Author Archives: Baddest Mother Ever

Take Your Monster to Work Day

5 Replies

I had a new weekly meeting on my calendar for 10:30. I left on time but forgot that the conference room is blocked by construction and requires a detour, so I got to the meeting at 10:31 and they were already rolling. UGH. Strike one.

During the meeting, my phone buzzed with notifications of missing assignments at school then texts from G about all the Very Important Parenting Interventions we needed to do tonight. Bzzt, bzzt, strike two.

After I clarified what the team needs from me (not much, it turns out), I bolted out of there down a back staircase. I’m pretty sure I’m not authorized to use it because through a door I saw something vaguely surgical looking then the stairs deposited me outside next to some very explosive looking medical gas tanks. But I made it outside…where it was raining and I didn’t have an umbrella. Plink, plink, plunk, strike three.

The anxiety that had lurked over my head like a little black storm cloud all morning sank to my shoulders and wrapped around the top of my lungs and tightened up my heart. And the mean voice started.

A smart person would have remembered her umbrella. A dependable person would have gotten to the meeting early. A good mother would have kids who don’t need any talking to about turning in homework. A healthy woman wouldn’t get out of breath hurrying through the rain.

Under the pecan tree outside my office building, I felt the pull back towards my desk, where stacks of work awaited. But for a second I let myself wonder, “Where would I end up if I just kept walking until my legs gave out?”

The straight answer is, “rural Oconee County with wet shoes and a chafing problem” so I dragged my soggy ass back inside.

And that’s where I was greeted by a little vignette of my own making, a reminder to my stressed out self from my healthier self:

Out of frame: actual work stuff that needs doing

That sumo mandarin is a healthy snack because I do take care of myself, even if I could stand to work in more cardio and less cakie-o.

That list of dinners for the week is me being a good steward of our resources and making sure everyone else eats healthy too. Cabbage soup is Vivi’s favorite and Carlos has been curious about curry. I am a good mom who does her best to delight.

That purple pin from Emily McDowell is the “Didn’t Please Everyone” prize that Wise Heather gave me a few years back.

There’s stress relieving antibacterial hand gel because I have to stay strong and calm.

And a teeny tiara because I’m a queen, dammit.

The fellow in the middle? He’s my Anxiety Monster and I have put him in the place of honor because he commands the power to make me lighten up.

We went to a comic-themed Family Day at the Georgia Museum of Art last weekend. Cartoonists from Athens were there taking requests. While my friend waited for a “wolf dragon” from Abby Kacen, I got in line for David Mack, because his sign asked…

I blurted, “An Anxiety Monster, please.”

In little more than a minute, David knocked out a pencil sketch of this perfect blob of quaking and blushing nerves who’s a tad wobbly because he’s balancing altogether too much brain under the flop sweat but he really really really wants the world to like him. He’s a monster who’s trying quite desperately to be scary with the horns and the big teeth but GAH he can’t seem to manage fearsomeness what with the wobbling.

He’s the perfect monster for me.

It was a privilege to watch an artist engrossed in his work, all action and no pondering. He was the mirror opposite of the thing he was bringing to life with his pen. Create, don’t ponder.

David inked in the sketch, shook it a couple of times to dry the ink, then passed a large white rectangle over the surface. “Is that like a blotter for the ink?” I asked.

“Nah, just a big eraser, to get rid of the guidelines,” he said while handing over my monster.

Because even Anxiety Monster hides his rough start, afraid to let anyone see the messy parts.

What About the Marshmallows?

15 Replies

My son, Carlos, has been asking for a real fire in the fireplace for weeks. And it’s my job to turn his “please?” into “Ta-DA!”

I’m not much of a fire-starter. In the 16 years that I’ve lived in this house with its two fireplaces, I’ve used about half a pickup truck load of wood. But what baby wants, baby gets, so I asked around about firewood and got in touch with a neighbor who had some to sell. We arranged a delivery. I got the cash. I cleaned out a spot in the garage. I helped unload and stack the wood because there are a lot of steps before the Ta-DA.

All worth it to make mah baybay’s dream come true.

Wouldn’t it be perfect to sit around a crackling fire on Christmas morning in our cozy pajamas? Sure, but it was 73 degrees at Christmas. OK…Carlos has a birthday the day after–we can build a roaring fire and…nope, still hot. Everybody put on your holiday flip flops.

Two weeks of school break melted away. On the first day back to school and work and normal schedules, Carlos asked–20 minutes before bedtime–if we could please have a fire. I put him off for another day.

I hate saying “no” to simple stuff but nothing seems like simple stuff anymore. I’m struggling. But tonight when I pulled into the garage after work and my headlights illuminated the stack of firewood, I made up my mind to make it happen. Do something simple and profound. Get to Ta-DA.

But what do I mean by “nothing seems simple?” First I had to…

Relocate four dead houseplants off the hearth.
Dust the cobwebs that clogged the firescreen.
Move the dog bed.
Check the flue.
Offer a quick explanation about flew, flu, and flue to my son.
Figure out how to turn on the flashlight app on my phone in order to see the flue.
Contort my body into the fireplace for the right viewing angle.
Tug lever to no avail.
Question myself about whether I ever closed the flue 5 years ago after the last fire.
Google “what does open flue look like.”
Find WD-40 to loosen the rusted hinges on flue lever.
Find hammer to supplement WD-40.
Explain lubricants and hammers to Carlos.
Shrug in a completely not resentful fashion when G says, from the couch, “Let me know if you want me to try.”
Hammer with gusto.
Let him try.
Commiserate.
Conclude jointly that the flue is probably open enough.
Look around for newspaper even though we haven’t read an actual newspaper in many years.
Rip up Vivi’s poster to make kindling.
Light paper to ensure that smoke is drawing properly.
Demonstrate proper log stacking to Carlos.
Explain that fire is rapid oxidation of the wood so the air needs space to move around.
Blow more oxygen onto dwindling fire.
Relight guttering fire with the help of a starter log that’s been aging behind the TV cabinet since before Carlos was born.
Explain propellants then answer Carlos’ followup questions about napalm. No shit, he’s really into military aircraft these days.
Get the fire going briskly.
Answer his questions about fire safety.
Sit back on my heels and feel quite proud of myself.
Open my mouth to proclaim, “TA-DA!”

…but before I can speak, he says,

“But, Mom! What about the marshmallows?”

It’s NEVER enough.

Never.

NeverEverEverEverEverNever.

Ever.

All my sense of victory…rapidly oxidized. Up in smoke. Kids today, right? They can’t be happy with the thing they asked for without asking for the NEXT THING. I had been laying this fire for WEEKS, kinda. I had invested real effort into creating the thing he wanted and now he wants marshmallows?

Luckily, I didn’t have time to say any of that to my sweet smiling son.

And then it hit me.

He’s not asking for the marshmallows because he doesn’t appreciate all the steps I took to make that fire. My sense of “it’s never enough” was reading that request as another personal failure–as if he had really been gunning for marshmallows and lured me in with the fire. I have a scarcity mindset when it comes to my parenting, that nothing will ever be enough. Why go through 30 steps to make a fire when he’s just going to ask for more, proving that what I did was not enough–even though it was exactly what he requested.

But the good news is–Carlos has developed an abundance mindset. He asked for the marshmallows not to negate the work I had put into building the fire but because the fact that his wish had been granted left him optimistic about the next step, the next treat coming his way.

Even though we didn’t have any marshmallows, and even though I got my fire-starting feelings hurt for a second, I’m delighted that Carlos asked for the marshmallows. He BELIEVES that marshmallows are possible because he’s seen Mama will do allllll these things (and answer his questions along the way) just to get to Ta-DA!

He expects sweetness and warmth. And he honestly believes that I can make them happen.

When You’re Ready

25 Replies

One morning, after I had come in from the school run so frazzled that I wanted to curl up in a ball under the dining room table and cry, I stood in the middle of the den and said, “Alexa, help me meditate.” The Amazon Echo opened a Headspace meditation app, and for the next 15 minutes, I sat on the edge of this nasty loveseat and breathed.

When the programmed meditation was complete, the super chill male British-accented guide said:

“When you’re ready, slowly open your eyes.”

I did.

And the den was still trashed, the sofa still sticky, and the dogs still staring at me from their beds.

I felt better, more at home in my body, but the man’s words lingered in my now still brain. When was the last time I did something because I was ready?

Most of my life happens according to other people’s needs and schedules.

I get out of bed because the alarm goes off, not because I’m ready. Even on weekends when I get to sleep in, I eventually get out of bed to check the kids, not because I’m ready. I go to work when I’m supposed to go to work and I come home when it’s time to cook dinner and I go to bed when my Fitbit buzzes and tells me that it’s time to start winding down. I walk when the dogs want to walk and I buy groceries when we are out of milk. I eat lunch when it’s lunchtime. I answer emails because my computer goes DING. I stop wearing white sandals because it’s after Labor Day. I write checks to pay bills when the date in the box draws near. I sweep the leaves when they gather on the deck. I wipe up chocolate milk that someone else spilled on the floor because I don’t even drink chocolate milk anymore.

I used to love chocolate milk. But I gave up chocolate milk along with so many other things–not because I was READY to but because I grew up…right?

Ready?

I started thinking back over the major milestones in my adult life–hell, even in my adolescence. All of the big things happened TO ME, not because I had planned and was ready for them.

I’ve never been much of a map maker. I just wait to see what happens then roll with the punches, come what may, que sera sera, yadda yadda. I can plan the hell out of a trip to the grocery store (once we’re out of milk that other people drink), but I’ve never been one for planning out my life. Why bother, when life doesn’t give 2 shits for the plan and grownups have to deal with whatever comes when it comes anyway? (Note to self: this could explain that overwhelming anxiety?)

I remember one time in the last week of senior year in college, when we were making a recruiting film for Wesleyan. A few of us were sitting on the steps of the president’s home, enjoying the view from our pinnacle as almost graduates. The interviewer asked, “What’s next in your plan? Where do you see youself in 5 years? 10 years? I felt a panic as each of my classmates answered and my turn to look into the camera and talk about my life plan got closer and closer. Ummm…hell if I know? That’s not exactly recruitment gold. I said something about going to graduate school at Auburn and then….um….getting my PhD….yeah, that’s the ticket…..and then I guess I’ll be a professor because that’s what people with PhDs do, right? I polished it up and prattled it off for the camera and then I went off into my future and nothing worked out that way. The academic job market didn’t really have any openings for my plan, so I rolled with it.

I didn’t join the corporate world because I was READY. I did it because I was an adult and needed a job and I did the math and taking that job at that time worked. So ready or not…here’s where I ended up.

My life plan.

I turn 50 next week. I’m ready…I think. (Not that it matters whether I am or not)

What I’ve learned about life in 50 years is a lot like what I experienced in that meditation exercise: the illusion of control and busyness is what makes me feel disconnected from my own life. The very idea of a plan is craziness itself. Peace happens when I sit still and breathe. As Thich nat Hahn says, “Breathing in, I calm myself. Breathing out, I smile.” He does not mention a 5-year plan. I’ve been holding those words in my mind for weeks now. “When you’re ready, slowly open your eyes.”

The “ready” isn’t about being ready to control my life. It’s being ready to relinquish the illusion of control.

For my birthday, I’m treating myself to a trip to Egypt. I’ve had 10 months to get ready. I planned to lose 30 pounds so I didn’t hurt the camel I want to ride. I planned to get the kids on chore charts and teach everyone to cook a few meals so they could avoid malnutrition while I’m gone. I planned to learn some basic Arabic phrases. I planned to master my fancy camera. I planned to pack only a carryon for 2 weeks. I planned to read several books by Egyptian writers of the 20th century. I planned to learn the political history of what has formed modern Egypt and I planned to learn the names of all the gods and goddesses. I planned to be so far ahead at work that no one would notice I’m gone.

None of that happened.

Nevertheless, I’m going. And all will be fine, thanks to chicken nuggets, automatic camera settings, and Google translate. I’ll learn the history while I’m there. I’ll read the Egyptian novels when I get back and I’ll catch up on work then too. I can even pick out an extra sturdy camel and still go for a little ride.

I did manage to learn “shukran,” which is how to say “thank you” in Arabic.

I guess all this is to say, nothing is going as planned, but I’m READY.

Girl, come on. We got you.

This Is Clearly Ridiculous

6 Replies

It’s 11:15 p.m. and I am being ridiculous.

I’m baking a cherry pie. Again. My third annual attempt at some mediocre homage to my dad’s Christmas Eve tradition of making a cherry pie just for Joe’s wife, Beth.

I can’t even say it was Vivi’s idea this year. She did mention it several times, even earlier today, but the day got away from us and she’s already asleep but I’m here waiting for the timer to ding.

2015 attempt

I don’t know how to make pie. The filling is two cans of Comstock and the crust is Pillsbury. I didn’t even attempt to weave the lattice top crust this time. The letter “B” that I carved into the top crust started out looking clever and now looks like a hemorrhage.

Completely ridiculous.

It’s not even like Beth has no other sources of cherry pie. I know that Uncle Mark made Aunt Beth a cherry pie this summer when they came up for a visit. I saw the pictures on Facebook. I heard the reviews from Joe. Mark’s crusts are flaky miracles of French lard and Irish butter and salt from Tibet. I wouldn’t be surprised to find that the cherries are hand picked by earnest graduate students in the highly competitive stone fruits program at an Ivy League college. The man knows pie.

I am not the best person for this job. In our family, I’m not even in the top FIVE best people for this job.

So ridiculous.

Why can’t I let it go, this tradition? Brett told me to bring asparagus but I’m going to show up with a cherry pie.

Maybe it’s not even about the pie, or Beth, or me, or Christmas Eve. Maybe it’s because when I reached into the utensil drawer to find a brush to do the egg wash (Pillsbury is FANCY), I had to dig past Richard’s dumpling press, Daddy’s pastry cutter, and Grandmama Eunice’s biscuit round. Every one of them a better cook than me. Every one of them gone now. Every one of them left me a tool I don’t know how to use yet.

And I’m almost 50. And it’s almost midnight. And tomorrow is Christmas Eve.

I even thought that if I started writing this I would find the answer.

Completely ridiculous.

There’s no answer, only the doing. The half-assed, broken-hearted attempts at showing people how much I love them. Learning to show up, even with gifts that aren’t quite what I hoped they would be by now.

Messy, mediocre, and still ridiculously sweet.

Cook Until Done

16 Replies

I’m bringing the carrot casserole to our family Thanksgiving at Cowtail tomorrow. Any potluck, buffet or repast wouldn’t be a family dinner without it. I’m not even sure where it came from, but the dish entered the family cookbook after Daddy and Gay married in the early 1980s. Come to think of it, I’ve never been served carrot casserole at any other family’s table or at a restaurant so it may be unique to our family.

Carrot casserole. You can pretty much figure it out from here.

After 20+ years of making it a couple of times a year, I don’t consult the recipe or measure anymore. It’s about 2 lbs. of peeled carrots, sliced and parboiled. A half of a good-sized onion, minced. A good measure of the sharpest cheddar cheese at hand. Two dollops of mayonnaise. More salt than you think it will need but it needs it. Mix together and spread into a lightly buttered casserole dish, usually the Corning French White that I got for wedding gifts a lifetime ago. Top with some seasoned stuffing mix that’s been tossed with a little butter. Pop it into a 350 degree oven.

And that’s when I stop to smile as I remember the last line of Daddy’s recipe:

“Cook until done.”

I love the shorthand of it, the way that my father knew that I would know when the dish was right. Cook it until it’s done.

One Thanksgiving when I had just moved out on my own and was learning to cook for real, I wrote the carrot casserole recipe down on a sheet of yellow legal paper as Daddy dictated. My handwriting was young and strong and girlishly loopy. Back then, before keyboards and touchscreens and voice to text apps, I still used my handwriting all day, every day. Back then, I could call my Daddy if part of the instructions didn’t make sense. I can see his hand (back when he still had all of his fingers!), the way he punctuated instructions with his fingers splayed apart and used them to show a pinch or a stir or a scatter. Then when the instructions were over, he would do that little upward flip of the palm to show that it was finished and relatively simple and he had absolute faith that I could do it. Just keep going until it’s done.

When I went out to get some grocery things this afternoon, my heart was torn about–of all things–pie. Daddy was big into pie and Thanksgiving is the Pie Holiday. I remember a year at Joe and Beth’s house when we had SEVEN kinds of pie. I don’t know how to make pies. I usually choose cake over pie. But my heart hurts for pie this year. Emily posted a photo of an apple pie with a perfect scatter of autumn leaves cut from dough across its golden top. Daddy did that. Diane’s pecan pie displayed geometric precision in both nut placement and fluted edges. Daddy did that. Jo had a couple of sweet potato pies going alongside her greens. Daddy did that. Mir baked pumpkin pie with gluten free crust and burned the first one then tried again until it came out perfect. Daddy did that too. Well, not the gluten-free part, but the trying again part.

So with my dangerous combination of heartache and enthusiasm, I found myself in the baking aisle this afternoon, talking myself into a 2 or 3 pie commitment on top of the carrot casserole, the cranberry relish, and the rosemary roasted butternut squash I was already down for. I don’t even own pie pans so there I was in front of the disposable aluminum pan display, trying to invoke the spirit of Sam Garrett (who would have been at Williams-Sonoma three months ago to stock up on pie tins).

As I weighed the difference between 9-inch and 10-inch with lids or lidless, a tiny woman at my left elbow cried, “Ten dollars for a turkey pan? Lawd, they got to be kidding me!” I helped her check to see if any of the sizes across the bottom shelf would work but none was cheaper than eight bucks. Three stair-step girls in winter coats and neat braids waited behind the woman. The youngest, about five, wandered over to a display. “Grandma, look! They got snowman marshmallows!” The tiny grandmother waved away the marshmallows with the turn of her hand, fingers pinching the air to sketch a silent “no.”

The girls stayed quiet as their grandmother pulled silver pans from the shelves. She asked me for my opinion on the turkey pan situation. I pulled out one for lasagna that would be big enough. “This one’s six bucks, with a lid…” I offered. The grandmother–who in all honesty was about my age–held up her hand to show me a folded bill. “But I got $5 dollars and that’s ALL. I got everything to cook but I don’t have a pan.” We both turned back to search the shelves again.

An answer came to me as simple as “Cook until done.” I knew what right looked like in this situation. I opened my wallet and pulled out a $10 bill. “Here you go. Get what you need.” She flung her arms around my neck and we patted each other on the back. I whispered, “Grab a bag of those snowman marshmallows, too.” She squeezed my hand and chirped, “Y’all get you some marshmallows!” All three girls reached for a bag each, felt what it felt like to hold them, then the two older girls put theirs back down on the display so the littlest girl could carry them. We picked out a roasting pan and a couple for casseroles then shared one more hug before the family went on their way.

I walked away with a lighter heart and a much diminished need to bake pie. Pie was Daddy’s love language. Mine might be giving what I have to give.

Cook until done.

Happy Thanksgiving, y’all.

Out Into the World

6 Replies

Dear Grant,

So Friday is the big day, huh? College.

COLLEGE.

College? How did THAT happen?

I looked at some pictures today of the campus at good ole’ F.U. and it got me all verklempt. It’s a beautiful place, filled with shiny happy people and I have a good feeling that you will grow there, from the kind and clever young man you already are into an even truer version of yourself.

There will be some rough spots along the way, no doubt. I was dying to go to college back in 1879, but even though I had dreamed of getting there for so long, I still turned my face to the wall and cried a few tears after the lights went out on that first night. There I was, under that brand new comforter and in sheets right out of the box–on my own and out in the world. Alone? Not really, but kind of more alone than I had been up to that point in my life.

So if you get a little lonesome Friday night and start to feeling alone in the world, I hope you will think back to these few stories and know that you are 100%, unequivocally loved by me and everyone else in this big messy family.

I came to meet you in the hospital right after you were born, but the nurses had you in the fishbowl for some nursey kind of stuff. We didn’t get to meet that day. Instead, your dad showed me a video that he had made right after you were born. In the frame you see your mom beaming with happiness. The nurses had you in the bassinet to do the Apgar test and get you cleaned up and you were screaming and yowling and shaking with fury. There you were out in the world for the first time and you were NOT HAVING IT. In the video, Joe walked over to where you are and reaches out his big ole finger. He said something calming, like “Hey, buddy” and he touched you on the arm very gently. You immediately stopped crying (and he started).

About three weeks later, you came to my house for a visit:

grant 4

Yes, we had pink carpet. It was awful. So was that marriage, but that’s another story for a different day. You were out in the world for real, out in the suburbs. I still didn’t get to hold you that day. Papa did. He held you in his lap and cried because he loved you so much. I’m glad y’all share a name. I’m glad we all share a name.

A few months later, Fartbuster and I came to babysit you, so your parents could go out in the world. That’s a tale I’ve told already in Saved By a Nectarine. I owe you a thank you for that episode, really. If it hadn’t been for your diaper catastrophe, Fartbuster and I might have had kids together. Thank you for scaring him off. I owe you one.

grant 3

You were too young to remember Fartbuster. Much like you, Aunt Ashweeeee spent those couple of years learning how to walk on my own and learning how to feed myself and learning how to move around out in the world. There was one night when I came over to babysit you and I was just gutted with sadness. As much as I loved you, being around you awakened this fear that I would never have a child. I’d never have someone to love me the way your mom and dad love each other. And to top it all off, I woke up the next morning with a giant zit on my chin. You asked me, “What dat?” and I almost sobbed the answer: “It’s a grown up kind of boo boo.” But with a simple little kiss, you made it better. You fixed a little part of my heart that day. Thank you. I got the courage to go out in the world again.

grant 5

I don’t know if you remember Uncle Richard. Y’all hit it off right away. I brought him to Callaway Gardens to meet everyone. You and Jackson were playing in a giant pile of leaves and Richard took a few steps back, got a running start, and did a flip right into the pile. Your face lit up like you had found one of your kind roaming around in the world. He was a lot of fun and loved you. He proposed to me on your sixth birthday–do you remember that? I called to wish you a happy birthday and said, “Hey, Grant! Uncle Richard asked me to marry him. Should I say yes?” You said, “Sure, I guess so.” I took your advice. Thank you for that.

grant

You were too young to know it at the time, but you’ve helped me through some of the toughest days of my life, just by being your joyful self. On the day Richard and I finally got married, your sass kept me focused on the happiness we made that day in our backyard, not on the sadness that was out there in the world. You ate a GIANT piece of cake (More Up, Please!) right under your mom’s nose.

grant 7

You and Jake rolled down the hill until you were covered in grass. Richard’s dad had such fun playing with you that day. Thank you for that, for being a little boy so full of life. You and I shared a toast, each with our own kind of bubbly drink. I raised my glass and said, “To the Student of the Week!” and we clinked glasses. You raised your glass and said, “To the bride!”

grant 8

Thank you for that.

Not two weeks later, you helped me find a little glimmer of joy again when I was completely lost in grief. I was waiting in the vestibule of the church for the funeral director to bring Richard’s ashes in for the service. For a second, I was by myself in that quiet spot, right out there in the world all by myself. I didn’t know what to do to keep myself together. Then the door cracked open and I saw your dad and mom, looking sad. Before I could say anything, you came busting in and gave me the biggest hug. When I let you go, you rocked back on your heels and said, “Aunt Ashley! We got new shirts!”

Do you know how precious it is to me that I can look back on one of the saddest times of my life and that few seconds of joy is the thing that I remember most vividly? Thank you for that.

grant 9

Well, I better wrap this up because you’ve got a big day ahead. I guess what I’m trying to say is that when you go out into the world, remember that you are never alone. You’ve taught me that lesson over and over in the last almost 19 years. I will come running if you ever need me, Grant, whether you need cake or a new shirt or a hug. I owe you.

Go have fun.

Love,

Aunt Ashwee

Unca Joe, Aunt Fancy, Goose, Aunt Sassy, Aunt Smarty, Aunt Bossy

I Teach Her What to Fear

Pour a Little Coke on Your Windshield

7 Replies

Saturday morning, when it was time to start the three-hour drive to fetch Vivi from camp, G handed me his keys. “You drive? I’m still eh-sleepy.”

Not a problem. Except I HATE driving his minivan. I can’t see anything in that vehicle. There are extra mirrors stuck to the side mirrors. DVD screens that block the back window. Paper and shit hanging from his rearview mirror (seriously, he still has the car rider pass from two years ago up there). The air conditioning is set on 62 and blowing hard enough to sweep Dorothy out of Kansas. Every control is opposite from my car. He puts the parking brake on even when he’s parked on flat ground. Makes me nuts but that’s why it’s his car and not mine.

I got over all of that stuff by the end of our driveway, but as soon as I started going up the hill to leave the neighborhood, the sun hit the windshield and I was blinded by…schmutz. Not rain or dew or ice…just blurry gunk.

I searched blindly with my left hand for the wiper/washer control. “What are you doing?” he sighed from the passenger seat.

“Trying to clean the windshield–it’s got crap all over it. I can’t see.”

“It looks fine to me,” he retorted, then showed me the wiper control. The wash helped some but I still felt like I was peering through a gray haze.

In the drive thru while we waited on breakfast, I kept squinting and bobbing around looking for a clean spot. “Is it on the inside?” I wiped the inside of the glass with a fast food napkin. It came away clean. I muttered, “It’s something on the outside…”

“DO YOU WANT ME TO DRIVE? IS THAT WHAT THIS IS ABOUT?”

“NO, I WANT TO CLEAN THE WINDSHIELD SO I CAN SEE TO DRIVE.”

“THERE IS NOTHING WRONG WITH THE WINDSHIELD.”

“Maybe you can’t see it…” I started, but G cut me off with a scoff-snorted “…oh for godsake! REALLY?”

I turned on him. “I’m serious! You forget I’ve had Lasik surgery! I have better than 20/20 vision! IT IS POSSIBLE THAT I ACTUALLY CAN SEE SOMETHING THAT YOU PHYSICALLY CAN’T!”

The sweet teenager with a blonde pony tail leaned out of the drive thru window to pass me our drinks with a worried smile. It wasn’t even 8 a.m. and she’s got people hollering about ghosts in a silver minivan. I jammed the massive cup of Diet Coke in the console and passed food and drinks to the boys.

dirty windshield

That’s when I remembered my Pop’s trick from his truck driving days: if your windshield is foggy, pour a little Co-Cola on it. So I pulled up to that spot where they make you wait when the fries aren’t ready and hopped out of the car with my Diet Coke and a handful of napkins. I poured a line of Diet Coke across my side of the windshield and started rubbing in circles. GUNK sluffed off of that glass enough to turn the napkin black on both sides. Pure-T GUNK.

I tried not to gloat.

(I think it’s the citric acid in the Coke that works the magic, so Diet works just as well as raglar. And I guess you heathens who drink gagPepsigag could try that. I would ask our resident chemist but he still swears there is nothing wrong with that windshield. AHEM.)

((Oh, and of course after all that drive thru drama, the story took a stupid turn 20 minutes down the road when Carlos announced he had a tummy ache which precipitated us turning right around for home, them staying there all day while I drove across the state in my own dang car. And damn if the windshield was covered in bugs but I was low on Diet Coke at that point and had to prioritize.))

Anywho.

This incident got me to thinking. I honestly do think that maybe this windshield thing that G and I have argued about every time I have driven his car for the last five years might be grounded in a very real physical difference. He thinks I’m just making it up because he doesn’t see anything there. I think he’s being a stubborn ass because IT’S RIGHT THERE. But the crux of our disagreement is data-based: my eyes take in a different range of data. My experience of the world is different than his when it comes to looking at things. He looks at the glass and sees the same level of gray as he does elsewhere (honestly, there are 40-11 pairs of reading glasses laying around this house and none of them are mine). I look at the same glass and see a problem that needs fixing. Instead of assuming that the other person might see it differently, we start arguing with each other about who is RIGHT.

There are people who can’t see the difference between red and green. I’m not going to argue with them about that in the drive thru. There are synesthetes who can smell colors and see sounds–I hope they wouldn’t blame me for not knowing what blue smells like. People lose taste buds as they age, so maybe the dinner really is too spicy for the kids.

The longer I spent in the car by myself, the more I thought about how often we forget (or ignore) that other people might be experiencing the same world in a vastly different way. They’re really not doing it just to be stubborn asses or precious snowflakes or whatever word we use to mock those who react to the world in a different way.

If I, as a white person, have a hard time seeing racism, that doesn’t mean it’s not there–it means I don’t see it. It’s up to me to polish my lens so that I can see it. I sure can see misogyny that a person who hasn’t moved through the world as a woman might miss. No one can tell me that we live in a post-sexism world because I have a lifetime of experiences that are grounded in the inequal balance of power between the sexes.

We cannot argue people out of their lived experience. We shouldn’t even try.

Imagine how different our morning would have been if I hadn’t needed to make G admit that the windshield was dirty–that I was RIGHT. Imagine if he had helped me clean the windshield even though it didn’t interfere with his driving? What if we had met each other with grace and generosity?

Meeting people with grace and generosity, even when they are describing a world that is different from what you see. Helping fix a problem that doesn’t affect you. Asking questions to understand another’s experience–that’s like pouring some Coke on your windshield. Clears things so we can see each other better.

Your Children Are Not Your Children

3 Replies

I had three encounters today that brought to mind these words from Lebanese poet and artist, Kahlil Gibran:

On Children
by Kahlil Gibran

Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you, yet they belong not to you.

You may give them your love but not your thoughts.
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow,
which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you.
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.

You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth.
The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite,
and He bends you with His might that His arrows may go swift and far.
Let your bending in the archer’s hand be for gladness;
For even as He loves the arrow that flies,
so He loves also the bow that is stable.

Khalil Gibran at the age of 15. Photograph by Fred Holland Day, c. 1898.

Vivi, Away

We went through this together last year, right? Vivi being away at camp during her birthday week? Me not being able to make a fuss over her, all that rigamarole. I’ve been doing a lot better this year. Even when I miss her, I know she is safe and enjoying herself. I’ve had very few moments of panic that she might be curled up under her bed in the tent, crying because no one has told her that they love her that day. I’m cool…really.

But it’s been FOUR DAYS and I had yet to see a photo of her posted in the nightly album of scenes from the day. On the first night, I was slightly alarmed at this picture of my firstborn standing in the center of a pack of somber girls:

They’re either learning how to raise the flag or acting out Lord of the Flies.

Then today I made a teensy request (with only a touch of hysteria), because it’s her birthday, for a photo of my girl. The camp director replied “We’re on it!” and soon I was holding back tears at the sight of this beautiful creature:

Love many, trust few, and always paddle your own canoe.

Who is this woodland spirit? This daughter of Life’s longing for itself, she reminds me every day that “life goes not backwards.” I may spend today thinking back to the moment she was born, how Daddy reassured me “She’s pinking up real nice” when her Apgar score wasn’t so hot the first time. For me, this day is about then. For her, it’s about TODAY–a crown made from pipe cleaners, a cake to share with her unit, a care package filled with books and glow sticks and confetti eggs. She spent today learning to paddle her own canoe, discovering who she is today and getting ready for who she’ll be tomorrow.

Dancing with Jack

“You want to hop out at the door or do you want me to walk in with you?”

“Walk wif me.”

Carlos is at Extra Special People camp this week, and even though he is comfortable and knows from last summer that it’s a fun place, he still needs a hand to hold when we first walk in.

The first activity of the day at ESP is “Flag.” All campers gather around on the lawn to sing, dance, and brag on each other. It’s pretty loud for Carlos, so he hangs back around the periphery with his coach. I tried to coax him up to the circle, and he managed it for a while, but he kept floating back to the shelter of the sidewalk.

Then along came Jack. I know his mother from work, so I know all about Jack but he doesn’t know me. Jack is autistic and doesn’t speak. He’s not a big fan of shoes, but he does like hugs. His shirt today said, “THUG LIFE – drop the T and get over here!” Jack likes to stay on the move during Flag, so his coach was following close behind him to make sure he was safe.

Jack walked past me, just a few inches away, and I reflexively leaned down to his eye level and said, “Hey, Jack!” As soon as I said it, I thought, “Oh, that’s right…Jack doesn’t talk,” and I scrambled to think of how to communicate with him since talking is kind of my thing. But before I could chase my rabbit too far, Jack looked me right in the eye for a moment and smiled. I stuck out my hand for a high five and got two. Then two more, then low fives, then middle fives, then around the side fives and pretty soon we were both giggling. Then I got a hug from Jack and my heart cracked wide open.

His bare foot scraped across my shoe and caught his attention. Jack turned himself around then carefully put his feet on top of my feet so that we could move together. He offered me his hands and I slowly began to turn in small steps, making a circle in the cool early morning grass. We danced for a little while then Jack went on his way.

I had assumed that I wouldn’t know how to talk to Jack because he wouldn’t talk back to me. But we figured it out when Jack showed me the way–start with love then take little steps from there. “You may give them your love, but not your thoughts, for they have their own thoughts…You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you.”

Thank you, Jack, for reminding me how to make a friend without using any words.

Twilight Rockets

End of the day fatigue led to a parenting mistake: I opened a box from Amazon in front of Carlos without remembering what was in it. Along with a Brandi Carlisle CD for me, I had ordered some Rocket Copters with the aim of taking them to the beach. They’re little plastic darts with wings and LED lights that you launch from a slingshot. They sail 120 feet in the air, spinning/blinking/whistling then plummet down to land on your roof or a nearby tree. Hence my aim to keep them a secret until we were at the beach and had a wide open space.

“Can we do them now, Mama?”

“We have to wait until dark.”

“Is dark now, Mama? When’s dark? Is dark after dinner or after bath? Is dark at bedtime or book time? Is dark now, Mama? How about now?”

I was so tired and so not wanting to have to put on bug spray and shoes to shoot a stupid rocket ONCE before I had to dig out the ladder to climb up on the roof. I hid the rockets in my room in hopes that he would forget about them.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA…RIGHT.

After bath time and before book time, with his wet hair slicked down like Rudolph Valentino, Carlos came into the den and chirped, “Is it dark now, Mama?”

Dark enough, Baby.

We went out to the deck and I shot the first one straight up…and into the pool. While I went downstairs to fish it out (with the LED light still blinking, so these are actually pretty sturdy little toys), G shot the second one…onto the roof.

I stayed down by the water to rescue any that came my way and G stayed on the deck with Carlos to fetch the ones that hit the roof. For a good 10 minutes as night fell around us and the bats flitted through the graying sky, we shrieked and squealed and laughed. After a few duds, Carlos eventually figured out the magic of a slingshot, how the power is in both the hand that holds steady and the hand that pulls back.

Each needs the other to work. “You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth.” All this bending that we have to do as parents, it’s so that our children can fly strong and true to the horizon.

Let our bending be for gladness.

carlos tribal summer esp

Living or Nonliving

9 Replies

How do we know if it’s living?

A few weeks ago, after he had spent an afternoon with me at my office, Carlos and I stepped off the curb and cut a diagonal across the parking lot towards my car.

“Mama? What’s trees–living or non-living?”

“What do you think?”

“Living.”

“What tells you that they’re living?”

“Trees can grow. They drink water and eat…what trees eat?”

“Um…They absorb some nutrients from the ground through their roots. And I guess you could say they eat sunshine–they can turn it into energy like you turn food into energy.”

I pointed to a sleek gray Tesla parked in the spot reserved for the radiation oncologist. “What about a car? It drinks gas and it can move around. Living or non-living?”

He giggled. “Cars are non-living.” Before I could ask him, Carlos asked, “Why cars non-living?”

“They can’t grow or change or make more cars.”

He clambered up into his car seat and while I fixed the tangled straps he pulled his prized rocks out of the cup holder.

“Rocks are non-living.”

“Exactly. They don’t eat or grow or change.”

“There are fwee types of rocks,” he told me. “Igmeous, selementary, and mectamorphic.”

“Good job, bud.”

I love kindergarten science.

beach-2217043_1920

The Thin and Sudden Line Between

A few hours after Carlos and I talked about living and non-living in the hospital parking lot, I got word from my cousin that her mother was going into hospice care. Aunt Dixie, who baked the prettiest pink cake that ever was, had been sick for over a year with a lung infection that just wouldn’t give in. But even as sick as she was for as long as she was, she was still 100% living. I pictured the delicate green chair that she had been sitting in on Christmas Eve. Everything else in that room is the same, the chair waits for her, but she is gone. That’s the way it goes–we’re absolutely alive and suddenly we are absolutely not.

I was there when Richard slipped across that profound line between living and non-living. When I leaned over him to check his oxygen cannula, he was living. The strange clatter of his ragged breath disappeared into the air between us. I straightened the clear plastic tube under his nose to make sure he was getting all he needed. Was it the silence or the stillness that I noticed first? He took no next breath.

I think now about that first blustery day when we met on the side of the highway, the first time we stood close to each other and our breath mingled in the living air. Saying hello, and help, and thank you for the first time. I value every breath from that first March day to the last March day. He was 100% living and NEVER gave up. I suppose that’s why, even after 10 months of watching cancer eat away at him cell by cell, the moment when he slipped across that thin line took my breath away.

Left: Beach gravel
Right: Leukemia cells

Some Things, Say The Wise Ones

By Mary Oliver

Some things, say the wise ones who know everything,
are not living. I say,
You live your life your way and leave me alone.

I have talked with the faint clouds in the sky when they
are afraid of being behind; I have said, Hurry, hurry!
and they have said, Thank you, we are hurrying.

About cows, and starfish, and roses there is no
argument. They die, after all.

But water is a question, so many living things in it,
but what is it itself, living or not? Oh, gleaming

generosity, how can they write you out?

As I think this I am sitting on the sand beside
the harbor. I am holding in my hand
small pieces of granite, pyrite, schist.
Each one, just now, so thoroughly asleep.

The last trip Richard and I took together was to Maine. We sat beside a harbor like the one Mary Oliver captured in this poem. He ate a cinnamon roll that was bigger than his head. I took a picture of our feet with the boats as a background. Richard had burned with a strange and painful fever the night before, but that morning we were 100% living.

At a beach made of smooth pink stones in Acadia National Park, I slipped two small rocks into my pocket. All these years later, those rocks are asleep upstairs in a bowl on the book shelf. A pair of ancient and silent stones that aren’t living and never have been, but when I hold them in my hand, something else comes to life, a memory. A memory of living, a generous time when I lived my life my way and cheered on the clouds. A memory of the days when our life was blindly and blandly about living. A few days after that, Richard was diagnosed with leukemia and our days became consumed with staying alive.

Given the fear and sadness that entered my life on Richard’s last breath, given the hollow fact that Carlos won’t remember his Papa, my Daddy who would have been 75 today…How will I teach Carlos about living? Not just the facts about living, but the giddy joy of living? The living in a world of pink smooth stones, whether we can say if they are igmeous or mectamorphic. The living in a world of roses and starfish that are always going to die, every one of them every time.

I will teach him to love it all. Oh, my dear boy, the easiest way to tell whether something is living is to know that it can die. Love anyway.

18922053_10211322459570270_2852039268482776682_n

Share this post with your circles!

“But, Mom! What about the marshmallows?”

Share this post with your circles!

Share this post with your circles!

Share this post with your circles!

Share this post with your circles!

Share this post with your circles!

Share this post with your circles!

Share this post with your circles!

Vivi, Away

Dancing with Jack

Twilight Rockets

Share this post with your circles!

How do we know if it’s living?

The Thin and Sudden Line Between

Some Things, Say The Wise Ones

Share this post with your circles!