Aug
3
Our youngest wakes up early and I am glad for summer because the room is filled with buttersoft light, the hour is raw but at least it’s not black and his voice calls again and again and we don’t want to get up but we do.
He chatters and points and complains about being dressed and my arms know all of this by heart, the way I thread his hands through the sleeves, the distractions, the eager thump thump thump of his feet, pedaling before they even touch the ground and he’s off.
His brother creaks open the door and emerges with nubbly blue blanket wrapped around his shoulders and blinks at us and he’s a heartbreaking jangle of knees and elbows and bruises and dark almond eyes and his sleepy hair is sticking up in tufts and his presence marks the almost-audible sound of the day’s machinery starting up. I ask him what he dreamed about and he tilts his head and says hmmmmm.
The kitchen smells of waffles and cereal and coffee and my husband folds back the paper and the newsprint crackles and one boy talks through a mouthful of bread while the other gleefully pounds his tray and I move dreamily from dishwasher to cabinet and back again. A bowl, nestled inside another. A fork, dropped in a drawer with a metallic chime.
Milk, juice, everyone’s on the move and we’ve got to find shoes, shoes, where did that one go, the dog has hidden it, the toddler ran off with it, our footsteps are a crazyquilt of inefficiency and laughter and impatience and the house is full to bursting until there is a flurry of kisses and bye-byes and suddenly it is empty. Things hum—dishwasher, washing machine, shower—but the silence is like a blanket. Only I am left, and I am leaving soon.
Cars and highways and buildings of steel and glass and I am elsewhere, at that other part of my life where I sit and type and read and sometimes dream of being home (where I sometimes dream of being elsewhere) and the sun is a presence I cannot really feel, behind the blinds and the window and the artfully exposed steel ducts and the companionable face of my screen which displays numbers on the upper right-hand side which I watch: 12:20, 1:45, 3:30, 4:25, 5:00, and it is time to go back into the cars and onto the highways and past the buildings of steel and glass.
I sneak up to the kitchen window and peer in and comically drop out of sight then pop back up and they both scream and point and laugh and that’s when I open the door and they are on me in a rush, one locking his arms around my legs and giggling and the other raising his arms and beseeching to be picked up, up, up.
Dinner and backyard games and there are clothes to be folded and things to be swept and baths to be had and walks to be taken and the evening passes in a way that is both a joyous dream and a punishing grind, it lasts forever and it’s done with before I know it, all at the same time, I never understand how this works.
Bedtimes go on and on and on, everyone protesting everything they can and I rock one boy for what seems like hours while I sing into the top of his hair and eventually I only hum, no words, and his body is an indescribably luscious sleepy weight. Into the crib and it’s over to the other boy’s room for stories and kisses and likely as not it’s back to the first one for a second stint in the rocking chair and I step lightly down the hall and into the other part of the house and exhale a gusty plume of the entire day in one long breath.
Then: shoes, laced. Shorts pulled on, Lycra tugged overhead. I need to sweat and so I move my tired body until unwanted things start falling away: cars, cries, complaints. When I’m done I feel scooped clean and again I am glad for summer and these stretched-out hours because it is growing late but the sky is only a dimmed lamp, I can still see my way.
Clack-clatter of keyboards and friendly silence dotted by murmured conversation and then the dual creak of our bodies settling into the couch and the flickering television and I am yawning and my eyes are hot and heavy and we tiptoe past the sleeping bedrooms and into our own and the faucet runs and the bedclothes are pulled tight and for a brief time there is a rustle of paper as pages turn but my head soon falls back and I dream of nothing and everything, conversations that make no sense and people I don’t know and half-remembered images and before I know it the room is filled with buttersoft light and I hear a little voice calling for us again.
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Wow, so beautifully written. Keep writing and I promise I will buy your book and tell all my friends to buy it also
“the evening passes in a way that is both a joyous dream and a punishing grind, it lasts forever and it’s done with before I know it, all at the same time, I never understand how this works.”
This brought tears to my eyes. You put feelings down in words that I would never know how to express. I feel this every evening when I put my son to bed.
That was lovely. You are a fantastic writer and have a way of making the little things sound so special. Which is important, because they are.
Linda,
You are unbelievable. You make me go awwwww and cry at the same time, and then I smile because I remember those days so well. Don’t ever stop writing.
This pretty much sums it up. Thanks for writing it.
I love your writing. This was lovely.
I love this. So beautiful and poetic.
Beautiful, I could just envision the sights and sounds as I read!
every day. a gift.
wow is all I can say.
I really can’t add anything that hasn’t already been said, but I had to say something anyway.
Shirley Jackson’s memoir/novel “Life Among the Savages” is one of my favorite books of all time and your domestic tales remind me so much of that.
Thank you for sharing this and everything else.
Love this – this so my life. Glad you can put it into words for me.
You make working motherhood sound so…. nice…. I’m so there but mine isn’t so pretty.
I eagerly your first book. :)
this is, quite simply, beautiful. how to describe the mundane, which we so treasure? you’ve done it.
Lovely. It makes me wonder what form my days would take if my kids didn’t wake up and go to bed at roughly the same time I do. Usually I get to sleep until 7:30 am or even 8:00, but by the time I get them down it’s 9:00 pm or even later (we typically start the process between 7:00 and 7:30) and there’s not a lot of me time or adult time after that before I too hit the hay.
crying…again. that was awesome.
I’m crying, not just because of how beautifully you express your day, but because it is also mine. I know the bustle and the joy and the frustration and the sometimes cloud of moving seamlessly through your every step.
Exactly. Just…exactly.
How wonderful! I was nodding along the whole time and marveling at the incredible way you’ve captured the lives of so many of us. Thank you.
Linda, you take my breath away. Your writing is flawless, you pull us right into the moment.
I will read/purchase whatever you write.
that was fantastic. book, now.
and also: i don’t have kids (yet), so i am in complete awe of how you manage to do all of that in a day, and still have the self discipline to go running at night. well done.
I am in awe of your writing, as well as your motivation to exercise after the whole day of work and family. Thank you for the reminders about the beauty of this stage of life.
Balancing all of these aspects of life, work, exercise, spending time with the baby, has left me feeling very anxious lately. Reading this fills me with peace. Beautiful. Just beautiful. Thank you.
This right here is why you are my favorite blogger.
Linda, YOU ROCK!
lovely.
I love this. And also, I’m forever in awe of what you can accomplish after work.
This is my first time reading your blog – what an amazing introduction. That was just beautiful. Can’t wait to read more.
Just right.
Holy moly. That was so beautiful. I also loved the glimpse it gave me, a single and childless girl, into a world that is so unfamiliar to me, but that I sometimes wish I had. Thank you.
Lovely. You write so breathlessly that it feels like my own life.
I only wish I could write like this. Beautiful.
Wow. So simple and yet so compelling.
You are frickin bad ass.
Love it.
And I agree with Lisa, I can’t wait for your book.
Fantastic – loved how you used the noises to paint the pictures … metallic chime, the hum of the dishwasher. Your ability to describe the scene is amazing. But a small bit of criticism … the shoes on first bugged me … shorts, lycra then shoes? Sorry, but I’m a nitpicker for those logic/timeline things.
Kaht
mmm, the rhythm of life. kudos to you linda, you capture it so well!
The day happens so fast and yet you are keen on every detail.
wonderful
I love this. You have painted a picture I could hang in my livingroom.
(I discovered your blog recently, and I really enjoy your writing.)
So good. Thank you.
Beautiful!
Lovely.
Just beautiful…makes me realize i need to step back and see the beauty in my own (very very similar minus the workout) daily grind.
So vivid and beautiful.
Do those words just come easily to you like fresh buttercream frosting on a freshly baked cake, or is it something you have to really think about and pour a lot of effort into?
Regardless, your words are amazing.
I second and third and fourth everything everybody’s already said. I love what you write.
Best thing I’ve read… love the line “my arms know all of this by heart”… speaks volumes to any mother out there, I am sure.
Love it.
you just keep getting better and better…
Gorgeous. Captured perfectly. If you ever doubt your talent, please come back and look at this entry and all of the (well-deserved) praise.