We are Mamas
I’m sitting having breakfast with some mommy friends this morning and there’s a table of 10 young men, early 20s, guzzling coffee and scarfing piles of eggs and toast and fried potatoes, just as we are doing. And one guy, at the farthest end of their table appears to be sleeping, sitting upright, but sort of slumped over at the neck, his head lolling forward near his plate. More than one of us mothers at my table notice this, but we live in a resort town, where young men such as these tend to drink Tequila or Wild Turkey or Jim Beam all night, stopping only when dawn signals that it is time for some grub. It is not all that unusual to see a guy passed out at the breakfast table. And who are we to judge? A moment later, I look up to see this guy sliding against...
Read MoreBirthday Aftermath and Mama Drama
I just hurt my neighbor’s feelings. I didn’t mean to, but I got caught off guard. I’m at the recycling center, dumping crushed Lego boxes and the rest of the flotsam and wreckage from my son’s birthday celebration. I have to dump this stuff right away, while he’s at school, or he’ll decide he wants to make a cardboard drum set or bunk beds for his Webkinz – and I’ll never get it out of his room. My neighbor comes up behind me, and as I turn and spot her, I greet her with an exuberance I don’t feel. I’m exhausted. I’ve been up working since 3 am. I have somehow just spent an hour and a half in Wal-Mart just to buy dog food, air freshener, and tube socks. I’ve got three more errands to run before I...
Read MoreDays Like This
Some days – fortunately not every day – I wonder at this life. I see us all plopped down on this spinning earth, all of us confused and scrabbling about, wondering what in the world we are all supposed to be doing here. I would sometimes really like to know this. I look at the way everyone fills their time: their jobs, the ways that they answer this eternal question for themselves – or the ways that they avoid it. I think about all of the misery on this planet. I think about the ridiculously high quality of my life compared to vast sections of the globe. At times like these, the idea of spreading just a little light and love and warmth and joy and grace right here in this very moment is all that makes me feel better. The more I can do that, I find,...
Read MoreThe warm mama in the warm car
I’m about to pick up my daughter from a four-day field trip that she took with the rest of her 4th grade class. There were tears before she left and so I tried to not share my own stories of camp because they are not exactly uplifting – but more filled with homesickness, the memory that still fills me with that hollow feeling – a grasping and a gasping, like no amount of breath will ever fill you. I remember having to go away at that age because, again, some parents and teachers thought it would be good for our collective 9-year old self esteem. Like my own daughter, Idon’t think I was quite ready for such a long time from home, so I cried before I left, too. I remember everyone else looking like they were having so much fun. I remember, at...
Read MoreWe’re all in this together, just trying the best we can
Sometimes I’ll be going along, not thinking about much of anything, and maybe even a little bit irritable. And then all of a sudden and completely without warning, I fall in love with humanity. Head over heels. Completely, utterly, madly. I love us all. We’re all so raw and sad and mentally ill and yet so enthusiastic and smiling and normal. I love us all in our suffering and sadness and misery and in all of our beauty and cheerfulness and sweetness. It happens, I think, when I get a sudden and unexpected peek at a person’s vulnerabilities. I recognize them because they are the same as my own. When we’re watching the first auditions of American Idol and some dude is standing there just screaming at Simon and losing his mind, my husband will...
Read MoreDo you ever feel a sense of longing?
I’m sure I’m not the only mother alive who has fantasized about just chucking it all and walking away, starting a new life in a new town. Remember that Anne Tyler book (I think it’s Ladder of Years) in which a middle-aged mom actually does it. She just walks into a new town and buys herself some pretty new dresses, rents an apartment, gets herself a job and carries on a new life. I read this book before I had kids and the whole time, I’m hoping against hope that the kids and her husband never find her, that she never has to return to her old life filled with dirty socks and sarcastic remarks. Fast forward about 12 years: I’m married to my best friend, and I have three kids who treat me with respect. They put on their own shoes, buckle...
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