Just Another Manic Thursday

Six o'clock already
I was just in the middle of a dream
I was kissing Valentino
by a crystal blue Italian stream...

Decided to write down everything today:
5:00 am Oatmeal, coffee, skim milk
6:00 am Out the door
6:30 am Booting up at work
10:45 am Gym - legs, shoulders, triceps, abs
11:45 am 3 messages - 1 from angry customer, 2 from coworkers he called before me
12:30 pm Customer succumbs to my charm and apologizes for being rude
12:32 pm Campbell's soup in microwave
12:36 pm One spoonful of soup
12:37 pm Coworker in office needing help composing letter to his angry customer
1:15 pm Soup and triscuits
2:00 pm Contracts meeting
3:30 pm Shut down, end program
4:00 pm Pick up The Kid at daycare "I want to watch movies at home" wonder if people are judging my parenting skills
4:15 pm Movies, juice, put on my PJs
4:30 pm Old Man picks up dinner, plain steak burritos and green chile and carnitas
5:00 pm Discover dog poop in corner - scrub, spray, scrub
5:15 pm The Kid hates dinner and screams and tumps the plate over on the floor and dog licks up steak and rice and chips
5:30 pm The Kid wants to go outside, take off my PJs put on jeans grab a beer we play in the Old Man's work truck.

5:34 pm Look up at wide open sky feel silence all around.

6:00 pm Dirty diaper screams have to go inside.
6:30 pm Sippy cup milk watch Spongebob Squarepants put on my PJs
6:34 pm Want banana get banana Banana fingers on my shirt
6:37 pm Discuss how Wall-E is falling asleep yes he is

6:44 pm Watch The Kid watching Wall-E wide-eyed never still runs over to touch my arm

6:50 pm Husband packing for turkey trip - where is camo hat? - will have to buy a new one can't find it in black hole of closet

6:51 pm Read Zora Neale Hurston to absorb the tone and the flow and the rhythm Spongebob in the background

7:10 pm Want sausage. Sausage all gone. Want grapes? No. Want grapes? Yes. Come get your grapes baby. Sticky pudgy grape fingers on car book.
7:20 pm Screaming tired kid dirty diaper change
7:30 pm Hear old song that reminds me of ex-boyfriend. Sippy cup milk. Old Man joins us on couch fingers entwined with small stubby hands.
7:40 pm Bath time water soaks my PJs.
8:15 pm 10 minute hugs I'll see you in the morning....

But wait, that's a lie. I'll be gone at 6 and The Kid wakes up at 6:30.

Tick Tock

Tired, frazzled, frozen pizza dinner night - Old Man still at work - counting down the minutes 'til bedtime.

Intentional Solitude

The Old Man's going turkey hunting for 5 days and I will be alone, juggling daycare, work and The Kid. The Old Man works every weekend so I'm used to being alone with The Kid on weekends, but I get to see the Old Man during the evenings.

Every Saturday morning I feel sort of a panic when I realize I'm staring down the barrel of a long weekend alone with The Kid. I make no apologies for this panic. Any mother with a two year old understands that it is nonstop brain focus just to make sure that the child is fed and changed and entertained. The brain doesn't get a break. There is a severe lack of adult human interaction. I get bored. So I'm really panicked thinking about these 5 days. The thing is, I will have evenings to myself, a couple of hours each night just for me after The Kid's in bed.

I crave time alone... it's like sex or chocolate or really good wine or Tavi. But when I'm faced with time alone, I panic.

I read a section from Women Who Run With the Wolves by Estes tonight (pages 292-296) about "The Practice of Intentional Solitude."

In order to converse with the wild feminine, a woman must temporarily leave the world and inhabit a state of aloneness in the oldest sense of the word. Long ago the word alone was treated as two words, all one.... That is precisely the goal of solitude, to be all one. It is the cure for the frazzled state so common to modern women, the one that makes her, as the old saying goes, "leap onto her horse and ride off in all directions."

Truly the only thing one needs for intentional solitude is the ability to tune out distractions. A woman can learn to tune out other people, noise, and chatter, no matter if she is in the midst of a contentious board meeting, no matter if she is being stalked by a house that needs to be cleaned by a bulldozer....

LOVE that bulldozer house cleaning line....

If you have ever been the mother of an insomniac two-year-old, you know how to take intentional solitude.

Why not just go with the flow and embrace the time alone and play with The Kid? I will try it, although I'm strung tighter than a piano wire and going with the flow is not something I do well.

To Hunker

Hunker - Verb - To hunker. Hunker down now. Can't talk, I'm hunkering. A strategy to combat the horrible things I think and say when I am restless, horny, mean, and full of self-pity.

I bet Baba Yaga went into her cabin and shut the door when she felt like this. Probably didn't even accept a booty call.

Come to think of it, she might have allowed a booty call. Booty calls are valid strategies.

Family

My parents were visiting yesterday and today, and The Kid has a cold, so my mom offered to take him to Domelandia (I grew up in a geodesic dome...I'll tell you about it sometime) so that we wouldn't have to take sick leave, and because my parents are delighted with The Kid and want to spend as much time with him as possible. Grandpa is a very recent convert to loving The Kid - he wasn't a fan of the baby stage. The Old Man and I are driving down tomorrow.

I did not grow up around my aunts or uncles or grandparents, but The Kid is growing up around his extended family. I don't really have the words to say how important my family is to me, or The Old Man's family is to me, other than that I am so very grateful that The Kid knows his aunts and uncles and grandparents. Not only does he know them, he is comfortable around them and looks forward to seeing them. He high-fived The Old Man and gave me huggins when he left in Grandpa's truck today. He told me he was going to feed the horses which I thought was really brave for a two year old who was recently bitten by a miniature horse on a hobby farm.

I did not have to rush home from work today. The house feels empty and I miss The Kid. Also, I do not miss The Kid and I'm going to dinner with my husband and am grateful for a night I don't have to be a mom. These feelings exist simultaneously.

Old Man

The Old Man is taking his sick leave to stay home with The Kid today. Monday night he had dinner cooking when I got home from work. I didn't even have to ask. Am I in a fairy tale world? Does this really happen?

If he is wondering what would happen if a Ninja and a Spartan fought in a battle to the death - Ninjas are quicker, but Spartans have armor - who am I to deny him that pleasure? He deserves every bit of Ninja v. Spartan battle scenes. I suppose I can let him have the remote control for awhile since he's so incredibly awesome.

Kicking ass

Me: Hey, Baba Yaga, is it ok for women to kick ass?

Baba Yaga: That is a stupid question. Of course it's ok. Now leave, before I kick your ass.

I know a lot of women who kick ass. They are smarter than their significant others, they ask for what they want and sometimes they take what they need, not because they are being selfish or greedy but because they know that it will not occur to others to give them what they need.

Right now I am struggling with saying no, and I have to remind myself that for normal people saying no is almost the default unless they can be persuasively convinced that saying yes will benefit them somehow and not sap too much of their energy. My default is to say yes to everything - thus 2 wasted days away from the office this week when I have a full load of work waiting for me at my desk. Am I an old ugly hag (no offense BY) if I say no - do I risk losing friends?

My multiple personalities fight over this. Competitive me says that of course I can do it all, and in fact I should do it all, because most likely I will do it better than anyone else I can think of. Nice me says I should say yes just to be nice. A very small part of me, becoming a grander presence all the time, jealously protects my time. This me thinks my time is valuable, and says, "Oh yeah, you want me to do something? It'll be worthwhile? Prove it."

I am a black belt in karate, I am a tactical police baton instructor, I can shoot guns and ride horses, but SAYING NO is my new challenge. Bring it!

Cabin on Chicken Legs

In searching for Baba Yaga tonight, I Googled her. I hope the old witch doesn't mind being Googled. I've heard it only tickles a little bit.

I found her on, of course, Wikipedia. I found some Christianized versions of the fairytale, too, but I like the version Clarissa Pinkola Estes printed in her book the best so far.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baba_Yaga

Her cabin on chicken legs is interesting. According to the Great and Powerful Wikipedia, the cabin was a common construction among hunter-nomadic Siberian peoples, invented to protect supplies from animals during long absences. A smaller version of the cabin was used by Siberian pagans to house their gods, or rather, their goddesses, because at one time the society was a matriarchy. The goddess was represented as a bone-carved doll as big as the cabin, barely fitting inside.

Feels like my spirit is a house on chicken legs, windows closed and boarded, waiting for me to come back. Baba Yaga protects what is inside. It can be scary to return to a place that's been boarded up for a long season, to pry open the locked window and look inside and dust off the cobwebs and take inventory of what the mice have eaten and what is still salvageable. It is scary to approach the house of Baba Yaga, who can bring death as surely as she brings wisdom. I'm being melodramatic. But she does threaten to eat children.

I'm coming back to these ideas I packed away as a young girl: idealism, creativity, trust in others, bewildering confidence. I'm here at the doorstep as an adult all too familiar with cynicism, a woman with a soundtrack of self-directed negativity playing in her head. I'm hoping this negativity will suffer death and some trust in myself will replace it - providing a balance for the loss of innocence and disappointments over the years.

Husband

So, I've been struggling with a name for THE HUSBAND, the man who encourages me to take my wine and diary and books upstairs when I need a break, the man who uses his sick leave to take The Kid to the doc without complaint, the man who holds me every night. The man who expects nothing less than full-fledged partnership in return for his constant calm and presence. And I have no mystical, mysterious name for him because, frankly, he think mystical, mysterious things are voodoo. He's a down-to-earth kind of guy. The kind of guy who never, ever speaks unless he's thought it through. Try it sometime. Don't say a word until you have analyzed every infinitesimal meaning of what you're about to say, until you have dissected the situation you are in and have thought about your proposed solution from every possible angle. Only after you have let it sit in your brain awhile, then speak.

You will be right EVERY SINGLE TIME.

This is weird in a relationship, annoying, but also very, very comforting. There's no name to do him justice. He doesn't believe in true love - or so he says - but he's the guy who's loved me more than any other man. Since he doesn't believe in true love, I can't call him Angel (Buffy the Vampire Slayer's True Love), or Edward (Bella's). Or Aragorn or Sam (my perfect ideal man) or Heathcliff. The drama those characters intone is too mushy-mushy. It has to be simple, unassuming. It's the kind of love that will stick for fifty or so years, like a really good metaphorical oatmeal sticks to the metaphorical ribs. You don't get hungry again after metaphorical oatmeal. I think I'll call him Old Man Yaga, as in my ball and chain, the one who keeps me from flying off the broom handle, the one who keeps me grounded.

The one who giggles at me when I get all worked up. Old Man Yaga is no longer ______.

Sisters

"Beside a well, one does not thirst. Beside a sister, one does not despair." - Chinese proverb

This has for a long time, ever since I discovered the quote, summed up for me the power my sister has in my life. Annie senses my moods, delicately and swiftly confronts me with them, and gently allows me to be honest with myself without losing face. Today I was feeling sorry for myself, and Annie made me feel better. How does she do it?

Fatigue

For some reason tonight, fatigue has hit both me and ____. We are exhausted, and it's only Wednesday. We need to bottle The Kid's energy and take some for our own.

Law Enforcement Dudes

Tonight I moderated a conservation law enforcement panel. Now, I'm married to a game warden, and I was a game warden, so I know something about this stuff. There, I've just added a defensive qualifier, feeling compelled to justify my presence on the panel.

One participant said "it's a lifestyle" and "don't come into the interview asking about benefits or time off" and "you will miss all the holidays and birthdays." Another participant talked about how lazy "Generation X is, because they only want to work 8 to 5."

As the moderator, I graciously looked into the audience while they were making these comments. I did not argue. You would have been proud of me. But it irked me.

Isn't Generation X the ones who saw their Baby Boomer parents working their fingers to the bone, who became latchkey kids? I've seen examples of people who live to work - and it's not me or my husband. Family is number one, and any other view on life seems to me be misguided or would at least require relying on a spouse to be the sole dispenser of attention to the kids.

I work full-time, but I treasure my time off, and I take it. There are many, many good old guys in my agency, but I'm waiting for the day they retire and we get can some work/family balance institutionalized.

Cleaning Dreams

Lately I've been having dreams about cleaning my house. In my dreams the house is really dirty - open bags of trash spilling out onto the floor, many years' layers of dust on the furniture, gritty chunks of dirt and sand between my bare feet - and I sweep and pick up trash and dust and it makes no difference. New bags of trash appear and disarray enters through the back door and I can never stay ahead of it.

Last night's dream was of cleaning the couch (this is relevant in the real world because we are getting a new couch, and I have to clean the old one in the hope that charity will take it). I take the couch outside and begin to clean it, and find that _____ has pushed all the cushions in among the trash. I'm taking them out and trying to scrub out dirt and lawn clippings and rancid dirty diaper smells.

Like Monica from Friends, I love to clean, and I love when my home is clean. But I can't help but wonder if there isn't some deeper meaning (this is how I'm also like Phoebe from Friends).

My dream book (10,000 Dreams Interpreted, by Gustavus Miller) says that to dream of sweeping denotes "that you will find favor in the eyes of your husband, and children will find pleasure in the home. If you think the floors need sweeping, and you from some cause neglect them, there will be distresses and bitter disappointments awaiting you in the approaching days."

Bummer.

Women Who Run With the Wolves, by Estes, explains that "all these motions of 'home-keeping,'....offer ways to think about, to measure, feed, nourish, straighten, cleanse, order the soul-life."
"For many women, this task requires of them that they clear a time each day for contemplation, for a space to live in that is clearly their own with paper, pens, paints, tools, conversations, time, freedoms that are for this work only."

Vasalisa sweeps Baba Yaga's yard. She is keeping "unusual ideas clear and ordered. These ideas include those which are uncommon, mystical, soulful, and uncanny."

Since The Kid was born, my house is never as clean as I would like - thus, the anxious ordering and sweeping in my dreams. But I would also like to think that since The Kid was born, his delight in meeting the world for the first time has given me a window into the magic of the soul again... the delight I used to have when I was young. Perhaps The Kid is The Key to churning up my creative ideas, to setting them loose.

Cheese and Strawberry Dream

Last night I dreamed ____ and I (more on him later) were driving a bumpy dirt road. Every quarter mile or so were closed toll gates. I'd get out of the truck, pay the toll, (usually $1.25 or so), and close the gate after we drove through. We met a truckload of children on the road. A young girl was driving, and her face was dirty, and she had no money. I drove ahead of her, cutting up cheese and strawberries in .25 cent pieces. I stuffed the pieces into the gate so that the little girl could find them and pay her toll.

Baba Yaga

There's the old Russian story about Vasalisa visiting Baba Yaga in her house in the forest. I read a version of this story in "Women Who Run With the Wolves," by Clarissa Pinkola Estes, Ph.D. I highly recommend this book to any woman who knows there is something better out there but has no clue how to find it.

Baba Yaga is the old hag, the wild witch who makes Vasalisa cook and clean and do impossible tasks, and screams at her and tells her she will eat her. The underlying tasks:

Being able to stand the face of the fearsome Wild Goddess without wavering.

Familiarizing oneself with the arcane, the odd, the "otherness" of the wild.

Taking some of her values into our lives, thereby becoming ourselves a little odd.

Learning to face great power-in others, and subsequently one's own power.

Letting the frail and too-sweet child die back even further.

-p. 91 Women Who Run With the Wolves

I wish I wanted more to search for La Que Sabe, the One Who Knows, the seed of powerful intuition buried in every woman. Or La Loba, the Wild Woman, the matriarch of the wolf pack. In fact, I would want someday to look around and say with perfect honesty, I am Osa Madre, Mother Bear. I "can be reticent and valuable....protect [my] territory, make [my] boundaries clear, shake the sky if need be, yet be available, accessible, engendering all at the same time."p. 358.

But for right now, I'm searching for Baba Yaga.