Today we learned that our move to Brussels in June is off. Technically, it is postponed by the firm management until summer of 2010, but I know the truth. For the firm, relocation is dependent upon a positive change in the global economy. For us, at this point, relocation is hinged on our willingness to stay in limbo for the next year, waiting for it to work out. Accordingly, we told Eleanor and Ethan today that we are not moving. Of course we still may relocate to Belgium sometime in the next few years, but it seemed unfair to require them to live in this uncertainty, especially since we aren't sure if we can do it.
After all this anticipation and preparation, this is an enormous disappointment. The kids are sad and confused. So are we. Our vision of ourselves as a family had grown to include such great international dimensions and we luxuriated in those dreams. We cry now. We grieve in some entitled way for a dream that is . . . I don't know what the word is . . . stuck?
And for me, the mom and wife, this is a bitter moment. I did, after all, quit my beloved job. Life is easier without it anyway, and if Scott continues to travel as much as he is now, which is part of the firm's long-term plan for him whether we live in Europe or here, a full-time job is nearly impossible to pull off. I quit my beloved job, though, and have struggled through that decision every day, even with Brussels waiting. I also set to work learning a new language and fell headlong in love with French and my image of myself as a bilingual citizen of the world.
What I struggle to handle in my racing mind is how I fit into this changed vision of my own life. I am back where I was when I was at home with kids in school all day, fairly miserable without the challenge of a professional life. I am back in a pre-dream existence, where my children had never imagined classmates from 65 nations and field trips to World War II battle sites and the French Alps. I am back in a house in a suburb where I never really feel I have fit.
The best word I can come up with tonight is stuck.
Wednesday, December 17, 2008
Friday, November 21, 2008
Butter and Such
I wish I could dig out my "All About Me" essay from my first weeks of graduate school. In it I talked about geographic place and food and identity. The first page and half, if I remember correctly, was a list of sublime meals from different hometowns and destinations. (I had just read Tim O'Brien for the first time -- it must have been The Things They Carried -- and I thought listing was a very cool technique.)
Come to think of it, the article I published in an educational journal during my first year of teaching began with a food reference too. I compared the art of teaching to the art of making pasta as described by Marcella Hazan, maven of Italian cuisine and publisher of my favorite cookbooks. Really, the analogy held up under peer review!
So now I am the mommy of a family obsessed with food. We each have our own spin on that. I am fussy about ingredients and buy almost nothing pre-made. Yes, there was that two year affair with Trader Joe's frozen products while I was working full-time. But that is OVER. I am especially fussy about meat and haul myself all the way to Baltimore each week to get the right organic, ground in the store, no antibiotic, no animal byproducts kind of stuff. And it's yummier, too.
Eleanor loves food, too. She is especially passionate about desserts and has meals from holidays and trips and local urban foraging expeditions filed in her head. When she was in the third grade and writing a Cinderella story set in Paris, she talked me into lunch at our favorite French bistro in Baltimore, Petit Louis, for "research" and savored the soupe à l'oignon gratinée.
Ethan is picky . . . but not picky. Meatloaf, spaghetti, pork chops -- no. Pickled jellyfish, mussels, sushi -- oh, yes. While he does appreciate my crème brulée, I fail as a cook for him because I do not make authentic pad thai at home. His favorite food story about himself is that he ate the beef with red chili at Ollie's in New York that the Zagat guide said was "unsuitably spicy for children."
Scott is a lover of great food, too. Our courtship was marked by forays into Chicago neighborhoods in search of real food. I think we bought the Chicago Magazine cheap eats issue our last year of college and sought out many of their recommended holes-in-the-wall serving authentic and handmade Polish, Greek, Indian and Thai foods. As our budget has grown, we have come to love fine food and make it a priority in our nights out.
This is a long prelude to my favorite butter story, promised in a recent post.
When we were in Paris this summer, our daily habit was to eat an extravagant lunch out and dine simply in our apartment for the first and last meals of the day. Breakfast was croissant and pain au raisin. Dinner was salad, baguette, butter, and cheese. (And wine.)
One evening, exhausted from miles of walking, we sat at our table with our humble meal before us. We broke the baguette, appreciating its crackle. We tossed the oil and vinegar through the greens. The butter sat at the center. And as we all spread the golden stuff onto hunks of still-warm bread, Eleanor asked, "Is the butter better in Paris than it is at home? I think it may be." And Ethan said, "Maybe it's because the bread is better."
In these quiet family moments, our priorities shine through.
Come to think of it, the article I published in an educational journal during my first year of teaching began with a food reference too. I compared the art of teaching to the art of making pasta as described by Marcella Hazan, maven of Italian cuisine and publisher of my favorite cookbooks. Really, the analogy held up under peer review!
So now I am the mommy of a family obsessed with food. We each have our own spin on that. I am fussy about ingredients and buy almost nothing pre-made. Yes, there was that two year affair with Trader Joe's frozen products while I was working full-time. But that is OVER. I am especially fussy about meat and haul myself all the way to Baltimore each week to get the right organic, ground in the store, no antibiotic, no animal byproducts kind of stuff. And it's yummier, too.
Eleanor loves food, too. She is especially passionate about desserts and has meals from holidays and trips and local urban foraging expeditions filed in her head. When she was in the third grade and writing a Cinderella story set in Paris, she talked me into lunch at our favorite French bistro in Baltimore, Petit Louis, for "research" and savored the soupe à l'oignon gratinée.
Ethan is picky . . . but not picky. Meatloaf, spaghetti, pork chops -- no. Pickled jellyfish, mussels, sushi -- oh, yes. While he does appreciate my crème brulée, I fail as a cook for him because I do not make authentic pad thai at home. His favorite food story about himself is that he ate the beef with red chili at Ollie's in New York that the Zagat guide said was "unsuitably spicy for children."
Scott is a lover of great food, too. Our courtship was marked by forays into Chicago neighborhoods in search of real food. I think we bought the Chicago Magazine cheap eats issue our last year of college and sought out many of their recommended holes-in-the-wall serving authentic and handmade Polish, Greek, Indian and Thai foods. As our budget has grown, we have come to love fine food and make it a priority in our nights out.
This is a long prelude to my favorite butter story, promised in a recent post.
When we were in Paris this summer, our daily habit was to eat an extravagant lunch out and dine simply in our apartment for the first and last meals of the day. Breakfast was croissant and pain au raisin. Dinner was salad, baguette, butter, and cheese. (And wine.)
One evening, exhausted from miles of walking, we sat at our table with our humble meal before us. We broke the baguette, appreciating its crackle. We tossed the oil and vinegar through the greens. The butter sat at the center. And as we all spread the golden stuff onto hunks of still-warm bread, Eleanor asked, "Is the butter better in Paris than it is at home? I think it may be." And Ethan said, "Maybe it's because the bread is better."
In these quiet family moments, our priorities shine through.
Wednesday, November 12, 2008
Mon Histoire Préférée: My First Post in French
C’est une de mes histoires préférées. C’est vrai. Ce n’est pas très important maintenant. Mais cette histoire était importante à ce moment là.
Quand ma fille, Eleanor, avait deux ans, elle était très malade. Elle est restée à l’hôpital pendant trois semaines. Pendant le séjour à l’hôpital, Eleanor a commencé à adorer “Thomas the Tank Engine,” un livre sur les vies des trains de l’île de Sodor. Les trains étaient drôles et faisaient beaucoup d’erreurs ce qui créait beaucoup d’ennuis. Elle les aimait. Pour un cadeau, sa grand-mère et son grand-père lui ont donné des jouets de Thomas et Jacques, deux trains. Voici Thomas! Voici Jacques!
À l’hôpital et après, chez nous, elle apportait Thomas et Jacques partout. Elle les apportait sur la table. Elle les apportait dans les toilettes. Elle les apportait dans son lit pour dormir. Thomas et Jacques sont venus avec Eleanor chez le médecin chaque fois. Ils étaient ses amis quand sa vie était difficile.
Un matin, nous sommes allés à Target pour faire du shopping. Bien sûr, Eleanor a apporté Jacques et Thomas. Mon fils, Ethan, était un bébé, de deux ou trois mois peut-être. C’était difficile pour moi de me souvenir de tout avec les deux enfants. Nous avons fait du shopping et nous sommes partis de Target.
Quand nous sommes arrivés chez nous, Eleanor a découvert que Jacques était perdu. Horreur! Elle l’adorait! Elle était malade tout le temps et Jacques était nécessaire. Très nécessaire.
J’ai dit, “Eleanor, nous allons retourner à Target cet après-midi. D’abord, vous devez manger et dormir. Après la sieste, nous allons chercher Jacques.” Les enfants ont mangé et dormi. Moi? Je me suis inquiétée.
Après la sieste, nous sommes partis pour Target. J’ai demandé à chaque vendeur, “Est-ce vous avez trouvé le train de ma fille? Il est rouge. Il est très important.” Mais chaque vendeur a dit, “Non, madame. Je suis désolé.” Puis nous avons marché dans tout Target. Nous avons cherché et cherché Jacques. Nous ne l’avons pas trouvé.
Pauvre Jacques. Pauvre Eleanor. Pauvre maman!
J’étais fatiguée et triste. Eleanor adorait Jacques et elle avait besoin de Jacques. Nous sommes partis de Target et j’ai conduit. J’ai dit à Eleanor, “Chéri, maman n’a pas trouvé Jacques. Je suis désolée. Nous allons acheter un nouveau train pour toi demain. D’accord?” Mais elle était si courageuse pendant tout les mois difficile – à l’hôpital, chez nous, chez le médecin. Je voulais lui donner son propre Jacques.
A ce moment là, j’ai vu un chariot de Target près de ma voiture. J’étais sûre qu’il n’était pas le chariot que nous avons utilisé il y a cinq heures. C’était impossible! Mais j’ai vu sur le chariot rouge un petit objet rouge. Il ne pouvait pas être Jacques. Je ne sais pas pourquoi, mais j’ai arrêté la voiture. Je suis descendue de la voiture. J’ai regardé dans le chariot. Et voila, c’était Jacques.
Je suis retournée dans la voiture et j’ai donné Jacques à Eleanor. Elle a dit, “Je savais ce que nous allions trouver Jacques!”
J’ai pleuré parce que nous avons trouvé Jacques. J’ai pleuré parce qu’Eleanor toujours avait confiance en moi. Et j’ai pleuré parce que pendant beaucoup de mois de difficultés pour Eleanor, et, bien sûr, pour mon mari et moi, c’était un petit miracle.
Quand ma fille, Eleanor, avait deux ans, elle était très malade. Elle est restée à l’hôpital pendant trois semaines. Pendant le séjour à l’hôpital, Eleanor a commencé à adorer “Thomas the Tank Engine,” un livre sur les vies des trains de l’île de Sodor. Les trains étaient drôles et faisaient beaucoup d’erreurs ce qui créait beaucoup d’ennuis. Elle les aimait. Pour un cadeau, sa grand-mère et son grand-père lui ont donné des jouets de Thomas et Jacques, deux trains. Voici Thomas! Voici Jacques!
À l’hôpital et après, chez nous, elle apportait Thomas et Jacques partout. Elle les apportait sur la table. Elle les apportait dans les toilettes. Elle les apportait dans son lit pour dormir. Thomas et Jacques sont venus avec Eleanor chez le médecin chaque fois. Ils étaient ses amis quand sa vie était difficile.
Un matin, nous sommes allés à Target pour faire du shopping. Bien sûr, Eleanor a apporté Jacques et Thomas. Mon fils, Ethan, était un bébé, de deux ou trois mois peut-être. C’était difficile pour moi de me souvenir de tout avec les deux enfants. Nous avons fait du shopping et nous sommes partis de Target.
Quand nous sommes arrivés chez nous, Eleanor a découvert que Jacques était perdu. Horreur! Elle l’adorait! Elle était malade tout le temps et Jacques était nécessaire. Très nécessaire.
J’ai dit, “Eleanor, nous allons retourner à Target cet après-midi. D’abord, vous devez manger et dormir. Après la sieste, nous allons chercher Jacques.” Les enfants ont mangé et dormi. Moi? Je me suis inquiétée.
Après la sieste, nous sommes partis pour Target. J’ai demandé à chaque vendeur, “Est-ce vous avez trouvé le train de ma fille? Il est rouge. Il est très important.” Mais chaque vendeur a dit, “Non, madame. Je suis désolé.” Puis nous avons marché dans tout Target. Nous avons cherché et cherché Jacques. Nous ne l’avons pas trouvé.
Pauvre Jacques. Pauvre Eleanor. Pauvre maman!
J’étais fatiguée et triste. Eleanor adorait Jacques et elle avait besoin de Jacques. Nous sommes partis de Target et j’ai conduit. J’ai dit à Eleanor, “Chéri, maman n’a pas trouvé Jacques. Je suis désolée. Nous allons acheter un nouveau train pour toi demain. D’accord?” Mais elle était si courageuse pendant tout les mois difficile – à l’hôpital, chez nous, chez le médecin. Je voulais lui donner son propre Jacques.
A ce moment là, j’ai vu un chariot de Target près de ma voiture. J’étais sûre qu’il n’était pas le chariot que nous avons utilisé il y a cinq heures. C’était impossible! Mais j’ai vu sur le chariot rouge un petit objet rouge. Il ne pouvait pas être Jacques. Je ne sais pas pourquoi, mais j’ai arrêté la voiture. Je suis descendue de la voiture. J’ai regardé dans le chariot. Et voila, c’était Jacques.
Je suis retournée dans la voiture et j’ai donné Jacques à Eleanor. Elle a dit, “Je savais ce que nous allions trouver Jacques!”
J’ai pleuré parce que nous avons trouvé Jacques. J’ai pleuré parce qu’Eleanor toujours avait confiance en moi. Et j’ai pleuré parce que pendant beaucoup de mois de difficultés pour Eleanor, et, bien sûr, pour mon mari et moi, c’était un petit miracle.
Self-Discipline
It has been, um, many weeks since I last blogged. Make that many months. And while I have a long list of topics, I have addressed not one. The sad truth is, my blog is now a perfect reflection of me and my terrible lack of self-discipline.
I don't have so little self-discipline that I can't achieve things. I was a successful enough student. I was a successful enough teacher. And I think (some days) that I am a successful enough mother. (Future topic: What is success?)
But I do have that perfect dose of self-discipline that gets the work done eventually, but only under a deadline. This blog -- it has no deadlines.
Evidence of my procrastination skills:
For all my bravado in that "This I Believe" piece, I have not yet sorted through one corner of the disastrous basement or even one small closet. (Future topic: Having 17 months to prepare for a move is a special kind of hell for a girl like me. )
For my last two French exams I didn't complete my written and online exercises until the night before the test. (Gasp.) Panic ensued, but did I learn my lesson? No. For the record, I did learn the French enough to pass the exams. This behavior falls under the "successful enough student" moniker; I can cram at the last minute, write a paper at the last minute, and do well enough.
Oh, did I mention that I have had only three French exams? That first one, with work done well ahead of time, flashcards made and reviewed daily, etcetera, was an abberation. (Future topic: Being an adult student, carrying the successful strategies of college and graduate school into middle age.)
I write the PTA newsletter for my kids' elementary school. I won't even talk about what time I usually start it on Sunday evenings . . .
Ahh, wouldn't it be nice to meander a bit farther in this gentle shower of self-loathing?
I watch my children tending toward this bad procrastination habit, along with others of mine. The girl hates to get up in the morning. The boy has a real obsessive-compulsive streak. And both love butter way too much. (Future topic: My favorite story about bread and butter. Setting: Paris, France.) What kind of hypocrisy would it be to criticize it heavily? How much, really, do I suffer from it? How important is it to save my kids this suffering?
Suffering is too heavy a word here. What I do is procrastinate and what I do is pay the price when the deadline looms. Would my ideal self do this? No. But my ideal self wouldn't have spent minutes deciding between the Irish and the French butters at Whole Foods Market this afternoon, either.
I am not my ideal self. There is both grief and liberation in saying that in my late thirties.
But I do know that I reach for my better self when I write in this space.
I don't have so little self-discipline that I can't achieve things. I was a successful enough student. I was a successful enough teacher. And I think (some days) that I am a successful enough mother. (Future topic: What is success?)
But I do have that perfect dose of self-discipline that gets the work done eventually, but only under a deadline. This blog -- it has no deadlines.
Evidence of my procrastination skills:
For all my bravado in that "This I Believe" piece, I have not yet sorted through one corner of the disastrous basement or even one small closet. (Future topic: Having 17 months to prepare for a move is a special kind of hell for a girl like me. )
For my last two French exams I didn't complete my written and online exercises until the night before the test. (Gasp.) Panic ensued, but did I learn my lesson? No. For the record, I did learn the French enough to pass the exams. This behavior falls under the "successful enough student" moniker; I can cram at the last minute, write a paper at the last minute, and do well enough.
Oh, did I mention that I have had only three French exams? That first one, with work done well ahead of time, flashcards made and reviewed daily, etcetera, was an abberation. (Future topic: Being an adult student, carrying the successful strategies of college and graduate school into middle age.)
I write the PTA newsletter for my kids' elementary school. I won't even talk about what time I usually start it on Sunday evenings . . .
Ahh, wouldn't it be nice to meander a bit farther in this gentle shower of self-loathing?
I watch my children tending toward this bad procrastination habit, along with others of mine. The girl hates to get up in the morning. The boy has a real obsessive-compulsive streak. And both love butter way too much. (Future topic: My favorite story about bread and butter. Setting: Paris, France.) What kind of hypocrisy would it be to criticize it heavily? How much, really, do I suffer from it? How important is it to save my kids this suffering?
Suffering is too heavy a word here. What I do is procrastinate and what I do is pay the price when the deadline looms. Would my ideal self do this? No. But my ideal self wouldn't have spent minutes deciding between the Irish and the French butters at Whole Foods Market this afternoon, either.
I am not my ideal self. There is both grief and liberation in saying that in my late thirties.
But I do know that I reach for my better self when I write in this space.
Thursday, September 18, 2008
Les Études Français
For the perpetual student in me, the best aspect of the move to Brussels is the chance to learn a new language. And when I say that, I mean a second language. While I spent several years in high school and college studying German, Spanish, and Swedish, I have never been fluent in anything other than English. (And sometimes my fluency in English fails me, too. I have high standards.)
So I commenced my French studies the day after school let out in June. My tutor, Erin, is one of my personal heroes. She is très patient and kind and encouraging of my halting, amateur French. And she taught me enough in eight weeks this summer to give me the confidence (read: foolishness) to sign up for French 201 at our local community college.
No, eight weeks of study with a tutor are not really enough to prepare one for the SECOND YEAR OF LANGUAGE STUDY CURRICULUM. Yes, I am yelling. But the truth is, the first semester would have been a boring review, the second semester didn't fit into my schedule, and French 201 is a good challenge.
Why? First, my brain is flexing in ways it has not for quite some time. If you are my age and you have been mothering for the past ten years, ask yourself when you last learned something completely new. For me it had been eons. And it is a blast. Second, it is a beautiful language and I love seeing and hearing how it unfolds. More on that later. Perhaps my best lesson, though, will come from learning to value the process and the practice rather than the grade. I say this now, at this moment, when I am a mere nine hours from my first exam (on the student side of the room) in many years. Bon chance!
So I commenced my French studies the day after school let out in June. My tutor, Erin, is one of my personal heroes. She is très patient and kind and encouraging of my halting, amateur French. And she taught me enough in eight weeks this summer to give me the confidence (read: foolishness) to sign up for French 201 at our local community college.
No, eight weeks of study with a tutor are not really enough to prepare one for the SECOND YEAR OF LANGUAGE STUDY CURRICULUM. Yes, I am yelling. But the truth is, the first semester would have been a boring review, the second semester didn't fit into my schedule, and French 201 is a good challenge.
Why? First, my brain is flexing in ways it has not for quite some time. If you are my age and you have been mothering for the past ten years, ask yourself when you last learned something completely new. For me it had been eons. And it is a blast. Second, it is a beautiful language and I love seeing and hearing how it unfolds. More on that later. Perhaps my best lesson, though, will come from learning to value the process and the practice rather than the grade. I say this now, at this moment, when I am a mere nine hours from my first exam (on the student side of the room) in many years. Bon chance!
Monday, September 8, 2008
Unemployed
My friends who are, like me, unemployed by choice and charged with running the household and managing the kids' schedules, don't like it when I say I'm not working this year. "You are working, just not for pay," they say. Well, that is true, but the work I do now is the same work I did last year, except I don't do a full-time job on top of it. And I really just want to use the word "working"to describe paid employment because, in the vernacular, that's what we understand working to mean.
So I am not working, and that is a challenge for me. As I've said before, there was a wholeness to my daily life when I was teaching. And now, without the students and the literature and the colleagues and the institutional insanity of a large public high school, I feel a bit, well, broken. Just as I expected this melancholy this fall, with everyone else returning to school but me, I know too that this is temporary. I will work again when it works for the whole family.
A note on that: working for the whole family does not mean that my decision to work has to have no effect on the family. It sure did change everyone's lives, especially Scott's, and it will again, and that's okay. Not everyone has the partner I have, who is willing to bend an already crazy schedule of twelve hour workdays, an hour-long commute each way, and a heavy travel load into something accomodating of another's career aspirations. But I am a lucky woman -- I do have that man.
Anyhow, I guess I have just what I thought I'd have now that Eleanor and Ethan are back in school. I have a lot of time with the dog, which is mostly good. She definitely loves me the most now. I have time to have lunch with friends. I have time to read for pleasure without falling asleep, time to blog, time to get to some old projects. I have time to cook again, which is satisfying of that mother instinct. We eat fresh vegetables every night, dessert that's never from a box, and even homemade bread. Unfortunately, there is also time for obsessing about the tidiness of the house, car, yard. These domestic things, which I take some satisfaction from, are not worthy of that much of my time, but they pull so hard on my attention. Betty Friedan had it right -- the tasks of running a home expand to fill the time available. I did them all last year while working full-time, so why do they want to take so much more time now?
So I resolve each day to resist the errands and relegate them to Fridays alone. One morning of Target, Costco, and Borders is more than enough to sustain our suburban existence. I resolve to let the floor get (just a little bit) dirty. I resolve to blog, read, walk, lunch. I expected this tension to surface when the summer ran out and the school year commenced. It is, in that way, frustratingly comfortable.
What I did not expect this fall, though, was the urge to explain my unemployedness. And yikes, is it fierce. It happened several times in the last few days. On Thursday I had lunch at school with my English department colleagues. I met a new intern and immediately launched into the "moving to Belgium, husband constantly out of town to transition into European client work, have to travel to Belgium to find a house, find a doctor for Eleanor, etc." speech. (I fear that it may sound defensive, now that I put it to paper. Or screen. Whatever.) I repeated it to a former student that afternoon, my son's teacher on Friday, my 93-year-old great grandmother on Saturday night, and to countless neighbors at our annual block party just last night.
Frankly, I am disturbed by my need to explain. It is rooted, I am certain, in my desire to be a professional woman with an identity apart from the household's. (I love our family's identity -- nothing has brought me greater joy than my family. But I like to have my own slice of selfness, too.) It also comes from the shame of the socioeconomic privilege that affords me the chance to essentially work or not without affecting the family's bottom line too much. I suppose a little bit of me wants to emphasize, too, that I did not burn out or flunk out (or get booted out of) my noble profession. It was my choice, I want to say to the neighbors. And it maybe was not my first choice for this year, either.
But if I write more about this, my dear husband, who is in Cambridge right now, will call and say for the umpteenth time, "Maybe we shouldn't move to Brussels. Maybe we should stay here so you can work." And I will have to explain to this true gentleman, this amazing man who has picked me to love, that a year of the tension of time and explanation is a small investment toward a future of adventure.
So I am not working, and that is a challenge for me. As I've said before, there was a wholeness to my daily life when I was teaching. And now, without the students and the literature and the colleagues and the institutional insanity of a large public high school, I feel a bit, well, broken. Just as I expected this melancholy this fall, with everyone else returning to school but me, I know too that this is temporary. I will work again when it works for the whole family.
A note on that: working for the whole family does not mean that my decision to work has to have no effect on the family. It sure did change everyone's lives, especially Scott's, and it will again, and that's okay. Not everyone has the partner I have, who is willing to bend an already crazy schedule of twelve hour workdays, an hour-long commute each way, and a heavy travel load into something accomodating of another's career aspirations. But I am a lucky woman -- I do have that man.
Anyhow, I guess I have just what I thought I'd have now that Eleanor and Ethan are back in school. I have a lot of time with the dog, which is mostly good. She definitely loves me the most now. I have time to have lunch with friends. I have time to read for pleasure without falling asleep, time to blog, time to get to some old projects. I have time to cook again, which is satisfying of that mother instinct. We eat fresh vegetables every night, dessert that's never from a box, and even homemade bread. Unfortunately, there is also time for obsessing about the tidiness of the house, car, yard. These domestic things, which I take some satisfaction from, are not worthy of that much of my time, but they pull so hard on my attention. Betty Friedan had it right -- the tasks of running a home expand to fill the time available. I did them all last year while working full-time, so why do they want to take so much more time now?
So I resolve each day to resist the errands and relegate them to Fridays alone. One morning of Target, Costco, and Borders is more than enough to sustain our suburban existence. I resolve to let the floor get (just a little bit) dirty. I resolve to blog, read, walk, lunch. I expected this tension to surface when the summer ran out and the school year commenced. It is, in that way, frustratingly comfortable.
What I did not expect this fall, though, was the urge to explain my unemployedness. And yikes, is it fierce. It happened several times in the last few days. On Thursday I had lunch at school with my English department colleagues. I met a new intern and immediately launched into the "moving to Belgium, husband constantly out of town to transition into European client work, have to travel to Belgium to find a house, find a doctor for Eleanor, etc." speech. (I fear that it may sound defensive, now that I put it to paper. Or screen. Whatever.) I repeated it to a former student that afternoon, my son's teacher on Friday, my 93-year-old great grandmother on Saturday night, and to countless neighbors at our annual block party just last night.
Frankly, I am disturbed by my need to explain. It is rooted, I am certain, in my desire to be a professional woman with an identity apart from the household's. (I love our family's identity -- nothing has brought me greater joy than my family. But I like to have my own slice of selfness, too.) It also comes from the shame of the socioeconomic privilege that affords me the chance to essentially work or not without affecting the family's bottom line too much. I suppose a little bit of me wants to emphasize, too, that I did not burn out or flunk out (or get booted out of) my noble profession. It was my choice, I want to say to the neighbors. And it maybe was not my first choice for this year, either.
But if I write more about this, my dear husband, who is in Cambridge right now, will call and say for the umpteenth time, "Maybe we shouldn't move to Brussels. Maybe we should stay here so you can work." And I will have to explain to this true gentleman, this amazing man who has picked me to love, that a year of the tension of time and explanation is a small investment toward a future of adventure.
Friday, August 15, 2008
Sleeping In Strategy
Ethan has always been an early riser. And since Scott and I are both natural nightowls, we suffered under his nasty five-to-six a.m. awakenings.
Until now . . .
(This sounds like an infomercial script.)
The key to getting your kid to sleep in is to take him six time zones to the east, let him stay up until eleven o'clock each night and sleep to nine in the morning, and bring him home to four more weeks of summer vacation. Finally, we sleep in.
Next week: Undoing Six Weeks of Time Readjustment for the Start of School.
Until now . . .
(This sounds like an infomercial script.)
The key to getting your kid to sleep in is to take him six time zones to the east, let him stay up until eleven o'clock each night and sleep to nine in the morning, and bring him home to four more weeks of summer vacation. Finally, we sleep in.
Next week: Undoing Six Weeks of Time Readjustment for the Start of School.
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