Any of you that know my husband James might note in the first points of any description of him that he loves sports, I mean really loves sports. He would rather be watching an NBA basketball game than doing pretty much anything else in the world. And all other sports rank only slightly lower on his list of priorities. Give him a remote, he can find a sporting event. Leave him at home with the boys and our cable-less TV, he will stream the most interesting game available online. Give him a ball he will kick it. And give him an unknown person, he will find their unique sports passion so that he can talk to them about it- seriously.
And since the NBA playoffs are upon us (really the height of the height of his favorite thing), all conversations lead to some excited description of an elaborate play at the end of the game or a player's comments to some obscure journalist or a backwoods obsessive blogger's theory about the weaknesses of the triangle offense or the LA Times' most recent editorial about Kobe or...you get the idea. He is single minded.
For those of you who do not know my husband James particularly well, he is an excellent conversationalist. He finds not only your sports loyalties but your other passions as well. He can talk about urban development, tonka trucks or literary analysis of the modern American novel with equal candor and knowledge. He will find the subject that uniquely provides an overlap of interest.
Not so during the NBA playoffs. Or maybe its just me. Maybe he just feels the need to be polite to other people and talk about other things than the most important thing of all time, the Lakers playoff run. And so he comes home and just must talk to me about the burning questions of matchups and defensive strategy. Maybe he spends all of the alloted time and energy he has for other subjects at work. But around here, we are like a one man NBA TV-all basketball, all the time. And here is where my grievance with ESPN and really all sports media comes in. There are a number of bloggers and sports writers and pundits and hosts who love sports as much as James. They live sports. They know all the stats and subtleties of players and plays, they call coaches by their first names and refer to the playoffs of '88 or the obscure off season scrimmage between D-league rookies. They make podcasts with their other fanatic fan friends to talk about all sporting subjects. And in their broadcasted sports obsession, it validates James' personal sports obsession-he has camaraderie in this shared knowledge and passion. There are others who care as much as he does.
But there is a difference between James and them, a key, important difference. They get paid to know everything there is to know about sports. James does not. And when James knows as much as the people whose whole full time job is to know these things, well, it makes me wonder. Maybe James loves sports more than they do because he doesn't have to. Maybe these sports professionals with their intern researchers and their whole weekday schedule make it tough on us middle-american housewives whose husbands must read and know all that is offered. Maybe someone would pay James to spend his whole day loving sports. Maybe it's just May and the Lakers are in the playoffs.
Yes you read that right. I always thought that growing older and bringing children into the world might make me instantaneously more dependable, as if the hormones involved with childbirth might also bring about a sort of supernatural sense of parental weight-that I am now responsible for other human beings and so should be able to remember commitments and shot records and keep fruit cups in ready supply. Not so-in all of those examples actually.
I think I have come to terms with my youngest child-I'm pretty fun to be around-but don't count on me to make the reservations or arrive on time-kind of irresponsibility. And in most cases, I have surrounded myself with people (husband, friends, sisters, coworkers) who are generally more capable and so make up for my lack. But there are moments-and this week has been full of them-where I really cringe at my own space-cadet-ism. For instance:
At various points this week, both Henry and Finn have been down to two or less diapers and because the realization of this shortage came at inconvenient times (ie other child down for nap, in the middle of the night, generally feeling lazy, etc) instead of immediately running out to the store, I improvised other means. Not like swaddling them in a towel for days or anything but Henry has certainly worn finn's diapers once or twice in his life, cinched around his armpits for optimal fit and for Finn, we have dipped into the size six diapers that Bing accidentally bought, which I believe are large enough to fit most adults. Must work on keeping track of number of diapers left in package.
We are leaving on vacation this coming week and in an attempt to be responsible, I have been carefully avoiding perishable food that can sit in our refrigerator and rot while we are gone. However, it seems that this weaning process has taken its course a bit sooner than I expected and now, three whole days before we leave, we have bare cupboards and a fridge consisting of two containers of yogurt that stains Finn's lips a sort of frightening bright blue, a dribble of milk, a jug of iced coffee (not practical for children's consumption) and various kinds of cheese. Needless to say, yesterday in total exasperation at our food situation, we walked to Fred Meyer, bought corn dogs from the deli and ate them ravenously on the way to the playground across the street.
And the real clincher to my general reflective cringing came this past Monday when after napping the full amount of time that Finn would allow, I checked my e-mail and had a message from two dear friends with whom I was supposed to meet for lunch that said something like, "um well, we've been sitting at the agreed upon cafe for almost an hour and you aren't here. so I hope all is well and you just forgot..." The more awful thing is that these friends live far away, they have a 3 1/2 year-old son who I have not met-it has been so long since I have seen them. And I really care what they think of me. They are intelligent, caring people who I owe quite a bit of academic and spiritual clarity to. And I stood them up because I forgot and I took a nap.
This all, in combination, has made me feel quite bad about myself this week. I keep picturing Finn's friends' mothers in kindergarten issuing bans on my involvement in the PTA or carpools because I have been known to leave children waiting on the sidewalk at school for a number of hours or harriedly dumping chips ahoy on a plate for the bake sale. But the one consolation I can find is that I do manage to keep my children alive-pretty successfully actually. They mostly eat well and healthily with an occasional corndog, they are usually clean unless they have recently rolled around in mulch at the playground or eaten strawberries. And they seem happy. Really. I mean you should see them. If you didn't know me, you might think I am doing quite swimmingly. And while I am actively working on being more dependable (I see an elaborate internet calendar in my future that sends reminders through every technological method available), I think this sort of spaciness comes with the package. You might not like me quite so much if my datebook and I were better friends. I might give you a dirty look when you showed up late for our coffee date. As it is, you will always beat me there, always have well portioned snacks in your bag for your antsy children, and you will probably have to spot me a ten once in a while when I realize I left my debit card in the back pocket of my other jeans. I'm working on it; I'm not there yet.
I really meant well when I said that I would post on a regular basis, chronicling the moments in my stay-at-home-mom-ing life that are worth remembering, for my sake as much as for the people that read this blog. But for as many moments in a day that are worth telling, there are usually more harried, forgettable moments that keep me from meditating on those lovely worthy ones. So the last couple of weeks has been full of both types and I have written little. Here's my attempt to make up for it.
We flew to Arizona last weekend for an extended visit with Rohl family and friends who mostly mass-emigrated from California for the affordable real estate in the Phoenix area. Because this group of people have known James since junior high or longer and because we make it to Arizona so infrequently, everyone wanted to see us. So every meal, basketball game and shopping outing involved about 30 people and what seemed like 9,000 children. Compared to my relatively solitary life in Portland with the boys where the weekly trip to the grocery store constitutes the majority of our social interaction, all these people were a bit overwhelming. Once I realized that all talents of extroversion and adaptability were going to be required for this vacation, I really had a great time. I also got to see James and the boys in a different context than I am used to. For instance:
Finn is a natural born leader and seems to be perfectly content on 5 or 6 snatched hours of sleep in car-seats, various pack and plays and leaning on Bing's chest on the airplane. He dashed around Kyle and Melissa's house with Hayley yelling "dah dah dah dah" for a number of hours, zigzagged around Mark and Kendra's back yard with their dachshund Tyson, like two ships passing in the night-in fast motion, never actually acknowledging each other but following the same figure eight pattern worn in the grass, played with trucks at church nursery, sat in the dirt with the Jackson kids at the farm on Sunday afternoon, rubbing much dirt onto his sunscreened face to make warpaint looking pattern and generally made friends with everyone he met: "pop pop chuck, Yenny, mahhk, kenna, mahl, owen" and his favorite-baby hayley.
James is the best version of himself in this group of friends both because he has known them so long making him more comfortable and because James is enough different from the other boys in the group that he sets himself apart. He did dishes after huge meals, he picked up kid explosion of toys wherever we stayed and he held and cared for both of our boys as well as any other child who seemed to have a need. While these are normal parts of James' and my life, this kind of participation in the domestic and child-rearing scene is not expected of many of the other men we visited. It made me feel so progressive with our non genderized roles and reminded me that I am lucky to have him. He also told stories and teased his brother and generally shined bright the whole weekend.
And Henry, well he is just the nicest, best, smiliest, good natured baby ever-even with my bias taken into account. He got put in and taken out of the carseat and the stroller a zillion times, slept on a chair, in a king sized bed, on a couch, the floor and wherever else he could manage to drop to sleep amidst high volume, much action and a number of interested dogs. And never cried or noticeably fussed even when it had been an unforgivable amount of time since he ate and he had been passed to the thirtieth set of arms to be cooed at. He smiled at each oggling relative with fresh delight and even sat through an entire basketball game in the arms of his 7 year old cousin lyric, to her enormous joy.
Thank you all for your warm encouragement and your mutual distaste for the whole gosh darn grad application process, which often leads to rejection. Not just my rejection either, lots of really brilliant people have been rejected by grad programs. This makes me feel better. So thank you also for being rejectees and sharing your rejection so I can commiserate.
I have been bombarded with comments, e-mails and facebook messages to convince me of my non-dumbness and I think it may be working. I'm on the mend. I've thought very little about the scathing forward I would write in my first book citing institutions of higher learning with elitism, condescension and general demoralization. Much progress, really.
James brought the mail in yesterday afternoon and handed me a suspiciously skinny envelope with the return address of the MFA program I applied to at Seattle Pacific. I opened it quickly with a sinking sensation, like I already knew what it said, that they had a number of very talented writers apply this year and unfortunately they were not recommending me for admission to the program and that they hope I continue to pursue my writing and that I am actually an atrocious writer who they all referred to as the amateur but good luck waiting tables for the rest of your life with that English degree anyways. Ok not that last part but you get the idea.
Obviously the first overwhelming emotion I found was anger-that they could take such a subjective process and actually claim to have the authority to judge one manuscript over another, not in its actual merit but its potential, that I spent hours and many dollars at Kinkos copying versions of both personal writing and published pieces and agonizing over the order and cover page to send it off and be rejected, never seen again, that I actually spent those hours the week Henry was born making copies and doing last minute editing instead of staring at my new baby and soaking in my enormous good fortune.
But mostly I just feel dumb. Dumb that we moved to the northwest in no small part so that I could go to this program, dumb that I quit my stupid job and made James go back to work so that I could "pursue my passions", dumb that I have been cultivating a sneaking suspicion that I am a brilliant writer and will be discovered, published and heralded in the New Yorker as the "voice of our time" and just dumb that I made plans and told people and now its all not true. Now I have no plan. I am a stay at home mom in the suburbs, not an MFA student raising her children while interacting in a creative academic community, which sounds infinitely less boring. And the idea that I would take this time while going to school to figure out what I want to be when I grow up now just seems arbitrary, like I just needed some noble reason to quit my job.
After an initial freak out, we went to Applebees because advertising works inexplicably well on me and citrus teriakey boneless wings, mini bacon cheeseburgers and a margarita were just the things I wanted at that moment. Hoards of greasy food later, I'm fine really. Actually surprisingly fine. Lying in bed last night I told James that with him my base seems broader, like I'm less easily bolled over and while things still affect me, they affect me less potently. My edges are a little smoother because of him. This is a little cheesy in the manner of Jerry Maguire "you complete me" proportions, I realize. But I'm not devastated and I think I would have been before I met him.
So to sum up: I didn't get in to grad school, I was angry, I fealt dumb, I had some hot wings and I'm fine. I still feel really dumb for a lot of reasons and this week has really been awful in more ways than just this one but (and again not to sound cheesy or tie this up too neatly) I'm lucky and things are not all bad. Finn and Henry are getting over their colds, it's supposed to get into the 60's this week and not rain. And yesterday as usual when I woke Finn up from his nap, he had stripped his socks off during the time he spent in his crib. But this time he looked up at me and exclaimed in perfect imitation of me, "why are your socks off!!?" and grinned.
I think of myself as a much better parent than I actually am. When I saw frustrated mothers wrenching the arms of petulant children in the aisles of grocery stores, I shook my head disapprovingly and thought how I would do it differently, how I use words to explain why the world works the way it does and how I will instill feelings of compassion and goodwill in my children by example. But that was all before I actually had a two year old who drives his trucks forcefully over his newborn brother's head, who runs out into the street in the flash of an eye and screams to eat grapenuts cereal when I give him kix (silly me). As the author of the book I just finished said about her two year old, she must constantly"foil his attempts to kill himself"and I might add, foil my own attempts to wring his skinny little neck. Because obviously grapenuts will not kill him but the process of explaining to me that he wants one thing over another gets him and me worked up into such a lather that one of us ends up screaming and crying. And in these moments, I am irrational. I yell and snap and have even been known to wrench an arm here and there. Because thinking of a way to explain to Finn that he must not propel himself down the ravine of our backyard atop his riding truck takes too long. I must snatch him out of danger, not explain to him how to make good decisions so he keeps himself firmly planted on the cement of our back patio. No one warned me about this part of parenting. I thought that if you are a level-headed relatively laid back person in regular life, that you might be mostly that same person as a parent. Not so. I mean, I do have my good moments where Finn and I excitedly make connections between the ducks on the stream near our house and the ducks in the books that we read or that Grandpa Tom Tom does indeed have an RV like that one on TV and many others. But I am not the parent that I pictured I would be. I am the type to breathe a sigh of relief when they are both asleep because I am no longer on lifeguard duty or give in and feed Finn chocolate easter eggs because I don't want to fight him and explain the nonexistant nutritional value of the candy coating. In short, I am more impatient and lazy.
There was a great article in the most recent Wondertime magazine where the writer argues that lazy parenting might actually be good for the kids-ie they are more independant, lower maintenance and more easily adaptable. And I am just now watching the View where barbara and whoopi (we are on first name basis) are talking about their grown children coming to appreciate them and developing friendships with one another as adults. I know this reality with my own mom, realizing how much she loved me even when (or especially when) she sent me to my room to scream about the injustice of not getting LA gear sneakers. So I know I can redeem myself. And in the mean time, I'll probably let him eat grapenuts, snatch his truck away and say the thing I said I never would: "because I said so"
I don't think I am alone in thinking that my own voice--on a message machine or a video--sounds so shockingly not like the voice I hear myself speaking with that it always catches me off guard when I hear it, like 'who is that? oh, it's me...is it me?'
I know this phenomenon has to do with hearing the tone of your own voice through the reverberation of your own body or something like that and this makes sense. I have a particularly vivid memory sitting on my mom's lap at thanksgiving and listening to her talk as I leaned my ear against her sternum, hearing the muffled version of her voice and thinking this must be what her voice sounds like to her.
But as my sister Mandy visits us this week with her husband Scott and their new baby Jake, I realized something about my own voice- or maybe just cemented a thought that has floated around for some time. When I am talking with authority or with confidence-the voice I hear talking is Mandy's. And when I am telling a story and I know I am being funny, my voice sounds to me just like my childhood friend Emily's.
I'm sure this is not exactly coincidental or even genetic. I think to some extent I actually emulate these two voices when in the situation where their voice would lend some experience-like I channel them to communicate more fully. Because Mandy-the oldest of my three sisters- as a kid was the big boss of all of us by age and disposition and her voice in this mode sounds sort of cynical and annoyed, like she knows more than you do, thank you very much. We have a home video where she runs the camera, darting around our backyard in New York and barking orders-telling 4 year old me to stop limping (I think I had just gotten a shot). Now grown, this isn't her only tone. She is gentler and more diplomatic and we've leveled out in recent years, both adults, mothers and better friends. But she is a doctor in the military and a naturally electable leader so she's still got authority, even if not over me.
And Em sort of dallies through a story with no real set up or show, like she's sort of complaining about something-not whiny, just matter of fact and spontaneous. But then you are listening to what she's saying and it's hilarious and so unpretentious, like she doesn't even realize herself that it's funny until you erupt in hysterics. So when I am telling something, I use this voice. Not consciously, mind you- I just realized all this this week. But I do; I sound like Em and like Mandy and probably like a number of other people if I think about it. Mostly those two though
So Em and Mandy, you are the voices in my head (for better or worse). Congratulations.
I've realized on earlier birthdays than this one that birthdays change considerably as you grow older. No more bringing cupcakes into class or birthday parties at the roller rink of course, but also no more princess-type of days, where everything is special. Yesterday I woke up at five in the morning to feed Henry, woke up again at eight to ferry both boys downstairs (Henry in my arms and Finn clinging to my shoulders and hanging down my back as I barump, barump down the stairs to his glee) made breakfast-peaches and cheerios and coffee for me and settled in to watch Sesame Street. So far nothing straying from every other weekday morning except that when James kissed me goodbye he said "Happy Birthday, I'm glad you were born". The day progressed with both regularity and a few very princess-y moments:
My one consolation on making my birthday special-when the boys were both asleep so no nutritional accountability hovered, I made myself five pieced of bacon and cinnamon rolls-the kind that pops out of the refrigerated cylinder-because that was exactly what I felt like eating
When putting my makeup on later that afternoon, I found my foundation particularly thick and cakey and realized that I still had cinnamon roll frosting on my fingers and had smeared it on my face with my makeup.
About 50 of my 87 friends on facebook wished me a happy birthday including my old friend from elementary school, Janet who reminded me that I shared a birthday with my almost first boyfriend Chad-who asked me out by the bus in fourth grade and I said no (what a heart-breaker I was).
James came home for lunch and announced that we would be going out to dinner sans children in a ridiculously extravagant way (at a restaurant with no color crayons on the table and where the cost per prawn would buy a number of McDonald's ice cream cones) while James' parents watched the boys.
While straightening my hair getting ready for said dinner, I realized that I had a line of yellow smodged down my index finger and onto the back of my hand that I could not distinguish-either baby poop or yellow paint from earlier craft project. Later at the lovely, fancy dinner, I realized that I also had yellow smeared on my wrist with a hue of black marker making me look like a domestic violence victim being taken out for an apology dinner and confirming at least that with the evidence of marker, it was in fact yellow paint and not poop.
As a birthday wish, I requested that James take care not to refer to me as mommy the entire time we were away from the boys.
I ate braised lamb with gnochie and yukon potatoes at a restaurant called Veritable Quandry, which even if the food had been yucky would have been worth eating at for its name alone. The lamb, which I don't normally eat because it reminds me of Finny's white lamby in his crib and the lamby's live counterpart, was delicious and which I justified in that it was a very special occasion.
We arrived at Cupcake Jones a little after eight and ordered four itty cupcakes: bananas foster, thin mint, pearl chocolate and something coffee-ish that I can't remember the name of to eat later when dinner had settled a bit.
And finally to finish the night, we came home and watched the two hour season finale of October Road- a guilty pleasure we share and can only stomach the cheesiness of by regularly berating the lines and the dramatic montages. This episode did not disappoint us for material-there were three lengthy montages of angst and making out. We watched ten minutes of the evening news, long enough for the weather man to comment that he had "a forecast for our travel plans" making me pause and then comment, "Travel plans? What about a Monday night in March, nowhere near a holiday weekend makes him think we have travel plans?"
I turned the TV off and gathered a handful of shoes, toy trucks and dishes to deposit in their various destinations before climbing the stairs, brushing my teeth and going to sleep-all in all a wonderfully ordinary day leading up to a lovely extraordinary night out as an adult-where I ate leisurely with no one else's food to worry about and where I wore high heeled boots and a dress and eyeliner for crying out loud.
Since finishing the Hours, I have started in on a stack of books I got from the library and a pile of magazines we got in the mail over the last week. Reading bits of one thing and then another based on my mood, the list of things I am learning and absorbing is oddly diverse and perhaps a good indicator of who I am right now: potty trainer, vapid style watcher, self-appointed political theorist, blogger and future grad student.
So here's the stack:
On becoming Potty Wise for toddlers by Gary Ezzo and Robert Buckman-I assume the same driving force that came up with baby-wise; uses lots of terms for the process of potty training I never imagined needing like: elimination, volitional development, and enuresis and breaks all potty options and development into three steps. I guess three is a magic number
the Spring Anthropologie catalogue-lots of bohemian waifs in lovely eastern-inspired photo shoot-think curry, jewel tones and crumbling architecture
Country Living-really amazingly adorable story about a upholsterer in upstate New York who covers things the way you might dress someone with one cushion different from another in vintage stripes, toille, florals and velvets. These are a few of my favorite things.
Writers talking to writers- an anthology from Believer magazine where writers interview other writers and talk about the issues predominant in their writing, techniques, motivation. Really a great book but tough to read cover to cover.
Goodnight Moon by Margaret Wise Brown and Clement Hurd-one of about seven copies we have of this book, which is a good thing because it really is Finn's favorite and there needs to be a copy wherever we are. I don't actually need to look at the pages anymore because I have the entire thing memorized. A couple of weeks ago, James and I actually laid in bed reciting it aloud, racing each other to the next line to prove we knew every word.
Practically Perfect in Every way by Jennifer Niesslein- a non-fiction book about a mom's journey with self help books and recommended by Catherine Newman, my favorite blogger that I don't actually know.
Rolling Stone-February issue- Beautiful picture of Jack Johnson on the cover (really, who doesn't love Jack Johnson, especially once you have seen his face? He's just so sandy and unpretentious) and the rest of the magazine seems to be about politics-Obama and McCain both make up stories listed on the front cover. Funny that my favorite political writer, Matt Taibbi writes for a music magazine.
Anybody have good book recommendations for me when I get mostly finished with(or give up on) these?
James and I are coffee drinkers but not really coffee drinkers. We have one of those tiny 4 cup coffee makers (4 measuring cups not 4 mugs) and we often don't even drink all of the coffee in the pot. When we don't finish the pot, we usually put the leftover in a cup in the fridge to have iced later. Our fridge is particularly cold so there is often a film of ice over the cup by the time you pull it out so you just add some cream and enjoy.
This weekend I opened the fridge, picked up the mug with the coffee dregs and did one of those close the fridge door with your hip moves and must have gained some momentum before hip hit door because the fridge closed with high velocity knocking the mug out of my hand onto the floor, shattering it into too many pieces to repair. I said,"that really sucks" after it hit the floor because it was a great mug, heavy and sturdy and nicely shaped. In fact, we have a number of mugs that match our dishes and hardly ever get used but this mug gets rinsed out nearly every day--it doesn't even make it to the dishwasher because it can't be spared that long.
It's also great because I stole it from the house of some close friends back in New Jersey, the Furlers and it commemorates the 10th anniversary of the church that my family helped plant when I was in junior high. So every morning my coffee or tea or oatmeal cools in this nicely shaped mug that reminds me of these friends and this church. It's like the t-shirt you have from summer camp that's faded and thinned to a lovely consistency that makes it infinitely better than any other t-shirt you own.
James was standing in the doorway of the kitchen as the mug broke and immediately started picking up pieces, pulling the trash can out and sopping up the spilled coffee with an old towel so that I wouldn't track through it with my bare feet. And he said, "I'm sorry honey" because he knew it was more than a mug.
I moped around the kitchen making Finny a plate of food to tide him over until dinner and James walked over to pick up my cell phone from the coffee table. Halfway through his first sentence, I realized he was talking to Al Furler, claiming that he broke my mug and wondering if they could send us another. Al, not being sentimental in the least, passed the phone off to Sue, also not very sentimental because she said half jokingly, "tell Katie, it's only a thing; get over it" but told James she would see what she could do about the mug.
I stood dumbstruck looking through the kitchen to the dining room where James paced, talking on the phone and when he hung up, I walked around the counter, put my arms around his neck and said, "I think that is quite possibly the nicest thing anyone has ever done for me." And I think it was. Not that James isn't a thoughtful person normally or that people haven't done kind things for me but our life, James' and mine, made this act beautiful and loving because he knew the context of the mug both in nostalgic and daily meaning without me actually referring to either. And he knew that it sucked that the mug was broken. We have this ever growing pool of shared information that usually just goes unacknowledged but this Saturday, he saw something simple that made me sad and knew exactly why it made me sad and saw a way to make it better. And I love him for it. And I love the way his life and mine and now our boys' life all overlap and inform the others, like venn diagrams, making it a more delicate and a more poignant process to love each other-knowing what we know.
Today seems to be a retaliation day. Yesterday seemed so hopeful and lovely and today seems to have come out to smack yesterday in the face. For instance: Finn is screaming his head off in his crib because he is so tired that he actually is past the point of thinking it is a good idea to take a nap and henry has been continually fussy for inexplicable reasons all day and is just gearing up to join his brother in chorus from his crib in our room. I'm taking the let em' cry approach both because it seems to have the support of some child psychologists and because I am having a moment myself right now-the overcoming the urge to strangle one of them kind of moment. Not really strangle...nobody worry...it just seems a long way away-those beautiful intelligent and thoughtful children I had yesterday.
Here were the highlights (the vivid moments) of today:
Finn sat on the counter watching me make James' lunch munching on cereal but then insisting on having "a bahht" (bite) of whatever the current ingredient was that I was handling. I humored him with slices of onion and pepper, which he crumpled his face at in disgust after barely touching them to his lips and then proceeded to eat almost the entire package of provolone cheese I had saved for this particular meal. I salvaged two pieces from his grasp to melt on top of the sandwich but got howls and shrieks of protest in return.
Henry, sitting in his car seat and a fresh diaper nearly propelled himself under the table with the force of his pooping while James and I tried to take the smallest of naps on the couch nearby. He seemed to scare himself enough to start crying and hence end the nap before it started.
I finished the Hours, which made me sort of sad-both because it isn't the happiest of endings but also because I don't have it to read anymore. It should also be mentioned that I almost finished it this morning (three pages to go) while Finn cried in his crib wanting to get out of bed and with Henry lying next to me in bed, waiting to be changed out of his full diaper and milk soaked clothes...mother of the year, huh?
I realized with a pang of acute frustration that the kitchen, which I just scrubbed down with bleach yesterday (was it yesterday? it must have been wednesday when finn was with grandma. he would never have let me get something like that done) is already covered in onion peels, cereal crumbs dried into fruit cup syrup, a sink full of already stinking dishes and a garbage can full of dirty diapers and coffee grounds (our garbage can an indicator of life). Then I realized with an even more tragic clarity that everything I do is a process of redoing. I feed Henry and he is hungry again, I wipe Finn's face to have it covered in chocolate frosting again, I vacuum to find the rug so crumb covered you can't make out the design, the dishes, the laundry, the diapers, the showers and baths are all a maintenance. This sounds awfully depressing and fatalistic and again I say don't worry about me too much. I'm not sinking into the hopelessness of it yet. It's just all so damn unfinished and my house is always a mess. And unlike yesterday when I was struck by all of the beauty, today I am struck by all of the grime, the diaper rash cream and bacon grease under my fingernails so to speak. I know it gets better or there are better times.I hope I am grateful when they come.
In fact, during the time it has taken me to type this post, finn is quiet in his room and henry seems to have slipped to sleep in his crib beside me, both clean and silent for the moment. And I think I will go downstairs and do the dishes before I start new ones for dinner, take the trash out, put finny's toys back in the toybox and maybe take a nap myself--all a redoing but a bringing back too, back to peace, to tidiness and to my own conviction that this is a good decision-this move, this having kids and staying home, this recipe for dinner.
So I'm reading the Hours by Michael Cunningham, a book that has sat on my nightstand in that stack that gets started and left for other easier reads or for books that have due dates at the library (this stack also includes a Japanese book in translation, Places left unfinished at the time of creation and a number of anthologies that are easy to read a chapter and put down for months at a time). I'm not sure why it's taken me this long to read the Hours as it is beuatiful and flowing and I've seen the movie so I can sort of picture what the whole thing looks like, which is nice in that picture plus a thousand words way. Unfortunately, the book itself has the movie poster as a cover and I am fundamentally opposed to books that have been made into movies sporting the stars who made it-especially in this case because the character Clarissa who is played by Meryl Streep in the movie really loves Meryl Streep the actress in the book, which is just too strange and unfair to deal with when you are trying to absorb a character's personality.
Regardless, there is this really beautiful line where the Meryl Streep character talks about wanting to pour out her life to this old acquaintance but not in some sit around for hours and catch up-sort of way. She wants to pour out in one motion all the vivid pointless moments that don't make good stories. I don't have the book in front of me right now, I am busy watching sesame street, pulling the whells off and then "fitching" (fixing) them again, typing this post and pulling the blanket away from henry's mouth and nose so I'm not sure the quote is quite exact, but you get the idea. I told James that these vivid, pointless moments are just what I am struck with daily and tell him about and try to connect them in some way by saying "the other thing is" or "oh and also" which he always laughs at because he can never figure out what the first thing was.
But this line is so true about life. The moments like when Bing and his brother went walking along the train tracks with a kid they weren't supposed to hang out with and the kid shot a woman in the shoulder with his shotgun thinking she was a scarecrow (she lived and was out in her garden the next week) make really good stories but it's the other moments that fill in your life. I was thinking of these sorts of moments and compiling a list. My life as a stay at home mom right now does not have that many good stories but it is certainly full of the vivid, sometimes pointless moments that don't make good stories. And just thinking of them got me excited to write them down. James said that Larry King's column is like this (I haven't read it) where he lists things like "I really like green beans" or something like that. I'm going to try to jot down some vivid moments on a semi-regular basis, here on this blog to make this or that live in time and be remembered.
Here are a couple I am thinking of today:
Henry breathes really loudly when he is sleeping, which is really great because I don't have to get up and lay my hand on his chest to make sure he is still alive. This seems a little morbid I know, but any of you who have or have had a newborn know the feeling-like the life you made is so fragile and could stop and go away so easily.
Finn has started pretending to talk on the phone, imitating me, by leaning the phone on his shoulder and jabbering into it with his hands free to do other things. Just now he is holding the phone in this way between his ear and raised shoulder and then holding his toy school bus up to eye level and blabbering like he is reading the VIN number off to his insurance agent.
He also saw a commercial for Jeeps this morning and said outloud, with total joy, Jeep! like he had discovered that word and what it meant for the first time. I told him that Aunt Bum has a Jeep and he has been muttering "Jeep! Aunt Bum!" and smiling at me in this knowing way all morning. if I don't respond right away, he repeats it until I confirm and then raises his eyebrows and nods like, yeah I'm a pretty smart kid, huh?
So we've been in the Portland area now for about three months and I thought I would corral some of the impressions I've made of the Rose city so far. Here goes:
1. True to all assumptions and stereotypes, people really do drink a ridiculous amount of coffee in the Northwest--enough to justify Starbucks on three out of four corners of an intersection and at least two other locally owned coffee shops within sight. And just in case one of these is not convenient for you, there are cafes inside the first automatic doors of nearly every book store, grocery store and Target-esque store (they call them Fred Myers here) you walk into. So you can get good coffee (not just the gas station drizzle you picture-even quick shops have real espresso machines) pretty much wherever you go.
2. Speaking of Fred Myers, a store that overwhelms and confuses me, I hate it. I feel small when I walk in laning on my cart, like someone should give me four and a half hours, a pocket directory of the store, a price scan gun, a thorough explanation of the reasons for placing the beer section of the groceries right up against the tableware, which is next to the storage solutions (large plastic bins) in order for me to even begin to successfully find the things on my list. I will drive the one exta mile to the lovely familiar organization of Target. Ah the joyous convenience of the suburbs!
3. No matter where you are, local news is local news. Even in progressive, vibrant Portland, they will cover the wild deer adoption controversy, the most recent storm and the mayor's comments on the weather with equal hyperbolic enthusiasm.
4, It really does rain pretty much all the time here. I mean I knew it was rainy here and had heard all the statistics about depression and overcast weather in the Northwest but you really don't realize how true it is until mid October hits and you have completely forgotten what the sun feels like coming through a warm window and you have fully abandoned all attractive footwear for galoshes that it really does rain a lot, like pretty much all the time. It's not even noteworthy anymore. And I'm sure locals would be amazed it even took me this long to realize this quite obvious fact. I think I was holding out that we were having a rough year or something. Alas!
5. Highway 217 in Beaverton and Tigard was spawned from the same matter that really evil and annoying things were like smoke alarms with low batteries chirping in the middle of the night. Every time I have found reason to traverse 217, traffic immediately gridlocks, the heavens open in a fresh downpour and three BMW SUV's cut me off in the span of ten minutes. I may not have lived here long, but I have a deep seeded aversion to this highway. Ditto for the ramp traffic lights. V. Annoying.
6. If you have the money and the willingness to pop in and out of the rain , there is really miraculous shopping opportunities in the Portland area. We have indoor malls and outdoor malls (seems strange marketing campaign considering #4 above) quaint little neighborhoods with collections of boutiques and restaurants on all sides of the city and it seems to me like there are as many locally owned shops as chains. very refreshing coming from the midwest chain-land.
7. Despite the shopping loveliness, I thought there would be more thrift stores. I mean considering Portland's reputation for environmentally friendly, progressively hip attitudes, you'd figure there'd be a thrift store for every rainbow bumper sticker. But so far, I have not been impressed. Granted, Goodwill seems to be as prolific here as anywhere but the few true gems, the local thrift and second hand stores I have come across seem to be well aware of the value of their matching retro velvet lounge chairs, so fork over your $700 per chair thank you very much.
8. If bike and ski racks on land rovers and subarus are any indication, people really are more active here than in other parts of the country. Despite the rain, if I had a nickel for every spandex bicyclist who peddles up next to me in downtown traffic, my college loans would be paid off. And if Portland is any indication of how the rest of the country is going, we should be investing in Subaru.
9. Powell's really is pretty much the greatest place on earth. Assuming you don't have any outside obligations to pull you elsewhere, you could easily spend the better part of a month wandering the aisles of its colored rooms and periodically stopping off at the coffee shop on the ground floor. Its only downfall might be in this ability to overwhelm--it would be the perfect place to go if you had a ridiculously long layover in Portland and didn't know anyone.
10. Having hills surrounding a city make it really beautiful and somehow more mysterious. Most midwest cities lack this topographical benefit and I think really suffer the loss of aesthetic appeal. Portland feels at once like a bustling stop on major waterway and then also like a lovely little village you discovered through a magic tunnel or stumbled across atop a snowy mountain pass. The frequent morning fog makes the gradations in elevation even more beautiful and enchanting, as if you could weave your way up a hidden drive and find a magnificent castle or a magical cottage. The smaller hills and the larger mountain peaks in and around Portland make the city feel more like a discovery and like it belongs there. You don't get to see the skyline cropping out of the landscape from 100 miles down the freeway, it seems like you find it, or it lets you find it.
I am a winter hued girl. You may not know this about me. The combination of my light blonde hair, blue eyes and pink toned skin makes me look best in cool colors like ice pink and all blue tones and white, but not so good in colors like yellow, cream, bubblegum pink and other warm toned colors. I’ve known this for some time and I’m sure to some extent, it was some marketing campaign that taught me this to get me to throw out half of my wardrobe and buy new cool colored clothes. But I think it holds true. Often the shade of a pink shirt, as much as the style or the fabric, will either complement my skin tone and the blue of my eyes or clash with my natural tones. By genealogical odds, Finn is similarly colored and by some odd departure from his Mexican roots, James also has cool toned skin and eyes. We are a pale, blue eyed family.
This weekend, we painted the one room in our house, our bedroom that had not yet been painted at least once since we moved into our house 2 years ago. I painted it a darker blue-ish, grey-ish teal inspired by a t-shirt that my sister Meg gave James in a similar color. I really like it. I mean, this does not often happen. I usually buy paint by impulse and decide on a color that vaguely matches some color in my head that I saw in a magazine once and often looks not at all like how I imagined it would look. This is not always a bad thing. Our living room and Finn’s room ended up looking really great even though they came out far from the rooms of my imagining. Our kitchen, on the other hand is on its third paint color and I still hate it. This could have something to do with the fact that I generally hate our kitchen, the linoleum, the tendency towards grime and the mismatched cabinets. But all this is to say that I painted a blue room because it was a color I really loved on James and then as I looked around our house last night and saw the aqua of the front room, the various greens of the kitchen, Finn’s room and the library and the mud color of the entry and the dining room, (more of a grayish brown than a chocolate) I realized that our entire house is cool colored, painted in tones that would look good on us in a shirt. Maybe this is some subconscious desire to frame us all in a complementary light or maybe I have so trained myself to be drawn to cool colors in clothing, that I am now drawn to the same colors in paint. But either way, I have a very aqua and green house. I’m sure that in not so many years, these colors will be the mustard yellow and pea green of my parents generation, disgusting, overdone and out of style. I will have to move on to a new cool color; I am a winter after all. But I will be sad to see Aqua go.
I feel guilt come over me when I realize that I have been looking at a non-work related e-mail for ten minutes now and probably missed things that I should have been doing to do my job. And then I flip over to my work e-mail and there are no new messages and I flip over to my calendar and our database and there is still nothing new to do. And so I bring up my gmail again and read another paragraph of a beautiful essay written by a friend who is trying to get a job where she can help people discern their spiritual and occupational direction. I wish that I was doing something so connected and important. But then I feel guilty again and try to find something work related to do and I sigh for what I am wasting and what I am wanting and for all the things that eight hours a day could accomplish.
Yesterday, Finn passed a big milestone, the first Birthday. Unless he has uncanny memory skills, he will not remember a thing about it. He won’t remember me lifting him out of his crib in the morning and doing a jig around his room singing “happy, happy happy birthday to you to you to you-oo-oo” like the way the waiters sing at Mexican restaurants. And he will probably not remember James driving him up to Panera bread, as they do every Thursday to hand him over to my mom for the day and where this day in particular she will tell everyone she sees that her grandson is one today and allow them the joy of celebrating with her by giving Finny something for free--a cookie as big as his head, an ice cream. He will not remember how his new habit of pointing to everything but especially things in the air or on the ceiling will obligingly seem like he is showing how old he is now, how many years he has been here-how cute we will think that is. And he will certainly not remember how my dad, his grandpa held him on his lap at the Cheesecake Factory last night and laughed till his face turned red and he had to cough for the effort of it while Finny slapped at the lit candle and then the whip cream and then the mound of ice cream in the sundae that the kind waitress had brought him as yet another free treat to celebrate; how he smooshed the sundae in the direction of his mouth and then repeatedly turned towards dad to see what was so funny and reach up with whip creamed hands to touch his mustache and his nose. I’m sure he will not remember how in the car on the way home, while he shrieked in his car seat approaching a full blown break down, James and I discussed how to best handle small children in restaurants. And at the end of the day yesterday, I stripped Finn down to his onesie, changed his diaper, cranked the dial on the stone angel that played music and swung him into his crib on his belly. He watched me put things away in his room and then let his head fall down on his sheet where he couldn’t see me below the bumper and he was asleep shortly after. He won’t remember it but I will, the whole day. And I guess that’s the point. We make a big deal every year on at least this one day. And though eventually he will start to understand and demand presents and parties, yesterday was really more about us, about making my mom proud and my dad laugh, making James and me grateful and remembering how one year ago last night, Finny came out of me into the world and changed everything.
On the west coast, the realization that came with the terrorist attacks on September 11th, that our lives were changed, that our world was at risk, that “the American way of life was being threatened” came in a very different tone than it did for other coasts, for other places. I was a sophomore in college, avoiding an early morning aerobics class, laying in bed groggily, when a thin, large eyed friend who lived in the room across the hall burst in our room and said her mom just called from Massachusetts, planes were crashing all over the country and hundreds of people were dying. It was a dream. I’m sure that has been said before, in those exact terms, a dream. But as I pulled on a pair of maroon sweat pants with felt numbers on the left hip, as if I was athletic and shouldered a grey hooded sweatshirt over my head, aware that the colors complemented and that I looked attractively rumpled, aware at that point that it mattered what I looked like when flip flopping into the dorm lounge to watch the TV bolted to the upper corner of the wall, I was dreaming. I was not awake yet. I shuffled into the lounge and watched the news cast, the pictures at 7am in the morning as others had already been at work for hours and then been scorched to death or thrown themselves out of burning windows 57 stories off the ground. It was a dream. I was groggy still and then I woke up gradually to the choked up accounts of journalists, the ashen faces of onlookers, the shrieking drone of sirens. I remember being amazed that everything continued to work, that the shower still turned on and the cafeteria ladies still came to work and the microwave hummed with my hot chocolate water. I was amazed that everything didn’t just take a few days off to be very sad. We spent the day in the dorm room lounge on the pristine Montecito campus of a small private college where the lack of parking passes was the biggest problem we faced, in a town full of movie stars in flip flops in a state where Arnold just won in a country full of those that remembered another time of crisis and a generation that had never had crisis before. I peered at this trauma through a small television screen, shoulder to shoulder with the educationally and financially elite, the millennial generation who had not seen civil rights or Vietnam, or the atom bomb but through an even more distant film strip in history classes or in the distant voices of our grandparents. This was very new to us.
A year later, I was studying abroad in England with lovely intelligent people from that same pristine college and our two professors and their spouses led us through the cities of the UK and settled us in to a month long stint of intensive study at an enormous old manor house run by nuns called Hengrave Hall. The nearest town was called Bury St. Edmonds and to reach it, one must amble down a picturesque lane through the grand entrance gate of Hengrave, along a street lined with thatched houses and cottage gardens to a very regular and modern looking bus shelter where you caught a very regular and modern looking bus and wound through the roads that were made before maps, before cars and before modern looking anything to the city center bus stop. It was on a day that I had come into town to escape the literary intensity of my comrades to walk through the local market, that I stopped for a coffee and a sandwich in a very british looking café. I sat at a small table near the window, aware as I always was when away from my group, of my American voice ordering the meal and my very American hair and shoes. I had brought a book of poetry, partly to feel productive while escaping and partly because I knew that I would stop and eat alone and eating alone with a book in hand is far less pathetic. As the waiter brought my plate and I pushed my cup of coffee further towards the center of the table to make room, I was aware of sympathetic looks. I thought back to the bus ride and the walk through the market and realized that I had received many of these looks throughout the day, from the chemist at the drug store when I asked where to find a certain kind of chapstick, from the vendor at the market who had sold me a scarf I planned to give my sister for Christmas. They heard my voice and cringed a little and smiled. I sat eating my sandwich carefully, thinking how strange those looks had been. And then the manager of the little café came out from the kitchen and said in a slightly raised voice as he looked around the room, “In respect for the lives lost and the terrible tragedy that took place in America exactly one year ago, I would ask your silence for a minute now to remember.” The café hushed and many people looked towards my table near the window. A woman near the swinging door to the kitchen bowed her head and some businessmen looked towards the large clock above the bar, their faces furrowed and concerned. The sympathy in the room was palpable. I felt a thick knot rise in my throat and nearly sobbed for the sadness of it all. I knew that I was being watched and so did not sob, or even cry a little; I knew, especially as a lover of literature that that would have been too much, too dramatic. But I loved England so much in that moment. The thoroughness of the emotion was full in me in Bury St. Edmonds, a small British town outside of London.
I just thought of a smell that I hadn’t thought about in a long time. Winter sweat. I was thinking about how I wanted to start exercising and that I would ride my bike to work, all one mile of it and how I would maybe smell or be sweaty when I got to work and how my dad used to run miles and miles every day on his lunch break and then shower and be back to his day, refreshed, exercised, like a horse. When he ran during the winter, he wore wind pants and a long sleeved t-shirt, some shwag from the last marathon he had run, a knit hat of nuetral color (but not cool nuetral like khaki or chocolate, usually just grey or navy) and those small one-size fits all gloves that stretch over your fingers and reach just to the veins of your inner wrist. Running was the only time I saw my dad where a hat. He was and is a very functional man with a thick head of wavy hair that in the seventies grew long and very Michael Landon-ish but in my child hood was cut short, not buzed but short so that he had a perfect rippling helmet when he brushed his hair back after taking a shower. Baseball hats or flat top old man hats or winter caps for their fashionable or bald spot covering function had no practical purpose for him so the only time he wore a hat was to cover his ears while running in the winter. Saying that he ran in the winter implies a certain commitment to his craft, we lived for nine years in upstate new york where every winter we had snow drifts so tall that we dug forts out of the side of them, not rolled up into a pile, dug out of from the sidewalk or the road with intricate rooms. Granted, I was small at the time, but these were large snow banks. Large like you couldn’t see our Winnebago parked in the drive way from the side, snow banks. One winter, we had such a big storm that all the electricity went out and our heat must have been electric because we all had to sleep in the living room in sleeping bags around the fireplace and when we woke up and the TV flashed on, the news was saying that the Challenger had exploded and we were all very sad and cold and snowed in.
We also lived in Minnesota where temperatures are judged by the actual and feels like, both usually in double digit negative numbers. My freshman year of high school, the governor (Jesse Ventura the ex-wrestler mind you, no sissy politician from the city) called off all schools in the state because wind chills were going to reach -65 degrees. My dad ran in the winter in Minnesota too. In fact he trained for the grandma’s marathon in Duluth, the last marathon he would run through the winter, running the mile and a half to the community center and then running about 897 laps on the indoor track and then running the mile and a half home to cool off.
And when he came home, I remember this from the very first memories I have, he smelled like winter sweat, a different, more pungeant version of sweat that hung in the air around him like the cold air itself, thawing in the indoors and becoming more potent. He grew a beard every winter and the condensation of his breath would freeze into icicles on his beard making him seem like he had come in from another world, very supernatural and Narnia like.
I wonder often why this running thing, I guess you would call it a passion or a talent, didn’t run in the family, no pun intended. I have never had the inclination for nor the ability to run. I realize that running long distance takes conditioning and training. But it just would not take. I tried. When we first moved to Minnesota the summer before my freshman year of high school and I started to go by Kate instead of Katie and went on the first diet of my life (something having to do with grapefruit and bacon) to have a fresh start and be the funniest, most stunning person anyone had ever met, I started to run. I ran on the beautiful trails surrounding our apartment complex, past a lake and a few churches, through lovely peaceful woods and serene backyards…and my lungs nearly seared themselves through my chest when I finally stopped and panted and clutched my right arm as if anticipating a heart attack. I had run a half a mile. I started again the next day and would try all manner of distractions from singing favorite songs (obviously in silence, I couldn’t pant frantically and sing at the same time) to replaying particualrly vexing moments in my recent life and figuring out the best, most witty and cutting thing to say to achieve my goals. Nothing worked and I gave up quickly. I started high school with an awkward hair cut that was ment to look like Meg Ryan in IQ and the same extra pudge that had hung with me since childhood. Running was not my game.
I think perhaps that my dad has always run as a process of renewing, of coming back to something paced and kinetic. He had run track as a kid, in fact it was coming home from a track meet that he had walked into his kitchen and heard that his father had had a massive heart attack and was dead. My dad had been running when his dad dropped dead. There must be something to that. He had placed in two events that day. Maybe he returns to running every time to get back to before the sky came down, before his mom taught sewing classes in their basement to keep food on the table and they saw less of his dad’s raucous family and had a lot less fun. Maybe running has always been something that he has been good at. He won two ribbons that day and no matter what happened later in life, he could beat his mile pace; he could find a new trail and clock it with the car and run it in a loop. I ran to accomplish, to be thinner or be able to eat more. I think my dad thought these things too. I mean his dad died of a heart attack at 43, a short life of whole milk and not enough exercise. So he ran to be healthy but he also ran to pound out stress or process through things. He was happier when he ran regularly.
I thought all of this in some form tonight while I was rinsing the shampoo out of my hair, how maybe I should write it down, the memory of winter sweat and how the writing it will make it more permanent, a history instead of a flashing rememberance that I will not remember tomorrow but that will leave a bit of a pang because I knew it was a good thing that I had remembered. So I write it down, for what it will accomplish but also for the process of remembering and I am happier for articulating it, for pounding it out on the keys. Writing it makes me put the thought into a sequence and make sense of it. And I know that my writing, whether I make anything of it or not, is like my dad’s running. We return to something we know to put reason back and find the peace in the pavement or the clarity of the document.