Megan Stielstra's Blog

Q: Do you think Chicago is the best city?
A: Yes!

Posted by Megan at 6:49 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Posted by Megan at 8:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

STEVE: you don't blog enough.
ME: blah blah busy.
STEVE: maybe the problem is all your entries are like fifty pages long. You could write some shorter ones.
ME: okay.

Posted by Megan at 8:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Dear Lady who came up to me on the street and told me to put a hat on my son,

After I take a shower, I put on moisturizer with SPF. I do this every morning. Even in the winter. I have skin the color and consistency of wax paper and I’ve been extremely stupid about it in the past, not to mention my grandfather had melanoma so what with the genetics and getting older and global warming, I shellac myself in sun block.

My son, while a carbon copy of his dad, unfortunately inherited my skin, so he gets the same treatment: Aveeno Baby on his cheeks, nose, arms and feet before we leave the house. He’s also a got a couple of floppy hats that tie under his chin, which are super-cute and but also cover his eyes, so depending on the proximity of naptime, he either falls asleep in the dark or wiggles like a wet noodle ‘cause he wants to look around at all the cool stuff he’s never seen before. If he could speak, he’d say, “Mom, get this hat off me!” (to which I’d say, “Is that how we ask, Caleb?” ‘cause we’ll have our manners, oh yes we will) but he can’t yet, so he shakes his head to get the evil hat off, not understanding that it’s tied on. Oh, and ALSO: I wear him in an Ergobaby front carrier, which has this genius little flap that covers him in bright sun, heavy wind, when it’s naptime, etc.

SO, Lady on the Street, allow me to flashback five minutes before you came up to us. Caleb and I got off the el and started walking the five blocks from the Jackson stop to the USB Tower on Wacker, where we were picking up Christopher for lunch. Caleb was wearing his hat. The sunflap on the Ergobaby was up and he was wiggling like crazy ‘cause he wanted to see: Skyscrapers! Pedestrians! Traffic! The el above us! All this cool stuff! “Sorry, tough guy,” I told him. “Not til we’re in the shade.”

A side note: it’s a knife to the heart, those moments when you know your child is upset (the wiggling), you know why your child is upset (he wants the hat off), you know how to fix the situation (take off the hat!), but you don’t and/or can’t (we’re in the bright sun!), usually for reasons of safety. The car seat is another example: sometimes he gets mad that he’s strapped down—alone, in the back—and protests, loudly, and I’m up there in the driver’s seat saying, “I know, baby, but I can’t take you out yet. We’re in traffic, and it’s the law, and yes, some laws are silly, but others—like the ones that protect your little skull—are all right by me.” He’s not much for the logic, my son, and will keep on crying, so I keep talking over his crying in the hope that maybe hearing my voice will calm him. And also because I can’t just sit back and do nothing. “I’m going as fast as I can,” I tell him. “If you can keep it together for ten more minutes I promise I’ll get you out of there. And also, if you stop crying, I’ll get you a car when you turn sixteen. And also a keg party. And a unicorn!”

We’re desperate, us new parents.

P.S.: I imagine this is a metaphor for all sorts of moments he and I will have in the future—when I’ll do or not do something that makes him mad in the name of “what’s best.” My mind rewinds through my own childhood, every time my parents ticked me off. Ah, payback is sweet (right, dad?).

Anyhow, as we came up to the USB Tower I pulled down the Ergobaby flap. HOORAY! He was thrilled! He could turn his head and Oh, so much to see! He started giggling, eyes wide in amazement, and as we crossed into the shadow of shade about ten feet from the big glass revolving doors, I took his hat off, too, and dropped it into my bag. His little head bent back, back, so far back I could lean down and kiss his chin as he stared above us at the building (isn’t that the greatest feeling? To stand right up against a super-tall building and look straight up? It throws your depth perception off, makes you think you’re in the air, horizontal instead of vertical) and that—THAT—is when you came out of the revolving door and saw us. Your expression turned sour—or, who knows, maybe you were already sour. Maybe you’ve been sour your whole life—and you came right over and said, “Excuse me, Miss?” There was something about the Miss that put me immediately on edge. I mean, granted, you’re in your Fifties, so I’ll always be a Miss to your Ma’am, but I’m a mom now, in my Thirties, what’s a girl got to do to earn herself a Ma’am these days? Not that I’m really aspiring towards Ma’am-dom—had you been anyone else I might’ve appreciated the Miss, like how it’s sometimes nice when I get carded (except when I don’t actually have my ID, ‘cause if it’s a choice between feeling young and Maker’s Mark, I’ll take the latter). Anyhow, something about your tone made me feel condescended to, but still I said, “Yes?” all smiley and polite in part because I’m a good Midwestern girl, nice and respectful of people in general and my elders in particular, but mostly because Caleb was watching me, his head bent forward from the skyscraper, looking into my face, and when I smile, he smiles. When I laugh, he laughs. When I’m upset, he’s upset, so I’d rather he sense joy from me than … whatever the alternative, in that moment and forever.

But you, Lady on the Street, did not make it easy: You frowned. You scoffed. And then you reached out and TAPPED MY SON’S BARE HEAD WITH YOUR INDEX FINGER AND SAID, “You should really have a hat on this child. It’s too bright outside. HE COULD GET CANCER AND DIE.”

Writing this now, I’m thinking about how when cartoon characters get mad their heads slowly fill up with red until steam bursts out of their ears. I’m thinking about how I was so angry that I couldn’t find words, and even if I had, which ones would I have used? “DON’T EVER TOUCH MY CHILD,” or, “I took off his hat not FIVE SECONDS AGO, look, it’s right here!” or, “You know nothing about us, how dare you judge me?” I’m also (and admitting this is no fun. True, but no fun) thinking about times when I’m the one judging, like when I worked brunch service and wanted to tell parents to pay attention to their kids, like, HeLLO! Or on the train, if they’re yelling at their kid, or even, in one horrible circumstance, hitting their kid, and how I’ve wanted to step in and say something (and no, I never have, and yes, I sometimes regret that), but most of all: do I have that right? Do YOU, Lady on the Street?

To be fair, I’m reacting not only to you, but the LEGIONS of people who’ve approached me with unsolicited advice: “Isn’t he cold? You should have a blanket.” “I bet he’s hot. You should take that blanket off him.” “He’s big, what are you feeding him?” “Babies should face OUT, not in.” “That baby should be napping in a crib by now,” and on and on and every single time, I have kept quiet. I have nodded. I have said—just like I said to you—“Thank you, but we’re fine,” because more than anything, I’m thinking about Caleb looking up at me, and how children can sense even the smallest of emotions.

Once he has words—once I’m able to explain why Mom’s upset, why she said what she said, how expressing our emotions in a healthy way is not just okay, it’s necessary—then things might be different. Then, Lady on the Street, I’ll probably ask you, in a very dignified way, to back the Hell off.

But now, all he’d understand is Mom’s upset.

So, for now, I thank you for your advice. I look down at my son and smile wide, and as we walk THROUGH THE SHADE towards that revolving door, we look up at the impossibly high tower above us and get on with this business of living.

Posted by Megan at 8:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

This poster makes it look as though I wrote one-fifth of a play, but what really happened was I wrote a story which was then workshopped INTO a play by a kickass actor/director ensemble and then produced by Chicago's Theatre Seven. It was amazing to be a part of this: I handed off the piece to directors Margot Bordelon and Cassie Sanders who helped me (taught me/trained me/held me hand) adapt it for the stage, and then wove it together with stories of five other stellar Chicago writers (Brian Golden, Kim Morris, Justin D.M. Palmer and J. Adams Oaks). From there, they cast the actors, who've been experimenting with the material for months and finding all sorts of secrets that I never even fathomed. I watch the show now and feel a million miles away from it, a total mind-blowing experience after years of clinging so tightly to my prose, so possessive of every word, and the craziest part is, the story is about me. It's ... how to explain this without getting all meta? it's me telling a story that happened to me, so there is an actor playing me. The character of Megan, and another actor playing Christopher (and Kim, Brian, Justin, Jeff, etc.).

So picture it: me, sitting in the audience, watching this truly beautiful, funny lovely woman Tracy playing me (which FYI is a really nice ego boost, after just having had a kid and being all tired and dazed and Blaaaaech about my physical appearance, to see myself cast as this completely radiant, joyful, smiling girl. Makes you realize that somebody else sees you this way, maybe), and she's up there telling a story that I more or less (some parts heavy on the more, others heavy on the less) lived, and even though I know everything that happens (A. I lived it and B. I wrote it) it's still like watching somebody else entirely (which it is! But also isn't!). There are times when Tracy does something and I'm like, NO MEGAN, DON'T DO IT! and others where I'm like, YAAAAY, GOOD FOR YOU! like when you tell the pretty girl in the horror movie, NO, DON'T GO UP THE STAIRS! It's been a fascinating experience as a writer but also personally, watching this moment from my life dramatized and learning different things about myself.

Yesterday we did a photo shoot (like, a PROFESSIONAL ONE! In a STUDIO! With MULTIPLE LENSES!) and the photographer did several shots of Tracy and I next to each other. I was trying to imagine what it was like for her, meeting me, after living in my head these past months, especially the head of Four-Years-Ago me.

The result of all this is Yes, This Really Happened to Me, a Theatre Seven production opening at Chicago Dramatists later this month. Tickets are available here (I've been told they're selling quickly, so I'd hop to it if you want to see me played by a gorgeous brunette having three-ways with nudists. What? Did I neglect to mention what my story was about until just now? My bad!).

Tracy and me.

Tracy AS me.

Posted by Megan at 8:12 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Caleb’s been sleeping in his own room for the past few months, and we watch him on a baby monitor. It’s snazzy, this monitor. It has a WIRELESS VIDEO CAMERA. With NIGHT VISION. Which means I can see my son glowing electric green in the dark like he’s some CIA target and I’m Sydney Bristow. It also has two frequencies—an A and a B channel, in case you have two kids in two separate rooms. What’s interesting is one of our neighbors must have this same monitor, because on channel A I can see my baby and on channel B I can see someone else’s baby.

Which means, if I can see someone else’s baby, then someone else can see mine.

I’m not sure what to do with this information. On the one hand, it’s totally creepy and I want Christopher to jam the wireless signal (assuming that’s even possible. I don’t know much about wireless. Or frequencies. Not that I’m not an intelligent person perfectly capable of figuring out such things; it’s just that since he’s already got that stuff covered shouldn’t I expend my mental energy learning things that neither one of us knows? Like pediatric care, for example. Or Auto detail. a/c repair. Spanish. Tae Kwon Do. Real estate law—these are things that could come in handy someday). On the OTHER hand, I think this whole B Channel Baby business is fascinating, like walkie talkies and CB radios when you’re a kid: talking into the void, the great I Don’t Know Where (and yes, it could be argued that that’s what this blog is, but over the years I’ve come to view the internet as its own living, breathing, collective being. Like, say, The Borg) (did I just out myself as a Trekkie?) (yes) and who knows who’s listening? Who knows who’s being affected on the other side? Who knows who’s in that Uptown condo I see on Channel B?

A baby, to be a sure, and a cute one at that.

But it’s not the baby I’m worried about.

It’s his mother.

My imagination goes wild when I think of the mother. Does she sit there, watching my kid in the dark? Does she question his bedtime? Does she wonder where I got his sleep sack? How might she react if I left a sign in his crib that read: STOP LOOKING AT MY BABY, YOU DIRTY VOYEUR!

Or what about this one: I’M LONELY FOR ADULT COMPANY, DO YOU AND YOUR SUPER CUTE BABY WANT TO COME TO THE PARK WITH US?

FYI: yes, I realize she could very well leave either of those signs for me.

(especially the former).

I’m going to veer away from this discussion for a moment, okay? Rest assured, I’ll bring it back around.

It’s SUMMER! Sunshine! Pedicures! Grilling on the back porch! Frozen blender drinks! Outdoor seating and Theatre on the Lake! The Lake! The beach! SPF! Lemonade! Which you can get any time of year but it just tastes better in the summer! People yelling outside my window at four a.m. which also always happens but much more often when it’s warm! And! Most of all! Long walks in the afternoon ‘cause it’s no longer zero degrees outside and I’m not afraid of deep-freezing the baby!

We walk everyday; Caleb in a front pack and Mojo trying his best to heel. We go block-to-block, the three of us scaling Uptown. Broadway to Argyle, down to the beach and back up Montrose. We marvel at the architecture, people watch and remember what it feels like to be among the living, outside where there’s noise and activity and a much much bigger picture.

THE BABY
Caleb is five months old and just learning there’s a world outside my lap, which is mind blowing. He sees everything for the first time: sky and trees and cars and the El. Sun reflecting on store windows, bicycles vwooshing past, the faces of passers-by (everyone stops to smile at him, in part ‘cause that’s what people do when they see babies, but also ‘cause he’s so goddamn beautiful you can’t help but stare [What? Me? Biased? Of COURSE I’m biased! I BUILT THAT KID FROM SCRATCH! I COOKED HIM FOR NINE WHOLE MONTHS! HE’S THE MOST BEAUTIFUL THING EVER, ESPECIALLY WHEN HE GIGGLES (Christopher said—this killed me—“That is the greatest sound that’s ever been heard. Like, the Egyptians probably have hieroglyphics painted on some wall about that sound”) AND WHEN HE REACHES FOR ME TO PICK HIM UP, AND WHEN HE EATS MASHED SWEET POTATOES AND SMILES WITH HIS MOUTH ALL ORANGE LIKE HE’S BEEN SUCKING A POPSISCLE, OH MY GOD I’M IN LOVE) and rain, car horns, street lights, neon signs, bricks, fences, all of it brand new. My day-to-day standards—the things I’m so accustomed to I don’t even notice them anymore—are suddenly full of magic as I watch Caleb; the seemingly mundane is the greatest stuff in the Universe. Plastic grocery bags? AMAZING. Tapping a glass with a spoon? Kick-ASS! Water in a DISH? Fun for HOURS! Yesterday on our walk, he reached out (I think?) for the yellow Street Cleaning sign stapled to a tree outside our building. Yellow. Yellow is bright and fun and new for him, so suddenly I’m seeing yellow as if I’d been blind to it for thirty-coughcough years. Yellow! Look at the Yellow! Everything yellow is underlined and all caps: BRAKE LIGHTS! PARKING LANES! FLOWERS IN THE NEIGHBOR’S YARD! TAXI-CABS! THAT GUY’S SHIRT! YELLOW YELLOW YELLOW and people, you don’t have to go through all the trouble of scoring acid in order to experience this! You just have to get knocked up, get really fat and SHAZAAM! YELLOW!

THE DOG
I love my dog. Seriously, I don’t mean to get all Best in Show, but these past few months have been pretty extreme—very high highs and very low lows—and through all of it, this dog has sat at my feet, tail wagging, waiting for my next move, and if I don’t move? Hell—he’ll wait! Take your time, figure it out, I’ll chill here ‘til you’re ready. He’s forty pounds of muscle and raw puppy energy, and all during January (bitch-ass cold, nine months pregnant in a third-floor walk-up) and then February, March and April (STILL freezing and now with a tiny infant), he was lucky if he got one measly walk a day. Sometimes we’d stand in the hallway and I’d say, “GO MOJO, GO!” and he’d race up and down the stairs, again and again to numb the adrenaline. I was a horrible dog owner then, and now I’m doing penance—I’ll walk this dog ‘til his paw pads bleed.

As I type this, he’s passed out next to me on the couch, flat on his back with his paws in the air and his head in my lap, and I know that today I did right by him.

ME
I need these walks more than any of us. I feel like I’ve been in a fog, light years away from the outside world, trying to navigate a very new, very wonderful, very different life.

I’m still in awe of it.

Probably I always will be.

On a more practical level, there’s this baby weight to drop, five pregnant months of eating whatever because DAMMIT I WANT TO EAT THE WHATEVER (for those of you doing math right now, that’s five months of eating crap and four months—the first four months—of Vernors and Saltine crackers) and, for the record, I’m a little self-conscious about it. I shouldn’t be, I know, and I don’t want to be that girl who’s all Boo Hoo my butt’s big, but if I’m being honest? BOO-F’ING-HOO. I want to fit into my clothes again (and yes, I know I will, there’s a lot of walking and yoga and chicken salads going on these days), but I want it to happen NOW. Not tomorrow—NOW. NOW with the jeans (Citizens of Humanity. Three pairs from Neiman's. Not cheap, no). NOW with being able to eat the friggin’ cheese plate (GUILT=SUCK. BRIE=AWESOME). NOW with being able to look in the mirror and like what I see.

And so—we walk. Broadway to Argyle, down to the beach, back up Montrose and today, as we turned onto Lawrence, we passed a woman with a stroller. She and I nodded at each other in solidarity and looked at each other’s kids, me at her little boy in the stroller and her at Caleb in his Ergobaby. This, I’ve newly discovered, is the way moms do it: acknowledging the fact that even though we don’t know each other, we’re all a part of this great cosmic team. It’s the same with dog owners, too—you give the nod. The Hey, that’s a cute dog nod. The It’s okay if your dog sniffs my dog's butt so long as he doesn’t get too touchy feely about it and is that a Bull Mastiff by any chance?

So there we were, me and this mom, smiling at each other’s kids, and I realized there was something familiar about her baby, and not in the Babies All Look Alike sort of way. No, I knew this kid—and suddenly I saw him NOT all live and in color on Winthrop Avenue, but eerie electric green on a tiny, hand-held screen.

It was him. Channel B Baby.

I looked back to the mother: pretty, early Thirties, wearing the new mom uniform of yoga pants and empire-waist shirt (the whole I really can’t be bothered to fix myself up although I’m bothered that I can’t be bothered sort of thing. I’m the same way: I want to care, but most days I’ve got too much going on to care. Somebody just book me for one of those Working Mom make-overs they do on Oprah, 'kay?). Her dog was tied to her stroller, dancing around with Mojo. She looked … safe. And … tired. And … a little dazed, but also, underneath all that, she seemed interesting, like there was all sorts of other stuff set on PAUSE for the time being.

This is what I imagine myself looking like.

She was staring at Caleb with this look on her face, like when you recognize someone and for the next two hours you play Where Do I Know You From (“I’m from Michigan, do you know me from there? I teach at Columbia, did you go to Columbia? I worked at the Bongo Room, is that it?"). I knew it then—as sure as I’d been watching her kid, she’d been watching mine.

Our eyes met.

“Do you—” she started, cautiously, “and this’ll sound really weird, I know, but do you have a—”

I cut in: “Baby’s Quiet Sounds—”

“—Video Monitor?” we finished together.

And we smiled; stupid, embarrassed smiles ‘cause, in all honesty, we’d just admitted to low-grade stalking. But the thing is, after meeting her—seeing her—how much she mirrored how I see myself these days—I realized it’s not creepy. It’s comforting, to know that there’s someone nearby in my same boat. Someone who’s also trying to figure out all this newness: what does that cry mean? Why is he waking up now? How do I walk this tightrope-line between a near-desperate love of my child and an iron-tight grasp on the person I was before that child arrived? and, most importantly, how do I take care of us both?

I won’t watch Channel B anymore. But now, when I turn on Caleb’s monitor, I'll say goodnight to Owen, too.

Posted by Megan at 9:36 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

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