driving and smiling

Do you remember the feeling of driving at night in the summer, preferably on a highway with the windows down, your hair blowing around your face, the air soft and warm, the radio magically supplying you with one perfect song after another? You might have been 16, or 19, and the person next to you was a boyfriend or girlfriend, or better yet your best friend in the world. You were wild and free, suffused with a tingly happiness, and surely the kindred spirit next to you felt the same. The perfection of that night was motion, being on the way, sliding effortlessly through time and space. Arriving somewhere would have ruined it.

I've arrived here in adulthood. I am in a very definite spot in time and space: 34 years old, on this couch in this house in this town, just a few miles from the Chesapeake Bay, saddled with all sorts of responsibilities the very thought of which would have afflicted my teenage self with a queasiness worse then any case of carsickness.

the comforts of home

Gabriel and I came down with a new cold this rainy, chill morning. Mike volunteered to take Frances to school and so the two of us did something rather unusual. We spent the entire morning at home. The boy is napping now, still pajama-clad, probably dreaming of baseball.

This is what we did:

*colored a cardboard box and pretended it was a basketball hoop, a robot head, and a pirate ship

*sewed together (I added hair to Frances's Gary-the-Monster Halloween costume; Gabriel made grand 3 inch long stitches on some fabric in an embroidery hoop)

*read lots of lots of stories and poems

*ate two lunches, the first at 9:30 am

*talked with Gramma on the phone

*went for a walk in the rain to deliver granola to a friend and jump in puddles

*read lots and lots more stories and poems

Restorative in body and spirit! I'm not sure why it takes a virus to help me sign on to a morning with my dear boy free from work, errands, social dates, gym-going, and general goal-oriented behavior. Goals, I think, are sometimes overrated.

Do you have a sniffle too? Take a sick day! It's a tried and true curative for whatever may ail you, and what's more (as I discovered today), it can serve as a reminder that all sorts of unexpected good and quiet things can happen when we stop trying to make things happen.

you and me and everyone else

As Gabriel (also known as G-Force) and I left a sweet Halloween party with friends from his school this morning, he suddenly looked down at the paper bag festooned with an orange construction paper pumpkin clutched in his hand and said, "Mama! We don't have one for Didi!"

I told him that since his big sister didn't come to this party, she doesn't get a party favor. This one was just for Gabriel. His eyes narrowed in thought as he opened the bag and contemplated its contents: mini chocolate bars, Halloween-themed stickers, plastic spider rings ... in short, treasure. Standing there on the sidewalk peering into the little bag, he became more and more concerned, until the dark clouds lifted from his face all at once and he looked up at me, exclaiming "I know!! I can share the candy with Didi when we get her after school!"

Problem solved. Gabriel finds it very hard to enjoy anything special until he is reassured that every member of his family will be able to enjoy it with him, especially his big sister (this is definitely not always the case with other children). It's akin to how babies who are new to holding and munching food will take a few bites, notice that you are tragically lacking something to gnaw, then grin and offer you their mushy, decimated teething biscuit. It just doesn't taste as good when you eat it by yourself.

Now I know this flies in the face of so much toddler (and adult!) behavior, but counterexamples to the abundant moments of greed and grubbiness that threaten to dominate our vision of what children are like strike me as important to notice. It feels better to enjoy blessings in community. Kids know it, and we do too.

A dear friend asked me recently why I persist in thinking my eventual return to full time social work must directly involve the lives of vulnerable people. Why not do something more creative, more supported, less likely to lead to burn out? Is it some bizarre pathology, am I just a guilt-ridden caregiver? That kind of thing might come into play, but I heard myself say instead that my fate was tied up with the fate of everyone in my community, especially the poor. My well-being is tied to the well-being of people I don't know, people I might never know. I cannot conceive of my flourishing as an independent process.

It's not that I'm particularly good. It's just that when I've worked with poor people, I have understood my life as connected and meaningful. Not that it isn't now. Taking care of babies and young children is living in a state of uber-connection! But it's an inward-looking time, and as my children grow older and more independent, I find myself looking outward direction more often, wondering about all the people in this town that I drive by on the way to school and Whole Foods and Halloween parties.  

The question for me these days is how I want to be a social worker again: doctoral program or grassroots advocacy? Figuring out the path ahead (which I may not actually set foot upon for a very long time) is also about recalibrating the shifting balance in my life of inward and outward, family and community, giving and receiving. (Throw in the mix that fact that I am also trying and failing to quiet irrational dreams of a third baby in the midst of all this reflection on what is important for me to do as a social worker. Conflicting desires, my friends! I suffer a comically persistent case of conflicting desires.)

When we picked up Frances, there was a small farmers market operating in the parking lot. She discovered there was a big jar of candy on offer, and darted between grown ups to fetch two purple boxes of Nerds, one for her and one for her brother. Then Gabriel passed her his bag of treats from the morning. It was a fine, happy rainy afternoon. We begin with our families, and that is as it should be. But when is it time to reach out beyond this safe and loving place, and risk offering our treasures to a stranger?

what a poem can do

Driving with Gabriel to pick up Frances from school today, I listened to poet Marie Howe on Fresh Air. As we pulled into the parking lot, she read a poem called "What the Living Do," which she wrote as a letter to her brother John who had died from AIDS-related complications years before. Here it is:

Johnny, the kitchen sink has been clogged for days, some utensil probably fell down there.

And the Drano won't work but smells dangerous, and the crusty dishes have piled up

waiting for the plumber I still haven't called. This is the everyday we spoke of.
It's winter again: the sky's a deep, headstrong blue, and the sunlight pours through

the open living-room windows because the heat's on too high in here and I can't turn it off.
For weeks now, driving, or dropping a bag of groceries in the street, the bag breaking,

I've been thinking: This is what the living do. And yesterday, hurrying along those
wobbly bricks in the Cambridge sidewalk, spilling my coffee down my wrist and sleeve,

I thought it again, and again later, when buying a hairbrush: This is it.
Parking. Slamming the car door shut in the cold. What you called that yearning.

What you finally gave up. We want the spring to come and the winter to pass. We want
whoever to call or not call, a letter, a kiss — we want more and more and then more of it.

But there are moments, walking, when I catch a glimpse of myself in the window glass,
say, the window of the corner video store, and I'm gripped by a cherishing so deep

for my own blowing hair, chapped face, and unbuttoned coat that I'm speechless:
I am living. I remember you.
-from What the Living Do: Poems 

It is incredible to me how a particular collection of words spoken in a particular voice can change everything. We sat in the car and listened to her finish the poem, then I turned the key and the car was quiet. I sat in the stillness and warmth, and turned to look back at Gabriel, who I had woken from a nap only minutes earlier. He looked back at me. "That was a nice poem," I said, trying to acknowledge the beauty without succumbing to the emotion I felt in my tightening throat. 

(I remember you. By now we all have a you to remember, I think.)

He nodded his assent. I got out of the car into the day that had turned windy and cold, opened the back door,  unbuckled his car seat, and lifted him out. I don't get to carry my big three-and-a-half year old as much as I'd like, but today, still warm from sleep, Gabriel remained heavy in my arms. His head fit just so on my shoulder and his legs wrapped around me, fitting along the slight indentation above my hips.

As I walked, I pulled his sweatshirt hood up to cover his exposed neck and protect it from the cold. His body, shielding me from the wind, was perfect in its completeness and in that moment my body participated in that perfection because of the way we fitted together seamlessly. Most of the time, I want more and more and then more of it--but not then.

The warmth and weight of him all around me, amidst the first fall day that hinted at winter's rawness, and right there in the middle of so many yelling children and smiling teachers and chatting parents I was gripped by a cherishing so deep. For me, and for the me that is me-and-them. When Frances emerged from her classroom I wanted to run to her.

She ran to me instead. 

sports and sticks

Fresh into adulthood, I used to tell people (with a quiet air of superiority) that I had observed two kinds of people in this world: those who use sports metaphors, and those who do not. Profound, I know! You'll never guess which category I fall into. Once I scrambled my way out of school and many situations in which I was surrounded by children who were able to throw and catch a ball as if it were no big deal, I breathed a sigh of relief. College and the world of work were, for me, blessed places in which ignorance of major sports teams was a legitimate stance. No more volleyball with mean boys in gym class. The oppressive world of sports receded quietly into safe corners, only to be encountered on a muted screen in a bar, or in human interest stories that made it into other sections of the newspaper about engaging topics like Alan Iverson's mother.

Well. Here is my startling confession. I think I may be creeping slowly onto the other side. Sports metaphors cannot be far off, since I spend so much of my time learning about sports with Gabriel. He has been studying the Scholastic Visual Sports Encyclopedia night and day for weeks now, in addition to his daily interlude with the sports section (which usually culminates in a sports collage) and, if the day allows, hours of pretend running, tackling, and sliding into home base in the backyard.

The boy is slowly but surely showing me the light. I tossed a football with Mike (a Nerf football, but still a football!) in the backyard yesterday evening, while kicking a soccer ball slowly to Goalie Gabriel, so he could calculate and executive a properly dramatic dive to block it. Oh my. It was fun. Years of accumulated, entrenched sports-phobia are slowly softening and melting away. In the gentle space left in their wake, I can try out throwing and catching and kicking without any pressure at all.

Yesterday, Gabriel woke early from his nap so we had time for a walk. First things first: select a proper stick. You will need it, because a walk is a fine opportunity for playing a variety of imaginary sports. The stick will serve you well as a golf club, a polo mallet, a baseball bat, a javelin, and a baton in the relay race. (That sports encyclopedia is very, very comprehensive). It could also be a rifle, but your mother might not join in that game quite so enthusiastically.

Gabriel is showing me something new. This sports thing seems more essential somehow than construction vehicles (though I do appreciate how he illuminated the previously unknown world of dump trucks for me). This process started when he was just a baby, singing songs to balls and showing me how incredible a ball really is. He doesn't know how his passions and imagination are opening a part of me that I had long ago decided should remain closed. It is so, so cool.

I don't know if I'm ready to face those mean boys from gym class yet. But if you come by our backyard sometime, I'd sure like to play catch with you. Gabriel will run circles around us, making pretend touchdowns. Doesn't it sound like fun?

making time

When Frances first coined the expression homemade time, I knew that she was communicating some deeper truth about the way I wanted to mother, but I wasn't sure exactly what it was. It became the name of this blog and eventually shorthand for being present and intentional as a parent, for allowing my children to disclose the kernels of beauty and meaning in everyday life by resisting the urge to rush from one thing to the next. It meant slowing down my pace, which tends towards brisk, in order to share a dewy spider web on the back deck or a perfect poem ten times in a row. Homemade time seemed like a spiritual practice of sorts: difficult, requiring discipline, but eventually one that I might cultivate and thus more fully experience and enjoy these long days that blur together into a handful of very short years.

I think there must be all kinds of books about this. Buddhist parenting? Slow parenting, maybe? I rarely read those books because I'd almost always rather read novels in the precious little quiet time I have. So forgive me if I'm explaining something that has already been labeled or already had its moment, duly reported on the Motherlode blog. But really, there is something magical about participating in temporality as our children do--joining them in this moment--that can make parenting joyful. Transcendently so. You don't need money or special skills or friend in the know. It's not a cloth versus disposable kind of decision; it's an intention that colors everything else. It's a willingness to sit down next to a child who doesn't want to walk anymore, and find out what's so interesting crawling along the sidewalk anyway.

But my kids are older, and over the past month or so, I've noticed a certain distance and frustration that came with the schedules and new activities. I thought homemade time was a way in the world--something anyone could access, at any time, with any child. But I have been losing that openness in the struggle to get shoes tied and jackets zipped, faces washed and carseats buckled so we won't be late. I've thrown up my hands in exasperation when the children won't cooperate, but I've only been urging them to keep up, keep moving. I rarely sit down next to them on the sidewalk to see what's caught their eyes. Even though they are big enough to go to Girl Scouts and dance class and playdates, they are still small enough to be enveloped by the present moment, receptive little creatures that they are. It's a blessing, and I've been missing out.

So in recognition of this disturbing trend, this weekend I cancelled apple-picking, and then a friend canceled a playdate because her daughter was sick. We did go to a rainy picnic at Frances's school on Friday, which culminated in a thrilling rainbow (pictured above), then spent the rest of the weekend at home. There was time for book-making, and time to actually read the book (Autumn Has Come is crazy good. Ridiculously good!). Time for baking, for reading Tin Tin on a blanket in the sun, for playing with neighbors in the backyard, for a long jog, for conversation with Mike, for tacos with friends, and perhaps most thrilling, time for practicing brand new skills.

So many of those things happened because we were together, with open time spread before us. An expanse of time with nothing to do was just what we all needed. 

As a parent I learned (all over again) that young children never kill time. Waiting for a bus is just as potentially rich with experience as is riding the bus or arriving at one's destination. Children don't experience time as something to be dealt with. They do the opposite of kill time. They make time. They enliven it; they fill it. It's one way that they teach us.

I'm feeling grateful for that particular lesson tonight. Such a golden October weekend we had, full of homemade moments! I hope yours was, too.

high low

As Frances and I ambled across the Eastport bridge this morning, admiring the sparkling water and gently rocking sailboats amidst crowds of happy boat show-goers, I kept thinking of that Lou Reed song--well, at least the chorus:

Oh it's such a perfect day, I'm glad I spent it with you. 

I think the verses tend towards bleakness (surprise), so my mind stayed with that simple and complete sentiment. It's such a perfect day. We had the morning together, since her school was closed and Gabriel's was not. We stopped by her old school, where Frances played on the playground and I interviewed parents about the school food garden they were tending. Eventually the two of us squatted down to help with the weeding. After that we took a glorious walk into Eastport and landed at our favorite cafe (Can I get chocolate milk? Can I, can I?), where we made friends with a dog and yes, had special drinks.

Without anyone around for Frances to compete with, we made a peaceful, companionable pair, soaking up the golden October sunshine. Every kid and parent should have the occasional luxury of this kind of exclusive, unplanned day, an 'adventure day,' as Frances dubbed it, where the sole point is to be together, and you only find out where you're going when you get there.

*               *               *               *               *

I wrote that this afternoon. It really was a perfect day--until it wasn't anymore. It is now official that my orchestration of napless Mondays for Gabriel was a Bad Decision. Premature, anyway. His music class runs too late and Frances's pick up time is too early to allow for a proper rest and wow do I hear about it come five o'clock. Today's tantrum took place in line at the grocery store. It was like an excruciating scene in a Hollywood movie that is meant to symbolize all that is hard and demoralizing about parenthood. The bad behavior continued all the way until bedtime (early, early bedtime) and now I am a hollowed out, beaten down wreck. These moments can really undermine one's confidence. 

But the documentation of my morning with Frances is proof that everything can feel perfect and everything can feel abysmal, all in the span of a few hours. Sometimes we play a game called High Low at dinnertime. Everyone gets to share one good thing and one bad thing from his or her day. There is something validating in this, for both the adults and the children: our days have high and low moments. It's okay. We can talk about it all.

But back to the high: when you have perfect days (or rather, moments), is there a song that goes through your head? A happy song? In writing this I realized I have a few: Good Morning from Singin' in the Rain, Oh What a Beautiful Morning from Oklahoma! (I must be a morning person. And a musical person. Who knew?). Recently Gabriel and I heard Friday I'm in Love by the Cure on the radio in the midst of a sunny perfect moment and we heartily agreed that it was an excellent happy song. 

Have any others you'd like to share?

the after school club

Most days when Gabriel and I pick up Frances at school, we come prepared for the after school club. We bring snacks, water, sometimes a book or two, sometimes the makings of a sports collage.

Yesterday the weather was fine, and it was nearing five by the time the club members dragged themselves off the playground. Gabriel and I usually greet this late afternoon idyll with a similar happiness. Our bodies relax, our minds loosen their grip: we will spend this wide-open hour outside, free from structured activities, and with friends.

The club is what we call the few families who linger at the playground after school. The other mothers are a pleasure; the other children are accepting, imaginative, and even game for Frances's elaborate pretend games and Gabriel's sports collage-making. We've found a place teeming with peers. I've already begun to sink into this reality as if its a hum drum, regular sort of thing, but sometimes I look around and marvel. How did we find this?

Yesterday, while we mothers sat in the shade chatting idly and watching the children play, it struck me that this scene was like a page ripped from the book of fantasy images I had been accumulating during my last weeks of full-time work (that I had long ago discarded, thinking it utterly unrealistic). It might just be that my children have grown bigger and easier, but it is also that I'm starting (three years later!) to figure out how to live in this still-new town.

Earlier in the day I talked with two other mothers on the playground after I picked Gabriel up from preschool, and we confided about the Quarterly Crisis (equivalent to Tina Fey's Triannual Sob). Every few months we have to freak out about the professional life and identity we are unsure we will ever be able to return to. All three of us work in some capacity now, but part-time, and in circumstances that are limited and far less appealing than those of past jobs. It's rare to find fulfilling, challenging work that you can do for fifteen or twenty hours a week. But oh, it's a pleasure to find other mothers who know intimately the exact spot I'm in.

In other news: you may have noticed that I decided to monetize. There's an ad below this post. It's a trial thing; deep down I know it's not the greatest idea but I wanted to see if one can actually make any money through ads. 'One' being me, of course. Some time ago I made the decision to scale back my regular work hours in order to do more freelance writing this year, and when Mike and I made up the budget, I set a monthly earnings goal for myself. The goal represented the minimum of what I should be making to keep everything else afloat around here - and believe me, it seemed like a modest goal at the time. Yet I'm falling short of meeting it. 

I have never felt comfortable being our family's spender (groceries, gas, prescriptions, incidentals) while not being a family earner. The first 24 hours of advertising on Homemade Time earned me 77 cents. Clearly, this is not going to pay the bills...yet I'm still reluctant to take that icky ad off the site. The reluctance is irrational and deep, about both money anxiety and worldly recognition anxiety. Will I ever have a meaningful job again? Will I ever do something judged worthy of a substantial paycheck? Might this ad for vitamins on my mama blog somehow ameliorate the situation?

Taking care of my kids and sharing them in broader, caring communities is a rich life. We'll be just fine, even if I don't earn as much as I'd expected to. And yet I succumbed to Adsense! 

I hope you'll forgive me. Sometimes it's hard to trust in an unknowable future, to relax into this overflowing present replete with blessings. 

corduroy weather

Golden, you are,
October.
Golden sovereigns on your trees.
Golden guineas on your floor,
golden coins of leaves that fall
for us to scuffle through
and rustle
and rattle
and hustle
and scrabble
and dabble
and paddle 
as they fall
into an October carpet
which hides
our shoes. 
-from  Around the Year by Elsa Beskow

Last night, as I tried in vain to slow down after a day of buzzing from one thing to the next, I climbed into bed next to Mike and announced that I have a disease. A do-too-much disease.

He laughed and said, "I've been telling you that for almost fifteen years!"

I see. Well. I suppose I do have a tendency to over-extend, volunteer, and generally let my enthusiasms get away with me. Yesterday involved school for Gabriel and Frances, work for me, an after-school music class for Gabriel (during his usual naptime), an after-school dance class for Frances, the biggest tantrum of Gabriel's short life, culminating in a mad dash through a parking lot thronged with SUVs and minivans (whose drivers could not possibly see a barely three-foot-tall person sprinting along the ground beneath their lofty windshields), a flurry of phone calls outside dance class in search of a babysitter, a quick mac-and-cheese dinner for the kids, a change into grown up clothes, and a reception at the Government House in honor of a very cool new program in Maryland. Then I came home, relieved the sitter, worked a bit more, and greeted Mike around 10:30, after his final class of the day. I hadn't seen him since 8 that morning.

This is not how we do things. What is happening?

I have no one to blame but myself. This mama, like many before her, sets the family tone and rhythm. I make the social commitments, schedule the classes, and set my work calendar. We had a special visitor over the weekend, various church activities on Sunday, and now I am sitting in my chaotic house, hoping the boy is catching up on sleep, marveling at how we fell off the lunch-planning wagon so soon, and wondering how I can slow. everything. down. 

There are plenty of good reasons to pursue everything that we pursued yesterday (like chatting with First Lady O'Malley!) but maybe it is time to make some choices. Otherwise, perfect days like today would forever elude me: Gabriel and I ran a few errands, stopped to collect stacks of new books and read at the library, and soaked up some long-awaited autumn sunshine over a picnic in the backyard. With sports guys books, of course.

If I had scheduled our morning away, we wouldn't have had time to brainstorm a Halloween costume, or sing ridiculous songs, or examine the latest crop of baby grasshoppers bouncing lightly over our picnic blanket. I wouldn't be comforted by the smell of chipotle white bean soup simmering on the stove just now, nor would I have finally folded and put away the basket of clean laundry that had taken up residence at the top of the stairs. What a relief! It had been sneering at me for days.

It is corduroy weather, finally. These perfect days slide so quickly into the dark gray chill of winter. I'd hate to succumb to the lure of doing-too-much, only to look up and realize I'd missed the golden days of October.