Helper Fish

A few years ago, my younger daughter asked me if we could get an aquarium. We had had one years before, before she was born, when my older daughter was maybe four. Our conversation went something like this:

"Well, we didn't have much success with it, hon, I'm sorry to say, " I answered gingerly.

"What happened?" she asked, her eyes wide.

"We could just never get that tank clean, and the pH balanced, no matter how hard we tried."

"Oh, Mom," she answered, the voice of wisdom in a three-foot package. "You needed to get yourself a helper fish."

A Helper Fish? Turns out her friend Haley had a Helper Fish in her aquarium, which I was finally able to figure out was a bottom-feeding catfish that would eat the junk in the tank and keep it clean and balanced.

No, we never got the tank. But I sometimes think about how much I need a Helper Fish, like something out of a Dr. Seuss book that will whip around my life and put things in order again. When the house is a mess. When my work piles up. When the garden overwhelms me. When my dreams and goals and plans and schemes are bigger than the time I've been given in a day (which is the same 24 hours that we all get, apparently).

And so, now, during the holiday season, I see neighbor after neighbor, friend after friend, whose eyes are bleary with exhaustion, trying to get everything done, to buy and make and wrap and get packages in the mail by the 15th, to write at least a little something on holiday cards, to get and decorate the tree and hang the lights and go to ballet performances and bake the cookies. And to celebrate eight days of Hanukkah as well in the middle of all that, not to mention the Winter Solstice coming right around the corner. And Kwanzaa, for some, as well. (Oh, and add in those December birthdays, which, frankly, should be illegal.) All while working all day and running around all night and God forbid the oven breaks or someone gets sick.

And as I was riding my bike home from my daughter's school the other morning, I ran into a neighbor middle-schooler who was waiting for the bus, holding this bag with two little catfish in it, that she was bringing to the aquarium at her school.

"Helper Fish!" I exclaimed when I saw them. "You have Helper Fish!"

And she lit up immediately, a day full of classes and tests and assignments and reports ahead of her, perhaps knowing intrinsically that that's what we all need. Especially now.

Helper Fish.

I have realized over the years that a Helper Fish doesn't really put my life in order. It puts my priorities in order. And so, here are my Helper Fish for this very busy month:

* Yellow days, of course. I've already said no to at least four things because they involved yellow days.

* Simple expectations (this one takes all year to manage and starts with no commercial TV!). The house is never all that clean. The gifts are not wrapped quite so beautifully. And Dance Dance Revolution with double mats and disco lights? Ain't happening in my house.

* Friends who agree to share the gift of precious time, a few minutes on the phone, a quick cup of tea, a walk around the neighborhood, an evening caroling together, rather than material gifts.

* Exercise. There's nothing like it, especially if I can do something outdoors. Or dancing around the living room works in a pinch, too.

* A good, long, lazy meal. It's counterintuitive, I know, to spend a couple hours lingering over candles and music and a warm meal and wine, and stories of the day told by people I love, when there is so much else that needs to be done, but frankly, you can keep the rest if you just let me keep having this.

Who, or what, are your Helper Fish during the holidays?

Helper Fish