If you could sit down with superwoman and have an honest chat...

If you asked superwoman how her day went or how she was feeling, how do you suppose she would respond?

Let's say for instance that she nearly lost a child falling out of an airplane while she reached to rescue three other adults. As a consequence of trying to juggle the four people, one of the adults broke his foot in the fall.

And instead of hearing all sorts of praise and thank-yous for a job well done, she spent the evening in the hospital apologizing to the family for nearly dropping the child who is now traumatized and visiting the guy whose foot is painfully dangling from a swing, and he is crying out for more morphine.

Then suppose superwoman headed home, late enough, no groceries in the fridge, so she decided to get take-out. Only she lost her wallet in the fall, so she has no money on her. Hungry and tired, she decides to go to sleep, and her next door neighbor is having a huge house party, so she is up most of the night.

Would superwoman tell you about all of this, go into all the details of the last 24-hours?

She might tell you about nearly losing the child, about the man in the hospital with the broken leg and how her heart went out to him. But most likely she wouldn't burden you with the fact that she had no sleep, that she was starving because she lost her wallet - for sure, she wouldn't want to make you feel like you needed to feed her. She might also be a little hesitant to tell you about the rescue, as if it came off as boasting or else even worse, complaining about something that is the very privilege of being 'super' - able to fly and all that.

What if she did tell you that she hasn't slept and is hungry, and that she wishes every once in awhile people would recognize the work that she does, say thank-you, and appreciate that they are still alive, even if a little shook and a bone or two out of place?

Would you still consider her 'super'? I am guessing that you would still consider her 'super' if you weren't directly related to any of the above incidents, and if you were her friend and were genuinely out for her best interest.

Here's an interesting twist - what if we had the ability to observe a conversation between superwoman and her husband, superman. Suppose he too was out saving the world all day, and instead of going to the hospital after saving all those people in the train crash, he took some time to humbly accept their praise. One of the thankful train riders found his wallet. Another one invited him to dinner with the family. Say superman got home a little tipsy from a few pints and with a full belly - this meant that he slept fine through the neighbor's party. 

What sort of conversation do you suppose would be a healthy honest chat between two superheroes?

Big love to nurses and medical assistants!

I realize this is my third blog this week and you guys are probably sick of me by now, but right now I feel compelled to send some big love to nurses and medical assistants who help people in need.

Wednesday afternoon, I went with Suzana to Mt. Zion and met this very cool medical assistant who was wearing some bright purple shoes, which he shared with us he bought for 20 bucks nearly 5 years ago, and they are still hanging in there. And I left that place hoping that when Amelia gets to be a young adult, she will meet someone like that medical assistant - the kind of person who wears bright purple shoes in solemn spaces, and makes the air feel a lot lighter than one would think naturally possible.

Thursday Amelia caught a very bad vomiting bug. Yesterday (Saturday), my mom called to check-in on our week, and she listened patiently to me talk out the tiredness and worry. My mom is a hospice nurse - it is her job to be kind and handle tired people dealing with stressful illness. She reaffirmed that all I had been doing was great, and then asked me about myself, my own week, got me to talk out some of my own thoughts and feelings totally removed from the mom stuff.

This morning I gave Amelia a half a cup of soy milk, worried that it wasn't right, but wanting her to be happy (she really really wanted her soy milk). It didn't stay down and the poor pet was violently ill. So I range the emergency hotline for Amelia's doctor and left a message checking to see if the doc thought we should bring her in.

Then I rang Sharon, my step-mom, a nurse practitioner, pediatrics, who happened to be going up a ski-lift in New Hampshire when her phone rang. She asked me important questions, had me talk through all the details, and gave me very practical advice about being a mom with a sick kid. And part of her advice was to still keep on living, just to make sure to be careful, to keep Amelia comfortable, hydrated, and safe.

Shortly after talking to Sharon, a nurse-on-call rang me back and reaffirmed all that Sharon had said. She shared with me her own experiences as a mom, and made me feel so normal in my own skin. I did all the wise women advised, and Amelia fell fast asleep on the couch.

Just wanted to take a short moment to recognize the importance of caring people all around us - people who spend their lives giving good advice and kind words in a way that is effortless.

What a difference a day makes...

Last night, Amelia finally started to hold down food and we all got some much needed sleep. This morning, up bright and early, I finished a small project in work, looked outside the window, the warm sun shining on the lemon tree, and realized just how lucky I am.

While it is good to contemplate those moments of grey (like in my last blog on 'fairness'), I felt compelled this morning to embrace this moment of abundance, this feeling of good for goodness sake. 

I love the way we can feel so tired, so worn out in one moment, and then something as simple as sleep and sunshine can completely change our point-of-view, helping us to see the beauty all around us, pushing those 'grey' thoughts aside as if they never existed.

There is a balance here, one that is based on time, patience, and a bit of luck.

On fairness

Sitting across from a dear friend in the late afternoon drinking a pint in the Valley Tavern, we found ourselves in one of our many existentialist conversations about life. A little background - we don't normally go for afternoon pints, but it seemed fitting after finding out that there would be another surgery.

She said so many things that afternoon that stuck with me, but the one that I feel compelled to write about today in this blog is on the topic of fairness. In her mind, 'fair' is a word like 'guilt' - it is one of those feelings that no matter which angle you look at it, there isn't hope for a positive result.

And as the week continued, and moments of 'fair' crept into my head, I thought about ways in which I could embrace 'fair'. I tried thinking about fairness from the perspective of the classic Native American saying, "Don't judge a man until you have walked two moons in his moccasins"-- that maybe there is a way to see things as truly fair, so long as you are thoughtful about the other person whose 'fairness' you are evaluating.

But as I tried to do this, I realized there are so many variables to consider in interpreting fairness from the multi-faceted perspective. If we were writing an algorithm, it would look a lot like the Big O notation - too many options to possible reach any sort of rational measurement for fairness.

And so I thought about relativity - that perhaps fairness can be measured from one perspective in isolation of another. In any given context, a 'fairness' value can be derived.

But what does it actually mean to feel that something isn't fair? How does one justify this feeling when there are so many other people in circumstances far worse than our own? At what point is life truly unfair for one person over another? And what the heck does this mean? What good is it to come to that conclusion?

So I think she is right, my friend - fairness is like guilt - there is nothing productive in holding on to it.

But then I remember back to those days as a child, when my father worked very hard to teach me the value of 'being fair'. It still holds very true in my heart that I need to treat people with a sense of 'fairness'. That I need to have balance in the way I approach others. 

Can I let go of the expectation that others need to be fair to me, and even more importantly, the disappointment that I feel when they are not? Is it possible to be fair outward while denying oneself the same measurement on the receiving line?

The very meaning of 'fairness' depends on equilibrium, or does it?

The 3 faces of me

Gina Trapani, a fellow tech writer/blogger (and so much more), created a venn diagram much like the one below and suggested others try and do the same. With my annual review coming up soon, this seemed like a perfect way to capture what it is that I do, what excites me, and what shapes the visions I have for the future.

On a side note, I started following Gina back in August last year - was completely hooked after listening to her interview on The Great Work Blog.

(Image a little fuzzy below, so here's a link to image in Google docs.)

I need another spray-painting-a-tarp-moment

Many years ago I had an opportunity to be a summer camp counselor at the best camp in the Bay Area (I am biased) - Camp Kee Tov in Berkeley. In my second year, I convinced the director, Steve Chabon (a legend), to let me bring back the science and nature specialty in Mapilim.

Mapilim is for fifth and sixth graders, and the program highlights are to teach kids a specialty. Most kids coming into Mapilim already know the specialty they want - dance, drama, sports, or arts and crafts. There was an attempt in the past to include a science and nature specialty, but it didn't seem to have enough umph to get kids excited.

I made my case with Steve - science and nature wasn't going to be about taking walks in the woods, building baking soda volcanoes, and hugging trees - it was going to be science versus nature. I had devised an entire role-fantasy game with a science fiction story that starts many years after a nuclear meltdown. Scientists who had gone into hiding resurface generations later once the air quality is safe to find that the planet has changed quite a bit - a lot more water and a lot scarcer land and resources.

The scientists also resurface to discovery that civilization didn't completely die out. There are small colonies of people who live off the land, relying on nature (rather than demolished technology) to survive.The basic premise of the game is that the scientists need resources, the nature people are under the thumb of the scientists who have way more advanced weapons, technology, etc. Each child had to pick which side they would be on, and define their character over a course of four weeks.

Steve, a sucker for story-telling, let me go for it. And realizing that it wasn't going to be easy to convince kids to think about something different, I spent a great deal of time preparing for the 'sell'. The sell is a day on which all the kids have to try all the specialties and pick the one they want. I spent at least a good week preparing my notes for the story, and coming up with illustrated, detailed examples of characters, including my own - the wizard, on the side of nature.

The last item to prepare for the 'sell' was the game board - a large piece of plastic tarp that could fit at least six kids on either side, on which I drew the planet earth and spray painted the land according to the story - lots more water than green. Because of my mad work schedule (I had three jobs), I couldn't start the spray painting until 9 at night.

I had the idea well thought out, the earth stencil prepared ahead of time, so I figured it would take me two hours at the most to spray paint the tarp. Two hours later, a perfect representation of earth before me, I was ready for a cold beer. Just as I was securing the sides so that the tarp could dry, a gust of Berkeley wind blew the tarp across the ground, the earth destroyed, and paint everywhere.

Though I felt the weight of tired on my shoulders, tears welling up in my eyes, something so strong inside myself believed in what I was trying to do and was excited about the possibility of seeing this vision come to life.

I washed over the tarp with a strong hose, cleaned up the paint from all around, and hand-dried the tarp. I started over, redrawing the earth, re-spraying paint, and being a lot more clever about weighting the tarp. 3 AM, I finished the project, exhausted, but feeling good about myself for not giving up.

On the day of the sell, almost every single kid put down nature and science as their first-choice specialty. I had a wait-list. For the entire summer, I put everything I had into making this story come to life, into keeping the children's imaginations alive. It was amazing, exhausting, but amazing.

The following year, I returned as the wizard, and the game, now a legend, continued, wait-listed a second year in a row, but in a much more sensible way. And though I still had to put a lot of time and effort into keeping the game going, I had experience, I knew what I was doing - I could have even more fun with it, having worked out the kinks with some of the more tedious aspects of the specialty.

This week I have been thinking about that game in a metaphoric sense and how much I need another spray-painting-a-tarp moment. I need to feel excited about something that challenges me, something that I know if I put the work in, and persevere through the gusty-wind surprises, willing to start over if needs be, and getting smarter the second time around, I will feel this sense of satisfaction that comes with seeing a vision through to reality.

On becoming a mom (and for Fiona)

Last night Amelia settled herself to sleep in her big girl bed for the first time. It took a couple of 'super-nanny' carries back to the bed, but her brave self cuddled up with her blankets and dog while I sat very quietly in the corner to help her feel safe.

Until four in the morning, our new neighbors were moving in, walking up and down the side of our house moving all sorts of crazy stuff-- neither Padhraic nor myself slept very much. Amelia was woken up a couple of times and in true big-girl fashion, she snuggled herself back to sleep until 6 AM, when she walked out of the door herself into our room for a snuggle.

We all fell back to sleep for an hour and woke up to a ringing phone - Somhairle in Brisbane. The baby was born - Elise. It was a tough labor, 17 hours, with 7 hours of full-on pitosine (any mom who has had it for any period of time knows how much this hurts). And for the record, 7 hours is a lot longer than I could stand the pain.

Fiona pushed her heart out, refusing to give in to the pain, but the docs finally told her it was a no-go and Miss Elise entered the world via a section. I know Fiona and she is processing this one - wanting so much to be up, to be going, to be participating in the space of motherhood, thinking that her immobility is slowing her down.

And this is very much what motherhood is about - we are constantly working so hard to be the best that we can for our children, and even as we push ourselves more than we ever have, trying to find that perfect balance, we feel tired, down on ourselves most often for things that we cannot control, like what happens in childbirth, like what happens when we try and breastfeed, like what happens when we try and get our body shape back, like what happens when we try and enforce boundaries, but we don't want to be too harsh, because we want to build confidence, and be a loving, kind mom. This is a never-ending list.

Fiona, you may never get a chance to read this one because of the craziness to come over the next month, so I will be sure to tell you in person in a couple of months time. It gets easier. We get more confident. Sometimes we shine and can feel how we have done something right, how are children are growing, and moving, and smiling, and laughing, and talking, and starting to take the world in for themselves, that bit stronger because we are there, always trying our best, and questioning if we could do it better, even in those moments of subtle perfection.

Love you, mama.