Neylan McBaine

I've Got Soul But I'm Not A Soldier

To My Stolid Neighbor at the Killers Concert:

Excuse me, I brushed against your motionless shoulder once again with these legs of mine that simply can't stand still. There you sit, your crossed ankles propped up on the back of the empty seat in front of us, as if you are being forced to listen to boring in-laws pontificate about politics after a sleep-inducing Thanksgiving dinner. Are we in the same place? Are you in the same building as the seven thousand other Killers fans that are now raising the roof of Salt Lake's E Center? Or perhaps you were replaced with an alien life form while Brandon Flowers sang "Space Man".

Please understand me, I am very accommodating when it comes to performance etiquette. After all, until I reached my twenties, my entire performance experience consisted of sitting in hushed blackened halls, unwrapping my mints during the interspersed applause so as not to encourage the wrath of the snow-head sitting in front of me. I know when to be quiet. But I also like to think I know when to be loud, a propriety you clearly have yet to master. 

Your playing the statue at a Killers concert is akin to me shouting "Whoo hoo" and pumping my arms when Violetta dies in Traviata. Disturbing, disconcerting and just plain wrong. So lighten up, soldier, and put some soul into it.

My Capricious and Demented Masters

"Most of my married friends now have children, the rewards of which appear to be exclusively intangible and, like the mysteries of some gnostic sect, incommunicable to outsiders. In fact it seems from the outside as if these people have joined a dubious cult: they claim to be much happier and more fulfilled than ever before, even though they live in conditions of appalling filth and degradation, deprived of the most basic freedoms and dignity, and owe unquestioning obedience to a capricious and demented master."  Tim Kreider, The New York Times, September 17, 2009

Why do we have children? Tim Kreider's description of the parenting condition made me laugh out loud. I do so often feel "deprived of the most basic freedoms and dignity," don't you?  Even my heroic mother-in-law who raised five of her own commented during an afternoon with my own three, "I forgot that feeling of always being followed around!" Yes, followed to the bathroom but not followed when you really need them to.

The resentment and confusion I felt after first becoming a mother is a sacred and defining part of who I am (and well documented in my book). I never, ever judge a mother for her choices after going through what I did; I try very hard to steer clear of Kreider's "Referendum", as I hope others will do for me. However, after six years, I am thoroughly engaged in a transformation that continues to surprise my old self: I am learning to love motherhood. It is not because I am free from a "capricious and demented master". (Anyone remember how demented I was during Dalloway's colic?) Or because I'm free from "filth and degradation". I'm not. But I've managed to take a long term view and it makes the day to day grind bearable and even often enjoyable.

For me, because of my beliefs, it's hard for me to answer the question of "Why children?" outside the context of the Gospel. Obviously, lots of people who are not Mormon are having children and still finding it fulfilling, but I've come to peace with children through the lens of my faith. I believe by having children we are giving much-desired and needed bodies to spirits who have been waiting to come to earth, but that hardly makes chaotic dinner time more endurable. Instead, it is my faith in the purpose of this life to teach us how to love that makes parenting something I can swallow. There is no doubt that, although I am messier, less punctual and a little slow on the uptake sometimes, mothering has made me a better person. I do a better job at feeling love for another human being. I see the wisdom of putting me here on earth with children who depend on me and need me to be selfless in my service to them. I'm entirely different person then I was when I started this adventure six years ago.

Parenthood makes me joyful, but not always happy. It brings energy, but not always fun. It forces me to love unconditionally, even when I don't like my kids. In short, it takes this life to a more disciplined level of practice than what we expect from ourselves. It demands we live up to what God expects.

On Walking to the Mall

We were all pretty antsy this afternoon. The kindergarten homework and violin practicing schedule was feeling a bit constricting. So, I pulled out the mom trick I resort to about once a week when the ways of suburbia leave me at a loss for anything else: I suggested we go out to dinner at a fast-casual Mexican restaurant of the Bajio/Barbacoa/Cafe Rio/Costa Vida/Rubios variety. Shouts of glee ensued, probably from the same post-metropolitan parts of their brain that prompted Esme recently to refer to soda as "pop". 

But then, the urban part of her brain kicked back in and she yelled, "Let's walk there!" I could have kissed her. I did kiss her. And we got the stroller, strapped in Dalloway and embarked on a journey that few Sandy, Utahns ever contemplate: we walked to the mall.

I suppose it's called a mall. I don't know the official name for the village-type layout of stores and walkways built up around an anchor tenant, in this case both a Wal-Mart and a Lowes. Whatever it is, walking there requires exiting our apartment complex, turning east along a major commuter street and passing a large field. Esme immediately noticed trash strewn among the weeds and shrubs. "Why doesn't someone come out here with a trash bag and pick up all these bottles? These plants need water. And it smells out here." Auden picked up the chorus: "It's like poopoo from the cars! It stinks!"

But Auden, without her Phil & Teds chariot in which I pushed her around New York, didn't complain for a moment about walking twenty minutes to the restaurant. In fact, the girls ran the last few "blocks" once we entered the mall complex. And for me, it was sheer joy to have my girls by my side again, rather than as disembodied voices demanding attention from the back seat. They each held a side of the stroller, looking up at me as they talked, shielding their eyes from the afternoon sun. They touched the prickly shoots that spilled over onto the sidewalk, crouched down to observe a cricket before it jumped away, laughed at a pair of hiking boots strewn alongside the bottles. Esme kindly asked Auden not to walk in front of her, because she is bigger than Auden and takes bigger steps. They were delighted with their independence, with the thrill of running to the street corner by themselves and then waiting for me to catch up.

By the time we reached the restaurant, they were a little homesick for New York, and we talked about what they miss and what they're excited to do when we go to visit. Who knew that walking, like music or food or smells, could conjure up such strong feelings of place and past in such little people? I adore my little walkers and after all, we'll always have New York.

Sign Seeking

I am not a sign seeker. I try to live in that intersection of spiritual productivity where the Lord's direction works hand in hand with my own sincere seeking. If I look for meaning in every door that opens or closes, I feel frustrated with the Lord's seemingly obtuse communication.

That's not to say I don't appreciate the comfort or direction when it does come in a way that I can decipher. After years during our early marriage and in graduate school when Elliot and I felt our way through our careers and family decisions like we were looking for a light switch in a blackened room, we finally received a clarity in our spiritual search which landed us here in Utah. I will always be grateful for the events that led us here: Harvard, a return to New York and my father's passing away. But that doesn't mean there haven't been moments, even in the nearness of family and a Wal-Mart, that I haven't missed the city life we left behind.

For moving three children to temporary housing, getting them settled in school and figuring out a new routine in a new place -- in the absence of my husband -- I've done pretty well. I am in general thrilled to be here. But the other day, I noticed a crack in my emotional armor: I miss city street life. Always living in metropolitan areas means that I am an "urban hiker". Miles of city blocks are undaunting. I've walked from Pacific Heights to SoMa in San Francisco, Alston to Harvard Square in Boston, Midtown to SoHo in New York, and breathed in revitalization in every block. Throwing me in a teeming street crowd is the best way to lift my spirits. In my suburban apartment, having spent my day driving from school to store to parking spot, my armor split open.

I prayed for comfort, which came in the form of a package from my husband. He -- still in New York -- had visited the Museum of Modern Art and sent me magnets with New York images on them. But a more lasting comfort came as I toiled away on the treadmill at the gym the next morning. There was a moment in which I felt the forces of the universe converge to let me know that God is aware of me. 

I wore my Harvard Business School Half-Marathon t-shirt that morning, the t-shirt that makes me feel like I am clothed in the love of my friends. I became closer to the twenty-odd HBS moms I lived with during our two years of business school than I have to any other group of girls or women. Indeed, the front of the shirt says "Boston Running Club", but the "Running" is crossed out and "Therapy" is scrawled above it. Running was a common bond for many of us during those two years, culminating in a half-marathon each spring. Wearing the shirt reminds me not only of those life-long friends but of the sparkling mornings I ran along the Charles River, passing the Harvard houses, the crew boats on the river and the changing leaves of the Fall trees.

The song playing on my iPod also worked to conjure that Boston tenderness: "Such Great Heights" by The Postal Service. A perfect running song, to which I had often traversed the Charles. But suddenly, on the gym television screen, a TV commercial for TheLadders.com, the company my husband works for in New York, which I had watched many times in my Brooklyn apartment. In those few seconds -- while listening to "Such Great Heights" in my Boston t-shirt while watching TheLadders.com commercial on a television in a Salt Lake City gym -- the magnitude of the past few years hit me hard. The profundity of the choices we've made, the friends we've made and left, the boxes we've packed and unpacked, the sacrifices and blessings we've gathered in, were, for a moment, all tragic and glorious. But, like a difficult puzzle that results in a rewarding whole, the pieces of the last few years are starting to come together. In that moment at the gym, I felt like the Lord gave me a glimpse of what this puzzle is actually going to look like when we come out of all of this. It felt like I was actually able to see, if only for a moment, what the complexities of this life are really for, of the character and strength and toughness we develop simply by sticking with this life. It was a moment of comfort, of I-Can-Do-This clarity. And I'll take it as a sign.

Treats

I remember when the scale told me I weighed 57 and a half pounds. I remember because my dad pointed out that the week before I had been 56 pounds. I don’t remember how often my dad oversaw my weigh-ins or if they were even a regular occurrence. Maybe this particular trip to the scale was brought on by the sudden pound and a half of previously undetected fleshiness on my pre-pubescent thighs, but whatever the reason, this encounter with the scale ended -- not surprisingly -- with me in tears. Whether the tears came from the shame of my fleshy thighs or else from the resentment I felt towards my dad for making me stand on the scale in the first place, I honestly cannot remember.

What I do remember is rationally arguing to myself that my dad’s obsession with my weight was simply an outlet for his obsession with his own weight, and that I shouldn’t take it so personally. Photos of our family through the years were jokingly referred to by “Dad’s Fat Period” or “Dad’s Skinny Period”. But as much as I tried to reason within myself, the stage was set for a body-conscious girlhood.

It’s easy to blame my physical insecurities on my 57.5 lbs weigh-in, but I am raising three young girls myself now and I know that even without my father’s weight obsession looming over us I still have a heck of a job on my hands. Not only am I combating the entire media behemoth's ideal of female perfection, I am combating an unalterable physiographic trait that I am convinced is hard wired into my DNA and that I have in all likelihood passed along to them: I absolutely love treats.

Yes, we have the “one dessert a day” rule and yes, I insist they eat their meal before having dessert, but I’m that mom who sends the kids out of the kitchen after they’ve licked the beaters just so I can take a huge soup spoon and polish off a hunk of cookie dough behind their backs. I’m that mom who scolds, “No candy before lunch!” while my mouth is full of dark chocolate chips at 10 o’clock in the morning. I’m that mom who finds any excuse to buy an ice cream in the park or a hot chocolate at Starbucks on a cold morning. Even Disney princess-shaped fruit snacks will do the trick in a pinch. Dylan’s Candy Bar was the first store in New York that my children learned to call by name.

On those days when Jenni’s Homemade Oreos save us from a desperately long winter afternoon or when YoGoMonster frozen yogurt sees us through a sweltering summer day, I have flashes back to the day I tried to throw up an ice cream cone into the toilet, so disgusted was I that I had eaten the whole thing. That age is coming all too quickly for my daughters. Will my daughters bemoan having a mother who was so free-wheeling with the sugar that they want to throw it up when they get older? Will they wish I was more disciplined in establishing their eating habits, sorrowfully laughing that “one dessert a day” simply wasn’t enough... for mom?

Perhaps. But I hope they will also recognize that treats gave us memories, an excuse to spend time together and revel in life’s little pleasures. And on that sad day when they figure out that the treats we eat have a relationship with the way we look, I hope it’s not a traumatic trip to the scale they remember. I hope, instead, it’s the memory of Not Hots from The Chocolate Room, cupcakes from Sugar Sweet Sunshine and Mega Missile popsicles in Central Park. Perhaps they might thank me after all.