I-70 WEST AND BEYOND – Page 18 – Travels Through Life

Resiliency, patience and a broken wing…

I bought a necklace a few summers ago while visiting in Frisco, Colorado. It’s a small silver disc with three tree branches on it. I was drawn to its simplicity. The paperwork inside the box said the charm represented resiliency. It could have stood for a whole lot of other things—love, courage, or hope —but I was glad it was resiliency, as that seemed to resonate with me. It reminded me of the swaying tree branches in the strong Kansas winds and how it’s the winds that develop the tree’s strong lateral root system. The following summer, I found a charm of similar size with a small piece of turquoise in the center, and the words “Protect this Woman” encircling it. I figured, given the amount of time I was spending alone on the trails, the silver talisman couldn’t hurt. For the last year, these two charms have dangled around my neck, offering me both protection and resilience, or so I liked to think.

My resiliency has been challenged after a fall I took while hiking a few days ago. I fell in the mud. Just typing that makes me want to laugh for some reason. I mean, really… I fell in the mud? I broke the fall with my shoulder and am now wishing my wrist had done the breaking, as I’d be in less pain, but I had little say in the matter. A week earlier, a friend had told me that being able to get up without using your arms was a good indicator of overall strength and progression of aging. I thought about that while lying in the mud and contemplating my transition to vertical. Either my core strength, with the possible help of one arm, was going to get the job done, or I was going to be the woman “who had fallen and couldn’t get up.” I didn’t linger long on that decision and dragged myself out of the mud and onto my feet upright via my core, a small, desperately needed, victory.

I also pulled my phone and sunglasses out of the mud and cleaned them off as best as I could with my hands, as my clothes were covered in mud. To my children who make fun of my phone because it has not one but TWO protective coverings on it, this is why. I made myself sit down on a nearby log to collect my wits, survey the damage, and take a few minutes to put my head in my muddy lap and cry before making the two-mile journey home. I’m not sure what concerned me more….What did I do to my shoulder? Or …How quickly my plans for the rest of the day, the rest of the week, and possibly the rest of the summer had changed in one quick slip of the foot. I was a walking mud mess that couldn’t make eye contact out of my mud-smeared sunglasses with the two people who passed me on bikes. Maybe they thought I had just participated in a Tough Mudder Run. Probably not, but it made me feel better.

By the time I got home, I was in a lot of pain, and the only way I could hold my arm was across my chest, with my hand on my heart, as if I was pledging allegiance. And I did. To never hike in mud again.

My fear was as great as my pain…what had I done to my shoulder? Was my summer ruined? How was I going to manage? I thought about a woman whom I was standing behind in line at the Gap a few weeks earlier, who was wearing a heavy-duty sling on her arm and was sharing her horror stories of pain with the man who was ringing her up, who had experienced the same injury and had worn the same sling. I remember more of their shared words of pain than what I purchased that day. Certainly, ice and a couple of Tylenol would put me back together again, wouldn’t it?

Webster’s online dictionary defines resilient as:
“Being able to become strong, healthy, or successful again after something bad happens; being able to return to original form after being pulled, stretched, or compressed.”

I know this because looking up that definition was the second thing I did when I got home. The first thing I did was take a bath, leaving my shirt on, as I had no idea how it was going to come off without scissors, which I was not going to attempt one-handed. Just thinking about maneuvering my arm out of the sleeve was painful. I put soap directly on my shirt and washed it along with my muddy legs and arms, as if it were a part of me. I was thankful for the quick-dry material that was being tested in real time. The sports bra, I figured, I’d wear for the rest of my life or until this, whatever this was, was healed.

To Webster’s definition of pulled, stretched, or compressed, I’m going to take liberties and add “broken,” because that’s what the doctor in the ER later told me. I fell in the mud and broke my humerus, or my funny bone. As soon as this stops hurting, I’m really going to laugh about that. He also told me I might want to change my shirt (that I had been wearing and washing in the shower, for over a week, and gave me tips on how to maneuver my arm out of the shirt with as little pain to the shoulder as possible. The sports bra, by the way, was removed on day four, sacrificed with scissors, in a one handed feat that took the better part of the morning.

This experience has tested my patience, exposed my vulnerability, and pushed me to do things that I’m very uncomfortable with, mainly asking for help. Having only lived part-time in Frisco for a few months, I didn’t have an extensive network of friends, but the two I had came to my aid before I had to ask, and for that, I was extremely grateful.

I’ve also developed an appreciation for the very simplest of tasks that I previously took for granted, such as applying deodorant to both arms, pulling shirts over my head, or being able to slice a watermelon, because if it’s whole, it isn’t going home with me. My hygiene is waning to almost absent, but so is my social life, so I’m giving myself a pass. I miss typing with two hands and am finding that this solo-handed hunt-and-peck method feels like a foot on the brakes to my stream of consciousness, not to mention the two-step capitalization process. I miss being able to tie my hair back…a few more days and I’m going to look like the dark-haired version of my daughter, Emery, and her husband, Miles’ dog, Olive, who is about as close to a dog with dreadlocks as I’ve ever seen. I’m tired of wearing yoga pants because I can’t get my jeans on, and if I could, I wouldn’t be able to zip them. Oh yeah, and I miss yoga.

My necklace with the resilient and protection charms is in my purse, where the nurse put it before my x-rays, no doubt with a new tangle or two, which I wouldn’t be able to untangle anyway, and if I could, I wouldn’t be able to fasten the clasp, so in my bag it will stay. One thing that a broken shoulder doesn’t seem to have affected is my ability to whine. Sorry, but I feel like I’ve got at least another 24 hours of stomping my feet and saying,

“Dammit, I want to climb a mountain, zip up jeans, ride my bike, tie my hair back, and carve out a piece of watermelon to eat.”

I cried this morning when I realized that after deciding clean sheets would make me happy, I took them out of the dryer and discovered I couldn’t make a bed one-handed. I slept under a messy pile of clean sheets instead until my sister arrived. Sometimes you’ve gotta cry.

One of my friends compared me to a bird with a broken wing, which is precisely how I feel while perched in my bed with a blue-skyed mountain vista that seems to be beckoning. Now is my “lay me in a shoebox with a Kleenex blanket to heal my broken wing” time.

Resilient? I’m not sure. I think I’ll have to wait and see what my return to original form after being fractured looks like for my answer.

Hands…The Dangling Strength That Hangs From Our Arms…

Hands. Although hardly pretty, I’ve really come to love my hands. They’re the outward representation of my spirit and in their lined palms, they have held all that I’ve loved, lost, hated, feared, created and comforted. They even hold the scar from a mishap with a tomato can lid while I was pregnant with Emery and trying to precook meals in anticipation of her arrival. I was told, after my 10 stitches to the palm, that I’d never be able to get an accurate palm reading on that hand as there’s an extra line. Maybe that tomato can lid added something to my life by adding the line – at least that’s the theory I’m going with.

My sister, Susan, told me that she had a yoga teacher once ask the class to look at their hands deeply enough that they almost seemed separate from the rest of their body and think about what they’ve done in your lifetime. I had never really done that before and became rather obsessed with the idea of my hands. Sure, the other parts of my body have also been along for the ride, but it is the hands, the very visible hands, that have created, destroyed, cradled, protected and applauded their way through this life.

Susan told me that during the process of thinking about her hands, she thought about other hands and which pairs she would recognize. She told me she would recognize my hands easily and wondered, would I be able recognize my own children’s hands out of a group of several?

“Of course I would!!!” (this definitive YES is in no way trying to neutralize my confession in an early post of not recognizing my own new born in the hospital…)

But I later wondered…. would I?

Somehow hearing that Susan would recognize my hands gave me a deep sense of comfort. She said they were hard working hands. She’s right. My hands have always felt right at home digging in the dirt. I know there are tools for that, and they do help me get the job started, but when it comes to placing a new plant into the earth I want to have full on skin to dirt contact. That being said, I’ve entered into the season of perpetually dirty nails that do not know their way around a nail salon and quite honestly, kind of feel like they don’t belong. With garden centers, on the other hand, I’m full in.

While thinking about hands, I couldn’t help but think back to a few years ago and the volunteer work I did in Perú at a center for the poor elderly. One of the activities I chose one day was to give manicures to any of the women who wanted them. Much to my surprise, almost all of them did, creating a bit of a frenzy at the small “station” I had set up. I had danced with these women, chatted with them in their homes, played games with them, but my favorite, by far, were the manicures. There was a real intimacy in holding their hand, while painting their nails and like little girls, they were in awe of the process, watching carefully and boldly pointing out to me when my little brush painted outside of the nail line.

These hands made my hands look pampered and delicate. THESE were working hands and just like Madge on the Palmolive commercial, I had all the waiting hands soaking in soapy water. I told them it was to soften the nail so I could cut them, but in reality it was simply to clean them up a bit as most were filthy. Again, these were working hands.

One of my favorites, Maria Rivera, waited patiently in line and finally took her spot as my last customer. She had the hands that needed the most work. Her fingers were bent with arthritis and her nails thick and dirty and terribly ignored. She had definite ideas as to how she wanted them to look – cut short, painted bright pink and made to look pretty.

“Bonita y rosada por favor.”

I did the best I could to make them not only bright pink, but well manicured and far cleaner than what she started with. She seemed pleased. As I held her hand in mine and tried to file the nails down to a respectable length (they were far too hard to cut), I couldn’t help but think about what Susan had told me about hands. As I worked my way across the nail of each of her short, thick fingers, I thought about the history I had been told about her, specifically how her own son had tried to strangle her. Were these hands that I was holding the same ones that pulled her own son’s hands off of her neck while trying to save her own life? What else had these very strong hands done to protect the body that they dangled from? No doubt there were many stories and I wanted to sit back and hear all of them while I held her fight, her strength and her integrity in my own hands. These same hands, that were her protectors, still honored her vanity and drew perfectly arched brows over sad brown eyes, and placed a gold hat that looked like a half-popped jiffy pop container on top of her neatly coiffed hair every morning before coming to Los Martincitos.

Me and Maria Rivera

I felt honored to feel such intimacy with these women while working on their nails and making them pretty and pink. The task at hand was the manicure, but I felt like I gained far more than what I gave. The simple pleasure of being with these beautiful hard-working women who had experienced so much hardship in their lives, one at a time, while holding their hands and letting its energy mingle with my own was a gift.


Amelia… far prouder than she’d let on…

Petronila de Leon’s nails… pretty in pink!

These hands looked a whole lot different 24 hours later…

Besides the fact that the polish was old and sticky and the women insisted on sitting right next to me rather than across from me, which made for awkward angles, plus having to work under the frustration of swarms of flies (I later discovered that directly on the other side of the wall we were sitting in front of was a garbage dump), it has become one of my most treasured memories of my time in Perú.

My own hands, the same that so often had been told to put it down, leave it alone and stop picking at it, followed the rest of myself into a nail salon for a manicure the day before my son, Thomas’ wedding last year. After the nail tech brought out the third wrong shade of pink, I had to leave because I started crying. Yes, crying. That’s not a typo. When I got home my other son, Grant, asked me if I got my hands all fixed up (boy speak for manicure) and I told him no that I had to leave because I started crying. He said nothing for a few seconds then responded with:

“You’re not ready for him to get married, are you?”

“No. He’s still 9 years old… or so it seems.”

Clearly this was not about the wedding, but rather was about my having to face, full on, the passage of time, which felt a whole lot faster than was comfortable.

It’s easier for me to be more accepting of my stubby fingers with rough cuticles and often less than perfectly manicured nails when I think of what these hands have done for me. The small hands they’ve held while crossing the street, the plants they’ve placed with hope into the dirt and the weeds they’ve pulled out in frustration, the family dog that they held while he was being put to sleep and the tears they wiped away for so many days that followed, the babies they’ve held, the stories they’ve typed. I love them in all of their flawed imperfection as they represent my history, my life and my spirit in full view. How can that not evoke a crazy sense of pride of ownership…dirty nails and all?

The End.

My 365 day project…

Everyday, since January 1, 2014, I have been taking a photo and digitally putting it into a self-publish book. Some days I’ve had a plethora of photos to choose from and other days I’ve struggled to come up with the one photo that will represent the day, more or less. I’ve given each photo a date, the number of days into the year it represents and a caption. By the way, today is day #146…

It’s been an interesting journey that has brought on challenges that I had not expected, which surprisingly has not been to remember to take a photo and digitally upload it into the book on a daily basis. Initially, I tried to outdo myself daily, each photo upping the last, most of them scenic, none of them boring, but 146 days into the project, I know now that the days that I think I’ve got nothing, are the days that I find myself slowing down, listening and simply observing and I’m always surprised with what I end up with. They are usually the days with the photos I’m most proud of.

The process has given me a different lens to view my day through (pun intended)… and through that lens, I’m finding the beauty in places and situations that I never noticed before….
Unexpected bonuses.
Open eyes.

Here are a few of my favorites…

Day #1

Day #36

Day #37

Day #71


Day #77

Day #91


Day #114

Day #146

Mother’s Day, 2014

Being a Mom was something I always knew I wanted in my life, although I never thought of myself as maternal before having kids. I was the one who, when playing house, wanted to play teenagers on dates with guys in convertibles, not mommies holding their crying babies. When my first was born, I was anxious to show him off to one of my sisters when she came to the hospital, it took me three tries of pointing through the nursery window before I located the baby whom I had actually birthed. I was devastated. Maternal, in what I thought maternal was, hadn’t magically appeared with childbirth for me. I didn’t even know which baby in the rows of pink and blue swaddles was even mine. I was post-C-section, pumped up on morphine so that I will blame the drugs. But still….

It didn’t take me long, once home, to begin to understand what maternal instincts were and feel their presence in everything I did. A couple became a family, and I became a we, and it felt like it had been like that forever. During the first few nights at home, I woke up far more than the baby did, to check to see if he was still breathing. I know I’m not the only Mom who has stood over a bassinet in the middle of the night with her hand hovering a few inches over her baby’s mouth for the reassurance of the small, warm puffs of life.

I wanted to be the best mom I could. Between reading books about my child’s emotions, self-esteem, health, creativity, and happiness, I sanitized, scrutinized, organized, and sterilized every morsel of our 6-pound bundle of joy. I wasn’t ready to believe that a dropped pacifier doesn’t have to be sterilized every time it hits the ground or that schedules don’t necessarily have to be adhered to. I relied on the educated advice of others to get me through infancy (Dr. Spock included), as I didn’t yet have the confidence to veer off the path and do what felt right to me.
A short 18 months after my first was brought home from the hospital, we had a second son. With two you get reality. Parenting books, sanitized pacifiers (or sanitized anything for that matter), and rigid schedules all went out the window, along with expectations and, sadly, a few elements of my own personal hygiene. Getting through the day with babies fed, no blood, and some semblance of a dinner on the table at night was enough of a goal for me. Thankfully, I had sisters who weren’t afraid to question me on my personal hygiene, reminding me that showering, shaving, and getting out of my jammies by dinner time would serve me well in the long run. Still, amidst the chaos of a non-perfect, non-scheduled, non-sterile, and exhausted life, I felt gloriously maternal and totally in my element.

My oldest son, Thomas, in his brilliant curiosity, reminded me to slow down and look at things. He questioned everything, and when really pensive about something, he’d say:
“Let’s think about this till Saturday night, OK, Mom?”
We spent a lot of time stretched out on a blanket watching clouds drift by. He called it our afternoon television. I called it wonderful.
Slow down. Look at things. What’s the rush?
Thanks, Thomas.

This child, who was not even two, during a frustrated moment, I was feeling with his baby brother, who had been crying nonstop for days it seemed, tapped me on the shoulder and with the innocence that can only come from a child, said:
“Just love him, Mama… just love him….”
Out of the mouths of babes…

Our second son, Grant, was my free-spirited, creative child from the get-go. He taught me how to play again, and through him, I tapped into my own magical and creative spirit. Grant lived his life at full tilt, and as a little boy, it shows in most of the photographs, as he was usually sporting some sort of wound on his face from something he never could exactly remember the hows or wheres behind it.

Grant was my kid who needed to be free… and as a toddler, hated wearing diapers in the summer while playing outside. After a few rounds of trying to fix the situation with duct tape, I gave up and let him be free…of diapers and tan lines whenever he was outside.

I let go of the “supposed tos” and “shoulds” with Grant, and when he decided that he wanted to wear plaid pants that were too small, swim shoes, and a navy blue blazer to his preschool graduation, when all the other kids would be in shorts and tee shirts, how could I say no?
He took things apart, put things together, created from nothing, and imagined everything. He was observant to a tee and would comment on a new outfit, a new recipe, or if I had changed something in the house, and with his observations came honesty….
“This doesn’t taste very good, Mom…”
Or the one that really caught me off guard was this, spoken at age 4:
“You’re pretty, Mom, but not a babe.”
“What do you mean by that, Grant?”
“Babes wear fancy dresses made of leopard.”
Was this from the Flintstones or a Victoria’s Secret catalog? I opted for the former.
Have fun. Make stuff and make stuff up. Quit worrying about what anyone thinks.
Thanks, Grant.

When Emery was born, I wanted to ride the brakes for as long as I could, because I knew she was the last. I dismissed the rules, threw out what little was left of the schedule, and enjoyed being a mom. For 5 years, short of taking her brothers to where they needed to be and keeping the family fed, I accomplished nothing while achieving everything. I acted on whims and my gut and flew by the seat of my pants with her, which more than once had me calling her in sick to her mother’s day out/preschool program because we wanted to have an adventure instead, which always started with buying cinnamon rolls as big as our heads (we measured… kind of….)
Emery reminded me of the beauty of spontaneity and impulse decisions and that every once and a while cake for dinner and pizza for breakfast is A-OK and if you need to call popcorn a vegetable, then so be it. I broke all rules with her, including letting her sleep with me as an infant, but if that’s how I was going to get a good night’s sleep, then that’s how we were going to do it.
I slowed down to almost a stop with Emery… and it was deliciously wonderful to live life at the pace and from the viewpoint of a little girl who twirled her way through life with a smile on her face and a song in her heart. Her deep-rooted compassion for others, both of the 2-legged and 4-legged variety, touched me deeply… still does.

When we first took our new puppy to the veterinarian and he made an initial examination then left the room, she asked me why the vet was a man, and I started to explain that it might have been the “woman vet’s” day off when she interrupted me with this:
“Why isn’t the Dr. a dog? Wouldn’t a dog be able to understand our puppy better than we people could?”
I couldn’t do anything but smile.
Compassion. Spontaneity. Wear twirly skirts and dance.
Thank you, Emery.

A mom once told me years ago that she wanted to be the kind of happy with her two boys that I was with my kids. When I questioned her on it, she told me that she always watched me walking with my kids from the door of Thomas’ school to the car. She said we looked so happy – a holding hands kind of happy. I’ve thought about that a lot over the years. Even though the hands were held tightly with an under my breath threat if they let go due to traffic, she was right. I felt very happy all linked together with my kids. I still do (although I’ve let go of my need to hold their hands in traffic, but still will stretch my arm out a la seat belt mode in a sudden car stop to protect my passenger, which more than likely is my purse or a bag of groceries these days…)
To all three of my kids, as a new mom, I rubbed my hands in anticipation of being your teacher, your guide, your mentor, your inspiration – you were the ones in the teacher role. I’ve learned far more from the three of you than my maternal self ever thought possible. Thank you from the bottom of my very full heart.

It’s been a banner year for this mom as I also got to claim the role of Mom-in-Law times two this year, a role that I hold dear to my heart, Brooke and Miles. I get to gloss right over the ‘sit up straight and eat your vegetables’ part and go straight to the ‘simply enjoying ‘part. I love you both like my very own.

I once read that the decision to have a child is to decide forever to have your heart go walking around outside your body (Elizabeth Stone). My heart continues on its outward journey, and I have no intention of surrendering my parental role. However, I have loosened my grip and am happy to let my kids step in and offer a helping hand or a listening ear. Those gestures of love mean as much to me as the stack of Pop-Tarts and glass of orange juice, brought to me on a tray by children in pajamas, with arguments about who got to place the tray down, while shushing each other so as not to wake me up.

Slowing down, having fun, finding our spontaneity… March, 1991

Mother’s Day, 1992

Up and Running…(part 2 of “Letting Go”…)

Thanks to the help of my good friend, Lawson Barlow, my toilet is now up and running. While he toiled away at the mess I had made (I’m learning the importance of using the right tool), his wife, Terri, and I enjoyed mint juleps on the screened-in porch. Who says that letting go and letting someone else step in and help you can’t be all that and a sprig of mint?

Although I can’t discount the importance to my own sense of confidence and self-worth that comes from doing things myself, I think that asking good friends for help sometimes, hard as it is, can do far more for me than three days of a closed bathroom door with a heap of wrong tools filling the sink, including a newly purchased hack saw. Today, the feeling of knowing I’ve got great friends who will come to my rescue trumps the feelings of pride that comes from doing it myself.

If this happens again, and it likely will, given that I have three toilets in my house, Lawson gave me my very own pipe wrench, guaranteed not to strip the threads like my overused pliers did. With the addition of a new, never-used hacksaw and a pipe wrench, my toolbox is starting to look legit!

Thanks to the help of my good friend, Lawson Barlow, my toilet is now up and running. While he toiled away at the mess I had made (I’m learning the importance of using the right tool), his wife, Terri, and I enjoyed mint juleps on the screened in porch. Who says that letting go and letting someone else step in and help you can’t be all that and a sprig of mint?

Although I can’t discount the importance to my own sense of confidence and self worth that comes from doing things myself, I think that asking good friends for help sometimes, hard as it is, can do far more for me than three days of a closed bathroom door with a heap of wrong tools filling the sink, including a newly purchased hack saw. Today, the feeling of knowing I’ve got great friends who will come to my rescue trumps the feelings of pride that comes from doing it myself.

In the event that this happens again, and it likely will given that I have three toilets in my house, Lawson gave me my very own pipe wrench, guaranteed not to strip the threads like my over-used pliers did. With the addition of a new, never used hack saw and a pipe wrench, my tool box it starting to look legit!

Up and running again! Thanks, Lawson!

Learning to let go….

Along the same lines of my giving readers a heads up not to scroll down for the naked photos that did not exist in my “Skiing Naked” post, I need to be up front about the content to follow, which is not about past relationships, disappointments, unmet expectations, or worse, but rather is about fixing toilets. I had hoped this post would have a happier ending, or an ending, but it doesn’t, and for those who want to continue to read this, I’m going to ruin the ending that doesn’t exist and tell you that the toilet is still not fixed, and I have not let go of the issue. The best I can do right now is to focus on the silver lining, which, at this very moment, means something to write about; something that may sound funny now, but had me in tears two nights ago.

The toilet fill valve on my powder room toilet decided to quit, or almost quit, but it was making noise, which is never a good thing. That much I know. When I took the video of what was going on after the flush in the back of my toilet to the hardware store, the kind gentleman who was helping me knew exactly how to fix it and showed me what to buy and how to do it, step by step, I am not mechanical. I struggle with reading instructions and then having to figure out how to follow them. Although he was only a toddler at the time, it was my son, Grant, who put together the Little Tykes toys and equipment that seemed to flow into our house nonstop for several years. Even without the ability to read at the age of three, he seemed to know intuitively how the brightly colored plastic pieces fit together to form something. I marveled. I had mechanical envy.

As the kind hardware store man was wrapping up the explanation with me on step seven or eight, or whatever step has you giving the final check with a flush, I asked him,
“Which way does the shut-off valve go to turn the water off at the toilet?”
Sometimes it’s best to humble yourself and come clean. He knew, at that point, who he was dealing with and backed up slowly to the beginning.
“A slow clockwise turn… that would be to your right.”

At one point, he mentioned “YouTube videos,” and that information, coupled with my new knowledge of how to shut off the water to the toilet, was all the information I needed. I thanked him profusely, bought the $18 part, and was on my way. I’ve got to admit that there was a tool belt that caught my eye on the way out of the store, something I’ve always wanted, but I feel like it needs to be earned, and I’m not there yet. Maybe this was the home improvement project that I’d earn my belt on.

The idea that I could do this myself gave me a great deal of satisfaction and pride, and not having to shell out a hundred dollars to have a plumber walk through my front door made me even happier. I’d love to be able to add fixing my toilet to my list of accomplishments. Really.

With feelings of confidence, I lined up the pieces that came out of the box, including the instructions, on the countertop. I watched a YouTube video three times, turned the water off, drained the back tank, and disconnected the water hose from the toilet. Then I got stuck. I couldn’t budge the plastic lug nut on the outside of the toilet, and surprisingly to me, the me who throughout my 20s used a shoe to hammer a nail into the wall, was even using the correct tool. After about 45 minutes of struggling and torquing myself in half, I gave up, which came in the form of me sitting on my bathroom floor in tears. I know it may not sound tear-worthy for most, but those emotions were coming from a place far deeper than the back of my now-drained toilet. This was about doing something so small yet so big BY MYSELF, without having to ask for any help (I’m not counting the gentleman at Ace because that’s his job). The flip side of wanting to feel that sense of accomplishment is that for the past nine years, broken toilets, flat tires, sump pumps, birds nests in porch lights on fire and beeping house alarms have become my chore to deal with by myself, whether I wanted to or not (and that “by myself” includes calling the repairman, AAA man or handyman). Although it’s taught me a lot, asking for help to begin with, it’s not something I’ve become comfortable with, even after nine years.

I’ve done a lot of scary things in those nine years without giving much thought to them, but a beeping alarm, a running toilet, and a flat tire require immediate attention, whether you want to give it or not. This is the emotional spot that when I work from, I start breaking things, on accident and on purpose, so when I texted my sister, Robin, to see if her husband had a hacksaw, it was more a cry for help than anything else, even though I still think sawing the stuck lug nut off may be the answer. He didn’t. And so I turned out the light, closed the door, and drove to Baskin-Robbins, where I ate two scoops of Jamocha Almond Fudge ice cream on the five-minute drive home. Enough.

The next night ended similarly, frustrated, with a lug nut that still wouldn’t move, but this time I made a half-recipe of chocolate oatmeal no-bake cookies because a whole recipe scared me. Half recipe was a good idea, and yes, I did.

The project is still looming behind the closed door, and I fear that one more night with the same results will end with my head in a bag of Crispy Cremes, but I’m still not quite ready to let go and call a handyman.

I don’t know how many days of walking by the closed bathroom door it will take before I call for help. Still, right now, I’m standing firm in the face of the challenge and am merely giving myself a break before going back in with a different attitude or maybe different equipment, such as a hacksaw.
To be continued…

Along the same lines of my giving readers a heads up not to scroll down for the naked photos that did not exist in my “Skiing Naked” post, I need to be up front about the content to follow, which is not about past relationships, disappointments, unmet expectations, or worse, but rather is about fixing toilets. I had hoped this post would have a happier ending, or an ending, but it doesn’t and for those who want to continue to read this, I’m going to ruin the ending that doesn’t exist and tell you that the toilet is still not fixed and I have not let go of the issue. The best I can do right now is to focus on the silver lining, which at this very moment means stuff to write about; stuff that may sound kind of funny now but had me in tears two nights ago.

The toilet fill valve on my guest bath toilet decided to quit, or kind of quit, but it was making noise, which is never a good thing… that much I do know. When I took the video of what was going on post flush in the back of my toilet to the hardware store, the kind gentleman who was helping me knew exactly how to fix it and showed me what to buy and what to do with it, step by step. I am not mechanical. I struggle with reading instructions and then having to figure out how to follow them. Although he was only a toddler at the time, it was my son, Grant, who put together the Little Tykes toys and equipment that seemed to flow into our house non stop for several years. Even without the ability to read at age 3, he seemed to know intuitively how the brightly colored plastic pieces fit together to make something. I marveled. I had mechanical envy.

As the kind hardware store man is wrapping up the explanation with me on step 7 or 8 or whatever step has you giving the final check with a flush, I asked him,

“Which way does the shut off valve go to turn the water off at the toilet?”

Sometimes it’s best to humble yourself and come clean. He knew, at that point, who he was dealing with and backed up slowly to the beginning.

“A slow clockwise turn… that would be to your right.”

At one point he mentioned “youtube videos,” and that information, coupled with my new knowledge of knowing how to shut off the water to the toilet, was all the information I needed. I thanked him profusely, bought the $18 part and was on my way. I’ve got to admit that there was a tool belt that caught my eye on the way out of the store, something I’ve always wanted, but I feel like it needs to be earned and I’m not there yet. Maybe this was the home improvement project that I’d earn my belt on.

The idea that this was something I’d be able to do myself gave me a great deal of satisfaction and pride and not having to shell out a hundred dollars (I’m guessing?) to have a plumber walk through my front door, even happier. I’d love to be able to add fixing my toilet to my list of accomplishments. Really.

With feelings of confidence, I lined up the pieces that came out of the box, including the instructions, on the countertop, watched a youtube video three times, turned the water off, drained the back tank, disconnected the water hose from the toilet then got stuck. I could not even BEGIN to budge the plastic lug nut on the outside of the toilet (I don’t even know if that’s what it’s called, but that’s what I’m going to call it from here on…) and surprising to me, the me who throughout my 20’s used a clog to hammer a nail into the wall, was even using the right tool. After about 45 minutes of struggling and torquing myself in half to get to the side of the toilet in the first place, I gave up, which came in the form of me sitting on my bathroom floor in tears. I know it may not sound tear-worthy for most, but those emotions were coming from a place far deeper than the back of my now drained toilet. This was about doing something so small yet so big BY MYSELF, without having to ask for any help (I’m not counting the gentleman at Ace because that’s his job). The flip side of wanting to feel that sense of accomplishment is that for the past 9 years, broken toilets, flat tires, sump pumps, birds nests in porch lights on fire and beeping house alarms have become my chore to deal with by myself, whether I wanted to or not (and that “by myself” includes calling the repairman, AAA man or handyman). Although it’s taught me a lot, asking for help to begin with, it’s not something I’ve gotten the least bit comfortable with, even after 9 years.

I’ve done a whole lot of scary things in those 9 years without giving much thought to them, but a beeping alarm, a running toilet and a flat tire requires immediate attention, whether you want to give it or not. This is the emotional spot that when I work from I start breaking things, on accident AND on purpose so when I texted Robin to see if Jim had a hacksaw, it was more a cry for help than anything else (although I still think sawing the stuck lug nut off may be the answer). He didn’t. And so I turned out the light, closed the door and drove to Baskin Robbins where I ate the better part of a double scoop of jamocha almond fudge ice cream on the 5 minute drive home. Enough.

The next night ended in a similar way… frustrated… with a lug nut that still won’t move, but this time I made a 1/2 recipe of chocolate oatmeal no bake cookies simply because a whole recipe scared me as I knew I’d likely make my way through all of them. 1/2 recipe was a good idea and yes, I did.

The project is still looming behind the closed door and I fear that one more night with the same results are going to end with my head in a bag of Crispy Cremes, but I’m still not quite ready to let go and call a handy man.

Still with hope…

Wedding dresses and the Leawood Police Department

I’ve been helping my daughter, Emery, and her husband, Miles, clean, weed out, organize, and redistribute their things, which I’m learning means to take stuff out of their basement and put it in mine, in preparation to sell their house and move to Colorado. At one point, I asked Emery what she wanted me to do with her wedding dress, which looks like a white tent perched up against the wall of my upstairs cedar closet.

“Oh, I don’t know. I should probably have it cleaned, but I really don’t care. Just leave it.”

I asked too late. My girl, who says she doesn’t have one sentimental bone in her body, has moved on. No doubt the day will come when she’ll be grateful for what I will likely go ahead and do, which is have the dress professionally cleaned and boxed for proper storage. She may say she doesn’t have a sentimental bone in her body, but I’d rephrase that to say, “she’s selective with her sentimentality and the pieces she decides to let in, she’ll carry forever.” She just wasn’t ready to file this piece away as sentimental. It’s too soon, or maybe too late, but years down the road, she may feel a flutter in her heart when she sees the big box wrapped in brown paper on the closet shelf… most likely my closet shelf.

I remember going through similar feelings with my wedding dress, but I made myself take care of it the day after returning home from our honeymoon because I knew if I didn’t do it then, I never would, and my white satin gown would quickly yellow, and not in a cool, tea-stained, vintage sort of way, or so I was told. I did the research and ended up taking it to a cleaners that had been recommended to me, and for $50 I had it cleaned, wrapped in blue tissue to keep it white, boxed, and for that price, I assumed hermetically sealed. It was a considerable investment at the time, one-tenth of what the dress cost me, but everyone I spoke with insisted I shell out the money, as I’d regret it later if I didn’t.

For 28 years, that large box wrapped in brown paper sat in the back of the cedar closet in the home my husband and I raised our kids in, until one day, when my then-future daughter-in-law, Brooke, was in town and wanted to see what my wedding dress looked like. My husband and I had been divorced for ten years, and I had spent the afternoon at the house where we had raised our children when Brooke made the request. And just like Pandora’s box, when the box that had been sealed for the past 28 years was opened up, I never could have predicted that the most astonishing thing would not be that I could get it zipped up most of the way, but that it would be on file at the Leawood Police Department.

The promises the dry cleaners told me were upheld, and the dress looked as good as the day when I handed it over to them, except for the wrinkles, but I expected that. I was glad Brooke asked to see it, as I never would have been inclined to open the box, even a peek, let alone a try on. Afterwards, I brought the dress back to my house, box and all, but before I could do my best to box it up again, my daughter, Emery, wanted to have a look and try it on. Both she and Brooke were getting married in the coming year, and although they both already had their dresses, it was fun to be able to share this moment of my history with them.

After Emery tried on the dress and commented on it being pretty, but reminded her of Renaissance Festivals, I left the dress at the bottom of the stairs to be taken up to the cedar closet and folded back into its box when I had time.

Two days later, an unfortunate series of events unfolded, beginning with my impulsive decision to set the alarm system when I left the house, which I rarely did. I didn’t realize that the front door wasn’t completely latched when I left, and unbeknownst to me, it set off the alarm, and the police were called, while I was on my way to my exercise class. My sister was called because she’s listed as my “first call” in the event of the alarm going off. While I was twenty minutes into my exercise class, my sister, Robin, was standing on my front porch discussing the “incident” with the Leawood police.

By no means is what I’m about to say minimizing the work that the policemen do in my neighborhood or the respect I have for them, but it is a bit like Mayberry around here, and an alarm going off was noteworthy enough that two cars and four officers showed up to the scene. Of course, Robin could not enter the house once she arrived, as it was still considered a possible crime scene, although they said it didn’t look like there had been a break-in, as my computer was still on my bed, as well as some jewelry on the nightstand.

They did mention one thing to her, though, that they found a bit odd and wondered if she could make sense of it. There was a wedding gown on the floor at the bottom of the stairs…. Did she know anything about a wedding gown?
At that moment, as Robin related this story to me, I realized that just a few paces away from the wedding gown heap was something else they had seen but chose not to mention: a half-dozen empty wine bottles next to my sink. I had gathered them up to recycle, and although they were in close proximity to the gown, the two had absolutely no way, no how, anything to do with each other. Robin, of course, knew nothing of the dress but told the officers she was sure it was nothing. It was, however, her first question to me, which went something like this:
“Please tell me that you don’t put your wedding dress on at night and drink wine…”
I know there’s a big ole moral of the story in here somewhere, maybe something to do with following through with projects, being mindful when doing important things such as setting the house alarm or perhaps it’s taking care of the 2nd wedding dress in my upstairs closet so it, also, doesn’t end up in a photo in my file down at the station. But the moral I like to think about is that maybe my string of carelessness offered a bit of comic relief to a few of Leawood’s police officers, and a good story to take back to the station.

I continue to be hopeful that the officers on duty that day don’t sigh in pity when they drive by the house on High Drive where circumstantial evidence would have me traipsing around in a wrinkled mess of a wedding dress, most likely stained with wine… the Miss Havisham of Leawood, if you will. Maybe I should covet the incident that gave an otherwise quiet police department an unexpected laugh that morning.

Hours after the “incident,” the wrinkled mess of a dress was mashed right back into its box and put it on the shelf in the cedar closet, with plenty of room next to it for Emery’s eventually cleaned and boxed-up dress. Years down the road, it will be her adventure, not mine, if and when she decides to break the seal to see what’s inside, hopefully without police intervention.

Police files are confidential… this is the best I could do…

The screened-in porch I bought with the attached house.

Last summer, I bought a condo in Frisco, Colorado, instead of the book I had gone into the local store to purchase. I sit here on my screened-in porch in Kansas, I realize that I bought a porch with a house attached to it as it was the porch that sold me on the house.

Upon stepping into the front room and taking in the porch at first glance, I looked at my daughter, Emery, and it’s possible we both said it at the same time…
“You/I live here!”
I wasn’t actively looking for a house at the time, as the house I was currently in was fine, but this house was in a charming, treed neighborhood with a strong sense of history and appreciation for local merchants. It was a neighborhood I had wanted to live in before I got married (in 1985), but my hopes were set aside when it didn’t have the same appeal to my then-husband that it did to me.

How ironic that when I walked up the stairs of the condo in Frisco and saw it for the first time, my daughter-in-law, Brooke, said the exact words to me, “You LIVE here!” yet I don’t recall making that connection at the time or maybe I did but didn’t dwell on it as I had already fast forwarded myself right out onto the deck and what it would be like to live there. Both my daughter and my daughter-in-law seem to have an uncanny knack for sensing me living in places that aren’t yet mine.

After Emery and I had both declared our intentions for the house, I told my real estate agent, Nina, that I wanted to buy it. Nina and I have been friends for decades, and she knows me and knows that my default position leans more towards impulsive than methodical. She thought looking at the rest of the house would be a wise idea before we started writing up a contract, which we did, both of us knowing full well that I would be buying the house for the screened-in porch, regardless of what the rest of the house looked like. After a quick walk through, and pleased that the rest of the house was on par with the porch, I told her again that I was ready to write up an offer.

“But it’s the first house you’ve looked at…you can’t just buy the first house you look at!”
“OK… then show me another one, then we’ll make an offer.”

And so she did. There was a house nearby for sale, and as lovely as the garden was, as I walked up to the front door, I knew it wouldn’t be the right house, regardless. After a quick walk through the main level, I told Nina that I had seen enough and was ready to make an offer on the porch house

I had an extended trip to Peru coming up in a matter of weeks, and fortunately, Nina was able to convince the sellers to delay the closing until my return, a few months later. The entire process, from contract negotiations to inspection, went off without a hitch. I genuinely believe, and experience has confirmed this for me, that when something is meant to be, things fall into place neatly and in a timely manner. It’s when you’re met with obstacle after obstacle that I think the decision should be questioned. I was meant to live in that house and sit on that porch.
About a month later, from an internet cafe in Villa el Salvador, Peru, I sold the house I was currently living in. While sitting at a computer in a dimly lit, hot, small room with a handful of teenaged boys enjoying computer games, I muddled my way through the process of signing a contract, then faxed it and waited for confirmation of receipt, with a minimal Spanish business vocabulary and a growing line of impatient school boys waiting their turn for the computer I was using. It was one of my prouder accomplishments, especially given that short of email and some photo and music storage, I really wasn’t very computer savvy.

The house I sold to buy the screened-in porch house was the first and only house I looked at shortly after filing for divorce. Maybe it was beginner’s luck that continued, but I knew right off that it was the right house for me. My real estate agent at the time did the same thing that Nina had done and showed me several similar houses, after my proclamation of wanting to buy the first one I saw because “you can’t buy the first one!” I ended up returning to the original house, as I knew I would, made an offer, and was signing contracts by the end of the day. There’s a pattern here, and now I understand why my sister wouldn’t let me go house hunting in the Adirondacks with her husband, John, “just to look…”

When it’s right, it’s right, and you know it in your heart and gut. Seriously, I’ve given more thought to a pair of jeans while sitting in the dressing room at the GAP, a situation that rarely gets it right the first time or has me saying, “You live in those jeans!”

In the time it took me to type this, I would still be deciding on the jeans. I’ve bought houses in a shorter amount of time.

The porch that I bought and was lucky that a house was attached to it…

A Good Night’s Dream

Two nights ago, I dreamt I was sorting through piles of dolls and stuffed animals with Emery in the dining room of the house she grew up in. Dreams love to plop you down in random places doing things that seem pretty irrelevant, but after you wake up, hopefully with a rough sketch of who, what, and where, I find that the puzzle pieces usually fit together quite nicely. There was no doubt in my mind when I woke up as to why I needed to sort through dolls slowly and stuffed animals with my daughter. It was exactly what I needed.

We were sitting in dining room chairs, in a room void of all else except the large piles of stuffed animals and dolls. Emery would thoughtfully pick up every doll or stuffed animal and turn it over slowly while looking at it with such love that it seemed she might have actually birthed it. I was coming from a place of more efficiency and less emotion, and wanted to speed up the process and start building piles. The save pile was the only pile that was even a pile at all, as the other two, the trash pile and the give-it-away pile, were still just empty spots on the wooden floor. My daughter is a softy with a huge heart.

There was one doll that was about 18 inches tall, with hair that had been cut and washed by Emery, neither with much success. It had a broken eye, a missing arm, and no clothes. None of the dolls or animals were familiar to me, and I was aware of that in the dream, giving me pause as to why we were sorting strange toys in the first place. I quietly slid naked punk-haired baby to the spot on the floor for throw away, or give away, giving her the honor of starting whichever pile would be acceptable.
“We can’t give her away, Mommy. No one will love her like we do because we know her,” said the sweet, tiny voice next to me.

When I turned around to justify my decision, it was 4-year-old Emery who was sitting next to me, wearing the dress with cowboys and horses on it I had made for her, red cowboy boots, and striped leggings that didn’t match anything. My sweet little 4-year-old Emery, right next to me. I wanted more than anything to pull her up onto my lap and hug her and hold her and hug her some more, but I didn’t because I was afraid if I tried to touch her, my hand would go right through her like a ghost and she might even disappear.

For the remainder of the dream, I got to sit with my little girl next to me and sort out piles of dollies and animals that, although I had no attachment to, I began to find a fondness for simply by seeing them through Emery’s young eyes. I knew that the task at hand would be a simple one and that the give-away and throw-away piles would remain empty spots on the floor because my assistant’s heart was bigger than the room, and there would be no creature left behind.

One of the very strange and memorable elements of the dream was that I had control of the pace and can distinctly remember slowing it down to a crawl at one point simply for the luxury of getting to linger in memories that were so real I could touch them, feel them and even help lovingly stack them into piles with stuffed animals on one side and the dolls on the other. I had dipped into the realm of lucid dreaming, something I had accidentally stumbled upon during an evening class several years ago. Yes, accidentally. This was a much easier accident than when I enrolled in an Astronomy class my first semester at K-State and quickly figured out that I wasn’t going to learn anything about Virgos and what sign they would have the most luck dating. I was a very young freshman, barely 18, if that helps my cause.

Anyway, back to dream classes…I thought I had enrolled in a one-evening dream analysis class, but instead I got a three-hour rundown on lucid dreaming, which ended up being better than what I had planned on. I didn’t learn how to do it, per se, but now can easily recognize it when it happens, which is cool.

The last text I had gotten from Emery before I fell into dreamland that night was a photo of a cute little yellow house in Ft Collins, Colorado, the house that she and her new husband, Miles, had just signed a rental contract on during their quick weekend visit to house search. She’s married. She’s moving to Colorado. She’s growing up.

I woke up feeling sentimental, sad, confused, yet with a very full heart. There was a part of me that needed to sit with 4-year-old Emery and be reminded that no matter how old she is, or how grown-up the decisions she is making with Miles are, she will always have that loving little girl inside of her with a heart that’s as big and open as the Kansas sky.

While growing up and finding their wings is what I assume most parents hope and plan for their children, the process is clumsy and awkward with shoes that are too big and pants too long, and then one day it all fits and they’re adults doing adult things and managing just fine, because that’s what we taught them. It still sometimes surprises me, though.

Life gave me the gift of a tiptoe back to a place that I needed to be reminded of while helping me, once again, through the process of letting go —a process I hadn’t realized was already taking place. Somehow, that pile of orphaned toys and the little girl sorting through them gave me the message that everything was going to be OK. And that, in my maternal pain of letting go, is what I’m holding onto.