So, the bronchitis is clearing, but the awful cough won't go. I'm sorry I haven't been around much, but it's been a rough stretch, to say the least.
The flight to San Francisco was HORRIBLE. A terrible lady yelled at me, told me "You have no right to be flying with that child" (he cried when his ears popped). She called me "selfish" and "mean". She said I had runined the flight for her, and everyone else...
and when she shook her finger in my face as she screamed "I bet you didn't even pay for two seats"...
it was all I could do to keep from yelling back, "DID YOU, BITCH?!" (she was not a small woman)
She said if I "had to fly" I should be in the back of the plane. She was particularly upset that Mose was naked!!! (horrors!!!-- I took his clothes off because he was hot and I wanted to cool him off) "That baby was NAKED!!!!" she yelled as she de-planed.
I was just stunned. I actually cried. I didn't know how to explain that I felt terrible about his fussing, how to prove that I'd spent the entire flight apologizing to everyone around me.
But the long and the short of it is that Mose will not head for the west coast again. At least not for years. NOT because that woman was right, but because it was too hard on everyone. Most of all Mose.
Then too, a baby who wakes up at 6 am (barely doable) at home, wakes up at THREE am in California (really NOT doable).
There was a moment, when I found myself standing at a party in a swanky Asian bar/restauraunt, surrounded by free sushi and Kobe beef skewers and wine and cocktails (not to mention writers I really wanted to talk to). And there I was, with a carseat strapped to my back, and a diaper bag strapped to my front, and Mose on my hip, and a stroller in front of me, crumbled crackers down my sweater and my hair unbrushed (all day). And it was hours past bedtime (though only 6:30 pm) and I realized that
that chapter of my life is over, at least for awhile.
I was sad. I left.
I turned to go, and whacked someone (I'd like to think Doctorow) with the carseat. Just to punctuate the moment of realization. I didn't belong there. I can be a writer and a mom, but I can't be a mom and an "honored guest" at a fancy party at the same time, not well. I can't "do it all" and do a good job of anything.
Then I went and stood on the street and tried to hail a cab (to no avail, because cabbies hate carseats). Eventually, a nice men let me hide around the corner and
he hailed me a cab, and I jumped out and grabbed the cab. Poor cabbie. I tipped him well.
And so I came home, and cancelled some events, and found a babysitter to stay with Mose during the ones I cannot cancel. Because the chapter of "Mose and mom on the road" is over. At least for now. Sigh.
All this said, things are looking up. The semester is almost over. We are heading to Iowa for Thanksgiving, which will do my soul some good. I have found a rockstar nanny to stay with Mose a few days a week starting next month, so I can do some writing. Not a lot, but a few hours here and there.
Feeling better. But wow, I came through the fire to get here. Amazing how realizations/lessons always have to be so fucking hard.
I'm a mom. Not an "honored guest." And while I
can be a mom and a writer in many ways... when I have to pick one... I'm a mom.
Which is good. It's good.
