Tonight Charlie Brown and the Great Pumpkin was on.

I always try to watch any of the holiday children specials such as Rudolph, Frosty the Snowman, A Charlie Brown's Christmas...

These shows and others like Rikki Tikki Tavi and the Wizard of Oz held for a long time a special magic for me.

But the further I got removed from that magical time that is childhood the less I could feel.

It was like I use to watch from inside the set and with each passing year, I sat further and further away.

In college, I watched them with my roommate Erika. She came into my life my sophmore year - at a much needed time. She was content to stay in a weekend night to simply make popcorn and watch tv. It would take me almost a decade later to achieve her ability to simply let a weekend go. You see, for me, staying in on a weekend night was a troubling anxiety-filled experience. You see, for many years, I was looking for something, and I thought I'd find that something in finding that someone. So a night in for me meant I could be missing that one opportunity fate was handing me to meet "the man of my dreams".

I did not stay in very many weekend nights with Erika, and when I did it wasn't very often trouble free. But maybe fate sent me (or was trying to send me Erika if I would just stay home enough nights) to introduce me, get me feet wet, start me on the path to the possiblity of letting go.

Anyways, one night (and maybe it was a weekday night) I remember watching Rodolph with her. I mention this now, because it was the last time I remember watching it with that inside-the-set feeling. The story of Rudolph, the misfit toys, the Adominible Snowman, Rudolph's girlfriend, the elf who wanted to be a dentist, the guy looking for gold, the snowman who narrates at the begining and end, all came out like a fog filling our crowded college living room,
moving over our misfit furniture, and covering the windows like a film transcending the snow that was falling from a dark sky whirling and floating like magic. Transcending me.

But as I said, over the years, I felt further and further away from these special childhood shows. And there was a time in my life, I wouldn't bother to watch them at all. I couldn't muster up any feeling for them. I may have been too bitter.

So tonight, I sat on our new couch, nursing my daughter, with my feet up watching the opening scene as Lucy and I- can't-remember-his-name pick out a large pumpkin.

I tried. But I felt like I was admiring a famous painting in a museum. I could appreciate the graphic art, the artistic style, and the writing. That's all.

My daughter fell asleep after I changed her. I ended up on the computer reading WDC blogs glancing occassionly at Charlie Brown. I did though like having it on. It was like background music - the same way I like the sound of a baseball game to remind me of summertime and my father. But I wasn't transcended.

It was later when I was rocking my daughter and listening to her lullaby cd that I thought about Erika and those long ago troubling weekends. What was that thing I was looking for?

One particular song, The Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairies , started me thinking about the answer. If you've heard the The Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairies , you may catch its childhood magic.

I thought about how this song, written by an adult, could only have been written with children in mind, and it so perfectly captured a child's imagination. The notes let us know effortlessly that there is something magical going on.
The notes seem magical in themselves.

And I thought that some adults such as Tchaikovsky must be a lot close to that tv set than I was.

Maybe, in a few years or so, through my daughter's eyes, Rudolph will become for me what it once was. Or, at least, as close as we adults can get.


And in thinking this, I began thinking more about what that something I was looking for all those years - what it really was. I thought I was looking for a boyfriend or a husband. But it was what he represented.

I think it is possible that for many of us we mourn our childhood, or that we miss being a child. There is a way of perceiving and experiencing the world that gets lost once childhood is left behind.

And we miss that feeling of home and family.

I spent my twenties living vicariously through my sister who was married with two small children.

I spent my twenties and early thirties worrying that I would never have a family of my own.

It hit me hardest at Christmas time. Because Christmas is the one holiday, that for me, still holds that childhood magic. I don't even think that magic has diminshed any. It's changed, but it hasn't lessened.

So I'd stand in in church Christmas Eve and feel a deeps sense of loss that I wasn't married, that I didn't have chidren.

It would actually start in the beginning of December. I would find myself being dragged closer to memories of my childhood, and feel loss and a sense of urgency that intensified with each passing year, untill it hit a plateau where I learned to let it (the worry and anxiety) go.

As much as I like being an adult, I don't think I ever willingly left childhood. And maybe I am not alone in mourning it.

Other people must get strong emotions at parades, watching fireworks, birthdays, looking at a lit-up Christmas Tree, certain commercials...

But as I said it hit a plateau, and I learned to let the anxiety and worry go.

I stayed in nights, or went out. (Thank you Erika)

I enjoyed the life that I had.


And tonight I let go again. I did not get that in-the-set feeling. That's allright.

I'll wait and see. No loss and no anxiety.

In a few years or so, I will watch it with my daughter and my boyfriend, and I will appreciate and enjoy whatever that experience brings -however, it makes me feel. However, it transcends me.



I don't think I ever willingly left childhood - untill now.


A related poem written about ten years ago:

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I spend more time reading other people's blogs than writing in my own.

Which is good. That's a recent change.

I have always been the type of writer that would rather read over and over my own writing,than read someone else's.

Maybe, I shouldn't admit that.

But I suddenly started reading everyone's blogs which got me interested in checking out their portfolios. I think I enjoy more now reading other people's poems, stories, etc, because by reading their blogs they seemed more like real people and hense their writing became more interesting to me.

The problem with reading so many blogs, and keeping up with them, is when I am done, I no longer feel like writing in my own.

Perhaps, I should write first than read second!

I've never written in this blog on a regular basis. I write when it feels right to write. Tonight it does not. It seems forced.

It's not that I haven't been met with sources of inspiration today. I have.

I could write about my daughter's wind up giraffe breaking. It no longer plays music. This discovery made me want to cry at the restaurant where we where at, and I felt an immediate compulsion to go back to Target to get another one. My boyfriend wanted to go home and take a nap. He said we'd go later. We didn't. We all napped instead. Him on the couch; me on the bed with my daughter.

I'll probably have that same going to Target compulsion tomorrow. (I worry (really worry) that there won't be any giraffes left)

I could write about our discussion (or almost arguement) about how it is important to live in a "good" town with a "good" school systen to have your children succeed.

I could write about how I worry about that I'll end up in some "good" town with a "good" school system that does not speak to me.

"Speak to me" is an expression I use a lot. Some places speak to me and some do not. Or different places say different things.

I could write (or bitch!) about him handing me the car insurance bill to pay, and the wonderment I had about how he thought I was going to pay for it.

Has he missed the fact that I am not working (outside of the home)? I have no paycheck coming in. ???????

I do however, have a job - 24hrs a day 7 days a week. I could write about that. What it feels like to always be on duty or at least on call.

I could write about the never-ending saga that is my sister. And how strange it was to read someone else's blog describing his mother who is an alcoholic, and it seems JUST like my sister. And then I read more stories and poetry about alcoholics and it makes me think how strangely and sadly fascinating that all these alcoholics can seem like exactly the same person - like clones.

My daughter woke up and I went in and shoved her pacifier back in, and then she instantly went back to sleep. I could write about the pros and cons of using a pacifier.

I am up late a lot since the baby was born. I usually go to bed arounf 3 in the morning. This is my only time when I feel as close to off-duty as I can get.

I need to start finishing short stories etc, ( and not just writing in this blog ) .

I use to smoke my way through all my short stories, essays etc.

I quite smoking when I got pregnant. and I don't want to start again for the sake of my daughter.

But oh how I miss the clarity it use to give me and the motivation.

It help that "writing feeling" to intensify and stay.

And then there was NOTHING better that rereading my completed work with a cigarette or two.


 

I've changed my daughter's bedtime routine.

We now listen to a lullaby cd (instead of our previous Native American flutes)

I change her diaper one last time as we listen ( and I sing ) to "Where's Thumbkin?"

Afterwards I let her lie on the big comfy bed looking at her stuffed giraffe and penguin. She's usually quiet for a while.

When she starts to fuss or all-out cry, we dance to some of our favorite songs.

When "Hush Little Baby" comes on we sit and and rock in the rocking chair as I sing the words to the song.

We continue rocking untill the last three "songs" on the cd which are:

-the sound of rain falling (where I put her gently in her cradle and wind up her giraffe which plays a lullably - the idea behind using the giraffe to help her sleep is that it is very portable and I can use it anytime anywhere to help her sleep).
- the sound of the womb ( where I give her cradle a push so it will rock. Sometimes we have to listen to this one more than once. I leave the room during this one)
- the sound of a heart beat ( she's usaully asleep by this point, but sometimes she cries and I go back in and put the pacifier back in or start over with the rain sound and the windup giraffe, and giving the cradle another push.)

All this probably takes about an hour , because we listen to the whole cd.

I also have an abbreviated version for when I am tired- depending upon too if she goes to sleep easily.

And there is also a longer version when she won't sleep. Sometimes those last three songs get played a lot and the giraffe is very busy!

We are on our second round so far.

My poor boyfriend probably misses the bedtime routine the two of us had had.

He goes to sleep alone each night lately, and does not see me till about three.

But we've adapted a little. He's started a new routine at three in the morning that I kinda like!



Last night I was singing along to one of the songs on the cd. It is a nice catchy tune but the words???? :

Rock a by baby on the tree top
when the wind blows the cradle will rock
when the bow breaks
the cradle will fall
and down will come baby cradle and all

My boyfriend says there is a Russian lullaby just as bad that talks about something getting the baby -either a wolf or something under the bed. I can't remember.

What's up with these scary lullabies?
 

My sister went drunk to that rehab program yesterday. She also was drunk for her appointment with DSS, and she lied to the case worker about her drinking.

I am angry with her,

but I also feel so sad for her too. My mother said that my 41 year old sister held my mother's hand tightly on the way to her appointment with the rehab place, saying over and over again, "I'm so scared."

I also resent her - and my mother.

My mother was supposed to babysit for me. She cancelled yesterday, and then cancelled for tomorrow to be with my sister.

The woman I work for called and left a message for me saying if I could talk to my mother and see if she is going to definelty commit to specific days, because twice I have called to tell her I can't work when she had been expecting me.

I am only asking my mother to babysit one day a week so I can work a little. I also like leaving my daughter with her grammy, and we all get to visit before and after.

She is, though, busy baby sitting my 41 year old sister.

I feel like she is short-changing me and my daughter.

Over the years, she has baby sat sometimes every day for my sister. She has even kept the kids for a few days when my sister stayed on vacation drinking.

I keep thinking of the story of the Prodigal Son in the bible.

From the very first time I heard it in church, I identified with the loyal son's feelings and thought the father should not have taken back so easily the son who had been so much trouble.



 

For my sister:

"Hurt", by Johnny Cash


I hurt myself today
To see if I still feel
I focus on the pain
The only thing that's real
The needle tears a hole
The old familiar sting
Try to kill it all away
But I remember everything
What have I become?
My sweetest friend
Everyone I know
Goes away in the end
And you could have it all
My empire of dirt
I will let you down
I will make you hurt
I wear this crown of thorns
Upon my liar's chair
Full of broken thoughts
I cannot repair
Beneath the stains of time
The feeling disappears
You are someone else
I am still right here
What have I become?
My sweetest friend
Everyone I know
Goes away in the end
And you could have it all
My empire of dirt
I will let you down
I will make you hurt
If I could start again
A million miles away
I would keep myself
I would find a way

( I copied these lyrics off of ( L.E.Monster 's blog entry. When reading them yesterday, I was so struck by them as I had been thinking so much of my sister. I imagine this is exactly how she feels.)


 

I have a new calendar that hangs in our kitchen.

I have filled in birthdays, anniversaries, and special dates.

But what strikes my most right now is the doctor's appointment I have written down for my daughter, Anastasia.

I use to, a long time ago, look at my sister's calendars, hanging up in her kitchen. Her calendar would be filled with appointments for the kids. She was married then. Her kids were young, she seemed very happy, and she seemed to be enjoying motherhood.

I was single then and envied her kid-filled calendar.

My sister divorced about three years ago. She still keeps calendars in her kitchen. The kids' soccer games, doctor appointment, school functions, would be written down, but it wasn't the same.

My sister had become an alcoholic. Well, to be honest, she probably was one all along. But after the divorce, her alcoholism changed taking on a life of its own.

I don't know what's on my sister's calendar now, because we are not speaking. Two Thursday's ago, I got a phone call from my niece who was very sad.

Her mother had locked her out of the house again. She was outside on her cellphone sitting in her mother's car.

After discussing the situation with my niece and a friend of mine who is a reformed alcoholic, I called the police on my sister.

I didn't want her driving. My niece had soccer practice later on. And my niece had said that her mother was planning on driving to pick up her brother.

Based on what they witnessed when they arrived, the police filed a report with DSS.

Things moved very quickly.

My niece's school counselor got involved as well.

Last week the kids stayed at my brothers. Yesterday, they were picked up by their father. They will be staying with him.

My sister lost her kids.

And if she can't sober up, she may never get them back.

She's home alone clinging and seeking comfort from my brother's big yellow labrador, named Sam, that he left with her when he took the kids.

My mother was over there tonight and found a large bottle of vodka that was almost empty in her bathroom.

My mother said that my sister didn't even know that my mother and father had left.

She said my sister was very confused when they were there. And while they were still there she had crawled into her bed, hugging Sam, and saying some thing to the effect of:

"I love this dog".

And she went to sleep.

Tomorrow's calendar date might say:

1:00 Go to rehab progran
3:00 DSS appointment

Today's calendar could say:

Take Sam for two walks. Try to clean the house for DSS.

That Thursday should have read:

Sleep all day depressed.

Yell and swear at my daughter when she comes home from school and wakes me up.

Give my twelve year-old daughter the finger twice when the police arrive and say,"Look, what the fuck you have done."

Tell three police officers that, "Of course I drink. My children stress me out, and I have to drink."

Loose my children today.
 

It just took three hours to get my daughter to sleep.
 

It's 4:45 am. My daughter woke up about... . Actually, I can't remember the exact time. The clock in her room is incorrect anyways. It's fast, maybe by fifteen minutes or so, and I have not bothered to fix it. A nursery, or baby's room, is just not a place where the exact time feels needed.

It's my old alarm clock that had been in my apartment. I had put it in the baby's room, because I needed a clock were I would be able to see the time easily at night in darker light. I use to write down the time and keep track of how much she breastfeed and how often she required a diaper change. Originally, the doctor had been concerned she wasn't gaining enough weight. But by my second doctor's appointment, he said the breastfeeding was all she needed. She has gained the right amount of weight. Now, I no longer write down every breastfeeding and diapering session.

Today, we took her to the lake that we use to walk around. She was carried by my boyfriend in a front carrier (Baby Bjorn). It was his turn to carry her. I like to carry her in the Baby Bjorn, because it reminds of being pregnant, and of having her inside me. But I told him it was his turn, and his eyes instantly lit up, which made me feel like I had done something good.

I told a nurse, a sweet nice nurse practitioner, in the maternity ward, on either day two or day three of my daughter's life, how I'd touch my stomache and feel sad.

The first night she spent in the nursery. They would bring her to me to breastfeed. But when she was gone, I remember feeling so sad, that my belly was empty. It seemed so strange to be lying in bed alone without that life inside. For nine months, I had carried a baby with me every I went, and slept with it inside me every night.

It was a feeling that stayed with me untill my belly started to shrink and feel just like a regular belly.

I would touch my swollen belly, feel its funny elasticity combined with softness, and notice its emptiness and its smaller size, and I would mourn for the baby that was no longer in there.

Eventhough, that baby was now able to be in my arms, I still felt a loss difficult to explain.

I mourned something that was gone. It was almost like they where two different entities. The unknown baby , the one I did not know that lived in my belly, was gone. The baby, that was all mine all alone, safe inside my belly, was now here.

I talked about it with a friend who had had a baby a year ago. She said it made sense. I was mourning a time when I had my daughter all to myself. I didn't have to share, or worry about her being out in the world.

The nurse also said it made sense. She had gone through something similiar. I was in mourning, she said, mourning a time of my daughter and I's relationship that was already gone.

And both of these things that were said to me are true.

But its more than these things too.

Pregnancy was over.

The unknown baby was gone.

She was now her own person, an individual, that I had to get to know all over again.

And I had to share and trust the world with her.



We walked by the lake and walked through the old cemeteries like we use to.

I read the inscriptions and the dates figuring out ages people died - just like I use to.

But it was different. Every tombstone had a new significance for me. The loving poems hit me harder.


I cry sometimes. It usually happens in the car. I'll think of how much I love my daughter, and I'll worry about something happening to me or to her, or I'll worry my mother, whose been so excited about her, will not live long enough or well enough to always be part of her life that way I would like her to be.

And I'll want to cry, and to panic.

One little baby, that I can now lie my eyes upon, that is not just some unknown in my belly, has made life so much more fragile. Life is now a huge responsibility.

I don't want my parents to get any older.

I never want them to die.

I want my boyfriend to live forever.

I want to live forever too with my daughter - as safe as when she was in my belly.





 

It's 1:11 am. This is now my only time to write, or to be alone.

My me time is now after I get my baby off to sleep. It can be 1:00am or 3:00am or 5:00 am.... Doing dishes, organizing, writing, making lists,...

I tried to go to bed when my boyfriend did - like we use to, talking, reading,- our together time before sleep.

But my daughter cried and cried, and it took me a long time to get her down. Which was stressful because I felt like this little tiny infant was so incredible loud - too loud for my sleeping boyfriend and neighbors. I kept telling her to shush. ( and rocking, walking, singing,...)

But finally she slept. And as seen as I had already missed out on going to bed with him - as he was already asleep, I decided to get on the computer instead and do some writing and have some me time -where I can feel like the old me ( pre-mother)

She is three weeks and two days old, and she's pretty amazing.
 

Its five in the morning. I just finished getting my daughter back to sleep. At least, I hope so. But I am on the computer close by ready to move quickly if the sound of crying starts up. I don't entirely trust that sleep has really overtaken her. But as her mutterings and moans have seemed to have quieted down, I think of going back to bed. But just as I think that I hear her cry slightly. Will this by an isolated sound or the wind-up, the prelude, to an all-out cry?

My boyfriend worked late tonight,and when he got home, I could not even look him in the eye. He tried to look into my face.

I did not look at him, so I do not know what he saw in the face I was tryng to hide.

So he went quietly away and watched tv. And I lied in bed knowing, I had put a man in a bad mood who had already had a very long and stressful day.

But I told myself that being alone with a three-week-old from eight in the morning till eleven at night was a lot for him to expect. (Eventhough this was not true, my parents had visited and I had gone to visit a friend.) But this is what I told myself still as I ruined the good mood he came him in dissapating his happy greeting.

There was another voice that popped up in my head. It kept saying that a man who is now a member of a family should not be getting home at 11 o'clock at night. It wanted me to say this to him.

But I was just tired really. So tired, and I just wanted my baby to go to sleep easily, so I could just sleep.