Despair is tedious. Any step outside of it has to be easier than the effort involved in staying bitter.
After a long stomp in the cool shade of the forest, I shook off my shellack and started flexing my creative powers. I tracked down the only woman working at camp with a toddler, and asked her to come by on Saturday for a playdate. She and her daughter showed up ready to romp. The two little ones threw rocks in the creek, chased each other around the bouldering wall, and rode trikes fresh from winter storage over the center green. The two moms pried and revealed, a little at a time. Not all pals become friends, but some do.
Then I turned my sights on the diaper dilemma. My neighbors listened patiently to my rambling request about using the shared washer for laundering Eliot's pre-folds.
Over the past few years, I've learned camp draws many kinds of folks. The vets who hunt and fish on their days off. The executive leadership devotees driven by the latest organizational craze. The environmentalists who take on composting dining hall scraps. The teambuilders. The teachers. The former campers for whom camp is a terrible professional fit but have no idea what else to do. The sports enthusiasts, mountain men, hikers, water junkies, jugglers, and equestrians who love their thing enough to do it and teach it and live it summer after summer for measly pay and cramped housing.
But I am also coming to understand that for all their differences, most camp people share some basic commonalities. One of these is an underlying conservative approach to their relationship with the land. Living simply, walking lightly, consuming only as much as necessary.
So, when I proposed washing messy diapers in their machine, my neighbors were more concerned about my occasional capful of bleach than poop in the Maytag. Eliot's tush has been happily padded in cotton for the past three days.
As for the preschool moms and their not-so-subtle dismissal? How nice it would be to harumph away, "Who wants them for friends, anyway?" Because, well, I do.
It's all new-girl karma, I'm sure. I cannot know how many times I have mindlessly turned my back on the new chick at the party or in the fitness class while I was busy chattering away with my already-friends. How often does any of us think, "Hmm, I wonder if there is some new fabulous person in my town looking to connect? Maybe I'll go track her down!"
I have to take this fate into my own hands. So, with my hands, I crafted little "happy spring" packages for each kid in Eliot's class. Into the hand-decorated envelope went seed-packets of sunflowers, organic fruit leather, stickers, and an brazen yellow notecard with our family's name and number. Maybe no one will get an urge to call. Maybe some kids will just enjoy their stickers from Eliot. But if anyone does notice just a hint of my fabulous-ness, they have my number.
Monday, April 27, 2009
Thursday, April 23, 2009
A Sticky Situation
The house is ours but it also belongs to camp. We are tenants but we don't pay rent. We can dig up the yard for a garden but not for a shed. And our basement is not our basement.
Back in Colorado, we invested in (with generous assistance from the parental units) a brand new washer/dryer combo for the sole purpose of scrubbing out Eliot's smelly pants. The question of cloth vs. disposables was never even on the table. When I was pregnant, I ordered nine dozen Chinese pre-folds from an outfit in Vermont. From the beginning, we held our noses and sprayed down the cotton, soaked, sanitized, and dried them on the line in the warm, relentless Rocky Mountain sun.
We hauled those still sparkling white appliances all the way to upstate New York, loaded them into not-really-our basement, and crossed our fingers. The facilities director assured us he would be able to hook up the lines. His assistant director started puzzling out ways to get two outflow pipes and enough power to juice the monsters.
That was in January.
Now, mind you, we aren't without clothes washing facilities. In that very same not-our basement sits a cute, perfectly functional pair of laundry machines. A teeny little washer with a mini drum and a matched dryer. It's just that they are not ours. They are, as many a renter will understand, shared. We have neighbors on two sides with no laundry facilities who schlep across not-our backyard to do their washing a few times a week. So, I suppose I should be thankful the machines are just down a set of stairs from my hallway.
Our neighbors are all perfectly polite and flexible about each other's unscheduled washings. If someone leaves a load in the washer or dryer, it just gets moved on top, no problem. However, I do not want to assume it is acceptable to wash diapers in a shared machine. Especially one that is not mine.
For the past three months, waiting as we have been for a new pipe and an approved outlet, we have been dumping money and diapers in the garbage. Wal Mart has been seeing its stock rise as our supply of homemade flannel wipes and cotton nappies has been pushed aside by the throaway variety.
This is not a situation we can remedy with our own trip to Lowe's. Projects of this nature must be approved and usually completed by Camp Chingachgook's facilities guys. Fingers aching from the months of waiting, crossed and expectant, I suddenly notice we have reached the end of April. Camp is already seeing increased school group traffic. Summer sessions are just a flip of the calendar away. And the facilities guys? Well. With dozens of camper cabins, a dining hall, a waterfront full of boats, bath houses, program areas, and fifteen other staff houses to care for, you can imagine where our little home falls on the priority list. Eliot's poopy pants just don't make the cut.
Am I dedicated enough to the righness of cloth to track down an antique scrub board of my very own and just dive in, hands first?
Back in Colorado, we invested in (with generous assistance from the parental units) a brand new washer/dryer combo for the sole purpose of scrubbing out Eliot's smelly pants. The question of cloth vs. disposables was never even on the table. When I was pregnant, I ordered nine dozen Chinese pre-folds from an outfit in Vermont. From the beginning, we held our noses and sprayed down the cotton, soaked, sanitized, and dried them on the line in the warm, relentless Rocky Mountain sun.
We hauled those still sparkling white appliances all the way to upstate New York, loaded them into not-really-our basement, and crossed our fingers. The facilities director assured us he would be able to hook up the lines. His assistant director started puzzling out ways to get two outflow pipes and enough power to juice the monsters.
That was in January.
Now, mind you, we aren't without clothes washing facilities. In that very same not-our basement sits a cute, perfectly functional pair of laundry machines. A teeny little washer with a mini drum and a matched dryer. It's just that they are not ours. They are, as many a renter will understand, shared. We have neighbors on two sides with no laundry facilities who schlep across not-our backyard to do their washing a few times a week. So, I suppose I should be thankful the machines are just down a set of stairs from my hallway.
Our neighbors are all perfectly polite and flexible about each other's unscheduled washings. If someone leaves a load in the washer or dryer, it just gets moved on top, no problem. However, I do not want to assume it is acceptable to wash diapers in a shared machine. Especially one that is not mine.
For the past three months, waiting as we have been for a new pipe and an approved outlet, we have been dumping money and diapers in the garbage. Wal Mart has been seeing its stock rise as our supply of homemade flannel wipes and cotton nappies has been pushed aside by the throaway variety.
This is not a situation we can remedy with our own trip to Lowe's. Projects of this nature must be approved and usually completed by Camp Chingachgook's facilities guys. Fingers aching from the months of waiting, crossed and expectant, I suddenly notice we have reached the end of April. Camp is already seeing increased school group traffic. Summer sessions are just a flip of the calendar away. And the facilities guys? Well. With dozens of camper cabins, a dining hall, a waterfront full of boats, bath houses, program areas, and fifteen other staff houses to care for, you can imagine where our little home falls on the priority list. Eliot's poopy pants just don't make the cut.
Am I dedicated enough to the righness of cloth to track down an antique scrub board of my very own and just dive in, hands first?
Wednesday, April 22, 2009
New Kid
When I dropped Eliot off at preschool this morning, one of the moms made her son apologize to mine for his evil treatment on Monday. This was the first I'd heard of it. She told me her little boy had tormented Eliot, and that she'd had a long talk with him about it. I looked at my son dancing down the hallway. He suddenly looked different to me. No one had yet invited Eliot to any birthday parties. When we escorted the kids on field trips, all the other kids gravitated towards buddies, holding hands as they toddled down the sidewalk. But none of them would hold Eliot's hand.
Is it because he's the youngest in the class? Because he's the new kid? Because we live twenty miles out to hell-and-gone, and no one remembers him because we never go to any events in town? Or is he the weird kid? Is he done for, that reputation for oddness or outsider-ness determined in a preschool class following him into gradeschool, then his adolescent years?
I soothed myself quickly. He's two years old, for God's sake. He still has T-ball and swim lessons at the Y to look forward to. Day camp when he turns five. The kids in his preschool class will scatter to kindergartens in three different school districts. Nothing about Eliot is pre-determined. His likeability is still boundless. His capacity for friendship is limited only by his geography. He'll be someone's friend. He'll be fine. Chill, mama.
Then I went to pick up Eliot. I stood by the playground gate waiting with the other moms. Three of them stood in a little huddle next to me. Chatting. Making a plan. A plan to get together. Coffee, one offered. The kids can play on the swingset out back, another one said. And there it was. A playdate planned. And little ol' me, three feet away, completely and obviously not invited.
Really? Me, the new girl? The one who has mentioned her desire to make friends and find her way around here? Three months straight, twice a week, twice each day. I stand in the hallway or in the parking lot with these moms, pulling off boots or dropping off snacks. We chat. Granted, they all have gleaming hair and SUV's next to my frizz and dust, but they know where I'm at. They know I'm trying to make a home here. And there they are, all cake and coffee and kids on the slide. And me, still trying to find one friend. One single friend here that I can call, just one who can listed to me bitch to about this kind of cliquiness. And still. Nada.
Is this going to be life in upstate New York? A lovely, sun-kissed waterfront lapping endlessly across camp? Those crotchety, old mountains looming up over me and grumbling their disinterest in my petty complaints? The unrelenting sensation of loneliness, a desperate little flutter of need? And, of course, there is no quality more attractive in a person than desperation. And isn't this the kick in the ass? The loneliner I get, the more awkward my conversations and urgent my attempts to connect, the less appealing I become.
So, I tried to remember all the comforting little promises I made myself this morning. Zumba at the Y and summer work weekends at camp await. Someone, somewhere is a pal waiting to become mine. She doesn't know it yet, but I'll find her. I'll be fine. Chill, mama. As if.
Is it because he's the youngest in the class? Because he's the new kid? Because we live twenty miles out to hell-and-gone, and no one remembers him because we never go to any events in town? Or is he the weird kid? Is he done for, that reputation for oddness or outsider-ness determined in a preschool class following him into gradeschool, then his adolescent years?
I soothed myself quickly. He's two years old, for God's sake. He still has T-ball and swim lessons at the Y to look forward to. Day camp when he turns five. The kids in his preschool class will scatter to kindergartens in three different school districts. Nothing about Eliot is pre-determined. His likeability is still boundless. His capacity for friendship is limited only by his geography. He'll be someone's friend. He'll be fine. Chill, mama.
Then I went to pick up Eliot. I stood by the playground gate waiting with the other moms. Three of them stood in a little huddle next to me. Chatting. Making a plan. A plan to get together. Coffee, one offered. The kids can play on the swingset out back, another one said. And there it was. A playdate planned. And little ol' me, three feet away, completely and obviously not invited.
Really? Me, the new girl? The one who has mentioned her desire to make friends and find her way around here? Three months straight, twice a week, twice each day. I stand in the hallway or in the parking lot with these moms, pulling off boots or dropping off snacks. We chat. Granted, they all have gleaming hair and SUV's next to my frizz and dust, but they know where I'm at. They know I'm trying to make a home here. And there they are, all cake and coffee and kids on the slide. And me, still trying to find one friend. One single friend here that I can call, just one who can listed to me bitch to about this kind of cliquiness. And still. Nada.
Is this going to be life in upstate New York? A lovely, sun-kissed waterfront lapping endlessly across camp? Those crotchety, old mountains looming up over me and grumbling their disinterest in my petty complaints? The unrelenting sensation of loneliness, a desperate little flutter of need? And, of course, there is no quality more attractive in a person than desperation. And isn't this the kick in the ass? The loneliner I get, the more awkward my conversations and urgent my attempts to connect, the less appealing I become.
So, I tried to remember all the comforting little promises I made myself this morning. Zumba at the Y and summer work weekends at camp await. Someone, somewhere is a pal waiting to become mine. She doesn't know it yet, but I'll find her. I'll be fine. Chill, mama. As if.
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