Today I scurried off to our local beach for a pre-dinner
swim. I left my sons and husband to sort
out hamburgers and a salad. It was a risky choice, in terms of actually getting
a meal, but it has been a long week for me and I needed a break.
My husband’s family has been visiting. It is the first time that someone of our
generation has hosted the whole crowed…nineteen in all. I have new-found respect for my
mother-in-law, Lynne who has been hosting all of us for the last twenty plus
years. Just dragging home the groceries
to feed such a crowd is demanding. Thank
god we have markets. At least we don’t
have to “hunter/gather” and skin dead animals.
Having stripped, laundered and re-made the beds, reinstalled
all the towels in the linen cupboard and dragged the trash and recycling to the
curb, I thought I deserved some time to bob in the ocean and enjoy the last
rays of the sun.
It was hard to leave.
The kitchen was littered with household debris. The ironing board, poised in a corner, was
ready to return to the cellar three days ago.
Groceries, now unpacked from bags, randomly graced the counters. Crows had attacked the trash left momentarily
by the back door. Could I leave such mayhem?
This is frequently my conundrum. Over the years I have struggled to maintain
some kind of order in my house. Cleaning,
cooking and laundering. Doing it again
the next day. In the middle of the night tripping over the size twelve shoes
left in the center of the family room to let the elderly dog out or a teenager
in who forgot their key, etc. In those
moments when I am ripping the last of my hair out and crying with frustration
over the general disorder, my children have been known to point out that
“people live here, Mom”.
I think it is their way of saying, “relax, chill, don’t be
so uptight, there’s always going to be mess”.
And I guess they’re right…existentially.
But it’s also lingo for “stop nagging”.
I didn’t plan on being a nag. In fact, I didn’t plan on being a
mother. I didn’t plan on a lot of things
that seem to have happened despite other intentions.
I like to think of myself as a new-age kind of gal. I have a master’s degree, I work professionally. So why am I crazed about lights left on,
doors left open to mosquitos, wet towels on the floor and dirty dishes in the
sink?
As I was returning from the beach today after my restorative
swim, I heard a woman’s voice loudly directing someone. She was hunched over the deck of their
ocean-facing bungalow. Still in her “beach
cover-up” she was earnestly wringing out bathing suits and towels and draping
them over the railing. Her husband and
young son, whom I had witnessed earlier returning from a fishing expedition,
were fast approaching.
“How nice!” she said loudly.
She smiled encouragingly and admired the two blue fish held aloft by her
son. But, suddenly, her tone
changed.
“They’re dripping”, she screamed as her son approached
her. “They’ll drip all over the deck.”
Raising her head to toward the husband lurking outside my view she asked even
more loudly “Are they cleaned?” and, finally, at top volume, “For god’s sake,
Larry, don’t put them in the sink. We’ll
never get the stink out. We’ll lose the
security deposit.”
I smiled. Here we go
again I thought. Another woman trying to
hold it all together. Another woman
worrying about the security deposit, the ruined deck, the stink. Probably, at the back of her mind, she’s
wondering if she’ll actually have to cook the fish. And then, will anyone eat them? How will she dispose of the carcass? What was quaint and charming and bonding to
her husband has now become her personal burden.
I felt for that woman.
Ostensibly on vacation in a breathtaking location, she was still
carrying her load. Like myself, she seemed
innately to be planning, worrying, organizing.
Why? Why are women built this
way?
Because we love the people we hold close to us. We want them to be happy. We want them to be safe. We want them to grow up and have good jobs
and nice spouses and bring their children home to us so we can worry about (and
love) them too. We want them to stay out
of jail, drive safely, pay their bills, get exercise and vote democratic. Life is hard and we know that.
