Adventure Diary: August 9, 2018

In August of 2018 I was between jobs, so my wife was working extra shifts and I spent a lot of time with our children. I have, in fact, always spent a lot of time with our children because I am a modern dad--I love my kids, I love my wife, and I believe if both parents are working out of the house then both parents should be parenting. I think it should have always been like this, but just because it wasn't doesn't' mean it can't be now. During this time between jobs I tried to write a daily journal entry. I took the kids to places in Wintson-Salem, where we'd recently moved, so we could learn about the city and find things we'd like to into the future. Adventure Day: August 9, 2018

This morning I woke up with Walter at about 6:15 am, but I couldn't stay awake. I fought sleep off and made finally made coffee at 8:30ish. Amanda slept late after working a double yesterday, and Henry and Jada are still abed with low grade fevers. I'm feeling a little stir crazy. Walter has the energy and dance moves of an entire hive of bees. 

I've tried very hard to be the parent who does creative work in the midst of parenting. Elizabeth Alexander, professor, poet, and mother, has something to say about the parent artist at work. The parent artist doesn't have studio hours. The parent artist works when the kids are asleep, at the grandparents, maybe when the children are in the bath. The parent artist works at red lights, at the kitchen counter preparing dinner, on the toilet. This excerpt comes from an interview Alexander gave to Krista Tippet at On Being: "That’s right. You just realize like, well, if you’re gonna do it, just do it. Don’t even think about doing it. Don’t talk about doing it. Just do it. So actually, it was with my first child and nursing in the middle of the night and being, of course, so tired, but also wonderfully unguarded. I found that actually being that tired was fantastic for my poetry because I had no filters. I’d just have the baby in one arm and it would be three in the morning and I’d write some things down on any scrap of paper. I just grabbed the time I had." 

Even now, as I write this, it's only possible because Henry's sick and Walt's on the toilet pooping. I have mere minutes before the come hither cry for a butt wipe resounds. 

I am usually very precious about my 'work' time, but it's done me no good to covet quiet hours or solitude which are so unrealistic in a home with children and where parents work opposite schedules. Part of why I like writing poetry so much in the first place is its accessibility and limited required tools. A bank deposit slip and one of those short mini golf pencils will suffice in a pinch and I can make a poem waiting in any line or while my son is talking to me from the back seat. My goal for the next bit of time as I adjust to my meds and working fewer than 60 hours a week (it's a much harder adjustment than you'd think) is to make art whenever I can, despite the noise and less than perfect setting. 

Now I have wiped butt, administered ibuprofen, made dinner for only Walt and myself. I'll straighten the kitchen, make a pot of coffee, and maybe I'll apply for the content writing gig at PEA (Piedmont Environmental Alliance). If they don't call, oh well. I won't know if I can do it if I don't even try. And I know I can write, and I know I can spend some time on social media--if I can do anything in this life it is spend TIME on social media. 

One of today's cool things: Henry made a 3D hypno-ring and turned Walter into Capt. Underpants. That was pretty hilarious. I wish I'd taken a few pictures of that.