There are thrill-seekers who chase the storms, but my son and I chase the mist.
Yesterday, we were on the ferrry crossing from New York into Vermont to pick up the girlies from summer camp. It was foggy but the fog seemed always ahead of us.
Then I realized we were in it all along — the mist, which seemed beyond us, actually surrounded us.
“Maybe this is like God’s love,” I said. “It seems in the distant, but we are actually in the middle of it.”
“Maybe.”
I have gone eight days without using my credit card. I’ve blogged about being clueless over family finances. On a regular basis I commit myself to getting over my disinterest in the financial state of the union. https://mbcoudal.wordpress.com/2011/03/03/stocks-and-numbers/
This week I paid cash for all lunches and dinners out. I bought all groceries with cash.
The hardest part was when I stopped at Apthorp Pharmacy to restock my dwindling supply of the usual sunscreen/moisturizer/tint stuff that comes in a small tube. “$38!”
Paying with credit card, I would’ve whipped it out and thought nothing of it, but with cash, hmmmmmm? I hesitated to part with my two twenties. I didn’t buy it. “I’m sure you can find some old sunscreen/moisturizer around the apartment,” I told myself.
It’s always possible to find cheap alternatives.
Coming home from the East Village the other night at 10:30, I would’ve hopped in a cab. I have an unwritten rule not to take the subway after 10 pm. But the $2.25 subway fare seemed much more sensible than a $22.50 cab. And without kids at home (they’re still at camp), why rush?
Watching people on the subway late at night is an entertaining and cheap thrill! The subway ride takes longer. But hey, lose time, save money.
I decided to try 22 days without a credit card because I bought a journal/financial book that promises in 22 days you can change your financial habit. I thought you needed 66 days to change a habit. Whatever.
I had a huge credit card statement the other day — upwards of $5,000 — and there was not much of substance on it — a few orthodontia charges, automatic payments for cable and phone, trip to Chicago, my writer’s class – but no real big ticket items.
Partly I blog to hold myself responsible. So by admitting I have a problem with my cash flow and then blogging about it, I figure I can change it.
Just like when I admitted I wanted to lose 5 to 10 pounds? The pounds didn’t just drop off. Um, still waiting.
Blogging helps me turn my attention to ways I can do better and areas where I need to focus.
Money and weight. I know I’m not wildly out of control, I’m just not where I want to be.
The other night at the theater, I got that sickening feeling. Not again! I was watching the usual depiction of Christian women as hypocritical gossips. Why do Christians and especially Christian women get such a bad rap in movies, plays, TV?
Chris and I were at the play, “Tricks the Devil Taught Me” by Tony Georges at the Minetta Lane Theatre. The play was overall good, but the scene with the church ladies was comically grotesque as the women feasted on another family’s misery, gossiping about town teenagers. They delighted in discussing another couple’s rocky marriage and the potential there for “sin.”
In another scene, one woman who sang for the church choir said she sang only for the money. The church choir was simply a conduit for money, not a spiritual experience.
I know, work with, worship with, sing with (although I wish I was good enough to sing in a choir!) Christian women. (“I knew JFK and you are no JFK.”)
The Christian women I know are anything but mean, shallow and sin-loving. They are thoughtful, hard-working, joyful. They organize peace vigils, letter writing campaigns to end wars. Christian women feed the hungry and wash the feet of the homeless. (Do I exaggerate? Not much.)
Christian women laugh together in bible studies but not at other’s misfortunes; we laugh at our own struggles to be human. We try for transformation, to be more loving. Conversations are about compassion, hope, redemption, grace, struggle, not sin.
My experience with Christianity must be quite different from other writers’ experiences.
I also do not believe that one sect of Christianity is better than another. I was raised Catholic; married in the Lutheran church; baptized one child Episcopalian; baptized the other two Presbyterian; consider myself Methodist.
“Love ‘em all. Let God sort ‘em out.” That is the message on a tee shirt my friend Nancy gave me when she was moving. The gift and the message epitomizes my experience of Christian women — a nonjudgmental, generous and active Christianity.
When I see how Christian women are depicted in popular media, I could cry. And I feel defensive. Hey, I am not conservative, stupid or mean. (Although, occasionally, God help me, I do gossip.)
I wish that I did not get that sickening feeling when I see how Christian women are presented in plays and movies. The way I see myself is far different from the reality that is presented to me. I do not recognize myself; that makes me very sad.
On my happiness list, the last item is “Embrace uncertainty.” And the second to the last? “Live every day as if it were your last.” These are hard to follow because I love making lists and planning my day.
There was one day, three or four years ago, when the darlings, Josie and I were in Italy for Thanksgiving and we had absolutely no plans. We followed the Improv rule, “Accept every offer.” If someone suggested we stop somewhere, that’s where we went. We chased a ball in a church courtyard for a long time.
We got lost in Venice. Someone said, “Let’s stop at that pizza place.” We did. We ate pizza under a bridge.
Then someone pointed to a boat and said, “Oh those clementines look good.” So we bought clementine oranges off of a boat. The kids tried to peel the clementines in one peel so you could hold them back together again and they’d look whole. They were the best clementines ever.
Then the kids wanted to spend hours feeding the pigeons in St. Mark’s Square. But I took a break with a cappuccino at a café off the square. When the waiter delivered my coffee in the white china cup, there, in the frothy milk, was a heart.
When I let go of my agenda, things surprised and pleased me — things I didn’t even think were possible.
I had that list of Summer To Do things. And some of the things I’ve done and some I haven’t. And I’m not sure I’ll get to them today. After all, my last item is “Quit making lists.”
I have seen way too much of my kids since they went to camp a week and a half ago. I have been with them in the emergency room, the health clinic and the outdoor chapel.
Charlotte had some kind of panic attack/low blood sugar/migraine/mild seizure that landed her in the ER. Catherine had an ear infection. And Hayden popped out of a sea of navy blazers after the outdoor chapel service to beg me to get him his iTouch.
I was supposed to get away from kids and responsibilities when they went to camp. Instead, I am in need of a vacation from this vacation. I honestly can’t wait to get back to work.
Wait. Not quite yet.
I’m making art. I’m making something new. My first class was with Linda Kemp. It was about negative space painting, about painting the space behind what you see, and not what you see.
Maybe through making art, through finding something in the negative, I will find what I am missing. And it’s not the kids.
With the kids off to camp, I was planning to visit a church a day. I was driving solo to the art workshops that I’m attending with my dad, his lady friend and my sister over the next three days.
I drove by this Vermont church. It looked like a good solid church. I could begin my church visits there, I thought. Yes, I could be born again. I could pray.
No, I couldn’t. The church door was locked. I tried the side door. Also locked.
I tagged along yesterday as an older and wiser camper took my daughter on a tour of her new sleep away camp. We visited the arts and crafts cabin, petted an old horse in the stable and walked to the archery range.
But the most happening stop on the tour was at the stage set. The crew was painting, building, finding props for the production of Charlotte’s Web. Or maybe it was The Ugly Duckling. I was only half listening to the tour guide, hypnotized as I was by the young women working.
The campers and counselors were totally in the zone, like bees building a hive. Each doing their own thing, but doing it for a greater good. Work can be like this — like parallel play; like, we are doing our own thing, but we are side by side. And it all comes together in the end.
When I taught drama to kids, I tried to teach them that the lead role in a show was a small piece in a much bigger puzzle. The real world and work of theater is about collaboration. There are box office managers, set designers, costumers, musicians, lighting engineers, a variety of skilled craftspeople.
Theater is about craft — not about celebrity. It is about being in community and building something even brighter than the brightest star. Theater is about snapping the jigsaw pieces together to create the production.
As our tour guide and my daughter drifted ahead, I dawdled. I wondered if parenting, which often feels like my work alone, is a collaborative project, like a theater production. And maybe this is why I like sending my kids to camp. Yes, they are the brightest stars in my personal production. But they are, like all of us, workers on a set in a production even larger than I understand. They are co-creators of a new show. And I have to let them go.
As parents and as campers, we play our bit parts. We help build the set.
On one of the first days of Middle School, my twin daughters did not return home. It was 5 pm. Then 6 pm. My attitude moved from mildly worried to wildly apoplectic.
I walked over to their school, wondering if they’d stayed after drama class for some show in the auditorium. The police officer at the front desk (yes, NYC public schools have cops at the entrance) told me that all the school kids were gone from the building.
It started to rain. I walked down Amsterdam Avenue peering into the Jewish Community Center, wondering if they’d stopped in the café there.
I called home. My son told me they hadn’t come home yet. My phone rang. It was
the pastor from Rutgers Church. I do not remember why he called.
But I blurted out, “My girls are missing. I can’t talk. I have to find them. I’m sure they’re fine.”
“Strict yet loving,” he told me. “As a parent, you must be strict yet loving.” I loved that. I especially loved how he said it – with his Czechoslavakian accent.
I have the loving part down. The strict part? Not so much.
My phone sang. My son reported that the girls had wandered into the apartment, unaware that they were late. The girls had stopped at Cosi’s café with a new girlfriend, keeping her company until her mother came to pick her up.
I got them on the phone, “Thank God you’re safe. But you are not to stop anywhere but home after school. For any reason. Without asking me. Got that?” They agreed. “Okay, I’m stopping in at the JCC for the support group. I need it. You kids make me crazy.”
I aim for “strict, yet loving,” yet actually deliver “make you feel guilty yet loving.”
***
This post is partly a response to my previous post — about how I feel sorry for my kids so I let them off the hook in terms of chores. And then I feel resentful and exhausted because no one but me does any damn housework. i.e., just yesterday, I worked all day, hosted the kids at the cafeteria for lunch, then came home and worked all night, including packing their stuff for today’s 7-hour train ride to the Adirondacks. (Fun! http://mybeautifulnewyork.wordpress.com/2011/07/17/trains-are-better-than-planes/ ) Then last night at 11 pm, they wanted to wrestle on my bed, where I had finally settled in for ten minutes of Me Time with a book.
“I’m sorry I’m done for the day, my friend,” I told my littlest darling. “You are too. Go to bed.”
I suck at setting boundaries.
That reminds me — I have gotten into some conversations after that post on making my kids do more housework. I know I have to make them work harder around the house. It is not easy for me. I have to try. I have to be strict yet loving.
I feel guilty for working. My husband does not work much, but when he does, no one makes him feel bad. It’s a mother thing.
My sister-in-law who owns her own business reported that in a parent-teacher meeting one of the teachers told her, “I can tell that you work outside the home, because your children are very hard workers.”
I think about that conversation a lot. It comforts me. Although I am plagued with guilt – whenever I have to be away from the kids for a night or a late evening for work — I hope that the kids notice, appreciate and feel motivated to work hard too.
I hope women on all sides of the work equation realize that women’s lives are in flux.
One of my best friends whom I met when our kids were in preschool, is a banker. She wore a business suit to the preschool graduation. In my stained sweat suit, I was jealous. I was a stay at home mom, trying to scare up freelance writing work, but found only new toddler Mommy and Me classes. I contemplated writing a book called Stay at Home Moms: How They Work! Then I landed my fulltime gig.
My friend quit her job. For seven years she was a stay at home mom, working for no pay — as in serving as president of the parent’s association. This year she returned to the paid world of banking.
I’ve been a fulltime working mother since the girls’ toddler years, saving my sweatsuit for the weekends.
I like to think the kids secretly like and benefit from the fact that their mother works hard and is the family breadwinner.
Working Mother magazine reported that ’57 percent of working mothers feel guilty every single day, and 31 percent feel guilty at least once a week.’ I am not alone.
This relates to my Rule Number 7 to Embrace uncertainty. One day you’re a stay at home mom and the next day you’re back in business. Enjoy it. Work hard wherever you find yourself and try not to feel guilty or jealous along the way.
Six years ago, I borrowed a book from my daughters’ preschool. The book was called Teaching Your Children Responsibility. I don’t remember any advice from the book. All I know is that I never returned the book to the preschool lending library.
I have felt guilty about not returning that book for six years. I try to model responsibility and consistency. Sometimes I model guilt and blame.
For the mess in our apartment I like to blame my husband Chris and his Parkinson’s Disease and my children who have no good excuse. And of course I blame myself because I don’t discipline them enough and I would rather write before work and play tennis after work than clean and do laundry. I would rather go out to Happy Hour with my work peeps than make a family dinner. How often have I said, “Let’s order Chinese food again, kids”?
I may be irresponsible but I am happy. I may be guilty but I am keeping the Cottage, the best Chinese restaurant on the Upper West Side in business.
I may be messy, but I am creative. This is what I tell myself. In our country house there is a magnet on the fridge. It says, “A creative mind is seldom tidy.” So true.
This jibes with my Rule Number 5: Expect the best, love what you get. Even from yourself.
Someday I’ll return that library book. Until then, I’ll try loving myself.
100 Days of Poems and Pics 