.

I have another single parent friend who deals with this by just never introducing her boyfriend of many years to the kids. Or rather, they have been introduced, but the contact is minimal.

Are you a dating single parent? How do you deal with this thorny issue?

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Intuition: Losing Teeth

Last night I dreamed, again, that I was losing teeth.

A cursory search of the interwebs provides this:

Dreams about losing teeth generally symbolize:

• Representation of anxiety


• A costly compromise or decision


• Radical change


• Starting a new project or phase in your life

Sounds about right.

Or this:

Common teeth symbol meanings

Losing your teeth. Feeling helpless, powerless, overwhelmed.

Baring your teeth Dreamer is preparing to defend or attack. Seeing someone else bare his teeth is a warning.

Being toothless. The toothless person is weak or vulnerable.

Having your teeth pulled. Losing your power or positive public image to someone or something.

Broken or chipped teeth. Public image is tarnished or in question.

Decayed teeth. Your power is being diminished. This could be in the areas of health, business, finances or society. People fighting disease or suffering business losses often dream of decayed teeth.

Braces on teeth You are being groomed or trained. You may be feeling constricted now but this stage will have positive results.

Seeing your teeth as fangs. You are a threat or a drain to someone. Or vice versa, if someone is biting you with fangs.

Biting someone. Something you are doing or saying is hurting another person. You may be reacting in a childish, forceful manner in a particular situation.

Being bitten. Dreamer is feeling threatened or pressured.

I have had teeth dreams since I was very young; usually in the dream I would end up with a mouthful of crumbled teeth, the image so vivid that it was hard to shake for many moments after waking. This feels like that today, and it's a bad, regressive place to be in for me.

I find I have these dreams after I make a decision that goes against my intuition. When I follow my instincts, I am never wrong. Literally, obnoxiously, gloatingly never wrong. Uprooting from one place and starting over AGAIN has made me tentative and mistrustful of that, and I made a stupid decision, one that I knew was wrong, and now I am suffering through the midnight-hours gloating of my sub-conscious.

Instinct is there for a reason. Intuition is a powerful tool. Why I continue to ignore these things after so many years on the planet is beyond me. Some day I will learn.

Updated to add: after another night of sleep and a flying dream, I have come to some conclusions that jibe with my intuition and also potentially solve (or eliminate) the problem. We will see what happens. But the moral of the story is the same. This is the last time when I ignore what I know to be right.

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Goodbyes

Goodbyes are interesting.

I have been through enough of them that they are not prone to melt me into a puddle, and I have noticed that they all share some similarities. I am thinking about them because we are at the beginning of the last softball tournament that The Child will play with this team that she has been with for four years, and there are some interesting dynamics among the players and parents.

Some commonalities:

1. It's easier to leave mad. That's why in the final weeks/months of togetherness there is so much fighting and nit-picking and general ass-holery. This is, I think, universal, except among very, very close friends for whom distance means nothing. Like my friend Kerry. I am like a tick, except she can't even burn me off with a match. No matter where I go or how far I roam, I know that when I see her, we will pick up where we left off, literally. So she is the exception to the rule.

2. It's hard to know what you are leaving until you are gone. This is the Bullshit Rule of the Universe. Unless you are SUPER AWARE (rare), you really don't truly understand what you have until it's gone. This is also known as the Law of Taking Things For Granted. So how this works is that you think everything is fine and dandy as you are leaving and Fuck These People until you wind up in the new place and then you realize that there were things/people that you miss more than you thought you would, like crippingly more, but guess what? Too bad for you, because if you have done this properly you have well and truly pissed people off (see rule #1) so that's all for you.

(between you, me, and the lamppost, I am POSITIVE this won't happen to me, but this is how #2 works. No one thinks it will happen. So there's that.)

3. Along the same lines of #2, everything in the new place seems rosy and wonderful compared to the place you are leaving. This is not possible. Everything in a place cannot be rosy and wonderful. Some things are actually dull and awful. In the newness of it all, the rosy thing shines more brightly. It's just the way.

But guess what?

4. Change is constant, and change is good, and you cannot do anything about it anyway, so what the hell. Sometimes in order to move forward, you really need to move. Literally. Sometimes the move needs to be drastic, and sometimes you can move down the street or across town.

5. Leaving can be refreshing. A change of place makes you a newcomer again, and a new perspective can be invigorating.  The trick is to look at it with wide-open eyes, like  a newborn, and not be jaded. That makes it an adventure, as opposed to looking at it as One More Thing To Do, which just makes you tired.

6. When everything falls to shit, sometimes the only thing left to do is move. When you have tried it all and exhausted all of your resources, moving is the only thing left to do. This makes it a choice you don't have to make. More like an inevitability. Which can be refreshing if you are sick of making decisions.

There is more to this, I am sure, but it has been a long day and I am four fingers into a cheap bottle of bourbon and an absurd number of gluten-free pretzels, so that will have to wait.

Goodnight...

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Food = Love

Saturday The Child and I ate our weight in food. I think this is perhaps normal, but we have gotten in the habit of snacking and not much else. On my personal menu was bratwurst, four cookies,  a million marshmallows, two chocolate bars, half a bag of salt and vinegar chips, and 1/4 of a watermelon. Oh, and some kale salad and a yogurt drink.

I love food. I love making it, reading about it, writing about it, and eating it. I do not count calories, grams of fat, or sugar. It all evens out in the end, and I do yoga every day. So I eat what I want to eat, and what my sensitivity to gluten will allow me to eat (and plus I found an amazing gluten-free flour mix recipe that you can sub cup-for-cup in recipes which means CUPCAKES AGAIN which makes me SO HAPPY but I digress).

We have gotten out of the habit of sitting down to a regular meal. Even though we spend massive amounts of time together every day, there is something about sitting down to a meal that is different, especially if you have made the meal together and set the table nicely. I believe all the hype about the family meal. I believe the research that shows kids who eat with their families at a table on a regular basis are sexually active later and less likely to abuse drugs.

Plus, as noted previously, if I cook for you, it means I think you're swell. It's a very Jewish grandmother-type thing (of which I had one), but food=love for me. So yesterday's gorging sort of counts; La and I went to the farmer's market together and bought the brats together, then she packed all of our supplies in a picnic basket while I started the fire outside. We started with a s'mores appetizer (she set up the rig - chocolate on gluten-free cookie - and I roasted the marshmallows), and moved on to our brats. Something about the fire and eating outside, but we talked about some pretty heavy stuff while we ate, stuff that needed to be talked about, but because our bellies were pleasantly fully of chocolate and marshmallows it seemed a little lighter.

When we move to Baltimore and settle into a permanent house, I am going to be making every recipe I have pinned on Pinterest, and everything I have reblogged in Tumblr. I will adapt everything to be gluten-free (if it isn't already) and then take pix of the final product (for better or worse). I am not sure if it will be on this blog or not; I may link it to an old blog where Sicily and I tried to bake 25 days of Christmas cookies (hint: we didn't quite make it), and I invite you to play along, either in the cooking or in sending me a recipe you pinned/reblogged/otherwise saved and are just too damn lazy to make yourself. Post a recipe in the comments if you want to play.

Baltimore peeps, get ready to eat!!