Elizabeth Gilbert and Me

She's wrong. Elizabeth Gilbert. She's wrong about that child thing, right at the beginning of Eat Pray Love, that part about the mom not caring about colicky crying but just beaming all the time because she loves her baby so much.

I kind of hate when non-moms write about what they imagine to be true about motherhood.

It tends to be simplistic nonsense.

I loved my son, love my son, sometimes swooningly - but light does not flow from his pores, I did not and do not beam every moment I am awake in his presence. I hated being tired all the time. I still hate being tired all the time.

On a daily basis, I mourn the loss of my solitude. I resent my descent into cliche-dom - the narrowing of my circle to these walls and these two males, the softening destruction of my body as my last big sweaty exercise fades into distant memory, the clouded and narrow quagmire that used to be a clear spiritual path.

And here is this Lady, this Liz, who got PAID in ADVANCE to TRAVEL the world and WRITE a BOOK about it. Travel for a YEAR. And now Julia Roberts is going PLAY her in the movie of that book.

I HATE.

I HATE that THAT is NOT me.

This is one of the refrains of my ill life, the unhealthy river that flows through my dark side -

"How did SHE get MY life????"

Envy.

It knows no boundaries. It has become my companion, again. I stopped paying attention to my spiritual fitness, rounded a mountain, and there she was. Here she is. Envy. She looks like illness personified, but one of those grossly attractive illnesses - Sharon Stone in Casino kind of ill, right after the glory and heading into the descent. Eyes glassy but still focused, smelling like expensive perfume put on two days ago, clothes still expensive but crumpled. Envy.

She is my best self made grotesque.

And when I am fit, she is a good teacher.

What and Whom am I envying?

For they do have something I want - something I am blocking, somehow, by not pursuing or by denying, by lazing or by....

I Want To Write.

I Want You To Read This.

I Want This To Be My Job.

I Want This To Earn Me Money.

Lots Of Money. Enough to buy a home, food, good schooling for my son, and travel.

I Want This To Be My Daily Work.

I don't know how. Or in what way - romances, memoir, novel, essays. I don't know how.

So I'll just write. That I know how to do. Like this.

And Open the Door to Having THAT Life.

I Write For My Living.

I Write.

I Live.





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I need a little kids school...

For anyone who's been reading my Facebook posts, this will probably all be old news... but I thought I'd go ahead and post on here. In hopes of drawing it all together for myself, maybe. That's why we tell stories, I think. To organize our experiences for ourselves, primarily; to make sense of our lives.

I am having some monumental mom guilt at the moment, let's just get that out there right now. Why didn't I insist/push/just-do-it find a good pre-k program for Finn last spring when we got here?

I don't remember. I tried, I know. Three co-op preschools were full. One CDSA site had space, but we fell into a weird income hole and were too poor to get one subsidy and couldn't get another unless I went to a job-searching class 40 hours a week, which was senseless to me. I guess I got tired, and then it was April, and then it was Well, let's just wait.

And he was going to pre-K anyway, I thought. Then he had a growth spurt - emotionally, communication-wise - as I posted last time.

And truth be told, I started kindergarten when I was 4. I was "smart". I always took pride in that. And all the kids Finn was born with began kindergarten last week. I didn't want him left out. So we were off to kindergarten with high hopes.

Then he started wetting his pants, right after we visited his school for the open house. He's never done that. Ever. And it was constant. And then he went to school, and he started crying. Not for a little while - he cried for three days straight. He kept getting lost in the halls, his teacher said, because he didn't know how to stay in line with his class. He wouldn't let her leave his side at lunch.

She told me all this on the playground in the morning, when the kids were lining up to go in. She didn't email or call me. I didn't have much time to process the information. It's her first year teaching. She's very sweet. If he was ready, I wouldn't worry about experience on her part - but he's a guy who needs some special care, I think, some knowledge.

And truth be told, I don't think he's ready for the kindergarten that exists now. He told me, very clearly:

"I need a little kids school."

Maybe if we hadn't moved.

Maybe if he'd had one or two years of pre-school.

Maybe if dad and mom were different people (not sure how, just different somehow - the kind of people who don't move, maybe, and who make sure they own a house before they have a child, and who make sure that child goes to preschool...)

So now, the decision is what pre-K program?

The sweet, sweet, small one a mile away, with 4 staff members for 15 to 20 kids? The one where most kids with him will be 3 1/2 to 4 to start, then catch up to being 5 along with him? The one that meets Mondays through Thursdays from 1pm to 4pm?

How will I work at all if he goes to that one? Even my work, my freelance writing and coordinating and teaching work?

Or the school program that seems somehow less desirable - the site we're considering is further away, for one thing, but not tremendously. 9am to 3pm, 5 days a week - shorter days not an option. Where they nap from 12:30 to 2pm, no matter what. Finn hasn't napped in two years. He'd have to rest quietly on his mat during that time. He hated naptime when he had to endure it at his San Diego preschool. The school with an executive director who is reviled by folks I know, although the teachers at this site seem lovely.

A lot more freedom for me. A lot more hours for me. To work, write, whatever.

What do I do?



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New Trees

A Summer of such busy-ness draws to a close... much producing, some teaching, lovely weeks of family time in Ohio - including a big family "withunion" as my son named it, a baptism, Cedar Point fun, the Henry County Fair, and more food than I probably should have eaten...

and a Fall full of challenges peeks at me from around the cooling corner...

The view from my window is sunny at the moment, trees still green, front yard browned from a summer of some blasting heat here in Seattle. There's a new tree with two trunks growing up and obscuring the mailbox, coming out of an old stump that we took for dead.

I am feeling some creative stirrings that I hope will become a new tree, or two even.

My son starts kindergarten one week from today. After a spring of research and worry and conviction that we'd wait a year, wait 'til 6, for kindergarten, he went and had a big old growth spurt this summer - not just physically, of course, but more essentially emotionally and psychically. No more fear on the playground at the park, but rather quiet confidence. Interest in other kids and openness to playing with them. Full sentences to adults, "Please may I have that, Mommy?" - "No, I don't like that, Mommy." Processing complex thoughts and questions and possible solutions. And then, after witnessing all that, a call from Leschi Elementary, that he'd leapt off the waiting list and into their Montessori program - so, one week from today, we're going to give a go. See what happens. Hope for the best.

My husband looks ahead to a new hip sometime this fall. More on that later.

Me - I hope for a new laptop, so that I can write anywhere in the world again. I look at the UW Extension Writing Certificate Programs, and I think I might just dive into a year of Popular Fiction... two years ago, I was all set to take the year-long Non Fiction courses when the job and move to San Diego kicked that idea out of commission. And now I think I have another chance - but I'm less drawn to Non Fiction these days. I want to write a novel. One that sells a gazillion copies. And makes me lots and lots and lots of money. So I can buy a house and take care of my family.

It's nice to be clear on that.

And yes, I will apply for some jobs so that I can earn money while I work on that big dream. I'm having a little trouble motivating towards those shorter term steps, but I promise I'll settle down and get to it, tomorrow. And do some grant writing, too.

But now it's time for lunch. Reading a play this afternoon. Maybe one I'll act in this winter...

I'm growing a new tree, or two maybe, I think.



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