Enlightenment? Maybe tomorrow

Even though much of my life these days feels out of my control, I'm trying to be a better human being.  Stop snickering - it's true.  I realized that once in a while - OK,  maybe a lot in a while - I'm not as loving toward my fellow earthlings as I should be.  I often lose my patience when others behave stupidly, I can't handle narrow mindedness, and rudeness makes me crazy. 

Choosing to be tolerant when what I'd really like to do is smack the stupid right out of someone doesn't always come easy to me.  While I may not always be successful, I've gotten to the point where I don't immediately criticize or react to someone else's behavior.  Instead, I try to understand where they might be coming from:  are they having a bad day?  facing a difficult challenge?  just visiting from Cleveland?

So, as part of my quest to be more accepting of others, I've begun to imagine everyone I encounter as helpless infants.  Everyone loves babies, right?  They're innocent, adorable, and absolutely incapable of hurting anyone.   A baby's spirit exudes nothing but pure love until the cynicism of adulthood erodes it away. 

I'm trying to honor the fact that everyone doesn't start out as difficult or curmudgeonly as they appear to be in the checkout line at the grocery store or while shopping the aisles of Costco. 

I'm also trying to set a good example for my kids.  I tell them that everyone they meet was once someone's precious baby, deserving of our love and respect even if we don't feel like loving or respecting them in that particular moment.

The kids don't always buy it.

Recently, while running errands with Evan, we seemed to encounter an overwhelming abundance of challenging drivers.  I'm sure you know the ones:  braking for no apparent reason, applying make-up while driving, and - my personal favorite - weaving so much you expect they must be making a sweater.

Through all of these frustrations, I didn't react, choosing instead to remind myself that each of these drivers used to be someone's precious baby.

I felt pretty smug about my new enlightened attitude, thinking that my son Evan must surely admire my patient and serene attitude. 

And then, out of nowhere, a car cut in front of us and abruptly stopped, causing me to slam on the brakes in order to avoid a collision.  Evan and I flew forward against our seatbelts. We stopped short of hitting the other car by mere inches. "Whoa!" Evan exclaimed. "What was that guy trying to do?"

I was shaken, but did my best to remain calm.  "He probably didn't see us," I reasoned, as we resumed driving with Someone's Precious Baby in front of us.

Soon, the driver began swerving erratically from one side of the lane to the other.  I could see the profile of his head turn to the right and then drop below the level of his seat headrest.  He appeared to be searching for something under his seat. 

            "What's he doing?" Evan asked.

            "I don't know," I said.  "Maybe he dropped something and is trying to find it."

Someone's Precious Baby was quickly turning into Someone's Dangerous Nightmare as he continued to pay more attention to whatever was on the floor of his car and less attention to his driving.  A few times, his inattention caused oncoming cars to swerve out of the way when he failed to keep his car from drifting into the other lane of traffic.

            "Shouldn't he pull over if he dropped something?" asked Evan, already exhibiting more sense about road safety than the driver in front of us.

We continued to follow the distracted driver, although now allowing a much greater distance between our car and his.  If this guy was going to drive this erratically, I didn't want to become involved in an accident with him.

Both of our cars stopped at a traffic light.  Suddenly the driver's side door flew open on the car in front of us, and a young man in his twenties jumped out.  With the traffic light still red, he ran to his trunk and opened it.  He pulled two small torpedo-like things out and slammed the trunk lid shut.  Evan and I looked at each other, too stunned to voice the obvious questions:  what are those things and why did he suddenly need to retrieve them from his trunk?

            "Well, maybe now that he has his torpedoes with him, he'll be able to concentrate on his driving," I offered.

Not a chance.  The light turned green and Torpedo-man was once again back to fussing around on the seat of his car.  I could no longer find empathy or excuses for this man who drove so carelessly.  I felt helpless and afraid as I watched him swerve from right to left and back again, into the lane of oncoming traffic. 

            "For crying out loud, this crazy jerk is going to kill someone!" I screamed, having reached my limit of frustration.

So much for my plan to be a role model of tolerance for Evan.  I tried to correct myself.  "What I mean is, I hope that Someone's Precious Baby gets where he's going safely."

            "It's OK, Mom," said Evan.  "I think that even Someone's Precious Baby knows he's a terrible driver."

Evan was right.  Instead of tolerating everything, maybe the wisest thing for us to do is to recognize trouble when we see it.  The next best thing after that is probably to take a different route home, away from the crazyflakes.

We can always try this tolerance stuff tomorrow.

Mom finally gets a clue

(Evan, back when he only had eyes for me.)

My son Evan is growing up.

I know I shouldn't be surprised.  For some time now, I've been listening to the cracks of his pubescent voice as it searches for its new mature range.  I've seen his growth measurements on the inside of our pantry door move dramatically higher.  Soon, we will run out of pantry door to mark them on.  And let's just say I've become even more appreciative of the miracle of deodorant with so many boys in the house.

I know that kids are supposed to grow up.  As parents, our job is to keep them alive so that they can grow up and eventually move out (hopefully taking all of their stuff with them.)  If those rapidly disappearing groceries and too-small sneakers are any indication, Evan is indeed actively engaged in the business of growing.

Still, none of these signs fully prepared me for the day that Evan stopped waving to me from the school bus.

I've been waiting for the school bus with some or all of my three boys for seventeen years now.  The bus stop is right in front of our house so that means we're able to hang out on the front porch until the bus arrives.  We talk, or joke around, or simply see how far we can shoot our breath at one another in the chilly winter air.

As soon as we see the bus, Evan grabs his backpack, gives me a quick hug, and runs off the porch to the catch the bus.  As the bus drives by, I wave to him.  Until recently, he'd always wave back.

After a few days of unrequited waving, I asked Evan about it.

                "I guess you're embarrassed of your mom," I teased. 

                "It's not that," Evan assured me.  "It's just that now we have assigned seats and I'm sitting on the other side of the bus."

                "You can't wave from the other side of the bus?" I asked.

                "I don't know..." he said impatiently.  "It's just that everything is now... sort of... different."

Different?  Life didn't feel very different for me.  It was still the same work-family-finances dance that I've been doing for years now.  Day after day, I'm busy juggling those same precarious balls, stopping only to clean up the resulting fallout from those I've accidentally dropped.

While I've been preoccupied with all of this juggling, my youngest boy - my precious baby - was busy growing into a young man.  I am no longer the center of his world as I was when he was two or three years old.  There are other people and other experiences which have moved into that role, as they should.

The next day, I watched as Evan boarded the bus and settled into a seat mid-way toward the back.  There were girls sitting in the seats on either side of him and they eagerly started talking to him as soon as he sat down.  I thought of waving to him but didn't. 

As the bus drove away, he glanced at me.  I'm pretty sure I saw gratitude on his face.

Wishes for a Happy (or at Least Disaster-Free) New Year

 

Happy New Year!  I hope that all of you enjoyed the holidays.  Mine was lovely in spite of not receiving the World Peace I've been asking for since I was sixteen.  I mean, what the hell, Santa? 

Anyhoo, 2013 is off to a great start so far:  the kids are back at school, the house is quiet once again, and my sanity is mostly intact.  It feels good to have just the usual stuff to stress about rather than the dozens of additional worries that the holiday season ushers in. 

I always have such high hopes for each new year.  Each January 1st brings with it a feeling of bright and shiny optimism, bursting with potential.  Yeah, that old year really let us down (I'm talking to you, 2009, 2010, 2011, and 2012) but this one, THIS new year, is going to be when things finally turn around. 

So, before the alcohol wears off, er, I mean, before the disillusionment sets in, and while my cynicism is still sleeping, I'd like to throw a few of my wishes for 2013 out into the universe and see if they stick:

-  For starters, can this Great Recession/Depression/Whatever please end?  It's like an uninvited guest who keeps messing up the place and refusing to leave.  While the politicians remain beholden to  their own agendas, so many of us remain forgotten and continue to struggle.  Here in America, we shouldn't have to choose between paying the electric bill and buying food after working a full week.  We shouldn't be living one illness away from financial ruin or homelessness.  Something is fundamentally wrong with an economy that is content to allow the majority of its population to subsist as long as the stock market keeps humming along.   I pray that this is finally the year that people will matter more than politics or profits.

-  Speaking of politics, can Congress please just do its job without reducing every single item of legislation to a whiny-baby partisan fight?  If Moms ran the country, we'd know what to do to break the stalemate:  we'd count to three, and if the fighting continued, we'd take away their video games and send them all to the Naughty Chair.  The privilege of representing the American people should be reserved for those who will honor it and who will work for the good of the people - ALL of the people,  not just the wealthy, powerful, and influential ones. 

-  How about a year with no natural disasters?  Certainly, we've paid our dues in 2012 with wildfires, tornadoes, floods, and hurricanes.  We haven't even gotten all of those sorted out yet, so a boring year weather-wise would be much appreciated.  How lovely it would be to have a rainstorm just be a rainstorm and nothing more! 

-  Lastly, can we please at least move closer to that World Peace thing?  Maybe try diplomacy a bit more and violence a lot less?  Perhaps a good place to start would be by being kinder toward one another.  We gain nothing by magnifying our differences rather than embracing our similarities. We're all members of the same grand club known as the human race.  It would help to remember that we're all just doing the best that we can even if it doesn't always look that way. 

Wishing everyone a happy, healthy, peaceful, prosperous, and disaster-free 2013. 

"It's a turkey, Gertrude!"

 

 

I don't know how it happened, but Thanksgiving is next week. 

Next. Week. 

It totally snuck up on me, what with trying to keep all of my assorted balls in the air.  You know the ones:  keeping the kids alive, employers happy, animals fed, and bills paid.  Add in a hurricane and a presidential election and it's no wonder I'm a more disorganized mess than usual.

As I attempt to pull a holiday dinner together this year, I can't help but think how our Thanksgivings have changed over the years.  One of my favorite memories is of the time when my soon-to-be-husband Dan and I traveled to Ohio to spend Thanksgiving with my maternal grandmother.

After we arrived, we learned that Grandma had not yet gotten a turkey.  Ignoring the obvious question of why didn’t she have a turkey already if she was having guests for Thanksgiving dinner, Dan and I offered to go to the store and buy one. 

Looking for a turkey on Thanksgiving Day was a much bigger challenge than we expected, especially considering that we needed a fresh, unfrozen one.  A frozen turkey would never thaw in time to cook.  Dan waited in the car while I went into the grocery store.  I made a bee-line to the back of the store toward the meat department.  To my horror, there was not a single fresh turkey to be found.  Not one. 

Should I get a chicken?  A roast?  As I considered the options, my eyes were drawn to a freezer bin near the meat case.  Inside it were smallish turkey-looking items.  I picked one up.  The size was perfect since there were only going to be the three of us for dinner.  As I checked the package for the little pop-out timer thingy (a necessity for a young cook), I discovered that my perfect turkey was really a capon.  A capon?  What on earth is a capon?  Oh well, it looked like a turkey and it wasn’t frozen.  It would have to do. 

I wanted to impress my grandmother with how well I could cook a turkey, so I immediately began preparing the bird once we got back to her apartment.  There was no need to tell her about the capon.  After all, it looked just like a turkey.  Who would even know the difference?  I cut open the wrapper, cleaned the inside of the bird, and seasoned it so that it was ready for my grandmother’s oven.  I was proud of myself that I knew how to prepare a turkey.  Surely Grandma would be impressed as well.  I couldn’t wait for her to take the first bite.

My grandmother made several side dishes to accompany the “turkey”.  I helped her finish the rest of the preparations while Dan set the table.  Just as we were about to sit down to eat, there was a knock on the door.  It was my Aunt Mary.  Aunt Mary was known for showing up unannounced whenever a meal was likely to be happening.  She was a tough, independent woman; the bold, feisty yin to my grandmother’s quiet, passive yang.  Aunt Mary believed that she knew everything about everything and no one dared to tell her otherwise.

The  four of us sat down at the table and took turns selecting our food.  After taking the first bite of her “turkey”, my grandmother paused and said, “Hmmm.”

Uh-oh.  Is that a good “hmmm” or a bad “hmmm”?  Did I do something wrong in cooking it?  Did she bite into the giblets bag? 

“What’s wrong, Grandma?”  I asked.

Grandma took another bite.  “This tastes like a capon.”

How could she possibly know that it tasted like a capon?  I took a bite.  I couldn’t tell any difference except that the meat was less dry than a turkey. 

Before Dan or I could say anything, though, Aunt Mary jumped to our defense.  “It’s not a capon, Gertrude.  It’s a turkey.”

Grandma took another bite and chewed it slowly.  “I don’t know.  It sure tastes like a capon to me.”

Dan and I looked at each other.  If we come clean with the fact that it is, indeed, a capon, we’ll embarrass Aunt Mary. 

Aunt Mary took a bite.  “This is a turkey, not a capon.”  She looked at me and rolled her eyes as if to say "your grandmother is losing it." 

Grandma wasn’t about to let it go.  After another bite, she was certain.  “Yes.  This is definitely a capon.  This does not taste like turkey at all.”

Aunt Mary, unable to contain herself any longer, slammed down her fork and shrieked:  “For crying out loud, Gertrude, it’s a turkey! What do you think, they’d buy a damn capon for Thanksgiving dinner?” 

Right.  Who would buy a capon for Thanksgiving dinner?

Thankfully, the identification of the bird wasn’t mentioned for the rest of the meal.  We talked and laughed and shared an otherwise uneventful Thanksgiving with my grandmother and Aunt Mary.   

The next day, as Dan and I were preparing to leave, Grandma thanked us for coming for Thanksgiving and for helping her cook the meal.  I could tell that something was bothering her though..

 “I don’t know,” she said, shaking her head.  “I still swear that bird was a capon.” 

 

 

 

photo by Lisa Kern

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

All was fine until the polynomials showed up

“Mom, I need your help with my homework tonight,” Evan announced as I picked him up from school.

Then, the words no parent wants to hear: “It’s algebra.”

Algebra. Not much scares me these days (except wolf spiders, poison ivy, and an ineffective Congress,) but algebra still paralyzes me with fear. At my age, I’ve forgotten much more math than I remember. In fact, I think algebraic concepts were among the very first things in my brain to shrivel up and die during childbirth.

Twenty-plus years and three children later, my memory of algebra hasn’t returned and I can honestly say I haven’t missed it. The way I see it, you’re inviting trouble when you allow letters and numbers to fraternize with one another anyway.

After dinner, Evan began to work on his math homework. It wasn’t long before he ran into problems (I know, I know…bad pun.)

I looked at his homework but it might as well have been written in Chinese. It made just as little sense to me.

I stared at the problems, incredulous that I’d ever been capable of figuring them out at any point in my life. No matter how long I stared at them, though, I could not remember what to do with them. Which do I solve first: the addition and subtraction or the multiplication? What about the x’s and y’s? What am I supposed to do with those? And what’s the deal with those tiny numbers that like to hang out above and to the side of other numbers? Those things are just plain annoying.

Why can’t math be more like language arts? If you can’t remember a grammar rule or how to spell a word, you can at least look it up in a stylebook or a dictionary. There’s no reference book for math problems.

I consider myself to be an intelligent person, but not being able to figure out my son’s seventh grade homework makes me feel uneducated and, worse, incredibly old. What would I forget next – how to tie my shoes or eat with a fork?

Even though I did not want to allow myself to be beaten by my son’s algebra homework, I hadn’t been able to successfully solve a single equation. Still, this wasn't my homework so why should I have to continue to struggle with it? I’d already passed seventh grade!

I decided to give up and tell Evan that I can’t help him with his homework. One of the perks of maturity is that we no longer have to be so concerned with how competent we appear to someone else. We’re more relaxed with ourselves and therefore less likely to feel insecure by admitting our shortcomings.

Or something like that.

While it’s probable that I care less about my shortcomings and more about not spending the rest of my night with an algebra book, I felt proud that I was able to drop the Supermom façade and admit that Evan’s homework was beyond me.

I couldn't abandon Evan, though. Solving algebra successfully would require the big guns, a secret weapon, and an ace-in-the-hole.

I asked his older brother to help him.

Who says I’m too old to figure this stuff out?

 

In which I fling my comfort zone off a cliff

(and it only took us 1-1/2 hours!

I've been a bit distracted lately.  Most days, it feels as if I'm not fully present at all.  Blame it on overwork, stressful challenges, or lack of a vacation, the result is still the same:  I'm missing out on my own life.

As if to punctuate the fact that I've been living in a fog, I mistakenly put body wash in my hair the other day instead of shampoo.  There's nothing like smelling the scent of "Energizing Citrus Ginger" where it's not supposed to be in order to jolt me to attention.

Realizing that I need to make some changes in order to restore some semblance of balance, I began examining the way that I've been living.  If I'm honest, I'll admit that I'm rarely mindful of whatever I'm doing, and I tend to hop from activity to activity at a frenetic pace.  I'm rushing through life and missing out on its joys.  I need to slow down, plain and simple.

At the same time as my stop-and-smell-the-roses epiphany, my son Evan began bugging me about accompanying him and his class on an overnight field trip.  There will be lots of driving, chaperoning other people's children, and, most distressing of all, sleeping in a tent.

A tent!  Doesn't he realize that I seriously love electricity and indoor plumbing? And what about the woods?  I'm a poison ivy and wolf spider magnet!  My biggest worry, however, is kind of embarrassing.  Thinking of it makes me feel old and out of shape.  Of course, it  doesn't help that I AM old and out of shape. 

When my stiff and aged body meets the hard, unyielding ground beneath that tent, I'm not sure what's going to happen.  I mean, I'm far from being anything resembling flexible.  What if I go to sleep on the floor of the tent and can't get back up?  I imagine a muscle spasm so severe that I'm forced to lie there,  paralyzed, while everyone else contemplates whether or not to bring in the Jaws of Life to free me.

But then, there's my sweet boy, wanting his mom to go with him.  At age twelve, he's becoming more of a young man and less of a child every day.  I'm not sure how much longer he's going to feel this enthusiastic about having me around.  What if this trip is the last time?  How would I feel if I miss it?

Before I could talk myself out of it, I signed up for the trip.  I can do anything for one night, right?  Even if it does mean sleeping in a tent and putting myself out there as bear food. 

Best case scenario:  we won't get eaten by bears, I won't get stuck in the tent, and I'll make some happy memories with my kid.

Worst case scenario?  I'll have plenty of stories to write about.  Just as soon as they free me from that tent.

 

*photo by Lisa Kern

What the Great Recession didn't take

 

 

I may have mentioned a time or two (or twenty, if you ask my kids) about my relentless case of poison ivy - how I’ve had it all summer and how it won't go away no matter what I try. 

My frustration finally led me to see my doctor.  This is a very big deal considering I have no health insurance and the cost of an office visit throws my monthly budget right off of a financial cliff.

The diagnosis was indeed poison ivy, and a round of prednisone was prescribed.   This, of course, created an open invitation for the kids to poke fun at me:  "Hey!  Mom's on 'roids!" 

'Roid Rage, PMS, it's all the same outcome:  at least they’ll leave me alone for a while.

The prednisone worked until it didn't, which, unfortunately, happened to be the day after I stopped taking it.  Soon itchy little blisters once again covered the areas of my skin that had attempted to heal while I was taking the steroid.

I called the doctor's office and was told that they'd call in a prescription of a steroid cream for me.  No office visit!  I just had to go to the pharmacy to pick it up.

My joy was short-lived when I arrived at the pharmacy and learned the cost of the prescription. Nearly $50.00!  I didn’t know what to do.  I only had $20.00 or so in my checking account until pay day. 

To make matters worse, I’d just learned a few hours earlier that our Internet and telephone were shut off.  While engaged in the Great Recession sport known as Competitive Bill Juggling, I must have missed making the payment for it.  I’d already spent every single moment prior to arriving at the pharmacy stressing about how to get the funds in order to have the phone and Internet turned back on.  I certainly didn’t need an expensive prescription thrown into the mix.

 

As I stood there, seeing the cost of the prescription displayed on the cash register and the clerk waiting ever so patiently for me to pay, I could feel the tears welling up in my eyes.

I don’t want to cry!  Not here, not now!

But it was too late.   I’d reached my emotional breaking point and tears were now rushing down my cheeks.  Not only were my financial struggles once again bearing down on me, but now I’d never get rid of the poison ivy rashes that were psychologically torturing me.

                “I’m so sorry,” I choked through the tears.  “I just can’t afford this.” 

As I turned to leave, the pharmacist rushed over to the counter.  “Here are some lower-cost prescriptions that you can ask your doctor about.  They work just as well as the prescription she ordered for you.”

She handed me a paper with a couple of different drugs circled.  “Why don’t you call your doctor when you get home and see if she’ll prescribe one of these?”

I was so relieved to know that there was an option for me.  I nodded and took the paper from her.  I would call the doctor when I got home.

My husband Dan had been waiting with me and heard the whole conversation.  We walked out of the store silently and empty-handed.

In the car, Dan suddenly erupted in laughter – the kind of uncontrollable laughter that spills out of you in spite of your best efforts to stop it. 

                “What are you laughing about?” I sniffed.  “There’s nothing funny about this situation at all.”

                “I’m sorry,” he snorted between laughs.  “It’s just that I realized the ultimate irony in all of this.”

                “Irony?  What do you mean?” I asked.

Dan still couldn’t stop laughing.  “She told you to call your doctor…”  More laughter erupted.

                “Yes.  So?”

                “…but we don’t currently have a phone!”

And with that, I suddenly burst into laughter as well:  wonderful, healing, clearing, belly laughter.  There we sat, in the car, laughing our crazy, broke heads off.  It was the perfect illustration of how challenging life had become for us, yet in that moment, we were both overcome by the sheer implausibility of all of it.  There was my never-ending skin rash, our never-ending financial quicksand, and now, the cherry on top of this terrible trifecta, no phone to call the doctor. 

In a strange way, it was comforting to accept that there wasn’t anything we were going to do about any of it in that present moment.  Perhaps solutions would reveal themselves tomorrow, but for now, there wasn’t anything to do except be with one another and laugh until our bellies hurt.

 

(photo by Lisa Kern)