21 Years of Sunshine

Our family, like most Americans, has much to be thankful for. Naturally, this season encourages us to pause and think about our blessings. But our family has an additional reason to be thankful at this time of year. We also celebrate Parker’s birth. This isn’t a recent event, of course. His birth actually happened 21 years ago.

When Parker was born, Steve and I were convinced this parenting thing was much easier than many of our friends were letting on. Charlie had just turned two and, at that point, being a parent had been a breeze. He was peaceful and calm and we attributed this to our superior skills as parents, never suspecting that we simply had an easy baby. About the time we were feeling really smug…Parker burst on the scene.

Life has never been the same.

From very early on, life with Parker required being able to keep up. His zest was unmistakable. As a baby he had the capacity to make people stop taking life so seriously by smiling relentlessly until they reciprocated. He was charming and engaging even though he was always a little gooey. He drooled incessantly, which might have been an off-putting characteristic were he not so charming and engaging. Fortunately he got the drooling part under control a couple of years ago. But the charming and engaging part remains intact.

Creative and inventive and always envisioning the possibilities, Parker hasn’t ever been content with the status quo. As a toddler, no matter what he was wearing or what the occasion, he insisted on bucking social convention by wearing unmatched socks. His favorite color was pink. His favorite movie, Cinderella. And he loved to play dress up. At home he wasn’t ever taught nonsense about attaching gender to color or toys or preferred activities so when others would suggest these things didn’t align with him being a boy, he would look at them and then and simply wave his magic wand. He really couldn’t be bothered by their boundaries.

Parker has always been a bit ahead of his time. Harry Potter hadn't even been published yet.

When Parker learned to roller-blade, just skating around the neighborhood wasn’t enough. As a family we had been biking around a nearby reservoir but Parker set his sights on skating the eight-mile radius instead. We cheered him on as he accomplished his goal. Likewise, as a pre-teen, Parker wanted to learn to ride a unicycle. But just learning to ride it wasn’t enough. Parker wanted to ride the unicycle around the reservoir. And we cheered him on as he accomplished that goal. Parker has always set goals for himself. And we've always cheered him on! Sometimes his friends laugh at him because his goals are rarely conventional but he just looks at them and waves his magic wand. He really can’t be bothered by their boundaries.

When Parker wanted to join a competitive dance troupe he spent hours in the dance studio so he could make the team. When he wanted to play the drums we bought him a used drum set. Sometimes the only way we could have a conversation was to go outdoors because his drumming would fill our small house, but it always felt worth it because he was doing what he loved and what he had set his mind to do.

In some ways, Parker really does have a magic formula for success. He has always use his magnificent smile to break down barriers. He was very young when he discovered that his off-beat sense of humor could fill a room with laughter and diffuse pretty much any situation. He encourages everyone he meets and is rarely acrimonious. Wherever Parker goes, joy, fun, and laughter follow. He is fiercely loyal to his friends and family, especially his siblings, and includes everyone who wants to enter into his world of grace, kindness, and felicity. Parker is loved wherever he goes.

For Parker, the world is full of possibility. He has little respect for the sense of entitlement so many of his peers carry. He doesn’t grumble and complain, he simply sets goals and works hard. Always with that generous smile, gregarious spirit, and genuinely funny sense of humor.

He’s 21 today. When he was younger I often sang, “You are my sunshine,” to him. I’d sing it to him now except, I guess that might be a little weird. But he is. He’s sunshine to me, to our home, to his workplace, to his classmates, to nearly everyone he meets. Parker has little time for the boundaries others try to put on his goals, passions, or talents. He thinks deeply about life, lives it fully, and brings it into every situation.

He doesn't always dress like this...it was Halloween!


My world has been decidedly better in the 21 years Parker has been around. Our family’s lives have all been richer for what he brings. His friends and acquaintances and workmates and classmates have all been touched and changed for the better because of Parker's unquenchable spirit.

And it is really only beginning. Happy Birthday, Ray of Sunshine. So much of this world still awaits you. I can’t wait to see how your magic continues to change this world for the better!

Oddballs, Eccentrics, and Me....

I’ve been going to art show openings for the past few years. While these aren’t events I would necessarily participate in of my own accord, being married to an artist, I attend by way of support. I’m glad for the impetus to do something I might not otherwise think about doing although when I go, I have nothing to contribute. While the artists stand in clumps and discuss techniques and tools and other artists they admire, I play my part like a politician’s wife; smiling sweetly and gazing adoringly. Truthfully, I’m just an accessory. In that environment, though, I don’t mind. It is fun to just observe.

I’ve found that artists are amazingly supportive of one another. Their conversations are convivial and affirming. They encourage one another as they discuss the challenges of identifying themselves as artists rather than hobbyist and pushing through creative blocks. Not only do I enjoy viewing the art, I enjoy the community among the artists.

Really, for me, art has always just been a spectator sport. I have no talent for the visual arts whatsoever. None. I can’t even play Pictionary. And in spite of his immense artistic ability, neither can Steve. You don’t want to invite us over for game night if that is the activity of choice. We are a disaster. Steve can’t play because his drawings end up needing a bit of shading here, a bit of perspective there. By the time he produces whatever it is he is supposed to be drawing, the time has run out and people have gone to get more snacks. A few have even decided to go to bed.

I, on the other hand, cannot play Pictionary because I have absolutely no ability to draw. My playing partners are often looking at the paper, quizzically asking, “What IS that?” Plus there is the whole over excitement issue. The one where after a disastrous attempt at drawing I fling the pencil across the room and start flailing around wildly, turning the moment into a solo game of Charades while my bewildered partners wonder what in the hell I’m doing. It is hopeless. And humbling.

Because I’m not an artist, I would have imagined, prior to my adjunct role in that community, that artists fit the stereotype of oddballs, eccentrics, and moody, temperamental creators with just the slightest need for anger management courses.

Hollywood has trained me well.

Turns out, artists are just regular people. Of course there is the occasional oddball and eccentric but go to any grouping of lawyers, chefs, professors, or construction workers and you’re sure to find oddballs and eccentrics. Because oddballs and eccentrics are everywhere.

Delightfully so.

I’ve discovered, while attending various art functions, that artists are no more quirky and strange than any other group of people. Some are people who’ve chosen art. Others are people whom art has chosen. Either way, they are letting their souls speak through their work and living one day at a time just like everyone else.

Of course, it isn’t just artists whom I’ve categorized incorrectly. I’ve done the same to lots of groups because that’s what our culture teaches. We sort and define and assume. We judge. Often unkindly. Usually incorrectly. Sometimes we judge according to profession. Sometimes according to belief systems. Sometimes according to characteristics over which there is no control, such as race or sexual orientation.

Regardless, if we pay attention, we find out that people don’t fit into our expected notions about them. When we discover that the feminist isn’t a man-hater and the conservative isn’t narrow-minded, we owe it to them to listen carefully and embrace the person behind the ideology. Or the individual immersed in the profession. Or the soul embedded in the creative pursuit. Or simply, the human whom God created.

Because difference is important, individuality is necessary, and labels are incorrect. Because everyone deserves to be known and respected.

And because our humanity is what binds us together.

Frankly, Scarlett......

In what our family is calling the ‘turnaround of the century,’ my mother is alive, and well, and doing what she enjoys the most…using her womanly wiles to entrap a man. I’m concerned that her latest victim, Ray, may be unaware of what he is getting into. And I have to admit this presents something of a quandary for me. Because setting her sights on Ray has become her most recent preoccupation (obsession, really) it reduces the daily phone calls and demands on my time. I am relishing the freedom but do feel a little sorry for poor old Ray.

I’m fairly certain sure she gets up in the morning and assesses her wardrobe to decide which color will put her at the best advantage, making sure it enhances her hazel eyes and snow white hair. She probably primps and fusses and then heads downstairs to the common area where Ray awaits having, no doubt, rolled out of bed, dressed without any concern for what he is wearing and strutted into the common area assuming he is a stud and all the women want him.

Given the ratio of men to women…he’s right. All the women do want him. It's just that some are more determined than others.

In her younger years my mother was quite a beautiful woman. She still is, although she spends an inordinate amount of time reliving her ‘glory days.’ Somehow she missed the feminist notion that a woman’s value isn’t found in cultural ideals of beauty. But, then that seems lost on a lot of us so, I really can’t fault her for it.

The troubling part isn’t so much that she was beautiful. The troubling part is that she bludgeoned people with it. My mother got what she wanted, when she wanted, how she wanted, where she wanted…because she was pretty. And beguiling. And bossy. I’m fairly certain she watched Gone With The Wind one too many times and started channeling her inner Scarlett to manipulate men and life into giving her what she wanted. And she’s been fairly successful. Perhaps not all that happy. But successful.

I thought she had given up on beauty and men after the daily medical dramas last summer but then, one morning (perhaps recalling the whole carrot scene when Scarlett musters all of her determination) my mother decided to stage a remarkable recovery and resolved that it was time to catch a man once and for all. I can envision her getting out of bed (all five feet of her), shaking her fist (dramatic music playing) and saying, “With God as my witness, I’ll never go manless again!”

Men are a rare commodity in her community. And men in possession of their mental faculties and bodily functions are even rarer still. As it happens, just about the time my mother decided she was going to continue slogging through this thing called life, in waltzed Ray who is, apparently, the cat’s pajamas. If you like your pajamas in the form of a short, gruff, codger with a New York accent and a pot belly.

It was on!

The competition for the few eligible and desirable men can be fierce with the elderly set. Middle schoolers could learn a few ‘survival of the fittest’ lessons from these women. The cattiness. The drama. The boyfriend stealing. I tell you, it gets wicked. Certainly no place for the faint of heart. And in the end, of course, it is the Queen Bee who wins.

Enter Mommie Dearest.

Anna and I went to visit her yesterday. She was busy holding court. She sat there in her bright blue sweater and pearls, flirting shamelessly with Ray while eight of her besties sat around them (seriously! I’m not making this stuff up!) enviously watching her preside. My mother, the 83-year old ‘popular girl,’ was in her glory. I found myself in rapt terror that the next words out of her mouth were going to be, “And then, I was like, oh my Gawd!”

It was disconcerting to say the least. We didn’t stay long. Just long enough for her to introduce me to Ray. She’s introduced us the last three times I’ve gone to visit. Yesterday I thought seriously about trying to find a discreet way to mutter out of the side of my mouth, “Run away while you can!” But then, I thought, hey, he’s playing Rhett to her Scarlett of his own volition. Who am I to dampen the embers of love? Besides, if I disturb what’s meant to be, I become the object of her attention, drama, and demands again. I am the one she calls when she is bored. The one she demands drop everything to take her shopping. The one she expects to entertain her.

Sorry Ray old buddy…you’re on your own!

In fact, I’ve been thinking I might just add a little fuel to the fire. Sort of seal the deal. Maybe the next time Ray and I are introduced for the first time, I’ll tear up, throw my arms around him and cry, ‘Daddy!’

What's In a Name....

It has been 23-years, to the day, since the birth of my first child. Never one to be late, he arrived exactly on his due date. But not without a ridiculous 26-hours of pointless labor and, ultimately, an emergency c-section. He had a flair for the dramatic right from the beginning.

I’m pretty sure I might have watched six or seven minutes of the World Series while I awaited his birth. I assume that I stopped watching because I didn’t want to die of boredom before the kid was actually born. I am not a fan of baseball. In fact, I have a theory that in Hell there is a perpetual baseball game we are forced to watch for all eternity. My other theory is that there are only public restrooms in Hell. I’m hoping to avoid Hell. Nevertheless, when I hear or see something about the World Series every autumn, it transports me back to those days of anticipating Charles’s birth.

Prior to his grand entrance we had planned to name Charles after my paternal grandfather. While there are a lot of nutty characters in my lineage, my granddad wasn’t one of them. He was a good, quiet, caring man who always went by the moniker, Charley. When my Charles was born, I assumed he too would go by Charlie. And he did while I had something to say about it. I had no idea that at five-years old he would discover his given name was Charles and insist on being called that. But then I also I had no idea he would refuse to walk on his own until he was 18-months old or spontaneously start to read when he was three. Or, by three-and-a-half would be giving me driving directions. I’ve spent my whole life perpetually directionless and here was a 30-pound kid with a compass emblazoned into his brain, strapped into a carseat and telling me how to get downtown.

Weird.

By age four, Charles was a pint-sized compendium of automobile knowledge. Babysitters were confounded when I told them his bedtime story of choice was automotive marketing brochures. Seriously. His favorite part wasn’t the photos as much as the specifications. And you can imagine the strange looks I got when Charles would converse with adult men about drive shafts, towing capacity, or chassis systems. It was surreal to listen to him explain power ratios and final drive ratios while I was zipping up his footie pajamas.

At age five he got up every morning and read the newspaper, cover-to-cover. Thank God we didn’t have any cigarettes in the house and he hadn’t developed a taste for coffee yet or I’m pretty sure he’d have looked like a miniature adult following his morning routine, mindlessly flicking ashes into the ashtray, slurping hot coffee, and pondering the future implications of NAFTA.

By the time he was in public kindergarten his teacher didn’t know what to do with him. While the other kids were learning letter sounds, Charles was reading the Encyclopedia. When it was time to draw, Charles had the same crude drawing skills as his peers, except he conceptualized the fire truck in 3D. But he could not, for the life of him, figure out how to play 'Simon Says.' Or why. When he was in the 9th grade he lost interest in school. At 17, he dropped out.

Charles is an enigma. Charming, melodramatic, caring, belligerent, loving, and argumentative all at the same time. As with a lot of brilliant people he can, at times, be the most delightful person to spend time with and at others, positively exhausting. Small children adore him and as my brother aptly pointed out, children are often excellent judges of character.

Last summer my brother, sister, and I were looking at old family photos. We came across a picture of our grandfather, Charley, when he was in his mid-20s. It hadn’t really occurred to any of us how much Charles’s physical resemblance matched his great-grandfather’s. Uncanny, really. Charley died when he was 90. Charlie was 3. I have one cherished photo of the two of them together.

It is interesting to note how much, beyond appearance, the two are alike as well. Fans of country music, generous, exceedingly loyal, and terrified of heights. A slightly gruff exterior and a deeply sensitive interior. I don’t know if my grandfather made bad decisions and was given to histrionics when he was younger. Doubtless he made bad decisions. It is a little hard to imagine him being dramatic, but who knows.

He was a good man. One of those ‘salt of the earth’ types. A barber, land surveyor, and a friend to his entire community, he cared for others generously and graciously. He was honest and hard working. He gave without expecting anything in return. He had a dry wit, a charming smile, and a tender, loving manner. He was a man worthy of being named after.

It is odd to think that 23-years later Charles could be like my grandfather in so many ways. I am watching him grow into a man his great-grandfather would be proud of. And, I know he will use the innate qualities he has been given to offer the world his best. I have no idea what someone does with all that intelligence but I have every confidence Charles will use it to do something amazing.

And I know my precious granddad would be happy to share his name with the man Charles is becoming.