Claire LaZebnik

I’ve kind of sort of given up coffee.

I know, I know.  I swore I’d never do that.  I even suggested life wouldn’t be worth living if I stopped drinking coffee.  But I was having some stomach problems and felt sick enough for a day or two to not want any coffee, and then decided to try tea once I was starting to feel better–

and now I’ve gone a couple of days without any coffee.

I’m not making any pronouncements about this, mind you.  Two months from now could find me just as addicted as I was before.  And I’m getting a fair amount of caffeine from tea, so it’s not like I’ve given that up completely either (although I’ve probably cut back).

But it’s weird.  For years I’ve identified myself as a coffee drinker first and foremost.  The kids have always given me Starbucks cards for my birthday.  I was making a huge pot every morning and drinking it all myself over the course of the morning.  So it feels a little like I’ve rejected myself and who I thought I was.

I’m not sure what I’m gaining by giving it up.  Fewer peaks and valleys, I think (I was crashing about two hours after having way too much coffee at lunch).  My energy feels a little more consistent.  I like that.

Deep down, though, I know the real reason I gave up coffee:

So I can have a cup when I really want to be alert and it WILL TOTALLY REV ME UP.

I mean, if I go for days without a cup and then have half a cup when I have a lot of work to do or an important meeting–it’ll be like I took speed, right?  I’ll be filled with energy.  I’ll be able to run the universe.

So . . .  no coffee on your average boring day.  And then a cup on specially important days and . . .  SUPERCLAIRE!

That’s my hope anyway.

People are basically kind, so when I apologize for the mess that is my house (or my car), they invariably wave dismissively and say, “Oh, my house is just as bad.”

It’s very nice of them, but it’s just not true.  No one’s house is as messy as mine.

Sometimes my house kind of sort of looks okay on the surface, but if you start poking into corners, you’ll find containers of things–dog toys tangled up with headphones, old tennis balls crushing once-good sunglasses, cards old batteries cookies scarves candles leggings coffee-pods-stolen-from-hotels picture-frames stickers timers broken-ipods puzzle-pieces hard-candies shoes soap cell-phones plastic-containers bubble-wands kids-make-up bandaids . . . you get the idea–all of that stuff is just tossed in together and when I peer into one of these bags or boxes and see what’s in there and how it all has to be sorted out and dealt with in some way, my heart sinks and I can’t face it so I shove it back into place.

We are SO close to this

And then there are the three million books spread out all over the house, and the papers from school, and the mail, dear lord the MAIL, which builds and builds and builds until sometimes I think they’ll find us desperately trying to claw out way out of our house through piles and piles of white envelopes, the way the Ingalls clan always had to claw their way through huge snowdrifts piled against the walls and doors and windows outside their little house in the prairie or woods or whatever stupid place to build a house they chose that year.

So our house is basically a pigsty and I live with it and deal with it most of the time, satisfied with knowing that the bathrooms and kitchen are basically sort of clean, but when someone new comes over, I look over the house and see it with her eyes and feel sick.

I was rushing around cleaning the house today for a new guest and losing it.  Freaking out.  Grumbling at the mess and at  the kids for not helping enough and feeling sorry for myself that I can’t ever dig myself out from under the detritus of my life.  And as I vented all my rage at my 12-year daughter–”I’ve cleaned this table five times today already–I am so sick and tired of this house always being such a mess!”–she smiled and said brightly, “Look at it this way, Mom.  Back when you and Dad were first born, maybe there was a good fairy who looked at both of you.  And she said, ‘I’m going to make sure you find each other and have four wonderful children together.’  And then there was another good fairy and she said, ‘And I’m going to see that you always have enough money to buy food and keep a roof over your heads.’  And a third good fairy said, ‘Your lives will always be filled with love.’  And then there was an evil fairy and she said, ‘But their house will always be messy!’  And the other fairies shrugged and said, ‘Eh, since we gave you all that other stuff, that’s not really all that bad, right?’”

I opened my mouth and then closed it again.  And I really thought about what she said.  And then all I said was, “Good point.”

I wrote in a previous post that I wasn’t raised to be very sentimental and used to fight against tears when I watched sad movies.  Those days are clearly past.  I took the kids to see Toy Story 3 yesterday and I didn’t just weep: I actually had to work to keep from sobbing out loud.  It’s a beautiful, poignant movie that managed to put its finger right on my current tender-sore emotional spot: how kids grow up and move away from their homes, families, and the things they once loved.

The older Andy considering his toys

I am by no means the first to point out that the toys in the Toy Story movies are in many ways a stand-in for parents: the kids adore them and want to play with them when they’re little but lose interest in their company as they move out into the real world and grow up.  In the third Toy Story movie (which I promise not to ruin), the fact that kids outgrow their toys–hinted at in the earlier movies–sets the whole story in motion, and no matter how funny the jokes (very) or intense the action (very), the poignancy of that loss is always there, and the movie is that much more meaningful and moving because of it.

This isn’t a movie review (in case you haven’t noticed, I loved it, so you know five stars from me, if that makes any difference to you).  I just wanted to mention how much it made me think about how things change and you can’t stop them, you can only hope you’ve laid the foundation for a future that’s different but still hopeful.

I always hated the Shel Silverstein book The Giving Tree, which, like Toy Story, is a parable of how parents lose their kids as they grow up.  I loathe that book.  I don’t want to be the kind of parent who gives and gives and gives . . . and then gives some more, without getting anything in return.  I expect my kids to do stuff for me at any age: bring me a glass of water when I’m feeling lazy, help me carry something to the car, shower me with gifts (homemade is fine) on my birthday and Mother’s Day, respect my need to work and occasionally ignore them.  That book never worked for me because the kid is so selfish–he’s not a nice person.  I want my kids to be aware of other people’s needs, even mine, not just entirely self-centered.

But Toy Story 3 gets it.  Near the beginning of the movie, Andy’s mother walks into his room–now stripped bare in preparation for his move to college–and gives a tiny little gasp.  Her son realizes how she’s feeling and hugs her.  It’s a small, lovely moment–and of course I cried.  I have a son who’s going to college in the fall, and one who just left this morning for a summer program.  And it hurts to have them leave, hurts more than I can say.  But, like the mother in the movie, I’ll give my little gasp and hug them and let them go.  Not because they’re selfish and I’m giving, but because that’s the natural order of things and when it’s time for kids to move out into the world, you have to let them go.

But I’m hopeful they’ll come back.  A lot.  I do believe we’ll have plenty of time together in the future.  Our relationship won’t end, they just won’t be little kids again.  I hope I can be as accepting and unresentful of that fact as the mom (and Woody) are in the movie.  And as brave.  I hope I can give my little gasp and my hug and then let them go.

It’s kind of exciting when I add a new page to this blog (note: page, not post) because I commit a page to each book, so a new page means a new book!

IF YOU LIVED HERE, YOU’D BE HOME NOW won’t actually be published until September, but it’s been available for pre-order on Amazon for a while and I’m starting to feel that early sense of excitement since the nice folk at 5 Spot are starting to plan things like book-signings and stuff like that.  So I decided it was time to make a page for the new novel.  Feel free to check it out and let me know what you think.

And I know I’ve shown the cover before, but it’s so purty, I’m going to do it again!  

Oh, and P.S.  I’ve also changed the appearance of the blog.  What do you think?  It suits me more, but maybe that’s not a GOOD thing.

This post appeared first on bookstorepeople.

I had the good fortune to grow up in a family that owned a summer house on a lake about two hours from our home.  Once school was out in June, we would all load up into the station wagon and head north.   There was something so blissful about turning off the highway and suddenly seeing familiar houses, roads, and even cemeteries.  The first one who spotted the lake through the trees would cry out in delight.  And a little while later we’d be heading down, down, down our very steep driveway to the oddly modern and uncottagelike building my parents had commissioned when I was an infant.

My mom and the kids stayed all summer; my father would leave early Monday morning, work all week back in Boston, then drive back Friday night for the weekends.  During the summer he really only slept well in the mountains, by the lake, where the air mostly stayed cool, so he took off whatever time he could and invited everyone he knew to come spend the day or the weekend with us there.  The house was always full, my mother planning, shopping for, and preparing meal after meal after meal for what could be dozens of guests on any given weekend.  I can’t imagine how much work it was for her: there wasn’t any take-out in that small town back in those days, and for decades there also wasn’t a dishwasher in the house, unless you counted the five kids.

There also wasn’t a TV in the house.  Years later, my father would give in and get a tiny TV set–mostly so he could watch tennis matches on it–but for the first decade or so, all we had was a radio that played kids’ programs on Sunday mornings.

Five kids, two and a half months, many rainy days . . . what was a mother to do?

Go to a library, of course.  Once a week we’d all pile into the car, drive to the town library and emerge with our arms filled with piles of books.  And for the next seven days, when we weren’t outside swimming or catching frogs or playing in our sandy driveway (just right for digging tunnels), we were draped over various pieces of furniture, reading. Keep reading →

I feel really strongly that people should perform their civic duty responsibly and respectfully.  In other words, if you get summoned for jury duty, you should serve.

I, on the other hand, should get off.

I don’t mean that.  Well, yeah, I mean it.  I just don’t want to be quoted saying it.

Here’s the thing: they didn’t have coffee in the juror room.  None.  Not even a drop.  Not even a pocket coffee (a wonderful little confection I discovered in Italy: sweetened espresso encased in dark chocolate, oral happiness and get your mind out of the gutter, folks).  Nada.  We had to report at 8 am, so I barely had time to down half a cup before racing out of the house.   I usually drink coffee all morning long, so there I was, stuck in a room all morning–and another one all afternoon–with NO COFFEE.  There was a coffee vending machine downstairs but it was broken.  (So, apparently, were all the other vending machines: a fellow juror insisted it was the city’s way of making some money on the side because she and another woman had collectively lost three bucks in various vending machines without a snack or drink to show for it.)

No coffee.  No wonder my only thought the entire time was, “How do I get out of this godforsaken hellhole?”

It wasn’t just because of the coffee, of course.  There were also the four kids at home on summer break, who were basically watching TV all day, because I wasn’t there to insist they do something more physical or more cerebral.  And I had scheduled tons of doctor/orthodontist/dentist/misc appointments for the weeks between the end of school and the beginning of the summer programs and I didn’t know how I was going to get them there if I was stuck in the courthouse.

Call me a bad citizen, but I really didn’t want to end up on a jury.

And to judge by most of my fellow jurors, I wasn’t alone in that sentiment.  The whole atmosphere there felt a little like the famous short story, “The Lottery”–you wanted to be sorry for anyone who got picked but, really, you were just glad it was him and not you.

It was a stressful day and to make a long (and, to judge by my family’s reaction to every attempt of mine to tell it in detail, apparently boring) story short, I went from thinking I was escaping jury duty altogether to literally being JUROR NUMBER ONE for a couple of hours.  Juror Number One.  Terrifying.  When I got picked to replace the original Number One (who had broken down in tears under questioning), I immediately said I had a hardship, i.e. those four kids who were stuck at home on their summer vacation.  I did not mention the lack of coffee in the courthouse but I probably should have, because the judge was very very unhappy with me for bringing up the “kids out of school” argument.  He reamed me out in front of the entire courtroom.  Why hadn’t I asked for a postponement, why couldn’t I have arranged other care for the kids, didn’t I realize it was hard for everyone, even him (he apparently had been called to jury duty recently–bet HE got off), etc. etc.

To my amazement, I didn’t break down in tears which is my usual response when someone in authority yells at me publicly.  I just did my best to answer his questions and explain that I thought this WAS what I was supposed to do: explain the hardship to him if called up.  Plus I had cleared this week for jury duty, just not the NEXT week, which the trial was going to go into since it was already Thursday.  He remained disgusted with me and didn’t seem inclined to let me go.

Any mother out there will know how my mind was reeling as the lawyers continued to question the jurors (not me: it was a real estate case and I didn’t have any conflicts with that): who could I get to take the kids to the doctors appointments?  How would I get my teenager ready for his two-week sleepaway program that started the next weekend?  Was there any way to keep the kids from watching TV the entire time I would be in the courthouse?  How would I survive a whole week of caffeine-less mornings?

Hours went by.  The day was almost over and the jury was just about set.  And then . . .  ONE OF THE LAWYERS EXCUSED ME!

I have no idea why.  All I can figure out is that the judge said, “If you have any extra excuses, you might as well let the annoying Palisades housewife go,” and so this lawyer kindly did.

As I ran out of the courtroom, I had a brief flash of guilt.  Surely, like John McCain, I should insist on staying until my fellow prisoners were set free.

Then I remembered: this wasn’t ‘Nam.  This was Santa Monica.  And really, there was nothing particularly awful about being in the courthouse or on a jury.  It was all kind of interesting and if my kids were grown and out of the house, I’d have relaxed and might even gotten into it.

Except for the coffee thing.  That really sucked.