Amongst the things I’ve talked to people about recently for work or written about: green burials, the future of Holyoke, a doll, a writer’s career, the amazing ceramicist and designer Molly Hatch, the college application process and desks. Note: for most of these stories, you’ll have to wait to read them. Amongst the things I’ve been dealing with at home: cute little girl with stomach bug, gentle nudging about how to take notes for the eighth grade project, summer camp, looking for a bathroom mirror, tribulations of the tenth grade variety, the rats’ new luxury complex and how much there is to clean, how to schedule a meeting not on the date of the high school’s open house and how much else I’ve deferred because I’m overloaded. We had exactly no full rolls of toilet paper left before our co-op trip yesterday evening that kind of overloaded.
I am not alone in feeling overwhelmed. I know that. Overloaded is the new work-life balance or something like that. The “too much-ness” is a state with which we are all quite familiar. We are probably going to look back on our lives during these years—we, possibly even a cultural my generation kind of we—and say there was too much coming at us; we did too much; we missed all kinds of things because of it and we definitely worried too much. I am just guessing here.
Along with thinking about a lot of those things, I worried about a good portion of them: did the stories I sent in work for my editors? What should I pitch next? Should I be asking for payment from one place or another that doesn’t pay me? Did we pass the stomach bug along? (We did, it seems, to our dear pal-slash-cousin, Emily.) Will we manage to get through the eighth grade project without yelling over note taking or the writing process? Can I schedule enough play dates for the third grader when I’m solo parenting that he doesn’t miss his chess companion papa too much? Can I solve the puzzle of summer camp this week or next and not have to scramble this summer? Can we manage to stop the new trend the nearly four-year-old has begun of yelling if she doesn’t get her way, louder and louder “PLEASE!” Will the parents of the tenth grader survive his tenth grade year of early morning wakeups?
The wonderful Irwin Achmad of Toolbox Handyman Services came over about a week ago, fixed the broken front door lock (anxiety, by the way, unlocked front door for two days, thanks) and got the new lights up on the bathroom, the old lights tossed out and the old medicine cabinet, too (thus my search for a new mirror). Slowly, I’m clearing out my former study so it can feel more like the teenager’s bedroom. We’re clearing a big coat closet out and are planning to put shelves up in there for overrun kitchen gear, pottery and pantry items (think, an emergency package or two of toilet paper). There is, along with everything else, chaos everywhere. I guess in our house there is always chaos everywhere. That’s our natural state.
In the clearing out process, though, I’ve reclaimed a spot for my papers and my fantastic stationary collection. Because I don’t have a study or even a desk, this spot, let’s hope, will allow the important stuff to have a safe place to live and take some pressure off the kitchen counter where I work. I’ve tried to get my “office” down to a bin’s worth. It doesn’t quite work. I’ve taken over a short shelf for books upstairs that I’ve used recently or am about to read. It’s not ideal, surely, but my little cubby spot, built by my dear friend (and Remy’s godfather), extraordinary carpenter Ted Giles (he needs a website, leave a comment if you want to reach him) is going to take it for the team. It’s not a workspace because the desk is more desklet than actual desk; you can’t fit a computer or a full piece of paper there, but a postcard, sure. I feel like it’s a modern day version of what I’d call a grandmother’s desk, a small, somewhat secretive, pretty treasure trove. My grandmother’s desk wasn’t that, but her sewing desk was. But many grandmothers’ desks were that.
I do feel inspired when I open the doors and glimpse my tiny world within my world not completely cluttered. Is it any surprise, having been sharing my bed for a couple of nights with the little girl when she got sick (and of course, then wanted to stay) and even one night the third grade boy, too that he, lover of small, cool, neat things has decided my cubby is the perfect spot for homework?
