Not dirty t-shirts

Since I started blogging again, my friends and family and Facebook pals have been enormously generous with their praise and kindness.  Finding my writing voice again has been immensely gratifying for me, especially since people are now continually giving voice to my dearest dream—“when are you going to write a book”?  The inverse of this, of course, is the question that would keep me up at night if I weren’t so exhausted by this family and my for-pay job all the time—“Why haven’t you written a book already?”

Today, I stumbled across a life size illustration of why I have never actually sat down and tried to write a book.  You may be expecting me to say something precious about how, as women and mothers, we tend to put everyone else’s needs first and the sweep of days flies by so quickly.  Or maybe you might expect me to quote one of my favorite novels when the heroine was asked why she hadn’t yet written her memoirs.  “Who has time to write memoirs?  I’m still living my memoirs.” (Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood).  Or perhaps you would expect me to become all humble and awkward and explain how, in spite of my bluster and bravado, I’ve never quite had the confidence and courage to actually step out onto that limb.  Or maybe you’d think I would say something about how unqualified I am, having achieved a degree associated with this skill more than two decades ago and having since summarily stuffed it under a bushel basket and gone onto spend years of my life in the service of an entirely unrelated career.

While every one of these reasons is completely true, valid, and undeniable, the real reason I have never written a book is this:

You see the blue and orange striped t-shirt in the hamper at the top left of the photo?  I bought that t-shirt last Saturday when I had traveled to an out of town basketball practice for my middle daughter.  We shopped for a few hours after her practice and she convinced me to buy her this t-shirt. She wore it a few times last weekend, and on Thursday, I pulled it out of this same hamper and washed, folded, dried, and delivered it back to her.  She pulled it out of her drawer this morning and wore it to church.  She showered before church.  It is sixty degrees and rainy here today, and our church is clean and the parking lot is paved.  She ate one donut while wearing this shirt, and changed into her more customary hoodie and sweatpants immediately upon returning home.  She was not injured during Mass or in the process of getting there or home.  She did not undertake any auto maintenance, home repairs, or artistic endeavors between finishing church and going upstairs to change.  Consequently, there is no blood, sweat, mud, grease, paint, oil, dirt, condiment, saliva or any other stain-producing solid or liquid on this shirt.  What makes it dirty, you ask?  I have no idea.  The jeans on the floor next to the hamper suffered a similar fate.  (Note:  this daughter is a brilliant basketball player.  Her shooting percentage from the field is exceptional, especially at short range.  Irony duly noted).

Now obviously, I won’t be laundering this shirt again.  I will either yell at her to put it away at which point she will either completely ignore me or roll her eyes, roll it up in a ball, and shove it into her drawer (at which time it will wrinkle so completely that I will be forced to wash it again in order to manage the wrinkles).  Or, I will fold it myself and put it back in her drawer.  Either way, I will be dealing with nonsense that keeps me away from my keyboard and my own artistic endeavors.  (And OF COURSE I understand that I can make her handle all of this herself.  But anyone who thinks that will take LESS time than just doing it myself has never actually parented a teenager).

I would also like to point out the beautiful flowered bag on the floor at the bottom right of the photo.  This was also purchased last weekend.  It is a travel bag, very similar to one owned by her older sister and purchased for her to take to out of town tournaments for the basketball team she will compete with this fall and winter.  This is a name brand bag (note—my own suitcase that will travel to these same tournaments was purchased at Wal-Mart).  I have no idea what neuroses compels me to buy such luxuries for my children (working mom guilt?  Eagerness to get out of the mall and a lingering default shopping response of “Whatever, just get it and LET’S GO”) but it is not the kind of thing I would likely buy for myself, or the kind of thing I could probably afford on a starving artist’s salary.

Are any one of these explanations (excuses?) reason to postpone a lifelong dream year after year after endless year?  Of course not.  And yet... one by one they pile up into day after day of shopping and folding, traveling and coordinating, driving and drying.  My child is not any more or less self centered or sloppy than any other child (I vividly recall shoving clean and folded laundry under my own bed when I was a teenager, and then blithely pulling it out and throwing it back in the laundry for my own mother the next week.  I have the children I deserve, and I doubt this particular distasteful pattern makes me or my children all that unique).

When I started this post, I intended for it to be humorous and light, but, as is often the case in my writing (and life?) it has turned a bit wistful.  Thanks to a dear friend and an emerging recognition of the rapid passage of time, I’m seeking to reconcile what has been a lifetime of dealing with nonsense—much of it other people’s, plenty of it my own—to the detriment of personal goals.  It turns out, if I put my mind to it, I can deal with both the drudgery and the dreams in the course of any given day.  It just takes a little discipline and a little courage (you can’t imagine how many of these posts I’m afraid to publish).  Will it end with a book deal or anything worth reading at the end of the day?  It’s hard to say.  I have suddenly looked around and realized that I am  almost old.  If I’m not careful, while I will  have plenty to show for my adult life, I won’t likely realize my dearest and most unlikely dream.  It wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world—I won’t shame the choices that younger Dawn made.  She brought me a life about which there is so much to be proud of and love.  It is no less a reflection of me than the writing I’ve tucked tidily into my figurative “someday” basket, buried beneath a bushel of actual baskets full of dirty (ish) laundry.

As I type, my oldest son is pacing the hallway waiting for me to wrap up so I can take him to pick up his car.  My husband just got an earful when he popped his head in to give me (another) assignment to complete on this rainy Sunday.  My “office” where I do much of my blogging is actually my (second) laundry room where the dryer hums rhythmically—ever more reliable than my fingers ever manage to type.  While I may wax dreamy and poetic in other posts about not allowing the drift of my life to sweep me to what appears to be a foregone conclusion, the grind of the daily swim against that current can get a bit daunting.  Were it not for the inherent “rightness” I feel in these moments—and the encouragement from so many and such surprising corners—I’m sure I’d surrender again to the drift of this more or less happy life.  Somehow, this time, I’ll figure out how to keep writing AND deal with the mountains of laundry and the carpools and the day job.  And that one stupid, not dirty t-shirt.

Reason #5: Not starting

Grace was cleared to play on Monday.  She practiced with the team Monday night, but when the end of practice came and the team broke up into starting line ups and JV, she was on the JV side of the net.  She came home despondent and frustrated and I did not cry.  We told her to be tough, to assure her coach on the bus ride Tuesday that she was ready, and to support her team in whatever way the coaching staff felt was most appropriate.  And I didn’t cry.

Tuesday, both sets of grandparents decided not to drive the 90 minutes to the out of town game, having been assured by Grace that she likely wouldn’t play.  We were cautiously optimistic on the drive down (also humorously distracted by Chad’s insistence on finding an obscure 80s reggae song of which he knew neither the artist, nor any of the lyrics, recalling only approximately 9 vague notes.  Who has time to worry about the struggle of a precious daughter given such pressing concerns?)   When we arrived, we watched her warm up and I took this video of her slamming a practice hit into the hardwood. 

She looked ready to us (even though, against my precautions, she wasn’t wearing a brace).    She was moving well, seemed confident and eager, but it was clear that she carried a tense awareness of her body, her injured ankle, her coach, her team, her surroundings, even us in the stands.  Everything about her was on high alert.

I watched her shoulders collapse and her face turn red when her coach sent the starting lineup to the baseline for introductions.  She was not among them, and neither she nor I cried.  Not making the starting line up is not a reason to cry.  It is a reason to work hard and to dig deep.  We had expected this and such caution on the part of the coaching staff was a reason to be grateful, not resentful.  Grace had mentioned her coach saying something like “not needing her” or “not using her against this team” or something like that.  It was the reason the grandparents weren’t with us. 

I love this team, and as a former second stringer, there will always be a part of me that is grateful for opportunities like this—when younger or less talented or experienced players get to take the floor of the game they, too, spend hours practicing and perfecting.  But still.  The game began and Grace’s eyes met mine.  We both looked away quickly, not crying.  Midway through what turned out to be an unexpectedly tight first game, I saw the coaches’ heads draw together after a string of errors at the net.  The head coach’s dark head turned to look down the bench as she stood for a time out.  “Grace!” she barked (do coaches always bark when they are pulling a player off the bench?)  “Are you ready?” she demanded.  Grace’s eyes flashed fire and she leapt to her feet.  She couldn’t have been more ready. 

Her face was the most excruciating mix of excitement and fear as she stood ready to sub in that game.  I could see her wrestling her doubt into submission, bubbling with the joy of returning to the game and the team that she loves.  And she was awesome.  Fierce and focused, she played like a predator.  I could see her converting all her frustration and disappointment into discipline and motivation.  She treated every set like the last she would get.  After the game, her coach mentioned that she could almost see Grace’s brain calculating open spots on the court, movement of other players, the timing and responses of her own body.  Chad said, “It’s like the game slowed down for you,” and, in one memorable play, I watched her zero in on an opposing hitter, wait patiently, leap perfectly and roof block a powerful shot all by herself at the net.  It was an explosion of joy for her and for all of us.

I watched the team settle in and settle down with her familiar presence on the court.  When did my timid, cautious little girl become the seasoned and confident senior whose calm, focused presence and athletic prowess on the court provided the steady leadership an anxious group needed to finally take care of business and win the game?  My heart nearly burst with the pride of it, but, of course, I didn’t cry.

Watching her return to the court last night was a triumph I hope I never forget.  In the grand scheme of things, it was such a little thing—returning to an inconsequential match against an unformidable opponent after the briefest of minor injuries.  But seeing the joy in her body and her beautiful, beloved face—the way she clutched that game to her chest like a mother reunited to a child, as though something incalculably precious and valuable had been returned to her—was a moment worth savoring.  The team went on to sweep the other team, and the match ended on a fierce and fluid ace serve by none other then my brilliant first born.

I know I’m rhapsodizing a bit passionately here, but volleyball has been a bit of a lifeline for her.  It gave her a degree of self-confidence and courage I don’t know how she could have found otherwise.  It has created social opportunities and given her a network of the most wonderful people across the state.  She played against a former much loved teammate last night, and seeing her and her lovely parents was a happy moment for all of us.  And I’m an alumnae of Grace’s school and played for a similarly successful team, so I know first hand what this kind of trial and triumph can mean in the long lens of a life.  These will be some of her happiest memories in the future and they will instill in her a work ethic and a self assurance that will serve her well for decades to come.  Sitting on the sidelines reliving these moments vicariously through her has been joy upon joy.  She was phenomenal last night and I was bursting with pride for her.  But I’m not crying.  You’re crying.

Terrible Ten

“You aren’t a great housekeeper, but your house isn’t...you know...unsanitary.”  Anonymous relative when discussing the cleanliness of my house

I am unquestionably a haunted victim of the mother’s curse.  There is absolutely no denying it, and I am reminded of this unfortunate reality every day of my life.  I heard a radio show once about a family whose home was tormented by a demon—complete with unexplained scratches and other marks on the bodies of the family, bleeding walls, and eerie sounds emanating from the basement and attic.  My story isn’t quite so creepy, because my mother’s curse isn’t nearly that dramatic.  The mother’s curse is “I hope you have a child just like you someday!”

I do.  A few of them.  In retrospect, I don’t think I was a terrible kid to raise.  I’ve never been in jail (I did visit once, as part of a leadership opportunity), and I didn’t drink alcohol until I got to college.  I got nearly perfect grades and have never really been exposed to drugs.  I never really had boyfriends, and I more or less abided by my midnight curfew my whole high school life.  So in general, if my kids end up as nerdy and uneventful to raise as I was, I will count myself lucky.  But why the mother’s curse, you ask?  Because I was a slob.  In all honesty, I’m sort of still a slob.  I have always despised housework of any kind and it is only since having my own children that I understand how tireless my own mom was at maintaining cleanliness and order in our house.  She actually likes to clean and indeed had a schedule whereby she scrubbed every wall and baseboard in my childhood home every single year.  I have lived in our house for 15 years and have never once scrubbed a wall that did not have some sort of massive spill or bodily fluid splattered on it.  

Chad’s mom was no different.  I remember going there once after she had been ill and hearing my father in law, also a hardworking and tidy man, lamenting the spotless kitchen he had spent hours cleaning with the words, “I know it won’t be good enough, but I don’t know what else to do” regarding her imminent return.  If my house ever looked like that it was because I had planned for dignitaries (or mothers) to visit and even then I would not advise opening cupboards or closets or looking behind or under anything.  I just don’t like to clean.  The photo at the beginning, of a plaque hanging in my laundry room, exactly describes my sentiments on this subject.  I just have better things to do.  Well, maybe not better, but things (nearly anything) I like better.  

My generation was not raised to be homemakers.  My own mom has a master’s degree and had a job virtually my entire life.  The difference between her and I was that the expectation that she also maintain a perfect home in the midst of her professional and educational accomplishments was never lifted.  As she has put it “All feminism ever did was get me another job.”  I think our generation is a little different.  When I compare myself to my friends, I would say that I am only slightly below average in terms of housekeeping skills.  Comparing my home to the one I grow up in is when I emerge as an enormous failure.  

And, full disclosure, I do have a housekeeper come in twice a month to keep us from descending into utter slovenliness.  I have zero guilt about this when it comes to my husband and I.  We work hard at our day jobs and raising 5 active kids and working full time requires more than enough of our time, energy, and attention in a given week.  Where I do have guilt, however, is with regards to what this is teaching my offspring.  Unfortunately, they have inherited my loathing of all things cleaning and housekeeping related.  Unlike me, they will not grow watching a tidy and diligent mom scrubbing walls, baseboards, and behind and under things to maintain hospital operating room standards of cleanliness.  I worry about this, but not enough to do much differently.  They, like me, will eventually realize that little fairies don’t drop in to pick up their stinky socks and used water glasses—they will have to do it themselves.

Which, at long last, brings me to the title of this post.  It has long been bothering me that my cursed offspring (cursed by my own housekeeping habits) would relax in front of their phones and my TVs when we arrived home each day, while I raced about trying (albeit poorly) to tidy up after 5 people (often 6.  Chad is a better cleaner than I, but he is more messy with his stuff and clutter).  It would take me over an hour to dig out from under the worst of it, and I would generally be royally ticked off and, until after my hip replacement a year ago, also in quite a bit of physical pain.  About a year ago, it occurred to me that 6 or 7 people working for ten minutes could make as much progress as I could make on my own in an hour or more of individual effort.  Insert terrible ten.

Now, for ten terrible minutes, we all work together to tidy up our house.  We set a visible timer, and no one is allowed to stop before it goes off.  In deference to the promise of ten, no one is required to keep going when it buzzes.  In really urgent times of extreme disarray, we have occasionally implemented a terrible twenty, but this is rare.  You would be amazed how much 7 people working for ten little minutes can accomplish.  It is also very effective in that each person finds and deals with his or her own crap, which means I am less often the only person who is able to find things.  Before, when I was cleaning alone, I would often be berated for “hiding” (aka, not leaving them out on the counter) their belongings.  In one notable irony of a recent terrible ten, I found that someone had “hidden” my kindle, which meant that I could not curl up to read after getting my house cleaned by my angry offspring.  After a few minutes of searching, I realized someone had tucked it under my wine rack—a fitting storage location if ever there was one.  

It is indeed a terrible ten minutes, however.  Because we all hate cleaning of all sorts, it is filled with bickering and whining and tattling. In one notable incident, a teenage child cleaned with a bag over his head in the hopes that temporary carbon monoxide poisoning would put him out of his misery. It is seriously unpleasant.  But it is decidedly less unpleasant than the frustration and resentment I feel when the 70 collective minutes of work are handled exclusively by me.  

I never thought I would be a person who would offer a housekeeping life hack, but this has been one of the better parenting and housework ideas I’ve had, so it felt worthwhile to share.  And if the terrible ten is followed by a blissful 60 of me-time (likely involving the aforementioned kindle and wine), I may be a housekeeping genius after all.  T

Reason #4: Home games

The fourth reason I am not crying during Grace's senior year is that she is not playing tonight because of that blasted sprained ankle.  I'm not crying because there are only 3 home games left and she's a powerful senior and team captain.  I'm not crying that all of us have waited breathlessly all summer for this season to begin--both dreading and awaiting this beginning of the end of her brilliant high school volleyball career.


I'm not crying that she made this decision on her own, perhaps learning from my mistakes as I both hoped and dreaded she would ("tape it up, I'm playing" was the anthem of my high school athletic career).   I'm not crying about how courageous and mature this decision was, or because I firmly believe she made the right call, despite how much it hurts.


I'm not crying that her team misses her desperately and will struggle to win a very winnable game without her.  The whole chemistry of the team is off.  She's a quiet leader and athletic warrior and she's benched due to a stupid injury.


Of course this is the right decision.  Of course, as her coach told me yesterday, they need her for the long haul and in the grand scheme this particular game is not critical to their upcoming quest for another state championship.  Missing one game isn't the end of the world and her body needs time to heal.


I'm not crying, you're crying.

Reason #3: Ankles

The third reason I am not crying during Grace’s senior year is a sprained ankle.  Of course a sprained ankle is not life threatening or even athletic career ending.  It’s just a stupid, commonplace nuisance that almost every athlete, if not every person, will experience at one time or another.  It’s not something to cry about, of course.  

Grace called me in tears last night and I was in the middle of a load of laundry so I couldn’t hear her very well.  “What should I do with my car?” Was the first thing I heard.  I thought she was trying to sort out logistics for her planned volleyball tournament today, which is quite silly because she has never given one thought to logistics in her life so far (such things are just handled by little fairies and such in her sweet life).  But it was the only thing I could think of in that instant.  “I rolled my ankle,” she sobbed, and I froze, not crying.

This has been my biggest fear since her athletic career began.  Ankle sprains (and even a break) plagued me my entire athletic career, but thus far my kids have been able to avoid this unfortunate weakness.  Until this moment just a few weeks into my beloved Grace’s long-awaited senior season.  Not crying.

This girl has worked tirelessly since winning last year’s state tournament.  She has never missed a workout, even when it meant rolling out of bed in the wee hours before 9am all summer.  She eats, sleeps, and dreams volleyball all year round, and though she has played club in the off season since 8th grade, school volleyball is her absolute passion.  She loves playing with her friends and for her school, hearing the cheers of her classmates and her huge family fan club from the stands.  And now she is sidelined.  Not crying.

I never forget how abundantly blessed I have been to have my daughters fall in love with the sports I also know and love best.  Volleyball and basketball were my passions in high school too, and now that Grace is playing on a highly ranked team for my alma mater, I am reliving many of my happiest, most life changing memories through her.  Except now I’m reliving some of my most heartbreaking moments, too.  Not crying.  

Why do life’s lessons have to hurt so much?  I have been debating with myself for years whether it is harder to live through these lessons yourself, or to watch your child suffer through them.  Last year, when the team triumphantly ran through the smoke of the US Cellular Center into the huge, hot spotlight of the state championship finals, I told myself it was harder to be the mom than the player.  As the player, you just muscle through, eventually easing the pressure through the doing of the thing.  As the mom, you just sit there.  There is no way to dissipate the anxiety and tension.  There is no way to impact the outcome, beyond what you’ve already done (the thousands of rides and early morning wake ups and snack bags and gear purchases).  You send them onto the court and into the world and just pray and watch.  And sometimes, like now, you just watch them suffer.  Not crying.  

Of course, as I sit here this morning, my sorrow at her physical pain and her emotional struggle at missing out and worrying about the next thing (how long will I be out?  Will this ankle be weak for good now?  Will I lose my starting spot?), I’m also wrestling with mom guilt.  Is it some flaw in my stupid anatomy that I passed onto her?  Is her teenage diet of chicken nachos and cinnamon crunch bagels not providing adequate nutrition for her?  Should I have done more?  Could I have prevented this for her?  Not crying.

And, of course I know this is not my fault.  These things happen.  Indeed, ankle sprains are nearly inevitable for hitters and post players who spend hour after perilous hour jumping across from and next to others whose ankle wrenching feet are just inches away.  I also know (through countless gut wrenching experiences) that this is not an extremely serious sprain.  It’s not nothing, the swelling and bruising were already apparent last night, but it’s not the worst I’ve seen (or experienced), either.  I know she doesn’t need x-rays.  I also know playing her next conference game on Tuesday, which is her fervent hope, is not likely.  Not crying.

I’m also not afraid of what this means for her future.  I’m facing another joint surgery this year (not without irony—on my own ankle) and it is not normal for a person my age who hasn’t played 3 decades of professional sports to need so much intervention already.  I’ve wondered for years whether my back and hip issues started on that long ago basketball court where I broke my right ankle.  I’ve wondered if I should have backed off, sat out and healed longer after my own sprains, rehabbed more diligently, stood up straighter and worked on my core more, followed more of the instructions of the professionals instead of rushing back onto the courts of the games I loved.  If I let her follow her instincts back into her game as soon as humanly possible, will I set her on this difficult path in the future?  Of course I know she is not me—she’s built like a greyhound.  This is her first injury and she is stronger and more athletic than I ever was.  I also know that her 40s seem like a lifetime away in any event.  Could I even hold her back?  Should I?  Not crying.

This morning, I am sitting on the sidelines of another daughter, hard at work learning the skills of the game she loves.  Her ankles are strong and she is joyful in her youth and strength.  My heart is not breaking for my other girl, home on her bed with her leg up while her team competes without her.  I’m not thinking how fast this season is—both the actual school volleyball season and the years when your whole world revolves around your strong young body and the games it loves.  I’m not crying, you’re crying.  

Silver and gold

“November is usually such a disagreeable month... as if the year had suddenly found out that she was growing old and could do nothing but weep and fret over it.  This year is growing old gracefully...just like a stately old lady who knows she can be charming even with gray hair and wrinkles.”  Anne of Avonlea

I saw this tree in my neighborhood the other night when I was walking my dog in the early evening. The photo isn’t great, but I was instantly reminded of the quote above and it’s relationship to my recent metaphor about aging and seasons.   This tree looks like my hair.  

Well, maybe not exactly (I hope not exactly), but allow me to explain.  It is difficult to see from the photo, but on this lovely little green tree are the sweetest, barest hints of gold leaves.  It is a reasonable representation of my season right now--an infinitesimal balance between summer and fall.  Temperatures are fluctuating between 50 and 90 (is it sweater weather or tank top weather? Depends on the time of day.  And the day).  There are days promising hours of sunshine that are  interrupted by unpredictable rains.  There is almost always the risk of severe and potentially devastating storms due to the volatility of temperatures and simply the time of year itself.  And, of course, there are still the long, long afternoons of hazy beauty.

I was also reminded of Robert Frost’s poem  “Nothing Gold Can Stay” which I googled to copy below.  I’m a book and literature nerd, but I’ve spent too many decades among engineers to hold much poetry—beyond just the recollection of a line or two—in my brain.  I’ll blame the engineers before admitting my memory may be slipping the barest little bit.  The engineers can handle it.  They would wonder why I wasted the brain space on even a line.

Nothing Gold Can Stay

Nature’s first green is gold,

Her hardest hue to hold.

Her early leaf’s a flower;

But only so an hour.

Then leaf subsides to leaf.

So Eden sank to grief,

So dawn goes down to day.

Nothing gold can stay

And here it is—the gold peeking between the green--a beautiful hint of the autumn glory to come.  What is that autumn glory for me?   I have yet to discover that answer, and the wandering appreciation of the oncoming gold in my life is an uncertain and unfamiliar place to me.  But it has not been altogether unpleasant, which is surprising me.  I'm not a wanderer.  I'm a doer.  And yet.

But about my hair.

I’ll turn 44 in 3 months and I am a hair color virgin.  I have nothing against hair dye, necessarily, but having lasted this long I wonder whether I just follow Elsa’s lead and let it go.  I’m not much for lots of primping.  I dread my morning make up routine because it feels like such a waste of time.  I can’t exactly say it isn’t value added activity, because I do like my face better with a little cosmetic assistance, but when I’m alone with my family at the lake I love nothing more than to moisturize and head out for my day.  Though I've worn very short haircuts before, I hate the necessity of regular trims when longer styles can go for months (except, of course, the bangs, which I've already revealed I'm quite willing to hack away at myself).  I’ve been trying to embrace my natural curls of late as well.  And I’ve renounced  dieting and am working on body self acceptance (eventually to lead to love?  We’ll see.  We’re just getting to know each other right now).  There is something about reaching this age that just makes me want to accept what is about how I look.  I want to age gracefully, like the November of Anne’s description and these sweet little trees.  Maybe that means accepting the silver among the black, like the green among the gold.

Google's literary analyst says the meaning of "Nothing Gold Can Stay" is that “Nothing, especially that which is perfect and beautiful, can last forever.”  Comparing my hair (or my youth) to something “perfect and beautiful” feels like a pretty significant stretch, but nevertheless the metaphor holds.  Do I dare buck the standard and drift gently, year by year, from black to silver?  Probably not, if I’m being honest.  But for now, I’m letting the silver have it’s way, like the gold creeping into the green of the trees around our home.

I was also reminded of a quote from Outlander (and, seriously, if you haven't yet discovered Outlander, are you living under a rock?  I started with the books, of course, and the books are better, though the Starz mini-series is pretty spectacular, too).   After Jamie and Claire have (spoiler alert coming, but seriously, about that rock) moved to the mountains of North Carolina, Claire befriends Nayawenne, the shaman of the local Native American tribe.  During one interaction, Nawayene tells Claire through her translating granddaughter “You have medicine now, but you will have more. When your hair is white like hers, that is when you will find your full power."  Perhaps welcoming my own silver would enable me to reach my full power?  What an invigorating (and slightly daunting) prospect.

Through some miracle of good genetics, I've got time to ponder this question, as I can still get by with pulling out the white hairs on those days when I'm feeling slightly less sentimental about them.  For now, I'm enjoying the gold in the green and tolerating the silver among the black as I wonder my way through this next phase.  So Dawn goes down to day.

Reason #2

Today, I am going to introduce a new segment to the blog called “reasons for not crying during your  daughter’s senior year of high school.”   (Note, the first reason I did not cry was the occasion of her senior pictures—blog post pending.  Also note, these posts about my girl are bound to get a bit braggy; she’s just such a star, I can’t help it.  She will hate it and so will my husband, but I’m not sorry.  I’ll be as proud as I want to be while I am not crying during the upcoming year).

The second reason I did not cry during Grace’s senior year happened on Tuesday night during her last ever varsity inter-city volleyball contest.  (Last ever!  Not crying).  I didn’t cry during the captain’s huddle because of course I never fantasized that my golden haired baby girl would go on to play a sport I had loved at the same school I had played for all those years ago (and be captain no less!).

I also didn’t cry when they announced the starting line ups and she stepped forward to wave, all tall and strong and confident.  I didn’t cry when she made a spectacular kill and the entire student section hooted “Luuuuuuuuuuuuuuueken” and one wild boy exclaimed “I love Lueken!”  While his buddies high fived on either side of him.

And I certainly didn’t cry in this absurd moment when she knelt to tie her shoe before delivering an ace serve.  (“Ace is in her name,” our friend is known to quip).

This would naturally be an absurd moment to cry, when she’s at risk of a delay of game call and every impatient eye in the gym is on her.  I wasn’t thinking about how I taught her to tie those shoes.  Or how I used to have to run onto the soccer field to tie them for her lest she suspend the game for ten painstaking minutes while she did it herself.  I didn’t blink and see those chubby fingers (now so long and elegant) endlessly practicing bunny ears, hopefully letting go of the laces and waiting expectantly to see if they would hold.  I wasn’t remembering the day when it actually did, and we laughed together, delighted and a little shocked.  I also wasn’t remembering that her first word was “toes”, uttered in confusion when I failed to pull her socks off one night with my usual, playful “toes toes toes” tickle ritual.   These would be a silly reasons to cry.  A beautiful girl bending to tie her shoes in the middle of a volleyball game does not make one cry.

I’m not crying, you’re crying.

Belly Flop Yoga

Many years ago, I enrolled Grace and Sam in a local gymnastics class.  Grace had reached that age where girls spend half their lives on their hands and upside down (Lucy is there now), and back then I still thought we should sign our kids up for all the things, in spite of potential genetic dispositions.  (My long legged, big footed, lanky offspring will never be predispositioned to gymnastics, but anyway).  So I had just gotten settled in with my then baby Claire, when the instructor turned to me and said, “Dawn?  Is that Dawn?”  I looked around, obviously assuming there had to be another Dawn around.  “Like, Dawn and Carrie, Dawn?”  She said, walking over.  Well, that had to be me.  My little sister, Carrie, and I were so inseparable for most of the first 20 years of our lives that we were known as dawnandcarrie.

  

“Yes,” I said politely.

  

“I remember you!” She said enthusiastically.  I was even more confused.  Carrie had been a talented gymnast, but I had never shown any knack for it, long and gangly as I have always been.  I had broken my elbow attempting a backwalkover in 3rd grade and had never returned.  “And you had a brother?” She said.  “Brad?”

“That’s right,” I agreed, still perplexed.  I live in my relatively small hometown, and it is not unusual to be recognized by friends of my parents or acquaintances or former teachers or coaches.  Very occasionally, someone remembers me from my own volleyball and basketball careers, when I was an average player on standout, state championship teams.  But being remembered for my gymnastics prowess was altogether unheard of.  “You remember me?”

“Yes!” She said.  “You and your brother both.  I remember you were not very bendy,” she said emphatically.  Humph.

If this woman was coaching back in the mid-80s when my brief and unimpressive gymnastics career began and ended, and still coaching now in the early 2010s when my own offspring were starting what was destined to also be a brief and unimpressive run, that meant she had likely coached hundreds, perhaps thousands of young athletes.  For her to remember me and my brother that many years and students later, we had to be spectacularly bad.  That sort of epic inflexibility has plagued me and certain members of my family for generations.  We are long and strong, but we couldn’t touch our toes if you offered us a million dollars to do so.  As we age, we can barely reach them if you allow us to bend or twist knees and hips and elbows to do so.  We just don’t bend.

Paradoxically, I have been feeling quite a compelling draw towards yoga classes in the last several years.  My own mom began a practice the year Chad and I got married, nearly 19 years ago now, and she is limber and strong and remarkably agile for her age.  Indeed, at nearly 70 years old, she is ten times as flexible and fit as I am.  It is a model I would like to emulate, and as one joint after another starts to creak and protest and require ever increasing intervention, I know I need to get my butt to my mat.  It’s a struggle to convince myself, though.  If I was unbendy at 8, what must I be almost 4 decades later after 20 years of office work, 5 pregnancies, and a midlife hip replacement?

I have dabbled over the last several years, mostly with YouTube in my living room, but occasionally when I braved a class (deep in the back row, head ducked in fear of being recognized or called out for my preposterous lack of ability).  In one memorable class, the instructor provided modifications, as all the good ones do.  “If that isn’t available to you,” she murmured soothingly over the quiet, lilting harps or flutes or whatever they play.  “You can try bending like this,” she said, demonstrating a pose only slightly more accessible.  Glancing at me, she said, “You can turn your knee out this way and then flow into it this way.”  I was still nowhere close.  “Or,” she said, (and was it just me, or did she sound a bit resigned?) she sighed, “Or you can just lie down on your back.”  And, what?  Imagine what the pose feels like?

Physical activity has always been competitive for me.  I like to win, and exercise for most of my life was a means to an end.  I played volleyball and basketball through high school, and then into college.  I continued to play competitive volleyball and in the men’s basketball league for several years after graduating, and then picked up Chad’s love for competitive running after we met.  When the babies started coming, I slowed down, weighed down by the mommy marathon for which I had been dropped unceremoniously on the starting line, dubiously lacking in training.  In the rare seasons when I was sleeping more than 5 consecutive hours a night and neither gestating nor breastfeeding, I signed up for hard core “get in shape” challenges and running races including a memorable half marathon when my youngest was just 2 years old.  Emerging from my decade and a half of very serious physical mothering (beyond just the physical growing and feeding of a child, there were the many years of lifting and carrying and shoe tying and back rubbing) and then entering the season in which my tired body has been sending increasingly urgent signals that more gentle and self-aware exercise is in order.  So, yoga it shall be.

This is not easy for me.  I had a post it note up in my car for awhile that said, “Be brave. Be vulnerable,” as I entered into my pseudo mid life crisis and struggled to redefine and recreate myself in this new season.  (Of course, I snatched it down as soon as I drove anyone besides my own children because, seriously, how embarrassing).  My master minds caught onto this a few weeks ago when one individual exclaimed, “You’re afraid to suck!”  Well, yeah.  I’m too old to suck.  I should have things figured out by now.

But I don’t, and my body and spirit need new things, and new things are hard and we aren’t good at them at first. I have been watching my children more carefully of late, realizing as my oldest heads into her senior year of high school how truly fast these years slip by, and I’ve been increasingly moved by the patience and kindness they show themselves as they seek to master new skills.  Clay has been trying to learn to dive all summer.  I watched with delight as he started the summer standing with his arms extended over his head and his body bent at the waist, leaning slowly, carefully forward only to panic and jump feet first at the beginning of the season.  Then he progressed to belly flops, then to standing dives on the dock with his knees slapping the surface of the water.  Then he mastered the standing dive and moved onto a small hop.  Yesterday, on the traditional last day of summer, he leapt from the back of the boat, 3 feet up from the water, and took advice on keeping his toes pointed.  He’s mastered it.

All summer, he practiced patiently.  Day after day, dive after dive.  He didn’t look around and worry that he looked silly, or that he should already know what he was doing.  He didn’t insist on practicing in the dark, or completely alone.  He didn’t look around sheepishly when he jumped instead of diving on those early days, or when he needed a quick hug and some encouragement on the belly flop weekends.  He just climbed up, time after time, weekend after weekend, and a few short months later, he’s spectacular.  It’s a lesson to me and my stupid, unbendy, competitive pride.

I called my local yoga studio this week for rates and schedules.  I’m going back next week.  My body needs it, and my baby will be a lesson to me.  I’ll spend time flat on my back while the fitter, bendier sorts perform all sorts of pretzeled miracles around me.  I’ll be practicing belly flop yoga, and perhaps, in a season or twenty, I’ll be spectacular, too.