Mystical Magical

Home. What a marvelous word.

I feel so busy these days. We just have so much going on, so many activities and obligations, not just for the kids, but for us parents too. It doesn’t help things having a husband who works and unconventional nightshift schedule. Often my day-to-day feels like a whirlwind of chaos; I am spinning, spinning, spinning, trying to manage All The Things and also make sure everyone is getting where they need to be, with all their needed items and clothes, and also picked up from those places—with all their accessories— at the correct time (and on time, which is a challenge all its own) and I am just barely making it all happen. JUST BARELY. There’s one particular day of the week when one child needs to be delivered to one side of town at the exact time that another child is supposed to be picked up from the opposite side of town. I mean, I am RUNNING. Sometimes my days end at 8:30, other times it’s more like 11 or 12. This is life with multiple teenagers, I suppose.

Do you know that Benson Boone song “Mystical Magical”? Nevermind the arrogance of the message, but that line where he says “taking off your blue jeans” in the list of things that are Mystical-Magical? YEAH, BENSON BOONE KNOWS WHAT HE IS TALKING ABOUT. I would argue that taking off my blue jeans at the end of long day and putting on my most comfortable pajamas is THE SINGLE MOST mystical-magical thing I ever do. Ever. In my whole life. But a few minutes previous to that ray of glory is the moment when the last pickup is complete, I enter my house, and I lock my front door behind me. Aaaaahhh. At last, I can turn my mind off for a bit and just be, without having to keep track, without having to remember anything, until I’m going to bed (in my mystical-magical jammies) and setting my morning alarms to start it all again.

This busy time is so much to juggle, but it’s also really special. I sometimes feel like I’m looking down a noisy corridor and at the end, not very far away, there is quiet. It’s there, and I’m moving toward it, and that’s fine, it looks very nice and peaceful, but I also really like where I am right now. I get exhausted by the busyness but I also recognize that as soon as it began it’s already on its way out. I can’t go back to the days of all my ducklings quietly at home with one or two little activities per week. I can hardly believe there existed days when I didn’t know what to do with all my hours. Sometimes when Anja and Greta were little we would just go to the grocery store because I wanted to get out of the house and we had nothing to do that day. Did you catch that word? NOTHING. I cannot even fathom that in today’s schedule.

All this lack of nothing is super fun and wholesome and educational and character building, and I love it so much, and yet… it’s still the being at home together that is my favorite part. We do a lot of our daily school work in separate rooms, but usually convene for lunch and “together school,” which is typically Modern World History, Literature, and Religion. We usually then end up around the table at night, doing more schoolwork, making art, drinking our evening tea, talking about our days, eating a late dinner. I light a candle and we work, separately, side by side. Once in awhile I’ll do a read aloud, or we’ll gather for our Table of Hats Writing Guild and share what we’ve all been working on. And on some evenings, after that last pickup, when the door is locked and the candle on the kitchen table is lit, we all drift to our separate corners of the house, and it’s mostly quiet, but we’re all there together under one roof, all of my girls and me. I have had eighteen amazing years of this, of this physical togetherness as a family. Together. What a marvelous word.

Okay, I take it back. This is the most mystical-magical part of my existence. But it’s nice to know that when this period of my life has ended, when this wonderful chaos is over and I’ve reached the end of the tunnel, where everything is quiet, I will always have the timeless and unparalleled delight of putting on my pajamas at the end of the day.