Pertinent to my Interests

We went to our cabin this weekend, just for one night. It was the first time since October that the whole family was up together. The kids spent some quality time making a hole through the ice on the lake and tending the fire and playing Wii Sports Resort. I spent some quality time reading my book by the fire. When we got back I had to launder all the outerwear which reeked of woodsmoke.

I remember when I first became a parent I spent a lot of time lamenting and reflecting on the changes in my life: how much easier Saturday mornings used to be before kids, how much less laundry there was when I was in my 20s. But it’s been so long now I don’t really remember what it was all like before kids. I’m pretty sure there has always been this much laundry and the kitchen has always been this sticky?

This reminds me of something we used to tell Liam Cat when we had to put drops in his ears or clip his nails or force him to snuggle: resignation is like happiness. Don’t worry, new parents, just give it ten years or so and you will also be resigned to your new life and it will feel like you’re happy! Also in ten years you’ll be well through the constant supervision phase which is one of the most soul-destroying parts of parenting in my opinion. The elementary years have been great for us, actually enjoyable, and back when I was a SAHM of a baby and a toddler I would not have believed that this could be possible.

Due to the holiday on Monday and having a sick kid home from school multiple days in a row, I’m accidentally trying something new this week I am calling “grocery shopping like a European.” It means I go to the grocery store every damn day. It’s kind of terrible but also a relief to only have to plan one day at a time. And yet I cannot live like this.

I’m finally watching Ted Lasso, but it’s my “only while exercising” show so it’s going to be slow progress. How is this show so damn funny but also so touching? Every episode has at least one optimistic quote that I want to cross-stitch onto something and I don’t even like optimism.

I did a meditation on positivity this morning. The guide instructed me to think of something that was going well for me right at that moment.

The basement doesn’t smell like cat litter right now.

After pondering this for a few minutes I was then instructed to think of something that might go well for me later in the day.

The drugstore might have Cadbury Creme Eggs.

I do think I learned some things about myself today.

I was registering for an account on a website yesterday and they asked me for information about my occupation. There was an entire page of dropdown menus for filling in clarifying details about your job. I picked “homemaker” from the first dropdown and immediately every other question on the page vanished. Huh. No further questions, your honor.

But can I really consider myself a homemaker if we rarely have clean sheets and the recycling is always full?

I’ve been thinking a lot about maintenance lately, and the incredible amount of work it takes just to maintain a thing. This is true of houses, for sure. Who has time to deep clean the kitchen and organize the pantry when we also have to stock the pantry, and cook, and do dishes, and wipe down counters, and clean water bottles all the damn time?

But it feels especially true for people, and I am overwhelmed by the amount of maintenance my body and mind require. 150 minutes of physical activity every week, but it can’t just be cardio! You must do resistance training too, and don’t forget to stretch. Brushing and flossing. Going to the dentist and the doctor and the optometrist regularly. Meditation and therapy for mental health. Puzzles and word games to keep your mind sharp. And don’t forget how important it is to have a deep social network! You must maintain all friendships! And be sure to find a creative outlet or some other sort of hobby that gives meaning to your life. And spend less time on your phone. And spend less time watching TV. Make sure to get outside every day, avoid simple carbs and too much salt, oh and you are saving for retirement, aren’t you?

Oh, and if you have kids don’t forget to manage all of the above items for them too.

I, an unemployed person with ample time to waste writing in my personal blog, get up every morning and am overwhelmed by all the things the Well section of the New York Times is telling me to do in order to maintain my self. It’s just too much. How do employed people do it?!

Anyway, I’m a homemaker. I maintain some things successfully (daily cat litter scooping! yay!) and others not so successfully (regular dusting! boo!). I am also a human and I maintain some human things successfully (daily brushing and flossing! yay!) and others not so successfully (avoiding simple carbs! boo!).

But I guess the Charles Schwab website doesn’t care to know any of those details.

I tend to get a lot of tidying done on Mondays, mostly because Monday is grocery shopping day and grocery shopping is the worst. I would rather clean multiple toilets every day for the rest of my life than have to be in charge of meal planning, grocery shopping, and cooking. So I will spend as much time as I can on Mondays scooping cat litter, cleaning the dryer vent, taking out all the garbage in the house, and organizing my socks. Anything to keep me from the dread aisles of Super Target.

Did you know that people have to eat every day? It’s terrible.

We watched the Super Bowl last night. We watch it every year not because we follow football but because we all love the excuse to eat junk food in front of the TV. I usually go to bed after the half-time show, but this game was so close I stayed up to see the end. I also really wanted the Chiefs to win because I wanted Taylor Swift to be happy, and I think this experience was a tiny taste of what it’s like to be an actual sports fan.

Anyway, there was an ad for NFL gear at one point with the tagline “the drip is in the details.” My husband and I were flummoxed by this. What kind of drip? Is there a leak somewhere? We’ve run into unfamiliar slang words in the past while listening to our kids talk to each other, but this was the first time we’ve encountered one in the wild, on broadcast television. Our oldest, who is eleven, explained it to us.

“Drip is like when you’re really decked out,” he said. “Like maybe you’re wearing big gold chains or something, but you just look really good and impressive.”

Later my husband commented that it was good we had kids to help keep us young, but I think mostly they’re just a constant reminder of how old and out-of-touch we are.

And I have to grocery shop every damn week just so I can keep getting that reminder.

People who enjoy cooking: would you consider yourself a morning person or a night person?

I think part of my issue with cooking dinner every night is the timing. My energy level drops at about 4 PM every day. I get a slight boost around 7 PM but after that I am just DONE.

I know there are people out there who feel at their best in the late afternoon and evening, and I am wondering if those people also enjoy cooking elaborate dinners for their families.

I can picture my husband reading this, narrowing his eyes at the screen, and thinking to himself that the lunches and breakfasts I make aren’t much better than my dinners.

This is true. I’m just not much of a cook at any time of day. But dinner feels especially painful due to the timing.

I’m a little frustrated with how maudlin this blog has become, but I guess that’s where my mind is at these days.

I’ve also been struggling to keep my posts rooted in the real world. I was going to write a whole post about my kid’s birthday sleepover and it was becoming a meditation on being an overnight guest in other people’s houses and all my deep thoughts about all the sleepovers I did as a kid and… yeah.

I’m sure I’m going to write that exact post eventually but sometimes I just need to pull my head out of my ass.

The problem with the real world is that it’s a little boring. What do I have to write about?

I started out strong with my job applications this year (three applications in the first two weeks of January!) but have failed to keep up that momentum.

I could write about how I switched cat litter brands. We are now a proud clumping household, and I think the cats and humans are pleased with the change.

I could write about how I’m reading Jujutsu Kaisen (manga) so that my oldest kid and I can have a shared topic of interest. I like the characters and the lore, but the fight scenes… dear God. The fight scenes last for entire books. Can we please get back to the character development?

I could write about how I’m trying to get air conditioning installed in our house and it’s not going well. Our house is lovely but the floorplan is not conducive to an air conditioning retrofit. We may end up investing in higher quality/less annoying window units.

I could write about how I am currently planning two trips. This is very unlike me because I dislike both planning travel and engaging in travel. But, we’ve got a short trip to Chicago booked for spring break, and I am in the very early planning stages of a family trip to Japan in either 2025 or 2026. And by “very early planning stages” I mean that I am reading a travel guide and making notes about what we might want to see. I also looked up plane tickets and almost died when I saw how expensive they are.

I could write about how the dishwasher keeps spewing water onto the kitchen floor. I keep attempting to fix it, and then it works fine for a couple cycles (I think because it doesn’t want to hurt my feelings?) and then starts spewing water again.

I could write about how our car got broken into earlier this week.

I could write about how I tried to make myself a grilled cheese using leftover cornbread and it was a massive disappointment. Admittedly, my expectations may have been too high.

Well, I guess there is a lot of real world stuff that could make for an interesting blog post, but instead you’re going to get paragraph upon philosophical paragraph about how my friend Amber’s dad always fried bologna for us the morning after a sleepover.

My youngest and I have been going roller skating lately. I loved roller skating when I was a kid. I had my own pair of white roller skates with pink wheels, and I think my eighth or ninth birthday party was at a roller rink. I am incredibly unathletic, but I remember zooming around the roller rink and wondering why this was so hard for so many people. It was easy for me!

Well, after a thirty-year hiatus I’m back at the rink. I lost all my previous skill but I’m competent out there. As I explained to my kid, I don’t think I’m brave enough to ever be really good at this, but I do enjoy it.

I fell when we went on Friday night and somehow my right roller skate slammed into my left shin. It hurt so bad I thought I was going to pass out; those roller skates are heavy! I was fine after sitting on the sidelines for a few minutes, but my leg hurt terribly as I continued skating. This, I thought, will be a massive, ugly bruise tomorrow morning.

The next morning, I examined my shin. There is a bruise but it’s pretty pathetic. My kids get better bruises every day when they launch themselves off the furniture. It hurts like hell if I touch it, but is otherwise unremarkable.

I was disappointed. I had even shaved my legs so as to more readily display my heartbreaking injury. I was going to show people this bruise and they were going to gasp and tell me that I was so brave to endure such an injury. That they were so impressed that I got back up and kept skating after that. That I was amazing for doing something so hard.

This is not going to happen.

But.

In some ways, is this what we all want? Even those of us (like me) who have lived a very charmed, easy life. We want someone to acknowledge our struggles, be impressed with us for continuing to be a human even though some days just getting out of bed is Too Much.

“You’re amazing,” I want someone to say to me as I make dinner again. “You’re so brave,” I want them to exclaim as I reschedule vaccinations for the sixth time. “You’re so impressive,” I want to hear as I manage emotions around Monday night homework.

I might start doing this with my family. I’ll tell my husband he’s so amazing to get that filing done before close of business on Friday. I’ll tell my youngest that he’s so impressive for putting on socks yet again. I’ll tell my oldest he’s so brave for finishing that sheet of spelling words.

It sounds stupid when I type it out like that; I am not going to do this. But I don’t think we should have to have a visible injury in order to think of ourselves as brave.

I have been struggling with how to write about the funeral last weekend. How to characterize all these experiences, all these emotions. I cannot do this topic justice, but I will try my best.

The first thing to know is that New York City is still there, mostly just how I left it. I found this comforting, because my deceased friend was a New Yorker through and through. When we moved there he was thrilled to take us around his favorite city, show us all his favorite things. New York, I thought, just won’t be the same without him.

But it’s all still there: the garbage piled up on the sidewalk, semi-permanent scaffolding, people, restaurants, energy, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the hot dog stands. New York City is going on without him. Humbling but comforting.

And here in this city I found my old friends. On a corner near the church I ran into an someone I hadn’t seen in fifteen years, unexpected. But the fifteen years collapsed the instant we recognized each other; joy at first sight. It was the best surprise I have ever experienced.

There we were thrilled to see each other again, and all dressed in black and standing in the shadow of the church where our friend’s memorial service would begin in twenty minutes.

Our group went into the church, but I stood by myself on the steps waiting for yet another friend’s arrival. Searching the streets, I noticed a pattern: from every corner, from every angle, people dressed in black were making their way to this church. Old people, middle-aged people, moms and dads with small children hopping along beside them, all coming to my friend’s funeral. So many people. This is, after all, what happens when you die young, but it’s also what happens when you live a life of enthusiasm, humor, and generosity. Streams of people.

I count my friend’s widow as a friend too, and she hosted a breakfast reception at their apartment the next morning. Their apartment is lovely, filled with beautiful art and books and the kids’ Lego table and a pile of wooden blocks pushed into the corner. A happy home. I could feel my deceased friend’s influence so strongly, but not his presence.

After everything, after all the years of email updates about his health, seeing him getting skinnier and skinnier, hospice, the obituary, buying a new black dress for his funeral, after all that it was not until I stepped into his apartment that I understood he was gone. And it wasn’t until I left that I really said goodbye.

Thank you, friend, for sharing so much with us. Thank you for all the tips about New York City. Thank you for making us laugh so hard. Thank you for your sometimes-gruff and overly-serious exterior that didn’t really mask your generous interior at all. Thank you for all the information about Metro North. Thank you for all the invitations to all the places. Thank you for all the memories that are now a part of the fabric of my life. Thank you for always stopping by when you were in town. Thank you for your joy and your infectious enthusiasm about the most random things. Thank you for my first job post-college. Thank you for bringing your wife into our lives, and your brother.

Thank you for bringing us all together again in New York City.

Despite the content of my previous post, I actually do not like poetry.

Poetry annoys me. Use full sentences, damnit! Paragraphs and punctuation are here to serve us, not constrain us. I often read poetry with my eyes narrowed in skepticism; smushing random words together with no structure does not make you insightful.

But…

Every once in a while I read a poem and my narrowed eyes widen and my cheeks soften and I wonder how this person could know all these unknowable things. In the hands of a really good poet, the chaos of thoughts and emotions and life becomes order and meaning.

Here is a short list of poems that have burrowed into my soul.

A Brief for the Defense by Jack Gilbert
The last three lines in this one are my daily mantra. If I am deliberate and quiet enough, I can hear the oars every day.

Robyn Hood by Kate Baer
I read this poem once and felt as if I had opened my eyes for the very first time. I am clawing back my time and my bandwidth.

I’M GOING BACK TO MINNESOTA WHERE SADNESS MAKES SENSE by Danez Smith
This poem just brings me so much joy, although I can’t quite figure out why. The penultimate sentence is perfection.

Those Winter Sundays by Robert Hayden
We read this in high school and I didn’t really care for it. It’s cliche as hell but now I’m a parent and I see so many layers of meaning here.

These poems–and a few others–I rotate on display on my refrigerator door. If you’ve been to my house you’ve probably noticed them and wondered after my mental health.

I also like to display some of my favorite Poorly Drawn Lines, which probably doesn’t count as poetry except in my heart.

(Shout out to my friend Katie who introduced me to at least two of the poems above. Stop being right about poetry all the time, ugh.)

Yesterday, a new experience:
a painting made me cry.
Three vibrant, precious blue eggs
surrounded by a nest of chaos,
grey, brown, jagged.

My instinct to protect those little eggs
because I always find them on the ground in the summer,
broken,
alone.

Art doesn’t usually make me cry (or want to write poetry)
but lately it’s all right there at the surface:
joy, sorrow, fear, love.

Sometimes I think it’s too much to be a person,
but there it is: the urge to protect those little eggs.

“Miracles” the label told me, but I already knew that.