Ahoy

At the 3am wake-up call, I crawled into Bug's bed and let him nestle into a big bowl of mommy. The chilly October air made the closeness a particular comfort. Bug promptly crashed. Warmth is apparently fear's kryptonite. I let myself drift, but a cackle from my son startled me to alertness. In his sleep, Bug was snickering. The sound roused him, too, and he pushed closer to me, grinning. "I had a dream, Mommy." He began to tell it just as the words turned to cake batter in his mouth. He was back under. A few minutes later, another dose of his giggles jolted me awake.

I can't know how the anxiety of splitting a life between two homes might be affecting my son. It isn't fair to him, is it? Tee and I know we can't live together, yet I still fantasize about biting the bullet and making a go of it. One bed for Bug? A single set of books, of boots, of parents, of expectations? Why should this little boy carry the bulk of the discomfort? That's a pretty big shot of adaptation to demand of a kid.

Nevertheless, the ship has left port. On the phone prior to the meeting, the lawyer was prepared to take Tee to the mat. "Bring in his 401K records, his pay stubs, your joint tax documents. You may be entitled to child support, and you are entitled to half the marital assets."

I ignored her. The only papers I brought were ones Tee and I created and reviewed together: Separation Agreement, 26-point Parenting Plan, Virginia divorce paperwork. No subterfuge, no secret strategies. She combed through the pages to make sure Bug is protected, Tee and I have a plan for every contingency, and everything is polished up for the judge to stamp it legal.

At the end of the consultation, the lawyer looked up at me and smiled. "You guys really did all this yourselves?" I nodded, trying not to let the wave of relief and pride upend me. "You two have done an excellent job on this. You've covered everything and more." She cut the retainer in half and told me we should be able to move through the remaining steps without a hitch. If Bug never knows how much effort it has taken to keep this vessel steady on relentlessly churning seas, then we can claim victory.

We sail on in this way, the rigging tight in our grasp. Tee and I have been planning Bug's pirate-themed birthday party for over two months. Never once did it occur to me to do this alone, or to leave the organizing to the parent whose weekend is shared with Bug. Half the task list fell to each of us according to our strengths and preferences. A friend is on the payroll, making a treasure chest out of cake. Bug's Grandma and I have assembled the food and helium balloons and favors decorated with skulls. Tee is managing a treasure hunt and limbo, invitations and thank you notes. Occasional check-ins at allow us to make sure details and numbers are in sync. Beyond that, we trust each other to take care of business. We are a professional partnership now.

In four hours, 35 members of Bug’s growing circle will turn the park where Tee and I were married into a Caribbean island peppered with hidden riches. My objective is to have our son never know that his two parents could have behaved in ways that would have made this impossible. Normal = cooperation. Tortuga may be today’s destination, but civility is our true north.

None of us knows how much our children will have to pay for our choices. This question has kept me awake at night for well over a year. All too often, when sleep does come, tsunamis and rising tides have me racing for a shrinking scrap of safe ground. This is why I am grateful when I startle awake and discover the culprit to be Bug’s mirth.

He's Got Game

I remember the sound of ducks greeting me in the pre-dawn hours as the boat bobbed on the water. A decade ago, my folks and I navigated along the Canal du Midi in southern France for a week. We moored at the edge of 1000-year-old villages and wandered, stocking up on crusty bread and fresh vegetables from the markets. At night by candlelight, we read about the Visigoths and the Cathars as we armed ourselves on wine made from the grapes growing along the rolling countryside.  One of our stops was the medieval city of Carcassonne. The fortified walls still stand, now protecting tchotchke shops plying their wares to curious tourists.

After this trip, a friend introduced me to the game of Carcassonne. One of a family of German, multi-player, multi-strategy games by Hans im Gluck, Carcassonne instantly appealed to me. I went out and bought it for my folks. When Tee and I began seeing each other, we played with my mother on the rare occasion when she could be enticed. The game became more intricate and our tactics more considered as the months went by. This is not a game that can be mastered, per se, because every play and every player changes the terrain. But it can become more fun.

Tee and I went a little nuts for Carcassonne. We bought and learned how to use every expansion set, and the game grew. Adjustments were necessary.  Tee’s dad came to help us design and build a coffee table the right shape to play Carcassonne. Our tiles spilled out of the knit cap from which we drew; for Christmas, a friend sewed us a cute, fleece pouch for storing them. The small score-keeping board with its 50 point limit could not track our obsession, so I used a drill, a block of wood, and several colored matchsticks to advance the ranks of the various players.

This is no D&D sort of craze. Carcassonne and its ilk (Settlers of Cattan and Dominion, for example) appeal widely because they are as simple or as complex as the people around the table. Players build, trade, earn points. They can create alliances, or secretly amass land, or just enjoy the fun of small victories. The landscape is forever in flux. For a person who wants to put a gun to her head about halfway into a game of Scrabble, Carcassone is a refreshing change.

In every one of our camp homes, we introduced the game to our co-workers. Several bought it for themselves, and summer evenings rode upon the rise and fall of fragile empires. We hooked Tee’s younger siblings on the madness. Emotional, smack-talking Carcassonne tournaments became much-anticipated episodes in every family vacation.

The camp game nights we hosted every month or two continued strong right through Bug’s infancy. As the baby became a toddler, however, it became harder to play anything involving pieces or a time commitment. We had to truncate the tournaments to tend to the bath and bedtime. Carcassone gathered dust as we brought out the dominoes and the cards.

We have always kept piles of games around, but Bug has never shown much interest in playing by the rules. I watch with envy as friends can make it through entire games of Go Fish or Checkers with their preschoolers. Not Bug. We pull out anything from the stack, and he says, “I want to play my way!” The chips and buzzers become building materials. Play money goes into the purse. The kid refuses to engage with the component parts (or me) to achieve a larger objective.

Now, I’m not complaining – all kids are different. My not-yet-five-year-old is building intricate Lego structures intended for kids twice his age, and we are already on chapter fourteen of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone. He also loves nothing more than cranking the Latin hip hop and bouncing around the living room with me. I just wish from time to time, Bug and I could play a board game together on a quiet evening.

This is why I was giddy with delight when Bug slid the aged box from the bookcase and brought it over to me Friday night. “Let’s play Carcassonne,” he said. (Yes, he even remembered the name). We took out the fleece pouch, the wooden dudes, the scoreboards. It has been a couple years since I have laid eyes on a Carcassonne tile, so I had forgotten the pleasure I take in the play. How exciting to begin assembling that sprawling, ancient geography with my kid!

In a rare moment of focus, Bug listened as I explained how to place his pieces. We took turns drawing tiles and matching the roads, cities, and farms to one another. I made sure I gave him hints to win him quick, small bursts of points, and he moved his blue guy around the scoreboard with uncharacteristic honesty. We probably played – really played – Carcassonne for half an hour. Bug made it all the way around to 50 points, declared himself the winner, and moved on to using the dragon to attack my cities.

After we cleaned up the scattered pieces, we went upstairs to brush teeth and read a chapter of Harry Potter.

Sometimes my heart wrenches when look at this lanky, jabbering kid, and realize that little baby is gone forever. On nights like these, however, I realize what adventures are in store for us. Bug’s sense of fun is maturing as he does.  Heck, in a few more years, he can be my skipper on the Canal du Midi. It will be a kick to climb with him up to the top of the tower of that medieval city. We can look out over a foreign yet familiar place, glimpsing together a landscape’s single moment before it becomes something else again.

Bibliophile

At night, we stretch out on the bed for one of the few enduring rituals. Three books, three songs. For nearly five years, we have followed this same map to creep our way into night’s inner sanctum. Daddy’s house may have its own traditions now; I do not ask. For us, no matter the time zone in which we lay our heads, this is what Bug and Mommy do before bed.

Last night, we had finished up the first two picture books and Bug was reaching for the third. “Which one will it be?” He grinned sideways at me. He already clasped a Dr. Seuss against his chest.

“Maybe Wizard of Oz?” I said. “Or. . . Alice in Wonderland?”

Bug tilted the book down for a glance. “You’re teasing. We don’t have Alice in Wonderland.”

“Yes, we do. Right there, on the shelf. We have lots of big kid books.”

Dropping the Dr. Seuss and scooting off the bed, Bug made his way to the same bookcases that have stared him down for more than a year. He itched a mosquito bite on his tanned arm as he stood contemplating the rainbow splashed across his wall.

My son’s bookcases house an eclectic mix of titles. We live in the two spare rooms, after all, so the meager remains of my personal library have spilled over onto my kid’s shelves. Yet, the diversity is as much by design by necessity. Over the years, I have peppered his Little Critter and Beatrix Potter collection with young adult novels, non-fiction titles, and a random assortment of what Bug refers to as “grown up books.” 

“Is this Harry Potter?”

I grinned. All seven books have lived at eye-level since the kid could first stand up. It has taken him this long to notice. “Sure is,” I sighed. “I don’t know, though. They are big kid books. No pictures. Do you think you can handle it?”

He grabbed the spine marked with a number one and puffed out his chest. “I have read big kid books before. I can handle it!”

He crawled back onto the bed and we took in the cover’s busy dazzle. “You know, kiddo, your daddy and I read this book at bedtime together, just like this.”

“You did?”

“Yep. Long before you were born.  We would read out loud in bed to each other, one chapter a night. We took turns. We read almost the whole series, just like that.” I opened the book and began.

Bug twisted and wiggled next to me, interrupting at irregular intervals for clarification. “When is Harry Potter going to come?” Kick, fidget. “What is all this talking?”

Back to the page, back to the tale, I guided my son’s wandering attention. I offered to stop but he insisted we continue. The story’s music soon pulled us in. Immersed, my voice found each character’s unique lyric. Bug’s body echoed the pace of the story’s deepening breath.  The ensemble settled into its rhythm there on the bottom bunk.

At last, the final line of chapter one sang out. “To Harry Potter – The boy who lived!” I smiled and snapped the book closed. Bug let out a shriek and burst into tears.

“I want more! More Harry Potter! Please, Mommy, just one more chapter! Please!”

“Tomorrow is the weekend, Baby. We can read two chapters if you want.”

“Can we read three chapters?” He rubbed his fist into his teary eyes. “Or four?”

I laughed and hugged him close. “We can read all weekend if you want.” I began to sing. In my arms, Bug whimpered his way to sleep.

What a haunting chord, this pride at witnessing my child’s righteous despair. My son cries out his disappointment at losing his nourishment. What sustains him now is not me; it exists behind garden doors to which I can only offer a key.  These tears are evidence of his becoming a literate boy. He is not just learning to read. He is learning to love to read.  At last, he hungers for the things he needs to thrive beyond the reach of this embrace.

Walk On

In the dreams, I am wandering through a strange city. Somewhere, someone who cares about me is waiting for me. A sense of urgency about reaching the destination keeps my feet moving. Always, it is my own momentum propelling me forward.

Around me surges a throng of people. It is alternately summer steam and winter slush. I turn a corner, and my way is suddenly even more obscure. The street grid gives way to a maze of town homes lining looping, inescapable cul-de-sacs. The people disappear. The homes have no numbers, the street signs are blank. I walk on, aiming for vaguely familiar buildings whose facades morph into something foreign once I near them.

In the dreams, I have no map. Someone is still waiting, yet I also know no one is trying to find me. I have to get there on my own.

I keep walking.

- - -

Tomorrow, Tee and  I will sit down to carve out a parenting plan. So far, this document contains 26 points and runs to a dozen single-spaced pages. In it, we outline our plans for sharing custody of our son. How will we organize time and finances? How will we resolve conflicts? What will be our means of communication, and what values will guide our decisions?

When parents split up, they have a choice to make about how to proceed. So far, Tee and I have agreed to keep our differences out of court. Our tight finances should probably take more of the credit than our cool tempers. We continue to talk with relative calm. Somehow, we are managing to hammer out the details of our future while we breathe through the pull to re-visit the past.

As hard as this task is in the short term, allowing our son to have two homes and two equally responsible parents seems to be the best we can offer in these sad circumstances. We aim to proceed without a battle and to show the state (and each other and our little boy) that we really do intend to co-parent. This means we have to draft the blueprint of our new life. Our parenting agreement is the place for us to develop plans of action for every educational and medical decision, every holiday, every move, every new partner, and every catastrophe.

This is only one of many miles to cover in the slog across the convoluted landscape of Divorce City. Once we have written out our parenting agreement, we have to tackle the 70 pages of legal paperwork the Commonwealth of Virginia requires us to file.

Tomorrow, I will proceed with care down another unfamiliar street. I have no map, but I believe a table is set and a door is open across town. Someone and something await my arrival. I may not know the most direct route, but I keep walking. My trusty feet will guide me.

Lapping

The moon was a ghostly galleon tossed upon cloudy seas

-Alfred Noyes, "The Highwayman"

Bug unfolds the telescoping poles and gasps in delight as they pop into place. The shock cord is missing from one, but we shove the pieces together and manage to jam them into the corner grommets before they collapse. Bug is better at helping with this than I expected. His development surges ahead under the powers of a mysterious momentum.  When we attempted this task a few months back, I had to guide his hands and grit my teeth through the whole exercise. Now, my son takes my multi-step directions in stride, snapping everything into its proper order. Within a few minutes, a dome tent is occupying the majority of the real estate in our back yard.

I had hoped to take Bug to the beach this summer. Alas, the stars did not align. For now, a suburban campout will have to stand in for the ocean. Bug does not seem to mind, even though he tells me far too often these days, “I hate your house, Mommy. I want to sleep at Daddy’s house forever.” It should sting, I suppose. Instead, his statement rolls off. I know he wants more of me, not less. At his dad’s, Bug shares quarters with Tee. At our house, he has to suffer the torture of having his very own room.

For all his cognitive headway, Bug is still just a little guy. He likes nothing more than to position himself squarely in the center of his parents’ gaze. Of course, he is also growing like swamp grass. I’m not so foolish as to believe a shared bed with Mom will be my son’s greatest delight in summers to come. This is a chapter quickly drawing to a close. It is becoming harder to call Bug’s attention back from its outward pull. For this brief moment, though, he still presses himself into my embrace. My son seems to want to disappear into me, even if only to have a safe harbor from which to launch his next voyage.

On this one unseasonably mild weekend, the least I could do in the absence of a sea is to give my boy a night with me.

We pile the nylon floor with two dozen blankets. In come the flashlights, books, pillows, water bottles, and stuffed animals.  I issue a firm edict against all electronic toys. The blackberry and portable games are all relegated to the house.

As night falls, we crawl in and zip up the screens. Then down. Then up. Bug climbs around on me, giggling. He splays his body out across mine, sighing, rocking ever so slightly from side to side. He twists into my limbs, pressing his chin into my shoulder.

Once he has drunk his fill of me, I help Bug strap a light to his forehead. We attempt to read about insect-eating plants. Bug turns in the direction of every new noise. “Listen to that!” A cricket. A critter. A flutter of wings. The lighthouse beam sweeps in arcs across the choppy surface of the night. Our story disappears and re-emerges between swells.  

Even after four books and the steady approach of the wee hours, Bug is still bouncing. I confiscate both torches, but his excitement is bright enough to light Times Square. Into the sleeping bag. Zipper up, too hot. Zipper half down. Shirt tag itching. Shirt off. Too cold. Zip the bag back up.

“Oh, baby, am I ever sleepy.”

Wiggle, press, hug, twist. “I’m not sleepy! Let’s stay up all night!”

“I wish I could. But my toes are too sleepy.”

“Your toes can’t be sleepy. Toes don’t go to sleep!”

“Mine sure are about to. You know what else is sleepy? My ankles.” I yawn big. “And my knees. Boy, are my knees ever so sleepy.”

I take a lazy stroll up my body. Bug giggles when I talk about how drowsy my bottom is. He thinks sleepy hair and sleepy earlobes are hilarious. A low tide is lapping at the edge of the tent. It begins to spill in. I let it roll on down my skin as I follow it back towards the outer reaches. “I have the sleepiest spine,” I drawl.

Bug is very insistent. “MY spine isn’t sleepy.” His voice is sinking under the weight of the deep.” My (ya-a-awn) legs aren’t sleepy at all.”

I bid goodnight to my toenails. Bug’s feet have beaten me to the punch. His breathing comes slow and deep. He snuffles, turns, throws a naked arm across my belly. Winged insects plead for mates through the dim moonlight. Their song calls up another wave. My feet give way, and I follow my son under.

Catch and Release

At dusk, the lightning bugs emerge. It is well past bedtime, but we go out anyway. My son runs barefoot through the grass with a jar, chasing the disappearing lights. He catches one, then three, then none as he removes the lid for more. He loses another when he adds grass, then loses the grass when he tips the jar over his prey. As night falls, he figures out the order of things. With his one catch trapped in a jungle of lawn clippings, I prod my little boy towards the house. He places the jar carefully on the dresser at the foot of his bed.

The house is quiet in the summer night. My mind is not. The future is too uncertain. It pricks at the skin of my feet and eyes, coaxing me to get moving.

When a woman has her first baby, she gives birth to more than just the kid. A couple of mothers are born, too.  One is a nurturer. She knows in her bones her child is better for the simple gift of her attention. She is made for care. Instinct guides the tender fullness of her focus.

The other is a grizzly bear who rips the throat from any threat. Crafty and determined, she will bust through ice to catch that fish for her hungry cub. When grit is called for, mama bear comes growling from her cave. Instinct guides the sensory vigilance of her focus.

My hide grows thick. My claws are as sharp as ever.
 

In the night when the dog is walked and the lunches packed and the kid has been kissed and cuddled to sleep, the thin remains of the nurturer in me drift to Neverland. This is when my brain's fierce protectiveness awakens. In the dark, the planning begins. A list of tasks awaits me on the desk of an office I am always careful to tidy before leaving for the day. Order improves efficiency. If I can tick items off the list, there may be a small window of time to make arrangements and order books for the classes in which I have enrolled in the fall. Drafting the 30-point co-parenting document required for divorce has fallen to me. In the ever-shrinking summer months before the semester begins, I must prepare this family for the next tectonic shift.

The system is only barely working. Tasks spill over the thin edges of the to-do list. They flood every moment, every spare breath. I must find a way to increase my income to support this child. Steady, focused forward motion is required.  There is no drift here, no feeling around for my bliss or calling. I know very little about business, about job market trends, about spin. It is time for me to learn, and so I will learn.

The clock drags its way deeper into my precious night.

 

What am I missing? My grizzly brain will not ease its grip. It scans the horizons for dangers as well as opportunities. It works to force the germination of solutions not yet ready to push towards the light. 

 

These things are too big for this bed, but they belong nowhere else. They are mine. I want to begin re-arranging the desk space in my room to prepare for studying. I want to get up to finish one of the eight books I will need to read, or work through a section of the parenting plan. I force my body still in the bed despite the pull to rise and hammer away at a project that will provide a better foundation for my child and me.

I remember the lightning bug in my son's room. My mind flits past this. I am already scheduling the next training and untangling the next knot. 

Then I pause. The grizzly mama backs for a moment into her cave. In the quiet, I remember. On my son's dresser, a living creature is trapped in glass. 

I creep through the silent house with the jar. Out in the damp heat, crickets sing to the crescent moon. I open the lid and shake free the grass and the single insect. It disappears instantly. 

Sleep comes. 

The fierce mama has been on the front lines for over a year now. Her vigilance has kept us safe and her craftiness is moving us towards more abundant feeding grounds. Allowing her to be in charge comes at a cost, however. The one threat she fails to notice is her own self. 

 

The tougher I become, the further I have to travel to find my source of tenderness. This patch of earth with its inhabitants creates a small circle of life around me. To flourish, it requires the presence of the nurturer, too. In more ways than I ever imagined, I have to become two parents to my boy. I did not know I was capable of being a provider and a protector, but now I am called on to take on these roles. I am, however, still the mother whose arms fit perfectly around her little boy. That mother is the one called upon to show her son how to love this mystifying world.

Row Your Boat Gently

When children are free to love both their parents without conflict of loyalty, to have access to both without fear of losing either, they can get on with the totally absorbing work of growing up, on schedule. They can learn to master the tasks that life places before them with confidence and a sense of security. And both parents and children can learn that something as hurtful and as earthshaking as a separation or divorce can eventually be handled constructively. - Mom's House, Dad's House, Isolina Ricci

In the early spring sun, Tee and I met at a nearby playground. Bug scrambled around the trees and jungle gyms with the other kids while we chatted. The meeting was meant to be nothing more than a pick-up exchange, but the lazy sun lulled us into dropping our defenses. We began to talk. I shared a suggestion from my counselor, and we discussed some of what is ahead for our co-parenting relationship.

In a flash, Tee was off the bench, storming away, too angry even to sit next to me anymore. What set him off is still unclear. Was it a word, a phrase? Was it a buildup of grief and frustration finally having its chance to blow? Several brewing weather fronts collided at that mile of sky, and the tempest was immediate and total. The conversation spiraled into a barely contained series of accusations and excuses. Each of us lost our inhibition, and even the proximity of our child and our neighbors didn't rein us in.

Some semblance of control must have remained. We did not find ourselves in a screaming battle or calling each other terrible names, and I would hope we made the other parents merely uncomfortable rather than fearful. I have no doubt, however, that Bug sensed something was not right. It can only have caused him distress. Even the April sunshine has only so much power to alleviate a little boy's fear.

The interaction caught us both off guard. Most of our emotional storm fronts stay off shore, and we have only ventured out under them separately and in the company of counselors or friends. Six months have passed since Tee moved out. A few things have shifted during that time. We are each more settled in our work, our childcare routine, and our separate social lives. I am less interested in what Tee does with his private time, and I am more confident in each of our abilities to stay steady through the changes. Nothing succeeds like success. We can talk a good game about our commitment to our child, but the evidence is in the behaviors we exhibit over time. He has not moved away and neither have I. We are not in court. We each trust the other to care well for our son.

One significant shift has to do with the location of my attention. For the first several months, I was caught up in explaining and understanding the choice to separate. I became one of those insufferable people who suck all the air out of a room blathering on about the drama, the failings, the ex, and what went wrong. Fortunately, my friends and family are patient with me. Only a few have abandoned me altogether during this chaotic time. Because leaving a marriage, especially one with a child involved, is such a significant decision, it cannot be made lightly. It is easy to become consumed by the justifications for doing so. The pull to find fault with the partnership and the partner is almost addictive. It allays the guilt and shame, and it serves as a way to say to the world (and the self), "Look what I had to live with! It's a wonder I stayed as long as I did!"

Separation and divorce land a person in leaky boat, rowing madly for shore. I, for one, am still not sure how I got here. Seeking the reasons may be useful over time so that I don't repeat toxic patterns in future relationships. However, the spiraling diagnosis of the past is a kind of Bermuda Triangle. I have to haul myself out of the pull of "Why" and get myself into "What now?"

Shifting direction is easier said than done. "What now" means making decisions and creating entirely new approaches. "What now" means drawing on one's own resources and letting go of the fantasy of rescue. I have been lost for months. In many ways, I still am. Where is my attention supposed to be? Dangers loom. Sharks circle. Storm clouds gather, maps are out-of-date. For those first weeks and months in this rickety vessel, my mind could not focus on any one thing. Sometimes I found myself paralyzed. Sometime all I could do was curse the sky.

But six months apart have calmed the stormy waters around separation. My gaze is finally settling where it should. Blaming Tee, or myself, or our naivete and blind spots is no longer useful. The attention needs to be on the far horizon. What will our lives as co-parents look like? How do we want to arrange our two homes to meet Bug's needs? I may not have a map, but I have a point of orientation. Now, I need to attend more to the tone of the exchanges with Tee as a parent than to the feelings about him as a spouse. The arrangement we build from here on out will need to look like a business relationship. Courteous communication, structured meetings, explicit agreements, and respect for privacy should characterize our interactions in the future. 

The language we use has the power to shape our sense of what is real. If I speak of Tee not as my soon-to-be-ex-husband, but instead as Bug's father, I remove the marriage (and its demise) as the central factor in our relationship. If I say, "Our marriage ended," instead of "Our family fell apart," it allows for a more even keel.

Bug's family is intact. He has two of them: one with his father and the one with me. He has two homes. In the eyes of our son, we are each a whole person with the capacity to shelter him, care for him, and help him grow. His families are solid, his homes are complete. Tee is a good and capable father. I am a loving and resourceful mother. I will do my best to draw these thoughts into the front of my mind when I interact with Tee. I will allow the respectful and hopeful picture of Bug's future guide my words.

Those two stable homes exist on that distant shore. I will keep my eyes trained there as I pull this family over the miles of open water to reach it.

Flourish

High-hope people believe that the future will be better than the present and that they have the power to make it so. 

- Shane Lopez

The canopy of flowering plums and crabapples bobs under cool April rain. On this Friday when much of the Washington area is battening down the hatches for a government shutdown, a collection of bouyant humans from various corners of the globe parted the morning's curtain of mist and shed both warmth and light on a little corner of Fairfax, Virginia. George Mason University's slick new hotel digs, the Mason Inn, hosted this flagship Leading to Well-Being conference.

You might have a picture in your mind of a bunch of feel-good hedonists trotting out their inner hippies while munching on Marriott canteloupe slices. You might be as surprised as I was to find the list of attendees weighed heavily with research scholars from institutions like Princeton's Woodrow Wilson School, UNC Chapel Hill, and the University of Cambridge. Sure, meditation and yoga sessions were on offer even before the first dry pastry was served, but most of the day focused on the outcomes of scientific studies linking mindfulness to the well-being of individuals, organizations, and even nations.

Historically, much of the psychological field has focused on understanding and eliminating negative emotional experiences. Digging around in people's traumas and patterns was thought to be the way to uproot the bad to make way for the good. The trend now seems to be focusing on constructing positive, healing, and future-oriented approaches to generating well-being. Much more than emphasizing what is not working, most of us need to place greater attention on cultivating practices that move us towards good relationships, purpose, and accomplishment in our lives. As Martin Seligman shared in his keynote, he likes to grow roses. Sure, this involves a certain amount of pulling up weeds and clearing out space. However, "You don't get roses by weeding." To generate meaning and health, what do we plant? What do we work to create?

The research that most captured my attention revolved around the physiological changes occurring when positive emotions are introduced through regular practices such as meditation, appreciation, and caring for others. Measurable neurological changes begin to take place through the simple (though repeated) act of attending. "Attending" can take any number of forms. It might be keeing an eye on the present moment through mindfulness meditation. It also might be an increase in attention to what is going well, to feelings of warmth for a loved one, or perhaps to a hopeful picture of the future. Through any number of these practices, not only do people report a greater sense of well-being, but their brain function also increases.

Researchers are beginning to explore the changes occuring even on a cellular level. The vagus nerve, extending from the base of the cranium to the heart, seems to play a role in regulating cardiac function, as one example. Meditation has been shown to improve the health of this nerve and, consequently, the rhythms of the heart. The effect appears to sustain when the practice is continued, meaning the effect is more than simply a response to novelty. Decreases in illness and increases in longevity are not simply nice side-effects of feeling good. Inflammatory responses seem to lessen with regular practice of attention, and over time, the actual organism - the whole body - becomes more capable of fighting off disease and even thriving.

Putting some of this in the context of daily life, the Losada Ratio is an old-ish tool with new implications. I'm going to be sloppy here, but it more or less explains that the ratio of positivity to negativity in an organization or relationship has an impact on whether or not it will flourish. For each type of relationship, there is a "tipping point" below which dysfunction occurs. For a marriage, the ratio is 5:1. This means for every one dumb-ass thing you say to your spouse, you need to do at least five aweome things to make up for it. Because five is the tipping point, you actually need to be doing, oh, twenty or thirty, for the partnership to thrive. On a day-to-day basis, people in relationships, in workplaces, in classrooms, and in communities need to have a much higher quantity of appreciative, healing, hopeful, postivie experiences for every yucky one in order to acheive well-being.

Shane Lopez, Barbara Fredrickson, and Felicia Huppert were a few of the folks who presented both findings and interventions today. Their publications do a much better job than this little blog at explaining the implications. I am most interested, of course, in how I can apply the ideas as well as the tools to the various quarters of my life. When I am advising doctoral students, how might I employ appreciative techniques to help them through the rigors of the work? Is it possible to encourage both expansiveness of vision and singularity of focus? With my son, how might his daily experience improve if I tell him ten things he is doing well for every one thing that drives me bananas? What forms can mindfulness practice take in the life of a four-year-old, and how can we cultivate them in our rather frantic lives?

Most fascinating is the question of positive emotion in the midst of a divorce. For the past eight months or so, Tee and I have been moving through this separation with amazing control. Neither of us has gone nuclear, and we still speak with decency to one another. However, we have a lifetime of co-parenting ahead, as well as the looming challenge of courts (possibly) and custody arrangements (inevitably). If I am to believe the research, creating a balance of 5 or more:1 even in this relationship is key to making it work. Can you imagine? I somehow have to come up with seven or ten things I appreciate and admire for every one thing I criticize about a man I am divorcing? And I actually have to say them? Out loud? To him?

I am sensing I have the power to set a tone of creativity, hope, collaboration, and caring even in a relationship that is becoming something very different than what either of us wanted or imagined. Ugliness, however, is only one narrative of divorce. It might be possible for us to craft our own story. In the one I am just beginning to envision, Tee and I are the heroes who choose virtue and noble purpose over short-cuts, and our son is the ultimate victor.

Duality

Bug's great aunt has a birthday today. Last week, we pulled out scrapbooks to look at photos of this long-forgotten relative in order to entice him to make her a card. As we paged through the album, he was transfixed by the photos. Far-away cousins, long-ago trips to the beach. . . For him, these were ancient relics. He wanted to hear each and every story, at least until he was bored and it was back to legos.

I was never an avid scrapbooker like some of my friends, but I managed to paste a few decent pages together to track our family's quiet adventures. We have wedding books, a pregnancy album, a first-year book, and a Colorado volume. Then, the albums stop cold. I had completed four or five pages for our Adirondack chapter by this time last year. That was when everything changed. Please don't blame me for not wanting to chronicle the giant yard sale we held on Lake George to sell most of our earthly possessions. And I will not apologize for not including a photo of my grandmother's piano - the one I had played as a child in Oklahoma and had to leave behind in our camp house for the next resident. Letting the scrapbooks go dormant for a while was a wise move.

However, the intervening year has not been all neglect and misery. Bug and I have had a number of photo-worthy excursions. Yesterday, I began to compile those pictures onto a memory card for printing. Pulling them from blackberry, camera, and random computer folders was the perfect activity for the lazy end of a sick day. Sorting images was more healing than a bubble bath. It is hard to believe, looking at the visual evidence before me, that this year has really been the toughest on record. Somehow, we keep managing to play. We keep cultivating joy.

A file folder of Tee's photos somehow made it onto my computer. They are as recent as January 2011, so he must have downloaded them to give my folks a slide show after returning from a winter vacation trip with Bug. I scanned through dozen of snow-fun shots filled with people I don't know enjoying a holiday I was not a part of. These photos are only a fraction of the collection Tee is undoubtedly amassing. He has always been fonder of the camera than I.

When a family splits apart, memories become as fractured as home life. I doubt Tee will create an album of his photos. He has never been the crafty type. The scrapbooks I create will tell the story of my son and me, his maternal grandparents, our dog. This one-sided, cobbled-together family will have its chronicle. The history of the other half of his life will have to exist on some other plane. I cannot tell Bug that narrative as he grows. Somehow, he will have to find a place to store his bifurcated memories on his own. He will not have the help of a sibling or parents who share his whole history.

When my boy hops between our houses, he always carries something with him. He packs a little bag of his markers or stuffs a lego plane he has crafted into a purse. His four-year-old need for continuity manifests in his toys. Tee and I let Bug's possessions migrate freely. Yet neither of us can hold the other parent's perspective, and no one has yet invented a bag that can hold memories.

Before today, I had never considered how much it has meant to me to have a set of photo albums in my basement showing our intact (though tumultuous) family life moving along together over the years. My mother stopped assembling these books at some point in my early adolescence. However, I could always - in fact, still do - return to them to see myself in the context of a mostly unchanging circle of kin. This is the way I rooted myself in a history. As a grown child now, I can speak to my parents about an early apartment we lived in or a beach vacation we took, and I can hear the pieces of their accounts echoing off one another, creating a kind of odd harmony. Even in my adulthood, this re-telling of shared experience is a great comfort.

Knowing I cannot give that to my son breaks my heart. For now, his dad and I live close enough to one another to create some overlap. Two nights ago, Tee came over and stayed for dinner while I was upstairs with the flu. Sharing small moments in each other's houses, attending family nights at preschool, and enjoying the occasional lunch together are all fine things to do. They will not, however inoculate Bug against growing pains as our two lives mature separately. In the not-too-distant future, we may be in two new relationships, creating separate families, negotiating moves far from one another. How any child survives such tectonic shifts is beyond me. Yet, children do survive. Some even thrive.

Today, the best I can do for my boy is compile a few photos to create a loving history in which my son can find himself. It's a long way from here to scrapbook page, I know. I am, after all, a working mom now. I don't expect to have anything compiled before 2012. One small step at a time.

Bug's life may not have a single narrative. Whose life does, really? My son will, however, have one account of his childhood lovingly told, and always available to him. I may not be able to control the outcome of this change in our family, but I am a mother. And that means I have considerable power to bring resilience, imagination, and hope to the story we write together.