Advent candles
The light in our bedroom in the morning is so beautiful. Almost every day I try to take a photo of it. Joan actually wakes up before the sunrise but I just turn her over onto her back and let her coo at the ceiling for 40 minutes while I climb back into bed. Funny thing about doing stuff like that with babies: they really don’t mind, you just have to bring yourself to do it. Then I watch the sunrise with her at my side and Joe still fast asleep. From our view, there’s a crane silhouetted directly in front of it, they’re building another high-rise across the way. It will be a luxury building that only a few can afford to live in, but I support the idea of higher concentrations of people downtown anyway, though I wish it had a few subsidized apartments to bolster it. To give it a little heart.
The bricks have puckered up and seem to radiate a chill, just as they radiated heat in the baked summer. As long as I get everyone dressed warmly we can wander just as frivolously as we did in warm weather. This is my new moment of accomplishment, my big inhale of satisfaction: everyone is warmly dressed. It feels like a gauntlet, reaching this place every winter, with mittens, hats, coats that fit, shoes that fit, and everything on all at once. I think of an old country song that is something something We had no shoes in the summer, but NEW shoes in the winter. Yes to that, country mama of old, I know where you’re coming from.
On that subject I really enjoyed my friend Melissa’s rumination on getting everyone dressed warmly.
Warm clothes and clean hair. I’ve come to realize that bathing my children doesn’t come as naturally as the shampoo commercial makes it seem. On top of Lux’s own suspicion of the bath, there is my general forgetfulness that it exists at all. One perk of this is that whenever Lux’s hair is clean, Joe and I can’t get over how nice she looks. Keeps us easy to please.
I find myself thinking of Sylvia Plath. I shouldn’t bring her up as I know almost nothing about her, but like all mothers I encountered in my past, I feel I have wronged her in some way. I misjudged her. I remember thinking scornfully of a woman who would kill herself while her children slept upstairs. The word abandonment occurred to me, of course. And it was, it was abandonment, and reading studies like this that bring up the role of the mother in a man’s younger years, and thinking on how Sylvia’s son killed himself late in life…the implications are undeniable. But anyway, Sylvia had two young children at home, by herself. A single mother trying to make a living with her writing. Her book comes out and it gets crummy reviews and yet she’s still supposed to make oatmeal every morning. I feel very sorry for her now, by herself like that, and think of her.
I guess I’ll have to work my way through all the mothers I ever judged before I had a baby, and quietly apologize. Light a candle for them. I’ve been lighting more candles anyway as each evening now the moment of darkness is creeping further up the clock. It lands at 4:10 now. I wouldn’t mind lighting a candle and having their ghosts keep me company until Joe comes home. Maybe they’d give me a thumbs up on this venison chili that turned out a little heavy on the chili powder. Lux is so into the pink candle on our Advent wreath. She can’t believe we haven’t lit it yet. It must feel like an eternity to her, these two weeks before lighting it.
12 Comments
Andrea (Book-Scout)
I thought a lot about “those” mothers when my son was first born. I couldn’t believe how I had misjudged them. But then, I had never experienced the way 3am can be both deathly quiet and screamingly loud at the same time. I have learned a lot about benign neglect this year. I mean, I am totally obsessed with my kid and would die to protect him, but also feel like it’s good for us both to pretend to ignore each other sometimes, you know? Hugs to you and Joan and Lux. Waiting for that pink candle is hard. xoxo
http://www.scoutandjem.typepad.com/bookscout
Rachael Ringenberg
The nicest comment as usual, Andrea. So nice to hear from you.
melissa martin
Thanks, Rach. It is quite the feat, huh? Naomi is also perplexed as to why we keep ignoring the pink candle. 🙂 Poor Sylvia..and poor us with that oatmeal pot to clean. It’s number one of my list of worst things to wash.
Rachael Ringenberg
Haha I’m so glad you brought that up. It is brutal to clean that pan. There must be some hack for it.
Liz
You are just SUCH a beautiful writer, Rachael!
Rachael Ringenberg
Thank you!
Susannah Williams
Hi Rachel, I’ve been reading for several months now and am finally coming out of the woodwork! If you’re wondering who was on your site for hours at a time in September from Raleigh, NC…that was me…listening to the songs you had up at that time. I was totally touched by “Intermission.” But I have kept coming back for your thoughts and writing. I don’t remember which post it was, but your description of motherhood as the “lazy summertime” of a woman’s life spoke to me, despite the fact that my two young boys have made me more physically active (and physically exhausted) than I’ve ever been before. Anyway, I just wanted to say hello, from one person who enjoys thoughtful writing to another.
Rachael Ringenberg
Thank you for commenting! So nice to hear all that. I’m glad you liked the music. I wasn’t keeping up with it, so I took it down. But that whole album by Coeur de Pirate is great.
I’m in such a slow slow summertime stage right now…and yet so exhausted! It’s quite the combo.
linds frances
you’re a splendid writer!
Jessica Clare
Beautiful as always, Rachael. And here’s an idea for that wretched oatmeal pan! 🙂
http://www.amazon.com/Nylon-Pan-Scrapers-Set-2/dp/B000JHKKNG
Rachael Ringenberg
Annoyed at myself for forgetting to reply to this comment forever ago! I do have one of these–they are super helpful. I’ve had one since I got married, six years ago–still going strong! Joan likes to chew on it now too. But still the pan, it gives me some trouble. : )
Hannah P.
I kind of love Sylvia Plath no matter what. And she lived on Beacon Hill too, for a stretch. Lovely post. 🙂 Travel well this season!