Kids

A Good Egg

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It was a little after 6 when my shift ended and I turned off the computer and emerged from my office into the family room. Thing2 was hanging out with the Big Guy on the couch while Thing1 listened to music on his iPod. Without thinking, I launched into my litany of reminders.

“Is your homework done?” I asked both boys.

“Yes.”

“Yes”

“Firewood in?” I asked Thing1, getting ready to remind him that if he wanted to earn money for this necessary chore he had to be completely responsible for the bin staying full.

“Yes, Mom.”

“Dishwasher emptied?”

“Yes, Mom.”

“Did you take Katy out?”

“Yes, Mom,” He didn’t bother to look up from his iPod at the last query, knowing he had stopped me in my tracks. He had but not for the reason he thought.

As I stirred the leftover stew on the wood stove, it hit me that my once slightly serious but still impish boy is evolving into a responsible young man. And, while I want to keep the real world from denting that bliss that exists in all of us when we’re ignorant of the world, I am also realizing that I may need to find a new nick name for my first born.

It’s been sightly less than a year since I introduced my kids to this blog with their nicknames – Thing1 and Thing2. At the time, I was searching for stories close to home, and my 12 and 6 year old’s antics provided much of my fodder as well as their blog names (I didn’t want to use their real names on a blog). Thing2 is still very much an imp, but he has acquired a second nickname over the year – SuperDude – as the joyful theatrics that characterize his age became more colorful and creative. Little impishness is obvious in Thing1 anymore, however, as he gets closer to the edge of his childhood.

He’ll be thirteen in August, and he’s been towering over me since before his last birthday, but the changes in him over the last year are more than just physical. Thing1 went through his joyful, leaping stage when he was six, and, when he’s hanging out with his brother, he is reminded that the joy and leaping still lurk beneath the surface. But Thing1 has always been a more deliberative child, and he seems to be continuing on that path, accepting new responsibilities with little complaint. In short, he’s a good egg.

We’re seeing some of the expected displays of independence and boundary testing, but, remembering how I put my own parents through the ringer as a teenager, I was – and still am – ready for much worse. For now, though, we seem to be enjoying calm. It will probably storm at some point, but rather than fear what I can’t foretell, I’m realizing I need to begin marking this next phase in my oldest son’s life. I know that, like the last twelve years, it will fly by, and how and what I write about the person he is now will play a huge part in keeping that time in my memory. It makes his new nickname all the more important.

Shiny Things

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Forgetting for five minutes that my daylight hours are pretty well filled from dawn till dusk with blogging, parenting and work (cleaning is more of an annual event), I clicked on the bright pretty button and signed up for the workshop.  It’s an iPhonography workshop, and for five bucks, I figured even if I wash out, it was a good deal.

Once upon a time I was a fair photographer. I even shot a few weddings and children’s portraits.  But when Thing2 (now six) started toddling, I found that focusing a big, heavy SLR while keeping an adventurous two-year-old in check were not compatible activities.   My big, heavy SLR spent a lot of time in its bag, until, finally  I decided to trade it in for a point-and-shoot, which now sits mostly in a bag.  I do take my iPhone everywhere, however, and its primary advantage – aside from being always with me – is that neither kid has a clue when Mom is about to snap off a picture.

I don’t really have time for another class or hobby or any other activity, but I was feeling a little down when the shiny thing caught my eye and my imagination.  It may lead nowhere, but hopefully I’ll get better pictures of the kids out of the deal.  That’s definitely worth five bucks and a little more hectic schedule

Sanity Sunday… or Not

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Organization is not a hallmark of our family life, but over the years we have managed to stumble on a few rituals.  Lately, it’s been Taco Friday –  neither kid objects to it because they make it themselves.   When Mom is dieting it’s Meatless Monday (the diet almost always begins and ends on Monday).  Six-year-old Thing2’s addiction to Shake ‘n’ Bake means at least one night of the week is dedicated to pork chops.  Saturdays are dedicated to morning sports and breakfast at Bob’s Diner in Manchester, Vermont in the winter and dragging the kids to the latest free art exhibit in the summer.  Sundays have been a bit nebulous, however.

We’re not religious, so our Sunday mornings tend to be wide open.  Some weeks we head to back to the diner, other days the kids will ‘inspire’ the Big Guy to make corn cakes.  Yesterday, however, we thought we might have found on a new candidate for our Sunday routine.

Our boys, twelve and six and affectionately nicknamed Thing1 and Thing2 after the imps in Cat in the Hat, still share a room whose hamper not long ago acquired magical properties that prevent dirty clothes from entering.  A recent ruling by the Big Guy made indoor Dodge Ball with the smaller, ‘softer’ red ball in their toy box permissible, and now a carpet of clothes and dodgeball casualties litter the room.  Still, until Friday night, I had put the mess at a mere Defcon 4.  Level 4 usually causes a double-take when I walk by the room but doesn’t inspire me to intervene.  Friday, however getting from the door to the bunk bed for a goodnight kiss had become an act of death defiance, and I raised the alert to Defcon 2.   After a snuggle with Thing2 and an almost-deflected kiss for Thing1, I let them know it was time to engage in cleaning maneuvers before I had to go nuclear and clean everything OUT.

Hoping to encourage them to manage their own time a little and recognize that mother and maid are not interchangeable terms, I gave them the weekend to get the room presentable.  It didn’t have to be Grandma-and-Grandpa-are-coming clean, but the mess couldn’t just move under the bed either.  And I set a deadline – high noon on Sunday or there would be consequences.  There would also be no access to electronic media Sunday morning until the work was done.

Saturday morning we had basketball practice and went to breakfast.  The boys decided that was an iron-clad excuse not to clean in the morning.  They had a few hours in the afternoon, but decided to use it dawdling until we went out for a brief visit to friends.  By the time dinner rolled around, they had rationalized the entire day away.

By seven A.M. Sunday, the procrastination began to acquire heroic proportions.  Zero hour was approaching so they woke early and immediately began arguing about how to divvy up the work.  Between settling rounds, the Big Guy and I began quietly debating what the consequences should be.  Then, shortly after a breakfast of thoroughly-chewed cereal, the room at the end of the hall became eerily quiet.  I wondered if victory might be in our grasp as griping morphed into the sounds of things being picked up.

Then it stopped.  I got up to lay down some law but was stopped by the opening riff of ‘Ticket to Ride’.  The Big Guy is usually the source of homemade music, but his guitar was still in the utility room.  The radio was off, and as I got closer to the minefield, I realized that Thing1 must have rediscovered his guitar under a pile of clothes or toys.  I knew this was just another diversion on his part, but this was the first one that was remotely constructive.  Suddenly Thing2 bolted out of the room and into the utility room.  He emerged with his guitar and bounced over to the Big Guy.

“Daddy,” he breathed, “can you show me how to play that Beatles song?”  The Big Guy is always happy to pass on his love of all things Beatle to the boys, and obliged.  Thing2 disappeared into his room, and I sat down on the couch with my co-parent, marveling at how, deprived of all privileges and electronic entertainment these two had finally found something creative to do.

“I think we should make them do this every Sunday,” I said.  The Big Guy nodded, and we both listened to the chirping (Thing2) and picking (Thing1) in the other room.  For a few brief moments sanity reigned. We both agreed the noon deadline should still stand, and, for the moment, I thought we had found a new ritual.

Two minutes later the chirping stopped, and it wasn’t long before the picking ceased and cries of “You started it” resumed.  The Big Guy and I closed our eyes.  I think he was the first one to speak after an exasperated minute.

“So, how about the art museum next Sunday?” He said.

Laugh, Cry, Diet

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It’s the eleventh of February which makes this almost the 41rst first day of my new diet.  

It’s not a fad diet.  I know those don’t work.  The only ‘diet’ that’s ever worked (for me) was keeping a journal on paper or on my iPod and keeping myself accountable.  But the part of dieting I really hate is not the calorie and fiber tracking.  It’s not the preparation – I’m a surprisingly decent cook for someone who’s built a blog around being a bad housekeeper.  It’s not the exercise which can be addicting once you get going (those endorphins are better than prozac).  It’s not even the food itself – a lot of healthy food is actually pretty tasty.  

The thing I hate about dieting is that it’s not a diet.  It is recognizing that the bag of sour cream and onion chips I’m having for breakfast really does have to be off the list – forever. (Maybe not for everyone, but for me the salty sweet stuff is like crack to a drug addict.)  It is accepting sensible portions for the long haul.   It really is about making a life change.

My early adult years were characterized by many things, but one of them was not restraint – in any part of my life.  I played. I partied.  I sinned.  And I ate.  I ate anything I wanted.  Food – especially good food – was my drug.  When the Big Guy and I first married, we moved to Boston’s Italian North End, and I denied my palate nothing.  When we travelled, indulging in local flavors was as much a part of the experience as the art and the sights.  In my early twenties, youthful metabolism and a lifestyle centered around dancing and walking helped my body combat the effects of my food lust.  I look at pictures of myself from back then and can’t believe I thought I was fat as a size 6 or 8 (does anyone ever NOT thing they’re too fat).

A few years after we were married, I took an office job that had me driving to and from work for an hour a day.  Not surprisingly, retribution had an easier time catching up with me in a car than when I was walking to work everyday in the city.  But when my jeans got tighter, I didn’t get wise.   I got new jeans.

Now, many years and sizes later, I’m still trying to get my fat butt on the diet wagon and find a way to keep it there.  I know that my issue food is not just about flavor.  It is about fullness, however.  I know that there’s been an empty part me for as long as I can remember, and I am sure I am not the only person who uses food to fill that void – even when my body is crying uncle.  The worst part is, the more you try to fill it, the bigger it gets because you’re also filling it with shame and loathing.

I used to tell myself the big jeans didn’t matter.  Being good at my job matters.  The Big Guy matters.  Thing1 and Thing2 matter.  

But as I watch twelve-year-old Thing1 pour out my Diet Coke when he thinks I’m not looking (don’t let your kids read about all the things that could cause their mother cancer or diabetes), I realize the big jeans do matter.  So far, I’ve dodged the diabetes bullet and a lot of the other ailments that go along with being fat.  What I don’t do, however, is get out on the ice with my kids at skating practice.  I don’t go one walks or take slides down the sledding hill because I’d have to climb back up it.  And worse, I let shame dictate how I interact with the people who interact with my kids, and that does affect them.

Most of my diets start in the morning and are over by dinner.  Today I’m trying something different and clearing out the crap before the family comes home.  Dinner will be on a salad plate, and the kitchen will be closed at 8PM.  And when I’m tempted by the cookie jar, I’m going to get out my journal and write a note to myself that it matters because they matter.  

It wouldn’t be bad to be able to zip up that little number that’s been hanging on the back of my closet door for the last three years either.

 

 

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Schooled on a Saturday

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It’s the first Saturday in February. Thing2’s basketball team has grown to five members. They’ve drafted one of the player’s big sisters to get two teams of three for an impromptu scrimmage. The brother and sister act like a most six- and seven-year-old brothers and sisters would on a basketball court, but most of the competition is friendly and fun.

In a matter of weeks, the coach has turned this mini mob – some of whom could hardly dribble in December – into a team. Thing2’s multi-talented superhero alter ego, Superdude, only occasionally makes appearances when he’s waiting for a ball to come back into play. Mostly, though, our six-
year-old is focused.

The dad-turned-coach has taught them to dribble and pass. He’s taught them to shoot and guard. And most of all, he’s spend his Saturday mornings schooling them on the fine art of fumbling and falling – and even losing – and walking away with a smile.

Going to the Well

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I’ve been thinking about anger a lot lately. How I don’t write when I’m angry. How when I do, it’s rarely something I can post. How what makes me angry maybe something I can control but only by causing tremendous collateral damage to the people I love most in the world. How sometimes courage is not changing the things you can but, rather, enduring those things for someone else.

Today I’m not feeling any serenity from knowing what I could and couldn’t change. My anger could almost swallow me whole on this cold February morning. I am watching my two little touchstones – Thing1 and Thing2, and most of the time, they have a psychotropic effect on my darkness. I sometimes wonder if they are the remedy or if their antics and exuberance are more anesthetic than answer. I know that in my wondering, I’m tacitly admitting that the remedy is in me somewhere. I’m just don’t know where.

Sometimes I feel guilty and self-indulgent writing about anger or even dwelling on it. For the most part, I try to follow Woody Allen’s advice when he says, through the character of Gertrude Stein in the movie Midnight in Paris that the artist’s job is not to succumb to despair, but to find an antidote to the emptiness of existence. But, nine months ago, when I started this blog, I said to the mentor of a Writer’s Workshop at Hubbard Hall, our local community theatre and art center, that I wanted to become a real writer.

At the time, for me, that meant becoming a published author. That is still high on my priority list, but one of the beauties of writing in this group, has been that it has breathed new meaning into what it meant to become a real writer. It is more than finding a publisher or finishing a first opus. It is about writing – and living – authentically. It is about recognizing the good, the bad and the ugly in my own stories – and, hopefully, finding a new meaning in them.

Crime and Punishment

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Thing1 is being punished.  He’s being really punished for the first time in recent memory.

For most of the last twelve years we’ve been pretty lucky.  For most of that time, he’s been good-natured and willing to follow the rules we set down.  Infractions occur of course, but for the most part, they’ve been small enough that an empty, humorous threat to send him to military school puts a stop to restaurant antics or begging.  When we do lay down the law, Thing1 usually plays the part of the gentle giant tolerating a well-meaning but misdirected mother and goes along.  He seems to understand that – even when he thinks we’re totally nuts – we’re on his side.

That all changed today, as the fallout from a less-than-stellar report card caused the first serious fissure in his faith in our good intentions.

All kids have an Achilles heel as individual as their personalities, and Thing1’s is his love of all things computer.  He has begun cracking open code on favorite games and spending hours Skyping with friends, gabbing about hardware and how to improve their favorite video game and which is the best OS for their purposes.  It is a hobby and avocation that could be come a vocation.  Now, however, it is bordering on addiction.  So, fifteen minutes after the Big Guy and I read the report card, we had an intervention and pulled the plug.

Our normally tolerant twelve-year-old reacted like any addict who was being cut off would.  He denied.  Then he rationalized – the report card, that is.  Then he protested.  And finally, grudgingly he accepted the reality that his computer time would be restricted to school work.

Grudging acceptance has now taken the form of the silent treatment.  He still obeys the easy rules without defiance.  Gone, however, is the good-natured demeanor.  Smiles are quickly extinguished when we make eye contact – even if we caused the smile.  From his room, we can occasionally hear muted muttering that tells us we hit that heel with perfect aim.

At first we did pat ourselves on the back for being such clever parents.  We felt guilty for about 10 seconds after we shutdown his favorite hobby, but, contrary to his belief, we’re not enjoying our victory.  I know he needs the consequences, but I hate seeing him unhappy.  I know there are things we can control in our own house and there things we can’t.  This is one of the things we’re supposed to control.  And while it hasn’t lead to happiness, it is giving me a bit of serenity in a way that I would never have thought possible when I was a teenager.

As the bearer of numerous crappy report cards, I was also the recipient of many groundings (pointless and redundant for Thing1 who lives in the middle of the woods) and privilege losses.  I remember the profound sense of betrayal when I lost a favorite social outlet.  Now, walking this mile in my parents’ moccasins, I’m finding yet another new understanding of their perspectives.  There’s no forgiveness, of course – there’s nothing to forgive when someone’s looking out for your future.  Instead, this is one of those moments when my mom and dad are getting a unexplained warm feeling in the back of their necks as their daughter writes that they were right about many things – even when it wasn’t fun to be right.

One Step Forward, One Look Back

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Down time in the middle of a weekday is almost unheard of for me, but, thanks to the State of Vermont, I get it once a week for eight weeks every winter.

For the last seven years, Thing1 (and now Thing2) have been getting out of school at noon through most of the winter so that they can enjoy the winter sports that bring so many tourists to our area. The younger kids skate; older kids get to ski, and the ski resorts get to train a new generation of instructors and winter sport ambassadors. It’s popular with parents because it’s a cheap alternative to indoor phys-ed, but it’s also an almost iron-clad excuse to leave work or other responsibilities for a few hours each week.

Siting in the warm room at our local skating rink is social and relaxing. I love to reconnect with people I only wave to in the school parking lot as I watch Thing2 glide from wall to wall more steadily each week. But, as relaxing as it is, every week, it also reminds me that, as firmly planted in the Vermont lifestyle as I have become, I have not completely let go of the city girl that left Boston 13 years ago.

Today the rink is deserted except for the few families from the elementary school. The kids flow in and out of the warm room, eating between lessons as parents, unconcerned about stranger danger watch and read and chatter.

For some reason, however, even surrounded by people I know, I still find myself falling into patterns of behavior that were once obligatory in the city and suburbs. I always keep my purse zipped and wrapped around me. When I go to the snack bar, I close any computers and bring things with me – and I can see the snack bar from my usual spot 15 feet away.

Some of my paranoia is founded in experience. A lack of vigilance at a Boston restaurant led to my wallet being stolen right out of my handbag and my guard being permanently alert from then on. Days like today, however, I have to stop my looking back from making me turn back.

I doubt that I will ever leave my door unlocked like many of our neighbors do, but today, surrounded by parents of schoolmates and kids that I know are (most of the time) well-behaved, I consciously made the decision to take a step forward. Thing1, now four inches taller than his mother (he keeps track) and a bottomless pit came in requesting a top-up for his snack. He had to run to his lesson, and, alone again, I got up. Without a backward glance I sauntered to the snack, leaving my fear on the table with my computer and my bag. As luck would have it, only one thing was missing when I got back, and it wasn’t the bag or the computer.

The Witching Hour

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Witching Hour

Sometimes, after wrapping up the end of a day doing tech support while refereeing Thing1 and Thing2 as they try to avoid homework and chores by revving up for World War III, I take off.  It’s only a short escape, and in the summer, it’s still light, and I’ll drive along the Battenkill River, absorbing the sights and smells of Vermont as the pinkish-gold light of evening makes everything magical.  Now it’s winter, and my mini vacations tend to lead me to the local country store for an extended errand.

A few evenings ago I used a forgotten ingredient as my pretext for a quick break.  Most evenings the Mom of the Mom-and-Pop store is there, guiding her crew as they make closing preparations.  Traffic comes in fits and spurts, and I’ll usually grab my purchase and head to the large round, oil-cloth covered table at the back of the store by the deli to peruse one of the magazines strewn about and to chat with Mom who is also a close friend.

Most mornings this Round Table is surrounded by her Knights.  These (mostly) men of the town – retired or on their way to work – convene in shifts for a couple of hours every morning as they solve the world’s problems and discuss the deer population (which is just as heated as the politics).  The other night, however, the circle at the back of the store took on a distinctly less knightly aura.

At my bachelorette party umpteen years ago, an aunt told me, “It’s not the big things that’ll kill a marriage, it’s the little things that drive you crazy that will do it.”  It was one of those little things that had driven me to the store in search of potatoes that night.  It was my second ingredient trip in two hours and the third in two days, and when I sat down I was ready for some commiseration.  My friend took a break from her closing chores, and we began trading our anecdotes of marital merriment and madness.  We had just started to vent when a mutual friend joined us with her own war stories to share.  It wasn’t long before the chatting turned to laughter and the laughter to cackling, and I realized we’d become a coven.

As our laughter rose and my friend’s employees patiently waited out our hysteria till they could ask the boss for guidance, I remembered that gatherings like this might once been subversive enough to spark a witch trial or two.  A casual listener might have heard our conversation and thought we were plotting the downfall of men and marriage.  The reality is that, in seeking company for our momentary miseries, we each left our gathering actually appreciating our situations – married or not.  Our shrieks of laughter had fallen over me like stolen fairy dust, exorcising my exasperation over the little thing that had propelled me out of the house.  It was just the bit of magic I needed to get back and finish dinner with a smile.

Centerstage

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Thing1 bestowed his first real smile on me when he was about six weeks old, and it was the most intoxicating thing I’d ever seen (This isn’t just my maternal bias talking either… Maybe just a little).

It didn’t take Thing1 long to figure out that his toothless smile could illicit the most effusive displays of adoration from family or friends or little old ladies on the train.  “He’s such a sunny boy,” our German neighbor would tell us in heavily accented English.  I’ll admit it – having people fawn over my firstborn like that, went to my head.  So, wanting to share what we’d created with the world, I sent a photo of him and his toothless grin to a modeling agency.  A few weeks later I got a reply from an agency in Albany (we had moved to Vermont by then) saying he was very cute, and how did we feel about driving to Boston or New York for jobs?

The Big Guy and I already knew how we felt about driving with Thing1 for trips longer than an hour (the Big Guy was already an expert on brands of hearing protection), and Thing1’s showbiz career ended before it began.  Seeing the man that Thing1 is becoming tells me we made the right decision.  He’s still my sunny boy, but, at twelve, he balks at any clothing that isn’t first and foremost comfortable (clean is optional), and he’s currently working on his entry for the Guinness Book’s Most Reluctant Snapshot subject.

Thing2 is another story.  He is just as sunny but his photo isn’t at an agency.  The only theatre he’s been a part of was a children’s workshop at our local community theatre and arts center, Hubbard Hall.  And, even though I long ago decided my being a Stage Mom wouldn’t work for our family, Thing2 has turned me into one.  It was a point he made decidedly last night when he came home from school.

It was the end of a short week, thanks to MLK day, and a traveling children’s theatre company was visiting Thing2’s school.  They were recruiting actors for an upcoming workshop and performance and hoped to inspire the kids with a makeup demonstration.  The makeup artist scanned the audience for potential victims, but Thing2 had already volunteered.

He was picked to be the second model and had some time to think of what he wanted.  A recent trip to Boston has turned him in to a style maven, and he was already dressed up in a button down shirt, tie and vest.  He wanted the creation to work with his outfit, and when the makeup artist suggested giving him a black-eye, Thing2 latched on to it.  He was still struggling to contain his delighted wriggling when he came home, determined to trick me into thinking he was really hurt.

The joke was just about worn out by dinner – he had come to each of us saying Thing1 had given him the black-eye – and I thought he might be tiring of his schtick.  But by dessert he had recharged – his marred eye twinkling with devilish delight as he dove into his watermelon.  I grabbed a quick pick, hoping preserving the scar in photos would be enough to convince him the show was over, and he needed to wash his face.   When his nighttime bathroom routine was over, however, he came back to the table with clean teeth, clean hands, and a face that had been scrubbed hard almost everywhere.  But not quite everywhere.

Thing2 wanted to save his scar to show his friends at basketball practice, and, as thrilled as we were at the idea of our child flaunting a fake black-eye in front of a rightly suspicious world, we gave in.  Like most of his characters and costumes, this will run its course, and he’ll be on to the next act before the weekend is over.  And, while I’m sure there will be a few shocked whispers when we walk into Bob’s Diner this morning, I am okay with that.

His commitment to his craft is my daily reminder to not let the fear of those whispers govern whether or not we live or half-live out our lives.  Thing2 instinctively seems to understand that the world is a stage, and he is ready to play on it, exploring as many parts as he can.  So now, to my surprise, I have become a stage mom, and it’s turning out to be quite the education.

Uncovering the Universal

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From the moment one of my grandmother sent me and my sister a boxed set of the Little House books (remember when you could get them in hard cover?), I’ve been a book addict.

Aside from the Big Guy and my kids, reading has been one of my few healthy addictions, and, even though now my schedule and energy level rarely align enough for much more than a quick novel here and there, I actually relish getting sucked into another world or era even more.

When I was younger, other worlds were my drug.  I loved fantasy and science fiction.  As I became a real aficionado, I found that it was not just the escape I loved, but – especially with the science fiction – it was the way other writers explored what it might mean to be human in a technological landscape.  The covers of my Tolkien collection turned to ash as I followed Baggins and Frodo on their journeys and finally realized that Tolkien wasn’t writing about elves and hobbits – he was writing about what it meant to be human and to make moral choices.

We didn’t get the classics at our high school much, but my grandmother and one of my aunts were also voracious readers, and most Christmases my sister and I found books we never would have chose under the tree.  I got a three inch thick encyclopedia of classical mythology one year.  I had plowed through everything else on my shelf, so I opened it, and found another realm to explore.  Another aunt sent a collection of mysteries along with the text of a speech on women in writing given by author Sarah Paretsky at her alma mater.

Paretsky’s speech discussed the challenges faced by female authors –  the Bronte’s and Jane Austen never married and wrote in a climate that told women it was unladylike – as well as the often deprecatory ways in which women are depicted in literature.  She exhorted her listeners to read for themselves and then go out and create – whether or not they could find rooms of their own.  It was my first ‘I could do that’ moment (I went to my graveyard shift with a pad and pen that night), and I got hooked on detective novels for a while – especially when they included three dimensional female characters – something that is sadly lacking in some of the otherwise wonderful classics of science fiction.  To be sure, there are many amazing female Sci-fi writers, and they have been fleshing out the female residents of that realm for some time now.

As my aunts and mother and grandmother continued their suggestions my way, I wanted to find characters that reminded me of them.  I wanted to find strong women.  I wanted to find people who were passionate about family but also ideas.  I wanted to find flawed women.  And I wanted to find their histories and the people in them.  And then I met Austen.

I don’t remember if it was watching one of the zillion remakes of Pride and Prejudice before heading to the used bookstore or if it was the now deceased copy of Sense and Sensibility that altered my addiction so profoundly.  For some reason I had finished Brit Lit in high school without reading her or the Brontes, but from the words “It is a truth universally acknowledged…,”  I was hooked.  I think it took two weeks to get through all of her bo

oks and then onto the Brontes.  Then I came back and read them again.  And again. And again.

 

At first I thought I loved the manners  (Doesn’t everyone say they love that first?).  Then I decided I loved the window into the way things were done once upon a time – I had always loved the how-to segments in the Little House books.  Then I thought the tortured romances were the attraction.  But as I’ve replaced copies of my Austen novels since I’ve become a wife and mother myself, I realized that I was attracted to a deeper universal truth.

 

Ultimately, Austen was writing about family and the ties that bind.  Their ties were stretched by the demands of making one’s fortune through marriage, but in the little circles of Bennets and Darcys and Dashwoods the knots were tight – despite the internal squabbles that all families have.  I’ve thought about those ties and those knots as I’ve gone back and re-read my favorite novels and discovered new favorites.  And I’ve discovered that even though the configuration of the circle may change from author to author or book to book, classics (regardless of age) are classics because they managed to uncover that universal, even if the pimply kid that was reading them didn’t know it.

 

Now I’ve got less pimples, and I’m hoping to be the author.  For the last eight months, I’ve been chasing the stories close to my life, and it’s helped me focus on what has brought the most meaning to my life.  I’ve just begun sifting through those stories, and while, at the beginning, I worried that the stories about my family and what often seems very drab life would be boring, I’m just now realizing that I haven’t enjoyed writing them in spite of the topic.  I’ve loved it because, like so many of my favorite writers, it’s the the pursuit of something universal.

 

The Eternal Tourist

/ Picking My Battles / Leave a comment

My parents weren’t hippies exactly, but I always thought that the social upheaval of the sixties was at least part of the wanderlust that infects both of them to this day. Intensely curious about cultures and socially conscious, my parents began roaming the world almost as soon as they said, “I do.” My dad finished his medical studies in Montreal. Later, the army would move them south to Texas, and while my dad served out his tour there, they became frequent visitors to Mexico and the surrounding states. Their curiosity took them on shoestring holidays to Europe and research-based stints as expats to Peru, and neither of them seemed to think parenthood was a good reason to slow down.

Riding in baby-backpacks and cars that would be condemned by modern child services agencies, we traveled across the country and out of it. We drove from the Eastern Seaboard to Central America. As we got older we started to fly to visit family in Europe. When we moved from the East Coast to the Midwest, my parents explored the heartland in earnest.

With all of that traveling and moving, it was inevitable that my sister and I would become infected with that same wanderlust that still takes my parents to the other side of the globe. I have fed the infection with multiple moves and travels of my own. And, while I am always eternally grateful to my parents for this affliction (I hope to pass it on to my kids someday) and these experiences, I think there was an unintended side effect.

When we moved to Peru, we knew we were visitors. Even when we learned the language, we spoke as foreigners and we were tourists as often as my Dad’s work schedule permitted. When we came home to the states the second time, though, I still felt a little like a visitor. We moved to the Midwest, and I felt even more like a visitor. We continued to travel, and I found I was happy visiting and observing and absorbing.

With one or two exceptions, I have loved most of the places we and I have visited and lived in, but looking back I realize I have spent most of my life feeling like a visitor. Even now, comfortably ensconced in the mountains of Vermont, I still wonder if we’ll be here for the long haul. I wonder what it would be like to live in Vancouver or Iceland or Italy – and if we will find out. There is always a sense of not completely belonging. For a long time, I lived as a witness, and that sense used to make me wonder if writers (as I wanted to be even then) or artists were supposed to be witnesses rather than full participants.

This question bothered me for years. After all, some of the greatest writers have been intense participants in the game of life.  One of my favorite exchanges in any movie was between Private Epstein and Jerome in Neil Simon’s Biloxi blues touches on this, and I think Simon was speaking to all artists when Private Epstein tells Jerome, “You have to take sides. You have to fight the good fight… Any fight. Until you do, you’ll never be a writer.”  It was a commentary that nagged at me for a while.

That was before the Big Guy came into my life.  His presence fed and nourished my wanderlust along with my heart, but I knew that, deep-down, I was still just a visitor in the places we lived. I was still an observer.

Then Thing1 came into our life, etching our family circle in stone. Thing1 was born on the road (we were living in Germany at the time), and at the time the Big Guy and I were long-term visitors together. But, thrown together on the endless adventure of parenthood, neither of us could remain casual observers – whether or not we would have wanted to be.

With the Big Guy’s help, Thing1 (and later Thing2) yanked me off the sidelines of life. I still wonder if I’ll ever belong to a place, but now I belong to a group of our own making.  Over the years it’s pull has grown stronger than any sense of place I’ve had, and because of it, I’m finding that Private Epstein was right. Fighting the good fight of growing our family – regardless of the theatre – has opened the door to becoming a real writer.