Strange Magic

He was the first adult male I had a crush on. The forbidden, unattainable, unrequited love of my life.

Gorgeous. Rustic. If that's possible.

"Welcome to Natural Science, I'm your instructor, Terry Strange."

 I sat on the edge of the first seat in the front row. I batted my eyelashes, which were fixed on Terry Strange. His expensive, saggy jeans, his wire eyeglasses. Scuffed, heavy (but soft-looking) work boots. Terry Strange was a Lumberjack with champagne taste. Just the way I like 'em.

He rattled a list of expectations, rules, and the semester's agenda. He scribbled his office phone number on the board and I copied it into my notebook, covering the tiny hearts I drew all around it.

Sigh...


I noticed he was not wearing a wedding ring, but then I assumed that even if he was married,  a man like Terry Strange wouldn't wear jewelry except for the compass watch he sported on his left wrist.
He held most of our classes outside, and I loved that. When we went outside, Terry wore a felt hat that cast a beautiful shadow on top of his natural 5 o'clock shadow. So mysterious...

He referred to our notebooks as 'field books' and carried his own pocket sized field book tied with a leather string. He wrote in it with a wooden lacquer pen, the kind that twists open.

Oh Terry, you slay me with your avaunt guard  fashion sense.

Terry drove the white school van to the sight of our first field trip, the Nimbus Fish Hatchery.

The place smelled awful.

Fish eggs, fish packed in row after row of shallow tanks, fish food, fish waste, fish babies. Fish compost.

Somehow, Terry Strange made even the Nimbus Fish Hatchery fascinating and I hardly noticed that I had overexerted my gag reflex. I wondered how Terry would be spending the rest of the day after class. Would he go back to school and grade papers? Go out to lunch? Go home and make a hearty sandwich on seeded bread with dijon and pastrami? I bet he lives in a small mining community, in a big house with a dog. A Bloodhound, or a Lab. No, a Retriever for sure. The one that brought back the Pheasant he has hanging over his fireplace, the one he hunted. I bet Terry has brown leather furniture with brass carpenter tacks and whip stitching.

A petite woman was introduced as our tour guide. She was wearing a tan Fish Hatchery uniform and had her long, straight, brown hair pulled tightly back in a ponytail. Pale and bland, her big eyes were the only remarkable feature of her plain appearance.

She knew more about fish than anyone ought to, especially a woman. I noticed that Terry was smiling as he listened intently to the tour guide. The fish smell was again obvious, awful.

I tuned out the tour guide and the smell of fish and instead hummed our song, Strange Magic in my head.

"I'm 18, I can date anyone I want. I could drop out of Terry's class so he wouldn't have to worry about anyone chastising our love."
I love it when a plan comes together...I looked at Terry, who was standing at the back of our group. His hands were plunged deep into the front pockets of his fleece vest.

The tour ended and Terry instructed the class to return to the van. Everyone went except me. I lagged behind to see if I could finagle some one-on-one time with Terry. Maybe I had a question about the gestation period of Rainbow Trout eggs? Maybe I had a question about the spawning period of Grunion?

Minnows leaped about in my stomach with anticipation until I saw them. 


Terry was hugging the tour guide in front of the Evolution of Fish poster. She rubbed his arm while he talked with his hands, pointed at his compass watch.

They kissed goodbye and as he walked towards the van they agreed, "See you at home."

Making a Scene

I'm writing my Memoir.
Ugh.
It's awful. That is, it's awful to write. It's awful to remember. It's awful to Memoir.
For a long time, I didn't think I should write it. I didn't think I had a story to tell. And, if I did have a story, it is surely a horror story, and, who cares. Everybody has a rough life. Right?
Surely, no one can take away anything from my story, it won't teach anyone anything. It wont evoke feelings, or entice anyone to read it. Who cares, I'm nobody.
I'm nobody, with nothing to say. Nothing extraordinary I have overcome. I'm not a hero. I didn't turn any tragedies into anything amazing. I just came out of it, quietly with no fanfare.

But, as I began to share parts of my story with 'normal' people on the 'outside', once I traveled beyond the comfort zone of commiserating with my brother and sister; I learned that people were actually intrigued by my story.
They wanted to know more.
They wanted to know how I turned out so nicely, in spite of all that trauma.


So, my story began to morph from a tragic reality into a story. I've hired a coach to guide me through the logistics of compiling my story. She is there to help me put it all together; build it. Make sense of it all.
Oh, if anyone could just make sense of it all.
I have pages of material. Pages of things that really happened. I didn't have to create them, I didn't dream them or fictionalize them. This week I sent about forty pages to my coach. I waited anxiously for her feedback, her direction. I waited for her to make sense of it all.

While I plugged away at still more pages, I was overcome with a flood of emotion. I suppose that's going to happen when you dig through the emotional shards of your past. Sooner or later, it will start to sting. Again.
I called my mom.
I don't know why.
I didn't want to upset her. I didn't want to tell her where I had just gone, in my head. I didn't want to tell her what I had just written. She doesn't need to know. She already knows. But, I needed her voice. Thirty years later, I needed her.

"What are you doing today?" she asked.
"I'm just writing. That's all I have on my agenda today. Just writing. And I worked out at the Studio-but now, I'm writing."
I thought I might tell her that the writing is hard for me at times. Sometimes, it breaks my heart to look back at what I just wrote, and not choke down tears. Not have a panic attack. I think she already knew that. She knows that I'm scared when I write these things...

We talked about my sister, my brother and  my kids. We talked about the wildfires, marriage.
 How fitting.
The next day, my coach sent back the responses to my documents. Forty pages of my darkest secrets and most nagging insecurities and fears, critiqued in the margin by a stranger.
"Wow! Very powerful scene." "This is horrible, I am really getting a sense of the narrator's conflict and struggle." "I'm overcome, you have done a great job bringing me in to the narrator's place, I can feel and hear everything, this is great work."

This is a powerful scene. This is great work. This is horrible. I can feel everything...

A powerful scene? I think that's all wonderful feedback. Great critique.
But, there was some shock to seeing someone critique, "My God..." about my story. In a way that expressed; 'I can't believe it. I want to look away. How could anyone go through this?' And it's about my real life.

And then it occurred to me. It is real. It was real. To me. It happened, in my real life. I didn't make this, this isn't work that I creatively fabricated to make an impression, or to move someone to unimaginable emotion. This happened. All I have done by writing it down, is simply document what happened.
Is there talent in that? Is there anything commendable in that? Is documenting the worst things that ever happened to you, praise worthy or vulnerable to a good critique? Is it possible to have a 'voice' about something that once took your voice away?

Seems odd.

Maybe all this emotion is part of the growing pains of writing a memoir about tragedy. About abuse. About growing.

Maybe this is all part of the next scene.

Stage Left

I know a real neat guy. And when I say neat, I mean ripped.

The man on the right is a model, muscle man, Master Personal Trainer, and pretty much any other amazing thing you can think of to say about an Adonis. I mean, Dude rocks it. No matter what 'it' is. The best part is, he isn't even an asshole. He's actually a really nice, friendly, cool guy.

 Not that he hasn't heard the accolades a million times (today), he is very humble about his amazing physique and amazingness. He is a real person, with real feelings and a real life. He works hard every day, all the time; inspiring others and doing good things that both show, and don't show.

Because he is that amazing.

Ripped. Humble. Real. Amazing.

He posted on his Facebook the familiar adage, "What would you do if you knew you could not fail?"
Hmph. Easy for Adonis to say. I mean, look at those...everything. I seeeriously doubt he has ever fallen to the temptation of laying on the couch and waking up to dry mouth from all the pistachios or Cool Ranch Doritos he ate while watching 48 Hours Hard Evidence . He epitomizes motivation. He sweats commitment and hard work. The man wakes up and makes a Dedication Smoothie.

I scoffed. I wondered. If I could not fail? What would I do?
And then, I got distracted by something shiny. You read that right, I  failed at thinking about not failing.

But, the question lingered in the back of my mind like those mismatched socks on the couch. I asked myself what is stopping me from doing anything I even remotely think I could do, really? I learned, it isn't my fear of failure that holds me back from achieving. I totally believe that I could do anything I wanted to do. But, I am a farmer of excuses. Planting laziness, harvesting reasons why I "can't" achieve something.

Let's assume that I would like to be a body builder.  How come I'm not trying to be a body builder if that is something I want to do? And, by the way, I'm pretty sure that I could be a body builder for like, a few days.
 But, eventually, that would get hard and I would have to go back to watching Toddlers and Tiara's and Sister Wives. Let's not forget Dance Moms. Oh, and of course 16 and Pregnant. Booyah. That's some messed up shit. But, I digress.

Besides the fact that on the inside, I'm a body builder, on the outside, I lack three things that hold me back: Muscles, motivation and discipline. Money for training, tanning, teeth whitening, hair lightening and a shiny bathing suit and high heels to wear in competitions might help, too.

Ladies and Gentlemen, I bring to you my resounding excuses. And that's all they are. Excuses. If I wanted the money, I could raise the money. I'm sure Complete Nutrition is dying to sponsor a 37 year old mother of 4 in an amateur body building contest.

The truth is, all of my excuses could easily be called something else: Controllables. My excuses have not been put on me, outside of my control. I choose them. I pick them up, and carry them all day long.  My excuses aren't disabilities, handicaps or accidents. They are not things that 'happened' to me. My excuses are what I go to instead of working hard for the things that truly matter. Because working hard is hard. I'm living like I "can't", but the reality is I "don't".

 I'm able bodied. I'm a whole person living a half life. My excuses only empower me to never achieve. Ewe.

The epiphanies could go on and on, but I have exceeded my quota of realizing wisdom for one day. It really comes down to choices. Choosing to go after it, or not. It comes down to choosing inspiration. Motivation. Discipline. Some folks choose those things and blow them out of the water, like my dear friend on the right. His results are commendable, admirable. Inspirational.

Amazing.

Then there are people who have every reason, legit reasons, understandable reasons, to say that they 'can't'. Yet, they choose to live a whole life despite the adversity life has given them. Those people become Special Olympic Champion Power Lifters. Their choices power their 300 lb squats, 245 lb bench, 315 lb dead lifts.

Inspiration reveals itself in different ways. And I promise you, it isn't in the Season Finale of Sister Wives or at the bottom of a bag of pistachios. Sometimes inspiration takes the shape of Adonis. Sometimes, inspiration strikes a proud pose next to Adonis.

 And that's the kind of inspiration that has the power to change "What would I do..." into "What if I Did?"

A Willing Prisoner

"I'm ready for breakfast!" My son's order for waffles, sausage and mini-pancakes is barked at me before I even get a proper greeting.

"How about, good morning mom? Hi mom? You must have slept so well, you look radiant?"

He rolls his ten year old eyes in unison with a 'whatever' sigh.

"And, I don't like that V8 juice, I'd rather have orange juice."
I let that one go, too, because he just looks so damn cute in his striped pajamas and bedhead.

"Will you please get the syrup out of the pantry?" The martyr side of me kicks instinctively into high gear, with hopes that he will be moved to help, simply because I am just shy of squeezing fresh orange juice for him. I hear him open the pantry with loud body language.

"Oh my gosh! You said you were going to buy the good syrup! Why did you buy the store kind, again!"

And that was it. The catapult that launched my son on an unforgettable guilt trip with yours truly. And I assure you, no one can lay a good guilt trip like Mom.

I didn't even try to stop myself from using the usual cliche's. I even harped on those poor children in China who never had-and probably never will- have syrup. Oh, you are so lucky, you don't even know how lucky you are. When I was your age..." I went on and on stopped before I got to my 'barefoot walks to school in the snow, uphill!' But I did not leave out the fact that I am not his servant.
I inserted a few, "I don't even know why I try", "I work so hard", and even the classic, "Everything I do is for you." And, all I ask in return is for you to dip your perfect pancakes in 1/4 cup of store brand, sugar free, dollar-ninety-nine syrup.

I'm such a bad mom, I don't know how you even find the will to wake up every day.

Oh, that was good. I think I really got through to him with that 'perfect pancake' bit.

I hovered over my son at the table while he ate. I carried on with a tragic monologue that would have made Shakespeare proud. My son tuned me out, and, truth be told, by the time he was done gagging on generic syrup, I had tired of my own voice too.

He was excused, and ordered to his room to get dressed. I steadied myself for some 'but it's Saturday!' push-back, but it never came. Tail between his legs, he went to his room and came back dressed. That 'perfect pancake' thing was more effective than I thought.

I patted myself on the back with dishpan hands.

While I might be trapped by my instinct and legal obligation to feed my son, I am free to feed him store brand syrup and remind him to like it.

Fire and Rain

I took my kids camping.

Alone.

That means, I had to do all the camp-y things by myself. Sans Husband.
I don't know why, but as soon as I know that I will have to do anything like that by myself, I go into some kind of paralytic-amnesia. Suddenly, I don't feel competent to do the same things I have watched a man do for twenty years. Which is ridiculous, because when a man is performing camping tasks, I almost always watch on with the sense that I could do whatever he is doing easier, faster, and a lot less expensively. In high heels. While breast feeding. Blind.

Yet, when I set out to go camping with my two kids, suddenly, I doubted my capability to make fire. To set up camp. To change batteries in the lantern, or set up the grill.  "What if the car breaks down? What if I get a flat tire? What if I hit a deer? What if there's bad guys?"

Eek.

Like any good mom (or woman) I quietly harbored my doubt and replaced it pseudo-confidently with phrases like, "I got this!"

Even though I was driving a new vehicle up the mountain, I still had internal diagnostic monologue. "What's that smell? Is it the car ahead of me or are my brakes on fire? Do you hear that?"  Every once and a while I made a mental note of the odometer reading when passing landmarks so I could tell a dispatcher EXACTLY where I was. Should the need arise. I had nervous poop cramps for like two hours on that drive wondering if we would make it without me having to whore myself for a tow.

We arrived at camp with all our tires and brakes in tact. It started to rain.

No problem, because remember, I got this.

It started to thunder. Lightening. Hail. Locusts. Famine. I unloaded the car, fed the kids, and headed to the pit to try and start the fire I had promised.

Using my body as a human wind shield, I hovered over the damp fire pit.  I stacked wood, lit paper and built tiny pyramids of kindling. I huffed, fanned, poked and prayed prayed for my fire to start. "Please God, thank you for sparing me hitting any deer on the drive up, but I really, really need a fire now." I spent two full lighters with my efforts.

White smoke billowed in my face with no sign of flames. I could hear a puddle boiling and sizzling under my pyramid. I was fighting back doubt and tears. I was wet. Cold. Dizzy from smoke inhalation, I was ready to quit. As I hovered over the pit, my back aching and my knees screaming...a tiny burn crept up the side of the twisted paper and caught fire.


Fire.

The kids watched on, jumping up and down in their hoodies, their wet marshmallows poised and ready to roast. "Yes! Mom! You did it!"

I stood in the rain and savored my first fire as it spat and coughed like a baby being born. As the fire took its first breaths and burned brightly into existence, I realized that I am a Mommy. I can make you warm, feed you and take you camping.
 I've got this.

The Man Umbrella

“It’s a head or something!”


My 8 year old daughter coiled back, drawing her fists up under her chin while assuming a flamingo-like pose on one toe. I looked through the window at the puppy and tried to spy from a safe distance what he was chewing on. I assured myself that it was a rotten apple, fallen from the tree. 


 This is probably the only time in my life I wished for a rotten apple. Please, please, please be a rotten apple…


But, there was firmness in his bite that told me I was dead wrong. 


Closer inspection revealed it was a bird head the dog was eating. 

 “Get it!” she screamed at me. 

Um? No? Disgusting?



The puppy spat the head out at my feet to show me how pretty it was. I stared at the decapitated, walnut-sized noggin of the tiny bird, its feathers licked into a comb-over and its eyeballs eerily missing. 

As a mom, there are a lot of really disgusting things I have subjected my gag reflex to. But  Bird Flu, Malaria, Rabies, worms, Black Death would be the end-all-be-all of gross-me-out. 
 I draw the line at prying a bird head out of my puppy’s mouth as long as there is a brave husband within screaming range to do it for me. 


 I don’t consider myself a Feminist, but, there are certain tasks that I believe are covered under the Man Umbrella. 


Car repairs, fixing big, broken things like garage doors and appliances and anything dead definitely reside in Husband territory. However, in an effort to promote equality, I am happy to pull my weight by addressing items that are more motherly (and menial) in nature.  Scraping dried up toothpaste off the bathroom sink comes to mind.


 Marriage is a give and take. Except for when it’s Honey-do.


If my car breaks down, it’s just understood that the Husband will make a few phone calls, take my car to a Far Away Land where mystical people will do magical things to it (for free) and bring it back in perfect working order. The car goes away broken, it comes back, fixed.  This is a way he can take care of me without taking away my freedom or independence.


 My husband has saved me from lots of disgusting horrors in our time together. With shreds of toilet paper stuck to his calves, jeans rolled up to his knees, he bailed raw sewage out of the basement when the sewer main erupted. I think that if your potential mate is willing to wade through crap to help you, it’s a good sign that they are in it come hell or high sewer water. If he or she is going to comfort you when you puke, rescue you when your car breaks down and do the things that you just don’t have the wherewithal to do for yourself, you can feel confident that you have probably found your soul mate.


The realities of being in a married relationship sometimes reveal themselves in atrocious ways. Maybe it’s a sewer main erupting in your house. Maybe it’s dealing with a dead animal in the back yard. Real life happens in real life. Whatever the crisis may look like after marriage, I firmly believe that as a fair warning, wedding vows should come with an addendum to clarify what you are really signing up for when you promise, “I Do.”
Wedding promises should include a clause, “…will you stay faithful even though your mate has vomit in her hair and her makeup is smeared in streaks down her face? Furthermore, will you flush the toilet, carry her to bed and bring her a pan –your favorite pan- to throw up in again while she cries like a baby in bed? In front of God and these witnesses, do you promise to love her, even when she is seemingly possessed by Menstruation and has a migraine?” 


When getting married, no one ever stops to think about who will be called upon the day the family puppy is caught nibbling on an avian cranium.
Life, marriage, parenting; it’s all about finding the balance and being patient when everything teeters on the fulcrum. 


 Some days you’re the puppy, some day’s you’re the bird.


My husband willingly assumed the role of “Decapitation Extraction Technician”. He asked for a bag, which I fearlessly handed over. Expressionless, and without complaining about the grim task at hand, My Hero disposed of the head. After a while, it occurred to me that where there is a head, somewhere else is the body. I resigned to cross that carcass when I come to it.


For now, I simply paused with gratitude for having a life that is real, and a husband that won’t take flight when the going gets tough. Would I take this day and all the rest, to have and to hold from this day forward?
I do.

In A Fickle

Being fickle isn't easy.

Sometimes it's downright embarrassing. And expensive.

But, it's an expensive, embarrassing cross I'm willing to bear because in addition to being fickle, I'm also a control freak, martyr and homemaker.

 I bear many crosses.

My fickle nature drove me to have the house painted one color, and weeks later paint it again; a different color.  But, my indecision isn't limited to the confines of my 4, twice-painted walls. This costly quirk of mine forces me to wander store after store, again and again, purchasing and returning, buying and trying as I try to build a comfortable nest for my family.

At our housewarming party, a guest pointed out a beautiful armoire in my formal living room. It has it's original 100 year old cream paint finish, lovingly chipped away in all the right places, rickety dovetail drawers, turnlegs and claw feet clutching clear marbles.  It even has a charming midi crest gently sweeping across the top and back of it.

Sigh.

I didn't have to change a thing about it except the hardware, which I updated with vintage-looking apple green crystal knobs to match my green chair. Yes, I put NEW, old-looking knobs on an antique armoire. Heh.

"Thank you. I found that at the Antique Gallery for $100!"

My humble self then pointed out all of my other fabulous finds from the Gallery.
"Gallery (point), Gallery (point). Gallery (crane neck around corner to next room, point)"
My guest was very impressed and intrigued. And, who wouldn't be? I pretty much decorated my whole house with conversation starting, attention grabbing, 'I wish I had that!' exciting Gallery pieces.

"What is this 'Gallery' you speak of?"

*dies*

Because I'm kind of a promoter and (unpaid) whore of The Antique Gallery, and overall good person, I invited my party guest to come with me the next time I go to the Gallery, so I can expose her to the wonderful world of tasteful, eclectic, affordable home furnishing and design.

I haven't been to The Gallery since I found out Dale died.

 Dale worked at the Gallery and is to thank for loading all my large furniture finds into the back of my SUV for the last ten years. Dale always validated, with sincere jealousy, my wonderful finds. "I don't know how you do it! You're an inspiration!"

Thanks, Dale. It's not easy.

Even though I love, love, love The Gallery, it has two huge problems. The first and most awful being, 'No returns or exchanges allowed'. Never mind that the turn off is hand-written, landscape style on an 8x11 sheet of binder paper and stuck to the front door with silver duct tape. I get it.

The sign could easily read, "Check all large bags and fickle behaviors at the front desk because your indecisive ass ain't coming back in here with no dresser that didn't fit." 

There is no point, pick and pray at The Gallery.
There is no hoping it works, thinking it will work, or 'just liking' it.
There is no blind shopping at The Gallery. There is no Fickle. Which completely goes against my savvy cross-bearing, home decorating whims.

As a result, I now have a basement full of 'PERFECT!' items the Gallery won't take back. I have enough to open my own Gallery. By definition, I'm probably teetering on Hoarder territory. But not by design.

And now, I'm committed to taking my neighbor to the Gallery.

I don't need anything else at the Gallery. I'm done. I'm good. But, I CANNOT go in and not buy something.

It's what Dale would have wanted.

But, I also cannot go in and buy something with designs on returning it once I've shed my buyers regret. I'm running out of room in the basement for regret. So, half of me doesn't even want to go.

The other half of me is just dying to see if they have any antique crosses.