HEY, I HAVE A GREAT IDEA…

…HAVEN’T I HEARD THAT SOMEWHERE BEFORE?

You and your friends have put together perfect 60’s outfits for Halloween, complete with hip hugger bell bottoms, beads, lacy long-sleeve blouses, leather chokers for the neck, bandannas, sandals, and the peace sign written on the body or flashed with the fingers, as you gather candy from the neighborhood houses. There is a part of the 60’s that can’t be worn like your costume.  It is the attitude of those of us who lived in the 60’s.  It think that is when I first became a know-it-all.  College life felt so new and adventurous.

I lived in a 12 story brand new college dorm, had classes with exciting names like philosophy and psychology, not just the old boring high school subjects of English, history or reading.  I was taking Old English Literature, Current English Usage,  Principles of Sound Reasoning, Origins of Development of Man and Culture, and Clothing Selection.  These were important classes.  Big Ideas.  And all of them were waiting for me and MY ideas.

The dining hall was where it all came together.  We would stand in line waiting for the servers to punch our cards, discussing professors, classes, guys in our classes.  Over dinner, Jeanie would educate us on the vitamin content of our various meals, Georgann would tell us where she and Tom were taking the Volkswagen on the coming weekend, and we would make plans for our own weekend based on who had dates and who was left to go see a show. It was exciting to venture into this new adult world.

The dining hall was also where other important discussions took place.  Was it important to celebrate Christmas?  Who was going to attend a rally for peace?  Weren’t sororities filled with trite, surface-level friends?  (Wonder what sorority dining rooms were saying.)  Marriage wasn’t all it was cracked up to be.  Such a phoney institution.  Love was the bond of any good relationship.  We were busy evaluating life, searching for inconsistencies, distilling ideas for the pure essence of what is important in life, denying anything that seemed fake and pretentious, and declaring all of our discoveries boldly and without challenge from parents.

One evening we ended up eating dinner seated next to some new men.  They joined in our serious conversation.  Gradually, as people finished eating, my regular friends moved from the table and went up to the 6th floor to begin studying.  I was left finishing my meal with these men, deep in a heated conversation.  Did God exist?  Yes, No, or Maybe.

PARENTS DON’T KNOW EVERYTHING…

…SO WHAT ELSE IS NEW?

I think I’ve figured out what makes us parents so aggravating, so obnoxious.  Funny, I think I knew this many years ago, decades ago, when I was a kid.  Somehow, with the coming responsibilities of age, children, gray hair, somewhere, I forgot it, forgot what made me stomp my feet, squeeze my eyes shut, and turn away from every kind word and well-intentioned piece of advice from my own mom and dad

Parents.  They’re such Knowitalls!!  They just have to Know It ALL!

If I imagine myself in my kids’ place on the bed or in the chair, listening to me, Ms. Supermom, I squeeze my eyes shut and cringe for every kind word of advice coming out of my mouth.

Truth is, the one thing I do know is that I don’t know it all.  I sit at dinner with my husband sorting through the trials of my day, asking his advice.  At work, I walk through the door into my friend Melody’s adjoining classroom and heave my shoulders as I give up on ever solving some classroom problem; I throw myself down at Mrs. Blanchard’s office table and ask her what I should do with some parent or student.  I call my mom for advice on stocks, I take classes to study financing the purchase of our home, and I pray to God each morning and night to help me find my way “through life” today.

But when I hear Jamie and Justin walk through the front door after their day at school, I greet them as Ms. Supermom, here to save the day.  All I need is a cape.  If they have any questions, I have the answers.  I even have answers to questions they haven’t thought of yet.  My answers pour out all day long, all night long, putting their lives into place like the blankets under their chins.

With this book, I will try to turn over a new leaf.  Just mom.  I’m taking off my cape.  I’m admitting for once and for all, I don’t have all the answers.

I also have another big confession that I have spent the last 15 years hiding from the kids.  All of my great insights, my Supermom answers, my best lessons, have come from…all the millions of mistakes I‘ve made in this short life of mine.

I guess, in my effort to be a good parent, to help my children with their lives, to lead them safely to a happy adulthood, I have spent all of my time focusing on the lessons I’ve learned, preaching away, without ever admitting and sharing where I learned those lessons.  Yep.  Mistakes.  Big Mistakes.  Little Mistakes.  All kinds of mistakes.  And how were Jamie and Justin to know?

Because that’s the biggest fear of all adults (and kids),…someone will find out we have made a mistake.  They will see us make it, look at everyone else who sees our mistake and shake their heads in despair, point their fingers to fully expose our predicament, and wag their tongues with helpful advice and exaltations to never “do that again.”  And we, in our shame, quickly sweep the mistake into the black trash bag, pull the red tie closed tightly with 3 knots, heave it over the alley fence, and point proudly to the trophy of The Lesson we learned, never really remembering where or why we learned it in the first place.

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Copyright 2013.   All Rights Reserved.

CONVICTED…

…RETURNING TO THE SCENE OF THE CRIME

I’m suspicious.  Jamie wishes her high school band were going to Seattle instead of San Francisco.  Her favorite city, San Francisco.  She will be exploring all of her favorite places in her favorite city with her good friends in the marching band.  And yet, she wishes instead that they were going to Seattle.  I think she just wants to return to the scene of ‘the crime.’

Jamie’s right about one thing.  Seattle does rival San Francisco in charm.  In the years when Dad and I were hoping to move to Washington, we made many trips through Oregon and Washington, always weaving our way to and through Seattle.

We ate lunch at the top of the Space Needle left from the World’s Fair, met Jeff Smith, The Frugal Gourmet, in a favorite Mexican Food restaurant, took the ferry to Bremerton, collected blackberries, baked a pie in Aunt Diane’s kitchen, and walked along the wharves, breathing in the salt air and enjoying the sounds of sidewalk fish vendors and tourists mixing with the squeals of the sea gulls.

On one particular Seattle visit, under a bright blue sky, the four of us were enjoying an extended walk along the pier when we noticed we were moving into an area lined with arts and crafts booths selling dried flowers, ceramic mugs, paintings, wooden toys,…as far as our eyes could see.  Jamie and Justin were both at the dangerous age, tall enough to grab shiny ear rings and tempting mugs from the tables, but small enough to be unsure in their grasp.

Dad and I worked hard to be the dutiful parents, holding their hands, pointing out the artsy treasures, admiring a lady’s sewing while keeping an eye on the kids, their tiny hands reaching for the golden trinkets.  We gently pulled their hands back, reminding them in saintly parent tones, “Don’t touch.  Just look.  Aren’t they pretty?”  And thinking, “Aren’t we good parents?”

Because, that’s the most important part of watching after your kids in the midst of crowds of tourists.  You know strangers are judging the behavior of your children.  Worse yet, they are judging you as parents.  You’re expected to keep the kiddos in line, but woe to the parent who sounds ‘ugly.’  The crowd can wince in unison and pull their eyes into a frown when a parent looses his/her cool, shouts, places a pat on a child’s seat, or reprimands with a roar.  The kids better be good, the parents better be better.

Generally, Dad and I felt we measured up to the crowd’s expectations; the four of us were on our best behavior.  Jamie and Justin walked along pointing and reaching, we followed along cautioning and reaching for them, all of us smiling and enjoying the summer day.

We followed the thread of the crowd as it began to slow and fold together right up to and around a display where a small throng of people delighted in a table filled to the brim with whimsically painted eggs.  We moved forward to see the excitement.  Real eggs, blown, brightly painted and shellacked.  They were in baskets, on cloth mats, hanging from small table trees, and passing from hand to hand through the crowd.  The eggs were irresistible.

All four of us fell in love with a bright red Humpty Dumpty, exquisitely detailed with tiny black buttons on his red shirt, checked pants with brown suspenders leading up to a turn down collar and ruddy-faced smile.  We decided to buy Humpty Dumpty for our annual Christmas tree ornament and souvenir, and the artist offered to personalize an inscription on his back.

As we waited for her to finish, our attention was drawn to another egg in a man’s hand.  From the side of the egg, he was pulling at a thin piece of paper that continued to wind out of the egg like a scarf out of a magician’s sleeve.  As he pulled, he read a poem on the thin strip in fine calligrapher’s script.  Finished with the poem and with the paper fully extended, he turned the egg over in his hand and revealed a small turning crank handle sticking out the other side of the egg.  Pinching and turning that crank between two fingers, he wound the paper back into the egg.  We were all amazed.

The kids couldn’t resist.  Jamie reached to grab the egg, and good parent that I was, I reached for her hand.  “Be careful, honey.  These are so fragile.  Aren’t they cute?  Would you like to see it?  Let me help you.  We don’t want to break them.”

I reached into a basket and carefully picked up another egg, ignoring her reaching hands, telling her to be patient, just a minute, “I’m trying to see how it works,” as I turned it and pulled at the poem.  I still can’t remember how that egg literally jumped out of my hands and stood in mid-air.

It hovered there waiting for me to recover and swoop my hands under it saving it from disaster.  I knew I could do it.  It was right there.  I couldn’t let it fall to the ground and break.  Go for it.  You can do it.  I whisked my hands gracefully together, feeling the egg bounce back and forth between left and right hand, almost there, with just a little more insistence, I can do it, keep it off the ground,…I pressed my hands together around the little egg.

Splat.

I wished it had broken on the ground.  Because there I was standing in the midst of 15 or 20 tourists, my hands pressed together as if in prayer, everyone waiting for me to open my hands and reveal hundreds of flecks of broken eggs shells and a rolled scroll of a poem.

The egg dead at last in my hands, in unison, the whole crowd sucked in a giant gasp of air, and a small lady in the back asked, “What happened?” Little whispers started next to me and wafted back to the questioning crowd, followed by “what’s” until a little girl loudly cleared up any doubt, “Mommy, that lady smashed the egg.”  If I could have only floated away with the tide.

The artist immediately reassured me it was OK, no it’s not, yes, it is really, no, I feel terrible, I will pay you for it, no, I won’t let you, I insist, no, I refuse to take your money;  I put the reject eggs in that basket, the ones I can’t sell, because they do get broken.  (I thought, she knows there’s a poor clumsy slob somewhere like me.  She prepared for us.)  Well, then, I’ll buy another egg to go with Humpty.

I can’t remembering looking down at the kids from that moment on.  I know they didn’t break anything that day.  I guess they listened to my words and were impressed by my good sense?  I really showed them!

If she ever gets to Seattle, Jamie shouldn’t expect to find the cracked egg shells littering the sidewalks.  Workers sweep the walks each night, and any shells they missed have by now been washed away by the rain.  I wonder if any seagulls are still alive to point out the spot on the sidewalk where Mommy learned to take her own advice.

 

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