falling behind

Well, I'm tired. How many of my posts, emails, and conversations start with that? Doesn't that get old after a while? Wouldn't I be better off doing something like sleeping more, instead of boasting of my tiredness? I don't feel that sense of self-importance like I used to, that being so busy meant I was someone, not merely a mom or artiste, but influential and in demand. No, now I just sit back and wonder how it is that things can become muddled so quickly, so many directions one can be pulled, and the fact that my house is a mess makes me feel like the foundations have crumbled from under me. Oh, and I realize that I've been sitting with my leg tucked under me, which will make me walk like an old man after a hernia operation. So many people to contact, so many people I am afraid to disappoint, and so many emails in my "to reply" box that I am paralyzed. Or just paralyzed enough to blog about being overwhelmed and not fix the problem. And sometimes I think I am intelligent...obviously I'm giving myself way too much credit.

It used to be that the mid-October to November time was all about making a cool halloween costume, only and solely, and now it is the annual birthday-a-rama: A's birthday sandwiched between his cousin's, my best friend's and her daughter's, halloween, and this year, three weddings in two weeks. A few other things are on the plate as well that I can't remember, besides the usual weekly commitments. Makes my head spin not a little.

What I need to remember is that these are all fun, awesome things, and A's turning 5 means a real milestone and a relief. Turning five is so much more of a big deal to me, the first "big boy" birthday. It was certainly my first remembered birthday--Farrells ice cream parlor, my friends, my first crush named Ben, who gave me a set of dominoes and a smurfette charm necklace (which I still have). I think we also got Max that year, the black miniature Dachsund who hated the mailman like every proper dog, was scared of dogs his own size but barked viciously at Dobermans. Who ate Christmas tree needles and had an allergic reaction that made his little nose puff up.

So five years ago, just about, this little boy came into my life after hours and hours of labor and pain, and nothing has been the same since. It is really difficult to remember life before he came into it, and I have been forced to learn and grow in ways that I never thought possible, as he has grown through the years. I must say I have enjoyed him more and more as the years go on, and it was a miracle that we got through the infant and toddler years relatively unscathed. I miss the daily marathon-naps and the sweet baby chub to squeeze, but I do not miss anything to do with diapers, spit-up, the hellish crusty high chair, regular prolonged bouts of diarrhea, and the teething that started late and never seemed to stop until a year ago. I can now shout, "We MADE it!"--at least through all that. I know, all you killjoys out there will say there are more challenges ahead, the teen years not least, but I don't care. I have peace, have made at least some peace with my role as mother, and how transitory it is. I really don't care about acclaim any more, professional success as an artist, all of it. It doesn't matter, and it's even more fleeting than infancy.

It's a few days later now, and the house is relatively clean. It will only ever be relatively clean I think, unless people don't live in it. My new motto is, "Housework you will always have with you." I felt so weighed down by the mess, and it was hard to remember why I had left it so. The reason was our trip to New York with A, for the very first time. We spent about 3 days walking the city, shopping, playing in Central Park, and seeing friends who live there. We also saw the Lion King on Broadway.

The show was literally breathtaking. I gasped so many times it was a wonder I didn't hyperventilate. The costumes, the music, the sets, the actors and dancers--everything was mesmerizing. The songs that annoyed me so much when A was little, "Circle of Life, Hakuna Matata, etc..." were, in this performance, redeemed so many times over that it was hard to believe they had been done before. I dearly love choral music of all kinds, and this show's blend of African rythms and harmonies with powerful western melodies were gorgeous. Needless to say, we got the soundtrack 2 days later and have listened to it nonstop ever since.

I could write pages and pages about the costumes and sets, designed by fiber artist Julie Taymor. I remember when the show first came out, and Sunday Morning did a special feature on her designs. I was struck then, and even more so now, with her incredibly life-like and fantastical creatures in the play; the actors were clearly visible, yet their costumes allowed their bodies to move like the animals they portrayed. All of them fit together so well, even the creatures as different as birds and elephants, and seeing them all coming together for the very first song sent chills down my spine. The "Hasafetnya Song," which had so often set my teeth on edge, started as a call from the stage to the mezzanine, where two other singers announced the coming of the animals. Then down the aisles of the theater and across the stage, all the creatures gathered to Pride Rock, which magically rose with the sun. Everything was brilliant. Bird-shaped kites on sticks wheeled above the audience, a life-size elephant lumbered down the aisle, and giraffes--actors on 2 sets of stilts--gracefully made their way across the stage. Dancers with 5 gazelle sculptures on their bodies bounded like a herd, zebras pranced. Incredible.

My favorite moment of chills (out of the many), was during the reprise of the song, "He lives in you." The lyrics of the song are almost pulled from the bible. Simba feels so alone, and abandoned by his father who died tragically. The prophet-like character Rafiki tells him to look at his own reflection to see his father again. The stars behind Simba had what looked like clouds rolling across them, then all the clouds joined together to form a giant Lion's head.
The weekend was terrific, starting even with that sort of bang. Atticus was so tired after the second day of walking that he fell asleep on D's shoulders. We saw most of the Columbus Day parade on 5th avenue after church, ate lunch and dinner with college students from our home church, and collapsed at home at 2 AM on Monday morning.

calling 911 with fat fingers

It's time for the next installment of "MK's bizarre nightmares," brought to you by Sertraline, a popular anti-depressant which works (most of the time) during the day, but seems to have a little too much fun with my synapses whilst I sleep. I won't spend this whole blog cataloging the exhausting nighttime wanderings of my brain, but suffice it to say that every night lately I've woken up either yelling something or punching D (I was defending myself against a huge 8th grader with a dull steak knife). Another similarity in these nightmares is the fact that I have my cell phone, but I cannot use it to call 911. My fingers are too big to only hit one button at a time, so I hit 965, or 9121, or any other sequence of numbers as the dangers escalate. I do have technical problems often with my cell phone, which makes me feel ham-handed and ridiculous, but you'd think at least once I'd be able to punch my way to the cops. I did get through in my dream last night, but I was put on hold and realized I had set down my bookbag with everything in it, in a room full of unsavoury characters, and couldn't get to it in time to keep those people from pocketing everything of value in the bag.

Last night's dream was especially bad, as it involved a person I thought I was feeling reasonable about, but really have not forgiven, not even close. He was so creepy in the dream and was so domineering that I felt like he would do anything in a desperate situation, but at the same time he was trying to convince me that he wasn't all that bad of a person. I just kept yelling at him, saying how much I hated his guts and woke up screaming, "Don't you have a conscience???!!" Well, it seems that the answer is no, in waking life, or at least it's so deeply buried that nothing short of a personal earthquake will bring it to the surface. But the dream wasn't done with me yet. I landed right back in the apartment hallway when I went back to sleep, feeling so weighed down by fear and evil that it took all of my strength to wake up again.

So today I'm in zombie headache mode, trying to convince myself that it was all just a dream and that surely I could call 911, and do even more, if I was in real danger. But the fact remains that I am still full of hatred for this person, even though I have not spoken to him in years. I have to let this go or it will fester, and I can't handle another week of broken, unrestful sleep and the potential of hurting my poor husband in the process.

We'll see how it goes tonight. Maybe I can get one of those giant-number old-people phones in this dream. Or, please God, I might have a good dream with no need to call for backup.