Cycles

NOTE: This piece was originally published on 2.2.16.

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Since becoming a parent and a work-from-home employee, I’ve become hyper-aware of cycles.

We all live cyclically. Many of our cycles are automatic, micro-scale, and essential to survival. At least once a second, we pump blood away from and back towards our heart. Every few seconds, oxygen passes in and out of our lungs. We eat at regular intervals to maintain our energy. And we sleep each night so we can rise with the sun.

(That’s a joke for all the new parents out there. I know you haven’t slept in 36 hours.)

Other cycles are less incessant, less vital, but still important. We set aside one day a week for rest and reflection. We mow the lawn during the growing months and shovel snow in the frosty ones. We visit out-of-state relatives during the holidays. We reunite with old classmates every decade or so.

And somewhere in the middle of all these cycles is where we live most of our lives: the daily, domestic routines that consume our attention and define our quality of life.

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Wednesdays are the hardest for me. It’s one of the two days my wife commutes to her office in Brookline. It’s also a day when both of my parents are working throughout the day. So I’m home alone with our daughter, our dog, and our cat.

There are all kinds of domestic cycles during the day. The animals need to be fed in the morning and evening. The dog needs a walk, usually two, and plenty of “bathroom breaks” throughout the day. There’s usually a small foothill of laundry and a stack of dishes that need to be cleaned and sorted.

Those are all the chores; the necessary cycles that we follow to maintain a certain standard of cleanliness and responsibility.

Our daughter, most of all, has her own cycles: to be fed, cleaned, changed, rocked, stimulated, soothed, held, bathed, loved. There’s almost no predictability in her cycles. I know that she’ll tell me when she’s hungry or tired, but those needs arrive at different times every day.

There are other cycles, more elusive ones, that we follow because our heart tells us to. For me, that means writing songs. Reading interesting books. Making time for solitude.

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When you are a parent, it’s nearly impossible to get the cycles to sync up in the right way. Exercise was one of the earliest casualties of our new lifestyle. Just months before our daughter was born, I completed a marathon. Yet my running shoes have stayed unlaced, sitting on a rack as I wait for the “perfect” time to run.

There is no perfect time anymore. Before Jolene, going for a run was an option nearly any time of day. I simply had to pick a time when I had 1) free time, 2) energy, and 3) motivation. It was so easy.

Now, when I do have free time, I have no energy. That’s usually because “down time” only comes after many hours of exhausting childcare. Or, when I have motivation, I don’t have the freedom to leave the house. Or I don’t want to deal with the hassle of the jogging stroller.

True rest is another elusive bullseye. To rest, you need time, you need a calm mind, you need a quiet and dark place. I can usually find 2 out of 3 of these fairly easily. Getting the trifecta almost never happens. So rest is either cut short, or not deep enough for R.E.M. sleep, or there’s too much noise and sunlight to trick my tired body into sleep.

I’m using this frustration to appreciate the times when the cycles do sync. Those rare moments when all the elements fall into place, under perfect conditions, and I’m able to give my body and mind and heart exactly what they’re craving.

I’m also trying to be more comfortable when the situation is less-than-perfect. I recall a friend of mine, who had just found out his wife was expecting twins to add to their three existing kids, bragging that he could sleep anywhere, anytime. I didn’t doubt it. I’m sure if he’d been given an invitation, he would have lay down on the floor and been asleep in seconds. Perfect conditions don’t exist in his life at the moment; there’s too much life around him, too many overlapping cycles.

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New Englanders are acutely aware of cycles. We grumble through winter, rejoice in spring, complain in summer, and relish the fall. Then we do it over again, and again, and again. Each time knowing exactly what’s in store for us — the shoveling, the below-zero wind chills, the housebound weekends of warm soup and Netflix marathons under gunmetal grey skies.

But we tolerate the cycles because we trust in the cycles. We know spring will always arrive. It may be a few weeks late, but the sun will warm the ground and the snow banks will disappear. We will live through seasons of planting, seasons of harvesting, and seasons of rest.

And when it all gets too overwhelming, when we’re taken under by the velocity of the whirring daily cycles, we simply have to go reset to the smallest of cycles: Breathe in, breath out. Breathe in, breathe out. Breath in. Breathe out.

And we move on from there.