The Flood

Last night you woke at 11:45 and at 4:00 and then at 5:15 and then you woke and woke and woke.  Daddy went in to quiet you, sat on the edge of the glider and rocked your bassinet, but his cough kept waking you and I kept imagining, every time he coughed, all of the germs from his cough spraying all over you, lit in some neon color, like on CSI when they reveal semen or blood with a black light.  So at 6:10 I gave in.  Turned on your airplane lamp.  Scooped you out of the bassinet.  Unwound the blue fleece swaddle.  Watched your little fists zoom into the air (Nanny Barb calls this blooming).  You were ready for action.  Smiles and coos.  A focused blowing of bubbles.  You were happy by yourself beneath the mobile for another 15 minutes.  The mobile which plays either Beethoven, nature sounds, or a heartbeat.  Accompanied, if desired, by rotating stuffed animals.  Accompanied, if desired, by another set of illuminated animals projected onto the plastic umbrella that holds the stuffed animals in place.  It's like a baby orgasm.  Then we went downstairs and I made pancakes for myself and you rocked in your chair and I allowed myself too much syrup.  We played a number of intense games of pat-a-cake in the den before your sister joined us.  Jammies, Dog Do, cherry chapstick (which she applies approximately every 7.5 seconds). 

Two nights ago you woke me in the middle of a dream.  In the dream, water was pouring out of one of our walls, spreading out across the wood floor.  I only had two bowls and I couldn't scoop the water fast enough.  Peder was nowhere to be found and Gak was changing your diaper, too busy paying attention to you to take the water situation seriously.  Finally Micahel (uncle Michael) said he'd go shut the water off downstairs.  At that point I also realized I was kneeling next to the bathtub.  That there had been this place beside me all along to place the water.  But I hadn't seen it.  And shutting off the water, that was a terrific idea, but in the dream I couldn't possibly imagine leaving my frantic scooping to do what really needed to be done.

This is how I feel most days.  Like I am frantically scooping and my frantic scooping is never enough.  The water is still spreading.  The water is everywhere.

I officially dread the weekend.  Dread the hours where your father and I try to balance both of you.  Where 90% of the time someone is shrieking or whining or explaining very specifically the way in which her needs are not currently being met.  Every night this week your sister has had an epic tantrum because we tell her not to do something (touch you, kick us, apply scotch tape to her lips, etc.) or we request that she do something (turn off the I-PAD, eat her chicken, wash the excrement off her hands, etc.) and she continually does (or does not do) the action until a warning is proferred and then she resolutely does (or does not do) the thing ONE MORE TIME, while staring us down so that we then have to follow through on the threatened consequence (no books before bed, no Halloween candy, no screen time, etc.) and she howls (oh how she howls) as though we have told her she has no place in this family any longer.  The water is everywhere.

I watched part of a TED talk this week (short talks in which people offer some pocket of knowledge or motivational truth) in which a lesbian talked about how we're all in the process of coming out of a closet, we're all trying to tell the truth about something.  For some people it's divorce, for others a cancer diagnosis for others depression or addiction.  And she talked about how we're always in competition for whose life is hardest, whose closet is the most dark.  And she said "there is no hardest, there is only hard."  Or something to that effect. 

On the one hand I thought this was a gorgeous truth.  But honestly, I don't really believe it.  Here's how my reasoning goes every day.  This is my hamster wheel of thought:
I am having a hard time right now.
I am having trouble keeping my shit together.
(Yesterday, for instance, I started crying because a man in a hotel ballroom suggested that most best selling novels follow a certain formula, that you have to write a good ending because your ending sells the next book.  "Literature can't be packaged like that," I sobbed to my mother while we walked you beside the hotel pool.  "This is the antithesis of everything I believe.  About teaching.  About my LIFE,"  I added--though that made no sense.  The smell of chlorine everywhere.  "I think it's just one way of thinking about writing," said my mom.  "Well, it's the WRONG way," I sobbed.  And we walked by the water again.)
I am having trouble keeping my shit together but I have two healthy kids.
I have two healthy kids who are both doing great!
I have a marriage that is not falling apart.
I have a house that is ridiculously large (compared to the majority of dwellings in the world).
I am not food insecure.
I am not dying (well, probably not.  Or, as my lovely husband would say: we're always dying!)
I have a job I love.
I have a community.  I have so many amazing friends.
I have three different families that provide both emotional and financial support.
I have a book contract.
I have (currently) a mocha and an hour of free time.
There is hard-er than this.  There is a lot harder than this.
In fact, I think almost every single person I know currently has it harder, in some way, than I do.
I am a pathetic whiner.
I need to suck it up.
I am not sucking it up enough.
I am feeling sorry for myself.
Pity-parties do not make me attractive.
I look haggard.
I have no right to look haggard and I look haggard. 
I should be more gentle with myself.
People who are gentle with themselves end up spending $12,000 a year on facials instead of helping the homeless.
If I were writing instead of worrying about this, I would have a lot written by now.
And on and on and on. 

I don't have any trouble admitting the reality of my emotional landscape.  But I have a lot of trouble believing that landscape is legitimate or that it is worthy of grace.  I have trouble forgiving that woman in the dream, the one who doesn't understand that she could turn off the water at the source or scoop it into the bathtub, the one who can't see that a little water on the floor is not the worst thing of all. 

For that woman, there is only this bowl of water.  And the next.  And the next.