I should take Facebook breaks more often. I promised myself I wouldn’t read it at all this week, and I didn’t. I actually do think that made a measurable difference in my general attitude. Obviously I have plenty of fun on Facebook; I post quite a bit myself, and it seems to be the way to keep in touch with anyone I don’t actually happen to see every day. (E-mail? Phone calls? Letters? What are those?) But a little over a week ago I found myself muttering out loud at the computer screen things like, “Have you ever met a soapbox you didn’t love?” and “You know what, everyone has a hard job.” (I do think there’s some truth to the idea that the things that bother you are the things you tend to do or find in yourself. I know perfectly well that I have my own well-worn soapboxes, and I’m just as capable of dramatic martyrdom as the next person -- but I also know that posting a meme with a smug little caption is unlikely to do anything but get “likes” from people who already agree with me, and I don’t think I do myself any favors if I try to win the “I’m busier than everyone else” competition. No one has ever offered to make me an award, which makes me a little bitter.)
At this point in the year, when I’m really just enjoying my job and my life, when my sophomores are turning into really cool people and I can see the end of the year from here, I just can’t deal with people’s opinions about the State of Education. I just can’t. I don’t want to talk about Common Core with someone who read one article about it somewhere and suddenly has very strange ideas about what goes on in my classroom. I don’t have the mental space for a ton of righteous indignation when I’m busy getting ready for my students’ poetry performances. And sometimes I reach a point where I just cannot read another article about parenting or car seats or what kind of food we should be feeding our kids. I have opinions about all of these things, and they are objectively important, I suppose, but sometimes I really just want to tell everyone that instead of cooking a beautiful organic dinner after a couple of hours of crafting or taking my kids on a field trip to a local museum or farm or whatever, I made them go play in the (safely fenced!) backyard while I stayed inside, poured myself a glass of wine, and made them dinner out of a box. And I’m not sorry.
What I’m saying is that when I find myself muttering out loud at a computer screen and actually walking into my “real” life feeling annoyed or even angry, or when I find myself disliking people online when I quite like them face-to-face, it’s probably time for a little breathing space. And breathe I did. It has been a wonderful, restorative week -- a break in every sense of the word. We stayed home this year, but I decided that each day we would do something special. We rode the Tacoma Link, ate cupcakes, visited used bookstores, wandered through Pike Place Market, rode on the Great Seattle Wheel, ate lunch in tiny cafes that served, for instance, excellent brie-and-tomato sandwiches (for me) and perfect peanut butter and honey (for Zannah), and took some nature walks. I carved out a little kid-free time with a couple of friends, finished reading a few novels (all of you should run, not walk, to pick up a copy of A Constellation of Vital Phenomena), and watched the Veronica Mars movie (which I loved). This afternoon, I managed a four-mile run in the sunshine, followed by late-afternoon coffee in Seattle while Matt took the kids to REI and a family dinner at Veggie Grill, which is always where the kids want to go when we say, “Hey, where should we eat tonight?” (It’s one of my favorites, too, so no complaints here.)
Life was still normal enough to provide plenty of laundry, bickering between my children, appointments and errands, floors in need of vacuuming, bedtime battles, and a broken lawn mower. I’ve put off most of my “to do” list so that it all needs to happen, oh, tomorrow. But somehow, that bit of daily reality kept me grounded enough to appreciate the moments in which we stepped outside of our ordinary routines every day.
This morning on the radio I listened to a bit on the Benedictine notion of time -- that there is enough time in each day for work, for prayer, for rest, and for play. I started a new writing workshop this weekend, one that will fill up all of the cracks of “spare” time in my day for the next few months. It is a gift that I get to do this. It will actually require that I carve out time I don’t ever think I have, and that will require that I limit the noise I allow in my life. Maybe this week was just training for that.
Sunday, April 13, 2014
Friday, April 4, 2014
More than enough
When I step outside in the more subdued moments of the early morning, or just as the sky darkens in the evening, I just stop and breathe. The spring air is full of rain, pine, and cherry blossoms. It smells like heaven.
Today is my husband’s birthday. The kids and I drove up to West Seattle to meet him after work. We went out for dinner and desert, and I hope he felt as loved and appreciated as he is. Both Suzannah and Isaac remembered to tell him Happy Birthday! before school this morning, and this afternoon they made him homemade birthday cards, which they were terribly excited to give him. We hadn’t even opened our menus at dinner before they were insisting that he open them. (And when we arrived back at home, Isaac said, “Daddy, I’ll show you where we kept your present!” So much for my standard hiding place.)
Suzannah’s spring concert was last night. I love so many things about this age, not the least of which is that seven-year-olds are still so thrilled to look out at an audience and see their people watching them. Suzannah filed in, her new dress swinging around her knees. She found her spot on the riser and then, like all the other second-graders, scanned the room. When her eyes lit upon her dad, her brother, her auntie and uncle, and me--all waving and grinning--she broke into a grin of her own and waved back.
The kids gave an enthusiastic performance and I smiled so hard it hurt. Actually, watching my little girl singing up there made me tear up a bit for about half of the first song. She’s shy at first, always--trying to suppress her smile while she sings. But then she’s totally into it, moving her body, singing her heart out. So much joyful noise. And afterwards there are hugs all around, hugs for her teacher, pictures with her best friends, and a trip to Dairy Queen.
Isaac promised earnestly that he would be a good listener, and, indeed, he was. Afterwards, in the car, he turned to his sister and said, quite earnestly, “Zannah, I liked your singin'.” And she replied, “Thank you, Isaac!”
They burst my heart in so many little ways every day. It is almost too much to bear.
Spring Break began for Suzannah and me this afternoon. We're staying home this year. I am a bit wistful, remembering last April's trip to Montana, but I am also looking forward to some agenda-free days right here. Suzannah is excited for “Girl Days” and I intend to plan some outings for the two of us. Tacoma one day, Seattle another. A couple of bookstores. The library. I love my children together but I also cherish the time I spend with each of them alone, and it's important to me that I make time for that. Earlier this week I took Isaac out for a little “date” at Starbucks, just the two of us, and watching him swing his feet above the floor while he sucked down his milk and inhaled his petite vanilla bean scone (so different than the way Suzannah eats hers, by picking off the frosting and nibbling it slowly), I wished so hard that I could slow time enough to cup that moment in my hands and keep it a little longer.
After Isaac was born and I found myself at home with a preschooler and a newborn, I learned immediately that the key to my sanity was getting out with my children, breathing fresh air, walking. We were blessed with sunny January days that year, and we walked to the park nearly every day. Suzannah was younger than Isaac is now—is that possible? She played on the playground, turned the jungle gym into a ship. I climbed up after her, the baby tucked against my chest in a wrap, and we steered that ship together before walking back down the street, towards Starbucks. We each nibbled our little vanilla scones. She sipped her milk, and I sipped my hot chocolate. By the time Isaac woke to fuss it was time to wander home again, where I would nurse him on the couch before making lunch for Suzannah. In my memory, these moments still seem so close—but then I might flip through three-year-old photographs and see my daughter's little face, still rounded from babyhood, and superimposed over the image of her now, I'm suddenly disoriented. Not sad, not really, because the life we're living right now is too sweet for that, but there is a bittersweetness and the merest twinge of desperation. To notice it all, to hold it, to be grateful.
So we don't have big plans for break. That's okay. I am going to read novels that I want to read, which is something I do all the time—motherhood especially has taught me to read and write in the spaces I never noticed before, the little cracks of time in my day that I must have wasted before—but I want to curl up in the afternoons while the kids play and read for an hour without thinking about making sure lunches are packed and my papers are graded and lessons are planned and permission slips are filled out. I want to tuck the kids into bed and read until I can't stay awake any longer.
I want to fall asleep without setting an alarm because I don't need to be up and showered before the kids wake up.
I'm starting a new writing class at the end of the week--one that will last for the next few months--and it has nothing at all to do with my job.
I am going to go for solitary runs in the cool evening air, even if it is raining, because I love the cherry blossoms that fall over the sidewalks like I love the falling leaves in autumn.
I am going to take a complete break from Facebook, because while I have fun posting there, it is also noise that I don’t need this week.
I am going to be content, grateful, and present in this simple, beautiful life. If that’s what this break gives me, even without an “escape” to a hotel (because I do love those!) or a trip to my beloved hometown, then that is more than enough.
Today is my husband’s birthday. The kids and I drove up to West Seattle to meet him after work. We went out for dinner and desert, and I hope he felt as loved and appreciated as he is. Both Suzannah and Isaac remembered to tell him Happy Birthday! before school this morning, and this afternoon they made him homemade birthday cards, which they were terribly excited to give him. We hadn’t even opened our menus at dinner before they were insisting that he open them. (And when we arrived back at home, Isaac said, “Daddy, I’ll show you where we kept your present!” So much for my standard hiding place.)
Suzannah’s spring concert was last night. I love so many things about this age, not the least of which is that seven-year-olds are still so thrilled to look out at an audience and see their people watching them. Suzannah filed in, her new dress swinging around her knees. She found her spot on the riser and then, like all the other second-graders, scanned the room. When her eyes lit upon her dad, her brother, her auntie and uncle, and me--all waving and grinning--she broke into a grin of her own and waved back.
The kids gave an enthusiastic performance and I smiled so hard it hurt. Actually, watching my little girl singing up there made me tear up a bit for about half of the first song. She’s shy at first, always--trying to suppress her smile while she sings. But then she’s totally into it, moving her body, singing her heart out. So much joyful noise. And afterwards there are hugs all around, hugs for her teacher, pictures with her best friends, and a trip to Dairy Queen.
Isaac promised earnestly that he would be a good listener, and, indeed, he was. Afterwards, in the car, he turned to his sister and said, quite earnestly, “Zannah, I liked your singin'.” And she replied, “Thank you, Isaac!”
They burst my heart in so many little ways every day. It is almost too much to bear.
Spring Break began for Suzannah and me this afternoon. We're staying home this year. I am a bit wistful, remembering last April's trip to Montana, but I am also looking forward to some agenda-free days right here. Suzannah is excited for “Girl Days” and I intend to plan some outings for the two of us. Tacoma one day, Seattle another. A couple of bookstores. The library. I love my children together but I also cherish the time I spend with each of them alone, and it's important to me that I make time for that. Earlier this week I took Isaac out for a little “date” at Starbucks, just the two of us, and watching him swing his feet above the floor while he sucked down his milk and inhaled his petite vanilla bean scone (so different than the way Suzannah eats hers, by picking off the frosting and nibbling it slowly), I wished so hard that I could slow time enough to cup that moment in my hands and keep it a little longer.
After Isaac was born and I found myself at home with a preschooler and a newborn, I learned immediately that the key to my sanity was getting out with my children, breathing fresh air, walking. We were blessed with sunny January days that year, and we walked to the park nearly every day. Suzannah was younger than Isaac is now—is that possible? She played on the playground, turned the jungle gym into a ship. I climbed up after her, the baby tucked against my chest in a wrap, and we steered that ship together before walking back down the street, towards Starbucks. We each nibbled our little vanilla scones. She sipped her milk, and I sipped my hot chocolate. By the time Isaac woke to fuss it was time to wander home again, where I would nurse him on the couch before making lunch for Suzannah. In my memory, these moments still seem so close—but then I might flip through three-year-old photographs and see my daughter's little face, still rounded from babyhood, and superimposed over the image of her now, I'm suddenly disoriented. Not sad, not really, because the life we're living right now is too sweet for that, but there is a bittersweetness and the merest twinge of desperation. To notice it all, to hold it, to be grateful.
So we don't have big plans for break. That's okay. I am going to read novels that I want to read, which is something I do all the time—motherhood especially has taught me to read and write in the spaces I never noticed before, the little cracks of time in my day that I must have wasted before—but I want to curl up in the afternoons while the kids play and read for an hour without thinking about making sure lunches are packed and my papers are graded and lessons are planned and permission slips are filled out. I want to tuck the kids into bed and read until I can't stay awake any longer.
I want to fall asleep without setting an alarm because I don't need to be up and showered before the kids wake up.
I'm starting a new writing class at the end of the week--one that will last for the next few months--and it has nothing at all to do with my job.
I am going to go for solitary runs in the cool evening air, even if it is raining, because I love the cherry blossoms that fall over the sidewalks like I love the falling leaves in autumn.
I am going to take a complete break from Facebook, because while I have fun posting there, it is also noise that I don’t need this week.
I am going to be content, grateful, and present in this simple, beautiful life. If that’s what this break gives me, even without an “escape” to a hotel (because I do love those!) or a trip to my beloved hometown, then that is more than enough.
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