Song of the Decade: The Twenties

Since turning 30, I've felt the need to come up with a theme song for the past decade, one that would well up as the credits roll and, one by one, the years brush the popcorn off their lap and leave the theater.

My research has consisted of careful contemplation and compulsive listening to my iPod until I have located the song that most accurately describes the fears, angst, frustration, joys, and dilemmas of being twenty-something.

Here it is: Dreams by The Cranberries. One of my first CDs ever.

Actually, the "twenties" decade starts at about 17 and goes until 27.

I still have a ways to go on the next decade, but if I had to choose now, I'd pick Feist's Mushaboom.

My choices are more optimistic than I would have expected.

"In the Light, Stella remembers, there was music."

In today's newspaper, I learned of a 2005 Gallup poll that reports that people had started (but did not finish) reading five books on average during the year. This is added to a more recent survey that reports that one in four Americans read no books at all in the past year. I have to admit that my own reading life has been suffering a bit of a slump lately. Blame it on work, hormones, and the large tome beside my bed that promises that if I just read enough I can "take charge of my fertility." It can be easy to lose sight of the reasons I read in the first place.

I was at risk of becoming one of these statistics when I first picked up Kim Addonizio's book Little Beauties. I was about twenty pages into it, sleepy, distracted, and ready to add it to the growing pile beside my bed of books started but never finished. Here are the reasons I kept reading.

I picked up the book because I recognized the author, a poet I like who is edgy and funny. I'm interested in cross-over writers, and I wanted to see how a poet handles the demands of narrative, character, plot, etc.

The book is an interwoven narrative of three separate characters: an obsessive compulsive hand-washer, a pregnant teenager, and her unborn/newborn daughter Stella. I've seen this structure before in many books, most notably by poet-novelist Julianna Baggott. And it's risky. When you lay out three voices side by side, you encourage people to play favorites, and if you don't give them enough of what they want, you could lose them.

Diana, the washer, opens the book and is the controlling voice so far. I'm not so interested in her in part because I feel like her compulsions are a bit of a gimmick to give her character depth. During the first chapter, I couldn't place her voice. How old is she? Why is she at Teddy's World? Why is she telling this story? Who is she talking to?

I was more receptive to the story of the teenager Jamie. Her crisis was more commonplace, even if slightly sensational because of her age. Jamie's story is told in third person, and I think that gives me some distance from the character and room in my imagination to create her voice. Perhaps I feel more engaged in this story because it requires more participation.

I have to admit when I read the back of the book and saw that part of the story was told from the perspective of a fetus, I thought, "Ok...let's see if you can pull this off." These sections tend to be shorter, and I doubt that the entire book could have been written in this voice. However, this is the part that keeps me from putting the book down. It's what has kept me up past my bedtime, long after my husband has switched off his reading lamp.

A sample: "In the Light, Stella remembers, there was music. Or a feeling like music. Or was it that in the Before, she had the memory of something like music? She knows this song. When she was inside of Jamie already, soon to come out, Jamie had played it. She tries to remember more. Rock rock rock. It's hard to stay awake, hard to remember what the Light was really like."

I'm on page 194 and I'm now invested. I have the day off, and finishing the book is on my list, along with exercising, making dinner, and scheduling a haircut. I feel sorry for the almost 27 percent of the population that has forgotten the joy of reading and finishing a book, of losing themselves in other stories and characters. You snooze, you lose. Suckers.

The Golden Chalise: Is it half full or half empty?

Thanks to wedding guests, I have cabinets full of matching glasses: champagne, wine, martini, beer, water. But how does one go about choosing the cup into which one will urinate? And furthermore, can the cup ever be clean again?

I say no. Resoundly, no.

So, in choosing my pee cup, I had to carefully consider my options. I didn't want to break up a set. That ruled out wine and martini. Margarita was too shallow and champagne too narrow. My water glasses are too common, and unless I'm willing to shatter it after use, I'm afraid it will find its way back into rotation.

It had to be glass -- mugs are out of the picture. That left me with one contender: a promotional glass I got free with a bottle of Bailey's. Short, with a wide opening, perfect for a pregnancy test, or in my case, ovulation predictor sticks.

Anxiety Dream: Baby in the Closet

Last night I had my first anxiety dream about pregnancy and motherhood. I've had other dreams that were more metaphorical in nature about my fears of bringing life into the world (in such dreams I give birth to kittens that fly out of me like furry pin balls and scatter around the room). But this one actually involved a BABY.

In this dream, I’ve given birth and my house is filled with guests. The baby is passed from hand to hand, and I can’t keep track of her. Plus, I’m very tired. So, I go lay down, and I wake up the next morning. For a moment, I forget that I’m a mother, and I stumble downstairs to get coffee started. My houseguests look at me like I’m insane. Where’s the baby? they ask. I run upstairs and run into the closet/storage space that we use for all the things we don’t need. The Christmas tree stand, a stack of books for my husband’s thesis, our old CDs. The floor is littered with pillows and wrapping paper, and in the corner I see a toy crib. It's empty.

The crib is one my sister and I played with when we were kids. I paw through the tissue paper, and beneath it I find the newborn, who looks like Suri Cruise. She's alive, and I pick her up and carry her downstairs like nothing happened.

Psychoanlayze that, baby.

Birthday Ephiphany Remembered

A Tardy Report from the Queen of Obvious Epiphanies (part 2):

Since forgetting my birthday epiphany in the local grocery store, I remembered it and forgot it at least three separate times. I’m 30 now, so I will learn my lesson and write it down. For posterity, no, really just for me, here it is:

You only notice what you’re missing and at the same time you only notice what other people have. For everyone, what you’re missing seems to be the only thing that matters. But once you get what you were missing, you begin to notice other missing pieces. You will never be satisfied as long as you are concentrating on absence.

DUH. But it took me 30 years to articulate this.

To illustrate my point, I will begin this experiment: instead of looking at women with children and saying, Look at what I don’t have, I will look at myself and acknowledge what I do have: free time, tight stomach, disposable income, full night’s rest, a room of my own that’s not filled with plush toys.

Birthday Epiphany

A Tardy Report from the Queen of Obvious Epiphanies:

The day of my 30th birthday, I had an epiphany. It was a common and fairly obvious revelation, as epiphanies go, but it felt like a cold sip of water after hours hiking through the desert – it chilled me all the way through. I was driving in my car and had reached a crossroads. While I was looking one way, then the next, it came to me. The epiphany. It was so clear, so amazing, that as I turned onto the main road, the sun shining through the windshield, a new world ahead of me, I thought, there’s no need to write this down. I will remember this moment forever.

Then I pulled into the parking lot at the big box grocery store and began my shopping. Somewhere between the fresh vegetables and the bulk bins, I lost it.

With or without my moment of clarity, I had a wonderful birthday. Pink champagne, a custom-made birthday cake with pink frosting and champagne cream filling. A patio set (see background of above picture) – a joint gift from my father and husband. A couple visits from friends. Good career news.

Turning 30 has worked out for me, a mental shift that allows me to muster will-power previously untapped. There’s been a lot going on since my birthday, but I’ve weathered it pretty gracefully. My mantra: “I’m thirty. I don’t cry about the little things anymore.” It’s so simple, but it’s working. Similar to the way a long distance runner plays a mental game to keep the body moving forward, my birthday has been a mind milepost that has granted me instant access to maturity when I need it. Who needs epiphanies?