I know, this doesn't look terribly exuberant. Bear with me.
Today SUCKED. Ok, it wasn't that bad. I had a meeting I was looking forward to, which also involved hanging out with friends, and my husband ended up having a light afternoon and came home really early, bearing lattes. So how bad could it be, really?
But it still sucked, in that drudgery-of-everyday-existence kind of way where you know your life is really quite privileged and lovely and you should appreciate what you have and blah blah blah but you're just so bogged down in the momentary battles and enuii of it all that you don't much care for thinking about the bright side.
Jan 4th was the first day back for elementary schoolers and today was the first day for preschoolers. So of course my particular preschooler, who is way out of his routine, begs for thirteen breakfasts and hides when I ask him to get dressed and waits until the very last minute to disappear to poop (mooooooommmmmmm, I need buhhhhtttttt wiiiiipinnnngggggg) and it's a minor miracle that I managed to get a bite of breakfast and couple of ounces of caffeine into myself, and even though we started out on time, somehow we lost 25 minutes and were late for dropoff...and then on the way back to pick him up my new spiffy faster-than-fast route ended up having two lanes closed, which made me 13 minutes late when I should have been 3 minutes early, and the aforementioned preschooler refused to put a jacket on in the 34 degree weather and then refused to leave the playground and then had to be hauled bodily to the car (where his toddler brother was sleeping, argh, lost naptime/sanity for mama)...and all this on top of me being underslept and back-achey and my broken little toe isn't healing and I haven't been able to hear myself think in a month and all I really want is 3 hours to myself and some junk chocolate (Hershey's Kisses). Or maybe a weekend retreat. Alone.
Yeah, so not exactly an exuberant morning.
The early return of the hubby afforded me the chance to go take a walk. I was hoping to find inspiration. I found rugs and license plates and Christmas decorations discarded by people. I found Transformer decals and empty terra cotta pots. I spotted a hawk or two, and heard cardinals flirting with each other across alleyways. I got really cold. I did not find zen.
I was too cranky to be nice to anybody. Dinner was all fouled up.
The children, who have more energy in their little toes than I will ever have in the rest of my life, were bouncing off the walls at bedtime, as per the usual. I looked over at my husband, who can calm them down by simply starting a bedtime story, and realized that exuberance doesn't have to look big and wild and joyful. Sometimes it's what you don't see - like having the energy to patiently read a book for the fifty-sixth time and to be the family rock when your kids are raucous and your wife is bitchy. Lust for life doesn't have to look like rainbows and mardis gras. Sometimes it's being the only one who can keep calm and carry on.
After the little guys were in bed, the hubby went out to pick up a few things at the grocery store and I hung out with Griff. He and I ate some pizza and sat down at our little studio table, and he started creating his interpretation of exuberance: an abstract, wild burst of color. He showed me how it represents a face but can also represent the energy of Tarzan swinging through the jungle. He talked about George of the Jungle and about his girlfriend. He added a heart for her, and a hidden pair of haystacks, one for each of them to sit upon. He watched me doodle in silver pen and told me how much he loved it. I had looked for exuberance all day, all day I felt like my excessively-exuberant children had prevented me from seeing it, but finally I was finding it in a way both quiet and colorful.
(I'm still really glad the day is over, though.)
