Tag Archives: gifts

The Door Mat

I’ve been thinking about divorce for the last few days.  Settle down, settle down–I’ve been thinking about the one I ALREADY had 10+ years ago.  (Not the one I’m gonna have if someone doesn’t get to the bottom of that sink full of dirty dishes, but that’s a different story for another day.)  

If March is the month that holds a lot of memories of my time with Richard, April is the month that reeks of Fartbuster.    We had an April wedding.  Five years after that, he moved out on April Fools Day.  We signed the divorce papers on the day after what would have been our sixth wedding anniversary.  Oh, and I found out all about his pregnant girlfriend in April, too.  Another story for another day.

eliot meme

This is not Fartbuster. This is T.S. Eliot.

Isn’t it odd that one of my earliest fond memories of him, when we had only been dating a few months, was from a long drive–he read “The Wasteland” to me?  For those of you who went to college in profitable fields, that’s the T.S. Eliot poem with the famous opening lines: “April is the cruelest month, breeding/Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing/Memory and desire, stirring/Dull roots with spring rain.”  After that trip, he gave me his collection of Eliot poems, even crossed through his name on the inside of the front cover and wrote mine below it.

I’ve got a lot of stories about that marriage (The Engagement Fart), some of which I’ve never written down before.  Like the time I found myself living out the biggest cliche in the book–the night he came home from “working late” with actual lipstick on his collar.  I went to give him a hug and couldn’t NOT see it right there in front of my face.  My whole body went cold and tingly.  I hesitated for a few seconds–TRYING to summon up the strength to explain it away for him before he had to–when my sane brain took over and blurted out, “Is that LIPSTICK?”  He hemmed and hawed then said it must have happened when he gave  a secretary who was quitting a goodbye hug.  I could have accepted that; I could have swallowed the lie.  Instead I said, “That’s hard to believe.”  He froze for a good 20 seconds then admitted that “it was just dinner.”  OH, OK!!!  Psshew!  I thought it was something objectionable!  It’s funny now to recall that my first thought on registering that it was lipstick was that it was a frosty pink color and I couldn’t get past the TACKY.  Jesus, if you’re going to cheat at least pick someone who doesn’t wear Bonnie Belle Lipsmackers.

That was a long night.  We fought it out and hugged it out, I swore a lot and he swore he would change….blah, my hands are tired from just the typing of it.  The next day, I called in sick to work so I could spend a few hours staring out the window and trying to remember how to breathe.  I got it together.  I did the laundry.  I even washed his shirt for him.  The whole time I had that Cowboy Junkies song, “Southern Rain,” going through my mind because there’s a line in it that goes, “Every night there’s lipstick on his collar and every morning I wash it away.”

When Fartbuster came home that evening, he came bearing gifts.  As one does, naturally.  Try to guess what he got me!  A nice pair of “sorry I dated someone other than my wife” diamond earrings?  Nope.  Two tickets to a romantic second honeymoon?  Nuh-uh.  A bouquet of flowers from Kroger at the very least?  Not so much.

eclectic-doormatsA doormat.  The man bought me a DOORMAT.  We had two dachshunds so he bought me a novelty doormat that said “A spoiled rotten dachshund lives here!”  Because if you’ve cheated on your wife, you need to high-tail it to Spencer’s Gifts in the mall to make it up to her.

Here’s my point in telling all this–people will show you who they are.  They will show you what they think of you.  When they do, BELIEVE THEM.  Don’t give any credit to what they SAY, only to what they DO.  I spent a year after this betrayal trying to swallow his bullshit about how much he loved me.  There were many tearful scenes on his part, many professions of fidelity and adoration.  He said, “I want to move back home because I’ve learned that home is wherever you are.”  That was all in the SAY column.  In the DO column?  A doormat.  An apartment in town.  A girlfriend.  Then another one.

If I had wadded up that doormat and shoved it down his throat, then punched him in the gut until he spit it back out, THEN stuck it in his zipper and lit it on fire, I think a jury of other women would have found me not guilty AND given me the Miss Congeniality prize.  

I tell you what–I kept that doormat.  I moved it from our house to my house, to another my house, to another our house, which became another my house then turned back into an our house.  The dachshunds died years ago but that doormat is still in the garage.  Every time I look at it, I remember “When people show you who they are, believe them.”  Then I usually mumble, “Dumbass.”  For the first few years after I figured it all out, I was thinking of myself when I added, “Dumbass,”  Like it was my fault for not seeing through him sooner.  “When people show you who they are, believe them, Dumbass.”  But now that I’ve done the work to get more whole, I can see that his shortcomings were all about him and not anything I was supposed to fix.  I was thinking about the woman who stayed silent while a cheating man gave her a doormat.  Now I say it when I’m thinking about the man who thought that was good enough for me.  Dumbass.  

be nice doormat

The doormat I bought for MY house.

 

If you liked this post, share it with your friends!  Spread the word about doormats and dumbasses.

If You Walk Out of Your Panties…

Yesterday, I shared with you some sage advice about fools from my father’s side of the family.  Today, let’s turn to my mother’s side of the family.  I’d like to share a nugget of advice that my Grandmama Irene told me 30 years ago that I have never forgotten:

“If you ever walk out of your panties, just keep walking.”

 

“Come again?” you might ask, as you clutch your pearls and lean in across your chicken salad plate.  Honey, you heard me.  I don’t stutter and your ears don’t flap.  If you ever walk out of your panties, just keep walking.

Grandmama Irene is 94 and has amassed a wealth of great advice over her years.  I think of her whenever I make a big breakfast because she always said, “Breakfast is the hardest meal of the day to get everything hot at the right time.”  Or when I’m cooking a big meal–“Wash pots as you go along and you won’t have such a mess when you’re finished.”  If it’s too humid, I don’t make divinity candy because she taught me that candy just won’t set if there’s too much moisture in the air.  (Well, to be honest, I’ve never made divinity because it’s too damn hard, but I know to BLAME IT  on the humidity.)  On budgetary matters, I hear Grandmama saying, “Pay your bills THEN buy your groceries.”  She’s right–you can always eat beans if the power bill was high that month.

But no advice compares to the jewel in the crown:  If you ever walk out of your panties, just keep walking.  I think I love this piece of advice so much because it came out of the clear blue.  It’s not like I was walking along with Grandmama Irene when my panties tangled up around my feet and she saved the day with sage advice.  Nope.  We were just puttering around the kitchen, probably cleaning up after a holiday meal, when she grabbed my wrist and said with a great sense of urgency, “Oh!  Ashley!  If you ever walk out of your panties (finger pointing for emphasis), just.keep.walking.”

She was born in 1918, in an age when elastic was…less dependable.  Now, I’m not one to reveal specifics about how this life lesson was learned, but back in the 1940’s on a lovely summer day, a lady might have found herself walking in downtown Atlanta, right past Rich’s department store, when her elastic decided to head south.  Should one find oneself on a sidewalk in a metropolitan area when one detects a certain “breeziness” in her skirt, one must NOT attempt to retrieve said underthings.  LET THEM GO.  Keep walking.  To quote a more modern sage, Obi-wan Kenobi:  “Those are not the panties you are looking for.”  Once they head south, they are no longer your panties and you will compromise your dignity if you stoop to pick them up.  They are feral panties at that point and belong to the street.

Keep Moving! Nothing to see here!

Keep Moving! Nothing to see here!

Why do I share this advice with you today?  Because as I was walking through the parking lot at work this morning, I see a bright pink pair of cotton panties lying right there on the asphalt.  

Someone’s mama has raised her right.  I bet you a dollar those panties are still there at 5pm today.  

If you’re thinking, “That’s good advice, but it’s never going to apply to me.”  Maybe not, but let’s take it from the specific panty-dropping probability and take a more metaphorical perspective.  Just think of the life situations where this applies!

  • Do you have a cheating husband?  Girl, he has walked out of your panties, so just keep walking.
  • Have you been eating right and exercising?  Hey!  You walked out of your panties!  Keep walking!
  • Are you breaking free of the bonds of appropriateness and embracing authenticity?  Sister, it’s time to walk out of those panties.
  • Is it time to leave the past behind?  Walk out of your panties and keeeeeeeep walking.

Not everyone is lucky enough to have a Grandmama Irene, so PLEASE share this advice with everyone you know!  Keep it breezy!

 

gi and vivi

P.S.  Some of you have asked for a photo of Grandmama Irene herself.  Here she is at Vivi’s first birthday luau, talking about cake.  She has been famous for her homemade cakes for half a century!  

Keep Looking

gold eggAt least once in our lives, we all deserve to find the golden egg.  Whatever it is for you–a place of peace, a true friend, a story to tell, a community, forgiveness, love, sobriety, calm, true north, delight–I hope you find the golden egg.  If you don’t find it today, keep looking.

Back when I was the spinster aunt, I volunteered to orchestrate an egg hunt for the kids.  The first year, when it was just Jackson, it was easy–we hid the same 12 eggs for an hour.  Every time he toddled over with one, we’d sling it back in the grass as soon as he turned his back.  He’d find it again with just as much delight as the first time.

One year, I did a hunt for Grant and Jake when their family invited me to the mountains for Easter weekend.  Their mom asked me not to go crazy with the candy, so I filled their eggs with coins…they walked away with a low-fat, sugar free $50!

Once you own 200+ plastic eggs, you get to do the egg hunt every year.  I love doing it.  Nana and Papa have a magical yard (that comes from the “magic” of 25+ years of labor) filled with hidey holes, lush grass and blooming fruit trees.  Every summer, Daddy tills up a couple of especially well-hidden eggs when he’s putting in the garden!

As the boys grew older, I decided that EVERYONE deserved to find a gold egg so I bought six.  The rule is, you can only find ONE gold egg, even if you stumble on more than one.  This tradition led to one of my favorite Easter stories a few years ago.

We had already done an easy hunt in the vegetable garden for the little kids.  Then it was time for the five older kids to hunt in the backyard.  The parents fanned out to hide the eggs and I hid five gold eggs in really hard to find places.  The big kids tore through the yard, filling their baskets with loot.  Jackson struck gold first.  Then Grant.  Then Victoria.  Then Chase.  The eggs were dwindling out and everyone had found a gold one except for Jake, the youngest of the older kids.  We hunted and hunted and hunted.  For the life of me, I couldn’t remember the fifth hiding place.  Poor Jake seemed sad and left out and I hated that for him.  I know what it’s like to be the youngest and I wanted him to find that gold egg.

I was searching in the azaleas behind the pump house in a vain attempt to find that stupid gold egg.  Now, this next part will sound silly but some of you may understand.  When I need a little supernatural boost, I sometimes call on Richard’s spirit (or my Grandmother Eunice or my Pop or any other who might be looking over my shoulder).  So I mumbled under my breath, “Richard, I could use a little help finding this egg.  Please?”

A couple of minutes later, Jake shouts, “I found it!!!”  There he was, holding high a gold egg in a spot where I hadn’t hidden one.  He was BEAMING!  I was gobsmacked.  Where had that egg come from???

Then Jackson and Chase sidled up with big grins on their preteen faces.  Chase whispered, “We took one of our eggs and hid it so Jake could find it.”

I don’t remember if Nana and Papa ever found that fifth gold egg.   I do know that we all found what we were looking for.  Jake got his golden egg.  Jackson and Chase got the chance to do a kindness.  I got to see two sweet boys turn into generous young men.

“Have you thought about what you want to do with the house?”

882452_10200322608460867_1820283952_oThis is an essay I wrote last summer for my Leukemia/Lymphoma Society website.  It’s been stomach bug weekend at our house…so not much time for writing.  Today, Carlos got stuck under the side table in the living room and started yelling “Tuck!  Tuck!”  I thought he was saying “stuck” but he was trying to get this truck.  He loves that toy, probably because it has old fashioned rusty metal and sharp corners.  Enjoy!  

“Have you thought about what you want to do with the house?”

That’s the question Richard asked me, one snowy day in the end of February 2005. We were sitting by the window of his room in the Sidney Kimmel Cancer Center. Outside, the low gray sky was filled with huge snowflakes, cartoonish in their size and pure white color. The kind of snow that makes a Georgia girl stare. Richard was writing his last will and testament. His mother was there, relaying changes to the lawyer, and I was trying to stay out of it. But he looked up at me and asked, “Have you thought about what you want to do with the house?” I couldn’t say anything. I couldn’t find words.

Of course I had thought about what I wanted to do with the house. We had made lots of plans. I wanted to see the azaleas that we had planted spring back from that severe pruning he had given them in May. I wanted to find a rug that fit the dining room because the one we bought at that auction was two inches too long. I wanted to take out that cherry tree that was crowding the hemlock, even though it bothered my heart to cut down a cherry tree. I wanted to sit on the deck together, covered in sweat and dirt and contentment and look out over what we had made of this house. I wanted to get rid of that fruit wallpaper in the kitchen. I wanted, I wanted, I wanted.

I had spent nine months watching leukemia take Richard from me—cell by cell, ounce by ounce. He was leaving. Now it wanted my home, too? Did I want to keep our house and rattle around in the memories? Did I want to sell it and start over somewhere else? Did I want to decide now with him or decide later…alone?

He waited for my answer. I fluttered my hands around and made a choking kind of sound when I tried to say all the words and none of the words. I don’t even remember if I made a sentence. He understood what I meant. I’m not sure I knew what I meant, but he got it.

Richard and I stood on that too-big Persian rug with its Tree of Life motif when we married in the backyard of our home. The azaleas bloomed a few weeks after he died. He had been right—the pruning made them flourish. Months later, my brother cut down the cherry tree while I hid inside the house and the hemlock thrives now that it has more room to grow. I sit on the deck sometimes and remember and it is sweet.

Now the wallpaper has fallen! G and I have spent a couple of weeks working on the kitchen—stripping the walls, patching, spackling, scrubbing. The other day, some magic people arrived in a big truck and swapped out the countertops, put in a sleek cook top and installed a sink that gleams. After they left, that question popped into my head and has been dogging me for days—“Have you thought about what you want to do with the house?”

I certainly never thought, on that snowy and empty day, that I would do THIS with the house. I hadn’t thought that every bedroom would be filled with sleeping kids. I hadn’t thought that the living room would look like a Fisher Price showroom after an attack by Godzilla. I hadn’t thought about how the downstairs is perfect for a teenager suite. I hadn’t thought about a gingko for the backyard, but G gave me one for my 40th birthday. I hadn’t thought I would have a son born on a silent, snowy morning.

Richard gave me many gifts, but the dearest one is my home. It was our home, then it was my home, now it is my family’s home. His picture is in the living room. Shells he picked up on the beach in Panama when he was a boy line the bathroom window. G found a gizmo when we were working in the kitchen and we figured out that it was a wonton dumpling press and it must have belonged to Richard, who could make a mean pot sticker. Carlos has discovered Richard’s old Tonka fire truck. He flips it upside down and spins the wheels around and around.  Around and around and around.

The Engagement Fart

600px-Fart.svgOK, OK.  I’ve spent most of this week plugging away at the inspirational posts about authenticity and embracing YES and making yourself into the positive person you desire to become.  Enough!  Let’s get back to the REAL reason for this blog–fart jokes.

I’ve mentioned Fartbuster before (aka my first husband, starter husband, ex-husband, waste of my 20’s, etc).  He wasn’t known for his farting or anything; my dad dubbed him Fartbuster after the divorce to sum up his utter uselessness in regards to what he had contributed to my life–a lot of hot air and a generalized unpleasant stink that dissipated pretty quickly.  Ten years of my life–broken like the wind.  Pffffft.

We had been together for about four years when we decided to marry.  There was no official proposal.  Our decision to get married was made over chicken quesadillas on a Tuesday night.  It was more of a, “We could get married.  I guess?  Pass the salsa.  Yeah, OK” kind of magic moment.  Bwahahaha….my spellchecker just suggested “peccadilloes” instead of “quesadillas.”  If only, word processing gods, if only.

I was tasked with picking out my own ring, because, y’know…it was so much trouble.  Meh.  I found one I loved and we ordered it from a guy I knew.  I didn’t know how long it would take to make, so I wasn’t really looking for it anytime specific.  Romance just oooooozes from this story, right???  Ours was a passion built on discounted Mexican food.

A few weeks later, we went away for a quick weekend trip to Chattanooga.  Fartbuster was acting stranger than usual.  Shady.  We got to town late in the afternoon and still hadn’t had lunch, so I was antsy as hell to go find food but he kept making dumb reasons to go back to the hotel room.  He told me to go to the car to look for a book.  I told him it could wait.  He suggested I go fill up the ice bucket.  I pointed out that it would be melted by the time we got back to the room.  The problem was that he had the ring hidden in his suitcase and was trying to get it in his pocket so he could surprise me.  I was the monkey wench in that plan.  We went to the aquarium and didn’t get engaged.  We went to Rock City and didn’t get engaged at Lover’s Leap.  We went to dinner and didn’t get engaged.

When we got back to the hotel, Fartbuster turned on the TV to veg out.  I took a shower.  While I was brushing my teeth, I could feel him acting weird again.  He was lying on the bed just looking at me.  “Waaaaht?” I asked, through a mouthful of foam.  He didn’t say anything.  I wore glasses back then and didn’t have them on, so this was all a blur.  I shrugged and turned back to the sink.  I spat, put my glasses on, and came to bed.

There on my pillow sat a gray velvet box.  That’s what he had been acting all goofy about.  I squealed and took out the ring.  It was perfect–heavy gold band with an emerald center stone and diamonds all around.  I loved it and I loved him and all was right with the world.  Of  course, I did say, “Wait!!!!  We can’t do this!!  People are going to ask where you proposed and I have to say, ‘in bed!’  That is so trashy!”

We laughed together and enjoyed our sweet moment, but it had been a long day.  He went back to watching TV and I rolled over to admire the ring twinkling in the lamplight.  After a while, I fell asleep.

And then.  Well.

Have you ever farted so loud that you WOKE YOURSELF UP?  I have.  I did.  Right then.  Blame it on excitement, travel, fried chicken, nerves…what have you.  But seriously, the first thing I knew, I was jarred awake by a megaton explosion of fart.  KAPOW.  Then I realized it was ME.  Like any proper Southern lady, I played possum.  I lay perfectly still, hoping that he was asleep and hadn’t heard a thing.  For a good five seconds, I thought I had gotten away with it.

Then he shouted, “Good GOD, woman!  Give me back that ring!”

Old Fartbuster had his moments.

Panning for Kindness Atop Lookout Mountain

Gems--the girls and the stones that we found.

Pure T Gems–the girls and the stones that we found.

We ran to Chattanooga this weekend to try to rescue what was left of Spring Break from the clutches of BlarghFest ’13.  Today, atop Lookout Mountain, I found that opportunity to do a kindness for a stranger in memory of Richard.

Ruby Falls was the big destination for today–we’re kinda cave geeks in this family.  After the journey into the depths of the cave to see the majesty of an underground waterfall (totally worth the hike and the price), we took the kids up to the rooftop play area to get some wiggles out before the drive home.  Vivi ran straight for the play ground with Carlos toddling right behind.  He stalled out at the staircase and just as I had scooped him up, a young girl came barreling down the steps and ran into us.  She apologized and I told her we were fine.  Then she stood up really straight and added, “Be cautious at the top of the steps–it’s slippery.”  Her demeanor and sincerity impressed me.  Then I noticed her bright yellow Girl Scout t-shirt.  No wonder!

I hovered over the kids for a while then sat down in the gemstone panning area to enjoy the cool breeze and the burble of the dirty water sloshing through the troughs.  The same girl appeared again with two of her friends.  They were searching the wire trays for chips of stone that other people had left behind.  Her friends lost interest and wandered off, but she found delight in the smallest chips of quartz and calcite.  I was sitting near the gemstone identification poster, so our paths crossed again.  She asked my opinion on a couple of discoveries so we talked rocks for a while.  She told me her grandfather sometimes finds arrowheads on the farm.  Except she said, “air-a-heads.”

Her troop was from Forsyth, Georgia.  They had driven six hours to get to Chattanooga.  Then she totally put me under her spell when she said, “Really!  It’s the TRIP OF A LIFETIME!”  A gleeful traveler, nine years old!  A girl finding beauty in things that others discarded as “not pretty enough.”  Her fist was getting full with all the lovely chips of treasure that she had found on her trip of a lifetime.  I told her they had bags inside to hold the stones but she looked skeptical when I said “gift shop,” as if she had already been told that it was off limits.  We parted ways again.

Vivi asked if we could search for stones.  I went into the gift shop and bought the $10 bag of dirt and got 3 little “treasure” bags for the discoveries.  When we were getting set up, the Girl Scout was still searching for chips but stopped to listen to me as I showed Vivi how to wash away the dirt and uncover the gemstones.  And that’s when I felt Richard tap me on the shoulder.  I invited the girl to join us and for five minutes–until the dirt ran out–the three of us ooohed and aaaahed over the riches we discovered.  I gave her a treasure bag for her chips and for the stones that she had found.  She said, “Thank you–that was really nice,” and I answered “My pleasure–I think Girl Scouts are cool.”

Love Is Not All

The early morning hours of March 16th were some of the hardest, loneliest I’ve ever faced.  I’m not going to share exactly what was happening–that’s too intimate–but suffice to say that I was trying to keep my beloved on the life raft in the midst of a stormy sea.

Richard was restless and not in this reality.  I talked him back to this world several times and tried to get him to sleep.  I thought he would be safest if he stayed in our bed.  The bed became like a life raft, a small safe square.  I was bone weary, but slept diagonally across the bed so that I could feel if he moved.  I slept with my hand holding his wrist and the instant my hand grasped his, I remembered two things:  Theodore Gericault’s painting, “The Raft of the Medusa”:

Jean Louis Théodore Géricault, "The Raft of the Medusa" 1818, via Wikimedia Commons

Jean Louis Théodore Géricault, “The Raft of the Medusa” 1818, via Wikimedia Commons

and Edna St. Vincent Millay’s “Sonnet XXX”:

Love is not all: it is not meat nor drink
Nor slumber nor a roof against the rain;
Nor yet a floating spar to men that sink
And rise and sink and rise and sink again;
Love can not fill the thickened lung with breath,
Nor clean the blood, nor set the fractured bone;
Yet many a man is making friends with death
Even as I speak, for lack of love alone.
It well may be that in a difficult hour,
Pinned down by pain and moaning for release,
Or nagged by want past resolution’s power,
I might be driven to sell your love for peace,
Or trade the memory of this night for food.
It well may be. I do not think I would.

I recalled the painting because of its despair, panic, confusion.  It was in one of the art books I had as a small child and the image has never left me.  When I got to college and took art history, I learned the story behind the scene.  One hundred and fifty desperate people, clinging to a rickety raft after their ship was lost off Mauritania.  They endured two weeks in the open ocean and faced starvation and madness.  Some resorted to cannibalism.  Only fourteen survived.  Even as a child looking at Gericault’s painting, I understood the horror of the situation.  My college professor was the first one to point out to me the tiny ship on the horizon.  Every fiber of effort on the raft is focused on reaching for the hope of the distant ship.  A life raft, filled with death and madness all around, but a single dot of hope so far out on the horizon.  This is the image that came to my mind as I clung to Richard’s wrist, in the dark, on our life raft.

Along with the image of the raft came Millay’s line “Nor yet a floating spar to men that sink/And rise and sink and rise and sink again.” Just a few weeks earlier, I had been thumbing through a poetry anthology in search of something to read at our wedding.  This poem was about love in its most steadfast form, but I couldn’t bring myself to say the line about “Love can not fill the thickened lung with breath,/Nor clean the blood.”  I couldn’t say it.  We had tried everything to clean his blood and every science betrayed us.  But the poem came back to me that night with its image of the spar, the wood we drowning folks cling to in order to rise, even though we may sink again.

Loving someone is hard.  Loving someone as they die is hard.  Some people walk away–“I might be driven to sell your love for peace.”  I did not.  I would not trade the memory of that night.  I know I would not.