A Blue Deer

If there is one thing I have learned from my 9 years of being a Mom, parenting is not like riding a bicycle.  There is no mastery.  I forget what I am doing and crash almost daily.  Take for instance yesterday.  It is appropriate that we started the school year with a paint party and finished with one.  The first one the kids behaved badly.  At this one, it was me.  I know, I know, I know, after all of my righteous indignation over the little girls walking around judging whose hearts looked like they were “supposed to” and whose looked bad; I sat there being very grumpy that Lauren’s deer did not look like everyone else’s.  What can I say?  I got swept up in the completed piece sitting at the front of the class with it’s sweet little face, standing in the snow, speckled with spots.  It was precious.  I could just see it hanging over her bed.  Alas, we came home with an entirely blue deer since Lauren’s deer was swimming.  No snow.  No sweet face.   

I sat there, watching as everyone else went from the sky, to the outline of the deer, to the inside of the deer, the ground and the final touches.  Lauren had wanted me to sit right by her, giving her confidence and protection from any outside forces that might hamper her mojo.  Instead, she got this.  “Don’t forget to put the blue lines where you want the sky to end like the teacher said so the blue doesn’t go down too far.  Go ahead and outline your deer so you don’t loose it honey.  Do you want the brown on your brush for that? “  I was a constant stream of suggestions.  Soon, she had become timid with her brush strokes and was chewing her hair.  I hate people standing over me when I paint.  It is a process, one that often looks stupid while I am in the middle of it.  I wouldn’t want over suggestive Mom hovering over me.

Soo, I went outside.  I made the mistake in my foul mood of saying I had to leave because I couldn’t take it.  Of course I got the subtle tisk-tisk from the Moms who were in full-blown Zen mode with their kids painting whatever and however they wanted (of course for every single one of them that included a brown deer with a sweet face, a blue sky and solid ground).  I understand, I too have been the tisk-tisk Zen Mom.  I have looked at high strung women and thought, “Life is too short to get all worked up over what your kid is painting.  What is wrong with you?  Lighten up.  Let them have fun, that is what this is all about.”   But for me, I realized, the fun wasn’t what it was all about.  It was about Lauren being different.  All year long she has struggled with not making friends because she is different.  She struggles because the way she learns is different.  The way she interprets the world is different.  So of course, absolutely the way she paints is going to be different.  But sometimes, I just want her to be like everybody else.  I want everyone to look at her deer and see a brown deer.  Not a blue silhouette of a deer splashing in an endless sea of blue where the sky and the water meet barely distinguished one from the other.

In the midst of my parent pity party, the little boy sitting next to Lauren looked at her picture and in complete earnest said, “I really like your sky.  It isn’t like mine but I really like how you are doing it.”

I hate to admit I left the party still sulky even after that little boy poignantly delivered the Mom lesson I needed to hear.   By the time I got home, I started to get some perspective.  I started to see the beauty in this painting my 7 year old had done with nothing but blue and white.  It wasn’t how I would have done it or how 20 other kids would have done it.  It is totally different but just as beautiful.  It isn’t easy to have a different child.  You worry because the majority of people are never going to get them.  But, some people do and that is worth more than 100 sweet-faced deer with browns coats and white speckles. 

The Top 3 Reasons I love you.

Helen has this brilliant teacher, Mrs. P., she has these great ideas that turn things like reading time into something special.  Friday the kids made towel and chair forts, turned off the lights, then curled up with a good book.   Last week she also had the kids create simple yet thought provoking 3, 2, 1 Mother’s day cards.   The card consists of the Top 3 reasons each child has for why they love their Mom.  Helen listed them as follows.

Number 3:  You take us to do lots of fun things.

Number 2:  You’re always there for me.

Number 1:  You will love me no matter what.

It was such a gift for me to know these three things.  I have just spent a good portion of the school year yelling at them for loosing at least 100 socks, for spending more time getting up from the table than eating at meal time, and for turning their rooms and playroom into the pit of despair.  I could go on and on and on but the bottom line is that a whole lot of parenting is spent in a grumpy state.  I have been particularly grumpy with Helen because she is 9 and now at the Bart Simpson age.  Before I was a parent I had no idea Bart was portrayed at that stage of life for a reason.   9 year olds are obnoxious.  I was obnoxious.  John was obnoxious,……sometimes I think men never really leave the Bart Simpson phase, it just morphs into Homer.

I see how Helen looks at me now when I correct her.  It is no longer the hurt little girl who is sad and remorseful for doing something wrong.  She gets sullen and mumbles under her breath things like “I was JUST trying to be funny.  I was JUST trying to make a point.  I was JUST reading a book and enjoying being engrossed in another world and didn’t notice you leaving Target to go get Lauren from tutoring which is why you had to have the store put in lock down while the book and I were being located.” 

Ah, we are entering the stage where being a parent means spending a lot of time being disliked.  So, to get a card that says “I love you for taking us to do lots of fun things, you’re always there for me,” and most of all, the one I love reading more than anything because it is so true, “You will love me no matter what,” brightens even the rainiest Mother's Day.

Thank you Helen and Mrs. P for the rainbow. 

Wild Horses

About once a year I look at my husband and say, “We need to go to Big Bend.”  He looks at me like I am crazy and says, “I am not going to Big Bend.  There are no trees.”  “Trees would ruin Big Bend.” I say.  He counters with, “It is faster to get to Arkansas.  Arkansas has trees, and it is green.  Not to mention it is mostly civilized.”

I get it.  I really do.  Big Bend has that type of terrain that either speaks to you or it doesn’t.  It is rugged, hard, lonely and unforgiving.  I love it.  Just as trees would ruin Big Bend, so would civilization.  I went once with my best friend when we were too young to even rent a car.  Thankfully her Mom signed for us.  We had just enough money to make this our first official vacation after graduating from college and becoming contributing members of society.  Off we went in our rented Jeep Cheroke, borrowed tent in the back, and a hibachi, we were ready to explore the West.

Of course getting to the West takes awhile and since we left after work, we planned ahead to stay at whatever motel was available in 1991 in Big Springs or Sweetwater Texas.  My memory fails me.  The only reason I even mention it is because the town had a pleasant name but a horrible smell.  They say smells stay in your brain and apparently it is true.  Some twenty plus years later, my nose remembers very well the offensive foul egg smell and headache that accompanied our first night of vacation.  The great thing about being young is enthusiasm.  We were simply amused that someplace which smelled so bad would lure us into staying the night because the name was charming; a good lesson at an early age that a town by any other name would smell as……well, not sweet. 

The next morning we were off towards Midland and Odessa.  We needed to stop for socks.   Okay, WE did not need to stop for socks.  I needed to stop for socks.  I am pretty sure all of mine were dirty and I had not gotten around to washing them before the trip.  This is where I should probably mention that my super power is having really responsible friends who get me through life.  Michelle found out all the information about Big Bend.  This was pre-internet.  She had to send off for maps, things to do, park hours, campsite availability through snail mail and actually call on a landline, long distance to make reservations.   She had discovered that you had to be 25 to rent a car and arranged for her Mom to rent it for us (thanks Barb, I never sent you a note but that was instrumental to one of the best trips of my life).  She had reserved our Santa Elena raft trip and horseback ride on the Southern rim.  I am pretty sure she was the one who suggested cooking meals ahead of time, freezing them and storing them in a cooler.  We had a borrowed tent that we practiced setting up in her parents backyard so we would know what we were doing once we arrived in BFT.  My contribution, not washing my socks so we had to make an unplanned stop.  Michelle did not make me feel like an unsocked heel, she turned this into a good thing saying we could get a few more supplies.  Another super power, my responsible friends are extremely understanding. 

The super market we go into amazingly has socks.  Again, 1991, there is no Super Target or Wal-Mart with groceries.   Apparently these Western outpost towns are use to irresponsible travelers.  We get in line and the power goes out in the grocery store.   All 10 people in line with us know each other, which by default makes us the most interesting people to talk to.  They ask where we are from and we answer the Dallas area.  We might as well have said NYC or Hollywood because this knowledge suddenly causes great embarrassment that our encounter with their town involves a power outage.  They simultaneously agree that we must be allowed to go ahead of all of them to the front of the line to offset the humiliation.  Michelle and I reassure these people that we are not upset or in a hurry, we are on vacation and we are simply impressed by strangers going out of their way to accommodate us in the grocery line.  This would NEVER happen in Dallas.  Well, we have said the magic words; we are now like family.  I am sure if this happened today we would all be taking selfies together and becoming friends on FB.  Instead, these women start telling us the story of a friend who lost her giant diamond ring in the produce department.  A few days later when it was found in the lettuce, someone turned it in.  It is not everywhere that a $10,000 ring finds its way back to the rightful finger.  The power comes back on.  We all celebrate and Michelle and I are back on the road with a new found love of West Texas. 

The day got sucked into the realm of weird travel time.  Even though we started off in the morning, we did not get to our campsite until dark.  Part of it is due to the fact we had no idea the scope of Big Bend.  Once we made it into the park and received driving instructions from the ranger, it seemed to take 2 hours to weave our way to the camp spot in the Chisos Mountains.  And, we were not yet acclimated to real darkness.  My apartment was next to a grocery store, right off south cooper.  I don’t think I had seen a star in 6 months.  Suddenly, we were driving on a road, steadily up a mountain where the only light was pouring out of our headlights.  We finally got to the stick that had the number we were given.  We looked at the rocky campsite, lit by our car and walked around figuring out the best location to pitch our tent.  It was windier and colder than we were expecting.  We found what we thought was a pretty protected spot.  The back of the tent set almost against a bolder with thorny scrub trees on either side.  We set to work, confident because of our practice run.  What we hadn’t done was set the tent up in the dark, in the wind, with solid stone to hammer the stakes in.  Crap, we had not even thought to bring a hammer.  We wandered around looking for caveman tools.  Finally the right rocks presented themselves.  It took a good bit of work to drive in the stakes.  We were shivering and sweating when it was finally done.   There is nothing quite like completing a difficult task, the satisfaction, the feeling of woman over nature, the moment where you realize the door is facing the boulder between the two thorn trees.  Fuck, fuck, fuck.  There was absolutely no way to get in the tent we had just put up.  Again, thank God for youth and enthusiasm.

There is something about going to a new place, arriving in the dark and waking up to the day.   It is like Dorothy, opening the door to Oz.  That is my exact memory of waking up in the Chisos Mountains.  The day before I had been in modern day Texas, but now I had traveled back in time.  I was in the Texas that most people expect but never see.   Michelle and I looked around.  Apparently this was not the busy season, we seemed to have the entire mountain to ourselves.

Everything Michelle had planned for us to do was perfect.   We went on a horseback ride up the South Rim with a picnic lunch provided at the top.  I have heard that horses don’t go up there anymore because it is so hard on the trail.  I remember thinking that I wouldn’t be so sure footed on those rocks.  The views were amazing.  There is nothing to say when you have a view like that, the guides were telling us what we were looking at but I don’t recall much.  I just remember the feeling of looking out so far that the sky touched the earth and not seeing a house, or a plane or a person.

Probably the best slice of info we got on that ride was from the other travelers who told us about a hot spring that looked out over the Rio Grande.  After riding all day and sleeping on some pretty pointy rocks, a natural hot tub sounded great.  Michelle and I are not known for our navigational skills so I have no idea how we remembered the instructions and found our way to the 2 mile gravel road, parked and walked to the trailhead in the dark.  It was a really bright moon that night and about 10 million stars did give us a hand.  There was the split second where we thought, hmm, we are two young women alone next to the Rio Grande, what on earth are we thinking….but right about that moment we found the Springs, climbed in and all concerns evaporated.  In fact, we regretted being so responsible that we didn’t pack any beer.  We were up above the river looking down on it dappled in the moonlight.  I never knew until then there are a million shades of black.

The next day we took advantage of our jeep cherokee and went cruising across the Chihuahuan desert on a dirt road that would gobble up my mini van whole.  Michelle pulled out a mixed tape she had made specifically for this adventure and popped it in.  Thus began my best non-road trip ever.  Perhaps Jacob’s Staff wouldn’t stand out in a field of wildflowers but in the desert, it seems so defiant against the monochromatic landscape with its red tips blazing, that I have spent years painting that image.   I don’t know how long we drove, at a certain point we knew we had to turn around.  The Chihuahuan desert is not a place to play chicken with the gas gauge.  We headed to a place in the park where you could refuel and shower.  We were staying in a relatively primitive spot.  The ranger had given us a map to the showers the first day and after a horseback ride and the desert, you could smell us approaching.  What we didn’t know is that the showers were coin operated.  This like the hammer had not been planned for.  We started scouring every crevice for quarters.  Let me tell you, the car wash gives you a lot more time than the coin activated showers in Big Bend.  None the less, we managed to get the big chunks off before heading back to our camp site.  Ready for the night in with a gourmet meal of reheated spaghetti.

The wind never seemed to die down in our camp site.  In fact, we gave up cooking every morning and opted to splurge and eat at the lodge down the road.  That place books up months in advance but the café is open to cold campers who can’t keep the hibachi lit, let alone start a fire.  The evenings we muddled through and fortunately on speghetti night the wind gave us a break while we sat at the picnic table celebrating our grand day.  It was about this time that a beautiful deer walked nonchalantly through our campsite, followed by a very large slow moving skunk and finally a smart little fox.  I think we would have reacted better to a rattlesnake than the skunk.  We had both been Girl Scouts, we had been told for years how to react to a snake.  No one ever said what we should do if a giant skunk decided to meander through our campsite.  We actually got the nervous giggles as we tried desperately to be invisible and non-threatening.  What on earth would we do if we were sprayed?  We would be driving 10 hours back in a rented car.  There would be no way to ever eradicate skunk smell from the car.  Poor Barb, she would have to buy a stinky rental car and immediately send it to the landfill.  Fortunately, we were of no interest to these characters.  They walked through twice.  Maybe we actually did make ourselves invisible.

All the essentials of a Big Bend vacation were completed but one.  We had hiked it, hoofed it and 4 wheeled it.  What hadn’t been done yet, was floating it.  Out we headed to spend time on the Grand Rio herself.  Somehow the rendezvous point was reached without missing the boat, or raft as it was in this case.   This was not your Colorado white water rafting trip.  We were in fact passed up by a 100 year old Mexican man, on a donkey, going uphill with a cart attached.  This is not a colorful antidote.  It actually happened.  Once we got our minds around the fact that this was going to be a very, very slow trip powered by the paddling of our guide, we succumbed to the lull of the river and bigness of Santa Elena canyon.  Everything on the river that day felt otherworldly.  The old man on the donkey, the way the reeds swayed as we passed them, what appeared to be wild horses running free on the Mexican side of the river.  Perhaps it was the absence of fences that made the experience so unique.  I have often wondered if I only imagined the horses in the years since the trip; my mind conjuring the freedom that belongs to wide-open land.  At the end of our journey, the river guide who was about our age invited Michelle and I to come see a band at a bar/restaurant called La Kiva in Terlingua.  We went back to the tent and gussied ourselves up as much as possible; I think we even ventured back to the coin operated showers.  I seem to remember going into the bar semi clean and bright red. 

Never before and never since have I walked into a place quite like La Kiva.  It left enough of an impression that I named a cat after the place.  It is exactly the type of bar that should reside in a ghost town.  It feels very much like a dirt dobber hole; a place under the desert where a fox or a snake would reside.  Michelle and I walked to the bar, “What are you having?”  There was only one answer, “tequila.”  

Somehow this bar that felt miles underground actually opened up to a great outdoor patio.  It had picnic tables around the parameter, a large area for dancing and a nice area for the band, which at that very moment happened to be playing a Rolling Stones song with an accordion.   We hung out with the river guide and a few other people and proceeded to have enough tequila to warrant an epiphany.   This was exactly how life should be.   No pretense, no distractions, no veil between us and everything else.   Even the graffiti on the bathroom wall spoke volumes.  I was hovering the normal 6 inches over the toilet staring at the door in front of me.  Exactly eye level to someone whose hinny was well above the seat read, “Don’t bother, crabs can jump up to two feet.” 

There is no hiding from the truth in the desert.

We ended up spending the night in a boathouse.  Our river guide accessed we were too full of tequila to make it back to our campsite safely and gallantly drove us or had us follow him back to the boathouse.  Forgive me, this memory is a bit foggier than the rest.  All I know was there was nothing nefarious in this offer, although I do remember him being rather smitten with Michelle. 

This was the perfect ending to our adventure.  Early the next day we pulled the stakes up from our tent and were shocked to see they were no longer straight.  The Chisos mountains had left their mark.   We left slightly different as well.  Something awakened, a knowledge that had not been there before.  A knowledge that will forever have me wanting to go back to a place where wild horses run free.   

Pug

When Lauren was three months old, my Mom walked into the back room to discover Lauren lying motionless in my arms while I cried my heart out.  My poor mother went white.  I had been feeding her.  I always fed her in the back room because mealtime was not a good time for Lauren.  She would eat and then her little body would start to tense up with discomfort and she would scream.  She had terrible reflux.  It was so bad that she could actually make herself sit up from pain when she was only a few weeks old.  I never felt safe with her sleeping anywhere but on my chest at an angle.  The doctor told me it would help to add a small amount of cereal to bottled breast milk (he said breast milk would also be easier on her tummy) so she could keep more down.  This meant I had to pump.  Helen at 19 months found the whole cycle very cow like and fascinating.  Mom on the couch with the human milking contraption, one hand holding the suction cup to the bosom, squeezing milk into a tube that traveled into a bottle held between my thigh and seat cushion.  The other hand was busy feeding Lauren who I had balanced on my lap between the hose and fascinated Helen.   It helped, but eating for her was still difficult.

The day Mom walked in was the first time I could remember her eating and falling peacefully to sleep.  I had forgotten what it was like to have a baby who could eat and be happy.  I was crying for this peace she had been missing out on.

I had blocked this from my memory until yesterday when I sat alone at the dining room table with Lauren while she read to me from her “Pug” reader.  Lauren’s reaction to school is a lot like her reaction to eating as a baby.  She has to do it but it is always, always a struggle.  For 3 years I have been like a rat in a maze, looking for the cheese that will help her but I always hit a dead end.

Several years ago, before I had kids, back when I was stupid, I had an acquaintance who had the most amazing little girl.  I adored this child.  I didn’t think John and I could have children and this girl captured my heart and honestly gave me hope.  Her parents were a few years older than John and I.  They hadn’t thought they could have a child either, then….whala, here she was.   Maybe she was two or three when they started to realize something was going on with her.  Something where her brain wasn’t connecting properly with some of her muscles, she was going to need a lot of help to get them to communicate.  Her Mom was explaining this to us when I popped out with the most ridiculous statement ever.  I announced that basically she was perfect, smart, and beautiful, this would be something that would only make her a stronger person because she had a small adversity to overcome in her youth.   I will forever be impressed with this woman for not strangling me at that moment, or calling me on being a moron.  I don’t know that I would be so nice.  The woman was incredibly talented and had a fabulous business she had to give up to help her daughter overcome this “small adversity”.

What I did not realize from the “I don’t have a child, I want one, I think yours is perfect” perspective was that once you have a child everything changes.  It isn’t that you want them to be perfect; it is that you want them to not feel different.  You want them to be accepted and the one thing we all know from childhood is that a child who walks with a crutch is different.  A child who can’t read anything at the end of first grade is different.

So, sitting at the table yesterday reading Pug with Lauren has been a three year journey through a maze of autism tests, memory tests, iq tests, tutors, special ARD meetings, speech teachers and finally a test for ADD.  A test for ADD which turns out to have been pretty conclusive.  I do not think it is the only issue and the doctor informed me that any medication would give a 25% to 45% enhancement in focus.  That of course doesn’t sound very good to me but I am a person who can focus if I really have to.  I have no idea how much 25% helps someone who is distracted by lace on a table runner and the pictures of a house matching each other on every page of a 75 page reader.  I really don’t know what it is like to process the world through this lens, but as a Mom, I want to help Lauren in any way possible.

With my breath held, I gave Lauren 3cc’s of a medicine to help her focus before school yesterday and sent her off hoping that the 10,000 side effects I had read about would not happen.  I sent several notes to her teacher, ready to hop in the car and head to the emergency room.  As it turns out, she made it through the day, rode the bus home with her sister and walked home from school the same little 7 year old I had kissed before she left.  She was still telling me about free time Friday, she still wanted to have left over Easter candy, she still went outside to swing on the swing.  The only difference was that for the first time ever, we sat down to practice reading and she read every. single. story. in her reader.  We normally struggle to get through one.  Then, she said, “hey, lets have a peak at the next story to see what happens”.  Cross my heart that is what she said.  I sat at the table crying on the inside because that is what we parents do when a struggle is made easier for our children. 

Drive Time Therapy

This morning we were very late to school.  So late that the Junior High bus had already left.  Helen remarked how great it was that we would have an entire extra hour some day to make that bus.  The thought catapulted us into a topic that terrifies my children, the future.  They are so scared of getting older, of me getting older, of having to leave home and venture into the world.  It is a terrifying thought at 7 & 9.  They can't imagine their lives being so different from how they are right now.  I have tried many times to make them feel better but the future might as well have horns and vampire teeth.  They simply don't like it.

So today I tried a different approach.  I said, "Girls, there is this passage in the bible, that is, well it is a poem really.   It says to everything there is a season.  A time to live, a time to dye.  A time to be happy, a time to be sad.  Right now is your season to be 7 & 9.  That is why this feels exactly right, why you can't imagine being any older.  You probably wouldn't want to go back to being a baby either.  No teeth, no talking, baby food.  You have moved beyond that, that season is over.  I remember thinking I could never be happy living away from my parents.  But then, I went to college and I loved it.  And I loved sharing the experiences with my parents.  In fact, when I first moved to San Marcos, Mom and I were at a popular restaurant looking in the jammed up parking lot for a place to park when this guy looked right at us from inside his car and made a giant muscle with his arm in his car window.  It was so big it took up the entire window.  Mom and I died laughing.  If you ask her about it sometime she will remember.  It made quite an impression on both of us."
Helen - "Mom, why did he do that?"
Me - "I am not sure."
Helen - "I think he did it because he thought you and Grandma were cute."  
Me - "Ha, you might be right.  The point is you grow slowly into adulthood.  You won't wake up 18 tomorrow, it happens slowly, gradually so that you are ready for it.  Right now, your job is to enjoy today, that is the best way to prepare for tomorrow."

They thought about this a moment and I could see them both nodding their heads in agreement.  It was good we were all in such a happy philosophical place because today was our time to be tardy.  

The Southern Snow Day

Here's the deal.  All of us in Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Florida, etc. we know the rest of the US has been buried in snow and bad weather.  We know this.  I have looked at the news and I have been mortified at the thought of having to remove 18 inches of snow off the roof.  The idea that it could collapse into the living room is beyond terrifying.  You guys are troopers and this year you are dealing with an abnormally crazy winter.  That said, I still feel justified complaining about 2 inches of sleet and ice in North TX.  Why?  Because we are caught completely unprepared for this shit.  We have been listening to the weathermen promising snow since we were 6 and most of the time it is a big fat nada.  That is why at least 1/2 of all the kids who had a snow day in Texas today went outside with socks on their hands.  You think I am kidding?  Imagine, that Saturday your kids were outside barefoot in swim suits pretending to be trapeze artists on the swing set.  Two days later the same kids who wish for just one teeny tiny little bit of snow all winter wake up and realize that there is exactly enough sleet and ice on the ground to justify a snow day.  First, you slam yourself against the door preventing them from running outside barefoot in their pj's.  At 7 & 9 it has been a full year since the last 10mm of snow and they have completely forgotten the proper protocol; which involves, lots and lots and lots of layers.

At this moment, we bribe the kids with anything we have on hand.  Hot cocoa, skittles for breakfast, anything to distract them from the white stuff between bits of brown grass outside.  We are buying time to look through every drawer, closet, nook and cranny to scrounge up the winter crap we haven't needed in 377 days.  While shoving the skittles in, we start trying on mittens that are never going to fit.  I don't know why it is always the toddler gloves that show up.  Well yeah, I do, that was the last time I was paranoid enough to try to shove coverings over their hands on a regular basis so there are at least 30 pair.  The closet under my staircase is a horrible place.  It is home to everything.  If the zombie apocalypse ever got in the house I would tell the children to hide in there because they would never be found.  Ever.  Sadly, this is the most likely hiding place for winter gear as well.  I start throwing pool noodles, backpacks and goggles in the hall.  I know I can only put them off for so long and it has now been at least 35 minutes.  Fuck.  Why didn't I get gloves and some sort of boots at Walmart Sunday when I was busy buying four gallons of milk, three brownie mixes and three cartons of eggs?  It is because people in the south won't spend one day without snacky cakes but we figure we can dart out real quick while the dog pees or to drag the trash to the curb in flip flops.  After all, we aren't going out if there is ice.  We have seen the news, we know what happens to foolish Texans who think they can walk or drive on that stuff.  They end up closing 75 because of those people.

Finally, after an hour of scrounging I have a giant mound of winterish stuff to turn my little darlings into mummy's with.  At one point Helen tells me, "Mom, everything feels stiff, it is hard to bend my arms."  "Yes dear, that means you are warm enough.  Go outside and have fun."  Of course there is no such thing in our closets as warm enough.  The rain boots are fantastic vessels for holding at least a gallon of snow a piece inside.  I do not know how they can get this much snow in their boots when there isn't enough to cover the grass but they manage.  There is a never ending cycle of people going outside, playing in the snow (aka sleet and ice), people coming inside, striping down to their underwear, wanting food, getting warm and instantly wanting to be re-mummified in something warmer and let back out to start over again.  This is a messy process.  One that drives my OCD husband insane who is also not venturing out on the ice.  This is how cabin fever starts.  This is why the Scandinavians brilliantly invented glogg.  We are fresh out of glogg but who says a frozen margarita isn't perfect for a frozen day.  And even if we loose power, I am sure I can shake enough sleet out of a kid boot for something tropical.  Día feliz de la nieve!     

Listen to your Grandma

I don’t write much about my Grandparents and my Great Grandparents but I think of them often.  They have in many ways shaped who I am and shown me what it is to live a full life.  My Mom’s Mom was intensely alive.  She was never old, full of mischief and happy until her last breath.  My Grandfather was deeply in love with her.  She was the beautiful girl on the War Bond poster he had been going on about for ages.  He ended up seeing her one night during WWII in the Panama Canal Zone.  In the midst of big bands, dancing, drinking, smoke and the sweaty tropics one of his pals said “Jack, there is the girl you have been pining over.”   I think from that moment on he was the happiest most grateful man on the planet.  Four kids and a lifetime later, I watched him kiss her goodbye and it was the most intensely loving moment I have ever witnessed.

My other Grandparents were just as wonderful but very different.  It never dawned on me as unusual that I grew up calling them Edison and Margaret.  Or that they did not own a couch but instead had modern white vinyl swivel chairs with chrome legs in the living room.  They were pretty modern for Bowie TX, but they were old school as well with tractors and ponies and one of those old black rotary phones upstairs.  Edison had lots of contraptions he designed and built himself.  He was always the one to put me to bed at night.  He would scratch my back until he fell asleep and started to snore.  Edison disrupted the airstream with his snoring.  Seven year old me would say “Edison, Edison, you’re snoring.”  He would apologize and give me a whiskery peck on the check and thud off to go snore in his vinyl avocado green recliner downstairs in front of the tv.  Edison was quirky in a wonderful way and he made the BEST coke floats ever.  His birthday is coming up so March is Coke Float month at my house.

All of this brings me to Margaret, who is actually the person I was thinking about this morning and last night.  I have a cookbook addiction.  I am pretty sure I inherited this from Margaret.  I think she actually made a lot of the recipes and was a fantastic baker.  I tend to just read the cookbooks and make a big mess with about twenty of them scattered everywhere.  It is great fun thinking about what I could cook outside my ten staple recipes.  Several of my cookbooks are from Margaret.  When Edison passed away we went through the ritual of going through photos and finding keepsakes throughout the house.  I wanted the cookbooks and Edison’s air compressor. 

So yesterday while planning our weekly menu I grabbed a large cookbook called Bayou Cuisine.  It is fabulous.  It is divided into an Indian, Spanish, English, and of course French section.  The recipes are involved and indicative of the way people cooked and ate 50 years ago.  In fact, they were so different from how we eat today that I had to look at the copyright date, which was 1970.  1970, it dawned on me that I was two and Margaret and Edison had come to Luling, La. where Mom and Dad and I were living for a visit.  Margaret had gone to a new and different place that she enjoyed and she was taking a bit of it home with her via this very cool cookbook.  I would have bought the exact same book on such a trip.  Margaret died when I was 19 so connecting with her now that I am firmly settled into adult life is a unique gift. I could imagine her trip to see us, and how much she would have enjoyed it.  While Grandma Sandefur was full of life, Margaret filled everyone around her with life.  She did this by listening.  Margaret was the single most engaged listener I have ever met and as a result, people blossomed around her.  When you talked to Margaret, she wasn’t thinking about what she was going to say next, she was experiencing what you were saying right there with you, feeling it, enjoying it.  I always felt so happy in the warmth of her attention.  I feel sad now that I did not listen more and talk less, although I am not sure she would have said much.  Margaret had chronic pain from rheumatoid arthritis and focusing on herself might have amplified that misery.  As it was, I never remember her complaining.  Now that I am bumping up to 50 and have an assortment of minor aches and pains that I complain about, I find this even more amazing.  She loved the people in her life enough to set her own issues aside and listen.

My word for 2015 is listen.  I didn’t even associate it with Margaret when I selected the word and made my manifesto back in November.  But now, I realize I am figuring out something she knew all along.  Listening connects us.  My kids are in heaven when my parents listen to their horrible knock knock jokes.  My husband’s clients are assured when he honestly listens to their complaints.  My friends are comforted when I stop trying to fix what is going on with them and actually listen to their frustrations and fears.  It seems like such a small thing but it is huge and hard to do.  This year, I am going to try.

Listen.

Listen to your heart.  Hear the love.  

Listen to your mind.  Hear the conflict, the worry, the doubt and address it.  

Listen to your body.  Hear what it needs, feed it.

Listen to the quiet.  Embrace it.  Let it unfill you of the clutter.

Listen to your soul.  Give it comfort.

Listen to your husband.  Enjoy the person he is.  Do not put words in his mouth.

Listen to your children.  Enjoy the people they are.  Do not speak for them.

Listen to your friends.  Enjoy who they are by listening closely to their hearts.

Listen to the world.  Hear the birds, the thirsty trees, the swooshy grass, the traffic, the wind, the sun, the night.  Here all of it and rejoice in being part of it.

Listen to your dreams and make them part of your life.

Listen to joy.  Let it drown out the anger.

Listen to possibility.  It is so quiet it is often missed.

Listen to the universe.  It knows a lot more than you do.