Meaning & Life’s Clutter

I have not posted in some time. Why not?

I am now working part time in order to have time. Yet have not written. Most of the past three weeks Andy and I spent identifying, interviewing and selecting back up nannies for Lalani so she can focus on getting well this summer. This week we spent a couple of days with our three finalists.

Nothing could have been more healthy than writing about the experience, because the stress of finding a new nanny is like no other I have experienced. The decision about which person to leave your kids and home with somebody day in and day out is difficult enough of itself, and then it begs the question: shouldn’t I be staying home. All to easy to get sucked into a vortex of confused, muddled thinking. But somehow I couldn’t find the wherewithal to write, to try to find meaning. There was too much clutter.

Let me be specific. Monday I came to work, having left Lalani and one of our finalists at home. I felt uneasy, like I was in the wrong place. So I went home. I told Lalani and Alexa I’d be in my room if they needed me, doing a little work. I edited a couple of documents. Lalani came up to inform me there was a snake in the house. She saw it but then it slithered away and she lost it. I went down to help her find it. She described it as a black garden snake, a baby. But when we found it, it looked like a rattle snake. She grabbed a bag and a frisbee, ready to catch it herself. I told her she didn’t need a rattle snake bite on top of cancer, shut the bathroom door, blocked it with a towel, and called animal control. I went up to my room to finish editing. Lalani and Alexa got the kids up and went outside Then I heard Lalani running as fast as she could into the house. Terrified something had happened to one of the kids I charged downstairs. Lalani was in another bathroom being violently ill. I told her to sit down, take it easy. She said not to worry, she would never have left the kids outside if she were ill, she would have just thrown up on the spot. Nothing could have been less reassuring.

At five a woman came over to sing with the kids and play guitar. Andy and I danced around the room singing slipper fish, slippery fish. What if the hokey pokey really is what it’s all about? Dinner...bath...poems...milk...dishes...walk Belvy...bed. Kids woke up in the middle of the night.

Tuesday I went to work but mostly talked to Richard and Denny about how to convince Lalani to take it easy. Both had excellent advice, and I went home early to give it to Lalani. A good conversation. Then she went off to therapy and I stayed home to spend some time with the second back up Nanny candidate. She was superb. She got the kids up from nap and played with them. I tried to do a little work but couldn’t focus. Went to play with the kids while she cooked dinner. Dinner...bath...poems... milk...dishes...walk Belvy...bed. Kids woke up in the middle of the night.

Wednesday Lalani couldn’t come in at all so I stayed home the whole day working with another nanny candidate who was a lovely person but confessed he didn’t know how to change a diaper. Still, we had a nice day. A little work while kids at nursery school. Pick them up. Drop by store. Take stuff to Lalani. Lunch. Nap time. I did some work and David steam cleaned the carpets. David got Battle and Margaret up and did a good job keeping them happy. I read The Lotus Eaters for a couple of hours. Then went to play with kids, cook dinner. We had our family dinner. Then remembered we forgot to give Belvy her medicine. Andy got up to do it. Battle came over and asked for a “special chocolate treat” which had been promised. Andy gave it to him. Margaret came over to demand hers. Andy gave it to her and returned to finish his dinner. Five minutes later we discovered Margaret had gotten Belvy’s medicine which Andy had been interrupted from putting up on the shelf and eaten an unspecified number of pills. Panic ensued. Call to poison control Call to doctor. Determined everything fine. ..bath...poems...milk...dishes...walk Belvy...bed.

In bed, we decided we had two people we really like, Alexa M-W-F, Monica T-Th. And we figured out that we could get 55% of Lalani’s salary covered by Short Term Disability Insurance of CA. I was up for a couple of hours with Margaret in the middle of the night, but no worries. We had come through the vortex and I was ready to clear my mind, think great thoughts. I woke up Thursday morning planning to take a run and come into the office and actually work.

Instead, there was a text from Monica, who had a fever and probably strep throat, caught from Margaret. Then two huge piles of diarrhea on the rug we’d steam cleaned the day before. The twins were full of life and wanted to have fun. Andy and I made them sit in a chair while we dealt with the diarrhea piles and dragged the rug outside. Andy stayed home in the morning. I came to work for a few hours, then came home for the afternoon shift. Doctor called to see if Margaret fine. So much had happened it took me a moment to remember my absolute panic the night before. Had a distracted time planting wildflower seeds with the kids and scrubbing the carpet. Dinner...bath...poems... milk...dishes...walk Belvy...bed.

Friday better. Alexa and Lalani in. Andy woke up to more piles of diarrhea, which he heroically cleaned up. Breakfast, nursery school, and here I sit at work trying to make sense of it all. On the way in, an interview on NPR with a filmmaker who reads all the time. Has read all of Tennessee Williams, and 8.400 books, all of which he’s cataloged. How does he have time? Easy, he says. No significant other, no kids, lots of time on airplanes.

I certainly wouldn’t trade Tennessee Williams for Battle and Margaret. But I do crave time to read and think. For me somehow reading and thinking is where I find the most meaning. Making dinner, doing the dishes, mediating the sharing of toys--it’s hard not to find this mere busy-ness.

There is a complicated web of conflated ideas here. One is what I consider to be a “real necessity” and what a “luxury.” Dinner and dishes I consider to be “real necessities.” Reading a novel I consider to be a “luxury.” On the other hand, dinner and dishes I consider to be “meaningless busy-ness.” And reading a novel I consider to be meaningful. This puts me in an impossible bind. The real necessities have to come before the luxuries but are meaningless.

Two solutions. One is to find meaning in the “real necessities.” Not just race through them as quickly as possible in order to get to the meaningful luxuries. Certainly Margaret and Battle have a lot of meaning. As does Andy. Second, I need to prioritize the reading and writing as more than a luxury.

How can I find meaning in clutter? The first and most obvious thing is to be more fully present with the kids. Not try to work in the yard or otherwise multi-task when I am with them.

And as for finding a great nanny--nothing is more important, so give it my full energy and focus. It is both meaningful and a necessity, especially if I want to read and write and think.

As for dinner and dishes--they just don’t have much meaning. Try to outsource so I also have time to read and write and think...

But somehow when the necessities flare up I find it impossible to clear away enough of the clutter to go think/write. And I wind up feeling mugged by pigeons. When I go to a museum and contemplate how much harder life must have been for, say, the Greeks, I am astounded they found the time to paint their water vessels or carve statues or write plays. How did they clear away life's clutter? When I am putting the dishes into the dishwasher, I wonder: how did the founding fathers do it?

My kids and Andy are the most precious thing in my life by far. But they do create an awful lot of clutter that does for me cloud a part of my life that is important. In order to be present to that preciousness, I do need to find a way to clear some of the clutter away...That is the dishes, the food, the laundry, the yard work, cleaning. Take some of the clutter out of my job too.