A Fishy Passover Tolerance Lesson

On April 17, 2017April 17, 2017 By aftheadIn Traditions, Uncategorized20 Comments

As a child I could get a little rambunctious at the grocery store. I clearly remember that when my brother and I got exceptionally crazy mom would threaten us. She’d point to jars filled with gelatinous covered white orbs and say, “If you guys don’t cut it out I will buy this and make you eat it.” We’d squeal and make faces and wonder what poor kids had to eat those creepy floating things. Into adulthood I’d walk through the Ethnic Food aisle and shudder a bit on my way to the pasta and salsa looking into those clear jars. Still I wondered who ate that stuff.

My senior year of college it happened. I met a boy, and one day he took me home to celebrate Passover with his family. The Seder began and we ate parsley dipped in salt water, raw horseradish root in an apple dish called haroset. All ceremonial foods, all different, but all edible. I enjoyed the readings and the novelty of the celebration and learning about a new culture.

Feeling moderately comfortable at the table the first course of the actual meal was served: gefilte fish. Someone set in front of me an albino patty with gelatinous quivering globules glistening on its surface cradled on a bed of lettuce. All around me strangers I wanted to impress covered their helpings with fluorescent pink horseradish and dug in with apparent glee. Here in front of me was the nightmare of my childhood and I had two choices: be “that disrespectful new girl” and shun this foreign food or face my fear and try a bite. There was not an option to run screaming from the room. This was before the days of smartphones so I couldn’t snap a picture and send it to my mom with an eww, like I did for this blog post. I had to put on my big girl shoes and face my fears if I wanted to be respectful. I don’t think I made it through half of the fish and I know I drank an entire tumbler of water but I ate enough to not make a scene. The rest of the meal followed without incident.

Twenty two Passovers now, give or take. I’ve watched guests come and go and seen the judgement passed down upon those who do not try. I’ve learned that no one thinks it wrong that I enjoy my fish with a piece of Matzo, which at least hides the horrible texture with a bit of a crunch. I bought the New York Times Passover Cookbook and with fear read the gefilte fish recipes only to learn that it really isn’t that scary. Just whitefish cooked in broth until the broth congeals. I could make it myself, but I don’t. I don’t buy it either. Instead I make the haroset, hard boil the eggs, make the dessert and bring the wine. I feel at home with the ceremony.

I also learned that my husband will always eat the second half of my patty. I push it onto his plate and yum yum he finishes it off and asks for another. No judgement, we are so cute sharing food. I always help clear away the fish plates and bring out the matzo ball soup, which I love. Before I sit down I refill the water glasses. It still takes me an entire glass of water to finish off my fish half.

This life we live, it’s filled with scary slimy fish isn’t it? Things we reject without a thought or a consideration for being different and gross, and really they might be different and gross to us even once fully understood and experienced. Things we threaten our children with because you’ve got to make them behave in the supermarket somehow. Every year at Passover I think my lesson is one of overcoming the fear of the unknown, different, and strange and while not embracing it – and certainly not enjoying it – at least learning to tolerate. For my husband’s Jewish family and their ancestors more tolerance would have changed history. And really, isn’t that an acceptable lesson? Maybe we can’t embrace each other and all join hands in unity, but a little tolerance – even if it requires a big glass of water – goes a long way in this world.

Happy Passover, happy Easter and happy spring to you readers. May you find tolerance for yourself, your beliefs, others, and other’s beliefs in your own little corner of the world.

If at First you Fail Spectacularly

On December 5, 2016December 5, 2016 By aftheadIn childhood, Uncategorized25 Comments

Fostering cats. It’s the one thing in life that I can look back on and say, “Well, I sucked at that.” Last year five tiny baby kittens were taken into my care and four died three different ways. I broke when the fourth one had to be euthanized and kept the last one to heal my heart. She has since become a beloved member of our household.

For the past year I’ve held onto this failure. I have to admit that I have dubbed myself the Cat Grim Reaper. I’ve lurked on the foster parent group on Facebook and watched litter after litter of healthy kittens grow and thrive under other foster parents care. I’ve watched sick and hurt cats become sleek and healthy. Quietly I’ve kept my training up to date in anticipation that I was going to try again. Once and for all I was going to cement my definition of the kitten event: bad luck or killer.

Our local shelter just had an influx of animals and needed foster parents to take sick, but not dying, animals home to make room for the new really sick animals. With little input from my family or friends, I volunteered to take one of the cats. He has an upper respiratory infection, his leg is bandaged hip to foot, he just got neutered, and he has a heart murmur that needs to be evaluated once he gets over the other ailments. His name is Bart and he’s a beautiful long haired light grey cat. He loves my daughter and has a purr that vibrates his whole body when she pets him.

As Bart snores away on the other side of the bathroom door – he is quarantined because of his infection – I’m not confident that he’ll make it. He hasn’t gotten better in the five days in my care. We’ve had to change antibiotics, and he’s not eating. The plan was to take him back to the shelter Tuesday to have his heart murmur evaluated, but already they are saying I might have to keep him longer because he’s not improving. He is living in a mist of water vapor as I try to keep his nasal tissues from bleeding each time he sneezes.

Thursday I dreamed Bart was playing with my parent’s cats, and woke with one thought in my head, “This is too much.” Fostering is just too much for me, for my family, and for my other cats. I hate saying that. I feel like some aristocrat looking down her nose at hard work and saying, “Oh no, I can’t do that. It’s hard and messy and time consuming and inconvenient.” No part of me doesn’t feel like a failure. But I’ve had to put a litter box in my bedroom to stop our cats from peeing and pooping on my bed, because the presence of the foster cat near their normal boxes makes them nervous. My daughter sits stroking his soft fur with tears running down her face. “I’m going to miss Bart,” she says. I drive back and forth to the shelter to drop him off and pick him up so his bandage can be changed. I wipe bloody snot off our walls, off of my daughter, and off his fur. The truth of the situation is that this is not our path, and not our way to help. Bart will be our last foster and if he dies I will take the mantle of Cat Grim Reaper and wear it, but I will not partake in a third foster experience. I will find other ways to make the world a better place.

It isn’t all terrible, don’t let me mislead you. There are moments like this. I hope that Bart recovers and some amazing family gets to enjoy this giant purr for years to come.

For all those who care for shelter animals, either at the shelter or in their homes, I applaud you. It is the hardest thing I have ever done, and I wish you all the strength and courage to keep doing what you do.

Personality Evolution

On December 4, 2016December 4, 2016 By aftheadIn Management Monday, parenting12 Comments

infp-personality-type-header — Image from 16 Personalities.

People, people, people. The past few days I’ve been obsessed with personality and character, which is not in my comfort zone. As someone with a degree in engineering who works with a bunch of computer programmers I have spent my life interacting with other humans (because cyborgs aren’t perfected yet) but not always understanding other people. In my work space I use personality tests and data to try glean information about those around me. I’m really fond of the Strength Finder analysis and Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI). Oftentimes with those two pieces of data I feel more comfortable knowing those around me.

The one bummer about Myers-Briggs is that it’s ridiculously expensive, and depending on the year my company may or may not foot the bill to let new people take the test. Well, this week one of my colleagues sent out a link to 16 Personalities. You get a Myers-Briggs-ish result at the end, with an additional “identity” trait and it’s free! The price point is great, and there is an added benefit of a really spectacular website design. In about 10 minutes I’d answered all the questions and got my result: INFP-A, The Mediator.

Reading through the results they seemed as accurate as any of those test are, but the F shocked me. My entire life I’ve been a thinker (T), not a feeler (F). (The third letter is either thinking or feeling.) When I first took Myers Briggs in 1999 I was an INTJ (Introversion, Intuition, Thinking, Judging.) From the MTBI website:

INTJ: Have original minds and great drive for implementing their ideas and achieving their goals. Quickly see patterns in external events and develop long-range explanatory perspectives. When committed, organize a job and carry it through. Skeptical and independent, have high standards of competence and performance – for themselves and others.

About 10 years ago I took the test again, and had shifted slightly. My structure, or how I deal with the outside word, had changed from Judging (J) to Perceiving (P). I went from being settled and organized to being more flexible and spontaneous. I was always on the borderline there, neither a strong J or P, so the switch didn’t really surprise me. Also, my husband is a pretty strong J, so I think I naturally needed to provide some flexibility in our family unit.

The rest of my traits have always been pretty cemented. I am a pretty strong introvert (I), I love interpreting information (N) and when I make decisions I am logical (T). For example, I used a spreadsheet and a formula to name my daughter: happy to send you a copy if you want to try it out. When I need to make decisions I take squishy ideas and turn them into hard numbers, then evaluate those numbers to make sure that I’m not just making a decision on a whim. I was confident those three character traits defined me, until now.

This new test has me at 59% feeling, so not really even borderline. The 16 Personality site says,

Feeling individuals are sensitive and emotionally expressive. They are more empathic and less competitive than Thinking types, and focus on social harmony and cooperation.

Okay, well I am still not sensitive and emotionally expressive, but the rest of the definition seems pretty spot on. I am regularly commended at work for not needing to get credit for my work and collaborating. My team is built on maximizing everyone’s strengths and acknowledging that we all bring very different but important skills to our work. I, as the manager and client liaison, am not more important than our programmers, analysts, testers, or system administrators. We all provide critical pieces to our work in different ways. Similarly, as a parent I’m the one who listens to the woes of third grade and says, “Man, that sounds so hard. I’m sorry you had to go through that.” My husband, a T, has a million suggestions for every conflict.

So I’ve had this new personality suit I’ve been wearing around all weekend to see how it fits. For highly-self aware people I’m sure that news like this isn’t even news, but for me having a new definition of who Johanna Levene is will take some adjusting. I’ll continue to dig through my results, and compare it to my husband’s and my kiddo’s to better understand our family dynamics. As people at work take the test and share their results I’ll figure out if that changes the needs and work of our team. I’m also going to research if the differences between MTBI and 16 Personalities to see if may there is a difference in methodology.

All that said, I did have a moment of clarity with these results, that might help with my whole writing in a closet dilemma. According to the 16 Personalities site, Mediators are led by their interests, and not rewards and punishment.

At their best, these qualities enable Mediators to communicate deeply with others, easily speaking in metaphors and parables, and understanding and creating symbols to share their ideas. Fantasy worlds in particular fascinate Mediators, more than any other personality type. The strength of their visionary communication style lends itself well to creative works, and it comes as no surprise that many famous Mediators are poets, writers and actors.

Oh… well at least that helps explain this insatiable need I’ve had over the past three years to start writing and telling stories. Because really, this new passion of mine is really incongruent with an INTP/INTJ personality type. See, eventually my inherent N trait will sort this all out…unless I become an S someday…

If you take the test I’d love to hear your thoughts on your results!

The Recliner

On October 25, 2016October 28, 2016 By aftheadIn Chickens, Knitting, Traditions7 Comments

Today would have been my Grandpa’s 103rd birthday. A few years ago my mom uttered this infamous – in our family – statement, “It makes me feel better knowing that if grandpa was alive he’d be dead by now.” She’s right. If my grandparents weren’t dead already they’d probably be dead by now, but the week bracketed by their birthdays is still one that pulls at my heartstrings.

Adding to the angst this year is that we finally got rid of their recliner. When my grandma died, I inherited this gem. I was poor, just out of college, and furnishing my first apartments and home. Somewhere in there Grandpa’s recliner became mine. I didn’t care what it looked like because I just wanted a comfy place to sit.

Now the recliner has lived with me 16 years, which is longer than it ever lived with my grandparents. The chair has seen me and my boyfriend turned husband through innumerable head colds and bouts of bronchitis: nothing is better than a recliner when you are stuffed up and coughing. My daughter has spit up, peed, pooped spilled, and snotted on this chair. Throughout her infancy breast-milk was leaked all over it because I loved nursing in this chair.

When our basement construction started, heralding the end of the recliner’s life in the house, the baby chickens pooped on it while my daughter sang lullabies to them in the garage. I hand medicated little baby Rosie chick in that chair. There may or may not be mice in the chair because there are mice out there.

The time for the chair to leave our home had come. No more would my daughter recline the back, extend the footrest and launch herself off her indoor playset. Finally I could stop worrying which kid-friend would end up with stitches from emulating my daughter’s antics. We will never figure out where that missing thumb screw goes: the one that fell out of the bottom one recline. I’m sure there is a whole set of knitting needles and stitch markers hidden in there, never to be found.

Before putting the chair out to the curb I went out to the garage, curled up, and read in it one last time. The book was A Man Called Ove, a perfect choice because my grandpa could have been named Ove he was so much like that character. I read, I cried, I remembered, and I watched my cats stalk spiders and mice. Finally, I turned off the lights and, like a dope, said “Goodbye chair.” By the time I got home from work the next day it was gone. My mom said, “It was an awfully big memento,” and it was.

The first post-chair evening I was down in my study digging around in my sewing machine cabinet and for a moment I smelled cigarette smoke. Throughout my childhood my grandparents were both smokers and that scent still calls up memories of them. At that moment I realized that one of them was reminding me that my sewing machine belonged to my grandma. I remember sewing Halloween and theater costumes side by side. I still use her manual, filled with her hand written notes, every time I need to sew on rickrack. I still have a big memento and one that isn’t going anywhere. All I need to do to reconnect to them is sew something and, you know, my husband did just mention that the chicken coop needs curtains. (Well he actually said “The chicken coop needs window blankets,” but either way it means sewing project.)

Correction 10/28/2016

I misquoted my mother in the original version. She did not say, “It makes me feel better knowing that if grandpa wasn’t already dead he’d be dead by now.” The corrected, and even sillier, quote is above. Thanks mom for pointing out my mistake. Love you!

A Knit for One Hundred Years

On October 5, 2016October 5, 2016 By aftheadIn Uncategorized7 Comments

How do you acknowledge 100 years of life? The invitation clearly said “no gifts” but my fingers itched to make something to celebrate my grandmother-in-law’s birthday. I wanted to make something soft, useful, bright and bold because she loves red and purple as all 100 year-olds should.

Nothing in my stash seemed right, so I was off to my local yarn shop. Not only did they have this amazing purple alpaca yarn with bright pink highlights, but they recommended the perfect pattern, Trillian and even had a sample so I could see and hold it: an asymmetrical narrow shawl that could be worn several ways. It would be pretty, soft, elegant and functional. Thank goodness for real world yarn shops.

I had never knit a shawl before or anything this big on size 3 needles, and time and birthdays wait for no knitter. It didn’t take me long to realize this was a more involved project than I had anticipated. The knitting began to take over every moment of my free time and several moments of my not free time. Soccer practices, conference calls, long drives, and parties all became opportunities to knit. My husband drove everywhere so I could knit. I became a public knitter out of desperation. At the end I used my plane trip to Austin to knit for 2 hours non-stop each way.

Deadlines are motivating and two days before the big party I cast off my last stitch and wove in the ends. Blocking opened the lace edge and hid the little snare from my cat’s attempt to drive me absolutely crazy with her disrespect of the knitting. The day of the party I wrapped up the finished object in tissue and set it in the gift bag. 10,570 stitches to celebrate her life. It seemed like a big present. Maybe too big.

Truthfully, I had never knit anything for her before. My in-laws aren’t crafters, so I had not made things for them, because I never knew if they would be appreciated. I set my lone gift bag next to a basket overflowing with cards. Everyone else had followed the rules. I was so nervous that my hand-cramping gift would be frowned upon that I didn’t ask her to open it. After she danced, ate, and celebrated with a room full of friends and family I said, “I made you something” as I told her goodbye. Desperate that my little gift bag not be thrown away or misplaced I also told my father-in-law, and his sister. I was worried that she wouldn’t like it, but terrified that she’s never see it.

When the phone rang the next evening with her number displayed on the caller id my stomach flipped as I answered the phone. “Johanna,” she said in her creaky voice, “I love my shawl. Thank you so much for thinking of me.” She loved it. She loved the color. She said, “I wish it was cold so I could wear it now.” And just like her grandson – my husband – the thank yous were done and we were off the phone in under five minutes. Who knew brevity was an inherited trait?

Tomorrow it’s supposed to dip into the 40s. I hope she wears the shawl. I like to picture her playing bridge, at choir practice, or doing crosswords at home wrapped up in warm softness made by my hands. She is 100 in age, but still lives in her own house, does laundry in her basement, and leads an independent life even after being widowed the day I was born. In the end, my 10,570 stitches are nothing compared to her 36,525 days on this Earth.

Equality? #wwwp5k

On September 22, 2016September 22, 2016 By aftheadIn Uncategorized26 Comments

“Gender inequality doesn’t exist anymore.” My husband declares with the emphasis of someone seeing his inherent privilege fade away. He goes on to outline the female project manager giving him fits, the multitude of females at high levels in his company and his aggravating female client. For an engineer who started his career seeing cubicles filled with monthly images of scantily clad women wielding power-tools, this twenty year rise of women from calendar to manager has been rapid and probably unexpected.

I can’t really argue too much with him. I manage a team of engineers, half women and half men. With our matching engineering degrees we make the same amount of money. (Well, we leap frog. When I get a raise, I make more. Then he gets one and he makes more.) We have similar responsibilities, similar jobs, similar flexibility to balance parenthood and employment.

We both coached our daughter’s soccer team. He does the dishes and laundry. I shop and cook. He fixes the broken fence; I sew buttons on when they fall off. I handle plumbing issues and he handles electricity.

We raise our daughter to love math and science. We raise our daughter to sing and love books. We raise our daughter to be a strong person and gender roles aren’t a topic we ever think to discuss. In her world the best mathematician in her class is a girl. The best speller is a girl and the person with the best handwriting is a girl.

But I’m a runner. I love running when I travel for work. Last week I left my hotel room with my phone in hand and my room key in my pocket. I don’t wear headphones when I run, because I know it’s not safe. I hate holding my phone when I run, but I’m somewhere strange and no one knows I’m leaving and no one is expecting me back. On the off chance something bad happens I can call. On the off chance something really bad happens the last known location of my cell phone might be traceable.

I’ve taken a self defense class. I know what to do if I’m attacked. I know where to gouge how to shout and how to best strike someone to knock them out. I know that if someone attacks me with a knife I’m supposed to grab the blade. My stomach clenches every time I think that: grab the blade. Can you imagine? Have you ever imagined? If you are woman, you might have. If a man, probably not.

I never go for a run and don’t think of my safety. I vary my route. I’m aware of my surroundings.

In Austin I jogged out to my favorite run along Town Lake. Somehow I got turned around and found myself out on this amazing path I’ve never seen before. Maybe I usually run on the opposite shore or maybe I go the other direction? Regardless, this new route was filled with people so I felt safe and headed out to enjoy an adventure.

Then I came to a fork. One side continued next to the river and the other diverted off into a wooded sanctuary. One side was safe and the other was unknown. I stopped and waited. Every single runner, walker, cyclist stayed on the main path. No one turned. No one sought out the shady refuge from the 92 degree heat. Minutes passed, and my desire to keep running waned. I turned around and headed back the way I came. As I neared my hotel I wondered what was down that path. Was I just being silly? Then I remembered the woman who was attacked the week before walking in my neighborhood. Better to be safe than sorry.

The genders are equal in lots of ways. But my little girl and I will have many conversations in her life about how to keep herself safe. How to make sure she has a friend watching out for her at a party. What the consequences could be if she drinks too much. How to be aware and not look like a victim. Why she shouldn’t wear “that dress”. If she’s a runner I’ll teach her what I’ve learned, and hopefully she won’t take the wooded path either, even if it calls to her soul. Safety first.

My husband and I are equal in many ways, but I have long hair and breasts and physical attributes that mark me as a potential victim. I am smaller than my husband and I have soft places that bad men want to hurt and probe. My daughter has smaller softer places. I am weaker and could be overpowered by most men, if they wanted to. I have to teach my daughter things I would never teach a son. Just like black families have to teach their kids how to act if a cop pulls them over, which is something that I would never think to teach my white daughter.

“Have you ever worried about you safety?” I ask my husband when I get home from Austin. “Do you worry about being in a park after dark, or walking to you car at the airport?”

“No. Why?” he asks.

The conversation has to start somewhere. With a kneel at the anthem. With a conversation between two almost equals who love each other. Inequality exists.

My musings from my 5k around Austin, Texas and part of the WordPress WWWP5K.

Call me farmer Afthead

On September 8, 2016September 8, 2016 By aftheadIn Chickens18 Comments

The Afthead family got some chickens. After the rough experiment fostering kittens last year we left the mammal group of the animal kingdom in favor of the bird group. Meet Buffy, Rosie and Hope.

“What?!?! You got chickens?” asks Hope. The girl with her face in the camera was named after Hope Solo. We got the chickens during the Olympics and little Afthead decided the representative of the Ameraucana breed had to be named after an American athlete. As a big soccer fan she decided Hope was a good chicken name. (Given Ms. Solo’s antics during the Olympics I think having a chicken named after her is appropriate.)

You want a picture?

Do I stand here?

Not my pretty side!

This goofy girl is a Buff Orpington. I really wanted to name her Buff Orpington the Third, because she’s such a formal sounding breed, but Mr. Afthead won these naming rights. Buffy was the obvious choice for this brave vampire hunting fowl. In the coming years I’m hoping that in between laying eggs for our family she’ll star in her own sitcom or maybe a movie about a vampire, werewolf, chicken love triangle.

Finally we have Rosie, the littlest of the chickens. From the beginning she’s been the sweetest, the most friendly and, of course, was the one that almost got sick and died the first week. Yeah, we appear to attract sickly animals. After panicked googling, visiting feed stores, and syringe watering this little girl she’s now in great health. All that hands-on attention in those early weeks has made her brave, well socialized and willing to pose for pictures. “Who’s a pretty bird? You are Rosie!” Momma Afthead got to name this one, and I went for the obvious color-related name for this member of the Rhode Island Red breed.

So that’s our flock. Really, I have no idea why we are trying this adventure. We aren’t big local food people. We aren’t even big egg eaters. I think Mr. Afthead wanted a project, and converting little Afthead’s old playhouse to a chicken coop seemed like fun. Of course little Afthead was in: what kid doesn’t want chickens? It’s all I could do to keep her from grabbing bunnies, turkeys, miniature goats and peacocks from the feedstore the day we got the birds. Man, that kid loves animals.

Me? I’m still on the fence about about being a chicken farmer. While I love them much more than I expected I don’t appreciate my morning, “Are the chicken’s dead?” routine. I’ve never cared if skunk, fox, coyote, stray dogs, feral cats, or opossum lived in my backyard before, but now they are all chicken dismembering predators waiting to infiltrate every nook and cranny of our chicken habitat. Ugh. I’m crossing my fingers and hoping we can get these girls through to the spring, so at least we start getting some eggs. I’m also hoping if something gets them it isn’t a week when my husband is traveling. I don’t want to handle a chicken murder scene alone.

Now off to go find some overalls, a nice straw hat and a toothpick to chew. Come back soon, y’all. I tell ya more chicken stories. Ah yup. “Bawk!”

The Third Day of Third Grade

On August 24, 2016 By aftheadIn childhood, parenting10 Comments

I watch you. I watch you watch them. The pair labeled your “best friends”and the other one. They laugh and touch and a little girl gravitational force pulls them together as it repels you.

I watch you. I watch the jealousy and anger coil up inside you and I hope that it finds release before you snap inappropriately. You stare unblinkingly with your ice blue eyes and the look is pure hurt because you are left out.

I watch you. I watch as your new friend, “Well maybe friend,” you’ve said, “but not yet” walks up to you and you don’t even acknowledge her presence. I talk to her and compliment her sweatshirt and make pleasantries, which you should be doing, but you don’t because you can’t stop staring across the blacktop as your best friends and the other laugh at something. They are too far away, so we cannot hear what they laugh at, but we can see they are having fun without you.

I watch you. I watch as the second maybe new friend walks up and you ignore her too. Opportunities surround you but you can’t see them because you want to be over there with them in their class. You want the comfort of last year. You want familiar. You want to be inside the threesome again and not stuck outside looking in. The two maybe new friends stand silently ignored and you continue fester until you turn and say, “I told you I’m not popular anymore.”

I want to hurl idiotic phrases at you. You catch more flies with honey. Life isn’t fair. Make new friends, but keep the old. I want to stop your stare and refocus it on the sweet kids around you. I want to plaster over your hurt and wounded heart and tell you it will be okay, but I don’t do any of that. It might not be okay. You might lash out at your old friends and miss the opportunity for new friends. You might lose them all. I wish for a tree to sprout between your class’s line and the other class’s line so that you don’t have to see them having fun without you. I know it might be a long and lonely year.

I think of Rachel and Stacy 34 years ago on my playground. I remember wishing for what they had: for the heads close together and the whispers and hand games and true friendship and wondering, “How do they do that?” I remember longing for what they had, but never finding it. I watch you and hope the hurt of my third grade isn’t repeated in the next generation with a different pain of loss instead of longing.

I watch you and feel the agony of a mother’s anguish. I watch you and hope it will be okay.

The bell rings and the pain of everything makes reach for a hug and kiss, needing to be loved too much to remember I’m embarrassing. I pour my heart into you, because you are loved and you are amazing and you can do this, and then we part. I watch you. I watch you walk away alone.

Ouray Beauty

On June 28, 2016 By aftheadIn Uncategorized8 Comments

Damp and smelling of hot springs we made our way to the concert in the park. Music and a sno-cone tent had lured us away from the warm pool. My daughter and I were both overdressed for the weather in our jackets, but underdressed in our lack of underwear and shirts. We had decided that wearing our swim suits under our clothes would just be “too soggy” for the rapidly cooling evening. My husband’s damp swim trunks looked enough like shorts that he blended in. The band we didn’t know played music we did know. We swayed to the music at the edge of the crowd while my daughter attacked her bright blue dessert.

Ouray is a mountain town, and there were distinct groupings of tourists in their “Ouray” and “Colorado” souvenir clothing and locals in their Patagonia, Mountain Hardware, and skinny jeans. Tourists were not wearing skinny jeans, because no fabric is flexible enough to allow for anything beyond breathing in those jeans: completely impractical for anything but standing and looking cool. Sprinkled between the tourists and locals were the traditional concert-in-the-park attendees. The requisite braless old lady, somewhere between 45 and 95, hula hooped in the front row. She briefly attracted attention of many wondering if her breasts would be exposed during her gyrations, even though no one really wanted to see them.

My daughter was marveling, “Why doesn’t everyone give straws and spoons with snow cones?” when I noticed a woman weaving her way through the crowd. Well, I actually noticed her coat. I am a coat aficionado and this was a spectacular specimen. It hit her mid-thigh and was made out of some chamois colored leather or perhaps waxed canvas. The material had a slight sheen and accentuated her ordinary movements as she nodded at this person and hugged that one. In the fading sunset her coat glowed and looked so soft that I longed to touch it. Laughing, she tossed her head and her long earrings sparkled beneath her asymmetrical black pixie hair. It wasn’t a haircut in response to aging or motherhood, but just the haircut she should have. When she bent to swoop up her son I noticed her jeans – not skinny like the cool people – but soft, medium blue, body skimming, practical and perfect. They just brushed the top of her bare feet as she stood, cradling her boy on her hip.

She was beautiful. It wasn’t that she was thin. It wasn’t that she was well dressed. She was both of those, but what made her beautiful was that she was impeccably herself and she was fully and completely present in the space she occupied. I wasn’t the only person who noticed her, although I may have been the most intent observer. As she would stop to talk to a group you could see the people nearby pausing in anticipation of her arrival. When she left a group they would watch her go before resuming their conversations. It was as if a spotlight followed her and the crowed brightened where she was. She was magnetic. I could spot her in an instant either due to her personality or the ebbs and flows of the crowd dynamics moving around her.

Never close enough to make eye contact or to be graced with a smile, I left without meeting this woman. As I closed my eyes to sleep that night I imagined a life for her. She owned a little boutique shop in Telluride. She lived in Ouray in a house she inherited from her grandmother, and she loved the quaint mountain town. However, as a savvy businesswoman, she knew the real money stayed in Telluride, the richer of the sister towns. Every year women traveled from all over the world to spend thousands in a single shopping trip so they could look “just like her.” She catered to them, fawned over them, impeccably dressed them, and under her attention they became beautiful. Huge packages would arrive at their homes containing entire new wardrobes selected by her hand. The rich women would take out each item and lovingly remember how they felt that day in Telluride. Unfortunately, none of them could capture the same confidence they felt in the shop, because the shop owner didn’t come with the clothes she sold. The memory of beauty didn’t wane so those wealthy women would return year after year to rekindle the feeling, and every year they found it under her gaze.

I fell asleep wishing I could travel to Telluride and wondering what coat she would select for me.

Hiatus and Compromise

On June 22, 2016June 23, 2016 By aftheadIn Tickles my afthead, Uncategorized10 Comments

Oh my dear blogging friends, I have missed you. The insanity of May flowed into the craziness of June and my poor blog suffered. In hindsight I should have told you all I was going to be missing from this space, but alas, I just went and left no forwarding address. Now refreshed and full of stories from a week’s vacation I return ready to blog again.

For starters, let me just say I have finally figured out this “vacationing with a child” thing. Now, 8+ years of parenting has taught me that the second I utter such words that hubris will destroy me leaving me in the land of horrid vacations for years to come. I shall not be daunted! I believe this knowledge will endure! The key to successfully vacationing with a kid is… duh duh duuuuhhhhh…. compromise! Let’s look at some pictorial evidence from my recent Tour de Soutwest Colorado, shall we?

In order for child(ren) to enjoy the seven mile hike to Lizard Lake, you must first incentivize them with a gnome home contest. Then, when the whining and complaining part of the hike begins you may be lucky enough to notice a bonanza of snail shells (What?!? In Colorado in the mountains??? It’s like Mother Nature was on the parent’s side) which will lead to the creation of a snail-shell-walkway which will result in a champion gnome home. Everyone is happy, especially the gnomes. Tune in, because I am certain this home will be featured on gnome HGTV for years to come.

Oh, not more hiking. We adults love hiking, and somehow we think if there is a waterfall at the end the children will like hiking too. That may work for you, especially if the hike is short and the waterfall is amazing like this one is, but maybe, just maybe, giant inflatable pool toys are more amazing? Try coupling the success of passing a swim test with an hour of “Water Ninja Warrior” competition – where your child legitimately crushes you on 6 of 6 obstacle runs. (She’s over a foot smaller than me, how was I supposed to fit? And don’t get me started on her strength to weight ratio….) The whole way up to that waterfall there will be nothing but joy, especially if you couple the hike with really great rocks in the path.

Oh dear God. You are not done hiking yet? You want to hike to a cave? A dark creepy cave? Well parents, just stick a horseback ride on the front of that cave hike and let Yuma the horse do the majority of the hiking for you. Sure, you won’t be able to walk for a couple days while you develop real understanding of the term “saddle-sore” but your kid will love every minute of the ride there, and then might even surprise you by being the only family member willing to follow the guide “just a little farther into the cave.” Try not to hang your head in shame while you let your kid go spelunking into the depths of a cave with some guide you met less than an hour before. She’ll probably be fine and besides, your butt hurts too much to crouch.

EVEN MORE HIKING?!?! What are you insane? Is this a death march or a vacation, I ask you? Well, if you can hike in a creek and, I don’t know, pick up even more cool rocks then maybe you can squeeze one more hike in. Note: we may have failed on the rock portion of “take nothing but pictures and leave nothing but footprints” goal of hiking, but that’s okay, because you are done hiking now, right. RIGHT???

Let me tell you, at some point you have to put your butt down. Sure the top of the sand dunes are very tempting, but that sand is hard to walk on and after awhile there is so much of it in your ears you can’t hear the pleading, “Can’t we just go a little farther?” Fine, go a little farther, but me and your backpacks of water and snacks are staying here, far away from the sand ledge of death – which somehow didn’t claim my family (or any other lives) during our trip. You go on to the top. I’ll wait for you, even without any rocks to gather.