Odd and Curious Thoughts of the Week

July 13, 2012 By

This week, in the mind of Amanda Hill . .

(1) I’m always left scratching my head when advertising slogans are in quotes.  They jump out at me on billboards or on the backs of the trucks.  “Real country cookin,” one reads.  “We’ll be there when you need us,” says another.  Who is saying these things?  Is it similar to air quotes, where you say one thing but mean another? If that’s the case, don’t plan your day waiting on those losers.  They’ll come to fix your leaking toilet between 8 am and whenever they can pry themselves away from Denny’s all-you-can-eat pancakes.  That are “made fresh.”  Eeeugh.

(2) I am struck by the lack of random acts of kindness I perform on a daily basis.  I should pay for people’s groceries behind me in the check-out line.  I could stand to wait more, compliment more freely, and act more selflessly.  I think I’ll start by not screaming at my two-year-old for dumping an entire container of blueberries on the kitchen floor. I’ll just pick them up, some half-smashed into the bottom of my shoe and others staining our travertine tile, and simply say “there you go, buddy.  This act is for you. Don’t gripe the next time the door slams into your face, K?  How many of these do you think I can do in a day?”

(3) Why LOL?  Why not SFF (so freaking funny) or TAGO (that’s a good one) or just DTWA (dang that was awesome)?  These are at least more accurate.  Rarely does a friend’s facebook update on health care reform cause you to cackle uncontrollably until your eyes begin to water.  Unless you are friends with David Sedaris, in which case you have my full permission to use LOL.  Or SFIWMPA (so funny I wet my pants again).  But then you’d forget all those letters.

(4) I roasted some butternut squash in little cubes and then put them in ziplock bags for my kids to munch on during a two-hour car trip.  I really don’t know what happened to me.  For a moment, my mind went blank and I forgot what it was like being a mother at all.  My kids just looked at the bags like I was handing them chunks of poison-laden concrete.  “Uh, do we not have Cheese Nips?” my daughter asked.  Of course we do.  I’m not sure where that even came from.  I looked down at that alien squash and shook my head in disgust.  You are dead to me.  Pass the oreos.

(5)  My daughter likes Martinelli Apple Juice in a glass bottle.  When we drive through the coffee place by our house, she insists on me asking for award-winning apple juice, like they might make an error and hand her the off-brand swill.

(6) Speaking of my daughter, we were on our way to the pool when she was having a conversation with herself.  “Who ya talking to?” I asked.  “My feet families,” she said.  She wiggled her toes as if all the people were waiving at me.  Each toe had a name, and each foot was a family that occasionally got together with the other foot for trips and such.  I hope they like each other since they live so close. I wonder if other children act this way.

(7) I was in a rush the other day, and plucked my shoe-less two-year-old out of the car and plunked him into the grocery cart because I was too lazy to find a matching croc. But one item led to several, as grocery store trips go, and suddenly I had an urge to pee.  I’m trying to hold a wrangling and twisting two-year-old in my lap while using the restroom, but it was impossible.  I tell him to stand over to the side where people’s shoes probably didn’t touch as often, not moving from that one place, because at least that minimized the germs his feet would be exposed to.   This is the actual logic that went through my head.  I have no idea how I made it through law school.

(8) I sucked on my son’s pacifier to clean it the other day because I thought “I’d wash off the bad germs from the floorboard by putting it in my dirty mouth that hasn’t been cleaned properly since the Listerine wash at 9 pm the night before.”   That’s me reasoning to myself, in case the quotes threw you.  And we all know from (7) above how excellent I am with reasoning.  TAGO.

(9) I did one of those online tests to see how many books I’ve read of the 100 best books of the world, and I was hovering somewhere around the pitifully-low national average.  I have a feeling I’m going on an Amazon bender. Mark Twain and Nabokov. Steinbeck and Woolf.  I’m cracking open book covers not because I really want to, but because I’ll beat that other stay-at-home mom who has read more classics than I have.  I’ll show the world how smart I am.  I’ll make squash nuggets for long summer car trips and carry shoe-less toddlers into germ-infested bathrooms.

Oh, wait. . .

Filed Under: Embarrassing Moments, Humor, Motherhood Tagged With: , , , ,

Wedging in the practice

July 6, 2012 By


Write, write, write, they say.

They meaning writers, and agents who represent writers, and anyone who likes to sound important. Steven King says that writers must be readers, always absorbing words.  At a bus station or waiting for a train, we must all be carrying books and appreciating the written voice.  He’s right, of course.  They are all right.  And yet I spent two hours today fighting with a two-year-old to go down for a nap, and washing dishes, and planning my daughter’s birthday party.  I went to the mall and debated for at least ten solid minutes whether I should spend a hundred bucks on a lamp at Pottery Barn.  I’m ashamed to admit that I dug into my garbage pail of a purse today at the grocery store to find a pair of reading glasses in order to study a full-length essay about exactly why Katie Holmes is leaving Tom Cruise.  I was just standing there reading People Magazine while other normal people whizzed by to stand in the Express Lane, or head on over to the fresh strawberries.  They were all getting their stuff taken care of so they could get home and read Sherlock Holmes, most likely.  All I read these days is Nancy Drew Mysteries to my six-year-old.  And People, apparently.  It’s disgraceful.

I write.  Sure.  At the trail end of the day when I’m supposed to be paying bills.  I write after everyone has gone to sleep.  I write despite my feet going numb and my hair a big greasy mess because it’s the way my brain processes things, and lately I’ve begun to not care how it comes out.  It’s not disciplined.  It’s not crafty.  It’s sloppy and mushy like a Days of Our Lives re-run.

Maybe it’s no surprise that I don’t have an agent, or a publisher, or anything really, aside from a handful of dear friends and online followers who read my blog to laugh about my bad days.  The fact is – I’m so good in person.  Presentable and tall and fun to be with.  When I give speeches, I feel the energy radiate around the room. My pitches to agents in person are always met with yes. A “send it right over to me/I’m running to check your email right now” type of yes.  And then I do.  And it’s forever stuck in a black hole.  Or worse, rejected.  Then I wallow in self-pity for not writing more, or reading more, or not working on my damn craft.

I’ve intentionally avoided looking at my novel for some time now.  It’s saved in multiple places in my documents folder.

            Final Draft for Agent X. 

            First Fifty Pages. 

            Edited.Long.Version.With.New.Intro.

Some for agents, some for myself.  They are all just sitting there, untouched.  Silent.  Forgotten.

I’m moving my focus to a new novel.  A story about a disjointed family with a hidden secret.  But let’s not kid ourselves.  My focus is mental, meaning I think about the plot, characters, and setting while in the shower or driving the kids to the library or buying ground meat.  But I’m not writing.

It took me four years to wedge a book into my then-busy life.  The late nights and sparse weekends.  The early mornings and babysitters.  And now it just sits there in a dusty, online shelf.  I have one more child now than I did then, and the thought of starting over is depressing.

I’m not sure why being published is such a brass ring.  It’s the thought of being heard, I suppose.  That’s what Rachelle Gardner suggested.  She’s a solid literary agent that has never responded to my written query.  I don’t blame her.  I don’t blame any of them.  I don’t fault Jenny Bent or Joe Veltre or Rebecca Oliver for saying no, even thought I wanted so very badly for them to like me.  There are dozens of agents I still highly respect that rejected my novel. There are just so many writers, and books, and voices.  It’s the Tower of Babble out there with all the yelling and begging.  A person can get lost out there.  They can get overrun.

That’s what I tell myself, at least.  How does a girl have time to write, or be heard?  But then I look down and see evidence of Katie Holmes in my hand, like a bloody knife from a crime scene.  I stuff the magazine back in between the metal bars before I’m discovered.

But life is life.  There’s no use piling a heaping scoop of guilt on the top of it.  Amidst lessons on how two-year-olds should not hit or scream and between multiple requests for more Thomas the Train, this type of undisciplined writing is all I have.  My second novel will eventually explode from my brain, and I’ll have no control over its movement onto the page.  Then, once again, I’ll find the stolen moments, or times without children, or late nights, so it can find it’s way into the world.

But for now, this is practice, or something close to it.  It is all I can muster.  And it will just have to do.

Filed Under: My life, Writing Tagged With: , , , ,

Here’s to no-good, boring birthdays

July 2, 2012 By

 

Some Mondays aren’t the best.  This particular one was teeth-grindingly bad.  It just so happened that this Monday was also my birthday, which added to my abounding self-pity.  Birthdays really shouldn’t matter so much to grown-ups.   Just because you wake up on your official DOB doesn’t mean you carry a special florescent glow that mandates people give you free coffee and stickers.  I will say, however, that at least in the working world someone buys you a Starbucks, or there’s a cake in the break room.  When you’re a stay-at-home type, who happened to buy yourself a new camera for her own present, it’s just any other day and your main goal is for the kids to eat their carrots.

I felt bad about whining about my no-good, boring birthday to a girlfriend, until she reminded me that she knew.  She knew my life was blessed and full and rich and wonderful, and that it’s okay to have bad days.  I told her this day was ridiculously awful, aside from my family being healthy and us having a comfortable living with clothing and food and love and homemade bread and leftovers and an amazing life. Shoes on our feet and a belly full of organic turkey breast?  Blessings schmessings.

So here was my day. No one was diagnosed with a brain tumor or broke an arm, but still.

  • My husband left for work early.  My son fell out of his crib and I awoke to the sound of his sobbing face, covered in snot, screaming next to my pillow.
  • I tried to wake my daughter, who “needed some time” and didn’t want to be disturbed. Okay, royal highness.
  • I had three hours of child care for the 2-year-old, so I rushed to get a pedicure with my daughter at an upscale boutique.  She didn’t understand why she couldn’t stand around for a million hours looking at nail polish colors and couldn’t have a certain oversized ring that looks like a rose.
  • We headed to the bank. “Oh my gosh, it’s your birthday!” the teller gushed. “Here’s a lollipop!”  I guess the glare in the drive-in-window disguised my birthday glow as that of an anxious three-year old, because it’s been a long time since a lollipop was that thrilling.  But I’ll take it.  Things are looking up.
  • I picked up my son.  He ate said lollipop and his entire mouth turned blue.  What is this stuff – trick candy?
  • We headed to a friend’s house so my daughter could apologize to my friend’s child for saying hurtful words during a play date over the weekend.  We finally get that fun chore out of the way.  Sorry is said/hugs to be had.  Victory!
  • We head home, whereby my mother has called to sing me Happy Birthday.  Only she and my Dad are in Kansas and the phone keeps cutting out.
  • I try for a solid hour to get my son to take a nap.  He giggles and cries and wrangles and twists and I almost use brut force to tie him to the bed. Finally, I gave up and looked forward to a fun afternoon with an exhausted toddler.  What a great birthday present!  Better than dirty diapers!
  • I went to buy a real mattress for my son, who clearly needs something besides the crib since he’s looking like a future linebacker.  It costs more than I planned.  There goes all my spending money.
  • The mattress was being delivered that afternoon, and during the seven minute interval by which I was vacuuming his room in prep for the mattress, my son discovered a truck-load of permanent markers somewhere in his sister’s room (who put those in there?) and colored his entire hand, arm, and part of the carpet green.
  • I was so mad when I saw the green carpet I threw the markers across the room and might have yelled.  I’m fairly certain I yelled.  Oh yeah.  I yelled.
  • I gave myself a time-out on the front porch to calm down.  I sucked down a sparkling water.  Should have made it beer, the more I think about it.
  • I headed back in and decided I need to embrace the craziness.  If you can’t beat em, join em.  Want a popcicle?  Sure!  Want fruit smoothies for dinner?  Why not?  We all sang a rousing version of “Do, Re, Me” while I folded socks and towels.
  • Things are really looking up when I sneak spinach and flax seed in the smoothies when the kids aren’t looking.  Does spinach equal out the marker throwing?  Does the singing void out all the yelling?
  • My daughter spilled the entire smoothie on her white t-shirt.  Panic ensues that the stain will never come out, since this is a tried-and-true favorite tee. My son follows suit with the spillage.  Blueberry pomegranate sludge covers my front porch. Both kids are hosed off.  The porch is hosed off.  I wish I could hose off my bad mood.
  • I decide baths are in order, whereby my expensive organic bath gel somehow ends up in the tub and is half-full of water.  Why do I leave these things at arms-reach?
  • I put my son to bed.  He’s wiped.
  • I read a thousand chapters of Nancy Drew to my daughter, who keeps begging for more.  She finally pleads for a back scratch in the whiniest voice I’ve ever heard.  I tell her it’s my freaking birthday and I’m done with all her incessant demands. She throws a crazy fit by standing up, saying “hmph” really loudly, stomping, and crossing her arms.
  • My daughter loses television privileges as a natural consequence of her bad choice.  I told her one more outburst and the Polly Pocket dolls were headed to Goodwill.
  • I fold more laundry.  I eat a peanut butter sandwich.  I’m no longer singing show tunes, and I haven’t had one single piece of cake.
  • My husband calls and says he’s getting home really late due to a pending work deadline. Super double awesome.
  • I call my mother-in-law and remind her it was my birthday, since she had clearly forgotten.
  • Time for bed!  Here’s to Tuesday!

I recently gave a speech whereby I told a group of ladies that when horrible things happen, take a step back and find the funny.  There is always, for certain, without a doubt, funny things that bubble up from tragedies.  I was thinking of real tragedies, like death or cancer or car accidents.  But bad birthdays count.  The more I think about it, they so count.

So here’s to funny.  To the yelling and spilling.  The singing and cleaning up.  Regretful and glorious moments of motherhood are all wrapped up in a shiny birthday package, with a ribbon that reads “There’s always tomorrow!  Thank God for tomorrow!”

Tonight, I prayed out loud with my daughter.  I asked God to grant me more patience and to still my anger.  For my daughter to be more selfless, and to develop a heart of gratitude.  Mostly I just thanked God for our beautiful life.  For so many rich blessings. They don’t come in packages, tied up with string.  We don’t deserve them.  And yet we are surrounded by so many. As I write this, my two kids are sleeping and my laundry is done. My fingers fly over the keys like an old friend.  I have so many people in my life that I love and cherish.  I have the privilege of being a servant.

Next year on my birthday, I’m making pineapple smoothies.  At least they don’t stain.  That’s my new goal for birthday success. Let’s shoot for small victories. . .

Filed Under: Embarrassing Moments, Humor, Motherhood, My life Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Top Ten Ways to Laugh More at Work

June 29, 2012 By

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I have had my share of crappy, miserable, insanely-awful Tuesdays.  My mornings usually consisted of lukewarm coffee, screaming children, re-heated muffins, and boring NPR stories.  I was stuck in traffic, with bad hair and pants that are an inch too short, and when I got to work I noticed half-done reports and a computer keyboard covered in the crumbs of yesterday’s subway sandwich.  Is that really the day care calling to say my kid as a fever?  Do I honestly have a meeting in ten minutes? It’s only Tuesday for crying out loud.

But sometimes the negative can be turned into the positive. It’s a byproduct of being a writer, I suppose, where I look at life as one huge collection of stories.  But I’ve had to ask myself – was I good about finding the humor at work all those years?  Work is the one place where you hang up your personal, jovial self in the closet next to your blazer and and trudge off to Get Things Done.

I think back through my career.  I’ve snapped at support staff for packets not fully prepared and have been angry at opposing counsel for unrealistic discovery demands.  I’ve worn sour expressions and said so many disparaging things I’m sure my co-workers wanted to slide Midol pills underneath the crack in the door with a note that read “For heaven’s sakes take these pills, eat a cupcake, and come back when you are nice.”  But what do they know?  Work is a place where you Get Things Done.  Where you beat deadlines and answer emails and attend meetings.  Grrr.

But can’t we get some fun up in here?  I’m not talking about the lame birthday cake parties in the break room.  I’m talking about real and honest joy.  Is it even possible given today’s demands?

The answer is yes.  An overwhelming yes.

But you have to go about it the right way.  One particular website suggested that in order to break the tension in a workplace, a manager should bring a panic button into the meeting and tell their staff to “just push the panic button when it gets too stressful.” It breaks up the monotony!  It creates a light-hearted environment!  It’s so darn fun!  If I were in a meeting where my manager brought in a panic button, he’d have about as much credibility as my two-year-old.

Another piece of advice said to take fifteen minute walks, develop games with cube-mates, work puzzles in the break room, and take jokes with you to meetings.  This just doesn’t ring true.  If I was discussing a merger, I couldn’t be all “hold up there, folkzies.  Before we begin this discussion, have you heard the one where the elephant walks into a bar?”  No offense to those people who love puzzles, or elephants.  I’m just saying it wouldn’t work particularly well for me.

But the more advanced I became in my career, the fear and insecurity of being accepted wore off and faded into oblivion.  So I began to let loose and hauled my normal happy self into the office. After all, my shoes are from TJ Maxx and my brain only works about half the time.  If I had a joke about an elephant that I thought was really funny, I’d probably say it.  Because elephants are endearing little things that crush vehicles with their hind quarters.

So here are the Top Ten Things that I learned after so many years that helped me start to enjoy work again. To bring humor back into my working life.  To learn to really live a little:

(1) Don’t take things so darn seriously.  Humor creates a psychological distance.  After all, if you don’t get that report turned in and your boss gets mad, and you end up being fired, you could work at Dairy Queen and eat Blizzards all day.  Think of the toppings!

(2) Get out of the office for lunch.  This is key so your head isn’t buried inside your computer from 7 am until closing time, causing you to be grumpy and lumpy and snappy.  Just leave.  If you aren’t hungry, drive around.  Pick up some iced tea.  Head to a park and walk a bit.  But take a mid-day break.

(3) Think of your commute as a very special time, not some horrible long wasted hour.  Listen to music that uplifts you.  Pray.  Call a friend or check out a book on tape. Enjoy a cup of good coffee.  This is your time, without kids yelling or bosses snapping or husbands talking. How many times do you tell yourself “I have no time for me!”  Well here it is, you whiner.

(4) Be the bearer of silly little gifts.  Everyone brings something different to the table in a workplace.  Some people are more organized.  Others are great with follow-up.   Some are good listeners.  Reward those talents by leaving candy or gum or little treats on their desk with lame, corresponding sayings that you find online or make up.  You’re worth a mint to me (mentos)!  The way you listened to that client was so smart (smartees!) Your organizational skills are worth all the cash in the world (100 grand!) It’s not laugh-out-loud funny and might cause people to roll their eyes a bit (rolos!) but it makes people smile and it helps them see you as a human being and not just a widget (or whatchamacallit!)  Tell me to stop.

(5) At every opportunity, send out poems (Today is just another day, it’s Wednesday in December, but if you have a moment at all, can you call that counsel member?)  I use www.rhymezone.com so much I think they created that site exclusively for me.  Now, instead of simply barking orders, you can bark orders in rhyme, which is far better and makes you more likeable.  Unless you’re firing someone.  Then I’d steer clear of rhyme.  I also like to use unusual similes and metaphors, like “this is similar to fighting alligators” or “imagine this project is a large lion.”

(6) Be a gossip killer.  When someone comes into your office, closes the door, and says “I’m so sorry but I just have to get this off my chest” and then begins to rant about someone with glee, think strategy. It’s fine to listen.  But when they are done, ask them if they often have to replace buttons on that blazer or start a conversation about space exploration.  Don’t give in to employee-bashing.  It’s not helpful, it ruins the office mood, it destroys morale, and it’s hateful.  Hateful humor doesn’t warm the heart. Unless it’s your boss, of course, which is an exception and you can both plot his/her demise in good conscience.  Think of what will be on the gravestone.  Pick the funeral flowers.  Whatever.

(7) Send notes of praise and thanks all the time, to anyone you can think of. Email someone’s boss and blind-copy them.  It makes you feel better, and happier, to give rather than receive.  We learned this as children around Christmas, and it’s so true.  Unless you are receiving a new Nikon 5100.  Then getting is good.

(8)  Smile.  When someone walks into your office, stop your train of thought long enough to let a smile erupt on your face.  Even if it’s forced.  If you hold it long enough, it might turn real.

(9) Despite advice to the country to form “lunch bunches” and all kinds of work pot lucks, I’m not big on dining together with work colleagues all the time.  After all – you see these people enough.  Do you really want to sit together in the break room heating up leftover lasagna?  Find your own space.  This makes everyone happier and more interesting.

(10) And finally, admit when you are wrong.  Apologize when necessary, and embrace your faults.  No one can find humor, warmth, and joy in the workplace if you are constantly trying to fight battles of will, or cover something up, or lie to save yourself.  Be true to your inner self.  The self you were born to be.  The self that wears pants that are sometimes too short with coffee stains.  It’s cool.  You aren’t the only one.

We all have those kind of Tuesdays.

—

Photo:

Lauren

Filed Under: Career, Humor, Inspirational Tagged With: , , , , ,

sparkling pink unicorns

June 27, 2012 By

I sometimes wonder what religion must sound like to non-believers.  This whole “I live for Jesus” business a big fat excuse so that bonnet-clad women won’t feel so bad about their lot in life, selling rosemary soap and black currant jelly, sitting on rickety wooden seats next to their overbearing husbands.  To those who haven’t been raised in church, or even worse, have been burned by the allegedly faithful, religion a hard pill to swallow. I get it.  It rings false.  It’s just something to make us all feel good in the dark, cold nights. “They are church folk,” we want people to say, like it makes us honest or All-American. It’s what we cling to when we have cancer or when children die in car accidents.  It makes the unfair fair again. It washes the ugly clean.

To many, it’s not real.  Talking of Jesus is as crazy as circus clowns or unicorns.  Which made me think of the following imaginary conversation one might have at a dinner with a girlfriend, right after the talk of Oprah’s future and the importance of shellac pedicures.

“What the heck is that?” The check came and you had pulled out your wallet, which was naturally covered in pink, sparkling unicorns.  “Don’t tell me you’re into that sort of thing,” your friend said.  Her mouth was hanging open like a carp. “Is that a rainbow antler? Good gosh.”

“Back off,” you said.  “It’s complicated.” You stuff the wallet back into your purse, embarrassed.  “I went to a retreat.  I was touched by magical power. Whatever.”

“I can’t believe you fell for that crap,” she said.  Perhaps your friend thinks she’s being helpful. Enlightening you on your errant ways.

“It’s just the way I want to live my life. Geez.  It’s not the end of the world.  Unicorns believe in peace and love and the power of healing.  What’s so wrong with that?”

“Because you are a smart, strong woman,” your friend said, “and although you can believe in whatever you want, I think you’ve gone a little bonkers.”  She waved at the waitress for a to-go box and muttered something about anti-unicorn therapy.   Acupuncture, perhaps.  You reached for your pocket and felt the unicorn sayings, tucked safely inside, out of reach.

“There’s no evidence they ever existed on this planet,” your friend finally says, as if reason might prevail.

“I just have a feeling.  Don’t knock it. We all have our thing.”

I was wondering, as I was shampooing my hair and imagining this conversation, if that’s how it sounds.  Like Jesus and unicorns are in the same category, full of magic and miracles, made up to make life more beautiful.

It might be easy to convince half-starving folks in third-world countries that Jesus Christ was real. The weak and helpless have nothing else to cling to.  They need to know that this world isn’t all there is.   But well-educated Americans who have mortgages and favorite bands and trust funds?  Well, not so much.   I guess they think Christians can’t stomach the thought that dying just means dying, our flesh rotting in the ground for all eternity.  We just can’t handle this life being all there is because we’ve messed it all up so royally, so we made up a place like heaven and God and the angels and prophets to give ourselves something to live for.  To give us hope.  The Bible makes us feel good, like sparkling rainbow unicorns, full of love and happiness and forgiveness and the like.

To these people I just don’t know what to say.  Being a witness and sharing my faith is a weakness of mine, and I admit it.  Before I started blogging, putting my thoughts on paper for the world to see, many folks didn’t even know I was a Christian at all.  I felt it had no place in the world of law, or when I was giving speeches, or in any of my professional circles.  I knew a doctor for five years before she said once to a colleague “This is Amanda.  She’s great.  Very religious, but you’d never know it.”  Like that was a badge of honor.  Like I kept my crazy wallet hidden away so no one would ever see.

In the small, Texas town I grew up, it was so normal to go to church, or say you believe in God, or have a wrist band bearing “what would Jesus do?”  But as I grew up and moved away, I’ve seen the cynicism grow.  I have seen grudges against the faithful turn slowly into valleys of hate, like one side is right and just and intellectual and the other is mind-blowingly stupid and sheep-like in their blind acceptance of the unseen.

I’m not perfect.  I love my children and my husband with a fierce, protective love, and I can’t imagine walking away from them for anything, even if I heard voices telling me to in the name of God.  If I were put in the position of Abraham or Job I’d probably commit myself to a mental institution.  And for heaven’s sake don’t make me sell my home and live in a trailer or give my Whole Foods slush fund away to the poor. Sometimes I just beat my hands against my forehead at so many missed opportunities. For thinking my faith is just something to be shared on Sundays and locked up the rest of the week.  I can be just as disingenuous as the next guy.  I think at times I might even give religion a bad name.  I hate that.

But despite all this, I still believe.  I believe that God has directed my life since the moment I was born.  With every sinewy muscle in my body I throw myself into prayer, my heart exposed and raw, my failures unmasked.  I don’t do this because I feel I need a crutch, or because I need something to cling to, or because the thought of rotting in the dirt seems incredulous.  I do this because I have felt the power of God ripple through my soul.  I heard the words of a nurse in the hospital, after four long weeks of post-partum infection, when I felt so lost and broken, that “you are God’s child.  He will never leave you.”  She came at night.  My husband was asleep and never saw her. It was as if I knew, at that moment, that my life was not my own.

I have no magic words that I use to convince people I’m right.  That Jesus lived on this very earth that we walk upon.  That the era of Jesus wasn’t some made-up time period, squeezed into history books with quotation marks.

I just believe.  I don’t know how to make it sound any more legitimate than that.  I suppose you can reason that one single man in the history of the world has never made more of an impact.  That people of great intellect and credibility and heart that profess to believe in Jesus can’t all be stupid.  But in the end it’s not about these things. It’s not about what others think or feel, or how much you’ve done to earn your wings.   It’s not at all about your ability to evangelize. In the end it’s just you and God.

I suppose it’s not possible to change everyone’s minds.  To some, I’ll forever be talking nonsense.  They shake their head and chuckle under their breath.  I hope these dear friends are not forever lost.  That God cracks the armor of their hardened hearts.  I pray that the love and grace and mercy of God pierces their anger, and all that disbelief comes flowing right out.

Life is not a fairy tale.  It’s gruesome and unfair and messy.  God is not some magical beast that dances around with sparkles, and Jesus is not some knight in shining armor.  I certainly don’t profess to be a Christian so I can win points with neighbors or look good to the book club girls.

God is simply God.  Jesus is simply life.  And that’s about as magical as it gets.

Filed Under: My life, Religion Tagged With: , , , ,

Goliad

June 24, 2012 By

A second novel popped into my head today.  We were driving back from the beach, a hair north of Goliad and a million miles away from our vacation.  My husband was tired, sipping on Whataburger coffee and rubbing his eyes.  I was thinking of the week ahead.  Of laundry and swim lessons.  Of sunscreen and fruit salad. My husband was no doubt thinking of work.  Meetings and time entry and upcoming cases and such.  But there it was, a grand oak tree standing alone in the middle of a field of hay grazer.  A beautiful plot, springing up from nothing.

Sometimes stories are buried, like hidden treasure.  They surface when the wind changes and they start to bore a hole inside of you until they get out.  A story was buried there, outside of Goliad, Texas, where the Texas Revolution first began. Maybe ghosts of fallen soldiers whispered it to me, their words trapped inside twisted mesquite trees, floating around grain silos and rusted barns.  Theirs is a story of a deeply tangled family and what really matters. It all starts with a dying man, and goes from there.

I will write that story.  Amidst the diapers and the “stop throwing a fit right now or there will be no television” lectures and the defensive driving classes and the leftover macaroni-and-cheese.  Somehow I’ll find a way to run upstairs like a quiet attic mouse and start tapping it out. Character by character, chapter by chapter.  Novels aren’t born in a day.  They unfold slowly.  After all, the author has to fill in the color to characters they have only sketched in their mind in charcoal.

I told my husband about it.

“Sounds great,” he muttered.  Sort-of like if I asked him whether my shoes matched my dress or whether he wanted to eat tacos food for dinner.

But this story is beautiful.  I wish others could see it, intricately stamped and burned into my soul like a tooled leather belt.  They will.  Years and years from now, they will.

Filed Under: Texas, Uncategorized, Writing Tagged With: , , , , ,

Odd and Curious Thoughts of the Week

June 21, 2012 By

I’m about to head to the coast for a family vacay, so I thought I’d leave you with these thought-provoking things.  Welcome to a week in my life. . .

(1) Stop it already with the swim coaches referring to the freestyle stroke as some sort of exaggerated ice-cream-scooping maneuver.  This is the third swim coach who’s yelled at my daughter to “Scoop!  Lift those arms and scoop that ice cream!”  Who comes up with these hair-brained examples that all swim coaches feel compelled to use? When’s the last time you raised your arms above your head in a swan-like fashion and dug your bare fingernails into a vat of ice cream? Any normal person would use a metal device with much less work involved, put the chocolate directly into a cone, and sit back licking it before it melts.  A normal person would not fervently kick while scooping over and over again, only coming up to breathe.  That person has a horrible bulimic binging problem and needs therapy.

(2) My son this morning decided he didn’t want to wear clothes.  A battle ensued with a slightly grey-haired 37-year-old and a 2-year-old.  I won, but only by a hair.  He beat me on the shoes.  I had to give a little.

(3) My daughter had another swim lesson today.  “Scoop, sweetie!”

(4) My daughter watched a movie this week called “Polly World,” whereby small Polly Pocket dolls come to life.  In this movie, which I assume is meant generally for children since the characters are pink and sparkles come busting out of their behinds, Polly’s mom died and her father was about to get remarried to an evil woman who wanted to ship Polly to boarding school.  Polly lands on stage at the talent show with perfect hair, along with her all-girl band, wearing a strapless dress.  I’m so pissed off at the writers of this movie, whereby I have to explain things like “moms dying” and “not all children get to grow up being in a rock band” and “you can’t wear a string bikini.  You’re five.”

(5) My daughter has announced that for her birthday, she would like every single Polly Pocket set ever created on this planet.  Alert: you’re getting a set of molding clay, an unabridged version of Heidi, and a set of oil pastels.  Deal wit it.

(6) I have a sudden urge for ice cream.  I just want to wallow in it.

(7) Stupidly, I answered a work phone call this week while I had both children with me.  Apparently my son wanted a certain book that my daughter took away from him and he was shrieking for it back and my daughter was holding it hostage. “Excuse me one second,” I said into the receiver.  “Give that back to him right now!” I yelled at my daughter.  “I need to take this call!”  Whatever works to create five minutes of quiet. My daughter gave me the most dejected and panicked look.  “But it’s the New Testament!” she said.  “He’ll ruin it!”  I grabbed it and handed it to my son.  It’s fine.  Jesus will understand.

(8) Of the food items that I’ve packed to go to the beach house, paprika made the list.  Who knew paprika would ever make a list of anything but useless spice one puts atop deviled eggs?  Who knew?

(9) “You really don’t have many wrinkles,” my daughter tells me.  “You have a few.  But you don’t look that old.”

(10)               It’s the weirdest thing.  The Polly Pocket movie has gone missing. I think Polly might be off scooping ice cream in an endless sparking river of cotton-candy with sprinkles.  She’s kicking like a movie star to make it to the other side, where her deceased mother has come back to life in order to hand Polly her first training bra and a designer glitter-bag chock full of inappropriate topics for children.  Yeah Polly!  Scoop that ice cream!  You can do it!

Filed Under: Humor, Motherhood Tagged With: , , , , ,

big apple of ambition

June 18, 2012 By

Recently, I friended an old high school acquaintance on facebook who turns out to be a creative director in an amazing ad agency in New York City.  Like Don Draper status with Emmy-winning commercials and fancy ties.  I looked down at myself, sloppy and tired, brushing the cookie crumbs off my pants.

Is this really where I wanted to end up?  Is this the woman I thought I’d be?

My mind was consumed with thoughts of the past as I unloaded the dishwasher.  Memories of television and fake eyelashes and In Touch magazine photo shoots.  People doing my make-up and eating at fancy places I could never afford. I thought of poor Martha Stewart, who didn’t like us much, but had such fabulous collections of things and a bubbly, youthful laugh.  I thought of the endless cabs and the fleeting second of fame and what it was like to feel special in this world.

I yearned to live there, then.  The Big. Ol. City. where the lights were always burning and air thickened in the summer – a mixture of urine and exhaust and pure, uncut talent. “What’s a working girl to do?” I’d say to myself as I rounded 24th Ave, my future yet untold.  Maybe I’d meet my husband for drinks, or coffee, or try that new vegan place uptown. My hair would be blond and my legs lean.  It’s not like everyone can run off to the Hamptons when the temperature rises.  I’d gut it out.  Because I’m a southern girl, and I can handle it.  I’d find my place in that rat race, settling down in a nice hole somewhere, munching on crumbs.

I remember being on an interview, sitting down with a bunch of marketing executives on 6th Avenue, my first child belly-flipping around in my abdomen and making me nauseous.  She was just the size of a bean then.  I think she was trying to tell me something.

My son suddenly awoke from his nap crying, ruining my perfectly good daydream about Dean & Deluca chocolates.  His pacifier had fallen to the floor and tears were streaming from his red, tired face.  The moment I picked him up, his arms curled around my neck like I might leave him forever and this was our one last embrace.  His head of thick, blond hair buried into my chest, and he let out the most peaceful coo.  I stopped what I was doing, carried him to my bedroom, and let him lay on my chest for a solid hour and a half.  He turned his head and sighed and flipped a few times.  I think he was as happy as he ever was in his whole two years of life.  As I lay there, rubbing his back, I let my mind rest on what might have been.  Or what I might have missed.

I chose this life.  You can hear the katydids screeching their evening refrain in the oaks and wonder if the tomatoes are getting enough water.  I eat farm eggs and bake bread on Mondays and hang clothes on the line.  Instead of going to court or summarizing deposition transcripts, I ask my husband about his day.  I make sure the toilet bowls are clean.  I find time to write. It’s the life I wanted, and one I fiercely fought to have.  But it’s not cosmopolitan.  No one cares if you wear designer jeans or have red underbellies to your high-heeled shoes.  No one in Austin even wears high-heeled shoes.  Why would you, when flip flops are much more comfortable, and you’re just headed out for Migas anyway?

My son woke up and we played the tickle game.  I did laundry.  I made macaroni and cheese with a breadcrumb topping.  My son wore one of my old hats and tried to dig ice from a Whataburger cup, which made me laugh.  My daughter and I stayed up late eating warm banana pudding.  My husband was out of town, so I let my daughter cuddle up in our down comforter with me, turning over sometimes in the middle of the night just to touch her arm.  Just to make sure she was still there.

Somehow I don’t think I’d get these memories living in the land of great hopes and expectations.  I’m not sure my soul would be rested enough.  I’m not sure my children would find their way.   It’s not home.  It’s not warm and inviting with room to breathe.

This is the place I want to live.   This is the life I choose.   Thank you, God, for leading me here.  For letting me float inside this quiet peace, amidst the wildflowers and artists and fields of expired ambition, gently blowing away with the wind.  Past the inland sea oats, whispering by the Indian blankets.  Far off into the hot, Texas sky.

Filed Under: Career, Motherhood, My life, Texas Tagged With: , , , ,

Eggs are excellent

June 14, 2012 By

For dinner, I made a lovely quiche.  I took my time rolling out the fresh piecrust dough.  I was teaching my daughter how to drape it over the pan, press it down, and trim it with a sharp knife.  Crimp and press, crimp and press. All the way around. She nodded in agreement.   We were on a cooking show, you see, and she was explaining to the imaginary audience that I was making the most excellent dish.

I smiled as I whisked the bright, yellow, happy eggs.  They came from our neighbor’s chickens down the street – one green, a few brown.  All different shapes and sizes. I added roasted broccoli and milk and two different cheeses and slid it into the crust.  An hour later, dinner would be served.  Even raw it was beautiful.  And later as I walked through the kitchen, I could smell the crisp forming on the sides, all golden and flaky and becoming the proud landlord of a cheesy, puffy center.  My palate was screaming for a wedge of sharp cheddar and a glass of smooth Pinot Noir.

Soon, we would all sit around the kitchen table, laughing and eating tossed salad and remarking on how broccoli never tasted so good.  “Why don’t we have this more often?” I imagined my daughter saying as she asked for seconds.  In this pretend world things like “made from scratch” and “mamma’s doing all this for you, kiddos” matter.  In my pretend world, children eat with grateful hearts, don’t whine or scrunch their noses up when they are lucky to have such food at their disposal.  In a pretend world, quiche is most excellent.  Like in my daughter’s cooking show.

Sadly, I don’t live in a pretend world.

The phrases that actually eclipsed my children’s mouths, once the plates of food were set before them, included, but were not limited to:

Why do we always have to have quiche? 

Ugh.

It’s too hot.

Me no eggs, mama.

I’m not hungry.

Can I have applesauce?

Yeah, yeah.  Applesauce!

I can’t pick out all this green stuff.  

Did I mention I don’t like broccoli?

Can I watch my show now?

And the like. 

Finally, I told my kids they could just starve to death for all I care.  My son then threw his plate on the floor with gleeful gusto like I had just said something wonderful and the dog proceeded to inhale all the contents thereof. Did my canine appreciate the homemade crust, or the two kinds of cheeses?  Did he notice the broccoli was roasted rather than steamed?  Was he benefiting from the organic, free-range nature of it all? He eats his own poo, so I kinda doubt it.

Later that night my daughter said she was hungry.  I told her there was always quiche.   She just looked at me funny and instead asked for water.

My kids don’t realize how good their life is.  How rich and beautiful and plentiful are their days.  Someday we will go to Guatemala, or Malawi, Africa, or Haiti, and they’ll appreciate their lot in life a tiny bit more.  They will hopefully become more thankful.  More grateful.  They will roll their eyes less and be excited about foods that do not contain the words “mac” or “jelly” or “nugget.”

“You really wouldn’t let us starve to death, would you mom?” my daughter asked before bed.   The fact that she asked made me chuckle.   “No, sweetie,” I said as I pulled her blond hair away from her face and scratched her back.

Little do they know they are getting eggs for breakfast.

That’ll show em.

Filed Under: Humor, Motherhood Tagged With: , , , ,

keepsake boxes

June 12, 2012 By

I’m a keepsake packrat.  Like the outfit my sweet baby wore home from the hospital or that brown plaid shirt my husband wore on our very first date.  It still has a little tiny hole in it from where his pledge pin went.  How cute is that?

These things mean nothing to anyone else, but to me, they are priceless.  I never take them out and run the tattered fabric though my fingers, or line the walls with monogrammed onsies in shadow-box frames (thank goodness, because we put people who prefer to do these things in group homes). Instead, I vacuum seal them, keep them in our attic, and freak out if my husband tries to move them to a storage unit or sets them anywhere near the corner of the garage reserved for Salvation Army Pick-up.

Ridiculous, our attachment to such things.  Are we thinking that somehow, we can transfer the memories to our offspring so they will also save them, and then we’ll have five generations of sleepers and Christmas dresses to store until the end of time?  “Oh, look honey.  It’s a tiny little t-shirt that says Back Seat Driver that some ancient-relative-I’ve-never-met wore! And this glass bottle with a cracked yellow nipple? Priceless!”

I have two huge keepsake boxes for my children, because I’m sure they will want to use the same napkins from my very first baby shower (I was given three extra packages!).  I’m absolutely positive my granddaughter will want to see the coloring books given to guests on her mother’s fifth birthday.  I even saved cupcake toppers, in case my great grandson wants to stick fifty-year-old toothpicks with rotten paper elephants in mounds of chocolate icing.  Because they so totally will.  Don’t spoil my dream.

To make matters worse, I included little cards indicating the significance of each one.  Like “you wore this dress on your 5th Birthday!” and “this was your favorite night-night book!”  I document such things because I want you, dear offspring, to at least feel shooting pains of guilt as you load this crap into your minivans and head to the Goodwill drop-off the minute I pack my bag for the nursing home.  Or, worse, it will force you to cram you children into old smelly clothes that have been sitting in a box for half a decade to please your delusional mother.  Then you can store them for another forty years until they are eaten by rats.  See how awesome I am? You can totally thank me later.

I thought of all this as my mother was lamenting how kids these days don’t sing the same songs that we did when we were kids.  No one in this century runs around whistling Father Abraham. And if they did, I feel kinda sorry for them. Because there are new fabulous songs with movements and catchy tunes that are more exciting than the old. We can’t transplant everything we loved into our children so that they will see them the way we did.  They have different eyes.  They live in a different world.   They don’t really want used and worn-out baby shoes, or every Christmas dress.  They want to experience it for themselves.  They want to start brand new keepsakes.  They want to bloom.

I went to the attic and stared at the boxes I’ve been saving.  Shoes and bonnets and recital pictures.  Albums and records and hundreds of pictures. I wonder why I feel it’s so important to live in the past.   Why I can’t free myself of the dusty memories.

If Jesus tapped me on the shoulder and said simply Follow me, I might just put my hands in a time-out for a sec to see if we could have a tiny little discussion about all these keepsakes.  I’m so totally there, this whole following God into the wilderness business, but can I negotiate a rider?  Like a teensy weensie addendum regarding the wedding album?  After all, it took me weeks to chronicle all that happiness and paste the little stickers in the scrapbook, and I’d hate to throw all that out.  Right?

As it turns out, it might just be stuff after all.  If those boxes burned to the ground, the stories are already saved in my heart.  They are woven throughout bedtime stories and summer nights and lightening bugs and popsicles.  My children will smell fresh bread and cut grass and strong coffee and be transported back home, where the pillows are soft and the sheets are dried on the line.  They will have so many memories and jewels in their crown that come from their childhood, and the stories that I write, and the love between their mother and father than transcends space and time.

Help me, Lord, to build up keepsake boxes in their hearts.  Today, when I lost my patience and yelled for everyone to just be quiet and said we were never, ever going to get smoothies as long as they lived if they were just going to sling them around the backseat, I didn’t mean it. These are the years of keepsakes, every one. Help me relish it and drop those moments into storage, to be pulled out, and laughed about, and treasured. 

The boxes can burn.  Because I’m filled with all those lovely memories that can’t be stripped away. These keepsakes don’t rot or get musty with mildew or bear someone else’s monogram.  Now that’s worth saving.  And passing on.

Filed Under: Love, Motherhood, Religion Tagged With: , , ,

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