Ditching

I am sitting at work today and receiving hourly text messages about my son's unexcused absences. Oops, he missed first period. Darn it, 2nd and 3rd he's nowhere to be found either! Truth be told, I stopped checking my phone, knowing that he wasn't running late. He was ditching.

In an unexpected turn of events, I gave him permission to ditch. My husband gave a very formal and clear commentary about his reservations, but ultimately agreed. Yes, son, you have our blessing to ignore the rules and go to the beach instead. The reason I caved so easily is simple. It's the end of the year and evidently instruction of any kind is no longer necessary. Our son has spent the last week watching movies in his classes. He finished his finals and brings a healthy pile of books to read, not Shakespeare or a literary classic, but World War Z or a David Sedaris collection.

When I was a kid...(can you just picture the eye rolling) we worked up until the last day, finishing off every possible workbook page, catching up on art activities or creative writing assignments. We did spend more time outside in recess and gym but I never once remember watching a movie, let alone in multiple classes. We set aside a part of each day in that last week to clean our classrooms. Monday might be the washing of all the desks, Tuesday return textbooks to storage, Wednesday thoroughly wash the boards and sweep the floor, Thursday remove all papers and projects from the classroom and take them home, Friday hang out and relax and see our teacher as a pretty nice person overall, while daydreaming about swimming and street carnivals. 

The last week of school, for me, was fun. We got to be more creative, more physical, and more interactive than we'd been allowed the whole rest of the year. We were excited for summer and for being done, and we were relieved to learn our subjects without a grade attached.  

Instead, my son's teachers are cleaning their classrooms by themselves. Since no more grades will be given there seems to be no need for learning.  Practicing what they've already learned and integrating it into their life when the standardized tests are completed, appears pointless. Why bother taking up frivolous pursuits like relay races, jam sessions, or fun trivia games?  Is it really possible that on a certain day in June, everything there is to know about creative writing, jazz, physics, or Spanish was mastered so fully that there was just nothing left to do?  Have we trained our kids to only want to learn if a grade, an assessment from outside of themselves is given? Yikes!  

When my son said he wanted to ditch his last day and go to the beach instead, I said "yes". For one, how could I not reward such an honest kid with such a great argument? Secondly, I figured a cardio workout on his bike coupled with an "in the field" exploration of the natural environs of the Great Lakes was more productive and educational. 

Resilience

This image was selected as a picture of the week on the Malay Wikipedia for the 1st week, 2010. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Thinking about my teenagers and how they are going to fair when they "launch" is a preoccupation of mine. How will they handle the inevitable emotional, physical, and psychological tests of life?  I recently read an article on the issue but as it relates to whole families.  The Family Stories That Bind Us
describes how Dr. Marshall Duke, a psychologist at Emory University and colleague Robyn Fivush tested their theory that family stories build resilience in children.  They created a series of 20 questions linked to their families and how history, good and bad, got communicated. The result was that the more children knew about family stories the better they did when they had to face difficulties.
 The questions about their families were simple, basic things. From the article, " Examples included: Do you know where your grandparents grew up? Do you know where your mom and dad went to high school? Do you know where your parents met? Do you know an illness or something really terrible that happened in your family? Do you know the story of your birth?"

Within the group of children that knew their family history, the best results for resilience came from those who told what Duke called, an oscillating family narrative.  The oscillating stories go like this,  "Dear, let me tell you, we’ve had ups and downs in our family. We built a family business. Your grandfather was a pillar of the community. Your mother was on the board of the hospital. But we also had setbacks. You had an uncle who was once arrested. We had a house burn down. Your father lost a job. But no matter what happened, we always stuck together as a family. ”

When I worry about the heartache, cruelty and suffering that is possible in the world and how it might brush up against my sons, what I'm really thinking is "do they have what it takes?"  Have I shared enough to help them understand that the good AND the bad don't last forever? Do they know that their family will be a constant in the midst of whatever success or failure comes their way?  As parents, as people, we need to retell the stories of resilience so that we can repeat history (in a good way). 

LOVE BOMB!

Prior to our first born son's birth my family hosted a baby shower for us. In the midst of  Goodnight Moon and hand crocheted blankets was a time capsule. The time capsule actually looked like one of those big, tin, popcorn containers. Inside was a memory book that you could fill out and document the music, history, fads, and prices of the day. The main accessory of the capsule was stationary.  The idea was that we would ask all of our friends and family to write letters to Levi, sharing their feelings about his birth and their hopes for his future.  We collected them all and then "sealed" it away for some future reveal. 

Love Bomb (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Yesterday was that future day. On his 16th birthday we unearthed the canister from the depths of my closet (more hidden and forgotten than any underground treasure chest) and presented it to him.  We cheated a little. Right before his birthday we invited others, who didn't know us or him at the time he was born, to also write letters. Friends for whom he now babysits, a third grade teacher, friends from our old church and neighbors all joined in and shared their wisdom, admiration, and love.  As the day came closer to present it to him, I started feeling like I was preparing a LOVE BOMB.

As he opened the container and saw the newspapers from the week he was born and the book of memories (gas cost a $1.39!) he was excited and curious. Then he picked up the pile of letters. It was thick. He was speechless. He picked up one from a neighbor, and then from a good family friend and then from the friends who he also serves as babysitter.  He saw that there were two letters from his great grandmothers, both now deceased.  It started sinking in. "Oh my gosh, this is the most awesome present ever!"

At 16 he's looking at colleges that will take him away from his home base. He's figuring out how to break away from us, his parents, on a daily basis. He's working out the parts of us he'll keep and the new ideas and experiences he wants to pursue. It felt like the perfect time to remind him of the deep pool of love that he comes from and that he can access.

I recommend  LOVE BOMBS for everyone. 

A Year In Review

I started this blog just under a year ago and took a walk down memory lane today, reviewing some of the thoughts and experiences that I decided to share here.  It's been strange to watch which posts become popular or resonate with "you" and which ones seem to fall flat.  The one that started it all, Little Men was a reflection on my son, on parenting, and a chance to feel wise about the hazy grind of raising toddlers.  The picture in this post will always be etched in my brain, my own Tom Sawyer painting the fence post image.

One that didn't actually get noticed much but that I found hilarious was Emergency , a humorous look at my younger son's trip to the ER and the constant struggles to discern when an emergency is actually an emergency and when I'm just being an irresponsible parent.

I dabbled for awhile with a writing prompt on other parents' questions/issues called "Asking the Village".  The one about when to leave our kids home alone was typical of my effort - a mix of what I had actually done and a recognition that there were lots of other approaches that could work too.  The title of the blog, This Will Be On the (Parenting) Test, was always meant as a poke.  None of us get to fully prepare or practice for parenting and yet we frequently assume that we are failing the tests that come every day.

Some of my posts became less and less about parenting and more about living in a very general sense.  A Season for Everything, Secure Your Airmask First, and Found Treasure were moments where I shared out loud some of my own emotional churnings, not specific to being a mom.

As I look back, I realize that some of my posts are time capsules for my sons. Minotaurs and Werebunnies, Dollar Store Wealth, or #!?&*%! Moments are pieces that I want to save for my kids to read when I am no longer a daily presence.  They are little snippets of my voice inserted in specific events of their childhood.  It isn't all cookie dough and kisses but a real life sample of my good and not so good days.

And some of my posts were leaps of faith where I shared some of my political or social perspectives.  These were always harder for me because I didn't want to alienate anyone. I wanted to create a space where the different approaches and perspectives could be honored.  ISAT Testing , Let's Talk Anyway , and If This Is Wrong, I Don't Want To Be Right were attempts at being both honest about my own opinions while still respectful of very different ones.

I'm not sure what 2013 will bring to my writing.  I've toyed with the idea of changing the title since my focus seems to be less focused on parenting, specifically. It's clear that I don't have the amount of time and commitment that's required to become a notable blogger. For that reason, I am grateful for the encouragement that does come.  I can't fully explain it, but just knowing that you are reading, pushes me to stay engaged and the writing definitely helps me to be more present. 

Wishing you abundance and the awareness to see when it is present!

-eltee

Yes, Levi there is a Santa Claus - and he's you

English: Santa Claus with a little girl Esperanto: Patro Kristnasko kaj malgranda knabino Suomi: Joulupukki ja pieni tyttö (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

In the days leading up to Christmas I have found myself in 4 separate conversations about how to tell children about Santa Claus. One friend shared with a touch of shock that another friend continued to tell her 11yr old that Santa was real.  The woman insisted that her child told her everything and that if he had stopped believing, she would know. "We have a very good relationship.", was the closing remark.

At a neighborhood holiday party, a couple of new parents with a babe in arms struggled with whether or not to start the Santa story with their child. The question came immediately, "How do you stop the lie once you start?

And there it is. Creating a magical, childhood fantasy feels like a parental dream, until the day that the question comes. "Is Santa Claus real?" or "Which one is the real Santa?"  The dream really collapses when the child skips the question and moves straight to the assertion, "I know you're the one who gives the Santa presents." Do you counter?  Do you create an elaborate description about why they are wrong or do you enlist them in the conspiracy to protect the secret from their younger siblings?

These were the stories that I kept hearing this week.  The tales of the big reveal.  Grown adults still clearly remembering the night they saw their mom stuffing the stocking, sans beard and reindeer.  Some of the stories were more about the icky feelings that came from being privy to elaborate charades. Like the time when they heard their neighbors' plans to throw dog poop on the porch roof and chastise "Santa's reindeers" for the indiscretion.

In the same month that our children our hearing about kindergartners being slaughtered, it makes sense that we would want to create some type of figurehead for goodness, generosity, and selflessness.  What has never made sense to me is why we would create that figurehead as a stranger outside of our own homes, cities, and outside of our own selves.  We never wrote "Santa" on a gift tag.  When my 4 or 5 year old hit school and asked about Santa, I told the truth - as I understood it and as I wanted it to be for our family.  Santa was a real person. People call him different things depending on where they live but for us he's based on the man, St. Nicholas.  He gave gifts in secret, without any acknowledgement.  He was kind and wanted to make people feel special.  People liked what he did so much that even after he died they wanted to keep that special feeling alive.  Now, lots of people try to be like St. Nicholas.  They give gifts in secret, not using their real name, so that the attention is not on them and the person doesn't feel like they have to give a gift back.

I wasn't sure how my little speech was going to go over. The next year I got my answer on St. Nicholas day. I saw the traditional chocolate candy, orange and small gift(from my husband) and next to that, another piece of candy -not given by my husband but by "St. Nicholas".  That year good ol' St. Nick came in the form of a very small kindergartner. It felt special indeed, mysterious, and magical.  In the midst of all my concerns about how fragile my son's childhood would be, I had instead created a way for him to hang on to innocence, magic, and wonder.  It isn't outside of him or something that I need to wrap him in like a blanket of protection.  All of that goodness is inside him waiting to be offered up to the world. Yes, Levi, there is a Santa Claus - and he's you.

Dollar Store Wealth

christmas 2007 (Photo credit: paparutzi)

As I watched the Black Friday mall reports roll in, my mind briefly obsessed about the stupidity and commercialism of the Christmas season (that now apparently starts before Halloween).  I couldn't stay upset for too long though because I love the month of December.  I love cold weather more than hot.  I love baking more than cooking. I love making cards and snail mail.  All of these things make for a month of fun preparation.  One of my favorite traditions is that my family always designs a Christmas card.  My husband and I did this when we first lived together and we have struggled to come to creative consensus each season, for 22 years since.  We also make a lot of our gifts - first as a necessity and now I think, just because we enjoy it.

On our way back from my sister's home for Thanksgiving (over the river and through the woods) we started brainstorming about our card design this year and potential gift ideas.  The whole conversation transported me in time to my teenagers as toddlers. I flashed on the homemade Christmas gifts that they made for aunts and uncles, grandparents and friends - magnets, ornaments, framed art work, and a really fabulous one-of-a-kind handpainted sweatshirt.  Even better were my memories of them taking their allowances and shopping at the Dollar Store.  It was the perfect place for a kindergartner whose life savings came in under $20. $9 = 9 people to find a gift.  I would always foot the taxes, it was too hard to explain to 4 and 6 year olds.

There was inevitably a time in the shopping trip when they would ask me to stay in one specific corner of the store while they shopped for me.  I never second guessed their choices and frequently wished that I was as talented at understanding the interests and quirks of my loved ones when it came to my gifts.  Here is what I noticed early on and what continues to be true today.  No one expected to get a gift from their 4 year old relative but the real gift, pardon the obvious truism, was in the giving.  Taking it one step further, giving meant that they had extra -  bounty - surplus.  That is a powerful feeling for a child.  In the simple act of picking out the perfect coffee mug they were self-directed and in control, not needy or begging from a endless pool of want. Now as teenagers, they have their Christmas wishlist and it includes their own wants and the ways that they want to surprise and splurge on their loved ones. No matter our age, giving always makes us feel good about ourselves.  Let kids feel that wealthy.

Facing Our Fears - Ghouls, Goblins, and the Grim Reaper

 If you're lucky, during the month of October, hayrides, apple picking, or pumpkin carving may help you balance the flow of horror movies and zombie costumes. Halloween brings scary images and lots of twisted notions of death.  Many of the scary creatures that fill our terror reels are those who have refused to die quietly, think Dracula, Frankenstein, zombies, and ghosts. There is one custom that we have in our family that comes on the heels of Halloween that helps put the ghouls and goblins into perspective for me - All Souls Day.  The day after the ghosts and brides of Frankenstein are sufficiently sedated in their sugar crashes, we reflect on the afterlife in a much more happy, appreciative, and tender way and in a way that does not involve any fake blood or fangs.  We incorporate the Day of the Dead rituals, creating a time for personal remembering of our loved ones who have died.  A photo, a representative token, and a candle for each person is laid out on our dinner table. Some flowers from the garden for my mom, a Lutheran hymnal for my husband's mom, a deck of pinochle cards for my grandfather - the backdrop for our stories. 

Day of the Dead Altar (Photo credit: JenniferAnn.org)

Neither of our boys ever met our moms but on All Souls Day they'll hear how mine could find a song for any conversation.  We'll eat waffles, a frequent Sunday dinner option that my husband's mom was fond of making. Over time,we've added others to our memory meal and the boys now take more of a part in the storytelling.  They'll remind each other of the great grandmothers that they visited in the nursing homes, fighting over who could push the wheelchair. We'll hear again about cooking meals for all the farm hands and my godmother who wanted to take us to the new Mexican restaurant that she'd heard all about and then drove us into the Taco Bell parking lot.  There will be laughter and sadness and comfort.  Solace, reassurance, peace.  These are the gifts that come to me on All Souls Day.

It's a mistake to let ourselves and certainly our kids believe that death is the Halloween version of the black cloaked Grim Reaper.  It's a mistake to hide from the real feelings of loss and grief and pretend that we can only confront them with a literal mask. Facing our fears about death means that we can do more than mock it one day a year. We can remember and embrace. I encourage everyone to make up your own altar or create a way to honor your loved ones.  Here's a prayer that we share together at the very start of our All Souls Day ritual:

At the rising of the sun and at its going down We remember them.
At the blowing of the wind and the chill of winter We remember them.
At the opening of the buds and in the rebirth of spring We remember them.
At the blueness of the skies and in the warmth of summer We remember them.
At the rustling of the leaves and in the beauty of autumn We remember them.
At the beginning of the year and when it ends We remember them.
As long as we live, they too will live; for they are now a part of us, as we remember them.
When we are weary and in need of strength
We remember them.
When we are lost and sick at heart We remember them.
When we have joy we crave to share We remember them.
When we have decisions that are difficult to make We remember them.
When we have achievements that are based on theirs We remember them.
As long as we live, they too will live; for they are now a part of us, as we remember them. 

- Jewish prayer of remembrance

Minotaurs and Werebunnies

Minotaur

As a child, I always dreamed of having a store bought costume for Halloween.  For some strange reason, the plastic mask with the super thin rubber band wrapped over my ears seemed like the best thing ever. The one time my mom actually brought a box home with the clear plastic top, devil face peering out, the thrill was short lived.  Once on my face and trick-or-treating, I couldn't manage to get the eye holes lined up well enough to see the path in front of me.

Isn't that so typical?  The ideas in our head vs. reality.  The planning and dreaming vs. the execution.  My memories of Halloween as a child are of  pirates with black smudges and an eye patch or of clowns wearing oversized leisure suit apparel . When I asked my son what he wanted to be for his 10th Halloween I was expecting something similar.  Instead, he looked me straight on and said, wait for it...minotaur.  What kid says minotaur?  What parent has to wikipedia her child's costume choice?  What parent goes searching the JoAnn Fabric aisles for minotaur-ish hair/fur material?
I spent so much time that year trying to create some close proximity of minotaur recognition in the mask.  I was proud of my cardboard box, turned head with horns.  I thought myself clever for having him wear the bulls sweatshirt for the body. (I didn't have a full bodied minotaur in me). Proud, clever, mom of the month candidate.

Werebunny (leftover Minotaur fur)

Then reality.  Halloween night, he went to 6 houses and removed the headress/mask.  He'd flip it down once he was at the top of the steps, ready to knock on the doors and as soon as he turned away, off it would come again.  By the tenth house, the cardboard was tearing, the horns were going limp and the "hair" was pulling from the jaw line, exposing the brown paper underneath.  At the party we attended later, the mask didn't get worn at all, just a boy in a Bulls sweatshirt.  Half basketball player/half boy. That's how it was every year.  A warm coat would cover the carefully sewn fur (Werebunny, don't ask) or stuffed muscle bound flannel shirt that was required for Frankenstein.  One trip to bob for apples and all the face paint of the pale and bloody Dracula would smear off.  It was always near impossible to carry the sword (pirate) or wand (wizard) while holding on to a bag of candy.

The great fun of Halloween was only about 10% realized on the night of October 31st.  The weeks of mid October were so much more fun.  The possibilities were endless.  The alter egos swirling. Just like Advent or Lent, the nine months of pregnancy, or Thanksgiving dinner, the preparation and the waiting are so much more interesting and complex than the final event.  Happy Halloween preparation!

gh

You Can't Go Back

I am enjoying a week of sibling reunification and nostalgia.  As part of our time together we took a drive to Gary, IN to visit some of our former homes.  The pictures here are a sampling of our trip and proof of the old adage, "you can't go back".  Two of the three homes that we lived in while in Gary are now abandoned and uninhabitable.  It was such a weird feeling to see the outline of happy, familiar memories and have the "heeby jeeby" tingle going up my spine because I was expecting a drug addict or wild, rabid dog to jump out from the wide-open door, pulled from its hinges.  

today

1977

1982

today

The homes themselves seemed so much smaller.  We all say that when we go back and look at places from our childhood they look so much smaller than we remembered, forgetting that we ourselves were smaller and therefore everything else looked big from our perspective.  Walking around yesterday, it was more than that though.  The homes literally looked like they had shrunk.  To check, I pulled some old photos to compare and they really do look smaller today.  Changed landscaping or just overgrown shrubs and grasses that have swallowed the size of the home, missing awnings and planters have all diminished the appearance.  A part of me wonders if every home shrinks when a family leaves.  I imagine a vacuum pack sealer sucking out the laughter at birthday parties, the late night kisses goodnight, the puppies being born in the backyard, the strawberry patches and graduation open houses.  The day my family moved out of these homes we stepped out and closed the door and moved forward to the next place.  Pulling away, did we hear the slow, steady, slurping sound of all those moments and memories being extracted, leaving only the vacuum packed house address?

This leaves me with the very helpful take away, I can't go back but I can move forward and inhabit the space I'm in.  Every day that I manage to be present and live fully in the moment, I picture myself filling the space of my current home.  Hopefully my boys will look back on their home one day and think to themselves, "I remember it being so much bigger!" 

Summertime

We didn't have air conditioning when I was growing up - at least not in our own home.  It had been invented (in case my kids are reading).  We lived in the basement.  Slightly damp but cool we watched Hogan's Heroes, Petticoat Junction, Beverly Hillbillies and any other sitcom reruns that played between noon and 3pm, the hottest part of the day.

July's Tomato Haul (Photo credit: statelyenglishmanor)

We visited my grandpa on his residential farm.  He had farmed most his life and couldn't seem to give it up.  He bought a couple of acres next to his ranch split level and planted rows and rows of corn and tomatoes, peppers and squash.  My grandfather would bring us kids in to the house and set us up with small juice glasses of Coke over ice.  It was the only time I really drank soda as a kid and I wished during every visit that his hand would move over just a little to the left and bring down the tall tumblers for our drinks.  We never left his home with less than two bushels of whatever was ripe.  Later at home my mom would can the tomatoes and cut the corn from the cob to freeze.  We'd eat as much as we could fresh but there was always too much.  She'd work furiously to get the veggies "put up" before they started to turn.

goodncrazy.com (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I remember sitting on the steps waiting for a breeze, playing in sprinklers, and drinking from the hose.  We had an above ground pool at two of our homes.  They were small but perfect for 10 year olds and great for keeping cool. Our vacations were always car trips to visit family, usually in New York or weekends camping.  We didn't have many organized camps or activities.  Our summers were a long, slow parade of tv shows, juice popsicles, and car rides, which by the way, also had no air conditioning.  It was windows rolled down, wind whipping our hair and deafening the space inside the car.

Sometimes summer was about bike ramps, races, being pushed off my bike and into the rosebushes, or having our bikes stolen.  It was about going to my friends house who had air conditioning and a turntable with 45's and listening to Eleanor Rigby.  Or it was about babysitting for the neighbor next door and wishing I could leave when the boyfriend came over and they started fighting.  It was witnessing the boys on the block slowly turn into tough guys, with their own little "chop shop" for stolen bikes (see above).

Summer is relaxed, the routines, the schedule, the demands are all a little loose.  The parental reins go slack.  Maybe it's just dozing at the beach while the kids bury each other in the sand.  Or maybe it's a few more hours of home alone time.  Or maybe it's the permission to go on their bike by themselves, around the block, or to the library, or across town.  Summer is adventure and exploration and sometimes a little danger. 

My boys joke that you can tell if you had a good summer by the number of scrapes and cuts on your knees.  Good or bad I'm not sure, but summer does seem to be a mix of juice pops and scrapes of one kind or another.

Happy Sad 70th birthday

At one o'clock yesterday I looked down at the time stamp on my pc and saw 6/25/12.  A moment of happy recognition separated a millisecond later by sadness.  The anniversary of my mom's birthday. There was happiness that she was born and a flash at birthday celebrations of the past and then the immediate realization that the celebration would be limited to my internal thoughts. There was also a moment of appreciation that the loss of her physical and regular presence in my life does not overwhelm me on a daily basis anymore.  But neither does it go away. 

Later on I saw Facebook updates from my siblings and they reminded me that she would have been 70 years old.  I tried to imagine her at 70.  Wise and gentle for sure. Amazing grandmother and my own personal advice columnist. I was taken by the wistful longing that each of my sibs shared for our mom.  Their quiet grief hit me harder than her absence.  So much depth of feeling.  We do such a great job of being strong and confident and getting on with our lives.  Each of the five of us have important things going on and are productively walking forward each day.  The brief lifting of the veil was crushing.  It hit me so hard.  The "what ifs" washed over me in a wholly unhelpful way. The great celebration of her life is that thinking of her I'm not able to despair or stay depressed for long.  Her hokey/pithy statements gently scream,

"If life gives you lemons make lemonade."
"God doesn't make junk."
"When a door closes, God opens a window."

I love you.

Turning Point - Trail Blazer Camps

Appalachian Mountains (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I've written about a couple of the turning point moments in my boys' lives in the posts Give Me Twenty and Uno. As summer approaches and the temperatures spike I tend to daydream about the five summers that I spent as a camp counselor at Trail Blazer Camps.  The camp's current mission: "Through outdoor experiential environmental education, we strive to facilitate the development of values and life skills essential for productive citizenship in young people."  They take kids from New York City and invite them to live in the woods, in teepees, hogans, and Conestoga wagons. There were no log cabin dorms, air conditioning or in ground pool. The dining hall was the only building with a an actual roof that campers used.  Canvass was the norm and if your lodging was a little swankier, you had a wood platform floor.

In 1985 I traveled to Montague, NJ, near the Delaware Water Gap, inside the Appalachian Mountains, to work at Trail Blazers Camp (TBC).  Flying into New York City and then finding my way to the Port Authority bus terminal, and at last meeting my ride for the final bit of travel to the camp entrance was a true journey.  We arrived late at night and the rolling hills were dark, barely populated with homes set back in the forest.  As I laid down to sleep in the small cot of my temporary home I knew that I was changing.  I could actually feel it happening.  In a 12 hour period I had taken my first plane ride, navigated NYC (I am a directionally challenged person), and plopped myself into a job commitment that was going to require my terribly introverted self (like too scared to order pizza over the phone type shy) to lead groups of children through life in the woods for 30 days at a time!

There's so much that I learned at the camp, about nature and about myself. There is one moment though that shifted my perspective permanently.  I was participating in the two week training program with the other counselors.  Essentially, older wiser counselors, former camp directors, and seasoned trainers used their summer vacation to play in the woods and teach young and very green people like me how to feel confident in the woods, leading decentralized programming, under formidable and primitive living conditions, while singing songs and playing games.  There was a lot to learn. Red efts, lashing our shelters together, cooking outdoors, tool safety, group motivation, and pyscho social needs of our at risk youth, who would be in our care for a month, all needed to be absorbed in 10 days.  One evening after dinner every single counselor came for a talent show of sorts.  The talents were fun games or sing-a-longs that would be good to use when the campers came.  Everyone was supposed to get up and share something, in front of 30 other staff members. I had been a part of some great one-on-one conversations but the whole group? Heart racing. Gulp. Sweat. Yikes!

When it was my turn to share something, I dug deep.  Somewhere in my past Girl Scouting history I'd seen a kooky dance/song that was an excuse for absurdity and silliness.  It was so far out of my comfort zone but it was the only thing I could think of to do.  I stood up, beet red, nervous,and without any introduction or explanation and shouted in a military cadence type chant:

"LET ME SEE YOU SHOOT THE MOON!
(shout back to me, "What's that you say?")
"I SAID LET ME SEE YOU SHOOT THE MOON!
(What's that you say?")
"I SAID LET ME SEE YOU SHOOT THE MOON!  OOH AH AH  (pointing gun fingers up at the moon)AH OOH AH AH (more gun fingers and quick spins like I'm in a gun fight) AH OOH AH AH AH OOH!"

Resume normal posture and begin again, "LET ME SEE YOU COCK A ROACH!" What's that you say?
"I SAID LET ME SEE YOU COCK A ROACH!" What's that you say?  "I SAID LET ME SEE YOU COCK A ROACH!"
Drop to ground laying on my back, hands and feet in the air, like a large roach turned over on it's back side and wiggling. "OOH AH AH AH OOH AH AH AH OOH AH AH AH OOH!"  There were about three other verses but you get the idea.

teepee & kerosene lanterns

I wish I could find a You Tube video of this chant because it doesn't get  it's just presentation here in print.  I wish I could also have a picture of the group of counselors and trainers that were staring back at me that night.  They were smiling and laughing but also stunned.  Where was the quiet, unassuming, responsible, and probably too serious newbie?  Where indeed.  I learned a lot that summer but mostly I learned that I was very capable, good at motivating others, and a leader.  I was pushed to do stuff that I wouldn't have done or even thought to do on my own.  The pushing allowed me to learn about myself and my capacity.  There was something about being so vulnerable, physically outside, that pulled out this courage and confidence in me. Lake Mashipacong, The Lodge, Awanasa and Fernhill Farm campsites, the Dining Hall lawn overlooking the garden and the mountains, these are the places where my hardest and best summers took place. These are the places where I started to discover my current self.

Happy Summer!

Mom memories

I'm four, sitting in my mom's lap, on our way home from Christmas Eve dinner and midnight mass with family.  It's cold outside and I'm very tired.  I lay against the faux fur collar of my mom's coat and fall asleep.

Playing outside on my bike with the training wheels.  I pull up to the side of our trailer home, riding on the sidewalk to our steps.  The bully of the complex pushes me off my bike and into the row of rose bushes lining our home.  I lay on my bed while my mom picks out all of the thorns from my back and legs. 

It's May and we're walking up to Johnson's U Pick farm.  We walk on to a dusty old school bus, buckets in hand and take the bumpiest ride through unpaved, gravel roads to our strawberry patch.  On hands and knees we find the little red treasures hiding in the straw covered rows.  Dreaming of the shortcake and jam that will come makes the boredom and sun bearable.

"God doesn't make junk."

In my bedroom, at 12 or 13, hearing the knock at the door.  She sits on the edge of the bed and says goodnight.  Asks about my day.  Five or ten minutes of time, with just her.  Saying next to nothing.  Waiting every night for that knock.

Shipped care packages -  boxes of my favorite store bought cookie, cashews, a five dollar bill, and a note from her during finals week.

Singing.  A snippet of a hymn, a chorus from a musical.  Every topic seems to have a piece of music that she recalls and inserts in the conversation. 

Little flashes of her.  Tiny bits.  Elusive memories.  A small collection of moments.  And yet the power!  The influence, the love, the confidence, the foundation that she set in place for me.  It's impossible to document how a person can speak to your soul, long after they're gone or how being seen so deeply and clearly can change you.  Trying to let the gratitude overtake the sadness.

Time Flies

Yesterday I wrote about some thoughts I had while driving and how it connected to my feelings for my son's own driving future, in It's A Small World.  Linking to Facebook, I wrote, "In honor of my son receiving his driving permit today."  I  don't know how many people read the post but a lot of folks reacted to the Facebook teaser.  How could it be possible that he could be old enough to be in driver's ed?  Disbelief, sadness, and big blobs of denial filled the comment section.  If he was old enough to drive, what did it mean about us?

I do miss the little boy.  There are times when I wish it was possible to freeze the frame and keep my sons as they are.  I've thought that at most every age (although I considered farming them out to relatives between 10-11 yrs old).  Every year, sometimes every month, has brought a new skill, or interest, or quality that deepened who they are as people.  As much as I would like to keep my 15 yr old dependent on two wheel or chauffeured transportation, I'm just as curious to see what type of 16 yr. old he becomes. 

I'm confident that my son is going to be great and hopefully take the right amount of risks to be interesting and curious about life without getting hurt or put in jail.  What the Facebook comments triggered in me was an evaluation of my own growth.  How could my son be so much older?  I don't feel like I've changed much...ooooh, maybe that's a problem. As my children get older, I come closer to the age when parenting will not be a main focus for my energy.  The children in our life, whether they are our own or the nieces and nephews, neighbors, and friends, remind us that life is all about change and growth.  Kids shove it in our faces, "Look what I can do!  Look how much taller I am.  Look how I can figure things out without you.  Look how I have my own ideas and opinions."  More and more, I'm getting the itch to explore what I can do.  What would be a stretch for me?  What is something that would expand my interests and skills?

Don't get me wrong, I miss the lazy snuggling and the toothless, drooling grin.  I miss the courageous first steps and chasing after lightning bugs.  I miss the excited first hit at a baseball game and the proud completion of that first piano recital.  There's a lot of things that I miss but I don't think I want to keep my kids little as much as I want to be growing too.

Blessed Lamb Cake

In the midst of this Easter weekend, I'm reminded of the family rituals that linger in spite of significant changes in my life.  Since I am no longer a practicing Catholic, my Holy Week schedule is pretty light.  No Palm Sunday procession. No stations of the cross each day.  No Holy Thursday service where we imitate the washing of the disciples feet.  No Good Friday services with the passion play and the congregants reading the parts of the mob (shouting "crucify him").  No snuffing of candles and stripping the altar of all decoration to honor the time of Jesus laying in the tomb.  No Holy Saturday plans to go to church with our lamb cake and jelly beans, to be blessed by the priest, in preparation for our Easter celebration of Jesus' rising from the dead.  So many things that aren't a part of my life or my spiritual practice anymore.

And yet today, I am thinking about all of these things.  I am remembering the house rules of no electronics on Good Friday afternoon - my mother's way of observing the huge sacrifice that was done for us.  Our home was silent, dark, and without the comforting hum of most everything except our refrigerator.  I'm preparing for a big Easter dinner and gathering the ingredients for my lamb cake.  Why?  It's strange to me and also very comforting.  Every Easter since I left my parents' home I have had lamb cake.  A couple times it was mailed to me by my mom.  Other times the cake was purchased at a chain store bakery.  For the last decade, I have made my own, in my very own, lamb cake mold.

Anyone who has ever had Easter with me knows that eating the lamb cake is NOT my favorite thing.  It doesn't really rank very high on the yummy cake chart.  I make the cake and it sits on the table as a little Easter centerpiece, surrounded by jelly beans and green cellophane grass and I feel happy.  I've never been sure why but I think it's because it was always the one "nice" activity of the otherwise scary and confusing holy week.  All week long I would be told the litany of abuses and betrayals and outright torture that makes up the details of Jesus' last days.  It was vivid and brutal and seemingly without end.  On Saturday morning when we returned to church to have our cake blessed, there were no gruesome stories.  There were prayers and holy water sprinkled about and there were wonderful smells.  Other families brought their eggs, fancy breads, and even hams.  I was never sure how it related to Jesus' death and resurrection but I was grateful for the reprieve. 

Why have I let go of so much that was important to my family as a child and embrace other elements so fiercely?  As I've gotten older, I realize how few people there are that share these holy week/lamb cake memories with me.  Maybe the lamb cake is just one of the threads I'm not willing to cut -one of the threads that ties me to my unique family and keeps me a part of them no matter how much I change.

What's your lamb cake?

Fessing Up

1970 Oldsmobile Vista-Cruiser (Photo credit: aldenjewell)

At the movies recently I saw a promo for a movie about stay-at-home dads.  They repeated several times to one of the newbies of the group that, "There's no judging."  That mantra was followed by a stream, a hilarious stream, of mistakes each of them had made or crazy things their children had done, while they were distracted. In each case, their children had survived.  I immediately thought of the day that I curiously tugged at the gear handle in our boat of a station wagon and started rolling the family tug down the gravel driveway.  I flashed on the morning that my 1 1/2 year old son opened the front door of the house by himself (we didn't know he could do that) and went for a walk, crossing two alleys and traveling 3 blocks before we found him.  No judging.

I  want to hear your own confessions.  I was raised Catholic and am ready to use this space for a little emotional purging.  What is the thing that you survived that still amazes?  The parenting mishaps/indiscretions that your own children survived?  I'm prepared to share a bunch of mine but it would be so much more fun if I wasn't the only one laughing at myself...

Sibling Memories: Letting Them Go

Sibling! (Photo credit: Gus Dahlberg)

I've highlighted some of the fun moments that I shared with my siblings this past weekend and now feel like I need to be honest about one of the not so fun moments - at least for me.  It was when I had to confess my jerkiness to my brother and apologize. Family dynamics, birth order, reactions to grief, geographic distance, and just simply having different personalities, means that my relationship to each of my siblings is different.  Over time, relationships that were awkward can feel nonexistent or icy if they are not tended.  Such was the case for me.

As I sat enjoying the company of my two brothers and two sisters this past weekend, I had a mini epiphany.  Listening to stories of childhood moments, present day struggles and joys, and future hopes led me to the basic realization - we're all just doing our best.   There are things that I regret in my own life and mistakes that I've made.  My brother is the same.  I realized, as I sat listening to his hopes for his marriage and his conversations with his children, that I really owed him an apology.  In my own mind, I had been replaying a sequence of events between him and his family from over a decade ago, keeping him frozen in time.  It was embarrassing to own. 

It was humbling to see how small I could be and how easy it was for me to drift away from my brother.   I realized that I needed to let go of some of my memories.  Holding on to images of our younger selves, trying to find our way, sorting out our priorities, rebuilding our lives after major loss was not fair.  The real truth is that my aloof, emotionally distant approach to my brother was hypocritical.  My own behavior wasn't modeling anything healthy or loving.  Things happen in relationships that we regret, or that make us angry or sad.  We have to be vigilant and know what our memories are preserving.  Some memories we just need to let go of.

Can you imagine letting go of some of your memories - memories that are holding someone in your life in a freeze frame?  Or, if not let go, then allowing space for new memories to be added? 

Sibling Memories: Affirming the DJ

The Black eyed peas (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

At the wedding this past weekend, I had a chance to eat great food, visit with family, soak up some beautiful sunshine and surf, and I got to dance.  Dancing is not necessarily something that I go out of my way to do.  I'm terribly self conscious about my limited repertoire of moves.  One of my favorite memories from the weekend though, will be dancing with my brothers and sisters at the wedding reception.  Four of the five of us were a bit nervous that we wouldn't have anything other than country music to dance to.  The fifth sibling enjoys the country but was also the mother of the bride and in high demand.  The dj played several country songs at the very beginning and we sat nursing our drinks.  No one else was dancing either so we didn't really stand out as a protest contingent.  Then out of nowhere we heard the beat of the Black Eyed Peas (I think that was what stirred us from our seats) and we charged the floor.  We danced by ourselves through three quarters of the song while others were begging and cajoling their friends to join in.

We broke open that dance floor.  Perhaps people saw how much fun we were having and felt jealous.  Perhaps people saw my moves and realized that they could look really great in comparison.  Who knows.  We stayed on the floor for a couple more songs and sat when the country came on.  Everyone else sat down too.  We decided that we would have to make a commitment - we had to affirm the dj in playing non-country music (sorry sis).  Whenever he played non-country we would get up and dance and give him positive reinforcement.  It's been a long time since I was just goofy like that - just hanging out with my group and cutting loose.  It was an extra rare treat that my group was my two brothers and my two sisters, a great memory.

I was in high school when my youngest sister was born.  My youngest brother lived with my husband and I over his college breaks.  The wide age span of my five siblings has meant that our relationships have taken very different shapes and hues over the years.  There were times when I felt more like a mother figure than sister.  In the present day, we are a very adult mix of work, relationships, debt, and health concerns and our decade and a half age span isn't all that significant.  We all too easily put people we love into categories, defining and limiting them to a narrow template.  Sometimes we take a template that's been put on us and resist acting beyond it's confines.  Big sister or oldest in the family are templates that I've held.  The great thing about the dance floor at the reception was that the five of us were just having fun.  All the templates were set down and we were just enjoying each other.  I've always liked the Black Eyed Peas and now I have a whole new reason to appreciate them.

Sibling Memories: Indian Paintbrushes

I just returned from my trip to Corpus Christi, TX where I attended the wedding of a niece.  The best part of the trip was that all four of my siblings were present at the wedding.  We converged on Texas from Washington, Illinois, Indiana, and Ontario, Canada.  Five years have passed since the last time we were all together.  There are so many thoughts and as one of my brothers commented, "There's a lot of fodder for your blog from this weekend."  Indeed.

As we started the drive from San Antonio airport to Corpus Christi we were all taken by the very different landscape.  Watching the cactus pop up along the roadside was foreign to all of us. We were all admiring the beautiful and unfamiliar wildflowers.  I can't remember the sequence of the conversation but I basically commented on a pretty flower, my youngest brother made a joke about pulling over to pick some, I said, "Don't offer unless you're really willing to make good on it."  Then, all of the sudden, my brother pulls over on the side of the highway and calls my bluff.  Next thing I know we're all spilling out of the SUV and making a mad dash to pluck coral colored blossoms.  I was actually a little nervous that some Texas Ranger was going to come upon us and arrest us all for poaching a part of their state.  (An idea planted by my one brother who was convinced that he wouldn't escape Texas without an arrest from one of the Rangers - it may just have been a fantasy).

Back in the car we gathered our individual efforts and had a very beautiful bouquet.  We drove the remaining two hours and found the church where the rehearsal and dinner would be that evening.  After dinner we returned to the car and found our lovely bundle had shriveled, wilted, in a word, died.  We found our way to the beach condo where we stayed and plopped them into a plastic cup of water.  It was sad and a little pathetic, looking at the pink cup of dead flowers.  I wish I would have taken a picture so that the rest of this story could be more dramatic.  We left to go down to the beach for a bonfire and returned probably two hours later to find the flowers in the photo.  My sister who has lived in Texas calls them Indian Paintbrushes.  The rest of my siblings thought that calling them Lazarus flowers might be appropriate too, (reference to Bible story about the man who rose from the dead).

The weekend was great.  It was great because we had a chance to make new memories instead of relying on a stash of old childhood stuff that we all remember differently anyway.  And in a very hokey way, it was good to bring our wilted relationships with one another back to life, dip ourselves in some cool water and draw upon that to rehydrate our connections.  Those flowers just kept offering themselves up to us, opening up even after being terribly neglected.  I am thinking about other people in my life that I might do the same.  I am thinking about people who I need to take on a road trip and pick some flowers with.  What are some of the ways that have helped you restore life to your relationships?