The Inner Me

I’m on vacation. I took a week off from work (my official job title is “Stay-At-Home Mom,” though I like to refer to myself as a Write-At-Home Mom (thank you, Sunil Waikar, for introducing me to that phrase)). My husband is going to be a speaker at a conference that has lectures from 7-9am, at which time the slopes open and everyone skis until they close at 4, when lectures resume until 6pm.

This is our third year here, and starting last year, we’ve stayed at a condo with four other families, and each family is in charge of cooking one meal (so we don’t get tired of eating out every meal). This year, since I’m pregnant, I am not skiing (technically, my doctor said it would be okay to ski as long as I didn’t fall. And that, unfortunately, is not something I can guarantee). Instead, I am taking this week’s vacation to write. This condo can’t exactly be considered a rustic cabin in the woods where I can escape the modern world as Thoreau did; we have cable, a wireless internet connection, three televisions in public rooms (in addition to the televisions and dvd players in each bedroom), a recreation room with a pool table and workout machine, a hot tub (which I cannot enjoy – unless it’s by tossing things at the people inside it from an upstairs window, I suppose), and a gourmet kitchen. Nonetheless, this solitary time when everyone else is away skiing is a wonderful time for me to reconnect with me, the real me, and the inner writer.

Well, here’s what I’ve learned about me:
The inner me is sleepy. I sat typing earlier, before lunch (so I can’t blame a food coma), doing a little ten-minute writing exercise. I closed my eyes to picture myself in my garden (as the topic was “You are in a garden”) and I dozed off. I did wake up at 7 this morning, my pregnancy bladder ready to burst (it must be psychosomatic, since my uterus at 12 weeks is still too small to be causing any real pressure on any body parts, or so my husband keeps telling me. Well, since I have no intention of investing in any Depends at this time, I’ll just make sure there’s a bathroom nearby for the next six months, thank you very much). But since back home it would be 9am, it would really be more like I slept in. But I suppose going to bed at midnight (a.k.a. 2am Cleveland time) should be factored in. Oh well, the few minutes I slept seemed to refresh me.

The other thing I learned is that the real me is one heck of a procrastinator. I’m not really particularly a neat freak. And I have been told that housekeeping comes here daily. And yet, after lunch, during which I finished off half a bag of flaming hot limon Cheetos (quite addictive, evidently, and yes, flaming hot), I cleaned. I emptied the dishwasher, rinsed my dishes (I also had a pb&j and a glass of milk, not just half a bag of Cheetos), put them in the dishwasher, put the other dishes lying around in too, then wiped down the counters and the dining table. I went through the TV guide channel (well, the digital cable equivalent) for about ten minutes looking for CBS so I can watch my soap before realizing that it’s Sunday. (Okay, maybe that should be in another paragraph that starts with the subject “The inner me is stupid”). Seriously, I procrastinated today like I haven’t since I was in college. (But honestly, if I went into more details about what I did to procrastinate, I’d just be procrastinating again; for that matter, are these parenthetical comments I keep making just my way of procrastinating to avoid continuing to write, or is it just a sign that my mind can’t stay on topic and parentheses are the only way to let readers know I’m going off on a tangent again?)

But now, here I am with just over an hour before the others come back from a full day of skiing. A whole day has whittled away into just an hour. And that too the last hour before I have to start cooking (since we’re in charge of tonight’s dinner). I suppose that leaves the rest of the week free to write and not enter the kitchen.

I hear the rustling of plastic bags coupled with the clunking of boots on wood stairs. Someone has returned. Nope, it’s maid service. As she went into the kitchen, I had to tell her that the dishes weren’t getting cleaned in the dishwasher, even after running it twice. Her solution: let’s run it again. Well, of course. Why didn’t I think of that?

Ah, the inner me is sarcastic. I guess I have to know what I am to know what I’m not. For example, I am not a koala bear. I could not climb trees and chew on eucalyptus leaves all my life. Then again, if I did that and then wrote, I suppose I could write some pretty interesting stuff. At a zoo in Australia, I learned that koalas are actually kind of violent, and that eucalyptus leaves sedate them, so they’re so cute and cuddly because they’re high. Hmmm.
The inner (and outer) me is anti-drugs. Never tried them, never will, never want my kids to. But perhaps if I can discover my inner koala – yes, I just said I’m not a koala, but maybe I can pretend – I could be a better mother. Some days, I get stressed and worked up to the point that I am yelling at my kids for no reason (I’m sure I’ve written about that before). If I could meditate on the koala (isn’t that what they teach you in Lamaze classes, to focus on something to settle your breathing and calm you down? I never managed to take any of those classes, and since I’m on number three, I figure what’s the point; I know what I’m doing: breathe, push, repeat) and imagine how it would feel to be so calm, so mellow, perhaps I could stop myself from carrying on with my own tantrum. Perhaps this is the real “terrible twos” – how motherhood goes wrong when you’ve got two toddlers.

The inner me babbles. Well, I suppose I’ve known that, as have you, but really, is all this self-discovery really meaningful if I’m not learning anything new?

The outer me doesn’t like cold. I just realized that my recipes are on the computer and maintaining a charge on my computer would be good, so I had to scoot to the end of the sofa so I can plug in my laptop. Well, scooting over on a leather couch when I’ve already warmed up a spot kind of sucks. Oh, the hard life of a writer. And I know that when everyone gets back, after a long day exercising in warm, 51 degree weather wearing what will turn out to be too much clothing (and what the heck am I doing inside if it’s that nice out?! Oh yeah, trying to be a writer), they’re going to open up the windows and doors and try to cool down this place. Well, I suppose that’s when I’ll be going into the kitchen to start cooking, anyhow. It’s all good.

And finally, the inner me is happy to hear the voices and the footsteps of the skiers returning from their day. I’m not quite the solitary creature I sometimes believe a writer needs to be. But then again, if I were locked away in a room writing all the time, I wouldn’t have anything to write about. Or maybe the inner me is just good at coming up with justifications for not writing.