Delicious treats dreamed up by my love, fabulous gifts, and the comfort of family makes Mother's Day special or at least appropriately celebrated in the eyes of our everyday-is-a-party culture. I don't need pomp and circumstance and surely don't stand on ceremony, not for this made up day. Mother's Day is always a strange one for me. My husband, who is a private chef, almost always works so that the lady of the house can celebrate with her family in grand fashion. THAT is her Mother's Day.
Mine, at least for the past few years, looks more like this: my husband leaves for a beautiful destination of the rich and famous by private jet or souped up, tinted-window SUV to prepare luxury meals and treats for his clients, and I finish out the week of school, activities, play dates, grocery shopping, story reading (now listening since the 6 year old is thrilled to show off her reading), and socializing on my own. It's our rhythm and save the early school drop off on Friday when both girls need to be ready early enough to drop by 8 am, I can and do handle it.
I am too keenly aware of how quickly my children are growing up. Little chubby hands and fat, yummy fingers have become strong and elegant, rolly-poly bodies have elongated into graceful torsos, arms and legs for days, and beautiful faces resting on long necks. I measure time by these changes, recall real life events by growing and falling teeth, short or long hair, training wheels or riding free. In a mother's calendar there are also injuries and ailments as mile markers, moments that stop one's heart, and shore up strengths one did not know were there.
I remember when Lily broke her finger one summer when her cousin was visiting and recall her saying with pride after she'd been X-rayed and splinted, "I can't believe I broke a bone!" She was beaming and proud of her ability to hurt, to suffer, and to endure. She was so human in that moment and she brought my fantasy of being able to protect them, live the hurts for them, take the force of the blow, crashing to the ground. And months later when Virginie, walking with some friends along the creek that either trickles or rages through our town depending on the season, tripped and cut her chin requiring three stitches, I regretted the choice I made to allow her the opportunity to explore and court danger.
It's the delusion I have of shielding my children from life's pains and ills and woes, and physical safety seems a good place to practice. How many times a day do I say, "Be careful! Watch out! Don't touch that! Don't slip! Don't fall! Look out! Why would you do that? You are going to hurt yourself!" And hurt sucks. The iconic images of motherhood show women cuddling and comforting their children, holding them close, wiping tears and touching boo-boo's. The urban mythology of mothers lifting cars, running into burning buildings, staring down wild animals or humans to keep their babes safe only emphasizes this expectation.
When I arrived to a screaming Virginie, hurt on an after-school play date, her middle toe on her left foot smashed by a falling board, I immediately knew it was bad. She was screaming bloody murder. There was blood everywhere. Her tears were fat, her fear palpable, and I needed to make it right. Though I hate driving, especially on any road with more than 2 cars, I packed up my peanut in the car with her favorite things and some warm clothes and raced her to the ER. I carried her in and though I did not scream like Shirley MacLaine in "Terms of Endearment", I would have if the staff wasn't so efficient. I hadn't taken the time to truly look at her little toe because I'd gone into autopilot, but now we had time to be together...and I peeked.
She looked at me with those longing, big, brown eyes, eyelashes glued together with tears, and asked, "Is it bad? Is it bad, Mama?"
"It's alright, Peanut. We are going to get you better. These people here are going to help us. Just hold onto Mommy if you feel scared." And she squeezed. And I squeezed back. Also the tears. Her toe looked so, so terrible and it was. I wondered how this tiny thing had suffered, what she must have felt and thought, when pain, pain like that is still relatively new. I thought about all the hurts I'd ever had, all the hurts from which I will need to shield her, all the shoring up, all the armor, and I wished that I could take the hit. I silently prayed, "Why didn't you let it happen to me? Why did it have to be her?" And I became steely because we had hours to go and I was angry and hurt for her and I could only be by her side and bombard her with love and comfort. (Broken)
She was wheeled into a room for an X-ray to make sure that her toe wasn't broken. It was cold in the room and made heavy by the lead aprons we wore to shield our organs from the radiation. Hers was a ladybug. Mine was blue. She lay there on that table, following directions and holding still, tiny tears falling to her ears, balling her hands into fists. She was pulling it together. She looked at me and I smiled and she at me. She got to wheel herself back in a wheelchair (a wheelchair!) to our triage curtain and she beamed. Though she could "feel her heartbeat in her toe" we were coming to the other side of this ordeal. When she was back on her bed, I got on with her and we cuddled. She asked me if it was okay for me to be on the bed with her to which I replied, "Mommy makes her own rules when it comes to her babies. If you need me here, then YES, it's more than okay."
After a long afternoon into evening, Virginie ended up losing her toenail and getting five stitches to close her toe. A piece of antibiotic gauze was put in place to hopefully facilitate regrowth of her nail. She will have to get a boot to walk and is taking antibiotics to protect against infection. Sutures, rather than stitches, were used to close her toe because, as the doctor said, "This is not like the stitches in her chin that we put in to allow minimal scarring. This is her toe and it needs more time to heal. If it scars, it's in a place where no one can see it...unless she is wearing sandals." She'll have her tiny scars tucked on her foot, shared only with those she allows close.
And so will I. Teeny, tiny little scars made each time I see them hurt, whether on accident or on purpose, lacerate my heart. I will see the stitching, the jagged lines where the skin came back together. Those are for the physical ouches. And of the psychological tears? The emotional punctures? Hidden wounds? As she lay on the suturing table, wrapped in the cocoon to prevent her from moving, fear, frustration, pain on her face, I put my nose to hers, felt her eyelashes on my cheek, and whispered to her about the unicorns and sweets we think about before we dream. We talked about how we were together and how I would never leave her, would always be nose to nose, eyelashes to cheek, butterfly kisses, even when I wasn't really there. She quieted herself, went inside, and she believed me. She trusted me. Even in her hurt she believed that I would give her everything I had, that I was somehow feeling her pain or that I would at least walk with her through it. Comfort.
My husband is not here and we are not having a crazy display of elegant foods. I won't drink a mimosa in bed, nor will I sit with my feet up or even sleep past 6:45 am. I won't play queen for a day or do "something special for myself," at least not the kind of special that many believe moms are looking for. I am relieved that my girl is alright. I am proud of myself for getting in the car and driving her to the hospital and keeping a cool head. I am grateful for the people in my life who know what an accomplishment that is for me.
While sitting in the emergency room before Virginie was seen by a doctor I thought, "My baby will be scarred. She's only six years old and something is already broken. Her perfect little feet, her tiny toenails are gone." Yes, I know it's ridiculous. When they are those cute, little cherubs, smooth-skinned and innocent, we try so desperately to keep them clean of wounds, bruises, hurts. They are the best of us, the good in us, the pure. Each fall, scrape, tumble left me holding my breath, hoping it wouldn't be too bad, that it would heal quickly and leave no trace on their bodies or in their hearts.
Two days after she was hurt, Virginie is hopping on one foot through the house, laughing and smiling and chatting as she always has. Her foot is wrapped and the gauze is looking worse for the wear even after just two days. She's been fixed, is on the mend, will come out unscathed if not unscarred. But it's me, Mommy, who is taking a little longer to heal. Being a mom (for me) means going all the way in. Into the pain, into the hurt, into the past, into the joy, into a depth of love that frankly, nothing in my life before ever prepared me for. It's breaking and putting myself back together all the time. Its carrying the hurt with them and for them. It is doing my best to keep them from being broken.
We're together this morning and we are whole.
Happy Mother's Day.
(c) 2015. Repatriated Mama: Back to the Suburban Grind.
Showing posts with label chef. Show all posts
Showing posts with label chef. Show all posts
Sunday, May 10, 2015
Tuesday, January 22, 2013
Upstairs, Downstairs
I love watching Downton Abbey. The relationships and politics of the upper class and their servants are not only intriguing but offer a peek into the world of folks who depend on others for things that I consider basic adult responsibilities and those that serve their needs upstairs but are dependent on these people for their livelihood. I love seeing how "the other half," as they were once affectionately called, lives though now they are clearly the 1 %, no halfsies about it. This interests me more than most because my husband works as a private chef with many prominent New York families. He is discreet, private, and unassuming so this is no exposé on how the other half lives. No stories about spoiled kids, eccentric parties, or secret societies where some kind of sacrifice is made to the gods that got them all this loot, power, and privilege. He would never divulge information, secrets, tales. That is not his style. This is a confession really, of how it feels to miss him when he is gone, knowing that we depend on the whims of his clients, by choice mind you, and that in between those spaces, we have carved out a lovely existence, a life I love and treasure, but that sometimes leaves me alone for longer than I'd like, exhausted, scared, silent.
My husband took on this gig for our family. Restaurant offers began to come in when we returned from our two year stint in Barbados and for a time we considered them as well as other opportunities in the hotel industry. Our stint in Barbados, that job, that company he worked for nearly did us in and we thought long and hard about returning to a lifestyle like that. We are older parents with small children and neither of us wants to recreate the experiences we had as children with hard-working but distant fathers who missed out on our childhoods and couldn't find a way back to us. So we decided on freelance work at least until the youngest is in kindergarten when we can both get back to work and pursue passions. It's a choice, a privilege, I know, to be able to do this when so many others work and are willing to any way they can or must, but we made it together. His reputation, his skill, his talent helped him find employment quickly both as a full time private chef and as a chef for hire for private parties and events.
When he's working full-time, he gets up like everyone else, has a cup of coffee, packs his things and is off on the morning train. I am home with the girls, getting them ready for school and then getting them to school before I have a few hours to steal for myself before I have to pick up the littlest. It's enough time to do some errands, exercise, and/or write but not enough to put in a real day's work outside the home. My hubby, on the other hand, will not be home any time before 10:30 pm. Once he's out on a full time gig, there is no coming home early for a game, dance recital, dinner date, anything (except for the one time I was taken by ambulance to the hospital convinced I was having a heart attack, which was actually a panic attack. OK, so it was an attack, but it was really my nerves and psyche, not my ticker.) I have gone to conferences, had the stomach flu, severe fever and flu, neighborhood parties on my own with kiddles in tow, missing him, but knowing that this is best for us. I have had the car jumped when the battery died in frigid weather, shoveled the driveway while the kids played inside, and had less than one hour to myself in weeks (due to the winter break when he was out of town for eighteen days), but still slog on. Because his current job is freelance, meaning he is not a full-time staff member, there are days that he can and does choose not to go in.
The private parties are more fun because he often works with another talented chef, a good friend, and they can speak French, talk politics and tell jokes while they work. If he works alone, he is able to design the menu with the client and generally has more freedom to create and express startlingly good dishes. These jobs bring in more money because they are one-offs and special so there is a flat fee and the coverage of food and other expenses. Sometimes he is able to prep at our house, then drive into the city with the goods. It makes the house smell amazing and I get to be with him though he is quite focused and doesn't say much. I love watching him even if he is so lost in his own world that he doesn't see my admiring eyes. His attention to detail, his professionalism, his truly unique talent are such wonderful assets to have, and he has never let himself down nor his clients nor us.
When Didier ran his own restaurants, he answered to his team, worked in tandem with them, but ultimately was the head of the kitchen. Sure, there were customers,some of whom he knew quite well and welcomed a conversation, after shift drink, but nothing as intimate as being in someone's home, their kitchen, standing very near to them while you work and they discuss the day's business with each other in front of you. In a household, no matter how good you are, you are beholden to the whims and fancies of the head of that household. There are many families with whom he has fit in comfortably, seamlessly, able to prepare meals that are creative, delicious, and in their taste and preference. With others, their confusion or lack of preference made it difficult to prepare and though he offered complete, thoughtful, well-considered menus he never felt certain that he'd give them what they wanted. There is little more stressful for a chef than wondering if people like his food!
To many, the travel, the access seems intoxicating. But though he does not live in the residence or take his meals down below, he is by no means a member of the family. And while it seems that traveling via private jet to warm locales and living in the Hamptons for the summer (this time family in tow) are incredible perks, he often does not get to enjoy them fully because he is working. I absolutely loved staying in the Hamptons this summer and was incredibly grateful for the provision made by his employer, even sent a hand sewn thank you card with a picture of the girls wading in the water at the edge of the bay. The house was just lovely and peaceful and offered respite from our suburban lives but we saw Didier so little. We might have run into him at the market after a visit to the playground or the beach, and were happy to be able to park at his employers' in order to swim at one glorious beach with a hefty parking price tag in order to see him on the drive in and out, but it could not be said that he was vacationing there with us. His joyful moments were stolen in between shifts.
He has cooked for many well-known folks, but often does not see them unless they deign to come in to the kitchen. Which some do, he has told me. Often to offer thanks or delight in a particular dish, sometimes just to be a part of it, to have their coffee and talk to a new ear. Some are gracious and remember his name and treat him and others with respect, and some less so. This past weekend, he went away with a family to Florida for an extended weekend which then turned into an additional week. He was asked if this was alright which prompted a call to me straight away. I appreciated both but felt there was no way on earth that I would summon that man home even if I were desperate for him. I never considered saying anything but yes.So there he is, still away and I am home for another week nursing this severe cold I've had since the flu and bronchitis left me.
I love him for the sacrifice, for the humility, for the commitment to us and our dream. I also accept the role that's been made for me as keeper of everything, the guiding star of all that we are and all that we do. For now. We are two artists and have chosen a life a little different than expected and with that comes, quite obviously, the unexpected. This man can cook his ass off and it has given us this place away from the restaurant scene, corporate hotel life, the politics, the game, and brought us to another level of the onion. We've been allowed a stolen pleasure now and again. But as "we" work in service, we are rooted firmly downstairs, able to see the 1% up close and personal, undoubtedly sure that we are not even close. The commitment to our family, the emotional time, energy, and grace we are able to put in is worth more than ever languishing at the window dreaming of nothing because we seemingly have it all. Because we are getting close to having it. All.
(c) Repatriated Mama: Back to the Suburban Grind.
My husband took on this gig for our family. Restaurant offers began to come in when we returned from our two year stint in Barbados and for a time we considered them as well as other opportunities in the hotel industry. Our stint in Barbados, that job, that company he worked for nearly did us in and we thought long and hard about returning to a lifestyle like that. We are older parents with small children and neither of us wants to recreate the experiences we had as children with hard-working but distant fathers who missed out on our childhoods and couldn't find a way back to us. So we decided on freelance work at least until the youngest is in kindergarten when we can both get back to work and pursue passions. It's a choice, a privilege, I know, to be able to do this when so many others work and are willing to any way they can or must, but we made it together. His reputation, his skill, his talent helped him find employment quickly both as a full time private chef and as a chef for hire for private parties and events.
When he's working full-time, he gets up like everyone else, has a cup of coffee, packs his things and is off on the morning train. I am home with the girls, getting them ready for school and then getting them to school before I have a few hours to steal for myself before I have to pick up the littlest. It's enough time to do some errands, exercise, and/or write but not enough to put in a real day's work outside the home. My hubby, on the other hand, will not be home any time before 10:30 pm. Once he's out on a full time gig, there is no coming home early for a game, dance recital, dinner date, anything (except for the one time I was taken by ambulance to the hospital convinced I was having a heart attack, which was actually a panic attack. OK, so it was an attack, but it was really my nerves and psyche, not my ticker.) I have gone to conferences, had the stomach flu, severe fever and flu, neighborhood parties on my own with kiddles in tow, missing him, but knowing that this is best for us. I have had the car jumped when the battery died in frigid weather, shoveled the driveway while the kids played inside, and had less than one hour to myself in weeks (due to the winter break when he was out of town for eighteen days), but still slog on. Because his current job is freelance, meaning he is not a full-time staff member, there are days that he can and does choose not to go in.
The private parties are more fun because he often works with another talented chef, a good friend, and they can speak French, talk politics and tell jokes while they work. If he works alone, he is able to design the menu with the client and generally has more freedom to create and express startlingly good dishes. These jobs bring in more money because they are one-offs and special so there is a flat fee and the coverage of food and other expenses. Sometimes he is able to prep at our house, then drive into the city with the goods. It makes the house smell amazing and I get to be with him though he is quite focused and doesn't say much. I love watching him even if he is so lost in his own world that he doesn't see my admiring eyes. His attention to detail, his professionalism, his truly unique talent are such wonderful assets to have, and he has never let himself down nor his clients nor us.
When Didier ran his own restaurants, he answered to his team, worked in tandem with them, but ultimately was the head of the kitchen. Sure, there were customers,some of whom he knew quite well and welcomed a conversation, after shift drink, but nothing as intimate as being in someone's home, their kitchen, standing very near to them while you work and they discuss the day's business with each other in front of you. In a household, no matter how good you are, you are beholden to the whims and fancies of the head of that household. There are many families with whom he has fit in comfortably, seamlessly, able to prepare meals that are creative, delicious, and in their taste and preference. With others, their confusion or lack of preference made it difficult to prepare and though he offered complete, thoughtful, well-considered menus he never felt certain that he'd give them what they wanted. There is little more stressful for a chef than wondering if people like his food!
To many, the travel, the access seems intoxicating. But though he does not live in the residence or take his meals down below, he is by no means a member of the family. And while it seems that traveling via private jet to warm locales and living in the Hamptons for the summer (this time family in tow) are incredible perks, he often does not get to enjoy them fully because he is working. I absolutely loved staying in the Hamptons this summer and was incredibly grateful for the provision made by his employer, even sent a hand sewn thank you card with a picture of the girls wading in the water at the edge of the bay. The house was just lovely and peaceful and offered respite from our suburban lives but we saw Didier so little. We might have run into him at the market after a visit to the playground or the beach, and were happy to be able to park at his employers' in order to swim at one glorious beach with a hefty parking price tag in order to see him on the drive in and out, but it could not be said that he was vacationing there with us. His joyful moments were stolen in between shifts.
He has cooked for many well-known folks, but often does not see them unless they deign to come in to the kitchen. Which some do, he has told me. Often to offer thanks or delight in a particular dish, sometimes just to be a part of it, to have their coffee and talk to a new ear. Some are gracious and remember his name and treat him and others with respect, and some less so. This past weekend, he went away with a family to Florida for an extended weekend which then turned into an additional week. He was asked if this was alright which prompted a call to me straight away. I appreciated both but felt there was no way on earth that I would summon that man home even if I were desperate for him. I never considered saying anything but yes.So there he is, still away and I am home for another week nursing this severe cold I've had since the flu and bronchitis left me.
I love him for the sacrifice, for the humility, for the commitment to us and our dream. I also accept the role that's been made for me as keeper of everything, the guiding star of all that we are and all that we do. For now. We are two artists and have chosen a life a little different than expected and with that comes, quite obviously, the unexpected. This man can cook his ass off and it has given us this place away from the restaurant scene, corporate hotel life, the politics, the game, and brought us to another level of the onion. We've been allowed a stolen pleasure now and again. But as "we" work in service, we are rooted firmly downstairs, able to see the 1% up close and personal, undoubtedly sure that we are not even close. The commitment to our family, the emotional time, energy, and grace we are able to put in is worth more than ever languishing at the window dreaming of nothing because we seemingly have it all. Because we are getting close to having it. All.
(c) Repatriated Mama: Back to the Suburban Grind.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)