I think I have a spare bailing bucket around here somewhere

My school year just ended. Literally. Yesterday was my last day of teaching for the year. After 9 years at my old school, this was my first year at a new school--new students, new colleagues, new policies and procedures, new copying machine (which proved more of a challenge than I had anticipated). Never has a school year flown so quickly by. Yesterday grades were entered, textbooks re-shelved, the little white orbs of paper from the 3-hole punch vacuumed up from the floor one final time. I gathered my children in a whorl of cheers and chaos, and we drove home.

At the end of each school year I like to take stock. Of me, of my family, of the greater world around me. And last night in my stock taking, I was frustrated. In reading a bunch of other "mom" blogs, there's a continual discussion about how to "have it all." And I'd like to submit that this whole idea of "all" is rubbish. 

Sure, it all can be done, but something (or everything) is going to suffer for it.

• I am continually fighting off frustration and guilt at my inability to give my children as much concerted attention as I would like. 
• I am continually agonizing over the fact that I should be doing more with my classes, being more creative with my students.
• I am continually ticked off because I have a 1st draft of a novel that is patiently waiting for revision, yet never seems to get a glance from my writer's eye.
• I am continually wallowing in filth. My house is a disaster, so much so that my mother-in-law started to clean when she came for a visit. (It's sad, I know. But what's even more sad is that I was so relieved at having my house cleaned that I didn't even protest...much.)

This is my office (at home) and probably the cleanest portion of my house.

As you can guess, I'm a treat to live with. Yet there are moments when my head fills so full of life's noise that all I can manage is to chug a glass of wine and go to bed. Where I toss and turn, my mind spinning with what I should have done today and what I need to do tomorrow.

This is not a "reclaiming my life" speech. This not an inspirational "Pull Yourself Up by Your Bootstraps" song and dance. This is not a "woman-power" rant. I don't even think this issue is specific to women. (However, I do think that it can at times become more obvious in women simply because we don't compartmentalize the different facets of life quite as easily as men. But, again, that's a generalization and may not be precisely true.) I have male friends who are teachers and writers in addition to being husbands and fathers, and they face the same challenges.

Last night, Jonathan took me down along the Susquehanna River, set up chairs, whipped out wine, and we sat as evening shadows lengthened and the lights of the Wrightsville Bridge twinkled across the water. (Yeah, I know, he's a rock star.) While looking out over the water, I did my stock taking. And I'm sorry to say that the conclusion I came to is not going to sound reassuring to those of you also bailing water from an ever-flooding boat.

Our view of the Susquehanna last night.

As we sat in silence, I came to this conclusion: Life is a continual bailing of water. 

There will be moments when I've got the upper hand on the leakage and can relax and enjoy the view. There will be moments when I've lost my bailing bucket completely, the water is rushing in all around me, and I'm inevitably gonna get wet. 

So, after coming to that conclusion, I came to several more. (I was on a roll.)

1. I must come to terms with the leaks. Life's unpredictability is completely outside of my control. Deal with it. It's gonna be messy sometimes. It's gonna be infuriating sometimes. I'm gonna fail as often as (or more often then) I succeed. Yet, as I tell my kids, the only thing I can control is me. So do it. Get yourself under control, Anna, and stop focusing on the leaks.

2. I'm going to fail, just as I'm going to succeed. And I'm not sure there's a rhyme or reason for which happens when. Revel in the successes. Learn from the failures. And share both with those whom I've chosen to surround myself--just as they share their failures and successes with me. Because it's in sharing and shouldering life together that life takes on its sweetest flavor.

3. Keep bailing. Never stop. 

PS: If you need an extra bailing bucket, just holler. I think I have a spare.

top image from: http://quelshuntingcorner.com/release-dates-bucket-lists-and-bows/

Alone with Gatsby in Paris

Me at the Pompidou Centre (the modern art museum) studying a blue canvas,
hoping to "see" something beyond just blue. No such luck.
(Picture compliments of Liza Mattison)

Today my mind is in Paris. Floating along the Seine.  Sitting in the shadow of the Sorbonne as the day cools to evening. Rambling the cobbled streets on Isle St. Louis as the shadow of Notre Dame lengthens and the sky turns a deep amber. My memories are warm, idyllic.

I tend to forget the day I trudged beneath scorching sun for what seemed like miles to the Louvre only to find it closed. (So what was left for me but to trudge back from whence I came?) I tend to forget when I took a wrong turn in the Jardin du Luxembourg and nearly lost myself in a maze of avenues. I tend to forget the intensity of the writing residency in which I was participating: Workshops. Lectures. Museums.

Yet it was the mandatory (I hate that word) walking tour that sent me nearly over the edge.

Our group of about ten walked inside dim, cool churches whose names I made no effort to remember. We saw Hemingway’s flat he shared with Hadley and the café he frequented on Rue Saint-Germaine.  We saw the original Shakespeare & Co. building. We stood outside the hotel where Oscar Wilde dropped dead in the lobby. I felt a loud pressure building in my head—too much information, too much heat, too much. Too much!

Finally we ambled onto the Pont des Arts—a pedestrian bridge standing as a homage to eternal love with the many padlocks secured there with their keys at the bottom of the Seine—that my toes eeked out over the lip of the ledge and my head screamed, “enough!”

I looked over the padlocks, over the Seine, toward Pont Neuf and decided I needed to be alone. Alone in Paris.

I thanked our guides. I left our group. I stepped off Pont des Arts and onto the crowded sidewalk. I sidled along book merchants and tables of cheap souvenirs on the Quai de Conti.  As I pushed forward, knocked shoulders with passersby, I found myself walking slower. Forcing my mind into thoughtfulness, awareness of that within as well as without.

The smooth French language being strewn around me—little of which I understood except the occasional oui. The whish of cars flying past. The thud and scrape of feet on pavement. The rustle of leaves in the branches above. The pulse of my heartbeat at the base of my throat. The heat of the sun on my back and the trickle of sweat between my shoulder blades. The realization that I walked the same avenues, peered in the same windows, as Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Dali, Van Gogh, Stein. What pieces of themselves had they left for other Paris sojourners? What pieces of myself would I leave behind? Or would I only carry forward the memories, the experiences, the tastes and wonders of this magical city?

It brought to mind one of the greatest ending lines of literature penned by ex-pat Fitzgerald in The Great Gatsby: “So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.”

Reread that. Go ahead. Roll it around in your mouth for a second.

When my lonely walk ended, when I finally met up with my friends at our favorite café nested at the feet of the Sorbonne, I felt I had recovered a sense of calm, a centered appreciation for the place I occupied, and an eagerness for all that lay in wait for me to uncover. So it's no wonder that my memories of this time in Paris are sweet and amber-hued. The City of Light had romanced me, whispered of its secrets in my ear, and I was (and still am) smitten.