balance that almost works for you more than half of the time, maybe, and know that you’re doing the best you can. Being a mother was a real shortcut to realizing that I could make decisions without worrying or caring what others thought.
As a new mom, I felt surges of warmth from the world. If the baby was screaming in the grocery store, people let me cut in line. (Okay, maybe they did that ‘cause they were trying to get rid of us.) You know how little stores claim not to have bathrooms, but you know the employees must go to the bathroom somewhere? Well, now that I was a mother every store let me use their secret bathroom. At the airport, people who’d normally be pushing past me heedlessly stopped to help with the stroller. But being kind to strangers shouldn’t be reserved for a mother with a baby. Too often we’re that trash can-hating neighbor in Sunland. I took a flight on Virgin Atlantic and noticed that there was a sign on the counter that said, IT’S NOT ACCEPTABLE TO ABUSE THE STAFF OF VIRGIN ATLANTIC BECAUSE YOUR PLANE IS LATE. I said to the guy behind the counter, “That is so sad. They have to have a sign that says you can’t abuse people!” Since when does freaking out at an airline employee change your flight status? You’re already having a bad day. Why would you make it so that someone else has to have a crappy day too? Imagine what that guy tells his partner about you when he goes home. Seriously, people. Ease up on the airline employees! Life is hard enough.
The Christmas right after Emerson was born, I decided to make a big Christmas dinner, goose and all, for my friends and family. Emerson was only three months old; I hadn’t slept in weeks. Clearly I was out of my mind to think this was a good idea. A perfectionist always, I wanted everything to be seasonal and festive. So on Christmas Eve, amidst the daze of night feedings, burping, and diaper changing, I drove to Bed Bath & Beyond to get maroon tablecloths and matching napkins. I was so out of it that I’m lucky I didn’t get nabbed for an MUI (Mother Under the Influence). Nonetheless, I made it there and started wandering the aisles, haplessly searching for what I thought would be obvious items to stock for Christmas. But no, it was not so easy to find the tablecloths among the Santa Claus salt-and-pepper shakers, Marilyn Monroe tree ornaments, and reindeer-themed pleather bodysuits. (Okay, that’s an exaggeration.)
I was making my way through those superwide, luxurious aisles when I heard a voice behind me say, “Well, excuuuuuse me!” I turned around to see a woman who was clearly annoyed that I’d crossed in front of her. Apparently, in my oblivion, I’d broken her shopping right-of-way code. I said, “I’m sorry, I didn’t see you.” She scowled at me and walked away. Now maybe this was one of those “let it go” moments, but I couldn’t. I pride myself on being fair and conscious of others’ feelings, and in my heart I was nowhere close to thinking I’d been rude to this woman. So, after a few minutes of stewing, and against my better judgment, I walked back up to her. I was really trying to hold back my tears, but of course I broke into sobs as I explained that I didn’t even see her, and that I was a new mom, and that maybe she should just give people a little break because you never know what they might be going through. To which her lovely, generous response was, “I guess you are the big fucking bitch I keep reading about in the tabloids.”
What a lovely way to start Christmas. I think about her, and try to give her the benefit of the doubt. Maybe she was alone on Christmas; maybe the only thing that made her feel good was being able to put down someone who seemed happier than she (and she would have to have been really bad off for an uncontrollably sobbing woman to be the happier one). In moments like this, I try to be forgiving. When someone cuts me off on the highway, instead of letting road rage take over, I tell myself that I have no idea what’s going on in that other driver’s world. Maybe her mother is sick. Maybe she just got fired. Maybe she’s an airline employee who was brutalized by delayed travelers all day long. I imagine that we have more in common than not. I cut her some slack the way I hope others would cut me some slack on a bad day. We all suffer enough on our own. If we try to ease the suffering of those around us, who knows how the karmic echoes will lighten our loads?
We went to New York for New Year’s a couple of days later. I was walking down Ninth Avenue when I saw a woman drop a full bag of groceries. It was a gray, cloudy day, and the street was full of people hurrying their separate ways, dull and unanimated. Several oranges rolled out of the woman’s fallen bag; the only bright spots of color on the street. Nobody stopped to help her collect her groceries. They just walked past, oblivious. Then something happened. The clouds broke, and a double rainbow appeared. A double rainbow! In New York City! That’s two more rainbows than you ever see in New York. They arched perfectly across the sky, right over the Chrysler Building. There was a collective gasp on the street. People pointed and smiled. Some ran into stores to buy disposable cameras. We all watched until the sky clouded over again, then went on our ways. But then the second miracle happened. The whole way down Ninth Avenue strangers stopped each other to say, “Did you see the rainbow?” and “You can still see it over on Seventh Avenue!” A twin rainbow. That’s what it took to get people to notice each other, to bring them together.
Sure, you’re probably thinking, Well, that was once in a lifetime. After all, New York ain’t Hawaii. Still, rare as rainbows may be, it seemed so simple, so easy to instantaneously transform people from cold, unconcerned strangers who wouldn’t help a woman chase down her oranges to members of a friendly, warm community. We’re all right there, on the threshold of caring about each other, of coming together, of relishing the funny, pretty things that appear in our world. You’re on that threshold with everything that happens in your life. Doing your hair. Going to the grocery store. Having a meeting. Making dinner for your family. Going on a date. Robbing a bank. (Actually, if you’re a bank robber, I’m not sure any of this applies to you. Put down the book and turn yourself in.) You can find friendly faces. You can live in the moment. You can opt to be in a world that makes you smile. (Cheesy, but you know what I mean?) You can be the person who doesn’t help pick up the oranges, or you can shift just slightly and turn into the person who stands in awed appreciation of all the colors in the spectrum.
I suppose you’re wondering what happened to the lady with the spilled groceries? Did the rainbow awaken everyone to her plight? Come on. We’re talking about New York City. What do you think happened? She picked them up and went on her way. But maybe at least the rainbow made her forget to be angry at the grocery store for not double-bagging her purchases. She was – as we all are – part of a community. We could all see the rainbow together.
Motherhood brought me a new sense of knowing what I wanted, and after that trip to New York, I started wanting to leave LA. I wanted to move to a place where I didn’t have to be in a car all the time. To live in a real neighborhood in a great city. So we drove across the country and moved to New York City. I know what you’re thinking – What? You should have picked Minneapolis. All I knew was that I wanted to make a new home and a new life with a baby. I thought New York was the answer. Little did I know that it would be the place where I hit rock bottom.
Rock bottom. You never know how far down you are until you hit it. Near the end of my marriage, that’s where I found myself. Eating burnt toast is one thing – you’re unnecessarily suffering a discomfort of your own making – but being toast is a whole different story. When you’re toast, you yourself are that burnt, useless piece of bread. You’re a goner, doomed and destroyed. Ever tried to un-toast a piece of bread? When you’re toast, there’s no going back. The garbage can is your best and only option.
That’s how it felt to me after nearly four years in New York. At my lowest of lows I called my friend Val from Chelsea Piers in New York City. It was almost Christmas, and New York was cold. The snow on the ground had long cycled past the pretty phase and was well into the gray and dirty phase. Old, foul, brown slush had melted into deep muddy puddles at every curb. If you’ve never experienced these “puddles,” what you have to know is that they’re optical illusions. Because of the snow floating on top, they look relatively solid. But when you step into them you’re suddenly in a calf-deep, boot-defying puddle. Every street corner is a cruel joke. At the same time, the invisible bottom had fallen out of my marriage. I was