Full Disclosure (Almost Full, Anyway)

A few weeks ago, a line from an article in The Atlantic caught my attention:

The Internet offers both a vast potential audience, and the possibility for anonymity, and if not anonymity, then a carefully curated veneer of self that you can attach your name to.

As someone who maintains two blogs, I've been considering this idea for awhile. Through the power of the Internet -- Facebook, my blog, online forums, etc. -- I've cultivated relationships with people who know me only through these venues. While I appreciate these connections, I sometimes feel that they are based on false pretenses.

Naturally, when I create a post, I'm not going to write about my miseries. I usually pick positive topics, subjects that make me smile or feel good. However, as a result, I think an idealized version of my life emerges. In that way, I'm kind of like a bag of potato chips -- highly processed (and maybe even half-baked). Likewise, the eternally sunny, heavily edited version of me that people encounter online has transformed her annoyances, dismay, shock, horror, irritation, anger into something laughable or profitable -- or even into something that can be ignored altogether. Blog Julie is as unlike the person typing this post as a chip is unlike a humble spud. They might both come from the same place, but one has a hard time believing it.

Blog Julie is sweet, unflappable, maybe even funny or smart at times, and usually has it all together. Real Julie wakes up with messy hair and bad breath.

Blog Julie gets to dance, sing, and play all day. Blog Julie's children are immaculate and perfect in every way. Blog Julie has moments of quiet reflection and peaceful activity. Real Julie scrubs toilets and folds laundry. Lots of toilets. Lots of laundry. Actually, Real Julie dances and plays, too, but all the spinning makes her motion-sick. Real Julie's untidy, unkempt "crumb bums" love each other, but they also can't seem to go one afternoon without bickering over something. As for quiet reflection and peaceful activity, HA! Real Julie wakes at an obscenely early hour just to get a few moments alone each day. Of course, her DH (who may be reading this post), is perfect.

Blog Julie is a saintly devoted mother. Real Julie would never even be a consideration for Mom of the Minute. To illustrate that point, here is a true story. Real Julie has one gregarious boy whose amp goes up to 11. Her days are full of reminders to him to "use an inside voice" or just tuning out. However, remember that Real Julie rises between 4:30-5:30 am, and as the day wears on, her patience sometimes wears out. Toward the end of one busy day full of nonstop shuttling, Real Julie was stressing over being late to skating lessons (oh yeah, she's obsessive/compulsive regarding time). Meanwhile, Boy 2 was barraging her with questions at the top of his voice. Why is ice cold? Who invented ice? What if the world didn't have any ice? What if I fall? What if I'm the worst skater? What if I'm the best skater? Why is it winter? Why do these laces have to be so tight? etc. etc. Ever blithe Blog Julie is too patient, too indulgent to be phased by this kind of thing, which in the grand scheme of things, is nothing. Real Julie cracked under her self-created mental strain. To her eternal shame, she exasperatedly burst out, "Please, just stop talking until your skates are on. I've had a noisy day, and I need a couple minutes of quiet right now." The other people in the room were probably thinking, "Whoa! Should we call Child Services?" Yeah, Real Julie is not a shining example of motherhood, but this post is about full disclosure.

What else can we say about Real Julie?

• She possesses a phenomenal talent for saying precisely the wrong the thing at the wrong time. 
• She's rubbish at keeping house. 
• There is one day every month when she doesn't want to see, hear or speak to anyone. If you happen to spot her on this day, run away.
• She frequently doesn't shower until noon. 
• She measures time in half-hour blocks. 1:01 is almost 1:30. 1:31 is 2:00. (I told you she was neurotic about time.)
• She has an annoying habit of saying "I told you..."
• She procrastinates.
• She doesn't like sweating, but she'd rather be slightly sweaty than cold. Unfortunately, 75% of the time, she's freezing.
• She refuses to run. At all. Ever. For any reason.

I could go on. The point is, dressed-down, unedited Julie is an entirely different creature than her online counterpart. And I suppose this is where I circle back to my original musings. Is the everyday woman whose day is spent on mundane activities and details the real person? Or is the woman who writes about her inner life the real one? Which version is the real one? 

I've figured out which superpower I want...

A couple of weeks ago my 3-year old and I were getting ready for a playdate, and she kept insisting that, "We have to go now!"

"No, your friend won't be home until 1. It's only 11 now."

"Hold me," she exclaimed. When I picked her up, she gestured to the oven. I carried her over, and she began jabbing at the 1 on the oven clock.

Frustrated, she cried, "It won't change to one!!!"

I tried explaining that even if one changes the clock, one can't change time -- it doesn't go faster, slow down, or even rewind. It was a hard sell, though, and I'm still not sure she entirely believes me. Apparently, though, I have the maturity of a 3-year old because I think that would be an awesome super power.

The last few weeks have been crazy busy for me. This year, I decided to pick up some freelance work, and it's started pouring in lately (which is brilliant timing, btw, with Christmas coming up, so no complaints here). I've also been dealing with the aftermath of a tree falling on our house a few days before Thanksgiving. (Do you have any idea how hard it is to get work done between Thanksgiving and Christmas? Everyone is on vacation!) Of course, this is all on top of all the other business of being a mom to three kids, and I would love the ability to manipulate time. I'd add about four more hours to the day, I think.

How cool would that be? Instead of a day planned around and dictated by alarms, appointments, and deadlines, I could plan activities around when I actually felt ready for them! How great would that be in the morning! No more hitting the snooze button.

So this got me thinking. If I could gain an extra few hours, what would I fill the moments with? I wish I could say I would do something wonderful. Maybe read a novel, sew a quilt, go for a hike. Knowing me, though, I'd probably pull a Hermione Granger with her Time-turner, turning back time only to fill it with more work. In my case, more projects around the house, more laundry, more scrubbing. What a waste of time! Alas, I'm probably better off without any super powers.

How about you. If you had a superpower, what would you want?

The Life of a Leaf

In high school, one of my teachers observed that most people she knew were either leaves floating idly along the river of life or motorboats with speed, direction, and purpose. I used to think that was a motorboat, but I was wrong. I'm a leaf.

Tonight, my kids and I were going through some photo albums, and a realization hit me. Most of my life, so many of my favorite memories are just products of chance. Jobs that I've taken, places I've visited, people I've met... They've all been strange, random twists of fate.

I recall that I had a plan once long ago, but it was derailed, and I never bothered to make a new one. Since Baby #3 was born, I don't think I've ever been able to stick to a plan that extended later than dinnertime.

My husband -- I met him through a bizarre chance of fate. He didn't even live in the same city, but his mother and I worked at the same school. He was there to visit her, and I bumped into them in the teacher's lounge because I was changing to go running. That may sound pretty normal, but I never run. Never. Ever. Not for fires, not for shoe sales, not for anything... I was on a train in Paris once when we got a bomb threat. Sirens were blaring; the gendarme were whizzing through the cars to evacuate us. I didn't even break into a trot. What in the world possessed me to go running that day, that one day of the year that I would meet him? Any other day, I would've hopped into my car parked near my classroom and missed him altogether. As I recall, I didn't even like him at the moment, but here we are, nearly two decades later.

Those oft-quoted lines from Robert Frost's "The Road Not Taken" come to mind:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

Most people infer that the road less traveled is the superior one, but I'm not so sure. Sometimes, I think that's just an elegant way to say "I've made a hu-u-u-u-u-ge mistake."

My father has wisely stated, "A lot of things could've been, but I don't bother thinking about them because there's no point." Sadly, I lack his placid temperament, and I often wonder what life might have been if I'd stuck to a definite plan. Easier? More focused? More profitable? For sure, I'd be doing something more productive than posting blog entries between bouts of ring-around-the-rosies.

On the other hand, if I'd been more goal-oriented, I'd have missed out on some of the best memories I have, like karaoke-singing on the Champs Elysees and "The Lebanese Detective" (that's another post maybe). Heck, two of my children were complete surprises, and I can't imagine life without them.  These memories, these people that have come in and out of my life -- a motorboat would've missed them, but they really are the details that make all the difference.

Love and Puke

It's official. My daughter is the world's heaviest sleeper.

Last night, I awoke to a horrible retching sound and found Babygirl lying on her back, in bed, puking up bucketfuls. I was terrified that she might choke, but she never even woke up. She just continued sleeping. Even when I roused her, she barely opened her eyes, and she was still half asleep when I put her in the bath.

Of course, while she was soundly in bed within seconds of her bath, I couldn't sleep the rest of the night. Between cleaning sheets, floors, tubs, toilets, sinks and a general insomnia, I've had hardly forty winks since yesterday.

I suppose I got two lessons out of this. The most obvious one is that mom is always the one who deals with dirty stuff in the middle of the night. The other lesson took me a bit more time to figure out.

There was vomit in Babygirl's hair, on her face, all over her body. She was swimming in it, completely oblivious, and unable to help herself. Although I tried to be as gentle as possible and to keep her comfortable, she looked so pathétique shivering in in the bathtub, vomit swirling around her feet and encrusting her small body. My heart was moved with pity for her as I bathed her tiny shoulders and washed the puke out of her hair.

It seems obvious that one would feel compassionate toward a sick child. The truth, though, is that she stank so much I thought I would be sick, too. Every muscle in my body wanted to run away and leave her in the tub! (How is that for a maternal instinct?) It's only love that made me stay.

So I've kind of taken the long way around to my point, but here it is. Lately, I've seen a lot of young girls (and boys, for that matter) in church, on the streets, in the media, etc. who are metaphorically covered in puke. They've made some really bad choices and have been met by one of two responses. Either, society (in the name of love) castigates them until they can adhere to a certain standard of acceptability. Or it views them (in the name of love) with a lack of involvement that kindly casts no judgment at all, but this kindness leaves them to follow a path of self-destruction.

Real love, I think, is somewhere in the middle. Indulge me for a moment if I compare love to a stray dog. Would Love see a stray and leave him outside the door until it could clean itself up? No, that would be harsh. Would Love drown a stray to get rid of its ticks? Of course not, that would be unreasonable. But neither would Love adopt a stray and leave it with all its fleas and bad habits. That would be foolish and ultimately untenable. So it saddens me to see young people who are being destroyed by these two extreme responses. There are the well-intentioned who nitpick at and punish young people until they drown in criticism, and there are the well-intentioned who don't want young people to "feel bad" so they approve of everything. But nobody is doing these kids any favors. The critic loves his own opinion. The "tolerant" person loves creating a persona of benevolence. Nobody is truly loving these kids.

Anyway, Babygirl just woke up, and I see I missed some icky spots in the dim lighting last night. So we're off for another bath, but I leave you with these words from C.S. Lewis who always says everything a hundred times better than I could ever hope to.

Love, in its own nature, demands the perfecting of the beloved; that the mere 'kindness' which tolerates anything except suffering in its object is, in that respect, at the opposite pole from Love. When we fall in love with a woman, do we cease to care whether she is clean or dirty, fair or foul? Do we not rather then first begin to care? Does any woman regard it as a sign of love in a man that he neither knows nor cares how she is looking? Love may, indeed, love the beloved when her beauty is lost: but not because it is lost. Love may forgive all infirmities and love still in spite of them: but Love cannot cease to will their removal... Of all powers, he forgives most, but he condones least: he is pleased with little, but demands all. 

from the Problem of Pain by C.S. Lewis

The Smell of Happiness

Another entry I forgot to post. Oops.

The Arbor Day Foundation sent me some free forsythia with my order of dwarf cherries. So despite having a broken leg, I dared to disobey doctor's orders and take up a shovel. In the middle of planting, I noticed a tree that I couldn't name.

Recently, identifying neighborhood flora has become something of an obsession with me. I'm trying to figure out what kind of forage is available for the bees month-by-month. So naturally, I clipped a twig and went to The Arbor Day's online field guide.

Unfortunately, I couldn't find it in the guide. Maybe it was because the leaves were still too small, but I had trouble answering the guide questions.¹ I was about to give up when I happened to peel the bark and a whiff of root beer and menthol surprised my nose. It wasn't sassafras, because I'd know those mitten-like/dinosaur-print shaped leaves anywhere.

Sassafras illustration from Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sassafras

No, it was sweet birch, and its fragrance hinted at some sunny activity in the fringes of my memory. I don't know what it is -- maybe a  picnic, a walk in the woods, I don't know. I can't remember exactly what happened, but I know this secret scent of a nearly forgotten delight. It's there "filling me up with rainbows" to borrow an expression from my son. It reminds me of the description of Wendy's mother from Peter Pan.

“She was a lovely lady, with a romantic mind and such a sweet mocking mouth. Her romantic mind was like the tiny boxes, one within the other, that come from the puzzling East, however many you discover there is always one more; and her sweet mocking mouth had one kiss on it that Wendy could never get, though there it was, perfectly conspicuous in the right-hand corner.”

For a few weeks, the memory (or lack of it) nagged and nagged at me. I couldn't place it. Couldn't file it away neatly where it should go. It was just there, just out of reach -- fresh and green, wayward and flighty. But now I've come to prefer it that way.

At the risk of sounding like sour grapes, maybe the memory isn't so great after all, or it might be more indelibly printed into my brain. However, whatever it is, I've begun to think that recall might come too close to possession or cataloguing. Trying to hold on to it or bring it up at beck and call might make the magic fly away like Peter Pan. As it is, I'm happy to let myself be beautifully, enchantedly happy that something this wonderful exists.
____________________

¹ If you were wondering why the leaves were so small when we're already into summer, it's because I started this post back in May. Of course, the leaves are full-size now.

The Road Home

Last week, the kids and I took a roadtrip down to Virginia with my parents. It was a lovely trip, and we really enjoyed it. But when we started our return trip on Monday, the kids and I were glad to be going home.

For the most part, our journey took us north on I-81 and then we took I-84 up into Connecticut. As we approached the junction of those two interstates, a huge road sign read I-84, New England.

I can't explain it, but I got a thrill seeing it. Although we were still hours away from home and it seemed like the trip would never end, there was this notice that we were on the right track. Home might be out of sight, but it was not out of reach, and we would reach it eventually.

I guess that sometimes the road home starts a long way off. But if you stay on it, you'll get there.

The Bees are Here!

Sunday morning, I arrived bright and early in Brewster, NY to pick up the two top bar nucs I'd ordered way back in January. I had left the house at 5:30 am and had enjoyed a lovely sunrise and relaxing roadtrip. By the time I got to the farm, I was revelling in an absolutely glorious morning.

When Beekeeper Mike met me there, he delivered some bad news. Over the spring, in addition to the super rainy weather, he'd had five bear attacks. The most recent one had come just a few days prior to my arrival and had ravaged one of my nucs. So today, I'd be taking just one them home.

Here is what his top bar nucs look like. They're pretty rough. Not nearly up to my woodworking husband's standards. Just a few pieces of cheap wood and wire mesh stapled together.

The entrance to the nuc was duct-taped, but as you can see in the photo below, it was leaking bees through all kinds of cracks.

Fortunately, I had read a review of that particular apiary somewhere online and was prepared for this possibility. After the nuc was in the car, I wrapped it up in bedsheets to keep the bees inside.

After signing the disclaimers and getting my receipt, I waved a cheery goodbye and headed back home with my precious cargo. I had reached the end of the farm's driveway when I heard a buzzing noise. "Oh, that's nice," I thought, "They're keeping me company." Then a quarter-mile down the road, I noticed that the buzzing was getting louder and sounded more frustrated.

I glanced at the rearview mirror. Several bees had escaped the confines of my sheets and were unhappily trying to find a way out of the rear window.

A little more than halfway home, I had to stop for gas, and quite a few -- at least twenty or so -- bees had begun congregating in the back of the car. At this point I was kind of regretting that I'd taken my Flex, which is a basically a station wagon, which means an open trunk that is part of the interior cabin -- and not my husband's sedan.

The trip from the farm to my house is about 90 minutes, and I'm not normally a speeder, but I'll wager it took me considerably less time than that. And I think I made it home just in time because toward the end there, the number of escapees had doubled, and the buzzing was getting a little too close to the back of my head for perfect comfort.

In any case, I raced into my driveway, unharmed and unpunctured. (A fact which seems to provide a bit of amusement to some of the more experienced beeks on one of the forums I follow.) The bees didn't seem any worse for wear either. I choose to believe they enjoyed sightseeing for a change.

I love how he insisted on protective clothing from
head to leg but then decided to wear flip-flops.

Later that afternoon, my young assistant and I transferred the bars from the nuc to the hive. We couldn't find Queen Hippolyte (Hippolyte was an Amazon, who were all women, so the name seems rather appropriate, don't you think?) which was a bit disappointing. However, everything looked great. Lots of drawn comb and brood.

It's been so much fun watching all the girls. I think this is going to be a really great summer.