Always Look on the Bright Side of Life

Not to go all Taoist on you, but lately I've been thinking about the philosophy of Yin and Yang, the idea that everything in life has opposing forces or dualities like dark and light, negative and positive. No, I'm not really considering the ascetic life of a Chinese monk (although an occasional vow of silence is seriously tempting...), I'm just saying that I can see some truth in it.

Take my job, for instance. As a part-time writing tutor, I can set my own hours, help contribute to the family income, and continually flex my teaching muscles. Not to mention, since my business is based on referrals, I've never had to do any marketing (with the exception of one hot, miserable summer that I spent schlepping tutoring flyers throughout local neighborhoods while Baby Hulk and Lil' Electra clawed each other's eyes out in the jogger). But best of all, I can still be home with my kids. Is there a Yang, a "light" side to my job? Oh yeah, and man, that light is BLINDING.

But let us also consider the Yin. While tutoring does allow me to be home with Lil' Miss and Baby Dude, I'm not really there for them. I'm working, an action defined by my kids as "not playing with us". And so far, I haven't been very successful at revising a student's essay while outwitting Lil' Miss in a game of Old Maid at the same time. (Believe me, I've tried.) It's a tough balancing act, one that keeps me dog-paddling in a pool of guilt. But fortunately, we have a slew of fabulous babysitters (whose names and phone numbers I will never, ever, EVER give you, not even if you pin me down, sit on my chest, and dangle a loogie over my head, so don't even ask). My kids absolutely adore our sitters and would happily leave me face down in a ditch if it meant fifteen minutes in their presence, so that helps. But even still, I feel pulled in two directions, one of which is not bringing me any closer to a "Mother-of-the-Year" banquet held in my honor.

Moreover, I'm forced to deal with some "interesting" behavior due to the nature of my clientele. I'm still not exactly sure how this happened, but I pretty much own the local market on tutoring third and fourth grade boys in writing. It's a bizarre phenomenon. As are those boys. God love 'em, but they are a strange breed. They can be hysterically funny and head-waggingly weird all in an hour's time. When asked to elaborate with details about why their summer trip to San Francisco was so amazing, they randomly blurt out, "I like CHICKEN!" When pressed to develop a resolution for their story about buried treasure they explain, "Then I'll wipe out all the pirates with my machine gun and blow up their lifeless bodies with hand grenades!" (Notice there's still no mention of buried treasure, but at least some good action verbs...) My personal favorite was the use of a shotgun in a lovely story titled, "Saving the Puppy". On the bright side? I've become somewhat of an expert on World War II aircraft and weaponry. Yay!!

Sometimes I feel more like an animal trainer or cat herder than teacher, like that long forgotten white-woman-turned-Indian, "Dances with Squirrels". Although they crack me up most of the time, these boys can also drive me batty. Last week I watched in horror as one of them with a nasty winter cold played basketball with his used Kleenex. Don't believe me? Here's the "Snot Box" he was aiming for.

Their distractibility is mind blowing. It doesn't take much- a rustling leaf in the backyard, a car alarm going off, the sound of their own breathing- to launch their minds like misguided missiles into mental galaxies far, far away. The discovery of eraser shavings on the table or the sight of a water ring left by their cup could easily hypnotize them for eons. "Well," you say, "at least their sitting still, right?" Sure, if by "sitting still" you mean kicking the legs of my table, tapping their pencil like Ringo Starr, and asking to use the bathroom every three seconds.

My tutoring sessions have become breeding grounds for absurd tangents and unsolicited advice. Summarizing an article about the history of kites could easily segue into a discussion about the intelligence of octopuses and whether they'd make good tutoring students. I especially enjoy their insightful parenting wisdom such as, "Hey, you know what you should do when Baby Dude cries? You should just put him in his room and lock the door until he stops. Just leave him in there, for hours and hours... Some things just take time with kids." I usually respond with, "Remind me not to call you in eight years to babysit them."

It's all pretty harmless so I wouldn't exactly say my job has a dark side. Maybe just a shady one at times. But this is true of most things in life. There are always things to be thankful for and always things to complain about. I guess it just depends on what you choose to focus on. For example, I'm pretty thankful that I don't have to tutor octopuses. How's that for optimism?