On The Road (again)

I spent the day in the car, in a blizzard, my 2 year old (who behaved like an angel), my sister (who slept with her mouth open, allowing us to discuss the whiteness of her teeth), my mother (who wouldn’t let anyone else drive, ever, at all) and my mother’s friend (who kept the visor down in the passenger seat so she could keep an eye on us in the mirror). 

I spent the night in a Holiday Inn Express, one of the most beautiful, fascinating, joyous places on earth according to my daughter. I slept with earplugs in my ears. And a pillow on my head. And the KindleFire on top of that pillow with the white noise app blasting. Because the snoring. My god the snoring.

What Are Your Interests? :: An Inclusive Introduction

A few years ago I was walking home from a book club meeting in Oslo with a new friend, Victoria, discussing our experiences as expats, as travelers, and sometimes-trailing spouses. As we left the bus stop and walked underground to the T-Bane station, we talked about the tendency of our cultures (she is English, I’m American) to focus on career the most crucial part of identity, this tendency shown most obviously and most commonly by the fact that when you meet someone new it is almost guaranteed that after exchanging names the next question will be “What do you do?” What do you do…for work. For a living. What do you DO?

As a trailing spouse in a foreign country, this line of questioning can make for a quick turn into awkward territory. Depending on my mood, I would answer  differently. On days when I felt bitter or stressed or annoyed, I’d just say ‘Nothing. I do nothing of value to the misogynist capitalist machine’ and this would lead to a silence followed by the other person backing away slowly. Or quickly. If I felt like being very literal, I would say ‘I’m a social worker by trade, but right now that is on hold since it is impossible to do while Dave plays hockey’ and this left the conversation a little more open, though most people would grab onto the bone I threw and ask more about social work, what I used to do, what I’d like to do later. I’d indulge this, for polite conversational purposes, but the truth is I don’t identify as a social worker in a professional sense anymore and I don’t know if I will in the future. If I was feeling very honest and open I’d say ‘It’s really complicated. But at the moment, I don’t work.’

When I became a mother, my answer to this line of questioning became simpler and more complicated. On the one hand, I could always just answer ‘I’m a mom’ and people kind of accept that as a valid exception to the define-yourself-by-your-paid-work rule of life. But it isn’t actually an answer to to the intended meaning of this question. If I had a full-time job, I’d still be a mother. When V is grown and gone, I’ll still be a mother. And anyway, even if I use this as an answer there’s about a 62% chance the other person will follow-up with ‘But what did you DO…before that.’ Sigh.

As Victoria and I talked, I realized that this question was probably frustrating to more than just partners of professional hockey players and trailing spouses of expats. This question would be annoying to many stay-at-home parents. To anyone unable to work physical or mental reasons. Anyone unemployed or underemployed. Anyone who has a job but doesn’t like that job or consider it to be an accurate indicator regarding their identity. If life is good to us, we get to experience the adventure of meeting new people often, and this fixation on employment as self can be a hindrance to these encounters from the start. And that’s no good.

Victoria had solved this problem before we even finished the conversation. A wiser woman than I, she said simply:

Wouldn’t it be great, wouldn’t it be more interesting, wouldn’t it be more encompassing if we started conversations with ‘what are you INTERESTED in?’ instead of ‘what do you DO?’

Yes, it would be great. This question doesn’t exclude anyone who isn’t in the paid workforce, voluntarily or involuntarily, and doesn’t lead to anyone giving complex explanations with personal information about their employment status. This question includes everyone, and leaves an opening for those who are so lucky that they would answer the question ‘what are your interests?’ with a description of their job or career. Brilliant, Victoria.

Get you answers ready, because when we meet I’m bound to ask you ‘What are your interests?’

On A Walk: All My Children

When Dave is on the road, life gets more complicated for us. I have a toddler who lives by a schedule of sleep and is loathe to be confined within the 500 square feet of our apartment. I have two dogs who need to go out, to walk, to sniff, to run and always be leaning on some part of my body. Getting everyone everything they need in terms of nourishment, affection and exercise for days on end is no small feat.

The truth is that it’s often easier to play down the difficulty of this task. Because the reality is that it has to be done, there are people who do much bigger things with much more difficult lives, and no one likes to hear me whine. I love the special time I get alone with my girl, with my pups, because I know this time has contributed to the incredible bond I have with all three of them. They all three love Dave dearly, they all three go out of their minds when he returns home, they have a special daddy obsessions. But when they are scared, hurt, upset, sad or out of sorts, they often come to me. The source.

I take my job of caring for these three very seriously. It’s exhausting but fun, tiring but hilarious. It involves a lot of sweating and hoisting and tugging and pulling and, on occasion, swearing. There is a reason why the phrase ‘Damnit, Falcor’ is in my child’s vocabulary. But seriously, is that dog trying to kill me by way of leash-tripping?

I get them all out, all together, a few times a day. With V in the stroller and the dogs on the double leash. With V in the Ergo carrier on my back and the dogs on their own leashes. With V on her own two feet while we walk around the block…one tiny block in 45 very long, very slow minutes. 

Sometimes the walk ends with me feeling relieved but satisfied, everyone behaved relatively well, we all made it home, no worse for the wear. Sometimes it ends with me exasperated, everyone pulled me in every direction, no one had a particularly good time and the freshness of the air was mitigated by the dampness of the mood.

But sometimes, just sometimes, it all comes together. Just perfectly. Everyone walks where they should, sits when I ask, listens to my directions. Everyone has a great time, no one cries for chocolate or lunges at a shih tzu or tries to eat rotten tidbits off the sidewalk. We all laugh and run and we take our time going home.

In those moments, during those walks, I really feel like I’ve done it. I’ve parented the shit out of this moment. Not just that I’ve fed us, dressed us and abated our cabin fever, but that I really had fun doing it. That V was so pleased with our adventure. That the dogs feel content. Because as much as I love parenting and dog ownership and all of this family life, sometimes the needs of others feel less like a privilege to bear and more like a burden to carry.

But not this day, not on this walk. On this day, on this walk, we were the happiest foursome in the world. We took our time, looked around and really saw what there is to see, were a team in highest sense of teamwork.

Also, I think this sign is trying to tell me something.

Falcor

The most unwilling tea party participant. Ever.

On A Walk {{ New Year’s Eve // New Year’s Day }}

The year 2012 was good to us. We are so lucky to have each other, our families, our friends, our life, our health. Always ready for the next thing, though, that’s our style. So bring on 2013.

I try not to take for granted the fact that this iconic bridge is part of our daily life. 

A quiet stroll through our neighborhood on the first day of 2013. The sun was shining on the mountains and we walked at a toddler’s pace, taking it all in and letting it all out and making our wishes for the next 365 days.

We did some wishing at the neighborhood shrine as is the custom of our host culture. V loved writing down her wish. 

Falcor wants me to put a word in for him. 

To the park! 

So lucky to play here. 

Making new friends in the new year. 

Merry Christmas

The Real Deal

Dave’s on the road. The cold rain is pouring down all day. Some Christmas packages arrived. We ate apples, cheese and crackers for lunch.

Some blogs make me think I’m doing it wrong. My life isn’t in soft focus with white carpets, but this is the real deal.

On A Walk

One morning last week I woke up, pulled the drapes and saw THIS.

Nothing can make my heart sing in December quite like the sight of snow-covered streets upon waking. The whole period between (American) Thanksgiving and New Year’s known as ‘the Holidays’ can be a tough time to be an expat. All the adventure and excitement can be overshadowed by the sense that you are missing yet another year of traditions and family and familiarity at home. Homesickness is inevitable but manageable. And this cozy snowy sight made me feel at home. Here.

It was Dave’s day off, so I left these two on the couch, rounded up my dogs, bundled up and marched outside.

You can put a dog in a sweater, but you can’t make her like it.

I want to tell you that my life is all zen and balance, but the truth is that it’s very rare for me to leave our apartment and venture out by myself. When we are home in the summer I have the luxury of my mom, my sister, even my best friend to take my daughter for a while whenever Dave is away and I need a break. But here we are parents on a parenting island with some fellow castaways to help us when we’re desperate. Most days I’m either traipsing about town with a 2-year-old in tow or on a family outing. So this walk on this cold morning felt so lovely and light. And free.

I imagine if she could speak English she’d say “Is this really happening?” or perhaps “Make it stop.”

The unusual quiet of the main street of Nikko was incredibly calming. The hush that snow creates coupled with the slow wake-up of a Japanese town made for a wonderfully solitary feeling. Just me and my thoughts and the occasional elderly person shoveling a 4 foot length of side-walk in front of their shop.

On mornings like this I remind myself how lucky we are to have landed here, of all the places a hockey family can be in the world. I spent all my formative years in a place of intense and plentiful natural beauty. I thrive on the sight of trees and water. I want to love cities, and I do enjoy a visit, but deep down I belong closer to rocks and dirt. A walk in any direction from my apartment here will find me in a forest, near a river, at the foot of a mountain. Where I love to be.

One of the best things about these rare solo-expeditions is that I’m never without companionship. I am not answering to a toddler or juggling the needs of a partner, but my dogs are still keeping me company. They appreciate the freedom that this unencumbered moment allows them. And my dog-mother guilt about living in an apartment, about them spending hours every day as ‘baby’ or ‘patient’ or ‘horse’ for my daughter, about not getting every single moment of my attention ever, is alleviated if only for an hour or so. It’s lovely to see them, just them, without having to keep an eye on my child. Just watching their joy, their spirit, their zest.

He’s like a little rocket made of teddy bears.

I don’t want to sound too zen or anything, but it is amazing how an hour by myself in the chilly quiet of a morning walk can recharge my battery. By the end of the walk Enid was shivering and Falcor was happy and my cheeks were rosy. And I missed my girl. We spend hour after hour together all day, every day, and after just one on my own I was ready for more.

Enid

I have never loved this dog more than the moment I found her like this.

Our Babies

The news of this mass shooting has been filling my mind and heart all morning. As I did the laundry. While I walked the dogs. On my run. Visions and thoughts in my imagination probably only a fraction as horrible as the reality some are facing right now.

At lunch I sat across from my daughter and I watched her eat soup. Messily, happily, hungrily eating her soup. Unaware of how awful everything can be. Unaware of how close I was watching her. Her tiny hand, her sparkling eyes, her wispy hair. Taking her in, marveling in her wonder, loving as I do every day but trying to be just a little more mindful today for those who can’t sit across a table from their child anymore.

I can’t bring myself to think of what would happen to me if something happened to her, but it’s wrenching enough to think of the parents who are grieving right now. Of the brothers, the sisters, the grandmothers and grandfathers. But mostly the mothers. Because I’m a mother, and those mothers are my sisters.

Mothers who cradled their babies in their first moments and breathed them in and held them close and loved them so hard even when they were impetuous toddlers, even when they were tired, even at 3 in the morning, even when it wasn’t easy. Mothers who loved their children, imperfectly and perfectly all at once, all day, every day.

And everyone shouts gun control and mental health and second amendment and they are right and they are wrong and we need to talk about this. But I can only hear the wails of mothers broken apart by the bullets. For no reason, none at all, and now there is the heaviest pain I can imagine crushing down on all that love.

And I brought myself to think about how every mother who lost a child today is thinking how that child was her baby, her baby, HER baby. Her baby, whether 5 or 10 years had passed, always her baby. How if I died today, my mom would be thinking of me not as a 31-year-old woman, but as a newborn in her arms pulling on her heart in a way she didn’t know her heart could stretch. And I cried. And my heart broke. All while she ate a bowl of soup.