California

After teaching a great pie class yesterday, I hurriedly packed, cooked the boys dinner, played a family game, and tucked in, eagerly anticipating this morning's early departure to Los Angeles. 

Three of my dearest friends, two of whom I met freshman year of college, and I are celebrating our 40th birthdays together with a four day stay in Santa Barbara. Then on Thursday, I head back to LA for BlogHer '16.

My sweet Ol

I'm so excited and feel so lucky for this weeklong vacation with friends and for myself. It is needed, deserved, and very much appreciated. 

Heading west  

California

Hope you are all well! 

On celebrating well, and accepting the challenge issued by a chair

I simply could not have enjoyed turning 40 more. That's really all there is to it. I felt loved and lucky and festive every second of wakefulness on Saturday, heard from so many friends, and was incredibly moved by their thoughtfulness and generosity.

Benedict helped me celebrate, and so did Rogie via Italian friends. Isn't it amazing (and wildly accommodating) that not only my dear husband but also my two boyfriends feted me in such grand fashion? Ben has taken up residence in my office and is really quite a dashing presence.

T gave me the reading chair and ottoman I've long wanted for our bedroom. It is so comfortable and beautiful and has issued a challenge about which I'm thrilled: sit in it and read. Daily. 

I mean, what is the point of a reading chair if not to actually take time with my collection of books and newspapers and magazines? To finally make my way through the list of links I've saved on Facebook and the emails I've repeatedly marked as unread? To rest a little, daydream, ponder?

And yet, such leisure is so often so hard for me. There is always so much to do, and I run frenetically trying to do, do, do because it feels important and mission-critical. And some of it is, some of it isn't negotiable.

But last Saturday, as I welcomed a great babysitter who enthusiastically took the kids to the park, as I thanked T for mowing the yard and tidying the house and urged him to get some quick rest if he could, as I left -guilt-free- for a few hours of me-time (mani! pedi! solo lobster roll lunch!), I realized anew that a life spent mucking maniacally through to-dos isn't a life well lived. 

I doubt many days in my future will include the salon, a lobster roll and my favorite cake flown in from New Orleans, but I no longer believe that I need to celebrate a "big" birthday to rest and indulge a bit either. Time must be found to sink into my new chair and pick something from my grab bag of saved desires. To invest in myself the way I do in others. To set limits and honor them.

Whether this shift was brought about by entering a new decade or finally running out of steam matters little. What's important is where I ended up, and for that I'm psyched.

On a cold dark night, she put her foot down

I am tired today. Have been since I awoke. Last week was long; jet-lag, dealing with the kids' jet-lag, readying our old house to go on the market, illness, prepping Jack for his camping trip, welcoming an exhausted (but happy) Jack back from his camping trip, telling Oliver about Percy, preparing to tell Jack about Percy, digging out my winter parka and sadly putting it on. 

I am tired and I have felt increasingly constricted, folding inward as if trying to shield myself from one.more.to-do. I have not read the paper, the laundry is not folded, undercurrents of rage and dismay are coursing through my veins.

Not rage at any one thing, but rage against life's relentlessness and a dismay about that fact. The rage that comes from being overtaxed and underhelped. From feeling cold. This is a familiar feeling for many. It doesn't worry me, it doesn't put me off when I see it in others. I understand. But I don't like it.

What bothers me most about these shadowy pits is that in them, I lose elasticity. I can sense the way my posture changes, the way my usually glowing face darkens as if under the shadow of a pregnant storm cloud. 

I stop feeling expansive and generous. My sense of humor goes AWOL. I want to shutter, close for the season, throw huge swaths of stuff and obligations out, and start anew tomorrow or next week, after I've burrowed in a flannel blanket and wrung the chill right out. 

I don't have anything for you tonight except these truths. That in the face of overwhelm and waves of Legos and bobos and joy and a fourth trip to the DMV and more laundry and whining and dust bunnies and freeze warnings in April, hunkering down is a very fine option. 

Refusing to help with baths or "watch me, watch me" one more time tonight and instead cooking a good meal (this one-pot chicken and sumac onion dish really is so very good; go me!) to share with Tom is how I put my foot down today. Tonight. A small action, a needed one. It starts again tomorrow.

chicken with caramelized sumac onions and israeli couscous