About the Hill

It’s spring break but you wouldn’t know it from the weather. Last year it was in the 70s and I didn’t feel so bad about not jetting to the Cayman Islands or Cabo, or any of the other tropical destinations my well-to-do students were visiting. It’s barely broken 40 this year. Everything still looks dead, but I’ve been itching to get outside. We didn’t even really have winter until February and March, but those two months were the longest winter I can remember.

Forty degrees seemed almost balmy and the ice has melted on the hill, so I bundled up, hooked the leash up to my little dog, and went to get my glutes in gear. They’ll be sore tomorrow. It’s been months since I’ve been on the hill. I’ll have the ibuprofen ready on my nightstand before I even get out of bed.

Barbara, my usual hiking partner is one of the masses fleeing the unpleasant North Shore for warmer climes, so Molly and I went alone. It’s a thinking hill, whether Barbara’s helping me think, or when I venture out on my own. And here's what I thought about:

See this beach? This cold, abandoned beach? From this beach I can’t see across the lake to the other side, but I know Michigan’s over there. I’ve been to Michigan and I can’t see Illinois from there either, but I know it’s there just the same.

I also noticed that from the bottom of the hill I can’t see the top, even though it takes only a few minutes to march my bones up to the green iron gate that I touch before turning and going back down.  I go up and down the hill about a dozen times and I never can see the top from the bottom. I still know it’s there.

I know there’s another side to the lake. I know the hill ends at the gate. I know there’s a terminal point to just about everything in life - including life. It takes a matter of minutes to climb the hill. A few hours to cross the lake on a boat. A few years to speed through youth. A blink of an eye.

You see where I’m going with this, right?

What I want is at the top of the hill. I know it’s there.

I’ll keep walking.

Visit me on Twitter (@CeceliaHalbert)

The Secret Lives of Moms

When I say ‘moms,’ I’m not talking about new mommies with little ones in diapers, not yet in school. I’m not talking about those years of mom-dom where being a mom is all consuming and the secrets you have are that you don’t always change a diaper right away or that it takes you longer than you thought it would to bond with your baby or you do have a favorite child or that you maintain your sanity and drown your disappearing sense of self in a glass or two of wine every night.

I’m not talking about those moms.

I’m talking about moms who have older kids: kids that are now at a somewhat self-sufficient age. Once kids start to be in school all day, with friends in their free time, getting part-time jobs, and going off to college - once that all starts happening, women start remembering they are not only moms, but individuals with brains, intelligence, and passions and it’s like they’ve been on a starvation diet for a long time. They feel deprived of life and they want to experience everything the world has to offer.

Sometimes they look at their husbands or significant others for the first time in a really long time and wonder what they saw in them in the first place. Sometimes they’ll start remembering and their relationship gets a new fresh start. 

But not always.

Some of those moms find that they no longer have anything in common with their partners. They begin a search, innocently and tentatively at first, but with more tenacity once they get positive responses. The attention feels good and it’s addictive and before they know it, they’re living two lives: one life in which they’re a wife, a mother, a colleague, a friend, and another life in which they’re free to express themselves in ways they never dreamed they would, intellectually, artistically… sexually…

So why don’t they just leave their marriages? Some do, of course. I did. Others don’t. They stay because they love both lives. They stay because they need the stability. It anchors them - keeps them from going too far out.

Having a secret life isn’t easy. The drama that goes on in one life has the potential to spill over into the other. Maintaining a façade of calm when underneath lies a torrential sea of emotions is exhausting - yet worth the effort.

You’d be surprised how many moms have secret lives.

I wrote Up the Hill because I had a feeling I wasn't the only one going through life like this - having all this drama happening while pretending to be living a 'normal' life - going to work, being a teacher, a parent...  I wanted other women to know they're not the only ones and I think it's a big secret of middle age - the age of discovery. 

I don’t think I’ll ever let my children know about the other ‘me.’ I don’t think they really want to know. Nobody wants to know about their parents’ secret lives. Ick.

I’ll bet my mom had one though.

Visit me on Twitter (@CeceliaHalbert)

By Popular Demand

My 10 Reds Under $10 List:

This is not my usual style of blogging but I’ve been keeping a list recently of wines under $10 that I like and I thought I’d share for others like me who’ve found that their monthly wine expenditures necessitate significant budget adjustments in order to accommodate the practice of a nightly glass (or two) of drinkable wine.

I am not a sommelier. I'm not a wine writer. I don't even know what I'm doing, really, but I know what I like. Research is ongoing. There is no particular order.

Found Object Syrah 2011 (Trader Joe’s) Got it for 4.99 and it’s surprisingly good.
Alto Almanzora Este 2009 Paid 6.99 for it at Binny’s. Bought a case. Loved it. The orange corks though? Meh.
Alamos Malbec 2011 Widely available for less than $10 and always a pleasure.
Bodegas Tres Picos Borsao Garnacha Again - 6.99 at Binny’s. I think. Maybe 7.99. Nice change of pace.
Castle Rock 2011 Pinot Noir (Willamette Valley) On sale once in a while for 9.99, so it made the list. I can usually find it for 12.99 and it’s still a good value. Don’t mistake it for the Mendocino County bottle.
Block Nine Pinot Noir 2011 Wine Discount Center. 9.99. Delcious. Hard to find a Pinot for under $10, but I love this. Not as complex as higher priced Pinots, but yummy just the same.
Bacán Cabernet Sauvignon 2011 - 6.99 at Whole Foods. Surprisingly good for 6.99.

Concha Y Toro Xlporador Cabernet Sauvignon 2011 Oh my God. Got this for 7.99 at Fresh Market and was amazed at how wonderful it was. I might have to move to Chile.

Ravenswood Petite Syrah Vintner’s Blend 2010 The only Ravenswood I can drink. It’s pretty good.

Dancing Bull Zinfandel - A sentimental favorite. You’ll have to read Up the Hill to find out why. 

Sidebar. If you're going to splurge for the Oscars and have an all-out Up the Hill night - find the Benton Lane First Class Reserve Pinot Noir 2009. That'll cost you. Hope you can find a statuette to complete the experience. Make sure you have some Whitney Houston playing in the background. 

Visit me on Twitter (@CeceliaHalbert) 

Between the Lines

So nine-year-old Kate posed this question to me at her piano lesson last night: “Why do grown-ups like to practice and kids don’t?”

“Because if music is something they want to do,” I answered, “and they want to do it well, they know they have to practice. Besides, it’s something different from most of the other work they have to do, so it’s enjoyable for them.”

Kate - nine-year-old Kate - shot down my answer without blinking. “I think you’re wrong,” she said. I have to admit that I was just a tiny bit astounded by her audacity. “I want to be good at piano too,” she went on, “but I don’t like to practice. It’s different from the rest of my homework, but that doesn’t make practicing fun. So I don’t get it,” she said.

Hmmmm, I thought. I really don’t have a good answer for this question. So I told Kate I’d have to do more thinking on this subject and get back to her and in the meantime, maybe she could ask other people the same question and let me know what she found out. “We’ll do some research on this question,” I said.

Kate, satisfied with my response, nodded assertively, turned the page in her lesson book and played the next song.

Here’s why I love Kate: she’s a thinker and I love a thinker. I love a kid who doesn’t take the world at face value. I love a kid who not only appreciates sarcasm and skepticism, but could also rival Andy Rooney in curmudgeonly observations. The keen curiosity of a thinking child who hasn’t allowed the educational system (or her peers or society in general) to squash her inquisitive nature is a rare and beautiful thing.

Kate compels me to think. That’s why I love Kate. 

Visit me on Twitter (@CeceliaHalbert) 

Valentine's Day and Other Holidays I Wish Didn't Exist

When I was growing up in the ‘60s and ‘70s, I looked forward to Valentine’s Day with great anticipation and excitement. I would spend days decorating my Valentine’s mailbox for school: an empty cereal box that I covered with white lacey doilies and hearts cut out of construction paper.  I dreamed it would be full of little cards in little envelopes from my friends, sometimes with a conversation heart or two inside, maybe a Hershey’s Kiss taped to the outside. 

I decorated cards and envelopes for all my friends, including boys that I never spoke to but admired from across the room. We didn't have Care Bears or Smurfs or even Peanuts commercially produced and perforated cards. We pasted them together ourselves out of paper and decorated them with stickers and markers and crayons. In the old days, we weren’t required to give a Valentine to every student in the class, but I did anyway. A room mother would come in and we would play a game and eat a cupcake then walk around the room depositing the treasured envelopes in the other decorated boxes. At the end of the day, we took our own mailbox home to open.

After school I would take my box to my room and close the door. I would sit on the bed, nervously tearing apart my creation hoping to find it full of Valentines - maybe even one from one of the boys who maybe was admiring me as much as I was admiring him. I hoped.

Every year I hoped for the box to be full, and every year I opened it to find five or six cards from my friends: Tammy, Susie, Becky, Diane, Grace, and the only girl more unpopular than me, Laura. I imagined other girls in my class opening their boxes, full to the brim with twenty or more cards. They’d have cards from the boys. They’d have cards from everyone. Hell, I'll bet the teachers even gave them cards. They probably got more cards on their way home from kids who weren't in our classroom.

I was happy in high school when the practice of passing out Valentines was frowned on because it wasn’t cool anymore. Valentine’s Day was just another day in high school, but I knew the popular girls were still probably getting cards and flowers from their boyfriends. At least I didn’t have to witness it.

When I grew up and had my own boyfriends and eventually husbands, I held out hope for a Valentine’s Day that would live up to my advertising-enhanced imagination. I’d hope until the end of the day when I’d present my boyfriend or husband with a card and a gift and he would say something like “Oh. Thanks. I was going to get you a card or something, but I didn’t have time.”  

It was same with any holiday that requires some manner of gift-giving. Holidays are marketing tools. They’re good for the economy, so we all are benefitting in a way, I suppose.

These days I still dread the holidays but no longer because of my own expectations, but for those of my children. I know how holidays play out in their imaginations and I know that at some point they’ll be disappointed too, so I try and teach them what I’ve learned.

And what I’ve learned is that I get gifts every day and I don’t need a holiday to tell me I’m loved. I know it already. Sometimes it takes keen eyes to see them, but those gifts are there every day and those are the ones that matter. 

Curb Appeal

“I guess I shouldn’t choose a wine because I like the label,” I said to my somewhat famous friend who knows a LOT more about wine than I do.

“Actually, you should,” he said. “If you like the label, odds are that a lot of money was spent on its design, and if a lot of money was invested in the design, there’s money in the vineyard, and if there’s money in the vineyard, you’re most likely going to get a decent glass of wine.”

“Huh. I never thought of that.”

“It’s usually true. Not always, but usually. If you have nothing else to go on, pick the one with the label you like.”

           In trying to build a network of like-minded colleagues, authors, and would-be readers, I spend a fair amount of time looking for interesting new people to follow, and all I have to go on most of the time is their label - their 140-character bio. If a label intrigues me, it’s because someone has invested time, thought, and creativity into their label and I’m likely to get a decent return on my follow.

Some bios will cause me immediately click ‘follow’ while others will result in me immediately clicking the little close-the-window-box. Some bios are in the lukewarm category and in that case I’ll read the last twenty or so tweets to make a final following decision.

            Some of the ‘don’t follow’ triggers are opening statements like these:

            Award-winning…  (I don’t care what you won and if it’s the first thing you’re going to tell me about you, your ego is probably too big. Humility is sexy.)

            Check out my…  (Can we get to know each other first before I check out your whatever it is you want me to check out?)

            Christian…  (I don’t mean to offend anyone, but if religion is what you consider the most important aspect of your bio, we’re probably not going to have much in common.)

            Gun-toting NRA Member and proud…  (See Ted Nugent. Not me.)

            I am drawn in by wit and brevity. Here are some actual bios that caused me to follow immediately (if yours is here - thanks!):

                                   A journalist, a writer, and a lousy fisherman... I used to be able to toss a caber - but last time I tried, not so much.

                    Model. Super funny. House in the Hamptons. Can bench 550 lbs. Size 15 shoe. Owns the kitchen. I just made this all up.

                    Reader. Writer. Cellulite Owner. Life Lover. Directionally Challenged. Curse Word Aficionado. (Not necessarily in that order.)

                    I married a fullblooded Italian. I tainted the bloodline.

                    Reader, beader, garden weeder. Illini fan. But that doesn't rhyme.

                    Wineblogger by night, otherwise, minion

                    runner, writer, procrastinator.

                    Novelist. Very easily distracted.

So now you know how to entice me, but to keep me reading, you’re going to have to keep being interesting. I’m a high-maintenance follower. Entertain me. Make me laugh. Make me think. If you wrote a book, your creative tweets will make me want to look for it. Be original and don't flood my feed with retweets. I want to know what you have to say. That's not to say that you shouldn't retweet at all, but forty in a row is a bit much, don't you think?

          And lastly - for God's sake, don't send me a direct message to tell me to check out your blog because I'll get all excited for nothing and if you fill my timeline with nothing but reviews or ‘buy my book’ or ‘check out my blah-blah-blah,’ I’ll go elsewhere because I’ll bet your book is as boring as your Twitter feed.

It's Not About Autism

"I'd rather regret the things I've done than regret the things I haven't done." ~ Lucille Ball

That’s how I feel about the subject material on which I’m about to pontificate. I’m a speak first, regret later kind of person. The following reflects the way I feel. I’m not always a mainstream thinker and occasionally I piss someone off. Keep that in mind.

I have a son on the Autism spectrum. Let’s call him Michael. He’s been labeled with Asperger’s Syndrome although that’s no longer a diagnosis according to the DSM V. This is probably good news to my ex-husband (let’s call him Edward), who I believe is similarly afflicted, but will deny it to the ends of the earth. This is ironic since Edward is all too happy to embrace the diagnosis as it applies to our son. He’s happy that because of that diagnosis we’re able to get Michael the help that Edward wished he’d had when he was growing up.

I digress.

I love my son. I think he’s the most fabulously talented, funny, warm, loving boy I know. I am not, however, one of many mothers of children with Autism who write and talk about how much she wishes everyone else could see how wonderful her child is or how difficult it is to have a child on ‘the spectrum.’

You won’t find me posting about the tremendous pressures of raising a child with autism. I don’t have a monopoly on difficult child-rearing. You might find me posting about the amount of wine I consume on a nightly basis, however, but that’s different.

Michael is eleven years old. He knows he has Asperger’s. He knows he’s different and he understands his challenges and issues. He also knows that everyone has a issue but that no two people’s issues are the same.  Which brings me to my point.

We all have issues and challenges and we all deal with them and we all do the best we can. Some have more difficult challenges than others. You don’t have to look far to find someone worse off. Every time I read an article, a tweet, or a post about Autistic individuals, whatever is being said can be applied to anyone. For example, I just now read this:

In autism the processing of all information, sensory, verbal etc alters the person’s perception of the world and how they interact in it...

No two people see the world the same way. Nor do any two autistic people see the world the same way. The above statement applies to everyone, not just autistic people.

This is what I tell Michael: Get over it. Make the best of things and do something worthwhile with your life. Have fun, for God’s sake. Figure out what you need to do to survive and who can help you. And, Michael, I’m going to point it out to you anytime you’re doing something that will cause other people to think you’re weird. I'm going to do this because I love you and your life will be easier if other people don’t think you’re weird and life is about getting along with other people. If other people don't think you're weird, you'll get along better.

But really… who isn’t weird? Let them cast the first stone.