For today, a quote from Hafiz:
So far, so good. My run of luck with extemporaneous speaking holds. Every time I’ve been called upon to speak as the President of the Wesleyan College Alumnae Association, I pull something out of my….thin air. Instead of sitting down in my study and crafting a wise and inspirational message, I compose in the car as I drive. My remarks are scrawled on the back of Dairy Queen napkins or written in the margins of the program.
Thursday, as I finished up my tasks at work, I pulled a pink Post-It note off the stack and scribbled, “This Little Light of Mine…” and shoved it in my purse. That was all I needed to get the idea going. You’re humming it now, right? Yeah, me too.
Before the Candle Lighting ceremony, it’s my job to give some words of wisdom to the graduating class. Something that celebrates four tough years of diligent academic pursuits. Something that encapsulates the sisterhood that we hold so dear. Something they’ll carry with them into the years after college, something that will call them back to the fold. Something with a chorus that any three-year-old can remember.
Back in the fall, I had spoken with this same senior class at the beginning of their last year at Wesleyan. The advice I gave them that day was: “Do the Next Right Thing.” They remembered! On Saturday, I asked if anyone recalled the advice and my friend Paula (who’s heading to the University of Louisville for her MFA!) hollered it out. So proud of her! They made it–they did each little thing that brought them here, to the last few days before they graduate.
But, as it is with life, each accomplishment brings us to the next…”What next?”
And wanting to answer that question for the seniors? THAT, is how I found myself doing something that scared the ever-loving shit out of me in the name of sisterhood and gifts.
I sang. I sang near a microphone. A microphone that was on and pointed at my face. I sang on a stage with 1000 people waiting to hear what I was going to sing. Gulp.
I am an expert at lip syncing. I only sing in the car by myself. Or in the shower if everyone else is out of the house. I don’t sing.
Seriously. When I realized what I had just talked myself into up there on that stage, I wanted to pass out. But I opened my mouth and croaked, “This Little Light of Mine…”
And a chorus of voices sang back, “I’m gonna let it shine!”
Huh.
I croaked again, “This little light of mine…”
“I’m gonna let IT SHINE!” They were getting into it!
Bring it on home, Ashley! Sell it to the cheap seats! “This little light of mine…”
“I’M GONNA LET IT SHINE!”
Before we lost momentum, I waggled my hands in the air and they kept going! “Let it shine! Let it shine! Let it shine!”
I honestly think if we had done the second verse, Michael would have jumped in on the organ or someone would have jumped up clapping. The simple joy of that song just does something! It. Was. AWESOME.
That was the whole message I left with those young women: When you leave Wesleyan, take that light that you’ve been given here and let it shine. Let it shine, let it shine, let it shine. Because a candle can light a thousand other candles without diminishing itself.
Saturday morning, it was my privilege as the President of the Wesleyan College Alumnae Association to hear the beautiful sound of almost 1000 people sigh in unison. I’ll never forget it as long as I live. And it all started with me eavesdropping on a couple of little old ladies from a bathroom stall.
This was Alumnae Weekend, when classes return to campus to celebrate reunions; this year we welcomed the classes ending in 4 and 9. We even celebrated two members of the class of 1939 who returned for their 75th reunion. There’s a special luncheon on Friday for the “Golden Belles.” That’s the class celebrating its 50th reunion–this year, the Class of 1964.
Before my duties began at the luncheon–the welcoming of dignitaries, the reading of the roll call, the recounting of their exploits five years before I was born–I ducked into the ladies room. Three woman stood by the sinks, washing hands and fixing hairdos. They didn’t notice me.
They said how good it was to see each other. And how sad it was that some faces were gone. One said, “Time has passed so quickly!” Another laughed, “How did we get so old?” Then the third voice said, “But you know? When I see my friends, even after all these years, their young faces shine through.”
That was the line that made the whole auditorium sigh when I told the story the next morning. We Wesleyannes gather, every spring, for the highlight of our Annual Meeting–Candle Lighting. Each senior chooses a Wesleyan alumna to light her candle, the symbolic act that marks her entry into the Alumnae Association. It might be her big sister, her sister, her mother, a teacher, a mentor, a friend. My candlelighter back in 1990, Mrs. Anne Strozier Threadgill, was in the audience Saturday with her sisters in the Class of 1949. She was my English teacher in high school, and she taught my mother and father as well.
I lit the first candle. Then, as the organ played, the light traveled, person to person, from the stage to the seats, from the front row to the back. We stand in the twilight of the auditorium, all quiet and together, decade upon decade of proud Wesleyannes. We join in a responsive reading of the Benson Charge, which was written by Catherine Brewer Benson, Class of 1840.
Part of the Charge reads: “You of the Class of 2014 who are about to join the band of 9,000 whose privilege it has been to spend their years on the Wesleyan campus–remember that the privilege has been granted to comparatively few persons. Remember that, as Emerson said, ‘large advantages bind you to larger generosity;’ and you owe it to the world to give to others the best that is in you.”
That’s what I treasure about Alumnae Weekend, getting back in touch with the privilege and responsibility of being a Wesleyanne.
In the glow of the candlelight, our young faces shine through.
This is the place where we will always be known.
This is the place where we will always find home.
“Baby Cakes”–that’s what my nephew used to call cupcakes. If you’d like to add a touch of sweetness to your Sunday, click this little cupcake to read my story, “Cupcake Moms.” Enjoy!
Well, this seems terribly specific:
A quick message today.
Bikini season is coming! Or so I hear–the last one I participated in was around 1989. I got my license renewed a few months ago and it still lists the weight that I was in 1989. But I digress.
Every other sponsored post on Facebook these days contains four cartoons of women shaped like fruit or admonitions against the evil fruit that causes belly fat. Please keep scrolling past all that shit. Here’s the real message:
You are beautiful. I hope you enjoy some sun on your face this weekend (after a liberal application of sunscreen, of course).
I had such an odd moment today. A friend–whose son has been in the same daycare as Carlos since they were tiny babies–emailed me a photo. Her message said, “That’s Carlos, right?”
I double clicked the attachment and recognized her son instantly. Then I looked at the other two babies and had a moment of panic. Um…I think that’s my baby… yes….but I can only see his profile and his feet… no?…I don’t recognize that onesie…but it’s Brasilian colors so that must be him.
Yes Sir, That’s My Baby!
With a big dose of guilt, I replied, “YES!” But I worried that I had picked the wrong baby. What if she emailed me back and said, “Oops! I sent you the wrong picture! Here’s the one with Carlos…”
The moment took me back to the night after he was born when I let the nurse take him to the nursery so I could get a few hours of sleep. He made a tiny clicking noise with every breath for about 24 hours (until his lungs cleared out). I couldn’t turn my mom radar off and not hear it, so I hadn’t had any rest. The nurse took him for a few hours while I napped.
But I woke up having a panic attack. It was about 2 a.m. G had gone home to sleep. The unit was quiet and dark. My heart raced like it was going to leave and go find my baby. My skin prickled with anxiety and every part of me flushed to 104 degrees in an instant. I couldn’t get a breath. I didn’t want to trouble anyone so I sat on the side of the bed and tried to calm myself.
After a while, the feelings weren’t going away, so I wandered down the hall to the newborn nursery. Two nurses worked with the fresh babies. A couple of babies lay swaddled in bassinets. The door was locked so I had to knock on the window. Up popped my friend, Amy, one of the lactation consultants. I’m so glad it was her because I didn’t feel stupid when I said, “I’m feeling really anxious and I need to see my baby.” One of the nurses said, “He’s just starting to wake up. Let me change his diaper for you and check him out.” Amy sat me down in a rocking chair and brought me a little ginger ale with a bendy straw. Then she gave me a back rub and a few pats on the head. I started to relax. She and I talked for a few minutes, until I started to feel like myself again.
That’s when the nurse came back over and said, “He’s all fixed up and ready to go!” Then she went back to her tasks.
Um.
There were two bassinets by the window. Each bore a blue card that proclaimed, “I’m a breastfed boy!” Two swaddled bundles with little white knit caps. I walked slowly…squinting to try to make out the names. What if I picked the wrong one? The anxiety came flooding back because I couldn’t find my baby. Then I realized that I was looking for HIS last name and the card had MY last name on it. Duh. I found my baby.
Have you ever had a moment like that? One where you think you’re watching your kid on the playground then you realize that your kid is standing next to the one you were watching? You look into the crowd at Pump It Up and can’t recall what clothes they were wearing when the party started? I’ve had moments where I stood at the one-way mirrored window at daycare, searching for a dark head in the sea of blondes.
Now I look at the picture that my friend sent of our boys and I can’t NOT see Carlos. His lips are the same. The curve of his ear. Those are the shiny brown eyes that gazed up into mine while I fed him. Even the side of his foot is familiar to me. Every cell of his body, part of me.
So strange. He’s my very own heart, walking around outside my body but I can’t always recognize it.
Vivi and I were clowning around in the parking lot at Lowe’s the other day.
“I love you, Mommy.”
“I love you more.”
“I love you the most in the universe.”
“I love you all of that, plus one.”
“I love you eleventy fifty zillion billion more much.”
“I love you all of that, plus one.”
“I love you more than mac and cheese.”
“I love you more than butter…but a little bit less than biscuits.”
A grandmother, loading flats of zinnias into her car, had been listening to us and smiling. When she heard about the biscuits, she hooted with laughter. She giggled, “Imma have to get that on a t-shirt.”
Vivi and I went to the library today. She chose seven books from The Boxcar Children series.
I never read these books when I was a kid. Did you? They were mentioned this week on The Writer’s Almanac:
The Boxcar Children series is the story of four orphans, Henry, Jessie, Violet, and Benny, who range in age from six to fourteen. Their parents die, and their grandfather is granted custody. But the children are afraid that he is a cruel old man, and so they run away and set up house in an abandoned boxcar, supporting themselves and living an independent life.
Gertrude Chandler Warner said that after it was published, many librarians objected to the story because they thought the children were having too much fun without any parental control. Warner said, “That is exactly why children like it!”
As we were driving home, I told Vivi, “You know, when those books came out, some people didn’t think kids should read them because they didn’t think it was right for children to read about kids who lived on their own and had fun adventures without any grown-ups around.”
I looked in the rearview mirror and she was gazing out the window, nonplussed. I asked, “What do you think about that?”
“Well,” she said, “I don’t think about the alone part as much as I think about the adventure part.”
Huh. That pretty much sums up the first three years of therapy for me. When Fartbuster and I divorced, I spent at least a year staring at the alone part instead of at the adventure part.
The Alone Part–that’s the part where you end up sitting on the edge of your bed and asking yourself, “How did I get HERE?” (to quote my friend, Heather). The alone part is the part where you can’t breathe or sleep because your brain is hashing up every NEVER AGAIN and ALWAYS that it can lay hands on. The alone part demands logic and reason and a really sound explanation. The alone part asks, “WHY?”
The Adventure Part–that’s the part where you end up sitting on the edge of your bed and asking yourself, “What do I want to do today?” The adventure part is the part where your whistle comes back and you get some jig in your giddy up. The adventure part sleeps at night and dreams during the day. The adventure part demands leaps and giggles and doesn’t care to explain itself. The adventure part asks, “WHY NOT?”
Happy Easter from my favorite chick!