(de)Composition

Here at the end of April in Brooklyn, each morning greets me with some new miracle.  Today, suddenly, dogwoods.  Pink and white, they open their square petals to the sky like plates on the hands of expert waiters bearing delicacies to celestial diners.  My mother used to recall lying with me on the grass in front of the post office, gazing up at the dogwoods.  (She later corrected my memory of her memory -- rewind, erase, insert cherry blossoms.)  In any case, a fleeting moment of me at three, hand in hand with my mother, bound by memory to every spring's bloom.

The discovery of a tulip opening in my planter this morning hits me with a wonder akin to that I felt when I first saw Duncan's ribs rippling in gray-blue ultrasonic water as the technician waved her magic wand over my pelvis.  What force compels these structures to take shape?  I cannot grasp their emergence in the flow of time.  If I had stayed up all night, flashlight trained on that tulip, would I have witnessed the precise moment its petals pushed their way into the world?  Would 24-hour ultrasound surveillance reveal the moment Duncan sprouted ribs?

Structure can fail, as Jordy and I painfully learned when we lost our first baby to a renal system anomaly discovered by ultrasound at 16 weeks.  Until then I'd never considered the possibility that this diligent construction, molecule by molecule, could go wrong.  Ever since I am filled with awe that it ever goes right.  Every March when daffodils surface through decaying leaves and rotting trash on the perimeter of Prospect Park, I feel a surge of gratitude for their epic conquest over the forces of entropy.

But I must give entropy its due.  Yesterday I mustered the courage to tackle the compost.  In one of my well-intentioned and totally unrealistic efforts to tred more lightly on the planet, several years ago (who's counting?) I asked my mother for an urban composter.  I had constructed a clothesline in the backyard and had considered starting a worm colony in the basement (at this Jordy drew the line). So I did some research, found a tidy little drum that would fit in the corner of our back yard, and set out on this new ecological adventure.  True, the compost bowl on the kitchen counter attracted flies; also true, the composter had something of a swampy aroma when you got close (not hard to do in a yard the size of a suburban master bath).  Minor prices to pay for saving the planet.

In my zeal I jammed every bit of green matter I clipped from the garden into the drum.  I turned the thing religiously for aeration; I added shredded newspaper; I avoided citrus and meats.  The kids enjoyed opening the hatch to spy on the colonies of bugs taking residence, then running away, noses pinched, screaming, "Ewwww!"  I was proud to carry on my mother's legacy at the environmental vanguard -- as a kid, I loved the rainbow sticker on the back window of our Ford station wagon that signified access to a recycling center, a obscure counter-culture in Greenwich, CT in the early '70s. My kids would take their care of Mother Earth to the next level.  What a good mother I must be!

By the end of the first summer, it was clear something had gone awry.  Much to my surprise, even the structure of decomposition can fail.  The English ivy vines I'd jammed in there were as intact as the tropical hardwoods they use for the boardwalk planks at Coney Island.  I was discouraged.  Winter was coming; I would leave it for next year.  But next year arrived, and the next.  Another baby came. I was busy.  The tangled vines mocked me whenever I dared open the hatch.  Eventually the composter became nothing more than a jungle-gym feature for the boys to climb, granting visual access over the fence to the neighbors' backyard and at least one seriously bloodied limb upon falling from its slippery top.  It turned out I had bought yet another giant hunk of plastic that would just end up clogging a landfill.

Yesterday (three? four? years later), I resolved to clear the thing out once and for all.  Maybe I'd assuage my guilt by offering it up on ParkSlopeParents.com to some other ambitious new parent eager to instill ecological consciousness in their offspring.  I suited up in gloves and glasses, readied a contractor bag, armed myself with a shovel, and lifted the hatch, prepared for ultimate putrescence. Lo and behold, the wonders of nature!  A few ivy vines were still discernable, and some egg shells, OK and some rubber bands and banana stickers, but the rest of this stuff looked remarkably like soil. Even more remarkable, there was no stench, in fact hardly any smell at all.  Clumps of various shades of brown made me ponder the coffee grinds after sleepless nights with new babies, carrot tops from farmers markets in summers past, and New York Times reports of the financial collapse, or perhaps Obama's triumph over Hillary Clinton in the primaries, deposited here long ago, now ready to replenish my flower beds.

Last night I had the rare chance to share a bedtime snuggle with Duncan; the younger brothers usually demand theirs first, and Duncan, who no longer even wants one most nights, easily concedes.  But the younger ones had passed out quickly after a day of vigorous play at the Botanic Garden with their Nana and Pappa and Vanderbilt playground.  I was about the leave the room when Duncan whispered,  "Can I have a snuggle?"  As I laid down beside his body, now not much shorter than my own, he said out of nowhere, "You know, Mom, we really don't have to worry about it, because there's nothing that gets broken that can't be fixed."  I pondered this a moment, unsure if we were talking about Legos, hearts, or something else.  What about when someone dies, I asked.  "It's actually OK, because their body just turns back into dirt, and then God just blows some more spirit into them, and they turn back into people."  He laughed. "So if you think about it, I just might be your great great great great great great grandfather!"  Who knows?  I agreed, remembering Reeve's comment last week: Upon leaving his friend Margot's house, Reeve stopped on the front porch, looked around a moment, and said, "I didn't think the future would be like this."

I had no idea the future would be like this seven years ago in Venice, California when our baby Duncan, sixteen months old, sang his first word, "Blue!"  I recognized the pitch; he'd learned it from the blue key on his little Leap Frog Learning Table, which had also aided his first independent steps by giving him solid support at just the right height.  We've been on a tear to clear out our basement for an over-due renovation where the forces of entropy have been hard at work:  Our stairs, which list to the north, sprout greenery in summer months; the waste stack for a toilet above is held together with silicone; and removal of the steel shelves with years of accumulated stuff has unearthed a crumbling foundation.  What to do with all that stuff?  Anything with life left in it -- light fixtures, Mason Jars, old books, the grill -- has gone to the street where, in the mysterious ecosystem of New York City, it walks off with people who can imagine uses for it.  But what to do with a grimy Leap Frog Learning Table that no longer sings "Blue!" or anything else, no matter how fresh the batteries?  Or the Fisher Price baby chair with rice cereal ground into its fabric from Reeve's first foray into solid food?  After several days on the stoop, no takers.  Time to let go.

After a gloriously sunny weekend, it's raining this Monday.  As Duncan and Reeve bounded down the stairs for the bus, I almost stopped them to say goodbye to their little table with its trombone-playing froggie and the baby chair with its silly bumble bees.  But they didn't notice them in the piles of garbage waiting at the curb.  I decided it wasn't my place to force my nostalgia on them.  After waving them off I walked Harpo, hoping his bowel's distress after ingesting one of Tucker's dirty diapers yesterday was resolving itself.  As we turned the corner toward home, I heard the roar of the garbage truck.  My heart seized with the thought that I must rescue the Leap Frog and the Bees, it was all a mistake, I wasn't ready after all.  But I held back, watching the powerful compactor of the truck crush the baby chair's little green aluminum tubes.  I let the tears go, ridiculous as I knew them to be.  And took solace as I looked back and realized it was the recycling truck that had claimed them, not garbage.  Perhaps God, or some factory somewhere, will blow a little spirit back into them, and someone drinking from a plastic soda bottle will wonder why they have the sudden urge to sing, "Blue!"

Stoller Butt Syndrome: Portal to Esoteric Wisdom

My friend Cindy listened kindly as we waited for the bus in front of Joe's Pizza.  She'd heard it before, I was sure.  I've lost track of whom I've told what.

"It started as pain in my left foot when I'd get out of bed in the morning, a sharp pressure, like my foot had turned into a grape while I slept, now being squished under my weight to near bursting."  The intensification had been gradual; over weeks, my subconscious had invented explanations that, by the time the pain crossed the threshold to consciousness, my better judgment couldn't refute:  It was a circulation issue, a hydraulic problem caused by my still-nursing infant, who often fell asleep across my arm, leaving it tingly in the morning.  I had had lots of aches and pains from bearing three children in my late 30s.  Annoying, but this too would pass.

Full disclosure:  I was also training for the New York Marathon, which would have been the first suspect for any normal person, but I would not then, or now, let running take the blame for what would be revealed as "plantar fasciitis" and much more.  My mother and I have been engaged in a years-running battle over the virtues v. evils of running.  I maintain, if I have to get bionic knees someday, as have my mother and her siblings (none of whom we runners), I'd rather run my way to the OR.  

But I was stubbornly ignoring whatever my feet were trying to tell me.  After admitting to myself that it got worse after long runs, so might not be a side-effect of night nursing, I started to investigate.  "Plantar fasciitis" came up early as a possible culprit, but my ignorant self confused it with plantar warts, which visual examination quickly disqualified.  A pre-med student once upon a time, I love the mystery of diagnosis, but I am also descended of stoic Yankees, with one strain of Christian Science mixed in, who milked cows through all kinds of undiagnosed pains without a whimper; plus I'd postponed running the NY marathon once already when I got pregnant with Tucker, so like hell was I going to miss it again; which is all to say, I was my own worst enemy.

It turns out the hip bone really is connected to the knee bone, and the knee bone really is connected to the... ankle bone, and so on.  Six months after the marathon, after which I'd stopped running all together to let it heal, the pain was not relenting at all.  If anything, it was getting worse.  I finally went to a Manhattan podiatrist who informed me that my other area of chronic pain -- namely, the underside of my butt -- could be related.  The butt pain intensified whenever I pushed the double stroller, i.e. 100 pounds of boy, metal, and yogurt-encrusted canvas, which I did for an average five miles a day at that time.  At this point in the story, my friend Cindy nods sympathetically and says, diplomatically, "You do have a very... athletic... way of pushing that stroller."  It's because I'm always late, I say, suddenly self-conscious of my stroller-pushing form (do I stick my butt out too far?  why hasn't anyone ever stopped me and let me know that I'm a spaz, or worse?).  Where was I when they taught new moms the right way to push a stroller?

It also turns out that, not only are all the parts connected, but they never forget all the bad things you've done to them, and when you reach a certain age, they feel entitled to remind you.  1983: Cold rainy field hockey practice --  pop, my hamstring. 1988:  The Stanford Dish, finals done, end of freshman year -- my friend Elizabeth and I stumble back to campus after two bottles of wine, now in pitch darkness, when rip, my ankle rolls over into a ditch.  1997: IT band pain from Big Sur marathon.   2004-Present: Pushing, hauling, heaving, nursing, twisting, crooking, lifting kids, strollers, bikes, groceries, knotweed, dogs, phones, etc. usually with another kid stashed on my left hip (need right for stirring the pot! answering the phone!).  2013:  Butt and foot pain metastasizes to right lower quad and left hip, with possible SI joint involvement (is that the popping sound in certain yoga postures?).   At last, I submitted to a chiropractor, who takes one look at me and pronounces my right leg shorter than my left.

What?  How many pediatricians should have detected this?  This would explain so many imbalances in my life.  Was this a genetic anomaly, or a development problem?  Had my right foot been gotten stuck somewhere in my mother's womb?  Would I need those special shoes with the extra platform on one side?  Dr. Safko cut me off.   You are like a car that came out of the factory perfectly aligned, he explained, but you've hit some bumps and potholes along the road and lost your alignment.  You can drive like that for years -- you're young, your body compensates -- until one day, out of nowhere, you have a blow-out.   

As I've stood in the breakdown lane waiting for roadside assistance these past months, other cars whizzing pitilessly past me, the vulnerability of my physical being has set in.  Our biologist friend, Harry, calls the 40s "the age of the crumblies."  Sigh.   I submitted to weekly chiropractic therapy this winter, involving electrification and excruciating massage (Dr. Safko's welcoming words: "This is not a spa").  I was encouraged when he declared, after three sessions, "Your alignement is great!  No leg discrepancies!" Until I injured something new while performing a therapeutic twist at home on my mat, and my hip, quad and butt started bickering again.  I was discouraged.   

But there is a silver lining to my ominous cloud.  My running friend Jimmy Moore, who ran until his death at 90, used to say pain is our bodies' way of talking to us, and we are wise to listen.  I found this profoundly true in child birth; the pain guided me to what I needed to do, and my body revealed its own stores of relief.  So why have I been I so resistent to listening now?   

Like most people, I find it hard to face time passing, to accept that my body no longer just heals by itself while I keep pushing it, to deal with the ways my life's structure wreaks low-grade havoc on my body, a structure I have felt powerless to change.  To add insult to my injuries, I've always found middle-aged people who can only talk about their aches and pains to be bores, and yet here I was (am), joining their ranks.  Hence poor Cindy, stuck at a bus stop listening to my tale (and tail) of woe, probably again.  Hence you poor people, reading this blog post!

But I decided to commit this tedious story to print paradoxically to let it go.  I don't want to forget the worthy lessons of this chapter, lest healing come and I be tempted to charge back into older bad habits; rather, I hope to strengthen some of these new, better habits so I don't have to keep thinking about them all the time (and can become an old person with a broader spectrum of interests!).  It turns out I am not powerless to change the structure of my life after all, but I have to start with my head.  I've been frustrated not to "find the fix," instead of realizing that the fix is a process rather than a destination.  From now on, some body part or other will always be chattering at me with information I don't want to hear, but if I listen instead of shutting it up, I'll come out better in the end.  Small changes make big differences.  I go to yoga first, then deal with household chores.  I don't pinch the cellphone in my neck while making dinner.  I sit crisscross apple sauce while watching Friday Night Lights, my hips slowly recovering lost mobility.  And I don't push the double stroller any more, for which my butt thanks me.  But now it is telling me to get off it, so I will.