Spoiled Only Child

More pointless musings on the meaning of life

I am on vacation! A real one, the kind where I don't have to go to work. Mia and I are leaving to visit my parents on Wednesday, but these past two days I have been true to my word. The farthest I've ventured is the Asian market in the next town over, the park on the north end of our city. I am loving the freedom of days at home, with Mia in daycare, to do whatever I want. I so rarely have days like this, because of my compulsion to go places. The idea of having time off work and not going someplace, anyplace, has always been unthinkable for me. But the idea that these days are completely free and open is a bit of a lie. Because I have been unable to resist the pull of the list. Since I never have time like this, I have to make the most of it. In fact, the only reason I am writing this blog post is because I am a bit ahead of schedule for today. You see, blogging wasn't in the schedule, but I'm stealing this little bit of time because I finished my gardening early.

I am crazy, aren't I? There is nothing wrong with getting things done, but there is something wrong with always worrying about the next thing on the list, to the point where it's sometimes difficult to enjoy the thing you are actually doing. I was watching a documentary the other night, and a woman made this observation about life, "It's all a tragedy. It's just a matter of how you get through it." Truer words were never spoken. My college Shakespeare professor once said that the only difference between tragedy and comedy was time. In a tragedy, they run out of time--to make things right or to uncover the truth or to do the right thing. And that is really the tragedy of life. That there is never enough time. Things could be perfect if we just had time to finish everything on the to do list.

I realize now that all my life I've been struggling against time, swimming against the constant overwhelming feeling that I have so much left to do, that the seconds are ticking away and every one counts. I have been making lists and crossing things off, trying to get ahead in a race I will never win. And I suppose that I will go on struggling to find the balance between too much and not enough, to feel that I am not wasting my precious too-short tragedy of a life.

Summer vacation, revised

This summer vacation I had planned? Let's just say I'm revising my plans a bit. This thing is becoming a staycation. I am starting to feel that all efforts to leave my home are cursed. First we had the Memorial Day beach debacle. Then, a couple weeks ago, we took a camping trip along the Blue Ridge Parkway. On the first night in the campground, Mia would not go to sleep. For hours and hours she thrashed around, adjusting her sleeping bag over and over and over, yelling "It's not right!" Nothing on this earth could make that sleeping bag right. Finally, it was almost midnight, we were desperate to go to sleep, and Mr. SOC kind of lost it. Actually, we both did. Really, anyone in their right mind would have been insane by that point. So Mr. SOC tells Mia that she's going to have to sleep in the car, and he starts angrily removing her from the tent as she screams. And I'm trying to intervene and tell him to calm down, and at some point in the flailing, I accidentally get hit in the face, so I'm yelling "Ouch!" After a couple minutes, we get things calmed down, and I think the whole scene scared Mia straight, because she laid down and went to sleep. A few minutes later, as we're ready to finally go to sleep, a couple of sheriff's deputies show up at our tent. Apparently, our campground neighbors thought we were child abusers. The deputies threatened to take us to jail, and insisted on checking on Mia (to make sure she was alive, I guess) before finally leaving us. Making the whole situation even better was that Mia had a giant bandage on her forehead because she had fallen in the driveway a few days earlier and needed stitches.

 And that brings us to yesterday, when I decided it would be a good idea to take a day trip to the beach. Mia had had another night of sleep similar to the one in the tent (WTF?), and we hadn't slept much either. But we decide to drag our asses there anyway. Can't miss out on fun! We drive two and a half hours there, haul our stuff onto the sand, and spend maybe 20 minutes before Mia starts crying. She has developed a mortal fear of the water and won't go near it. Then she starts complaining about her eye. It's red and watering, and it's just not getting better. She's crying and crying, her nose is running, we don't have any tissues. After about a half hour of that, we packed up our stuff, got back in the car and went home. Fail!

For some reason I am compelled to go places. To the beach, camping, sailing. I don't fully understand this need, considering the stress of packing, driving, getting Mia to sleep, and just the general stress of traveling. I guess I feel that if I'm sitting at home, I'm not taking advantage of all the world has to offer. If I stay home, I am complacent, unadventurous, stuck. When we're home, there are always chores to do, dishes to wash, errands to run. When we go away, our weekend becomes a vacation. Plus, I don't want to miss out on anything. If we had gone somewhere, we might have had the time of our lives, but we'll never know if we don't go. Certainly, there is nothing wrong with enjoying camping and the beach. But I'm wondering if this is more of a compulsion with me, a sort of grasping and wanting, a way of trying to fill some hole. Instead of traveling, I should be meditating, learning to feel at peace where I am.

So we're still going on our week's vacation at the beach, and we're still going to visit my family. But no more impromptu trips to the beach for a while. I promise.

Secret summer vacation

Oops, I accidentally posted my half-finished draft earlier. This is the real post:

I have a secret. I'm on summer vacation. No, I wasn't smart enough to become a teacher who gets the summers off. (What was I thinking?) You see, this is a stealth vacation. One that involves going to work. Although, thanks to this thing they're calling a "furlough," I do have one week off in July and two weeks off in August, plus long weekends for the 4th and Labor Day, and a few other ones thrown in there for the hell of it. But mostly, this is a mental vacation from my hopes and expectations and plans for the future. This summer, I am not thinking about my career or all the goals I should be achieving, or what my next job should be. I am just going to work, doing my job, going home, as early as possible. I am not studying Spanish or taking that web design course I meant to sign up for.  I am not fretting about money or the economy or whether I'm going to be laid off. For now, I'm just letting it be a simple equation. I have a job, I go there and do what I have to. Seems so simple, doesn't it?

Here's what I'm devoting my energy to. This summer, I am cooking the season's bountiful produce. Fennel and cucumbers and tomatoes and fresh-from-the soil potatoes. I'm packing picnics to eat at the park. I'm watering my flowers. I'm hanging out at the pool. I'm planning endless budget-friendly trips, camping and days at the beach. I'm knitting Mia the cutest little tank top and skirt combo--in pink, of course. I'm planning to listen to the cicadas and catch lightning bugs with Mia. We're going to go to the neighborhood 4th of July parade, decorate our wagon with red white and blue, maybe get some sparklers. We'll spend a little time visiting family, and we'll spend a week at a big house on the beach in late August. I have a good feeling about this summer. I love vacation.

Serious business

There's something about kids that I don't think anyone understands until they have one. It's how serious they are about play. Things that sound completely ridiculous to grownups are life-and-death kind of important to kids. Things like which cartoon character is on the Pull-Up that they are putting on their ass. If the Pull-Up has Diego instead of Dora, and is blue instead of pink, there will be hell to pay. There will be crying and thrashing and howls of, "But it's not pink!!!" And no, the child will not understand that we were out of Pull-Ups, and Mommy ran to the store, and it was already bed time, and she was frazzled, and the store was out of Dora ones and the Disney Princess ones were not on sale. And Mommy will consider going to a different store at 9 p.m. to get Pull-Ups that have pink on them, because the meltdown will be nuclear.

Mia has this tiny pink stuffed poodle that my mother got her. It is probably 4 inches high and plays a very shrill version of "Happy Birthday" when squeezed. Every night this poodle has to be laid carefully atop a pillow in the hallway outside Mia's room, its head resting on a smaller pillow, its body tucked in to a miniature sleeping bag. It must also have an animal, a pony larger than the poodle itself, to keep it company. Now, this sounds funny, right? But if Mia were not allowed to tuck in her poodle, or if we moved the poodle from its spot, there would be a fit that would be no joke at all. We might all end up in tears.

Just last night, Mia got an Ariel sticker at the doctor's office. (Who's Ariel, you ask? The Little Mermaid, of course.) And it was sparkly and Ariel was wearing a pink dress, and Mia could have cared less that she just had stitches pulled out of her head, because she had the greatest sticker on earth!!! She was on top of the world. All night she was convinced that she was a princess, and she put on her long nightgown that brushes the floor just like Ariel's dress. (We see how well my attempts to shield her from the Disney Princesses are working.) We had to peel the sticker off her shirt and put it on the nightgown. And of course, it didn't stick very well and was lost in the bed just minutes after we turned out the light.

Before we know it, Mr. SOC is upstairs searching the room for a sparkly Ariel sticker while Mia stands in the bed, wailing pathetically, a full hour past her bed time. Soon he's yelling down to me, exasperated, "Do you know where the Ariel sticker is?" And then we are all on the hunt for the no-longer-sticky Ariel sticker. It is fast becoming a full-blown family crisis. Finally, the sticker is found, and stuck to a horse stuffed animal, after attempts to convince her that it would be safer on the bed frame failed miserably. We all breathe a sigh of relief.

But more than an hour later, I go upstairs, and find Mia wide awake in her room. As soon as I step into the room, she gives me a status update on the sticker. "I put the sticker on my pillow," she says, "because it wouldn't stick to the horsie." I nod solemnly, thanking my lucky stars that the sticker is accounted for. This parenting stuff is very serious business indeed.

What I learned in my meditation class

I couldn't sleep Friday night. Guess why? Because I was worried I wouldn't get enough sleep for my all-day meditation class on Saturday. If this is not proof of my insanity, I don't know what is. But, yeah, I took a 7-hour beginning meditation class on Saturday. It was hard, and my back hurt like hell after all that sitting, but I am so glad I did it. Something clicked for me there, and I think that if I keep working on this, I could learn to control the anxiety that keeps my mind always spinning, spinning, spinning with thoughts about tomorrow, next week, next year. I fear that I'll forget it all, so I'm going to write down some of it here. I apologize in advance if I start to sound like a self help author here, but I really do believe this shit.

Do you know what meditation is? I found out that I really didn't. It's being "present in the moment, aware of what is," according to my teacher. It doesn't mean that we are in a state of bliss or a state of non-thinking. It just means that we are willing to accept whatever is right now, whether that be pain, hunger, anxiety, anger, whatever--and that we don't allow ourselves to get caught up in our mind's stories about the future. For instance, our natural tendency, or at least mine, is to think, "My back hurts. What if it doesn't get better? What if I can't go hiking like I planned this weekend? My family will be so disappointed. Our whole weekend will be ruined." But in meditation, we don't get caught up in these stories about what might happen in the future. We just sit with the pain that is here right now. It is the stories, not the actual pain, that cause most of the suffering. The space between the present moment and where our mind is, that space is suffering. 

I have been so caught up in these stories. At night, when I lie down to go to sleep, I think, "What if I can't sleep tonight? What if I'm not able to do what I have to at work? What if I'm tired for this thing that I've been looking forward to for a long time? What if my weekend is ruined? What if, what if, what if?" I always thought the only way to work my way out of this fear was to somehow convince myself that things really would be OK tomorrow. That I would survive, that I would get to sleep again the next night, that it wouldn't suck as much as I was imagining. So I asked the teacher, how can you convince yourself that things are OK when you know in your heart that you're right, that you really are going to feel awful if you don't sleep? 

His answer was a revelation. He said it's not a matter of convincing yourself that tomorrow will be OK. You might feel awful tomorrow, but there's absolutely nothing you can do about it now. So let it go and focus on what's here and now. Right now I am anxious. Right now I feel pressure in my chest.  Right now I am not sleeping. Say to yourself, "I am aware of the tension; I smile to the tension. I am aware of the fear; I smile to the fear." Recognize when your mind starts to spin a story, rather than dealing with what's present in that moment, and refuse to get carried away in it. Bring the focus back to what is happening right now. When you acknowledge and even welcome what you feel in the moment, it somehow makes it more bearable. But when you allow your mind to run off into the future, you become powerless. You have no way to fix a what-if. That's when the real fear, the true suffering, creeps in. That has been my problem. I have been unable, until now, to separate the things happening in the moment from the stories I connected to them.

We are like the sky, he said. We are bright, shining, blue, completely open and still and peaceful. That is our essential nature. The clouds come along and cover that up. They roil the stillness with wind and rain and hail. They sometimes shut out the light completely. The key is not to think we are the clouds. We are always the sky. Our essential nature is unchanged, even in a hurricane. We just watch the clouds roll by, arising, becoming dominant, dissipating. Everything in this life changes — arises and dissipates— except for our essential nature.

At the end of the day, we were sitting in yet another meditation. My back was aching and I was so tired (I didn't sleep, remember?) that I had to keep my eyes open so I wouldn't fall asleep. I was staring at the scuffed tile floor, and my eyes kept finding shapes in it, which was incredibly distracting. One spot looked like a face, so I would shift my eyes somewhere else and see a tiger, then a fish. Dammit! I was thinking, "OK, I've had enough. I'm done. When is this going to end?" And then the teacher began to chant. He chanted these words over and over: "All I ask of you, is to remember me, for loving you." On and on he went, and somewhere in there, my back stopped hurting and I stopped seeing the shapes in the floor and I felt incredibly moved, totally peaceful. It was my first glimpse into that place beyond the clouds. I want more.

To Do: Stop writing these damned lists

Guess what? I'm alone in my house. Alone! Well, Mia is here, but she is upstairs in bed, blessedly quiet. This is such a rare occurrence for me, and I am almost intoxicated with the freedom to sit on my couch alone with this computer and gather my thoughts. I never have time to gather my thoughts, which it occurs to me now, is maybe why I feel like I'm going a little crazy.

Sometimes I feel like there's a tornado in my head, this constant swirling cloud of thoughts and worries about all the millions of things that need to be done. The work obligations, the Spanish studying, the exercising, the meditating, the cleaning, the cooking, the shopping, the gardening, and on and on and on it spins. My way of dealing with it is to write endless To Do lists. There are lists on every scrap of paper in this house. They are shoved into my work bag, piled on the coffee table, stuck to the fridge. They are scrawled on the backs of receipts and those annoying cards cards that come in magazines. You know those tiny envelopes that come attached to a new shirt, they have a button inside? There is one in my nightstand drawer with a miniature To Do list on it. I do it in hopes of calming myself. To stretch a metaphor, it's kind of like yanking the debris out of the tornado, so it doesn't keep going around and around, hitting me in the head every time. If I put it on the list, I can take it out of my head.

But I'm not sure this method is working out. Because my life is becoming one endless To Do list. Every spare minute I'm thinking about what's on the list, what I could be doing to cross something off it. And once I put something on the list, it's very very difficult for me to take it off. Making strawberry shortcake is on the list, dammit! I will make that happen even if it means I don't get one spare minute all of Saturday, even if it means that I have to end the day with my back screaming from too many hours on my feet. The list rules all. And every time I cross something off, I think of five more things to add. The faster I run, the longer it gets. Sometimes I feel like my home is a metaphor for my life. Clutter is like a living, breathing force in this place. I work all the time to keep it stacked in the corners, rather than strewn over every horizontal surface. I fantasize about living in a peaceful, uncluttered space, but I never get any closer to the reality. Every time I pick one thing up, five more appear.

I know I'm being ridiculous. I know, in the depths of my soul, that it's never all done until you're dead. Life is always cluttered and crazy and too much and not enough. We all have days when we are tripping over the toys on the floor, cursing, wishing it could be easier. I know that the key to happiness is finding peace among the chaos, letting go of the to do list sometimes and sitting quietly in the mess, knowing that it is the stuff of life. But right now, I'm having a little trouble finding my peace. I think I'll make it my goal to head into this weekend without a To Do list. I'm a little scared just typing those words, but I'm going to try it. I'll tell you how it goes.

Beach trip from hell

Let's talk about expectations versus reality. What I expected for my Memorial Day weekend was this: Drive to the beach with Mia, arrive around lunchtime, have a picnic and frolic for several hours. Then, drive to our boat, where Mr. SOC was working on painting. Have a drink at the tiki bar, eat a leisurely picnic dinner, put Mia to sleep in the tent, drink a beer while looking at the water, get a nice night's sleep on our comfy air mattress. Then wake up and play around by the water, or maybe take a second trip to the beach before heading home. Sounds like a lovely weekend, doesn't it?

What I didn't bank on was getting stuck in traffic and spending more than four hours getting to the beach. By the time we finally got there, and then couldn't find a damn parking spot, I was on the edge of hyperventilating. By the time we planted our chairs in the sand, we had 2 hours and 40 minutes before we had to crazily rush back to the car, hoping to make the 5:25 ferry. We missed the ferry, of course, and the next didn't arrive until 6:05, so we sat by the side of the road for half an hour. I drank a beer to try and relax myself as I saw all my lovely visions of the weekend evaporating.

When we finally got to where Mr. SOC was, it was 7 p.m. and I'd been driving or in transit for about eight hours for our less-than-three hour stay at the beach. There was no time for the tiki bar, and I was totally grouchy and stressed out. We finally put Mia to bed, hoping to relax and have a beer together. But she absolutely refused to sleep, flopping around the tent, moaning and yelling, "I'm not tired." She didn't fall asleep until about 11:30, giving me another near anxiety attack thinking about what a misery she was going to be the next day. Finally in bed, both of us pumped up with stress, Mr. SOC couldn't sleep. He is tossing and turning--and keeping me up. Finally, around 2 a.m., he leaves to sleep on the boat. I probably fall asleep around 3 or 3:30, and Mia wakes me up at 6:45. I feel like I'm going to die. From the looks of Mr. SOC, he does too.

I drag myself up and go to the coffee shop. I decide to take Mia for one more day at the beach and then head home. We speed the 30 minutes to the ferry dock, arriving in plenty of time, but there are too many cars ahead of us. We can't get on the ferry, the next boat doesn't come for two hours, and there is absolutely no other way to get to the beach that doesn't involve driving four hours. I give up and drive the three hours home. I spend the rest of the day nauseous with exhaustion, trying to hold it together with Mia, mourning the trip that should have been. 

I recognize now that much of the misery of this trip was self inflicted. If I had been able to take what came, without imposing my schedules and expectations on it, it could have been different. I could have enjoyed myself, rather than looking at the clock with dread and yelling at Mia over and over to "Hurry up!!!" But I just couldn't do it. I was stressed to the point of wanting to scream. There wasn't enough time. This wasn't going according to plan. Ugh. I'm just glad it's over. No more beach on Memorial Day.  Must go meditate.

Dear Mia,

This week I am working the nightshift, and to make up for not seeing you in the evenings, I took you out for a special before-school treat today. We went out for bagels and then to the park, where we rode the carousel and the train and walked around the lake. Some of the highlights were: the buzzer going off in the restaurant to tell us our order was ready (your shout of glee was so loud the whole restaurant knew our order was ready), finding a forgotten pacifier on a bench (it is now your most prized possession), letting a ladybug crawl on your finger, and saying hello to two honking geese. You were so full of wonder and enthusiasm, practically glowing with pride that you were out with your mommy on a special trip to the park on a school day. 

It was the kind of day I've always dreamed of having with my daughter, the kind of day I remember having with my own mother. At the end of the summer, she always took me out for lunch at a "fancy" restaurant at the mall, and I always got the very fancy hot dog wrapped in puff pastry. And one day when I was in elementary school, I will never forget, she pulled me out of school early for no reason at all just so we could spend some time together. I will always remember her standing at the front of the classroom, telling the teacher I had a dentist's appointment—and my delight, when we walked out of the classroom and she told me there really was no dentist's appointment. She just felt like picking me up early. I want you to have the same kinds of memories, of special time spent with me, of knowing just how much you are cherished. It's amazing how easy it is to skip doing these kinds of things, because we are so caught up in our routines of getting to school, getting meals on the table, taking baths, cleaning up, doing errands. But today reminded me just how important our unscheduled time is. Those will be the days you remember, I hope.

It's so nice to be able to think happy thoughts about you, and our relationship, because things have been really tough for the past couple months. That's part of why I haven't written one of these letters in so long, because I didn't want to write, "You are a little monster and I am going to sell you!" For weeks it has felt as if you were constantly on the edge of some crazed and irrational tantrum, looking for a reason to lose it, unable to cope with even the smallest bumps in the road. A request to change your pants or put on your coat could be met with 20 minutes of flailing, screaming and rolling on the ground, biting your own hand in fury. Every request, for more milk or snacks or help putting on your coat, came as a bratty demand or a scream. Those that weren't met immediately turned into meltdowns. 

But then about a week ago, it was if a switch flipped. You are sweet and fun to be around, constantly making lovely observations about the world, happily doing what you're asked. And I find myself thinking about you all day, melting at the memory of your sweet smile. You are my girl who loves pink with a passion, and despite my best efforts to shield you from the forces of marketing, would like nothing better than if every one of your possessions was pink and covered with the faces of the Disney princesses. (I draw the line at buying Disney Princess junk.) Colors seem to be how you process the world right now. Everything is defined by its color, every person identified by their favorite color. You are fascinated by letters, and learning to write them. You love to count things. You go up to 12, and then begin randomly calling out numbers like sixteen and twelveteen. And you are beginning to draw pictures. People with arms and legs and faces, rather than aimless scribbles or endless spirals that you called lollipops. You are growing up. I can only hope I am enjoying you enough along the way.

Love,

Mommy

The Women, by T.C. Boyle

If only there were more novels like this one. So, so, so wonderful. I was sad to finish it. I think it will be like The Corrections for me; I'll spend years looking for one even close to this great. The book is a historical novel, based closely on the life of Frank Lloyd Wright. So you not only get to read a great story, but you learn about this fascinating historical figure and his work. I learned that Wright was into organic architecture, which was integrated into nature, and despised the "gingerbread" architecture of San Francisco. Can you imagine, hating San Francisco? And yet, I can also see that he is at least partly right. 

But this is not a book about architecture. It is about Frank Lloyd Wright, and the women who loved--and were destroyed by--him. It paints him as a true genius, a magnetic and enthralling personality who left an indelible and beautiful mark on the world, but also as a true narcissist, proud and vain and self-centered. He built a homestead in rural Wisconsin, Taliesin, a sort of mini-universe that he filled with people who worshiped and served him. He was always straddling the edge of bankruptcy, and became a sort of low-level crook who constantly ran up tabs that were never settled and finagled loans that he never repaid.

He truly rode the roller coaster of life, leaving his wife for a mistress--a huge and very public scandal at the time--building Taliesin as a sort of love nest, and then having a servant at the house go crazy and murder the woman, her two children and four other people at the house while he was out of town. He was a charmer and a romantic, who had many women and even more children. But the only person he truly loved was himself. He exacted a heavy toll on those close to him. They paid for the gifts he gave to the world. I so want to go see Taliesin and Falling Water now, but trips to rural Wisconsin and Pennsylvania don't seem to be in the plans.

Revolutionary Road, by Richard Yates

If you haven't already seen the movie, go get this book. It's about a husband and wife who think they are better than suburbia, with all its conventions and nosy neighbors, and yet have ended up there anyway. And they find themselves sucked into the mundane life they never wanted, the office job, the home improvement projects, the child rearing and the neighborhood social scene. At one point, miserable and their marriage in trouble, they make a plan to extricate themselves, sell the house, leave everything and move to Europe just for the adventure of it. But the pull of regular life is just too strong and it doesn't happen.

This book was about the very issue that I've struggled so much with lately — whether we can be true to ourselves, live the lives we really want, from within conventional society. Can we have our nice houses and lawns and office jobs, and still be our authentic selves? Or do we give too much away in the service of maintaining it all? It is so easy to get sucked into the routines of normal life that we close ourselves off to all the adventures of the world. It's as if this couple is standing before a plate glass window, looking at all that the world has to offer, but can't touch it. At one point, they almost break through, but an invisible hand pulls them back from such a radical move.

It all ends disastrously for them. The wife just cannot accept her mundane existence. I'm hoping my own struggles will have a happier conclusion.