Coming Home // Vayakhel
You can’t make this stuff up. Buckle in folks, this is a long one.
I should back up.
I quit my job.
I guess that makes me part of The Big Quit? IDK. I think (I know) it was a long time coming.
It’s funny. As much as I like to think I honor and value domestic work, the truth is, my encultured belief is that if I am not earning, if I am not making money, it isn’t “real” work. This ingrained belief is, of course, absolute horse shit. But, woof, it’s a hard one to shake.
I acknowledge that it is a massive privilege to be able to do this right now. Massive. The truth is, even with a little side work, I’m still working through a lot of feelings of guilt and shame about this big life transition. I hope I can learn, quickly, how to soak in this temporary time. Because I will blink and it will be over. It feels critical that I get over myself quickly.
Back to the story. This is the goose-bump inducing story that convinced my bones that this is the right move.
As I began the cathartic work of clearing out my office of the last five years, I paused and walked into my boss’s office. “Can I… Can I keep the reading chair?”
“You want that thing?”
“I really do.”
The velvet, sea-foam blue, coffee stained, too low to the ground old chair that rocks. It was donated to the agency probably a million years ago. I’ve reupholstered the skirt with my regular office stapler countless times.
Of course my boss said yes. That day when I got home from the office the first thing I did was move the antique heirloom rocking chair from the corner in my bedroom to the nursery, that is still functioning a bit like a storage closet, to make space for my chair. I love the rocking chair, but it was never mine. It never felt quite right there.
Then in my planner, I scrawled out a laundry list of items I would accomplish now that I would have the time and mental capacity to do so. Swim lessons. Veterinary appointment. Pine-Sol the floors. Break down the recycling boxes. Neglected yard work. Etc. etc…
The next morning, by the light of the glowing fireplace, early, before the sun rose, I wrote out another bullet point list, of tasks to accomplish for the day before preschool pickup:
Michael’s (supplies to finish the signs for my sister’s baby shower)
Lane Forest Products (fresh Oregon coast sand for the sandbox now that spring weather is returning, and some kill proof evergreen plants to put in the large pots placed in between the cedar planters that act as a toddler barrier)
Herbal store (baby chest rub, bar soap, some brown glass jars for the fire cider I made)
Coffee stop at my favorite coffee shop adjacent to herbal store
Get guitar repaired
Donation run
Jon took Ben to preschool, so I loaded up the car with the guitar and donation box and empty buckets and baby and set sail on my mission.
I pulled into the Michael’s parking lot at 8:30 am. The store opened at 9. There was another older woman waiting in her car. A few minutes later a woman my age pulled up in her white minivan, multitasking with a speakerphone call. 30 mins went by quickly, nursing the baby and getting a few emails out over the phone.
I chose not to put Leah in the baby carrier. I wanted to carry her on my hip like the domestic goddess I would now be as a stay at home mommy. Forty minutes and a throbbing arm at check out later, I stood by this decision and hoped I remembered to apply deodorant that morning. (Side note: It is impossible to spend less than 40 minutes at Michael’s).
Next was a pit stop to pick up a guitar case from my in-laws. The guitar that needed professional repair was a gift from a friend. He gave it to me years ago, an old ex’s acoustic that he wanted nothing to do with. I gladly accepted it, even though I had tried to learn how to play guitar multiple times and always gave up. Jon plays, though.
My pandemic hobby was teaching myself ukelele. Best decision ever. Two years in and I can’t believe I’m typing this but I’m not half bad. I love it.
A few weeks before Leah was born we took a trip to Guitar Center to pick up a new guitar Jon ordered. Like I said, the acoustic we currently had needed repair, and it was never really his. I think it is the sweetest thing ever that he felt compelled to buy a new guitar with the primary purpose being to serenade his soon to be daughter. Heart throb, I know.
Anyways, I was plucking away at my ukulele when I eyed his guitar, with the sneaking suspicion that after 2 years of ukulele practice, I might be able to actually play a song on the guitar. I was right. I knew it was time to give the guitar that had been passed on and passed on again to be given some love. I was ready for her to be my guitar.
Picked up the case, quick diaper change, grabbed a protein bar, back out the door. Almost turned right to head for herb store and cut out the Lane Forest Product stop, but forged on ahead. Even stopped at the grocery store to get a few items we needed. Broke into the rye whole wheat loaf and cream cheese because I was still ravenous even after the bar. Second car nursing session of the day.
Made it to the plant store. Shoveled 2 buckets of sand and 3 buckets of bark chips. Landed on Huckleberries for the pots, with the help of the kind plant store guy.
Got the soaps and stuff, baby back on the hip. She spit up milk all over the floor and thank G-d this happened at the hippie herbal store where I actually wasn’t at all ashamed. Ordered a black coffee next door. Sat in the sun, basking with a happy, bouncy baby.
Brief pit stop to check out husband’s new office space. Head to music store, baby back on hip, heavy guitar in hard case in other hand. Walk the block and a half from where I parked. Store randomly closed for the day. Shit. Started to drive towards home and thrift store for donation drop, remembered there was another music store a few blocks away. Veered right. Guitar drop, check.
Pulled into thrift store parking lot. Donation site closed. Shit. Eyed a blue Fisher Price slide that was the perfect height for Ben and would look good with the turtle sandbox. Made mental note. Very nearly turned left for home but with all my willpower turned right for the other thrift store donation location. Pulled in. Oh lord, the guy in front of me had a trailer full of stuff. I had one tiny box. Almost pulled away, as I have done many times impatiently before, but decided what the hay. I have the time to wait a few minutes. This whole day was a practice in patiently doing the work. Taking the time and the sticktoitiveness to get the tasks accomplished, no matter how many minor barriers like hunger and closed storefronts and unplanned pit stops presented themselves. As I spent more and more money throughout the day, as running errands often involves an exchange in currency, the guilt and shame piled up. Over half a dozen different errands I had spent a few hundred dollars. Rather than making money, I was spending money. It didn’t feel good.
And then I saw it.
No. Way. No fucking way.
My mouth gaped open. As the man was pulling things out of his trailer one by one, an object appeared that took my breath away. It was an ottoman. A coffee stained, blue velvet rocking ottoman. It could have been the matching set for my office reading chair I had just made space for in my bedroom.
There I sat in the driver seat, trying to swallow my pride and accept the fact that I was going to be that crazy woman who asks the man donating his crappy old ottoman if I could have it. I almost couldn’t humble myself. He placed the ottoman in the cart. I almost let it go. I noticed the attendant who examines and helps unload donations pulled it aside. I took a breath and opened the door.
“Um. excuse me sir. Er… This is going to sound nuts. I have a chair that is the perfect match…” The man was actually kind of a jerk and didn’t even acknowledge me, probably thinking I was just some crazy lady. He just kept unloading his crap. The store attendant was super nice though.
“You can have it. I was going to put it in the trash. It’s too stained, we can’t sell that.” Ha!
“Really?! Thank you so much!” I was too thrilled to even care one iota about how these two strangers thought of me.
It’s not just that the ottoman was a perfect match. You see, I had been trying to manifest the perfect ottoman for weeks, maybe months, long before I knew I would be quitting or knew I would be bringing the reading chair home with me. I had told myself that maybe if I could find the perfect ottoman for the old rocking chair, that had rocked like seven generations of my children’s ancestors before them, it would feel right. But it would never feel just right. It isn’t my chair.
There had been another moment, the day I met a new mom friend at the neighborhood park the day I quit my job, that also had felt like a definite sign I was making the right decision. But this was more than a sign. This is what Florence Scovel Shinn would have called a “definite lead.” If the first music store was open. If I had skipped the trip to the plant store. If I hadn’t stopped to break into my loaf of bread. If the other thrift store donation was open. A million ifs, and I wouldn’t have been there at the exact moment the universe presented me with my ottoman.
In the exact right way, at the exact right time.
***
Vayakhel is a reminder to keep the sabbath and make it holy, and the actual construction of the mishkan. I have been making a concerted effort to keep Shabbat special and holy. And it has taken years, but this has actually finally come to fruition in my life. Because I’ve done the work.
Now I am blessed with the time to make my home our little mishkan. Bit by bit. With the reading chair. With taking the time to go through the children’s bookshelf and sift out the few books for donations. Taking care for each title. Asking what stays and what goes.
The smell of Pine-Soled floors as the challah bakes in the oven. Each individual pine cone placed to line the fairy path that I now have time and space in my heart to build in the yard with my son. Pine cone by pine cone, book by book, each future little huckleberry, brick by brick. Transforming our home into our sanctuary.
In this moment, I can’t think of more meaningful, satisfying work. To give myself, my husband, and our children a soft, warm, inviting place to land that inspires them to create and play and be free. And if I’m being honest, I’ve never felt more ready or more excited for the work in my life. Here’s to another day of rolling my sleeves up and trying to make magic happen.
Shabbat Shalom, friends :)
P.S. The day I am posting this is my actual last day of work. Went on a run before dawn with said new neighborhood mom friend, and Ben took the dough to grandma’s to braid and bake there while I have my last office hurrah. Life is v surreal rn…