The Stress of Motherhood

Posted on March 10, 2011 by Coming East

The baby is sick.  He has a fever, and his mommy doesn’t know what to do for him.  It matters not that the baby in question is in his early thirties and I am the mommy who is nearly thirty years older than that; Mommy still worries.

I’ve been reading a lot of “mommy blogs” lately, written by young women who are in the very early years of motherhood with new babies and toddlers and blogs written by mothers with children in elementary and middle school.  One theme seems predominant:  Raising kids is stressful.  The underlying supposition is that once these kids are raised and on their own, the stress will essentially be over.

I agree.  Mostly.  Trying to juggle orthodontist and doctor appointments, extra-curricular activities, homework monitoring, volunteering, housework, grocery shopping, cooking, quality listening time, and maybe even a job outside the home and still have time for yourself and your spouse seems like an impossible task and is both physically and emotionally draining.  I’ve been there, so I get it.  I can say, “Cherish these moments because they will vanish before your eyes,” even though some of those moments aren’t worth cherishing.

One day they do grow up and leave home, and the physical exhaustion that comes with motherhood does leave you.  Your life is more in balance.  You have time for yourself and for your spouse.  If you had a good marriage to begin with, it becomes an even better one when the children leave home.  You find romance again.

But motherhood doesn’t end when your children aren’t under your wing anymore.  You still worry about them, about their health, their job, their marriage, their children, only this time you have no control over any of it.  You can’t ground them or talk to their teacher.  You can’t send them to bed early.  And you can’t order out for pizza, rent some movies and cuddle on the couch with them on a Saturday night, especially if they live far away, like in Michigan or Boston, while you live in Virginia.  You can’t sit down with them over a glass of milk and a plate of homemade cookies and find out how their day went or what is really on their mind. 

Yes, I read these mommy blogs and I smile because I can picture my life as a young mother, but sometimes I am overcome with a feeling of loss for those days.  No, I don’t want to go back and relive that time of my life.  Just the thought enervates me.  But don’t tell me that the stress of motherhood ends when the children are raised, because I am emotionally drained at times with the longing to be as much a part of their lives again as I was when they were little.

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I Think I’m in Trouble

Posted on March 2, 2011 by Coming East

If you’ve been following my blog, you know that every Wednesday my four-year-old neighbor, C, comes over for a visit.  It started out as Spanish lessons, but there wasn’t a lot of interest in that subject after the first few weeks.  After awhile, C and I settled into a comfortable routine of chatting about the world situation, looking at the pictures in my digital picture frame (C can identify everyone by name in all 987 photos and tell you their relationship to one another), and finishing with snack time, something C instituted the first day she visited.  In fact, she recently looked in my fridge and told me I needed to put juice boxes on my grocery list. During snack time, I am expected to tell a story I was more or less ordered to invent.  We’ve been doing this for quite some time, several months at least, and have been enjoying each other’s company immensely.

This morning I got a phone call from C’s mother.  “N (C’s two-and-a-half-year old sister) doesn’t want to be left out.  C told her that it was really fun over there.  Would you mind if N came, too?”

“Of course she can come!” I said, flattered that C actually thought I was fun.  Then the reality hit me.  The dynamics are changing and I have to become even more entertaining than usual.  Mind you, this is only a half-hour visit, though sometimes, many times, it runs over, but there is no down time when you are hosting a four-year-old and a two-year-old.

So, when in doubt, dance.  That’s my new mantra.  I put a Jesse Cook CD on the Bose, turned up the volume, and we were three rockin’ fools.  Story time during our snack was a little odd, this time, because instead of me making it up, I had unasked for help from the girls.  I began the story of two little princesses named C and N, and this is how the story went:

Me:  Once upon a time, there were two little princesses who were sisters and their names were C and N and…

N:  And they all fall down!

Me: Okay, they all fell down, and…

C:  Because they didn’t have any feet!

Me:  Really?  They didn’t have any feet?

C:  No feet.  So they had to roll everywhere.

N:  Tell it again!

The girls have just left, and I’m already wondering how many times I can get by with the dance routine, and when it wears out, what will I do next?  It’s a challenge.  One thing I do know, though.  It’s a challenge I relish!  Oh, and by the way, N told me I need to get graham crackers to go with the juice boxes.

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Eavesdropping at the Y

Posted on February 28, 2011 by Coming East
English: depot interior

English: depot interior (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I have always been a private person when it comes to showing my flesh.  Okay, let me rephrase that.  Except for the time when I was in college and miniskirts were the rage, I have always been averse to showing my flesh.  For nearly thirty years I lived in San Antonio without ever owning a sundress in a place where summer temps (summer started in April and ended in November) hovered around the 100-degree mark. So changing in the locker room at the Y is not on my list of favorite things to do.  I usually (okay, always) arrive already dressed for working out, stuff my coat and purse in a locker, and head to the exercise room.  When I return to the locker room, I simply retrieve my things and go home to shower and change.

I seem to be an exception, though.  Most of the women at my Y shower and change there, especially if they’ve been in the pool.  I’m never sure where I’m supposed to look when they start talking to me and they are standing there stark naked.  I pretend I’m looking for something in my purse, or I bend down to retie my shoes, or use another diversionary tactic.  “Wow! Would you just look at these nails?  I need to schedule a manicure, don’t I?”

If I’m not being addressed, I can keep my head down and eyes averted, with just a glimpse of jiggling bodies caught in my peripheral vision.  I wonder why it seems easier for most men to not be bothered by nakedness?  (I mean of other men, of course!  They would certainly be hot and bothered by female nudity, I’m assuming.)  Are they that much more secure with their self image?  Do most of them really see themselves as studs, or do the years not wreak havoc with their bodies like they do with ours? I know it is more than a matter of perception; it is a matter of culture.  As men age, we hear how they become distinguished looking.  Distinguished is not an adjective I hear in connection with us women as we age.  Maybe that’s why we try so hard to mitigate the signs of aging by working out and trying every wrinkle cream on the market.

I heard the following interchange in the locker room at the Y the other day.  I don’t know what these ladies looked like because my head was down, as usual, but they sounded young.

First lady:  “ I’m working on my triceps so I won’t get those saggy old lady arms.”

Second lady:  “I hear you.  I call those Esther arms.  The back of my aunt Esther’s arms sagged so much she looked like she was wearing a cape.  When she raised her arms and spun around too quick, she could take out several small children in a single spin.”

The next day, I used extra heavy weights in my workout.

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Bilbo Baggins and Me

Posted on February 17, 2011 by Coming East

Bilbo Baggins.  My favorite character in Lord of the Rings.  He loved an adventure, always figuring another one was to be had around the corner, if he just kept on going.  Spring is in the air today, even though the official start is more than a month away, and my thoughts travel the road with Bilbo every spring.

I suppose, if you’ve never lived in a climate that experiences four distinct seasons, you would never miss it.  Indeed, many people I know, because they have lived through changing seasons, would love nothing more than to move to Florida or sunny southern California and escape the frigid winter days and howling winter winds.  But I grew up in Connecticut and lived for close to thirty years in San Antonio, and as for me, I would never give up my seasons again.

The seasons are like the cycle of life to me.  There is an opening of the spirit when the air begins to warm and the first blossoms appear.  If you’ve never seen forsythia bushes  ablaze against the stark grey of March, you are missing something profound.

I went out to our little patio garden today to survey the damage.  Pretty sad state of affairs, I’m afraid to say.  After two years of trying to save our beautiful geraniums from the harsh cold by dragging them into the garage at night and on bitter days and then dragging them out into the sunshine when the temperatures rose above freezing, we gave up and let nature have its way.  The pots were getting too heavy for me after the plants had grown and been replanted two or three times, and I was running out of room in the garage.  Devastation was everywhere, until I happened to look up at our Carolina jasmine vine and noticed hundreds of tiny buds and one flower about to bloom.

Our Carolina jasmine

We will replant and the garden will be just as beautiful as before, and it will be all the more glorious because we’ve been without it for four months already.

There is a song that Bilbo sings as he leaves on yet another journey.  One of the verses was poignant to me even the first time I read the trilogy when I was a young teenager: “I sit beside the fire and think/of how the world will be/when winter comes without a spring/that I shall ever see.”  My father’s birthday was this week; he would have been 89.  In a few weeks I shall have seen six springs my father has not been a part of, but somehow I feel that he’s on my journey with me, as my mother is and my sister, may their memories be a blessing, and my grandparents and their parents before them.  I have been shaped by all those who went before me, and my journey is their journey, as I know my children will walk the trail of life for me, too, one day.

Yes, I know that a week from now we could be hunkering down in yet another winter storm, but this “spring” day, this tease of what is surely to come, makes me want to put on my hiking shoes and find the adventure around the corner.

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A Star Trek Moment

Posted on February 10, 2011 by Coming East

One of the appealing ideas in Star Trek was that the world had long ago stopped their petty warring and everyone lived in peace, prosperity, and freedom.  I am under no delusions that this is even possible, let alone in the next several hundred years.  But I have to tell you that I’ve been glued to the television this afternoon watching the protestors in Tahrir Square as they listened to Mubarak‘s speech, and I am so impressed with their determination to refuse to submit to his dictatorship anymore.  The Vice President, Suleiman, appealed to the crowd to “think rationally.”  What he fails to grasp is that when a people decide they want to be free, the only rational thing to do is to stand firm and demand what is rightly theirs as human beings.

Another tenant of “The Federation” was that all civilizations on all the planets had to decide for themselves what kind of society they wanted to live in.  Kirk and Picard and their crews were not allowed to intervene and hasten the process leading to self-determination.  We are witnessing the right way to grow democracies:  let the people in their own country decide when their situation is untenable, and then let them organize themselves and effect the change they want.  We did more than two hundred years ago.  The people of the Soviet Union did.  Now here in Egypt they are.  It never works when another country tries to impose democracy on another country.  Until the populace itself wants it enough to sacrifice for it, democracy from without will not translate to democracy within.  I hope we are listening.  Meanwhile, my heart goes out to the Egyptian people.

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Trips Down Memory Lanes

Posted on February 8, 2011 by Coming East
Google Street View Car in Hunters Point, Long ...

Image via Wikipedia

I stood outside my friend’s house in Connecticut yesterday afternoon.  I didn’t go in, though I wanted to.  The house looked quite different from the last time I saw it.  Trees that had been knocked down in a violent storm a couple of years ago now stood proudly guarding her front walk.  I stayed only a few minutes before I visited my grandparents’ house in Kettering, Ohio.  The color is not the same as I remember; it was always white when my grandparents owned it, not the soft tan it is now.  I “walked” down the street to the corner to see if the music store is still there, the one where I bought my beautiful baritone ukelele so many years ago when I was barely in high school.  Sadly, the store is gone, an electronics shop in its place.  I turned the corner and “walked” a few blocks more and was happy to see the Dorothy Lane Market was still thriving.  I left Ohio and found myself on the sidewalk in front of 25 East 98th Street in New York City.  Here my New York grandparents lived, and we would drive from Connecticut into the City every other weekend to visit them.  The building has had a facelift since my last visit nearly fifty years ago, but I could still feel the way it felt walking into the lobby with its big black and white squared floor and getting into the elevator and closing its gold accordion gate.

No, I wasn’t dreaming yesterday when I took my trips; well, maybe daydreaming is accurate.  Every once in awhile, when I start missing old friends and family and places, I take a visit to them via Google Street View.  I discovered it a few years ago and was amazed that you could actually see a site clearly, as if you were standing right in front of it.  Not all places are accessible to this marvelous invention, especially rural areas, but I’ve managed to see quite a few.  Yes, I know I could just think about them anytime I want to, and I do, but having visual aids is exciting.  For example, I miss our old house in San Antonio since we moved to Virginia two and a half years ago.  I “stood” in front of it yesterday, marveling at what a good job my husband had done on the lawn.  The satellite caught it on a good day.

I don’t know how many years between Google satellite updates, but I have to say I’d like to see some new views soon.  I mean, our house in San Antonio looks terrific, but it still has our old 2000 Ford Taurus in front of it.  Even though we keep our cars for a long time, we haven’t owned that car or that house for over two and a half years now, so please, Google, I want to see what the new owner has done to our old abode.  And I “visit” my brother’s house every once in awhile in Chester, Virginia, and he still has his garage door open, even though I know he never leaves the house before closing it.  Also, why aren’t there ever any people in those street views?  The scenes look like a movie set when the actors have called it a day.

I’m thinking I should go and pull out all the weeds in my front flower beds, just in case Google plans on sending its satellite around some time soon.  And I might just throw some make-up on.  You never know when those street views might become populated.

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No Wonder We Have a Weight Problem in America

Posted on February 1, 2011 by Coming East

When our children were little, we had a Saturday morning tradition of going to Dunkin Donuts and bringing home a dozen donuts for the kids to eat while they watched their cartoons.  They each got to pick their favorite to include in the dozen.  Our daughter invariably chose Bavarian Creme.  So it was curious that the color we chose to paint our bathroom and dressing area this weekend was called Bavarian Creme.  

We poured over numerous color charts and paint chips before we purchased our gallon.    What was interesting to me were the variety of colors that take their names from food items.  Looking for the right creamy yellow shade had me considering Sweet Corn, Banana Split, and Melted Butter.  I also deliberated on Bagel, but not on Cream Cheese, and even thought Clam Chowder would be a pleasant choice.

Whatever happened to colors which reflected things in nature?  Remember Burnt Sienna, Goldenrod, and Desert Sand?  I haven’t bought a box of Crayola crayons in years, but I remember so many of those wonderful names.  I know they’ve probably updated some of them by now and added new colors, but please tell me they haven’t succumbed to using food names, too.

Not only did I see the food names on the paint cards, I saw colors that depicted alcoholic beverages, names like Cherry Wine, Chianti, Strawberry Daiquiri, and Champagne Tickle.  Those paint colors and others with names like Raspberry Mousse, Thick Chocolate, and Juicy Passionfruit make me think that we are obsessed with food and drinking.  We’ve come a long way since mauve was an unusual color name.  Don’t get me wrong.  I think the new names are very descriptive, but in a nation that is  focused on the obesity issue and healthy eating habits, perhaps Cornflower Blue and Periwinkle would do just fine.

At any rate, my Bavarian Creme bathroom and dressing area is indeed a good color choice, and every time  I walk into it, I think back to those wonderful Saturdays with our children…and have an urge to run to Dunkin Donuts.

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If You Use a Bad Word and Nobody Is Around to Hear It, Is It Still a Bad Word?

Posted on January 27, 2011 by Coming East

I don’t know what’s come over me lately.  I’m sixty-two years old and just started using the “s” word.  You know the one that is four letters long and ends in t?  I mean that word. I never use it when anyone’s around, and every time it slips out of my mouth, I’m appalled, though I have to tell you I’m less and less appalled the more I say it.  I drop an egg on the floor.  “S..t!”  My pita pocket splits and all the filling falls out.  “S..t!”  I’m shocked that it flows so easily out of my mouth.

Growing up, I never heard that language used in our house.  I know that’s hard to say in many households today, but I guarantee it was not uttered in our home and would not have been tolerated if it had.  My mother said it was a sign of ignorance; only people who didn’t have a good vocabulary resorted to speaking such trash.  Now here I am letting that word trip so lightly off my tongue.  The first time it came out, I thought it was just a fluke, but it’s been rearing its ugly head quite often lately.  I guess I need to brush up on my vocabulary.

I remember when my brother and I were about 12 and 10, we caught my grandmother when she let that word slip.  “I said shoot!  I said shoot!” she tried to convince us, but we heard her quite clearly.  We actually thought it was pretty funny.

I maintain that this is all the result of years and years of suppression.  One can only be good for so long.

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January Rain

Posted on January 26, 2011 by Coming East

Today was one of those dim, rainy, long January days.  I listened to the patter of raindrops as they played their tune on my kitchen’s vent hood while I poured myself another cup of Earl Grey tea.   Toll House cookies baked in the oven, filling the house with their heavenly scent, and I sat on the sofa, turned on my Nook, and continued reading Clan of the Cave Bear (I wanted to be an anthropologist when I was in college and go on digs with Dr. Leaky).

I used to dread January when I was working.  As an educator, it meant that state testing was nearly upon us, and our push to help every child be capable of passing took on a frenzied pace.  Retirement has given me a new appreciation for January days.  Nothing much is happening, nothing is even nearly about to happen.  The quiet days are peaceful.  Tomorrow I will spend all morning at the Y, working out and going to my yoga class.  I will come home refreshed, turn to my Nook again over lunch, and enjoy the rest of the day.  I may or may not pick up a dust cloth.  Not, I’m thinking.

Yes, I love January and I suspect February might be the same.  If I want more activity in my life, I might just go and look for a good jigsaw puzzle.  It’s the right time of year for that.  Ah, retirement!

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Why Don’t You Act Your Age?

Posted on January 21, 2011 by Coming East
London nature: Epping Forest yoga session

Image by mermaid99 via Flickr

If you’ve been following my blog, you know about my love affair with the Y (formerly named the YMCA).  Well, there recently has appeared a chink in my admiration, and it has to do with the Y’s insistence on multi-generational classes.  Yesterday, during yoga, I had to constantly avert my eyes from R.’s yoga performance because she was undermining my ability to stay focused on my own.  R. always places her mat directly in front of mine.  Yes, I know I could find another spot, but it’s like church; once you’ve claimed your pew, sitting anywhere else just doesn’t feel right.

Anyway, R. comes to class with jewelry and make-up on and dressed in a cute little outfit that accentuates her petite waist and delicate frame.  Her hair looks as if it had been styled at the salon that morning.  I show up in my standard black Target stretch pants with my Dad’s violet NYU tee shirt on, which is several sizes too large, but I need it to cover my butt when it is pointed at the ceiling in Downward Facing Dog position.  I sometimes slap on a smudge of pink lipstick, but it’s too little, too late.

As if R.’s appearance isn’t insult enough, she has no trouble keeping up with our yoga teacher and holding the positions as long as instructed.  While she’s gracefully sustaining a balance pose, I have sunk, gasping for breath, into a Child’s Pose, which is one which allows you to rest.  Her Cobra is ready to strike while my Cobra has obviously been killed by a mongoose and lies limp on the mat.

So you see, I am not happy that the Y allows people of vastly different ages to attend the same class.  It is discouraging to those of us who are struggling with the basics.  Yes, R. needs to attend a class specifically for other people in their eighties like she is.

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