Laurel McHargue -- Author/Podcaster/Public SpeakerIf I could go back and stifle every word I uttered that hurt you, I would. Words spoken in anger and frustration are never helpful; they only deliver pain and sorrow.
But like you, I am human, and despite my seeming authority, I often fail. Failing as a mother–not always, but enough–has left gashes on my soul I wish I could heal.
You are a man now, and my prayer is that time will fade from both our memories those times when I could not hold my tongue, those time when I acted like a child.
I’m trying to let go.
After finishing Ken McLeod’s Reflections on Silver River (look it up!), I find myself looking around my home for things to give away. Since our German Shepherd, Ranger, is fairly new to our household, he’s safe, but I suddenly feel overwhelmed by all the “stuff” in my life, both physical and emotional.
And so I’m working on letting go, a challenge that is extraordinarily difficult when it comes to some of my emotional baggage which requires sitting on to close. This physical stuff, too, will be a challenge because I can always justify why I might “need” something someday.
One suggestion in McLeod’s book it to give away one physical thing to one person every day with no expectation of anything in return. Ouch.
I’ve loved looking at the elegant bone China teacups Mom gave me as they’ve gathered dust in my corner cabinet for years. Three little cups–green, blue, and yellow–my favorite colors. My first giveaways.
I invite two friends for a tea party. Tea for three is lovely, though the small cups require multiple fillings throughout our visit. I wonder if anyone ever consumed just one cup from these little lovelies during a social gathering.
I text my baby sister and asked which color I should send to each of the women who will marry her three sons, and I feel good about this letting go. Time to let someone else enjoy these gifts, and three new family members will have something to share, or give away, in the coming years.
I remove two hand fans which have served as backdrops to my pretty teacups for just as many years and give them to my friends as they head out into the cold. Smiles and hugs.
My corner cabinet looks lighter now, and I have three fewer things to worry about. For today, I have let go just a little. I think it might make tomorrow’s letting go just a little easier.
SEX! Say the word aloud and people giggle like little girls, nervous about what might be said next.
“That’s all boys want,” mothers warn their daughters. But do they not remember their horny adolescence? Are they ashamed to admit that they “want it” too?
The father of five daughters, Dad would joke about why Mom kept getting pregnant. He said it was because she was hard of hearing. When prompted to explain, he would tell his audience,
“I’d ask her if she wanted to watch TV or what, and she’d say, ‘What?’”
My parents loved each other, and I’m fairly certain made love to one another for more years that may seem proper, but I’m hoping that in their 65 years together they also had plenty of good old sex, making the beast with two backs, making the dogs howl next door, making the neighbors jealous.
I remember finding Dad’s stash of Playboys when I was about 13. Perhaps I was delivering laundry to their room, perhaps I was searching for hidden presents, or most likely because one of the bodacious blondes on the front cover was peeking out at me from under the Farmers’ Almanac.
In any case, the surge of adrenalin I felt—all over and under—when I risked liberating the lady from the night-table was all I needed to keep going back for more. My visits had to be well-planned, and it was a challenge finding time when, in a household of seven, I could be alone.
I was a scrawny, pimply teen, and as I surreptitiously watched my older sisters making out on the family room couch with their dreamy boyfriends, I knew that no boy would ever love me. Fortunately, I had figured out how to love myself with the help of Dad’s magazines.
Fast forward to sweet 16 and never been kissed.
My best friend since kindergarten was way cooler than I. Emm lived across the street and our parents partied together frequently with others in our ripe-for-T.V.-sitcom neighborhood. Her parents owned a house on Cape Cod, and Emm had grown up more quickly than I. She could hold her own with kids who frightened me. She smoked and drank well before the legal age; I had tried a puff from my grandfather’s cigarette when I was ten and knew I was going to die immediately and go straight to hell. Mom had shared sips of red wine on special occasions and had me believe that a little glass of Port was “good for the blood,” but I never attended the parties Emm went to in our early teen years. My fear of losing control always overpowered my fear of being a dork.
Until that sweet, sweet summer. I had accepted an invitation to go to the Cape without the usual crowd and Emm let me know that we were invited to a party—with cool guys—scary guys—college-age guys—without parents. I knew what that meant, and for some reason I felt I needed to prove to her that I could be cool, too.
I desperately wanted to believe that I could hang with any crowd, especially this crowd which was way outside my comfort zone. Emm and I picked out our “majors” to accompany the lie that we were college freshmen, and although my instinct was screaming, “Run away!” when I entered the beach house which reeked of beer and cigarettes and pot, I had already committed to experiencing something new. My very first full beer disappeared without any of my “new friends” realizing how horrible I thought it tasted, and the nearly immediate buzz I got made the second one taste much better.
It also brought one of the nameless dudes to my side with the suggestion that we take a walk outside.
“Don’t . . . don’t . . . DON’T!” my angel was screaming, but I did. Despite my zits, I had a rack that commanded attention, and I let myself believe that this cute boy found my company enthralling. So off we went into the ocean breeze, despite a warning from my lifelong friend, who by that time may have been feeling a twinge of protectiveness. She knew I was untouched.
The salty air was dizzying, or more likely it was that second beer, and after staggering down the road a bit, I somehow ended up under him in the sand behind a clump of bushes. Although my “Run away!” instinct was still on alert, his hands on my body sent new-experience shockwaves throughout my being, and his soft lips sucked the spirit from my bones, leaving me a quivering mass of cherry Jell-O in his clearly experienced hands.
There’s something about a good Catholic upbringing that simply doesn’t prepare you for the first time a confident boy decides he’s going to have his way with you. Although I remembered laughing with my sisters when Mom had claimed that one aspirin would prevent pregnancy (“Just hold it between your knees and don’t let it drop!”), I had never received the down-and-dirty details of this uncomfortable topic, and was beginning to feel that I was in way over my head. But oh! I was feeling so incredibly cherished!
For the first time in my life I felt sexy. Cute boy wasn’t missing an inch of my skin-tight-bodysuited physique, and I wasn’t about to stop him . . . until . . . my jeans were suddenly unbuttoned and . . . uh-oh! . . . a stranger’s hand was headed where no stranger’s hand had been before! What do I do, what do I do? But handy-boy must never have “dated” girls who wore shirts that snapped at the crotch before, and he was struggling to find a way in/under/around an obstacle he could not comprehend. Frustrated yet persistent, and by now I was scared enough to know I wasn’t about to help him, he kept tugging on my locked-down shirt, desperately trying to lift it to get a little skin—but succeeding only in increasing my degree of excitement down under.
Suddenly sirens were blaring—literally, and thankfully.
A police car on full alert passed us slowly and stopped not too far away, a sudden sobriety engulfed us both, and I knew for the second time in my life that I was going to hell. Without discussion we scrambled to our feet and slunk back to the house, arriving to find a very sedate group. I was so relieved to be back in the company of a trusted friend that I was ready to get the party going again and moved to turn up the music, only to be stopped and told it was time to go. Evidently the police had come to the house while I was engrossed in a grope-fest and had put the kibosh on the party.
I could not have been more relieved, excited, tingling, and buzzed by the time Emm and I got back to her house and we were safely in bed, which for some peculiar reason began to spin. I’m pretty sure that once I stopped giggling, I fell asleep with a smile on my face. I’m also pretty sure that I finally earned a couple “cool points” with my best friend, but equally important, I had escaped an experience I was clearly not yet ready for. And I no longer felt like a dork.
When I shared this story with my Mom recently, she was horrified, and probably lost sleep thinking about her 55-year-old daughter who could have lost everything 39 years ago. I didn’t share the part about discovering myself years earlier with the aid of Dad’s secret sex-kittens.
Not that I’m a “prepper” or anything, but after looking on-line for food dehydrators, I noticed that all you really need is a heat source and air circulation. So instead of tossing even more bananas into our freezer (for the gallons of fruit smoothies I’ll make if it ever gets warm in Leadville), I sliced them thinly, spread them on a cookie rack and tossed them into our always-warm-because-of-the-pilot-light-gas-oven.
Voila! Banananana chips the next day. I suddenly feel guilty about wasting all that unused heat for so many years. Looks like I’ll be doing lots of slicing soon.
But now I might need a vacuum sealer. Any suggestions?
They said it couldn’t be done. Evidently, one winter in an unheated Leadville bathroom will make you stronger…or kill you.
Perhaps it’s the shock to my system when I sit on the icy seat each morning–after ensuring that the water in the bowl is not frozen–that invigorates me. Or maybe it’s the frequency of goosebumps, regardless of the hot water in the shower, that keeps me feeling perky.
Sorry, little bamboo. We can’t all be warriors.
Booby-cake, booby-cake, mam-mo-gram,
Smash me a boob as fast as you can;
Pull it, squish it, and mark it with a B,
Crank that mother down for doctor to see.
I was very excited to hear that my mammogram center had updated their equipment to the latest 3-D imaging machine.
“Finally!” I thought, “an exam that won’t leave my bodacious tatas tortured!”
My enthusiasm drained, however, when I heard those fateful words.
“The tighter the better for an accurate image. Let me know when you can’t stand it anymore.”
Crank, crank, crank. I fight back a tear and she stops.
“Hold your breath,” she instructs me. My breathing is already shallow from the pain and I fear I may not have enough oxygen in my lungs to sustain me through the machine’s rotation, but I know that if I pass out, I’ll end up with my right one hanging way lower than my left one, and somehow I manage to remain upright.
I try not to hate her. She’s just doing her job and by the time she needs one of these exams, they will have a pain-free method.
But for now I try to pretend I don’t mind having this young booby-tech treating my lady lumps like they were pizza dough.
Finally, the assault ends and I head to the bathroom where I apply deodorant. The bathroom is lovely…updated sink, flowers, hand towels stacked in a neat pile, soap and lotion…and a picture that—without my assistance—hangs lower on one side than the other.
“Hold your breath,” I say, and snap a photo. “That wasn’t so bad, now, was it?”
I head home, wondering if all this is really necessary, and decide that I just might skip next year’s appointment. “The girls” will be tickled.
Could “one” enjoy an entire box of chocolates “oneself” in one day? Oh, yes! Will “one” enjoy the consequences one day later? Oh, no.
Do I really hate having to shovel day after day, sometimes for several hours, only to have my work undone by a city plow? Do I really hate having to bundle up on a -10 degree morning, ensuring almost no skin is exposed, to take my dog on his “time to go” walk, only to end up having to remove my hat and unzip because even though it’s freezing, the brilliant sun combined with the pumping of my blood is making me sweat? Do I really hate jumping into our Tempur-Pedic bed when the room temperature is hovering below 50, only to have my husband laugh at my “Ooof!” when I land on the brick-like surface before weaseling my way over to where his warmth has already created a snuggly cocoon?
And do I hate spending 20 extra minutes at Safeway because I know—and must chat with—someone in every aisle, or cleaning out the ashes of our wood-burning stove before starting a fire around which family and friends will gather, or having to walk to the post office instead of drive because it would be faster than shoveling out my car?
No. No, I don’t.
It’s funny, but I’ve been struggling with life in Leadville since well before we moved here nearly seven years ago. I often want to hate it, and sometimes I convince myself that I do.
But I really don’t, though I’ll never be fond of that city plow.
It’s ON! Reserve your spot now, because space is limited!
Lisa Marie Boehmke, Mindfulness in Writing
Amy Frykholm, Scheduling Productivity
Stephanie Frykholm, Write Awake: Exploring the Creative Aliveness of Embodied Writing
Al Dawson, Short Stories: Adventures in Life
Laurel McHargue, Direct Publishing (and a bonus evening field-trip/sensory writing)
Jane Provorse, Let’s Write a Play!
Karen Rinehart, Writing Off the Nose (dialogue writing)
Jeffrey A. Runyon, Prosody 101
and here are the details:
The IDES OF MARCH Writers’ Retreat is open for reservations!
Where? The Inn at Twin Lakes.
We have eight workshop presenters over two days, from 1 pm on the 15th through noon on the 16th, and two options:
$150 gets you the whole package (sessions, 2 meals, snacks/coffee/tea, sleep at the Inn).
$100 gets you everything but the sleepover!
Space is limited, and reservations will be first-come-first-served.
Call the Inn if you’re ready to escape next month: 719-486-7965
Is it even possible to turn things around in our public education system?
“Miss?”