Jack-knife on the Major Deegan

When you live far from where you grew up, there's a certain feeling of inevitability that you might return one day. C. and I have both been in California for 7 years and every time we come back to the Northeast, I wonder if this might be the trip that convinces us to throw in the towel. Yet, we always come home to California, refreshed and resolved to never move. With this trip, we've upped the ante. There's the baby and the visits to the grandparents, the aunts and uncles, the cousins, the old friends, but I'm pleased to report that the answer is still the same.

We left New Jersey on Friday, driving along the GW, the Cross-County, the Hutch, the Merritt, and even our favorite metaphorical highway, the Major Deegan. When we're stuck in traffic in the Bay Area, we often recreate mock traffic reports from our childhoods in the "Tri-State area." Somehow, the jack-knife tractor-trailer on the Major Deegan, one of our stock phrases, says it all. These highways are the names from my childhood. Dad would be listening to 1010 WINS, plotting our route to wherever because in order to leave Long Island, one must choose a bridge or tunnel and then about 3-7 other parkways. I don't know that we ever actually took the Major Deegan, possibly because there always seemed to be some sort of unfortunate jam on that stretch, but still it's in my mind as the ultimate example of bumper-to-bumper, shit-out-of-luck, double-your-travel-time traffic. And, that's what we experienced. It could be that I've forgotten all of my Dad's travel rules (was there something about avoiding the Merritt on Fridays in late summer?), but it all seemed way worse than I remember--the narrow lanes, the short on-ramps, the slow folks in the passing lane, the cops hidden in the shade of the overpasses. There's a reason people call this Boston-New York-Washington corridor "Megalopolis" and every time I'm here and stuck somewhere in the middle, I shudder a little.

Needless to say, we did make it to Boston eventually. T. was a little frazzled, but a bath and our friends' hospitality helped reorient her. Our friends left Berkeley when their daughter was T.'s age, about 4 months, and now she's 3.5. They also have a 1.5 year old son we'd never met. It's incredible to see these little people and imagine T. revealing her personality too. The whole thing is very "Circle Game" and has made me wistful. Something about bringing your child to see the places and people you used to know can make a mother who's maternity leave is almost up very reflective. That and rain in the summertime.

T.'s tour

We're almost halfway through T.'s first East Coast tour. The traveling has gone well so far. It turns out that T. finds both subways and taxis and little overwhelming. The subway was so overwhelmingly loud that she passed out after a few minutes. It's not clear why she hated the taxi, maybe because it's the first time she's been in a car without her carseat, but she screamed the whole ride. Really screamed. For those of you who've always wondered, it turns out that being able to breastfeed the baby in the car doesn't necessarily calm them down.

In deference to my librarian-ness, we stopped by the Morgan Library, a spot I'd never visited. It was the personal library of Pierpont Morgan and the place screams "capital." In the spirit of philanthropy, the $12 admission is discounted for students and teachers, but no nod to librarians. It seemed like a cruel shun, but I'm still glad we went. I spent half of the visit feeding T. at some conspicuous online exhibit computer station and the other half scanning the shelves of the Morgan's reading room. Very nice time. I'd also forgotten how important it is to have well-timed A/C stops during a summer visit to New York.

In addition to a little bit of sightseeing, T. has been hanging out with her cousins in Manhattan. L. and A. are 5 and 2 year old girls who doted on T. and treated her like their own real live doll. It was very sweet.



We returned to New Jersey last night to C.'s childhood home. T. must have been working on her mental game since she saw her friend The Olive perform her championship rollover sequence the other night, because she squirmed all over the bed until she finally flipped herself over. She did it about twenty times, passed out, and then barely slept all night she was so excited.



When we get home maybe the Olive can explain how to extract the arm, the last step of the difficult maneuver.


She got it out eventually and was very pleased.

We leave for Boston momentarily for the next stage of the tour. We're so back in the land of the small states.

Travels with baby.

After driving the 400+ miles to LA and back to introduce T. to her new little cousin a couple days ago, we took her on her first transcontinental flight. I won't bore you with details you've all heard or experienced, although I have to say that the no fluids rule really sucks when you're breastfeeding. The three small cups of water I was given over 5 hours really didn't cut it, especially after the beverage service ended and T. was stuck to my nipple from Ohio to EWR. Despite the harsh new rules, the little girl was a total champ. She was a little upset at times, but no more than she'd be on any given day, and no more than any sentient being would be when forced to sit in an incredibly small space for many hours. If anything, poor 6'5" C. had it worse as he was stuck behind a small woman testing the boundaries of her "reclining" chair. So. I really have no advice to offer anyone attempting such a journey in the future except that it's both no better and no worse than you'd expect. It is, however, making me rethink my plan to travel alone with T. to a conference in Philadelphia in October. How do you use the bathroom when you're alone with a baby?

And now we're in New Jersey at C.'s parents' house, introducing T. to the loveliness of an east coast summer. It's a little bit hot, a little bit sticky, but also incredibly green and lush. Today is C.'s 30th birthday and we're heading into Manhattan in a few hours to spend it with some old friends and family. The last time we saw some of these people was at our wedding two years ago. It's going to be great to introduce them to the girl.

this is life.

I stumbled upon the previous post in the baby book that my mom relinquished to me a few months ago. In addition to that second grade essay, there are a bunch of hand-drawn cards and little sweet notes saying how much the pre-teen me loved my parents. The whole thing is incredibly endearing and makes me excited for T.'s future creations.

But. There is a-whole-nother category of notes/essays/messages that were probably intended to be sweet, but are actually a little bit mean. The two main themes are my dad's job/work-aholism and my mom's weight. It's not as creepy as it sounds. It's just clear that even as a 6/7/8 year old, I had already internalized the family's backstory, that my dad worked too much and didn't really like his job, and that my mom had a weight problem and would spend my childhood experimenting with various diets. The previous post illustrates the former theme; the latter manifests itself in less overt ways. There's a picture of my mom, a pretty standard kid stick figure with an embellished 1980's perm, and she's surrounded by complimentary adjectives, words like beautiful, sweet, smart, but also skinny.

The revelation that I was completely aware of my parents' struggles is subtle. It's not like I've recalled some repressed memory--these themes continued to dominate the family drama until my dad died early this year. What it's made me realize is that I don't want T. to remember us the same way, as dissatisfied sorts stuck in our own personal quagmires. In my own life, I've spent so much time preparing to find a career and a life I'd enjoy--in part to avoid my parents' missteps--that I've often been too hesitant to commit. All of my energies go to planning and very little to action. I want her to think of us as people with ideas, people who change, people who take risks, even small ones, but mostly people who have found work we enjoy or at the very least, some activity that gives us a purpose. I'm sure T. will have her own issues with us, but if she's hanging out in her university-sponsored daycare and draws a picture of her mom as smiling librarian serving up some information at the reference desk, I'll be psyched.

circa 1984

Generations.

Last week my mom visited from Florida, and this week my aunt, her sister, from Belgium. It's been so nice hanging out with them and getting to know them in a new way, as a member of the club. Regardless of our differences, the fact that I'm no longer just the child and the niece, but a parent myself, has changed the dynamic. This is definitely one of the biggest and best surprises of this experience so far. I can tell that the two of them question some of my choices--where we live, the name of our daughter, how we slept with her for the first months--but they don't criticize. It's been incredibly pleasant.

This aunt has always been one of my favorite relatives and her son is my favorite cousin. He held the rings at our wedding in this sweet and nervous way, and I've always tried to maintain a relationship with him even though he's 16 years younger than me. Before this visit I hadn't thought much about what it meant for her to be a great-aunt to my daughter, but seeing them together was so wonderful. In some ways I knew what to expect of my mother. She is completely enamored of the little girl, but she is the grandmother and everyone expects a grandmother to dote. More distant relatives are wild cards, yet T. and her great aunt got along famously. My aunt brought way too many presents, but more importantly she came from Belgium to meet her great-niece (my brother hasn't even visited). She met her and held her and made goofy faces at her and established what I can tell will be a really special relationship. It was so sweet to see the beginnings of it. T. is a very lucky little girl.

She rolls.

Been very busy around here. Family visiting.

But. This is the face of a little girl who rolled over today for the first time:

the tremor.

We just felt a small post-dinner earthquake over in these parts. It was relatively small, a 4.5 centered north of here in Sonoma County. It's too bad that my mother left this morning because I think she would have liked to feel her first earthquake. It might have demystified the whole California thing for her. Anyway, a few minutes before the quake, T., who was already asleep, let out a little squeal. Can she be that in touch with the forces of earth? The cat gave no indication of what was to come, although she was a little spooked afterwards.

To return briefly to original purpose of this blog, an accounting of the earth, let me point you to the USGS Shake Map from this quake. In case you're unfamiliar with the Shake Map, I'll explain. Whenever you feel a quake, point your browser to the USGS Shake Map and report what you felt. They have a form to fill out with questions about your location, the type of shaking, the length of shaking, your reaction, type of building and potential damage. As the responses roll in, you can get a sense of where the quake was felt and how strongly, giving you a bit more information than a simple number on the richter scale. Right now, about 20 minutes post-quake there are already 7,000 responses around the Bay Area, so if you're reading this and you felt the tremor, go to the Shake Map and check in. If you're nerds like us, you might as well bookmark the page for next time.