Mendolonium

Sometimes you spend years searching for the answer to a great question in your life.  You research options, weigh pros and cons, ask for advice, question your gut, and eventually you come to a decision.  Other times you go through everything only to find yourself still at a loss as to what to do.  You feel stuck, mired in indecision.  The unanswered question gnaws at your brain, a mental parasite, sucking energy from you in a tiny but constant stream.  And sometimes, if you are lucky, there is a perfect storm of thought and everything comes together with a strike of mental lightning.  The decision is made. You are at peace.

I’ve really been struggling lately; whereby lately I mean the past eighteen months or so.  I have alluded to feelings of depression before on this blog, but I’ve never been very specific.  It hasn’t been a matter of hiding it per se, more that I didn’t know what to say.  I have something to say now.  I have been depressed and one of the major triggers of that depression has been a deep dissatisfaction with certain aspects of my life – namely my job and the challenge of balancing my need to work with my need to be with my children.

In the months after Thomas was born Jeff and I began to talk seriously of moving.  It began with exploring the possibility of moving so that I would not have a long commute to work.  We went so far as to contact real estate agents and look at houses.  We came to the conclusion that such a move was not the best decision for us – thankfully, a conclusion that nearly three years later I believe was the right one.  Those conversations sparked a greater idea in both of us; the idea that we might make a big move – to another state, to new jobs (or no jobs at all).  We talk about the possibilities almost daily.  Where might we go?  What would we do?  Rural life or city life?  How much land do we want?  Always holding us back from truly committing to an intensive search for a new place has been our family, our friends, and our home here.   My sister is a mere 20 minute drive away and Jeff’s parents a one-hour car ride south.  My parents are a five hour trip north, but my dad, the intrepid road warrior, doesn’t consider this much of a hindrance and they visit us often.  It gives me great pleasure to see Thomas so comfortable and happy with his grandparents.  Henry, who is going through an uptick of separation anxiety will still settle happily into his grandmother’s (both of them) or  my sister’s arms when everyone else seems scary to him.  I never really knew any of my grandparents or extended family and it is priceless to see the closeness between my children and their kin.  I have wonderful friends here, women with whom I can talk about everything from sex to snot – friendships that have taken years to grow and find.  And then there is our house.  We bought our little piece of the American dream just after I turned twenty-four.  I scraped off wallpaper, pulled out carpet tacks until my fingers bled.  I found out that I was going to become a mother (twice) in our little bathroom.  I spent my labor with Thomas walking round and round our living room in seemingly endless circles.  Henry spent his first night on Earth tucked in between us in our bedroom.  Pasadena is home to me in a deep and profound way that no where else has ever been.

And yet…I want to live in a place where it rains – really rains  – with thunderstorms and lighting.  I want my children to be able to attend a decent public school; one where they are not two of eight hundred students in an overcrowded elementary.  I want to be able to afford an acre (or more!) or land.  I want to plant tulips.  I want to live in a place where our water, the most vital of all resources, is not imported from hundreds of miles away.  I want to live in a place where the local paper publishes real news rather than endless coverage of the entertainment industry.  I want to live in a place where we can live on one income and prosper.

Tonight I started reading a blog recommended by a friend of my sister’s.  It is filled with beautiful writing and photographs and I found it absolutely riveting.  I was struck by how the author seemed to feel about the place that he lives, Detroit.  Though his writings I could see that ,despite its flaws, Detroit is his place – how he cares about the city and belongs there.  And somewhere during the second hour of my devouring his blog it hit me like a moving truck.  Southern California is not my place.  While there are many things that make me happy here; it is not the place that does so.  If we stay here, I will never stop looking for another place – my place.  I have spent my entire life looking for a home and despite my thirteen years here my soul does not feel at home.  I don’t want to spend the rest of my life wondering if the right place was out there.  I want to find our place, move there, and make a home .  That’s the epiphany and it feels wonderfully freeing to have come to a conclusion.  I don’t know where we’ll end up, what we’ll do there, and when we will find it.  But tonight I began to say goodbye to Pasadena and to start searching for what comes next.

Dear Universe,

I know that I resolved to line dry my laundry this year; and I will…promise.  In fact, I have been trolling the internet looking for the perfect clothesline.  But did you have to pick this week, purported to be the rainiest since 2005, to break my dryer, causing it to emit a distributing burning smell?  You do know I cloth diaper, don’t you?  And as luck would have it, today really needs to be diaper wash and dry day as I have two diaper pails full of what can only be called “the smell of evil”.  I would appreciate a quick fix on this one or alternatively a nice check in the mail to cover the purchase of a new dryer.

Your hapless pawn,

Gina

And now I shall attempt to tackle a subject more controversial than religion or politics…Christmas gifts.

We are fortunate to have a very generous family and we all received many lovely presents this year.  Unfortunately, we also received far, far more than we are comfortable with.  It seems a bit ridiculous to complain about the an abundance of gifts – a problem of rich, first-world privilege and, in truth, it is a problem that many other people in our own county and throughout the wold would be thrilled to have.  However, excessive consumerism and the promotion of a materialistic culture is, in part, the very reason why so many others in the world are mired in poverty.  Now I am not about to suggest that we celebrate Christmas by all exchanging nothing but socks hand knitted from wool spun from dryer lint whilst we sit around in our unheated house nibbling on homegrown carrots.  Both Jeff and I view Christmas as a celebration and as such believe that it should be a time of feast, decorations, and even presents.  It is simply that we want the materialistic aspects (i.e., the presents) to be done in moderation with a focus on sustainability.  The thing is, we all know that while it is simple to say we want such a thing it is much harder to implement in practice.

I knew we were in trouble on Christmas morning after we had opened all the presents at our home and I realized that we had received more than enough good things, yet we still had another, larger, Christmas celebration to attend that eventing.  Watching Thomas tear through presents on Christmas evening began to make me feel sad rather than joyous.  I tried to enforce a rule to go up and say “thank-you” to the gift giver after each present (which Thomas bless his little heart was sweetly doing), but somehow the present opening seemed to proceed at an ever more frantic pace and the thank-yous dropped off as the night went on.   And I felt embarrassed at the end of the evening, when it was clear that we would never fit all the leftover food we had brought along with all the presents into our car alone.  Christmas really all came crashing down on me the morning of December 26th when I steeped out of our bedroom, walked into the living room, and almost cried.  It looked like a bomb from Target had gone off.  While our little family of four use reusable fabric wrapping between the wrapping paper from presents people had brought and the cardboard boxes from Amazon our recycling container was overflowing.  It upset me so much that I actually left Thomas with my parents, packed up the baby, and raced off to the store to return a few things.  While out I thought about  what future Christmases might entail (if each child gets 5 – 10 things from each seat of grandparents and we have another 15 Christmases or so that will be hundreds of items coming into our house over the years).   The thought of it was overwhelming, both from the standpoint of resource use and from the perspective of having to find a place to put it all.

We have a lovely two bedroom house.  It is relatively small but it fits our needs perfectly.  There simply isn’t room for hundreds of more toys and clothes, and books.  Yes, one can even have too many books, which I adore, but we simply have no where to put them all.*  One might say that some toys will break and that we can donate the old toys but that’s not how we live our lives.  Jeff and I try very hard to buy durable long-lasting toys for the kids that will not wear out.  (I expect that Henry will be passing his Christmas present from this year down to his children).  We are also not done having children so we will be keeping all the toys the boy grow out of for their younger brothers and/or sisters.  I also very much want to teach our children that life, including celebrations in life, such as Christmas, is about so much more than material goods.   So effective Christmas 2010 we are going to make some changes.

• There will be no traveling on Christmas day.  There were some family health issues that necessitated the two celebrations on Christmas day this year, but regardless we will not be repeating it next year.  It was simply too stressful.  I actually think it would be much more fun for everyone to have several “Christmas” celebrations scatted throughout the week or so of the actual holiday so that’s what we will encourage.
• We will set aside some time on Christmas day four just the four of us:  Jeff, Thomas, Henry, and me – most likely first thing in the morning.   Based on everyone’s schedules we will set a time (say 9:00 or 10:00 am) after which we will be happy to host any and all friends and family.  Before our guests arrive we will open stockings and a present or two with the kids as a special time for just the four of us.
• The food, while plentiful and celebratory, will be toned down – Christmas dinner will not be on the scale of Thanksgiving.  As much as I love spending all day cooking in the kitchen (and I really do) I want to spend most of Christmas day relaxing, hanging out with my family, and watching my kids enjoy their new presents.  An overabundance of food can also lead to waste as I saw this year when I ended up having to throw away food that simply could not be eaten in a reasonable amount of time.
• Jeff and I will strive to make or buy used – all of our gifts, save perhaps a few special things that will be purchased from sustainable producers.  This means that Jeff and I now, in January, are thinking and planning about what we want to give everyone next year.  We will encourage the kids to make/create gifts as well.

That’s all well and good for us, but what about everyone else.  While we recognize that what everyone else does we are thinking about some options:

• Do nothing and just return/donate that which we don’t want/need. This is what we’ve done the past few years but it is not going to work anymore.  Buying something made overseas, wrapping it in disposable (but non-recyclable paper), and then putting something back in the car to return/donate seems to me to be a horrible squander of resources.  While I am sure Miss Manners would disapprove and tell me to simply thank the gift-giver and quietly deal with it on my own ,I think the problems of climate change and resource depletion far outweigh considerations of etiquette.   I also don’t want my family to use their hard earned money on things that I will just return or donate.  And quite frankly running about town doing so is not my idea of fun.
• Simply tell our friends and family to keep things low-key.**  Make sure that they know we appreciate and enjoy used and/or homemade gifts.   I think it would be great to also give gifts to others (i.e., charity) in our name.  I think the boys would get a kick out of a “gift” of animals to a family in need.   And in the end, the truth is that no gifts are even necessary.  It is special just to put up a tree, to bake platters of goodies, and to spend time with the ones we love.  Happily, Thomas feels the same way.  Last week he was a bit sad that Christmastime was over and so he came up with a plan*** .  We would build a fire in the fireplace using our Christmas tree as fuel****.  Then Jeff would sit in one of our living room chairs and hold Thomas.  I would sit in the other chair and hold Henry.  Jeff would drink hot chocolate.  Thomas and I would drink warm chocolate.  Henry would abstain as he is a baby.  We would drink our respective beverages, tell stories, and sit around the fire.  We implemented Thomas’ plan (save for Henry – he went to bed at 7:30) and it was one of the best nights ever with Thomas.  He was so happy and utterly adorable with little pink cheeks smiling in the firelight.  It really drove home the point that Christmastime is much more than just presents for him and I want to make sure we keep it that way.
• Impose a limit on presents. We already have  rule against electronic presents/presents with batteries.  The limit we have been considering is two physical gifts per child plus one shared physical gift (between the kids or family).  Things like a children’s museum membership or a day of fun with the grandparents would be exempt from this rule.  Between us, the grandparents, aunts, and uncles this would still give the kids on the order of ten presents each to open – hardly deprivation.

Do you have more ideas for reducing consumption but keeping the fun?  I would be interested in hearing everyone’s thoughts about these issues.

I truly enjoyed Christmas as a child, but as an adult I can’t remember any of the presents I ever received, except a microscope when I was ten (Oh how I wanted that microscope).  What I do remember was the year we hiked into a national forest and cut down two Christmas trees (with a permit, I hope).  I remember making dozens of spritz cookies with my mom’s old, reliable cookie “shooter”.  And I remember the Christmas that I was in the hospital with pneumonia and my parents held off celebrating and opening presents until I could come home.  Those are the kind of memories (save the pneumonia) that I want for my boys and for us.

* My dream home (in my mind) has an honest-to-goodness library with floor to ceiling wood bookshelves, a fireplace, reading lamps, and cozy chairs to curl up in.  I honestly think that if I had a house with such a room and with a big, warm kitchen/pantry the rest of the house could be a shack and I wouldn’t care.

** Hey look!  My friends and family read this blog so I just did that.  Sneaky.

*** Jeff taught Thomas the concept of a plan last week and, boy, did Thomas pick up on that one quickly.  Now we hear, “I have a plan!”

**** We actually have a tradition (eight years!) of cutting up and burning our Christmas tree in the fireplace.  It all stems from Christmas 2001 when Jeff lost his wedding ring the same night he put lights on the Christmas tree.  We searched high and low for that ring but it was nowhere to be found.  We feared it was stuck in the Christmas tree and didn’t want to risk accidentally throwing the ring away so we burned our Christmas tree piece by piece in search of the elusive ring of gold.  We didn’t find the ring then (Jeff’s brother actually found it in our couch three years later – and yes, we had looked there) but a tradition was born and we have re-used our Christmas tree as firewood ever since.

A holiday meme stolen from Clueless but Hopeful Mama…

Eggnog or hot chocolate?

Hot chocolate.  Actually warm chocolate, I like my “hot” beverages just a few degrees above room temperature.

Does Santa wrap the presents or leave them open under the tree?

As a child Santa left them unwrapped on the fireplace right next to the [now empty] empty plate of cookies (for Santa) and carrots (for the reindeer).  Perhaps Santa was too busy/lazy to walk them over to the tree?.   I had no idea that people actually wrapped the Santa presents.  We’re not doing Santa with our kids unless they express an interest so in our house everything will be wrapped under the tree from Mama and Daddy.  Lest you think we are spiritless Grinches for excluding Santa, Thomas has already informed me that Santa is pretend because, “That man too big to go down the chimney.”  Also I am pretty sure that with his recurring fear of people coming into our house and taking our things the concept a big guy coming down the chimney in the middle of the night would not go over well.

Colored lights on a tree, or white?

The little white ones.  This year we switched to LED lights and although they claim to be “warm white” they are too icy looking for my taste.  The upshot is they are much more energy efficient, cooler (less of a fire hazard), and are like tiny little supernovae of brightness so that they can be seen through our curtains from the outside.  And by the way, if there are lights outside they must all match and if the tree is visible from the outside the inside tree lights and the outside lights must match as well.  I wonder where Thomas gets his OCD tendencies from?

Do you hang mistletoe?

No.  It’s a parasitic growth that kills trees.  Not my idea of festive.

When do you put your decorations up?

If it was up to me the tree would go up as the Thanksgiving plates were in the dishwasher and would not come down until the end of January.  This year we put the tree up on December 1st and it will stay up until Jeff flips out and tells me that it is now an unacceptable fire hazard and that our house will BURN, BURN, BURN if it stays up any longer.

What is your favorite holiday dish?

I am not capable of picking just one.   We have a Christmas morning breakfast tradition of a Mexican style egg casserole from my dad that is delicious.  I usually supplement that with cinnamon rolls and some sort of breakfast potato dish.  For dinner I love mashed potatoes done right (cream cheese, butter, cream, and lots of salt and pepper) and vegetarian bread stuffing.

Do you open a gift on Christmas Eve?

Absolutely.  Each child can pick one present to open right before bedtime on Christmas Eve.

How do you decorate your Christmas tree?

Jeff (who gets itchy from pine trees) dons a long sleeve shirt, jeans, and gloves and meticulously wraps each branch with lights while he curses and Burl Ives plays on the iPod in the background.  If Jeff detests the light process so much why don’t I do it?  I’ve tried and he has proclaimed that I do a crappy job (I like to think of it as efficient) so he insists on doing it himself.   I am usually baking something sweet in the kitchen so he does get his reward.  After the lights are on, we hang ornaments over the next couple of days.   The year we traded in the Corona boxes from college that we had stored our ornaments in and got some fancy plastic ornament storage boxes.  I also procured each boy his own ornament box (now neatly labeled with his name) and I am giving each child a special ornament each year (with a little note to go in the box with the ornament) so that along with the ornaments people have given them they will have a nice set for their own Christmas tree when they grow up someday.

Snow: love it or hate it?

Love it.  I am dreaming of a white Christmas, but considering that the last time it snowed in Pasadena was 1949, I don’t think my dreams will come true.

Can you ice skate?

Yes.  I haven’t done it in years, but I used to be pretty decent.

What is your favorite holiday dessert?

Again with the having to pick.  I bake dessert nearly constantly and really don’t have a favorite.  I have been on an angel food cake binge and have been making one every other week or so for the past couple of months.  So this year we will be having a granny smith apple pie, angel food cake, and individual chocolate mousses for Christmas dinner dessert.

Candy canes: yum or yuck?

Blech.  Give me chocolate.

Favorite Christmas show?

The Nutcracker.  As I child, I danced in this ballet often.  I’ve been a toy soldier, the sugar plum fairy (my costume is up in a box in the garage), and a Spanish dancer.  As an adult, I realize that the storyline is pretty creepy, but I still love the music and the dancing.  I have a set of Nutcracker themed ornaments my mother gave me as a child.  When I was hanging them on the tree this year Thomas asked about them and I foolishly told him a short version of the story.  The result being that the mouse king ornament is currently locked in a drawer in our living room and is now referred to as “that scary ornament”.

What is your favorite holiday tradition?

Several years ago (before children) we started the tradition that everyone in attendance at Christmas morning gets one gift for everyone else’s stocking.  That way no one person (i.e., “The Mom”) is stuck with the task of filling the stockings.  I like to do themes for my stocking gifts so one year everyone got a donation to a charity in their name, one year everyone got some sort of homemade food item, etc.  I am looking forward to seeing what new traditions we create now that we have children old enough to really enjoy Christmas.