When I'm out in the street, I walk the way I wanna walk

I was reading a book in which the protagonist found self-awareness (and self-forgiveness and really, his ultimate self) through, among other things, focusing every day on six core needs:  physical, social, intellectual, spiritual, emotional, and sexual.

And while the demons he needed to slay are much more intense than mine - he had a seriously fucked up childhood and spent chunks of his life engaging in incredibly soul-crushing, destructive behaviors - his path resonated with me.  Do I attend to these needs?

For me, some of them are interconnected.

I get plenty of exercise, plus many of my hobbies and favorite pursuits are physical - skiing, hiking, running around outside with the kids, surfing when I'm at the beach.

And except for my solo workouts at 5:30 in the morning, those physical pursuits are social.  Sometimes I ski alone, but my best ski days are often with friends or family.  I do big hikes with my friend Christin.   Plus I have a solid group of friends that I love and make an effort to spend time with.

My job is fairly intellectual, plus I'm always in the middle of a book, so I think I'm OK there.

Emotionally, I'm always working on letting myself feel what I'm feeling without letting it overwhelm me, and lately I feel like I've gotten better at it.  There have been some things in my life that have been major stressors lately, but attending to other core needs (doing a hard workout when I'm feeling overly anxious, hanging with friends who make me happy, that sort of thing) have helped me work through them.  This one will always be a work in progress, but I feel like I'm making a solid effort.

Sexually... well.  We'll see.

The one that really got me thinking was the spiritual need.  Though there are definitely lessons and principles in Judaism that I appreciate and internalize, I'm not really religious at all.  And I sometimes wonder what it even means to be "spiritual" - according to dictionary.com, it relates to or affects the human spirit or soul, rather than the physical or material.  Which can still be confusing and amorphous.  But I've also seen other explanations that emphasize a search for inner peace with yourself and your place in the world, and achieving love and respect for yourself and really, love and respect for everybody.

Those are certainly not things that I have understood or even worked towards during many parts of my life.  But being in an unhappy, unfulfilling relationship for years, going through a divorce, experiencing the death of a beloved child, figuring out how to function in the face of all that - it's forced me to approach life in a more focused way, and to do everything I can to shed old baggage and seek peace and beauty and love in the here and now.

And walking has been a huge part of that.

It's been a year since I started walking to work, as a part of healing after Emma died, and really, as a part of a daily meditation of sorts. As a daily act of spirituality, I guess.

At first, there were so many different routes - different streets on which to head north, different streets to head west, that it was all new and exciting.  I could take 12th Avenue, through Cheesman Park and through a largely residential area, with lots of interesting old houses and funky apartment buildings with charming names like the Rob Roy or the BluEtte or the Malden Arms.  I can admire people's flower gardens and look at pretty trees.

I could take 13th or 14th Avenues, both of which are slightly more commercial than 12th, with cool coffee shops and urban schools and mechanic's garages.  I can cut north past St. John's Cathedral, which is beautiful.

But after doing it for a year, I find myself gravitating to Colfax Avenue more and more.  Colfax is a little bit rough and dirty and gritty.  It's got liquor stores and marijuana dispensaries and bakeries and homeless shelters and bodegas and art galleries and dive bars and not-so-dive bars and pubs.  Thrift stores and head shops.  Tattoo parlors and natural grocery stores and a cathedral.  The state capitol building with its magnificent gold dome and used book stores and music venues.  People going to work and people who are a little bit out there.

I love the beautiful grit and variety of #Colfax Avenue. #dailydenver #walktowork #streetart

A photo posted by Wendy Jacobs (@wendyalisonjacobs) on Oct 29, 2015 at 7:37am PDT

Given the choice between hanging out on Colfax and hanging out in a place like Cherry Creek, with it's chi-chi boutiques and plastic people, I'll take Colfax every time.  Maybe it's the same reason I love big, noisy, chaotic cities like New Delhi or Bangkok - to me, it represents life and humanity, in all of its forms.  It's interesting and real.

And walking it every day, it gives me a sense of connection to the world, a sense of calmness and peace  - ironically, for all of its craziness, it fills me with love.

You're the soul of me (wonder number eight)

Dear Zekey,

Yesterday you turned eight years old.  You were with your dad this weekend, so I didn't get to wake you up with hugs and kisses, but I saw you at your birthday party and stole a couple of minutes to tell you how much I love you and to tell you the story of the day you were born.

dressed as a vampire at your Halloween-themed birthday party, whacking at the pinata

It seems a lifetime ago that I was at Kapiolani, laboring and waiting for you to make your appearance. And I guess it was - so much has happened since then.  Everything about my life has changed, and you have changed along with it.

You continue to remind me of your Uncle Sam as a little boy - thoughtful, sensitive, a tad self-righteous, exhibiting both left-brained and right-brained tendencies.  You ask interesting questions and force me to look at the world in a new way.

You continue to grow bigger and stronger, and to exhibit more and more of your dad's strength and athleticism.  You have developed a bit of an obsession with obtaining six-pack abs, which I find hilarious.  You excel at soccer and flag football and you crawl around the monkey bars with incredible dexterity and flexibility.  You jump off of high surfaces and bounce around and have more energy than I can comprehend.

One of the characteristics that I have noticed increasingly is your earnestness. You take people at face value and absorb the messages and lessons of your teachers with great seriousness. I see other kids your age who are already a little bit jaded, but you still have a certain innocence about you that I find so endearing.  If I utter a curse word, you scold me and insist that children shouldn't hear such things.

This year, when you started second grade, I would ask you how your day at school went and what you were learning, and you would tell me about the "character trait of the week."

"This week I'm learning about determination, Mama."

"And what does determination mean?"

"It means you keep trying at something and don't give up.  So I've been trying to practice determination."

So sweet.  So earnest.

And yet, you have an endless fascination with talking about butts and farts and penises and vaginas. You are increasingly curious about women, often figuring out how to google "boobs" and then looking on the internet at images you shouldn't be looking at.

This past year hasn't been easy for you and Josie.  I will always feel guilty about putting you through the trauma and forced changes of divorce, even though the divorce was necessary for everyone.  But through getting adjusted to splitting time between Daddy and me, and getting adjusted to new living situations, you have shown such remarkable grace and resiliency.  You remain loving and optimistic and able to see the good in people and situations.  You set an example that I try to emulate.

You remain a mama's boy, for which I am so grateful.  I know that we're getting closer to the age at which you will start to pull away from me and try to figure out how to seek your own path.  But for now, you still greet me with hugs and kisses, you still want to sit on me when we're watching a movie, you still want to lie in bed with me and snuggle me as close as you can.

Bedtime with you is one of my favorite rituals.  I put you and Josie in your bunks, and we talk and I sing or play soft music for you.  Every night, you ask me to rub your back.  So I will stand there in the dark, rubbing your back and singing to you, feeling you relax and hearing your breathing get slow and heavy.  And just before you drop off, you say, "I love you, Mama."

And I love you, my sweetest boy.  So, so much.

Love love love,

Mama

Southern exposure

I feel like I spend a lot of time exposing myself to strangers.

Well, not a *lot* of time, I guess.  Certainly not in proportion to my time generally.  I wear clothes to work and to take the kids to school and to the grocery store.  When I walk up to the market to get popcorn for movie night, I'm generally covered up.  So in terms of naked-time percentages, the actual amount of time is probably very small.

But still.

Between my regularly scheduled massages and bikini waxes, the occasional facial (which involves a partial massage, so I take off my clothes for that as well), the one time I got a spray tan because I didn't want to go to the beach looking like Casper the Friendly Ghost - let's just say that I'm not fazed by walking into a business establishment and disrobing for a total stranger.

It's a lot of naked.

The massages are relatively benign.  I mean, yes, I'm naked under the sheet, but the sheet is there for a reason.  Although I've been going to the same massage guy for so long, and we're so friendly and comfortable with each other, that I think we've both gotten a little blasé about sheet placement. What's crazy is that I don't see it as a big deal.  It's just more nakedness.

The most extreme example (other than the OB/GYN, who will literally sit with her face 12 inches from my naked crotch, while I've got my feet up in stirrups) is the bikini wax experience.  For this one, I am totally naked from the waist down while a 24-year-old cutie from New Mexico tells me about her latest crush on a guy who's trying to become an MMA fighter - it's kind of serious because she's added him to her Snapchat, y'all. Meanwhile, she's got her (latex-gloved) hands right in my ladyparts, applying hot wax and then ripping it off, moving things around...  It's ridiculously intimate, and yet she and I chat as if she's not doing anything more than filing my nails.

My sense is that this is something women experience and are inured to much more than men. Between the gynecologist and the obstetrician and all of the various beauty and grooming treatments we subject ourselves to, we get pretty used to having to drop trou and lie back and think of England while someone we are neither related to nor having sex with pokes around the undercarriage.

Men, on the other hand, might get the occasional "turn your head and cough" treatment, plus whatever happens when you're having your prostate checked.

But it's definitely not on the same level.

Getting to know you, getting to know all about you

A friend and I were recently talking about friendships and love affairs, and whether you can ever truly know someone.  Oftentimes, when you hear on the news about heinous crimes being committed, there's that neighbor or even the family member who insists that there's no way the perpetrator could have done it - that they knew him and that it was impossible that he or she could have done something so heinous or evil.

But it most cases, they were conspicuously wrong.  People reveal what they want to reveal, and it's never everything.

It always makes me wonder what it even means to know someone.  Is it knowing about them, or knowing things that they've done?  I think that can be part of it, but there are also plenty of people who I think know me fairly well, but who will never know about certain events in my life because I will never tell them to anyone.  But that doesn't mean that they don't know me, have a good sense of me, or appreciate my good qualities and bad qualities.  It doesn't mean they can't predict, to a certain extent, how I will react to or feel about a certain situation, or read me when I'm not being particularly forthcoming.

My mother, for example, can start a conversation with me on the phone in which I will go through the  routine how-are-yous, and without me saying another word, she can immediately tell if there's something wrong or if I'm exuberantly happy or something in between. Of course, you would expect that if anyone knows you, it's going to be your mother.  But that's not the case for everyone.

Is knowing someone knowing how they grew up and what they like or dislike, and how those things shaped them? Knowing their strengths and weaknesses?  Knowing their approach to life?  Having a sense of their soul, if such a thing exists?

It's unanswerable questions like these that kept me from being a philosophy major in college.  I can't stand endless consideration of questions that ultimately have no resolution - it's just mental masturbation to me.  I like answers and certainty, or at least I can appreciate that a question has an answer, even if I don't personally know it.

There was a relatively recent article in the New York Times that someone sent me about an old psychological study in which strangers discussed a series of increasingly personal questions designed to foster closeness by having each person expose their vulnerabilities to the other.  According to the study and its characterization by various articles, going through the 36 questions can make total strangers fall in love, though the skeptic in me calls bullshit on that. 

It's still fascinating, though.  And suggests to me that truly getting to know someone is just a matter of timing, luck, wanting to know them, and making an effort.

We're gonna have a good day, and all my homies gonna ride today, and all these mommies look fly today, and all we wanna do is get by today

Stress and depression and physical malaise are like a self-fulfilling prophesy.  You feel down and you lose motivation to do anything so you stop doing anything and then you feel lethargic and shitty and soft and that makes you feel worse and you continue to do nothing and it just builds upon itself and it totally sucks.

And you've been down the road a million goddamn times.  Through the troughs and the valleys, and the attendant characterizations of each.  You know that part of pulling yourself out of the abyss is to simply decide to do it, and then taking steps to move your body and eat decent food and get outside and look up at the sky.  You know that just as the descent builds on itself, so does the ascent - you feel a little better so that makes you want to keep doing the good things that are helping, which makes you feel better, and you continue to gain momentum, and on and on.

But even with that experience and knowledge - the ability to have that intellectual conversation with yourself in which you tell yourself that you KNOW that these are the things you need to do, so why don't you just DO them -- when you're down in that hole, it's hard to hear anything but the voices that tell you you're worthless and a loser and ugly and gross, so why bother?

And yet.

At a certain point, you start to claw your way out because the alternative is unacceptable.  And the progress is of the stop-and-start variety, because there are still stressors in your life causing little hiccups and keeping your cortisol levels elevated.  But you respond well to structure and routine, so you stick to your program, checking days off the calendar, one by one.

Then, at some point, there's a discernible shift.  

You realize that you're surviving the seemingly unsurvivable.  And the other woman in your children's lives recognizes that maybe she didn't make things so easy early on, and she apologizes and is gracious and now you're almost friends. And you put on pants that you bought for work a few months ago and realize they're hanging off of you, because you've stuck to exercising and eating well, and now it shows.  You feel pretty, which makes other people think so too. You walk around smiling, and people smile back.

You bound out of bed with incredible energy, and find joy in every old song that comes on the radio, and walk to work to the beat of the music, swinging your hips a little more than usual.  You wish you could bottle this feeling, because it's fucking amazing.

The one that got away

From the old pictures, I can see that he was a handsome young man.  Tall, clear-eyed, with a kind face.  A good athlete, particularly adept at tennis.  Smart, with an aptitude for math and sciences.

The picture of potential.  

He did well at college and had friends and girlfriends.  Despite having grown up in a somewhat dysfunctional family, with a mother who was uninterested and unloving and selfish and who, by all accounts, fit the DSM criteria for Borderline Personality Disorder, he displayed less of the meanness and depressiveness that ran on his mother's side, and more of the sweetness and benevolence of his father.  

In his early 20s, he had adventures in Europe with friends.  He wore the customary red neckerchief to run with the bulls in Pamplona.  In an age before cellphones, he and his buddies wandered on their own and then reconnected by having faith in the inexorable pull of every major foreign city's American Express office, where they always found each other again.

He lived with a certain verve.

At some point in his late 20s, he married a woman, because it was time to get married.  She must have held a certain exotic appeal for him - he was always drawn to Latin American women - but that appeal wore off quickly.  

He ran a successful business and made money, which she promptly spent on frivolity - expensive European cars that she would insist on sending back to Europe to be serviced, high end designer couture purchased from Nieman Marcus, jewelry.  He made more money, she spent more money. Notwithstanding this apparently high standard of living, no one ever goes to their house because she is a hoarder.  She feigns depth by adopting different religions and different names to go with them, but at bottom, she is shallow and silly and mean.

To the outside world, they demonstrate no love or passion or even interest in each other.  They coexist on small talk.

They had one daughter who, despite being educated in an expensive Swiss boarding school (at her mother's insistence), has never shown any drive or motivation to do anything beyond work a series of administrative jobs in plastic surgery practices.  

He has no grandchildren, and thus has nothing to add while he watches and listens to his siblings and cousins rave about theirs.

For as long as I have known him, he has shown none of the verve of his youth - he is  physically soft, weak-chinned, socially awkward, nonconfrontational to the point of allowing others to bully him a little bit.  In family gatherings, he is overwhelmed by his louder, more assertive siblings, who, over the years, have encouraged him to leave his wife.  But he never did or could.

I'm reminded of Tony Soprano's description of his mother's effect on his father - that she wore him down to a little nub.  

My brother points out that if you stop talking and listen, you can learn all sorts of interesting things.  

And so we ask him about his life and he talks and we listen.  

We listen to him describe a great love he had for a young woman he was with when he was 25 and she was 18.  She was an exchange student from South America, and by all accounts, was beautiful and lovely and sweet.  He was in love, and would have married her had she stayed in the United States, but she was young and heading back to her home country for school.  

Before she went back, her school group took a trip to Washington, DC, to see the nation's capitol. She called him and said, come down and spend the weekend.  Meet me at the Washington Monument.

He caught a flight.  He waited for her at the Washington Monument.  She surprised him by coming up behind him and throwing her arms around him.  His description of this incident makes it clear that it was one of the most blissful moments of his life.

She returned home and eventually married and became a psychologist.  She has children and grandchildren.

But she has kept in touch over 50 years.  First through letters, and then through email.  She emails him every year on his birthday, and always has kind, fond words for him.

About 25 years ago, when he was traveling on business, he reconnected with her.  The feelings and chemistry were there.  He tells us that he tried to make love with her, but was so nervous and overwhelmed by the situation that he couldn't do it.

Our eyes bug out upon hearing this extraordinarily personal, intimate revelation.  But he seems impervious to embarrassment about it.  As if he's so beaten down, what's one more thing?  It is heartbreaking on so many levels.

Today is his 77th birthday.  He will experience the flush of joy that accompanies the annual missive representing everything he wanted but never got.

And then he will continue with the life he has.

I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach

These days, I have a feeling of momentum.

For a few years, at least, it seems like it's been one trauma or stressor after another, whether it was my marriage ending or financial woes or bouts of depression or custody drama.  And, of course, Emma's death overshadowing all of it.  It's been relentless and awful.

But the craziness of the summer is resolved. I'm feeling great physically. The kids are beautiful and healthy and loving life.

While I won't ever get over Emma's death, surviving the "year of firsts," as crushing as it was, means that I know can survive going forward.

The worst that could happen did happen, and we're all still alive, and perhaps distilled down to our purer essences.  Cleansed by the fire, which, at least for me, burned away any capacity for bullshit or any desire to carry around the baggage of pettiness or silly power struggles or superficial judgment.  I want to love and enjoy my children and love and enjoy my friends and love and enjoy my life.  I have no patience for meanness or rudeness or snobbery.

I was talking with a friend about this, and he said, "but what about when life creeps in?  How do you sustain that when the mundane irritations and frustrations of life get in the way?"

My brother asked a similar question the other day - even when things are going well, he's always waiting for the other shoe to drop.  Optimism as a weltanschauung is not something that comes naturally to him.  As he said, "I can't help it.  I'm a Jew."

I obviously don't profess to have all the answers.  I only know what I can tolerate and what I can't, and how I want to feel at the end of each day.  But in the face of these questions, my response was that all you can do is try, every day, to be deliberately and conspicuously kind to people.  To seek out and appreciate beauty in the ordinary.

You just have to work the muscle every day, and then hope for the best.

It can be spending time outside, looking at the sky and documenting something beautiful or unusual or interesting.

It can be making the decision to be polite to telemarketers or customer service reps, even when they piss you off.

It can be walking late at night down a dark street, holding hands and stealing kisses, a little drunk on bourbon and the heady prospect of something new and exciting, and stopping to admire a gorgeous tree with twinkly stars visible through its branches.

You hold on to the happiness of the moment, appreciating the wonder of the world around you.

And you keep holding on to those moments, every day.

The big beautiful tree in Cheesman Park, glowing in the autumn morning sun. #walktowork #dailydenver #cheesmanpark #treesofinstagram

A photo posted by Wendy Jacobs (@wendyalisonjacobs) on Oct 8, 2015 at 7:32am PDT

Love and football

The irony of moving around from country to country as a kid is that it left me feeling like I had great experiences in various locations, but not much in the way of a strong sense of place.  As much as I love the way I grew up and wouldn't change it for anything, I'm always a little envious of people who Are From Somewhere - they grew up there, maybe they went away to college but they came back, they're settled in a place that is intimately familiar to them, they have family there. There is a physical place that is home to them and a part of them.

But when people ask me where I'm from, the answer isn't a place.  It's a description of the way I grew up.

I don't feel like I'm really from anywhere.  I was born in Cyprus, but I haven't been there since I was two years old and I don't remember it at all.  Greek was my first language, but I couldn't tell you a single word in Greek right now.  It's not where I'm from.  Same with pretty much every other place I lived.  I'm not from Venezuela.  I'm not from Israel. I'm not from India.

I loved India, and I would love to go back, but it wouldn't be the same without the people I experienced it with.  It's those people that feel like home to me, whether we're at the embassy compound playing pool between classes or whether we're in a generic hotel ballroom in Crystal City, Virginia. But I'm not from India.

Same with northern Virginia.  I lived there for a few years in elementary school and then later in high school for a short time, and it's been my parents' home base for 30 years.  I have great friends there, and I like going back.  I bought my plane tickets to take the kids to my parents' house for the annual Thanksgiving pilgrimage to Virginia with the family, which always makes me happy.  But I'm not from there.

In a weird twist, if there's any place that I associate with a familial home, it would be Detroit.  I never lived there - I lived in East Lansing, Michigan for a year when I was seven - but Detroit was where my grandparents and great-grandparents and aunts and uncles and cousins were.  When I flew back to Denver after my Grandpa Leo's funeral, it was the strangest feeling that I was leaving a place to which I felt incredibly strong ties, but which I didn't really ever have any cause to go back to.

In addition to the family ties to Detroit itself, my family has strong ties to the University of Michigan. Particularly its football team.  Both my parents graduated from there, as did uncles and aunts and cousins.  I don't remember a time in my life when I didn't know the words to Hail to the Victors, or when I didn't cheer along with my parents and brothers for the Maize and Blue. We were such superfans that when we were stationed in Israel, my dad got one of his buddies at an Israeli TV station to pull the satellite feed for the Rose Bowl when Michigan was in it, and let us come to the TV station to watch the game in the middle of the fucking night.  And I was happy to go.  It was Michigan football, after all.  Playing in the freaking Rose Bowl.  Of course we were going to be there.

Yet, for all my Michigan fandom, I've never been to a game in Michigan Stadium, a place of legend that holds 115,000 people and is the second largest stadium in the world.  Well, that all changes this weekend, when my wonderful, generous father is taking my brothers and me to Ann Arbor to see the Michigan-Northwestern game.  We will have quality time and recharge our familial batteries and, we're hoping, watch a rejuvenated Michigan team play balls-out and beat Northwestern.  I love being with my father.  I love being with my brothers. For all the physical distance between us, we feel incredibly connected.  I would do anything for them.  They are home to me.

So for a weekend, this place I have never been to, with its ties to football and family, will feel like home, because that's how it works for me.

But as I walked through the foggy streets alone, it turned out to be the luckiest day I've known

One of the things that kind of cracks me up about Colorado is that there is no gradual change of seasons.  It changes in a day, and that's it.  Last year, the weather was lovely and temperate and then one Monday in early November, all of a sudden it was 10 degrees out and it was winter.  Done and done.

Same this past weekend.  It's been warm and sunny and beautiful, and then on Friday Mother Nature decided it was fall, and so it was.  Chilly and windy and foggy.

I love fog.  There's something protective and ethereal and mysterious about it.  Wide open blue skies are beautiful, but they don't provide for any hiding places.  But in the fog, your little secrets feel safe.

Denver fog, wrapping the skyline up like a blanket. #dailydenver #walktowork #wellsfargobuilding

A photo posted by Wendy Jacobs (@wendyalisonjacobs) on Oct 6, 2015 at 8:10am PDT

Adventures in Online Dating: "Yikes" Edition; or, From the "How Not To Proceed" file

I've been writing quite a bit about this stuff, but it's on my mind, because suddenly I'm communicating with a bunch of guys and going out on a number of dates.

Setting aside the "isn't this a gas" aspect of having crazy or funny stories to tell, the communications I get increasingly remind me that for some people, online dating creates a scenario in which reading someone's dating profile leads to wish fulfillment fantasies that usually (if not always) bear no relationship to reality.  It can be a dangerous game - you interact with someone online and build them up in your mind before you've met them, filling in the gaps in what you know about them with what you want those gaps to be, and then you've become infatuated with a unicorn.  A phantom.  A reverie.  And it never ends well.

This is why I approach it extremely cautiously, assuming nothing, expecting the worst.  When I go on a first date, I'm hopeful, but I expect nothing.  That way I can be pleasantly surprised if he isn't a total troll.

It's also why, if I'm making the first move and reaching out to a guy after reading his profile, I am the embodiment of chill.  An initial message will never be any more provocative than, "Hey SoAndSo, you have an great profile. I dig your picture on the summit of Longs Peak. And I'm also a huge Michael Chabon fan - what's your favorite book of his?  Cheers, W."

Friendly, indicative that I've paid attention and actually read his profile, but casual and breezy enough that I don't come off like a crazy-ass stalker type.

Which is why it's a little bit alarming - and a lot sad - when I receive this message from a 61-year-old guy (well outside my stated age range).  I've excerpted portions of it, but beyond that, I've left the language and punctuation intact:

our words are defination of what is inside us , from your words i have a positive feelings about you, you will bring out the best in me, i see us together for ever , i dont speak when i am not sure, we have a lot of people who's words cant holds waters but for me my words are my bounds, we have to commit to each other and give in everything that we make us strike a spark and live happily.  ... I know what my heart tells me and I am not in a rush, i saw a lot of other people here but my instincts tells me you are a great, good hearted and the best woman any man can have as a mate. We're all human and not perfect but you appear to be different from the heart. Since i've spent the night dreaming about you, i want to spend the day cuddling up with you. 

A)  What. The. Fuck.

B)  Oh, honey.  No.  Just no.

Why I'm glad I didn't get sick in Elizabeth Bennet's time, plus where to find guys hunting for cougars

It started around the middle of the afternoon on Friday: sore throat, swollen and tender lymph nodes in my neck, fever-chill.  I figured it was tonsillitis.

With the exception of getting up on Saturday to go to Josie's soccer game and birthday party (a mistake, though it would have been awful to miss it), and then going to the doctor on Sunday, I was in bed from Friday afternoon through Monday morning.  The fever seemed to peak at night - I was so overheated Friday and Saturday nights that I took to sprinkling water on my sheets and lying with freezer bags full of ice on my neck and head, and even then, I couldn't cool off.

At the doctor's office, they gave me a throat culture and the test for strep, which came back positive in seven minutes.  The doctor prescribed oral antibiotics, but was alarmed by the size (huge) and condition (covered with white abscess-looking spots) of my tonsils, so she also gave me a shot (in the ass) of a powerful medication generally used to fight bacterial infections, including life-threatening diseases like meningitis. Doc wasn't fucking around.

I appreciated her aggressiveness from the get-go, but particularly when, within about 7 or 8 hours, I was feeling so much better that I could hardly believe it.  Huzzah for western medicine, y'all.

Naturally, all of this got me to thinking about Jane Austen.

One of the things I always notice about Jane Austen novels - other than how fantastic they are - is how the characters are always inquiring into the health of other characters.

"And how is your family?  Are they in good health?  Are they well?"

Illness was greatly feared in those times, and rightly so.  Medicine was primitive, and illnesses that would temporarily knock you or me on our asses, to lie in bed drinking chicken soup and binge-watching Orange is the New Black on Netflix while waiting for the antibiotics to kick in, were often life-threatening.  Like Jane in Pride and Prejudice, when she gets caught in the rain going to Netherfield and ends up horribly sick in bed for days.  Or Marianne in Sense and Sensibility, who almost dies near the end because she gets really sick after neglecting her health upon hearing about Willoughby's marriage.  It was some serious shit.

Meanwhile, 200+ years later, I felt awful for a few days, but the fact that I would get medicine and recover quickly was never in dispute.  I didn't spend my time in bed worrying.  I spent my time in bed watching everything in my DVR and a jillion other movies, and trolling online dating sites.

Speaking of, it continues to be a fascinating process.  I've had a couple of pleasant dates with guys who were interesting and smart, but with whom there was no chemistry.  I've had a couple of dates that were utter fucking disasters - the best I can say is that they make for a good story when I'm out with my girlfriends.

I've learned that if you're a woman in your 40s and need a confidence boost, get your ass onto OKCupid, pronto.  Within 6 hours of putting up a profile, I had been propositioned by at least 15 men in their 20s and 30s (including one guy whose screen name was, no lie, "Hunting_Cougars69") telling me how gorgeous and sexy I am and begging me to overlook the age difference and would I consider something on a purely physical level pretty pretty please? Please?  I swear I never do anything like this and I'm nervous about even contacting you but you're so preeeettttyyyyyy...

Um, no.  But thank you for your kind words.

I also got a message from some poor schlub in Kansas who all but proposed marriage, a dude in England who insisted we could make it work because he's moving back to the States, a military guy who just moved to Colorado and asked if I would be his "first friend," and about 50 that were some form of "hey your (sic) hot."  I guess I should be thankful that no one sent me a picture of his dick.

But it is a numbers game.  For every 25 or 30 "ur sexy" messages, there's one from someone who is cute and smart and interesting and age-appropriate, and who knows how to write.  And sometimes there's a connection, and sometimes there isn't, but it keeps the hope alive.

It's a wild time to be 45 and dating again, that's for sure.

Everything I need to know about surviving in the wilderness I learned in college

Last week my Denver sorority buddies and I had a lovely dinner.  We caught up on what everyone is doing and how our families and kids are and dissected my recent online dating foibles and talked about Karen's upcoming wedding. We reminisced about our sorority days and tried to remember long-forgotten details, like exactly what happened on Bid Day, or how brutal the rush process was.

It's a great group of women - smart and accomplished and incredibly active.

We decided to plan a hiking/backpacking trip to do together next year.  A real one - 3 or 4 days in the wilderness, carrying our tents and food and clothes, climbing mountains and testing ourselves and enjoying each others' company.  The thought is both exhilarating and scary to me.  I've done plenty of hiking, and I certainly feel physically strong and capable to handle it, but I've only done day hikes.  I've never put a pack on my back and walked into the woods with the intention of staying there overnight.

We were all encouraged and motivated by a week-long wilderness trip my friend Christin (the one who hiked Quandary with me) did this summer.   Christin raved about it, and her experience was what fostered in us a desire for a similar experience.  Ten women of varying levels of wilderness experience, roughing it together, making new friends, and achieving renewed clarity and focus about who they are and what they want their lives to be.

Christin was describing how amazing it was for all the women, including those who had never hiked or camped.

"There was a woman on the trip who had not only never done any kind of wilderness stuff, but I don't think she had ever peed outside in her life," she marveled.

My friend Jen chortled.

"She obviously never went to a fraternity party."

But all the magic I have known, I've had to make myself

My dearest Josephine,

This morning I woke up and went into your room and sat on the floor next to your bed.  I pushed your hair out of your face, leaned over, and kissed you near your temple, pausing to breathe in your delicious smell of sleep and shampoo.

"Josie," I whispered, kissing you again.  "Happy birthday, sweetie.  It's your birthday today."

You kept your eyes closed, but put your hand on my cheek.

I lay down on the bed and hugged you, big-spoon-little-spoon.

"Do you want me to tell you about the day you were born?"

You nodded, still with your eyes closed.  You put your hand over my hand and squeezed my fingers.

So I told you about going to the hospital early in the morning, and being there with Daddy and Mimi. About how wonderful it was to see you for the first time, and how you loved having your head scrubbed while the nurses gave you a bath. About how you loved sleeping with your head on my shoulder.

I heard Zeke stirring in the bunk above us.  He climbed down the ladder and wriggled into bed on the other side of you, putting his arm around you and giving you a kiss.

"I love you, Josie! Happy birthday!"

He really is the sweetest brother.

Your eyes popped open and you put your hands on the sides of his head, scruffling his hair up.

In your goofiest voice, you said, "hey there, little kangaroo!  You look like a kangaroo because your hair is sticking up like ears!"

The two of you cracked up.  You kept messing with his hair while he laughed.

"You're my scruffy little bird!" you said to him.

He laughed and laughed, and I laughed along with him.

Predictably, somebody tooted (not me) and you and Zeke rolled with laughter and kept goofing off.  I was lying there with my arm draped over both of you, and the three of us giggled and talked about what we wanted to do after school - bake a cake? have a special movie night so you can pick the movie and eat your beloved popcorn to your heart's content?  Both?

It was one of those moments when I kind of step outside of myself and look down at the scene to appreciate it more fully.

You are so gorgeous to me, and such a total ham, always making a joke and performing for an audience.  People tell me how much we look alike, but I don't really see it - you're so much prettier than I could ever hope to be.  And I love that you're always trying to make your friends giggle, posing for a camera that isn't there, rolling your eyes and shaking your booty and talking in funny voices and being silly.

Yes, you have a hair-trigger temper, and you vacillate between despairing that you can't do something and then quickly insisting that you are a total expert.  And yes, sometimes your utter fearlessness when it comes to climbing and jumping terrifies me - but not enough for me to stop you.  I want you to be bold and fearless.  And yes, sometimes you've got a smart mouth on you and you get up in my face - but even when I have to check your behavior, a part of me loves it that you're not a doormat.

Mostly, you're affectionate and exuberant and hilarious and fun.  Even though you keep getting taller and taller and your legs are impossibly long, you still crawl into my arms every morning when you wake up and wrap yourself around me for an extended morning hug.  You make me smile and laugh every day.

Happy 6th birthday, my love.

Mama

Livin' just enough, just enough for the city

Sometimes I feel like I live in a weird parallel universe in which I'm the only sane one, while craziness swirls around me.

I was walking to work and I passed a cake shop that specializes in wedding cakes.  I've walked by it a hundred times but for some reason, only yesterday did I really notice the side window display.

Do you take this man? Nope! #weddingcakebakerywindowdisplay #wut #dailydenver #walktowork #mulberriescakeshop

A photo posted by Wendy Jacobs (@wendyalisonjacobs) on Sep 16, 2015 at 4:04pm PDT

I kind of love it.  Total incongruity.  Nothing about it makes sense.

Further up the street, in a sketchier part of the block, I passed a 7-Eleven.  There was a woman walking out the door, obviously irate, yelling and swearing at some dude inside.  It seemed like par for the course, and she wasn't yelling at me, so I kept walking, listening over my headphones to Alec Baldwin talk to Edie Falco about her life and career.

On the next corner was a woman with a ripped backpack at her feet.  She was wearing dirty tube socks but no shoes.  As I walked toward her, she made the "talking on the phone" sign, holding her hand to her ear with thumb and pinky finger outstretched, and mouthed to me, "call the police."  

At first I wasn't sure she was talking to me, so I ignored it.  She continued to gesture towards me and mouthed "call 911" while punching imaginary telephone buttons with her finger in the air.

I took my headphones off.

"Call the police.  Call 911," she said,

"Why?" I asked.

"There's a crazy crackhead lady in the 7-Eleven, attacking people, ripping doors off cars, she's going nuts and abusing people."

I didn't want to ask how the lady was ripping the doors off cars while inside the 7-Eleven.  It seemed beside the point.

"Call the police," she said again.

"Ok, listen," I said. "I'll dial 911 and place the call, and you can talk to the dispatcher.  I don't have any information to give them."

I dialed 911 on my phone, activated the call, and handed her the phone.

After a second, she says, "Yeah, hey hon.  It's me.  Mmm-hmm.  Yeah, I'm here on Colfax, near the intersection with Pennsylvania.  There's some crazy lady in the 7-Eleven attacking people."

At this point, I'm utterly confused.  I know that the call was placed to 911, and the woman did not hang up or redial or anything like that.  Does she know the 911 lady?  Are they buddies?

"Yeah, you know it,"  she continued, still talking to the 911 operator.  "Always somethin' around here.  Alright, baby.  Bye."

This is the greatest thing ever, I thought to myself.  It was kind of exhilarating.  How amazing would it be to be able to call 911 and be all, "yeah, boo, how're mom'n'ems, maybe I'll see you later..."

She handed me back my phone.

I started to walk away, and said, "OK, well, good luck."

"I don't need luck," she responded.  "Luck is the devil's work."

Okay, then.

Always somethin' indeed.

The daddy mac'll make you jump jump

"Mrs. J?"

My mother received a phone call at work.  It was the babysitter.

"Yes? Is everything OK with the kids?"

We had just moved to Israel.  I was 10, Josh was 8, and Sam was about to turn 3.  It was summer, so we hadn't started school yet, and we were living in temporary housing while our regular house was being readied for us.

"Um, the children are jumping off the roof of the house onto mattresses and pillows they pulled into the front yard."

It was a small, one-story house.  So the roof wasn't very high.  And though I don't have a specific recollection on this point, I'm assuming it was just Josh and me doing the jumping.  Sam was too little.

I don't remember getting in trouble, though it's possible we did.  But for whatever reason, we were drawn to that roof.  It was easy to climb onto, and like I said, it wasn't very high.

I've always been drawn to roofs and high spaces. (Maybe that's why, as grueling as it is, I like being on the summit of a 14er, standing right on the edge.) When I was 5 and 6 years old and we were living in Caracas,Venezuela, I could climb from one of the upstairs patios up onto the red-tiled roof of our house in Altamira.  I would sit with my legs on either side of the peak of the house (it wasn't a steep pitch at all) and play with the loose tiles.

I was fine.  We were fine.

So I wasn't remotely alarmed when I walked into the kids' room last night to see what all the noise and fuss was about and saw this:

I guess the apples don't fall far from the tree.

And frankly, I feel like they're aiming a little low.

Release

Later on, when we were driving through Breckenridge on our way back to Denver, I was talking on the phone with my mom and joking about how climbing a 14er is like having a baby, in the sense that you get selective amnesia and forget how grueling and painful it can be - otherwise, you'd never do it again.

Because hours earlier, when we were still a steep, rocky half-mile  or so from the summit (or maybe it was more - I was so fried that it was hard to tell), breathing air that seemed to have no air in it, I couldn't help thinking to myself, "this is so brutal.  My lungs are on fire and my heart is about to pound out of my chest and my legs feel like stumps.  Why am I putting myself through this again?"  We were climbing up a bare ridge above the tree line, to a point that seemed to not get any closer no matter how many "75 steps then 50 breaths" I did.

The view up from 13,500 feet.  Only 750 vertical feet to go, but it looks and feels endless.

But of course, that pain was the point today.  It hammered home that I am alive.  Physical suffering, as hard as it is, is life-affirming.  And I was climbing today to perform a specific task.

The ashes arrived late last week, in a small, rectangular box taller than it was wide.  I had initially thought I would do the hike on Saturday or Sunday, but then decided that there was no better way to celebrate Rosh HaShana than to do it today.  It would certainly be a more meaningful, spiritual experience than sitting in a synagogue with strangers.

Last night I loaded up my pack - I filled the hydration bladder with water, made sandwiches and packed snacks, tucked sunscreen and chapstick and a windbreaker into various pockets.  The ashes went into a top pocket, along with a printout of the mourner's kaddish and a sign I made with the name of the mountain, the altitude at the summit, and the date.

The hike was beautiful but hard.  We saw mountain goats (including a mother who gored a dog in an effort to protect her kid).  We greeted and chatted with our fellow climbers.  We ate our snacks.  We admired the view.

A long way up and still a long way to go

Eventually, the 75 step and 50 breath intervals add up.  It feels like you'll never reach the top, and then all of a sudden you do.

And when I came up over the top of the rise, and saw the lonely little tree marking the summit, the weight of my task overwhelmed me and I started to sob.

Grief is such a strange thing.  I knew I would be emotional, but I was not prepared for the immediate flood of tears.

I went to a spot looking north, and tried to catch my breath.

I took the ashes and the papers out of my pack.  As Christin and I sat together on the ledge, crying, she with her arm around me, I recited the words, first in Hebrew and then in English.

Exalted and hallowed be God's great name in the world which God created, according to plan. May God's majesty be revealed in the days of our lifetime and the life of all Israel -- speedily, imminently, to which we say Amen. 

Blessed be God's great name to all eternity. 

Blessed, praised, honored, exalted, extolled, glorified, adored, and lauded be the name of the Holy Blessed One, beyond all earthly words and songs of blessing,praise, and comfort. To which we say Amen. 

May there be abundant peace from heaven, and life, for us and all Israel,to which we say Amen. 

May the One who creates harmony on high, bring peace to us and to all Israel. To which we say Amen.

And then I opened my hand and let her go, and said goodbye.

You're in the arms of an angel, may you find some comfort here

It has been a year.

A year of difficult milestones, a year of the ebb and flow of grief, a year of heartbreak compounded by stress and depression and more heartbreak.

On one hand, it's hard to believe it's been a year already. On the other, so much has happened, I've caromed from Death Valley-esque lows to periods of hope and back again, that the year has felt like five.  Or ten. I feel older and sadder and mortal in a way I never used to.

For some reason, I didn't think the year anniversary would be as hard as other milestones.  Events like Thanksgiving, or Emma's birthday, or the day she would have graduated from high school - those were dates that were so intimately intertwined with her.  Her absence, and the realization, over and over again, that she is gone and we will never see her again, never hug her again, never go to a post-Thanksgiving hockey game with her again, never surf with her again - the realization that she will never get to experience life as she should have -- it's a visceral, gut-wrenching feeling that makes my chest tighten and my eyes immediately start to water.

I have never been one to go from not crying to bawling in an instant - it takes a while for the emotion to build and manifest itself in tears.  But now it can happen in a matter of seconds, when I'll suddenly think of her and suddenly be sobbing.

My brother and sister-in-law have been gracious in agreeing to send me some of her ashes, so I can scatter them from the top of a mountain.  The juxtaposition of the wonderful, beautiful, life affirming hike I did last year, followed by Emma's death four days later, has turned the act of walking, of hiking, of being out in nature, into a transformative experience for me, and one that I will forever associate with her.

This weekend I plan to climb to the sky again, pushing my physical and mental endurance but also reinforcing the miraculous life and health that I continue to enjoy.  I will be carrying her with me - literally carrying a physical piece of her that I will touch and hold until I can't climb any higher.

And then I will release her to the heavens, into the beauty and majesty and wonder of the Rocky Mountains and the sky above, so that she can fly even higher, forever.

That's how it's supposed to be, living young and wild and free

Recently a friend referred to me as a "single parent."  Which kind of took me aback, because I don't think of myself as a single parent.  To me, a single parent is one who is raising children totally on his or her own, without the other parent sharing physical custody or parenting duties.

I share custody/parenting time with the kids' dad, so I don't have to shoulder all of the parenting responsibilities.  And I get regular breaks when I don't have to take care of anyone but myself - it gives me a chance to recharge my batteries, and it makes the time I have with the children that much more special.

I've heard many parents refer to it as the silver lining of divorce.  Because when you have the kids, you're "on" all the time, and you're doing everything.  But when you don't, you can do whatever the fuck you want, and it's kind of glorious, even if "whatever the fuck you want" is simply going to the grocery store by yourself, without little monkeys clamoring for candy or toys or sneaking things into your cart, so that you get home and wonder how you came to be the proud owner of an industrial-sized bottle of Old Spice Body Wash, which you have never used in your life, nor were you even aware that such a thing existed.  

Anyway.  What I'm saying is, a shared custody arrangement can be hard, because I love my kids and I want to see them and talk to them and hug and kiss them every day, but it also provides for precious me-time that many parents never really get.

But this past weekend, I discovered that nothing will make you feel like a single parent like being the only adult on a camping trip with a 5- and 7-year-old.

Because they're too little to put up the tent, not strong enough to carry around a big cooler full of food or to lift three bikes onto a bike rack, not mature enough to build a fire.  They don't drive, so they can't take on any part of the 4 1/2 hour drive to Steamboat Lake State Park. And they don't have jobs, so they can't buy any of the stuff that needs to be purchased.  They're too short to pack the car.

They don't handle injuries well, so when they fall off their bikes within 30 minutes of arriving at the camp site and end up with wicked road rash on their elbows and knees, they can't calmly wash the wounds and apply an appropriately-sized band-aid.

But what they are great at is the important stuff.  

They are great at being enthusiastic about everything they see, from the horses at the local roadhouse/general store/recreational establishment to the chipmunks at the campsite to the beautiful mountains and lakes.  

I love how the horse in the back totally photobombed the horse on the left

They are amazing at enjoying a campfire, especially the part when you roast marshmallows.

That's a nice looking fire, if I do say so my damn self.

They are incredible at finding the joy in riding around the lake, or digging in the mushy sand at what they charmingly came to refer to as "Diarrhea Beach," because they could throw around lumps of wet sand that reminded them of diarrhea.  They appreciate the natural beauty of Hahn's Peak, which they took to calling "Boob Mountain."  

We like to keep it classy.

Diarrhea Beach

Josie is killing it on her bike these days.

Boob Mountain.

They love to learn about new things, so they were happy to attend the little presentations that the park rangers gave every day on various topics - on Saturday night we learned all about beavers, and on Sunday we learned about hummingbirds.  They were thrilled to go on a 10 minute pony ride, and to stay an extra 15 minutes afterwards kissing and hugging their horses.

They have a beautiful sense of wonder.  My favorite part of the weekend was at about 3 in the morning on our first night there.  Josie woke up and said she had to pee.

"Go ahead, sweetie.  You can just go and pee outside behind the tent."

She came back a minute later and said, "Mama, the stars are so beautiful.  You should come out and see them."

So I got up and went outside and sat in a camp chair with her on my lap.  I hugged her close and we looked at the incredible sky.

"There must be a trillion stars up there, huh, Mama?"

"At least."

After a little while, we were tired and cold, and went back to bed.  As she lay next to me, she reached an arm out and put her hand on my cheek.

"I love you, Mama."

"I love you too, sweet girl."

So yes, I'm tired from all the work that went into the weekend, and the long drive, and the mountains of laundry that I'm still plowing through.  But I had a fantastic time with my fantastic children, and I wouldn't trade that for anything.

The art of war

I've been walking to work, off and on, for about 10 months.  There are only so many variables in the route, so at this point I'm familiar with the landmarks and each street's little quirks.  It makes it more challenging (but also fun) when I'm taking my #dailydenver pictures, because it forces me to try to find interesting angles or to see things in a new or different way.

But still, every once in a while, I do get the surprise of seeing something that I have not seen before.

Last week, it was this:

I have no idea what I'm looking at here. #dailydenver #walktowork #capitolhilldenver #wut

A photo posted by Wendy Jacobs (@wendyalisonjacobs) on Aug 7, 2015 at 7:46am PDT

Today, it was this:

Ready for battle. #dailydenver #walktowork #toytanks

A photo posted by Wendy Jacobs (@wendyalisonjacobs) on Aug 18, 2015 at 8:16am PDT

It reminded me of my brother Joshua, who used to love playing with army toys.  When we were living in India, I opened the freezer one day to discover an elaborate winter battle scene, complete with fallen soldiers who had made the ultimate sacrifice and spilled their blood (i.e., ketchup) in the freezer frost snow.

Looking at that toy tank, standing guard in front of its owner's house, made me smile with the thought of little boys' imaginations, and the intensity of their vision of the world as it was, or might be someday in the future.

I'll see you in September, see you when the summer's through

Yesterday morning the kids and I were riding the number 10 bus into town, on the way to camp and work.  Zeke was sitting in the back row playing on his Kindle and Josie and I were sitting next to each other on one of the sideways-facing seats.  I had my arm resting over the back of the seat, and she was snuggled up next to me, so her face was basically in my armpit.

She thinks armpits are hilarious, especially mine.  God forbid I have a day's worth of stubble under there - she'll tickle it with her fingers and announce to the whole bus that my pits are fuzzy.

Today there was no fuzz, just deodorant.  She still stuck her finger in it.

"Mama, why do you have salt in your pits?" she giggled.

"It's not salt, goofball, it's deodorant."  I gave her a squeeze and kissed the top of her head.

"What's deodorant?"

"It's stuff to keep my pits from getting stinky."

She cackled.  "I hope I don't have stinky pits.  I don't want to have salt in my pits."

We laughed and laughed.

As I sat there having fun with her, I realized it was the last day we would be doing this.  Their dad would be picking them up that afternoon, and they're with him for the weekend, and there's no camp next week.  The week after that, school starts.

We've had a lovely little routine for the summer - I get up and exercise, then I get them up and dressed, and we have some breakfast.  I make their lunches and fill their water bottles, get their backpacks ready, and then we walk across the street to catch the bus.

They're always cheerful and saying hello, so the people on the bus are charmed and smiling at them.  During the ride, we chat and laugh and look out the window. After the penultimate stop, Josie pulls the cord, and we pile off the bus at the stop in front of my office building.  The buses have an automated announcement system for each stop, and when you get off a female robotic voice says, "watch your step - thank you."

And the kids always say, "YOU'RE WELCOME!" and then laugh hysterically.

We walk the two blocks to the YMCA, I give them hugs and kisses goodbye, they run off to play with their friends, and then I walk across the street to go to work.

With all of the turmoil in my life this summer, those mornings have been a respite.  Even though it seems mundane, I will miss that routine.  We're all morning people, so it's been a time of morning snuggles and kisses and excitement over whatever that day's field trip would be and fart jokes.  (The fart jokes are a constant.)

With the start of school, I'll be able to resume my walks to work in the morning.  And I started this morning, in fact.  I took a route that I don't usually take, heading west up 16th street rather than on Colfax.  This route takes me past an elementary school that has a great playground.

On the plus side, I can resume the #walktowork. On the minus, it's because summer is ending and I won't be riding the bus with the kiddos to take them to summer camp. #dailydenver #startofschool #endofsummerblues

A photo posted by Wendy Jacobs (@wendyalisonjacobs) on Aug 14, 2015 at 7:33am PDT

It made me think of the kids and how big they're getting.  Zeke is going into second grade, Josie into first.  I find myself looking at old pictures and videos of them when they were babies and toddlers, and going over old blog posts from those times.  It makes me wistful, even though they are unquestionably so much more fun and interesting the older they get.

As a last hurrah before school starts, the three of us are going camping in Steamboat (the real one) next weekend. It's a place we love, and it will cap off a summer that has been difficult but also beautiful, largely because of them.