Clarity: The View Through My Window

Most of us, if we’re honest, spend a good amount of our precious time searching for a certain level of clearness, or transparency, in the way we hope to one day see the world.  Life, relationships, our tight-roped walked dreams and holding-our-breath hopes rarely emerge crystallized in our heads after a few downward facing dogs or a twelve hour sleep.

   Let’s face it.  More times than not, we only get a glimpse of the “now”, through a murky, muddled mess.  A smoggy, polluted haze of the wish I could of’s and all of the should’ve been's.

   It’s not like the simple easy first few steps of childhood, the wide-eyed innocence of infancy; a small stride, a crooked grin.  For me, my clarity came in the early movements of my youth; a twirl, an extended arm, a warm palm, my own ballet shoes dancing a top my father’s slippered feet. 

   It’s easy to forget sometimes how wonderful it is to be loved like that. No strings, or what ifs, or what could have been.

   My bay window in my study where I write looks out across the porch. I love it; this shell tabby material thing that belongs to just me.  Maybe because it protrudes from the house on its own, with nothing under it, weightless but sound in structure and intent.  Or maybe it’s because I can see my kitchen and breakfast room table on the other side through another bay window... this one, though, firmly planted on a concrete slab and surrounded by shiny teak.

   But see, it doesn’t matter.  Rain, sun, fog, tears; I can always voyeur into part of my life from the past that belongs in my daughters present now.

   I watch my husband make my daughters laugh…hard….their heads thrown back while their bellies shake.  I see them deep in concentration over a math equation, a bad day, or maybe just trying to decide what snack to eat.

   I smile as I see his hand extend, and they dance without music, chest on cheek… and I can’t help but think…..

  How wonderful it is to be loved like that.

  Happy Father’s Day.

Trophy Wife

Lucas Glover- 2009 US Open Champ

“What’s the meaning of this?”  I asked my husband as I balanced his cell in one hand, stirred the burnt spaghetti sauce with the other, and tried to keep the cat off the counter with my foot.  Speaking of cats, that’s exactly what my husband looked like, a very sneaky cat that had just swallowed a very big canary.

“What?  Are you snooping through my phone?” He snatched it out of my hand, at least freeing it up so I could scrub my hands with a healthy dose of Dawn and a bucket of hot water.  I felt dirty.

You asked me to look up a number,” I replied.  “Trust me, that picture of you is the last thing I want seared in my memory!”

“So what’s for dinner?”  He leaned in over the sink to give me a kiss, trying to change the subject---like that was ever going to happen.

“Sorry, but you’re not going to be getting any for ten days, or at least whatever the incubation period is for the Swine flu, or H.flu or whatever nasty disease that thing might be carrying.”  I turned off the faucet and took a few steps back.

“But, baby, it’s the US Open trophy!  What was I supposed to do to it?”

“Certainly not kiss the thing!”  At this point, I’m scrambling through the drawers looking for my Echinacea pills.  “Do you even know where it’s been?”

“I wasn’t the only one who did it!” he whined.

 “That’s exactly my point!”

Now, I mean no offense to Lucas Glover, who won the trophy fair and square and was nice enough to bring it over to my husband’s golf club for a few weeks.  He seems like a really great guy and I’m real proud of him, but even he wouldn’t have kissed that thing until they cleaned it, inscribed his name on it, cleaned it again before delivering it to the eighteenth green with white gloved hands.  Since then, who the heck knows how many lips have touched it.

If it isn’t obvious by now, I’m a germaphobe. 

There I said it.  It’s not something I am proud of, but I’m certainly not ashamed of either.  Case in point, there was this exchange with the waiter when I dined with my kid’s at Applebee’s after a Wal-Mart run not too long ago.

“Someone smells great,” the waiter exclaimed after I order an Oriental chicken salad, a basket of chicken fingers and an order of French Onion soup without onions, or cheese, or bread for my eight year old, who’s like Sally from the movie When Harry Met Sally.  So basically, I ordered a six dollar bowl of broth.

“Thanks,” I told him, handing him back the menus. “It’s my hand sanitizer.  Purell has a new one that just came out in Cucumber Melon.”  I swear he rolled his eyes.

But ya’ll tell me, who wouldn’t grease themselves and their loved ones with a few dozen coats of heavy anti-bacterial gel after leaving, along with 20,000 other people that day, THE great American superstore.  I always say the only way I’m going back in is with a tank of oxygen and a bio-hazard suit, but it’s pointless. 

Some day in the future, in a weak moment, I’ll need a garden hose and a box of strawberry cake mix.

But it’s not just that I’m a germaphobe, I’m a Mom.  And unless you’ve ever ran back and forth between bedrooms and the laundry room, washing sheets and towels continuously while two kids are upstairs throwing up at the same time, you shouldn’t judge.  Especially since these kids are little Petri dishes full of thousands of virus and illnesses I can neither spell or treat with 2 tablespoons of Children’s Tylenol.  I know last year alone, we had fifths disease, an ear infection, 2 strep’s, 5 staphs, and a few “mystery” ailments that I’m sure could stump the CDC. 

Take my friend and stylist Kelli, who owns Bayson Salon, has two small children and comes into contact with tons of people every day because she’s so good at her job.  When one of her boy’s came down with Hand, Foot, and Mouth disease, she spent the week reassuring her clients the disease sounds worse than it really is and she wasn’t contagious.  Finally, one client got to the point, held up her hand and put it all in perspective: “Honey, that’s the last of my worries. Have you seen my roots?”

Even I have to agree.  Life goes on.  Hair goes gray that must be covered up, laundry hampers and milk must sometimes be bought at the same time, and children must actually venture outside the house.

 I know we can’t all live in a bubble, but my husband still has four days left before I know we’re out of the woods. 

While we wait, at least he can look at the nice picture of the intimate moment that Lucas Glover was so nice to let him have with the US Open trophy.

Paper Crumbs

 

       I miss notes.

   Not the pastel multi-colored Post-It ones that are scattered all over your desk to remind you of all the things you’d just as soon forget.  Or the notes left on the front door by your Pest Control, Cable, Heating & Air, “Fill in the Blank” guy telling you you’ve missed your appointment….again.  Oh, and I can’t forget about the ones from your kids.  You know, the notes scribbled in neon crayon on your precious computer paper that say things like “you’ve ruined my life” or “if I had my own ATM card and knew how to drive I’d be so out of here.”

  No.  Those are the kind of notes I can live without.

  I’m talking about the notes from my own childhood.  The ones scrawled in blue ball point pen on torn out pieces of notebook paper that were then passed, pitched, or planed with the highest of hopes you wouldn’t get caught.

  Those were the “daze.”

  Evidently, in High School I really liked to write notes.  As I was reading over a few of them again the other night from my old Holly Hobby keep sake box, someone named FODOBC once jotted down “I feel like you live to write notes.”

  FODOBC, you were right.  And my secret hoard of stacks and stacks of them from the 90’s is undeniable proof.

  There is nothing particular juicy contained within their tattered pages, I can promise you that.  They were all about the mundane day to day existence of a teenager:

  “I screwed up the Vocab. Test.  I’m so stupid.  Tomorrow I am going to Applebee’s.”

  “Your brother sounds weird on the phone.  What do you want for Christmas?  I want everything in the world.”

  “I guess I’ll tell you what is bothering me.  It’s going to be straight to the point.  I like you a lot and you don’t like me.”

  “I watched some after school special called “Sometimes I Don’t Like My Mother.”  It’s pretty good.”

  Kind of sums it all up, doesn’t?  The insecurities of youth; the weirdness of family and how you feel about yourself; not yet understanding your parents had to actually parent in the most difficult of times and not be your friend; and the naivety of not knowing that one day….all of those things you wanted so desperately…. you will never really need.

  I read something the other day.  I’m not sure who wrote it but it made me pause and think.  It went something like this: “Don’t not go where the path may lead.  Go instead where there is no path and lead a trail.”

  Yes, it’s a grand thought.   The world needs more trailblazers; more individuals and free thinkers.  But if each one of us is different, a one-of-a-kind and our own life unique, then we are all trailblazers by birth making our own personal and particular path through life.  The questions is then- how do you mark your trail, carve your initials into the root of it, and leave something behind to show you were there in the trenches slowly making your way towards the light?

  Paper crumbs.

  Every journal, note, scrap, torn piece of paper tells a story of where we have been and where we would like to go.

  And least that’s what I like to think.  But I am old…fashioned, that is.

  I feel sorry for our children.  They live in a new world of 130 character Tweets, abbreviated slanged texts, and a paperless trail of thoughts and emotions sent out in the big, black void of cyber-space; a scary place where you never know who will end up seeing your most sacred wishes.

  Not-to-mention, their vernacular looks like battle code for a nuclear submarine.

  NAGI- Not a good idea.

  J4F= Just for fun.

  JSYK- Just so you know.

  IKR- I know, right?

  FTF- Face to Face.

  4EAE- Forever and Ever.

  The Pew Internet & American Life Project recently reported that texting is ranked as the number one mode of communication with the 12- 17 set, with a median average of 60 texts a day. 

  Why is there a constant need to be in touch with someone, everyone these days when you really don’t even have anything to say?

  “What R U doin”

  “Nothin U”

  What happened to appropriate distances of space and time, to looking forward to the moment when you could actually formulate a whole sentence and an entire thought- let alone, spell out the words “you” and “are” and put pen to paper?

  I know, I know.   It’s fast and it’s easy. 

  I just hope they realize 4EAE might stand for forever and ever, but it doesn’t represent it.

  Forever and ever symbolizes your word, your honesty, and your character that you’ll spread like seeds as you blaze your way through your individual path of life.

  I just hope our children learn to leave the right kind of crumbs so everyone will know who they sincerely are.  Not just some quick and easy abbreviated version of their true selves.

  Write on, my future trail blazers.  Write on.

C is for Camping

It’s also for clueless, confused and downright crazy.  And for this Southern girl, one has to incorporate all of the above in order to put one foot inside a giant, netted, bustling insect hive (which some people call a tent) and the other foot in a sorry sack of zippered up flimsy fabric meant for you to lay down on and slumber (you know, some call it a sleeping bag.) 

Now, I have been on many a camping trip, but I will fess up and tell you I don’t remember much about any of them.  It’s called denial. To this very day, my brother and I are unable to even talk about or process what took place inside a pop-up tent we spent with our parents for two weeks in Yellowstone one summer when we were in elementary school back in Texas.

Not having TV, hot water, and sharing twelve feet of space and a collapsible potty with three other humans, a few frogs, a family of squirrels, and a hungry bear who was fascinated with our revolving dinner table-slash-bed, does that to some people.

My husband loves to camp.  And it’s one of the things I love about him.  He keeps me guessing. 

As in why would a grown man, squish himself between a formation inside the earth called “Pancake Rock”, repel down the inside of a 30 foot deep cave, then set up camp next to a slab of rock covered in guano?

Now, that’s bat poop for all of you indoorsy types.

Beats me. 

But y’all, now that I have children, I am starting to get scared.  Not that my hair will turn grey, my back will permanently ache and I will no longer remember my name by the time I can have the bathroom to myself.  No.  I am tougher than a two dollar steak when it comes to most things, but sometimes I do get a little shaky at the possibility of hearing three dreaded words announced at the supper table: Family.  Camping. And Trip.

So far though, I have been doing a pretty good job of heading it off at the pass or before the insect repellent and collapsible fishing rods to catch our only dinner make it into hiking packs, if you know what I mean?

It’s all about another “C” word that most people really rely on for their own sanity.  It’s called comfort.  And if you provide it, they will come….or stay home…….depending on how you think of it.

So, fellow non- camping moms, heed my advice.  It only takes ten minutes to set up a tent in the den with some funky quilts and a dozen squishy, soft pillows, put a few triple A’s in the mini flashlights, download a few Gothic Southern ghost stories and broil a few s’mores in the oven. Oh…..and break-up a few dozen glow sticks to coat the inside of a couple of Mason jars to look like fireflies at night.

While it takes 6 hours to drive, 4 miles to hike, 3,000 calories and 2 boxes of granola bars to make it to a camp ground inside the middle nowhere that upon arrival you’ll have to hang your food from a tree and pray it doesn’t rain. 

Instead, here are a few tricks for providing the ultimate, elevated camping experience in your very own abode.   Just think of all of the bug bites, blisters, and doctor bills you’ll avoid by staying home in comfort and in style.

 

Tomato Bacon Bisque with “Camp Crackers” and  Oven Broiled S’mores

This is my foodie representation of grilled cheese and tomato soup that I like to serve “camped out” in the den with my family on a summer week-end movie night (think Stand by Me, Caddy Shack, the Great Outdoors, National Lampoons Vacation, On Golden Pond).  It has taken me over a year to perfect my bisque but it was worth every slip of the serrated knife and burn of the boiled over cream.  I do have to confess I borrowed the camp cracker recipe from one of my favorite New England restaurants The Common Man’s Camp.  Click here to make these yummy gorgonzola cheese slices of heaven below, and like they do up there in Meredith, New Hampshire, slice the pita bread into tiny pizza triangles and place on a long wooden cutting board sprinkled with green scallions and then serve family style-genius.

For the Tomato Bacon Bisque, you’ll need the following but, by the way, I ALWAYS double the recipe. It’s that good:

4 cups of peeled and diced fresh tomatoes; salted to taste (or the canned kind depending on the season)

2 cups chicken broth (or if you have time, it’s always better to make your own-  sauté some butter, onions, carrot and celery, add an already cooked, rotisserie chicken and 2 cups of canned chicken broth(how is that for irony) over boiling water for 30 minutes and then strain chicken and veggies to make your own stock.)  Unless, you have absolutely nothing else in the world to do- I suggest canned chicken broth.

¼ cup of real butter (depending on the state of your arteries)

1 clove minced garlic

8-10 pieces Peppered Bacon (alright, you’re all in now…might as well go for it)

1 small, finely chopped onion

2 cups whipping/heavy cream or half & half (tried them all and they all work-your preference)

 

Cook bacon in oven on 400 for 10-12 minutes until crisp.

Meanwhile, sauté butter, onion, and garlic in soup pot over medium high heat until tender.

Add diced tomatoes, chicken broth and cooked bacon to soup pot.

Simmer for one hour.

Next warm cream in separate pan, careful not to overheat. Now, you have to pretty much stir constantly, and like over the home-made chicken stock and pot of tomatoes-you have will absolutely nothing better to do than enjoy a good book (one of my favorites The Forgotten Garden or The Lake of Dead Languages) and a hefty glass of Pinot.

Add cream to the tomato mixture then transfer to blender or food processor; blend well.

Serve immediately with camp crackers.

Oven Baked S'Mores are just as easy.

Oh...and here is My Kind of Camping Pinterest board for all sorts of inspiration.

The only thing left for y’all to do is read my story, A Diary of a Sleepover, on my website.  Especially, if you’re letting your kids invite a few friends over for the campout fun.  It’s your need-to-know Sleepover Survival Guide.  Have a great night and don’t let the bedbugs bite!  Much love and high hopes for all sorts of pseudo outdoor fun, Laura.

 

Previously published on thesouthernc where I am a contributing writer.