This book may drive me to yoga

I picked a bad week to read The Joys of Much Too Much, the breathless new book by Bonnie Fuller. She's the fashion and celebrity magazine editrix, the Canadian girl who made it in the big leagues of New York, mother of four, notorious boss and all round over-achiever who has taken it upon herself to tell us minions how we can have it all too. If we aim high and try our very hardest - like she did.

All I can say is that after 30 pages, I'd had much too much of Bonnie Fuller. Maybe it's deluded to think that someone running Glamour or Cosmo or Us Weekly would be in touch with the real world. But have you ever heard of a mother - never mind one with four kids and a full-time power job - who doesn't hallucinate about a few days of solitude? Not Bonnie though. She'd way rather have a life that's a blur, "not a bore."

"I'm not the kind of person who yearns to go to an ashram for a week," she writes. Whaaat?

No, she writes. "Few 'aha' moments come from sitting in a room gazing at your navel."

Bonnie's themes are pretty much a celebration of dancing as fast as you can. No smelling the flowers for this woman. Do five things in a minute, run from your demons, embrace denial and keep on going, through sickness and fear and setbacks. More, more more!

Help, help, help! is what I say. Perhaps it's because my house is covered in six inches of dust from those guys who are overhauling our collapsing kitchen. Or because I forgot the teacher interview. And I can't find that stack of overdue bills. And I have sadly neglected my poor blog for days upon days. And there are dentist appointments and meetings with bosses and homework to help with and bathrooms to clean. And what I wouldn't give for an hour of exercise. This savage state of mind is not good for me. Or for the people I live with either. I've just about had it with the perpetual pressure on mothers to go full tilt 24/7 just to feel we are good enough.

No Bonnie, right now your "jam-packed, maxed-out, full-to-the-very-top existence" is not my idea of inspiration. You're welcome to it. I'd rather just aim for some serenity. A chance to flop on a couch that doesn't expel a cloud of dust and do nothing with my kids. More idle stretches to look them in the eye and laugh at their silly jokes and let the details of the day dribble out naturally. More time to stare out the window and write bad poetry in my head and scratch the cat behind the ears.

The full life I'm aiming for isn't about never stopping. It's about stopping a lot more and feeling okay with that. It's about sitting still and digesting and reflecting and finding the meaning in the ordinary.

Among the jacket blurbs on The Joys of Much Too Much is one from fashion designer Isaac Mizrahi. "Bonnie's book is great," he writes. "She understands the importance of excess."

Good for her. But that doesn't mean the rest of us need to buy into it.

Comments

[Jen]

Yikes and double yikes. I feel all jittery just thinking about the book. I know few people who aspire to being less calm - I guess that's what it takes to scale to the top of the tabloid heap these days.

[Jennifer]

Great post. And so true. I just said to my husband the other night: When is my life going to get easier?

It never seems to.

[nancy]

As I read this I found myself nodding, nodding, and more nodding all I'm agreement with you. The parallels?
- Imagine not wanting solitude? whatever
- Dust from basement renovation (what a mess!) I'll meet you and raise you 2 inches of dust
- Neglected blog
- Just paid bills tonight, ahem, a couple past due
- Exercise?
- Bathrooms beyond desperate, (but did manage some laundry and vacuuming today)
- etc....

Here is the latest joke ad nauseum this week in our house (thanks to Chirp magazine)

What is white, back and red?
A zebra with a sunburn!

The first real joke I think my kids actually get, that it is a joke.

To me, any mother, working or not, NOT wanting a break or some self-time? Now that is a joke!!

[Kate]

Well, I am worn out from doing too much for too many people, but bills have to be paid, children cared for and my intellect stimulated. I think I probably work as hard as Bonnie Fuller without the money and recognition, so bravo to her for getting that out of this constant blur.

[Shelley]

It's easy for someone like Bonnie Fuller, a millionaire several times over with a lot of help, to go on about how we should all strive to be busy busy busy and that our lives should be as jam-packed as possible. I might be totally into that myself if I had someone doing all the grunt work for me, my husband, my three children and one step-child, our two dogs and our household. But I read the book, and all I took away from it was someone rubbing our noses in a lifestyle very few of us can ever realistically achieve. It's just another guilt trip laid on us. We're doing it all, and then some, but now we're failing to enjoy it enough??

I love US Weekly as much as the next person, and read it in the bathtub many days as an escape from my crushingly busy life, but I resent being lectured to by Ms. Fuller about how I should embrace and revel in the never-ending cycle of my demanding job, laundry, cooking, morale-boosting, hurt-feelings-soothing, vacuuming, cleaning, hockey-practice-driving relentlessly busy life. My mother was a 1960s/70s mother who got an afternoon nap every day because she didn't work outside the home and even without the work, she was bagged from raising four kids without any help whatsoever. I would kill for that.

Thank you for articulating what I was thinking, and what all the many intelligent and hands-on mothers I know have felt about this book as well. You really are the best parenting blogger out there, as far as I am concerned.

[Danigirl]

Great post, Andrea!

This has been a fascinating discussion, especially given what other bloggers are saying on the subject. For what it's worth, I'm with you 100%. My best insights on my life, and my most contented periods, come when I'm not madly running off in a thousand directions.

Me, I understand the importance of taking a deep breath and enjoying the moment. Thanks for the reminder!