That Minivan Life

Brooklyn and Nolan tumble into the mudroom where they kick off their sandals. I’m right behind them, glass of iced-coffee-going-to-water in hand. 

“You have one hour. I’m going to eat breakfast. Make sure your teeth are brushed and you find your water bottles before we head out again.” They scamper off to play and (hopefully) follow directions.

Summer began barely a week ago and already I feel as though I’ve been living in my minivan.

Our day kicked off with a near hour-long trek to drop Caden off at Summer Academy by 8 am. (Praise hands that concludes before The Fourth.) Brooklyn and Nolan have PlayNet on Tuesday and Thursday mornings from 9:30-noon. There have been playdates and park meet-ups. There will be day camps.

I’m already regretting not taking advantage of the bussing option to get Caden to and from Summer Academy. I thought I was saving him close to an hour each way. Well, I am, but I didn’t stop to think who would be spending that hour driving instead. *insert raised hand and slap-face emojis here* Tyson told me we should bus him and let it be known in writing here today honey that you were right.

(Also, the pollution. Why didn’t I do the communal drive option? I mean, I guess we hardly went anywhere last summer—the first eight weeks of lockdown we didn’t fill up a tank of gas once— so maybe I’m allocated some extra miles this year? Still. Ugh.)

This minivan life can be chaotic. And I’m not talking about the lunacy that is Minnesota roads under construction in the summertime. I’m talking about what happens inside those marvelous power-glide, push-of-a-button sliding doors.

There are kids who expect me to do some sort of backward yoga move to retrieve whatever toy/snack/piece of trash they dropped while also navigating us safely through traffic. Kids fighting over things like “looking at me” and “breathing” and “maybe they rolled their eyes at me.” There’s the general state of the car, what with the leftover Starbucks cups and granola wrappers and Goldfish dust and LEGO pieces which are expressly forbidden to leave the house but somehow migrate out to the minivan anyway. (That they escape in pockets and tiny fists while I distractedly dash through the house to go to the bathroom, yell at everyone else to go to the bathroom, ensure everyone has a water bottle, mask, and shoes, and run back in the house because I forgot at least one of these things is just a guess.)

We’re managing. Wow in the World has already emerged as the podcast of choice to get us through the long drives to and from Summer Academy. Water bottles and snacks are a must, even if stray pretzels and fruit snacks end up atrophying on the floor. 

Sometimes we’re more than managing. There are giggles during the podcast, even if it’s about poop and I’ve already heard that word or one of its many iterations 34 times that morning. Sometimes we sing along to Hamilton or Taylor Swift. Yesterday they practiced the song and actions they’ll be performing at church on Sunday, Nolan’s voice practically shouting despite the song being called “One Small Voice.” (Guess that title is only a nice suggestion.) 

There’s Caden climbing into the car after Summer Academy, full of stories about his day and reminders for tomorrow. “I made my picture like this and no one else did it this way, Mommy. They all made a flower because that was the example but I decided to do something different!” and “Don’t forget we need to wear our Summer Academy shirts tomorrow.” and “I spent my fifty cents of snack money on a Fruit by the Foot because you never buy them so I took my chance.”

There are the times where we drive and it’s blessedly quiet and I see their big blue eyes staring out the windows as the trees and the lakes and the buildings pass by. They seem to be just taking it all in and I think, “This is nice.”

I’ve only ever thought of the minivan as a thing to get us from point A to point B; from this one thing we’re doing to that other thing we’re doing. It’s time to kill: please sit down and buckle up and let me think and don’t ask too many questions. But having spent several hours in the car each day this week, I’m discovering it’s all its own time. 

It might not be exactly how I wish I were spending my time, which would preferably be reading a book in a hammock with a light breeze, cold drink, and children playing in the background. (Reader, my children never play in the background.) (Also, I don’t own a hammock. Details.) At the very least, I might wish I were listening to a podcast of my choice instead of the same few episodes of Wow in the World on repeat.

I’ve heard people talk about how much time they spend in the car running kids around, how they feel like a chauffeur, and I thought, Surely they’re exaggerating. Guess not. I have spent so. much. time. in my minivan this week. This wholly ordinary thing I never thought all that much about when it was only eight minutes to school and back, twelve minutes to dance class, ten to hit up McDonald’s for Happy Meals. 

All these drop-offs and pick-ups and the kids are there and so am I. We’re our own little universe bumping down the road, and sometimes they fight over who gets to put their hand where and I wonder if I should even bother with the ground-in crackers in the carpet and other times they ask about each other’s days and pass around compliments like candy and sing along to We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together and it’s both harmonious and also entirely off-key.

This post is part of a blog hop with Exhale—an online community of women pursuing creativity alongside motherhood, led by the writing team behind Coffee + Crumbs. Click here to view the next post in this series "Minutiae".

Boston

It began in middle school, as far as I can remember. When I listened to songs about breaking away and it stirred something inside of me.

Sarah Evans sang about talking to the scarecrow. The Dixie Chicks were ready to run. Then they sang about wide open spaces with room to make big mistakes.

Even though I grew up in the suburbs; there were no scarecrows around for me to converse with. Still, there was something about escaping, about soaring away like the blackbird, about a young girl’s dreams no longer hollow, that resonated deep within me. It feels deeply American, I think, and maybe that’s where this feeling comes from; that I must come by it honestly through my roots, deep into my very bones.

I remember playing The Chicks’ albums over and over with friends as we rode the bus for field trips, each trying to share headphones, long before earbuds were a thing, listening to one of our Discmans that would skip a beat when the bus hit a bump. I don’t know what my friends’ thoughts were on the songs, maybe they just liked country music. I did, too, but it’s the lyrics that did it for me.

+++++

It’s in college where the running-away feeling grows most vivid. And I’d run away for college, a little bit at least, moving three-and-a-half hours and one state further south. I moved there to get into the school’s esteemed interior design program, a program you wouldn’t have expected from a school surrounded by Iowa’s cornfields. I didn’t get into the interior design program the first time around, but I resolved to try again. So sophomore year, I waited in somewhat of a limbo, taking whatever courses I could to get me through to the end of the year and into the summer, when I would find out again if I’d been accepted. In the meantime, I was minoring in history and figured that was my backup plan, to turn that minor into a major though I had absolutely no idea what that would mean for a real-world job. (Maybe I’d work in a museum?)

That was the year Augustana released “Boston.” It hit that same “let’s-pack-it-all-up-and-run-away” feeling deep in my bones.

She said I think I’m goin’ to Boston
I think I'll start a new life
I think I'll start it over
Where no one knows my name

Whatever happened, whichever turn my life took, I was convinced Boston was the answer. Literally. Just the year before I’d packed up and moved to a school where I didn’t know anyone. I’d done it once, surely I could do it all again upon graduation? I would move out East after graduation, I was sure of it. Just the idea of Boston sounded dramatic, it sounded sexy, it felt posh yet familiar all at once.  This was my plan.

And then.

I didn’t foresee meeting Tyson on Memorial Day weekend after sophomore year. I wasn’t looking for a relationship. All I’m ready to do is have some fun. What’s all this talk about love? Instead of me, it was those single girl dreams that did the flying away.

+++++

I graduated a few years later with that interior design degree + history minor (so something worked out), got married, and moved to a brand new state all within a matter of months. In place of Boston, I ended up in Madison, Wisconsin, where Tyson was working on his PhD. It was still a city, a brand new one, where no one knew my name. (Well, except Tyson.)

And It was with Tyson that I ended up exploring Boston for the first time. We’d been married a little over a year when he had a conference there. As soon as I heard he was traveling to the city that had lodged itself in my brain I knew I had to tag along. We strolled around on a mild January day along the Freedom Trail and through Faneuil Hall Marketplace. We ate chowder and lobster. In the days to follow, I hopped on public transit and explored the city myself. I met up with a friend who introduced me to the glory of cannoli; I didn’t have near enough time to wander through the Museum of Fine Arts

Some cities are fun to visit. Chicago is this for me. Visiting Chicago is one thing; I’ve been there at least a half-dozen times. And it’s fine. But I have no desire to live there.

Then there are other cities. Like Madison. We grew to love it there. Eventually, plenty of people knew our names. Though we ultimately left Madison behind, a piece of my heart still resides there. And like Boston. I have to admit, even just on that short visit: it felt like it could have been home.

+++++

I realize the irony of this, writing it from where I live now, only 25 minutes from where I grew up. I did my undergrad in Iowa and we spent the loveliest five years in Madison and now here I am, a decade out from college, a full five years of being planted in the same place. Of course, I’m romanticizing Boston. It really did feel, during our visit, like I could live there. But who knows, if Tyson hadn’t shown up, what would have happened. I graduated college deep into a recession. Who's to say it would have worked out, that I would have actually had the chance to move out there, that Boston would have been all that I’d built it up to be in my head?

Still, I’d be lying if I said I put those running away feelings behind me. The opening chords of “Boston” still pull out that feeling in me, they still make me feel as though I could pack it all up and leave it all behind and head out east. Where no one knows my name. It sounds more charming than haunting to me.

I originally played these songs as a girl, then with dreams of the East Coast dancing in my head, as I drove back and forth from the Twin Cities to school. Later, I still played these same songs, but now I drove from Iowa to Madison to visit Tyson, during the year before we got married. I didn’t dream so much of leaving anymore. But I burned these tracks onto CDs, the tail end of the mix CD era. I’m not sure, but I might have the original CDs stashed away somewhere. The songs still meant something to me even if I wasn’t planning to fly away quite as far as I’d once imagined.

It’s not a mix CD, but I did put together a Spotify playlist. It’s a little moody and a little emo and a little folksy and a little country and a little cheesy and a little lyric-heavy. Mostly, they’re the songs I lean into when I’m feeling my most wistful Enneagram 4-y. It’s a bit of a mish-mosh but these are the songs I think of when that flying away feeling takes hold of me. They’re all, in some way, about searching for something. As The Chicks asked, who doesn’t know what I’m talking’ about?

This post is part of a blog hop with Exhale—an online community of women pursuing creativity alongside motherhood, led by the writing team behind Coffee + Crumbs. Click here to view the next post in this series "Playlist".

Joy, Unexpectedly

Unexpected joy, the prompt said.

Yeah, right. I thought.

I didn’t want to do the blog hop prompt this month because joy—even (especially?) of the unexpected variety—seemed too hard to find right now. Who has time for that? The days are a cycle of wake up (in the darkness), feed the kids breakfast, drink coffee, make sure everyone changes their clothes and brushes their teeth. Some days we’re distance learning and three mornings we’re driving to preschool and two days we’re driving to elementary school and I’m saying “Just click the box with the link right here like you did yesterday” and “Did you remember to hit the ‘submit’ button?” and I’m adding Play Doh to our Target pick up because the preschoolers go through it like crazy. I’m making lunches and adding carrot sticks which is more a hopeful idea than something they’ll regularly eat and trying to work during quiet time and then survive the afternoon when we can’t really go anywhere. I make dinner and we take baths and read books and tuck blankets and go to bed and get up to do it all over again.

There’s a pandemic and an election and have you seen what the president has done now and for the love of God, vote and women are taking on the bulk of the pandemic burden and it’s heavy and people are out of work and out of money and out of time and patience and energy.

I don’t have time to find joy. Even unexpectedly.

Until, that is, an October surprise.

Not the political kind. But a white-stuff-falling-from-the-sky kind.

And I found it.

Joy.

Unexpectedly.

Unexpected joy is a snowstorm in October that would normally drive you crazy but this year feels like a free activity I didn’t need to exert any mental energy to plan or prepare or execute in any way.

Unexpected joy is taking stock of all the kid’s winter gear in September so when an unexpected October snowstorm hits you’re prepared and basically deserve an award.

Unexpected joy is hot cocoa with marshmallows and Frozen because that’s what you do during the first significant snowfall. It’s the continuation of a tradition that you thought would have died a couple of years ago but, magically, hasn’t.

Unexpected joy is a morning cup of coffee where you take a sip to discover it’s been brewed just right.

Unexpected joy is finding them in a giggling pile on the floor and you have no idea why.

Unexpected joy is Halloween candy before Halloween.

Unexpected joy is a new hobby in a year you didn’t even know you were going to need it. And when’s the last time you even picked up a hobby, anyway?

Unexpected joy is two six-year-olds who pick up books to read just for fun at all times of the day. It’s waking up to realize they can read fluently even though you swear, you would swear on a stack of Bibles, that they were sounding out “The C-A-T on the M-A-T” only yesterday.

Unexpected joy is realizing that despite everything, all of it, all the things going on, joy snuck up on you. Because it’s unexpected, dummy. And so you’re forced to write about it, after all.

This post is part of a blog hop with Exhale—an online community of women pursuing creativity alongside motherhood, led by the writing team behind Coffee + Crumbs. Click here to view the next post in this series "Unexpected Joy".

When the Rest Falls Away

Rest. What a thing to try to find right now. With no school. No childcare. With three kids who are very much here—in a way they haven’t been for a year or two now. With chores and tasks and to-dos piling up, one on top of another. With a pandemic. With my sleep either coming in a blackout sort of way, hard and heavy and without dreams—or in a restless way, with worries and imaginings intermingling all night, resembling anything but rest.

There are only pockets of rest left. Little pieces in the day that often aren’t very consistent. Though I try to make them be with routines and rhythms sprinkled throughout the day. But that brings me back to those children. Rest isn’t found in long stretches or in the ways I’d like to find it: through pedicures and lengthy brunches with friends, with kids off on overnights with grandparents, consistent date nights, by doing literally anything at all without the threat of an actual global crisis lingering over my head. The heaviness so often seems to win. Until it doesn’t. Until I remember there is something uplifting in my morning cup of coffee, in sunshine, in the kids’ uncontrollable giggles. As Glennon Doyle writes in her book Carry On, Warrior:

“You have been offered ‘the gift of crisis’…the Greek root of the word crisis is ‘to sift’, as in, to shake out the excesses and leave only what's important. That's what crises do. They shake things up until we are forced to hold on to only what matters most. The rest falls away.”

When so much else has fallen away, here are the things, the pockets of rest, I’ve been holding onto.

Giggles at breakfast time.

Iced coffee shaken up with heavy cream and vanilla syrup.

Morning bike rides when everything feels fresh and new.

Quiet (or, more often, “quiet”) reading time.

Walking laps around the park while the kids play.

Sitting and sipping more coffee while he figures out a new LEGO set.

Tacos for lunch is its own kind of spiritual ministry.

Sitting here with the window open every afternoon from 12:30-2:00. And every Saturday morning for as long as I need.

When she asks to do a virtual baking class. So we do.

Folding laundry. I know. I kind of love it. It feels calming and therapeutic. * insert shrug emoji here *

Reading on the front porch.

Or lounging on the deck.

That light while I water the plants in the evening.

And clay facemasks FTW.

This post is part of a blog hop with Exhale—an online community of women pursuing creativity alongside motherhood, led by the writing team behind Coffee + Crumbs. Click here to view the next post in this series "Rest -- A Photo Essay".

When the Light Isn't Where I Left It

I’ve been mulling over the idea of going where the light is.

The thing is, that light? Where it is changes for me. As often as my emotions, maybe, these days. What brings me joy one day (one hour, one moment) can be anathema to me the next. 

Sometimes my kids are the light and the next minute I want to ship them off to Siberia. Sometimes cooking is the thing that steadies me and the next meal I don’t want to chop another vegetable, fry another egg, or mix together flour, water, salt, and yeast ever again. Sometimes I can’t get away fast enough to type up the words in my head and other times I look at an empty page, certain I won’t have anything to say ever again in my entire life. Sometimes I’m so glad Tyson is here and we’re in this together and other times I want to self-quarantine myself away from him. Sometimes I find hope in the grocery store, in the fact that I’m out— free! —from my house. Other times it’s the most depressing place in the world as I walk around and realize we can’t even see each other’s smiles anymore underneath our masks. Sometimes I find the light in the normal, ordinary routine of our days. Other days I want to scream in frustration at the mundane and instead find joy in wearing a nice top and jewelry, in hosting snack time on the front porch, ordering lunch for myself just because.

You see my problem here. It can make things difficult, this finding of the light. It’s not always where I’ve left it.

Still. As I mull this whole “go where the light is” idea over, Albus Dumbledore keeps popping into my head.

“Happiness can be found even in the darkest of times, if one only remembers to turn on the light.”

I don’t only need to turn it on these days. I need to actively search for it.

It’s there. I (almost) always find it. Even when it’s not where I’ve found it before.

That breakfast light, though.

A real breakfast with a side of comfort reading.

School as an anchor in our day.

Just look how studious they are.

Unscheduled coffee break.

Unscheduled jump-off-the-Nugget-free-for-all break.

Chaos.

A teacher who captivates them with her videos as tulips listen in.

Lunch delivery. Just for me.

Happy sidewalk art.

Buds budding. The bluest of skies.

Friends who also live in your house.

Snacktime in the living room. (Previously absolutely, positively 1000% forbidden. Here we are.)

Friends who live in your house part 2. This time with LEGOs.

Cheers.

Impromptu PJ dance party.

The magic of books.

That evening light, though.

Flowers reaching toward the light, even as it fades away.

This post was written as part of a blog hop with Exhale—an online community of women pursuing creativity alongside motherhood, led by the writing team behind Coffee + Crumbs. Click here to read the next post in this series "Go Where the Light Is".