Today at Gymnastics I sat next to a friendly, outgoing woman I’m acquainted with, but we really don’t know the details of each other’s lives. I know that she teaches spinning at the Y, lives in a rural home she and her husband built from scratch, and abides by a very eco-ethical philosophy.
We were chatting and she asked the question that always throws me for a loop: “So, I’m sorry, you’ve probably told me this before, but what do you do all day?”
I wasn't sure where to begin and searched through my brain cells for a manageable answer.
“I’m at home,” I told her. “I’m just one of those people who manages to keep busy.”
Because really, how can I tell her that in between the basics of chauffering, laundry, cleaning, shopping, dog-walking and exercising, that I strip mine history, read until my vision fails, think about the world, struggle to find my place in it, manage a business, help the people who cross my path in life, worry about the six billion who don’t (particularly those in China, thanks to an excellent series of recent articles by Jim Yardley for The New York Times), produce a home-cooked meal at the end of the day and try to be a good-enough mom & wife & daughter & sister & friend. Cheerfully. And some days I even wash my hair. How can you just distill your passions, obsessions, confusions, duties and loves into polite conversation? I haven’t mastered this skill yet.
She thought it was just great, “just great!” that I was at home, but confessed that staying at home full-time wasn’t for her. She put her family first, of course, but was otherwise occasionally employed to “design experiences” i.e., self-esteem raising group-dynamic type programs for teenage female runners, for example, or overnight adventure camping trips for fourth-graders. That sounds a little nebulous, but it was far easier for her to explain herself than it was for me. Since she’s into building self-esteem, no wonder she thought it was “just great!” that I work at home.
But I like her; I really do. She didn’t find it all odd when I asked her if she composted humanure.
10:49:01 PM 
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