There just aren't that many moms around. I mean, there are lots of moms, but there aren't moms like the kind I'm talking about, that when that baby comes out and the hospital room is swirling around you like carnival music, the mom that just right then, she might not know it, but she flings her life aside, scooches over and makes room for that little baby right there in her hospital bed, and then that's it. I'm 12 years in, and I've never even wanted that side of the bed back. In fact, they should make bigger beds. The kids unfold around me with these long flapping legs and interesting thoughts on deep issues, and funny insights, they are real. And they need ALOT of pancakes.
I wish I had 47 babies. (I just held a month old baby tonight, a new cousin. It's amazing how fast you forget that you know nothing about babies. They're so INFANTILE. The REQUIRE things. I liked that, being ordered around by an 8 pounder. It was refreshing.)
Anyway, my niece the doctor was talking about moving to Visalia to do her road trip of a residency, or start her practice, or whatever doctor phase she's in. I don't even know where Visalia is, isn't it an onion? She said we should rent our house and move to Visalia for three years so all the cousins could be together, grow up together. I liked thinking of a nice big chunk of property, and horses, and all the cousins growing up like corn stalks around us. I liked that there'd be a doctor, and a Barry, and I could be the farm mom. Wear an apron, bake pies and make sure the pig was fed before we all set down to eat a hearty breakfast. I enjoy this role of Mom + Amish. Momish.
But then I thought about the little school here in dusty Sun Valley that we devote ourselves to, the one Emma is in, and the one Lilly just started. Where everyone knows us. Where the teachers are like cards in our pockets, well worn and bent, and warm. And Nathan's school, the big school, where even I felt overwhelmed until I met all his teachers and saw that he was important and smart there, and that they were funny and that one of his classrooms is way out across a garden, in a field. Right here, in Los Angeles. I thought about how I've always wanted to live in a place with less people, in a smaller town where there's no traffic. But then I have lived in LA these past 12 years - and despite it's sprawling seeming soulsuckingness, we have shrunken our lives to the circles of a small town. We play basketball in the little hidden gym, in the tucked away park a few blocks down a quietish street. The coaches all know our kids, and like them. We have a Target that is our second home, and keeps the fire stoked and the Icees fresh. We have grandparents we see every Sunday for fresh bread and a Farmer's Market walk. We have a pool house where people gather when they're hot because our door is open and we all like each other even though there's lots of yelling. We have a pretty small town, and everyone that we care about belongs to us. It's actually a pretty rich life.
So this job I do, this mothering, where I put people to bed at night, and eat too much at parties, and listen to my friends talk, and meet neighborhood dogs, this is a job I wouldn't take a million dollars for. At the end of the day I am fat with life. Batter fried. There's room for me, and room to grow.
