an odd day

I think I’m lone­ly! It’s so odd to walk around and around my neigh­bor­hood, and the school neigh­bor­hood, and no one greets me or even notices me!  I am a total stranger, which does not suit me actu­al­ly.  Some peo­ple at home have sug­gest­ed, “What a great oppor­tu­ni­ty to rein­vent your­self!”  But it turns out, I kind of liked who I was already.  There is one moth­er at Avery’s school, an Amer­i­can nat­u­ral­ly, who has been real­ly sweet.  Invit­ed me out for cof­fee last week and end­ed up spon­ta­neous­ly tak­ing me in her car to a pet store where I bought a real lit­ter­box and lit­ter!  .s opposed to the roast­ing pan, YUCK, that had been serv­ing as a lit­ter box until now!  I know, now you’ll hes­i­tate to eat my roast chick­en.  Any­way, this mom, Becky, is love­ly and her daugh­ter Anna is one of Avery’s favorite girls in the class.  But when she told me that her hus­band was due back from New York that day, I had an awful moment where I real­ized that back at PS 234, I would nev­er not know if a dad was trav­el­ing!  I knew the ins and outs of every­one’s sched­ules, when Annabelle had piano, when Cici had Tae Kwan Do, when Michele’s hus­band had his scary trip to the Mid­dle East, what Cather­ine was feed­ing her four chil­dren that night.  And now, sob here, I don’t know any­thing about any­one, nor does any­one know any­thing about me.  I find it lonely.

I got Avery off to school this morn­ing and then came home feel­ing sor­ry for myself, know­ing that all the peo­ple I care about were fast asleep except for John who was busi­ly engag­ing with his stim­u­lat­ing work con­tacts, and Avery, busi­ly defend­ing her net­ball goalie posi­tion.  I actu­al­ly lay down and took a nap!  Isn’t that the first sign of depres­sion?  Or is it not being able to sleep?  I can’t remem­ber.  I woke up when the love­ly porters, my crush Bob and his less­er cohort Iain, knocked on the door with two feck­less look­ing boys to help car­ry all our junk away.  I pitched in, and the old say­ing “many hands made light work” was man­i­fest.  So our kitchen is emp­ty of all its char­i­ty rub­bish, and I packed up the last of the rub­bish rub­bish to put out on the pave­ment (Brit for side­walk, you know) this evening.  That at least felt good.  Then I went off to buy book­shelves, feel­ing that if I did some­thing I’d be more cheer­ful, only to find there’s a two-week lead time.  I’m about ready to do it, though.

The eighty or so box­es of books in the study is not only ugly, but it means I’m read­ing the same things over and over!  It occurred to me that peo­ple always say exer­cise is good when you’re unhap­py (nev­er one to shy away from drama­tis­ing a sit­u­a­tion), so I deter­mined to walk from South Kens­ing­ton where I’d been at Con­ran’s in the Miche­lin Build­ing, all the way home, if I did­n’t get lost along the way.  I even exe­cut­ed the risky manouev­er of call­ing my beloved broth­er-in-law Joel to get an update on Jane, liv­ing dan­ger­ous­ly when such dis­trac­tion could eas­i­ly get me to Isling­ton or Chiswick instead of May­fair.  But I tromped suc­cess­ful­ly all through Hyde Park, actu­al­ly not mak­ing any wrong turns and hear­ing the lat­est Jane genius tricks, like her abil­i­ty to pick out spe­cif­ic books from her shelf on com­mand.  That child is a genius.  Which is so unfair, because like her cousin Avery, she’s also gor­geous.  Total­ly unfair, like two invest­ment bankers mar­ry­ing each oth­er.  Joel cheered me up with news of their house sale and the pres­sure now to find some­where to live by June.  I allowed him to intro­duce this con­ver­sa­tion­al top­ic (a true mea­sure of my feel­ings for him) even though the word MOVE is con­sid­ered foul lan­guage in our house.

So I got home safe­ly, feel­ing vir­tu­ous, and head­ed straight to school pick­up, still feel­ing melan­choly although Joel’s chat had cheered me up, thank you!  Next time I need to catch up with my sis­ter as well.

Of course I felt hap­py to see Fifi, and decid­ed to go up to her class­room for the first time, to meet her beloved teacher, Mrs. Bick­ley.  This name sound­ed to me like she would look like Mary Pop­pins, all done up in Vic­to­ri­an garb with her hair in a bun, so I was not pre­pared for the youngish New Zealan­der I met.  A dar­ling class­room, all sweet lit­tle brown desks whose tops come up, just like in all the nov­els where the mis­er­able home­sick girl hides her tears under her desk­top.  No tears here, though.  “It’s hon­est­ly as if she’s always been here, Mrs. Cur­ran!  She fits like a glove, and such a love­ly, love­ly writer!  Such an imag­i­na­tion.”  The room is on the fourth floor of a gor­geous white house with cir­cu­lar stair­way inside and love­ly slight­ly shab­by car­pets.  I probed for rea­sons to wor­ry about Avery’s work, or some­thing we should be focus­ing on, but this was all met with smil­ing reas­sur­ance that noth­ing can mar the per­fec­tion that is the mar­riage of Avery and King’s Col­lege Prepara­to­ry School.  Final­ly I made a lame and pathet­ic offer to help out if she ever need­ed it, say­ing self-pity­ing­ly that I was a non-work­ing moth­er, and with the air of push­ing me out the door, although no push­ing actu­al­ly occurred, she said bright­ly, “How love­ly, and so good to know.”  Hmmm.  Don’t think par­ents are nec­es­sary in the per­fect world of school.  Avery kind­ly led me out of the school and we end­ed up in the patis­serie in the High Street, where she tried to teach me to crochet.

Clear­ly I need to get a life.  Becky has invit­ed me to the Wednes­day morn­ing cof­fee she has with some moth­ers from her kinder­garten­er’s class (the class I read with, actu­al­ly!), so I think I’d bet­ter go.  And of course noth­ing can dim my inter­est in the food­stuffs on offer here, so tonight we’re hav­ing a pork fil­let (don’t for­get to pro­nounce the t in true British thumb­ing-their-noses-at-the-French fash­ion) with a mari­nade of gar­lic, lemon juice, white wine, rose­mary and olive oil, mashed pota­to (why don’t they say the plur­al?  don’t know), and roast­ed beet­root.  It is the new super food over here, and Avery is hearti­ly sick of it.  “But it cures every­thing,” I main­tained.  “We don’t have any­thing to cure,” she point­ed out rea­son­ably.  “Well, it also pre­vents things,” I persevered.

Any sug­ges­tions for how to keep me out of emo­tion­al dol­drums wel­come, please.