Game of Life

It was a Sunday afternoon in spring when the phone rang.  A friend, we’ll call her Sam, called exasperated and exhausted.

“Tell me,” she ground out, “does the urge to tell my son to swallow his spit after the 250^th request for a glass of water after I tucked him in make me a bad mom?”

I tried not to laugh. I failed. The whole thing sounded way too familiar. “I don’t think so,” I said “But, I have to admit I’m not the best person to ask. Growing up, Swallow your spit was the mantra of all family car rides, right before you can pee when we get there.” I thought a moment. “In hindsight, the former was probably to avoid the latter.”

Sam laughed, although it was more a weak and defeated chuckle than true guffaw.

 “What happened?” I asked.

“I have no idea! What on earth would make a previously happy and independent two-year-old suddenly develop Velcro and permanently attach himself to my body? I had a genuine fight or flight response.”

 I could almost hear her hands flying around her head as she spoke.

“I tried to put him down in church, he is heavy. He wouldn’t let me! I literally ripped him off my body and set him down for two seconds. I had to; he was pulling my shirt off in the middle of service!”

“I bet that didn’t go over well,” I said.

“He and my shirt ended up on the floor. I don’t know what was louder, his screaming bloody murder or the ripping of my last good blouse. Not only did the two ladies behind me get a show but the priest’s wife looked at me like I must have beaten him. I had to leave. I never leave church!”

“Well,” I said. “Again, you are probably not asking the most neutral party. I have a Velcro child too.”

“Ugh,” said Sam. “I don’t know how to do this! I am actually beginning to resent this mother-child bond thing.”

“That’s because kids use emotional superglue,” I said and was rewarded with a true laugh from Sam.

Sam and I came to no great revelation that day. Nor have we come to many in the years that have followed, pregnant with parenting missteps and angst. We have soldiered on, comforted by the simple companionship of murky parenting. She stinks. I stink. She struggles. I struggle. Neither of us knows what we are doing and we both suspect the kids are fully aware of that fact.

Today, many, many years later, I find myself mulling over that particular conversation in the scant quiet time between career and kids. Our Velcro kids are ten years older. As it turned out we didn’t have to go to kindergarten with them. Why did we feel so bad, so judged by ourselves and everyone around us? Why do we still feel that way?

I know there are others like me out there, wondering if they are bad parents. I hear them muttering over cereal choices. Do I pick what the kids will eat or what they should eat? I see their stories on social websites. My son slapped that mannequin’s naked behind! Where did he learn that? And why was she naked? I have been on the receiving and giving end of the Mortified Parent dance. It usually goes something like I am so sorry! I have no idea why he did that. He certainly didn’t learn it from us! It will never, ever happen again.

As a mother, it is too easy for me to take on my children’s failings and triumphs as a direct extension of my action or inaction and thereby an extension of myself. As another friend of mine pointed out today, we are adults raising future adults. Like a business that nurtures, develops and puts out a product, we nurture and develop another human being and release them into the world.

Being a parent has been a rollercoaster ride of terror and elation. I have held them, loved them, and watched them fall and fly since the minute they were born.   I have given tears, given sweat, given blood and allowed them to break my nose.  Well, not so much allowed them to break it as failed to avoid having it broken. I have scars and innumerable ruined panty hose from the Velcro child.  She continues to cling but in a less affronting manner and with more eye rolling.  

My grandma, a wise woman, said “You have to look in the cracks.” Parenting isn’t like making the bed, or completing a project at work. There is little total and immediate gratification. When my kids are asleep and it is quiet enough to hear myself think the parental Guilt Monster comes out of the closet. Then all I can remember of the day is how many times I yelled or when I punished them or spoke with impatience. Then I feel like a rotten, terrible failure.

But I am not a rotten, terrible failure. I just forget to look in the cracks. I forgot about the little things.

What’s in those cracks? Well for me it is this: They tell me they love me. They want to play games, read stories and go to the zoo, with me. They draw me pictures of Mommy and Daddy, and cover them with hearts and X’s and O’s. They come to me when they have had a bad day, skinned knee or bruised feelings. I am the ultimate lost crayon finder, lunch maker and belch contest winner.

Like all of the rest of us, kids have their own junk.  They come in with it, like some cosmic, karmic booby prize.  I can just hear Mr. Announcer Guy saying:

.... and Mrs. Holdsworth, for playing the Game of Life you will go home with a lovely 8 pound, 4 ounce, pink bundle of joy.   She poops, she eats, she coos, she cries and burps, she's got ten   fingers, ten toes, a cute little belly button and smells like heaven (most of the time). But wait! As a bonus gift-just for playing- you get a free upgrade to the super deluxe model complete with Kung Fu grip and tentacle arms with super glue suction.  This model won't eat anything but cheerios for three years and is afraid of spiders, dogs, men, vacuum cleaners and anything blue.  And just to say Thank You for playing we will throw in the Insecurity upgrade for free!  This fabulous piece of software will make it impossible to put your bundle of joy down until one day when she wriggles out of your arm, turns, waves bye and runs off without a backward glance. She will ruin your clothes, date night and any hope for a decent night’s sleep. She will consume your heart and your mind and you won’t care a bit, well, maybe a little bit, but you will be too busy to notice.

*Disclaimer*

Sanity upon arrival of your child’s 21^st birthday not guaranteed. Results advertised in parenting books not typical of average user, in fact, throw them out, all of them. Game of Life will not be held responsible for any lost sleep, watches down the toilet, important phone messages or remote controls (tie it to a brick, it works) socks under the couch, candy stashed behind the book shelf, parental hearing loss due to long hours of the Wiggles, Yo Gabba Gabba, Hannah Montana or Justin Bieber, or transient pediatric deafness due to requests to clean her room, feed the dog, take out the garbage or give back that diary. Fees for services will not exceed 150% of your funds, energy and patience. Results of good parenting or even mediocre parenting are not guaranteed under any acronym known to man or universe. These kids are wildcards, accept it. Refunds will not be awarded under any circumstances including public embarrassment, hunger strike or Goth/emo period. As the author’s grandmother says, you can’t return her, you already used her. The views and opinions of the author expressed in this article do not necessarily state or reflect those of said author every day of the week. After all, she has her good days and her not so good ones but now she has to go because the dog is choking on something, the boys are beating each other with Lego swords and the girls are way too quiet. Have a nice day. J

Dam: A Lesson in Fluid Dynamics

My inspiration is frozen like the ice building ever higher along the gutters under my house eaves.  My words, my story, are stuck, entombed within the winter of my creativity.  Ha.

Now is the winter of my discontent… 

Shakespeare really knew how to whine!  Damn straight I am discontent.  I have just spent the better part of three days embroiled in a battle of wills with Mother Nature for the possession of my roof and a petulant muse for possession of my creativity.  I have no idea what I did to piss those girls off but they are exacting their revenge in the form of dams.  My roof has ice dams.  Big ice dams.  Hoover ice dams.  My inspiration just seems dammed.  Or maybe damned?

For those of you not acquainted with ice dams I will explain these little winter jewels.  An ice dam is much like it sounds:  a large mass of ice that collects in the gutters of roofs.  As the snow melts water backs up behind the dam and comes into the house destroying the roof, the ceiling, the wall.  You name it – it’s trashed.  In short, Mama N. is threatening my comfortable life.

   

As for my dammed creativity, I believe the culprit to be a kissing cousin to Cabin Fever and Midwinter Blues: Restless Writer Syndrome (RWS).  I have seen it before and recognize the symptoms.  I am grouchy, cranky, distant and petulant.  My dreams are strange, full of fantastical creatures and complex plots.  Reading, my go-to self soother, is a hopeless act.  I can’t concentrate on a book long enough to reach chapter three.  I have trouble sitting at the computer unless it involves long hours of Facebook and Bejeweled.

On the home front, I feel the urge to reorganize my pantry, my kids’ lives, kids’ rooms, or silverware drawer.  Yesterday I found myself scrubbing the sink fixtures with a toothbrush.  Some may confuse this with spring cleaning or nesting but RWS is pure, unadulterated procrastination.   In short, I will do anything but write.  When I do manage to sit down with my manuscript the writing, well, it just plain hurts. 

“I should have been an accountant,” I tell my husband.

“You would hate it,” he says.  “It’s boring.”  This is his nice way of reminding me I can’t add two and two in my head.

I make a face.  “I would have a paycheck,” I say.  “I could work part-time and still be here for the kids.  We could afford summer camp.” 

“Yes,” he says.  “You could.” We have had this conversation before, usually over a beer and the want-ads.  “But--” 

I roll my eyes in interruption and take another pull from my bottle. 

“But.”  He emphasizes the word but with a toast of his own bottle,   “You’re a writer.  You have always been a writer, even when you tried to be other things.  You will always be one.  Like it or not.  You cannot resist the Force young Jedi,” he smirks.

That smirk irritates me even more than his paraphrasing Star Wars.  At least it wasn’t Spock.  It’s only logical.  I might have hurt him.

“I don’t want to be a writer,” I whine.  “It’s too hard.”  I flop down on the couch.   My husband waits patiently.  This isn’t his first rodeo.  

I am wrong.  The most irritating aspect of this conversation is he is right, as usual.   “A new character introduced himself today,” I finally say, sullen and pouting.

“Oh?”  He says oh but it sounds like I knew it was something like that.  “Tell me.”  He sits on the edge of the couch, ready to retreat to higher ground if things get too hairy. 

“It’s complicated,” I groan.  I have been avoiding this conversation all day but I have to face it sometime.  “He’s a Collector.”

“Really?  What does he collect?” 

My husband is good at this part- the listening part.  He knows not to give opinions, try to help.  Writers hate that, at least this writer does.

“People,” I say. 

“Really?  Why?  How?”

“I don’t know!  He’s some kind of bloodhound, a human-ish GPS system.  Once he collects you he can find you anywhere.  He has to touch you, emotionally.” 

“That could come in handy with our teenagers.” 

“This is serious,” I say.  “I don’t know what to DO with him.”  I sink deeper into the couch, deeper still into my pout.  “There were two of them,” I whisper, like admitting to a dirty little secret.  “An older one and a younger one.  The younger one hadn’t collected anyone yet and the older one was giving him some speech about the futility of denying who or what he was.” 

My husband raises an eyebrow.  I feel a Spock moment coming on. 

“Please!” I say, holding my hand in front of my face.  “Spare me the movie quotes.”

My husband eyes the beer and the want-ads and gives me a wry look. 

“Very funny,” I sort of snarl at him and huff but I continue.  “I saw the older man’s face.  It was covered in tattoos- like spirals and circles.  He could make them appear or hide them.”  I pause, pulling the image of the man into my mind.  It still disturbs me, fascinates me.   “He wanted me to see what he was,” I continue, studying the man in my head.   “The tattoos were names.  Some were moving, like spinning wheels, some still.  They were names of all the people he had collected.”

I pull away from the dream and focus on my husband.  He just looks at me.  I hold my breath.  I can’t help it.  It’s times like this when I wonder if he is sizing me up for a pretty white jacket, weighing the pros and cons of having me committed. 

He furrows his brow a little, takes a sip of his beer and speaks.  “But why does he collect people?  How does he fit into the story?” 

Phew.  No nuthouse for me today. 

“I don’t know yet. I am kind of annoyed they even showed up. I have enough to deal with as the story is now.  And then there is the black dog thing.”

“Black dog thing?” he asks. 

“Ugh,” I moan and run my hand through my hair, pulling just a little to ease the ache that is building in my brain.  “Don’t ask.  First he was a college Joe, then a huge black dog with red eyes and then he exploded into a rainbow mist when the sun touched him.  It was disturbing.” 

“I’ll bet.  Kind of mixing your monsters there.”  He shakes his head.  “You and Stephen King should start a support group.” 

“Tell me about it,” I say.  “These dreams are doing me in.” 

Sensing the crisis is over my husband smiles and holds out his hand.  I reluctantly relinquish the paper.  “I will save it for later,” he promises.

“This sucks,” I say. 

He laughs a little and shakes his head.  “You’ll survive.”  He says and heads out to check on our roof.

“Doubtful.” I mutter to his back and trudge upstairs to write down everything I can remember about Tattoo Man and Dog Boy. 

I have survived, so far.  The roof has held, knock on wood.  I will keep working at both issues until there is a clear winner.  Make no mistake.  I fully intend to be the victor.

I suppose dealing with the process of writing as well as many of life’s problems can be compared to my struggle with ice dams.   The way I see it, there are two choices: 

1.  You can stare at said issue and pray it doesn’t get any bigger, turn messy.  

2.  You can climb up to the edge and start hacking away at said issue, inch by inch. 

Sometimes progress is painful.  You get ice in your eye, cut your hand, get buried in snow or fall off the ladder all for one lousy measure of progress.  Sometimes you take a half-hearted whack at it and whoosh!  Things break loose in one big rush and the problem is solved. 

Perseverance, Patience and Will- the three Muses no one talks about.  They aren’t sexy.  They aren’t full of flowery language, beautiful music and vibrant color.  However, you let these three gals into your life, with their sensible footwear and comfortable pantsuits, and they will pave the way for their flashier sisters.  Eventually momentum will kick in and the water (or ideas, or solutions) will begin to flow in the right direction. 

Conversely, ignore the elephant in the room or a monster in the closet and an inevitable torrent will find its own way through in the most inconvenient way possible.  It could, for example, let loose all over your brand new cashmere sweater in the upstairs closet and then ooze its way down the wall into the girls’ room and ruin a new iPod dock.  But I'm just guessing here.

On that particular want-ad, one beer evening I didn’t want to talk about plot or characters or writing.  I had been dreading it as much as I had dreaded spending my day up on that ladder, hacking away at the ice in my gutters.  But after a few rusty swings the dam broke and the story began to flow again.

As for my roof, tomorrow’s sun will help along today’s effort.  I won’t be up there.  I will be writing.  The Collector found me and I will give him some time but Dog Boy is on his own.

You can't wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club.   - Jack London, Author.

Plan Five

When I was young, my Sunday school teacher asked our class if we thought God let us all do our own thing or did He “dip his spoon into the world and gave it a stir once in a while?”  My answer was immediate: God was definitely a Betty Crocker.  Not only did He mix things up now and again, but I was pretty sure He was switching out ingredients behind my back.  Even as a child I could grasp the futility of planning life. 

To plan: to devise or project the realization or achievement of.  – Merriam-Webster

Once upon a time, I had a grand plan. We will call this Plan One. I was going to write, and I did.  I wrote a piece here, a piece there - published almost anything I submitted.  My kids were very little at the time so it was “okay” if I was spotty with my commitment.  As time went on I adjusted to Plan Two and became involved in the medical field again in an effort to “do something responsible with my time” and earn a paycheck.  The writing took a back seat but it was “okay.”  There would be time later.  I had a plan.

Now, if you aren't a writer you may not grasp the desperation that comes with this affliction.  Writing, for me is an addiction.  I can merrily roll along for only so long until I fall off the wagon.  Again.  To be honest I violently launched myself out the window of the moving wagon of Plan Two, terror across my face at the prospect of a lifetime of responsible and sensible gainful employment.   There was also the matter of Later, a word I believe should be written with four letters and followed with a thorough mouth washing.  You see, I woke up one day, took two asprin for the headache that always comes from too much cabernet, looked into the mirror and realized today was later.  I wasn’t twenty-four anymore or even thirty-four.  Later was now.   I needed a new plan.

I attended a writer’s retreat  to jumpstart Plan Three.  I was going to write a novel.  It was a momentous time for me.  I had a story and I was going to write it.  Plan Three was it baby.  I came home with visions of book covers dancing in my head.  That evening my husband informed us we were moving 3000 miles away.  I left Plan Three in the dumpster as we pulled out of our New Hampshire home headed for Texas.  It was ok.  We were headed on an adventure.  Every writer needed adventure.
 

Plan Four took shape a few years into our Texan experience.  I fleshed out my ideas for not one but three consecutive books.  I researched, read and wrote.  After three months I had a very rough first draft.  I told people I was writing a book to hold myself accountable.  If people knew my plan I would have to produce or explain why Writer was up on the shelf with Actor, Doctor, Teacher, Midwife, Nurse and Artist.  I had tried on a number of lives and discarded them to the back of my life’s closet one by one, tags still on, barely worn and very much unfinished.  There are innumerable unfinished novels out there in the cold, hard world.  Mine would not be among them. 

I designed a dummy book and photographed it on a bookstore shelf between Hogan and Howell.   Momentum built and it looked to all, including me, that Plan Four was the charm.   Four months later we moved.  Then my kids had lives of their own.  Then the house needed attention.  Flu season came.  Summer vacation arrived and left.    By the following Fall my brilliant Plan Four lay pitifully on the floor, next to discarded flip flops and dust bunnies, disintegrating in the pressure cooker of my life.  Suddenly all the excuses I had been placating my ego with were no longer “ok.”  My lack of progress was decidedly not ok.

So what now?  I wondered.  Maybe I am not cut out for this.  Maybe I am not a real writer.  An author once told me to be a writer you must write every day.  Anything else means only that you write.  I wanted to be a writer.  I needed to be a writer.  I needed a plan.

Abraham Maslow, psychologist, is quoted as saying “If you plan on being anything less than you are capable of being, you will probably be unhappy all of the days of your life.”  I believe him.  So, here’s my plan:

Plan Five: plan to be amazing.  Plan Five:  to be a writer, word by word, sentence by sentence.  Plan five: to write, to bob and weave with the punches of everyday life and come back each day for more.  Plan Five: to have no plan at all.  In the immortal words of Steve Winwood: “Just roll with it baby.”

“We can't plan life. All we can do is be available for it.”-Lauryn Hill, musician