I’m Getting Older, Too; Seventy-Six Weeks In

On Friday night we had friends over for dinner, friends who we hadn’t seen for over a year, friends who are more like family, who we vacation with and our older sons share a birthday and are only a couple of hours apart, friends who, in the past decade, we would see every few months except for this past year. I baked a cake for my friend’s 50th birthday which is coming up, and having her and the family in our house felt so good, I could cry. I did cry.

I have been feeling very emotional and very, very fortunate. My sons are busy getting ready for school and hanging out with friends for hours and hours; they all meet at the elementary school and play basketball and hang out and go to the 7-11 for Slurpees and hang out some more. All their friends I have known for years, some of them since they were in kindergarten, my older son’s best friend since he was three and they were in preschool together. Their mothers are all my friends and sometimes I think, look at us, look at all of us, with our kids growing up and with our lives all changing. I look at all their friends and I think they are just like they were when they were small, but more so.

Some of my friends have children heading off into the world, flying the nest, going to university or getting apartments or, in one case, getting married. Some of these children I have known their entire lives, I remember holding them as tiny babies and going to baby showers and bearing gifts of Robeez and board books. Some children I knew even before they were born, when their mothers would tell me that they stopped birth control and started “trying.” Those days we all talked about fertility and the cautious excitement of a late period and the elation of the two lines on the pregnancy test and the disappointment when our periods arrived, those days I remember so clearly, and now we all talk about our menopause transitions and how to handle the tidal waves of our periods and our hot flashes.

It’s just life, and it’s such a fortunate one, I am so lucky to be living the one I am, and sometimes I think of all the friends I have made, over the years, friendships based on our children being at the same school and volunteering together. I would recruit my friends to help with the book fair, and then I would in turn be recruited to help with the winter dance or a silent auction or the Stampede breakfast, where there would be tension over flattening pancakes with a spatula to test doneness.

Oh, the things we used to worry about! Will flattening pancakes make them too tough? It didn’t matter anyway, the kids drowned them all in syrup. For the four years I chaired the School Council, these were the three most controversial issues, the issues that caused much tension, debate, and consternation for the council and Parent Association: weed control in the naturalization area, Fun Lunch and the suppliers thereof, and the possibility of introducing Fresh Fruit Friday. These were the biggest issues. You cannot imagine the sleep lost from those issues. You cannot imagine!

I was talking with a friend whose young children go to the same elementary and preschool that my own kids did, and when I mentioned something about the schools, she said I don’t know, I haven’t actually ever been inside them. Covid protocols, which have been in place for the whole time her kids have been at these schools, dictate that parents cannot enter the school property. Imagine! My whole life, when my kids were that age, was defined by being inside the school, I spent hours every week there, I knew every classroom and every teacher, I knew the kids by sight and, due to the book fair, I knew what books they read. I knew how to run the temperamental photocopier and that the school secretary preferred red wine to white and that being on good terms with her was of utmost importance. My whole life and so many of my friendships, women with whom I am good friends to this day, was based on doing things inside the school.

We all moved on from life inside the school to our own lives, and as we’ve gotten older my friends have blossomed and flown in different directions, now that our kids don’t need us to stand at the playground, waiting for them after school. I have seen my friends pursue different careers and interests, and it’s beautiful, but sometimes I miss the camaraderie of the playground, the “circle moms” chatting and waiting for the kids and wondering if we were going to have enough volunteers for the casino or if it was going to snow on Music Monday and would it have to be held inside.

Now the boys start school this week, grades eleven and twelve. Their high school experience has been defined, and will continue to be defined, by Covid. It is defined by masks and sanitizer and uncertainty around whether or not things will be a go. They are currently thrilled that they are allowed lockers this year, after a year of hauling around every single textbook and all their winter gear, not to mention my younger son participating in gym class in his jeans rather than gym clothes, it’s a relief. It’s such a small thing to be thrilled about, but also not.

At some point the pandemic will be behind us. At some point. At some point I won’t be washing masks every day, or scanning the headlines for daily Covid updates, or stepping six feet off the sidewalk to let another person pass by. At some point I will go back to being disappointed by humanity for not returning shopping carts to the carrel, rather than for spreading conspiracy theories and misinformation and, ultimately, deadly disease. At some point, other parents will be allowed inside schools again and will hold book fairs and fundraisers and will be able to meet their children’s teachers in person, rather than on a screen. That won’t be me anymore, as that time has passed, but it might happen for my friend.

It’s hard to imagine, but one day.

Pandemic Reading

One day my reading list will not be prefaced by the word “pandemic,” but that day is not today.

Early Morning Riser. This book was just nothing but good feelings. It is really hard to describe, but it is about family, the family we create in life. It is just the sweetest, most feel-good book I’ve read in a while. If you are a person who really likes thick plots and lots of action, this book is not that. In fact, it’s a little plotless, but it is just wonderful. It takes place in a small town, with a second grade teacher and the town’s handyman, who has slept with pretty much every other woman in town, and his assistant who is developmentally slow. It sounds weird and sort of distasteful, but it truly is a lovely book.

The Guncle. Given my Landslide feelings lately, and the daily horrors of the news on literally every front, I have been seeking out a lot of light and feel-good books. This one did not disappoint! Two children, after the death of their mother and their father going into rehab, go to live with their gay uncle in Palm Springs, known as their “guncle.” My friend Alice (HI ALICE) pointed out that “dead mother, father in rehab” does not sound like the makings of a feel-good book, but it actually really is. This is the author of Lily and the Octopus, which I DO NOT RECOMMEND IF YOU ARE SENSITIVE ABOUT DOGS WITH CANCER. I cannot stress that enough. But The Guncle is just a fun, sparkly read, and, despite the premise, heart-warming.

The Two Lives of Lydia Bird. It took to page 254 for me to get invested in this story – and the book is 365 pages long. I did not love it. However, the last 100 pages were pretty decent; there was some great messaging about idealizing life as it “could have been” and letting go. The ending, you could see it a mile away, but still, it was nice. I would give this book a solid C, maybe a C+.

Wishing you all a happy and safe start to September! Remember, we can sail through those changing ocean tides. xo