fierce attachments

a mother-daughter blog about the fierce attachments in our lives… title inspired by Vivian Gornick's wonderful memoir
October 14, 2011

exercise and the single woman

by caitlin meredith

After a summer of five-times-a-week Pilates sessions, I took a vacation. Though I went on a few hikes, my focus was on catching up with friends and family in California, not on my alignment or core strength. No problem, I thought. I was sure that all of the time and attention I had put into my fitness entitled me to time off for good behavior. In my mind, the hundreds of roll ups and rollovers and Pilates push-ups were like money in the bank. Now it was my holidays and time to cash in. I was wrong.

Halfway through my first class back in Austin – a class I had gone to religiously for months – I felt like I was going to throw up. The second day was no better. I asked if they had really amped things up in my absence. I got a puzzled look back, “No…this is what we always do.” Walking to my car that day, still feeling ill from my output, I had the profound realization that being in shape is like having a chronic disease. Like diabetes, there is no cure or final success. There is no such thing as money in your fitness bank. It’s something you’ll have to manage for the rest of your life. And even though I’m loving the Pilates (except when I’m hating it) I had a second profound realization: That sucks.

My grandmother just died at age 103. If those long-life genes prevail, my fitness commitment could stretch into the next 65 plus years, paying higher recovery costs with each hiatus. That’s longer than my mortgage! Read the rest of this entry »

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October 7, 2011

it’s true, all men are bastards: when your dog falls in love with a fickle partner

by nikki meredith

Alice is in love. The object of her affection is Jasper, a hefty Labradoodle who looks more like a bear than a dog. They are both shaggy but otherwise they are a picture of contrasts. She’s a creamy 25 pounder; he’s chocolate and weighs 75 pounds. Every day when we pass Jasper’s house on our walk, if he isn’t home or if I don’t have time to stop, I have a mutiny on my hands. Alice emits a doleful cry and like a stubborn donkey in a cartoon, she puts the brakes on and no amount of cajoling will get her to move. Since I don’t want to drag her little butt along the sidewalk, the only way to keep going is to pick her up and carry her far enough away that she loses his scent. According to Jasper’s owner, Fran, when we have a scheduled play date and she announces it to Jasper, he posts himself at their front window and waits. As soon as he sees her, he literally jumps for joy and the two of them fall into each other’s forelegs.

They jump, they run, they twirl. They lick each other, they play tug-of-war, but even with all the rough and tumble, the boy is gentle with her and has been since she was a tiny puppy. It’s like watching Gérard Depardieu make chaste love to little Gidget. Read the rest of this entry »

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October 4, 2011

a douche, a baseball bat and judge judy: renting my house to a delinquent tenant

by caitlin meredith

In April of 2008 I quit my job at the local health department in Austin and flew to Nigeria to help track and treat a meningitis epidemic with my on again, off again employer Doctors Without Borders. It all happened so quickly that I was barely able to pack my bag for the summer, much less rent out my house. Fortunately I had a couple of pro bono property managers willing to take the case: my parents. From their home in Northern California, they tried to allure a summer tenant through Craigslist. After several flakes and false alarms, they finally found a renter that seemed perfect.

Penny needed a place for her and her college-aged son to stay for the summer while the house she had just bought got work done. She happily agreed to pay the rent, the security deposit and the utilities. Over the course of the summer she and my mom exchanged countless e-mails all with some small business purpose but that more often than not drifted into more personal terrain. She sent a photo when a large branch fell off of one of the pecan trees and broke part of the fence and told of the condo they had found for her son where he would live during his third year at college in Flagstaff. My mom asked her about the rent deposit and sent her detailed instructions about how to retrieve your voicemail when you don’t have your cell phone with you after Penny told her she lost hers. Reading through them you see two empty-nesters sharing tips and observations about this chapter in their lives. There’s a real warmth there – both expressed the desire to meet in person one day. Something about this relationship confirmed all of our best feelings about Austin, reminding us of the kind of kind hippies that used to live in Marin. When it got closer to my return from Africa, Penny even offered to pick me up from the airport. That’s good people.

A few weeks after my return, however, the touchy feelies turned to touch and go. Read the rest of this entry »

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September 30, 2011

unleashed aggression: how leash laws protect mother nature

by nikki meredith

Six months ago, after a no-dog hiatus of more than ten years, my husband and I got a puppy – a half golden retriever, half poodle. (Yes, I’m trying to avoid writing Goldendoodle. Owning any kind of doodle in our location (Southern Marin) and in our demographic (empty nesters) is an ubercliché.) Cliché or no, we are both amazed at how much we adore this little creature. I don’t know if it’s because of her qualities – sweet, funny, easygoing and easy on the eyes – or because the last time around we had children sopping up our parental love but something is different this time around. Every time I look at her she makes me happy and she touches me in such a deep way it almost scares me. I tell you this to demonstrate that my dog-adoring credentials are solid. But….

I recently discovered that I part company with some, perhaps most, of my dog-adoring brothers and sisters when it comes to The Leash. Read the rest of this entry »

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September 27, 2011

dominance in the dog house: trying and failing at dog training

by caitlin meredith

This summer I had my first shot at being a pack leader. My house was rented out for two months so I ended up house sitting for a couple that has four dogs. Four. Other than the prodigious amount of dog hair I’ve become accustomed to, I’ve also gotten an inside look at what kind of territory dogs have taken over in the American psyche.

When I was young, there was no dog whisperer or puppy college. You brought a puppy home, hoped it quickly grew out of the shoe-chewing phase and kicked it when it humped guests’ legs. Nowadays trainers instruct dog “guardians” on everything from who should go through the doorway first (you, not the dog) and whether or not tug-of-war is harmless fun or dangerous precedent (seem to be split down the middle on this one.) Clearly out of my depth in the new canine culture,  I’ve  spent most of the summer at the mercy of these damned dogs. Read the rest of this entry »

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September 26, 2011

the botoxed heart

by nikki meredith

My husband wouldn’t smile at me. To be fair, he, more accurately, couldn’t smile at me. He was hit in the mouth with a hockey stick and required stitches both inside and outside. He’s a long time hockey player so over the years he’s had many injuries – this wasn’t even close to the worst (black eyes, cracked ribs, broken teeth) — but this one was the most painful for me. I had to get through each day without that particular physical manifestation of love and approval from him and it was as effective as an anti-Prozac. I realized that given the choice: no sex for a month; no smile for a week, I’d choose the first. It didn’t matter one wit that he might have been smiling on the inside, my heart hurt.

I thought about this experience recently when I read a New York Times report in about a study that seemed to demonstrate that Botox not only neutralizes how one looks, it neutralizes how one feels, particularly how one feels empathy. At issue is ”embodied cognition” — the way in which facial feedback helps people perceive emotion. In one experiment, women who had been injected with Botox were asked to look at a set of photographs of human eyes and match them with human emotions. Women with Botox were significantly less accurate at decoding both positive and negative facial expressions than the women in the control group. Read the rest of this entry »

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August 23, 2011

my life in a novel

by caitlin meredith

This weekend I read my mom’s first novel for the second time. The first time I read it, almost three years ago, it was a surreal experience. Though fiction, many of the characters and scenarios in the book are based on what has really happened in my life, in our family. It is a wonderful book – not because it copies reality, but because it uses the same material to draw out a different, equally rich, realistic and compelling narrative. Seeing how my mom channeled all of the real life ingredients into an entirely new concoction gave me a keyhole view into a creative mind; I’ve never been so close to an artist.

Reading the book was the opportunity to view my life, my family’s life, through the glass. From afar everyone else’s life can seem so much richer, more intense, especially in books or movies. The day to day of my own life, or the slog of family dynamics, just doesn’t seem interesting most of the time. In a novel, especially this one, scenes come alive, people are wittier, life is layered and plays out in a larger-than-life way. Much of that has to do with what a great writer my mom is, but also the importance that a life is afforded just by the very act of recording it. If there’s something to write about, it must be extraordinary. Read the rest of this entry »

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