Author: mycrowdedhours

Take Two

You might note that this is in a slightly different format, and the name is different, and hopefully it’s easier to navigate.

I learned the first rule about blogs.

The first rule about blogs is to talk about them a bit. In talking to just two people, I learned that it’s pretty important to pick a reputable website platform. I think that’s the right word. I don’t know. I should probably talk to one of those people again.

I picked simplesite.com on the first go-round, because I made colossal error number one, and assumed there is truth in advertising. It wasn’t simple. I had to get a friend to figure out how to take out the stock photo of the lady who looked like she wanted to explain “achievement” via motivational poster off the page. I also couldn’t find out how to read my comments, which, come on, who doesn’t want to see comments? God only knows what my dad had to say, and I needed to find out before anyone else did.

Not only could I not work the damned thing – which, I’ll be honest, could be partially due to operator error – but I started getting dozens of emails from companies and questionable individuals who wanted to help me run my site. Since I want to do this myself and I would never request assistance from someone advertising editing capabilities in language that resembles something you would arrange on your refrigerator in magnet words, I wasn’t interested. I also started getting phone calls from all over the contiguous US (Dallas, Newark, Philly, Berkeley) as well as some from numbers that were suspiciously over the requisite nine digits. Most disappointingly, when I answered one of these calls (because caller ID killed the prank call but the reverse prank is amazing) no one was there for me to toy with – just a dead line. Simplesite.com clearly does with your information what your friend in high school did with the knowledge that your period was late – promised she’d just tell her boyfriend but the next thing you knew you got home and your mom was there looking all concerned/crazy/confused.

I’ve learned to cut my losses, so mycrowdedhours.com is gone. Here we are, with crowdedhours.com. Long may she run.

 

Grateful #3

I am grateful for backyards. The first backyard I remember having was in South Carolina, and it was three acres ranging from neatly mowed grass to what I considered to be full-throttle forest. That backyard hosted parties, gardens, firecrackers, a treehouse, a cannon, rogue chickens, various dogs of all sizes and degrees of training, a zip-line, a wedding, a four-wheeler track, and a wood framed store where my sister and I sold mud pies and moss.

My last backyard was a great childhood backyard. It had a wooden play-set with swings and slides and a rock-climbing wall. It had an above-ground pool. The fence bordered my best friend Tammy’s yard, and we ended up ripping down a section soon after Finn was born when we realized what a wicked pain in the ass it was going to be. It was good for quads and snowmen and luge tracks. And parties. I threw some great parties there in July’s gone by for Finn’s birthdays. A negative was the raccoon infestation. Those suckers ‘ll try to carry off your cat, given the opportunity. And they don’t respond to pleas, or, if it escalates, harsh language. But that’s a story for another day.

My last backyard was nice. My current backyard makes me stop and stare and consider where I came from and how I got here and where I’m going. My current backyard gives me pause and it gives me peace. My current backyard is amazing.

My current backyard is about half an acre?

(I have no concept of measurements. I give directions by minutes and I cook by sight. My house is a small four-bedroom renovated Cape. I know “small” and “four-bedroom” don’t go together. You’ll have to trust me on this one. You could fit six of my houses on my yard. That’s my best description of the size.)

In any case, it’s whatever-size of soft green actual grass that, when mowed, conforms to the alternating pattern you see on baseball fields. With the lines? I love that. It slopes from the road to the lake, with a whole half of it left empty for chasing and making sled runs and throwing frisbees poorly. It has a huge tree, and it ends with a small deck with stairs that walk into the water and a sturdy dock that’s the perfect size for fishing or jumping or launching a small inflatable craft that I swear is a boat because it has oars.

The sunsets in my backyard are breathtaking. The most breathtaking thing, however, is that it is home. I have scattered this backyard with friends and food and fun. My children have squealed down the rolling hill on sleds and adrenaline and their own two feet and their love of the chase. They can run forever, and I can finally stand still.

Let Them Fly

I just had to use some modern-day discipline to get myself to make my children’s lunches before I sat down to write. I call this “modern-day” discipline, because if I told my grandmother I was being responsible by making lunches before writing I can hear her saying, “what the Sam Hill? Writing? Do your mom work and then go press your sheets…and why are you making lunches anyway? Lunch is free in your district! Wasteful! I grew up in the Depression and one time our dog brought home a whole steak, uneaten, in his mouth, and that was some day…”

My grandmother used to fall asleep on the couch every night when she visited us. One night I found myself watching her, thinking of all the things she’d seen – wars, the Depression, a walk on the moon – when she woke up and caught me.

“Well?” she said, in that Brooklyn accent of hers. “What’re ya lookin’ at?”

I made lunches, quite simply, because my son has the culinary inclinations of a goat. I could save money on yard work and haircuts if I let him pursue his true calling.

I am also making lunches because today is the first day of school. I’ve been watching all of the posts from down South as kids return to school, with parents choking back tears and lamenting that their babies are growing up.

I am not that mom.

I sometimes get nostalgic for the feel of my children as babies, usually when I see old pictures and I can suddenly smell their baby smell with a visceral sharpness, or I can feel the feather weight of them in my arms (I can still feel the literal weight of Ella, as a five-year-old who insists she’s one and big for her age and needs “uppie”). I once saw a little boy in his mom’s arms across the street and had such a wave of nostalgia that I actually did want an infant again. This understandably freaked me out, as both my pregnancies were terrifying concealed tightrope walks, until I realized that what really captivated me was the little boy’s jeans, which resembled a pair that I used to have for Finn. I just needed to dress a baby. A few weeks later I changed a friend’s toddler, and I got to experience again what it means to actually full-body-lock a small human in order to put on a pair of tiny shorts, and I got over that feeling right then and there.

Back to what it feels like to be not-that-mom. Is there something wrong with me that I don’t cry on the first day of school? I think that part of me is unable to see it as a loss of time gone by. I can see the passage of time, but with each passing day I see my children change and grow from new experiences, and I see these experiences add to who they are. I get to know my children more and more, as there is more of them to know. Maybe I don’t feel the loss because I so fervently seek the gain. Maybe I can’t let myself endure the loss yet.

I am so new to this world of looking forward. For about ten years of my life, I was unable to see a future. My ex-husband would ask what I wanted to do if we won the lottery, wanting, understandably, to daydream. I had no daydreams. I would make them up, but I felt nothing. I would say I wanted to travel to Greece. Why Greece? It made no sense. I hate the food, and I’d undoubtedly have to eat there. Maybe I just looked forward to ruin. But seriously, fuck feta and gyros. Blech.

Since the divorce, I have found that I look forward. I don’t start having panic attacks on Thursdays. I don’t want to sleep through weekends. I am present, but I am also looking forward, because I know I can go on. And these children will go on. They will live and love and grow, and I will watch them and hold them as long and as tight as I can, but I will also let them fly.

Grateful #1

I’m grateful for the time I got to spend at home with Finn on maternity leave. I remember so many days of sitting and staring at my new little man, thinking, “these are the days of miracle and wonder”, and rocking him and loving him and trying to live each moment fully.

I am also grateful for the amazing doctor I had during that time. I had post-partum depression for three months, and he helped me through it gently and with tough love and with humor. I remember sitting in his office once and telling him that I wasn’t doing enough, that I was nothing, and I was boring this poor baby.

“Yes,” he replied, gesturing to my sleeping child. “You’ve bored him straight to sleep. He’s six weeks old, Desh. Give yourself a f***ing break.”

I am also grateful for another doctor along the way who helped me get control of some of my anxieties and brought me back to myself. We were talking one day about all of the things there were to be anxious about in this world, and he said told me that, honestly, my life would be easier had I just been born at another time. “If the Cossacks were invading,” he explained, “you wouldn’t have time to worry about any of this bullshit.”