This Week: Too Much Fun?
Or: How to remember who you are.
Dear fam,
This is a first for the Chaos Palace. I'm writing to you on my phone, from the floor of my girls’ bedroom. It's 7:58 p.m., which means sundown is so far off as to be irrelevant. And, despite the supposed blackout curtains (that we've taped closed), the room is not quite as dark as we might hope.
To my left, Toddler is either jumping up and down on her bed or wailing that her pacifier has fallen. Directly in front of me, Big Kid is asking me if I know some song she learned at camp this week – it sounds like Steve Lava Chicken, but that can't be right. Oh, also that classic camp song Farting in the USA.
If I was a betting gal, I'd say we have at least another 40 minutes to spend on this floor. At least the calm piano music is nice.
I was going to write to you earlier today (well, really, earlier this week) but the week got away from me. Why do all the weeks speed by? Each day, I do all I can to grasp the moments – to no avail. The days are quicksilver; they slip-slide away even as I try to close my fist around them
It's like catching fireflies. Or fairy dust.
It's weeks like these I am least likely to sit down and write one of these. Ironically, it's also weeks like these I need this time the most. That's why, even though I absolutely despise the experience of writing on my phone, I decided to give it a shot.
After bedtime? I have big plans to pour some wine (into my gullet) and finish a documentary about Judy Blume with my wife. After a week of nonstop work, I feel very done with thinking.
After three weeks of little-to-no childcare, this was the first full week of summer camp for both girls. The first week of full work days for both my wife and I, not late-night catching up sessions. It sounded glorious.
I approached the week, though, with cautious optimism. Who knew if it would actually be good? Last year, Big Kid’s summer camp called us every day by 11 a.m. with some kind of emergency. We spent the long days on tenterhooks, waiting for the next alarm to go off.
Who could promise this camp would be any different? What if all our hopes for this week of actual to finish an actual thought went the way of so many other hopes?
[Update: It’s 8:30, and Big Kid fell asleep. I’m at my computer. My wife is on the floor. Toddler is whining. I would have won that bet]
Fam, this week went really well. So well that I almost didn’t write about it, because I don’t want to jinx it. Big Kid came home every day exhausted and elated, jam-packed with stories about swimming, and rockets, and mazes, and charades. She made friends. She ate pizza. She won a rubber ducky at a carnival. How many times did we get a phone call, urging us to get over there quick-as-a-wink? ZERO.
Having done the lion’s share of our work during our actual work hours (a revelation!), my wife and I were able to spend the afternoons and evenings with our girls — sans phones or computers. Big Kid initiated a new ritual: After dinner each evening, we’d spend 30 minutes or so doing something called Family Time. Basically, anything goes as long as we do it all together. So, we began eating earlier to get in extra silliness.
We made popsicle-stick puppets of our selves and made shadows on the wall. We played soccer in the backyard (Toddler and Big Kid took turns being goalie). We learned circus tricks (sort of). We invented games. Toddler got back on that swing, not fully confident but pretty close.
And every morning, I had ten whole minutes to wander my garden — my happy place — and check on my plants. Do some weeding, or shore up a tomato cage, or remulch a bed. I touched soil every single day this week. I saw the new flowers blossom, and the first eggplants of the season emerge. I breathed in the lavender, witnessed the bumblebees kissing my wildflowers. And the butterflies! I mean, wow. What majesty.
What I’ve been missing — what so many of us parents miss during the little-to-no-childcare times — is more than a damn break. It’s a sense of self. The time to enjoy things that have nothing to do with our children. Not because we don’t love them or don’t want to be with them. Gosh, no.
Because we need to recall what it feels like to be fully-fledged. To be multifaceted, and interesting, and messy, and wondrous. I forget this all the time, especially on tightly-squeezed days. Since late May, when the full school days began petering out into a drip-drip *gasp* gone! vacuum of childcare, I have not remembered.
I think this week was important for every single member of the family. Including the poor cats, who have gone woefully un-adored during these weeks. Ginny and Salem got many more snuggles this week than they had been; I’m certain they’re more pleased with the staff than they had been prior.
For us humans, though, it was a chance to have enough solo time to make the togetherness actually fun. I haven’t wanted to hold on to my time since late May (at least!), haven’t been wistful at the slipperiness of presence. I just wanted the days to end already so I could get to the part where I take a melatonin and collapse into bed.
This week? I began to recall the joy of savoring an impromptu yoga session (led by Toddler) in the backyard. These moments… they are the nourishment I’ve been seeking. I want to bite into each day like a plum.
Isn’t it funny, how spending time without the ones we love allows us to love all the more wholly when we are together again? Even a few hours of distance has been the breath I craved. Fresh garden air.
I pray the next weeks continue in this vein. Not a euphemism — I am actually praying to G-d to give me the strength and fortitude to remember this joy, this presence, these summer days. What it feels like when the heat of the day is still glowing on my skin. How my baby’s face looks after sinking her teeth into a tomato, still warm from the sun. I want to bottle this feeling up and sip it, like moonshine, during hard times to come.
Of which I’m sure there will be many.
In the meanwhile, I hope there are flowers and buzzing bees in your next few days.
Shabbat shalom,
Mikhal
Hey there! Welcome to the Chaos Palace is a space uplifting ADHD, queerness, Judaism, and how to find opportunities for growth & creativity in the messiness of life.
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In case you missed it…
here are the last few Chaos Palace newsletters, plus a new podcast by moi and my wife.
My Substack is (currently) called "Welcome Home" and I wrote a few months ago (over winter holiday I think) that in order to say "Welcome home!" to the people you love, they have to LEAVE FIRST. Love those little humans so much, but it's a lot easier to enjoy them when we can all get some regularly scheduled space from one another.
Oh I LOVE that framing. I love getting to say to my littles every time they come home how much I miss them. And I do miss them! I'm so happy to see them! But I can't tell them I'm happy to see them unless they've gone out into the world and had their own experiences, allowing me to stay here and have mine.