One Week In And It's a List

1. It's been a week, and I'm already like: Seriously? Blog? Again? For goodness sakes!
2. I work 9-10 hours a day.
3. That's my day job.
4. It's one of those unusual jobs that comes sans lunch or other breaks. I eat standing up (sometimes walking) and I listen through the bathroom door for sounds of potential mayhem while I pee.
5. When the day job ends, I have an hour to shower and change.
6. Next is my night job. More of an evening job, really
7. That one might be an hour; it might be 2.
8. There's another half hour, or 90 minute commute, depending on the day.
9. Then, depending on the night, or the hour, I help get the kids ready and down to bed.
10. And then, along with my equally exhausted husband, I collapse.
11. Today was my biggest playgroup so far, for the day job.
12. I had 7 kids here, all under 5, for 3 hours this morning. (Only need 8 for the nursery school, so this is good news!)
13. I had 4 kids for the rest of the 9-10 hour day.
14. The night job was 2 hours tonight.
15. The commute was 90 minutes.
16. The dinner was reheated leftovers.
17. The couch was (is) comfortable.
18. The blanket was (is) warm.
19. Can our exhausted protagonist make it to 20?
20. Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz... 

                                   (goodnight!)

Election Night

I voted for Obama in 2008. I'd always kind of liked John McCain and his whole maverick schtick,  but the modern-day Republican party seemed (and still does) to be walking one-way down a narrow path to crazy town with increasing speed, and McCain appeared to be reluctantly following along.

I remember watching the inauguration in January, though, and all I could think was, he's bound to let us down. When Republicans made fun of Democrats, calling Obama "the Messiah," I thought they had a point. He was just a man, projected up onto the same big screen where we project all our hopes, dreams and ideals. He never had a chance to live up to that.

Of course, we were fresh off the George W. Bush years at the time, so a relatively friendly homeless guy hanging out outside the local grocery store would have looked like a good bet at that point, in comparison. (But then again, there was John Kerry in '04.)

I haven't been able to get into this election. Obama hasn't disappointed me, necessarily. I loved his talk about transparency, but didn't particularly believe it at the time. His continuation of Bush's foreign policy is also saddening, but I knew when Bush assumed so much power in the executive branch that it would be awfully hard to take it back, regardless of party.

Also, it seems like we've known Obama will win all along in 2012 (if Romney wins tonight, color me surprised!). Even the Republicans don't particularly seem to like Romney. I look at politics, and it's hard to see anything but theater.

I enjoy the theater, but don't tell me it's real life.

I almost didn't vote today. It's not because I'm disillusioned; that happened a long time ago. I was born into a post-Watergate political America. I don't know that I was ever illusioned in the first place.

I worked all day. Took kids to the library. Packed a picnic lunch. Visited an indoor playground. Passed out peanut butter sandwiches and, later, carried little girls to beds and cribs. Later, I woke them, changed diapers, played chase and served snacks. My husband walked in the door at the same time I should have been starting my yoga class, all apologies for being late (meeting with a mortgage re-financier, in case I needed a reminder that The Big Decisions do Trickle Down one way or another), and I raced out to teach my class, and then attend a physical therapy session for the tendonitis in my shoulder.

I had thought we were all going to go vote together: the husband and I, with the kids. But then he texted and told me he went while I was teaching. I got out of class, and I knew: if I go home, I'm not going back out. I also knew that New York's electoral college votes would go to Obama, regardless of what I did this evening. It was a long day, and I was tired.

And yet, I found myself pulling into one of my polling station's parking spaces a few minutes later. It's housing for the elderly; they sit in the lobby in their wheelchairs, pointing us voters in the right direction when we walk in the building. One woman had put together little baskets of used goods to sell at her fold-out card table. And the election officials were just as daft, disorganized, and delightfully human as they have been every other time we've shown up to vote.

All of us, there at the polling place, we were too fat, or had too much makeup on. We were born ugly, or wore the same sweatpants all the time. We were in wheelchairs; our mustaches were unfortunate in every way; we couldn't rip a serrated sheet of paper off a ballot pad. All of us are imperfect. We're just doing the best we can.

I voted for Obama in 2012. I'm not an idealist when it comes to politics.

But nonetheless, I'm glad I went.

Jogging, Math and Music

When I was in elementary school, I was somehow chosen to be part of a special, city-wide math group. I say "somehow" because I attended Catholic school, so I have no idea how they even knew I existed, let alone invited me to be part of the group. We had to report to one of the public elementary schools early on Saturday mornings. Special workbooks full of shapes and symbols were passed out; I recall circles and half-circles, ovals and squiggly lines. We spent an hour or so each week practicing some sort of advanced mathematics.

I remember perusing the workbook, closely studying the shapes and symbols. They never meant a thing to me. But somehow, I always intuitively knew the right answers to the problems. I couldn't show my work; I had absolutely no idea what work to do! But I chose the right answer almost every time.

Eventually, I complained enough about having to get up early on Saturdays to do more math than was already required as a result of attending school, and my mom gave in and let me quit. (Seriously, whose idea was this anyway!? Saturday mornings? Extra workbooks? It's like punishing kids for being good at math!)

As an adult (and an educator) I've come to realize that I probably understood the work on some level, but was stymied by the language of visual symbols. I'm not a visual learner, and when I think back on that experience, what stands out in my memory is the feeling of complete befuddlement while looking down at a page full of circles, ovals, and squiggles, followed by a strong, intuitive feeling that the answer would be X, even though I didn't understand the question.

* * *

My mom made me take piano lessons for a couple years as a kid. One Monday, she didn't mention getting ready for my lesson. Being wise to the ways in which things work in a big family, I stayed the heck out of her way and laid low, assuming she forgot. Relief rushed hot through my body. I played happily in a quiet corner where she would be unlikely to stumble upon me and suddenly remember.

Later that week, she told me I didn't have to go anymore. After years of supervising my practices, she realized I literally could not hear my mistakes on the keyboard. If I couldn't hear them, how could I correct them? Which explains why I never got any better, despite regular practice.

I grew up with the idea that I lack musical intelligence. For the most part, I think this assumption is correct. It's been borne out by most of my life experiences (never made a mixed-tape, nor a playlist; can't tell an electric guitar from acoustic, unless I see the cord plugged in). With one notable exception.

Home from college one summer, I worked for my hometown's Parks and Recreation Department, driving between the various city parks with art supplies for the children to do weekly projects. One morning I arrived at my scheduled park to find another activity already in progress. There was a troupe of African drummers in a huge circle, with hand drums for anyone who wanted them. I dropped my supplies off to the side and joined the circle, full of kids, staff, and neighborhood families. The lead drummer taught us how to beat the drum, how to hold and angle our hands to make different sounds, how to count out loud and then match the movements of our hands to the sound of our voices.

For the first time in my life, I was there, with the music as it was happening. He taught increasingly complicated sequences of beats, and I could follow and reproduce them almost immediately. I got it. I didn't understand why I got it, but I got it.

Years later, a handsome stranger handed me a leaflet about drumming. It claimed that the human heartbeat was the very first rhythm, reproduced as a drumbeat. Maybe that's what I need to learn music. Start at the very beginning. Begin with the beat of my own heart.

That handsome stranger is my husband, now.

* * *

I think it was sixth grade when my best friend decided we should get up before school every morning and jog. It sounded like the worst idea ever, but she was one of those bossy and convincing friends who always gets her way.

I was the sort who pretended my shoelaces were untied repeatedly, far more often than they were ever likely to be untied. Every city block I stopped and knelt down, retying a perfectly tied shoelace. Thinking about how much I hated jogging.

Over the years I tried it again and again, never liking it any better, never sticking with it. And then last January, for no particular reason I can remember, I decided to give it another go. Surprising myself as much as anyone else, I'm still at it! I run around a reservoir near my house. I think of it as a circle, but it's really more of a squiggly oval.

There's something about the rhythm of my feet hitting the gravel path that brings to mind both math and music. I count while I run: laps around the reservoir, total mileage covered, circles and ovals and squiggly lines taking on meaning in my mind as I jog. I sneak peeks at my phone each loop around, when I reach the starting gate, and calculate speed: dividing time by distance, or maybe it's distance by time, until I discover a per minute mile, round and whole, a number that feels as intuitive as the answers in a long ago Saturday morning math class.

I count the crunchcrunchcrunchcrunch of my sneakers crushing gravel, beating time as I move through space, finding a rhythm that echoes a drumbeat, chasing and matching and pushing my heartbeat faster and faster, as the sky turns from daylight to night. Circles and ovals and squiggly lines left written in the earth where my feet beat a rhythm in the autumn mud.

I run rhythmic, count and calculate shapes, create drumbeats of feet on dirt.

I do everything I've ever been bad at, and I feel so free.

Community

My next-youngest sister, let's call her Carlotta, is the type of person I imagine might someday be described as a pillar of her community. She's not currently in the role; she's a first time mother of a one year old, living in a new city, and just starting back to work at a new job, after a year at home with her baby.

But she got this new job because she did things like attend an annual Wetland Forum for New York State, and then when she was invited to present, she said yes.

I work alone, out of my home, and I rarely-to-never speak to anyone in my field. I read quite a bit, though.

Some of this is happenstance, and some of it is probably not the slightest bit surprising to our mother.

* * *

I've started a Wednesday morning playgroup, as a sort of prelude to my eventual nursery school. This week I had 5 kids. As we get a routine established, I hope to add more kids to the group (I can take a total of 8), and perhaps expand it to another day in the week.

Instead of advertising on Craigslist (which is where I started with childcare, and was quite successful), I joined a couple of yahoo groups. One is a bigger group for my whole city, and the other is a smaller one specifically for my neighborhood. I also discovered that my neighborhood has it's own Facebook page, so I joined up there too. It turns out I'm primarily attracting neighborhood kids, and getting to know people who live nearby. Nice for the nursery school -the professional piece- but also nice on a personal level.

* * *

My husband and I started dating in February of his senior year in college. He was an art major, in a tiny, Midwestern college town. I was a transfer student from New York State (which might as well have been New York City, for all the difference it made in Kansas). By the time May rolled around, we were engaged, and he was displaying work in pretty much all of the local shows. I accompanied him on his rounds.

He stopped to make small talk with the husband/wife team-teachers, who split both a full-time job and an old elementary school that they had reclaimed and renovated into a home and studio space.

When he dropped in at the local gallery to drop off a series of paintings, he spent some time chatting with the local artist who rented space in the back.

Our small-town watering hole was always a reliable place to find Ernie, if he wasn't standing on the sidewalk outside his house, painting. One way or another, my husband found him when he needed to, and they talked.

I waited by his side, in the same general manner that I waited by my sister's side, over many years. Except that with my sister, I was mostly bored, and wondering: what in the devil are they still talking about!? I was so enamored with my husband and our brand new, bright, shiny love that everything he did was wonderful. I saw this type of small talk in a new light, all of a sudden. This is his PLACE, I thought. He BELONGS here. This seemed marvelous to me, for the first time ever.

* * *

I have a great, big, wonderful family. Probably bigger, and louder, and more enmeshed than a girl who lives mostly in her imagination and between the pages of books, really requires. So I never needed community. I don't have a tribe. Never found my people. Never sought.

My parents live a few hours away. All five of my sisters live less than an hour from them. Two of them have kids the same age as my kids; a third has a baby on the way. They get together for dinner on a random Tuesday. Meet for a cup of coffee or a beer. Jog around the park together. Take advantage of free babysitting.

I had no idea how much it would break my heart to miss out on all of this, by just a few hours.

But my husband has a great job; a job he loves. And tenure. We own a house, and we really, really love our house.

So I'm going to try something I've never had to do before. I'm going to be intentional about building community. After all, this is our PLACE now. I've never belonged anywhere before. But maybe, just maybe, I could.

NaNoPoMo Yo!

What the hell, I guess I'll do this post-a-day for a month thing. But I'm warning you now: I totally cheat! :)

Can't say I didn't warn ya!

The Third Maybe (or With Money Already Done, I Might as Well Talk About Sex)

I was on the birth control pill that went with breastfeeding. And then I mentioned to my OB-GYN that my period had come 4 times in 8 weeks. She looked concerned. She prescribed something else. I was on the something else for a month or so, and then I weaned.

And then.

Oh. Good. Lord. The something else!

I am not an emotionally volatile gal. My moods are typically quite stable. I don't suffer from PMS (except for sugar. I do want to eat ALL THE SUGAR one week out of every month). My husband is the moody one of the two of us. Over the past decade plus of marriage, we've both become accustomed to to this reality. And then.

Suddenly. The something else pill!

I hear that I threatened divorce over the whereabouts of a pair of shoes.

We don't even say divorce.

Nor do we put our shoes away, reliably.

I don't actually remember how things went down. My sister, months later, between giggles, called it a rage blackout. It's really only funny after the fact.

I did wake up the morning after, cramps rushing violently through my body like a tidal wave. Flow so heavy it required multiple backup systems.

I looked at -felt- what was happening to my body. I reflected on what had happened to my mood, just yesterday. The similarities. I said, to my husband: This might sound crazy, but ... do you think yesterday might have been PMS?

He held both hands up, surrender-style, before he even answered: I wasn't going to say it. I THOUGHT it. But I wasn't going to SAY it!

I called my doctor. Told her I was done nursing and would like a new pill. She said the pill I already had was perfect for both nursing and non-nursing. She hung up the phone before I formulated a reply that might convey the crazy.

In hindsight, I suppose shouting I'M CRAZIER'N A SHITHOUSE RAT ON THIS PILL might have done the job. But I'm not that quick a thinker, all the time. Sometimes I am. But not all the time. And not this time. We hung up the phone, and I threw my pills in the garbage.

And so. That's the story of how I ended up a 36 year-old-mother-of-two-with-no-form-of-birth-control.

And a six-pack of Jamaican Red Stripe combined with poor calendar math skills is how I ended up, late one night, reading my husband's mind when he telepathically asked me: your period just ended, right? and I telepathically answered: yah, seems that way, doesn't it? (Math is neither of our strong suits.)

But then, the next morning, minus the Jamaican Red Stripe, upon counting days using both my fingers and the calendar, it seems we were both a bit off with the numbers. And so it was a two week waiting game.

I don't know what surprised me more. My first reaction, where I was thrilled to be potentially-pregnant. I felt unbelievably powerful. All my current problems had solutions. I was prepared to march right into my planned future without missing a beat. Quite frankly, I miss that potentially-pregnant woman. She was 'bout to get shit done. Or the week-later-panic that hit. How badly I wanted to hide under the covers. How much scarier my financial future suddenly became. The desperate desire for sugar that suddenly took over.

Oh, no, sorry. That was just PMS rearing it's ugly head once again.

No third baby. Not now.

Just a third maybe.

And a big old question mark in the middle of my heart.

So, I'm Going to Talk About Money

I wake up too early, with a start. Realize all of a sudden that it's a day later than I thought it was. Still Monday, but the date is a number ahead of the number in my head. Meaning, an automatic withdrawal for a monthly bill is happening today, not tomorrow. No time to teach a private yoga class and then rush that check to the credit union before closing time tomorrow. I've been counting on that check to cover the withdrawal.

Now I'll be counting change.

I turn it into a homeschool lesson. Pour the change jar onto a blanket on my lap and the kids help me separate coins. We talk about the worth of each coin, the difference in sizes, copper versus silver. My husband brought to our marriage a series of red plastic coin containers. We fill them up to the line at the top, and the coins slide right into the paper sleeves in the perfect amounts, all ready to go.

We have more than we need. Means we can put some gas in the tank this week. Not a full tank, but a half tank will do.

My emotions, during the course of this exercise: Worry and anger over what I keep seeing as our lack. A simple pride that I can turn it into a lesson and allow my kids to help. A certain sense of detachment, of knowing it will be okay, and that I needn't be overly attached to the details. Just count the pennies, Katy, and collect them in the sleeves. Just do the thing before you to be done. (That's all there ever is to do. How many times must I learn and relearn this?)

* * *

Sitting on the bench at the beach with two stay-at-home-moms of my recent acquaintance. The short-haired brunette is watching her two children climb on the slide. The long haired brunette is watching her only son dig in the sand and fill a dump truck. I suppose I'm the medium-haired brunette in this vignette. And my eyes are darting across the playground and back to the sand, because I have three kids to keep an eye on. No, I don't have three kids of my own, but I babysit to pay the grocery bill, so I spend less time sitting and talking, more time moving quickly to and fro, counting three heads, three heads, three heads. Everyone's accounted for.

* * *

I often think about how I wish I didn't have to do childcare. I'm so over the ten hour days. Then my husband comes home and I toss the children in his general direction, hop in the shower, and rush out the door to teach an hour or two of fitness classes every evening. My coffee intake is strategically planned to the hour of each day. I eat in the car, sometimes, to be sure I have enough energy to make it through the evenings. I miss bedtimes for work. This is precisely the full-time-work-life I never, ever wanted.

But I spend all day with my little ones. And they are so happy. They love this life, full of friends who arrive first thing in the morning, stay all day, go with us wherever we go. I resent it sometimes, but they think it's simply wonderful.

* * *

Suddenly I hear the long-haired brunette finish the tail of sentence I'm sure I must be misunderstanding . .. since I'm trying to keep the grocery bill to $50 or $60 a week. 

I take my eyes off all three children, and plunk my backside right back onto that bench. I lean in, and ask: Did you say $50 or $60 a week? For groceries? She nods. How do you do that? I ask, We spend $250 a week for groceries and gas. Both heads whip in my direction: short and long-haired brunettes, faces aghast. I mean, I hasten to add, $100 of that is gas, so... but then I spurt out the rest: If I make $300 a week, we easily spend that. 

They look at me like I'm crazy.

I mumble something about organic meat. They nod knowingly. The long-haired brunette assures me she could get my grocery bill down to $70 a week. I wonder in my head if she could possibly be serious.

* * *

Later, I ask my sister, who assures me that she spends about the same amount as I do. So does our other sister, she confides, and I feel better about it.

I think it over, and realize I would not trade my too-busy, babysitter-by-day, yoga-instructor-by-night, life for the simpler pleasures of factory farmed meat.

Funny, how I can feel scarcity in the face of such obvious abundance.