My friend Larry just called to give me a little pep talk. Earlier today he sent me an e-mail asking how the novel was coming and I wrote back with a single word reply: slowly. I was sitting here at my desk, staring at chapeter five, wondering how I’ll ever finish and generally feeling sorry for myself when the phone rang. All I can say is, thank goodness for good friends. Larry reminded me of the pep talk I gave him a few months back and told me that he’s been thinking about that conversation ever since. So I thought I’d share some of the advice he gave me.

1) tell the truth: Every writer knows when he or she is lying on the page, when they’re taking shortcuts. The reader might know, but the writer always does and it’s an awful feeling to read something you’ve written and recognize all the short cuts, the places where you opted for the easy way out because you were lazy.

2) writing is revision: I hear myself telling people this all the time and I know it’s true. Sure, we can all put words on the page, but it’s having the discipline to go back and into every nook and crany that counts.

3) sometimes it’s not revision, it’s actually rewriting: this is the part that’s killing me. I hear myself telling people, “I’m on my final revision,” and I can see, from the look on their faces, they have no idea what I’m talking about. They think I’m polishing, tightening and brightening, when what I’m actually doing is tossing out all the stuff that doesn’t work and starting from scratch.

4) the ego has to go: sometimes, when people ask me about the novel, I’m just dying to say, “it’s finished,” or better yet, “It’s SOLD!” But that’s my ego talking. That’s the part of me that craves the spotlight. But that’s not what the writing is about. What I really want is to do justice to the story. I think it would break my heart to put something out there that was half-baked just for the sake of seeing it between two covers. What I have to remember is that the thing I want most takes time.

Larry’s call has lifted my spirits. His call came at exactly the right time.

I’m not sure what to do about my kids’ eating habits. I’ve tried it all, tough love included. Once, when H was small, I tried to get her to eat some meal, I don’t even remember what, and threatened to give her the same exact meal for EVERY meal until she at it. What was I thinking? By the second day, I couldn’t stand the sight of my little three year old, hunched over a plate of cold whatever-it-was looking at me as if I was the evil step mother.

Once when C was about that same age (and yes, I’m horrified to admit this) I actually gave her a light spanking on her bottom for not eating her carrots. Her CARROTS!!! Good heavens. I don’t know what made her cry more, the spanking or the fact that she was gagging on a spoonful of overcooked veggies that her crazy mother was determined to make her eat.

So over the years, I’ve backed off of the whole “clean plate” thing. But I’m worried that I may have backed off too much because now I have two kids who are fairly picky eaters. Maybe picky is too harsh a word, but it’s the one that came to mind as I scraped that plate of eggs. The experts say you have to put a new dish in front of a kid at least five times before they’ll stop complaining and just eat it. Five is the magic number. The question for me is whether I’ll be completely insane by the time I serve that dish the fifth time? Can I weather the hailstorm of complaints and excuses and objections? Will I tear all my hair out watching them move the food around their plates or picking it apart or can I stay the course? I don’t know. I’m going to try. It’s not like this every day, I admit. But it’s like this often enough. If my mother were here, she’d probably tell me some story about how she never tolerated this kind of behavior, that we ate whatever she cooked without complaint. I’m not sure that’s actually true. I can recall a handful of meals I hated. I just don’t remember feeling free enough to express my opinion.

This week, just for shits and giggles, I think I’ll cook something new. A fish dish or maybe a soup. I’ll try to pick a dish with some ingredients and flavors I know the girls can stand, but I won’t pick something completely familiar.  I’ll stick to my guns when I see their long faces, because, as I’ve learned from past experiences, something good will probably come of this.

Tonight, as I tucked H in for bed, she started crying.We were lying together in her bed talking about the day when all of a sudden she pressed her face against my arm and started to weep.

“Hey, what’s this?” I asked, thinking I knew the answer. W and I had planned to fly the girls down to see their grandparents, my in-laws, while he and I went to Louisiana for the weekend. My mother-in-law had promised to take the them shopping—a late Christmas present if you will—and while C couldn’t care less about getting new clothes, H was really looking forward to the trip. But yesterday, my mother-in-law called to say she needed to change the plan. Her sister was in the hospital in critical condition and she needed to fly out to be with her. So instead of the girls spending the weekend shopping with their grandmother, my sister-in-law who lives across the bridge, is going to take care of them here. I could understand H’s disappointment. She hasn’t seen her grandmother in a while and the two are very close.
“But look,” I said. “At least you’ll won’t have to leave the puppies. And now you can go to E’s house on Saturday like you wanted.”
For a moment I felt proud of myself for pointing out this silver lining. We gave the girls puppies for Christmas and both H and C were disappointed when I told them they couldn’t take the dogs to their grandparents’. Earlier this afternoon, H had mentioned that her friend had invited her over on Saturday night. Now that they weren’t going away, she could see her friend and stay with her puppy. All things considered, it wouldn’t be a bad weekend afterall.
But when I laid all of this to her, H pressed her face against my arm, mumbling something I couldn’t understand.

“What’s that? What did you say? I can’t understand what you’re saying.” I pried her chin from the crook of my elbow and forced her to look up at me.

“I don’t want to sound bratty or anything, but I really wanted see Nani and Poppy.”

“I know. But Nani has to be with her sister.” I reminded her that this was no different than last summer when my parent’s couldn’t take the girls to Disney World because my father had to have surgery. “People get sick and they need their family’s help. You’ll have plenty of chances to go shopping with Nani. Believe me, Abercrombie & Fitch isn’t going anywhere. They’ll always have cute tops for sale.”
H nodded, but she didn’t look any happier. “It’s not just that.”

“What is it then?”

“I don’t want you to think I’m obsessing or anything.” H said, wiping her face on her bed sheet.

“I won’t think you’re obsessing. Just tell me.”

“It’s Z.”

“Z?” I had to think for a moment. “Oh . . . Z.”
H nodded. “I don’t want to be here on Saturday when everyone’s driving by. Part of the reason I wanted to go visit Nani was because I was looking forward to being away.”

I know there are a lot of books on the market about parenting. Volumes have been written about what to expect from pregnancy, labor and delivery. There are books that tell you how to trick your toddler into eating healthy foods, and others that explain how girls’ brains are different from boys’. At this point, there are so many parenting books on the market, it’s almost a joke. But I wish there was a book, just one, that warned you about the emotional rollercoaster that is parenting; one that offered surefire tips and strategies to help moms and dads hold steady when their children’s hearts are breaking. I’m not too big on parenting books. I’ve only bought one or two. But allow me to be perfectly candid here: Tonight, if I’d know of a book that would’ve told me what to say to ease H’s suffering, I’d have run right out and bought it. I’d have happily paid any price.

So here’s the story behind the story. You can stop reading now, if you’ve heard it.

As it turns out, seventh grade is prime time Bat and Bar Mitzvah season, and there seems to be two ways of doing things. This first option is to invite a small group of kids –all girls, all boys, or some small sampling of the two. Option two is to invite the whole grade. My kids go to a school that stresses inclusion– inclusion, compassion and fairness—and I’m pleased to report that most families do a decent job of abiding by this code. I know there are birthday parties my girls aren’t invited to and until now they’ve survived just fine. Of the three kids in H’s grade who’ve had Bat and Bar Mitzvah’s so far this year, all three have played by the rules. Two opted for door number two and invited the whole class and the other invited just the girls.
But one girl, Z, has chosen to do things differently and this is where I have trouble. Rather than invite all the kids or a small handful of close friends, she’s inviting two thirds of the seventh grade class. That’s right, two thirds. I don’t know what factored into her calculation or how she arrived at that number. But I don’t think you’ll have to work very hard to guess who’s not on the list. That’s right, you guessed it. You win the prize.
The good news is that none of the girls in H’s cluster of friends made the cut. Well, that’s not entirely true. Two of the girls are also Jewish, so they got invitations to the ball.
I first heard about all this in the last few days of October. H came home from school one day saying that most of the seventh grade was atwitter because their invitations had just arrived in the mail, and that Z the Bat Mitzvah girl had been overheard bragging at recess about how she’d purposely left people out.

I have to confess I was surprised and saddened by this news. Z’s mother and I aren’t close friends, but we’re certainly friendly enough, and on a couple of occasions this fall, she called to ask if I could help her out of a pinch and I’d always said yes. Similarly, H and Z aren’t close pals, but they’re not arch enemies either. So I was surprised and yes, disappointed to learn H hadn’t been invited. And here’s when I really could have used that parenting book.

Standing at the kitchen counter that afternoon, I could see from the anguished expression on H’s face, that she was wounded by the news. Wounded, though not devastated—but at some point it’s all the same. I immediately went into parenting mode, my heart racing all the while. I tried to think of all the things my mother had told me when I was H’s age, stories about girls who peaked in seventh or either grade then fall into the bottomless pit of anonymity somewhere in their high school career. Stories about Queen Bee’s who flamed out in their junior year and don’t even graduate. When I was a girl, my mother had a whole arsenal of cautionary tales to share.

And the funny thing was, most of them accurately predicted the fates of the girls I most feared, despised or admired. Marcy H, that girl who wore Candies and ass-gripping Chemin de Fer jeans on the first day of sixth grade? Burned out and pregnant by the end of her freshman year. Angie D, the girl who shoplifted Loves Baby Soft perfume and cherry flavored lip gloss from the neighborhood Five and Dime? Rehab and juvy by the time she could vote for President. And what about Molly S, Julie T, and that whole gang of wild girls who stole Vodka from their parent’s liquor cabinets and watched porn movies at high school “slumber parties?” Snorting coke and God knows what else in the bathroom at our twentieth class reunion.
I’m really not trying to be a goody-two shoes here, despite how self-righteous I sound here. I’m just saying that now that I’m a parent, I can understand everything my mother must have felt when I came home with those stories of wonder, dread or despair. I can imagine how her pulse must have raced, how her head must have spun, how mightily she surely struggled to keep breathing as she listened to my tales of woe. Now that I’m a mother, I know that churning anxiety and blinding fury, the wild impulse to throw something that must have seized her, and her struggle for self control. Because standing there making dinner, listening to my daughter tell me how tough that day had been, I felt all of those emotions and then some. I wanted to rip Z’s mother’s face off for letting her kid hurt mine. I wanted to call her on the phone or drive by her house and shout a big “FUCK YOU AND YOUR LITTLE DAUGHTER TOO!” Right then, I drew a big black line through Z’s family’s name and started plotting my revenge. If only I’d had a book or a DVD to prepare me for that moment; some visual aid or survival kit to help me brace myself against the emotional Tsumani that was headed my way.
Once again, I won’t bore you with the details, but suffice it to say, our family had a lot of conversations over the next few days about how we would have made a different choice. We talked about what it means to be a real friend, about being thoughtful but not a doormat. We talked about the futility of chasing the crowd or selling yourself for an invitation. Both W and I shared childhood war stories and even flashed some of our battle scars. And after about a week (well, maybe two) H had pretty much stopped talking about Z altogether. She assured me that she was over it. Now that she knew Z for who she really was, she’d treat her accordingly and move on. Hearing H talk, I felt confident and relieved the worst was behind us. I gave myself a parenting gold star and allowed myself to relax just a little.

So it was like a bucket of water in the face, a dagger through the heart, when it all came rushing back tonight. I didn’t know what to say. I was plumb out of stories and totally caught off guard.

And then something peculiar happened. I suddenly realized the only thing I could do was talk straight to H and see where the pieces fell. The mail man hadn’t delivered that parenting book when I needed it, and the time for stories and cautionary tales was over. If it was going to be, it was going to be me.
“Hey listen,” I said. “I know this sucks for you. It really truly sucks. It’s painful and it’s difficult, and you have a right to feel everything you’re feeling. And the thing is, it’s killing me too. I hate it that I can’t help you through this. I hate that Z wasn’t thoughtful enough to invite you to her Bat Mitzvah and that her mother didn’t have enough sense to encourage her to do the right thing. I hate that you’re in pain about this and I can’t do anything but stand by and let you work your way through it. You’re my daughter, I love you to death, and if there was a way for me to take the hit, I’d take it. But there’s not. This is the ugly, stinky downside of growing up, the flip side of Abercrombie & Fitch. But the other thing is, you really are doing a great job. It’s a hard lesson to learn but you’re almost through to the other side of this one. Saturday will come and go, and then it’ll be over. Sunday will be here before you know it and you’ll be delighted to discover you survived. I’m sorry H. I’m really, really sorry.”

Then I leaned back against the pillow and waited for H to say something. I braced myself for her to say, “Thanks, mom, but that little pep talk of your isn’t helping.” I readied my arms to hug her if she started crying all over again. But she didn’t. Much to my surprise, the straight talk actually seemed to help. I heard H sigh—a long, deep, drawn out sigh like she was finally letting go of all the demons–then she wiped her eyes and sat up.
“Can you get me a tissue?”

“You want me to get up now?” I was all toasty and warm in her bed. I didn’t want to move.
H sniffed and nodded.

Just then, I thought about delivering a brief lecture on the virtues of self reliance, but then it occurred to me that H had been pretty self-reliant already.

“Sure,” I said, throwing back the comforter.

The hallway lights were off and I had to feel my way to the bathroom. The tile floor was cold beneath my feet and I longed to be back in H’s bed. I handed her the tissue and stood over her as she blew her nose, then hugged her and planted a big fat kiss on her lips.
“I love you, sweet pea.”
“I love you too.”
“You’re going to be okay. You know that, right?”
“I know.”

“So get some sleep. It’s late.”
“Tell Daddy I said good night.”

“And no reading. Well, maybe a couple pages. Six thirty will be here before you now it.”

So here’s my pornographic food fantasy: That I cook something for the girls and place it in front of them. They smile up at me with tears in their eyes and say, “Thanks mother dear. Thank you ever so much for laboring over this meal. It looks delicious. We’re so grateful.” In this version of my life, I cook whatever interests me. I flip through the pages of Bon Appetite, Gourmet or some exotic cookbook and my kids squeal with delight or better yet, fall to their knees in thanks. They love whatever I’ve prepared and gobble it up.

Now here’s what usually happens: I decide to cook something other than roast chicken and broccolli; a Thai noodle soup that I cut out of the food section perhaps, or a fish with an unusual but perfectly kid-friendly sauce. I spend a lot of time on this meal, making sure it’s tasty and well balanced, and I’m excited because it’s something different. I say a little prayer of thanks, because I know that if I have to roast one more $%^#*! chicken I’m going to shoot myself. Then, the girls come downstairs for dinner and even before they’ve taken their seats, they spot the unfamiliar dish and their eyes well up with tears and their mouths turn down at the corners.

“What’s this?”

“It’s (insert exotic meal here).”

“What’s in it?”

“It’s got (insert various herbs and spices here). Just try it.”

“But I don’t like (insert exotic meal here).”

“How do you know? We’ve never had it before.”

“I just know. Besides, I think I’m allergic to (insert exotic ingredient here).”

For all the fury and frustration I felt as I scraped the scrambled eggs into the sink, I knew I only had myself to blame. Because the truth is, I’ve created this monster. I’ve allowed my girls to eat foods that were easy and familiar. I haven’t nudged them out onto into the flavorful and exciting culinary world that lies beyond turkey tacos, salmon, a handful of safe noodle or rice dishes and of course, roast chicken.

I’m not saying my kids don’t aren’t good eaters–they are, as long as it’s something they like. We’re beyond the hell of chicken fingers and mac and cheese, but just barely. The band of dishes they’ll eat is still too narrow.

I admire parents whose children eat widely. C has a friend who I absolutely adore, yes, because she’s truly delightful and well mannered, but also because she’ll eat anything. Crepes with ground meat, raisins, spinach and a sprinkling of powdered sugar? check. Tortilla soup? check. Three-cheese enchiladas with tomatillo sauce? check. Why, I bet if I put a raw Kudu steak on her plate and it still had a little bit of blood and fur on it, she’d at least take one bite. The first time she slept over, this little girl and I had a conversation about food and she dared me to guess what I thought her favorite food might be. I scoured my mind for the most outrageous, the most obscure, the most un-kid friendly food I could think of.

“Baklava,” I said.

The little girl just stared at me, wide-eyed, and for an instant I wondered if she’d even heard of Baklava. I was sure I had her.

Then she clapped her hands and said, “You’re right!” then went on to explain how much she loved the flaky layers of phylo pastry, the generous spoonfuls of walnuts mixed with cinnamon and the honey glaze drizzled over it all.

You could have knocked me over with a feather. This kid knew her stuff. I almost asked her if she wanted to move in.

It’s just past six o’clock in the evening, and I’ve been downstairs tidying up the kitchen after being out all day. Thankfully, there wasn’t much to do–toss an empty milk carton in the recycling bin, wipe down the counters, run the dishwasher. But as I cleared the kitchen table, I came across something disturbing: a plate of scrambled eggs.

We don’t do well with breakfast around here, at least not by American standards. My girls don’t like granola, shredded wheat or yogurt with fruit, and since I only allow sugary cereals like Frosted Flakes or Trix on special occassions (their birthdays, Christmas vacation, the first day of summer) breakfasts can be sort of a challenge. Thankfully, they like savory foods in the morning, and over the years, we’ve developed a habit of eating breakfast like people do in other parts of the world. I’m talking about developing nations here–countries where most of the population rises before dawn to work in rice fields or sweat shops or diamond mines. People who labor under these grueling conditions need good, hearty food that will sustain them. Do you ever see a people in Africa, India or China eating Eggos or Pop Tarts for breakfast? No. Their first meal of the day consists of meat and noodles in a hearty broth or some type of handground mealie-meal that sticks to the ribs.

If you were to drop by our house on any regular weekday morning, you’ll find me whipping up turkey tacos (yes, that’s right) or chicken and cheese quesadillas. Sometimes, the girls request beef ravioli or leftover pasta. At first I was embarrassed to admit that my kids at such strange things for breakfast. But then I made the whole “emerging nation” connection and decided that spaghetti and meatballs at seven o’clock a.m was a good thing. It’s protein, right? Kids need “brain food” in the morning.

But this morning was more hectic than usual. I needed to be out of the house by eight, just a few minutes after the the girls left for school, and I woke up later than I typically do. We only had forty minutes to eat, find jackets and shoes, brush teeth and hair, feed puppies, pack backpacks and get to the bus. So, as soon as I got up, I ran downstairs to get breakfast going. But there was one problem: I was out of chicken and cheese and the ground turkey meat was frozen. I had to fall back on that old American favorite–pancakes–and scrambled two eggs for safe measure.

“Pancakes?” H groaned, tossing her book bag on the table. “What about a taco?”

I told her about the frozen turkey meat.

“What about a quesadilla?” C asked.

“No cheese. Sorry girls, but today it’s pancakes. And make sure you both eat the eggs. You’ve got to have protein.”

With breakfast taken care of and the clock ticking away, I ran upstairs to shower, so I’m not exactly sure how things ran off the rails. But when I came back downstairs, ready to walk to the bus, I saw H scrapping her pancakes in the sink.

“Hey, why didn’t you eat those?”

“They had mold on them.”

“Mold? How can pancakes have mold? I just made them. That was a brand new box of mix. ”

She gave me a deadpan stare. “I thought I saw mold.”

Under normal circumstances, I’d have fished the pancakes out of the garbage disposal and dissected them right there on the counter to prove no mold could grow in ten minutes. But there was no time to argue. Meanwhile, C quietly rinsed her plate and headed for the door.It wasn’t until late this afternoon when I got home that I discovered the plate of scrambled eggs, cold and untouched, as far as I could tell, right where I’d placed them.

This afternoon, on our way home from the math tutor, my daughter C asked me this question: “Who would you have married if you didn’t marry daddy?”

At this point in my parenting career I’ve learned a few lessons, one of which is that after your kids get to be about six, it’s impossible to pull the wool over their eyes. Maybe it’s the tone of your voice or your averted gaze when you’re telling that “little white lie”–I’m not sure–but somehow they always know when you’re not being straight with them.

My half-baked theory about children is that they’re sort of like dogs. They spend a lot of time studying their owners, following them from room to room, watching their every move, tuning themselves to whatever frequency their owners transmit. By the age of six or seven, they can detect the slightest mood swing just by looking into your eyes, and their bullshit meter is finely tuned. So when C asked me this question, I had to make a decision and make it quick. I could either:

1) lie and say, “Daddy was the only man for me,” with enough syrupy sweetness to immediately send her into insulin shock thereby eliminating any more questions

or

2) I could fess up.

One morning before school, not too long ago, C was combing through my dresser drawer searching for socks when she discovered my stash of her and her sister’s baby teeth. They were in a crumpled zip lock baggie and had yellowed with age. All those nibblett-sized teeth looked like tiny stones from an archaeological dig.

“What’s this?” C asked, holding the baggie up to the light.

I recognized it immediately and quietly swore at myself for not finding a better hiding place. “Nothing,” I said, as lightheartedly as I could manage. “Put that back and close my drawer. I think there are clean socks down in the dryer.”

But C wasn’t taking the bait. She squinted at the bag and then her expression darkened as she realized what she was looking at. “Are these teeth?”

“Don’t worry about it. It’s nothing. Close the drawer.”

“Are these MY teeth?” She paused for a moment. “Are you the Tooth Fairy?”

There was another long pause. I could practically hear the gears turning. “Are you the Easter Bunny?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

She cocked her head to the side. “Are you the leprechaun that puts the potato under my pillow and green dye in my milk?”

“Sweat pea, please. Just close my drawer.”

Her frown deepened, then she gasped. “Are you Santa Clause? Are you the one who puts the presents under the tree? Are you the one who jingles those bells on Christmas morning?”

I stood there speechless, in the yawning silence of that awful moment, watching as, one by one, all of those joyful moments toppled like a line of dominoes. It was bad. Really bad. Nine years of magical thinking and playful innocence vanished in that instant. Then, C’s eyes went all glassy, her face slowly crumbled, and she burst into tears. Standing there, holding my daughter as she sobbed, I regretted every note I’d written in tiny elfish script, every brass bell I’d ever jangled in the pre-dawn light, every jelly bean and chocolate bunny I’d tucked into a patch of tall Spring grass. They were all big fat lies, every one, and every one of them had tumbled out of my mouth. I’d set her up and now she was paying the price.

I won’t bore you with the rest of that story, but let’s just say I had to work pretty hard to patch her up and restore her sense of hope before we had to run for the bus. But something about the way she looked at me as she waved goodbye told me that things between the two of us would never be quite the same. I was the one who she’d relied on to tell her about the world. I was her protector, her buffer and her filter and now, she couldn’t trust me.

So, when C hit me with this question about who I would have married if I hadn’t married W, I decided to go for the truth. After all, my credibility was on the line.

“A guy named Dwight,” I said. “We grew up together. He lived up the street.”

“Did you love him?”

“Yes.”

C leaned in closer. Her eyes were wide and she was grinning. “So, why didn’t you marry him?”

Oh boy. What had I gotten myself into?

“Because I didn’t appreciate the kind of guy he was,” I said. But I knew, almost before I spoke the words, that my explanation was insufficient. C would want details. She’d want the whole enchilada. I had to go on. I explained that I had a crush on Dwight all through junior high and high school, but never thought anything would come of it. He was my neighbor, my pal, the guy I played Kick the Can with. We watched Barnaby Jones and Kimba the White Lion together every day after school. But one summer, years later, when we were both home from college, Dwight confessed that he had a crush on me too. Our summer romance ended with a marriage proposal, one which I didn’t accept.

“But you loved him, right?”

“Right.”

“So why didn’t you say yes?”

It’s a strange feeling to have your own child point out the faults in your logic and basically confirm that you’re an idiot. It’s a strange feeling to drive through the darkening city streets talking about your past with someone you’ve created from nothing, someone who knows who you are now, but doesn’t know who you’ve been.

“Because I thought that when I graduated from college, I had to be serious. Dwight wanted to travel. He wanted adventure and excitement. He wasn’t thinking about a getting a job or buying a house or any of that stuff.”

“And that’s why you didn’t marry him?”

“Yeah.”

“That’s dumb.” C fell silent for a moment, then asked, “Was daddy serious?”

Okay, how could I answer that one? The implications were huge. This truth-telling thing was killing me.

“Yeah . . . But in a good way.”

I could feel C staring at me. Finally she sat back in her seat and nodded. “I’m glad.”

“Me too.”

“Did Dwight ever get married?”

“He married a Brazilian woman. I think he lives in Brazil now.”

“Does he have any kids?”

“Two. A girl and a boy.”

By now, we were a couple blocks from home and I was praying C wouldn’t ask me any more questions. Not because I didn’t want to answer them, but because I was thinking about Dwight and trying to remember the young woman I was all those years ago. I could picture Dwight standing in my driveway wearing those ridiculous cut-off shorts with orange fringe on the pockets. I could picture his sandy blond hair streaked with gold from all the hours in the sun. I could picture the peeling skin on his nose and the handful of freckles beneath. But that girl? The one I’d been? I could barely remember her.

It’s funny how time seals off memories, sort of like the baby teeth I’d stored in that zip lock bag. You recognize them because you remember putting them there, stashing them away. But they’re not the same. Over the years, they turn yellow and seem to shrink around the edges. But that’s okay. The emotion is still there. Maybe not as fresh as before, but fresh enough. And thanks to C, I have a lot to remember and even more to look forward to if I’m willing to be honest. If I can stand the truth.

I can’t tell you how happy I am that the holidays are behind me; that I’m back to my normal routine. It sounds terrible, I know, and I don’t mean to suggest that I didn’t enjoy the Christmas break because I did–every moment. I loved being with W and the girls. I loved our leisurely drive up the coast to Mendicino and trudging through thigh-high snow drifts in Lake Tahoe. I didn’t miss the early morning rush or the frantic race for the school bus or the afternoon carpool madness. It was great to get put all that aside.

But by January 3rd, I was suffering from PTHSS–Post Traumatic Holiday Stress Syndrome. I couldn’t stand the smell of gingerbread. I didn’t want to hear another Christmas Carol or wish another person Happy New Year. Within half an hour of coming home from Tahoe, I’d striped every light, every decoration off the tree and dragged it to the corner. I wanted to feel light on my feet. I think the girls found my determination to rid the house of holiday clutter alarming because H kept asking, “what’s the rush? Why are you already ‘de-Christmasing’ the house?”

“Because it’s time to move on. Now go get the broom and sweep up all these pine needles.”

It’s great to be back in the writing groove. Well, not “back” exactly. The problem with taking time off from the novel is that it takes time to get back into it–about a week. I know I’ll spend the next two of three days staring at my computer screen waiting for the words to come, waiting for my characters to come back from wherever they’ve wandered and start talking to me again. But that’s okay. I’ve been in this position before. I know that eventually, a word, a phrase, or an image will come to mind and I’ll be off to the races. The rest of the world will fall away and it’ll just be me and the words. But for now, I’m just happy to back in my little writing office, surrounded by books I love and my writer pals who are returning from hither and yon. That’s probably the best thing–coming back to this writing space where thirty other slightly frumpy, mildly neurotic, occassionally grumpy book lovers just like me are all engaged in a similar struggle.  This is my crowd, my tribe, if you will.  We’re all trying to translate images and feelings into words on the page and hopefully, something more.

My God. It’s great to be home.

If there’s one difference between W and me it’s this: He’s a game player and I’m not.

I didn’t grow up playing board games or even cards. I don’t think I held a pair of dice until I was in high school. It wasn’t a religious thing. My family simply spent our leisure time doing other things—like gardening until midnight or helping my dad wash his car. Whenever I mention my game-free childhood to friends they regard me with pity and disbelief. I may as well tell them I spent my childhood in a refugee camp. To them, growing up in a family that never played games is like growing with parents who never read Goodnight Moon or Little Red Riding Hood at bedtime. It’s tragic. Almost un-American.

W, on the other hand, has always been a serious game player. Monopoly, Clue, checkers, Crazy Eights, Risk, Stratego. He’s played them all. Even now, as a father of two in his mid forties, W is still a hard-core gamer. You should see the tower of consoles that are hooked up to our TV. Sony Play Station, XBox 360, the Wii. It’s crazy. But W loves these games, and after seventeen years of marriage, I’ve learned that trying to fight his gaming impulse is a fruitless endeavor. I suppose I should be thankful. If it weren’t for W, our girls wouldn’t know a spade from a club or the difference between night elves and dwarfs in World of Warcraft (and who could live without that vital tidbit of information?) So it was in the spirit of gratitude that I went along with latest W’s plan to buy Guitar Hero and Rock Band.

Yesterday, the UPS guy left two enormous boxes on our doorstep. I stood by as W and the girls connected the guitars and set up the drums. I had no intention of participating in what I believed to be a complete and total waste of a perfectly good Friday evening. But something about being able to play Weezer’s “Say It Ain’t So,” by simply pressing a few keys on a fake guitar appealed to me, and before I knew it, I was in the family room helping W and the girls think of names for our band. I created my avatar, a hot little red head named Fabian, who wears a thrashed baseball t-shirt, a mirco- mini skirt and kick-ass black boots. Forty-five minutes after setting up, I was rocking out to Mountain’s “Mississippi Queen,” and having the time of my life.

Whoever thought up this game deserves a Nobel Prize. It’s that much fun. As I pounded away on the drums and strummed my way through a complicated guitar solo I found myself wondering how I could work guitar lessons into my schedule. I’m embarrassed to admit that we played Rock Band for FOUR HOURS. We didn’t even stop to eat dinner.

Who needs to write a novel when becoming a rock star is so much easier?

We’re a few days into the new year and I finally figured out what I wanted for Christmas: more joy. The idea first occurred to me on Christmas Eve. My mom and I were doing a bit of last minute shopping downtown. The streets were crawling with people. Everyone was loaded down with bags and the air was charged with that holiday frenzied feeling. My mom turned to me and asked, “so what else do you want for Christmas?” I had to think for a moment. Sure, I could use a new sweater or a scarf, but right then, I didn’t want anything. Nothing material anyway. What I really wanted was peace of mind. What I really wanted was to get better at truly being in the moment. What I really wanted was to remember that life is a ride worth taking.

I haven’t made a new year’s resolution in a long time. I know I’ll get to the gym often enough to keep this body of mine in decent shape. I don’t smoke and don’t drink enough to worry about having to quit. But I don’t want to waste another year fretting and wringing my hands. I don’t want to squander another year worrying or scanning the horizon for disaster. All in all, things are good. That’s what I have to remember.

So this year, my new year’s resolution is a simple one. I’m going to enjoy life–whatever comes my way. More joy. That’s all I want. That’s what I’m going for.

Happy New Year.