Boys' trip

God sent us a river, and the boys ran through it.

My beautiful and kind friend Lise offered us her house in Vermont Memorial Day Weekend.  Yusef had a tournament in Vermont and Hanni had just come off a terrible week.

Yusef, through the generosity of the other parents and his club team's scholarship went to Maryland to play, and Hanni and I accepted Lise's offer to go to Vermont.

It was a last minute decision, made Thursday afternoon. We're sincerely financially strapped right now. I had a very scary financial week. The kind when all the chickens (tax collectors) came home to roost. I did a good job of keeping my chin up and faced it all.

Hanni got injured, again, on Sunday and felt frustrated about these repeat injuries, and guilty about missing his family, whose calls he hadn't been returning. This ended in a lot of buried anger which manifested into a minor fight on school property.  It took him a while to connect the injury to missing his real mommy to feeling like he couldn't call her to feeling angry and frustrated to pushing the kid who got in his face, but he did. He made the connection.

I decided that we needed to get Yusef off to Potomac with one of the parents, and get in a car and out of NYC with three of Hanni's closest friends, the dog and very little cash. We made it late Friday night and for about an hour after we got here, I decided I'd done what my former therapist refers to as, "starting something without realizing how hard it's actually going to be". Things settled, and we made dinner and settled into watching a movie.

This house and the land around it are really beautiful. There's something magically healing about this spot.  It's so aesthetically and physically different from where we live every day. I walk outside, barefoot, into the grass and try to get the sheep and their new babies to say hi to me. The hills are grassy, dotted with trees, beautiful purple and yellow flowers growing.  There isn't another house in sight. I feel as natural and at home here as I do in my apartment in Brooklyn.

My four city boys, two from Yemen (Hanni and Achmed), one from Jamaica (Chevon), and the last, my Hondurian son (Paulo), are remembering where they grew up and offering advice on how to deal with snake venom. SUCK THE BLOOD OUT. SUCK THE BLOOD OUT.

I walked them to the amazing grass soccer field in view of the house. Yes, there's a soccer field in front of Lise's house. I know. They played man in the middle with Opus-dog in the middle-and I see what his breed is capable of. He runs, and runs and runs, surprisingly good off the leash. He's an incredible defender. He gets the ball easily from them. When Opus got tired of the excericse, we walked over to a creek that I later learned was a shallow part of the West River. I encouraged Opus to get in. He grew up in Brookyn so he looked at me like I was crazy, but he eventually the lure of the water overcame his city ways, and he found a way over the rocks and into the water. The boys ran over, and encouraged by the dog, followed suit.

It took Chevon a while to get up the courage to get in the water, but this river has become their thing.  They spent the afternoon chasing their soccer ball down the course of the river, and now, I hear their laughter and taunts echoing in the distance as they swim up and down as the current takes them.  They called to me when the curve of the river put them close to the front of Lise's property. Opus and I walked down. My city boys, walking on the bank of a river, They looked like a scene from the movie, "Stand by Me". They're having an adventure.

Opus and I are back at the house, under an umbrella. He's killing flies like it is his assignment for the Federal Government. I'm eating chocolate and drinking coffee.   I hear them coming back, baaing to the sheep.  They're happy.  Going to shower and get in the hot tub.

I keep stopping, mid relaxation to think about this image of them walking down the river. It will be a memory.  Their memory. Where will it sit? They're teenagers, all from difficult up bringings, each making different decisions about how to transition into adulthood.

One of the parent's from Yusef's team said to me when I returned from my week alone in Jamaica, "we don't travel without our kids. we figure there will be plenty of time for that later". I wanted to give him the finger, but I see a point to what he is saying now.

I brought Hanni and Opus on this trip to Vermont because I felt they needed it. And I prayed that it would be healing for them, and that I would be here to make it as fun as needed (and safe). Lovingly providing and staying out of the way.

Growing up with my sister, who was eight years younger, I was obsessed with the concept of making memories for her. Mine were wrapped up in my parents agonizing drama.  I frantically threw her the best birthday parties, would visit her school with surprise lunches for her and her closest friends, supervised her 'cool' parties, went to every celebration and hooted and hollered from the stands, hovered and took pictures. Made her parties for graduation, gave her gifts.

Now I have Yusef and Hanni.  Any of these trips I "give them" are memory makers.  Anything we do together becomes a part of their historical fabric.  Everything, unfortunately, including my verbal temper.

There's nothing to do here in the country of Vermont.  But God sent them a river to run through, and they couldn't be happier.  They have the memory of their adventures along the river, and I have the memory of the four of them walking away from me, intent on their journey down the bank. Lise gave us the house we could never afford, God gave them the river, but I brought them here.  That feels better than any part of my trip alone to Jamaica.

Roller coaster, non optional.

I don't know if it is my unique familial situation that lends to the sharp inconsistencies I experience as a parent and witness from my teenagers.

But let me tell you this.

One evening, I can be sitting on our stoop with Yusef looking at fireflies and the next, he can tell me that "no television is bullshit" after kicking his bean bag across the room. Let me add that when Yusef saw the firefly, he smiled and said it was the first time he'd seen one since Africa.

I can lovingly send Hanni off to his end of year school dance after having helped him pick out an outfit, and the next weekend, find out he's lied to me based on the way he smells. I can tell when he's lying by his scent.

One day, I had a beautiful conversation with Yusef about not letting anything his fans or teammates say define him as a player, and the next, I dropped him off on the side of the street to walk home because he gave me attitude while we were on our way to do him a favor. (We were ten blocks from home, safe walk home.)

During one recent drive to practice, Hanni and I made a break-through about suppressed feelings and how they can explode in unlikely situations. The night after Hanni lied to me, I woke up in a panic, went in his room and woke him up, and hysterically asked if we were "on the same team".

I alternate between loving them so much my heart hurts to thinking that I have invited the people under the stairs to live in my apartment.

I went on a roller coaster again last year for the first time in 18 years. I hated it. I started shaking from the speed and cried when we went upside down or lurched over a hill to race down the incline. I screamed and prayed and told myself over and over, "now I know, I'm too old for roller coasters".

This was before I decided to invite Yusef and Hanni to live with me and accept me as their second mom. Now, I'm back on a mother fucking roller coaster and I have to stay on because my kids are riding next to me.

Tragic Past, or Comedic Present?

I closed my week in Jamaica with a shot of steroids in my ass. I had fluid in my ears and was told by the doctor post intimacy that I needed to extend my trip by a day to let my ears heal before getting on a plane.

I've been struggling for a week on a very, very sad song about my childhood and how it has dominated my relationships with men. The shot in my ass gave me the necessary comedic perspective to finish this piece and let it go.

On the plane, 8 days ago, flying towards Montego Bay, I was struck by an image of my face over the past couple of decades, scanning various crowds for a man to love me. It's been an intensely driven search. I have been grasping (gasping even sometimes) for sustenance without being able to identify what will fulfill me.

The article I was reading on the plane by Martha Beck encouraged me to examinine my motivations. I did so and came to the sickening certainty that I've been looking for men who have some or all of the characteristics of my father so I can beg them to love me the way I should have been loved as a child.

My father was cruel and elusive for all the years I lived close to him. He was inconsistent, unreliable, dishonest, and stingy with his approval.  I have taken any one of these qualities as necessary evils from every man for whom I've had feelings. Not so shockingly, I have not convinced these metaphorical fathers to embrace role play and help me change my past. Instead, I am divorced from a sweet man, single, and fabulous at attracting cruel men.

I am 37 years old and I want to stop this aching search and just breathe a little.  Bill Cunningham requoted in his great documentary, "he who seeks beauty will find it". I have been blessed with a rainbow of intoxicating experiences: my kids, friends, business, travel... Sadly, these blessings have been met by this painful need to fill the black hole of my childhood neglect. I'm capable of giving so much love, but I've not been able to receive it in return because it isn't what I've been looking for.

I recognize, now, that I didn't even want these men to be real partners and lovers, I just wanted to feel like an adored child. I wanted doses of adoration with a nasty desperation that pushed aside any real experiences as they were happening to me.

This single-minded pursuit has limited my life.

Can I stop? Can I seek beauty instead? Can I let go of my childhood and accept that although it was bereft of healthy love from my parents, I am no longer a child and there are other things I can experience to nourish and heal me? Can I let go of the pain of growing up with the parents I had and accept that neither has any power in my life anymore except in how I choose to live?

I pray that I have the resolve to seek beauty, in myself, and rejoice in how stunning I am.  I pray for this realization to make it impossible for me to remain in the presence of men who will not bring me joy.  I pray to understand what it means to be protective of my beauty and shield it from the dark things attracted to its light. I pray to see myself as my true admirers do, and have flashes of how God sees me.

I pray also to receive the gifts of love and beauty that God has been giving me to fill in the hole of being neglected by my parents. The biggest gift I've been given, of course, is my kids. They came to me broken, also neglected, in need of so much love and stability. I thank God for creating this new crazy family within which we all can heal.

This is my last day in Jamaica, I leave this gorgeous hotel in just a few hours. I believe that I can break the pattern of trying to change my past. I'm going to put myself in the water now and let the ocean do what it always has, hold and surround me with its infinite love and wisdom.

Momcentric

I went through a rough time November to February. Without realizing it, becoming a mom and properly caring for Yusef and Hanni triggered a lot of sadness I didn't know I still carried from the neglect of my childhood. I was working so hard to give the kids honesty and unconditional love, restore the ground under their feet, that I barely felt when the foundation of my own childhood started to crack and crumble, breaking through the make-shift patches I'd used over the years to keep myself together. I cried a lot, snapped at the boys for being teenagers, stopped writing as much, and still thought I was doing a good job of keeping my misery from the kids. It worked for a little while. They continued flourishing as usual. My therapist kept asking how the kids were. Fine, I wondered, they seem fine.

But, around February, the sadness eased, walking my new dog three times a day started to heal me endorphin style, and I came out of my fog to see that Yusef and Hanni no longer went to bed or woke up laughing. A feud had erupted. Further investigation revealed that they no longer wanted to spend a minute in each other's company--that they were carrying intense antagonism for each other. Individual conversations with the boys informed me that they were done as brothers, never wanted to speak to the other again, and might come to blows if one more thing happened.

Hmm. I told each of them that if they wanted to call me mother, then they were brothers through me. And although it was normal to be feuding at this stage in the relationship, it had gone on long enuugh. They had two weeks to fix it and could ask for my help, but if they didn't fix it in two weeks, they were seeing a therapist two times a week to help them heal their relationship. Both boys spit on me (figuratively) with disgust. There was NO WAY they were going to be brothers again. Two weeks, I said.

I took a close look at Yusef and realized that his shitty attitude had become unbearable and had been going on since mid-December. We had addressed it MANY times and there had been no change. He is the baby, and he was crying out for my attention by being as ugly to me as he could. He was the Gold Medal Olympic Champion of attitude. So, I had the talk with him. The same one I'd had with Hanni. This is your home, not a prison. If you want to live here, you follow my rules, but if living here makes you as miserable as you're acting, I will help you find a new place to live. That doesn't change that I love you and this is your home, but if you're this unhappy, you must want to try living somewhere else for a while. End of discussion.

I followed up with him about where he wanted to live every day. He insisted he was behaving with respect and good cheer and I insisted that if he couldn't recognize the bad attitude, it meant he couldn't change it and we should think of where else he might be happier. Over the course of a week, the conversation changed.

The attitude stopped. He began telling me all the things that were bothering him in his own life. He started looking at me in my face again, coming into my room to talk. Acknowledging the dog with his own version of kindness. He began joking again. Calling me to stay hi. We wrapped it up--he wanted to stay, he'd just been miserable and not sure how to tell me.

Yusef and Hanni started laughing again. They chose each other's company over individual company with me. They bonded over the SAT prep I forced them through. Listening at the door of my closet which borders their room, I heard laughter and indecipherable secrets whispered as they prepared for bed.

My Gala kicked into high gear and I got very busy, but in the face of the realization that my emotional absence had had on their individual lives, I stayed focused on the boys. Watched them like a hawk and did my best to make time to really see them. I spent as much time as possible with them individually and together.

The house felt like a home again--with my boys smiling and making jokes in every room.

If mom is okay, the boys are okay. If I'm healthy and happy and catching their weird secret verbal and nonverbal cues, they can relax into their lives. I am AMAZED at the power I have as mom over their quality of life. I had thought they were okay, but the contrast with how noisy and boisterous they were today between how they had behaved over my sad winter made me realize that they had not been okay at all.

Oprah and her team were not lying when they said that as parents, the best gift you can give your kids is for you to be happy yourself. I am witness to this. Can give testimony to the power my joy has on the household. Intimidating, but a great way to stay in check.

I'm on vacation right now, resting and thinking. When I left at three in the morning to fly to this corner of the Caribbean, Hanni woke up to carry my stuffed suitcase down the stairs, and when I looked up, Yusef had woken up also and was staring out the window at me as I got into the cab. I see their love and I accept the responsibility of receiving it.

Hand to the heart, I will identify the areas of my life that are driven by my childhood neglect, and find the patterns of bad behavior that are motivated by an aching need to change how I was brought up. I will face the fact that I can't put better parents into my past, and let go of this fantasy in order to become a better parent in reality for Hanni and Yusef.

The Chairwitch Project

Sometimes, I wake up and come out to my office and there is a chair from my conference table facing a window. The window is usually partially open.

I call this the Chairwitch Project.

Creepy, but I refuse to figure it out. Ideas?

Is it a cliche if I say my 16 year old hates me?

Lately, living with Yusef is like living with every teenage adjective that's ever been used: angry, sullen, selfish, moody, hateful, accusatory, disbelieving, confrontational, isolated, mournful, and, my favorite, condescending (Miss, if I were [your client] and I'd sat in your dirty car, I don't know what I would have thought about you). 

If I refuse to get pulled into combat and lamaze breathe through the insanity of his attitude, then I get moments of quiet need: standing opposite me in the hallway just listening quietly, poised on the threshold of my bedroom door asking me for help, reading expressively to me from the Hunger Games.  

Hanni thinks Yusef has lost his mind. Their relationship has deteriorated. They are waging a war on each other by taking one another's stuff without asking. They've stopped laughing together. I told them they have 2 weeks to work it out with or without my help then they get a counselor to help them work through it. 

Yusef has isolated himself at school. He doesn't feel like socializing with the other kids. But he works so hard with the teachers, an hour before school and every minute he's there. 

Raising Yusef is such an experience. 

"Miss! Who put my stuff here!!!

"Yusef. I have no idea what you're talking about.

Miss! Come look at it then!!!

I will not."

30 minutes of stomping and angrily folding clothes ensue...

Time to feed the dog.

If my life were a movie, I'd be played by Ben Stiller.

It's like slapstick around here. The hits just keep coming and if I can snap my head back fast enough, I get to laugh a lot.

Two Saturdays ago, the tub exploded. Two drunk plumbers came, didn't fix it. The older gentleman, in spite of only having one tooth, managed to sing me a quite nice rendition of 'The Love Boat'.

I barely could afford a gift for the engagement party I was going to this past weekend, and broke the one I bought while gift wrapping it in the car. 

I lost the charger to a very important part of my social life. 

My dating website has yielded amazing dating prospects, such as the man who tried to induct me into his cult. He is married and has pictures on his profile with his wife, and my personal favorite, himself naked in a circle of flames.  

The situations around the toilet with two teenage boys can be terrifying. At the very least, mystifying. 

My dog is mentally unstable. Hates small kids and other dogs. Is currently chasing his tale in a mad frenzy. But he spoons me.

My kids are quintessential teenagers even though they're transplants from West Africa and Yemen.

They remain hysterically funny. 

Last night, Yusef put real soap in the dishwasher, suds covered the kitchen floor. When I showed him, he yelled, "Dammit! Are we going to be okay?!" 

Hanni wandered back into the kitchen after I thought he was asleep and got a glass of water. As he walked back to his bedroom he said, "Last night I dreamed I was in the desert, tonight, I'll be prepared".

Do your eyes light up?

I haven't written anything in quite a while. Since the beginning of January, if we go by what's posted here.

I didn't expect this blog to be so focused on what it's like to suddenly be a mother of two teenagers, but I guess that was naive thinking, since I started this blog after suddenly becoming the mother of two teenagers.

I get very busy with work mid winter to the end of spring, and I forget, every year, what that feels like. Being a mom and busy with work (with a dog who has some major emotional issues, welcome to the family, Opus), is a lot like being a married devout Catholic who is sleeping with her priest.

Meaning, I feel guilty. All. The. Time.

I have less of everything these days. Less energy, less time, less patience, less home cooked meals (they probably aren't mourning this one), less Sunday Fun-days, less laughter... And I need so much more from them. They have regular chores now. I know, I know, I probably should have done this six months ago, but I hated to ask them to do anything other than keep their room and clothes clean.

I think that's why I haven't written in so long, not because I gave them chores, but because it's hard to write about feeling like a crappy mom.

I try, every day, to do what Toni Morrison instructs, to greet them when they walk in the room with unabated joy. Stretch my jaw muscles into a smile, look them in the eye and say, "You're home! Hello! I'm so happy to see you!" This is very hard as a busy, working person and single mom. Lately, I have lists I run through with them, lots of questions that need fast answers. I need to know if they ate lunch, do they want a snack. Are they ready for tutoring, will they be ready for soccer, can they go get some groceries and run by the bank.

Toni is right, though. It has had an effect on my little family that I'm not lighting up when they walk in the door. Running through all the things that need to be done for them does not make them feel seen and loved. It makes them tired.

Hanni's a trooper. He loves to work and help--he's doing the best he can, and so damn politely. Hanni also isn't shy--he's a communicator. He will sit and tell me about his day and anything that's on his mind no matter how busy I look.

Yusef is younger, just turned 16, and struggles with verbal communication. My busyness is showing up in his attitude, which has been pretty poor lately. I can tell that he misses me--misses when I would spread out enough time so that he could get out the things that are on his mind.

I received a text from Hanni when I was on my way home after working an event tonight, "I'm going to go to bed now, Cathy, is there anything else you need?". Sweet, but, dagger to this mom's heart.

When I got home a few minutes later, I found out that Yusef broke a house rule. I went to the other side of our house after scolding Yusef, and things felt icky. I had no idea how to fix anything.

Then, the grace of God walked my feet back to where Hanni was finishing a remembered piece of homework, opened my mouth and spoke, "Thank you. Thank you for helping me so much when I need you, and for being so polite when you're exhausted. It's hard to do that, and I want you to know that I see you, and I'm so grateful."

God didn't stop there. He had me call Yusef into the kitchen and make a deal. "Let's forget all of this. You didn't have attitude yesterday. You didn't take the family iPad to soccer practice tonight. I miss you and you're one of my favorite people on the planet and I don't want to be angry with you anymore. I want to spend time with you and have fun, because I love you. Fresh start-we're good, there's no trouble between us, okay?" And then he couldn't speak. He turned around and did that thing where he scrunches up his mouth so he doesn't cry and gave me a nod.

Things felt better. I thought of this piece. I took off my damn pantyhose. Put on my pajamas and got into bed with my crazy dog.

And, then Yusef knocked on the door and asked if he could tell me something. I made sure my eyes lit up when he walked in the room.

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Please forgive typos and poor editing in general until mid-May.

Crazy Love, otherwise known as, 'Crap, I just realized we don't have any toilet paper'

There's these moments that happen, that I've heard all moms refer to in one way or another. The crazy love for your kids moments.

They happen, most often, for me, during the in between times. In between the furious wiping of the counter tops, the guilt of working until 8pm and ordering delivery instead of cooking the organic fish I defrosted, walking the dog with the mysterious diarrhea, talking to one of the boys about learning to be kind even when things don't go his way, worrying about the over-kindness of the other kid and what future or past transgression he might be preparing me for, the realization that sometimes I don't make the boys take their vitamins because I don't want to take my own, hoping that neither my attempt at quinoa nor my reunion with my stomach flu infested soul sister are the cause of my stomach pains, and feeling that I'm in college again, broke and out of toilet paper.

In between these times, which usually happen after I've said good night for what I'm sure is the last time, I feel the urge to ask one more question, interrupt one more conversation, give one more reminder, just so I can finish by saying, again, 'I love you'. Because, I do, I crazy love them.