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All day the noise and smells from the roadwork behind my house assault my brain. Drilling, scraping, jackhammering, dumping, steamrolling, beeping. This has been going on for many months. They say it will be finished by the end of this year. Then the construction in our condo complex will make its way onto our block. The front porch of the house above ours is tilting downward. Sagging? Can concrete sag? To prevent the sudden collapse of the concrete onto our heads as we walk out of our front door, they installed two thick poles that frame our front door and theoretically hold up the dispirited concrete. Later, they added poles running diagonally from the front of our house to the cement stairs we walk down to reach our house. These poles prevented us from walking directly to our next door neighbor’s house. Instead we have to walk up our stairs and down theirs to get to the door that’s maybe six feet away from ours. More recently they installed large sheets of plywood next to our door and the neighbor’s door, and began to dig a hole through what was the walkway between them. I don’t know what the hole is for. It’s been there for months now.
At night the noise from within my head keeps me awake. Until the last couple years, falling asleep came easily to me, and I could do it under almost any circumstances. Now, the tiny blinking light from a digital device, the gurgle of the toilet running downstairs, the smell of my own sweat will keep me awake. As many nights as not I have to move to a different room because my husband is snoring. We’ve shared a bed for 21 years and I’m sure he didn’t just start snoring this year, but I’m no longer able to ignore it. He says I snore too, which may be true but he manages to sleep anyway.
Of course it’s not just the external stimuli that keep me awake. It’s also the trickster commonly called perimenopause. If you’re a woman my age and you’re experiencing almost any vexing symptom, it’s likely perimenopause. And it feels impossible to extricate the anxiety from hormonal roller coaster. It’s all in there, swirling around like ratatouille or risotto in my head, convincing me that it requires vigilance and constant attention, lest something boil over or burn.
Meanwhile, in my husband’s brain, insidious and mean-spirited demons, also known as glioblastoma, are at work. He is battling them with daily chemo pills and 30 doses of radiation, which surprisingly feels like nothing. He is feeling fine so far, after weeks of worrying that treatment would knock him out. I am holding my breath, wondering when the other shoe will drop. He is not working, which is understandably confusing for him. He’s had to work for the past three decades. Instead, he is making new friends. Our people have shown up for us in beautiful and powerful ways. Friends signed up to drive him to the hospital every day for radiation. Friends are coming over to play cribbage with him. Friends are taking him to his favorite park. Some of these folks he already knew. Some of them I knew but he had never met. Some of them were, honestly, just acquaintances or friends of friends or people on Facebook who we met 20 years ago, but now they’re real friends, because they are showing up.
My husband is an introvert. He cares about people and he cultivates relationships with people he volunteers and works with, and he is incredibly kind. But he’s often struggled in social situations where he feels like he isn’t being heard, or that his presence isn’t valued. Now, everyone tells him frequently and explicitly that he matters, that he is valued, and that they want the best for him and want to spend time with him and want to be of help. If only it didn’t take a life-threatening diagnosis to make this happen. In ordinary circumstances, it would likely be perceived (by many people, if not all) as awkward or odd to post on social media that you’re looking for good people to do fun things with your husband. But in this situation, it’s all good. He has often wondered (and worried) about what his legacy is, and if he’s made a difference in the world. Now he’s gotten hundreds and hundreds of affirmations and confirmations that his existence and his actions and simply his compassion and kindness have been known and felt and will have ripple effects far into the future.
While he was in the hospital, I embarked on some kind of fever pitch Marie Kondo quest to get rid of stuff from our house. We’ve always had a lot of clutter and I have always—constantly—steadily tried to purge things whenever possible. But this time around I was possessed by this fervor. Friends and family came over and helped me make decisions, organize, and physically remove junk from my house so I didn’t have to worry about it. Bags and boxes went to Goodwill. Bags and boxes were posted on Buy Nothing. I delivered donations to people I thought could use them. I cleaned, I consolidated, I threw away so much crap. Almost all of those piles of “we’ll figure this out later” are gone now. Not that our house is spotless or minimalist now, but I do feel a sense of relief that our existence is less crowded. It’s possible I thought that getting rid of all the unneeded physical stuff would also empty my mind of unnecessary garbage. And maybe in some way it did. Because something had to go to make room for the currently consuming thoughts of scheduling appointments and seeking support and following medication regimens, on top of the regularly scheduled concerns about parenting, paying bills, and that oft-mentioned and elusive “self-care” that I hear so much about. I went to the dentist today and learned that one of my teeth that already had a filling now has a cavity on its side so I will need a crown (or possibly a root canal!) and we’ve maxed out our dental insurance benefit. Does this count as self-care? Technically, I’m caring for myself, but it wasn’t terribly fun. I’ll keep working on that. Oh—I’m going to see live music tonight with friends. Much more pleasant than a root canal.
Between the time I started writing this and now, the noise has stopped. The construction workers have gone home for the day. The wind that’s been blowing leaves around has stilled. I’ll try to follow suit and allow my brain to quiet down as well. At least for a little while.
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The night before we drove to Georgia to take my daughter to college, we stayed with my cousin and his family, which includes a clever and adorable toddler. While Zoe had never met the little guy until that night, coming off her summer as a camp counselor and years of babysitting gigs, they became fast friends. Around 4am, I heard Mr. Toddler crying and wanted to give his parents a break and tend to him. He was happy to have a new diaper and I tried to get him back to sleep, but he was not having it. He raced into the living room and I assumed he was heading for his parents’ bedroom. Instead, he veered toward the air mattress where Zoe was sleeping. I tried a few times to scoop him up and redirect him back to his room or just onto the couch with me, but he was insistent on being with Zoe. He snuggled up with her, she curled her arm around him, and they both fell back asleep.
Naturally, I took this as a sign. Here was my baby girl–preparing to make her own way in the world–and instead of seeking comfort, she was providing it to someone else much younger and more vulnerable than she is. Of course, it’s not quite that simple, but it made for a nice metaphor and a sweet photograph.
It’s been two weeks now since we moved Zoe into her freshman dorm. I have reminded myself 1,000 times that Zoe’s experience in college will be different from mine. Our personalities and ways of being in the world are distinct. No one had smartphones or even email or the internet when I started college. Her college–which I think is exactly right for her–emphasizes different values and opportunities than mine did (at least at the time). And, humans are still human and the mix of emotions and desires and fears and aspirations remain the same. I’m so excited to be on my own and I’m terrified to be on my own. I can’t wait to meet new people and make new friends but the ones I have already are so good why do I need others and what if people don’t like me and what if they do and who do I want to be in this place? What if I don’t know what to do? What if I make a mistake? Am I ready for this? This is all so different from what I’m used to and there’s so much to take in–when will I be able to relax and feel like this is home? But I already have a home 600 miles away. Big sigh.
I’m pretty sure all these questions have been swirling around in Zoe’s mind, even though she’s only articulated some of them to me. And while I am absolutely confident that Zoe has what she needs to thrive in college, I have all the correlating parent concerns. Zoe is great at making friends and has demonstrated that in particular throughout the years she’s been a camper and camp counselor. She proved at camp that she can learn new skills and excel at new responsibilities. She’s overcome homesickness and learned from mistakes. She’s planned and taken trips with friends, she knows how to cook, and she’s handled more than her share of car breakdowns. So there is no doubt in my mind that she can do this. It’s more about the how and when. How will she find her people and how long will it take ? Thankfully, she already has a fantastic roommate who she met on Instagram over the summer (which apparently is how many college kids match with roommates these days). Having a great roommate is an ideal foundation, but you can’t put all your social eggs in one person’s basket. Will she take advantage of the opportunities offered to her? Will she go after things that might be outside her comfort zone without me there to encourage her? Will she ask for help when she needs it instead of struggling in silence? Specifically, will she ask for help from people who aren’t me?
This was the primary focus of the day-long family orientation we participated in the day after moving Zoe into her dorm and taking her on what seemed like the 77th Target run of the week. While the students engaged in their own orientation activities, Randy and I heard from deans and department heads and staff and students about all the ways the college works to educate our kids, enable them to become leaders, and teach them to become global citizens (all while providing emotional, social, and physical support and care). Just as life for students is different than it was 30 years ago, so is life for parents. I’ve heard from friends who are college professors and admissions staff the absurd lengths that some parents go to once their children are enrolled to make sure their needs are met–unwilling or unable to let or make their kids figure things out for themselves. (“My child is sick, can someone please bring them some chicken soup?” “I see that it’s raining there, can someone at the school give my child an umbrella?”) So the orientation was provided so anxious parents would know what’s what and how things work, so when our kids inevitably ask us for help or tell us they don’t know what’s going on or how to do what they’re supposed to do, we can tell them with certainty that there’s someone or some office that they can visit. This was a common refrain throughout the orientation sessions, “If you student says they don’t/can’t/haven’t/are confused about something, your job is not to try to fix the problem, or to call us. Your job is to tell your student, ‘Ask your advisor/RA/professor/dean/any of the people at the college whose job is to help you.'”
Two of the deans who we heard from were especially kind and reassuring in their words to us. It was clear they weren’t chastising us for wanting to help our kids. It’s our Mama (or Papa or Auntie or Grandma or Grandpa, etc) Bear instinct. We never want to see our kids struggling or in pain, so we want to make whatever is troubling them go away as fast as possible. Turns out that college is a lot like preschool in some ways. It takes longer and a lot of patience to get your kids to learn to find and put on their own shoes and coat than when you do it for them, but if you do it for them, what incentive do they have to learn to do it themselves? Some kids might decide they want the autonomy, and some kids won’t. I suspect that college will be like preschool sometimes in that I won’t always be able to stop myself from trying to solve a problem instead of encouraging Zoe to solve it herself, but I promise I’m going to try.
The Dean of the College shared in her remarks that she is the mother of a college student herself, and that last year her daughter was a freshman at a college far away from home. Her daughter called to say she was sick–congested, coughing, and generally feeling awful. Often when you feel like that, you just want your mom. And the dean was ready to get on a plane. She said she even had the flight selected on the computer when she called her friend –the other dean–and asked if she should go take care of her daughter. The answer, unsurprisingly, was no. The daughter was not in grave danger–she had a yucky virus. The Mama Dean took some deep breaths and closed her laptop. And it turned out her daughter’s roommates were happy to go to the store to get her some medicine, chicken soup, and gatorade. Her daughter’s professors understood why she missed a couple classes and she was able to make up her assignments. And most importantly, both daughter and mom knew that daughter had made it through being sick far away from home and felt better knowing it. When the dean was telling this story, I started to tear up. I really hadn’t cried the day before–there was so much to be done and so much adrenaline and I didn’t have to say goodbye to Zoe yet–but right then, hearing from Mama Dean, my emotion started to leak out. After that session I went up to Mama Dean to thank her for sharing that story and she said she saw me there in the second row tearing up and that she knew exactly what I was feeling. That was one of the many moments during those two days when I knew that Zoe would be well looked after.
I didn’t realize how soon after hearing these wise words from the college staff that I would have to challenge myself to follow their instructions.
“I got an email from the professor of the class I was on the waitlist for. I didn’t really understand what she was asking us to do and it seems hard and I don’t know what to do should I just drop the class? “
“Why don’t you email the professor and ask her your questions directly?”
“I shouldn’t just drop the class?”
“Well, you could, but I think it would be better if you asked the professor your questions in case you want to take the class or another class from her in the future, so you can get a better understanding of what she’s doing.”
Zoe did email the professor, got more information, and decided she would like to take the class in the future but didn’t feel ready for it yet, which she told the professor. Other questions, “What should I do this weekend? I don’t know anything that’s going on and I don’t know what anyone is doing.” were trickier to answer. I admit I offered some combination of “ask around, look around, what about x or y?” but was met with some resistance. Eventually Zoe said some friends were going thrifting after seeing a movie, and she wanted to go thrifting but not see the movie, and she didn’t know how to accomplish that. At the moment I was tired and I texted, “I trust that you will figure it out.” And lo and behold, she did. She has skipped a few of the activities where I thought she might meet people, but she swore she would attend the student engagement fair tomorrow. I asked her to promise me that she would talk with people at at least four tables and sign up for at least two things. She said she would. I am optimistic.
Meanwhile, she’s been doing her homework. She is excited about her professors and the readings. All her classes are subjects she is genuinely curious about and interested in. I am trying not to ask her too many questions about what she’s doing in class, but am always happy to engage when she brings it up. I learned long ago that I tend to ask more questions than most teenagers (or at least Zoe) are interested in answering. I’m a work in progress. Zoe’s called several times. I’ve learned that if I’m in the middle of something I can text her back to ask if it’s urgent. Usually it’s not and she says I can call her back later. I did pick up right away when she called to tell me about Taylor Swift’s and Travis Kelce’s engagement. Some news just can’t wait.
Even though she was away most of the summer working at camp, this feels different–because it is. I know she’s coming home for a weekend in October, and then for Thanksgiving and winter break. But knowing just how far away she is and everything she’s working to figure out–and how much energy that requires–it’s hard to be the Mama Bear right now. She’s been right here with me for 18 years and suddenly she’s not. My heart hurts.
Some people are more private about their emotions and their family life, which I respect. I tend to share (some might say overshare, but oh well) because I need the solidarity and affirmation and encouragement that my community provides. A couple days ago I posted on Facebook about overwhelming feelings of anxiety brought on by a variety of things, including Zoe’s absence. The responses I received were reassuring and comforting. In particular, a friend of mine from church who has two grown daughters of her own, said this: “Remember that you are with Zoe – as cells created in your body, as a lifetime of wise actions you modeled, and as loving words that will follow her the rest of her days. And she resides in your heart.” Rereading it now makes the tears come again.
Zoe gives me long, emphatic hugs. When we said goodbye the night before we left Georgia, I thought she might hold on forever. I was a little teary then, but I was proud of myself for keeping the sobs in until we were far away from her dorm. As she continues on her college adventure, I’ll be here to listen to–and try not to solve-her problems. And I’ll look forward to that hug when she comes home.
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Dear World,
Apparently some other voters elected this unfathomably cruel, heartless, short-sighted, ignorant individual to the White House. It’s hard for me to understand why they did this. I voted for Kamala Harris.
Nevertheless, not only my family and friends and many people I know, but millions more who I don’t know are being or will soon be directly and egregiously harmed by the likely illegal actions of the administration in its first two weeks alone. People’s lives will be irrevocably changed. People are going to suffer. People are going to die. Not just liberals or immigrants or queer people, but millions of innocent people across the United States and around the world who are (in many cases unknowingly) being targeted by the dangerous and destructive policies this administration is implementing.
What’s happening is heartbreaking and gut-wrenching. We cannot let this man or his enablers break us. We cannot let them win. It is clear they intend to throw everything they possibly can in our faces until they beat us down. We have to stand tall, and when we fall, help each other up. There’s no panacea for this insipid sickness. There ARE a lot of humans out there committed to doing good in their communities and in the world. There ARE a million little things we can to do care for each other, support people who are doing the hard work, do what we can when we can, and step back and rest when we need to, because that’s just as important.
We are sailing in rough waters through a violent storm. Hold on. Hold on to each other. Cry when you need to cry. Laugh when you can laugh. Find ways to keep creating, building, sheltering, protecting, uplifting, singing, listening, learning, teaching, nurturing, giving, imagining, caring, loving. We need all the energy we can muster. Let your righteous indignation and your holy anger fuel your work. And remember to breathe. We’re going to need stamina for this fight. And snacks. Don’t give up.
If you need me, let me know. If I need you, I will do the same. We need each other to survive. And we will. Together.
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Yesterday I had the privilege of leading the service at UUCA with my friend and fellow worship associate Tommy Lo, featuring insightful reflections from Amy Dryer and Roberta Finkelstein, all on the theme of genuine invitations. Also great music from our new music director, David Mann. We heard people were moved to tears, so we did our job. 🙂 Click the video above to watch the service.
Here is my reflection from the service:
Last week my 11-year-old and I received an unexpected invitation. Our poet friend Regie Cabico called to ask if Niki and I would write poems for an event celebrating the freedom to read. We met Regie last year when he taught a poetry unit to Niki’s class, which unleashed the poet in Niki who we had previously never met. Niki actually won the inaugural poetry slam at their school, and was a finalist in the UU Congregation of Sterling’s poetry slam, where all the other poets were adults, including me.
The Celebration of Reading event was designed to clap back at the rising tide of book bannings, especially books by and about queer people, people of color, people with disabilities, and other identities that are unfathomably threatening to those who love censorship. Apparently some of these folks also feel threatened by great soccer players and cows. One of the books on the table was a little golden book about Argentinian soccer star Lionel Messi. Was it banned by soccer fans who preferred Real Madrid to Barcelona, where Messi spent most of his career? Another banned book was Click Clack Moo: Cows that Type, a long-time favorite in our family, about farm animals who find a typewriter and demand upgrades in their accommodations from the farmer. Perhaps those who want to ban this book fear an uprising from cows who might read it?
Anyway, Regie wanted Niki and me to write about how books have shaped our identities and changed our lives. In my poem I wrote about Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret, and thanked Judy Blume for unlocking the mysteries of puberty. I wrote about The Color Purple and thanked Alice Walker for teaching me the universality of tenderness and tenacity. I wrote about The Hate You Give and thanked Angie Thomas for replacing headlines with humanity and empathy.
And I wrote about books featuring queer characters that have opened the world for my family. Here’s one short passage from my poem, about a book called Sir Callie and the Champions of Helston.
Thank you to Esme Symes-Smith
for bringing Callie into our lives.
I’ve never had a wish to be a knight of the realm
or a princess in the palace,
but I have never felt more seen than
reading about how Callie’s dad did his best
to fight for his nonbinary would-be knight
to claim their power
in the old-fashioned
heteronormative kingdom of Helston.
In Niki’s poem, they wrote about times they were criticized for disrupting gender stereotypes, long before they came out as nonbinary. And they wrote about Magnus Chase and the Gods of Asgard, a series by Rick Riordan, which includes a character named Alex Fierro who identifies as gender fluid. Niki wrote that they always knew they were different, but they didn’t have the language to describe how they felt until they read Alex Fierro’s words explaining how they weren’t just a boy or just a girl.
Niki and I read the Magnus Chase books together the summer between their second and third grade years. I had no idea when we started reading them that gender identity would be a major theme in the books, which are largely based on Norse mythology. Although I’ve since learned there is a lot of gender expansiveness in Norse mythology, so it makes sense. I am thankful to Rick Riordan for creating Alex Fierro and giving my kid the vocabulary to articulate their identity.
In the years since Niki came out, I have spent a lot of time educating myself about gender and sexuality and making sure that my kid is surrounded by people who support them and embrace their identity, and the resources they need to grow up healthy and confident as their unique awesome self. When we invite young people to be themselves, we have to actually mean it. We owe it to them to do everything in our power to ensure that their schools and teams and troops and congregations and all the environments they’re in are willing and able to show them they are perfect just as they are.
I also try to make sure other families have the information and connections they need to support their LGBTQIA+ kids. That’s why my friend Tracey and I started a covenant group a few years ago for parents of gender-expansive kids. And why we created QA2: Queer and Questioning, Awareness and Acceptance–an event for LGBTQIA+ young people and their families last year. At last year’s gathering we invited dozens of community organizations to participate so kids and their families could see what resources are available, ask questions, and make connections. We invited a fantastic panel of queer individuals and advocates to speak about their experiences and offer advice.
This year, we’re doing it again, but bigger and better. We’re going to have workshops on gender-affirming care, legal issues, and queer futures. We’re going to have vendors who offer products and services that specifically meet the needs of queer young people. This event is open to the public and we hope to have hundreds of folks from across the DMV coming through our doors, knowing they will be 100% welcomed and supported by everyone we’ve invited to be here.
Which brings me to my invitation to you. We have some fierce mama bears organizing this year’s QA2, but we still need help. If you have connections to LGBTQIA+ friendly service providers, we want to hear about them. If you are part of an LGBTQIA+ organization, we want to hear from you. And even if you don’t have any of these connections, or even know any queer youth, but you want to help, we will absolutely find a job for you. We need people to help organize, and also folks to help with logistics on the day of the event–October 5. If you have any questions or suggestions or want to volunteer, I invite you to talk with me after the service or email me. If you go to the church website and search for QA2 you can find the address to contact me directly.
Like I said before, when we invite someone to come out, we’ve got to make sure they’re coming out into a safe and welcome space. I invite all of us to create that space, and protect it fiercely and unapologetically. May it be so.
Throughout the service we talked about different kinds of invitations. And we created some actual invitations for folks to take with them when they left the service. We invited everyone to take an invitation of their choice for themselves, or for someone else, or both. Accept the invitation, we said, and see what happens. Here are the pages of cards that we cut up and offered to everyone.
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Instead of taking a last day of school photo, I’m tracking Zoe’s progress toward Central Virginia using the Find My Friends app on my phone. I take a screenshot when I see she’s arrived, her photo floating above the trees at the summer camp where she’ll be working as a counselor for the next 10 weeks. To prepare for this, we went to Costco for sunscreen, bug spray, socks, and other supplies. We ordered rain boots, a jacket, a rainbow of $6 tank tops, and her favorite hair product online. We emptied her trunk–originally purchased for her first time at camp in 2015 and still in astonishingly good shape–and filled it with carefully labeled and rolled-up t-shirts and shorts stuffed into gallon-sized Ziplock bags. We dug out of the closet her camp backpack, which still contained items from last summer, including a sock she’d been looking for everywhere. Last night I filled her tank with gas and this morning I ordered Starbucks for her to pick up at 6:30am on her way out of town.
I have done everything I can to make things easier for her, so she can go out and do hard things on her own.
She’s already done an admirable amount of adulting this year. She navigated junior year with challenging classes and two part-time jobs (three if you count occasional gigs babysitting for a family with three kids and a dog). She learned how expensive gas is (and therefore why it’s important to look for the cheapest gas) and how to get her car serviced and inspected on her own. She’s done banking and cooking and traveling out of state without her family and now she’s driven 90-some miles by herself four times in one week. She wrote her own end-of-the-year thank you note to her English teacher. She’s visited dozens of colleges and made thoughtful decisions about where she will apply this fall, demonstrating maturity and self-awareness.
And now she’s off to work and play for the summer. When she was a younger camper, I asked a few times if she would someday want to be a counselor, and she couldn’t imagine such a grown-up responsibility. Just like when she was a young martial artist and I asked her to picture herself as a black belt and she wasn’t ready to even conceive of the challenge. But her counselors knew that she would join them eventually. They could see it in her even when she couldn’t yet see it in herself. Last weekend she went down to camp for three days of staff training. She was nervous but ready. She was worried she wouldn’t have anyone to talk to or hang out with. By the end of the third day she had already made a friend who she didn’t want to be apart from for the two days she would be home before returning to camp. Thank goodness they are reunited now.
The evolution of parenting takes you from solving all your child’s problems–once you discern what they are–for them to figuring out, one by one, which problems they are ready to take on themselves. This requires careful observation and immense amounts of patience and often guidance from other people who’ve been through it before and can see things more clearly than you can. And as they get older, paradoxically it gets harder. I’d heard that adage from older parents since my kids were small–“little kids, little problems, big kids, bigger problems,” but of course I didn’t believe it until my kids were big. Making the decisions about what decisions to let them make for themselves is actually a lot more overwhelming than changing diapers, if less smelly.
At this point I feel like most of what we can do is gently and as subtly as possible guide them toward what we think would be good paths for them to explore. We are not the type of parents to force them into anything, barring what is required by law or basic human needs. We’ve taught them everything we know (for better or for worse) and to think for themselves. We’ve also taught them that we will always unconditionally be here for them when they need us. And that we trust them to make good decisions, and know that sometimes they won’t, because sometimes we don’t, because we’re human. So hopefully we’ve taught them how to learn from their mistakes. Or at least how to pick themselves up and dust themselves off and keep going.
So this summer while Zoe is working as a camp counselor, I hope she has fun–both with the other counselors and with the kids she will work with. She probably has no idea that so many young kids will look at her as a role model, and talk about how cool she is long after they’ve gotten home from camp, and introduce their friends back home to the music that Zoe introduced them to. I hope they come to her with problems and she helps them figure out what to do, or takes them to whoever can. I hope she learns incredible things from the 70+ other counselors who are there from all over the world, and from however many campers pass through her cabin or the archery range or the arts and crafts building throughout the summer. I hope she sees and hears stories and perspectives that will change the way she thinks and that she will never forget. I hope she tries things she’s never tried before. I hope she can shake off the mistakes she makes, because I’m sure she’ll make them.
I could not be prouder of her, or more excited for what lies ahead for her this summer. And I know I’m going to miss her like crazy. Patience has never been my strong suit, but I will have no choice but to wait for her to be ready to share the stories of her adventures. I know both of us can do hard things.
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Today, for our 20th wedding anniversary, I took our kid to the library to research Megan Rapinoe and browse the cookbook section because our kid has lice and the fifth grade is complete chaos. As is often the case even though we both work from home, Randy and I saw each other in passing, sharing a quick kiss and saying “I love you” when I left the house. We’ve texted more often than we’ve spoken in person today. I am pretty sure he is upstairs right now finishing up his last work meeting of the day from his desk in the corner of our bedroom. His is not an ideal office space, but pandemic + small house = it is what it is. More often we work in the family room together. My desk is there, another space completely lacking privacy. See previous sentence. Meanwhile, Niki is in their room participating in their online book club, and Zoe is working her shift at the front desk at EvolveAll, one of her two afterschool jobs. Dinner will be a meal kit from Marley Spoon. As usual, the washer and dryer are running (today on high heat to guarantee extermination of any persistent lice). Despite our continuous folding, a new mountain of clean laundry is rising on the loveseat.
Lest you think we are completely unromantic, we will celebrate with a date at the Birchmere (one of our favorite live music venues) tomorrow night, sans kids. And, more extravagantly, we are planning a trip to Canada for this summer. This will be our first trip ever without the kids that’ll last longer than a weekend, I’m pretty sure. I am giddy with excitement as I imagine the simplicity of our decision making every time we want to eat or choose an activity for a whole week. So we will continue with our regularly (over)scheduled lives tonight and really do it up in a few months.
We have not bought each other anniversary presents for many years, although we did Google the “traditional” 20th anniversary gift. It is china. We were not interested in china when we got married and we still have no need of it. We also have no plans to visit China, or acquire it. The “modern” 20th anniversary gift is platinum. I’m not even sure what items exist that we could purchase made of platinum. Our friends suggested we dye our hair platinum blond for the occasion. Too much trouble. So I am offering the gift I know best: words.
Things I love about my husband:
- He loves and supports me unconditionally. I remember when I was growing up seeing examples of marriages (not my parents’, thankfully) in which one or both spouses frequently questioned or criticized their choices or actions, even the seemingly smallest and least significant. Our marriage includes a lot of room for mistakes. We’ve both made plenty. We try to model this grace for our kids. Randy encourages me to do what I want to do. He believes in me and reminds me that I’m awesome, and I try to do the same for him.
- He cares so much about the world and the people in it and making life better for them. In my dad’s toast at our wedding reception, my dad said the two of us exemplified the Jewish concept of Tikkun Olam, which means to repair or improve the world. For better or worse, we’re both still at it. Randy devotes a massive amount of time and energy to Tikkun Olam–through both paid and volunteer work as an advocate for economic, social, housing, and food justice. He meets with policymakers to convince them to reinstate the Child Tax Credit and expand nutrition benefits. He volunteers at our local food bank. He writes letters to the editor. He helps total strangers who find him on social media to navigate the complexities of applying for public benefits. He is writing a book. He is ready for a revolution. He has a heart that is sometimes so big it hurts.
- He loves and is moved by music as much as I am. The longer we’ve been together, the more of our musical tastes overlap, and he’s introduced me to some of my favorite artists. There are few things we love more than enjoying live music together. I can usually predict when a piece of music will make him cry. Often we seek or find different things meaningful in the music we listen to, both of us appreciate the power of music and what it means to us individually and together.
- Long, long before he was a dad, Randy was the master of the dad joke. He is a punster of the highest degree. He will never, ever, ever pass up the opportunity to make a joke. One time at the dinner table he burst out laughing seemingly apropos of nothing. After he settled down, we asked what was so funny and he said he couldn’t even remember, but he had remembered something funny from sometime and just started cracking up. I can’t imagine falling in love with someone who didn’t make me laugh. Fortunately Randy makes me laugh every day, so I’m still in love!
- Except for cribbage, with which I struggle because of the mental math, we are absurdly evenly matched at gameplay and wordplay and puzzles and we have fun matching wits. Randy is typically a bit better at strategy and looking ahead to the next move. I’m usually a bit better when speed or improvisation is involved. But give us a crossword or Bananagrams or Trivial Pursuit or just some silly rhyming thing we make up to amuse each other when we’re trying to fall asleep and not think about everything that’s wrong with the world, we’re likely to keep pace with each other until one or both of us just passes out from exhaustion.
- He is still curious and eager to learn and discover new things and people and places. Someday when we have more money and time we will travel to all the places we want to explore. Since we decided to visit Montreal, he has been dedicated to practicing French with Duolingo every day. I haven’t been nearly as disciplined. We are both always reading, writing, and putting ourselves out there in different ways to engage with the world. I can’t imagine either of us ever getting complacent, or apathetic, or bored.
- He is a wonderful dad. For a while he was convinced he wouldn’t know how to be a good dad, but he figured it out. 🙂 He loves and supports our kids unconditionally too, and encourages them to be themselves 100%. He has shared his passion for soccer with them, and they are now as devoted and knowledgable fans as he is, or maybe more. He has such a great attitude about school, and sports, and success in general and helps them to do their best without putting any pressure on them to be perfect.
- He is a phenomenal hugger.
Our wedding day was unusually hot and filled with cicadas and wonderful people and so much love. Twenty years has gone by in a flash, but also contained immeasurable joy and adventure and fun and certainly plenty of challenges. My brain is too full right now to even imagine what’s in store for the next 20, but I’m confident that love and joy and adventure and fun and wonderful people will all be in the mix. In the meantime, it’s time to make dinner. Happy anniversary, babe.
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You shared only your
smoothest prayers
sent them sailing
on the winter wind
through moonless night skies
from where you sit in the universe
to the small space
I occupy tonight
in an unfamiliar room
our momentary home
On their way
from you to me
they glided into the
open hearts of
all the gods and goddesses
who whispered them aloud
and with strong and
gentle hands
surrounded us
with love
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I feel like I’ve been holding it in all summer.
What it is I’ve been holding in, I’m not exactly sure. My breath? My thoughts? My feelings? You know when a writer holds in all those words for a long time it’s not healthy. Eventually they’re going to find a way out.
Maybe there’s an imbalance of words because I have spent so much of my time off this summer reading. I have devoured at least two dozen books. I attended the national gathering of Unitarian Universalists and absorbed ideas and songs and Pittsburgh and ate a lot of food and had a lot of conversations. I’ve returned to church and gotten back up on the chancel as a worship associate and a speaker. I’ve made new friends. I’ve eaten a lot of lunches and taken miles of walks with old friends. I’ve been rebuilding my soccer team–now known as Athena’s Arsenal! I am the only player who remains from the original Ice & Ibuprofen squad that made our debut in 2016. I&I merged last year with a team called Far Gone and we’ve had to recruit a lot of folks to build up our roster. In choosing our new name, someone suggested Tottenham Hotties (a riff on the Premiership team Tottenham Hotspurs) and I countered with Tottenham Hot Flashes, but that didn’t win. Perhaps it’s just a reflection of my personal situation. It turns out I am still not really any good at soccer and I’m not sure why I am playing other than to prove to myself that I can and to give myself the gift of two hours a week when I am not thinking about anything else even if I have to run around in circles while that happens. I am organizing an event through church called QA2: Queer or Questioning, Awareness and Acceptance to provide LGBTQIA+ kids and families with an opportunity to make connections and find resources and support. I’m still trying to teach myself to read tarot. What little I have learned so far has offered insights that given me pause and steered me in new directions with surprising confidence.
I’ve been watching my kids grow up before my eyes. It’s like time-lapse photography of their emotional maturity and ability to navigate the world. Niki can bake on their own from start to finish now after a week at baking camp. At the back-to-school open house, they brought cookies they made and gave them out to all the teachers and staff. At film camp they made a silent film–a dark and modern twist on Hansel and Gretel in which they played Gretel. They discovered a previously unknown talent for an interest in being an emcee after performing that role at the end-of-camp presentation at two different camps. They’ve made all kinds of friends at all these camps and are now immersed in various group chats and FaceTime calls. Niki earned their blue solid belt in martial arts after a long stint as a green solid and a final burst of energy and dedication that enabled them to move up. We’ve attended so many martial arts growth ceremonies and they never fail to move me to tears. Always and especially when there are those kids who struggle to break their boards long after their peers have had their new belts tied on by their instructors, I cheer the hardest. We did a bit of rearranging of their room this summer, taking down drawings they’d made during the pandemic (signed with their old name) and hanging photos of them with animals from our trip to the Houston Zoo, and pride posters, and a picture of Megan Rapinoe with the slogan “Be Proud.” And they are. They own their identity and their uniqueness 100% and I am there for it.
Zoe spent a month away from us at Camp Friendship, her home away from home. This was her eighth and final summer as a camper, and her plan is to return next year as a counselor. I remember when she was little and in martial arts and we’d be at the growth ceremony and I would ask her if she could imagine being a black belt, and for a long time she would shake her head, wide-eyed and in awe, and say no. Until one day she nodded and said yes. It’s been the same way at camp. We always asked her if she would be a counselor some day and she couldn’t see herself having that kind of responsibility, until suddenly she could. She said this summer as a camper, she imagined everything she did as if through a counselor’s eyes, and thought about what it would be like to lead little kids in the activities that she has loved learning so much herself. The first week of camp this year, she didn’t know many campers or counselors, as several of her favorite counselors had moved on to other jobs, and many of her camper friends had aged out. She wrote us saying she was homesick, but didn’t let it keep her from making the most of camp life. As more familiar faces arrived each week and she cultivated the relationships with folks she had just met, everything fell into place, as it always does. The camp has a system where parents can write emails through the parent portal and camp will print them out and give them to the campers, and campers can handwrite messages back and camp will scan them and email them to us. It’s much quicker than snail mail but eliminates the need for campers to have their phones with them at camp (which is one of my and Zoe’s favorite things about camp). I loved having the opportunity to update Zoe on the goings on of life at home (mostly boring, without her!) and hear from her about developments at camp. I wish we had some way of continuing that correspondence at home, even though we’re both in the same house. That’s one reason that I am so happy to be taking road trips with her to visit colleges. We’ve toured a bunch of colleges in Maryland and Pennsylvania and New England so far and have several more up and down the east coast on the calendar for this fall and next spring. I love claiming this time in the car with her, to listen to music and books and talk about anything and everything, and notice weird signs and unusual sights along the way, and stop at little bookstores and find cute coffeeshops with resident cats.
This fall, Niki will practice walking to and from school on their own. We’re going to teach them how to take the bus. Zoe is so close to finishing the requirements to earn her driver’s license. Then she will be given a vintage minivan by her grandparents and will be set loose on the world. We’ve discussed curfews and she has gainful employment. This morning at church it gave me so much joy to watch these four-year-old girls dancing around at the front of the sanctuary during the service. I love four-year-olds. But I don’t wish my kids were younger. Or older. I am so excited to be with them at this exact moment in their lives, where they are learning so much about themselves and about the world. Sometimes, that means seeing how people can be awful and the world is kind of a mess. But sometimes we get to fill it with cookies and music and hugs and laughter and forget about the rest of it for a while.
So I will take in a breath and remember to fully and deeply exhale. All the way from my belly up out into the world. I will take it all it, and release. Because I have to let it go so I can take another breath.
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If we want to support each other’s inner lives, we must remember a simple truth: the human soul does not want to be fixed, it wants simply to be seen and heard. If we want to see and hear a person’s soul, there is another truth we must remember: the swoul is like a wild animal — tough, resilient, and yet shy. When we go crashing through the woods shouting for it to come out so we can help it, the soul will stay in hiding. But if we are willing to sit quietly and wait for a while, the soul may show itself.
~Parker Palmer
This is a talk I shared during a Sunday service at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Arlington as part of the church’s series on the six sources of Unitarian Universalism. My writing was inspired by this source: direct experience of that transcending mystery and wonder, affirmed in all cultures, which moves us to a renewal of the spirit and an openness to the forces which create and uphold life.
For two years I spent a good chunk of my waking hours talking and writing about this church. As a member of the ministerial search committee, I met with my fellow committee members weekly, and we worked doggedly to discern what the congregation needed in a new minister. Surprise–Unitarian Universalists have a lot of opinions! Our committee had to digest, synthesize, and transform what we learned into UUCA’s church profile, an incredibly elaborate version of a job announcement. Then we spent months reviewing applications and sermons of prospective ministers. This role and its attendant responsibilities were heady–and hard–and ultimately richly rewarding. It was a privilege to serve UUCA in this capacity, and if I’m being honest, it made me feel kind of important. It’s easy for me to make the mistake that what I do for a community is more valuable than who I am.
Now, raise your hand if you were part of UUCA in any way in the spring of 2020. You may recall that, just as our committee was preparing to recommend Rev. Amanda as the candidate for our senior minister, the pandemic shut everything down. All of our plans to introduce her to the congregation, celebrate a new beginning, and enjoy the fruits of our committee’s labor were funneled online or simply forgotten in the crush of a worldwide crisis.
I know every one of you here in the sanctuary or watching online has a story like this–or a very different one. There are likely a million variations on the theme of how things changed in 2020. Now, four years later, I am still feeling the effects of those changes, for better or worse. Maybe you are too. Who knows how long the ripples will expand throughout our lives?
Church has always meant community for me. Throughout my life, community often outweighed theology in my choice of a congregation. I feel lucky to have found in UUCA a place where I feel both a sense of belonging and alignment with the tenets of the faith. From the moment I arrived at UUCA, I felt seen. I felt valued. I understood that my being here mattered.
Unfortunately, for a good portion of the years since 2020, I lost that sense of belonging, not just here, but really anywhere. Does that sound at all familiar to you? The isolation of the pandemic was soul crushing. And I am a big believer in silver linings. I love my family so much, and I am so thankful for the hours we spent playing board games, watching movies, making art, and going on hikes. But the four of us did not a whole community make. I need different kinds of people and multiple communities to nurture various aspects of my personality and my identity. All of us do.
There’s a wonderful graphic novel series called Heartstopper, which is now an amazing Netflix show, that my kids adore and introduced me to and which I love now as well. First of all, Heartstopper creator Alice Oseman does a masterful job portraying the pain and beauty of making your way as a teenager, particularly as you come into your gender identity and sexual orientation. Secondly, in book four of the series, Charlie–one of the main characters–comes face to face with what feels like an insurmountable struggle. His boyfriend, Nick, wants so badly, as all of us do when we love someone, to be able to fix Charlie’s problem, but of course he can’t. And Nick realizes that, no matter how much he loves Charlie, he can’t and shouldn’t be everything to Charlie. Charlie needs a community to help him. As do we all.
I took baby steps to return to UUCA. I co-facilitated a covenant group for parents of gender-expansive kids. That was an easy one–a way to test the waters by creating a small community. Coming back to church on Sunday mornings, however, was a challenge. The first few times I tried, I felt confused and out of sorts. When we were all masked, I felt embarrassed because I didn’t recognize people who I had known for years. That kept me home for a while longer. When I came back again, I felt like I had somehow forgotten how to interact with other humans. Once after the service ended, I just sat in the back and cried. Holly saw me and sat with me. She didn’t ask me to explain myself. She just kept me company.
When I heard about the LEAD program that Greg and LeeAnn were running, I knew I had found a path back to community. I wasn’t sure what my role was supposed to be in the congregation, but this was an opportunity to meet new people and reconnect with old friends, so I took it.
The irony–or perhaps the true intention–of joining LEAD was being reminded that I didn’t need to have a leadership position or a particular responsibility in the congregation to belong. When I arrived for that first workshop, I was so warmly welcomed back. Wendy and Kristen, among other folks, let me know that they were genuinely delighted to see me again, without asking why I hadn’t come back sooner, or what I was going to be doing for the church now that I was back, or without any other expectations of me whatsoever. After the session, I gave Kristen a ride home and we sat in my car, parked outside her house, for an hour catching up. It was such a relief to renew that connection. I know I’m name dropping a lot this morning. I intentionally want to recognize the people who have shown me so much grace and love in building and rebuilding community here.
One of my favorite activities during the LEAD workshops was using the World of Experience as a tool to examine where I’ve been and where I want to go. If you’ve never seen it before, you can check out the World of Experience at the LEAD table in the fellowship hall after the service. In the meantime, picture this in your mind. A map that, at first glance, looks like it could be a two-dimensional representation of the Earth. On closer inspection, however, the familiar continents and oceans are replaced by other geographies, named for elements of the human experience. For example, the sea of possibilities, mountains of work, and plains of solitude.
On several occasions we used the World of Experience as a way to articulate the challenges or adventures in our past and present, and where we hoped to navigate in the future. In all of my conversations, my partners shared their journeys with unapologetic honesty, and invited the same vulnerability from me. The guiding principles practiced during the LEAD series were touchstones created by Parker Palmer and the Center for Courage and Renewal. One of these is “no fixing, saving, advising, or correcting each other.” In our type A problem solving culture, that’s a particularly tough one for many of us to follow, but it’s so important. Participating in the LEAD workshops reminded me that this congregation is a safe place for me, where my wild animal soul can show itself. That’s how I experience moments of mystery and wonder–when I feel truly seen and understood.
This year I attended General Assembly, the Unitarian Universalist Association’s annual gathering, for the first time. I had long wanted to experience GA, but to be honest I was also super anxious about it. When I arrived in Pittsburgh and checked into my airbnb, I texted Gay and Elizabeth. What am I doing here? I asked them. Of course, they were both kind and reassuring. I felt their hugs from 250 miles away. Then I arrived at the convention center, and I found Diane and Bruce and I knew everything would be ok. I had tacos with LeeAnn, and reconnected with folks who I first met at UUCA but who have moved on to other churches, and I made new friends. Knowing I was among so many people who share my UU values and commitment to repairing the world was exactly what I needed and hoped to experience at GA.
Of course, church is far from the only community that can nurture the soul. Some communities are intimate and some are vast but both can offer sustenance. My 16-year-old is a member of the seemingly infinite community of Swifties–devotees of pop star Taylor Swift. While her knowledge of Taylor Swift’s catalog and every minute detail of every concert on the Eras Tour may verge on obsessive, it is clear that she and other Swifties find joy and meaning in listening to the music, experiencing the music, and talking about the music with each other.
The community my 10-year-old thinks of as their second home is SMYAL, a DC-based organization that provides resources, connections, and activities for LGBTQIA+ young people ages 6 to 24. My kid has found kindred spirits, role models, and unwavering and unconditional support for their whole self. Their wild animal soul feels free to lead a dance party whenever they’re with their SMYAL peeps.
As Parker Palmer wrote, “If we want to support each other’s inner lives, we must remember a simple truth: the human soul does not want to be fixed, it wants simply to be seen and heard.” I am thankful to be a member of this and other communities where my soul can be seen and heard. Cultivating that kind of community–something greater than any of us individually, which can only be created with intention and love–is a sacred act. Sometimes we can build community, and other times we just stumble into it. We don’t always know where we will find community, or where we will experience that sensation of truly belonging, but we surely know it when we feel it. Some may call that providence, or divine intervention. To me, that certainty of belonging is a product of the mystery and wonder of the universe. Whatever you call it, I wish for you the comfort, safety, and nourishment of community, wherever you may find it. May it be so.
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It’s almost my birthday and I am thinking a lot, as one does when a birthday approaches, about everything. Asking a lot of questions.
I am thinking about why every book I read seems to contain a subtle but unmistakable link to the previous book I read, like a scene set in New Haven, Connecticut, or a young character hospitalized with a serious illness, or a political protest. Why are books about witches and witch trials so popular right now? Perhaps, or probably, because most men (and some women) have always been threatened by women who are strong and independent and powerful, and they still are. I have read a lot of books about the persecution of witches and they never fail to enrage me. Maybe I just want to be a witch. I also want to have to a Scottish accent. Or listen to Scottish accents. All day.
Books consume me these days. Reading always has, but lately novels are my means to escape from our ceaselessly corrosive culture. I can hardly stomach our society and the way it treats people–people of color, women, LGBTQIA+ individuals, people with disabilities. Basically anyone who isn’t Mitch McConnell or similar. Even though books I read have bad guys and characters have bad days and there is trauma and suffering there is also so much joy and redemption and humor and empathy and fascinating and strange and delightful people with whom I can immerse myself. Of course that good stuff exists in my real life too, but it’s not as reliably accessible. Reading is my vice and my virtue. The novels I read also help me understand why people can be such schmucks. But it doesn’t make their cruelty any easier to take.
I am thinking about earwax, and where it comes from, and where those teeny tiny flies that emerge from the drainage holes in the back of our bathroom sink come from. And how you wouldn’t want those flies to encounter your earwax. Why do the flies only appear in that bathroom? Do they have a purpose in life? If so, I am quashing that purpose. Sorry, little guys. Apparently as my birthday approaches, I am inclined to tie together loose threads. Sometimes they come unraveled again.
I am pretty sure I believe that people can change, but how much I am not sure. At the age I’m about to be tomorrow, I feel like what’s left for me to master is infinite and what I don’t understand is vast. Certainly there is plenty for me still to learn. But what’s my capacity to learn it? I played soccer last night, the second game in my 12th (?) season of playing in the Arlington Women’s Soccer League. I am fairly confident I’m never going to get any better at soccer. I would say I’m probably better than most people who have never played the game. But I am not as good as most of the women who play on my team or in our league. Admittedly, I do not practice outside of our games and I have not put time or energy into improving except for the simple fact that I am showing up and doing my best. And after all these years, I still have to remind myself every single Monday that showing up is enough.
Yesterday I was the guest speaker for a class in the school of public affairs at American University. My co-worker and friend teaches the class and invited me to talk about nonprofit communications. I love talking with students about writing and communicating, whether it’s elementary school kids at career day or college students. The crux of the conversation was that communication is all about choices. When you interview someone, you choose what to ask and how to ask it. When you write about the interview, you choose what facts to focus on and what to leave out. Your choices have immense power to influence the reader and their perception of the subject. When you’re doing nonprofit communications, you choose your audiences, and how you’re going to reach them, and what you want them to do. You can’t control what they do, but your choices can push them in one direction or another, if you make good ones. I told the class that usually the choices aren’t right or wrong, but they always matter.
In recent weeks I’ve visited a lot of college campuses. In addition to the class visit at AU, we spent our spring break touring colleges so my high school sophomore daughter can start thinking about what’s possible for her after she graduates. More choices. Big ones. Complicated choices. Seeing these colleges is exciting and also startling. I cannot quite comprehend that it’s been more than 25 years since I was one of those kids, at a point in my life when so many choices lay ahead of me–lavish, abundant possibilities. Even though I am only middle-aged now, I feel like there are so many choices behind me, so many doors closed, that I am unsure about what’s left. I have chosen my husband and we chose to have two children and we chose how to raise them. We chose where to live, and what jobs to have, and even though some of the small details may change, it feels like we’re pretty locked in to our current circumstances, for better or for worse. This is primarily because of bad choices, most of which are around money. My brain does not like to keep track of money, or calculate things, or hold onto numbers of any kind. I can’t even remember my license plate number. I think I have dyscalculia, although I’ve never been diagnosed, and people have made fun of me when I’ve brought it up.
Some part of me has always hoped that my financial foibles would be graciously overlooked because of my decency and tendency toward kindness. That I would be excused from my mistakes by virtue of my virtue. I don’t think it actually works that way.
When I was talking to the AU students, all of whom were taking notes (I hope, and not doing something else entirely) on their laptops, I kept thinking how I had to take notes by hand in college. And I went to college before ordinary people even had the internet! Not that it’s a good thing or a bad thing. It’s just a thing. Making choices was a whole different ball of wax before the Internet. I don’t know that we make any better choices now, we just make choices while information floods our brains. What did my brain used to be full of? Song lyrics? Hormones? Possibilities? Questions, for sure. That hasn’t changed.
What do I want from the rest of my life? More chocolate cake? Bigger muscles? The chance to hold more babies. Last week I interviewed four young women for a project for work. When I asked one of them–Patrese–to sign a consent form acknowledging that our interview would be recorded and excerpts from it posted online, she asked me to hold her baby. I was glad to. I hoisted the little girl onto my hip and talked with her about what her mom was doing. She played with the laminated card on which interview questions were printed and listened to the noise it made when she moved it around. She dropped it. I picked it up and handed it back to her. Several times. I continued to hold the little girl, who was wearing a denim jumper over her diaper, while we set up the camera and the lights and got Patrese set up with her mic. I bounced the baby while I interviewed her mom about how the pandemic affected her life and what she’s had to do as a result. I held her baby while I asked her about safety, and family, and the kind of world she would like to see her baby grow up in. By the time we finished talking, that little girl was fast asleep on my chest. I wondered if Patrese was going to take her back or if she was simply too relieved to have someone else holding her baby for a little while. I would’ve kept holding her too. But I handed her back, trying not to wake her up. I was thinking about all the ways the pandemic changed my life, which were different, but not entirely, from Patrese’s. I don’t know if those feelings– isolation and uncertainty, and that sense of being in survival mode–will ever truly go away, even when we’re surrounded by people and things are theoretically ok. Maybe it’s the uncertainty that haunts me the most. The constant grinding in my brain of questions that have no answers. Choices that may not be right or wrong but simply are. Maybe all I can ask for in the rest of my life is patience and the ability to take a few deep breaths and let the questions float away.
You Ask a Lot of Questions 
