September has always been so fraught for me with nervous energy and promise. Before I even started school myself, the atmosphere changed in our house as August waned because my mother's school year was starting. And because I went back to graduate school in between my own college graduation and the birth and eventual first day of school of my oldest daughter, there have been few consecutive years when there wasn't that amped up feeling, that shifting of molecules that has nothing whatsoever to do with the cooler air and lack of humidity.
September is change, it is newness, it is hiking yourself to your feet after a languorous rest, no matter how you spent your summer months. Suddenly, everything is faster, brighter, more urgent; because I am me, inexorably me, there is an inevitable edge to my excitement. And now, there is Annika's birthday--the annual reminder of this insane, wonderful decision that I made to do this all over again in spite of my conflicted feelings the first time around--and--in honor of the swirling, edgy, elation that is my relationship to this decision, there is Annika's birthday party.
This year, I decided to do a harvest dinner on the roof for just family--Ben's family, my family, us. We brought in all of the vegetables and fruits from the garden: zucchini and patty pan squash, beans, cucumbers, eggplant, onions, shallots, cantaloupe, and armfuls of tomatoes in a dozen hues, from the tiniest currant variety to Brandywines nearly as big as Annika's head. And herbs: basil, thyme, parsley, chives, cilantro, and tarragon. And with the exception of an exceptional fillet of beef provided by my sister (for which I concocted an herb and shallot mayonnaise using the herbs and shallots I had grown), and some shrimp because, well, it always seems like a good idea to have some shrimp, each dish featured ingredients we had grown ourselves.
Is my self-congratulatory tone coming through? I felt proud, I will confess, and please, no need to egg me on here with words of praise; I'm doing it myself, cutting you off at the pass. Not just for the garden-centered meal, which represented a full day's hard work, and yes, a summer's investment of time and love, but for this year--for surviving this year--perhaps the hardest of my life, in so many ways. This year, among so many other things that have happened, I became a mother of two, and it has been the hardest, most excruciating transition. I know here I am supposed to add that it has also been the best thing I ever did, because people always say that after they say how hard parenting is, but the truth is, although Lily and Annika seem to me to be exemplary children, whether or not raising them is the best or most rewarding thing I ever do remains to be seen.
I realize how much I am my mother's daughter when I feel compelled to add: I kind of hope not. Or rather, I hope it is only one of many best and rewarding accomplishments that require all kinds of investments on my part over the mad, erratic, unpredictable course of a lifetime. I'd like to think I'm raising them to want for me nothing less. And as the year--the way I always view it (no New Year's Eve resolutions for me)--rolls to an end and just as quickly takes off like a race car--I would like to add that I desire nothing less for them.
Sunday, September 7, 2008
Saturday, September 6, 2008
No Room of One's Own...Yet
Tonight I put my two daughters to sleep...in the same room. Although "the two daughters" part of that sentence still gives me pause (that's my parents, not me!), the part of the sentence I am going to focus on here is the "in the same room."
Alison and I never shared a bedroom, not really. In our first house, where we lived until I was seven, my parents converted a little nook off the kitchen maybe meant to be a pantry or a laundry room into a bedroom for Alison. My room, which had pink walls, and the little desk my grandfather made, and a big closet, was probably big enough for both of us, as I remember it, but for some reason this never happened. I don't remember it ever being discussed.
And when we moved to the house my parents still live in today, we were allowed to choose our own bedrooms. I am not sure how this happened, as at that time if we were presented with two identical pistachio nuts we would have managed to fight over which had a smoother shell, but perhaps we were each subtly directed toward the room that my parents had already decided would be ours, and somehow the strategy worked. Regardless, we each had our own, and over time it became clear that we had chosen--or been chosen for--well. My room was so perfectly mine, with its long bookshelf in the closet and the window that looked out over the field, and Alison's, with the big walk-in closet and room enough for a pink velvet chair, so perfectly hers.
Occasionally, we used to sleep in Alison' closet, in sleeping bags, but more than that I remember being so grateful for my own room, my own space, a door that I could shut when I needed to. I remember that bedroom, and even my first bedroom, as a sanctuary. Which is why it seems funny that I was so desperate to get Annika into Lily's, and so surprised that Lily jumped so enthusiastically onboard. In fact, when she tiptoed into the room during Annika's nap to get something, and I told her that if she wouldn't let Annika sleep I would have to take out the crib, she wailed, "Nooooo, Mama! You can't take Annika away from our bedroom!" Hmmm.
Now granted, Lily is 4 1/2, and once in her crib, Annika can't really get out and, say, "borrow" her favorite earrings to wear to the seventh grade formal or take the last piece of gum from the "secret" candy box on her bureau. Lily only very occasional craves privacy, and even on those occasions, largely for show, it is for a matter of moments. This, can be easily arranged. And Annika is years too young to realize that not much more than the diapers in this shared room are actually hers, and to desire her own things, let alone four walls enclosing a space that is hers in which to store and arrange them.
I am thinking of this as an experiment in sisterhood, to be honest. So far, report from Day One: Total success.
Alison and I never shared a bedroom, not really. In our first house, where we lived until I was seven, my parents converted a little nook off the kitchen maybe meant to be a pantry or a laundry room into a bedroom for Alison. My room, which had pink walls, and the little desk my grandfather made, and a big closet, was probably big enough for both of us, as I remember it, but for some reason this never happened. I don't remember it ever being discussed.
And when we moved to the house my parents still live in today, we were allowed to choose our own bedrooms. I am not sure how this happened, as at that time if we were presented with two identical pistachio nuts we would have managed to fight over which had a smoother shell, but perhaps we were each subtly directed toward the room that my parents had already decided would be ours, and somehow the strategy worked. Regardless, we each had our own, and over time it became clear that we had chosen--or been chosen for--well. My room was so perfectly mine, with its long bookshelf in the closet and the window that looked out over the field, and Alison's, with the big walk-in closet and room enough for a pink velvet chair, so perfectly hers.
Occasionally, we used to sleep in Alison' closet, in sleeping bags, but more than that I remember being so grateful for my own room, my own space, a door that I could shut when I needed to. I remember that bedroom, and even my first bedroom, as a sanctuary. Which is why it seems funny that I was so desperate to get Annika into Lily's, and so surprised that Lily jumped so enthusiastically onboard. In fact, when she tiptoed into the room during Annika's nap to get something, and I told her that if she wouldn't let Annika sleep I would have to take out the crib, she wailed, "Nooooo, Mama! You can't take Annika away from our bedroom!" Hmmm.
Now granted, Lily is 4 1/2, and once in her crib, Annika can't really get out and, say, "borrow" her favorite earrings to wear to the seventh grade formal or take the last piece of gum from the "secret" candy box on her bureau. Lily only very occasional craves privacy, and even on those occasions, largely for show, it is for a matter of moments. This, can be easily arranged. And Annika is years too young to realize that not much more than the diapers in this shared room are actually hers, and to desire her own things, let alone four walls enclosing a space that is hers in which to store and arrange them.
I am thinking of this as an experiment in sisterhood, to be honest. So far, report from Day One: Total success.
Friday, September 5, 2008
Lip Smacker
In her comment on yesterday's post a friend referred to the Bonnie Bell lip smackers sold at my town's drug store, and the mere mention opened a floodgate for me. Of course: the lip smackers. I had forgotten all about them, but they were important to me too. Not to mention the fact that they so vividly conjure up fifth grade: whose hair feathered perfectly, who had the most turtlenecks with little hearts printed on them, whose barrettes best matched her corduroys--boy, was fifth grade in my hometown a shallow experience.
I am trying to remember what I learned in fifth grade. I know I wrote and performed a play with two other girls, but that was on our own volition. I have to say, I don't remember what we studied in any subject. I do, however, remember the social intricacies and the clothing and those sickly sweet, pastel colored tubes of lip gloss in nauseating flavors such as Bubble Gum and Root Beer. There were big, fat, thick tubes, and smaller skinny tubes, and even skinny tubes on rope that could be worn around your neck like a necklace. A very popular girl in the sixth grade whose hair did feather perfectly, and who was a whiz on roller skates (especially to Michael Jackson's "Thriller"), and who kept a comb in the back pocket of her designer jeans wore one of these, and if you ever walked by her in the hallway or glanced her way at a school function, she would inevitably be applying a fresh coat.
And it is always said that smell is the most powerful sense, and at various points I have scoffed at this, but certain smells--those scented markers from the White House Preschool, the heavily chlorinated pool where I first had swimming lessons, and the thick-tubed, pink-hued Bubble Gum Bonnie Bell lip smacker from the Post Road Apothecary--leave me no doubt. I love this, that someone else's memory can bring me back an entire year of school: the year I was in a school bus accident and broke my ribs and had to sleep with a heating pad, the year two friends made a club against me, the year I saw Brian's Song in the school gymnasium, and on and on and on.
Thanks, Betsy. Thanks, Bonnie Bell.
I am trying to remember what I learned in fifth grade. I know I wrote and performed a play with two other girls, but that was on our own volition. I have to say, I don't remember what we studied in any subject. I do, however, remember the social intricacies and the clothing and those sickly sweet, pastel colored tubes of lip gloss in nauseating flavors such as Bubble Gum and Root Beer. There were big, fat, thick tubes, and smaller skinny tubes, and even skinny tubes on rope that could be worn around your neck like a necklace. A very popular girl in the sixth grade whose hair did feather perfectly, and who was a whiz on roller skates (especially to Michael Jackson's "Thriller"), and who kept a comb in the back pocket of her designer jeans wore one of these, and if you ever walked by her in the hallway or glanced her way at a school function, she would inevitably be applying a fresh coat.
And it is always said that smell is the most powerful sense, and at various points I have scoffed at this, but certain smells--those scented markers from the White House Preschool, the heavily chlorinated pool where I first had swimming lessons, and the thick-tubed, pink-hued Bubble Gum Bonnie Bell lip smacker from the Post Road Apothecary--leave me no doubt. I love this, that someone else's memory can bring me back an entire year of school: the year I was in a school bus accident and broke my ribs and had to sleep with a heating pad, the year two friends made a club against me, the year I saw Brian's Song in the school gymnasium, and on and on and on.
Thanks, Betsy. Thanks, Bonnie Bell.
Losing Steam
Have hit some kind of a wall--am not getting any enjoyment these days from writing. I am forcing myself right now, and I mean forcing because I actually got out of the chair three times to go to bed, and I can't even really remember why. I am going to think about this overnight and see if I can figure out a way out of this.
But for some reason I just remembered how on Saturday mornings, when I was growing up, my father used to take us to the town dump to drop off our garbage; this was how it was done. Afterward, we would stop at the Post Road Apothecary, the town drug store, where we would each be allowed to choose a candy bar. I loved going to the drug store. It was nothing like CVS or Rite Aid or today's big chains where you can buy everything from office supplies to hair dryers to canned soup and cameras. The drug store sold greeting cards, band-aids, cotton balls, hair brushes, medicine and candy.
The candy was the focal point, of course, although I logged plenty of time perusing the greeting cards, and although Alison chose something different almost every time, I almost always chose the same thing: a Charleston Chew. This was for several reasons. One, because I am, and was, a creature of habit. Two, because it is the longest candy bar, and therefore I believed I was getting the best possible deal out of my choice. And three, I liked the whole freezing it and cracking it into pieces for reasons related to number two, i.e. it made the candy bar, and the experience of eating it, last longer.
Anyway. Saturday morning candy bars from Post Road Apothecary. That's all I've got tonight.
But for some reason I just remembered how on Saturday mornings, when I was growing up, my father used to take us to the town dump to drop off our garbage; this was how it was done. Afterward, we would stop at the Post Road Apothecary, the town drug store, where we would each be allowed to choose a candy bar. I loved going to the drug store. It was nothing like CVS or Rite Aid or today's big chains where you can buy everything from office supplies to hair dryers to canned soup and cameras. The drug store sold greeting cards, band-aids, cotton balls, hair brushes, medicine and candy.
The candy was the focal point, of course, although I logged plenty of time perusing the greeting cards, and although Alison chose something different almost every time, I almost always chose the same thing: a Charleston Chew. This was for several reasons. One, because I am, and was, a creature of habit. Two, because it is the longest candy bar, and therefore I believed I was getting the best possible deal out of my choice. And three, I liked the whole freezing it and cracking it into pieces for reasons related to number two, i.e. it made the candy bar, and the experience of eating it, last longer.
Anyway. Saturday morning candy bars from Post Road Apothecary. That's all I've got tonight.
Thursday, September 4, 2008
One
It's the middle of the night, and I can't sleep, and it just occurred to me that exactly one year ago from this very minute I was sitting in my apartment, wide awake, both willing dawn to arrive and praying it wouldn't. Tomorrow, or rather today, is Annika's birthday.
Because of the complications of Lily's birth, I had to schedule Annika's birth two weeks before my actual due date. It seems so long ago now, but there were choices, and I agonized over them. Did I want to have the C-section before Labor Day? The arduous, anxious pregnancy would be over sooner, but the hospital staff would all be at the beach. I decided to wait until after the holiday weekend. The night before I was to go into the hospital I couldn't sleep at all. I sat on the reclining chair reading for a while, then just sat. Although the apartment was full--my family was here--it was quiet and still.
I remember being grateful that the feeling afraid was about to end, one way or another, because all along I'd known that the surgery could be dangerous for me, and I remember trying, desperately, to imagine Annika. Of course, I couldn't do it. All I could envision was a baby Lily, the baby Lily had been, with a feature or two tweaked, but I could no more imagine an entirely different baby, her own person, than I could make myself fall asleep. I pushed open the door to Lily's room. She was sound asleep. I tried to imagine how her life was going to change, and mine, and I couldn't do that either. All I could imagine was the two of us, going on as we had, with a prop baby off to one side, as though we'd just happened to pop Baby Ann, Lily's largest doll, into my handbag.
In the morning I was exhausted. Fueled by adrenaline, we got ourselves to the hospital. There was a lot of lying around on gurneys, shots, explanations of what was going to happen. It was cold; I was cold, pretty much at every stage of the process. And I steeled myself to remain alert. Lily's birth had been an excruciating, terrifying blur; this was cold and clinical, yes, but I'd be damned if I wasn't going to be fully present.
When the doctor held the baby up over the sheet so I could see her, I tried to focus but only got a fragmented view: her skin looked much darker than I'd expected, I saw brown hair, squinted eyes, tiny squared-off feet. Annika, I thought. She didn't look like her ultrasound picture. She didn't looked like Lily. She looked like herself.
It is the ultimate cliche to note that it's astonishing what can happen in a year. Barring unforeseen circumstances, I will not have to go to the hospital in the morning. But I will have to get up at 6:30 to give breakfast to my one-year-old girl. I think tonight, now, I may just be able to sleep.
Because of the complications of Lily's birth, I had to schedule Annika's birth two weeks before my actual due date. It seems so long ago now, but there were choices, and I agonized over them. Did I want to have the C-section before Labor Day? The arduous, anxious pregnancy would be over sooner, but the hospital staff would all be at the beach. I decided to wait until after the holiday weekend. The night before I was to go into the hospital I couldn't sleep at all. I sat on the reclining chair reading for a while, then just sat. Although the apartment was full--my family was here--it was quiet and still.
I remember being grateful that the feeling afraid was about to end, one way or another, because all along I'd known that the surgery could be dangerous for me, and I remember trying, desperately, to imagine Annika. Of course, I couldn't do it. All I could envision was a baby Lily, the baby Lily had been, with a feature or two tweaked, but I could no more imagine an entirely different baby, her own person, than I could make myself fall asleep. I pushed open the door to Lily's room. She was sound asleep. I tried to imagine how her life was going to change, and mine, and I couldn't do that either. All I could imagine was the two of us, going on as we had, with a prop baby off to one side, as though we'd just happened to pop Baby Ann, Lily's largest doll, into my handbag.
In the morning I was exhausted. Fueled by adrenaline, we got ourselves to the hospital. There was a lot of lying around on gurneys, shots, explanations of what was going to happen. It was cold; I was cold, pretty much at every stage of the process. And I steeled myself to remain alert. Lily's birth had been an excruciating, terrifying blur; this was cold and clinical, yes, but I'd be damned if I wasn't going to be fully present.
When the doctor held the baby up over the sheet so I could see her, I tried to focus but only got a fragmented view: her skin looked much darker than I'd expected, I saw brown hair, squinted eyes, tiny squared-off feet. Annika, I thought. She didn't look like her ultrasound picture. She didn't looked like Lily. She looked like herself.
It is the ultimate cliche to note that it's astonishing what can happen in a year. Barring unforeseen circumstances, I will not have to go to the hospital in the morning. But I will have to get up at 6:30 to give breakfast to my one-year-old girl. I think tonight, now, I may just be able to sleep.
Wednesday, September 3, 2008
Monday, September 1, 2008
The Multigenerational Dinner Party
Modern life is so segregated. By this I mean that we tend to socialize only with others in our age group, give or take a few years, and this--I feel--is a shame.
One of the high points of my Labor Day weekend was a multigenerational dinner party, hosted in the country by one of my oldest friends. When said friend, and her gracious husband, invited us for dinner, I declined, explaining that my parents and grandmother would be staying with us for the weekend. Although I have known this friend for about twenty-seven years, it did not so much as occur to me to accept a dinner invitation on behalf of the seven of us.
My friend thought this was foolish. Of course you will all come, she insisted, so at six o'clock on Saturday evening, the seven of us arrived, in two cars, ranging in age from almost one to going on ninety-three. My friends, who have two girls of their own, had another friend visiting for the weekend, so altogether, there were twelve of us, which in itself was not unusual. Most of us have been to a dinner party of a dozen before. Ho hum. However, when is the last time, when it wasn't Thanksgiving or another family holiday meal, that you sat around a table laden with excellent food and wine and conversed with a lively, witty crew whose ages spanned nearly a century?
I can't remember another occasion. And it was a perfect night: our host, who hails from Barcelona, made bread toasted and rubbed with ripe tomatoes, salt and olive oil, and gazpacho prepared in the traditional way with egg and croutons, and best of all an enormous seafood paella, cooked outdoors. Our hostess roasted two kinds of figs, which she served with Greek yogurt and honey. We had white wine and rose after gin and tonics on the screened-in porch, and the four girls played in the grass as we ate pistachios and homemade cheese spread. And we talked about politics, and shellfish, and books, and more politics, and it grew dark behind us, and the little ones drifted off and upstairs, where their happy, sleepy voices could be heard behind the steady buzz of conversation at the table, and I felt very fortunate, in my grandmother, who is young enough still to sneak a little extra rose when my mother is out of the room, and in my old friend, who insisted on including everybody, and for an evening when I wasn't secretly thinking to myself that we all knew everything each other had to say.
The Multigenerational Dinner Party: Its time has come.
One of the high points of my Labor Day weekend was a multigenerational dinner party, hosted in the country by one of my oldest friends. When said friend, and her gracious husband, invited us for dinner, I declined, explaining that my parents and grandmother would be staying with us for the weekend. Although I have known this friend for about twenty-seven years, it did not so much as occur to me to accept a dinner invitation on behalf of the seven of us.
My friend thought this was foolish. Of course you will all come, she insisted, so at six o'clock on Saturday evening, the seven of us arrived, in two cars, ranging in age from almost one to going on ninety-three. My friends, who have two girls of their own, had another friend visiting for the weekend, so altogether, there were twelve of us, which in itself was not unusual. Most of us have been to a dinner party of a dozen before. Ho hum. However, when is the last time, when it wasn't Thanksgiving or another family holiday meal, that you sat around a table laden with excellent food and wine and conversed with a lively, witty crew whose ages spanned nearly a century?
I can't remember another occasion. And it was a perfect night: our host, who hails from Barcelona, made bread toasted and rubbed with ripe tomatoes, salt and olive oil, and gazpacho prepared in the traditional way with egg and croutons, and best of all an enormous seafood paella, cooked outdoors. Our hostess roasted two kinds of figs, which she served with Greek yogurt and honey. We had white wine and rose after gin and tonics on the screened-in porch, and the four girls played in the grass as we ate pistachios and homemade cheese spread. And we talked about politics, and shellfish, and books, and more politics, and it grew dark behind us, and the little ones drifted off and upstairs, where their happy, sleepy voices could be heard behind the steady buzz of conversation at the table, and I felt very fortunate, in my grandmother, who is young enough still to sneak a little extra rose when my mother is out of the room, and in my old friend, who insisted on including everybody, and for an evening when I wasn't secretly thinking to myself that we all knew everything each other had to say.
The Multigenerational Dinner Party: Its time has come.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)