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.
Saturday, May 7, 2011
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!
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