Everywhere, There Are Weeds

Everywhere, there are weeds.

Stretching through the cracks in the stone walkways that line the perimeter of my hundreds of years old home. My face flushes with embarrassment every time a neighbor walks by and the willowy stalks of my unattended crabgrass brush their ankles.

There is recycling piled high on our back porch, teetering precariously like a Jenga stack.

They must think I am lazy, I think, as I take the garbage out (quietly so not to disturb) at 6 a.m. after I’ve already worked on a project for over an hour in the quiet when no one is yet awake. After I feed the dog and put a load of laundry in to tumble for a few hours before it is forgotten in a slew of unanswered emails, project management boards, and priority lists for the day. I have just enough time to set a reminder for camp drop-offs, when it is already time, in fact, to drop off. I will have to get coffee on the way.

But one child is not going to camp and has developed acute episodes of car sickness. I, again, embarrassingly negotiate a neighbor to sit watch with Legos and pancakes so I can take the hour round-trip journey without having to hold a puke bucket in the front seat, my backseat full of show-tune singing teenagers going to theater camp.

I would have been home sooner, but my engine oil light came on- it is doing that too much lately, but there is little time and littler money to rectify it now so I have to stop at the Ace Hardware on the way home for a quart of Penzoil to hold it over like an apple before dinner, and another coffee. It is only 9 a.m.

Everywhere, there are weeds.

I return to collect the littlest still in pajamas and walk the anxious, 70-pound dog three times during the day who tempts death by chasing every moving car, bicycle, bird. Who barks with hysterics at other dogs. Who has broken my own bones and pulled my own back and prevents me from leaving the house because no one else can walk her or watch her or play with her, or love her.

I have reminders set for camp pick-ups, for project deadlines, for Zoom meeting times. I send to voicemail a creditor or two or seven. Something, somewhere, is buzzing almost all day but I can’t remember what for. Is dinner in the InstantPot? School supply lists are out- did you know it will cost you 200.00 in colored pencils and glue sticks this year?

Am I doing a good job?

Are the kids ok?

Is this project my best work?

Do my spouse/friends/family feel neglected?

Everywhere, there are weeds.

The red bubble with numbers of new inquiries, projects and requests keeps upticking in real time. The “Mama’s” from the other room keep escalating.

“Mama, where are my jazz shoes? Mama, I’m hungry. Mama, my tummy hurts. Mama. Mama. Mama.”

And then the consumate: : “Mama, are you mad?”

It is 3 p.m.

Everywhere, there are weeds.

Final meeting for the day, final push for final edits, final proofs, final submissions. Final that never means final. I shoo the littlest outside to play so I can listen and take notes and wring my hands about the schedule tomorrow. About meeting standards and expectations. I have forgotten to eat lunch. I have forgotten how to be human.

The InstantPot has somehow burned dinner, and shrouded the kitchen in black. I dump it in the sink and take the bread and peanut butter down from the cabinet.

I remember she is outside. I had forgotten. I spot her by the creek, barefooted and still in pajamas at 5:14 p.m. She sees me at the backdoor and runs through the tall grasses, hands full-so full- of weeds.

“For you, Mama. Flowers for you.”

And her brown eyes sparkle like river rocks, her cheeks pink with the flush. Her chipped, nail polished fingers ringed with dirt, clutching dandelions.

I put them in a crystal vase on the kitchen table.

Everywhere, there are weeds.