All up in my feelings about the march, or: keep doing your very best

We left work earlier than we planned. We knew if we hit unfavorable traffic we would fuck everything up because there were no more flights to Philly. So we took off earlier than we needed to and drove to Austin. We felt excited and hopeful about the trip and had fantastic conversations in the car. I wish Verena and I were in charge of something really powerful, because we are a good and thoughtful team. I love her ideas and the way she expresses them. She is a powerhouse and I'm thankful she agreed to take this trip with me.

We chatted with other women in the airport. We met a mom who wanted to march but was traveling for work. We met two friends from Austin who were headed to the march. We talked about the sleeping giant metaphor and how obnoxious the inauguration had been earlier in the day.  There was a Brazilian band playing live music in the airport terminal. We ate expensive tacos and split an  expensive beer. Where does anyone get off charging that much for Zigenbock, I mean, really.

In all the lead up to the march, I never spoke with a woman who didn’t support it. But I live in SA which is populated predominantly by women of color, or at least the places I frequent are. So this is maybe not surprising. WOC have known about him all along, and they know about marching and they know about pain.

We flew to Chicago. Verena spent the flight watching ESPN. I love that fact; I don’t know why. I think it’s because Verena is so sure about who she is and I feel like voluntarily watching ESPN on an airplane is exactly what you would simultaneously expect and not expect from her.

There was a strange conversation in Chicago with a man whom I thought wanted to argue with me about the march, but then he said he was supportive. It felt like a trap and I felt confused. I think this might be a common feeling when discussing the march with men.

He asked me if I was headed home; I told him no, we are headed to the march on Washington.

He said, is this a protest march? I said, it is to some extent, but it’s really a march for human rights and women’s rights.

He asked if I believed those things to be threatened. I said, with trepidation, yes, I do.

He said, good for you for marching. I agree with you and I have a wife and daughter.

Later I debriefed this conversation with Verena and several other women. We all agreed it was strange but not uncommon way for men to talk about the march or to engage with women who are marching. As I have unpacked this interaction, I have felt harshly with myself for not telling him, yes you fucking idiot, human rights are under attack. But I was caught so off guard by this strange approach that I did not put my heart into it the way I wish I had done. Maybe he felt as apprehensive about being supportive as I felt correcting him. I want to assume good will on his part, so I will, because good will is in short supply.

The woman boarding the plane in front of us told us she was going to visit her boyfriend and couldn’t make it to DC. I told her to march on Philly instead and take her boyfriend with her. She said she would; I hope she did. She was cool.

We almost died in an uber that we waited for an approximate eternity to pick us up at the baggage claim. This was my first trip in an Uber and it was a close fucking call.

My sweet friend Sholan made us some interesting cocktails. I think she should make them her signature drink and call them “Purposefully Shitty Cocktails” because watching her go through the process of making the cocktails was delightful. I’d wager she could make a name for herself with those cocktails. We drank and gossiped and slept on the floor for a couple of hours. Her son and husband were so sweet to take care of us the next morning.

We left Philly later than we meant to; we began the drive to DC. My friend Linsey drove us and the four of us talked nonstop. We hit at a rest stop about halfway and we ate 9:30am cheeseburgers and fries. We talked with a woman in line who was traveling to the march from New York. She had her two teenage daughters with her. We were all wearing our pussy hats and that’s how we knew. I said something to the 14 year old, like, “welcome to the movement, sister.” I hope she did feel welcome. A baby feminist is always the coolest person to talk with because they have ideas we cannot even fathom that will save this world. If you are a baby feminist and you're reading this, hit me up. I'll cover a year subscription to Teen Vogue for you. Welcome to the movement, sister.

We arrived in DC and we waited for the metro. It was cold and the line was long. There were some protesters there when we arrived but I have no idea what they were protesting. They were chanting but it was not discernible to me. There was also someone giving away free coffee which was really nice.

I sat next to a very nice man: relatively progressive, supporter of the march, math teacher in DC for 30 years. I felt wary at first to engage him because of the strange interaction in Chicago. I waited for some other shoe to drop, for some microaggression, for some judgment. None came. He was very kind and shared interesting stories about his career and his family (we had a long metro ride). He had a family member with him, a brother maybe, and the family member’s teenage boys. They said they wanted to go to the march for a minute to see what it was like. I felt strange about this exchange….just go to march. If you’re curious, if you support the cause, if you’ve traveled all this way anyway….just go to march. We need men, not to add legitimacy to feminism and its causes. But because getting men into smashing patriarchy is key to the overthrow. Nice white men like that, who benefit from the system without challenging it...we need them to come to our marches and get radicalized...not spectate.

I remember feeling unchallenged overall…..like if everyone I’ve talked with supports the march, how did we get here? And why aren’t they more angry/disappointed/upset? Was it just that trump supporters had their day on inauguration day and had gone home or found somewhere else to be? Or is this a reflection of the tone of the country, a reflection of the popular vote? A reflection of all the "good white people" who can afford to avoid outrage, fear, and confusion?

There was a woman on the metro with a “women for trump” button on her coat. She had a thick southern accent, Alabama maybe. One of the 53% of white women who voted for him. I wanted to talk with her; I didn’t want to talk with her. Verena gave her some pretty heavy side-eye. The woman looked nervous on the metro, with all of the pussy hats around her, and I wanted it to be an opportunity for her to see how many women find him awful. A chance to examine her support of him. Of course it was not that. A woman walking around DC on march day wearing her Trump/Pence button is not interested in introspection on her complicity in the patriarchy. The patriarchy will eat you alive, honey, slowly and one bite at a time. You'll never even notice until it's too late.

There was a girl on the train, maybe 10 years old, who caught my attention. She was traveling with her mom. She was holding a glittery sign that said “the future is female!” and wearing her pussy hat. Her mom had a hat too. And my favorite part was that her American Girl doll had one too. That shit hit me like a ton of bricks. I hope that little girl felt her power on march day. I hope that her sign is right. I hope someone buys her a subscription to Teen Vogue.

I wonder about the conversations this mom and daughter have had about politics and patriarchy and intersectionality. I want to interview a bunch of moms of kids that age about those conversations and how you explain that shit to a kid without breaking them or making them feel hopeless. I want a road map for having those conversations with my own daughter, who someday will look to me for explanations for these things that have none aside from power and greed.

We got off the metro. We found a march volunteer. She was the only one I saw all day. We used the porta-potties and we walked past a counter protest, Bikers for Trump, happening right there by the porta-potties. There was lots of yelling about abortion, very loud. Marchers were chanting over the bikers, and police were there, and you couldn’t understand what any of them were saying.

We walked toward what we thought was the march. We could hear the chants: “This is what democracy looks like” “we need a leader, not a creepy tweeter” “si se puede” “black lives matter” “women’s rights are human rights” “no hate no fear immigrants are welcome here”

As we joined the march, I cried. I felt emotional to see all the people who had turned out. Who were marching even though we were late to the party and had no idea where we were going. We were looking for our people; the resisters.

Turns out the march was everywhere. Every downtown street was covered in protesters. We made it to the Mall; we walked away from the Capital toward the Washington Monument. There were amazing signs everywhere. There was walking and yelling and support.

We found a person we knew, miraculous because the communication was terrible. We tried to find another person we knew and were not as lucky. I found myself very antsy with this; I could hear the march happening without us. I wanted some transcendent experience and it felt just around the corner. Verena and I decided to go on alone, past the Black History Museum. We ended up at the White House. We walked right up to the barricades. We yelled. We saw someone get out of a limo. We yelled. We were asked to move by a park employee, so we did move about 5 feet to the right. And then we yelled again. We met my old friend Rajuli and her friend Raquel. Raquel left her sign on the barricades at the White House. Everyone was leaving their signs there, or even throwing them over the barricades onto the grass.

We tried to find a place to drink. The march continued everywhere we went; streets were closed all through downtown DC.  These were marchers who were off the planned route; they shut out cars and police but I did see them part to let an ambulance through. Throughout the day, that was the theme: respect, care for each other, politeness. People would say "excuse me" if they moved in front of you. We were there to take care of each other. We went to the trade center to get some water and some rest. We came out and it was dark. The march continued.

We went back to the White House. The signs were everywhere, and so beautiful. The signs were artistic, witty, inclusive. I’ve since seen loads of commentary on the signs and how too many of them were about pussy grabbing. A lot of the signs were about pussy grabbing, that’s true; but the majority of the signs were about human rights, about immigrants, about making America smart and inclusive. I’m sorry if people felt left out because they didn’t identify with the pussy signs; I hope they look through some of the online galleries and see some of the original and beautiful art that was available on the signs and reconsider. Buzzfeed had a great list of signs by women of color that were magical. There was one on the fence that said “rebellions are built on hope” which I loved.

The march continued, and we saw about 20 cop cars and paddy wagons; we tried to stay away from that. I don’t know where they were headed but I hope they came back empty. We got an uber, which drove us in a pretty big circle, and then we got tattoos.

I never felt transcendent.

The closest I came to transcendence was yelling at the White House. Here again I cried. The swell of the voice of the people was so large, it lifted me. Chanting “Black Lives Matter” a few yards from the White House was powerful and I’m glad I was there and thankful I was welcomed into that chanting.

What is this mountain top moment I was hoping for? Was I hoping he would walk out the front door of the White House and be like “you’re right, I suck, I’d love some constructive feedback about how I can meet your needs?” That’s obviously never going to happen.

I think I learned there at the march that this election and the aftermath have made a hole so big, it will take me years to rebuild. I feel so betrayed by this country; I cannot accurately convey the magnitude.

I felt sad that maybe the future isn’t female. I felt robbed. I still feel crushed by the loss of HRC. That’s not to say that I’m a sore loser. In the days following the election, I was a sore loser, so I know the feeling. It’s more than that. I admire HRC and I mourn her loss because it’s a loss of kindness, of example, of intelligence. The days after the inauguration have me feeling this more than ever. It’s bigger than HRC herself; but for me she is a figurehead of the possibilities that exist in the politics of kindness.

Overall, the march solidified what I believe America can be: a place that is safe for women, LGBT folks, POC, children, people with disabilities, people who are engaged in politics. A place where we can work together and thrive and build each other up. A country that recognizes our unique beauties and our rights to live the lives we love. That felt beautiful.

But maybe that’s not America. Because we marched, and nothing changed. We marched, and he signed multiple executive orders harming people I care about, issues I marched for.

I watched the speeches from the rally, and they were lovely and inspiring and true. But none of this changes one fucking thing. Not one.

From the beginning, my desire for the march was reactionary. I wanted to do something big to reflect the hole in my life that the election left behind. A grand gesture for a hopeless time. For me, the lead up to the march, the march itself, and everything I’ve done in the aftermath feel really futile. Obviously I will keep doing it, because my belief in a diverse and safe America is threatened by this man and his cronies. But I do it in a hopeless, frantic way. I do it and it isn’t enough.

I also know that the march is the beginning of something. I downloaded Countable and I weigh in every day. I’ve called Senators these weeks since the march. I had done that maybe twice before the march. I tend to be an email kind of girl. But the march gave me a confident voice to call lots of senators. It gave me a voice to call a state legislator about something important to my clients, and that conversation resulted in very positive changes. There is good work to be done even in these dark and chaotic days, and there are politicians invested in doing it.

A quote I keep on my desk is from Viktor Frankl: The world is in a bad state, but everything will grow far worse unless each of us does our very best.

I want to keep doing my very best, even if it’s futile. Every activist I admire does the same, and I will keep marching. Even if white supremacy, capitalism and patriarchy are too big for us, I won’t go down without a fight and I won’t leave one single person behind.

I’m trying to process everything from the march weekend in the light of the weeks since. The current political climate is so overwhelming, so chaotic, so dangerous, that I think it’s coloring my experience of the march in a more negative way than I would like. In truth it was a lovely weekend and the solidarity was something to behold. But the sweeping EOs of the past weeks have brought everything into strange relief and I don’t know where I fit and I don’t know where the march fits and I’m struggling with categorizing conspiracy theories and facts. I think it will take me a while to fully unpack all this in the context of everything I believe in and the things I thought to be true.

I find comfort in books, always. On this trip, I finished two of them: Difficult Women and When Things Fall Apart. These books were wonderful companions to me on this trip and I hope that the themes I picked up from them will carry me through the next few years as we struggle together. Roxane reminded me that "I am a knife" and Pema taught me about making space for things to be different. I will be different.

As we landed in Texas, I was relieved to be home. (Until Verena stepped on a huge roach in the parking lot. Fuck Texas). We are gearing up for big, big battles in this state over the next year, and the national stage is obviously also a total dumpster fire. So we each need to take good self-care, and help and support each other. We need to shine so bright, be so resolute, be so united in our differences that we are unstoppable.

Let's March

In less than 2 weeks, I will fly to the East Coast to participate in the Women's' March on Washington. Obviously, I had hoped to make this trip to celebrate the inauguration of our first woman president. What I knew, but should have believed with more conviction, of course, is that mediocre white men never lose. Mediocre white men never lose. They get what they want by any means necessary. There are, I'm sure, thousands upon thousands of examples of mediocre white men stealing jobs from qualified women all over this country.

So, instead of celebration, I march.

I will march with an estimated 200,000 people in DC, and countless others across the country who are marching in sister marches. I march for all the women who've marched before me and all the women who can't march now. I march with Standing Rock, and Selma, and all the other beautiful displays of resistance that have forced this country to take note and have new conversations.  I march for all female-identified folks, for the people who love us, and for our kids.

I march so hard for our kids. Because I don't want my daughter to have to march and fight for the same things that my generation and generations before us marched for. That's bullshit. They should get new fights, new rights, new signs and slogans. I won't stand by while mediocre white men try to gut us with their stupidity and hubris. Men who think power is all that matters, no matter the cost. Here's the thing those men underestimate though- the sleeping-giant power of women of this country. We thought "here is an overqualified, kind, thoughtful, career politician who can proudly stand as our first woman president." And we underestimated the lengths (all the way to Russia) to which white men will go. But now we know the real deal.

Power is gained by power being taken. And we are coming to take it.

The high road is oversold to oppress us. Somehow, a self-glorified "p*ssy-grabber" has ascended to the highest office of our country. Please, let's make that a turning point for good. Please, let's get off the high road and be truly angry and truly motivated.

I am really lucky that Audie won't be old enough to remember this election cycle. Hopefully she won't be old enough to remember him as president, much in the same way that I don't really remember Reagan. I'm lucky that I don't owe her any explanations right now. But someday, if she asks me about this time, I want to be able to say that I stood up for her in all the ways I could. I marched. I called legislators. I was active in my community and showed kindness to people. I worked to build people up instead of knocking them down. I claimed my power.

Power is kindness, and love, and justice. And I won't put up with the fucked up DC version of power any more. Because I deserve better, and you deserve better, and our kids deserve better.

I used to say things like "the women of this country are watching." We are done watching. We march.

When I was in middle school, I "worked" at a skating rink teaching roller skating classes to little kids. I was in middle school, so the rink didn't pay me; I got free drink coupons for every class I helped with. I loved teaching those kids to skate and fall and get up again.

Right after the kids' skate class, there was a roller hockey class. I thought it might be fun to learn something new, so I stayed after my kids left one night to check it out. The class was all guys; I didn't really think anything about that. After all, I was just there to learn something new and fun. I don't think I even paid for the class.

The class was one hour long. By the end of the class, I was so uncomfortable. The boys in the class were so mean to me; the teacher let it slide. The guys hated that I had tried to join their boy's only group and they let me know. Note, this was not an all-guys class by design; anyone could join. But by the end of my first hour, I knew why I was the only female person participating.

I let it sit for a week. I decided I would let it roll off me and I would try again the following week. After all, we were all equally poor at roller hockey. We were there to learn, right? Maybe they would come around, and we could be bad together as friends. That wasn't what happened. The guys got meaner and meaner, tripping me during drills, whispering nasty things to me, just being generally entitled assholes.

That was my last class. I lasted two hours before I walked away.

But here's what I think is the worst part: I also stopped helping with the kids' classes. Because for a few weeks after, those guys heckled me when I was doing that job too. So even though I was good at it, and I enjoyed it, I walked away from the class too. Because I was brazen enough to think I could hang out for roller hockey class, apparently it was acceptable for those boys to keep punishing me every time they saw me. Even after I gave up.

This is why watching women like Hillary Clinton and Janet Reno and Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Condoleeza Rice means so much to me. These are women who also got a lot of flack for going into male only spaces, for daring to think that their ideas held merit and they could do good work for this country. These are women who went back, time and again, to those male only spaces and stuck it out and in doing so, made those spaces safer for all of us. They were persecuted, mocked, and blocked over and over again. But they didn't walk away.

I've been successful in my life so far and I'm proud of my accomplishments. But my successes have overwhelmingly happened in arenas that are far from male-only or even male-dominated.  I have chosen a path of lesser male resistance to get my good work done. I am so enormously thankful to the women who have gone before me and made safer places to land.

Although this story isn't terribly traumatic, I'm not sure I've ever told anyone the full extent of it, or really even fully unpacked it for myself. Mostly because I've felt embarrassed for all these years for letting them get the best of me like that. But it's been over 20 years, and I still feel it viscerally. When I heard DT talk about grabbing pussies and calling HRC "nasty" I was taken right back to that roller rink and that space of male entitlement and intimidation. I admire HRC for not walking away, for standing up to him and calling him out.

This election makes me feel worried, for the women I know and for our sons and daughters. Because one of the people running in this election is straight out of that stupid roller hockey club for bullies. And the other has broken barrier after barrier, with kindness and gumption and intelligence.

I'm with her. For myself, for my daughter, for America. I'm with her to the end.

Parenting, the Musical

Two weeks ago, Audie turned one. We had such a great day, eating junk food and visiting the zoo. It is weird and wonderful to see her growing, and learning, and giving out ALL THE ATTITUDE. I can't believe she's been with us for a year, or that in that year, she has learned to sit up, crawl, stand and walk. I know people always say it, but man....it just goes so, so fast. It seems like last month, not last year, that I was afraid for her to sleep in her own room. Last week, maybe, when she couldn't sit in a high chair and steal every other bite of our dinners. But no, it's been a year, and now she is becoming her own little tiny person with a huge personality, and we are crazy about her. She has always loved music, so in honor of her birthday, I  want to write about some of my favorite songs, and how I see parenthood reflected in them.

First up: Superstitious, by Stevie Wonder
Full disclosure, this is actually what I think of as Audie's favorite song. When she was still in utero, she kicked like crazy when this song came on while we were watching the Grammys. So I started playing Stevie for her on my belly speakers. When we were home on maternity leave, I played a lot of Stevie on Spotify and Audie always listened intently. Even today, she likes to just have music on while she runs amok, and Stevie is always a go-to for us. So when I hear Stevie's music, I feel myself transported to those early days when we slept and ate when we wanted to, and stayed in our pajamas all day because we were on maternity leave and there was no where to be. It's a soundtrack to the time when we were learning about each other in a way we never will again: as strangers completely unsure of what we were doing or what was right and wrong.

Love They Say, by Tegan and Sara
In the final days of my pregnancy, I was hit, as I think many people are, by an intense fear of what exactly it was I had gotten myself into. I knew very little about babies, or birthing them for that matter, and I felt doubtful of my abilities to parent a newborn. I was driving, and this song came on shuffle on my iPhone. The lyrics "you don't have to worry/this love will make us worthy/there's nothing love can't do" came to my ears in a glorious melody. Suddenly I realized...even if I had no idea what I was doing, in the end I would love this baby with everything I've got. And that love would make me worthy of learning to parent her. Now when I hear this song, I feel reassured that, with love and flexibility, I will be the best parent I can be even when I have no idea what I'm doing.

Zigzagging Towards the Light, by Conor Oberst
While we are on the subject of flexibility, let's talk about this song, which inspired the title of this blog. To me, this is a song about thinking on your feet. About knowing that you'll end up somewhere in the light, even if you don't take the straightest path to it. About understanding that the circumstances are always changing. Conor has a way of saying things that speaks to me:"This world is smoke and steam/and compromise/and meter maids/but you will know it/when it's gone/ zigzagging toward the light/I sing out loud a founder's song"

Bowl of Oranges, by Bright Eyes
Another Conor Oberst song, my favorite of all time. It's about being alone, but then finding someone you can count on, and how relationships sustain us. It's a song about how life is chaotic but beautiful in that chaos. I sing it to Audie when she can't sleep at night. "that's why i'm singing baby don't worry/'cause now I've got your back/and every time you feel like crying/I will try and make you laugh/and if I can't/if it just hurts too bad/then we'll wait for it to pass/ and I will keep you company/through those days so long and black"

Boom, Clap, by Charli XKX
This is just flat out a great pop song. Audie and I like to listen to it and dance around and sing at the top of our lungs. It turns out, parenting isn't all serious songs. I think when we brought her home, and she was so tiny, and she had jaundice and it was serious, I thought maybe parenting was all serious songs. But it's great pop songs too, thank Hera.

Double Life, by Conor Oberst
Yes, another Conor Oberst song. I have no idea what he's actually talking about in this song, but I heard it and I thought "that's exactly how I felt about coming into motherhood!" He sings "I don't remember getting here/but I'm glad I came/just don't look down/just cross the bridge/when you get there/you'll know why you did/there's a better life on the other side/it's your double life on the other side" and it hit me hard. When we talked about having a baby, I was so resistant. But we did, and now that I'm here, I know why I agreed. For me, it's wonderful.

I don't remember getting here, but I'm glad I came.

No more pumping!

I gave up pumping almost a month ago. Just stopped. Cold turkey. I didn't step down, or taper, or slowly drop a session every week. I just stopped. And I'm not sure that I've felt better, physically or mentally, since I went back to work from maternity leave than I do now.

I am thankful for pumping. I am thankful that for seven months, my baby got to drink my milk, even when I wasn't with her. I'm thankful I had the privilege and ability to do that for her, and it was my choice to do so.

But pumping was misery for me. I felt bad about myself after almost every pump session, which I was doing three, sometimes four times per day.  I was whipping myself mentally over my perceived failure to make ALL THE MILK (which I've written about at length before).  At the end, I was pumping three times a day for a total of two to three ounces of milk. I want to scream at myself for that insanity.

Everything about pumping was exhausting.

But now I don't pump anymore. The world didn't stop turning. I haven't, in fact, even noticed that many changes. For one, now that I don't pump anymore, I read a lot more slowly. It takes a lot more time for me to finish a book because pump time used to be reading time.

Sometimes, a client brings a baby into the office, and if it's late afternoon, I feel a little uncomfortable. I think "if I had my pump with me, I would pump right now" but I don't and the feeling goes away.

I don't wash pump parts anymore. I don't lug the pump around any more. I don't have to schedule meetings around the pump anymore. I don't take my clothes off at work anymore.

And it is amazing.

In the end, I know that I put the pressure on myself to work and pump. I could have never pumped, and given her formula all along, and that would obviously have been fine. But I was irrationally attached to the idea of being her sole provider for as long as possible. The messages we get from society, the outsized pressure to breastfeed, the inflammatory studies that people share on Facebook...these feed postpartum anxiety, and depression, and feelings of inadequacy for many women, myself included. In truth, the only wrong way to feed a baby is to neglect to do so.

Parenting is hard. It forces you to make decisions every day that have very meaningful implications for the future. You make the best decision you can at the time, with the information you have. I know that we all have opinions about things like breastfeeding and formula because we want other people to make the same choices we made. It lends validity in an arena where it is lacking.

When I shared my fears about nursing and pumping even before my baby was born, I had so many women give me the "don't worry, your body was made for this, your milk will change based on your child's needs, formula is disgusting" speech. When I struggled, those messages were rattling around in my brain and I think amplified my failures. I wish I had heard "it will be what it will be, and you will do your best, and make the best decisions you can, and I support you without judgement."

So, if you're reading this, that is my message to you about parenting. It will be what it will be, and you will do your best, and make the best decisions you can, and I support you without judgement.

I still nurse in the morning, and at night, and on the weekends as she wants. At school she drinks formula by the bottle-full, and she is just as happy, and bright, and growing as she was before. She didn't sprout horns or give up on bottles; she just went on with her life, and I did too.

Pumping was one of the hardest parts of parenting that I have faced so far. I learned a lot about myself, obsession, irrationality and love through pumping. But I'm so glad it's done.

On: Changes

My desk is pretty empty today. It's hard to believe, but these are my last days at my current position. By Monday, I will have a new office, and a new desk, and a window. That window is very important! For the past 4 years, I have worked in a building where only the Very Important People get windows. The world could have been on fire, and I wouldn't have known until 5PM.

I am making this move for my career, of course. I want to be an LPC and that takes clients. My current position wasn't giving me clients. It's quite simple math really.

But it was a very hard decision for us as a family. We are still learning about ourselves as a team of three. And to add another variable, a new unknown job, to the mix seemed very overwhelming. But this opportunity gave us a chance to communicate in ways that have been pretty challenging since the baby came; good communication requires patience and sleep, which tend to run a little short in those early months.

It took me many trips to both the car and the recycling bin to make it seem like I never sat at this desk. That I didn't spend a good chunk of my life at this desk. That I didn't sit here feeling Audie (who was still Krang at the time) kick after my morning coffee. That I didn't spout way too many cuss words and political diatribes from this chair. Despite our best efforts at boundaries, our home lives and our work lives become intertwined.

That intertwining at my current job has been wonderful and helpful. I have worked with amazing women who love their jobs and their families, and I have learned so much from them. I have appreciated their humor, kindness, gracious spirits, quick wits and intelligence. I know we will be friends moving forward for many reasons, namely because they are bad-ass, but also because we were coworkers who weren't afraid to let our home lives into our work lives.

Audie is almost one. I want her to know me as a working person, a person with a career I feel passionately about. I want her to know that life gives us places to do great work and places that can put fire in our bellies. I'm excited for her to begin to find consciousness around how I share myself with the world with my work. I'm glad I can keep making career decisions that I think she can be proud of later. And I want her to know that change happens and to approach it with flexibility and an open mind.

It's never going to be ok

PLEASE NOTE: Trigger Warning: This post contains information that may be upsetting to readers.

I've written before about how I'm part of a wonderful group of women on Facebook (of all places). There are about 200 of us there, and we are all different; we have varying worldviews, geography, lifestyles. The thing that binds us, our common thread, is motherhood. One of the women phrased it as "the sisterhood of motherhood." We have bonded over our shared appreciation for tights, our distaste of unsolicited advice, our hilariously and pitifully bad postpartum sex lives. A couple of weeks ago, we had a disagreement. In a rare occurrence for a group that lives on the interweb, the disagreement was civil and thoughtful. It brought us closer. We refer back to it as The Big Discussion and talk about how it made us better friends and supporters of one another.

What I'm saying is that this is no ordinary online community. This is a community of women that, though I don't know them in person, I know them as people, and as friends.

We have had women announce pregnancies there. Women share funny stories. We ask for and give advice. We ask for and give love and support. Some of the women have shared stories of loss, of parents or nephews. It is feminism, the sisterhood, at its' best.

And this week, one of our babies died.

And our mom community is reeling with shock and sadness for this mama who lost her sweet baby.

What do you say to a mother who's 10.5 month old daughter dies suddenly? And how do you say it on Facebook? If words feel insufficient in person, they are even more stark in black and white on a screen.

And yet. At first, that's all we had to give. So we gave what we could, in our own words. Iterations of "I'm sorry" and "I'm shocked" and "Oh my God, no." We gave love because, as Cheryl Strayed says, "Compassion isn't about solving problems. It's about loving another person with all you've got." And we've got a lot of love in this group.

Then many of the moms rallied, and organized, and did what women are often so good at: they put our community into action to care for this mother, this e-sister of ours. Flowers were sent, care packages arranged, donations gathered.

And yet. This sweet baby is still gone, and her sweet mama will face the rest of her life without her.

When an elder person dies, it's sad of course, but on some level is understandable. There is a person who had a chance at a full life; a person who lived and loved and learned. But a little baby, barely starting life? How is this understandable?

It will never be okay. It will never be okay that this baby died.

This baby's name was Eva. She was sweet and loving and had joy in living. She also had CHARGE syndrome. Her story can be found here.

You can learn more about CHARGE syndrome and donate to research efforts here.