Girl's Gone Child

FAITH, 2012

Posted by GIRL'S GONE CHILD | Monday, November 05, 2012

These last few weeks I've spent a great deal of time reading the #blogforobama posts, watching with pride the videos my friends have put together. I've high-fived neighbors with signs in their lawns, read and nodded through the various posts and articles in support of re-electing Barack Obama, but until now I've been unable to compose one. Not because I do not support him wholeheartedly (I absolutely do) but because in comparison to HOPE: 2008, I've felt ... impotent. Even uninspired. Like a pom without a cheer.

The hope, we so rallied around as a community in 2008, is gone. Our optimism's diminished and in many cases, expired.

Last election, I wore stickers and t-shirts, wrote impassioned posts. Hoped. I downloaded songs and memorized speeches, chanted during debates, wallpapered my fridge with Shepard Fairey artwork, HOPED.

This year I've done none of those things. Not a one. And because of that I've felt conflicted and detached, ambivalent.

Hope (noun): a feeling of expectation and desire for a certain thing to happen.

I go back and read the posts from 2008 and feel sad that I can't rally behind our commander in chief as well as I was able to rally behind the idea of him. The DREAM.

It's like looking back on my old letters to Santa Claus with the knowledge that he no longer exists in the way I hoped he would, thought he did. It's called disillusionment and it's what happens to people over time. It's what happens to heroes, and saviors and people who are placed on unattainable pedestals but it's also what happens in our relationships, with our parents and our children and our partners.

I've been thinking a lot about my marriage during this reelection. How tough those first few years were - how I blamed Hal for our turmoil. How we flirted with leaving each other. Didn't think it was worth sticking it out. Decided it was worth sticking it out. Hated each other and loved each other and blamed each other. How all things repaired were once broken.

I think about how, in the middle of one of our most tumultuous months, Hal bought a ring, got on one knee and asked me to stay married to him. I think about why I said yes.

It had nothing to do with hope.

It was faith.

I had faith in us. And I have had faith in us every day since.

And yes, I'm talking about more than my marriage but that is what I do. I draw parallels to everything so that I can rationalize decisions - so that I can relate to all the things I feel detached from. So that I can relate to this election. So that I can stand firmly behind the man I will be voting for.

Until now, I've felt ashamed of my inability to get fired up.

And then it dawned on me.

Hope can only spring eternal until reality intervenes.

That it isn't about the hope for change, but the faith in it.

It isn't the feeling of expectation that carries us forward but the allegiance.

This is not an election built with dreams as its foundation, but reality. And the reality is? Obama is not our savior. Okay, so now we know. We know we elected a president and not Santa Claus. (For some reason this was really hard for me, the eternal-idealist to grasp and it has taken me pretty much up to this moment right now as I'm writing this to understand this as the case.)

I'm no longer voting for an idea. I'm voting for a people.

***

Anyone who has ever been married knows that when the honeymoon ends, we are left with our faith. That without it, we're doomed.

I am voting for Obama tomorrow because I have faith in my president and what he is capable of doing, protecting, rallying behind. I'm voting with the faith I have in people. In women to make their own choices and friends to marry for love. I'm voting with the faith I have in science and the environment, in education and disaster relief. I'm voting with the faith I have in other countries and their people. I'm voting with 100% faith that Obama represents the best of what we can be as a nation in the world.

Yesterday's HOPE, 2008 is tomorrow's FAITH, 2012. 2008's YES WE CAN is today's TOGETHER WE WILL.

See you at the polls, friends.

GGC

Sandy's Aftermath: Help us Help

Posted by GIRL'S GONE CHILD | Friday, November 02, 2012

Rockaway, Queens via Pearl Gabel

I have heard from many of you who are dealing with Sandy's aftermath, and beyond what we already know we can do to help, (go here for a pretty extensive list) I'm guessing there's a lot more that can be done for those affected by the storm.

It's remarkable how easy it is to donate to the Red Cross, Salvation Army, even Human Society via text message, but I know I'm not alone when I say I'd love to get involved on a more personal level so PLEASE! If there's something missing from the relief sites or if you know of a better way (a more immediate way) for geographically removed folks like me to get involved, please let me/us know.

I feel fortunate that my family and friends on the east coast are safe and sound but am very much aware that others have not been so lucky.

Thanks in advance for your insight and recommendations.

Bec

Liner Notes: Halloween Edition

Posted by GIRL'S GONE CHILD | Thursday, November 01, 2012

non identical "fins" or "fin sisters"

Ballerina Princess Fairy aka "Flowerheart"

Darth Blazer (without the blazer. too formal)

One of the best parts of having kids is dressing them up as things. Which happens for about two years before they're like, "Oh HELL no, I'm not wearing that. I'm DARTH VADER!" So, might as well enjoy it while you can and spend the entire day dressing up your small children as George Washington, Ben Franklin and a unicorn.

Fable spent the day in and out of costumes, which is basically how she spends every day but at one point she turned to me and said, "Mama? This is the best day of my life" and I know what she means. Dressing up is fantastic, Having an excuse to wear six costumes in ONE day? The best.

I bought Bo and Revi's costumes at Pottery Barn after browsing the site online and realizing that Bo looked EXACTLY like the seahorse and Revi looked EXACTLY like the goldfish.

Non-identical fin sisters.

Get it? Because they're twins?

Hold on, here are a thousand more pictures:

I had planned to forgo Halloween this year and dress as nothing a la "this is the kids' holiday now, not mine" and then the night before Halloween realized this was a horrible idea and ran off to the nearest Halloween shop an hour before closing.

Unfortunately, the only costume they had for women that didn't involve nipple pasties and butt cleavage was a nun costume. So? I decided I'd be a Mother... of four. That way Hal could be a Father of Fore aka Benjamin Franklin, which was nowhere near as good as last year's Angelina but I've pretty much resigned myself to the fact that our gold standard has already been reached. Que Sera.

Bo and Revi HATED that Hal had hair and flipped out the entire thirty seconds it took me to snap a couple photos.

ed: He ditched the "wig" right after I took this picture and went trick or treating as a bald unicorn in a judge's robe instead.

Oddly, they seemed perfectly fine with me sans bangs, dressed as a nun with a horn aka Mother Offour, aka an "unsexy" unicorn.

Because nothing says "screw you, sexy costumes!" like dressing up as someone who doesn't have sex. SO THERE!

Archer's very whatever about costumes but loves pumpkin carving. Here is a very dark picture post-carving pumpkins. You can't really see him, but trust me, he's pumped.