Why do 10 hats feel lighter than 1?

I have been struggling with defining the 'new me' for the past two years.  When I moved away from the farm, I felt a bit like I was torn from my own identity.  Working at the farm had become so much of who I was, how I described myself, and even how I judged my own worth.  When we left, I found myself scratching my head as to what to do next and which direction to look toward.  The first year away had the added complication of being only a stepping stone.  Knowing that we wouldn't be staying there gave me a reprieve in framing out my new life.  So, I spent that year nesting, caring for my 3 year old (who was home with me) managing our house, and working in drips and drabs for the farm.  Summer came around, and we were back at the farm for the season, and then last fall, we moved to our new home.  No longer a stepping stone, but home, for the long haul.  The pressure was on.

I have not come to any conclusions a year later about the 'new me'.  Still, I have certainly started to piece together what makes this process so difficult.  It has a lot to do with all the hats I wear.  I still work at the farm, actually (maybe not surprisingly?) I'm finding more that I can do, not less.  My 'telecommuting' time  is consistent, I rarely have a day when I'm not fielding a few emails, phone calls, or tasks related to the farm.  Many days, I spend an hour or more dealing with farm stuff.  Add to that the summer season on site and an average of at least one weekend a month in the rest of the year, and the farm is still a solid part time job.  Volunteering/helping out in my husbands dental office once a week (sometimes twice) throws another hat into the mix.  Mom stuff- well, any moms out there know that it never ends-- I think it's fair to call it a full time job even for mom's who also somehow manage a full time job.  We are miracle workers, really, in our ability to go from one thing to the next, always ticking off that list that floats perpetually in the back of our mind.  Landlord is another hat.  Home repair guru.  Dog tender. School volunteer, community volunteer, sunday school teacher.  It is really a lot. and yet i don't always feel like it's enough.

What's missing, I think, is a short concise answer to the question, "What do you do?"  I hate that question.  It brings a surge of anxiety in me that I don't know what to do with.  Nothing seems like the right answer, no matter how I approach it, I sound scattered, and in my mind I picture the thoughts of person listening to my response:  

She dabbles in life.

She's a lady of leisure.  

She's living off her husband. 

She can't commit to a career.  

She's a stay at home mom who's trying to sound like something more...

Am I crazy?  Why is it that I can't settle in to wearing a slew of different hats, living full and productive days, and knowing that it is enough.  What-the-hell-is-my-problem!?

I am going to channel the little blue engine's attitude, and plow forward...

 It IS Enough.  It IS Enough.  It IS Enough.

Standing Up

This past weekend, my son Kelan and I participated with our UU church in a protest for social justice.  We gathered on Friday night and made signs, and then early (really early) Saturday morning came back to take a bus to a church in Auburn, NH that was hosting a conference for Exodus International.  If you are not aware, Exodus is a group of conservative religious people who believe that being homosexual is a sin, and further believe that you can be 'deprogrammed' if you think you are gay.  This may sound familiar- Presidential candidate Michelle Bachmann has endorsed them. The conference we were protesting was a gathering to which people, adults and youth, were being taken to be "deprogrammed".   Our church had been contacted by a gay rights group in Boston who were looking to build their presence, and we arrived with more than 60 people to add to their numbers, about 20 adults and more than 40 teens from our church and surrounding areas.

I cannot say enough about what an amazing experience this was.  As a parent, sharing the power of speaking out with my 11 year old son was so fulfilling.  As a person, remembering what it feels like to affect change was rejuvenating.  I hadn't realized how helpless I had begun to feel as I've grown from a teenager myself- who was quick to pick up a sign and speak out for what is right- to an adult who is distracted by work and kids and day to day life.  In high school and college, marches and rallies, and campaigns for change were frequent.  I don't know exactly when that faded, but it did, and what I am realizing, is that without those moments where we can vent our frustration and look into the eyes of others who are also shouting for change-- without those moments, change feels impossible.  Shaking my head as I read from the newspaper does nothing to alter the message I'm reading.  Neither does listening to the hatred that our politicians spew, or the propaganda they spread. Standing on that road with signs aimed at the victims in the backseats of the cars driving past made a difference.  Our messages told them that they are whole, that they are loved, that there is nothing that needs to be fixed in them.  Our presence mattered.

When the conference attendees had all passed, we gathered and listened as some of the organizers shared experiences from their own lives growing up with hatred and bigotry.  The kids from our group hung on every word.  We returned to the church after the protest and gathered to reflect on our experience, and as the kids shared their reactions, and the pureness of their hearts, a whole new realization came to me.  I could hear myself in their words- my 16-year-old self.  Their surprise at the reactions they saw on faces in the passing cars.  Feeling grateful for a glimpse of a smile from a back seat as a driver scowled and sped by.  There confusion as to why, when an exodus representative came out to try to scare us off, he approached the young people rather than seeking out the adults.  "Why would he talk to us?  We're kids. Doesn't he see that?", they asked.  They learned so many lessons that morning, about power, about intimidation, and about how to stand up to it. They saw first hand that hate is cowardly, and that when people are confronted for their bigotry, they lash out, speed past, curse and yell and scowl, but ultimately, they look foolish.  And I remembered those lessons anew.  I realized that my original reasons for coming, to teach something to my child, to share an experience with him, were only a part of the gift from that day.  And I am grateful for all of it.

A Line-Drive in the Sand

I'm a Yankee fan and I live in New England.  There.  I said it!  It has been just about a year since we moved to Portsmouth, and up to this point I've been relatively closeted about my team preference, but I think the days of keeping my opinion to myself on the subject of baseball are over.  It isn't my nature to do so on any topic, really, but especially when it comes to baseball, I am trained to heckle, boast, and back up my boys at all costs.  So, I am a bit confounded.  On one hand, I don't want to alienate people I haven't even met yet.  I don't mind if they want to be Boston fans, and I don't come to some conclusion about who they are as people due to their baseball team preference, but I get the sense that they are not so welcoming.  I have my limits, and clearly my kids are a trigger.

School started this week, and with it came a lot of rainy gross weather.  My little guy was gearing up for his first day of kindergarten on Tuesday, and I realized as we were heading out the door, that he had outgrown his raincoat.  To be honest, it was comically small.  I searched for an alternative in the closet, but found none and so we headed off, ill-fitting rain coat and all.  By Wednesday morning, I had dug up an alternative from a bag of hand-me-downs I'd saved of Kelan's.  A really nice, and correctly sized, Yankee jacket.  I honestly paused as I found it, wondering if it was a bad decision to have him wear this potentially conflict-inducing gear, but I shrugged it off.  Reilly loves the Yankees.  His natural talent for being a Yankee fan was displayed a few short weeks ago when we were at a game at Yankee Stadium.  The boy can distract an outfielder as well as any one in my family, and that is saying something- we are a talented bunch of hecklers.

Imagine my surprise when I picked him up after school and found his jacket on backwards!  It was still raining and so he ran to me from the eaves of the building- no teacher in sight.  I don't know if it was intentional or not, but it was suspicious at best!  I know she is a Red Sox fan, as she mentioned it in her introductory letter- but did she really go so far as to turn my son's jacket inside out to hide the Yankee name?  Was she joking?  And, by the way, why is your baseball team preference a topic worthy of a classroom welcome letter- seriously, couldn't you share a little more about a favorite book or something?

Reilly asked to take the bus this morning, so I didn't have a chance to gather more evidence today-- he wore a sweat shirt instead of his jacket but doesn't seem aware of any issue.  At the bus stop at least half the kids were sporting Red Sox gear.  I mentioned in passing that it was good Reilly wasn't wearing his Yankee coat or there could have been a rumble at the bus stop.  The dad closest to me smiled a bit- I think I detected a little fear in his eyes.

I'm still formulating a game plan for how to move forward on this issue.  I need more data on the jacket, and a face-to-face with Reilly's teacher.  My husband is a dead-end.  He's one of them.  But me, I'm out of the closet and ready to do battle.  I will come armed with oversized foam finger if I need to, but I will not be kept down!  Any suggestions (or additional Yankee gear) are welcomed.

LEGO- The good the bad and the 'not before my coffee, please'.

I don't think I'm alone in my feeling about legos.  It's a mix of love, sentimentality, and irritation.  A toy that has had it's place in household toy bins since the early 60s, perfected and patented in 1958 by a Danish carpenter named Ole Kirk Christiansen, who came up with the term "Lego" from the danish phrase leg godt, which means 'play-well'. (Thank you, wikipedia)  My siblings and I spent hours and hours of our childhoods building with those little blocks, and my children have done the same.  Running to mom and dad to show off a new ship, or (in this morning's case) Lego Racers... "Mom!  Look at my new Racer!  Watch this!"  The satisfaction that kids feel when they've perfected a new creation is palpable.  Sheer joy.  Coming up with the name of your new creation is almost as much fun as building it.  Every new 'Warp Cruiser' and 'Speed Flyer' is admired with the same excitement.  It is really amazing, when you look at how quickly boredom sets in with many other toys and games of the day.

But there is a dark side to Lego play.  A side in which, 'play-well' seems to echo eerily in the background with an evil, ironic cackle.  For when there is more than one carpenter at work, Lego battles seem inevitable.  Generally, there is peacetime for at least a stretch.  This blissful period strengthens the parents love of this ingenious toy, that has continued to capture the attention of their offspring, year after year.  We pour coffee into the coffee maker feeling thankful and happy.  A quiet morning, no television, happy boys, and the sound of percolating coffee.  And then, someone uncovers a coveted wing from the lego pile.  This was a wing that had, perhaps, been lost off a previous ship.  (The favorites are often 'saved'- parked on a bookshelf or windowsill because they are just too perfect to destroy.)  That lost wing triggers the beginning of the downfall of playing-well.  A quiet start perhaps: "Hey, that was mine." Followed by denial: "No, I just found it in the pile."... I think you can all follow my lead here.  Within moments the Lego has gone from genius toy for the masses to evil presence, destroying the calm of the morning.  Parents exchange glances and pretend they don't hear it.  Moving a little faster toward the mugs, pouring hastily, rushing to the half-and-half, silently fantasizing that this time, the kids will work it out and return to happy play.  Alas, it is not meant to be.  Desperate negotiations fail, embargoes are ineffective, and eventually, Mom and Dad are forced to drop the bomb.  Lego time is over.

It's funny, in my own memories of childhood time playing with Legos I don't recall lots of fighting, but when I witness it between my own children, it brings back something deep in my own mind.  The protests are just a little too familiar, the issues, I can name them before my boys do.  And when I really think about it, some of our biggest fights back in the late 70's surely stemmed from a lego war.  The worst of them is frozen in my mind as snapshots.  I will describe the images rather than go into full detail of the fight. Suffice it to say, if that same fight happened in my own house, I think my head might explode.  I remember them as I suppose my parents would have viewed them returning to the house.

Frame 1: [split frame] Mom and Dad pull into the driveway in the family car/ My three brothers and I freeze in the library, realize there is no covering this one up, and resume fighting.
Frame 2:  Mom and Dad enter the sun porch.  Legos are strewn across the entire length of the floor- spanning more than 20'.
Frame 3:  A large pot of tomato sauce sits atop the kitchen range, and splatters of sauce cover the counter, floor and lead away toward the living room.
Frame 4:  Looking from the living room toward the library (adjoining rooms) there is a large pile of assorted items, couch cushions, milk crates, piano bench, etc. attempting to block to the door to the laundry room.  Perched on the top of the pile is a brand new, very expensive, vacuum that our parents purchased hoping it would last more than 6 months as previous vacuums never seemed to be able to do.

This particular fight was one for the books, and though each of us remembers different pieces with more clarity, the truth that was lost on me until today, is that it all must have started with legos.  I imagine a dutch carpenter laughing... "play-well, children, play-well."