The sun outlined her long, blond hair and body in gold as she entered the room. Bracelets jangled and earrings danced down her neck. She confidently wore her unique style from her headband down to her tanned legs. Expressive eyes sought me out and she quickly finished her text conversation and hurried over to meet for lunch. We really didn’t know each other. I met her during a time when I was confined to live from dusk to dawn before barely making it home to rest. While I couldn’t make up for lost time, I could now spend my time with people I imagined would connect in heart and laughter and spirit. Some two hours later, I left the restaurant with a new friend and a commitment to buy a thumb ring.
A few days later, I attended a regional meeting for an organization I recently joined. Some 300 women gathered to honor the noble cause and seek ways to further unite together in time-honored traditions. I was the only one wearing blue jeans –- black to be exact. I was dressed from head to toe in black -- black cotton shirt above black jeans and my favorite black platform sandals. Big silver hoop earrings jangled above a beaded necklace my sister made and my long wavy hair was barely contained by a lace black headband. For lunch, I seated myself at a table with two elderly women. With disdainful tones, they described the relaxed dress code and spoke with animation about the upcoming state conference during which white gloves and dresses would be worn. I broke into hives.
On the way home, I thought about my two different lunches with these separate women. Stopping at a jewelry store to purchase the much anticipated thumb ring, I pondered the white gloves. I had no doubt that my new friend, sporting her own thumb ring, would have white gloves. Maybe I would have the guts to wear my large silver thumb ring on top of the crisp gloves I could borrow. Maybe I would wear it under the gloves. Maybe I would not wear it at all in deference to the honor and respect the white gloves portrayed.
What I do know is that it feels good to have discovered someone who owns both white gloves and jangly bracelets and earrings. A friend, who lived on a farm, loves her own thumb ring and suns at the pool. She is a Mercedes driving, free-spirited woman who lives life on her own terms and wears her hair as she pleases and would be perfectly comfortable lunching at my organization’s meeting.
The key is not to look for a perfectly labeled and categorized box, filled with groups of people who are just alike, and have the same personality and interests, to fit within. The secret is to learn that the box isn’t for people. It’s for the assortment of clothes and jewelry and shoes that we can pull out and put on as we float through the universe embracing all that life has to offer. The secret is to look for one person at a time and see if their box contains and assortment of life’s sparkles and glitter, boots and hair clips. That’s when we start finding ourselves. The self capable of wearing both the white gloves and the thumb ring; conforming as needed; rebelling as desired. And then, what fun we’ll have together along the way.
Sunday, August 22, 2010
Monday, August 16, 2010
Football Aspirations
It's football time in America. Hope is alive and all things seem possible- well, maybe some things. I remember the end of last year's season. Along with Superbowl aspirations for 2011, I vowed my body would readily fit in the snug stadium seats. I swore I would buy a cute Tennessee Titan's t-shirt and sport it on game day. I imagined myself effortlessly strolling back up the long bridge without needing to stop in the middle to breathe before finally collapsing in my car.
A week from Monday is the first home game. I will once again sweat my way through crowds and arrive breathlessly to cram my heaving flesh into a hot seat. I will step on toes and feel my skin pressing into the skin of others as I clumsily work my way into the middle of the row. No doubt, I will drop corn dogs and spill beer along the way (another memory of last year).
I will pray that others around me don't show up and are mired in traffic (certainly the kid who vomited a few seats down last year). I will pray that oppressive summer heat takes a sudden departure and a cool breeze will settle in the night air. I will pray that we really might have a shot at a winning season.
Just in case none of these things work out, I do have another plan that makes me happy. I have enough hope to imagine that the shrieking woman who has occupied the seat next to me for several years has lost weight.
That's the beauty of a real and hopeful optimist. If I don't live up to my expectations, I do hope that others succeed. And do I hope my seat mate has lost weight (or changed seats). If not and we are joined as Siamese twins watching our Titans, I will secretly know that her hips are still bigger than mine and she is half in my seat, instead of me in hers.
A week from Monday is the first home game. I will once again sweat my way through crowds and arrive breathlessly to cram my heaving flesh into a hot seat. I will step on toes and feel my skin pressing into the skin of others as I clumsily work my way into the middle of the row. No doubt, I will drop corn dogs and spill beer along the way (another memory of last year).
I will pray that others around me don't show up and are mired in traffic (certainly the kid who vomited a few seats down last year). I will pray that oppressive summer heat takes a sudden departure and a cool breeze will settle in the night air. I will pray that we really might have a shot at a winning season.
Just in case none of these things work out, I do have another plan that makes me happy. I have enough hope to imagine that the shrieking woman who has occupied the seat next to me for several years has lost weight.
That's the beauty of a real and hopeful optimist. If I don't live up to my expectations, I do hope that others succeed. And do I hope my seat mate has lost weight (or changed seats). If not and we are joined as Siamese twins watching our Titans, I will secretly know that her hips are still bigger than mine and she is half in my seat, instead of me in hers.
Sunday, August 8, 2010
Roller Derby
I think we all have a need to belong; to fit in; to go where everyone knows our name. Places like the bar in the old television show Cheers; places to fit together and form something bigger than ourselves; places where we are united by common goals and uniquely understood. I was not in that place Saturday night. I stood alone in a crowd and stared.
That night, I was a pink lipsticked southern belle in the middle of a sea of black gathered to cheer women’s roller derby. I watched the crowd watching women bearing names that wouldn’t be found in any pastel pink or blue baby book. This crowd of the night wore tattoos. They wore lip rings, nose rings, and tongue rings. They wore dyed hair as art --standing tall, cropped, shaved, formed and shaped as sculptures for an exhibition. They wore glitter. They wore just enough strategically placed clothing scraps to possibly avert arrests. They wore stockings with seams; with rhinestones; with holes. They wore each other in the hallways and bathrooms.
There were cheerleaders. I’m well-read, articulate and even eloquent according to some. Allow me to simply say – I’ve never seen such. I felt certain I was not like any of these people. Wearing a judgmental attitude and a headband, I stood on platform sandals looking down at these fans of roller derby.
Maybe it was seeing the old man sitting in the chair that helped me gaze around with different eyes. Generations older than the crowd’s median age, he too stared. He couldn’t take his eyes off the roller girls. I imagined that perhaps he was someone’s grandfather. Perhaps he was a former Olympic speed skater who taught a young girl to adore roller skating when she couldn’t ice skate. Perhaps he financially supported the team or maybe he was to roller derby what Hugh Hefner is to many,many, many women. So I looked around the crowd and saw that everyone was someone’s daughter or son; brother or sister; mother or father. I looked beyond the chain smoking pregnant girl and saw her within a family of tourists taking pictures of themselves and the beautiful skyline. I heard the discussions of hot dog or nachos amidst the rattle of chains at the concessions. I saw the love among couples waiting in the perpetual line at the women’s bathroom.
That night when I got home, I looked in the mirror. I looked at the piercings in my ears. I thought about the trouble I took with my hair earlier in the evening. I thought about my hair dresser who I visit every three weeks. I washed the makeup off my face. I took off my new jeans and white cotton shirt.
Under our costumes, masks and jewelry; we are more alike than different. We want those we love to love us back. We want to find a bit of ourselves in others; to fit in; to belong. We want to find a place where we are special.
We can find that place anywhere. We just have to look hard enough.
That night, I was a pink lipsticked southern belle in the middle of a sea of black gathered to cheer women’s roller derby. I watched the crowd watching women bearing names that wouldn’t be found in any pastel pink or blue baby book. This crowd of the night wore tattoos. They wore lip rings, nose rings, and tongue rings. They wore dyed hair as art --standing tall, cropped, shaved, formed and shaped as sculptures for an exhibition. They wore glitter. They wore just enough strategically placed clothing scraps to possibly avert arrests. They wore stockings with seams; with rhinestones; with holes. They wore each other in the hallways and bathrooms.
There were cheerleaders. I’m well-read, articulate and even eloquent according to some. Allow me to simply say – I’ve never seen such. I felt certain I was not like any of these people. Wearing a judgmental attitude and a headband, I stood on platform sandals looking down at these fans of roller derby.
Maybe it was seeing the old man sitting in the chair that helped me gaze around with different eyes. Generations older than the crowd’s median age, he too stared. He couldn’t take his eyes off the roller girls. I imagined that perhaps he was someone’s grandfather. Perhaps he was a former Olympic speed skater who taught a young girl to adore roller skating when she couldn’t ice skate. Perhaps he financially supported the team or maybe he was to roller derby what Hugh Hefner is to many,many, many women. So I looked around the crowd and saw that everyone was someone’s daughter or son; brother or sister; mother or father. I looked beyond the chain smoking pregnant girl and saw her within a family of tourists taking pictures of themselves and the beautiful skyline. I heard the discussions of hot dog or nachos amidst the rattle of chains at the concessions. I saw the love among couples waiting in the perpetual line at the women’s bathroom.
That night when I got home, I looked in the mirror. I looked at the piercings in my ears. I thought about the trouble I took with my hair earlier in the evening. I thought about my hair dresser who I visit every three weeks. I washed the makeup off my face. I took off my new jeans and white cotton shirt.
Under our costumes, masks and jewelry; we are more alike than different. We want those we love to love us back. We want to find a bit of ourselves in others; to fit in; to belong. We want to find a place where we are special.
We can find that place anywhere. We just have to look hard enough.
Sunday, August 1, 2010
JELL-O Decisions
My grandmother used to make a lime JELL-O salad that I loved. Pecan pieces hid in a cream cheese blend of crushed pineapples, and marshmallows dotted the fluffy mixture like cotton clouds on a clear blue sky. I thought about her and my childhood today as I looked at the recipe card scrawled with familiar childish writing. I wondered why no one seems to make JELL-O salads anymore. When did we outgrow congealed salads filled with cans of fruit cocktail?
Life seemed simple back then. As children, we learned in terms of good or bad, right or wrong, and neither/nor. We were either well enough to go to school or we weren’t. Maybe being sick is when we learned about decision making and how to live life in the middle of two big field goals colored black on one end and white on the other end. We learned when to advance from eating nothing to nibbling dry toast or crackers and sipping Sprite. We learned when to graduate to cold cubes of JELL-O that would slide down red swollen throats. We looked forward to the big day when we feasted on Campbell’s Chicken Noodle soup accompanied by JELL-O filled with crushed pineapple or fresh bananas. Before we knew what happened, we grew up, and it seems that collectively we threw out the old JELL-O molds and moved into more complex lives.
We fell in and out of love; lived in valleys and on summits; experienced tragic loss and great joy. We savored expensive wines; took pills in good times and bad, and lost touch with both our childhood and ourselves. And yet, the lessons learned while lying in a pile of crisp white sheets next to a nightstand of icy cold washcloths, thermometers and JELL-O bowls stayed within us even though life is not as simple as right or wrong; sick or well. Life is lived in the moments of decision making when we don’t quite know if we’re able to eat the JELL-O with fruit cocktail, take it plain or if we’ve graduated to full blown concoctions shaped in rings or layers or stripes. Life is lived when we don’t know what to do, and no one can tell us if we want plain or parfait. We yearn for someone else to make the decision for us, just like when we were sick, and bring us exactly what we need.
Picking up my mother’s cookbook entitled Joys of Jell-O, I flip through the pages with black and white pictures of JELL-O shaped in cake rolls, pies, and tall towers. I skim tips on how to whip it, flake it or cube it. Putting it back in the pantry, I pick back up the yellowed, stained index card with my Grandmother’s congealed lime salad recipe and set out the cream cheese to soften. I’m not alone, and I don’t make decisions alone. I carry within me a lifetime of lessons taught around the kitchen table, at picnics by a creek, and lying in a bed waiting to be well. On JELL-O's foundation, I’ve been taught I can achieve any dream. It’s up to me to create my future and some days, I can only move forward when I first recreate the past.
Life seemed simple back then. As children, we learned in terms of good or bad, right or wrong, and neither/nor. We were either well enough to go to school or we weren’t. Maybe being sick is when we learned about decision making and how to live life in the middle of two big field goals colored black on one end and white on the other end. We learned when to advance from eating nothing to nibbling dry toast or crackers and sipping Sprite. We learned when to graduate to cold cubes of JELL-O that would slide down red swollen throats. We looked forward to the big day when we feasted on Campbell’s Chicken Noodle soup accompanied by JELL-O filled with crushed pineapple or fresh bananas. Before we knew what happened, we grew up, and it seems that collectively we threw out the old JELL-O molds and moved into more complex lives.
We fell in and out of love; lived in valleys and on summits; experienced tragic loss and great joy. We savored expensive wines; took pills in good times and bad, and lost touch with both our childhood and ourselves. And yet, the lessons learned while lying in a pile of crisp white sheets next to a nightstand of icy cold washcloths, thermometers and JELL-O bowls stayed within us even though life is not as simple as right or wrong; sick or well. Life is lived in the moments of decision making when we don’t quite know if we’re able to eat the JELL-O with fruit cocktail, take it plain or if we’ve graduated to full blown concoctions shaped in rings or layers or stripes. Life is lived when we don’t know what to do, and no one can tell us if we want plain or parfait. We yearn for someone else to make the decision for us, just like when we were sick, and bring us exactly what we need.
Picking up my mother’s cookbook entitled Joys of Jell-O, I flip through the pages with black and white pictures of JELL-O shaped in cake rolls, pies, and tall towers. I skim tips on how to whip it, flake it or cube it. Putting it back in the pantry, I pick back up the yellowed, stained index card with my Grandmother’s congealed lime salad recipe and set out the cream cheese to soften. I’m not alone, and I don’t make decisions alone. I carry within me a lifetime of lessons taught around the kitchen table, at picnics by a creek, and lying in a bed waiting to be well. On JELL-O's foundation, I’ve been taught I can achieve any dream. It’s up to me to create my future and some days, I can only move forward when I first recreate the past.
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