Tag: daughters

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Love Like That

On the eve of Mother’s Day, I was standing at the kitchen sink finishing the dinner dishes.  (Appropriate?)  I looked out the window, and in the setting sun I could just barely see a small grayish blob on the grass.  When I realized it was a baby bird, I called for Jen.  We immediately went into nurture mode.  “Should we move it to the backyard where it will be safer?”  “Will it need water?”  “Maybe we shouldn’t move it.  We don’t want to startle it.”  “Yeah, and the mom might not find it.”

We brought out a jar lid filled with water.  (Initially, we’d grabbed a small dish, but Jen was afraid the wee bird wouldn’t be big enough to scale the side of the dish.)  We didn’t approach too closely.   We could be heard “oohing” and “ahhing” at the sweet little blob of feathers with the seemingly too large beak.

We went back inside so as not to scare it.  We stood side by side at the kitchen window and kept vigil.  I worried (because that’s what moms do) about neighbor cats and squirrels.  (Would squirrels go after our wee blob?  When did it become ours?)

Just then, we saw a robin (either a mom or a dad, as both feed their babies, and I can’t tell the difference in robins) swoop in and feed the baby.  Jen and I hugged each other and exclaimed at the sweetness.    We stood and watched as it got darker and harder to see.  The baby wobbled across the grass and approached the fence.  Would the mom/dad be able to find it?  Clearly, it had been in a hurry to leave the nest (reminds me of someone I know), as it only seemed able to wobble, not hop or fly.

We were relieved to see that wherever that baby went, the mom or dad could find it and feed it.

The baby was still snuggled next to the fence post when we turned off the lights and went to bed.

 

(The day before, Jen and I had delivered a batch of groceries to the house where Will is living.  There are six of them – young, working, testing their wings, and struggling between paychecks.  They live on mac and cheese and grilled cheese sandwiches and too much coffee.  My momness was in overdrive, and I needed to fill their fridge with other options.)

 

This morning, I found the baby had made it to the other side of the driveway.  I could follow the trail of droppings and see the gray blob from the kitchen window.  I went out, in robe and bare feet (which reminded me that back in February, barefoot season seemed so very far away), to see if it was alive and well.  It’s a wonder that those little hearts can beat so fast.  That tiny thing breathes so quickly.  It was fine.  My mom brain went to, “Oh, you must have been cold last night?  Weren’t you afraid?  Have you eaten?”

I went back inside to assume my position at the sink.  Jen still sleeps and doesn’t know, yet, that the baby is fine.  I can’t wait to tell her.  Just then, I saw one of the parents bring breakfast.

 

Thank you to all who love like that.  You make the world go ’round.

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Random Thoughts In No Particular Order

I love being here.  I miss being here.  I’m too busy to be here.

I spend as many moments as I can with Jenny because, well …

I’m not going to type that.

 

Will, as some of you know, has moved out.  I don’t hear from him every day, but I do hear from him most days.  I’m trying hard not to intrude.  The other night, Jen and I were watching something on Netflix – most likely, Tidying Up – and he texted.  He asked how we were doing.  Of course I panicked.  “Something must be wrong.  It’s Friday night!  How come he’s texting?”  Turns out he’d just gotten home from a shift and realized he hadn’t heard from us in a couple days, so he texted – just to say hi.

Back when things were bumpier with Will, or I might say, back in 2018, I prayed for those kinds of texts.

And here they are.

Note to self:  This is a good thing.

 

Oh, and the three of us plan to ski together on Friday.  Yay, me!!

 

Where was I?

 

Oh.  So I’m not on this spot as much as I used to be, or as much as I would like to be.  Priorities, you know.

Priorities include spending every available moment with Jen; homeschool; the job; and the ritualistic chores necessary for survival.

And if you haven’t made some of your chores ritualistic, by now, you really ought to.  If we’re going to be spending these many hours folding laundry, doing dishes, sweeping and shoveling snow, we ought to be elevating these duties to the heights reserved for deities.

Say grateful words while hand-grinding coffee beans in the wee hours.  Breathe in the smell let off as you turn the crank.  Hope for all the good things that caffeine allows you to accomplish.

Pay respects to the deciduous trees while shoveling the snow that covers their roots.  Promise you’ll gladly greet their new leaves in the spring.  Think happy thoughts about how many winters you’ve survived, and how shoveling is the best gym membership you never have to pay for.

Acknowledge the washing machine and thank it for making your job easier.  You don’t have to run to the creek to scrape your clothes against a rock.  We’ve got it easy.  You don’t really need all those clothes, anyway.

Appreciate the stacks of clean plates and the many meals they’ve served and the many more to come.  Enjoy moments in the kitchen teaching your kids how to chop onion while laughing at the tears and saving the fingers.

Thank the fire in the wood stove for keeping your little family warm on these cold nights.  Be grateful for the warmth and the work that comes with keeping the fire stoked.

 

I digress.

Again.

 

I started to say something about how I’m not really so busy that I can’t be writing here more.  (I mean, if I’ve got time for Netflix.)

The scribbled notes of post ideas will keep me writing long after Jen has ventured off and (hopefully) circled back around.  Potential post titles include:  In Defense of Cat Ladies, When I Was Mad At The World, and Reflections From a Wallflower.

I’ll get to them.

There will be time to write all those ideas.  For that, I am grateful.

 

In the meantime, Jen and I painted the back bedroom.  It was originally mine when we first moved here.  Then, after the Debacle, Will took it over.  He’s bigger than I am and he needed more space.  I waited to make sure he was really not coming back, before reclaiming it.  I even offered it to Jen.  She’s happy with her cozy room, so we textured and painted my old room, together.  (That reminds me of another blog post I came up with while spreading joint compound on the walls:  How to Texture Walls or How to Love Your Life, which is less about texturing walls and more about loving your life with all its weird, beautiful texture including the occasional debacle.)

 

On another note:  I don’t know how many folks even stop by here anymore.

(Hi, Lynn! Love you!)

I used to check blog stats all the time – to see if anyone was reading.  I think I believed there was no point in writing, if no one was reading.  I remember thinking that I had to write to help others in order to justify the blog.  Now I can’t even remember the password to the site for checking the stats.  That doesn’t mean that I don’t care if others find comfort in these words.

(Thank you for writing to tell me that you’ve found comfort!)

The real issue is that I learned to help myself.

That’s what I want for my kids.  That’s what this journey is all about.  (Gawd, is there another word besides that poor, over-used word?  If I had a dollar for every time I said the word journey, I could have paid to have the bedroom painted!  But I wouldn’t have, because Jen and I have so much fun working on those projects together.)

Anyway, when we help ourselves, we start the ripple effect.  We make the world a better place in our own back yard, and it definitely, without a doubt, positively impacts others, as well.

So, I’m “staying in my lane, bro!” as that annoying but funny tattoo artist in the commercial says.  I’m staying in my lane, working on my own stuff, improving the texture in my tiny corner, and hoping that some of that improves your little corner, too.

Thank you for stopping by.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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A Dream of Men

We were on a bus.  The bus was full of males of all ages – men and boys I’ve been acquainted with throughout my life.  There were four women facilitating – myself and three others.  Oddly, while I did know the males in the dream, I did not know the females.

It was a fall afternoon, and the bus was cruising around my hometown.  We weren’t going anywhere in particular.  The men talked of football, bonfires, hunting, leaf-raking, and how glad they were to not be at the office.  The boys talked of the girls at school, football, the apps on their phones and pizza.

The mood on the bus was jovial.  The women were there to serve, and they didn’t seem to mind.   We walked the aisle of the bus filling snack bowls and fetching drinks.

We arrived at a hall with a large grassy area.  Everyone got off the bus and the women made their way to the restroom, while the men and boys staked out their territories.  Some grabbed footballs and headed for the grass.  Some went inside to turn on the TV to catch the game.  The boys looked at the two groups of men, and picked whichever group they felt most comfortable in, depending on what they experienced at home.

Everyone appeared to be having a good time.  Laughing and yelling filled the air.  Someone started a bonfire in the designated fire pit, and several men set up lawn chairs.  Some boys who had been in the hall came out to sit by the fire.  The fire brought them closer together.  Phones were tucked in pockets.  Even the noise level quieted a bit as they all focused on the fire and relished the good mood that comes with having fun.

At one point, I approached the fire to fill bowls with popcorn, and I noticed two 9 year old boys quietly crying.  A man stood in front of them to ask what was wrong.  He spoke in a gentle voice so as not to call attention to them.  When they didn’t answer the man, I knelt down in front of them and asked, “What happened?  I’ve seen you two hanging together all afternoon.  You’ve been having a great time!  Are you okay?”  Through tears, one of the boys said, “I can’t sit by him any more.”  When I asked why not, he said, “Because he’s pro-life and I’m pro-choice.”  I asked, “Do either of you know what that means?”  Each sat staring at his hands folded in his lap, tears rolling down his face. They both shook their heads.  They didn’t know what it meant, but they knew they were supposed to think one way, and not the other. Just then the man standing in front of them said, “Well I’m pro-life, too.  Does that mean I can’t stand here?”  The first boy cried even harder and said, “I don’t know.  I just know what I’ve been told.  How come I like him, but now I can’t sit by him because of something I don’t even understand?”

The man looked down at me and said, “What should I say to them?”

I handed both boys a Kleenex, and I asked the first boy, “Would you still want to sit by him if he liked pepperoni on pizza, and you only love sausage pizza?”  He looked at me dumbfounded.  “That’s stupid.  It doesn’t matter.  He can have whatever pizza he wants.  I don’t care.”   The second boy said, “Who cares about pizza?  We like to hang together!  That’s all that matters!”  The boys wadded up their Kleenexes and threw them in the fire, the way boys often do.

As I stood, the man whispered, “That’s not the same.  Folks don’t get hurt over pizza.  They get hurt over issues like pro-life and pro-choice.”  I said, “I don’t know how to fix this, but I know we have to make room for everyone to accept that others think differently.  We have to get okay with that.  There are many different versions of normal.  Maybe once we get okay with that, we can come to a point where people stop getting hurt.”

 

And then I woke up.

 

I know the same happens with girls and women.  I also know that many times the roles are reversed, and a woman is standing there wondering how to help, and a man addresses the girls with a question that they can relate to. 

This is not about men being inferior. 

This is not about me believing that women are supposed to serve. 

This is about patterns, status quo, versions of normal and how we often don’t see that our version of normal may not be healthy.

This is about looking at our “normal” and educating ourselves about what healthy is.  Are we holding so tightly to our version of normal that we can’t see that there might be other versions of normal?

 

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Playing Nice

As you methodically tied the bunny ears of your shoe laces, you heard your kindergarten teacher say, “Play nice, children.”  You raced out to the playground to grab a ball,  getting there before everyone else, and heard the playground aid yell, “Play nice!”  You dropped the ball and backed away to let the others have the first crack at Four Square.  You stood by hoping they would play nice and invite you.  Sometimes they did.  Most times they “forgot” to play nice.

You’d been hearing the words, “Play nice!” since your sibling arrived.  You learned quickly about sharing and taking turns.  That’s also when you learned that everything wasn’t about you.

Those are hard lessons to learn, and when you’d complain that you hadn’t had your turn in awhile, you were reminded to play nice.

Daughters come with a handbook.  If you’re lucky, your folks pitched the book and gave it their best shot.   Sons come with handbooks, too, but the first page of their book does not start with, “Must always play nice.”

 

Throughout your schooling years, playing nice became a habit – your default setting.  When the teacher asked for someone to go up to the board to diagram a sentence, you played nice and stayed in your seat.   When the art instructor announced that 8 lucky students could have their work displayed at the public library, you didn’t submit yours, because you were playing nice.

Somewhere toward the end of high school, playing nice turned into not standing up for yourself.  The habit of playing nice became more and more self-defeating.

You took the shittier shifts at work, including the extra shifts made available by co-workers’ hangovers or missed alarm clocks.  You finished the group project in the marketing class, to save your grade.  They were out chugging beers while you were saving their grades, too.

Never mind all the crap you put up with from guys, because you were busy playing nice.

 

Years later, you have made playing nice your super power.

You are the first one called when they need a warm body for the PTA’s Circus Night, down at the school.  You always host the annual neighborhood yard sale.  You never fail to bring two dishes to the holiday pot luck, and you always stay late to clean up.  You shuttle all the other kids to soccer, but wouldn’t dare ask someone to give your kid a ride.  You just hope they’ll remember to play nice and offer.

You handle rude comments as if Miss Manners had tattooed the inside of your arm with the code for “How to Respond When Others Forget to Play Nice.”

You put up with more than your fair share in your marriage because playing nice has become your second skin.

 

Now where are you?

 

You have casserole dishes for pot lucks, enough for all the churches in the Midwest.  You have memories of the customers’ faces who picked up sandwiches on their way to the football game you skipped so you could work an extra shift.  You have too many miles on your old beater from shuttling other people’s kids.

You wonder if anyone would like you if you stopped playing nice.

You don’t know how to NOT play nice.

 

Your spirit has been snuffed.

You are bone-deep tired.

You are sick of the comments, the excuses, the fakes and the users.

You couldn’t play nice if it meant saving your soul.

You couldn’t play nice if they paid you.

Where has playing nice ever gotten you?

 

 

Don’t you dare tell your daughter to play nice.

 

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You Can’t Save Him

I’d left the kids with him at the house.  I wasn’t going to be long.  I’d forgotten something and had to run and get it.  When I returned with the thing (whatever it was) that I’d forgotten, my hands were full.  I was carrying my jacket, a large bag, and the item in one hand, and struggled to open the door with my free hand.  I was fumbling with the doorknob.  Finally, I’d gotten the door to open, but I was concerned about it opening too far. 

I hurried to enter, worried I’d taken too long.  Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed a ginormous spider had come in when the door was ajar.  They didn’t see the spider as it scurried along the floor at the base of the wall.  Its two sets of legs were freakishly hairy.  Three large hairy legs ran down each side of its body, and its underside had a cluster of six smaller hairy legs.  It was large enough to make noise as it scampered, yet he didn’t seem to hear it at all.

I yelled to warn them. “You guys!!  RUN!  A spider got in!  It’s huge!  Run!!”  I saw my kids jump.  They didn’t turn to see the spider.  They took my word for it and ran.

 

(Later, when retelling the dream, I described the spider as the size of one of those plastic Melitta coffee filters.  It was “Twilight Zone” disgusting.)

 

Maybe he hadn’t heard me?  Maybe he didn’t believe me?  I yelled again as I ran toward him.  “Really!! That spider is HUGE.  You gotta run!”

As I came up beside him he got on the floor.  He did the crab walk like we used to do in 4th grade gym class.  He deliberately, without any regard for the spider, crab-walked across the room, IN THE DIRECTION OF THE SPIDER.   I couldn’t believe my eyes.  After my warnings and yelling and all the commotion, he actually got down on the spider’s level and moved toward it!

I could see that he was within a foot of the spider now!  He could SEE the spider.  What was he doing?  I turned to run and join the kids.  As I left the house, I looked over my shoulder and saw him pick up the spider, with both hands!

 

The next morning, as I poured a second cup, I told Jen of my wicked dream.  When I described my astonishment at his picking up the spider, she interrupted me to say, “But, mom, you can’t save him.”

 

 

 

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The Girl in the Next Stall

She’s walking into the changing room with four items.  Three are from her usual color palette – shades of grey to black.  This time she found a pair of dusty pink capris in her size – 0.

 

She’s been talking of changing things up a bit.  She systematically cut all the long hair to shoulder length.  She didn’t cut it all at once, but over the course of a year, she had me cut two inches here, three inches there.  One afternoon, while listening to Pink Martini on Pandora, she had me cut six inches.  Between the two of us, Will and I always tell her she looks great, but I can see that she’s looking for other words.

She longs for words she’s heard before, only she wants them to come from someone who never says them.

 

Her style is all her own.  One day we were running errands and she mentioned Pastel Goth.  I had to ask her what that was.  She explained while we were stopped at a light.  I turned to her and said, “Is that what you are?”  She grinned and said, “Not really.  Well, maybe a little.”

She doesn’t dress like other girls her age.  That might have a lot to do with the fact that we homeschool.   Her style isn’t a copycat thing.

I’ve seen the girls at the skating rink staring at her.  As they pull their butterfly covered rolling backpacks over to the bench to put on their skates, I see them glance over at Jen.  I’d love to know what they are thinking.  “Her mom can’t afford butterflies and sequins.”  “Why doesn’t she wear pink or purple or teal?”  “How come her mom lets her wear black all the time?”

Jen told me of the time that a “Butterfly Skater” followed her into the locker room.  She stared at Jen the entire time Jen unlaced her skates.  The girl didn’t say a word.  Jen came out with a mixed expression – part fascination, part frustration.  “Mom, I think she was in there the whole time to make sure I wasn’t going to steal her stuff.”

Her choice in colors gets her looks.  She doesn’t always see the looks.  I always do.  I’m her mom.  I want to laugh at the other skaters’ moms.  They haven’t been the most welcoming group at the rink.  We don’t fit the type.  But when their daughters fall hard on the ice, mine is the first to ask if they are okay.

 

Which brings me to yesterday at the mall.  While Jen was in the changing room, I could hear that the girl in the next stall must have been on FaceTime as she changed clothes.  Weird, but whatever.

Times change.  Maybe this is the new selfie?

While I talk with my kids about absolutely everything, we all three respect privacy.  It’s been a lot of years since I was in the changing room with my daughter.  I browse the clothing racks as I wait, looking at business clothes I can’t afford.  I think of how many houses I’d have to sell before I’d ever even consider spending that kind of money on clothes for myself.  I see the clerk look at what I’m wearing, and realize I know exactly how Jen feels when the “Butterfly Skaters” are staring at her.

As Jen walks out, I try to read her expression.  “How’d it go?  Did you like any of it?”  She smiled her quiet smile, “Let’s go somewhere else.  The pants didn’t fit – too baggy in the thighs.  The shirt goes down too low in the front.  Sorry I’m so picky.”

“Don’t worry about it, honey.  We’ll find something.”

 

As we walk out of the mall I ask, “What was going on in the changing room?”

“A girl was trying on prom dresses in the stall next to me.  She was sending pictures to her mom and grandma and dad.”

“Too bad none of them could be there with her, but it is the time when most would be at work.”

Jen walked around to the passenger side of the car.  “She sent a picture to her dad and he said, ‘Oh, honey.  That’s so pretty.'”

I looked at her as I put the key in the ignition.  She looked at me and said, “Is that even real?”