The Santa Lie

It occurred to me this Christmas morning in China - as I watched Manika inspect the cookie crumbed plate and empty cup of milk she left out for Santa - that it seems fundamentally wrong to celebrate the birth of a diety by lying straight up to the innocent. Is it just cultural hypocrisy or is the lie forgiven because we are giving the gift of magic?

The question entered my head pretty late into the holiday season – Wednesday night to be exact – primarily because in China, there is no conflict. The holiday has been adopted in its basest form (as has Halloween and Valentines’ Day)– an opportunity for consumerism. In Carrefour (China’s Walmart) Christmas lights weren’t even put out for sale until the week before. The magical sentiment that we’re so accustomed to feeling in the West (right after Halloween) hasn’t been imported at all. It is all no-nonsense practicality. Glitzy trees. Imported Christmas music. Starbucks holiday lattes. A slight increase in domestic sales of kids’ things.

I’d like to be able to introduce what happened next with an “as a result” except that would sort of be stretching the truth. China made it easy to put this debate out of my mind, but I can’t say it was the main cause of my avoidance. So I’ll just say, subsequently, I started to wrap gifts on Wednesday night and realized that my discomfort with the lie had led “Santa” to buy poor Manika nothing.

Yep, nothing.

I stared at the gifts for friends’ kids, the sad small gifts from “Mom and Dad” to Manika. But there was no big box, no magical surprise, no jaw dropping toy to unwrap. And so I had to finally make a decision. To participate or reject?

I put in a panicked call to my friend just to get some assurance that I wasn’t a terrible mom. She’s American. I was. Then the image of Manika waking up on Christmas morning, opening up a box of books – I bought her books – entered my head. I imagined the eyebrow furrow, the sad explanations to her teacher “I don’t know why? Santa brought me nothing.” I couldn’t take it.

The next morning, I arranged a discrete play date with the same above mentioned friend’s daughter so that we could make a Toys R Us run while my husband watched the kids. Once I crossed into the hallowed plastic kingdom of toys, I kicked into American Christmas shopper autopilot. My mind zeroed in on the girl’s section, self edited out the too young and too old and too silly gifts. I dumped huge boxes in my bag. Musical toy. Check. Painting toy. Check. Playdough toy. Check. Having no other Americans to help set the standards for me, I kept the number of gifts at the kids’ ages – Manika got 3 gifts, Avik got 1. Toys R Us wrapped everything for me so that in thirty minutes flat, my responsibility to Santa was gone.

But intead of feeling relief, I had that same mixed tightness in my stomach from the day before. That night, I simply had to ask my usually hyper-organized self, “What is going on?”

The question has even more context when dropped into the backlight of my past few weeks. I must say, they’ve been personally magical. They kicked off with a visit from dear old friends from England and then rose to good sales in my children’s book, the launching of three new projects, a number of successfully taught classes, a few freelance article assignments and a renting of a cool little writing space in Puxi. Much of this I owe purely to God’s grace, and much I owe to Him blessing my incessantly obsessively efforts. It has been a great month.

But instead of feeling euphorically buzzed by the whole thing, confident that the page in my life has turned, that I’m deep in a new phase, I find myself feeling tight and fearful. I mean, isn’t life supposed to be more downs then ups, more challenges than easy coasting? Isn’t it all supposed to be hard? What’s going on? Why’s it getting easier? Where’s the candid camera? The piece I’m missing? The sharp left turn idea obliterating my novel? The culture police clamping down on kids’ books on eating?

Upon reflection, I realized I drug that bahumbug into the Christmas buying season, so that my fear of magic in my own life manifested itself into a fear of inserting false beliefs in it into Manika’s life. The night of all this thinking, I chastised myself, reminded myself to believe that life was full of good things as well, that a string of good luck didn’t need to be horrifically truncated. But the realization did nothing. While I set the cookies and milk out with Manika on Christmas Eve, I still felt about as bad as I did sneaking out of the house at thirteen, lying to my parents. This morning, it took all my effort not to say, “Manika, did you like the presents I got you?”

Church did not help. Manika was front and center in song singing, smiling away at Joy to the World. I kept looking in her face for some way to reason my deception away, kept waiting for her own extreme personal happiness to inspire me to lie again through ages four through eight (when and how do you tell them the truth?). I kept looking for some sign that the lie was worth it, that the whole experience changed her in some way for the better. Unfortunately, there was nothing. She seemed about as happy about getting a lollipop at the service as she did the drumset, playdough ice cream maker, and imported German finger painting set. I was deflated, and that made me almost certain that it was the beginning of the end for which I’d been so carefully looking. It was the first down moment in a string of up ones.

And then I sat down to write. I wasn’t quite sure what I wanted to write about, but I just knew I wanted to, that this debate was raging in my head, that it needed to find a way to be settled. As I started, the words just came and that’s how it’s been for me over these past few weeks. The ideas, the chances, the opportunities just keep coming towards me. After years and years of drought and struggle in New York to find a path as a writer, the sheer abundance is so unnerving, so out of balance with what I’m used to that I find myself feeling wholly undeserving. I realize I’ve completely lost my belief in possibility, in life’s chance to actual give you more than what you wanted. I keep thinking this isn’t all for me.

I can see now where Santa’s power lies. Embedded in that Christmas morning surprise, of receiving so many gifts from a benevolent spirit in the sky, kids’ get a taste of sheer generosity, abundance, wishes being granted, getting something without earning it. I think now, quite simply, that it’s a good thing to experience once in a while. In fact, it’s healthy to get more than your imagination pictured, to be pleasantly surprised. After all, isn’t that what Jesus did tenfold from Santa? Didn’t he come and give humanity so much more than it bargained for, so much more than it even knew it ever needed?

I can’t say I still condone the lying, but I can now make a comfortable enough argument for Santa’s importance to repeat the tale again next year. I must also say, for the first time in years, I take comfort in the spirit that moved me to shower Manika with new things, buy my husband an Ipod Touch, splurge on theater tickets for my parents, give my Chinese ayi a generous raise. If I can find it within myself to give selflessly at least once a year (and I am clearly uncomfortable with excessive goodness) how much more does God have in Himself year round, especially since he has none of my baggage and hang-ups. If Santa reminds the world that all this kindness and generosity exists, then what harm is there really in perpetuating the tale?

I guess I’ll really know when Manika finds out the truth. In the meantime, I’ll take the reminder that life can actually look up, and up, and then up even more.

Merry Christmas!

Throwing stones!

I have found myself hurtling through November at warp speed, not so much in the form of running from place to place (although there is a lot of that) as in the form of running from role to role. I’ve suddenly found myself split between novel writer, marketer for my new bilingual children’s book “Mika the Picky Eater”, writing teacher, magazine freelancer, mother interviewing primary schools for Manika, mother trying to solve respiratory problems for poor little Avik, wife trying to support Suresh’s ever more demanding work schedule, and then all the other roles in between – friend, employer, cook, home finance manager. Oh and did I mention, sometimes I just try to be myself, no strings attached.


Make no mistake – I haven’t forgotten my soppy complaining in previous posts. I’m so happy with the busy-ness of it all. It appears that by putting myself out there as “writer” I have actually suddenly become one in Shanghai!


But I am overwhelmed by the speed in which my days have changed. My mental image of myself has not yet caught up. I still see myself as a little of a former banker and consultant, a lot of a mother and housewife, a lot as an “aspiring writer”, and not very much as an actual writer with students, and deadlines and events to attend. It is all happening so fast.


Enter insecurity - otherwise known in my world as the fault line where the future and fear line up to cause an earthquake, usually manifested in my world in the form of awkward, spontaneously stupid, self-centered blurts that mercilessly fly out of my mouth.


The first came out at Suresh’s company’s new office opening family party. Now, to appreciate what happened, you have to understand that Zegna is to men’s fashion what Vera Wang is to wedding dresses. The best of the best. Attendance, as the wife of the newest addition to Zegna’s Executive Team (yep, Suresh got promoted – go him!) required waxing, buffing, a short black dress, and some hair curling. I was proud of him, so I went in the mood to be noticed, to by my husband’s proud arm candy, to “represent.”


Well, I could’ve worn jeans for all the play my efforts got me. It was no fault of the sweet people at the company. It’s just I was what I sort of set out to be – a “tai tai” Executive’s wife except that as soon as I arrived, I realized that I fit in that role about as well as a frog fits in a men’s suit. I just wanted to jump out, declare myself a separate entity from the “recently promoted Suresh Dalai,” find some way to get someone to ask me about myself.


Instead, I stood in a corner next to my husband but still alone, sipping (okay, maybe drinking, quickly) champagne and staring at the live Jazz musicians (who, mercifully, kept smiling at me.) I glanced at the male models occasionally strutting around, feigned super busyness on my Iphone a few times, and ate two plates of food. I overheard conversations about Spring ’11, and watched men touch each other’s coat lapels in passing to determine the quality of their fabric. But in general, I stood unnoticed and long enough that I started to daydream about one of those models really being a closet New York cat caller, you know the ones who yell out while walking by, “Hey baby, you lookin’ hot,” in a way that makes you feel like you really are.


Instead, one of Suresh’s colleagues came over and said to me, “I hear you’re an aspiring writer.” Ah, if only he had said it at the beginning of the party, before I’d started to tremor with insignificance, and the semi-drunken worry that I would be forever known as “Suresh’s wife”.


“No, actually I am a writer. My first children’s book got published this week, and by the way, I used to be a banker at Goldman Sachs.” Read subtext (in my New York state of mind slang): “Aspiring what? And yo, I used to make some dough, you know. I ain’t stupid.” The guy walked away.


Blurt two, more like a general grouping of them. The launch of my children’s book has turned all of my friendships here on top of their heads. The book is less than $15, a true labor of love, and if I can say totally unobjectively – beautiful. We’ve already sold 50+ copies to strangers in a week and a half, and have gotten rave reviews. But for some reason, many of my friends here have chosen not to buy one. One even went so far to say she didn’t want one, which hurt my feelings immensely. Most others have just said nothing.


It is making me mean. To the one “friend” who said she didn’t want to buy one because her son is not a picky eater (so what?) but asked how the book is doing, I responded: “Well.” That ended that one.


To another who hadn’t bought a book yet, but kept saying she intended too, I simply wrote back, “No worries. Well, I think I’m going to have a very busy December, so see you next year.” Subtext, never again, unless you buy a book. She bought one.


To yet another non-buying friend, I simply said to her inquiry about how it’s going, ”Great, except my friends have sadly been really unsupportive.” She didn’t get the hint.


To the rest, I’ve suffered their silence. Individually, these have hurt in varying degrees. depending on the amount I feel I’ve invested in these friendships. But together, they have become a bit defeaning, and have made me want to change friends, my address, my house, my life. It is causing a bit of an emotional conflagration in my life, and in the end, I think the landscape will be burned to a crisp, waiting for new offshoots to grow. Very unsettling.


To the people who have been supportive, I feel myself panting behind them like a grateful little puppy. “Sure, I’ll watch your kids for four hours. I’d love to make you a hundred Christmas cookies. Yes, I’ll help you cook for thirty people for Thanksgiving.” My gratitude is sincere, but I just can’t tone it down enough for non-awkward levels of expression.


Blurt three. So in the midst of all of this, my retail rock star husband (seriously, no sarcasm intended) got invited to New York to give a talk, and then Milan to visit Zegna’s fabled clothing producing empire, leaving me alone with two kids, a jittery sense of being, and a stressed calendar.


I should’ve known it was only a matter of time before the insecurity manifested itself in an actual bodyquake. It has happened to me before at other critical junctures in my life. But with two kids under four, one of them being my relentless daughter, who has time to connect any of life’s dots. Or in my case, who has time to drink water?


So Day 5 (Friday) of Suresh eight day trip, the abdominal pain started. Saturday it got worse but I hosted a movie night party for Manika so there was no time to really notice. Sunday I wanted to see a doctor but had no one to watch the kids. Monday I could barely stand up but Manika wanted to go outside. So I pushed and pushed. I waited until Suresh got home, showered, waved him goodbye as he went to the office. But by 4pm, I simply had to go the hospital. I left my kids with my helper.


I started to cry in the cab all by myself. By the time I got there, the nurse had to come out and get me. Half an hour later, I was in pain spasms. Suresh was lost somewhere between work and trying to figure out how to help with the kids. Everyone else was in America, and in my current state of mind about my friends, I thought to call no one. I just cried, and cried. Then, as the spasms turned to chills and I started to really shake, I panicked. I grabbed the doctor by the wrist, and yelled to her, “Am I going to die? Because I hate my kids but whose going to take care of them?” The doctor (who delivered one of my children) stuck a needle in my bum, and mercifully knocked me out.


When I came to, she was laughing, I was laughing. The kidney stone had passed and it was if the whole thing never happened except that she kept reminding me that I thought I was going to die, and I kept remembering that my last words on earth could’ve been those above and Dear God, I certainly didn’t mean them the way they came out and that wasn’t really what I had in mind.


The next morning I sat down on my meditation mat and examined. I examined the pressures I’d recently been putting on myself to be the cheerleader wife, to make three organic healthy pureed baby food meals for my son each day, to never ever lose my temper on my daughter again, to be a life-changing teacher to my students, to market my children’s book to every book shelf in Shanghai, to finish my novel yesterday, and to always sounds smart and beautiful and accomplished. I was being near abusively demanding on myself, which was why I was feeling the same towards others. And instead of receiving the rewards of love, creativity and choice, I was secretly seething at my inability to mentally, physically and emotionally keep up. I was also seething at those who I felt were also holding me back.


So over the days that followed, I breathed. Once again (as in other posts), I hugged my cuddly son. I played in this weird “balloon room” space and let Manika bump them off my head. I talked to my husband instead of worrying about making his lunch, or whether his dry cleaning was finished or the house was perfect (my lack of worry showed, but oh well). I used the mental space to sit back and absorb the new experiences I’ve been having, and appreciate the promise of so many more in the horizon.


I finally “caught up” by stepping over insecurity and moving myself to new solid ground.


More importantly, I asked myself when will I really learn? When will I stop myself from going around in these circles, these ups and downs? When will I learn to just stay at this place, all the time? Of course, I can’t really know, but asking the question made “living in peace and acceptance” the goal above everything else.


The journey continues, but at least since then, my mouth has pretty much behaved itself.

Vacation?

Recently, I made a family trip to Malaysia. Even before I left, I joked with my friends, “The word vacation is too aggressive. This is a family trip.” I believed I was going in with both eyes open, ready to fully manage the occasion.

Except I didn’t anticipate pneumonia. I thought I’d covered everything – swimsuits, plastic pails, yellow shovels, and baby food. I’d apparently forgotten my portable nebulizer and antibiotic stash. Poor Avik, from the minute the plane landed in Malaysia, he was miserable. We kept hoping the sea air would cure him, but the infection stayed. On day three, I headed off to the Langkawi emergency room.

As I made repeated trips to the cashier to pay for tests and back to the gloomy ER, I found the sunny attitude I’d been cultivating so carefully over the past few months failing miserably. It was as if my psyche started to catch an infection too. I grumbled under my breath at the system’s slowness, at my hunger, at the fact that people kept staring at me. All the while, I knew that I was helping nothing. I was just dragging down an already stressful situation and even ducking a chance to see into the eyes of other fellow patients and find camaraderie and kindness. But frankly, I did not care. I wanted my bed. I wanted Avik to breathe clear. I wanted to wake up to room service, a cocktail, and a book on my Ipad.

The next two days were rough. Avik couldn’t sleep so at night, Suresh and I took turns holding him. When we happened to be beneath the white sheets of the king sized bed together, even our feet couldn’t touch. Manika slept horizontally (head in my face, feet in his) between us. She apparently liked the feel of nestling close to the bed board. Each attempt to move her caused her to yelp, which woke up Avik.

“Who are you and why are you in my bed, stranger?” I sarcastically joked to my husband.

By day three, Avik was getting better and the kids started to get into the vacation groove. A green cocktail or two actually got consumed poolside. On the last day, we collected sea shells, ate dinner at a Thai restaurant that sat at the end of a very long plank, right in the middle of the ocean. The word vacation ventured to the edges of my and my husband’s lips.

Then we checked out and went to Kuala Lumpur – another Asian city with traffic, cabs with boots too small for my double stroller, dizzying megamalls, hotel pools too tiny to spend all day in, and history too inaccessible to children. I found myself on October 8 (Manika’s birthday) in MegaPlayland watching her bounce in some big red bouncy castle.

“I can’t believe I’m f*&*%!# spending my f*&$#@&! vacation, vacation!, in the land of plastic jungle gyms and inflatable trampolines,” I muttered under my breath. “What the $%$^! I have to get out of here.”

“Manika, let’s go,” I said.

“No!!!!”

“If I don’t do something for myself now, and I mean NOW, I am just going to…. 

Well, let’s go!”

It all went downhill from there. I spent money, I whined, I tried not to snip at my husband (who was a victim too) but couldn’t help it. I constantly exhaled heavily to express my annoyance, I stared out into the city not registering anything but my own misery and my need for silence, SILENCE, and solitude.

When we finally got back to Shanghai, my bad attitude persisted.

Manika and I playing Mickey Mouse Uno: “No Manika, you can’t have all the wildcards. It just isn’t right. You have to share.”

“But I want them.”

“Well, I want a week at the Four Seasons, by myself. We can’t always have what we want. You. Have. To. Share.”

“I don’t want to.”

“You have to share with me.”

“No.”

“Well, then I don’t want to play with you.”

To Avik screaming for breakfast at 7:00am: “Go ahead Avik, scream. See if it makes me move faster.”

To my husband in response to a request to make him some tea: “Are your arms and legs broken?”

I was like a spinning top, except with cactus-like spikes lining the surface.

I tried meditating but my mind was not into it. There was nothing to meditate on, nothing to meditate towards. What good was an empty mind when everyone kept needing into it? I tried sleeping, but that seemed a bottomless pit. I just couldn’t get enough. I tried a massage, time to myself, but that just made me want to cry. An hour oil massage? Paltry. An hour at a coffee shop? Insignificant! I wanted a week, no a month, no a YEAR!

Finally, I just let go. I had to. I internally imploded and then collapsed. My body refused to run, walk, move from the couch unless necessary. I just let myself be negative. I stopped trying to dig myself out of it, think positive, or control my frustration. I let myself be myself, my whole self. I drank vodka martinis at 4pm. I watched Mad Men episodes until too late an hour. I wrote lots of fevered escapist writing during which I refused to talk to or see anybody. I gave up seeking lessons from my kids, trying to be a good mom, worrying about them or my husband, and I just got selfish. I complained, I whined more, I told my friends I was irritated, I yelled at my husband for not being home more, I told my kids exactly how I was feeling.

“I hate that you wake up at night,” to Manika.

“You want some cheese with that whine there buddy,” to Avik.

“I don’t care what you wear to work,” to my husband.

I was just negative.

And then a magical thing happened. Twenty-four hours into my surrender, I started to feel better. A few things happened that, at the time seemed unimportant, but rolled up together. Manika picked up the “I love you’s” as if instinctually she knew I needed them. In the middle of an argument between me and my husband, she interrupted us and said, “Oh, just say you’re sorry and kiss please.” Then we were out to brunch with friends, and she figured out a system for sharing her IPhone game all by herself. She organized three toddlers to take turns. I was so proud. She was so assertive and self-reliant. She took such good care of herself. The next morning my husband hugged me and that sort of sealed it. I was back up. It was almost instinctual, as if my soul was saying, “Okay, we’re good now. Go back to your regularly scheduled program of balance and sanity again.”

It made me think that all this bombardment of “be positive” messages is being overdone in our society. Oprah, Nick Jr.’ Kailan, Disney’s Special Agent Oso – they all make it sound as if you’ve got a problem, got a drag on your energy, just think “happy thoughts.” But in fact, what I needed was not to pull myself up by my bootstraps, but for me to let my family pull me up the way I do for them so often. As a result of my surrender, I got to be surprised by their ability to do it, even little Avik who seemed to smile in the middle of my crankiest moments. I was particularly moved by how hard Manika really tried to “work with me.”

“Are you done writing?” she asked me on Friday.

“No honey.”

“Okay, I’ll play with the Ipad.”

“Are you done now,” she asked me five minutes later.

“Not yet honey.”

“Okay, I’ll come back.” She waited by the bed. “Are you done now?”

“It’s only been another three minutes.”

“When will you be finished?”

“Okay, I guess I can be finished now.”

Not exactly when I wanted to stop, but I realized that she was at least trying. My husband realized that hugs made me better; yelling at me to cheer up didn’t. It was as if by me expressing myself, everyone came to realize that even mommy has limits, bad days and temper tantrums. I think I became more human to my family, they became more human to me and I remembered that I was only human myself.

It was an unexpected result of two weeks together, but looking back now, I’m positive the intense proximity recombined the four of us with a different dynamic, something better, more together. The word vacation remains an overly optimistic description, but perhaps “family bonding” was more appropriate, or “an opportunity for my family to form relationships rather than operating in the day-to-day working-towards-getting-the-kids-to-grow-up mechanics.” Or stated more simply, the trip was “a reminder that no one can find happiness all the time and without a little help.”

Now is here

Earlier this year, I began “professionally dating,” a good friend of mine in Shanghai to see if we’re business partnership material. We’ve been romantically envisioning our riches, loosely planning, and justifying long lunches with loads of “we can do this,” and “wouldn’t that be great.” The potential was fantastic, the true commitment distant, and it was that it was all about the business of books. She had a dream to open a publishing company; I had a habit of supporting entrepreneurs. Even though I was taking a backseat to her dream, I finally felt my two worlds – business and writing – were coming together, and in the center of it all was my closest friend. It was almost perfect.

Fast-forward to last week, and for reasons too numerous and irrelevant to list here, we took a step back, and I found myself reeling from the breakup. I felt a sincere sense of loss. In my entire career, I’ve never not had a partner, a business confident, a supporter, a mentor, a structure, a friend. I’ve also never had to set up my own business model. I’ve made a living supporting other people’s ventures, consulting to other people’s businesses. Suddenly I found myself with a slew of new ideas and the realization that there was no one but me to make them a reality.

I was afraid. I was confused, and lost. I began trying, yet again, to put together something that reflected something about myself. I felt somewhat productive but more than anything, I felt alone and too sad to make much progress.

Then Manika stopped sleeping again. I swear, that girl has an internal timer. Mommy stressed = Manika not sleeping. My husband says it’s just a byproduct of a close mother – daughter relationship. I think it’s just some karmic retribution. She started waking up in the middle of the night screaming (and I mean SCREAMING), claiming that we set her clock wrong, and that 3am was really the start of her morning.

I tried to follow logic she understood. We wrote rules on the bed. 1. No screaming. 2. No getting out of bed until bunny clock is awake. I tried punishment. I tried screaming myself. I tried doing nothing and letting her play until she fell asleep on her floor mat. I even tried letting her sleep in my bed, but that was a disaster.

Then one day she said, “I want a job like you,” and a light went off in my head.

“I have a job for you.”

“What do you have for me?”

“You sleep at night, I’ll give you one coin each day.”

“How ‘bout you just give me a coin.”

“Nope, you wanted a job, this is your job.”

“But I don’t like sleeping, except on Tuesday and Friday.”

“Well today is Tuesday.”

“I meant next Tuesday.”

“Follow the rules, and you get a coin.”

The first night, the concept was exciting but the execution bumpy. “But I don’t like sleeping,” Manika repeated. “Sleeping is no fun.”

“Most work is no fun. Welcome to real life.”

“I don’t want to sleep,” she said.

“Then I won’t pay you.”

“No mommy, I want my coin.”

“Then do your job.”

Eyes rolled. Sighs escaped. “Fine,” she said, clutching her bunny purse to her while she slept.

The second night, she disregarded the connection altogether. She screamed three times. She lost a coin.

The third night, she got the hang of it. I didn’t hear from her at all and in the morning, she proudly got up and counted her money in her bed.

Today she had enough for her own first muffin. I’ve never seen a kid stuff cake into her mouth with such relish.

The whole thing made me think about why I want to work so badly. Is it really the money? Well, yes and no. Money makes grownups feel more secure, and it helps all ages buy things. But what made Manika love her muffin so much was that she bought it herself. It was the sense of accomplishment, a sense of having a goal and achieving it, a sense of rewarding oneself for hard effort. There was a direct line between value added (me sleeping) and reward.

I want that. For too long, my line has gone around my clients’ wishes, over corporate structures, around the bend of other people’s company visions, beneath my husband and children. I have longed for that straight line, but it has either seemed too simple to be possible, or not the right time, or too hard to find.

But I see things are shifting. I turned thirty-four on Friday, and as I got dressed in the mirror, I saw I was no longer a twenty-four year old banking analyst just trying to get some skills, or a twenty-eight year old consultant trying to find balance between art and business, or even a thirty-two year old new mom trying to get the hang of my new role. I was entering that mythic age that my mother always told me about – the age in which my best ideas of myself and my ability to realize them in my life had finally arrived. I suddenly felt I now have just enough of self-knowledge, money, experience, and inner balance, to take a risk, to set out and do something for myself, that just reflects myself.

As if in cosmic confirmation, an artist friend of mine designed my business cards for me. I asked her to do something simple and clean, and what she came back with was so perfect, it brought me to tears. I’ve never actually felt my identity on paper, but now I know what it looks like. It’s light green. It’s understated but clear. The title on the card: Writer – Editor. Just my name, no one else’s, no tagline, no corporate stamp. It felt like a promise of the Joel Olsteen type. Great things are ahead. The slate is ready and wiped. My own bunny purse is empty too, but it’s ready to be filled again.

“Was it great?” I said to Manika after she finished her muffin.

“Yeah, and tomorrow I get a new coin and can buy a lollipop! That’ll be even better!”

“Yes, it will,” I agreed with her.

As she smiled, I realized I even have a business partner albeit a bit moody, one sided, tyrannical, and childish one. She brings fearlessness to my fear, uncompromising certainty to my habits of accommodation, and fresh inspiration to my tired cynicism. Most importantly, she gives me a reason not to be lazy, not to be scared, not to fail. I want her to know that the direct line she so freshly experienced is possible at all stages of life. In fact, I want her (and me) to think and live like we should settle for nothing less.

In the meantime, there’s no worry of breaking up. She gets all my earnings and runs the board, a CEO, COO, and chairman on training wheels. I get to grow. It’s the perfect unexpected arrangement.

I’m excited and terrified at the same time.

The Typhoon Is Over

Ah, how sleep restores all serenity…. I can’t believe it has been over five months since my last post, nor can I believe how many times I’ve attempted to write on it (far outnumbers the passed month). But that is all in the past. My son crossed thirteen hours last night with one snack waking. He is the best little sleeper in town!

SO, with rest in my corner, I hereby mark the end to unfinished tasks, unmet goals, and unachieved milestones. I will not be swayed by the winds of exhaustion anymore. My breasts are no longer milk dispensers, my pants no longer bounce back open, and my nights are no longer walking laps between the fridge, the crib, and my bedroom. I have crossed the ponds to America and back, two kids in tow. I have shopped (oh how I shopped), I’ve defied the naysayers who said I could never bring it all back, I’ve protected my daughter from certain germ death in airplane toilets, I’ve face jet lag and won, and I have created a new space on my desk with flowers and my favorite coffee mug in front of which I plan to pay homage to my own brain for at least three hours each day while Manika is in school.

A lofty goal you think? I’ve got more! I’ve committed to a monthly massage, 4am yoga thrice weekly, a figure-sustaining run on the other mornings, packing my husband’s lunch, and teaching my three year old how to read. Oh, and did I mention my novel, and my plans to open a children’s book store, and that children’s book I’m still shopping… anyone interested? Okay, I’m dizzy now too. Perhaps I’m admittedly getting away from myself. But the point is, I’m ready to be busy… to look forward, and forward, and more forward! Enough with the past, and even the present is still moving a bit too slowly…

And then came the typhoon. Sometimes I feel like the D+ life student. A typhoon, God? Really? Was that necessary?

So there I was on a Tuesday night, basking in my freedom to get up and get a glass of water at night without having to check on or feed a child, already looking forward to my 4am yoga session, when I get a text message from my daughter’s school. School cancelled. Cancelled!? What? I check the time. 12:15am. It must be a joke. No one from a preschool texts at 12:15am? Then I read the rest: forecasted typhoon enroute.

Groan. I wake up my husband. “Do you know that school is cancelled tomorrow?”

“What?”

Forget the sheets of rain and destructive winds. “Cancelled! That means another day of –“ Gasp! “Momdom!” I could already feel the flowers on my desk drooping. Another day of dumping toddler potties, coloring, play dough, and ball pits. Wasn’t the entire summer enough? I begged the universe for mercy. “God, I hope our ayi can make it into work! That would be… unthinkably awful!”

The next morning, I called the school to confirm but was apparently hundredth in line behind a bunch of other similarly stunned parents. I rehearsed my speech while I waited. “But it’s sunny out? And Yahoo Weather says the typhoon is not going to touch down until after noon, and school is over at 1pm and who’s ever right about the weather anyway?” I never got to say it though; the line never ceased being busy. The Shanghai government stuck to their citywide decision. No school-going kids on the road.

So at 7:30am, I packed the kids up in the jogging stroller and endured the thousands of interruptions I dreaded. “Yes, Avik, here’s your bottle.” “Yes, Manika, we can stop at the playground.” The sunny skies laughed at me. The cloudless blue mocked me. They said, “You thought you were suddenly back in the driver’s seat? Sorry, you’re a mom. You’re, for the rest of your life, your children’s passenger.” Ugh. Swear word muttered under my breath. “No Manika, you cannot have my Iphone.” “Avik don’t you want to take a nap yet?” “No Manika, you cannot eat a bag full of cheddar Goldfish.”

So much for a relaxing run.

And then my brother called, my childless baby brother whose advice I often discount as outdated by five years of experience. “What is the big deal? It’s one day?” he said.

“But you don’t understand, all summer I’ve been making these plans to do stuff, to make something of myself, to crawl out from under the rock of caretaker, nose wiper, bum cleaner…”

“It’s one day.”

“You don’t have kids, what do you know?”

“But they’re so cute.”

“Bye, have a nice day.”

I seethed even more. I already knew that it’s only one day. I own a calendar. I know how the days work. But Wednesday is a me day. I silently screamed to the universe, to Ravi.

And then, in their silence, it dawned on me. In my quest to be present-seizing, making most of my time and energy, and creating new opportunities for happiness and greatness, I was doing none of those things. I was still stewing in past plans and expectations, and if I didn’t update quick, I stood the chance of ruining what was now proving to be a truly, almost laughingly, beautiful, sunny, typhoon-less day. My mood instantly changed. I smiled a bit, and started to think.

“Hey Manika? Want to have a typhoon party?”

Three hours later, my house was full. I had children, toys, wine bottles, pizza, and general chaos everywhere. The kids loved it! Us tai-tais got buzzed together. But my heart was back at piece. I had seized the present. I spent time with my friends. I played with my children. I had had fun, which was totally unexpected.

Of course, in the back of my mind, it still wasn’t the ideal afternoon. My computer looked longingly at me a couple of times. I glanced forlornly at the Apple TV, wishing I could see the latest Mad Men episode instead of wipe another chocolaty hand. But the lessons I’d learned (and blogged about) earlier this year proved persistent. I was pleased to find, five months later, that the bridge of “realizing and enjoying the present” that I’d built to connect the “before Avik” and “after Avik” me was not just some temporary rickety structure used to keep my sanity, but a true addition to my life path, a place I could circle back to any time I needed or wanted. By the time the rains and winds finally did come, the day was over and a pretty satisfying success.

I pointed this out to Manika in the evening, in a magnanimous effort to boost her spiritual growth: “See, we made lemonade out of lemons.”

To which she replied, (poor girl with my genes), “But I don’t like lemons or lemonade!”

“Okay, it’s just a figure of speech. I mean, we didn’t really drink lemonade, did we? “It’s just a saying.”

“What is a saying?”

“I just mean, we took you not-having-school and made it fun. You did have fun?”

“Yep. Let’s do it again tomorrow!”

Gasp. “No!” Deep breath. Don’t want to scar the child with memories of not being wanted. “Of course, it’s always great when you’re home, but you have to learn too. We all have to learn. That’s what life is all about. Learning. Understand?”

“Yep.” Pause. Rain pelted the windows outside. “Mommy, let’s play,” she said.

There seemed nothing better in the world to do. “Sure, why not?”

Us Magazine and Star Stickers

Motherhood aside, I must confess, I am an obsessive follower of the online versions of Us Magazine and People. Even as I sit here now, I am actively resisting the urge to check in and see what plastic surgery has done to Heidi Pratt. Given my extreme lack of time these days, I’ve begun questioning why (and millions of others) love to be voyeurs into the lives of the rich & famous celebrities.

I was born to Indian immigrants in America during a time when doctors and engineers were given green cards due to their education; to their home countries, these were sort of celebrities. Freed of the difficulties of India by the US’s meritocracy, they bought Mercedes, took vacations and had big houses. My father, a doctor, was often viewed as exempt from every day problems because of his earnings. How could someone who lived on a lake, traveled to Europe, and sent his kids to boarding schools have anything to worry or be unhappy about? Many family members in India admired, gossiped, envied, and followed his and his family’s lives with curiosity.

However, the atmosphere in many of these immigrant homes (mine included) reflected none of that. Ours was not a home in which we had no money problems and worry was non-existent. Instead, when there wasn’t a problem, future ones were anticipated. Life was often lived forward in pursuit of achievement of future goals, diluting the experience of what everyone seemed to ultimately envy – an above ground existence in which the present was full of nothing but peace.

Because I saw that many of my American friends did not live in the same restless way, I began to believe something much different than my parents', particularly my father who set the tone in our house. I felt that because he had been born and raised in India where opportunities were few, people were many, and ruin was always just one unforeseen problem away, he was trapped in American society in an outdated mindset. I believed that he was right that hard work and persistent diligence were the keys to success, but he was wrong that the only place to put that energy was into medicine. I also valued financial security, but began to value quality of life as equally important if not more. I felt having a vision and anticipating future pitfalls was a must, but I refused to be inflexibly shackled to worry. Also, I grew determined to answer the questions he could not answer. What if what I wanted (which was to write) wasn’t a guaranteed path to financial security. How to think creatively? How to reconcile my embedded longings with the realities of life?

Fast forward to thirty-three. Until recently, I’d believed I’d successfully answered these questions and sent into motion the life that I’d always wanted. I left Wall Street at twenty-eight, setting the tone in my life that money was not everything. I successfully managed to independently consult for five years, eliminating old fears that the conventional was the only path to success. I live in China now and despite not having been published yet, I do get to do what I love– raise my children and write without worry about financial ruin. However, recently, as I stared at Reese Witherspoon walk hand in hand with someone other than Jake Gyllenhaal (who I loved as her companion by the way), I found myself wondering – why the hell do I still care? Living my own life should be satisfying enough, shouldn’t it? Especially because I fashioned it the way I wanted it?

These musing happened in conjunction with a recent surge in Manika’s two-year old negative streak (of course, kicked off right after I wrote a testament to how pleasant she’d suddenly started being). I’m not sure why she started feeling that way, but as the days wore on, I began to see she was getting stuck in a mental rut, kind of like mine. I closed people.com and decided I needed to do something to kick both of us forward.

So I started a positivity campaign. Every time she tried to put her finger in the electrical socket, I didn’t just scream no, but said, “Let’s find something you can play with.” Each time she refused to wash her hands before trying to manhandle her brother, I offered her a sticker if she decided to be “positive and helpful.” After each meltdown, I explained to her that yes, she could feel extremely upset at having the television turned off, but she could decide to smile now. Then I tickled her until she actually did smile.

In the process, I began to see something clear about the human ego (of which two year olds have an overwhelmingly raw abundance). It is an extremely negative and discontent thing, and it likes to topple contentment as often as possible. I began to see my online interest in a similar light. Before typing in the Us magazine URL, I can feel a multitude of things – happy about the sunshine, warm towards my son beside me – but after ten minutes of viewing, my life changes before my eyes. I suddenly don’t have enough money, or haven’t accomplished enough, or have too much mommy baby fat around my midsection. My ego rests happily on its laurels, having happily reminded me how much I have to be discontent about. Why this path has become so comfortingly familiar is a question for a shrink, although I could probably intuitively argue that it has something to do with my upbringing. However, regardless, it is as wasteful as a tantrum about not getting a chocolate and all it does is make me want to be thinner, write a famous screenplay and go shopping.

So I’ve started applying the same lessons to my life that I’ve been giving to my daughter. Each time I want to feel angry at the exhaustion of motherhood, I focus on something cute about my children. Each time I want to yell at my husband for being late, I try to focus on the fact that he’s slow and tired because he stays up late to give my son a bottle to let his wife sleep a little. Each time I want to curse China for the things about it that I can’t stand, I remind myself that it’s because I’m here that I have time to write this blog. And each time I want to open a celebrity rag, I try to open a blog entry or my novel instead.

The net result is that I’ve felt time slowing down, literally. My mind spends less time thinking about deficits and the negative possibilities of the future. It spends more time admiring Manika’s Chinese skills, Avik’s cooing, or my husband’s thoughtfulness. The mental space allows me to see that the future comes anyway, that anticipating it does not actually change much of the unfolding of the days. As new habits form in my head, I see my daughter trying to follow me. She says, “okay” more. She picks the smiley-faced sticker more. She giggles. Just as my father made the large move to America to make a better future for his family, I feel this mentally large move is equally important to the future of my family. In this way, I’m proud to follow in his visionary footsteps.

Does that mean I’ll never look at a gossip rag again – probably not. But at least going forward, I’ll try to be more aware and really, with two children, that’s pretty much all I can do. I’ll take in the fashion and news headlines. I might even feel a little better that my life isn’t drug or paparazzi ridden. Then, hopefully, I’ll give myself a mental star sticker for closing the browser and I’ll go back to living my life with a little less judgment and wishing, and a little more just being me.

Introducing Avik and Manika the big sister

It is 9:30pm on a Saturday night, and my husband is trying to feed my crying son in the other room. I am painfully tempted to go in and intervene, but if I do, I will just put off yet again my attempts to reclaim my brain and I am determined, to get at least one coherent something written before I settle in for another night of feedings.

It has been almost two months since my last posting, and this has been mainly due to the pre-Avik drama of being put on bed rest + living with a noncooperative two year old, and the post-Avik’s birth highs and lows of adjusting to a newborn. My son was born at 35 ½ weeks and he is all the things that newborns are – a joy, a bundle of hope and happiness, a lovely baby-smelling sweet package of innocence, a comical “toy” for my toddler, a pooping and eating machine that cries at things I don’t understand, the killer of my Saturday night date nights, and above all, the reason my boobs are two times their normal size and are busier than a cow during ice cream season. (A sidenote on breastfeeding: I didn’t breastfeed Manika and so I had no idea how utterly time consuming, painful and repetitive this whole process is, even with my newly devised pump and bottlefeed system that in theory, should eliminate like four hours of on the boob time. I soooo admire women who did not ever use a milking machine. )

In the meantime, I’ve been mulling over the way this new phase in motherhood has impacted my life. To be truthful, my thoughts haven’t really been all that deep. So far, Avik has met all my expectations, and this second time around, I know so much more that I’ve been able to relax and enjoy a more instant infection. But there has been an unexpected surge of affection for my daughter that I didn’t see coming. In fact, in the days leading up to his birth, I was tempted to ship her back to the US to stay with my mother. I was afraid that her adjustment period would wipe me out, mainly because she likes to take her stress out on me through sleep deprivation. The day I gave birth, my terror levels surged. She threw down an I-want-mommy-tantrum in the hospital that should’ve gone down in toddler stress books. The two weeks after were an exercise in dodging and neutralizing her no’s, refusals, meltdowns, incessant clinginess and attempts to nearly choke Avik with his bottle. On more than one night, I went from nursey to toddler room and back on regular hour intervals. I called my mother and convinced her to fly for her one week Spring Break to China. I was desperate, eyes held open by toothpicks desperate.

Then my mom came, repumped me full of positivity towards my children, and lavished attention on Manika. She left both of us recharged and transformed, particularly Manika who is a totally different girl now. I have my theories on the transition, but at this stage, they’re too watered down with exhaustion to delve into. The bottom line is, she’s suddenly agreeable, full of spontaneous requests to “Hug me”, blurts out “I love you” on regular intervals and is generally a package of sugar and loveliness. Her listening skills (ie, her willingness to do what I ask her to) have doubled, she actually plays by herself for half an hour or so at a time, and she is slowly taking an interest in reading. In other words, she seems to have adjusted and her amazing flexibility and general mature cheerfulness has suddenly made her my absolute favorite person to be around.

This change in Manika has been a wonderful present for my tired heart. I ache daily for my own family, particularly my brother who has been my best friend for as long as he’s been able to talk. I have even less time to write than I did before, and my mind is filled with thoughts of the parallels between my life as a young mother and that of my mother’s (both away from our families in countries that weren’t our own), what that means to my understanding of her, what this all means for my understanding of myself, and how much I sometimes see my life as the exact opposite of what I imagined for myself. I also now have two women helping me in my house during the day who are constantly looking for direction as to what I want to eat for the day or how much I want someone to hold my son. All of the threads of my own self-reflection, and worries of living in China spin in my head endlessly, their frayed edges sort of floating out untied between feedings. Having Manika wake daily so consistently happy to see me, ready to pee pee in her potty, have her bottle, get ready for school and watch Blue Clue’s has become my anchor to reality.

As do all things in motherhood, I know this too will change. However, motherhood is also teaching me to take things one day at a time, to appreciate the joys of your children for that Monday or Wednesday, or even on a smaller scale, to enjoy twenty minutes to type on my computer…which are now over as my husband just put my son back down in bed, my signal to go right to sleep now.

Goodnight readers!

It takes a village

Imagine if you will a nursery with pink walls, toys already safely put away, one toddler and an utterly exhausted mother. It is 8:30pm. Five stories have been read. The potty has been used one last time. The milk bottle is drained. The frog pajamas have been securely zippered. Now, it’s just time to sleep.

The mother gives one last hug to her two and half year old toddler, lays her down in the crib and says goodnight. She sits on the floor one foot away from the bed. There is no physical contact, no eye contact, no further conversation beyond a whisper. At first, it seems like the night will end peacefully.

Then the toddler opens the night’s battle, “Mommy, hug me.”

“Goodnight,” says the mother.

“Mommy, hold me.”

“Goodnight.”

“Mommy, hold my hand.”

“Goodnight.”

“Mommy, more bottle.”

“Goodnight.”

“Mommy, more pee pee.”

“You have a diaper on.”

“Mommy…” The toddler crawls out of bed. The mother puts her back.

“Mommy,” the toddler cries louder.

“Goodnight.”

“Mommy!”

The escaping, screaming and protests continue in the same manner for another twenty minutes until, in a final effort to get her mother’s attention, the toddler sticks her finger in her mouth and makes herself throw up. The mother is horrified. She turns on the light, cleans the vomit off, changes the sheets, and is tempted to give in. What’s one more night of rocking to sleep, and surely her daughter couldn’t have intentionally caused herself to throw up?

But then the toddler giggles, loudly. The mother narrows her eyes in disbelief. Her resolve returns. She repeats the goodnight routine and says “Goodnight.” She steels herself against the ensuing protests.

Ninety minutes later, the toddler has fallen asleep by herself for the first time in six months. The mother crawls out of the nursery, blurry eyed, guilt-ridden, her ears ringing with her daughter’s desperate cries for her. She can already hear her daughter’s conversations with her therapist. “My mother abandoned me when I needed her. I grew up feeling so unloved.”

Then the mother turns on HBO and takes a deep breath. The house is silent. She has not fallen asleep with her pregnant stomach wedged against the sharp edges of her daughter’s toddler bed, her hand instinctually patting a child’s stomach. No, for the first night in ages, she and her daughter’s bedtimes have been separated. She smiles wearily and thinks to call her husband and tell him of her victory. But she’s too tired. She just falls asleep with the remote in her hand, very very relieved.

The above describes my past ten days. Every three nights, I moved one more foot away from the bed in an effort to teach my daughter to fall asleep by herself. There were a few variations on the battle but the overall struggle persisted until Friday (the night my husband came home from the US) when my daughter finally slept through the night uninterrupted. She’s done it three nights in a row now. Last night, she didn’t even fight me at bedtime. She was snoring within seconds of her head hitting the pillow.

I’d like to take full credit for this turnaround in my daughter (and with my husband, I will J) but in reality, this was a joint global effort, a true example of why women need each other. The beautiful and open responses I got from so many other mothers helped me feel so much less alone in that dark nursery night after night, with no husband or family member on the same continent with me. The prayers everyone said gave me the strength to not totally cave in, and the encouragement I received about my writing has motivated me to use my newly rebounding energy to actually change some things about my life in Shanghai rather than just bake more muffins. Thank you to everyone.

Manika also taught me something without knowing it. Somewhere around the second or third night, as she slowly drifted into quieter breathing and deeper sleep without me close to her bed, I felt a strong pang of sadness. I suddenly wanted to go closer, put my hand on her stomach, and kiss her cheek. I realized that it was just one of many moments going forward when she would no longer need me, and I began to wonder how much of her dependency on me I’ve actually been encouraging to give meaning to my life here in Shanghai. Her challenges coupled with my pregnancy have been my excuses not to go out more into my world, to not commit too much to anything, to live as if I’m a transient just here to raise my children.

So after that night, I made a conscious decision to get out of the house, to risk getting tired and guilty about not spending enough time with my daughter, and to just try things whether they seemed feasible or not. I called a friend of mine who was looking for a writing teacher to teach a small class of aspiring writers, another friend who runs an online organic grocery company (mentioned in previous blogs), a real estate agent to explore the possibility of opening a space dedicated to freelance writers (many similar spaces exist in New York where writers can quietly work, meet together, network, encourage one another and get away from their children), and a lawyer to help me understand the fertility, genetics and stem cell industries in China (my previous area of expertise in the US). In short, I started throwing stuff at the wall.

In New York, any one of these things would take something like one to four months to stick. But this is China. The country has an abundance of workers, but not so many thinkers, creators, problem-solvers, or entrepreneurs. I have now been given a creative writing class to teach, I am building a marketing plan and fundraising budget for the online company, I’m still taking the interest temperature for the writing space but have already found lots of people to survey, a friend of mine is doing the first draft illustrations for a children’s book I’ve written, and I’m meeting with a lawyer about the IVF industry very shortly. I think I may have thrown too much.

But that’s okay. I’m much happier. I finally feel engaged in the Shanghai machinery. I have new projects to inspire and occupy me. I feel like I’m learning about China again and how it operates instead of just living in it. And I’m well-rested. Hopefully, in the weeks to come, my blog will be more about that then sleep deprivation. Hopefully, I can share a deeper understanding of China. And if kid trouble comes again? Well, I now know where to go for help and inspiration, and I also know that I can take it on. I just need a strong will and a tough arm to row through the occasional torrent of tears to the other side. I guess that’s why God uses childbirth (appropriately known as labor) to prep us poor mothers from the start.

I knew He has a purpose for everything.