December 2010.

Hi.

Guess what? I made it through an entire year of a project.

I say that with some disbelief. Okay, not some. A lot. A lot of disbelief. I know most of you understand. Most of us are typical creative types with a lot of good intentions and a lot of half finished projects lying around. Lots of ideas, very little follow through.

So I am pretty happy about this. Happy I have this record of our life. Happy to have inspired some of you to do the same.

I also have the support from the other five Whitneys (four really, but Mckenna says no to everything) to keep up with this project into 2011. The images came easy – it was the words that were hard for me at times. I am not sure if the words will continue in the same fashion, but I will have to see how it all plays out.

Thank you for being here this year, and for inspiring me to keep going.

In December, if you can believe it, the pox on our house CONTINUED. Oh yes it did. Our downstairs toilet had cracked and because we were unaware, it slowly leaked onto our wood floor. It must have been happening for months when we discovered the rotten wood behind the toilet. We had to have the floor in the bathroom replaced, and the toilet repaired. We all took turns with some pesky health problems that dampened a lot of our plans.

Jeff turned one of our problems into a surprise. I came home one day from running errands to find a brand new dishwasher had been installed while I was out. He had even put a red bow on it! An even bigger gift than the new dishwasher was not having to research or purchase it on my own time. He handled everything and it was exactly what I needed. That was when things started to turn around.

Because of everything that happened over the last few months, I wasn’t as prepared for Christmas. Mentally or in any other way. I decided that Bernard wasn’t going to be able to happen this year. I had to give myself a break somewhere. But oh, that was such a hard decision. I had made preparations but I didn’t have the energy to deal with it. We were still shopping the day before Christmas Eve, which is so totally not how I like to do things. We managed, even in a rush, to bring some meaning to Christmas Eve. Shane and Rachel came over and we made a steak and lobster feast, then stayed up late wrapping and playing Santa. I love that tradition, and I am so grateful to them for wanting to do it with us. I love love LOVE filling the stockings and deciding which things will be popping out of the top for them to see when they race downstairs, and what will be all the way down in the toe. Love designing how the presents will lay under the tree. Love that last moment before heading up to bed, when Jeff and I sit in cahoots and look at all that work, all that preparation, all that sweetness under the sparkly tree.

Christmas morning came bright and early as it always does. It was quiet and special, with Perry Como and Bing Crosby on the record player. A cup of hot milky coffee in my hands. Among other things, the boys got a new TV for their room, for video gaming. Mckenna got a new iPod and a footsie pajama that is pink polka dotted like Uniqua. Anna got cowboy boots and toys. Jeff and I have wanted to start a garden in the backyard and he had a bunch of supplies under the tree for me, including a compost bin. I love Christmas morning – I love the settling down of the hustle and bustle. We spent the rest of the day visiting family and at the end of the evening drove home in the rain. I felt like I was in a warm cocoon in my car. I didn’t really want to reach our destination and get the sleepy kids into bed. It would mean it was all over, for good. But we did and it was, and the next day we cleaned up.

On New Years Eve, when we took the above photos, we had some friends over. I made red and green enchiladas and Roquamole. Jeff created a shot list – his six drinks of the night. They included a buttery nipple, a scooby snack, a duck fart, a surfer on acid, a kamikaze, a screaming orgasm, and a 4th of July. Every hour from 6pm to midnight, the brave (or stupid) of us met in the kitchen for the “Shot Of The Hour”. Mckenna laughed every time someone said duck fart. If you say it to her today, she will still laugh. Brett and Billie brought the materials to tie dye, and we spent the 10 o clock hour at the kitchen table with the kids, rubber banding and mixing. We all made it to midnight and it was the first time the kids stayed up. The next morning I woke up to a mess and my first thought was that I was grateful to have it. My heart felt so full. It was just lovely to have everyone over. You know you had fun when you leave a mess behind.

This morning Jeff and I seemed to wake up needing to talk. We were lying in bed, legs intertwined, trying to keep our feet warm. We started talking about life. About what changes we wanted to make. Where we wanted to take our family, our health, our business, our time. We talked about how hard this year was for us, and how different it was from 2009. In 2009 we made huge leaps of progression. It was the year I began to understand where my depression came from, and what to do about it. It was the year we changed our focus as a family, back to each other. To being content. We each lost 40 pounds and I started my journey with making healthy food. We felt power in making those changes. We gained self respect. In 2009 our attitudes completely shifted and we grew as a family.

Looking back on 2010, it seems like a bit of a disappointment. Instead of progressing, we were really just holding on. Treading water. And in some ways regressing. We never let go of the rope completely, but a few times it was really close. I gained back 20 pounds of the forty that I lost, and have struggled to try and get back to where I was. In fact, I am still struggling. I look at the jeans that WERE falling off me – the jeans I can’t even button now – and I hate myself for getting here again. I know what I need to do to be successful at weight loss, but this year I just couldn’t do it.

Mckenna. Everything changed with her this year. She went from being a mentally and emotionally disabled child to a mentally and emotionally disabled teenager. This is a whole new ballgame. Her behavior isn’t “cute” anymore. It was easier when she was little. Her delays and lack of development still kind of fit in for her age and size. She was just a toddler for many many years. Now, she still acts like a toddler but has the body and the hormones of a 14 year old girl. There isn’t any more hiding from it, in my hopes and dreams. Now it just IS. Now, it is just very very real. The things I hoped might happen aren’t going to happen. I have had to make a lot of concessions this year. I have had to let a lot of my hopes and dreams for her die this year.

I guess this is me choosing to live my life based in reality instead of fantasy. I see reality now, I can’t really hide from it no matter how hard I try. No matter how much I want to.

But this year reality kicked my ass.

I am glad that I didn’t gain back all forty pounds. I am glad that I have my family and we are all alive and healthy. I am glad that although our home seemed to be falling apart, we have one. I am glad that we didn’t let go of the rope entirely and give up.

Most of all, I am glad for another chance.

I am going to take it.

xo

Tara

November.

This family image was taken in San Francisco right after ingesting a whole crab and bowls of clam chowder and pasta and long island’s and cherry cokes. I remember the light outside being soft pink. I was in love with that light, I wanted to eat it. We were walking, and I saw this building and the light on the windows, and I asked if we were feeling up to a self timer shot. We were.

Progress is being made in the front room. My plan for this space is to get all large pieces second hand. (Side note: Jeff would like me to stop using words like “space” and “piece”.) I don’t want to spend a lot of money. I LOVE the hunt and the thrill of the find. I want the character of something old and loved. I have been searching Craigslist since the summer for a sofa. I have discovered that I am a couch snob, okay? Also that I think couches are ugly. And that people on Craigslist lie, lie, lie. Ugh, what to do? I was about to give up, disheartened with the amount of couches listed as “beautiful vintage in great condition” only to click on the link to see “90′s floral Ethan Allen with matching curtains and a stain”. Newsflash: the 90′s are vintage you guys. And I have clicked on so many ugly couches you guys. (Suburban housewife problem.) I was moments away from shooting nasty, disgruntled emails off to those types of sellers when I came across the one. The. One. THE ONE. She was true vintage. Living with her second owner. The exact ugly green of my dreams. A sectional. The perfect dimensions for our oddly sized room. She also had a chair that came along with her. I saw her picture and I knew she was mine because my blood pressure spiked. I played it cool, knowing she would go fast at this price, knowing how slim the pickings are for this type of piece. They were asking $500, I got her for $250, delivered. She has some water damage, but that part goes against the wall. She has adorable little teak legs. She turns gold in the afternoon sun, and beckons to be lounged on. And a lot like my record player, I have become very attached.

Around the same time that she came home to me, friends of ours remodeled their living room. Friends whose living room housed the most perfect coffee table. I have literally coveted/had my eye on this coffee table for many years. I jokingly called dibs on it the last time I was at their house. Well, I got so lucky because I had just brought my new couch home when they emailed to let me know they had a new coffee table, and that I could come get the old one. It’s this big wooden square and it fits perfectly in the corner of the new couch. It warms up the room with it’s worn out rounded corners that aren’t supposed to be rounded.

There is still much to do in the front room: a book shelf or piano perhaps, art for the walls, rug, lighting, and something to fill up the awkward corner, but for now I am just so grateful to have made this progress. Record player, couch, coffee table. Trifecta of Tara happiness.

Of note: we took Drew to a high school preview day. Pick me up off the floor.

We had photo shoots, art classes, haircuts, guitar lessons, musical performances, and basketball camp.

We flew up to San Francisco for the thanksgiving break. It is becoming a tradition for us to go away together for Thanksgiving and I hope to be able to continue it. I have visions/daydreams of keeping up with it into the adulthood of our children, and meeting everyone in exotic and interesting locations every year. Friends, girlfriends, boyfriends, wives, grandchildren. Who knows? I think traveling makes Thanksgiving even more cool than it already is. I did miss smelling/eating turkey and stuffing though, so when we got back into town I made my own, for the very first time. I was hoping to be at least 50 before having to do my own bird, but now that I’ve done it I don’t know what I was afraid of. Actually I do know what I was afraid of, so Jeff cleaned the bird for me. I made my mom’s stuffing recipe, mashed potatoes, green beans, cranberries. The six of us had the most cozy day, watching old movies downstairs as the oven chugged. (Miracle on 34th street and the original Superman were a couple of the ones we picked.) One of my memories will be me in the kitchen with an apron on over my pajamas, my hair tied on top of my head in a knot. Another one will be of Jeff across the table, candles flickering, smiling at me. This day was a treasure.

The pox continued. The boys broke Jeff’s $100 headphones. The smoke detectors all started chirping at once. My back molar cracked into pieces during the previews for Tangled, while eating popcorn, and the dentist almost had to pull my tooth. The kids bathroom light and fan stopped working. I ran over, and broke, a sprinkler in our front yard with my car. Our car’s programmed gate/garage buttons stopped opening both of those things. Jeff’s Prius keys died. The back burners on my stove decided to stop lighting. Nathan’s violin strings snapped. Mckenna broke the record player in record time, only a few weeks into owning it. Everything else I could handle with some kind of patience, but that felt like a final straw. I felt it’s absence so deeply for so many days that Jeff convinced me to go buy another one right away instead of waiting for the original to get fixed and shipped back to us in a month. (Once the original is fixed we will be giving one of them away. Or using it as a backup, which may be a smart idea with Mckenna the wrecking ball around.) Where is that bubble wrap?

On November 5th, Jeff and I tallied up fifteen years of marriage. Eighteen years as a couple. Neither of us are perfect, but oh how he charms me. I have known him since we were children, and it is a shock to realize it has been eighteen years. It seems like yesterday and like an eternity ago all at once. How can we have gone through everything we have and yet wasn’t it just yesterday that we were snogging in his Honda Prelude in my parent’s driveway? I feel young and I feel old. Sometimes I look at him and I am overcome with the knowledge that this is all temporary and yet I depend on it so much. This love that I have, this life that I love is always changing. Right now it feels very fragile to me. I have so much to lose.

Holding on with both hands,

xo

Tara

(note from me: I have had the photos for October and November but not the words, until now. These are late, but that’ll do just fine.)

October.

Here we are, on Halloween.

The boys: ketchup and mustard
Anna: afortunetellergypsywithabeautymark is how she would explain it allinonebreath.
Mckenna: Annie
Jeff and I: Mckenna and Uniqua

We gathered together on our back patio for a family photo before Drew headed off to trick or treat with his friends. It was the first time one of the kids left us for Halloween. When he asked me if it was okay, there was a part of me that wanted to say no. To make him stay with us. I’m a mama duck. I like my ducklings nearby, somewhat underfoot. But there was a bigger part of me that knew it was time, knew this is what happens, knew that it was just the beginning. I squeezed him in a hug before he left and joined the edge of the cliff all the other mothers of teenagers stand on, just waiting for their people to come home safe.

Drew turned 13 this month. He has crossed a threshold. I don’t see it in him quite yet though. I know I will soon.

I turned 34 this month. I didn’t want anything for my birthday, didn’t want to do anything special. I actually just wanted to skip it. I decided that all I wanted was to have a day where I could pretend to be a piece of furniture. I wanted my pillow to be the person who needed me most. So I spent the day lounging in bed. Snacks and yummy food were brought up to me. Kids flowed in and out of the room to see what I was up to. I read and watched TV and talked. I was serenaded by Drew. I had visitors who brought me flowers and stayed for drinks. Towards the end of the afternoon, Jeff plopped a box on my lap. I knew he had been up to something, but had no idea what. It was a record player. I have talked about wanting one for this house since we moved in seven years ago. We have a built in bookshelf under the stairs that I always thought a record player would be perfect for. I was right – it is perfect there. I have grown to love it so, so much – to be almost infatuated with it, because it adds something to our house that I didn’t know was missing. It makes the experience of listening to music something new for me. Slows things down, makes me stop and sit. You can find me many afternoons, listening to a record, staring at the sunlight on the couch as it moves up the cushions and onto the wall.

My first albums were also given to me and were: Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros, Mumford & Sons, and A Perry Como Christmas.

It feels like we keep getting hit with one thing after another. Weird things that pop up out of the blue. Our roof sprung a leak and the dishwasher is on it’s last leg. Our toaster stopped toasting. The hard drive on my old and beloved classic iPod bit the dust. I loved that thing. It was practically vintage and as heavy as a brick. The kids keep dropping favorite glasses and bowls and vases. All of this equals suburban housewife problems and nothing too terrible, but I am at the point where I don’t know whether to laugh or cry. After almost losing my computer in September I feel like there must be some kind of pox on my house. I am starting to wonder what’s around the corner and if I need to pack my children in bubble wrap. It’s like the plot of a punchy sitcom around here, without the laugh track. One knee slapping mishap after another!

While in one way the house seems to be falling apart, in another way it is being put back together. I have actually been hanging photos on the walls. I have been re-arranging rooms. I have been cleaning things out. The joy for doing those kinds of things is coming back to me. (I honestly think it has something to do with the record player – that thing woke me up from a long slumber.) For many years I have not paid very much attention to the old dear, and instead put blinders on and piled my ideas in the garage. I feel awakened. I crave change. I care. I pore over design blogs. I obsessively check Craigslist. I have big plans. The front room of our house has been mostly a catch-all for the time we have lived here. A rather large walkway. I am on the hunt and I have a few leads. I hope, (oh I hope), that they will pan out so we can have a cooler, more usable space.

From the cliff with love,

xo

Tara

Truth: I forgot to take a family photo in September. I am so irritated with myself for forgetting, but I rolled with it and asked Anna to draw a photo of us instead. I like how she has all of our arms around each other. And that she put us all in our favorite colors.

September.

We started school and I had to let go of my precious, precious freedom. I had such a hard transition this year. I think it is because of the shift I have talked about and written about that took place inside of me this summer. I just became so content. Content in what I have. Content with what I don’t. Content in what I do. Content to just be together, not doing much of anything. I was afraid a big change might mess things up. Content is a very good feeling. It is better than happiness in my opinion. Happiness is too much expectation, too hard to keep up, too much of a let down when you can’t. Content feels more real to me, more true. Whether sad or happy, you can be content.

Before school started we had a terrific visit with the Falconbridges before their move to New England. Their rambling family of five squeezed into our tiny house putting our capacity at full to the brim. Ivy and Anna came together like no time had passed. Yindi fell in love with the boys, and wanted to spend all her time with them. Banjo whined his way into my heart.

The unthinkable happened. My computer died and my world came crashing to a halt. In the midst of fixing it, I spent ten hours at the Apple store in one day, (oh how my butt hated those genius bar stools after ten hours) making sure everything was backed up properly. Ten hours! I was sick with nerves for weeks. I actually physically mourned the loss of my old computer. The whole process took about three weeks from break to rebuild. I was lucky that everything was safe.

I started noticing over the last few months that Anna was squinting while watching TV and holding books very close to her face. I made her an appointment. Sure enough, the kid gots my eyeballs. She picked out the cutest pair of glasses all on her own. Black with pink arms and tiny golden padlocks as the hinge. My memory of my first pair of glasses is so vivid. I was in the third grade. I remember looking up with my eyes feeling all weird with that new prescription pulling sensation, and really seeing trees for the first time. Realizing they weren’t just big green blobs. They actually had tiny individual leaves on each branch, and I could see them swaying in the breeze. Anna had a similar experience, and after it happened I told her about mine. As we got out of the car to walk into the house with her new specs on, she said, “Oh! So THAT’S what grass looks like! I can see all the little pieces poking up! Before it was just all smooth and green!”

Mr. Nathan has been drawing, drawing, drawing. Drawing Looney Tunes characters, comics, and doodles. They are all over his notebook. He is growing so tall. Almost as tall as Drew, and two years younger. I am going to have huge men on my hands soon. He wanted to chop his hair to just under his ears, and the new cut is so perfect for him, I can’t believe we didn’t do it ages ago. He is such a quiet, easy going boy, that he can easily skate by day after day in my peripheral vision. I don’t want that. I want to force myself out of that complacency to give him the attention he deserves from me. To let him know I see him. To make sure he feels my presence in his life, and that he is just as important to me as his loud mouth brother and sisters.

Mckenna got a cold one day and was able to stay home from school. The next few days when I woke her up she had a toy thermometer in her mouth, and she looked up at me with fake sick sad eyes, saying, “Mommmm, I am sickkkkk. I need to stay home from school today.” Such a sneaky clever girl, that one.

Drew is attempting to get straight A’s, on his own prompting. He wants to get into a local performing arts high school, and the good grades can only help. (HIGH SCHOOL??!?!) Him going to a performing arts high school is him living out my own dreams for myself at that age, only I never told him what they were. The kid gots my dreams.

After two months of throwing dinner’s together randomly and eating out a lot, we got back into our dinner routine. And something happened that shocked me. For so long, making dinner has been so overwhelming to me. Such a drag my feet obligation. One more thing on my list that I just did.not.want.to.do. And a lot of time failed at. Oh the list making! Oh the shopping and loading and unloading and reloading! Oh the clean up! I hated it, dreaded it, forced myself to do it everyday because I knew my family needed it. Taking a break made me dread it even more, so it was hard to start up again. But something else has shifted. I now look forward to that time of day. The TV gets turned off, the kids do homework on the couch. We turn the station to Coffeehouse Acoustic on our satellite. Anna puts on her roller skates and zips around the kitchen on the wood floor helping me. Taking peeled potatoes from table to pan. Tossing onion skins. Stirring. Measuring spices. Nathan pops his head in with his throaty little voice asking if I need any help. It makes my heart clench each time he does. They are under no obligation to help me, but they want to. It is precious time spent together. Mckenna gets some much needed time upstairs alone. Drew pops his headphones in and listens to his own music as he does homework and sometimes sings aloud in his cracking voice.

In doing this, I am fulfilling a real need for my family, and thus I am fulfilling a real need for myself. My purpose for doing it has changed. It is no longer an obligation, something I have to do. It has turned into something I NEED to do because it makes me feel complete. It is something that fulfills me in a way I never imagined it could. It gives me energy instead of depletes it. It has moved from an obligation to a delight.

I got help with it, though. I saw a gap in my thinking and I filled it with someone else. My sister Alisha now does my grocery shopping. I used to have such a mental block on grocery shopping. I could make the list. I could cook. I could clean up. But grocery shopping put it all over the edge for me. So I fixed that.

She has started helping us every week. She is in her last year of college. Locally, this time. Lucky for me. She needs the money and the flexible schedule and we need the help. She has basically become an assistant to me, of sorts. She does the sorts of things that I don’t want to do, or things I do everyday that I need a break from. Like grocery shop, run to the post office, sweep, pick up kids from school, clean up dinner dishes, go with us to the library to follow Mckenna around so I can focus on the other kids, make returns, get new light bulbs for the garage fridge at Home Depot, stay home with the kids so I can shoot, or go on a date. She has helped us cross many things off of our to do list. The kids love having her around. I love having her around. I am lucky to have the support from someone I trust so much. It is a win win situation.

The month of September went fast, as they are all seeming to do nowadays. With the routine of school, the days slip by seemingly identical and boring. But like always, I want to pay closer attention. I want to see the undercurrents. I want to be present. I want to see things as they really are.

I want to see the blades of grass. I want to see the leaves.

xo

Tara

This family image was taken by Maile Wilson on 8/31. Posted about here. This is probably my favorite family image from our time with her, because I just love how Jeff is looking at us. And how candid it is. And how brown we all are. And my hair looks pretty rad, which is always nice. This photo wraps us up pretty nicely, even Mckenna – slightly on the outside but happier there, away from our noise.

So, August.

I am so late to class for August.

After an emotional/hard/draining July, August came quiet and thoughtful.

You really have to go through pain before you can move into a new phase, a new place in your head or your heart. So often I am scared of that pain, afraid it will overwhelm me – ruin my life or my day. I hide from it, avoid it, make poor choices in order to stay numb to it. When I do that, the pain just takes hold. It moves in like a wasp’s nest, constantly buzzing about my head. Something you know you have to deal with, but are afraid to because you don’t want to get stung. I am learning more and more that accepting those feelings and letting myself feel them is the way I want to go.

When you give yourself permission to feel what you feel, it is giving yourself permission to be who you really are. There is a peace in that, and a sincerity that feeds you.

It is the best way that I know to take care of myself.

A lot of the pain I was in had to do with Mckenna. A lot of the pain had to do with the kids growing up. A lot of the pain was personal. I felt it. I got through it. I wanted something more.

This process has changed the inside of me. And I like it.

I have realized how completely in charge I am of how my life works. You always kind of know this, I mean, no one is cooking dinner and editing photos but me. But you also kind of think that someone else is going to come along and take care of things for you. Our core need is to be taken care of. For the first time, I truly feel in charge. Like an adult. I can do whatever I want, I can make my life whatever I want it to be. I am fiercely protective of how I spend my time. I want most to spend it with the people who live in my house. I am realizing I don’t have to live my life like everyone else, just because it’s “what you do”. Because of ‘shoulds’ or ideas that no one even questions. Most people don’t even understand why they believe what they believe. It is just what they do, what their parents did, what their neighbors do as well. They don’t want to be challenged, they just keep plodding along. I want to learn and understand about the choices I make. I want to learn and understand about my children. I want to learn and understand more about the world.

But back to the point. August. August was welcomed. In August we settled into the routine of Summer and enjoyed every last second we had left. I feel like I really got to live like the mom I want to be. I took the last two weeks of it off, and spent every moment that I could with the kids and with Jeff. The boys enjoyed surf camp. We enjoyed the beach. We spent time with family, and with friends near and far. My sister gave me massages. We lazed around the house in pajamas. We took many trips to the library. We found a new sushi place. We finished the Lord of the Rings trilogy. We went to the pool at night. We debated what we would name our goldfish, if we ever got another one. We were peer pressured by the kids into buying a furry animal, but we said no. We used up our Wild Rivers passes. These kids love the wave pool. We went on dates with friends. We also Got Stuff Done, like eye exams and immunizations and cleaning up the garage. Anna now wears glasses. Drew only needs his for school. Jeff can now park in the garage. We made decisions about Mckenna, who is doing really well. We hired more help. We dreaded school starting again.

We are refining our life. We are making it better.

Bring on the homework.

xo

Tara