The Rich Pageantry

2011-01-19T09:50:00.001-08:00

dsaDSAdsaDSA

Thanksgiving; another way of looking at it.

2009-11-26T17:56:00.000-08:00

Home at last. Its 8:25pm and while they bickered the whole way home (an hour's drive), they are asleep and perfect. The youngest complained about his toe hurting which reqired an impromptu song about all of his body parts to lull him to sleep. But it worked!!! His sister is much easier to tuck in. Sounds something like "time for bed. Let's say your prayers. Good night." But Daddy, I want you to snuggle with me... "nope. I love you an now go to sleep." And that is that. I think I must have some magical power; a shaman perhaps.

I often thougth it sounded cliche when a parent would say that they were grateful for their childrens' health, beauty, humor or what ever... That was before I had kids. I get it. I really do. Sometimes I am less grateful for their ability to talk back, stretch you in so many painful directions... Ah but can you be grateful if you don't recoginze the full range of the spectrum.

And there is left over pie!!! Yes I do love pie. Requires so little from me. Just open my mouth. Don't have to say a word... Breathe first so I don't choke on the huge bite I have just shoved in... chew, swallow and repeat... several times and usually a few more times in the middle of the night... oh how I do love pie.

Day began by bringing the oldest (makes me sound like Al Bundy), to meet her mother (now sounding like Archie Bunker or Homer Simpson) for breakfast... Not an easy task for me to say the least. She greated me with "Happy St. Patrick's day"... and she was serious. I needed that. I was thankful for that mistake. I felt... well, superior... She said "It is your green sweater." I didnt' respond, "That's nice. Happy Halloween."

... and now for more pie... open wide!

Love,
Jasper

Thanksgiving Day; A success if no one gets hurt

2009-11-26T17:13:00.000-08:00

Thanksgiving is my favorite meal of the year. There's nothing I love more than turkey, stuffing, and pie; anything that is vaguely comfort food. A friend recently said, "Yeah! Of course you love Thanksgiving. That's totally your kind of thing." What does this mean, exactly...I'm a cozy person? I look like a turkey? Family togetherness is what I'm always about? Here's what I love most about Thanksgiving:

My father loves it and it's a way to feel close to him
We always watch "Friendly Persuasian," a wonderful movie from the 1950's starring a dashing Gary Cooper as a Quaker farmer in Indiana right before the start of the Civil War. This is how I pictured family life. I would be Dorothy McGuire. My husband would be Gary Cooper. We would have beautiful and pious children who would have the perfect combination of intelligence, sassiness, and physical perfection. We would fight slavery and be perpetually in love. And baking pies. Just like my life now...
Gravy is an art form. No, it's a religion. People don't know how to make it right and it always makes me angry when someone wastes good juices from a baked bird. There is no excuse for tasteless gravy. If you're all good, I'll post my recipe to make people love your gravy.
It's on a Thursday, which always feels like a great treat to have such a terrific holiday in the middle of the week. It's a present in itself.
Pie. Pie. Pie. Pie. And gravy.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!!

Love,
Lucinda

Welcome to the Rich Pageantry

2009-11-25T06:20:00.000-08:00

My mother, a woman for whom there is no problem too large and no chaos too chaotic, looks knowingly and says, "Ahhh...That's the rich pageantry of family life." Whenever my sister or I call her in the middle of a mess. I can remember her saying this when I was younger, but I didn't really get it until I started directing my own pageant. Why does everything always happen at once? Just this morning, I was trying to blow dry my hair when my husband accused me of being cranky. My stepdaughter was pouting and stomping around the house, asking if she could be placed in foster care. My son was throwing anything he could get his mitts on and refusing to have breakfast, calling everyone a "stupid baby". My husband had refused to believe the garbage was full enough to be put out on the curb and so I tromped out in the cold in my ratty bathrobe to wheel our garbage can with a hole in the bottom to the curb, hoping that none of the good looking college boys across the street would decide to go to school at that moment. We were all running late. I was scheduled to have surgery on my hand to remove a piece of wood (?!) stuck in my knuckle for the last year.

The irony? I wasn't cranky! This is remarkable only because it is actually remarkable. I think it's possible that I might have acclimated to too much happening at once. I mean, what can you do really but laugh and say, "That's the rich pageantry- the RP." It's a code word. It encompasses parenting, being part of a family, trying to do too many things at once, daring to think of yourself as a person in the midst of a community, owning a house, struggling to be responsible, regretting what has already been lost, and looking towards the future, yearning for freedom. Other parents and partners know what it means- you love the people around you and wouldn't trade them for the world, and at the same time fantasize about sitting on a beach with a good book and your own masseuse, by yourself (or maybe with Viggo Mortensen, in really desperate time...)

How you know you've been cast in the Rich Pageantry:

You could be about to cry. No, laugh. No, cry. No, laugh
You stop being able to understand your native language. People are speaking like this, "Wha wha wha wha wha"
You look at your partner and think, "Is this your fault? Is it MY fault? Can I actually picture you naked? Can I picture myself naked?"
You want to call your parents and apologize. For everything.
You wonder if everyone else has such a hard time, or is it just because you're so limited?
You wonder if things will get better or is this what you're going to do for the rest of your life.

I suppose that if you haven't had this experience, you could attribute these thoughts to depression. But it's not the same, having experienced both. Because at the same time, you're also thinking:

I could not love these kids more. I think my guts would explode if I did.
What did I do before I did this?
They are all sleeping. All is right with the world.
How did I get so lucky?
I wish everyone I loved could feel the way I do right now
My three year old thinks I'm a princess, and I actually feel like one.

This is a blog about managing life and giving up managing life. It's about simplifying things that are already fundamental and also arcane. It's the entire yes/no experience.