A Less Transitory Settlement

The 21st of this month marks a year in our new home.

A year ago, I packed my books into boxes, I read books on the subject, I wrote volumes about the subject.

A year later and the air feels familiar. The cool of a season I recognize in this place has arrived.

Which seems to me like the perfect time to reflect.

So I’ve decided to do a photographic series on my surroundings, seeing them everyday and for the first time, for this month of September, this month of settlement, that becomes less and less transitory the more it comes around.

Scenes from September 1

Identity, Living, Mental Health

Don’t Tell Me the Color of My Kettle

If we all had a blog,

If we all were totally honest with ourselves,

we’d see that we’re all fucked up.

If we all thought too much like I do

we’d all find things wrong with ourselves

foibles

traumas

quirks

ticks

conditions

disorders

addictions

manias

shortcomings

holes

voids

Desire = lack = psychological need

Anger = displacement = unresolved issue

Bravado = shield = vulnerability

Depression = apathy = absence of joy

The reasons are endless,

The outcomes innumerable,

If we enact a thorough examination of psyche.

anxiety, Identity

Back to Nightmares

I taught for seven years seven years ago.

I still have back-to-school nightmares.

It’s the first day of school. My new charges have entered the room, sitting wherever they want, class begins and they won’t stop talking. I try all the little tricks in my arsenal. Waiting silently in the front of the room, a glaring sentinel. Looking at the clock. Greeting them in my let’s-get-to-business tone. Finally resorting to screaming at the top of my lungs while the party continues and I go red in the face.

What kind of year will this be if I can’t make them quiet down in the first minutes?

Now, I have this dream randomly whenever I’m experiencing a stressful time or approaching any event or new beginning with anxiety. Seven years out and this is still my psyche’s go-to when it needs an exemplar of anxiety.

Last night, though, it changed. I’m sure I had some flavor of the back-to-school dream because I’m anticipating my daughters’ return to school next week (any nerves they might have with the unknown of a new year and my own worries about the onslaught of morning rushes, homework duty, adhering to schedules). And the start of my baby’s preschool, which I suddenly was wracked with guilt for last night (i.e. Shouldn’t I just keep her home with me?). But it was different. Decidedly so.

I’d gone to a school event with a colleague with whom I still keep in touch regularly. Groups of kids ranged around a large space, seated at tables with staff interspersed. They seemed to be grouped by their team designations. The main event was food. It was some sort of eating contest, as in who could eat the fastest or the most or something like that. I bounced from table to table with no real spot to land. At one point, I found myself in front of a turkey dinner, but quickly abandoned that when I found not one, but four consecutive strands of hair in it. I asked if I got extra points for eating the hair. Yes, this is the point at which I got increasingly snarky.

My former colleagues kibitzed together or mixed with their students in a way I could not as I no longer belonged to that club. I didn’t know the students; I didn’t know the ins and outs of their day or of the school building at large. I was no longer privy to the culture of the school and tenor of its staff.

I ended up extremely cranky and ornery, off to the side by myself under a tree. Yes, the setting had morphed outside. And the game had changed. Apparently now it was some sort of role-playing game. And I got to watch as my husband mock-proposed to another woman.

My psyche just threw me under the bus! It went for the insecure jugular of losing connections, people I care for and who care for me. My close ties. My sense of belonging and acceptance.

It was no mistake that my subconscious served up this dream on the eve of another school year. As my career and profession, teaching was (and still is) a large part of my identity. At a time when structure is supposed to ramp up, I float listless. Yes, mothering is a vocation. But my charges are headed off to something other than them and me while I sit at home.

I need to find something new on the menu – other than hairy turkey dinner.

DownloadedFile-1

anxiety, motherhood

A Note to My Children, Aged 34 and 7/8

Always wipe the table free of crumbs after dinner. You will not have time to do it in the .5 second panic tomorrow morning when someone unexpectedly rings the doorbell.

Likewise with sweeping the crumbs that got knocked onto the floor. Toys strewn across the floor you can blame on kids; crumbs may have been made by the kids, but people start thinking you’re unclean if you leave them lying around. I know, it’s unfair.

As much as you enjoy staying in your pajamas, your flannels should not see 2PM. It’s kind of hard to explain that away unless you’re sick – again, to the unexpected visitor.

Clean your stairs. Well, the parts that don’t get swiffed clean by stampeding feet. The corners where Dust E. Bunny and his wig making factory reside. This is especially essential if you live in a cape like your mother has chosen to do two times over (!?) as your front door opens directly onto the stairs.

In other words, keep a modicum of clean in your house. You know not when the unexpected visitor ringeth.

Children, Living, motherhood, parenting

Legendary

If you’ve ever watched a three year-old dance, you will quickly realize that rhythm is innate.

Is it the way the earth turns below us, the pull of the tides, the swish and wash of our mothers’ womb that makes our bodies able to move in time to the music?

And what is it about growing up that makes us lose this innate ability?

If you’ve ever seen a thirty year-old twitch on the dance floor, you realize that some of us indeed do.

When we knew we would spend our lives together and started forming dreams of family, my husband and I imagined bringing our barefoot babies to outdoor concerts where we could watch them twirl and bounce them on our knees and hips. When the time came, we were either too tired or it was the children’s bedtime or it was simply too much work to pack an army of little people and all their accoutrements for the park.

Three kids and several years later, we actually achieved some of that dream last night.

A local tribute band to Bob Marley and The Wailers was playing on the beach a town over from where we live. A beach concert with a picnic supper would probably be enough to lure my husband and the music of one of my favorite musicians – albeit covers – was more than enough for me. The kids were impressed with the novelty of sitting on the beach listening to live music, aided by the fact that they got to peer through their father’s binoculars to see the action on stage. My eight year-old made me burn with pride, when just by the opening chords of a song, she said, “Mom, isn’t this one on your CD?” She has a great ear for music. She skipped through the waves crashing on the shore as the music played, her sisters quickly following her lead and soaking the one pair of clothes they each had.

photo courtesy of Tunes on the Dunes

Just as the riveting bass line of “Could You Be Loved” surged through the speakers, not one, but two daughters expressed the urgent need to use the facilities. I heard what turned out to be the last song of the concert through the bathroom walls. I hadn’t exactly envisioned this in my dreams of family concerts. But it was a nice night with a good vibe and the girls were having fun by the water, so we decided to hang out and let the crowds disperse. Many others decided to do the same and the band apparently decided to do another set. I was psyched. ‘Redemption’ from my bathroom run!

But my youngest was soaked and sandy, my husband was getting cranky at running interference with the girls, and the tide was coming in. In resolute denial that I wasn’t watching a show in my peasant blouse cuddled with my fiancé on our Guatemalan blanket, I turned away from the shore in my mom capris, huddled with my toddler on our picnic blanket – determined to enjoy the show.

My husband finally sat down. My older two finally buried themselves in the sand at my feet. And I got to rock steady to the beat. I was rewarded by deep tracks only on my Bob vinyl. By the time the finale came, I rocked and bounced my youngest in my arms. We had our own extended “Soul Shakedown Party” as the sun faded. She laughed and anticipated my moves, bobbing her head one way as I bobbed mine the other.

Time seemed to stop. No, suspend. As the band played an extended version of that great song, the minutes spooled out with the sound, a treasured pocket of time where my daughter and I moved to the same driving rhythm. In synch. In tune.

I saw a mother a few blankets over rocking and bopping with her infant and I flashed back to the times I’d worn tracks in our living room rug doing the same thing. It occurred to me that rhythm may be innate, but we help transfer it to our children. Or make the tendency stick. And they in turn remind us of our primal instincts. The marrow of our being, what we came into this world knowing and needing to do.

Moving, grooving, and enjoying the rhythm of life.

Living

Call me morbid | blue milk

Call me morbid | blue milk.

Adds a whole ‘nother level of angst to The Smiths! Ha!

Children, Literacy, parenting, Weekend Write-Off, Writing

The Scar

The title drew me in.

The way the red background swallowed the illustration of the small boy on the cover.

I was in tears by the time I was partway through the book.

The Scar, by Charlotte Moundlic, is the story of a young boy preparing for, experiencing, and ultimately surviving the death of his mother.

This leaves a metaphorical and literal scar on him. When he falls and scrapes his knee after his mother’s death, he remembers how she used to soothe him. When the scrape starts to heal before he does, the boy keeps scraping at it to keep the comfort of his mother alive.

It was around this point that I really started crying.

Death, loss, self-mutilation – what kind of children’s book was this?

For the child who’s lost a parent, exactly the kind that needs to be written.

There’s no shielding those children from the pain, the hurt, the ugly truth. They live the nightmare.

I was reminded of a man in a writer’s intensive that I took who told the story of student with special needs who found nearly every task throughout his day difficult. He wanted students like him to read a story about them. Even though it might be a difficult story to tell, a difficult story to read, there were children who needed a narrative to which they could relate, a way to know they weren’t the only ones to have experienced this. They were not alone in the universe. Maybe there were even people who overcame their difficult obstacle.

And while extremely poignant and slightly heartbreaking, The Scar does end on a positive note. The boy, though always sure to miss his mother, allows the scar to begin to heal.

So what on the surface once seemed revolting, is now something we can look at without cringing – and, for some children, is absolutely essential.

anxiety, Living, medication

Dosage

A split pill in a shot glass every other night

Swinging open the cabinet door,

tired on the nights it’s empty,

still annoyed on the night’s it’s not.

A twitch, a shake, tension.

A task, another tired tendril pulling me down.

I’d stop if I could.

It’d be worse if I did.

What’s worse –

The ailment or the cure?

An oblong blue missile and its snapped companion.

One and a half ovals.

Tiny pale packages with the ability to contain my fears.

And yet, they dissolve and disperse throughout my body.

Is the volume the same – just not in a concentrated form?

Children, motherhood, parenting

School Shopping

Ah, the joys of school shopping. I was exhausted by the time we got home and I hadn’t even tried anything on.

I remember marathon days of deciding an entire school year’s worth of wardrobe in one hot, sticky summer day, the feeling of peeling off shorts and pulling on long pants in a cramped dressing room so unnatural. And forget if you tried to find a winter jacket, the smooth silky lining of the sleeves so cold against your short-sleeved arms.

Yesterday wasn’t one of those marathon days. My mother had wanted to buy each of my girls a back-to-school outfit. I was merely the consultant and chauffeur who scoured the sale racks for basics while the girls tried on clothes. I would share with you the details of my extreme couponing, which I am so stoked about, but that is not relevant at this time.

Once I’d discovered there was nary an item to be had under $3.99, I would wander from rack to rack looking at the cute patterns and prints of fall ’13. There were a few revolting numbers with lace and sequins that gave me flashbacks of Madonna’s ‘Like a Virgin’ video. There were some shiny jeans that looked vaguely like hot pants. There were some open weave sweaters a little too sheer for my mother-of-grammar-school-aged-children liking. Maybe I’m just paranoid for the teenage years and want to set the no-sheer standard now. But there were a lot of fashion forward clothes that were modest and something I’d be comfortable letting my kids wear.

That said, there were a lot of clothes, that if they were in my size, I’d wear.

A disclaimer. I hate kids’ clothes that make them into mini-me’s. I find it creepy in a Toddlers and Tiaras sort of way. I feel that kids should be kids, allowed to be and/or kept innocent, modest, and cute for as long as possible.

But I was jealous as I roamed the racks. I wanted to buy some of those outfits in my size. I found myself taking cues from the fashion trends I was seeing in the kids’ section.

This depressed me in two ways.

One, it reiterated mass media/marketing’s pull on our children to grow up too quickly. Pop culture, fashion trends, merchandising drive our children’s ideas of what’s cool and how to be. A dwarf fashion plate at age eight stalking the cat walk.

Two, with limited funds and the fact that my children actually have a place to go each day, their wardrobe wins out over mine. They will be better dressed than I will this fall.

I do feel comfortable with everything we bought the girls on this back-to-school shopping excursion. They will be both fashion-forward and appropriate, cute and trendy.

The colorful birds on skinny jeans will continue to fly through my imagination, while combinations of coral and navy dance through my head. At least I seem to have kept my girls as girls for one more year.

Image from Tobi Fairley

Children, Literacy, Weekend Write-Off, Writing

An Unexpected Beaver

A dancing dragon and a firefly met on a moonlit night. They began to talk and play when suddenly out popped a beaver. They jumped, then laughed and laughed. Their unexpected visitor added fun and excitement to their meeting.

The above scene transpired in the puppet theatre at the library yesterday. My three year-old, in the guise of the beaver, taught me an important lesson about humor in story.

While the dancing dragon and firefly were compelling enough in their budding friendship and moonlight dance, the beaver’s unexpected entrance added another layer of depth that hadn’t been there.

Even the dragon and firefly, as played by her sisters, laughed – not just me in the audience.

It is the unexpected or turning of conventions on their heads that makes the best humor. It also makes for fresh, unpredictable plots.

Novel, indeed.

Chopping Potatoes

and other metaphors for motherhood

Author Archives: Jennifer Butler Basile