really? this is simple?

So I’ve been a little absent here on this blog for a month or so. No excuses – I just felt like I needed to say that before I launch into this…

The idea I’ve been working around for the last year or so is that my life will be best lived if I can live it as simply as possible without being extreme. By extreme I mean I don’t want to go off grid and live in a house without a water heater. To some people that sounds “simple,” to me that sounds like an enormous amount of work. And cold showers. Which sounds awful.

But the simple part just isn’t that straightforward. This blog, for instance, is not a manifestation of keeping it simple. If I were really trying to keep it as simple as possible I would not purposefully create anything that required repetitive attention. But there are two problems there – repetitive attention to something reaps rewards AND creating is what makes me feel most fulfilled.

Repetitive attention, for instance, is what allows me to maintain friendships, grow plants, run 5 miles for fun, and make lasagna without a recipe. Creativity is what drives me to think new thoughts (which is a wildly fulfilling activity) and cultivate interests that keep my brain from shriveling to Michele Bachmann size. But I find that everything that I really want to engage in that is creative and repetitive equals complicated.

So I’m learning to disassemble my initial ideas of “simple.” What I think is that there are three kinds of activities I engage in on any given day: things that I don’t want to do but that have to get done, things that I enjoy doing but are basically mundane, and things that thrill me. If I keep these things in balance – with the majority of my energy going to the middle stuff and the two extremes being the rare burden/bonus, then my life seems to move fairly smoothly. And it feels simple.

(“Wait!” a reasonable person is thinking. “Why would you only want to do what thrills you rarely? We are supposed to follow our passion! Oprah says so!” I will address this issue. Just stick with me for a moment.)

So, for examples* -

Things that I don’t want to do but that have to get done: going to the doctor’s office for my children’s well visits, shopping for anything other than groceries, cleaning baseboards, getting the car’s oil changed, washing sheets and comforters, filing bills, etc.

Things that I enjoy doing but are basically mundane: having playdates, checking email, washing dishes, dance parties with my kids, cooking, playing Scrabble, anything tutoring or Pampered Chef related, reading or listening to the news, regular cleaning, etc.

Things that thrill me: going on dates with my husband, reading a good book all alone, having lunch with my Mom, going out at night with my friends, buying fancy ingredients and trying a new recipe, writing this blog, having a party, etc.

*obviously – these are very partial lists and the lists themselves cover a wide spectrum. I like having playdates about 100 times more than I like dusting furniture, but I am not thrilled to have playdates nor am I distressed at having to dust.

What I’m realizing is that if I fill my days mostly with that good-but-standard stuff that fills up the middle category I feel like I’m floating along. It’s easy, it’s chill, it’s contentment. If I try to jam in too much of the stuff I don’t like to do in the name of “getting it done” I start to feel run down, and a little bitter. These two things are pretty obvious. “Gee, Liz, you mean you’re happy when you do stuff you like, and you’re not when you don’t? Wow. So insightful.”

But the kicker is that if I try to keep myself well-stocked on the thrills calendar I end up in a place that is a lot like my run down, bitter territory. I am a thrill-seeker by nature, so when I get one big high from something that I enjoy I just immediately seek out the next big fun thing. And that becomes a pretty all-consuming preoccupation. It might sound like I am exaggerating – but I can tell you that I have done some pretty extreme things to get some time alone to read a book.

The point for me is that I have had to come to terms with what it means for me to live a “simple” life. I once thought it meant paring down, across the board. I thought it meant getting rid of stuff, focusing on my most meaningful relationships, reducing my workload and my calendar. I thought it meant just waking up everyday and looking at my girls and saying, “Well, here we are. What shall we make of this day?”

But that’s not how it’s working out for me. It turns out that a long day at home with my kids with nothing to do is the opposite of simple. It’s a stressful disaster. (If “playing” were something that had to get done, it definitely would have landed on that first list. Man, I hate to “play.”) It turns out my life feels most simple when I have a healthy dose of run-of-the-mill going on, and then a sprinkling of required-crap and another sprinkling of super-fun.

I realize that I am very lucky to even get to make this distinction. There are a bazillion people who HAVE to do the required-crap all day and the balanced simplicity that I am talking about probably seems like the greatest possible luxury. It is a luxury. But it is also a little bit because I’ve found a way to make the task of shaking shit out of cloth diapers into a toilet something that I qualify as “something that I enjoy doing but that is basically mundane.” I wonder sometimes if I am fooling myself and someday I will look back on this phase of my life and think I was crazy. It is possible. But worrying about that is definitely not simple, so I’m going to try not to think about it.

 

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February 15, 2012

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where’s my damn apron?

I have all these blog posts rolling around in my mind. I feel the spectral weight of the new year heavy in my writing heart, and I want to get all deep and reflective and brilliant and inspiring.

But every time that urge hits I look down at whatever shirt I am currently wearing and I take stock of the dozen levels of stain that are seeping into the fabric at every given moment and I think, “Golly. Brilliance is gonna have to wait. I have laundry to do.”

So forgive the shallowness here. Forgive the fact that it’s been about a month since I last wrote. I have lots of things I want to share about the holidays – the lessons I learned about travelling with youngsters. Staying with in-laws and step-family. Sleeping on floors. Vomiting in buckets. Hiking among cacti. So many fun blog posts that are waiting to be written…

And yet. I’m going to write about what working in restaurants taught me about parenting.

A preface: I worked in over 40 restaurants before I embarked on my “professional” career as a teacher. Yes – I quit a lot. Also, I got fired. (I’m a bit mouthy.) Also, I worked in some places that shut down. For a variety of reasons. And finally, I often had two jobs at once. Which taught me a lot about balancing my schedule. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

I worked as a server, cook, busser, barback, bartender, hostess, and manager. I worked in super-classy places that served bottled water exclusively and I worked in dives where people had to beg to get a water. (We’d make them beg just on principle. Drink a beer, for godsakes.) And I worked everywhere in between.

Here are some things that translate from the world of restaurants to the world of parenthood:

Full hands in, full hands out.  In almost any lower-end to middle-end restaurant there is a rule – walk into the kitchen with your hands full (of dirty dishes, napkins, etc.) and walk out of the kitchen with your hands full (of food to be delivered to tables, an iced tea pitcher, a wash cloth to clean tables, etc.) The idea is to never waste a trip and to always be working/helping out your coworkers. No matter what. Never waste a trip. This is not hard once it’s became a habit, and it serves me well in my house. I never walk up or down stairs without carrying something that needs to be transported. When I walk through a room I pick up things that don’t belong and move them closer to where they do belong. It’s not a life-changer, but it’s handy. (Get it? HANDY. Jeez-zus. I’m funny.)

Never say “No.” Not every restaurant has this as a policy, but many of the ones that have their act together do. It sounds crazy to the uninitiated, but it’s actually pretty brilliant. People react very strongly to the word “no.” They get defensive, pissy, victimized. I was trained, and in turn I trained people, to find a way to avoid actually ever refusing anybody if at all possible. It’s pretty easy – if somebody asks for something the first step is to figure out if it’s possible, even if it seems stupid. If it’s possible and nobody will get hurt, just do it. This translated, in my restaurant life, to me making lemonades out of lemons and sugar packets for people who wanted lemonade but didn’t want to pay for refills, and in my parenting life to letting my daughter make ice cube “muffins” in our muffin trays as a science “experiment” to see if “muffins” with blueberries would freeze faster, or if “muffins” with chocolate chips would freeze faster.

The second step in this strategy, if after reflection the request does seem to be potentially harmful and/or impossible, is to figure out a way to deflect the original request. In my restaurant life: “My manager said tonight’s not the night for us to serve a flaming tequila on your chest, because we heard the fire marshal might be stopping by, but I can bring you a shot of tequila and a book of matches, and I can show you where the patio is located.” (notice – I never said no!) In my parenting life: “I can see why it sounds like fun to jump off of the top of car onto your scooter. And yes, you probably would go very fast. But let’s just see how fast you can go if I just pull you using this jump rope for today, okay?”

Other phrases that sound sincere, but really boil down to “No fucking way, dude.”

Unfortunately…

It doesn’t seem possible right now….

Maybe next week…

It looks like that’s out of the realm of possibility for today…

I wish I could but…

Never say something you can’t/won’t make true It is tempting when one is talking to guests in a restaurant setting to use filler-phrases like “your food will be out in just a couple minutes,” or “I’ll be back with your check in just a minute.” These things sound good and they temporarily make the server or bartender feel powerful and in control. That’s fine, as long as they’re true. But guests get antsy/angry/pissed/disappointed super-fast if these trifle utterances don’t manifest into a reality pretty quickly. There’s no easier way to screw up a lovely dinner for folks than to implicitly promise something and then not deliver. Similarly, I think there’s no easier way to royally screw-up my relationship with my children than to say something and then not make it true. For example:

“We’re leaving in five minutes.” (Ten minutes later I’m still shooting the shit…)

“If you eat all of your lunch you can have ice cream.” (She eats MOST of her lunch and she gets ice cream. I didn’t say MOST. I said ALL. So stupid.)

“I’ll play with you after I finish the dishes.” (And after I clean up the living room. And return a phone call. So so so so stupid.)

Have a good hat and good knives. Self-explanatory, yes?

There are a bunch more – I wrote a little list on the back of the cocktail napkin the other day when I was enjoying a rare moment of solitude in a nice restaurant. At that moment I didn’t have any kids with me and I wasn’t the one taking drink orders. But this list, like child-rearing and drink ordering, can be continued later. Right now I need to go bus some dinner dishes.

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January 10, 2012

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Kids. Magic. Giving.

Here’s what I keep saying to myself these days, over and over and over: Christmas is about kids, magic, and giving. Christmas is about kids, magic, and giving. Christmas is about kids, magic, and giving.

Here’s why: If I don’t focus on those things I’m going to go crazy.

I keep looking for the switch that got flipped a couple of years ago (apparently I missed the notice that this was going to happen) when all of a sudden I went from being a cozy little rider on the Christmas train to being the engineer in charge of every moving part and course-setting and passenger comfort. Christmas used to be buying a few gifts, decorating a mantle, making bourbon balls, and then – ta-da! – Christmas morning and joy and love and monkey bread. Now Christmas is negotiating multiple family gift exchanges, figuring out what Santa is bringing, sending out Christmas cards, finding little girl and mama outfits for Christmas parties, making food gifts for all of the people who get food gifts, getting cookies ready for the Christmas Pageant, decorating, decorating again when the decorations are dismantled, buying plane tickets, planning travel, explaining over and over and over again the difference between the angel Gabriel and a standard fairy, and so many more things that I used to take for granted (thanks again Mom!)

But I am working hard on keeping things in perspective. The reason I have all of these jobs to do is because I have kids. I love my kids with all of my heart, so the jobs are okay. I don’t relish some of them, but it’s okay. As long as I keep my kids in the center of all of the craziness, I can focus on them and not the clutter of the outside demands. The grown-ups in my life, no matter how dramatic they may be, have already had their day in the Christmas sun and now it is my kids’ turn. Our culture’s expectations are equally frivolous in the big scheme of things – it is absolutely not necessary that anything in my house resemble a magazine spread or a greeting card photo. My own silly notions of how to best do Christmas are a product of the two previous things – other grown-ups and a (consumer-driven) American culture.  These expectations will get met, or they won’t. When December 26th rolls around I will still wake up (a little too early) with two kids, a dog, and a husband and I will be grateful to be right where I am no matter what was accomplished or how perfectly my cookies turned out.

I am also trying to keep my inner cynic in check by letting my kids go full bore into every Christmas story there is. The nativity, Santa Claus, Rudolph, the Polar Express? Bring it! A lit-up tree inside the house? Candles that smell like cookies? Shiny, glittery things hanging from hooks in every direction? This is part of the mystical experience that makes the holiday season a sensory joy for children, and it is also the wax that slicks the runners of their mental sleds. Magic is a beautiful thing for children – it takes the everyday sharp, rude awakenings that are a necessary part of growing up and softens their edges. Magic lets children stay children for a while in a world that is eager for them to grow into grown-up stuff, and the deeper they believe in magic the more likely they are to explore the world at will and be delighted by what they find. There is no other time of year when our culture so fully embraces group-think magic, and in my opinion it is a gift for children.

But actual gifts for children? This is the part of my mantra – Christmas is about kids, magic, and giving – that comes with a little footnote. “Giving” is so synonymous with “stuff” in our world, and I’m trying really hard to retrain myself to think of “giving” in a more nuanced, complicated way. I only have three things to offer to a person (or to the world at large) – my time, my talent, or my treasure. And gift-giving, in the traditional sense of the word, is just the expression of my “treasure,”  aka my bank account. My bank account is important in many ways – I value the food that it buys and the house that it pays for – but when it comes to gift-giving I feel more and more compelled to offer to the people I love the gifts of my time and my talent. My children will be getting gifts from Santa, because that is part of the magic, but I am trying really hard to remember to give them the gift of my undivided attention this December. And here’s what happens when I do that – when I sit down and say to myself and to them, “I am spending the next hour with you,” – I forget about all of the other crap that is whizzing around in my head like freaking reindeer on crack, and I enjoy an hour with my kids. And all this month I have been writing them each a letter about what it is I love about them. (I don’t have a lot to offer in the talent department. I have to resort to the fact that I know how to write and cook.) I’m going to put those letters in a gift bag and give them to the girls on Christmas morning. They probably won’t think much of it right now, but if I do it every year for the rest of my life they might. And in this way I am trying to re-shape giving for my little family.

But I don’t want this to be a how-to post on Christmas. There are already way too many of those out there. I think there are probably 1.2 million too many, actually. What I really want to say here is that Christmas can mean a hundred things to a hundred different people. For me, I’m choosing Kids. Magic. Giving. But I’m not allowing any room for Anxiety. Stress. Fatigue. These are anti-Christmas. And nobody wants that shit in a stocking.

culture, parenting

December 7, 2011

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giving thanks

There’s this church in Kansas City, MO where the pastor encourages his congregants to reply to the question “How are you?” with this: “I am blessed and so are you!” The church practices this greeting exchange at the beginning and end of every service and, as a result, each of these people has a certain cadence to their voice that mimics the call and response of old-fashioned church services. Somehow I manage to run into these folks more often than seems statistically likely – I see them at the grocery store, the bookstore, at the park, at the bank – pretty much everywhere. I’ve had so many many people tell me that they are blessed and that I am, too, that every once in awhile I find myself wanting to say the same thing when a stranger asks me how I’m doing.

For these people, and for that pastor, (who would not be impressed with my lack of faith in his God but may be interested in my enormous capacity for feeling blessed) I am thankful.

I am also thankful for whoever it is in the Trader Joe’s marketing department who does those goofy old-timey drawings on their ads. I love those.

Whoever it is who’s in charge of the dialogue between the monkey puppets in the woot.com daily emails? That person gets a big virtual high-five of gratitude from me. That’s my guaranteed morning chuckle right there.

Other things I’m grateful for: KU basketball, beer, coffee, bailey’s and coffee, the small plates movement in the restaurant world, NPR, belts, seat belts, quilts and blankets, the smell of sunscreen, Facebook, Tofurkey, (Facebook and Tofurkey make a natural couple, don’t you think?) pomegranates, tarps, and cool paper.

I’m grateful for my friends. I’m grateful for Chelsea, who keeps it real all the time. And Courtney, who keeps my perspective wide open. I’m thankful for Ruth, who is like my sister, and Kirsten, who makes me feel like I’m in college again – especially when I’m peeing my pants from laughter. I’m grateful for Karen because she challenges me and makes me guffaw. I’m grateful for Haley, my newest dear friend, because I think she will become one of my oldest dear friends. I’m thankful for Kara for showing me the other side of every coin, and Bridget for trying her best to keep me hip, and Wende who brings a measure of calm into my life. I’m grateful for Tara and Jen for being like steady rocks of friendship in an otherwise tempestuous little brook, and all of my other friends who don’t make too much fun of me when I make a fool of myself, who forgive me when I go off the rails and say stupid things, who empathize, who laugh at my jokes and tell me jokes that make me laugh. I’m grateful for my friends who give me perspective, and who ask for my advice.

Also, a big ol’ shout-out to the Kansas City metropolitan area. I am so thankful I live here. It is the bestest place for me in every way – I love how we’re striving around here in some parts and how other parts are so damn smug they seem to wallow in a pit of smugness. I love how the city changes as often as the weather. I love the food and the buildings and the events and the lack of pretension, even from the smug ones.  I love Franklin Park, Loose Park, the Zoo, the Nelson, the Plaza, downtown Overland Park, the Crossroads, La Bodega, and every Indian restaurant – even the bad ones – because I’m just so glad they’re here.

I am grateful for libraries. What a brilliant idea – a library. I don’t know what I would do without libraries.

Clever toys, too. There are some damn smart people out there designing toys. I’m really thankful for these clever toys in my kids’ life. And, while I’m at it, I’m going to go ahead and admit I’m really really grateful for PBS kids shows AND Nick Jr. Really. I don’t know what my life would be like without the occasional respite provided by cartoons, but I’m pretty sure the word “shambles” would play a part.

I’m  grateful for birds and their never-ending lessons, both literal and metaphorical.

And my family. I am so thankful for my family. As I get older I am finally beginning to understand that family, in all of its complexity and nuance, is the one thing that will most definitely help me to become my best self. Exercise reaps rewards. Spirituality pays big dividends. Study is beneficial. But the real job of life is to learn to love people unconditionally, and there is no better place to learn that lesson than with family. And I have amazing people in my family to practice with.

Which leads me to that for which I am most grateful  - Ryan, Gabby, and Cora. I love these three humans so much that sometimes I am surprised my heart can bear it. It is remarkable to feel so enamored with people, especially when they are the same ones who make me want to tear my hair out at regular intervals. But grateful I am. I am grateful for the laughter at the dinner table, the sweetness of their kisses, the opportunity to watch another human grow, the ease of our company, the inevitability of our intertwined futures that keeps our present moments so monumental. I love that I landed a husband who is good at what I am bad at, and who somehow manages to accept me exactly as I am and simultaneously makes me want to improve myself, a little bit at a time. I love that my daughters are so totally their own people, separate from me in every way, but somehow still they each carry me around with them everywhere they go, even if they don’t know it.  And this – I love how being a wife and a mom has taught me to look with grateful eyes on a world that could easily make me cynical. I am so aware that this fragile deal I’ve got going is so unusual in the world – a healthy family in a safe place with enough warmth and food – that anything other than gratitude seems like a lie. And for this I know I am blessed.

food, parenting, people, zen

November 23, 2011

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one is silver and the other’s gold

Ever since I first realized there was a little spark of alien life in my womb, almost 5 years ago, I have played a particularly pointless game with myself that revolves around this one question: If I could grant my daughters one trait, what would it be?

I think this is largely the result of watching Sleeping Beauty too many times when I was a kid. When the fairy godmothers grant the little baby Aurora the magical gifts of beauty and song she is indelibly given her airy (and physically impossible) frame and hair and eyes, and the lovely voice that lures in her prince.  The unfortunate but necessary “you won’t automatically die because of the grouchy, jealous old hag over there”  is the third godmother’s gift, which I always wondered about – what would it have been if she hadn’t had to step in with the dull life-saving gift? Kindness? Generosity? A universal understanding of all sports?

But this idea that we are granted our traits made an impression on me. Of course, I have come to recognize that we are far more the sum of our experiences than the pre-packaged bundle of our birthrights. Nevertheless, I still find myself asking what would I grant them – these mini-humans I am trying to raise into women who will claim the fullest extent of their potential – if I could give them just one thing?

The initial list is obvious – kindness or compassion, intelligence, flexibility, strength, perceptiveness, honesty, humor. All of these have reigned supreme at one time or another in my mind. It isn’t a wholly silly exercise, because each of these has made me try to cultivate in myself these traits so that, if nothing else, I can at least try to lead by example. But eventually each of these has lost its luster after either a short or long period of examination. The reason each of them loses their luster – and this is already obvious to anybody who has played this game in their head for any length of time – is because I will inevitably come across somebody who has that particular trait in spades but still seems unhappy. No single trait can save us from ill-fortune, or raise us up enough to overcome every other personality flaw. There is no magic bullet. Even Sleeping Beauty had to sleep for a really long time.

But this week I think I may have hit on something that might be my answer. What if I could give my girls the ability to find and nurture wonderful friendships? What could be more key to a fulfilling, happy existence than the lifelong ability to seek out good folks and forge strong relationships with them? It’s a little clunky in terms of vocabulary – it’s not as sleek as the single-word traits up above – but in terms of greasing the wheels of daily life I can’t think of anything that helps me more than my friends. I would be adrift without them.

On any given day my friends make me laugh, keep me sane, help me to be a better mother, a better wife, entertain my children, keep me company while I do the boring stuff, support me in trying the risky stuff, (like starting a blog. That’s as risky as I get these days.) They downplay my faults while acknowledging that I have them and they listen, wholly and completely, when I am confused. They open up their homes to me and they treat my home like it is theirs. They love my children and are glad that I love their kids, too. There are days when they seem like my only defense against sadness and madness.

I haven’t always been good at keeping friends around. We moved too much when I was a kid for me to really get the hang of “friendship” and the ways the knots worked, and when we finally did move somewhere to stay for awhile I was a terrible friend. I didn’t know at the time that the relationship part of being a friend was something you have to put a lot of effort into. But I’ve grown-up and learned, and now I’m not a perfect friend by any stretch, but I know at least enough to be a grateful friend, which seems to cover the gaping hole that is shoveled deep and wide by my many faults-as-a-friend.

It seems obvious now that I’ve thought of it. The problem with the other traits I’ve imagined granting my daughters is that they are too self-centered. It doesn’t do any good to be compassionate if the only recipients of our compassion are strangers. (Or worse, family.) And who wants to just sit around being honest with themselves? And how can we maintain strength without the composite resistance of a daily life teeming with people and relationships straining our mental muscles?

It’s a little bit of a relief to come to a conclusion (hopefully) on this game I’ve played for so long. Especially with this answer, because I can work with this. I can honestly say to my daughters that, absent any evil witch staking a claim on their lives, if I could give them just one thing it would be to grant them the ability to make and keep good friends.

Or maybe beauty. Or song.

Dammit.

parenting, people

November 14, 2011

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I’m not angry – I’m just really really furious.

So here’s the scenario that happened in my house this morning – many many parents will recognize this, I’m guessing:

I served Gabby the exact breakfast she asked for – a scrambled egg with toast and grapes. As soon as I set it down in front of her she started whining that it wasn’t what she wanted. Then she spilled her water. While I’m cleaning up the water Cora started digging in one of our potted plants like she was excavating a lost treasure. While I’m getting the dirt cleaned off of Cora’s hands Gabby pulled her Learning Tower over to the cabinet where we keep the muffins and climbed up onto the counter to get the container and in the process of doing that she stepped in the sink which was full of soapy water, and then she started crying that her foot was wet. Meanwhile Cora, who has a helluva cold, sneezed and literally coated the side of my face with snot.  While I was working on getting Gabby’s socks off so her shrieking about having wet feet would stop the dog hopped up and ate Gabby’s egg, which Gabby had set on the bench instead of the table – which is technically the dog’s free-for-all territory. Then, of course, Gabby was devastated that her egg was gone and it WAS actually what she wanted for breakfast. Then Cora, who I had put on the floor so I could wrangle the sock, pooped. Monumentally pooped. But I had taken her diaper off because she had gotten dirt all over it. So she pooped on the floor. And then Gabby tried to move the Learning Tower to get it “away from the stinky poop!” but she moved it right onto my foot. And it hurt. I told Gabby I felt frustrated by the situation and her behavior.

(For people who don’t have kids – or who haven’t had small children around for a long time – it is natural for you to think I’m exaggerating. Or for you to somehow assume I’m an incompetent mother. I HAVE been known to exaggerate, and I am probably incompetent, but neither of those factors has anything to do with this story, which is true and alarmingly average.)

What I really wanted to do at many points during this routine of craziness was throw my hands up over my head and scream, “STOP!” And then I wanted to stomp and fuss and fume. I was angry. I reminded myself a couple of times that there was surely something funny about it, and that if I could find that still, calm place in my heart that it would serve me well. But the truth was I was pissed. Annoyed. I didn’t like my children right then.

But I hid it. I washed up the mess a little bit, tried to be a little goofy, and then shuttled them to the bathtub. We sang some songs, washed some hair, found some crevices that seemed to hold more than their fair share of shit and snot and cleaned those out. We put on clothes, got in the car. Headed off to preschool.

On the way to preschool Gabby was telling me about a little boy in her class that she doesn’t like. He steps on her toes and sometimes draws on her art when she’s not looking. “How does that make you feel?” I asked.

“I don’t know.” she said. “It makes me want to go grrrrrrrrrrrr at him.” (Gabby does a really good mad dog impression.)

“So you feel angry at him?” I asked.

“I don’t think so. Whenever you’re angry you talk more quietly or you use your silly voice. He makes me want to scream.”

And once again, before 9:00 in the morning, the futility of parenting smacked me upside the head hard enough to make me spit out my coffee.

On one side of the parenting coin there is this deep desire to give my kids a peaceful, safe home environment where they live free of fear and retribution. On the other side is a deep desire to raise humans who are in touch with their own emotions and women who are unafraid to voice their anger and frustration. If I a walk around tamping out my anger left and right (I don’t even talk about Herman Cain in front of my kids) than what kind of model am I being for their own emotional stability? On the other hand, my natural temperament runs pretty hot and if I were to let my emotional freak flag fly whenever the winds of life whipped it I would probably scar them forever.

I know the answer here – the answer is balance. But ah. Balance. You sneaky little shit. I’m going to need more coffee for that – and to get coffee I have to go to the kitchen. And it’s messy in there.

parenting

November 8, 2011

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really – I’m only mildly interesting and mostly incompetent

So, for me, the primary problem with reading blogs turns out to also be the primary problem with writing a blog.

Here it is, as simple as I can lay it out: When people write as if they have their shit together, and they know what they’re doing, and they are qualified to give me advice about how to live my life, I bristle and just want to call them on their implicit bullshit. BUT – when people write as if they’re just bumbling through life, trying to figure it out as they go and making these huge mistakes as they wander along, I get all frustrated and unsatisfied with their constant bewilderment and I find the whole experience of reading the blog unsatisfying. HOWEVER, the few bloggers out there that manage to walk that fine line of bemused narration on their own somewhat imperfect but mostly satisfying life I end up just straight up not believing that they’re telling me the truth about what they’re thinking and that they are only manufacturing content so that they have something to write about.

I cannot be such a cynic. I cannot be such a cynic. I cannot be such a cynic.

And yet. I’m not all that far into this particular “really simple mom” experiment, but I’m far enough in to recognize that I’m placing myself squarely in the middle category, where I am writing about trying to find a new and better way to tackle my big, woolly  life. But that’s not really how my life feels. I am pretty content. I like my day to day life. I feel peaceful most of the time. But I can’t bring myself to write that regularly. “So, today was great. It turns out that spending a whole day hanging out with friends and playing in the backyard is a wonderful way to pass the time.”

One of my favorite bloggers - http://zenhabits.net/ - has a pretty standard format. He writes about a way to improve your life, and it’s almost always how to make a habit of simplicity in one form or another. I buy this guy, mostly because he doesn’t seem to be pushing an agenda as much as sharing some bread he just bought at the bakery. His is the blog that actually inspired me to write this one. I really thought that I could also be a supportive virtual friend to the moms of the world who needed a little psychic high-five. I felt very frustrated in the months that preceded the birth of this blog with parenting bloggers in general, because they all seemed hell-bent on selling me on their ideology and making me feel guilty if I didn’t buy in. Plus, I always wanted to type in the comments section – “What makes you an EXPERT on this???” – because most parent bloggers seem to just be parents with really strong opinions. Which doesn’t make you an expert, it just makes you loud.

But whenever I sit down to write I have an idea about how I can share something that might be helpful, but it doesn’t come out like that. It comes out as me trying to figure out my own life. Which may be helpful or may be EXTREMELY boring. But for some reason I can’t get myself to act like I have anything figured out. Even claiming I’ve mastered a recipe is beyond my grasp. Which is funny – because in person I can be pretty conceited. But something about this whole computer/public/writing thing makes me feel like it’s too risky to claim that my shit’s together.

But here – just real quick – I’m going to force myself to blow my own horn: I am good at staying open to new ideas. I am good at listening to other people. I am good at seeing other people’s strengths. I am getting better at peacefulness.

There. Whew. Got that out of the way.

And now I’m going to settle into the “blogger of bewilderment” category. I’m sure as hell no expert, and I can’t pull off bemused for long, so for folks looking for a satisfying read – I suggest you go elsewhere.  For those of you who can handle a little lack of satisfaction – thank you for sticking with me!

 

Uncategorized

November 2, 2011

3 Comments

Mental Halloween

I’m always a little skeptical about grown-ups who get really excited about Halloween. It’s a children’s holiday – pretty much every holiday is for children, except for Labor Day which isn’t really for anybody but postal workers – and so I’ve always been wary of the post-twelve year old who gets all googly about a day that is essentially about candy.

So today – the unofficial start of the Halloween extravaganza for our social set – had me feeling the standard set of conflicted emotions I seem to have about most things these days: I was one part “woohoo!” and one part “oh geez, here we go…” I started off the day with a little 5K race for me and a little Monster Dash 100 yard race for Gabby. It was cute – people dressed up in costumes and then ran around like serious athletes in the Kansas City West Bottoms. (Tangent alert here! Anybody who’s interested in environmental ambiguity should spend some time in the West Bottoms district of KC. Old rundown warehouses that now double as haunted houses, chic furniture stores, ancient railroad tracks, super-hip restaurants, and then just for good measure – a field with some horses and a donkey. WTF?)   After the race we went to a big garage sale, and then after lunch we went trick or treating in the downtown Overland Park area where the merchants were handing out candy and some community-minded person had organized dancers and an exhibition Quidditch match. (Again – WTF? But whatever. 18 year old boys with brooms shoved up their butts. Totally normal Halloween entertainment for the toddler crowd. Really.)

What I noticed today, though, was that I felt differently about the whole Halloween experience than I have in a long time. What I noticed was my daughter speaking up when strangers talked to her. People would say “Oh, aren’t you cute! What are you?” And she would unabashedly answer them – “I’m a cupcake.” She said “trick or treat” loudly and with authority in her voice. She said “thank you” so that people could actually hear her. Gabby is a loud child at home, but in public she is extremely quiet and reserved. I have been known to beg her to speak up so that people can hear her in a restaurant when only moments before in the car I had been pleading with her to lower her voice to a reasonable scream.

It could be that Gabby’s internal maturation miraculously collided with the calendar telling us that it is Halloween, but it’s more likely that wearing that costume, and having a little pre-determined script, allowed her to be a little more assertive in public. What I know now, though, is that she is capable of this public dance we call polite social interaction. She won’t be given the free pass anymore on the shy-routine that she has been handed for the last year. Not that I’m now going to force her into single-handedly ordering our Chinese takeout. But I am going to be able to remind her that she was absolutely capable of talking to the scary lady with the spiders crawling out of her hair when she had a bag full of candy, so asking that same lady in normal clothes where the bathroom is shouldn’t be trauma-inducing.

Significantly, though, because I can never leave a life lesson at first base, I realized that I, too, have probably been resting in my known character too conspicuously for too long.  How many times have I given myself a pass on a tricky situation that I could have handled better just because I felt like “that’s just who I am?”

I did it at least three times today. I didn’t offer to comfort somebody I knew was in pain because I told myself I like to mind my own business. I didn’t pay my full attention to my daughters when they were playing because I told myself I was a busy mom who needed to go clean the kitchen. And the third thing is too embarrassing/gross, so you’ll just have to imagine that one.

What if I had put on an Alice in Wonderland costume and I had pretended that each of these circumstances required my full, undivided, wondrous Best Self? Could I have put a better foot forward and been a newer, more aware person? I don’t know – I’m just speculating here because I haven’t tried it yet. But it seems foolish to sit here and majestically congratulate my daughter for moving forward in her life skills (while dressed as a cupcake!) without also wondering if I can’t also jump the ship I’ve labeled “Self” and move to the yacht version.

I’ve got a lot of metaphors going here – which is only natural when I’ve spent the day surrounded by people dressed as Zombies, Mr. Potato Heads, and Beaters. (Or were they Seekers? I don’t have the Quidditch uniform standards fully figured out…) But my point is that maybe I need to embrace the IDEA of Halloween a little more. Just like Christmas can simultaneously be about Peace and the baby Jesus, maybe Halloween can be about candy and stepping outside of my own skin. (Because I’m trying to become a better person AND because it makes my skin crawl to see a grown woman dressed up as a baby.)   I have two more days to speculate and process and mentally prepare to try to on a new self, and – bonus! – I will have plenty of candy to help.

brain power, culture

October 30, 2011

1 Comment

“Life’s too short!”

Today was a gorgeous day in the Kansas City metropolitan are. Absolutely beautiful. It was in the seventies almost all day, very little wind, and no clouds.

The girls and I ate breakfast outside, and then we picked up the house a bit and then we met some friends at the park. When we came home we went back outside to try to corral some leaves into bags. It is a complicated relationship I have with leaves – I love trees and I love Fall, but I am a little flabbergasted at the amount of work those two things combined require out of the standard suburban homeowner who isn’t willing to pay somebody else to take care of them for us.

We hit the leaves pretty hard this weekend with our new leaf sucker – but I really didn’t like that experience. It’s a loud machine that sucks up all kinds of stuff that doesn’t necessarily need to leave the ground. Like dirt. And rocks. But it mulches the leaves as it sucks, so it’s almost a necessity for us at this point. We’re only allowed to compost 20 bags of leaves/week, and even with the mulching we’re already at our max. And we didn’t even do the backyard.

But today I wasn’t in any kind of hurry to get anything done. I just wanted to do some good and be outside with my kids. So I took my rake and I gave Gabby her little rake and I gave Cora her little hand rake and we headed to the most obviously leafy part of the yard. We were out there, pretending to be animal rescuers in search of ants that needed saving (because, obviously, they were buried under the avalanche of leaves that were blocking their air and sunlight) and having a perfectly pleasant, semi-productive time, when one of my neighbors stopped by.

“How’s that raking going for you?” he asked.

“We’re having a pretty good time, I guess.” I said.

“I have a leaf blower.” he said. “I think life’s just too short to go around raking leaves.”

After he walked away Gabby asked me what he meant about life being too short.

“He looks pretty old to me.” she said.

Now at this point I can go off on a little righteous tangent about how life is about living in the moment, and it doesn’t matter what you’re doing as long as you’re enjoying the moment, so raking is just as valuable an activity as any other thing I could possibly be doing.

Or I could talk about the value in doing things the old-fashioned way. The greener, more environmentally friendly way that also actually ends up being better exercise.

Or I could talk about the value of showing our kids that “chores” can be fun, and then I could derisively imagine that Mr. Grumpy Pants has children with no work ethic.

But actually, today, I’m more interested in this whole “life is too short” thing.

Two weeks ago my uncle said to me, while we at a memorial service for a family member, that “life is too short to not eat meat.” (It took A LOT of restraint for me to not point out that his life would probably be less short if he would stop eating meat, but I didn’t.)

Last week Gabby’s preschool teacher told me that “life is too short to read bad books.” (She said this while clutching a Bible. I’ll let those who know me well imagine what kind of restraint I practiced in that moment.)

And then two days ago a friend sent me an ecard that said “Life is too short for regrets and celery sticks.” (This is so confusing to me. So should I not feel regret that I eat celery sticks? Or should I eat bowls of ice cream at night instead of celery sticks and then refuse to feel regret the next day? Or should I eschew regret and celery sticks on alternate days so that it balances out? What the hell?)

I know the sentiment that “life is too short” is a carpe diem/American spirit/get-your-fair-share kind of thing, and its ubiquity should not be taken as a personal affront to my lifestyle. I am, apparently, lackadaisically wondering around this planet without the proper focus and determination to grab life by the balls. I am just kind of surprised that, of all of the things that would jump out at me in the big box of American sayings, this is the one that got caught in my craw this week.

As I’ve been writing this the image that keeps occurring to me is the feeling I get when I know there is only one piece of something good left in the refrigerator. I usually sense that one piece of whatever – right now it’s a dark chocolate bar – as a low-level hum of anticipation. When will I eat it? How long can I wait? What will I do between now and then? When there is a whole bunch of dark chocolate I don’t have that fuzz in my head. It is only a perceived lack of abundance that makes me hyper-aware of something’s presence.

I think if I cared to think about it that I would probably find a similar behavior pattern if I perceived a lack of love in a relationship or a lack of respect in an encounter with an authority figure. If I imagine there’s not enough of something I crave it even more. But if I feel like there’s an abundance of…whatever…then I don’t have any stress associated with that thing.

So that’s probably why this “life is too short” saying is annoying me. My life isn’t too short. It’s a long life – stretched out behind me is a wildly abundant jumble of life. Stretched out ahead of me is exactly as much time as I need to live the life I have.  So I may rake my way through it. While I eat celery and read smut books. And that is just fine.

 

culture, zen

October 24, 2011

2 Comments

Tumbleweeds.

Gloria Steinem was being interviewed by a local radio host the other day and I was listening to her the best I could while my infant screamed her way through a little suburban traffic. The topic of the show was the state of modern feminism, but during the segment I had a chance to listen to Steinem was riffing on human history. She was saying how during 95% of human life on our planet women and men have participated as equals in almost every culture we know about.

That’s interesting, and I could talk about that for a long time. But it was what she said after that that caught my imagination. She spoke for a moment about how we know that many Native American tribes conceptualized society as a circle, rather than as a pyramid. There was no hierarchy, only continuation. No us over them, only everybody as a part of a whole.

So this isn’t really new to me – I did ingest my fair share of liberal arts education back in the day. But what struck me while I was listening to it is that I have been so firmly imprinted with the the idea that life is a linear path up a sloped hill that – if I am lucky – has a pinnacle – that I think of almost every aspect of my life in those terms. Our society is very much a pyramid, in everything from government to food groups, and I have taken that image and applied it directly to how I think, behave, and dream.

I am constantly thinking to myself  that once I get past “this stage” life will get back to normal. Things will calm down. I know this is STUPID. There is no “this stage.” It’s just life. But I have it in my head that I am moving forward through life – on the “journey” as so many people like to call it – that began at Point A and will end at Point Z and what I will have to reflect on in my deathbed is that whole alphabet of experiences that got me there. But that’s so clearly not how it works. I didn’t “start” at Point A. I started a million years ago when the first little zygotes that would be my ancestors hooked up. And I don’t end when I die – I am shedding myself everywhere all of the time. My interactions with other people could have ripple effects that last for centuries. My children may reproduce again. My trash could last until the planet explodes. To think of myself as a self-contained unit on a self-contained line is both hugely egocentric and inadvertently humble.  It is more accurate, although still too simplistic, to think about myself as a part of a circle. A gigantic circle. Where things just keep happening, often repetitively, and I don’t have a lot of choice about direction, only a lot of choice about attitude.

Actually, the more I think about it, the more a circle doesn’t seem like the right shape. A circle is two-dimensional, and clearly our lives are too complicated to be symbolized by a circle. We are more like ancient tumbleweeds, three-dimensional shapes that are rolling along, sometimes losing parts, sometimes picking up new pieces. It is tempting here to take this metaphor and roll with it (ahaha) on and on, but I’m not really interested in convincing myself that life is a tumbleweed.

What I do want to do is get over this idea that I am climbing, or even that I am a part of pyramid. I want to walk away from the societal hierarchy and the way it’s invaded the way I think. The positive possibilities are already shining there on the horizon of my imagination. If I didn’t think of life in terms of a hierarchy would it bother me when I felt like I did more than my share of work around the house? Would I even quantify “my share?” If I could really step away from the idea that life is an uphill climb would I be able to unwrap the fist-hold I have on the necessity of a first-class education for my daughters? Or, even simpler, if I could truly shift the way my mind sees the world would the quirks and eccentricities of my friends and family members seem like funny, endearing little traits rather than stumbling blocks I have to get over in order to enjoy my relationships with them?

I feel like I have to apologize now to the people who are reading this blog (all 5 of you) and are probably thinking, “What in the hell is simple about this?” I admit, I mis-named this blog. It should be Overly-Complicated and Wordy Mom Who Ponders Boring Stuff. But I believe that one was taken. So, while I imagine myself into circles and tumbleweeds, I will also try to imagine myself into simplicity. A circular simplicity. With no hierarchy.

culture

October 20, 2011

2 Comments