Self-Imposed Deadlines

Stress is a strange thing. Being frustrated, anxious, worried. . . They are all states of mind that sometimes we can control and sometimes we can't. The ways in which thoughts or simple awareness can manifest into physical reactions is fascinating to me.

I remember the first time I needed stitches. I was in my mid-20s, and while carving something with a dull tool managed to stab it into the side of my left thumb. The doctor at the clinic we went to tied four neat little stitches into my skin, and I couldn't believe how much the whole thing turned my stomach. I told the doctor how weird it was that if I didn't know what was happening and couldn't see it, it would all be fine because the pain wasn't that terrible. It wasn't good, but it wasn't the worst thing I could imagine by a long shot. However, if I looked at my skin being stitched through like fabric, that was nauseating and made me a little dizzy. Wasn't that strange? How could that be? As the doctor finished up his last little knot, he said, "Only in the Western world are people surprised by the connection between the mind and the body." I don't know how true that is, but I've thought about it a lot since then.

We can try to forge a more practical attitude about that connection, but it doesn't always work. There was a stretch a few years ago where I had terrible migraines. It's easy to see now how much they were tied to upsetting events in my life. Certain thoughts and worries were literally hurting my head. The pain was so bad that at one point while writhing around on a couch at 3 a.m. it occurred to me that death, if it came right then, wouldn't be unwelcome because at least the pain would stop. When I couldn't stop the pain, I would try to accept it, and that helped somewhat. Fighting the pain made it worse. Simply letting it be what it was made it more bearable.

My life at the moment is [knock on expensive violin wood] really going quite well. This is the place where I could have barely dared hope for the pendulum to swing during those literally and figuratively painful times a few years back. I'm not taking it for granted, and I'm not foolish enough to believe such fortune will last, but I've enjoyed this year very much. I have the love and support of my husband, my kids are all headed in good directions right now, health and work are fine, I've gotten to travel and spend time with family and friends, and even have a trusty little dog at my side who reminds me to be in the moment. Life is good.

In fact, when I'm honest with myself, the biggest sources of stress currently going on for me are all self-imposed and a matter of choice. Which seems ridiculous, but hear me out, because I like to believe there is an upside, or at the very least an understandable explanation.

For the past couple of months I have had the joy of all three kids at home. My oldest has been home from college for the summer, and we've tried to cram as much into that limited time as possible. Which has meant putting my normal projects on hold. I have barely been in my home shop, so the instruments that were rolling along so nicely back in the spring have not progressed at all. And the novel I want to be getting out into the world sooner rather than later just sits and gathers virtual dust. I only recently started going back to rehearsals, because they were technically optional this summer, and I wanted as much time as possible with my kids.

So I have been operating like a person with no creative pursuits, and frankly, it's a much more relaxed kind of life. There is time to hang out and play games and binge watch things as a family when nothing I want to get done "needs" to get done. It's been fun. But it's also not really me. If I went on this way indefinitely, I'm not sure who I would be anymore. Because I'd no longer be a person who builds instruments or plays music or writes books.

All those creative endeavors, though, require deadlines that I invent for myself. Because none of them are things I "have" to do. Not really. There are people waiting for the instruments they commissioned, but completing them is still a matter of choice. If I woke up one day and realized building instruments is making my life worse rather than better, I can stop, even if it disappoints others. There is no one out there requiring me to write more books. There are plenty of other musicians to replace me if I up and quit playing viola and mandola.

Once my daughter leaves for college again in a few days, and the rest of us settle into a fall routine that has us interacting less often, I will get back into my shop, back to regular practicing, and back to editing my latest novel.

All of those things require self-imposed deadlines in order to make progress. Deadlines are stressful, even arbitrary ones.

One of the few self-imposed deadlines I've managed to keep up with over my summer of fun, is this blog. Barely. When I worked for (the now defunct parenting website) Babble, there was no explicit number of posts per month that I was contractually expected to write, but I aimed for about two a week. That seemed to match the rate most of the other personal bloggers on the site were doing, and it felt natural. Plus I was getting paid, so I certainly had to produce something regularly. 

Since moving to this blog, the only reason to write is if I feel like it. But one of the important reasons for me to maintain this blog, is that writing regularly is good for me as a writer. There are enough other things happening in my life that giving up the blog entirely would be very easy, and few would notice if it ceased to be. But I like the discipline that some manner of deadline requires. I like making myself create something in this space on some kind of schedule.

The self-imposed deadline I've given myself on this blog is at least one post a month. And I've managed to maintain that all these years. I've never skipped a month, which is a lot harder than it sounds.

I've been trying to put together a post about my trip to Austria since May. But that post is huge, and every time I work on it, I see the end of the month creeping up on the calendar, and have to switch gears merely to get something posted before the deadline. The number of partially started drafts in my Blogger folder is getting rather silly. But hey, at least I'm writing. That's the point. 

Since nobody makes demands about my being a writer other than me, I have to be some kind of task master to myself. Same with instrument making. Same with any creative project that is important to my identity and my soul. But I have to choose stress to do any of it. I have to convince myself it's necessary, and then put pressure on myself to actually make progress on any meaningful kind of schedule, or nothing happens. Nothing aside from watching more Star Trek and baking cookies, which is all a lot of fun, but not what I want to define me.

This month I also meant to finally write about my trip to Austria. But did you catch the date? And the time? I wonder how many of my readers actually notice the time stamp on the things I post, and realize how many of them bump up close to midnight on the last day of the month. The people in my house certainly notice. I had to pull myself away from my kids tonight, pausing the show we were watching saying, "I have to go write something!" And one of them said, "Wait, is it the last day of the month already?"

But hey, my streak remains unbroken. I have minutes to spare before I hit "publish." And I will take my manufactured stress in order to remain creative over the kind of stress inducing scenarios life sometimes likes to hand out. I just need to remind myself when I start to panic over either of them, that it helps to cut myself some slack, take a deep breath, and maybe walk the dog again.

And I need to remember that there are physical ramifications to being under stress, and that dwelling on certain thoughts can cause physical pain. There are too many things in life we can't control, to not appreciate the ones we can. When I have moments of, "Oh no! My blog!" I need to balance the tools I use to make things happen with my overall well being. 

After a "summer off" I'm taking stock of how much stress I need or don't need to choose even when times are good. I have a sense that by the time I figure it out, my life will be about done.

No Way To Turn

This has been a rough week, logistically.

Ian's out of state doing Army things for two weeks, and we're over halfway through it, but boy there are some times handling everything alone is okay, and other times it's hard, and this time I am barely hanging in there.

Temporary (Babble)

One of my kids’ favorite books is called ‘Too Much Noise’ which is about a grumpy old man who thinks his house is too noisy.  A wise man tells him to fill his home with all manner of loud animals and things get much worse.  When the noise reaches its peak, the wise man then tells him to get rid of all the animals, and the orignal sounds that used to bother the old man now seem not just tolerable but pleasant.

I feel like I’ve reached a point like that in this deployment.  I had too much to handle when my husband left in the fall and it was overwhelming at times.  Running the violin store, teaching lessons, and caring for the kids seemed like more than I could do.  Then I decided to sell our house and move into the one across the street.  That added a ridiculous amount of work into a schedule with no room for it, and now that the move is done and our responsibilities to the old house are winding down as we get nearer to the closing, I feel more calm than I have in a long time.  All I have to do is run the violin store, teach some lessons, and care for the kids.  I’m not in danger of being bored, but I have to say it just doesn’t feel as hard as it did back in September.  Things are going well right now.  It feels jinxy to write that, but I don’t want to be a superstitious person, so I will just admit that things are fine and let it be.

There are still some kinks in the system, however, and in my newfound quiet moments I’ve been thinking about what they mean.  When I step outside myself a little and try to see what other people see, I realize some things don’t look set up as well as they could be to function in the best way.  And the reason is because this phase is supposed to be temporary.


One of the hardest parts of living on this end of the deployment is that I have to operate as a single parent, but not redesign my life to really be one.  I have to be self-sufficient, but still leave room for Ian for when he comes home.  As impractical as it sounds, I don’t want to be too self-sufficient.  When I stumble in my routine because my partner is missing, it helps remind me that he’s needed here.  I don’t want to erase the necessity for my husband in our lives.  I could make certain things easier, but I need to need him.

Part of it is just me being stubborn.  For instance, I don’t want to learn the more businessy sides of my business if I don’t have to.  Ian is good at things like Quickbooks and all I want to do is fix violins, so we’re a good team while he’s here.  When technical things with the business get complicated I hold my breath and think, “Just a few more months….We just have to get by for a few more months and Ian will know what to do.”  If Ian were never coming back, I’d have to dive in and make myself learn it all.  And I know it’s that vaguely superstitious part of me surfacing again, but I don’t want to do anything in a way as if he’s never coming back.  He promised me he’d come home in one piece.  I live with an underlying terror that he won’t.  Not learning Quickbooks somehow means he has to.

Mowing the lawn is another thing I approach haphazardly.  Currently I rely on a boy who is about ten years old who just sort of shows up when the lawn looks shaggy and I give him five bucks plus a tip.  That’s working, but if this weren’t temporary I would find a way to do it myself.  Same goes for learning to use the grill, figuring out certain computer things, and cleaning up the garage.  (I’m sort of horrified by how much the division of labor in our house has fallen down stereotypical gender lines, but it just kind of happened.  I honestly hadn’t noticed it until Ian got deployed the first time.  I still own most of the cool tools, though.  My kids know the bandsaw is a mom thing.)

I’m not helpless by any means, and I don’t want to make it sound like without a man around I can’t get by because that’s just not true.  I think I’m managing pretty well, considering.  But those coarse edges here and there feel necessary.  Certain things aren’t supposed to be easy.  I’m not a masochist, but I accept that there are things that are supposed to hurt.  Knowing my husband is working in a dangerous situation in Iraq hurts.  Watching my kids growing up a little more each day without their daddy here to see it hurts.  Ian matters to us, so his absence is hard.  The only way it wouldn’t hurt is if we didn’t care.  The hurt is part of how we know we do.

When things get rough I just focus on getting through one day at a time.  During the last deployment when I was pregnant (and eventually toting around a newborn) sometimes I focused on just getting through each hour.  This deployment compared to the last one is a lot like the ‘Too Much Noise’ book.  Even with the move this experience has been much easier than before, primarily because I’m not dangerously sleep deprived.  And as I said, right now things are fine.  As fine as they can be with a husband-sized hole in my life.  But he promised me he’ll be back.  This is temporary.

Breathing Room (Babble)

I’m having a really good week.  My brother’s girlfriend came up from Texas just to help me out during my current busy rehearsal schedule, and having her in the house has been such a relief.  Kristie is sweet and funny and generous and my kids adore her.  I have an adult in the house to talk to again, and someone around to help keep track of the children.  I’m able to relax a bit for the first time in a long time.  I can breathe.

I’ve been trying to explain to people why relieving my stress isn’t as simple as “Go hire a babysitter.”   That’s the first thing most people say to me when I express any frustration about dealing with the kids, and it kind of stops there in their minds as if that just never occurred to me before and now all will be well.  There are several reasons why this is not as simple as it sounds on the surface.

First off, I do use babysitters.  I have rehearsals I need to attend and concerts to perform, and there are moments in my schedule where of course I need to get out and have someone else be responsible for my children for awhile.  But part of single parenting means my pool of available babysitters is usually reduced to whoever can get themselves home afterward.  Once my kids are asleep, I can’t leave the house.  I either need sitters with their own transportation or who live within walking distance.  This drastically limits whom I can call, especially since all my rehearsals fall on school nights and go quite late.  Could I hire someone from a service so this isn’t an issue?  Probably, but I’m going to chalk that up to my own trouble with leaving my kids with someone I don’t know.  It would make me nervous, and my nerves can’t handle much more.

My biggest help in the neighborhood is my friend Julie (who is across the street or next door depending on which of the two houses during the moving process I happen to be in).  She volunteers to come put my kids to bed every Thursday evening so I can go to a rehearsal with the Milwaukee Mandolin Orchestra.  When I’m in a bind she rearranges her work schedule to help me out.  She is wonderful and somehow always makes me feel like I’m helping her by letting her hang out with my kids.  I already depend on her so much I don’t want to push it, but for keeping up with my obligations, rest assured I do have people around to watch my children.

But I get the impression that what some people think I need to be doing with my valuable babysitting time is to go get a massage or something that sounds relaxing.  Trying to relax is not relaxing for me.  To achieve the sense of calm I desire I need to feel like I’m making progress on some of the many projects I’m interested in, or that I’m caught up on something.  If I try to sit and read while I know the kitchen is a mess or there is violin repair work hanging in my shop, I can’t enjoy it.  I read when I’m caught in situations where I’m stuck anyway, like waiting in my car prior to the after school pickup.  As nice as having a couple of hours to read a book for fun sounds, the idea of hiring a sitter so I can do that just to be up that much later at night to catch up on the laundry makes my head hurt.

And here is my biggest problem with the whole “Just go hire a sitter” idea for helping me relax– I can’t predict when I need one.   For instance, most days at work I’m able to handle having Quinn there with customers pretty well.  I have people schedule appointment times so I can pace what I do with my son.  It’s nice.  I can rehair a bow in the time it takes to watch a typical DVD, so if I know when to set Quinn up with a snack and a movie, I’m fine.  But there are days like one last week where the customer was supposed to arrive at 8 in the morning, and then couldn’t get there until 11:30.  That throws off everything.  Juggling Quinn and work into lunchtime after we’d exhausted all the ‘sit quietly in one place’ options was impossible.  I would have loved a babysitter at that moment, but how could I have known I would need one?

Also, most of the projects I want to tackle for my own enjoyment are creative endeavors, and I can’t schedule them.  I write best when I wait for the moment to strike me and run with it.  There are days playing viola for fun would be marvelous and others where it would be torture.  I can’t just give myself a couple of hours to work on building a violin because there are days my hands are up to it and others when my focus just isn’t there.  I need time to settle into a creative mood in order to really enjoy some things.  The elements of my life that I indulge purely for my own pleasure are not things I can coordinate with a sitter.  They have to be allowed to just happen when the moment is right, not forced and scheduled into a block of time when the meter is running.

This is why having Kristie here for more than a week is making me feel like myself again.  Not only do I not have to make complicated arrangements for leaving one child with a sitter while taking the girls to choir and having someone else drive them home while I go to rehearsal (etc. etc.), but I have the freedom to be distracted at unscheduled moments.  I have to be so vigilant caring for three kids alone that it’s hard to turn that off in the space of just a couple of hours.  I need real time to be able to let some of that go.

It’s not just knowing I can pop out to the store alone for a minute because someone else is in the house, but to be able to take that a little for granted that makes a difference.  If someone is here for a matter of hours and says, “Quick!  Relax!” it’s just not going to happen.  But to have the luxury of picking my moment, and to have my thoughts to myself when I choose is lovely.  I can’t find those random moments of peace when I hire someone to watch the kids.  I need my money’s worth when I use a sitter, and I need to cram important errands and deeds into that time.  But the fifteen spontaneous minutes of extra practice I got in on my viola the other day while Kristie played with the kids in the next room?  That was golden.

Looking Back on Yesterday (Babble)

I’m in my room listening to my kids downstairs in the kitchen.  They told me not to come down to make waffles yet because they are making a clam out of tin foil.  It must be a pretty funny clam because there is a lot of giggling going on.  And a lot of squeaking.  (There is always a lot of squeaking.)  Seems like a good moment for me to reflect on the ups and downs of yesterday.  Yesterday was hard.

When your husband is in a war zone you don’t feel entitled to bad days.  Any whining sounds petty, even in my own ears, even if I’m the one struggling.  It doesn’t matter if the balance tips on a day like yesterday where there were so many annoyances that it took effort to look for positives.  People still think (and sometimes say to me), “Well, at least you’re not the one in Iraq.”  Yes, I know, I am lucky that nothing I go through here measures up.  That doesn’t change the fact that my reality still reduces me to tears on days like yesterday, but I just get to feel undeserving of them.  I end up feeling bad about feeling bad.

Yesterday wasn’t terrible.  It would be easy to put a funny spin on a lot of it after the fact, but I’ll just do the blow by blow.


The kids were off school, which automatically makes for a longer day.  We still had to get up early because the girls both had doctor’s appointments.  Mona just finished ten days of medicine for strep throat and was still in pain, and Aden has been coughing enough that the school nurse has been calling me.  They both act healthy and fine and go about their running and playing so it’s hard to know when they need medical attention sometimes, but I figured the day off school was my perfect opportunity to see a regular doctor and not end up in the weekend urgent care we’ve been frequenting.  (My kids only have need of medical attention on weekends or at night, but that’s a whole different post.)

Keeping three kids entertained at the doctor isn’t easy.  They always end up touching the floor which makes me crazy, and yesterday they just could not sit still.  Aden kept running water at the little sink and Mona and Quinn fought over the spinning stool and they all want me to help make them balloons out of rubber gloves.  On the up side, with an early morning appointment the wait wasn’t too long and the doctor concluded that Mona needs stronger medicine and Aden needs to be nebulized three times a day.  (Mona also has a medical mystery on the backs of her hands, but that’s also a whole different post.)

(I hear cereal being poured downstairs.  Mona was just here and she is a terrible liar.  I asked her just now if they were making me breakfast in bed to cheer me up and she looked alarmed and said, “We’re just doing a secret something for someone.  You don’t need to come down and make breakfast.  How about I snuggle with you!”  I told her she could go back down and she ran off saying, “WHEW!”  Two sets of people are coming to look at our house this morning so I’m not looking forward to seeing how much I have to clean the kitchen before we head out today.  Anyway….)

After the doctor we went straight to Target to pick up prescriptions and then I had an eye appointment.  I’ve been noticing a difference between my left and right eyes when I focus on things close up.  The eye exam with three bored kids along was really frustrating, and the doctor said I should have had glasses years ago.  He made me sound blind as a bat, which is just not true and was not pleasant news the weekend of my birthday.

(Awww….  So the kids just came up with my ‘tray’ which was the lid from a plastic box.  Rice Krispies with way too much milk, toast with sides of butter and jam but no knife, and sliced up bananas.  Mona helped me eat the bananas and the toast, Quinn helped me eat the cereal.  They are making it hard to complain about them from yesterday.  Aden made me an oyster from tin foil wrapped in scotch tape with a little cup like area to hold a necklace I love with a single pearl on it.  It looks like the oyster is open and showing off the pearl.  I was worried at first that Aden had taped my necklace into the whole display, but the chain just piles inside the cup and the pearl sits on top.  I asked if this was for my birthday tomorrow but they said they have something else planned for that.  This was a “We’re sorry we don’t listen the first time” breakfast treat.)

A nice woman helped me pick out frames.  She observed the circus act I travel with and handed me a pair of glasses saying, “These are very durable.”  I ordered a pair and put them on for Mona, who winced and said, “You look horrible!”  Another customer nearby assured me they looked fine, but sheesh.  It will be hard enough adjusting to glasses without knowing my kids hate them.

After Target we couldn’t go straight home because since our current house went on the market last weekend we’ve had people going in and out every day, and someone was supposedly there right then.  We went to the new house where I tried to get a bookshelf assembled but had to abandon that project because the kids couldn’t get along.  When the coast was clear we crossed the street to the old house.

I gave Mona her new medicine which caused her to vomit everywhere.  Aden had to be prompted several times to nebulize.  I cleaned up the house again for the next viewing and we headed to the violin store where I had several appointments lined up.  I had to pump up one of the tires on the car.  We stopped at Subway to pick up something for lunch, and when we got to the violin store I discovered that somewhere in our meager travels both Aden and Quinn had stepped in a ton of dog poop and tracked it all over the car.  Not just the floors but the backs of the seats, and they leave so much stuff on the floor that their coats are now all in the wash, and the changes of clothes I bring along in case of disaster were all dirty, and the car seats….   It was just such a stupid waste of time when I don’t have any time to spare.

I had them leave the poopy things in a heap on the sidewalk and go inside to eat.  I scrubbed the car and put everything that needed washing into a garbage bag.  I left several messages for the doctor to figure out what to do about Mona.  I tried to get some work done on a cello bridge that I’m behind on, worked with customers, answered calls, and then nagged the kids about picking up their messes.  My store used to be a kind of sanctuary of order and neatness, but now that the kids are along all the time it looks like someone forgot to clear a daycare center out of the violin shop before I moved in.
I worked as long as I could before the kids made that impossible, but we couldn’t go home because the house was being viewed again.  We went to Leon’s instead.  Leon’s is a frozen custard stand that is open all winter long.  It’s the kind of place that reminds you why the show Happy Days was set in Milwaukee.  There is always a line at Leon’s no matter how cold it is here, the custard is just that good.  An ice cream break is always a good thing, and between that and the kids singing together my mood improved.

I did laundry.  I made a dinner no one came down to eat until it was cold because I didn’t feel like repeating myself or yelling anymore.  (Quinn was so wiped out he slept through dinner and movie night.  No wonder he ate all my cereal this morning.)  I did dishes and helped with violin practice and we watched ‘Ponyo’ for Friday Night Movie Night.   I liked the end of the day snuggle.

See, it doesn’t sound like a terrible day at all, does it?  Just a busy day with kids.  But the stress of keeping the current house unnaturally clean all the time and constantly breaking up noisy squabbles and always feeling behind on everything wears me down some days.
And all of it reminds me I miss my husband.  When I just need a little extra hand at unexpected moments, or when I go to bed upset with no one to talk to and put things in perspective, I get angry at him for not being here.  And then, of course, I feel like I have no right to be angry.  Because he’s the noble one at war and I’m just supposed to be thankful that I am here and we’re safe and relatively healthy.  I’m supposed to be better than I am.

Deployment adds a thin layer of guilt and sadness to many things I do.  It colors every day in a way that isn’t easy to see or describe, but it’s there.  It keeps tears closer to the surface than they would otherwise be.  I get upset more easily, so days like yesterday hit me harder than they should.

But hey, today started with breakfast in bed and an oyster to put on my nightstand.  My kids are trying to help and that means the world to me.  Now I have to go clean everything up for the next house viewing and take everyone to work with me again.  We may need a nother trip to Leon’s.

If it looks like failure and it quacks like failure.... (Babble)

(NOTE:  I started this post in the middle of the night when I couldn’t sleep and was pretty down.  I’m much better now, but decided to preserve this post as it was because it does capture what the complicated days are like and how depressing they can get.)

This was Tuesday:

Today I hit my limit.  There was just too much.  I feel guilty and ridiculous because there was no tragedy or trauma worthy of anyone’s sympathy.  No one was sick or hurt.  Our house is still standing and business is still good.  No, it was just a collection of moments where I failed to live up to basic expectations.  I feel inadequate on so many levels.  I’m tired.  The worst part is I let people down.

There was too much to do and I couldn’t hold it all in my head anymore.

I had to get up in the middle of the night to change all my sheets because Quinn had an accident, so I started off sleep deprived, as well as behind on laundry and dishes.  My clock radio woke me up to the news that a local soldier had been killed overseas.  That always makes me feel ill and a little dizzy.  I had to drag my poor son out of bed so he could go with me to drive the girls to school (to which we arrived late).  I had to go into work first thing because all the work I had planned to do Monday didn’t happen because since the kids were off school they all came with me, and one of them accidentally overflowed the toilet and I spent all my work time cleaning up the mess.  I had planned to do one quick bow rehair today, then take Quinn home to catch up with things at the house and go grocery shopping, but I got so overwhelmed with unexpected customers we stayed until it was time to pick up the girls at school again.

The one distraction that should have been nice was that Ian was able to catch me on Skype before he went to bed.  He showed me what his tiny living quarters in Iraq look like.  He looks good, he sounds fine.  He just never catches me at a convenient moment, which is frustrating.  I had Quinn in my lap while I was trying to tune a violin and one customer heading out the door while the next one was coming in.  And it hit me while Ian was smiling and chatting away that I have no idea what to say to him.  I say “Hello,” “I miss you,” and “I love you,” and then I’m tapped.  I can’t burden him with any of my problems, and seeing him reminds me of how much I wish he were here.  It hurts to see him.  I want to, and I don’t want to at the same time, and I feel bad that any part of me doesn’t appreciate seeing him whenever I can.

I had to bring the kids back to work with me after school to redo one more bow, then we had to dash to the grocery store because I had nothing set for dinner.  I kept thinking I was missing something, but every time I tried to collect my thoughts something came up.  Aden handed me a notice that her lunch account at school was overdrawn.  Both girls handed me birthday party invitations I had to think about.  Aden forgot her homework and I had to make up something for her to do.  Mona broke a glass jar that I had to sweep up.  I reacted badly to the glass everywhere and then apologized to the kids for being so upset about it.  Quinn was just generally needy which is distracting all by itself.

We had a small window of time when we got home to eat and start the laundry before my neighbor, Julie, was set to come over and watch Quinn while I took the girls to choir.  I had arranged for a friend to bring the girls home afterward because I had an orchestra rehearsal that ran until 9:30.  I hadn’t found enough time to practice and wasn’t feeling good about some of the music.

When we walked in the door–the first time I’d been home since heading out at 7:30, I saw the light blinking on our answering machine and had a bad feeling about it.  I finally realized what had been nagging at the back of my brain.  I was supposed to teach a violin lesson at my house today.  The student and the music therapist I team teach with had both come and no one was here.  I was so busy juggling so many things and had so many distractions tossed my way that it completely slipped my mind.  It didn’t help that with school out for MLK day, Tuesday felt like a Monday, but I don’t have a good excuse.  I screwed up.

My heart sank, I called and left an apology on my teaching partner’s voice mail, and started scrambling to get dinner on.  The kids barely had any time to eat before it was time to leave for choir, and as we headed out the door Quinn fell apart.  Poor Julie told me to just go and Quinn would be okay, but it was absolutely gut wrenching to have him wailing and screaming and holding his arms out to me and to have to turn away from him.  He tried to run after me out the back door into the snow with his bare feet and I started to cry too.

I was starting to feel bad about everything I want to do.  I want to teach, but had let that slip through the cracks.  I want to be a good mom, but left my kid screaming.  I want to be a good wife but couldn’t talk to my husband.  I want to be a good musician but don’t have enough time to prepare well and feel as if the rehearsal time is selfish of me.  I want to run my business well but the work is piling up.  I’m gaining weight again because I eat badly when I’m stressed, there are projects that are important to me that I fear I will never get to, and I’m closing on a house in about a week and still haven’t figured out how to contact all the utilities about that.  It’s just all feeling hard today.

Part of the problem is I’m trying to live a life that was set up with a partner in mind.  I don’t feel like dismantling my life because Ian’s gone, because that’s supposed to be temporary.  I’ve scaled back everything I do so that parenting is the primary focus of every day, but maybe I’m fooling myself that I can still be a musician and a teacher and luthier.  I haven’t worked on an instrument of my own since before Ian shipped out.  I don’t feel like myself.  I feel hollow and sad, and ashamed of myself for not appreciating better what I do have.

UPDATE:  Okay, it’s the next day, and sleep makes a difference.  Time to tally things that are going right.

My neighbor Julie is amazing.  She manages to help me out and make it feel like I did her a favor somehow.  While I was at rehearsal she washed my dishes and emptied all the garbage.  Best presents ever.  She listens to me whine and gives me hugs when I need them.  Life without Julie across the street (and soon next door!) would be many times harder.

I got to play music last night.  The last page of the Britten we are doing is depressing because no matter how much I practice my part there is a giant three against four timing thing that loses me a few lines from the end when we do it as a group, but it was just the first rehearsal–I have time to get it.  The fun part was we also ran Handel’s Water Music.  For those of you who think you don’t know it, trust me you do.  I’ve played it a million times at weddings in reduced versions, but I don’t think I’ve ever done it with a full orchestra.  It’s beautiful and fun and much more exciting with trumpets.  We’re also doing Haydn’s Symphony No. 99, and that’s fun, too. 

The group I play with (the Festival City Symphony Orchestra) is such a lovely collection of talented people.  It’s a privilege to make music with them.  It’s not too selfish of me to go to an occasional rehearsal.  It keeps me challenged in a way that’s completely apart from parenting, and that’s good.  Why should I be investing so much in getting musical training for my kids if they would just have to set it aside one day just because they might have kids themselves?  I wouldn’t want them to do that, so why should I?  Not going to happen.

And Aden was a huge bright spot in my troubled day.   Mona didn’t notice I was crying when I got in the car to take them to choir, but Aden sure did.  She told Mona to quiet down and asked me what was wrong.  I told her nothing was really wrong, that I was just having a hard time handling everything as well as I should.  I could see her nodding in the rearview mirror, and she said, “I know what that’s like.  I had a hard day too.”  And she proceeded to tell me all about how she didn’t get her work done at school because she’d been daydreaming and she got behind and how some days are just like that.  Aden did everything I asked right when I asked yesterday.  She knew I was at my limit and made sure not to add one more problem all day.

Today is going better.  Quinn was well rested and up in time for breakfast.  We’ve started setting the kitchen timer so the girls know when to get on their coats to go and that’s working.  The timer beeping is better than me repeating myself and getting annoyed.  My first customer of the day brought me a blueberry muffin when he picked up his bow.  I told him I was feeling bad that I’d forgotten about a student yesterday, and he admitted to having done that himself.  He said, “It happens, you just find a way to make it up to them.”  That helped.

I’ve still got too much on my plate, but I have things in a healthier perspective today.  Tuesday’s over.  Wednesday’s fine.  I can do this.

Safe and Strong (Babble)

My husband doesn’t complain as often as he should.  He tends to keep things to himself and small irritations fester into deeper frustrations, and I end up telling him later he should have just spoken up and I could have helped.

So I was taken off guard early in his last deployment when he made a clear point of telling me he didn’t like people asking him to “Stay Safe.”  He had discussed it with other soldiers, and they all agreed it bothered them.  They found it insulting.  He said it was as if their talents and training and skill counted for nothing and we had no faith in them to do their jobs.  Now, all of us–his mother, my mother, our friends, myself–we all expressed in our emails or letters that we hoped he would ‘stay safe,’ and at first I was miffed at him for finding fault with such a universally heartfelt sentiment.  He was at war, and we worried about his safety.  I don’t care how much talent or training or skill he has, war is dangerous and I want him home in one piece.  We all wanted him to ‘stay safe’ and asking us not to express that seemed unfair.

First the two of us had to get past the point that he was doing what I asked, and telling me when he was bothered by something.  Eventually I agreed that if it bothered him that much I was glad he told me.  I promised him we wouldn’t say it anymore, but that he should understand the spirit in which it was meant in case others continued to do it.  No one was doubting his abilities, we were just scared in general.  He accepted that, and I’ve never asked him to ‘stay safe’ ever again.

I think about that often, because it’s the most common thing people still say to me when they hear my husband is deployed–that they hope he stays safe.  The problem may be that most of us have a view of war that is constructed in our imaginations from what we’ve read or seen on the news or gleaned from popular culture.  In my mind, war is synonymous with chaos.  I don’t understand it, so it is random and terrifying.  I suppose with study and training it would seem less so, but it’s not easy for me to picture how. 

The closest analogy I can come up with in my area of training would musical improvisation.  For people who don’t play music and don’t have an understanding of basic theory principles, the idea of making up music on the spot must seem akin to magic.  But with training you come to know the rules and patterns and it’s not the crazy free for all some people seem to think it is.  There is order, and skilled people work within a framework that is not hard to navigate once you know what to focus on.  Soldiers see a framework that many of us do not.  My husband would know what to do in a circumstance where I would be lost, and that’s thanks to his talents and training and skill.  For me to imply in any way that he can’t conduct himself well in the war negates all his years of hard work to prepare for that circumstance.  I know how annoying I find it when people think creating music just happens because you’re born with some gift, and don’t acknowledge the great effort and preparation behind it.  (A pitiful analogy, but it’s all I’ve got.)  So I think I get it.  It reminds me a little of how one of my brothers doesn’t want to be wished ‘good luck.’  He always corrects me and says, “No, good skill.”

The problem is Ian’s job literally comes down to life and death, and there is an element of luck or chance to everything we do that is beyond our control or level of skill.  We have no power there, so we throw wishes and good thoughts that way to help manage our fears.  I can’t help Ian stay safe, so I hope for it instead.  We send him cookies, we remind him he’s loved, and that’s about all we can do from here.

On my end, the word I struggle with sometimes is ‘Strong.’   People want Ian to be safe and for me to remain strong.  I don’t resent it in any way, but I don’t know what it means.  I can only do what I do, and there aren’t many choices.  I suppose it means not falling apart, but I’m also human.  I arranged to have someone babysit my kids on a Saturday about a month after Ian left so I could work at the violin store without having everyone along for a change.  I got the kids ready, swung by the post office, dropped something off at the video store, took the kids to the sitter’s, and on the short drive from there to the violin store I burst into tears.  It took me completely by surprise.  I wasn’t sure what was happening, but then it occured to me that it was the first time I’d been completely alone in weeks.  I hadn’t cried since saying goodbye to Ian at the airport, and I guess I needed to.  In that moment was I failing to be strong?  I have no idea.

I’m pretty good about not losing it in front of my kids because I don’t want to upset them, but that’s not much different from simply being a plain old responsible adult.  I can only remember a few instances in my life where I let myself completely fall to pieces, but even in those instances it didn’t matter.  When my dad was badly injured on a trip to India, I remember freaking out and hyperventalating on a train platform because I was so upset and worried, but he was in the more than capable hands of my brothers and their friends, so I had the luxury of being useless at that moment.  Once we were on the train to Mumbai, I gave myself the job of keeping dad company all night long as he faded in and out of painful consciousness.  I held it together because I was needed.  I don’t know if ‘strong’ applies anywhere in there, just as I don’t know where or if it applies now. 

Most days are just days.  There is grocery shopping to do, schoolwork to help with, and laundry to fold.  Those things have to get done rain or shine, sick or well, strong or weak.  But now when I complete ordinary tasks I’m considered ‘strong,’ which seems to me to be way more credit than I deserve.  I’m just doing the best I can any given day like almost anyone else.  Most of the world has it much harder than I do.  I’m healthy, I do work I enjoy, I get to see my children smile every day, and we have a comfortable roof over our heads.  If I can’t draw sufficient strength from that to survive each day then I’m not even trying.

But words can be funny things.  They have power when we choose to give them power.  If in this new context we live in, the word ‘safe’ rubs my hsuband the wrong way, then it is easy enough to avoid it.  If when Ian’s gone, washing dishes somehow makes me seem strong, then I’ll pretend I’m wearing a cape.  Maybe for variety this week I’ll hope to keep myself safe and tell Ian to be strong.  Couldn’t hurt.

What the Army Thinks Is Helpful (Babble)

The Army is trying hard to stay in contact with me during my husband’s deployment.  I appreciate the thought–I really do.  And I try to be polite to the people who call, but they aren’t listening to me when I say I want them to stop.  I have repeatedly told Army people that unless there is information I need to know to leave me alone.  Email is okay, but don’t phone me, and don’t mail me things.  The contact is intrusive and unwelcome.  I don’t need it.

Now, I’m sure there are people out there who have no one to talk to, who need these calls.  I know the Army is making an effort to care for families of soldiers.  I’m glad they are reaching out as a general policy to make sure people aren’t dangerously depressed or desperate or in serious trouble.  That’s fine.  But I am a very fortunate person who has a whole address book of friends and familiy I can call if I’m sad.  I don’t want to talk to a soldier I don’t know.  They always ask what they can do, but there isn’t anything.  I want to hold my husband at night.  I want Mona to eat peas.  I want someone else to take out the garbage once in awhile.  I want Quinn to wear a jacket.  I want the laundry to put itself away.  I want to not feel scared and lonely in the middle of the night when I can’t fall asleep.  The Army can’t help with any of these things. 

I have asked them directly what it is they are hoping to help with, exactly, and they always respond, “Oh, just if you want to talk.”  Well, I don’t.  Not to them, and not on their schedule.  They call when I’m bathing the kids or doing the dishes or making lunch.  They force me to think about the deployment at moments when I wasn’t expecting to.  They bring me down.  Some of the people who call do sound genuinely nice and caring.  Others fall far short.  The worst was a call recently where an Army person was trying to verify certain information about how many people live in our household, and the guy specifically wanted to speak to my husband’s “next of kin.”  It’s hard to think of a poorer choice of words when calling…. well, ANYBODY.  The call left me in a fidgety, unhappy mood the rest of the evening.

The worst part is now they are sending stuff to the kids.  I got a box full of the same old family readiness material I’ve been throwing out for months, and another Sesame Street DVD.  I think I own 3 DVDs now of the Sesame Street crowd talking to kids about deployment.  I don’t need Elmo becoming associated with the war in my kids’ minds, so we haven’t watched it.  There are other DVDs we will never watch in the box, along with sentimental dog tags that kind of offended me, and then these:

I think they are horrible.  I showed one to Aden and she found it really scary.  Mona and Quinn just thought they were ugly.  And they’re right.  We’re supposed to put a picture of Ian’s face on the front of the head, but frankly it looks like a voodoo doll.  Someone thought this was a good idea, and if it brought comfort to someone else’s kid, more power to them.  But I could have told them that my kids wouldn’t like these dolls, and I wish they hadn’t mailed them to me.  I don’t want any more scary soldier dolls showing up on my doorstep.  I need to find a more effective way to get on the Army’s ‘do not call (or send)’ list.

Again, I’m glad they are concerned about families, but they can’t know what is right for all of them.  The advice they hand out always sounds as if it’s universal, and you can’t expect anything to work for everyone.  For instance, something I hear suggested all the time is that when a parent gets deployed, let each of your kids pick out a nice frame and put a picture of the soldier with the child in it for them to have. 

Sounds great.  Except when I did that for Aden the last time the reminder of daddy by her bed upset her so badly she went and hid it under a pillow in the family room.  I decided to try it again this time and this is what happened:  Mona loves having a cute picture of her with her dad by her bed, it makes her smile, very nice.  Aden is traumatized and cries everytime she spots her picture, but she won’t let me take it away because she feels she should be sad.  Quinn looked at the photo I picked out of him and his dad together and he protested loudly, “But I want a picture of me and YOU!”  Three kids, three reactions: happiness, sadness, and indifference.  Parenting is not a one size fits all event no matter what the Army pamphlets want me to believe.

The problem in general with the Army’s attempt to help is that everything they do or send reminds us of the war.  Yes, Ian is a soldier, but that’s not how his kids know him.  He doesn’t tote a rifle or wear a uniform at home.  I respect and acknowledge the job he does so well, but even I get a little freaked out seeing him in Army mode.  I like my computer geek of a husband in an old T-shirt and jeans, carrying one of the kids on his shoulders and making me laugh.  When we think of Ian we don’t think of dog tags and camo themed items.  They are not comforting reminders of daddy, they are items associated with our fears and loss, so they aren’t helpful.

I feel (at this moment, anyway) that I have a pretty good handle on how best to get my kids through this experience.  We have a good routine with things the kids look forward to every day and every week.  I fill their days with opportunities to go places or do projects or just play and be kids.  I want them to focus on all the things they have that are wonderful.  They know they are loved and they live with the assumption daddy will come back one day.  They don’t need people or creepy dolls to remind them their dad isn’t here.  They confront that reality every time they see some other kid hug his or her dad at the after school pick up.  They each love their dad in their own way, and they each miss him in their own way too.  I respect that.  And I will distract them and keep them smiling as much as I can until he comes home–no matter how much the Army inadvertently undermines my efforts.

Fear at Ft Hood (Babble)

For the past several weeks when people have asked how I’m doing, I’ve been able to say, “It’s hard, but it’s not scary–Ian’s still just training down in Louisiana.”  But now I’m scared.

Listening to the news about the shootings at Ft Hood on the radio while running errands with the kids yesterday was unsettling to say the least.  My husband spent time at Ft Hood during his last deployment, but this time he’s at Ft Polk.   I never considered he might be in danger while still in the US.  Now I don’t know.

I felt the strange, conflicting pieces of emotion I remember from last time.  There is a low level sense of fear that is always present when my husband is deployed that is impossible to shake.  It’s like a stalker.  I’m supposed to go about my life and not worry my kids, but I have the sense that I should be looking over my shoulder.  What I’m afraid I will see if I do is uniformed soldiers with grim, sympathetic faces telling me they have bad news.  It mkes me want to scream.

Yesterday I had to pick up a package in a place I was unfamiliar with and I got lost.  Quinn was asleep and the girls were playing in the back.  I try very, very hard not to ever yell at them to be quiet when they are simply having fun, but I was on edge.  The sketchy bits of information about Ft Hood on the radio were not really informative, only frightening.  I kept telling them to keep it down, please, but Mona is incredibly squeaky.  When one of them accidentally clocked the other in the eye and there were wails and shouts from the back seat, I yelled at them to look out their respective windows and not talk to each other for awhile.  I told them I was sorry for yelling, but I needed quiet until I figured out where we were going.


There is no reason for them to know what happened at Ft Hood because it doesn’t have anything directly to do with their dad.  I’m not even sure why I’m as nervous about it as I am.

I do know that I have the same guilty feelings as before, whenever I found out that soldiers in Iraq who were hurt or killed were not my husband.  There is relief in knowing someone you love is safe, but grief that someone else is suffering.  I feel like a horrible person for being glad it was someone else, and not Ian.  I don’t know what to do about that.

My heart is breaking for those soldiers’ families today.  What a nightmare.

Garden Fairies and Other Magical Beings (Babble)

The first few days of Ian’s deployment were surreal.  The first steps of a long journey don’t feel any different from the first steps of a walk around the block.  Everything felt normal with an underlying sense that it shouldn’t.

After a couple of weeks we were in a new and fairly predictable routine.  That felt good, like I was in control of things, and Ian being gone wasn’t going to be too disruptive.  We could miss Ian, but still lead our lives just fine.  It was inconvenient but doable.

Somewhere about a month in is when the true effects of having a deployed spouse start to hit.  Certain things began to get away from me at about the three week mark and I started to get frazzled.  I may have a handle on most things inside the house, but the outside is another story.  There is nowhere in my schedule to do anything with the yard.  I would make a mental note on the walk from the house to the car that the hedges looked awful and the peonies needed to be cut down and the mulberry tree that seemed to be growing right out of the foundation of the garage needed to be chopped back into submission.  But when?  Quinn is next to me practically every minute, and between shuttling girls around (to school and violin and choir and birthday parties) and running my business, there is just enough time left to go grocery shopping and do other basic errands.  Something had to give and that something was the yard.

Luckily, I know incredible people.  I think we all do, but most of us are never in a circumstance to call on them for anything.


My neighbor from across the street offered to mow my lawn, which he did on a Sunday morning and I was grateful.  When I came home with the kids later in the day, the hedges were also trimmed and the garden cleaned up and the pots overturned.  The house didn’t look abandoned anymore and I was really happy.  That bit of help came at a time when I really needed it, and I sent a note across the street with Aden to thank him for doing so much.  My neighbor called a minute later saying he couldn’t take credit for the additional yard work because he hadn’t been sure what he should touch in the garden.  It was Garden Fairies.

The kids and I speculated at dinner about who could have done it.  “Sophia’s dad did it once, so maybe it was him!  Or Anna’s dad, or maybe Julie since she has to look at the garden from her window anyway…. ”  Between the girls and myself (with Quinn echoing everyone for good measure) we came up with several likely candidates for the Garden Fairy Brigade.  I pointed out to my kids how lucky we were to know so many nice people that an act of kindness toward us could even be a mystery.  We all smiled as we finished our dinner and as I went to bed I still couldn’t narrow down in my head who the Garden Fairies might be.

The very next day I found myself in a minor mini-crisis at the violin store.  I’ve been doing pretty well at spreading out the work I need to do so I don’t get overwhelmed, but a surprise rehair showed up.  (A rehair is when you put new horsehair on a bow.  Violinists need their bows reahaired every six weeks to two years depending on how much they play.)  It was an expensive cello bow that I’ve done before that takes a lot of concentration to do well, and I agreed to work on it because I’d just gotten back from the library with Quinn and he had a new movie to watch and a snack to eat.  I figured he would be distracted long enough for me to do the job even though I hadn’t planned for it.  Of course, the minute I cut the old hair and there was no turning back, Quinn had a meltdown.  He wanted to climb in my lap, and when I told him ‘no’ he turned into a wailing puddle.

After about ten minutes of Quinn thwarting any chance of my doing the rehair I was starting to feel panicky. I really wasn’t sure what I was supposed to do, and just then a friend walked into the store to buy new strings for her instrument.  It was my girls’ violin teacher, and I found myself telling her I was getting frustrated with Quinn keeping me from my work, and she offered to take him with her on some errands for a little while.  It was like a miracle.  Quinn was perfectly happy to take her hand and we put his booster seat in her car, and they went to the post office and the bank together.  He can be lovely company (if you’re not trying to rehair a bow), and he was happy to get a lollypop from the bank teller.  I was able to do the rehair in peace and get it done on time, and I felt so…light.  That half an hour of quiet exactly when I needed it gave me a whole new lease on life.  I was glad to have my son back again when they returned and he was glad to have a happier mommy.

The week before Halloween I was lucky enough to have my brother, Arno, and a friend of his, come visit for a few days after they attended a brain conference in Chicago.  Arno’s friend was one of the sweetest guests imaginable, and he fixed little things around the house for me and the kids.  His family was back in Boston, and that he was willing to take a little time away from his own daughter to play with my kids was incredibly nice.  (They miss you, Satra, if you happen to read this!)

But the reigning champion of selfless helpers these days has to be my brother, Arno.  The day his friend flew home we had a disaster involving something called the P-trap in our basement.  Sewage everywhere.  It even blew up out of the basement toilet.  Roto Rooter came and fixed it, but left us the mess to mop up, and there is something so impossibly disgusting about knowing it’s not just human waste you’re wading through, but other people’s waste, that it makes me gaggy just thinking about it again. 

I went out and bought a giant container of bleach and a couple of sets of disposable gloves, and I fully intended to spend some disgusting mopping time down in my basement, but Arno did it all.  I figured we’d feed the kids and put them to bed, and then the two of us could go at it, but Arno decided it couldn’t wait.  I made dinner while he went down with plastic bags wrapped around his shoes and cleaning tools we knew would have to be sacrificed to the cause.  He scoured everything and used up the entire container of bleach and made extra sure that the whole bathroom and the path to the washing machine in particular were CLEAN.  When he was done he threw away his pants and he headed straight for the shower.

The amazing thing about having my brother here is he actually made me laugh about the whole mess.   I love him so much.  And as much as I felt like the world’s worst hostess to have Arno clean up sewage on his visit, the truth is he was there to help.  I could not have needed it more!  If that had happened while I was alone with the kids I would have cried.  I’d have had to wait until the kids were asleep and stayed up all night alone mopping my basement, trying not to throw up and alternately weeping and cursing.  But instead I baked my brother pumpkin pies.  We laughed at the incredible grossness of the whole thing.  I made a joke about how he didn’t owe me presents ever again because he was good for all my birthdays, and he misunderstood and thought I meant I wouldn’t give him gifts anymore (since how do you top a sewage cleaning experience as a present?) and we laughed so hard I almost peed myself.  To top it off, after giving the kids a lecture about not using so much toilet paper (the likely cause of the disaster to begin with), Mona used the toilet and waved to the bowl after she flushed saying, “Bye bye!  See you again soon!”  Who knew sewage backup could be so funny?  (Says the woman who didn’t have to clean any of it.)

Oh, and the Garden Fairy?  Turned out to be my friend Carol who seems to be making a career out of saving my sanity on a regular basis.  She is one of the most remarkable people I’ve ever known and I’m so proud to be able to call her my firend.   Her husband recently fixed a door in my house.  I paid him in apple pie.

I went out and bought a supply of disposable pie pans this week.  I have a feeling if these first couple of months are any indication, before this deployment is over I’ll have a lot more baking to do.