Summer Frustration

We subscribed to Gourmet again several months ago. We had stopped subscribing several years ago, when the focus appeared to switch--alas, under the reign of Ruth--from food to lifestyle, but M has now become entranced with all things food (shades of Oedipality?), and when the offer of a year for $12 arrived, I took them up on it. That $12 can now be considered well-spent with the arrival of a fabulous supplement to the August issue--I don't know if it's only for subscribers, but if you see it on the newstand, pick it up. It's 15 essays: some of them by food types, like Calvin Trillin; some of them not, like a lovely picture essay on breakfast by the wonderful Maira Kalman; every one that I've read so far is delightful.

But the essay that made me sit up and say "YES!" is one that I haven't finished yet and I haven't even gotten to the food. Ann Patchett is one of those "should" writers for me. No, I haven't read Bel Canto; yes, I know it's wonderful and I should. I did read the Lucy Grealy memoir--I think I even blogged about it. Yup. But she's never really grabbed me. These lines, however, speak my life:

None of this is to say that I do not love my life. I do. But sometimes it is the wonderful life, the life of abundant friends and extended family and true love that makes you want to run screaming for the hills. It is because you love so many people that you end up incurring too much responsibility.

(I would just add to her list: the colleagues one respects and the clients one enjoys.)

Lucky Ann Patchett gets to head for the Hotel Bel-Air when she gets overwhelmed. Me? I take the kids to the pond and hope they will stay out of my hair and I can get in at least a few minutes of reading.

***

It helped, today, when I reformulated my frustration in a way that is both less hostile and more accurate. It's not that I have to do everything, because I don't, though I do an awful lot. It's that I am always doing something, for somebody. And it's a rare moment when somebody, whichever somebody it is, is not in my face or on the phone or bombarding me with emails, a rare moment when I can do what I want to do, or do nothing.

***

As always, the thing that keeps sending me over the edge--no, there are so many things that send me over the edge, but this is a big one--is food. Shopping for it. Cooking it. Or, as the case may be over the last several weeks, neither shopping for it nor cooking it, and feeling constantly guilty. In this weather, I have no interest in food. But there are active young beings who must be fed, constantly, and watermelon only gets you so far.

And while we're on this theme, the CSA? Never again. The CSA, it is oppressing me. I forget to pick up the vegetables. I don't want to cook the vegetables. I want to go to the farmer's market and choose my vegetables, not have my vegetables assigned to me. They are beautiful vegetables, but I just want them, like everyone and everything else, to go away. They can come back soon, but for now, just for a little while, could they please go away?

On the other hand, last night I took some lovely organic heirloom onions and tomatoes from the CSA, and some feta from the Greek market on the corner (that had been in the fridge I have no idea how long) and made a summer pasta a la Libby that was delicious and not at all taxing, so maybe if I would just get over my aversions, it wouldn't be so bad.

***

But while we're complaining, I have decided that if I could choose only two things to add to my lovely home--which I have come to quite love, despite its size (small) and squalor (omnipresent) (though I must remind myself that the squalor comes from us, not the home, for we were squalorous in Red State as well, in a somewhat more substantial home)--the two things I would add, if I could only add two, would be a linen closet and a porch or deck on the second floor (which is our first floor).

***

One of the saving graces of life amidst summer frustration is neighborhood moms. I don't know how people live without neighborhood moms, and I am truly grateful that in both Red State Capital City Suburb and Town, I have been graced with fabulous neighborhood moms. Yesterday morning I had breakfast with C, and on my way to her house through the backyards A called to me from the porch and made me feel all neighborly, and in the afternoon M (my neighbor, not my daughter) and I did split shifts at the pond and even got to hang out a bit and whine in between my errands and her errands.

***

But now I am abandoning the neighborhood and heading off to enjoy some more of my lovely life and hopefully shuck the frustration. There will be another full-time adult, and hardly anyone has the phone number, and while our neighbors up the road have wireless, we will only partake once a day, if that. So there will be a cessation of blogging, and then I will return.