Or How I Learned to Love the Saw. . .
In my telling of eleven random facts about myself as part of my Liebster Award duties, the fact that I wanted a chainsaw ranked as # 10. I followed it up with a # 11 that said that I was not, in fact, a psycho-killer, but some apparently were not convinced.
My aunt, an ardent supporter through all my trials, approached me and said, “Now, Jen, I know why you want a chainsaw, but others may not – and given the nature of some of your other posts . . .” She let the sentence drop, but the silence that followed said it all. As did our laughter, which has gotten our family through many a tense situation.
Mere weeks after we moved into our new home, Hurricane Sandy paid a visit, leaving numerous housewarming gifts in the form of downed trees and power lines. An extremely generous and helpful friend – with a chainsaw – helped us gain access to our front door and clean up our front yard, but two-thirds of a substantial oak trunk lies askew on the hill in front of our house, as well as tangled branches and pine boughs. With cold weather approaching and a passably clean swath of land surrounding our home, my husband was satisfied.
But as spring starts to take hold in our corner of the woods, my gardening gene is kicking into full effect. I grew up in the suburbs on a tidy plot of land my mother whipped into sunny submission. I learned the names of perennials, the joys of collecting random stones for use as borders, and how to identify, deadhead, and divide. Here in the “wilds”, not only do I have a different landscape to contend with, but completely foreign flower beds. I feel like a detective as I scout the yard for tulip leaves poking out of the dirt. I don’t know what’s there. But I do see the possibilities.
Just beside our monument to downed trees is a slight opening cascading down the hill to the street. There are two Charlie Brown Christmas trees at the top, set three to four feet apart, scrawny sentinels at the beginning of what I’m determined to turn into a woodland path/garden. I envisioned a shade garden, as our house is north-facing and the dining room at the front of the house has been a cave all winter, but as the weather warms and the sun moves higher in the sky, the hill is actually bathed in sunshine for a good portion of the day. Now I need to change my game plan slightly, but I’m dreaming of hens and chicks, phlox, lavender, ferns poking out and growing in amongst the fieldstone steps I’ll build into the hill.
Enter the chain saw.
I’m nature girl. Once upon a time, I walked through the woods on my wee little legs burnishing my Audubon bird call. I prefer kayaks to motor boats. I always used my shears instead of electric clippers when I shaped the forsythia bushes at my former home. So, why this antithetic shift in my philosophy?
That darn oak trunk is cramping my idyllic woodland knoll. I can’t start relocating pieces of ledge from my backyard to the staircase at the front of my yard until I move it and the mess of broken limbs it created as it fell and then got thrown back down the hill.
Will I use the chain saw myself? If I can lift the thing and maneuver it properly. Am I exploiting my husband’s Tim-the-Toolman-Taylor penchant for power tools? Perhaps. But if a portion of our tax refund monies will be used toward a quality chainsaw capable of removing that current eyesore and potential firewood from my hill, I will be a happy camper.
So there are no nefarious plots wrapped up in my desire for a heavy piece of mangling machinery. Phew. Got that off my chest.
Then today my husband goes on the manufacturer’s website for the chainsaw he’s interested in, which has a plethora of instructional/informational videos. From my spot on the other side of the room, I listened vaguely, mostly cracking jokes at the running commentary of the video. Then, at 1m 30s in the “How to Safely Operate a Stihl Saw 8”, came the piéce de résistance.
After the disembodied (ha – ironic) voice states that one of the required supplies is a first aid kit, he states that one should “never operate [his] chainsaw if [he’s] not in good physical condition or mental health”. At which point, the kids came from the other room to see at what I was laughing so heartily.
“Well, I guess that means I’ll be the one operating it, then,” says my husband, deadpan for a moment before he cracked up, too.
After I slugged him, I said I was laughing because I had more of a ‘Jason’ scenario in mind, not me. But I guess it does fit the profile of what my aunt was talking about.
I am hereby taking the oath that I will not use any chainsaw to harm myself or others – just that damn tree trunk in the way of my calming woodland retreat.
*** And it did not escape my attention that at the beginning of all the instructional Stihl videos, it stressed the importance of attending to all eleven chapters of information. Eleven seems to be the magic number. Just as one can’t fully understand proper chainsaw operation and maintenance without viewing all eleven, so one won’t know I’m not a psychokiller unless you read through to the eleventh random fact. Qu’est-ce que c’est
Secrets are only dangerous if you keep them.
Shameful until they are aired.
A counterintuitive twist of fate,
relinquishing them releases you from their grip.
But what of those that belong to the collective –
Not just yours to share.
Do you bind yourself to others in your freedom?
A guilty conscience from your gushing?
How does one get free when he is beholden to others?
I’m not stagnant; I’m just catching my breath.
A wise woman reiterated these words to me recently. I’d heard them before, but benefited from their run through my ears once more. And probably will again someday.
Two Christmases ago, my mother presented me with a framed quote from Jodi Hills.
Though at times like this, when I’m walking in my sweats through the land of sinus fog after days of leading my children out of it, and I feel like I’m in some sort of stasis, I am not the person I was a few years ago. My cynical, smart-ass, survive-with-laughter self says, that’s for sure. And there are a good number of negatives with what I’ve experienced over the last three to four years. But after being so low, I was able to honestly assess to which heights I wanted to rise. And how to get there. And how to push myself despite the risks and fear because I realized joy is ours to grasp, not to be handed. And that I wasn’t alone at the bottom of the pit. Maybe I could shine a little light down into it, if not pull someone out of it.
Realizing and doing are two different things, however. I have a business plan to write. I have a child who is too smart for her own (and my) good that I have yet to enroll in preschool. I have my own anxiety to swallow. And the usual chaos that raising three children entails (Seriously, did I not see this coming?).
Right now I like being in my sweats. But I wonder if being in them too long will make me break out in a cold sweat. Too long out of the loop. Too long in the confines of my own house with little people. Longer than the short fuse of my resolve from lessons hard learned.
It’s easy to be a wimp. It’s so damn hard to push forward into uncharted waters. I’m trying at least to keep up with the current; tread water or cling to my little rock in the midst of it all. The flow certainly isn’t stagnant, though. I’m just trying to get enough huff and puff to get back in there.
There is beauty in agony.
The angle of the fading sun spotlighting horses on a hill
The absence of pain between excruciating contractions
The way the air is sucked out of the room as the ailing takes her last breath
The chances, possibilities
no reason to take risks,
Only a stasis that lured us into settling.
There is no proverbial gain without the pain.
Acute, clarifying, sharp —
We never want it, but would stay the same without it.
Snowflakes on lilac buds
Melting on the green back of the sandbox
Sunshine shower
Birds chirping, snow falling
Springtime in New England
My daughter wanted to set up the sandbox today. She’s been asking to hang the birdhouses outside for a month now. She and her older sister roller skated in the sand lining the edge of the road. She finally gave up when it started snowing. It’s springtime now, but the scene outside the window doesn’t look like it.
With an early release from school, I declared it a day to run around the backyard like nuts. My three year-old was the only one with me. I don’t waannnnnna go outside, said the eight year-old. Can I have a snack first, asked the five year-old. Belly full, she’s the one that hatched all those vernal equinox-inspired plans. She has a very real sense of injustice. When she awoke the first day of winter and saw no snow on the ground, she was pissed. And now? No Easter decorations up even though there’s snow on the ground? What’s up, Mom?
The snow today actually had my back, though. The first flakes floated to the ground mere minutes after her latest protestation about an empty sandbox. One good thing about a schizophrenic mood change on Mother Nature’s part. And one that I should be able to appreciate given my latest post!
There really should be nothing bizarre about snow showers two days into spring, though. Just because the calendar says it’s spring, doesn’t mean that we should wake up one morning to instantly green grass and gardens abloom. Two days ago it was winter. Two days ago snow was de rigeur. The passing of seasons is a gradual progression. Leave it to humans to expect instant results. Leave it to us to restrict the moving of the days in tiny boxes on a calendar and expect the weather to follow suit.
It was bizarre, though, to hear the symphony of birds gearing up for spring as the snow fell. They were a twitter with nest-building, bug-hunting, flit-flying from tree to tree. They seemingly paid no mind to the fat, wet flakes flying around them. Maybe I should take a page from their book – rejoicing in the expectation of spring, knowing it’s coming, instead of lamenting the fact that it’s not here yet. There is beauty amidst the cold and dark. And there is the promise of warmth and light at the other end of it.
I should’ve known when my previously straight hair went haywire that the proverbial poo was about to hit the fan.
Grade ten, three years after my first menstrual period, and apparently just long enough for my hormones to hit their stride, I chopped my nearly waist-length hair to above my shoulders. And it corkscrewed.
Wow, I never knew you had curly hair. You should’ve cut it a long time ago. Look what’s happened now that all that weight’s gone.
Looking back, I think it had everything to do with weight, but not the long drawn-out weight of my tired tresses.
I’m now three years out from the birth of my last child. And I’m miserable.
This is the longest I’ve gone without being pregnant or breastfeeding since 2004. That’s a feat in and of itself. I should be on top of the world. Instead, I’m at the bottom of some pit, the one where my hormones get back on track to torment me.
I’m out of that stasis where my body is in some sort of tenuous cycle, tentatively burgeoning and bleeding because it’s out of practice. Training camp is over. It’s on like Donkey Kong. Cramps that say, get ready, I’m coming. An ache in my pelvis that threatens, I’ll bottom out if you’re not careful. And depression that moves in and refuses to leave, until it is mysteriously vacant one morning like a lover leaving an open wound.
I’ve popped the ibuprofen. I’ve seen my therapist. I’ve researched thyroid malfunctions and requested specialized blood work from my physician.
After carrying and bearing three children; after wracking my body to the point of breaking; after rending my soul to its minutest form – is this the new modus operandi? This is how things are to be?
Is there a physical band-aid? A spiritual fix? Some modicum of acceptance to make this all bearable?
I’m not whining about cramps. I’m not lamenting PMS. My body is in a 28-day bag of hurt. How far into that bag I get dipped depends on the day. But no one day is particularly fun.
My daughter asked me the other day why I get my period because I’m not having any more kids. A few weeks ago she questioned me when I said I get [even more] sad and tired a few days a month. (My husband said to not go there with her – yet; keep her blissfully ignorant) Good questions. It doesn’t seem to make much sense. I don’t understand it and it’s happening to me.
My levels are off. Some levels. Who knows which ones or why. But it’s a whole new level of suck.
Piles of Pooh
A round face filling the angular doorframe
Which should be empty at this time of morning
The five elements releasing the flow of tears
A field mouse frozen to the driveway,
its tail nudged by my toe
A frantic whoop
An anguished cry
I won’t pick you up
Brush off the snow and move on
How quickly we forget the culture of death that pervades our lives.
Until we are surprised again.
Last weekend, my husband and I watched The Iron Lady. We’d seen previews for it and were intrigued. We wanted to see Meryl Streep taking names and kicking butts, which ironically I’d never thought Margaret Thatcher had done. While she was in office, I was too young to know more about her role in history than her name and position. It never occurred to me the struggles she’d encounter not only as prime minister, but also as a woman fulfilling that role. Now, as a grown woman watching this cinematic portrayal of her rise to power and its aftermath, I was angry and heartbroken.
It starts off optimistically enough. I thrilled in her preemptive speech to her future husband before she accepted his proposal. She would not bow to society’s ideas of what a woman, wife, and mother should be. And he agreed! She would be free to do as she desired with his freely and happily given support.
Then we see Ms. Thatcher as a hard-faced deserter as her children cry at the window as she heads to Parliament, shoving toy cars in the glove compartment on the way. We see her daughter jealous of her own spotlight being stolen. We see her husband questioning her devotion to her family in favor of ambition.
Why must a woman be vilified if she desires success outside the realm of motherhood? Even more so if she harbors such desires in the midst of motherhood. Yes, there are only twenty-four hours in a day. Yes, there is always the threat of feeling as if she’s failed on both fronts. Yes, children demand an inordinate amount of growing, coaxing, and coddling. She needs to prepare a person ready to face the challenges of the next generation. But what about the challenges of her own? Why does motherhood take her out of the equation in facing and solving those?
Even with all her success, Margaret Thatcher couldn’t completely change the direction of that stiff wind – at least in this film.
In the speech to her future husband, the young Margaret Thatcher said she did not want to be trapped in the kitchen, hands in the dishwater. The film ends with her doing just that. I couldn’t help but think that plunging her hands into that water washed away all merit attached to her ambitious acts. It called them all into question. Had she made the wrong decisions? Set the wrong priorities as a woman, wife, mother? All joy that she’d excelled in at least the public half of her life was stolen by my doubt that she felt she should have chosen the private half instead.
It shouldn’t be a choice. Or at least not a mutually exclusive one.
Iron is malleable – especially when it’s heated inordinately – which is a good thing because it looks like society will continue to rake women over the coals for the unforeseeable future.
I have to start taking my camera to the bus stop.
Pine needles etched in white relief against the soil.
Green mossy mountain peaks capped with snow.
Peaks and valleys of meadow grass filled with frost.
A large oak leaf the color of cowboy boots, its stem pinched between pink mittened fingers, the snow crumbling and peeling away in the wind as it bends.
But then there are the things that can’t be captured with a lens.
The great rushing of wind through the treetops.
The force of it demanding spine erect, shoulders back.
A tingling of the checks, a tear in the eye, a crisp, fresh burn
that makes life seem new,
the morning full of possibility,
the body full of life.
* On an somewhat related note: I found many gorgeous pictures of frost on moss by many talented photographers. I, however, did not have the heart to steal them, though they would have accompanied my musings perfectly. I also learned a lot about BFFs Sadie Frost and Kate Moss.
Chopping Potatoes 