My husband and I went out to California a few weeks ago. We arrived at our hotel room delighted to discover one of his colleagues had been kind enough to leave us a welcome package replete with a lovely little book by Floriana Peterson entitled 111 Places in San Francisco That You Must Not Miss.
 
Which is where I discovered 826 Valencia. The brainchild of Dave Eggers and Ninive  Calegari, it’s a pirate storefront with cool loot up front and one-on-one tutoring programs for kids in the back. In the middle, the young author's work is for sale. Yes, you read that right...the same little folks being tutored go on to publish and sell their essays, poetry, and short stories.  I even picked up a book of essays about the joys and perils of technology--written by his peers--for my eldest. 

Loyal readers, please forgive me, it’s been too long since my last post. It’s not that I haven’t been thinking about you, or that I haven’t had a ga-zillion and one things to say to you, or that I don’t know how important consistency is to our relationship, I do.

Once upon a time when I was working for the VP of Advancement at Lehman College, my boss left an article she’d cut out of The Times on my desk. The headline was snazzy….something to the effect of, I’m paraphrasing loosely now, Women Can Have it All, if They’re Patient.

My impatient twenty-something self was like ah, c’mon, that shit again?

Patience, it is a virtue. Admittedly, one I had very little of before I had children but those pesky little critters come with unintended consequences don’t they? I think the most astounding compliment I got after I had babies, came from my parents. They said they’d never known me to be so patient. In fact, they didn’t think I had it in me.

With a new, and bigger phone, all my essentials no longer fit in the same little wristlet I’d been using.

It was last year. Spring was about to break when my boys and I were walking home from school.  The uneven sidewalks on City Island disappear completely in some spots. In others, they disintegrate into dirt or dust.

They’d wreak havoc on my shoes, if I let them. I generally walk in the street.

I was walking over the sewer when I dropped my keys.

“Noooooooooo!” I cried, hoping the chunky concoction of keys and rings–the big, bright-orange-red C of a keychain my husband had gifted me–would catch, and balance, on the grates.

But they went straight through.

Embarrassed by how guttural my scream had been, I reassured the boys I was o.k. We were o.k.

Wildly inconvenienced, but o.k.

Hearing the scream, my neighbor, Stephanie, turned around. Seeing my two kids and I still intact, she hazarded the next best guess.

“Keys?” she asked.

“Yep.”

“Call 311.”

I don’t watch much T.V. In fact, when my husband and I met, I didn’t own a T.V. Then he bought me one. Let’s just say it was kind of a package deal.

All these years later, I still don’t watch much T.V. Aside from a movie with family, or lately, in an attempt to help me manage some late night anxiety, Dominic will turn on Frasier re-runs. I’ve never been able to resist that show. All I have to do is see the white outline of the Seattle skyline begin to be drawn and I’m hooked.

It must have been Saturday night, we were watching Frasier, I was laughing out loud, it was good. Dominic changed the channel and Saturday Night Live was on. There was this hilarious skit about how Valentine’s Day has been appropriated in all these truly awkward ways. By people’s moms and dads was one example, by colleagues and business associates was another. They were all funny. I laughed some more. It was good. It was true. I thought of you.

Some trusted sources recommended I start the New Year resting, practicing radical self-care & compassion, and—thankfully, this one comes easy for me—reading. In past years, I might have resisted all but the reading part, guilted myself out of what’s best for me, or even scoffed at the thought.

But, I’m at the point in my writing journey where I can no longer deny what I know is true. Self-care and self compassion are essential to sharing my story with you. I’ve recently made a big breakthrough on my book and now that I know what it’s about, I’m committed to making massive progress toward its completion in 2019 (stay tuned).

Meanwhile, between reading client work–and skimming materials that might support it and them–and what I read for personal and professional growth, pleasure, and my book group’s selection of the month, I’ve probably got seven titles going at the moment.

In a post-script to a recent FB post marking the end of my first course-retreat launch, I wrote: This is the End of the Little Island I Call Home.

I meant it literally. I was down on the beach at end of the Island sitting in the sand.  I couldn’t do more in that moment than promise to write a blog post–as soon as I got some rest–sharing with you all I’d learned when I hadn’t sold enough spots to make walkyourtalk2018.com a go for 2018.

“Where can we see one of your talks, Clementina?” Two business-friends asked in unison.

We were all at a conference where I’d become known for helping people write talks. I’d seen these two gentlemen at the bar and had gone over to say hello. They complimented my work, shared some great feedback they’d heard about me, and then promptly put me on the spot.

“Mom, want me to teach you a Levitating Hand Trick?”

When my oldest was eight, he presented the question to me one Sunday morning. Finished with my second cup of coffee, I felt up for the challenge.

“Hold out your arm,” he instructed, getting right to work. He pushed down so gently that when he removed the pressure, nothing happened.

“Maybe it only works on kids,” he offered.

“I’m sure it works on adults too. Want to try again?”

We did.

Ten days before Christmas, my husband fell in love with a lab-hound in a pink rhinestone collar. I can’t blame him; she’s fetching. Her eyes are so intelligent, they remind me of Virginia Woolf’s.

I suppose I’m partly responsible; beyond our travel-work schedules, Dominic and I are terrible at syncing our calendars. Roughly two times a year, we double book; it’s annoying but not annoying enough for either of us to have remedied the situation yet.

“Forget you had a grandmother?” It’s what mine always said to me when I waited too long to call or stop by.

It wasn’t that I hadn’t been thinking about her, I had.

But I was a twenty something year old English professor and it was the end of the semester, which always landed me in scarcity around time. I wouldn’t even call to say hi or stop in and check on her like I normally did because I’d so much rather go over for what usually amounted to at least an hour, if not an entire afternoon.