Cherry pie and WTF mental health
Gargantubaby, age 4, to Mommy: You’re going to put me to bed. So you’re going to have a bit of a rough night.
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My notes about Gargantubaby are so old I feel like a liar for using them. It's been four months since I've written anything creative or kept notes on the exploding-ly cute things my kid says and does. Life keeps happening, and I think, I should write about that. But I don't.
Why? Because this:
Never in my life have I actually prioritized my mental health. And I've been prioritizing it for four months now. As it turns out, watching a lot of TV and not doing shit is what prioritizing my mental health looks like. Importantly, I finally — finally — decided to put my kid in his own bed YES I KNOW HE'S ALMOST FIVE I WASN'T READY HE'S SO FUCKING CUTE WHEN HE GIGGLES IN HIS SLEEP. I stopped cooking, and I walk as much as possible in the mornings at Heron's Head Park. I keep my head down at work (mostly), and I don't start fights (mostly).
Things have to get pretty fucking bad for me to make serious changes to my habits, because my habits have served me well. Staying up too late drinking wine and watching My Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, then calling in sick the next day because I had PTO? That was a good three years, and I loved every second of it. Traveling through Southeast Asia for four months with a Compulsive Liar Slash Sociopath because I was afraid to be alone? Let's be real: There's a lot of BS you don't have to deal with if you're a woman traveling with a man. Killing myself for six months to write a funny book because the publishing window had opened and I'd fought for decades to get it open? Worth every minute.
But earlier this year, something snapped. I recently reread some of my old blog posts, and I can see myself working up to it. Global pandemic with two kids? No bueno. Middle age coming like a fucking train? No bueno. The tsunami of changes since I turned 40: getting pregnant, getting married, moving, going through childbirth, becoming a parent, becoming a stepparent, being dragged into court for some terrifying bullshit, being misdiagnosed with ovarian cancer, surgery, recovery from surgery that left me with chronic pain, who am I anymore as I get older and further from the person I thought I was, etcetera fucking etcetera?
As it turns out, switching jobs after seven years was the last straw. Switching jobs, as it turns out, is not a small thing. Goodbye, annoying but familiar and deeply established work landscape where at least you were 100% yourself 100% of the time and had some social influence and friendships. Hello, huge nonprofit where no one knows you or has time to joke around or do anything that's not WORK WORK FUCKING WORK — where no one, in a public Slack channel, will respond to your message, "Did I just have a hot flash?"
No laughing emojis.
No corroboration.
Crickets.
The change was so startling, so unexpected, that a number of months ago I just shut down. I watched all five seasons of "Insecure." I stopped writing. I stopped marketing my book. I let email pile up. I stopped keeping up on social media. (Don't get me wrong: I was still frantically researching elementary schools and unloading the dishwasher 40 times a week.)
But I just kind of … let go. I'd always wondered, sort of bitterly, what is it like for these people who just have jobs, who go to their jobs during the day and then come home at night and just kind of hang out with their families and go to bed?
I’LL TELL YOU. IT'S AMAZING.
I took every goal off the table except 1. my mental health, and 2. my relationships with my immediate family. As it turns out, that's enough to fill my waking hours. Did you know my son needs to learn how to read? Swim? Ride a bike? Wipe his dirty butthole until there's nothing left on the toilet paper? That SJ, my stepdaughter, and I need to play Taco Cat Goat Cheese Pizza after dinner? That the four of us need to play Sorry or Charades or Twister until the farting gets so bad we have to light the sage stick? That at 6 p.m. when I get off work GB and I need to lie in the hammock in the backyard as SJ and I drink a beer listening to the wind in the neighbor's coconut palm?
These things take time.
It's not like nothing has been going on SUP SCOTUS JAN. 6 COMMITTEE COVID BUFFALO UKRAINE UVALDE. I could write about the shooting that happened right in front of our house a few weeks ago wherein I had to legit drop to the ground because POP POP POP POP POP and soon after found my children and partner cowering in the bathtub.
I could write about my parents turning 80 and celebrating their 50th wedding anniversary.
I could write about my younger brother being diagnosed with a benign brain tumor and having surgery to remove it (OK, I'll write about it just as soon as he gets out of the ICU and we know he’s OK). (He’s OK! Full report next blog post.)
We went to Hawaii. My kid’s going into kindergarten in the fall (he’s been saying for months he's scared because it's "too much new”). SJ’s in court again for the same tired bullshit.
But you know what? Everyone in my immediate and extended family is healthy (benign brain tumor notwithstanding). All of our parents, all six of them, are thriving, with all but two in their 80s. SJ and I make each other laugh no matter how much we annoy each other, and after months of NVC coaching we don’t get in fights anymore WHAT. We sit together at the kitchen table after dinner, abandoned by our kids, and just talk. The kids are fucking amazing. Every movie night, every time the movie ends, GB jumps up and says, "Mommy, time to dance! Make me dance!" and I grab his little hands and make him twirl and do toe touches for the entirety of the credits. My stepdaughter does many things I’m under strict orders not to discuss here (remember 12?) — but trust me, she is fierce and beautiful.
When I say, "Warm it up, Chris," GB says, "I'm about to."
When I say, "Warm it up, Chris," again, he says, "That is what I was born to do," like a little robot MC.
When he has to poop he traipses happily to the bathroom, calling out, "Time to drop the kids off at the pool!'
And when all else fails, I have a jam. You know that feeling, when you've just heard a new hit, and you're still only a few weeks in, and you listen to it on repeat and it sounds new every time because you haven’t worn it out yet? I have that right now, and it's this song. The video is weird. But I can't get enough. Hashtag blessed.
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Two days ago, on this piece of paper on which I’d written the kids’ names so they could have a Kid Olympics in the house (went over like a lead balloon!), Gargantubaby made a list of people to invite to his birthday party: ALL OF COPPER FRAND (“all of Copper’s friends,” for those who don’t speak kid). He is FOUR (for another few weeks!). He has NEVER just sat down and written words on a piece of paper by himself. His sister helped him with the “R” in “FRAND” (and, I suspect, the spelling). HE IS BRILLIANT.
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Oh fuck it – here are some notes from a year ago, when GB was still 3:
GB: I don't want our lunch to be disgusting.
Me (making lunch): OK, then.
GB: You pushed me and I'm angry.
Me: Well, I didn't push you, but I'm sorry that whatever I did made you angry.
GB: I don't accept your apology.
Me: You don't accept my apology? Where did you hear that?
GB: The Simpsons.
Me: WHO HAS BEEN LETTING THIS CHILD WATCH THE SIMPSONS.
SJ, as we block traffic on Divisadero Street in the van with the canoe on the roof on our way to go camping: I'm really glad we didn't just rob a bank. I'm feeling very conspicuous.
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SJ replaced the soap in the bathroom. I'm pretty sure I'm supposed to say thank you.
***
This recipe isn't fair, because cherry season is over. But last month we drove up to Brentwood for the annual U-Pick, brought home 17 pounds (and a cherry pitter), and got to work. SJ tossed a few gallons into his vats of homemade mead and wine, and I distributed cherries to some neighbors and made a pie. You need:
Some cherries
A cherry pitter
Some corn starch
Some lemon juice
Some granulated sugar
A premade pie crust
Some butter
Some brown sugar
Some oats
You need to:
Pit enough cherries to fill a premade pie crust. If you allow a 4-year-old to do this, count on some cherry pits making it into your pie.
Put the cherries in a bowl with just enough corn starch to coat the cherries and a scant tablespoon of lemon juice. Mix with, say, ¾ cup of sugar.
Put cherries in pie crust and bake. Somewhere around 400 degrees, 45 minutes or so. Maybe hotter, maybe longer.
When you take the pie out, it's going to be meh. So put half a stick of softened butter into a tall glass with a bunch of brown sugar and a bunch of oats, “stir” it with a dinner knife, and then drop it onto the pie. Cook it a little longer until it's done, and THEN it will be delicious.