On any given Momday

Y'all, I cannot even believe how exhausting parenting is. Daily, certainly, but sometimes even hour by hour. It's like an absurd vortex of love, fatigue, revulsion, excrement, boot camp, servitude, diplomacy, and groundhog day. I think this is what, my seventh year of writing about this? my twelfth year of feeling it? The shock never wears off.

You know not when the whirl will touch down. You know not where its eye lies. Are your levies strong? Did the Army Corps bungle the job before these spawn were even twinkles in your eye? Do you have plastic gloves? The ability to set your brain and insanity meter outside of your own physical self? Are you an improvisation genius?

When Oliver was little and had made clear that his preferred sleeping schedule was literally anytime until 4:45am -DAILY- I started putting him to bed at 4:45pm. It's one thing to wake up at 4:45am one day or two a month, but every day and with a 3-year-old, two pets, and a husband in tow? Hilarious.

I hired a "sleep consultant" immediately, had her on speed dial in place of 911, and spent a small fortune attempting to sleep. 

I did not sleep. But the good news is that now at 9, Oliver sleeps until 6 and does not even think to wake anyone until 6:45. Nonetheless, I am still making up for eighteen months of daily pre-dawn, ready-to-play rooster calls. 

Who knew that poetry would be such an extreme nails-down-the-chalkboard-24/7 for both boys? Whoever tells you that your children, at 2 years and 9 months apart, will probably one day, when you wonder if finally you've made it to 8 minutes in Easy Town, be forced to intensively study poetry for months at the SAME TIME? You are immediately Deloreaned backwards to the many years of your adolescence during which your mother tried, bless her heart, to make you feel her extremely ardent love of poetry. 

Is poetry concurrently taught/mandated in 3rd and 6th grades some sort of karmic retribution? 

You do wonder. 

No one tells you that at the same time your children start to do private things in their rooms, they will both refuse to clean those rooms but also still desperately want you to come in there and check on them and tuck them in. Holy stale air, people.

No one tells you that just when middle school-puberty-geekness-coolness-fad item'ness kicks in and thus you, parents, are exhausted AF by 6pm, you'll actually have to stay awake listening to and feeding your offspring until at least 9pm which is an hour after you want to go to bed and all the hours past the time you and your partner could actually have some quality catch-up time. 

It is unclear to me that even once during the "best thing in the whole world, all my heart" biz I was told about being a mother, did anyone say, "Sometimes you will absolutely wonder if you can go on. You will wonder how you will swallow another worry, another frustration, another iota of insane boredom. You will wonder what of you will come out on the other side." 

At least a quarter of every day is inane. Why is old poop still in the guest room toilet? Is it possible to wipe your face clean OF THE ICE CREAM FROM TWO DAYS AGO THAT I'VE ASKED YOU TO REMOVE 983 TIMES? Have you done your homework? What does procrastination mean? Are you trying to tell me you don't know how to put the Legos into the Lego bin?

And then there are the big-ticket items? The ones you knew were part of adulthood but also the ones you thought you'd left behind with high school graduation or hoped your child would bypass completely? How will we afford X, Y, or Z? Is this something to worry about? Yes? So, who can we call? What help can we get? Why does that child/parent continue to act in such ugly/hurtful ways? Why is that parent so competitive? Am I doing it wrong?

And then there's your own attempt at self-definition. At boundaries. 

And then there's a marriage to maintain. Friendships. That book that's been beckoning to you for months. 

The funny thing is that when you think you cannot go on, you do. And then you get a break, and you miss them. Miss them? Yes. You miss the egregious Hansel trail of gross crumbs that leads all ants to your living room. You miss the sticky hands that clutch you tight and whisper "Thank you" amidst snotty tears. You don't miss flushed toilets, but you do miss the silliness of naked runners and dog houses and spy-like sprites who have been cloistered in your closet forever even though you'd checked there and still changed into pajamas. 

Today I taught one to make pie. I cleaned up and enjoyed a wonderful client. I taught one how to GooGone a gummy blade, and I raked compost over my to-be vegetable garden. I vacuumed and wrote a grocery list and finally screamed "I cannot hear about this poem ONE MORE TIME." I filled out forms and fed the cat and washed dishes and thought about how hard it's been for me lately, to own and share all this shit. For it does seem mundane and dull. But it's also real, and sometimes I cannot fathom how we'll get them to college. It's so many years away.

But then I panic. It's so few years away. And then they may need to snuggle but they probably won't want to. And they'll still leave trails of crumbs but be attitudey about cleaning up. And they won't need me to teach them about GooGone, and they might not laugh over dumb jokes that are funny simply because of the potty humor element. They may not hear me when I try to teach. "Exposing yourself is a crime," boys. "Really?" they said. As if they would ever do that but also, god, don't leave anything to chance. #boys

Last week, the dental hygienist who takes such good care of me and for whom I feel true affection was racist, classist, and trans-phobic, all in one cleaning! Her efficiency! I was so taken aback. And so sad. The only thing I managed to rebut, in between her scraping my stains and gums clean, was by saying I believed it was exceedingly rare for men to pretend to be trans in order to take advantage of women in female restrooms. 

The man "who exposed himself in the women's restroom...well, you know, he was black" comment as well as the "a janitor at the college. You have to wonder who takes a job like that. Maybe mental illness?" commentary did not sit well with me. But as with so much in parenting, we are ill-trained to immediately and effectively respond to such statements.

I wrote a letter to this dear woman. I hope that she hears me, or least doesn't shut me out. I hope she might see that exposing oneself has zero to do with skin color. And that many people work the jobs they can get to take care of their families. And that maybe her own fears -for her children, herself, her world- are actually at the heart of these biased, ugly statements. Not race. Not class. Not mental status.

It seemed germane tonight, round about bathtime and snotty tears about poetry and jesus h christ the end of the weekend, to mention that exposing oneself is a crime and that standing up for what you believe to be inclusive and fair is the best path forward even when it's scary because the recipient is a lovely middle-aged woman who really loves her children and fears for their welfare, as we all do for ours. 

42

Well, friends, I turned 42 yesterday, and I feel...exactly the same as I did at 41. That said, I always enjoy my birthday and was so deeply touched by all of your notes, cards, calls, and warm wishes. Thank you so, so much. My heart is full!

As if to test my mettle, it rained and was gray and cold all day. Despite my disdain at our lack of spring, I took myself to yoga and then to get a pedicure. I think the chill froze my polish dry on the way home, so there's that. #silverlining

Tom brought home dinner from my favorite Italian spot (Sfoglina), and Ol helped me make a cake. Listen, I know some of y'all (like Tom) might think it's sad that I made my cake, but I'm cool with it. You cannot easily buy a delicious cake, but I can easily make one.. Tom worked all day and the kids cannot bake, so... 

Thank you for helping me ring in another year. Now, can you send warmth to DC? Just the weather, y'all. I know you're not magicians. ;)

BC sent this directly to me (thanks, Anne)

y'all: please get the carbonara from Sfoglina. OMG! There is also a shor trib in polenta back there!

Deep South Dispatch

I may have mentioned to y'all that last year I had the incredibly good fortune to get to help edit a book. Line by line, chapter by chapter. Boy was I blissed out and in my element. And what a book it was.

A memoir, mostly written but shelved years and years ago, by the dear man (if you've followed Em-i-lis for years now you might remember The Grands) for whom I used to cook dinner twice weekly. He and his wife were so remarkable in so many ways, and it was an absolute pleasure, honor really, to get to bring them good meals. 

Only after he died last March did I find out that he was a famed journalist, a bureau chief for United Press International and later for The New York Times. That he covered the Civil Rights movement for more than a decade, repeatedly interviewing Dr. King and Medgar Evers and Robert Kennedy. That he was in Birmingham when the church was bombed and that that very evening he spoke to the slain girls' parents. That he was in Selma when marchers crossed the Edmund Pettus Bridge and run out of St. Augustine by Klansmen. That he covered Kennedy's assassination and later wrote the "Nixon Resigns" headline and cover story for the Times and that he was a Pulitzer finalist. That he was a Tennessee boy raised by segregationist parents but came to see and believe that their ideology was wrong.

And only after he died did I learn that his daughter, Anne, one of my dear friends, had found his unfinished memoir a few years back and pleaded/love-forced him to finish it. They did so together and just before he passed, they found that the University Press of Mississippi wanted to publish it. 

Anne and I saw each other around that time, and she mentioned their work. 

"If ever you'd like another set of eyes on it, I'd love to read it," I offered. 

"Oh yes," she said, "That would be great." 

It was only later that I blushed about what must have seemed such a brazen gesture. She, like her father, is a professional journalist, a journalism professor for goodness sakes. But share the manuscript she did, and I tore through it, printing and marking each page with my trusty pen.

Deep South Dispatch: Memoir of a Civil Rights Journalist came out last week. The book launch was Wednesday night, and I was thrilled to attend. I continue to be dumbstruck that I was listed in the acknowledgments. Listening to the ways friends, family, journalistic luminaries, and students described Mr. Herbers' impact on them was inspiring. One can live quietly but with such presence, letting their lives speak profoundly but not overtly publicly. This seems to be an increasingly lost art these days, and I feel it is humanity's loss. 

In any case, I do hope you'll read this significant, timely, meaningful memoir. Not because I had anything to do with it but because it is instructive in the humblest, loveliest, most sincere of ways. 

If you need any additional motivation, watch this: Deep South Dispatch trailer. 

And, if you are remotely skeptical about why we need to continue talking about race and inequality head on, consider reading/watching these recent (as in, in the last week) headlines:

-Black men arrested at a Philadelphia Starbucks for waiting for a friend. 

-Black American mothers and babies die at a much higher rate than white American counterparts. Why? 

-Michigan teen asked for directions to school and was shot at instead.