I See You

Anyone else out there feeling vulnerable?

Coronavirus, and not knowing for sure what's next or right or reasonable in preparing for, preventing, and managing it, is our new shared, global, collective anxiety.  COVID-19 has also become part of the greater preexisting web of things we worry about, while expanding and exposing our already tender underbellies.

Quarantines and social distancing and closed schools and businesses are conspiring to keep us apart for our own good.  And yet, we need one another.  Because underlying This Big Worry are all the other stressors and circumstances, short- and long-term, big and small, which existed before and many of which will still be around after Coronavirus has peaked and then waned.

Maybe it's Daylight Savings.  Lack of sleep?  Elections.  Tragedy.  There's menopause.  Cancer diagnoses and treatments.  College applications, acceptances, and rejections.  Grades.  Finances.  The stock market.  Depression.  Parenting.  Providing.  Trying to make a doctor's appointment.  Your child's behavior.  Being a good __fill in the blank__.  Death in your family.  Fear of death in your family.  Taxes.  The news.  Accidents.  Social media.  Anxiety.  Report cards.  SAT tests and scores.  Being responsible; is this what it means to be responsible?  GPA.  Insurance.  Deferred maintenance.  That pit in your stomach. Your children. The Joneses. Marriage.  Dating.  Your appearance.  Driving.  Climate change.  Being left out or feeling left out or FOMO.  Natural disaster. Your to-do list.  Your job?  Mortgages, or rent.  That thing you said. Also that thing you didn't say.  Your carbon footprint.  Panicking...or not panicking?  Your parents' health. Missing your parents.  Your relationship with alcohol. Someone else's relationship with alcohol.  Your relationships.  Do you need therapy?  Therapy.  Passwords.  Travel.  Real ID. The DMV.  Copays. Aging.  Being dead. Suicide.  Living up.  Being there.  Being there when you can't be.  Nutrition.  Clean water.  Regret.  Wildfires.  Preparedness.  Helping others.  Doing your part.  Maintaining perspective.  Being aware.  Not overreacting. Putting your phone down.  Laundry.  Doing enough.  Organic food.  Charitable contributions.  Forgetting.  Animal rights. Violence.  Retirement.  Healthcare.  Job performance.  Balanced meals.  Landfills.  Recycling.  Faith.  Teenagers.  The cost of oil.  War.  Feeling accepted.  Feeling seen.

Vulnerabilities are normal and natural and every day; they accentuate our humanness and connect us with others.  They're why we innovate and why we experiment and create; they're why we write novels and poetry and plays and songs and make music and paint and sculpt and reach out and act courageously and help and represent others.  Sharing our vulnerabilities and connecting with others' fears and insecurities helps us feel less lonely.

Our vulnerabilities can also spotlight our least desirable tendencies; they're why we manipulate and hoard and judge and fear our neighbors and develop addictions and point fingers and lash out and isolate ourselves.

And we're all vulnerable right now in our new shared reality.  Social media posts would suggest that we are asserting or seeking validation that our own approaches to current circumstances make the most, best sense.  Despite our links to experts' advice and testimonials, most of us don't really know the actual best way forward.  So we muddle through, collectively, along both parallel and intersecting paths.

At the height of his own fearfulness, Scaredy Squirrel, a Master Paranoiac and Overreactor, fell out of his seemingly safe tree sanctuary and serendipitously discovered he could fly.

But it's not a great time for us to venture forth into the Great Unknown.  We are likely to be having to hunker down (or up in our trees) soon with our nut supply and a limited view.

If elbow bumps are the closest safe contact, hugging and helping become rare gifts.

And that's why it's more important than ever to poke our heads out of our trees, acknowledge one another from a safe distance, and share more than our excess toilet paper, as our other struggles appear to recede in significance in the face of this pandemic.

Because Coronavirus isn't our only reality.  It's not our only vulnerability.

I see you, parenting a child with disabilities.  I see you, cutting corners to make ends meet.  I see you, in charge of making the tough calls in times like these.   I see you, unable to visit elderly loved ones.  I see you, worried about a family member's mental health.  I see you, mourning the death of your parent(s).  I see you, minimizing your own stress while maximizing your availability for others.  I see you, wondering if you/he/she will graduate.  I see you, worrying about test results.  I see you, struggling to speak up.  I see you, researching resources to help yourself or someone else.  I see you, wondering if anyone notices.

I see you. 

I see you, trying hard every day.

Acknowledging the journeys of others, unfolding before us even from a distance, might be what keeps us best connected in these unprecedented but also normal times.

I see you, searching for meaning.  Whom can you help be and feel seen?

Commencement Speech 2018

Yesterday was likely the last time I'll deliver a high school graduation speech for a while! I am making elementary school my new professional home.

It was my honor to deliver the keynote address for the Class of 2018 last night:

Dear Class of 2018, thank you for inviting me to speak with you and our guests tonight.

We are going to start with a little experiment. I am going to say some words, and you are going to listen and pay attention to what you hear.  

Yanny.

Laurel.

Jenny.  

Laurel.

Maybe you heard me say Laurel.  Maybe you heard Yanny.  I sneaked a Jenny in there too, in deference to the fact that many of you will start calling me that at about 9:00 tonight if you haven’t already.  

Recently, the internet introduced us to this Yanny/Laurel sound file, and mysteriously, most of us could only hear one of those words when it played.  This prompted an online debate reminiscent of the photo of the famous dress that circulated in 2015, which people declared to be either blue and black, or white and gold.  We now know that hearing Yanny or Laurel depends on the frequencies your particular ears hear, and the color of the dress is related to how your brain processes ambient light.

When I was a teenager I copied quotes from song lyrics I thought were deep or relevant or really spoke to the devastating romantic moment I was going through, and I would share them with my best friend who was like, you listen to the lyrics?  I listen to the guitars.  My mind was kind of blown.  To me songs were mostly about their meaning.  To her, they were about music.  We were both listening to Oingo Boingo and hearing different parts.  

So what I find fascinating about our reactions to these internet debates about words and dresses is our absolute certainty that what WE perceive is the THE RIGHT ANSWER:  “It’s Laurel, and the rest of you are crazy,” “the dress is blue.  There is no white.”  WHY is it  so shocking to be confronted with evidence that we see and hear things differently from one another?   After all, there are people who like pineapple on pizza and who enjoy the smell of gasoline, and who can even walk on burning rocks without flinching.  Some of us are warm tonight, and others are cold, and you cannot tell someone they’re not cold. We see, hear, taste, smell, and feel things differently.   We also find different things beautiful, and funny, and gross, and sad, as well as easy and difficult.  We believe differently too. 

Thank goodness, by the way.  I enjoy having friends with houses of different styles and colors and eating dishes other people cook and I’ve appreciated YOUR unique approaches to fashion and differing preferences and viewpoints and influences.   I’m urging us to move beyond it HAS to be Laurel, it’s ONLY EVER a white dress, Crocs are universally ugly, and peanut butter and pickle sandwiches can never be good.  How about a different approach, like OMG, you love crocs?  Please tell me more about this affection you have for wide plastic shoes!  And then, we listen intently instead of shaking our heads in an inability to understand and ACCEPT that some people enthusiastically rock crocs.  Last week my daughter asked me to put diced apples in her tuna sandwich and I was like ewww, okay.  And then I was hungry, and there was extra tuna, and I tried it.  You guys.  This could be a new thing, like chicken and waffles, or bacon with maple syrup.  

We could stop replaying the Yanny and Laurel loop in search of hidden syllables (or to prove ourselves so very right about what we hear), and instead seek to understand one another a little more--how others’ backgrounds, experiences, and influences affect THEIR RESPONSES to the world and how things makes them feel--so often differently from ourselves.  I believe that’s one of the valuable lessons from Anthony Bourdain, who found no cuisine, from a villager’s daily porridge to the most expensive dish at a high-end restaurant, unworthy of his exploration and our attention.  Similarly, he valued the stories of the people he met, both humble and famous, and championed the challenges and contributions of dishwashers and executive chefs alike--as all essential members of culinary teams who feed us.  

Ms. Bice and I talked recently about how critical it is for everyone, regardless of age and experience, to feel they have stories to tell worthy of others’ ears.  She and your teachers have obviously had the purpose of teaching you, but the essence of that purpose has been to prompt and elicit your OWN analyses and understandings of what you’ve heard, read, seen, and experienced.  Our jobs are made joyful by the fact that WE KNOW your stories already matter, and that they’re important and instructive.  

We have much to learn from generations before and after us, if we don’t condemn them for lack of relevance or experience.  We are watching the elders in our society grow in understanding that high school students can be the greatest experts on topics which affect them most acutely, and when they speak up and demand to be heard.  Millennials are teaching our parents and my generation that money is best spent on experiences vs. things.  It’s wise to to befriend and consult older folks, too, particularly as you cross thresholds of life--we elders can empathize and share our own experiences of self doubt, of loves lost, of career pivots, and generally make you feel like you can get through, too, as we have before you.  

Class of 2018, you’ve already demonstrated the depth of your awareness and ability to listen carefully and perceptively not only to each other, but to members of your community.  You’ve paid attention.  It’s  a quality of this class we admire and celebrate.  You’ve honored contributions of all types of people who’ve supported you through your recognitions and recent notes of gratitude to teachers, coaches, youth group leaders, tutors, office staff, security guards, administrators, and substitute teachers.  

And on this journey we’ve all shared together students, staff, and families, we’ve listened to one another debate, play, sing, shout, joke, lecture, present, recite, whine, plead, argue, laugh, cry, apologize, and congratulate.  These are all sounds of being human, recognizable no matter what frequencies our own ears hear.  I’m grateful you and I were human here at CHS together.  Graduates, keep your eyes and ears and minds and hearts open, seeking to understand more about this rich, diverse, and fascinating world you’ll help shape.  Thank you, and love you all. 

13 Ways of Looking at 16

In advance of their daughter's sixteenth birthday, friends of ours asked family members and friends to write her letters including memories, advice, and inspiration.  Here's my contribution (and my favorite is #VII):

Dear Tess,

Wallace Stevens wrote his poem, “Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird” and it occurs to me that it’s like a little Instagram account (whereas William Carlos Williams’ poem “Red Wheelbarrow” is like one Insta post, and “This is Just to Say,” also by Williams, is more like an apologetic message on a friend’s FB wall—oh hey, we could compare poems to social media moments! But I digress). So here’s a moment in time, your sixteenth birthday, for which we are creating snapshots, reflections, messages on your “wall,” so to speak. I am offering you “Thirteen Ways of Looking at Sixteen.”

So much love,

Fer

Thirteen Ways of Looking at Sixteen

I
Among the people at dinner that night,
The most memorable ideas, references, and insights
Issued from the sixteen-year-old.

II
I was of three minds,
Like a sixteen-year-old
In which resides child, teen, adult.

III
She, sixteen, danced in the sand, arms thrown wildly to wind and sky.
It was one movement in the choreography of her life.

IV
A man and a woman
had one.
A man and a woman and a sixteen-year-old
Are one.

V
They are all evidence of her,
Words, actions, body
And her slept-in bed, clothing, and acquisitions:
The sixteen-year-old’s being
As well as her props.

VI
Music from the turntable filled the room
With sounds like.
The limbs of the sixteen-year-old
Crossed and curled and extended along the couch.
Her mood
Represented in her postures:
Shifting landscape.

VII
O old folks of society,
Why do you imagine hoodlums?
Do you not see how the sixteen-year-old
Walks the world in feet
That become yours?

VIII
I know great minds
And inventions, accomplishments, triumphs, and talents realized over lifetimes;
But I feel, too,
That sixteen-year-olds influence
What I know and believe and love.

IX
When the sixteen-year-old drove out of sight,
It marked one edge
Of the polygon of independence.

X
At the sight of sixteen-year-olds
Delighting in their own company,
Even the most cynical observers
Gaze with longing and approval.

XI
I dreamed I was late to class
And dashing without progress.
Many times, fear grips my slumber,
When I am convinced
I’ve forgotten my chemistry homework
At sixteen.

XII
Time is flowing.
The sixteen-year-old is thriving.

XIII
She was young and she was old.
She was child and she was adult.
The sixteen-year-old was
Nevertheless always Tess.

Commencement Speech 2017

Class of 2017

I had the privilege of teaching a poetry lesson in some of your English classes in the fall.  We read a poem by William Carlos Williams, called "The Red Wheelbarrow":  
It reads, simply:

so much depends
upon

a red wheel
barrow

glazed with rain
water

beside the white
chickens

We talked about how perhaps this was the first Instagram poem--a simple image, zoom on the rain drops, with a filter that highlights the white chickens. I’m thinking this particular poem would attract a lot of likes, as well as what the hecks.

But we discussed that maybe this poem wasn't truly about the dependability of a wheelbarrow, or how important rain water is to a farm, or about chickens laying eggs for breakfast.  Maybe this poem was just about a moment.  A moment as beautiful and momentous in its own way as a graduation, a birth, a marriage.  Made memorable, perhaps, because the poet stopped to notice, downloading the image to memory and then translating it into verse.

It's tempting, students, to proclaim that the last four years were a blur, and for you, parents, to feel like it was only yesterday you were holding their hands to cross the street.  But our lives are series of wheelbarrow moments punctuated by momentous events, like tonight.  In class that day I asked you to recall a moment in your recent lives upon which so much seemed to depend.  One of you described driving over the bridge to school that morning with your sister.  It was sunny, and you were having a great conversation, getting along.  I think we all found that moment relatable.   You'll surely remember tonight, but the sweetest memories are likely similar episodes of connections, deep talks with loved ones, random trips with friends.   Most wheelbarrow moments are times we are in the company of people we adore or the wonder of nature.   

My toddler actually stops to smell the roses when she and I take the dog for a walk.   To her, so much depends on the things she notices and celebrates and points out--spikes on a cactus, a colorful rock, the snail painstakingly crossing the path.  She stops to look at me and say, I love spending time with you, Mom.  No selfie properly captures that wheelbarrow moment, and there's a chance I could miss it if I’m too busy to go for a walk or looking at my phone.  Paying attention to her is what makes it different.  

So I’m suggesting we more often swap selfies for "sensies"--times you observe keenly, listen carefully, feel deeply, taste mindfully, and breathe in the smells.  Exalt in the moments and the characters sharing them with you—recognize the sonder, if you will.  In just a few of my wheelbarrow moments with you, so much depended upon pancakes from a George Foreman grill, 185 doctors walking into a bar, Jamaican curry recipes, seafoam perfectly captured in a painting, and sitting the bench in the faculty basketball game. 

Before you fly away from this place you’ve shared, reflect on some of those wonderful moments together. 


Thank you, Class of 2017, for all the moments culminating in this graduation.  

What My Depression Feels Like

Depression first revisits like a sternly helpful Auntie, encouraging me to take that afternoon nap because I work hard and there's no harm and the housework will wait. At the same time she admonishes me like so many Internet articles to take stock of my gratitudes and acknowledge so many others who are enduring real, life-threatening challenges. 

And so I rise, and I do.  

It works, for a while.  I celebrate surges of energy and well-being which bring warm golden filters to minutes and hours.  I ascribe malaise and exhaustion to so many long work days, typical for this time of year. And then I'm crying, which is hardly notable because I'm a crier since forever; I cry more when I'm premenstrual, so that's a convenient correlation.  But I get teary because three stressors in a row, and because you ask me how I'm doing, and because you give me a hug.  And then I'm crying when I'm alone and I'm crying in the car and the shower and I'm crying for no reason other than the fact that depression has made its turn into more than a state of mind; it has invaded my body like an all-over ache. 

I don't even want wine.  I don't want cheese or chocolate.

Depression becomes a drone with x-ray vision that hovers over my household, taking inventory of every drawer and closet and cupboard, asking why I own so many things and asking when I will take charge of them, and then asking how I can possibly manage the abstract stuff when I hardly have control of all that is material.  Depression points out that my children will inherit and have to clean out these drawers.  Depression wonders if I'm a hoarder, and Depression thinks it's an appropriate question to ask.  I have to agree.

Depression probes my heart like an MRI and knows I'm distracted and distant and impatient and counts the times I've let my children down, cataloging missed opportunities and sharp words. Depression, with its sidekick Anxiety, wakes me up at 2 or 3 AM and interrogates me.

Depression is a pit in my stomach and a lump in my throat and dry red eyes after so much sobbing. At some point no platitudes, no encouragement nor reassurance, no reminders of all I have, no pep talks, no faith, and no ultimata can lift my limbs or change the tide of overwhelm which presses on my chest and immobilizes me.  This is the advent of the breaking point, the nervous breakdown if you will, the hysteria, the really hot mess, the point at which something has to happen and it's not going to be talk therapy or yoga or a nice long walk or run.  It's not coffee with a friend or a massage or girls' night out.  

I recall the last time I felt this way, almost four years ago when I had an infant.  I watch in admiration and relief as my capable now-toddler dresses herself and straps herself into her carseat.  She exerts so much effort I don't presently have.  I remember that my previous self, shortly after feeling like I presently do, left work in the middle of a very normal day to go crawl into bed because I Just Could Not Even.  I Just Could Not Even be too proud to walk away from my job, and into bed.  Crawling into bed was all I could do.  

So I know this is a pivotal point, that to continue on is to go deeper down, and I'm afraid. Something has to happen, and instead of ignoring my sister's call, I answer, and I cry unabashedly.  I know what's next after that, and my father is on the phone.  That he takes charge is reassuring but my dependency on him in this moment is also panic inducing. Someday my children might feel this way and need me, too, is painful to imagine.

Depression means every simple kindness brings an overwhelming rush of gratitude, like I feel for the doctor who calls me back after I hang up on the weekend office voicemail message.  

Her voice is calm and reassuring and patient.  

She asks me if I am feeling sad.  Yes.

She asks if I am feeling hopeless.  Yes.

I explain that I had a significant post-partum depression almost four years ago and that I am struggling again.

She asks if I am having thoughts of harming myself.  "Not serious," I share.  But I want to disappear, I admit to myself.  She will call in a prescription, the medication that was once the flashlight to guide me through darkest parts of the tunnel.  

Depression is a sea that temporarily parts with the tangible relief of enacting a solution.

I want the medication to work before I take it, but it doesn't.  My whole day and every part feels like too much, and we've got stuff to do, soccer games and lunch and drives on the freeway back and forth.  I rally.  Depression points to the parents on the sidelines, normal people chatting about normal things, not choking back tears, not hiding behind sunglasses and afraid to answer, "How are you?"  I observe them all, remembering a time as a child when I had the flu and couldn't remember what my body felt like when it didn't ache.  

Depression and Anxiety love way-too early mornings, buzzing me awake with scrolling to-do lists and dread.  My limbs tingle, my heart pounds, and my stomach reacts to each new reminder like a loop or turn on a roller coaster.  I count backward from 100.  Too quickly.  By twos, then.  I breathe.  I want to stay in bed.  I imagine calling in sick.  I weigh the costs and benefits.  

I always get up.  But I force it.  

Depression yields to busy work days.  I act like Capable Me, surprising myself, responding attentively and ticking through tasks.  Stopping to analyze my head and body invites panic, so I persevere.  I avoid enumerating the rituals I must tend to at home, where my bed beckons:  pick up children.  Make dinner.  Clean kitchen.  Run baths.  Read books.  Ask questions.  Be present.  

Each day I feel a few more solid moments, a little more normalcy.  I want the medicine to work so badly I might be willing it to, but I'll accept a placebo effect, and I feel like the hazy filter applied in different degrees to my Instagram photos is relegated more and more to the edges.  Medication provides the energy for next phases of healing: therapy and exercise and other healthy practices which get sidelined during duress.  

I went off my medication without incident about a year and a half ago, after two-and-a-half years of prescription since my post-partum depression settled in.  I could blame that depression on hormones, while oddly grateful for that experience which deepened my empathy for those who suffer mental illness.

Now a deeper acknowledgment, a recognition of various symptoms and signs over the past year, and a surrender to my own reality and fragility: 

I struggle with mental illness.  

Maybe someday I will refer to that struggle in past tense, but I no longer view that as an admirable goal.  I simply don't want to feel as I have, to live on the outskirts of deep despondence, and I am grateful for defenses and offenses against it.  

Grateful for moments of joy and bliss.  Grateful for tools to more ably face life's sadnesses and struggles.  

CHS Graduation: a Tribute to Family

My graduation address to the Class of 2015 feels especially poignant as I mourn the passing of a role model and friend from the Class of 1987 and feel closer than ever to friends from my own Class of 1989.

Graduates, many of you have been a part of the Islander Family for four years. For some of you, it has only been a few months. But tonight you will be invited to join our fifty-year graduates in a family of Islander alumni and the past, present, and future of Coronado High School graduates which stretches back 100 years.  Placing yourself on a continuum of a century of events and people can make you feel as insignificant as a moment in time, or it can make you feel like you belong.

You will always be a part of the Islander Family, but I want to remind you of the other families you forged at Coronado High School and beyond its walls this year. Those families have sustained you and they are what you must seek out as you move on beyond this place.

A family can form over the course of a century or in the time an elevator is out of order. Families grow as a result of being in the same place with the same people (and the same appetite) week in and week out.   I'm thinking of Bagels and Bibles. I'm thinking of Water Polo Waffle Wednesdays. I'm thinking of Dessert Days in Woodshop and Calculus. You've grown families in your spots on the quad at break, at Starbucks before school, and astride your surf or skateboard.  In that E period class, CoSA carpool, and at that review session. 

Chances are most of you are not taking members of your Islander Family or real family along with you on your next adventures, so be on the lookout for new ones.  You’ll find them in some expected places:  your dorm, apartment building, library, dining hall, coffee shop, on teams, and in your classes and workplace.   But there’s wonderful reassurance in the familiar faces you find in less likely places…the clerk who seems to always be there when you're checking out.  The runners, walkers, or bikers who travel your same path.  The bird and squirrel outside your window each morning.  You’ll form families with people who share your faith or who share your struggle.

Coronado High School alumni create a home for one another by meeting annually on the eve of the Fourth of July in an all-school reunion. Year after year and decade after decade, 50-year graduates flock back to the island for our ceremony.  Our campus, even if the buildings aren’t the same as when you were here, will still belong to you.  Your classmates dedicated a memorial to all fallen Islanders, and the Rock and the courts and fields and stages, and that piece of pavement where you daily met your friends here at CHS, will always be yours.

So the advice I want to leave you with is to continue to actively form new families, even fleeting ones, by making eye contact, by saying hello and good morning, by high-fiving, by hugging, and by acknowledging that you're sharing the same space for a similar experience as someone else, whether it's in traffic or in a doctor’s office, or at a concert or graduation or grief group.  These connections are what make us less alone and are what makes us want to be and keep being.

I love you, my Islander sisters and brothers.  Don’t forget to come home to us for the holidays. 

Live Like You're Hosting an Exchange Student

Last week we hosted a Chinese teacher and student in our home as part of an exchange sponsored by Big Sis's International Baccalaureate middle school. We learned about the exchange only a week before, and it seemed like there were one hundred reasons to say are you kidding me no, we do not need this in our lives right now, including that the visit was falling on a week of major events at my school (annual Strategic Planning, school board meeting, basketball game vs. rival high school, "Dirty in the Paint" dance--yeah, don't ask).  Adding in fun cultural activities, complicating an already complex carpool scheme, and cleaning the house in preparation could very well take me over the edge.  But Big Sis was excited.  And we have plenty of space in our house, which we bought for the purpose of sharing.  This is the kind of thing we love to do.  So we said yes.

The exchange students and teachers were arriving the evening of Super Bowl Sunday, and we learned in the morning that we had been assigned a male teacher and student.  We were disappointed; as a family of three girls it seemed obvious we would be paired with girls.  And how would it work with one adult and student?  We made an attempt to "trade" our guests with friends matched with two Chinese girls, friends who have three sons.  For a variety of reasons, though, we needed to stick with the original plan.  And that night we met our teacher, Dong, and student, Li Ze ("Tony"), and began five amazing days of cultural exchange.

Dong and Tony accompanied Big Sis to school each morning, so they participated in carpool and shadowed middle school students and teachers.  We picked them up each afternoon, taking them to the beach, Balboa Park, the Hotel del Coronado, and Seaport Village.  We introduced them to Souplantation, celebrated my birthday with them at Corvette Diner, and ended the week with Tony's favorites, pizza and spaghetti.

It took only a half-day for the awkwardness to wear off and for us to realize we were experiencing something wonderful.  I began thinking that there were some life lessons to be gleaned from our week.

1.  Opening Our Home Opened Our Family.  Hosting guests brought out the best in all of us.  Big Sis was a gracious, attentive, and generous hostess, ensuring that Tony was included in all conversations and activities at home and at school.  They became fast friends.  After a week when Big Sis and I had not been jiving, I welcomed reasons to praise and appreciate her.   Tootsie was charmed by our new family members and had Dong, father of a four-year-old, carrying her around and adopting a special protectiveness of her by the end of his first day with us. Hosting a foreign exchange inspires such simple generosity--we became ambassadors for not only our family and our daughter's school, but for our city, our state, our nation, our culture.  We became Team Family, with a shared purpose (versus what sometimes feels like competing interests):  invested in them being comfortable, welcomed, part of us.  We wanted them to have whatever it appeared they desired or wished for during their visit.  We saw glimpses of ourselves in their reactions to us:  we're funny; we're loud; we're busy.  We practiced our best behavior for most of their time with us until inevitably our warts (sibling bickering, parental impatience) began to show.

2.  We Need to Act Like Tourists More Often.  While some of my work obligations were non-negotiable, our guests inspired us to leave work and school early and embark on mini-adventures we normally wouldn't on a weekday:  roam the park, play at the beach, make family dinner a priority every night.  One evening during our dinner-time sharing of the Best Parts of Our Day, Big Sis offered that spending more time as a family and doing simple but fun activities was a highlight of the week.  It was a powerful reminder that the busy schedules of our daily lives don't have to preclude a quick evening dip in the ocean or pick-up soccer in the park, exploitation of this beautiful city we live in and all it offers.  We are challenged now to think, if we had foreign guests right now, where would we take them; what would we do?  And then consider doing just that, just because.

3.  Expressing Curiosity about Fellow Humans Enriches and Expands Us.  We were excited to share our guests and our experience with family and friends.  My brother and his wife brought their children over for a boisterous family dinner with Google Translate experiments, comparisons of and cross-cultural help with homework, discussions of food, and passing around of babies. We were reminded by Dong, who, per the Chinese norm, has one daughter and wishes he had more, what a privilege large families are.  Each new person we introduced Dong and Tony to brought out different sides of and information from them, too, including our Auntie T who's been to China four times, and our friends who are half Chinese.  We take a certain amount of multiculturalism for granted in our country, but we don't often take the time or have a safe opportunity to question and share with the clear intent of understanding one another's culture for the sake of better understanding humanity.

4.  We Live in a World of Wonder and Wonderfulness. Approach Life as an Adventure.  Practice Curiosity. Tony and Dong had never been to the ocean.  Have you been to the beach with people who've never been to the beach?  That made the beach 10,000 times more fun than it usually is.  The digging in the sand, the cartwheels on the shore, the squeals when waves of chilly water lapped over toes, the sunset:  all of it inspired a giddy celebration of simply being, and being in nature.

Tony and Dong approached all moments with eyes wide open, ready for surprises and learnings.  Every meal, every routine, every drive somewhere inspired more curiosity and questions and awe from our guests.   There were some comical iterations of this, too.  I sent Big Sis downstairs with a box of tissues for their room on the second night Tony and Dong were here.  The square Kleenex box, decorated on the outside as is customary, was mistaken by our guests as a gift, so they expressed overwhelming gratitude to Big Sis for the specially delivered present...and then found out it was tissues and were a little embarrassed.  Our tall pepper grinder was a mystery, so we emptied it to show them what it was and how it worked, with all of us grinding and sniffing pepper in demonstration.  The pepper reveal led to a tour and tasters from our spice cabinet, with Dong sampling Tajin and needing a tall glass of water as a result. Our family's structure, with Husband having the day off on Mondays and watching Tootsie, and my often-long work hours, was eye-opening to Dong, who described more traditional gender roles in Chinese families.  Meanwhile, we kept reminding ourselves that China was a country of largely no siblings, recognizing how our big-family backgrounds informed our world views, and even the questions we asked our guests.  We asked Tony and Dong what surprised them most about America.  After thinking a while, Tony, from Beijing like Dong, responded, the air.  The clean air.  Viewing our world through their eyes imbued with a renewed sense of gratitude.

5.  Caring and Giving Provides Us with Higher Purpose.  Most of us give to and care for others as part of our daily lives.  But moments when we are accountable to others in new ways recalibrate our priorities and help us find our center.  I have times when I work later than I planned and my family pays, and I feel guilty but also that the sacrifice is necessary.  But this week I felt a renewed sense of obligation and tug.  When I left work it was to be there for my family AND our special family, whom I grew to love in short time.  Hosting Dong and Tony made work feel a little less critical.  It made going home more so.  It made life richer for all of us.  We're going to try to hold on to the important parts, and embrace opportunities that stretch our family beyond ourselves.

List: Tootsie's Gifts

After my sister traveled from the Pacific Northwest to visit me and our baby, I wrote her to say how much I loved all our conversations while she was here.  She wrote back, "Me too.  Grateful for the one-on-one time.  It's rare...a sweet gift from Tootsie."

I had the epiphany then that my sister recognized something important about this six-week experience I've had with my new daughter:  it has strengthened relationships, given me time with people who are very very important to me, given my daughters time with people who are important to us, and facilitated some chance encounters with local friends with whom I wouldn't have otherwise caught up.

A dear friend and colleague wrote me an email suggesting that our journey (as chronicled here) may have influenced others as well.  "Pound for pound," he wrote, "Tootsie is having quite an impact."

We haven't endured a tragedy; I would not characterize our baby as a "miracle" unless we all are miracles in some form; the magic is in the reaching out and creating community, which she has encouraged me to do.

Tootsie has offered other gifts as well:

1.  Boston:  I thought, before we arrived in July, that I was more familiar with Boston.  It turns out that attending the Harvard-Yale game in 1990 (I mostly remember a discotheque called "Spaghetti," the tailgate area at the stadium, and the rocket MIT pranksters launched from a field goal post during the third quarter) and running the marathon in 1996 did not afford me many memories of the city itself.  My recent time here has, though, and I've joked that the little girl who brought us to Boston is still the only family member who hasn't gotten out and about in the city yet.  Massachusetts General Hospital is conveniently located within walking distance of just about everything.  While visitors were here, we used time between every-three-hour feedings to make field trips to the Inner Harbor, North End, Faneuil Hall and Quincy Market, the Esplanade, downtown, Long Wharf, Beacon Hill, and Back Bay.  The other day I even gave directions to a tourist on the street.  I loved the city from the start, with its parks, family-friendliness, safety, incredible infrastructure, history, and warm people.  We will return here someday as a family to visit Tootsie's birthplace and all it has to offer.

2.  Empathy:  When Big Sis had surgery for kidney reflux six years ago, I wrote on this blog that one generally comes away from hospital visits feeling grateful and fortunate. This experience is no different.  Though we endured a scary time early on when Tootsie's meningitis was raging, she began showing remarkable signs of recovery and strength very soon, and continued her upward trajectory fairly consistently.  We are surrounded in the NICU by more sober stories--babies born earlier and with more complications.  I met two mothers during dinner in the lounge last night, both of whom gave birth to babies under one-and-a-half pounds at birth.  Both babies have serious lung complications and tracheotomies.  Both parents have already endured months in the NICU.  Both expressed empathy for me when I explained that we were from California.  There's no competition among difficult experiences, only empathy and understanding.  There's struggle, hardship, endurance, and hope.  We all feel it, and living with Tootsie here on the NICU has deepened my sense of empathy for all of us on our journeys, wherever we are.

3.  Patience:  While I've felt anxiety and stress and the desire to get home, I've practiced patience in new ways during the past six weeks.  My initial hospital bedrest foisted patience upon me:  there was nothing to do but wait and accept my circumstances.  And because I was no longer in control, I was able to do so.  No amount of yearning to be home with my children and husband made me want to accelerate our baby's exit from the NICU against better judgment.  She's been the captain of our ship, and I've been the patient first mate.  I feel a remarkable inner calm and lack of urgency now.  We will get home.  The next chapters of our life will unfold.  I am not pushing.

4.  My Littlest Sister:  After living on the east coast for seven years after college and teaching abroad in Kenya for a year, I made the decision to return to California and my family.  My youngest brother and sister were still in middle and high school--I'd left home when they were eight and five.  I have always been glad I made the choice to come home; I credit that decision for my close relationships with those two siblings (now my brother's wife is even my colleague!).  The plan for this trip was that the girls and I would spend time with my sister and her husband before and after a week in Maine.  Instead, my sister spent nights with me in the hospital and was by my side at Tootsie's birth, and I've shared weeks of meals and conversations with her and her husband.  I'm able to more closely admire the life they've built together, their marriage, and their generosity.  And this week I'm here for my sister as she copes with unexpected bad news.  I wouldn't have been otherwise.

5.  Letting Go of Control:  I'm a planner and organizer (though my home and desk don't suggest so) and like to have a firm sense of what's coming.  2013 has been a year of unexpected events:  pregnancy (though wished for, not counted upon), a new house, and a new job.  I must be honest and admit that I've wondered if I could manage it all.  I planned to open the school year with enthusiasm and a little trepidation.  I hoped I'd resume parenting an infant with relative ease.  But I wasn't sure.  To cope with some anxiety and insecurity, I began carefully planning, mapping out the six weeks I'd be back to work in August and September pre-baby with to-do lists and calendars.  And then Tootsie disrupted my scheme--and my worries about "the other stuff."  I wasn't at work in July and August to hire new staff, to set things up and train folks.  I'm not there now to set tone, model, and represent our high school as its leader.  Because I'm not in control, I can only worry so much.  Instead, I focus on the tasks I can actually accomplish from afar, the ways I can help, the reassurances I can give, the questions I can ask on behalf of others, and the decisions I can make.  I feel trust in the team.  I feel confidence in our community.  I know that if I were there--if this hadn't happened--I'd be running on a few more cylinders, spinning out a little, perhaps.  And maybe that spinning is why our top landed here, idle for the moment.  I suspect returning to my job later this fall will be easier with my new perspective and acceptance of the unexpected.  We will see.  But I am grateful to Tootsie for helping me let go and be right where I am.

6.  Time:  Between the waiting upstairs and the pockets of time between infant care and long snuggles now, I've had time to read books, write, and think.  No house to clean, meals to prepare, others to care for except sweet baby girl.  Time, even alone with one's thoughts, but particularly with an infant, is a luxury indeed.

7.  Bonding:  I fell in love with our baby the moment she raised her arm high in birth and made the reassuring squawks announcing her debut.  I felt I could pick her out of a lineup after a few hours.  I believe I know her and her little personality--as tenderly developed as it is thus far--intimately well.  She takes long to awaken, grunting, stretching, wagging her head back and forth, sometimes for half an hour.  She rarely cries, but when she does, it's a sweet "ewww WAH" followed by a longer "WAAAAAH."  When she starts to breastfeed, she often stops to take in the view and contemplate her surroundings and task.  She stops everything when I sing to her, save for furious chomping on her pacifier.  She is "stingy with her burps," according to the nurses, but noisy when one is on its way.  She's alert and watchful and remarkably calm.  She can raise her torso by planting her feet on her bed and pushing upward.  She's learning to put her fingers to her mouth.  She makes the "ooh" face for which her older sister was known.  We've had precious bonding time--almost as if we were relegated to a cave together.  And because I don't live in the Boston area, I've had nowhere else to be and a laser focus on nurturing Tootsie's growth here in our NICU "home."  I suspect we'll long reap the benefits of this unique time together.

8.  Gratitude:  I've always preferred giving to getting, more comfortable offering others assistance than receiving it.  But circumstances sometimes dictate being open to the love and warmth of others without guilt, obligation, or anything but deep gratitude.  The doctors, nurses, therapists, and support staff have offered us such personalized, tender care.  I have been overwhelmed by the unwavering love and generosity of my family members, willing to fly far to be with me and our daughters.  Anything I've needed has appeared, or been offered or procured without question.  Friends and colleagues have sent messages of love and encouragement and thoughtful gifts, and cared for our daughters.  I've been particularly moved by those who've shared their stories of childbearing and parenting with me, memories and anecdotes unearthed through our own storytelling.  We feel so incredibly blessed, nestled in a nurturing cradle of community.

9.  Tootsie, Herself:  She's a caboose of a kiddo, with siblings seven and ten years older than she, but I can feel already the joy she's bringing into our lives.  I look forward to discovering all the other ways she will influence and enrich us.

Thank you for the gift of your presence, sweet baby girl.