Skip to main content

In a minute


The first phrase that my daughter mastered was "in a minute".  She'd be talking away in unrecognizable chatter on her "cell phone" when she would be chirp, "in a minute".  This phrase has taken such prominence in my language since having kids that it has come to be used by both of my kids to my disadvantage almost on an hourly basis.

"Can you move these trucks out of the kitchen?"
"In a minute."
"Time for a bath."
"In a minute."
"Get your boots on."
"In a minute."

I misused the phrase for so long, it is hardly surprising that it would be misused by them.  Looking back, I'd say it all started in the early early days of first-time parenthood when I was shocked by the transition into the present that breastfeeding demanded.  RIGHT NOW. NOT penciled in for Saturday, NOT in about an hour, NOT whenever, but, RIGHT NOW.  Preferably sooner.  Because, well, because what else is there except for now? It took me so long to be at peace and willingly succumb to these demands without feeling a kind of doom and I think my use (and abuse) of "in a minute" grew to reflect how, as they grew more independent, i.e. were able to sit in one place with a toy for 2 minutes while I rushed to the bathroom or finished a cup of coffee before it got cold, I tried to restore my version of time.  I could resist, just for a minute, these demands on me right this second. To buy me time in situations with people who have no concept of it.



The trouble is, I feel like I have corrupted my children.  I've taught them that time can be stretched and manipulated. Things can be postponed, distanced and re-arranged in a thousand different ways.  They've started to take my lead and take it to a whole new level.  Why couldn't I have been corrupted by their version of timekeeping instead?  How would everything be different if I had been?

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A Small Craft

I accompanied my mother-in-law to an appointment this week. On the paper, preparing her for the appointment, it invited her bring along something to read or a small craft. As soon as I heard about this invitation to bring a small craft into an otherwise austere waiting area, my mind started to do bouncing somersaults in many different directions. Googly eyes? Glue gun? Feathers? Play clay? Friendship braclets?
4 comments
Read more

Bringing her back

 As the first anniversary finally passed, I exhaled.  The sadness still nibbled away at the edges, but not clawing deep into my chest like it had been with varying degrees of ferocity in the twelve months previously.  She died in early summer, so I plunged into ocean and lakes and ate fruit straight from the plant.  The grief became softer, the folk songs carried me along in the potato patch we planted in therapy. But then, I started to miss her.  The deep grief kept her so close and now as the pressure eased, so did her presence.  I held my breath and decided to be really sad this morning just to see her face.  To sit in her prescence.  My breath became jagged as I cried for her, for us.   This Taylor Swift cover  by Marc Maron broke me right open this morning.  Here's to staying broken open enough to keep your loved ones close. And then, I walked into her garden. The garden she envisionied, planted over and over and still pre...
Post a Comment
Read more

The words coming out of my mouth

  These days I wear a mask. I don't wear a mask all of the time, only when I am indoors or unavoidably up close with people who I don't usually interact with.  I wear one when I am ordering things, or buying things or attempting to enjoy some form of public entertainment.  I cannot rely on reading others lips. My lips are hidden. We ask each other to repeat.  We move our eyes or our whole heads to try and enunciate more clearly.  I say fewer words, more carefully chosen words behind the mask. Sometimes that is helpful, sometimes that just causes more confusion. I walked into the woods. I did not need a mask.  I only saw a few other people and they were distanced. Masks were unnecessary. After so much talking and not talking and avoiding talking out loud I am forced to examine when I speak and when I choose not to. This is not a bad thing since I can be an insufferable chatter box, just a new thing for my brain to adjust itself to. When I am not standing aro...
2 comments
Read more