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St. Thomas
It was a glorious week on St. Thomas. I couldn’t believe what an easy four hour direct flight it was. And on Jetblue, to boot. Thus we sallied into the airport accompanied by several bags of bluechips each, and plenty of DirectTV. If only Joan hadn’t spent most of the flight attempting to chew through my headphones.
We went to the US Virgin Islands so we didn’t need a passport for Joan and there were no customs to trudge through after we landed. (I was interested to learn that the US bought the islands from Denmark around the time of WWI, wisely outbidding Germany.)
Did I complain once about travel with children? Banish the thought. I love how a toddler will be delighted by a twenty minute ride, and the baby by an abandoned playground that you happen upon. I believe we were at the beach by 9am every day. Back to our hotel room for naps around noon, and then back out again in the evening. Several times we had the girls in the pool by moonlight.
I can’t even imagine sailing up from Europe on some explorer’s boat, way back when, and seeing these islands. Just so beautiful, everywhere you look. Warm clear waters in a rainbow of blue shades, mangrove trees shading the beaches with their glossy green leaves, an eternal breeze keeping things comfortable, clouds blowing over before they have a chance to get stormy.
We stayed at the Ritz Carlton residences because a friend generously offered the use of their condo there. I would stay there again in a heartbeat. We didn’t rent a car and we rarely left the resort. This definitely wasn’t an integrated cultural experience where we hunted down a hip airbnb and tried the local places. It was a full-on relaxation fest.
We packed half of my suitcase with snacks so as to avoid being reliant on the resort’s restaurants. A further plus to the snack suitcase was that Joe and I felt comfortable, budget-wise, indulging beachside in some of the ever-present frozen drinks. My favorite: a mint mojito blended with ice and coconut milk. Basically the best three ingredients in the world, combined into one. I’ll be doing that one at home. To avoid Lux seagulling our drinks, several times we ordered virgin versions for her, like a lime coconut mix.
When we did go out, happy hour was a thrill. It’s illegal in Boston to have happy hour (what? seriously). Going to places that had $3 drinks from 3-6pm was delightful! Despite the temptation of frozen drinks, I also became a big fan of Presidente beer while we were there. Yum.
Several of the signature drinks on the island had nutmeg dustings on top. I thought that was great trick to mellow out the sweetness and add a little kick.
We did wander over to St. John’s for the day, the other US isle. We did not see any of the feral donkeys as I had hoped, but I found some lovely local avocados, for $5 each. (For comparison, a box of butter at the grocery store was $7.50!) Bigger than my hand, as you can see, and quite sweet. We also stocked up at the local grocery store on butter, eggs, milk, kefir, bread, coconut water, cereal, and peanut butter.
I’m already scheming about coming back when the girls are older, renting a sailboat and visiting more of the islands. If we went again, I think we would rent a car, just to avoid tallying taxis fare into every foray that we planned. Particularly because taxi rides are valued by the number of passengers. Joan wasn’t counted, but Lux was. However, it was a treat to travel sans-carseats, especially for Joe (our resident mule).
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This week (9/52)
“A portrait of my daughters, once a week, every week, in 2014.”
Joan: the moment when she realized we were playing with cheerios.
Lux: Sunday’s beach trip was a tad cooler than we anticipated. -
6/52
“A portrait of my daughters, once a week, every week, in 2014.”
Lux: she requested we make lemon pancakes and then skipped away when it was time to eat.
Joan: suspicious of all hats and such a pro at tugging them off. -
Colorado
I like it for the fireplaces that are everywhere. I like it for how thirsty you suddenly are. Drink lots of water, breath lots of air. The air feels only lightly oxygenated; thin and effervescent compared to sea level. I like how even the kids that look like punk teenagers are probably athletes, outside for most of every day using their bodies and looking around them and being alive.
We just do it this one week every year, but for that week, we do it every day. We arrive and we take off our city clothes and put on fleece and long underwear in layers and walk around looking like adults in cuddledowns. After a few days our faces are burnished, ruddy cheeks with dry lips and patches of windburn. You see people rubbing chapstick over their lips constantly and patting on sunscreen and vaseline, but it does nothing. We wake up in the morning, look up at the mountain and wonder if it will snow. All anyone talks about is the snow. Will it snow, when will it snow, when did it last snow, what is the snow on the mountain like, how did it feel out there? Hey, how was it out there? you ask each other. Crunchy, soft, powdery, icy, white out, bright out, cold.
My dad taught me to ski and for most of my childhood I associated it with something he wanted me to do. Like taking long bicycle trips, or practicing for cross country weekend races by running longer and longer routes throughout the week, it was not my idea, it was his. As a kid, skiing meant that there was a lot of heavy stuff to put on, it was cold, and there was every possibility I could get hurt. The chairlifts seemed thoughtlessly fast. My peripheral vision was cut off by googles, and snowboarders came too close. I don’t know if you can ever introduce your kids to something that you love without tainting it with your own passion for it. You want it for them so much. But still you plant the seeds, and hope when they start claiming things for themselves later in life, they will recall this mother tongue and be pleased to find it within themselves.
As one of my great aha! moments of adulthood, skiing recently became a real freedom for me. Now I see it: the pillowly cushioning silence of the snow. The hush shoo of my skiis swiftly skating over the ground. The crisp scrappy-edge sound of cutting through icy patches. The glorious aloneness of it. Picking a direction, easing down the slope towards it, and just a moment later, finding yourself racing towards it. Feeling fast and strong but feeling in control. I think I see why I didn’t take well to it as a kid. It requires something aggressive in you.
The two runs I really loved this year are rated double green—the easiest you can do and supposedly for beginners, but I just love the pace of them. Ten minutes up of small up-and-down slopes. You go down a small hill and have just enough momentum to go up the next one. Then you do it again. Patches of trees are scattered throughout, to weave around if you want to feel like a rabbit racing through the woods. If it’s morning there are shadows and you can see little dips and bumps as you approach them. If it’s noon there will be no shadows, just dazzling white shining back at you. And then you ski almost as if you were blind, keeping your legs loose and easy.
There are several perfect things you can do when you ski. One is to ski for a couple of hours and then take a break for a hot chocolate in the sun. If you already have warm snow gear on, in addition to being on top of a mountain, it’s toasty in the sun. Hot chocolate on the mountain is serve yourself. First you pay something like $3.50 for a paper cup. There’s a tub of marshmallows, and several canisters of whipped cream, and a push button hot chocolate maker that asks you to stop when the cup is 2/3rd full. It’s hard to do this.
Another is take a chairlift up the mountain alone. Ten minutes of silence, the chair tugging its way steadily past the treetops. You, on a bench, not even a seatbelt to hold you back, swinging high over the ground, surrounded by views only the birds would see. The scatter of animal footprints below is suddenly so clear—their winnowing paths. It feels like you could embrace a passing pine tree, they are so narrow and soft up top.
And another is to take a chairlift with a stranger. I’ve been on chairlifts with fat men who are very good skiers. I’ve been on chairlifts with 80 year old men who are very good skiers. These trips always remind me that it’s an inclusive, happy sport. As the chairlift scoops you up, swings back for a moment, and then lifts grandly up into the sky you look at your new partner for the next ten minutes and grin. Oh, it’s great out here, they say. Yes it is, you say.
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advice
Its a funny thing to feel like an old lady, grabbing young women by their ears and whispering: wear crop tops. But really, the unstretched belly is a remarkable thing (as is the stretched belly—tattooed, if you will, with your baby’s first genetic traces on this good earth). Though my Christian high school never would have allowed it, I think such urban outfitters fashions should be relished when you have the chance.
Now, the truth is, I probably would not have worn a crop top. And therein lies the trap: giving advice to other people that you mightn’t have taken yourself. For example, I’ve been pestering my sister to portion off a good chunk of her wedding funds for a honeymoon, when the time comes. Did I do this? No, I did not. In fact, Joe and I drove a couple hours north from my hometown and stayed at a friend’s cottage for a few days, for free. We went to breakfast at an old victorian inn, got pizza delivery, watched movies and went for bike rides around the lake. But now, six years later, I’m planning trips with two young kids—and I really do love traveling with them, believe me—and I see starkly the things we simply can’t do with their little fingers dug into our hair and entwined around our necks. So, yes, I would like to see my sister go to Thailand for a month (I think of Thailand because my friend Natalie has been posting photos on instagram and they have been stunning). I would like to see her walk a tight rope across a jungle and live on a canoe for a few days. And then I could clap my hands as a satisfied older sister, having plucked just one fly from the honey before I passed the jar to her.
Giving advice is on my mind because my (internet) friend Ashley asked me to update my Eleven Thoughts for New Moms post from a year ago. She posted my updated edition this week on her blog Hither and Thither. It’s a serious honor to be on her blog, no one does content quite like Ashley, and I’m really happy that people like the post. But I did most of those things wrong the first time around and my advice should be taken with a fingerful of salt and slice of lime.
I once attended a dinner party where we were all asked what was best bit of advice that we’d ever been given. Many of the guests had great anecdotes to share. I did not. I couldn’t figure out why, until I realized that I usually don’t take other people’s advice. ha! What about you? Best advice you’ve received, on any topic?
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why blogging is probably the best habit ever
Tomorrow, with work, maybe I’ll be a better writer, I hope. God, I hope. Tomorrow, maybe you’ll be a better writer. Or you’ll be a better photographer. Or you’ll make a better recipe. The key is in the act itself, in the fact of showing up and doing today’s work.
What my blog does is force me to show up. That’s huge. A lot of writers and creative people have said things along the lines of, ‘Showing up is 90% of the work,’ and that’s certainly true for me. Sometimes, the last thing I want to do is sit down and write. But if I show up, time and time again, it’s worth it. Even if I think I don’t have anything to say, chances are, if I show up, and if I really put on a good show and act like I have something to say, I will. (My friend George is a poet, and he has a sweatshirt that he wears every single time he sits down to write. It’s his way of acting the part, until he feels the part.) Some of my favorite pieces of writing have come out of days when I thought I had nothing to write. There is no ideal condition for producing creative work. I have to remind myself of that every day. You make the conditions ideal by showing up, period. Blogs help us show up, and that’s priceless.
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7 Things I’m Doing
now with the bottom link fixed!
Debating whether I’d ever use instacart to pick my groceries for me and deliver them. Gosh. That’s like the last straw, right?
Keep hitting play on this opus no. 1 on-hold music, just like This American Life said I would.
Longing for someone to join me for fried chicken at state park.
Writing many letters with my new stationary that Joe gave me for Christmas. It’s been pent up, this pen energy.
Wildly in love with the soapwalla all natural deodorant that I bought at follain in the South End. Also available on Etsy. I think it’s the one.
Hassled to be calling the NYT and canceling my digital subscription (can you say vanity spending?), but delighted to be renewing my New Yorker subscription.
Thinking about buying this oribe hair spray because I’ve seen it recommended approximately a billion times.
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this week
“A portrait of my daughters, once a week, every week, in 2014.”
Lux: Joe says she looks like Lil Wayne here.
Joan: Sink, tub, pool. She perks up at the sound of water. -
this week
“A portrait of my daughters, once a week, every week, in 2014.”
Lux: telling me what kitty wants to do today.
Joan: those ears, no hair, toothless grin. Babies combine the creepiest and cutest characteristics. -
young mornings
In the city, one of the decisions that comes catapulting out of nowhere is preschool. It feels like this: you are sitting around with your friends, your babies babbling, learning to use their legs and turn their heads, and someone says “so did you apply to schools? And this is from your stay-at-home friends, who you’ve already curated because you want to hang out with them during the week. Sabotage.
The first time someone asked me that, at the playground, I thought they meant graduate school. For the schools my friends were looking at, they applied in December when their child was one, for the following September when their child would be two.
Of course it’s been fine. I have a little notecard with who is free on which days. So and so, Tuesday and Thursdays. So and so, Monday afternoons and Wednesdays.
The price of preschool in Boston made it easy to decide against it for us. If we’d had enough money for a two-day or three-day, three-hour program, I’m not sure what I would have decided. Occasionally I have a flutter of jealousy for that reliable break that the mom has. Or that network of parents and kids that she is automatically clued into. Or simply interacting with another adult who knows about educating children.
But one of the things I’m so grateful for now are our mornings. Mornings seem to be peak nesting time the girls. Most of the time if I try to do something with Lux, I’m interrupting her work. I interrupt her when I come to get her out of the crib. I interrupt when I declare getting dressed for the day. (compare and contrast to around 5pm that evening when it will be abject mama mama please play with me). Sprinting about in pajamas and picking out a pile of books to read. Opening the toy cabinet and turning yesterday’s dominoes into today’s tea cakes. There are new messes to be made because there is clean floor. And what’s more inspiring than a clean floor?
Moms with young kids…we’re off the grid in so many ways. We don’t seem to operate on the world’s schedule, according to any time zone. We’re up before them. We’re up when Buenos Aires is supposed to wake up. We were up before that too, when Athens woke up. Maybe one more time slipped in there, just as London started perking up.
If we were going to be trip trotting by as the rest of the world rushes to the train, I say let it be so. Let other mornings be the busy ones. Let other mornings have clocks that work properly, alarms that mean something, coats to be zipped, bags to grabbed, lists to be mulled over.