Personality | Bethany Bassett

Tag: Personality

3Jun

Ring-Around-the-Insanity

Posted by: Bethany in Uncategorized 8 Comments

Less than two weeks until our Stateside vacation, and the detail-hoarding squirrel in my left hemisphere is thisclose to frantic. We Bassetts have a noble traveling tradition of insanity, and those mad dashes across foreign cities take a lot of preplanning. Schedules to be calculated. Maps to be downloaded. Accommodations to be arranged. Insurance to be finagled. Suitcases to be precision-packed (I let my Tetris champion husband take care of that one). And must not forget the passports, wedding gifts, swim diapers, teething medicine, SIM cards, kitchen sinks, and brain cell refills.

I also have a hairy editing project to finish, so date night this week consisted of Dan and I side-by-side on our computers, eyes glazing over, forgetting all about supper. Chick flick material, I know. Add an upcoming move and potty training (why, God, why?) to the mix, and you have the kind of busyness that thunks around in the pit of my stomach at 3 a.m. Priorities keep playing ring-around-the-rosie in that way they do when I’m no longer seeing straight.

So, in the interest of preserving senses of adventure everywhere, please share: What was the craziest travel experience that you (or someone you know) survived?

26May

Proof

Posted by: Bethany in Uncategorized 3 Comments

When Natalie was born, I had some doubts as to her origin. There was absolutely no question that Dan was the father—she was a tiny Bassett photocopy with his Lebanese ancestry peeking through her impossibly dark eyes—but who her mother was, none could tell. Neither her features nor her easy acceptance of being alive pointed to my genetics. And while I loved seeing the many bonds she shared with her daddy, I ached for more proof than leaking milk and a C-section scar that she was my girl.

Fast forward four years. I am yelling at Natalie out of frustration, and feeling guilty because I’m not a yelling mom, I’M NOT, and wondering how my sweet preschooler ends up so deep under my skin, and wallowing in the shame of misplaced intentions when I finally see it: her personality. Proof that we are cut from the same emotional fabric… and yes, the reason why we so often run into each other like road blocks when we’re trying to connect.

She and I have precision wound tightly into our DNA, a virtue I finally started to see as a fault in adulthood. Things must be just so, or the world will fall to bits. We are right, and if this is not universally acknowledged, our heads will implode. The IKEA mug goes there. “Caramel” is pronounced like this. Blue-green is so very different from green-blue. I was at least halfway through college before I realized people are allowed to have various and conflicting opinions, and I continue to be grateful that the burden of rightness is no longer mine to foist on humankind. However, relativism is still beyond the grasp of four-years-old. I get frustrated that she will not taste my soup created from ingredients she loves, and she gets frustrated that I force her to use dinnerware that is neither pink nor princessy. Our brains lock.

And then the next morning, she wakes up with a fever. It’s nothing serious, more summer flush than griddle-hot skin, but her small voice wakes up every mother-urge in me. Natalie finds a nest on my pillow, and I find another piece of proof: tenderness, the kind that cannot be manufactured for anyone else’s children. Fierce, elemental tenderness, strong enough to carry us through any kind of sickness and deep enough to carve allowances into our personalities. And I realize this, this, is my daughter’s origin.

11Dec

Dramatic License

Posted by: Bethany in Uncategorized 3 Comments

Husband, gently: “Aren’t you being just a wee bit dramatic?”

Me, dramatically: “NO! See that gray glob on the kitchen floor? Those are Sophie’s lungs that she screamed out this morning, and next to it are two-thirds of the thumb I slammed in the car door earlier. And next to THAT are the shredded remains of any talent I used to possess, and of course the enormous puddle seeping under the fridge is my sanity.”

I am never anything but strictly literal, you see.

—

One particular Thursday, over six years ago, Dan sat down in a senior college class lovingly dubbed “Stupid English” and asked the girl next to him if she was having any fun. The girl, who was at that moment being introduced as the class tutor, allegedly told him “Shhhh.” I have no recollection of doing such a thing, but I do remember looking forward to every Thursday morning thereafter. (It had less to do with the Stupid English and more to do with the Future Husband, though I wouldn’t have admitted that at first.)

“Stupid Thursday” has since lived up to its name. The first year of our marriage, we began to notice increasingly stupid things happening each Thursday. Tripping in public, food burning, cars dying, bread landing butter-side-down. By now, catastrophes are a common Thursday occurrence. Today, it was a rusty hacksaw of a molar boring through Sophie’s gums, my thumb discovering just how flat it can get, and Natalie’s lovely flower-shaped Danish Butter Cookies melting to a gooey mess in the oven… not to mention lesser ills like all dropping my keys in the rain while my arms were already full and my freshly-bloodied thumb was screaming obscenities… or all the dirty silverware being dumped out by a family member (no names, but “Sophie” does come to mind)… or stovetop spills or stains on clean clothes or an entire half-chewed banana ending up under the kitchen table.

It is such a relief that days like this are in no way related to my gross incompetence or the inherent need of toddlers to create disasters. No, it’s merely Stupid Thursday, which 1] gives me unlimited license to be dramatic (not that I ever am. ahem.), and [2] means that tomorrow is Not A Thursday. Joy!

13Oct

Thinking Without Responsibility

Posted by: Bethany in Uncategorized 6 Comments

It’s the third full day of some eerie symptomless sickness that has left me bedridden. There’s no pain or congestion or nausea or anything out of the ordinary except for a vast hollowness where my head used to be, and even reading ten pages of a book tires me out. In between the heavy sleeping and the dizzy waking, I’ve been thinking. It’s nice to be able to think without responsibility, when no one expects you to be coherent or figure out so much as a lunch menu.

I’ve thought a lot about the upcoming elections and America’s future. I have little faith in candidates’ platforms, though I am concerned what McCain and Obama plan to do regarding our drowning economy. I find myself drawn toward the candidate exhibiting the most sincere goodwill toward people—not America’s status in the world, not its corporate wealth, not any generalized patriotic ideals—but individuals who are struggling to pay their rent. Who can’t afford health care (raise your hand, anyone?). Who don’t make enough to support their families because of corrupt corporations and an impersonal government. Who feel cheated by decisions our leadership never adequately informed us about (no names, but it rhymes with Shmiraq). Our nation needs a hefty dose of TLC.

I pretty much keep my political ideas confined to 1) my husband, who has always respected what I think, and 2) my own head, because people are pretty polarized about the presidential election and I have no immediate death wish. So no, I won’t tell you who I’m voting for… but here’s a hint: If you’re Alaskan, we may or may not agree. ::Grin::

My thoughts of late have also been occupied with family life. I am a hopeless perfectionist, and my addled brain has latched onto the following ideal of motherhood:

Takes the kids for daily hikes, nature walks, and/or camping trips. Teaches survival skills, knot-tying, etc.
Structures each day according to Somebody-or-the-Other’s accredited theory of education, packing spare knowledge into all empty spots of the day and raising bright-eyed geniuses. Creepy nighttime learning tapes optional.
Plays regular sports with the family. Kids get a wide enough exposure to athletics that they can make educated decisions whether they want to become MBA players or make the Olympic curling team.
Converts a portion of the house into a communal art studio, complete with miniature canvases, safety glass scissors, and sippy cups of gel medium.
Earns the nickname Mrs. Montessori for her colorful playroom always stocked with dress-up clothes, abaci, and imagination enhancement drugs.
Reigns over her little domestic kingdom in high heels and oven mitts, singing supercalifragilistic ditties to scare toys into place and always baking something light and fluffy. By age four, kids would know how to scrub grout and make perfect quiche.

I feel like I’m just now waking up and OMG! I have spawn! and OMG! I have no parenting archetype! It feels a lot like the flu. I’ve done a lot of problem-solving over the last 3.6 years—figuring out how much rice cereal to fix at a time, how to battle diaper rash, how to get a stubborn toddler to stay in her bed—and I’ve relied heavily on mamalove to fill in the gaps. It’s not a bad way to parent. And yet, I want incredibly special girlhoods for my daughters. I want them to remember a mother who was fully present with them, not constantly thinking about writing or worrying about the dirty house. I want us to use our imaginations together and create sparkling memories, whether we’re learning multiplication tables or simply having a ticklefest.

I haven’t done a good job getting my genetic anxiety under control, and OMG! it’s time for me to relax and enjoy life already. Especially with my little girls, who matter 1,000,000% more than anything I spend my time worrying over. So now the question: How to parent more purposefully without stressing out about all the versions of mother I am not? Because I so am not a sports person. Survival skills I have none. We have no space for dress-up clothes, and I don’t even know how to use gel medium. Something tells me that I don’t have to be perfect at everything in the world to be a great mom, but that something has a “Kick me” sign stuck to its bum, compliments of my brain. Stupid brain.

My bedridden thoughts have also drifted toward holiday gifts and Matt Damon and tarte tatin and how I really should shower once this week and I’m just going to stop there. After all, sick people aren’t responsible for hygiene any more than they are for perfect parenting or political involvement. OMG! whew.

10Oct

Dear Crush

Posted by: Bethany in Marriage Letters, Uncategorized 5 Comments

Dear crush,

Perhaps it’s because I never know what to expect when you invite me on a date. You’ve taken me to IMAX and waterfalls, Alligator Alley and concerts, ski slopes and dinner, and you never let on what we’re doing until the last possible moment. (I never catch on either, thanks to my gullibility trusting nature and disinclination toward geography.) Last Monday’s date night involved aperitivi in a little downtown bar and then the impossible—“The Dark Knight,” in English, in a large-screen theater. With box seats. You realize I can die a happy woman now, right?

Perhaps it’s because the next morning, while I was burrowed under the covers effectively not helping you get the girls dressed, you were making me a picture-perfect cappuccino… which you then brought to me in bed. I fully commend you for rising to the challenge and finding a way to wake me without incurring any wrath whatsoever. In fact, I can’t think of a lovelier start to a day than coffee with a heaping spoonful of lovin’.

Perhaps it’s because you suspected one day last week had been a little gloomy and brought me home a pot of cheery orange! flowers wrapped in a cheery orange! bow. Of all the people in the world, including myself, you know best how I tick. Perhaps it’s because, even though we’re leaning slightly in different directions about the presidential election, we can still die laughing together at SNL’s political sketches. I’m so glad to share my weird particular sense of humor with you. Perhaps it’s because you encourage me relentlessly until I go completely sane and have a fabulous day.

Perhaps all of the above are why I find myself loving you a smidgen or two. You never know.

XOXO,

Your secret admirer

11Mar

Rabid Badgerish

Posted by: Bethany in Uncategorized 6 Comments

5:00 a.m. is not a time I like to see with my eyes open.

Maybe in a previous life, I was an Amish farmer, greeting the dim morning with a sturdy cheerfulness, content in my pre-dawn liturgy of milking cows and slathering butter on thick brown bread. Maybe 5:00 was just a quiet friend, a strong and familiar face nodding thoughtfully in the barn.

Maybe I was once a sunrise junkie, Mother Nature’s confidante. Maybe my dew-dampened sun salutes woke each day in a meditative rush of energy. Maybe 5:00 was just a cleansing breath in my core, radiating through me like controlled calmness and eco-love and heightened awareness of my early earth.

Maybe I used to be a 2000-watt dancing queen, holding my liquor like a Mr. Martini himself and shaking what my mama gave me until I suddenly burned out with a POP. Maybe 5:00 was just another dazzling bit of a heavily-jeweled night, the Energizer Bunny still thumping out bass lines by the millisecond, an extended invitation for me to prove that my hips don’t lie and it’s bananas, B-A-N-A-N-A-S.

Maybe in some alternate dimension I could face 5:00 a.m. without impersonating a rabid badger. I could go from 0 to upright in five ~~seconds~~ minutes flat. I could open my eyes, dislodge the sand therein, and manage a complete subject-verb sentence before coffee. But now, here, in this current existence of which I partaking? Not so much.

(Three guesses as to when I got up this morning.)

19Feb

Construction Zone

Posted by: Bethany in Uncategorized 6 Comments

I know people whose days are shaped like circles, bringing them smoothly back to their concentric beginnings each night. I know of others’ days like squares and rectangles and octagons, structured in short, linear periods. Some ambitious people live in shooting lines, and some spontaneous ones ride out dizzy rollercoasters. Little children play on their days like playground equipment; octogenarians sink into theirs like pillows. PMSing women survive days shaped like chocolate briar patches. And my days? They’re the erratic patterns of an echocardiogram.

That upward peak is my heart bursting into light when one of the girls giggles, and that downward surge is my pessimistic realization of how quickly their joy will be diluted by age. This low point is the laundry basket lid, floating on the sea of my never-ending responsibilities, and this hopeful spike is an uninterrupted hour to pretend I’m Zen. That sudden quickening is a mad dash of courage to leave the house, and this gentle slowing is a half-asleep bear snuggle with my family. The points fluctuate, beeping steadily, a constant gauge of my emotions.

I once overheard someone close to me indicate that “moody” women aren’t worth marrying. That thought has stuck perniciously with me. I think of it during both up and down moments and especially during those dark flat-lining days. I’ve spent numerous birthday wishes on stability. I’ve hammered at my brain, trying to reshape its landscape, trying to replicate those titanium-plated models I envy. After all, multi-colored emotions = moodiness = worthlessness.

But believe it or not, self-performed brain surgery doesn’t work. Not even when I’m desperate for a transplant and especially not when my fingers are skidding on the guilt of being “complicated.” I often feel defective, and, unfortunately, the frontal lobe doesn’t come with a return policy. (Damn frontal lobe.) I guess this is the main reason there are often gaps and caverns and craters of time between my blog entries–because I can’t think of anything un-moody to write about–because no one will want to marry me* if I can’t equalize my feelings.

However, there’s this funny thing about the blogosphere… It’s made up of people–real people, not just unattainably cool, authory ones–who “sit down at a typewriter and open a vein” as Red Smith said. And I’m learning, in large part due to some wonderful, open-hearted bloggers, that nearly every woman is an emotional storybook. I had no idea that so many women found themselves dog-paddling through sudden oceans in their minds. Loneliness. Confusion. Depression. Doubt. Frustration. Irrationality. Pessimism. I also hadn’t realized how many women buoy the world with their hearts. Creativity. Appreciation. Compassion. Hope. Wonder. Devotion. Beauty in a million shades.

I’m still thick in my quest to disown regret, and this might need to become a construction zone. Maybe we women were made this way on purpose, to touch a largely impersonal world with our varying forms of tenderness. Maybe our emotions provide both the balance and the upheaval necessary for life to plunge forward. Maybe vulnerability shouldn’t be shamed or hidden or stigmatized. Maybe I should stop grimacing at my honest reflection on the page. Maybe someone can remind me that the heart monitor’s peaks and valleys and persistent beeps signal above all that I’m alive.

*Except my glorious husband, who insists on liking me despite my chronic unmarriageableness. (::Love::)

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