What I don’t have to miss

Saturday night, I took my daughter skating. There’s an outdoor rink in our town square, very close to home, but far enough to feel like an adventure to a little kid. It was magic: she’s so rarely out after dark, the moon was clear and nearly full, the rink was all lit up and full of teenagers and families and people on dates, with my five year old the only little kid wobbling around the undisturbed middle of the ice.

She’s a new skater, in the sense that she’s only figured it out this past week–and I know this precisely because she learned on a field trip with her kindergarden class that I attended. I’ve been on several of these “sorties éducatives” with her, ever since she started daycare actually. I figure I miss so many weeks to conferences, so many evenings to public lectures or job-candidate dinners, so many weekends lost to grading binges at crunch time, and every single year since 2006 I miss her birthday because I teach at the Digital Humanities Summer Institute in Victoria. In the face of all that not-around, I like to compensate by attending these mid-day, mid-week events that the professorial life affords.

It’s a balancing act, home versus work, daughter time and husband time and alone time, negotiated daily. Sometimes it doesn’t work so well when the borders between Professor and Mom/Wife are too porous–not three minutes ago I snapped at my darling husband because I’m trying to do too much at once. He’s bathing the girl and I said I’d take care of the post-supper mess, but he came downstairs to find me typing away at this post and I wasn’t too pleased he doubts I’ll do the dishes. He’s none too pleased with my tone. I’ll go up in a minute and apologize, and try to remember that work, even blogging work, is best handled during the day, when I’m all alone. I seem to have to learn that same lesson fairly frequently. But sometimes, as in the case of the field trips and the skating, the balance can work, the lesson is easy, the reward immediate.

When I’m on the field trip, my daughter formally introduces me to everyone; she licks my hand because she’s a kitten who loves me; she sits next to me on the bus; she tells everyone her mom is the best skating teacher in the world (I’m not), or the best french story reader (maybe true). She’s thrilled to bits to have me there. I wouldn’t miss this for the world, and, hallelujah, I don’t have to. There’s lots I have to miss, but at least I get this:

She’s been trying to skate for years. She has her mother’s athletic gifts (minimal) and violent impatience (in spades) but it finally–suddenly, completely–clicked. And I was there.

Which meant we could go out together Saturday, holding hands under the stars, on a mild, clear February night, singing skating songs in French. When I’m old, I know this is what’s going to matter most to me. The research trips, the articles, all of it? I’m proud of that work and I enjoy it, but what melts my heart are these times, something new and surprising, shared with my family, going around in circles maybe, but keeping our eyes on the stars.