idealism's nemesis

nobody wants to see me sarcastic. it just isn't right they think - she must be depressed. depressing if nothing else. i start a riot. sarcasm slips in at the quietest of moments. like a drunken lover through an open window - clamoring, raucous, a bull in a china shop, sweet. it is not that i have lost my passion for the positive...it's just that the sweet aftertaste of a sarcastic recounting of ordinary moments (when made without injury to others) is too delicious to disclaim. bringing me to motherhood. what the hell is this all about? are we all now greatly appalled at the thankless efforts of our own moms? genetically predisposed perhaps, to alter history, i find myself filling volunteer positions at multiple schools with a near crazy zeal, cutting happy faces into PB&J sandwiches, and even setting up play dates. this being "engaged" is shadowed always by a looming disdain for those parents (usually the mothers) whom appear to do this naturally. these are the organizers, the delegators, the hosts. perhaps i only envy them. the coiffed hair, the matching sweatsuits, the pretty faces of seeming serenity and control. i am running around mismatched and,more often than not, clueless. maybe...just maybe i have on both shoes if there is a run scheduled...but surely the socks i wear are stained brown from the trails and it did not dawn on me until age 38 when my neighbor, the self-proclaimed "spin-cycle slut" re-introduced me to bleach last week.... that there was another way. my two boys, age4 and 6, are sitting here now - threatening things like " i will punch you in the wiener with a hammer. and a screw-driver...even a cactus and a hundred million things that will hurt you in the wiener" then they step on one another and head-butt like high school rugby bro's without the pain-erasing effects of beer bongs. they are my angels. big brown eyes the size of "my helmet in that picture" he says - pointing to a picture of the little man he is becoming (on a skateboard attempting an Olie off a picnic table at Corte Madera park.) You know where we got god(?) he is asking now. we got god from life. pretend this is god, responds the 4 year old, pointing to the action figure he has hanging off the edge of the seat, ready to plummet to its final and fiercest death. this is all quickly completed upon the discovery of a shoe box next to the coffee table...now they are insane kung-fu fighters....the box has wings....anything is possible. i always thought i would be this super fun and creative mom, inspiring my children to greatness. but i am more a blank slate than they...and surely i have become the one inspired, instead, by they. inspired to overeat and weep at trite commercials. inspired to merely think about losing the muffin top carrying both these glorious beings afforded me. inspired to keep up with something though i am not sure yet, what. the kung-fu fucking panda has just turned into the incredible hulk and the shoe box has become somewhat of a clam. i mean pile of debris. i mean recycling. in the time i typed, it was obsolete. like peace and quiet in a houseful of boys. gone. please do not confuse me for a complaint. i relish the absurdity of it all. that i would be a parent. that i could love like this. that i would have fear where once there was none. fear of worldly things like flying and sharks and mountain lions and creeps. anything that could physically take me away from my two little dashes. anything that could hurt enough to break me. i want to keep this physical body forever now - so i can have the eyes to watch them grow, the ears to listen to their ridiculous genius, the arms to hold the wounded. smart litte f$%ckers, both of them - reminding me of the way my brain worked before i cared about what other people thought. before i was trying to fit in. before i understood there was even anything to fit into. oh sweet oblivion....the magic elixir before the beer came along. which was then replaced with wine, then whiskey, then various other elicit and illegal things, then work, then doingness. doing. doing. doing. they are wrestling now, on the couch they are forbidden to wrestle on :) "you break a tree, you break me" says the 4 yr. old - jumping fearlessly into the fire of his older brothers invisible shield. the tears will come eventually. it's just a toss up which one of us will shed 'em.