“To live in this world you must be able to do three things: to love what is mortal; to hold it against your bones knowing your own life depends on it; and when the time comes to let it go, let it go.”
~Mary Oliver, In Blackwater Woods
“So here’s to a child, who is joyful and clever. Happy Day. Happy Year. Happy Always and Ever.”
~Sandra Boynton, Happy Birthday, Little Pookie
Happy 2nd birthday to O, my sweet sweet boy. (How are you already 2? How has it only been 2 years?)
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I am seated comfortably on the couch waiting for my appointment. I pull out my new Kindle, feeling very smug that I remembered to bring it because 1) the only magazines available are parenting magazines, and 2) it just looks really cool to be sitting around reading on your Kindle. I feel very calm and organized and well-read. (By the way, I’m reading The Weird Sisters and it’s fantastic so far. So good that I am wishing I had a physical book so I can underline all of the good sentences. The highlight thing doesn’t really do it for me. But the dictionary function is all kinds of awesome.)
The door opens and two women enter. They are both short and squat, so they look as tall as they are wide. Kind of like Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum. I only mean this physically, I don’t know about intellectually. One is very pregnant, the other is not. Although there is an entire empty couch across from me and various chairs, the pregnant lady (I’ll call her “Dee”) beelines for the other end of the couch I’m sitting on. Well, she doesn’t beeline because let’s face it, none of us can move that fast while carrying a human being in our gut. But she does move with great purpose. The not pregnant lady (I’ll call her “Dum”) rushes to position the pillow behind Dee before she sits down. Apparently, this is Dee’s favorite spot and she likes her pillow just so.
I smile nicely at the pair of them, even though I generally like my personal space. But it’s 3 o’clock on a Monday afternoon, I just quit my job and have nowhere to be, and I’ve got my Kindle and my new I-phone and I’m pretty zen these days.
In my book, Bean is hulling the strawberries. I use my nifty dictionary function to look up that word and then look up calyx and then corona and corolla and so on. This dictionary function is addictive. I am so engrossed that I miss the beginning of the Tweedles conversation, but when Dum makes a sudden shaking movement that sends me up into the air on my end of the couch, I am forced to look up and eavesdrop.
The sudden motion was Dum ripping the band out of her hair and shaking her head vigorously. She then very daintily places her fingers on her forehead and begins to gingerly push around on her head.
Dee is on her mobile device. It’s not an I phone or an Android but some inbetween version as far as I can tell. Bigger than a cell phone. Not as big as an I Pad. Dee pushes a few buttons and stares intently at the screen.
Dum suddenly stops her hands as if she’s receiving a message. “Here,” she says. “My head hurts here.”
“Is that where you hit your head?” asks Dee.
“No,” says Dum. “I hit the back of my head. But my head hurts in the front, like when I get my headaches.”
I wait for Dee to ask if this is one of her normal headaches, but she doesn’t. Apparently, Dee is neither a doctor nor a lawyer nor a logical one.
Dee squints. “Well, it says here it could be a concussion. Or a tumor. Are you seeing black spots?”
Dum is still softly pulling at different parts of her head. She is a large woman, but she moves very gracefully, sort of like a fat ballerina. She seems to point her fingers, if that’s even possible.
“Hmmm, only when I stare at the sun. Does that count?” Dum answers.
Dee doesn’t answer immediately. Is this something she has to think about? My wonderful book has long been forgotten. I had no idea you could diagnose brain injuries via your cell phone. What did we do before Web MD?
I am waiting with bated breath to find out if Dum does indeed have a brain injury or if she’s just slightly stupid (does Web MD diagnose stupidity?) when Dee interrupts her own diagnosing to answer her phone. The ringtone is a quacking duck.
“TONY? IS EVERYTHING OK?” Dee yells into the phone. “It’s Tony, at Sammy’s school,” she loud whispers to Dum. Yes, Dee, we all know who it is.
Dum giggles. “You’re yelling,” she says sweetly, as if it’s a cute quirk of Dee’s personality. Dee shrugs.
“WHO GOT BIT? SAMMY GOT BIT OR SAMMY BIT SOMEONE?” Dee yells. “Someone bit Sammy,” she says to Dum. She apparently is going to give Dum a play by play of her own phone call, even though everyone in the waiting room can hear her.
“SOMEONE BIT SAMMY? BUT HE DIDN’T BITE BACK? OK, IS HE OK?”
Dum opens her mouth wide, like she is shocked. “Is Sammy ok?” she whispers to Dee. Dee holds up her finger, as if to say wait for it. Dum grabs her hand to hold it, showing her support. Now I’m thinking that Dum has quite the crush on our girl Dee.
Dee gets off the phone and puts in her purse, the brain injury apparently forgotten. She makes a big show of closing her purse, sighing loudly, folding her free head over her forehead.
“He’s okay,” she finally tells Dum.
Dum exhales loudly. “Thank God,” she says. “Sammy is just a sweet, sweet boy.”
“He is,” Dee agrees. “You know, there’s a biter at his school, but it’s not Sammy. I know who it is, but I’m not supposed to know.”
Dum then tries to guess various potential suspects at Sammy’s school. Dee finally gives up the information. Some kid named Jordan. Boy? Girl? Who knows.
Dum again tells Dee how sweet and precious Sammy is. “You got really lucky,” she tells Dee. “He’s really so much sweeter than all the other kids.”
Dee nods. “He never bites at school. He bites me at home, but I just pinch him back on his arm, as hard as he’s biting me and he usually stops.”
Dum laughs. “That Sammy. Such a trouble-maker. So precious. He reminds me of Mom.”
Ah. They are sisters! The similar squatness, the hand holding, the closeness, the pillow puffing, now all seems sweet rather than the creepy Single White Female crazy vibe I was getting.
Unfortunately, my name is called at this moment and I am whisked away, never to know whether Dum does indeed have a brain injury, or if Dee has other genius parenting tips that I can take note of.
Morale of this story? Besides, don’t be so loud in a public place that you become the unwitting fodder for a bored writer’s blog post? It’s that people always surprise you. And are never what they seem. Which is what keeps life interesting.
Thank you ladies, for thoroughly entertaining me.
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I love our house, but I hate our kitchen. It’s not a secret, when we bought the house we knew we’d have to do something about it eventually. The house was built in the 1930’s, but the kitchen has been redone. Somewhat. The last time I believe was in the 1980’s, judging by the age of the appliances. Besides the old appliances, and the small space, it has cornflower blue formica counters and blue speckled lineoleum that, no matter how many times it gets swept, mopped, or cleaned, looks dirty.
I am not a cook by nature. Somedays I want to be one. Somedays I just think I should be one, because it’s very hip and healthy to make your own everything. I even subscribe to a blog that is teaching me how to make and can everything from scratch- ketchup, salad dressing, jelly, chicken broth, you name it. It’s all Little House on the The Prairie chic, and I’m mesmerized. So far, I only look at the pictures. I’ve yet to actually attempt to make my own anything. Though I did notice where they sell the jars to put all of the stuff I might make into. Because that’s a big step, actually buying all of the jars to put all of the stuff into.
But I digress. Point is, I don’t cook. I don’t spend happy hours in my kitchen. Nobody gathers in my kitchen. And I blame it on the blue kitchen. It’s so uncomfortable and un-user friendly. There’s no where to properly chop vegetables. There’s nowhere for O to be. There’s nowhere for someone, a friend or neighbor or the Husband, to hang out and chat with me while I chop. There’s no TV, so I can’t cook while watching Diane Sawyer and my glass of wine like I’ve always envisioned. But one day, after we knock down some walls and put in some proper colored counters, then I will finally be able to be the kitchen goddess that I want to be. Or at least cook dinner more often.
I attended a screening of a recent documentary film called “Race To Nowhere” last week at our local elementary school. The filmmaker, a former lawyer turned mother of three, decided to make this film after watching her kids suffer stress-related illnesses due to the ever expanding pressures and expectations of getting good grades, building up your transcript, and getting into a good college.
O is only twenty months old, and I’ve already had multiple conversations about schools. On the playground and at lunch, the moms bat around the pros and cons of public versus private, of when is the best time to push them, of when they should be reading, and so on. O is still mastering the use of a fork. He is pretty dedicated and the food makes it to his mouth on most tries, but he still makes a huge mess. He still poops in his pants and needs my help to put on his shoes. As far as I can tell, his favorite things are: trucks, cars, trains, squirrels, cheese, mama, dada, and baths. And yet here we are, looking at him and evaluating Who He Will Be. The other mothers and I discuss these things as if we have any idea of what we are talking about. Based on his hobbies at his age, he’ll either be a truck driver, garbage man, zookeeper, Whole Foods cheese specialist or a deep sea diver. You can see how there is little correlation to what a toddler likes and what he’ll eventually be like.
All toddlers like to see how things work, are “into” music, and are at turns unafraid explorers and shy clingy kids that need to hold our hands to do anything. To actually determine what kind of students our kids will be is pretty impossible at this age. And yet, we still do it. We want the best for our kids, we don’t want them to be left behind or left out. The Husband and I have discussed O’s probable strengths and weaknesses tons of times, mostly in that fun way that parents daydream about their kids, while he is still unformed and full of potential. It’s part of the joy of being a parent, watching him develop skills and talents and his own little personality. But what are we passing down to them? What are we teaching them about what’s important in life and their value as human beings? If all we focus on is success and being the best, what are we telling them if they aren’t perfect?
One moment in particular struck me in the film. A young boy, maybe sixteen, was discussing the pressures and the messages he was receiving from his parents and teachers. He said (I’m paraphrasing) that he was working as hard as he could, staying up late doing homework, going to school, doing sports so he could put it on his transcript, joining activities, taking tests and being scheduled for every minute of his childhood- so he could get into a good college, then get a good job and then buy a big house, so that ultimately, he could be happy. He exhaled heavily as he said the word “happy”, as if just the thought of it was too exhausting to contemplate.
Ultimately? This sixteen year old kid, already weary, is waiting till he can buy a big house to be happy. The look on his face was the one that I saw everyday practicing law. The face that I saw when the bravado and the snark and the confidence slipped, when the pressure and the responsibilities and the never-ending race to bigger and better and more overcame them. An empty face.
We all do this. We aren’t happy. But instead of figuring out why we aren’t happy and taking active steps to change our unhappiness into happiness, we put it off onto something else. When we get into that college, get that great job, get a promotion, buy a new car, can afford those Christian Louboutins, after we’ve been to France and Greece and Hawaii, once we finally meet the right guy, get that ring on our finger, have a glorious wedding, get a dog, buy a house, have a kid, get some sleep, have another kid, buy a second home, maybe retire. Then. Then, ultimately, we will be happy.
The crazy thing is that we all absolutely know this isn’t true. We know shoes and promotions and houses and kids, in and of themselves, don’t make us happy. Those things can provide great moments (the shoes), great memories (the vacations) great love (the kids) but they aren’t magic, this isn’t a fairy tale, and they don’t instantly transform you into a happy person. Nobody in their right mind actually believes that a house will make you happy. But we still put it off. We don’t think a house will make us happy. We think, well, our kitchen is too small and too blue and I can’t cook the way I want to cook and there’s nowhere for O to be, and it’s making me unhappy. So when I redo our kitchen and it’s bright and airy and open, when I can cook dinner with a glass of wine while watching the ABC nightly news with O sitting at the island coloring, then I will be happy. Until then, I hate this kitchen and I’ll never be happy in it.
We don’t face the fact that actually the reason we are unhappy in the kitchen is because we are trying to do too much. Because we work too much and have very little time in the kitchen and don’t really cook, but we think we should, we think our families should be spending all of these wonderful hours in our kitchens, cooking healthy organic sugar-free meals and singing songs together and having this perfect family life that we envisioned back when we thought we’d be happy when we got the house and the kid. I blame Gwyneth Paltrow, but that’s another post.
I quit my job last week. I don’t know if I will return to work full-time, part-time or at all. I don’t know if I get another job if I will be able to find a better balance. What I do know is that this past week, I’ve been much happier in my terrible blue kitchen. There still isn’t enough room and the appliances are still old and there is nowhere for O to be. And yet, I’ve managed to make a few meals in that terrible kitchen. Ok, so they aren’t gourmet and they aren’t totally organic and I’m sure there’s some processed stuff in there, but still. I wasn’t stressed from work, wasn’t worrying about spending too little time with O, my mind wasn’t racing ahead to what else I needed to do. I just enjoyed the moment. I listened to some Willie Nelson. I watched O push his little cars around our old linoleum floor. He didn’t seem to mind it was ugly and perpetually dirty. Instead of boiling instant pasta, I made lime-cilantro chicken and fresh sweet corn. I cut up vegetables for a salad, actually noticing how vibrant the colors were, the canary yellow bell pepper nestled against the icy white cucumber and the dark blood-red of the tomatoes.
Obviously I am not saying we should all quit our jobs. There is value in hard work and school and jobs and making money and buying houses. But it isn’t the only value in life. I watch O and he’s so happy. I want him to hold on to that happiness. I want him to find something he loves in life. Something that brings him satisfaction, but also something that allows him to have a life. I don’t want him to wait for “ultimately”.
There is so much pressure to be a kid today, but there is also so much pressure to be a parent. How much do we push? How do we teach our kids that they have to work hard, meet deadlines and do their homework, but yet allow them to be individuals and find their own paths, show them that play time is just as important as hard work?
I don’t know. I do know that O mimics every little thing we do. I do know that he’s watching us and looking for us to show him what life is all about. The only I can think of to do is to live the life that I want him to live. To sink into the life that I have now, and stop waiting for things, other things, to “make” me happy. To find a way to make what I love to do my job. To put down my new I-phone and pay attention to him and not have to do five things at once. To encourage him to question and play and explore. To stop waiting for “ultimately”.
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I wrote this yesterday:
I am crumbling, crumbling today. Three of my four walls are unsteady and I don’t have the strength to hold them up. Not by myself. If I am going to do this blog thing, then I suppose I have to be honest about all of it.
O. I already wrote about the pull I am feeling today, the pull towards O and the tension between him and everything else.
Work. It’s not working. The flex schedule and the experiment to be a part time lawyer, part time mom and part time writer is failing. I know I’m not great at math, but even I should have realized that is simply too many parts.
Writing. I am so discouraged today. I don’t really let myself think beyond now, beyond what I want to accomplish besides simply writing. Some days the path is so clear, it’s not even a question in my mind that it will happen. Most days I am not looking at the path, I am just looking down and trying to find my way. But some days, like today, I look up and the path isn’t so clear. It’s cloudy and foggy and seems so, so far. What I am most afraid of is that I will finally figure this mom/lawyer/writer thing out, will finally get the “free time” to write and I will find myself there. And I will suck. Completely and totally suck. That I will spin my wheels and never write anything good, much less great. Never get anything published. Never. Because it so so hard to do this thing and do it well. But it is much much harder to get published, to sell books.
And my fourth wall. Well that’s my husband. And thank God for him because he’s helping me hold all of this up. Thankfully, out of everything, he is the strong part. Because I can’t do this without him. Don’t want to do this without him. Thankfully he’s strong enough to hold us both up today.
In the light of today, I wrote this:
Tried to be supportive, even as I cried on my bathroom floor last night, even as he looked at me in that bewildered way that men look at crying women, when our tears seem to be completely out of proportion with what we say is wrong. Because all I complained about to him was work. The other stuff, the real stuff that was making the work stuff even harder, was too hard to say out loud. And he still supported me. Though he did keep offering me wine.
And I guess that’s the takeaway here. That thankfully I have one wall to lean on. That not all is crumbling at the same time. That just saying these words out loud makes things seem not so terribly bad.
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I’ve written about trying to find balance before. The balance isn’t perfect and it easily gets out of synch, like in November and December when I worked way too much. But in general, I think I’ve found the mental balance between working and motherhood and myself. Or so I thought.
Isn’t that how life works? I decided I’ve been too melancholy lately around these parts so I planned on focusing on more fun and upbeat topics, and to lay to rest the mom thing, the writing thing, the balance thing for a few posts. Planned is the operative word.
This weekend the husband had to work all weekend. We got him till noon on Saturday and then it was just me and O all weekend. That idea used to scare me. What would we do, how would we pass the whole weekend, what if I needed a break? Now though it’s so much easier. I am not sure whether it’s O, who is definitely older and more fun and more easily entertained, or if it’s me whose gotten easier, who has relaxed and let it be easier. Probably the latter.
O and I had a GREAT weekend. We laughed and giggled and played and danced and threw balls and hugged and blew kisses and played with bubbles. We ate a LOT and cleaned up the kitchen a LOT. I swear it’s like Groundhog Day with a toddler with the meals and the milk and the snacks and the cleaning up the highchair tray. But in between I watched him. And at the end of yesterday and into this morning, I was very fulfilled, very content and yet a little sad. Because I felt like I got to know him better. I felt connected to him. And sad because this morning I turned him over to the nanny and lost that connection, for a little while at least.
And this morning, trying to dive back into my writing, I feel a little pull, the pull of a tiny hand that was wrapped around mine all weekend. I can still feel his hand, like the way you feel your wedding ring even when it’s not on your finger. I miss him. It’s usually much easier to make the switch for me. But today I am rethinking everything. Just when I think I understand the balance, for me at least, I get hit upside the head with the see saw.
And then I read this beautiful post and started crying in the middle of Starbucks. I don’t think it’s so simple (for me) as just making a choice. I can’t make that choice right now, to stay home.
I don’t really have anything profound to say on the subject. Even though I’m feeling that pull, I don’t think quitting my job is the magical answer. Because there were many many moments this weekend that I thought “This is just so hard. I don’t know some women do this, just this, all day, everyday. ” No matter what we do as moms, we feel the pull, towards something else. And we question, did we make the right choice?
There is no right choice. Every path has its roses and thorns. Every path has its quiet coffee breaks and dirty diapers. The best we can do is admit the feelings and remember that there is always a yin to the yang, that the pendulum always swings back the other way, and that every experience passes. The good moments pass, but so do the bad.
This morning, I have nothing profound. Just that I feel a pull, towards something, someone. Just that I miss my little guy.
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 | Nina Badzin on ‘Tis The Season? |
 | rudrip on Morning Thoughts |
 | acb23 on Morning Thoughts |
| acb23 on Morning Thoughts |
| Nina Badzin on Morning Thoughts |
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