the best of times, the worst of times

Charles Dick­ens aside, it has really been the ulti­mate hol­i­day roller coaster chez moi these days. Let me explain.

Mon­day I awoke with a blind­ing headache. I’m not prone to headaches. I tried every­thing: John squeez­ing the back of my neck till my eye­sight went blue, a cou­ple of ibupro­fens, finally the ulti­mate: two fizzy tablets of Tylenol with codeine, in a glass of water. I first dis­cov­ered this sov­er­eign rem­edy when we were in Moscow many years ago, min­utes away from a pri­vate tour of the Krem­lin, when POWEE! One of those car­toon headaches, where light­ning bolts issue from the head of the Actual Suf­ferer. A savvy fel­low trav­eler offered me the fizzy solu­tion and ZAP — another car­toon moment. Light­ning bolts evap­o­rate. But not on Monday.

The Royal Albert Hall and its Annual Choral Soci­ety Christ­mas Con­cert waits for no man, how­ever suf­fer­ing, so off we went after an early sup­per. And for the first half I was golden. For­got the headache in favor of “Once in Royal David’s City” with the full soprano des­cant, AND the Royal Grenadier Trum­peters in those fluffy furry black hats! Their trum­pets came com­plete with the royal seal on lit­tle flags which they draped cer­e­mo­ni­ously over the heads of the choir below when they played.

I’m sorry, Amer­i­can iden­tity mine: when you’re in the RAH, full of hol­i­day green­ery, the plummy tones of the con­duc­tor telling very tame and hilar­i­ous jokes (“When I was a lit­tle boy, I vis­ited a fam­ily who said a prayer before every meal. My fam­ily didn’t do so, because my mother was a very good cook”), and those trum­pets blare at the final cho­rus of “Hark, the Her­ald Angels Sing”… you just want to be Eng­lish! At least I do. And there’s some­thing about a National Anthem that cel­e­brates not just the coun­try but its leader — “God Save the Queen” — that is heart­warm­ing. Bless her! Why couldn’t we Amer­i­cans sing “God Bless the Pres­i­dent”? I’m sure we could learn. It’s very unifying.

And in the row above us was… drum­roll… “Strictly Come Danc­ing” final­ist Chris Hollins! What could be better!

And so all was well until… I sud­denly became most rashly unwell, all of a moment, and had to dash out of the hall. Twice. By the sec­ond time I was well and truly ready for the end of the con­cert, so last verse, no encore, bob’s your uncle and we were home. Me under Avery’s puz­zled scrutiny, hud­dling under a duvet with sev­eral hun­dred hot water bot­tles and John hov­er­ing over me. Noth­ing to be done.

Mon­day night and Tues­day were a blur. Wednes­day I stag­gered above the sur­face of mis­ery to dis­cover that aside from fatigue, I felt quite well. That old chest­nut, the 24-hour bug. “Poor Mommy,” Avery said, brush­ing my brow in relief.

Until Thurs­day morn­ing when John said, “I have the worst headache.” Oh no.

Oh yes.

And then that evening Avery slunk into our bed­room at pre­cisely bed­time (as crea­tures like this will do, in cap­tiv­ity). “I’ve bro­ken another bracket on my braces. I think it needs to be fixed tomorrow.”

Sigh. “Tomor­row” already involved a visit to school to drop off the pro­ceeds of Monday’s Lost Prop­erty sale, a stint at the LP room itself, a trip to the post office, and, as it turned out, a horse show.

I rose from my faint­ing couch to accom­plish all these things (bro­ken braces brack­ets are really no big deal, and Avery’s ortho imme­di­ately said at the same time I did, “We must stop meet­ing like this; peo­ple will begin to talk”). From there a race to get a cab to Ham­mer­smith and to take John’s place at Olympia for the Annual Horse Show, with Avery’s friend Lil­lie and her father, the MOST urbane, gen­tle, pro­tec­tive, ele­gant man I have ever met. He wore an ascot. He was the dream escort, and the two girls in com­plete heaven. I had pre­pared myself with an anti­his­t­a­mine, and for once did not sneeze my head off.

Four hours, one gourmet din­ner, a celebrity bump-into for the girls with the Duchess of Corn­wall (Camilla, to the unini­ti­ated! “hon­estly, we just acci­den­tally walked into her!” they claimed), a very nice evening of con­ver­sa­tion and a walk home in the snow later, it was finally bed­time. Poor John was down for the count.

So this morn­ing came that dreaded sound in my life: the ALARM CLOCK. I am the orig­i­nal night owl. Any one need advice, recipes, a read­ing list, flight sched­ules at mid­night? I’m your man. But patient con­ver­sa­tion at 7 a.m.? Not so much. After sup­ply­ing apple tart, salami and apple juice, the ban­ter went like this:

“Have you brushed your teeth? And your hair could use something…”

“Mommy, I have this down to a sched­ule. You don’t need to worry.”

“But today you need to pack for the party and sleep­over after school.”

“I KNOW [elab­o­rate patience]. Trust me!”

(five min­utes later)

“Did you pack your tooth­brush and tooth­paste? And don’t go on Face­book until you’ve packed your bag. Did you REALLY brush your hair? It looks…”

Believe me, I’d hate me too if I were her. She main­tained an ele­gant silence. Her lovely friend Emily could not arrive soon enough to allow her to escape from me and into the frigid snowy air, full of gos­sip and com­par­i­son of after­noon social plans. Dou­ble sigh.

Can I just ask? HOW ON EARTH do peo­ple with more than one child, a job, and no sec­ond par­ent ever sur­vive a week when they get sick? This week I would have had to do all John did for us, plus all I did for us, plus earn a liv­ing, AND vomit. I live in com­plete awe and amaze­ment at every­one who does what I do with­out any of the sup­port I have.

Of course, these peo­ple are prob­a­bly sen­si­ble enough not to be neu­rotic wrecks over mere incon­se­quen­tials, as I man­age to be. For exam­ple. This morn­ing I knew very well that Avery was going straight from school, at noon, to a birth­day party with a school friend, includ­ing a movie at a cin­ema, on a pub­lic bus, and spend­ing the night. But some­how, in the fog of week­long ill­ness and hol­i­day must-cheer, I never ascer­tained some salient details. Imag­ine the police, if Avery didn’t turn up.

“So, Kris­ten [we’d be on a first-name basis], who are these par­ents your daugh­ter was going to?”

No idea. Avery says they’re both doctors.

“And the birth­day girl, is she a close friend?”

Couldn’t pick her out of a lineup, although I hear she is REALLY good at putting eye makeup on other girls at lunchtime.

“Where do they live?”

Well, I could tell you the address on the class list, but I later found out through assid­u­ous (if belated) tele­phon­ing that this address is out­dated by 6 months.

“Did you send your daugh­ter with a phone, spend­ing money or identification?”

At this point, I would sim­ply give up and start sign­ing adop­tion forms. How could I be so care­less? I’ll tell you how. Because this year of Avery’s life seems to be all about how to Hold On and Let Go. Pay Atten­tion But Don’t Inter­fere. Be Sup­port­ive But Not Intru­sive. And I just don’t know how to go halfway. I’m very good at han­dling it ALL. And appar­ently, if today’s any exam­ple, I’m spec­tac­u­larly tal­ented at doing noth­ing. But the whole grad­ual letting-go of con­trol? Not so much.

I finally broke down and called a friend whose daugh­ter was going to the same party. “At the risk of sound­ing both a nut­ter and really irre­spon­si­ble…” I began… when the other mother broke in. “You mean where on earth are they, and who are they with? I don’t know either.”

So John and I sur­vived a quiet evening recu­per­at­ing, with some nice sim­ple sauteed lemon sole. He’s asleep and I’m def­i­nitely NOT wor­ry­ing about Avery, who has no phone or vis­i­ble means of sup­port. She has a strong scream.

And I have my man­tel full of Christ­mas cards. Isn’t it funny. Snail mail is nearly dead in our lives. I rarely use a stamp in nor­mal life. I have one friend with­out a mobile phone or email and I do ring her at home and I write to her. But real let­ters? Never any­more. Until Christ­mas. Now the rug inside the let­ter­box is full of lovely white square envelopes with for­eign stamps, and my heart leaps.

So even if I can’t keep down a meal on a given Mon­day evening, or keep track of my daugh­ter on a given Fri­day night, I can keep friend­ships of a life­time, march­ing in their green, gold and red, above my flick­er­ing fire­place. And for that moment, as I look upon them, life is safe, and good.