Volunteerism

I have carried 5 children to term.   I gave birth and breath to 4.   The first two came with breath were in 1990 and 1992.   I learned then that it was not just the beautiful, serene experience you think life is going to be after you bring them home.   I want to say that "they" didn't tell us stuff we needed to know but I am not sure now if "they" held information back or if "they" just omitted it because either they had been so traumatized by the experiences that "they" buried it somewhere deep in their psyche that "they" honestly don't remember or  "they" never once encountered the "over achiever of the school age children's mother" syndrome. Or "they" WERE card carrying O.A.S.A.C.Ms themselves and wouldn't admit it or never came to terms with their embarrassing, bullying, one-up-womanship which turns grown women back into the manipulative children they once were.

I know of what I speak, really.   Try providing the most perfect dessert for a class birthday party,  just once and feel what it is like to have the others look at you like they could have done much better and provided the entire cast of Sesame Street to serve each child a treat on a platter of crystal.   Seriously.   You KNOW I am.   I gave up.  I remember when it was too, crystal clear, like the plates I never brought to the damned parties, ladies.    I was going to make Witch Fingers out of pretzel dough and an almond for the finger nails.   I worked days to get it down right.   Me and Martha Stewart before she started day trading...   The day of the party,  (back when they were allow to, 1- have Halloween parties, 2- bring homemade snacks 3- have a nut involved.  and no, haha, I am not talking about me)  we got to school and my kid who was sitting in the back seat with Witch Fingers decided to help by pulling them out of the car and handing them to me.   They where heavy.  6 million dozen Witch Fingers are heavy.  I distinctly remember saying, "Oh no hon, let me get them.  They are heavy and it is slippery..."   They also made an indelible statement as they, in slow motion, I swear! slow motion,  fell to the ground into a puddle of last night's effort to snow, better known as slush.   Dirty parking lot slush.   Now I admit for a second I was thinking I could save at least 3 million dozen if I carefully picked up the ones that were piled onto the more unfortunate ones.  I did!  I confess!  But I realized that my kids could have never not said something about it and then there would have been hoards of   O.A.S.A.C.Ms with torches hunting me down like an ogre in a forest.   My kid was devastated.   Yelling at kid, didn't help.   I instead, stepped over the devastation and hugged kid and reassured her that it didn't matter.   I could go to the store and get more snacks for the party.   We cleaned up the tears and left the mess next to the car and went inside.    I told the story to the teachers about how I had slipped and lost control of the 100 billion gazillion dozen Witch Fingers and they were now toast. Really damp toast.   I saw their disappointment, first in not seeing the Martha Stewart perfection, then the oh no it was our signature treat! then to panic and a bit of suspicion that I either did it on purpose to make their lives miserable or never did it at all.    I told them I would go to the store and replace the treats with whatever I could that was Halloweenie and have them back to the school in an hour or so.   They nodded in understanding and major disappointment.    When I made it back the other mothers had started to assemble and I did the walk of pre-made - discounted bakery ware cupcakes with a plastic oversized toothpick thingy with a Halloween theme in each, walk of shame.  The cupcakes were coated with more dye than what would be needed to paint the center line of the interstate.  And it was cracking...  why else was it on sale?    I sighed.   Put them in the back part of the room and watched as the eyes of the  O.A.S.A.C.Ms follow me out the door.    And to quote this Cupcake Mommy,  "never more..."

I thought about this story today as I came back from registering my 13 year old for school today and I was handed the volunteer opps paper.   It comes back to me now in exaggerated hilarity and hurt... I am not sure how exaggerated the hurt is honestly.   Mean girls can choose to be mean always.  Only when they are older they have better ammunition.   No, not better, just different.  Motherhood is sacred beyond all other things.   Although I can laugh my butt off now at the actual facts as I know them,  the end of my career as a Cupcake Mommy saga... good times, good times.   Now mind you,  it wasn't the epoch failure that stopped it.  It was the general aire of the volunteer mommies in general.   I was not meant to be one.  I was not meant to fit in,  with the gossip, with competion , with the "oooh oooh like me best teacher-of-my-child" mentality.    I quit feeling bad about it.   Some mothers barely make it to Parent Teacher Conference Night.  They spend their time via email and extra time in conferences with their child's teacher.   For whatever reason, be it a busy career or a severe aversion to the Cupcake Mommies.  They are there when they are needed.   They are mom.   Good enough.  More than so many get.  Bravo to the members of the NOT O.A.S.A.C.Ms.

I timidly looked over the volunteer sheet and realized that it had graduated into other realms that I was so much better at.   First,  I didn't need to have contact with any of my student's teachers outside of conferences, so I would not have to feel the icky expectation of or watch as others fall to the gravitational pull of ass kissing for popularity.  I am excited about the opportunities available.   Most of the volunteer positions are those I have spent in salaried positions in my former life before children.   Most of the volunteer positions do not entail cupcakes.  If someone, who doesn't read my blog asks me to,  I will tell them the cautionary story and let them decide if I am the right candidate for the mission.

None of this has anything to do with Donald Shimoda.   Don may or not be a fictional character.   He is a character in Richard Bach's book, Illusions.   For all I know Richard Bach's status as a fictional character is still up in the air as well.  As is the book I am holding in my hand.  And as the blue chair continues her onslaught on me, I believe my status is also...  hers although,  is more ethereal.    However, ethereal really isn't that far from fictional.  Depending on your predisposition and physical perspective and willingness to bathe in existentialism.   Perhaps the blue chair, the tree outside the window, and I are almost or completely and  delightfully fictional with a more substantial purpose.  All the while trying to reach and maintain groundlessness.

"If you will practice being fictional for a while, you will understand that fictional characters are sometimes more real than people with bodies and heartbeats."

-Richard Bach (Donald Shimoda) is that either of you?-  Bueller?

Later on in the book however it does connect with volunteerism.   Chapter 13 to be exact.  It states,

 "Your conscience is the measure of the honesty of your selfishness.  Listen to it carefully."

Paraphrasing,  Don says to Richard that we are all free to do as we choose.   Richard trying to out smart his spiritual teacher tries to correct him.    "We are all free to do what we want to do, as long as we don't hurt somebody else, I know you meant that, but you ought to say what you mean"

Same situation in the blue chair instead of a campfire, juuuuuuust yesterday.

"I just want her to be happy."

"Why do you want her to be happy so emphatically?"

"Because I don't wish anyone ill will or a bad life."

"Well I know that about you.  You are about the big picture,  the extended family, the "Rodney King" wish for the world.  I get that.  I like that.  If  every one could be like that it would be so healing.  That is all fine.  But why do you personally want her to be happy so emphatically that you continue to sacrifice your well-being, when you already know the outcome,  after 3 years of the same behavior, nina you KNOW the behavior,  you are certainly not clueless,  WHY is it so important that she is happy?"

"I just want her to be happy."

"We are out of time but I we will talk about this next time.   This part is about you, not her."

Don, being Don, could do nothing else but to be Don.  Teacher with props.    Suddenly, Richard sees through the darkness, a dark wretched  thing,  speaking with a thick accent.  Czech or maybe Russian?  Black cape lined in red satin.  As I recall he was sensitive to the light of the fire.   Richard asked the stranger if he could help him and he told him that if Richard didn't let him drink his blood,  the stranger would writhe in pain and eventually die a horrible death.   Richard wasn't about to let this stranger drain him of his life so that this stranger could live happily and comfortably.   It wasn't the strangers fault he was a vampire,  it wasn't wrong for Richard to say no to the stranger.   As it all turned out Don just created this imaginary person to teach Richard that you don't have to give someone what they desperately need if it will do desperate damage to you.   You are not bad to say no.  To walk away. To ignore forever... "even if"  because it is our own individual choice to be hurt.  We can choose to be hurt.  We can.  But once you understand it is a choice, you can no longer cry,  "I had to or they would be ______  (unhappy?).

Chapter 14 begins with a quote that mirrors the previous lesson. So I will add it here:

"Every person, all the events of your life are there because you have drawn them there.  What you choose to do with them is up to you."  -Illusions-

I called the blue chair expecting her voicemail but instead of Memorex, she was live.

"I am a liar."  I said.  Then I back tracked a bit to make sure that she knew that I really did want harsher punishments for parole violations and.... world peace.

"I mean,"  I stuttered,  "I don't want her unhappy, but the reason I want her happy so badly is because as long as she is happy,  she disappears and leaves me alone."   "I am being disingenuously selfless, when I say that I want her happy just for her."  "I am full of shit."

"I was going to get to that next time we talked but you got there first."


I just don't know what to do with this yet.