Besides, the Style Archetypes clamored at my window late one night to say, “Do it!” Et voilà, some generous, Archetype-approved options. That $150 discount applies through Sunday, just be sure to set up an account and use the code SKYE. It might even be possible – give them a call – to get delivery before Monday.

The Grande Dame

She always wears jewelry, and it always matches. Given an already extensive collection, she appreciates the niche present, a direct reflection of occasion. No basics for her. So, a heart. This one will match, in a perfectly non-matching way, her amber ear clips.

Citrine heart with little diamonds: $1450

The Artsy Cousin

Why things sharp read so Artsy I do not know. Think about it – safety pins, razor blades, shark’s teeth. Must be that the term “edgy” means “cutting” as much as “on the margins.” In any case, the Artsy Mother will smile at her dagger pendant and wear it – with chambray – to paint.

Cathy Waterman dagger pendant: $1250

The Sturdy Gal

You may be tempted to buy the Sturdy Mother a pearl strand, or some sensible studs. Do not. She carries more tender secrets in her heart than any, albeit tamped down by many years of heavy lifting. Surprise her with something fantastical. Kiss her when you see the beginnings of tears. She hadn’t known you understood she’s been a romantic all this time.

Hints of India in dangling rubies: $995

I bought myself some danglies I’ve coveted for donkey’s years, seen here, using my extra-special $250 discount. I’m on Beladora’s mailing list, you see. You can sign up too.

Share on Facebook

When your children are born, and young, you aren’t quite sure what’s going to stick. Is this their personality or a phase? I think it’s best to avoid attributing personality for a long time, to give room for their own selves to show up. You, as the adult, don’t want to construct a premature identity for them out of your own experience and feelings.

That said, it turns out that some things you can see in the young. While there was much I did not know about who my son would become, some of the enduring him was visible very early.

Several years ago I finally converted old videos to digital, vignettes of the kids we hadn’t seen in close to 20 years unearthed.  Oh my gosh he was cute. Watch a few fragments, if you could be so kind, to celebrate his birthday.

Here you might notice his thoughtfulness. He says, “Mommy see?” Then he looks away. Watch his eyes. I’m pretty sure he’s considering the relationship of the camera held to my eyes, and my “seeing.” He thinks similarly to this day.

And here we see his sweet trust in loved ones. So endearing. Let me interpret his toddler talk for you. He says, “Daddy do it. I will dance.” Don’t you smile instinctively when you hear this kind of baby voice?

On the other hand, you might miss his capacity for deft mischief. So deft that I didn’t see it myself until I looked at these videos again, decades later. Nor I could tell he’d grow up to wear pants that fit.

Thank you for hearing out this maternal pride as a present to him rather than a paeon to anything I did.

All of which is to say two things I have said before. First, let us all pay attention. Second, Happy Birthday Mr. Piglet! Don’t forget to tell me what you want for your birthday.

Have a wonderful weekend everyone.

Share on Facebook

Amy and Isabelle concerns a mother and a daughter. I recommend it highly. Here’s a passage from the final pages. (I will tell you in advance that the book is, in the end, hopeful. These words are a release rather than a trigger to misery.)

Knowing that her child had grown up frightened. Except it was cockeyed, all backwards, because, thought Isabelle, glancing back at her daughter, I’ve been frightened of you.

Oh, it was sad. It wasn’t right. Her own mother had been frightened too. (Isabelle’s foot was bobbing quickly, in tiny little jerks.) All the love in the world couldn’t prevent the awful truth: You passed on who you were.

This is a book with neither innovative plot nor grand themes. It’s terribly specifically and beautifully observed, particularly in the mother-daughter relationship, and becomes large for all its smallness.

Now, as you know, I’ve got a daughter myself. Maybe you do too.

Mine was born in July of 1987. That Thanksgiving, we traveled back East to my in-laws house. A friend came to visit, someone I had known before marriage. She asked if I was in love with my new baby. I told her I was mostly terrified, even 4 months in. My friend was not looking for that answer; we changed topics.

My daughter came visiting this last weekend, in a confluence of goals and circumstances. First, she had been in Southern California, where she will be starting medical school this August. It was a quick flight up the coast to San Francisco. Second, she was dying to meet her newest little cousin.

Back to Amy and Isabelle. My daughter is not attending medical school because I passed on who I am. She did this herself. She didn’t know in college she’d want to be in medicine, she took few pre-med prerequisites. As a result, she had to make up many of the courses and study for the MCATs, all while working full-time. She drove an hour each way to take night classes in Philadelphia, and paid for them herself.

I am embarrassingly proud. All the more proud because I fret about the role of privilege in my own achievements. As I said, the girl did this on her own, and that knowledge roils me like water rushing through rocks. Imagine the little flecks of light.

Go you, honey. Where you got your core of steel from I do not know, but having survived and embraced it throughout your childhood, now I can only wave a flag and cheer.

And as for the baby cousin, well then. My daughter stayed at my brother’s place, helping out the new mother. A lot of time wearing the little one, smiling, and rocking from foot to foot. My sister-in-law texted to say she was welcome to come back any time. My brother left me a voice mail, saying she’d been a great help with his son.

Then he said, “You can tell she had a good mother.”

There isn’t much that would make me feel better. I’m not trying to trumpet my own work here. I want to pass on something to young moms, and to smile at the older ones who will know exactly what I’m talking about. The whole world ought to be glad that even when we’re afraid, and beset by self-doubt, as long as we try our hardest and exercise our talents in service of our children, things can be OK. What we pass on we can’t always predict, nor should we. Our daughters grow up knowing how to rock.

To avoid too much sentiment, I leave it to you to play with “rock” in all its meanings.

Have a wonderful weekend.

Share on Facebook

But if I can’t spend my weekend in the suburbs I go a little nuts.

Rose bushes, Chinese evergreen elm, the garden. I’ve lived in this house for 27 years, with only a short hiatus during the divorce, and I love my yard.

Could someone please write an ABCdarius of California-happy plants and gardening terms.? Acanthus, batis, cymbidium, dig.

But one feature of the garden has bothered me for some time. A pond. It was supposed to fend for itself, no pump, just the lovely natural system of plants, oxygen, and water. Maybe a little de-cholorination thrown in to combat suburban water treatment. Instead, raccoons ate my lilies, parrotweed took over, and a squirrel drowned herself in the waters. I pulled out the decomposed corpse. I can still conjur up nausea thinking of those shiny guts.

Besides, I worried about the neighborhood children mistakenly wandering through my gate, and accidents.

So the other weekend I had the gardeners fill the pond in. Just like that. Now it’s a space covered in the pavers that make up my paths. Eventually, it will gray. I’ll interplant some texture.

I worried that my kids would be sad. After all, this is their family house. They get very attached to specifics. But when I texted them the photo, my daughter said, “Beautiful! It was time.” My son told me that the pond hadn’t been part of his childhood. Who knew?

As mothers, we are responsible for the abstract home. Some fathers equally. But it’s abstract, this home, and therefore the constructed relationship of  symbol and ritual to reality shifts without warning. We can let go of more than we know. Just never the children themselves.

I’m planning another water feature. After all, Feng Shui says that I need one in the northern corner, not of stone but of metal. I’m imagining a rock base about 2 feet high, and a shallow copper basin. A birdbath, if you will. The sprinklers will fill it up, the sun will empty it, the copper will turn green. I welcome suggestions from all you tasteful resourceful folk.

This is a very good time of life.

Have a wonderful weekend everyone. May squirrels chatter happily in your trees.

Share on Facebook

Had an offsite work happy hour last night. As I got ready to exit our offices, someone asked one of the guys on my team, “Are you going?” “Oh,” he said, in a good-humored and deliberately over-hearable tone, “I’m just waiting for my boss to leave.”

I said at the same decibel level, “Your boss is just getting ready. Go on, go!’

And was suddenly filled with a swell of goodwill. It’s such a privilege to manage people.

But that’s not immediately apparent. It can take a while to develop an understanding of the nature of bosshood. When you’re first made a manager, it’s not unusual to worry about whether people will accept your authority. It’s not unusual to worry whether they will like you. It’s not unusual to miss the privilege part.

Then, over the years, you see that yes, people will do as you tell them to do. You see you have the right to admonish or even send to the exit those who will not. Over the years you also come to understand that it doesn’t really matter if your people like you. You understand that you’ve got a larger purpose than the personal, and that if you can set that purpose correctly, and align your team in the right direction, the results create their own momentum.

At that point you can step back, and use your extra capacity, that which is no longer being absorbed by the sheer getting-done-of-tasks, to help your people. To create a team space. To recognize, to coach. Not that come the rough times you won’t have to revert to barking out orders, just that you know what to do whenever there’s room for better.

Not too surprisingly,  for some of us managing may roughly resemble motherhood.

Consider. As a mother you generally reach that moment where you know what you’re doing. Where you’re clear you don’t have to be your kids’ friend, but you might make that choice. You trust you can get those little ones to eat plants one way or another, you can cantilever them into bed before 9pm – wearing clean pajamas mind you – and that you know your way to the emergency room. Broken bones mend.

Then you set your sights higher. And you begin to build. Maybe you choose toys that foster imagination rather than occupy it, maybe spend time outdoors in the sun and wind, always make sure to listen when asked for a pretend picnic.

I used to tell my kids, “Thanks for choosing us to be your parents. We’re lucky to have you.”

Any position of power means privilege, because generous power engages people’s trust. And trust, as you know, is sacred.

Have a wonderful weekend.

Share on Facebook

Welcome Mr. B! My brother and sister-in-law brought this little one into the world. You may remember their wedding, in May of 2011?

The families are over the moon.

I spent yesterday in the hospital. Mom, dad, and baby are all doing well. And I so thoroughly enjoyed my tour as Slightly Annoying But Helpful Village Elder I can’t tell you. Compensates for incipient jowls, protesting knees, and vocabulary decline, it does. After all, I’m pretty sure I know this baby business.

Don’t get me wrong. I haven’t been mother to a baby in 22 years. And child-rearing practices change. But muscle memory stands one in good stead, and somehow holding an infant recalls all sorts of events and knowledge. Most of all it feels wonderful to know this:

A project which begins with the universe ripping open its fabric to deliver life, becomes doable, even comfortable, over time.

How wonderful to construct something as complex as a human out of warm feet, a supported head, and patience for sucking. Congratulations Mr. P. and Ms. A! We are so very happy to have Mr. B. join the family and the world.

Share on Facebook

Hence my trusty black and white Chanel jacket.

Was it a wise choice? Surely there were debts to pay. Surely that money invested might have compounded. But I think yes.

1. Most of the bonus went to other family expenses.
2. The debt to my childhood affection for luxury was pretty steep back then.
3. The jacket has made me happy in the wearing.

This year I find myself again with a bonus, for which I am extremely grateful. I do not take these things for granted. I don’t know how, but my parents managed to bring their children up believing that we owe the world a good job, and that no rewards are ours by right.

So how to spend the bonus this year, 15 years older and wiser?

The decision still comes down to debts and generosity, and the interplay of these constructs. We ask, where does duty stop and the gift begin? Are they always in opposition? We ask, is all self-control and future-thinking good? All release and splurging on the moment evil? Few large questions are answered with the word, “All.”

I entertain the idea, as best I can, that some people find great joy in self-restraint for its own sake. Whether it’s an artifact of heritage, or hard-wiring around small motor precision, I don’t know, but I myself require some Dionysus.  Imagine the Geico pig in the backseat, shouting, “Whee!” Yeah. That.

So this year first I paid down a chunk of my home equity loan. Wait! Does Dionysus care about mortgages? The ability to remove anxiety about future living and financial security eventually becomes a source of joy rather than an obligation. I’m generously paying for future Lisa’s peace of mind.

A future, older Lisa, that I see more clearly every day.

But of course today’s Lisa wanted something too. A pair of turquoise earrings, from Barneys. The luxury wasn’t the item itself, rather it was allowing myself not to bother with a return when I realized they were small for the price. Spared myself a dutiful value for money calculation.

Then I emailed my kids. “Hey,” I said, “I’m good for a present. Something less than $500. Act now, this will end once I re-retire.” They got right on it. The boy child wanted this coat. I added a sky blue scarf. Dapper, no?

The girl child needs a new bag. I particularly liked this “Rider” bag, from Loeffler Randall. All the ladylike sass of Kate Spade sans show-off logo display. She’s considering.

Was it duty, on my part, giving presents to my children? No, although the parent-child relationship is arguably the most dutiful of all. Whenever I have enough it’s more fun to give, to my children or to other loved ones for that matter, than to myself.

Finally, I said to Significant Other, “Honey, I want to buy you a present.” He considered. His choice? That I pay down more of my HELOC. Now that’s love.

Generous duty is so much better than dutiful generosity. Debts repaid from the heart serve as gifts, even to oneself.

Have a wonderful weekend.

Share on Facebook

This year I’ve got an artificial tree, covered in colored lights and rainbow balls. Not my tradition; Significant Other’s. I got the tree at Walgreen’s, and carried it on the bus back to our city digs. An act of love, plain but not simple.

I am so happy to have found someone I care for enough to relinquish my High WASP aesthetic, no request needed.

Today I’ll set up a grown-in-the-dirt tree, white lit, for my children, most likely with my grandmother’s angel up top. Later next week luxuriate in holiday spirit with my family and kids. For the first time this year my kids are attending as adults, drawing into the Christmas giving for one present, while the young cousins get stuff from grandparents, aunts, and uncle alike.

This year I will see my children more clearly in their giving, rather than receiving. “I like to give my money away,” said my son, as we IMd the other day. However, I reserve the right to indulge in extra Mom presents. Of course.

Things just change in life, that’s how it works. Some people prefer the tried and true, the routine. I understand. We’re all different. But most any time I get melancholy I can startle myself into a tiny rapture by paying attention. I find my way forward most often via a conscious waiting for the sadness to pass through, and a parallel close observation of exactly what’s right there.

I find surprise. The click of existence. The recognition of privilege, in a larger sense.

Share on Facebook

When my daughter left for college, back in 2005, we packed her off with accoutrements. I cared that she lived in a space with comfort, which required a bedside lamp, a table, and rosy bed linens. I also gave her the rug my mother bought me in 1979 – Chinese wool, in desert-ish tones.

When my son left, in turn, I think he took only the blue and white striped duvet of his boyhood. Several perfectly good reasons. First, at 19, his home decor style was well-described as Clothes Make The Best Carpet, Don’t They? Second, he was sharing a very small room with a very large roommate. If one of them stood up, the other had to step aside. And finally, maybe, by this time we had divorced, and the orchestral symphony of care had quieted. Diminuendo.

So when he moved to Brooklyn I was ready. I sent him money to buy furniture, urged him to get a real bed in place of a mattress on the floor, chatted in text messages about this desk and that table. Of course, he ignored much of what I said. All is right with the world.

But I took the rug moment firmly in hand, via a Living Social deal. I bought it for him, under the condition that he share the purchase process with me. Ha! Mothers learn so many tricks over the years. He and I exchanged scads of emails, with links to our favorites. We reviewed this rug and that rug, some floral, some kilim, mostly in tones of blue. However, in the end, he settled on the one you see above.

As it turns out, I realize, it’s not unlike the one I gave his sister, given me in turn by my mother 35 years ago. At least five days out of every seven I make a wish that my children lived close by. Don’t worry punkins, I’m not saying that you need to come home right now. It’s just that everything about you is dear to me.

I wish all reading here a wonderful weekend.

Image: Rugs USA

Share on Facebook

When the kids were little, they belonged to me. As babies in utero, every last bit. As infants, more so than not. Then one day they grew up and belonged to themselves.

I’m on board with this growing up business, but it’s not without complexities.

The picture above is from a cupboard in the laundry room. We used it for years to tape up kid information. Ballet rehearsals, soccer schedules, snack day responsibilities, SAT test dates. All the stuff of modern upper-middle class American parenting. Of everything in this house, that cupboard alone has never been repainted. So the paper corners and old tape remain, like pottery shards, or Artifacts of the Ancient City of Accomplished Childhood.

And accomplished they were. Snow Queens, league championships, kudos and spotlights. All of which reflected on me – no matter how much real or polite humility I professed. You know exactly what I mean.

I’m still proud, now that they are grown, but differently so. They belong to themselves and they own their accomplishments. I no longer feel that their competence or achievements are indications that I am a good mother. At least not very much. I feel something more like happiness, for them because I love them. Nobody walks up to me in parking lots any more and says, “Your daughter is such a beautiful dancer,” or, “Your son writes like someone many years older than he is.” You know what I mean.

My children’s doings belong to them.

But there’s a tradeoff. I give them back their full light. I ask, in return, that I get to show up as myself.

We’re working that part out. They work at figuring out their adult selves, as they should, while I work at figuring out what it means to be a mom of grownups. I have no plans to become just a buddy. I figure I will always be the mother, and I welcome the role as much now as I always have. But I’m not the closet any more. Yes, I said closet. I’m not just there, opening and closing, making mom noises and mom gestures.

When they are little, you give them birth and sustenance and warmth and safety. They give you their fluffy heads, juicy wrist fat, and little chatter voices. Then maybe they give you prizes, in school, in sports, in diverse arenas of measurable achievement. When they grow, you’re going to have to reinvent the contract.

I suspect this didn’t use to be generally necessary, before birth control and modern medicine. For the most part, I don’t think we lived too far into the adulthood of our youngest child. I’ve read that women who did live on, potent but no longer caring for children, gave rise to the mythology of witches. I suppose I should start working on my magical powers. I may have to substitute reasoned advice for incantations, but perhaps I could wave lavender, or burn the gray-green lichen that grows on oaks in California hills.

Or else, all linguistic flourishes aside,  just figure out the rhythm of the new conversation. Which still mostly ends with, “Love you, honey.” “Love you too, Mom.”

Note: I just remembered that I need to give you this link, to the radio broadcast of my interview with Maureen Anderson at the Career Clinic. It will play tomorrow, Sunday, at 9pm Pacific. A snippet is up right now, here. I suppose that once one’s kids grow up, one has more liberty to speak freely.

Share on Facebook