A Splendidly Dull Day
When our elderly Lab mix, Fannie Mae, ambled through the kitchen at precisely half-past six one recent morning, I responded in my customary way. Ready to patrol the compound, Fan-dog? I sang. Of course, you are! On cue, she “woofed,” signaling, or so it seemed, that I should skip the baby talk and commence with the next event on her itinerary: ambling around our large backyard. Marveling—as I often did—how Fannie always appears to have mastered the ability to tell time, I carried my second cup of coffee, (with its usual sprinkle of sugar and dollop of cream), to the door where she waited for me to get going, then let her outside with a pat on the rump.
On this day, cocooned in my favorite sweater, its cuffs ragged with wear, I accompanied her as she meandered, and simultaneously breathed in the early spring air. How fortunate you are, the inveterate worrier inside me observed, to have so much control over how you structure your days. And indeed, I did feel lucky. Since closing my clinical psychology practice several years ago, I had traveled past that stage in my life when I belonged to the “sandwich” cohort—being a daughter who took responsibility for caring for vulnerable, elderly parents while at the same time raising her own child. There had been many occasions when I’d celebrated my “good fortune” and my freedom with a gleeful “Yippee!”
Nevertheless, feeling like a winner in the leisure-time sweepstakes wasn’t simply because I had so much sway over my calendar. In fact, since ending my work in the mental health field, I now realized that the real prize was the ability to fill my time with everyday rituals and routines. Like many of us, it was obvious to me that gravitating toward predictability didn’t guarantee the unexpected or stressful could be avoided with ease. However, I was inevitably aware of my “luck”—which had visited me, particularly in the past year—to have had so many opportunities to bask in the mundane.
During this period, for example, there’d been no major crises in my personal world to resolve, as no one I loved had come into harm’s way. And on this particular day, while I had a full “to-do” list, it included nothing so pressing as to cause concern over whether—or how—I would get everything done. Could there be anything cozier for a worrywart, I wondered, than the tranquility that comes from being wrapped snuggly in a blanket of the humdrum?
Yet, how rapidly this comforting image shifted and then disappeared entirely. I heard instead an internal voice recognizable as my long-deceased mother’s, one which was absorbed in recounting a litany of woes, woes that played like a familiar soundtrack set on “repeat.” My buoyant mood evaporated. What had happened?
“I’m stuck in this prison,” was a refrain that my fraught mother had relied upon when she railed about her life—a regular event when she was alive—and then went on to further complain about how she’d been handed a life sentence in Dullsville. “Every damn day, I’m trapped in this house with no place to go. No one to talk with. It’s so boring!” she’d say, the tone in her voice combative.
I knew, now, that my mother’s disdain for the tasks of everyday life and their repetitive nature was understandable, especially in light of the responsibilities she faced as a parent. In tandem with my father, she’d had to provide for eight children, and all without the benefit of having a friend with whom to commiserate, or a community to turn to for support. Cooking, cleaning, shopping for groceries, and later, a part-time, low-paying job—this list continued daily and constituted a monotony she desperately wanted to escape.
But blinded as she was by the rage that ran her life, she seemed incapable of understanding that her anxiety was what, in fact, had bound her so tightly. Her confinement in that cell of “wanting” something more was a consequence—at least in part—of a lack of luck, and the impact of childhood hardships and neglect, all of which impaired her ability to grapple with life’s adversities.
As I moved through the familiar tasks of my morning, I recalled how, as a girl and later as a young woman, I’d experienced my mother’s fury as both terrifying and guilt-inducing. Wasn’t it my responsibility, as Mom’s daughter, I’d told myself then, again and again, to do whatever was required to stop her agitation dead—to wash away the ensuing bitterness, that acrimony which prevented her from taking any kind of pleasure in her family? That kept her from experiencing calm when alone in her own home? I had believed, as a child, that it was indeed my responsibility to rescue my mother. And, without even recognizing it, I had accepted this role reversal—then wrestled with it, even as an older daughter.
Predictably, as happens when a child attempts to provide caregiving that exceeds her capacity and developmental stage, I failed. And although I was too young to recognize it as such, my emotional well-being took a hit, too. As an adult, it would take a deep dive into long-term therapy to fully relinquish the false narrative I’d adopted about having responsibility for my mother’s happiness. In turn, it became necessary to shift my gaze toward better understanding the resentments I’d consciously and unconsciously harbored toward her.
I’d been bitter, for example, when my mother had attributed the personal and professional accomplishments I’d scored over the years to the casual simplicity of “luck.” Though I’d had plenty of that, I’d put in a lot of hard work, as well. And while I understood, at least on some level, that her envy of me was what had hindered her ability to take pleasure in my successes, I’d nonetheless hated that she’d been unable to celebrate my achievements. Still, what I resented most—until much later, when forgiveness made it possible for my bitterness to transform into grief and then acceptance—was her inability to become the emotionally available mother for whom I so desperately yearned.
It wasn’t until after taking a lunch break from paying bills and resolving a questionable charge to my credit card, that I finally understood why this distressing Mom-memory had pushed its way into my consciousness. It now occurred to me that by getting swept up in my own enthusiasm about having found beauty in the ho-hum, I’d unwittingly characterized this discovery as a sure-fire cure for anxiety; as a “one size fits all.”
Should it have been any surprise, then, that my mother’s spirit would ultimately have weighed in, albeit with her predictably angry tone? As I scraped the leftovers of my tuna fish sandwich into the trash, I felt a tidal pull of sadness, but with it, came a revelation. It was then, while standing in the silence of my kitchen, that I realized that my ability to take pleasure in the mundane had nothing to do with luck. Nothing at all.
Rather, I saw suddenly that it had been my acknowledgment of all those memories I’d dug up about my mother’s history which now enabled me, with some empathy and insight, to find joy in the dullness of a day in the way she never could. How different we were. I realized that I must forgive her for a situation, not of her own making, but one that was both crippling and untenable; I needed to forgive her for her all-consuming rage by recognizing that her life wasn’t my life and never was. At last, I was learning what she had been unable to learn and this lesson was what mattered most: wielding its power to change my life allowed me to avoid spending it in a prison of my own creation. It opened a door through which I could move while embracing the mundane—to grow.
A new wave of sorrow surged over me then. How much I wished my much-loved and missed Mama had been able to discover her own surefire remedy for anxiety. How much I wished she had known peace in her lifetime.
This morning, I scoop coffee beans into the grinder and then hear the click-clack of Fannie-Mae’s paws as she crosses to the laundry room door. Outside my kitchen window, a trio of squirrels scampers along the branches of our towering maple, and I imagine them, with happiness, as the same family of bushy-tailed acrobats that usually performs in my yard every day. Yawning, I take mental note of what’s on my day’s checklist: shower; walk the pooch; run errands; get lost in a novel; haul furniture to the Goodwill. All good. A moment later, I pause. And then send up a prayer of gratitude to the universe for the gladness that courses through me as I move forward into what may well turn out to be another splendidly dull day.
