He is away on business: three days and two nights in northern Minnesota where they’re talking measurable snowfall on the fourth of October.
He calls as he drives through tiny towns, slowed by tractors. I bring my phone outside and lay down on the wooden deck. It is the last warm day here. Tomorrow, there will be jackets for sure. Maybe even hats and gloves. I’m trying to slow down, pay attention to his voice, notice the warmth of the last of the summer sun.
If he were home, we’d go for a walk tonight at the park. The kids would run down the path and I’d remember to stop, bend, pick up the leaves before they crumble into the dirt. Or maybe we’d have one last fire in the fire pit down by the pond and roast hot dogs on sticks. The kids would get up periodically to chase the ducks, who come up from the pond in droves to eat the corn that our neighbor sprinkles behind the pine tree.
But he’s away, and when he’s gone overnight, I’m all about my to-do lists. At 8am, I have big plans for my evening alone, and they include cleaning out the fridge, the freezer, and maybe (if I get a second wind) the storage room, which is so crammed with Rubbermaids you can barely walk through it.
And, hey, if I have time after that, there was that Pinterest project I wanted to try and meals to be made, and I’ll mop the floor and finish my freelancing projects and get ahead on the blog.
When he’s gone, I get a little unhinged from reality, and I forget the science of time. I somehow convince myself that the hours after the kids are asleep are an infinite collection of minutes and seconds and that I if I spin fast enough, I can work them into gold. At 12:00, I think just one more thing. I’ll be in bed by 12:30. At 12:45, I decide to shoot for 2:00.
After all, this is the busy season. The kids are still so little, inexhaustible in their needs. Every day the house falls apart and the toys are everywhere and the laundry piles at the bottom of the stairs unwashed.
I want clean bathrooms and pretty decorations and a house that smells like homemade apple pie. I want to make my own wall art, teach my kid his letters, put in enough freelancing hours to feel like I’m contributing. There are a hundred books I want to read and a thousand words to write. I want to do it all.
And when he’s gone, I let it all sort of consume me. I slip back into that old, Americanized illusion of the Proverbs 31 Woman and forget that I have been reimagined. That valor is not a checklist. That there is nothing here to be earned.
At the conference I recently attended, Anne Lamott said that when you choose writing, you’ll begin to see it. The beauty of the world will fall around you like confetti. But the trick of it is, you have to stop moving for a second. You have to get still.
Lying on the deck with the phone pressed against my head, I feel myself come back to earth. I notice the leaves, all shades of yellow and red and orange and brown. I hear the geese swoop wild-winged into the pond. I feel the boards of the deck warm and sturdy beneath my back.
His voice is like gravity, tethering me to the last warm day.
This is such a beautiful reflection and reminder, Addie. Love that we need to literally stop and smell the roses every now and again.
Thank you, sweet Danielle!
It does feel like some alternate universe when my husband is gone. I don’t worry about dinner as much since the kids will probably hate it anyway, the kids get to bed faster since they only have me as a task master and not dad as a tickle monster, and I go to bed earlier since I have no one to watch dvred Dr. Who with…I remember when the kids were all little and I tried to stay up and get it all done. Now with alarm clocks starting off the day, instead of sweet little bedside faces, and lunches to be made and papers to sign – I feel rushed to wake and rushed to sleep. Thanks for the reminded to slow down and look at the leaves.
That is the nice part about having him gone. You don’t really have to cook. You just sort of throw together plates of whatever and nobody thinks it’s weird.
Silver linings.
This was me, last night. So many plans… so little actualization. But it’s alright.
And, yes, like Anne Lamott said, you DO begin to see it, the muse dancing right in front of you. Let’s go catch confetti together, friend.
Yes. She said it and then she backtracked a little. “Not like confetti, but it’s there,” she said. But I think she was dead on the right time. Confetti seems like the exact right word to me.
“That valor is not a checklist. That there is nothing here to be earned.”
So needed to hear that today.
Yes. I need to say it to myself everyday.
I understand the illusions of grandeur that come along with sleeping children time. And the deep desire to do it all.
I like to remind myself that not only has Proverbs 31 woman been reinvented but if you read closely, she had servants to do the grunt work while she was off considering fields and dying things purple.
It was never a fair fight to begin with.
So that’s it. We need servants. Or house elves.
When I hear geese, I usually look for something to throw at them to keep them off our lawn… but otherwise, I’m right with you here. How easy it is to try to cram and clutter our free time and the room we have to breathe. Stopping is so hard when we have standards of what we imagine our lives need to look like.
The geese stay pretty far away…way at the other side of the pond, so I don’t mind them. And yes, I need to quit some of those unattainable standards. It’s bogging me down.
It is so good to have a partner in life. Yes, that gravity. And also that warm air beneath that lifts you up in those moments where you can’t see past your feet (or the laundry). xo.
Beautifully said.
Addie, I’ve been lurking for a week or two now and I need to apologize for it. Because I LOVE your blog. Not to sound like the creepy stranger I know I’m about to sound like, but WE ARE THE SAME PERSON! ( It’s true. I ran a DNA test you didn’t know about. )
You and I would have been besties in high school and if you can get over my creepiness we could also be today. Reading you makes me feel sane. There’s a fairly huge gap between the me of today and the girl who wore the Jesus tshirts and didn’t swear and felt guilty for liking “Material Girl.” But there have been huge changes in my faith and I have been feeling a bit lost and isolated. So thank you for writing this whole blog out.
And this post made me laugh because I hear of other women going to bed early when their husbands are gone, but I’m right with you. A ludicrously long dream list of tasks I’m going to accomplish after the little ones are in bed. Mine do lean first toward pinterest projects, not cleaning though…so maybe we aren’t the exact same person. But you can come over here and clean my fridge and we’ll chat.
You never have to apologize for hanging around the blog! So glad you’re here and so glad to find someone else who’s my particular kind of crazy. I think you’re onto something though: more Pinterest, less cleaning. I like it.
Lovely gravity, indeed.
When my husband travels, I intersperse productive days with lazy days. You can do that too, when your kids grow.
But I will pass on one tip from when my husband traveled and my kids were small … I let them sleep in daddy’s tee shirts … and they were less sad at bedtime.
Fondly,
Glenda
I love that idea! Will have to try it out next time. Thanks Glenda.
I think you need to have a girlfriend over and watch chick flicks (maybe not Country Strong?) and make crafts. Cleaning is so…over-rated? ;D Rest is a holy thing, too.
Ha! Truth.
All day long, I’ve thought of this post and smiled to myself.
My husband travels regularly for business. I know well how easy it is to unhinge from the realities of time and young children. It’s like some sort of addiction. We know it’s not healthy. Something within us says, “Go to bed, you fool. Your kids will kick your ass to the curb in the morning.” But we ignore it and keep typing. (What about the nights when you’ve done all your projects, caught up on every blog, read every news story in the Western hemisphere but you are STILL unable to turn off the computer?) (Just me?)
It’s good to have a tether to reality.
So glad I’m not alone in my busy insanity. Left to my own, I will work myself to the bone just for the satisfaction of checking more crap off my list. My husband gives me perspective, reminds me to relax, challenges me to watch a movie with him WITHOUT multitasking. Thankful.
“When he’s gone, I get a little unhinged from reality”
You’ve just put my current frame of mind into words! (Except I’m the one who’s gone. But it’s almost over!) Thank you for this beautiful reminder.
Time away is good. I’m thankful for the way it reminds me how much we need each other.
I love the subtle tie from the “beauty of the world that falls around you like confetti” to the leaves as you lay there on the deck. Stellar writing, friend. Beautiful reminder.
I’ve spent so many hours after the kids are in bed and when N. is gone, trying to catch-up on my wish list. Just finding moments of quiet when no one else needs anything from me…but without my grounding force, time flies and days meld so I no longer understand names for days, but only to-do lists and appointments and faint understandings of what fills those little boxes in my calendar for the days ahead.
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