This essay is a blast from the past, written way back when, when the kids were little, and I was juggling all aspects of a working mom’s life. Also, I was wearing a watch, not relying on my phone for time and date, so that tells you how old this piece is. It does seem appropriate for February 29 on a leap year.
Ten minutes off my morning schedule pushes the kids twenty off theirs. Any blip in routine has an exponential effect on their morning. If they don’t get going on time, I don’t get going on time, and we’re all late. It’s leap year and the calendar says March 8, my watch says March 9, it’s been off for more than a week and I have no idea how to reset it. It doesn’t really matter, since between work, kids, and gardens I can barely keep track of days anyway.
I can tell the seasons by the sun and the weather, but the days of the week confuse me. Christopher asks me each morning, “Is it a stay-home day?” I have to think. I rewind yesterday for hints of today. Do I have a meeting? Did I get up early enough to drive to wherever I’m supposed to be, by whenever I’m supposed to be there? Do I have time for a coffee on the way to work? Must I get to work on time, or will a few minutes late go unnoticed? If my muscles hurt from too much yard work, it must be the weekend. Or Monday.
Christopher gives up on my thinking frown and goes to ask his older brother. Mac knows the days, he knows the schedule, and he can do math in his head. He could probably reset my watch if I could remember to ask him. I remember my kids’ ages, but not my own, and I have to think twice about their birthdays. Mac’s is so symmetrical, born at 4:27 pm on April 27th. Or was it 4:28 pm on April 28th? Christopher’s is May 9, I think, or that’s our friend Amber’s, and his is on May 11.
After juggling five days of work, schools, and music lessons I live for the weekends when I can slow down. I like to watch plants grow. This week the cactus seeds started in their tiny terra cotta pots. Last week Johnny-jump-ups. I pretend to grow seeds for the kids’ education, but it’s really for the magic. Who knows what kind of cactus will germinate, or which ones will die from my kind over-watering. The Farmer’s Almanac recommends following the rules of astrology and planting when the moon is in Cancer, Scorpio, or Pisces. But I simply use the paper calendar sitting by our table-top nursery with its calm rhythm of days printed on a grid. It’s almost too late to start the peppers; less than six weeks until the last average frost date. The earth, the sun, and the moon still tell the plants to grow, the tides to move, the days to shorten, or to lengthen. They give seasons of fasts and seasons of harvests. There is the day to plant the squash when the nights remain above 40 degrees, the day to rest on a lawn chair when the afternoon first reaches 70, and the day to cover the tomatoes when the first frost threatens in fall.
Why do we have a leap day to add confusion to my barely coping routine? Leap day of leap year, the extra day added to make our calendar match the Earth’s orbit. The Romans had the Julian calendar; Julius Ceasar borrowed it from the Egyptians. But it wasn’t quite right; they had to keep adding leap days. In 1582, Pope Gregory the XIII put his best people on a review of the calendar, and implemented a more complicated leap day system, skipping the leap days on most of the beginning century years. But to get the holidays back on schedule, they had to adjust by about 10 days. Catholics at the time fell asleep on October 4, and woke up on October 15. Eleven days in a single night on the word of a pope. A loss of eleven days in the harvest month to gain the Gregorian calendar. What’s in a day, be it Sunday, or a week from Wednesday? Today if the church or the government took away our days we would protest, not for the artificial shortening of our lifespan, but for the permanent loss of one weekend. Two less days of rest and kids and gardens.
Then there is the day to go on daylight savings time. Another confusion of timing. One more disruption to my diurnal clock. One more challenge to getting the kids up and out on time. And my darn watch again. Each spring, I plant seeds to grow into violets and then forget to water them. Time and my memory can be the driest peat. If I studied the theory of relativity, I’m sure I could really have time figured out. Or I could let someone else do it, who has more time and inclination, someone who can do math in his head, and then write a book that simplifies the theory to plain English. Then I’ll read the book, in my spare time. Right after I read the owner’s manual for my watch.
One day I gained a quarter of an hour. That morning, I left my house at 7:45 for my half-hour drive to work and arrived at 8:00 am. Where did those 15 minutes slip in from? Where is that time warp on Interstate 90, and how can I hit it again? If I could just find those extra minutes each day, I promise I wouldn’t waste them. I’d spend them usefully and efficiently; I’d put in a load of laundry or tidy up the kitchen… or more likely I’d just have another cup of coffee, read the paper, and still leave late for work. Whatever the time of the morning, the name of the calendar, or the day of the week, I’m always waiting for the next thing, the next season, the next birthday, always reading ahead. Some days I need to remember to stop looking at my watch, finish my coffee, hug my kids, and go outside and pull the weeds.
[Photo credit pexels.com]
Michelle Eames 