I’m sure Dex thinks of himself as the only Who fan in our house, but he’d be wrong. For Christmas when I was 16, my folks, at my request, gave me a cassette of The Who’s “Face Dances” album. I can see myself standing in the sunlit dining room, listening to it through the headphones of my (not so little by today’s standards) cassette Walkman. My mom had to keep telling me to turn down the volume, but there was something about that set of songs that burrowed into my auditory center. I was not a huge fan of the The Who then, prefering The Doors and Dylan (and the next Christmas I forced my mom to walk into Rocky Mountain Records and Tapes and ask for something called “Meat Is Murder” - thanks mom!). 

For the past week, I’ve found myself singing “Another Tricky Day” in idle moments through my day. Folding laundry today, once again I belted out “this is no social crisis, this is you having fun”. Ahhhh. This is me having fun, this is true, this is no social crisis, just another tricky day… for me.

I am coming up on the five-year mark of being a stay-at-home mom. What the??? Certain tasks of daily life begin to lose their luster after that many years. Don’t get me wrong, I like being home with my kids. I don’t want to do otherwise right now. But I’m able to say that in part because I have continued to squeeze out some creative work of my own. If I didn’t have my camera in hand half the time, if I weren’t able to put words to paper, I don’t how I would manage. THESE things are my work, my real work. So I don’t even consider myself a truly stay-at-home mom, not the way I picture it anyway.

I do take much pride in caring for my children and my home. I hold that work in high regard. It’s rewarding, as trite as that sounds, and it’s hard work. And, yes, it’s boring and frustrating as hell some most some days.

Lately, every day feels like a tricky day. Tricky is a good word for it. Nothing is.. awful. Nothing is a crisis. It’s just another day navigating the bumps and swerves of life. Another day of psyching myself up to do five more loads of laundry. Another day of trying to find meaning in a clean kitchen counter. Another day trying to make sure I’ve done right by my kids and my husband and myself, and knowing I can’t do it all in one day, every day. Yup, just another tricky day.