The Maiden, the Matron, and the…Other One

‘Look at the three of you,’ she said. ‘Bursting with inefficient good intentions. The maiden, the mother, and the crone.’

‘Who are you calling a maiden?’ said Nanny Ogg.

‘Who are you calling a mother?’ said Magrat.

Granny Weatherwax glowered briefly like the person who has discovered that there is only one straw left and everyone else has drawn a long one.

-Terry Pratchett, Witches Abroad

 

I’m no scholar of antiquities or theology. But it seems to me, that there are some common themes regarding women in theology and pop culture. To wit, the Maiden, the Matron, and the Wise Woman. This triplicate was brought into the modern collective consciousness by Robert Graves in his book The White Goddess. Whether it is accurate in its description of a three-faceted Goddess, I don’t know. But hints and bits and pieces of her pop up all over the place – books, film, and just about every theological doctrine. And, it makes a conveniently packaged starting point to an evolving personal philosophy.

I had a wonderful opportunity to spend some time with a little bit of my extended family recently, and got to sit and have a conversation with a woman who is very wise in her own right. Aunt P is very dedicated to the Family. She spends her Sundays attending church, and then cooking a meal for her husband’s elderly aunt, with whom she then spends a good bit of the afternoon. She then drives to the nursing home to spend the rest of the day with Grandmother. Every Sunday.

And this seems to be a comfortable place for her, because this is her phase of life right now. This is her role. In her way of describing it, she had what she calls her “cookie-baking years,” when she had a young child in the house. Now, her daughter is grown and moved out, and it is time to care for the older generation. That’s just where she is in her life phases, and she is embracing the role, and being it. I admire that. It’s hard, sometimes, to find where you are right now.

But defining where we are just doesn’t feel like a neat and tidy thing – you can’t just point yourself out on a map.

I am acquainted with three women who, though they are a generation older than myself, are currently raising young children, the same ages as my own. It is an odd dynamic to think about sometimes – in many ways, we are very different, but in some ways, very much the same. We have so much in common, and yet – don’t. On the flip side of that, are the women who are very close to me in age, yet have children much older or much younger than mine, and for exactly opposite reasons, we have so much in common, yet – don’t.

It’s odd – we are many things, yet the ages of the children in our homes affects so much of how we choose to define ourselves.

Food for thought.

So now to discover: who, what, where – am I?

 

 

Every phase of our life belongs to us. The moon does not, except in appearance, lose her first thin, luminous curve, nor her silvery crescent, in rounding to her full. The woman is still both child and girl, in the completeness of womanly character.  -Lucy Larcom

Minimalization

The things you own end up owning you. – Chuck Palahniuk, Fight Club

I think I am at the nexus of MRB Chapters 2 (Hygiene) and 12 (Just Because, That’s Why).

I’m decluttering.

Or, I’m trying to.

I’ve been seeking out some advice on this.  Wow. Google “minimalist.” The results are staggering.

I have some favorites.

http://www.theminimalistmom.com/category/getting-started/

http://happyherbivore.com/2013/11/minimalist/

About

And then, one day, it clicked. It was well past time to dust the bookshelf – truth be told, I was putting it off, because it’s tedious. And I realized, that if I didn’t have so many books piled haphazardly, it would be easier to dust. So I pulled some off. No, I pulled a lot off. Put them in a box.

And then Dear Husband took it to Half-Priced Books. (To my horror, I recently discovered that Half-Priced Books doesn’t exist everywhere!  This is a used bookstore. If there isn’t one in your area, I’m sorry. You should get one.) Anyway. I was initially irritated. In fact, I found several reasons to be irritated. But, you know what? I only remember one or two of the titles that were in that rather full copy paper box. He got a whopping $14 for them, by the way.

But we really got more than $14. The shelf is kinder on the eyes – less visually cluttered. It’s easier to dust, so that’s a bit healthier, since now I’m doing it more often. But even doing it more often, it’s still a time saver, since I don’t have to take the time to move a whole lot of stuff out of the way. I also have to admit, I got a little peace of mind – our oldest child is a voracious reader and I had a large selection of, well, brain candy, and now she won’t stumble across some of the racier novels that I got rid of (that’s not to say that I got rid of all of them…..).

I feel a little bit inspired by that. Though I still have a long, long way to go.

I find the word “Minimize” to be a little intimidating, to be honest. So many different viewpoints on this. One subset of folks say that to be truly minimalist, you have to have fewer than 100 possessions. Yeah, I threw that one out the window. I think a lot of people cheat, anyway. I saw someone who considered his “library” to be a single possession. I have no idea how many individual books constitute a “library.”

Then there are the – How Little Stuff Can I Have? – people. The people who successfully travel the world with their newborn and the contents of two backpacks. Wow. Cool, but not for me.

I found a reference – I don’t remember where – that described minimalist living as just meaning that you don’t have to be quite so organized. Because it means that you don’t have enough stuff to NEED a complicated filing/organizing system.

I like that idea.

Sort of like the bookshelf. It’s friendlier.

It’s going to be a long road, but I have a goal: I want us to be friends with our home and stuff, instead of fighting with it all the time.

Ducks

Be like a duck. Calm on the surface, but always paddling like the dickens underneath. – Michael Caine

Quack.

I’ve been “quacking” up a bit the last couple of weeks. I even posted a pitiful facebook status about not knowing how in the world I was going to get it all together. I’ve since deleted it, though, because last night, my kids asked if I ever threw temper-tantrums, and I realized that I pretty much had.

There are a lot of folks in my immediate circle who are way more over-extended than I am. But I’m starting to realize that, even though they seem to be handling it all, I am starting to believe that maybe they are over-extended, but are better at hiding it.

I also have to admit that quite a bit of what I’m dealing with here is of my own doing. I do think that a lot of our activities and extras are worth doing, but sometimes their opportunity cost gets a bit high. “I really need to do xyz, but instead, I have to…” If I’m being perfectly honest, I don’t “have to.” The world is not going to end if we don’t do ballet, tumbling, Girl Scouts, volunteer work, blog posts, homemade sugar cookies, etc, etc, etc… Would our lives be richer if we didn’t do those things, but had a simple schedule and a well-organized home? No – it would probably be weaker for it. That doesn’t mean we have to do it all, all the time, though. I am learning to let stuff go. It’s taking practice, and sometimes, I let the wrong stuff go (and I’ve been called on it recently!), but I’m learning, and I think I’ll be a better human for it.

I’ve seen this before, but I’m going to go ahead and add my voice to the chorus. There are only 24 hours in the day. If I decide to play with the Girl Scouts instead of folding my socks and underwear, so be it. Besides, if someone is close enough to my underwear to notice that it’s wrinkled, then they better be thinking about something other than my housekeeping.

But we have to have it all, don’t we? And not only that, but it has to be perfect. I’m starting to come to the conclusion that we don’t live in that world, anymore. Sure, quite a few of the ladies I know hire housecleaning assistance – several ladies I know ARE housecleaning assistants – but who has live-in maids or housekeepers anymore? We have someone who comes once a week to mow the lawn, but, like the cleaning services, that’s not comprehensive. Those old movies, with the “ladies who lunch?” They had maids. Regular maids. Who also cooked. And from what I hear, complicated schedules for kids is pretty much a new phenomenon. Let’s just put this out there, too: whether you are a work-at-home parent or not, you are probably not, strictly speaking, a STAY-at-home parent. None of the “stay at homes” that I know actually stay home. Professional organizers, professors, photographers, saleswomen, models, students, artists, volunteers – so many folk I know have held on to their identities outside the home, whether for income, sanity, or enjoyment, but all do more than focus on exclusively home and family.

So that leaves us, where? In a world that has changed, but with expectations that haven’t. We are going to have perfect homes, yards, and schedules, and make it look easy, but without the staff to do it. Sure, you argue that don’t need staff, but in that case, we need time. Shall I drop my volunteer work with the elementary school, or have the kids drop their dance classes? Oh, wait – then we don’t have that perfect schedule anymore. Hm. Okay, so we’ll drop folding underwear. Oh, but that’s not the perfect housekeeping. Hm. Okay, so we’ll drop – free time!

It turns out, there is an actual medical diagnosis for this: Relaxation-Induced-Anxiety. This is the condition of feeling anxious when NOT under stress. A Women’s Health survey reported that 55% of responders felt guilty about taking downtime (October 2013 “the young & the restless”[sic]), and a survey of 300 college students reveal that 15% of them suffer from RIA (http://psychcentral.com/news/2012/12/13/for-some-relaxation-triggers-anxiety/49051.html). Besides robbing us of the ability to relax, constant stress is bad for us in other ways, too. I know we’ve all heard it: auto-immune diseases. depression. obesity. heart disease. skin conditions. sleep problems. Most of which feed each other. Our quest for perfection, and the stress levels that go with trying to maintain it, actually make it physically harder to keep ourselves in the condition necessary to keep it up, thus increasing stress….

So, that’s it. Maybe we would all be better off, if we admit that sometimes, these ducks are paddling a little too hard, and it’s time to float on the current for a while. I am making the declaration right now: Being imperfect makes me a healthier woman, a happier human, and a better mom.

It’s going to take a while to learn what to drop, what to keep, what to obsess about, and what to just let unfold on its own. But that’ll be its own type of adventure, won’t it?