Tales from the hood

When my family and I made the decision 2 years ago to move from an affluent neighborhood in the suburbs to the heart of Central Sacramento, I knew there would be adjustments. Many of our friends and family had warned us about the area we chose, but the price was right and the house adorable. What could go wrong?
Well, many things. Many, many things could and did go wrong.

2010 was a rough year for our neighborhood. Our house was one of many that were robbed, and it took the entire block holding vigil to get the City & Police department to start enforcing the law on a particularly bad house. The home across from ours housed a degenerate who was prone to engaging in bare-knuckle street fighting with anyone walking by who dared give him the side-eye.
Thankfully, virtually all of the previous "problem" houses are now filled with families with young kids.

The grass is cut and the sidewalks are swept by myself and a nice man who doesn't say much more than "Good morning" every now and then. The street sweepers don't come to our neighborhood, it's up to us to clean up after the folks who use our quiet block as a thoroughfare between 2 major city streets, they leave behind discarded bags of cheetos and the like.
It's not their home, they don't mind the mess.

Many people who don't know any better will tell you they don't feel safe walking down my street.
They cringe when I tell them I ride my bike after 10pm across this city, through what they consider the ghetto, to the bustle of Midtown and back again. I have a light that flashes and no more than a detachable basket to carry what I might need on an evening out with a girlfriend.
I don't have pepper spray or a taser.

I send my son to the grocery store on the corner, and let the kids walk down to play at the Community Center with no escort, and am not afraid for them. Not at all.

This area is poor, it's true. People getting off the bus a block away might not have a problem coming right up to you to ask for change. There is a prostitute that gets free meals at the church and we all know she likes to be called Janet Jackson. There's Miss Tabatha, who may or may not be homeless, it's not the kind of thing you ask someone. She can be seen pushing a double stroller filled with a myriad of trinkets & fodder for the recycling center. She loves babies and won't pass by without stopping to ask you how you're feeling on this fine day.
Maybe these aren't the kind of people you want in your subdivision, and I suppose if I had to plan my perfect community, it wouldn't look exactly like this. But Oak Park is not what you think it is, it's what you want it to be.

It's home.

33

This Saturday, I will be 33.
So, here are my 33 resolutions for the upcoming year:

1. Grow my hair out a little. Between chin & shoulder length sounds good to me
2. Take a bicycle maintenance class
3. Wear more hats
4. Be less flaky
5. Spend more one on one time with each of my 4 kids
6. Take a dance class
7. Visit my family in my hometown way more often
8. Have a family picture taken
9. Build up my savings account
10. Go to a professional football game
11. Have people over for dinner
12. See live music once a month
13. Always have my nails painted
14. Remember to take movies back on time
15. Re-learn to drive stick-shift
16. Get that Sylvia Plath tattoo I've always wanted
17. Go to the DeYoung museum
18. Put the laundry away as soon as it's done
19. Go to a play
20. Have more picnics
21. Buy a real camera & learn still life photography
22. Take/teach my kids (and husband) to ride a horse
23. Learn to hit a baseball
24. Return phone calls & messages
25. Say no when I need to
26. Hike Mt. Tam again
27. See the Sundial bridge in Redding
28. Volunteer somewhere
29. Teach my teenager to drive
30. Lose 33 lbs
31. Take an all girl's trip
32. Write more
33. Watch a sunset from Muir beach with my family

I like the number 33, it has a nice ring to it. I think it's as good a time as any to get going on some simple life goals, don't you? :)

Time is of the essence

I do not run from aging.
I have waited rather impatiently for the feeling that I have officially entered into adulthood.
I long to know instantly which choices will catapult me forward in the direction of all-knowing and leave me with a sense of Universal understanding and rightness.
Yet, when I look into the mirror and see a face that is over 30, and a head with several strands of silver hidden by a careful part of the hair, I am surprised.

I am starting to get the drift that there is no magic awakening that occurs simply with age.
When will I get there, then, I wonder? If I get there at all.

Most days I feel like the decisions I make in raising my family are smart, and right, and good.
Some days I think my head is going to come exploding apart and the children will do no more than to stomp what is left of me into the meticulously cleaned laminate floor beneath their feet.
It is up to me to put my head back together and clean up the messes of mothering, and of life's many disasters and also, most importantly, life's celebrations.

When my mother was my age she seemed to have it all figured out, but I know she would say that is not true.  Maybe that is the trick- making it look like you know what you're doing when in all honesty you are scrambling through, doing the best you know how to do.
If that is the case, I have arrived.
I am here.

When I was bad

There are things that we do in life that we cannot take back, as much as we wish we were able to.  There are things that linger in my memory even after decades have passed and wounds have been healed. My wrongs never seem to right themselves in my mind.
They are as much a part of me as my own skin, which I wear for all to see.

By the age of 14, I was a drug addict.
By the age of 15, I was a victim of assault.
By the age of 16, I was a run-away.
By the age of 17, I was a mother.
By the age of 18, I was a wife.
By the age of 19, I was divorced.
By the age of 20, I was a mistress.
By the age of 21, I was an alcoholic.


I have lived through these things and more in my 31 years, and managed to come out whole. Slightly ulcerated in places but yes, still whole. I try my best to not let my mind linger on my former life. I cannot change my history and I cannot live with regret. The only thing I can do is move forward, doing better than I did when I was bad.

I am a wife again. I am a mother 4 times over. I am a friend. I am me again, only better.
I am new.

Sisterhood

"A sister is a gift to the heart, a friend to the spirit, a golden thread to the meaning of life."

 - Isadora James

(my younger sister Robin & I)

When I was growing up, I could not imagine ever having anything in common with my little sisters.  They were born a decade after I was, and I spent most of my youth being annoyed at the babysitting obligation that was bestowed upon me. But now we all have finally reached adulthood, and I am able to appreciate the amazing women my sisters have become.
It's such a blessing to have built-in friends who know all my secrets, all the good & all the bad that I have ever done, who don't need any explanations about my crazy family because they are part of it,and thus, a part of me.   


I think familial relationships are important, and the older I get the more I feel drawn to the women in my family. My mom, my aunts, my grandmothers. These women are all inspiring and amazing, with real life experiences that make them so much more than those unworthy titles.
I listen to the wisdom in their stories and the telling of them never ceases to move me.
I am catalyzed. I want to do more, and be more, for myself and my younger sisters and for my daughter. In a strange way, the more time I spend amongst these women, the closer I get to understanding who I really am.  I have never been the kind of person who was sure of anything, and I feel solid now. I think in the future I will look back on this as a very progressive time in my life. I think I have grown more in the last year than in the whole previous 29, and it feels amazing.