Sweet Secrets

Note: this post was written 4/22/16, but I could not post it until today when the public announcement of my new position as an upper school academic dean was made.

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I was grateful for stop lights on that chilly November morning. In the slanting rays of early sun, I could gently tap the underside of my new ring against the top of the steering wheel, turning it first one way and then the other to see how it caught the light, watching sparkly shapes bounce off the interior of the car's hood. Since Jeff put it on my hand the previous evening, I hadn't moved it from its new home. Though it had yet to settle on the ring finger of my left hand--yet to make the well-worn indentation that speaks to years of a partnership--I couldn't imagine taking it off. For now, just for that morning, the secret remained mine; I even intentionally wore a sweater with long sleeves that I could stretch over my hand, pushing my thumb through a small hole. Though I daydreamed of the revelatory day ahead as I revealed the surprise to colleagues and students, for just that moment, in the quiet hum of my car as I waited at the red light just off the Garden State Parkway, the news was mine and mine alone.

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Despite the chaos of the day, my phone was wedged tightly in my pocket everywhere I went. There was hardly a moment to breathe between one end-of-year event and the next; at each, my absence might be conspicuously noticed. Never trusting myself to feel the vibration of the call, I anxiously checked the blank screen every few moments, willing it to light up with the only number I cared to see. When it finally did, I skirted around students to find a quiet nook in the performing arts building, a place where no wayward teacher or well-intentioned administrator might find me. I cautiously raised my phone to my ear, then awaited the words. When the numbers reported were far higher than even I could have hoped, I sank to the ground, hand pressed against my stomach, reassuring myself that little Lily was really tucked safely in there. A senior glanced down the hallway, making her way to the auditorium where graduation traditions were about to begin but pausing long enough to lift an eyebrow and tilt her chin up. The smile that spread across my face told her that all was just fine--even though the secret was not yet ready to be spilled. Or perhaps because the secret was not yet ready to be spilled--because Lily and I got to keep it safely and sweetly stowed between ourselves for a few more weeks.

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I stopped outside the door, pausing on the steps that would lead me down to the road and across the sidewalk that passed between two wide expanses of green. When I'd walked across forty minutes before, I hadn't realized it was chilly--the anxious buzzing in my stomach and warm dampness of my palms had pushed all other physical sensations away. But now--now that a wide smile was beginning to spread across my face and my fingers were itching to place calls and send texts--I was suddenly aware of each detail of my surroundings. It was no matter that the clouds obscured the sun or that only a handful of students sat in the barren quad--this newfound secret, this thing that I now knew--drifted a sweet haze across the campus. It seemed impossible that no one else knew, that no one else wanted to shout it from the trees or whisper it in someone else's ear. But then--as I stretched out my legs to hasten my return to my classroom--a shiver of delight danced over me as I remembered that sweet secrets last only temporarily--that they will soon enough be known and then spread wide. 

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These moments--the ones no one else knows about it, the ones that are held tightly, securely in our own minds and bodies--these are the ones that are fleeting. Who knows how many more await me? 

I shall enjoy this one.

Chalk on the Walk

I remember walking around our neighborhood the first summer after we moved in. As I wound my way down the sidewalk, I'd encounter new masterpieces at each step. Roughly sketched in colorful pastels and joyfully filled in with broad scribbles, each chalk drawing enticed me, drawing me in. Much like one of my favorite scenes in Mary Poppins, I found myself desperate to jump inside the neighborhood children's imaginations and explore all the happiness within.

And yet, in those days, it seemed impossible that our own walk would ever be brightly colored with drawings created by jubilant little hands, that hand-prints made of powdery dust would grace my hallway, that "Mommy draw, too?" would become a query so regular it borders on mundane.

But there is nothing ordinary at all about the way our sidewalk looks after a sunny spring weekend, after Lily has demanded that we write her name over and over, after the older girls have sketched numerous hopscotch courts, after once-new pieces of chalk are ground down to just nubs. There is so much joy in each line and circle, each smiley face and balloon, each letter that spells out the name of another friend who stopped by to say hello at some point in the weekend.

Remember Mary Poppins' ability to jump into that drawing? It seems that I have finally jumped into one of my own--and I have no plans to leave anytime soon.

My antidote

Last week, good friends of ours--Lily's favorite friend--moved out of the neighborhood. I was so sad that dinner consisted of Lily and me snuggling on the sofa, eating chicken nuggets and watching Frozen.

Yesterday, I spent the better part of the morning panicking about how laundry, grocery shopping, and general tidying were all going to get done. My panic sent Jeff into a tailspin of his own.

I burned a batch of granola today--the batch Lily had carefully helped me put together that she was so excited to taste.

Mom guilt hangs over me all the time. A thousand articles and blog posts and Facebook updates and tweets have been written on the topic, and I'm not sure I have anything new to say. But I do know this: my mom guilt comes not from any external force but from that nagging voice in my head, the one that reminds me that too much screen time is bad and too many pasta dinners are bad and too little time spent reading is bad and too many moms do this better than me (and with more kids and harder jobs and husbands with longer hours to boot).

But--and here's the good news--I think I've found an antidote. It doesn't always work, and, just like any medicine, the dosage isn't always exactly correct or administered at the right time. But she's an antidote all the same.

Now, let me be clear before I proceed: Lily's job is not to make me feel better. It's not her responsibility nor her goal. But sometimes a lot of the time, she manages to heal me without even knowing she's done it. Because here's the amazing thing: for all the times I mess up, for all the shame and guilt I feel that I'm not doing well enough by her, for all the nights I worry and days I struggle to get through, she's a pretty amazing little girl. 

Will you indulge me a moment's elaboration?

Last week, we returned from two wonderful weeks' vacation in Florida to hit the ground running back in Virginia. Jeff worked Monday through Wednesday, which meant we were both run ragged by the end of that stretch. Wednesday, Lily had been through the ringer: she fell off our bed and bumped her knee, resulting in her favoring it, resulting in a pedi visit, resulting in x-rays. Turns out she was just fine, but it was a long day all the same. And, to make matters worse, I had an important after-school meeting at school and Jeff couldn't fudge getting into work by a second. We made it work: I left early (another working mom covered my job at the meeting without blinking an eye), Jeff stayed home 30 extra minutes, and Lily was happy to take a long walk in her trike. Still, by the end of the night, Lily and I were both "all done."

After getting out of the bath and arriving on the blanket in her room for snuggles, I attempted to use our NoseFrida, this snot-sucking device that Lily usually tolerates when she's got a stuffy nose. However, she wasn't having it that night. After a brief tug of war, she tossed the various parts across her room, then looked at me and laughed. I had no patience left, so I simply told her "big girls don't throw things" and left the room to replace her towel in the bathroom and take a deep breath myself.

When I returned to Lily's room, I found her quietly seated on her blanket. She had carefully reassembled the NoseFrida (not an easy task for an adult!) and positioned the tube in her nose. Looking up, she handed the mouthpiece end to me. I knelt beside her and carefully cleared each nostril. When finished, I told her how much I appreciated her and how proud I was of her. And then, to my astonishment, she very seriously turned her eyes to me and said, "No throwing." 

For all my failures, for all my shortcomings, our daughter understands her world. She reminds us to say grace before dinner, politely says "tank oo!" when given a treat by someone at church, and remembers (when prompted) that "sorry" is in order if she's taken a toy from a friend. Something about how we live our lives--in the moments I'm not trying to be a good mom--gets in there. She sees something in me that I don't even have the ability to see in myself--and she reflects it in her joyful, kind, smart approach to life.

Now, don't be misled--the guilt is still there almost every day, and the worry rarely subsides. But when I can step outside myself long enough to look at the silly face by my side, the one that shouts "Hi Mommy!" and "I love you, too!", I can remember that...

I'm doing okay.

She's doing okay.

We're doing more than okay.