Now that I am on the road to recovery (and Tim, of course, is sick and cannot move off the couch) I have no choice but to jump back into my life with both feet. Well, of course I have the choice, but I never give myself the "opt-out" option. It's full-steam ahead! Any temporary enlightenment gleaned from 24 hours of rest has flown out the window. It's a brand-new day, let's cram it full of activities!
But the reality is: it is raining, I am home with two small children and a sick man, we need groceries, and I have a storytelling project due this weekend. I started the day standing on my neighbor's doorstep in my pajamas (thankfully we are the kind of friends that can be braless and unshowered in front of each other at 9am) begging to borrow some milk so I can make a cup of tea. The day's main objective (besides keep everyone alive and my sanity intact)? Tell a personal story to an audience, with props if possible, and record it live and post it to YouTube.
To recap: this was a difficult week. I started a new job at the College of Craft and Design, Tim (who is in the military) was out in the field and everyone came down with the flu.
It was raining all day here and the kids were wired from being stuck in the house, so my youngest was running around screaming while Benji and I were trying to set up the props and tell the story without interruptions. I would give him stage directions and walk him through, but he would seem to forget half-way and get lost playing with the horse's saddle or just stare off into space and we'd have to start all over again. We ended up cutting the story from the original 7 minutes down to about 4, just so he wouldn't get bored and distracted. I figured if my prop man was bored, so was my audience! As we tried recording, Oliver would run in front of the camera to see himself. Then I would get way too frustrated to be an "engaging storyteller" (more like an exhausted control freak). We had technical difficulties with our sound either not matching up, or not working at all! By the time we did the last take, it was way past bedtime, which is why Ben was in his pjs and looks so tired. I didn't even bother showering, putting on makeup, or doing anything with my hair. My final words before the camera started rolling were something along the lines of:
"Tim! Take this insomniac hell spawn (my darling Oliver) into the hallway for five god damn minutes so I can get this bloody thing over with and everyone can go to bed! PLEASE! I know you are sick, but please do this for me so I don't go insane! I have to get this done!"
That, my friends, is what a good mother who doesn't drink and makes all her meals from scratch and doesn't let her kids watch TV all day sounds like after 18 hours of being cooped up in a condo with deadlines approaching. I use the term "good mother" loosely. Feel free to fill it in with your own, more colorful, adjectives.
The reason I told this personal story is because everyone can relate to a time when they wanted something to happen so bad that they would do anything to make it come true, even if it wasn't a very sensible decision. Now that I think about it, that probably applies to 75% of my life so far! Also, my son Benji has a difficult time with making mistakes and getting up and trying again, so I thought it would be a good story for him to absorb and be a part of. The reason we chose to tell it with the props we did is because we just happen to have a lot of horse-related toys (some leftover from my childhood and some of them belonging to Benji and Oliver). It was Ben's idea to wear the riding helmet (which actually belongs to Tim from his childhood horseback riding days) and Ben was insistent that he stand behind a table because he wanted it to be a bit like a puppet show. And that yellow 4th place ribbon is an actual ribbon I won that day (all the rest of them were 6th place!). Yes, I was THAT terrible at horseback riding. I still am! I've saved that ribbon all these years and it is now part of my children's dress-up basket, which you can see behind me in the corner of our play room.
My mum, I'm sure, will tell a much different version of the story where I'm much less heroic/stoic but she's getting old and pretty soon I'll be able to beat her in an arm wrestle. Who am I kidding? That's never going to happen. But I'm not sure if she can work "the YouTube" so I may have technologically arm wrestled myself to victory this time! Plus, we gave her the flu! Happy Mother's Day! Love you! xoxoxoxoxox
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