life – in general

the map

| D. Willson

Dear Detta,

Hey, it’s me. I mean, it’s you. I mean…never mind. You get it. Can we talk for a minute about a few things? And before you begin with, “writing a letter to yourself is so overdone” I want to remind you about what you tell your students. There’s no such thing as a copycat, it’s just called parallel inspiration. And besides, even if it’s been done before a thousand times, it’s never been done by you. You can put that stamp of “unique” on this so you feel better about it. But, for the record, that stamp doesn’t really matter.

I’ve noticed that you are feeling lost. You’re running on the hamster wheel, managing the menagerie, weathering the storm. Pick your metaphor. And you’re afraid that while you are in this “season” as you like to call it, that you will lose yourself permanently. Like a balloon drifting off into the sky. But I need you to remember that you will never lose yourself. You know the way back. You just have to remember the map and follow it.

First. Can you talk a little nicer to me? You say all day long that friends speak nicely to each other. But have you heard yourself lately? So much “I can’t…” and “I’m a failure…” and “This will never work.” Yes, you can. No, you aren’t. And yes, it will. You have tons of cheerleaders that surround you. But if we can’t get it together in our own cheering section, then it’s going to be a lot harder to get there. You will still get there. Let’s just make it a little friendlier. Remember when you used to say, “You’re doing good, girl!” Try that again. It felt nice.

Second. Let’s discuss self-care. But before we can even discuss that, can we start with basic needs? Go to the bathroom when you need to. Drink water. Eat more food. This is being Human 101. Even animals have that figured out. (Ok…that was judgy, let’s try to be nicer). And as for self-care, remember it’s not a Millennial thing and it’s not selfish. It’s called choosing joy and presence. It doesn’t mean alone time, but it could. It doesn’t have to be a spa day, but that sounds like a great idea. What makes you laugh? Board games. Watching TV with Mike. Playing with the kids. Do that. What helps you relax? Massages. Writing. Yoga. Of course there’s no time for this. So figure out what you can let go of (see number four) and replace it. I know you still don’t fully believe that it will pay off in the end because you don’t know when “in the end” will be. You still see taking care of yourself as shooting yourself in the foot. But the reason you keep coming back to it is because you know, deep down, it’s true. Go back to that old prayer you used to say, “I believe. Please help me with my unbelief.”

Third. Please, just say yes to help. It doesn’t make you less of a mother/teacher or more of a failure. You may not know this, but when people offer help, it’s because they see possibility in you. They wouldn’t do this if you were a lost cause (as you often feel). You are loved. Say yes and do so without hesitation. This morning, when you said yes to help, you were able to step outside your front door and notice the way the light came through the trees. You felt like yourself again for the first time in a month. Saying yes allows you to be rooted and present with the precious time you do have with others.

Fourth. Remember what your wise friend Heidi said earlier this year? You are the cake. Whether it’s your kids or your students or your husband or your family or your friends – they do not need anything more because the cake is enough. Everything else is a bonus and absolutely unnecessary. If you show up, that is enough. Perfection is included in this analogy. Trying to perfect things is the sprinkles and the decorations. You are wasting a lot of time on this, quite literally in your classroom. Redoing charts, rearranging furniture, trying to “fix” the crappy feelings by moving the picture an inch to the right. The cake is enough. You are enough. Show up. 

Fifth. Can I give you a compliment? With this crazy busy “season”, you’ve actually been doing pretty great at not giving a f*ck about people pleasing. Keep it up! I guess when you have too much time on your hands, it’s easy to obsess over a comment someone said two weeks ago. But lately, you’ve had tunnel vision. The hamster wheel will do that to you. So I guess that’s good. Remember how it feels to not over-worry about making others happy. When you get off the wheel, it’ll be helpful to recall how nobody disowned you. 

Ok, that’s enough for now. Thank you for taking a little time for us this morning. Good job at saying yes to help. You’re doing good, girl.

Love, 
Me

P.S. And for goodness sake, please go buy a new bra. What you have been wearing is embarrassing. (This is Judgy Detta talking again…and sometimes a little straight talk is necessary.)

thoughts at 4 a.m.

| D. Willson

Nearly every day, in the wintery pitch black morning, I have to explain to my three year old that it is a “daycare day”.

“Why?” she asks.

I start with altruism, “Because I like to help kids learn to read and it’s important to help people even if they aren’t our family.”

“Why?”

I decide to go for economics 101, “Because we need money to have a house and to eat good food and to go to the doctor.”

“Why?”

“Because it’s my job to take care of you and keep you safe and provide for you.”

“Why?”

This is about to turn dark. So you don’t die! is what almost erupts from my lips. Instead I circle back to simple truth, “Because mommy has to work.”

This satisfies her.

“I don’t want to go to daycare,” she mumbles around her thumb that’s since become lodged in her mouth out of boredom or worry.

I don’t want to go to work either. The rigamarole of bags and crying and shoe battles and trying not to look like the biggest shit show in the parking lot leaves me exhausted by eight a.m.

Once I’m there, I feel ok for a minute. I jump into the work. The smiles of the kids and the humor of my coworkers, who have become like family, warm me up a bit. But then, by mid-morning, I am tethered to a teat-sucking machine for a half hour and the doom and gloom set in again. This is my planning time so all the things that I said I’d do are not getting accomplished. And the shame-list of motherhood begins to swirl in my head too.

Is it worth it? No not really. Not on paper anyway. Children are expensive and exhausting and I haven’t eaten dinner while not also serving as a human jungle gym in about two years.

But what about the love? The snuggles? The smell of your baby’s head tucked under your chin? Surely these moments of joy outweigh the difficulty. But that’s like trying to measure both joy and frustration with the same tool, comparing a fever to an earthquake.

I look down at my milk dripping into the bottle and calculate my worth. The machine’s woo-woos starts to mimic words. Not enough. Not enough. Not enough.

There are minutes of my day that I channel some of the deepest zen I can find and later, I look back on that memory with feathered awe. I’m impressed with myself. But the truth is, in the middle of it, I have so much self pity and regret that you’d think my heart was made of stone.

I love my children. I wouldn’t trade them for the world, as they say. What I hate is the rat race. The suffocating and constricting parameters we shove ourselves into, where there’s no wiggle room for humanity to stretch. So we crack our skin trying to fit into these lives. We lower the bar even though that comes with the rising tide of shame. On a good day, we aren’t overcome by the waves.

Michelle Obama was right when asked about leaning in. “Sometimes that shit doesn’t work,” she said. People freaked out. Mostly because she swore but also because it threatens our very belief that if you just work hard enough then you can have it all. We were all taught to believe in the little engine that could. But most of the time it feels like you are being expected to chug up two different hills at the same time.

Perhaps instead of “leaning in” we need to lean out. Instead of balling up in fear at the center of the merry go round, perhaps I should be like the kid who hangs onto the railing and surrenders to the centrifugal forces that pull them that way anyway. As Eckhart Tolle says, once you stop battling the “isness” of your life, then you can begin to accept the story that is forming before you.

Can I accept a story in which I’m only kind of good at two vocations? Can I accept Macaroni and Cheese for dinner for a third night this week and that someone thinks I’m a flake at work because I’m always late? Maybe. Little by little, I think I might be capable of letting go of the measuring stick that requires perfection. But that would require people to not judge me… My brain begins to calculate the specifications of the story that I am willing to accept. Acceptance never starts with the word But…

Here we are again, in the pitch black morning. My baby boy has miraculously slept all night and I’m sitting at my desk weighing the cost-benefit of checking on him to make sure he isn’t dead. And my three year old is curled up on my lap, sucking her thumb, and watching me type with one hand.

“Is it a daycare day?” she just asked me.

“Yes, honey,” I told her.

But she doesn’t ask me why. Maybe she is accepting the “isness” of this story. Maybe I should too.

stretch

| D. Willson
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I am a working mom.

Most of the time I have made peace with this reality. But tonight it feels like I’m being asked to walk the plank. I’m an anxious, weepy mess. Which causes me to cling to my tiny baby while snapping at my ornery toddler at the same time. As Daniel Tiger would say – I have “mixed up feelings.” (I also have mixed up feelings about only being able to quote Daniel Tiger these days…who am I?)

I know there are many ways to experience humanity on this planet and many many ways to be a mother. And sometimes that means calling on the service of another nurturer to help care for your child. But my heart hurts tonight. It never quite feels right. I just don’t know how to make peace with handing my three month old baby over to a perfect stranger. And if you look at pure numbers, my children will be cared for by someone other than me for 54% of their waking hours. That doesn’t include the date night I may want to go on or the errands I might need to run without children in tow. The mom guilt is so deep right now it feels like I might drown in it.

I can’t say that I’ve been a particularly stellar stay at home mom for the past four months. The first month was filled with so many hormonal roller coasters and toddler tantrums that I think I may have blocked it from my memory. Months two and three had some rhythms – with trips to our library story time, playdates, and walks to the park. But by month four I found myself ancy to do adult things and never watch another episode of Doc McStuffins again. If I were able and chose to stay home with my kids I’d definitely need an attitude adjustment.

But that is not my story. My story is one of a woman who is the insurance provider and the steady paycheck for my family. And I also love to teach, a job that seems to bring out the best in me. So it’s not like I hate my lot in life. I’ve heard the juggling metaphor. And the many hats. And the feminist in me says “lean in”. But I know that, for me, being a working mom means I am going to have to stretch. And when you are stretched, there are no additional resources added to account for the increase in demand. It’s the same pot of time, energy, and positivity that will have to cover all parts of your life. This leads to a general shitty feeling about all parts of your life.

I guess I’m not looking for the perfect anecdote or anyone to attempt to silver-lining my situation. I know my children will be fine. I know it’s good for them to be social. And I know eventually they will have a great immune system (tell that to my daughter who ended up with hand foot and mouth disease TWICE in a year). I just kind of want to say “this sucks” out loud and maybe hear a few “amens” in response.  

Tomorrow I will stretch. I will pour myself into my work because it’s important and world changing. And then I will try to save a little positivity for my sweet children who are sure to test me when we enter the witching hours. Because who I am to them is also world changing. And when the house dips below sanitary levels of clean and my toddler has watched the lemonade stand episode of Henry Hugglemonster for the third time that day, I’ll lower my bar and try to cover myself with as much grace I would a dear friend.

Please send wine. And Oreos.

man in a picture

| D. Willson

Scan 2018-8-2 20.44.06

Lately, my two and half year old (actually two and eleven-twelfths year old) has been talking about my dad.

“You miss your dad, huh mom?” she says as she softly places her hand on my shoulder at the dinner table.

In fact, she’s been talking about him nonstop…

In the car: “Your dad died, huh mom?”

On the toilet: “Your dad went to the hospital. That’s why he’s not here, huh mom?”

Before bed: “Your dad’s body doesn’t work any more, huh mom?”

In the Story Time room at the library: “Your dad’s in a picture, huh mom?”

And, once last week, while she twirled around in her “pink” dress (which is actually yellow) with the tulle “baller-nina” skirt, she sang with joyful exuberance: “Your dad is dead!”

Each time she brings it up, I wince a little, its randomness and slight insensitivity like being pelted by tiny bits of gravel. I haven’t thought about my dad this much in a long time. It all started when I showed her a picture of my father which I have pinned to a bulletin board in the dining room. He stands there next to a boat, holding up two salmon. His hair in a curly fro and wearing jean overalls. A small child is tucked behind him, perhaps my brother. It must have been the late 70s.

I told my daughter that this was my dad, just like she has a daddy. I imperfectly explained that he’s not alive. That he got really sick and the doctors couldn’t fix him. That his body doesn’t work anymore. Each time I say a little more, attempting to explain death to a two and eleven-twelfths year old. Once I tried to say that he was in heaven but when she asked what that meant, I settled on “he’s only in pictures now.”

I was so young when I lost my father. Many of my memories are acute: the minty smell of the gum he always chewed, the sound of him clearing his throat, the pain I felt when I saw him in the casket for the first time. Then there are the faded ones: the way he crossed his tree trunk legs and an outline of a wallet in the back pocket of his jeans. And some memories are completely lost: the sound of his voice, every word he ever said to me. These days, he’s becoming more and more just a man in a picture, static and enigmatic. I have a hard time articulating why I miss him. But I’m still overwhelmed by emotion on the anniversary of his death, twenty-two years later.

We gave our son the middle name Archer as a nod to my dad. He was a bow hunter, spending his late fall weekends in the Michigan woods, hoping to fill our freezer with enough venison to last the winter. In the summers, my father would set up a target in the backyard to practice. My siblings and I would take turns standing at one end of the clothesline and shooting the child-sized bow and arrow we had. Occasionally my dad coached us but mostly we played with these weapons by ourselves, two missteps away from an After School Special.

We also picked the name Archer because of something I read once in a book called The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran.

“For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday. You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth. The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite, and he bends you with his might that his arrows may go swift and far.”

At the time, I had recently experienced a miscarriage, so I mainly breathed in the passages about grief and pain like air from an oxygen tank. But I tucked away the notion about children as arrows in the back of my mind as reinforcement for why I wanted to have a child.

Tonight as my daughter sat on her bed, actively avoiding bedtime, I said to her (or maybe more to myself), “This is the day that my daddy died.”

And she simply replied, “Mmm hmmm. And he can’t have any tea parties.”

Exactly, little lamb. I laughed a little as my eyes filled with tears. There would be no tea parties or any other memory shared with her Grandpa Daniel.

But then I began to think about the passage from Gibran and a deep comfort began to spread in my ever-anxious belly. Even though my children will never actually meet my father, they will know him through me. I am a “living arrow” that he sent out into the world. When I work hard, they will know him. When I laugh heartily, they will know him. When I offer a hand without hesitation, they will know him. He will be more than just a man in a picture.

thrive

| D. Willson

20170507_193704.jpgJust one year ago this week, I was daydreaming about a career change. On a whim, I checked some HR pages of different school districts “just to see” what was out there. I had been commuting over an hour a day, some days even two hours, to and from work. I was working a job that I was good at and loved the family that I had formed amongst my coworkers and bosses, but I resented it too. And my nine month old daughter was growing tired of the long drives. She had taken to screaming her head off for at least half of the drive and then falling asleep in exhaustion, making a 7pm bedtime nearly impossible to swing.

I was stretched so very thin. I was freaking exhausted (my darling baby girl also would not sleep for longer than two hours at a time). I was ready for a change.

I decided to apply to a few positions that were nearby my house. When I noticed the application closing date was the very next day, I frantically put my resume together and requested letters of recommendation from people who wouldn’t say anything if it didn’t work out. And then I hit send, like throwing a paper airplane off a cliff.

Within a few days of applying, I had three interview requests. Shit was getting real.

For one of the interviews, I had to write an essay about my teaching philosophy and how it meshed with one of the programs that the school had going on. As I opened a word document, with the blinking cursor staring at me, I felt stuck. The past few years I had gotten a bit jaded by politics. There was drama and pride and all kinds of silly things that I wore on my shoulders like two ton bricks. I had a hard time picturing the faces of my students because they were lost in data reports due to the state department and board presentations. I wondered what I could possibly say to make these new people want me to teach with them. I’m not normally at a loss for words, being a writer and all.

Then I saw my African Violet plant sitting on my desk, a teacher appreciation gift from our office staff. It was dry and shriveled and looked to be on its last leg. I remembered something someone had said at one of the countless education conferences that I had attended. African violets are apparently super resilient. They will survive in almost any environment. Yet there are also certain conditions in which they thrive. The speaker then compared this plant to children, suggesting that children are perhaps some of the most resilient creatures on the planet. But are we satisfied with survival? Or are we working to give them the very conditions they need to actually thrive?

So I wrote about it. I remember feeling a bit like a bull shitter. The metaphor seemed more about me than children. I was the shriveled little violet who needed water. The children didn’t need me. I needed them.

Nevertheless, I got the job.

It’s been nearly one school year at Hazeldale Elementary. And I am SO glad I made the change. I have a six minute commute, twelve minutes round trip (in case you needed help with the math). Mila and I are home by five, most days. I see my students at the neighborhood grocery store. And it has been refreshing to rediscover the “me” who works with children. Not the “me” who got bogged down in bureaucracy and my insecurities as a leader and my tendency towards neurosis and worry.

It hasn’t been all roses and sunshine. It’s been hard work and letting go. It’s been so much self-reflection I could drown in it. Here I go again, trying to control this or prove I’m smart or make so-and-so like me. And lately it’s been 31 out of the last 44 days with a God damned cold. But I really, truly am happy to be back in a school and working with those little carrier monkeys.

I took a huge leap of faith last year. I made a decision that was certainly risky (going from a contracted job to probationary status during an election year and in a state whose education budget is as rocky as an old canoe, yeah not that smart). But I had to do it. My conditions weren’t right. I was barely surviving, let alone thriving.

You guys, let’s be real. I’m not exactly the poster child for “thriving vs surviving” these days either. I’m still freaking tired. Maybe that’s just a constant from here on out. Our kid shit on the rug this month, my husband is overworked and sometimes has to sleep on his office floor, and I seem to be addicted to eating cookies by the sleeve-full. I can’t even eat them bite by bite. I instinctively shove the entire thing into my mouth and then chew very quietly for fear that our small child will hear or see it and then need to eat one too. And then it feels like I should eat more, since I technically only had one bite.

The conditions for me to thrive aren’t right yet. I’m still in that deep parabolic trench of life that researchers say is inevitable when you have kids that are under five. But they are closer because I listened to my heart and not my head last spring. And today, while (finally) watering the plants around my house, I noticed something. My African violet is blooming! I thought I had effectively killed off that capacity through my extreme neglect. See…told you they are resilient! And I had this hopeful feeling that I too will be thriving again soon.