Usually on Sundays I try to relax. I get to yoga, have some brunch with my dudes and read the paper. Then at night we settle in for zombies. This week, not so much. As fast as I graded this weekend, I kept seeing new assignments pop up online at the last minute, right as they were due--almost late. I thought damn, don’t these kids watch any of this good Sunday night TV I am missing? Which made me laugh because we just pared down our cable and will be strategic with Hulu and Netflix from now on and all we are really missing are the zombies... but still.
The funny thing is now its not even the paper I am reading on weekends. It has now become the cheaper option and the less stuff to clean up option. I’ve recently been forced to go digital with my NY Times (the last piece of reliable paper that regularly crosses my coffee table and snuggles in with me each Sunday couch day. The pieces of paper strewn about finally became too much for three people and two dogs to maneuver in our tiny condo. Anytime I put one down it was folded and put out of my reach. In short--I couldn’t take it anymore. I was being displaced in my own house. It’s becoming a theme.
Why think about this now? Well thats simple. It’s the middle of the night--well its at least the middle of the first few hours where I occasionally get to sleep briefly before the baby’s first wake up and then pretend I have any uninterrupted sleep anymore. Did that sound harsh? Good, I’m feeling feisty! I must clarify that I’m not at all pissed because I have to wake up every few hours--that part kind of comes with having babies I know. Whats got me all aflutter today is not having my routine as I like it. Also, the minute I decided to go digital and not physically purchase the Sunday Times, I see that the Book Review features a section on Technology--which is the subject I cover a huge amount of with my class these days.
So why not just accept the turnover into pixels from print? Well its ironic because this week in class we are at the midway point of the semester. This means that we will do a guided meditation. We will write on paper and read from Xeroxed handouts, solely to prove the point that it can still be done. We will also practice ten minutes of phone stacking and we will go outdoors, and we will have a conversation face to face in smaller groups and then again all together as we discuss what we wrote on the paper with our pens while our cells were piled neatly on the desk. This is the halfway point where we take a break from technology to see that there is a world out there that doesn’t have midterms around every corner and with fresh air you can breathe.
I am actually feeling a bit of withdrawal from my newspaper today. My hands look too clean. I haven’t smelled paper today. And to top it off, I spilled coffee this morning and watched it trickle into the crack of the table that opens to store books and I couldn’t help but think “Well if there was a section of newspaper there, I would not be wiping down T.S. Eliot, Frost and Poe with a baby wipe right now would I?” Hmm.
While my class talks about how much they love their techy stuff, I admit I’ve lately been feeling an increasing urge to uncap the blue ballpoints that top my pile of stuff. Yeah...pile of stuff because I surrendered my desk to my other half who works at home and it now has a giant telephone on most of it along with a mammoth desktop that doesn’t really work and no longer logs in to his job so I also surrendered my shitty old laptop and got a new one (my consolation I suppose...but I kind of like the idea of a desk better.) That and I haven’t begun to understand how to use most of what’s on my new laptop. No really, Mac is a different language which I don’t speak. Yet.
Digressing a little for my sanity’s sake I will say this: We need a bigger house if I am going to make it through the first year of this child’s life. Seriously. I was typing in the tub a few nights ago and I’m not exaggerating. On top of our growing family I have loud neighbors and Thumper upstairs is least heard in the bathroom go figure. Feels good to say these things aloud on paper... or in a document that resembles a page. Anyway, I have been thinking a lot about quality of life and this is not it people! We need a bigger house.
Having expected to be way further along in my own book by now is not helping and is putting me over the proverbial edge so I am being proactive. I have decided to seek out (immediately) someone I trust to watch my little man and walk the dogs twice a week for the forseeable future. Sounds easy right? Not so much.
It seems that there are obstacles. Really they are much more like flaming hoops to jump through, but that seems so dramatic I will stick with obstacles for now.
Obstacle1: My awesome dog-walker is in college and is kicking ass in her Geology major and all the clubs and things that go with it. Happy for her, sad for me. Dogs know and loved her, dogs are getting annoyed at me for daring to try writing while baby naps instead of walking them. My other awesome dog-walking buddy offers all the time to help out but doesn’t answer when I call so that does me no good whatsoever. I will pause to say that everyone is getting paid well and my four legged children are friendly and low maintenance when they get exercise--at that point life is better for everyone indeed. Bonus annoying thing: the dogs howl a little if they haven’t met you (even though it’s just saying hello it freaks people out sometimes) so it can be hard to have reliable dog buddies.
Obstacle 2: My dear friend has been willing to help and has watched the baby on a few occasions and offered to make a steady plan. She has been a key factor in my sanity keeping I have to add. But she won’t let me pay her other than coffee and the occasional lunch and therefore our idea that we should be consistent kind of has less staying power because it’s not really a job and it quickly descended from twice a week to once... if we can. I can’t get mad because we are dear friends and she has a daughter approaching high school so that speaks volumes and I’m not envious and I love them both.
Obstacle 3: If I were still in NY this would not be an issue since there are so many more people I know and love looking for work, but I simply do not know people here on the same level. Those who I know and trust are either employed 9 to 5 or don’t have a soft spot in their hearts for well... soft spots and such. Which is fine because neither did I before I had a little bean of my own. But it’s hard to think about how things would be easier if we still lived in the suffocating overcrowded borough that we left to have some clarity and space. Especially when the space is shrinking daily!
Obstacle 4: Daycare costs almost as much as I make. OK this is downright scary. I looked into a few places and they have what looks like prices you see on a gameshow for items you have to guess and the closest one wins. Zero consistency anywhere. Everything is either several thousand dollars a month and uber-reputable or it’s a shady looking operation that normal people can afford...almost. Who knows how you find a good one and when you do is it the one with the hefty price-tag or not? It’s a mystery.
Obstacle 5: I got my yoga certificate this year to teach which is wonderful and amazing and I’m so proud of me. But where exactly am I putting those classes I plan on teaching until I find daytime childcare? You guessed it--at night... which is great unless it’s a day that I’ve just worked ten to twelve hours (which I do a least twice a week teaching and grading except when everything is left till the weekend and I sacrifice all else to read blogs and papers--no fun and no time for the paper (in print or on a screen) Trust me I’d rather be resting upon a bolster chanting.
Obstacle 6: How do we discuss this? This one is simple. We don’t, because we pass like ships in the night between both working and hockey and yoga and me typing in the bathroom. So a solution is not yet discovered. Another mystery... hey maybe I should write a mystery--see how tired of pondering all this I am? This is just bizarre behavior people!
Obstacle 7: Sleep would really help this equation. I thought I know what was meant by not enough hours in the day and I admit I was kidding myself for a good thirty years.
Bottom line: We need a bigger house, with a fence and a separate room where I can set up to meditate, write and honestly just sit still if need be. I have generally not been a completely selfish person, but you take away my writing time, you take away my sanity. I don’t want to be a crazy mom. And I definitely don’t want to be a crazy mom who resents their children when it’s totally not their fault that we dragged our feet on daycare or a search for a bigger house and therefore didn’t get to finish my own book until years after...no way man!
Bless my therapist’s little heart--just saying.
I don’t think I ask too much and I know that we will get it together (hopefully before he is walking) and we will move late this year or early next. It will go smoothly or it will be a stress-monster that tests our relationship but we can do it. We’ve been through worse. I have moved eight times in the past decade. So maybe--just maybe I can think positive in the night because I may get to lie down for an hour soonish.
But before I do I’m going to let my mind wander and think about sitting in my fenced in yard with my Sunday paper spread out on a blanket as I laze with my coffee and maybe some yogurt, not caring if I spill it because paper doesn’t short circuit with a little splash of life. You just fold that part over and keep on going. Now that sounds like some advice I should take. What do you think?
*****UPDATE: since writing this, we have successfully gotten a BIGGER HOUSE! Just put something out to the universe and you may just get what you ask for. Just saying!
Peace and Packing,
Keri
