i decided i ought to stay up to date on the world of professional cuddling so i googled “professional cuddling” and narrowed my search to recent news articles. I was first impressed by simply the quantity of relevant articles that came up. then i was impressed by the seriousness of the articles. when i started professional snuggling, i felt as though people questioned what i was doing much more intensely. i felt scrutinized and ridiculed. it doesn’t look quite that way anymore. maybe its easier to have perspective when reading about other people (rather than myself) or maybe the attitude really has shifted and become more accepting.

i remember when i first met with my advisor and the chairperson at my graduate school program to discuss “professionalism” (it was really to inform me that i would not be welcome to attend classes the following week when the semester began because of my blossoming snuggling career). i remember as i began to realize what they were saying, my body felt tingly and i felt like i was in a tunnel and their voices were far away. at some point i began to cry and say things to them but the words i spoke sounded so childish and completely inadequate. i couldn’t possibly express how shunned and dejected i felt. there was a world i desperately wanted to be a part of and i couldn’t. i was “inappropriate”. snuggling was inappropriate.

it looks like things are changing. there are professional snugglers in 16 states (according to the wall street journal) and in many other countries. its becoming a very serious movement in Canada. its catching on and i hope it sticks. i hope it becomes something “appropriate” because people should have many resources available to meet basic needs and enrich their lives and professional cuddling does that for both the “snuggler” and “snuglee”. i remember for one of my early newspaper interviews the reporter asked me whether medicaid covered the cost of a cuddling session. the fact that a person who was competent enough to get a job at a major newspaper actually thought, even if only for a moment, that professional snuggling could be sanctioned in that way, brought me a ton of joy. i laughed and laughed.

it has not been easy. i can’t tell you how many times i’ve been asked what i do, answered simply as possible, and been asked “so you’re like a prostitute who doesn’t have sex?” i’ve stopped telling people what i do. for a few years, i ignored nearly all media requests. i’ve started feeling “normal” but i still have this strong desire to reconcile this one aspect of my professional life with my very real need to feel accepted. i say “this one aspect” because my professional life has evolved to include much more than just snuggling.

ultimately, i believe that i just need to be stronger in my convictions. when i say what i’m doing with more certainty, i am less likely to be questioned. when i turn the magnifying glass around, back onto the interrogater, or our culture, i empower myself and remove self-doubt. and as snuggling becomes more mainstream, i become more extrinsically validated.

I was at “work” today. Cuddle work. My client had left and I was folding a set of clean sheets. As I grabbed it by the corners to shake out all the wrinkles, a tiny pink and white newborn sock fell onto the floor. It had a tiny pink satiny ribbon. I felt nostalgic. I missed the baby whose foot belonged in the sock. I thought of how strange it was to be in this place—what a strange combination of events had to occur for me to be in this place at this moment. I went down to my barn basement the other day and saw the writing I’d left on the wall years before: “I feel like I’m dreaming a lot. Life happens fast. This is the best life I’ve ever had.” Well now this is the best I’ve ever had. She is the best I’ve ever had. She looks at me with this quiet, thoughtful look in her eyes and her entire face slowly illuminates as she realizes her joy. Her mouth turns into a smile. Its like she’s in love with being. I’m in love with her.

She looks at me with such thoughtful eyes. She looks exactly how I felt as a child. Spring is coming. Today someone told me that the tips of the deciduous trees are showing green. I hadn’t noticed but I believe it. My baby is coming to life. She is animated in ways that thrill me. The experience of becoming a mother again has been exhilarating.

I think about the way snuggling has evolved for me over the past few years. In the beginning, it was exciting to conceptualize but there was discomfort associated with the unknown. Fear? I was definitely anxious and uncomfortable the very first time but determined to stick to this internal script I’d developed– to not reveal any anxiety or ambiguity. In retrospect, it probably would have been fine to succinctly acknowledge out loud what the experience was like for me. It is different now. I look forward to it. It’s a break from the day; a respite. I’m at “The Snuggery” much less often but the time I spend there is time that I remember. It adds meaning to the rest of my life in ways that unfold and deepen with time.

Growth. Growth happened within me and then a child came out of me. Ideas grew from me. Relationships have grown between me and the people I cuddle. Its all coming together and I’m feeling grateful.

Nursery school was overwhelming. I frequently assumed I had responsibilities that were beyond the scope of what wasactually expected of me. I remember my father driving me to the pre-nursery school interview. I was three years old, sitting in the back of his car, lamenting silently because I expected they would test me on my letters and I frequently confused V with Z. For that entire long 8-minute drive I tried to remember which was V and which was Z. The solution kept shifting. V kept becoming Z and my silent despair was growing. The next thing I remember was sitting in the tiny plastic chair at a miniature table, watching the too-big teacher sit in the child-sized chair, and then watching her pull the foam letters out of a plastic zip-loc type bag. She said she was going to ask me which letters were which and it was okay if I didn’t know the answer. I didn’t believe her. It certainly was not “okay” if this unfamiliar lady asked me to do something as simple as identify a foam letter and I was unable. Every single letter she presented was obvious but I could think of nothing else, feel nothing else, besides this sense of impending doom, the horrible anticipation of the moment when she either presented a V or a Z. Finally she pulled a V out of her bag. I looked down and at me fingernails and whispered “V” very quietly. I hoped that if I was wrong, she wouldn’t hear me. I still don’t know whether I was right or wrong. It may have actually been a Z.

i grew up living in my own silent space. i occupied my head space and rarely spoke to others about the things i thought or felt. others fascinated me because it often seemed that they were able to effortlessly and seamlessly occupy both their head space and an exterior social space. my mother tells me that of her seven babies, i was the quietest. i never cried– i simply observed. maybe i was learning.

touch played an important role. it was a way to occupy the same space as others. in nursery school i remember sitting, quietly watching the other children playing. my teacher came up behind me and said “uh oh, i think Jackie’s batteries died” and she scooped me up, exclaimed she was going to change my batteries, and began tickling me ferociously. instantly, i stopped being an observer and became a participant. i could hear my laughter and i felt happy.

today, at the gym, i walked on a treadmill for 30 minutes. my “workouts” have become increasingly mild. my heart rate stays around 110 and every time i start to exert myself, my ligaments hurt or the baby digs into my insides. today, every time i tried to walk a little faster, she would kick me in the ribs while concurrently punching me in my pelvic floor area. she’s strong. when Peti was a fetus, he never hurt me. i was always confused when other women complained of their fetuses moving in ways that caused pain. but now i’m worried.

i had this dream that she was born with tiny sharp rotting teeth and her movement was jittery and frenetic. she didn’t walk- she scampered. her eyes were bloodshot and darted from one spot to another, never focusing. i couldn’t connect with her. other women looked at her and asked if i was sure she was my baby and why, if she was really a newborn, could she run? i insisted she was perfect and they finally agreed but with obvious reservation.

i’m sure dreams are a way of exaggerating concerns so they can be expressed to oneself and understood in their overstated form. maybe part of me is concerned because she is a girl. i suppose because she is a girl, i expect myself to connect with her more deeply, to identify with her, and serve as a model for what she is to become. i need to reconcile the realization that she is still her own beautiful, vibrant strong self with the fact that as her mother, as a female adult, i will be needed by her in ways that my boy child never needed me. i will shape aspects of her identity similarly to how my own mother shaped aspects of my own sense of self.

touch. sometimes nothing makes sense until we reach out and touch one another. then the connection happens, attachments form, shared spaces are occupied, and suddenly whats best for me is best for you. in the context of a mother-child relationship, i suppose thats why i find breastfeeding so important. obviously, in other contexts, i’ve managed to find physical contact in other ways. cuddling. i used to like boxing. adolescence. i loved hitting people hard. i still do but it happens less often and these days, no one hits back.

baby woke me up at 2am again. i came downstairs and cleaned the remainder of the dinner dishes, prepped all the ingredients for smoothies in the morning, did some laundry, walked the dog, and then sat in the empty nursery for some time, thinking about the past few years… how i ended up here at this perfect but precarious place.

precarious. anything that is uncertain, though lacking stability, is exciting. full of possibility. i have a person growing inside me who i don’t know at all yet. i’ve dreamed about her since i was a little girl, wanted her, hoped for her, and thought i would never have her. i’ve washed and folded her tiny dresses, leggings, socks and booties. i’ve held the fabric to my face and breathed in, trying to imagine what it’ll be like to hold her body with my arms and smell her.

tonight as i read to Peti, i showed him how if i pushed on my belly in a certain way, i could push her head from one spot and feel her butt moving in another spot. he laughed and said “she’s probably in there saying ‘Mom, stop it!’ “. It was the first time i thought about her calling me “mom”. she’ll be just as much my child as Peti is and i’ll love her just as much as i love him. she won’t be a stranger when she’s born. she’ll be my daughter.

when i typed “daughter”, she kicked me hard.

the room that will be hers was always my least favorite room of all. the walls had strange, ugly texture that seemed to have been applied with drywall compound in an experimental fashion. today, the drywall/plaster specialist man finally fixed them. i can’t stop going into that empty room and imagining the paint and furniture, blankets, and her. truthfully, i doubt she’ll see the inside of that room more than a handful of times in her first few years. she’ll be with me. but i suppose her room is a quiet place to nap or take a bath. i like her bathroom. she has the cutest bathroom in the house. i’m rambling.

i think making a nursery is more important to the parents of the child than the child (obviously). it makes the child’s imminent arrival more physical- visual, tangible, external. she only exists inside me right now. i’m trying not to be a consumer. i want previously enjoyed baby items… especially items used by babies i know and like.

last year at this time, things were really different. there was a media cloud around me. my phone rang all day and all night. reporters and people from places all over this country and other countries called with sometimes uplifting things and sometimes frightening things to say. i was in a spinning place. disoriented. things couldn’t be any more different. its nice, reassuring, that things can change so entirely. i’ve got my feet planted and little invisible roots digging into the earth. a baby rooted in me, attached by pulsing vessels i can feel when i simply place my hand on my belly.

i used to volunteer facilitating a parenting class in a women’s correctional facility. there was one unit called “Roots and Wings”. i loved that concept- the necessity of roots prior to wings. i loved those women. they were bright vibrant ladies.

the end.

There is a fetus in my uterus and I’m really pleased. I’ve wanted her since I was a little girl. I used to lay on the top shelf of my bedroom closet (when I was small enough to fit) and imagine her—holding her tiny hand, watching her walk through tall grass, wading through streams, teaching her and loving her as she grows. She wakes me up every morning at about 3am, kicking and twisting her little body. I get up in the quiet of the almost morning and clean cupboards, dust books, organize closets and imagine her- perfect and new- in a clean house with little baskets filled with organic cloth diapers and blankets to wrap her in. I imagine mobiles made of driftwood, delicately suspended shiny coppery bits, tiny mirrors trimmed in colored ribbons that catch the light and catch her eye, dangling over the basket I’ll keep her in.

When Peti was inside me, I would put the speakers from the radio up to my belly and read while he listened to reggae and classical music. After he was born, there were nights when nothing would quiet him except this one Bob Marley CD I’d played for him before he was born. I’d light candles, turn the music up, hold him in my arms and dance him through the living room ‘til he settled and slept

I can’t imagine what she’ll be like.  Everything seems new and possible. She kicks her tiny feet and I see my belly moving, grab Peti’s hand and place it where he can feel her. He laughs, his eyes light up. He’s wanted to be a big brother since he was 3 years old. We’re happy.

Her due date is December 25^th. I expect and hope she will come a week or two early. I’m planning a homebirth and enjoying compiling a list of all the things I’ll need to bring her into the world comfortably. I can’t wait for winter- cozy fires and clean wood floors. Sheepskin naps. Baking bread and soup simmering on the stove. Newborn booties and blanket lined baskets with her tiny body swaddled securely inside.

i went to my son’s 3rd grade presentation on cultural diversity yesterday. each third grade class represented a different country. my son’s class was Egypt. the other classes had selected Japan and Brazil.

as they filed on stage in that deliberate clumsy way large groups of children do, i tried to catch my son’s gaze. i could see him scanning the crowd, unable to find me, looking disappointed. then our eyes locked, his face lit up, and we waved. after that, he looked happier for the rest of the presentation. he was one of the kids who sang quietly, shifted his weight from one foot to the other with his hands jammed into his pockets, and gazed at nothing in particular as his lips moved in the shape of the words he knew so well. occasionally our eyes would meet and he would smile self-assuredly, like he knew something secret that made him happy.

after their songs were over, i found him in the crowd of children, told him he’d done a good job, and let him know i was leaving. he grabbed me by the hand and said “no mama, you have to try the samples of food from the different countries”. his little grip was so solid. i felt so fortunate to be his mother, to be the one he wanted. we ate soybeans and tropical fruit and hummus (generously donated by Aladdins said the little paper sign) out of tiny plastic sample cups.

its 4am. i can’t sleep. i had bad dreams. my best friend and i were on scooters and there were bad people chasing us. my scooter was battery powered and required a little red metal key to start it. i couldn’t find the key until the last moment. then we fled. my friend got away but then i decided to go visit another friend in a foreign “jail”.

jail. it was just a giant room with lots beds hanging off the wall at various levels, tons of childhood blankets, a kitchen that looked similar to one in a nice hostel i once stayed at in puerto viejo, and lots of tall, skinny, dirty men-boys who looked like they’d been living on the street.

while i was visiting my friend, the “guard” came by and informed me that i had an unpaid parking ticket and i was going to have to stay in jail. at first i didn’t mind. it seemed like it would be fun and i was certain i would get out soon because my offense was so minor.

the problem was that once we were locked in the room, we were forgotten. i was in this jail for what seemed like a very long time with my friend and his tall, skinny brother. the brother had stringy dirty blond hair and he was very nice. i kept asking when i was going to get out and finally they told me that no one was coming back to let us out. i started saying i wanted my mom and dad and the street boys said my parents didn’t have the right personalities to visit me here and it would just be awkward. they were right so i decided to find another solution.

i realized that in real life, i wouldn’t be in jail. then i remembered that lately, i’ve been having strange dreams. i decided to wake up. then i wasn’t in jail anymore. i was in my bed.

i got a puppy from a parking lot. i wanted a puppy/dog for a long time and then i saw this man selling puppies out of a box in the parking lot at the public market on saturday so i thought that i was supposed to have this puppy. it was a german shepard mix (just like i wanted). it felt good to hand the man the money and then to scoop up the puppy and hand him to my little boy then watch my little boy carrying our new puppy to the car, beaming the way little boys seem to beam only when they’re carrying a puppy that is slightly too big for their arms but they don’t care cuz that’s their puppy.

my puppy is afraid of everything except food. he likes all food and his cowardlyness disappears in the face of food. he even likes smoothies (not that he is permitted to have smoothies but sometimes he is sneaky).

anyways… back to the puppy being afraid of everything. i open his crate door and he just stands they, whimpers like he’s really excited, wags his tail, does these little half pouncy jumps, but refuses to exit the crate. its like there is an invisible barrier covering the crate opening that only he can see or smell.

i’m worried that Max (the puppy) will never be brave and i won’t be able to love him. what if i’m incapable of loving this perfectly cute, harmless, scared puppy? i think this might be a first world problem.

i suppose i have moments of loving him but i have more moments of playfully teasing him, telling him he’s just a big fat blob of puppy and that we’re gonna make puppy patties and puppy burgers and puppy dogs out of him. to make matters worse, there is all this pressure to love this dumb little beast because my child has formed an attachment and professes his love already. i gently proposed the idea that perhaps our puppy was defective and we could trade him in for another puppy and my boy admonished me quite severely, telling me that we have to love the puppy we have and people don’t trade in puppies.

i think i’m going to seek professional help. i’m going to the dog trainer to see if i can make my dog braver. i’m pretty sure this can work out. we’re only on day 4.

a was driving home from lunch and my phone rang so i pushed the little button on my steering wheel which allows me to use the bluetooth feature and speak on the cell phone safely (one of my most favorite things about my new prius c) and it was a man from brooklyn with an accent i couldn’t recognize. i said “hello” and he said “you know, you’re famous”. so then i wanted to know what he’d seen/heard/read about me (i’d think by now i’d be tired of it but my ego must really like all the attention cuz every time someone says they saw/heard/read about me i turn into a little kid on the inside and i get all excited and i want to see/hear/read whatever they saw/heard/read)… anyways, i felt important, driving around in my fuel efficient car, talking on my bluetooth speaker phone thing to a man who saw me on nbc, sipping my papaya pear lemon smoothie.

life doesn’t get much better than papaya pear lemon smoothies… actually, strawberry pear lemon is better.

have you ever googled yourself? i love to google people.

i want goats but i don’t want to have to take care of them. i want their milk.

adrenal glands! this morning i woke up and decided that my adrenal glands were tired and i needed to support them. licorice tea. meditation. relaxation. plenty of snuggling. hot lavender baths. celery beet juice…. those are all ways to support optimal adrenal functioning. the celery juice is supposed to balance sodium levels and correct blood pressure aberrations. cuddling reduces cortisol levels.

this entry reflects my tendency to rapidly shift attention.

i traveled today. i drove my car to the airport, got on a flight from rochester to NYC then from NYC to Paris and then from Paris to Beirut. i became increasingly nervous with each flight closer to Beirut. countless people advised me not to come here. they said it was unsafe, that there was political unrest and that Americans are not well liked in this area of the world.

my reaction to the anxiety was to sleep. i slept through every flight. on the flight from Paris to Beirut, i slept so hard it was startling and disorienting every time someone woke me up, speaking to me in French, to tell me to put my tray table up, ask me if i wanted pasta or beef, or ask me to move over so they could go to the bathroom. i had vivid dreams that seemed real but were quickly forgotten. i watched people watching me watching them watching me.

the production manager of the show was waiting for me with a sign with my name on it when i came through customs. he had me wait on the curb while he went to get the car. after he left, another car pulled up with a man that looked kind of like the first guy. the man opened his door and gestured for me to get in. i got in, thinking it was the original man. we were driving away from the airport when he asked me “where to?” and it struck me that the guy picking me up already knew where he was taking me and then i looked more carefully at the guy presently driving and became aware that i was in the wrong car. i explained this to him and he laughed and took me back. then the original guy pulled up and took me to the hotel.

i like it here. i’m at the heart of a shopping district and i found a purse i want to buy. its only 79,000 Lebanese pounds which is maybe a little more than $50… but that’s okay because there was this purse in the airport in Paris that was absolutely beautiful that i coveted for some time before inquiring about the price. that purse was $971. i was sad. so a $50 purse is like a consolation prize.

so i’m here in Beirut, i’m happy, i’ve wandered the streets, found a booth that sold delicious green mushy hot stuff on rice, ate till my belly felt adequately filled, and then raided the mini bar to find a kit kat bar. i ate it in spite of my anti-sugar policies because, i decided, i need some comfort food. being alone in a foreign country merits the consumption of comfort foods, even if they are processed and full of sugar. i think it might be hot bath-netflix-bedtime. this hotel is beautiful. everything is marble and red velvet with gold trim and the ceilings are really high with ornate crown molding and limestone pillars and balconies and blah blah blah. i want more chocolate.

i’m feeling good.