Falling for Fall

Sometimes I see another blog post that is a list of "things I love about (fill in the blank)" and I think, "Well, that's what happens when you post anyway, without anything to say." But for 3 days now I've been hit in the head with several things I am loving about the sudden fall weather in Seoul. And I thought a bit more about my knee-jerk reaction to lists of lovable things and I have changed my mind! Why not make a list of things I love about fall? Because everyone has an inexhaustible list of things that annoy the crap out of them and it's easy to harp about that shit. But sometimes i am trudging through a rough day, and a list of things to throw my heart's lasso around serves as a great pick-me-up. Also, when reading a list of things other people like, sometimes I am able to expand my own list by realizing Why, yes! That IS a great whatever and I've now added yet another dimension of appreciation to whatever.

So, ladies and gentlemen of the Internet, I present a list. Feel free to adopt my items and add more of your own in the comments!

1. I love the crisp bite of autumn air. It means that instead of sweating and sticking to my son, I finally get to bundle him up in the Moby wrap and tote him around like my own personal heat source. (have you used a Moby wrap in summer humidity? Don't bring that crazy near me.)

2. Big, loose sweaters over leggings. Like, please, Fashion, decide that it's awesome to cover my bumpy bits and show off my legs WITHOUT having to shave. Don't mind if I do.

3. I don't sweat all day every day! I find that living without central air conditioning makes me angry. I get angry so easily when I'm hot. I'll find myself storming around the house in a rage and stop to wonder what got me so worked up and I'll realize, heck! I'm just hot! Well, no more! The end of the mad melts! (And exclamation points. Sorry.)

4. TEEEEVEEEE. Parenthood is back, yo. That is all.

5. Jude in this hat. Do you need any more reason than this?

Gratitude covers a Multitude

First. Thank you. Yes, YOU. Thank you for all your kind comments, amazing encouragement, thoughtful and supportive emails, and phone calls. I read them all, multiple times. I'm probably not finished rereading them, either, to tell you the truth.

Second. The previous post was a bit dark; it was admittedly rushed and feverish and severely unedited in every sense of the word. This post is also being hurried and largely remains true to its first draft aside from spelling errors, which drive me berserk.

I just want to say that for all the self-loathing I gave voice to, in equal measure there exists some sense of appreciation and gratitude for what I DO have. And I'd like to talk about those things for a moment, for the sake of balance.

There are several things I currently appreciate about my body. I have made peace with my face, except for the current double-side face that occurs, but that can easily be taken care of with a little exercise and a few less donuts. I like that one of my eyebrows makes its own decisions and follows its own will, especially when being photographed. I like the shape of my lips and the color of my eyes. Currently, I am admiring the way small tufts of new hair are growing back in after all my after-Jude hair loss. They are spiky, all right around my hairline, and many of them are glowing. Yep, that's right, my new hair is coming in grey and I. don't. mind. In fact, I kind of like it. I found my first grey hairs a few months after Jude was born and they don't bother me. I'm aging! I'm living life! I'm moving forward no matter how much I feel things are all backwards for me. So grey hair is a positive sign at the moment.

I like my wrists and ankles because they do not get fat. I like that my boobs have swollen beyond all reason to a size they will probably never recover from in order to nourish my child. I am proud of my strong legs that carried me and Jude around for 9 months and that still support us, just in a slightly different configuration. I like my rib cage, its size, the fact that it remains the same size no matter how much I try to hide it with layers of donuts and coffee. It gives me hope. I have a beautiful underneath. I just have to uncover it.

I enjoy my job these days. I have liked getting to know my students, seeing their progress, and having fun with them. I am completely in love with coming home from work these days, to a Jude who couldn't be more thrilled to see me. I love figuring out how to fit in a bit of reading every day, during naptimes (which are growing shorter and shorter. What is that about? Does anyone else have a 7 month old child who naps for like 20 minutes and then is back up and at 'em for the next 5 hours?), and after Jude goes to bed. I am no longer severely sleep-deprived as Jude sleeps through the night, with usually only one sleep-feeding. I am BEYOND DELIGHTED to still be mainly breast feeding my child. I'm so happy every time he refuses a bottle of supplementary formula while I'm at work and waits to nurse until I get home. I'm also so happy to feed him fresh, homemade baby food. He is so adorable opening his little birdy mouth and slurping up whatever veggie mush we've come up with that week.

In short, I could go on. Because there are so many good things in my life currently. But I'm so BIG, it's easy to lose sight of the little things, you know? Sometimes my body outweighs my brain. Ha. Okay, my body always "outweighs" my brain, among other things. I'm making small efforts to get back in shape. And hopefully those small efforts will turn into giant leaping strides towards feeling lighter and more free. That's the thing I dislike most- the feeling that I'm trapped inside this huge sandbag of a body. There is a woman inside me who might even give a second thought to the clothes she put on if she could just get to where buying clothes wasn't a reminder of everything she's doing wrong.

Anyway, thank you all for being here. For waiting out my long silences, pauses. For telling the truth. And for loving me anyway. My life would be worth so much less if you were subtracted from it. Honestly, sincerely, my gratitude is covering a multitude of insecurities and discontent. It also covers you. Can you feel it?

Figuring Things Out

I need to know why I can't stop eating. I mean, it's obviously some kind of emotional crutch in some way, but I'm just not sure how to explore this in a way that will help me be able to exercise a little self control. I'm really eager to be thin again. And not just that. I was watching these kids run the opposite way over the crosswalk the other day and I thought about moving my body like that, so carefree, with no thought given to it. It's like I conserve energy as a habit. I got angry playing badminton with Kenny the other day because I kept missing and having to bend over and pick up the shuttlecock. I mean, this was a serious rage I found myself in, with the fast breathing and inability to form complete coherent sentences because my brain was red.

Something I've never expressed to anyone except for Kenny: I want to be a yoga instructor. Like, that's what I want to do with my life. I want to figure out how to listen to my body, to stretch myself, and then to help others center themselves, too. I mean, obviously I want to be a writer, but I don't do much of that these days. I compose blog posts and letters and postcards to friends in my head, but rarely do they make it out of the "brain crack" stage, as Ze Frank so famously refers to it.

This post is insane because I am writing it as quickly as possible. I'm not editing, which is death to a writer like me because it's way too vulnerable. Not because I'll reveal something personal, but because you will see me without any filters- the filter of "that sounds stupid" or "too many adjectives" or "Oh God you're not David Foster Wallace, are you? Write a paragraph using more than one sentence, geez" kind of filter. The one that makes it comfortable for me to hit publish, even if I'm revealing something less than flattering about myself, because at least I have written in a somewhat coherent fashion and my style shows I'm worth something, gosh darn it, even if I am a neurotic mess and a repetition of all my past mistakes piling up over and over again without any progress. My lack of progress might be redeemed by grammar and clean Hemingway sentences. Or not. Maybe you all see through this anyway. Good for you. Welcome to my darkest corner, the "What if they think I'm ignorant" fear.

So I'm bypassing all that here. I'm just letting it all hang out. Which is impossible not to do when my back fat is constantly pressed into sections by my bra. I am thankful that my breasts have swollen to a size F because I am still breast feeding and that is one of the only things I'm happy doing these days. It's like a saving grace in my day. But I'm not happy about the swelling of everything else and I know I "just" had a baby, but Jude is like almost 7 months old and so I think we can retire the "just" and just call me fat now. Let's speak the truth. The truth about how I feel: I feel like an offense. When I walk down the street with my tiny head like a pimple on the top of this enormous bloated mid-section, I actually feel offensive, like people will cringe to look at me. When I buy shirts out of necessity (all the others had holes or are stained), I feel ashamed that I have to buy the biggest size. I feel ashamed of myself, just walking around with Jude. Because people can't see the excuse that I make for myself when I'm with him. I carry Jude most of the time in a carrier on the front of me. He protects me from judgement somehow. And whenever I am without him, I feel uncalled for, inexcusable, un- whatever. Just un, nil, naught. I feel like I don't count for anything.

Now, for the other half of this truth: I know all of that is bullshit. I know it deep down to my core, that these negative thoughts are not honest, that most of it stems from living in this tiny-worshipping country. But another truth is that I'm not fat by accident, you guys. I'm fat on purpose. Every time I refuse to exercise self-control, to use discipline and keep my spoon out of the Nutella jar, or pretend like "one more coffee can't hurt," I'm making a choice. I'm killing myself through a thousand tiny indulgences every day. I'm sitting in a bakery typing this now. And do you think I didn't have a 255 calorie chocolate dipped, baked thing? No, of course I ate it. And I drank a bottle of water to cancel it out. Ha.

In conclusion: I am a crazy person. I want to change everything. And yet I'm willing to give up nothing to get it. However, I am tired of having all of this stuff on the inside of my head and I'm tired of rehashing it with myself, and I'm tired of feeling like an utterly worthless piece of crap because I can't tell myself no.

Today I am saying no. No to keeping all this pent up. No to not writing. No to not moving. No to not pursuing my dreams. I'm clearly unhinged, mentally and physically. But I can make a choice today to work on it. To do better tomorrow. To prove that it's the one thousandth three hundred and thirtieth time that you start over that counts.

I'm pushing publish. And I'm starting over. And I will never not edit myself again. Because it's way too ugly. But I have proved that I can do it. I can strip everything bare, lay everything out. I have no choice. Not doing that has gotten me nowhere. We'll see where I end up.

Anyone out there? This place has been a tomb. But I am a phoenix today. Rising from the ashes. Damn, I'm lucky. Because the God of my father is one who deals in turning ashes into beauty. Beauty from ashes. It's my story. I've made ashes of this body, this life. I'm ready for the beauty. And it doesn't come free.

DO WORK, Danielle. Do the work. And drop the self-loathing. It's so counterproductive. And end this freaking post.

(End). 

Oh Me Oh My

I don't even know what to say to you. I am supposed to be up here working on recording the readings my kids need to work on this month to improve their pronunciation, and instead I'm writing this. In my defense, I did try to make the recordings. Only it kept cutting out parts of it for some reason and I couldn't handle the frustration of figuring out why it's doing that or even if it can be fixed. So, blerg.

I wanted to say I fixed the link to my other blog, Hey Jude, in the sidebar. Because I'm an idiot it was linked to the image in my flickr account. I'm so dumb sometimes. So check that out if you haven't already. Because that seems to be where I'm doing my real writing, although I only wrote one post in the month of June. I'm hoping to fix that soon. But who knows. I still feel like my life is completely spinning out of control, but I'm trying to become more flexible because apparently it's not going to slow down and I'm not going to get any less dizzy.

Really I'd like to take the time to write out everything that's wrong, but what good would that do besides get me a few pity comments? So instead, I will be thankful that Jude is nursing again (mostly) after another enormous battle. Miso, if you didn't know, fell off the roof and broke her ankle into tiny pieces and had major surgery and is currently in a cast and in a cage. She hates it, but I'm so glad she is recovering well and should regain some use of that back leg and the joint. So that's a bright little spot meowing in the corner of the living room. My few classes are going well and I'm excited about the projects we're embarking on this month. I took a walk yesterday evening with Kenny and Jude down by the river and again this morning. After I spend an hour talking and walking with my husband, I feel like I can conquer the world. It's amazing, really. I began our walk last night dejected, stressed out, and feeling completely overwhelmed. When we came back home, I felt like a new person.

In other news, I'm cooking breakfast every morning, usually during Jude's first nap of the day around 8:30 or 9:00 and we're getting to eat most of it together before he wakes up. This has revolutionized the way we start our days and it's wonderful for now. I have to thank our good friends Sandra and Philip for welcoming me into the last day of their vacation last Tuesday and encouraging me to start cooking breakfast and getting just a few chores done everyday. They are such a joy to spend time with and our favorite family to visit in Wonju. I'm totally bummed they're moving to Dubai at the end of August. I will miss the encouraging words and prayers, but know that we've made friends that will last the test of distance and time zones.

I know this is rambling and I know this is unstructured and I know I should care. But this is writing and writing is always better than not writing. And I'm a writer, despite my current all-consuming role as a mother, and writers write. They do not always write well. So here it is, folks. A small, inconsequential update which keeps my fingers moving and my mind on something besides breasts, diapers, and laundry.

Thanks for reading. :)

What Is Wrong With Me.

There are a number of things wrong with me, mostly stemming from the fact that a large part of who I am is dedicated to drinking coffee, eating donuts (yesterday's count: 3), and for some weird reason breast feeding. I don't know why I wanted to breast feed Jude so badly, but it's something I  had my heart set on from the start. Kenny is alternately fully supportive with comments such as, "I am so proud of you. This is the only thing I've ever suggested a compromise on and you've rejected it every single time" and begging me to give up, saying, "Your life will be so much easier! You can get stuff done! Why do you think you'll be a failure? Do you think other mothers who can't or don't want to breastfeed are failures?"

No. I don't think that at all. There is some kind of super-powerful double standard at work here. I don't compare myself to other moms when it comes to breastfeeding. I don't care that, for example, my sister had to stop breast feeding Epperley because of the antibiotics she had to take for simultaneous bladder and urinary tract infections. I don't think she is any less of a mother for giving Epperley formula. I don't really think anything about it except that it is a lot of bottle washing. And I'm not going to compete with the mothers who nurse their kids until they're two years old. I think it's fabulous if that's your thing.

What I do think: I want to breastfeed Jude because I enjoy it and it's special to me and for some reason it's extremely important to me that I succeed at this and don't give up.

If you've been a long-time reader of this blog (and let's face it, being a reader of this blog these days is like the easiest job in the world, am I right? Once a month, read a few paragraphs. Ha.), you know that ever since I've been out of school, I've struggled with consistency and discipline in my personal life. It's like all my self-motivated behavior and over-achiever attitude were compartmentalized. They pertained to school work and that's about it. It's like the goals that I make for myself and my life don't count or something. I'm constantly making lists of things to work on or achieve and then throwing the list out because, who cares if I achieve it or not? But I've realized that making your own goals, even insignificant goals or silly goals, and reaching them is really the only way to be happy with where your life is headed. This has a lot to do with discipline. And everything that I want and am lacking in my life now stems from a serious lack of self-control and discipline.

So when I decided to breastfeed exclusively, it was like the only thing on my list. And I could totally justify my list now because ANOTHER LIFE DEPENDED ON IT. All the sleep I lost being the only one who could feed Jude, all the pumping I did and am continuing to do, all the crying and worrying if he's getting enough, all that stuff, is worth it to me. And last week when all of that was threatened, I sort of turned into a huge mess that was scary to look at.

The saddest thing was that my coming apart affected Jude. It made him stressed, too! I didn't realize that I was just compounding his "nursing strike" by worrying constantly about him and worrying that giving him bottles while I was at work was ruining him and making him lazy and going to be THE END OF THE WORLD FOREVER.

I finally worked myself up into such a frenzy that he wouldn't eat at all. Didn't even want a bottle. And that's when I was required to chill out. I finally said to myself, this is NOT worth it. If this is the end of breast feeding for us, then this is the end of breast feeding for us. And guess what? It wasn't. After I relaxed, Jude relaxed. It was miraculous. And also incredibly embarrassing. And also a huge moment of clarity and lesson-learned. I have the ability to be ridiculously dedicated to something that seems good for my baby. But if my dedication and fanatacism are actually making things worse for him, all that discipline isn't worth anything.

My goal of breast feeding Jude until he's at least one is still there. It's just not so paramount anymore. I have to disconnect this idea of breastfeeding and mothering. My success as a mother is so intertwined with the idea of nursing him.

And now he is screaming his heart out. So I have to go nurse him.

Not Dead

I just finished my first run since Jude was born. Ok, who am I kidding? It was my first run since I got pregnant. And I am not dead.

It wasn't long. All I did was complete day 1 of the ease into 5k program. But it felt amazing. Kenny went with me and I listened to music! I know. That sounds so dumb. I do this thing where I'll go for a while without listening to music. I hear it, I still play it, I just don't listen. And then I go and do something like tonight– I run–and I feel it all the way through me.

Then I berate myself for ever letting it get to this point. I can't believe I've had this experience waiting right underneath my skin for so long. All it took was a run in the park to awaken my entire body. I felt alive. I had chills. I was so much more than all my parts. I was my full self, my entirety. Music does that. At least, good music does that. It makes my soul stand up. It puts a smile on my face. It moves me.

So all that to say, I pushed play. And I did not die. What a lovely Sunday.

Hey Jude

Hi guys! This very short blog post is just to let you know that I'm not going to quit writing here, but I have started writing over at Hey Jude. So stop by and tell me what you think and leave lots of comments for Jude to read when he gets older! Thanks, lovelies! Jude is starting to nap better, so I'm getting more blogging (and laundry) time. Hope to have a few more posts up soon. 

The Thoughts In My Head

It makes me think that the thoughts in my head that make me feel the most lonely because I don't think anyone else thinks them are also the thoughts that have the most potential to make me feel connected. —ze frank, A Show, episode 9


I write occasional letters to my son at Hey Jude, a blog that I hope will capture most of the precious moments I get to share with him. But those moments are not the full picture of motherhood. I don't walk around inside my days rejoicing every minute. Actually, a lot of my time is spent wishing for 7 pm to arrive. 7 pm is the magical hour that I am able to lay Jude in his bed after his bath and watch him put himself to sleep. Mostly this involves finding his fingers, inserting them as far as they will go into his mouth, and sucking like he's getting paid for it. It's pretty much the highlight of my day, the time I find him most charming, feel the most at peace with my role as a mother.

And how pathetic is that? I love my son the most when he is asleep and I get to do other stuff than hold him. I do enjoy waking up early with him and pulling him into bed for morning cuddles and smiles after he eats. That's probably my favorite time of the day. But between the morning bliss and 7pm? I wish for naps. I wish for content time spent in the swing while I write. I wish for long, slow lunches where I can breathe between bites instead of holding my high maintenance child in one arm and shoveling food in with the other. I wonder how I am going to do this another day. I wish it was easier.

And while I'm wishing away, time is passing and I'm missing it. I'm missing that this stage is so momentary and short-lived. So the guilt begins! I should be doing more with him, but I feel like I exhaust him if I take him out too many places with me. I should be more patient with him when he fusses because it's honestly not that often. I should be cherishing this time where he wants me to hold him and love on him. I should be more productive during nap time! I should already be using my cloth diapers since we are back home now! I should be doing ALL THE THINGS!

These are some of the thoughts in my head. So when I watched episode 9 of A Show, I knew I had to share my thoughts. Because these are the ones that make me feel less than a mother, isolated, and alone. And that makes me think that these are the thoughts that other mothers are feeling that are making them feel less than exactly what their child needs.

So there it is. I look forward to 7 pm all day. And I also know that I am exactly what Jude needs, thoughts and all.

*This post was sponsored by an unexpected 10:30am nap! Praise God.

33

Dear Kenny,
 
I don't know how you do it. I don't know how you come back home night after night and give me your attention and share yourself with me, even if what you're sharing is frustration and disappointment. My dear one, we are not where we thought we'd be. But I have to believe this is where we are supposed to be. And this struggle is teaching us how to walk well, how to walk when we believe we are too tired to pick up our feet, and how to carry each other when the other cannot go on. You have carried me for years here. You have made my path broad, smooth, safe, and comfortable. You have moved rocks out of my way and you have carried me when I've twisted my ankles in the holes of sadness, anxiety, anger, and outright petulance. And although one hand is full, caring for this sweet life that is the very twisting and intertwining of our hearts and bones, my other hand is reaching for you, ready to support you, to carry you, to give you what I have.
 
There is this tiny, hungry mouth between us.
 
But the ropes of the past three years of marriage, and the two years before that day we said we would love each other with abandon and without boundaries are also between us, tying us to each other. The cords of our dreams and hopes for the future are braided together with those of our beautiful past. And I believe those ties will bind us together through the difficulties of our present.
 
There are days when I wish things were different, when I wish I was not where I am, or who I am. But there is never a single second that I wish I was anywhere other than with you. My life with you in the dark places is better than my life without you in the sunshine. You are my half. I love you.
 
It's your birthday and I'm not sure you believe that you have much to celebrate about the past year, or the coming one. But I hope you can find some sweet moments, some poems, to remember and cherish. This next year is about building our family, making our own traditions, and working hard to stay the people we've always been while adding the layers of mother and father. I know this is hard and heavy. But Mary Oliver wrote this about heaviness:
 
"It's not the weight you carry
 
but how you carry it-
books, bricks, grief-
it's all in the way
you embrace it, balance it, carry it
 
when you cannot and would not,
put it down."
 
Kenny, we will carry it together. And we will not put it down.
 
Happy Birthday, precious husband.
Love,
Danielle
 

Walking

I've been thinking about walking a lot, particularly the long distance walking I did every day on the Camino de Santiago last spring. I can't believe it's been almost a year since we did that. I still haven't written about our trip here and I can't find my journal from our travels last spring. I haven't written about what an amazing experience it was because I don't think I fully got to process it. We didn't get to work out what we learned about ourselves as individuals and as a couple in those 32 days and across those 500 miles. Because when we returned to Korea, I got pregnant. I didn't know it until a few weeks later and we had already moved to Seoul and were working out a new plan. And the Camino got pushed into the background and everything became horribly twisted as I entered into the first sixteen weeks of all-day sickness and general malaise.

Yesterday I was walking back from a quick trip to the store for ice cream for another midnight marathon of Parenthood with Kenny, and I wanted to just keep on walking. I wanted to walk past our room in my parents-in-law's house, past our favorite neighborhood cafe, and past the city limits. I wanted to just keep moving, to get back to that place where I felt the earth sliding underneath me, felt I was moving forward, and felt I was earning each day. I wanted to walk myself back to a place of authenticity, a place of vulnerability. That place where I started each morning on that ancient trail with a doubt that I could make it to the next destination, but a tiny mustard-seed of faith in my legs and my feet. The place where you walk past the pain, past the weariness, and past the hunger. I want to walk into a place where I feel fully myself again. I know that will take time and effort and sweat and probably a lot of sighing, sobbing, and cursing. But I am finally ready to get back to work.

I feel I took my entire pregnancy "off." I wasn't working; I wasn't writing; I wasn't committed to anything except my donut-a-day addiction. I'm ready to figure out a way to be my entire self: mother, wife, daughter, sister, and just me. I'm writing this while Jude naps. I would normally be sleeping now, too. But this feels good. I can't walk for 25 kilometers a day with a huge pack on my back, trailing behind my husband and eventually catching up with him to take our shoes off and rest in the warm Spanish sunshine. But I can write for however many minutes Jude will sleep, and I can welcome my husband home with joy and gratefulness tonight.

For 32 days, I walked a trail that millions have walked before me. I walked from St. Jean Pied de Port to Santiago de Compostela. And even when I reached that cathedral and sat in the pilgrim's service and watched the largest censer in the world swinging back and forth, filling the nave with incense, I wondered what I had walked towards.

This. This is what I walked toward. I had no idea, but I was walking toward my son, toward my life as a mother. And toward myself. I walked toward 3 am feedings and insatiable appetites and quick words between spouses and tender moments between naps. I walked toward this moment that I'm living. This imperfect, trembling, unstable, but entirely beautiful and full moment.

And now, I keep walking. I keep writing.

I hope you keep reading.