I saw something this morning that stopped me in my tracks. On our bedroom floor were a wooden horsehair shoe shine brush and a brown tin of Kiwi shoe polish, the kind with the little boat-cleat lever for popping the top of the tin off. I don’t think the Kiwi tin has changed in 20 years, because as soon as I saw it I was a kid again, sitting in front of a crackling fire, polishing my dad’s shoes for a quarter.
I don’t know how often Dad would need them done, but I remember him periodically bringing all of his leather shoes, the ones he wore to work, and his shoe shine kit – a wooden box with a horsehair brush and several tins of Kiwi shoe polish, in black, brown, tan, and oxblood – down to the den for the 8pm family TV hour. He’d pay my brother or me to polish his shoes while we watched The Cosby Show or The Wonder Years, or maybe Cheers or Frasier.
I remember sitting on the burber carpet, newspaper spread to protect its cream color, my dad’s shoes lined up in pairs beside me. I’d take the first shoe – always the left, then the right – and place it over my left hand, my little girl fist inside where my dad’s toes spent their work days, the sole of the shoe facing the TV, the upper facing me. His shoes smelled of rich, warm leather, and with a fire crackling and snapping next to me, and with my family all together in the family room, shining Dad’s shoes was a ritual of comfort and contentedness.
With my right hand, I’d sweep with the soft bristles of the horse hair brush. Swoof swoof swoof swoof, I’d brush the dust off the toe cap, the sides to the heel, and finally the eyelets and tongue. Then I’d put the shoe and the brush down, turn the wing-nut to pop the lid off of the polish tin, and grab a soft cloth (maybe one of Dad’s old undershirts?) that I’d wrap around the first two fingers of my right hand. I’d dip into the waxy paste, its consistency like tinned lip balm, and with a gob of it on my clothed fingertips, I would rub it in small circles over every bit of leather on his shoes, staining the scuffs away. I’d brush them off one last time, then buff with a cloth til the shoe shined.
It was always so satisfying to wipe the dried polish away, the scuff marks replaced with a fresh, even coat of color, the shoes so smooth by the end of their buffing that they looked like they could be new. Like the man who wore them would be as polished and confident and ready for the world as they were, with their new shine. And the smell of the polish, its pungent scent rich and leathery and masculine, would linger in the den, and on the rag, and on my fingertips, a reminder of the hard-working shoes that took our dad to his job every day, and brought home food and clothes and family vacations.
It makes me wonder, do many men still polish their shoes? I’m not in the world of men much, and when I see them, they are usually wearing sneakers or canvas or some sort of shoe that doesn’t require polish. It would be a shame to lose the ritual of shining shoes, of the manly scent of leather and shoe wax, of wearing quality footwear that will not fall apart, and can be cleaned and conditioned rather than replaced when it begins to show its mileage.
I am thrilled that my husband has shoes to shine, and that he plans to shine them. I am looking forward to hearing the swoof of the brush, and the pop of the tin, and smelling the warm scents of leather, and shoe polish, and timeless quality again.
I quit my job. I lasted, what, six weeks? My heart just wasn’t in it anymore. And I can’t tell you how thrilled I am for that.
My first nine years at home were rocky ones. Motherhood did not come as naturally to me as I thought it would when I was pregnant with our first child. I focused entirely on preparing for childbirth, thinking that would be the hard part. But after our son arrived, and I moved from out in the world to inside the walls of our home, I found that mothering was not, in fact, intuitive. I had no idea what to do with a colicky baby whom I could not comfort, stuck inside that house alone with no adult companionship, no escape from the endless feeding, and diapering, and failed attempts at soothing. Nobody to joke around with, to bounce ideas off of, to talk about the makeover I just watched on the Style network while I nursed our baby for the 14th time that day. Just crying and puking and not-sleeping. I was accustomed to success, to laughing with adults, inspiring them to do big things – run marathons, raise thousands of dollars for the Leukemia Society. I was used to getting raises, and pats on the back, and “You rock!” So when our son continued to cry despite all the love and affection and wanting to help him more than anything I have ever wanted did not work, I felt like a failure.
And that was how I began my life as a mother – feeling like a failure. Since this was my new identity – being a stay at home mom – this did not bode well for my self confidence. Every time someone’s eyes would glaze over when they asked what I did, and I said, “I’m a stay-at-home mom,” or when a neighbor said “That’s all you do?” it was just more evidence that my choice to stay home was a poor one, and according to everyone else, what I did was easy, and boring, and not as valuable as actually working, like every other intelligent, interesting, modern woman does.
I tried to put on a brave face, but I was in constant inner turmoil, struggling to reconcile my drive to do more, to be more, to preserve some identity besides “Mom” with my deep desire, and my choice, to stay home with our kids. When our son was three, I launched a soap business, thinking I could bring in some money and stay home. At first it was great – friends and customers and fellow Etsy sellers validated me, the business grew every year, and I felt like I was doing something big and cool and “look what I did!” But ultimately, it consumed me. The success was hollow because, I’m ashamed to admit, I emotionally abandoned my family for work that didn’t pay and for strangers who told me I was awesome.
When I finally realized this, when our family was at a breaking point of too much stress for too little money, I decided last year to close my business and take my first job outside the home in eight years. I got a part time job at a Barnes & Noble within walking distance of our home, and I began bringing home a paycheck. I loved every minute there, partially for the paycheck, but moreso because I was finally able to get out and be me. I could laugh and be irreverent and swear and talk about books and be around 20-somethings, and contemporaries, and elders – all book lovers – and nothing I did, not one thing, reflected on or affected our kids. I didn’t have to worry that if I said “shit” some kid’s mom might not let their kid come over anymore (that never happened – just one of those constant “what-ifs” that plagued me), or that a parent might be horrified by a bawdy joke I made, or that our kids might be ostracized because my spiritual leanings were unconventional.
Working there was a much-needed release after eight years at home. It gave me an outlet for my adult personality, and interacting with my coworkers and with customers also reminded me who I am – an intelligent, interesting, modern woman. Once I felt that again, once I knew that in my heart, I did not need the job anymore.
So when I started working again here in Virginia, with a new shift in a new store, and conflicting work schedules necessitated childcare unexpectedly at 7:00 in the morning, or one of our kids would need to stay home sick, or I had to clock out early in order to rush home to meet the bus, I gladly kissed the job goodbye. We’ve learned how to live skinny after nine years on a single salary, and my tiny paycheck was not worth the stress that my job was causing.
More importantly, after the gift of several months with no job to go to, no business to run, just lazy summer days with our smart, funny kids who tell me, “You’re the best mom ever,” with my husband who makes me feel appreciated for who I am and what I do, I finally realized how awesome they think I am, and I no longer felt like a failure. After years of grappling with the “do I work or do I stay home?” question, I finally know my choice.
We had friends over last weekend, a couple with a 15 month old baby. The wife and I were talking about what we do, and she had taken a year off with her baby and is back at work now. Home life was not for her, but she seemed conflicted about that. When I told her my story – the story I’ve told here, of my own struggle, laughing when I told her it only took me nine years to figure it out – she looked at me and said, “So you’ve found peace, then.”
And I stopped, not having looked at it that way. There was an easing in my heart and in my stomach, and I felt the truth of her statement. “Yes,” I said. “I have found peace.”
Yesterday was our eight year old son’s special day*, where he got to pick a meal and a family activity for the day. Knowing his tendency towards lounging all day in PJs, I bribed him. I told him, “If you pick an active family activity, like, I dunno, hiking Dragon’s Tooth, I’ll make cinnamon rolls for breakfast.” Lucky for us, his sweet tooth pulls more weight than his lazy bones.
We’ve taken our kids on several hikes around Blacksburg, and they always love the first third of the trail. Then it all looks the same to them, and the boredom sets in, and they begin asking for snacks, telling us their legs hurt, wondering, “Are we almost at the top? Are we almost done?” Neither of us care about pushing our kids to be any certain way except the way that they are – we won’t push them to be scientists just because their dad is, or pastry chefs just because I like donuts and cupcakes and croissants – but we really, really, really do hope that they will enjoy and appreciate the outdoors. So we try to make it fun for them, taking them to waterfalls, pointing out cool spider webs, oohing and ahhing over golden leaves, showing them boulders they can climb. Playing 20 questions if it comes to that.
And most importantly, finding new trails that will keep them excited about the woods.
When I hiked Dragons’ Tooth with two girl friends a couple of weeks ago, a 2.4 mile trail (4.8 round trip) that involves nearly a mile of scrabbling over rocks, I knew the kids would love it. Their most recent hike was a really steep 2.3 mile hike (Angel’s Rest) with great views at the top and a beautiful trail to boot, but after a demanding 4.6 mile round trip, I think they were done with hiking for a while. We knew we had to pull out the big guns to get them excited again, so I showed our son photographs from the Dragon’s Tooth. Pictures of metal ladder rungs bolted into rocks, shots of sheer rock faces with the white blazes of the Appalachian Trail painted on them, photos of trail that was nothing but jagged ledges of stone. And the prize at the end of the hike? The Dragon’s Tooth itself – a massive sheet of rock, jutting 35 feet out of the ground like an ancient snarled tooth. That, and trail mix with M&Ms.
Our kids ran a good portion of the first half of the trail. They could not wait to get to the rocky part. And once we hit the boulders, and the sheer faces marked with the AT’s white blazes, and the rocky ledges, our kids may as well have been at Disney World. They were high as kites scrambling over those rocks, picking their own paths, hopping from boulder to boulder, then sprinting up the steep trail to the next technical patch. Our son declared, at least four times, “Dragon’s Tooth is the Best Hike Ever!”
The best part for me, though, was not just how much the kids loved the rocks (though that helped). It was the conversation. The morning was grey and raw, we had the trail to ourselves, and everything looked different than our normal hikes – more mysterious because of the mist and the dampness. On our way up, I pointed out some pink leaves that were still hanging on – papery ovals quivering in the deserted forest, ready to fall at any moment – and our son observed them, trying to pinpoint their exact color, when he finally proclaimed that they were peach. Not the darker orange color of peach flesh, but the delicate pinkish orange of their skin. He was specific about this.
When I exclaimed over lichens, plump and green like I had never seen them before – they were the same shape as the dessicated lichen discs we often see, and I wondered if they were those same black lichens, only hydrated – our daughter said, “They look like those noodles I like – the ones stuffed with chicken and cheese? Ravioli! They look like green ravioli.” And indeed, that was exactly what they looked like. I jotted this down for a future haiku.
On our descent, after both kids had climbed partway up the Dragon’s Tooth (our daughter wanted to climb higher, our son said he would never climb the tooth itself again – getting down off of it was too “freaky”) and after the four of us had eaten nearly two pounds of trail mix, the kids were subdued. They loved the rocky parts on the descent, but they were quieter as they scaled them. Once we were back down to the regular old hiking trail, we feared the tiredness and boredom would set in.
So we talked about farts. For probably 15 minutes. We talked about animals farting in the woods, and our son asked why we never smell them. So we said, “You can’t smell their farts if they’re not even around. Have you seen any animals today?”
“Yeah, chipmunks.”
“Well, chipmunks are pretty small. We probably wouldn’t be able to smell them anyway if they farted.”
Meanwhile, our son explored a hole in a tree, sticking his head inside to see what he could see.
“Be careful,” I said. “A chipmunk might stick his butt out and fart on you.”
And then we talked about chipmunk farts and what they probably sound like (a short pffft or bzzt, according to Dad). We talked about a bear’s fart after hibernation, and how godawful it would smell after being held in for three months. To which our son replied, “I fart in my sleep, why wouldn’t a bear?” Yes, this is true. We talked about bird farts, and how we can’t smell them because they’d be even tinier than chipmunk farts, and besides, birds are dainty and would fart high in the sky, where nobody would ever know.
And so on.
After the fart conversation died, I slowed down with our daughter and held her hand while we strolled through the leaf litter. She told me, “I know what function means now.”
“Oh yeah? What’s it mean?”
“It’s the job something does. Like on a plant, the seed’s function is to grow a new plant. The stem’s function is to hold up the plant and bring water to its different parts. The leaves’ function is to make food, and the flower’s function is to make seeds.”
And then she told me about the life cycle of a plant, all the while warming my big hand with her little one, impressing me with her first grade knowledge of botany. I thought I’d stump her when I asked what part of a plant a pine needle might be, but after thinking about it a minute, she answered “I think it’s a leaf because it comes off of the stem.” Right-o, Smart Tart.
We ambled our way back to the parking lot, glad we had hit the trail early, because now the lot was full. I smiled to myself. After hearing our son say somewhere along the way, “I love those peach leaves, and the little baby pine trees, and the ravioli on the rocks. Basically, I just love all the things that nature makes,” I had to agree with him that Dragon’s Tooth was the Best Hike Ever.
The Dragon’s Tooth, Catawba, VA
Peach leaves
Ravioli Lichens
Ladder rungs on AT
Rocky trail
Dragon’s Tooth in the clouds
*We instituted Special Days last year after feeling bad for dragging the kids around on errands, or feeling like we could never all agree on what to do on a Saturday afternoon. So now, we rotate. Each weekend, one of us gets a special day. On a person’s special day, in addition to getting to choose the brunch menu, a special dinner, or a dessert on their day, the special person also gets to choose a family activity. This motivates my husband and me to set aside a chore-free, errand-free time for the four of us to hang out, and it has been a huge hit with the kids. They’ve had a lot of fun trying new foods, going to the antique car show for Dad, going to the conservatory for me, and especially, not having to go to Home Depot or the shoe store when it’s their turn to be special. I highly recommend it.
The house is silent. My coffee cup warm in my palm. Our son is sleeping across the hall, snuggled up in his warm bed, our daughter snoring upstairs. My husband’s head is buried under a pillow to muffle the sounds of floorboards creaking, of the bathroom doorknob rattling, the roar of the hairdryer as I ready myself for a 7 AM shift shelving books.
I had it really good for several months there. No home-based soap business to run. No time card to punch. The leisure to walk the kids to the bus stop in the morning, hike with the family on the weekends, lift weights. Read the paper. Make home cooked meals. Paint my fingernails. For the first time in my nine years at home, our kids were in school all day. I had quiet and solitude during the day (gasp!), and I was shocked to find that even with the kids out of the house, my days were full of work – paying bills, grocery shopping, sweeping, vacuuming, laundry, dishes…
And it was with this realization that I finally appreciated my role as stay-at-home mom.
All these years I’ve struggled with my place. With being a strong, educated woman who chose to stay home with our kids. I regularly (and grudgingly) performed mundane chores, endlessly loading and unloading dishwashers and washing machines, always restless for something more, acutely aware that I had earning potential while our debts piled up. I have no passion, no career ambition, no drive so great that it trumps my desire to anchor the family in our home. But despite my deep desire to serve as that anchor, my restlessness persisted, and I was always torn, wanting to stay home with our kids while also feeling like I needed to work outside of the home to find the stimulus I craved.
What I did not realize until I was finally alone in our house was that it wasn’t just stimulus I craved. It was peace. Solitude. A slower pace. I craved freedom to manage the household and perform my chores without interruption, without anyone needing anything from me, without having to speak or listen. Space to spend time inside my head without feeling like I’m neglecting someone for it. Enough separation that I can’t wait to see our kids and my husband when they come back to me at the end of the day.
Once the kids started school, I began enjoying the simple pleasure of pulling clean towels warm from the dryer, folding them, and putting them away. I delighted in the small transformations that took place when I ironed wrinkles out of a shirt, swept leaves off the porch, or scrubbed blue toothpaste splatters out of the sink til the white basin sparkled. I made our home welcoming for the kids and my husband on their return from long days at school and work, and I derived great joy from that. Because once they came home, nobody had any more work to do.
Over the past few months, I finally comprehended that my work at home is valuable, its currency time instead of money. I fell in love with my at-home-mom role, and for the first time in my domestic career I felt like I was actually good at it. I gave my family, and myself, the gift of stress-free leisure time, and a clean, pleasant home to enjoy it in.
Of course, I understand this now that it’s too late for us to enjoy it. Thanks to the debts we took on in order for me to stay home with the kids all these years, I’m back at work again. A part time morning shift opened up at Barnes & Noble just as the budget dictated it was time for me to earn some money, so at least I will be able to work while the kids are in school. I won’t miss dinners and weekend family time like I did when I worked the evening shift in Minnesota. We just have to adjust. The chores have to be squeezed in somewhere. The kids and I miss our mornings together. We could pack for a weekend trip for four in the bags under my eyes from four consecutive days of waking up at 5am.
But there is an ironic beauty in all of this. Even though I have less freedom, less time, I have carved out space for a hope and a dream that I did not make time for before. For stimulus that does not require a career out in the world, only a little peace so that I can rattle around in my own brain. In the quiet of the morning, when the house is still asleep, and I don’t want to risk the clatter of putting dishes away, the silence is broken only by the quiet tapping of my fingers on the keyboard. I have finally found time to write.
I was unloading the dishwasher the other day, and my wedding ring clinked against a glass bowl, making a sound so similar to a sound from childhood that I was transported instantly to a motorboat, zipping through briney rivers, the sun on my face and the wind in my hair. I even caught a whiff of salt air.
I grew up on a tidal creek off the coast of Georgia (on a small “hammock” island just before you get to Tybee Island), and we spent every weekend during the summers out on the boat. My mom was in charge of the beach bag, chairs, towels, snack foods, lunches, and packing the cooler, and my dad was in charge of everything relating to the boat and the dock – fuel, mechanicals, boat and dock maintenance, crab traps, lines, first aid/life jackets, and driving the boat. My brother and I would cast us off, then I’d take my seat in the bow, my head hanging over the side like a dog, and Adam (my brother) would hang out by the steering wheel with my dad. And as we pulled away from the dock, when my dad first put his hand to the stainless steel wheel, his wedding band would clink against it.
Throughout our hundreds of hours on the rivers, the clank of my dad’s ring on that steering wheel was as much a part of the weekend soundscape as the buzz of the motor, and it always, always made me feel safe, and secure, and loved. The sound, because it was made by his wedding band, was an audible reminder of my dad’s love for my mom, and for us, his family. And because it was tied up with my favorite thing on earth (riding around in the boat with my family) the clang of of his ring against the stainless steel wheel captured every good memory, every happy feeling of those childhood summers – the salt smell of the air, the warmth of the sun, the fun of the four of us being together, the freedom of the wind and the water, the thin crust of salt on our skin at the end of the day. Cold Cokes and salty snacks.
So when my wedding band clinked against a glass bowl the other day, that little sound filled me up. I could feel the warmth swelling in my heart til it overflowed. I was there again, as a kid in the boat, with my dad at the wheel. I was safe, and free, with salt air in my nose and the wind in my hair. It made me wonder what small thing, whether a sound, or a scent, will send my kids back to childhood when they’re grown, standing in their kitchen, remembering.
This was originally published on my (soon to be retired) Suds Blog on July 15, 2011. I thought it might be nice to republish it here for Father’s Day.
Butterfly Mind 