Cinderella

I snuck away from my life recently and had a giddy 8 hour romp in the big world. Due to whining, sniffling, and fevering children, our plan for a town-based saturday chocked full of errands and rush was unexpectedly cancelled. Instead, I was re-assigned to go solo for my longest childless excursion since my long hours of labor with Nola (does childbirth count as childless experience?? If not, then we’ll have to revise that to say since February 18th, 2007 – YES…more than a year ago).

I loaded up the Ipod and sped away with notepads full of grocery lists and errandly goals. Just the 1.5 hour drive in Blase’s molding and malodorous vehicle whose odometer has been stuck at 160k miles for a couple of years now was an extraordinary pleasure. I listened to a workshop called “Word by Word” given by Annie Lamott. She said everything I needed to hear. It seems that I’ve been a little stymied the consistent experience of rejection in my nascent writing career lately. Her humor and cynicism and optimism and anecdotes were gourmet listenings for me. She talked about writer’s block, too. Her suggestion was to stop writing because maybe when you’re blocked, you’re actually a little empty and you need to stop and fill-up. That’s exactly what my day did for me.. it filled me up. I stopped along the way to take photographs whenever called by some ambling cow, floating red-tail hawk, or waddling porcupine. With no children to wake up or talk-out of their desire to exit the car before reaching our destination, I was living large.

I did do some speeding in order to get to the object of my desire… an afro-brazilian dance class with someone I’ve heard about for years and wanted to dance with for as long. Dandha Da Hora is a renowned dancer and teacher… her name was well known in the samba dance circles I crashed for a few years. I made it to class and though I was nearly the oldest and certainly the rustiest dancer out of the more than 40 people in attendance, I sweated in bliss for two hours. Our friends in Samba Da drummed for the class which dramatically compounded my sensory feast.

After class, I walked back to the dusty and peeling Honda feeling shiny and new. My subsequent whirlwind tour of the grocery store, biodiesel station, Costco, and the laundromat were ridiculously easy. By the fifth hour of being child-free in the world, I started to remember what I felt like. “I” in the biggest sense of the one letter word. Like, oh yeah, I exist on my own, too. I am not just the vessel and keeper and fan club president of two small and awe-inspiring children, I have some dimension and tangibility, too.

I rode home to the tune of more ipod-based inspiration and nursing a gigantic rice milk mocha. The surf was luminous, cows were mesmerizing, and hillsides were delicious with infinite texture. I returned, 7 hours later, bursting with love for my little family and seemingly infinite patience for their needs and antics (the infinite part turned out to be a little short-lived.. oh well).

Off to bed they went, husband included, and again, I had another FIRST …I left home AFTER putting the baby to bed. It’s been more than a year since I’ve left home after bedtime. Wow – it sounds a little pathetic to actually type that reality but what’s a blog for if not to unnecessarily expose and diminish yourself by divulging the lame details of your intimate life? No matter. There was a Valentine’s Masquerade Party afoot and I had to round up a costume fast.

What used to be our costume loft before we had kids has now been reduced to a crumpled costume box – albeit wardrobe sized. Doesn’t leave a girl much to work with at 7:48 on a Saturday night in the middle of nowhere. The clock was ticking – I threw on a wig, donned a mask, slathered on a bit of turquoise eye shadow and some fishnets before teetering into the mud in my lovely black heels as “Zesty”.

Three dances, four hugs, and one bon bon later, the endearing phone call from “Zesty’s” husband holding crying baby while apologizing for interrupting my rarest revelry meant I must rush home to do what he could not: breastfeed. I did just that and decided to get greedy.. the baby was sound asleep again and so was the husband and off I went for round two. Another dance, a snippet of conversation, and a glass of wine later I found myself winning the potted primrose prize for Best Costume. As I began my acceptance bow and speech, the ringing phone broke through the mellow sounds of festive purposelessness and a hand reached out to give me the receiver. “Jen?”… it was Blase. Nola was up again and his mammaries still weren’t cutting the mustard. Off I went again, this time for good, with trophy in hand. All totalled, I accumulated 60 minutes at that party. What a thrill… to be footloose. I was Cinderella – just for an extravagant and ravishing moment. The best part? I still got to be in bed by 9:50.. with two kids that wake up like clockwork no matter what time mom turns out the lights, that’s my kind of nightlife.