Masochist

For better or for worse, I made a commitment today to another summer of sleepaway camp.  Fifteen hundred children for whom it's my task to keep relatively healthy and in one piece from the time their parents drop them off at the end of June until I wearily pack them onto the buses and send them home in mid-August.

Apparently, a masochist I am.

The good news is I've figured out how to smuggle wine and other contraband past the unsuspecting college kid at the guard house who pays far too much attention to a bright smile and lovely words and not enough attention to the bags in the back of my vehicle. 

On occasion, I'm not at all opposed to gently deploying my feminine charms as a means to adjust the Universe.

Hot for Teacher

Twice a week, I teach nursing classes in the adult education department of a local college.  My students are typically young LPN's or paramedics enrolled in a 19-month accelerated RN program.  Classes are held at night and on weekends to accommodate their regular work schedules, thus Saturday mornings often find me in a classroom lecturing for four hours.

One of my younger male students has been particularly interested in the curriculum lately, which seemed odd, because it's a 9-week obstetrics block.  Still I humored him, patiently answering his questions and explaining higher-level concepts that were sometimes outside my lesson plan.  Today after class I discovered his true motive.  Though he's young enough to be my child, my student asked me have lunch with him.  Hello, awkward.

After a few seconds of pure stunned silence during which my brain attempted to process exactly what I was hearing, I politely and so very carefully declined, explaining that school policy forbids such social interaction between instructors and their students.

Now it's time to confess...I totally didn't see this coming.

I think I've lost my edge. 

A Boy's Room

In recent weeks I am acutely aware that my boy is becoming a teenager.  He's begun claiming quiet moments of privacy now.  Closing the door.  Asserting his opinion.  Challenging mine.

His bedroom is still and quiet tonight, the boy himself away at a special-occasion dinner with his father's family.  The balance of the house is quiet, too...candles scattered, sunset just passed.  I sit on the floor of his bedroom, pensive...remembering...and I look.

A small gold hourglass sits on the bookshelf, a gift from his adopted grandmother.  Multi-hued lava lamp perches nearby, below old tin football sign.  Laptop waits, blinking, on his desk next to unfinished homework, pencil jar askew.  There's his childhood night light (yes, still requested when darkness falls, thank you). 

Plastic Halloween sword in corner, jewels missing, no doubt scattered on some random sidewalk in our neighborhood as he walked, happy, whacking snow off autumn leaves while trick or treating.  Camouflage long-john pajamas, soft ones, semi-folded on his bed beside a well-loved, much-adored bear named Pooh.  The Harry Potter boxed set, dinosaur books, comics, and whole volumes of cheesy knock-knock jokes.  Wooden ship in a bottle, his grandfather's, next to hand-stitched leather baseball card album (and newly-acquired Babe Ruth Redsox card, a rare one).  iPod...holding music I don't enjoy at all (ugh...is this what it was like to be  my parents?).

Felt championship team pennant, and another...yet another.  Bulletin board with swim meet ribbons from summer camp, and a picture of my dad.  Recurve bow, two arrows (he lost the other ten somewhere between the backyard and the creek).  Painted boomerangs, a pair of them, from beautiful friends Down Under. Baseball bats behind door, two wooden, one aluminum, concealing outgrown battle decks of Pokemon cards...Yu-Gi-Oh, too.  Flash drive on orange silk cord dangling from doorknob next to circus badge...school backpack tossed aside with gusto, now awaiting weekend debridement.  Electronic keyboard tangled in bed linens, covered smoothly by comforter (I asked him to make the bed this morning).  Report card to be proud of placed front and center on dresser, NFL team helmet stickers adorning the drawers.

Small bookshelf stereo on headboard, next to locking tin box (treasures unknown), next to make-your-own-squishy-goo-alien kit, with alien remnants, and clear round jar of assorted dice.  Space cleared for new alarm clock, size loud.  Chinese yo-yo, gyroscope, click-clack metal ball thing whose name I can never remember.  Leather shark-tooth necklace that was cool once in Rehoboth.  Shoes in closet bigger than my own...bag of marbles from my father's childhood...scary-funny Chuck Norris poster.  Abandoned team-favorite knit hat, suddenly unnecessary.  Mom, it's not even cold out, I don't need the hat.

Pet cactus (alive and healthy).  Tiny, hand-painted metal War Hammer figurines, inspired by his fifth-grade teacher (who in the end he loved-hated).  More wooden ships, no bottles.  Flattened penny souvenir from the Battleship New Jersey.  Collection of miniature skateboards, and three snow globes.  His beloved grandfather's pocket knife.  Plastic water jug of coins, half-full...a dozen old guitar picks in a paper happy-face cup...half a sparkly geode...glow-in-the-dark stars.  Best. Lego. Sculpture. Ever.

His bedroom has two windows, one facing the porch, the other the driveway.  He chose the paint colors himself (burnt orange and white, Hook 'em Horns!), and over two days, I painted.  From his door, he can see down the hall into the dining room, then beyond that into the kitchen, where usually he calls to me.  How long until dinner...? 

It's quiet tonight without him.

My wish is that I'm surveying the evidence of a happy childhood.

C

Thank you...

Real Life Conversations at Work: Boob Men Edition

The Friday atmosphere where I work falls well on the casual side, thus it's usually the day I wear funky, printed scrubs.  This morning, I chose black Harley Davidson bottoms with a baby pink, long-sleeved "Save the Tatas" t-shirt and pink clogs.  A few minutes after I arrived, a doctor at work commented on the apparent mismatch he perceived in my attire, and another was quick to correct him.

(Remember, I work in an ob/gyn environment...an endless source of fabulously inappropriate conversation.)

Doctor #1:  "Really, M?  A boob shirt with biker pants this morning?  Harley Davidson pants?  Don't think those biker guys care much about saving any tatas..."

Doctor #2, as he stood at the counter reviewing lab results, not once looking up:  "That's mistake number one, esteemed colleague.  They have every interest in saving them.  Biker guys are total boob men."

With which he smiled knowingly to himself, walked into his office and closed the door.

Who'd have thunk that the dorky, quiet Doc was the one with a boob thing...? 

Or for that matter...a Harley?

Jammin'

Today would have been Bob Marley's 67th birthday...reggae and rum, anyone?

2012

To each of you who visit this space and share tiny pieces of me...may you have a peaceful and prosperous year, filled with blessings, good health and a bountiful abundance of spirit.

Fake

A beautiful friend of mine was diagnosed with breast cancer eight years ago.  She endured a brutal battle for her health, losing both breasts in a double radical mastectomy and undergoing a dozen months of chemotherapy and radiation, but ultimately she triumphed.  She's been in remission for three years now.

Early last spring, free of cancer and with swimsuit season just around the corner, my friend agonized over the decision to pursue breast implants.  It eventually became a joke of sorts in our little circle of girlfriends.  Would the woman who was always, at best, a modest B-cup throw caution to the wind and purchase the double D's?  Would she go big, or go home?  Could she get inflatable ones, maybe, so we could pump 'em up depending on the risque factor of her outfit?  It was endlessly entertaining.

My dear friend eventually compromised on the larger side of a C-cup and took a leap of faith.  The plastic surgeon did gorgeous work, revealed with much fanfare one margarita-laden night several months later when my friend hauled us all into the ladies room at our local Mexican restaurant to show off her brand-new boobs.  "Look!" she'd say, jiggling away.  "No gravity!"  It was a riot.

I met my friend for lunch today, and she arrived in grand style.

Across the front of her hot-pink t-shirt were two sparkly, rhinestone-encrusted, pink-ribbon breast-cancer emblems, x-marks-the-spot front and center on each nipple, and these equally glittery words:

"Yes, they're fake.  My real ones tried to kill me!"

It was impossible not to notice...and beyond funny. 

Next thing I know she'll have the suckers wrapped in tinsel.

Still

Time and again, when a new baby is born, those in the room look to me to guide them in the moments just after birth.

Just be still, I say to them all. Take it in. Watch.  Be at peace.

The scenario which I strive over and over to create, my gift to every new family, is beautifully painted here...

http://www.midwife.org/index.asp?bid=325&BlogEntryID=274

Naughty

Why is Santa always so jolly?

Because he knows where the naughty girls live!

Klutz

Have managed to interrupt a rather wonderful Thanksgiving weekend by breaking my toe...the first and only time in my life that I've ever broken a bone.

Well, three bones, actually, in a split-second underestimation of gravity.

Sigh.

Ballroom Jeans

I saw a print ad last week for "ballroom jeans" and thought, "What the hell are 'ballroom' jeans?  They have little hoop skirts on the bottom?  Lace and ruffles?  What?"

Now I get it...and I gotta give props to the sheer marketing genius behind them.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RhrYrCRF6Eg

Two Small Protests

The greed and excess which are the hallmarks of this four-headed monster called Black Friday have inspired in my household two small protests.  My son and I shared quite a long time last night just sitting together, wrapped in soft old quilts amidst a home warm from the peaceful glow of a pair of antique oil lamps, television and computers and video screens turned off, talking gently about Thanksgiving and the holiday season ahead of us and just what all of it should mean.  This morning, we continued our conversation, this time including the news over breakfast, of people pepper-sprayed and trampled and hurt as they fought each other and shamed themselves in lines which wound around city blocks in the dark of night, all in the name of blatant consumerism.  When's the last time any of us saw a line 2,000 people long waiting to volunteer for an hour at a church soup kitchen?  To donate items to the local food pantry?  To offer assistance to those who've been desperate for help after any number of recent natural disasters?

My son doesn't need the latest iPhone.  His childhood will likewise remain secure without five new video games and a pair of $400 sneakers (40% off!) and a flat-screen television in his bedroom.

Instead we will share this holiday season simply loving each other and our small family...selecting, as we have in years past, gently-loved toys from my son's bedroom to pass along to the local battered-women's shelter, writing holiday letters and creating care packages for those brave soldiers serving our country far away from home in a war which they may or may not personally believe in, visiting the pediatric oncology unit at my hospital with brightly-decorated Christmas cookies and storybooks to read to the children, and quietly remembering this season of kindness and giving.

In that spirit, we've decided to spend not one cent on this Black Friday...neither in stores nor online.

Ours are two small and peaceful, but important, protests.

May each of you find your own way to reclaim the holidays.

Turkey Free

My Thanksgiving celebration with my son today was a quiet one, just the two of us, and since he (rather conveniently) inherited my lifelong dislike of turkey, we don't necessarily feel bound to the traditional meal.  If I do choose a classic feast, it's my great-grandmother's cornbread dressing which is always the star, beautifully prepared with roasted chicken instead of turkey.  This year, classic just didn't feel right, thus together the boy and I chose a more adventuresome menu:  roasted garlic risotto with grilled vegetables (asparagus, sweet red bell pepper, zucchini and summer squash) and shaved Parmigiano-Reggiano; tomato and fresh mozzarella salad with basil, olive oil and aged balsamic vinegar; homemade sourdough crostini; and tiramisu.

Oh, and fabulous red wine...this was decidedly a year for wine at my house.

One step closer...

Finally...a small step closer to mainstream America.

It's not yet ANR, but surely this might encourage another few gentle souls to embrace the idea of induced lactation.

http://moms.today.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/11/22/8822199-more-adoptive-moms-learn-to-breast-feed-their-babies

Darth Paper

My child's new claim to fame...?  He's the kid who can make Origami Yoda and Darth Paper, complete with lightsabers.  In the fickle heirarchy of middle school, this particular talent is golden.

Autumn Moon

Very shortly I'll be off for a walk accompanied by two of my favorite things...my little guy and the light of a full autumn moon.

Samhain...

...and so begins the darker half of the year.

How I learned to mind my own business...

My great-aunt is 90 years old.  Her grandchildren bought a computer for her birthday, a simple one, thinking they might teach her to use it, if nothing else so she could e-mail and converse with them (and one great-grandchild) and share photographs.  Her eldest grandson, a software engineer, added all of our e-mail addresses to her address book, and began computer lessons this past Saturday.

This is my first e-mail from Great-Aunt Bess:

How I Learned To Mind My Own Business

I was walking past the mental hospital the other day.  All of the patients were shouting, "13...13...13...13..."  The fence was too high to see over, but I found a little gap in the planks, so I peeked through to see what was going on.  Some idiot poked me in the eye with a stick...then they all started shouting, "14...14...14..."

I think she's got the idea.

TMI? Nah...

I was amused today to discover that my girlfriend C has actually named her vibrator.  It's Bob. 

As in Battery-Operated Boyfriend.

Who says I don't pick cool friends?

A poem I've loved for years...

   
what makes it real
isn't
the mystery or masterly technique
or even a love so strong
you can smash bricks with it
it's
the spinning waters way i feel
when you grab me by the eyes
and slip your soft white panties
off

~david meuel

Dead dog...

Funny as hell...

The blogosphere is attributing the following quote (in various incarnations) to Betty White...though I think she may have stolen it.  Either way it's funny as hell:

"When people speak of the need to 'toughen up,' they say one should 'grow some balls?'  What?!?  Balls are weak...and sensitive!  Hell, you men cover them in hard plastic just to play a little afternoon game of football!

If you really wanna get tough, try growing a vagina...those things, they can take a pounding."

Words of (wisdom?)...

Live your life  in such a way that, when your feet hit the floor in the morning, the Universe shudders for a moment and says, "Oh, hell...she's awake."

PS:  Good morning, world!

Warped Revisited

I believe I mentioned this would happen...

http://bites.today.com/_news/2011/09/21/7876625-parents-call-for-boycott-of-ben-jerrys-schweddy-balls-flavor

And as for my own house?  Mispronunciation was in my favor.

Boy, peering into the freezer:  "Hey!  We have ice cream!"  (Not a frequent occurrence here...)

Me, standing at the stove, quietly stirring, more than a little cautious about what might come next:  "Yes....we do have ice cream."

Boy:  "But what kind is it?"

Me:  "Oh, a new one."

Boy, reading the name on the carton and sounding out the word:  "Shweee-dee balls.  Swee-dy balls.  Sweety balls.  Hey, Mom!  It's called sweety balls!  Maybe there's candy in it!"

Me:  "Hmm...maybe there is."

Boy:  "So, can I try it later?"

Me:  "Absolutely.  Sweety balls for later."

Boy:  "Cool.  Thanks, Mom."

Dodged a bullet at my house, don't you think?

Start 'em young...

...how could I not buy this for my girlfriend's new baby boy?

http://www.savethetatas.com/images/products/1816156w.jpg

His Perspective

Each week, I receive dozens of notes from readers.  Some are poignant and sad, others are hopeful, still others are frustrated and defeated.  Once in a great while, along comes a true gem. 

I have received permission from the author of this note to publish it here, a brief but exquisite insight into one man's experience of a true adult nursing relationship.

Dear May,

Thank you for sharing your blog.  I read the post at the first link I found, then I wandered around.

You are amazing. It is no coincidence that our thoughts are aligned when it comes to ANR and erotic lactation and the sort. But except for my male perspective, I probably would have also shared similar thoughts about the sensual and erotic nature of pregnancy and the early days of raising our daughters together. Then I read some of the things about erotic birthing and father assisted delivery and I wished we would have known back then. That would have been so special. I don't often wish for the past but if I could change one thing, it might have been keeping her pregnant. I know she would agree.

I nursed from my daughters' mother for several years after they were weaned. There was nothing more special than coming home knowing that she would be full and needing me as much as I was wanting her. Many times she would let down when she heard the garage door at night. Often the front of her blouse would be soaked before I ever got into the house.

She would regularly orgasm from nursing me. Just looking at her breasts would get her aroused and ready. One of our favorite positions was cowgirl. She would lean forward and offer me her breasts and slowly rock with me inside her while I savored her sweet nectar. When she lost control she would rear back and while she climaxed her breasts would sometimes spontaneously spray me with her milk.

There were also the quiet times. When I would finish emptying her after the girls were satisfied and sleeping. Or when, after they were on solid food, she would wake me in the middle of the night, needing me to relieve her. Then there were the times when I would tease her in public by waiting until the time was near and looking at her breasts triggering her to begin leaking. By the time she got the cups of her nursing bra open, her nipples were straining, desperate for my attention.

I wonder if we would have ever stopped if we hadn't moved back to our home town and had to face the inquiries from her mother and sisters as to why she was still lactating. She was a B cup when all of this started and her younger sisters were way too curious about her new D cup figure. Coming from a strict Catholic family, there was no way she was going to offer an honest explanation.

Speaking of the hometown experience, your entry "Home" was the last one I read before deciding to send this e-mail. Like you I am the wanderer and most everyone else is grounded like your sisters. I don't regret my experiences. I've been fortunate to enjoy living in several parts of our country. But sometimes, and more frequently lately, I yearn for some of that grounding.

Here's wishing we are both blessed with some of that grounding and that it includes the lifelong bond of a nursing relationship.

N

I find every word, every paragraph, of this note to be achingly beautiful, a touching account of that which I have so long wished to hold for my own; thank you, N, for sharing it with me and the hundreds of others who visit here seeking a kindred spirit.

(A note:  N is a gentleman in the Southern United States, one half of a couple.  I do not know if his relationship now is a nursing relationship; rather, the words above seem to describe something he looks back upon wistfully.  That makes two of us.)

Warped

I can sense the outrage brewing in the Bible Belt even as I type...

America's values!  Her moral compass!  What kind of deviant, perverted message does this send to the innocent ones wandering through the frozen foods aisle?

C'mon, folks...it's funny.

http://www.boston.com/news/odd/articles/2011/09/08/ben__jerrys_unveils_schweddy_balls_ice_cream/?camp=misc%3Aon%3Ashare%3Aarticle

PS:

And there's no way I'm not trying it...if for no reason except to be able to say the name out loud to my girlfriends over dinner.

Imagine this...

Girlfriend:  "So what's for dessert, May?"

Me, with a wicked grin:  "Schweddy Balls...!"

Perhaps they'll even picket the supermarket in my oh-so-conservative little hometown.  Big placards.  "No more Schweddy Balls!"  Ha!  A double-entendre upon a double-entendre!

Love it.

A Thousand Words...

In the years I've been writing in the ANR community, I've seen hundreds of photographs of breasts, and hundreds more of "ANR" as the mainstream porn industry would portray it. They're always wrong. The essence of ANR isn't simply that her breast exists, or even that his mouth waits, posed with exaggerated focus  near her nipple as precious milk sprays wasted in every direction. No, the spirit of ANR, of a woman nurturing and nourishing her man, is that she offers herself to him, gently inviting him to feed, and it is far more difficult to capture. This image does so magically. The only thing which leaves me wanting is that, while she watches him, she doesn't touch him. I am incapable of that.

Home

In a few short days, I will embark upon a solo journey to Nevada's Black Rock Desert, where I will join several of my dearest college girlfriends for the celebrated alternative gathering known as Burning Man.  A number of you have suggested that I will return home a changed woman, somehow collecting along the journey random unknown pieces which complete me, and perhaps you're right.  I suspect, however, that the truth lies much deeper than that.  I tried to explain it to a new-old friend today.

You who read my words here know that I grew beyond my small Southern town very early.  I left home for college when I was only seventeen, following with certainty  some inherent and undeniable wanderlust, an insistent but romanticized  longing which ever propelled me forward while demanding that I never look back.  My sisters, on the other hand, all except one have remained settled in our little home town, marrying good men with good names, bearing children, their families sharing holidays and tragedies as extensions of the other and together occupying the third pew on the left side of the small church of my youth for over thirty years now.  There's a sense of peace surrounding the three of them on the occasions when I return to visit, something I can't quite name, a feeling that--though we were born and raised in the same world, the same humble place--their roots have grown strong and broad without ever reaching or searching, a truth quite different than my own. 

Perhaps it's nothing more than an aching awareness that by allowing myself to be blown by the winds, hither and yon, somehow the taproot of me has never taken, never reached deep, never settled in.  Home for me has always been where I've made it, a comfortable and well-tended just-passing-through of sorts which leaves me now to wonder if I missed something along the way.  No, I don't long for my little home town; I've grown far, far beyond it, the whole of me now so vast that such a conservative, insulated, God-fearing place most surely couldn't contain me.  Yet I also know that my home isn't here in the Northeast, for even in this small cocoon of a world I've created for my son, I look with longing already to the years beyond his childhood, when he's his own man, off to make his own way, and I can sigh in relief and drop the tether which has bound me in his young years to the father who lives nearby.

No, my truth is that I suspect this drive across the country, through dozens if not hundreds of small towns, will only serve to cement the longing feeling I carry of late.  Home calls, and ever more poignantly.  I'm just not sure yet where I'll find it.

Rattly

Freaky earthquake in my part of the world this afternoon...my house was all rattly for too many seconds.  What the hell?

Flowers In Her Hair

Eight weeks ago, on one of the first few days of summer camp, I was walking back from a medical call at the waterfront when one of the children whom I'd seen earlier in the day offered me a small flower he'd picked from one of the dozens of climbing vines around camp.  I thanked him and tucked the bright yellow flower into my pinned-up hair, where it remained for the rest of the day.

The next morning, just after breakfast, the same boy stopped by the infirmary with a smile and a fresh flower, which I also tucked into my hair.  A few days later, another child I'd cared for brought me another flower, and then another, and so went the summer...early mornings, flowers for my hair, sick children, more flowers for my hair, more sick children.  The flowers were always random, and always colorful and cheerful, and the children very quickly began calling me "the nurse with flowers in her hair."

Summer camp ended yesterday.  As the buses were loading on the circular drive across the lawn from the infirmary, the children whom I'd cared for during the past eight weeks came to say goodbye, each carrying a fresh flower, and by the end of the morning, I had a dozen flowers or more, all tucked together into my hair, like a crown.  I took them out last night and pressed them into a book to dry.

I'm going to miss the children, and their flowers.  Still, it's good to be home.

Fly Toward The Light

In six weeks as a summer camp nurse, I've tended to more than my share of broken bones, stitches, ear infections, poison ivy, tummy aches and other childhood maladies.  Thus far, the absolute funniest visit to the infirmary came just after dusk on a perfect summer night.

The children were all at evening activities, and the infirmary was quiet.  I was alone, stocking medication for the following day when I heard a loud, sudden stomp-stomp-stomp-stomp across the porch, no doubt someone running.  The infirmary door burst open to reveal a rather small, panicky boy, his eyes big and his face streaked by tears.  I quickly looked him up and down for blood, torn clothing, any sign of injury.  There was none, not a speck, yet he wouldn't stop crying.

So I asked, "Sweetheart, what is wrong?"

He struggled to tell me, inconsolable, gasping through his tears.

"There...(gasp)...are...(gasp)...two...(gasp)...bugs...(gasp)...in my ear...(big inhale)...and they're making sex, I know it!"  He burst into fresh tears.

I could not...could not...keep a straight face, yet thankfully, I was fast on my feet.  I shined my bright otoscope light in his ear for a few seconds.

And though there was nothing at all in his ear except wax and grime, I said to him, "See, honey?  The bugs are all gone now.  All I had to do was let them fly toward the light."

Summer Camp

Many, many of you have sent very kind notes wondering why I am not writing, and the answer is this.  For four weeks now, I've been working as an RN at a summer sleepaway camp in the Northeast.  My son is with me, though he sleeps one of the many scattered, wooded camp bunks while I have a small, private cabin near the infirmary. 

We'll be there together for a total of eight weeks this summer, with a short time at home every other weekend as the children change camp sessions.  My son is having fun beyond words and making dozens of new friends, truly growing into himself, which makes the time away from home worth every second.

I'll write soon.

Promise.

Private to T in Great Britain...

Your letter was so very sad.  I wish I had comforting words of some sort, or kind advice.  All I have to offer, however, is the generations-old wisdom of my great-grandmother:

Honey, if he'll cheat with you, he'll cheat on you.

Yes, ANR is difficult to find...trust me, I know how difficult...but it isn't worth sacrificing your dignity.

You asked what I would do if I was in your shoes. 

I'd tell him to call when his relationship status is "single," and not one second before.

I wish you well.

Neighborly

Dear grumpy, middle-aged, balding neighbor guy whose backyard pool I can see from my kitchen window:

For the love of God, mister, when you decide to got for a swim at five in the morning, either (a) turn off your pool lights, or (b) put on some pants.

Signed,

Nice lady next door who totally does not wish to witness your shriveled bits over coffee.

Strawberry Moon

My great-grandmother knew the names of all the full moons, and she taught them to me at a young age. 

June's full moon is the Strawberry Moon.  It should be beautiful tonight.

First Storm

It's my first Tuesday night alone in the new house, and there's a low, dark storm outside, which I love.  It feels like a most exquisite housewarming gift from Mother Nature.

I plan to take a long, hot bath, then sleep naked, drifting off with the bedroom windows open so I can listen to the rain.

Back To My Roots

In 1993, I first attended Burning Man, the annual folk-art-music festival in the remote Nevada desert.  I lived in Colorado at the time.  I was happily single then, young and carefree as my journey to Burning Man was born among friends in the wee, stoned hours of a Friday night, initially nothing more than an adventuresome and rather spontaneous road trip.  Seven of us decided to drive and camp together, and it was fabulous.  I returned every year for the next four years.

In 1998, I married and relocated to the East Coast.  When my son was born a year later, my life quickly and wholly narrowed to focus upon his childhood and his needs, and since then, I have very rarely left him.

This summer, my son will spend two weeks with his father at the end of August.  I once thought to set aside those two weeks to reconnect with Mr. Zen, to see if what we've shared so briefly in the past in bits and pieces could possibly translate to his real world.  That, sadly, is not to be now.

Instead, Burning Man is calling.

I intend to stock up on hippie skirts, leave all of my shoes and all of my bras at home, create a fabulous playlist for my iPod, and drive across the country.  Old friends have agreed to meet me there.

Perhaps I'll find myself again as I drive.

Another Year

Somewhere amidst the recent move, while attempting to bring order and beauty to our new home, I celebrated a birthday...my forty-third birthday, to be exact.  Like others surely must, I had a quiet moment of reflection just before bed on the eve of the day I was born.

I'm not sure just what I thought life would be like at forty-three.  I imagined I would be married to my best friend, but I'm not.  The very young me dreamed of having a half-dozen children, yet I don't.  Instead, there's only two of us, me and my boy, making our way among familiar things yet setting out on a new path, strangers still in a house that's slowly becoming our home.  In my three-dozen plus years, I have loved and known love, been hurt deeply and caused pain myself, made decisions I ultimately regretted and taken chances that changed me for the better, sought my truth and surely tried to live a life of good intention.  Again and again, I have learned.

Despite the disappointments, mine is a good life, a worthwhile life.

I think I'll take it.

Goodbye Old, Hello New

After a week of days which began at sunrise and ended well into the night, my new house is finally settled.  My son's bedroom is teenager-ish and perfect, with two big windows, one overlooking the front porch and the other framing the side yard, and all remnants of little-boy-hood banished to the basement.  My own bedroom is tranquil and serene, my private oasis in shades of lavender, leaf-green and burgundy.  The living areas of the house are kid-proof but classy, with bright splashes of color and little pieces of my life tucked here and there.

We visited the old house today to say goodbye.  I'll miss my sunny yellow kitchen, and the two windows with the hundred-year-old oak trees just beyond.  We spent a few moments with our little dog, too, who rests forever just outside her beloved boy's bedroom window.

Change is hard, but I'm ready.

And already I'm making new memories.

Note to Self

Yesterday was the first of several big moving days, and I was very, very careful to pack the toy drawer away in a plain brown cardboard box marked "Mom's Bedroom."  A meticulous tape job ensured that nobody would attempt to open the box.  My plan was to tuck it out of sight in my closet to be unpacked when I was alone in the house.

Note to self:

It's important to take the batteries out of the toys before one packs them for transport.  The poor moving guy was more than a little unnerved when, halfway up the front steps, the box began vibrating in his hands.  My meticulous tape job did little then except prevent me from opening the damn thing to turn the (apparent) hair-trigger toy off.

It was that kind of day yesterday. 

Maybe tomorrow and Friday will be better...at least, better if the moving guys are brave enough to return.

Tired Bones

I've done the math.  I worked 42 hours this week.  I spent another thirty-plus hours painting and getting things in order at the new house.

What I like about my new house:

The boy will have a finished basement playroom (with a bathroom!) in which to entertain his rugrat friends.  There's a sink over the kitchen window.  The laundry room is huge.  I get to make new memories.  There's an extra bedroom for an office.  It has a garage (such a convenience when one lives in a place where it snows sixty inches every winter).  My bedroom is high enough up that I can sleep with the windows open without worrying at night.  There's a perfect Christmas-tree corner in the living room.  The central vacuum system!  There are rose bushes and fabulous mature clematis vines near the back patio, and a built-in grill.  The location is pretty fantastic.

What I'll miss about the old house:

The hundred-year-old bathtub and the rain shower.  My workhorse free-standing gas stove.  When I drank tea at the kitchen table, I could see onto the side lawn and all the way down the street.  The two fabulous oak trees.  The giant rhododendron bushes, behind which I could sit on the porch in my jammies and not be seen.  My sunny yellow kitchen.  Ceiling fans in every room.  From my bed I could look just down the hall and see my boy sleeping at night.  My little dog is buried in the back yard.  The location was pretty fantastic. 

And so life changes.  It's time to sleep now, I think.

CSNY Echoes

I've spent the past three afternoons painting at the new house.  Today it finally occurred to me to bring along the iPod dock so I'd have music to keep me company.

I chose Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young.

I've seen CSNY two times in concert...once at Madison Square Garden not long after 9/11, and again, sans Neil Young, at a beautiful outdoor amphitheater near my house.  On a magical late summer evening, I watched the show sitting on a blanket on the grass with Mr. Zen, singing along to my favorites.

And in my new home this afternoon, as the first notes of Southern Cross echoed through empty rooms, I returned there just for a moment. 

Seems Mr. Zen still echoes through an empty me, too.

Pain and Fear

Many of you have expressed dismay upon learning that the boy and I are leaving our small cottage, and the truth is, since making the decision to do so nearly a month ago, I've had my own moments of sadness and uncertainty as well.  Yet when I struggle, I remember a dear friend's words...change only comes when the pain of where one is becomes greater than the fear of where one is going.

And that is my truth this morning.  A great deal of pain has surrounded me during my time in this quiet little house.  I cried for days after my father's funeral, was utterly broken after losing M, and couldn't quite remember how to breathe after saying goodbye to the beautiful dream I shared with Mr. Zen, whom I loved, will always love, deeply.

So it's time now for a new journey...time to gather my boy and my life, face the sun, and begin walking. 

I am not afraid.

Color My World

My friend C stopped by this evening to help with packing.  On the kitchen counter was a stack of paint color samples, the small color-wheel cards which can be picked up by the dozen at any big-box home improvement store.  She scanned my choices:  "Riesling" for the living room, "Morning Zen" for my office, "Solana Ray" for the kitchen, "Foggy Mirror" for my bedroom, "Inhale" for the boy's bedroom, and "Careless Whisper" for the upstairs bathroom, dining room and hall.

"What the hell are we painting?" she asked. "A whorehouse?"

Very funny, dear C.

Messy

Spent the first half of this rainy day helping the boy complete a ridiculously complex school project, and the last half creeping up and down a ladder, painting the living room in our new house while singing along to Fleetwood Mac on the stereo. 

At this point, it's hard to tell the paint spatters from the freckles which already were mine.  I even have paint smudges on my face! 

Think I'm due now for a hot bath, a glass of wine, and some variation of ethnic take-out for dinner...and not necessarily in that order.

Overheard

"...in other news, Pakistan totally didn't know that weed was in the glove box.  It's not even their car, man."

Tantric Bosom Love and Wanderings

An interesting piece which I stumbled across in my wanderings...

http://sonic.net/yronwode/arcane-archive.org/religion/hinduism/yoga/tantra/neo-tantra/bosom-love-experience-1.php

The Road Not Taken

So it seems that I'm standing at a fork in the road.

Think I'll take the left branch.

I'll let you all know what the journey holds.

The Place ANR Holds For Me

Many, many people discover my blog, find some elusive but common thread, then write to me...sometimes a short note of acknowledgment, other times a long, intricate story of self-discovery. The most often-asked question centers upon exactly how it is that ANR exists for me.  What does it mean to be a woman whose sexuality is so inexplicably linked to her desire to feed her man at her breast?

(To those of you who follow my other writings, I apologize, for this description has previously been posted in another forum. A variant of the question arrives so freqently, however, that it seemed worth repeating here.)

For me, ANR is nearly impossible to describe. It's the foundation upon which every other intimacy exists...at once exquisitely tender and primally erotic, hard and soft, a transference of full and empty. I like the mutual need of it, and the level of intimacy and trust it demands.

In nursing as a couple, there are loving, gentle moments, encounters which encompass the tenderest passion, yet there are likewise those times of intense, hard nipple suckling, with a bit of bite to it, where I am at once aware of both the fragile delicacy of nursing together and the deep hunger evident in the longing to be joined at my breast. It hurts but it doesn't, this edge, yet it's impossible to ask for anything more or less because it exists like nothing else, and in the morning when one wakes satiated after a night pierced by the most exquisite orgasms, breasts ripe again even as nipples are throbbing and raw, she is soothed with the gentlest of kisses and tenderest of words and utter awe that such a union could be born, that two souls could each be so intensely full with the other.

There, that is the place ANR holds for me.

My words tumble in disarray, I know, but it's a wordless, haunting, sacred coupling which I seek, and it completes me.

Real Life Conversations At My House: Justice For All Edition

My little guy doesn't remember a time when the name Osama bin Laden didn't create some vague unrest and worry in the adults around him. He was not quite two when the Towers fell, and sadly, being so near to Manhattan, his whole childhood has been lived in a world of heightened security and invasive airport searches, a new normal with the constant ebb and flow of a War on Terror along its periphery.

This morning, when he caught a glimpse of the news before school and learned that bin Laden was dead, he was very curious. I allowed him to watch a few minutes of the broadcast, enough that he learned how bin Laden was killed by a small group of special forces, positively identified, then buried immediately at sea. As he watched and listened, the headline on the screen next to the local news anchor proclaimed, "Justice For All."

He was quiet for a few minutes, absorbing it all, then turned to me.

"Mama, I think they're wrong...there really isn't justice for everybody."

I asked what he meant.

"Well, justice for the people, maybe...but what about the poor shark who has to eat him?"

Beltaine

Bright Blessings on this first day of May.

The best part of my day...

...was this last hour before bed, sitting with my boy in the old wooden rocking chairs on my front porch, watching an impressive spring thunderstorm unfold and talking about the big wide world and our small place in it.

He's growing up.

Room For Two On My Soapbox

Several years ago, I went to the mall to purchase a birthday outfit for my niece, who was turning eleven.  Instead, after an hour of browsing childrens apparel that seemed wholly designed for the prostitute set, I gave up and bought a gift card at Borders.

Finally, we're seeing the beginnings of a national conversation about the dangers inherent in the sexualization of little girls.

http://www.cnn.com/2011/OPINION/04/19/granderson.children.dress/index.html?hpt=C2

Winter, Part Deux

The boy has decided that he wishes to learn to play hockey.

Hmm...spending my Sunday morning in a twenty-five degree ice rink is *not* my idea of fun.  In my humble opinion, it's merely the winter from hell extended.

I hope this is a passing interest, one he'll soon trade for...oh, I don't know...Jamaican bobsledding or something.

Anything, really, as long as it's warm.

Tell The World!

www.cafepress.com/+breastfeed+bumper-stickers

Four Things

I've been blog-tagged again...today it's a "four things" meme which solicits answers to questions in random, every-day-life sorts of categories.  I'm in an agreeable mood this afternoon, thus I'm playing along.

Four articles of clothing I wore today:

Long, straight hippie-patchwork skirt

Long-sleeved cotton shirt

My favorite flats

$&*%#@ bra

Four movies I could watch over and over again:

Steel Magnolias

Once (thanks, G)

Forrest Gump

Mary Poppins

Four items in my cart on my last trip to the supermarket:

Soy milk

Blueberries

Chocolate rabbit for my boy at Easter

A wedge of Parmigiano-Reggiano (!)

Four places I've lived:

On a ranch

In a tiny studio apartment one block from the beach in California

In a hippie village in the Rocky Mountains

In my quaint little house on a quiet street where it snows

Four foods I refuse to eat:

Cauliflower

Fish (Swimmy fish, as opposed to shellfish...yum!)

Raw onions

Vegemite (yes, the stuff in the song...from Down Under...bleh)

Four of my favorite dishes:

Eggs Benedict

Spaghetti Carbonara

Oysters Rockefeller

Tie for fourth...either a thick seared beef filet, medium rare, with Hollandaise sauce, or Enchiladas Suizas with black beans and Mexican green rice (and homemade guacamole and margaritas, of course!)

Four sentimental items in my house:

Everything on the altar in the corner of the kitchen

The drawer with my father's things

Lavender tie-dye too-big shirt that I sleep in at night when the boy's at home

My great-grandmother's biscuit cutter

Four jobs I've had in the past:

RN

Corporate event planner

Accountant for a real-estate investment trust

Cashier at a pharmacy (my first "real" job, when I was fifteen or sixteen)

Four places I've been on vacation:

Jamaica (a dozen times or more)

Brazil

Europe

Canada

Four places I've always longed to visit:

Switzerland

Thailand

Fiji

Any place where I can see the Northern Lights

Four television shows I watch (only one regularly, the others are hit or miss):

Sixty Minutes

Survivor

PBS NewsHour

Hmm...some cooking show...Down Home With The Neelys, maybe...or Mantracker (guilty secret...the Mantracker guy is totally my go-to fantasy man)

Four things in my car:

Beach blanket

Football/frisbee

At least three bras (I take the bastard things off on the drive home from anywhere and fling 'em in the back)

The tassel from my graduation cap (on the rear-view mirror)

Four cars I've owned:

1968 Ford Mustang Convertible (a classic, still in the barn in the pasture of my childhood home)
Volkswagen Beetle (a seriously beat-up one...twenty-five years old when I drove it!)
A little red sports car...
My current fuel-efficient, four-wheel drive, happy, kid-friendly small SUV

Four things in today's mail:

Lands' End catalog (from which I buy the kid's school clothes)

Easter card

Utility bill (bleh)

Summer concert series brochure from my favorite outdoor amphitheater!

Oh, how I've missed you...

For the first time in many months, I finished work and walked outdoors to greet a sunny, warm, blue-sky afternoon.  I picked up the boy at school, drove home with the sunroof open, and spent the better part of a lazy hour lying barefoot on a blanket in the sun, incubating new freckles and even growing a tiny bit sunburned.

Sigh.

Sun, how I've missed you...there were days, even, when everything ached and I couldn't find light and I didn't think I'd survive the winter.

Welcome back, old friend.

Some Days Are Diamonds

They just...shine.

Real Life Conversations At My House: Naive Edition

After school today, my son and I had an errand which required us to drive twenty miles or so from our home along a major highway thoroughfare. Like hundreds of others, this particular route is dotted with strip malls, chain stores and shopping centers, with random restaurants and other businesses large and small tucked in every available space between. Because I detest traffic, with shopping a close second, it isn't often that my son ventures through such busy sights, thus he was excited to look out the window at the passing buildings and maintained a steady commentary as I drove. Out of nowhere came the following conversation:

Boy: "Mama, can we stop at that owl store sometime?"

Me (thinking I'd misunderstood him): "Wait...stop at what kind of store?"

Boy: "That owl store we just passed by. I want to see if they have a white owl, like in Harry Potter."

Me (sure now that I hadn't misunderstood him, and trying mightily to recall all the places we'd passed in the preceding sixty seconds): "I don't think there are any owl stores, hon...are you sure that's what you saw?"

Boy (more than slightly annoyed): "That's what it said, Mom...Hooters...and it had a BIG OWL on the sign."

Silence, while my brain was grasping for something, anything, to say to keep from laughing.

Me: "Umm, honey, that's not an owl store.  It's a restaurant."

Boy (in a very slow, very patient tone tinged with condescension, as though he was the wise one and I was the naive, misinformed child): "Mom. Owls are an endangered species. It's not possible to have an owl restaurant. They'd be in trouble."

Silence.  I was grasping again.

Me (deciding to play it straight): "Well...Hooters isn't exactly a word for owls at that restaurant, honey.  For them it's another word for breasts...for boobies."

Boy (with a shocked expression on his face, utterly horrified): "WHAT?!?  No way. They COOK BOOBIES?!?"

And with that, I could maintain my composure no longer.  I burst out laughing, laughing so hard I cried, in six lanes of traffic.

At which point he decided he was done. He covered his ears and proclaimed, loudly, "Whatever you're going to say now, Mom, I don't even want to know about it.  I am NEVER going there for dinner.  Ever."

Conversation over.

Troubled Mind

Life seems very chaotic and hectic lately, and I'm struggling with finding a center, somehow unable to relax into a quiet space even as the day draws to a close. I'm certain it's because my mind is wandering in far too many directions, each one offering no answers, instead circling randomly in troubled, endless loops of pain.  I am inviting suffering, yet I am powerless to stop it, even as I grow weary of processing loss, of finding my way through grief one small, heavy step at a time. My dear friend C knows this, and today, a card from her arrived in my mailbox:

My beautiful friend,

Before the Universe can hand you anything new, you must first let go of what you're holding.

I love you, and you're going to be fine.

C 

How is it that good friends always seem to know just the right words to offer, standing by with a lantern glowing softly when one is tearfully lost in the dark?

Chicken Fried

Today was my boy's first day home after a week at his father's house, and a celebratory Sunday dinner seemed in order. I was raised on all things Southern, and I've passed on the love of home-style cooking to my son...sometimes, I tease him and say that he went straight from the boobie (his word) to chicken-fried steak, mashed potatoes with gravy, pinto beans and ham with a dash of Tabasco sauce, fried summer squash, buttermilk biscuits and peach cobbler.

He blushes...then rather quickly assumes a horrified expression, rolls his eyes and says, "Moooooom! Do you have to talk about that stuff?"

It doesn't take much to entertain me.

Mellow

It is a spectacular, sunny Saturday in my world. The past few weeks of work have been insane, truly exhausting, so for the first time in a very long time, I slept in. Around noon I wandered out to find coffee and a newspaper, then took a drive to a quaint old university town nearby for a long walk in the sunshine along the edge of a centuries-old canal.

This afternoon, I washed the sheets from my bed and hung them outdoors to dry, then opened every window in the house to the spring breeze and the mellow music of songbirds returning from their southern journeys.

Finally...winter is over.

Heartbroken

My precious little dog died this afternoon.

She was always tiny, the runt of the litter. When I'd sit at my desk for hours doing homework, she would sleep on my feet. We spoiled her with people food. I made scrambled eggs for breakfast for both her and my son this morning.

Over the past four days, she's been different, stumbling a little when I took her out to walk. I checked her paws for splinters, and trimmed her nails, but nothing helped. Her appetite was off. She jerked in her sleep.

The veterinarian suspected she'd had a small seizure, and put her on medication on Tuesday. This afternoon, when I came home from work, she couldn't move at all on one side. She couldn't even get up. We went back to the vet, who said he thought she'd had a stroke. In his office, right on the examination table, she had another series of convulsions, and afterward he said she'd probably never walk again. He sedated her, and she went quietly to sleep.

My little boy is with his father tonight.

The house is even quieter now.

I miss you, little one.

Not just no, but *hell* no...

My girlfriend called this afternoon from her doctor's office. In the waiting room, she was reading a fitness magazine in which a survey was published claiming that 51% of American women would give up sex for a full year if in return they could be fashion-model skinny. My reply? Not just no, but *hell* no!

It's in everyone's best interest, really.

For on about day three sans orgasm, I'd start to get really pissy and annoyed with the whole wide world...and by day seven, I'd be an utter raving bitch. And at that point it wouldn't matter whether I was thin enough to wear some tiny few-triangles-of-sparkly-fabric-and-string bikini, because nobody would be able to tolerate being near me anyway.

I know not what the other 51% of my gender are thinking.

As to what I'm thinking...? I am quietly grateful for Duracells.

Trust me...the world is, too.

PS: What about you men? Would you rather have a stunning, fashion-model-thin wife, pure arm candy but a cold fish in bed, or a softer woman with a bit of roundness here and there who absolutely adores sex?

Fried

It's been a brutal past thirty-six hours. I'm so tired I can't think. I desperately need to melt into a warm bath, then snuggle up with my man and feed him.

My bed is far too big tonight.

Mr. Zen

For the past weeks, I've been writing again, seeking solace in my keyboard as the emotions from another time rise quietly to the surface. The more I write, however, the more selfish I seem to become, crafting the beauty of what I once shared into paragraphs only to decide that they don't belong here; rather, I wish to keep the words, to keep him, only for myself. Tonight feels lost, like I'm uncertain where to take the next step.

In the evenings, after a long day in the city or wherever we'd been, I'd wander off to the bath and return a time later, smelling of fresh cotton and sandalwood and vanilla, hair brushed out and loose. Without words, I'd settle into the space at the end of my soft couch, and, with a pillow on my lap, unbutton my nightgown and hold out my arms to him. He came to me in silence then, our mutual need saying everything.

I miss that.

Touchdown!

Spent a lazy evening lying on the sofa under my favorite soft blanket, watching the Super Bowl, accompanied by two noisy munchkins and the dog. All was well until I had to walk the guest half of the munchkins home in the cold.

Brr.

In An Old Life

There is one relationship which I've never brought to this space, one precious, profound gift which forever changed my journey. It's time, I think, to share that piece of me...for myself, certainly, as it will be a step toward wholly healing...but for all of you, too, so that you may come to know yet another in the small community of souls who so deeply long for a nursing relationship.

One day, in an old life, came these words...

"Hi, May.

I stumbled across your site a few weeks ago while looking for information on adult breastfeeding...something I've always found very exciting in a deeply emotional, sexual and spiritual way. So when I found your site I was delighted to find out I wasn't alone with my feelings and needs...so let me say thank you so much...right from the start.

I thought about writing to you but then I thought...this wonderful lady probably has so many people writing to her...I didn't want to take up your time especially when you are going through some tough times...but then again, I believe in compassion and karma so I thought I would reach out with my humble thoughts and share them with you...even if its just to let you know that you have touched the heart of someone a long way away...and in doing so have enriched my life considerably."

He went on to introduce himself and tell me about his world...his music, his children, his life in a place I had never visited. His words were gentle and reassuring, somewhat lost yet very intense, his truth equally as profound as mine:

"I have found inside myself a deep need to suckle on my lovers breast...to lie against her and feel her heartbeat as she feeds me...to look up into her eyes with love as I drink from her and feel her fingers caressing my hair...to rush home to her and lie on the couch and undo her top just so I can look on her beautiful breasts...to tell her how beautiful she is and how much I want her to nurse me...to feel the warmth of her nipple in my mouth and the first flow of warm milk on my tongue...to feel her joy and release in loving me. I want to watch her topless in our home...enjoying the sway of her breasts, noting they are swelling with milk waiting for me to suckle and love them. I want to settle in each evening on the outside lounge in the cool evening under warm blankets and lie back and drink from her breast as she talks to me about her day, as we are as one. I want to caress her breasts from behind and whisper to her how much I need to drink from her and how much I love her. I want her to feel loved, nurtured, challenged, supported, intoxicated, aroused, cared for and wanted. I want the world's pain to be taken away each day by our nursing together...for it to be our loving refuge...our home...our life together...for her to know whenever we are together that my lips, my gentle fingers or my hands will always be reaching out to caress her breasts."

It was as looking in an uncanny sort of mirror.

On another day, not long after, as a summer rainstorm surrounded him, he wrote:

"It is times like these I wish I had my lover with me...while the rain pours down how natural it would be to open her top and caress her nipples while kissing the back of her neck...how right to tell her I love her and I need to feed from her...to gently massage her breasts and encourage her to relax until the first drops of milk appear...to bring them to my lips then share the taste with her in a deep, passionate kiss...how true to slide down and gently latch my mouth onto her nipple and suckle until I hear her sigh and the first warm flow of milk appears...to wrap my arms around her and hold her tight...sending the message that I never want this moment to end...to look into her eyes and see the beauty of true contentment as she feeds me, to know she needs to feel this as much as I do, to drink and drink and drink and dissolve. To feel the arousal and excitement which always follows our nursing...to gently feel for and hold the warm center of her...to feel the excitement flow through her as well...to know we will soon be making love in ways which will make us both cry out and feel the exquisite pain of release...to give her my essence as she has given hers to me, then fall back and return to our home, our refuge, me on her breast as we fall asleep listening to the rain."

I suspected he could see inside of me.

And so it began.

I am writing...

I've been writing an awful lot lately, a happy consequence of an incredibly cold, bitter winter. I sit quietly at my kitchen table wrapped in my favorite soft blanket, a steaming mug of tea nearby, thankful beyond words for the warmth and safety which gently surround me within my little house as I look out upon the barren winter landscape. As of yet, all of my work has been composed in random blocks and bits and pieces, paragraphs written as one particular emotion or another washed over me, and while none of them are quite ready to post here, they soon will be.

For there remains one precious relationship which I've never brought to this space, one beautiful and too-brief connection during which I learned more about myself than I ever imagined possible. Unlike with M, however, grief wasn't mine when I came to understand that there would be no tomorrows. Instead, I am grateful...grateful for who he is, grateful for his love and wisdom, and grateful beyond words for the woman I've become by having offered my heart to him.

In time, I hope to share a tiny bit of what I learned through him with all of you, as well.

So I am writing.

Just Wrong

Yet another fourteen or so inches of snow fell in my world last night and my son has the day off from school, thus we're having a lazy, sleepy, hang-out-in-pajamas kind of morning. I thought the real world might wait at least until it warmed up a bit and the time came to pile on layers of clothes, head outdoors and shovel the driveway.

I was mistaken.

For when I sat down at the kitchen table this morning with my mug of hot tea in the quiet hour before sunrise and opened my e-mail account, I discovered that, at 5:51 a.m., my son's English teacher forwarded a four-page "snow day" writing assignment to be completed at home.

Teacher boy is a total buzz kill.

&%$#&*!

At 7 a.m., it is -2 degrees at my house. I seriously need to rethink the place I call home.

Life

Yesterday, my dear friend and his wife lost their little boy, their only child, in a tragic automobile accident. Heartbroken for them, I sat this afternoon with pen in hand, trying to find some words, any words, which might possibly bring them comfort. I realized there are none.

More than a year ago, on the afternoon of my father's funeral, I sat outdoors on the steps of the simple clapboard church of my childhood, numb and broken and surrounded by people who, like me today, couldn't begin to think of the right words to say to ease my grief. The people soon drifted away and in the silence which followed I sat alone, watching my son on the faded wooden playground in the distance as he laughed and ran with the other children, a world apart from the somber space occupied by the adults around him. The little boy who died yesterday was one of those children, happy and carefree as they all romped and played together in the bright afternoon sunshine, captivated by a land of their imaginations.

Though grief makes it hard to recognize, even losing a child is part of life's beginnings and ends.

I am learning to see the truth of it.

Sustaining Him

A reader who has followed my blog nearly since its inception today wrote:

So, weren't you supposed to do a blog post on breast milk sustenance? Is it possible for a woman to make enough (to provide for a partner's needs)? Would it provide all the nutrients?

(From my research), there are twenty calories in every ounce of breast milk. If a typical adult male needs 2,000 to 2,500 calories per day to be sustained, that is anywhere from 100-128 ounces of milk (or a gallon). That means the man needs to nurse quite a bit and the woman needs to take in 4,000-5,000 calories a day, and for the milk to be very nutritious. The only thing it would lack is fiber so how would you make up for that? Fiber pills?

My reply (edited and expanded a bit for posting here):

I've had dozens of conversations about this with other blog readers (many of whom dream of a scenario exactly like it, where she and her milk are his only nourishment), and the truth is, it's just not realistic in any sustained way, even with those few women who are "oversuppliers."

(An "oversupplier" is a term which describes the unusual woman who produces in excess of twenty ounces of breast milk every four to six hours. Because it typically occurs from hormonal hyperstimulation of the milk glands, the oversupply tends to be very high in lactose and quite watery, consistent with foremilk, which is the milk that is first let down and which hydrates and immediately satisfies her baby. In excess, either with an infant or with an adult, this oversupply of lactose-rich foremilk would produce gastric upset, reflux, digestive difficulties, and malnutrition.)

So, what is realistic? It is my experience that a man could depend solely on his partner's breasts for adequate, but not optimum, hydration, and for sustenance for two of his three meals in a day. This assumes they are together engaging in complete nursing sessions (emptying both breasts) every four to five hours, including once in the middle of the night. In this fashion, he would take from her breasts about half of his required daily caloric needs, or 1,200 to 1,600 calories, the equivalent of sixty to eighty ounces of milk. Roughly, that's four to five feeds of twelve to sixteen ounces per feed, or six to eight ounces per breast during each half-hour nursing session.

Such a supply could easily be accomplished by a committed couple, but one must note...it will not happen at the beginning of their nursing sessions together. Immediately after a successful induction, she may only produce two to four ounces combined from both breasts for many weeks, perhaps even months. That said, human breastfeeding is a true supply and demand operation, and it is realistic that a couple nursing together every four hours for three to six months could ultimately reach sixty to eighty ounces of breast milk daily, spaced equally over four to five complete feeds.

(As a clinical point of reference, when my son was about nine months old, just before he fully embraced solid foods, I produced an average of forty-eight to sixty ounces of breast milk every day. Further, most of the nursing mothers I work with who feed naturally, with minimal use of a breast pump, adequate relaxation, verbal support and gentle touch from a partner, proper nutrition and hydration, and abundant skin-to-skin contact with their infants, have more or less a similar production between the sixth and twelfth months of their babies' lives, usually between thirty-two and sixty ounces of milk per day.)

Finally, remember, all of this is in effort to achieve only half of a man's daily caloric needs; her partner would still require one carefully-balanced meal each day of 1,200 to 1,600 calories, high in protein, low in fat, and possibly with additional fluids (water or juice in small four- to six-ounce servings throughout the day).

So now, a side note...one which surely reveals my own inclinations...

As I replied to this reader's question this afternoon, I was suddenly aware that the simple act of typing the words took my breath away and turned me inside out. It's a scenario which thoroughly and utterly completes me. On an ANR level, a relationship such as this is the ultimate embodiment of committed intimacy and nurturing...true interdependence...while on a "caring for" level, well, I'd love to happily exist in my garden and in my kitchen, planning for and creating one beautiful, healthy, sustaining meal every day for the man I love, such that between the gifts of my body and of my hands, I become his sole source of nourishment and well being.

This...simply, this...though I believe it is forever gone from me now...remains the place I wish to live.