And then the words I needed to hear came to me

I've been at a standstill. Not in my work. Not as a mother. Not in the moments I've spent with the people I am close to these days. Not with family. Not even with myself. I've been at a standstill right here.

I went in to NaBloPoMo with conviction, just as I have for the last few years. I like challenges and I am self-competitive enough to see them through until the end. But I didn't go into the month excited. I love the idea of posting every single day and I love seeing all those posts piling up down the center of the page. I love pushing myself as a writer, to be more concise, clever, consistent.  What I didn't love was how I was using my drive to complete this challenge.

I was staying up too late, stressing out over topics to post on, writing paragraph after paragraph when I only intended to serve up a tasty little appetizer. I was frustrated. I was exhausted. And still, I kept pushing.

Oh, and complaining. I was also complaining. In fact, I was complaining to a friend (thank goodness, a friend who gets it) about how NaBloPoMo was killing me (no no no, not that I was killing myself...oh no, it had to be NaBloPoMo), when a small and significant thought raced across my brain and fell out of my mouth:

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Once upon a time I was in college (and no, I'm not scanning in any photos of me doing kegstands in the fraternity barn)

No, you haven't heard of my college. Not even if I tell you it was tagged as "the Harvard of the Midwest" or ranked as one of the very top universities in the book on how to get an Ivy League education at a state school that my parents handed me my junior year of high school. Not even if you know the background of the woman I hired as an anchor when I produced the campus news a hundred years ago. Maybe not even if you can name all the schools tucked in all the corners of the Midwest, even through their name changes and mergers.

It doesn't matter that it is relatively unknown or Division 7 or even that it is sunken in Missouri. It was exactly the right school for me. It was easy to get lost in my high school, not just in the halls but in the crowds, the activities, the cliques, the competition. I walked with ease across my college campus and spent most of my time there feeling fearless and involved and happy.

It wasn't perfect. It was inconveniently far away -- a five-hour train trip or a seven-hour drive or a three-hour car ride to the closest airport to take a 90-minute flight home. It wasn't the ticket to a job in journalism that Mizzou, not far down the road, would have been for me. It doesn't impress anyone when they see it on my resume.

Still, it was the right school for me. It was where I was able to shed all my insecurities about not actually going to an Ivy League school, where I was involved in every activity I felt passionate about on campus and where I met people who still stand rooted in my circle of closest friends.

I see small children in Lil E's preschool sporting the Go Blue! sweatshirts and Notre Dame hats and U of I cheerleader costumes of their parents' pride and I wonder what they want to impart on their kids by putting them in those clothes.

It's not that we don't have that gear too. In fact, Lil E has plenty of Beaver wear from my days in grad school (shut up, I know...Women Studies, Beavers, hilarious) but it's just not the same feeling or investment or wiggle of the spirit fingers. It's not that their (or later, my own) schools or pride is in any way lesser. It's not that they don't want their own kids to carry on the collegiate traditions a rah-rah shirt seems to put out to the world and apparently, preschool.

But I wonder how much other people are saying about their pride in their school with that college gear and how much they are revealing about what they got out of school with it. I guess I can only wonder that because the name on the sweatshirt Lil E wore to school today means nothing to everyone else.

There's no recognition from other parents or people in the grocery store parking lot or fans of the school who see the emblazoned child and give us the thumbs up.

What it is, though, is a good reminder that this school was a place that was perfect only in that it was good for me. And whether there were 500 people in the stadium or 50,000, I am happy to see my boy with the name of my school on his chest.

He doesn't have to be a legacy there and I certainly wouldn't ever expect him to go to any college other than the one that is just right for him. For now, though, he can carry a little piece of what worked well for me right there underneath that big old smile. Feeling fearless and at home and in just the right place as he puts his lunch box and down coat and sunglasses and stuffed tiger away in his cubby in his own school, in his own city, in his own right.

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A little corner of heaven

I am a reluctant Starbucks grrrl. I want very much to set up my laptop and hand over my skinny sugar-free latte devotion over to an independent cafe with Obama posters tacked to the wall and old copies of the Utne Reader and Bust on the Salvation Army end tables. Sadly, all the independent spots around me have come, stayed long enough for me to stake out a spot and then gone.

The good thing is, I do sometimes leave my neighborhood. I ventured outside of my half-block woobie last week to buy a gift for a grrrlfriend when I realized I hadn't had breakfast or nearly enough coffee. I was in front of a 'bucks but because I was far enough from my own neighborhood, there were three more places within a couple of blocks.

And then I saw the clear winner for my caffeine stop -- a little bakery that I've passed many times, admired for its adorable sign and then moved on. This time, I went in and immediately fell in love. My new favorite corner of Chicago is Angel Food Bakery.

Maybe it was the retro vibe that was perfectly captured in the kiddie kitchen set that serves as a cream and sugar station in the corner. Maybe it was the framed Easy Bake Oven ads or sherbet-colored iced cupcakes lining the display case.  It was bright and lovely inside and I wanted to sit, enjoy, eat.

That day, I couldn't. I got the biggest cup of coffee they had, ordered a creamy, delicious blueberry muffin and promised myself I'd come back. And I have been back, for more coffee and for their divine commuter sandwich, made simply of prosciutto, brie and fig jam on ciabatta that I think I could eat every single day of my life.

I haven't been through every option in the display case (yet). I have been so distracted by the adorable tins of sugar, spoons and plastic-knobbed stirrers hanging on the wall that I haven't yet asked if there's wi-fi or even an outlet in the place. If it does, oh my. I may be moving out of my neighborhood and into this place.

If you are the Chicago kind, you must stop in. And if you're not, maybe just this once step outside the Starbucks to see if land on a lovely little cloud of your own.

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