Then Quit

I keep trying to write you guys an interesting post and it keeps coming out like Harry Potter in Book Five--all negative and angsty and full of misplaced anger.

Luckily without the Voldemort.

And you know what? I'm just tired. That's all. I'll feel better Sunday morning after I've had a bit of rest; and then everything else will feel better too.

Someone said, "If at first you don't succeed, try, try again.

Then quit.

No use being a damn fool about it."

This is Vesuvius, throwing in the towel.



I love you, and I hope you have a mosquito-free weekend.

Things Indy Says

"I played with a little boy. Him's name is Jack. And him's my boyfriend."

"Oh yeah?"

"Yeah. Him lives with him's mom."

"Well I'm sure soon he'll get a job and be able to move out on his own."

"Yep. And then him's name with be Gerald."

"Gerald? Gerald will be like Jack version 2.0?"

"Yeah. Him's my boyfriend. But him doesn't matter."

Indy, I gotta say. I dig your attitude.

Love,
Mom

Best Of Times

It is true that we drove 17 hours to Huntington Beach, California in one day, stayed there for one day, turned around and drove 15.5 hours (curious) home.

It is also true that every single hour in the car--hours with my parents, going on four hours sleep, legs and thighs cramping up, tummy growing most unhappy--every single one was worth it a billion times over.

We wound through the snowy mountains at 5 in the morning, and my dad couldn't let up about all the FedEx trucks.

It started like this. "FedEx." . . .(ten minutes pass). "FedEx." . . . (seven minutes). . . "FedEx!"

FedEx was in Golden. FedEx was in Idaho Springs. There were two FedExes on the road near Georgetown. At the Eisenhower Tunnel we hit the snow. Signs warned us ICY ROADS. WILDLIFE ON THE ROADS. SNOW REMOVAL VEHICLES ON THE ROADS. EVIL TROLLS WAITING TO EAT YOU ON THE ROADS. OSAMA BIN LADEN IS ON THE ROADS.

But all we saw was FedEx.

"There's another one! What are they DOING here? Look, another! It's five in the morning. What is with all these FedEx trucks? What are these bozos doing?" and I think at one point he even accused FedEx of trying to take over the world.

He went on and on. FedEx was in Avon, Vail, Glenwood Canyon, Parachute. "Where are they all coming from?" my dad said, like FedEx was some kind of alien enemy adept at hiding behind trees. Finally my mom threw up her arms and cried:

"Brad, what is the matter with you? They are delivery trucks. It's their job to be out on the road. It's their purpose. Are you going crazy??"

And my dad quietly said, "There's just so many of them". And we'd been in the car for five hours and Noah and I laughed until we cried.

It went on about like that for 17 hours.

We hadn't eaten breakfast and we wanted to stop for lunch and my mom was all disbelief and said, "How many times a day do you people EAT?"

And I told my parents I wanted to find a rest stop and they started the Rest Stop Chorus. It goes like this: "You have to find a sign that says rest stop. Usually they're marked with a sign. There will be a sign before the rest stop. The sign will say 'rest stop'. There should be a sign. You should look for the rest stop sign. It is the one with the words 'rest' and 'stop'--"

It's true.



Stars without makeup.

You want my parents at your wedding because they dance with wild abandon. Usually my parents are the only ones at the wedding dancing a storm. They are actors in their blood, see? And they don't mind--really, they don't--being the center of attention.





But this wedding was different. Because theatre blood runs on both sides of the family. So, whereas usually meine Mutter und mein Vater are the only ones shimmy shaking with their arms in the air and their elbows pointed skyward, boogeying down without a care as to how they look or who's watching--actually kind of enjoying being the center of the frenzy--this time there were lots of show people out on the floor. I don't know if I've ever seen such dancing. Conga lines, twirling circles, the two rows with everyone getting their groove on down the middle. It was like being at a wedding with all the kids from Glee. Except they all got kinda toasted and forgot the choreography.





Seeing family, some of whom I hadn't seen in eighteen years, and some of whom I had never met, made me happy right to bursting.

I am not kidding. I was first in line for the--I thought they were calling it the honey dance, but it turns out they were calling it the MONEY dance. Which makes a lot more sense, looking back. And I was supposed to offer money to dance with the groom. Ha! Not I. I conned his best man into letting me dance with him for free, and then, when it was my Almost-Cousin-Big-Sarah's time to cut in--I tell you the truth--I pulled that poor groom's neck to my lips and kissed him. Kissed him! But I was not drunk on liquor, nay. I had only had one beer.

I was drunk on joy.

It was all so happy, and so poignant, that I find myself unable to talk about it here.



Everything fell apart, and we couldn't go.

And then everything came together. And we did.

I saw my cousin get married. And it was beautiful. And I was drunk on joy and accidentally flirted with the bartender and kissed that poor groom. (Sorry Corey. Sorry Sarah.) I got to see my Sort Of Uncle Eric, who I had such a crush on when I was ten that I could not speak in his presence. And there was a while there when I could have done the ugly cry.

Because it was just so unspeakably beautiful.

Vesuvius Erupts

I tell myself we are living like bohemians which isn't true, but it helps. See, it's ok for bohemians to do things like spend their last fifteen francs on a box of red wine. However, this behavior is inexcusable in parents. So you see what I mean.

The real bohemians are Mermee and Trey Bien, and I mean to write about them but not today.

I keep trying to write you a lovely blog and nothing comes out right.

I think it must be because I am stressed as heck with job interviews--especially with people calling me in to interview for positions that may or may not actually exist ("Well Ms. Tuttle, we don't know if we're going to have fairies--I mean, we don't know that we aren't going to have fairies, do we--and so, saying we did actually have fairies: would you make a good one?")--and trying to find a house, worried about living on a smaller income, finding a school that will still take Indy (ha! That's a joke).

This stress had lead me to do such things as, well--spend my last fifteen francs on red wine, buy three fancy bars of chocolate, write snarky emails to strangers, laugh helplessly by myself in public, buy Pop Tarts, let papers with sensitive information (such as Mr. V's social security number) fly clear out the window, and watch Bones.

I don't know if you watch Bones but my crush on Mr Special Agent Booth came and went like Rocktober. All was well until this: we learned Booth looks down on organic food, judges even vaguely kinky sex, and thinks only skinny gals should love their own bodies. Seriously? This show is written for women. I am fairly sure there are only three men watching this show. This is who you give me for a romantic male lead? Mr "lose ten pounds get your pansy ass out of the farmers market and don't look at me in the eye"? Who writes this show, Stephanie Meyer? Try harder next time.

Then you read the actor cheated on his wife and even that little bit of you that remains sickly attracted to Booth flies away like sensitive information on windy days.

I'm breaking out. In one day I fed the girls both McDonalds and Chipotle. Along with the Pop Tarts I bought Kraft Macaroni and Cheese. If these aren't signs of mass systematic failure, I don't know what is. All systems overload! Vesuvius forgoes bananas for fruit loops, are we sure she has not been assassinated and replaced by Vesuvius from the Alternate Universe? The library called to inform me I would be sent to collections for an item that I lost and I blew my top.

I also got the fines removed and the fees waived. And no collections for me. Library Fascists.

Things like this are my lifelines: At Target there is a row of motion sensitive baby dolls. Every time we walk past them, they start to shake their heads about and wiggle their limbs and make creepy fake cooing noises.

And every time, Indy looks at them mistrustfully and tells me, "Those babies gonna kill me".

She's not scared or anything. Just acknowledging her own fate.

Now if only I could know mine.

Thank goodness I have a husband who makes me Cuban pork sandwiches and margaritas for mothers day.

And who allows me to select myself this little treasure.

Now we must collect them all. Mustn't we?

Meet Hemingway

I bought a little plant of mint
And named her Hemingway.
I carried her about my house,
She made us light and gay.
Plants and I have disagreed,
But do not be dismayed.
For surely I can thrive that plant
Which brings mojito day.






This is Hemingway and I love her so much I wrote her a poem.

Every morning the girls and I put her in the sun and give her water. I tell the girls to say nice things to her, and Ayla does, when she thinks no one's listening.

I have never ever managed to not kill a plant or a flower. I even killed those bamboo things that apparently need no care at all. But Hemingway and I are going to make it. And one day soon, I am going to put her above my kitchen sink.

In my kitchen. The one that is not anyone else's but mine.

Ayla took these photos which struck me as beautiful and tender:





And Indy and I snapped each other:






Happy Mother's Day.

I love you.

I promise not to commit floracide over the weekend.

--V

Dear May

Thank you for:

The pink flowers

The crane at the park

The sweet smell in the air

Beautiful harvests of green and fragrant and nourishing things

Blue skies with the white clouds

The world all lit up green beneath the evening sun

Cafe Rio and goat cheese and avocados and wheat beer

The iced mochas and the time to write; the sun on my skin, those dark gray clouds and the sunset lighting up the trees all golden against them

The good ripe earth

Please bring:

Sunny mornings and warm afternoons

A house

A job

Pretty things

Margaritas on the Cinco

More of my daughters reenacting Ophelia's watery death in the backyard


Please don't:

Kill my Mojito Mint plant. I named it Hemingway.


Maybe next year,

I will remember to celebrate May Day by leaving blossoms on doorsteps. But this was not that year.

I love you May. I have high hopes for you. Don't let me down.

(those were the manipulation skills I've learned from being a mom).

Love,

Vesuvius

Don't Make Me Go To Vegas

We had cause to drive to Longmont to look for homes.

All the places we could afford were sad looking. Crummy is the word. Someone had bikes on their roof. All manner of trash and debris in the yard. Mr. Vesuvius looked at me and I wordlessly shook my head. I pretended I was on MTV True Life. I could imagine the camera following behind us. Close up on the peeling paint and threadbare love seats sitting on the tiny porches. Then it would close up on my face and all the world would know my pain.

(That was me being dramatic).

Then we made a terrible mistake. I spotted some tiny but promising houses tucked behind the restaurants and shops on the cute Old Town street. We drove back for a closer look.

Cheery homes, yellows and greens, a park, an abundance of flowers. Women with babies in bjorns and golden retrievers trot trot behind. Everything gleaming in the sun. Shoot. I began to cry.

Then I told myself I was being silly. Who is completely happy with their home? Who wouldn't trade up, if they could? Even the rich people there would probably trade up for a Villa in Italy. Which just shows you how ridiculous it all is.

And yet.

Mr. V steered us toward a little bungalow. "Is it yellow?" I said.

"I don't know if it's yellow. What does it matter if it's yellow?" said Mr. V

"I keep picturing a yellow house. I thought maybe if it was yellow it would be a sign. I believe in signs now. It's my new thing."

The bungalow was not yellow, but it was perfect. Sweet block with sweet little homes and massive storybook back yards.

No longer available.

There was nothing else to do. We hit the road. Took a spin through Lyons where everyone looked up to see if we were someone they knew. Kept going straight on to Estes.

Estes. There were elk in the park. We had a look. Walked to the river. I thought of my dad. The girls bounded about on the boulders. Such an excellent and satisfying exercise. Brain plus body. The mountains surrounding were all snowy and cloudy. All pre-Aslan Narnia.

We procured ice cream. We headed for home. The gas tank warning light ding-ding-dinged. I told Mr. V to stop for gas. Surely there will be a place along the way, he said. I raised my eyebrows.

There wasn't. But you know what?

We made it on empty, all the way down that mountain. Made it exactly as far as we needed to go.


--Over and out.

Ole! Ole!

This is Part II to the story I began yesterday. The one in which it was clear to me this all went down last year, but not at all clear to you.

I began to have this nagging feeling.

I imagined this book I had written being published. Going out onto shelves. Being read by approximately fifteen to twenty people somewhere.

And I felt uncomfortable.

I was like some heroine with rosy skin and a lot of gumption who, for a ride out of town, goes to bed with a man she thought was a cowboy--but he's got a trunk full of jewelry and this weird black bandanna and boy, does the drawing on that Wanted poster look a lot like him.

The outlaw may have gotten her out of Dodge, sure--and she may have picked up a few things about shooting and cattle roping along the way--but now she's in Tucson, and who wants to stay in Tucson the rest of their lives? The goal was San Fransisco.

I realized that if there was going to be a book out there with my name on it, I didn't want it to be this one. This book was the outlaw. And I didn't want an outlaw out there calling himself Mr. Vesuvius. What I wanted was to own a brothel. Down by the bay.

It wasn't that I was hung up on all the outlaw's imperfections--his sometimes clumsy prose, his awkward pacing, his penchant for cliches. I just knew the outlaw wasn't for me. I had used him to try to impress Mary-Alice, down there in the shade with her white skirts and her parasol, and not to do my soul work.

I can say this now, but at the time I resisted these feelings. I resisted my gut instinct because it was not what I wanted to hear.

Then, a few weeks after sending off my manuscript, an email popped up in my inbox. From the agent. That agent.

And while she had good things, encouraging things to say about my little outlaw--who truly I was fond of, despite his shortcomings--she ultimately did not feel it was ready for publication.

(I was not expecting this to still hurt now. But it does!)

I gave myself a few weeks break. I was hurt. I knew enough about publishing not to be too hurt, but it was hard.

And then I started writing again.

I could say it like this: I felt a little bit broken, like the fallen woman I was, but I knew I must be strong. Therefore I gathered up my calico skirts in mine own two hands, slammed a glass down on the counter and demanded Mr. V fill it high with moonshine, and did a right Scarlett O'Hara.

God as my witness, I'm going to start writing again!

When I sent off that manuscript, I was sure I wanted it published. I wanted it so badly it ached. But in the weeks that followed, as I began writing other things, I felt like I got my sea legs. I learned, first of all, that I could write other things besides that one book. I felt initiated as a writer. The story of being a writer is the story of facing rejection. And that sense I had had, that nagging feeling--the one they say in Babe should never be ignored, remember? Changed from a sense of unease to a sense of confidence, of purpose.

I didn't get what I really really wanted. Or what I thought I really wanted. And I was ok. In fact, I was a little relieved.

During those weeks of disappointment, I had to go to a place in my soul that I didn't want to face. I had to recognize the truth: That some people, some talented people even, write all their lives, write very beautiful works, and never get published. And that it was possible that I could be one of those people.

This is not pessimism. It is only the truth. I had been ignoring this truth all along. The Indians were riding in with their arrows raised and I was saying, 'Look! Ponies!'.

But the curious thing is, the disappointment gave me strength to face them.

"My outlaw is not so very shiny. He is swaggering and spitting and not showing a lot of the truth. And now look, I've got Indians coming. At least I can shoot my own gun. "

I had to write for me. Because it was what my soul wanted to do. It made me happy. It gave me a sense of purpose and accomplishment and peace. Whether someone wanted to publish it or not.

Money, success, achievement, the approval of others--those things are all out of my control. If I place my happiness there, I am literally giving my happiness away for others to use as they will.

I think when we create we are honoring the divine within. Even more than that: I think creating can be entering into a communion with a divine presence. But you can't find that tender place if you're writing to impress your parents or Mary-Alice or Michiko Kakutani.

You do it because you have to. You must. And it is a reward within itself.

For anyone who writes or creates art, I highly recommend this Ted talk by Elizabeth Gilbert.



So thank you, my little outlaw. Now when I ride into San Fransisco, I will do it knowing how to shoot a coyote from a moving horse. Dodge will be but a distant memory. You took me as far as you could.

It was far enough.

(I am sorry for those of you he swindled into thinking I may have been offered a book contract. I thought I had made it clear, and I did not intend to trick you. I blame the outlaw. He's always sneaking something).

And: I cannot rightly publish this post without giving thanks to my Dear Mr. Vesuvius. Writing books costs me many hours away from home on the evenings and weekends, and them children never did tend themselves. Mr. V gives me constant, unwavering, unimaginable support and encouragement. He pours me the whiskey and offers his words of simple wisdom, and then I can get back on the horse. And I am so incredibly grateful.

Ole!

The Author Would Like To Thank Lactation

Someday, if I have a book published, I will have Ayla to thank.

Ayla's birth upheaved and confounded me in ways that I still fail to find adequate words for. The birth, and being a mother at 23, left me desperate to reclaim some territory for myself. I felt like when the baby came out, someone had dressed me in a 'Mother' costume. And now I was wearing something that wasn't me, but was supposed to be me. I couldn't get out of it. I was lost.

So then I started writing again.

It took me four years, but I wrote a book.

I am a little bit embarrassed to tell you who I wanted to write like, but I'll tell you anyway.

I wanted to write like JK Rowling. Not because she is a billionaire, I swear.

Ok, a little bit because she is a billionaire. But mostly because I love her books to the depths of my soul. And because the waves of emotion I experienced--suspension! thrilling joy! oh noes Harry might die! Mrs. Weasley said BITCH--stirred the dormant writer in me back to life.

I needed to claim something for myself. I needed to put a stake down in the ground of my being and say 'this is mine. this is not mother, nor wife, nor poor lady on medicaid with a screaming baby and leaking nipples at the grocery store'.

And all I had to do that with was my writing.

So I wrote. I gave myself a five year deadline to write and publish the book. Looking back now, this seems ridiculous and arbitrary. Did I really plan on giving up after five years? 'Well, I'm 28 now, and it's time to put these ridiculous dreams aside. What is fitting in our youth is unfitting in our later youth, and no one should ever attempt to write after they've hit not-yet-thirty'.

I think I was trying to protect myself, in some abstract way. Five years, and if you haven't achieved your dream, you can politely move on to a different endeavor. Like ladies switching from embroidery to the pianoforte in the drawing room.

After four years, I had a book.

It sounded a little bit like JK Rowling, and a little bit like me. Only a little bit. I was proud of myself that I had done it.

And then began the part that was so infinitely harder than writing a book. Which was writing a one paragraph Query.

The best way, most agree, to publish a book, is to procure an agent. No, I am afraid you do not wrap up your entire manuscript in brown paper and tie it with twine and stick a rose in there and send it off with a hope and a prayer directly to the publisher, who immediately recognizes its brilliance and sends you a letter that you take from the mailbox after gathering flowers in your white frock in the rain decrying your brilliance and begging you for the honor of publishing it.

To get an agent, you send a one page query. You spend one paragraph of your query describing your book.

You have spent four years writing 130,000 words (what was I THINKING), and these words, clumsy as they are, are the blood and the sacrament of your life, your force, your very spirit. And now you must distill your spirit down into a one sentence hook plus five or so other sentences.

Oh god, oh god, why hast thou forsaken writers?

It was torture. It took weeks. I did it. I mailed them out.

And then the rejections started coming.

The awesome thing about the times we live in is that now we can receive our rejections both by email AND by snail mail. Because some agents correspond by one and some prefer the other. This means that sometimes you can get as many as four different rejections by two different formats, all in one day!

I had known they would come. I had picked my top five, my dream agents, and queried them first.

No bites.

So I queried the next five. And then the next ten.

At this point, I felt like that scene in Harry Potter when letters from Hogwarts start flying down the chimney? Except they weren't invitations to a school of magic. They were letters from busy people in mostly New York, but some in LA, telling me that based on the one paragraph summary they had read of my book, they would not at all like to publish it.

I knew this was part of the bargain. I didn't flail and weep and gnash my teeth.

But I was most discouraged.

And then--a bite.

An agent had read the first five pages of my book and wanted to see the first fifty.

And after reading the first fifty--be still my soul--she wanted to see the whole thing.

So I sent it off.

And then I had to wait.


For tomorrow, Part II: In Which I Dirty My Petticoat, Muster Up My Courage, And Learn To Take Stiff Drink.

Spiritual Journeys Undertaken In Red Carts

We just returned from Mom Mecca (otherwise known as Target), where the goblins humiliated me so badly I almost cried.

They can be so naughty and I needed to shop for sunglasses and I couldn't--because of the screaming and the kicking and the stroller tipping over backwards. And everyone else staring. Sorry. I realize that my children are the first children to ever have a tantrum in a grocery store. I know it's truly an original sight, and terribly fascinating. But maybe for the sake of the poor mother you could just. . . avert your eyes? Just for a minute? And not stare at the breaking down mother the way you stare at a car accident? Because you and my girls are embarrassing me more than I was embarrassed during my Most Embarrassing Moment--the one that occurred in college speech class and involved a naive parochial-school raised me and a sex toy. (No I am not at all joking about that). (No, I will not tell you the rest of that story. Still embarrassed.)

I walked home glaring into the sun. And onto the heads of my misbegotten offspring.

I have been looking into books involving spirituality and motherhood, but they all read to me something like this:

Are you the perfect mother? No? What is wrong with you? Try to be the perfect mother. Feeling better yet?


I wondered aimlessly through Barnes and Noble on Saturday, feeling unmoored and empty and then I found this book by Sue Monk Kidd. So I ordered me an iced mocha and sat down and read the book and after an hour I felt like a brand new person.

Seriously. I felt like sunshine. I felt so good that when I went to meet back up with Mr.V I knew he was absolutely going to see my inner radiance beaming like El Dorado and fall to his knees praising my beauty and asking me to bestow my newly gained wisdom upon him.

And when he saw me coming he said "Hey. What do you want for dinner?" Which you may not know is IN FACT man's way of saying "Oh ye embodiment of every goddess of wisdom, oh ye who art beauty incarnate, allow me to worship at the altar of you and bring you offerings of goodly iced mochas and the richest red wine, which still is not richer than thou wisdom and beauty ."

It's true.

Now if only SMK (as I like to call her) would write a book on finding some zen when your children go all zany in public areas and not reaching down into the depths of your humiliated soul and finding your inner devil mommy that screams things like "STOP WHINING OR I AM SELLING YOU TO THE GYPSIES!" or "STOP THAT KICKING OR I SWEAR TO GOD I SHALL UNHINGE MY JAWS AND SWALLOW YOU WHOLE".

Did you get that, Sue? Could you manage?


Stop by tomorrow. (You, that is. Not Sue.) I would like to tell you about something I once wanted, and did not get, and have since become very grateful that I didn't get what I thought I wanted..

And no, it's not about wanting this.