On Handstands and Heartstands

Watching my son balance against the wall (even though this picture is a few months old now) feels like an apt visual metaphor for the past week. The hours are long but the days are short, and even through the tedium of working from home, now, again, for the foreseeable future. When I find it hard to concentrate, I think of my boisterous boy here–balancing with all his might, trying to perfect something he’s never been thoroughly taught. He’s the epitome of an autodidact–when it comes to gymnastics. From cartwheels to front flips and roundoffs and somersaults, you would think that we weren’t following the naturalized parenting advice to “go where your children lead you.” But we did. We sent him to a few gymnastic camps to which he promptly said, “nope, too many girls. More hockey.”

The other night at the dinner table, we’d been having a harder conversation. There have been a lot of issues with the rules lately, and managing screen time, school being from a computer vs a classroom, and me working so much, means that when we do attempt to claw back some of the screen time, his world explodes. And when his father said something akin to the fact that you have to talk about your feelings with your family because where else are you going to do it, “I mean, not your friends, obviously.” To which my son immediately became a teenager, scoffed, and said, “Pffft, no.” Meaning he never talks to his friends about his feelings but essentially about Minecraft, and whatever else is happening on YouTube. I mean, I don’t get it, because I talk to my friends about my feelings all the time, in fact, I wonder, often if they don’t get sick of hearing about it.

Raising boys is not for the feint of heart. “Oh, mom’s crying again.” My son will often tease if we’re watching something that causes my waterworks (it doesn’t take much, truth be told, ever since I’ve become a mom, I cry A LOT). And I can’t never tell if it’s because he’s feeling empathetic or mocking me. That’s a hard one.

With their inherent contradictions, 10-year olds are a fascinating bunch. They want independence but can’t keep track of anything. He leaves a path of destruction throughout the house that is shocking sometimes (and I say this as someone who has learned for cough-cough so many years that I also have a Pig Pen-esque way of leaving piles of crap wherever I go) and still wants to be cuddled like he was when a toddler in bed at night. His feet have reached that floppy puppy phase where they’re huge and he hasn’t quite caught up to them yet, and we are missing, desperately, the structure of organized sports. It’s a balancing act, for him right now, hovering between being a small child and being a tween, and the transformation is something. He says “brah” without the least bit of irony but will be the first to point out that something is sexist. He is a fierce defender of animals and refuses to let his friends litter. He laughs uproariously at the word “junk” and what it refers to but still wants me to read Charlotte’s Web to him at night. Man, it’s been a blessing being home and seeing these changes–a gift of pandemic life–but I might give my left arm for us all to be back in school in September. Having never been a 10YO boy, sometimes I forget that he hasn’t been either, and all of the things he’s going through are absolutely new to him, too. Ah, parenting.

In other news. I’ve been rewriting a coming of age novel that I started a few years ago called Burlington that I actually really like. I workshopped some of it in the Harvard course I took over the winter, and feel like I have a solid way forward. My goal (putting it out there) is to have a solid, queryable draft by the end of the summer. It’ll be a reach with all of my “real” work to do + teaching + a course rewrite I’ve also been contracted to do with Ryerson. Living in the overwhelm has just become such a part of everyday life that I don’t even notice it anymore. Like if I don’t have 47 tabs open on my computer my brain shorts out, not knowing what to do next (like, relax? To echo my son, pffft).

The weather’s so nice that we’re out biking again (glorious). I’ve been slowly reading A Children’s Bible by Lydia Millet who is a writer I just discovered this year and one where I can hardly believe I’ve never read before. We watched Shadow and Bone as a family and have now moved onto Sweet Tooth, which I adore in all its Lemony-Snicket-goodness. And I’ve been editing some really amazing romance writers through work–which scratches that emotional itch that only Harlequin-type books can. But a post about that later . . .

All in all it’s been a good week. How are you?