A Day in the Life

We have had a couple of days here that are easily forgotten in the trail of life – these days needing breadcrumbs a la Hansel and Gretel so that they are not totally lost. That means that we have done our work, what is required of us, and we have succeeded in getting done all that has to be done, but none of that is spectacular to talk about or to tell about. These won’t go down in the blog as days that you all are awed by or even really interested in. They have been just days that will not, at the end of all days, be memorable. But they are, nevertheless, days of my life – and I am not trying to be overly dramatic!

The weather here is just as it is, I’m sure, at home. The mornings are crisp and clear, and the nights are chilly with a little dampness; the sun warms the afternoons, and it is difficult to adjust the thermostat to a temperate number (especially since one worker in the little room continues to suffer from hot flashes when the sun comes in her window, heating her body well beyond comfortable – what an education for Hasat and Esman!). The fall here feels like the fall at home, and for some reason, the season that I love inexplicably brings on a feeling of melancholy, lifted only by a fire in the fireplace – and I won’t be having any of those for a while. This year’s melancholy makes me promise myself that I will not forget being away from home during the fall, and that next fall, I will remember to pay attention to each day as it happens, and really enjoy the fire in the fireplace.

Max left Emily in Savannah yesterday, and as it was for me last year when he moved her down there while I was beginning a new semester, I felt left out and removed. They went to Sapphire Grill to eat dinner, where Emily has wrapped the bartender around her little finger so that when he had only one ginger beer left, he gave it to her. They also went to Local 11 10, which is a “locovore” restaurant, meaning that all the food comes from local sources - organic farmers and fishermen (fisherpeople?). And they went to Cha Bella, another locovore restaurant that looks like a Tuscan villa – or what I think one must look like, because I don’t know. I’ve never been to Tuscany.

I truly miss her, and Max does, too. It was hard for him to get on the plane. In fact, he described the scene yesterday at the airport in about the same way I described the same kind of scene when I left in August: He couldn’t turn around and look at her as he walked toward the gate, just as I could not when I walked toward a year of the unknown. I hope that we are not just being helicopter parents (you know – hovering); we truly enjoy being around Emily, and somehow, our days are diminished when we must leave her so far away.

I talked with Esman and Hasat today about being a parent; after all, each is a father to a very young child: Esman’s son will be three in January, and Hasat’s son is two months old. I began the conversation because Hasat looked kind of tired and crabby; I asked him if he was unhappy. It turns out that he hasn’t had a vacation in some time, and his little boy woke up four times during the night. I remembered those days, although Miss Em slept well through the night – but refused to take naps, eventually teasing me by settling into 15-minute “naplets” a couple of times a day. Esman teased Hasat, saying that Hasat didn’t like babies. I recalled having the same thoughts about not liking babies, except that I was very much in love with my own. Hasat said that even though he had been tired from waking so often, his son smiled and laughed this morning, and that made it all right.

Hasat agreed that he needed a vacation, but he couldn’t really make plans to go anywhere. I encouraged him to stay home and play with and love his son. I told him that Emily had just spent four days with her father, that they both treasured their relationship, and that it had begun when she was an infant and I stayed home with her for her first year. I laughed as I recalled waiting at the door for Max to come home in the evenings so that I could finally take a rest from parenthood. I told both men that Max was excited to see Emily, that he would play with her while I fixed dinner, that he would give her a bath while I drank a glass of wine and watched a sitcom on television, and that we would both tuck her in at night and read her a story, even when she was a teeny-tiny baby.

I was surprised at how long ago those things had taken place.

We continued talking about being parents, and I found out that here, where, as I’m sure you recall my telling you, people drive like bats out of hell, no car seats are required for children. I am sending two as soon as I get home.

That’s it for today. You can tell that I’m feeling a little down and very lonesome. It both hurts and helps to think about the things I’m missing and the things that have come to pass in my lifetime. Here’s how bad it is: I pledged that I wouldn’t criticize the Post Office. Here, I cannot mail anything. I don’t have mailing privileges. Mail takes from two to three weeks to get here, and if I have to send something home, such as an ABSENTEE BALLOT, I have to find someone with mailing privileges who can put it wherever it needs to go to get it to the addressee. I swore that I would never again rail against the Post Office or the price of stamps. All I have to do is put the requisite number of stamps on the letter or package, take it to the Post Office, throw it in the slot or give it to Carla Halane or Jan, and it is on its way (Max told me he thought I was being a little generous; he mailed something to me on October 1; on October 4, he checked to see how far it had gone and got a message saying that the package was in Sedalia – but when he called to complain, he found out that it was NOT in Sedalia: it had gone, in those three days, to Columbia). Anyway, even that sounds good today.

If you have time, drop me a line. If you don’t have time, drop me a thought. And regardless, if you are reading this, thank you very much for caring about what I have to say. See you in about five weeks.