It's nothing. It's just....this.

Today I need a hug from my grandma. 

I woke up thinking about her and I just need to sit at her table, drink a cup of tea, and hear that this too will pass. 

Right now, there are so many "this" moments to count. My "this" is not purely political. 

 It's fatigue.

 It's overwhelm. 

 It's feeling too small to make a difference and too big not to.  

It's parenting in a world that made no sense to me a year ago, and even less now.

My "this" is seasonal.  As the light wanes in October and November so does my resilience.  My ability to be "on".  My ability to keep smiling so that all of the feelings that are too big to let out stay tightly confined under the surface.

My "this" is financial.  From fueling the car, to groceries, to keeping my children in shoes....What the What?  How did milk change price THAT much in one week?  How did bread become something to budget for?

My "this" is despair.  How can so many bad things happen to little people?  When you work in a human service field, you are bombarded with all of the good and bad that humanity has to offer.   I feel joy that there are still elements of love and respect and care.   I feel horrified and numb that in some places none of these are evident, and horrified that I feel numb.

My "this" is regret.  Regret for choices made and unmade.  Regret that I thought there would be time for that later, or that close enough was good enough.  Regret that I didn't do some things more and some things a lot less.

My "this" is loneliness.   In a busy world of people, surrounded daily by other humans, there are times that I feel truly alone.  And the depression that hits this time of year tells me this is because I am wrong somehow.  Broken.  If I were just, a bit  better I would need less, or feel less.  And it's hard to reach out because when I am in this place, I am hyper-aware of the disorganization of my house, the behavior of my children, the goldfish on the floor of my car, the extra pounds; the trappings that sum up my external life.

My "this" is variable.  For that I am grateful.  It isn't every day.  It isn't all year.  But it is real.  

I have supports.  I am lucky.  

But I also have grown to know that I am not alone.  My "this" is not your "this".  But we all carry a "this" in an invisible satchel.  Some days it's small and tucked away, and others it is being dragged along behind us, weighing us down.  Some of us are carrying many, many satchels all at once and much of the time.    I recognize your tight smile and fatigue.

So I ask of you, reach out and be kind to everyone you meet right now.  

Some of us need to hear that "this" will pass.  

Some of us need you to treat us with a little more kindness for just a little while.  

Some of us will promise to call, but cannot pick up a phone because we are afraid "this" will fall out.  

Some of us need you to smile at us, provide a kind port in a wild storm.

Some of us are temporarily stuck in the "this" abyss.   

Charlie Kardashian, the forgotten Klown

In a world of Kardashians I am absolutely a Charlie Chaplin.

Clumsy and awkward, and the ability to make people laugh my only defense.  You might recognize me immediately, but no one is dying to be me.   I made a comment recently about being grateful for being old, fat, and invisible.  And it is partly true.  I no longer feel under scrutiny.  I am the "before picture" and the cautionary tale.  I am the 40's and 50's era reminder that men don't make passes at girls who wear glasses (or sport big asses).

I am the nice girl.  The bookworm.  The involuntary sidekick always.  It isn't a role I signed up for.  It just seems to evolve that way over the years.  "Can you tell her I like her?" turns into "Is your friend single?" turns into "So, tell me about the winterizing on your house?"   I've been demoted from wing-man to Home Depot salesclerk.  Once again, without my awareness or consent.

As the mother of daughters, I don't know how to guide them.  My dating history is minimal and mild.  I don't know how to prepare them for being an object of interest whether solicited or unsolicited.  I can't tell them how to handle a pick-up line, because I've never had to.  I feel under-prepared all the time when I think about where we are headed in fewer years than I care to think about.

While I would almost always rather have someone think I am smart than think I'm pretty, there are still days that I want to be both, and grieve that I've missed my chance.  In the last week I've been told I look "tired", "frazzled", "pale", and "shot from a cannon".  These are not ringing beauty endorsements.

My Facebook invites are to join weight loss and diet groups, and my social events involve meeting up on Facebook at a specific time.  This is not what adulthood was supposed to look like.  

The most challenging part is what needs to change.  What do I want to give up?  What do I want to be different?  If I could go back into single dating life would I?  OMG, No!  If I could redo my college years, would I?  Maybe one or two days....   If I could go back and take up running at eighteen, would I trade the books that I read while others were running?  I don't think I would. 

So what needs to change, I guess is my acceptance of who I am and have always been.  The nice kid.  The invisible girl next door.  I just have to stop making decisions as though who I am limits what I am.  And vice versa.

And so, I put this risky bit of self disclosure out, not to garner reassurance that I'm okay, but because I want to give you advance notice that I am working some stuff out.  I'm coming to terms.  I'm figuring out which parts of me I want to keep, and which ones I don't, and which ones no longer give a damn. 

And to warn the "gentleman" at the gym that "what shape I am trying to get into" is none of his business.   If my grandfather were still with us, he would break you for speaking to a lady this way.  And I am, after all, a lady.  And I was raised in a culture where this is beyond rude.   And my grandpa's warrior genetics rage through my family tree. 

You have been put on notice sir.

I may waddle like a Chaplin, but I read like a champ and I can insult you in ways that you will still be looking up weeks from now.

Family Togetherness

Camping.  Wholesome, virile, rugged adjectives come to mind.  But now, for a moment, allow your brain to stretch into the possibility of camping with children, multiple children to be precise.  Further allow for imagining three children who have never slept out of doors in their lifetime and at least two of three are afraid of bugs.  And just for maximum growth opportunity, imagine you are sharing your campsite with veteran campers, who prefer quiet and solitude, peaceful babbling brooks, and quiet introspection.  Do you feel a bit of smoke curling around the edges of your now super-elasticized brain?  Then, you are almost, not quite mind you, but almost, at the point where you are ready to camp with my children.

It started out innocently enough.  "Let's try something new!" my husband encouraged.  "THIS will be an affordable vacation for our family."
"It's basically housework outdoors," I countered.  "Without electricity or plumbing."
"It will be good memories for the children.."
"Yes, the nights of being gnawed on by rogue bears are sure to leave an impression," I agreed.

And so it went for a good span of time, until all other vacation options were moot given the time, the cost, the care for the dogs while we were away, etc.  And so, the tent, last slept in ten years ago, and moved from one home to another twice, made a debut in our backyard.  The kids were thrilled.  They loved the various and sundry zipper doors and window flaps, and the general musty, dusty, slightly Hanta virus imbued quality of it all.  Soon, the boxes from Amazon began to arrive.  Seam sealer.  Waterproofing spray.  Inflatable air mattress.  Rechargeable pump for inflatable mattresses.  Water shoes for the communal shower facility.

I began to label the boxes "Monday night at the hotel,  Tuesday night..." and so on.  By the time the jaunty UPS man left our door the last night, I was certain I could have stayed a full week at the beach for the outlay of cash represented in Amazon boxes.  The delivery person was probably relieved that we were gone for a few days as the last box was less placed on our step than drop-kicked from the half-way point with a wave that did not include all of his fingers.  (It truly was a frightful number of boxes.)

The morning of the departure, the car is loaded to the breaking point.  The small towing trailer was recruited into service and filled with coolers, bikes, scooters, lawn chairs, firewood, small beasts of burden and a sherpa.  We carried more into the woods for our three day stay than we take to the beach for a week.  (It may have been the wrong time to mention that however.)

Upon arrival, grandparents greeted us excitedly, however the Mr. and I were communicating in death glares and grunts.  As the tent went up and the children fought and cried, I had nowhere to retreat with them where others were not subject to their joyful sounds of childhood, and I regretted the under-packing of wine.  The campers in the adjoining site cast baleful glances at our merry band and moved their party into the solitude of their soundproof, mansion on wheels.

The tent assembled and in position, I point out that our heads are minimally four inches off of the paved road.  "But it's the flattest spot," my husband pointed out.  "Yes, as will our heads be come morning," I observed.  With assistance the fully assembled tent was relocated with no minor amount of grumbling.  Still nearer the road than I let my children play, say nothing of sleep, the grandparents parked their vehicles along the side walls and we parked along the "head wall" and thus our Chevrolet-encrusted castle was deemed ready for occupancy.

 Apprised by the helpful ranger upon check-in that there had been a Yogi Bear type in the neighborhood the last few nights, we were encouraged to keep all foodstuffs sealed and to be certain that all dishes were either washed, or out of range of marauding bears.

"So we are basically sleeping in a giant bag with the tensile strength of wet tissue and bears will be likely outside seeking snacks is what you're telling me?" I queried.
"Don't worry," the ranger offered, "Bears are most interested in carbs."
"Such as the marshmallow that will inevitably be caked into my children's hair, eyelashes and every blessed pore by bedtime?"  I think it odd that the ranger began backing away while quite possibly considering how fast his little golf cart could go when necessary.  Not so helpful really.  Who trains these people?

Fully alert, mindful of bears, and trying to convince the children that they did not need to walk through the damp to the bathhouse yet again, I had no more than dozed off that evening when my husband, snoring loudly enough to ward off not only bears, but possibly a zombie apocalypse, stretched and brushed the edge of the tent with his hand.  "Swiiiishhh," went the tissue paper thin wall and everyone on the north side of the river could hear my scream of "Bear!!!!"

Except the children, who slept through it, having jumped on beds one and two thoroughly enough that they had extracted nearly all of the air, leaving them bed-bereft and seeking comfort on my twin mattress.  Family togetherness.  It's wonderful.  I highly recommend it.   Just not while camping in bear-friendly woods.

And thus ends night one.  I'd tell you more, but modern psychiatry suggests that you only dig so deep.  There's more to tell, but why rush things.  Camping is supposed to be relaxing.  And so, I bid you goodnight.  Sleep tight.  Don't let the marauding bears gnaw your toes and such.

Kiss-Kiss Darlings!

Art Appreciation

Ever since the Olympic games, logos have been catching my eye.  Some of them make total sense, but every now and then one catches me off guard and I wonder "Who had final approval and didn't see THAT?"  For example, we've all been privy to a joke or nine about the Trump/Pence logo.  I mean, that one kind of begs the question of intentionality.  The whole campaign honestly feels like it's one second short of a bad practical joke, so the slogan...Meh. 

But harder to explain the logo for a business specializing in treatment of addicted and binge eating disorders.  The logo, as one drives by, appears to be a whale surfacing with water spraying from the blow hole.    I have been assured by two passengers on separate drive-bys that it is in fact a woman standing at the top of a mountain, arms raised in victory,  and not a mammalian size reference, but I'm not convinced.  It's just so "there". 

And take the school crest that was emblazoned on a sweatshirt I stood behind the other day.  I kept pondering what the frilly bits were, and then I realized "I've seen that same layout in the obstetrician's office".  If you are going to use a shield design, perhaps reconsider the triangular shape with two sprays of *something* that really only look like fallopian tubes to me.  I can't unsee it.   And in the same way that a sport's team should consider the virility and fight embodied in their mascot, (because non of us is all that intimidated by the Fighting Doormouse, or the Raging Luna Moths), we don't want to be recognizable by the reproductive line-drawing on our letterhead or marching band banner.

So here's the thing.  The classic illusion of the two women.  I know they are both there, but once I've seen one, I always see it first.



Now I have these misviewed logos stuck in my brain.  Taking up useful space where something like my parent's mailing address could live permanently.  (See, I used to know the address, but then 911 address changes came into play, and now I have to look it up.  Every time.  True story.)  So until something else comes along to take it's place, these images roll around in my brain and I am reminded of a piece of good advice: "You only get one chance to make a good first impression."

Which brings me to this week in general.  My children are going back to school and I will meet my new students.  We get one chance to start on the right foot.  No matter what else I do this year, the first hello is what will set the tone.  No matter what my children go on to do, they get one initial chance to meet their  teacher.  As a parent, I get one chance to open a relationship with the classroom teacher, although many opportunities to tend and nurture it.  Our first meeting determines how safe we feel asking questions and having input into their classrooms, and they into our homework habits.

This is big stuff.  I can only hope that at the end of the day, none of us are left scratching our heads and wondering "What WAS that?  Did it look like a surfacing whale to you?"

Much love to all of my teacher families out there.  This is our Superbowl.  Minus the advertising premium and the cheerleaders in perfect peppy unison.  I know many of you will be up until the wee hours the night before, prepping your room and tending your anxious, jittery, brains and bellies.  I know that first day outfits are being chosen and reconsidered in an effort to start out looking and feeling smart.  And if you are like me, the siren song of 17cent notebooks and 50 cent crayons has lured you in more than once.  Weekly.  (Damn you Walmart!)

Good luck to all of you, teachers, parents, students, bus drivers, cafeteria crew.   And encourage at least one person you know to go into graphic design.  Because honestly?  It appears they could use the help.

Let's Get This Party Started!

When your two year old requests a "fandindingo cake" (right after you intrepret that she wants "flamingo"), you get busy making one for her third birthday. 

This inevitably leads, as all roads do, to Pinterest.

Which leads, as one might imagine, to a LOT, (seriously you guys), a LOT of rolled fondant. And sculpting with rice krispies, and the frightened realization that there is no way...really none...to make a flamingo beak that will not send your husband into fits of juvenile hysteria.  

Which at the end of the day leads to a freezer holding the chilling carcass of a fadingo and the disembodied neck and head portion lying in frosty repose on the shelf above, supported by a bag of peas.  And of course, lots of opportunities to shout "Don't open that door!"

However, in a fit of crazed over enthusiasm, you have also committed to making danfingo masks too.

  
If the sight of fondant beaks had the Mr. in fits, the notion of donning a mask on his own face, complete with slightly ding-dongular floppy beak has him in near paralysis.   Cannot. Catch. His. Breath.

And in this world of one size fits none, each glamfingo beak is different.  Color.  Size.  Position.   This is really and truly a challenge for him, because every time I hold one up for inspection upon completion, it begins all over again.  "That looks...*snort*..really..*HA*..good job...really, really good.  *snort*"

And there you have it folks. I don't feel I need to say anymore do I?  

So years from now, when my youngest asks "Why would you do that to me?"  Please remind her,  she asked for it and I tried to make her little dream come true.    

And that my friends, is why I can never go to the zoo with my husband again either.  He's scarred for life.

Saving My World, One Fruit At A Time

In the same way that a trip to Walmart almost always forces me to question my life's decisions, as in "Do I need this in bulk?" and "Why haven't I had pork rinds before?",  lately I find myself  yearning for a small farm. Growing my own food.  A fully stocked root cellar.  I feel the need to process something in a hot water bath on a daily basis.

This may or may not relate to my sense that the world is on it's way to hell in a handbasket, but I digress.

It starts every season when there are two simultaneous occurrences. First, harvest season is upon us, and while here at home our garden is wearing the sad cloak of a too hot, too dry summer, the farm stands are bursting with things that cry out for saving for a winter night.  And second, school vacation has reached its apex and I am  filled with the sense that winter is not far behind with its long nights, monochromatic color scheme, and the pace of our life will once again be frenetic.  Our meals will once again come about through luck and happenstance rather than  careful thought and preparation.  We will be fed, but without the care that comes during full-on farming season in the Northeast.

My grandparents come from farming backgrounds.  Hard lives, hardscrabble times, and few luxuries.  Growing up, in admittedly less trying and more comfortable times, my grandmother taught my mother to can, and she, in turn, taught me.  As a teen, I canned alongside my grandmother.  Peaches.  Pears.  Tomatoes.  Beans.  Pickles.  In her basement was a fully stocked pantry of canned goods, groaning with summer spoils, and a feast for the eyes when one ventured into the clanking darkness in December or January to retrieve a jar of pure joy.

The shelves in the root cellar were such a treasure that long after my grandmother passed away, the family wouldn't open the last jars of peaches and pickles.  As long as we had them, we hadn't lost that moment.  That experience.  Sadly, over time, they become lost to all of us due to time and the increasing risk of botulism as time ticked onward.

This week I made raspberry currant jam with my children.  Small batch doesn't even begin to describe the scope of my "putting food by".  Five pints.  But my children glow with the pride of having made something.  They keep making lists of people to give this treasure to.  And it is a treasure.  It is history and love and forethought all in one little glass jar.

In the same manner, my children perused the garden last night and asked if there is anything else to can.  At the moment, there isn't, but I reminded them of the pesto we have in the freezer that we made earlier in the season.  The strawberry and raspberry jam in the pantry.  And, if the season and time cooperate, the applesauce and tomato sauce that will soon find their way to a jar with a snappy little label in the coming weeks.

So it really comes as no surprise that as we drove today, the readers in the car noted a sign that boasted PYO blueberries and peaches.  In a flash of nostalgia, I remember standing at the sink with my grandma, dropping peaches into a bath of boiling water and then submerging them in an ice water tub, all to the end of being able to rub the skin off in a nearly complete sheet and commentary on their rather anatomical appearance.  Slicing them into a mason jar, spooning syrup over them and setting them to process.  Yes, today we will can peaches.

But, as many things nostalgic go, we arrive at the stand to find that there are small boxes of peaches at a preposterous price.  Surely this was the price for the labor done for you?  We were here, in slightly rainy weather to "PYO".  Alas, the woman at the stand said, in a slightly weary voice that resonated with "This is the 500th time I have said this today..." that s a result of the summer weather we have had, there are no peaches to be picked in New England.  These peaches had been brought up from, (and here she added a slight shudder), Pennsylvania.

"You may want to reconsider the "Pick Your Own" sign at the end of the drive."  I offered, I thought helpfully.

"It's the sign from last year.  We didn't have paint to get rid of the PYO.  Do you want to pick blueberries instead?"

Actually, I had very little interest in replacing peaches with blueberries.

"Or perhaps you would like to pet the goats?"  Yes, I'm certain that will lend my sugar syrup a little je ne sais quois in place of the peaches.  I'd like to say that I refused the peaches on the basis of regionally procuring my food, but the reality is that I refuse to pay roughly two dollars per peach, in order to labor over them and can them, bringing the cost per bite to somewhere near minimum wage.

And so, we returned home without peaches.  And we made jam nonetheless with the plums that I bought upon request of my children, but which have sat untouched once the battle was won.  Plum preserves with vanilla bean.  ( Please note, I feel the need to procure a great deal more plums in the near future. ) Even if they do come from Pennsylvania.  Or even *gasp* New Jersey.

Just Wait A Martha Minute

I call a timeout.  I'm flipping through a magazine and there is modern-day Superwoman with her perfectly pressed clothing and her pitcher of orange juice.  The kids, so evenly spaced they look like a picket fence surround the table beaming and clearly enthralled with whatever masterpeice she is about to put down on the table.  But wait, let's not be sexist or parentist, or whatever...Dad is actually friskily trotting to the table with a platter of pancakes and a crstal decanter of syrup, (probably infused with some little known herb that creates perfect children is my guess).  But here is where the actual call of "y una mierda!" comes into play....There is a vase of flowers in the middle of the table.  Nope.  I may be led to believe you got up at the crack of dawn to put together a breakfast buffet for your impeccable family and ironed your clothing just to dish up their nutritious meal, but I don't for one Martha Minute believe the flowers sat there unmolested.  Pod people!  Robots perhaps.  But not children.

Now contrast this with my reality.  I have items of clothing I have not worn in TWO YEARS because I cannot iron them.  Despite a recent statement implying  that it was assumed I don't own an iron, I do own one.  I know where it is.  I just haven't got the five minutes it takes to do it.  Okay so my wardrobe is not all that natty lately.  I can live with that.  If I'm coming to your wedding, I will drug the children and iron.

The kids in my house are too far apart to like each other all the time, and too close together to be helpful to one another.  The only pickets are in our backyard and even those are poorly spaced.  Unless there is rum in the banana bread, they are never beaming with anticipatory glee as meal time descends.  Two often look like they are preparing to be waterboarded, and one is actually gagging like a cast member on Survivor.

And this morning, in the span of time it took to take muffins, Mr. Unscripted disappeared next door to cut down a tree.  Using the car.  Yup, you read that right.  The car that I get grief for parking too close to shopping carts and cart corrals is being used as a tether point for a tree in the process of being less upright and more "relaxed and in repose" as we speak.  So there is no frisky prep of breakfast  "a Deux" this morning in this household.  And those beaming children of mine?  Well , they managed to both encrust themselves in mud while being "supervised" outdoors, as well as in one case, befoul themselves.  Glory be!  

Pass that juice Darling won't you?  And be a dear and dabble a little spirits in there for me?

And back to the flowers.  When was the last time flowers sat anywhere in my house undisturbed? I hearken back to ten years ago.  In the meantime, any and all flowers have been part of the collateral damage.  Within seconds of their landing, someone has pulled out their favorite, tried to add more water, or move it to another location, (often the edge of the table or as close to an important document as possible.) 

And the final quote of the magazine interview reeled me back in..."I just like to use unconventional colors to make my room pop.  I like the unusual and unexpected."   Me too sister.  Me too.  So please, try not to sit on the most recent installment of Mount Washmore in the wingback, we're going for avante garde.  And the Rorschach  that is my dining room rug?  That is my nod to the unconventional...dinner and a diagnosis.  And finally, the flowers?  I'm not even bothering with faux floral at this point.  Come with me to my phone, I'll show you a picture of some flowers that I saw once on a glorious three hour trip without my children.  Try to ignore my wrinkled and out of date clothing.

Velociraptors On Vacation

My brain is broken. 

 I both want summer to be here now, (as in right now!), and am filled with anticipatory dread about keeping these velociraptors,  (that I have given birth to), busy.   This is the first summer when everyone is going into the summer testy and irritable.  And it has gone on long enough that I don't even know if liberal applications of increased sleep, watermelon, Popsicles and water will help.

I am filled with feels.

This was yesterday afternoon.  I left work and flew to the local dollar store to buy a kiddie pool.  Rather than schlepp the entire pool into the store, I looked for a tag to take in to the cashier.  I was greeted at the register with eye rolling for not bringing in the whole pool.  Mind you, I was buying the "BIG" pool, not the one that you can serve salsa in on graduation weekend.  So, yes, why don't I bring in this monstrosity.  Wrestle it over your display of festive charcoal and lighter fluid and mardi gras beads and try to somehow get it facing you so that you scan the tag I brought in to you in the first place.  And then balance it, half on my head, while I attempt to pay you for it.

I wrestle the pool into the back of my sizeable vehicle, folded somewhat loosely into a taco shape as that was the only available option.  Drive home and fling it into the yard and fill it.  Race to pick the v-raptors up with "Coolest afternoon ever...Thanks Mom!" in my brain.

For the entire ride home there was complaint about whom would get in first.  Whom was big enough.  Whom might be too big.  Whom might accidentally wee in the pool.  Why we couldn't just go somewhere with a "Real Pool"....And here is a lesson for any child reading this over a parent's shoulder.  Choose your timing wisely.  You may not want to drop that last line in the car with your parent when the outside temp and air quality is equal to the internal temp of your parent.  You may not want to drop that line when your parent is confined in a car with you while  a construction crew rolls pavement flat.  You may want to remember that your five minute ride home just became a twenty minute ride home by virtue of road construction and just stifle the urge to be nasty.

At home we skip to the children sheathed in bathing attire and sunscreen.  Two of the three are in the pool.  There is room for at least two more.  I only need one to be able to get in.  While I am not a math devotee by nature, I can say honestly, this equation was seemingly simple.  Just get into the blessed pool and swim in the space designed for you and your imaginary sibling.   The one that you are never, ever in a million years going to have.  Because this.  Right here.  This moment.

But no.  Cue the "She's touching me!" chorus.  Cue the Mama losing her hot and sweaty patience and aborting the kickoff to summer weekend and sending all three children into the house dripping and shocked that pool time is over.  Cue the sniveling whimpering best exemplified in an old Bill Cosby sketch.
 

 Cue the Mama cradling a glass of precious wine and her last stitch of precious sanity.  Now sniveling a bit herself.  Counting the days this weekend when she will be called on to keep separate these v-raptors.  Counting how many precious days of school there are left and how many summer camps one can afford this year.  Contemplating when, exactly, she lost the reins and her mind.

Cue the Mama hoping that while bedtime is predictably going to be a fright, these raptors will wake up as the fluffy and evolved chicks they typically are.  And that some magic will occur in the a.m. leaving them kind and compliant.

And so I tip my hat to you homeschooling parents for whom Monday is just the day after Sunday.  I tip my hat to my paternal grandmother and her eight children.  I tip my hat to those who manage to grocery shop with multiple children without looking like a small explosion is about to happen.   Or has happened.  Or is destined to happen again.  To those who can actually pull this off without appearing to have lost your ever loving mind.