4th and Court, revisiting

In Des Moines there is this really cool entertainment district called Court Avenue. One one corner is the Randolf Hotel, which Jack Kerouac is said to have stayed at when he penned that Des Moines, Iowa has the prettiest girls in the world.

When I first moved to Des Moines, the girl that was assigned as my new student ambassador, her name was Allie (I think), brought me to Java Joe's on a Wednesday night. It was certainly different that the rest of what I had seen in Des Moines to that point, and my first night out with friends/peers since I had moved to Iowa.

I fell in love. Everything about the place, from the deep circus like colours, the smell of roasting coffee, the goth kids smoking Pall Malls on the sidewalk, bikers roaring up and down the streets, and the live open mic music and poetry bleating from the makeshift stage. Love. Serious love. The kind of love that had me awestruck. No other place I had ever been in my life had felt like the energy and promise that swirled around the small coffee house that night.

And so I returned. I stepped on the stage for open mic night. I fell in love over coffee. I read The Great Gatsby and the Catcher in The Rye and wrote ridiculous essays over the metaphors and meaning in each. I drew pen and ink sketches and filled in the white space with emotional and terrible, really terrible, poetry.

I also found myself exploring other coffee houses, other book stores, other live recitation and music events, but Java Joe's was my gateway to this medium.

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So tonight I am meeting a group of fantastic women, a brave girls club of sorts, for dinner. As I parked in the garage and walked up Court and then 4th, I was struck by how much this place has changed. There are still homeless and in crisis people who spend time in front of the Randolf and the Bail Bonds storefront. The warm perfumey smell of fabric softener clashes with the smell of Asian food and deep fried something, accented by old cigarette smoke, and car exhaust. There seems to be a lot more street traffic than there used to be, but it is also earlier in the evening than I used to show up as a teenager.

Now there are apartments, swanky ones, not just the hotel room scary ones that were here when I was a teen and newly looking for my own place. The farmer's market is one of the best in the country and it fills the district with people and fresh food every weekend. There are more restraunts, more bars, more of everything, yet the modest coffee shop still thrives right in the middle of it all, still holding her identity and charm. Still playing Ani D'Franco and Mazzi Star and roaring up custom coffee drinks while local artists scribble furiously in their sketchbooks. Still standing.

I have come full circle too. Maybe that is why I am drawn to this place again. I have purple and red streaks in my head, have taken up poetry again. I feel very much like that lost girl I was fresh and new to Iowa 20 years ago, both brave and terrified at what the future may hold. So many unknowns.

These last 20 years have been filled with love and laughter, so much that the hardships are mere shadows in memory. That is how life should be after all.

Writing About Writing

I am writing about writing when I should be writing about farming or food or science fiction tropes. Still, this is important.

Why?

I am not alone in my struggles as a writer. It has taken me a decade and then some to even call myself a writer, though as a child it was easy. I still get surprised when I find out that people read what I am writing and it matters to them, that my stories are inspiring or encouraging, or just interesting and entertaining. I shrink back and think they must have mistaken me for someone else.

I write to entertain myself mostly. I learn about things for the same reason. The world around me is fascinating and complex and interesting. I write to process that. I write love letters to my children so they know how much they are adored and valued, if ever they forget or I am not there to remind them.

When I spend time around other writers I get paralysed and act all fan girl and breathless and squee a lot. Especially food writers. I get panicked that I managed to get myself in a place where I am in face to face conversation and there I am making an ass of myself. I am really trying so hard to not do that, practising composure, but it really is a mindset of unworthiness. Do I not value what I have to say? Do I not value the time and effort and skill I am working on to be a writer? Why the anxiety?

I have been setting aside 30 minutes a day and a 4 hour chunk every week just to write and blog. Sometimes the stress of work creeps in and menaces me while I write, but that time is MINE. This has often meant late nights typing in the dark with an almost three year old sleep thrashing across my lap while I use a back lit keyboard to find my words. It often means I hit draft instead of publish because it is so late I doubt my grammar skills or cannot find just the right photograph. I still do it though, I still write.

When the question is posed- write or nap, I chose write. When the choice is between laundry, dishes, or write.....I choose write. I only don't chose write when my kids need to be fed or need a dance partner or someone to mix paints and recite poetry in a silly voice. It is a tricky balance to write and to also live a life worth writing about.

That is old advice from my Professor at Drake Carol Spaulding; she said, "Don't do into a career that you spend your days writing for other people. Be a bricklayer by day and use the time to live a life worth writing about."

I get that.

I actually studied bricklaying and historic preservation once I graduated and thought about her wisdom as I battled squirrels in the kitchen while restoring our 1887 Victorian. I think about those words as I walk in our pastures and check on the sheep, as I catch fireflies on a summer day with my children, as I navigate the narrow and sterile and freaking terrifying world of being a parent to a special needs baby and now toddler. Am I living a life worth writing about? Am I living a life that feeds me as a writing, nourishing my mind and my words?

Honestly I am out of practise and daily writing is helping sharpen my pen work, get the ink flowing, and bring back my writer's wild mind. The balance of life and writing is not easy, but so so worth it.

I recently read this comic panel: Zen Pencils

Yes. Exactly.

So fellow writers- go write. When the choice is there between watching a marathon of Orange is the New Black and writing- choose wisely. When the choice is between making your bed or crawling back in with your laptop and pounding out another recipe post or short story involving an antagonist who is actually infected with a tongue eating mouth parasite, write that and maybe illustrate that too.

The Moment Things Change

I remember the day that Isaac's diagnosis was given to us over the phone. It was unexpected even though there had been problems that had landed us at the specialists' offices and doing a CAT scan and micro array genetic tests.

I remember the days that each specialist signed off and told us we no longer needed follow up.

What is harder to pinpoint are the days leading up. Isaac is getting healthier every day, but it is a slow process and harder to see day by day.

Last night while nursing him to sleep I reach down to tuck him in and noticed that his legs are getting chubby and thick, almost muscular. His belly is squishy. While other toddlers slim out when they start walking, Isaac seems to be filling out instead, building strength and making him more steady day by day. Last night wasn't the first night I squished at him, but it was the first time I realised what good this means.

He grew 2.5 inches since February. Gained 3 lbs. He's walking now. This morning, even though it wasn't spoken clearly, Isaac said, "Move please Lily," and, "Here is this Daddy!". He's beginning to try to vocalise sentences even if it sounds like babble to us. He is signing about 20 new signs in the last 3 weeks.

These things are good things, progress, but slow progress. This progress is what we lean on when we start to get discouraged.

These things are too easy to forget when the pressure is put on us by doctors in offices that only see our kid for moments of their lives once or twice a year, trotting out the catch phrase, "impaired cognitive development," when parents question any recommendation. I was thrown that phrase when Isaac's iron levels were sort of low (but not for a breastfed baby) and when he was diagnosed as deaf. The second time doused me with cold water. Deafness impairs cognitive ability? I seriously doubt the med student and  doctor would dare say that to my blogger friend Mare or any number of deaf adults I have encountered in my academic career both as a student and professor.

It was those experiences that knocked the sense into me in that moment. They were recommending an expensive surgery to place tubes, a surgery that was not guaranteed to work, not without risk both short term and long term, and the main argument for doing it was cognitive impairment since Isaac has never had discomfort or infection (both are valid reasons to do surgery, in my opinion, but Isaac had neither).

I asked for time to think about it, time to look into other options and also look into price points of different surgical centres.

In the time I gifted my son, I learned a lot of different things. I learned that kids can outgrow the fluid issue, that NUCCA chiropractic care was inexpensive and effective specifically for this kind of deafness, and that surgical centres not only vary wildly in price, they are not used to being asked about costs because hardly anyone price point shops. In addition, they vary in how competent their support staff is and how well they understand genetic conditions.

So when I forget or get caught up in the day to day mundane of Isaac's wonderful progress, I remind myself of his laugh, his strong body, his sense of humour, and all the work we have all done to bask in the glow of his health.

These days are not each as heartbreaking or as shocking as those first days of diagnosis, but even though they are small and beautiful and gentle on our hearts, they bring the change that we have been waiting for. They herald calm waters, sunny days, and we can settle in and enjoy our family.

Perspective in Suburbia

Everybody has bad days. Today, not even 1pm yet, has been pretty hilariously humiliating.

I could not fall asleep until about 3 am and then wake up and go started at 5am. So 2 hours of sleep. I felt sick immediately and so tired that I was dizzy. Dressed and loaded up the kids to drive Chad to Des Moines for work. Isaac wasn't wet yet, so I didn't change him.

I got 45 minutes more of sleep in the car as a passenger. We dropped Chad off and I took the kids to the Drake Diner.

Sounds good so far right? Wrong. The thing I ordered was disgusting. Usually, Drake Diner has the best food ever, but not this morning. Still, it was food and I ate it.

Still too early for ballet lessons, we stopped at Target to buy new shoes. Holly has been wearing 12 kids. She's actually a size 2 in big kid. Yikes. Poor kid. Also, she is 5! SIZE 2!

Heading to the clothing department I felt something around my ankles and almost trip. I look down mortified.

Mortified. 

My wrap skirt had come untied and was around my ankles. It was tangled and needed to be pulled off my body to untwist, but I was unwilling to uncover the cloth I had clutched around my mid section. I started to cry as more and more people turned to look. Lily held up her hands and blocked the view the best she could.

We made our way to the bathroom, where I promptly threw up for the next 10 minutes. I do not do well with public humiliation. Who does? Really?

So...my day has to get better right?

I look at it this way. Worse things are happening in the world right now. I am lucky I have clothing at all. I am privileged to be able to buy my kids new shoes at Target. I was very lucky to make it to the bathroom, children in arms, in time. Grateful for clean water to clean up with, even when I realised Isaac was poopy and the smell so wretched that I vomited again. Again.

20 minutes later, our cart was still parked by the register with all of our things in it. The cashier asked if I was ok. Clearly, I looked pretty wrecked.

We still had ballet to get to and sign class. We survived both, taking each task one at a time.

Now we are at the library. The kids picked out bright orange sweat shirt hoodies for deer season timber play (and park day mama can track all three kids in matching bright things). All three have new shoes that fit, I think (Isaac is hard to tell, but I think they will work, he has to wear them for day to be sure....). They ate lunch and are occupied with library things while I blog and soon grade more papers. Tonight is the last night for a while of art class and when I get home I will crash into bed and sleep until I am done. I have a bed, a dry warm home, and a loving family. Bad days do not take that from me. Humiliation is a moment that passes by, is swept away like tumbleweeds on a windy day. I am pretty sure no one vlogged it. Pretty sure. That would be awful. I'll check youtube later just to be sure. Sigh.

My skirt is now tied so tight I may have to cut it off tomorrow. It will not fall off again though.

So, chin up. It could be worse. Your pants/skirt could drop in the middle of a crowded suburban store and lead to a barf fest. Hang in there all!