Tag Archives: stress

Achieving Escape Velocity

Posted on by under Mess & Place

We call getting out the door in the mornings ‘achieving escape velocity’, and it amazes me, some days, how quickly everything can fall apart.

6:17 am, Monday morning: Awakened by the adorably annoying sing-song, “Mama-dada-mama-dada.” I groan. Our youngest–the early riser–is awake. It’s time to start the day.

6:55 am: Coffee cup in hand, the early riser busy downstairs, I sit on the edge of the 8-year old’s bed, coaxing her into the morning. Like her mama, she would rather sleep in.

          “Are your muscles still sore from swimming lessons?” I ask gently.

          “Just a teeny bit.”

          “You are getting so strong, honey.”

          “I know.”

And she tells me about gym class, and we remember the weekend together. After a few minutes, she’s off to the bathroom and I head back downstairs.

* * *

2533595627_60b31137e9_o7:30 am: “Wow,” I say over the familiar rhythms of the morning news, “We’re really ahead of the game today.”

And we are. Everyone is dressed. Lunches are packed. Warm oatmeal fills their bellies. They are getting a special treat–a morning video. With the Kratt brothers entertaining, I heat up my remaining coffee in the microwave and take a long sip.

I let my guard down–a rookie mistake, though I no longer have this excuse.

* * *

7:45 am: “Darnit, it’s 7:45 already.” I put my mug on the counter and start yelling. “Five minutes until you need to leave for the bus! Five Minutes!”

7:47 am: “Where are my tennis shoes? We have gym class today!” The eight year old is jolted by the change, and she bucks. “I am not going to school without my tennis shoes!” “Oh yes, you are. Here are your tennis shoes–put them on now!”

She freezes in place, glaring at me. My blood pressure rises. Rapidly.

7:48 am: “Did you hear what I said? What are you doing? Get your shoes on! Shoes!” “No! I can’t find my bookbag and I. Am. Not. Going. To. School!”

7:49 am: “The only thing that is going to happen is that you’re going to miss your bus, and then daddy will have to drive you to Jackson Street! (the bus stop she hates) Don’t do this… is this what you do after we let you watch a video and make you oatmeal? Is this how you thank us? Get your coat on and get out the door!”

7:50 am: “I still can’t find my bookbag!”

          “Well, where did you put it? I can’t be in charge of everything for you!”

          “I am not going to school without my bookbag!”

          “Your bus is coming!”

At this point she sweeps her angry hand across the coats and knocks the whole row to the floor. I throw the tennis shoes (which are still not on her feet) at the steps. It is not our prettiest moment.   

7:51 am: My husband comes back inside from the car and takes in the situation. He slides the shoes on her feet, grabs her bookbag (now revealed–it was under a coat), and ushers her out the door. I slam it behind them.

And here is what I am trying to shut out– her rage is like looking in a mirror.

* * *

7:54 am: I turn the television back on for our youngest. She wants another Wild Kratts. “Fine, whatever,” I walk to the back window and fume.

8:00 am: I take a deep breath. Then ten more. “Fail,” I tell myself. “Parenting fail.”

8:05 am: I heat up my coffee again and sit, warming my hands.

8:10 I picture her, on the bus, and hope that she still remembers those first moments of the morning, those moments when I sat on the edge of her bed and we talked about sore muscles. She is a strong girl. So am I. And it’s a good thing. Achieving escape velocity is never easy, and tomorrow we’ll do it all again.

Mostly, I’m just grateful for another chance.

* * * * *

jen bio YAH

Photo by Shereen M on Creative Commons

Finding Hope in the Depths of a Woodpile

Posted on by under Finding Place

After “The Move,” we found our way to a small doublewide trailer in the shallow hills of central Pennsylvania, only a few miles from where I had grown up. When we moved in, small patches of ice and snow still resided in the shadows. The forest that stretched up the hill away from the house was bone-bare and brown. The birds were just beginning to find their way through the thaw.

It was the opposite of the neighborhood we had left. It was not glitzy or fashionable. We were not surrounded by cars and people. When we drove down the gravel driveway, slowing for the deeper potholes, we were not in awe of the material success of those around us.IMG_0078

But it was beautiful. And peaceful. We found healing there on quiet afternoons as Maile made supper and the kids’ voices ricocheted back at us through the valley. Lines of geese stretched across the sky and slipped through the dusk, circling, then dropping into neighboring fields.

Everyone, everything, it seemed, was returning home.

* * * * *

The first spring there, we decided we were farmers. We planted a massive garden in the back yard, turning over the deep green grass, exposing rich, brown earth. Anything could grow in that soil. Even hope.

The second spring, having conquered the gardening aspect of life, we turned to raising chickens. We bought them at a local feed store and took them home in a cardboard box with perforated holes in it. So they could breathe. We promptly settled them in large plastic container in the kitchen, and, with the help of a heat lamp and a small feeding system, managed to get them alive through spring.

I don’t know exactly when it was that the chickens started laying eggs, but they did, and we enjoyed them. The kids brought back four brown eggs a day to the house, holding each like a small miracle. By the time fall arrived, they were free range chickens and we lost track of where they were laying their eggs.

We searched the bushes, the woods, the underside of our doublewide. No luck. Leaves blew in sporadic gusts down the hill. We wondered if they had stopped laying because of the cold. We wondered if animals were getting to the eggs before we could. We kept looking.

* * * * *

When we had to leave our home in Virginia, it felt like all the good things had gone missing. Our church, our friends, our future: all of it up and evaporated in the time it took to drive 200 miles north. And for a little while we stopped believing good things could last. We stopped looking for them.

A quick internet search had taken us to that doublewide. My father happened to know the owner. We didn’t recognize it at the time, but being able to move into that quiet space was the first hint of goodness returning.

* * * * *

One day my daughter Abra, three or four years old at the time, came running inside, shouting to anyone who would listen. She hopped up and down and in each of her hands she held an egg.

“Where did you find those?” I asked.IMG_0068

We followed her outside and through the yard to a woodpile the landlord had made from the branches of a fallen tree. Abra climbed back behind the wood and pointed.

There, in a small bowl-shaped space in the depths of the woodpile, lay at least two dozen eggs. It was cold, so they hadn’t gone bad. We used a tongs to reach in and take out each little miracle, one by one.

* * * * *

As the months passed, I found work. We settled into a routine and made new friends. We found a church to call home. The things we had lost in Virginia would not be replaced, but there were good things to be found, even in that new place.

It can sometimes be hard to believe there is still good in the world. It can be so hard to find, especially after The Move or The Diagnosis or The Divorce. But it’s still there. We might not be ready to discover it right away, but the world will thaw, and the good will appear in the most unlikely of places.

We only lived in the doublewide for two years. If you ask any of our children which of our many locations has been their favorite house, each one will tell you that one was it. It’s where we landed in our hurt. It’s where we healed as a family. It’s where we started to find goodness in what had at first seemed a terrible gift.

* * *

shawn bio YAH

Choosing a College for your Four-Year-Old

Posted on by under Learning & Place

“When I was in school,” I have been explaining lately, to anyone who will listen, “There were two choices. One, Catholic school. Two, public school. And we weren’t Catholic, so…”

At this point, I raise my eyebrows and shrug my shoulders, as if to say, back in my day, things were simpler. Then I lower my eyes, shake my head, and sigh.

“But. For my kids,” I continue, voice rising as I get to the impressive part of my proclamation, “there are at least fifteen options, and that’s just for elementary school. Fifteen.”

I pause, and look up. And whether or not my friend has the decency to nod sympathetically, my opinion is evident. Fifteen. I widen my eyes, and this says: all of these choices are driving me crazy.

* * * * *

During the preschool age of our lives (preschistoric?), our two girls went to a lovely, small center where the teachers spoke in low voices, and the children set out the napkins for snack. We parents dropped them off in the morning, and, three magical hours later, we picked them up. At the door, the gentle teachers told us things like “Susie and Matthew built a zoo today out of egg cartons and pipe cleaners,” or “Olivia rode the tricycle the whole time she was outside. Her legs are getting so strong.”

And we parents would smile and say thank you in low voices, herding our children out the door. Once outside, the children shrieked and raced for the sidewalk, re-assuming their imitation of maniacal savages now that we were back in charge. With minimal safety-instructions, we let them go for a moment–stop poking your brother with pipe cleaners, Susie!–and gathered near the stairs. We had important business to discuss.

2933195848_7ab077df23_oKindergarten. There was so much to consider; we needed to compare notes. What did you put as your top choice on the magnet application? Linden has Mandarin and German, but it’s not immersion; I’ve heard that Liberty does a good job with Spanish. Did you even bother to apply for the Environmental Charter School? I heard that so-and-so is moving to Aspinwall so that her kids can go to Fox Chapel. How many kids are in a class at the Montessori?

Kindergarten. We thought about it all the time; it was like choosing a college for your four-year-old. It felt critical. Because, as we told ourselves over and over again, preschool was three hours a day, just a few days each week, but kindergarten was eight hours. Every day. And it was all up to us where they would spend all that time.

Eight hours. Fifteen schools. Is it any wonder that we were a little maniacal too?

* * * * *

School choice, as an issue, is not without controversy. It makes for a good discussion on the high school debate team. Pros: schools can be tailored to meet the needs of particular students; competition among schools may lead to better outcomes; low-income students are given (some of) the same options as their wealthier peers. Cons: an application process privileges children whose parents have/take the time to choose; neighborhoods no longer have local schools that involve the whole community; schools may ‘adjust’ outcomes in order to compete.

I know these arguments. I was an elementary education major in college, and, then and now, I can see both sides. All of this seems to play out differently in different districts, and for different families. I have no grand theory. However, now as a parent in this process I know something that I didn’t know in college–as the choices grow, so does the pressure on parents to ‘choose well’ for their children.

But maybe some of that pressure is false.

* * * * *

It’s been several years since those preschool conversations, and I’m still surprised by how everything shook out. Our two daughters are in two schools, seven miles–and seemingly, worlds–apart.

Our sensitive eldest is enrolled in a small, private, Christian school with a creative, flexible curriculum and a small (about 16:1) student-to-teacher ratio. Her school promotes service and love of learning, writes and performs an annual all-school musical, and scholarships over 85% of their students.

Her younger sister, whom a friend called “a miniature Hillary Clinton,” attends our neighborhood ‘feeder’ school–a large, loud building with state-set requirements and free lunches for all. Last year, she had thirty students in her kindergarten class and they were from fifteen different countries–her best friends are Samoan, Russian, and Iranian. At recess, she ‘organizes’ them, and they all pick up trash because “It’s bad for God’s earth, Mama.”

And it works, mostly, which makes me grateful for the school choices we have. Both places are good fits; the girls thrive in their respective schools.

But. In my time of dual-school parenting, I’ve learned something very important–the two schools have a lot more in common than I ever imagined. Good teachers, for example, and bullies. Family fun nights, and inconvenient teacher in-service days. Reading out-loud every day, spelling tests, and math drills. Gym class and music. Fundamentally, they’re both like… elementary schools. Imagine.

Are there differences? Yes, and some of them are significant, but the pros do not all lie with one option and the cons with the other. From the way we talked after preschool, you would have thought we were choosing between maximum security or the Ivy League, chaos or order, success or failure. You would have thought that this one decision determined our children’s futures.

And it’s just not like this. Please, someone, tell the preschool parents: Consider the options, make a choice, and then relax. It’s kindergarten. You–and your child–will figure it out along the way.

5952653884_4da683f2ee_o

Photos by Thomas Hawk

Good to Be Home?

Posted on by under Travel & Place

It’s always the same, coming home from a vacation–that last block before our house.

We drive up the hill, and turn under a canopy of locust trees. On our left, there’s the big rhododendron bush, the vacant duplex with the colorful window frames, two red brick rentals, and grass. On the right, there’s trash tucked into the undergrowth, and sometimes a neighborhood deer, nosing through a discarded fast food bag.

“Boo!” I might say to the deer. And if the leftovers aren’t that fascinating, the deer might even look up. City deer are never afraid; I could yell, “We’ve been away! For weeks. We were really far away. Didn’t you miss us?”

And if deer could roll their big doe eyes, she just might. But instead we drive on, pulling up in front of our house.

Home! Finally, we’re home. But how can coming home feel so familiar and so surreal, all at the same time?

* * * * *

Several years ago we made the adventurous (or foolish) decision to drive to New Orleans with a three and a five year old. There and back again, with overnights at a friends’ house in Charlotte and a cabin in the northeastern Alabama woods, it was about thirty-five hours of driving.

And after thirty-five hours of the Veggie-Tales CD, let me tell you, we were ready to come home. But as we drove that familiar last block (no deer that night), waved to our neighbors, and greeted our black cat, something wasn’t quite right.

It was as if we had never left. But we had. After two weeks and two thousand miles, our eyes were now accustomed to new sights and unfamiliar places. I felt uneasy in the old and familiar.

Strange.

But there wasn’t much time for reflection. Instead, there were tasks–get the girls in bed, empty the cooler, take off the bikes. Home quickly became a to-do list. Our room was the aftermath of our two-weeks-previous packing tornado. The girls room was worse. A Goodwill trip, perhaps a dumpster, was in order. I suddenly became nostalgic about living out of suitcases.

It was home. It was really overwhelming.

5861512547_e3e80f63b3_oTime had passed, things had changed, but the same skirt that I had rejected while packing was still sitting on my bed. I regarded it as a foreign object–the North Carolina mountains seemed nearer. Was it only a week ago that I biked the streets of New Orleans? And that lovely cabin in Alabama… I could almost smell the pine trees. Were all of these places and moments just postcards and photographs now?

I threw the skirt off the bed and lay down.

* * * * *

The next morning I had some coffee in the backyard. The chickens were doing their chicken-y things in the run, the kids were swinging under the magnolia tree,  and the sun was shining through everything green.

It was good to be home.

Eventually I slowed down enough to remember one of my favorite quotes. From G.K. Chesterton. The words rippled through my head as I sipped from my warm mug, stilling me.

The fatal metaphor of progress, which means leaving things behind us, has utterly obscured the real idea of growth, which means leaving things inside us. 

Ah… here was a key. I took another sip.

The thing about coming home is that it is work. Good work. But it is not only the work of unpacking, laundry and trying to find the darn cellphone charger. It’s not just returning to my email inbox, catching up at the office, or purging excess stuff. Coming home is also the work of figuring out what my experiences of far-away places will mean in my close-to-home places.

Coming home is allowing myself to be different than I was, and giving the left-inside things room to grow. And as I sat there, under the same magnolia tree, surrounded by the same neighbors and the same city deer, gearing up to clean my room, I sighed and smiled.

“There’d better be some new things in there,” I thought, laying a hand on my breastbone as if I might feel something move. “Two thousand miles is a long was to go for some postcards.”

 

Postcard picture by Else-Marla Tennessen 

Mama, Pause.

Posted on by under Alone in Place

“Go where they can’t find you,” she charged, and I fled to the cover of pine forest. Head down, heart pounding, I parted from the others and passed groups of children–the buzz of their giggling mixing with the light rain. I looked up briefly to scan faces. My own girls were not present, thank God. That would have been the end of this experiment in solitude. “Mama!” they would call. “Mama!!” more insistent if I did not answer the first time. “Mama!!!!” and I would once again be swept up into my routines of responding, all the constant demands, the pressure, the noise.

10415878565_3e40478198_oTwenty minutes. I just needed twenty minutes away.

I scanned the edges of the path and saw a row of faded red cabins stationed along the tree line. Here? Or should I keep going? These were unfamiliar woods and I didn’t know where everyone else was headed. But what if there were people staying in these cabins? No, they looked empty, alone like I longed to be. I just needed to decide quickly–already I could hear the crunch of gravel, moving in my direction. Just decide. Decide.

Slipping off the path, I  jogged to the backside of a particularly abandoned-looking structure and crouched on the porch behind a low wall. Voices swept down the path I had just left, and I wondered if someone would make a turn for the woods and see me there, hiding. I pressed myself into the corner, back against the wall, and felt dampness seep through my jeans. Darnit. I was sitting in wet pine needles, but there was nowhere else to go. I closed my eyes, wishing them all away.

* * * * *

We were in the woods for a church retreat, the first retreat my small urban church has taken in the ten years I’ve been there. I was surprised by how many people signed up–when retreats had been proposed in the past they were quickly shot down with protests:

Nuh huh, I do not do spiders.

Do you really want to get eaten by some bear?

And my personal favorite:

Don’t you know there are crazy people in those woods? And no one, I mean No One, will even hear you scream.

But by some miracle there were seventy of us gathered for this weekend away. Granted, the hotel-like lodge and cottages represented the near-opposite of roughing it. The buildings were clean and new with sparkling bathrooms and spacious common areas.

The problem (for me) was that they were also full of people, and because the dorms were single-sex, I had the girls on my own. On the drive to camp, I had tried to explain my unease to my husband.

“I don’t want to do this,” I said, and he looked at me, confused. “Do what?” I stared hard at the highway, groping for the right words. “People,” I tried, “I can’t take this many people right now. Meals in the dining hall. Sleeping in dorms. Large group gatherings. Small group discussions. I, I… I just don’t want to be here. I’m not sure I can do this.”

It was mid-May, and the month had been full of marathons, figurative and literal. The school year was almost over, and every moment away from the kids was filled with summer preparations and other responsibilities. I was on overload–a lot had taken place, but I hadn’t had time to process it all. This combination is difficult for anyone, but murder for an introvert like me.

It’s like this: imagine my introverted brain as a water pipe building up internal layers of calcification. Any kind of stimulus–people, events, emotions–are the calcium deposits. As long as I have time to deal with them as they come–silence, journaling, walking, prayer–they don’t build up. But if I don’t, if they just keep coming, then the pipe gets clogged.

And when the pipe gets clogged I can’t think anymore. Or make good decisions. Or live with seventy other people and my kids in dorms, and discuss God or church or each other’s lives or whatever it was we were going to talk about all weekend.

However.

When you’re driving to camp with a trunk packed full of sleeping bags and two excited children jabbering away in the back seat, what you think you can do is no longer terribly relevant.

* * * * *

When our speaker introduced the weekend’s theme I didn’t know whether to laugh or to cry. “This weekend,” she said, “we are going to talk about solitude.”

Pulling out a book by one of my favorite writers, Henri Nouwen, she defined solitude as being alone with God and hearing that you are loved. If we didn’t take this time, she warned, we would try to find affirmation in the shifting sands of human relationships. If we didn’t begin with solitude, we could never find authentic community because we would always be trying to find our identity in other people. You need to get away, she said, and listen to the voice that has been speaking to you all along.

“So go”, she said, “Twenty minutes of solitude. Go where they can’t find you.” And she released us into the woods.

There at my faded red cabin, back pressed up against the low wall, it took a long time for my heart to stop thump-thumping in my chest. It took longer for my breathing to slow, and it took longer still for my thoughts to settle. By now I was crying, all the emotion of the month pushing out of me slowly. My mind was churning, but I didn’t have the energy to fight it anymore. I just sat and stared into the woods.

After a long time I noticed the swamp cabbage lining the creek bed. The leaves looked over-sized, like a prehistoric display in a museum. Suddenly, a bird chittered ten feet above my head. I laughed with surprise. The smell of the wet pine needles lifted up on a small breeze, and I breathed in a deep draught of humid air.

1114159624_705676c9a9_oThe pipe was beginning to clear; there was room now to take it all in. There was room now to let some things go.

I remembered our speaker’s words: Solitude is being alone with God and hearing that you are loved. I grinned and spoke to the sky, “You have anything you want to say?”

There was no response, but that was okay. I already knew.

 

Photos by Ed Suominen and Sharon Mollerus

15 minutes as a corpse

Posted on by under Role & Place

It’s only 1 pm and already the day has been long and full. I can feel myself bracing against it, a response that is, at once, both offensive and defensive—meant to conquer and to protect.

My instinct is to keep pushing against and through the day, but instead I take a cue from my dog. Locating the patch of sun on the living room rug, I lie down flat on my back, in what is known in yoga as shavasana, the corpse pose.

Not only is the term shavasana somewhat new to me, as I’ve just recently committed myself to a yoga practice after a few years of only taking a class here and there, but the entire concept is foreign. Being a good corpse can be tricky for the living—especially, it seems, for me. The idea of being awake but not doing anything, other than holding an awareness of the rise and fall of my abdomen with each breath, does not come naturally.

But I try, nonetheless. The trick is to try without trying too hard, which has a way of defeating the purpose. All I can say is thank goodness for eye pillows. Without one, my eyes would never close, or even cease their darting behind my closed lids. If there was such a thing as a body-sized eye pillow, I would gladly let its gentle weight hold me down.

sunonrugInstead, I wiggle a bit, to introduce my body to the rug—to the idea that, for now, it isn’t responsible for holding me upright.

Next, I release my tongue from the roof of my mouth, where it always seems poised, ready for the next word.

I let my hands grow heavy and limp, imagining them putting roots into the floor rather than tapping over the keyboard, matching a pile of clean socks, or comforting a child.

I notice that my shoulders, always curving into the tension of my work and life, are the last part of me to give in to this crazy thing I’m doing here in the middle of my work day: lying in a patch of sun on the rug, like my dog. I mentally coax each shoulder down toward the rug below, then down and back even further. They have so far to go, so much to relearn.

Finally, I am aware only (mostly) of the sun warming my chest as it rises and falls.

*   *   *   *   *

I am a doer. That sounds like a brag—like I’m touting a true American character asset. In many ways, it is an asset. Being a doer is certainly not something you’d hide in a job interview.

But as one who is always compelled to do the doing, I’m not so sure.

“I’m sensing a very deep-seeded, emotional holding pattern,” my massage therapist said last week, after several sessions of intense work meant to release the muscle mass reaching across my shoulders and up my neck. The massage work, he told me, has accomplished what it should in terms of releasing the individual muscles, but something in my being is refusing to let go.

I left his office feeling discouraged that my massage therapist couldn’t just do something to make me better, but also recognizing the irony of that. I wanted him to do so that I could keep doing—an unsustainable cycle of short-term fixes.

*   *   *   *   *

Doing is satisfying. It makes me feel useful and necessary.

Doing enables me, at the end of the day, to look back at the previous 12-or-so hours and quantify their worth. It makes me feel like I’ve somehow earned that glass of wine with dinner, a TV show before bed, and a good night’s sleep. I need it, after all—tomorrow brings another day of doing.

There is, of course, a cultural construct built around the idea of being busy and productive, but I can mostly let go of that. Busyness isn’t something I feel proud of, a “humble brag” I would share on Facebook. For me, it’s the energy I get from doing that I’m addicted to. I love generating ideas, collaborating with others, and making good things happen. I love seeing where there are holes in the world around me and then figuring out how to fill them, so that places and communities and lives are better.

Being engaged through doing also gives me a satisfying sense ownership, whether in my writing business, my church, or my daughters’ school. And yes, I’m sure there’s a bit of a control-freak factor mixed in there, and probably some fear of failure (who am I kidding?). There’s a good chance that’s part of what my massage therapist was sensing in my body.

Either way, it’s no joke. I need to do something about it. (Ha! There it is again. Do. I can’t help myself.) Although in truth, I’m beginning to realize there’s not much I can do about this, other than learn to be. Earlier this year, as many bloggers I know were choosing their #oneword for 2015, I began to see the name of this very blog, You Are Here, in a new way: not just as a way to think about place, but as a way to think about being—being present where I am.

Maybe my word for 2015 should simply be “Here.” I am here. In this place. In this moment. In this body. I am here whether I’m doing something or, as our culture likes to call it, doing “nothing.”

*   *   *   *   *

In the case of lying corpse-like on my living room floor in the middle of the work day, the “doer me” would love to say I’m doing shavasana. But I’m learning to shift how I think. For now, I’m not doing, I’m simply being.

Gradually, I feel the sun creeping onto my right shoulder, rewarding it for accomplishing its most difficult task: letting go. Turning my face toward the sun, I let the eye pillow slide to the floor, keeping my eyes closed so they can begin adjusting to the light through my lids.

When I finally open my eyes, they take in the slant of sun through the living room window—the sun I have felt and can now see. My eyes observe how the dust in the air and the silver thread of a spider’s web connected to the window’s sill give the sun more dimension. I take one more deep breath before pushing myself up off the rug, and I think, No, I don’t need to dust. Maybe eventually, but for now I will just notice.

Never a Bridesmaid

Posted on by under Guest, Role & Place

I crouched in the grass, twisting at an unnatural angle. I was trying to capture the texture of the line of bridesmaid dresses up close. I looked up for a moment, taking in the bridesmaids’ up-dos and powdered cheeks. Their eyes were on the main photographer Vanessa, who I spent three summers shooting weddings alongside. She told prospective brides that we were a good team because she saw the big picture and I focused on the details.

I’ve always loved weddings. In middle and high school, I was the pseudo little sister to several newly affianced women. I attended cake tastings, and helped pick out (and assemble) invitations.

Later, when my friends started getting married, I made sure to insert myself into the conversations early, sometimes bearing bridal magazines. Although I’d never have admitted it, I wanted to be a bridesmaid. I wanted a central role at a wedding, one where I was chosen.

Actually, I was a bridesmaid once. My mom’s birth-dad married his third wife and they chose their grandchildren for attendants. At 13, I was the oldest member of the bridal party, yet my title was Junior Bridesmaid. I was greatly disturbed by the “Junior.”

My dress was periwinkle blue with cap sleeves, and I wore ivory shoes with little pearl beads on the velcro buckles. On the day of the wedding, we all went to get our hair done. It was the first time I had been in a salon. My feet swung high above the floor in the stylist’s chair. She began to curl my hair in ringlets, as if I were getting ready for a dance recital. I wondered if the burning sensation at the top of my head was normal. The stylist was chatting with my grandmother-ish-to-be as she worked her way across my head.

At last, I couldn’t stand the pain any more. “Excuse me,” I said in a small voice. “I think I’m burning.”

“Oh no,” she said, quickly uncurling her iron. I began to feel relief, along with a dull throbbing, but I couldn’t quite relax into that chair again.

The centerpiece of that wedding was a sort-of-cousin who delighted the congregation by performing an interpretive dance during the ceremony.

Many years have passed between that little girl in the periwinkle dress and the person I am today. Still, it’s the only bridesmaid dress I’ve ever worn. It’s still the closest I’ve been to a wedding.

As I got older, I found that weddings turned from a day of gaiety and celebration, to one of pressure and stress. I began to accept invitations based on the presence of an open bar. I learned to dread the secret looks between the members of the wedding party, and between the bride and groom. It was as if I was always just on the outside of a secret intimacy, regardless of my closeness to the bride or groom in other circumstances.

243954_1367100715543_4777805_oSo I put a camera between myself and the action. With my credentials as a second photographer, I could roam the wedding at will. I was there during the tearful champagne toast just before the bride climbed into her dress. I was there the first time a proud father saw his grown up daughter as a bride. I caught the maid of honor as she squeezed the bride’s hand, and watched the groomsmen take shots of tequila before the ceremony.

No one batted an eye as I sidled up to the cake, taking in its layers and leaning in for a close-up. No one challenged me as I climbed to a high balcony to better capture the first kiss. It could have been my wedding uniform: I always wore black, on duty. But I prefer to think that I had achieved my goal at last. I no longer stuck out. I belonged.

 *   *   *   *   *

Strickland“Never a Bridesmaid” was written by Cara Strickland. Cara has lived in San Diego, California, London, England, and Upland, Indiana. Once, in college, she wrote an essay saying that she was from Narnia. She currently lives in Spokane, WA, where she is a writer, blogger, editor, and food critic. She almost always finds a way to write about food.

One Winter Morning

Posted on by under Home & Place

I’m sure that my home is here somewhere under all of this stuff, and so I sit in my attic bedroom and try to imagine it.

There. There is a chair under that mound of coats, smuggled upstairs for a Christmas Eve party (oh, the appearance of first-floor cleanliness!) and never returned. Next to the chair is “my” desk, which is a bit of a joke around here. I can barely see its edges under the wrapping paper, tape, and  children’s art supplies that show up as soon as I create a clean surface.

How many markers-without-caps can one family collect? I’ll let you know once our experiment is complete.

The bins of kid clothes are stacked in the corner, over-flowing with the next season and the next size. Our oldest daughter has grown an inch in two months and I vaguely remember setting aside extra-long pants in September. But which bin? I’m not sure, but I do know that I’m not up for the search right now. And then I remember. “It doesn’t matter,” I exclaim, “because it’s boot season!” The blessed boots will cover her ankles until I find those pants.

Our brand-new kitten bounds up the stairs, and I sigh-and grin- as she pounces into the room. Who gets a seven-year old a kitten for her birthday? Crazy people, that’s who. Our two older cats awake and glare from the bed. They are not amused. I can hear her tiny collar bell jingling as she weaves her way through the piles, enjoying the tunnels and hiding places that all our stuff creates.

On the second floor there are hurried footsteps and I hear our housemates’ bedroom door open and -slam!- as the kids head for the bathroom, trying unsuccessfully not to wake their parents. Their loud whispers are a familiar morning sound. Our two families have been living together for almost three years now, with four kids (now ages 7, 6, 5 and 5) between us. Currently their family of four is living in one bedroom, as they prepare to move into a newly renovated house down the street and we make room for my newly arrived brother-in-law.

Never a dull moment round here.

The kitten hears the kids-now all four are awake-and she leaves her grumpy sentinels behind, tumbling down the stairs toward the sound of laughter. The kids are beside themselves because there is a two-hour snow delay. “Two more hours to pla-ay!” one of them sings, and I hear the kitten’s bell as she joins the party.

The elder cats have re-positioned themselves on the bed and are sound asleep. “Must be nice,” I say. I look around again, readying myself to join the fray downstairs. “I guess this is why grown-up cats don’t need coffee but grown-up humans do.”

I head for the kitchen, passing the piles of clean, unfolded clothes and trying to calculate when I’ll have time today to “finish” this endless task.

Then I stop.

Suddenly, I remember that the piles will not always be there. Suddenly, I remember that home is a seasonal place.

IMG_0897I think of the kitten tunnels, the ever-growing kids, and our parade of housemates, transitioning in and out, but always leaving their mark. “And it’s good,” I declare over the laundry, “very good.” And in this moment I believe it. In this moment, just for a brief moment, I settle into my life as it is today. Here. Now. And not forever.

“Pancakes!” my husband calls, and the kids are a herd of elephants coming down the stairs. I pass the kitten on my way to the first floor, and she is purring loudly.  “Well here you are, little one,” I say as I stroke her fur, “Welcome home.”