Ok, if you know me for five minutes, you know I am a dog person. Maybe more than a dog person, and more like a person totally- and-completely-OBSESSED-with-dogs person. After having dogs that weren’t properly trained, and which I had little interest in when I was growing up, I was someone who thought dog people were weird and puppies were overrated. Until. Until I agreed to let my kids have one five years ago. And through a series of kismet circumstances, got our boy Riley, MY MOST FAVORITE PERSON.
So, when I saw this unbearably sweet video, I couldn’t keep it to myself. This dog is mommying a whole litter of dogs that aren’t hers. Gives the expression “good dog,” a whole new meaning. Oh, the adorableness! Even if you don’t like dogs, you can see the humanity here, can’t you?
Truth is, dogs just get life in a way that we people struggle to. They really understand the important stuff–walking, running, playing, eating, sleeping, cuddling. Their total devotion to their owners is incomparable. If only my kids liked me as much as my dog does. Their unconditional ability to love, perfect. Grateful for starting my day with Nena the pitbull and her adopted brood. Woof!
Generally speaking, I am an all sun, all the time kind of girl. But today’s rain seems just right. It feels like a wet permission slip to stay in bed (although I can’t). It feels like it’s washing me clean of the deep exhaustion and heavy emotion of the past few weeks of the graduation-a-thon.
When I think of rain, what most comes to my mind is being at the Cape, in the cute little cottage we rented, and nagging my mom, practically to death, to please go to Hyannis or Provincetown, so I would not perish of boredom. But while the rain left me cursing the sun for taking a vacation day, I was also a little bit in love with the smell of a watery day on the ocean. I adored the feeling of walking the shore as the rain and wind smacked my face, the wet sand crawled in between my toes, and the sheets pouring down from the sky tried to ruin my tan (as if). But that smell, oh man, that SMELL, I sometimes, SOMEHOW, can smell it in Brookline on a rainy day, and it brings me back to those summers, that beach, and the powerful memories of some of the very best and most important times of my life.
My flowers are happy. And I don’t have to water, a major “get out of jail free” card. I can give the dog shorter walks. I can skip out on my work out walk. But I’m just trying to make the best of it, because let’s face it, rain is just not my thing. But I’m grateful for it today. It seems ok. Like a good day to have it. Like a way to start again.
Sometimes I think you need to step away from yourself and do big picture thinking. Yesterday’s graduation was really amazing. The weather, threatening to drown us, was absolute perfection, the speaker bright and inspiring, the music was exceptional. And of course, that damn “Pomp and Circumstance,” got to me, which it does every time. What is it about that song, that brings on the waterworks? You could literally watch puppies frolicking and cry a river if that song was on in the background.
Anyway, back to the big picture. I just want to say that I am so grateful for all that went right in Jake’s education so far. The teachers who loved and nurtured him, the friends who sustained him, the inner drive that spurred him on. From kindergarten to senior year, Jake’s education has been a stellar one.
And so there he was yesterday, picking up a piece of paper that sort of symbolizes that learning. Yes, it was one big photo op-athon, but what yesterday really means to me is “so far, so good.” Whatever part we played in getting him through to high school, is done. And I am basking in the results today. I am pondering the success of the whole process. I am putting my feet up, after all the festivities, and I am being proud of the boy. We will have more work to do, as he embarks on college, but for today, I am grateful for all he’s done, for all everybody has done to make yesterday happen.
In Santa Monica, on the trip that would decide his college choice, USC.
Jake graduates today. Here is a short excerpt from the letter I wrote him. It’s the Mommy List of the essential stuff I think is important. I told him to refer to it often, for best results.
1. You are loved. You are loved beyond reason and convention. You are adored and cherished and revered. Your family will always be there for you. Right there. We will always support your ideas and dreams and help you with your challenges. Our door is wide open 24/7. Come for coffee, come for money, come forever. We want you to take in all you can out there, but we also want you to know, you will always have a place that’s all yours with your family. We hope we will always be part of you, where you began, because you will always be part of us. But it’s not just your family who loves you, it’s also relatives and friends. Remember that, and allow that to sustain you when you’re feeling lonely, or doubtful of yourself. You are loved.
2. Remember that you are absurdly amazing! You possess everything you need to have an exceptional life, Jake. You are super smart and crazy handsome and beautifully sensitive, and divinely curious, plus, for bonus points, you’re warm and loving and when you walk into a room, it lights up like the freaking sun. You can do anything, be anything. You have all the requirements, you lucky boy.
3.Hard work pays off. No, really, it does. Here’s where the rubber meets the road. You have to work hard to get what you want. There’s no shortcut, no back door, no magician’s formula for success. You sometimes have to work harder than anyone else. You will never be sorry for working hard. I mean, don’t work so hard that you lose your joy, and you miss the smell of orange juice or the sea. But go hard if you want it. Even if you don’t get it, you’ll know you gave it every gosh darn thing you had. Sticking with it, pushing through–this is a major component of getting to the exact place you want to go. So, turn off the tv, don’t go out EVERY night, take a nap, but make it short, and WORK hard.
4. Separate what you have and how you look, from who you are. Don’t let your ego convince you that the external is what defines you. What defines you is how you conduct yourself, how you treat people, what you value, what you offer, and give back to the world.
5.Create relationships and Love Big. You’re already pretty good at this. But I think making relationships is the most important thing we can do in our lives. Meet people. All kinds. Everywhere. You never know when someone might become your best friend. You never know what you might learn. Deep connections are what sustain us best. Make relationships. A bunch of them. And while you will get your heart broken in love, go big. Love deeply and intensely. Let yourself go. Also, get a dog. There is nothing quite like the love of a good furry person, I mean puppy.
6. Stop and smell the….well, you know. Remember to be present. Try to be in the moment you’re in and not in the tomorrow you’re thinking about. Don’t wish away your life. Be in it, or you will miss the awesomosity of what’s smack in front of your face.
7. Be resilient. Things will not go your way. Disappointment is inevitable. Heartbreak, impossible to escape. Feel it, embrace it and then send it on it’s merry way. Get up bigger and stronger and go on back out there. You have done this a lot already. Keep it up. This is a crucial component of happiness.
8. Give back. Volunteer. Help. Give. There are many ways to do this, but do it. Do something you love and are good at, you’ll enjoy it, and it will most likely be how you can change the most lives.
9. Stay active. Take care of yourself. Run, jump, lift, pump. Eat well, but not so well that you miss any of the rich tastes of the world. But take care of your body, you’ll need it.
10. Find your passion and get a job in it. If you love what you do, you’ll never feel like you’re working, you’ll just feel like you’re playing but getting paid for doing it. Doing what you love is a great strategy for having a boatload of happiness.
11. Be grateful. Going down the path of what you don’t have, is like going the wrong way on the highway. It will not end well. But if you focus on what you do have, you’ll find you will always have something to be happy about. If you need help here, read the gratitude-a-thon!
There’s more to the letter, but the rest is private. And just for my boy!
I’ve been crazy emotional since the day I arrived. I have always been all about feelings. I have a history of laughing hard, crying harder and experiencing other people’s stuff in a deep and profound (and sometimes debilitating) way. Nobody can empathize with you, like me. I’m a “feeler.” This means I could not be a nurse, or a doctor, or a veterinarian, because I instead of being able to see how I was helping, I would just want to lay down and die from the feeling of watching someone else be in so much pain.
My feelings about things can overwhelm me in a Niagara Falls kind of way. Today is Jake’s SWS graduation. SWS stands for School within a School, and is a super cool program at the high school that he particpated in just this year. It’s self-governed, small and unusually amazing. On Sunday, the bigger graduation happens. I am like an emotional tornado. Don’t stand too close, or I will cry on you. Don’t say hello, or I will spring a hurricane of tears in your face. And while they are happy tears, they’re also sad tears, tears of time gone by and wonderment of how and where the little baby I gave birth to went (is he in like Sweden, still a bundle of adorableness)?
Anyway, I am grateful today for the experience of watching my child grow to be a high school senior, healthy and in tact. I am grateful for the awesome privilege it has been to watch another human being become. It is an extraordinary thing to see and feel. Even though, it comes with so many overwhelming highs and lows. I’m lucky to have had this, to have experienced this. And it would all be just amazing, if I could just stop crying.
To tell you HOW tired I was yesterday and the day before, would be to tell you why the grass is green, or the sky is blue (which possibly my husband the chemist MIGHT be able to tell you, but my answer would be along the lines of , “because.”)
What a gorgeous gang!Jake and Jessie. I’m a little partial. But they were kind of an awesome looking couple. Jessie totally gave Angelina a run for her money in that dress. She was movie star GORG!
I once again missed not just one post, but TWO, and I am chastising myself today. I apologize, dear readers. I beg you to forgive. I am a loser. But I do have an excuse. And I will share it and you will decide whether it’s a good one or a lame one, or whether I better get my shit together before you just find yourself another blog to read.
It all started 19 years ago. Ok, I won’t make it quite so long, but my two day exhaustion and ensuing inability to blog, did actually start almost two decades ago, when I had my son. This past weekend was the set-up for the AFTER THE PROM PARTY (ATPP), which is the school and town’s way of keeping kids from drinking and driving on a night that is one of the most dangerous of their lives. It’s a splashy, all night, all out, super fun bash, with awesome decorations, entertainment, like a DJ, a mechanical bull, a palm reader, tattoos, log rolling, an obstacle course, plus food, and music, and prizes and a kinda famous mind reader. As Jake said, “It was a total blast!” Anyway, I signed up to be one of the co-chairs of this thing, and I planned the decorations. It was a beach theme and it was freaking awesome. But starting on Saturday morning, in SWELTERING, SWEAT YOUR BOOTY OFF, DEBILITATINGLY STUPID HEAT, we created an outside entryway, and three gyms full of fun. Monday night topped it off, with an all-night chaperoning gig until 3:30. If you don’t know me well, I am a morning person (I am writing this at 5:23 and I am relatively perky), not a night person. At night, I am happily situated prone, on the couch or in my bed, watching good (or bad, I’m an equal opportunity girl) tv. I am sleeping, anywhere from 9-11. I am not evening person (although don’t count me out of any parties, believe me, I can rally myself for a night out, like nobody’s business). I came home all three days with blowfish feet, aching in places I no longer thought had a voice.
Yup, we built a real lighthouse, or I should say Ted and Phil did! It looked so real, I half expected the ocean to roll on up.Looking outward, this is what the kids arrived to.
But, oh, the party. It was just amazing. Four hundred kids all well behaved and grateful. So many of them came up to me and thanked me, which made the whole EXHAUSTING thing worth every swollen second of it. My friend Toni KILLED herself helping to create my vision. And I am actually not kidding, when I say that. To reach the ceiling, we had to jury rig a multi-ladder situation that Superman would have been afraid of. I will never be able to thank her enough. She is the best (and yes, you read right, she and I share the same name). I should also mention that she cut out 450 foam core fish. This, in an of itself, is a feat of dramatic achievement that should be recognized at the Academy Awards this year.
The fish! And the scene of Toni’s almost death. This was water paper, layered with this cool green textured paper and each fish, with a senior’s name on it, was hung on a hook. The kids got to take them home.a close-up!Another little part of the decorations. So hard to photograph the whole thing, because of all the angles. (Thanks, Dan, for the clouds!)3:15 a.m Eric Dittleman, mind reader extraordinaire comes on. He could have easily read my mind, which was saying, ” TAKE ME TO FUCKING BED, OR I’M GOING TO SHUT DOWN.”Me and my boy.
Anyway, the whole prom thing was great. It rained all day, and then like a big gosh darn MIRACLE, the sun appeared in time for prom pics! But man, am I bone tired! Graduation happens on Sunday, and my sister is coming from Miami, and brother-in-law and fam from Virginia, and we have parties and fun stuff all weekend. So, if I miss another post, you’ll know why. So grateful to have gotten to see my boy go to his senior prom and have fun! So grateful TO ALL THE PEOPLE WHO HELPED MAKE THE AFTER THE PROM PARTY A SAFE, AND SUPER AWESOME NIGHT.
Dr. Brian Weiss–dude believes we have past lives and stuff.
Ok, SO fucking AMAZING! I totally believe in the afterlife. I am deer in the headlights riveted by stories of people who die and come back. Here’s a totally cool link, featuring Oprah interviewing Dr. Brian Weiss (on her Super Soul Sunday show, which I absolutely LOVE), an Ivy League shrink, who talks about a patient he put under hypnosis, who tells him all sorts of stuff about two people he’d lost, convincing him that this here show is not all there is. He is all about past lives and practices past life regression therapy. Again, this is just so interesting to me. I mean, what’s a bigger question, than “where do we go, when die?”
A man a science has an experience that rocks his world.
I also read the mind blowing book Proof of Heaven last year, and watched Dr. Eben Alexander (he doesn’t have a website, so I just went with Wikipedia, but google this guy, there’s a lot of information on him) in every interview he did, who died and came back and describes his experience in a moving and fascinating way. This dude is a neurosurgeon and is completely sure we go someplace awesome after we die. Check out this link. It’s a little bit of his description narrated by Morgan Freeman.
I’m so grateful for these stories from medical people, who have studied the brain inside and out and truly believe we go somewhere after this. It makes me hopeful, and calmer about the people I know who have died, and you know, about all of our own eventual, well, endings. It’s a subject that I can never get enough of.
This photo was on Reddit with the caption “The moment he realized he was the middle child.” I know it’s a little sad, but mostly it’s hysterical. I guffawed pretty loudly when I saw it. One of those spontaneous laughs. I’m sure he’ll fare better than this picture. Little cutie pie!
*the gratitude-a-thon 