OPINION: Stuff in Weird Places

Today, GOOD Morning Wilton welcomes Lesley Kirschner as our newest contributor and columnist.

Kirschner grew up quiet, in the woods and devoid of siblings so her hobbies quickly became reading, writing and talking to inanimate objects. She also spent a considerable amount of time doing voice-overs for her dolls and watching too much daytime television–channel 3, sometimes channel 8, if the weather was good and the antenna wasn’t acting up. She was in attendance at school, graduated from a very much not notable college not worth mentioning and was transplanted to Wilton with her husband, Ambler Farm‘s Farmer Jonathan and their (baby makes) three children almost a decade ago. Although she never quite found her calling in life, other than perhaps the doll voice-overs, which in hindsight were eerily convincing, she’s happy to try her hand at writing and is thankful to the support and community she found on Facebook’s Buy Nothing Wilton. Lesley realizes while this is all very exciting, she’s not winning a Pulitzer so she’ll wrap it up and be quiet. She’s had a lot of practice. 

Finding weird stuff in weird places, I guess you could say I sort of have a knack for it.

Hairbrushes in the toaster, nail polish in the toilet, that lone Barbie doll leg in the cereal box. No Barbie–just a leg. No explanation.

So reaching into the toe of a boot and coming up with a handful of gelt (or guilt as my younger daughter calls it) didn’t phase me in the slightest. These delightful treats, chocolate coins meant to be delivered by the Hanukkah Armadillo (I miss you, Ross and Rachel!) had gone astray somewhere between my experimental gluten-free potato latkes and attempting to decorate the front porch (an event I will never fully recover from nor my neighbors eyes will ever unsee). But here I was, holding a handful of wasted guilt.

Not that my kids needed more candy. This is why women married dentists, (my mother wasn’t kidding). I vaguely remembered buying it during that most wonderful time of the year when I longed to submerge my head in a bowl full of eggnog, stamping “do not resuscitate” to the backside of my neck. I assumed the culprits to be mice who felt a pair of long-forgotten snow boots at the back of a closet seemed just the place to hoard their stolen merch.

But I had to smile a little at the chocolates before I opened them and ate them. Just kidding, (even I have my standards). I had to smile because there was some comfort in the leftover pieces. Suddenly I missed it. The cards in the mailbox, the latkes, the “what are all these boxes out on our porch? Am I having an affair with the UPS guy?” I honestly thought I was blackout shopping.

Sometimes I look at other women and wish I were more organized. I wish I had the wherewithal to be one of those moms, (the good kind) that remembers where she hid the candy and knew how to hang a wreath, the kind that didn’t allow nail polish in the toilet or hairbrushes in the toaster, the kind that knew how to smile with her teeth.

God, people took beautiful holiday cards this year. But I’m a hot mess moonlighter, working the night shift because apparently I still haven’t mastered the art of “putting the baby on a schedule” as my MIL takes no small pleasure in reminding me. So I operate at half speed, 10 years later with a good 10 extra pounds on me. (I’m being very generous right now).

The other day I glanced at my phone and thought it read “lactation request” instead of “location request” and I was like, for real, “The phone is synced to my mammary glands? Now that’s technology.”

You can see how this whole parenting gig gets dicey for me at times.

But I had a win and actually located the Christmas lights … last Thursday. Good thing my neighbors thought to leave theirs up.

I like seeing the lights still up around town. I like that sweet woman who made it her own personal mission to cheer the living crap out of everybody and keep the block party rolling, if even in spirit. There’s something comforting about seeing them, about knowing they’re there and that even after the episodic long emergency that was 2020, that we can still hang onto those strands of good things in our lives, the leftover lights, the long-forgotten candy, the family of rodents living it up like a “Friends” reunion in my closet. I think I still even have some of that eggnog jelling in the fridge.

But the lights. The lights get me every time…like Ross and Rachel getting back together again and again and again.

I keep telling myself tomorrow, the sun’s gonna rise. Tomorrow, I will find my shoes. Tomorrow, I’ll drop my kid off at that great labyrinth they call the Cider Mill parking lot blissfully aware that nobody’s really seeing me from the waist down anyway and reindeer pajamas are totally appropriate attire for the express line.

There may be chocolates in my boots (although I find it’s best to remove these before driving). There may be a Barbie hobbling around my yard, possibly covered in nail polish, likely naked and afraid. If you find her, tell her we have her other leg and are keeping it safe–along with the knowledge that we’re all going to be okay, people.

This town’s got major curb appeal plus we’re all pretty lit around here.