Snapshots of gratitude

On Nov. 1 (Will’s first birthday! Oh, still reveling in all this. And yes, his full name when he comes home will be William Jiho—I neglected to mention that in my last post), I noticed that a few friends on Facebook were starting a daily gratitude post for each day in November. I liked that idea, but I didn’t want to update my Facebook status every day. So I decided to keep a list in a notebook.

Of course, my life changed on Nov. 10, and suddenly I was overflowing with so much gratitude I could hardly see straight. But still, I kept up with the little ritual, and I’m so glad I did. It’s a snapshot of a month—who knew it would be the month everything shifted so amazingly?—and although I tend to be a person who’s usually mindful of her good fortune, I still appreciated the exercise of choosing one thing each night to record.

There are a few recurring themes in my list: Will, of course, and friendship, running, and sickness (it wasn’t my healthiest month). Also beer, apparently. Here it is:

11/1: I’m grateful that three of my editors are getting extremely well deserved promotions.

11/2: Grateful that Stella has grown to be able to enjoy and savor her walks! Gone is the super-spooky shy dog; now it’s all sniffing every blade of grass and greeting people with a waggy tail.

11/3: Grateful that my cold is almost gone and I’m able to run a fast three-miler again.

11/4: For the brilliant red and yellow trees that I walk under on my way to the train each morning.

11/5: For friendships that are 16 years old and counting!

11/6: For the discovery of new music—in this case, Milo Greene and the Civil Wars.

11/7: For being able to afford a doctor appointment and sinus infection meds, no sweat.

11/8: For living in a city where I can enjoy cultural events like the Chicago Manual of Style’s 100^th anniversary (editorial geeks unite!).

11/9: Grateful for a good friend with a shared ethnic heritage.

11/10: For Jiho. A thousand times over, for Jiho. [Picture lots of little stars doodled around this one…]

11/11: For early Friday nights, cozy in bed with a book (preferably one from the Game of Thrones series).

11/12: For a sweet peaceful day spent largely with John: errands in the neighborhood (the notary!), Old Town School of Folk Music, drinks and dinner out in Lakeview, sharing a tender new knowledge of a little baby boy living across the world.

11/13: For my son, William Jiho. [This was the day we spoke with the pediatrician who reviewed Will’s files and made our final decision.]

11/14: For the sunshine when I walked to the post office to mail our acceptance package to the agency.

11/15: For the tears shed and sincere joy expressed by my friends when I share the news with them. Feeling overwhelmed with the blessings of friendship and not sure I deserve so much of it…

11/16: For beer, mussels, frites, and a good friend to share them with.

11/17: For a run when you just feel strong and good—even on a treadmill.

11/18: Grateful for a cozy evening at home: guitar, beer, pizza, movie. Him and me.

11/19: Lots to be thankful for today: Sleeping in, ballet class, brunch with friends, artists at the DIY craft fair, the online adoption community, an Italian dinner with John and our favorite bottle of Chianti (which we discovered in Rome!). Also, we’re lucky to have lovely neighbors!

11/20: Grateful for having cousins who are also good friends.

11/21: Thankful that I have the ability and talent to write—working on our first letter to Will’s foster family.

11/22: For having a husband who enjoys—and is good at—cooking.

11/23: For wonderful, supportive, thoughtful and kind coworkers.

11/24: For two beautiful Thanksgiving feasts, for two families that are growing, for all of my relatives who are so genuinely excited about Will.

11/25: For yearly traditions with Mom: Hobby Lobby and lunch!

11/26: For my parents-in-law. I want to be them when I’m older.

11/27: For the glow of indoor Christmas lights.

11/28: For being able to walk to so many restaurants and shops from our home.

11/29: For medicine and our easy access to it.

11/30: For 10 terrific years (today!) in the big, beautiful, brawling and never boring city of Chicago.

What a month.

Balance and turns

I danced ballet for six years, until I was 14 and didn’t want to anymore. I had taken classes several times a week, danced in Nutrackers and Coppelia and Giselle, in pointe shoes and tutus, with girls both mean and sweet. Some of those girls had stiff flappy arms and “feet like milquetoast,” as my larger-than-life teacher would say. Others got better and better until they were whipping out double pirouettes and leaping through solos, their svelte bodies completely under their command. I was in the middle, not bad but not the best. I had graceful arms and good feet, but not a remarkable amount of strength or precision. I wasn’t overweight, but I wasn’t the slenderest. Middling.

When I joined the company as an apprentice and graduated to dancing pointe, everything became harder. I couldn’t seem to keep up as well as I had before. The competition among the girls was more blatant. I started dreading class. I looked at my body in the floor-to-ceiling mirrors and was disappointed. I imagined doing other things after school. And I decided to stop.

It was a big decision for a 14-year-old, and I can still remember my mom standing in my bedroom doorway, motionless and stricken, as I told her the news. It was the right thing for me to do, and I didn’t regret it, but it closed the door on a big part of my life. I nudged it open once in awhile by dancing in a school play, or writing about my experiences in a college workshop, or attending Joffrey performances here in Chicago. But I never took another class until a few weeks ago.

I actually can’t remember now where I got the idea. I still love the art form, and I think I suddenly realized that I could be part of it in that physical way again—put on ballet shoes and practice tendues and developés, follow my hand with my eyes as I Iift it to first position. What did I have to lose? If I didn’t like dancing, I could just stop. So I looked for a low-key adult beginner class and found a well-regarded studio right in my neighborhood. I Googled whether you need to wear a bra with a leotard. (Seriously, I could not remember how I used to handle that. The answer for me: no.) I went to a dance shop and bought a leotard, footless tights, and canvas shoes. I had strange, angsty dreams. And then I showed up on a Saturday morning, and I danced ballet for an hour.

I’ve been meaning to write about this for the past few weeks, now that I’ve taken four classes. The surrealness is wearing off a bit. That first class was alternately amazing and conflicting and just beautifully strange. I could not believe how much my mind and body remembered. I could hear my old teacher’s voice in my head, guiding us through the steps. My feet could still point the way they always had, and my legs felt strong and sharp, my arms and hands graceful. My balance, though—good lord. You’d think my core was made of Jello. And could it be that at 35, my memory’s starting to fuzz around the edges? Or was it always this tough to memorize the combinations?

My classmates were mostly women, some younger and some older. Most of them had danced at a young age like me. One of the things I noticed right away was this beautiful open space where the judging used to be—we weren’t sizing each other up, dividing the good and the bad and the middling, bringing the politics of popularity into the mix. We were just spending our Saturday morning doing something that we enjoyed, getting some exercise, admiring and listening to our lithe, petite 50-something teacher who has obviously been a professional ballerina all her life.

So much is different. Instead of an actual piano or a scratchy record player, the music comes from an iPod. My hand that holds the barre has a wedding ring on it. My hair isn’t in a bun, studded with bobby pins and secured with a net; I need my mom for that, so a ponytail does the job. It feels unnatural to turn out my feet, to balance in a passé relevé. Have I mentioned the lack of balance?

So much is the same. I take an inordinate amount of pleasure in doing barre work, just like I always did. Thanks to running and strength training, I’m in decent shape, much as I was back when I was dancing several days a week. My grand battements look pretty darn good. I know how to hold my head, and I don’t sickle my feet. I think my body’s proportions are pretty much the same. Also, newsflash: It still takes a healthy dose of courage to watch yourself move around in a leotard and tights.

My body still doesn’t do what real dancers’ bodies should do. I still am not one of the best. And see, there’s the thing, one of the reasons I’m especially glad to be taking this class. I have always been a perfectionist, a child who abhorred coloring outside the lines, who became accustomed to getting A’s, who was a good writer, a group leader, someone who got the job, who got promoted. Who set goal times for races and then, almost always, achieved them.

The first winter that John and I were dating, he bought me a pair of ice skates so we could go skating together. I didn’t know how to skate. A few turns around the crowded rink, clutching an orange road cone for dear life while 10-year-olds soared past, turned me off completely. I didn’t feel like I could do it, and that embarrassed me greatly, and I put the ice skates away and never used them again.

Being a perfectionist is both a good and a bad thing, of course, and I’ve always felt bad about those skates. So for the past four Saturdays, as I’ve faced myself in the floor-to-ceiling mirror and realized I am not the best or thinnest dancer in the room, nor will I ever be, I’ve also told myself that that’s OK. I am not there to be the best and thinnest dancer in the room. I am not there to spin double pirouettes and be cast in the right parts. I am there because I love ballet, and I want to work my body, and it feels good to get in touch with that long-ago part of myself that danced these same steps.

If I can learn that, really learn that, along with balance and turns and combinations, I think this will be one of the best decisions I’ve yet to make for myself. My teacher says that balance can be strengthened simply by standing on one foot as you wait for the train. It can become second nature. I’m going to believe that’s true.

Wintervention

So, winter, we meet again. Here you are, with your salty sidewalks and broken snow shovel and thick, opaque layer of darkness, fully cloaking us before 5 p.m. Tax season has begun, and while John is at work until 9:30 p.m., I’m watching DVRed episodes of What Not to Wear and struggling not to eat eight pieces of dark chocolate while the dog stares at me reproachfully.

In the winter it is so dark in Chicago, so early.

I wrote about this a little last year, and this year I’m determined to not bemoan this season (um, despite the opening paragraph of this entry, I mean). I do not live in Antarctica. Just because it’s dark doesn’t mean I can’t go places and do things. And in this last winter before parenthood, I have a measure of freedom that won’t come again for a long, long time.

Hence, the Wintervention.

I’m putting together this to-do list to consult when I start looking at the sweatpants and the candy jar too often. When I feel sorry for myself because I miss the sunshine and the farmers’ market and long runs under green trees. To everything there is a season, even this one.

The list:

--Research baby gear: strollers, diapers, cribs, children’s books. (I just bought a copy of Baby Bargains to help get started.)
--Relax after work with a book without feeling vaguely guilty that I should be doing something more “productive.”
--Write a letter to my grandma.
--Go to the café around the corner and sit in the cozy warm light with The New Yorker and a chai.
--Work out five days per week, a mix of running and strength training/recumbent biking. Aim for running close to 15 miles a week. Run outside every weekend, no matter how cold it is—being outside in that quiet stillness along the lake is incredibly therapeutic.
--Read about attachment.
--Try cooking five new recipes (and relish the freedom of choosing ones that don’t have to appeal to both of us).
--Put my Italy photos and souvenirs in a scrapbook.
--Attend at least one literary reading.
--Plan a weekend getaway in New York City after tax season.
--Read about around-twelve-months-old children. Seriously, I do not know all that much about them.
--Collect ideas for decorating the nursery.
--Start a list of non-children-friendly restaurants to visit or revisit before we are three.
--Oh, hey! Write here on this site.
--When all else fails, start organizing the closets. We’ve been here just over a year but somehow, maddeningly, they already need it.

If winters are hard for you, how do you get through?