And Then There Was Willa

A full 18 months have past since my last blog post and I'm now forced to concede: I will post no more -- not because I don't love you to infinity and back, Django Rey Daillak. I do! But because our family has expanded in so many ways, so exponentially, that these pages no longer contain us. And you're such an amazing big brother, you wouldn't want your little sister to feel left out, would you? Of course you wouldn't.

So, goodbye Django Djournal. Hello to all the other amazing event -- like Willa! -- that will inevitably follow.

Back on the Horse

Forgive me, Django, it's been 11 months since my last post. It was --  I'm almost ashamed to say -- the recent publishing of an article in "The Atlantic" about your Donor Dad that spurred me back to what one commentator described as my 'fanatical' blogging.


Heeheeeeheeee. Me, as Fanatical Blogger. I love it! (It sounds like a title that ought to come with a cape, doesn't it?)


Anyway, it's not that 2011 was uneventful. We had all kinds of adventures. We went sledding in Strawberry, made Rice Krispy treats for your bake sale, raced up & down sand dunes at Ocean Beach, hiked Montara Mountain, did Disneyland with the whole family for Poppa's 70th birthday, high-fived Curious George at the Jewish Cultural Museum, mashed a bunch of guacamole, tromped through Purisima Creek Redwoods, threw water balloons off our back porch, walked the cliffs at Montana de Oro, skipped stones in the King's River, climbed Mt. Diablo's Rock City, swam and camped everywhere we could all summer long -- and a whole bunch of other things I didn't capture in any photographs. But, at the end of the summer, times got tough. Remember? I lost the twins, Armadillo & Badger, and then was immediately forced into full time work in the classroom, all in the span of 3 days. The next few months were pretty much a blur. I'd say I didn't even get back to standing steadily upright until almost Thanksgiving. And I don't think I would've made it back to the Land of the Living at all without you & Joel -- plus a LOT of red wine, and also the love and tender care of so many other amazing people in my life.


So even though a whole lot of great stuff happened last year, I think I'll end up remembering it as a disaster. The images that keep coming to mind are totally incongruous ones, like a beautiful beach landscape only with a seabird in the foreground that's been drenched by an off-shore oil spill.


But,hey. It's 2012 now. I'm saddled up again and -- ready or not -- I'm writing.

Call & Response

I reported for jury duty last week empty-handed. Intentionally empty-handed. I considered bringing something to read. I even told a few people I forgot my book, as if I needed as excuse for not having something else to do while we waited. But the truth is I really wanted to be there. By which I mean both that I wanted to be there -- as in, I was looking forward to it. And, also, that I wanted to be there -- as in, I didn't want a mental escape.

As I sat in the jury assembly room, then the courtroom gallery and finally the jury box, I was surprised to find that what started as a stranger-in-a-strange-land feeling quickly gave way to a this-land-is-your-land-this-land-is-my-land feeling and has been winding its way around my mind all week, drawing ever more emphatic circles around a no-man-is-an-island feeling.

Now my job a a juror hasn't been much at all like my job as a parent, or as a teacher. But in each of these cases the stakes are high, the facts often elusive, and perspective can be hard to find -- let alone hold. Many days, in all of these settings, the only thing I am completely certain about is my presence. I show up. I do not often shirk, or wince, and I only rarely run screaming from a room. A lot of the time, I even pay thoughtful attention. Still, I think it's the being there that's most important. The call and response.

It's such a common theme with parents, right?...You're having a nightmare? "I'm here." You're riding a horse? "I'm here" You're walking on a balance beam? "I'm here." You're climbing high on a rope web? "I'm here." You're sledding down a snowy hillside? "Hey, hey, look at that -- high five!"...We parents tend to be there. A lot. Because we want to be? Absolutely. Because our children want us to be? Of course. Because we might feel guilty otherwise? Sure. Because safety, common sense and sometimes even the law requires it? That, too.

But you know why else? You know why we I think we ALL do it -- why we all respond to the call of other living creatures? Because in those moments of being there for someone or something else -- and sometimes only for those moments -- it is possible to know, without question, that we are not each in this world alone. We are in it unequivocally together. Which means it is always possible, if you listen closely enough, that there is someone else somewhere saying: "You need me? I'm here."

That Smell

The temperature has hovered near freezing in San Francisco for the past few days. The skies are dark, wet, and -- I don't know -- heavy somehow. Perfectly appropriate, given that it's the middle of winter, but bleak just the same.

I think I would like to lay in bed and read until spring. But I bet that would actually be really boring. Unless Django was sure to interrupt me every now and again with a particularly radiant little nugget of chatter, like he did the other morning.

This distinctly enjoyable wake-up call started much the same as they all do when they happen before 5a: "Mama...(many minutes pass)...MAAAma...(more minutes)... MAAAMAAA...(now just down to one minute)...Mama?" By the time I finally arrived in his bed, Django had a whole list of complaints. "Mama, my sippy cup is empty." Yes, because you drank it. I'll get you more to drink at a more decent hour. "Mama, I can't find my stuffed friend in the covers." Here she is. "Mama, the night-light clock isn't glowing green." That's because it's not time to wake up yet. "Mama, I don't like that smell."

Hmmmm...hadn't heard that one before. So I gamefully sniffed the air. It seemed fine to me. What smell? "That smell when I stick my finger in my booty and then I smell it."

Oh, right, that smell.

Well, why did you stick your finger in your booty and smell it? "I don't know!" The hand sanitizer is right by your Elmo potty, you know. "Will that take away the smell?" Kind of. But if you don't like that smell you just shouldn't stick your finger up your booty and smell it. "Ok." Think you can sleep a little more? "Yeah." Me, too.

Winter Blues be damned.

Boo!

I have no earthly idea how it got to be the middle of December. But I'm going to go ahead and blame my personal time warp on Halloween. I know it doesn't sound like something that would demand much thought, but I really got stuck this year on the whole concept of: "Boo!"

OK, not that, strictly speaking, because "Boo!" is pretty darned clear cut. That's the kind of surprise that jumps out from behind a closet door, costumed or not, and scares the bejeezus out of you. But this year it was "Boo!" that got me thinking about all the other kinds of surprises there are. I mean, seriously, shouldn't somebody have delineated them by now? Forget the 300 Eskimo words for snow -- or whatever the number actually is -- and the befuddling array of synonyms for the words good, bad, and sad. The lexicon for surprise is woefully under-developed.

Think about it.

There should definitely be a specific word for the surprise of seeing someone whose name you know you should remember but absolutely do not. There should also be a specific word for the surprise of a strong feeling -- whether it's a feeling of outrage at an unjust parking ticket or one of unspeakable gratitude that sneaked up on you while you were riding warmly, safely in your car to work in the rain. Or the surprise of a stranger's kindness, or a friend's hostility.There are SO many kinds of surprise...pregnancy, cancer, care packages in the mail. The list goes on and on and on.

But, given the lack of vocabulary to adequately describe it, I'm not at all surprised I've fallen into a situation that's left me rather speechless, lo these many months. So, I'm just going to spit it out now, as unartfully as necessary...

A little over a year ago, I met a smart, sexy, athletic, melodic, witty, adventuresome, mature, communicative, hard-working, fun-loving, child-friendly, stable and caring man -- named Joel -- here in San Francisco, who was then 41, single, never been married and had no children of his own. That, in itself, was plenty surprising. Since then, all kinds of other surprising things have happened, including but not limited to the fact that he grew to deeply love both Django & me. As of Halloween, we began living all together in a surprisingly cozy but also surprisingly expensive place on Coleridge St. where we seem to be settling into a surprisingly cohesive little family. "Boo!" just doesn't capture the sensation, you know?



Now, as aforementioned, it's the middle of December. I have completely lost track of time. And, yet, I also haven't missed a moment of it...If any of you have ideas for better words to describe such a myriad of surprises, I'm all ears.

Nature Boy

Nature Boy
by Eden Ahbez

There was a boy,
a very strange,
enchanted boy

They say he traveled
very far, very far,
over land and sea

A little shy,
and sad of eye,
but very wise was he

Then one day,
one magic day,
he passed my way

And while we spoke of many things,
fools & kings,
this he said to me

The greatest thing
you'll ever learn,
is just to love
and be loved
in return














I don't know anything about Eden Ahbez, nor of whom he was thinking when he wrote this song in 1947, but I know I've been singing a wobbly, a cappella, version of it to Django since he was in utero. It's a short, rather haunting, melody -- and now a jazz standard -- that doesn't at all match the joyful and carefree exuberance of these particular images. But somehow, they both take me to the same heartfelt place.

Things We Don't Understand and Are Definitely Not Going to Talk About (Yet)

Wow. September has been a hard month.

It has reminded me of an event I attended long ago with Miranda July at the helm. It was a performance art piece at Theater Artaud, with a long, slow, audience-infused story about a couple and an adopted cat. There was a lot of bittersweetness in it, so much sadness, too. I have wished, a number of times, that I could remember the exact script of the after-piece. Bic lighters had been hidden under the seats of the guests, and in complete darkness at the end we were asked to answer the most intimate of questions with just a flicker of yes, or no. Thinking back, the only question I am certain was asked was whether we had met the love of our lives. I really can't remember whether I flicked yes or no, I can only remember now that the question gave me -- and, no doubt, much of the audience -- great pause.

I'm pretty sure, if I were asked the same question in the same dark room today, I would flick my lighter confidently. I would tell you, if you asked, that Django is absolutely, unequivocally, and never-endingly the love of my life. And it would be true, in so many senses, that it would be virtually indisputable.

But that exact question is not at all what has been drawing my mind back to that night with Miranda July, oh so long ago. It's the memory of the pause. It's the imperative of the pause. The uncomfortable realization that we sometimes need questions, circumstances, even answers to get so big that there is nothing we can do in the face of them except pause. Think. Reflect. Feel.

And, yet, keep on keeping on.