Cravings and Ravings

I think Baskin Robbins now boasts more than 31 flavors; who cares, all I want is caramel cone.  But that’s not the point of this post.  No, the flavors I’m talking about are the Flavors of SAHM - and 31 might be a low estimate.

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I’ve tried to write this post before, but it’s one of those elusive thoughts that defies language.

When I was a child, I’d hear the phrase, “Well, they only stay married for the kids.”  It was the 1970s.  Divorce was new, though still a rarity in my world.  I lived in fear that my parents would split up - especially because my parents’ relationship didn’t seem like that of Mike and Carol Brady, or later, Cliff and Clair Huxtable.  When I’d hear about another divorce - my dad’s friend Gene, or his cousin Sharon - I’d breathe deep.  Statistically, perhaps the bad luck would pass us by.

Or at least, I figured, they might stay married for our sakes.  Soldier through; suck it up.  They’d borne us, without our permission.  They owed it to us to keep us happy, or at least to not make us the subject of whispered speculation. 

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From time to time, our town forgets that we’re a mere two miles from the city limits of Washington DC and instead masquerades as Mayberry-meets-Pleasantville.  During the summer, such episodes of municipal amnesia take place the first Friday night of every month.  We bust out a bandstand, a local resto sets up a grill and they even pitch a Bouncy House in the middle of 40th Street.

As our 3 y.o. obediently queued for his chance to bounce like mad, another small child rushed the gate and bodily propelled himself halfway through the opening before the attendant hauled him out by his feet.

We all looked about, expected a parent to come flying forward to claim the wayward child.  But no.  Apparently, Solo had toddled - he couldn’t have been much more than two - to the community festival on his own.  In fact, after grinning at the BH attendant, Solo cheerfully danced off onto 40th Street - conveniently blocked for the event.

If we accept that it takes a village to raise a child, how do you react when one of your fellow villagers is clearly falling down on the job?

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I have a dear friend, a woman whose intelligence, humor and raw nerve I admire.  But as it happens, we fell out of touch for a few months.  I’d moved four hours away, and we were both busy, blah blah blah.

But she dropped me a line today, just a quick one, and I responded with a chatty message, including the news of my pregnancy and a frank admission that I’d been struggling with depression since our move.

She wrote back immediately and admitted that she’d been having a tough time of it, too.  After trying to conceive a second child for some time, she’d miscarried a few months earlier.

I did the math quickly.  Our children would’ve been the same age.

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