Link-luster

my friend Dena as photographed by Mark Hollinger

Cutest baby costume or most disturbing? Hm.

Attending this rally would be awesome. Thousands and thousands are there! I'll have to be content with watching from afar.

Ever considered giving up deodorant, showering a lot less or not at all; using lemon to get rid of your stinky pits? A new group of unwashed adults agree.

Which Glee kid is your kid going to be like? Take the quiz

James Franco is an author? Yes, he just released a short story collection. And word is, it's pretty good.

One of the most amazing and freaky nature photographs I've ever seen.

Welcome SPONSOR: Sherry 1511

Flux Capacitor's newest sponsor is Sherry 1511 the wonderful maker of the most adorable pillowcase dresses ever! I knew as soon as I saw them I had to have one for Ever, and worked a trade. When she's a chubby older baby, she will be wearing the below dress. Too cute!!

The pillowcase dresses come in really charming and modern prints and colors, and the quality is excellent- very well made.

I love this giraffe print!
She also makes women's pillowcase shirts. Visit the selection here

And There Were Good Things

Dakota is on the right track. He's smiling more. My boy. Every Monday night I take him to Family Night at a program he is doing and we sit for two hours with two other teen boys and their families and learn and talk. It's hard but really good, in the way that hard, necessary things are in life that move toward positive change.

Lola is all good things. She's so tender hearted and sweet natured and damn good that sometimes I tremble inside ( OK, often ) knowing that I am responsible for this wonderful creature, to keep her feeling safe and loved and whole. She asks about Ever every day when I see her, very adult like and sweet, So Mom how is Ever today? Has she moved much? You aren't eating too much bread are you? She talks often and excitedly about the details of Ever's birth and homecoming, and it makes me feel excited too!

One of the moms at my work dropped off the cutest gift for Ever today, an organic onsie (from Etsy!) with an adorable elephant on the front, just my style.

Tuesday Nov. 2cd is my last day of work. ( this is both good -sweet relief for my body- and bad -hadn't financially planned to leave work so soon- will be 36 weeks- but I'm including it anyway )

The broken window in Lola's room was fixed. This means more security and tighter temperature control, besides just the fact that it looks nice again.

Our backyard is growing beautiful baby shoots of grass everywhere, that tender, bright green color that new grass holds.

Ever is moving as reliably as always. Sometimes I can see her whole foot outlined against my stomach.

Two girlfriends have offered to come by after Ever is born and help clean and hang out. My cousin offered to come for a whole weekend, which means I will get to also see her beautiful boy Elton! Lola will be thrilled to have Elton visit. He's two and quite charming.

My coworker gave me her beautiful white dresser/changing table.

My mom came by tonight and checked in on Ever. She rubbed my stomach and told me to keep my stomach warm, asked a few questions about the baby, and left. She also mentioned that I am huge. I know!!

Ian is on the football team after a bout of uncertainty if he'd stay on, and he's kicking ass while keeping straight A's on a full class load of Honors classes. He's a marvel, a mystery to me, so self motivated and disciplined, so determined to set and reach goals. I love the little boy in him and respect the man I can see he will be.

I went to the IEP meeting on Tuesday....and it was awesome! They were totally and completely supportive, shocked that I had not been able to get help before this, and even mentioned financial compensation when they saw how much the neuropsych. testing had cost us!!!! Most importantly above all: They are going to provide supports for my boy!!!! I am still smiling when I think of it. They were all very sweet and asked a lot of questions about the baby, Dakota, and in general tried to make me feel welcomed and heard.

I got to hang out with a friend who moved out of town, and another friend I don't see as much as I used to since she changed jobs. It was only an hour and half at a local Starbucks, but it was awesome. We talked so much that we blinked and had to hug and say goodbye, like it is with girlfriends. Plus...more gifts for Ever! :)

Harry Potter....need I say more :))))

Only Connect

Mr. Curry and I circa young, drunk and in the middle of the desert

A long time ago, in a galaxy far far away, two people had more mind blowing sex than is really compatible with normal life like working, parenting...eating.

First, they were friends.

And then, they began, as two single parents, to raise their boys together, as friends.

And then, years later, the sexy.

And then, they fell in love.

And then, they were married.

And now, they are having a baby.

They did everything completely backward, at the wrong times and often with a lot more bumbling around
than was good for anyone.

But they ended up making a life together with more depth- and yes, more struggle- and more beauty than either had really hoped for.

They love each other. Real love. This means even when the other person's facial expression makes them want to sock a kitten, they still love. So that when they are happy, they are even happier than that, because they moved through the unhappy times with such loyalty and perseverance. So that when the hard times come round again, and feelings are hurt or ignored or needs unmet, they balance this against all the rest of the times, and know that still, they are blessed. So that the passing of time becomes not only just 'life', but also a marker and a reminder every day that they have the stuff of life right there in their hands, the stuff that as CS Lewis says, sharpens the sword of the soul. Cutting right through the bullshit to the tremendous beauty of love, in it's best and it's worst times, with and without makeup, well rested or sleep deprived, angry or calm, bitter or accepting, adoring or frustrating, desired or repelled, in all it's forms and functions from brewing tea to midnight flings on the living room floor, from whispered sobbed secrets to shouts of glee-- to be in it together, a team, a family, from ' remember that awful July? ' to ' wasn't that November the best ever? '-- the simple duration of connecting, and reconnecting, even when it is exhausting, to keep reaching out again; one of the highest pursuits of human life.
Only, connect.


Plus, there is still the sexy.

Everlong

some day a love struck boy will hear this beautiful song and think only of my girl.....



for a few short more weeks, she is mine and mine alone.

Like a Bridge Over Troubled Water

Tonite Dakota was an hour late home. The number he left me to reach his friend, who was driving, was the kid's home phone number. Not helpful because they weren't home. They were out. That was the point. I want to go out, Mom, he said, and we negotiated, because he's been grounded, and we've been doing some things, and this was a step towards 'rebuilding trust' as the experts like to say. After he walked in the door I heard his excuses and then said uhmhmmm, which is the best response at 10pm, and promptly had a totally unrelated outburst over the top dresser drawer full of black wires that I carefully rolled and organized which now lay like a black hornet nest, jumbled and useless, due to the boys and Mr. Curry opening, rummaging, and closing the drawer.

I hate how whenever I'm worried and upset lately, I feel like I have to go the bathroom. I blame the baby. She's sitting on my intestines.

I'm learning about letting go. I'm re-learning it. I'm learning it when applied to my children, which is a completely and totally different proposition than letting go of anything else, like grades, pissy co-workers, traffic, mothers, the guy in line who cuts ahead, the sag of your ass, the fact that your life/labor and birth/marriage/business is not exactly like you planned, your career stalled, your hair went curly when you hit your late twenties, you still don't have savings, whatever it is. Letting go of what your almost-not-a-kid-anymore-kid does is horrible, unless they are straight A perfect driving college attending straight edge friend loving sexually abstinent persons free of inner demons or conflict. It's horrible because your entire job as a parent becomes basically turned around inside out and you are supposed to be able to do the exact opposite of what you've always done. Instead, you are asked to have the relationship with them of a caring and firm but lovingly detached aunt or uncle, where you can magically set boundries and watch your child careen away from them off cliffs. And you are not supposed to lose your mind while this happens. I know. I thought it was a joke at first too.

Instead, you are supposed to let them make their own mistakes. Because the part where you teach them values is pretty much set. And the years of guiding them (read: keeping them) away from bad influences are over. The years of their dependence on you before all others is gone except in emergencies, because they are trying to find themselves, and how can they do that when Mommy still tells them what that answer is supposed to be? The years of control are over. You can't control who they eat with at lunch, who they hang out with after school, who they get a ride home with, if they have sex, take a drink, smoke a cigarette. You can try! Have fun! What you can do is set boundries and enforce consequences. You can pray that all you have poured into them and taught them will matter. You can let them know what you expect. But you can't make.

I will never forget sitting outside my house at 15 years old on my driveway, smoking a Marlboro. I had been crying and fighting with my Mom and was waiting for my long haired, Slayer loving, guitar playing, sex with me having boyfriend to show up in his blue sports car. And suddenly, slumped against my garage, I had a realization that changed my life forever. Mom can't make me stay here, I thought. She can't make me stop smoking. She can't make me stay grounded if I am. She can't chain me to my bed. I am free to listen to her or not, as long as I'm willing to suffer whatever consequences happen. And I didn't go off the deep end. But I never looked at my parents the same, or felt like a child again in the same way. I knew I was truly the one to decide my own fate.
----

Ever dropped. I went to bed with my breasts lying high and neat on my stomach like an African queen, and woke with the top of my stomach squishy and soft, where once my Biggie Pea had jutted her hiney, and an enormous pressure on my pelvic bone that only increased every time I stood or walked. By midafternoon I am walking like I did the first couple years every time Mr. Curry and I had date nite. It hurts. And I am peeing every 45 minutes. I am 35 weeks on Tuesday. My book says after your first pregnancy, it's highly unusual to drop unless it's a week before your labor. Well. I am known for being highly unusual. So we will see what the good doctor says on Tuesday morning, at my next appointment.

Today Mr. Curry had the stomach flu, so I took Dakota Ian and Lola to the Pumpkin Patch, and all went well. At first. Until Dakota got angry and took off into the parking lot, and Ian tried to follow him, and I told him he couldn't, and he listened but made a point to walk ten feet behind Lola and I after that. Just to show me, you know. So I took a deep breath after jabbering at Ian for a minute about respect and family and blah, and told Lola we were going to forget about those boys and their grumpy selves and have fun. And we did.

Still, I felt like I had to go to the bathroom. That roil and boil and stress reaction. Stress equals loose bowels. Let that phrase simmer for a while. Pretty.

Welcome SPONSOR: Wren Willow

Please welcome warmly Flux Capacitor's new sponsor: Wren Willow !

I want this adorable above fox onsie for Ever...I have such a thing for foxes and LOVE the colors

The shirts are all silk screened with such charming images, and she has shirts for dogs! older kids and women, too

I love this lion and unicorn, classic!

Wren Willow's clothing are made by a work at home mom trying to make ends meet. I am all for supporting this lovely line!

People In Your Neighborhood: Pregnant Photo by Gregory Katsoulis

Find his work here

The Life and Death of Henry Granju, a TV Special To Watch

As many of you know, Kate's son Henry died this year of a drug overdose. Please visit her here and learn about an upcoming televised special on Henry's story as well as the state of prescription drug abuse with our teens.

Barbarians at The Feast

Grace continues to elude me. Moments of grace, yes. But graceful living? I eat and realize I am stuffing my mouth as if it were a hole I am filling with sod. I leave my car so carelessly the seat-belt hangs disjointed and ruptured between the inside and outside. I clean dishes so aggressively they fly from my fingers and shatter against each other. I cook haphazardly and burn my arm in hot grease.

I have always been a passionate person, since my earliest memory of self, the little me who spent hours every late night, long after my parents were asleep, tiptoeing with tears in my eyes to where our white cat Sugar kept her litter of kittens, to check that she had not smothered any of them. She was deaf, and I was afraid she would roll over on one and not hear it's frantic cries. I understood fully the futile wailing of the young and invisible, the helpless. I could not remove myself from my own suffocation, but I could save those kittens, and I was determined to do so. Passion proves to be a powerful life force, moving mountains when I was sure I was too spiritually exhausted to move a foot, rekindling over and over in my marriage, like a restless bedmate. My passions have rarely formed in grace. My only moments of sustained grace have been while dancing, and strangely, while parenting my children. The absolute determination to do whatever is necessary for my children has led to periods of grace, and dancing has always left me moving through air as though my limbs were attached to the notes of music they moved to.

Grace is forced on me. I am at least aware enough to embrace it when it arrives. Ever, her fully formed foot jammed up into my right rib cage, reminds me hourly to slow down, to observe, to be aware, to be grateful. Gratitude is a high form of grace. I am so lucky, so very lucky to have this little girl growing inside me, only a short six weeks from announcing herself in our family. The turn of her foot, the smack of her hands against my pubic bone, the bulge of her back against my belly button like a great humpacked whale- these things stop me, stop my ears and eyes from their frantic programming and bring me gently into the present moment. I am about to have a baby, I remember, and then even more astonishing- there is our baby inside of me right now.... the joy of her infant self rolling in my abdomen grounds me. Joy grounding? Yes. It grounds me, it removes fear and projection and musing and immerses me entirely in the flesh and blood and heart of now.

The last few months I have been flooded with unstable situations and emotions, times which have called for quick feet, strong character, instinct, determination drive and commitment, but grace has fallen short. The quicker my feet and mind move, the clumsier my communication, my body, my expression. Remember when I told you my mother had admonished me to ' look more hopeful '? Well. Her graceless child may have an unpleasant expression but she never, ever left her family wondering where her heart and her every effort lay. I may break plates and wrinkle my freckled face, I certainly say the wrong thing and yes, fling myself across my bed crying like a maudlin teen, but I think a hidden beauty of love is that sometimes, inside it's most graceless gestures, like Matryoshka dolls, is the most graceful heart.

Successful Pregnancy and Food

The first three- or was it four?- months of this pregnancy I consumed no gluten and no caffeine. After losing our baby at thirteen weeks last year, I spent months researching what I could do to increase the chances that another pregnancy would not end this way. I found some small studies indicating that gluten intolerance might contribute to miscarriage. There is no way to prove gluten intolerance, but I have had, for years, all signs and indicators that I do have that particular problem, so it was a no brainer to take it out of my diet those first precarious months, when the risk is highest. I have found that for me, eating any substantial amount of gluten ends with swelling, headaches, IBS, body aches, mental fog and fatigue. I've been tested for Celiac and came back negative, but the imbalance is clear.

Caffeine was also an obvious substance to remove, as the studies come and go saying yes, it's a problem or no, it is not, or yes, but only in these amounts, etc. Different doctors will have different advice, although most experts these days seem to agree that a small daily amount after the first trimester is safe. I gave up my coffee, my Starbucks Doubleshots, my iced vanilla lattes from Coffee Bean, and began focusing on what I could eat that would increase the babies chance of health and full term delivery. In researching, I found that Vit. B was incredibly important in not only the first trimester, but the successful implantation of egg into wall. As was Vit. D and C, and fish oil. I made sure I was taking these things in supplementation form, as well as eating a diet high in dark colored vegetables and fruits, beans, hormone free milks and meats, almonds, yogurts, and low mercury fish a few times a week. We already eat about 70-80% organic, so I kept to the high end of that percentage, and we already eat very little processed foods, so that wasn't something had to adjust much either. I ate very little extra sugars to keep my blood sugars balanced, and slept a decent amount most nights. Once I became pregnant, I was so tired I slept ten or eleven hours a night at first! Tired takes on a new meaning in the first trimester.

Now that I am at the end of this pregnancy- 34 weeks this Tuesday!- I am finding it very hard to eat the way I want to. I am not someone who says things are 'hard' to do just because I don't want to do them, but save that expression for when goals are physically or mentally extremely taxing, when overcoming the obstacles my body and emotions are throwing up in front of me is a daily sludge. Most of this struggle comes from the stress of the last two months, the stress of the heartache and struggle with Dakota, and the stress that constant weight put on Mr. Curry and our marriage and our two other children. Things are a bit more balanced now, but it is teneous, the way any balance depending on another person's behavior is, and so the real challenge, the real job before me is to guide myself, to work on my emotions, my reactions, my responsibilities, and inch away from the scale being so heavily weighed on looking at this in my son and my husband. To balance myself is the only real balance. I am the only one I can truly change and control. ( And we all know even that is not %100 true, so the focus must be on doing the best you can )

This used to be very confusing for me: how do you focus on yourself and still have boundries and expectations of those close to you, which are important to have? And it still is confusing, I still don't do it perfectly, but I do catch myself, I do realize that all I can do is communicate in the best way I know how, apologize for mistakes, read and talk and learn to meet the challenges of any situation, and keep refocusing. Trying to do this while pregnant ... not so fun. My every instinct is crying out for stability and peace and to be taken care of, to be ready for this overwhelming responsibility of an entire new life coming into our family.

The stress has traveled from my head to my heart and now, into my stomach. The last two months there have been days when eating anything at all has been very hard. I feel like I will throw up if I eat, then I make myself eat but can only eat a very small amount before feeling sick, and the worst, worst part for me is that stress creates cravings for fat and sugar. Cravings mean that when I feel sick to my stomach, I can think of eating three things, and the only one that doesn't make me want to vomit is the unhealthy choice. Even taking my nightly vitamins has become difficult. I take prenatal and Fish Oil at the very least, in addition to my thyroid medication, and sometimes also take Vit D, B Complex or another.

The stress forms it's own defense mechanisms. For one thing, when I am highly stressed, I find that focusing my mind on what I need or want to do to accomplish goals is very hard. So when I'm stressed, thinking of healthy options for say, breakfast, becomes ridiculously hard. I can literally feel my mind veering and pawing around like a restless horse, refused to be easily reigned in or to stay on path. My heartbeat speeds up, I feel a bit breathless, I feel tired ( another way my body tries to trick me into avoiding things ) and irritable. Just because I"m trying to think of breakfast!

One powerful weapon against stress effects are lists. I am in the habit the last few months of writing the two or three most important Must Do's of the day on the back of my left hand. I also have a purple date book I carry in my purse where I keep all crucial phone numbers and information and it also is a planner, so I can keep track of what I am doing when and what is coming up. This has helped me with budgeting too, and it can help with my eating, if I use it right. I think I will plan ahead for tomorrow's eating as much as possible and see how that goes. I work full time so I usually just see what I can grab at lunch at home or if I"m out.

These last months are so important for Ever's brain development, SO important- especially to me because of the history of mental illness in our family on both sides. Her brain is forming and the healthier and stronger it is, the better chance she has. I am thinking I have to focus on putting as many bites of healthy food in my mouth all day as I can, one by one. Maybe looking at the mini-picture will help me to stay on track, instead of worrying about all day long. Any prayers for balance, strength and health are appreciated too :)

Love
Maggie

People In Your Neighborhood: Photographer Amanda De Vito

She is here

List of Entirely Too Much Information. You Are Warned.

1 Hey? Anyone else wondering where all of our cats are? We have four cats, Hermione, Hagrid, Mr. Weasley and Harry. I have not seen but Mr. Weasley for the last week. I do know the next door neighbors younger girlfriend was feeding our cats very close to their front door. When she saw me looking at her feeding them one day, she called out to ask if it was OK. Sure, fine, I called back. I guess I should have added Just don't steal them and dress them up like baby dolls and keep them locked in your pink and purple room. Or else the cats sense Ever's arrival and are abandoning ship.

2 Mr. Curry and I spent so long alone in the bedroom the other night Lola asked me if we were going to have another baby. Meaning one besides the one I'm still carrying. We always tell her we are 'making out' which is a graduated level from the 'talking' we were doing when she was 7. Maybe she's on to us.

3 I am extreme makeover pregnancy. I work full time at a daycare. I am 8 months pregnant. The level of violence and screaming going on in a room full of toddlers rivals land wars in Asia. By the end-ish of the day I am so tired I can barely unstick my mouth to curl upwards in a professional smile to greet incoming parentals.

4 Speaking of long periods of making out, when I have sex with my adoring husband, I recently find myself feeling very bovine. Like a large, undulating cow in a dark field with my gynormous udders and stomach swaying over the grains of wheat as I allow my lifemate cow to mount me. Moo.

5 Dakota made a Facebook group called Your Mom. Then he added it to his likes. Then he added it to his relationship, so that on his page it says Dakota is in a relationship with: Your Mom.

It's Not Easy Being a Charger Fan: hahaha!!!!

The Baby Shower

The baby shower was wonderful.

I was very lucky that everyone was able to be there, you never know with parties, who will actually come. A close friend of mine came down from Santa Barbara ( with her son Caspian, one of Lola's best friends since she was two ), my cousin Amalia (the beautiful and wise) her husband Tim and their gorgeous Elton came down from L.A. and Mr. Curry's girl cousins also from various parts of L.A. came down- all three. My Aunt Helen flew in from Illinois! All the expected locals were there too, including my girlfriends Teri and Julie who are lifelong friends that I don't see often. I was surrounded with hugs and laughter and loving faces. The presents were so thoughtful and generous, I'm still blown away by the care everyone took in picking their gifts. I received the things I wanted most from my registry, like a nursing cover, baby monitor set, mobile for her crib at my work, baby play mat, organic towels, organic blankets and wraps, breast pump, chemical free teethers and pacifier... and my mom bought the combination infant car seat and stroller set I had listed- YAY!! It's fantastic and also very pretty, with it's turquoise lining. And of course, there were the adorable baby clothes. Two girls from my work bought a onsie made out of bamboo that reads: Locally Produced ;) Mr. Curry loves that one.

My mom and Lola Moon did such a lovely job putting the whole thing together. Taymar, her boyfriend and Caspian ended up spending the night with us and we stayed up late watching some Netflixed episodes of Dexter. The next morning my preggo swollen self was greeted in my bedroom door with a HUGE camera and sound mike, with Taymar behind it filming. Turns out she was making a film (she's a graphic artist and filmaker- recently in the paper) for One Day On Earth. I'll let you know when that goes up, you can see my part.

Ever is gigantic. No matter how I sit or move now, I can feel her self in there, bunched up against my ribcage and in my ribcage, pressing against my bladder and my pubic bone, punching and kicking me, good girl! She's so strong. And she has had the hiccups a few times in the last week. I'm having painful Braxton-Hicks off and on, pretty good wallops of ones that sometimes make me really sit up and take notice. I can feel my body changing, moving toward readying itself for labor and birth.

Mr. Curry and I are getting the master bedroom ready, only we have...no bed. No mattress. This presents a problem, since we have no money for one either. Still working on that.

I want to thank you all again, you readers and emailers and commenters, for your support during the hard times. It is amazing to me, over and over, what a difference, a shift, I can feel in my perspective or coping ability when I share something here and come back to read your insight, your support, your encouragement, your parallel experiences, your words. It brings my feet over the gaps between stepping stones. I could never underestimate the power of the written word in a social sharing context. Your words bring light to me when I need it most.

Love
Maggie

Don't Ask, Don't Tell

I think the military got it backward. How about if the people who believe gay human beings are sinners or amoral or going against the 'word of God'-- how about if they aren't asked their opinion: then they don't tell.

Because guess what? We don't care what you think. We don't care what you fear. We don't care what you justify. We only care that you stop hurting and demoralizing and dehumanizing your fellow man because of who they love and how they have sex in the privacy of their own home. Stop window peeping. That's the perversion- the window peeping and the score keeping on sexual preference.

So we won't ask you what you think, preachers and pointers and sign carriers and intolerance supporters, and you don't tell us, and that should be just fine and dandy, because according to you all, it's so easy to do.

Stop sharing, stop lecturing, stop pontificating, stop giving Bill Maher more fuel for Religulous: The Sequel. You're making our country less of everything righteous and brave hearted and progressive and pure and muddying it up with fear and ignorance and most of all the suffering of your fellow man because your beacon is not light, it is not light- it is the darkness of the spirit that casts a shadow and tells your fellow man to throw that shadow over their head in shame because of who they are.

There is NOTHING God like about that.

i really fucked it up this time, didn't i my dear?

October Cheer Links

photo by Debbie Carlos at the wonderful blog Lost

Nie's October Hayride

Gorgeous Fall dresses for little girls from LottieDa

Fall and Winter prints from The Wild Unknown

New images by the inimitable Dishwasher

One of my favorite posts ever: The Ceremonial Bringing Out of The Duck

This fall reminiscent kids room on Modern Kiddo

Dave Eggers + Judd Apatow? Why can't I go to this?!!!

Playing With the Moon found @ Marvelous Kiddo

And last but far from least, welcome brand new baby Ethan!!! Congratulations Laura!!

Stuck: The Long Venting

I don't mean to be such a roller coaster. It's just that I'm trying very hard. So that is clear. The more I try, the more each moment of rage and grief and yes, self pity, becomes a tsunami. As if all the other 23 hours of the day I was holding back the water with sheer force of will. So that when I hit a weak moment I literally bust the seam. I picture a huge boil and the smallest of lances. The tiny hole made and the entire thing erupting all inflammatory and ugly. I work all day on how I'm 'framing' what is happening right now, like my therapist long ago taught me. I work all day on redirecting my thoughts as if they are unruly toddlers. I work at breathing. I work at not panicking or over inflating the problems. I work at accepting my part in everything. I smile and laugh at work and I feel a relative calm and peace. And then I can come home and the stomach ache starts. I can't eat at home. The entire last two weeks. I eat all day, then I come home, and despite my best efforts I feel a cramping sick in my low low gut, and my stomach feels hard and high and gross, and the thought of eating dinner makes me want to puke. The stomach ache is some kind of physical trigger for my thoughts, which immediately turn to resentful anger that I feel this way. I have two more goddamn months left of this pregnancy, I think, I just want to breathe. Then I tell myself I'm the only one responsible for breathing. For managing my emotions. GROW UP, I tell myself, and get to doing what needs to be done. And I do, and still, at some point every night the emotions are lanced and I literally cannot hold back the tears, and my chest feels so full of pain and sadness you would think I just experienced something much worse than broken hopes and hard times.

The whole pregnancy I managed to avoid feeling this way. Even when the anxiety was kicking my ass I still felt a nice, clean lack of self pity. I hate self pity. I lose respect for people who have too much of it in certain forms, myself included. I have no measure for what is normal grief over this situation and what is veering on self pity. At night the house is quiet and still and dark and my body is so deeply sad. I read the article in Time on how mental health of your baby can be partly determined in utero by the amount of stress the mother experiences and I felt FURIOUS. I am angry at my family for not protecting this baby better. I am angry at myself for not handling my anger better, for having to cry every night. I don't know how to let go of what I wanted this to be like in comparison to what it is. I never had a traditional family unit during pregnancy before. I might never be pregnant again...let's face it, I probably won't. Unless the financial fairy blesses us we are done having babies. I wanted this one to be different, I wanted to experience the kind of pregnancy I know is not a pipe dream, it's perfectly possible and I read stories here in blogland all the time about women who are having them. How do I work around this, how do I let go and stop feeling so angry? I cannot remember the lessons of my old therapist or the wise words of authors I have read. All I can seem to do is what I am doing. I'm stuck.

The baby shower is this weekend and all I can feel is exhausted to think about it. A day of slogging through everyone's happy faces and asking ' how are you? ' while I have to lie and say how great everything is at home, how happy everyone is, when no one outside of Lola can spare the emotional focus to ask how Ever is every day, to check on her movements, to ask what needs to be done every day or to take some of the planning and thinking off of me, to see if I've eaten my vegetables or taken my vitamins, to talk to Ever in there, to talk and plan for the stresses and the blocks we are encountering right now, to make lists or read or plan for the labor. Mr. Curry is not available for any of this right now, too overwhelmed from the last month of stress with D, burnt out.*** It is important for my own clarity to note that this is only true for the last couple of weeks. The entire pregnancy has certainly NOT been like this. The last couple of weeks have felt like an eternity, as you can tell by this post. *** The look on his face when I start talking about anything with Dakota or worry about the baby or ask for the 100th time if he's yet read the book I asked him to is so tight and closed off I feel worse than if I just say nothing, so I'm saying nothing now. Not fighting is better and more mature than repeating the same patterns that end with us raising our voices. The kids peace must come first and noisy battles between their parents will only make them stressed, when we are both doing a good job at least of being kind and available and sweet to our children. I am trying as hard as I can not to be enraged at him for this but often failing. My close girlfriends all live far away and my girlfriends here are all going through their own hell in different ways. I feel lonely and emotionally exhausted. My work is exhausting. My mom wants to go to dinner with our relatives flying in on Friday and I just want to stay home and lock myself in my room. How can I say no without being rude? Everyone is coming to see me when I don't want to be seen. And this is making me too sad to know what to do with. I just want so much that I can't have right now. I have no pithy line to end this with. The End.

ps
I'm OK though. Really. I know part of the reason the last two weeks have felt so very long and awful is because I am not on the zoloft, and partly because of the enormous hopes I had for this pregnancy, and partly because when your husband and you have as intimate, close and supportive relationship as Mr. Curry and I do, and then things fall apart for a time, it feels much more dramatic in the meanwhile. The worry about a major Bipolar episode is very hard too, for both of us. I am afraid of it and I know he is too. I need him tremendously right now and part of what this is is me trying to understand how to cope with this disease stealing my husband away when I need him most. Sorting out my emotions and my right to them and what to do with them...while very pregnant, while having a very troubled teen..is kind of really shitty. I mean, it is. But it's not the worst. It's not. We aren't easy people, either of us, with our mental floss all fudgy.

poem: october fest

all saints hearts saint----
heart, the pillow briar i sleep
with every nite this year,
a finger in my thimble,

thumbs in ears
for the muffled voice of my love
the bitter tongues of madness:
talk i cannot bear to hear.

this marriage makes me witness.
i am cowardly. i am a coward.
cover me, cover me briar!
if my eyes bleed i cannot be blamed.

hold the bare October trees
push head into the ink spot evening
let the air make me cold
where cold freezes flame:

let my whisper be sane.
the prayer of non believer
the rosary beads round my neck
each round and swollen with your name.

this chill surrounds my breath.
i am alone in this forest hunt.
the family is scattered and scarred
a nest of tree stumps:

i run my hands over each wound
press my lips to the worst of the cost.
the sky tesseracts over me:
all is not lost.

Flux Capacitor: The Halloween Costume

Found Here

Everything Is Illuminated

The whiteboard calendar at home hangs in the kitchen, with a different color dry erase for each family member. Lola is orange ( her favorite color this past year ) Dakota purple, Ian blue, and Mr. Curry and I the fat pink dry erase that came with the board. In September, Lola added Special Moma and Lola Day I Love You to the board for the Saturday we spent, just her and I, roaming around town. We ate at California Pizza Kitchen and made up our own simple Pictionary game: Lola creates the catagory, usually Animals of some kind, and each of us take turns drawing something until the other person guesses correctly what it is or gives up. Lola is especially savvy at this game and guessed to my astonishment the flying squirrel and then the polar bear before I had made a second line.

This last month was a doozy. I swam in the morass of my mind and flailed about as I am bound to do, a bit out of breath, terrified, demoralized and uncertain, but absolutely bound by the comfort of the rules of love: never give up, never quit, never stop looking for answers, and no matter the emotional pain never relinquish the loyalty of your heart to the quicksand sink of blind lashing out. Of course I did anyway- I lashed out. But my rules are guidelines based on humanity, not absolutes, and what they provide for me are signposts, so that when I do mess up, do lean too far overboard, I become aware that I am doing so, and pull back. Take a breath. Break the pattern and jump when expected to walk or sing when expected to weep so that I can trickstart my brain into a new neurological pathway.

Without zoloft these things come far slower and with more effort and pain than I am comfortable to own, more mistakes than are good for anyone. And still I did it. Whenever I have a life crisis, a true fear inducing happening to my immediate family, there almost always comes a point where I am suddenly and brutally made aware of how blessed and lucky I am, I still am, despite. And how much worse, how much terribly worse, life can truly get. My own childhood calls out with it's bleached and stricken memories to remind me. The story of Kate's cancer reminds me, her mother's desperate pleas for prayer and for ballast while facing what is not truly able to be seen from all angles, only one horrible vantage point at at time: not bearable. And Henry and Kate, who I think of many times each week. No one wants to be the worst case imagining, but eventually, we all lose. Eventually death and disease and the firewall of loss in all it's forms climbs over us in some form or another, so that we turn our heads North, South, East and West and realize there is no other horizon to lean away from, that this setting sun is our own, it's flames in our hands.

I wept at night and thought of those in pain that I cannot truly imagine or bear to try. And knowing that tomorrow might bring something that would make today look enviable, comforting even- it did it's magicks, and I began to recover from the panic. To breath. To look at what was happening and my children's faces and my husband's face and the small fiercely strong bulges of baby in my stomach and to accept that I am blessed, I am in the Spring of my life, and I better see it clearly now, feel it keenly, embrace it truly, because these days will never come again.

And to see it is also painful. To look into Mr. Curry's face and truly feel the force of my entire love for him knocks the breath out of me. To run my hand over the tiny shoulder of my pre-pubescent daughter and watch her expressive, lit face is to encounter the exact eye of the storm- the place where love condenses outside of the chaos, the physical embodiment of that emotion, that commitment, that daily flesh. And the boys. My boys. Dakota and Ian and their teenage sweat, smirking laughter, raucous joy and anger, unruly tempers, passionate opinions, long loping strides, the knotted ropes of new muscles down arms and legs, the height and mind determined to be a man but the spirit and heart still such boys. To hold them and to have them let me hold them for the one, two precious seconds they can bear, is to hold youth itself and the bear and beauty of childhood coming free from it's husk.

I am in the 8th month of this pregnancy and the ups and downs of emotions are still sending me careening, with all I have to cope with and struggle with. And. I am in the 8th month of this pregnancy and know that if I were not struggling with these people, this pack of mine, hurting for them, fighting for him, loving in the daily and in the other world we feel but do not touch, then nothing would be hurting, because there would be nothing where they are anything like what they are to me. As I said before about Mr. Curry- there are other things, yes- but not this thing.

Dakota is now surrounded by the trenches we have dug- Mr. Curry, my mom and I. He takes a step toward blackness and one of us is annoyingly and persistently there, holding the alternative out. We made a plan. We are enforcing it. Dakota is doing X and Y. These two things are costing my mother an enormous amount of money and our entire family a restructuring of time and work schedules and sleep for the next few months. This book is saving my daily do. Mr. Curry is ... exactly the reason I ever wanted to be married. Nothing is certain. Things could get worse. ( please no... ) What is true is that the worst has not happened yet, and might not happen, and we are doing everything. everything we can to love Dakota up to solid ground.

My whiteboard tells me a story. It tells me about meetings and phone calls, switched schedules and paperwork, it tells the story of plotting what feels unmanageable. Organizing time to make out with Mr. Curry isn't romantic- or is it? What could be more romantic that having the hots for your husband so bad you are willing to put it in hot pink ink on a white board to make sure it happens? Or to realize your daughter needs one on one and make it a so with some orange dry erase?

Sometimes love is most romantic in it's most practical forms. It is the mundane acts of simple lives that can end up encompassing the true heart and soul of a family, the step and step and step again dullness of daily life that hard work and sacrifice can illuminate into something far more beautiful and real and moving than any flowers, parties or fancy gifted presents or moments can do. Everything is illuminated.

Yes.