Pertinent to my Interests

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.

One
I went roller skating with my youngest son on Saturday and went on a short winter hike/walk with my oldest son on Sunday.

The roller rink was absolutely packed, busier than I’ve ever seen it. We had a great time, and after about a half hour with the skate-mate my youngest was ready to go out on his own. I immediately regretted not bringing a helmet for him. He zoomed around that rink like he had been doing it for years, and took some ugly falls in the process. But he loved it, and was already begging to go back on Sunday.

Two
We got our last McNugget Buddy and have officially completed our collection! The kids are certain that our little troupe of McNuggets is worth a huge amount of money; I am less certain.

Three
I made it back to the gym today. Things are getting more complicated for Cate and Kentaro. I got a thumbs up.

Four
I couldn’t remember my dream this morning, until I was staring at my coffee cup and “onegaishimasu” bubbled up into my consciousness. I remembered my dream. We had moved to Japan, and I needed to bring my oldest son his lunch at his new Japanese school. At every turn I was thwarted by cultural differences and my inability to remember the Japanese word for “please.”

Five
No updates on the middle school front. My kid is still a fifth grader and the middle school still exists.

Post-college, I often sent emails to my friends in order to keep in touch. It was a nice way to dig deeper than social media, and texting was not as easy in 2006 as it is now. I found myself spending too much time agonizing over transition words and flow, so I started just sending a numbered list of thoughts.

Let us return to that form.

One
I am trying to make my family more active, but we are a naturally inactive bunch and it is difficult. See, this is the problem with being the mom: I have to have the bandwidth to make myself more active and make my children–who seem to share my natural proclivity toward laziness–more active.

It is also the worst winter to attempt this. There is not enough snow for the good snow activities. I hate being indoors with lots of people. I am trying to come up with activities for this weekend. Roller skating at the roller rink? Bouldering at the bouldering gym? Winter hike in a nice regional park? I don’t want to do any of these things. I want to stay home and play Luigi’s Mansion 3 for sixteen hours.

Two
We need exactly one more McNugget Buddy to complete our collection. Have you heard about the McNugget Buddies? They’re the collectible offered in the new “adult happy meals” at McDonalds. We are extremely lucky and after just three family trips to McDonalds in the course of a month we have managed to acquire 6/7 McNugget Buddies. But the last one is always the hardest, the promotion is going to be over any day, and although I love McDonalds I do not love eating it more than once a week at maximum. I feel like this project is doomed for failure.

On the other hand, it’s bringing back fond memories of when my natal family tried to collect all the transformer Happy Meal toys. Those were awesome; my mom still has them and all the grandkids love them.

Three
This is my second week back at the gym, and it’s going well for two reasons. First, I am watching AppleTV’s new series Monarch and really enjoying it. Gotta get my ass on the treadmill so I can find out what happens to Cate and Kentaro! Second, I’m now going to the gym at the same time in the morning as my next-door neighbor and he always gives me a thumbs up when he sees me; it’s a surprisingly positive moment for me in a venue where I sometimes feel out of place and out of sorts.

Four
My kids are obsessed with manga, anime, and all things Japanese. I am also enthusiastic about Japanese culture and cuisine, and I still remember enough of my college Japanese to impress them so this is working out well for me. They already loved sushi, and we’re now experimenting with ramen in the meal plan. Santa brought them a pile of Japanese candy and snacks that they have been enjoying. But we finally found something Japanese they don’t like: boba tea. They had their first boba tea yesterday and did not care for it. I thought the tea itself was absolutely delicious (oishi desune!) although I could do without the tapioca pearls. Anyway, they are motivated to make themselves like it so apparently we’re going back to try more flavors.

Five
We toured the middle school where my oldest son is going next year and I am feeling much better about middle school. The building itself kind of sucked–it’s much bigger and way less welcoming than the elementary school he’s attending now. But the teachers seemed really enthusiastic and friendly. (Middle school: where the hallways aren’t welcoming, but the teachers are!) I think it’s going to go well. He’ll have to ride the bus back and forth next year, and he’ll have to learn how to move from classroom to classroom and there will be a cadre of new classmates to meet, but I think he’s ready for it.

I want to remind my six readers that you can follow this blog on Instagram!

My youngest kid turned nine recently and requested a sleepover with his favorite cousin to celebrate. He also requested that I buy Mountain Dew for them, telling me that they needed the caffeine because they were going to “pull an all-nighter.”

So I guess that’s the stage we’re in now?

The nine-year-old was a little crazed after drinking two Mountain Dews in a row, so we had to take the rest away. My husband and I went to bed at 10:00 PM, leaving the kids in the basement with orders to not wake us up.

When I got up at about 7 AM the next morning I could hear–all the way from the top floor of our house–the sound of Godzilla destroying San Francisco in my basement. On the dining table were the remnants of a late-night attack on the chocolate lasagna dessert. All the lights in the basement were on, but nobody made a peep when I turned down the television volume from my phone.

Almost three hours later the partiers started to stir. Although they had not succeeded in their quest to pull an all-nighter, they sure acted like they had.

“I’m pretty sure I fell asleep on the couch,” my oldest mumbled at breakfast. “But somehow I woke up on the air mattress.”

Everyone was a little dazed all day. Emotions were difficult. Frustration levels were high, and somehow everyone was completely silent on the ride back from dropping off their cousin.

It was a very successful birthday sleepover, but I’m not sure what to do with the four leftover Mountain Dews that are currently hidden in my closet.

A few weeks ago, a friend referred to me in a group chat as the “Queen of Winter” and I swelled with pride. I am the queen of winter. I love winter.

Or at least I used to.

We’ve had a weird winter here in Minnesota this year. The weather has been warm (above freezing) and rainy. It’s January and we still don’t have enough snow to even cover the grass on the front lawn. It was still fleece weather in early December.

It’s kind of terrible, and I am wondering if it’s my fault.

See, I love fall, but part of the reason I love fall is because it leads into winter. So after we had that great October and Halloween season I expected to turn the page on my calendar and get a little burst of joy at seeing the words NOVEMBER displayed.

But I didn’t.

I did not get that cozy feeling I usually get as the days get shorter and colder. I got out the Advent candles and lit them every night. I turned the heat way down. I piled fuzzy blankets and cats on my lap. I put out the bird feeder and watched the cardinals come collect my offering of sunflower seeds. Usually these things give me great satisfaction and comfort knowing that I have several months of hibernation and shoveling snow ahead of me.

Nothing.

I thought maybe after Christmas things would be different, after we settled in from all the excitement and travel. I traded the Advent candles for my winter mason jar candles. I put away the nativity set and got out the humidifier. I have completed at least two puzzles already in January. I love puzzles. But I’m not loving winter.

So I have to wonder when I consider my apathy toward winter, and then I look outside and note Minnesota’s pathetic winter show this year. Is Minnesota winter usually so great because it is inspired by my enthusiasm? Is winter’s performance lackluster because her greatest fan isn’t very excited about wool socks this year? Or am I feeling meh because this winter is meh? Did winter do this to me or did I do this to winter?!?

More disturbing possibilities. Am I depressed but don’t know it? Is this just part of the aging process? Am I taking the first, inevitable step toward snow birding in Phoenix?

Both of my kids went to school this morning, the first time in three weeks that this has happened.

I had expected to feel relief, but now I have to turn my attention to righting the chaos in my house. I need to clean the bathroom. I need to get back to the gym. Worst of all, I have to meal plan and grocery shop today.

My mom always said the key to life was to marry rich. I think the real lifehack is to marry someone who likes to cook.

Before I had kids I would have told you that I had no interest in cooking. Now that I do have kids–and I have to provide meals for them every day–I would say my feelings about cooking have been upgraded to passionate hatred. I am looking forward to when both my kids are away at college and I can revert to my natural eating habits:

Breakfast: peanut butter toast, or toast with two fried eggs
Lunch: Cheese and crackers & an apple
Dinner: Cheese and crackers & a salad kit

Note too that this requires a shopping list of only seven items. Well, nine because I also need coffee and milk in the morning. And probably a box of granola bars for snacks too.

Ten items. Done.