An inch of new snow last night now rapidly deteriorating in the sun. Patches of ice at intersections turning soft. 25 degrees feels like almost spring. The raven on the branch outside is almost a robin. Then he turns and he is a robin, breast a tawny orange instead of red, brown wings looking a bit rumpled and thin, very much the absent-minded professor who hasn't had time to iron. Last night we went to Thisbe's school for an art show. She showed us her work: a newspaper hat painted gold and topped with silver star and white rose; a drawing of Ariel standing upright on her tail, fins split and splayed at the bottom; faces drawn big and close, swirls in between and a caption "a party at my house"; a spindly house with windows and roof, a line of blue sky, our names etched into the siding.
Your face is a mass of red welts. Your body is spotted red. Fever of 101.5. We're on day 15 of your cough and runny nose, an ear infection in there somewhere, another doctor visit to check your wheezing breath sounds. You might be allergic to amoxicillan. Or this might just be a virus passing through you.
It's Ash Wednesday, a day that some winters comes as a relief. We are here in the darkness and cold anyway so why not think about sin? Why not fast and pray? Why not circle a little around our limited mortality? But this year it feels unfair. My eyes hurt from trying to find each small bit of animal motion in the treetops, from searching too long for spring in the brightness of the snow. On a day where the winter feels like it's finally offering slivers of resurrection it seems brutal to march over to church and be marked on the forehead with a smudge of ash.
And your sister is fighting some kind of demon of her own. She speaks to us in whiny, bossy, uncompromising tones and when we ask for kindness, for please or thank you, she goes ballistic. "Get me my cereal/turn the CD on/I will NOT put on pajamas!" she shrieks. Or she tries on "I won't do that. I just won't. You can't make me." And then she looks at me, red-rimmed eyes, crossed arms, tears. Teacher Sarah says all parents get it sooner or later, we're just getting it sooner. And love now, in her case, seems to be firmness, seems to be holding a solid boundary, devoid of emotion as possible. It's our fault a little that she's in this place. After your birth, and more recently in the midst of sickness we've bent over backwards to shower her with attention, to make sure she knows she is loved via kisses and kindness and hot cocoas at Blue Monday and special dates with Mama and on and on. We forgot, a little, that sometimes loving your sister means saying "no."
A poet colleague recently said that sometimes what got her through the early months of mothering (new baby, no real time to write, unfinished housework everywhere, job responsibilites encroaching, etc.) was saying to herself: this is impossible. To admit freely that the kind of balance she dreamt of simply would not happen for a while. That it was literally impossible to do it all.
So much of my frustration these past few months has come from "ifs." I would have time to write IF the kids weren't constantly getting sick. I would have been in a more pleasant mood today IF my husband had opted to serve something other than leftovers on his one cooking night this week. The house would be a lot cleaner IF we hadn't had that blizzard. And on and on.
Another writer friend wrote a wonderful post about lent today. I especially like Lenten Approach #3. But I think maybe what I need to give up this year is the possibility of having it all. The idea that under certain circumstances I could currently be a great mother/writer/teacher/wife/friend/citizen all at once. I am tired of failing over here, within the American myth of the possible. So tonight I'll offer up (likely with a hive-covered baby strapped to me and a four year old whining about how her cross itches) my dream of perfect balance and complete fulfillment. And I will pray that leaving that longing behind makes room for a different kind of possibility to enter.
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