Sunday, August 5, 2012
The State of Chynna vs. The Wretched Bacon
I know a girl
She puts the color inside of my world
But she's just like a maze
Where all of the walls are continually changed
And I've done all I can
To stand on her steps with my heart in my hands
Now I'm starting to see
Maybe it's got nothing to do with me
Fathers, be good to your daughters
Daughters will love like you do
Girls become lovers who turn into mothers
Daughters -John Mayer
"Good morning, good morning, good morning, my lit-tle boys & girls! I love toseeyourfaceinthemorning, my lit-tle boys & girls!" "Oh well," I think, "it'll never be a top 40 hit, but it's better than nothing." Seasoning my downright militant weekday wake-up the troops approach with as much motherly love as possible - I realize the good cop approach is definitely not working this day. I have two boys to get to two different elementary schools on two different ends of town.....and it's almost too late! Pleasantly surprised to see 6 year old Daniel brushing his teeth, albeit with his shirt buttoned up askew and still no socks & shoes on, I suddenly realize that 4 year old Chynna's door is still closed. I must get her up soon. My stomach lurches a little. Oh, boy, this is one phase I'll be glad to eradicate from our lives. My daughter, the diva tyrant of the pre-school set.
"Dill? Dill? Dillan? Where are you son?" I'm downstairs, Momma," I hear my eldest son proclaim. 9 year old Dillan has sneakily crept down the stairs as I was passing by, no doubt, to stake his claim in his seat of choice for the morning ride to school. I'm sure he'll be informing me that he will ride shotgun and Chynna (he's taken to calling her "Chinks" lately - its time for a politically correct names only for your sister talk), while Daniel will sit in the "way back." Actually, not a bad configuration, I think, since each child sitting in a row, independent of each other makes for far less poking and teasing. I was considering a similar schematic strategy, myself, in light of the recent disastrous plastic cup travesty. Feeling my face flush just from thinking about the incident, I recall the events from last Thursday afternoon as I attempted to drive all three children home from Dillan's baseball practice - a scant 2-3 miles, though it felt like a cross-country journey. First we had Dillan giving us the minute by minute account of every player's performance, peppered with tales of his own super-human performance. Next, we have Daniel asking me, in his own little precious speech pattern, devoid of r's and most first syllables of words, imploring me to turn the car around so we can go find him that Batman action figure he simply cannot live without one moment longer. After all, didn't I fashion some sort of bargain during Dillan's practice to get hime to agree not to throw dirt at his sister. At least there was Chynna, an uncommonly precious angel quietly sitting in her booster seat, sucking her thumb and holding her favorite item of the past 6 weeks, a clear sippy cup with a built in straw that circled and swirled from the bottom to the tippy top of the shiny pink lid. My moment of weakness during last week's grocery shopping trip. All hail the magical calming powers of the round-&-round cup. As I'm driving, and shushing, and listening, and agreeing, and nodding, and turning the radio music up just a tad louder, and worrying about dinner, and wondering about a million other things...I realize a new game has started. A decidedly bad game. An evil, wretched game. Glancing into the rearview mirror while attempting a 90 degree turn, I see that Daniel has the amazing round-&-round cup, no - Dillan does. No, its definitely Daniel. Immediately, an otherworldly, guttural, primitive, head splitting scream emanates from the back seat. I have no words to describe this noise. I cannot believe the windows in the car haven't all shattered. There must surely be blood running from my ears, I think. It's her. The princess has awoken. Hell hath no fury like Chynna when she's been wronged in some way. "Boys!!!! Boys!!!!! How many times do I have to tell you about taking things away from your sister! That is HER CUP. Please give it back! Dillan! Daniel! Michael Dillan!!! Give....excuse me? What did you just say? Guh.....HEY! Gi......LISTEN!!!!!!!!! GIVE IT TO ME NOW! THIS MINUTE!" And quicker than you can say no wire hangers, I grab the cup, roll down the passenger side window, and execute an AMAZING throw of the round-&-round cup, lobbing it successfully across the wide ditch, directly into a plowed and recently planted field of what looks like cabbage. Quiet. Silence. No one daring to utter a single noise. Breathing heavily, I barrel on down this quiet little farm-to-market road, equal parts relieved to end this mayhem yet hoping my mini-nervous breakdown wouldn't scar them all for life. But, that cup - that cup would not soon forget. It would remain top side up, hot pink shiny lid glowing in the sunshine like a little piece of a rainbow trapped in the cabbage patch for weeks to come. Each time we drive past that corner, I will hear my daughter's wistful little voice whisper, "Awww. Dares my rounanroun cup, Mama." Thus, the assigned seating idea, albeit a product of Dillan's slight OCD (oldest child disorder) nature, comes to fruition. We'll tackle the therapy issue at a later date.
Now, back to the morning at hand? Passenger control is only one part of my stomach wrenching morning dilemma. Backpacks organized? Check. Breakfast ready to grab and eat in route - biscuits and bacon? Check. Shoes and socks in car? Yep. Hair gelled to oblivion and combed to the side with absolutely no alfalfa's, circa Little Ricky from "I Love Lucy"? Bingo. Ok - here we go. Like an Olympian athlete, I approach the stairs. Tentatively, I tap the bottom stair with my right big toe, as if to test it's sturdiness. Will I succeed today? Will I triumph? I must. Warrior that I am, I will not fail. On your mark, get set.....running up the stairs in record time, I turn the doorknob and enter her room. grabbing her favorite blanket with the slippery white satin ribbon trim from the foot of her bed, I pick, turn, wrap, and snuggle in one swift move. Ignoring her protests, I hold the massive tangly cloud of light brown hair against my left shoulder, aware that I can barely see where I'm walking through this super-sized bird's nest. There could be a small animal hiding in there somewhere. Down the stairs we go, more carefully this time. Through the kitchen, past the laundry room. Approaching the door to the garage, I'm so hoping the boys are already deeply into some loud argument that will upset her more. Luckily they're not. Dillan has his electronic football game going and Daniel has created little warriors out of both his fingers and toes. We're good!!!! Gently, I belt her into the little car-seat kingdom I've created in the middle seat. I plump the pillow I carry with me at all times, stretch the blanket up, and smooth the mop of slightly damp, sweaty hair over her eyes. Today, I rock at all things Mom. Today, I win. One sleepy hazely-brown eye gazes up from under amazingly black eyelashes. It crinkles. I see a lopsided smile form around the thumb in her mouth. The tiny dimple vibrates, unsure as to whether it will pop inward or stay smooth. All is good in the world. Until we get home, that is.
My sweet princess has multiple personalities. Some mornings she's all about being my perfect bambino on the way to the boys schools. On those days, however, I know my real job will start when we get home. I am so fortunate. I do not have to work. I get to stay home and organize this daily convoy twice a day. I get to wash, fold, freshen, scrub, and straighten to my hearts content. I get to put her down for a nap. I get to make fresh tea. I am so thankful - this is important to know. There are challenges, before the fortunate things, however, like the bacon. Princess Chynna does not like the smell of bacon. Sometimes, it's not even an issue. Sometimes, she refuses to leave the comfort of her throne in the middle seat. She whines, she growls, she kicks - leave me alone, she seems to say. Who goes there? Halt! No one wakes up the princess before she's ready! Be gone with you. So I leave - garage door locked tightly, car door and door into house open wide. I glance, I run back and forth every 60 seconds. I keep my eyes on her. Finally, she emerges. When I spot the silky Disney image of Esmerelda on the front of the pink nightgown, thumb still in mouth, tanned little toes firmly planted on the black and white tiles of the floor. I know what comes next. Thumb comes out. Sniff. Sniff. Eye-contact. Let the gagging begin. "Aaaaaah!" Fake gag. Fake gag. "Aaaaaaaah!" Faux cough/gag combo. OKAY. I say, firmly. YOU WIN. Out comes the magic spray. This week we're using the country potpourri scented air freshener. She seems to like this better than the powder scent we borrowed from the downstairs guest bath last week. Spray.....spray....room to room. Concentrate on the area my the stove. Concentrate on the bar area that faces the living room television. Cheerios go in the bowl. Spoon. Cup of milk. Place the princess on her favorite bar stool. Nick Jr - on. Face is here. "Little Bear next," she says, speaking for the first time today. "Yes, baby," I say defeated, having lost the battle once again, "Little Bear is next." "It smells bad, Mommy," she says, screwing up her little face and poking out a rosy, shiny bottom lip. I know, baby, I know, I think - you hate the smell of bacon, don't you. It's ok. Mommies can fix anything, even the evil smell of bacon in the morning. Why do I fight her, I wonder. She's obviously way better at this than I am. Mommy + Country Potpourri Air-Freshener = A very good, downright magical day, minus the round 'n round cup, of course. I beg your pardon. Apparently I did promise you a rose garden with no bacon.
Monday, July 9, 2012
George Eat Old Gray Rat at Phillip's House Yesterday
Ben, the two of us need look no more
We both found what we were looking for
With my friend to call my own I'll never be alone
And you my friend will see, you've got a friend in me
Ben, you're always running here and there
You feel you're not wanted anywhere
If you ever look behind and don't like what you find
There's something you should know, you've got a place to go
I used to say, "I", And "Me"
Now it's "Us", Now it's "We"
Ben, most people would turn you away
I don't listen to a word they say
They don't see you as I do I wish they would try to
I'm sure they'd think again if they had a friend like Ben
Like Ben, like Ben
"Ben" -written by Scharf, Walter, Black, Don & sung by the incomparable MJ himself
Rats! No, seriously, I have rats. I have A rat, at least. I'm trying to convince myself that it's "one, singular sensation, every little step she takes." Still, I don't see "my" rat starring in A Chorus Line anytime soon. Yes, I choose to think she's a large she and not a he rat. She has excellent musical taste, otherwise, why would SHE be frequenting my humble abode? After all, who else in my neighborhood plays classical music in their kitchens while slaving away at work all day? See, I also keep my amazingly precious dogs kenneled in the kitchen during the work week. Gotta have the classical music jammin', though I did try Spanish speaking radio for a while thinking it would make the pups tre' sophisticated. It didn't. They do like to bark at Selma Hayek, though. Every time the trailer for Savages is on TV they go crazy! But.....back to my rattus norvegicus (that's how those in the know talk about their vermin guests). HHHHHHEEEEEEEEEEEELLLLPPPP MMMMMEEEEEEEEE!
"A Rat", by Dina Moon (poetic version). "A ratticus in my atticus. Sounds so quite sympaticus! With my whole wheat pita bread you are in love...icus."
"A Rat - The Remix", also kind of by Dina Moon (rap version). "Yo, yo, yo baby rat come here and give me a kiss (no, don't). Bettah make it fast or else I'm feedin' you a dish (of poison)."
*************************************and finally*************************************************
"Gone with the Rat", inspired by Dina Moon (theatrical version). Dina: "Rat, rat, where evah are you goin'? Why, oh why, are you choosin' to ravish your rodent tendencies in my plantation?" Rat: "Frankly, Dina, I don't give a d#$n!"
So, here we sit. I have a rat, who apparently, LOVES living in my kitchen. Why rat? Why not mouse? Well, this lovely rodent lady saw fit to down a WHOLE BAG of whole wheat pita bread rounds yours truly likes to have with the amazing hummus I keep handy. Exhibit A: Imagine my shock with I pulled out my bag of near zero calorie pita bites to find that the package was EMPTY! I accused everyone of being the pita bandit, but they all looked at me like I was crazy and said, in unison, "What the heck is a pita?" Exhibit B: My husband brought home the dreaded Mrs. Baird's cinnamon rolls. I rolled my eyes - surely he will start understanding I wound never eat something so repulsive as packaged cinnamon rolls! Yet, 24 hours later, who was ready to throw caution to the wind and scarf down a luscious, impeccably iced, cinnamonly morsel of amazingness (on the patio with coffee, of course)...THIS GIRL! Until I noticed the corner of the package. It didn't exist. Until I noticed the missing Mercedes hood ornament sized section of cinnamon roll. It didn't exist, either. Ok, so maybe I accused someone's bratty kid at Kroger of wedging a pudgy finger in MY cinnamon roll package and devouring MY corner of sugary, guilty, yumminess. But, this ain't my first rodeo. I knew better. Something cinnamon was rotten in Denmark! Out, out you darn cinnamon rolls. And, so, I threw them away. (WAAAAAAAAH!) Exhibit C: That was NOT a partial chocolate chip snippet on the countertop the next morning. Enough said!
So, what's a working girl to do? Wanna catch a bigger mouse? GET A BIGGER MOUSE TRAP! Sure, I initially wanted to trap the lil lady live and release her into a pristine field somewhere in a proverbial rattus norvegicus Eden, complete with lavender and pita plants galore. Realistically, though, do you know what a live trap costs? GEESH. Nevermind. Let's annihilate the sucker! That is how I wound up choosing the top o' the line, cutting edge, REUSABLE, GINORMOUS sophistimacated rat trap! (Go, me) But, my rat catchin' life - it ain't been no crystal stair. Night 1: trap set on top of counter. Trap tripped. Cheese abandoned in favor of life saving measures. Trap winds up in kitchen floor. No rat. Night 2: Trap is set in floor (she's smart enough to push it off counter without experiencing Ratticide). Trap not tripped. Cheese still in trap. No dice. Night 3: Trap set in floor with peanut butter (OOOOOOOOOH! AHHHHHHHHH!). Trap NOT TRIPPED AGAIN. Peanut butter left in tact. Houston, I have a problem. Night 4: Trap set on other side of kitchen in the floor with cheese AND peanut butter AND bread. Trap STILL NOT TRIPPED. Whole smorgasbord left in tact. Egad, she's onto me. I fear I am turning into a girl version of Abraham Lincoln, Vermin Hunter.
Fast forward (cue Gilligan's Island dream sequence music).......it's a year from now. I come home early from work one day. There she is, Ophelia (yes, I named her - it's classic and tragic, don't you think?). She's wearing my new Nike capri workout pants and doing my TapOut MMA workout in the living room. Her abs are amazing. Later, I see her drinking a glass of my merlot and chatting with the dogs about the perils of eating dog food high in fat. Next she takes a bubble bath and washes her fur with my Kerastase zero phosphate shampoo - she contemplates dousing herself with my It's a 10 leave in conditioner, but decides to do that in the AM, instead. She favors peep toe platform pumps, Michael Kors purses, and only real pearls. She refuses to get any body piercings but wants a tiny tattoo of the infinity symbol. She knows the words to all the Miranda Lambert songs.Yep, that Ophelia is a really cool rat. Sure, she poops on the kitchen counter and has a predisposition for rabies and certain types of mites. Still, she's a survivor!
On the other hand, HHHHHHHHHHEEEEELLLLLLPPPPPP MMMMMEEEEEEE!
A rat by any other name is still eating my pitas and listening to my classical music and I won't have it one minute longer! Tonight, maybe I'll try asparagus & parmesan cheese. A sophisticated rodent like Ophelia would never eat plain peanut butter!
We both found what we were looking for
With my friend to call my own I'll never be alone
And you my friend will see, you've got a friend in me
Ben, you're always running here and there
You feel you're not wanted anywhere
If you ever look behind and don't like what you find
There's something you should know, you've got a place to go
I used to say, "I", And "Me"
Now it's "Us", Now it's "We"
Ben, most people would turn you away
I don't listen to a word they say
They don't see you as I do I wish they would try to
I'm sure they'd think again if they had a friend like Ben
Like Ben, like Ben
"Ben" -written by Scharf, Walter, Black, Don & sung by the incomparable MJ himself
Rats! No, seriously, I have rats. I have A rat, at least. I'm trying to convince myself that it's "one, singular sensation, every little step she takes." Still, I don't see "my" rat starring in A Chorus Line anytime soon. Yes, I choose to think she's a large she and not a he rat. She has excellent musical taste, otherwise, why would SHE be frequenting my humble abode? After all, who else in my neighborhood plays classical music in their kitchens while slaving away at work all day? See, I also keep my amazingly precious dogs kenneled in the kitchen during the work week. Gotta have the classical music jammin', though I did try Spanish speaking radio for a while thinking it would make the pups tre' sophisticated. It didn't. They do like to bark at Selma Hayek, though. Every time the trailer for Savages is on TV they go crazy! But.....back to my rattus norvegicus (that's how those in the know talk about their vermin guests). HHHHHHEEEEEEEEEEEELLLLPPPP MMMMMEEEEEEEEE!
"A Rat", by Dina Moon (poetic version). "A ratticus in my atticus. Sounds so quite sympaticus! With my whole wheat pita bread you are in love...icus."
"A Rat - The Remix", also kind of by Dina Moon (rap version). "Yo, yo, yo baby rat come here and give me a kiss (no, don't). Bettah make it fast or else I'm feedin' you a dish (of poison)."
*************************************and finally*************************************************
"Gone with the Rat", inspired by Dina Moon (theatrical version). Dina: "Rat, rat, where evah are you goin'? Why, oh why, are you choosin' to ravish your rodent tendencies in my plantation?" Rat: "Frankly, Dina, I don't give a d#$n!"
So, here we sit. I have a rat, who apparently, LOVES living in my kitchen. Why rat? Why not mouse? Well, this lovely rodent lady saw fit to down a WHOLE BAG of whole wheat pita bread rounds yours truly likes to have with the amazing hummus I keep handy. Exhibit A: Imagine my shock with I pulled out my bag of near zero calorie pita bites to find that the package was EMPTY! I accused everyone of being the pita bandit, but they all looked at me like I was crazy and said, in unison, "What the heck is a pita?" Exhibit B: My husband brought home the dreaded Mrs. Baird's cinnamon rolls. I rolled my eyes - surely he will start understanding I wound never eat something so repulsive as packaged cinnamon rolls! Yet, 24 hours later, who was ready to throw caution to the wind and scarf down a luscious, impeccably iced, cinnamonly morsel of amazingness (on the patio with coffee, of course)...THIS GIRL! Until I noticed the corner of the package. It didn't exist. Until I noticed the missing Mercedes hood ornament sized section of cinnamon roll. It didn't exist, either. Ok, so maybe I accused someone's bratty kid at Kroger of wedging a pudgy finger in MY cinnamon roll package and devouring MY corner of sugary, guilty, yumminess. But, this ain't my first rodeo. I knew better. Something cinnamon was rotten in Denmark! Out, out you darn cinnamon rolls. And, so, I threw them away. (WAAAAAAAAH!) Exhibit C: That was NOT a partial chocolate chip snippet on the countertop the next morning. Enough said!
So, what's a working girl to do? Wanna catch a bigger mouse? GET A BIGGER MOUSE TRAP! Sure, I initially wanted to trap the lil lady live and release her into a pristine field somewhere in a proverbial rattus norvegicus Eden, complete with lavender and pita plants galore. Realistically, though, do you know what a live trap costs? GEESH. Nevermind. Let's annihilate the sucker! That is how I wound up choosing the top o' the line, cutting edge, REUSABLE, GINORMOUS sophistimacated rat trap! (Go, me) But, my rat catchin' life - it ain't been no crystal stair. Night 1: trap set on top of counter. Trap tripped. Cheese abandoned in favor of life saving measures. Trap winds up in kitchen floor. No rat. Night 2: Trap is set in floor (she's smart enough to push it off counter without experiencing Ratticide). Trap not tripped. Cheese still in trap. No dice. Night 3: Trap set in floor with peanut butter (OOOOOOOOOH! AHHHHHHHHH!). Trap NOT TRIPPED AGAIN. Peanut butter left in tact. Houston, I have a problem. Night 4: Trap set on other side of kitchen in the floor with cheese AND peanut butter AND bread. Trap STILL NOT TRIPPED. Whole smorgasbord left in tact. Egad, she's onto me. I fear I am turning into a girl version of Abraham Lincoln, Vermin Hunter.
Fast forward (cue Gilligan's Island dream sequence music).......it's a year from now. I come home early from work one day. There she is, Ophelia (yes, I named her - it's classic and tragic, don't you think?). She's wearing my new Nike capri workout pants and doing my TapOut MMA workout in the living room. Her abs are amazing. Later, I see her drinking a glass of my merlot and chatting with the dogs about the perils of eating dog food high in fat. Next she takes a bubble bath and washes her fur with my Kerastase zero phosphate shampoo - she contemplates dousing herself with my It's a 10 leave in conditioner, but decides to do that in the AM, instead. She favors peep toe platform pumps, Michael Kors purses, and only real pearls. She refuses to get any body piercings but wants a tiny tattoo of the infinity symbol. She knows the words to all the Miranda Lambert songs.Yep, that Ophelia is a really cool rat. Sure, she poops on the kitchen counter and has a predisposition for rabies and certain types of mites. Still, she's a survivor!
On the other hand, HHHHHHHHHHEEEEELLLLLLPPPPPP MMMMMEEEEEEE!
A rat by any other name is still eating my pitas and listening to my classical music and I won't have it one minute longer! Tonight, maybe I'll try asparagus & parmesan cheese. A sophisticated rodent like Ophelia would never eat plain peanut butter!
Sunday, March 25, 2012
Country Roads, Take Me Home
You got a fast car
I want a ticket to anywhere
Maybe we make a deal
Maybe together we can get somewhere
Anyplace is better
Starting from zero got nothing to lose
Maybe we'll make something
But me myself I got nothing to prove
You got a fast car
And I got a plan to get us out of here
I been working at the convenience store
Managed to save just a little bit of money
We won't have to drive too far
Just across the border and into the city
You and I can both get jobs
And finally see what it means to be living
"Fast Car" - Tracy Chapman
So, it hit home one day at work. I am eccentrically different. I think I always sort of knew, but didn't want to realize it for a long time. I travel extensively in my profession. I go to different parts of the country and talk to different people in order to help them do their jobs more proficiently. I was up North (that phrase alone hints to the content of this blog) and launched into my monologue about a weed eater. It's a lovely little ditty of a tale about customer loyalty, but it fell upon deaf ears like a huge anchor on a dry lake. Silence. Crickets. No one got me! Why? Up North, there are no weed eaters. Why, they thought (as I rambled incessantly for several minutes) I was telling a story about an ANIMAL! Apparently, this group of co-workers was trying to mentally envision some giant, prehistoric anteater type creature who ran around and ate Paleozoic weeds!! I picture a redwood/fern hybrid that's roughly 50 ft tall. Turns out, they call my deep South weed eater a WEED WHACKER. Who knew? Case study #2: I know someone who is a recent transplant to Texas from another state. When you really take stock of the people in our larger communities who we interact with daily, are any of them Texas natives? Increasingly, as with any metropolitan city, we are comprised of many people who originally hail from all sorts of places. Cool, right? Still, she looked at me and said, "You know, when I moved to Texas I imagined all the girls were Southern Belles and sounded like you, but no one does. Everyone here sounds very Midwestern. When you opened your mouth on the first day, I thought - YES! Finally, someone who actually sounds Southern!" Great, now all I need to do is show up in my cowboy boots and talk about J.R. Ewing. On another business trip, I became very animated - typically, that's when my Texas accent is most obvious. Realizing I had lapsed into country girl euphemism speak, I apologized and explained that I'd really tried hard to keep the accent at bay all week. The consensus from the group was that I failed miserably. I thought: I am uber cosmopolitan and professional. Hear me not sound Southern! They thought: We can't understand anything she's saying. Is this even the King's English? Why do her words have 377 syllables?
Now, at first I was quite disheartened. We place so much self-value on the perception of others, after all. I think back to one of my first "car dates" with a boy when I was 16. It was Saturday afternoon and we were going to see a movie. I spent an entire week teaching myself how to do finger waves on my long hair, a la Veronica Lake. I thought I looked tres chic! Whatever prompted me to ask this question, I will never, ever know. As we approached the entrance ramp to the highway, bluebonnets and waist tall weeds in the background, concrete and highway bridges in the horizon, I asked this poor, clueless boy if he also thought the city was far, far more exciting than our dumb, boring life out in the sticks. He seemed non-plussed. I asked if he didn't think I belonged in the city - didn't I seem like a sophisticated fish out of the water out on the dirt road? Why, I would fit far more nicely with a slick, modern high rise apartment address than with my rural route and box # that no one could find on their first try, right? Finally picking up on the fact that his answer might dictate the entire mood of this date, he grappled to find something to say that would both placate me and shut me up: "I guess you're like a citified country girl?" Egad. My spirits were dashed. All I wanted was to be so different that the person I was.
Fast forward 30 years. I finally get it. Everybody wants to be somebody they're not. Everyone wants to reinvent themselves. None of us thinks we're quite good enough in our original packaging. Part of this original thought is good, I think. Shouldn't we as the human race want to aspire to more? Doesn't this form evolution in a certain aspect - both the scientific form of evolution AND the spiritual type of evolution. Shouldn't we all want to be better, make less mistakes, improve our existence. I say yes. Somewhere on this journey to perfection that's never enough and never attainable, I drove my inner-self jalopy into a ginormous pot hole. I broke my self-perception axle and had to have my life towed to an existential garage. Those who love me have been working on my chassis for some years now. I think I'm almost ready to be a road warrior once again. I think I'm ready to get behind the steering wheel and start moving along toward my goal of being the person I should be. This time, it will be different. This time, I have GPS. This time, I'll use the compass. I never did find the city, after all. I kept driving all around the outskirts, but there was never an exit ramp that would take me where I wanted to go. Today, I drive again. This time, I'm headed back to the country. All hail the power of Indian Paintbrushes and Buttercups. This time I will embrace sweet tea and banana pudding. I won't be embarrassed for people to hear the twang in my voice, the word y'all, the mixology of our Southern words (whatch'alldoin?).
I think I finally realized I am different. The real me is different than anyone else I know. It's time I embraced that. To do otherwise would be criminal. So.....as we end this first week of Spring, I encourage us all to do some self-introspection. Pop the hood on your life. Roll down your windows. Drive through your life's neighborhood and understand that whether good or bad, those are the things that form the essence of you. Turns out, the things you're trying to banish may just be the things that others adore about you most.
You can put your therapy check in the mail today!!!! Peace, love, grits 'n Aqua Net, y'all!
I want a ticket to anywhere
Maybe we make a deal
Maybe together we can get somewhere
Anyplace is better
Starting from zero got nothing to lose
Maybe we'll make something
But me myself I got nothing to prove
You got a fast car
And I got a plan to get us out of here
I been working at the convenience store
Managed to save just a little bit of money
We won't have to drive too far
Just across the border and into the city
You and I can both get jobs
And finally see what it means to be living
"Fast Car" - Tracy Chapman
So, it hit home one day at work. I am eccentrically different. I think I always sort of knew, but didn't want to realize it for a long time. I travel extensively in my profession. I go to different parts of the country and talk to different people in order to help them do their jobs more proficiently. I was up North (that phrase alone hints to the content of this blog) and launched into my monologue about a weed eater. It's a lovely little ditty of a tale about customer loyalty, but it fell upon deaf ears like a huge anchor on a dry lake. Silence. Crickets. No one got me! Why? Up North, there are no weed eaters. Why, they thought (as I rambled incessantly for several minutes) I was telling a story about an ANIMAL! Apparently, this group of co-workers was trying to mentally envision some giant, prehistoric anteater type creature who ran around and ate Paleozoic weeds!! I picture a redwood/fern hybrid that's roughly 50 ft tall. Turns out, they call my deep South weed eater a WEED WHACKER. Who knew? Case study #2: I know someone who is a recent transplant to Texas from another state. When you really take stock of the people in our larger communities who we interact with daily, are any of them Texas natives? Increasingly, as with any metropolitan city, we are comprised of many people who originally hail from all sorts of places. Cool, right? Still, she looked at me and said, "You know, when I moved to Texas I imagined all the girls were Southern Belles and sounded like you, but no one does. Everyone here sounds very Midwestern. When you opened your mouth on the first day, I thought - YES! Finally, someone who actually sounds Southern!" Great, now all I need to do is show up in my cowboy boots and talk about J.R. Ewing. On another business trip, I became very animated - typically, that's when my Texas accent is most obvious. Realizing I had lapsed into country girl euphemism speak, I apologized and explained that I'd really tried hard to keep the accent at bay all week. The consensus from the group was that I failed miserably. I thought: I am uber cosmopolitan and professional. Hear me not sound Southern! They thought: We can't understand anything she's saying. Is this even the King's English? Why do her words have 377 syllables?
Now, at first I was quite disheartened. We place so much self-value on the perception of others, after all. I think back to one of my first "car dates" with a boy when I was 16. It was Saturday afternoon and we were going to see a movie. I spent an entire week teaching myself how to do finger waves on my long hair, a la Veronica Lake. I thought I looked tres chic! Whatever prompted me to ask this question, I will never, ever know. As we approached the entrance ramp to the highway, bluebonnets and waist tall weeds in the background, concrete and highway bridges in the horizon, I asked this poor, clueless boy if he also thought the city was far, far more exciting than our dumb, boring life out in the sticks. He seemed non-plussed. I asked if he didn't think I belonged in the city - didn't I seem like a sophisticated fish out of the water out on the dirt road? Why, I would fit far more nicely with a slick, modern high rise apartment address than with my rural route and box # that no one could find on their first try, right? Finally picking up on the fact that his answer might dictate the entire mood of this date, he grappled to find something to say that would both placate me and shut me up: "I guess you're like a citified country girl?" Egad. My spirits were dashed. All I wanted was to be so different that the person I was.
Fast forward 30 years. I finally get it. Everybody wants to be somebody they're not. Everyone wants to reinvent themselves. None of us thinks we're quite good enough in our original packaging. Part of this original thought is good, I think. Shouldn't we as the human race want to aspire to more? Doesn't this form evolution in a certain aspect - both the scientific form of evolution AND the spiritual type of evolution. Shouldn't we all want to be better, make less mistakes, improve our existence. I say yes. Somewhere on this journey to perfection that's never enough and never attainable, I drove my inner-self jalopy into a ginormous pot hole. I broke my self-perception axle and had to have my life towed to an existential garage. Those who love me have been working on my chassis for some years now. I think I'm almost ready to be a road warrior once again. I think I'm ready to get behind the steering wheel and start moving along toward my goal of being the person I should be. This time, it will be different. This time, I have GPS. This time, I'll use the compass. I never did find the city, after all. I kept driving all around the outskirts, but there was never an exit ramp that would take me where I wanted to go. Today, I drive again. This time, I'm headed back to the country. All hail the power of Indian Paintbrushes and Buttercups. This time I will embrace sweet tea and banana pudding. I won't be embarrassed for people to hear the twang in my voice, the word y'all, the mixology of our Southern words (whatch'alldoin?).
I think I finally realized I am different. The real me is different than anyone else I know. It's time I embraced that. To do otherwise would be criminal. So.....as we end this first week of Spring, I encourage us all to do some self-introspection. Pop the hood on your life. Roll down your windows. Drive through your life's neighborhood and understand that whether good or bad, those are the things that form the essence of you. Turns out, the things you're trying to banish may just be the things that others adore about you most.
You can put your therapy check in the mail today!!!! Peace, love, grits 'n Aqua Net, y'all!
Monday, October 3, 2011
Edward, Hubert, Ted, Alec, and Ringo
all the leaves are brown
and the sky is grey
I've been for a walk
on a winter's day
I'd be safe and warm
if I was in L.A
California Dreamin'
on such a winter's day
stopped into a church
I passed along the way
well, I got down on my knees
and I pretend to pray
you know the preacher likes the cold
he knows I'm gonna stay
California Dreamin'
on such a winter's day
all the leaves are brown
and the sky is grey
I've been for a walk
on a winter's day
if I didn't tell her
I could leave today
California Dreamin'
on such a winter's day
-California Dreamin' The Mommas & the Papas
Headline reads: Texas girl travels to a new state on vacation (finally) and decides never to return. Or something like that. Seriously? Isn't there an amendment on the ballet to rename California Utopifornia? If not, I will gladly sponsor one. I NEVER in a million years thought I would say this, but.....It was blissful not to be so darn hot!! That, and a few other observations, prompted me to write this blog examining the sanity in keeping good ole' Tejas in the 48 contiguous at all. WAIT! Put the lynchin' rope down just a gall darn second, wouldja ? Let's talk 'is out, k?
Observation #1 - People in California (based on my one time four day trip to San Diego) are in a state of Stepford wife-ish zombie-ness, in a good way. Here's the scoop: the hubs and I land. We get our luggage. We see the palm trees (instant hypnotic effect). We wander aimlessly but happily through the airport for an hour. We see my unimaginably handsome Navy boy who originated the idea for this trip. I scream and stomp my feet rapidly. I hug said Navy boy - we both may or may not have cried for a second. (Disclaimer: Navy boys soooo do not cry). It is then we realize that we will need a rental car.....Fast forward to the car rental place. See the lady tell us there's actually not a Jeep Wrangler in our price range. See her explain that the internet listed prices don't apply to San Diego due to the propensity for drug dealers & coyotes (not the furry sort) to drive them in and out of other countries. See her direct us out to a bench where a random gentleman will drive us to another car rental place where we can get a better deal. See us get in the car with the nameless gentleman does indeed drive us to an auxiliary car rental places with better prices. Convo ensues: Hubs: So, how long have you lived here? Unassuming driver guy: "Not long, maybe 14 years." Hubs: Do you like it? Driver: "What's not to like?"
Observation #2 - There didn't seem to be any California girls in California???? THEY WERE ALL NICE! I saw "Girls" in all shapes and sizes. They were on motorcycles. They were working on the Navy base (a blog in and of itself), they were walking down gloriously gorgeous boulevards, laying out on beaches, and even waiting tables in restaurants. None were tan. Few were overly highlighted. Only some were marginally blond. Most were my age. Most were riding bicycles on Coronado Island sans helmets because THERE ARE SIDEWALKS EVERYWHERE IN CALIFORNIA!!!
Observation #3 - San Diego has many, many, MANY nationalities encompassing it's make-up, but very, very few bugs. Hmmm? Yep! I said very few bugs. Here we have: mosquitos out the wazoo (in October & in a severe drought, no less!!!!), the ever popular "June" bug which manages to stay out waaaaaay past June, the cockaroacha (aka "Waterbug"), the dreaded fire ant, and CRICKETS (even in non-infestation years). California?????? WTH? We saw 5 (FIVE) freakin' flies and they WERE ALL NICE FLIES! We named them: Edward, Hubert, Ted (after my father), Alec (the hot fly), and Ringo. Don't ask. Again, all five were quite unobtrusive and were content to just look in on us from time to time, but never to light or disturb. Even the insects LOVE living in California.
Now, lest you decide to hold a dag nub trial and excommunicate me from Texas once an fer all, there were a few things in Cali that could use some improving: A) I was freaking' freezing the entire time!!!!! Holy shirts and pants! I wore a long sleeved sweater (the same one CONSTANTLY, since that's all I brought) every day and all day! B) EVERYONE rides a motorcycle. Actually, that's not a problem at all. The reason they do, however, is because there are ZERO parking spots in California!!!! Nada. Zilch. Zippty-do-da-day. I promise. Hotels - no spaces. Motels - no spaces. Holiday Inns - definitely no spaces. Those who do choose cars as chosen mode of transportation better be amazing at the parallel parking skill set. Still, it was beautiful, glorious, bug free (with minor exceptions), and very, very clean. But I don't want to live there.
Oh yeah, and we saw SEALS!!!! But, I still don't want to live there.
Oh yeah, and we saw DOLPHINS sooooooo close to the beach!!!!! But, I still don't want to live there.
Oh, yeah........never you mind. I have to go. There's a mesquite on my ankle that needs a good swattin'!
and the sky is grey
I've been for a walk
on a winter's day
I'd be safe and warm
if I was in L.A
California Dreamin'
on such a winter's day
stopped into a church
I passed along the way
well, I got down on my knees
and I pretend to pray
you know the preacher likes the cold
he knows I'm gonna stay
California Dreamin'
on such a winter's day
all the leaves are brown
and the sky is grey
I've been for a walk
on a winter's day
if I didn't tell her
I could leave today
California Dreamin'
on such a winter's day
-California Dreamin' The Mommas & the Papas
Headline reads: Texas girl travels to a new state on vacation (finally) and decides never to return. Or something like that. Seriously? Isn't there an amendment on the ballet to rename California Utopifornia? If not, I will gladly sponsor one. I NEVER in a million years thought I would say this, but.....It was blissful not to be so darn hot!! That, and a few other observations, prompted me to write this blog examining the sanity in keeping good ole' Tejas in the 48 contiguous at all. WAIT! Put the lynchin' rope down just a gall darn second, wouldja ? Let's talk 'is out, k?
Observation #1 - People in California (based on my one time four day trip to San Diego) are in a state of Stepford wife-ish zombie-ness, in a good way. Here's the scoop: the hubs and I land. We get our luggage. We see the palm trees (instant hypnotic effect). We wander aimlessly but happily through the airport for an hour. We see my unimaginably handsome Navy boy who originated the idea for this trip. I scream and stomp my feet rapidly. I hug said Navy boy - we both may or may not have cried for a second. (Disclaimer: Navy boys soooo do not cry). It is then we realize that we will need a rental car.....Fast forward to the car rental place. See the lady tell us there's actually not a Jeep Wrangler in our price range. See her explain that the internet listed prices don't apply to San Diego due to the propensity for drug dealers & coyotes (not the furry sort) to drive them in and out of other countries. See her direct us out to a bench where a random gentleman will drive us to another car rental place where we can get a better deal. See us get in the car with the nameless gentleman does indeed drive us to an auxiliary car rental places with better prices. Convo ensues: Hubs: So, how long have you lived here? Unassuming driver guy: "Not long, maybe 14 years." Hubs: Do you like it? Driver: "What's not to like?"
Observation #2 - There didn't seem to be any California girls in California???? THEY WERE ALL NICE! I saw "Girls" in all shapes and sizes. They were on motorcycles. They were working on the Navy base (a blog in and of itself), they were walking down gloriously gorgeous boulevards, laying out on beaches, and even waiting tables in restaurants. None were tan. Few were overly highlighted. Only some were marginally blond. Most were my age. Most were riding bicycles on Coronado Island sans helmets because THERE ARE SIDEWALKS EVERYWHERE IN CALIFORNIA!!!
Observation #3 - San Diego has many, many, MANY nationalities encompassing it's make-up, but very, very few bugs. Hmmm? Yep! I said very few bugs. Here we have: mosquitos out the wazoo (in October & in a severe drought, no less!!!!), the ever popular "June" bug which manages to stay out waaaaaay past June, the cockaroacha (aka "Waterbug"), the dreaded fire ant, and CRICKETS (even in non-infestation years). California?????? WTH? We saw 5 (FIVE) freakin' flies and they WERE ALL NICE FLIES! We named them: Edward, Hubert, Ted (after my father), Alec (the hot fly), and Ringo. Don't ask. Again, all five were quite unobtrusive and were content to just look in on us from time to time, but never to light or disturb. Even the insects LOVE living in California.
Now, lest you decide to hold a dag nub trial and excommunicate me from Texas once an fer all, there were a few things in Cali that could use some improving: A) I was freaking' freezing the entire time!!!!! Holy shirts and pants! I wore a long sleeved sweater (the same one CONSTANTLY, since that's all I brought) every day and all day! B) EVERYONE rides a motorcycle. Actually, that's not a problem at all. The reason they do, however, is because there are ZERO parking spots in California!!!! Nada. Zilch. Zippty-do-da-day. I promise. Hotels - no spaces. Motels - no spaces. Holiday Inns - definitely no spaces. Those who do choose cars as chosen mode of transportation better be amazing at the parallel parking skill set. Still, it was beautiful, glorious, bug free (with minor exceptions), and very, very clean. But I don't want to live there.
Oh yeah, and we saw SEALS!!!! But, I still don't want to live there.
Oh yeah, and we saw DOLPHINS sooooooo close to the beach!!!!! But, I still don't want to live there.
Oh, yeah........never you mind. I have to go. There's a mesquite on my ankle that needs a good swattin'!
Tuesday, September 13, 2011
Do You Know the Way to Hou-oo-ston?
She packed my bags last night pre-flight
Zero hour nine a.m.
And I’m gonna be high as a kite by then
I miss the earth so much I miss my wife
It’s lonely out in space
On such a timeless flight
And I think it’s gonna be a long long time
Till touch down brings me round again to find
I’m not the man they think I am at home
Oh no no no I’m a rocket man
Rocket man burning out his fuse up here alone
Mars ain’t the kind of place to raise your kids
In fact it’s cold as hell
And there’s no one there to raise them if you did
And all this science I don’t understand
It’s just my job five days a week
Rocket Man - Bernie Taupin/Elton John
The premise:
Yes, I am a savvy, sophisticated, chic, cosmopolitan, world traveler. Don't look at me like that!!! What? Oh, dear. 1985 called? What did they say? What? Braniff wants their frequent flyer miles back? Ouch. Now, that hurts!
Hear's the deal. I am NOT complaining!!! I'm a rules girl. If it's in the by-laws, I will do it. Stop signs? Color me stopped. Deadline? Got it. Speed limit? No worries. And, those are my "safely on land" rules! My "up in the air" rules are even better! What with the ugliness and wickedness in the world, I not only agree with but applaud any and all airport safety measures. Again - I not only agree with but applaud any and all airport safety measures. Still, though......for reals???
The prequel:
I live in Dallas. The Big D. DFW. Da Metroplex. Enough. I had to go to (drumroll)...Houston!!! I was traveling on company time and funds, so who was I to have a list of demands? I was ELATED, in fact!! Why, 'lil ole me? Goin' on a mahvelous trip? Why, I'll just have the grandest ole time! I'll buy all those cute little empty bottles and funnel my bougie shampoo and conditioner in them. I'll take a week's worth of books. A month ago, I started an outline of outfits: 1 for departure, 1 for each day, 1 for funsies, options for my pj's.....you get the picture. I got a little out of control (imagine that). Still, planner that I am, I packed, folded, and planned myself the perfect little work get-a-away ever planned. Go me!
The set up:
The Fast forward past: amazing hotel, great seminar, wonderful training material, incomprehensibly delish (FREE) hot appetizers and WINE each night, A ROOM WITH A WOOD FLOOR ENTRY AND GRANITE COUNTERTOPS.....my ship finally came in! End result? It came in, alright. Then it sailed...without me!
The funny part:
I had to come home. (Just wait, ok, it's not funny YET). I finished the meeting. I changed into the "return flight outfit" per the outline tucked away in side pocket suitcase (not too hoochie, not too matronly, Golilocks says this is juussst right). Shuttle was early. Ticket counter was empty. Smooth as buttah. Till I got to security.
1.The agent that had to clear me to enter the security area misread my last name. I said Moon. She said no. I said WRONG. She said SAY WHAT. I smiled and quadruple blinked my eyes (internal reset button). I squinched my nose up in my cutest, perkiest, Meg Ryan wannabe look. We started over. Whew!!!
2. I used 3 buckets: 1 for jewelry and various/sundry other metal objects, 1 for my ipad and iphone (Apple, check goes in mail now, please), & one for purse and carry-on. I so rock the security process!!!
3. I look up and see (gulp) the body scanner. I've heard about these. They're evil. I'll be able to talk to martians and get radio stations through my fillings after this. Never fear, though, cause savvy, sophisticated, chic, cosmopolitan, world traveling Dina is here!!!!!! I smile (again), squinch my perky nose up (again), and quadruple blink my eyes (again). Deep, cleansing breath. And.......
4. I step into Jetson's living room gadget. It looks like Arthur Murray was held captive in there! I see the huge yellow footprints. I step into them looking like I'm going to do a cross between the electric slide and the Rocky Horror Picture Show Time Warp.
5. When my Jetson's tube opens, I flip around like I'm about to do the 2nd Macarena and look the security man in the eyes. He's not smiling back at me. His nose isn't squinched. He looks......non-plussed (maybe even slightly irked?)
The finale:
Don't wear designer jeans with crystalized, studded, super-shiny, back pocket flaps.
A. They show up on a scan quite similar to other small, rectangle shaped, mysterious metal objects.
B. When you see the group of security guys gathered in front of the monitor, DON'T LOOK! Your glittery, crystalized, metallic derriere looks like planet EARTH! Those two things that look like TWIN NORTH AMERICAS ARE YOUR POCKETS! YOUR BOOTY IS BIGGER THAN RHODE ISLAND IN REAL TIME.
The Prologue:
The author hopes everyone understands and embraces her love for airport security. She also hopes you leave with these amazing insights: no one cares about your bougie shampoo and departure outfits, next time pack sweats for the return flight, and MEG RYAN ISN'T COOL ANYMORE!
Until next time - thank you for flying in my friendly sky!
Zero hour nine a.m.
And I’m gonna be high as a kite by then
I miss the earth so much I miss my wife
It’s lonely out in space
On such a timeless flight
And I think it’s gonna be a long long time
Till touch down brings me round again to find
I’m not the man they think I am at home
Oh no no no I’m a rocket man
Rocket man burning out his fuse up here alone
Mars ain’t the kind of place to raise your kids
In fact it’s cold as hell
And there’s no one there to raise them if you did
And all this science I don’t understand
It’s just my job five days a week
Rocket Man - Bernie Taupin/Elton John
The premise:
Yes, I am a savvy, sophisticated, chic, cosmopolitan, world traveler. Don't look at me like that!!! What? Oh, dear. 1985 called? What did they say? What? Braniff wants their frequent flyer miles back? Ouch. Now, that hurts!
Hear's the deal. I am NOT complaining!!! I'm a rules girl. If it's in the by-laws, I will do it. Stop signs? Color me stopped. Deadline? Got it. Speed limit? No worries. And, those are my "safely on land" rules! My "up in the air" rules are even better! What with the ugliness and wickedness in the world, I not only agree with but applaud any and all airport safety measures. Again - I not only agree with but applaud any and all airport safety measures. Still, though......for reals???
The prequel:
I live in Dallas. The Big D. DFW. Da Metroplex. Enough. I had to go to (drumroll)...Houston!!! I was traveling on company time and funds, so who was I to have a list of demands? I was ELATED, in fact!! Why, 'lil ole me? Goin' on a mahvelous trip? Why, I'll just have the grandest ole time! I'll buy all those cute little empty bottles and funnel my bougie shampoo and conditioner in them. I'll take a week's worth of books. A month ago, I started an outline of outfits: 1 for departure, 1 for each day, 1 for funsies, options for my pj's.....you get the picture. I got a little out of control (imagine that). Still, planner that I am, I packed, folded, and planned myself the perfect little work get-a-away ever planned. Go me!
The set up:
The Fast forward past: amazing hotel, great seminar, wonderful training material, incomprehensibly delish (FREE) hot appetizers and WINE each night, A ROOM WITH A WOOD FLOOR ENTRY AND GRANITE COUNTERTOPS.....my ship finally came in! End result? It came in, alright. Then it sailed...without me!
The funny part:
I had to come home. (Just wait, ok, it's not funny YET). I finished the meeting. I changed into the "return flight outfit" per the outline tucked away in side pocket suitcase (not too hoochie, not too matronly, Golilocks says this is juussst right). Shuttle was early. Ticket counter was empty. Smooth as buttah. Till I got to security.
1.The agent that had to clear me to enter the security area misread my last name. I said Moon. She said no. I said WRONG. She said SAY WHAT. I smiled and quadruple blinked my eyes (internal reset button). I squinched my nose up in my cutest, perkiest, Meg Ryan wannabe look. We started over. Whew!!!
2. I used 3 buckets: 1 for jewelry and various/sundry other metal objects, 1 for my ipad and iphone (Apple, check goes in mail now, please), & one for purse and carry-on. I so rock the security process!!!
3. I look up and see (gulp) the body scanner. I've heard about these. They're evil. I'll be able to talk to martians and get radio stations through my fillings after this. Never fear, though, cause savvy, sophisticated, chic, cosmopolitan, world traveling Dina is here!!!!!! I smile (again), squinch my perky nose up (again), and quadruple blink my eyes (again). Deep, cleansing breath. And.......
4. I step into Jetson's living room gadget. It looks like Arthur Murray was held captive in there! I see the huge yellow footprints. I step into them looking like I'm going to do a cross between the electric slide and the Rocky Horror Picture Show Time Warp.
5. When my Jetson's tube opens, I flip around like I'm about to do the 2nd Macarena and look the security man in the eyes. He's not smiling back at me. His nose isn't squinched. He looks......non-plussed (maybe even slightly irked?)
The finale:
Don't wear designer jeans with crystalized, studded, super-shiny, back pocket flaps.
A. They show up on a scan quite similar to other small, rectangle shaped, mysterious metal objects.
B. When you see the group of security guys gathered in front of the monitor, DON'T LOOK! Your glittery, crystalized, metallic derriere looks like planet EARTH! Those two things that look like TWIN NORTH AMERICAS ARE YOUR POCKETS! YOUR BOOTY IS BIGGER THAN RHODE ISLAND IN REAL TIME.
The Prologue:
The author hopes everyone understands and embraces her love for airport security. She also hopes you leave with these amazing insights: no one cares about your bougie shampoo and departure outfits, next time pack sweats for the return flight, and MEG RYAN ISN'T COOL ANYMORE!
Until next time - thank you for flying in my friendly sky!
Wednesday, September 7, 2011
Girls Love Batman, Too
You with the sad eyes
Don't be discouraged
Oh I realize
It's hard to take courage
In a world full of people
You can lose sight of it all
And the darkness, inside you
Can make you feel so small
But I see your true colors
Shining through
I see your true colors
And that's why I love you
So don't be afraid to let them show
Your true colors
True colors are beautiful,
Like a rainbow
Show me a smile then,
Don't be unhappy, can't remember
When I last saw you laughing
If this world makes you crazy
And you've taken all you can bear
You call me up
Because you know I'll be there
Billy Steinberg, as recorded by the amazing Cyndy Lauper
"Mom, I HATE my room!" she says at an incredible decibel level. Loud enough, it seems, to transcend the orchestra of pop-culture noises piercing the invisible barrier between her bedroom and the kitchen doorway. " I mean, I really HATE it. You said we could paint when I switched, Mom." It's not so much a complaint, but more of her unofficial thesis on the many broken promises of a modern day mom. She feels, I know, that words coming from my mouth are worthless, said as much to maintain peaceful silence at this equatorial line between the continents of Momland and the Outer Banks of Teenage Girldom as it's said just to be saying something. Pointless drivel, sometimes,is a beautiful thing. At times, I find myself talking to her, to Chynna, to this prettier, smarter, all around better rendition of me, and not really hearing what I'm saying. It just feels so good to have a connection to her. Walking into her room, I think as I forge through a sea of dirty clothes - are they really dirty? How does one person wear so many clothes in just a week? - is like exploring uncharted territory. It looks idyllic, until you get in the big middle. I consider giving up before I've even stepped in the door, but by then, it would take just as much effort to turn around as it would to forge ahead. I need a compass, or maybe a machete. It's the noise that always gets me. Who is that, singing? Is that singing? It sounds like someone is worshipping Satan and running over animals in a Mac truck, simultaneously. Why is the TV on, too? How can anyone stand to be in this room for more than 15 seconds, I wonder. I must look like I smell a decomposing animal, at that point. She laughs.The edges of her eyes close as she smiles. She shakes her head back and forth. The sentiment is instantly translated. "Mom, you are so old," she's thinking. "Whatever am I going to do with you, Momma?" Indeed, Chynna my dear, I think back at her. Whatever will we do.
It's like watching my own youth, a movie of me. Seeing me, watching me in another time. Thinking that this must be what my mother saw when I had such epiphanies. Realizing how similar my mini-me and I truly are. Noticing how she talks with her hands, just like me. Seeing her indignant stance as she puts her hands on her hips and points her right knee toward the corner, the heel of her right foot resting on top of her left foot. Just like me.Just like my mother. Suddenly, I'm back in my mother's house, standing in her kitchen - though she did not live there anymore, making homemade sloppy joe's for my dad.I'm 17. I stir the meat, talking absentmindedly to my father, when he says softly, "You stand just like your mother. Just like her." It's then that it hits me. The truth. The brevity of youth. The mistakes. A product of divorce, I, too, am divorced. Chynna, I wonder, is this your destiny? Do you exist just to wander the world and repeat the mistakes of your mother, and her mother before her? How far does this mistake heredity extend, I wonder? Is it like welfare? Is this a spell cast upon us by the wicked witch of the Catch 22's? Are we just going around and around in circles - riding some merry-go-round that's just a little too fast?
It's then that I consciously decide to engage in the conversation.
"Baby, what, exactly do you wanna do? I mean, you know I wanted to paint your room, but it took everything within my power to get the rooms switched around as it was.
The boys were NOT happy campers to switch to the room with just one closet, either." This entire room switch was a horrible idea, I realize, creating more problems
than it solved. Chynna's unhappiness with, as she termed it, the swamp bedroom that was always a balmy 80 degrees no matter what the thermostat says - was more than I
could tolerate. So, 6 months ago I told her they could make the switch. Then, 6 weeks ago, we actually did it. Maybe 6 years from now we'll complete the task? I am overcome by disparity, by the realization that she won't be here 6 years from now - or even in 2 years, defiantly arguing with me, drinking the last Dr Pepper in the fridge,leaving the bathroom in a mess....she'll be away at college. She'll be learning how to be an adult, a woman, a wholly thinking, independent entity. I am overcome with sadness, then, realizing just how empty my nest has become. In 30 seconds, I make the biggest decision I've made in a calendar year. "Chynna", I say with decisive clarity,"just take the bull by the horns. Make us a plan. Tell me what what you need. I'm fine with the outcome, I just don't have the energy to make the plan." As a smile bigger than the Grand Canyon lights up my 16 year old daughter's cherubic face, and as the infamous ice-pick dimple adds (if even possible) yet more beauty to her impressive landscape, she approaches closer. My underling, still, by a good 2 1/2 inches, she stands on the tops of her tiny, chubby, impossibly minute size 4 toes and grasps my chin with thumb and index finger. "That's my girl," she says. "I knew you'd come around! Oh, momma, you won't regret this! It's all I've ever wanted! What are we gonna do? Can we do Batman?" "What? No!" I yell, surprised by my own naivety. "I call foul, Chynna!" Crinkling up my nose and feigning disgust. "You know I do not like this whole Batman mentality." "But mom," she drawls, stretching my nomenclature out to several syllables,"think about how cool that would look. We could paint the walls bright yellow and do all the Gotham City buildings in gray, with a huge, black, bat signal on the wall across from the window," she points. With her arms looking like a military drill routine, pointing with practiced straight arms and stiff fingers. Choruses of "this can go here" and "that can go there" flowed in unison, from both our voices. We discussed our many options, mostly her ideas, her presentations - me in contemplation mode, like a modern day thinker sculpture. Our fraggle-ish pontytails nodding in unison. Both of us dressed in capri pajama pants and big t-shirt on this lazy Saturday morning. Aggies for her, for that's the only college, she argued on a weekly
basis, she'd set foot in no matter what the cost. Jackrabbits, for me, since it was my favorite sleep shirt, large and soft, plucked from the air by my husband at a high school football game with same mascot - the result of a touchdown by my teenage son's team, no doubt. So, we planned. We schemed. We conferred. We designed. Black walls with a portrait of Marilyn Monroe's gorgeous face, all done in chalk ("Chynna, you're such a good artist, I know you could pull that off.") A pirate bedroom, or our interpretation of, with red walls,and leopard print curtains - a headboard fashioned from an old door. Maybe even a "polar bear in the snow" look - everything stark white with splashes of hot pink or turquoise. There would be no pink. We'd done that in her room when she was just two - antique furniture, pink and white striped walls, window seat - even complete with a dollhouse in the corner. "That's so you and not me, mom!" She laugh-talked when I mentioned that look again. "Honestly, I'm way too complicated for that!" I can't help but smile at this statement. I remember, like yesterday, the arrogance of my youth. How amazingly sophisticated I was at her age, or so I'd thought. Why, I, too, thought settling for the norm was as bad as committing a mortal sin! Such time, such precision, such soulful crafting we girls put into the way we're perceived.
How sweet, I think fleetingly, she really doesn't know that life is going to kick her around for a while, very soon! And, then, just like that, a decision is made. It seems so obvious to the both of us. We wonder, silently, independently of each other, why we didn't think of this sooner. It simply can be nothing else! We will do a Disney princess room. We'll paint the walls a very adult oceany blue/green - just a shade or two darker than a Tiffany blue. It will be a room fit for Ariel herself, since that's the Disney princess of choice for my daughter. Belle's just ok. Snow White is too antiquated. Cinderella outlived her reign, in Chynna's opinion. Sleeping Beauty...waaaaay too passive. Jasmine? Ehh - she get's nod for being a brunette, but that's about it. Esmerelda had it going on, but she just never gathered enough steam. Ariel,on the other hand. Ariel is perfect. Different. Unique. Ariel has purpose. Ariel is a searcher of truths, a learner of meanings. She's beautiful. She's so darn perpetually happy. She never thinks a negative thought. She never gives up. She's scrappy. That's my Chynna. This is a no brainer, suddenly. This, it seems, will be the a room under the sea, so to speak. "Chynna," I say, impulsively. "This will be the very last room change, ever, for you at home. Understand? Is this really something you can live with indefinitely? Do you see yourself spending holidays in this room, in this way we're describing it, years from now while you're home from college - home with your kids?" "Oh, momma", she states with only the slightest of eye-rolls, a trait she definitely inherited from me. "I will always be 16 going on 8! You know that, right?"
More than you ever guessed, princess. Way more.
Don't be discouraged
Oh I realize
It's hard to take courage
In a world full of people
You can lose sight of it all
And the darkness, inside you
Can make you feel so small
But I see your true colors
Shining through
I see your true colors
And that's why I love you
So don't be afraid to let them show
Your true colors
True colors are beautiful,
Like a rainbow
Show me a smile then,
Don't be unhappy, can't remember
When I last saw you laughing
If this world makes you crazy
And you've taken all you can bear
You call me up
Because you know I'll be there
Billy Steinberg, as recorded by the amazing Cyndy Lauper
"Mom, I HATE my room!" she says at an incredible decibel level. Loud enough, it seems, to transcend the orchestra of pop-culture noises piercing the invisible barrier between her bedroom and the kitchen doorway. " I mean, I really HATE it. You said we could paint when I switched, Mom." It's not so much a complaint, but more of her unofficial thesis on the many broken promises of a modern day mom. She feels, I know, that words coming from my mouth are worthless, said as much to maintain peaceful silence at this equatorial line between the continents of Momland and the Outer Banks of Teenage Girldom as it's said just to be saying something. Pointless drivel, sometimes,is a beautiful thing. At times, I find myself talking to her, to Chynna, to this prettier, smarter, all around better rendition of me, and not really hearing what I'm saying. It just feels so good to have a connection to her. Walking into her room, I think as I forge through a sea of dirty clothes - are they really dirty? How does one person wear so many clothes in just a week? - is like exploring uncharted territory. It looks idyllic, until you get in the big middle. I consider giving up before I've even stepped in the door, but by then, it would take just as much effort to turn around as it would to forge ahead. I need a compass, or maybe a machete. It's the noise that always gets me. Who is that, singing? Is that singing? It sounds like someone is worshipping Satan and running over animals in a Mac truck, simultaneously. Why is the TV on, too? How can anyone stand to be in this room for more than 15 seconds, I wonder. I must look like I smell a decomposing animal, at that point. She laughs.The edges of her eyes close as she smiles. She shakes her head back and forth. The sentiment is instantly translated. "Mom, you are so old," she's thinking. "Whatever am I going to do with you, Momma?" Indeed, Chynna my dear, I think back at her. Whatever will we do.
It's like watching my own youth, a movie of me. Seeing me, watching me in another time. Thinking that this must be what my mother saw when I had such epiphanies. Realizing how similar my mini-me and I truly are. Noticing how she talks with her hands, just like me. Seeing her indignant stance as she puts her hands on her hips and points her right knee toward the corner, the heel of her right foot resting on top of her left foot. Just like me.Just like my mother. Suddenly, I'm back in my mother's house, standing in her kitchen - though she did not live there anymore, making homemade sloppy joe's for my dad.I'm 17. I stir the meat, talking absentmindedly to my father, when he says softly, "You stand just like your mother. Just like her." It's then that it hits me. The truth. The brevity of youth. The mistakes. A product of divorce, I, too, am divorced. Chynna, I wonder, is this your destiny? Do you exist just to wander the world and repeat the mistakes of your mother, and her mother before her? How far does this mistake heredity extend, I wonder? Is it like welfare? Is this a spell cast upon us by the wicked witch of the Catch 22's? Are we just going around and around in circles - riding some merry-go-round that's just a little too fast?
It's then that I consciously decide to engage in the conversation.
"Baby, what, exactly do you wanna do? I mean, you know I wanted to paint your room, but it took everything within my power to get the rooms switched around as it was.
The boys were NOT happy campers to switch to the room with just one closet, either." This entire room switch was a horrible idea, I realize, creating more problems
than it solved. Chynna's unhappiness with, as she termed it, the swamp bedroom that was always a balmy 80 degrees no matter what the thermostat says - was more than I
could tolerate. So, 6 months ago I told her they could make the switch. Then, 6 weeks ago, we actually did it. Maybe 6 years from now we'll complete the task? I am overcome by disparity, by the realization that she won't be here 6 years from now - or even in 2 years, defiantly arguing with me, drinking the last Dr Pepper in the fridge,leaving the bathroom in a mess....she'll be away at college. She'll be learning how to be an adult, a woman, a wholly thinking, independent entity. I am overcome with sadness, then, realizing just how empty my nest has become. In 30 seconds, I make the biggest decision I've made in a calendar year. "Chynna", I say with decisive clarity,"just take the bull by the horns. Make us a plan. Tell me what what you need. I'm fine with the outcome, I just don't have the energy to make the plan." As a smile bigger than the Grand Canyon lights up my 16 year old daughter's cherubic face, and as the infamous ice-pick dimple adds (if even possible) yet more beauty to her impressive landscape, she approaches closer. My underling, still, by a good 2 1/2 inches, she stands on the tops of her tiny, chubby, impossibly minute size 4 toes and grasps my chin with thumb and index finger. "That's my girl," she says. "I knew you'd come around! Oh, momma, you won't regret this! It's all I've ever wanted! What are we gonna do? Can we do Batman?" "What? No!" I yell, surprised by my own naivety. "I call foul, Chynna!" Crinkling up my nose and feigning disgust. "You know I do not like this whole Batman mentality." "But mom," she drawls, stretching my nomenclature out to several syllables,"think about how cool that would look. We could paint the walls bright yellow and do all the Gotham City buildings in gray, with a huge, black, bat signal on the wall across from the window," she points. With her arms looking like a military drill routine, pointing with practiced straight arms and stiff fingers. Choruses of "this can go here" and "that can go there" flowed in unison, from both our voices. We discussed our many options, mostly her ideas, her presentations - me in contemplation mode, like a modern day thinker sculpture. Our fraggle-ish pontytails nodding in unison. Both of us dressed in capri pajama pants and big t-shirt on this lazy Saturday morning. Aggies for her, for that's the only college, she argued on a weekly
basis, she'd set foot in no matter what the cost. Jackrabbits, for me, since it was my favorite sleep shirt, large and soft, plucked from the air by my husband at a high school football game with same mascot - the result of a touchdown by my teenage son's team, no doubt. So, we planned. We schemed. We conferred. We designed. Black walls with a portrait of Marilyn Monroe's gorgeous face, all done in chalk ("Chynna, you're such a good artist, I know you could pull that off.") A pirate bedroom, or our interpretation of, with red walls,and leopard print curtains - a headboard fashioned from an old door. Maybe even a "polar bear in the snow" look - everything stark white with splashes of hot pink or turquoise. There would be no pink. We'd done that in her room when she was just two - antique furniture, pink and white striped walls, window seat - even complete with a dollhouse in the corner. "That's so you and not me, mom!" She laugh-talked when I mentioned that look again. "Honestly, I'm way too complicated for that!" I can't help but smile at this statement. I remember, like yesterday, the arrogance of my youth. How amazingly sophisticated I was at her age, or so I'd thought. Why, I, too, thought settling for the norm was as bad as committing a mortal sin! Such time, such precision, such soulful crafting we girls put into the way we're perceived.
How sweet, I think fleetingly, she really doesn't know that life is going to kick her around for a while, very soon! And, then, just like that, a decision is made. It seems so obvious to the both of us. We wonder, silently, independently of each other, why we didn't think of this sooner. It simply can be nothing else! We will do a Disney princess room. We'll paint the walls a very adult oceany blue/green - just a shade or two darker than a Tiffany blue. It will be a room fit for Ariel herself, since that's the Disney princess of choice for my daughter. Belle's just ok. Snow White is too antiquated. Cinderella outlived her reign, in Chynna's opinion. Sleeping Beauty...waaaaay too passive. Jasmine? Ehh - she get's nod for being a brunette, but that's about it. Esmerelda had it going on, but she just never gathered enough steam. Ariel,on the other hand. Ariel is perfect. Different. Unique. Ariel has purpose. Ariel is a searcher of truths, a learner of meanings. She's beautiful. She's so darn perpetually happy. She never thinks a negative thought. She never gives up. She's scrappy. That's my Chynna. This is a no brainer, suddenly. This, it seems, will be the a room under the sea, so to speak. "Chynna," I say, impulsively. "This will be the very last room change, ever, for you at home. Understand? Is this really something you can live with indefinitely? Do you see yourself spending holidays in this room, in this way we're describing it, years from now while you're home from college - home with your kids?" "Oh, momma", she states with only the slightest of eye-rolls, a trait she definitely inherited from me. "I will always be 16 going on 8! You know that, right?"
More than you ever guessed, princess. Way more.
Tuesday, August 2, 2011
Rip, Rip, Ping (The Ballad of the Wayward Button)
Clean shirt, new shoes
and I don't know where I am goin' to.
Silk suit, black tie,
I don't need a reason why.
They come runnin' just as fast as they can
coz every girl crazy 'bout a sharp dressed man.
Gold watch, diamond ring,
I ain't missin' a single thing.
And cufflinks, stick pin,
when I step out I'm gonna do you in.
They come runnin' just as fast as they can
coz every girl crazy 'bout a sharp dressed man.
Top coat, top hat,
I don't worry coz my wallet's fat.
Black shades, white gloves,
lookin' sharp and lookin' for love.
They come runnin' just as fast as they can
coz every girl grazy 'bout a sharp dressed man.
"Sharp Dressed Man". -ZZ Top
It was the best of times. It was the less than best of times. I wear many hats, but plaguerist is not one of them, Mr. Dickens! Today was definitely a Manic Monday, except, of course, it was Thursday. In my best "who's on first" fashion, I can honestly say that Monday was more like a Wednesday this week. Not too many complications, plus, I'm one of those rare oddities of the human race who actually really like their job! Call me Suzy Sunshine (no really, don't!) but there's something to be said about getting up and going out into the world to try and impact someone else - be that a co-worker or a customer....or whomever. We won't go into any details about the details. Another hat I don't wear is "Dunce". Suffice it to say that I work (daily), and I like my job (almost always). Beyond that, we're on a need to know basis. Anywho, back to the week. Tuesday? I don't really remember Tuesday at all, so I guess it was above par. Wednesday? Pretty darn good! Today? Three steps forward and three miles back! Allow me to splain, Ricky!
I woke up today. Since the last time I blogged, I chopped off all of my newly grown shoulder length hair. It felt like the right thing to do. After being bald and s-l-o-w-l-y growing my hair out, I thought I would give it one last "I'm over 40 but I can't admit it" growth spurt. As I fell asleep every night, I would think, "Brooke Shields is one year older than you! Cindy Crawford is the same age as you. Demi Moore is OLDER than you." Repeat until you fall asleep. It's the old-girl-long-hair-sheep-counting technique! And, it was working for a while. Gradually, though, the hair started to bother me as it grew down the back of my neck. I couldn't sleep at night. I didn't think it looked that good. It was sooooooo hot and thick and unruly and unmanageable. So, it's gone! Anyway, back to this morning. I had a catastrophe wrapped in an enigma blanketed in a nightmare. Come to think of it, I'm reminded of another place and time - when all that separated the men from the boys was the quality of their pants.
Hello? 1999? You out there somewhere? Yoo hoo! Come in '99...... Paging 1999. Heyyyy (Hip Hop Hooray!) Thanks for joining me! Here's the deal. Once I had a farm. Not in Africa (quick, what movie?) It was actually just some acreage in Forney, TX. Still, I was blessed to be a stay at home mom for over 10 years. I subbed. I ran programs. I volunteered. I face painted at carnivals. I was definitely mom o' the year...consecutive years, mind you! Nevertheless, life with 3 young stair-step kids is never dull. It's equal parts bliss and piss. Those adorable little cherubs morph from angelic to demonic faster than you can say "Expecto Patronum!" (HP fans, you may bow down at my feet later). Still, we live, we love, we laugh. We enlighten. We feed. We clothe. We nurture. We tire, quickly. Here's the scene: Enter Dillan. Age 12 or so. Middle school. It's all about the image. Necklace made of ball bearings (check). Hair died platinum at the crown only (check). Wallet with chain (check). Leather motorcycle jacket (check). Always a study in contrasts, my eldest, he's in the band. I'm so proud to see his artistic side! Finally, a glimpse of his mom. Issue: " Mom, the band concert is tomorrow night. Do you have my navy blue pants!" Me: " Of course I do! Why, I'll have them pressed and ready to wear to school, tomorrow." (Note from author: I was instructed by said son NEVER to buy navy pants. They are not cool.) PANIC! What to do? No time for the mall. Hmmmm..... Think, think. I KNOW! I'll go to the local big-box retail grocer/tire/fuel/produce/feminine hygiene store!!! Not the best source for pants, mind you, but time is priceless, after all. Besides, he HATES the navy uniform pants. Cool guys only wear khaki, remember? So, I go. So I buy. So I iron. So I give. So he wears......Epilogue: 3:30 pm. I pull up in front of the school. 3:40 - nothing. 3:45 - nothing, 4 pm - who? Is that? Hmmmmm.....Yep, here he comes. Why Is he walking like that?
For the rest of the story.... 1) Dillan arrives at school. Leather biker jacket? Check. Circular section of crown of head died platinum? Check. Ball bearing necklace? Check. Navy pants? Check! 2) Humiliated Dill exits school. Mom's internal thoughts upon seeing eldest son walking in a rather constipated looking gate toward the car, "WTHeck is wrong with him? Hernia? Pulled a back muscle? Horrendous stomach cramps? Why is he all hunched over like the Notre Dame dude with his backpack clenched in front of him? 3) The Ugly Truth: Dillan: Mom, WHERE did you get these pants? Moi: At a store over by the mall? (sort of true) Dillan: Mom, I had THE worst day!!! Moi: Dill, what happened? Dillan: Mom, like an hour after I got to school I went to the restroom to pee. When I tried to zip up my pants, the zipper just went up and down but wouldn't do anything! I even unbuttoned to see if that would help. Then, when I tried to button back up, thinkin' I'd just tighten my belt extra tight, the button popped off and flew all over the bathroom. I heard it hit the sink, but I was too embarrassed to go and pick it up." Moi: "Well, I wonder what could've happened???"
Fast forward, oh catastrophes of clothing future! Scene: 2011 Protagonist: Me!!! Antagonist: Big box retailer's AMAZINGLY chic olive green-rayon-drawstring waist-shirt dress with double pocketed bodice (so triple darn c-u-t-e) that I just HAD to have it! And......ACTION: See me arrive back at office after visiting mui importante client. Staff member: "What's that?" (I glance down at the area near my right lower hip near the buttocks area) "OMG - My dress has a HUGE rip down the side and I'm on my way to another client meeting!!!!" MORE ACTION: The next client: "Uh, hey, what's that?" (Mind you I have my largemongous purse discreetly placed over the also largemongous rip) Me, looking down at the area near my left lower hip near the buttocks area: "OMG - my dress has a HUGE rip down the side and I'm on my way to a charity meeting!" EVEN MORE ACTION: Unable to rise and greet incoming attendees at said charity meeting, I exit the building doing a very odd "hold-purse-tight-to-body-place-left-hand-rigidly-against-left-hip" move (think "Night of the Living Dead" combined with Elaine from Seinfeld dance moves). Finally, easing myself into the driver's seat of my car, I allow myself a long-awaited exhale. Done. Finito. Over. Let's engage the seat belt and get the heck out of Dodge. And that, dear friends, is when my top button popped off. True story. All hail the power of karma. Ain't it a bit#*?
Saturday, May 7, 2011
A Secret Place
You packed in the morning and I
Stared out the window and I
Struggled for something to say
You left in the rain
Without closing the door
I didn't stand in your way
But I miss you more than I
Missed you before and now
Where I'll find comfort, God knows
'Cause you left me
Just when I needed you most.
"Just When I Needed You Most" - Randy VanWarmer
I fancy myself a story-teller, mostly of sad stories. Some of you understand this. Some of you don't. Some of you understand but are sick of hearing about it. Some of you are non-committal in regard to your feelings. Some of you will never read this. Some of you will. I write for me, though. I've never been one for therapy. I think it's wonderful, but I vehemently disagree with the repression or reappointment of feelings. If I'm sad, I'm sad. If I'm not, I'm not. Period. I take refuge in my grief at times - it's all I have left to cling to, it seems. I was just like all of you. We all grew up. We were told we could be anything. Some of us exceeded our wildest dreams, others did not. Hopefully we all found a happy place and became solid citizens and purveyors of good things in the world. I think I did. I married. I had babies. I was a very, very good mother. My children never wore disposable diapers, drank out of bottles, had pacifiers, or ate baby food out of jars. None of those things are wrong. I just did things this one certain way. I thought it was best. I thought this was what really good mothers did. Who knows. Things were GREAT for a long time. But, life gets tough. We all make mistakes - I certainly did. Then, everything changed. My baby died.
Everyone knows my story. One day I took my daughter to the mall and bought her first prom dress. Three weeks later, she was buried in that dress. It all happened so fast. It's been three years since that horrific event. Three years ago I was in shock and couldn't form words with my mouth. Two years ago, I was very sick and very sad. One year ago I was pretending like everything was perfectly fine. This year, I'm not sure where I am, exactly. Better? Yes. Normal? Not so sure. Healed? Never. I miss her so deeply. Tomorrow is Mother's Day. I am still a mother. Still a woman. Still a person. I still struggle. I watch my boys struggle. I see my mother struggle. Without sounding pathetic or angry or jaded, I know I'm not special. Parents lose children everyday. I'm thankful I only lost one.
I dream about her incessantly. That's one thing that changed in the last year. For a long time I never dreamed of her. Now, that seems to be all I do. My dreams are like my grief. It makes me so sad, but it's all I have left of her. Sometimes it's hard for me to imagine her voice. Her laugh. Her feet. These things blur with the passage of time and the mind's attempt to salvage some sanity. But, the dreams......are......amazing. They heal me and hurt me all at the same time. Take, for instance, this one.
She is eight years old. We are taking a family vacation. It's a cruise, I believe. We're all packed in a van with innumerable people of all sorts of nationalities. We seem to be on the way from the airport to our cruise-ship. We're laughing. She's tired and sweaty and very irritable. I decide we should all sing. Grudgingly, I convince everyone to follow suit. Laughs. Smiles. Harmonies. Then, suddenly she's not there. No one can find her. We tear the van from stem to stern, but no little girl. The ship sails without her and I am held captive by my fear and panic. Everyone is looking. Oddly, little pieces of her surface around every corner. I find her flip flop on the Lido deck. I spot her tiny gold hoop earring in the toilet. I pick her pink plaid headband up in the formal dining room. She's leaving me clues. "Find me, momma", she seems to be saying. I look. And look. And look. Months later, I'm leaving the grocers to head home one evening when I see her favorite barrette in the parking lot next to my car. I know, then, that she's back. I just know. Racing in my front door, I scream her name. She comes bounding down the stairs into my arms. Little tanned body, precious ponytail, scented with my special body lotion she's not supposed to use without my permission....she's perfect. She smells like angel wings. I am complete again. I tell her I never stopped looking for her. I tell her I could hear her calling for me in the distance. I tell her I cried so hard. I tell her, my sweet cherubic girl, that I knew she was somewhere. But, where? She can't tell me, or won't tell me. "Don't worry about that", she says. I tell her I felt her. I tell her that every night, right before I fell asleep, there was a tiny little place, a secret place that no one else knows, where I tried to slip through. I thought, if I could wiggle past that space, that I could find her. She looks at me, eyes wide and wild, equal parts amazed and scared. "Don't ever do that! Promise me you will never try to do that. It's not safe. You aren't ready to come there yet. It's not time. You wouldn't be welcomed there. Promise me you won't follow me, mommy."
And then, she was gone. Again. I will wait for her here, until the next dream.
Stared out the window and I
Struggled for something to say
You left in the rain
Without closing the door
I didn't stand in your way
But I miss you more than I
Missed you before and now
Where I'll find comfort, God knows
'Cause you left me
Just when I needed you most.
"Just When I Needed You Most" - Randy VanWarmer
I fancy myself a story-teller, mostly of sad stories. Some of you understand this. Some of you don't. Some of you understand but are sick of hearing about it. Some of you are non-committal in regard to your feelings. Some of you will never read this. Some of you will. I write for me, though. I've never been one for therapy. I think it's wonderful, but I vehemently disagree with the repression or reappointment of feelings. If I'm sad, I'm sad. If I'm not, I'm not. Period. I take refuge in my grief at times - it's all I have left to cling to, it seems. I was just like all of you. We all grew up. We were told we could be anything. Some of us exceeded our wildest dreams, others did not. Hopefully we all found a happy place and became solid citizens and purveyors of good things in the world. I think I did. I married. I had babies. I was a very, very good mother. My children never wore disposable diapers, drank out of bottles, had pacifiers, or ate baby food out of jars. None of those things are wrong. I just did things this one certain way. I thought it was best. I thought this was what really good mothers did. Who knows. Things were GREAT for a long time. But, life gets tough. We all make mistakes - I certainly did. Then, everything changed. My baby died.
Everyone knows my story. One day I took my daughter to the mall and bought her first prom dress. Three weeks later, she was buried in that dress. It all happened so fast. It's been three years since that horrific event. Three years ago I was in shock and couldn't form words with my mouth. Two years ago, I was very sick and very sad. One year ago I was pretending like everything was perfectly fine. This year, I'm not sure where I am, exactly. Better? Yes. Normal? Not so sure. Healed? Never. I miss her so deeply. Tomorrow is Mother's Day. I am still a mother. Still a woman. Still a person. I still struggle. I watch my boys struggle. I see my mother struggle. Without sounding pathetic or angry or jaded, I know I'm not special. Parents lose children everyday. I'm thankful I only lost one.
I dream about her incessantly. That's one thing that changed in the last year. For a long time I never dreamed of her. Now, that seems to be all I do. My dreams are like my grief. It makes me so sad, but it's all I have left of her. Sometimes it's hard for me to imagine her voice. Her laugh. Her feet. These things blur with the passage of time and the mind's attempt to salvage some sanity. But, the dreams......are......amazing. They heal me and hurt me all at the same time. Take, for instance, this one.
She is eight years old. We are taking a family vacation. It's a cruise, I believe. We're all packed in a van with innumerable people of all sorts of nationalities. We seem to be on the way from the airport to our cruise-ship. We're laughing. She's tired and sweaty and very irritable. I decide we should all sing. Grudgingly, I convince everyone to follow suit. Laughs. Smiles. Harmonies. Then, suddenly she's not there. No one can find her. We tear the van from stem to stern, but no little girl. The ship sails without her and I am held captive by my fear and panic. Everyone is looking. Oddly, little pieces of her surface around every corner. I find her flip flop on the Lido deck. I spot her tiny gold hoop earring in the toilet. I pick her pink plaid headband up in the formal dining room. She's leaving me clues. "Find me, momma", she seems to be saying. I look. And look. And look. Months later, I'm leaving the grocers to head home one evening when I see her favorite barrette in the parking lot next to my car. I know, then, that she's back. I just know. Racing in my front door, I scream her name. She comes bounding down the stairs into my arms. Little tanned body, precious ponytail, scented with my special body lotion she's not supposed to use without my permission....she's perfect. She smells like angel wings. I am complete again. I tell her I never stopped looking for her. I tell her I could hear her calling for me in the distance. I tell her I cried so hard. I tell her, my sweet cherubic girl, that I knew she was somewhere. But, where? She can't tell me, or won't tell me. "Don't worry about that", she says. I tell her I felt her. I tell her that every night, right before I fell asleep, there was a tiny little place, a secret place that no one else knows, where I tried to slip through. I thought, if I could wiggle past that space, that I could find her. She looks at me, eyes wide and wild, equal parts amazed and scared. "Don't ever do that! Promise me you will never try to do that. It's not safe. You aren't ready to come there yet. It's not time. You wouldn't be welcomed there. Promise me you won't follow me, mommy."
And then, she was gone. Again. I will wait for her here, until the next dream.
Sunday, March 20, 2011
You model? Cheerleader?
Well, I was born a coal miner's daughter,
In a cabin, on a hill in Butcher Holler,
We were poor, but we had love,
That's the one thing my daddy made sure of,
He shoveled coal to make a poor man's dollar.
-Loretta Lynn "Coal Miner's Daughter"
Well, ok. I was born a laundromat owner/pool hall proprietor/appliance repairman's daughter. We didn't live in a cabin, per se. We lived in a brick house, though I was born in a trailer, which is sort of like a cabin, I guess. Oh! There was a little red house on our 2nd acre that housed our well - it was definitely a cabin! Matter of fact, my daddy dug that 40 ft well himself, making him.....yep! Definitely a miner! Still, I've never been to Butcher Holler. I lived in Combine. I've been told to quit hollerin', though. Does that count? Why all the antiquated pioneer euphemisms, you ask? Well, remember the blog series I promised about all the things we thought we would be one day? Yepper, this is part dieu! Too much frost on this bumpkin's pumpkin, you think? Stay with me - it will all make sense soon.
Oh, poor, poor little DD! I wanted to be a princess. I wanted a prince to fall in love with me. I wanted to be beautiful, popular, athletic (even I'm rolling my eyes now)...I just wanted to be the 100% polar opposite of what I was: a short, brunette, country-fied child who lived out in the middle of nowhere. We used clotheslines instead of an electric dryer. We didn't have central air conditioning (or any air conditioning). We bought these huge slabs of pork at a butcher and sliced our own bacon. We caught rain water in a barrel.....and used it to rinse our hair. My mother made all of my clothes - including my jeans. Cool and earthy/hippy chic now. Back then, though, I was mortified. How in the world would I ever, EVER, fulfill my precocious destiny given this "Deliverance" type hand I'd been dealt? Easy....we economically challenged redneck girls are oh so resourceful!
I have a wonderful mother. If necessity really is the mother of invention, my mother invented gumption. If the other girls had expensive dresses from "The Rag Doll" boutique across the street from Smith's Pharmacy, no worries. She learned to sew the exact same thing. When earth shoes were all the rage...we discovered lay-a-way at Myer's Department Store. When EVERYONE but me was wearing blue eye-shadow, we used pool cue chalk. And, when all my friends showed up at school with their hair frosted, I was introduced to the lemon! Finally, the most important contribution to my quest for dominance with the female race...(drumroll)...my mother made sure I started school already able to read.
I read anything I could get my hands on. My first sentence? "Momma, read the book." My first book purchase at the age of 5? The biography of Orville & Wilbur Wright (purchased, of course, from the Salvation Army store). My specialty? The cinema. Marilyn Monroe, Marlene Dietrich, the romance of Lauren Bacall and Humphrey Bogart, Judy Garland, Audrey Hepburn, Vivien Leigh, and my absolute favorite...Elizabeth Taylor. I studied them. I knew how they each were discovered. I memorized the studios they worked within, their real names, every movie they filmed. I poured over still photos of their mannerisms - the way they almost smiled, the tilt of their heads, their doe eyes, the way they held their hands....what they wore. Legendary. Timeless. Other-worldly. This is what I would be. This would be my legacy. I would be.....an actress! An icon. Perfect!
In the third grade we were assigned roles to portray for a class project. We didn't get to choose. While there weren't any cinema legends up for grabs, I just knew I was a shoe in for the Shirley Temple part. Wrong. Ok, so, no big deal. I would surely be the obvious choice for the adventurous Amelia Earhart portrayal. Nope. Cleopatra? Uh-uh. Pocahontas - had to be, right? I even had long braids!!! Nada. Who did I get? Susan B. Anthony, suffragette. Really? How preposterous! How unglamorous. Still, I labored over my role. I planned. I rehearsed. I decided my rendition of Susan would be VERY Shakespearean. She would speak with a British accent - that'll show those neigh-sayers! They were non-plussed over my finished project. No one seemed to get it. No one clapped. It came across as a little odd. Sort of like when Napoleon Dynamite gives his report over Nessie.
Not to worry! Ushering in the 5th grade, I find out there would be......A PLAY! The decades in song!!! Yessss! My name is written all over this one! I see the list of parts and I know beyond knowing that I will be cast as 60's icon CHER! I immediately begin wearing my dark hair down and straight. I practice holding my arms bent at the elbows hands pointed down (in retrospect, it probably looked like I was channeling a T-Rex). I learned all the words to "Half Breed". I could even make a small "O" with my mouth when I licked my lips. Victory? Sadly, no. I'm still shaking my head in disbelief when I tell you the part went to some girl with BLONDE HAIR! I didn't get Shirley Temple. I didn't get disco duck. I didn't get to be a bathing beauty. I was....a flapper. Ok, so the costume was uber glam, but I was one of several. I didn't even get to belt my heart out in song! I was in the chorus line. Sob!
Two years later, I received the prerequisite letter from the Barbizon School of Modeling. Could it be? Could this really happen? Would I finally be discovered? Mentally picturing myself telling the entire universe that nothing would come between me and my Calvin's, I begged with my mother - pleaded with her - to please take me to the casting call. She said no. I went on a hunger strike (it lasted 6 hours). I dramatically explained that I would surely be doomed forever to a life of anonymity at her hands. I swooned. I feigned illnesses, became despondent.....threatened to run away and live on our 3rd acre in a rusted junk car of my father's. Finally, she acquiesced, and we hit the road to the big city of Dallas to visit a modeling agency.
In the 70's, there was a commercial for the world's first battery powered curling iron. It revolved around a would-be starlet with short, straight, blond hair sitting in an agency waiting room. A man looks out of his office and tells a caller (undoubtedly Vogue magazine) "but we don't have any blonds with curly hair". In roughly 10 seconds, the starlet pops out her curling iron and a star is born. It didn't happen to me that way! I stood in the middle of a room. A woman walked around me in a circle. I was 5'0" and weighed 88 lbs. "A little chunky aren't we," she said. "Your hair is nice, but those nails." Tsk, tsk. Finally, she sighs and tells me: "Sweetie, you're just not tall enough to model. Have you thought of acting?" Oh, the best laid plans of mice and men.
Back to the country. Back to reality (oops, there goes gravity). Back to my books. No Academy Award speeches for this girl. No princess outcome. No fairy-tale endings. No MGM studio contracts. Not even a lousy commercial. Things happen for a reason. I went home that day and began making plans for the summer. This is the point in the story where my kids crack up laughing. That was the summer I read an entire set of encyclopedias. But that, my friends, is a horse of a different color - we shall table until another time. Until then.....
In a cabin, on a hill in Butcher Holler,
We were poor, but we had love,
That's the one thing my daddy made sure of,
He shoveled coal to make a poor man's dollar.
-Loretta Lynn "Coal Miner's Daughter"
Well, ok. I was born a laundromat owner/pool hall proprietor/appliance repairman's daughter. We didn't live in a cabin, per se. We lived in a brick house, though I was born in a trailer, which is sort of like a cabin, I guess. Oh! There was a little red house on our 2nd acre that housed our well - it was definitely a cabin! Matter of fact, my daddy dug that 40 ft well himself, making him.....yep! Definitely a miner! Still, I've never been to Butcher Holler. I lived in Combine. I've been told to quit hollerin', though. Does that count? Why all the antiquated pioneer euphemisms, you ask? Well, remember the blog series I promised about all the things we thought we would be one day? Yepper, this is part dieu! Too much frost on this bumpkin's pumpkin, you think? Stay with me - it will all make sense soon.
Oh, poor, poor little DD! I wanted to be a princess. I wanted a prince to fall in love with me. I wanted to be beautiful, popular, athletic (even I'm rolling my eyes now)...I just wanted to be the 100% polar opposite of what I was: a short, brunette, country-fied child who lived out in the middle of nowhere. We used clotheslines instead of an electric dryer. We didn't have central air conditioning (or any air conditioning). We bought these huge slabs of pork at a butcher and sliced our own bacon. We caught rain water in a barrel.....and used it to rinse our hair. My mother made all of my clothes - including my jeans. Cool and earthy/hippy chic now. Back then, though, I was mortified. How in the world would I ever, EVER, fulfill my precocious destiny given this "Deliverance" type hand I'd been dealt? Easy....we economically challenged redneck girls are oh so resourceful!
I have a wonderful mother. If necessity really is the mother of invention, my mother invented gumption. If the other girls had expensive dresses from "The Rag Doll" boutique across the street from Smith's Pharmacy, no worries. She learned to sew the exact same thing. When earth shoes were all the rage...we discovered lay-a-way at Myer's Department Store. When EVERYONE but me was wearing blue eye-shadow, we used pool cue chalk. And, when all my friends showed up at school with their hair frosted, I was introduced to the lemon! Finally, the most important contribution to my quest for dominance with the female race...(drumroll)...my mother made sure I started school already able to read.
I read anything I could get my hands on. My first sentence? "Momma, read the book." My first book purchase at the age of 5? The biography of Orville & Wilbur Wright (purchased, of course, from the Salvation Army store). My specialty? The cinema. Marilyn Monroe, Marlene Dietrich, the romance of Lauren Bacall and Humphrey Bogart, Judy Garland, Audrey Hepburn, Vivien Leigh, and my absolute favorite...Elizabeth Taylor. I studied them. I knew how they each were discovered. I memorized the studios they worked within, their real names, every movie they filmed. I poured over still photos of their mannerisms - the way they almost smiled, the tilt of their heads, their doe eyes, the way they held their hands....what they wore. Legendary. Timeless. Other-worldly. This is what I would be. This would be my legacy. I would be.....an actress! An icon. Perfect!
In the third grade we were assigned roles to portray for a class project. We didn't get to choose. While there weren't any cinema legends up for grabs, I just knew I was a shoe in for the Shirley Temple part. Wrong. Ok, so, no big deal. I would surely be the obvious choice for the adventurous Amelia Earhart portrayal. Nope. Cleopatra? Uh-uh. Pocahontas - had to be, right? I even had long braids!!! Nada. Who did I get? Susan B. Anthony, suffragette. Really? How preposterous! How unglamorous. Still, I labored over my role. I planned. I rehearsed. I decided my rendition of Susan would be VERY Shakespearean. She would speak with a British accent - that'll show those neigh-sayers! They were non-plussed over my finished project. No one seemed to get it. No one clapped. It came across as a little odd. Sort of like when Napoleon Dynamite gives his report over Nessie.
Not to worry! Ushering in the 5th grade, I find out there would be......A PLAY! The decades in song!!! Yessss! My name is written all over this one! I see the list of parts and I know beyond knowing that I will be cast as 60's icon CHER! I immediately begin wearing my dark hair down and straight. I practice holding my arms bent at the elbows hands pointed down (in retrospect, it probably looked like I was channeling a T-Rex). I learned all the words to "Half Breed". I could even make a small "O" with my mouth when I licked my lips. Victory? Sadly, no. I'm still shaking my head in disbelief when I tell you the part went to some girl with BLONDE HAIR! I didn't get Shirley Temple. I didn't get disco duck. I didn't get to be a bathing beauty. I was....a flapper. Ok, so the costume was uber glam, but I was one of several. I didn't even get to belt my heart out in song! I was in the chorus line. Sob!
Two years later, I received the prerequisite letter from the Barbizon School of Modeling. Could it be? Could this really happen? Would I finally be discovered? Mentally picturing myself telling the entire universe that nothing would come between me and my Calvin's, I begged with my mother - pleaded with her - to please take me to the casting call. She said no. I went on a hunger strike (it lasted 6 hours). I dramatically explained that I would surely be doomed forever to a life of anonymity at her hands. I swooned. I feigned illnesses, became despondent.....threatened to run away and live on our 3rd acre in a rusted junk car of my father's. Finally, she acquiesced, and we hit the road to the big city of Dallas to visit a modeling agency.
In the 70's, there was a commercial for the world's first battery powered curling iron. It revolved around a would-be starlet with short, straight, blond hair sitting in an agency waiting room. A man looks out of his office and tells a caller (undoubtedly Vogue magazine) "but we don't have any blonds with curly hair". In roughly 10 seconds, the starlet pops out her curling iron and a star is born. It didn't happen to me that way! I stood in the middle of a room. A woman walked around me in a circle. I was 5'0" and weighed 88 lbs. "A little chunky aren't we," she said. "Your hair is nice, but those nails." Tsk, tsk. Finally, she sighs and tells me: "Sweetie, you're just not tall enough to model. Have you thought of acting?" Oh, the best laid plans of mice and men.
Back to the country. Back to reality (oops, there goes gravity). Back to my books. No Academy Award speeches for this girl. No princess outcome. No fairy-tale endings. No MGM studio contracts. Not even a lousy commercial. Things happen for a reason. I went home that day and began making plans for the summer. This is the point in the story where my kids crack up laughing. That was the summer I read an entire set of encyclopedias. But that, my friends, is a horse of a different color - we shall table until another time. Until then.....
Sunday, March 13, 2011
Hakuna Matata
Got your bag on your shoulder,
Never thought once about thinkin' it over.
Feel like you're the only one,
Who's ever been in a bad situation.
Now you need to take yourself a love vacation,
'Cause after all, what's done is done.
Sick and tired of being sick and tired.
Everything around you's growin' old.
The days drag on, the nights last forever,
Every day's tougher just to keep it together.
Forget everything you've ever known,
Except for home.
"Sick and Tired" -Cross Canadian Ragweed
I am Superwoman! Hear me roar! Well, it's more like a whine. Sort of a sigh, in fact. It's probably more akin to a breathy exhale. Still, I'm super, alright. Super tired. Super lost. Super unsure. Super scared.
Oh, I'm fine. I'm just like any other person on any other dismal afternoon. I see my life slipping by day after day after day. It's dizzying, isn't it - this life thing? When you're a kid, life goes by at about a -50 miles per hour. When did THIS happen? Now I'm on the Autobahn and life is outside my window, flying by at a pace that slightly exceeds the speed of light. I feel as though I might blink and miss an entire era! Am I alone in this? It's just this: I was supposed to grow up and be something. True, I'm many things. Wife, mother, step-mother, friend, daughter, employee, boss. I wear many, many hats (no wonder my hair looks so bad today). Still, I didn't ever really get to be anything I wanted to be, just yet. I think I'm running out of time, too. That's where the exhaustion comes to play. Life is tiresome. Just when you figure out what you want to do, you don't have enough energy to fit it in with all the other stuff you have to do. Or, at least, I can't. Can you? What did you want to be? I can answer that for myself. Indulge me, kk?
"I had a farm in Africa"
When I was around 13, I found myself spending the summer in Andrews, TX (parent free)with my oldest brother and his family. I did many things that Summer. I got a perm (it was the year of "Urban Cowboy" after all. Though I look like more of a Pam than a Sissy, I wanted more than anything to emulate Debra Winger). I got a fierce tan. I heard all the words to Fleetwood Mac's "Landslide" for the first time. I ate my first Drumstick ice cream cone. And, I met - really, really met - my so-called-cousin Kelly for the first time. Kelly's great - always was, always has been. He's not really my cousin, by definition, I don't think. Still, we're exactly the same age and he's a part of my sister-in-law's family, so we were paired together almost every Summer visit. This year, for the first time, we were deemed responsible enough to roam the street's of Andrew's, TX alone - footloose and fancy free! A typical day consisted of: sleeping late, walking the streets with a walk-boy cassette player with either the aforesaid Fleetwood Mac OR ACDC's "Back in Black" playing loudly, a trip to the gas station where cousin Joanie would let us have free hot dogs, a root beer and a drumstick if she wasn't at work, and deep discussions about what grandiose plans we would have when we shed our stupid, insipid teenage personas and became the all powerful and omnipotent.....ADULT. We would show everyone! We were both going to be actors. I would act alongside Robby Benson, while Kelly would do documentary work. We would both be published - I was the next S.E Hinton, and Kelly would be a world class photographer who's pictures would decorate influential coffee tables around the world. And, above all, we would take these ginormous financial earnings and do the one thing we longed to do above all.....together, we would buy Africa! I had just read Joy Adamson's "Born Free." I learned all about and cried all about the amazing lioness, Elsa. Kelly had read it, too! We decided that, as amazingly wealthy adults, we could single-handedly eradicate every single poacher and re-educate the entire continent in regard to the majesty and beauty of the Serengeti wildlife! Besides, as I told Kelly, I would look great in a tan safari hat and earthen colored gear.
We wrote each other a few times after this encounter. We still saw each other on holidays and Summers. We talked more about our plans, but never as in depth as that time. We grew up. Adulthood wasn't all we though it would be. Kelly lives in Florida now, and I'm still here in the non-chic suburbs of Dallas. I never went to Africa. I never saw a lion in the wild. I never educated a poacher. I never even wore safari gear. Still, any time I watch "Out of Africa", I think of Kelly. I can actually hear the gnats, smell the wildlife excrement, hear the hoof beats and eery growls and roars. I'm not even a girl any longer. I'm a woman. I've won. I've lost. I've been up. I've been down. Sometimes I can't believe all I've been through. Other times, I feel I've wasted all my chances. And, it makes me sick....and tired.
Let's make this a series, shall we? Join me soon for Part 2 in my - "Things I Just Knew I Was Going to Do - The Sequel"! Until then, let's all get some rest.
Got your bag on your shoulder,
Never thought once about thinkin' it over.
Feel like you're the only one,
Who's ever been in a bad situation.
Now you need to take yourself a love vacation,
'Cause after all, what's done is done.
Sick and tired of being sick and tired.
Everything around you's growin' old.
The days drag on, the nights last forever,
Every day's tougher just to keep it together.
Forget everything you've ever known,
Except for home.
"Sick and Tired" -Cross Canadian Ragweed
I am Superwoman! Hear me roar! Well, it's more like a whine. Sort of a sigh, in fact. It's probably more akin to a breathy exhale. Still, I'm super, alright. Super tired. Super lost. Super unsure. Super scared.
Oh, I'm fine. I'm just like any other person on any other dismal afternoon. I see my life slipping by day after day after day. It's dizzying, isn't it - this life thing? When you're a kid, life goes by at about a -50 miles per hour. When did THIS happen? Now I'm on the Autobahn and life is outside my window, flying by at a pace that slightly exceeds the speed of light. I feel as though I might blink and miss an entire era! Am I alone in this? It's just this: I was supposed to grow up and be something. True, I'm many things. Wife, mother, step-mother, friend, daughter, employee, boss. I wear many, many hats (no wonder my hair looks so bad today). Still, I didn't ever really get to be anything I wanted to be, just yet. I think I'm running out of time, too. That's where the exhaustion comes to play. Life is tiresome. Just when you figure out what you want to do, you don't have enough energy to fit it in with all the other stuff you have to do. Or, at least, I can't. Can you? What did you want to be? I can answer that for myself. Indulge me, kk?
"I had a farm in Africa"
When I was around 13, I found myself spending the summer in Andrews, TX (parent free)with my oldest brother and his family. I did many things that Summer. I got a perm (it was the year of "Urban Cowboy" after all. Though I look like more of a Pam than a Sissy, I wanted more than anything to emulate Debra Winger). I got a fierce tan. I heard all the words to Fleetwood Mac's "Landslide" for the first time. I ate my first Drumstick ice cream cone. And, I met - really, really met - my so-called-cousin Kelly for the first time. Kelly's great - always was, always has been. He's not really my cousin, by definition, I don't think. Still, we're exactly the same age and he's a part of my sister-in-law's family, so we were paired together almost every Summer visit. This year, for the first time, we were deemed responsible enough to roam the street's of Andrew's, TX alone - footloose and fancy free! A typical day consisted of: sleeping late, walking the streets with a walk-boy cassette player with either the aforesaid Fleetwood Mac OR ACDC's "Back in Black" playing loudly, a trip to the gas station where cousin Joanie would let us have free hot dogs, a root beer and a drumstick if she wasn't at work, and deep discussions about what grandiose plans we would have when we shed our stupid, insipid teenage personas and became the all powerful and omnipotent.....ADULT. We would show everyone! We were both going to be actors. I would act alongside Robby Benson, while Kelly would do documentary work. We would both be published - I was the next S.E Hinton, and Kelly would be a world class photographer who's pictures would decorate influential coffee tables around the world. And, above all, we would take these ginormous financial earnings and do the one thing we longed to do above all.....together, we would buy Africa! I had just read Joy Adamson's "Born Free." I learned all about and cried all about the amazing lioness, Elsa. Kelly had read it, too! We decided that, as amazingly wealthy adults, we could single-handedly eradicate every single poacher and re-educate the entire continent in regard to the majesty and beauty of the Serengeti wildlife! Besides, as I told Kelly, I would look great in a tan safari hat and earthen colored gear.
We wrote each other a few times after this encounter. We still saw each other on holidays and Summers. We talked more about our plans, but never as in depth as that time. We grew up. Adulthood wasn't all we though it would be. Kelly lives in Florida now, and I'm still here in the non-chic suburbs of Dallas. I never went to Africa. I never saw a lion in the wild. I never educated a poacher. I never even wore safari gear. Still, any time I watch "Out of Africa", I think of Kelly. I can actually hear the gnats, smell the wildlife excrement, hear the hoof beats and eery growls and roars. I'm not even a girl any longer. I'm a woman. I've won. I've lost. I've been up. I've been down. Sometimes I can't believe all I've been through. Other times, I feel I've wasted all my chances. And, it makes me sick....and tired.
Let's make this a series, shall we? Join me soon for Part 2 in my - "Things I Just Knew I Was Going to Do - The Sequel"! Until then, let's all get some rest.
Saturday, January 8, 2011
Dina Moon aka Michael Finnegan (Begin Again!)
Time, time, time, see what's become of me.
While I looked around for my possibilities,
I was so hard to please.
But look around, the leaves are brown,
And the sky is a hazy shade of winter.
Hear the salvation army band
Down by the riverside, it's bound to be a better ride
Than what you've got planned,
Carry your cup in your hand.
And look around you, the leaves are brown now,
And the sky is a hazy shade of winter.
Hang on to your hopes, my friend.
That's an easy thing to say but if your hopes should pass away,
It's simply pretend, that you can build them again.
Look around, the grass is high, the fields are ripe,
It's the springtime of my life.
Oh, seasons change with scenery,
Weaving time in a tapestry,
Won't you stop and remember me?
Hazy Shade of Winter - Paul Simon
Welcome, oh new year! Mysterious, complicated, & frustratingly vague though you are. Will you be my BFF, 2011? Will we fall in love? Will you woo me incesantly? Or, like that bad boy cousin of yours, 2008, will you tell me sweet nothings and then walk out on me, breaking my heart to the point that I still curse the day I met you? Irregardless, it is a new year. I could dread it, or embrace it. I choose the latter!
Honestly, I tried not to think about a new year encroaching on me. See, I can barely make it through Christmas!!!! I'm a procrastinator, so I do lots of shopping around 12/23 each year. I'm not proud of it - but there you go. New years are like birthdays. They just bring on more wrinkles, more gray hairs, more muscles to pull. Still, there's this little pampered princess girl deep down inside of me somewhere. Let's call her Anastasia, after the mysterious Russian Czar's daughter. Wasn't that one of the Nicholas Czars?? I digress. Anastasia can't let go of her dreams. She thinks there's still time. Time to figure out who she wants to be when she grows up. Time to take up new hobbies. Time to change the world. Time to figure some things out. So, so much blessed time. Enough to waste. Enough to taste, even. Here are the things my inner princess has on her 2011 bucket list. Melancholy though it seems right now, the Winter blahs will soon evaporate and the sun shall shine on our dreams, once again. Make time to discover yours, this year! Take the time.
1. I'm finally going to write that book. Even if it only sits in the top of my closet for all eternity, I will blow the dust from the pages once a year to show it to my grandchildren, proof that a simple person can make a monument take shape. I will not care whether anyone likes it. I will not be stopped by fatigue, or self-doubt, or even disease. I will start and I will finish.
2. Music will return to my life. I will learn to play the guitar. I might even pick up the violin again. Maybe even a piano. There was a time when I considered this a gift. I'm sure there's a punishment for underutilizing one's gifts, right? I'm taking off the acrylic nails today. Dogs all over the world, clear your throats and practice howling. You're gonna need it!
3. Work that body - ok, I can't even type that without laughing! I've already started on this endeavor. It all falls into the Serenity Prayer mentality. If there's something I don't like, and it's within my power to change, then I must change it or let it go. I can't let it go, just yet. It doesn't have to be perfect, just better. There's a healthy, younger looking person in here somewhere, darn it! No matter how many eliptical machines it takes to find her, I won't give up!
4. I will re-engage in my own life. Daugher - gone. Cancer - done. It was rough, the tunnel was long, but I crawled through the light and made it to the other side. Still, there's fear. There's regret. There's longing. There's even a little self-deprication that won't go away. There's a ton of guilt. What's not there? There's not much passion. I've embraced this not good/not bad, not happy/not sad mentality, because that's the only way I knew to hold it together. I let it go - just now, I think. It's scary. I may feel worse before I feel better, but you can't know what amazing feels like unless you know where to find the bowels of the Earth, right?
So, here's to a new year. The journey will be noteable, I assure you! Wanna come along? Who knows where we'll wind up! Hop on board. I will stamp your ticket....
B-E-L-I-E-V-E (because we will). Ciao!
While I looked around for my possibilities,
I was so hard to please.
But look around, the leaves are brown,
And the sky is a hazy shade of winter.
Hear the salvation army band
Down by the riverside, it's bound to be a better ride
Than what you've got planned,
Carry your cup in your hand.
And look around you, the leaves are brown now,
And the sky is a hazy shade of winter.
Hang on to your hopes, my friend.
That's an easy thing to say but if your hopes should pass away,
It's simply pretend, that you can build them again.
Look around, the grass is high, the fields are ripe,
It's the springtime of my life.
Oh, seasons change with scenery,
Weaving time in a tapestry,
Won't you stop and remember me?
Hazy Shade of Winter - Paul Simon
Welcome, oh new year! Mysterious, complicated, & frustratingly vague though you are. Will you be my BFF, 2011? Will we fall in love? Will you woo me incesantly? Or, like that bad boy cousin of yours, 2008, will you tell me sweet nothings and then walk out on me, breaking my heart to the point that I still curse the day I met you? Irregardless, it is a new year. I could dread it, or embrace it. I choose the latter!
Honestly, I tried not to think about a new year encroaching on me. See, I can barely make it through Christmas!!!! I'm a procrastinator, so I do lots of shopping around 12/23 each year. I'm not proud of it - but there you go. New years are like birthdays. They just bring on more wrinkles, more gray hairs, more muscles to pull. Still, there's this little pampered princess girl deep down inside of me somewhere. Let's call her Anastasia, after the mysterious Russian Czar's daughter. Wasn't that one of the Nicholas Czars?? I digress. Anastasia can't let go of her dreams. She thinks there's still time. Time to figure out who she wants to be when she grows up. Time to take up new hobbies. Time to change the world. Time to figure some things out. So, so much blessed time. Enough to waste. Enough to taste, even. Here are the things my inner princess has on her 2011 bucket list. Melancholy though it seems right now, the Winter blahs will soon evaporate and the sun shall shine on our dreams, once again. Make time to discover yours, this year! Take the time.
1. I'm finally going to write that book. Even if it only sits in the top of my closet for all eternity, I will blow the dust from the pages once a year to show it to my grandchildren, proof that a simple person can make a monument take shape. I will not care whether anyone likes it. I will not be stopped by fatigue, or self-doubt, or even disease. I will start and I will finish.
2. Music will return to my life. I will learn to play the guitar. I might even pick up the violin again. Maybe even a piano. There was a time when I considered this a gift. I'm sure there's a punishment for underutilizing one's gifts, right? I'm taking off the acrylic nails today. Dogs all over the world, clear your throats and practice howling. You're gonna need it!
3. Work that body - ok, I can't even type that without laughing! I've already started on this endeavor. It all falls into the Serenity Prayer mentality. If there's something I don't like, and it's within my power to change, then I must change it or let it go. I can't let it go, just yet. It doesn't have to be perfect, just better. There's a healthy, younger looking person in here somewhere, darn it! No matter how many eliptical machines it takes to find her, I won't give up!
4. I will re-engage in my own life. Daugher - gone. Cancer - done. It was rough, the tunnel was long, but I crawled through the light and made it to the other side. Still, there's fear. There's regret. There's longing. There's even a little self-deprication that won't go away. There's a ton of guilt. What's not there? There's not much passion. I've embraced this not good/not bad, not happy/not sad mentality, because that's the only way I knew to hold it together. I let it go - just now, I think. It's scary. I may feel worse before I feel better, but you can't know what amazing feels like unless you know where to find the bowels of the Earth, right?
So, here's to a new year. The journey will be noteable, I assure you! Wanna come along? Who knows where we'll wind up! Hop on board. I will stamp your ticket....
B-E-L-I-E-V-E (because we will). Ciao!
Thursday, November 4, 2010
Baby Cheeses
Midnight - not a sound from the pavement.
Has the moon lost her memory,
She is smiling alone.
In the lamplight, the withered leaves collect at my feet,
And the wind begins to moan.
Memory - all alone in the moonlight.
I can smile at the old days,
I was beautiful then.
I remember the time I knew what happiness was.
Let the memory live again.
"Memories" - from Cats
We loved chocolate. Sundaes. Hershey bars (her). Toblerone (me). My triple layer chocolate-within-chocolate-on-top-of-chocolate cake. Chocolate pie, courtesy of the pie crust recipe from Grandma Lucille that I shall keep secret for all the days of my life. Suffice it to say that we were chocoholics through and through, my daughter and I. Granted, it was probably more like a genetic disease I passed on to her much like a rare chromosome or some sort of genome. Still, in the grand scheme of things, it was a cross we carried together. Proudly, too. Endorphins, rejoice. Calorie what?? We don't care. Housework makes you ugly. Exercise makes you smell bad. Dieting makes you a tad, well....let's just say irritable. Chocolate, on the other hand, soothes the soul much, much better than chicken soup. Rich. Decadent. Velvety. Chocolate makes the world go round. Just ask Johnny Depp and Juliette Binoche.
2006 - I think it was a Thursday night. Couldn't be a Friday- there would have been a drill team this or a football game that. Wouldn't have been a Saturday night. Nope, this definitely would have been a Thursday night main event. See, Mondays are for fresh starts - eat your veggies and get to bed on time. Tuesdays are still on target- maybe slightly less homework and a few more clothes on the floor of her bedroom, but it's all good. Wednesdays? She was either at or teaching a CCD class. Yessiree, this was definitely a Thursday night. The conversation must have gone something like this.... Me: I've eaten nothing but a piece of lettuce and a single English pea all week. Her: That's your own fault. I don't know why you do this to yourself. Enjoy your life a little, why dontcha? Me: How is it that you're so wise? Her: I'm your daughter. Me: Enough flattery, what do you want? Her: Chocolate!! How bout a DQ run? Me: It's 11 pm. They're not open, punkin' pie. Her: What can we do? Me: Let's make something!!!! Necessity, while it might be the mother of invention, can also be the undoing of us all!
I do lots of things that don't make much, if any, sense. I collect old buttons. I hoard books. I prefer black and white movies over technicolor any day of the week. I still like vinyl records. I clip coupons. And, best of all, I collect recipes. Most are good, but some definitely belong in the "what not to do" file. In 1985, I was 18, married, and pregnant with my firstborn. I was also working and going to school. Apparently, I was also consuming quite a bit of Velveeta cheese. Enough so that I saved the appropriate amount of boxtops to qualify for the official 1985 much-heralded (not) Velveeta cheese cookbook. Odd that I would, over 20 years later, choose that very "cookbook" on that Thursday night. How perplexing that I would be possessed by the cheese muses as I looked at my daughter and stated...."Let's make cheese fudge!"
Don't ask, please. I have no words. An hour later, the two of us gathered over a steaming casserole dish concoction of what I can only describe as a mutant, rancid, chocolate impostor. It was hideous! We both held our noses and took a bite, You don't want to know. Equal parts human feces and oily jello, it was not a pleasant experience. What I remember most, however, was her laughter. Mom was a dork that night. Mom suddenly didn't know nearly as much, and wasn't the the rock-star e'er do well she normally was in such circumstances. Mom was just goofy, gullible, clueless old mom. And, we belly laughed for an hour. So, there you go. One of my colossal goofs became the stuff legends are made of, I guess. Tears were sliding down our cheeks. Tummies were clutched in laughter. I distinctly remember having to sit in the kitchen floor so I wouldn't wet my pants in this hysterical fit. It was blissful.
So, tonight, Chynna, I miss you. I miss your laughter. I miss my best friend. All hail the power of the Velveeta cheese fudge. A bad recipe can do wonders for the soul. I promise to keep being the oddball I've always been. I promise, also, never, ever to make Velveeta fudge for anyone else. It's our pact. We'll always have cheese fudge.
Midnight - not a sound from the pavement.
Has the moon lost her memory,
She is smiling alone.
In the lamplight, the withered leaves collect at my feet,
And the wind begins to moan.
Memory - all alone in the moonlight.
I can smile at the old days,
I was beautiful then.
I remember the time I knew what happiness was.
Let the memory live again.
"Memories" - from Cats
We loved chocolate. Sundaes. Hershey bars (her). Toblerone (me). My triple layer chocolate-within-chocolate-on-top-of-chocolate cake. Chocolate pie, courtesy of the pie crust recipe from Grandma Lucille that I shall keep secret for all the days of my life. Suffice it to say that we were chocoholics through and through, my daughter and I. Granted, it was probably more like a genetic disease I passed on to her much like a rare chromosome or some sort of genome. Still, in the grand scheme of things, it was a cross we carried together. Proudly, too. Endorphins, rejoice. Calorie what?? We don't care. Housework makes you ugly. Exercise makes you smell bad. Dieting makes you a tad, well....let's just say irritable. Chocolate, on the other hand, soothes the soul much, much better than chicken soup. Rich. Decadent. Velvety. Chocolate makes the world go round. Just ask Johnny Depp and Juliette Binoche.
2006 - I think it was a Thursday night. Couldn't be a Friday- there would have been a drill team this or a football game that. Wouldn't have been a Saturday night. Nope, this definitely would have been a Thursday night main event. See, Mondays are for fresh starts - eat your veggies and get to bed on time. Tuesdays are still on target- maybe slightly less homework and a few more clothes on the floor of her bedroom, but it's all good. Wednesdays? She was either at or teaching a CCD class. Yessiree, this was definitely a Thursday night. The conversation must have gone something like this.... Me: I've eaten nothing but a piece of lettuce and a single English pea all week. Her: That's your own fault. I don't know why you do this to yourself. Enjoy your life a little, why dontcha? Me: How is it that you're so wise? Her: I'm your daughter. Me: Enough flattery, what do you want? Her: Chocolate!! How bout a DQ run? Me: It's 11 pm. They're not open, punkin' pie. Her: What can we do? Me: Let's make something!!!! Necessity, while it might be the mother of invention, can also be the undoing of us all!
I do lots of things that don't make much, if any, sense. I collect old buttons. I hoard books. I prefer black and white movies over technicolor any day of the week. I still like vinyl records. I clip coupons. And, best of all, I collect recipes. Most are good, but some definitely belong in the "what not to do" file. In 1985, I was 18, married, and pregnant with my firstborn. I was also working and going to school. Apparently, I was also consuming quite a bit of Velveeta cheese. Enough so that I saved the appropriate amount of boxtops to qualify for the official 1985 much-heralded (not) Velveeta cheese cookbook. Odd that I would, over 20 years later, choose that very "cookbook" on that Thursday night. How perplexing that I would be possessed by the cheese muses as I looked at my daughter and stated...."Let's make cheese fudge!"
Don't ask, please. I have no words. An hour later, the two of us gathered over a steaming casserole dish concoction of what I can only describe as a mutant, rancid, chocolate impostor. It was hideous! We both held our noses and took a bite, You don't want to know. Equal parts human feces and oily jello, it was not a pleasant experience. What I remember most, however, was her laughter. Mom was a dork that night. Mom suddenly didn't know nearly as much, and wasn't the the rock-star e'er do well she normally was in such circumstances. Mom was just goofy, gullible, clueless old mom. And, we belly laughed for an hour. So, there you go. One of my colossal goofs became the stuff legends are made of, I guess. Tears were sliding down our cheeks. Tummies were clutched in laughter. I distinctly remember having to sit in the kitchen floor so I wouldn't wet my pants in this hysterical fit. It was blissful.
So, tonight, Chynna, I miss you. I miss your laughter. I miss my best friend. All hail the power of the Velveeta cheese fudge. A bad recipe can do wonders for the soul. I promise to keep being the oddball I've always been. I promise, also, never, ever to make Velveeta fudge for anyone else. It's our pact. We'll always have cheese fudge.
Sunday, October 17, 2010
(Mid)Wives Tales
Okay. I'm really, really ashamed. It's been (gulp) 11 months since I blogged. Honestly, I was just going to take a break for a month or so, but life happened.
I moved (twice) lost and got a couple of jobs - s'ok, thinks are cool now!!! I have a new little muse-friend who shall remain unnamed. She wants to be my editor for some book she's sure I should write....on grieving, of all things. Okay - maybe she's onto something? Maybe this could be a chapter?
Outside the rain begins and it may never end
So cry no more, on the shore a dream
Will take us out to the sea
Forever more, forever more
Close your eyes and dream, and you can be with me
'Neath the waves through the caves of ours
Long forgotten now
We're all alone, we're all alone
Close the window, calm the light
And it will be all right
No need to bother now
Let it out. let it all begin
Learn how to pretend
Once a story's told it can't help but grow old
Roses do, lovers too, so cast your seasons to the wind
And hold me dear, oh hold me dear
-Boz Scaggs
So this is how it starts. I drank an entire bottle of castor oil 3 days before she was born. At that moment in time, she was a boy. Her name would be Steven. "He" was too big to deliver, they told me. A tiny little thing like me couldn't birth a baby exceeding 11 lbs. If he were any later, grew any bigger, I would rip from stem to stern, like a wayward boat tossed upon the rocks, somewhere. Maybe my boat was attracted to a nameless, faceless siren singing an other-worldy song to purposefully lure hapless sailors into the netherworld. Perhaps my siren is a mermaid, I now think. Hold onto this thought. You will need to call upon it later on.
They don't tell you the horrible things an entire bottle of castor oil will do to a body. They don't tell you about the disgusting indegestion. Or about the stomach cramps that are almost as bad as the actual labor. Or that you won't be able to look at orange juice the same way, ever again. Still, I did it. Labor ensued. Midwives gathered around me. Both moms arrived. My then husband did the thing he had done on the other two occasions I had labored to bring a child into the world. He cleaned. He organized. With baby #2, it had been our closet. Suddenly, the most important thing in the universe was that all my clothes be on my side, and that all his clothes be opposite. This time, his obssession is the refrigerator. Silently, I am thankful that he's at least becoming more useful with each labor. Maybe another baby is not a bad idea - he could get the carpets next go-round. He scrubbed. He scoured. He made pancakes. I walked. I panted. I worried - the thing I do best. Instantly, a crack formed between the two of us, him with his cleaning and me with my panting. Hold onto this thought. You will need it in about a decade or so.
I am in my bed. An annoying woman I thought I liked until now sternly reprimanded me to hyperflex my legs. Not understanding this olympian athletic verbiage, I continue to bare down. "Hyperflex your legs, honey!" There she goes again. Exasperated, tired, fat beyond belief, and definitely visualizing my fist connecting with her top lip, I finally give in and scream back, "What in the hell do you mean???" As she explains that my knees should be rougly parallel with my ears, I must have looked at her as if she was asking me to speak to her in perfect Swahili. I do not get it - and finally, she does - get it, that is. "Grab her other leg," she yells to her counterpart, a horrified as yet to deliver a baby on her own lay person midwife wannabe. Together they manage to manipulate my legs into an inhuman pretzel-like position. I distinctly remember, even though that was well over 19 years ago, seeing my own foot very near my eyelashes. Thankfully I'd managed a quasi-successful self pedicure within the last few days. I don't know why that matters, but it does. Seconds later (or was it hours?) someone told me not to push. Would they step in the path of an F5 tornado and tell it not to descend, I wondered? I tried to stop. Actually, that might or might not be a lie. I wanted to stop. That much is definitely true. I am a rules girl. I try to do the right thing, do what I'm told. I try. But, all is fair in love and war. Childbirth is both.
I see Steven. I am keenly aware that this was too easy. My last baby weighed well over 10 lbs. How much over is a million dollar question, since that other midwife, at that other house, in that other state, didn't think to bring a scale that would weigh a baby in excess of 10 lbs. We only knew that 18 hours later, in a disapproving anti-home birth pediatrician's office in Herdon, VA, he still weighed 10 lbs. But, back to the matter at hand. Steven popped out with much less pomp, circumstance, and pain...so I knew something was amiss. Time passed. How much is unclear. There were other matters to attend to. Like the blueness. Everyone spoke simultaneously. I have no idea what they were saying, I was only looking at this blueness. My baby had a blue face. Not sky blue, like the Heavens little chubby cherabs fly through when God sends them to steal the heart of the boy you like in the 5th grade. Not a turquoise blue, like the water in the ocean from a distance - funny how it's not the same color when you're knee deep in it and still can't see your feet. It was a dark, forboding blue. A midnight blue. A blue so dark and opaque that it enveloped everything in it's midst. A blue that was impenitrable. The kind of dark blue that theives in the night wait for all year. Pea soup blue. Can't see you hand in front of your face, dark blue. The whole room turned that evil blue.
Suddenlly I was crying, Suddenly I was pleading. Though I can't remember the specifics, I feel sure that I bargained every good thing that would ever happened to anyone I ever knew in exchange for the removal of this horror. Please. Please make my baby pink. Please take away the blue. Poor, poor little Steven. Please erase this memory.
They took the baby, the two midwives. Suction. Clap the baby on the back. Suction. Clap some more. Suction.....moments later, the blue turned gray, then lavender, then, finally, the blessed pink color I had been waiting to see. "Are you sure?" I said. "Is he okay?" I cried. "She's fine", a chorus of angels answered. This is the first time I learned about prayers. They are always answered, you see, just not always in the way you hoped. My baby was going to be fine. And, Steven, so it seems, isn't Steven after all. But, Mommy and baby girl are tired. Too tired to argue. Too tired, even, to smile. So we snuggle and sleep, this nameless little feminine creature and I.
I remember things. The Grandmas are in and out. Flowers are delivered. Baby girl and I can't be bothered with all of this nonsense, though. In our world, there is only us. Big brothers both filed in with one of the Grandmas, wide-eyed and incredulous. I hear my mother telling them both that mommy is so tired. She asks them if they see their baby sister. Do they love her? Do they want to kiss her? Do they see her thick, jet black hair? Do they see her brilliantly pink cheeks? Don't they think she looks just like a China Doll? Later on that same day, upon being asked if he had a new baby sister, my oldest son, my little man, looks up with enormous blue eyes and states, very matter-of-factly, "Nope. I have a China Doll." Welcome to the world, Chynna. Become my world, Chynna. Take over my world, Chynna. I will never say a cross word, never become quick to anger, never go to bed with dirty dishes in the sink, never say another curse word......for this is the bargain I have made. The bargain I made to banish the blueness. My prayer was answered. Permanently, I assume. That's the thing about a covenent, though. There are always strings attached, strings like loose hems on cheaply made garments. Don't pull too hard. Something might come unwound.
I moved (twice) lost and got a couple of jobs - s'ok, thinks are cool now!!! I have a new little muse-friend who shall remain unnamed. She wants to be my editor for some book she's sure I should write....on grieving, of all things. Okay - maybe she's onto something? Maybe this could be a chapter?
Outside the rain begins and it may never end
So cry no more, on the shore a dream
Will take us out to the sea
Forever more, forever more
Close your eyes and dream, and you can be with me
'Neath the waves through the caves of ours
Long forgotten now
We're all alone, we're all alone
Close the window, calm the light
And it will be all right
No need to bother now
Let it out. let it all begin
Learn how to pretend
Once a story's told it can't help but grow old
Roses do, lovers too, so cast your seasons to the wind
And hold me dear, oh hold me dear
-Boz Scaggs
So this is how it starts. I drank an entire bottle of castor oil 3 days before she was born. At that moment in time, she was a boy. Her name would be Steven. "He" was too big to deliver, they told me. A tiny little thing like me couldn't birth a baby exceeding 11 lbs. If he were any later, grew any bigger, I would rip from stem to stern, like a wayward boat tossed upon the rocks, somewhere. Maybe my boat was attracted to a nameless, faceless siren singing an other-worldy song to purposefully lure hapless sailors into the netherworld. Perhaps my siren is a mermaid, I now think. Hold onto this thought. You will need to call upon it later on.
They don't tell you the horrible things an entire bottle of castor oil will do to a body. They don't tell you about the disgusting indegestion. Or about the stomach cramps that are almost as bad as the actual labor. Or that you won't be able to look at orange juice the same way, ever again. Still, I did it. Labor ensued. Midwives gathered around me. Both moms arrived. My then husband did the thing he had done on the other two occasions I had labored to bring a child into the world. He cleaned. He organized. With baby #2, it had been our closet. Suddenly, the most important thing in the universe was that all my clothes be on my side, and that all his clothes be opposite. This time, his obssession is the refrigerator. Silently, I am thankful that he's at least becoming more useful with each labor. Maybe another baby is not a bad idea - he could get the carpets next go-round. He scrubbed. He scoured. He made pancakes. I walked. I panted. I worried - the thing I do best. Instantly, a crack formed between the two of us, him with his cleaning and me with my panting. Hold onto this thought. You will need it in about a decade or so.
I am in my bed. An annoying woman I thought I liked until now sternly reprimanded me to hyperflex my legs. Not understanding this olympian athletic verbiage, I continue to bare down. "Hyperflex your legs, honey!" There she goes again. Exasperated, tired, fat beyond belief, and definitely visualizing my fist connecting with her top lip, I finally give in and scream back, "What in the hell do you mean???" As she explains that my knees should be rougly parallel with my ears, I must have looked at her as if she was asking me to speak to her in perfect Swahili. I do not get it - and finally, she does - get it, that is. "Grab her other leg," she yells to her counterpart, a horrified as yet to deliver a baby on her own lay person midwife wannabe. Together they manage to manipulate my legs into an inhuman pretzel-like position. I distinctly remember, even though that was well over 19 years ago, seeing my own foot very near my eyelashes. Thankfully I'd managed a quasi-successful self pedicure within the last few days. I don't know why that matters, but it does. Seconds later (or was it hours?) someone told me not to push. Would they step in the path of an F5 tornado and tell it not to descend, I wondered? I tried to stop. Actually, that might or might not be a lie. I wanted to stop. That much is definitely true. I am a rules girl. I try to do the right thing, do what I'm told. I try. But, all is fair in love and war. Childbirth is both.
I see Steven. I am keenly aware that this was too easy. My last baby weighed well over 10 lbs. How much over is a million dollar question, since that other midwife, at that other house, in that other state, didn't think to bring a scale that would weigh a baby in excess of 10 lbs. We only knew that 18 hours later, in a disapproving anti-home birth pediatrician's office in Herdon, VA, he still weighed 10 lbs. But, back to the matter at hand. Steven popped out with much less pomp, circumstance, and pain...so I knew something was amiss. Time passed. How much is unclear. There were other matters to attend to. Like the blueness. Everyone spoke simultaneously. I have no idea what they were saying, I was only looking at this blueness. My baby had a blue face. Not sky blue, like the Heavens little chubby cherabs fly through when God sends them to steal the heart of the boy you like in the 5th grade. Not a turquoise blue, like the water in the ocean from a distance - funny how it's not the same color when you're knee deep in it and still can't see your feet. It was a dark, forboding blue. A midnight blue. A blue so dark and opaque that it enveloped everything in it's midst. A blue that was impenitrable. The kind of dark blue that theives in the night wait for all year. Pea soup blue. Can't see you hand in front of your face, dark blue. The whole room turned that evil blue.
Suddenlly I was crying, Suddenly I was pleading. Though I can't remember the specifics, I feel sure that I bargained every good thing that would ever happened to anyone I ever knew in exchange for the removal of this horror. Please. Please make my baby pink. Please take away the blue. Poor, poor little Steven. Please erase this memory.
They took the baby, the two midwives. Suction. Clap the baby on the back. Suction. Clap some more. Suction.....moments later, the blue turned gray, then lavender, then, finally, the blessed pink color I had been waiting to see. "Are you sure?" I said. "Is he okay?" I cried. "She's fine", a chorus of angels answered. This is the first time I learned about prayers. They are always answered, you see, just not always in the way you hoped. My baby was going to be fine. And, Steven, so it seems, isn't Steven after all. But, Mommy and baby girl are tired. Too tired to argue. Too tired, even, to smile. So we snuggle and sleep, this nameless little feminine creature and I.
I remember things. The Grandmas are in and out. Flowers are delivered. Baby girl and I can't be bothered with all of this nonsense, though. In our world, there is only us. Big brothers both filed in with one of the Grandmas, wide-eyed and incredulous. I hear my mother telling them both that mommy is so tired. She asks them if they see their baby sister. Do they love her? Do they want to kiss her? Do they see her thick, jet black hair? Do they see her brilliantly pink cheeks? Don't they think she looks just like a China Doll? Later on that same day, upon being asked if he had a new baby sister, my oldest son, my little man, looks up with enormous blue eyes and states, very matter-of-factly, "Nope. I have a China Doll." Welcome to the world, Chynna. Become my world, Chynna. Take over my world, Chynna. I will never say a cross word, never become quick to anger, never go to bed with dirty dishes in the sink, never say another curse word......for this is the bargain I have made. The bargain I made to banish the blueness. My prayer was answered. Permanently, I assume. That's the thing about a covenent, though. There are always strings attached, strings like loose hems on cheaply made garments. Don't pull too hard. Something might come unwound.
Monday, November 9, 2009
Bag-o-rama
Come here sister.....Papa's in the swing
He ain't too hip...about that new breed thing
He ain't no drag
Papa's got a brand new bag
Come here mama....and dig this crazy scene
He's not too fancy....but his mind is might clean
He ain't no drag.
Papa's got a brand new bag
"Papa's Got a Brand New Bag" -James Brown
Okay....I'll admit it! I've sucked massive amounts of wind, lately, as a blog author. I'm worse than Stephen King's review of Stephenie Meyer (who I actually like - a whole bunch, Mr. King!). I'm worse than the author who came to old recruiter Dina looking for a job and brought along the "book" he just published (he also did the illustrations, if that gives you any idea. I am saving that book. Not necessarily because I think it's going to be a big hit one day, but you remember how the media hounded that entire town after the unibomber was discovered? Some hot shot news persona might want to interview me if this dude who wrote the book is ever discovered to be a serial killer! I refuse to miss out on my 15 minutes of fame!). Anyway, I'm back (guess who's back?). Tell a friend. Shady's back...
I have to ease into this writing thing now. It is like riding a bicycle, true, but my bicycle right now looks like the one Pee Wee lost in his big adventure. You know, the one where he figured out that the Alamo doesn't have a basement? So...hang onto your girlie bicycle basket! I'm going to blog in list format today.
I had a fantastic weekend. Lots of football, courtesy of the world's greatest 9 year old phenom, Carter Moon. Did mucho, mucho house cleaning, too. Used enough WalMart sacks to possibly - if they could all be adhered to each other - make sails for both the Nina, the Pinta, and the Santa Maria. Which leads me to my blog topic. One can do amazing things with a WalMart sack! Yes, I know, I know, we should bring our own bags (& I do), but still, the little plastic sacks are like ants...they creep into your house in the night and multiply! Here's a master list of things I did with a WalMart sack in the last month. Enjoy - feel free to comment on some other grand WalMart sack escapades!
1. Rain bonnet - because I can NEVER find that umbrella & the disco fro must be restrained!
2. Galoshes - because no one wants to step in soggy dog poo when you're walking dogs at work!
3. Great place to hold the cat litter clumps hostage
4. Bathroom trashcan liner (my bathroom trashcans are somehow little hostels for spit cups??)
5. Master holder for other WalMart sacks
6. Car trash bag
7. Posh "door storage" (as in..."honey, look in that WalMart sack hanging on the back of the door")
8. Floor mats for the car
9. Lunch bags, though Chynna REFUSED to be seen with a WalMart sack at school - what's up with that?
10. Toothbrush holders on trips - keeps your toothbrush and your dirty underwear a very safe distance from each other
11. Great for picking up dog poo at the park - your dog only, of course
12. Makes a fantastic glove for mixing up hamburger meat with your hands (I'm a vegan, but I still have to make the occasional hamburger)
13. Great for tossing veggies in batter
14. After a ginormous blow-out in church, once I realized I had absolutely ZERO diapers in the car, I made a diaper out of an old t-shirt and....you guessed it! A WalMart sack!!! That's just pure genius!
15. Rub a bunch of sacks together to REALLY irritate my cousin, Jennifer. She's allergic to them, I think!
and....the one that started this whole idea.
16. Last night, in a desperate attempt to make Kevin a chocolate pie, I disassembled a WalMart sack and used it in lieu of wax paper to roll out the pie crust!
And that, my friends, is probably how fire was made? Talk about necessity being the mother of invention. Thank you for joining me in this blog adventure. You can unbuckle your seatbelts now. Feel free to move about the cabin!
He ain't too hip...about that new breed thing
He ain't no drag
Papa's got a brand new bag
Come here mama....and dig this crazy scene
He's not too fancy....but his mind is might clean
He ain't no drag.
Papa's got a brand new bag
"Papa's Got a Brand New Bag" -James Brown
Okay....I'll admit it! I've sucked massive amounts of wind, lately, as a blog author. I'm worse than Stephen King's review of Stephenie Meyer (who I actually like - a whole bunch, Mr. King!). I'm worse than the author who came to old recruiter Dina looking for a job and brought along the "book" he just published (he also did the illustrations, if that gives you any idea. I am saving that book. Not necessarily because I think it's going to be a big hit one day, but you remember how the media hounded that entire town after the unibomber was discovered? Some hot shot news persona might want to interview me if this dude who wrote the book is ever discovered to be a serial killer! I refuse to miss out on my 15 minutes of fame!). Anyway, I'm back (guess who's back?). Tell a friend. Shady's back...
I have to ease into this writing thing now. It is like riding a bicycle, true, but my bicycle right now looks like the one Pee Wee lost in his big adventure. You know, the one where he figured out that the Alamo doesn't have a basement? So...hang onto your girlie bicycle basket! I'm going to blog in list format today.
I had a fantastic weekend. Lots of football, courtesy of the world's greatest 9 year old phenom, Carter Moon. Did mucho, mucho house cleaning, too. Used enough WalMart sacks to possibly - if they could all be adhered to each other - make sails for both the Nina, the Pinta, and the Santa Maria. Which leads me to my blog topic. One can do amazing things with a WalMart sack! Yes, I know, I know, we should bring our own bags (& I do), but still, the little plastic sacks are like ants...they creep into your house in the night and multiply! Here's a master list of things I did with a WalMart sack in the last month. Enjoy - feel free to comment on some other grand WalMart sack escapades!
1. Rain bonnet - because I can NEVER find that umbrella & the disco fro must be restrained!
2. Galoshes - because no one wants to step in soggy dog poo when you're walking dogs at work!
3. Great place to hold the cat litter clumps hostage
4. Bathroom trashcan liner (my bathroom trashcans are somehow little hostels for spit cups??)
5. Master holder for other WalMart sacks
6. Car trash bag
7. Posh "door storage" (as in..."honey, look in that WalMart sack hanging on the back of the door")
8. Floor mats for the car
9. Lunch bags, though Chynna REFUSED to be seen with a WalMart sack at school - what's up with that?
10. Toothbrush holders on trips - keeps your toothbrush and your dirty underwear a very safe distance from each other
11. Great for picking up dog poo at the park - your dog only, of course
12. Makes a fantastic glove for mixing up hamburger meat with your hands (I'm a vegan, but I still have to make the occasional hamburger)
13. Great for tossing veggies in batter
14. After a ginormous blow-out in church, once I realized I had absolutely ZERO diapers in the car, I made a diaper out of an old t-shirt and....you guessed it! A WalMart sack!!! That's just pure genius!
15. Rub a bunch of sacks together to REALLY irritate my cousin, Jennifer. She's allergic to them, I think!
and....the one that started this whole idea.
16. Last night, in a desperate attempt to make Kevin a chocolate pie, I disassembled a WalMart sack and used it in lieu of wax paper to roll out the pie crust!
And that, my friends, is probably how fire was made? Talk about necessity being the mother of invention. Thank you for joining me in this blog adventure. You can unbuckle your seatbelts now. Feel free to move about the cabin!
Sunday, October 11, 2009
Tumbling After
If you could read my mind love,
what a tale my thoughts could tell.
Just like an old time movie
about a ghost from a wishing well.
In a castle dark or a fortress strong
with chains upon my feet.
You know that ghost is me
and I will never be set free
as long as I'm a ghost that you can see.
If I could read your mind love,
what a tale your thoughts could tell.
Just like a paperback novel,
the kind the drugstore sells.
When you reach the part where the heartaches
come the hero would be me.
Heroes often fail.
And you won't read that book again
because the endings just to hard to take.
"If You Could Read My Mind" - Gordon Lightfoot
Fairy tales are supposed to get happy endings, right? The prince rescues his princess, the dish runs away with the spoon, there's a wedding, woodland creatures rejoice, Jill finally catches up with Jack....and they all live happily ever after...correct? So, I try and pretend like there wasn't a you - you were never here to begin with. I try and erase you and forget you and pretend like there was never a daughter. Never a third child. Never a princess in my castle. Then, maybe I will get a happy ending too? Is that so selfish?
But, then, inevitably, someone mentions your name. And, I remember. I remember the way you smelled the day you were born. I remember your gorgeous green eyes that turned brown. I watched you dance. I measured your height every year. I remember your hair that was black, then turned blond, then turned back. I remember how you loved someone. Who was it? Wait....it was me, wasn't it? Didn't you love me? Didn't we love each other? Weren't you my little princess?
Yes - I do remember you. I do. I really, really, really do. Sleep tight, angel. We will get our happy ending one of these days.
what a tale my thoughts could tell.
Just like an old time movie
about a ghost from a wishing well.
In a castle dark or a fortress strong
with chains upon my feet.
You know that ghost is me
and I will never be set free
as long as I'm a ghost that you can see.
If I could read your mind love,
what a tale your thoughts could tell.
Just like a paperback novel,
the kind the drugstore sells.
When you reach the part where the heartaches
come the hero would be me.
Heroes often fail.
And you won't read that book again
because the endings just to hard to take.
"If You Could Read My Mind" - Gordon Lightfoot
Fairy tales are supposed to get happy endings, right? The prince rescues his princess, the dish runs away with the spoon, there's a wedding, woodland creatures rejoice, Jill finally catches up with Jack....and they all live happily ever after...correct? So, I try and pretend like there wasn't a you - you were never here to begin with. I try and erase you and forget you and pretend like there was never a daughter. Never a third child. Never a princess in my castle. Then, maybe I will get a happy ending too? Is that so selfish?
But, then, inevitably, someone mentions your name. And, I remember. I remember the way you smelled the day you were born. I remember your gorgeous green eyes that turned brown. I watched you dance. I measured your height every year. I remember your hair that was black, then turned blond, then turned back. I remember how you loved someone. Who was it? Wait....it was me, wasn't it? Didn't you love me? Didn't we love each other? Weren't you my little princess?
Yes - I do remember you. I do. I really, really, really do. Sleep tight, angel. We will get our happy ending one of these days.
Sunday, September 20, 2009
Any night I can quote Shakespeare is a good night...
Hey, did you happen to see the most beautiful girl in the world?
And if you did, was she crying, crying?
Hey, if you happen to see the most beautiful girl that walked out on me
Tell her, "I'm sorry."
Tell her, "I need my baby."
Oh.... Won't you tell her that I love her?
I woke up this morning and realized what I had done
I stood alone in the cold gray dawn
I knew I'd lost my morning sun
I lost my head and I said some things
Now come the heartaches that morning brings
I know I'm wrong and I couldn't see
I let my world slip away from me
"The Most Beautiful Girl in the World" - Charlie Rich
Oh, Chynna... How do I miss thee? I cannot even count the ways. Have you ever wondered what it would feel like to storm the beach at Normandy, only to be riveted by bullets, with limbs and entrails flying every-which-a-away? Maybe you've wondered how a body responds to a plane crash: oxygen masks dangling from the suddenly irrelevant reading light thingy, stomach up in your nostrils, plummeting into a sub-stratosphere....yeah,I think it's a little like that, this losing a child deal. Humans are mysterious,intense, complicated & yet single-celled-simple all at the same time beings, aren't we? We don't know. We just don't know. Until we know.
How do I miss you, Chinks? Well, for starters....wait. Disclaimer time! For all you Moms out there. You know who you are. I was you. Pretty girl. Handsome boy. Elizabethan tragedy encroaching. Mustn't let them too close to each other. Mustn't allow them any unsupervised courtin' time. Well, get this. Turns out, that's something I miss. I miss my daughter and her first love. I miss her talking about him incessantly. I miss her wishing she could spend every waking moment with him. I miss her begging for that extra 15 minutes on Sunday night at his parent's house so she could talk more with his uber-awesome mom. Yes, I miss taking a back seat to someone else in my daughter's life. I see so clearly now. It's crystal clear, baby girl. All those times you told me that he was the one? I believe you now. I'm so sorry I doubted you. He's off at college now. He has a life to carve. He has obligations. He has intentions. He has horrible-sweet memories of you. I am so glad that I'm not where he is, baby. Please, please watch over him. I don't know how he stands it, this aftermath of ours.
So, back to the ways that I miss you....I digress, as I always do. But, here it is. I miss you these ways: I miss your dimple (it was an AWESOME dimple). I miss your mole - right above your lip. I miss your smell - it was like cotton candy and wilted roses. I miss your chubby toes that looked like tiny little sausages. I miss your gorgeous eyes that started out looking just like your father's and winded up looking just like mine. I miss your fiery temper. I miss your strong will. I miss your faith. I miss your convictions, so much stronger than mine. I miss the fact that you never once in your entire life admitted that you were wrong. I miss shopping with you on Saturday afternoons. I miss you wearing all my clothes to church on Sunday morning. I miss your messy room. I miss your super-clean car (at least you FINALLY kept something organized!). I miss your good grades. I miss your brilliant mind. I miss the things you did. I miss the things you didn't quite get to do. I miss your arguments with your father, the ones that always sent you running to me. I miss your arguments with me, the ones that always sent you running into my arms exactly three hours later. I miss our laughs. I miss our cries. I miss us. I miss you. I miss the me that I used to be...when I had you.
I spend all of my time telling people that I'm OK. I can do this. I can sleep. I can eat. I can go back to work. I can do the things that I need to do to appear normal. I can hold it together. I can, too. But, then, some days you walk through life and you see people going through the motions and you realize...hey! My daughter did this one day, and then the next day she disappeared. She never went back to Wal-Mart. She never went back to church. Or to school. Or home. Or anywhere. It just makes you think, doesn't it? She was here! She was right here. And, now she's nowhere...but she's still my daughter. And, isn't a rose by any other name just as sweet? I think so, especially the wilted ones.
And if you did, was she crying, crying?
Hey, if you happen to see the most beautiful girl that walked out on me
Tell her, "I'm sorry."
Tell her, "I need my baby."
Oh.... Won't you tell her that I love her?
I woke up this morning and realized what I had done
I stood alone in the cold gray dawn
I knew I'd lost my morning sun
I lost my head and I said some things
Now come the heartaches that morning brings
I know I'm wrong and I couldn't see
I let my world slip away from me
"The Most Beautiful Girl in the World" - Charlie Rich
Oh, Chynna... How do I miss thee? I cannot even count the ways. Have you ever wondered what it would feel like to storm the beach at Normandy, only to be riveted by bullets, with limbs and entrails flying every-which-a-away? Maybe you've wondered how a body responds to a plane crash: oxygen masks dangling from the suddenly irrelevant reading light thingy, stomach up in your nostrils, plummeting into a sub-stratosphere....yeah,I think it's a little like that, this losing a child deal. Humans are mysterious,intense, complicated & yet single-celled-simple all at the same time beings, aren't we? We don't know. We just don't know. Until we know.
How do I miss you, Chinks? Well, for starters....wait. Disclaimer time! For all you Moms out there. You know who you are. I was you. Pretty girl. Handsome boy. Elizabethan tragedy encroaching. Mustn't let them too close to each other. Mustn't allow them any unsupervised courtin' time. Well, get this. Turns out, that's something I miss. I miss my daughter and her first love. I miss her talking about him incessantly. I miss her wishing she could spend every waking moment with him. I miss her begging for that extra 15 minutes on Sunday night at his parent's house so she could talk more with his uber-awesome mom. Yes, I miss taking a back seat to someone else in my daughter's life. I see so clearly now. It's crystal clear, baby girl. All those times you told me that he was the one? I believe you now. I'm so sorry I doubted you. He's off at college now. He has a life to carve. He has obligations. He has intentions. He has horrible-sweet memories of you. I am so glad that I'm not where he is, baby. Please, please watch over him. I don't know how he stands it, this aftermath of ours.
So, back to the ways that I miss you....I digress, as I always do. But, here it is. I miss you these ways: I miss your dimple (it was an AWESOME dimple). I miss your mole - right above your lip. I miss your smell - it was like cotton candy and wilted roses. I miss your chubby toes that looked like tiny little sausages. I miss your gorgeous eyes that started out looking just like your father's and winded up looking just like mine. I miss your fiery temper. I miss your strong will. I miss your faith. I miss your convictions, so much stronger than mine. I miss the fact that you never once in your entire life admitted that you were wrong. I miss shopping with you on Saturday afternoons. I miss you wearing all my clothes to church on Sunday morning. I miss your messy room. I miss your super-clean car (at least you FINALLY kept something organized!). I miss your good grades. I miss your brilliant mind. I miss the things you did. I miss the things you didn't quite get to do. I miss your arguments with your father, the ones that always sent you running to me. I miss your arguments with me, the ones that always sent you running into my arms exactly three hours later. I miss our laughs. I miss our cries. I miss us. I miss you. I miss the me that I used to be...when I had you.
I spend all of my time telling people that I'm OK. I can do this. I can sleep. I can eat. I can go back to work. I can do the things that I need to do to appear normal. I can hold it together. I can, too. But, then, some days you walk through life and you see people going through the motions and you realize...hey! My daughter did this one day, and then the next day she disappeared. She never went back to Wal-Mart. She never went back to church. Or to school. Or home. Or anywhere. It just makes you think, doesn't it? She was here! She was right here. And, now she's nowhere...but she's still my daughter. And, isn't a rose by any other name just as sweet? I think so, especially the wilted ones.
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