Month: January 2010

Sometimes I feel like I’m losing my mind

I hit a new low yesterday. I have been wondering for several days why I have received so few RSVPs for Whit’s birthday party. For the record: not RSVPing is one of my major peeves. But still, this was an even lower turnout than usual. I bumped into a mother I know at school today and I mentioned it to her, trying to be off-hand to make up for what I felt was a rude inquiry (part of why I hate non RSVPers is I hate pestering people for what their answer is, because I feel like a jerk).

The mom mentioned off-hand that she had not recognized the email address I’d given on the invitation. Hmm. I went home and checked the invitation. An invitation that I had proofed not once but twice. And then mailed out. And never blinked about. And, right there: my email address misspelled. Great.

People think of me as very anal and type A. And in many ways I am. My closet has several shelves of shoeboxes, each with a photograph of the shoes inside stuck on the outside. My spices are alphabetized. My Christmas cards go out the first week of December. Etc, etc, etc. Loosey goosey I am not. It’s something I dearly wish I was, but, let’s face it: no.

But today’s flub is one in a short but noteworthy list of times I have been well and truly full-blown flaky. And those times make me wonder if I am slowly losing my mind. If somehow, parenthood or middle age or too much splenda or too much white wine has contributed to punch small holes in my brain, almost imperceptible but porous enough to allow my meager mind to leak out slowly. Drip, drip, drip.

The others on the list? Well, I paid the wrong mortgage company for three months. Three months. Automated billing will do that for you. But it still amazes me that the old mortgage company didn’t let me know they were getting an extra $XK every month from us that they didn’t deserve for three solid months. I also left the oven on for a whole weekend. That was pregnancy brain. But, not super responsible.

The best ever, though, was when we had our preschool interview for Grace. We parked the car, walked to the nursery school, toured and interviewed. I think we were probably at the school for 90 minutes. As we walked out, I felt in my pockets (I had been driving) and wondered aloud where the car keys were. I rummaged through my bag (side note: in said bag, today, I found a pair of Grace’s socks and an epi-pen. I did not, however, have the chapstick that I needed) as we walked to the car. No keys. Starting to panic, I looked up when Matt exclaimed, “Oh, my God” under his breath. The car. Parked on a side street. Running. I guess that explains where the keys were.

Losing. My. Mind.

The godfamily. And red wine.

This picture is, I’m guessing, the summer of 1977 or 1978. It is two of my godsisters, Acey and Alexandra, and me. Don’t ask me why I am naked. Or why a bowl was used to cut my hair. Or why we are apparently playing with a can of kerosene. Ah, the 70s!

Two of my mother’s oldest and dearest friends are my godmothers. The three of them shared the unique and formative years of weddings and babies, and their friendship endures today. All three women had a daughter first, and all born within about 18 months of each other. My mother is godmother to each of them, their mothers are my godmothers. Etc. This is The Godfamily (I cannot say this without smiling, and thinking of Francis Ford Coppola films, Marlon Brando, heavy-handed music, and stretch Lincoln town cars).

Much of the godfamily gathered today to christen Acey’s sister’s daughter, Sally. Acey, Alexandra, and I all had our own children in the church: Alexandra had all three of hers, I had both of mine, and Acey had her older child, a daughter who is exactly a year older than Gracie (8). It is very rare for us all to be together – I actually can’t remember the last time it happened. Our visit was too brief, of course, and we managed to miss taking a picture of the three babies above all grown up. Oops.

Still, it was magic. There was a moment when I knelt at the altar rail for communion, with Grace on my right and Acey on my left. I looked over to the left and saw Acey and Alexandra, and saw all of our children clustered around us. I was overwhelmed with awareness of history and of the ways that families echo like Jacob’s Ladders through time, folding over on themselves, creating, with an awkward, slow rhythm, a long and connected line. I felt keenly the bonds that endure through the years even with too little time and energy paid to them. I saw in my mind’s eye the pictures of the three of us as toddlers, playing on the beach on Captiva with our beautiful, bikini-ed mothers, in the faded 1970s snapshots I have seen so many times.

I don’t talk to these women every day, but they will always be a fundamental part of me and of my terroir. They and their mothers played an essential role in my childhood and they are woven into the very infrastructure of who I am. I am so fortunate that they are still a part of my life, though I do feel sad that our children won’t grow up knowing each other well because we live so far apart.

And on to the comedy portion of this post.

I was actually very proud of Grace and Whit during church. With a couple of coloring books and a couple of ziploc baggies of Booty (veggie for G, pirate for W), they entertained themselves. They even watched some of the activity at the altar. Grace and Isabelle (her second-generation godsister) squeezed their way to the font for the actual baptism, watching closely. Whit chose instead to stay with me in the pew and murmur, over and over, “baby go dunk in the water!” He went to a christening with me when he was just beginning to speak, and on the way home he proclaimed that “baby go dunk in the water” This has become an oft-repeated sentence in our house, and he grinned slyly at me as he repeated it, reminding me that for all of his blithe casualness he is utterly aware of how he is being perceived, and of how much he loves to be a clown.

After the baptism and a rowdy Cantabridgian peace, we returned to the classic BCP communion service. The minister stood at the altar, holding the bread in one hand and the silver chalice in the other. He paused in saying the words that I know by heart, and the entire church stood still, silent. My son chose this moment to say, at full volume, “Gracie! Are you going to drink the red wine?”

There was audible laughter. I guess my children are incapable of communion without hilarity.

An ordinary Saturday

Today dawned bright and cold. Matt is in Asia, so it is just Grace, Whit, and me this weekend. Grace woke me up and then returned to her room to read (okay, fine, play with her new dsi) so I could wake up slowly. Whit slept until 8:30 (possibly a record). Already: delightful. After waffles and bacon for breakfast the children watched cartoons while I began wildly throwing things away. I’m almost finished with The Happiness Project and so far the idea that has the most traction with me is the empty shelf. I woke up desperate for my empty shelf.

After an hour of work, six Goodwill bags, and three trash bags, I have two empty shelves! Hooray.

Late morning, the three of us headed to Grace’s gymnastics lesson. Whit watched his favorite cartoon, Avatar, on my old iphone while I watched Grace (she looked over to make sure I was watching her with a frequency I found both touching and disconcerting). It’s amazing to me that after only three classes she can already do a competent cartwheel. Amazing, mostly, I think, because it reminds me of how old and competent my child is. When did this happen? As I’ve said before, I often find myself wondering when the real mother is coming home.

A huge treat: Burger King chicken nuggets for lunch. Wow does that make these children of mine happy! They are still playing with the plastic toys they received with their meals.

After a short rest we went to the Museum of Fine Arts to meet one of my dearest friends and her two boys. We sang along to Kiss 108 songs on the way there (top 40) and Grace awed me with her every-single-word knowledge of every single song. When does she learn this stuff? I don’t spend enough time with her in the car for it to be from that. She clapped and exclaimed when the Kings of Leon song “Use Somebody” came on and my first thought was: my daughter is cooler than I will ever be. I watched her in the rearview mirror, gazing out of her window and mouthing the words, and I swear I could see her 15 year old self in her 7 year old face. My heart tugged.

Then the true genius of Fake Mommy me made itself apparent. I parked in a parking lot right across from the MFA entrance I have always used, and urged the children to leave their coats in the car so “we” (read: I) didn’t have to carry them around inside. But then I took us out the stairway right by the car and exited onto a totally foreign street. “Let’s go back inside!” cried Whit, already shivering in his tee shirt in the 31 degree day. I tried the handle. Locked. Awesome.

We finally figured out, after a couple of tries, where we were. We had to walk around a long block to get to the museum. I swear I was winning Mothering Gold Stars from every car that passed, as I wandered aimlessly with two coat-less children on a frigid day (so cold that the friend I was going to meet had deemed it too cold to go skiing – where they would have presumably worn coats). Relieved, I steered the kids to the entrance by the parking lot (now that we had reached it through 10 minutes of walking). Oops. I guess that entrance is now closed.

Another long city block later, we finally stumbled into the museum lobby. Both kids were absolutely breathless with laughter about what a silly mother they had. I laughed with them, grateful that such small things bring such joy, amazed by their pink cheeks and good cheer. We explored the museum for a solid hour and a half, which is about the limit of both a four year old’s attention span and, incidentally (and not impressively), my own.

The highlight of the museum visit for the children was no doubt the sweet snack they enjoyed in the basement cafeteria. We braced ourselves for the cold and jogged back to the parking lot, one child holding each of my hands. They giggled so hard we had to keep stopping. Who knew that a coat-less run on a winter day had the potential for such hilarity? I’m glad I found out.

Driving home, Whit noticed that the Charles River was frozen solid. He stared out his window at it in and his visible amazement made me smile. Then Joni Mitchell’s Circle Game came on, which both kids know because it’s on the (short) list of songs I play (all the time). I listened as they both sang along, quietly, and felt a huge swell of gratitude and sadness. A quote rose to my mind, popsicle-stick-like:  Everyday life is laced with miracles.  My eyes filled with tears and I thought: this is it. This is what I keep writing about. I am here now.

And I was.

Let evening come

This poem was scrolling through my thoughts as I ran yesterday, and as I wrote about the elegaic quality of January’s light. It epitomizes for me the resignation and sadness that inhabit a January day’s 4 o’clock glorious golden light. And, in truth, the resignation and sadness that are inextricably intertwined with life’s great triumphs and joys.

Jane Kenyon, Mary Oliver, and Sharon Olds are my favorite poets right now. They write about simple things, about ordinary days, in a way that elucidates the grand themes of love and loss, life and death. I wasn’t going to post this poem, but Jen’s words today at Momalom convinced me to do so. Coincidences don’t happen: there must be a reason I’m thinking of this beautiful poem now.

Let Evening Come
Let the light of late afternoon
shine through chinks in the barn, moving
up the bales as the sun moves down
Let the cricket take up chafing
as a woman takes up her needles
and her yarn. Let evening come.
Let dew collect on the hoe abandoned
in long grass. Let the stars appear
and the moon disclose her silver horn.

Let the fox go back to its sandy den.
Let the wind die down. Let the shed
go black inside. Let evening come.

To the bottle in the ditch, to the scoop
in the oats, to air in the lung
let evening come.
Let it come, as it will, and don’t
be afraid. God does not leave us
comfortless, so let evening come.
– Jane Kenyon

January light

This is a season of beginnings, a time of new starts, fresh slates, hellos.  As I ran today I thought about the ways it is also a season of farewells and of endings.  The days are so short now that we have only hours of full-blown daytime before we begin the descent to sunset.  Before we say goodbye to another of our days, acknowledge the passing of our lives.  More than any other time of year, the majority of our hours now are spent in darkness, bumping constantly into endings and goodbyes.

Maybe because of that scarcity, the light this time of year is beautiful, but I also think it is sad.  January’s light has substance, weight: it is no mere adjunct to my experience of the outdoors.  Instead, it has a physical presence, oozing like thick syrup over winter’s dark branches, golden, but full of the endings of things.  The light illuminates, often brilliantly, the barrenness of the landscape.  It glints off of snow, sparkles off of ice, glows like burnished copper on walls through windows.  On a snowy or gray day the light is a dirge, on a clear one, an elegy.

At sunset, sometimes, I can see the sun radiating as though from below the horizon and I feel as though if I stood in one place and spun around I would see 360 degrees of that lambent, ephemeral light.  It feels as though the whole planet has collapsed into a bowl, and I feel physically aware of the palm of the universe that holds us.  The space and heavens that surround us feel palpable; the sun’s beckoning from beyond what we can see or fathom suggests the presence of something there.

But I also feel the tension between beginnings and endings, animate in the light on snow, in the slow-and-then-startlingly-fast descent of the sun past the horizon, in the light’s stark illumination of black branches against achingly saturated bluebird sky.  Endings and beginnings collapse into each other, light and dark blur, sunset and sunrise become interchangeable, confused.  We know intellectually that the earth has begun to tilt towards light again, but see no tangible evidence of this yet.  And so we must trust, and love the light, its beauty equal parts promise and loss.