Tiny Beautiful Things

Life is not the easiest thing.  So many events and people and happenings in my life of late are awesome and amazing and beautiful too.  What the hell am I so FREAKED OUT ABOUT?  Well, David Rakoff died, for one thing.  And I know I know he had been sick for a while but I wasn't really paying attention and the news today that he is gone gutted me like a fish before I even had my coffee.  So that brings things to a sharp point.

Summer is on it's way out.  The days are ever so slightly shorter and the kids are ever so slightly taller and tanner and more sophisticated than they were three short months ago.  Reading.  Diaper free. Big boy beds etc.

I feel like something big is supposed to be happening.  Huge and exciting and life changing in the best of ways.  Some mornings, this feels exciting.  Most mornings it feels like I'm just waiting for loved ones  to die.  For me to age suddenly and then get sick and die myself before my kids.

GOOD MORNING!

But then something happens and everything feels OK. Or at least like it's not so full of suck.

Is this what a midlife crisis is?  Could be.  But as I become more and more of the adult I am the closer I feel to the seventeen year old I once was. That's weird right?  But for me, it's a real truth.

This is a long way to say that you should all run to your nearest independent book store and buy TINY BEAUTIFUL THINGS by Cheryl Strayed.

She is the advice columnist for The Rumpus and she is wisdom on a stick.  She is grace and badassery and like your mom, best friend, inner true self and God all rolled into one on their best day ever.  Her advice for every situation is spot on and illuminates what is means to be alive and the tools you need to survive.  She uses her own life to connect everyone's life. And that's what great writing always does.

I saw her read at an Upstairs on the Square Event in Union Square.  The place was packed, SRO and I was delighted that she was so popular. I had to stand in the mosh pit area and listened while flipping through art books about Courtney Love and the grunge scene in Seattle, French interior design, dragon art, while Cheryl skewered my heart like an olive on a toothpick.

I love her.  I needed to hear her that night and read her tonight, and tomorrow, and the night after that.
We all should.  So do it!

...And a darling teen writer in Sheboygan won a signed AND THEN THINGS FALL APART.  Just for FOLLOWING ME ON TWITTER!

Here's a little life advice from Ms. Strayed:

The useless days will add up to something. The shitty waitressing jobs. The hours writing in your journal. The long meandering walks. The hours reading poetry and story collections and novels and dead people’s diaries and wondering about sex and God and whether you should shave under your arms or not. These things are your becoming.

— Dear Sugar

You cannot convince people to love you. This is an absolute rule. No one will ever give you love because you want him or her to give it. Real love moves freely in both directions. Don’t waste your time on anything else.

— Dear Sugar

There are some things you can’t understand yet. Your life will be a great and continuous unfolding...You will come to know things that can only be known with the wisdom of age and the grace of years. Most of those things will have to do with forgiveness.

— Dear Sugar

Most things will be okay eventually, but not everything will be. Sometimes you’ll put up a good fight and lose. Sometimes you’ll hold on really hard and realize there is no choice but to let go. Acceptance is a small, quiet room.

— Dear Sugar

The Balm of Environment

I just read this great little piece on Paris' Shakespeare and Co. bookstore and it was all about the balm of environment. We are moving, that's right- moving- to a new apartment any minute now and I am overwhelmed with choices and prices of furniture and rugs and window shades, beds and rugs, chairs and bath mats, headboards and potholders. We need a new vacuum cleaner. How many books should we take out of storage? I work at home and bathe at home. Sleep, love, feed my family and play with my baby all in the same space. I want it to be inviting and calm, creative, and beautiful, timeless yet unique. A real home that takes the anxiety from your shoulders the moment you walk through the door. Oh dear reader, how the fuck do I pull it off? Say it with me- the balm of environment- Let's start with a bed for the 3 year old and take it from there.

Last week I made a bed for my kid's lizards out of fake Tiffany's box, a piece of dishcloth and an old pillowcase.

Because he wanted to sleep with the lizards and I didn't think that was such a good idea. Because I thought if the lizards had a place to take a nap, he would feel better about taking a nap himself. Because I have an MFA from Columbia University and knew I could whip up a lizard bed in three minutes and was up to the fucking challenge! Word to your mother. In the same spirit I made heart-shaped pancakes on Valentine's day- freeform. If there's a problem, yo- I'll solve it. Check out the hook while my DJ revolves it.

Red Velvet

Tomorrow they are having a Valentine's Day party at my kid's school even though it is only February 12. I'm making mini red-velvet cupcakes for him to bring. Red velvet makes me think of blood soaked earth, like someone took the soil from beneath the Roman Coliseum and made a cake out of it. But it's festive and full of cancer-causing red dye so, what's not to love? And I also think, what better way to celebrate love than with dangerous bloody cakes? And Spiderman Valentines? And a glass of wine in the tub while my husband makes a frozen pizza? Tomorrow will probably the very last time my son will distribute love notes to all his friends- girls and boys alike- without shame. I myself am full of love today- for snow, for my kids, my man, my friends, for beautiful words on a page. For the whole bloody adventure of it.