melissarayworth

[melissarayworth]

Mixing motherhood and martinis at Vinepair.com

It’s always encouraging when one job leads to another. The editors at Vinepair.com saw some of my essays on maintaining my individuality and edge while mothering my kids, and they asked for one exploring that idea through the lens of going out at night. 

I was happy to oblige, and I’m happy to share it here: 

IS IT BAD FOR ME TO BE BUZZED AROUND MY KIDS?

Late last Friday night, I approached the front door of my apartment after an evening out. As my key hovered just short of the lock, I stopped, checking myself. Do I seem drunk? Will I sound drunk if I have to say anything during the long walk from the front door to my bedroom? Half-trusting my answers, I quietly unlocked the door and stepped inside.

I felt like a guilty teenager.

Except I haven’t actually been a teenager since before they invented Zima. I’m no longer fearing parental wrath when I get home from a night out drinking with my friends. Instead, it’s my own teenager who’s waiting on the sofa when I roll in, and his little brother seated beside him. Although they’re both busy watching YouTube videos or messaging their friends, none of us is quite sure what to do when a night’s worth of salted-caramel martinis is written across my face. Being a mother who goes out regularly, I haven’t figured it out yet, and I don’t know if I ever will.

READ THE REST HERE... http://vinepair.com/articles/is-it-bad-for-me-to-be-buzzed-around-my-kids/

#motherhood #wine #sharpeningmyedge

[melissarayworth]

You Go First

Last week, I went to Kuala Lumpur for 48 hours. 

On a practical level, the trip made no sense: My husband was in the U.S., literally as far away from our home in Bangkok as a person could be. We have two adolescent boys. Only once in their lives have I gone out of town when their dad was already gone. And I only allowed myself that trip because a) I’d been invited to the White House, b) it was a work trip and c) I was only going to be a three-hour drive away from my kids.

This trip was none of those things, at least at the outset. 

Beyond childcare, it made no sense because I juggle running this household and focusing on the kids with freelance writing. So any hours I spend not working are hours I’m not getting paid. And on top of it all, I’m working on launching a business and often use the nights when my husband is away to tackle that. Taking an impromptu vacation doesn’t serve any of those goals.

But one of my oldest and best friends had written me to say she’d be in KL on business for just a couple of days, and wasn’t that really close to Bangkok? More than a decade ago, she wrote me a similar message when I lived in Beijing. “I’m going to be in Tokyo for a few days,” she said. 

At the time, I had a new baby. And I had a job. And my husband had to travel unpredictably for work, sometimes to places like Afghanistan or Iraq. It wasn’t a good time, I told her. I couldn’t go.

It’s taken me all the intervening years to realize that if a working mother waits until it’s a good time to take a trip purely for herself, she will never go. 

SHE WILL NEVER GO. 

It’s never a good time. There are never enough spare hours. There are always more reasons to stay home than to go. She’ll always say no. Finally, I’ve become a woman who works around the reasons and finds a way to say yes.

Understand: I’m not suggesting you abandon all responsibility, waste a ton of money and leave your responsibilities blowing in the wind. 

I said yes to the trip first, then I addressed each of the roadblocks (career, budget, childcare, time pressure). I came up with a story I could report from Kuala Lumpur and pitched it to an editor. Once I’d landed that job, I knew it would pay for the airfare and leave me with extra for childcare. Then I asked a friend I trust to watch the kids and offered to pay her a reasonable fee. And to tackle the time pressure, I also made sure I discussed the business I’m launching with the new friend I flew down with (herself the owner of a creative small business) and with the old friend I met up with (a career businesswoman with a ton of experience managing projects).

That’s how I ended up eating fragrant satay with wickedly good dipping sauce at the Shangri-la hotel in Malaysia’s capital last Friday afternoon. And it’s how I ended up sipping a well-mixed “bourbon martini” (which isn’t a real martini, I know) at a rooftop bar on the 57th floor of a building in the Petronas Towers complex, while reveling in the bird’s-eye view you see at the top of this post. 

Everyone’s life has different details. Another woman will have different opportunities, different places she wants to go and different solutions for the roadblocks that could stop her. But for all of us, there are ways to make an impractical opportunities just slightly more practical. You just have to commit first to actually going. Then you labor to figure out how to improve the situation. Once central thread for all of us, though: Asking other women for help and discuss concrete ways to return the favor.

This is my new approach, and I’m determined to make it a regular habit. The best way to build a new habit is to reinforce it, so here goes: I have another friend who is planning a work trip to Nepal next month. She mentioned that she’s up for having a few friends meet her in Katmandu when her work is done and spending maybe a week exploring the Himalayas. 

It’s another wildly impractical time for our family: My husband will again be out of town and the kids will have just finished their spring break. It’ll be time for them to motor through the final quarter of the school year. We’ll have just gotten back from a week in China. Everyone will be tired. I will have already missed some work hours. 

But I’m talking about maybe five days, seven at the most. Yes, I have kids and a job and a business to launch. Yes, the friend I’d be traveling with is in her 20′s, not married and without kids. Of course, she can do this. 

You know what? SO CAN I. 

The chance to go to Nepal isn’t likely to come along again soon, maybe ever. By the end of May, the season of monsoon rains begins, and travelers can easily get stranded or washed down a hill in a mudslide. 

So I’m going to brainstorm stories I can do on our China trip and then in Nepal, to maximize my work hours while traveling. I’m going to find the cheapest flight I can and bust my ass in the intervening weeks to earn a bit extra. And I’m going to work extra hard on business launch and get ahead of schedule. And I will work out childcare with friends, bartering if necessary to help them in ways they need assistance. 

That’s a lot to attempt, but it’s got to happen. Grabbing opportunities for yourself when you’re a working mother isn’t smooth or easy or practical. 

But it’s now or never. 

I pick now.  

#travel #motherhood

[melissarayworth]

TueNight.com: Taking Off and Waking Up

I take a lot of long-haul trips, the kind where I’m trapped in the coach seat of a jetliner for a dozen hours or more. So I’ve learned to sleep on planes. Within a half hour of slipping the plastic off my airline-issued blanket, I’m dozing deeply, head nestled against my bright pink travel pillow.

I used to fight it. I found the whole experience unsettling. One minute, I’m in New York, closing my eyes on the snowy tarmac of JFK, and the next thing I know I’m surrounded by the desert heat and social restrictions of Abu Dhabi. It’s surreal, emerging as the lights get brighter and the rustling of people and baggage brings the cabin suddenly to life, unsure for a moment where or when I am.

The control freak in me took years to accept that I was OK being totally, vulnerably asleep in such a public place, under a blanket that wasn’t mine, with total strangers – and not ones I’d chosen to sleep with – reclining next to me.

At some point, though, it all shifted. And now I’ve fallen in love with this weird experience of drifting off in one culture and waking in a radically different one.

READ the full essay here...  http://tuenight.com/2017/02/taking-off-and-waking-up/

#expatlife #america

[melissarayworth]

Show me your papers

With global immigration issues swirling around us, I'm especially aware today how much the freedom to travel and learn about other cultures means to me and my family. I'm also aware how fast time is rocketing by. 

Early tomorrow morning, we report to the American embassy here in Bangkok to renew our kids' passports. We're asked to show up with birth certificates, both parents -- and proof that these are the same kids who got the original passports we're renewing.

That means they want at least one photo from each year since early 2012, the year these well-worn passports were issued crisp and new, and not yet filled with visas and border crossing stamps from countries my children now know and care about. That was before the kids climbed hills in the town of Ninh Binh in Vietnam, and asked whether we could maybe someday live there for a year or two.

Before our oldest stood in silence at the Killing Fields memorial in Phnom Penh and asked me how the world can make sure no dangerous leader can harm his people like that again. Before they skipped rocks across a placid inlet in Malaysia and ate haggis in Glasgow (and grilled pork skewers in Siem Reap and Singapore, and banh mi in Hanoi and, thanks to our global world, devoured especially juicy cheeseburgers and french fries in Abu Dhabi).  

I’d figured gathering these photos was just another bit of miscellany to cross off my list last night. But as I began searching for them, I saw it all laid out in front of me -- the illustrated arc of these two little boys emerging as new and g growing adolescents. Their features became sharper. Their eyes began regarding the camera with more understanding. 

They're becoming young men so quickly. They are emerging into a world where they watch women's rights marches shine a spotlight upon the divide in gender rights and where the travel between nations that they do so often, so easily, is in jeopardy for families not unlike our own throughout the planet.

Who are they becoming? Who will each of us choose to be today and tomorrow and the day after? Use every minute well, I told myself this morning. Use it well and boldly and in the service of things that matter.

[melissarayworth]

Be very afraid.

I know you’re busy. I know summer’s ending and school is starting. 

But keep in mind: Your children could be poisoned by the fish-on-bun lurking on their lunch tray this school year. Don’t forget that. 

Or they might get bullied online by some rotten kid from their math class or maybe they'll share too much sensitive info online about your family and end up drawing the attention of online predators of every imaginable kind. That would be bad. It could happen.

And do you have babies? Because if you have babies, don't forget that they could suffocate in their cribs if they happen to have one of those charming little crib bumpers. Even if you don't have crib bumpers, keep in mind that we're supposed to worry over babies all the time, every day, at least until the day we can begin worrying about them being poisoned by school lunches and/or abused by rotten kids and evil adults hiding within their digital devices.

Which we know they use too often, and aren't you worried about all those hours of screen-time?

September is National Baby Safety Month.

September is National Food Safety Education Month.

And apparently it's also National Let's Get Parents Worried About Everything We Can Think Of Month for publicists around the U.S.

The worry-laden e-mails started trickling into my in-box three weeks ago, each one using the news peg of “back-to-school” to suggest I write a story that shills their product or quotes their expert talking head discussing all the things parents really should remember to dwell on this time of year.

They're asking me, and writers like me, to spread all this parental worry in the service of their clients. Sure, each one of them is probably offering a snippet of decent advice.  

This year, I refuse.

I’m done. 

Instead, I'm writing about how destructive it is that in America good parenting has become synonymous with being mildly worried all the time. That climate of constant, low-level concern changes a person over time. During Year One of babyhood, it feels necessary. During Years Two and Three, it still seems warranted as our kids begin to walk and then run. But instead of us gradually disengaging with that angst as our kids begin to grow, this huge cultural machine -- often driven by the growing glut of "lifestyles" media content -- keeps on serving up new reasons for us to worry.

Before we know it, the worry starts seeping into every little corner of life. We become tightly coiled, ever on guard for the next threat while keeping an eye on all the ones currently bubbling.

I'm done writing stories that "help" parents figure out what else to worry about.

And I'm diving into this school year focused on all the reasons why my kids can thrive instead of searching for new reasons they're endangered.

[melissarayworth]

One wild tropical bloom on my otherwise urban balcony. #flowers #Bangkok (at Bangkok, Thailand)

#bangkok #flowers

[melissarayworth]

My husband got younger today.

My husband's Christmas beard came off today, according to plan.

For as long as I've known him, each year he stops shaving in early December and sports a serious beard by Christmas morning. It's purely practical, offering a bit of warmth and a welcome break from the daily grind of shaving.

It's been his routine for so many Decembers that it's only stood out to me in the few, rare years when he's skipped this annual ritual. 

Until now.

This year, his beard came in as robustly as usual. But rather than being brown with a sprinkling of gray, it was mostly gray with a mix of brown and white. As the days passed and it grew fuller, the white began to dominate. 

He kept talking about how old he looked. I felt older just looking at him. It was like a strange, accidental visit to the future. 

One night last week, we stepped in from the snowy cold of Sapporo, Japan, to shop in an Under Armour store. Browsing through the clothing, my husband looked up and thought he saw "an old American guy" looking at him. Then he realized: It was his own face in a mirror across the store. 

He was amazed that he could be so unfamiliar with his own appearance, even for a moment. Gray hair says "old" in our culture. White hair says "really old." We are not yet either of these things, but we live in a culture so youth-focused that it’s easy to lose sight of that. 

By the time we got home from Japan on Friday night, my husband and I were both kind of amazed at his transformation. But it got even stranger yesterday, when he shaved half of it off. His young face was framed by a white goatee, a strange mashup between his young self and the person he’s continuously becoming.  

This morning, that goatee came off. Totally clean-shaven, he was “himself” again. He literally appeared to be 10 or 15 years younger in a matter of minutes. But are we the selves we’ve been for the past 20 years? Or are we becoming new people, older and hopefully wiser, and maybe able to be OK with looking like we’re not new to adulthood? 

We've been puzzling in recent months over the intersection between actual aging and the vague, fleeting experience of "feeling old." The visible signs of aging -- gray hair, wrinkles, a few extra pounds -- can be a catalyst that makes us feel even older than we really are. Ignoring these cultural signposts is really difficult, but being swayed by their significance is a choice I’m determined not to make. 

We are more than the sum of our hair color and our smile lines. We are what we do and how we live. That’s the battleground where we keep or lose our youth. And it’s one we fight on every day as we balance raising kids with living fully and intensely. 

[melissarayworth]

When is a cave not really a cave?

Our eyes adjusted as the river current brought us out of the sun and into the darkness of a cave. We looked around, Wyatt and I, as we paddled through the darkness. "Definitely no leeches in here," he said, smiling. "But none of this is real." 

That's the thing. None of this is real.

We've spent the last three days in a totally artificial environment, doing the kind of vacationing that normally isn't our style. We're staying at the Centara Grand Mirage beach resort in Pattaya, Thailand, where the "lost world" theme includes a "jungle river" through fake caves and huge monuments in the shapes of elephants and tigers that almost -- but not quite -- look as though they were carved by some ancient civilization. There are many waterfalls, big and small, that roar down fake rocks spilling gallons of safely chlorinated water. One beautiful pool flows into another, with artificial rock outcroppings perfect for lounging appearing at convenient intervals. 

Towering coconut palm trees are planted strategically, so there is plenty of shade under the tropical sun. We looked up at one point while swimming, Wyatt and I, and we noticed that there are one of two green coconuts growing, or appearing to grow, toward the top of each palm tree. "Do you think those are real?" he asked me. "I honestly don't know," was the best answer I could offer. The beach here is real. The weather is real. And palm trees do grow in this region of the world. But within the confines of this resort everything is so meticulously planned, so convenient, so sanitized and safe, that it's easy to second-guess most everything you see.

Wyatt knew right away that the "carvings" on the "cave wall" behind the bed in our "deluxe ocean view" room were real. Last month, we stayed in a guest house in Ninh Binh, two hours outside Hanoi, and part of our room extended into an actual cave. There was glass between us and the snakes, but from our bathroom you could peer into the dark, very real recesses of that cave and watch things crawl around. This room has a super-fluffy bed with high-thread count linens. But within a week we may forget most of the details. That room in the real cave in Vietnam will likely stay in our memories for years to come. 

It’s true that in Vietnam I couldn't promise him for sure as we rowed along a river through yet another series of caves that there weren't any leeches. So there are things he prefers about this built environment here at the Centara Grand. And I totally get it. He tells me it's so easy to be here, and to never worry about anything while we're in this bubble.

He's right, of course. I'm so used to traveling with him to real places where there are real worries. I'm so aware of the prevalence of terrorism right now and the risks we take just being Americans abroad. So it's been relaxing, truly, to be inside this bubble for a little while. Each time we descended a huge stone staircase to step out onto the public beach, I felt my radar go up -- my body reacting to the difference between a carefully sculpted safe space and the actual, unpredictable world. 

We hear a lot about “safe spaces” these days. In so many places the world feels more chaotic than ever, though perhaps that’s partly because we’re beginning to face directly some of the chaos and strife that’s always been there. So I can relate to the hunger for safe places to let our guard down.  

But I watch the families here -- speaking English and Russian and Chinese and languages I can't quite identify -- and I wonder if this will be their only experience of Thailand. Will they see any real rivers or real caves or real towns where life actually happens? Or will they go home knowing of Thailand only this generic, we-could-be-absolutely-anywhere-warm-and-sunny resort environment? 

A few days here is a luxury, and I was glad to grab this supposedly deluxe room for a discounted rate. Maybe we'll come back again. Wyatt wants his dad and brother to jump off the fake cliff with him into the perfectly warm pool, and I agree that it would be a lot of fun for us four to be there together. But, despite the risk, I’m really glad we'll also explore as many more real places as our time Asia will allow. I hope the families we've seen here get a chance -- and make the choice -- to do the same.  

[melissarayworth]

Introducing: Alabaster

It’s been a difficult year. Bombs and hostage-taking and beheadings and planes blown out of the sky. We’re hurting over the brutality we see erupting in so many places. We’re worried, and we’re also tired of being worried, about terrorism and about the global destruction of the environment and about the economy.

We’ve seen repeatedly in 2015 that there are no easy answers. Where is it safe to live? Which foods will give you cancer? When will an epic storm destroy the landscape? How do you protect yourself and still keep on living your life? Will you have enough money to live a decade from now? We are awash in questions and we’ve heard only shouting and accusations in place of answers.

So it’s both amazing and not at all surprising to find out that the “color of the year” for 2016 isn’t a bold blue or shimmering purple or fabulous pink. It’s “alabaster.” That’s right: According to the folks at Sherwin-Williams paint, the most popular color of 2016 will be a “barely there” creamy shade of white.

I nearly deleted the e-mail announcing this non-event, because it’s one of dozens I get each day from publicists around the world. But the words stopped me, with their promise of “an atmosphere of ease and contentment” and “healing, rest and meditation.” They say alabaster offers “an oasis of calmness, spirituality and ‘less is more’ visual relief,” and I can't help but notice that they’re not really talking about home decorating.

They're talking about how the hell we’re all going to keep ourselves trudging forward in a spirit of hope and resilience when it feels like so much of our world is a badly, maybe irrevocably damaged mess. Our mess is so big and so frightening that this paint company, whose whole business is about getting you to fill your home with colors, is suggesting we soothe ourselves with a shade that they say inspires debate over “whether it is a color at all.”

We’re still a few weeks away from the biggest of these announcements – the Pantone “color of the year,” which tends to get a lot of attention in both the home design and the fashion worlds. I wonder whether they are considering the global need for peace and reassurance as they annoint some particular shade as next year’s most wanted.

I’m a fan of the vibrant and the bold, the colors that grab you and wake you from the sleep-walking that’s been so common in American life for the past few decades. I’ve worked hard to fill my adult life with adventure and experience and color, even when it’s difficult. But right now, the thought of spending just a little time – a week maybe, or a month – in some serene, neutral, gently colored place where I can rest my head and my family can rest theirs is incredibly appealing. Not forever. Not as a way of life. But in this mid-winter time when daylight is in short supply and we gather to hopefully recharge our minds and bodies to begin a new year with fresh eyes and fresh hearts, I’m ready to give in, at least briefly, to the soft beauty of alabaster.

[melissarayworth]

Mommy Hottest: Why I’m not sacrificing my sexy for my kids

“A mother’s arms are made of tenderness and children sleep soundly in them.” —Victor Hugo

“Stacy’s mom has got it going on.” —Fountains of Wayne

Last month, my husband came home after a week of work travel. He brought me this incredible dress from a street market in London — a steampunk mashup of leather and lace with a thin brass chain dangling from the neckline that somehow reads as both sweet and sexual. It’s the kind of completely impractical piece of provocative clothing he knows I adore but would never buy for myself. I went into the bathroom, slipped it on, then walked back into our bedroom.

His face lit up. “I love it,” he said quietly, looking at me like I was the only person on the planet.

Our two boys, who’d been busy opening the souvenirs he’d brought them, stared at me.

“Awkward silence,” the 8-year-old stage-whispered.

And then this, from the 12-year-old: “Mom,” he said, “you don’t look like you.”

Lately, that’s the problem. Society has finally caught up with the fact that women are no less sexy after we’ve made babies, and I’ve finally gotten confident enough to see my strengths instead of obsessing over my weaknesses. It’s the era of “hot moms” (a ridiculous phrase that I hate), and I’m letting myself enjoy it. But all that zeitgeist-y fun is colliding with the fact that my body shares an apartment with two adolescent boys who are increasingly aware of all things female.

The “awkward silence” that my youngest loves to point out seems to bubble up whenever I wear something that draws any attention to my body or whenever I flirt with their father and electrify the air between us for even a moment. Understand: I’m not walking around the house in lingerie. But the boys seem to think I’m breaking the rules just by wearing a T-shirt that doesn’t hide the fact that I (ssshh!) have breasts.

The boys seem to think I’m breaking the rules just by wearing a T-shirt that doesn’t hide the fact that I (ssshh!) have breasts.

If you can’t figure out where your sexy self fits within your life as a new mom or you’re simply too busy learning to mother tiny humans to worry about it, the easiest thing to do is set aside that part of yourself for a few years. But once those years pass and you’re ready to reclaim that piece of yourself, what happens to that sexy, badass girl who has been hibernating inside?

If she has preteen sons, they may look at her like she’s a crazy person when she re-emerges.

Would this be easier if I were French? Because in America, sex is everywhere — in every commercial and every piece of pop culture that surrounds us. We’re constantly marketed products and services designed to boost our sex appeal, and we’re fed sexual imagery so we’ll buy things that have nothing to do with sex. (Stay classy, Carl’s Jr.)

But we’ve still got this powerful Puritan legacy just under the surface that tells us mothers must be pure, lovely, gentle creatures. The collective script summons us to pretend (when kids are in the room) that sex does not exist and never has. We’re supposed to build some kind of wall between our growing kids and the reality that people are sexy, even though sexy people in sexy advertisements are everywhere.

American women are encouraged to be hot and encouraged to be moms, and now we’re supposed to be grateful for the public permission to be both. But merging the two is always presented as kind of impossible, unless you’re cool with being vaguely embarrassing (we’re looking at you, Stifler’s mom) or a transgressive rule-breaker living on the fringe (Cher in Mask, Linda Hamilton in Terminator 2 and most everyone with a child on “Sons of Anarchy”).

Where does that leave the rest of us? I don’t own a motorcycle and the last thing I want to do is make my boys cringe. But I also I refuse to give up the next 10 years that way.

Obviously I’m not going to walk around the house naked or serve dinner in a lacy camisole. But I’m also not going to wait a decade to let myself look hot in an effort to keep my kids in the cultural equivalent of a padded room.

So do I play it safe? Do I prevent myself from looking even vaguely sexy except when they’re not home? Or do I ignore their mild discomfort, and my own, and just figure it’ll fade away eventually?

I think mild discomfort is the only option. I’m going to make some missteps as I try to merge the hot girl of my 20s with the mother I became in my 30s and the confident woman I finally am in my 40s. But that’s better than consciously keeping a part of me buried, which only reinforces the stereotypes that have dogged women for far too long.

I am going to flirt with my husband. We can’t be expected to squeeze our entire romance into the two or three hours between the kids falling asleep in their beds and us falling asleep in ours. Our romance is the reason that these boys exist, so they can deal with knowing it’s still strong.

And I am going to wear that leather dress the next time we go out on a date, even if it makes the good-night-boys-and-please-behave-for-the-babysitter moment a little uncomfortable. Awkward silence is better than keeping a central part of myself under wraps for one more day.

With all respect to my sons, in that dress I do look like me. Women are sexy (and not just the ones in Photoshopped advertisements) and they’re not transgressing by letting the world notice that without apology. If my boys are going to understand what a woman really is — a whole woman, not the media stereotypes — they need to see me, their mother, as I really am. It’s time.

This essay originally appeared on TueNight.com, a weekly storytelling publication for women in life's middle.  www.tuenight.com

[melissarayworth]

Tropical blooms on our urban balcony. #nofilter #Bangkok #Asia

#bangkok #nofilter #asia

[melissarayworth]

Wacky machines, Bangkok edition. Just in case you need to slice some ice. (at TERMINAL 21 Shopping Mall)

[melissarayworth]

Moving so fast I could barely capture him. #latergram #basketball (at Traill International School)

#basketball #latergram

[melissarayworth]

In the U.S., this ad would sell self-tanner. In Asia, it sells self-whitener. Because no matter how you look, the beauty industry is selling the idea that you need fixing. #beautymyth (at BTS สยาม (Siam))

#beautymyth

[melissarayworth]

Bangkok street corner, under watchful eyes. #latergram (at Phrom Phong BTS Station)

#latergram

[melissarayworth]

Morning at Siam Paragon: mall guards assemble beneath the watchful eyes of billboard babes. (at Siam Paragon | สยามพารากอน)

[melissarayworth]

Sino/Siam: busy morning in Bangkok's Chinatown. (at Yaowarat Road)