What Possessed Me

First to eat the marshmallow, raise your hand.

“A cowgirl gets up in the morning, decides what she wants to do and does it.”
- Marie Lords, 1861

Here's what I've learned in the last few months: If you were born in the wrong month, forget it. Don't even bother - you're doomed to underperform. God forbid you're one of the kids who ate the marshmallow too soon,* a sure sign that you'll end up a fat underachiever with no prospects. By the time you make it to eighth grade, you'll be traumatized, and then tortured and possibly permanently damaged by high school. Assuming you are able to navigate college without developing a substance abuse problem, you have about nine years to set the course your life takes, so if you screw that up, you'll pay. Forever.  Meanwhile, women can't have it all - no, wait - they can, but if they want to get to top, they need be more assertive.

Excuse me, but am I alone in feeling slightly less than assertive after hearing all of these dismal portents? (Apparently, I'm not - I just read the wonderful Belgian Waffle's reaction to this particularly gruesome New Yorker article.) 

It seems that every time I open a book, read a magazine or listen to the radio, the Thirteenth Fairy tells me it's all Horribly, Horribly Wrong.  It's a wonder we aren't all paralyzed with fear at every turn, terrified to take a misstep in pursuit of a narrowly-defined vision of happiness and success. Apparently, a great many of us are living what appear to be substandard lives. Some of us know it and self-flaggelate, while others are blythely getting on with daily, completely unaware of dismal failures. Thank God science is here to remind us.

I talked to my dad about this on Friday, after having whipped myself up into a state of agitation about past, current and future failures.He laughed. My dad is a thoughtful, keenly intelligent man, but he's not a navel-gazer prone to bouts of diffidence. The answer seemed relatively straightforward. "Success is measured by your happiness and sense of fulfillment," he said.

But what do you mean by "fulfillment?"

"It just means doing the things you love as much as you possibly can, while doing the things you have to do to survive." 

Oh.

It did my heart good to hear it. It's a sign that as my dad prepares to shuffle off this mortal coil, he feels content with the life he's created.  But beyond that, I take it to mean that there is hope for all the September-born marshmallow-eating semi-reformed slackers out there who shall remain nameless.

 

*I am 100% confident that at the age of four I would have been completely unable to withstand the lure of a plump, tantalizing marshmallow waved in front of my nose. I would have stuffed it in my mouf in about 4.5 seconds, because - hey! - free marshmallow. Which explains everything, really. 

 

P.S. I think this guy has the right idea. 

 

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Quote and image of “Kitty Canutt” riding Winnemucca in 1919 via The Ugly Earring, one of my all-time favorite blogs.

"Live your life. Live your life. Live your life."

 

At a certain point, you wonder why you are doing this. Trawling through the internet. Taking pictures of your food. Creating experiences just to write about them. Living from comment to comment. Violating ambiguous boundaries. Envying the relentless perfection of others. Hating the all the vapid, twee content, and the thinly disguised self-promotion. Devouring your own sour grapes.

It starts to feel like bullshit. It starts to feel like an impediment to real life.

Here's what is real to you:

Letting go of something cherished that makes you miserable, even though it makes you miserable to let go.

Discovering the therapeutic nature of make-up tutorials, which, for a blessed moment or two bring order to chaos, and embrace the healing properties of beauty.

Making a fire for your dad to keep him warm.

Planting his garden, painting his trim, watering his grass.

Feeling the profound satisfaction and pride that comes with making him comfortable and happy when he is feeling rotten.

Pouring everything that's left into your own garden, your heart bursting with every bloom.

Putting adventure on hold for a while, and reconciling yourself with that disappointment.

Taking a nap in front of the Christmas tree with your husband, Day 2 in your pajamas. Realizing that this may be better than adventure.

Sitting in the middle of the Metropolitan Museum of Art talking about funeral arrangements with your mom, because it's closer to reality than it's ever been.

Gathering with your family to celebrate whatever you can. (Good excuses to drink champagne: Pre-Epiphany, the Day Before Downton Abbey Airs in U.S., and Fauxhawk's breathtaking lasagna)

I'm not a good enough photographer, nor a good enough writer to capture any of that in blog post. It just had to be lived without commentary.

Maybe that means I'm not a real blogger – some things still seem too big or too small for this space. But I missed you and this rickity, unsexy little blog. And it's not false modesty to say that it surprised me to learn that some of you sweet readers missed me too. What happened, you wrote. Should I give up on you?

I didn't know what to say. Your kindness and soft reproaches made me cry - and feel a little bit proud that something I'd given you was of worth.

Maybe I'm ready to come back. I'm rusty as hell - out of touch, wobbly, sentimental, confused, inconsistent. But if you'll have me as I am, I'll be here.

xoxo,
P.

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Title: Advice from Maurice Sendak.
Images: Los Angeles-based fine arts photographer, Eleonora Ghioldi via PDN's post, "Bare Beauty".

A weekend in three parts

It is the first real snow of the winter (if you can call two inches that turned to slush "real") and I hop the R train to Bay Ridge to see a girl about a baby. Swaddled against his mother - the friend I met when I was only a few months older than this wee babe - he sleeps. And sleeps. And sleeps.

"Listen," I say, poking him. "I need to see some action here."

"He's sleeping - you can hold him when he wakes up."

Two minutes of slumber later.

"This baby is broken!" I complain. "How do I get a refund?"

Finally, finally, I get my snuggle. A tiny beastie as hot as a furnace against my cold hands. Such a pleasing weight in the crook of my arms. I watch him drift off, dreaming the shadowy dreams of infants.

* * *

Back at home, there is coffee and a handful of anemonies someone should paint. I experience a complete revelation: pot roast. Earthy and savory and laughably easy.

Dinner with friends, the girls watch Sophia Grace and her hype girl do Nicki Minaj as feelings of awe and horror duke it out. The boys hack away at the Christmas tree, feeding the fireplace with dry pine boughs. It feels vaguely disturbing, like something a serial killer might do if he left his Christmas tree too long and couldn't be bothered to take it down five flights of stairs. Staring at the sad empty space where the tree once was, I console myself with an orchid strung with lights. It's Hawaiian Christmas, everybody!!!!

* * *

Morning again. At Cafe Luxumbourg, the girls make eyes at Jon Hamm in the corner but he doesn't know he's in love with us yet. We're not wearing our Mac #7s after all, so what can we expect? We talk about dreams and aspirations and I demonstrate my superior restaurant crying skills with an unexpected outburst that casts a dark pall over the afternoon.

Walking out into a gray, uninspiring day, I call my dad. "Come over," he offers, and I realize it's really the only thing I want to do.

When I arrive, he is shivering on the chaise longue. "I seem to have caught a chill," he chatters, as I quickly fix a tray of tea, Tylenol and baklava.  Swaddled in blankets, he is as hot as a furnace against my cold hands. 

We chat about Paris after the war, his dinners on Rue du Dragon, whether the Giants will win the playoffs. Sick as he feels, his mere presence cheers me, and I know mine cheers him.

Then, apropos of nothing, he changes the tune. 

"I come from a line of diffident underachievers," he says, counting the ways. "If there is something you want to do, you must do it. There are always countless reasons why you can't. But you must." 

It is the kind of conversation we never have. His directness fills me with countless questions. So many I can't think of a single one.

"Are you warmer now, Dad?"

"Yes," he says. "I think I am." 

Tucking the blankets tighter, I watch him drift off, sleeping the sleep of the just.