Anybody up for a pep talk? I could use one.
Last week, I foundered a bit. If it's even possible to founder a bit. Maybe I mean floundered. Do I mean floundered?
Founder: To fill with water and sink.
Flounder: To struggle or stagger helplessly or clumsily in water or mud.
Okay, so I floundered. Although it felt like foundering.
Because: I am a married mother of two and I am also sometimes, when I'm lucky, an artist. And on occasion I feel like I'm failing at both. My children, my adorable children, my little schnooks, how I love them! But there are moments when I want to lock myself in a studio and throw away the key, ignoring the wails on the other side of the door. Except I can't, because there those kids go again, needing me.
Oscar: Have you already finished your blog?
Me: No, I just started.
Oscar: (Beginning to cry) Mama! I don't want you to!
Me: The less you interrupt me, the more quickly I'll be all done.
Oscar: You're not being nice to me!
Yep, I'm their mommy. They literally require me to wipe their asses.
Small children. Seriously, they're so great, aren't they? For one thing, they're gorgeous. That skin! Those eyes! They are so funny and so affectionate and so smart! And many other ineffable things that I don't have words for right now! But sometimes they are tedious. Imagine, please, being so bored, so very bored, and yet not being allowed to go to sleep. That is parenthood, darlings.
Imagine, too, having a brain stuffed with plans. So full to the brim with ideas, so many projects to undertake, yet so impossibly unable to actually pursue any of them to your satisfaction. I think I used to be a writer, for instance. We could be romantic about it and say I am writing living epistles these days. That's even true, in its way.
But the greater portion of my life isn't romantic at all. Because what do you think I'm doing? I'm cleaning up messes. You know one of Oscar's favorite games these days? He likes to "cook" -- and cooking, for him, requires that he pull out three or four pots and add to them the contents of anything he can get his paws on in the pantry. We negotiate over the amount of any one spice or baking supply he can filch from. I try to get him down to a teaspoon, but I only sometimes succeed. He throws it all together in a bowl and stirs it. Then he adds water. Honey. Marshmallows. Then he pours it all into tupperware and puts it in the refrigerator. By the end of the day, I've got several unholy concoctions taking up the space milk should occupy, I'm banging my head on the table trying to sweep up spilled cornmeal, and I'm desperately trying to corral the baby in the kitchen, since he smells so overpoweringly of cumin that you'd think he bathed in the stuff.
You might ask why I allow Oscar to "cook" at all. (Are you wondering that?) Well, he hears some version of "no" or "not now" most of the time. That's what being a little kid is like. And sometimes I just can't bring myself to say no again. Besides, I'm trying to buy myself time to get my own stuff done! So while I work, Oscar "cooks" and builds and draws and bangs on things. And Rafa pulls anything -- everything -- out of any drawer/cabinet/shelving unit within reach. He especially loves to open boxes of playing cards and board games, scattering every. Single. Piece. Take anthing away from him while he's en flagrante and he screams like you've lopped off a limb.
So I clean and then I clean and then I clean some more.
Clean up, clean up!
Everybody, everywhere!
Clean up, clean up!
Everybody do your share!
Ha ha, I chortle! More like:
Me: Oscar, look at all these toys on the floor here. Please help me clean them up.
Oscar: (From the couch, where he is lying upside-down, flopping his legs around without explanation) Well, I'm busy right now, so I can't. Sorry, honey!
At this point, Rafael, dollars to doughnuts, will be doing one of three things. 1) Signing persistently that he wants to breastfeed now. 2) Following me around the house, weeping miserably, to coerce me into picking him up now. 3) Both. Now! And let me tell you, there's nothing quite like squatting and brushing sticky crumbs into a dustpan with a toddler hanging off one of your nipples, nursing like a fiend.
Oscar: Are you finished with your blog yet?
Me: (Squinting at the screen) What?
Oscar: Are you finished with your blog yet?
Me: Uh . . . not yet.
Oscar: No! That's not the right answer! You have to be done and that's your only choice!
I'm wondering if everybody else has this figured out by now and forgot to tell me. Perhaps I should stop fighting my decline and instead reminisce tiresomely about days past when I had nothing but time, when I was making art practically as often as I was breathing, and when I could reasonably expect to finish reading one frigging book -- just one frigging book -- that I started!
Seriously, am I ever going to reach my freaking potential as a human? Me me me me me!
Me!
