All meringue
I've made a resolution to
keep this space happy and deceptively light,
like freshly whipped cream, like chocolate
souffle or mousse, like flaky layers of puff
pastry. The blog will be fluffy. All
meringue.
OK.
Maybe this resolution is what is keeping me
from being able to think, it's keeping my
brain tied in knots and my fingers from the
keyboard. Maybe what I want to write about
can't possibly be lightened.
My trip to Seattle was fabulous, full of good
food and good company, lots of walking, and
an appropriately scary (and sometimes
sad) ghost
tour, but there was an
undercurrent of tension that was based on
an old and tiresome narrative. And,
frustratingly, it's something that I don't
feel comfortable writing about here, for
various reasons, one of which is I don't
want to indulge
myself,
would rather just give it up because
resolving it by writing about its
manifestation is impossible and
complicated. At one point, this would have
been perfect blog fodder, but I have no
desire to go there any more. How much
public kvetching and self-analysis can one
person do?
The kid's first day of school was also
fabulous. We hung out with him while the
classes lined up, even got to accompany the
kids to the classroom (parental paparazzi,
with our cameras and our shout-outs to the
stars), and then off we went. There was no
trauma. He emerged at the end of the day
unscathed. He was ready for it, to be with
kids his own age, learning and playing.
There he is, a normal little kid doing normal
little kid things. I've been holding memories
of my own early childhood at a distance, the
multiple moves and mid-year school changes
and how they affected me. I am not him. His
father and I are giving him things that my
parents weren't capable of giving me. I've
even been coming around to the idea that I
might be a good mother, not a perfect one,
but a good-enough one, that maybe he really
can grow up like a normal, well-adjusted kid.
So, here the words are, light, but not overly
airy, with a touch of sugar, yeah. The
struggle will be what to work on if I'm not
going to go heavy, dark, and bitter. How do I
frame my writing life again after a month or
more off, after years of indulging my dark
predilections? I have stories in progress. I
can always turn to memoir
as long as I
give it a happy twist. Otherwise, I'm out
of ideas, feel like my imagination is
stuck, stuck on me-me-me. I worry that I
will never transcend the mundane.
I am so tired of me. I want to write about
you, your quirks and funny ways, they mystery
of how you make decisions, the way you exist
in the world.
I guess we should start hanging out more, me
and you, meeting in the coffee shops,
skimming the whipped cream off our café
mochas, burning our tongues on chai. We'll
speak low over glasses of wine, bump into
each other on the BART train, in the library,
at the dry cleaners, while walking down the
street. I'm certainly not going to find you
in the guest room, standing by my desk. It's
time to get off my ass and walk out the door.
I'll meet you at Caffe Trieste tomorrow at
nine.
Image by
Kristin A
of the
Meringue Bake Shop.
Melancholic, baby?
If you are a regular reader, you might have surmised that I am a sad sack, always focusing on events and people long gone but still present in my emotions. If you followed me around for a few days, you might be sure of it, as I break into tears here, punch at the air there, as I growl and curse. But I also dance and laugh so hard that I have to catch my breath, feel the thrill of being alive.
Life is sweet even when it feels like it isn't.
A couple of weeks ago, my son and I were doing our usual evening routine, discussing the day's events before saying goodnight. "I love you so much, I'll love you even when I'm dead," he told me. Perhaps stupidly, I responded in kind, which led to a longer discussion about death and love. It ended, of course, in tears. He wanted me to stay like I was, didn't want me to change. Maybe the pictures we've shown him of his grandparents when they were young have been sobering. They look unfamiliar with their shining hair and the tight, unlined skin of youth. He doesn't recognize them as the people they are today and he imagines what will happen to his father and me, the sagging and bulging, our faces turning into topographic maps, our bodies weakened. But I also think he's mourning the moment, who we are right now, and feels the desire to hold on. He's confronting the painful inevitability of change.
When I was eleven, I felt adulthood looming. Growing up meant a loss of self. I mourned who I was before I was gone. I had already lost so much -- would I forget the perspective of the dependent child, helpless, attached to capricious and sometimes unstable adults? Here's where I start to cry again, with surprising emotion, and I think -- what the fuck? Can't you get over it already, Jennifer? Plenty of people had it worse than you. But the emotions are still here, waiting for permission to leave.
My son has a childhood. He has his father and he has me and we will let him be a child, will protect him when he needs it and will prepare him for adulthood. These temporary moments, the joy he has in playing and being with us, the way the imaginary is real and present for him, all of this will change or disappear. This is what is supposed to happen. But we will do our best to make sure that nothing changes prematurely, that he doesn't worry about us or feel unsafe or take on larger worries. I hope that he will be able to look back at his childhood with happiness, that the preordained loss won't sting too much.
I cry, but the tears are mixed in with joy and sweetness and everything in between. This is life. I am alive.
Image: The boy at his birthday party yesterday, wielding a balloon sword.
Lost years
I was sitting at a playground when this revelation hit me. The boy had a shovel in his hand and was tossing sand through the sieve, pausing occasionally to tell me what he was doing, giving me the story behind the game.
I’ve been sitting in playgrounds for almost five years now, sitting in them when he was tiny and all he could do was slump in a swing or hold on to my hands as we walked on wood chips or on springy recycled tires. There was a time (the really lost years) when we just moved to California that he hated playgrounds, when we spent dark rainy days and bright sunny days in our house or yard and I didn’t talk to anyone but him and my husband or my mother on the phone, talked in dark clipped resentful tones.
Because I’ve gone underground during the last five years – and especially the last three, after we moved to this unfamiliar place with a rainy season and foggy mornings that burn off into cloudless sky. I stopped caring what I looked like (despite my occasional forays into style). I stopped showering every day and sometimes didn't even shower every other day. I stopped using an ATM card and instead relied on my husband to give me cash infusions, like I was asking for egg money. I stopped reading much. I stopped going anywhere by myself and when I did the feeling was either exhilarating (“I’m riding on BART to San Francisco by myself!”) or scary and unfamiliar.
There have been afternoons spent at playgrounds, chasing the kid, talking to him about castles, or taking on the voice of Dress Me Monkey. We’ve trekked to libraries and Habitot and hopped on the BART to the city or to Fairyland. One long fall we regularly traveled a mile to a playground by a large playing field with the sole goal of sitting in a play structure and watching a high school football team practice. That was all the kid wanted to do there, plop himself on our little seat (growling at any other child who wanted a turn) to watch these teenagers in bulky colorful outfits run and tackle and pass.
I sometimes still walk long distances with the boy in the stroller, despite the fact that he will be five years old at the end of this month and weighs about 43 pounds. Since I don’t drive or bike, but love to walk, I’m thinking that a stroller may come in handy for a while longer even though pushing him up sloped Berkeley streets isn't always pleasant, even though I know that people think it's time for him to walk or ride a bike. (Ever walked 2+ miles roundtrip with a bike-hating five-year-old beside you? If so, let me know.) But he also walks with me, too, his warm hand in mine. We stop to pick flowers or retrieve sticks that he turns into spears or swords or arrows.
The lost years. The worst of these meant isolation and – yes – boredom for me. The kid has only recently been comfortable playing on his own with friends when we go to the park, so most of the play time has been on me. I am not one of those inventive mothers who always has a kid project going, some sort of craft or messy activity. A lot of the time I’ve felt like a stay-at-home-mom failure, a woman who isn’t actually suited to the job, but has taken it on anyway only to complain about it.
The best of these years has been the sweetness, the fun we have when I allow myself to live in the moment, the feeling of his hand in mine, the real conversations we have about his stories or our lives or even about his fears. I know that the conversations will only get better (except, maybe, during his teenage years). I know that our playground trips will be more and more about him playing with his friends until playgrounds cease to interest him. But I also know that the sweetest things will disappear. Soon he will stop holding my hand or asking for 20 kisses before he goes to school. He will stop patting and kissing my belly, will cease to bob back and forth to music he likes, no matter where he hears it. He will become self-conscious in new ways.
My son starts kindergarten on September 1st. It could be the beginning of my return to the world, the found years. In preparation, I am working out and showering daily, wearing things other than stretchy knit pants, and dusting off my ATM card. I have a short solo trip -- my first since the kid's birth -- planned for next month. But I also hope that the sweetness will last for as long as it can, that despite the changes the boy will still keep the cuddliness, will still tell me "I love you 3-a-million" before going to sleep.
It's possible, right?
Image: The kid, looking into the future.
I've written this post in the middle of a four-day business trip for my husband. So far things are going pretty well with me and the kid AND I'm still getting to shower (and exercise) daily. It's a good start to the found years.
On not escaping
The road trip: the long car ride down and then back up the coast, along Highway One and Route 101, those final curves of Big Sur where the kid got carsick (and I was grateful that he'd refused food before then), the rental cottage in Pasadena where I realized that I had forgotten my inhaler and so spent a few hours on our first night there sitting up and trying to take deep breaths. Then there was the graduation ceremony, me and the kid running on the beach in Santa Monica beforehand, the long blah blah blah of the ceremony and the happiness afterwards. We spent some time with the father-in-law and the brother-in-law and the aunt. We ate in lots of restaurants and went through boxes of WWII memorabilia and old family papers and keepsakes.
We went to Disneyland, a day trip where we terrorized the kid by taking him on rides that he wasn't quite ready to experience. He was dying to go into the Haunted Mansion, but as soon as we walked in, he wanted out of there. It was too late. In the days since he's been going over the experience again and again mainly to the birdies in the car (that is, to my index fingers and thumbs, which make convenient bird puppets). He explains what happened and then he has them go through a mini version of it ("Birdies: the room is stretching!"). OK, OK, OK -- I get it. He's working it out. But I still feel guilty for exposing him to that too early. And it wasn't only that. We also got on Star Tours and the Pirates of the Caribbean rides. Star Tours merely scared him. The Pirates of the Caribbean had him burying his head in my chest, asking when it would be over. And I'm not so sure that finishing with the bizarrely psychedelic Winnie the Pooh ride was a good idea for any of us.
Then the trip back home, a greasy dinner, an overnight in Morro Bay, the chill of the wind coming offf the ocean, the seals and cormorants, Morro Rock.
What we brought back with us: a sword, a shield, a retractable dagger, a gumball machine, an old globe, rosaries, a prayer book, the carbide miner's headlamp that belonged to my husband's maternal grandfather. More plastic knights. An extra inhaler. A new pair of shoes. New used clothes.
And now I'm back, wondering where my head is, wanting to escape, really escape. Just me and a book, the swing of a hammock, a cool glass of chamomile tea, a long sleep. This is the state of my fantasy life. Safe, soothing, and solo. I haven't spent a night away from the boy since before he was born. I love him. I need a night away. I'm wishing that I was the type to build him a network, to take a thread here and there and connect him to other people so that we weren't the only ones. I wish all that was effortless for me. But it's not, and here I am, still in the intensity of it all, hoping that it will all turn out ok for him, and desperately wanting a little time to be a grownup away from the toys and the tears. Just a night is all that I ask. Maybe two. The second night for my husband.
Image: The kid at Morro Rock.
B is for . . . bad influence
There’s nothing like picking up your son from preschool where many of the other, much smaller, kids are talking about “pwison,” knowing who exposed them to that grownup concept. The kid is the oldest there by almost a year and sometimes two, which is a big deal for the under four set. He spent his first year and a half at this place just watching, sitting on the bench and observing, so we (and, more importantly, the preschool director) decided it was a good idea for him to stay while other kids his age moved on. And it's been wonderful to see him change from the boy on the bench to the kid running around and having fun. He's ready now to play with kids his own age and we are looking forward to kindergarten in the fall.
But at the moment there's the weapon thing (swords and now guns, with a vengeance) and the prison thing, which can sometimes cause discord. And on Friday evening, when we were talking about war and soldiers (thanks, Looney Tunes – "Bunker Hill Bunny" and National Geographic – article with a picture of woman whose legs were blown off by a land mine in an issue with something innocuous, like dinosaur fossils on the cover), I decided to bring up the song “War” as sung by Frankie Goes to Hollywood on YouTube. For the music. But, oh – the footage, compelling black and white shots from WWII (and perhaps earlier) of soldiers with guns and grenades and that picture of dead bodies piled in a foxhole. I think he should start to get an idea of what it's all about, war, or at least that part of it is about death, and he seems to understand on the level he needs to now, so I don’t mind him seeing those fixed images so much. We talk about them, the weapons and the damage done. What I know is going to come back and bite me is the line he fixated on: “Who wants to die?”
Monday afternoon I’ll pick him up at preschool. He’ll be there in his cop hat/helmet, climbing a hay bale castle, screaming “Who wants to die” at the top of his lungs. The other kids, the two- and three-year-olds and four-year-olds, might be shouting it, too, to the best of their ability. If I’m lucky, he won’t start planting “land mines” there, like he did in the park last week, me trying to play along (wan smile, less enthusiasm) while also trying to explain how terrible land mines were.
“These are cartoon land mines, Mom,” he told me. We talk about it. He knows the difference. Anything with a trigger, full of explosive capability, is huge fun, as long as no one gets hurt.
Image: Army set up on our porch.
From a prompt: B is for . . .
Welcome to New Jersey, where the Santas stare all night
The kid at Belvedere Castle
in Central Park on a chilly (but not rainy)
Wednesday.
Santas in the pantry at my
father and stepmother's house, watching me as
I hopped onto a neighbor's wireless
connection at 3:00 in the morning (Eastern
time) on Friday.
Me and the kid at the
long-term parking at SFO, 10:00 a.m. (Pacific
time) on Friday. The kid stayed awake through
the entire flight, even after being up since
essentially the middle of the night, even
though he was also sick. As we reached our
stop on the parking shuttle, his eyelids
finally started to flutter and I staggered
off with him flopped in my arms.
More words on Monday.
The low spark of a high-heeled boy
Every day at preschool, my son dresses up in costume. It might be as basic as a police officer hat. Sometimes he adds bat wings or an elephant nose. At home he puts on his batboy costume and flaps his wings as he takes flight in the living room. Playing with the concept of name and identity, he uses aliases at our Music Together classes. The alias used to change weekly depending on his book-obsession of the moment -- Art Dog, Mrs. Grizzle, etc. -- but now his chosen identity lasts for months. After weeks of singing "Hello to Chipmunk" one of the summer session parents had assumed that was his name. "You know, Berkeley," she said with a shrug after I set her straight. "You never can tell here." Last week he went to class in full pirate regalia, from scarlett hat to skull-and-crossbones vest to sword. "Nobody will know who I am," he told me with a sly smile.
Part of his dressing up and taking on identities, his love of costume, has something to do with shyness. These are ways to be in public with being totally seen. But I also think he has a bit of the dramatic in him. Like all children, he has a rich imaginative life. He makes a set of bike wrenches into a train, builds a boat out of a pile of sticks, creates robots out of spare toys and junk. My son truly believes that if he runs and jumps fast enough, he can fly. I remember flying, too, that heady moment of lift as I raced across my grandparents' family room and landed in the dark green chair in the corner. It happened. I can't deny it.
I worry about the future of his imagination, about the coming imposition of what it means to be a boy. When he goes to school full-time next year he will be immersed in the culture of the group, where rule-happy children and adults start forcing kids into slots. I remember school as a place where creativity isn't valued and anything different is quashed. I want to protect him, to take his imagination and cover it in gleaming armor, to let him know that flying will always be possible.
The change will happen. It is inevitable. But I hope that he will hold tight to his creativity, protect himself when he needs to without smothering his imagination. The further he gets out in the world, the less control I will have. All I can offer is my love and support.
Image: The high-heeled boy at home, October 2009. Photo by Mr. Trinkle.
New selections from the back catalog of the blog in Best and Rarest!
It's all over until next year
The kid, in non-Sam Kinison mode.
Soon to come: a change of pace with November's blog of the month and another set of recipes in Vegetarian TImes!
Channeling Sam Kinison
Illustration
from YTMND.
MOMMY! I WANT MOMMY!
(here I am!)
NO! NOOOOOOO! I WANT DADDDYYYYY!
(ok, he’s standing right there;
parents
switch positions)
NOT DADDY, MOMMY!
(well, Daddy is the one who is here right
now. Would you like robot pajamas tonight?)
NOT THE ROBOT PAJAMAS – THE SHARK PAJAMAS! I
WANT THE SHARK PAJAMAS!
(the shark pajamas, buddy?)
THAT’S WHAT I S A I
D:
THE SHARK PAJAMAS!
(parent begins dressing
child in shark
pajamas)
NO! I WANT THE ROBOT
PAJAMAS ON!
(parent and child together):
AHHHHHHHHRRRRGGGGGHHHHHH!
Another day ends in tears at the writing to
survive household. Maybe our three-year-old
son is developing neural networks at
incredible rates and his thoughts are pulling
him in different directions. Perhaps he is
experimenting with control – how much does he
have? How will we, the beleagured parents,
react to his cries of frustration? It’s
normal (right??), but exhausting, and
patience-trying, and sometimes it’s hard to
see the humor in it all.
Bath time last night was a screamfest. I
wasn’t there – baths are generally my
husband’s responsibility – but I could hear
every outburst. I finally realized what it
reminded me of: my son was channeling the
long-dead 80s comedian Sam
Kinison.
Here is a little taste of my current home
life, minus the lunges and hair pulls, with a
very young-looking, relatively thin Kinison
on the David Letterman show. The comedian was
known, as Wikipedia puts it, “for his
extremely vitriolic humor” and can be
offensive, so viewer beware.
writing to survive – where one day you can
read about Gertrude Stein and Edgar Allen
Poe, and the next you can watch Sam Kinison.
Now you know about my tasteless
side.
Jailbreak
It was the end of an incredible, challenging half-year. I’d spent June through October in New York, studying culinary arts at the Natural Gourmet Institute, living in a studio sublet in Chelsea. By day I’d take notes on “health supportive” food and create vegetarian gourmet fare with my fellow classmates. Evenings were for wandering Manhattan. The Hudson River was a few blocks away from my apartment, and the West Village was an easy, entertaining stroll. Sometimes I’d go the distance to Midtown where the streets were hopping with humanity and the buildings were a mix of architecture spanning three centuries, old brick storefronts intermingling with structures of concrete and glass.
The streets of Manhattan were overwhelming to me: too much stimulation, every block packed with shops and restaurants, with signs and graffiti (“Mama Loves Neckface”?), every address crying out for attention. Night subdued the signs, softened the calls. So I walked and watched, sometimes talked on the phone with my husband, who was back in DC. We’d go over the days humiliations and occasional triumphs. A few late nights in Brooklyn with my friend Jules – drinking, talking, attempting karaoke (never, never again) -- sealed the New York experience.
I went back to DC for six weeks before my internship at Greens Restaurant and spent the time preparing to start a personal chef business. During this break I appeared on a local television news program cooking contest, which led to a later on-air meeting with Anthony Bourdain. My world was opening up into something completely new. It was shiny and scary, anxiety-producing and freeing, a chance to create a business and change my life.
So. November 29, 2004. I was in my favorite city, San Francisco, about to work at Greens, my favorite restaurant. But something was distracting me from restaurant job panic. The day I started my internship, I also had to track down a drugstore. No matter how many tests I tried, the results were always the same. I was pregnant.
One new world slipped away as another one appeared. This was an alien planet created with an equal mix of worry, sacrifice and love. What would it be like to have a little creature totally dependent upon me? Was I up for the task? Was the pain I carried around hereditary, something involuntarily slipped in through the genes, a burden to be shared? I was terrified.
The 80-hour internship went by in a blur. I was a solitary, preoccupied figure, standing in place at the salad and dessert station as other employees, efficient in their clogs and hats, sharpened knives prepared for work, zipped around me. I would look at my slow, inexperienced hands as they grasped the serving spoon and tipped that night’s curry onto a plate. I methodically patted out tart dough as dinners were plated around me, carefully removed the skin and pith from scores of oranges in a haze of prep staff conversation, inexpertly mixed the ingredients for the filo pastry of the day in the cold of the isolated back kitchen.
It wasn’t enough time to even get my feet wet. My inexperience would never get the opportunity to disappear. I was going to be permanently interrupted.
But was I?
Since my son was born, I’ve been living as though all that was ever going to happen to me already had. I’ve let the experience of being a mother stop me from participating in the larger world. The stories I write here are about the past, about the life I had when I had a life outside of my house.
On the other hand, by writing these stories I am reentering the world, slowly emerging from my own head. And I find that my dreams have changed. That shiny new world of four years ago is no longer relevant.
I can’t wait to find out what happens next.
That was then, Part II
October 1972, Hollywood Beach, my 3rd
birthday?
The above photo was taken at my grandparents’
house during the John
the Murderer era.
Christmas 1976, Wilmington
Jim, the future and
former stepfather,
took this holiday shot. Memories of this
apartment: no car; no money; asthma attacks;
three dead cats and one poisoned hamster; the
bus ride to a movie theater showing Star
Wars; juicy cherry tomatoes straight from the
garden out back (the garden that also
contained a kitty graveyard with little
wooden crosses); iced chamomile tea; hot
carob instead of hot chocolate. For my
mother, it was a time without hope. A year
later she returned to college to complete her
bachelors degree, thus solving the
hopelessness problem for a time. This is now:
August 2008, Berkeley
My son and my mother, having a good time. We had a great visit. And yes, no one ever seems to look directly at the camera in this family. (That was then, Part I can be found here.)
From the inside
Part of what unsettled me was the link back to my own words (which I’ve changed to better reflect my feelings). The “why” of writing to survive was initially a rather bleak description of what life was like for me for the first two years of my son’s existence. This was a difficult time with many struggles to maintain eveness. I lost a lot of myself, my marriage changed, and I’d have to say there was some depression tossed into the mix, too, though I was never treated.
So. I love my son. I am lucky to stay home with him. He makes me laugh. We dance and sing and talk and read together. He has also been an impetus for change, a reminder to slow down and enjoy. With him I am able to remake my own childhood, borrowing the good bits and discarding the bad. I am lucky to be able to do this AND write.
Which brings me to my husband, an amazing man who is my biggest supporter. When I need reassuring about my parenting skills, he is quick to soothe. He loves to read my work. He gets take-out when I am tired of cooking. He understands when I use naptime (when naptime happens) to write instead of clean. We are truly a team. I love you, H.
There are nuances to this angst, and as I’ve been writing here and privately, the angst shifts and dissipates. The words have saved me.
This is writing to survive.
A talisman against loss
Some children sleep though high fevers, resting up as their bodies fight off the germs. Not our little one. The heat disturbs his sleep. For several nights he woke up in the 2 - 3 a.m. time slot, asking "Is it wake-up time?" Well, no, but we didn't have much say in the matter. Time for a drink of water, maybe for another dose of Motrin, and then we'd settle in for cuddling and long attempts at getting back to sleep. Two hours later, once he was out, I would be able to sleep myself.
The combination of being sick and not getting enough sleep put me in a strange frame of mind. Everything seemed fraught with premature nostalgia. The Duplo block set he got for his birthday, with a castle and the toy knights? A relic of a childhood soon to be over, the toys destined to languish in an attic. The recent photographs of our growing boy? Documentation of a time we won't be be able to remember a year from now. My cuddly 3-year-old will change into a different person, perhaps several times over, and each stage will be as fuzzy in my mind as his first weeks of life. It cut, this realization of the slipperiness of time and memory.
Along with an ache for what has not yet passed, I started to see danger in almost every moment, as though I was preparing myself for an inevitable loss. The bee I saw crawling on our grass -- would it deliver a fatal sting to my son, sink its poison into his chubby bare foot? (Never mind that we have no idea if he is allergic. It is a genetic possiblity). Would this be the dog walk where I would lose my balance and fall backwards, landing on my son, strapped to my back in an Ergo carrier? (Oh, for those days when he insisted on wearing his bike helmet at all times!)
And what about me? Was I paying enough attention to the dangers that I faced? Is the morning coming when, groggy and uncaffeinated, I will accidentally dip my low-hanging robe sleeve into the burner flame, stare in shock as the sleeve is consumed? Would I finally miss that step and go tumbling into a crumpled heap of bone and flesh on the floor below?
Maybe if I tried to keep the dangers in mind, tried to remind myself that what we love can be taken away, that no moment is innocent, I would have a mental talisman against loss.
That was a few days ago. Sleep is improving and my outlook is returning to normal. Neurotic worrying is not what protects us from danger. I am lucky to live in an incredibly safe part of the world, with access to clean water, plentiful food, and good medical care. I don't have to dodge bombs or gunfire. I don't need a talisman.
But I am going to watch my step when I go down the stairs.
Is it over?
But I really didn't expect my son to stop napping before his third birthday (about a week away). Last Wednesday, he made a decision: no more naps. Even in the monotony of a long drive, even when his lids were at quarter-mast, when he was a little zombie boy in the carseat, he stayed the course. My attempts to coax midday sleep out of him have been unsuccessful.
It's all well and good when there are two of us around to entertain him, but what happens next week when it's just me and him? He isn't a big fan of playgrounds, he doesn't like hanging out with other kids. One can only take so many dog walks and trips to the library. Maybe this is our big opportunity to explore San Francisco, take the BART into the city and get culture. Or take a bus into the Berkeley hills, or to campus, have a little public transportation adventure (!!).
My boy is funny and often self-entertaining. He loves books and trains and motorcycles. Spending my days with him is a joy, but I am a person who thrives off of quiet time. Uninterrupted time. I'm scared. I need that time. After a full day of child chasing, my brain is mush. How am I supposed to write?
Thank goodness for his two school mornings. And for early bedtimes. Sometimes as early as 6:30.
Reality
True, I am happy not to be in the working world. I can't imagine anyone else taking care of the boy on a full-time basis. I am a worrier and a control freak and I would miss him. There is no job waiting interesting enough to pull me away and I'm a poor juggler. The rush to work, the rush home, the mad dinner dash -- I didn't like it when I was childless. Mix in a needy little one and I would be a raving lunatic, in a less fun way than I am now. A full-time care situation would also be less than optimal for my total homebody, somewhat mommy-obsessed son.
(Note: There are many reasons to be a working parent. My mother was a working parent. Most of my friends are working parents. I love them all and admire their ability to have a working life and a home life. Their kids are generally happy and well-adjusted. I have nothing against mothers who work.)
Then there is reality: money. Farting around with my fascinating life story isn't going to bring in the cold, cold cash. My husband bears the burden of supporting us in a very expensive part of the U.S. I haven't contributed to Social Security in almost four years (yes, I still cling to the quaint idea that Social Security will exist when my time comes to cash in). And I miss having an outside focus.
To make money writing salable stuff takes concentrated effort. A plan. It takes time to implement a plan. And seven hours a week of childcare isn't a lot of time.
My solution: stop sleeping.
Though I don't sleep much as it is.
"Tell me a story"
Then my son started asking for stories before bed. Yes, my internal editor even made an appearance here. I had to thaw my mind, to stop caring about being bad at storytelling. Of course, he is a very receptive audience, a three-year-old with a love of the surreal. He throws out an idea and I run with it, with a little input when necessary (fun fact: did you know that monsters eat pears?).
It's freeing and satisfying, this flow of connected silliness with just a touch of plot. Good practice for writing.
If only he would fall asleep after the story. Perhaps I should be more boring.
Schlump
Am I the only person in the world who needs time, real time to exist and think and be by myself, to write? Extemporaneous writing just doesn't do it for me. Just sit down and write ... but what if I have nothing to say? Sometimes I need to sift through my thoughts, to make sure everything is all clear, before words come out.
Write about what you know. Hmmm. Maybe I need to get out more. I don't particularly feel like writing Mom-lit. I love the little guy and find practically everything he does worthy of mention (did I tell you about his pteronadon song? "you are my friend pteronandon, you make me smile ..."). To write about him, however, would box me into this life. I need an escape hatch or, at the very least, a window to open to let in the breeze.
Just keep writing, 1000 - 2000 words a day, wrote a commenter here recently. I admit, I got defensive. It isn't so easy to just sit down and write so many words for me, partially because of the nature of my life (and I probably wouldn't be writing at all if I had a job outside the house) and partially because I've never written like that. I think too much, maybe, and the thoughts get tangled up in each other. My internal editor tries to sort things out, to make sure all is nice and neat before letting the words loose from my mind.
I have a friend (are you reading, Bob?) who shows up periodically in my in-box, long e-mails about his life, writing, academia, and philosophy. If he were working on the 2000 words a day quota, one e-mail would practically take care of it. Bob has always been this way -- the words flow. They're not always the most well-crafted, but he is a good writer and he gets there eventually. I'm jealous.
When I decided to start writing, Bob -- who has 3 children and teaches and writes for a living -- told me that he didn't know any writers who sit down for blocks of time and just write. Everybody fits it into the odd moment, writing ideas on a scrap of paper here, tapping away at a laptop there.
I'm creatively bereft at the moment. No ideas, no tapping. This is a theme here lately, but just writing about it makes me feel like I am getting back into the swing.
Say, how many words is this???
Throw it away
Or write up my petty complaints on my blog? Bingo.
Right now I feel like a frustrated housewife who has this little writing pipe dream. I wish I had more energy at night to write with conviction. If only the kid went to sleep before 9:30. If only he went to sleep unassisted. If only I'd started writing a decade ago, when time spread out before me and my brain was just a wee bit larger.
I know I'm lucky to have this life, to have a little time. It's just enough time to waste.
And now he wakes ...
Leaving on a jet plane ...
Since I can't bear to tear myself away from the blogosphere, I'm bringing my trusty laptop along. Hopefully I will have time to write other stuff, too, though that will be tough in a hotel room with little respite from watching the kid. I also want to work on a new layout for the blog. Naptime will be packed.
We'll be seeing my mother for the first time since last September. C is excited (this breaks my heart; even though they've had very little contact, he clearly loves her). I'm sure she is, too. I guess I am as well. If the air is clear and we're all feeling friendly and happy, the show will go off without a hitch. We will link arms and walk offstage, filled with warmth and love. If anyone's mind is clouded with worry or with things left unsaid, the performance will be off. Everyone will breathe a sigh of relief when it's over.
I'll let you know how it goes.
Buzzer beater
(Begin boring complaint)
First, C got sick. Then H developed the same cold. When C gets sick, he sleeps like the baby he once was: poorly. Also violently, with lots of tosses and turns and kicks. When H gets sick, he snores more. My cold symptoms started on Tuesday, the same day C developed pink eye, guaranteeing that daycare was a no-go for Wednesday. Babysitter doesn't want pink eye either. Finally, after the first night of good sleep in five nights, yesterday C decided to skip a nap. I have pink eye for the first time since third grade. And I've spent most of his nap time today cleaning up in preparation for the babysitter (at least his pink eye went away).
(End of boring complaint)
Now he is awake. 'Later.
Players win and winners play
Another long no napper today. My ole nubbin brain keeps on shrinking, with very little to show for it. I did learn that toddlers (at least my toddler) enjoy raking clean cat litter and can turn almost anything into a digger -- even themselves with the proper equipment (dust pan and litter scoop).
I'd like to transcend the day now, please.
I've been reading Beautiful Children , a first novel by Charles Bock. Some of it is very well done. The portrayal of how a marriage can slowly fall apart captures a sense of sadness and inevitability when people no longer communicate, can't bridge the distance they've built between themselves, but still care about each other. What happens to the couple when their only child goes missing is also poignantly written. Many of the characters are real and believable. It's a long and ambitious book with various interweaving story lines. I can feel the struggles he had writing it -- ten years and at least four rewrites -- and it is on the bombastic side, well maybe some lower form of bombasticity, since his language is simple for the most part. Just over the top. Maybe he should have stayed with the couple and their struggle, but I'm not sure that would have been as interesting for Bock or his readers.