Monthly Archive for December, 2009

Retreat of the December Mom

Published
by
Melissa
on December 31, 2009
in balance, breathing, centering, chattering mind, expectations, grace, intentions versus goals, letting go, letting instead of making, motion, practice, stuck at home with a child, too much to do, vacation and you can't control everything
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0 Comments

I’m still ashamed, even though I now recognize it was a December Mom thing.

There’s simply no excuse for being — I can still recall the out-of-body experience of watching myself do this — the mom screaming across a crowded coffee shop at her child.  “Jake!  Jake!  JAKE!  DO YOU WANT A BAGEL?”  As if no one sits hunched over a laptop trying to experience a little peace and a nice cup of coffee between her and her child.

Yep, that was me.

On that early December Saturday afternoon, I became someone I never thought I’d be.  The mother all us peaceful coffee drinkers hate.  The woman oblivious to the fact that others do indeed occupy the somewhat inappropriate space to which she has spirited her children.

The one who is finally shamed by the sweet older man passing her as she gathers compostable forks and napkins and cups of water simply saying, “Quite a handful, isn’t it?”

Continue reading ‘Retreat of the December Mom’

I Can Cook! And Lots of Other Things You’d Never Know I Can Do

Published
by
Melissa
on December 1, 2009
in awareness, expectations, inner peace, intentions versus goals, letting instead of making, opening your heart, too much to do and trust
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4 Comments

By the end of our Thanksgiving meal, life as a mother, as someone who is (can it only be?) eight-and-a-half months postpartum, and as a still relative newcomer to my new home — it was all beginning to seem manageable, pleasurable even.

And then Ellen turned to Mike.  “You and I should have monthly Iron Chef-like competitions,” she said.

Ca-thunk.  That was the sound of my perennially left-out, insecure thirteen-year-old self dropping like an air conditioner out of a New York apartment window into my stomach.

It’s true that Mike’s turkey was a piece of edible art.  And Ellen is the only person I imagine has the culinary talent to turn green bean casserole into something approaching gourmet and without a hint of canned soup in sight.

But there was a time, not so long ago, when I considered myself a pretty awesome cook as well.  In fact, it was Thanksgiving just fifteen years ago (eegads, fifteen years — can I still say “just”?) when I tested the waters of my fantasy escape-the-law-firm job of opening a catering business by cooking a kick-ass meal in a tiny apartment with a kitchen that measured approximately one foot by three feet.

Granted, I’m not much of a foodie these days and pretend that it’s just that I really like the taste of unadorned food, not that I’m too lazy to cook a proper meal with seasoning and sauces and stuff.  Nonetheless, I’m more than a little bit sensitive about the cooking thing, for reasons I can’t begin to articulate.

All I know is that when Ellen summarily eliminated me from the Iron Chef competition it made me really sad to think that no one knows I can cook — and that maybe I no longer can.

Continue reading ‘I Can Cook! And Lots of Other Things You’d Never Know I Can Do’

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