M.J. Pullen's Blog, page 23

Graduating from Parenting Basic (a.k.a Officially Going Over the Edge)

Before you have kids, people will tell you that parenting will change your life, and push you to your limits. Especially the parents of young children, who will grab your arm in the grocery store or at parties and hiss out warnings, as though they’ve escaped temporarily from an institution and want to make sure someone on the outside knows about them (before they are dragged away by orderlies singing the “Jake and the Neverland Pirates” theme song).

Before you have kids, you will listen and nod, because you’re being polite and you’re absolutely positive that the crud-covered, scattered mess of a human being standing before you could not possibly be your future. Well, I’ll have it more together than that, you think. I mean, I know parenting is hard, but nothing could keep me from taking a shower on a daily basis and at least keeping up with some current events.  I’m going to maintain my adult self. And I won’t go to a party smelling like graham crackers and poop, that’s for damn sure.

What you will not know in that moment, is that the crud-covered mess of a human being is totally sugar-coating it. This is partly unintentional, because there simply are no words for the depths of exhaustion and frustration to which the early years of parenting will drag you. But also it’s because if you could understand the reality of parenting small children before doing it, absolutely no one would reproduce.

Your friends with little kids want you to think it’s a rosy stream of birthday parties and Pinterest projects because misery loves company. I mean, yes, you will love your children more than you ever thought possible to love anyone, and at times they will break your heart with joy. But dude, in the meantime, you will actually lick yogurt off your own shirt and call it breakfast. And that won’t even be the grossest thing you do that day.

Parenting doesn’t “push you to your limits.” It pushes you over the damn edge, and then some. It’s sort of like Basic Training, except it goes on for years instead of weeks, and you don’t come out of it with rock-hard abs and the ability to run twelve miles carrying a tent and assault weapon. You do come out of it with the ability to navigate an entire grocery store on fifteen minutes of sleep, with a 30-lb “portable” car seat in one hand and a whiny toddler pulling death for donuts on the other, which I think is equally impressive.

There comes a point in the process of raising young children that you realize you have crossed some invisible threshold. Not only do you no longer identify with the person you were pre-kid, but you don’t even remember who that person was, or how she managed to fill up her days without having Cheerios stuck to her ass. That moment is graduation from parenting boot camp, baby. You may feel and even look like you’re being dragged over a rocky precipice by chimpanzees of superhuman strength, and it might even smell that way. But this is your moment of glory, moms and dads. Revel in it. Once you’ve gone over the cliff, things get much easier. Without your sanity and your smug sense of self in tow, you can travel light. Every day is an adventure, as long as you don’t need to know where you’re going or care how you will look when you get there.

For those who are in the process of parenting young children, you may recognize some of these signposts on the way to insanity. For those with older children, you may have vague memories of this stuff, but to fully recover them you’ll need hypnosis and a trained psychiatrist. If you are simply contemplating offspring, well, don’t say you weren’t warned. Of course, you’ll be different, so you won’t have to deal with this stuff. You can just point at me and laugh.

Here are some signs that you are headed over the edge:

“Mommy’s quiet time” involves sitting in an empty bathtub with the door locked, hugging your knees and muttering to yourself.
Nearly every bag of household trash contains a substance which, strictly speaking, should require biohazard labeling and special transportation permits. As a result, you simultaneously feel sorry for your garbage man and fantasize about trading jobs with him.
Your cat has applied for a transfer to a local coven of witches, figuring she’ll take her chances with dark magic. At least they’ll pay attention to her and will probably scream less than the kiddos.
When the preschool teacher tells you your son has “goop coming out of his eyes,” you don’t react in horror or panic, but ask calmly how much goop and exactly what shade of yellow it was. You have more names for the color of mucus than Crayola could ever dream of.
You just took away the bank teller’s television privileges because he asked if it was “cold enough for you.” To be fair, you did just say that the next person to ask you a stupid question was going to get it big time.
Someone asked what you do with ‘all that time’ while your kids are in preschool. You spent the next twenty minutes fantasizing about putting his head in a meat grinder.
After fierce negotiations at every meal, bedtime, and trip to the car; you’re fairly sure you could run a conference of mafia dons or bring two warring countries together over Legos.
Recently you got pulled over for speeding, on purpose, just so you could have some adult conversation. Plus it entertained the hell out of the kids for two and half minutes to see a real police officer up close.
Another mom just lectured you on the benefits of breastfeeding, attachment parenting, staying home with your child, going back to work, finding the ‘right’ preschool, Paleo for kids, sleep training, positive discipline, spanking, not spanking, or anything else, and you didn’t punch her in the mouth. You reward yourself with a brownie sundae. Extra large.
You know every word of the songs and dialogue to the most recent Disney movies, and you don’t understand why your non-parent friends can’t appreciate their subtle artistry.
You carry two pairs of clean kids’ underwear, a portable game system, extra crayons and six kinds of snacks with you everywhere you go. Even when the kids aren’t with you.
You have a list on your phone labeled “Crazy questions for the pediatrician” for things you’re too embarrassed to call about.
About twice a week, you shrug your shoulders and say, “Eh. It’s only pee.”

What did I miss? When did you know you had graduated from Parenting Basic Training and made it to the big leagues?

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I’m M.J. (Manda) Pullen, an author and mom in the Atlanta, Georgia area. I’ve obtained a pass from the institution and taken several preschool teachers hostage so I can blog about writing, publishing, parenthood, life in general, and the many lessons I’ve learned the hard way.

If you enjoyed this blog, please follow by signing up for the weekly RSS or my Inner Circle email list. Each month I do random drawings with various prizes for list subscribers, the friends who refer them, and those who comment on the blogs. Good luck with that!

My current roster of books includes The Marriage Pact series, a trilogy of Contemporary Romance/Women’s Fiction novels. You can find them for all eBook formats and in paperback here.

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German Translation of The Marriage Pact Coming Soon!

I got a note today from the translator of The Marriage Pact into German that the initial translation is finished, which is such a thrill! She said that she laughed a LOT while reading/translating the book, which made me enormously happy. [Incidentally: Best compliments you can give a writer: "I stayed up all night to finish your book." "You made me laugh," and "You made me cry." Unless you are talking to a horror or thriller writer, in which case, "You made me pee my pants a little," is also appropriate.]

She mentioned the challenge of translating Jake’s college teammates’ nicknames “Truck” and “Nads” into appropriate substitutes in German, which I found pretty funny too! Would love some German-speaking volunteers to let me know what they think when it does come out.

I have no idea how long the process will be from here until the German version is available on amazon, and whether it will be available here in the states or not, but I will keep you posted when I know such things.

Lego “Lederhosen Guy” (Image copyright (c) 2013 the LEGO Group, who I really hope won’t sue me for using it because that would totally ruin the annual Hanukkah Lego Night at our house. You can click on Lederhosen guy to be directed to the very awesome Lego website.)

Since we don’t yet have a German book cover, here’s a picture of the Lego Lederhosen guy. Alles ist AWESOME!

P.S. I apologize to all the non-Bavarian Germans who feel excluded by this reductionist representation of their great and culturally diverse country.

P. P. S. I also apologize to the German-speaking Swiss and Austrians who were excluded from the original apology. Wait, what do they speak in Luxembourg?  Eh, screw it. Prost!

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I’m M.J. (Manda) Pullen, an author and mom in the Atlanta, Georgia area. When I’m not busy inadvertently insulting entire regions, I blog about writing, publishing, parenthood, life in general, and the many lessons I’ve learned the hard way.

If you enjoyed this blog, please follow by signing up for the weekly RSS or my Inner Circle email list. Each month I do random drawings with various prizes for list subscribers, the friends who refer them, and those who comment on the blogs. Good luck with that!

And you can find my books here.

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Name My Minivan

Does your car have a name? Mine usually do. Cars are important to me – they symbolize freedom and loud music, time to think and time to talk, and so much more. Whether it’s writer’s block or depression or a baby who refuses to nap, for me the answer can often be found in a long drive.

Riff Raff, spring 1993 (sunroof out). Old car, old friend, young me.

My very first and favorite car was a 1981 Datsun 510 named Riff Raff (affectionately and aptly named by my friend Flea after the surly butler in The Rocky Horror Picture Show). Riffy was a stick-shift with stained seats and a sunroof that had three positions: (1) closed, (2) open by two inches, and (3) sitting in the passenger seat. I went through four alternators in as many years with Riffy, and when we installed a CD player in it one year, I had to change a fuse out every few hours to keep the music and lights on. He took me to my first job at McDonald’s and to college at UGA. I loved that car.

Alas, not all first loves can last forever. Since Riff Raff, I’ve had a black Acura Integra coupe (named ‘The Blackura’ by a guy I worked with), a Ford Focus wagon that never felt quite right in my hands and ended up choosing my ex-husband in the divorce, a bright blue Honda Civic inadvertently named ‘Ave’ by a very drunk bar patron who was hitting on my friend Jeff, and the Subaru Outback now driven by Hubs. Originally that one was called Ruby the Subie, but now it’s been shortened to just plain Subie. Not super creative for such a great car, I know: I was pregnant with Monkey when we bought it — we were already struggling to name the baby, we couldn’t spare too much energy naming the car.

The minivan – in all its gray suburban glory

These days, my vehicle of choice is all about my motherly servitude status – a 2011 Toyota Sienna. It carts us to preschool and karate and birthday parties and Publix. It also, somewhat incongruously, takes me to business meetings and writing group. We try not to take it out for date night, but occasionally it happens. To be honest, I never thought I would be a minivan mom. I’ve always prided myself on being a little different, maybe even a little funky for a pasty chunk of a white girl. So the idea of finding myself in the grocery store parking lot, wondering which of the twelve gray minivans is mine… well, it wasn’t appealing. (PS – The first time that happened for real, I almost cried.)

So getting the van was a major concession to practicality, during which I had to leave my ego at the door. Well, the dual, automatic sliding doors and touch-button rear liftgate. They are pretty damn sweet, I must say. Yes, I admit it, now that I’ve traded in what little street cred I might have had for convenience, you’d be hard pressed to pry the keys to my minivan out of my hands. It drives like a luxury sedan, the speakers are actually decent, and there’s Just. So. Much. Room. You won’t believe the crap I can haul around in that thing for days and weeks at a time, without even thinking about it. There could be a colony of bats living in the back and we wouldn’t notice until we actually had to squeeze in the 8-passenger capacity.

For all its features, though, the Sienna is missing one important thing: a name. This is where I need your help.  My cars have always been best loved by me, but best named by others. So please, friends, will you put your minivan name suggestions in the comments? I will choose the winning name on Monday, March 10th, and the winner will get… I don’t know, something cool. Maybe one of those pine tree air fresheners.

Here are some parameters for you: I think the van is female (no stick, duh), but I will consider androgynous or unisex names as well. Innuendo is fine, but no actual profanity or offensive language. This is the name for our family minivan – my kids must be able to say it without getting a note sent home from school. A name can be awesome on its own merits, but I’d be interested in any background you have to support your case. I love literary references, song lyrics, etc. The van is sort of a steely gray and usually very, very dirty. It’s full of cheerios, stale goldfish, baby wipes, hot wheels cars, books, crayons and various detritus. I have two boys. We’re Jewish. We’re into pirates and baseball. We live in a place called Roswell, Georgia. You can take all or none of this into account.

If you read my blog via facebook or email, please visit the original post to comment so the names will all be in one place. If you like a suggestion someone else has made, please ‘vote’ for it by replying to their comment. I don’t promise to go with the crowd’s decision, but I will take your votes into consideration. Everyone who comments or votes by reply to another comment will get thrown into a hat for some sort of vaguely cool March prize I haven’t picked out yet. And… go!

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I’m M.J. (Manda) Pullen, an author and mom in the Atlanta, Georgia area. I blog from the front seat of my Stepford-esque minivan about writing, publishing, parenthood, life in general, and the many lessons I’ve learned the hard way.

If you enjoyed this blog, please follow by signing up for the weekly RSS or my Inner Circle email list. Each month I do random drawings with various prizes for list subscribers, the friends who refer them, and those who comment on the blogs. Good luck with that!

Oh, yeah, you can also find my books here.

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Vanity Wins in the End?

We have an enormous, steep staircase at our house that goes from the upstairs landing to the front door. It was one of the first things that attracted me to this house when we bought it a year ago, so lovely and open, with hardwood steps and iron rails. It didn’t occur to me then how often I’d be holding my breath as one or both of my kids went up, down or past it. Now the thing terrifies me – it’s 15 steps of straight down and slippery, just waiting for someone to tumble to a painful and dangerous landing.

But it wasn’t one of the kids that almost fell down a couple of days ago, though. I was carrying a bag of trash and got my foot caught in my pant leg near the very top. If I’d been moving faster I might not have been able to catch myself on the upstairs floor overhang, and I’d be blogging this from some hard core traction in a hospital bed, or worse.

They say your life flashes before your eyes in moments like that one. If that’s the case, I either need a scarier near-death (or at least near-injury) experience; or I need to work on getting my brain some better material.

Hiking in the Alps – one of many experiences I apparently don’t think are worth remembering

Here are some of the things that did NOT run through my mind in the milliseconds during which I dropped what I was carrying and snatched at the rail and the eye-level second floor, grasping for my very life: my first kiss, my wedding day, the birth of either of my kids, warm memories of my dead parents, the smell of fresh-baked bread, standing on a mountaintop in Zion, Utah, or the elation of winning a softball tournament.

Nor did I think of any of the following: earning my first paycheck, driving along a Texas highway with the windows rolled down and the Old 97s blaring, the sounds of my kids laughing at each other’s jokes, my favorite pizza place, hiking in the Swiss alps, selling my first book, or backpacking through Europe. I didn’t long for the taste of a a well-crafted porter or glass of Cabernet, didn’t hear the sound of a ball cracking off the meaty part of a baseball bat, didn’t remember walking all over Chicago with my friend Dara, or think of hubs and me singing Irish folk songs with a band in Dublin. My conversion in the warm waters of the mikveh didn’t cross my mind, nor any kind of spiritual reckoning. No longing to right the wrongs of my life or wishing I’d actually put stuff in the kids’ baby books.

You know what I did think? I should’ve dried my hair and put on mascara. Yep. Apparently, my brain went straight from impending danger to how I would look when the paramedics came.

What the hell is wrong with me? No, seriously. I’m ACTUALLY ASKING. I used to be the girl who never wore makeup and thought sweatpants were acceptable by at least the third date. I used to be substantial, and care about things that matter. What have I become???

Comments welcome. Be gentle.

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I’m M.J. (Manda) Pullen, an author and mom in the Atlanta, Georgia area. When I’m not almost falling down the stairs and realizing how meaningless my life is, I blog with humor and honesty about writing, publishing, parenthood, life in general and the many lessons I’ve learned the hard way.

If you enjoy reading this blog, please sign up for the RSS or sign up for my monthly updates here (and enter the monthly giveaway). Thanks for reading, commenting and sharing!

 

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Under the Influence

One of Our Family Traditions…

Have you ever noticed that we often get into our favorite things because of other people? You’re not born a Packers fan or a knitting champion or a soccer freak or a Republican. We develop those parts of our identities over time, as hobbies, interests and opinions are presented to us and we react to them based on who we are. If something makes us feel accomplished, included or fulfilled, we do more of it. If not, we pass. But most of the time, the original idea comes from someone else and we try it because of our connection to them.

Last week I talked about how a tradition with a friend drew me into watching the Oscars every year. I’ve been a lifelong Atlanta Braves fan, in part because of hours spent in my step-grandfather’s gentle company,  listening to him yell (he never yelled) at the tiny TV screen about batting stance and going to the dang bullpen, already. Later, when I met my husband, our mutual love of Atlanta baseball was one of the things that drew us together [and, incidentally, inspired that famous showdown scene between Suzanne and Dylan at Turner Field]. Eventually, we’d name our first son after the beloved grandfather who inspired that passion in me. None of those connections are just about baseball, of course. But the things that interest us become the things we talk about. When we talk, we connect.

When other people influence our interests, they participate in forming who we are. As we connected around baseball — and one or two other things — my future husband introduced me to Judaism just by being himself. It was never his idea that I convert, but he brought me to the faith by being its most honorable and true representative, at least in my eyes. He still is that, and I see our little boys becoming that, too.

In a less dramatic way, my best friend forced encouraged me to learn to love country music in high school when we carpooled to school together.  (She was in charge of the radio because it was her car – I’d lost my parking space due to excessive tardiness). If she hadn’t blasted me with Garth Brooks and George Strait every morning, would I ever have “met” Dylan Burke? I often tease that same friend who has allowed herself to betray alter her Southern sensibilities by becoming both a Bears and a Cubs fan while cheering alongside her Chicago native husband — who, by the way, she also beguiled into embracing country music with a passion.

For those of you who are more independent-minded, all this may sound like one big wishy-washy compromise. Aren’t we supposed to be who we are and have others love us for just that? Well, yes and no. Unconditional love (or maybe sometimes it’s unconditional acceptance, which is harder) is perhaps the most essential component to a successful relationship. And yet, the research of highly renowned researchers Drs. John and Julie Gottman shows that allowing yourself to be influenced by your partner is one of the keys to a strong, happy marriage. (The research actually suggests that it’s more important for men to be influenced by their wives than the reverse, but I believe both are important, especially when the relationship stands on basically even footing to begin with).

The Gottmans talk about influence in terms of marital conflict, but I see it as an essential part of every good relationship. When someone recommends a good book to me, for example, I will often think of that person as I’m reading it. Even if we never come back around to discussing it together, my connection with them alters just a tiny bit because we now share an experience we didn’t share before. If you walk into a room with an openness to be influenced by the people in it, your heart is ready for new experiences and new connections.

Obviously, I’m not talking about joining a cult, buying time shares or becoming a Cubs fan just because a friend suggests it. Not every influence is a healthy or positive one. I’m not suggesting we teach our kids to cave to peer pressure and make unwise choices under the influence of others. Your locus of control has to be within yourself at the end of the day. That said, I think it’s important to acknowledge that we have a lot to learn from one another.

Allowing ourselves to be influenced by others is an act of courage and vulnerability. The happiest people I know are the ones who freely acknowledge that they don’t have it all together, the ones who own up to their heartaches and imperfections, and turn to others for support. The ones who seem to have it all together (or do a good job pretending), who never apologize or complain or cry in front of others, or ask for advice and guidance, they’re the ones I feel sorry for. I’ve been there, and it’s damn exhausting, not to mention isolating, being right all the time. That’s why I make it a point to be wrong as often as possible.

I don’t write this blog three times a week well, twice a week, as often as I can because I like being the center of attention. It’s because I love being the center of attention. Hey, we’re being honest here. But it’s also so that you and I can influence each other. When you comment on the blog or interact with me on my Facebook page, I learn a little something about you, and that changes me. It might be a microscopic change – another tiny bit of grist for the mill – or a major shift in the way I think about things. There was a time when I never would have considered blogging about a miscarriage or my struggles and guilt about our family farm. Or even owning up to my Jazzercise Jiggle.  All that would have made me feel too vulnerable and exposed. But when I did, I got an outpouring of support from you, my online community. And in that outpouring, you let me know that I influenced you, too, by helping you feel more normal in your own struggles.

I’ll take that as a win, any day of the week.

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I’m M.J. (Manda) Pullen, an author and mom in the Atlanta, Georgia area. I blog with humor and honesty about writing, publishing, parenthood, life in general and the many lessons I’ve learned the hard way. I seldom WUI (write under the influence).

If you enjoy reading this blog, please sign up for the RSS or sign up for my monthly updates here (and enter the monthly giveaway). Thanks for reading, commenting and sharing!

 

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And the Oscar Goes to…

The 86th Annual Academy Awards are just over a week away and I am simply vibrating with excitement. Oscar Night has become one of my very favorite nights of the year. It’s not just that I love the speeches and the tributes and the music (I do) or watching people interact on the red carpet (aw… he brought his mom, isn’t that sweet?) or even analyzing the fashion triumphs and faux pas (well…). Those of you who’ve come to know me either in person or through my books might be able to imagine that I’m not exactly a fashion goddess. My vast array of colored scarves is about as glamorous as I get, and I pretty much only know who designers are if they have a line at Kohl’s.  And while I have come to accept that I must put on mascara before I can leave the house and hiking boots are not apropos in every situation, I am still something of a tomboy at heart.

Image Copyright the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences

So maybe it’s a little surprising that I’m drawn in by the glitz and glamor of the Oscars. Aside from the fact that I do love movies, and the thrill of competition, there is one more reason the Oscars have become a ‘thing’ for me: my friend Rob. Rob and I have been friends just about our whole lives, but when we started watching the Oscars together almost a decade ago, it was more or less  by chance. We just happened to be hanging out one Sunday night, and sharing a bottle of wine in front of the Academy Awards seemed like as good a way to pass an evening as any other, and it meant we didn’t have to get dressed up to go anywhere or overpay for drinks at a bar.

It turned out to be tremendous fun. We talked about movies and actors, we critiqued outfits and speeches and the musical numbers. Rob and I had both recently moved back home to Atlanta after living and traveling elsewhere, so it was the first time in a long time we’d been able to hang out, just the two of us, in such a leisurely way. We weren’t struggling to connect across a huge distance on the phone or by email, we weren’t navigating thirty other friends (or significant others) at a party, we weren’t rushing to get all our catching up done before one of us had to leave town again. It was easy and comfortable like old times, and the Oscars were the background.

Ever since then, Rob and I have made it a point to get together on Oscar night. Whether we have wine and hors d’oeuvres, or just a bag of chips and bean dip in our sweatpants (I was pregnant that year and had an aversion to beans so I subsisted on sparkling water, Fritos and Joel McHale’s red carpet commentary), it’s always easy and always fun. For many years it was just the two of us, but now our spouse/fiancee have joined in, and a few other friends as well.  Every year the tradition evolves, building on itself and deepening our interest. I can imagine a day when our Oscar gatherings will be elaborate parties, or a day when even our spouses are too busy to participate and we’re back to the two of us with sweatpants and bean dip. Maybe we will someday live in separate cities again and we’ll have to videoconference our catty remarks.

Any way it goes, there’s no going back. The Oscars have become our thing, and now that my interest in them has been kindled, I’ll always want to know what happens after “the envelope, please…”

What about you? Do you watch the Oscars or the red carpet? Are there other award shows you try never to miss? What draws you to them?

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I’m M.J. (Manda) Pullen, an author and mom in the Atlanta, Georgia area. I blog with humor and honesty about writing, publishing, parenthood, life in general and the many lessons I’ve learned the hard way. I no longer have an aversion to bean dip.

If you enjoy reading this blog, please sign up for the RSS or sign up for my monthly updates here (and enter the monthly giveaway). Thanks for reading, commenting and sharing!

 

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Valentine’s Giveaway Extended Through Midnight 2/15!

Hi, everyone! Happy Valentine’s Day – hope you are feeling loved today: by friends, family, your favorite furry creature, and especially yourself. This is just a short entry to let you know that I’ve extended the deadline for entering the giveaway for an extra day… A technology glitch kept my reminder email from going out yesterday as it should have, so I wanted to make sure everyone had plenty of time to get to a computer and enter the giveaway.

Here it is again. Good luck, and may the expensive chocolate be with you. Always.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

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A Little Sunday Wisdom

Image Courtesy of The Spare Change Kitchen, WANA Commons

Okay, I’ll own it – I love CBS Sunday Morning. Our kids pretty much know that unless we have other plans or make a trip to our favorite bagel place, Hubs and I will be sipping coffee in our pajamas watching “our show” for that hour and a half every week. They also know they’ll be  forced to decamp to other parts of the house if they talk too loudly over Mo Rocca.

I used to shy away from soft journalism and slow-paced human interest stories, associating this kind of program with the dog-eared Reader’s Digest collection in my grandmother’s bathroom. But these days, our lives are so chaotic and stressful, that the heartwarming stories and interesting new angles of Sunday Morning are a respite from stress and sensationalism.

Today there were stories that touched me, like a moving editorial tribute to Phillip Seymour Hoffman, and a fascinating glimpse of the Beatles’ early days in Hamburg. There were a couple of pieces that caught my attention as a writer, too.

Post by M.J. Pullen’s Books.

A couple of weeks ago I did a guest post about what writers can learn from acting classes. In fact, I think all creative people have something to learn from artists of other crafts as well as our colleagues. This morning, as I watched Lee Cowan’s interview with Oscar-nominated Matthew McConaughey, it was clear that the Texas heart throb is taking on challenging roles of late, because he wants to be more than just a cute accent and a set of six-pack abs. (Aside: when I lived in Austin I happened to get a glimpse of those abs in person on the running trail, and I can tell you it’s no small feat for Mr. McConaughey to try to get us to stop drooling and pay attention to his actual acting. Bow-chicka-wow-wow). (Another aside: I’ve always thought Matthew – can I call him Matthew? – would make an excellent Doug, so maybe if he decides to go back to the world of romantic comedies he’ll consider the movie version of The Marriage Pact).

Asides aside, it is really nice to see a new dimension of someone who’s traditionally done lighter roles. I haven’t seen Dallas Buyer’s Club yet, but as I try to cram in a few Academy Award nominations before the Oscars, I hope I’ll be able to work that one in. His portrayal of Ron Woodruff intrigues me on many levels, not the least of which is the opportunity to watch an artist recreate himself. I love romantic comedies – reading, writing, and watching - but sometimes I wonder if I have what it takes to try out a new role in a new genre. It’s nice to know that such changes are not only possible, but can be a path to releasing your true talent. And unlike Mr. McConaughey, I won’t have to drop 47 pounds to do it (though in my case it couldn’t hurt).

I’ll leave you with my favorite quote from the interview this morning, in which McConaughey talks about why he’s been choosing less mainstream roles without concern for the box office returns. I think this quote is applicable, not just to acting or writing, but to all aspects of life – everything from running a business to raising children.

He says, “I’ve been choosing the experience a lot. I’ve been loving the experience of it. And I’ve noticed that if I stick to the process and love the process with what I’m doing… but not thinking about results.  I really haven’t been thinking about results for some time. And it’s really interesting because now more results are coming my way.”

Funny how that works, isn’t it?

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I’m M.J. (Manda) Pullen, an author, mom and former psychotherapist in the Atlanta, Georgia area. I blog with honesty and humor about writing, parenthood, psychology, life in general and the many lessons I’ve learned the hard way. If you enjoy reading this blog, please consider sharing it,  sign up for the RSS or monthly email updates  (and be entered in the monthly giveaway).

Comments are welcomed and appreciated. Thanks for reading!

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Dream Recounted, Death Revisited

Photo Credit: Pgiam

I had an oddly vivid dream last night. I’m not a life-as-movie dream person: for example, I never showed up naked on book report day in my fourth grade classroom, or had a dream that could be confused with reality except that my husband was Paul Rudd wearing a horse’s head and green tights. Ahem.

My dreams are generally a primordial slime of images and confused settings that don’t make sense for the snippets of reality interspersed with them. When I wake up, what I am most often left with are intense emotions, pinned to only a few loosely-connected images that quickly fade into the background. Once in a while these floating emotions linger with me long enough to connect with something in the real world later that day, and those connections often form the first little seedlings of my stories and blogs.

Last night was an exception, though. I had a long, vivid dream which I remembered all morning, about the death of my father. When my dad actually died of lung cancer just over two years ago, I wasn’t with him. I had talked to him on the phone that evening, and he refused to allow me to come see him or to call an ambulance despite the fact that he didn’t sound well. I honored his wishes because I’d known this man my whole life, and knew better than anyone that his pride was the core of who he was. Going against his wishes at the end of his life would’ve been an enormous betrayal of trust, and gained him very little in the way of prolonged survival. And if I’m being very honest, I honored it for a more selfish reason: I was exhausted. Caring for a 3-week old and 2-year old while coping with a bout of post-partum depression left me very little energy for fighting one last battle with the stubbornest damn person I have ever known.

In the dream, however, I was with him. We were at my grandparents’ farm in Pelham, Georgia, the small rural town where both of my parents grew up. In the tradition of dreams, the house was not the simple two-bedroom cinderblock home it is in reality, but instead a rambling Southern mansion complete with Spanish moss on oak trees and a rambling wooden porch just outside the open windows. The air was thick with moisture and the green smells of a warm summer in Georgia. I could feel the breeze and see the slight movement of tattered lace curtains as it blew.

Dad was lying in a sickbed in the main living area of the house, frailer than I’ve ever seen him and covered with blankets. He was talking to me, giving me instructions of some kind, but I couldn’t hear them. I was busily running around the house, vaguely aware that I was trying to keep my two-year-old, Fozzie Bear, from breaking things and getting into trouble. For some reason I was also trying to get the house clean in preparation for a party. An old friend of mine from whom I’ve drifted apart in real life was there, too, running an extremely loud vacuum cleaner and shouting at me about the party plans. I couldn’t hear much of what she said, I couldn’t hear anything my dad was saying, and I kept losing sight of my toddler, who was running in and out of the house’s seemingly innumerable open doors, laughing.

As often happens when I am under stress, in the dream I began to shout at everyone to be quiet and let me think. I remember saying to my old friend, “Sweetie, you know I love you, but you MUST get out of here. I can’t listen to you right now.” Offended, she left in a huff, letting a screen door slam in her wake. I went back to the sick room and tried to hear Dad, but the closer I got to his room, the more the scene evaporated into nothingness. I could never hear what he said.

When I woke up, I had that weird sensation you have after losing a loved one, the one where you wake up and it takes your conscious mind a minute to get the rest of you up to speed. For a few heartbeats, you live in the world in which that person is still alive, and your fingers almost twitch with the desire to reach for the phone and call them. If you’ve lost someone close to you, you will know that feeling well. It fades over time, but never entirely goes away.

I have often looked back on my decision not to go to my father on the night he died and regretted it deeply. As we humans always do, I wanted to believe I had more time, that this couldn’t be it. He’d been sick for five months, but his condition had quietly worsened in those few days, a fact he didn’t want me to know and I didn’t want to believe. So instead of being able to say goodbye to him before he died, I saw him a few hours later under the harsh lights of the emergency room, where  the tubes and wires sat in testimony to the fact that the medical personnel had done everything they could. It’s comforting to me that my brother, who lived with Dad at the time, was with him when he died. But all my unasked questions, all unstated feelings, everything unfinished between us, will remain in a box in the attic for as long as I’m alive. The happy memories, the loving father, will be out on display so that my kids will know Dad as much as possible. Everything else will go into storage, because what else can you do with it?

Over a year later, circumstances forced me to sell the family farm that was the pseudo-setting for last night’s dream. The farm had been in our family since the late 1800′s and it was a heartbreaking choice to let it go. That place meant so much to Dad, and represented a big part of my heritage, for better or worse. Knowing he was dying, Dad asked me not to sell it, though I think even then part of him understood that I might have to do it anyway. For most of my life, I was a Daddy’s girl, and I spent a good part my youth trying to win his approval and defy his mandates by turns. It’s silly to say so, but I wish our parting interactions had been those of approval and concord, rather than my having to wrestle with his stubborn independence, only to disappoint his dying wish. I always wished he’d been able to verbalize in those last days what I half-knew, half-hoped to be true – that he loved me and my brother and my kids and hubs. That he was proud of us no matter what, and that our existence was legacy enough.

It’s never simple, is it? Death, love, loss, disappointment. Living every day with small choices we make in split seconds, or a few days, the consequences indifferent to what our state of mind happened to be at the time. The interpretation of dreams is a shaky business at best, even in the well-traveled roads of psychology. Generally, though, I tend to believe that dreams are the leftovers from the day that our mind hasn’t been able to process with its waking self. But nothing about that explains why they have to be so weird.

Thinking of last night’s dream, I could suggest a thousand possible meanings: from unfinished grief for my Dad to guilt about selling the farm, to a (never-to-be-fulfilled) wish that I were a better housekeeper. I’ll admit that a part of me wishes dreams like that one were a kind of open door to the spirit world, a chance to share what cannot be said with our departed friends and family, to ask for forgiveness and accept wisdom — even if it’s just from the part of that person we carry within ourselves.

What do you think? Do your dreams inform your waking life, provide an escape from it, or even predict what may happen next? Are they a source of inspiration or a reflection of anxiety and guilt?  Does anyone you love talk to you in your sleep?

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I’m M.J. (Manda) Pullen, an author, mom and former psychotherapist in the Atlanta, Georgia area. I blog with honesty and humor about writing, parenthood, psychology, life in general and the many lessons I’ve learned the hard way. If you enjoy reading this blog, please consider sharing it,  sign up for the RSS or monthly email updates  (and be entered in the monthly giveaway).

Comments are welcomed and appreciated. Thanks for reading!

 

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“Snowmageddon” – An Atlanta Writer’s View

This, times a few hundred thousand.

You may have heard that we’ve had a bit of snow here in Atlanta, accompanied by no small amount of chaos and controversy. My family got off easy on Tuesday: just three and a half hours in the car with our preschoolers to get through what is normally a 20-minute drive. Sounds bad, but many people spent five or six times that amount of time (up to 20+ hours) to go similar distances or to commute home from work, and lots of people were stranded in stores, fire stations, schools, and even in their cars on I-75 and other major highways. So when we heard how much our friends and neighbors endured, we were grateful to be together, safe and warm — that’s more than many people could say for much of the day Tuesday and even well into Wednesday.

Things went badly, badly wrong in Atlanta this week; and we are getting national attention as a result. Normally I don’t jump in the ring about this kind of stuff: I’m not an expert at urban planning or local politics. I write stories about love and relationships and the complexities between human beings, not traffic patterns and taxes. If you live in this area, you’re going to hear plenty of opinions in the coming days about what went wrong and why, most of it better informed and articulated than anything I can offer. If you don’t live here or have never lived here, it’s going to be hard for you to wrap your heads around how our city functions (or doesn’t, especially in snow) and why.

The progression of just over an hour. Incidentally, I didn’t even know there WAS a maroon color in the traffic map.

As I sat down this morning , however, to write a simple blog about walking in the snow, I realized that I do have some things to say. I have lived in and visited many places in my life, but this is my hometown, and I care about its people and our reputation, and I do want to contribute to making things better if I can.

For those in other places who are scratching your heads wondering how this kind of madness could happen, I honestly can’t give you an answer. I can, however, dispel a myth I hear a good bit. These catastrophes don’t happen here because the people who live here are somehow less competent — as drivers or as human beings — than people who live in other places. Despite what you’ve seen on Duck Dynasty and Honey Boo-Boo, Southerners as a whole are not stupid, nor are we equipped with less common sense than people from New York or Boston or Chicago. We have our village idiots, of course, but they don’t comprise a higher percentage of the population here than they do anywhere else. (You could make the argument that more of our village idiots find their way into politics or onto television, which may be part of the problem).

Honestly, it drives me crazy when people attribute the gridlock in Atlanta to the way people here drive. I’ve been in and around cars in Boston and Chicago and D.C. and Istanbul and London and San Francisco and DFW. People in Atlanta aren’t better or worse drivers than any other major city. We live in a poorly planned metropolitan area with unchecked suburban sprawl and politically hamstrung mass transit. Driving here is a nightmare, but it’s not because of the people behind the wheel. Even in snow.

Whenever we get winter weather, I hear a lot of people say how drivers can’t navigate snow and ice here because “they’re not used to it.” As though the sheet of ice on the hill is going to magically melt before the tires of a more experienced driver. “Oh, wait. You’re from Toronto? You may pass.”

I’m being facetious, of course. I’ll grant that inexperience on ice counts for something – particularly with young drivers who overestimate their ability to control what the car does. But what matters more than the skill of the driver? Sanded roads, flat roads, a four-wheel drive, snow chains, snow plows, and the emotional maturity to know when to stay home. All things more readily available in cities that get snow more than once a year. In fact, a large percentage of the Atlanta population, especially of those who work and commute to major businesses from the suburbs, come from other cities — largely in the North — so inexperience driving on snow only accounts for so much.

But the problem here isn’t the people – natives or transplants. It’s the system. We have a slow-moving system of government, weighted down by years of corruption, dirty politics, racial discord, and unresolved history. Our city and its suburban satellites have a hard time doing much of anything very efficiently, largely because too many decisions are made for short-term financial gain; or for emotional, fear-based or religious reasons, rather than a sense of what would be best for the city and all its residents in the long run. Our local media, like much of the media today, is more interested in entertaining people or finding new and interesting angles on boring news stories (“Look at the brand new snow plows they have in Clayton County!”) rather than serving public safety (“It really could snow hard today, so please stay home if you can.”)  And this time we were all caught off guard – by a weather system that did worse than anyone predicted it would, and three hours earlier than anyone thought possible. Oops.

I may be wrong, but I believe part of our collective failure to take the warnings seriously comes from an inferiority complex Atlantans have developed about winter weather. Snow and other winter events are rare here – happening generally once a year for a single day, sometimes not even that. We are not well-prepared as individuals or as a community to handle these things, because it’s economically prohibitive to be so (though I think this week’s events highlight that we could do better, even with the little resources we have).

Because of our topography and weather patterns, it frequently happens here that a winter weather advisory turns out to be nothing. If schools and businesses do the wise thing by shutting down or delaying ‘just in case,’ and nothing happens, they get flack from the community, their shareholders, and even loudmouths in other cities. Not even a month ago, area school systems were forced to defend their decision to outraged parents when they closed down because of extreme cold temperatures (the buses couldn’t run reliably, many kids didn’t have weather-appropriate clothing for waiting outside) . All this reinforces the “staying home is for the weak” attitude, which is held by too many of us, especially business and community leaders.

We need governmental and systemic change, absolutely.  A thousand things could improve the way we respond to winter storms: from sanding highways anytime there’s a threat of snow; to school systems automatically delaying or closing when daytime winter storms are possible; to disallowing tractor trailers to travel on our roads when it’s snowing or icing.

In my opinion, though, Atlanta should use this opportunity to learn a cultural lesson as well as a logistical one. Atlantans have a lot to learn from other cities’ best practices, for sure. But I think we need to change the mentality that we’re supposed to weather the cold the exact same way other cities do, to live up to some standard of ruggedness that makes no sense for our climate. We have to remove the correlation, in our own minds at least, between playing it safe with the lives of our citizens (keeping people home), and being viewed as a wimpy Southern city. We are not New York. As much as I love the Big Apple, I don’t think we should aspire to be New York in this respect. There’s a reason so many New Yorkers and Chicagoans Chicagoites Chicagolanders Midwesterners have relocated here, and a big part of that is climate-related. So maybe let’s own the fact that if you live, work, or do business in Atlanta, once in a while you’re going to get put on hold for a weather event that may turn out to be nothing. The upside is, we won’t have to deal with it often and we’re going to make safety the priority; the downside, it will take a little longer to resolve when it does happen, and we’ll have to endure the laughing and pointing from our Northern neighbors.

I hope that the large businesses who have flocked to, and flourished in, Atlanta for its climate, culture, lower cost of living, and business-friendly tax policies will consider getting together to help solve this: Home Depot, Coca-Cola, UPS, Delta, IBM, Georgia Pacific, AT&T, Aflac, etc. Basically any company with its name on a tower in our town. In concert with one another, these super-large companies could work out some employee policies to err on the side of caution with winter weather, which would set the standard for middle- and small-sized companies to follow as well. Remove the financial pressure for people to get on the roads when it may not be safe, even if it means having to hold virtual meetings or make up the hours some other way. With more commuters home, not only will the roads be less congested for emergency and critical services, but the schools will feel less pressure to remain open for fear that kids will be home alone.

Aside from all the changes needed, I want to say this: If disasters bring out the flaws in our system, they also bring out the best in our citizens. I can’t tell you how many stories I’ve heard from friends and family about people who helped push cars out of ditches or up hills to safety, people who came out of their homes to give food and water to stranded drivers, who opened their homes and businesses of all sizes to help others stay warm. Teachers and lunch ladies and doctors and retail workers who spent the night away from their own families to stay with stranded children and drivers. Our niece’s teacher who walked a mile in the snow with her because my sister-in-law couldn’t make it all the way to the school. My friend’s father who spent hours delivering a bus load of special needs children to their homes, all over the city. Not to mention all the public servants — fire fighters, police officers, DOT employees, first responders — who worked some incredibly long and arduous hours this week.

I walked two miles yesterday to the pharmacy for some medicine for Fozzie Bear, and along the way I talked to neighbors and exchanged information with other walkers and drivers I might otherwise never have met. I even caught a ride for part of the way with two people who had not known each other until this storm but were trying to help one another get home.  When you look past the outrage at what has happened in our town, what you will see (and feel) here is a sense that we are all in this together. Sometimes it takes an event like this to make us notice the people around us every day, to realize how important our relationships are with one another and how much we take for granted (see? I always manage to bring it back to relationships somehow).

We are 5.6 million diverse and opinionated citizens,with different stories and different goals. We are also 5.6 million neighbors, friends and members of the same imperfect, but loving, community. As we move forward from this event in healing and learning, I hope we can carry some of that spirit with us into the seasons ahead.

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I’m M.J. (Manda) Pullen, an author and mom in the Atlanta, Georgia area. I blog with humor and honesty about writing, publishing, parenthood, life in general and the many lessons I’ve learned the hard way. If you enjoy reading this blog, please sign up for the RSS or sign up for my monthly updates here (and enter the monthly giveaway). Thanks for reading, commenting and sharing!

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