Mamma Mia

 

I finally figured out what I want to be when I grow up.

It only took me four decades, 11 moves, 5 states, 5 years of college, 1 husband, and 2 kids to do it. 

I want to be an Italian grandmother.

I know, I know. No need to state the obvious, since I am not Italian, nor I’m I married to one.  And genealogically speaking, on both sides, I’m as English as English comes; but I still can’t stomach stout filled pints, Prims, or pies with organ meat stuffed into to them.  I don’t like rain, trench coats, royal watching, fog, or those ridiculous fascinator’s English people wear to weddings. 

What I do love are figs, capers, rich cheeses, wine, sundresses and three hour lunches.  I like to move, not with great purpose to get somewhere, but with great curiosity to find the purpose in the commonplace.

            Sometimes, in the evenings, when I am taking a can opener to a 14 ounce of Hunt’s stewed tomatoes and snapping my Winn Dixie brand spaghetti in half so it’ll fit in the pot while listening to the sounds of doors slamming and pre-teen fighting, I can’t help but yearn for the salty taste of paper thin prosciutto, the heady smell of orange blossoms, and the sweet sound of children’s laughter.

            On occasion, I will spend an entire Sunday in the kitchen nurturing my fantasy.  I will simmer my sweated pearl onions in garlic and white wine sauce for an hour before I even toss them into my homemade tomato sauce that’s been slowly bubbling since dawn.  I will cut, with love and military precision, my own tagliolini made from dough of farm fresh eggs, organic flour, and the finest of virgin olive oil. It will not matter when I sit down with family and friends at our outdoor table draped in heirloom linens and lined with tea candles and carafes of Chianti when someone salts the food before they taste it.  I will not be deterred when someone proclaims they hate tomatoes and then asks for ketchup.  And even after one of my angels refuses sauce on top of her pasta then politely declines to eat it because it resembles snot, I will smile over my wine and think of lemon trees, wandering goats, sea salted breezes, and olive groves.

 

I will simply image a time and place where my children will bring their children and their friends and their children over every Sunday.  I will rise early, feed the chickens, pick the tomatoes off the vine, stir my eight hour Ragu and decant the red table wine from an earthen jug outside in the garden.  We will dine for hours under the shade of an old cypress tree on fresh cheeses, mussels, figs and berries.  There will be no iPads, Dsi’s or shouts for extra TV time; only kissed cheeks, salutes, and everyone calling me “Mamma.”  Because we will eat, we will drink, we will tell stories, and we will be grateful for all that we have; the simple pleasures and, of course, each other.

 

An old lady can dream, right? 

           

And it will not bother me aging and weathering in the salty air of the mediterrean sea like an aged grape- nope, not in the slightest, since we cannot all look like Sophia Loren- the deep wrinkles, the course gray hair, the unending aches and the pains of tending to a lifetime of lush gardens because I will have lived la dolce vita- the good life.

            Y’all may be wondering about now why and when I came to this epiphany after all these year?  Why I suddenly figured out what I wanted to be and how I would like to grow old.  Most people fantasize about writing a novel, climbing the world’s largest mountains, traveling to outer space or discovery something unknown and new and life altering- a cure for cancer, the fountain of youth.  But to aspire to become an Italian grandma?  Why in the world-and how, exactly- does someone hope to become that?

            It was simple, really, like any great meal; a few ingredients tended with love.  It just happened to occur one morning over a crock pot where I usually threw them all in and hoped for the best.  And what I got out of this magic post-war invention that saves time, money, and energy, was usually pretty darn good.  And I felt I sense of accomplishment; coming home, removing the lid, and dishing something out. 

But like life, easy isn’t always best.  Simplicity, yes.  But short cuts? No.  Because there is so much you miss in between. 

There is an old saying in Italy that goes something like this: A tavola non si invecchia.  At a table with good friends and family, you do not become old.

Italian grandmother or not, I wholly concur.

Buon Appetito! Let’s all take the time and enjoy the simple pleasures that come from enjoying the meal of life.

No Pain, No Gain

I am allergic to exercise.

Much like I am to prop planes, parallel parking and potted meat.

At the mere mention of the word, I starting sweating buckets without raising my heart rate and silently, but with great purpose, start making excuses for myself.

I am too tired.

I cannot breathe out of my left nostril and my right big toe aches.

I have nothing to wear.

Now is the time I really must re-organize my spice drawer.

People will tell you, even those know- it -all’s at the Mayo Clinic, that not only is exercising good for your health but it’s also good old fashion fun.

I don’t know that engaging in pain producing procedures on purpose is a whole heck of a lot of fun.

The same can’t be said about root canals, flu shots, or accidently rubbing your eye after peeling a jalapeno pepper, can it?

There is nothing fun about pain, it just hurts.

But maybe that’s just me.

See, some of my good friends – who seem perfectly sane to me- love, and I mean LOVE, flipping gigantic tractor tires on the beach on their days off and running across the Sydney Lanier Bridge with a backpack full of 30 lb bricks after Sunday service.

I just don’t get it.  But then it hit me like 200 lb weight on a 40 lb bar.  In the name of journalistic integrity, if I am going to write about this whole exercise thing and call it a swindle then I’m going to need to walk the walk, talk the talk, and put my butt in my black yoga pants and my feet inside my barely worn sneakers.

No pain, no gain, right?  And what do they say about getting and staying motivated to hit the gym?  I really didn’t know, so I Googled it and all signs point towards talking somebody else in to experiencing the same torture treatment and high risk for injury as your about to do yourself.

With nothing to lose except pounds and properly functioning ligaments, I immediately texted Alicia (she hasn’t answered her phone since 2007) and she texted back she was game.  Plus, it’ll give of something else funny to talk about over bread, pasta and wine at Tramicis.

If we start now, in January, she reasoned, maybe we would be looking pretty darn good come swimsuit season this spring.  I have long ago given up that childish notion.  All I want to do is get rid of that second roll of fat under my arms so I look decent in a tank top and, while giving directions, one of my triceps doesn’t jiggle and wiggle to some imaginary beat.  

But then came the hard part.  What method of distributing pain and suffering should we pick since there are hundreds of ways to suffer.   Kick boxing, Pilates, circuit training, boot camps, P90X, Barre….the list is endless.  But since we were talking about this very topic last Saturday afternoon on her back porch and our friend Tygh, owner and a trainer at CrossFit Saint Simons, dropped by to say hello, we took a leap of faith and told him to sign us up.  How easy was that, we told each other?  We didn’t even have to lift a pen, phone, or finger.

Fast forward two days later.

I see stairs and I cry, y’all.

Actually, it’s not just stairs, but chairs, couches and toilet seats.   After 50 air squats and 19 burpees…..alright that was Alicia…after 25 air squats and 4 burpees, how in world can I make it back up to an upright position when I can barely sit down?

I texted Alicia the next morning and asked her how she was feeling.

“I couldn’t bend down to tie David’s shoes, and when I finally did, it took me 2 minutes to get to the floor and now my armpits hurt when I wash my hands.  You?”

“I felt ok when I woke up, then sat down to pee.  I had to call out for the girls to help me get back up.  I think their life just flashed before their eyes and are now calling around about long term elderly care insurance for me and their father as we speak.”

I almost didn’t go, if truth be told.  I woke up that first day like it was the first day of school; all butterflies and nervous energy.  I even drove past the place (it’s next to Ace Garden Center*) like I was heading to McDonalds, not a 40 by 40 foot box of agony and distress.  Maybe this is the universe telling me something?  Maybe I am to have an Egg McMuffin and side of Hot Cakes with maple syrup and go back to bed.  But then I remembered something about Alicia saying she would kill me or some such nonsense so I turned around with my Smart Water and 5 calories mint and went inside the blessed thing.

I was scared just walking in.

“Don’t be scared,” Fain, my instructor told me.

I can’t help it.  I wear my emotions on my sleeve.  And when I walked in, I thought might faint.  See, there wasn’t one fancy elliptical machine or pitcher of cucumber water in sight.  Not one mirror or soft light bulb in the place; just ropes and weights and boxes and people crab crawling back and forth across the floor.  The Floor.
Like Rocky going into the ring, this stuff was for real, y’all.

But I did it.  Sure, after 100 jump ropes, 20 lunges, 20 pull ups, and 20 leg lifts, I almost went home when Fain told us that was just the warm up.  But I stayed for the work out of the day, or WOD as they call it.  And yes, when they tallied everything up on the board my numbers were a little lackluster, but you know what? I did 21 more pushups than I would of if I had grabbed that Egg McMuffin and drove home.

And it was fun.  I have to admit it.  There is a certain amount of satisfaction in doing something, anything, that didn’t seem from the get-go to be even remotely possible.  And laughing and tripping my way through jumping rope and crab crawling on the floor with my best friend was tons of fun too, even though we are now walking funny.

Sure, today I see stairs and I cry.  But in a month’s time, I will own those stairs.  They will be mine.  It IS possible. And I will take them two by two, skipping and laughing all the way.  Even if there are only four of them.

I’ll keep you posted.

 

 

*Tygh and company and CrossFit Saint Simons will soon be moving to a bigger space next to Saint Simons Drugs.

  

 

A Mother's Mind is Mush

         previouly written July, 2010 for blog only

Mush has never been one of my favorite words.  Especially now, since it reminds me of all the things I have tried real hard to forget since my husband and I decided to procreate some ten years ago.  Things like strained peas, regurgitated peas, dirty diapers and the “stuff” under the car seats that can only be identified with a culture and a bio-hazard lab at the CDC.  I could go on, but I won’t, seeing as it could trigger something in my brain and make the memories of the mush come flooding back in. 

I don’t know what it is they do to you at the Maternity Ward, but the ID bracelets they tether you and your newborn to must have some sort of electromagnetic mind zapping device in them or something.   What else could single handedly erase (along with your privacy and the hope of ever fitting back into your size 26 jeans) every last one of your remaining brain cells?

Gone, like that.  Just when you need them the most, you’re no longer able to remember dates, times, appointments, ages, passwords, street addresses, birthdays, or names. 

“Is David feeling any better,” I ask my friend after I literally bump into her at the grocery store with my shopping cart.

“Oh, he’s fine,” she tells me as she waves a hand with what looks like one of those Henna tattoos all over it, but on closer inspection, seems to be her grocery list and a reminder to pay the power bill and get the oil changed.  “His fever broke the night it rained.”

See, events are no longer referred to by date, but by catastrophic events and changes in the weather.  For example, the summer of 2008 might be replaced by the summer it was so hot the air conditioning blew up and Junior broke his arm falling out of his bedroom window.

But let’s get back to the grocery.

Earlier in the frozen food section, I witnessed an exchange between a sweet, unsuspecting elderly lady and an overtired Mom with crazy hair pushing one of those stock car grocery cart thingamajigs with a bunch of tiny arms and legs sticking out of it.  It went down like this:

“What a cute little boy! What’s his name?” the elderly lady coos over the toddlers head. 

“I’m not really sure seeing as he’s number three, I think.  It’s Jimmy, Sonny, or Spot,” overtired mom tells her has she pushes s few stray hairs out of her face.  “ All I know is that he likes Lego's but I can’t give him the small ones ‘cause he’ll stick them up his nose, he throws up on long car rides, and he’s allergic to penicillin.  Basically lady, your guess is as good as mine.  Anymore questions?’

The elderly lady, as you can imagine, walked off in a huff.  But the one I truly felt sorry for was overtired Mom.  See, I feel her pain.  As a mom, we don’t have a lot of time for idle chit chat and reminiscing about things we can’t even remember anyway.  We have better things to do, you know, like keeping them fed, clean, and out of the ER.

I can’t remember my own phone number, but I know the number for Poison Control by heart, the genus and toxicity of all wild, liver-killing mushrooms, and how much laundry detergent one 50 pound child can drink before he’s gotta get his stomach pumped.

There does seem to be one exception to this mom’s mind is mush rule and that would be Martha Stewart.  Now don’t quote me on this, but if you open up her brain….I’m pretty sure you’d find a tea strainer or two, a rolodex, and one of those all purpose labeling gadgets.  Oh and let’s not forget Hilary Clinton, seeing as she’s got a whole village or something up there helping her plug away through life while trying to achieve world peace.  I just want to know where you get one of these villages, seriously y’all.  Can you download one from the internet or Pinterest or something?   Or better yet, make a bid for one on EBay?

Now in the case of my husband’s brain, you’ll definitively find some mush that’s accumulated on account of all the video gaming, beer drinking, and ESPN watching, but it’s quite cleverly concealed under a rather larger button, that when activated, makes it look like he’s paying attention to everything I’m saying when he’s really not.  He also has one of those selective hearing buttons, not to mention the ability to keep a whole strain of code intact, that when broken, reveals twenty years of stats for the SEC.

I can’t help it that I’m jealous of all the cool gadgets he has going on up in the big noggin of his, but what really burns me up is my kids (who haven’t hit the double digits by the way) are now smarter than I am.

“Where are my sunglasses,” I ask no one in particular, as I dump the entire content of my purse and the three kitchen junk drawers directly onto the floor. 

“Mom, really,” my youngest rolls her eyes without taking them off the Disney Channel and True Jackson VP.  “They’re where you always lose them….on top of your head.”

Here’s another example of my inferior intellect:

I find myself wandering around the house with a knot in the pit of my stomach, wondering aloud what it is I should actually be doing instead of burning holes into my Orientals.

“Mom, it’s Sunday,” my oldest tells me, as she holds out a list free hand.  It does, however, have a smudge of chocolate and the equivalent of a five pound bottle of glitter all over it.  “You’d better call your own mom or she’s going to get mad at you.  For that daily piece of advice, please dispense.”

Well, I guess I better get going so I can call my Mom and scrounge under the seat cushions for a dollar in change to pay off one of the precious little lamb chops that helped create the mush in the first place .  The problem is I just gotta remember where I left the phone.

Talk with you soon, if remember my blogger password, that is. 

Forty Isn't Old, If You're a Tree

Previously published in Coastal Illustrated Jan. 25, 2012

              It’s here. 

 The dreaded date of destiny.  The feared and ominous milestone.  The very day for which black balloons were made and filled with helium for.   That’s right, my fortieth birthday has finally arrived.

            People who have already reluctantly crossed, kicking and screaming, through this rite of passage have all sorts of sage advice.   Evidently, these are to be the best years of my life, these years that follow forty.   I have finally arrived at the point in time where my life will ultimately, at long last, begin.  I guess that means I haven’t really been doing a whole heck of a lot these past forty years, but you could have fooled me, because I’m so bone tired I can sleep standing up while holding two children, a bag of groceries, a 12 pack of Diet Coke, and 22 pound purse with a dog tethered to it.

I don’t buy it.  All of this heavy lifting, both physical and emotional, have to count for something.  And seeing as I still posses two children, a dog, three cats, and one husband, I don’t see it being all about “me” anytime soon.

Then, people who still have multiple years to go until they reach 40--- years that stretch out like miles and miles of white, glistening sandy beach under a bright blue sky--- tell me they are a tad bit envious.  They are looking forward to the day when they will finally feel comfortable in their own skin (even if hangs a little looser.) the day when they won’t let the little things bother them so much (because they won’t be able to remember what they are in the first place unless they wrote them down a scrap of paper that they will never again find, let alone be able to read without holding it three feet in front them.)

I don’t buy this, either.  Because I can see the fear behind their unlined eyes and hidden deep beneath their uncreased foreheads as they try and convince me it’s a good thing….turning forty.   It’s also because when they find out my birthday is imminent, they back away from me slowly, as if I harbor a terrible disease they don’t want to catch.  Come on, I really don’t think I’ll feel one bit wiser on January 28^th, than I was on January 27^th.  More than likely, I’ll just wake up a few hundred brain cells lighter and two and half pounds heavier with a crick in my neck and a cramp in my foot.

Next, according to my children, I don’t look a day over fifty-five.  Actually, I look pretty gosh darn good for someone who was born in the 1900’s…you know, like a totally different century and millennium, they like to tell me.  When they study history in school, I wonder if they picture me riding along side Paul Revere on a horse carrying a lantern or sitting fireside with Betsey Ross without a TV or Internet access, holding just a needle and some thread, drinking a cup of tea and eating bread.    It seems I have to remind them now and again that although I did not have a cell phone or a scooter that shoots out sparks and glows in the dark when I was their age, I didn’t ride the horse and buggy to the school and back, either.

Me, I don’t buy into the fact they really think I’m ancient, or old enough to have once hung out with Eleanor Roosevelt.  For a child, age really isn’t all that relevant.  For them, only one thing is certain, they just don’t want to grow up.  I guess we all still feel that way, especially as we approach a milestone birthday like forty.

I remember as a child I never gave turning forty a fleeting thought.  Why would I when I was busy catching fireflies to put in mason jars and playing hide and seek with friends under the canopies of rows and rows of Magnolia trees in the backyard?  Even though I loved those trees, I didn’t want to be like them, stuck in one place no matter how lovely, unable to move.  Who had time to grow old when there was so much to do? 

A strange thing happened to me right before my 40^th birthday.  I lost my voice, literally.  I woke up one morning and couldn’t talk.  It actually seemed kind of funny to me, if you want to know the truth.  As is maybe I’d talked way too much, yelled, laughed, sung, and squabbled my fair share away.  Maybe I had one too many heart-to- hearts and one-on-ones.  Maybe I had “chewed the fat” one too many times.

It’s a strange sensation, not being able to talk when you want to, voice an opinion, or communicate with the ones you love.  That’s why I was relieved when I woke up the next day- another day, another year, another decade older and not necessarily wiser- but I woke up never-the-less and my voice was back. 

I could conclude only two things.

I will never stop loving fireflies in jars and the safe canopy of a still Magnolia tree, but most importantly, it seems, I still have a lot more to say.   

Hunker It Down, One More Time

"We happy few, we band of brothers. For he to-day that sheds his blood with me, shall be my brother...."

Shakespeare, Henry the V, Act IV, 1415

Women of the South are called "Steel Magnolias," meaning we can embrace the very beauty seen in nature in our femininity, our manners, and our sense of decorum, and harness it within ourselves, but still be every bit the force that Mother Nature expects us to be: fierce, strong, resilient and, depending on our brand of mascara, waterproof.

There really isn't a term designated, as far as I know, for Southern men. When we think of women being Steel Magnolias, it almost implies our male counterparts can only excel at all things physical: a quarterback sack, chopping wood, making a grilled cheese sandwich, or taking out ten extra tall kitchen Hefties to the curb in one trip....all with one hand.

It's like if we give them an emotional task like dealing with a crying, hysterical female, they might as well be reduced to something akin to a flour sifted roux- a thin, light and simple staple that, in a matter of minutes, is required to painstakingly manipulate itself into a thick substance that will transform the bland into earth-shattering greatness. We all know the odds of that working out. Only, I don't know if that assumption is entirely fair.

Case in point: Larry Munson.

The Minnesota- born sports broadcaster who was the radio announcer, or more accurately the voice behind the Georgia Bulldogs for 43 years, passed away Sunday, November 20 at the age of 89 from complications from pneumonia. It was a sad day, as anyone who grew up listening to him on game day will tell you.Here was a man who was fanatical about a football team as most people are about their religion. He was biased, but not a fault. It was his undying loyalty for the team that drew him to his fans, and in turn, it was his enthusiasm that lifted them up in good times and the bad. His passion for the Dawgs was infectious and he wasn't scared to lay it out there for everyone to see.

Take, for instance, November 8, 1980 in Jacksonville, FL."Buck back, third down to the 25! To the 30! Lindsay Scott! 35, 40! Lindsay Scott, 45, 50! 45,40! Run Lindsay! 25! 20! 15! 10! 5! Lindsay Scott!! Lindsay Scott! I can't believe it. I broke me chair. A metal steel chair with a five inch cushion. I broke it. The booth fell apart. The stadium,well, the stadium fell down. Now, they have to renovate the thing. They'll have to rebuild it now. This is incredible....Man some property will be destroyed tonight! Dawgs on top. We were gone. I gave up, you did, too. We were out of it and gone. Miracle!

Lindsay: 93 yard touchdown. Score: Georgia 26-Florida 21.

Even though Munson was born in a state that you very well might lose your nose, a few fingers, and a key that snaps off in your car door on a blistery winter day, he really did embody what it means to be a Southern man. He was strong and unconventional. He called things as he saw them, even if the most die-hard of fans...or coaches...didn't want to hear it. He could get caught up in a whirlwind of an emotional moment and put into words a sentiment that as a Bulldog Nation we were all feeling but could never express as eloquently and sincerely as he could on a split seconds notice.

Take for instance, November 13, 1982.

"It's fourth down...ball on the 21 and they have got to get to the 4 for the first down. I know I'm asking a lot of you guys...but hunker it down, one more time! The Dawgs broke it up...23,22, and 21...clock running, running. Oh look at the sugar falling out of the sky. Look at the sugar falling out of the sky!"

Score: Georgia 19-Auburn 14, guaranteeing the Dawgs a trip to the Sugar Bowl.

People like to say men are incapable of the heavy stuff, the stuff of the heart that doesn't require actually lifting, like a sofa or a 60 pound bar bell loaded with 150 pounds of extra weight. Naw, not at all.

For me, these past few months, actually many years, have proven that assumption false.

See, like Larry and his sideline man "Loren, whatta you got?" I have seen camaraderie...men in the trenches...a band of brothers that when things get tough, they not only show up, but they say the right things. They rally around and admit, like Larry, things don't look so good right now, but I am here in the huddle with you, so let's just hunker down, get on through it.

My husband grew up with a "band of brothers" on the island. Lane Moore, Bowen Freeman, Bird Lynch, Patrick Tolleson, Jason Futch, Trey Brunson, Buddy McNeese, Brookes Haistens, Robert Malone, Paul Thompson, Doug Trowell,Kip Banker, John FitzGerald, just to name a few.

They have remained close and still get together a few times a year for weddings, baby showers, Georgia/Florida game and reunions. Now, they gather round for that real life grown up stuff we all want to avoid but inevitably have to face head on, one day. For this particular band of brothers, it's been quite an emotional past couple of years. Instead of baptisms and birthday parties, they have the unfortunate task of burying their mothers and fathers and taking on burdens they always knew would come but never realized how soon. But still, they show up.

Since Shakespeare wrote about the "warrior" band of brothers almost six hundred years ago, the meaning has become much more universal. It is about a group of men, yes, steely in exterior and conviction, but devoted and loyal to the friendships they have formed over a lifetime and unashamed to admit how much they mean to one another.

I have seen these men cancel family trips, postpone important business meetings, weep at the graves of their friends families, and simply "show up" when they needed each other the most with a beer in hand and a funny story to tell.

Case in point: November 18, 2011. Lane's mom,Sandra Shell Moore's graveside service.

As Lane and his wife, Alicia were leaving the cemetery after the service, they paused in their car one last time to look at the casket before it would be lowered into the earth.

Lane noticed the flowers all around the tent and realized the condolence cards were still attached to them. He started to worry about the notes on the flowers that people had taken the time to write about his mom and was concerned about how he would be able to thank them properly. He had never done anything like this before. He called his friend Bowen who was still at the service and, unfortunately, had been through similar circumstances when his Mom, Mari, passed away a year and a half ago.

"Don't worry," Bowen told Lane. " I'll make sure it's take care of."

It's amazing, these "brothers." They have been together through the best of times and "hunkered down" through the worst. If Southern women are Steel Magnolias, then these Southern men are Gentle Warriors and most importantly, when it counts, they know how to be, at the very core, lifelong and everlasting friends.

The Dogwoods Will Bloom

I love spring. Everything about it is intoxicating and wonderful, even with one of your eyelids glued shut and your sinuses caked thick with a layer of pollen. It’s like passing “Go” on the Monopoly board of life. You don’t automatically collect a hundred bucks, but you feel like it, knowing you get to leave a lot of hardships from winter behind and start all over in a season where beauty abounds and life is how it should be: reborn, fresh, and new.

Another one of my favorite things about spring is weddings. They just seem to go together like Sonny and Cher, peanut butter dipped in chocolate, and sea salt with tequila on a sunny day.
This particular spring seems to be different, though, as if I have passed “Go” so many times in a row without keeping track that I’ve forgotten just how many times I’ve been around the board. That was until I opened up our first wedding invitation of the spring.

“What’s wrong? You look pale,” my husband looks up from his cell, a hint of panic rippling across his forehead as he wrinkles his nose. “Don’t tell me your old college roommate decided to marry that 25 year-old surfer from Ecuador with dreadlocks and a portable herb garden? I give it three months; six months tops.”

“No, it’s worse,” I tell him, though I do admire his optimism. “We‘re invited to a friend’s wedding, but instead of guests of the groom, we are now guests of the groom’s parents.”
“It’s official.” He looks at me with such despair, I’m afraid he might faint, or worse, drop his cell phone into my spaghetti sauce and that’s all we have for dinner.
“I know, hon.” I try to comfort him as best as I can while moving my saucepan to the back burner.

“We’re old.”

I’m not sure how we missed it. Along the way of paying mortgages, utilities, mowing lawns, changing diapers, MacGyver-ing science projects, and attending parent/teacher conferences we became bona fide grownup . . . or old fogies, as we used to call them.
One would think we should have figured all this out much earlier, but who has time to stop and think about such things while you’re right smack in the muck of it all? I will concede we should have caught on when we started to hold menus and price tags two or more feet from our face in order to read them. Not to mention the cacophony of sounds orchestrated by the creaks of our bones and the wheezes from our deviated septa as we toss and turn in bed at night that also might have clued us in. We just aren’t spring chickens anymore.

I was thinking about the stark contrast of the grown up world compared to a child’s world the other day while watching my daughters swim in the pool. It was quite a beautiful sight: the way their arms and legs and strands of long hair seemed to move like silk in between what looked like, from the surface, layers of pale blue water. They appeared as if two ethereal beings, not young, not old, not really of this world, but of a middle place. A place where there is great lightness and buoyancy and beauty; a place totally unaffected by the weight of the water from above or the crushing enormity of the worries of the world resting just above the surface.
Ripples of water slid silently above their submerged bodies. A storm would soon be coming in from the ocean, but in that moment, they didn’t have a care in the world. Why would they? They were completely unaware of everything around them because they were deeply and completely immersed in that moment.

It’s hard to remember how that feels sometimes. The older we get, the more burdens we carry and the more darkness we see where there used to be light. Every day, we see neighbors we love, loved ones we cherish, and people we have never met or had a chance to know suffer from a long list of things beyond their control and we feel helpless about how to make it better.
How can everything around us be so sunny and green and new, when there is hurt and grief and loss just beneath it all?

My dad is a surgeon who has spent four decades face to face with both life and death. He is also the epitome of a modern day Renaissance man and said it best in a poem about spring he wrote many, many years ago and shared with me when I was eighteen. I have carried it with me ever since and whenever I feel weighed down I read it. Here is how it ends:
“And as I survey this world around me, my senses are overwhelmed. But deep in my heart the snow is still deep, the winds blow cold, and the boughs of the Dogwoods hang heavy with ice. Why such contrast, such disharmony? It’s as if my heart lies waiting, still asleep, still dormant but safely tucked away from the elements, but I am forever secure in the knowledge that this too will pass for just as ceaselessly as the seasons change, so too will the Dogwoods and Azaleas bloom for me.”

I’m reminded of my spicy Columbian friend Bert Snyder who has been bravely battling stomach cancer. I wish everyone knew Bert. Many of you do. She has filled up every ounce of her small frame with humor, grace, dignity, and a resilience of spirit. When the doctors recommended another bout of chemo, she said no. For her, it’s about the quality of our time, not the quantity of it, that defines a life lived well.

She told me, “I choose life.” Bien hecho, Bertica. Life it is.

Calling All Dreamers

I can’t remember a time when I didn’t love to read. Books, to me, are and always will be like dreaming; only with beautiful words and some well thought out directions on how to get where you want to go. As a young child, I was drawn to writers who seemed like children themselves, but were trapped in adult sized bodies. They never wanted to grow up, but did, gaining the wisdom and experience to hang on to the wonderment of youth, instead of succumbing to the banality and strife of the grown up world. Along with Dr. Seuss, Shel Silverstein was and is one of my all time favorite authors:

Listen to the mustn’ts child
Listen to the don’ts
Listen the shouldn’ts
The impossibles, the won'ts
Listen to the never haves, then listen close to me
Anything can happen, child, anything can be.

It’s this idealized view of the world and all its infinite possibilities that make being a kid, a dreamer, so intoxicating.
And then you fall down.

Maybe you fall hard and far, or maybe you just trip and get a scratch, but you get up, and dust yourself off and say, “That wasn’t so bad.” But then it happens again, and again . . . and again. We keep dusting ourselves off, our small bodies still intact from the outside at least. But something intangible begins to be left in its place. It’s a voice on the inside telling us we aren’t good enough, or maybe the voices are on the outside too. But now our dreams don’t seem so inevitable anymore, there’s now the very adult and very real thing that runs through the delicate fabric of their innocence: fear -- and the reality that no matter how bad you want your dream to come true, it not as easy as it seems.
I was thinking about this the other day after Charlie’s cousin from New Hampshire called to say his seven year old son, William had fallen fifteen feet off a chair lift, breaking both his legs.

My heart broke to see him like that but I have to admit I wasn’t necessarily surprised. You see, William is all boy, an adventurer, an all-out explorer of life. It reminded me of a list I found taped to the fridge at their camp this summer, dictated by William to his mother, and written in her swirling cursive on yellow legal paper. This is how it read:

William’s Top Ten Things to do Before He Dies:

1.) Swim across Lake Winnipesaukee
2.) Catch a huge bass, name him Larry, then let him go
3.) Own a floating camp
4.) Own a junkyard
5.) Own a seaplane
6.) Land in the clouds and see the tooth fairies
7.) Live in a bob house (for all of you non-Northerner’s, that’s an ice fishing shed)
8.) Sleep in the rafters

Numbers nine and ten were left blank probably because he got impatient, grabbed his rod, and went out looking for Larry, the screen door banging shut behind him. I remember smiling. It was quite the list -- ambitious, yet pretty much attainable and pure William. I’m not too sure about landing in the clouds on a seaplane, but who am I to crush a young boy’s dreams? I used to have big dreams too, when I was his age.
But didn’t we all? Then life happens and these dreams that were once so bright, so vivid, so surely within our reach, fade slowly with wear and tear like the scuffs on our knees and elbows . . . and the fractures deep in our bones. Don’t we all want to tell little William not to be scared? Not to give up on seeing life as a full-blown adventure? Because maybe there is something in all of us that wished we didn’t succumb to a certain fear, or pick a safer path, or let go of a dream little by little because we thought we weren’t good enough to keep it for ourselves any longer.
But the most beautiful truth of all is that it’s never too late to live your dream, or discover it in the first place. I think it’s because life happens that we can find what makes us happy in this world. And maybe it doesn’t end up being a childhood wish made on a star or on a piece of yellow legal paper in our mother’s handwriting, but something even more exhilarating and intoxicating and real.
Julia Childs enrolled at Cordon Bleu in Paris at the age of thirty-seven. She had been married for two years, was madly in love with her husband, French food, and French culture. Could she have ever imagined writing Mastering the Art of French Cooking, when she was younger, single, and living in Pasadena?
Erma Bombeck started her career at thirty-seven becoming one of the most widely read columnists in history. Could she have written about domestic life with such insight and humor out of college without the husband, three kids, the dog and the station wagon?
Vincent Van Gogh once asked, “What would life be if we had no courage to attempt anything?” One thing is for certain, without those who pursue their dreams we wouldn’t have the wonderful works of Shel Silverstein, the wise and witty words of Erma or the cooking genius of Julia . . . or, for that matter, Van Gogh’s own Starry Night.
I find that as I get older, my life experiences full of trials and tribulations open up even more possibilities and my dreams become richer and more complex. I’m just reminded that no matter what our age – seven or fifty-seven -- we should still shoot for the stars; or in sweet William’s words, aim for the clouds where the tooth fairies live.