On a frigid January afternoon just after the New Year in 2011, my two best friends (M and B) and I walked into a local café for coffee. I had just returned from teaching in Australia and it seemed like years since we’d grabbed a cup and chatted about our lives. This was the norm. Since high school, the three of us would cram ourselves around a table in a crowded coffee shop, usually much too small for the three of us, and talk about all of the sudden changes taking place in our lives, all the while acknowledging that when you step back and look hard enough, not much actually changes at all.
I had 300 dollars in my bank account, so I could barely afford a cup of coffee. You can forget about a scone or a muffin. That would have been a total luxury. Five months in Australia including rent, transportation expenses, and grocery shopping, had completely stripped my savings. I was lucky enough that M was able to get me a job at a restaurant down the street from the coffee shop a few weeks earlier, but I was only working three days a week to start out. It seemed that bills piled up quicker than paychecks came.
If you’re lucky, the breakfast bar at the café has open seats. It tends to be the most popular place to sit because it faces outside and people love to people watch. It was lucky enough that the three of us were able to find a day that we were all available for an hour to catch up, so we couldn’t believe our luck when we noticed that three seats at the breakfast bar were all vacant. Quicker than we could agree on the idea, we rushed to the seats and threw down our jackets claiming our territory for the next hour. Drinks always come second to finding a good place to sit.
After settling down with our coffee, we began catching up. The real emotion emerged when I began discussing how stressed out I was about not having a steady job. Working three days a week as a hostess at a restaurant for nine dollars an hour wasn’t exactly steady money at the time as a twenty two year old college graduate. The troublesome thoughts spilling out of my mouth like a running bath faucet were put on hold as I looked up to see a woman walking into the coffee shop with two captivating, beautiful little girls.
The blonde little girl eagerly pulled her mother toward a high top table in the coffee shop, while a red headed youngster sat on the mother’s hip looking curiously around. The woman put the youngest child on the ground and she ran to the table with her sister. The three of them peeled off their jackets, found their seats, and for the next ten minutes my distress and frustration subsided.
“HI!” The little redhead shouted enthusiastically in our direction! Instantly, a child no taller than mid thigh melted three twenty two year olds. We all waved and talked about how perfect this little family looked. The mother seemed so calm and peaceful, and the close connection she had with her children was obvious. Her body language toward her girls showed so much respect and harmony, that we were just as fascinated by the way she interacted with her children as we were with the children themselves.
“That’s G!” The little blonde piped up with more personality than any adult I’ve ever met. “I’m Q!”
“It’s very nice to meet you!” I responded. We introduced ourselves to the girls and the mother, who we came to know as N.
“Your children are beautiful! Let me know if you ever need a nanny!” I exclaimed. N’s eyes lit up like a flame and a huge smile spread across her friendly face.
“Really? We’re actually looking for new childcare!”
It happened just like that. We exchanged emails and communicated back and forth for the next week. I was looking for a new job and N’s family was looking for a new nanny. Little did I know that this family would become my second family, and we would share laughter, tears, and everything between for the next year and a half.
Having the honor of watching Q and Little G for the last year and a half has brought me so much joy. I have been able to be a part of things that have not only changed their lives, but changed the way I view the world. Nothing will level you like watching a child learn how to read, and nothing will make you laugh harder than helping to potty train a toddler. I have recently signed an offer letter and accepted a full time position with an amazing company in New York City. After an wonderful year and a half with this family, we all knew that someday I would be starting a new chapter, and I thought preparing myself to say goodbye in the months leading up to finding my career path would help. Unfortunately, when you have met and formed a bond with people, especially children, saying goodbye is never as easy as you hope it will be. I have said goodbye to many people in my life, and I know in two weeks time, this will undoubtedly be one of the hardest ones I have to make. I take comfort every day in knowing that it’s not really goodbye, because we will always keep in touch and every time I come home, visiting them will be a top priority.
I try to stay away from list posts. Sometimes I know they can come off pretentious. The only times I really do listing is when it relates to an experience that I think others will be able to relate to and maybe even take something away from. I’ve been reflecting lately on the things I’ve learned in the last year and a half, about life, my family, my friends, and myself. I’d like to take this post to share some of the things I’ve learned from being a nanny. Sharing the things that this family has taught me seems like one of the best gifts that I can give back
1. Butter sticks, chocolate pudding, and the sugar bowl are not your basic food groups – I’ve only been out of college for two years, but I remember all too well Easy Mac and Ramen Noodle meals. That being said, I am completely familiar with scrambling to find something to eat, but Little G brings a whole new light to this concept. Little G likes to adventure into the fridge. It would be great if she pulled out English muffins and Jam, which are usually located on the bottom shelf and the side of the refrigerator door. Instead she reaches for sticks of butter or the chocolate pudding. Once she even pushed the stool to the counter and found her way to the sugar bowl with a spoon. The food pyramid would not be pleased.
2. Food, water, and sleep are always the answer - This never changes. Whether you’re a child or an adult, if you’re demonstrating extreme and irrational levels of grouchiness, chances are you’re hungry, dehydrated, or sleep deprived.
3. Be flexible – We are constantly expecting children to understand the concept of flexibility (in terms of attitude and mentality) yet it surprises me how as adults, we can be extremely unyielding sometimes. Once in a while things get crazy, and you just have to go with the flow and be okay with the fact that it’s not always going to go according to plan. Actually, in my experience, it usually NEVER goes according to plan. Children look to the adults in their lives to show them how it’s done. I’ve found that demonstrating flexibility shows children that as long as everybody is safe, it’s okay bend sometimes. In other words, if camping didn’t pan out because somebody caught the flu, perhaps bungee jumping with your toddlers isn’t a safe way to show flexibility. However, an impromptu camp out in the living room with a tent, some sleeping bags, and flashlights is a great way to show that even if things don’t work out as planned, they can still work out just fine.
4. Communicate to find the root of the problem – This one came to me today as I was having a conversation with Q. Yesterday, after a long day in the sun, Q and Little G’s Dad came home from work. Melt down city commenced and Q was the mayor. Everything seemed to frustrate her. The fact that their dad wanted to take a shower, the fact that she took a nap, the fact that Little G took a nap, and the fact that ice cream before dinner was a no-go. It was a full blown temper tantrum.
This morning, I came to work and Q was in high spirits. Q and I had a conversation about the melt down and I asked her why she was so frustrated. Her answer really shocked me, because not only was it concise and honest, but it was a very adult perspective. She said, “I didn’t get to see Daddy all day, and I was angry because he wanted to shower and I just wanted to spend time with him.”
5. Have empathy – This goes hand in hand with number 4. After Q said that I stepped back and said, “You know Q, sometimes Blake and I get mad at each other too after long days. I’ve been away from him all day and he just wants to cook dinner, and that frustrates me. I understand, and I’m sorry that you were sad.” She gave me a high five and we all went outside to the pool. We think sometimes that because we’re adults, that we need different things than children need. At the end of the day it really comes down to basics: Empathy, kindness, love, food, sleep, and water!
6. Take advantage of your surroundings – Teaching children that nature is a gift and that there are adventures to be had in their own back yards is so important. These days, I grow sad when I see kids playing on iPads or iPhones. The earth has so much to offer! This week Q and G cleared out an entire section of brush in their back yard. They now have a “secret hideout.” Watching them create it brought me back to the days where I played in the back yard and built my own “tree forts” out of tree branches. To an adult, they would have looked like poorly constructed tipis, but to me, they were safe havens.
7. Silly is good. Laugh at yourself! – Dance parties, making up silly songs, and face painting are regular activities with the girls, but once in a while they throw something outrageous at me, and I always go along with it (again, as long as it is a safe choice). This morning when I arrived at work, Q and G met me at the door with hair brushes. “We made a beauty salon!” Q exclaimed. I turned the corner to see a hair dryer, squirt bottles, make up brushes, bows, banana clips, and paddle brushes. Q and G brought me to their “salon” and for the next hour I was the victim of a three year old and a six year old brushing my hair in the wrong direction, my hair sitting Cindy Lou Who style on top of my head, and bright pink lip gloss covering the entire area surrounding my mouth. When I asked little G how I looked, she cheerfully said, “Not good!” Their mother and I were dying laughing, because I looked ridiculous, but it was so much fun! Seeing how happy it made them that I was playing along with them was more important than looking nice or taking myself too seriously at that moment.
8. Cherish the little moments – Children grow up so quickly, and will never be this little again. N (the girls’ mother) is so vivacious and fun, and it’s totally energizing to see a mom step outside of her busy life to immerse herself in her children’s youth, even if it means bringing boring tasks to life. It is truly inspiring. I’ll never forget the time she told me that she had to go grocery shopping but it was already 7:00 at night. She piled the kids in the car, brought their play shopping cart from home to the super market, and let them each bring a baby doll to push in their cart alongside her. She even let them pick out food to put in their little cart. It gave a new meaning to “family trip to the grocery store.” I’ve watched N (mom) and A (dad) interact with Q and Little G for the last year, and whether it means creating an ice cream stand out of scrap wood or keeping the hundreds, if not THOUSANDS of water color paintings their children make for them, they are so good at cherishing the little moments and savoring the youth of their children.
9. Always have options ready – If humans are fickle creatures by nature, children can be downright erratic. One minute they are excited to go to the playground, and the next minute, they want to do something else. Having options means you’re ready for pretty much anything. Options don’t just apply to fun activities, but in negative situations as well. If one of the girls is doing something “naughty” I always offer safe options, and let them make a different choice on their own. It has taught me to be a more patient adult, and it fosters situational understanding and teaches children to make choices for themselves.
10. Matching is SO last season– Interestingly, mixed prints are totally in, and Little G is the main culprit. I am confident that fashion week should give credit where credit is due, and issue thanks to Little G for inspiring their biggest in seasonal trend. Little G has mixed prints mastered. Sometime she’ll come down stairs in pink camo tights, a green plaid skirt, a striped shirt, and sparkly red shoes. She always looks fabulous, and she knows it.
Tag Archives: Work
Eating My Own Advice
Chill out, Carley.
I know you’d love to be the next Jack Kerouac, J.D. Salinger, or Dave Eggers, but RE-LAX. Has anything ever been about becoming a copy of what already exists? No. That’s now what you want for yourself. Grab a cup of coffee, drop the ego, let go of the expectations.
Let’s start with a piece of paper…
No, NOT a computer. Close your laptop. I know where this is going. You’ll open a word document, check your email, tweet something inspiring, and check Facebook ten times. Let’s kick it old school with a pencil…no, a pen. You hate pencils. You always smudge your words. Yeah, yeah, erasers are cool and all, but you need a pen, a nice blue Uniball pen that glides across the paper smoother than a puck on ice.
Now write.
Stop thinking about what you WANT to write. Just write. Doesn’t matter what you write about as long as it’s the truth. Is someone pissing you off? Great. Write about it. Did your boyfriend dump you? Great. Write about it. Did some jerk off cut you off this morning, causing you to spill scalding hot coffee on the crotch of your white pants? Write about it. You’ll feel better after. You don’t have to publish any of it, just get it out, or you’ll go bloody mad.
Now you’ve gotten that out of the way, what do you WANT to write about? Do it. Scribble down ideas, notes, doodle, play tic tac toe with yourself and win every time. Do whatever you have to do if it helps you find inspiration, but don’t stop writing.
This next part is SO important. It is vital not only for producing quality work, but to your sanity and general well-being. Take a break.
a) Run
b) Go to the bathroom
c) Grab your camera. Photograph
d) Shower
e) Play guitar
f) Eat something
g) Drink some water
h) Drink a beer
i) Drink tea
j) Laugh at something
Do not complete b) and c) at the same time.
That would be weird.
Just take a mental break. The more mentally strung out and exhausted you are, the more frustrated you will become, and the less you will want to write. You have to WANT to write. Don’t ever let writing become something that you HAVE to do. The minute writing starts to feel like a chore, pick one of the above activities, and walk away from your work.
Put space between you and your work. It’s like a relationship. If the two of you sit attached at the hip all week, you’ll grow to resent each other. I promise your work will give you the props you rightfully deserve if you give each other a break.
Come back an hour later, a day later, two days later, and pick it up again.
This time, I give you permission to sit at your computer. I give you permission to put on some music. I do not give you permission to put on the television. If there is an all day marathon of NCIS or The Big Bang Theory on television, you won’t get any work done. Find that soft focus music…Ed Sheeran, Bon Iver, or some good Soul.
Otis Redding. Always Otis Redding.
NOT LMFAO or PITBULL.
NEVER LMFAO or PITBULL.
Ever. It shouldn’t even be on your iPod.
Start typing. Don’t edit as you go along, that is the quickest way to shoot yourself in the foot. Be honest. Don’t write what you think others want to hear, use no voice but your own, and don’t over analyze your thoughts.
Refer to your notes, but don’t simply regurgitate them.
Let your notes spark a greater picture.
The greater picture will speak for itself when you’re finished.
Once you feel like you’ve spilled it all out, and you can see it all on the screen, edit.
Remember grammar and punctuation.
Learn expedience.
There is an art to saying something complex with fewer words.
I realize that sentence about the beautiful, breathtaking, statuesque, exquisite tree is poetic and one of your favorites, but it’s really long. That is a lot of adjectives. Calm down. Real talk, you only need one adjective for a noun. If you’re going to use two, make sure they relay different concepts. Everybody is going to know you abused the thesaurus option in Microsoft Word.
Revise.
Don’t be afraid to cut your work up. It’s not going to hurt it.
Chop it up, re arrange it, put the beginning where the end is.
Play jigsaw with it until it reads the way you want it to.
Play.
Read it out loud.
Ask questions.
Don’t be afraid to ask questions.
Ask yourself, your friends, your loved ones, your gold fish, anybody who will listen.
Gain clarity. Reflect. Is this what you wanted?
If it’s not what you wanted, fix it.
Go after what you want, it’s the only way you’ll be happy with the work you produce.
Celebrate when you’re finished.
Get your victory dance on, because you just created something one of a kind.
Now stop! Hammer time. Can’t touch this.
Rooftop Parties With Celebrities…Or Something Like That
I am not all that glamorous in day to day life, so it’s not surprising that I am not all that glamorous when I go to Palm Beach, Los Angeles, or New York City. I think people have these concocted, completely romanticized ideas about what city life is really like. It can be crazy, and scary, and so chaotic. You can feel isolated and secluded.
In other words, unless you have distinct connections with Jessica Alba, you’re probably not going to be attending lavish parties in a Dolce and Gabbana evening gown.
But it can also be remarkably invigorating, you just have to be up for adventure.
Three years ago, on my way to Australia, I spent a few nights in Los Angeles to break the 22 hour flight up. It was my attempt at preventing a flight induced coma. I booked a few nights in The Radisson (a long time favorite hotel of mine, hotels are something I don’t mind splurging on. I’m not down with bed bugs. I’m also not down with conspicuous stains…)and hunkered down until my flight from LA to Sydney. While I was there, I visited my good friend’s little brother…who ALSO happens to be a good friend of mine. K is an actor in LA, and I had never been to Los Angeles before. Kindly, he offered to show me around.
I am notorious for being a smartass, so of course it was completely appropriate to wear my Boston Celtics championship shirt to Los Angeles, considering The Celtics were, at the time, the champions. Upon walking into the swanky hotel lobby, I received several death glares from staff members at the hotel. I was positive, at that moment, that somebody was sneaking up to my hotel room and dousing my bed with gasoline.
The woman at the counter greeted me with a smile and told me that the bell hop would bring my bags to my room. I was in the middle of declaring that I was happy to carry them up myself, when the bell hop exclaimed:
“She can carry those bags up to her hotel room herself unless she plans on changing her shirt.”
To which I responded:
“My bad. I have a Celtics jersey in my carry on. Which winning team’s apparel do you prefer?”
Needless to say, I carried my own bags to my room, and checked my bed for doused gasoline.
Initially, a temporary euphoric feeling captured me as K showed me around. I’m sure part of it was knowing somebody else in a new city. I was about to travel to Australia, where I knew absolutely nobody, so seeing a friendly face half way was reassuring. It’s also easy to fall in love with a city that is 65 degrees and sunny in the middle of February. I had just traveled from New England, where we received ten inches of snow two days before leaving. I was ready to get out. I was ready to be warm.
The euphoric feeling subsided when we ventured onto the streets of LA. I looked like a flower child, plucked from the suburban seacoast, planted on another planet. I wore a gray Volcom t-shirt, ripped jeans, beach waves, and most of the afternoon I rocked K’s bright red sunnies. Meanwhile, six foot tall avatar/models strolled passed me in platform heals at 3:00 in the afternoon.
No big deal. I’ll be wearing my rainbow flip-flops…over here…with a paper bag on my head…with holes cut out so I can breathe.
I actually just dug up a picture from that day.
Come and get me, Paparazzi. Eat your heart out.
New York is more forgiving. I feel strangely at home in New York City. It still harbors that raw chaos, where you’re not sure if you want to sit down on a park bench and pout like a toddler or curl up in fetal position on the sidewalk. At the same time, I feel like I can converse with people in New York.
Yesterday, I took a trip to New York City, and it was beyond refreshing. I hopped on the Bolt Bus, and endured five hours of listening to other people’s loud conversations and games of Angry Birds OVER my iPod music, but it was completely worth it when I saw that NYC skyline.
There is something about the New York skyline that levels me, in a way that Boston’s does not. I think it’s all a matter of fluency. I am well versed in Boston, from the Zakim Bridge to the Orange Line. From that guy selling sausages to that other guy selling last minute game tickets. It’s like being at home.
New York is like being pushed onto a rail road track, with an oncoming train headed right for you. Part of you wants to run away, and part of you wants to jump over those tracks to see if you’ll make it to the other side.
Note: I am not condoning playing on railroads
It’s an analogy, folks.
Don’t do anything dangerous.
New York has an ingredient of suspense that I find extremely alluring. It is a young city, pulsing with success, and it is an old city, flowing with knowledge and intelligence. It is so many things in one.
Not to mention, I didn’t look out of place in a bird printed tunic, leggings, and knee high brown boots.
No stilettos required.
