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.

Ever wonder why?

Today I started the day in tears again – a very frequent happening these days. My daughter, in a new and more determined effort to torture me it seems, woke up seven times last night in one nine hour stretch.

Regular readers of this blog will notice a theme – this Manika not sleeping thing. It is the single most dominant event of my life these days. It controls my ability to think, to function, to be in a good mood or a bad mood. I frequently have to cancel afternoon plans because I’m too tired. Never before have I encountered such a persistent, rampant, and uncontrollable problem and it is making me hate motherhood in ways I never thought possible. It’s also making me depressed.

To all whose immediate reaction is to say – “then do something about it,” I would like to point to my extensive library of sleep books, the picture montage of parents and stickers on the back of her bed placed in an effort to both comfort and reward, the highly regular bedtime routine, the elimination of the milk bottle as a falling asleep prop, the no television, computer or other stimulating tools three hours before bedtime rule, the relaxing baby massage I give every night before she goes to sleep, the $70 bunny sleep clock I’ve put in her room that indicates when it’s okay to get out of bed and when it’s time to sleep, and the three week “sleep without mommy’s help” process I’ve repeatedly followed only to have to redo. I am calling a sleep clinic in the UK today to try to create yet a new “sleep plan” for her in hopes that perhaps $500 - $600 will unearth some new path to success I haven’t yet designed. I even tried using grandparents during the holidays. But my two-year old daughter is tireless. She wakes. She wants mommy (and only mommy) to hold her and help her go back to sleep and if she doesn’t get it, she’ll sacrifice hours and hours of rest to win and scream repeatedly at the top of her lungs “Mommy, mommy, mommy,” until I wish she’d either just wear out her throat or I’d finally go deaf, once and for all.

On top of all this stress, I’ve once against lost my only other nighttime resource – my husband. Normally, this is to his job, which is very demanding. But these two weeks, he’s in the US. Sadly, his father passed away, although it was after a six-year battle with cancer so we all hope his soul is finally at rest. The culmination of these events – the complete loss of control of my life to a toddling tyrant, and my family’s first close encounter with the death of a truly loved one, have caused me to contemplate, “Why the hell are we here anyway?”

This is not some new thought, and for the longest time, I’ve believed I already had a satisfying answer. When I was very young, I converted from sort of nothing to Christianity. I’ve always been a believer in God (although my frequent swearing might not always point to my faith) and since I was very young, I’ve always found comfort in the knowledge there was a purpose in everything that happened to me – college rejections, job rejections, loss of a loved boyfriend or friend – and my primary belief has been that suffering teaches us to need God, to love in ways we haven’t thought possible, to let go of the illusion of control we have on life, and to remind us to live in the present and follow God. It has been this belief that has kept me from packing my bags, changing my name and running away to France after so many nights of incessant waking. Yes, I’m a zombie, yes my prayers for a sleep miracle go unanswered, but I’m learning that I can love even the most demanding of prison keepers. Bleary-eyed, headached and tear-filled, I can still find enough love in the morning to dress my daughter in matching clothes and make her oatmeal with just the right amount of honey. I have even at times, been thankful, for the newly discovered knowledge of reserves of strength I’ve found. When the time comes for true disaster – a long illness, the loss of someone close to me – I am no longer afraid the way I used to be. I now know I will find strength in those times too, because I’ve found strength in days through which I never even thought I could stay awake in places where I have not had one person to help me.

However, lately, those beliefs have not been enough to satisfy my soul. Yes, it is a joy to serve in motherhood, yes I’ve impregnated myself for the second time despite all of this (although that I will attribute less to foresight and more to too much alcohol drunk in the company of my too willing husband), but it is not enough. I simply cannot imagine I was just put on this earth to serve my daughter and husband only, that this is the solace with which I’m supposed to sustain my soul. If it is, then why am I not actually happy in this knowledge, and more importantly, why am I not at peace the way I used to be with this belief tucked in my heart?

Instead, I am constantly conflicted, mainly because I’ve always believed I have another purpose as well and that is to write. That isn’t to say I’ve always fancied myself some God-ordained, super-talented writer, but I do know that I was put here to do it, good or not. I have always felt called in this direction, and I’ve sacrificed many things in my life for this. When I was a teenager and young college student, I completely abandoned my relationship with my father and his approval to pursue writing. When I started working, I gave up nights out and a social life to get up at three or four in the morning and write before starting my day. In 2004, when I left the world of investment banking, I also completely sacrificed financial security. I did this all with blind faith in the voice I felt inside of me. And yet, I’ve still had nothing ever published, my novel continues into its sixth year (Kiran Desai took seven with no children, so I’m still optimistic) and even if I am published, there is no promise that money will follow. The only occasional affirmation I get from people are the kind words of friends reading this blog.

In that way, writing is much like motherhood. It does not yield much to my control, it does not demonstrate noticeable daily progress, there are no real milestones, no way to predict how efforts will result in the future. With this awareness, I have searched for connective lessons, ways to draw on one experience to assure me that the efforts in the other realm are worth it, ways to use one struggle to bolster my spirits in the other. But those efforts to knit some mental web of support are also failing me.

So I find myself asking this question anew – Why are we here? The context is deeper now than it was when I first asked and answered it as a teenager. What I’m really wondering is, why do we have a temporary physical existence and this deep spiritual journey intertwined when the two are so clearly incongruous? Before Manika, my physical existence simply wanted financial sustenance, and so the battle was simple and identical to many artists – I work a little for money, I write when I can. At times, I wanted more money so I worked harder. When I wanted less money, I wrote more. Over the years, I found a balance I could control. Now, there is no balance to be found. My physical existence desires sleep, time for my own self, some external validation of my talents, some monetary rewards for my efforts, and my waist back (how I miss having a waist). My spiritual self is calling me to be selfless in serving my daughter, to learn to make peace with a country I am not comfortable in for the sake of my husband, to live in depths of solitude and isolation that I’ve never known before. But it also continues to call me to write, an activity I cannot do without sleep and some sense of daily stability and control, without some satisfaction of my physical wants. So round and round the struggle goes. I’m completely confused and discouraged. If my purpose is to live for my family, I am joyless in it. If my purpose is truly to write, then I need some grace, some mercy, some divine hand of strength to help me continue. And if my perspective is simply wrong altogether, I need a new lightning bolt of wisdom. In all ways, I am hungry for an answer.

Today, I don’t have one. All I know now is that having this hunger must be part of why I am here, it has to be part of the answer. This is the purpose I’ve assigned it, if for no other reason than it makes me aware of my soul when the daily grind could make me forget it. The rest will have to come in God’s time or perhaps never. All religions have some sort of explanation, but their differences show that there is no one answer. Instead, their universal instructions seem to be to remain open to God, and seek Him in times of struggle. Sometimes we’ll get a miracle, sometimes we won’t. The miracles show us God’s love. The silence is his method of tough training I guess.

So for now, I will just try to wait and search. Perhaps I am still meant to write, but not today. Or maybe I’m just meant to write this – my blog – instead of my book or my short stories. Perhaps my words are meant for another mother today, and they will offer some comfort. Perhaps my daughter will someday be President and this will of hers will be what I’m most proud of. Perhaps me and my husband’s future success and livelihood lay in China, and someday I’ll be so grateful I came here. I don’t know. Only time will tell, I’ll just have to patiently and openly wait.

In the meantime, I still have my credit card ready. Pretty soon that sleep clinic in the UK will be awake. I’m ready for day three of my latest “sleep without mommy” sleep plan. God may ask us to wait patiently for answers, but nowhere does He say to stop living (or problem solving) in the process. After all, he did give me a brain, $600 and a Masters Degree for a reason too, I think.

I hope.

The sun shines in Shanghai

Over the past four weeks, I've had a total shut down and reboot experience here in Shanghai.

A series of random frustrating events (many captured in my last poem - apologies to anyone who I offended), led me to spend nights on end dreaming about Brooklyn. I woke on Saturday mornings dreaming of walking down Park Slope's Fifth Avenue, picking up a bagel with cream cheese and a coffee, popping in and out of little boutiques, spending a few hours at my desk at the Brooklyn's Writer's Space, and then going home to my snug apartment and having a cup of tea with my daughter and nanny.

Like all memories, the visions were lovely, sepia toned and selective. They excluded standing wall-to-wall with commuters on the subway. I didn't remember carrying grocery bags in one hand, a folded up Maclaren on my shoulder, and an uncooperative child on my hip. My 1,000 square foot apartment felt palatial when in reality, toys were always falling on my head when I lived there. And most importantly, my friends and family were always around - when in reality, we often had to plan to see each other weeks or months in advance.

My mind started to come back to the present around Thanksgiving. This year, because I'm pregnant, I can't go home for any of the holidays and so I did my best to recreate a festive atmosphere in my apartment by hosting a 12-person dinner complete with turkey, mashed potatoes, green beans, pumpkin squares and apple cobbler. I spent two days cooking, hired two women to help with the setup and dishes, scrubbed my apartment from top to bottom and then, waited for the feeling to come. The warm smell of cooking fruit didn't quite do it. The sight of a beautifully laid table just made me wish my brother and sister-in-law were coming to sit at it. The guests started to arrive - a wonderful mix of people from all over the world. That started to warm me up. Here in one place were Italians, Kenyans, Americans, Indians, all celebrating turkey day together. However, a UN-like gathering wasn't really it either, and none were my family.

Then China decided to surprise me, or kick me, depending on how you look at it. All of the sudden, the lights started to flicker. It happened three or four times. We unplugged all the appliances, computers, and televisions. We left on only the lamps. These flickered one last time and then went off. The oven died. My hallway started to smoke up. We called emergency services and the guy said I'd "overused the electricity." He said it would take at least two hours to come back on. By then, I had a houseful of hungry, expectant guests, many who had conquered hours of parking-lot like traffic to be there. I tried to explain this in my frenzied Chinese, to which he replied, "Use candles." "But I have a turkey to keep warm!" I said in English. Of course, he didn't understand me. He and his buddy just laughed at the silly American who had overcooked. I was about to cry...and curse Shanghai forever. Next flight back on Continental - anyone have a ticket?

Then my wonderful, understanding, also-living-in-China friends came to the rescue. Little by little, we located and lit every single candle in my apartment. My ayi did what she could to finish dinner on the gas stove. Manika (thankfully) sat patiently in front of my battery-powered laptop. People started laughing again, and no one seemed to mind anymore, and some actually seemed to find the whole thing atmospheric. My italian friends said everything felt romantic, which totally adjusted my perspective my vision. My friend Ruth took charge of helping me bring all of the dishes out to the table. The turkey was (by the grace of God) perfectly done. In the best moment of the night, Manika started to get stressed out and cry, so someone gave her a candle. She said, "happy birthday?" Everyone - all eleven of the adult guests - sang Happy Birthday to her in response. She was thrilled! Miraculously, no red wine spilled on my cream carpet or sofa, and everyone could see enough to sit down at a table. The lights came back on right after dessert. By then, everyone was happily full. In those two hours, I finally felt at home in Shanghai, and I was truly Thanksgiving-grateful.

The sentiment spilled out into the days that followed. Manika has been stressed out since August it seems, first with our trip to the US, then with the transition from a crib to a toddler bed, then with the start of school, followed by my efforts to potty train her, and lastly, the beginning of dreams. My daughter, who used to sleep through the night, has spent eight weeks waking me up every day at 1:20am and then 5am, causing me to either get up and pat her back to sleep, or just surrender and bring her to my bed. All along, I blamed the terrible twos and the lack of logic skills to adjust to new circumstances. But after Thanksgiving, in desperation I downloaded a book on sleep solutions for toddlers, and inside, one of the first things I read was how stressed out parents can lead to stressed out children.

Well, that equation certainly seemed to apply in our house. I began to realize that my own inflexibility in adjusting to Shanghai was still causing me to be very inflexible with my daughter, even though I thought I was having both up and down moments but was overall getting better. I was still mostly saying: no extra book at bed time, no nighttime hugging, no sleeping in my bed. Pee in the pants was yucky, awful, not okay. No one should cry at school. As I reviewed my own behavior in my head in the light of this book's advice, I began to see that I had equal, if not greater responsibility for my poor daughter's uneasy soul.

So I launched fullscale operation de-stress Manika. Need six extra hugs to fall asleep. No problem. Want me to give your feet a little massage to relax you in the middle of the night. Okay. Come to my bed. Just don't kick my belly (have to draw the line somewhere). Pee in the pants - okay, wear training pants. It's okay, you're practicing. I cancelled appointments, I further emptied my schedule, and I just focused on her. I bought her classical music to listen to at night. I took her art supply shopping so she could start "expressing herself" right before bed. And most of all, I was forgiving. I was accepting. I actually smiled at her singing Old MacDonald had a farm in her bed for the tenth time instead of getting angry at her for not sleeping.

In the process, it seemed I broke every parenting rule I'd picked up in New York - consistency, tough love, don't create too much dependency, kids should learn to be independent, stretch a little but not too much. I became much more Chinese in my philosophy - children are little happy beings whose happiness should be a topmost priority. Most importantly and very unexpectedly, I became even happier. I let more things go. I felt less rigid. More of Manika's little laughter poured in and for the first time since I had her, the joy of having a child outweighed the extreme burdens of work.

She still wakes up at night a bit. She gave me a three day reprieve this week and then needed me last night from 2 - 3am because of some bad dream about someone not giving her the crayon color she needed. But instead of getting furious and cursing motherhood for lasting twenty-four hours of every day, I laughed to myself at what this poor girl thinks about in her sleep and let her climb in my bed and nestle against me.

After all, who am I to judge? I've been crying over missing round bagels and cream cheese, and Whole Foods, and Jcrew for months - equally silly things that in the end, won't mean nearly as much as the opportunities I got to accept the kindness of friends, or give my daughter late (very late!) night hugs.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!