Adventures in Bleach

The previous owners of our house were clean freaks, I've concluded. They left a lot of their cleaning supplies stashed under sinks and in cupboards - jugs of bleach, industrial-size refill containers of antibacterial soap, Windex and wood floor cleaner and Chrome Sparkle Enhancer. I didn't even know half those products existed. I've never used any of it before in my life. The only cleaning products I've used up till now have been Seventh Generation dishwashing liquid and laundry detergent. I read about environmental toxins all day and then I come home and I'm scared to touch that bleach bottle. I'm scared of the antibacterial soap too. What if I breed a new resistant superbug by washing my hands with it?

But, there it all is, and I hate to waste it. So I've cautiously been using it. For the past five years, we've been taking laundry over to my parents' house every week. Now, to my extreme delight, we have the capacity to wash clothes in our own home. I actually fall asleep grinning about this, it makes me so happy. Yesterday for the first time in my life I separated my laundry and did a load of just whites, and put a bit of bleach in with the detergent. I felt like such a typical suburban American as I did so - just freewheeling and not even worrying about the environment for once.

Gotta say I was underwhelmed with the results; my clothes came out clean, but not bright white like I was hoping. The socks in particular still looked kind of dingy. And all the clothes reeked of bleach, even after I put them out to dry in the sun for hours. I felt like my lungs were corroding with the fumes coming off them. But now I know. Reduce the bleach, and the expectations.

Our new home is a doorway to other "typical" experiences as well. When we lived at our apartment, I would put the baby in the stroller, sling a few canvas bags over my shoulder, and walk to the grocery store several times a week. Each time the amount I bought would be limited by what I could physically carry while pushing the stroller back. Now, because we're not walking distance to anything, I load the baby into the car and do a week's worth of shopping at a time. I push her around the store in a cart instead of a stroller. I wheel the whole cart out to my car to transfer the groceries. I almost feel like the rules don't apply, and it's okay to buy junk food and processed CheeseZips and so on. I have to mentally slap myself. No! Just because you're using fossil fuels just to GET to the grocery store does not mean you can throw nutrition out the window too!

On the positives list, we have a dining room now. Instead of balancing plates on our laps on the sofa, my husband and I can now eat dinner together at an actual table. We have conversations while we eat. It's such an improvement.

Not at Home Yet

I wonder how long it will take to feel at home in the new house. When we first moved into our apartment, I remember I didn't want to spend any time there unless my then-boyfriend was there. I would come home from work, tired after a long day, but within moments of stepping in the front door I would think, "I just want to leave." He usually didn't get home until 8 or 9 at night. I would grab an apple and turn right around and go out for a walk, or sit in the park across the street - better to be obviously not home, than to be in this place that was supposed to be home and wasn't.

Right now, the new place doesn't feel like home. All our stuff is there, but I feel like spending as little time there as possible. I just want to get what I need and get out. Will it take months, like it did last time? Will it take having friends over and cooking a few big messy meals before I can feel like we've staked our claim? Even though the new place is good for so many reasons and I'm very happy we got it, I miss the comforts of our old apartment.

It must be even harder for our daughter, who's never lived anywhere else and who wasn't involved in the decision to move. For her, it was just a giant uprooting and upheaval. For the first time now she's sleeping in her own room instead of with us, and she's lost her neighborhood, the streets, parks, grocery store, and playgrounds with which she was so intimately familiar. The new house exists in a void because there aren't shops and such within walking distance - it's like opening the front door and finding that we're floating in outer space. You have to use the car to get anywhere, which is like a wormhole, so there's no connection or continuity to the geography.

To top it off she's starting daycare for the first time in her life soon. It will be so scary for her. I feel really sorry for her that everything is so new and frightening, and I wish I knew how to make it better.

Attitude

This morning as I was riding the bus to work there was a huge thunk that made everyone sit up and look nervously around. An SUV had smacked the rear corner of the bus as it cut over to change lanes.

The driver immediately said, "Ah, man, why do people do that? Why, why? Did you see that? She just tried to cut across three lanes of traffic to make her turn." Sticking her arm out the window to gesture, she said, ostensibly to the driver of the SUV, although the driver couldn't have heard her, "Yeah, you DO need to pull over!"

Moments later, with the bus and SUV pulled over to the side of the traffic circle, the two drivers conducted a short conversation through the opened bus door. The SUV driver was inclined to be hostile, but the bus driver was in the better position. She was seated, looking down from a much larger vehicle, in uniform, with the trappings of authority about her.

"Honey, you hit me, it's your insurance that's gonna pay," she said, unperturbed. "It's all on camera. It's on camera. It's on camera. You can stand there and argue all day. It's on camera what happened. Now you give me your license and registration, and I'll give you mine."

The SUV woman told the bus driver to get out and follow her to get the information. "Oh no, that's okay, YOU can bring it back to ME," the driver said. The SUV woman said something snippy that I didn't catch. "All right, and that's how you wanna be, I hope you have a great day," the driver said in a mock-sweet voice. The SUV woman - a sharp-dressed professional in a power suit - stalked off, but she complied and brought the insurance info back. I was deeply impressed.

Here's how it would've gone down if I was driving the bus.

thunk

Erin: "Oh no! A car hit me! Ahh!... Oh I hope she pulls over. Oh, phew, she's pulling over."

I would then probably open the bus doors and hurry over to the SUV to conduct the conversation looking in her window from the sidewalk.

SUV woman: "What the hell were you doing?"

Erin: "I was just driving around the circle. I didn't change lanes or anything."

SUV: "You're an idiot. This had better be reimbursed." (gesturing toward her scraped front bumper)

Erin: "I'm sorry. Do you want to exchange insurance?"

SUV: "Yeah, you bring me yours."

Erin: "OK! Can you wait here?" (scurry back to the bus)

It's ridiculous, because even as the real-life conversation was going down, I was thinking how differently (and how badly) I would have handled it. I have one technique for dealing with authority or anyone aggressive: get really submissive and eager to please. It often works because people realize there's no point bringing out the big guns for a softie like me. They lighten up and get what they want without yelling. I can't handle yelling - it just destroys me.

Actually any kind of confrontation can leave me shaken up and replaying the incident in my head for days. When I do run into the occasional person who realizes they can jerk me around and I'll just go more and more belly-up, it's a bad scene. I wonder if, pushed far enough, I would be able to find the words to fight back. It's not that I don't want to. It's just that I go into such extreme "flight" mode in stressful situations, I can't even think what I should have said until hours later.

"Yeah, you DO need to pull over!" She was awesome. I should take lessons from her.

?, but no .

I haven't had a period in three years. It seems astonishing when I look back on it. My last period was in August 2006, just a few months after we got married. It started on my birthday, a day that we spent hiking with friends in the mountains. I remember retreating into some shrubbery off the trail at one point to change a pad. (No, I didn't litter - I took the old one with me, wrapped up.) That seems like eons ago.

I've done some reading online about amenorrhea. It could be primary ovarian failure, a scary thought considering that I was hoping to have a second child someday. Could my ovaries really be puttering out, when I'm only 32 years old? Or it could be a thyroid disorder. Or it could be a pituitary problem. Or it could be an ectopic pregnancy. For brief moments over the past few months I've wondered if it was a real pregnancy - that would explain the gut that I don't seem to be able to get rid of - but the gut hasn't changed in all that time, and we use birth control. And honestly, I just don't feel pregnant. Now that I have been, I would know if I ever was again.

A friend chuckled when I confided in her that I no longer have periods, and said, "You're lucky. Enjoy it!" I did for a while, but at this point I just want to be normal. I feel like some kind of anomaly in the world, cut off from the cycle of reproduction in my prime reproducing years. I feel the way I did at 14 and 15 and 16, when all the girls I knew had started their periods, and I hadn't. As convenient as it is not to menstruate any more, I know it means there's something wrong.

Yes, I've been to the doctor. I've had blood drawn. I'll find out the lab results soon. I hope it will be an answer I can live with.

Labor

I visited my friend today and got to hold her brand-new, six-day-old baby. The baby was adorable with her little grunts and snuffles, and her wonderfully expressive face. Even though I had one of those myself not too long ago, I forgot how tiny they really are. Her arms and legs were so fragile, they were like wrinkled red little twigs. Her triangular little face registered first doubt, then annoyance, then confusion, melting into a thousand-mile stare. She frowned as she stared up at me.

My friend was equal parts lit up about this baby, just besotted with her – and rightfully so – and shell-shocked by her labor experience. It sounds like she had a truly terrible time. She was in labor for 30 hours, including about six hours of transition labor (the worst, most intense stage, where you're basically having a contraction for 60-90 seconds during every two minutes). She begged for an epidural and got one but it didn't take on one side of her body, so she was still feeling every contraction. When she was finally ready to deliver, her doctor had gone home for the night, and refused to allow my friend be delivered by the doctor on duty at the hospital – so my poor friend had to wait, blowing through every contraction in an effort not to push, for an entire 90 minutes before the doctor made it back to her side. She described it as "torture." I asked her how she coped with the pain, and she said, "I screamed. I was screaming so loud with every contraction, I thought the other women in labor must be terrified listening to me, but I couldn't help it." I felt like crying for her that she had to suffer like that.

I've never experienced pain on that level before. When I was in labor, it was the worst pain I've ever experienced, and I remember feeling desperate for relief, and doing a lot of loud groaning. Luckily, when I got an epidural it worked. Up to that point the worst pain I had ever experienced was a urinary tract infection that made me whimper audibly. I remember feeling astonished: "Wow, that hurt so much I made a noise and couldn't even help it." Maybe I'm just really afraid of losing control, but I tend to not make noise if I can possibly help it when I'm hurt. The embarrassment of making a sound seems worse to me than the pain. For something to hurt so much that I would actually scream out loud – I can't even really comprehend what that must be like. I guess if I ever have a natural childbirth, I may find out. Anyway, my friend is the same way. She's a quiet, mild sort of person, not given to dramatics and never wanting to be the center of attention. I can't wrap my mind around her screaming, or the degree of pain it would take for her to make noise.

My friend said that she is still feeling so traumatized by the whole experience that she is considering getting therapy to help her work through what happened to her. She's having PTSD-like flashbacks, feeling terrified of ever being in labor again. (Fortunately it hasn’t prevented her from bonding with her baby.) In the pictures of her and her husband holding their newborn moments after the birth, they look wan – smiling, but haggard. She looks like she's just been through hell. He looks like he just watched his wife go through hell.

It makes me wonder: how come some women have – not an easy time, necessarily – but a manageable time during labor, whereas others don't? I've read birth stories about mothers who calmly walked during their labors and pushed their babies out with little fuss; mothers who rocked and moaned quietly and were in control of their experiences. That's what I’d want, if I went natural – but I'm scared I'd end up like my friend, screaming and out of my mind with pain, and not in control at all.

Across the World, Then Not Eaten by Me

I bought a passion fruit at Whole Foods last week. I had never seen one before. It looks like a tiny purplish plum with a firm surface and a thin skin like a potato. I left it out for a while to ripen, but nothing seemed to be happening, so finally today I sliced it in half. Inside it was full of pulpy glop with hard black seeds about the size of apple seeds. I have no idea how to eat it. I tried a bit of the glop, but it was hard to eat around the seeds, and I don't think you're supposed to swallow them. They splinter like apple seeds in your teeth.

This little fruit grew on a tree in New Zealand, on the total opposite side of the world, was picked by some unknown farm worker and packaged, and was shipped across the globe, consuming fossil fuels all the way, all to arrive in a bin at Whole Foods and be bought at an exorbitant price by me. And I'm not going to eat it? What a waste!

I feel like such a privileged member of society, because throughout history, how few people have ever had the opportunity to eat the range of foods that is available to me? I pretty much have access to any food grown anywhere in the world. I live on a level far above that of any emperor of the ancient world.

All right. I have sufficiently guilt tripped myself that I'm going back in the kitchen now to give it another shot.

Reasons to Miss the Old Place

1. Walking home today (something I won't be able to do after we move), I passed a full jazz band playing "When the Saints Come Marching In" to an admiring crowd on a street corner. They were just getting to the part where it goes, "Oh when the saints! Oh when the saints!" and it was so peppy, I couldn't resist getting a spring in my step. City life is so full of vibrance and pulse and energy. I'll miss the excitement of feeling like we live in the heart of everything.

2. Despite being pretty antisocial, after living here for five years we know a fair number of people in our neighborhood. It's a friendly sort of area, and we run into the same folks over and over. Our regular supermarket cashier, the apartment manager next door, my mom friend a few streets away, the guy at the library, our two favorite sushi waitresses at the restaurant down the block, our upstairs neighbor and her grandson, my babyswap friend and her little boy with whom we have weekly playdates, and the building maintenance guy who greets me every morning are all people that we have friendly conversations with on a regular basis - and who I'll miss once we're gone. I guess we have put down roots.

3. Nine playgrounds, two libraries, a toy store, five grocery stores, and tons of restaurants within walking distance.

4. Living, eating, and working all in the same room. This is also a thing that I complain about. But I wonder if once we move, and after supper we all disappear into separate rooms to spend the evening on separate pursuits, I won't miss these days of enforced family togetherness.

Onward we go, eagerly, but not without a backward glance.

Reasons to Love our New Place

1. Being able to park the car in our own driveway, right next to the house! It will be so great to just walk out the front door and there's the car, instead of having to cross a busy street and walk a block or two to get to our parking space. And unloading groceries, etc. will be so much easier.

2. My own office where I can set up my computer, printer, and files. When I want to scan something, I'll be able to just reach over and turn on the scanner. Currently my "office" is also the library, and contains two bookcases, a desk, a chair, and boxes of paperwork. And it's also Pigtopia where our guinea pig races around and nibbles on my toes as I work. And it's also the breakfast nook. And it's also about ten square feet in area.

3. Not seeing a roach or two scurry across the floor every time I turn on the light in the kitchen. (I hope.)

4. Bedrooms. One for our kidlet. One that is all for us. :)

5. Space for a dining room table, so we can invite guests over for dinner.

6. A gorgeous big yard backed by trees where I can grow vegetables, graze the pig, frolic with the kidlet, and hang my clothes on a ecofriendly clothesline to dry.

7. A deck where we can eat dinner on warm summer evenings. We'll sit out there watching the fireflies blink, feeling rich beyond measure.

GOT THE HOUSE!

Yay!

I am so happy and excited. It has a beautiful kitchen, four whole bedrooms, a deck, and it even backs onto the park. I can't believe how fast the whole thing happened. We've been house-hunting for about a month, going to open houses every weekend, and made one offer on a house last week that wasn't accepted. I was pretty sad about that. Then last Sunday we found this house, which is even better than the last one - put in our offer on Monday, and it was accepted on Tuesday! I get happy all over again every time I think about it.

Now, all we have to do is sell our first-born to pay for it. haha

In Limbo

I'm waiting to hear back.

Yesterday, I interviewed for a new job. A big jump in pay and responsibilities. I have the background and skills to do it, and I think I did all right in the interview, but a lot of people were applying for this job, so I'm not sure what my chances are. Today, we made an offer on a house. Very exciting. Again, it's a super competitive situation; multiple other people submitted bids on the same house.

I'm trying to tell myself that it doesn't really matter, that if I don't get that job I can just keep doing the one I have, which I'm good at and (most of the time) enjoy. And if we don't get that house we'll find a different one. I feel like there is a truck-load of disappointment waiting for me, right around the corner, and I'm trying to mitigate it by telling myself that chances are, I will not get the job or the house. Statistically, the odds are against it.

I can't even say for sure that I would be happier in this new more lucrative job, or that we would be happier in this new house. But I think we would. Oh man, I hope it works out.

The 100 Things

I read about a guy who decided to be spartan and whittle down his possessions to just 100 items. He spent several months getting rid of things - giving away furniture, donating clothes, throwing out paintings and other art projects he had done. His final list included mostly electronic gadgets and t-shirts. He had an iPod, cell phone, BlackBerry, laptop, DVD player, TV, etc. and associated chargers. He also used up 20 items in his quota just on shirts. His rule was that if anyone gave him a gift during the "Year of 100 Things," he would have to choose one thing to get rid of, or else regift what he had been given. Sounds tough!

I thought about what 100 things I'd choose. I'm always complaining that I live in the midst of clutter, overwhelmed by possessions, so the idea of having such a spare existence has its appeal. I'd draw the line at throwing away things I had created, though. At the end of the year, he can go out and buy back the stuff he's been missing, but he can never get back his artwork, and someday he might really regret that.

Here's my list, based mostly on the things I use every day:
1. contact lenses
2. glasses
3. underwear (He "cheated" and grouped a bunch of pairs as one item, so I'm doing that too. Don't think I would try to get through the whole year on one pair of underpants.)
4. bra
5-10. shirts
6-15. sweaters
16. jacket
17. socks
18. sneakers
19. dress shoes
20. winter coat
21. makeup
22. deodorant
23. comb
24-25. laptop and recharger
26. backpack
27. cooking pot
28. frying pan
29. mug
30. Brita pitcher
31. silverware
32. umbrella
33. car
34. knife (for kitchen use)
35. hair clips
36-37. cell phone and recharger
38. pillow
39. toothbrush
40. workout clothes
41. shorts
42. broom
43. dustpan
44. pens/pencils
45. notepad
46. mattress

That's all I can think of. I'm looking around the apartment and I don't see a single other thing that I use often that I would miss. Lots of stuff I use daily, like the stroller, but I think that counts in my kid's quota, not mine. And the microwave, but I think that's built in as part of the apartment. And I have photo albums and diaries and such, but they're at my parents' house. I think I could get by just on the list I have. I'm surprised to see some items in there, like the laptop that I've only had for a year or so - but already I really depend on it.

Simplicity rules!

The Road Not Taken

I'm in touch, sporadically, with a couple of old boyfriends. We're not really friends, but we do email now and then. One of them - the first guy I ever went out with - is now married and they're expecting their first child in a couple of weeks. It gives me a funny quiver in my gut to look at their online photo albums: the two of them setting up the crib, him with his arm around her shoulders at the baby shower, shots of her in profile documenting her increasing roundness each week. They look like they're very happy together. Even the captions on the photos express what a cute, bantery relationship they have, full of inside jokes and affection. I'm really glad for them. I loved this guy, back when we were together, and I wanted the best for him even if we weren't right together. It's great that he is about to experience the amazing roller coaster trip of parenthood.

Still, there's that funny quiver. Why do I feel this way? Is it jealousy, because it's hard to ever accept that someone who once loved me doesn't love me any more? Do I just feel left out because they're basking in all the attention now as glowing soon-to-be-parents, and it's (rightfully) all about them, whereas with a two-year-old I'm old news and people no longer stop me in the street to coo over my baby? Is it a flicker of annoyance that whatever I had to offer him, it wasn't enough, and what she offered was better? (even though, as I recall, I left him.) Is it just imagination whiplash, because we were on that marriage track for a while, and I thought that we would be setting up a crib together someday, and it's just odd now thinking about what might have been?

We broke up for good reasons, and we each married people we're better suited to than one another. But I can't help feeling, when I see his happy grin, that he was really a nice guy with a lot of good qualities, and feeling a bit sad that I'm so shut out now from his life. Being selflessly happy for someone else is not always that easy.

If Money Were No Object

One more quote from the motherhood book, by Daphne De Marneffe, got me thinking about what I'd buy if resources were unlimited.

Money is a necessity; it pays for food and shelter, it can make the difference between the life we grew up with and a better life for our children. Money also buys advantages, from safe neighborhoods to SAT prep courses. And discretionary spending really does make one feel better. It meant a lot to me when I was able to get rid of that Naugahyde recliner and decorate my baby's room... Such seemingly superficial uses of money can confer an almost primal sense of pride and satisfaction.

These days, I always feel like I shouldn't spend money on anything beyond the necessities of rent, diapers, transportation, and food (though with food, I give myself a lot of latitude - we often eat out or buy things like avocados and salmon that I love but could do without). If a windfall comes my way, I tend to stick it in the bank right away. That way I have no regrets because I've basically postponed the decision of how to spend it - whereas if I exchanged it for something, I might easily wonder later if I'd really bought the right thing or if it was worth it. But I know exactly what De Marneffe is talking about with the primal sense of satisfaction.

So, I was daydreaming about a scenario with strict rules where I had to spend the money on myself or lose it (no putting it in the bank, no giving it to charity or a friend). Some things I might buy:

* A new carseat for my daughter - clean, with flat unwrinkled straps - not like the hand-me-down she uses which is mottled with old food stains I can't get out.
* A trip to the beach for our family.
* A "Mommy & Me" swim class at the local pool with my daughter, who loves water.
* Our wedding cake, again - it was a yellow cake with the most delicious white chocolate icing in giant swirls and flakes festooning the top and sides. I could eat a lot of it, then freeze the rest and have it a slice at a time for months.
* A plot in the neighborhood community garden and labor to help me tend it. I had one for two years, but had to give it up because I didn't have time to weed it. But I miss those fresh tomatoes and beans.
* A house.
* A bunch of science classes at the university. Ecology, evolution, natural history, Spanish, botany, insects, and animal behavior.
* Dance classes for me and my husband.
* Shoes that I can wear with a dress. Right now I have only four pairs of shoes: sneakers, dress shoes for work, and two pairs of sandals of a style that no one under 65 wears. They are comfortable, so I keep wearing them, but I should invest in something nicer.
* A warm winter coat for my daughter for next year.

That's all that comes to mind right now. I'm fortunate that everything on my list is a luxury, not a necessity - that we can afford to buy what we really need.

Kenison on Motherhood

More quotes from the motherhood book. These are from an essay about how to celebrate the holidays with your children, by Katrina Kenison. I love her fresh, friendly voice. She just sounds like the kind of mom I'd like to be friends with.

In part the culture is to blame - as each holiday rolls around, we confront an ever-expanding array of merchandise to go with it. There is more to see, more to do, more to buy, than ever before. And how easy it is to fall into thinking that living well means partaking of all that's offered.

***

Whether you're decorating the Christmas tree, making latkes, or coloring Easter eggs, remember that the process is more important for your child than the outcome...Celebrate small blessings and offbeat occasions. Once we take the pressure off ourselves to do things in a big way, we find more reasons to celebrate life's little moments. My son Jack and I once made a birthday cake for Curious George. Half birthdays are reason enough to enjoy a special meal. Hot summer days suggest impromptu lemonade parties. For children, every day holds potential for celebration and ceremony - the first day of spring, the first snowfall, the harvest moon. A song, a poem read aloud, a ritual, or a special snack - it doesn't take much to create a celebration that affirms life and connects us to the natural order of things: animals, wind, sky, and earth.

Yes! That last sentence just says it all. I love traditions because they provide structure that helps make sense of life and keeps track of the passing time, and because they provide reasons for happy anticipation. Our family doesn't have very many yet, just a few like Thursday night sushi while we watch a favorite TV show, Sunday night visit to my parents' house, seasonal visits to a particular local farm and to favorite parks or hiking trails, annual bed-and-breakfast weekend for our anniversary. Just knowing that one of these things is coming up brings me so much pleasure, it's almost better than the event itself. I want to build in more traditions as time goes on. And especially to make them celebrations of nature. I would like my children to feel the same fascination for the natural world and derive the same joy from being outdoors that I did throughout my childhood.

Am I Fat or Not?

I can't decide.

This is important, because being on the fence about it means I can never sustain the willpower I need to follow through on diet and exercise plans. Half the time I look at myself in the mirror and feel like I'm fine, I just look the way everyone starts to look in their thirties, post-childbirth, with a bit more of a gut than I used to have. I tell myself that, after all, life is short, and not to stress about indulging in sweets from time to time. Those are the high morale days when I feel generally good about myself.

Other times I think my stomach looks awful, saggy and paunchy, and when I suck it in it's covered with wrinkles, and how can it *still* look this bad when the baby is almost two years old already? and what if it never goes back to the way it was, no matter how many sit-ups I do? and it's so ridiculously unfair that there are women who are part elf who zip back to adolescent leanness within weeks of childbirth, whose stomachs are so flat that no one would ever think they had been pregnant, and that I'm not one of them. On days like those I make drastic plans about giving up sugar for Lent (which I did, successfully, not that it made any difference), and suck in my stomach until my muscles ache.

Technically I'm underweight, for my height. But I wear mom jeans, the kind with extra room for the paunch. I haven't even gotten my period back yet, since the baby. But at a recent family reunion, I was terrified that some well-meaning relatives would eye my gut and ask if I'm pregnant with #2.

It doesn't matter how often my husband says "You look great." I keep ricocheting back and forth between feeling like I look all right (if not great), and feeling not all right, at all.

Roiphe on Motherhood

I read some great quotes recently in a collection of essays about motherhood. Here are two that really struck me, by Anne Roiphe:

There is inherent in motherhood a continual giving up of self, and few of us take to that without resentment, which itself creates a river of guilt.

***

The hard truth is that our ability to appreciate something is affected by the time we devote to it. Whether it is a person or a pursuit, one way we treasure it is through the time we give to it. The more time we spend on a relationship (with a child, with nature, with a piece of music), the more we know and the more we appreciate, and the more facets there are to love.

I don't think I have a river of guilt about being a mother, but perhaps that's just because I'm lucky enough to have a flexible schedule, so I have a lot of time to spend with her. I also don't have outside forces in my life pulling me to do other things besides take care of her. But I can still sympathize with those feelings of resentment and guilt. Especially in the early days, she needed me so much and spent so much time screaming, and I just felt like my constant, patient, loving efforts were going unappreciated. But then she stopped screaming and started smiling and looking around her at the world I was only too glad to show her. And now she is full of giggles and so much fun to be with. The second quote just reminds me that there's no need for me to be stressed or feel overburdened - everything I take on is a choice. So I might as well lavish the time on without regrets and enjoy the experience.

In Ten Years

I had a pseudo-job interview today - a conversation with someone who's hiring for a position that I might be interested in. I was calling just to find out more about the job to see if I wanted to apply. I thought I'd be asking all the questions. Instead, she started hitting me with stuff like "what do you like or dislike about your current position?" "what is your greatest strength?" and the real biggie, "where do you see yourself in ten years?"

As soon as she asked that, a range of completely inappropriate responses flitted through my head. Still married and loving life with my husband, of course. I'd like to have a second child by then. I'd like us to have a house of our own, with a nice back yard where the kids can play, maybe a dog. I want to have read a lot of great books. I want to have written something significant of my own - either finished my coming-of-age novel, or put together a reasonable collection of poems, or packaged my other essays into a memoir. I want to have the time and freedom to spend with family, enjoy the outdoors, visit friends, and pursue hobbies. I'd like my own vegetable garden.

I have no career aspirations. For me, a job is just a way to get money so you can get by. I don't particularly want more responsibility (even when I chafe at the hierarchy in my current position), or underlings, or a grandiose title. I just want to do something that isn't too stressful or boring that won't interfere too much with what I consider to be real life. None of which you can say to a prospective employer, so I just burbled on about wanting a position that would engage me and where I could make a difference, etc. It is a bit scary to contemplate the future though. I hope I can make that idyllic future that I picture for our family come to pass.

An Elegant Hedgehog

I'm reading The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery for my book club. I don't really like it so far. The central twist around which the story revolves is that the main character has a menial profession and everyone thinks she is without education or culture (an impression she works hard to maintain), but secretly she loves art and great literature. What I don't like is the way she secretly sneers at the people she meets, criticizing them for not giving her more credit. But at the same time she actively hides her interest in "culture" and goes out of her way to appear dumb, so what are they supposed to think? I don't see why she can't just talk about reading Tolstoy last weekend, if she wants to. It's not like the social order of the world would crumble. Maybe it would hurt her too much to reveal her true nature and realize that honestly, nobody cares.

But, sprinkled throughout the book there are occasional thought-provoking or nicely written passages that I do like. There's a lovely description of a Dutch still life painting (it goes on for six pages, actually), so vivid that I can practically see the painting before me. And there's this passage which definitely gave me something to chew over:

"I have no children, I do not watch television, and I do not believe in God - all paths taken by mortals to make their lives easier. Children help us to defer the painful task of confronting ourselves, and grandchildren take over from them. Television distracts us from the onerous necessity of finding projects to construct in the vacuity of our frivolous lives: by beguiling our eyes, television releases our mind from the great work of making meaning. Finally, God appeases our animal fears and the unbearable prospect that someday all our pleasures will cease. Thus, as I have neither future nor progeny nor pixels to deaden the cosmic awareness of absurdity, and in the certainty of the end and the anticipation of the void, I believe I can affirm that I have not chosen the easy path."

When I read it the first time, it was a bit like a knife to the gut - augh! Someone sees through me. Here I am with a dead-end job, no idea where my career is going, finding most of my pleasure and satisfaction in my home life, wanting more kids because taking care of the first one makes me so happy, trying to figure out if just being a wife and mother is enough and I can dispense with the terrible obligation to have a career as well. But Muriel Barbery is on to me. So probably this is something that everyone knows, or secretly suspects. Probably children are a way to avoid confronting the need to make something of ourselves. Because they absorb so much energy, we try to fool ourselves into thinking that they are a purpose in life, all on their own.

I'm not sure about the rest of the passage. Television is sometimes used to fill the vacuity of modern life, but more often it is used by people I know to relax - after a long day at work they're burned out and long to just be passively entertained. It helps them empty their racing thoughts, rather than helping them fill an empty mental landscape. I'm also not sure about the bit about God. I think it depends on one's own brand of religion. Some visions of God fill people with fear and dread of doing the wrong thing, and aren't reassuring at all. And often people turn to God for a sense of comfort that even though things seem pretty bad in their lives, it's all part of some cosmic plan. They're not even thinking about the afterlife, just trying to derive reassurance that their current sacrifices have some purpose. So, it depends.

We shall see what other nuggets of wisdom the hedgehog can dispense in the remaining 147 pages.

Stars

When I was a kid, I used to wonder how the ancient Greeks ever saw enough stars to make constellations out of them. Most nights the sky was overcast, or there was so much light pollution that the stars were far and few between. (For a while, I also didn't realize I needed glasses, and I remember thinking, "how did they see any stars at all?")

Then one night I went on a camping trip, and we camped in a field miles and miles from any towns. The stars were blazing with cold blue-white light, billions of them, sprinkled so thickly over the sky I couldn't count them. I was awestruck. I kept saying, "WOW, look at the STARS!" Periodically I'd see a meteor slide down the curve of the sky, leaving a trail of light behind it. It wasn't a meteor shower or anything special, just a regular night out in the country. I realized, this is what it looked like all the time before electric lighting. It was an incredible experience.

Rain and Cakes

It's late at night. I'm typing away with the glow of the Christmas lights draped over the doorframe, and the whsssh of cars going by in the rain, for company. My man is out of town so I'll be taking care of our daughter by myself all weekend. Whenever this happens I get a kind of power trip - I feel strong, and excited, that I can actually take care of her all on my own, that I have such awesome responsibility for myself and another human and will, over the course of the next few days, prove myself worthy of it. I feel like doing all the fun stuff with her that my mom used to do with us when my dad was on business trips. Like spontaneous trips to the zoo, and breakfast food for dinner.

Of course, maybe that's just because I can smell pancakes cooking in a nearby apartment. Mmmmm. Right now there's nothing I'd like better in the world than for it to be Saturday morning, to be in the kitchen with my husband frying pancakes and making coffee together, with the whole day ahead of us. It can be raining - that increases the coziness. And on the pancakes we would have powdered sugar, and fresh blueberries, and whipped cream.