The Work Shower

So this is what it's come to: the work shower.

I could blow the next 10 minutes telling you how I've been too busy to shower, much less pamper myself, but instead I will explain everything in three and a half words (because one is a contraction): I'm a mom.

And last week, I literally packed up my soap and razor (forgot the shaving cream, but that's the least of my problems) to bring to work. So I could shower. And shave. To save my marriage. And my dignity. No offense, peace-loving hippies. None taken, of course; you're peace-loving.

That was my idea of "me time." Who, me? I'd forgotten about her.

No time to shower this morning, but I'll squeeze it in between interviews. Awesome! I'll even bring my special Pangea Organics body wash. Awesomer!

I didn't even realize how truly pathetic I had become until I told a friend.

Me: Sorry I missed your text. I was showering.

Unsuspecting friend: Oh, are you at home today?

Me: No, I used the shower in the work bathroom.

Sympathetic friend: Ew, I'm sorry.

Me: Sorry? Oh, yeah, I mean, ew, yeah, gross.

Concerned friend: Is yours all dark and moldy, too?

Me: Of course it is.

Repulsed friend: Yeah. That's the very description of "work shower." They're one step below truck-stop shower and one tiny step above washing your feet in the Conoco toilet. I always wondered who used the work shower.

Me: Now you know: moms.

Maybe it was my confession, or my realization, or maybe it was actually true, but after my work shower, I felt dirtier than I felt before I stepped into that dark, moist, tile-covered cave just past the breast-pumping table. And I began to dream about other spa treatments that don't require a tetanus shot first.

Photo by Flickr user stevendepolo.

What happens when two artists create a human?

I don't know a thing about kids, but what my 18-month-old daughter does with a paper and pen seems weird to me.

First of all, she thinks Crayons and markers are stupid, and she demands a ballpoint pen (which is obviously an eyeball-poking hazard, but remember, I don't know anything about kids). Then she puts her face 1 inch from the paper and draws -- for like an hour or more, uninterrupted -- the tiniest, most intricate loops and swirls that I've ever seen. No scribbling. Just these hyperfocused hieroglyphics that are probably the key to the center of the Earth.

As a mom, I'd like to assume this means my kid is a savant whose incredible brain capacity future generations will study in awe -- and not a future serial killer, the line between which is terrifyingly fine.
But the truth is probably somewhere in between the two extremes, and she's probably just copying what she sees around the house.

As a geriatric Luddite at heart who doesn't "trust that gosh-darned modern technology," combined with my complete lack of any short-term memory whatsoever, I write everything down. The only way that I can remember to feed and water myself, much less do grown-up things like "keep my kid alive" and "wash my face," is to follow a stack of extensive to-do lists.
And my husband is an artist. He has covered nearly every inch of our house, his body, my body and the backs of all of my to-do lists with sketches and tattoos and doodles and masterpieces.

So as far as little Bettie Anne knows, the pen is an extension of the human hand. If I could read Baby, I bet I'd find she's making to-do lists about how she needs to draw more.

Either that, or she's doing long-hand calculus and physics equations. You know, just to spite her mathematically disabled parents. Rebelliousness also runs in the fam.

Here's a story problem for you: What kind of daughter do you get if you mix an artistic Cuban family with a carpenter dad who always brings his blueprints, sketches and wood tools home?

You get a jewelry genius, that's what.

Her name is Lorena Marañn, and she moved to Boulder from Miami last year. Marañn, 22, creates unique necklaces, bracelets, earrings and military-style shoulder pads (my favorite) out geometric-patterned hand-embroidered wearable art.

The bright colors are inspired by Cuban music, food and culture. The sharp patterns are inspired by her dad, who she says taught her about shapes and lines and how they can be manipulated.

Marañn Jewels (maranonjewels.com) are available online and in Fancy Tiger in Denver, and she's looking to offer her line in Boulder County soon.

Although each piece takes as long as several full days to even a month to hand-make, Marañn keeps the price point low, from $30 to $150.

"People have told me I'm underpricing my pieces because it takes so long, but I think that things like this should be available to everybody, because I don't come from a very wealthy family," she says.

Marañn taught herself how to do needlework after she lost her job and picked up a kit at a thrift store. She began selling her art on Etsy.com two years ago, but did well enough to start her own online store and pursue the passion full-time.

She admits her family -- "very humble, nonconformist, and a line of a lot of artists" -- played a big role in her growing into the artist she is today.

"They showed me that I could find happiness and a good life through art," she says

Link:
http://www.dailycamera.com/ci_18929691

Photo by Iman Woods Creative.

How dresses can be good for your mental health

My baby twirls.

Granted, it is a slow, wobbly circle that usually ends with her tumbling down and injuring her head. But it is clear that Bettie Anne has the Twirling Instinct.

That's what I focus on. Not the impossible fact that she's almost 1. Why is she growing up? I told her not to. She didn't listen. I think I need to ground her.

Rumor is she even has teeth in there, but I don't know how many. I don't want to know. Because big girls have teeth, and since she was just born yesterday, she can't be a big girl yet.

She walks. Like a mature homo sapiens -- all upright and stuff. We went shopping on Saturday, and she walked through the store and got lost and confused under a clothing rack. This is also very peculiar since she is only three days old.

I am going to have another talk with Bettie tonight and explain to her why she needs to stop getting all grown up. Eleven months and 21 days is sufficient. Good job. She can stop now. Thanks.

Don't get me wrong. I adore the little lady she has become, especially how she rubs her hands together like she is washing them, and how she added in the cheerleader-style spirit fingers to the hand's-up "touchdown" move that Dad taught her for the Superbowl. My heart melts when she rocks her baby-doll while barking like a dog (like a poodle-mommy hybrid), and how she helps me do the laundry by pulling every single item out of all of the drawers.

I proudly watch my baby beginning to make sense out of the machine that we call Earth, but I warn her not to make too much sense out of things, because the unexplainable and indefinable parts are the most interesting.

Any parent knows it's incredible watching your baby define her personality and interests and abilities. And in all practicality, dresses fall much more gorgeously when they aren't bunched up around an immobile infant's milk-logged neck. A two-legged human being means no more dress folds. It means my daughter can experience the magical, floating feeling of a skirt twirling around her legs -- one of our first encounters with creating beauty.

I remember shortly after her birth (the superlative encounter with creating beauty), I was stuck in ICU. I couldn't hold her because I had lost too much blood to move my arms, and I had a thick transfusion tube implanted in my jugular, so I couldn't move my head. Bettie wasn't supposed to be there with me because it was dangerous for a preemie. But a nurse sneaked her down and placed her on my chest.

I remember whispering stuff into her hairy little ears (because she was born with hair on her ears like a monkey), and I told her things that we would do together. Some day, we would go to the park and dance and sing and sit under an apple tree. I told Bettie about twirling and tried to explain its significance, like how it creates a 360-degree, ever-rotating perspective shift and is such a pure form of pleasure. You should make sure you twirl at least three times every day, otherwise you could lose your grip on unreality, I explained.

Now, my baby twirls. All on her own.

I wonder if she absorbed what I told her. Maybe she's trying to show me that we made it; all of the promises I made her are coming true.

We have so much to celebrate on this first birthday. I know that. Remind me again. No dress folds, no dress folds, no tears, silly mama.

I think I need to commit to an extra 21 twirls every day this month. Because my perspective seems to be stuck looking backward.

Photo by Iman Woods.

Attention: You can stop searching for beauty now

Photo by Iman Woods Creative

My relentless pursuit of beauty has kept me from showering for an embarrassing number of days now.

This isn't some statement of societal rebellion or a social experiment. I haven't had a moment to spare because I've been trying to write myself a love letter.

Not easy.

Turns out, my subconscious is addicted to lying to itself, insistent upon pretending that I am weak, broken, ugly and somehow not enough. And as it turns out, those aren't the ingredients for a very good love letter.

Women are weird. We desire at our deepest core to be considered beautiful. Yet we refuse to admit that we already are. We (choose to) identify with our pains and insecurities, while waiting for someone else to tell us that one thing that we need to hear in order to finally acknowledge our worth. We play the (silently resentful) martyr to look strong, we slice up our faces to look pretty, we compete with people who are nothing like us to look accomplished. We chisel away at who we are in an ironic attempt to feel whole.

What if -- and this is a bizarre shot in the dark here, so bear with me -- what if we told ourselves whatever it is that we are trying so desperately to wring out of the world? What if we wrote a love letter to ourselves, saying exactly what we need to hear?

Gasp. That would make too much sense.

An Erie woman is leading an effort to try to encourage other women to do just this. The Inner Beauty Project started after 30-year-old Iman Woods wrote a letter to herself to help cope with post-partum depression. The experience was so empowering that she launched a Web site (theinnerbeautyproject.com) and created a contest to try to encourage other women to write their own letters.

I met Woods, who is a photographer, when I was the editor of Women's Magazine. She introduced herself as a "girl in search of true beauty." Which is, incidentally, also my bio. Then, we both found out we were pregnant in the same week. And we both ended up with premature babies and post-partum depression.

If you meet certain people for a reason, God wasn't being very subtle with this one.

Now, Woods has launched a project based on the belief that "true beauty shines brightest in darkness," and my personal search for beauty has been focused down to one single point on the World Wide Web. I find myself reading and re-reading the letters that local women have written to themselves, as if they were written to me.

You have wrinkles now, your hair is getting gray, and your teeth are not as white as they used to be. Yet, you are more beautiful now than ever before. Did you hear me?
You are more beautiful now, than ever before.
Your beauty lies within your capacity for love, the courage, integrity and determination you show -- not the length of your eyelashes, or the size of your thighs. 


I find myself floored by the stories of strength, and then shocked that these amazing women would still have feelings of insecurity and inadequacy, even though I do it, too.

You need to stop beating yourself up over this. You couldn't have stopped it because you didn't know it was happening. She couldn't tell you, she was too small, just 12-weeks-old and he did his best to hide it. What you need to remember are the promises you made to Jasmine that day in the hospital, the day she died.
I find myself saddened by letter after letter from women saying they had never thought to do this for themselves, and that after so many years of fighting their own various battles, they could finally hear words that brought them some kind of peace.

All of our lives, women are sent one basic message: Self-criticism is the way to self-improvement. Deep down, we all know this isn't true, but the lesson runs deep and the pattern is difficult to break.

It can be broken, one woman at a time, one voice at a time. Each of us needs to stand up for the one person who we are most under obligation to protect. That person is ourselves. By learning to embrace who we are, recognize what we have accomplished, and know we can carve out our own futures, we can escape the viciousness of self-criticism and self-loathing.

Iman's Inner Beauty Project is celebration of not just what we can be, but who we already are.
And finally, even though my "love letter" might always be a work in progress, I have begun to hear my inner voice soothing my anxieties. It keeps telling me that I am strong, healed, beautiful and more than enough. And the craziest thing is: It's totally telling the truth. I might even start believing it, one of these days.

My voice also keeps telling me something else: That my hunt for beauty is over.

I guess I should add that to my love letter, and bcc Iman Woods.

Sometimes it's OK to be an adorable little nugget

My 16-month-old daughter is obsessed with a leopard-print satin scarf. She drapes is around her neck and tosses one end over her shoulder. She presses its softness against her cheek and holds it between her tiny fingertips.

She has preferences now.

The other day, Bettie Anne picked out red sparkly shoes, a pink floral-print sundress and, of course, the leopard-print scarf to wear to the park. The combo was risky, yet fashionably brilliant.

I wanted to say (while clapping and jumping), "Oh my goodness! Look at you, you adorable little nugget!"

Instead, I said something like, "Wow, Bettie. The choices you made display adventurous creativity, as well as respectable practicality; the scarf is an intelligent choice because, in addition to boasting a visually stimulating pattern, it will help protect your neck from UV rays. And well done on using multiple facets of your brain to achieve this level of self-expression. You are an intelligent and capable woman who is worthy of respect and so much greater than your physical beauty -- which is undeniable, yet only a fraction of your identity and value."

In response, she yelled "Hi!" and then ran off to pull the dog's hair.

Trying to raise a healthy daughter is like putting together a puzzle blind, with no hands, on the Mind Eraser roller coaster while the pieces keep falling away. Summed up in three words, it feels like: "Expert. Moron. Repeat."

According to ABC News, nearly half of 3- to 6-year-old girls worry about being fat. A recent column in the Huffington Post revealed that 25 percent of young American women would rather win "America's Next Top Model" than the Nobel Peace Prize.

"Teaching girls that their appearance is the first thing you notice tells them that looks are more important than anything," wrote author Lisa Bloom in the article. "It sets them up for dieting at age 5 and foundation at age 11 and boob jobs at 17 and Botox at 23."

Interesting theory. But it's not as simple as calling every little girl smart instead of cute.

I happen to think that beauty is not an evil or shallow thing. After all, wouldn't strong confidence in your individual beauty from day one help counteract society's confusing messages about dieting and plastic surgery?

The problem is our definition of "beauty" -- and calling a child beautiful if you think that beauty means conforming and disrespecting your body is sending the wrong message.

But if your baby girl knows that beauty is in the unpredictable way the clouds morph around a full moon, and in the way that the red canyon rocks reach toward the sun, and in the way her nose crinkles when she laughs -- in addition to the rituals of taking care of your skin and loving your body by filling it with healthy food that will fuel the day's adventures -- then damn straight, she is the most beautiful thing in the world. And damn straight, I'm going to tell her.

Little girls worry about being fat because their moms worry that they look fat. Not because anyone called a girl an adorable little nugget instead handing her a dictionary.

I think of the book, "Captivating: Unveiling the Mystery of a Woman's Soul," by John and Stasi Eldredge. About women, the book asserts: "We desire to possess a beauty that is worth pursuing, worth fighting for, a beauty that is core to who we truly are. We want beauty that can be seen; beauty that can be felt; beauty that affects others; a beauty all our own to unveil."

Strength in her own unique beauty. That is what I wish for my daughter. And that does not minimize or objectify her any more than it diminishes the ocean to admire its surging waves.

The next time Bettie picks out that satin scarf, I want to let her know, unapologetically, how beautiful it looks. Because Mama's Little Girl will always know that beauty is as deep as you let it be.

Although I'm not going to lie: I'll still probably slip in a little promotion for its UV protection factor. And maybe the word "facet," just to keep her vocabulary challenged. To prepare her for her Nobel Peace Prize speech some day.

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