At the end of this upended week when not everyone I know has power back, I guess it’s not surprising that I feel somewhat discombobulated. I do. I had exactly one day of the preschooler’s preschool this week. There’s probably some direct algebraic formula about the days of school attended to productivity to maternal emotional wellbeing. I’m not so math minded. I’ll just say I need a tiny stretch without days off.
Veteran’s Day is next week. Just saying.
Yesterday, my friend sent me that brilliant cartoon about depression that’s been traveling the Internet. If you haven’t seen it, click. Resonate. Smile.
Yesterday, I also saw a clip from Killing Me Softly about how unreal women are made to look and then how real women are set up to aspire to this unattainable unreality. I urge a click. I’m not sure how many times we women should be told and should tell ourselves—and each other and our daughters and our sons—of this celluloid and photo-shopped mistruth of our times, but probably way, way many more times than we do. Personally, I never feel as if I’m measuring up, physically, emotionally, work-wise or otherwise. That’s my truth. It has nothing to do with how many days my daughter attends preschool.
One of the home days this week was made much easier by having Saskia’s pal Addy over. They love each other so much. I love their friendship. I listened in on what seemed—probably was—some endless game of daughter and mother and big and baby sisters. Quoting Saskia, “Sweetie, don’t pinch or you will get a time out. Pretend.”
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Even without school or naps, we are still in the midst of working and struggling through, some nights, bedtime. This weekend, we fall back. I read a few tips about how to make the time change less painful. So, sharing.
Since I seem to be in a clip-sharing mood, I’ll one more. I loved this essay about sharing pregnancy news on Facebook chat, but really I loved it for its query: why aren’t there any quirky movies about girls getting abortions?
I may just spend the day letting quirky movie plots about girls getting abortions amuse me. It doesn’t take much. For one election season, car filled with signs, flyers and such, I drove around blasting the soundtrack to South Pacific. What kept me going was this: the idea of a gay men’s chorus singing I’m gonna wash that man right out of my hair. That’s funny, right?
