kyle

Duty Can Adulterate Passion

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More than one Christmas decoration sits on the floor waiting to grace our mantle, our front door, and our everyday decorations are piled together to be stored until January. I think of dinner and wonder if it would be outlandish to have a Hot and Ready pizza for the second night in a row. Quickly, I talk myself out of it though I am not above it.

It’s becoming clear why I’ve often heard from veteran mothers, “Put yourself on the list.” This Christmas schedule thing? I don’t think I’m doing it well.

Cards. Tons of cards. With snowflake borders and smiles that show only the pleasant and none of the frustration.
Fake tree needles. Everywhere on the floor.
Strands of light bulbs breaking from small shoes, not glowing after their performance last year.
A preschool program requiring something other than pajamas. Dang it. 
Croup at 1 a.m. and an unplanned ER trip with my son, contributing to the comatose-like stare I’ve carried since Thanksgiving afternoon when I ate that second helping of green bean casserole. So unhealthy, so worth it.
Bath towels becoming superhero capes well after bedtime.
Carols, which I assume are beautiful and nostalgic but I never hear above the arguing over who stole whose breakfast seat. When those familiar melodies are the backdrop to chaos, they just sound…chaotic.

Seriously disconnected from myself I curl up on the couch, my legs pulled in like a grasshopper’s. Milk turned chocolate from cereal is coagulating in the bottom of bowls on the table while warehouse-sized boxes of the food we eat in a two week period clutter the kitchen floor. And I. Don’t. Care. I’m taking this hour or I’ll never survive the next one. 

I love Christmas. Even more this year because last year it seemed too short. I love keeping Shutterfly in business, writing a recap letter, and baking homemade cookies for teachers. I love getting things for my kids because we hardly buy them anything the rest of the year. I love puzzles after waffles at my mom’s, and picture calendars for all the grandparents, and a hole-in-the-wall playhouse with actors who write their own material and have perfected the art of improv (especially when a balding man be present). I love it all.

Except I’m realizing duty can adulterate passion. And when it’s just about getting it all done, I lose what I love about this season.
So Bah, and Humbug. I’m having cocoa, a movie involving an elf who does the splits on an escalator, and perhaps a tickle fight. 
The cards? Maybe for New Years.  

  

 

Deeply Grateful

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For a husband who will sing loudly off-key along with the performers of the Macy’s parade, because he loves to make our kids laugh and engage them.

For scattered puzzle pieces that need a family of fingers to make sense of them.

For chives that add just a little something to potatoes.

For a spilled glass of water, because it means I have a little girl who will come tell me in her sweet, three-year-old voice what happened.

For the musical sounds of announcers and fans and helmets against helmets.

For laughter, the kind from the gut.

For hairy teeth, because it means I’ve eaten way too much sugar, and I’ve never really wanted for anything.

For exhaustion, because it means my day, my life is full.

For shoes on the floor and smears on the sliding glass door, because it means I have kids, and they’ll leave traces of themselves.

For lotion, because my hands get so dry this time of year.

For squiggly, fake spiders, because they challenge my son to be brave.

For a beard that makes me appreciate a smooth face.

For a pillow, every night, since the day I started using one.

For a group of people who stared persecution in the eye, who were ready to die for freedom, and who changed everything by seeking out this amazing country.

For a Savior that has given me what I do not deserve.

For all this and more, I am deeply grateful.

“When it comes to life the critical thing is whether you take things for granted or take them with gratitude.” 

                                                                               -G. K. Chesterton                                                                                       

               

  

Boy That Would Be Embarrassing

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My face is the color of a clown nose as I stand before a first-grade teacher who towers me with her black high heels. A seemingly odd choice for a day of field trip pandemonium to the local dump. I second-guess my flats, thinking perhaps I am being too cautious.
Nope. No I’m not. It’s trash. Loads of it. What is she thinking?

These mornings when I have to forgo the usual running shorts I don’t run in and mismatched ankle slippers I hide beneath the steering wheel of the carpool line, I perform my own circus act. I juggle Cheetos and freezer packs and vitamins and disciplines over wrestling matches and the long lost partner of more than one pair of Converse tennis shoes. 
So I’m feeling quite proud as I walk into the classroom with coffee and a go-get-’em attitude, on time.

A week earlier I had texted my mother-in-law.
“Hey, any chance you’re free next Wednesday to watch the little one?”
I give her the drop-off, pick-up, nap, and lunch rundown. The next day I’m texting again.
“Oh Renee. I have too many schedules. The field trip is Thursday. Are you free then?” 
Whew, that was close. How embarrassing it would have been to show up the wrong day.

With pride I’m reflecting, standing among the masses of dirty fingernails and all that is elementary. Not only am I a scarved goddess, I’ve gotten everything in it’s place. All the kids, all the brown bags with our names written in Sharpie, myself, and with minutes to spare. I can hear applause if I listen closely. 

Scanning the room I wonder who the lucky ones will be. I mean, when this day is over I will have made my son the cool kid. It’s a known fact through the third grade classes that I am a ringmaster when it comes to these kinds of things. Oh yes. I simply crack the whip of Simon Says, let them pick a team name for the day, and they become but sleepy lions in my hand.
Lions, nonetheless who ultimately will never be tamed on the bus ride back. Ah well, I do what I can. 

He comes up to me head first, tears right on the edge. I know this face, the one burrowed in my stomach. Sometimes it’s over a bad dream, other times it’s that someone we love has moved on to a better place. And sometimes it’s when he’s seen the calendar says the field trip is next Thursday.

You know those movies with the endings that play back all the clues you’ve been seeing yet missing for two hours to reveal a grand finale and final piece of the puzzle?
The black high heels, the absence of other chaperones, the slow cadence of her steps as she pushes her way through the incessant tellings of first grade innocence. Everything is rushing at me in a torrent and I can feel my complexion getting hotter. The scarf is much too much now.

“It’s not field trip day, is it?”

And in her mind she was probably saying, “What is she thinking?”

 

 

 

I try to be daring. I really do.

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I try to be daring. I really do.
The counselor who led me through cognitive therapy told me once that at my core, deep inside my very truest self, I am “fearless.”

I want to squeeze onto this truth as I look in the mirror this morning, but I’m tempted to call her a bold-faced liar.

15 hours earlier…

We look like a scene from Steel Magnolias, without the accents. I am caped to the neck and making it clear that I want nothing to do with the black shade that drapes over me. But I’m confident of what I do want and sure that in no time I’ll be leaving men and women alike, paralyzed in their steps with my magnificent hair. It will flow and shine and leave everyone breathless.

My stylist, she’s perfection. She knows what I want more than I know what I want. So when she draws her finger to her lips to help soften what she’s about to say, I trust her.
“I’m going to bring you up a shade so you’re not too dark.” She knew. Oh, she knew.

I don’t walk over these cliffs alone. I’ve gotten one of my good friends hooked to the magic of my stylist too, and every time we go in, we go together. We grab coffee, catch up, transform.

Normally my general theme to all my decisions in this department is natural. Do this, but make it really natural.

My friend? It’s never purple enough. She’s actually counting down the days for her first child to be born so that she can get genuine purple highlights while she’s on maternity leave, which she can’t do while she’s working. This is good for me. It pushes me out of my comfort zone, which for some reason I decided to bulldoze through yesterday.

I e-mailed pictures of what I wanted a week ago. Brunette, fall-inspired, and not a speck of bleach left. She mixed, applied, rinsed, toned, rinsed, washed…it was exactly like the image. However, I seem to often forget that face-shape, skin tone, and air-brushing are not included in her services. No matter, it is rich and beautiful, and I’m trying to adjust.

When I got home I put Chase on those awful hot coals of marriage.
“You like it?”
“Yeah,” he said with force. “I like the blonde better.”
Nice effort. After 12 years I know what this means. He’s probably thinking Well, after 12 years you should know not to ask if you don’t want the risk of honesty. (*sigh*) Ultimately, I do.

This morning as I’m still on my pillow breathing the fire of sleepy breath and breaking up fights with my eyes closed, I think that maybe the mirror betrayed me last night. It will be better now, in the light. Of course, morning presents me with no make-up, smashed locks in the shape of my neck, and to add to it, I’m losing my summer glow. I feel gothic, and I’m questioning every sense of knowing myself I’ve ever had.

I wrap up my youngest in her blankie, scoop her into me and turn around to my son, stark naked in the doorway. He’s embarrassed about this, and yet wildly proud all the same.
“I like your hair, Mom.”
“Do you?” I run my hand over the top of my head. “I’m not sure I do. It might be kind of dark.”
“Well I think it’s just right.”

Bless you, Dear One.

I’ve thought about this while he’s been scribbling his pencil at school. It is just right. It’s a great time to take a risk, get out of the rut of routine for once, find out that for certain I will not pick this color again. I mean, now I know. I don’t have to wonder or regret that I never tried this new me that will not stay the new me. All is not lost.

I’m going to rock this mocha red hair until my next appointment. I can change it when I go back. Who knows? Maybe by then I won’t want to. Maybe by then it will feel just right.

Dads are Superheroes

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He’s the first to notice that Dad is missing.

Like a fan of feathers, his hair is sprawling, uninhibited, unaware, the same way he sleeps. Crumbs of brown sugar toast are still around the edges of his mouth when he asks if he can go outside.

“Sure,” I say. I know what he’s looking for.

He is eager, alive.

The girls are inside. One of them, arms as noodle-like as the scarf she’s twirling, is humming and singing as she spins. The other one has three princesses on her shirt and is combing Barbie’s pink and blonde hair.

“Yours is so ratty and if you don’t stop that you are gonna get a spankin’.”

It is a stark contrast. And it is the outside that draws me today.

Dad is climbing a mountain of a ladder. With a bad back no less. There are large paint buckets filled with swirls near his feet, trails of hoses, and a schizophrenic motor that isn’t sure if it needs to be on or off. There are rollers, brushes, and tape. There is brown paper lining the windows and tarps for drips.

And there is a boy in Iron Man pajama pants, hanging out with his very own superhero.  

Why is it so dang hard sometimes?

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A little less hot, it still smells like rain when the bus pulls to the end of our street. McKenzie doesn’t see me, only her neighbor friend. Kyle looks at the ground as his shoes clunk down the black steps. His face is taut and I know he’s holding back. It isn’t until dinner that he finally breaks.

“No one sat by me on the bus.”

Like a lioness I crouch in protection. “Oh I’m sorry, Buddy.”

“Did you try to sit by someone?” asks Dad.

“Yeah. He moved away.”

His name. I want, his name.

“And then the bus driver yelled at me to sit down.” This, like a tree root that won’t stop, is all it takes to make him crack. Before I know it his daddy’s arms are around him.

My boy, the little one, he is tender-hearted. He loves full, and fierce.

School friendships are the cornerstone of our education. It is my unprofessional opinion, of course. But I’ve watched the way my children become fickle about learning, and it’s often based on how their relationships are going. When I think back to my own elementary career, I don’t think of those stacks of numbers I had to multiply or the words I read aloud when it was my turn. I think of how it felt to win dodge ball in front of everyone, of notebook paper with stupid drawings from my friend that would literally have me in stitches for an entire day.
Or my awful fourth grade year. There were three of us, which meant that somebody was always on the outs. “I’m friends with you again but don’t tell her.” “She’s so stuck up. I’m mad at her. Don’t, say, a word.” As you can guess I was often the her, the she. And I’m pretty sure I was the one saying it on several occasions.

It is hard to make good friends. It is hard to keep good friends.

And not much has changed. Sometimes by default. People move, grow in different directions, or just lose touch. It isn’t mean-spirited or intentional. It is life. Sometimes.

 I’ve had friends never return texts or e-mails. Just silence. I’ve been left with the lonely, one-sided wave while someone pretends not to see me in the parking lot. I’ve even had a friend move without a word.

It’s been said that women are relational, emotional. Women need other women. Really? Then why is it so dang hard sometimes?

So I rack over what I did, what I said. I think, “Ugh, am I clingy, needy, high maintenance, hypersensitive?” Probably. I’ve caught myself lately saying “If there’s room in your life…” Or, “Do you have time to hear this?” I’ve been burned, and in a culture that barely lifts its eyes from ten million devices, that must be unceasingly entertained and thus isolated, it isn’t easy. Have you walked through the airport lately? It is daunting. I’m guilty of it myself. 

But I want more. I want to do life with somebody. Lots of somebodies. I want a friend who can handle my ugly as well as my beauty. Who will share five dozen cookies with me in secret. I want to share a secret. I want someone who will walk barefoot on my floors to ransack my fridge because they are so at ease in my space.

I’m a pursuer, to a fault. I don’t let one unanswered text go lightly. (Five, OK I get the hint.) I fight. I lay myself vulnerable. I take the risk because it’s required if I’m going to have any real friendships. There are moments I’m left reeling after rejection (and then the 5 dozen cookies become all mine for enjoyment). I start to wonder why I keep trying. Why put myself out there at all?

Because dear Kyle boy, the world needs your kind of fierce. And it needs mine too.