This morning, I spent some time in Africa.  I had to.  My family’s pace of life has accelerated to infinity these last few weeks and I needed to catch my breath.  So while it was still dark out, I crept out of bed and hopped onto the stairmaster, book and water bottle both in place.  The water was Dasani, and the book:   Don’t Let’s go to the Dogs Tonight by Alexandra Fuller.  It’s about an English girl who grew up with her family amid the civil unrest of Africa.  Oh my three faithfuls, this one’s gonna be a beauty.  The plot will be a little melancholy, I think, but the writing is gorgeous–descriptive, brutal and gorgeous.  The sultry heat and vastness of the outback were exactly what I needed to feel and where I needed to be on this chilly Tuesday morning.  I even needed to hear the drunk mother rant about the necessity of a white-ruled state on the continent.  Somehow, it made missing family prayer last night feel like less of a maternal blunder.

I’m not far into the book, but my mind has already planted itself there until I can get back to it.  Though today I’ll be wading through violin lessons, swim practice and the orthodontist, I’ll really be on the dusty border between Zimbabwe and Zambia, bribing the greasy customs agent with cigarettes and Coca-Cola in order to get through.  If only we had a Banana Republic at our mall.  Then I could really lock myself inside my own head.

Where do you like to go when there’s no place to go?  When the relentless demands of your life consume all of your time, but not all of your mind?  That is the hardest thing about motherhood, I think.  We are so busy most of the time, and yet slightly bored much of the time.  I don’t mean to complain.  Most mothers would rather be nowhere else than with their children, whether that is in the diapers or driving-them-everywhere stage.  We want to mother our children, and no one will dispute the intellectual investment that doing so requires.  But on an immediate, daily basis, that mothering also involves a lot of stop-and-go, hurry-up-and-wait, long slow explanations, and long slow minutes spent listening to long slow explanations.  All of that physical care keeps our hands importantly busy but our heads, sometimes, a little less so.  And sometimes, our brain needs to hang out with someone its own age, somewhere other than the minivan.  That’s why, this week, I’m going to see Mother Africa.

Where do you go when you need to escape the minivan?  Who do you go see?

I’d really love to know.

Do you remember that song by Matchbox Twenty?  I never liked it all that much, but it takes me back to my Portland years and young motherhood, so it’s redeemed.  Soft rainy days and my first baby in a tiny apartment.  Ah.

It’s 3am and I’m up.  I don’t know why.  I slept a few hours, then my body said, “We’re done!  Time to start the day.”  My body does this to me on occasion, always without my consent.  I wouldn’t mind it so much if my body did other things without my consent, like shrinking itself two pants sizes or plumping up my ever-thinning lips.  But my body seems interested only in rebelling against sleep, not aging.  (Thanks a lot, body.)

I’m sitting in front of my computer like a warm stick of string cheese.  And though my body is awake, my brain is only half so.  That’s the problem with insomnia; you’re up, but you’re not really up.  If I was really up, I could accomplish something important, like cleaning out my fridge or finishing (okay, starting) The Brothers Karamazov.  Either endeavor would break me out of my sleepy trance, so I sit at my computer instead.  What is it about the computer that’s so mesmerizing?  No, mesmerizing implies drama;  I’d call it pacifying.  I don’t know what it is, but I know that my six-year old son is no dummy.  Staring at this screen beats the heck out of thinking.

The other thing I know is, I can’t sleep.  Maybe insomnia is a subconscious sort of “night out” for the desperately trapped middle-aged mom.  If I can’t go anywhere, I can at least stay up.  Kind of like how poor people are always fat.  Eating is the only fun thing they can do.

I’m afraid that last remark may have been offensive.  But that’s okay, because nobody thinks they’re poor or fat, even though we’re all a little of both.  Besides, it’s now 3:37am and I bear no responsibility for what I might write. Kind of the blogger’s version of “The Holy Ghost goes to bed at midnight.”

I’m afraid that last remark may have been offensive.  But this post is now officially boring, so like the editors of Cosmo, I will write anything distasteful to snare a few readers into my dark web.  I’m not above selling out.  Kind of like when I used to bring pastries every week to the Sunday School class of sixteen-year olds I was teaching.  Oh please.  The kids knew I was just trying to dress it up.  Why didn’t I just hang a sign on the door that read “This class is too boring to get through without a muffin and please, please, please like me as your teacher!”  Gag-o-rama.  Just one more memory that makes me happy I’m not still in my twenties.

I’m afraid that  last remark may have been offensive to people in their twenties.  Well, I meant it.  You will do many things in your twenties that will make you cringe when you remember them in your thirties.  But you are cuter, leaner, and have thicker hair than I do right now, so don’t worry too much about it.  Beauty trumps ignorance, every time.  Derrick read me a study once which proved, by and large, that most people become only as smart as they need to.  This explains a lot about hot guys.  I, myself, am not especially hot or smart which–based upon this study–means I’m not especially dumb or ugly, either.  I’ve decided to take the news as a compliment.

So as the years march on and I get less cute, lean, and thick-haired, I apparently need to get a lot smarter to compensate.  Which is why I should be reading one of the bazillion unread books in my pile right now instead of boring you with this blog.  But that would take a bit of intellectual investment, unlike writing this post.  This post, as you may have inferred, has required only a set of fingers, a keyboard, and a body temperature of 98.6.  All things considered, I think it turned out pretty well.  Especially since I’m going to close with this quote from The Brothers Karamazov that I’ve obviously googled in an attempt to make you think I’ve read it:

The stupider one is, the closer one is to reality. The stupider one is, the clearer one is. Stupidity is brief and artless, while intelligence wriggles and hides itself. Intelligence is a knave, but stupidity is honest and straightforward.

I’d say this post has been pretty honest and straightforward.  Just like me.  Which, according to Derrick’s study, also means I’m pretty hot.