1953

I was home a few weeks back trying to juggle conference calls, stressful quarter-end related work activities, laundry, cleaning and kid drop-offs.  I made up this song in my head to a catchy little tune while I was crazily running around the house trying to be ten different people at once.  The chorus of the song went as follows: "When you come home my hair looks nice, your gin and tonic is chilling on ice.  why oh why can't it be 1953?  I'll fix your dinner then fill your glass, when I turn away you'll tap my ass.  Why oh why can't it be 1953?"

Needless to say this little ditty is about my June Cleaver/Martha Stewart fantasty of how dreamy it would be to only be responsible for one thing - my family.  Some days when the list of to-do's feels overwhelming and frankly, unfair, I long for the days when women took care of the house, their children and their husband and left the money making to men.  I think this is partly because I truly do enjoy domestic work and partly because the grass is just always greener.

This weekend, after a week-long tour of the Southwest in a mini-van with my family a-la Clark Griswald I was completely DONE with taking care of other people.  I was under-rested, under-fed, under-groomed and over-worked.  I was at a Mommy low and needed someone to take care of me for a second.  The baby started to throw a tantrum because she only wanted me to hold her and no one else.  I was trying to cook breakfast at the time and just didn't have a spare hand to give her which meant she was literally tugging at my skirt and crying.  My husband looked at me and said "why don't you just take care of the baby?" as if to say "why don't you just be the woman and take care of the offspring?" 

This little comment sent me into orbit mentally.  My response was an angry "DON'T TALK AT ME LIKE IT'S F'ING 1953!"  I angrily left the house and took the crying baby for a walk in the carriage to clear my head.  As I was strolling her to calm her down I thought about the irony of my unplanned comment.  Here I had made up an entire song (which I still think may be funny enough to put on YouTube) about wishing it were the simpler days of strict gender roles and not a couple of weeks later I am proudly flying my feminist flag and scolding my husband for treating me like anything less than his equal.

I guess the lesson here is that you can't have it both ways - and that perhaps neither way is really any easier than the other.  We can't be the bread-winners, mothers, wives, friends and housekeepers without a fair amount of stress.  I wouldn't however, trade the financial independence and the feeling of personal satisfaction I get from a job well-done at work for an apron any day of the week.  It wasn't eaiser for women trying to raise small children in 1953 - in fact in most ways, I'm sure it was harder.  Sure their only concern was taking care of their home and family, but they lacked so many of the freedoms and priviledges that modern-day working mothers have earned.  

What works is different for every family of course.  Some men stay home while their MD wives see patients all day.  Some moms I know have started consulting to give themselves more flexibility as far as their hours are concerned and some couples just match one another's 9-5 schedules like my husband and I.  What works depends on who earns a bigger salary, the age of your kids, the lifestyle you want to maintain and what kind of a person each partner is.  You have to prioritize what means most in your life and your family and take it from there, but I will say this:  aside from the fabulous fashion, costume jewelry and liberal consumption of cocktails at that time - I'm really grateful to be raising a family today and not 60 years ago.

walk slow.

I have heard the expression "burning the candle at both ends" countless times throughout the course of my life, but lately the message behind the expression is really starting to resonate with me. I seem to be literally tripping over people who are burned out, exhausted, harried and generally hanging by a very thin thread of energy. It's got me wondering if this is 1) a symptom of our over-producing society 2) our need to have more (money/status/things) or 3) the place most of my peers are at in life which typically involves a house, a job and a couple of kids.

Regardless of why it is we all seem to be so strung-out and stretched-thin the fundamental question remains: Is all of this running around actually getting us anywhere?

My new boss was rushing last summer to cut his grass on a Friday evening after working a long week before heading out to a concert with his wife that evening. He went over a hill in his back yard and the tractor landed on top of him. He was badly burned on much of his upper body and is lucky to be alive. When he came back to work with pictures of his injuries his comments were "I was moving too quickly trying to get too much done in not enough time. I need to slow down." I couldn't help but think this was the Universe sending a quiet message to me through him.

Not long after this incident my family and I went on vacation to a small lake in the Northeast Kingdom of Vermont. In the middle of the week my husband went mountain biking for the day with a friend so I took the kids to a local Farmer's Market. It was one of those perfect VT afternoons when the breeze smells like wildflowers and softserve ice cream and the sky is an icy blue. There were all sorts of fabulous local wares to be purchased and veggies fresh from the garden. A hippie was playing the guitar and the kids were running around eating homemade caramel popcorn. I can feel my happiness in that moment even now as I type this.

There was a man originally from Jamaica at the market selling authentic Jamaican spices and food. He made jerk seasonings and meat rubs and this wonderful jambalaya-looking stew served over rice that everyone was devouring for lunch. He was playing Reggae out of the back of his van and had the Jamaican flag flying above his food stand. Obviously I wanted to learn his story and then hang out with him all day long.

After chatting for a while I learned that he had worked as a cook on a cruise ship 30 years ago which is when he met his wife - who was from Vermont. They fell in love, got married and proceeded to raise five children in the Green Mountain State. When he spoke about his wife his eyes lit up and he got the dreamy look of a young boy in love for the first time. Talking to this Jamaican guy was magic and made me feel high (which I wasn't).

The part that I will never forget is when I said to him "Wow - your life sounds amazing. You are so happy and this place is so beautiful, living here must be as wonderful as it looks." His response was simple, he said "Yeah mon, we walk slowly here." My eyes froze on his for way too long. It took what seemed like forever for me to process the enormity of what he was saying and how much I needed this in my own life. How lucky I was to have met him and to have shared this small yet powerful exchange.

I've been trying to walk more slowly ever since. The slower we walk the more we see, the less likely we are to trip and the more memorable the journey becomes.

Hope For Us

This year Valentine's Day arrived with not one but TWO grown-up weekend obligations back to back. We had a charity fundraiser and a Valentine's Day Ball two consecutive Saturday nights. The usual routine of trying to line up child care while figuring out what in my closet is fancy enough to justify being worn to a "ball" began and we set off for our adult evenings filled with wedding food, good drink and good friends.

The fundraiser was to support friends of ours who are close with a family whose son has Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy (http://www.hopeforgus.org/home). This being my first charity event ever (I'm pretty sure) I had little idea what to expect. It ended up being a great night and such a fun deviation from the norm. It felt a smidge like a Republican fundraising event, which I have also never been to, but if I did, this is what I would picture it being like.

People were all dressed up milling about munching on "heavy apps" while trying to strike up interesting conversation with fellow party-goers. These types of things always remind me there are all these other worlds happening on Saturday nights while I'm at home putting a baby to bed in my Lanz of Salzburg nightgown...but I digress. Patrick and I dutifully bid on some silent auction items (two of which we won!) and chatted with the friends who had invited us. After a couple of hours Gus's mother spoke to the crowd about her family, her son and the reason they started the foundation to try to find a cure for DMD.

She spoke about overcoming her own cancer just in time to find our her healthy, happy baby boy had the most severe form of Muscular Dystrophy and would likely not walk past the age of 10 or 12. This is a mother of three children who works full-time, fought cancer and has STARTED A FOUNDATION for her sick child. As I listened to her I was not only amazed by her commitment to getting her son well, but by the matter-of-fact and often times humorous way she was able to explain the horror and heartbreak her family has endured since the diagnosis.

In my mind I kept thinking that if women like this exist in the world then there must not only be Hope for Gus, but there must also be hope for us. This mother was a reminder to me that the horrible display of human nature I had witnessed on the flight home from my business trip that week was not an indication of the direction this world is heading. There are people like this mom who get up every day and fight the big fight for their family, their children and ultimately society as a whole since we all benefit from people with this type of determination.

I left feeling completely humbled by the experience. I felt grateful to have to children who outside of a little asthma and some bad ear infections have been mostly healthy. I left feeling guilty for bitching about housework, parenting and being a full-time career woman. Mostly however, I left feeling lighter just knowing that after what I had seen that night there are people devoting their lives to making the planet a safer, healthier and better place for everyone to live - and that there is absolutely hope for her son Gus...and for the rest of Us as well.