The Hole in the Middle (12 page)

Family Yoga is the brainchild of my mother and Dana, who decided in the summer that we should all spend more quality time together. Of course, they could have picked a different kind of activity, like drinking at a pub, but Family Yoga is supposed to be a form of intervention, taking me out of the office early and forcing me to relax. The underlying theory, I believe, was that a weekly yoga class would force me to clear my mind of all stressors and emerge at the end of the hour with readjusted priorities. What actually happens every Wednesday is that I spend the entire afternoon in a state of panic trying to figure out how to get out of the office in time for a five o'clock yoga class, knowing that I should leave at four-thirty but rarely departing before four-forty-five. Then I scream down to the yoga studio, burst into the class late, and disrupt whatever state of mindfulness the other people in the class have managed to achieve thus far. For the next hour, while others in the class empty the stress of the day from their minds, I fret. I fret about the work I left on my desk. I fret about how late I'll be to pick up Scotty from the daycare. I fret about the broken faucet in the powder room, and the fact that I've forgotten, for the tenth day in a row, to call the plumber. I fret about the kids and their eating habits and whether I'll be home in enough time to make something decent for dinner so that we don't have to order pizza again for the third time this week. All in all, I'd have to say that the only clarity I've attained in six months of yoga
has been the realization that I could be bound and blindfolded in a cave in Afghanistan and I would still be thinking,
I really hope Jesse is remembering to make the kids eat some vegetables,
and
If I die, how will he know when to do the kindergarten registration?

I do a quick ROAR calculation to see if there is any way I can justify skipping Family Yoga today. My Desire to Perform Activity is obviously zero, but my Guilt Factor is an eight (on account of yesterday's temper tantrum), while my Need to Behave Like a Grown-up is five (which is the minimum for any activity where my sister-in-law is present), and my Allowable Selfishness is one (see temper tantrum analysis above; a runny nose is usually worth three). So calculation for today is 0 + 8 + 5 − 1, producing a blood-curdling ROAR of twelve. I grab my gym bag from under the desk and run to the elevator.

Here are the things I hate most about Family Yoga:

1. That I forget about it approximately thirty percent of the time, thereby confirming for my mother that my life is completely out of control and giving her a perfect opportunity to regale Dana with tales of my pathological workaholism.
   
2. The way my mother flirts with Leo, the admittedly hot instructor, who speaks in self-help aphorisms.
   
3. The dreamy expression that everyone else in the class affects, presumably to advertise to the group that they have arrived at a state of mindfulness, whatever that means.
   
4. The way my rear end looks in my yoga pants.
   

I tear into the yoga studio with moments to spare, throw my clothes into a locker and pour myself into my yoga outfit. Is it my imagination, or is it getting smaller? I manage to convince myself, as I do each week, that spandex shrinks, because the alternative is too depressing to contemplate. I duck into the bathroom stall with a couple of towels, set my BlackBerry to vibrate, and swaddle it into a roll. Then I tuck it under my arm, flush the toilet, and run to the studio.

“Hi,” I say, panting, as I unroll my yoga mat next to Dana and my mother.

“Hi, Sophie!” Dana leans over and gives me a peck on the cheek. “You look tired.”

“I'm getting a cold,” I say.

“Again! You have got to start taking better care of yourself,” says my mother.

“Fatigue is the body expressing itself to you,” says Leo, rising from his mat at the front of the room and making his way over to our little family group. “You must learn to listen when your body speaks,” he says, laying an unwelcome hand on my shoulder.

“That's exactly what I keep telling her!” my mother trills. “Maybe she'll listen to you!”

“Ah,” murmurs Leo, nodding meaningfully and gazing deeply into my mother's eyes. “Wisdom may be given, but it is not always received.”

“I'm still here,” I say, a bit too loudly.

“Are we ready, everyone? Let us leave our place of quiet meditation. Now that we are all here, we may begin our yoga practice.”

“Sorry,” I mutter.

“We begin with Sun Salutations,” says Leo. “Mountain pose, please.”

I put my hands together in front of me, and Dana whispers, “Busy day at the office?”

“And arch back and fold forward. Very nice,” says Leo.

“Crazy,” I say.

“And lunge—right foot, not left, Sophie—yes, and plank, good.”

“What's going on?” whispers Dana, who can speak while doing a plank, which is evidence that her fitness level is well above mine.

“The usual,” I gasp, pushing myself from an upward to a downward dog.

“And lunge again—other leg, Sophie, yes—and fold and back to mountain. Very good. Again.” And now Leo is beside me. “You must focus, Sophie. Let your mind—and your lips—be quiet.” This seems rather unfair, since it is Dana who insists on conversing during yoga to ratchet up the quality level in our time together. But Dana is such an incredibly nice human being that it's hard to blame her for anything.

For the first half hour of the class, Leo glides between the yoga mats,
adjusting everyone's positions and spouting yogic aphorisms. “As we move through our practice, we must listen to our Inner Voices,” Leo pronounces. “The Inner Voice is the guide to our deepest selves. If we can clear the path, it will speak to us. But we must first let go of all of the noise in our lives—the demands, the stresses, the desires, the ambitions, the self-criticism, the anger. The noise blocks us from receiving the wisdom within our own bodies.” Leo is very keen on the Inner Voice.

At the thirty-five-minute mark, there is a muffled moaning sound nearby, like the call of a sick moose. It is coming from my towel roll.

“Now we move to balancing poses,” says Leo. “Reaching forward, right leg lifts, and into warrior three.” I wobble, and Leo comes over to adjust my posture. “Focus your mind,” he says. “The mind-body connection is the source of your greatest power. When you achieve this connection, you allow your Inner Voice to speak to you. Hear it. Trust it. The Inner Voice leads us to self-knowledge as we begin to understand our unique place in the universe. Breathe.”

I lower my leg and watch everyone else balance as I summon the energy to try again. My BlackBerry moans again.

“Do you need to check it?” whispers Dana, who knows my dirty little secret.

“Not yet,” I whisper back. “If it's an emergency, you'll know.”

“Crane pose,” says Leo. “Knees wide and squat. Very good. Fingers wide on the mat. Lean forward and find your balance. Now lift your toes and hold. Breathe.”

I topple over and land on my hip on the hard floor, missing my mat entirely. “Ow,” I say before I can stop myself. Leo comes over. “Let's try again,” he says. The BlackBerry vibrates insistently. Leo looks confused. “What was that?” he says.

“That was me,” says Dana.

“Crane pose, Sophie,” says Leo. “Squat and reach . . .”

A long low moan emanates from the towel, the product of messages being sent over and over again in rapid succession. The towel starts moving across the floor. “I'll be back,” I say, grabbing the towel and racing for the door.

Outside, I unwrap the BlackBerry and see ten missed calls from Jesse, and a text message in all caps: URGENT: TRAPPED IN MTG W INVSTRS. CAN U PICK SCOTTY UP.

I look at the clock. It's five-forty-five. I grab my running shoes and shove my feet into them as the door to the studio opens. It's Leo. “Sophie,” he says. “We all have our own journey to make, but we come together in a state of mutual understanding and respect in this room. I cannot allow you to bring an electronic device into our studio.”

“Understood,” I say, lacing up my shoes.

“If I may,” says Leo, “it is not an accident that balancing poses are so difficult for you. To balance the body, you must first balance the mind. You must become more attuned to your Inner Voice. Until you do, I fear that you will not realize the benefits of this class.”

“Go fuck yourself, Leo,” I say. “There, you see? I'm completely attuned to my Inner Voice right now. Great class.”

wednesday, december 4, 2013

I throw my coat over my yoga clothes, stuff everything else in my gym bag, and run for the car. I arrive at the daycare at six-fifteen, fifteen minutes late, and find myself face-to-face with the director of the Progressive Center for Child Development and Care.

In my almost dizzying loathing for the director, it is easy to forget that it was I who insisted that we enroll our children in a daycare instead of hiring a nanny, a course of action which Jesse sensibly argued would relieve considerable pressure on our household in the form of basic cleaning, grocery shopping, and flexibility in parental arrival and departure times. But I held firm in my conviction that daycare was more consonant with our values than hiring a poor woman from a developing economy who would have to leave her own children behind in order to care for our privileged white offspring. Now I am faced daily with the bitter reality that the director is the most obvious obstacle to my ever attaining the mythical feminist state of joyous working motherhood.

“Sophie,” she says, “I'd like to speak to you for a minute. Can you step into my office?”

“I'm sorry I'm late,” I say. “I'll pay the fine.”

She closes the office door behind me, an ominous beginning. “You've been racking up a lot of fines lately,” she says.

“Maybe I should run a tab,” I joke, but I can see that the director is not amused.

“We had another incident today,” she says.

“Scotty bit someone?”

“Unfortunately, yes.”

“It's not his fault,” I say. “It's been pretty stressful at our house lately. He really is a good little boy.”

“I'm not saying that he's not. But it's probably time to consider whether this is the right childcare arrangement for him and for you.”

My heart sinks. “You can't kick us out,” I say.

“I'm sure it won't come to that,” she says. “Usually families come to the realization on their own that another arrangement would work better. I'm just encouraging you to start that conversation with yourself and your husband. I've been doing this a long time, and I get the strong sense that this isn't working for your family. Scotty's the last child here every day. It's stressful for him and it's not fair to the staff.”

“I understand,” I say. “I'll do better. Can I go and get Scotty now?”

“Go ahead,” she says. “Let's talk again soon.”

I find Scotty in the toddler room, watching a
Dora
video. He leaps to his feet when he sees me, throws his arms around my neck, and won't let go. “Can we watch the end?” he asks.

I sit down on the carpet with him and pull him onto my lap. The director can throw us out when she wants to leave. For now, I'm going to stage a sit-in, just like old times.

I bury my face in Scotty's curls and, finding myself in as dark a psychological space as I've been in for a while, allow myself to dive down a bit deeper still. I have always taken pride in my adherence to a long-term professional plan, terminating in my installation as the executive director of a socially relevant, politically influential nonprofit, preferably for the advancement of the dispossessed. After grad school, I logged six years at organizations with unassailable feminist credentials, one a UK magazine with a focus on women's health, whose dwindling readership
numbers were artificially inflated with free mailings to community centers across the country, and the other a think tank dedicated to lobby efforts in support of girl-centric curriculum in public high schools. Having started a long-distance relationship with Jesse while employed at the first of these fine organizations, and having moved in with him during my tenure at the second, both of which paid next to nothing and offered no benefits or job security, it occurred to me one day that if I wanted to (a) not be entirely financially supported by my male life partner and (b) ever be in a position to have children who would not be entirely supported by my male life partner, I would have to get a job with an organization that had sources of funding other than intermittent government grants from minor agencies tasked with securing the women's vote for the next election. And that's how I ended up working at the Baxter, although when I took the job there it never crossed my mind that I'd be planning social events for the ruling class. Life is indeed full of disappointments.

And on the subject of disappointments, as I plunge deeper down my little rabbit hole of angst, I am reminded of my friend Sara, who had my book club in stitches one night telling us about the worst things that her children, now in their teens, had ever said to her. She had a fine collection of ignominies, but the gold medal for maternal insults went to her son for telling her at the tender age of five that she was not the mother he had hoped for. I only had Jamie then, and he was too small yet to recognize my shortcomings. I was more confident in the upward trajectory of my parenting achievements. I thought there could be no failure more devastating than having your child say such a thing. But as I sit on the floor in Scotty's daycare, I know that there is much more profound despair to be found in the knowledge that you are not the mother you had hoped to be.

“Hey, Scotty,” I say. “Do you want to do something fun tonight?”

“What?”

“It's a surprise,” I say, and as the credits roll on the
Dora
episode, I pick him up and march past the director's office with my head held high. Let her think that I'm a bad mother. What does she know? There is still time to turn the tide, and my short interlude of meditation on the toddler
mat has given me some inspiration and perspective, a result of connecting with my innermost thoughts and feelings, no doubt: Leo would be proud. I am going to turn this day around, and, being a planner, I have a foolproof plan. Tonight, I will nourish my children with healthy, homemade food, while simultaneously teaching them about the satisfaction that comes from enjoying the fruits of your own labor. And that's not all. I will teach them about the nature of giving and the true spirit of Christmas by helping Jamie create beautiful, personal Christmas cards for all of his friends. There is still time to be the mother I always wanted to be. And who needs television when you can make your own fun?

Fortunately, there is a supersized twenty-four-hour grocery store near Scotty's daycare, which has everything I need to implement an evening of exemplary parenting. I'm not really dressed for the occasion, but the one benefit of having a daycare neither near work nor near home is that you are unlikely to run into anyone you know. I feel unreasonably happy every time I come to this grocery store, and the main reason for this is the seasonal aisle, which has bailed me out on countless occasions. The seasonal aisle is a little oasis for the working mother, one of the few places in the world designed for her comfort and convenience. Forgot to buy Halloween candy? You can get it in the seasonal aisle at two in the morning on October thirty-first—and not substandard candy either, but the very same candy that the stay-at-home moms bought two weeks ago. No Easter presents? Fear not. On Easter morning, you will find an outstanding selection of chocolate bunnies and eggs for the Easter hunt and even festive Easter hats. The seasonal aisle has never let me down and today is no different. I pick up a package of red construction paper, glue, red and green sequins, and Santa stickers, and throw them in the cart along with all of the pizza ingredients.

Scotty whimpers, and I see that his nose is running. I rummage in my purse for a tissue and check my pockets. I must have one somewhere. I unzip my coat and check the inside pocket. Still no tissues, but I find a lollipop of unspecified vintage, so I resort to wiping Scotty's nose with his shirt and placating him with the candy. “Just a few more minutes, baby,” I promise.

“Sophie?” I turn around and see Jenny Dixon standing behind me. I suppress a groan and smile brightly, attempting to look as professional as possible in sweaty yoga clothes. “Is this your son?” she asks. “He's gorgeous.”

“This is Scotty,” I say. “We're making homemade pizza tonight, aren't we, honey?” Scotty sucks hard on his lollipop and eyes Jenny with deep suspicion.

“How fun!” says Jenny. “I meant to call you this afternoon, actually. Have you done the performance reviews for your staff yet?”

“Not exactly,” I say.

“I know it's been busy in your department, so I've cut you some slack. But they were due three weeks ago. When do you think you can get them done?”

“By the end of the week, for sure,” I say.

“I'm counting on it,” says Jenny. “See you tomorrow. Oh, and good luck with your pizza. I admire you. I've never had the patience for that—the dough just takes so long to rise.”

By the time I find and pay for all of my purchases, load a resistant Scotty back into his car seat, and pull into the driveway, it's already seven o'clock. The babysitter, radiating irritation at my tardiness, pushes past me and out the door as I haul my shopping bags into the kitchen.

“I've got to run, Sophie,” she says. “Jamie had a snack earlier but he's been asking for dinner. See you tomorrow.”

“Can we order pizza, Mommy?” asks Jamie.

“I've got a better idea, sweetie,” I say. “Let's make our own pizzas!” Jamie looks unimpressed. “You can have exactly what you want on it, and it won't take any longer than ordering. I promise. I'm just going to heat the oven.” I scan the instructions on the package of dough to check the temperature, remembering Jenny's parting comment with a sense of foreboding. And now I see for the first time that I am supposed to put the dough in a bowl, cover it, and let it rise for an hour. Then the pizzas need to cook for fifteen minutes. I plunk the cold dough in a bowl and do some quick calculations. One hour plus fifteen minutes will take us to eight-fifteen, by which time the children will be completely ungovernable; I can't blame them, given that they go to bed at eight-thirty. The
unwelcome thought crosses my mind that I have picked the wrong evening for homemade pizza, but I brush it aside. Surely a half hour is enough time for the dough? But I still need a stopgap.

“How about a handful of Goldfish crackers to tide you over?” I suggest. I fill two bowls with Goldfish and push them across the breakfast bar.

“I want to watch my show!” says Scotty.

“You know what? I've got a better idea,” I say, brightly. “We're going to do some crafts! Look at what I've got.” I pull out my bag of tricks from the seasonal aisle and spread the craft supplies on the table. I give Scotty a couple of markers and some construction paper and tell him to draw snowflakes, which, miraculously, he does. “And I have a great project for you, Jamie,” I say. “We're going to make Christmas cards for all the kids in your class! Won't that be fun?”

Jamie pops the last goldfish cracker into his mouth. “I'm still hungry,” he says.

I hand him a banana. “Look,” I say, pulling out a sheet of red construction paper. “We'll fold the paper like this, cut out a white paper snowflake, glue it on, and add some sequins. Then you can print your friends' names and ‘Merry Christmas' inside. Don't you think your friends will like them? They'll be so much nicer than store-bought cards.”

“I hate printing.”

“OK, how about you do all of the cutting and gluing for the front of the card and I'll do the printing?”

“How much longer until the pizza is ready?”

I look at the clock. The dough has been rising for fifteen minutes. It will have to do. “Coming right up,” I say, and I rip off a handful of dough and roll it out. “See?” I say. “It's going to be just the perfect size for you. Do you want to put on the toppings?” Jamie shakes his head. I bash out two more misshapen personal-sized pizzas, fling some tomato sauce at them, and dump a mound of shredded cheese on top. “Will you at least put the pepperoni on?” I ask.

“Can I have some more Goldfish?”

“Me too!” Scotty drops his marker and throws his snowflake drawing on the floor.

“I'll give you more Goldfish if you put the pepperoni on the pizza,” I say.

Jamie takes a few slices and places them on the pizza with a decided lack of enthusiasm.

“I think you'll be surprised at how delicious this dinner is going to be,” I say, refilling their bowls with crackers. I open the oven door and slide the pizzas in. “Just fifteen more minutes, guys. And while we're waiting, we can get started on our cards.”

“I want to get down,” says Scotty. “Can I watch my show now?”

“We're not watching TV tonight,” I say. Scotty's brow furrows; his lower lip juts out and starts to quiver. He is ten seconds away from a complete meltdown, but I have an emergency backup plan. “Come with me, honey,” I say, holding out my hand. “Let's get your piano out.”

Scotty's “piano” is a cheap synthesizer that my mother gave him for Christmas last year. It has six different tracks programmed in, each more annoying than the last, and no discernible volume control. I put it away in my closet sometime last February, after I realized that I was humming the tunes in the shower every morning. For a couple of months, Scotty would ask where it was and I would change the subject, but now I appreciate that I will have to make some sacrifices if I'm serious about reducing television consumption. So I race upstairs and produce the long-lost piano. Hopefully, this buys me at least a half hour to focus on Jamie.