When you've got a siphon but need a bellows

We blinked and now have just five days of school left. In September, Jack will head to sixth grade, and Oliver to third. It was a really good year for us in so many ways but also offered some challenges. A bully, a new job, changing expectations from teachers and coaches, new instruments and interests, a friend soon to move...

Ever so often, not least in times of forced change like the end of school always is, I am reminded that even the most seemingly smooth lives endure tumult. Even for the most joyous kids, growing up is tough at times. This year, I also relearned that adults don't stop evolving. Nor should we, although such maturation can be painful and tough. Our relationships-with self, friends, partners, family- stall, need work, offer deep happiness, worry us, comfort us, and frustrate. Growing up and growing older have more in common than I once thought.

When I became a mother nearly eleven years ago, I found that life both slowed down and sped up. So many hours seemed to disappear unaccounted for- what had I done other than feed, diaper, bathe, comfort? I loved babyhood, loved the ways my boys smelled -if innocence has an associated scent in concrete form, it's a baby- and felt, loved being able to hold a whole body curled in my arms, loved their little goat bleats and knowing what the varieties of those meant and how to answer and console. I loved the recognition of me in their eyes, loved watching those eyes take in the world around them.

But those same missing hours made many days blur into each other, July rolled into August into September seemingly overnight. And over the past decade, I have periodically paused, as do so many parents, perhaps especially those who stay home, and considered that while motherhood has brought so much to my life, it's also taken. It has taken time, energy, and freedom from my bank and invested that treasure in my kids' vaults. That balance sheet, even when the withdrawals are purposeful and enthused, so often shows various sorts of depletion.

We've all been tired enough to let things slide. We've come home late and fallen into bed without brushing our teeth or washing our face because really, who cares for a night. We've thrown stuff away or into closets instead of putting it up properly because time is short and people are coming for dinner in ten minutes. 

Without realizing it, I think we also do that in some of the relationships we most value. We take for granted that our parents will always be here un-aged, on our side, happy and secure. We imagine that we ourselves will remain youthful, strong, full of the stamina that got us to adulthood in the first place. We think that we really will go to sleep early tonight and exercise tomorrow. We think that our children might be the ones who never sass or say they hate us. We think that our friendships and marriages will last.

My father's mustache is so gray now, my mother has fervently disagreed with me in the past, they have slowed down some, the aches and pains of aging bodies infringing on the ways and speed with which they might sometimes like to live, the ways I hoped they'd always live.

I can now only put my makeup on in an arena of blinding lights. I am still strong and flexible but not infrequently I am afflicted by some sort of physical issue- tendonitis from over-gardening, an idiopathic frozen shoulder, a seizing piriformis, my first grays. I rarely go to sleep early, and I exercise about 50% less than I used to. I am tired 95% of the time. None of that was even on my radar ten years ago.

Both of my children sass, one has definitely yelled "I hate you" on various occasions and I'm pretty sure the other hasn't yet only because he's not of age. They are both exceedingly wonderful, developmentally age-appropriate, and frustrating and tiring on the regular. Also, and no one shares this nugget enough, their bedtimes get later and later, further stripping parents of the quiet alone time evenings once promised. 

Marriage is work. It really is. Vows and rings mean little without tending and gratitude and connection. It is so easy to lose sight of each other, to each take a kid or certain chores and tag team through life. It's so easy, and often appealing, to sink with fatigue onto the couch each night, and to tell yourselves that proximity there in front of the boob tube constitutes closeness. It does sometimes, but over the long haul you realize that roommates also sit together on couches and split chores, and are you married or are you roommates? You smooth things in one way, your partner in another, and over the years you enable and entrench certain behaviors which don't serve much of anything except getting through days easily. This is normal but I'm not sure it's wise.

Friends come and go, and often not the ones you expect. Some of my best college friends are still regular, treasured presences in my life, and others are but memories of the part of my story than happened nearly twenty years ago. It's easy to forget that as we are, everyone else is struggling and succeeding and growing and changing too. In real time. Not all friendships can weather such dynamic evolution.

Meanwhile, time is tight, America seems to be falling apart in several significant ways, some things have to give. We don't always wash our faces and stow things properly, you know?

For some, life nonetheless goes on in largely good ways. For others, this life, this world, all that is asked is harder, takes more, strips more. As would many of us if answering honestly, I have had feet in both realms, sometimes simultaneously, sometimes with full awareness, sometimes not.

The difficult times are when you sense that you're starting to feel like a humorless, one-dimensional version of yourself. As if you've had a siphon hooked to your lungs when what you really need is a sturdy bellows. You look around, and think, "Wasn't it just Thanksgiving? What year is it? Why have the kids outgrown their shoes again? What IS THAT on the sink?"

Two weeks ago, having looked in the mirror and seen Flat Stanley peering back, I grabbed the biggest pair of bellows I could find and plunged a stream of air down my throat. In doing so, I toppled and upended a few things, but instead of hiding them in the closet, I defiantly showed them the light, cleaned them well, and put them up responsibly. Amazing the fullness and fulfillment that can come from rightly inflating oneself.

This post made a lot of sense in my head earlier today when I was drafting it. And then I shelved books in our school library, and sat in the car forever running an errand downtown, went to the store, had two different school pickups, am sweaty and have had a headache since noon, and still haven't eaten dinner or figured out teacher gifts.

So, although I'm not completely sure this is wrapping up and making the points I'd hoped it would, maybe that's ok. Maybe that's what will resonate with you because you, too, are in a time of flux and are feeling slightly manic and also reflective. If you are, don't forget to inhale deeply. Don't forget to invest in your own vault, to wash your face, to get what you do deserve.

Eating well and beautifully

I haven't the slightest idea what season it is or what season the season gods think it to be. Burning, cold, drenched, parched, hide the jackets, find them, confident blooms, meek ones. I desperately want to be able to count on temperatures north of 65. Want to be able to plant basil and tomatoes with assurances of growth. And yet.

There is, as a dear friend told me today, always room for practice. 

She told me that after I called her in tears, a tough morning having primed my ducts before she left a loving message that pulled the boy's thumb from the Netherlandish dike, and after I forced myself to pilates which was great minus the overly chatty women in the rear corner and the individual who farted stink bombs continuously throughout. 

Indeed. There is always room for practice.

For me at least, one balm for such trying times is a mealtime well spent. With friends or alone, cooking or dining out. I have told you many times that I hate wasting the opportunity granted in all of the three daily meals but especially lunch and dinner. Snacks are lovely, and I am a snacker, but a proper midday sup or after-a-long-day dine is sublime. It heals, sates, restores, and offers a new focus, even if for only a brief time.

Do you know of Molly Yeh? She writes My Name is Yeh and also has a recently-released cookbook, Molly On the Range. She has a megawatt smile, an affinity for backyard chickens, a loved one known as Egg Boy, and a real gift with marzipan. It is rare that I make her recipes and wish I hadn't doubled them. (Well, the funfetti cake was a bit much, but otherwise...).

Hers is one of the few blogs I subscribe to, and I recently received a missive about a carrot salad with feta, pistachios, and an orange blossom toss. OMG. That is so up my alley. Simultaneously, I rediscovered the recent New York Times Dining section in which David Tanis -with whom I have a real love-disappointment relationship- shared a gorgeous charred asparagus salad with chimichurri. 

In my opinion, both of those dishes plus some steamed new potatoes to dress in any leftover chimichurri seemed like a dreamy dinner. And so it was. 

Ribbons of freshly shaved, freshly plucked carrots. Just torn mint. Season's best asparagus. Chimichurri. Pistachios. Cardamom. I gasp at the memories (although I like my regular chimichurri recipe better). 

a beauty from my yard

Some days

Some days feel overcast, even when the sun is shining bright. Some days feel lonely, even when you're surrounded by loved ones. Some days, parenting feels like nothing more than a shortcut to winning yet another failing asshat badge. Some days, marriage feels like a Sisyphean toil.

Some days you return home and find soggy mounds of cat puke dotting your kitchen. You find capellini-sized worms eating through the tight, pink-tipped buds studding the rose bush you've spent a solid year tending; you toss the worms to the ground angrily, wondering if your roses will bloom. You cut open a Meyer lemon proudly plucked straight from the tree you've nursed for as long as that rose and find it to be all pith, the very antithesis of a Meyer's goal. 

Some days, you ponder family that feel like strangers. You wonder what happened last November and if your country will ever heal. You wonder about the rage you sometimes feel, the rage you know others feel, the anger and mistrust seeping into the white space left gaping and sore by shock and concern. You wonder about good seeds and bad seeds and where and when neutral forebears diverged onto paths lit by light and shrouded by dark. You wonder how much light and how much dark you're comprised of. 

Some days you meet an old friend for lunch and shock yourself by sharing things from the depths. You realize that you needed to but that that need is an uncomfortable, suggestive one. You are grateful that even though you rarely see this friend, she was exactly who you needed to share a bowl of fries with.

Some days you curse the invasive clover around whose roots ants seem to like constructing villages, and the bamboo sneaking under the fence separating your yard from your neighbor's. But dealing with them offers an odd sense of peace and accomplishment: from slowly peeling up buckets of juicy white clover stem that seem like an endless highway system coursing between grass and soil, from unearthing and cleaving into so many pieces the deeply entrenched tap root of the bamboo, comes exhaustion and serenity, and I think that order is key. 

Some days you hunker down and inward, willing yourself to rest and notice the tiny bits of beauty that really do beckon from more corners than you can count. Some days you put on a dress and new sandals and mod earrings and immerse yourself in a sea of activity and interaction because sometimes, getting out of your own head is the best gift you can give yourself. Some days you challenge yourself to learn or do something new; maybe you make a mistake, maybe you don't. But you are brave and you notice you stand just a bit taller.

Some days are relentless and hard, and then your child cries and needs you to hold him as his tears wet your shoulders and your arms embrace his gangly body. And you are tired and there is nowhere you'd rather be, even if you feel impotent really, for you can't make him better at chess, you can't make him believe he really isn't "the worst one in the club." You can't, but you can hold him as he calms. And you can dry his eyes and kiss his cheeks and offer to make a sandwich and maybe do something so silly, anything, just to make him smile.

Some days you cook three dinners (for various reasons) and you forget to turn the sprinkler off and move the laundry over and wash the cat's injured foot. You're reading to your child and turn the book over to him even though it's a challenging one because your dinner is finally ready and you're hungry. And he flies with such ease and fluency, and you sit there with your mouth agape, beaming with pride at this child who has worked unceasingly and courageously and has gotten it. And you tell him that, and he believes you, and he blushes with the fire of belief and accomplishment, and you would not trade this for the world.

Some days you remember the night you arrived in New York, with one suitcase and no longer enough money to fairly tip the cab driver. He is kind and waits as you ring the bell of your new home. He is concerned when the people who are supposed to answer don't. He sees your concern. You wonder if he knows of your broken heart. He offers you his phone, and you take it with gratitude even though you cannot pay him enough. He waves his hand, "Don't worry."

Some days you go back to New York, the place you found yourself. Really found yourself. And it is still dirty and magnificent and throbbing with life and air conditioners drip from above and kindness and hardness surround you like a maelstrom but once again you find yourself and you return home grounded.

Some days your spouse rubs your shoulders and then unloads the dishwasher right when you need just those things.

Some days you dream big dreams and feel silly about it. Other days you dream big dreams and know you'll see them come true. Some day.