Double Vision

We spent some time over Thanksgiving weekend visiting my boy's family and some hometown friends of his. They have a year-old baby who was really cute - dark eyes, lashes so long they curled up, a face that crinkled into quick unexpected smiles. His mom kept brushing his feathery dark hair out of his eyes. I kept flicking back and forth between my own reality and an alternate universe in which, if we lived there, I could have a life like hers.

Parts of it were really nice, namely the baby. I'd love to be the mother of a baby like that. I worry a lot about pregnancy and labor, about whether everything will go well (if I ever have a baby). It would be great to have it all behind me and have this beautiful child to show for it, something I had created with my husband that we could both take joy in. Sitting on the floor with her as she played with her baby, I looked forward to doing the same with my own child someday, with almost a physical yearning. She was very involved - not the type to just set the kid down in front of the TV. She was there physically taking part in the activity, whatever it was, every single minute, singing to him, teaching him, soothing him when he started to get fractious. It looked like hard work, but also really rewarding. I could see what pleasure she took in being simply competent at motherhood, and I'd like to be that way, too. It's not that living here precludes motherhood. But right now, with my job and our schedules and where we live, there doesn't seem to be room for a baby.

Having a house would be nice too. Right now we live in an apartment in the city. I love how it's in the middle of everything so we don't have to drive anywhere, and when the sun comes flooding in the windows on Saturday mornings I think how lucky we are to have this great place to live. But having a house, a real house with a laundry room and a garden where I can plant vegetables, and a fenced yard, would be so much better. Property values are so high that I'm not sure we will ever be able to afford a house, even a townhouse, in this area. I had been wondering how feasible it would be to raise kids in an apartment. Seeing this other couple our age with their own home makes me think I shouldn't settle for less - that the life I want is within reach, it's just in another town. I pictured buying a nice old house in the neighborhood with elm trees in the yard; going shopping with my inlaws; having them over for Sunday dinner.

There's a lot I'd have to give up though. For starters, there aren't the economic opportunities there that we have here, and I probably wouldn't be able to get a job in my field. I'd have to stop expecting fulfillment from work. I think I could do that, but it would be a transition. Then there's the community. To fit in, I get the sense I'd have to go to church. I could show up for services and go through the motions, but I'd lose something of myself in doing it. Then there's the loss of all the cultural and intellectual opportunities we have here - where there are free films, lectures, art festivals, and so many other things going on all the time. I'd have to take my pleasure in simpler things - my garden, shopping, the local library perhaps. It's a more circumscribed existence. Then there's the tolerance issue. In just a few days, we passed a swastika in the sidewalk, saw a racist sign posted in a store, and got yelled at randomly by a punk in a pickup truck. I didn't see a single person who wasn't Caucasian. I felt like, in a way, I was hiding out - everyone looked at me and thought I was one of them because of my skin color, and everyone was nice to us (with the exception of the punk). But I'm not one of them. I felt like an outsider, a secret crazy atheist liberal, a wolf in sheep's clothing. I wonder if I lived there whether I could really find any friends who I could be open with, or if I'd always have to put on a kind of bland suburban-housewife cheeriness just to be accepted.

I probably don't have enough data to draw conclusions, and actually I don't mean this to have a negative slant. Perhaps it's because I could so readily picture myself making a new life there - drying my hands on my apron, waving at my kids as they ride their bicycles off down the sidewalk - and because so many aspects of my visit were pleasant, tempting me to believe I could live there happily, that I'm focusing on what I believe I'd have to give up. The suburban-housewife thing isn't too far-fetched; I think I have a crusader's ambitions but essentially the soul of a housewife. Crusades don't make me happy. They're just what I feel I have to do. Having friends over for tea and baking cookies makes me happy. I guess I will let things unfold as they will.