Run, Mama, Run
Have I mentioned that I’m running a trail run today? It’s part of my triathlon project, and having not run since high school (and having shown no particular talent back then), I am filled with rather unpleasant sensations of nervous anxiety. My goals are small: I would like to finish the race, and ideally, I would like to finish the race without stopping to walk. I know that I can run 8km, but I don’t know what it will be like to run with others around me; I have a competitive personality that I spend most of my time repressing, but it might flash out to ill effect during the race. (It’s not that I think being competitive is a bad thing; but life is so much more enjoyable when the element of competition is removed … at least, that’s true for me).
Kevin is very excited. The children are only interested in my prospects of winning. When I told them that there is no way I will win, nor is that my goal, they were nothing but baffled. Why enter, if you know you’re not going win? Why indeed.
I’ve done a very poor job of soliciting pledges for the charities involved (KidsAbility and the Rotary Club), but if anyone out there would like to sponsor this new runner, please click here.
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We had another “first day” yesterday: CJ started nursery school. He will be attending three mornings a week, giving me more time to write and work. He wasn’t overly enthusiastic at drop-off time (Kevin managed that), but he was in fine spirits when I picked him up. And he was still wearing the same pants.
Tomorrow it will be Fooey’s turn for her “first day,” as a senior kindergartner.
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This morning, it’s just been me and the two little kids. I put on classical music and we played on the floor, then popped popcorn, and did puzzles. It was so peaceful with the music in the background. We don’t listen to music often enough, in a background, mood-setting, soothing kind of way. Usually if we turn it on, it’s loud kids dance music, and not conducive to good behavior or talking (though excellent for rowdy energized indoor play). My goal is to play more music more often, in the background, so that it’s part of their hidden knowledge, their brain-maps, among the things that they will grow up knowing without knowing that they do.
First Day
Carefully chosen outfits (brand-new clothes from Grandma). Excited to meet up with friends. Heavy bags loaded with gear. Packed lunches. The whole family walking up to school. Another year has begun: grade four, and grade three.
The two younger ones wanted a photograph, too. In fact, they posed. Who could resist?
Look What We Got Done!
My office has been touched-up, tidied, desk debris cleared (dusty three-year-old “must-do” piles purged into the recycling bin); we purchased a proper adjustable chair (and removed the folding chair which had replaced the exercise ball both of which had rendered me nearly lame on writing week; seriously, I temporarily lost all feeling down one leg), and Kevin used the skill-saw to customize the tiny computer desk I’ve been using since 1998 (now there was a worthwhile $99.00 investment in pressed-fibre technology). And suddenly, I am sitting in well-organized comfort before my computer screen, in a sunny room that is, yes, still a playroom; but the toys are easily hidden in cupboards and closet, and the bookshelf holds kids’ books on the lower shelves and my books on the upper shelves. I’m ready for the new year.
Because of course this is the real new year. Forget January 1st. I am filled with excitement and energy and ideas and plots and schemes and plans and routines, and my calendar is chock-a-block from one end to the other with everything we’re going to do.
I have spent today baking in preparation for school lunches and after-school snacks: chocolate sunflower granola bars; granola; banana muffins; bread. I didn’t feel much like baking all day, but put my head down and gutted through it–not unlike my run this morning–and it’s done, and I feel ready. The school bags are filled with supplies and new shoes. The lunches have yet to be made, but as part of our re-division of household labour, Kevin has offered to take over the packing of the lunches (YESSSSSS!!!!), as well as breakfasts, and Sunday evening supper–aka cooking with the kids. He’s also been noticing and doing dishes more frequently. I can’t express to you the difference this makes, but if you are the regular dish-doer at your house, then you will appreciate the change, too. The kids will pack their snacks on pizza day and sub day; I’m not sure whether we’ll also work to transition them into packing their own lunches more often. Baby steps. If I could get them to throw their dirty laundry into the basket, or down the basement steps in the direction of the washing machine, and to put away their individual piles of carefully folded clothes each evening … well, those seem do-able goals for the near future.
Feast
It’s been a good summer, a fast summer, a hot summer that felt like a summer. I’ve ticked most items off of my “summer to-do list.” I’ve canned enough tomatoes to last us through winter (I think), and have filled one whole freezer with fruit and veggies and herbs, too. This morning, I dumped the water out of my canner and put it back into the basement. I’m all out of jars, and my pantry shelves are full. And my mom has promised to can peaches for us, so what more will we need? Yesterday’s canning session took all morning, but it wasn’t hard: one last 1/2 bushel of tomatoes, whose beautiful red flesh I’m looking at right now, glassed in on my countertop.
I fully intended for this week to be about letting the kids enjoy what’s left of their holiday and that’s what it’s been (I hope they’ll concur): sleepovers, playdates, and yes, computer playing. We’ve biked to afternoon swim lessons; we’ve been on one evening picnic; we’ve bought shoes, had eye check-ups and gelato, and we’ve shopped for school supplies at Shoppers Drugmart. Actually, that spree coincided with a moment in my life which I may never forget. The kids were mile-a-minute enthusiastically comparing bandages (Barbie? Star Wars? Pooh Bear?) in the first-aid aisle when I got a call from my agent. It was the kind of call for which every writer quietly waits. She said, Have I caught you at a good time? I said, I’m standing in Shoppers with my kids. She said, check your email when you get home.
I’m struggling with how best to share this news, because it’s tenuous in-between news, neither signed, sealed nor delivered; on the other hand, anyone reading this blog has suffered through the dregs of naval-gazing and self-doubt, and it seems more than fitting to share with you the flip side of the equation–the moments of affirmation. I found myself weeping–not in Shoppers, but later, when I’d had a chance to let the news sink in, yet while it was still fresh and utterly thrilling and overwhelming. Why are you crying, Mommy? Because I’m so happy! (Apparently, that’s how I do happy; it ain’t pretty).
My agent was calling to tell me that I have offers on my Nicaragua book; though the offers didn’t quite arrive in a lump, they came close, in the feast or famine style that is a writer’s fate. Wow. I almost can’t type those words out or trust in them. Might it all evaporate if I look at it too closely, or wave it around too excitedly?
Because it is now the long weekend, I have several completely quiet days to think and to imagine. My agent, who has been with me and with this book for the years that I’ve committed to it, said she wished for me to relax and just enjoy the moment for what it is. Savour it. She, like my husband, gets an inside view of my efforts, hopes and ambitions, and I hear what she’s saying: This is where you are, right now. It took a lot of work to get here. There’s a lot of work ahead. This is one of those rare peaks along the climb, an opportunity, if I let myself take it, to stop for a moment and breathe in the view.
Pick-Your-Own Happiness
The kids are hard to budge these days. Friday, Fooey had a dr’s appointment in the morning and we all went along for that (me and the kids) and it went quite well, but Fooey’s reward afterward was to get to watch a movie … which everyone else decided to watch, too, and then she wanted another movie, and TV, and on and on, until it was early afternoon, and I finally summoned the energy to say: no! We are going out, and now. Our outing? To pick tomatoes for canning. It was a bit of an impulse adventure. And it seems to take a herculean dose of energy to get everyone organized (water bottles, sun hats, snacks) and out the door (“I’m not going!” “I hate tomatoes!” “You’re such a mean mommy!”). If half the gang is excited, the other half is almost guaranteed not to be. One must first find an idea–an outing, an event, a destination–and then one must convince all involved that it is worth being roused for, and when this proves fruitless, one resorts to the methods of dictatorship: everybody march! It’s for your own good!
And it is. I promise.
We found the field, using my googled and scribbled instructions … and by God it was beautiful. “Don’t you feel better already? Just being out here? Isn’t this wonderful?” (For which I received some muttered agreement from the masses, if not outright enthusiasm). The sun shone, the tomatoes were ripe and plentiful, so many on the vines that we had to be careful not to step on them (they are paste tomatoes and grow on vines that crawl along the ground). In forty-five minutes we had picked approximately 55 pounds of tomatoes–or one bushel. CJ was the most enthusiastic helper, which explains the number of green tomatoes in my bin. The older kids grew tired and sat in the grass under the shade. But I was positively ecstatic. Dirt, sun, sky, the scent of ripe and rotting tomatoes.
Arrived home brimful of renewed energy and direction, and brewed up a pot of pearsauce using pears picked by a neighbour’s daughter and delivered hours before, managed to get the pearsauce canned, and then flew out the door with Kevin to see a friend play her uke at a festival in a nearby town.
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Yesterday, I started the morning with a run, then got to canning the first 1/2 bushel of these tomatoes, which turned into 7 quarts plus 7 pints of tomato puree. Kevin took the kids out for most of the afternoon to the Buskerfest (spend-your-money-fest), and everyone returned home with giant inflatable hammers and bats (sibling whacking devices) won in dart tossing games. Then we headed out after supper, on bicycles, to see our first roller derby match at the nearby rec centre. The kids had a blast, though mentioned it was awfully LOUD (was it ever). And Kevin and I enjoyed it too; though it didn’t inspire me to want to lace up my skates any time soon. Yikes. They fall down hard and often, and onto concrete.
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Second round of canning underway today. Have put on a batch of yogurt, too. Tomorrow, we’ll be out of homemade bread, again.
Will I exercise today?
I’ve noticed that my photographs have gone downhill. And I’ve been writing nothing but blog posts. Is this a factor of time, or energy? Do I have a limited amount of energy–creative energy inseparable from energy generally–and therefore I am using up all of my creative juices on early morning runs/yoga sessions/learning to swim/bike rides? The thought is slightly horrifying. Then again, maybe it’s just a downward dip, a little fallow period in the days before the new school year begins, and the rest of life and duties and new (and familiar) directions begin again.