Long and Short of It

It’s just hair.

And, yet, there’s much more to it than that. At least, judging by the amount of analysis, appreciation, and significance we devote to it. I recently got my hair cut short after wearing it long for a while, and I was surprised by how my acquaintances interpreted my decision. Or, really, that anyone interpreted it at all.

I have pretty non-descript hair. It’s straight, brown, and thick. All the way through high school and college I wore it in a plain bob with the occasional sparkly pin thrown in for pizzazz. When an event called for fancy, out came my curling iron (Exhibit A: helmet hair a la senior prom pictures).

After I graduated and moved to New York, I decided to go short. Really short. Having super short hair turned my plain look into something much more interesting. Short hair put the focus on my face, and made me feel bold and sexy. I wore more lipstick and mascara with short hair. I experimented with products to make it spiky, slick, smooth, or funky. I had fun with it, and it suited me. So, I wore my hair that way for about ten years, through those all-important twenties. My hubbie had never even known me with anything but short hair, and my friends who did know me before all but forgot what I looked like any other way.

But, anything gets old after a while. I started wondering what I would look like with long hair. I wanted to brush and braid my hair, things that I hadn’t been able to do since I was a little kid. So, I let it grow. And grow. It was as much a decision based on negligence and laziness as on style, really. Not getting it cut was easier (and much cheaper) for me, especially now that trips to the salon require me to arrange for childcare.

It was different, novel, and even kind of fun to have long hair. But, I missed my signature look. I missed standing out in a crowd. I missed rocking a look that set me apart in a sea of long-haired women. After I finally went back to the salon for the big chop, I practically skipped down the street. I felt the way that vanilla ice cream must feel after it finally gets its hot sauce and cherries.

What surprised me was the reaction I got. People assumed all sorts of motivations behind my decision to cut. Some suggested that I had cut my hair short because of the hot weather. Or, for convenience. Or, so I wouldn’t have to think about it. One friend noted that many “middle-aged women” cut their hair short because they already have husbands and so no longer need to worry about looking sexy or attractive.

Hmmm.

It’s weird that we so associate femininity and women looking good (read: attractive to dudes) with having long, flowing locks. Contrary to what some people concluded, I didn’t think: “Well, I need a low-maintenance haircut, so I’ll go for it, despite the fact that I am basically neutering myself and stripping myself of sex appeal.” I actually think… wait for it… that I look hotter with short hair. Yep, shallow as it might seem, I was only considering my looks – not ease, not temperature, not convenience. I was going for hot and sexy with this here short ‘do. So now you know. And you can continue to analyze at your peril.

One More Makes Four

When I was pregnant with my daughter, people often told me, “It goes by so quickly!” Several times a day I heard this, so frequently that I got a little tired of it. I know now how true the sentiment is, and also how many different things that simple phrase can mean.

It can mean how hard it is to see your sweet baby pass through phases that she will never visit again. These days, I linger over photos of my girl when she was just a baby, and my heart swells with love, along with a bevy of other emotions – nostalgia, sadness, joy, pride. I can not believe that she will never be that size again. Each day that passes is too short, and she changes so quickly in each. Each day she grows up more and more, and she needs me less and less. It makes me want to weep, freeze time, push on her head… anything to slow it all down.

Meanwhile, another voice in my head shouts, “Thank heaven that the time passes so quickly!” Because the truth about parenting is that, while those early days are precious, they certainly don’t leave much time for one’s own pursuits. That the neediness of her infancy is finite means that I get to enjoy parts of me that I’ve sorely missed over the last couple of years. I get to go back to being a creative, social, working, WHOLE person again. And it feels really, really good.

Our little family is pretty sweet right now. The fact that we big people have little people outnumbered means that the dude and I can easily tag team parenting duties, and help each other make time for the things we love and need to do. Living with one child, which used to feel so overwhelming, now feels quite manageable. In fact, living with Winnie has become a little like living with a foreign exchange student. (Not a hot French one, but more like a slightly geeky one from Poland.) We have to explain absolutely everything to her and put up with her hanging around us all the time, but she also says hilarious things because of her limited English skills, and she helps me to see the world in a new and more expansive way.

There are a million reasons to be glad for what we’ve got, and not mess with a good thing. And, yet, messing with it is exactly what we’re doing. We’re having number two.

Deciding to have a second child means signing up for exhaustion, physical and emotional upheaval, dirty diapers, and mountains of laundry, not to mention the strain on our relationships and the cost to our professional lives. But we’re doing it anyway. Why? Are we gluttons for punishment?

Perhaps. But we also know now, better than we did before, how fast these days, weeks, months, and years will fly. How the drudgery will be sprinkled with delicious moments of laughter and delight. How those moments will rush around us like water, buoying us up (and sometimes threatening to pull us under).

I need the miracle and mystery of parenthood in our lives. When our second is born this summer, I know that our hearts will crack open in a million painful and beautiful ways, just as they did when Winnie was born. Only now Winnie will be here, with us. It will also be her world that is shaken and rattled. We will each – all three of us – miraculously become more than we were before. The dude and I will grow to adjust to the new challenges of parenting two children, and our little girl will become a big sister. She’ll face her challenges, too, I’m certain. She’ll be forced to practice patience and compassion, and sometimes she will fail. She will love and protect her sibling, even while she resents and even dislikes him or her at times.

As she accommodates – or not – the newest member of our family, she’ll learn her first lessons about love and all its mysteries. Loving someone when you hate him. Loving someone when you’d rather not. Loving someone, and being in awe of the hugeness and complexity of your feelings. We’ll try to explain it to her, and I’m sure she’ll have plenty to teach us, too. I hear it’s different in Poland.

No Vacancy

My mind is more crowded than the heated pool at the Forks Motel.

Five months ago, I challenged myself to a week-long reading deprivation, inspired by Julia Cameron’s book The Artist’s Way. Perhaps a week does not seem to you like a long time to go without reading, but for someone like me who begins to hyperventilate if she’s got free time and no reading material, it seems interminable. Anticipating a week without reading – no magazines, no books, no blogs, no catalogues – is like trying to imagine getting through a week without talking. As in, not impossible to do, but darn difficult. And I couldn’t figure out what the value was. Reading’s a good thing. Right?

Reading is something I take for granted. If I’m eating a meal at home alone, I read. If I’m up early, I read. If the babe is taking an extra long nap, I read. At night, I read. (Sometimes all night.) Reading is a crutch, so I don’t have to think about how I spend my time, or figure out whether there is something more important for me to be doing.

During my reading deprivation, I filled my time with other activities: knitting, thinking, writing letters, sleeping, going for walks. It was refreshing to change my routines; I hadn’t realized how staid they’d become. But, there was another, more surprising, outcome of my reading deprivation. My imagination – no longer populated with the worlds and characters of another writer’s creation – went into overdrive, creating worlds and stories of its own. Walking down the street, thinking about nothing in particular, I found myself suddenly struck by images, stories, characters, and memories. I scribbled away, filling pages of my notebook.

I count this as one of the more important lessons I’ve ever learned about my writing (even though it might seem embarrassingly obvious): that there must be space for it, in my schedule and in my creative mind. When I spend all my free time reading, not only do I not have the time to write, I don’t have the energy for it. I might as well hang a “No Vacancy” sign in my brain. My mental real estate is so taken up with thinking about the stories that other writers have created that I do not have the creative juice left to craft my own.

In these too-short lives of too-finite days, choosing to do one thing is always not choosing to do another. What do I really want? What will I be known for? Much as I love books, I don’t want to be known for being a really good reader. I want to be known for having the strength to attend to my own dreams and tell my own stories. I think of my friends who inspire me daily with their dedication and focus: Tara, who has given up countless evenings of relaxing or socializing to realize her dream of being an actor and comedian; Simone, who sacrifices so much of her own time and resources to nurture her non-profit organization; Julie, who schedules the rest of her life around her wonderful writing. They – and many others who are out there living their dreams – remind me that sacrifice is always the way, and there’s isn’t any other. My big dreams will never be more than that until I  make a habit of choosing to make them real. As one of my first steps, I’m participating in National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) this November and, if I want that to be successful, I’ll have to choose writing, many times, over many other activities, even when I’d rather not. Especially then.

Book Notes: A Northern Light

One reason I  love reading historical fiction books is that, every once in a while, you get the magical feeling of a character stepping out of her time, reaching out across the pages to whisper her truths in your ear, and the amazing thing is that the two of you could be sisters.  It’s like meeting someone at a party who has a completely different background than you but with whom you instantly connect and see eye-to-eye.  Only in this case, it feels even more magical because the person with whom you have so much in common is actually a figment of some author’s imagination and you wonder, "How on Earth did she know??  How did she get what is going on in my head right at this moment?"

In Jennifer Donnelly’s YA novel A Northern Light, Mattie Gokey lives on a farm with her father and three sisters in the Adirondack mountains just after the turn of the century. As eldest daughter, she has been responsible for caring for the family and their home since their mother died. Life is hard for Mattie – there is always work to do on the farm, whether it’s milking or plowing or cooking or cleaning.  In many ways, though, she is blessed. Her father provides for the family’s physical needs, selling their crops and dairy to new, upscale camps where tourists come to enjoy the rustic environment. The local school teacher has provided nourishment of a different kind, opening Mattie’s eyes to the wonder of books, particularly books that some consider to be dangerous and corruptive. She is blessed, too, because she has gifts enough to write her own poems and stories. Mattie’s talent creates many opportunities for her, opportunities like leaving the hard life of a farmer, getting a college education, and making a living with her pen.  Opportunities that frighten her because of what they will cost if she chooses to take them.

Mattie is a thoroughly sympathetic character.  She fiercely loves and protects her family and friends, to the point that she feels ready to sacrifice any amount of her own happiness for theirs.  And you could see how she might, not just out of selfless love, but also out of a kind of cultural habit.  There was, and is even now, an undeniable safety in building one’s life around the familiarity of family and duty.  There are several moments in the story – heart-wrenching, dreadful moments – in which Mattie almost gives in to that longing for safety.  And even as I wanted to grab her and push her in the opposite direction – "No, Mattie, they’ll keep you from your poetry!  You’ll spend your paper money on flour!" – how could I blame her for wanting the safe predictability that she could have in a life spent living on her husband’s farm and raising children?

I grieved for what Mattie was discovering, for what we women all discover. The reality of having options is a cruel one, because the truth is that we must choose one path by turning our back on another.  Mattie is so recognizable to me.  She could be my friend here in Brooklyn, just another over-educated woman slapped in the face with the realization of all she might have to give up if she is to make good on those dreams she stoked in college.

When I finished the book, I felt grateful and sad. Grateful to be a woman in a time and place in which the choices are just a little better than they were for Mattie. Grateful to be able to carve out time – even if it’s a very little – for my own work and dreams while being able to experience motherhood.

Sad because, as fortunate as I am, I knew just what Mattie meant.

I love this scene in which Mattie visits her friend Minnie, who is struggling with newborn twins and the responsibilities of a household, and realizes why the female writers she admires – Emily Dickinson, Jane Austen, Louisa May Alcott – eschew husbands and children.

“Emily Dickinson was a damn sneaky genius.

Holing up in her father’s house, never marrying, becoming a recluse – that had sounded like giving up to me, but the more I thought about it, the more it seemed she fought by not fighting. And knowing her poems as I do, I would not put such underhanded behavior past her. Oh, maybe she was lonely at times, and cowed by her pa, but I bet at midnight, when the lights were out and her father was asleep, she went sliding down the banister and swinging from the chandelier. I bet she was just dizzy with freedom.

I have read almost a hundred of Emily’s poems and memorized ten. Miss Wilcox says she wrote nearly eighteen hundred. I looked at my friend Minnie, sleeping still. A year ago she was a girl, like me, and we were in my mamma’s kitchen giggling and fooling and throwing apple peels over our shoulders to see if they’d make the initials of our true loves. I couldn’t even see that girl anymore. She was gone. And I knew in my bones that Emily Dickinson wouldn’t have written even one poem if she’d had two howling babies, a husband bent on jamming another into her, a house to run, a garden to tend, three cows to milk, twenty chickens to feed, and four hired hands to cook for.

I knew then why they didn’t marry. Emily and Jane and Louisa. I knew and it scared me. I also knew what being lonely was and I didn’t want to be lonely my whole life. I didn’t want to give up my words. I didn’t to choose one over the other. Mark Twain didn’t have to. Charles Dickens didn’t. And John Milton didn’t, either, though he might have made life easier for untold generations of schoolkids if he had.”

A Northern Light, by Jennifer Donnelly

Mattie is a girl like any of us, going on hope and faith to make the best decisions she can, trying to be true to herself while honoring her responsibilities. This is just the type of book I’d love to read with my daughter WInnie, or my sister, or my friends. I know lots of women figure out how to balance their passion for life with their desire for family, but I also know that lots of women still feel blind-sided when they realize that doing it all means having very little left over. And, if we want not to be spread quite so thinly, most of us have to make choices. This book is a great story while being a lovely portrait of womanhood. Which, it seems, hasn’t changed since Mattie’s time. At least not quite as much as we’d like to think it has.

This post also appears on Girls Leadership Institute’s blog Woosh!