Magical Thinking (or: what happens when you talk to rivers)

I'm not sure what to make of this story. I'm not sure whether it even is a story or if it is only a series of unrelated events. Human beings like to make stories about everything: I forgot my umbrella, so it rained; I just got back inside and put the shovel away, so the snowplow came by; I have a really important interview tomorrow, so tonight my neighbours will have a party that keeps me up until two. It's called magical thinking and we all do it even when we know we're being ridiculous. Still.

This may be a series of unrelated events, or it might be a story. I'll write the events out in chronological order and let you decide if and how you want to put the causal chain in.

One.

Last week, my Thursday class on writing for periodicals, we were given an assignment to write a short 300-word piece on a location of our choosing. We must rely both on written research and at least one interview, due this coming Thursday in rough draft. She gave us some short instructions on how to go about getting and conducting interviews.

For two days I dithered. The farm, or the park on the Don? The park on the Don, or the farm? Both are meaningful to me. I'd enjoy learning more about both of them. I'd have no trouble getting an interview at the farm but written research might be tricky. On the other hand, there's an entire annotated bibliography online on material about the Don River, though I wasn't sure who I would interview. So many people were involved there that I had to be able to contact someone--I went with the Don. I printed reams of reports off of the City's and the Conservation Authority's internet sites, and wrote down lists of names that came up and their contact information.

Two.

Friday night I could not sleep. The thought of living off of savings panicked me. It does that sometimes. Despite my Scottish last name, my actual Scottish heritage is in the minority; I am more English and Norwegian than Scottish. Still, in terms of my fiscal personality, and I am Scots through and through. I save money. I keep budgeting spreadsheets and track numbers in my head and haven't carried a credit card balance in over ten years. Even if I had the money for it, I can't imagine buying clothes I don't need or a $300 sweater. In an era where it is common, and perhaps even expected, for people to live off of debt, it sends me into a panic to think even of spending my savings, let alone owing anyone money for anything. So Friday, I could not sleep. I thought about spending my savings. I thought about unexpected expenses that might send me into debt. I thought about graduating with no money and having no cushion for a job search. I spent an hour with the spreadsheet reassuring myself once again that any job in the next two years bringing in any money whatsoever will allow me to graduate with a savings balance, however meagre, and no debt, so long as I am careful. Sometime around 3 I fell asleep.

Three.

I started the week with a major sleep debt. Sunday night I sent off a few emails asking for interviews. By Tuesday I had nothing still. I left a few voicemails.

Four.

Wednesday was my day with Frances. I have no classes Wednesday, so I drop Frances off "right on time" at Ms. S.'s class, and pick her up when it ends. She loves this. She asks me every day if I will be able to drop her off "right on time" and pick her up "without going to daycare." When she sees me outside the window waiting for her after her s/k class, she jumps up and down and waves her arms and starts babbling at me through the glass. This is how happy she is to know that I will be picking her up and taking her home and she won't have to go to daycare that day. She ran to get her backpack and we walked home together.

It was a beautiful day but she didn't want to go outside. She wanted to play with me inside. I was terrible company; still exhausted from Friday night and worried now about the interview and the assignment. So exhausted that I was fighting sleep on the sofa while she talked to me, and I think for about fifteen minutes I actually did sleep. I was too tired to do housework and too distracted to do homework.

Around five o'clock one of the people I had left messages for called me back and told me that he had no experience with the park in question, but the next evening there was going to be a council meeting at which someone with a great deal of experience there would be present. All this while, in the background, Frances asked me "Who's that, Mummy? Is that your friend? Is that Greg? Is it Siobhan? What are they asking you? Is it my Daddy?" "Shh," I mouthed, pointing at the phone, trying to pay attention to the person on the other end.

Five.

Thursday morning I had still not caught up on my sleep. I had to get Frances to school at nine and then run and then get to school myself for 11:30 and then do a few errands and get home and do some homework and get Frances's bag packed for the weekend with Erik and then on my only night off that week I would have to go to a council meeting for a few hours so I could get an interview for a school assignment. I would never catch up on my sleep again, that was certain.

I was grumpy. To put it kindly. I furiously scolded myself for it; is it Frances's fault that you're tired and all of her requests this morning feeling like the one-more-thing you just can't deal with right now? No. Do you have to sound like such a bitch? Maybe you'll get an hour to yourself this afternoon, maybe you can have a nap then. Where are her shoes? Her shoes her shoes her shoes. Frances, go find your shoes, put them in your bag. Fine, I'll find your shoes for you, don't I have unlimited time and energy? Come on, let's go, we're going to be late again.

I came back. I collapsed on the couch for thirty minutes, drawing up lists of what I had to do that day, packing my bag for school, listlessly checking Facebook. I put on my running shorts and t-shirt and got my iPod and sunglasses and set off down the main street for the park. It was a beautiful day, but it meant little to me. At times I found myself actually crying as I ran, for being so tired and having my time so packed that if I were to accept such an excuse as exhaustion for not running then I would never run. I got to the boulders just downstream from the little waterfall, paced a little on the footpath running beside the river, looking to see if there were still any baby garter snakes (no, there were not). I checked the time on my iPod; 10:30. Shit shit shit, I had fifteen minutes before I was supposed to leave for class, I wouldn't even be home by then. I would be late again, and I had had no time to just sit there and be and enjoy my spot by the river.

At that moment everything seemed utterly hopeless. I would not be able to get my homework or assignments done. I would not be able to spend the time with Frances that I wanted to. I would not be able to find work in my new field or, after having taken time off, my old one. I was a fool who had reached too far for too much and would be punished for it. I would be exhausted forever, the time before me stretching off into a dreary distance that would continue unabated until Frances had moved out, and I would just move through each day as I had the day before, never being who or what I wanted to be, never being the mother I wanted to be or doing the work I wanted to do or being even a generally competent human being. I was failing as a single mother, and all I could do was slog through and wait for the day when I wasn't a mother anymore. The day I stopped failing would be the day I no longer had the chance to get it right.

What I would really like is a full day off and a hundred thousand dollars, I thought. Enough for the next two years and a small cushion when it's done. I knew it was silly as soon as I'd thought it, in part because there's no such thing as security and in part because I know people who have hundreds of thousands of dollars in the bank and are still petrified that the moment they lapse, the moment they step off the work treadmill, they'll end up homeless. And a full day off would come sooner or later. I just needed to hang on until it did--if only I could hang on to my patience as well and not unwittingly take my frustration and tiredness out on Frances, who doesn't deserve it.

The biggest downside of being a perfectionist is that you are always, inevitably, failing.

What am I here for, anyway? I thought. What's the point of all this? Just to slog through and be miserable and failing all the time until it's too late and it doesn't matter anymore? That can't be right. How can that be right? Why can't I just be a normal person who's satisfied with a regular, well-paying job and a nice house and a lot of television? Why do I have to go making everything so complicated?

I might have mentioned my green kin before, or that to me the river is practically a person, or that I like critters and speak to animals. So.

I quietly said to the river, if only you could tell me that I'm doing the right thing, that I'm on the right path. If only you could give me a sign.

Six.

I turned around and saw a hawk fly to a maple tree across the path. It clenched a branch far above my head and stared. Creamy belly, dark back, vicious hooked beak.

That's a hawk, I thought. Not a sign.

Still, I stood and stared at it for a few moments, more runners passing me with curious and faintly concerned looks on their faces, before I turned to home and ran back.

Seven.

I asked the teacher after class if in her opinion it was worth it to take an entire evening and sit through a few hours of council meeting for a chance at an interview.

Yes, she said. Absolutely. I could take notes during the meeting and ask a few questions on my way out the door afterwards and I'd be done and have some good material.

Of course I was asking her for permission not to, to tell me that it was too much effort for a small assignment and I should try to get something easier. I was asking for permission to take the night off. I didn't get it, so I went to the council meeting. And thought with dread about sitting in a roomful of strangers, introducing myself to them and asking them a lot of questions they didn't have time to answer.

Eight.

The person I'd spoken to on the phone had emailed me a copy of the agenda, which had included a request to RSVP the meeting coordinator, so I did. A few hours later, after Erik had picked up Frances, I set off by subway and arrived about fifteen minutes before the meeting was to begin. A table full of vegetarian food had been set out by the door; my stomach growled.

"Are you M?" I asked a woman standing near the table (M being the meeting coordinator).

"No," she said. "Are you Andrea? AF forwarded your email to me, I have it on my desk to contact you tomorrow. We were hoping we could publish whatever you're writing in our next newsletter. Of course we'd give you credit."

"Oh, of course," I said; thinking: clip!

"I can't answer much about that park in particular," she went on, "but the person you really want to talk to is sitting over there."

That was the person I'd been told would be at the meeting. I sat towards the back and took notes while eating pasta and cornbread, and afterwards she introduced us and we chatted about plans for the park and its history and his involvement there, and it came out that he works for a Big Canadian Media Conglomerate that owns a dozen or more major Canadian magazines in the Toronto area, during which the magical word "internship" made an appearance or two, which I threatened to make good on next summer. He then invited me to a tree planting in the park for Saturday and gave me a ride home.

I managed to get through an entire undergrad education in environmental studies and a ten-year career in the environmental field without ever having attended more than three tree plantings. But I smiled and promised to show up if I could arrange childcare.

Nine.

All day Saturday was a fine drizzly light rain, sometimes strengthening; and I was outside planting choke cherries, dogwoods and elders on the banks of the Don. It felt like giving thanks. Although right now it mostly feels like stiff shoulders.

~~~~~

Is it a story, or a series of unrelated events? Was it a sign, or a hawk? Does it matter?

Posted by Andrea at September 27, 2008 8:27 PM under The Green Family , The Supposedly Mature Student , Witch

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