I have a theory. When a woman gives birth for the first time, she should become super human. She will never get sick and she will only die after a long and happy life. We are expected to be super human already. To do a million and one things well and to never rest even when we get sick. So why can we get sick? And more importantly, why can a mom die before her time? I know too many motherless daughters and kids who are growing up without their moms. Cancer is a big one. But then there are the out of the blue losses - car accidents, a sudden health incident. I just heard yesterday of an immense loss to a family that we know in Marin. We don't see them as often because we live a few towns away now, but to hear of the loss that they are experiencing shook me to the core. Moms should never die. We mean too much. Our kids need us through the twists and turns of life. We need to be there when our daughters give birth and have sleepless nights and nursing issues. We need to be there to love our grandkids and take some of the pressure off our kids. We need to be here. 

I was lucky in the big scheme of things I got 26 years with my mom. But it wasn't enough. And knowing how much that hurts, when I try and stand in the shoes of a 10 year old or a 15 year old, my heart aches. And I want to yell to the heavens - moms should never die!!! Every fairy tale that became a Disney movie starts with the mom is gone and then...it's never good. Never. 

Reading about other daughter's loss on Mother's Day is truly what inspired me to move forward with a crowdsource campaign to print my memory book. As I step forward with this project into the world I keep feeling pulled to do something more.  It is such a SMALL drop in the bucket, but I am creating a workbook to go with the book. It will be a way for anyone to record their own memories of their loved one. It could be just for yourself or to share with your kids or the kids you someday hope to have. There will be prompts to help you remember some of your favorite things and there will be an A to Z list so you can plan and brainstorm before you start creating. If you like to draw - great! - if not, then it could be collage or photos and a little or a lot of writing to go with the images. 

I deeply hope that it can bring a tiny bit of comfort to those who have lost too much, too soon. I hope. Because this loss makes no sense and it never will. We live with waves of grief and we ride them thru the highs and lows of our lives that we wish we could share with our mom. 
​

I’ve been crowdsourcing since before it was a “thing”. I was lucky to have friends in the fundraising department at Art Center - especially Shoko Takada. When I imagined going to the National Stationary Show in 2004 she helped me believe it was possible. She had me write letters to everyone I knew - friends and family - and I mailed them! Yes, mail. Real mail. I told my story, listed my goals and asked for help. I got so much support, enough to start my company Block Party Cards and go to New York City with an 11 month old baby in my arms. I was even able to pay for my mother in law to fly out and meet me so that she could take care of Jasper while I worked at the show. Someone in my mom's group in LA had a cousin in Brooklyn who offered her apartment - for free! It was amazing. I was WAY out of my league but the experience was priceless. I met Amy Mason who I'm still in touch with, she was a few booths down and fell in love with Jasper who would walk his "travel stroller", up and down the aisles. He was just learning to walk and he was super cute. Sometimes I feel like I "failed" at my goal of having a successful stationary line. But in the process of creating that line, I learned how to design and maintain my own website. That skill has grown into what I do today for my "day job". And it has created the flexible work that has always been my dream so that I could work from home and be here to raise my kids. 

I haven’t “made it” like I imagined I would. Jasper was about to turn one when I went to the Stationary Show. He’ll be 16 on June 12th four days before this campaign ends. I’ve done some great things in these 15 years. I've been raising three children , volunteering at their wonderful schools, building community, working for the Town of Fairfax - building a recreation department and then focusing on design & marketing and now running communications for the whole town. I've been practical, I've gotten things done but the thing is my dream hasn’t changed. I still want drawing and painting - illustrations, surface pattern design and more - to be my main source of income. It may take me another 15 years to get there. But I'm not going to give up. 

I have not had the launching pad that some have had, or the safety net. My parents gave me a lot of love but couldn't give me much else. I've been working since I was 14 and I grew up too fast as a result of the life I lived with my mom. I moved out and had more expenses than most at my age and I didn't finish college because it was too much to juggle work and school. I often start to feel sorry for myself, thinking of all the things I could have done with more support. But then I remember that I am strong and compassionate and I have amazing friends - the girl who ate her lunch in the bathroom alone in elementary school - has built a community of wonderful friends. And I have family I've collected in some round about ways in addition to my interesting family tree. And here is what I have learned from crowdsourcing - as hard as it is to ask for help, it feels so good to know that something that I'm imagining can actually come true with a little bit of help from a lot of amazing people. 

I doubt sometimes if this book has appeal beyond my friends and family. I don't know yet. But I feel like it's the beginning of something. The idea came to me from the universal creative source it doesn't feel like it was "my idea" it feels like a call to action. It feels like the loss I have experienced thru my mom can help others find a way to some peace. It feels like I'm honoring all the good things about my mom's life even though when she died, things were not good and had not been good for a long, long time. I watched a movie tonight and the main character got to make amends with his dad who was abusive to him growing up. It was hard to watch. The work I'm doing to forgive my mom is one sided, I'll never get to hear her say that she is sorry. Many of us will never get to hear that. We have to carry our grief and our pain and our anger and then we have to let go. So we can lives full of joy and creativity instead of pain and fear. The movie was about a song he wrote after loosing his dad. It went on to touch millions of people. When we share our journey, when we are honest, we can be part of something greater than ourselves. 

So to all the amazing people who have helped me so far and for those who might still be jumping on the campaign, thank you for helping me to keep dreaming, to keep doing and keep believing. This is not how I thought it would look but maybe it's better than anything I could have imagined. 

I keep hearing that 2020 is the beginning of the end. I agree, but it started in late 2019 for me. I had spent months planning a screening of Motherload - an amazing documentary about the Cargo Bike movement and it's potential to be a force of change for our environment and our culture. We were planning to screen it in mid October. But then the planned power outages started to help curtail what we all felt was another inevitable fire season. The community center cancelled the screening because they were deemed an emergency center for charging and cooling (it was a super hot fall season, as has become "normal" now.) and then a huge fire swept thru our area for the third year in a row and by the following week we were all wearing masks the smoke was thick, again. 

We got thru the holidays and started 2020 optimistic that things were going to be good. I planned to launch a kickstarter campaign to fund a small run of the book I finished in the fall. But Valentine's weekend we went on a short road trip to Monterey to see a friend. My daughter had a cold and didn't feel great but we figured, she'll be fine, we can still have a fun weekend. We arrived in Monterey and she was spiking a fever, the next day I got the same fever. The rest of our family was sick by Sunday. We stayed in bed for days, barely seeing the friends that we went to see. Finally, we drove home, delirious but a little bit better. It still lingered all week and we all missed school and work. It moved from fever to lungs, creating a painful, long lasting cough. By early March, we still could not breath clearly and we started to hear about the Coronavirus. By mid March we were all sheltering in place.

The kickstarter I had put off to March had to wait. My "day job" is in communications for the Town of Fairfax and I had been busy ever since the fall with power outages and fires but it really ramped up with the shelter in place orders. Working from home was crazy with three kids home from school. By May it had been months of lockdown and not much creative time. I finally took a deep breath and said "I have to keep going" so I launched the kickstarter and I have gotten a long way towards my goal. 

Now the world is on fire again, this time in protest to the deep racial injustice that is ingrained in our county. The divide that has been nurtured for generations and ignited by our current leadership. We are literally burning it down so that we may find a new way forward. And here I am with my tiny book, thinking, is this the right time to push forward? It may not be, the campaign may not be funded and I will have to let it go, for now. But there is a little voice inside that says "it's ok, keep going" because this project is about looking at loss and finding the pieces that we want to keep so we can move forward, stronger. I think we all need a bit of that right now. 

I am working on a companion workbook to go with the A-Z memory book so that anyone can document their memories of a loved one - either lost or present - to learn from the past, capture the moment and heal the future. I just added a $15 pledge to the campaign and the thank you will be the workbook to download and create your own book. Below are some sketches for the letters. If 100 people put in $15 the project will be funded. Just a little bit adds up, it always does, because there is power in coming together.

If you feel inspired to contribute to the kickstarter, please check it out here: 
www.kickstarter.com/projects/camillesposito/a-z-memories-of-a-magical-childhood-in-mill-valley-ca

I have no idea what the rest of 2020 holds. We really can't plan anything right now. But I do hope that I keep drawing and connecting to the creative source. Because creativity is not cancelled. In fact we need it now, more than ever. So we can create a reality we can only imagine. 

Why you are pursuing this project?
I am attempting to capture some of the sweet memories of my childhood. These are things we would have remembered together and she would have joked about and told my kids about. By talking about memories, we keep them alive and pass them down to our kids and their kids. I lost my mom when she was 53 and I was 26 and I was not a mom yet. 


These all seem like the best parts, what about the tough times?
As my dear friend Belynda said, you did not do D is for Drunk in this memory book. My mom was an alcoholic and my kids know that. I’m not trying to gloss over the hard parts, because there were many. But I think we all want to hold onto the bright spots, the things we cultivate for our kids and the things that my mom worked so hard to give me. She fought some pretty dark inner demons but in the midst of that she gave me so many good things. And those good things are what carried me through. They have given me a compass as a mom, and I really needed a strong compass since she has not been here for me to ask anything about being a parent. I am so thankful that she told me so many stories and that she explained why she made certain choices, why she chose to live a life so different than the one she grew up in. And the most amazing thing is that the things she taught me to do, they are living on in my kids. That is the best part. 


You mention that her life growing up was very different from how she raised you, can you talk more about that? 
Yes. She was born in 1949, in post war 50’s Sacramento. In tract housing, eating mostly frozen and canned food. She hated it all. She talked about how crazy it was that every third house was the same and you could mistake another home for your own. Her mom worked in the school cafeteria and ran her home much the same. They had the same thing on the same night of week, every week. Her dad left when she was quite young and her mom was not a happy woman. She was verbally and physically abusive with my mom and her older sister. I learned later that my grandmother grew up in a home with domestic abuse and probably too much drinking and abuse towards her and her brothers. So the pain runs deep. My mom drove as fast as she could in her baby blue mustang to San Francisco in the late 60’s. She said she walked into SF State in a girdle, stockings and heels and walked out barefoot and without a bra. 


She truly embraced the freedom of the late 60’s and early 70’s – she learned to cook from scratch, bake bread, grow an organic garden, quit sugar and TV. She worked on a fishing boat in college. She lived in cohousing in the Height Ashbury. She followed the Russian mystic, Gurdjieff and converted to Russian Orthodoxy in her 20’s. She moved to Marin to be part of an artist colony and worked in a plant store (how much more 70’s can you get than selling ferns in Mill Valley) and when she had me, she nursed until I decided to wean myself at 4! She read about Rudolf Steiner and Waldorf education and found a way for me to go to Marin Waldorf even though it was a private school and pretty far from our house. 


Needless to say, her family thought she was completely crazy and never understood why she made these choices. I grew up going to Christmas at my grandparents and my grandma (her mom) would take care of me when my mom traveled for work, but I never felt very close to her family because it always felt like she and I were in our own world, on the outside of what she came from. 


Has making this book helped you grieve or be more at peace?
Yes. I struggled with how to remember her for a long time. I wanted to write the story of her life, but I don’t really know her whole story and I can’t ask her to clarify anything. It also was so daunting when I would try to start writing. I love words but I’m not a writer as my main form of creative expression. I was taking an illustration class and a suggested warm up was a page from an ABC book and also to do a scene. I did A is for Amy and I realized this is such a great way to write a little but express a lot. And to capture my memories. That’s all I can do now, record what I remember and share it with my kids. 


Would you recommend this process to other people who have lost a loved one?
Yes! I definitely would. And the first thing I would suggest is do it in a way that makes sense to you. It could be more of a scrap book or a collage if you don’t think of yourself as a creative person. But this kind of therapy, hands on, with a bit of structure (the alphabet) is really cathartic. And when you are done with all 26 letters, you have something you can hold that might help you feel a little bit closer to the one you have lost.

Is the book available to buy?
Yes, in a way. I am working on printing it in bulk so I can make it more affordable. I started a crowdsourcing campaign this month. You can view the campaign here.

Letting go...

About a week before everything changed, I was at an Al-Anon meeting and it had just wrapped up. I was chatting with someone when I heard a loud crash, ceramic breaking on a concrete floor. someone had moved my "to go mug" onto a chair and it had rolled off. It was double walled ceramic, pretty strong but not this time. It burst into a million tiny pieces. The woman who had moved it felt horrible and was so apologetic. I was kind of bummed but mostly I was at ease. Al-Anon is all about letting go - of control, of expectations, of attachments that don't serve us anymore. And I was at peace. I figured I'd get a new one at Target. But when I went to get one, they don't have it anymore. I thought maybe I'd order it online, but then the world shifted massively. Suddenly we were not going anywhere. I had no idea when it broke, what was ahead, just around the corner. And the thing is that the same woman who accidentally broke the mug had shared such a story of peace and surrender at the meeting. I was so grateful for that. The mug was the least of my worries. 

We are ten weeks into this "sheltering in place" now. It occurred to me today that I never replaced the mug, but there really is no need for a "to go" mug when you are home all the time, making your own coffee and tea. Perhaps the thing I miss the most is walking to Acre in downtown Petaluma to get a perfect almond milk latte. I miss that. But I am also realizing that I am happy being mostly at home. I have learned to be resilient over the years. Often not by choice but by necessity. I do my own nails, I cut my kids hair, I even cut and color my hair! (most salons don't "get" curly hair) So I won't be out there waiving a sign saying "I need a haircut". 

Mostly I'm sad that my youngest won't get to have the experience of the last few months of Waldorf Kindergarten, something we waited for years. He won't get to go back to that part of childhood. He'll be six this month on May 30 which means the current shelter in place order will be in effect. A part of me is ok with having a small celebration. But I know that he's growing so fast and if he even get's to go to school next year, it will be to 1st grade - "real" school. My older kids are missing their friends but overall, they kind of like being home. We all like staying up late and not getting up too early.

The things that make me truly happy, I can still do, especially on this sweet piece of land we have in the middle of the city:

Hanging laundry on the line - I have been doing this in good weather for almost three years. I love it. It could have been an fantasy that I didn't enjoy in reality, but instead, it feels like I'm grounded and in touch with a deeper part of myself. And I am - connecting to generations of women before me who did this. I am a descendant of pioneer women and Italian immigrants. There was a lot of laundry that was hung and it feels so good to honor that part of myself. 

Riding my bike - I have had a cargo bike for over 10 years. I'm on my third version and I LOVE my current bike so much. It's perfect for me and I plan to have it forever. Riding on streets that have less cars is an amazing feeling and I can do 99% of my local errands on my bike. I feel like I need to step it up even more and say, I'll do as much as I can on my bike all summer long. It really is such an amazing feeling to be on a bike and I'm happy, even getting groceries! It's life changing. 

Raising Chickens - We have six baby chicks, growing so fast. We fixed up a sweet little coop for them this weekend and soon they will move in. Sitting with them, watching them explore the world during their "outdoor time" is pure joy. 

Planting Vegetables - I actually got an early start this year, because we're home all the time! And now we are getting late May rain and everything is growing so fast. 

Working from Home - It's not easy working from home with the kids home, but as long as I can remember, I always imagined working from home so I could be there for my kids. I love my job and get to be of service to the community, all while working close to the heart of the house - our light filled kitchen. I'm here and that feels good even when I feel like an octopus with all eight legs being pulled in different directions. 

This has been such a ride so far and no one knows when it will end or change or "go back to normal" but it feels like this cocooning is something special and I hope we can emerge from it more connected to what matters. 

It's Mother's Day. As I thought about my mom today a wonderful experience popped in my head. It's relevant right now for a few reasons. As a kid I didn't know what quarantine meant, until the day my mom announced that her friend, Ron, in the city who owned an exotic bird store, had been told that all his birds had to be quarantined due to a rare disease that didn't effect human but could spread rapidly in birds. And they had to leave SF. So my exocentric mamma offered our house as a place for ALL the birds to stay! Including Rocky, a giant Macaw Parrot who had been trained to perform but would not behave so he was "kicked out" of Marine World. Most of the birds stayed out back in what used to be my dad's shop space. It was loud and pretty stinky in there. I have no idea how my mom cared for all those birds. Rocky lived in the house with us in a giant steel cage and talked all day long. He loved to swear and he even stole a steak off the table before dinner one night.

​Thinking of having all those birds on our property and the adventures of living with Rocky, reminded me what a rich life my mom had. She was up for adventure and loved animals. I completed the original A-Z memory book and there are definitely animals in there, but I keep circling back to all the stories I didn't tell and how so many of them revolve around animals. So I think my next project is emerging..."The Animals of Evergreen Avenue" or something along those lines. 

We had a goose who flew in during a storm and then stayed. A goat in our front yard. A guinea pig who was "free range" during the day and would come home at night (like a cat!). I raised baby chicks in my room every spring and then added them to our flock. We had three ponds with fish in them that the raccoons would try and catch and my mom was on a never ending fight with them. And then there was China, the sweetest cat in the world. There are SO many stories, I need to write them down and then make images to capture the time and place that only lives in my head right now. 

And the other reason this is all so meaningful is that last week, on May 1st, our family adopted six chicks. So I am following in my mom's footsteps as best I can, giving my kids a chance to love these little beings and have their own funny stories when they grow up. My mom would be proud. 

My first post was just after the Planned Power outages that PG&E rolled out to avoid wildfires last fall. We had power but all over the state people lived for days with no refrigeration, markets ran out of food, gas stations could not be open because the pumps didn't work. Now here we are, six months later, sheltering in place due to the rapid spread of the coronavirus COVID-19. And here's the thing, we needed this. It is hard, it is scary and it is good. We are still, life has mostly stopped. The earth is breathing a huge sigh of relief. We can learn from this. 

What lessons can we take away from all of these "disasters"?

Here's my list: 

I think the next "run" after toilet paper, is going to be on baby chicks. I'm ordering some now, and finally going full circle, back to my childhood love of getting fresh eggs from the chicken coop. The chickens are coming...soon. 
​

Or Maybe Not...
I've been working on this post for a few days and I guess the quarantine is getting to me, but today, I don't feel so hopeful that as a collective culture, we will learn from this. Bernie Sanders dropped out of the Democratic race today. I guess everyone knew he would at some point. But today was the day. I didn't vote for him in the primaries, I voted for Elizabeth Warren. Why? because I am an optimist and I believe in change and in kindness to all humans, animals and the earth. And I thought she would be our best chance at change. When she dropped out, I thought maybe Bernie would be able to pull it off. Then it started looking bleak for him in the primaries. But as COVID-19 upended everything there was a glimmer of hope - maybe the people in the middle could see that universal healthcare, free education (and loan forgiveness) and strong social services were not crazy ideas - they are filling basic human needs. Maybe they could see that and get behind a socialist democrat. But no, not today, not next year, not for the next four years after that. And so today, I feel like we are on the crazy train, towards more wake up calls - more fires, less electricity, more viruses we don't understand. And I have no idea what it's going to take to "wake us up". I don't want to know. Because if this shelter in place for 7+ weeks doesn't do it, I don't want to imagine what rock bottom is. I really don't. 

I guess the optimist needs to meet the fatalist and figure out a plan. Some of the ideas I listed, they are good. If I can pull them off, then I'll be more prepared, in the midst of whatever craziness will follow. So I'll still be planting a bigger garden, canning food and maybe (if I'm brave enough) getting chickens.

I just read my friend Lizzy Russinko's post on Instagram. This is one of her many insightful statements that she shares with the world thru her hand lettering and her speaking engagements. I have heard it before, "The story you are afraid to tell will set you free" but it didn't really sink in until today. As I read her post I realized that by starting this blog and by sharing the story I wrote about my mom in Heros and Rainbows, I am starting to share my real story. Sure, I am open about the fact that my mom was an alcoholic, but it's just a statement and then I move on. But the better part of the story is how she was both an alcoholic AND an amazing person. And I am always peeling back new layers of the patterns that I have taken on by being raised by her and the choices I made in my teens and 20's. They are all bubbling up right now as I enter my mid 40's - insight into why I fell in love so young and ran into the "safety" of a long term relationship, why I left college 2 years in thinking it was too expensive to finish and yet I ended up putting Nicholas thru school and taking on debt in his name, why I became a mom at 28 - it's all right there, deep in the core of who I am and asking to be told. And maybe in the telling, I will see my future more clearly? I sure hope so. And that hope is based on the fact that as people read Heros and Rainbows, they shared their own stories of loss and redemption. And I am starting to see that when you share your honest truth, rather than no one caring, it connects us to those around us. People who we have been drawn to or maybe barely know, but we find a common thread and we feel seen and heard and that is true connection. 

When I was 17 I met Nicholas at Whole Foods Market in Mill Valley. I felt, at the time, like the best version of myself. I had been to Spain the previous summer and it had given me perspective. I came back less entangled with the "friends" I had been in school with since third grade but who had never been very accepting or kind. Growing up I wore the wrong clothes, didn't have a mom who could volunteer and drive on field trips, had weird food, the list was long. But by 17 I was feeling more sure of myself. I got my own car that November when my grandmother could not drive anymore. And I felt free - to go wherever I wanted to go. And then I did the precollege program at CCAC and I knew I wanted to go to art school. I could see my future clearly and I had hope. But my home life was rocky. I was exceptionally close with my mom - we shopped and cooked together everyday, we were on our own. But it was also hard. She would be fine for long periods of time and then she would do into a deep dark place and then explode. I never knew when it would happen and it often was horrible timing- after I had a good weekend at my dad's or I had a friend over to stay or I had gone to a friend's house to sleep over. Sometimes she would storm in and take me out of a fun situation or embarrass me in front of friends. So I guess my life was always on edge, waiting for the other shoe to drop. We would have huge fights - raging into the night, doors slammed, tears shed, so many tears. And then the storm would pass, sometimes she would say she was sorry, sometimes she would just pretend it never happened. But there was never any real resolution. This went on until I decided to move out the fall of my senior year at the age of seventeen. The summer after I met Nicholas. 

What I can see clearly now is that I was running from one codependent relationship to another. He needed me, I needed him to need me, and I thought I needed him to get out of the cycle with my mom. But what I did was give up the time in my life that would have been just for me, before kids and marriage. I gave my 20's to a domestic long term relationship. And I will never get that time back. 

Now in my 40's I am letting go of the need to be needed. I hear this is the beginning of menopause, when we move from being caretakers of the world to caretakers of ourselves. In a time not so long ago when we gave birth in our teens and 20's we would have been done mothering by now and it really would be more of a time for ourselves. In the modern era, many of us still have young children and/or teenagers that we are caring for. Sometimes I feel like I will drown in doing for others, probably because I have been gasping for "air", which is really time and space, for so long. But I keep getting reminders that I need to focus on what is good for me - it might be a 10+ year plan but it started a few years ago and each year, especially at this time of year, I need to refocus and stay clear. Take MATS classes and build my illustration portfolio, do my work for the Town of Fairfax which brings stability to my life, and take on private clients but only if it pays well (which requires me to charge a decent rate) or leads to creative growth. I'm not sure what my future holds, but I know I want to be in deeper connection with my creative forces, I want to travel and I want to feel at peace rather than waiting for something bad to happen. And I think this is the story I need to keep telling, because it will set me free. 

My mom’s side of the family were early pioneers. They came over shortly after the Mayflower and took a covered wagon out west settling in Kansas. They lived in mud Hogan’s and survived however they could in a new land. My dad’s side are from Italy and came later - my great grandmother traveled on her own in her late teens, to meet her brothers who had already settled in upstate New York. They were brick makers - cutting clay from the Hudson River. I come from hearty stock. Strong women who had to make it work. 

It's no surprise that I tend to attract pioneer spirited women into my life. Michele and I met when our kids were little and they had just arrived in Fairfax. The fact that her most recent home was Mendocino meant she was rooted in the land. As I got to know her, I found out she grew up in California Gold Country and that her parents had run a gas station. Her mom had three kids, all close in age, by the time she was in her early 20's. She set up her sewing machine in the gas station "office" and would make clothes for the kids, take in odd jobs and make sure their home was filled with beautiful things even though they didn't have much money. My favorite Michele growing up story is that her mom let her drive to school when she was 10! She sat on a pile of pillows and coasted most of the way, but she did it. Until the principal called her mom and explained that she could not let her 10 year old daughter drive to school! 

Michele and I have always joked about “packing the wagons” when we want to get back to the land and out of the crazy tech based culture we are currently living in. At the time we meant covered wagons. But as I worked on a piece of art for her to honor her move back to Mendocino, I realized she has a wagon! A Volvo wagon -it hit me all of a sudden that we call long cars “wagons”and it’s still a part of our language and culture. I have a mini van but it’s also a modern day wagon. I’m prepared for most adventures at any given moment. The back of my car currently has: a bag of beach toys (even though it’s December), blankets for sitting on sand or grass, cloth grocery bags, a cooler bag for cold items, a kids potty from Ikea, sun hats, baby powder, diapers (Dax no longer needs them, but someone else might!), yoga mat and more. Even though we are just braving getting kids to school, going for a hike, to the beach or on a road trip, we are prepared and perhaps it goes back to where we came from - women striking out most likely not because they wanted to but because they had to - to be safe, to make a better life for themselves and their children, to find work for their husbands and brothers. But none the less, it was an adventure that they survived and maybe even thrived in. 

At this point in history packing the wagons might happen due to climate change. My thoughts are always looping back to how can I help my kids have a stable future in an unstable world. I want them to learn to grow food, build shelter, make things of value. Maybe it's a romanticised version of the post apocalyptic world but I feel like our future depends on us learning the things we have cast aside in the name of progress and convenience. And I want to pack my wagon and head north, to find land and community and a connection to something deeper that will last even if everything else doesn't. In the meantime, I'll visit Michele on The Farm and get a glimpse of what it's like to really pack a wagon and head back to the place that is truly home. 

​I have often wondered why some can commit to recovery and why my mom could not. Anne Lamott is the most famous example, at least to me. She is a hero. A messy, imperfect hero. Who was able to find a way to take all her quirks and her demons and let them see the light of day, share them with all of us through her writing and as a result we all feel a little bit better about how messy and imperfect we all are. When I first read Bird by Bird it was on the suggestion of an art teacher at Art Center.  I had never thought to read Bird by Bird because it's about writing. But my teacher said it's about the creative process - and it's funny!  I had been living in LA for several years by then and reading about  "old Marin" - Anne grew up in Tiburon in the 60's - filled me with nostalgia for my childhood. I relished her descriptions of the Marin I held in my heart but that had changed so much. And I laughed! She is so funny - I would be reading in the hallway, waiting for class to start and laughing like a crazy person. When I told my mom that I was reading Bird by Bird and loved it SO much and loved reading about Mill Valley and Sausalito as it used to be, she said "oh yeah, I met her in AA - she's CRAZY." It definitely took the wind out of my sails. But as I have pondered this statement over the years, I realize yes, she is crazy and she has made it work for her. She has let us see in her closet with all it's ghosts and cobwebs and she has gone to church and she has gone to AA and she has raised her son and made a living as a writer and she is helping to raise her grandson. She is alive and well. My mom is not alive and well. She did not follow her creative callings, she did not keep going to AA. 

When we moved back to Marin it was to Fairfax, the last "hippy" town left in Marin. And in 2005 you could still call it a hippy town. Turns out Anne lived there too. And I have seen her over the years, walking her dog, taking her grandson to school, living her life. And I never told her, "you are my hero". Because she just wants to walk her dog and live her life.  But when I see her, I wonder, what made it possible that you could do this, that you could show up everyday and make a choice to be sober. And to be here. And my mom could not.