Seasons (Still Changing—Now more than Ever!)
I wrote this rambly, good for nobody other than me diary-type post the other day. And wouldn’t you know it, I forgot to include the main thing I had found most interesting, something resembling a public-facing question.
So, ofc. we had lived in New York (Astoria, then Kensington) for about ten years (me slightly less, J slightly more). Over that time, I feel like we changed, like, 0%. I mean, of course things were developing. Opportunities coming and going, mostly going for me. But our day to day, even when I had a relatively real job, were pretty fluid, yet static.
I think a lot about that Iron & Wine album title, Our Endless Numbered Days. Honestly, I’ve never given the album itself much of a listen, but it was ubiquitous in the mid-00s and it has a great title.
Endless numbered days = my first season in New York, and it lasted for about 7 years.
Then we had a child. Then, it was like, “Goodbye, Iron & Wine! Hello, Smash Mouth!”
When you have a 0-year-old, “the years start coming and they don’t stop coming.” Sleeping routines are the most important thing in your world, other than basic health and safety and carving out a modicum of time and space in a one-bedroom apartment. Then it’s daycare. Then it’s school. Then it’s, god knows, I don’t know yet.
I grew up more in the last four years than I did in the preceding 30, and that feels weird to me. Like I’m a stunted, damaged person. Or maybe lots of people feel like that? Hard to say. Shout out in the comments, whether you’ve grown up at all or you feel like an adult child most of the time.
Seasons Change
My boss talks frequently about seasons, but I think more like sports seasons rather than time/weather seasons. He will talk about seasons in re: things like projects at work, ebbs and flow, people joining and leaving the company. I used to find it a little trite and business-speak-y empty headed nonsense stuff, even though, if I thought about it with a bit more empathy it’s just another way to talk about the macro business view of things that really is his job to talk about.
And then I was out for a run, and the “seasons” thing really hit me. Like hard.
I read this great post on the Cruel Summer Book Club thing. It’s about losing her grandma’s ring (Is there anything more hopeless and small-feeling-making thing than losing a cherished object in public?) but there was one passage that stuck with me:
At night Grandma would let me rub her feet with her fancy lotions, then I’d crawl into bed in the middle of Grandma and Grandpa and throw my right leg over Grandma’s body. Grandma was my first body pillow, a kind of comfort I can still feel in my bones. Nowadays I only get to lie this way with lovers—no physical position could make me feel more held.
See, J left a few months ago to do a thing, and I was alone with my daughter (~5) for a couple weeks.
Anyone with kids probably is like, SLEEP, yes, big topic, very important. And anyone without them, no offense, inhabits an entirely different world from which it’s likely impossible to understand this parent-child-SLEEP world. (Living in the “regular” world is infinitely better, so this isn’t a holier-than-thou thing.)
Before J left, my daughter would come into our bed and want to sleep or cuddle, and we would send her back into her own room because it’s like impossible to sleep with a twisting turning knobby joint five-year-old, and sleep is pretty important for everyone, right. And this mostly worked every night.
Once J left, my daughter was quite sensitive to the change, even though it was temporary, and I didn’t have the heart to make her go back to bed (all the time, at least) so we started doing “cuddle time,” which is just that. While we were sleeping, or not sleeping, or that truly liminal asleep-not-sleeping thing, we would just cuddle. Even if it was for a few minutes before it was really, really, really time to get up or else we would both be late. As long as I placed some value on it and didn’t try to rush things or skip it, it was meaningful and warm and nice.
A few days ago, I read that passage above from Jillian Anthony’s thing, and thought to myself, yeah you know I never really thought about how it must feel from my daughter’s perspective. You’ve got this giant person who can envelope you, who is your sole source of food and comfort for the most part, and you spend an intimate time with them. It’s really something.
See, I used to get up at 430 or 5 a.m. to go running or do work, but the last 6 months or so, especially now that Cuddle Time has been instituted, that whole thing is out the window. I’ve barely run at all in 2022 really. (At its peak, I ran maybe 40 miles a week, which is decent for a not-serious runner!!) I love running, and I don’t get to do it that much anymore, mostly for reasons having to do with my daughter. And Cuddle Time is currently enemy number one when it comes to early morning runs now that it gets light early.
So, I was running and thinking about running (I do that a lo when I’m running, it’s very meta) and how I was sad I don’t get to run as often as I would like. It was about 50 degrees, the air was still damp along the wooded trail I like to run on now that we live where we live (next to a wooded trail). And I was thinking how perfect this felt, but it’s something that’s been taken from me. How does that feel? It doesn’t feel good. But I’ve (sadly, only lately when this insight was available to me at literally any other point in the last 20 years) come to realize that everything is temporary. And this running, or not running, is also temporary.
It’s one of life’s seasons.
Side note: I’ve never really understand this No Exit / Velvet Underground I’ll-be-your-mirror concept. People are mirrors only insofar as they’re cracked mirrors (as it were, to borrow another literary thing), which really is no mirror at all. Maybe that’s the point? That people aren’t mirrors? Anyway, there is something deep and plangent about how a young child isn’t a mirror so much as a perfectly expressive canvas for thoughts and emotions. The pure rage of denial, or longing for protection and soothing. It’s all right there! Kids would be terrible poker players.
So, I was running and thinking about running, and thinking these thoughts about seasons and was trying to think of whether this was a good season or a bad one, and came pretty quickly to the idea that, far from the basement, we’re on top of the standings this season. Losing some fitness and squeezing in runs when I’m already tired is worth it for Cuddle Time and warmth and protection. I think it’s important to keep these things in mind.