I think the hardest thing for me to deal with as a parent is just STUFF. I mean just THINGS, material physical objects - toys, clothes, knickknacks, pebbles from last summer found in random raincoat pockets, half-finished bead necklaces from the latest pre-K counting project, sticky candy wrappers layering the bottom of teens’ backpacks, winter hats lost and re-exhumated in the middle of June, water shoes worn once but cluttering the bottom of closets for several consecutive years. You know what I’m talking about. Not to mention the whole cycle of clothes to be purchased and immediately getting too small and needing to be sorted through and put in bags and seasonally donated to various friends and charitable organizations. And that, for the four children who are the apple of my eyes but whom I regularly consider housing in a straw hut and sending to school in a loin cloth – the same one for a week, please, so that I don’t have to do any unnecessary washing.
As an only child who grew up with a congenially disorganized mom and ended up slightly OCD as a result, the multiplication of things makes me very anxious. I now have heart palpitations when I walk into my 6th grade daughter’s room after she has left for school, leaving a trail of destruction behind her. And I never cease to be surprised when I realize that my toy-purging weekend in the boys’ room seems to have had little to no effect on the amount of Playmobil men, Magnatiles and Kapla strewing their rug every night. After more than fourteen years dealing with this syndrome, I should obviously know better, but I am sorry to say that the frustration and disappointment play out again and again as if I were a rookie first-time mom.
As bad as cleaning up can be, however, it is not half as bad as packing, in my book. In my pre-children life, I used to enjoy preparing my bags for travel. Aside from the necessary basics, I only had to think about what I wanted to wear, what I longingly anticipated to be in the mood for once I reached my destination. I had this wonderful ability to picture myself there and to enjoy the trip ahead of time. There was space for musing and imagining and being, yes, excited. These days, not so much. The mere thought of going anywhere usually triggers feelings of anxiety and dread. Not because I don’t enjoy traveling – I still do, and as a binational family we find ourselves moving around constantly to visit family. But as the travel date gets nearer, I invariably get cold sweats when thinking about the BAGS. No matter how organized I try to be, how early I start and how many lists I come up with, I find myself mid-way through the process feeling overwhelmed by all the THINGS and wanting to give up. It is all I can do not to pour myself a gin right then and there. I look at the underwear and socks and toiletries strewn on the floor near the various suitcases, and I just want to cry. There were times, after I had given birth to my fourth baby, when I actually did. As much as I despised packing for the whole family before he was born, my reluctance turned into actual repulsion after he came into this world. Take that ski trip that we somehow decided was a good idea, when he was just six months old. The day before we left, I found myself waking up in a frenzy in the middle of the night and checking every bag like a mad woman, running around the living room saying I wasn’t going to make it. The ski pants, the snow boots, the goggles, the gloves, the everything, multiplied by four children plus two adults (my husband cannot be trusted to pack his own bag properly, I am sorry to say, and his side of the suitcase always need a thorough security check) – it was just all too much. That night, I just literally LOST IT, in front of said husband’s bewildered eyes.
And I wasn’t very far from this state last week, when packing for a month of camp for my two teenagers, while simultaneously planning a dinner with a visitor from New York, a birthday dance party for my daughter and a weekend with another visitor from the States. The dinner was on Thursday, the dance party - at my house - on Friday, the kids leaving for camp on Saturday morning, and the cousin showing up at noon the same day. In some ways it was just what life looks like on a regular basis. But this time, maybe because that week was capping nine months of dealing mostly with domestic life since we moved back to Paris last summer,
I felt once again as if I had truly reached my personal limits. I deal so poorly with stuff, and suddenly it was nothing but stuff. There were packing lists of course, and, also, as lists go, missing items from the lists. The size 14 raincoat, it turned out, did not fit my 14-year-old boy anymore. Despite my best intentions to bypass reality and go into full denial, there was no ignoring the fact that the sleeves barely went past his elbows. So a new raincoat was ordered and supposed to get there the next day, but by Friday night it still wasn’t there. What did arrive, however, were the microfiber towels that I thought would take up less space in the bags but ended up taking more space in my already frazzled mind, when the delivery was rescheduled twice and the messenger frantically buzzed on the building Intercom, which happens to ring on my cell phone, on the night the phone was being used as the main music provider by the school counselor who helped out as a DJ that night. The DJ spent his evening calling me over music so loud I thought our walls would crumble and our neighbors would sue us and demand immediate reparation. Suffice it to say that the unnecessary towels made it, but not the raincoat. The next day my son had to leave with his father’s tattered windbreaker from before said son was born. And I had to spend the next six hours cleaning up the metallic blue pom- pom strings that were part of the U.S. (or was it just cheerleaders?) décor I had spent hours painstakingly putting together with my daughter’s friend’s benevolent mom.
So, yes, stuff. I hate it and there is now so much of it my life. I often feel like toys, shoes, clothes and the occasional party decor have deprived me of my very soul. For someone like me who used to spend her days in libraries or sitting at her desk, this motherhood thing has been hard, and I wish there could be a minimalist version of it the way there has been a minimalist trend of interior decor on social media. A version where bedrooms would remain immaculate, and laundry would be washed and neatly tucked away in lavender-scented drawers by a kindly domestic wizard, and kitchen counters would just have a few country-style, methodically labeled glass jars lined up on them, and suitcases would be the neatly organized carry-on kind that never needs to be sat upon at five in the morning to be closed before the Uber shows up while your kids are screaming bloody murder. And teenagers would never leave their underwear on the floor or their empty bubble tea containers under their bed, and my brain would only be busy reading and writing and never have to plan or handle anything having to do with the material world.
Now that my teens have departed for greener pastures and their rooms have become tidy and silent and quietly traversed by a dewy breeze when I open the windows in the mornings, I do experience some of this relief. But my house feels almost ghostly and of course, after only five days of this regimen, I would give anything to hear them loudly enter the house, claiming that the day was horrible, and the math teacher sucks, and mom have you seen my history book and what is there for snack. Which in turn would naturally cause me to want to go into hiding in the farthest recesses of my closet and never see them again. But that is how the mother cycle goes, and without the mess there wouldn’t be the joy that grips us when we least expect it and doesn’t let go. Oh, and about that zucchini. The night I had to emerge from my kids XL-size camp bags and pretend to be a graceful hostess to our visitor from New York, I made this summer carpaccio-type dish from Patricia Wells. I thought it worked beautifully but I will try it with slightly fried zucchini next time, or at least slice them thinner with my mandoline. That night, it was perfect as it involved no cooking whatsoever – an absolute requirement when dealing with 85-degree humid heat and no air conditioning (did I already mention that I recently fell retrospectively in love with my loud and clanky NYC air conditioning unit?). It involves slightly fancy pistachio oil but I have found myself using it on everything ever since I bought it. Do yourself a favor and make this anytime you feel overwhelmed by life this summer. https://food52.com/recipes/14318-patricia-wells-s-zucchini-carpaccio-with-avocado-pistachios
I think the hardest thing for me to deal with as a parent is just STUFF. I mean just THINGS, material physical objects - toys, clothes, knickknacks, pebbles from last summer found in random raincoat pockets, half-finished bead necklaces from the latest pre-K counting project, sticky candy wrappers layering the bottom of teens’ backpacks, winter hats lost and re-exhumated in the middle of June, water shoes worn once but cluttering the bottom of closets for several consecutive years. You know what I’m talking about. Not to mention the whole cycle of clothes to be purchased and immediately getting too small and needing to be sorted through and put in bags and seasonally donated to various friends and charitable organizations. And that, for the four children who are the apple of my eyes but whom I regularly consider housing in a straw hut and sending to school in a loin cloth – the same one for a week, please, so that I don’t have to do any unnecessary washing.
As an only child who grew up with a congenially disorganized mom and ended up slightly OCD as a result, the multiplication of things makes me very anxious. I now have heart palpitations when I walk into my 6th grade daughter’s room after she has left for school, leaving a trail of destruction behind her. And I never cease to be surprised when I realize that my toy-purging weekend in the boys’ room seems to have had little to no effect on the amount of Playmobil men, Magnatiles and Kapla strewing their rug every night. After more than fourteen years dealing with this syndrome, I should obviously know better, but I am sorry to say that the frustration and disappointment play out again and again as if I were a rookie first-time mom.
As bad as cleaning up can be, however, it is not half as bad as packing, in my book. In my pre-children life, I used to enjoy preparing my bags for travel. Aside from the necessary basics, I only had to think about what I wanted to wear, what I longingly anticipated to be in the mood for once I reached my destination. I had this wonderful ability to picture myself there and to enjoy the trip ahead of time. There was space for musing and imagining and being, yes, excited. These days, not so much. The mere thought of going anywhere usually triggers feelings of anxiety and dread. Not because I don’t enjoy traveling – I still do, and as a binational family we find ourselves moving around constantly to visit family. But as the travel date gets nearer, I invariably get cold sweats when thinking about the BAGS. No matter how organized I try to be, how early I start and how many lists I come up with, I find myself mid-way through the process feeling overwhelmed by all the THINGS and wanting to give up. It is all I can do not to pour myself a gin right then and there. I look at the underwear and socks and toiletries strewn on the floor near the various suitcases, and I just want to cry. There were times, after I had given birth to my fourth baby, when I actually did. As much as I despised packing for the whole family before he was born, my reluctance turned into actual repulsion after he came into this world. Take that ski trip that we somehow decided was a good idea, when he was just six months old. The day before we left, I found myself waking up in a frenzy in the middle of the night and checking every bag like a mad woman, running around the living room saying I wasn’t going to make it. The ski pants, the snow boots, the goggles, the gloves, the everything, multiplied by four children plus two adults (my husband cannot be trusted to pack his own bag properly, I am sorry to say, and his side of the suitcase always need a thorough security check) – it was just all too much. That night, I just literally LOST IT, in front of said husband’s bewildered eyes.
And I wasn’t very far from this state last week, when packing for a month of camp for my two teenagers, while simultaneously planning a dinner with a visitor from New York, a birthday dance party for my daughter and a weekend with another visitor from the States. The dinner was on Thursday, the dance party - at my house - on Friday, the kids leaving for camp on Saturday morning, and the cousin showing up at noon the same day. In some ways it was just what life looks like on a regular basis. But this time, maybe because that week was capping nine months of dealing mostly with domestic life since we moved back to Paris last summer,
I felt once again as if I had truly reached my personal limits. I deal so poorly with stuff, and suddenly it was nothing but stuff. There were packing lists of course, and, also, as lists go, missing items from the lists. The size 14 raincoat, it turned out, did not fit my 14-year-old boy anymore. Despite my best intentions to bypass reality and go into full denial, there was no ignoring the fact that the sleeves barely went past his elbows. So a new raincoat was ordered and supposed to get there the next day, but by Friday night it still wasn’t there. What did arrive, however, were the microfiber towels that I thought would take up less space in the bags but ended up taking more space in my already frazzled mind, when the delivery was rescheduled twice and the messenger frantically buzzed on the building Intercom, which happens to ring on my cell phone, on the night the phone was being used as the main music provider by the school counselor who helped out as a DJ that night. The DJ spent his evening calling me over music so loud I thought our walls would crumble and our neighbors would sue us and demand immediate reparation. Suffice it to say that the unnecessary towels made it, but not the raincoat. The next day my son had to leave with his father’s tattered windbreaker from before said son was born. And I had to spend the next six hours cleaning up the metallic blue pom- pom strings that were part of the U.S. (or was it just cheerleaders?) décor I had spent hours painstakingly putting together with my daughter’s friend’s benevolent mom.
So, yes, stuff. I hate it and there is now so much of it my life. I often feel like toys, shoes, clothes and the occasional party decor have deprived me of my very soul. For someone like me who used to spend her days in libraries or sitting at her desk, this motherhood thing has been hard, and I wish there could be a minimalist version of it the way there has been a minimalist trend of interior decor on social media. A version where bedrooms would remain immaculate, and laundry would be washed and neatly tucked away in lavender-scented drawers by a kindly domestic wizard, and kitchen counters would just have a few country-style, methodically labeled glass jars lined up on them, and suitcases would be the neatly organized carry-on kind that never needs to be sat upon at five in the morning to be closed before the Uber shows up while your kids are screaming bloody murder. And teenagers would never leave their underwear on the floor or their empty bubble tea containers under their bed, and my brain would only be busy reading and writing and never have to plan or handle anything having to do with the material world.
Now that my teens have departed for greener pastures and their rooms have become tidy and silent and quietly traversed by a dewy breeze when I open the windows in the mornings, I do experience some of this relief. But my house feels almost ghostly and of course, after only five days of this regimen, I would give anything to hear them loudly enter the house, claiming that the day was horrible, and the math teacher sucks, and mom have you seen my history book and what is there for snack. Which in turn would naturally cause me to want to go into hiding in the farthest recesses of my closet and never see them again. But that is how the mother cycle goes, and without the mess there wouldn’t be the joy that grips us when we least expect it and doesn’t let go. Oh, and about that zucchini. The night I had to emerge from my kids XL-size camp bags and pretend to be a graceful hostess to our visitor from New York, I made this summer carpaccio-type dish from Patricia Wells. I thought it worked beautifully but I will try it with slightly fried zucchini next time, or at least slice them thinner with my mandoline. That night, it was perfect as it involved no cooking whatsoever – an absolute requirement when dealing with 85-degree humid heat and no air conditioning (did I already mention that I recently fell retrospectively in love with my loud and clanky NYC air conditioning unit?). It involves slightly fancy pistachio oil but I have found myself using it on everything ever since I bought it. Do yourself a favor and make this anytime you feel overwhelmed by life this summer. Patricia Wells' Zucchini Carpaccio with Avocado & Pistachios https://food52.com/recipes/14318-patricia-wells-s-zucchini-carpaccio-with-avocado-pistachios
Ingredients
Lemon Zest Salt
1 tablespoon lemon zest, preferably organic
1 tablespoon fine sea salt
Salad
1 tablespoon freshly squeezed lemon juice
1/4 teaspoon Lemon Zest Salt
3 tablespoons best-quality pistachio oil (such as Leblanc) or extra-virgin olive oil
4 small, fresh zucchini (about 4 ounces each), rinsed and trimmed at both ends
1 large ripe avocado
1/2 cup salted pistachios
Leaves from 4 fresh lemon thyme or regular thyme sprigs, with flowers if possible
Fleur de sel
Instructions
Lemon Zest Salt
Combine the lemon zest and salt in a spice grinder, and grind into a fine powder. Transfer to a small jar and close the lid. (Store, sealed in the jar, in the refrigerator for up to 1 week. After that the lemon flavor will begin to fade.)
Salad
In a small jar with a lid, combine the lemon juice and 1/4 teaspoon Lemon Zest Salt. Cover with the lid and shake to blend. Add the oil and shake to blend.
With a mandoline, vegetable peeler, or very sharp chef's knife slice the zucchini lengthwise as thin as possible. Arrange the slices on a platter and pour the dressing over them. Tilt the platter back and forth to coat the slices evenly. Cover with plastic wrap and let marinate at room temperature for 30 minutes, so the zucchini absorbs the dressing and does not dry out.
Halve, pit, and peel the avocado, and cut it lengthwise into very thin slices. Carefully arrange the slices of marinated zucchini on individual salad plates, alternating with the avocado slices, slightly overlapping them. Sprinkle with the pistachio nuts. Garnish with the thyme leaves and flowers and fleur de sel. Serve.
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