I remember Capture the Flag. I remember my brother breaking his arm during a big neighborhood game. Capture the Flag in our day was unruly, unsupervised, snaked through wooded areas (suburban, not real country) behind houses and from yard to fence-free yard. I realize as S's PE teacher teaches them a (non-flying) version of Quiddich and amps up Capture the Flag to "Super Capture the Flag" ("It's way more awesome," says S), he's following their lead. He's finding out what the kids think is cool and morphing that into a lesson plan. Smart. Funny to be observing so closely the machinations of third grade and realizing the strategy. Find the in, meet them at their interest, then infiltrate with facts and skills.
It's dreary and muggy in LA, not common weather for us. I'm in the tiny backhouse sweating. The chickens are squawking. Our dog is stinking up the place. What looked like a potential place to do legitimate therapy when I first fixed it up now looks like a hovel. The carpet is stained and pieces of leaves are scattered around the floor. Bedding from our last visitor is piled on the couch, which is covered in hair from his dog. The yard is littered with chicken poo and feathers, the summer garden neglected, wilting, flies everywhere. I know it's not as Clampitt bad as I'm making it out to be, though it's not great. It's mostly that LA looks shitty when it's not sunny. I noticed that the first summer I was here, 14 - gulp - years ago. Unlike other places I've lived, LA doesn't look moody and mysterious on overcast days, it just looks depressing.
I have been skewing depressed lately, at least when I'm alone. It's not full-time depression. I am not having that much trouble getting out of bed and I don't return there. I've been cooking good dinners, playing board games with S, showing up to help at the school, organizing events, even having a reasonable amount of sex (with my husband, people). And it's not like I'm just going through the motions. I'm actually in joy in the moments when I'm with people I love. It's just that once they all head off - on the bike to work, into the classroom, off Facebook - I'm by myself. And I sink rapidly. I can always pull myself out - I'm a pro at finding the next thing to do, embarking on a project, focusing the energy - but what's astonishing to me is how quickly I sink back in. How quickly the cobwebs hanging off the windows and the dried chicken poop on the flagstone terrace dunk me down. How the screech of a power saw nearby just makes everything seem so dreary.
In third grade news, I asked S to change her pants just as she was walking out the door because she had clearly wiped her eggy hands on them. She didn't want to. I didn't care.
"But I don't care that I'm in stained pants."
"But I do."
"But they're my pants."
"Let's not do this. Just change your pants."
She goes into her room, pissed. Yells out, "Then can you help me find some other pants that are as comfortable? Those were the only stretchy leggings."
I'm about to lose it. I walk in, saying, "You might have thought about how comfortable they were before you used them instead of your napkin."
"But I didn't wipe egg on my pants."
"Then it mysteriously found its way there."
She has terrible table manners - largely our fault, I know - and only now am I confronting some of the hand-eating, the clothes-wiping, the loud burping. I haven't really cared to be honest, but am starting to feel like I want her to be able to accompany us to more, shall we say formal (read: less-caveman) settings without having to correct her in public. She is now expected to say "May I be excused?" and to clear her plate. That part's going well. The wiping-hands-on-pants, not so strong. Sadie is standing in her underwear, looking as annoyed as I feel. I pull out a pair of lovely, clean, dress-code appropriate dark blue comfortable leggings.
"Oh, those," she says.
I walk out of the room because frankly, I'm not in the mood for attitude. She's still cranking at me on her way to the car. I tell her to have a great day and I'll see her at pick-up. I'm done with the interaction. Jon turns around when they're at the car and runs back over, gives me a kiss. He knows I hate having to play cop/mama. He calls after drop off and says that she was fine as soon as they pulled out of the driveway.
"But you sound really upset. You okay?"
"I'm just blue," I say. "Just dumb. The weather, the...I don't know."
"Buy a house in Western Massachusetts," he says. He knows that's what I fantasize about when LA (or anything that happens to be happening while I happen to be in LA) gets me down.
"I guess I'll go look at some in a few weeks?"
For once, I don't really feel like flying across the country solo, even to look at potential homes for our future. I feel like he's calling my bluff by agreeing to Western Mass after years of complaining that he could never stand the winters. Depression comes with a degree of stuck-ness. I sit here in the stink, the noise, the gray, and wonder if a big, bold move would break me out. Maybe I should make an offer on a house, start to build our future somewhere else. But depression is mobile. 3,000 miles isn't far enough to outrun it. I just need to breathe through it and keep doing the good work. And enjoy my ragamuffin child.
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