Yesterday it was explained to me that I am actually insane for insisting someone eat scrambled eggs and toast for dinner instead of frosted flakes.
Today, when I picked up the other one from after
school at 4:30- she reminded me about a band concert this evening, except I’d never heard about the concert in the first place.
After we established that- yes, there was going to be concert that every other family with a band loving child in Milton knew about, and my daughter really, really wanted to attend, the possibility was again mentioned that perhaps I’m losing my mind, because of course she would have mentioned it, I mean , Mooooom– (Mom, I have to wear black pants, a white button down shirt, and it has to be clean, mom, like real people’s clean, and I need socks, I forgot about the socks, and shoes, black shoes, and they have to be… )
All explained to me one hour before she was due at the high school to practice.
It was a lovely concert. I was introduced to the band director, had the chance to see some good friends. So many of the kids on the stage I’ve had the pleasure of being in the audience for- either a Celebration of Spring Chorale, or Holiday concert, or Easter Egg Hunt or Isn’t Our Town the Best Town in the Whole World Parade or The Annual Mother’s Day March for Peace .*
The music was unexpected, for me anyway. The different bands performed the works of modern composers. I heard hope, terror, joy, grief, got a glimpse of spring, with just the right touch of “Let it Go”. (I think it’s going to years and years before the fans of that song take the advice spelled out in the chorus.)
The two people the closest to me have told me that I am completely insane and totally losing my mind.
Either one of those two statements might have really pissed me off, except- well, they reached this consensus a long time ago, and somehow I still remember to pick someone up for practice and sign someone else’s test and I’m the only one that ever remembers to feed the dog.
And somehow, I don’t point these points out to them on an hourly basis.
But I am really happy listening to the band, I even plan to tape the recital. I love cheering for the team, whatever the season. “Go Team” is ok, as long as I don’t use any names. Or at least not his name.
It’s been a good day.
And tomorrow, there is nothing on my calendar. No one needs a ride. No one needs anything baked, or bought, or delivered or signed.
Tomorrow’s going to be great.
*At the annual Mother’s Day March for Peace, moms aren’t the audience, we are organizers and leaders, some of us sharing and spilling grief, some of us are there to listen, a lot of us sing. And while we march, everyone keeps an eye on the children, who tag along behind, or limp beside, sweaty sticky palms inside someone’s slightly bigger palm, or race ahead, carrying signs, calling to friends, not looking for us at all, (because they know we are somewhere). Pretty similar to all of the other special days, I guess, except our name is in the title. And for the record, dad’s are welcome.
About 8:30, I slid into some black snow pants. Katy put elastics round her mittens to keep the snow from slipping down her sleeves. I kissed Sophia The Summer Time Dog goodbye on the nose and promised I would never, ever take her along sledding.
There was no one at Andrews Park except some fool with a dog. Well, he’s probably a very nice guy, but his timing wasn’t good. Katy and I were there to sled.
There was a streetlight a few blocks down that blinked and flashed like fire flies or shooting stars, orange, slightly industrial shooting stars.
The snow was vast, an ocean of snow, and the hill was a mountain.
After I finished my first ride, Katy got mad at me because I didn’t want to climb all the way to the top of the hill to start the next one.
I was afraid of ice. She told me to follow her, to walk sideways, to crawl forward like a bear.
I sat down in the middle of that hill and enjoyed a very nice ride.
By the end of the night, Katy and I raced, from the top.
I didn’t fall down on ice if I walked sideways or like a bear.
I won three times, thought it was because I weigh a bit more than my 11 year old daughter.
Further experimentation showed that I had been using the better sled, when we switched, she crushed me.
Of course, she also could have been letting me win all along and gotten sick of it.
I don’t want to know. But I wouldn’t mind going tomorrow night to find out.
And the world looks very different when I’m sprawled on a boogie board, head tilled back. The trees are upside town, the sky is closer and the snow smells sweet in it’s natural habitat.
Dripping on kitchen floors, clinging to mittens on the radiator, snow reeks of chores and arrogance and endless loads of laundry.
While I lay on my back, head tilted back off the sled, watching the sky, seeing for the first time how long the branches are on the oak tree that Katy crashed into six springtimes ago, the first time she took out the two wheeler, everything looked and smelled and sounded different.
Then my daughter called out- “Mom, I think it’s time to wrap it up… Where are your gloves… And why is your head in the snow?”
And we went home.
Bliss
January 13, 2015
I’m driving to the library and “What I Like about You” comes on the radio.
There’s no one else in the car and I have time to listen to the whole thing and pick up the first season of Breaking Bad before I arrive, on time, to fetch my basketball boy and his friends.
I return home. The dishwasher hums, nothing is left in the sink but a half eaten sponge,
Sophie the Sweet just informed me she’d rather nap than walk in the rain, my daughter smells like lip gloss and soap.
My friends love me, my family still calls. I’m not close to being done with anything and I’ve still got plenty of time, (or the ignorant bliss of assumption)
I am just so damn happy to be alive.
Perpective
December 5, 2014
At this moment in time, I know where my car keys are, my eyeglasses, (They’d been missing for a month, and last night I had a dream that revealed their location. Really.) both of our tv remotes, the cats, Sophie the Sweetest of Pups, my gym bag, the favorite cup, the house phone, the mobile, scissors, pens- I can even tell you where to find a band aid.
On the other hand, I misplaced the tablet, our dryer is busted so there are clothes draped on every available surface and our towels are crunchy, Christmas is coming. I need to make an appointment to get my teeth cleaned, and I’m having a hard time adjusting to the whole new full time job thing.
I have a new job! A job I love at Quincy College, 2 minutes away from our house, with a terrific boss and a really cool team that is kind and doesn’t mind that sometimes most of my sentences end in exclamation points. And Christmas is coming!
But I haven’t had as much time to go to the gym as I like, and I miss my friends and long dog walks with the Wondrous One.
Breathe.
I know where most of my stuff is, there is a gym in the basement of the building I work, my friends are on Facebook, and I know where my children are. I know they will be coming home to me tonight, safe. And that we live in a tiny corner of the world where the odds are everyone is coming home tonight.
I am fortunate woman.
I am also a sad woman. A woman whose heart has broken more than a little in these past few weeks for all of the mothers and sons out there who aren’t so fortunate.
There is space inside me for both.
Places I Have Been To
September 10, 2013
I went to church last Sunday. It was the first Sunday of the church year. Everyone came early for a pancake breakfast hosted by the youth group. I’d actually been at the church since Saturday night since I had been one of the chaperones for the pre-pancake breakfast youth sleepover. (I am either a very brave or a very stupid woman.) As I moved around the halls, directed guests to the bathroom, and found a sugar bowl for somebody in the kitchen, it occurred to me- I feel at home here. I am a member of the club.
You know the feeling I’m talking about? When all the sudden you look around whatever space you are in and realize- you know where stuff is. You know the names of people around you, you even know if they are people worth knowing, and you move thru hallways and rooms with ease.
The church is the latest in a long series of places I made my own. I’m sure for many, school is the first thing that comes to mind. Not for me. As a matter of fact, for all the time I spent in school, my memories are mostly of feeling lost. Literally. I have a lousy sense of direction, every year classrooms are different, they were usually located on different floors. Kids in classes changed, and every few years, buildings changed. To make matters really difficult, when I was 12 my family moved from Pennsylvania to New Jersey.
I suppose, on a much smaller level, I got a sense of it over at friends houses. Going over to Leslie’s and being able to drink from the water jug in the fridge reserved for family members. Over at my first boyfriend’s house, I was entrusted with the location of spare key, and knew the names of all of his cousins. He only had three cousins, but I’m not that good with names. And of course, the Stanfields. Their home became the back up home to many teenagers in Mountain Lakes. I knew where to find the corn nuts, and what bedroom was likely to be unoccupied, or mostly unoccupied. Of course, so did about seventy five other kids between the ages of 15 and 18. But it was nice, knowing my home wasn’t my only home. Especially since things weren’t always so easy in my home growing up.
Skip forward quite a few years. My first true sense of belonging to a group, and knowing where I fit in, was when I settled in Boston, and discovered the club scene. And the bands. (And the members of bands. Whole nother story.) And the drugs, and the right ratio of drugs and alcohol for just the right buzz. I remember how it felt to saunter up to the front a line, nod at the bouncer and walk in a front door. How I felt so damn special to be granted entrance into a dark, crowded smoky room, with minimal bathrooms, insane lines- to buy a drink, pee, even to grab a seat. I became familiar with the bartenders, did my research and sought out the johns no one else knew about, and became particularly skilled at lurking behind someone getting ready to leave, then swooping in for their spot at the bar before they’d even picked up their keys. I knew where the stairs were, where the elevators were, where the back doors were, who bartended on which night, and who might be willing to pay for my drinks.
And the best part… Everybody knew me. By name. After years of feeling pretty damn anonymous, I had circles and circles of friends. I had friends to go out to dinner with, friends to sleep with, friends to stay up all night with, friends to play scrabble with… I had lots and lots and lots of friends. I spent piles of money, had, from what I remember a damn good time, and woke up from it all when I was pregnant with my first child.
Then I went back to feeling like I had in school, a little bit lost.
When I sat down to write this, I was going to list all of the places in my life that weren’t my home, but that felt like home.
And this is what I found out- there were the clubs in Boston and Cambridge in the 90’s, there is the space between my two kids anywhere in the whole world, and there is my church. My church is a place that practices something called “radical hospitality”, and I guess they really, truly do. At least in my case. My church is a place where we have twenty minute conversations about which class will work for a nine year old who is more mature than most, but needs to make more friends in his grade. It is a place where there is always coffee, though I often have to make it, or find the filters. Where the minister is my friend, and I swim with the Youth Advisor most mornings, (not at the church, it’s not that nice.) And where when the conversation turns to Social Justice, and it often does, it is not in the abstract.
I’m glad I finally found my way there.
Christmas night Thoughts or Some time without kids so I might as well write something
December 26, 2012
What can I say about Christmas that hasn’t already been said? Silent Night is a lovely song, batteries are a big part of a successful Christmas morning and chocolate kisses are probably not the healthiest way to start the day.
We had dinner at my sister and brother in laws home. Nancy and Jeff don’t see the Colin and Katy that often. This past year my children entered the phase of their lives when their calendars require a full time assistant/chauffeur to keep track of their commitments and get them there. There is not much time is left for the simple joy of watching scary movies with relatives. So tonight after dinner, I left them there. Nancy and Jeff let them have snacks on the bed. Nancy and Jeff let them watch movies where Freddy Krueger is the hero. Nancy will paint Katy’s toenails and Jeff will spend a half an hour talking about the Celtics with Colin. Make that an hour.
So here I am, home alone on Christmas night. I remember when I used to drop them at the sitters when they were little; car seat, diaper, dry cheerios were a delicacy little. I’d pull away from them like I was leaving a particularly horrible job. I’d turn up the radio, call all of my friends to announce I had a window of freedom and meet whoever picked up first for many cocktails and long lubricated conversations about how I loved my babies so much but I really, really needed this time to be me. They would chime in with answers like “you deserve this” and order me another drink another shot, while patting me on that hand and looking at me with pity. Maybe it was the spit up on my blouse, or the dark circles under my eyes. We’d spend a couple hours in the bar, or at someone’s condo or in an intimate little restaurant. Drinking. Bemoaning a life that required me to wipe someone’s bottom at least five times a day. Talking about the need for adult conversation. We talked a lot about how I needed adult conversation, but I don’t recall any of the adult conversation after it’s need was established. Repeatedly. Maybe that’s because of all of the cocktails consumed during these conversations. I know that one of my favorite obsessions then, and I’m sure I shared it with anyone and everyone who would listen, was- how was I going to wean Katy from the breast. (That was how I put it, I swear, the breast, like it wasn’t attached to my body, which if it wasn’t attached to my body, it wouldn’t have been such a big concern.) I don’t really think this qualifies as adult conversation, I’m sure it bored my friends to tears, but for about a year and a half that was pretty much all that was on my sleep deprived little mind.
That was years ago. Tonight when I drove away from them I didn’t even think of calling a friend to meet for a cocktail. It’s Christmas night, the bars are closed. And not having the kids isn’t thrilling me the way it used to. I didn’t get that glorious rush of “I’m free” when I pulled out of the driveway. I just thought about how much I hate the months when it’s dark at five o’clock.
I’m home now. There is a lot of post Christmas cleanup to do. I will turn on the radio and sweep and break down boxes for recycling. I’ll try to figure out why the dishwasher won’t drain. I’ll peel up the goo from the kitchen floor from one of Katy’s science experiments. I’ll throw out the box of fancy chocolates; the kids sampled all of them and ate two. I will feed Colin’s fish and try to find the receipt to $18 Nike Elite socks I went to the mall on Christmas Eve to get; they don’t fit. $18 dollar socks that require two trips to the mall, I’m going to reminding him of that for the next six months every time I want him to clean his room.
I miss them. Not because they would help, and they would. I miss them because they have grown into the people I most want to hang out with. I want to commiserate with Colin and Katy about the measly snow we got, and talk about what the best part of the Christmas pageant was. I want to dance around the kitchen with Katy while the radio plays one of our songs, (most of the songs on the radio are one of our songs.) I want Colin to show my something on youtube I just have to see, which I invariable find totally disgusting or pee in my pants hysterical*.
And now my thoughts turn to all of the mothers tonight without their kids. I’m picking mine up at nine.
All I can say to them is I promise to try to remember each day and each night, I am the luckiest woman in the world.
*I am aware that if Colin reads this he will never, ever show me a youtube video again, and decided I can live with that.
julierichmond 