Up and out: musings on my sweet little ones growing up

Yesterday, one of Jack's best friends invited him to go trick-or-treating with his family. As this boy's mom is one of my close friends, we talked about a joint, both-family Halloween. Oliver, however, felt nervous: what if someone in our friends' family or neighborhood laughed at his Cinderella costume? It's possible. I really wanted to honor Jack's desire to t-or-t with his buddy, but I also wanted Oliver to feel safe and confident so that he could have a fun Halloween. I was also hoping that my little family unit could stay together one more year.

Last night, tired from the party, Oliver said he wasn't comfortable and Jack yelled at him for not being willing to be Cinderella next year. I said we needed to sleep on and talk at breakfast. They were shockingly amenable to this idea, and Jack, in such a mature way, brought it up at breakfast this morning: "can we have our family talk about what to do about Halloween?"

Indeed.

Oliver again said he was nervous, and Jack asked why.

"Because someone might laugh at me, Jack."

"What dummy would laugh about you wearing a beautiful dress as your costume?"

I was beaming with pride and bursting with love, and then Jack went and gilded the lily by adding, "well, I do not want anyone to make fun of Oliver. That's awful. So, I will go with my friend, and Oliver can go with you and Dad."

He didn't say this lightly. I know it's big for him to leave us and join his friend. And I was (am!) so deeply proud of the reasoned and thoughtful decision he made, even though I'll miss him tonight, and that made me feel a little sad. I felt like a beautiful pie from which someone had surreptitiously stolen a slice. Sigh.

People often ask me why I write so regularly, so honestly, so openly. I wouldn't make the time if I didn't love it, didn't feel I simply must get X, Y or Z down in words. Certainly, the love of the craft is part of the why. But also I've found that in no other way can I process and come to understand certain issues, aspects of myself, familial and inter-relational trends, for example, as well as I can through writing.

One of the biggest surprises to me about Em-i-lis is how much better I've come to know myself. I'm a pretty introspective person, but even with years of self-study and analysis under my belt, there is something in the committing-to-the-page method that illumines that much more.

After I dropped the boys off at school, I drove in silence to the gym. I worked my fanny off but realized that I still felt a bit churned up inside. I wasn't ready to write yet; things were too murky. So I went to the market and then to my favorite nursery as it's having a huge sale on perennials today. I stocked up, eager to return home, take advantage of the temperate day we're having and lose my troubles in the soil. Nanny always said that's one thing gardening was good for; you could just work through problems as you worked through the earth. I agree.

I cleared and trimmed and raked and bagged: 7 stuffed lawn bags now await pick-up by our garbage bins. The gardens are clear, the hydrangeas and hostas finally have the haircuts they desperately needed, Nutmeg hunted so many crickets and other tiny beings that he's now out like a light on an ottoman, Percy too is snoring quietly. After two hours, my  back begged for a respite, so I didn't get my new perennials any more than placed where they'll be planted. But I figured out why I felt sad -my oldest little boy really is growing up and away, even in the smallest of ways- and I worked through it and I celebrated him. I realized that Oliver never gets to be the only child so might really love a whole evening of trick-or-treating alone with Tom and me.

And then I came in to finish things off by writing all this down. So that I most clearly understand. So that I will remember.

The idea of THE Woman

Sheryl Sandberg, Anne-Marie Slaughter, Judith Warner, Stephanie Coontz, Gail Collins, Anne and Kate Roiphe and many, many more have prominently and publicly discussed the changing roles of women since, primarily, the Second Wave of the Feminist Movement which is generally considered to have run from the 1960s through the 80s. Warner, Coontz and Collins are three of my favorite writers about this (and a whole host of other) subjects; if you haven't read their work, consider doing so! If you read Em-i-lis regularly, you'll know that I sometimes put in my own two cents about what I will henceforth call, The State of the Women. Within that meta-term reside questions and discussions about: women having it all; what that means; should they try to have it all, and if so, why?; the general concept of leaning in or not; who are the women who can "lean in" and who are those who feel doing so is no more than a fanciful musing of the wealthy; the mother wars, aka working versus stay-at-home moms; and on and on.

The question, Can Women Have it All, has always seemed somewhat silly to me because a) why on earth would anyone presume all women want the same things, and thus, b) what meaning can such a vague question and resultant discussion really illumine? It seems infinitely more valuable to consider what each woman might consider having it all and then trying to assess how many of us get it, get close to or remain awfully far off from our personal all.

I'm thinking about this again right now because in yesterday's New York Times, a contributing writer, Clemens Wergin (a German and the foreign editor for the German Welt newspaper group) wrote a piece entitled, The World's Most Powerful 'Little Girl.' Online -why the change?- it's entitled, "A Woman for All Seasons." In any case, the article begins with the recent story of an eight-year-old Berliner asking her mother if it's possible for Germany to elect a male chancellor; for this little girl's entire existence, Angela Merkel has headed Deutschland. In case you're wondering, I think this is FABulous, and I appreciate Wergin going on to say just how grateful he is for the role model Merkel is for little girls, including his own two young daughters, in Germany.

That said, he also discusses the fact that Merkel: doesn't have children (so has never been pulled in the ways one presumably is when both powerful and a mother); is able to rein in any ego she might have when important decisions need to be made; was once underestimated because of her gender (Helmut Kohl once called Merkel a 'little girl,' hence the print title of Wergin's piece; don't you love that Merkel then dethroned Kohl??!!) and so could stealthily outfox other pols; and doesn't over-emphasize women's issues in public and politics (this has frustrated women's groups in Germany).

Long story short, I just cannot understand why we ask and explicate and parse and analyze all these facets of a woman leader's being when we do NOT do this to their male counterparts. It gets a little old, frankly. It's like women have to repeatedly prove why their lady-parts don't hinder their extra-gender abilities. Why should Merkel mean much more for Germany's "little girls and others" than what she is: the most powerful individual in the country? Indeed, why should any woman have to stand for all the experiences and positions one might have?

I'm not trying to slam Wergin here (I do think he admires and is grateful for Merkell) except to call out what his article highlights to me: that there is still a different experience in having a female rather than male leader. Perhaps that's because there are still so relatively few of us, but really, are women still surprise spectacles?? Are we not literally all around?

Maybe if we stop noticing when women get somewhere, especially places vaunted and rare, it'll start to seem normal rather than surprising. And then we can simply study the jobs they do, judging them based on performance rather than their being "F."

Naturally all of this presupposes equal starting points, equal pay and reward, equal opportunity, but in the ways it might help to STOP differentiating leaders based on gender, well...let's get to it!

The simple things, and a great quote

Friends, have you tried Flor? It's a carpet square company that makes a huge assortment of patterned and colored tiles from recycled materials (which are then recyclable again; and Flor pays for you to send them back) from which you can design and craft a rug. I am an enormous fan of Flor, especially since it introduced free shipping all the time; this is a recent and exceedingly welcome change to company policy. Additionally, Flor's Fall Sale is going on now, and for 25% off I felt inclined to revisit the dingy, narsty mess of tiles that was our living room "carpet." Put more simply, I didn't ask Tom when I made the quick decision to buy twenty new squares and, once they arrived, put them together in an ir-returnable way. Good news quickly: he likes it, I love it, and it's soooo much softer (and infinitely cleaner) than Version 1.0. You can literally scrunch your toes in this puppy. Hell hath the first animal to adulterate this shag.

Have you read M.F.K. Fisher? Firstly, I like her moxie in using all three initials rather than Mary or Mary Frances K. or whatever. M.F.K. I have a niece (well, she's my cousin's daughter so probably some sort of once-removed crap officially, but I'd rather call her my niece because a) I love my cousin like a sister, and b) once-removed sounds SO removed.) Anyway, her name is Mary Frances, and she is definitely feisty, and I call her MF which her father suggests might possibly be misunderstood. I get this. But I don't think anyone's going to think I'm calling her Mother Effer so consider it safe that instead they'll think...hmm...MF? Probs Mary Frances but who knows?!

But back to M.F.K. She died 21 years ago but is still considered to be one of the best-ever food writers ever, and indeed she is delightful. Observe:

"There is a mistaken idea, ancient but still with us, that an overdose of anything from fornication to hot chocolate will teach restraint by the very results of its abuse."

Is that not a fabulous opening line? Not least after following the essay title, "Once a Tramp, Always..."

I had for dinner toasted baguette, a lot of buffalo mozzarella, both slathered in good (but not good enough, damn you Montebello) olive oil, and roasted veggies. Plus wine. Plus, probs, another brownie. Do you know how good a meal is made, or IS, when you have hot bread, fresh mozz, good oil and salt all coming together in your mouth? Lawd a' mercy. I can go to bed happy (with the disclaimer that Ol returns to school tomorrow, mother of god).