Neil’s Harbour White (Whole Wheat) Bread baked by Yours Truly
A few months ago, I looked at the calendar and realized this year school was letting out a little earlier and Labour Day was later. “What a long summer this will be,” February Me thought. “We should take a road trip!” Out came the maps. Could we drive through the Finger Lakes and then head north and see the entire Gaspé Peninsula? What are the secondary highways in Maine like? When would the lupins be flowering? That was then. Summer, like Winter and Spring, got a lot longer for everyone as we headed into March Break, or, as I have come to think of it now, the beginning of a new season we can just call the era of “fresh baked carbs.” The weird thing is, while I really was going to try “going Keto” (someday!), I may have secretly wished for a time warp like this. As J.T (our bearded Prime Minister) would say, “Let me be clear”… I did not wish for, nor would I ever wish for a pandemic, but I have caught myself many times in the last year thinking, “I would love to stop time.” Well, here we are…
On Longing for the Future
When the kids were babies people would say, “the days are long but the years go by fast.” In other words, try to live in the present, because you’ll blink and they’ll be graduating. Though the advice was well-meaning, I’d already been visited by the ghost of parenting future. Our house is small and with babies and toddlers it always seemed that the front entrance was perpetually crammed with strollers, shoes, grocery bags… the mess drove me crazy. And then, one day, I had this vivid image of a completely empty hall. Not one shoe. My eyes teared up and I turned away from the mess and vowed to be grateful for the chaos. Still, I confess that I have been enjoying the post-diaper, literate but not licensed stage of parenting A LOT. The kids clearly have minds of their own but I still get to tell them when to go to bed. Feels like a win-win, right? So, that’s where I’m at. Life is good and slowing down the days seemed like a reasonable request from the universe. Oh yeah, and forty is staring me down in a week or so, but let’s gloss over that existential detail for now…
Time Standing Still
One of the ways I measure personal satisfaction is how productive I can be in a day. I don’t know about you, but if you ask for time to stand still and get kids at home 24/7, your days tend to get a little less productive. Pre-COVID, a good day would be one where 90% of my list got crossed off. These days, I’m re-writing said lists so that “get dressed” makes the cut just for the artificial satisfaction of stroking it off. I had a feeling early on that school might be a write-off this spring, so we started learning at home almost right away.
I apologize in advance if the memory of “dictees” makes you sweat…
I’m a routine person and I wanted to keep mine as much as possible (selfish, I know) but (surprise!) it’s actually not possible to work and guide your kids’ learning simultaneously. Homeschooling was something I actually had wanted to try but I’d hesitated because my kids love their teachers and their social life at school. Also, I didn’t want to blur the Mom/ Teacher line and I worried about getting pulled away from my ambitions researching elementary curriculum and reading Charlotte Mason by the light of homemade beeswax candles.
I figured now was our chance to take a deep dive into the kinds of things the kids wanted to learn about (Helicopters! Electric cars! Becoming a YouTuber by exploding stuff!) and not worry about book reports and (let’s face it) other assignments that were a bit useless. But… as it turns out, “going deeper” means one thing for me and another for the kids. Where I think I’m teaching them “valuable life skills”, they FaceTime their grandparents to let them know “homeschooling is Mom’s excuse to get us to do more chores.” By now you all know that not seeing grandparents in person means the kiddos’ allies are not close enough to slap you if you’re being dumb, and that sucks for everyone.
Teaching the kids highlights all of our weaknesses and vulnerabilities in ways we’d probably much rather hide. I realize there’s a GLOBAL PANDEMIC but I wasn’t aware to what extent my child was weak in X area and now I’m losing sleep worrying about my loved ones getting sick tomorrow or next week and whether or not my child will actually get a job someday because of their inability to focus on the task I’ve decided is critically important right this minute. The kids have called me “peevish” and “critical” (which, by the way, actually makes me happy they understand synonyms) this month all the while I’m just trying to encourage some academic rigour! (Cue the eyeroll from the kids and all the parents who are just happy if the kids are alive.) Remember when I wished I could slow down the days?
And yet. As much as they are protesting writing out dictations by hand or writing a speech about FDR’s New Deal, the days are going by quickly. With the Prime Minister’s daily address the soundtrack to the “era of rising dough”, the hours tick by and the present slowly becomes the future we wondered about a month ago. Even in a pandemic, time flies.
You know the saying, “everyone needs something to do, someone to love and something to look forward to”? It still rings true. Last summer, we were looking forward to a big trip out west to visit dear friends. After a many delays we finally arrived at three o’clock in the morning only to discover our friend had been admitted to the hospital, where he spent the next seven days. On the eve of our departure, he was released. The adults had been holding it together for the sake of the kids, not unlike now, but we cried at the end of it all because we had looked forward to so much and with days upon days of uncertainty, it was hard to let go of our dreams of being together. Here we’re in the same kind of limbo. We long to do something, love someone and look forward to all kinds of adventures, but when remains a huge question mark. By now, all of us have experienced cancelled events, from weddings to funerals, concerts to conferences. We’ve put months of planning and preparation into these moments and they may never happen. We’re all grieving these losses, longing for the past, hoping for the future and wildly discontent in the present.
But we know something else, too. Those shoes in the front entrance will get bigger and bigger and then someday disappear. Even as I drill my kids so that they will leave said front entrance and go into the world, I resist change. I want to freeze time, I yearn to slow down the present and press pause on the future, but in sickness and in health, that is not how the natural world works. I mourn what I had yesterday (community, friendship, lingering in the store for no reason) and miss today. I worry about what will be lost tomorrow - lives and livelihoods, health and homes. I’m consuming a lot of ridiculous humour (yes, even knock- knock jokes written in sidewalk chalk!) just to be stoic and truthful for the little ones in my home, and baking bread to knead out my anxiety about my current state of unproductivity.
This frozen time space we’re in is hard and scary and at the other end of it we will have shed many tears, and yet, God willing, we’ll come out the other side a little less demanding and a lot more grateful.
Last thought before I sign off for today, and it’s a deep one.
It’s been four weeks since anyone has come home from school with tiny bugs in their hair. And that my friends, is reason enough to make a silly little wish: just for a little longer, let’s freeze time.
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