Oh, Christmas Tree...

December 1, 2015

Christmas was once a favorite of mine.

Then I became an adult.

As an adult, I have strung the lights, decorated the trees, bought the gifts. Wrapped the gifts. Put out the snowman cookie jar. Alone. 

No one in my household ever seemed to care, notice, mind if the trees were up or down, the lights were on, the snowman cookie jar was out. Of course, were there no presents beneath said trees there would have been weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth. At least for the non-adults in my midst.

The presents kind of registered on the give-a-sh*t Richter scale. Honestly though, whether or not the necessary packages had been purchased and wrapped for the scads of relatives who we needed to make merry bothered no one. Just me: the magic (and increasingly bitter) Christmas fairy.

The thing is--and I'm sure I'm not alone--I will move heaven and earth for you and wrap it up in a lovely bow and put it under the tree that I erected and decorated single-handedly. I will even sing an effing Christmas carol while I do it. 

Just say thank you. Or act like it matters.

Looking back, nothing has made me feel more invisible or frivolous than Christmas. That's saying something. I'm certain the birth of our Lord wasn't intended to exhaust us. I'm certain I ought not get all riled up and harbor bitter feelings of misunderstanding and neglect because of lovely decorations that have (really) zippo to do with the birth of our Lord and Savior.

I will take the blame. I did it to myself. Why keep knocking myself out when the only clear result is me knocked out?

This year I put up one tree. No ornaments. Just favorite white lights and ribbons. Interestingly enough, for the first time ever, without provocation, my two kiddos (whom I fiercely love in spite of their numbness to my noble holiday plight) have told me how much they love it. It's "wow" they say. 

The years of going overboard (was it?) have melted away with this unsolicited kindness. Yay.

Merry Christmas. It may have taken me two decades of adulting to realize that adulting means choosing what knocks me out. Better late than never.

Christmas was once a favorite of mine. It might be again. We shall see.

PS--Joni Mitchell is an acquired taste.  There is something about "River" that gets to me every Christmas.  We've all wanted to skate away at some point.  Some Christmases more than others.  If you are so inclined, here you go:

https://youtu.be/GpFudDAYqxY

The Sound of It

November 25, 2015

We all have a soundtrack. Well, if you are a lover of tunes/have a soul/etc., you have a soundtrack: songs and sounds that represent moments large and small in the ongoing story that is yours and yours alone. Sometimes it's just music that triggers a memory (see Trisha Yearwood's "The Song Remembers When") or the anthem of the time (cue "Forever Young" and I'm standing in my junior high gym while couples slow dance and I adjust my linebacker-worthy shoulder pads and check my sky-high bangs to make sure they are still standing at attention). I can't hear "The Way You Look Tonight" without longing for a dance partner and a full moon; or Queen's "We are the Champions" without my heart tugging me back to a van full of debaters, the speakers at full bore.

My mind's eye is focused precisely through the ears. 

So it was last weekend when the preview of an upcoming movie featured this version of "Landslide." A favorite of mine from the Stevie Nicks version to even the spin the Dixie Chicks put on it: THIS "Landslide" took me aback.

Robyn Sherwell, "Landslide":  http://youtu.be/b_uKmKtC4Mk

It is appropriate on this Thanskgiving Eve that I put this song on repeat as I ran the neighborhood, pondering the timeliness of its message. 

No one maneuvers this life without landslides. It's what happens next that is the question to be answered.

Can the child within my heart rise above?
Can I sail through the changing ocean tides?

Can I handle the seasons of my life?

Yes. 

And for my yes, I take a deep, grateful breath. 

Happy Thanksgiving. It is the happiest thanks I've given in a very long time. YES, indeed. The tune of life might not be quite as I thought it would play, but that's okay. Melodies change.

I like the sound of that.

"Let us be grateful to the people who make us happy; they are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom."

--Marcel Proust

To the Top

November 18, 2015

When I first came to Parkview, I was the assistant to a brilliant and formidable coach who became a very dear friend.  He imparted all manner of nuggets to me in the two years we worked together, before he handed me the reigns.  One such favorite story was this (with apologies for an inaccuracy here or there):

A remarkable extemporaneous speaker of Brett’s made it into the final round at Nationals.  It is an arduous journey to this spot.  Ben was a genius, as I remember him.  He was riled by nothing: unassuming with an understated and searing wit.  His father was a local judge who minced no words and did so loudly and with genuine affection.  As Brett tells it, Ben called his dad before he competed in that final round.  His father recalled to Ben a hiking trip they had been on together when they reached a point en route to the peak of a particularly daunting mountain when they realized fog covered the mountain top.  They had hiked for hours, only to have their destination muddled by fog.  On that trip, Ben’s Dad looked at him and said, “we didn’t come this far not to get to the the top of this g*ddamn mountain.”  At this point in the phone conversation, his father paused.  “Ben, you didn’t come this far not to get to the top of this g*ddamn mountain.”

Ben proceeded to win that final round of extemporaneous speaking.  Because the scores were cumulative from all prior rounds, he ended up placing 2nd in the nation.  But he still reached the top.

I have recalled that story many times for a variety of reasons and occasions. It’s a charmer.  And it’s true.

We all have a mountain, a series of hills, falls down cliffs to be scaled up again.  That’s the nature of the beast. 

The good news is that, just when the peak is in sight but the air is thin, a burst of oxygen can give us the push we need to keep climbing.  

After all, we've come this far...

November 15 Nugget

Happy Birthday, Nyds!

November 10, 2015

Dad met Nydia Jenkins at church. Well, we all met at church. And so at that same church they married in 1981. I was seven.

I spent the greater part of the next decade playing Jekyll and Hyde in the form of a brown-eyed stepdaughter for this kind, well-intentioned stepmother. I was generally a good, albeit sad and screwed up kid who took most of my inner turmoil out on poor Nyds. Granted, there were some rules and regulations imposed on us that I deemed horrific and have yet to understand, but the poor woman was doing her best. I could be a little shit. That's all there is to it.

She remained steadfast, being a wife to my busy and rather public Pops and insta-mom to two kids, all while teaching full time. In fact, she sacrificed her successful career as a speech and debate coach to be that wife and mom. I know it broke her heart, although she never once complained. The rest of her years in the high school classroom were dedicated to teaching English.

You walked out of her sophomore English classroom with a better command of the King's English and a stronger working vocabulary than when you first walked in. You also left more polite or lost an appendage during your time there: "crude, rude and socially unacceptable" was her definitive and ultimate indictment of adolescent behavior that was so deserving. And I know. I was one of her students.

As a matter of fact, our relationship changed forever during the year I spent in her class. I was simultaneously falling in love with debate. She understood. We had common ground that led to an enduring friendship. Her example and guidance shaped me into the debate coach I became.

My kids are a great gift to a great many people. But I have always seen them specially created for Nyds. I have a lot to make up for where she is concerned. I watch Grace and Drew BE the happiness Nyds so deserves. She has played a pivotal role in who they are. She should be proud, and I know she is. 

Nydia is a selfless person. She is kind, thoughtful, accommodating. She will put up with unkindness, thoughtlessness, and selfishness to a point. But--to her credit--she has a tipping point of no return. I've only seen her reach it sparingly. She is a sweet, God-fearing, soft-spoken lady. But she is no doormat. My kind of broad!

Oh she has her quirks: she paper clips every other page as she reads her current book; she has an affection for post-it notes, legal pads and list-making that would land her in rehab were post-it notes, legal pads and lists the likes of meth or booze; she puts her purse in a sack at ballgames to protect it from the elements. She overpacks and uses too many ziplocs. This will come as no shock and no affront to her when she reads this: she ALSO has a sense of humor and doesn't get her knickers in a twist when we poke fun at what could be considered diagnosable neuroses.

She is one of a kind.

Interestingly enough, on the day after Mom died, there was an article in the local paper about her death. Just beneath it was an article about the success of Nydia's speech and debate squad at the Parkview tournament that weekend. On that same day, Winnie, one of Mom's friends, was staying with us while Nydia (also a good friend of Winnie's) helped take care of Winnie's kids. When Winnie came home, she couldn't explain it, but she looked at Nydia and said, "I...I think you are supposed to be with those kids."

And so she was. And so she has been these many years.

To Nydia:  so much more than Bill Rowe's wife, Grammy, Nyds, master teacher, organist, friend...Happy Birthday. Just keep having them. Lots of them. Ok?

On the Other Side

November 6, 2015

Disclaimer: there are aspects of this nugget that might make me seem of an arrogant sort. I don't mean that and I am not that. But there is a bit of my reality that is, well, what it is.

I coached speech and debate at Parkview for 18 years. During that time, my students won many state championships, a national championship, dominated invitational tournaments for over a solid decade, placed again and again at the national tournament. We were feared. We walked into tournaments with a swagger that was warranted: when our opponents saw "Parkview," they quaked a little. It was a wonderful advantage we had, rendering our adversaries less adversarial because of who we were.

This all sounds a bit much. It's just speech and debate. It's just Missouri. It's just high school. But I must admit it's a big deal to those in its grasp. And our part of the country is known nationally for its ass-kickingness in this field of battle.

I was preceded by two legends who built the program into national prominence. By some miracle, my Vikings and I managed to perpetuate the legacy. Okay, it wasn't just a miracle. I worked harder in my years at Parkview than I thought possible. It wasn't just the hours: I slept, ate, breathed my role as the leader of this force. What we needed to do next and better and bigger was constantly on my mind. Unfortunately, the weight of it crushed me; I was eventually suffocated by the demands of it. 

I've been away from it for almost a year and a half. I haven't missed it. Oh, I've missed the kids, I've missed my coaching buddies. I miss winning. But the cost of it I don't miss.

I write this in the parking lot of Republic High School. It is late Friday night. I'm back at a debate tournament.  My sweet daughter is competing inside those walls. This is her first tournament. It is a surreal night.

As I walked into the school this evening to bring her food between events, the sights and sounds were familiar. But I wasn't leading the squad most likely to win the tournament. I'm a mom. A mom whose daughter came to countless tournaments in her stroller or pig tails or as an elementary school kiddo with roller skates on to roll through the halls. She grew up in this, in the midst of my obsessive attention to a job that likely took too much attention away from her and her little brother.

Today she looks stunning and grown up. She is confident and has had a successful first day thus far.  I get to view it all with complete understanding of what it means and how unbelievably difficult it is and yet just be her supporter. Rather than managing the needs of 100 debaters at once, I get to manage the needs of one.  The most important one.

Watching her excitement today and viewing this incomparable activity through her eyes is as good as any of the championships enumerated in the "I was good at what I did" portion of this post.  I am proud of her. I'm proud I helped make her. I'm proud she is seeing inside the very thing that took me away night after night, weekend after weekend. She gets it, even if just a smidge. There aren't words for the guilt that gripped me every hour I spent away for the good of the cause of speech and debate.

The thing is, it's redemptive to be understood. 

After today--in some measure--she understands. 

Survive...please

November 4, 2015


The movie "August: Osage County" is dark, beautifully-acted, hysterical, heartbreaking. There is much that goes on, but in this scene, Julia Roberts' character is talking to her daughter in the midst of a family tragedy that cracks open the world. Their world.

https://youtu.be/vAhXLnUfREY

Her words sum up much of life and parenting...so much so that when I watched the scene the first time my stomach lurched. 

I have nothing to add. 

It is what it is.

Spoiler Alert

November 2, 2015

My boy and I fought today. 

We don’t do that.

In fact, I would be hard-pressed to imagine a mother and son more in concert one with another.  As a little one, I spanked Drew maybe once or twice (yes, I believe in spanking! As my dear pastor Swad often advised, “sometimes the quickest connection to the brain is through the backside").  He rarely needed to be spanked to be thoroughly reprimanded: just a look of disappointment would make him crumple.  He is a conscientious, sensitive fellow.  The tenderness of his heart concerns me because the world is not tender. But I do have faith that the part of him that perceives others’ sadness with a well-tuned radar, that seeks to comfort when there is trouble, that gets hurt too easily, is the best part of him; and God will preserve it and not let this ridiculous world we live in rust it out and leave it bare.  I pray for that for my Drew.  He is a special one.

To balance this lovely heart, however, I’m afraid a healthy dose of impatience and selfishness made their way into his psyche.  I have no idea where that came from.  He is surrounded by mild-mannered patient genes on all sides.  Ahem.

So it was today that he became impatient with me.  I’ve spoiled my children.  Oh, they have plenty in terms of STUFF, but I’m not usually the one who buys it (shout out to the grammies of the world on that score).  My overindulgence where my children is concerned is in their time.  I try to protect it and to respect it.  I believe their time and priorities are just as important as mine.  All my love to my folks, but that is not at all how I felt as a kiddo.  I was dragged hither and yon to games, to work obligations, on errands, to do yard work across the countryside.  There was value in all that and a necessity for it at times.  But I have little recollection of ever being asked, “what do you want to do today?” That’s not a criticism.  It’s just the way it was.

I hated the lack of control I felt over my awkward, bad-hair-do, big girl, sad girl life.  And I vowed that my own kids wouldn’t have to feel that resentment.  I vowed they would have some control over their time.

As is my custom, I traffic in extremes.  I have trouble doing anything in moderation; and I have erred on the side of valuing the kids’ time maybe too much.  Don’t get me wrong:  I’m no helicopter mom; the sun doesn’t rise and set in the every breath of my precious progeny.  They are involved to the hilt in volleyball, debate, baseball, basketball—and for that I’m thrilled.  It’s their discretionary time (a phrase coined by one of my nearest and dearest) that has cornered the market over here: the FREE time I have so protected to be theirs for the taking so much so that any imposition thereon meets some resistance.

Here’s what I mean:  they have had a four day weekend, and during that time we took a little over an hour to get Drew a haircut, get Grace shoes for school (and Drew also scored a pair) and we hopped over to Ulta (a makeup mecca of sorts) next door to the shoe store.  None of these stops are at the top of anyone’s list, but they needed to happen.  Okay, okay:  the makeup store stop was up in the air, but we were right there…  Anyhoo, Drew was less than thrilled at being dragged here and there, even though he benefitted.  

I am not high maintenance when it comes to my appearance.  I feel like a bull in a China shop when it comes to putting stuff on my face.  I do the best I can with what God gave me and that isn’t saying a whole lot.  The “pop in” to makeup world was a brief grab-3-things extravaganza.  Drew, however, had reached his limit.  He is ten, he is kind and respectful.  He doesn’t have tantrums.  But the nasal tenor of complaint in minute six of our jaunt inside was beginning to wear on me.  

“But you don’t NEED that stuff.  You’d be the same whether you USED it or NOT!”  he exclaimed, befuddled by the aisles of powders, creams, perfumes, lipsticks.  It was too much.  It was just too damned much.

I went on the offense.  “Well bud, we can’t all be as naturally cute as you.  I gotta do something to help this face.”

“No you don’t!  This is ridiculous!” he wasn’t being smart.  He was bitching.  I got it.

From there, he and his sister began to fuss over who would sit shotgun on the ride home and I whipped out the closest thing to “I’ll give you something to cry about” in my arsenal:  "keep it up and you’ll both be in the back of the car.” Silence.

When we returned to the car, I launched into a mini-lecture whose greatest beneficiary was likely me, as the catharsis of saying it and fulfilling a sitcom-esque mother’s rant always does the heart a little good. “When I was your age I was dragged on every errand.  I’m so sorry I took time away from your day of blah blah blah.”  I know Grace was just waiting to turn up the tunes and put my roar to rest (she won the shotgun battle, and had been very tolerant of the whole affair, sans the throwdown for the front seat).  As I drove home, two thoughts sprang to mind:  1)  I am largely responsible for the fact that my kids are very happy, active kids who are derailed when their time is taken from them. I am to be commended and condemned.  2) I like the fact that my son (even if only as a ploy to get the hell out of the beauty store) thinks I don’t need anything slathered on my face or eyelashes to make me more presentable to the world, or that it wouldn’t change my insides.

Nonetheless, he is still in his room as I write, as his attitude had improved not upon our return home.  It may be largely my fault that he thinks his time is 100% his, but it’s also my job to fix it.  Or at least make him “think about it” (an excellent strategy, don’t you think?).  Any separation between him, ESPN, the iPad, or Netflix is punishment supreme.  Mission accomplished.

Parenting is a crapshoot in many regards.  You can be too strict, you can be too lenient.  At the end of the day, I just want two kids who love me and want to spend time with me (just not in Ulta, I guess) and who do their best to do right by everyone in their midst, including the Almighty.  That, we got.  

I suppose I should go release Drew from Shawshank…unless he has tunneled out already and is heading to meet Morgan Freeman on a beach somewhere. We shall see...