I got home from work yesterday. Cristina took my briefcase and kissed me. I sat down in the immaculate living room to look at the newspaper. Sofia was reading a book on the couch and Alex and Bella were quietly playing a game on the floor. "Smells good!" I said. "What's for dinner?" Cristina had whipped up a nutritious but tasty dish with whole wheat pasta, tofu, and vegetables. She brought me a cup of tea, and I almost dozed off with the paper until dinner was ready...
Yes, that's a dream. I'm realizing more and more how the concept of a quiet, peaceful house is an elusive one. Life is busy. Everyone has a schedule of things they need to do. And then there's the massive list of things we want to do, but can't get to because there's not enough time in the day. There's never enough money to do what we want to do, and to attempt to do what we want to do, we work more, which gives us less time to do the things we want or need to do. It's like a whirling vortex of busyness, which no doubt has undesirable results on everyone. I'm tired and grumpy. Cristina's tired. No one wants to cook. There's a backlog of chores. The kids fight. We yell at the kids because they're fighting. They tune us out because we're yelling. The dog just pooped on the carpet again. There's cat hair on everything. Gotta get everyone to bed so the process can repeat the next day. The vortex swirls.
As I walked to my classroom this morning, I glanced at a house near my school. There were clothes hanging on a line. My first thought was how fast clothes on a line must dry here in Arizona. But then I thought of Costa Rica, and Ramon and Maritza's little house in Pavas. In the middle of their house is an open courtyard with several lines to hang clothes on. It was part of the daily ritual while we were there. Wash a load or two of clothes and hang them up to dry. And the simplicity of our time there, where your main obligation of the day was to maybe hang some clothes and take them down when dry, seemed so peaceful and...simple. The simple life. Hanging clothes to dry. Just the task alone denotes patience. There's no buzzer announcing that the clothes are done and now you must fold. Just clothes, hanging quietly in a pretty courtyard, slowly drying, encouraging us to do the same and take a break.
4 comments:
When you retire (many years away, unfortunately)you will have time to slow down. We do so every day now for the most part. We get up when we feel like it. We go to bed when we feel like it. Yes, we still have some house to finish. But we work on the house when we feel like it. No, we never have enough money. But we do have peace and serenity and each other with enough money to get by, for the most part. We live away from traffic, away from houses on top of each other. The only thing that is regrettable is that we were not able to do all of this when you children were still at home. Just like you, we worked hard to have things we needed/wanted for the family. We sacrificed many hours away from family in order to provide. We see our children now working hard and raising their families with their lives on such a fast track it boggles the mind. Life can be hard but live for the moment. Love each other and some day....life will slow down for you.
The rewards of life can be realized.
Life can be very busy at times for sure. When I was on my own, I'm not sure what I did with all my time. I concentrated on work a bit more perhaps, and I spent more time traveling to work and back. Then when I moved in with Laura life got better, and easier. I lived in town, so I cut down on travel, we shared house payments and food and bills, so I had more money, and chores were halved. (And of course I found someone to share my life with - but that's a given!)
Now we've got Seren things have changed of course. I knew that they would. I was pretty good to start with in helping out with the baby and chores, but I have to admit that when I started to go back to work full time I found it difficult. Laura's off for a year and feels a bit put upon that she's ending up doing all the laundry. (To get back to your theme). She washes the clothes (and diapers), hangs them out to dry in the kitchen, (we have one of those pulley things that hangs from the ceiling - they're great. We don't even have a dryer!) and she folds them when they're dry and puts them away. If there's any ironing to be done I do it, which is fairly infrequent I have to say.
Anyway, I'm trying to correct that because it's obviously not fair. It's a difficult balance, even with one baby. I don't know how you do it with three kids, at different ages. I think it'll get tougher when Laura goes back to work next year. (She's going to take a year off.) We've talked about both doing a 4-day week for the first few years. See how that goes. The down side of that is, of course, less income. But such is the price to pay to be able to spend more time with Seren.
Well let me tell you, the start of your story seemed so romantic and sweet. I really fell for it. Although the rest of the story(as Paul Harvey says) sounds more realistic. Life does seem like a whirlwind, and then one day, you wake up and all your kids are gone from the nest, (of course, they left one at a time) then your house is quiet and you start wondering "what am I going to do now". Even though I know that growing up and moving on is a natural part of life, I sure do miss my babies, and the hectic lifestyle I tended to live, with all the daily routines, of all the kids. I know it seems stressful right now, but trust me,enjoy the time while it is here, cause you will miss the stress when you don't have it anymore.
love you much
b
Such a poetic way of looking at things. Reading this has helped me to get a better grasp on my life and to focus on some of the more peaceful things about it. When I am with friends and we are silent, for example. Nobody talking, and nobody feeling like they NEED to talk. It's liberating. I don't even have kids and I understand about working more to make more money for the things you want, and then not having the time to enjoy said things. It's frustrating. But with nice, calming blogs like this to read, I can take a moment to relax and get back to reality.
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