The mini-daffodils are blooming in my side yard and yesterday I turned over the vegetable beds, planted peas. Tonight it looks like rain (or maybe snow) is on the way, but yesterday was sunny, nearly seventy degrees, and a lovely day. Things outside the garden are still a little alarming, but inside the yard there are dogs, and plants starting to green up, and tiny little spinach seedlings coming up.
To live with the Santa Ana is to accept, consciously or unconsciously, a deeply mechanistic view of human behavior…Whenever and wherever a foehn wind blows, doctors hear about headaches and nausea and allergies, about ‘nervousness,’ about ‘depression.’ … . Joan Didion, Slouching Towards Bethlehem
Even for Livingston, a place where the wind routinely blows so hard that they have to divert truck traffic off the interstate …
Does anyone think it’s a coincidence that on the day that we’re about to swear in Samuel Alito, the man responsible for this statement: ”Why do you keep bringing up the fact that this case involves the strip search of a 10-year-old child?”(and a black girl child at that), that Coretta Scott King would choose to leave the planet? Does no one else see this as a Very Bad Sign?
I had a long talk on the phone last night with my cousin Jennifer. Jennifer’s four years younger than I am, and her mother was my mother’s older sister. Every time there was a crisis in our childhoods, and there were plenty, we were shipped off to our Aunt Lynn’s house, so in a lot of ways Jennifer and I were raised almost more like siblings than like cousins.
I have a very clear memory of Patrick and I, having been dropped off one snowy night by someone who had agreed to drive us from where? Our Dad’s house? Our Mom’s? I remember them being people our mother knew, but not well. At any rate, they dropped Patrick and me off, and it was snowing — big fat Wisconsin snowflakes, and we were standing at Lynn’s back door in the light of the headlights while they waited for us to get inside. We were outside, in the illuminated snowflakes, with our little-kid suitcases, standing on Lynn’s back deck. It was always kind of like that.
And then when I was nineteen, and Jennifer was fifteen, Lynn drank herself to death. It was one of the things we talked about last night on the phone. “You guys were always there,” Jennifer said. “And then Mom died and you were all just gone.” I told her how hard it had been — none of us liked her father (who brought his girlfriend to the funeral for the wife he wasn’t separated from) — and they were just kids, and we were all so heartbroken that to even think about going up to that house, that house that had been our safe place, without Lynn in it, and with those three bereft kids and their awful father, well, none of us could face it. We talked, Jennifer and I, about how mad we still are at her mother for killing herself like that, about how she was the one who was supposed to take care of all of us. Lynn died 22 years ago and it was like it happened last week. Jennifer’s oldest daughter is 13 now, and Jennifer knows it’s going to be weird when she, in essence, outlives her own mother. She knows too that she probably hangs onto her girls too close, that in some very real ways she needs them to make her the mother she didn’t have.
And we talked about losing Patrick, and the aftermath of that, and how strange it’s been. It’s one of the incomprehensible things about life. The people we love die, and they’re just gone, and they don’t come back.
But, on the other hand, Jennifer’s in Arizona now, and we’re old enough to call eachother and finally talk about the stuff that we couldn’t talk about when she was fifteen and I was nineteen because we were really just heartbroken kids. We made it, somehow. We grew up. We’re mostly okay.
Yesterday was the second anniversary of that sad event Maryanne has named, “Patrick’s Very Bad Day”. Last year I was in Paris for this day, wandering around in a tres melodramatic haze, thinking to myself “Mais, il est mort. Mon frere. Il est mort.” Paris is, in general a good place to go when you are feeling sad, melancholy or blue, because the city lends itself to soulful lingering at cafes, gazing into the middle distance while every once in a while using that little tiny spoon to stir the sugar you have, so sacreligiously, put into your cafe.
Luckily, I was saved from my Paris melancholia by my friend Jim, who had invited me to come stay in Provence with him and his family — A week in the sunny south with loving people who had all, to the one of them, survived terrible losses — dead family is a theme among us — they saved me from the terrible loneliness of being in a big city where I didn’t really know anyone, and where for the first time, Patrick was not waiting for me to come home.
So, last night. I’d been kind of hoping that the date would just slip us all by, but our lovely friends, the ones who have saved me these past two years, asked what we should do. The only thing I could think of was that we should go to our friend Jim’s restaurant (different Jim than the France Jim). Jim’s, where we celebrated Patrick’s 38th birthday two weeks before he died. Jim’s, where Patrick looked up from the end of that table in the front window, wearing his goofy blue birthday hat, and made a toast. “Despite some setbacks this year,” he said, referring to the woman he’d loved, who’d gone back to her ex, the job he’d sought and hadn’t gotten, the couple of months he’d spent living in my spare room in the basement. “Despite all that, I just want to thank you all,” he said, raising a glass in the air. Jim started to razz him, calling him a sentimental Irishman, but Patrick went on. “I just want to thank you all. I’ve never had such a happy year. I’ve never had such wonderful friends, or felt so welcomed into a community. Thank you for taking us both in, and for being such wonderful friends.”
That terrible night two weeks later when everyone was gathered in my kitchen, it was Patrick’s toast we kept referring to, how happy he’d been, how he was getting it together, how he’d survived the breakup and his new business was starting to take off. So last night we all gathered at Jim’s, that same group who came that first night, who came to my kitchen and stayed with me, and who have stayed with me ever since. We had a bottle of champagne, and toasted our missing friend, and ate some food and told some stories and it was just good to be together. Oh, and what Patrick said. Thank you. All of you.
Although it looks like the job issues are starting to settle down for the short term, I’m still not sure that this isn’t the beginning of the end for me at the Big Corporation where I’ve been working for the past few years. I never thought I’d ever have a corporate job in the first place — I mean, I was a writer and an academic and in general, ever since I gave up on New York City in my twenties, had been someone who’d chosen quality-of-life over making a living. But when I finished my PhD and was so miserable and fed up, and especially fed up with being broke, I thought I’d give it a whirl. I remember driving around the Bay Area with my brother when I’d first moved out to California and I was temping while trying to find a real job. I remember looking at all those big buildings and thinking “there’s got to be a job for me in there somewhere.” Those buildings looked like safety. Those buildings looked like people who had the kind of stability that Patrick and I had never really known. I wanted in to one of those buildings. I wanted to try to build a “normal” life, to stop trying to be so special and artistic and authentic and just have a life. Make enough money to have a decent place to live and maybe go on vacation once in a while.
And so I got a “real job.” I got a real job just as the book I’d given up on was beginning to find a life. Because of this, my first few months at the Big Corporation were somewhat surreal. I was the oldest, most overeducated intern I think they’d ever hired (and the fact that I was still enrolled, since I was ABD, was crucial to their ability to bring me in as an intern), and the whole time I was madly trying to pretend I had a clue about computer networking or technical writing, I was getting emails from my agent about which publishing houses were interested in my book and which ones had passed. It was enough to make a girl’s head spin.
I never thought I’d stay at the Big Corporation as long as I have. But my novel, while it did reasonably well for a very dark first novel, never earned me enough money to even consider leaving. And then life just sort of happened. I worked my way into a position I liked, working with people I liked. I managed, after two years of concerted effort to get them to let me telecommute full time so I could move up here to My Little House in Montana. I discovered I liked having the safety net of a traditional middle-class job — health insurance, a 401K, a generous salary. And because I wasn’t paying attention, I let my debt level run up to the point where I really need to keep this job.
And so, despite the fact that the job changed suddenly and radically on me last fall, and despite the fact that I’m no longer working with people I know well and I’m having to adjust to not having that kind of trust and rapport one builds when you’ve survived the wars together, and despite the fact that this has been a very bumpy transition. I’m not going to be able to go anywhere for a while. And so I’m back in the place where I was three or four years ago, where I have to prove that I’m a solid employee, a hard worker, someone who can be depended on, while simultaneously building a new set of personal boundaries between my life and my job.
I was talking to Wendy-the-Buddhist about this last night. About how I’m trying to practice nonattachment toward my job. About how I’m trying to just accept all these changes, accept that I’m no longer an insider in my group, accept that I have to start over and prove myself again. About how I have to let go of my own ego and hurt feelings about having to start over like this. About how I’m trying to accept all that while not getting attached to outcomes. About how I’m sitting again because lately this transition experience has me not sleeping, has me indulging in worry. We talked about how many people we know have jobs they don’t really like — we’ve both weathered major career changes in the past couple of years, and in the process, we’ve talked to a lot of people about their jobs and how those jobs either do or don’t work for people.
Because as difficult as this transition has been for me, I still have a Very Good Job. All I have to do to remind myself of that is to go look at a site like Ravings of a Corporate Mommy. I get to stay in Montana. I don’t have to go to an office every day. Because of the time difference, I have a little block of time in the mornings to write, and now that the sun isn’t setting at four in the afternoon anymore, and now that the mountains are starting to thaw out, I can walk my dogs every evening in a place so beautiful that people come here for vacations. I am deeply grateful that I have a job in the first place, especially one that affords me the very pleasant life I’ve built.
But I can’t help feeling like it’s also time to start planning an exit strategy. Like it’s time to really start living small and pay off my debts, build up my savings, make a long term plan so I have some options and so I don’t wind up like so many people I know, semi-trapped in a job that is just a job, wondering what might have been, wondering if one wasted one’s chance here on the planet.
This morning my friend Nina called and asked, with that sort of tense tone in her voice, what I was doing. Why? I said. Do you need a rescue? Turns out, she was in the car with the twins, who had a pediatrician’s appointment, and her husband (who is writing for TV trying to support them all) had a sudden deadline at eleven. She needed an extra set of arms.
Well count me in. There’s no cure for a case of low-level January depression like a two month old baby that needs a snuggle.
I did have to check my schedule though. While I have no evidence that part of the reason that I lost the Totally Cushy Real Job and got booted over into the Real Job I Don’t Know How To Do is because I spent a lot of time last summer driving Nina to Billings for doctor’s appointments when she was pregnant, it was probably a tiny little factor. So this morning, Nina was all: “if you have to work …” but the glory of the Real Job is that it’s in California, which is an hour behind Montana, so it looked like I could go.
And when I got there, there was Lola, wearing the completely extravagent sweater I bought for her in France (deep rose, hoodie, with these fabulous buttons that look like roses and are made from ribbon). I am superstitious, and won’t ordinarily buy baby presents for babies who aren’t here yet, but when I went to France for the anniversary of Patrick’s death, I decided it was time to believe in these babies. And the shopkeeper in the gorgeous French baby clothes store saw me coming — I spent a fortune, and it was worth every penny. Each baby got a gorgeous outfit, and with any luck they may grow enough this winter to wear them!
The pediatrician was interesting — I’m not a mom, so while the doctor was very nice, and has a young baby of her own, I was somewhat shocked by her tone, which seemed to imply that the doctors had loaned Nina these two babies, and gee, wasn’t she doing a good job with them? Now Nina’s one of the most confident moms I know, and these are babies three and four, so she’s got a bag of tricks under her belt, and I must say, if this is the way doctors talk to moms, then no wonder they wind up feeling insecure.
But, as the auntie, I had a lovely morning with Violet, and Lola, holding whichever baby wasn’t being stripped naked, weighed, and having her head measured. And then there were the terrible injections — each one of the bunnies got an RSV injection — their little legs are so tiny, and the needle was so big, and they were deeply betrayed. It was terrible. But by the time we left, Lola, who hadn’t slept at all last night, had passed out against my collarbone from the excitement, and despite the immediate horror of being stuck with that big needle, they were fine.
As was I, after a quick morning hit of infant, and a reminder that it’s good to be a member of the village.
Blogging has been slow here at LivingSmall because I just haven’t felt like I had anything interesting to say. It’s been a weird month — I’ve been a tiny bit depressed — I have to say, I sort of thought this grief thing would get easier at some point — like after I made it through the first anniversary, or got through the holidays — but it still just sucks. And trying to write this book isn’t helping — I mean, last January was SO horrible what with the crying on the couch with the dog in my lap, and the endless reruns of Judging Amy and all, that what sane person would decide that a reasonable course of action would be to sit down a year later, and describe it all in detail? And then there’s the Real Job, which has me frantic with worry — I got booted into a similar but totally different job back in October, and because it is similar to what I used to do, my manager seems to think that I actually know what the fuck I’m doing. Which I don’t. I spent three hours the other day trying to figure out how to update the cross references on this minor document I’m working on — three hours! And I’m going to have to rewrite two user guides, two administrators guides, and build online help for two different products — and the online help thing is such a mystery to me that I’m surviving by living in complete denial that I’m going to have to do it at all.
So anyway, I’ve been feeling very bitter and grinchy and sorry for myself because I have far too much debt to quit the Real Job to write full time, which is a ridiculous idea anyway because whatever literary career I had lasted about a year and a half before my novel went out of print, and I don’t know whether I can even finish this memoir-thing, much less sell it. I’ve also been in a dark hole of sadness and terror that with Patrick gone I don’t have anyone to rely on, which since I seem to have neglected to acquire a husband along the way, and I’m now of that age where it’s more likely that I’ll be killed by a terrorist than ever married, well, I’ve been indulging in little dark fantasies of winding up as an old tottery woman alone in this house with my dogs. But because I really have been trying very hard to keep my chin above water, I invited everyone over for Family Dinner last night.
One of the things I’ve found most difficult has been Sunday nights. I like to cook a nice dinner on Sundays — I like a house that smells like food, like people actually live there. So one of my New Years Resolutions was that I was going to start having people over on Sundays and I was going to cook. So I did — there were six of us last night. I made a big pot of braised short ribs, and some lovely yellow saffron rice, and a salad. Nothing fancy, just Family Dinner.
Now, at my table we had three writers, a photographer, and a former movie star — and because my friends are all a little bit older than I am, and because that President is promulgating this lie that Social Security is in “crisis” so he can dismantle the last safety net most of us have, the talk turned to getting older, and what the hell we’re all going to do. No one I know really has a steady income, (well, except me that is, because I have the Real Job). We didn’t come up with any solutions, but in some weird way, knowing that nobody has their shit together, and that even my seemingly-stable, sort of grown up friends are scared as shitless as I am most of the time, made everything much better. We had a nice dinner. We had eachother. We had a lot of laughs planning a communal Old Age Home — one with a bar, and a pool for our old broken bodies, and of course, dogs would be allowed. All joking aside, there was a real sense that somehow, we’ll all figure this out together. Which is just about all the solace one can hope for after another dark January.
Because Heather pointed it out in the comments, and because it needs to be shouted from the rooftops, let’s point out that the Oxford American Magazine is back! May I suggest that this fine publication would be a terrific Christmas gift for anyone on your list who is interested in good writing, southern life and literature, and FABULOUS music. The whole subscription is worth it for the annual music issue, which comes with a CD that will make you dance with happiness around your living room.
The other good cause I’m supporting this year, is Heifer Project International. I’m buying animals for several people on my list, especially for a couple of the kids who are big enough to play with the little toy chickens I’m giving them, and think about the kids in China or Guatamala or Africa who now have a flock of chickens … a flock of chickens that will provide eggs and meat and cash, a flock of chickens that can be leveraged into a better life. Of course, the kids will still get markers and art supplies, because that’s the kind of auntie I am — the art supply kind of auntie.
Anyhow, those are my suggestions for stemming the tide of silly stuff none of us really needs this year. My idea of a great Christmas is where we all just spend our money on good food and good wine and are grateful to be together. Hokey, yeah, but it’s Christmas, the season of hokieness …
My friend Nina’s twin girls arrived today — two little girls with full heads of black hair, who came out squalling and who each bit the doctor!
Nina is my dear friend, the one I called when that assistant coroner was sitting in his truck in front of my house a year ago, waiting to see if I had someone who would come. Nina came, and she cooked pot roast for days and took care of me and everyone else who gathered in my kitchen that week.
Nina’s last pregnancy ended in stillbirth, so this one has been fraught. We’ve all been scared to death. Twins, she’s not young any more, she was about as high risk as a person could be, and the good hospital is over in Billings, an hour and a half away. It’s been a long summer of worrying about Nina, and these babies, and so I was not the only one in town weeping when I heard the news. There have been happy, weepy phone calls going around town all night.
Nina is fine. The babies seem fine. They’re a little early, and we won’t know about their lungs for a day or so, but this evening we’re all filled with gratitude that everyone is alive, and seems to be okay. Thanksgiving came a little early this year.