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A Toast to Good Books (With Cheap Wine)

I’m no wine connoisseur. I’m certainly no wine snob. When I crack open a bottle of wine, I’m lucky if it costs more than $12.99 and isn’t a weekly special on the Publix end cap. I currently have a cheap fascination with blends. Give me an Apothic Dark or Crush, or — if I’m really feeling sexy and want to walk on the wild side — an Inferno, and I’m good to go. I don’t have the salary or the nose for much else. Plus, I tend to judge wine by its cover. I’m a sucker for a silly, satiric, or twisted label.

I do have elitist tendencies, though, when it comes to books. I freely admit it. I am a book snob.

I would never judge a book by its cover – not even the blurbs on the back. I trust only the complexities of the prose. I crack open a spine and inspect the contents – something that will land you in jail at the wine aisles of Ingles or a Kroger, but is perfectly acceptable in a book store or library. So I crack it open, and I sip. Complexities of the grape – aromas, structure, tannins — mean nothing to me. But complexities of the prose – irony, structure, tone – those speak volumes to me.

There’s nothing like a nice, classic tome, creamy and dense with a velvety finish. And there’s so much variety! The rustic flavor of a Faulkner, the sharp-edged opulence of a Wilde. A tart, zesty Austen, cutting and fresh with ample high notes; or a seedy Flannery O’Connor, with ample grit and texture and intellectually satisfying end.

I don’t always go for what would be considered the high-end variety. I have my equivalent of a table wine (the sort that’s not pretentious and still has grip and plenty of body — or bodies as the case may be…): a nice murder mystery — manor house or hard boiled, either will do in a pinch. Mysteries are my guilty pleasure.

Yes, I am a book snob, but I would never judge you or anyone else on their choices. People who read books must stick together. Because, let’s face it, we are a dying breed.

I may wax poetic for days about the oily, oaked innards or the rich, buttery finish of a fine piece of fiction. But I also will listen to you go on and on about your selection, as well. You see, no matter the year the book was bottled or the soil from which it sprung, books don’t cost you an arm and a leg (or a liver) – unless you buy in quantity – case upon case in an addiction- spun haze like I tend to do. They are far cheaper than good wine and they are ALWAYS good for you, especially in large quantities…

Give me a book store – preferably a nice, independently owned, aesthetically pleasing shop like Square Books in Oxford, Mississippi or a used one in the crook and cranny of a downtown street in Chattanooga, and I’ll wind up pleasantly pickled in prose. Alas, my hometown has neither. If I had the money and the time — and the ability to not cling Gollum-style to every novel I purchase — I would open one up. But I have this unhealthy weakness for words. I would readily spend my life savings on hard covers and literary paperbacks, just ask my husband.

I know that lending libraries are a far cheaper way to get my fix, but I prefer to maintain my own personal library the way some folks maintain their wine cellars. I’ve got shelves upon shelves lining dusky interior walls, free from damaging light and moisture and full to the brim with tantalizing, well-seasoned works. Each time I take one down, blowing the dust off its jacket with gusto, it is with tremors of lusty anticipation.

Addictions run in families. It is documented fact. And I’ve been honing the boys’ palettes since they were born. The girls are already hearty addicts…. Lately, my eldest daughter has even become my supplier. (Is it bad that I passed my habit on to my firstborn and now she contributes readily to both our dependencies?) In the last year, she has pointed me toward two of my most recent and favorite finds: the 700-plus page epic, A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara, and the novella-length, The Vegetarian by Han Kang. I highly recommend them to anyone who loves crisp, dry prose with an undercurrent of darkness and debauchery. There’s plenty of texture and intensity, with smooth finishes that range from sweet to tart to bitter. Both present honest, no-nonsense portraits of the cruel and beautiful nature of life.

I have refined taste in literature, it’s true. I stock my shelves with rich, bold, slightly hedonistic pairings that never disappoint: Wolfe & Conrad, Morrison & Atwood, Garcia-Marquez and Katherine Dunn. And unlike fine wines, fine literature — or popular fiction, whatever your taste may be — can be uncorked over and over and over again. So whether you’re into James Patterson or James Joyce, raise a cheap glass of wine to good books everywhere:

And may the best of our shelves

Match the best of ourselves.

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April 8, 2017 0

The Queen of All Besties

I have this Bestie… She’s the absolute best of the Besties. She’s the Louise to my Thelma. The Lucy to my Ethel. The Bert to my Ernie. She completes me. Not in the Tom Cruise/Renee Zellweger kind of way. Tom Cruise makes me cringe and my Bestie LOVES, LOVES, LOVES Kenny Chesney. She never would’ve left him after a mere six months of marriage. She would’ve made that matrimony work, I’m certain. Nope. Definitely not Cruise and Zellweger kind of “completes me.” More like coconut and cream makes the complete and perfect pie kind of way (which just so happens to be her favorite). I’m the coconut. Flaky and scattered. She’s the cream. Flawless. Her skin is flawless. Her character is flawless. Her grammar is flawless. I’ve never seen her make a mistake. She is on point. She is on fleek. And SHE would never, ever, never ever use a cliché. She’s that flawless.

She is my better half. The Yin to my Yang, the sweet to my sour, the Felix to my Oscar. The Jesus to my John the Baptist. As in I’m the crazy one with the locusts’ legs snagged in my teeth and my hair all cattywampus. And she is perfection incarnate. Her hair is never out of place — could be because she shaved it when her mom was battling cancer – because she’s that flawless and that perfect. I’m telling you, she’s a saint. Her smile is beatific. It can work a room like an epiphany, showing everyone in it their worth and their potential. She sparks. She galvanizes. She emboldens. She is the Queen of Inspiration.

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She has taught me how to teach. Without her, I wouldn’t be half the educator I am. She focuses me. She drives me. She writes my rubrics for me. You see, I have a very big weakness. I love ideas. I love concepts and creative outlets and projects that glitter and gleam. And she does too. She sees the big, conceptual picture, too — but she also sees the bottom line. She grounds me. Without her, I would be a nebulous cloud of creative ca-ca. But she reigns me in and funnels my creativity into legitimate, effective, measurable methods of teaching. She’s detail-oriented and fundamentals-focused and together, we plan and coordinate units like gangbusters.

Our classrooms are across the hall from each other and have been for the last thirteen years. Even though we are opposites, we have one common denominator: love for our students. We believe building relationships builds success. Learn your students – who they are, what makes them tick — and they’ll learn the curriculum. Stay motivated and they will too. And nothing motivates me more than my Bestie. She’s the Queen of the Go-Getters.

Without my Bestie, I would only be half the mother I am today. No lie. Like, literally half my children wouldn’t exist. I wouldn’t have married Mike and I wouldn’t have had my beautiful twin boys. She orchestrated that. She took it upon herself to caulk up my cracks and teach me to trust love again. She watched Mike and me chat over tuna fish sandwiches and kimchi in the break room at lunch and decided that my faulty connections and his crooked wires could be a thing. A real, bonafide, working thing — full of electricity and light.

You see, despite my dreamy, visionary nature, I never saw Mike’s and my potential. But my Bestie did. She saw a future in an instant – a jaeger-soaked, mistletoe-marked instant – and she pushed me toward my ultimate Carpe Diem. My moment of a lifetime that spun into a postmodern family of a lifetime. And what did I manage to do for her in return? On that most magical of semester-ending, happily-ever-after, holiday nights, what did I do for her? I got her drunk. Fall-over-the-sofa-in-a-riotous-splatter-of-giggles drunk. For the first time in her life drunk. Did I mention I’m the bad influence in this relationship? She comes out on the short end of our friendship stick every time. Still, she sticks with it (pun intended) because she’s the better person. I’m telling you, she’s absolutely perfect.

And without my Bestie, my life wouldn’t be half as amazing. It just wouldn’t. We share secrets and laughs… and the most ridiculous homecoming costumes in the history of the high school homecomings. There is nobody else on this earth who makes me act a fool quite like her. Nobody. Throughout our years in the hallowed halls of Woodland High, we have dressed as Gangsta rappers, Oompa Loompas, Lady Gaga, Hungry Hippos, dinosaurs, ninja turtles, the Kool Aid Man… I’ve even been the Wicked Queen to her Magic Mirror (I told you I was the bad influence…). We are the silliest and the stupidest and the absolute awesomest when we’re together. We go on road trips together and have girls’ nights together and sing karaoke and eat double doozies and watch football together. We talk books and husbands and children and politics and obscenities together. Nobody can conjugate, triangulate and cross pollinate cuss words like we can. We are profanity in motion. Allen Ginsberg and Norman Mailer would toast our talents. (My Bestie never cussed before me, either. Mirror, Mirror on the wall, who’s the worst influence of them all…

Now my Bestie has been there for me for such a long time. She was there to teach my daughters, and she was there to help me birth my boys. She has helped me solder my past and helped me forge my future. She has taught me to wield love every second of every minute of the present. She is perfection. I wish there were some way that I could pay her back for all her lessons, all the blessings she has shared. It is an impossible task.

But today, on my Bestie’s birthday – her first birthday without her beloved mother, the mother who granted her all her glorious ways of loving and teaching and sharing and laughing and being – I just want to tell her how very much I love and appreciate her. How much I know she’s hurting. How much I know she misses her mom. And how much I wish I could ease her pain.

To my Bestie: with your birth, your mom gave the world the kindest, warmest, most luminous and learned soul I’ve ever known. You brighten our planet with your smile and with your love. You do your mother proud with each soul that you touch. And you touch so many. Mine is simply one among them all. But you… you are one in a million. I love you, my Bestie, the Queen of my heart.

Happy Birthday.

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April 3, 2017 0

NICU Memories and Musings: a hellish ride in the holiest of holies

The Neonatal Intensive Care Unit – a clinical cocoon of a womb for babies born too soon or too hard. For some families, it is a beautiful place. A site of unmatched miracles and grace. For others, it is a heartbreaking place. A place of pain and unconscionable loss. For all, it is a place that houses love and fear and absolute out of control situations and emotions. It is a place both holy and hellish, where innocence is taken to either heal or to die. It is a hellish ride through the holiest of holies.

The first time I entered the NICU to see my twin boys, I was terrified. I didn’t know what to expect. Didn’t know what I’d see. Had no idea how I’d feel once I did see them. Suffice it to say, the experience was overwhelming. I vomited. Partly from the anesthesia after-effects, but largely due to the emotions that surged through me. A storm surge of terror coupled with love. My boys were so tiny, so fragile. There were tubes and monitors and beeping machines everywhere.

After that initial chaos, I calmed down. I collected myself. It was then I registered my surroundings. Everything was hushed and dimly lit and deceptively serene, considering the delicate nature of the patients and their varied conditions. But definitely hushed and dimly lit.

It felt like a church. But holier.

Holier because it was full to bursting with innocence. Six rooms, called pods, full to bursting with pure, unblemished innocence. Innocence in birthday suits, tanning under lights, innocence bundled up to the eyeballs like cotton-swaddled ninjas, Innocence helmeted in CPAP masks and Velcro. Innocence with solitary, glowing pulse ox ruby slippers – and parents promising “There’s no place like home… there’s no place like home…so let’s get there.”

Now we were unbelievably fortunate. Our boys were born at 34 weeks 5 days. Preemies, yes. With battles, yes. But their battles were a far-cry from the wars that were being waged around them by their 24, 25, 26 week counterparts. Preemies crippled and broken and fragile and fierce.

Preemies fight hard. Famously so. They never cease to amaze the doctors and nurses and their parents. They are bony and brittle, but Lord have mercy, how they fight. They have butterfly wings for skin; they are thin and veined; there is tape pulling at their newness and needles piercing their perfection. Their surface is marred to save their soul. And goodness, how that soul fights.

Saving innocent souls. So not like church, after all.

But then, like church, the NICU is full to bursting with prayer. Prayer of all kinds. Prayer, well-practiced and well-formed, or haltingly hesitant. Prayer, desperately flung like a Hail Mary, last ditch effort to bargain for what feels like the impossible. But with God and love and miracles made all-the-more-routine through modern medicine, those Hail Mary’s are caught more than they’re dropped. All types of prayer form on the lips of preemie parents. We were no exception. We prayed, often. For our sons and for all of those preemies around them.

There are miracles in the NICU every day. More than one a day, 365 days a year. Against seemingly insurmountable odds. These smallest of warriors fight. They are so much stronger than their parents. The parents crack. We cry, we rant, we bargain and beg and rage and plead and cave. But these wee ones… they fight. Hard. And often – quite often – most often – 98-percent-of-the-time often — they win. So there are many, many, many miracles in the NICU.

And there is communion in the NICU. Hunger and thirst satisfied on a physical, spiritual, and emotional level. Flesh made perfect through the transformative powers of maternal biochemistry. Doctors and nurses encourage preemie moms to breastfeed — because in the NICU, breast milk is not just nutrition; it is medicine. With this most perfect food comes antibodies, anti-inflammatories, and other nutrients (like fatty acids, digestible proteins and stem cells) that can help power these infants through the gauntlet of bacteria and viruses that lay in wait. A mother’s body responds to any hostile environment around her infant, and adjusts her milk accordingly.

Breastfeeding my boys helped transform not just them, but me.The roller coaster of hormones and emotions that always comes with the postpartum experience was a hundred times harder and rougher with the NICU included in the mix. I was an absolute mess. I was stressed and depressed and fatigued. But the skin-to-skin bonding I felt through nursing helped ease my anxiety and exhaustion. Nursing my boys calmed my core and centered my soul solely on them: the smell of their skin, the tickle of their breath, the warmth of their weight. Their most perfect food was my most perfect therapy.

And Mike got in on the skin-to-skin communion, too, through kangaroo care. Watching him wrap his wide, warm arms around our tiny guys, seeing them snuggled safe against his chest, I saw him change. I saw his hard edges soften; his tough-guy exterior melt away. He was instantly putty in their pouty-lipped presence.

The NICU is a hellish place. It is hard and draining and demanding. It left Mike and me feeling defeated 90% of the time our boys were there. It was a place that tested our endurance and our strength — and fortunate for our family, we were only there for 6 days for one boy and 9 days for the second. What we went through was nothing compared to what some preemies and their parents go through. NICUs are hellish places full of unfathomable hurdles. But 98% of the time, they become miraculous places full of undeniable grace.

But what NICUs are most full of is babies — very, very special babies. Babies who fight like the dickens for their chance at life. This month, the March of Dimes campaign reminds our family of that distant battle we once waged and prompts us to give what we can to help current and future little ones — and the medical professionals who look after them– bring that miracle percentage up to 100%.If you can, won’t you please consider giving, too? nicuboys

March 27, 2017 0

C-Section Realities and Naked Mole Rats: the Birth of our Beautiful Twins

I was always jealous of those moms who had scheduled C-sections. They were always perfectly primped in their post-delivery pics. That was going to be me this time around. My hair and makeup spot on. No sweaty curls, no petechiae in the whites of my eyes and the flesh of my neck like I had with the girls — when I pushed so hard that tiny blood vessels burst all over my head. I looked like a voodoo doll’s target. The boys were going to be C-section babes at 37 weeks. And I was going to be a glamour shot, post op, cover girl.

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Yeah, that didn’t happen.

On a Wednesday afternoon three years ago today, I went in at 34 weeks for my prenatal specialist appointment. They took my blood pressure, did an ultrasound, and next thing I knew I was getting pumped full of magnesium and slung into an ambulance.

Let me tell you a little bit about the evil entity that is Magnesium. Not the magnesium you take as an over-the-counter supplement to prevent constipation or leg cramps. No, I mean Magnesium with a capital M, second cousin once removed from Beelzebub of the netherworld. It is given to women with preeclampsia as an emergency measure to prevent seizures when mom’s blood pressure gets too high, but it also has some nasty side effects. Like sending your BP plummeting so low you’re literally fainting while lying flat on your back. You feel heavy as lead… but MOLTEN lead. Because Mag is a stout, heavy devil that belches brimstone through an IV drip into your circulatory system, leaving you in a sulfurous state of confusion and heat. Sinners-in-the-Hands-of-an Angry-God confusion and heat. A great, fiery furnace of confusion and heat, flames and lava lapping at your body and soul for hours and hours. Hell hath no fury like a magnesium drip.

And it’s a hellish fury you tolerate because it’s saving you and your babies, but immediately after delivery, you beg, plead, bargain and bully to be taken off the drip. And if you’re lucky, really, really lucky – and really, really persuasive — your OB agrees.

Mine did. She probably regretted caving to my persuasive pressures because my feet continued to swell to the size of human lungs, and my blood pressure spiked, and my head pounded, and my vision sparked like Vulcan’s smithy. But she took pity on me nonetheless and yanked the mag bag.

But back to my first and only experience with a C-section and the delivery of our beautiful boy babies. My girls were born the traditional, squeeze and extrude through a narrow flesh funnel for hours and hours way, so I didn’t know what to expect. The OR was much smaller than I’d imagined. (They look so much larger on Grey’s Anatomy and House reruns.) And it was cold – ice cold. But that was a welcome respite from the MAG demon busily rafting rivers and tributaries of fire in my body. I also recall having a difficult time curling inward enough for the epidural because, let’s face it, YOU try curling your spine forward with double the fetuses and fluids in your frontal regions. NOT ideal.

I knew enough to expect a sterile sheet wall at my chin so I couldn’t see all the bloody shenanigans going on below my naval, but I didn’t expect my arms to be strapped, crucifixion-style, out to my side. To be perfectly honest, it made me feel a little out of control and vulnerable. (Like being paralyzed from the chest down and sliced hip to hip didn’t leave me vulnerable enough.) And I never expected to feel strange squeezing sensations coming from my lower extremities. When I asked the nurses about it, I was told I was wearing compression boots that were pumping my calves to prevent blood clots. Still, the ability to feel that regulated pressure and release was disconcerting. What if I felt the smooth blade of the scalpel slicing me open like a ripe cantaloupe?

I didn’t. But I did feel a whole lot of pulling and tugging and what felt like my uterus being stretched over the rim of the Grand Canyon. So much tugging. And I could hear a chorus of nurses and doctors, commanding and directing. And then, at 10:35 AM, the tiniest quivering wail rose over the sheet, and I heard Parker Isaac Candela singing heartily for his supper for the very first time, but certainly not the last. My heart swelled to bursting at his voice. A voice that still trembles and purrs with sweetness to this day.

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One minute later, at 10:36 AM, Tate Michael Candela arrived. But this time, no song accompanied the entrance. Ironic, considering Tatebug sings constantly these days – a continuous refrain from sunrise to sundown: Itsy Bitsy Spider; Wheels on the Bus; If You’re Happy and You Know It… You name it, he sings it.

The NICU docs and nurses immediately shuffled Tate off to a corner of the OR and got to work. I couldn’t see a thing. All I could do was hear. And all I could hear was the sound of silence — for what felt like a millennium. It wasn’t though. Of that I’m sure. In a relatively short spell — one crammed with absolute horror and fear — the staff managed to coax and cajole his little lungs into song. His quivering wail joined his brother’s in a sudden, trembling hallelujah chorus, and Mike and I melted into a blubbering mass of unbridled relief and boundless love.

When they brought them round for me to kiss, they were beautiful. Beautiful, precious, tiny naked mole rats. Because honestly, that’s what all newborns look like, if we’re being perfectly honest. And that’s what got pulled out of my belly on March 20^th, three year ago. Two of them. Only my naked mole rats had half-moon eyes. Beautiful, Korean, half-moon eyes. And Parker had lashes that fanned across his cheeks in the most magnificent display you ever did see. They still do, for that matter. And then there was Tate. Tate with the buttery-gold skin of an ancient temple Buddha. We oohed and aahed over his ancestral gift of a most-glorious skin tone. Come to find out, it wasn’t genetics. It was jaundice… But even after that bilirubin leveled out, he still possesses the most exquisite built-in tan you ever did see.Sadly, after planting a kiss on my long-lashed and beautifully-bronzed naked mole rats, they were whisked away to the NICU.

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Now the NICU was not in my birth plan. Not even close. I had anticipated a glamour-shots delivery, remember? And then a saccharine-sweet bonding period full of soft, fuzzy snapshots. Me snuggling our newborns while they mewed hungrily at my breasts. Mike slumbering with them on his chest in our overstuffed, deep-seated rocker. That was my vision. That was my dream. Our reality was nothing like it. At all. There were no nursing newborns at my breasts and no happenstance naps with Daddy. Instead there were incubators and oxygen lines and feeding tubes and beeping monitors and carefully measured mills of breast milk in the tiniest bottles you ever did see.

But I’ll address the NICU and its roller coaster of events and emotions next time…

March 20, 2017 0

IVF Twin Pregnancy: Operation Double Doozy

Carrying twins was a blessing of tremendous proportions, as well as an eight-month war of attrition on my body. Despite reinforcing myself with some of the best defensive strategies of modern medicine and engineering, I delivered prematurely.

I had preeclampsia.

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But first, a little about those months leading up to delivery…

In all fairness, my body didn’t want to have twins. At forty-seven, it was biologically certain that the entire procreation thing was over and done with.

As a result, there was quite a lot of gestational gerrymandering involved in order to manipulate my hormonal constituency and ensure a victory.

We began with a preemptive strike of suppositories, injections and oral supplements, then recruited a donor’s eggs, an endocrynologist, an embryologist, and a nurse with steady hands and capable bedside manner. To seal the deal, we utilized a paper cup, a secluded chamber, a dimly lit procedure room and a straw. Okay, maybe it has some fancy, schmancy medical term, but for all intents and purposes, it was a straw. A straw meant to spit a couple of sticky buns into my baby maker. (BTW, if someone is looking to duplicate our successful campaign, it is important to note that there were five days separating the cup & the spit wads & the straw.)

So with these tools, we successfully raided my trench and left two embryos safely ensconced within my uterine walls. Now all that was left was to keep them there for nine more months.

The task was Herculean. Or, in keeping with my militaristic theme, the task was Spartan.

From nearly the get-go my body was pummeled with Braxton Hicks contractions that rocked my belly – as in, my belly was transformed to granite – close to eighty times a day. I took measures to reduce the contractions as best I could. A gallon of water a day helped. A gallon — no lie. I was supposed to drink 128 fluid ounces of water. A day. Twins siphon off your liquid intake pretty much as quickly as you can pour it down your throat. Dehydration was a constant fear – and became a two-time reality. Two times my champion husband drove me to the hospital for IV fluids, a quick Doppler listen, and close monitoring.

Another defensive strategy I employed was a battery of supplements: prenatal vitamins, calcium, folic acid, iron, fish oil and protein shakes. Not only would my little twin tenants deplete all my fluids, they could potentially steal my bone density, my red blood cells and my brain.(I think they successfully absconded with my brain.)

Epsom salts also became part of my nightly arsenal. I spent hours in a bathtub full of them. The salts contain magnesium, and some studies have linked them to a reduced likelihood of preeclampsia. They are also touted as a defense against restless leg syndrome – which plagued me incessantly while pregnant. I guess since I suffered from both RLS and, eventually, preeclampsia, the salts were probably a pointless maneuver. But, I do love a nice, long soak in a tub, so I’m saying, “No harm. No foul.”

Along with all the aforementioned strategies, I spent many a sleepless night sandbagging on pregnancy pillows and couch cushions with ice packs between my breasts. Not on my breasts. Between them. Why, you might rightly wonder? Because the rapidly growing juggernauts in my uterus were putting unconscionable stress on my rib cage. My sternum was ready to snap like a Butterball wishbone at Thanksgiving. Nobody told me about this horrific twin pregnancy phenomenon. I still haven’t heard of anyone else experiencing it. Maybe I’m the only one.

And finally, while pregnant, I suited up in armor designed specifically for safety and comfort. First, there were nylon compression stockings designed to combat swelling and provide support. Mike had to roll and tug and pull and pretty much squeeze me into them every morning. And then do the reverse every night. And he hand washed them. No small feat since they smelled like feet. Swollen, sweaty, pregnancy feet. And then there was my Velcro and cotton maternity belt with an extra-wide back support and straps both above and below my giant, billowing baby bump. That belt could’ve saddled the Trojan Horse it was so big and wide. And indeed I felt like the Trojan Horse, housing tiny warriors in my belly just waiting to spill out and conquer the world. Or at least northwest Georgia.

And finally, our mechanized measures. We bought a blood pressure cuff and took regular readings four to five times a day. We were closely monitoring for any slight increase in diastolic and/or systolic pressure, or both. Despite all our protective measures — along with meds to conquer and control the riotous numbers) — at thirty-four weeks, the nebulous, egregious villainous Preeclampsia invaded, wreaking havoc on my body and my babies.

Three years ago this week, I was forty-seven years old, thirty-four weeks pregnant, forty-three pounds heavier, and two cup sizes larger. My legs were the size of aspens and my ass was the size of Warren Buffet’s assets. I was an amniotic and edema filled cistern of IVF success. I looked like the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man. Or a stack of stratocumulus clouds. I was so fluffy I could die. Literally. And so could my in vitro twin boys. Preeclampsia is no laughing matter.

Three years ago, this week, I was about to experience a barrage of new and scary experiences, including: an ambulance ride, an emergency C-section, two five-pound, six-week-preterm twin boys and an up close and personal relationship with a NICU.

But more on that next week…

March 15, 2017 0

A Host of Golden Daffodils

Daffodils have long been my favorite flower. They are so bright and agreeable after months and months of a long, dreary winter. Their green leaves slice through the grays and browns of a dormant landscape just when the winter blues have taken hold of our spirits. And then they burst into flame like scattered stars of the Milky Way that have crash landed in ditches, back pastures, and lawns. There is no method to their majesty, no discrimination in their display.

Their blossoms are seasonal exhibitionists – like tiny ballet dancers in gilded tutus. Like leggy blondes with teased bouffant hair. Like blousy maidens, large cupped and small cupped and double cupped, baring their tender tips – platinum, rose-gold, caramel, amber, and peach — to the swollen March skies.

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How could I not love daffodils? Not only are they bright and ballsy, they’re cultivated from myth and propagated by poets. A veritable Who’s Who of literature is tangled round their tempting trumpets. Narcissus, and Wordsworth, Hughes and Plath – the flowers feature prominently in their lives and legends. Elizabeth Barrett Browning even has a variety named after her.

The first time I caught daffodil fever, I was seven. There was an antebellum mansion about five houses down from our house, and its lawn was speckled gold with their glory. I was mesmerized. I had to have them. But I was terrified of the dragon-lady caretaker who guarded that property with ferocity. Every time we ventured onto the drive on our bikes, she instantly appeared on the doorstep and roared at us, her voice crackling brimstone and fire. But I wanted that sparkling gold treasure…

So I did what all rational seven-year-olds with unhealthy hankerings do: I sacrificed my sister. My kid sister. My tow-headed, toddler kid sister with pudgy pink cheeks and soft, dimpled elbows and knees. I figured no one – wicked, scaly curmudgeon included — would ever harm someone as darn stinkin’ cute as Jo Jo. It was unthinkable and unlikely, and improbable. She was just too darn stinkin’ cute.

I hid behind a parked Chevy station wagon while baby sis innocently plundered and pillaged those prize daffodils, her curls and the blooms bobbing with each successful snap. She’d collected nearly a dozen when the shadowy shapeshifter appeared from nowhere and snatched her up in a rough, wrinkled claw. I cringed and hid, and when I found the courage to peer round the bumper again, both the beast and my sister were gone.

The worst had happened. The unthinkable. The unlikely. The improbable. It had happened. A dragon had swallowed up my sis in its lair. What should I do? Should I ride home for help? Ring the bell and risk my own life? Set fire to the woods and wait for the first responders? While I stood, rooted to the asphalt in terror and guilt, the front door slowly yawned open. Out of the darkness, a bright, tiny figure, haloed in white-gold curls, emerged. In her hands was the stolen bouquet. She toddled carefully, one pink patent step at a time until she reached the edge of the porch, then she turned back and did what any three-year old who just stole flowers from an historic landmark would do, she asked for help down the stairs. I had been right. She was just too stinkin’ cute to hurt.

I’ll never forget my kid-sister’s bravery and sacrifice that March morning so long ago. You would think that after such a close-call, my passion for the buttery blossoms would’ve waned. Not so. On the contrary, it only fueled my addiction.

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My passion is slightly unhealthy. Those blooms give me fever. Some people claim to have a spirit animal. Me, I would be so bold as to call the daffodil my spirit annual (only they’re perennial. But still…) Like a spirit, they have me completely possessed. I may have once – although I would never swear to it – I may have once pulled up a blooming bulb from the damp, fecund soil of a rather celebrated southern writer’s homestead. I couldn’t help myself. I am an addict. He was one too, although of a different sort. Still, I think he would understand.

So, this weekend, my three fellas and I went to Gibbs Gardens in North Georgia to visit their famed daffodils and to feed my addiction. They have acres and acres and acres of them, spilled across a wooded hilltop like leprechaun’s gold. It was riveting. The stuff of legend. The impetus of poetry. The foundation of faith. A field with flickering tongues of fire, a hilltop aflame with prophecy and promise. I felt cleansed. I felt renewed.

I didn’t steal a single one.

Though, Lord, I was sorely tempted.

daffodilsandboys

March 7, 2017 2

Blue Jeans, Cast Iron Skillets, and Fine Wine

I’m an “Older Mother.” At least that’s what my OB chart plainly labeled me. AMA: Advanced Maternal Age. Apparently, any mother over the age of 35 gets that acronym. And I suppose I am REALLY advanced – having surpassed that baseline by twelve years. I’ve always been advanced, though. I was an early walker, an early reader, and an early bloomer. And continuing in that vein, I currently teach and coordinate Advanced Placement at our school. So, yeah, I freely accept the Advanced acronym.

But what else does it mean to be a mother of advanced age – an older mother, if you will.

Well, it means I can no longer do somersaults… I found that out this past weekend as the boys were perfecting theirs — Tate all nimble and quick and wheeling across the floor like a roly poly bug; Parker thudding onto his back from his leap-frog position like a Big Wheel with a flat tire. Me, I suddenly and foolishly felt compelled to demonstrate my long-dormant expertise. Big mistake. Frightful. I heard my neck go all crunchy – crunchier than my granola hipster students with joggers and facial hair. I think there’s some residual pieces of vertebra rattling around in there like spilled trail mix. So there will be no more deliberate, premeditated tumbling routines in our living room.

It also means I don’t wear high heels much anymore. When the girls were little, I wore heels to work every day. That was pure nonsense. I shouldn’t have. Not because they contribute to bunions and plantar fasciitis (neither of which I have, mind you… I’m not THAT advanced), but because teetering after toddlers on stilts is not ideal. (Although, note to self, putting TODDLERS in stilts might be. I suspect it would slow down their capacity to gain speed in a short time frame. It could potentially save my nerves and their lives in parking lot situations. Plus, Tate might even like it. He did inform me last night that he’s a Disney princess.)

Being an older mother also means my hormones are in a manic tug-of-war – half my face thinks it’s a teenager and the other half is pleating and creasing its way toward Botox. The ensuing brawl is wreaking havoc on my skin. I have laugh lines and crow’s feet on one side and acne and oily patches on the other. My face is a tangled-up coastline of contradictions. With the girls, I bought and used every exciting new cosmetic fad on the market. But as the mother of twins, I no longer have the time nor energy (nor money, for that matter) for expensive skin regimens. But that’s okay – I use the boys’ products without shame and quite possibly without good sense. For example, over the past week I’ve had a ginormous zit riding my bottom lip (Yes, bottom lip. I TOLD you my skin is haywire right now) that people have mistaken for a fever blister. So last night, I slathered a bit of Boudreaux’s Butt Paste on it and woke up this morning to a barely negligible pin point of a pustule — which I promptly scrubbed away with the boys’ clinically proven, gentle formula baby body wash. Who needs fancy zit creams and expensive cleansers when your twin toddler products can ante up? Oh, and there’s an added bonus: I smell good enough to swaddle and my cheeks are soft (and dimpled) as a baby’s bottom.

Yes, I’m a mom of advanced age. I can’t deny it. But that really doesn’t have to be a bad thing. I can think of plenty of good things that get even better with age. Like blue jeans, for example, and cast iron skillets, and fine wine.

So time for a little metaphorical role play — to analyze and legitimize my Advanced Maternal Age worth and potential:

I am the mama equivalent of a pair of blue jeans… That makes me functional and durable and classy or casual, as needed. I’m always, always ready for the weekend. I’m soft and broken in, with an extra-long inseam for flexibility and just the right amount of Lycra to keep me snapping back when I’m stretched too thin thanks to my tendency to bite off more than I can chew. Still, I can cover most problem areas and make sure everything vital is covered. So that’s all good.

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And I’m a well-seasoned-cast-iron-skillet of a mother. I’m valuable and irreplaceable. Nothing compares to me. I’m tried and I’m true — a tough, heavy-hitter with a satin finish who serves up comfort in ample doses. I weather the generations with strength. Hell, I perform better with time. I’m certainly no poser, no wannabe, no non-stick newcomer who turns all flakey and can’t handle the heat. Me, I’m multifunctional and sturdy, and I produce quality product time after time. Take a look at my girls, if you don’t believe me?

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And since I started motherhood all the way over again at 47 and am currently a mother of twin toddlers at 50, I’m a miracle of Jesus. So that must make me… Fine Wine. And sure enough, all the classy descriptors fit. I’m full bodied and sweet, with high levels of residual sugar ready to be unleashed. But don’t underestimate my undercurrent of acidity – my sarcasm is subtle but ripe, and it will cut through with clarity and confidence at just the right moment. I’m strong and lush (not to be confused with A Lush), and I can make your knees weak and your head swim. I’m complex (just ask my husband and AP students – I confound them all), and I’m earthy (consider my love of Chaucer and four-letter words) and believe me, I’m far more palatable if I’m allowed to breathe a bit here and there.

So, yes, I am a mama of AMA. But just like blue jeans, cast iron skillets and fine wine, I am better with some age on me. So go ahead, put a stamp on me. A Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval or a Levi patch or a fine French label. I see your metaphors, and I raise them. I transcend them. Motherhood is ageless. And limitless. It is powerful, miraculous, metaphysical and absolutely the most important and perfect thing I’ve ever done.

Motherhood is a category all by itself.

February 28, 2017 0

Attempted Manslaughter with a Deli Weapon

Today, my husband of nearly five years, my true love of nearly ten, tried to kill me and run away with an unnamed Publix deli worker.

Now 2017 has been two months of marital misery, I’ll grant you that. We’ve weathered forty-eight sleepless nights, several spells of stomach flu, three cases of the common cold, a bout of pneumonia, and now, today, the coup de grace: attempted murder. Yes, 2017 has gotten off to a rocky start, that’s for sure. But I never would’ve suspected my Korean-Italian-Slovenian man mountain was capable of something like this.

He tried to choke me.

But first, some back story… Every morning, for years now, my husband has made my lunch. Aw, you say. What a sweetheart, you say. And I would’ve agreed with you. Until today. Today, I unwrapped my sandwich, tucked innocently into a plastic baggie inscribed with a not-so-innocent (upon further review) “love” note — but more on that later — and commenced to chow down. I was hungry and distracted from grading stacks and stacks of essays on the symbolism of malaria within The Poisonwood Bible. Now, chalk it up to all that grading, along with months and months of toddler-provoked insomnia, but I had already chewed three-quarters of the way through my lunch when I realized that the turkey had a strange, dryer-sheet quality. I gagged. I retched. And from the back of my tonsils, I fetched a razor-thin piece of parchment paper clinging stubbornly like a second skin and threatening to cut off my oxygen supply. My life flashed before my bulging eyes: My four beautiful, exquisitely perfect children – even the two who never sleep. My football coaching husband with a passion for making my lunches and doing the laundry and dishes. He’s always been so eager to please and ever-ready to lighten my load. Suddenly it dawned on me. I understood. It had all been a ruse. He’d spent five long and languid, nearly perfect years slowly and methodically laying the blueprint for a foolproof premeditated hoagie homicide.

My hubby in shining apron was trying to off me. And then it all became clear. The sudden switch from peanut butter and jelly to deli salami and turkey. The furtive glances toward the Boarshead counter as we wheeled our buggies past every Sunday. My husband had plans to marry his mistress/accomplice, the Publix delicatessen artisan with the dancing brown eyes and the lacy hairnet. They’re in it together. But I digress…

Behold the lunch note I promised — Exhibit A:

attemptedmanslaughter

Notice anything interesting about that note? Here, allow me to interpret. I am, after all, nothing if not an excellent purveyor of prose analysis. Sentence structure and semantics are my specialty.

“Here’s hoping for sleep.” Hmm. At first, nothing seems amiss. I had assumed my dearest partner meant that hopefully — potentially — tonight we would find that sweet nocturnal nourishment of the soul that is so sacred and scarce ‘round our homestead of late. Upon further review, however, consider the following. In Hamlet – a work he knows well, as it is one of the plays I teach and pontificate upon at least twice a year – sleep does not mean sleep. It means to “shuffle off this mortal coil” as in, to put an end to all troubles and hardships.

So he meant sleep in the oh-so-Hamlet sense of the word! Of course! How could I have been so naive!

And then, there’s the little business of the acronym, “ILY.” Previously, I would’ve sworn on a stack of bibles he was professing his undying love for me. Instead, I now believe it to be some Korean-Italian-Slovenian pidgin for RIP. How could I have been so obtuse!

I’m sure his deli counter princess is really a pro when dealing with a nice firm Italian salami and is far better at customer service than I could ever dream of being. Not only that, I bet she even makes her own sandwiches– and would probably make his too.

Still, do you think she can truly handle sleepless nights and stomach flus and common colds and surprise bouts of pneumonia like a pro? Does she have the patience to handle the plagues of Job? And does she know the whole one is one and two is ten proverb? Like, does she REALLY, TRULY understand?

I know he does. I know he gets it. Which is why he makes my lunches and does the laundry and the dishes and vacuums the living room rugs and brings me surprise biscuits. And why he always takes his turns on night duty. And calls me up just to tell me he loves me. And sends me special notes in my lunch sack every single day without fail.

And maybe he didn’t truly try to kill me. Maybe it was an involuntary manslaughter attempt. An accident, if you will. And maybe this Publix deli girl with the sassy eyes and provocative hair net doesn’t actually exist. Maybe she’s a figment of my over-used and sleep-deprived brain. It was my idea to switch over to turkey and salami this week, after all.

Because, you see, my husband gets it. I know he does. And I get it too. Which is why we work so hard to make it through the hard times still in tact and in love. We are quite the partnership. Quite the wiped-out –- physically- and psychologically- and immunologically- speaking, twin parent partnership. And quite the husband-wife partnership too.

He slays me. In a good way.

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February 24, 2017 0

Surely Some Revelation is at Hand: Why We Should Read Dark & Twisty Literature

“Reading is stupid!…I never read books!…Nobody reads books anymore… I haven’t read a book since first grade.”

Kids say these hurtful things in English class every semester. It breaks my heart. And it’s hard for me to convince my students that reading really is a worthy pursuit. They are a generation of movies and music, not books and poetry. They watch and listen; they do not read and write They don’t believe in the power of the written word – unless the word is in a text or tweet. Then it can be powerful. But by golly, it better be quick — 140 characters or less. Our kids take pride in being fast and ignorant.

And so does the president of these not-so-United States (less than half of our population elected him, after all). He once bragged in an interview with Meghan Kelly that he doesn’t read, he only scans “passages… areas, chapters, [because he doesn’t] have the time” to read an entire book or article.

And to be perfectly fair, our fearsome (not to be confused with fearless) leader may be averse to reading, but he is not averse to words in general. He says about himself, “I’m highly educated. I know words. I have the best words. I have the best, but there is no better word than stupid. Right?” And when he’s talking about himself, I tend to agree.

Now some of you would argue that the president wouldn’t have time to read – that he is telling the truth, for once. That as the world’s arguably most powerful tantrum-thrower (could be North Korea’s Kim Jong Un), he very likely doesn’t have time to read. Hell, with all that tweeting, he doesn’t even have time for intelligence briefings. And, the presidency is a big job. Huge. Tremendous (to use a couple of his favorite words). And that is true. But both President Obama and President George W Bush held the exact same job and were still avid readers. Obama used to publish his summer reading list and W. would participate in friendly, annual reading competitions.

It infuriates me that Trump’s got legions of impressionable young minds idolizing his idiocy and his twitter rants. I know this is so because I hear them sing his praises in my tenth lit classroom every day. (In my AP classroom, however, I’m proud to report the exact opposite :))

So how do I counter that kind of attitude? Because, honestly, why SHOULD we read? What’s the point? How do I put into words the importance of putting words into stories or poems? Why does reading – particularly literature — matter at all?

Now some of us read for escape. And that’s not necessarily a bad thing. Sometimes a beach read or a rom-com can be so-very-good for the weary soul. But that’s not the type of literature I teach, nor the type of answer I need to give my students. Because the books I teach aren’t designed for vacations or hammocks. They’re not page-turners or bodice-rippers. They’re temporal, occipital, and parietal lobe-slappers. They rattle you to the core and shake things up a bit. A lot, even. These books demand attention. They demand a lifestyle audit, a reevaluation of tenet and truth. It is literature designed to promote participation in life. It is literature written to educate, to motivate, to activate. It doesn’t form readers’ opinions, it informs their opinions. No, the literature I teach is not escapism. It is activism.

Good literature models life – the good, the bad, and the ugly. Most often, the ugly. My AP Lit kids – and my kid sister, too — always ask me why we read such dark and twisty stuff. Why all the hearts of darkness and the second comings and killings of mockingbirds, all the Conrads and Yeats and Lees of the literary world? And I say because they model all the dark, twisty turns that hopefully (with wise choices and some divine intervention) they won’t have to go through. But if they do meet the dark and twisty side of life, that they can better ride out the storm — or even battle and defeat it.

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That’s why we read Shakespeare’s Macbeth. Because after reading Macbeth, we are far better able to recognize a tyrant when we see and hear one. Perhaps if enough Americans had read the Scottish Play in high school, we wouldn’t now have MacTrump in the White House. And those of us who have read Shakespeare’s most unappealing tragic hero, are now confidently and not-so-patiently waiting for the rest of his thanes to fly from him (they’ve dropping like flies this week), and we’re waiting for the Woods to come to Dunsinane, (or should I say DUNCEinane), and we’re waiting for a Man not of Woman Born (translation, C-section babe) to purge our nation of this tyrant and restore it to sound and pristine health. (And there are certainly a whole lot more likely candidates than merely MacDuff these days, as C-sections have been on the rise in recent centuries.)

And that’s also why we read Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale — a cautionary tale against what can happen if faith becomes entangled with politics. If morality dictates law. If women’s rights are threatened and then eradicated. And while it may feel like our nation is a far cry from the control and manipulation of women and their identities and bodies (and a world undone by environmental degradation and pollution) that we see in HT, I am here to say we are not. Since Trump has been in office, the widespread access to contraception, legalization of abortion, and growing female political influence have all fallen under attack. As has the Environmental Protection Agency and the National Parks Service. If these attacks are successful, if our rights begin to topple, then the return to traditional gender roles and subjugation of women cannot be far behind. Nor can widespread environmental disaster. Atwood’s prophetic work reflects the ugly truths of our time. By its very nature, it’s designed to frighten, to warn, and to demand action. It reflects social and political tendencies and demonstrates the horrors that could – let’s say WILL — occur if Trump’s power is allowed to reign unchecked.

And that’s also why we read The Kite Runner – a coming-of-age story about two young boys struggling to belong and to be strong amid crumbling relationships and a crumbling homeland. And it just so happens the story revolves around two Muslim schoolboys in Kabul. But it could just as easily be between two white boys is Atlanta, or two Asian girls in Singapore, or two Latinas in Los Angeles, or two German frauleins in Dieseldorff. The point is, we read this novel to know that we are all fundamentally the same. We all need love and understanding, connection and communion, forgiveness and redemption. This book demonstrates the universality of the human experience. And right now, more than ever, we need to remember humanity.

Yes, the literature I teach is tough. And it’s tender. And it’s smart and searing and aggressive and wise and passionate and compassionate. It’s all of those things. It has to be. It needs to be. And so do our citizens. Not just America’s, but the world’s. We all have to be tougher and smarter than what we’ve been thus far. Because there’s a rough beast in our White House and he’s got a cold, corrupt soul and a gaze blank and pitiless as the sun. And twenty centuries of stony sleep have birthed our worst nightmare.

If Yeats were alive today, the beast slouching toward Bethlehem would be orange and have a comb-over.

(I borrowed heavily from the prophetic poem of the masterful W.B. Yeats this week. Read him. He tingles your spine and torments your soul.)

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February 21, 2017 0

postmodernfamilyblog

Multigenerational Mom Muses on Twin Toddlers & Twenty-Something Daughters

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