I’ve lost my mind. It’s official. Prepare the rubber room. Put some extra fabric softener in when you wash my straightjacket. I’m ready to be institutionalized. It finally happened. Traditionally, the day before school starts has been the one day of the year I was guaranteed to be in a good mood. But, today, I was mopey. We went to the zoo to check our last to-do off our summer to-do list. I was depressed the entire time. Even the elephants couldn’t cheer me up, and they are my favorite zoo animal. That’s when I knew things were bad. Then it hit me. I’m actually sad that the summer is over and that the little buggers (who, incidentally, have been driving me crazy for the past two weeks with their non-stop bickering) are leaving me. Sniff.
No more sleeping in. No more schedule-less days. No more field trips. No more late nights. No more days at the pool. I’m back to volunteering, making lunches, chauffeuring, and early mornings. And, while all that is fine and good and part of my career as Mom, right now I’m sad because I am going to miss my little monkeys. The house is going to seem quiet. I’m not going to have anyone nearby with whom to share my flippant remarks, which means I’m going to be talking to myself a lot again. I never thought I’d see the day when the thought of a tranquil, silent house would vex my introverted soul. A mere couple weeks ago I was dancing in the back-to-school aisle at Target. Yet, today I’m mourning the end of summer and the loss of precious time with my awesome sons. I’m not sure what’s happening to me. Curiouser and curiouser.
I suppose that if there’s a silver lining here, it’s that the years as they’ve been growing older have been flying by at an ever increasing speed. That means that next summer should be here before I know it. Funny how time and the speed at which she travels is both a blessing and a curse.
Our day yesterday was spent on Floreana Island. Our Galapagos expedition leader, Paula, told us that Floreana is called the Mystery Island. I’m not surprised. Our excursions there yesterday had me thinking about the now defunct ABC television series, LOST.
We started our day with a very early morning hike to try to see some flamingos. Yes. Flamingos. These are Greater American Flamingos that came here from the Caribbean. There is a small population of about 500 of these birds living in the Galapagos. So, we hiked a bit inland from the ocean to a brackish lake on Floreana, hopeful we would see some pink birds but also doubtful because their population is so small. We were in luck. There were about 15 of them at the lake. How crazy to see an American flamingo out here in the isolated Pacific.
Later in the afternoon, we were doing Zodiac cruises around Post Office Bay (here there is a barrel that was set up in 1793 and you can deposit letters without postage and hopefully someone will stop by, take your letter, and hand deliver it to the recipient at a future date). As we skirted our way around the bay, we saw an eagle ray jump from the water just ahead of us, spied several sea turtles coming up for air, and even saw a penguin. The Galapagos Islands, in addition to flamingos, are also home to a small population of penguins. These are the only penguins that live north of the equator and they can do this because of the Humboldt and Cromwell currents that cool both the ocean and the air here.
I sat in our room last night thinking about seeing a flamingo and a penguin on the same day on the same island in the Pacific near the equator. The Galapagos Islands truly are a magical, mysterious place. On LOST, people who were marooned on an isolated tropical island were stuck pondering how polar bears came to be there. Today I saw a flamingo and a penguin on the same island. Apparently LOST wasn’t that far fetched after all.
When we traveled to Norway a few years ago, I had a phrase I uttered repeatedly to my children: The first rule of travel is “Hurry up and wait.” It seems whenever you travel, the trip is filled with an inevitable ebb and flow. You rush to get to the airport to check in, then you wait in line. You hurry to get through security screening just to sit idly at the gate. When it’s finally boarding time, you rush to get on the plane only to sit in line waiting for take off. It is the way it works.
So far today our experience is proving my first rule of travel to be absolute. We woke up at 5:15 to get our luggage out for the tour company by 6. We were exhausted after only four hours of sleep, but we soldiered on, had breakfast, and waited for our 7:20 departure to the airport for our flight from mainland Ecuador to the Galapagos Islands. At 7:20, though, we were informed that the plane we are taking is still in Quito because it is damaged. So, now we must wait on another plane. Sigh.
It amazes me how different my boys are. With the flight delayed, my more laid back Luke promptly fell asleep in a couch in the lobby. Joe, however, began to stress out, afraid our ship would leave the islands without us, annoyed that we were stuck at the hotel. I just keep repeating the travel mantra to him and reassuring him that we will get there eventually. And we will…even if it doesn’t feel that way right now.
I used to hate the tides of travel, but now I don’t mind “hurry up and wait” as much because it forces me to live in the moment. There’s something incredibly freeing in having no choice but to sit and be, to exist in the present and wait for the day to unfold rather than bullying your way through it. Still, I admit that, like Joe, I think I’d like “be” a lot happier if I was sitting on some white sand near some playful sea lions. What can I say? Old habits die hard.
My sponsors generously provided the clothing that will make my trip to the Galapagos a comfortable, fun experience.
A week from today at this time I will be sitting in the Miami airport waiting for our flight to Guayaquil, Ecuador en route to the Galapagos Islands. Today I planned to be putting together packing lists for said trip. Instead, I’ve spent at least an hour researching the Blood Type Diet and realizing that there is no food in my house that I’m allowed to eat for my O-type health. I’ve spent about an hour looking online at the Boden fall clothing collection and realizing that I need a much better paying job than my current position so I can purchase the Emma dress and the Contrast Mary Janes. I’ve also run a couple errands, texted with my pal Heather, and played a ridiculous number of games of Words With Friends, Dice With Buddies, and Mind Feud on my iPhone. The one thing I have not done is figure out even one item I am packing. Oops.
This makes no sense. I’m a Type A person. I’ve been a Type A person since I emerged from the womb, two days beyond my due date when I felt it was appropriate. I’ve always been independent. I’m organized, meticulous, and determined. I multi-task with ease. I’m proactive. As a rule, I don’t procrastinate. But, today I can’t bring myself to complete the task at hand. I figure there are two ways I can go with this. I can either Type A it by digging really deep, finding some inclination to step away from the computer, and doing this job the right way and getting ‘er done. Or, I can Type B it by realizing that as long as I have at least one outfit to wear it will all be fine. Then I can go watch a movie with Ryan Gosling in it (which is, by any estimation, a much better way to spend a rainy day).
Wait a minute. I guess there is a third way I can go with this. I could meet myself somewhere in the middle. I can get off my avoiding, lazy butt and do a little planning to assuage my Type A mind that will be annoyed when I realize while on vacation that my Type B behavior landed me with not one swimsuit to wear during my island vacation. I guess it wouldn’t hurt to go stand in front of my closet and stare into it for a while to determine some options. I could always scrawl a few notes on some paper for later. Maybe I could set aside a few items I’m sure I don’t want to leave behind. No harm in that, right?
I’m starting to wonder about my lifelong membership in the Type A club. In my quest to become more zen, I’ve relaxed a bit and come a little more towards Type B-ishness. Apparently, I’m not quite the rabid Type-A personality I once was. I’m not really comfortable at Type B either, though. So, for now I will suggest that I’ve been downgraded from Type A to Type A-. I think that is a fine devolution for me. I’ll get packed eventually. There’s no way that I’m missing that flight a week from now.
Our incredibly fortunate American family on a fjord in Norway in 2009.
Today, while ironing of course, I watched a film I’ve wanted to see ever since the lead actor was nominated for an Academy Award this past winter. I’d never heard of it until the nominations came out, but when a quiet film finds its way into the hearts of the Academy voters I usually pay attention. The movie is called A Better Life. The story revolves around a father, who happens to be a Mexican illegal living and working in the U.S., and his 14 year old son who is a U.S. citizen. The son edges closer and closer to the East LA gang scene and his father worries about him. It is an honest story about a hard-working man whose only desire in life is to give his son a better life than he has had, hence the title.
I loved the movie because it made me think. It forced me to face some of my own prejudices and misconceptions. I can’t tell you where exactly I stand on the issue of illegal immigration because, being a grey person not prone to black and white absolutism, I’m not sure. I can clearly see and understand both sides of the issue. We have laws in this country about citizenship, and I do see the importance of upholding them. On the other hand, though, both sets of my great grandparents came here from Poland on a boat circa 1917, landed at Ellis Island speaking no English, and were able to give their own children a better life than the one they had. I wouldn’t be here if the United States hadn’t let them in nearly 100 years ago.
As Americans, it’s too easy to forget how blessed we are. We may talk about how proud we are of our nation, but most of us have done nothing to earn our citizenship other than to have been born here. Let’s face it. We didn’t have a say in that matter anyway. When you think about how most people on this planet live, we are unbelievably fortunate by virtue of dumb luck. So, it’s fairly easy to sit on our lofty hill and tell others that we’re all full up at the inn. After all, we’re here and our kids will have the benefit of education and health care, so what do we care?
What today’s Ironing Matinee reminded me is that when we talk about “illegals” we’re conveniently labeling others in a way that helps us to forget they’re human beings. As “illegals,” they’re not people, families, fathers, mothers, children. They’re criminals, burdens, statistics, scourges. It’s our apathy about these immigrants’ humanity that troubles me. If you get a chance, watch A Better Life. No matter where you stand on the issue of illegal immigration, it might give you some insight into how hard life is for our neighbors south of the border and how hard it is for them still while they’re living here illegally trying to do the best they can for their families. It might remind you that at our core we’re all the same. We want what is best for our children, and that notion can’t be contained by laws or even by borders.
How do you not choose this cute, wet boy in an inner tube over laundry on a hot day?
I have always liked making choices. Perhaps that is because choices have always come easily to me. I’ve never been one to agonize over my options or spend months hemming and hawing. I simply am not wired that way. My husband will spend weeks researching something, thinking about it, reviewing his options, and pondering over the benefits and drawbacks. He will finally, at long last, reach his decision. Not two minutes after his decision is made, he will begin to regret it, wondering whether or not he made the right choice. This, as you can imagine, drives me crazy.
I like options. I like open ended. I like possibility. To me, no decision is permanent. (There are exceptions to this rule of course, but I would never choose to make a permanent decision because, as I’ve stated previously, I like choice. Permanent decisions are the ones that rule out all future choice. There’s no fun in that.) Today was a day when I had a lot of things planned. Most them them were exceedingly dull but incredibly necessary things, like laundry, grocery shopping, cleaning. My options seemed highly limited.
At 8 a.m. when I finally hauled myself out of my basement cave and stared down the list of things I “should” do, I naturally decided we should walk the dog instead. And, that’s exactly what we set out to do. As the boys and I rounded the first bend on what was to be a 3-mile walk, though, my phone rang. It was my dear friend Celeste inviting me to go visit the new Athleta store in the Cherry Creek Mall. Hmmm…now I had a choice. Finish the longer walk or take a shorter walk and meet my friend? I called my sister, set her up to watch the boys, and we cut our walk down by 1/2 mile so I could get to the mall. After my quick shopping date with Celeste, I headed back to get the boys. But, as soon as I got back to my sister’s house, my mom called and said I could take the boys swimming at her condo. Hmmm…another decision. Should I head home and get some laundry done at last? Hadn’t I put it off long enough? I looked at my boys, got back in the car, and ran home to get swimsuits and towels so we could go swimming instead.
At one point, I sat there at the pool, soaking wet on a plastic chair under a blue sky in the hot sun, thinking about all the things I had planned to do today that were not getting done because I had made other choices today instead. So much left undone. Then, my mind traveled to the people affected by the movie theater shooting in Aurora. Earlier today I had read about three friends who had planned to be in theater 9 along with their friends for a midnight showing of The Dark Knight Rises. Two were short on cash and the third didn’t want to leave his low-on-funds friends behind, so they skipped the movie instead. Six of their friends were injured and another buddy was killed in that dark theater. Funny how “instead” can change your day or your life.
My house is still a pit. The laundry remains in a pile. The boys’ suitcase sits upstairs in the hallway as of yet unpacked. It will all be there for me tomorrow. It can wait. Today, I chose to see a good friend and spend the afternoon splashing with my boys instead. I have no regrets.
We’ve had a great vacation up at our home-away-from-home with our dear friends. And, after numerous activities that cost us more money than I’d care to admit, I asked the boys what part of our trip was their favorite. Turns out they had the most fun tonight. We were at the base of the Steamboat ski resort. They weren’t doing the ropes course or riding the gondola or taming the mechanical bull. They weren’t even necessarily enjoying the free concert we’d come to attend. They were simply running around like boys. In their shorts, t-shirts, and Crocs, they ran up and down the newly re-routed Burgess Creek that now flows along the base of the ski mountain just under the gondola in a kid-paradise sort of way.
Now that our boys are 9 and 11, along with greater responsibility we’re providing them with greater freedom. We’re trying not to be helicopter parents because we want to raise free-range children. So, when we got to the concert spot, we established our home base and let the kids start running around. We knew their feet would get wet, hence the choice of Crocs footwear. Of course, being boys, the first thing they managed to do was slip and get themselves completely soaked. This made them ridiculously happy. They didn’t seem to notice when the clouds rolled in. They did run back to eat some pizza and replace their wet shirts with their jackets to warm up a bit. But, then, they were off again.
We spent about four hours at our spot, during which the boys ran, floated their shoes in the creek, splashed each other, got chased by girls, threw frisbees, and jumped rocks. This free activity was the highlight of their trip. It was like the big box that the toy came in that turned out to be more entertaining than the toy itself. Sometimes we are so busy trying to give our children the experiences we think they should have that we forget to give them the experiences they need to have. It’s important for kids to explore by themselves, to run, to be free, to discover new things all while knowing they have a soft, safe place to land when they’re ready to return. When we hover, when we imagine the worst, we hinder their personal growth. Sometimes, in our attempts to protect them, we’re actually causing more harm than good.
I’m not going to lie. When the sun had set and our crazy kids were still splashing in the creek, soaked through in their cotton shorts, hubby did (jokingly, I hope) ask me if I thought they would be hypothermic by the time we recovered them. I did also pause momentarily to picture how easily one of them could slip, hit themselves on a rock, and require stitches. But these are not good enough reasons to stop a kid from experiencing the joys of being a kid. And, the best part of all is that the joys found in being a kid are usually free once we loosen the reins a bit.
Tonight we went to a local Steamboat Springs park with the kids. This park has a merry-go-round. Remember merry-go-rounds? Those super fun, completely terrifying metal playground fixtures from our childhoods? I have always loved them. I like to spin. I love to get dizzy. Twirling on a tire swing until I can’t see straight makes me happy. Tilt-a-Whirl? My favorite amusement park ride. I will lay flat on my back in the center of the merry-go-round and watch the clouds rotate until I think I can’t stand it anymore. Then, when I get finally get off and fall over I will get right back on and do it again. I never get tired of it. My children, like their mother, love to spin, so to the park we went.
The four boys ran straight to the merry-go-round. The adults followed. Being the only one of the four adults who tolerates spinning, I hopped on with the boys. I smiled like crazy as the force of the movement tossed me around. I spun with the boys for several minutes before deciding it was my turn to push. I hopped off to give it the Old Mom Power-Up Push. I soon realized I was wearing the wrong shoes to be tearing around on wood chips, though, because when I went to jump on this time at Mom Warp Speed I slipped a bit and instead of jumping on I fell onto the unforgiving metal with my very soft left shin. It hurt, but I managed to pull myself onto the spinning base without falling off. I braced myself on one of the metal stands and checked out my leg. A raised bruise was already forming. Lovely. This is probably why you don’t find many merry-go-rounds in modern playgrounds. My friend had seen my fall and asked me if I was okay. I assured her I was as I sat back again, watched the clouds fly by, ignored the throbbing in my leg, and enjoyed the spin.
You would think that would have been enough injury to convince me that perhaps this 44 year old body should not be jumping onto merry-go-rounds…at least not in super cute but completely impractical merry-go-round-running sandals. You would be wrong. Did I mention that I love to spin? When the ride stopped, I hopped off again and offered to push. This time, I spun it in the other direction, as if that was what kept me from making the platform full on the first time. (Yes. I am blonde. And your point is?) This time, my right shin took the beating. My shoe got caught as I attempted to jump on and as my leg hit the platform it was dragged mercilessly across the coarse metal. I knew immediately and without looking that this was a worse injury than the last one. Once I was settled and could safely glance at my wound, I noticed an inch-long flap of skin had been pulled back, the white skin underneath was exposed and already beaded with blood. Crap. I hate it when that happens.
I stayed seated until the ride came to a full and complete stop, jumped off with resignation, and asked if we could head home so I could bandage up my wound, which was now full-on bleeding down my leg. Once home, I doctored myself up, took a couple Advil, plunked down on the couch, propped my legs up, and put some ice on the rapidly rising bruises on both shins. Hubby inspected the damage thoughtfully.
“It was the shoes,” I said. “I was wearing the wrong shoes. You just can’t run and jump on a revolving merry-go-round in cute sandals like those,” I told him, justifying my injuries.
He smiled at me and said nothing because he’s super smart that way.
Statistically speaking, the swings record the highest incidence of playground injury, 22% to only a paltry 1% for my pal the merry-go-round. I stand by the assertion that it was incorrect footwear that resulted in my bruised and battered shins and not user error, the inability of white women to jump, or old age. If life is about the ride, my ride is a spinning one. Next time I decide to jump on an already revolving merry-go-round, I’ll simply make sure I’m wearing more appropriate shoes. And maybe some shin guards.
Why is relaxing such hard work? We’re meeting some wonderful, lifelong friends arriving from Minnesota at the airport tomorrow morning before heading up to our home-away-from-home in Steamboat Springs. To get ready for five days in the mountains, I spent the majority of my day preparing for our trip. I was trapped in the hot, upper floor of our home, peering into closets, ironing clothes, folding laundry, and laying out outfits.
While packing, I spent a lot of time watching HGTV. This is one of my husband’s favorite channels. It is not mine. I hate the House Hunters who think they’re going to get granite counter tops and hardwood floors in 2800 square feet in an old but totally updated house in the big city for under $200k. The Million Dollar Rooms show makes me physically ill. Today I saw one house where the gentleman spent $7 million dollars on his swimming pool area, including a champagne-filled hot tub. Seriously? A hot tub of champagne? I don’t care how much money you’ve earned and saved. That kind of extravagance is unconscionable. My favorite (and I mean that in a tone dripping with sarcasm) is the overseas House Hunter editions where you get to see some spoiled Americans searching for their dream space in a foreign country and then being put out because most people in the world don’t have homes like we do in the United States. You know, they wanted a home in Colombia but why do all the homes in Colombia have to be so, well, Colombian? About the only good thing I can say about HGTV is that it’s nice to have on when you’re doing something else. What really sucks about HGTV, though, is when an episode I’ve already seen today re-airs after 5 hours. That means I’ve spent way too much time watching HGTV today.
Still…once I get beyond the mind-numbing television and the dreams I’ll be having tonight during my five hours of sleep about not forgetting Joe’s retainer in the packing process tomorrow morning (oh…and did I remember to feed the frogs?), I realize that none of what happened today or tonight or even in the morning on our way out of town will matter. By the time we’re on our deck tomorrow afternoon with Jeff and Jessie, having drinks and enjoying the view of Steamboat Springs while our four boys play together, it will all have been worth it. Even the time spent watching HGTV.
My previous web site is now just one big fat user error.
At the end of 2010, I had this brilliant idea. At least it seemed like a brilliant idea at the time. I would create my own web site and begin writing again via a blog. How hard could it be, right? I mean, hundreds of dozens of people write blogs every day, and judging from the content, grammar, and spelling on some of those sites, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist (or an English major, apparently) to publish a blog. So, following hubby’s advice, I opened up iWeb on my MacBook, did a simple page layout, registered a domain name (Moms Into Adventure), and put myself out on the web in an official way. I had forgotten, though, what a headache web publishing can be.
Back in 1998, when I was a graduate student studying professional writing at Illinois State University, I took a class called Hypertext. The course objective was to gain an understanding of how writing for the Internet is different than writing for hard copy publication. Words on the Internet are mutable. With a mouse click, one word can springboard you into an entire new realm of thought or investigation. An Internet writer would be able to share multiple concepts succinctly simply by adding links within their work. One of our graded projects involved fabricating our very own web page that in some way defined our identity. It would be my first web page ever. To do this project, I purchased some 1998-simple, Adobe PageMill web software and learned (kid you not) some actual HTML. My identity project for this class is STILL on the Internet today, rife with dorky animated gifs and appallingly unfriendly web site mapping, which only proves how your current Internet activity, no matter how innocuous it seems, will haunt and embarrass you in the future. Wait and see.
At any rate, it had been a long time since I had designed information for the web. Because our web sites were created for a class and hosted by the university, we weren’t allowed to upload them directly. Instead, we saved our sites to floppy disks so our professor could review and upload our information to the web via FTP. It was all so late 1990s. So, you can imagine how I struggled trying to negotiate new Internet publishing programs after what I learned a million years ago when I was 30. The new web site I created last year came with an enormous learning curve, a lot of cursing, and much consternation and head scratching. Still, once I got the hang of it, I persevered and managed to publish nearly 100 posts last year, which was the most writing I had done in nearly a decade. I was proud of my small piece of the web.
Then, yesterday, I went to revisit something on my old site only to realize that, exactly as promised, Apple had eliminated MobileMe, the space where my blog had been peacefully residing. The entire blog was no longer on the Internet. Even though hubby had mentioned that MobileMe was going away, I don’t think it truly ever registered. Truth is that I only listen to him about half the time, so I must have missed the half where he mentioned I would have to put my information elsewhere or lose it forever. Oops.
Consequently, I have spent the better part of the afternoon creating a new site on which to house my 2011 blog articles. I’ve had to undo the previous forward so that it no longer sends users to the defunct MobileMe page. I’ve learned about Nameservers and spent more time with Go Daddy than Danica Patrick. I had to remember passwords I haven’t touched in 18 months, and you have to know the amount of effort that went into that because I can’t even remember what I had for lunch yesterday. At one point, I manually had to uncross my own eyes. It’s been a mind-numbing, excruciating process, and I’ve only managed to upload 5 of my 100 previous posts so far. Happy. Happy. Joy. Joy. I really need to look into getting my tech support some tech support because I’m about ready to fire her…I mean, me.
The Internet in all its insanity, though, is merely a metaphor for life. The things you wish you could delete will stay with you a lifetime, while the things that mean something to you can be gone in an instant. The only constant is change. If you stop to blink, you will miss something vastly important. Some associations can be easily repaired while others can be lost forever. And, no matter how much you learn, there’s always more you will never know. As hard as it is to keep up with the way of the future, when you decide to quit adapting to the technology of the present you become a fossil. So, to avoid going the way of the dinosaurs I will keep up with this crazy Internet publishing nonsense…at least until the next better thing comes along.
Live Now and Zen 