Looking for Molly Ringwald

It’s the 30^th anniversary of The Breakfast Club this year.  30 years.  Wow.  I wasn’t old enough to see it in theatres the first time around, but definitely remember seeing the previews for it and would have liked to have been allowed to see it on the big screen at the time.  It wasn’t until a few  years later, sitting in a friend’s basement, that I finally watched the movie on a fresh VHS tape.  I was completely enchanted with the characters in this movie, how real they were, the fact that there weren’t any real fairy tale endings for them.  They presented problems that my friends faced, that I faced.  They were really just all of us.  Not that I was exactly like Molly Ringwald, or Ally Sheedy or Anthony Michael Hall.  There was a little bit of each of them in all of us.  And we saw a little of ourselves in each of their quirks.

By the time I finally did see The Breakfast Club, what many consider one of the defining films of that decade, I was already well familiar with the other teen movies of the time.  John Hughes just seemed to get us and he was making movies with characters that were incredibly real, incredibly connected to our experiences, to things that we cared about.

Now, I was slightly enchanted with Pretty In Pink at that age, though I find myself more annoyed than anything these days.  I was always more of a Some Kind of Wonderful girl.  I think part of it might be that I identified with Watts more than I did with Andi.  I wasn’t a complete tomboy, but certainly more like that than the ultra girly, always in angst, Andi.  But Molly Ringwald herself was something to behold in her heyday.  She was the girl that some part of us always wanted to be.  Something about her spunky red hair and forever underdog status resonated with me, and with most of the girls I knew growing up.  It’s no coincidence that she and Anthony Michael Hall played parts in so many of those movies.  They were the EVERYbody actor.  We recognized them.  And, as adolescents, that’s a big part of what we’re all looking for – confirmation that we’re not freaks.  That everyone else is just as screwed up and there’s hope for us after all.

Who am I?  It’s the question we all start asking from the moment we are first capable of abstract thought.  First, we identify as one gender or another, then as a member of a specific family, maybe a member of a church or community.  But then we start to label ourselves, or others label us.  Maybe we’re the funny one.  Or the smart  one.  The best athlete.  Or the worst.  Maybe we’re the kid who’s picked last on every team, or the kid who’s never picked at all.  And we start to wonder if the labels are fitted to us or if they define and mold us from the beginning.  There’s no such thing as any perfect label – we’re all more than what the world sees of us in quick snapshots.  This is what Andrew, Johnny, Claire, Brian and Allison discovered in a Saturday detention.  They had to smoke a little pot first, but they had a real and honest discussion.  It’s almost unheard of for a group of high school kids to really sit and have that kind of open dialogue in a group.  How frightening.  How freeing.

Where someone fits in, or if they don’t, was a recurring theme in this genre of movies, as much as how the opinions of your social strata could keep true love at bay.  John Hughs in particular was genius at highlighting this.  While he did not direct Some Kind of Wonderful, he did write the script.  Like Pretty in Pink before it, it features a main character from the quintessential wrong side of the tracks, a quirky best friend, and an unattainable dream – in this case, the boy, Keith, gets a date with his dream girl.  His best friend, the tomboy, Watts, surpresses her own affection for Keith to help him set up the perfect date.  But social restrictions get in the way and Keith finds himself wondering which girl is really his dream girl.  All of that sound kinda familiar?  It’s pretty much Andi and Blayne and Duckie all over again, but I think I prefer Keith’s story.  Maybe because I always secretly rooted for Duckie to get the girl.  Maybe because Eric Stoltz gives such a stellar performance in this one, not to mention that he was pretty cute back in the day.

Lea Thompson, Marty McFly’s girl, plays Amanda Jones – popular girl, who realizes she is trapped by her own popularity.  She agrees to the date with Keith to feed her own agenda, but learns something about herself along the way.  It’s another of Hughes’ themes – how popularity is its own kind of trap.  How those caught in its grasp are unable to make their own decisions or make friends outside their own group – how they feel stuck.  Claire and Andrew in Breakfast Club,  Blayne in Pretty in Pink, and Amanda in this flick all hint at how hard their lives are, living under a social microscope.  And we all know how cruel kids can be.  These movies don’t attempt to hide that.  They tell us high school, and growing up in general, is a hard, suck ass, place to be.  Those on the outside of the popular crowd long to have a taste of that world, to date the golden children, to try on their lives.  And, yet, they learn that these other glittering lives are just as imperfect as their own.  Life is messy – fitting in isn’t easy, and it isn’t everything, seems to be the message John Hughes and his peers were throwing out there for us.  He presents this, but never presumes to offer a solution.  It’s part of the charm of these movies – they’re a mirror of our insecurities not a recipe for fixing our lives.  In real life, the guy never turns to his best friend and realizes he’s secretly been in love with her all along.  Real life Duckies get their hearts broken again and again.  Good guys sometimes get kicked in the face.

I was neither an Andi nor an Amanda, and certainly never a Claire.  I wasn’t the outcast or loser, but nor was I the golden girl.  Neither prom queen nor basket case.  A friend once told me I am a lot of Anthony Michael Hall, a little bit of Ally Sheedy, and a tiny bit of Judd Nelson.  It’s the duality of the human condition – we present to the world as one dimensional, because people see us the way they choose to see us.  But we’re so much more than that, each of us not one thing or another.

Seeing these movies as an adult, some things have changed and others have not.  Molly Ringwald is still the every girl, and the conflicts her characters face still ring true.  Just because we’re adults and we’ve learned how to deal with our emotions doesn’t mean we stop having them.  Allison Reynolds might believe that “When you grow up, your heart dies,” but it’s not true.  We bury these discovered truths and half truths, but we don’t ever forget them.   The things that make the emotions so true, so raw, so real is the newness of them when we are teenagers.  Everything is fresh, and everything is important.

Forever, Molly, Anthony, Emilio, Judd and Ally will be captured and represent a generation.  The movies of that genre, for the most part, stand the test of time.  Get past the terrible clothing and the cheesy jokes.  Look to the heart of who they were showing us.  Look back at your own adolescence.   I bet you find plenty in common with the brain, the jock, the criminal, the basket case and the beauty queen.

A Separation from the Stars

I have long been fascinated with looking to the night sky, finding it both overwhelming and reassuring, at the same time. I am still struck by something I read in A Stone for a Pillow, which is a biblical reflection by Madeleine L'Engle: the word disaster breaks down to mean "a separation from the stars." L'Engle goes on to reflect that it is when we are separated from the natural world, when we delve too exclusively into our humanity that we become the least human. When we are literally separated from the stars, through physical limitations such as city lights or through isolation, or ignorance, a part of us dies. We need the connection to the night sky, to the earth beneath our feet, the wind on our faces, and the stone beneath our neck for a pillow, as Jacob is said to have used in the fields.

Madeleine L'Engle was one of my favorite authors as a child, and my love affair with her writing continued into adulthood. She was the first person who awoke my interest in science, on both the large and small scale. The first person to introduce me to the idea of space, mitochondria, to fascinate me with both the macro and microcosms. And she was the first person to make me seriously think about faith, what I believe, if I think there is a divine order to the universe. She made me feel like it was OK to question those things, and to not have an answer. And she made it OK for science and faith to coexist. Because she was open about having those some questions and occasional doubts. My own religious beliefs aside, for I am still on the fence about many things, I find reassurance in knowing there is something of order and design to all life. I can find the patterns and they repeat, showing me that things are purposeful and work for a reason. L'Engle wove together science, art, poetry and personal introspection. She made me think, as all great artists do.

Being outside at night has long been of comfort to me. When we fear the darkness, we fear not the dark itself, but what sits just outside our circle of light. But when we embrace the night, and look to the stars, there is a feeling of connection. I feel both important and insignificant in the universal design and flow. After an evening run, resting in a swing on the local playground, head tipped back, watching the stars flow back and forth as my body sways, I feel connected. L'Engle awoke a need for understanding in me as a child, and I've fed that need over the last few decades.

Science, be it biology, physics, astronomy, or geology, has long been studied, and the importance never underrated.  But science, outside of school, has remained a mystery through much of the last century.  Now, however, there is a surge of need to understand.  Through online blogging, and posting of photos on Instagram, a need to know has been awoken in many who would, in the past, never have thought to question.  Science has become accessible to the common man.  There’s a new ilk of scientists, rock stars of astronomy, of chemistry and medicine.  Neil Degrasse Tyson, Bill Bye, Richard Dawkins.  Through books, blogs, tweets, Instagram, podcasting, and television, they have brought science into everyone’s lives.  We live in what is, no doubt, a very exciting time.  I was born after man had been to the moon, but before the Challenger disaster of 1986.  I was a child when space travel was exciting, but accessible.  Yet, I knew very little about the travel itself, the process, or what was beyond our atmosphere.  What I did know, I learned in school.  The launches were televised, but the physics and mechanics were glossed over.  I suppose it wasn’t something the media felt was important for the general population to know. 

 

Now, my daily e-mail, Facebook wall, Twitter feed, news logs are filled with articles on space, astrophysics, genetic research, climate theory, and much more.  In short, we are accepting the science into our lives as something we have a right to know.

When Pluto was demoted from a planet several years back, so many people were up in arms.  What I had learned to call the ninth planet, was not a planet at all.  It made everything we had learned in school be questioned.  It rocked what little we knew about the solar system, made our own knowledge about how the universe is arranged and how it works, or doesn’t work, seem even smaller and less reliable.  Neil Degrasse Tyson, largely unheard of previously outside of the science community, became the most hated man in science.  Or at least by school children.    But he was classifying the  universe into like sets of celestial objects, and science is without empathy at times.  What this did, however, was make Tyson a household name.  I know that I started paying more attention to him after reading about Pluto being labeled as a “dwarf planet.”  I picked up Tyson’s book Death by Blackhole and fell in love with the night sky all over again.

What makes Tyson so undeniably well read and respected is that he’s not just another science geek with a telescope.  I mean, yes, he is that.  But he’s more.   I joke a lot that anyone who understands how great a mystery the universe is and seeks to understand it while dressing with such flair (just think of his awesome waistcoats), can dance like Michael Jackson and wrestled like a badass in college, well, he’s got my respect.  He’s got the respect of many people – he’s a cool guy, who likes science. A  rock god of astronomy who’s made it cool to want to study science.  We’ve come a long way, baby.  Tyson was encouraged in his early years by Carl Sagan and has said that Sagan didn’t just make him want to be a better scientist, but gave him a clue about the kind of person he wanted to be.   Someone who treated others with respect, spoke calmly and clearly about things that matter, someone who sought knowledge but also sought to enjoy life.

Tyson is not like Madeleine L’Engle, my earlier influence in looking to the stars.  She was unabashedly Episcopalian, solidly aligning her love of science and the natural world and her firm belief in a creator.  Tyson identifies himself as agnostic.  Not an atheist, because he “doesn’t care enough” to consider himself such.  He looks to the spirituality of science.  He does not discount scientists who firmly believe in a higher being – he says the high percentage of people who are well educated and still have strong faith tells him that he might be wrong, but he still holds fast to what he feels is the truth.  He does, however, speak with feeling about blind faith, because blind infers ignorant.  Ignorance is the enemy.

Tyson’s peer, Richard Dawkins, looks also to the universe, to the matters of the physical world, both seen and unseen.  Dawkins is an unashamed atheist, using science to debunk religion.  I read both authors, neither completely agreeing or disagreeing with most of their points.  They have their own views, and I have mine – confused though they often are.  L’Engle showed me there is a place for both.  I can look to the mathematical order of the world, see the patterns, and know there is some kind of design to the universe.  Some kind of force driving life.  I don’t pretend to understand it or label it.  But I know it is there, and I feel connected when I stand under the stars, and feel how alone and small I really am in the universe, and then feel the contrast that I do matter to so many other people on this planet.

Today I could open my Facebook feed, and read a dozen different articles just from this morning on the universe, the natural world, research into medicine and genetics, technology and engineering.  Website such as Star Talk and I Fucking Love Science collect articles and share them.  My favorite is IFLS’ weekly summary column that details the ten best scientific articles of the week.  This week in science, look what we have done…

We live in exciting times.  They’re not the first exciting times, though.  The philosophers of the natural world, the masters of the ancient world – they were the first to not only observe, but to share.  While Chinese naturalists, early Greek philosophers and the Vedic philosophy of India all predated them, it is the Classical Greek philosophers and those who followed shortly after who most easily come to mind.  Because they not only observed and theorized, but also wrote and shared with the masses.  While Socrates did not write many of his own observations, his student Aristotle recorded much of his teaching.  Aristotle himself was a student of the natural world, studying physics, biology, zoology, ethics, poetry and language.  While Plato was more of a narrative writer, Aristotle observed and wrote. He influenced the philosophy of many other cultures.  In his wake came others, such as Archimedes. Those who saw the order in the natural world, the greater adventure in the stars, and they shared with others.  Imagine what they could have done, if they’d had Twitter and Tumblr at their fingertips.  Alas, the smart phone was not yet at hand.

Today, scientists have the means to communicate with the larger population.  They are represented by those like Tyson, Nye, Hawking – household names, with big personalities and personal stories they are willing to share.  They’ve connected their humanity to the understanding of the universe and welcomed us into their world and their thoughts through social media.  Through them, we are experiencing a new age of enlightenment, if only in understanding how little we really know.  How much there still is to discover, on both the universal and the microscopic levels.

And what I find is that knowing more about the universe, understanding how a star is formed and what stage of life it might be in, and trying to fathom the incredible distances in space, well, none of that takes away the magic I feel standing under a sky full of stars.  The way I hold my breath watching a shooting star.  Or the way I imagine I will be overwhelmed someday when I finally do see the Northern Lights.  Understanding science doesn’t diminish the wonder – it increases it a thousand fold.  So, I thank these pioneers of scientific wonder – those who dared to bare themselves a bit to invite us into this world and open our eyes just a little bit wider.

For the Love of Words

 

Last night I was reading an article that was just a collection of some of the most enticing phrases found in classic literature.  A friend had posted it on social media and I clicked on it, half out of boredom, and found myself falling in love with some of those phrases all over again.  Whether it was lamenting a love lost, admiring the landscape, or pondering the human condition, these writers had managed to weave words into art.  It’s what all good writers do, what all good artists do – help others to see the world through their eyes.

 

                “She wasn’t doing a thing that I could see, except standing there leaning on the balcony railing, holding the universe together.”  - Salinger,   A Girl I Knew

 

With one well-turned phrase, I am seeing the world through Salinger’s eyes.  I can picture the girl, and I want to know her.  Words are powerful things, people.  Knowing when to use them is an even deeper art.  There is a profound strength in using just the right words, just enough words, and letting silence speak in between.  I’m still grappling to find that strength, to restrain my words, to not over use them or abuse them.  I find myself loving the words themselves, collecting them and gathering them into neat phrases, to be savored and shared and blurted out, sometimes without thinking.  For I often expect others to share my enthusiasm for language.

“Once upon a time there was a boy who loved a girl, and her laughter was a question he wanted to spend his whole life answering.” – Krauss The History of Love

And I feel that way about words, and stories, and conversations.  It’s how I connect myself to the world at large, to other people, to the universe I have yet to comprehend.  It’s always been that way for me, listening to conversations of others, even as a child.  Marveling at the sound of words, the way the sounds themselves could have edges, curves, undulations.  Some words are sharp and hard, regardless of meaning.  Some sound slinky and seductive and hypnotic.  Some words are fun to say.  Even as a child, I collected words, hoarded them until I could share them in a choice setting.

All good writers know this.  I am a writer, though not an author.  That would imply publication, while I merely write to amuse myself, to organize my thoughts, or to find the end of a story.  But the words, themselves, even as I type this, seem right on the page.  There is a satisfaction in spitting them out, seeing them in black and white.

English is messy.  It’s vague and imprecise, leaving room to argue or ignore.  Other languages are specific and leave no mystery.  In Russian, there is a single word that means to become so lost in reading a book that you lose track of all around you.  A single word, to express how I’ve spent a good bit of my life – seems like we should have a word for that state of being, in English.

”And now that you don’t have to be perfect, you can be good.”  - Steinbeck,  East of Eden

 

Words are also my weapon of choice.  Like many of my friends, I hide behind sarcasm and double entendres.  I cuss like a sailor, taking great joy in the sound of those words being flung out into the air.  I can almost see them hanging there.  I remember the first time I dared to curse out loud.  My heart beat a little faster, as I looked around, making sure that no grown-up had heard.  How freeing to tell my friend to go to hell, how absolutely freeing.  The word has power because we bestow that power upon it.  And in my eleven year old mind, it felt like a pretty big word.  I found bigger ones over the years, and added dire wishes to accompany them, in the fashion of the Romans, hoping great tragedy would befall someone’s entrails.  That was fun, but then again, so was dropping the f-bomb.  My teenage years were a gluttony of cursing and swearing.  Once again, there is strength in knowing the power of a word and when to use it.  A well timed, well crafted insult, I find to be a thing of beauty.  Even when I’m on the receiving end of it.

One could argue that technology has whittled down our vocabulary.  One could even say that our society is devolving into users of text acronyms and murdered punctuation.  But there are still wonderful words being used.  New words creeping into our daily use, words that evoke images of a new millennium, while leaving room to embrace the words of the past.  There’s room for wifi and ottoman to exist in the same world.

Me, I’ll continue to collect words.  Picking them off the pages of books, from movies, and magazines and conversations overheard in hallways.   I’ll string together phrases, and use them to both amuse and to anger.  Words are my solace,  my weapons, my art and my passion.

“One must be careful of books, and what is inside them, for words have the power to change us.”  - Clare, The Infernal Devices

Oh Captain, My Captain

I had just dropped off a friend after working out, in that state of tired and happy exhaustion and sweat, and reveling in the fierce summer rain storm that was cooling things off, and then I heard the news that Robin Williams had died.  Not a friend, or even acquaintance, yet he was a smile and a thoughtful line rattling around in my brain for most of my life.  From my earliest memories of reruns of Mork and Mindy to his more recent work   He was a brilliant observer of life, a timeless comedian,  and echoed some of the rawest emotions in life in some of his films.  Upon hearing the news, I sat still on the side of the road from dropping off my friend, and just thought for a moment, a sad smile on my face.  How funny that someone we don't really know at all can touch our lives.

Though Mr. Williams had many fine cinematic moments, nothing else touched me quite like the film The Dead Poet's Society.  I was still an impressionable teenager the first time I saw this, and I was awed by his performance, and by his character in the movie.  I doubt anyone on the planet hasn't at least some idea of what this film is about by now, but I was moved by the story of this teacher who inspires a group of boys through poetry and a love of life.  I wanted to be that person, though, at the time, I was pretty certain I wanted to do anything with my life but teach.  An irony to be noted only in retro, I'm afraid.  But what I wanted was to share that feeling of connection and inspiring someone else's life.  I couldn't imagine anything more worthwhile in life than to leave that kind of impression.

In the movie, Williams' character, John Keating, quotes Walt Whitman's poem, "O Captain, my captain," and says that they may call out to him as such, if they are feeling particularly brave.  They do just this, in the memorable final scene, standing up to authority to show their connection, their love for this teacher who has forever changed their lives.

Walt Whitman wrote his poem as a tribute to Abraham Lincoln.  Whitman was born in the early 19th century and considered himself the poet of America during a time when the country was torn apart.  Much of his poetry reflects his love for his country and his strong support for the Union during the civil war.  When war first broke out within his own country, he published a poem "Beat! Beat! Drums!" as a call to duty for loyal members of the Union.  Whitman used his own passion, his creativity, his passions as a way to gather support and share his views.  He used poetry to affect opinions and spread a view point.  He inspired others, for generations afterward.  He inspired John Williams' character, John Keating, he inspired students who cared to listen to the call of "O Captain, My Captain."

Whitman himself wrote the poem as a respectful mourning of Abraham Lincoln.  While Whitman had his doubts regarding the abolitionist movement and its political ramifications for the security of the union as whole (in many ways showing a more clear vision of the post war years than many of the politicians of his time), he had great respect for Lincoln who had inspired Whitman.  He inspired Whitman to support the union army, where he worked as a medic.  He inspired a poetic tribute to a leader.  Lincoln inspires many, many others generations later.  For his work as president, for his rising above humble roots, for his reported demeanor and dedication.  He inspires our leaders of today, and hopefully guides them to make better choices.

Lincoln inspired through his actions, his often powerful words, his convictions, and his leadership.  Whitman inspires through his writing, a lasting mark he's left on the world.  English students everywhere may love or curse him, but he leaves his mark in one way or another through our educations.  The character John Keating in Dead Poet's Society inspires us to not take a single day for granted, to seize each moment, and to "suck the marrow out of life."  Robin Williams left us that inspiring performance and at least a dozen others.  He inspires us to share our art, and the way we see the world, even when it's difficult, even when it sucks at our own emotions to do so.

My hope is that someday I can inspire someone.  Not in a big way, not to write a lasting poetic tribute or to commemorate my words in film or print.  I hope I inspire someone to be happier, to think a new thought, or want to do something brave, no matter how small.  No matter what, we all want to be remembered, to leave an impression, and to inspire.  It's our own fossil left behind  - our mark.  Oh captain, my captain, how the world will miss Robin Williams' brilliance, and how lucky we are to have had an artist who touched some part of our lives and made us feel something - laughter, tears, anger or outrage.  Be brave, my friends, seek to inspire.

The Year of Living Shamelessly

Why shamelessly?

So, I was thinking earlier this month about the start of a new year, 2013.  And I was thinking about how I'm still not making resolutions, because resolutions never really work out, and yet I still wanted to set some goals for myself this year.  I wanted, in some ways, to make this year different and the start of maybe even the second half of my adult life.  I started running this year, despite what my good sense told me, and I thought, "maybe I should call this my year of living dangerously."  But, then, I'm not a dangerous kind of girl.  So, I thought of shamelessly, and that fits for me.

I've lived so much of my life based on what was shameful.  With the idea that being shameless was a bad thing.  But, see, if we're not ashamed of who we are, then we can shamelessly enjoy ourselves and our lives.  That's the year that I want - a year to enjoy life, friends, good wine, good books, movies, moments with my children, moments - good ones - with my job.  A year to shamelessly stand up and say, "yup, I'm a big old nerd with a quirky sense of humor, and you know what?  none of you would love me quite as much if I were anything else."  Or something like that.  Maybe I won't broadcast that just yet - needs some work.

So I'm shamelessly embracing the fact that I am a gigantic, card-carrying dork.  I speak Latin.  I force my children to learn Latin.  I shove it down the throats of those in the near vicinity.  I listen to music from the 1980's - the best decade so far.  I dance, in public, shamelessly.  My children have shame for that last one, I'm sorry to say.  But it's my job to embarrass them just a little bit.  I love science, and often ponder things that no one else cares about.  It's the little things in life - why are there hairs on raspberries, anyway?  They're delicious, but seriously, shave.    I love Star Wars, and can quote it line and verse.  At least the original Star Wars - yeah, I'm that kind of Star Wars dork.  Still not ashamed.  I can quote the Breakfast Club and Pretty in Pink.  I wear bunny slippers.  I am a certified, mom-please-don't-talk-to-my-friends-about-that, geek.  It's OK...I'm not ashamed of that.  Nor of the fact  that, at this moment, I'm wearing DNA double helix earrings.  They're awesome - nothing to feel shameful about there.

I'm an awkward geek, too.  I can dance, I mean seriously, I can salsa, waltz, and swing.  But I can't walk across a floor without falling flat on my nose.  I'm that kind of awkward dork.  I run awkwardly - like a wounded badger.  It's why I started to run at night.  Now, I've decided I have nothing to be ashamed of.  Certainly those well toned men and women jogging past me with ease were once puffing along like me, though they probably looked a little more graceful.  I jog at night now, because I like it.  I like the peace.  I like the stars and the moon, and the quiet of my shoes hitting the trail.  I'm shameless about it now, and about the fact that I mostly like it.  Maybe not the feeling like I might throw up sometimes - I mean, I hate to throw up.  I'm going to be shameless.

I'm shameless now about my four decade old body.  I've had two children, fed them both, and put a lot of wear and tear on this body.  It's mine.  Scars, saggy parts, and all.  I still hear the voice in my head telling me "you're too old to wear that."  "No one should wear dresses like that unless they have a modeling worthy backside."  But this year I'm telling the voice to shut up.  My body has taken me a lot of places.  My beat up hands, with the unpainted nails, have held a lot of babies, dried a lot of tears, played music, written poems, done some hitting and some hugging.  My beat up feet with the deformed toe nails?  They've taken me all over the world.  I'm rather fond of the callused things.  I'm not ashamed of those either - I earned the calluses.  The lady who does a pedicure for me once every decade or so would disagree about the calluses - they're bad enough she calls other beauticians over to "tsk, tsk" over the state of my feet and talk bad about me in Korean.  That's OK...I'm not ashamed of  my feet.  They take me where I want to go.

I'm being shameless in what I eat, and in what I feed my families.  It's unlikely I'll impact an industry, but the way that animals are treated in the farming industry in our country is wrong.  I don't eat those animals, and now I don't eat their unhatched babies or the milk for their young either.  I'm shamelessly crunching my way through fruits and vegetables and rediscovering how awesome the perfectly ripe tomatoes can be, or a perfectly steamed spear of asparagus, or even some crunch lettuce.  So, I am shameless as I sit and eat my huge pile of greens and fruit every day at lunch, despite jokes from family and friends.  And I'm marching forward with feeding my family this way.  Maybe someday they'll thank me.  Or not.  But they'll live through the experience anyway.  No one ever died from eating fresh produce.  At least, not as long as e coli wasn't involved.

The goal I'm still working on is shamelessly telling people "no."  I have always felt that maybe people won't like me if I don't help them out.  Or maybe I'm only being worthwhile if I do everything I can to make their lives easier.  I spend my whole life in service to others, and it's not a bad thing to be.  Except the one person I have never served is myself.  So, this year I will shamelessly tell people no, I won't run their errands, drive them on pointless skirmishes, write their reports under a ridiculous deadline, or make last minute shopping trips for them.  I'll tell them no, without remorse, because I will want that time to read a book, take a run, play with my kids, or talk to a friend.  I will not feel guilty, or at least I'll ignore that guilt, at letting my kids fend for themselves, or telling their dad to feed them dinner, so I can fit in some exercise.  I'll be shameless in my need to have a few days a year to myself, and I will tell those who attempt to throw monkeys my way, "no," in a loud clear voice.  Shamelessly.

So, this one is harder.  It's easy to write on a blog, where a few friends and a lot of anonymous strangers might read my words.  I write, have always written, all the time.  I have written novels.  I have written a lot of novels.  Novels that virtually no one  has read, that I have done nothing with, because I was convinced that no one wants to read what I write or is interested in what I say.  I will be shameless this year, throw caution to the wind, and clean up one of these novels and submit it for publishing.  I don't care if it's rejected with great laughter or disdain, I will do it.  Shamelessly.  And if someone doesn't like what I write, then don't read it.  I promise, I won't be hurt.

I will, this year, and perhaps from now on, shamelessly do as I like, not as I should do - barring that it might hurt someone, including myself.  I will take those chances and not worry what it looks like, sounds like, might look like to someone else.   I will learn those things I want to learn, and I will enjoy it.  Without shame, and without worry.  I will tell those I care about that I do, despite a lifetime of being taught that it's wrong to be that openly affectionate.  It's not vulgar, it's not tacky.  It's what people do.  Shamelessly, for hundreds of thousands of years.  Our lives are short, often much too short, and we should tell people we care about them, without shame.  What could be wrong in having affection for another person?  I love my friends.  I love my kids. I love some of my family members.

And I will shamelessly accept that I have failed in some areas of my life.  I have failed with my birth family.  Fear and shame have kept me from admitting that.  I can't fix what was broken before I was born, and I will not allow shame any longer keep me from closing that door.  My birth family is a train wreck.  I am shameless in saying,  I didn't cause it.  I can't fix it.  I won't be responsible for it any longer.  I will shamelessly say how badly I have screwed up some parts of my life, and I can't undo or fix those either.  I can move forward and try not to repeat all my old mistakes.  And I can be shameless about saying I will screw up again.  It's who I am.

I am shameless in saying I'm not the world's best housekeeper.  I will have friends and family over and not apologize for books lying about, a basket of laundry waiting to be put away, or dishes drying on my counter.  If they are my friends, they will not care about those things. And I will be shameless about taking the time and effort that could be put into rectifying those things and enjoy time with people instead.  "Pardon my home, but you know, people LIVE here."  I will say it shamelessly. 

I am a woman in my early 40's, with the scars and the bags under my eyes to say I've had a lot of living.  I'm a workaholic, neurotic, sometimes psychotically energetic, dorky kind of woman.  I sometimes am sarcastic, and even occasionally witty.  Sometimes I hurt peoples feelings without meaning to, because I went for the easy joke.  I am sometimes serious, and occasionally moody, or even maudlin.  I am an insomniac who loves the quiet of the night and hears the call of adventure in a book.  I'm the most impulsive organizational control freak you'll ever meet. I'm sometimes out of control, and often hyped on caffeine.  I'm awkward and geeky and on a rare day sentimental (but don't tell anyone).  I like music and laughter and a good drink.  Sometimes I drink more than I might think I should, if I were acknowledging shame.  But I'm not.   I am passionate about music and stories and words.  I am passionate about my job and doing it well. I'm shameless about all of it too.  Just as I should be.

It's the year of living shamelessly.  What will you do when you let go of your shame too?

And So Life Goes On

As 2012 drew to a close, and everyone waited to see if the world might really end, I just wanted to know where a new year might be going.  My daughter decided that there wasn't a high enough probability that they were right and she studied for her finals anyway.  Good decisions, since her high school was still standing on December the 21st.  And so life goes on.

There's always a prediction that the world is going to end.  There's always someone who believes that they know the exact moment we are all going to cease to exist.  What I know is that someday I will cease to exist, and I don't really care to know the how or when.  Life goes on.

2012 was a weird kind of year.  I don't believe in karma per se, but I started 2012 so angry, so confused, so fed up with life in general, it's little wonder I had the start to the year I did.  In January, I got hit by a car.  That sounds so momentous, but really, it was just a car backing up in a parking lot - they didn't see me, the bumper clipped me, and I got knocked onto the sidewalk.  Once I regained my bearings I even thought, "that was it?  I thought being hit by a car would be more serious than that."  I walked around sore for a couple of days.  And then life went on.

And on, and on, and on.  And I didn't enjoy a single moment of it.  I was racing around preparing for Katie to graduate from middle school and move into high school.  I moved out of my house and brought my girls to a townhouse across town.  I lightened my life.  A lot.  I threw away, gave away, stored away all of the stuff that has been weighing us down.   We spent so many years accumulating stuff.  We don't need it - it just makes it too hard to clean the house anyway.  I got rid of cable and made our television a "for DVD only" zone.  We cleared out computers and extra furniture.  I bought a new bed - first piece of furniture that I really bought on my own, for myself.  I learned how to do things for myself.  Some nights last spring I was so tired, I felt half dead.  But I didn't die, and life went on.

I watched Katie graduate, and not being a person to bawl in public much, I still teared up a little bit quietly.  Life does, indeed, move on - faster and faster every year.  It doesn't seem all that long ago that I brought her to St. Francis for the first day of school.  She was 18 months old.  So cute.  So tiny.  I watched her grow up on that campus, and watched her learn and change and make friends - and lose them.  I watched her learn some painful lessons.  And suddenly, that phase in her life was over, and I have a student in high school.  I used to roll my eyes when my grandmother warned me it would happen this way - time going faster and faster.  But it does.  And I felt like somehow my 30's had gone by without my even noticing.

I'm not one to be hung up on age.  It's just a number, after all, and some of my best friends are 20 years older than I am, or ten years younger.  And I don't think a thing about it.  But what did really hit me was the way that number snuck up, and the feeling that I hadn't had enough joy or experiences or...anything...to show for it.  Life goes on.  And we should enjoy it.

So, I started some new things.  I took a road trip by myself across country.  I allowed myself a few hours to really cry, and then told myself that I was done with that.  I saw some things I had always wanted to see, and some things I hadn't planned on seeing.  I met people and talked with strangers.  Danced with an elderly Zuni man in a convenience store in New Mexico.  I walked in the rain and nearly drove my car off a mountain in a wild summer storm.  But I didn't, and as frightening as the twenty minutes or so of driving through that storm were, there was a feeling of great satisfaction in having safely negotiated my way through it and seeing that dark mass of clouds in my rearview mirror as I pulled through Santa Rosa.  I spray painted a car in the middle of a cow field, watched fireworks over the Amarillo sky, and watched the sun come up over a desert.  And I could have cried because I have wasted some time over the last decade.  Oh, not on the important things I do - like my kids, or my job - but on worrying, or choosing easy over adventure, or choosing staying in over friends sometimes.  Anything worthwhile generally takes some effort.  I am not much one for resolutions, but I resolved to make some effort.  To do the things I've always said I wanted to do, but never get around to doing.  To let go of some fear, and to try new things in life.

I started with one thing I have always wanted, but never had the nerve to do.  I got a tattoo.  Now, I'm still me and I did some research on where was the best place to go, didn't get a tattoo I couldn't cover when I want (or need) to, and followed all the care tips carefully.  But I decided fear was not a reason to not go through with it.  All of that, to find that it really doesn't hurt so much after all - as the artist said, "you wouldn't see all these big tough guys walking around with them if it really hurt that much.  women are tougher than men about pain."  I think he's right.  We have to be, afterall, to bear and care for children.  So, cliche aside, I got the tattoo I had always wanted - a dragon - on my back.  It's not huge, but I know it's there.  Sometimes now when I get nervous, I think of that, and remember I can do anything I want or need to do, as in "heck with that, I've got a dragon on MY side."  Life moves on.

Katie started high school.  I started putting together another phase of my life.  I've thrown caution to the wind a few times in 2012, and I've had some wonderful experiences.  I've made new friends.  I've had some moments of which I am less proud, but I value the experiences just the same. Sometimes because they taught me something about myself, sometimes because they helped me get closer to another person, and sometimes because it was fun as hell - even if I should have had my head examined.  2012 was weird.   But it was a good start to a new decade in my life.

I don't make New Year's Resolutions.  But I did resolve to start 2013 in the spirit of my life going on - in the best, most fun and still safe and responsible (because I'm still me) way as possible.  Life doesn't end because you get hurt, lose a friend, fall out of love, have someone you love die, or just become unhappy.  Life moves on.  You can move with it, or be carried by it.  I started 2013 by getting another tattoo (and no, most of you will never see this one either).  This one is a compass - to remind me to always know which direction I'm headed and make good choices along the way.   But to keep moving.  Life goes on - go with it.

The Path Less Traveled

My visit to the Petrified Forest National Park was certainly the highlight of my road trip, but not the only high point.  After Puerco Pueblo, I continued through the park, winding through the strange and foreign landscape.  Much as when I visited Yellowstone Park, I was struck by how many unusual geological anomalies could occur in such a small area.  Coming down in altitude from the Painted Desert Canyon, the road winds under I-40, past the old Route 66, marked by a car from years gone by and telephone poles with wires leading to nowhere.  Despite the age of those items, they are modern compared to the history they sit among.  The Pueblo is modern in comparison to the other places I saw that day.  I passed by fields of blackened ash, rock formations known as the TeePees - conical shaped rocks formed in layers of sediment, from when the desert was once a flood basin.  Those conical formations were striped in blues, greys, reds and whites.  Rounding a corner, I came to the Crystal Forest, an area rich in colorful petrified logs.  The logs lay haphazardly around the hillside, undisturbed by time, and now undisturbed by humanity, as enforced by vehicle searches at each exit.  The petrified logs lie about where the ancient flood waters left them lying, back in the Triassic.

Hiking a mile at 7400 feet is more than my lungs are used to these days.  I had to sit down and rest.  Apparently the park rangers don't mind if you rest on the petrified trees, as long as you don't try to take one.  Considering they weigh somewhere around 200 pounds per cubic foot, I don't think there was any danger.  Sitting there, it was a little like seeing what that area of the country would have been like a few million years ago.  Everything looked strange and foreign to me.  I was waiting for a dinosaur to come around one of the hills.

Leaving the park, I felt lighter and better than I had in a while, finally feeling the vacation kicking in.  I had driven 1200 miles all by myself, visited places I'd wanted to see for ages, and in the Arizona desert, my allergies were a thing of memory.  I sat in my car contemplating at the turn off for Interstate 40 - only 170 more miles to the Grand Canyon.  I decided to save that trip for another day, and instead take my time heading back to Texas, thinking  I might wind my way down the Turquoise Trail and into Las Cruces for the night.  Well...best laid plans and all of that.  At Gallup, I headed south on a small local highway, seeing by the map that there was a short cut that would take me through some great trading post areas.  It was the Fourth of July, but I figured not everything would be closed.  Hmmm....never assume.

I wandered through the hills of New Mexico, along this small highway, enjoying the scenery, but becoming increasingly concerned due to lack of traffic, lack of habitation, and lack of gas stations.  My gas tank was down to nearly a quarter of a tank, and no civilization in sight.  I had driven onto the Zuni Reservation and was mentally calculating gas mileage and whether or not I could make it back to Gallup.  I found a small business looming in the distance, which turned out to be a convenience store/restaurant/bar/hang out because it's a rainy fourth of July place.  I walked in to find all of four people leaning on the counter.  A very nice young man put down his beer and picked up a napkin to draw a map for me when I owned up to being lost.  The lady stocking shelves offered me a bottle of water.  And a somewhat elderly gentleman with long white hair and the fanciest cowboy boots I've ever seen asked me to dance.  Well, I could barely hear the music on the radio, but when an elderly gentleman anywhere asks you politely to dance, you dance with him.  It's just the right thing to do.

So, if I felt like I was on another planet and that things were a little surreal while I was in the Crystal Forest, dancing in that convenience store/restaurant/bar/place to hang out on a rainy Fourth of July, well, that was in another universe.  The song ended, the gentleman said thank you with quite a good laugh, and I collected my map.  I offered to pay for my bottle of water, but was waved off, so I left some money in the tip jar on the counter instead.  Indeed, I had been wandering parallel to a much better populated highway, and their directions led me directly to a Phillips 66 station.  So, I didn't run out of gas on the reservation, just before a thunderstorm, and I managed to find my way back go Grants, New Mexico.  I would say I had wasted a good part of my afternoon in the process, but I don't think that anything was wasted.  Life is certainly more interesting off the highway.

It turns out that life is also safer off the highway.  I had already lost a fender on I-40, so it wasn't my favorite road.  That afternoon, just outside Moriarity, the thunderstorm that had been chasing me caught up, and I found out what happens when winds sheer in off the mountains.  I also found out that the fender on a car does serve some aerodynamic function of sorts - my car shuddered with every gust of wind.  The rain came slamming in while I was on a mountain, with large trucks to the left, fore, and rear of me.  I rediscovered the fact that you are never too scared to pray.  I drove on for several miles while gripping the steering wheel as tightly as possible, because, of course, my brain thought THAT would keep my car on the road.  Must have worked, as I drove out of the rain and sailed on through Tucumcari again, getting off the interstate long enough to enjoy that stretch of Route 66 one more time.  I had hoped the neon signs would be on, as the sky was so dark, but alas, they must have been set to a timer.

I spent the night near the New Mexico/Texas border and woke up ready to ride.  Knowing I was nearly home, I popped in some good CD's, and sang off-key all the way back to Houston.  It was a long drive, but I knew that home, a shower, and my kitty were waiting for me.  With apologies to those who live in and love Fort Worth, who the hell designed those freeways?  Traffic jam at 3:00 in the afternoon, had to quickly cross three lanes of traffic to get to my very steep, very curved overpass, only to find that at the top the road split in three directions.  Really?  Felt no small sense of accomplishment at making it through Fort Worth and gliding into Corsicana, to turn south.  I-45 might as well be home, I've driven it so many times.  I cranked up the Madonna I was rocking at the time and the time flew by.

2400 miles, several wrong turns, walked in on a drug sale, spray painted a Cadillac, ate breakfast with some German bikers, danced with a very nice gentleman in a very strange store/bar/restaurant, hiked through the painted desert, sat on a petrified tree that saw the birth of baby dinosaurs, followed the Mother Road through parts of American history, and safely back home.  So much of that trip was dependent on leaving the interstate.  The interstates of America are safe.  They are well constructed, so you hardly feel a bump or know that you're traveling through mountains or canyons, in deserts or swamps.  Every interstate feels very much the same to me.  But without leaving them, you never get any variety, you never get a feel for what our country feels like.  If I had stayed on the interstate, I would have saved a lot of time.  I certainly could have flown straight on down to the Grand Canyon and back, but I would have missed all the milestones along the way.  It would have felt like just a trip and not a journey, and certainly not a vacation.  Vacations are meant to be times to leave our daily lives behind.  That's what I did when I left the interstate, and instead decided to explore without agenda, without preconceptions, and often without a map.  To find yourself, you have to embrace the journey as well.