Amy Shelf - Counselor at Law - AmStyle, a weblog

A Panic-free Summer

Tue, 15 Jun 2010 11:50:25 -0800

Hello friendly faces,

It has been quite a whirlwind around here. My daughter graduated from preschool! My first-born celebrated his 9th birthday! I turned 40! My family and I have enjoyed such a bounty of loving family and friends, of good health and good weather, and of incredible community. I barely have words to express my gratitude.

Having gotten through all of these big family and life events, it feels like summer is finally underway. This weekend, my husband, Ken, and I are flying to Chicago for a wedding and mini-vacation. Thanks to my mom, we are going without our kids; this will be the first time we've flown on an airplane together without them. It is nerve-wracking!

I've updated our own estate plan in anticipation of this trip. Having our documents in place and up-to-date does not remove the fearsomeness of air travel, but it does take the edge off.

Knowing that many of you are facing similar travel worries, I've created a summer schedule of Panic-free Estate Planning Workshops. The first one is on Saturday, June 26, at Recess Urban Recreation. I know this date is fast-approaching, but there is still plenty of time to sign up and GET THIS DONE. The Workshops are really that easy! There's a bit of homework and thinking to do before hand, but mostly you simply need to show up and do it. If you don't believe me, read my testimonials.

If you can't attend any of the dates this summer, in August I will be posting and circulating a schedule for the fall, so stay tuned. If you've already attended a Workshop (or even if you haven't) and you know people who you think might be interested in these unusual and even enjoyable events, please forward this information along to them.

With tremendous gratitude and best wishes for a wonderful (and panic-free) summer,

Amy

Bloggulence

Wed, 19 May 2010 23:28:53 -0800

I'm not abandoning this here weblog - if I had my druthers I'd have the time to write daily, but I am also going to be writing at bloggulence - the official blog for succulence: life and garden.

Here's my first post.
http://www.thesucculence.com/2/post/2010/05/the-aftertaste.html

Family Traditions

Wed, 10 Feb 2010 12:13:03 -0800

In a step fairly out of character, but one certainly motivated by a desire to mitigate the shame and hurt feelings suffered by our children at the hands of our anti-authoritarian and outsider tendencies, after dinner last night we cleared the table, pulled out the supplies and helped our kids make valentine's day cards for all of their classmates.

This was really Ken's doing. The whole valentine's day cards issue had come up when I was hanging out with the kids a week ago. Trudy, now officially and actually 5, had spent the day in school decorating a large envelope that would hang on the wall along with envelopes decorated by each of her classmates. The envelopes are there to receive valentine's day cards. There are official preschool rules about the holiday, and the wonderful, experienced people who run the school are clear that participation is not mandatory. I always take those invitations way too literally, so often just don't participate in such events. I'm frequently the one who really does not bring a birthday present when asked not to. I'm also the one who responds honestly, though usually with what I consider to be constructive criticism, when a waiter asks, "How is everything?" I hold people to their words - so if you tell me no presents, you better mean it. Same for asking me what I think - you should really want to know.

Huck, my third grader, jumped in on the game, and stated that he wanted to make cards for all the kids in his class. I think he's really interested in the candy that people are going to hand out (not us - see above). I told the kids that this year they could not count on me for help with this one. If they wanted to make valentine's day cards for everyone, they were going to have to motivate themselves. I'm absurdly busy, and will remain that way until I fully integrate an assistant into my law practice. Plus, we're getting a new business off the ground! Double plus, my choir is singing NoisePop and I'm trying to rehearse. Not to mention laundry, of course.

Ken, bless his soul, responded with a determined affirmation a few days later when he was a part of a similar conversation with the kids: we will send our children to school with valentine's day cards for a collective 50 children. We have to do right by them.

There are certain expectations of kids and parents that I really resent. I'll supervise homework and make stupendous snacks and wash cars for fundraisers, but the holiday thing makes me batty. My memory of the holiday celebrations of my childhood - at least when it came to how we celebrated them in school - is that it was all much more organic and much lower key. I don't remember feeling a compulsion to do whatever for every kid in my class on each and every holiday. My sense, looking back, is that some of us pulled it together for valentine's day while others of us managed to get some easter candy to distribute and then there were always folks left to do St. Patrick's day duty and bring in clover shaped butter cookies with green sugar on top.

Of course, I wasn't the one who had to motivate or organize, so I'm sure -- I imagine -- all that holiday obligation stuff was fairly irritating to my parents too. It might seem by now that I have some kind of holiday chip on my shoulder, and I do. I love to celebrate and ritualize things. I think birthdays are great - you really know why you are celebrating what you are celebrating. The rest of it (it being all holidays) seems so overdone and, as a result, diluted. The special food that used to only be available on such-and-such holiday, is now available year round. The particular joyful experience of trick or treating and getting halloween candy seems corrupted - the quantity is beyond excessive and the quality of the experience suffers as a result. In our country everything is available 24-7, and at this point there isn't anything you can't do, even on the most sacred of holidays, Christmas: Walgreens and Safeway are open for hours. In particular, I hate the pressure my kids experience around holidays, and I hate the fact that often they have no connection to these holidays other than for the sugar or other loot. Going through the motions is not in my skill set.

Ironically, and, ultimately, poetically, valentine's day is one of the few holidays for which I have an actual family tradition. My family experience growing up was fundamentally safe and loving, but it was a bit fractured and distracted. There were elements of tradition in many holidays, things we did from year to year: I made the mashed potatoes at thanksgiving from age 8 until probably 16 or so; we made latkes for hanukah; and when my dad and stepmother were together there was the cozy joy of christmas morning at their lovely house - lots of hot coffee and usually bacon and other rich morning treats that came after withstanding weird slow present opening where we all held back and pretended not to care that much. Oh yeah, and then there was the dance around mother's day where my mom said she didn't really care about it but then ended up getting upset, always. For a few years I really carried this tradition out with my own family until I discovered that the best thing to do on mother's day was to remove myself from society to the greatest possible extent.

Valentine's day was different. For years my mom made epically wonderful cards for us. Really the thing was the writing - often 24 lines or more of poetry proclaiming her love and appreciation for each of us and our unique qualities. The poems, written usually on the newsprint favored by my mom, were surrounded by potato print hearts. Even when I became an adult, my mom wrote these poems and made potato prints and sent them to me. She even sent some to my husband in the first 5 or 6 years of our marriage. Sometimes the poems were short and sweet, but there were always - ALWAYS - potato prints. My mom didn't pull out the domestic whoop-ass very often but she killed it on valentine's day.

So here I am, irritated by holidays in general, irritated by holidays in school in particular, but being rallied by my equally overworked husband to help the kids make valentine's day cards. Am I totally evil? No! I got behind it. And I was able to get behind it precisely because of the valentine's day card tradition that I could really call upon: we'll make potato prints of course! The one thing I can do with my kids that DOES actually mean something to me on this, another, absurdly commercialized holiday.

As it often goes, my kids had other plans. Huck had a vision of layered hearts glued together, so he and Ken started cutting and pasting. Trudy enjoyed making potato prints for a while. We made a few really nice heart-shaped potato printers despite the fact that I had used all but one of the potatoes to make soup for dinner - didn't really think that one through. But then she wanted to do what her brother was doing (they did look pretty cool) and I was unable to talk her out of discontinuing to print with me.

Poetically, and ironically, while Trudy got involved with intricate drawings on two cards and spent a good deal of time talking Ken into cutting out lots of hearts for her so that she could do exactly what her big brother was doing, I ended up making 40 half-assed potato prints on a combination of cool joss paper I had and some blank index cards.

Hats off to Ken: the kids have valentine's day cards to distribute. They will not be humiliated and feel left out of yet another holiday celebration.

Also, it was quite nice sitting around the kitchen table doing an art project together, my bad attitude and Trudy's whining indecision notwithstanding. The thing I most love about that kind of project time with my kids is the way conversation flows and they talk freely about the random thoughts that bubble up while you are working with your hands.

In the middle of it, Huck told us, "Today I said something that made people in my class think I wasn't that smart."   Puzzled (because Huck has a bit of a braniac reputation, complete with shirt chewing and other neurotic behaviors associated with the very intellectual) we asked him what he said.

"I told some kids in my class that God does not exist. And then I told them that Jesus isn't the son of God, and Santa doesn't exist, and the Easter Bunny doesn't exist either."

Ken and I were now listening quite attentively.

I don't know what they'd been talking about when Huck jumped in on the conversation, but when Huck the Heretic spoke up, the other kids pulled out all the stops, telling Huck he was wrong, presenting other proof of God's existence as they saw it, and finally asking Huck how can God NOT exist when God created HIM, Huckleberry Maceo Shelf.

For better or worse, Huck responded to his classmates by talking about evolution, not reproduction. Not sure which would have made him and us less popular among his classmates and their parents, but that is how it rolled.   This is the point at which one kid told him that he was not actually smart, thus playing out the centuries old disrespectful dialogue between religious believers and practitioners of science.

Ken and I were laughing and cringing and proud and worried. We talked about how religion and science are often at odds with one another, and even different religious beliefs conflict, although for the most part religious believers hold their truths to be true. The fundamental message we tried to get across was the importance of treating others and their beliefs about the unknown with respect, even if they believe in something that seems patently ridiculous to you, and even if they are dissing you to your face.

Huck seemed to grock this message, and, in the end, it turns out he DOES believe in God - or, technically, GODS - he's down with Zeus and the other Olympian deities.

Really, I'm proud of my son for his ability to speak his mind and state his beliefs, even when he is up against a homogeneous group and in the minority. That is one family tradition we've created, and, hopefully, one that our kids keep going when they have families of their own.

One for the files, or, more specifically, the file marked, "wow, thank you!"

Thu, 28 Jan 2010 16:11:48 -0800

I don't usually toot my own professional horn on this web log very much, or really even talk about my work at all, but I had to share this message I recently received from a client - she copied me on an email she sent to a bunch of her friends. This client attended one of my Panic-free Planning Workshops and had some wonderful things to say about it. I'm grateful for the recommendation, of course. Also I think her words - born of experience - convey the message perfectly. Thank you, lovely client. I imagine your friends thank you, too.

"I have talked to some of you about this, so I thought I would pass the info on to everyone! I know that no one wants to talk about death and dying, especially as new parents. But it may just be the biggest gift you can give to your child and your family when the inevitable occurs. My father died unexpectantly when I was a teenager and more recently we have had to deal with an elderly family member who died without a will, so I speak from experience that writing a will, financial power of attorney and healthcare directive is of the utmost importance.
I recently took a workshop with attorney Amy Shelf. She is an estate lawyer who has created these workshops to help get the basics in place. Once they are in place, she can help to get your whole estate in order. Amy has made this uncomfortable, difficult and challenging task easy and accessible. She offers "Panic Free Workshops" in a group setting in which the purpose is to ease you through the process. You leave the workshop with all three documents complete and a feeling that you have tackled a difficult thing, successfully.
http://www.amyshelf.com/workshops.html
Amy is not only knowledgable about the law, she understands how difficult this topic is for parents and non-parents and with humor and compassion walks you through the entire process.

I can HIGHLY recommend her workshops and hope this inspires you to move this very important to-do to the top of your list."

The Spinach Incident

Wed, 13 Jan 2010 11:58:42 -0800

I suppose I need to start by telling you that my family does not celebrate Christmas. We are Jewish, yes, though not practicing, really. In one respect, all Jews can be divided between two groups - those who celebrate Christmas and those who do not. I grew up celebrating at my Dad's; my husband, Ken, didn't celebrate it at all. Nuanced aspects of our decision aside, we don't celebrate Christmas now.

We do celebrate a few Jewish holidays, and Chanukah is now one of them. Before we had kids, we didn't really pay much mind to the festival of lights. Our inability to schedule a Chanukah get-together with Ken's family, who all live nearby, inspired the self-styled, gift-giving holiday we do celebrate: Gift-X. But that is another story.

Enter kids into our lives, who turn into frustrated and disappointed kids because they are not in on the Christmas experience. So enter Chanukah, and, from time-to-time, service and volunteer activities on Christmas day, which is really the best thing any of us can do.

When we started celebrating Chanukah, we had to then address the present issue. Really, the best part about not celebrating Christmas (other than the self-righteous martyrdom in which we get to wallow) is not having to participate in the consumer frenzy of December. We have tried to minimize the gift-giving element of Chanukah. The motivation is two-fold: we want to retain our status as conscientious objectors to consumerism - mostly for our own stress levels, and our kids do not need more crap - er, stuff. Plus, Chanukah is really a war holiday anyway.

A few years ago we started giving the kids home-style gift certificates. Along the lines of "When Mama and Papa decide to go out to dinner you get to pick where we go," and, "You get to make the whole family go out for ice cream and Mama and Papa can't say no." The kids are sometimes a bit disappointed that there's no toy or thing on that particular night of Chanukah, but they've come to accept that some nights will be certificate nights, and that is just part of the deal. The kids also cope by muttering things to themselves about getting 8 nights to Christmas's 1. Standard.

Each certificate comes with rules, written and unwritten, and that's where the Spinach Incident comes in.

Trudy, my nearly 5 year old, announced before dinner last night that she was using her ice cream certificate, and we were all going out for ice cream after dinner. Dinner that night consisted of rice and beans with cheese, and sauteed spinach.

Kids are so weird about vegetables. My kids, like so many others I know, ate vegetables heartily and indiscriminately until they were 2 or 3. This is the age when parallel play usually tapers off and kids start paying more attention to what other kids do and say. Maybe the vegetable animosity is learned behavior, maybe it is a vestige of a Darwinian aversion to plants as they become more mobile and independent: you can't poison yourself by eating the wrong plant if you don't eat plants at all. Most likely is that it is a cyclical interaction of the two. Regardless, I'm a firm believer in making my kids eat some plant matter with most meals. It is a non-negotiable rule in our house, and hopefully the habit will become so rooted in their psyches and behavior patters that they will eat some nutritious food in their first years of college.

Not surprisingly, eating a good dinner, including that evening's vegetables, is an unwritten prerequisite for the kids to be allowed to use their ice cream certificates.

Trudy refused to eat her spinach last night. At other times, Trudy has proclaimed that she loves spinach. Both kids usually have some list of veggies that they'll eat willingly or enthusiastically, and apparently that changes without notice.

Last night's spinach - lightly sauteed with a bit of olive oil and garlic, fresh from our CSA farm - was sweet and tender. Huck, Trudy's older brother, was also being a bit of a spaz about the spinach - maybe he set the whole thing off - but, he is older, wiser, and really committed to sugar consumption, so he begrudgingly ate his greens. By his last bite he had almost forgotten to maintain his repulsed expression.

We made it clear that Trudy was going to have to eat her spinach if we were going to go out for ice cream. She panicked. Got kind of hysterical. Was nearly hyperventilating, almost. While we are pretty damn good about sticking to our guns and following through on the rules we set down, we did give her quite a few opportunities to follow the righteous path. We offered to feed her. We set the spinach out into four discrete bites. I even went so far as to chop the spinach up after Trudy insisted that she could not chew it - at that point she'd been simultaneously crying and attempting to chew the spinach without it touching her tongue.

Before we made the call that ice cream was not happening that evening, there were a few exasperated threats. We were both coming to terms with the fact that we weren't getting ice cream either, and poor Huck, who had eaten his spinach, was wimpering on the couch, pleading with his head-strong and misguided sister. (Don't worry, he secretly got a chocolate-covered mint a little later in the evening.)

The final verdict of NO ICE CREAM was announced, and Trudy took to her bed and cried. I felt for her, we all did. I have memories, somewhat fragmented, of being a child unable to swallow a bite of butternut squash, or crying and crying while kind of knowing somewhere deep in my developing brain that I was taking the longer, more difficult path.

As the spinach was transforming into the Spinach Incident I had a few moments of questioning my parenting decision. Was I turning food into a power-play? Was I setting the stage for an eating disorder or rebellious teen behavior or both? Was I being overly punitive? Maybe, but I don't think so.

Trudy cried in bed for a while. I spent a lot of the time with her, stroking her hair, feeling and being sympathetic. She was obviously out of control, because any logical person would have eaten the damn spinach and been halfway through a strawberry cone at that point. Being that out of control feels terrible, even worse than not getting ice cream when you want it.

Giving More This Year.

Fri, 08 Jan 2010 14:59:49 -0800

So here we are: 2010! What a year this has been. 2009. What. A. Year. To the extent you have made it through 2009 without completely freaking out and falling apart, you deserve kudos. I know that many of you reading this have experienced your own struggles and losses this year. And even for those of you who have not personally and directly felt the effects of the financial, ecological and political instability of our time, it is in the air and is flavoring life, exposing, and even emphasizing, the ever-present uncertainty of the future.

This is the third year in a row that I've sent a message to my community in early January - I guess that makes it a tradition! As much as I love to fill this space with discussions of the coming year and the larger issues that interest me, this message is fundamentally for marketing purposes and my rant this year has gotten a little long. So I'll let you click the hyperlink to read my full explanation of how I see 2010 as The Year of Generosity. For more buzz about my law practice, please read on.

First of all, I want to send a big thank you to my clients. You are the best! Really, I could not ask for nicer and more wonderful people to walk through my door. I am honored to have you place your trust in me. I am not just talking about your faith in my technical skills as a lawyer, but I also mean the way you open your lives and hearts to me as we discuss our often difficult and emotional work. This moves me and inspires me, and, more and more, becomes the thing that calls me out of bed each morning. Thank you so much.

My Panic-Free Planning Workshops continue to receive lots of enthusiasm and great feedback - they are an easy, and even enjoyable, way to get the basics in place for a great price. All you need to do is a little bit of prep and attend a two hour workshop, and then you'll have a basic Will, Power of Attorney and Advance Health Care Directive in place. I've got a full Winter/Spring schedule for my Workshops on my website.

Another very exciting development is that I'm partnering with the folks at Recess Urban Recreation (a fabulous, indoor rec center for young kids and their caretakers). I'm offering two of my Panic-Free Planning Workshops (January 23 and April 24) at Recess, where I can accommodate much larger groups. Also, Recess is hosting a few free presentations I'll be doing about Estate Planning, so sign up for their mailing list and watch their calendar.

Remember, advance registration is required for all Workshops, so just pick a date and sign up online! Believe me, you'll feel so much better when its done.

Increasingly often I hear from friends and neighbors that they've seen my name recommended on local parenting email lists, or that they've recommended me themselves. It means so much to me that you think highly enough of me and my work to send other people my way. Your recommendations are also my lifeline: almost all of my business comes through word-of-mouth referrals. So, thank you for sharing my name, and please continue doing so. And do forward this post to anyone you know who might want or need my services.

2010: The Year of Generosity.

Tue, 05 Jan 2010 16:00:35 -0800

Last year at this time, I wrote about hard work and fortitude. I have certainly had a very, very hardworking year, and I know I'm not alone. And there is, without a doubt, much work to be done. In addition to the great, global to-do list, many things in my own life require constant work and attention. My husband and I, along with two business partners, have just opened a new shop, Succulence. It is a hidden gem: Succulence can be found by going through our other business, Four Star Video. Once out back you will find yourself in a sheltered oasis of Succulent Living. If running one new business and two going concerns wasn't enough, there's also the day-to-day tasks of raising our kids, being involved with schools and community, and occasionally (though not often enough) doing laundry. Lots of work.

In addition to my vision of hard work for last year, I also felt much promise in the beginning of 2009. Opportunity for growth and, yes, change. Analyzing the ways in which our worlds and lives have grown and changed is always a challenge. Often transformation is accompanied by an amnesia of sorts; it is difficult to remember just what life was like before. I can barely remember what my husband was like at 23, when we met; my vague memories of my children as babies seem almost disconnected from who they are now, and it is a struggle to put myself in the place of someone who has never seen a person of color elected President of the United States.

In looking forward, and thinking of what I not only want to create this year but also what I want to wish for others, I keep coming back to the idea of generosity, and a deep conviction that it is going to be critical to our overall health and survival as communities and as a society.

With shrinking resources - financial, natural, and otherwise - often the urge and tendency is to grip tightly to that which we do have. I guard my free evenings, I panic about my credit card balance, and I want to protect that which I already own. Perhaps somewhat counter-intuitively, I think that instead of giving in to the impulse to be proprietary, now is the time to give more.

Meditating on generosity, I am reminded of a short story I read once about a woman who gets married and moves to her new husband's home in a rural, mountainous place. During the winter. She, the protagonist, is a city girl, a professional, and she is not comfortable in the solitude of the wild. She is terrified of what she cannot do or accomplish on her own out in the snowy mountains.

When the story begins there are news reports of a dangerous man on the loose. Maybe he has escaped from prison or a mental institution or something. I don't remember the specifics, but this unknown menace is woven into the storyline and psyche of the main character.

The narrative climaxes when she is home alone and looks out the window to see a man come toward her house from the woods. He is obviously in need - perhaps injured or simply dangerously cold and deliriously hungry. The main character is terrified of this stranger, and she is so consumed by her own vulnerability that she ignores his signs of distress, his knock on her door, and his calls for help.

It turns out that the man who came down from the mountains was not a threat, and our protagonist had broken one of the cardinal rules of rural living: you always help those in need. Makes sense, when you think of it - when people live so far from each other and from the conveniences and protections of civilization, some version of the golden rule must govern their interactions: give help unto others as you hope beyond hope they would help you if you needed it.

A rule like this, of living and helping generously, seems critical at this moment in history. But my vision of a generous way of living is not just about money. Obviously, the nonprofits and the needy are desperate for cold hard cash, and let us reach deep into our pockets for that kind of giving for sure. The generosity I'm thinking of, however, extends farther than gifts of money, and is a whole attitude about the resources we each possess and how they can be shared.

Like we all have different skills, we all have different resources. Some of us have experience to give, others of us have time, or compassion, or love, or power tools. Some of us have money, so let us give it or lend it. Let us also share our things. Our hearts. Our time. Our tables. Let us give what we can to those who need us. A parent, a sibling, a stranger. When others ask to use what is ours, let us all say yes.

We've all heard much recently, perhaps too much, about the psychology of economics and financial activity. The credit crunch is fundamentally the result of a deep lack of confidence and trust, not just a shortage of resources. In some oversimplified way it seems that overall economic health is akin to us all holding hands at the edge of the pool and agreeing that we'll jump in together.

So where will this giving and sharing get us? By giving money we can provide an obvious kind of assistance. But by giving and sharing other resources . . . well, we might actually be building trust and community. Imagine the power of saying yes, sure, have some, take mine. Imagine the power of hearing those things.

One thing that the last year has shown is the unpredictability of bad fortune. The neighbor who seemed to have it all? Lost her job and then her house. The friend with the ideal marriage? Maybe he's not so happy right now. With financial instability, the pressures on our relationships and friendships mount. We must stay committed to keeping each other from falling through the cracks. Not just the socio-economic cracks, but the spiritual ones as well.

Open your door and your heart and your wallet to those, known and unknown, who stumble down from the snowy mountains. The more you do, the better the chance that when you are cold and lost a door will open for you.

Love and hate, both of which can be really funny.

Tue, 29 Dec 2009 15:59:42 -0800

In 7th and 8th grades - what we called junior high school in Philadelphia, where I grew up - my friend, Michelle Jackson, and I laughed a lot. A LOT. I remember laughing pretty much constantly during that time, except for those moments, here and there, when either I wasn't hanging out with Michelle or when we had serious conversations about important things like how irritated we were by our moms, or about Sting and how much we loved the Police. Even those conversations ended up in laughter - eventually we'd start talking about Trudi Styler, and how much we hated her for being married to Sting. Somehow, making fun of Trudi Styler, we'd end up laughing.

In those days, Michelle and I made love and hate lists. On a piece of paper we'd write a list of things, under the title "I LOVE" and another list of things under the title "I HATE." The listed items frequently contained parentheticals, explaining it all. Reliably, there were references to teachers (almost always on the HATE side), boys in our school (equally divided between LOVE and HATE), and various celebrities (mostly LOVE). Often these lists were notes passed back and forth between classes. Then we'd meet in the cafeteria to discuss . . . and laugh.

Around this same time, Michelle stopped using capital letters almost entirely. As a result, I feel as though I commit a spiritual offense when I write her name as Michelle Jackson and not michelle jackson. It even looks weird to me with capitals but I'm too brainwashed in proper writing at this point to let go of them. Sorry, mj.

Michelle, and the Love-Hate lists I've saved, crack me up to this day. Last night, the lists crossed my mind so I went digging through the random files and boxes of papers and letters I've saved (most of which are from waaaay back when we wrote each other letters on paper). I could not find a single list! Tragic! I'm sure they are somewhere. Michelle??? Send me copies, but please do not scan and post.

Michelle is still a kick-ass friend, and is now a kick-ass therapist, so I'm sure she can say many educated, eloquent things about those lists - about our tween and teen processes of identity formation, about the validation provided by female friendships, about how the Police are still one of the best bands to ever have been, at least those first three albums.

The lists were part vent/bitch session, part pretending we were stand up comics. The lists were significantly self-referential, both inter-list and intra-list. The lists were also a way to confess our inner feelings within the protective forces of sarcasm and the act of writing what we could not speak.

In Michelle's honor, and ostensibly sizing things up while looking toward the new year, but mostly for no particular reason other than the fact that I wish she and/or the lists were here to make me laugh right now, below is an excerpt from my Love/Hate list for today, December 29, 2009. I encourage you to make one of your own, preferably on lined school paper, and mail it to your BFF.

I LOVE:
+ mayonnaise (I'm so over my faux "I hate mayo" trip just cause it has a lot of calories. I love that stuff!)
+ lavender (it is good for so much)
+ being married
+ the Police (see above re: first three albums)
+ mascara (blue mascara = instant glamour)
+ health care reform (c'mon people - lets give it a shot! its not like the status quo is working)
+ Europe (they have so much figured out)
+ brown rice (I feel so good when I eat it)
+ yoga
+ the term Cougar (I'm proud to be thought of as a sexy older woman - given I have to be in the older category - and I believe the term is fitting even when not on the prowl)
+ Facebook (see here)
+ Justin Timberlake (I admit it, OK, he is just really cute - his golf habit notwithstanding)
+ PJ Harvey (nearly 20 years later, I am still in the process of coming to terms with the fact that I am not her)
+ my mom (I am not in jr high anymore! I can love her! Plus, she wrote a book!)
+ the ocean (that baby has power, my chakras are realigned just by being in its presence)

I HATE:
- being a working parent (daycare: the guilt!)
- not having enough minutes in the day
- the media (enough already! can we please get some responsible journalism from the mainstream media?)
- that my nearly 5 year old still does not sleep well
- artificial fragrances
- health care reform (the reality of it, I hate being asked to chose between my commitment to reproductive rights and my desire to see SOMETHING happen in this area)
- global warming and habitat destruction (I feel so helpless)
- scallops (I don't know if I'm really still allergic but I haven't gotten over the times they made me sick when I was 5 or 6)
- pessimism
- the term MILF (not so much because I don't like what it means, but it is not a sexy word)
- Facebook (hello! can I please get something done??)
- Tiger Woods (OK, I realize he is an amazing golfer, and I don't even care about his infidelity - I assume ALL professional athletes sleep with whomever they want - but he is just not that attractive in my opinion, plus I kind of hate golf)
- the musical Annie (first tortured by my younger sister, now by my daughter. It is indeed a hard knock life for me)
- activities that require gear (since having kids my schlep tolerance is lower than ever, even though this makes me feel totally lame because as a practical matter I really have no interest skiing which I know is fun)

Dia de los Muertos

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 17:07:09 -0800

A few months ago, as I walked onto the school yard for the community gathering that happens each morning at Fairmount Elementary, where my son, Huck, is in third grade, I ran into another parent with whom I am sort of friendly. In response to my usual, thoughtless, "how's it going?" she indicated that there was a lot of heaviness in her life right now.

These are always delicate moments, especially with members of that group of people who are the acquaintances you see daily but don't actually know that well, or even at all. This time I went out on a limb, as I'm known to do, and asked if everything was OK in her immediate family, and with her marriage. I don't remember now how she'd responded to my original question, but something in her response suggested death and divorce. As opposed to bankruptcy and prison, for example.

Her tone and demeanor changed - lightness and relief came to the surface - and she let me know that she and her family were OK. Marriage was fine, no one was dead, but heavy shit was all around her.

Been there.

It can be so bizarre when bad stuff is happening to the people you love, especially when it happens in such a way as to allow you to go on with your normal life. It is difficult to convey to others the heaviness in your heart, and the amount of time and emotional energy you are putting toward other people's problems. In reality, the answer to the question, "how is it going?" is both, "fine," and, "crappy."

I think of those times as like being in the eye of the storm - the calm of your own life is particularly eerie in contrast to the madness of others' misfortune and struggle that is swirling violently around you. It is not an easy calm; your heart and head are with people in pain, and things feel dangerous.

That is kind of happening for me right now. Don't get me wrong, pour me a glass of Zin and I've got plenty of problems to talk about. But, by and large, the problems are a product of my own good fortune. My life is good. But yesterday, we got heart-breaking news from two old, precious friends. Jacky's dad just passed away, and Bill's sister is in the final weeks of her losing battle with cancer. My heart was very, very heavy yesterday.

Also yesterday, in the afternoon, after school let out, my son's school hosted a multi-media celebration of Dia de los Muertos - day of the dead. Fairmount is a wonderful place that is almost entirely a dual language - Spanish and English - immersion school. Not surprisingly, cultural celebrations that are from, or relate to, Spanish-speaking countries and cultures are big at Fairmount.

Monday is my day to play stay at home mama with my four year old. Also, I pick my son up from school at 2:40, rather than at 5:30, so he does not go to after-care that day. I'm incredibly lucky to be able to work less than five days a week and both of my kids have stayed out of full time childcare, mostly by a hair's breath but the psychological value of the distinction is important to me and my husband. Hippies we are at heart, and we always thought we'd homeschool our kids.

Ironically, by the end of any given Monday, one or both of my kids is/are desperately craving a group activity with other children, usually evidenced by them whining a lot and fighting with each other. Maybe someday they will appreciate the pleasures of food shopping or going to the post office but for now they tolerate those Monday activities and I try to not fill my Mondays with errands.

This week, Trudy and I picked Huck up at school and I gave him the option of staying for the Dia de los Muertos celebration. In the past, this event has been fun, albeit chaotic (as are all elementary school events). After considering things for a moment, Huck decided not to stay at school. We had another invitation on the table - joining our friends at the beach. We'd gone to the beach the day before, with these same friends, and the mood was euphoric. The weather was gorgeous in a way that fully, totally and completely validates my decision to tolerate July fog in San Francisco. 80 degrees in November. And the kids got to run off the pounds of Halloween candy they'd eaten. They needed it desperately.

On the walk home from school we talked about Day of the Dead and it hit me that it was really timely. Jacky's kids are like cousins to my own, and they'd just lost their grandfather. This was something my kids - ages 8 and 4 - could now fully comprehend. Huck and Trudy know and love these kids, and they understand what a grandfather is and have feelings and attachments to their own. It was actually quite a developmental milestone for all of us.

We talked about making an altar (and what an altar is) at our house, in our yard, or at the beach. The kids were down with it, in theory, but I have to admit I lacked a little bit of follow-through. We worked together to put up an altar structure in the back yard and then I went through the house gathering things I wanted to put inside of the altar. On the fridge alone, I found: a picture of my grandmother, who was very special to me and who really should have gotten to know my kids, and a picture of my friend Debra and one of my friend Cayce - each took their own life at age 39. That is how old I am now. I also picked up a necklace that Jacky made when she was visiting that said, "MERGE" and a Laurie Colwin book.

It quickly became clear that I couldn't just slap together an altar in 15 minutes before I packed a bag with towels and sand toys. Probably not any day but definitely not yesterday. The pile is still sitting there in my kitchen and the altar still sits in the back yard, open to receive things.

The beach was beautiful and cold. The sun was setting, and the sand and mountains were starting to glow pink. It was an incredibly wonderful place to be and I felt really shitty - sad and angry and worried. My son got the short end of the 8 year old gender division stick and played by himself, my daughter got pummeled by a wave and soaked by 43 degree water and mostly just asked to leave.

We got into the car and drove home as the sun set magnificently over the pacific ocean. We listened to the baseball game, heated our toes and, each in our own way, marveled at being alive.

Loving a Burden

Wed, 23 Sep 2009 15:49:21 -0800

The other night I had a breakdown, the likes of which my husband, Ken, has seen before. It was late at night and the things I'd been pushing down and aside, in my commendable efforts to rise above, or at least put off until a good time, erupted. After all these years, I'm still not very good at seeing when I am close to blowing my lid.

The mechanics of my breakdown had everything to do with the circumstances, the most significant of which is probably the fact that I have been unable to sleep past 6 AM for weeks. And 6 has been more the exception than the norm. Ugh.

The subject of my breakdown (at least in my mind) was cooking. I've been doing too much of it. Admittedly, much of the pressure I've felt around cooking comes from my own desire to be making - and eating - amazing, wholesome food all the time.

To an outsider, my family is eating amazing, wholesome food almost all the time. We really do eat incredibly well. To my own inner over-achiever, however, there is much work to be done. I want to be making sprouted grain bread, kombucha, my own vinegar, and delectable stews and ambitious dishes from cuisines all over the world. The realities of my life, as pointed-out by many of my loving friends, make achieving my goals nearly impossible: I am running my own law practice, I am in a performing choir, I am the chair of the School Site Council, and I am making really good food a lot of time time and also trying to be a present mother and partner and friend. Not even getting into how busy my husband is.

Ironically, my attempts to rise above my exhaustion in the kitchen, and my putting off having a conversation with my husband about shifting the division of labor in our house, were motivated by my love of cooking. On weekends, cooking is a favorite recreational activity of mine. I read cookbooks and cooking magazines for fun. I have been slow to realize that things have felt burdensome to me in part because that is my character flaw (see note above re: my inability to see my emotional storms coming) but also in part because it didn't fit into my concept of things. I love to cook, so why don't I love cooking right now?

All this got me to thinking about the strange phenomenon of how things we love can become burdens.

For example, I love my children. Beyond all that there is. But my husband and I have a carefully orchestrated schedule of who puts them to bed, and the schedule is not the result of us vying for our own fair turn at this joyous activity. It is a who HAS to put them to bed issue, not a who GETS to put them to bed one. As much as bedtime can be a big, fat drag, it is also precious, special time with two of my favorite people in all of human history. When I can relax into the nighttime routine, it is gloriously tender. My children are still and listening (a rare treat), we are cuddling and I have the opportunity to be privy to secrets and details that come out as they process and just babble about the days they had.

Often, however, I can't Zen into the bedtime routine. It is time consuming, and there are a ton of things I want to do with my precious night at home. They are whiny and resistant to the idea of sleep. I am stuck in a dark room with kids who need to just go to sleep. I obsess over everything we've done wrong in NOT developing good sleep habits. I just want out.

Clearly, the lovable nature of things becomes obscured when obligation comes into the picture. Cooking often feels like a drag when I have to make dinner for four hungry people every night, after work, and I've only got 45 minutes to get it all cooked and ready - notwithstanding the fact that I'd jump at the chance to plan and prepare a dinner party with friends. Lying tenderly with my children in a dark room telling stories is an awesome way to pass the time, but when I am doing it because it needs to be done . . . well, then I have more difficulty remembering that given the choice, I might actually choose to do it.

If I were a yoga teacher, I'd have a good lesson here and I'd be able to recall some parable, originally written in Sanskrit (after thousands of years of developing as part of an oral history) that exemplifies the teaching moment.

I'm not a yoga teacher (yet) and I don't really have this one all figured out. It seems to have a lot to do with the must-ness of the thing, and how that must-ness triggers something in us - something human, western, high-schoolish - that makes us want to do something else. Just because we can't.

Mostly, though, I know that really the love is, and should be, not just for the thing but also for the burden. For the beautiful children and loving family, needy and hungry they may be. The gift is the interdependence, the obligation - that is what gives any of it meaning. Otherwise, its all free choice and self-determination, and that is way too much of a good thing.