Last night’s sleep belongs firmly in air quotes. I woke up. I was hot; I was not hot; I was cold. I wasn’t sick. The dear husband snored. The small girl climbed into bed. Not so much later, she whacked me in her sleep. I mulled possible nephew names. I drifted off without a great one. I woke up. I stared at the clock. The dear husband snored, then stopped. The small girl kicked.
Caleb is bigger now and soon to be the middle one
I thought about how much I dislike this aspect of the Internet: the Mommy Wars pile-on in whatever form. This week, it’s lean in. The book just came out. My middle of the night contribution goes like this: to put lean in, freelance writer and 2013 in the same sentence is a joke. I don’t even have to get into work from home, café or office. I thought about how Facebook buried my blog’s little “community” page ages ago. I don’t even have to say more.
My reluctance-slash-disinterest in many things contemporary feminist (at least one definition of contemporary feminist) aside, I’m totally a card carrying one. Let this be my chance to mention that I’ll be bowling for Abortion Access next month as part of the National Network of Abortion Funds’ big bowlathon extravaganza-slash-fundraising campaign. My partner in s-trii-kes is none other than Avital Norman Nathman aka the Mamafesto blogger, and otherwise extraordinary feminist writer (and mama), and our team is No Wire Hangers.
Yes, this is YOUR CUE. You can support our team and abortion access (and that’s leaning in for the real deal—access, nothing theoretical about it). I so appreciate your support.
Let’s call that my first and most important Tuesday link. I nabbed this photo from a post on the Broad Side that gave me a chuckle.
But let’s just sneak that last one in and call your attention to a lovely essay about those moments you share with someone that can’t be taken from you, even after divorce; that’s what Jacqueline Sheehan’s essay at Modern Love talked about. That, and rogue swans.
Finally, I went back and pored over this blog—You are My Wild is a group blog of photographers taking “real” (their emphasis not mine) photographs versus iphone ones. I don’t have an iphone; I do, for those following these things, now have a texting phone because the flip phone died. I can’t figure out punctuation. Yet. Anyway, although the real temptation for the iphone was having a camera like that, I’m kind of glad to keep my camera in business.
Sometimes, though, you miss taking a stealth photo. Last week, in the course of thirty seconds I saw two I’d have tried to take. The first was a small girl in winter jacket and winter boots, white tights and stiff white tutu skirt. I’d say she was four; she turned heads with magnetic force. Just after that I saw the fast-forward by ten years version: teenage girl on snowy morning getting into car with her dad and she wore leggings, sneaks but no socks, a sweatshirt and carried her workout shoes.
Despite my guaranteed cobwebby day, I am grateful for noticing moments like that one, I’m grateful for the pretty definitely final nephew, and I’m grateful for the fact that lean in or no, I know from leaning in. I recognize it in Saskia, too at the wonderful Y’s open gym on Sunday. Even from the back, you can see how she’s putting her all into walking across that beam.
