Source of Amusement

My friend, Monica, has on her wall a cute little ceramic plaque with the inscription: Blessed are those who can laugh at themselves, for they shall never cease to be amused. It is brightly colored and cheerful and I admit, I covet it. I secretly hope that if she dies before I do she'll bequeath it to me. (Oh hi, Monica! Are you reading this?) But I'd rather she keep it for many, many more years.

The fact is, I am amused a lot. Mostly because I do plenty of ridiculous things. I usually don't do them on purpose. They just sort of happen.

Sometimes they happen because of my penchant for the spontaneous. Sometimes they happen because I hate to admit I can't do something well. Not that I fancy myself some sort of Renaissance woman. I don't. I know I can't do everything well. In fact I know I can only do a very few things well. And none of them include math. But, I rarely like to admit that I can't do something...which is pretty ridiculous in and of itself.

As was my recent adventure with a ladder.

I don't like ladders. They scare me. Not only that, but the reason for climbing ladders is to reach high places and high places scare me too. I'm really most comfortable on nice, solid, flat ground because being inordinately klutzy, it is far less likely I'll fall standing on nice, solid, flat ground. It's not impossible, mind you, just less likely. I needed to climb a ladder, however, because I was on a mission.

The school year is winding down and that means my little senior will be graduating soon. As a part of celebrating her life to date, I wanted to find some video recordings of her singing in a number of church plays and performances throughout the years.  I don't have any personal copies because, although we have hours and hours of video of our oldest child, and somewhat fewer of our middle child, we have about six minutes of our youngest. In most of that she is sleeping. It doesn't help that the video camera got dropped on her third birthday and we never replaced it. So, I have a lot of memories, but little to show for it.

I'm fairly certain, however, there are videotapes that contain the desired footage stashed somewhere in our church building. The most logical place seemed to be a lofted area up above the baptismal which can only be accessed by a small attached metal ladder, parallel to the wall. My friend, Debbie, suggested we climb up there to see if we could find the videotapes. God knows I didn't want to look like a ninny by admitting my fear of ladders so I closed my eyes and climbed. The next thing I knew,  I was, up in the loft scrounging around for old video. Eventually, however, we had exhausted all hope that we'd find what we were looking for which meant we had to leave the lofted area the same way we came up. Via the ladder.

Turns out Debbie is afraid of ladders and heights also.

There we stood, at the edge of the loft, too fearful to look down, trying to figure out how to go backwards on the teeny tiny ladder, without falling to our deaths.  Few people are as awkward and clumsy and afraid of heights as I. Debbie might be one of them.

The next several minutes were spent with a variety of Lucy and Ethel attempts which included whimpering, swear words, small shrieks, and a variety of odd bodily contortions. Fortunately nobody else was around to witness the absurdity.

Especially since the loft is only about eight feet high.

We probably could have jumped.

Nevertheless, following our harrowing experience we found ourselves laughing at how ridiculous we had been, fearing for our lives and all, and it made me think of the saying about never ceasing to be amused. 

The cute little plaque with the saying makes me happy. Mostly because I provide myself with so much amusement. If I didn't laugh, if I took myself too seriously, I'd just end up dour, and pinched, and miserable. And what is the point in that?

We all know those people. The ones who take themselves way too seriously and don't laugh at their mistakes or own foolishness. The ones who can't look at a situation and find humor even though the humor is right there just itching to be found. I always want to grab those people and tell them to lighten up. Don't they realize how short life is? Don't they know laughter is good for the soul. And the heart. And probably all the other body parts.

Blessed are those who can laugh at themselves, for they shall never cease to be amused.

Today there will probably be a reason.

To laugh.

Stuck in the Middle

I think they call us the sandwich generation. 

Although I suspect we might be a bit past that. Maybe it is just simply being in the middle.

Is this cow photobombing?

 

Whatever its called, it seems Steve and I are at the stage of life when both our parents and our children seem to require a lot of time and tender loving care. Our children are trying to make their way toward adulthood, which has its challenging moments but is, on the whole, an exciting time. There's a lot of talk about college and careers and thoughts of life partners. Our parents, however, are winding down now, moving toward the day when their lives are just the stories we tell.

Bittersweet.

I enjoy watching my children as they figure out the direction they want their lives to take. There is so much opportunity ahead of them. Mistakes happen. Stupid decisions. And then, moments of brilliance that assure me (and them) they are going to be just fine. There will be more mistakes and stupid decisions...witness my own life...but, like me, they'll move past those and forge ahead. I love the adults my children are becoming and the friendship we share. I wish, at times, I could suspend everything and just stop where we are to savor. But I can't. And really, even if I could, it wouldn't be the same. Life moves forward at its dizzying pace.

Some day soon they'll move on.

Steve and I have two parents left. My mother. His father. Sometimes I think they should live together but then I realize Steve's father may be a curmudgeon, but even the most curmudgeonly don't deserve that. I've juggled many a health crisis with my mother but Steve's dad has lived in his own home and been healthy until recently. A fall a few weeks ago put him in the hospital. Now decisions are being made about having him return home. We can't predict if it is really safest for him. Or for how long. It is a delicate tightrope we walk with the elderly, between letting them keep their pride and knowing when to intervene. At his core he's the same person he's always been. But, like my mother, his fire burns cooler these days.

Some day soon they'll move on.

Standing in the middle reminds me how quickly this life passes. Yesterday I was a young adult. Tomorrow I'll be an old woman. Which is why the way I live today matters. Being generationally sandwiched between people I love reminds me that I don't have forever to make my life meaningful. I only have today to learn lessons from my younger years that enable me to happily anticipate my older years. I only have today to turn tears from the past into laughter. Anger from the past into peace. Fear from the past into trust. Justice from the past into grace. Hurt from the past into love.

Today I live in between.

Because someday soon I'll move on.

Risky Business

I wouldn't exactly call myself a risk-taker.

I'm not willing to jump off a bridge with a big rubber band tied around my waist. Or parachute out of a soaring airplane. Or hike a jagged saw-tooth ridge between 14,000 foot mountain peaks. I don't like physical pain and I'm not willing to mangle by body on purpose. If that's what it takes to be a risk-taker, I don't qualify.

But I do regularly visit my mother. That can be pretty dangerous.

Maybe I'm what you'd call a 'risk-taker lite.'

Recently I came across a quote by philosopher, William James: "It is only by risking our persons from one hour to another that we live at all." If I could, I'd ask James what he meant by the word risk. However, since he's been dead longer than I've been alive, asking him would require use of a Ouija board or a seance and that whole thing freaks me out too much. That would feel way too risky.

Regardless, maybe he didn't really mean we have to jump from an airplane to feel alive. Or to risk.

Maybe he meant something entirely different. To be sure, risk-taking can mean putting oneself in life threatening situations but I sort of think risk taking has more to do with loving people than potentially shedding blood. For some of us risk taking means offering our hearts. Or sharing our lives. Or just simply trusting. Because sometimes the risk of emotional pain is more frightening than the risk of physical pain.

Nothing makes us feel more alive than loving people.

But, it's a risk.

Like so many, I learned to be emotionally cautious at an early age. I couldn't trust the people I was supposed to be able to trust so it only stood to reason that it was pretty risky to trust other people as well. So I withheld. A lot.

But as I entered adulthood I didn't like feeling only half alive. I wanted to feel fully alive and the only way to do that was to risk being hurt. I started off slowly, sharing my life and investing in relationships. I became more vulnerable. I let others see the genuine me. Gradually as I risked more and more of my heart I started to feel more and more alive.

And I liked it.

Sure, it was risky and I'm far from perfect at it, but over time I've learned that the joy of loving outweighs the pain of being hurt. I can't have one without the other. There's nothing better than the joy of loving my friends and family. Nothing outweighs the warmth of knowing and being known. Nothing is more meaningful than pure and simple love.

Don't look for me to be bungee jumping anytime soon. That's not what I need to feel alive. But you can bet I'll be taking the risk to love.

There's no greater joy in life.

Oops, I Did It Again

I believe God made hair dye for a reason.

It is a gift, really. For those of us with a natural hair color that, if it were manufactured, bottled, and sold would have the name "Common Field Mouse" printed on the box, the magic of hair chemicals opens up a whole spectrum of color options. I've tried them all.

The truth is, I'm something of an addict.

Oh sure, a few years ago, when I was at the height of my hair color abuse, I would have told you I could quit anytime. But I really couldn't. I was in bondage to the thrill of constantly altering my appearance.

As much as the decision to leave a career and stay home with my children was a privilege and as much as I loved being with them and teaching them, my restless spirit was often pushing against convention, itching for change, looking for adventure. Changing my hair color would give me a temporary rush, appease my restlessness, and calm my spirit. Until the next time. But one day, several years ago, things got very out of hand.

It all started when I accidentally turned my hair black.

It wasn't supposed to come out black. I was going for a nice deep chestnut brown. But, apparently if you bleach your hair compulsively it goes a little insane when you deposit darker color onto it and the next thing you know it has gone into a mad frenzy, sucking up the color like a bloodthirsty vampire on a drinking binge. Who knew.

In the course of 30 minutes I went from platinum blond...to Elvis.

But, it didn't stop there. My friend Shelly saw my hair and decided she wanted to color hers darker. So, we got a box of hair color and a bottle of wine and set to work transforming her tresses. But then her three daughters wanted to change their beautiful Swedish blond hair too, so we got a few more boxes of hair color and another bottle of wine. But then Parker wanted to change his dirty blond hair to something lighter so we got another box of color and another bottle of wine. But then our Filipino neighbor wanted in on the fun and he asked us to bleach his short black hair so we got some bleach and another bottle of wine. But then our two Black neighbor kids wanted to go all Dennis Rodman with us so, with their mother's permission, we got out some more bleach and another bottle of wine. 

And before we knew it, chaos ensued.

After a while the mixture of hair chemicals and wine created a thick fog and we sort of lost track of whose hair needed to be rinsed when. There were people running around all over the place with plastic caps on their heads and we really weren't sure how long any one's hair had been processing.  Eventually we rinsed every one's head and surveyed our work. There they stood: three White girls, one White boy, one Filipino man, one Black girl, and one Black boy. Everyone had the same color hair. Orange. Something had gone wrong.

It was  a little creepy, actually. The next day when my friend, Debbie, came to pick me up all the orange headed children were playing in the front yard. She took in the Stepfordian scene and then looked at me and said, "Does every child in this neighborhood have the same father?"

The damage wasn't permanent, though. Eventually everyone returned to their beautiful natural hair color. Although it seemed a bit calamitous when I saw that I had accidentally turned  my hair black and their hair orange, in the end it really wasn't a big deal. It didn't take long before life...and hair... returned to normal.

Maybe a lot of changes in life are that way. In the moment they seem disasterous but in reality when we get used to it and things normalize, they just end up being part of what makes life interesting and beautiful. Change can be good.

Keep Calm and Color Your Hair.

That One Time, When I Was a Frat Boy...

I haven't participated in one of those oddly uncomfortable 'ice breaker' sessions lately. The ones where you have to share something about yourself. I'm not very good at them because I have a tendency to turn them into therapy sessions, revealing perhaps a bit too much about myself. Not in an 'everybody grab a tissue' sort of way but more in a 'let me tell you this story' sort of way. I love to tell stories.

The last time I participated in one of these ice breaker activities though, I was upstaged by a guy, probably in his mid-30s, who said he was a Dolly Parton groupie and followed her all over the United States when she was on tour. I know I'm not supposed to judge, but by the looks of him I just didn't find his story too hard to believe. He wore huge platform shoes and complimented me on my glasses and invited me to come to his house on a Sunday morning so we could study together and get drunk on Mimosas. Although I thought he was a delightfully colorful and fun person, I was having a hard enough time passing statistics without trying to study in an alcohol induced buzz with Dolly Parton singing 9 to 5 in the background. Despite his repeated invitations via handwritten notes which contained large loopy letters, I never did join him in a study session. In retrospect, I sort of wish I would have.

Anyway, his Dolly Parton story trumped my story about becoming a frat boy.

Well, okay, I didn't actually become a frat boy. I just lived in the same house with them. My story seemed a little anemic compared to his. Not that we were supposed to compare. Still, chasing Dolly Parton around the country had a lot more pizzaz. But maybe not, in the end. Because for me, living in the fraternity house was about chasing something too. Only I wasn't chasing after a celebrity with giant hair and absurdly large breasts. I was chasing a dynamic young woman yearning to live life. Longing to be free.

I was chasing myself.

My frat boy story starts in the summer of my sophomore year of college. I needed a place to live and the cheapest place I could find was a fraternity house. Moving home for the summer was an option. But then, so was jumping off a bridge. Both having equal appeal, I opted for a totally different direction and ended up taking a room, not in a fancy fraternity house with a built in keg and gigantic Greek letters plastered on the side, but rather in the modest, unassuming Farm House Fraternity.

It was an agricultural college after all.

There were a few young men living in the fraternity house that summer and one other woman who stayed a week or two and left. It was just me and the guys then. As I recall it, the men were all very nice and considerate. Not entirely the cleanest bunch of guys I could have roomed with, maybe, but they were kind. I'm pretty sure I never went barefoot in the house.

I had my own space and I never felt unsafe. In fact, I felt safer there than at home. I was perhaps a tad out of place, but it was a time of life when I felt perpetually out of place, anyway, so I'm not sure it was that much different. As I look back on it, I realize that was the time when, rather than just surviving, I was learning to live.

Granted, moving into the Farm House Fraternity wasn't a huge adventure. Nor was it particularly exciting. And it certainly wasn't being a groupie. But it was the first time I had made a decision to walk away from the unhealthy environment I'd grown up in and in many ways it was where I began to feel free.

Freedom didn't happen overnight. It took many years and, like everyone, I'm not entirely free yet. But through the years that followed my frat boy summer, I learned to keep making decisions that were healthy for me. I learned to celebrate my own free spirit. I learned to laugh. I learned to find joy in doing something out of the ordinary. I learned to love color. And humor. And people who were different from me.

I learned to love life.

It was just one short summer. But it was a beginning. I didn't become close enough friends with any of the men to stay in contact. Now, years later those farm boys of summer are engaged in manly lives of their own somewhere and likely don't even remember that I lived there.

But I remember. Because becoming a frat boy changed my life. Much more than chasing Dolly Parton ever would have.

Guilty of Guilty Pleasure

It was a trip to the library that led me into temptation. Much like Eve and that whole apple business I was deceived by the hypnotic glowing eyes, not of a serpent, but of a two-inch thick book. It promised knowledge and entertainment and before I knew what was happening it had lured me into the land of decadence and guilty pleasure.

I'm probably supposed to be ashamed of my nakedness. But I'm not.

Actually, the origins of my downfall can really be traced to Anna. It was she who invited me to go along with her on a trip to the library. She needed to get serious-minded books about Stalin or the Cold War or some other exciting historical moment. That is when I fell prey.

Just as we were ready to check out, I passed a display of new books. There, in living black and white, was a memoir by Cyndi Lauper. THE Cyndi Lauper of 1980s Girls Just Want to Have Fun fame had written the story of her life. How could  I resist?

Like millions of others, I had loved Cyndi during the height of her career. Although I didn't get the feminist message of Girls Just Want to Have Fun at the time, I thought it was a fun song. It wasn't until years later that I understood what she meant by, "Oh Mother dear we're not the fortunate ones..." but that is a different story for a different time.

Anyway, somewhere along the way Cyndi's fame wavered and I went on to pretend to be a grown up and other than occasionally hearing one of her songs I didn't think much about her.

 But then...the book.

I checked it out of the library and the next day a snowstorm conveniently kept me home so I snuggled up in my big red reading chair with one or another of my assortment of lap cats and read all about Cyndi's life. 

She tells a fun story. Irreverent at times, which I loved. Whiny at times, which I found tedious. Throughout the book she referenced less popular songs I wasn't familiar with. So, when I finished reading I decided to look up some of her YouTube videos. One in particular captivated me. Recorded in recent years, she played the dulcimer and sang Time After Time. The song was pretty but what really caught my attention was her hair. Nothing crazy and outrageous, just a cute, flattering and very blond hairstyle.

Now I was truly on the slippery slope.

My next step was to look up photos of Cyndi so that I could get a better look at her hairstyle and color. But somewhere along the way I saw a link to her reality TV show, Still So Unusual and I couldn't resist watching. I was hooked.

This wouldn't be a big deal  except that I have been quite judgemental and condemning of reality TV. I'm not a big TV watcher anyway, but reality TV has always seemed a huge contributor to the downfall of American intelligence. As if the people in those shows are behaving the way they really would if a television camera weren't inches from their face. And I've never quite understood the point of watching toothless hillbillies making moonshine. If I wanted to know about that I'd only have to look up a few distant family members.

Reality TV seemed so pointless.

Okay, fine. I did watch a couple of seasons of American Idol. But that is all. 

Regardless, there I was, watching Cyndi Lauper's seemingly normal husband and son living a nice quiet suburban life while she occasionally drops in like a whirlwind. And I kept watching. Every episode.

I sent a text message to a friend confessing what I had been doing. Maybe it was because I had gotten caught up in the whole electing a Pope thing, I'm not sure, but I needed to tell someone. She called me a freak and then said she had to run, it was time to watch The Young and The Restless and General Hospital. So much for confession.

I'm on the backside of my downfall now, having watched the entire series to date. Maybe, though, I'll be a little less harsh in my opinion of people who invest time in reality TV. I guess we all have to have our guilty pleasures.

Nevertheless, I've sworn off frivolity now. To redeem myself, the next trip to the library will see me bringing home only serious minded, intellectually stimulating tomes.

No more rockstar fluff to lead me down the road to ruin.

Oh look...a new memoir by Rod Stewart....

This is a Test, Isn't It?

I've never been diagnosed with insanity.

I assume there must be some sort of formalized testing procedure for the diagnosis, but I've never been formally tested. Although there are times when I wonder if some sort of hidden camera isn't trained directly on me in a clandestine effort to assess my mental stability.

But that's just when I'm with my mother.

About six months ago she mentioned a lump on her abdomen. I looked at it and thought it was worth  mentioning to her care providers. They felt it warranted an x-ray. Fortunately there are people whose job it is to go around with portable x-ray machines and drop by to conduct the whole procedure in-home, so I was spared the arduous task of taking my mother anyplace. I half suspected a dire diagnosis out of it but, as it was, the mass was indelicately identified as...impacted feces.

I guess I should have mentioned, upfront, this isn't lunchtime reading.

Anyway, Steve said he wasn't surprised by the diagnosis as he has always thought my mother was full of shit.

Nevertheless, it isn't an insignificant problem but there isn't a lot that can be done about it either. She was told a few things to help herself out but, of course, she won't do them. Over the past few months nothing about the mass has changed and she has made weekly mention of how she thought the diagnosis was stupid and needed further testing. Further testing seemed pointless to me, but last week she had badgered enough people for so long that the decision was made to schedule a CT scan.

I made the arrangements, told Mommie Dearest the appointment date, and let her know when she should stop eating. I called the night before and told her not to eat the next morning. I called her the morning of the procedure to remind her not to eat.

She'd already eaten a donut.  Of course.

Later that day, I pulled my car up to the building where she lives, as she was making her way out the door. Before I got around the car to help her in, she started telling me she didn't see any point in all this. I sort of chuckled as I buckled her seat belt and told her that after months of complaining she needed further testing, this was her lucky day. Before I drove out of the parking lot she said the appointment wasn't necessary. I smiled sweetly and told her, again, she'd been asking for it for months.

As I drove, she moved through her litany of complaints: she doesn't have a boyfriend, she doesn't have a car, her life is boring. And this was a ridiculous appointment. I gritted my teeth and kept driving.

We arrived at the appointment and she checked in, but not without mentioning a few more times that she didn't see any reason to do this. She was given a plastic bottle of white, chalky barium to consume and told the procedure would commence in an hour. For the next 59 minutes she complained about how long it was taking. And besides that, she didn't need to have this procedure done.

At this point I tried to numb my brain. Lacking any tools for performing a physical lobotomy I simply tried to shut my brain off. I stopped responding. I tried to change the subject. I considered telling her I was going to the restroom but really just leaving and changing my identity.

And then I started getting paranoid.

I started thinking that this was really just a test of my sanity. Someone was watching to see how I would respond. I tried to calm myself. She prattled on about not needing the procedure. I started to twitch.

Finally someone came and got her for the scan and I was given a few minutes of reprieve. My heart rate returned to normal. My breathing stabilized. The paranoia abated.

And then she was finished.

On the way home she mentioned that she hadn't needed the procedure. And she didn't have a boyfriend. Or a car. Her life was boring. It was so ridiculous to have that procedure. And she didn't have a boyfriend. Or a car. And she certainly hadn't needed that CT scan.

I started to shake.

The results of the scan came back today...impacted feces. I called to give her the report and she responded by saying that was a stupid diagnosis. Surely it was wrong.

She needs another procedure.

Please. Turn off the camera.