For years — like, ten — inspired by Anne Morrow Lindbergh, I have been trying to finagle some time away from my brood. I needed sleep uninterrupted by snoring and crying, and I needed to go to bed when I was tired and sleep until my body decided to wake up. I needed silence, I needed space and most of all I needed time when no one required anything from me.

It took about three years of planning, canceling, rescheduling, harumphs and complaints, but as I write this, I am all alone in a friend’s beach cottage, basking in the silence. From the minute I got on the plane, and opened the book I had been saving, the guy next to me wanted to chat and I said to him as nicely as I could, “I haven’t been able to read uninterrupted for about 15 years.” He got the message. When I arrived, a neighbor wanted to take me to dinner and show me around, and I had to say, “I’m sorry, I really just need to rest.” The cottage owner invited me to a party and was really surprised when I turned him down. Then the phone calls from Neve and Dex started. “My rash is getting worse.” “I can’t find my English paper.” “Where are my red shorts?” When Neve said, “Col in really sad that you aren’t here,” I said goodbye, turned off my phone and took a two hour walk on the beach. 

I hadn’t wanted to think about anything on this trip, and here I was consumed with constant reminders that I had abandoned my kids. Do I think a few days alone constitutes abandoning your kids? Of course not. But not one of my brood, not even Tom can understand why I would even want to be away from them. It is such a bizarre concept for them to wrap their heads around. They think it is about them, when it is really just about me, and how all my roles exhaust me to the point that I need to go lie flat for a few days just to keep going for another few years. I realized they weren’t going to leave me alone because I taught them that I was always available. I had created this, and I had to acknowledge that. The question is, how do I move forward from here?

I had pulled over into a side parking lot to gulp my yogurt before my next commitment when I saw her. A woman about my age, her whole demeanor screaming “mom,” got out of a sticker covered mini-van with a hula-hoop. I fully expected her to get her child out of the back  and hand over the hoop, but no: she walked surreptitiously to the grassy median and began doing the most expert hula routine I have ever seen. For 20 minutes this woman hula-d and I watched, late for my next gig, fascinated. She could hula that hoop anywhere, any how–it was truly impressive. She was having a ball. Then she shyly took her hoop back to the van, hid it under a bunch of mom-crap and drove away. I was kind of jealous of her elegant secret.

Not two days later, I was taking a gorgeous walk through the woods, utterly savoring my time alone, when I heard the sound of cracking twigs and human effort. I stepped to the side, expecting a jogger to come flying past me, but no: it was a woman on a unicycle. She was clearly learning, but doing a great job–and wearing herself out in the process. Right near me, she fell, and we exchanged glances. “My son keeps telling me it’s so easy.” She was embarrassed.

“I have got to tell you, that is the best thing I have seen in a long time. You are truly inspiring me.”

Her face lit up, and she said. “Anything to escape the hamster wheel for a while, ya know?”

I laughed hard as she got back on her bike. “Man, do I know.” And she took off down the path shaky and nervous, but making good progress. 

If that isn’t a metaphor for parenting.

It speaks volumes that I am a week out from Mother’s Day and just writing about it now. Oh, the tired and familiar song: there’s too much going on to actually take time to appreciate these things. It’s such a boring song, isn’t it?

Dex made me a card (which looked like he had done it in about 3 minutes) with his sentiment: Mom, you are like bread. Sometimes hard, sometimes soft, but good in a jam.

Neve’s was all colorful and intricate. Hours of work involved, lots of proclamations of love and devotion and BEST MOM EVER! Clearly, she needs to talk to Dex more.

Colin came ramming into my room at 6:12 am, slamming the door against the wall; he had escaped while Tom was making me coffee. He kept yelling, “Mom, where ARE you?” I tired to flatten myself against the bed for my promised sleep-in, but that little face found me. “Oh, DERE you are!”

Within minutes all the kids were catapulting on the bed, so I took my coffee into the bathroom and sat on the sink to drink it in peace. I had about 8 minutes of me time, though, because when your mother lives with you and everyone wants to see her, you end up having a bunch of people over to eat.

Geez, I hope your day was better than mine.

My weekend began with Tom calling me out of a seminar I was running to go pick up a sick Dex from school — for the second time that week. So I arrange, re-arrange, screech to the school and literally run into the nurses’ office. I’ve got a plastic bag for vomiting, Tylenol, a grubby dishcloth from the back of the car . . . I’m ready for battle.

“Hey, Mom!”  He is sitting on the couch flipping through a book.

“You look entirely too perky for me to be picking you up.”

The nurse and I exchange looks. “I tried,” she said. “You know, with the whole flu thing, it’s a strange time . . ..”

We rush out to the car. He’s chatting away as we rush down the highway, and I am boiling. “You know, I expect a little groaning or something for my trouble.”

“What are you talking about?’

“You look like you could have stayed there the rest of the day.”

“I was afraid I was going to puke, Mom! Geez! You want me to puke in front of everybody?”

I almost said yes, I wanted to say yes, but I held my tongue. Instead, I dumped him at home with strict instructions and zoomed back to my other life. I couldn’t believe how mad I was still, particularly when I saw him parked in front of the tube laughing his head off.  I stood in front of the TV.

“How do you feel?”

“Oh, SO  much better,”  trying to watch his show around my figure.

I squatted in front of him. “Next time I get called to school, there had better be fever, blood or puke in evidence, if you know what I mean.” We stared at each other for a few seconds and then I got up and walked away.

Even before I had children, I loved “Gift from the Sea,” Anne Morrow Lindbergh’s book of meandering thoughts about life, love, mothering and the restorative beauty of the natural world. Lindbergh was sadly famous for long time because her first child with Charles Lindbergh was kidnapped, and 20 month old Charles died at some point during the whole horrific ordeal.

Lindbergh somehow managed to carry on, and salvage a life for herself. She bore more children, wrote many books, and by her account had a lonely, but successful marriage. I recall how surprised and impressed I was when first read “Gift from the Sea” and Lindbergh baldly stated that to keep herself going, she needed time away from her family.  She scheduled a solitary vacation from her duties and roles every year, and she stuck to it. The idea was perfectly revolutionary to me; at 18 when I first read her book, I knew no mother that was ever away from her family’s demands. The few that took a vacation with their husbands for a week were considered quite radical, if not downright selfish. And for a mother that had lost a child, as Lindbergh had, the risk was more complex. What if something happened to her children while she was away restoring herself? As I know from my own loss, you realize you are no less likely to avoid tragedy if you have already lived through one. 

The most important thing to Lindbergh was ‘to be at peace with myself.” She felt that she could radiate more authentically and responsively from a place of self-knowledge and strength. I think about that a lot. If in the 50’s she felt overwhelmed by her roles and the demands of her daily life, we are positively drowning in it. I feel as if I am constantly throwing bookmarks into my life, saying oh, I want to read that someday, I’d like to go there someday. In relationships, too: telling children I’ll think about it or telling friends, we’ll have to talk about that when we have a moment or telling my mother I’ll come back and chat with her after the kids are in bed . . . and I fall asleep on the couch. 

I think if I were to be still for an entire week, the authentic me start pointing fingers at my hypocrisy and would want to know why I don’t jump off the suburbia train. There are so many things I just do not like about the quality of our life now, but I am not radical enough to pull the plug. If I were to do it all again, I’d probably live somewhere where no one had ever heard of People magazine and American Idol and Ecstasy, where I can buy a t-shirt with my daughter without having to sort through all the sexy tween  fashions while being subjected to whatever nudie poster Victoria’s Secret or Abercrombie has up this week. Actually, I’d take anywhere that Hannah Montana has not infiltrated. If I ever find it, I’ll let you know.

I had the pleasure of seeing a documentary film this past week by the Oscar-winning director of “Born into Brothels.” The film, entitled, “Who Does She Think She is?” is how difficult it is to be both a mother and an artist. Successful artists have passion for their pursuit, and passion is consuming — but these five women are still judged for not channeling that passion entirely into relationships with spouses or children. As one artist said, the way her ex-husband saw it, she had a choice between art or him, and she chose art –but, he had it all wrong, she corrected, “I just chose myself.”
Check out their website, it will be available soon on netflix or DVD.

Sadly, I have a lot of experience with puking kids. And Tom, despite all his excellent qualities, is one of those people who gets sick when he sees someone else get sick, so I have been alone on puke patrol for nearly 14 years. Give me a good old upper respiratory infection any day, but spare me the GI viruses.

After Dex, who can stand in front of a toilet, yak, and miss it completely, and Neve, who is always carsick and has yuked with more frequency and drama than a frat boy, we’ve discovered this week that Colin has a secret talent: he can projectile vomit with no warning. No coughing, no moaning, just blaaaaahh. He and Dex had some flu bug all last week (no, no pigs involved) and and Colin puked for days. And despite the fact that he splattered the den rug (twice) his rug (three times) and my brand new, had-just-put-it-on-to-go-make-a-presentation sweater, I was incredibly calm about it. Back in the day when Neve puked several times a day every day, I was in constant battle mode. Will she throw? Should she be in this room? Should she eat that before we drive home? I hated the strategizing and I hated the clean up, but I hated more that I had no sympathy left for the puker. 

I found that this week I was able to whip out the rug cleaner and set things right almost cheerfully. Wash all his bedding again? No problem! Wrestle the carseat cover off again? It’s okay! 

What’s the bananas is wrong with me? I thought. But then I looked at his wan little face as he dazedly watched yet another episode of Calliou, and I realized: this is the first time this kid has ever thrown up. He’s bewildered. I crouched down in front of him and said, “Hey Col, thanks for waiting 2 and a half years to get a stomach bug. really, I mean in, thank you.”

He pushed me out of the way and wearily said, “Your welcome.”

Last night, Neve and I took a walk in the woods near our home. Walking in the dark is something we both like to do, but she added a new element; she wanted to walk with her eyes closed. No fear. She didn’t think about tripping or falling, or crashing into trees, she just walked, and I was brimming with admiration. I had to pull her back on the trail every now and then, but she walked nearly a mile like that, straight, confident, self-reliant.