When it rains, it pours….sometimes five gallons worth.

There is a level of chaos that was upped for us after having three children. Going from one to two was nuts because they were born pretty close together. I was chasing after a curious toddler while holding a newborn in a snugglie. But after a few years they began to play together and, even though it was still a bit crazy, they were entertained because they had one another to play with. Then came number three….

She is two and a half years old already and she gets into everything!!! She’s a climber so I often find her on top of the arm of the couch reaching for the top of the bookshelf, preparing to pull down something or other. She always finds my phone and hides under the table to push buttons. So far I’ve called AT&T three times in the last two weeks to cancel applications she somehow purchased. I don’t have an IPhone, let alone data,  and for some reason she is able to push buttons until she downloads something, costing us money every time. Even if I hide my phone she will somehow find it.

Chaos always comes in repetitive segments. Life is calm and there are no worries, just the usual busy-ness. Then chaos comes like a domino effect and it just keeps coming, usually when you’re in a hurry and the place you’re trying to get to is actually important. This morning I had a meeting at 9am. This is the exact time that school starts for my kids and I had forgotten about the meeting starting in twenty minutes so I rushed to get properly dressed and teeth brushed as well as the toddler looking presentable (brushed hair and no more stains on her shirt). Just as I was getting ready she pooped in her portable potty so I had to take care of that. Then, after I got her dressed, she pulled off her shoes, socks and pants so I had to get her dressed again. Then we get to the van and the doors were frozen shut and as I was trying to nudge them open with my toddler in hand, a school bus came blazing down our narrow street so I moved aside and saw the bad mood in the bus driver’s face. Dang! I moved so she could get by!!! What the??? Then I had to scrape the ice off the windshield and off we went.

I dropped the kids off and sped to my meeting. This was our morning. Rushed and filled with chaos that doesn’t normally come unless, of course, we are in a hurry. Maybe it’s just that we notice it more when we’re in a hurry. I don’t know.

Then there was this evening. We finished dinner and Matt was starting to help Olivier to figure out what he would do for his school science fair project. I was cleaning up after dinner and taking thing after thing away from Sylvie as she kept grabbing spoons, cups, pens, carrots….anything she could get her hands on, and running off as I tried to chase her down and get the item back from her. At some point I hear Matt say, “No, Sylvie. That’s going to break if you do that. NO!!!! (loud crash)….Trace!!!!” I go to the living room and see she knocked over our five gallon jug of water for our dispenser. Yes, the lid was on. She dropped it and cracked it open. Water was gushing, like a river, all over our living room. Thankfully we have hardwood floors but it was dribbling down the heater vent, soaking the area rug and sending its river flow over the entire living room.

We grabbed about eight beach towels and kept soaking up water, wringing it outside, soaking it up again and again. It was nuts! Two of our kids helped as much as they could. One of them kept bitching about how his feet were getting wet so he wasn’t helping whatsoever! It was total chaos for about twenty minutes or more. I’m calm now and it’s even sort of funny to think about. It was NOT FUNNY in the moment and I couldn’t quite believe how crazy it was. I seriously don’t know what I would have done if Matt wasn’t here to help me clean up. He often isn’t in the evenings. This is life with three kids. Sometimes the chaos blindsides me and it’s enough to make me want to sit down in a corner and suck my thumb while weeping. I think I’ve done that minus the thumb sucking. But here we are today, with three amazing kids who have brought so much craziness into our lives and I’m thankful. I’m thankful now because I’m not sopping up five gallons of water from our hard wood floor.

Here’s so raising little humans!

It’s story time

I’ve been wanting to tell this story for a while now but with the holidays and all that jazz, it just never made it down. I did scribble it in my personal writing pad, which gets written in daily. But here it is:

 

I have a few friends who recently started producing a show called The Drunken Telegraph. It’s a live storytelling installment and I’d missed the first two or so. Finally I went a few weeks back to sit and listen to some live stories. I even signed up for the story slam at the end. I’m glad that I didn’t know it was a type of contest or I don’t think I would have signed up. I didn’t want the pressure to perform, or maybe outperform, I just wanted to have fun.

 

Well, I had a blast. So much of how I use to teach was through story telling and I honestly think that’s why a lot of my students really enjoyed the weeks that I was with them during my years of itinerant guest speaking. I got my points across by just telling a lot of stories. I was going to tell a story about our team getting robbed and stranded in China but during the break people who I hadn’t seen in months kept commenting on my hair and I had quite a story to tell about being a female with VERY short hair. Through their prodding I decided to tell the hair story. It was something like this:

 

In our culture there is a huge connection with femininity and long hair. I’d had short hair just after I got pregnant with my first-born and during that time I was living in a very populated college town. I noticed the difference in how the young men looked, or rather didn’t look at me, after I cut my hair. I went from being cute with flowing locks, to being someone they would look away from if I was coming down the street. It was almost like they looked away because they were embarrassed for me (insert crowd laughter).

 

Then it grew and was once again, long and lovely. I had two more kids and recently cut it all off again. I was tired of dying out the grey so short hair made so much sense. Plus, I like how cute and sassy it looks. But over the years, as I’m aging…getting more wrinkles and more body fat I notice that there are days where having short hair is a bit inconvenient as I’d like to have something long and feminine to fall back on during the days when I don’t feel so young and cute.

 

A few weeks back I was having an off day and I kept catching glimpses of myself in storefronts while I was on a walk. I thought my eyes looked puffy and tired, my puffy winter coat kept me from having a girly figure and then there was my short hair. I wished I’d had dark lipstick on so I could at least feel like I looked girly, but no such luck. My hair made me feel sort of boyish along with looking old and tired.

 

I didn’t give all of this as much thought as I’m writing. Catching glimpses here and there only took a few seconds of thought but it lingered. At the end of my walk I saw a man around my age riding a bike towards me so I did the friendly thing and I smiled and said hi. He nods, passes me then says, “Excuse me!” I turned around. “You are SO beautiful!!!” I, of course, giggle and downplay it like what he said was cute and that this happens to me all the time. I may have even put my hands in the shape of fake guns and fired them at him, “Oh…you!!! Thanks….haha”. Then he says, “NO! I’m serious! You’re so beautiful!” and rides off.

 

This is how I ended my live story: “No matter that he was a man in his mid-thirties riding a kid’s BMX  bike. No matter that he was missing a few teeth and seemed as though he had a slight drug problem. After his comment I still walked away thinking, ‘Damn! I still got it!!!’ “.

 

That was my story. At the end I even won the slam. I had so much dang fun. I haven’t told a story to an audience in months. I haven’t taught in years. I love the power of story. It has a way of making you laugh or cry or ponder. You make connection points with people into your own life, “Oh! They GET me!” Or we see their own vulnerability in a story. This is a huge part of why I love to read and write. I love a good story and a well told story. Hopefully I captured both that night. In the end, it was just a whole lotta fun. Thanks, Tacoma. Stay classy!

 

 

 

 

I always miss the good stuff!

It seems like I’m always missing the action in our little city and I arrive a day late and a dollar short, to use an overused cliché. Sometimes it’s a good thing like when we were out trick or treating this Halloween with a group of friends and a lot of kids. We came home after gathering inappropriate amounts of candy and put the kids to bed only to read in the news that there were kids stealing candy from other kids that night using a gun. It was on our street. Hurray for an early bedtime!

 

Today I took a bit of a stroll on our small high street and decided to hit the local pawn shop just to see if there was anything interesting. I browsed around. Looked at the dusty power tools and the well-played instruments. I saw some nice jewelry, said hello to the two dudes that work there and then left.

 

I went over to our new coffee shop/bike shop/bar where I saw an old acquaintance that I knew quite well in high school. I looked over at him and pretended like I didn’t recognize him. Yep, I have those days. In all fairness he probably thinks he recognizes me but is not quite sure from where. Then I sat and read my Stephen King book about writing, which is REALLY good. I heard a few sirens after I sat down but, whatever.

 

I was only there about half an hour before I sipped my last bit of hot chocolate, ignored the old high school acquaintance again and headed home. I passed the pawn shop four windows down and saw two cop cars and two ambulances outside and all the crew surrounding a guy lying on the ground. I asked a man what happened and apparently the guy on the ground stole stuff from the shop yesterday and came back again to do likewise. They weren’t having it this time so they scuffled with him and he tried to leave but tripped on his way out and didn’t get up. The poor soul was looking pretty worse for wear, to use another cliché, and sort of gave off that junkie vibe.

 

I probably missed that whole event by about five minutes, maybe ten. It’s funny how time works; the whole butterfly theory. One minute can change an entire encounter which can change someone’s life. If I had been in there during the incident my life wouldn’t have really been changed much except I’d have seen a scrappy lad get a bit roughed up trying to steal loot from a pawn shop. But then again, if I had been just a minute late on my jog last week, I wouldn’t have had a run in with a crazy lady.

 

I don’t want to think about it too hard or my eye will start twitching but I’m amazed at the difference that just a minute or two can make. That minute or two can make a difference of life as we know it or chaos and basket balls being thrown at your face.  Hmm….I sounded a bit like Jack Handy just then.

 

Well, no matter, I still dig my neighborhood. It’s still shocking and friendly all at the same time. At least I was on time enough to walk up my street after the pawn shop event and see a man dumping half of the crap from his home (dirty mattress, popped air mattress, broken TV and scads of straight up trash) just outside Le Donut right next to a charity box that reads, “Clothes, shoes, cell phones”. See what a difference walking by at the right moment can make?

 

 

Urban Handbook. Sold where?

Somedays I wish there was a sort of handbook for living in this type of setting. I grew up here and it was always the type of city where you learned how to lock your door (car and home) once you were in and once you got out, and if you drove downtown back in the day, you rolled up the windows and locked the doors so as not to get jacked by the pimps and druggies. Looking back I think there was likely some overdramatizing on the subject of personal safety but, the city still does has a vibe of instability to it at times.

Today I was coming back from a jog (two miles post-Christmas belly and I was giving myself a mental high-five on a job well done). I was cooling off down the street from my house and saw someone who looked like they were walking up on my lawn. Someone I didn’t recognize. Then they seemed to be in the neighbor’s yard. It was a girl who walked a bit like a boy so there was an edge of toughness there. When I came closer I could see she snagged a soccer ball from our neighbor’s porch and was coming towards me. Our neighbors have five kids and one of them plays with my son so I did feel a bit defensive of his property.

When she came towards me like a Harlem Globetrotter, a mentally ill Globetrotter, she was trying to do the offensive/defensive dribbling movement with me in a way that total strangers do NOT do with one another. I just smiled while she was laughing a bit too overconfidently while saying, “Come on. Let’s go. Let’s play” in her tomboy voice. I laughed a bit insecurely and just swerved around her to avoid her then thought, “I know she took that from our neighbor’s yard. What the….?”

So I asked her, “Did you take that from up there?” pointing at their porch and she paused. When she paused I immediately regretted asking her that question. She started coming at me and it was clear she was looking for a fight. She said, “Oh, you wan it? You wan it?” I said nothing. Just stated at her. Then she threw it HARD towards my face and I put my hand up and blocked it (thank you cat-like reflexes). I was a bit stunned but still said, “Thanks”. It was the thanks that was the other mistake. It seemed to fire her crazy up to amber alert. She came at me, while I was holding the stolen ball in my arms like a small cat, and just started pushing into me. It was mental (I use that word deliberately) because I was trying to protect myself without getting her really fired up. I kept wondering if she had a knife or something. So I just kept pushing her off me then she pushed her hand into my face and walked away.

The whole episode reminded me of a scuffle I use to get into in high school. Totally unexpected and a bit stupid in its subject matter. I actually wanted to punch her to get her away (at my core I’m a pacifist but I have my moments of weakness, sorry) and because of  my kung fu training (thank you David Welther) I was thinking of ways to swing her around and trip her and get her on the ground. Then the better part of my mental make up took over and told me, “She’s crazy. Don’t ‘eff’ with her!”. Then I felt bad and sort of didn’t want to hurt her. She was tiny and not really strong. My pushing on her was pushing her back hard. She wasn’t really a good match for me even though she thought she was. I walked away shaking partly out of anger and partly out of totally being stunned. Too much adrenaline, fight or flight stuff going on in my innards.

I had to tell the kids about it because they heard me speaking about it to the husband on the phone. Then later my son and I drove around a bit to try to see if we could figure out where she was from. I’ve had another encounter with her so I think she lives around me. Fantastic! I can’t wait to see her again. I told O she was wearing all brown and she was small. The best part of the entire event is when we finally went into Safeway to get our five gallon water jugs filled and O saw a tiny old woman, maybe seventy years old, in a brown trench coat. He pulled on my sleeve and pointed to her while pressing his mouth shut and his eyebrows raised, like he was saying, “Look! There she is. The crazy lady that attacked you”. I laughed out loud thinking of the small Vietnamese woman that he was outing throwing a ball at my face and trying to push me over. It was really cute of him to try to be my advocate.

So, I wonder where is the handbook on urban living that helps those of us who are committed to living in a developing city with an abrasive identity that she is trying hard to overcome see people who are a pain in the ass with compassion? Where is the compass that gives us some direction on what to do in really weird situations, not to avoid getting in fights but more to see things the right way? There’s a fine line between staking your place in the city and loving it, wanting to make it better, clean it up, develop her….all while contending with the disenfranchised who roam the streets day and night and letting them live here too. It’s just as much their city as mine. What to do? What to do?

Well, I’ll tell you this: If you see a small, tan woman wearing all brown, walking all tough like a tomboy and trying to interact with you for a good game of basketball while walking down your street….just pretend you don’t really notice. I learned the hard way not to stir up someone else’s crazy out of a sense of justice for your neighbor’s soccer ball. I’ll put that in the handbook.

Christmas Days

Today I held two sparkly, handmade tree ornaments in my hand thinking that one day, many years from now, I’ll be unwrapping them from a box to place back on the tree, like I do every year, and a teenage Oliver may be sitting on the couch reading a book, not wanting anything to do with decorating the tree.

Teenage Chloe might help me but she’ll be as tall as me and will gaze at her own handmade ornament and wonder when it was that she made this. I’ll remember. I’ll look back to little 6 year old Chloe, up to my waist with lovely bobbed hair, brimming smile and eager creativity wanting to decorate the tree. I’ll close my eyes after I stare at my grown girl and remember the smell of her hair, the smallness of her hands and her constantly wrinkled, wet thumb that she use to suck. I’ll tell her the date when she made the ornament and she’ll just shrug and say, “Oh. Cool.” then put it up on the tree. She won’t close her eyes and see or smell back into those memories and years. She won’t remember how sweet and small she was or see how anxious and giddy she use to get around Christmas time. She’ll just see the tree in front of her and some old ornament that I told her she made and she’ll hang it on the tree.

But I will watch her hang it and stare at her lovely, growing face, her carmel colored hair and I’ll watch her young lady hands put the ornament on the tree and I’ll wonder, “Where did all the days go?”.

Crafting is for lovers

Last weekend I was a vendor for the first time in my life at the Tacoma Is For Lovers craft fair. I was selling my originally designed earrings and I even designed my display table complete with spray painted twigs to hang the earrings on. I decided to participate mainly because I wanted to try something new and to do something that I was a bit intimidated to do, sell my craft. What I learned was more than I bargained for.

I was originally thinking, “I’ll go and maybe sell ALL of my stuff and pocket the earnings and live a life of self inflated ego trips like the rest of my crafty sisters. Or maybe I’ll just sell half of my 50 plus pairs and, in the end, never do it again but enjoy the experience of it all. What really happened was that some people bought, most didn’t. I sold some stuff and met some great people but really, I had a pretty quiet two days.

I’ve been writing for years now as well as showing my photographs and a lot of what I write and shoot gets a great response from people who read or see my work, so I’ve felt fairly comfortable and encouraged with my artistic expression. But when people don’t want your art it takes a huge hit on your ego and you MUST maintain the right self talk or it totally deflates you. I had to conclude that my jewelry wasn’t for everyone and my display was pretty rustic compared to some of the more pro crafters. Also, I’m not good at marketing myself, I tend to feel like a used car salesman when people pass by and I have to comment on their scarves or sweaters in order to get them to look at my work. “Oh, I love that sweater. Where did you get it? Really? Well what do you think of this color to go with that beautiful sweater?” It feels phony. But “phony” sold one women a whack load of jewelry.

I kept imagining how other artists must feel when they throw themselves out there. Crafting is definitely art. There were some amazing creations at the event! But people who put out a project whether it’s their music, an album, a movie, a painting, a book…whatever it is, if people don’t want it, even if you think it’s the best you’ve ever done, you have to wrestle through what it does to your emotions and you have to make a decision: “Am I done trying to create or shall I continue to make more art?”

I love what Glen Hansard says after he won the Oscar for the movie Once. If you’ve ever seen The Commitments you know he had a small and slow start to his music which began long, long time ago. On the stage at the Oscars he ends his speech with simply saying, “Make art! Make art!” So tonight I went back to the drawing board, literally. I grabbed a photo that I took of my daughter dancing in the living room and it’s such a lovely shot of her that I drew it. I even hung it on the wall. I’m even thinking of doing another craft fair in February but this time I think I’ll skip the spray painted twigs and I’ll put a little more effort into my own art.

Very inspiring. Happy Thanksgiving readers. Make art!

Absentee

Why haven’t I written in a while? I have a few good excuses and a few lame ones. Lack of inspiration? Not really. Lack of material? Not at all! Having little kids in your home and living in an urban setting? Unusual stories and great material abound. Laziness? Perhaps. Busyness? Definitely. Self induced busyness? Absolutely! 

 

This has been my year of realizing that I keep myself busy with stuff that needs to get done but I’m not at all making time for the things that I actually enjoy doing. Ask anyone….there’s NEVER enough time! Right? If only we had just a few more hours in the day to get done what we really want to do. I’m a firm believer that if we had a few more hours we would all die of heart attacks by 26 and also, we’d still never make time for real living. 

 

I’ve been reading a lot of Wendell Berry lately and I appreciate his approach to modernity and his commitment to living a slow and enjoyable life. From what I’ve read he doesn’t own a computer and types all of his poetry and manuscripts on an old-school typewriter, when he’s not using a pen a paper. A what? Pen and…what? He doesn’t really email and he’s likely not on friggin’ Facebook. He moved away from NY and left a potentially successful career as a writer to move back to KY and work on his farm with his wife; to work the land and write. Not for everyone, sure, but man! Doesn’t it just sound dreamy? It does to me. 

 

So I’m realizing that I’ve let myself get busy with so much ‘stuff’ over this past year and it’s left a bit of a hole inside. You’ll always find ways to fill your time but you really have to MAKE time for the things that you  want to do.