Bethany Bassett

Malady Du Jour

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Today’s malady du jour: vertigo. I woke up this morning to a head skipping like a scratched disc, waves of dizziness repeating ad nauseum. The doctor, diagnosing by phone as I was in no condition to leave the house (or, um, the bed), suggested it might be an inner-ear infection, which I want to make sense. I could use some extra sense right now, and perhaps a mysterious bug caught in the mazes of my head can explain the host of physical-mental symptoms I’ve been muddling through. Like headaches, great and small. Backaches. Stomachaches. Leg-aches. Heartaches. Draft folders crammed with half-written e-mails and blog posts I can’t seem to finish. Telephones ringing off the hook while I put another pillow over my head. Panic attacks. My body closing in on me until I have to force each breath. Loss of appetite. Loss of motivation. Loss of that little somethin’ somethin’ that used to add sparkle to my days.

“It’s probably a milk allergy,” assured one friend. Another one told us of an endocrinologist where I could get my thyroid checked. Another friend suggested I ask for antidepressants, while yet another one told me about some great counseling services… 6,000 impossible miles away. Suddenly it’s not just the vertigo making me dizzy as I spin through the options and consider the frightening subjectiveness of medical diagnoses. I start to feel claustrophobic at the thought that I live in a non-English-speaking country, but I should be honest: I wouldn’t know where to start looking in the States either.

I go to the doctor in a few days, and I desperately want to solve myself before then. I am reluctant, embarrassed, to explain the multitude of ways in which I am sucking right now, and I would love to tell him, “Look Doc, I seem to be suffering from a food allergy. Please to medicate.” Doctors appreciate it when patients diagnose themselves, right?

The one good thing about this prolonged mystery illness is that, as it slowly drains the color from life, my priorities come into sharp black-and-white focus. I may not be able to accomplish much right now, but I can snuggle my girls for a long afternoon nap… and realize how much more important that is than cleaning or shopping or worrying about everything I’m not getting done. The world won’t stop if I’m unproductive this month, and perhaps marinating in the love of my sweet family may be my best treatment plan.

16Mar

Damp Paper

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We’re in between seasons here. Cold winds sneaking through sunny yellow days, snowboards and planters vying for space on the balcony. At the grocery store, seasonal fruit is limited to spongey apples and some mandarins that look everything brilliant and orange but taste like damp paper. My days lately have had a lot in common with those mandarins…

…and there I stop. My thoughts have developed a sudden habit of darting away when I get too close, when I try to form their likeness into words, and I can’t manage heartfelt honesty right now. It’s heartbreaking, as is the way I snap under the pressure of mothering some mornings. The way seedlings and ringing phones make me crumble. The way I lie in bed wondering if today will be a make up day. This is not a year I want to remember, but I wish I could put it into words all the same.

11Mar

Association-Free

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Today was a better day.

Perhaps that’s all the explanation I need to give for the last few weeks. That, and the fact that I’m finally putting letters together on a page without abusing the backspace key most disgracefully.

We’re on Day 4 of a settimana bianca in the Alps, and the wild incongruity of cautious, southern-bred me whizzing down slopes on a snowboard is doing me good. I love feeling like the wind, or at least the wind’s unfashionable second cousin who occasionally goes sprawling in a ploof of powder. It’s like breathing caffeine. Not even my ridiculously painful snowboard boots matter when I’m taking off down the mountain into a more alive version of myself.

Growing up in Texas gave me no context for cable cars and snow-tufted lodge gables, and I’m okay with that. This week can just be, free from associations. It can just be the glitter of fresh-faced sunrises on the snow. Pots of hot chocolate for breakfast. The soft crunch of boots and whirring of ski lifts. Funny bruises. Adorable preschoolers shuffling in misspelled lines during ski school. Pure air in our faces. At least one Better Day to remember this vacation by.

22Feb

Fail/Pass

Posted by: Bethany in Sunday Scribblings 8 Comments

They’re sleeping in the next room… or at least the older one is, curled up neatly on her bunk bed where I left her, propriety intact. The younger one is still dancing around in her slipper socks, strewing books and toys across the floor and shouting “Da da da da da!” in blatant disregard for all known rules of naptime. Instinct tells me I should be stern with her, but I can’t help giggling. I adore those girls.

In just over a week, my oldest turns four—an impossible, terrifying, glittery-pink age that will suit her perfectly. I don’t know how this happened, and it occurred to me that the girls may be in dentures and Depends before I reconcile myself to their growing up. It’s like getting hit over the head with a final exam for which I’ve never studied: How can you raise your strong, vibrant preschoolers into strong, vibrant women? Present your answer in 14 years or less.

Uh, I have no idea. My own formative years were sponsored by the decade 1860 and the planet Mortificationus; no help there. I’ve worked with children from infancy through college age without ever unraveling the mystery of parenting, learning which colors and patterns work together to keep the kids out of therapy. I know an encyclopedia’s worth of Don’ts, but only two and maybe a half Do’s. This scares me.

The only two things I have going for me are that I love my daughters, as immensely and achingly as a mama can, and that they trust me. I doubt every molecule in my body from time to time, but they haven’t yet learned the logic of parent = human = fallible. And even though that feels like cheating, their good impression of me boosts my confidence until I begin to think I could actually nurture them without any disastrous side effects. And maybe it’s not cheating at all…

Because my daughters absolutely can trust me to stick with them through the best and worst times of their lives. They can trust me to give them honest answers on sticky topics and to encourage their independence. They can trust me to teach them about boys and bodies and creativity and forging a future. They can trust me to read family bedtime stories as long as ~~I can force them to sit still~~ they’ll let me. They can trust that their precious hearts, their technicolor personalities, and their treasure troves of dreams are held securely in their mommy’s love. And they can always trust that when I embarrass them beyond all hope of recovery, I’ll be able to embarrass them further still with a cautionary tale from my own childhood.

I may pass this exam after all.

18Feb

Star-Crossed Lunch

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(a story… with pictures)

Lunch woke up on the wrong side of the bed today.

This:

Photo credit: Epicurious

was the plan—soft homemade gnocchi in a creamy, lemon-zested sauce with tender peas and spinach. Commence drooling. I tend to save the best for last in my weekly meal planning, and this promised to be something special. Plus, spinach turns anything into a diet dish. (Feel free not to debate that last point.)

But lo and behold, the peas?

had developed rigor mortis.

16Feb

Shiny Red Mismatch

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A shiny red mega-gym just opened in our town, and we headed over last night to check out their fantastic introductory offer. I haven’t been a gym member since elementary school, and even then, I mostly played ping-pong and snuck into the adults only hot tub. Working out really isn’t my thing. But the shiny red flyer in our mailbox promised an all-you-can-eat buffet of classes, a special work out room for self-conscious ladies, and babysitting, all for less than I used to pay for a basic cell phone plan. Did I mention the babysitting? The prospect of doing sit-ups without a one-year-old jumping on my stomach was enough. Off we went.

True to its word, the gym was red and shiny. Quite shiny. In fact, the rows of pristine ellipticals and sparkling weight machines appeared never to have been tainted by human contact. The throngs of gym members hanging out by the juice bar in their designer tennis shoes showed no signs of exertion. Neither a mere drop of sweat nor a hint of a ponytail as far as the eye could see.

A begrudging employee walked several paces ahead of us to point out some of the rooms, then explained how a membership would actually cost twice what the flyer advertised. Oh, and no babysitting for Sophie. And about that ladies’ work out room, yeah, it doesn’t actually exist.

I was honestly relieved at the price hike, because it gave me a better excuse to turn down the gym than the other reasons flitting through my head: Because my face turns as red and shiny as their waxed floors when I do aerobic activity. Because my belly looks less like a washboard and more like pudding. Because my athletic shoes are a knock-off of a knock-off brand that I bought at Value City for $18. Because I seem to be the only person in the building interested in… well, exercising.

I wasn’t too disappointed over it not working out, but I still can’t shake the overwhelming sense of an imperfect fit. A designer gym, a stale church, red hair in a Mediterranean country, twenty-four hours a day I don’t know how to hold. So much fits me awkwardly right now, or not at all, and I’m waiting for it all to add up to something better. Better is a guarantee, I think. I imagine the cogs turning one more notch, or two… and then there—ever so slightly removed from glittering treadmills and ex-pat blunders and bleary February days—will be my niche. My flab and I can hardly wait.

10Feb

A Week

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It’s been A Week.*

A holding my miserable, asthma-stricken baby nine hours a day kind of week.

A bad words on the brain kind of week.

An OMG, when did I get this flabby? kind of week.

A glance at the laundry pile and curl up in bed kind of week.

A fog inside and out, and you know I mean metaphorically kind of week.

A thank the powers that be for caffeinated gum kind of week.

A kitchen floors perpetually sticky from my leaking brain residue kind of week.

A life smells like vomit kind of week.

A wordless kind of week.

But I’m finally back.

—
*Technically, two weeks. But whatever.

—

P.S. – Thank you all a thousand times over for your encouragement. It’s exactly what I needed some days to remember that pesky business of inhaling and exhaling.

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