No Pomp, Just Circumstance

When she was little, she loved horses.  She must have galloped a million miles around our couch watching Spirit or Flicka.  We read all the horse books she could find.  She slept with a stuffed horse and played with plastic horses in a corral made by her Papa.  She loved horses and was going to be a veterinarian when she grew up because she also loved dogs and cats and all the animals.

She went to kindergarten and soon loved not only horses but new friends and teachers and reading!  Oh, she loved to read!  The first book she read on her own was a chapter book and while it wasn't about a horse, it did involve a unicorn.  She loved to make new friends and loved them all fiercely and forever; she was always very loyal.  She loved to learn and excelled and if it wasn't for Math, she would have never doubted how very smart she was.  She still wanted to be a veterinarian because, honestly,  she loved animals more than she loved people.

How do you caption your heart?

She was in the back row of every performance because she was tall.  She would stand up so excitedly, scanning the room, seeing who was there.  She sang her heart out, acted her heart out, and ad-libbed her heart out through every grade school performance.  Even that damn recorder.

She grew and changed but her heart stayed the same.  She loved all animals and most people.  If they hurt, she hurt more.  If they were happy, she was happy too.  If they made her laugh, oh, she threw her head back and her laugh would ring out across the room.  She was joy and wonder and the very embodiment of all that is good in the world.

She hit puberty and middle school and doubts.  She no longer sang as loud or looked as excited.  She withdrew, she hid, she tried to fit in.  Hurts from friends or not friends or boys pierced her heart.  She seemed to grow smaller as she grew taller and that beautiful heart seemed to always be in a million pieces or more.  She said maybe she didn't want to be a veterinarian any more because sometimes animals died.

She went to a new high school knowing just one person and her mom.  She worried about finding friends, she worried about where to eat lunch, she worried about worrying.  Yet, she prevailed.  She found friends.  She found a place to eat lunch.  She found where her mom hid her snacks and ate them and gave them to her friends.  She nurtured and counseled and helped new friends all while finding her footing in this new place.  She took hard classes and excelled.  She took Math and still hated it.  She took Art and her paintings, her drawings, her sketches took on life.  She said maybe she would be a doctor, a psychologist, a crime scene investigator, an artist, a lawyer.  

She got a job, then another job.  She worked hard and smiled and made people happy and when they commented that she was doing a great job, she was shocked and pleased; she was just doing her job.  She learned quickly these were not the jobs she wanted to be doing for a long period of time.

She looked forward to school and friends and change and finally being a Senior. What should have been a year of celebration and laughter turned into a year of sheer endurance.  She endured.  She endured her parent's divorce, moving from her childhood home, break-ups with friends, and with boys who were unworthy. She was sad, she was angry, and she fumed with a world gone wrong and awry and uncertainty about how to fix it.  She was recognizing her value and she talked of moving away, far away.  She wanted to run and fly and even gallop a million miles away.  She wanted to be anything but here.

She watched COVID19 shut the world down and felt relieved to be done with that grind of school.  She watched movies and spent time with her family and settled and healed and sighed.  After a time, she missed normalcy and other people and sighed even more.  She missed the things she would be missing.  She wanted stories of prom or skipping school or those sweet last days when teachers laughed more than they lectured.  She missed the idea of graduation and walking the stage and living that day about her, about her classmates, about what they had done, and the hope of the things they would do.  She wanted pomp but will just get circumstance.

Going forward, she will do great.  She will make mistakes and she will succeed.  She will find love and lose love and vow to never love again and then love again.  She will learn to drive and she will always park too close to the building.  She will befriend the friendless and she will care more than any other person in the world.  She will be loyal, she will work hard, she will grow and shine and be anything she wants to be. She will throw her head back and laugh and when she does, the world will stop.  If you are lucky, you will be the one that caused that laugh and be sure to listen to the joy and happiness and love of humor and life that ring in that laugh.  Notice how her eyes shine and her smile lights up her face because when you do, you will see how she will be anything she wants to be and we will all be better for it.

boredboredboredboredbored

When I was a kid, summer seemed to stretch out forever.  This was before cell phones and for a while, even before cable TV.  Boredom was a real thing.  I remember going to bed at night because I had to but not being tired one bit.  Laying there, too bored to sleep, too underutilized to feel the slightest sense of exhaustion.  Toss, turn, flip, flop while my mind ran around in circles and my sense of discontent with my bed, my room, myself grew and grew.  Eventually falling asleep to wake up and start a similar day again.

I was reminded of this feeling yesterday as I just, for whatever reason, kept circling back to lay on my bed. I wasn’t tired but didn’t know what to do with me and this sense of extreme boredom I had cultivated.  In between languishing on my bed, I did take three walks and super cleaned my bedroom, but there is just so much time in the day.  So much time alone, or nearly alone as my teenagers sleep until noon or later, and I am left talking to the dog, or cats.  They are adorable, but not great conversationalists.

My mother mentioned I must have read one hundred books by now.  I have only read one chapter and set that book down and walked away.  Other than Tiger King, I haven’t watched an entire series of anything.  I graded two essays but seem to be saving the rest.  I thought about writing.  I thought about cleaning the rest of the house.  I have thought about a lot.  I have thought about too many things. So much thinking going on up there.

I guess it is because we are all just waiting. Waiting to see if we are safe enough, waiting to see if we are distant enough, waiting to see if the world gets to start back up.  Will we go back to school?  I realize as time goes on that we probably will not, but I don’t like to think about that.  I don’t like to think about not seeing those kids at least a little bit more.  They made me so crazy before Spring Break that I was counting how many more classes left until Spring Break, but now I miss them.  I miss the interaction and the laughter and the challenge.  I miss their smiles.  I’ve gone from having 182 kids down to 2 and I guess that makes me feel a bit listless.

And honestly?  I feel like I am doing a really bad job with the 2 at home.  We are on totally separate schedules; they sleep until noon or 1 and I wonder if I should wake them?  Then I think why?  They come down and eat and disappear again.  There have been moments of joy and anger and shared boredom, but I feel like we are all more our own islands on a shared archipelago than being on an island of isolation together.  I’m pretty sure there is no “How to Parent During a Pandemic” but I still feel like I am not doing it right.

I am not wallowing in a sea of misery; I see the good in the world and in my life and I am floating on that in my sea of discontent.  I am Rose on the door as the Titanic sinks and Jack slowly freezes and slips away for sure.  But I am bored.  I am so bored. I am insanely bored.  And I feel bad saying that I am bored.  Perhaps my unwillingness to admit boredom comes from my mother’s threats of “Don’t tell me you’re bored, I can find something for you to do” during those long summer days as a kid. That woman could find a heinous chore in two seconds flat. 

That is what I need!  I need a heinous chore.  Something terrible like cleaning grout with a toothbrush, or washing garbage cans, and baseboards!  Yes!  Scrubbing baseboards free of grime and pet hair.  Yes, someone please assign me a heinous chore!  Then I can do exactly what I did during those summers: I will pretend I didn’t hear and go lay on my bed and stare at the ceiling and know that being bored was much better than whatever I was asked to do.

Our House

Home.

This is the house we moved into when the kids were small.  This is the only house they remember.  They left for their first day of pre-K, kindergarten, and high school here.  They lost teeth in this house, believed in Santa in this house, and learned to tie shoes and ride bikes in this house.

This is the house with the hidey-spot closet under the stairs that heard the giggles of toddlers and the panting of scared dogs during tornado warnings.  It has the room upstairs that we have always called the toy room even when they never played up there.  All around you will see memories from trips and scars from daily living in this house.

This is the house where William smashed his two front teeth in and where Sophie denies knowing how it happened.  We stood on the curb in front of this house and watched as Maizy left for California and wondered how we got this old so quickly.  This is the house we all had the terrible flu in and we hunkered in the living room with a fire going for weeks; one of us recovering as another fell sick.  This is where we have nursed heartbreak and sadness, disappointment and defeat.  We learned to fall down and get back up again in this house.

This is the house that has shrieked with ten girls at a sleepover and listened to the whispering of secrets to friends.  It is where birthday parties were held and play-dates.  It is where our children brought home friends not only for themselves but for us as well.  We stretched and grew and became part of a community in this house.

This is the house where we fancied ourselves farmers and had a garden.  It is where morning glories opened and cardinals landed to chirp to us good mornings.  It is where our deck covers the back of the house and the front windows are still chipped from a hail storm long ago.  We brought home two dogs and have been here long enough to say goodbye to one.  We have watched wrinkles, grey hair, and toddlers become teenagers in this house.

This is the house in 2010 we were afraid we would lose.  We struggled to pay for it, struggled to maintain it, and somehow came through.  We spent our time inside it, we learned to make do with less and we turned towards each other and figured it out.  We held our breath and hoped the AC would make it one more summer at least five summers in a row.  We’ve ripped out the carpet and laughed about who chose the oatmeal-colored carpet.  We’ve walked on plywood floors for too long and bemoaned that oatmeal-colored carpet.  We’ve learned to fix the things that are broken; we’ve grown up a lot in this house.

This is the house that seems too big now.  It is a long drive to anywhere we need to be.  This is a house that yearns for little children and growing families.  It sighs because we are no longer that family.  It shelters us and stands with us, but it no longer supports the dynamics of our family.  It seems to be time for something smaller, better appointed, and less maintenance than this house.

This is the house that I thought we would live in forever.  This is the house I will go room to room before I leave, packing up the things and memories to take with us: the recorders I made all the kids play outside, the Christmases where William was so little and excited that he would shake, the way Sophie never ran when she was little, but galloped around and around the living room.  The kitchen where we ate so many wonderful meals, where we sat beleaguered trying to understand homework, where holidays happened despite having a dining room.   So much living happened in this house.

This is a house that we will not live in forever.  It will house a new family and their dreams of a forever home.  We will move on to a smaller home and miss some parts of this house, the deck, but not others, that toy room.  We will share memories of the house and the things that took place there and remember how the kids grew and we grew and our family grew.  We will smile about the red door, the crazy orange kitchen and lime-green laundry room.  We will groan about the garage door and scooter disaster, the kitchen sink, and the way grass never grew in spots around the yard.  We will continue to share the memories that happened in this house on Barbrook Drive and while we might no longer live here, we will forever hold it in our hearts as part of what we call home.

Walk the Line

I had a really good year teaching.  My classes were an interesting mix of kids and even the “bad” kids weren’t all that bad.  I had some students for the second year in a row and they would call me Mom and I would laugh until I read their senior reflections where they wrote about why they called me Mom and cried instead.  I had a class full of Creative Writers who didn’t want to write but that led to a girl in that class thanking me for showing her what it meant to be fierce and determined.  I had apathy, laziness, and students who swore like longshoremen but I also had laughter, some learning, and a network of coworkers I love and respect.  So, a good year, but teaching is a profession that can leave you feeling not only ineffective as a teacher but also as a person some days.  Teaching is stressful, demoralizing, degrading, chaotic, and pays terribly.  Teaching makes you really long for summer and the end of a long, hot summer makes you long to get back to teaching.  It’s a weird line that we walk.

I recently commented to a friend that my plan for this summer is to walk the line between self-care and selfish.  I spend the school year taking care of everyone else and being so busy in my brain, I rarely think about what I really want to do.  I am too busy thinking if I get that prescription after work I can also get a gallon of milk and bypass the grocery store for another two days, but if I go after work, I will also add twenty minutes to our commute.  It is very busy up in there and it is exhausting.  I’ve spent the first three weeks of summer sitting on my deck drinking coffee, watching birds, and simply being.  Self-care or selfish?  I’ve cooked a minimal amount of meals and reply with “huh” when the kids comment there is nothing to eat.  Selfish or self-care?  I plan some days around yoga and when I can get a nap in but that just seems sensible.

I feel like I am walking weird lines with all aspects of my summer life.  One of the lines all teachers walk is how much work to do over the summer.  It is thrilling to think that we throw our hands up in the air and run out the door after the students with sunscreen in one hand and a good book in the other, but we all end up working in one facet or another.  I spent a week with the incoming Freshman and am so incredibly grateful I do not teach Freshman and won’t see these kids for another two years.  I will also spend a week proctoring make-up exams because it is easy and pays well but not because I am a make-up exam fanatic.  I also have to write a curriculum for my new class!  A class about women!  Taught by me!  I am so excited and so scattered on where to start, how to structure it, what to do.  I am caught up in the fact that not only did this Women, Words, and Wisdom class make, it saw enough students sign up for two sections!  55 students want to learn about women and I am going to teach them and I’m not flustered, you’re flustered.  Work, do nothing, work, think you should be doing something, do a little something, go back to doing nothing, school starts.

Staying fit is definitely one line that is definitely seeing some zig-zagging this summer.  I froze my Camp Gladiator account because my knees hurt and because I didn’t want to work out at 6:10am three times a week in the summer; that craziness is for the school year.  However, as much as I proclaim that I might as well go round, I am not ready for elastic waistbands and snap-up housecoats, so I am walking the dog every morning and going to yoga as much as I can instead.  The other day it was 95 degrees in the yoga room with 61% humidity.  I have never, ever sweat that much in my entire life.  Rivers of sweat.  Oceans of sweat.  Detoxifying and purifying and healthy.  Surely, I followed that with green tea and a wheatgrass smoothie, right?  No.  I followed that with a shower, two beers and a sandwich that had not only chicken sausage on it, but bacon as well.  Zig. Zag.

Better one, or two?

One, or two?

Parenting teens is a tight-rope walk all the time, but one I have time to think about during the summer and not just react to like during the school year.  Sophie has a new job.  Great.  She still doesn’t drive.  Damn.  That’s on me and yet I keep saying it is on her.  She will be a Senior this year and I already find myself thinking “last this” or “last that”.  I have to stop that or I will make myself insane, but I also want to be sure I stop to appreciate all these "lasts" with her.  The boy would be on a screen 24/7 if he could and I waiver between standing over him with a whistle and a to-do list or hanging back and seeing if he realizes that he can and should do more.  I don’t think there are ever really any clear paths or decisions in parenting though, just lots of love and a little bit of common sense.  I hear them laughing and talking to one another after I go to bed and give myself a mental high-five for excellence in parenting and the very next day feel I have taught them nothing when dishes are piled in the sink because I didn’t ask anyone to empty the dishwasher.  Up, down, back, forth.

The other morning, I looked outside and noticed that our garbage can was the only out on the street and got worried.  Did I have it out on the wrong day? We couldn’t afford to miss because the boy brought an unemptied can back the week before and it was jam-packed and disgusting.  I stopped to consider trash pick-up days and had to stop because I didn’t even know what day of the week it was.  I didn’t even know what day of the week it was and that friends, is summertime magic at its finest.  So, no matter what lines I am walking, summer has its restorative hold on me and while I might be wondering what day it is, I won’t wonder for too long because I have birds to watch and coffee to drink out on the deck.