​My twenty-something son is living at home with us again.

Mother's Day before last, I met him and his girlfriend for brunch. He seemed nervous. After we'd ordered, he gave me my card. I thanked them. "Open it," he urged.

Inside was an ultrasound.
​
I have always hoped that both of sons will, as adults, find loving, positive, supportive partners with whom to share their lives. But holy heck, I still fell off my chair. My son, a junior in college, just told me he was going to be a dad. 

I offered them hugs, congratulations and best wishes.

Afterwards, we walked out to our separate cars. I drove home in a daze. On the way, I stopped at a convenience store and bought a Coke and a pack of cigarettes. I'd quit smoking a year before, and drink only coffee and tea since being diagnosed with diabetes six years ago.

Except that week.

I was alone at our cabin that weekend, so I called my three best girlfriends, all of whom have children in their teens or older.

"What do I do now?" I asked. "This is my first grandchild. I should be ecstatic. But my heart is breaking."

That was just over a year and a half ago. It's been a tough go, for all of us, I think. My son's college pursuit just kinda unraveled. So he quit. My husband and I refused to continue paying their apartment rent at school if he was no longer attending classes. They gave notice on their apartment, put most of their belongings in storage, and moved the three hours from their forest college town to our big, busy city in the desert.

She moved with the baby to her parent's home. There was no room there for my son or their two dogs, so he moved back into his old room with us.

They've been living separately for a month and a half now.

His girlfriend says I'm making it easy for him to slack off. She accuses me of being a helicopter parent and orders me not to do his laundry. Says "Make him do chores. Pay rent. Or kick him out. Make him get a job."

Her mother and father tell him he must find full-time work immediately, any kind of work, and start supporting his girlfriend and their year-old son. Her parents want their house back, sans infant, no matter how much they love their daughter and grandson.

I've offered repeatedly to make space for all three of them here. We have extra rooms and would simply have to re-allocate the space, and baby-proof the house, which my husband and I are both willing to do. But how hard does one push when extending an offer that obviously isn't welcomed? So we backed off.

In the midst of this stressful time, I remind myself that this week is the 1-year anniversary of my stroke. Stress. Stroke. Stress. Stroke. No matter the other extraneous circumstances, I know my own brain, my own heart, better than anyone else. I know, beyond any doubt, that for me, stress and stroke were related. To stay healthy, I now consciously manage my stress. You know the saying…."give me the strength to change the things I can, and say 'go to hell' to all the things I can't."

This year, instead of stressing over our current circumstances, I choose to be thankful.
First, I'm thankful that the spawn's dogs bonded with ours. This last month would have been hell if our five pets (we have two cats also) couldn't live together. But our dog, Teak, is overjoyed to be living in a pack. The cats, not so much. But, other than the exponential increase of animal fur in the house, we're getting along great.

Second, OMG!!! I am so, so happy to be alive with my brain mostly intact. I was so lucky. I am thankful for my health every single day now, and will never take it for granted again.

Third and final, I'm thankful that our little family is going to be together for Thanksgiving, for the first time in several years. I'm not only hosting our family, but other close friends, including a couple with month-old twins. We have enough guests to have dinner at home this year, instead of going out to Mimi's Café, as we have done in recent years. Dining out on Thanksgiving, for me, was a substitute for the festivities lacking at home on this holiday.  So this year, I am thankful that we are celebrating as a family. Dysfunctional perhaps. But together.

Spending an afternoon eating and laughing, hugging babies and changing diapers. Walking the pack of dogs that are part of our temporarily blended family. Complaining about eating too much, and dividing up the leftovers so everyone goes home with a sack. This is fun. It's fulfilling. It's love.

But if this one afternoon stretches into weeks, does the togetherness, support, and sharing equate to helicoptering? Will our son be able to strike out on his own, or have we spoiled him to the point that he'll never want to be independent?
         
University of Texas psychologist Karen Fingerman, having conducted a number of studies on adult parent-child relationships, published a study with several collaborators (2012) in the well-respected Journal of Marriage and the Family to put the helicopter theory to the test.

The research team theorized that many young adult children today need their parents to help them through the so-called “emerging adult” years between 18 and 29. Not only are many young adults finding it difficult to make it economically, but they may also be experiencing emotional strains of finding their identities. They don’t necessarily expect their parents to support them, but they’re finding it rough to make it on their own.

Parents, for their part, sensing that their children are hurting, often want to reach out and provide them with emotional, if not practical, support.

But instead of feeling smothered, the children receiving help were higher in life satisfaction and, surprisingly, strength of their own personal goals. It is possible that the reason they found this support so helpful was that they were in a life stage when the continued help of their parents could ease their adjustment into adulthood

The hard part, of course, is how to separate from our children's problems without separating from them, and how to be a positive force in their lives while getting on with our own.

And that's what I'm doing—getting on with my own life, while making room in my heart for those I love. Loving unconditionally. Remaining openhearted to my children and their partners, estranged or not, difficult as it is. Inviting contact, expressing love, with no expectation or insistences.      

 For now, we'll leave the porch light on with a key under the mat.
You will always be welcome.
 

I didn't vote for Donald Trump.

 But I do owe him a big "thank you" for making the major theme of my upcoming novel, illegal immigration, front page news.

I live in Arizona, so undocumented border crossers have been in the local news on and off for years. 

Now, thanks to Trump's signature campaign promise that Mexican border wall is on everyone's mind. "We will build a great wall along the southern border," he said. "Mexico will pay for it. One hundred percent. They don't know it yet, but they're going to pay for it."

Do you believe him?

Newt Gingrich, a former U.S. House speaker, recently said Trump's demand that Mexico pay for the wall was "a great campaign device" that might not be practical in reality.
Ya think?

But THE WALL is Trump's signature promise. It's unlikely he can avoid political blowback if he back-pedals and claims his repeated call for the 1,984-mile border wall was simply a metaphor. People expect some follow-through.

Granted, parts of a wall already exist. The barrier is not one continuous structure, but a grouping of relatively short physical walls, secured in between with "virtual fence" which includes a system of sensors and cameras monitored by the U.S. Border Patrol. As of 2009, U.S. Customs and Border Protection reported it had about 580 miles of barriers in place.

Cost of the existing border fencing is said to be roughly a million dollars per mile.
Only 1,404 miles to go, Donald.

I'm sure even Trump knows, as President, he can't just order things done. The border project is not like building a new hotel. It involves multiple states, a myriad of different jurisdictions, including state, federal, tribal and private lands. Environmental impacts. Water rights treaties. Oh, and in some places, especially Texas, the terrain is so rugged it can only be covered on horseback. Infrastructure for access to the area will have to be built before wall construction crews can get there. Just to get the cement and rebar to build the roads in west Texas could cost billions.

Ironically, because of potential rights issues, some of the United States could actually end up on the opposite side of the wall.

I say we should forget about the damn wall issue, and look deeper into what's broken in our current immigration and deportation process.

In another of Trump's other "First 100-Day" promises, he vowed to create a deportation force to go after the nations estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants.
 At his immigration speech in Phoenix on Aug. 31, Trump said he would begin by deporting the more than two million "criminal aliens" inside the country. "Day One, my first hour in office, those people are gone. And you can call it deported if you want," Trump said.

I'm not sure what source he used for his "more than two million criminal aliens" reference, I couldn't find it. Quite possibly his researchers are better than I am.
But regardless, we already have an agency responsible for arresting and deporting undocumented immigrants, and even legal immigrants who commit serious crimes. That agency is called ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement).

While you may not have run into them personally, ICE is big. Part of the Department of Homeland Security (created after the 9/11 attacks), the ICE office represents the second largest law enforcement organization in the US. Only the FBI is bigger.

ICE enforces both immigration and customs laws, which involves going after illegal immigrants in US territory, employers who hire illegal immigrants and those trying to smuggle goods or contraband into the country.

Since 2014, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Jeb Johnson has directed ICE to place its highest priority on removing immigrants who pose threats to national security, border security and national safety. In other words, immigrants engaged in terrorist activities those caught trying to enter the country illegally, and those convicted of felonies and aggravated felonies.

And this is where things get sticky.

Experts estimate that about 60 percent of the approximately 11.7 million illegal aliens who are residing here original entered the country by illegally crossing a land border. That includes air and water crossings as well. The other 40 percent were admitted through an official port of entry and overstayed their visa or authorized admission.
So I understand the ranting about building a wall and closing off the border.

But illegals don't stay in the border region, especially those with criminal intent. They disperse throughout the nation.  According to the Center for Immigration Studies, the ICE field offices with the highest convicted criminal arrests (in 2013, the most recent year released) were, (in order) San Antonio, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Dallas, Atlanta, Houston, Chicago, Miami, New Orleans, and Phoenix.

I think President Trump will face of choice on how to use his existing resources.
 He can divert his manpower to building a border wall to keep new immigrants from the South from crossing our border.

Or, he can order ICE to deport the more than 872,000 aliens who have already been ordered to be removed, but who are still living here in defiance of our laws. These are post-final-order cases. They have been accorded due process, exhausted appeals, and received a final order of removal, but who remain here in defiance of that order. A small percentage cannot be removed, either because their home country won't take them back, or because the government is insufficiently organized to issue travel documents. But the majority have simply absconded, skipped out on hearings, and continue to live here illegally. This number grew by more than 1500,000 from 2012-2013.

Personally, I prefer the second approach.

But our man has a massive ego, and he made big, loud promises. So get out your pocketbooks America, if he chooses THE WALL. No matter what he boasts, there is no way out poor Mexican neighbor can foot that billion-and-a-half dollar bill.

National Novel Writing Month.
 If you're a working author, you either embrace the phenomenon, and let it sweep you to bigger word counts on Thanksgiving. Or, you sneer at the amateurs and scoff at their absurd and unrealistic hope to write a novel in one month.
 
I'm an embracer.
 
Seven years ago, I eagerly signed up for my first NaNo contest. I retired that year and took a couple of online novel writing classes, so I was ready to jump into my third career. I had the first half of a detailed story outline finished by October and thought I was going to write the Great American…well, you know.
 

I got through 22,000 words that year before I ran out of outline--and ideas.
If you've never written a book, that's about 90 pages. Not bad for a month, actually, but I wasn't going to make the 50,000-word magic number needed to get the "Winner!" on my page.
 
Discouraged, I didn't finish the last week of the event. Ninety pages in in the first twenty days of November days wore me out, especially the last week, when my family began to grumble about dust on the furniture and ask, "what about Thanksgiving, and Black Friday sales?"
 
But the next year, undaunted, I signed up again. The challenge was addicting. But my youngest son had just gone off to college, and then the oldest one decided to get married out of state on New Year's Eve. And my elderly father needed attention. And…well, you know.
 
I only wrote 7,000 words year two before I quit.
 
But during those two years, I edited and polished the 22,000 words I had, and added another 20,000 thousand more. I'd written and polished enough, in fact, that I started entering writing contests, and got enough positive feedback to feel encouraged to keep writing on it.
 
The summer of the third year, my budding book, Song of the Ancients, won first place in the prestigious Pacific Northwest Writers Conference. I attended the conference in Seattle, pitched my book to agents and editors in attendance, and got a request for a full manuscript. "Is it done?" The agent asked. "Sure is, just over ninety-five thousand words," I lied.

That fall is when I learned what it's really like to be an author.
 
I came home from Seattle that July in a panic. I had just committed to send a full manuscript to an agent, when in reality it was barely half-finished. I wrung my hands. I cried. I berated myself for not telling the truth. For one day, while I unpacked.
 
Then I went into my office and started writing. I mean, really writing. I wrote all morning, took a break to eat and shower, then wrote again. Some nights, when the words flowed, I'd write until 3:00am. Then I'd get up in the morning, spend an hour with the family, do the breakfast dishes and a load of laundry, and start again.
 
I wrote the second half of the book, a little over 50,000 words, in four weeks.
 
And that, folks, is the same thing people commit to do each year for NaNo.
 
Granted, you don't have to turn your NaNo manuscript in to an agent or editor. In fact, please don't. Editors and agents cringe at the increase of manuscripts they experience after NaNo ends.
 
There's a strong chance none of those manuscripts are not ready for publication. In fact, mine wasn't either, and the agent rejected it. But, instead of a simple "not for me" letter,  she made enough comments that I decided to send my book to a professional content editor, The Word Doctor.
 
Armed with his 40-pages of content comments (yes, he gave me a lot of feedback. He suggested some major POV consolidation, pointed out places where the action sagged, some passive voice, and, most importantly, showed me the places where he "was tempted to skim.") I was positively rearing to get to re-writes during NaNo Year Three. 
 
But…according to Nano's website, you aren't supposed to do that. You're supposed to start fresh on a brand-new story for your thirty days of literary abandon, not work on an existing piece.
 
Screw that! I had a novel I had sweated over for three years, on the brink of becoming something publishable. I wasn't about to switch storylines in mid-stream.
Note: Even though the NaNo mods tell us to play by the rules, they also say that the main objective of NaNo is to encourage people to follow their dream and write. They shake their finger at you with one hand, and nod their blessing with the other. It's a game, for heaven's sake.
 
So I rode the Nano wave of enthusiasm and re-wrote all November. It was glorious. I knew in my bones the book was improving. I also realized during re-writes, that my antagonist was all wrong, and completely revised him as well.
 
I only counted brand-new passages in my word count that year, so I didn't come anywhere close to the 50,000 goal. I just wrote. Tightened. Re-read and wrote more. Continued through December and January and February.
 
By March, the book was ready.
 
I contracted Kim Killion at Hot Damn Designs, and she concocted this beautiful cover.

Song of the Ancients published in May 2015.

 So, yes, I embrace the National Novel Writing month experience. It worked for me.

I encourage you to do the same. When it seems like life is piling obstacles in front of your Nano goal, put your head down and power through anyway. And, never, never stop writing when the contest ends, just set new goals.

FINAL NOTE:
Five months after Song of the Ancients was published, I suffered a stroke in my left frontal lobe, the part of the brain that controls speech, creative thinking, and all the functions grouped under the category of "higher level cognitive reasoning." 

In the hospital I showed the neurologist my book. "I don't know what I'll do if I can't read or write," I told him. "It's such a big part of my life and who I am."

He told me that might be exactly what would save me. "A non-writer might be using this much..." He held his palms apart six inches..."for vocabulary and creative thought. But you use this much." He extended his palms another ten inches.

First, I will always love that doctor. I thought about his words often during my six months of recovery and therapy. By Valentine's Day I was writing emails. By March I could compose a blog, re-learn my passwords, and figure out how to post the damn thing. (although, to be honest, I can't blame all of my technology fumbling on the stroke).

For the last five months I've been back to work on my next novel (working title  is Crescent Moon Crossing), and once again, I'm participating in NaNoWriMo as extra incentive to get it finished.  I've given myself a goal of December 27 for a completed first draft.

I  would love to have you join me on my noveling journey this year.
I'm posting excerpts from the novel-in-progress on this website under Tuesday Teasers.
And FRIEND ME on NaNo also, and we can support each other!
My NaNo name is SINAZ.

Happy writing!