Late summer blows in like a sudden storm. The cold front sends me rushing to close the windows, their casings swollen open
for three months straight.
I remember the heat wave now like a lost lover, blurred with nostalgia and regret. Why didn’t I savor it while it was here? Why did I wish it away as I lay naked with the fan on, unable to sleep under that heavy summer blanket?
Now it is gone, gone for the year, and Autumn is upon us once more. I’m staring down the long tunnel of Fall and Winter, the light of next spring barely a pinprick in the distance.
Every year I think I will survive this change with some semblance of grace. And every year it floors me, knocks the wind out till I’m gasping like a kid fallen off a high swing, flat on her back in the dirt. All summer I was giddy with constant sunshine and ice cream and spontaneous swimming adventures in ponds and rivers. Suddenly we’re trading bikinis for fleece. Soon it will be time to get out the wool hats.
If I could go back to the scarlet poppies in May, those showgirls tossing their crinkled silks, I would. I’d go back to peonies, lilacs, back further to planting peas in the 8 o’ clock spring twilight.
But it’s late August. We still have two weeks till school, and my children won’t stop fighting. Summer has turned them into feral animals, eating with their hands, running around naked, scratching and biting and pulling hair. Our doctor gave me a little lecture about enforcing mealtimes rather than letting the girls snack all day on demand. She also told me to get firm at bedtime. It’s true, the best parents set clear limits with their children, but I’m just too tired to do it myself. I wish someone else could handle the discipline and let me lie back in bed, snuggling my girls and reading books.
I’m too tired to do much these days. Cooking dinner, for example. A real dinner, not just frozen pizza and some carrot sticks. Too tired to write the scintillating Vermont version of Eat, Pray, Love and send it off to potential agents. Too tired to build up my private teaching business, designing the perfect logo on the couch while the girls watch Angelina Ballerina. And too tired, way too tired, to slip into something silky and try to seduce my husband at 10 o’clock at night. [Read more →]
Tags: depression · motherhood · mothering guilt · Pema Chodron · when things fall apartNo Comments.



My baby is turning 3. The fact of her birthday slams into my hot sunny summer like a dump truck full of depression.



Today is supposedly a holiday, a day for schmoozing and sleeping in. But after a weekend of swimming, hot dogs, and kid time, I was ready to work. I was up with the sun at 5:15 and snuck downstairs into the blissful quiet of a sleeping house. I anticipated writing at my desk over a steaming cup of Chai, then going for a short run before everyone woke up. What a fantasy…