Much work to do. Grateful. Busy.
Sick child at home getting sicker.
Laundry wrangled into submission. House not.
Mountain of email threatening to erupt.
Haven’t showered yet this morning afternoon.
Facebook? Blogs? What’s social networking again?
Inspiration knocking, waiting, giving up, leaving.
Care to share your six words?
The girls’ school called me this morning to pick up my newly minted six-year-old, caught in a rackety upsweep of fever. I was barely through the entryway before Natalie wrapped herself around me. “I want to go home,” she whispered, eyes drooping onto flushed cheeks. “Of course, kiddo; let’s get you home.”
Mothering hadn’t factored into my plans for the next few hours. I had just left work, and I had lesson plans to go over, an editing project to finish, and mountains of both laundry and correspondence to scale. I was also chewing on an upcoming writing deadline I’ve been hoping to meet, and the house needed disaster relief aid after yesterday’s birthday party in which glitter featured heavily. Just in case I had time left over (ha) and was wondering how to spend it, I could always put a little thought into birthday party #2 fast approaching on Sunday. Oh, and Natalie’s presents should probably be wrapped at some point, considering her special day is was yesterday. Also, if truth be admitted, I wasn’t feeling too hot myself and wouldn’t have turned down a nap.
However, tomato soup, fairy tales, and plenty of unrushed snuggle time were clearly called for. Natalie didn’t require any brain power or motivation from me, just the number one remedy used by mamas worldwide: love (give or take a cool hand to the forehead every three minutes). She is growing up so quickly, that girl—sugar and spice making way for vocabulary and art—and she has her own trajectory now outside of my arms. It’s incredible to have grown-up conversations with my wide-eyed baby, read long-winded books to her, give her scissors and a workspace and let her go to town, giggle over shared jokes… but I so miss the days of rocking her to sleep that my heart squeezes the breath from my lungs. So while I might not have planned to spend today burrowed under blankets and storybooks, I can think of worse ways to celebrate a girl whose years are rushing by faster than time itself.
Ti voglio bene, Natalina mia.
I’ve written before about my sad history with the workplace. I have a deep aversion to authority figures—an unfortunate side-effect of being micromanaged from birth—and I have a habit of taking jobs that require far more of me than they give back. Case in [multiple] point[s]: I once spent days putting together a portfolio of carefully researched reports only to find out that the job for which I was applying was unpaid. I also spent a few years editing for a company that turned out to be a scam. My last teaching job in the States lost us money. It’s not the most impressive track record, and my experience-fueled sense of logic tells me I should avoid job offers like the Black Death.
In fact, my return to the working world this week started almost by accident. At some point last year, a friend with whom I had collaborated on an editing project (also unpaid; why do I do this to myself?) recommended I call up her former employer and ask if they needed any new English teachers or translators. However, considering that
I chose not to call.
Fast forward to a couple of weeks ago. A new company in town was looking for English teachers, and I started updating my CV just for kicks. As long as I was applying for a job, I figured I might as well try my friend’s suggestion too. The new company wanted to hire me. My friend’s former employer did not. Yet my gut told me that something was off about the job offer I did receive. Maybe my instincts have grown hypersensitive over the years of poor career choices, or maybe anyone with a smidgen of common sense would know not to accept a position that came with stipulations for age and gender. (That, I believe, is a tactic generally known as illegal.) At any rate, I turned down the job. Aside from the residual people-pleaser guilt, it felt good.
What felt even better, though, was hearing again from my friend’s company—the one that hadn’t had any openings for me. Would I like to come in for an interview? Would I like to attend an informal office orientation? Would I like to meet the other employees? Would I like to start Monday? Surprisingly… yes!
The job seems perfect for this stage of my life. I am now a part-time English tutor with hours that will allow me to be home with the girls after school and even give a little TLC to that erstwhile novel. The staff is friendly, the office is five minutes from home, and I can wear jeans. (My soul rejoices in distressed denim.) After my past work experiences, I never would have thought I’d feel so honored to return to employeedom… but I guess the right job was just an accident waiting to happen.
To be honest, I don’t always remember that Dan is my best friend. I have no trouble remembering that we’re roommates, especially when the house is in need of an intervention. I’m pretty good about keeping in mind that he’s the father of my children, particularly at the end of a long day when said children are loudly voicing their displeasure over the institution of toothbrushing. I remember he’s the one who usually takes the trash out, who does school drop-off, who calls the phone company when our internet goes AWOL, who mixes the drinks, who brings home the steady paycheck… but sometimes, in the muddle of parenting and housekeeping and responsible-adulting, I forget that he’s also the one who can take me from crying to laughing in two seconds flat.
I suspect this is common symptom of long-term relationships—familiarity turning to invisibility, perspective glazing over as time blows past—but it still sucks. I often wish there were a magic spell that would allow me to wake up each morning with my sense of wonder firmly intact. A newlywed potion would work just as well… or any kind of mental caffeine to keep me constantly aware of the things I love about my husband and our coupleness. Any of you aspiring entrepreneurs want to take a crack at it?
Meanwhile, as we wait for relational LSD to go on the market, we’ll just have to make a steady habit of the next-best formula: babysitter + snowboards + lift tickets for two. I hadn’t thought we would be able to hit the slopes this year, so a belated Valentine’s getaway to the mountains last weekend was a delightful surprise. We laughed, we wiped out, we took full advantage of the off-trail opportunities, and Dan even got a chance to come to my rescue like a knight in shining snow gear. It was all very dignified, I assure you.
For a couple chronically short on time and vacation funds with two small children and a messy kitchen at home, a weekend snowboarding trip doesn’t make much sense… but for a couple chronically short on fun and relaxation with 7.5 years of marriage and a bajillion life changes under their belts, it not only makes sense—it makes remembering easy.
The girls’ school has asked me to come in tomorrow morning and talk about where I’m from. Any details beyond this were vague, and I suspect it’s just a ploy by the teachers to get some homemade chocolate chip cookies. Fortunately for them, it’s working. Unfortunately for me, I have no idea what I’m going to say.
The United States really aren’t all that different from Italy. Americans drive on the same side of the road, eat with the same utensils, and wear the same clothing styles as Italians (with the possible exception of the tubithongotard which needs to die a swift death anyway). We speak a different language, but mandatory English classes start in preschool here, and the girls’ classmates sang a forty-two chorus version of “We Are the World” for their Christmas play; neither the English language nor Michael Jackson is new territory for them.
I’m oversimplifying, of course. There are plenty of cultural nuances to take into account—the ways people relate to each other, to food, to sports—the ways politics are run or rigged—the ways humor is understood—but I doubt a roomful of three-to-five-year-olds would appreciate a lecture on sarcasm vs. slapstick.
My leading idea at the moment is to walk in wearing a cowboy hat, say “Poop!”, wait for the riotous laughter to subside, and lead everyone in forty-three choruses of “We Are the World” while passing out cookies. I’d be an instant hit with the kids, but I’m not sure the teachers would be amused (different understanding of humor and all). Anyone have a suggestion not involving fashion lamentations, scatological humor, or bribery by cookies? Because I’ve totally got those covered.
The story goes that once upon a time, an aging queen sat her son down for a chat. “Listen, Lem,” she began, “Those girls you keep bringing home? Well, I ain’t saying that they’re gold diggers, but they ain’t messin’ with no broke goatherds, capisce? You’re a king, so let’s cut to the chase: WHAT IN THE HOLY HOLISHKES ARE YOU THINKING? What you need is a virtuous girl, by which I mean one who can knit—designer knitting, mind you, that generates enough income to fund her real-estate business. Obviously, she’ll make all of your clothes too… yes, even those scarlet ski pants of which you’re so fond. She’ll arrange a steady stream of extracurricular activities to keep the kids busy while you’re hanging out with your buddies so she can work her daily shift in the soup kitchen, and it probably goes without saying that she won’t have time to sleep. Ever. Now go find her!” And all the maidens of the kingdom fled in terror. The end.
That’s more or less how the Biblical book of Proverbs wraps up, and it makes for one of the most horrifying Bible study topics I’ve ever experienced. Groups of women meet up to wade in guilt together and discuss how they can start measuring up to Mrs. Proverbs 31, which is kind of ridiculous when you consider that Lemuel’s gal would have had no time for Bible studies herself. Things get desperate, and if you don’t think modern women would start stitching dresses just to be more virtuous, think again. Even the ladies who go with a more “letter of the law” approach leave the Bible studies with dark circles forming preemptively under their eyes.
I doubt King Lemuel’s mom imagined her motherly advice would ever be construed as God’s Will For Womankind. Furthermore, I doubt that the womanizing, perpetually hung-over Lem ever found a wife to fit his ideal (er, make that his mom’s ideal). The virtuous wife was a fantasy spun from parental reproach, a strong work ethic, and good old-fashioned hyperbole, and there is no evidence suggesting that such a superwoman ever existed. In fact, the latter third of the Bible makes it clear that God is much more interested in our sincerity and love than in how late we stay up knitting.
I guess what bothers me so much about this famous chapter is that King Lemuel’s mother adds one more voice to the chorus telling us women we’re not enough—not productive enough, talented enough, skinny enough, smart enough… fill in the blank. And when the aging queen’s advice is taken as God’s decree because it shows up in the Bible, the not-enoughs take on the full weight of divinity. It’s no longer a simple matter of “I am not enough;” it becomes “God thinks I am not enough.”
Yet Jesus is the one who comforted a housewife flustered over her massive to-do list: “Martha, dear Martha, you’re fussing far too much and getting yourself worked up over nothing.” It didn’t matter that what she was worked up over was Jesus’s dinner; he would forego a feast to enjoy her company. And to another woman who wasted a year’s wages on a perfume bath for his feet (rather than giving that money to the poor as Jesus’s dinner hosts angrily insisted she should have done, as the Proverbs 31 woman would have done), he extended kindness, gratitude, and the grace she had been craving.
I’m not saying that Lemuel’s mom didn’t have some good points—as long as they’re taken with a grain of salt and a glassful of cultural perspective—but I find myself wishing that King Lem had acted a bit more kingly to start with and let that damn Proverbs 31 woman rest as all women should: in peace.
~~
* Title and topic inspired by a dear friend.
Anyone remember Love Thursdays? Apparently, the tradition is still alive and well at Chookooloonks, but it seems to have slipped out of vogue elsewhere which is a shame… especially when one finds a wee reminder of love tucked inside a walnut shell on a foggy Thursday morning.
This morning wasn’t the smoothest we’ve ever had. The trouble really started yesterday afternoon when I decided to knock tax filing out of the way during the girls’ naps. Three hours later, I was hopelessly lost inside the labyrinth of IRS form instructions with bad words on the brain and nary a plan for supper. As a result, bedtimes were far too late, and we all woke up unwillingly this morning with only half an hour until school.
I felt like my head had been run over by a nice mid-sized sedan, and patience escaped me within the first minute when one daughter greeted the offer of a tissue with wailing and gnashing of teeth. The other passively protested the not-hot-pinkness of her jeans by taking ten minutes to put on one sock. Backwards. Both girls were crying by the time their shoes were tied, and I was seriously contemplating the benefits of getting a sister wife or two.
At five minutes until school, two overtired girls slumped against their overtired mother in the kitchen, our goodbye hug sagging with defeat. I could still feel the sedan’s tread marks across my skull as yet another signature on my sign-in sheet of failures—my failure to get up early, to respond to this morning’s preschool dramas with grace, to “mop up hurt with embrace,” to finish the taxes yesterday, to ration my time skillfully, to keep up with the to-dos, to be fitter, happier, more productive, to mother effortlessly…
Because it’s not effortless for me, you see. Loving my girls is the fiercest instinct I’ve ever experienced, but mothering them takes intention, sacrifice, trial and error and error again. Looking at how other moms do it is the surest way to convince myself that I suck. That mom enrolls her children in a variety of extracurricular activities; that one takes her children on weekly field trips. That one had each of her children reading by three and a half; that other one relaxes on the academics but gives her children hours of undivided attention. That mom chronicles her children’s growing-up years with breathtaking photos; that one writes books to hers. Each new way of mothering flashes in neon letters until I am dizzy from the should of it and wondering how drastically I am screwing up my daughters.
My mother-in-law doesn’t see it the same way though. When I got to spend time with her a few weeks ago, she reminded me of what matters above all activities and achievements. It’s the one thing that comes to me by instinct rather than effort, and we have so much of it around here that it shows up inside our walnuts. We love each other. We really do, even when the girls have to entertain each other because I got caught up in the difference between Form 2555 and Form 2555-EZ and forgot about supper. Even on groggy, rushed mornings when we hug through tears of frustration. Even when I think longingly of sister wives and sleeping in.
Maybe it’s impossible not to screw up our children, and the real goal of parenting should be to keep their future therapy sessions to a minimum, or maybe parenting just comes less easily to some of us. Either way, a simple shape this morning reminded me of the truth my mother-in-law shared with me—that love doesn’t just cover a multitude of failures; it renders them obsolete.
