It’s not because she’s managed to make a career of staying at home baking cookies and making pillows; it’s the way she implies the rest of us should be finding time to do this, too.
When my alarm clock begins it’s annoying plea for me to pry myself out of the bed at 6AM, I rarely greet the day with love and creativity. No, the day is generally greeted with a heavy sigh and perhaps profanity as I shuffle to the kitchen to start the coffee. During the 36 minutes allotted for my morning toilette, which sadly is little more than a quick post-yoga shower and a ponytail suitable for work, I’ll try to remember which suits might be hiding in dry cleaning bags, coordinate footwear, and double check that I’m not wearing a black brassiere underneath a white blouse. Whatever. It happens.
Given the time constraint, it’s reasonable to assume that I will not be stripping the bed and replacing the sheets. If the bed is empty I’ll yank the comforter up to give the appearance of having been made. Next: gather anything that vaguely resembles wash and toss it into the laundry room, securing the door behind me in case of unexpected company later.
Back in the kitchen, I will not be whipping up a delicious breakfast of Eggs Benedict complete with a lovely sprig of fresh dill from my herb garden placed gingerly in repose upon a quick and easy hollandaise sauce. No, I’m thinking more along the lines of stale pop-tarts and half a carton of expired yogurt. Safe to say I will not be packing a well-balanced, nutritious lunch in a smartly decorated homemade lunch pail either. On a good day I’ll grab a handful of lunch money from the change jar, get the rest of the coffee into a mostly clean Thermos, push the dogs into the yard, then sprint barefooted to the car as that’s apparently where I left the shoes I wore home last night.
There are plenty of stoplights during my commute to concern myself with struggling into pantyhose, digging one shoe from beneath the seat, choking down that pop-tart, then re-applying lipstick. My linen dress will be a wrinkled mess by the time I arrive at work, and no Martha, I do not keep a portable steamer in my desk drawer.
Nine hours on the job, then out the door.
Pulling back into the driveway I attempt to avoid the trashcans, ignore that the recycling bin has been empty at the curb for two days, and make every effort not to make eye contact with the neighbors. Racing for the door with shoes in one hand and laptop in the other, I make a quick stop to pull the gardening clippers from my handbag and collect a lovely array of flowers from my perennial garden for the dinner table arrangement. Oh wait… I don’t have a perennial garden! If I did, I’d be curious to know who planted, watered, and weeded the thing.
Start the wash, head count for dinner, feed the dogs. I will not be keeping this pair of stockings with the new runner in the left leg for use next October when it’s time to get creative with Halloween costumes. They will go the way of aluminum foil scraps, cardboard inserts from the package of Handi-Wipes, laundry soap jugs and empty egg cartons. In my world there are no neatly organized, expensive plastic bins from an overpriced container ware store kept in seasonal order on shelves in the spare bedroom that serves as a “project space.” The only container I’m familiar with is the one under the sink with the removable plastic liner.
OK. Dinner. There will be no poached salmon with asparagus, next to a Caesar salad served on hand-painted dishes created using trendy ideas from a local craft store. I don’t even know if there is a local craft store. Tonight’s delicacy was prepared by the supermarket guy in charge of the chicken roasting oven, the lady who keeps a mindful eye on the salad bar, and may well be delivered on mismatched everyday ware – assuming I have time later to wash dishes. Paper plates are my friend not because they’re so useful when it comes time to make holiday decorations or ribbon bouquets, but because they give me back 15 minutes of my day.
Sure, sometimes I wish I could juggle house, career, and social obligations with the opportunity to grow my own Roma tomatoes and learn to use a hot glue gun for something other than fixing a loose skirt hem. But since the obvious impossibility of that is so great, I’m just gonna work on wrapping my head around who I am in real life – a harried mess without enough time or energy to find the perfect pastry tube, racing through the boring parts of life at breakneck speed, and looking for a laugh.
Hey, Martha? Kiss my découpaged ass.
No comments:
Post a Comment