Latelies
Girl in red, my baby Bjork, hiking on sand, and other dispatches from parenthood
A couple of months ago, June and a friend held a lemonade stand to raise money to go see girl in red, the queer Norwegian indie-pop singer, in concert at the Paramount Theatre. Possibly because it was a rare sunny Friday afternoon in March, and possibly because there is a well-trafficked cannabis shop at the end of the block where this friend lives, they made a staggering 96 dollars selling sweetened lemon water. (ANNOUNCEMENT: I’m going into the lemonade business!)
Granted, 96 bucks doesn’t buy much in the concert-tickets market, but the friend’s mom and I chipped in (and insisted on chaperoning). Last night, the four of us — 11 years old, 12, 45, and forty-__? — saw a show that absolutely would have never happened anywhere in this galaxy when I was June’s age. Most of you reading this are adult women: can you imagine, even begin to imagine, what it would have been like, at the end of a schoolday in fifth grade, to step inside a concert hall packed almost entirely with young women, every single one of whom is singing along with the goofy-hot tomboy onstage when she croons, “They’re so pretty, it hurts / I’m not talking ‘bout boys, I’m talking ‘bout girls / They’re so pretty with their button-up shirts” ????????
Though I do think June and her friend would have enjoyed it more if their moms hadn’t been there — especially this mom, who finds it impossible not to join in on the chorus of “bad idea.”
It was so gay! But not in the way you usually encounter — no drag queens, no camp, almost no men at all. The niche this girl has carved out, this niche in the shape of her, is edgy and female, young and horny and unabashed. Actually, the word abashed doesn’t even belong in this paragraph, because the notion of shame or embarrassment never enters even the remotest atmosphere of a girl in red song. When she sings a love song, she’s not coy about the pronouns of the person she’s addressing; the only time “he” shows up in her lyrics, it’s when she’s begging a girl to pick her over some guy.
Who knows who June will be, or who and what she’ll be into. But what a wild thrill to be there with her last night, just to be a witness to it. Whenever the band launched into one of her favorite songs, she’d grab my arm, grinning, jumping up and down.
I don’t make a habit of sitting around wondering how different the trajectory of my romantic life, or my whole life, might be if I were born in, say, 2012 instead of 1978. But last night I did find myself hoping that the girls in that room — girls, women, femmes — are having more fun than I did. I wasted years pining for teenage boys and jerks in college who said I should remind them that we were going to hang out after Christmas break, wtf, when I could have been making out with my friends. Never crossed my mind. We could have done so much fooling around when the grownups thought we were watching MTV! Anyone up for Headbangers Ball, if you catch my drift?
Now, striking a different note in the music of parenthood:
Our part-time nanny E, the ray of light in human form who takes care of Ames approximately 25 hours per week, was on vacation a couple of weeks ago. To accommodate her absence, I took the week off from teaching, though not from admin, email, bookkeeping, and the other seeming nothings that constitute self-employment. I squeezed those tasks into the hours when Ames was napping, which he now does only once a day — for three hours. (I know!!! Of course now I’ve cosmically fucked myself, putting this in writing.) And after his nap, my mother would come over for a couple of hours, which allowed me to do a few more things I couldn’t do with Ames, like start this essay, and drive a full carload of 11-year-olds from school to play practice. For a week “without childcare,” it felt notably alright.
When E had told me, months ahead, that she would be taking the week off, I had immediately begun to dread it. I love my children, love being a parent, but I also love and need my (income-generating) work. I love the version of myself that my children have made me and, at the same time, I am bemused that she exists. Imagine: me, a mother! The last thing I knew, I was 22 and wearing a dog collar to Thanksgiving dinner.
So it surprised me to notice, a couple of days into E’s absence, that I was enjoying my mornings with Ames. He’s just figured out that his arms are capable of hoisting and throwing things, which is not our favorite development, and he once made the inside of my cheek bleed when I smiled at him and he responded by plunging his hand, each sweet meaty finger outfitted with its own tiny keratin razor blade, into my mouth. But then, never too far into the future, I would zip him into his sleep sack, making him look exactly like Cindy Lou Who, and deliver him into slumber. A very fine day.
Fine enough, even, that I feel nostalgic just typing that paragraph, like — ah, Molly, do you remember that spring when the baby lay reliably in his crib from 10:30am to 1:30pm? Of course there’s a
cartoon about this, from How to Baby.
We quickly settled into a routine. After Ames removed every water bottle from the water-bottle cabinet and fed his breakfast to the dog, we would go for a walk. Ames will sit contentedly in the stroller for up to an hour, sometimes twice a day. His eyes are prone to watering in bright light or a breeze, so he does spend a portion of many walks with a single tear trembling beneath each eye, perched on the shelf of his cheek. He’s fine! People sometimes stop to ask if he’s alright. I tell them he’s just a massive Bjork fan.
Finally, I chaperoned the fourth- and fifth-grade camping trip last week.
We spent two nights at Dungeness Spit, 24 children and six adults. The kids did all the planning, having divided into teams to tackle Navigation, Provisions, Meals, and Governance. My navigator was in fourth grade, but he guided me brilliantly from the backseat as I drove — my first time driving any distance without Google Maps in maybe a decade? We only missed one turn on the way there, and our mistake had the upside, as I explained to my young charges, of leading us to the driveway of some place called Vern’s Organic Topsoil, where I made a u-turn beside a fancy water feature that I told them was the smallest waterfall in Washington State.
On the only full day at camp, we hiked. The kids could choose among three different hikes: short (1 mile), medium (4 miles), and long (ELEVEN miles, the length of the spit and back). My knee was cranky from having hauled gear up and down the school stairs the day before, but I volunteered to chaperone the long hike. I was tired — at 3:30 that morning, a small weepy voice from the next tent over had intoned my name, asking to go home — but so was everybody. I’d never taken an 11-mile walk, and I wanted to feel what it was like. I doubted we’d manage the whole thing anyway. Then, to my delight, and I am absolutely bragging about this because it’s bonkers, June also chose to do the long hike! I was elated and filled with dread.
So we set out to walk the longest natural sand spit in the United States: nine kids and two adults, 1 mile of actual trail, 10 miles of sand, zero shade, ceaseless wind, burritos and bars in our packs. The tide was on its way out, in our favor.
It was… strangely, not bad? No one cried, got hurt, or gave up. We saw a gumboot chiton, multiple mossy chitons, a deer carcass, bald eagles, and the view from the tip-top of the lighthouse. There was mild annoyance, a moderate amount of whining, sand in shoes. We took many, many breaks.
But you’ve never seen a more triumphant or wind-blown band of characters.
We returned to camp just in time for dinner: a baked-potato bar, with salad! Because it had been conceived and planned by schoolchildren, each person was allotted just half a baked potato. Better news: there was plenty of butter! And lemonade! Tell your friends: lemonade’ll get you everywhere.
Thank you for reading,
M.
The half baked potato got me. This entry feels particularly sweet
Just the best. Love your writing.