That's the thing about bananas...

A few weeks ago I asked Facebook followers to tell me what they wanted to see me write about and two topics prevailed:

Parenting Adventures & Why I Can't Eat Bananas in Public

No joke. "Parenting and kiddos, yeah, that's great, but we really want to get to know the real you." The latter suggestion got the most "votes"--which means my readers are as nuts--or should I say bananas? harharhar--as I am. I recently posted the most awesome summer DIY hack possibly ever to check off the parenting adventures request. Now let me tell you the thing about bananas and why I can't eat them in public.

The short answer: Politics. 

The slightly more informative and interesting answer, in list format of course:  

This is pretty much my husband and I as bananas.

• I devoted an entire quarter of my undergraduate studies to learning about bananas through a critical feminist lense. I learned where they come from, how they get to my grocer, who picks them, who pays the pickers, and more importantly, what the industry looks like for those pickers. The adage "ignorance is bliss" never held truer than the changes I've felt morally and socially obligated to in my relationship with the sweet yellow fruit. I am as embarrassed to eat a Dole banana in public as I am to eat a Big Mac.* 
• I am a woman. I have been subjected to lewd comments and leering eyes while eating in public on many more occasions than I care to recount. I am not sure where one musters the mindless moxie it takes to actually vocalize something disgusting like, "Mmm, that's it, real deep now..." to a complete stranger as she tries to scarf down lunch while waiting for the approaching bus, but if there's a risk it might happen I'm not a betting woman. I'll almost always leave the fruit at home.   
• I always forget to take the peels out of my car. They end up as shriveled, utterly unrecognizable forms of their former glorious selves, and emit a spectrum of odor that goes from grossly sweet to compost in a day or two's time. It's disgusting, and sometimes comes with fruit flies.  

So there you have it: my banana-oriented idiosyncrasies. I know I'm not the only one with strange hangups with certain foods. I know some people who can't drink store-purchased chocolate milk because of rumours of pus-filled yuck milk comprising a great deal of the dark, rich goodness. I know a man who won't eat cheese if it crumbles when he cuts it. My little sister won't eat "green things" on her food (i.e. parsley) and strains them out of her ramen flavoring packets. Obviously people have their things. What are yours?

*If you want to know more about the numerous issues surrounding the banana industry, I recommend the following resources: Bananas, Beaches and Bases: Making Feminist Sense of International Politics; this article from The Economist; this banana blog; or this great piece from the Science Creative Quarterly.

My Boy, A Man.

In less than 24hrs I will put my firstborn son on a shuttle that will carry him to a flight, which will then carry him to Anchorage, from where he will drive to a remote town on an Alaskan peninsula. He will live, work, and soul search there for one month. This will be the longest he and I have been apart from one another in 17 years. While I am notably anxious to send him off, especially as I watch the hours pass and the send-off become more and more imminent, I am finding myself excited and hopeful for his journey. There are many reasons for this, but for brevity's sake I will focus on the top few here. I don't want to bore you by gushing about how awesome my kid is as he grows into a man, but it needs to be said.

First, the boy loves to travel. He has been taking solo flights around the country for a decade already, and has found himself in several other states on various adventures over the years. This trip will be his most independent of them yet. I expect that, in addition to learning copious things about himself, he will come back bearing plenty of lessons about work ethic, dependency, technological reliance, nature, and his place in the world.

Second, the last year has been ripe with transformation for Koa. He left school a few months ago, and since then has secured a fun and interesting volunteer position at the local Alternative Library, earned his GED, and finished Driver's Education. He has begun to explore and imagine a variety of career options and pathways for his future, and to discern and articulate what it is he wants most from life. This trip couldn't come at a better time insofar as helping him distill his dreams.

Third, he is staring down opportunities and has support I didn't myself feel as a teen. This notion is not insignificant, if only because I believe every parent's wish is to see their children have greater opportunities than they themselves had. After I left school and home at 15 I was on my own. For Koa to have our support and help in planning this adventure. for him to know that his bed will still be here, his seat at the table will be here, his family will be here, and his life will be here when he returns, he is receiving more than logistical backing... He is also getting affirmation that whatever he wants for himself in this world, his parents and loved ones will be here to support his work in achieving it.

And finally, he totally deserves it. Koa is a great gift to our family. He is compassionate, funny, smart, playful, thoughtful, loyal and talented. My son, the boy, has always been all of these things. My son, the man, deserves to find himself amidst all of the greatness that he has shared of himself with others. He deserves to feel the self-compassion in processing the difficulties he has surmounted this year, to internalize all of the growth, to challenge himself and see what he is really capable of independent of our immediate assistance, and to feel the freedom that an adventure like this is sure to provide. The constraints of the stress of teenage life are as real as they are in any other phase of life, and everyone deserves a break once in a while.

Dear Koa, I will miss you more than I want you to know. And yet, I am so excited to put you on that bus tomorrow morning. My son, young man, you have made me so proud to know you and grateful for the chance to be your mother. Travel safely, work attentively, and return wholly. We can't wait to hear all of your adventures along the way and upon your return, and to see the sick mustache you grow while you are away. We will be here waiting!

(love Mom)

Crying over spilt milk.

In my circle of friends and among my family members I am recognized as an "attachment parent" or an "unconditional parent," otherwise understood as one who takes careful measure to secure the bond between myself and my children through practices like breastfeeding until my children are ready to self-wean, wearing my babies close to my body in carriers, co-sleeping, and practicing gentle parenting practices. When I reflect on these practices I feel a sense of pride, because these are the acts that bring on oxytocin rushes and that create conditions where my children feel safe to grow and explore with a feeling of confidence and an air of support from me as their guide.

First Mother's Day in WA, '04.

I  became a mother half my lifetime ago, giving birth to Koa when I was just barely 17. I started my parenting journey like many first-time parents do: somewhat ill-prepared, parenting in the framework of my own childhood, and fumbling through the early days inept simply hoping to see my child reach his first birthday relatively unscathed. My parents ran with a punitive parenting framework, which in many ways made it difficult for us to connect. Reflectively, and after a lot of therapy, it's pretty easy to see why. When children are simply acting, as a friend of mine so elegantly puts it, like "developmentally appropriate assholes" it is our job to support them, hold them accountable, and to guide them through those phases toward stronger, more confident, authentic versions of themselves. This is hard to achieve under a punitive model that forces apologies instead of seeking understanding of motive, that grounds and revokes privilege, and that is founded on a deep-seeded distrust risen from unresolved mistakes in the past. I hardly place blame on my parents, who were young when they acquired me following my biological mother's death and suddenly found themselves the stewards of a fragile and conditioned 6-year-old, but I do wish it could have been different a little earlier in my life. So, like any other parent, I am simply trying to right the wrongs I felt growing up by approaching child-rearing in a way that feels right for my own children.

In my house, years ago, a pound of milk on the floor like this would have sent me over the edge. My boys would have likely spent some time in their rooms, crying and trying to understand why they were locked away from me when they simply acted on the age-appropriate impulse to dump it out after I left it in reach. Years ago, I would have denied my own culpability in the situation and instead take out my ill-placed rage on the most vulnerable and reliant people in my life--my boys. This is embarrassing and heart-wrenching to admit publicly, and is among my biggest personal regrets in life. I have a salient memory of expressing my frustration to a 6yo Koa, saying, "When you act like this you make it hard for me to love you." Simply typing these words out has me welling with tears for his little heart; the impact of something like that is so painful and deep... Not to mention a bunch of bullshit. I don't know if he remembers it, but I have never forgotten and have never ceased to regret saying such hateful, frustrated words of anger to my precious child. I admit this here because I think it illuminates the distance I have come, thankfully, for my children, and hope that it shows others that it is always possible to work toward different, more positive relationships in life.

Sushi Date with Koa (16)

My parenting philosophy now rests on drastically different premises. Over the last several years, since Birch (3.5) came into our lives, I have spent a great deal of time and effort reflecting on the way I want to raise my boys. I have subsequently made moves to repair my psyche so that my own baggage doesn't weigh them down, taking special care to deconstruct my earlier experience as a young mother and to reframe this period in my motherhood as something more positive and healthy. Koa and Cedar have been incredibly resilient, and have worked with me to repair the damage in our bonds from my reactive parenting in their formative years. It is the greatest gift they could ever give me, that forgiveness and openness to a new type of relationship.

So much has changed since they were little. When Aspen toddled over and gleefully poured his brother's cup of milk everyfuckingwhere yesterday while I was engaged with Birch in the back room, I was able to simply scoop him up, smile as he rubbed his milk-covered hands and feet all over my body, and simply say, "Oh man, that looks like fun. Let's get you in the bath so you can splash in clean water instead of milk!"

No tears. No struggle. No regret, no guilt, no shame in myself. And for Aspen nothing but a mother supportive of his creative (albeit sometimes overwhelming) exploration efforts, unfaltering in her display of love for him. No son, we will not be crying over spilt milk in this house... and we will all be better for it.

I am a phoenix.

Trigger Warning: This post speaks further on domestic violence and it's effects. Readers sensitive to the subject should be cautioned.

Yesterday marked an important anniversary date for me. On May 3, 28 years ago at 6:15 in the morning, as the sun was rising over the Texas sky and the heat was setting in for the day and the world was abuzz with news of a terrorist bombing on an Air Lanka flight and the wedding of Annette Funicello, in a small hospital room in San Antonio a young woman took her last breath. Her heart stopped pumping, her lungs finally collapsed on themselves, her body convulsed only slightly, and then it just... let go.

Like a condemned building tumbling into mere dust or a person walking away forever.

This woman was my mother, and my latest grassroots work is her legacy. That is what she left for me: a few tattered memories, more questions than answers, and a whole lot of work to heal from the losses and traumas throughout the years following her death. This year's efforts have been especially useful in that way, igniting the spirit of generosity among my neighbors, providing needed items to an organization that is working to help people like my mother and me, and allowing me to share my experiences in a way that gives a nearly justifiable purpose to the suffering my mother went through in her final three weeks on this Earth.

Some strange and unlikely occurrences have unfolded over the last three weeks of this drive. For example, my mom was apparently called the Yellow Rose of Texas by friends and when she died funeral attendees showered the scene with yellow roses. The day after I announced From the Heart to the Hands, a photo of a tattoo a friend of mine had just finished on a client showed up in my Facebook newsfeed. It was a yellow rose draped in a purple ribbon, the color used to signify domestic violence. Another is the random text a girlfriend received the other night from a stranger. She shared the details of it with me, and it was a horrifying statement of abuse and control wherein the sender recounted the many ways he had hurt other women, including shooting one out of jealousy. There was also an incident recently where a local man intentionally hit his girlfriend with his car, and another just yesterday where a man bound and stabbed a woman and then shot himself in the head following the police chase that ensued. Lastly, and perhaps this is the most poignant of all of them, we received a box of strawberries on our doorstep yesterday as part of our Fruit of the Month club membership (remember? The grapefruit bomb-diggity DIY cleaner?). This is not remarkable on its own; however, my mother was attacked for the last time by her lover on the eve of their date to the Poteet Strawberry Festival. As I unwrapped the insulated packaging and held one of the chilly, perfect berries in my hand I moved momentarily to the memory of the coldness of my mother's hands on the day of her burial. Suddenly my mind was overflowing with memories from that day, countless and small, like the seeds on a strawberry. It's been a long time since I said goodbye to her; like, a really, really long time. I've never held such cold hands since. The warmth of childhood bliss froze for me that day.

There have been days where my whole universe was on fire because of my mom's death. Days where everything familiar and comforting fell down around me, engulfed in flames and melting away to ashes, burning me with the embers and making it hard for me to breathe because of the nerves and desperate palpation of my heavy heart. I have felt the intensity of the heat, the lack of control in situations along the way, the damage caused in the immediate of those moments and in the aftermath, and at times I could see nothing but a scorched and partial framework left where there once resided the fullness and hope only found in small and wondrous children. Domestic violence will do that to those who live it. But today, I am a phoenix.

This donation drive helped to lift me out of those ashes, a break from life as a fiery creature engaged in a cycle of burning and being born anew from the remnants of the painful struggle. Today this bird flies on wings made of crayons, journals and tampons, on grocery gift cards and play-doh and cookie cutters and baby carriers. These simple items and so many others which have been given to me for this drive have made a tremendous impact on me, and on my community. I am uplifted by these gifts of hope and healing for the people who need them, and am elevated by the privilege of acting as a community hub for their dispersal. This time around my rebirth is one of reflective and meaningful purpose, and that feels pretty enlivening.

Thank you, Tiny Town, for doing what you do best: sharing the love. You are one bunch of generous citizens and I cannot wait to share all of your donations with DVSAS. Thank you, thank you, thank you. On Wednesday they will receive the following and so much more:

• hundreds of dollars in gift/phone cards and cash

• approximately 500 diapers

• a fresh paint job for the DVSAS offices

• 6 baby carriers

• 2 jumperoos

• quality fresh coffee for a year for the office

• a highchair

• lamps

• a mirror

• trunk full of costume items

• craft, home & office supplies 

• and, lastly, my favorite: gift certificates for families to get new portraits devoid of old memories

I asked. You came out in droves, arms full, again. You shared your stories of trauma and survival with me. Your participation in these grassroots efforts is helping me create a movement of individuals inspired to perform random acts of inspiration, giving, and kindness, and the impact is tangible in my community and beyond. I've said it before, but don't you ever stop. Ever!

The staff at DVSAS wrote my name on the sign, but only because all of yours wouldn't fit!

{Rest in peace Mom. I'm not sure what comes after this life, but I hope your spirit can feel my love for you in whatever form your energy has taken.}

From the Heart to the Hands: The Final Push

Trigger Warning: This post is part of a series related to domestic violence. The truth is that domestic violence is ugly, uncomfortable, and often brutal. This will read much along the same lines. If you are sensitive to the topic you might just skip to the bottom of this post.

If you have been following along throughout the From the Heart to the Hands donation drive (in honor of my biological mother who was killed by her partner when I was a girl), you know that Domestic Violence and Assault Services of Whatcom County serves thousands of people in my Tiny Town every year. Consider that the number of phone calls and direct services they handled amounts to roughly 10% of my hometown's population... and that's just those who find their assistance. My mother saw no relief from the unrestrained effects of her lover's tendency toward violence. If you've been following along, you know that healing from the tragedy losing my mother in this way is just one part of my motivation for this donation drive.

The other is my firm belief that all families deserve to feel safe and to be healthy. People working with DVSAS are heading to brighter futures framed by these premises, and I want desperately to provide this organization--which does so much for my community--respite from the constant need that nonprofit organizations typically face. Providing them several totes of items directly from their published list of wants and needs will help to seal financial gaps in provision, while also painting silver linings on the experiences of the clients they will distribute them to during some very challenging times.

When my mom died and my dad and stepmom (neither of whom I knew) got custody of me, I was given a coloring book to occupy me as they drove me "home" across state lines. I am 34 years old and still remember coloring pictures of Cinderella; tracing the sections with careful attention, gently etching back and forth with the crayons, focusing on something other than my dead mother and all of the uncertainty ahead.

I want every child who needs one to have a box of crayons and a coloring book to sink into when the grownups in their lives create heavy things for them to process. I want for every woman who will feel the sting of her face breaking under the pressure of her lovers' knuckles to have a journal to record both no-contact order violations, and the journaled words that will eventually come to heal her. I want for the staff at DVSAS to have the printers, thumb drives, and other tools they need to perform their invaluable work. And I want, perhaps more than anything, for the results of this drive to illustrate that my mother's life was not lost in vain. Here, her death helps others.

By the start of week two of her three-week hospital stay my mother had the entire left side of her body casted from the shattering force of her collision with the car her boyfriend crushed her with. Her lungs were collapsing; she developed pneumonia. Her liver was fighting to function; her kidneys were failing. She had a tracheotomy tube, several blood transfusions under her belt, and the blessing/curse of periodic consciousness through it all. Because her brother was born deaf, my mother and our family were fluent in ASL. We each had the opportunity to visit and speak with her this way before she died. We learned the events of that night and about the pain she was in, and then we said goodbye. The severity of her injuries took her at the age of 25. She left behind two daughters who came to understand life filtered through violence and colored by the repetition of our own experiences with it.

It makes sense that I would go on to do this work for other women.

This is the last image ever recorded of my mother. In it, you can see the tangible effects of violence in her life and therefore in mine. It is devoid of the color, the life, the emotion, and the personality that Lynn carried with her in her short life. It fails to convey the passions she enjoyed, the devotion she had toward her daughters, and the love she carried for her friends and family; nor does it illustrate her beauty, her will, or her strength. But I can assure you, she encompassed all of these things.

So now I am asking readers, community members, friends, and strangers to help me through one final push in my mission to collect the needed items for DVSAS. Please follow the facebook event here, LIKE the blog's corresponding facebook page here for updates, and support the work of similar organizations wherever you may find yourself if you are so inclined. I will be at the collection spot during these remaining time slots: 

Wednesday, 4/23, 5-7pm

Friday, 4/25. 5-6:30pm

Saturday, 5/3, 11-1pm

Consider taking a look at the list of needs in this post to get an idea of what would be useful. Thank you to all of you who have come out already, to those businesses who have offered incredible gifts, and to all of you who have shared with me your stories of tragedy, healing, and hope. Your gifts are varied and vast, and your resilience commendable. 

In peace.   

Week One Debrief

Week one of the donation drive is well underway and things are coming in at a slow and steady trickle. While sitting on the tailgate of my van waiting for donors to show up (of which there have physically only been four so far, but four with generous donations) I have reflected a great deal on the ways in which my life has been negatively impacted by domestic violence. Here in summation:

1. It has created some divides that are too rocky to traverse.
2. I still have regularly occurring nightmares wherein I relive helping my mom clean her blood off of the waterbed after a fight between her and her partner. That was thirty years ago. I was four. 
3. Violence fostered a climate in my brain where my already genetically predisposed neurotransmitters could easily misfire, causing irreparable damage to my psyche. This means the pathways in my brain are lined with violence.  
4. I will probably be medicated and go to therapy for the effects of the many types of violence I experienced in my young life for a very long time. That fact alone is shrouded in concern for my body, for the safety of medication, for the fear of dependency to feel 'normal', and for the financial responsibility of a lifelong need.  
5. My children have felt the effects intergenerationally. It trickles down in the angry and short-tempered side of me, the embarrassing behavior, regretful words, and shameful acts of yelling mean things at the people I love most in all this world. Meanwhile they have had to look at me through frightened eyes, the grinding of my teeth audible and my knuckles tense and white as I stomp out an aggressive infantile rant. It hurts to admit these things and to know that they happen in part because I was heavily conditioned by similar behavior as a child. It is such hard work to rewire, but I have made it my life's work to do so for my children. 
6. I walked down a lot of statistically predictable paths as a result of my mother's experience, including: teen pregnancy, drug and alcohol use, lack of high school completion, divorce, receipt of welfare, having children from multiple fathers, chronic underemployment, estrangement from family, and cycles of violence and assault. 
7. At the tender of of six I said goodbye to my mom. Her casket lowered, and I never saw her again.
   

Since announcing the donation drive last week I have received three emails from strangers, empathizing and sharing their own experiences. I have had two good tailgate cries in reflective homage to all of my friends and family members whose names I could rattle off without blinking who have all suffered various forms of abuse at the hands of partners and loved ones. I have listened as my son Koa serenaded me with a song he wrote about my resilience and presence in his life, and bawled until I almost couldn't breathe from the beauty of his words and the depth of his love. If nothing else comes in the coming days, I have all of this and more already.

I have  been changed by the experience of this donation drive already, and it's just getting underway. It is one way for me to have some control over all of the things that happened to me and around me that I had no agency over as a child. In this scenario I get to determine what my response to domestic violence is. I get to speak openly and honestly about my loss. I get to speak up for women who can't. I get to do something that turns the experience into one of growth and strength instead of stifling me and making me fearful. I get to empower others on their quests for Life. 

That is the greatest gift my mom ever gave me; I just didn't get to open it until now, when I was ready to. 

Come by and say hello this week, and bring a donation if you can: 

Wednesday, 4/16, 4:30-6pm

Friday, 4/18, 12-1:30pm

Saturday, 4/19 12-2pm   

From the heart... to the hands.

Trigger Warning: This post contains subjects some readers may be sensitive to. It's about violence and it's about love, and it's about what happens when the two mix. Domestic violence isn't something that everyone is comfortable talking about without a warning, so this is mine to you. 

The fast approaching weekend and in particular Saturday, April 12th, marks a very special anniversary. The date conjures a void that is almost tangible, like a penny falling down into the darkness of a never-ending well. It marks one of those defining moments where something happens, and then nothing is truly the same ever again. For me, this weekend symbolizes the beginning of my journey toward a lifetime as a feminist, as an advocate, and as a survivor of domestic violence. It is the same weekend that, 28 years ago, my mother Lynn was plowed down on a rural highway. Her lover was behind the wheel, alcohol and aggression exploding in between the slurs and swerves, and the topography of my life and hers was changed forever in that moment.

The moment that the tiny yellow car caught up with her brought with it a full and weighty clarity. Her body exploded in a cacophony of noise--the sound of bones breaking, organs bursting, and her heart slapping against the busted up framework of her chest cavity--to which she sang a song that I would come to know as a verse in my anthem.

May you only experience love like you deserve to be loved.   

The arrest report from that night.

But that's not always what happens when you are 6 years old and you see your mother lying in a hospital bed so badly injured that she is almost unrecognizable, statistically speaking anyway. Children like me--little girls who know what it sounds like when a full-grown woman's body smashes into the side of a single-wide trailer, who help their mothers clean up post-battle blood--we tend to find ourselves in similar patterns when we get old enough for our own relationships. I don't know what it is about seeing the matron pilar in one's life peppered with hemorrhages, weakened by blood loss and holding to life by the wire threads in her monitors, that leads little girls to believe they deserve to be treated as anything less than the queens they are; however, there is an expansive body of evidence suggesting that children who witness domestic violence are prone to play out the role in their own lives. I did too, to a lesser but no less valid extent than my mother. Thankfully I escaped that life and built up my confidence before injury ever left me hospitalized. Feeling hopeless, worthless, scared and scarred for my life, yes, but hospitalization, no. Ever since, my life has been on a steady trajectory toward empowering other women to do the same.

Kindergarten missed me.

In honor of my mother's strength through the trying weeks that she faced lying in that hospital bed, and in honor of my own experiences with domestic violence and of the experiences of as many as 4,000,000 other women in our country every year (U.S. Dept. of Justice, Violence by Intimates: Analysis of Data on Crimes by Current of Former Spouses, Boyfriends, and Girlfriends, March, 1998), I am going to do something to help the women and children in my community who live with the effects of domestic violence. In honor of the 65% of children who will also be abused by their mother's abuser--all those tiny eyes and ears who live through the terror of a violent upbringing--in honor of my boys for whom I am breaking so many cycles; and in honor of the 3,247 people served by Domestic Violence & Sexual Assault Services of Whatcom County (DVSAS) last year and the countless others who need but do not seek their services...

A witness statement.

You may remember the success of the Warmth Wagon coat drive (if you don't know what that is click here and here). Well, I need you to help me fill my van once more. Beginning April 12 and lasting until May 3 (the duration of my mother's hospital stay following the incident), I will be in the parking lot of the Lakeway Market at designated times collecting items of need for DVSAS. I have coordinated with the organization to determine their greatest needs at this time and would be grateful if you would join me in helping to meet them. Many of the items are low-cost to purchase, or may even be things you have spares of around your house, and will greatly help ease the impacts of domestic violence on our community. Please, for little girls like me and their moms both in Tiny Town and everywhere else, and for everyone else galvanized by the crippling damage of domestic violence, consider skipping a latte this week and bringing a donation by instead. You will soften someone's experience guaranteed; trust me, I know. Here are the most pressing needs:

Children's Programs

Activity jumper/jumperoo (stationery, not door frame kind)
Art supplies (buttons, clay, dry-erase markers, crayons, markers, construction paper, glue, etc.)
Boppy pillows
Coloring books
Cookie cutters
Disposable diapers, all sizes
Dress-up clothes, and a storage trunk for them
Ergo baby carriers in new or good used condition
Full-length mirror
Gerber sippy cups
Non-perishable single serving sized snacks and juice
Play-Doh, rolling pins and other tools for it
Wooden high-chair

Adult Programs

Blank journals and notebooks
Gift cards to help meet basic needs (gas/food/groceries)
Greyhound vouchers
Non-perishable single serving sized snacks and juice
Pre-paid cell phones
Pre-paid calling cards

Agency Needs

Coffee, tea, and creamer
Desktop photocopier for copying protection/restraining orders in client rooms
Desktop printer, any kind so long as it's in good working order
Hot plates
Large plastic storage totes
Magazine subscriptions for the waiting rooms
Bathroom supplies: toilet paper, pads, tampons, bleach wipes
Thumb drives 

So, Tiny Town, show me what you've got! I will be in the Lakeway Market parking lot at the following times in the coming week, and will post the next week's schedule in a forthcoming blog post. Be sure to join the event on Facebook too, to keep abreast of the developments as the project gets underway.

Saturday, 4/12 9-10am
Monday, 4/14 12-1:30pm
Wednesday, 4/16 4:30-6pm
Friday, 4/18 12-1:30pm
Saturday, 4/19 12-2pm

Please swing by, say hello and help me make someone's life better through your kind deeds by taking your concern from your heart, to their hands.

No, not that. Anything but that!

True to the tag I should probably be telling my therapist this instead of you, and I would—believe me, I would—but I only have one hour every two weeks and this just won’t fit in with all the other stuff on my list. Sorry, and you’re welcome.

I got my first tattoo when I was 15. It was/is the most hideous of indistinguishable blobs conveniently located forfuckingever on the small of my back. This tattoo was done by a guy named… what was it? Crawl? D’Beers? Copper, Topaz, Weed, Sailor, Golden, Maggot? I can’t remember his name now but I have six of his “practice tattoos” remaining, and a seventh that was converted into something I’m not embarrassed by over a decade after he scratched the original into my back. And now, tonight, after years and years of general conversation and a solid year of intensive present-day let's-look-at-your-patterns-of-impulsivity-lately conversations with Koa, the kid gets off the phone with my ex-husband, sits down at the table with the family for meat and potatoes dinner, and announces that he has great news! (Fuck me. This scenario is never, ever good. Seriously, there are days I wish the man would just dissolve or something.) 

"Yeah, he said he and grandma will take me to get a tattoo when I visit this summer!" 

And the air was literally sucked out of the room, except for Koa who was smiling and nodding his head affirmatively. He resembled some sort of adorable bobble-head souvenir one would pick up at a gas station or visitor's center at the tail-end of a trip you can't wait to get home from. Meanwhile I was more like the haggard tourist in a foreign land, stunned and stammering, lost, confused, and stuck in my same old outfit and furry teeth because someone stole my luggage back at the station. I stuffed a piece of garlicky steak in my mouth and stared out the window towards Canada. Breathing deeply and slowly grinding through the meat, I took great care to bite the tiny minced garlic particles one-by-one every time I needed to bite my tongue. It helped me be less of an asshole. I'm not mad at my kid; he's just doing the kid thing, searching for the Always Yes--but it's kind of easy for me to flip the asshole switch when my ex enters the conversation.   

Now it's been an hour and so far I've had a little cry and gotten frustration-fueled heartburn from the situation. Balls. Here's the thing: I am covered in tattoos. I have them on my feet, calves, ribs, arms, fingers, ears, neck, back, chest, shins, and the inside of my lip. I have never once doubted Koa would eventually follow suit to some degree, be it one or 100%, ever since he proudly declared he wanted a mermaid with the body of a shark tattooed on his belly when he was just six-years-old. This is just not how I imagined it would go down.

I think all parents have hope that their children will be better off than they are in a number of ways and I am no different. While I fully support my son dropping into life and out of high school, while I have long encouraged him to follow his own path whatever it looks like, I just simply cannot get behind his very first tattoo memory being one tainted by the impulsive nature of his life right now. My own experience not withstanding, I desperately wish he would wait until he is an adult so that he can make decisions based on how his path unfolds as he ventures into a life outside of my nest. It's not a good time for him to walk into a sleazy shop about which he knows nothing, select some shitty flash drawing off the wall at the encouragement of my ex, and allow some degenerate stranger to scrawl into is virgin skin with his tattoo "gun." That, and of course the thought of my ex getting the honor of accompanying him for the occasion makes me throw up a little in my mouth. It's true that I have had every Christmas, every birthday, every Easter, every New Year (save for this very last one), and every Father's Day with Koa throughout his entire life... but that's because I'm actually a reliable parent to him, have always been present in his life, and actually have some idea of where my son is at right now both mentally and emotionally. It's just not a good place to be making decisions that literally mark for life unless he wants to start saving for cover-ups now... but that would be our money because he doesn't have a job, and I don't really have that in the budget.

If nothing else I guess I just assumed this particular rite of passage would be one I was an immediate and positive part of. For now, however, it looks as though I may have to begrudgingly accept his choice to have someone else there instead. And not just someone else, but my exfuckinghusband, some dude I married as a wayward child-bride and divorced before I was 21. I hope my pride and excitement for Koa to transform himself in this way in his lifetime isn't overshadowed or reversed by that particular detail, but more than that I hope he doesn't get a staph infection from unsanitary conditions or poor aftercare in the time he's out of state.  

No, we are calling it "Dropping Into Life!"

I don't want to give too much away because while I want you to understand where I am coming from and the context in which I am living, I want much more to show respect for my son and where he is. Koa is curious and contemplative, and like most sixteen-year-olds he is deciphering which paths he'd like to explore. He has read Emerson and Thoreau, questioned God and Man and his faith in either, created worlds where he is King and walked in worlds where he was nothing more than stardust. The kid is deep, and external and internal pressures have pushed him to the depths for a long time now.

I want you to really understand what it feels like to send your child into the world looking heavy, like the weight of ten men sits on his shoulders as he slugs into the rainy dark morning before most of your neighbors have even turned on their lights. I remember the way hopelessness set in when I was a teenager and I remember the way my parents chose to respond. I remember the adventures I imagined, daydreaming about places I had only seen on television and the new identity I would assume once I arrived. And then, like some sort of sick joke, the next day would come and try to suck the life out of me. Sometimes I would end it crying myself to sleep or in an argument with my Pops about some menial task I managed to fuck up, or maybe glaring at myself in the mirror and biting down hard as I scraped layers of my skin away with the sharpened tine of a fork and bled a better place to be. Sometimes I crouched in the dark of my closet with a flashlight writing shitty poetry that bordered on plagiarism, eventually falling asleep on a heap of laundry or, not. Koa's nights are long like that sometimes; though filled with other sorts of agonizing, he's trying to reconcile all the information and emotions and thoughts and reflections of his days.

The difference in what I experienced and what I do for my own kid exists in the way he is treated for his state. Instead of bearing down on the fissures hoping to squeeze them shut we have decided to fill in the gaps with unconditional love, guidance, support and grace. All that stretching and reaching he's doing is an opportunity for immense growth, and not just for him.

Turns out Tuesday was the last day we let our son go to high school. Turns out none of us knew that it was what we needed to do for him all along. Turns out we probably just saved his life.

While I know my partner and I will face judgment for our decision to create a "drop out" of our son, I would submit that it likely comes from people who live in insulated places far away from the fierce biting and gnashing of anxiety and panic attacks, perhaps even safe in places where they can ignore the symptoms of it in themselves or loved ones. I might even ask someone judging me right now to consider whether or not they believe children are, in fact, people who deserve to self-actualize. I do. I think that everybody deserves to be the best versions of themselves they can be, living the most fulfilling life they can, and doing the most good in the process. Children are not excluded on my list of people who deserve to live that way because, well, they are people. On his first day as a dropout my son researched the local volunteer center process, scoured local agencies in need of help, and reached out to a senior center to fill a position leading art activities with people who have likely not seen their own grandchildren in ages. He left voicemail for the teachers who have impacted him, who respected him and earned his respect and who inspire him, to let them know that he was leaving and to appraise them of his registration for the upcoming GED orientation at the college in three weeks. He wanted to thank them for showing him ways of looking at the world differently, for supporting him, and to give them closure he thought they deserved as people who care about him. He talked with me openly about his life and friends, assisted me in delivering donations to the local men's shelter, laughed with me for the first time in days, bonded with each of his little brothers, went on a run up the mountain, helped clean our home, uncovered infinite opportunities that are now within his grasp since his schedule has opened up considerably, and looked like a kid again instead of a man in the middle of an existential crisis. What did you do Wednesday to help the world, strangers, your family, your community, and yourself?

If your kid told you that he or she didn't believe there was anything more before or after this life, that he was plagued by apathy and feelings of inadequacy, that he swam in anxiety and couldn't stop thinking of dying... wouldn't you choose to hold your child close too? To show them the beauty of the world and help them access it in a way that kept them both alive and stitched to you in a positive way? My parents were either unable or unwilling to do that and I ended up out on the streets making every statistically predictable misjudgment possible. Eventually I found myself pregnant with Koa at 16, his age now, and threatened with depressing patterns of poverty and estrangement. Fast-forward to now to find me deep in the throes of therapy figuring all this shit out--living the paradoxical dream, as it were--and vicariously healing my childhood wounds through gentle parenting and unconditional love for my child as he suffers. I know it's not a competition, and this particular scenario wouldn't lend itself to much of a winning feeling if it were, but I am so grateful to know my kid will have to sink significantly less time and money into therapy due to parental misgivings than I have had to. Earning my degrees was cool and all, as was pulling out of destitute poverty, birthing two sons naturally, and moving to a house with skylights, but knowing I'm doing right by Koa right now is the biggest success I've had to date. That's right folks, suggesting my kid drop out of high school is the biggest success I've had to date.

"You don't have to go back. There are as many different ways to do it as there are people that want to."

"Really? Yeah, sure. Anything sounds better than what I'm doing. I'm in."

"Good. I believe in you and can't wait to see what amazing things you do without all the extra bullshit!" 

This is love in a way that only a teen Mama could love her now-teen-baby. I am so proud of the way he is dropping in to life--he's choosing a path he can see himself on AND that does not include teenage parenthood, juvenile detention centers, hitch-hiking to Rainbow Gatherings, or cocktail waitressing like my path did. If I did all that and still ended up here, trust me kid, you're going to be just fine. I'll see to it myself.

Adios, Crazy Cat Lady!

So there I was just searching the internet for crazy cat lady pictures when something went very, very wrong. Kind of. It was also hilarious. As part of the Great Purge of 2014 I found myself highly motivated to get rid of all the cat-related items still lingering in our garage and then, when I wasn’t looking for a reminder of any sort, I was hit in the face with a banner reading “Mother of the Year.”

I’ve always had cats, my whole life, as long as I can remember. The first cat I had as a child was a ragtag black cat with hints of rusty red in her fur, a crooked half-tail, and all the patience in the world who we found at a gas station somewhere between San Antonio and Santa Fe. I called her Cinderella Lauper—Cindy—after my then-favorite Disney movie and the only natural progression for the mind of a child in the 80s, the seeker of all things fun, Cindy Lauper. She was an affectionate cat all the way until the feline leukemia took her. Fast-forward twenty years to find me offering every remaining cat-themed supply in my possession up on an internet group designed for free exchange of goods and services, preparing to load some random accompanying image from Google to add a laugh, and discovering a video of obvious pornography on my husband’s laptop when I go to retrieve my image.

A quick glance at the properties showed me that the video was actually a very brief file of a nude woman doing leg lifts… like the exercise—am I the only one who thinks it’s odd that this would be arousing? like, to anyone, ever?—from  a site called nakedsports.com. After an intense bout of laughter at the thought of such... dare I say deviance, and a few clicks to delete the evidence, my husband and I pondered which one of the boys had made the accidental click that no doubt ended in a frantic closing of all browser windows and an immediate deletion of search history. I think we’ll leave that one right in the recycling bin my son(s?) imagines it was put in years ago, a hilarious and endearing reminder how bizarre adolescent inquiry is for everyone.

Suffice it to say (and without further embarrassing the children) I had cats when I was a kid and pretty much every day thereafter and now I don’t. All of the pet things I hoped to give away were weighted reminders of the companionship of animals I can’t currently house. Though having a box of shit in my house to tend to would most certainly put me over my edge, I still miss each of the cats I’ve had in the past. With one kid pretty much anaphylactic due to the dander, however, remaining pet-free is no question for me. Giving these things away empowers me to let go of the distant and impatient longing that comes with refusing to fully let go of my life as a crazy cat lady. This is clearly a step in the direction I need to be heading right meow.    

Why the Warmth Wagon had to happen.

Sometimes memories live in our minds. Other times they live in our bones.

More from Jen

They rise to greet us unexpectedly, at times unwanted and others welcome, triggered by some acute perception of our senses. A breeze carrying a long-forgotten scent; a stranger with familiar eyes; a sudden loud boom. That is exactly what happened on Monday morning as I opened the back door of my comfortable abode in Tiny Town. My deck overlooks a sunken yard with a grassy trail boundary, lined by bamboo and the most remarkable cherry tree I have ever seen. I was enjoying a steamy hot cup of dark coffee when the chill grabbed me. I stepped out back to recycle some refuse and unexpectedly shook a series of memories loose from my bones. The air smelled of frost and fire, my eyes ached from the coldness, and my hands quickly grasped my mug again, thankful for the heat and caffeine.

I immediately took to social media and asked people to meet me in the parking lot of a vacant grocery store and bring cold weather items to disperse to the most needy of Tiny Town. Within 24 hours the event had been joined by over 1,400 locals. I collected hundreds of coats and dozens of sleeping bags and blankets. Then, simply, I took to the streets and charitable organizations to help people feel warmth. Everyone deserves to feel warmth and it was easy to manifest for both recipients and donors.

15: hungry and homeless.

I was a homeless for a year before I got pregnant with my son Koa. At the age of 15 nearing the end of my freshman year I learned what it was like to feel hungry but have no access to food; to long for a safe bed; to wish for a shower, a toothbrush, clean clothes; to dig in dumpsters for resources; to beg restaurant staff for the day's leftovers; to hold signs for change. I slept on the couches of friends and acquaintances, on benches, in tents in the woods, on bathroom floors of interstate rest stops, fireside in the reading room of a small private school I had insider knowledge of, in countless vehicles, and even a brief stint as a resident at one of my teacher's home (until I stole and wrecked his daughter's car). That time period afforded me perspective that most thankfully do not have to gain, and created in me a willing advocate when it comes to other people living lives in transition. All people deserve to be warm and to feel safe no matter their life choices or circumstances, where they come from or where they are heading. I had nights where I felt neither warmth nor safety, where I curled up with nothing but a fear and hopelessness I would wish on no one--not even those who could be humbled by such lessons. It is uncomfortable for me to revisit a lot of the memories created during that time, but because of them it was not uncomfortable to approach the homeless population and offer them compassion in the form of a hug and a coat to keep them warm.

While I could share several stories about the individuals I met in the process, suffice it to say that they were all human beings and all worthy of so much more than I could give them. As for me, I was given too much praise for what was actually not that much work. I was called saint, amazing, most inspiring. The truth is I'm kind of an asshole. Why, after all that good work and all those people's lives touched, would I say that about myself? Simple. It took me little to no time, little to no strenuous effort, and little to no money to pull off something that helped hundreds of people. The real saints are the people who shared the event and showed up on short notice with so many wonderful donations. The real amazing ones are those whose generosity roused deep appreciation from the amazing people who received these items. The most inspiring are those who are out there trying every day to make their lives and this world a better place to be. I met a woman homeless for five months now, on dialysis, who literally melted into my arms as she wept while sharing her story and the story of her partner who had a stroke on the way to one of her appointments. I could see her big toe through her tennis shoe. "I need a room," she said. "I don't have one of those unfortunately, but do you need any warm layers? A sleeping bag?" "Have you got any socks? He could really use some socks."

That's some perspective I have carried all week since. When I feel like bitching about my floor needing to be vacuumed, the dishes piling up, the food left out on the stove, the fucking laundry pile that never. ever. ends... I find myself seeing that woman's face, remembering the warmth of her tears as I wiped them away. I'm overwhelmed because I have too much to take care of, and she just needs socks for the love of her life. 

Tiny Town, you really came through. You brought the highest quality duds and helped to outfit our homeless neighbors in brand names I cannot myself regularly afford: Columbia, Helly Hansen, GAP, London Fog, Burton, kuhl, REI, Patagonia... Some, brand new. Here's to the best dressed homeless population in the nation, and to the warmth those layers provide them. To those of you who wish you could have participated or would have heard about it sooner, it's ok. Just throw an extra pair of gloves in your car and give them to someone who looks like they need them. They went faster than anything else.

History, you are different now. The lingering feeling of hopelessness from that era is nearly evaporated now, as countless examples of efficacy and good continue to add up in my jar. I am confident I'll never return to that place, though for years I feared going back there. Security and perspective are both great gifts.

Boys and Brian, thank you for indulging another one of my big ideas on the fly--you really made it possible to pull it off because of your flexibility and willingness to jump on board. I hope you boys feel some of that humanity sink in because I would like you to be the type of people who engage in random acts of community service throughout your lives. Also, thanks for not flipping me too much shit when our garage looks like this. (Although I did hear Brian murmur,"This is how it all starts, this is it..." as he stared at the piles and began to help me sort.) I promise not to land us on one of those reality tv shows about hoarding, despite what the garage looks like from time to time.

Is it beautiful? Is it useful? Is it storied?

The Great Purge of 2014: Part One

You wouldn’t know it walking into my sweet middle-class (rental) home, standing under the enormous chandelier with the whiteness of the walls glaring back at you, or looking up into the sparse décor of my open floor plan, but I have too much shit. No really, like, it’s kind of a problem sometimes. It’s emblematic of other problems I have and sometimes it comes rushing into the office in my head to demand a raise on the priority list of mental health concerns I should probably attend to.

Sometimes I am able to listen to the piece of me that yearns to live simply, that feels joy and weightlessness wash over me after handing a prized possession to its next owner to treasure. Other times I hold onto the things I have like a hoarder five years after the Great Depression, the memory of struggle and starvation and stealing and sobering sadness of life lived “without” still raw in my mind and triggered by the sweat of current labors.

Some examples of objects I continue to carry despite their utility having run its course in my life:

• An extra dining set. No, not dishes. A six-foot-long pine table and six matching chairs. 
• A scooter that hasn’t been started in two years.
• Three boxes of size eight clothing.          
• A jar full of false eyelashes, a drawer full of ruffle-butted funderwear, and a collection of Martha Stewart Kids magazines from the mid-2000s.

… And that’s it. I can’t list anything else right now because in my mind there is ALWAYS utility—I just may not have come to the right moment to discover it yet. Do you do that? Do you ever just hold onto something because someday it is bound to come in handy and you happened to be able to acquire it today for whatever reason? I have to talk myself down off ledges more frequently than I’d like to admit.

And so, the Great Purge of 2014 begins.

I have been homeless, slept under bridges, in rest stop bathrooms, in cars, in camps and on the ground. I have siphoned electricity off of neighboring units to run a space heater and refrigerator full of the previous night’s kitchen loss from my gracious employer. I have had Christmas presents provided for my children by complete strangers. I have lived owning literally nothing more than the pack on my back. And now I have all this shit everywhere.

Two knife blocks. Fourteen Christmas stockings. An Elvis bust with a broken nose. Two lamp shades sliced down the side (rendering them inoperable in their most basic function). Two playpens and no babies left. A 12pk of clear lip balm containers and a 2lb bag of beeswax. A secular Christmas Countdown calendar, homemade, collaged with the most incredible collection of handmade upcycled envelopes, each tucked with a note full of fun. Six boxes of compact discs. Three dead computers. Little hotel shampoos. And of course, those three boxes of size eight clothing. It’s time to let some of it go.

You can follow me on the journey. In fact, I encourage you to not only follow along but to participate. Each week I will select an object or several to get rid of and at the end of the week I’ll post a picture of the all the week’s purge along with a story about one particular item.

The process I will use to break down my inner-hoarder is simple. 

I'll reflect on the given object and ask myself the following:

 Is it beautiful? If no, then out it goes. If yes, is there someone else who might appreciate its beauty more? It has to be more than aesthetically pleasing; the beauty has to be in the context too.   

Is it useful? If no, then out it goes. If yes, do I have more than one? If yes, pick one and get rid of the other(s). If not, I’ll keep it. This is about minimizing after all, not about returning to abject poverty. 

Is it storied? If no, then out it goes. If yes, is the story something I’ll forget if the object is gone? Is the story something someone else might appreciate? Stories are vital components of our relationships to one another. I want to share the storied objects I have with the people who helped to create the memories attached to them, or to find people who can create their own new stories with the objects I no longer need to hold on to.

By my calculations this imprecise formula will have my inner-hoarder feeling a little less hoard-y in no time. I hope that I can find some people who will love and cherish all the storied, cool and useless and wacky and tacky and beautiful, wonderful things I’ll be ridding my life of. Because as awesome as it is feel secure and to engage in consumerism and “collecting” to prove that sense of security, I can’t imagine why I need to hold on to four square yards of fake fur or a pair of hiking shoes that are too narrow for me to wear without getting painful blisters anymore.

What can you let go of this week? How will purging it help you or someone else? Next week I'll be sure to update you on all of the beautiful, useful, storied relics of my past that I'm cutting loose, how I let them go, and what it felt like. I can already feel my palms sweating.