My red hair glows, a flaming copper mane, and I laugh. I pull on my helmet, stoked to lay down my best tricks this time and every time. I drop in.
I swoosh down over the smooth snow of the half-pipe, picking up speed. I am a daredevil, thrilled by the challenge. I fly up over the lip of the wall to perform in the wide open sky. My body twists, spins, flips and rotates. One after the other, I throw down my tricks with style and power. I am the flying tomato, a symbol of relaxed freedom in a fiery marriage with excellence, individuality and the creative spirit. With perfect balance, I stick the landings.
I am not sluggish and inward-looking, wondering what I should do with my day. I do not spend time on repetitive domestic tasks like unloading the dishwasher. Nor do I waste time looking for a lost sock or re-folding clothes in a drawer. No. I do not follow a mundane schedule or walk in a rut, and I am not constantly straightening things up.
Instead, I drop down by helicopter into the Alaskan wilderness, where I speed over the rugged terrain on my board--outracing avalanches and flying over gorges. I cut a path, smooth and fast, down the mountain's face. I know how to dig a body from the snow, and I am unafraid, riding fearlessly through time.
I do not hem myself in, and I am not limited by body or mind. I don't stroll to the bakery, questioning my life's purpose, feeling uncertain and alone. I don't focus on commas and semicolons and rules--or on what others think--to give me legitimacy.
I am the one who comes up with the tricks while lying in my bed at night, the particular flips and rotations. I create them, and friends participate in the joy and applaud. I go big. A double McTwist, back-to-back double corks. I throw down my run. I stomp it.
2/24/10
2/17/10
Glamour-Puss
I hear her in her bedroom making a video tutorial: "I'm going to show you how to get a pretty and fast 'smoky eye.' I know some people only use gray, but I think brown makes it look really pretty--it pops!"
Like a bright child pursuing an exhaustive knowledge of dinosaurs, twelve-year-old Adele studies makeup with passion and intensity. When she's not doing homework, practicing sports or playing with her neighbor friend, she's busy experimenting with a wide assortment of brushes and powders.
My basic rule for her is "No makeup at school." Plus, lately, I've added a few specific restrictions, such as, "No liquid foundation."
No liquid foundation? I wouldn't have guessed I'd need to set this particular limit with a sixth grader.
"Why not?" she protests at the drugstore. "Colette used to have some."
"No. She only used it as a spot concealer. And we threw it out."
"Then how about tinted moisturizer?" Adele bargains.
"No. You have beautiful natural skin."
"Fine," she harrumphs, heading to the loose mineral powders, weekly allowance in hand.
For Christmas, Adele asked for makeup lessons, so I scheduled a floor appointment for her at MAC and bought her Bobbi Brown's Makeup Manual. At bedtime, I read to her from Bobbi Brown: "I used to experiment with concealer on lips to make a pale lip color statement while doing Brigitte Bardot-inspired, dark, smoky eyes...." Adele listens with rapt attention. It's getting late, and I yawn.
"Keep reading," she says.
"The best artists continually want to learn," I read. "Artists who think they know everything don't grow."
When Adele was a baby, I said she was my little Sophia Loren. A fine-featured beauty with a glamorous look, her dark eyes sparkled. Her appeal was magnetic.
When she was two, still toddling about the house sucking a pacifier, her big sister said to me, "When Adele grows up, she's going to be the kind of person everybody knows. I'll ask people, 'Do you know my sister?' and they'll say, 'Adele? Of course!'"
Adele's small dresser now holds a large basket of brushes, mascaras, eyeliners, eyeshadow palettes, blushes and lip glosses, each organized in separate cups and cosmetic bags. The looks she creates are frequently stunning. "Wow!" I can't help but say. "Nice cat eyes! How did you do that?"
Steve and I live in a world populated by academics and vegetarians, so we were at first nonplussed by this developing interest and expertise. Sometimes I fret about it--about the effect of the beauty industry on young girls, about sex roles and stereotypes, about the related focus on appearance. A friend who teaches middle school and whose children are grown reassures me, "It's okay. We all need something to outgrow."
I imagine there's a high likelihood that our pre-teen daughter will outgrow this current focus. But I intend to leave room for the chance that she won't. In the meantime, we're involved in it with her, honoring her flair and spirit, giving her the tools she needs to grow, in this case a round contour brush with dense bristles. I pick up a few tips for myself in the process. I buy eyeshadow primer--something Adele taught me about--and I ask the woman at the Lancome counter to show me a couple of eyeliners, something with a little zing, something that pops.
Like a bright child pursuing an exhaustive knowledge of dinosaurs, twelve-year-old Adele studies makeup with passion and intensity. When she's not doing homework, practicing sports or playing with her neighbor friend, she's busy experimenting with a wide assortment of brushes and powders.
My basic rule for her is "No makeup at school." Plus, lately, I've added a few specific restrictions, such as, "No liquid foundation."
No liquid foundation? I wouldn't have guessed I'd need to set this particular limit with a sixth grader.
"Why not?" she protests at the drugstore. "Colette used to have some."
"No. She only used it as a spot concealer. And we threw it out."
"Then how about tinted moisturizer?" Adele bargains.
"No. You have beautiful natural skin."
"Fine," she harrumphs, heading to the loose mineral powders, weekly allowance in hand.
For Christmas, Adele asked for makeup lessons, so I scheduled a floor appointment for her at MAC and bought her Bobbi Brown's Makeup Manual. At bedtime, I read to her from Bobbi Brown: "I used to experiment with concealer on lips to make a pale lip color statement while doing Brigitte Bardot-inspired, dark, smoky eyes...." Adele listens with rapt attention. It's getting late, and I yawn.
"Keep reading," she says.
"The best artists continually want to learn," I read. "Artists who think they know everything don't grow."
When Adele was a baby, I said she was my little Sophia Loren. A fine-featured beauty with a glamorous look, her dark eyes sparkled. Her appeal was magnetic.
When she was two, still toddling about the house sucking a pacifier, her big sister said to me, "When Adele grows up, she's going to be the kind of person everybody knows. I'll ask people, 'Do you know my sister?' and they'll say, 'Adele? Of course!'"
Adele's small dresser now holds a large basket of brushes, mascaras, eyeliners, eyeshadow palettes, blushes and lip glosses, each organized in separate cups and cosmetic bags. The looks she creates are frequently stunning. "Wow!" I can't help but say. "Nice cat eyes! How did you do that?"
Steve and I live in a world populated by academics and vegetarians, so we were at first nonplussed by this developing interest and expertise. Sometimes I fret about it--about the effect of the beauty industry on young girls, about sex roles and stereotypes, about the related focus on appearance. A friend who teaches middle school and whose children are grown reassures me, "It's okay. We all need something to outgrow."
I imagine there's a high likelihood that our pre-teen daughter will outgrow this current focus. But I intend to leave room for the chance that she won't. In the meantime, we're involved in it with her, honoring her flair and spirit, giving her the tools she needs to grow, in this case a round contour brush with dense bristles. I pick up a few tips for myself in the process. I buy eyeshadow primer--something Adele taught me about--and I ask the woman at the Lancome counter to show me a couple of eyeliners, something with a little zing, something that pops.
2/10/10
Go Speed Racer, Go!
"You take Adele sledding," I told Steve last Saturday morning, the day after the girls had stayed home from school due to snow. "I need some time to myself."
Like tastebuds that dull over time, my inner drive for excitement and stimulation has dwindled some. For example, I no longer want to spend hours tumbling in the surf when I go to the beach. I'm happy enough to sit on a towel in the warm sand and keep an eye on the girls while they experience firsthand the roiling, cold and mighty ocean.
That is why I chose to drink tea by the fire and fill in a crossword puzzle while Steve took Adele sledding. When they returned, wet and snowy, he showed me the pictures he'd taken. As I stuffed their ice-caked socks, gloves and coats in the dryer, I realized I'd made a mistake. In my resistance to the cold and my desire to be free of their needs, I'd missed out on the experience entirely.
So I invited Steve and the girls to go back out sledding with me in the afternoon. On a steep, snow-covered street busy with sledders, I found an old wooden Flexible Flyer, the kind I'd used when I was a girl, propped against a tree and waiting for a rider. I pulled it up the hill, lay down on it and pushed off. Then I flew down the long street on its thin metal rails. Exhilarated, laughing loudly, I felt the ground whistling beneath my body as I sped down the hill. At the bottom, I rolled into the snow, got up and brushed myself off for another run.
"How is it?" Steve called, taking pictures.
"Fantastic!" I yelled. "Dangerously fast! These old sleds are insane! Do you want to go down on it?"
"No way," he said.
On one ride, I barreled down the street so fast I had to deliberately ditch myself in a front yard to avoid running into the intersection at the bottom of the hill. The sled hit a snow-hidden curb, and I shot forward as if from a cannon, landing face first in the snow. I did not attempt the jump that the neighbor kids had set up, wisely determining that my spine might not be as flexible as theirs. When it was time to go home, I returned the sled to its tree, thrilled.
I spent the following day, Sunday, sore from wiping out, hobbling around the house taking Advil. One afternoon had been enough for me, but Adele went back out with friends. Happy and invigorated by my experience, I made a mental note to continue to push myself to directly partake in life's pleasures and possibilities.
On Monday, Becki, who is just my age and who comes every other week to help clean our house, let herself in with the key. I heard an uncharacteristic, lumbering limp as she made her way up the stairs to our study. When she reached the landing, I saw the raw and scabby wound covering the length of her nose.
"Oh, no! What happened?"
"Don't ever go sledding at night," she warned, "and especially not after two margaritas." She described how she'd run off the road into a concrete drainage trench and was lucky her head hadn't hit the culvert wall.
I couldn't help chuckling at her deadpan admonition, but it was a serious matter and solid advice, so I made another mental note, knowing that two margaritas could still have the power to stir in me a foolhardy desire to do just such a thing.
Like tastebuds that dull over time, my inner drive for excitement and stimulation has dwindled some. For example, I no longer want to spend hours tumbling in the surf when I go to the beach. I'm happy enough to sit on a towel in the warm sand and keep an eye on the girls while they experience firsthand the roiling, cold and mighty ocean.
That is why I chose to drink tea by the fire and fill in a crossword puzzle while Steve took Adele sledding. When they returned, wet and snowy, he showed me the pictures he'd taken. As I stuffed their ice-caked socks, gloves and coats in the dryer, I realized I'd made a mistake. In my resistance to the cold and my desire to be free of their needs, I'd missed out on the experience entirely.
So I invited Steve and the girls to go back out sledding with me in the afternoon. On a steep, snow-covered street busy with sledders, I found an old wooden Flexible Flyer, the kind I'd used when I was a girl, propped against a tree and waiting for a rider. I pulled it up the hill, lay down on it and pushed off. Then I flew down the long street on its thin metal rails. Exhilarated, laughing loudly, I felt the ground whistling beneath my body as I sped down the hill. At the bottom, I rolled into the snow, got up and brushed myself off for another run.
"How is it?" Steve called, taking pictures.
"Fantastic!" I yelled. "Dangerously fast! These old sleds are insane! Do you want to go down on it?"
"No way," he said.
On one ride, I barreled down the street so fast I had to deliberately ditch myself in a front yard to avoid running into the intersection at the bottom of the hill. The sled hit a snow-hidden curb, and I shot forward as if from a cannon, landing face first in the snow. I did not attempt the jump that the neighbor kids had set up, wisely determining that my spine might not be as flexible as theirs. When it was time to go home, I returned the sled to its tree, thrilled.
I spent the following day, Sunday, sore from wiping out, hobbling around the house taking Advil. One afternoon had been enough for me, but Adele went back out with friends. Happy and invigorated by my experience, I made a mental note to continue to push myself to directly partake in life's pleasures and possibilities.
On Monday, Becki, who is just my age and who comes every other week to help clean our house, let herself in with the key. I heard an uncharacteristic, lumbering limp as she made her way up the stairs to our study. When she reached the landing, I saw the raw and scabby wound covering the length of her nose.
"Oh, no! What happened?"
"Don't ever go sledding at night," she warned, "and especially not after two margaritas." She described how she'd run off the road into a concrete drainage trench and was lucky her head hadn't hit the culvert wall.
I couldn't help chuckling at her deadpan admonition, but it was a serious matter and solid advice, so I made another mental note, knowing that two margaritas could still have the power to stir in me a foolhardy desire to do just such a thing.
1/28/10
Road to Homecoming
Friday night's homecoming basketball games have just been canceled due to a winter storm warning calling for snow, sleet and ice. Colette yells from her room, "The games are canceled. My life has no meaning!" So far, plans for the homecoming dance on Saturday still stand. If they fall, teen disappointment could be catastrophic.
I have felt a quiet tension about the homecoming dance building throughout January. A few weeks ago, sixth-grade Adele turned to Colette to ask in the car, "So, do you know who you're going to homecoming with?"
"No."
"Are you going to ask someone?" she followed up in a bright tone.
"No."
"Why not?"
"I don't feel like talking!" Colette snapped.
I tried to ease the situation by explaining to Adele why this year might feel different to her sister: "I think in ninth grade," I said, "it's fun to go with your friends. Then in tenth grade, it's exciting to have a date. Maybe eleventh grade is different. Maybe they're stressed out, or--"
"I'm jaded," Colette cut me off, glum and firm.
A week later she mentioned friendship tensions at school, and I suggested that maybe they were related to homecoming.
"You're obsessed with homecoming," she accused me over her burrito.
"No. I'm just saying that it might be causing tension. Think about if you were a guy--you'd either have to get up the guts this week to ask someone, or you'd know you were letting the opportunity pass you by. And for girls, you either have to wait for someone to ask you--someone you might not even like--or you have to decide to ask someone yourself. It's stressful."
She got quiet. "Yeah, maybe," she said.
My own formal dances in high school caused tremendous feelings of dread, embarrassment and loneliness. At an all-girls school, I barely knew any boys. I lay on the twin bed in my room, dreaming of being loved and accepted by some boyfriend, but whom? When dances approached, I could think of no one to ask. I'd cry until my parents suggested I ask a friend of my little brother, three years my junior, and then I'd cry harder from the insult of their suggestion. It took all my bravery to invite any boy at all, let alone a boy I liked. At seventeen, the development of my self was in progress. Looking back, I didn't actually need a full-fledged boyfriend or a serious relationship at that time. Yet I pined, wondering, who would love me? It was too early to know.
Last week, Colette decided to ask a date to the homecoming dance. Now, everything is in place: the dress, the date, the dinner plans with friends from her team. She's excited and happy--not jaded after all. The world hasn't even opened up to her yet. Her small high school here at home is not the place where she's likely to meet an Othello.
But it is where she's bonded and grown with the girls on her team. Homecoming, I remind myself, is a celebration on a cold January night of the basketball team and their season. It's a chance for the girls to dress up together, go out to dinner and meet up at school to link arms and take pictures. The whole school is invited to the celebration. With or without dates, they have no need for dread or loneliness. They have each other, and it's quite enough to be young and strong, laughing raucously and dancing with classmates and teammates. At this point, the roads just need to remain clear enough to get there.
I have felt a quiet tension about the homecoming dance building throughout January. A few weeks ago, sixth-grade Adele turned to Colette to ask in the car, "So, do you know who you're going to homecoming with?"
"No."
"Are you going to ask someone?" she followed up in a bright tone.
"No."
"Why not?"
"I don't feel like talking!" Colette snapped.
I tried to ease the situation by explaining to Adele why this year might feel different to her sister: "I think in ninth grade," I said, "it's fun to go with your friends. Then in tenth grade, it's exciting to have a date. Maybe eleventh grade is different. Maybe they're stressed out, or--"
"I'm jaded," Colette cut me off, glum and firm.
A week later she mentioned friendship tensions at school, and I suggested that maybe they were related to homecoming.
"You're obsessed with homecoming," she accused me over her burrito.
"No. I'm just saying that it might be causing tension. Think about if you were a guy--you'd either have to get up the guts this week to ask someone, or you'd know you were letting the opportunity pass you by. And for girls, you either have to wait for someone to ask you--someone you might not even like--or you have to decide to ask someone yourself. It's stressful."
She got quiet. "Yeah, maybe," she said.
My own formal dances in high school caused tremendous feelings of dread, embarrassment and loneliness. At an all-girls school, I barely knew any boys. I lay on the twin bed in my room, dreaming of being loved and accepted by some boyfriend, but whom? When dances approached, I could think of no one to ask. I'd cry until my parents suggested I ask a friend of my little brother, three years my junior, and then I'd cry harder from the insult of their suggestion. It took all my bravery to invite any boy at all, let alone a boy I liked. At seventeen, the development of my self was in progress. Looking back, I didn't actually need a full-fledged boyfriend or a serious relationship at that time. Yet I pined, wondering, who would love me? It was too early to know.
Last week, Colette decided to ask a date to the homecoming dance. Now, everything is in place: the dress, the date, the dinner plans with friends from her team. She's excited and happy--not jaded after all. The world hasn't even opened up to her yet. Her small high school here at home is not the place where she's likely to meet an Othello.
But it is where she's bonded and grown with the girls on her team. Homecoming, I remind myself, is a celebration on a cold January night of the basketball team and their season. It's a chance for the girls to dress up together, go out to dinner and meet up at school to link arms and take pictures. The whole school is invited to the celebration. With or without dates, they have no need for dread or loneliness. They have each other, and it's quite enough to be young and strong, laughing raucously and dancing with classmates and teammates. At this point, the roads just need to remain clear enough to get there.
1/20/10
Xtreme Girls' Weekend
I'm scheduled to fly to Texas this weekend to meet a friend from California for a so-called girls' weekend. By my count, this will be my ninth short solo trip since I gave birth to my first child seventeen years ago. That makes roughly one weekend on my own every other year.
Occasionally I point my finger at Steve, but the truth is that this low number is no one's fault but my own. It's been overly hard for me to leave my offspring. For one thing, it's hard to extricate myself logistically. But more than that, leaving them triggers in me acute maternal anxiety. I want to be their home base, the nucleus around which the electrons continually orbit.
As the day of a solo trip approaches, I find myself psychically squirming, trying to find a way out of the plan. I don't want to ask anybody else to take over my responsibilities. I don't want to miss basketball games--or rides, plans, meals. Making arrangements to leave, I feel how critical my role is in the family, and my anxiety skyrockets. What if something happens to me? What if I don't make it back? I don't want to leave my life. The girls need their mother!
Just over a year ago, I met this same California friend in Arizona for our first girls' weekend. There was nothing particularly risky about that long weekend away. During our seventy-two hours together, she and I talked and talked, wrinkling in a bubbling hot tub much of the time.
We visited a desert garden where I saw things I'd never seen before in a weird lunar landscape. I left my world and was awed by another. I saw an expanse of open sky and dry earth from which sprouted monstrous octopus cacti, their many thick tentacles reaching and writhing. The crucifixion thorn was forbidding, its long woody barbs jutting sharply from each branch. In contrast, whimsical, Dr. Seuss-like Boojum trees stood tall, their skinny, spiky trunks topped with frilly hairdos.
I entered the set of a science fiction movie in which a creeping devil cactus slithered up and among the branches of the Palo Brea, looping and draping itself, an unending fat snake. I saw the ocotillo, whose slender, friendly stems waved upward like an inverted cheerleader's pompom, and the prickly pear, whose plum-colored fruit sat perched atop cartoon-shaped paddles.
At the Mexican market, we washed down our visions with cool watermelon concoctions while taking in the sight of papayas and jicamas, and mounds of richly colored peppers.
It was a short trip to the moon, a chance to break away from the laundry basket to be reminded of what a wide world it is--how rich and varied, how strange and beautiful.
Occasionally I point my finger at Steve, but the truth is that this low number is no one's fault but my own. It's been overly hard for me to leave my offspring. For one thing, it's hard to extricate myself logistically. But more than that, leaving them triggers in me acute maternal anxiety. I want to be their home base, the nucleus around which the electrons continually orbit.
As the day of a solo trip approaches, I find myself psychically squirming, trying to find a way out of the plan. I don't want to ask anybody else to take over my responsibilities. I don't want to miss basketball games--or rides, plans, meals. Making arrangements to leave, I feel how critical my role is in the family, and my anxiety skyrockets. What if something happens to me? What if I don't make it back? I don't want to leave my life. The girls need their mother!
Just over a year ago, I met this same California friend in Arizona for our first girls' weekend. There was nothing particularly risky about that long weekend away. During our seventy-two hours together, she and I talked and talked, wrinkling in a bubbling hot tub much of the time.
We visited a desert garden where I saw things I'd never seen before in a weird lunar landscape. I left my world and was awed by another. I saw an expanse of open sky and dry earth from which sprouted monstrous octopus cacti, their many thick tentacles reaching and writhing. The crucifixion thorn was forbidding, its long woody barbs jutting sharply from each branch. In contrast, whimsical, Dr. Seuss-like Boojum trees stood tall, their skinny, spiky trunks topped with frilly hairdos.
I entered the set of a science fiction movie in which a creeping devil cactus slithered up and among the branches of the Palo Brea, looping and draping itself, an unending fat snake. I saw the ocotillo, whose slender, friendly stems waved upward like an inverted cheerleader's pompom, and the prickly pear, whose plum-colored fruit sat perched atop cartoon-shaped paddles.
At the Mexican market, we washed down our visions with cool watermelon concoctions while taking in the sight of papayas and jicamas, and mounds of richly colored peppers.
It was a short trip to the moon, a chance to break away from the laundry basket to be reminded of what a wide world it is--how rich and varied, how strange and beautiful.
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