ARE YOU GLAD TO BE HOME?

 

 

 

some of our last moments in Albuquerque 

I've always been a wildly indecisive person, dipping my toes into all sorts of hobbies, projects, places. I used to think that meant I was irresponsible. It was something I tried to stifle inside myself, especially after I became a mother. Even before my journey through motherhood began, I held onto a promise to myself that I would never make my kids feel like an inconvenience, that a day would never come when they thought that my wants were more important than their needs. The further I get into my relationship with them, the more I see this is as a delicate tiptoeing act. You see, my spirit longs to sample each and every bit of life like sips of wine. Some are swallowed with a grimace, but I'm glad to have tasted them nonetheless. Some are savored, so I choose to return to them. Some have been stored away, waiting for the right season of life to be opened and tasted. Some are tasted in good company and some are kept secret until I can indulge in them without sharing. I've been a lot of things and seen a lot of things in the past, some are still tucked away and some were just a breath, gone now. I've always thought of our journey as a linear one and pushed the idea of it being a full circle out of my mind, not wanting to end up where I started.

Where I started never felt like home. We've already done this once. It feels like something beyond deja vu and more akin to time travel, like we might be redoing our time from before, a time I was comfortable not visiting with again. Everything is exactly the same as it was before, and yet nothing about us is remotely the same at all. It's the same place with the same people and the same culture that almost buried me alive, and I was so relieved to have made my way out, and now I'm here again. Sometimes I wake up wondering if we ever really left, or were the last five years all a dream? A surge of gratitude follows as I accept that it was in fact our life and I'm thankful for all of the happy memories from all of our places we've made home.

The first thing people ask me when we reconnect here is, 'Are you glad to be home?' I never really know what to say. A lot of times I just look at Alex and let him answer, most of the time I just shrug, 'sure,' but what I really want to say is, 'Nope!' or 'Please don't say home.' or 'I don't really want to talk about it.' The older I get the more I admire blunt honesty. The truth is, this is the hardest thing I'ver ever done. Some days I wake up and make the best of it. Most days I wake up angry and contemplate hauling this camper out of here and driving as far away as I can until the damn thing falls apart on the side of the road somewhere. Leading up to the move, I just emotionally detached myself from the reality of it and buried myself into the newborn phase. For six weeks or so, I was Switzerland, neutral. Then as I stood out on our patio of our Albuquerque apartment watching Alex put the last of our things into a moving truck, the dam broke. I passed the baby off and hid in the bathroom and let it all come out. It was only a year ago today that we even left Brooklyn and then there was reacquainting ourselves with Albuquerque, saying see you in four months, being pregnant in Missouri, becoming re-reaquainted with Albuquerque, then saying goodbye to the beautiful lady all over again. You see, I hadn't even had a chance to mourn Brooklyn properly, so when I say I've been an emotional mess the past few months, I mean it. I feel like I should have a perpetual 'I would rather be in Brooklyn.' bumper sticker stuck to my forehead - because I would, and I will, always. After the mourning passed, I resigned myself to anger and that's sort of where I've been camped out now for the last few months. It's a hard anger too - it's the kind that eats you up, but you have no one to be angry at except maybe yourself and no way to fix it. Along with that comes a lot of guilt because oh my goodness - how many times have I moved my kid around now? And this was not the way I wanted to spend our first year with a new human in our family.

This is what we're meant to be doing, of course - building a home, giving our kids something stable, planting ourselves in a place where they can run barefoot and wild - and I've always known it, but it's confusing. Our barefoot and wild place was supposed to be off the coast of Washington, deep in the Oregon forest, or out in the beauty of Alaska - not among the haunts of our childhood. Does this mean I failed? I left with no intention of coming back, but here I am. We fought our way to Albuquerque and it effortlessly felt like home. We fought our way through Brooklyn and there isn't a day that goes by that I'm not reminded of her from some otherworldly force out there. No matter how hard I try, I will always wake up wishing I was in Brooklyn. So, I guess I've learned that home is wherever you fight like hell to be. I've been doing an awful lot of fighting here, so maybe this will come to feel like home after all.

HIKING AT FOURTH OF JULY CANYON

There are few things out there that rejuvenate me like a long hike. Since we've known we were going to leave Albuquerque, we've been trying to make the best of our time here by getting out of the house often. We have a long list of things we want to do before moving day, but I'm sure we won't get to them all. One of our favorite things to do as a family is go hiking, especially since Noble was born, so that part of the list has become priority. It's the one place that the three year old doesn't have to be entertained 90% of the time, but still gets out enough energy to not fight her nap - and the baby just passes out in the Ergo. When it was just Ev, getting outside for a hike was simple once we got a routine down. Hiking with two has become a bit more complicated, especially since Ev doesn't fit in a carrier anymore. She really is an expert hiker for a three year old, but we have to put a lot of thought into which trails she'll enjoy and be prepared to turn around early. Though some days I feel like a herd dog biting at the ankles of a sheep, we still make an effort to go often. Cultivating a love of nature in my kids is one of the most important aspects of being a parent for me. I've been reading Last Child in the Woods over the last month or so. Louv urges people to consider time in nature for children as essential for their health as good food, loving parents, and a full night of sleep. Time outside shouldn't be a extracurricular activity or something reserved for vacation - it should be an integral part of their day.

On this day, my mom was here visiting and we all woke up ready to get out of the house. Alex had a long weekend and we had originally wanted to go camping, but just couldn't get all of our t's crossed and i's dotted in time, so we settled for a hike somewhere we'd never been before. Fourth of July Canyon is known for its Fall colors due to the Maple trees growing in the area (uncommon for New Mexico). The drive out there was intense, ending with 7 miles on a winding dirt road, so we were glad to have four wheel drive. We did the easy one mile trail where Ev was glad to run wild, blow dandelion fluff, and talk about dinosaur tracks (and how it looked like they were chasing the horse tracks + that we needed to save the horses), then we started on the 6.5 mile loop. We made it a mile or two and decided to turn back, but I definitely want to see the rest. As I looked through the pictures of her blowing the dandelions, I realized I had taken similar pictures almost exactly a year ago in Brooklyn. Watching her grow is such a beautiful thing.

If you're local and looking for a similar hike a bit closer to home, we found a new favorite at the base of the Sandias. We were only able to hike the Sulphur Springs trail, but rumor has it there's a creek on the neighboring trail.

MOTHER'S DAY HIKE

 

 

 

I'm a pretty easy woman to please when it comes to holidays. Even being four weeks postpartum, all I wanted to do was get out of the house. I had been talking about hiking basically since an hour after Noble was born and though I wasn't medically cleared yet, I felt good enough and wanted to get some exercise, so I did. The differences between the first and second baby are comical. I'm pretty sure I hadn't even gotten up enough energy to do the dishes four weeks after Ev was born. Alex knows me all too well - his gift was bringing the tripod along to get a family picture. . . but we forgot the piece that actually attaches the camera to the tripod, so that was a no go. We did the next best thing and tried to use the camera strap to somehow rig the camera up on the tripod, hence the picture up there with just Evie's arm in it. Then we just decided to use a log, nature's tripod, and that worked out swimmingly. We weren't at all prepared for how cold it would still be up on the peak, but we don't give up easily. We scrounged around in the car for abandoned clothes, Alex gave Ev his flannel shirt that fit her like a dress, and we were on our way. We chose the 10k trailhead up on Sandia Crest because we'd been here before (on our third anniversary actually) and didn't want to push our luck driving around looking for a new spot on our first hike with two kids. Once we got moving, it wasn't quite as cold, but we still pretty much had all the trails to ourselves. Alex has been on this 'prepping' kick lately, so we basically have stockpiles of MREs around the house. He grabbed one of those for all of us to share and Evie didn't stop shouting the entire time, 'This is the best picnic EVER!' It reminded me so much of something my Dad would have done. Everything he did was magic when I was a little girl. I'm always astounded at the beauty and flourishing wildlife that is just a short drive from a barren desert. New Mexico is a quirky place - it really never stops surprising me.

IRONY + THE LONG WAY HOME

When I set out to (re)name this little space, we were in the beginning stages of moving to Brooklyn. I knew the kind of 'feel' I wanted the name to have, the image I wanted it to portray, how it would sound when I said it, that it would represent our family values in some way - it would say in a subtle way, 'This is who we are!' I even knew it should be four words because I'm a symmetry freak. It took me months of pondering to arrive at The Long Way Home. I was on a wandering walk through our old neighborhood, pushing Ev along in front of me when I asked her if she wanted to take the long way home - and it stuck. I came up with several others that escape me now, but finally decided, much like naming my children, that this space couldn't be anything but The Long Way Home. Little did I know how ironic this name would come to be.

It's painfully obvious even to this day, but I loved living in Brooklyn. I loved our quiet little apartment on our quiet little street. I love that it always looked thrown together no matter where you put anything. I loved that our mattress was on the floor right next to Evie's and we used to fall asleep holding hands under my pillow. I loved the old hardwood floors that used to frustrate her to no end as she'd try to stack block upon block and they would fall no matter how careful she was. So she'd gather them all up and stake her claim on a different, hopefully flatter piece of floor with a determined and slightly concerned look on her face. I loved our insanely pricey rent that felt like a bargain compared to the rest of the city, mostly because we had a real kitchen. I loved listening to the city come alive each morning and watching our brick wall view turn a golden hue that only fellow Brooklyn-dwellers have seen. I loved using the word 'bodega.' I loved the corner cafe with $20 sandwiches and cereal bowls of coffee. I loved our tiny mailbox and our obnoxious door buzzer. I loved the bagels. Oh, how I loved the bagels. I loved being able to buy a slice of pizza for a dollar. I loved the way the guys at our favorite pizza place said mozzarella. I loved that our church was held in a school auditorium. I loved that we gathered in people's impossibly small apartments during the week. I loved the Manhattan view we'd get on our grocery shopping nights leaving Fairway. I loved and hated Fairway. I loved that everyone had a love/hate relationship with the city. I loved our watermelon picnics. I loved that the playground was never empty the entire time we lived there. There was always someone there for Ev to play with.

I loved the subway smell. I loved the R train, the consistently late R train. I admired that about her, I accepted it because I'm consistently late anywhere I go. I loved that we lived at the end of the line and knew we were home when we heard, 'This is the last stop on this train. Please leave the train. Thank you for riding with MTA New York City transit.' I even sort of loved feeling like steamed broccoli in the Summer heat. I loved our secret Staten Island beach spots with oily water and sand full of trash. I loved the handfuls of sea glass we'd walk away with. I loved walking miles to get anywhere. I loved the street sweeping day, car moving scramble that happened each week. I loved the sidewalk horses that Evie went nuts over. I loved New Yorkers and their constant use of the F word. I loved how people really lived in the Spring, Summer, and Fall because the Winters were so unbearable. I loved that you could go for a simple walk and never be bored. I loved how beauty could find you in the most unexpected places. I loved our view of the Verrazano and watching boats pass by on the Hudson. I loved how people celebrated their New York-iversary. I loved that people complained so much about living there, but refused to live anywhere else. As Anne Lamott says, '. . . [I loved] the feel of being part of a healthy mob, part of a pulse, part of a collective heartbeat. . . [I loved] what it felt like to be part of a huge struggle, where people were winning and losing and triumphing and being humiliated and for once it wasn't you.' I love how living there was kind of like childbirth - after a while you forget how hard it was. I loved it all. I would be a lifer. Sometimes I lay in bed and imagine walking along those Bay Ridge streets with my two kids. It's hard for me to comprehend that a place that is so much a part of me, will never be a part of both of my kids. I sometimes forget Noble wasn't there with us.

As much as I loved Brooklyn, there is a bit of my soul that is nourished by New Mexico. I love the sunsets, each one different from the all the rest, but beautiful in a way you'll never forget. I love the adobe houses with turquoise trim. I love that you get to experience all four seasons, but you really only have to experience snow when you feel like driving up the mountain. I love the freakishly bipolar Spring weather. I love the Cottonwoods. I love that the days are so consistently beautiful that you wake up never thinking about what the weather will be like. I love the Christmas luminarias. I love the old man at the farmer's market that never stops shouting, 'Fresh tortillas!' in his Spanish accent. I love that you can tell what neighborhood you're in by how many Subarus are around. I love their strange exclamations like 'Eeee!' and 'Ah-la!' I love when someone calls Evie 'mija.' I love the trees outside our window that Noble strains his neck to watch from the rocking chair. I love the bike lanes and trails scattered all over the city. I love the love that the lifers have for this city and the effort they put in to keep it quirky. I love living three blocks from the zoo and that it's basically become our backyard. I love that we're surrounded by so much beauty and mountains are always in our background. We'd never make it through our 'places to see' list if we lived here for a lifetime. I love that feeling I get when we're coming home from the East and we spot the mountain silhoettes off in the distance. I love that you can wear whatever you want here and no one will look twice. I love that you can practically wear sandals year round and most people do. I love the frequent Indian Summers in the middle of Winter. I love that it's never hard to find something interesting to do here. I even kind of love the lack of a good Chinese food place. I love that the vast majority of people embrace local, organic food. I love the ridiculous amount of breweries and that you can buy craft beer almost anywhere. I love that both of my babies' birth certificates say 'Albuquerque, New Mexico,' a place where people are advocating for a mother's right to birth the way she wants. I love that that this place will always be a part of them no matter where we go - it called us back twice after all. There must be something special here for them. Even though there is so much to love about each place we've lived, we've known that they all wouldn't be forever.

OUR FIRST SNOW!

Ev is really one of the only two year olds I've ever met who is so in tune with the weather. Each day she wakes up, each walk we take, she always mentions what the weather is like. 'It's windy today, Mama! The sun is out right now! It's rainy outside today!' As she watches the sky grow darker from the windows, she always says something along the lines of, 'It's almost night time, Mama?' As we drove over the hills and through the mountains headed into Albuquerque yesterday, she saw a hint of light on the edge of the horizon and said, 'The sun is almost down guys.' As we came to the last bend in the highway and looked out over the city, she spotted all the city lights and said, 'It was probably just all dose lights, huh?' She's been sensing the change in weather and noticing things like us putting on jackets before going outside. When she'd ask why I would tell her Winter is coming. From all of the books we've read, she knows Winter and snow go together, so she would look out the window for snow each time I said that. She's been waiting for snow for months. I'm not even sure she knew exactly what snow was, just that the concept of it was exciting. The morning of our first snow here, she woke up and peeled apart the blinds like she always does and yelled, 'Hey! There's snow out der! Winter is here!' and finished that off with a celebratory jump off the bed. The one thing she couldn't stop talking about as we donned our snow gear was tasting the snow. She remembered when I made her snow cream for the first time at our old house close to a year ago.

So we ventured outside after we had gotten all bundled up and put some breakfast in our bellies and Ev decided the first thing she wanted to do was sit and eat mittens full of snow. We went for a little walk through the woods and she spotted the Juniper berries still on the branches covered in white. We put a bowl out to catch the flakes still falling from the sky. We hit the slopes a few times with our sled in hand, but decided there wasn't quite enough on the ground to make it worth the effort. Alex tried to show her how to make a snow angel, but she was adamant that the snow would get in her eyes. When we headed back inside we made snow cream together and followed it up with a bubble bath and cups of hot tea. Later, Alex came home from work and Ev recited each ingredient of snow cream to him - there aren't many, but I gave her props for being two and remembering a recipe. This really was the perfect snow day in my opinion - the snow was fluffy, not a bit sludgy, the temperature wasn't frigid and there was no wind trying to make it's way through your jacket and into your soul. I'm probably the worst grump you'll ever meet when it comes to Winter, but my joy in each season has increased since having a two year old that loves everything about every season.

THOUGHTS ON RAW MILK + DE SMET DAIRY FARM TOUR

A few years ago, I picked up Real Food by Nina Planck. To say that it has changed the way that we eat is an understatement. As I read through each section of the book, I could feel myself getting more anxious with every page. I was overwhelmed at the thought of the complete food overhaul that would need to happen in our home if we were to eat the way she described. Raw milk - where could I find that? It was (and still is) illegal in most states. Organic produce - we can't afford to shop like that! Grass fed, organic, local beef - no one raises beef like that anymore! I finally decided to just take it one step at a time. Raw milk wasn't available in this area until recently, so we opted for pasteurized organic whole milk. I sought out the cheapest place to get organic produce and will continue to sing the praises of Trader Joe's even though nothing they carry is locally sourced. Though I would prefer to buy locally, this was my middle ground for the benefit of my budget and sanity. On our first go around here in Albuquerque, we bought three chickens and let them run freely through our backyard so we could afford organic, free range eggs. I started to seek out more vegetarian meals, so that when we did eat meat, we could afford the good stuff. I started with one step and once that was second nature, we moved onto something else. At least 80% of what we eat is now organic and we actually spend the same, sometimes less on groceries than we did before we started this food overhaul, but I still consider it a work in progress.

One of the biggest things Planck focuses on in Real Food is raw milk. She is a huge proponent of raw milk, but I wasn't completely sold on it just from reading her opinion and research. The history of why milk is pasteurized is an interesting one that makes me confident raw milk shouldn't be illegal, but I was still a bit skeptical. I knew that if I could find a farm that met my expectations as far as cleanliness and how their cows are treated, I would be willing to make the switch. Enter De Smet Dairy. I finally got around to taking a tour of the farm and I'm sold. They're third generation dairy farmers located in Bosque Farms, New Mexico. Their cows are grass fed and allowed to roam freely on pasture, whereas most conventional dairies keep the cows confined indoors and feed them grain. They only milk them once a day, so that the babies get to stay with their mamas for an extended period of time. They're free of all hormones, antibiotics, and GMOs. Basically, the cows get to live a good cow life, which means they make better milk.

When looking for raw milk, the main thing I wanted was organic, so I asked why they weren't certified. De Smet Dairy is not certified organic at this time, but they once were (last year). They had to drop their certification because they expanded their herd and an organic certification requires all animals to have been raised under organic conditions for a year, plus the certification is extremely expensive for a small farm to afford. Though I believe that the benefits of raw milk far outweigh the risks, I'm not here to try to convince you of that. I will encourage you to do your own research and tell you that there's a chance of food borne illness from basically any food you buy at the grocery store. Listeria is found in pasteurized cheeses. E. Coli is found in bagged spinach. Salmonella is found on chicken that comes out of industrial plants even though they essentially bleach it before packaging it. Conventional foods and traditional foods both have risks involved in eating them. Personally, I would rather eat traditional foods from animals who also ate their traditional diets than factory raised animals whose products are sterilized before you can come in contact with them.

Evie was ecstatic the entire time we were at the farm. She is such an observer - she wanted to see everything and every step and know what every machine was used for. When she saw the cows being milked she said, 'I want some! Can I have some milk, pease?' I told her we would buy some when we were all done seeing the farm and when we pulled a jug out of the cooler she exclaimed, 'DIS MILK FROM THOSE COWS OUT THERE?! We're gonna drink it?!' Every time I pour her a glass, she can't stop talking about where it came from. She was equally excited about feeding the beef cows apples and climbing on all the old tractors. Overall, I was really happy with what I saw. The biggest challenge for us in eating local real food is the logistics in picking things up from each separate place. De Smet has partnered with a local farm, Skarsgard, that offers CSA memberships, so we plan on signing up for one in the new year and making the switch to raw milk.

I'd love to hear your thoughts on raw milk and the changes you're trying to make in your families diets in the comments below!