Letter to My Future Self

Dear Future Alison,

If you are reading this, it means you have hit some turbulence. The oxygen masks haven't fallen down from the ceiling, metaphorically speaking, but the captain has definitely turned on the Fasten Safety Belts sign and your brain is gearing up with anxiety. I don't know what the anxiety is about, but I'm almost certain it's getting worse by the hour as you try not to panic about panicking.


The first thing I want to say to you is: Remember that you love your life (mostly). (Yes, you stole that line from Glennon Melton of Momastery, but it's true for you, too.) You love cuddling with your husband in the mornings and then seeing your son wrapped in blankets on the living room couch and feeling his warm little arms wrap around your neck. You love the conversations you have with your daughter on the way to her school. You love the flexibility of working for your own company so you can bring lunch on birthdays and chaperone field trips. You love your tradition of Saturday morning breakfasts at your family's favorite restaurant. You love helping with homework and bedtime prayers. It's a good life, and it's the real-life embodiment of the life you used to try to imagine before you met your husband.

Not only do you have a good life, you also have a purpose. You are the best person to love the people who come into your life--the ones who will be in your life forever AND the ones you will only know for a moment. The world would be different without you--it would be poorer, the same way it would be poorer if any of the people around you didn't exist. Try to remember that and treat people with kindness. There are no ordinary people.

Remember not to make yourself feel bad about feeling bad. It's not helpful, and (your brain needs to hear this) it isn't justified. It's not your fault that you struggle with depression and anxiety. See, along with the good things you inherited from your family, like your dad's empathy and your grandmother's eyebrows, you also inherited the tendency toward mental illness. Many of your family members have struggled with the same thing you deal with. You're not a bad person for feeling this way. Yes, it sucks that you got those particular genes, but remember to be grateful that you didn't also get an abusive family, one who really strives to make you feel worse about yourself.

Instead, you were born into a loving family who did their best to nurture and support you--which they have done every step of your journey thus far. You also made a smart decision to marry an amazing guy who promised "till death do us part" and he apparently means it.

Finally, remember that your track record for getting through bad days is 100%. You've survived bad days, weeks, months, and one long difficult year. Maybe your emotions are screaming at you that this is it, the one time you can't make it out of despair...but remember that depression lies.

Hang on, take care of yourself as best you can, and wait for the turbulence to end.

Love,
One Who Knows

Looking Back: 2015

I am so excited that yesterday I received my 2016 planner from Spark Notebook, which I had backed in a Kickstarter campaign. It was already funded so all I had to do was sign up and wait to receive it. I'll talk about the planner another time, but for now I want to focus on the planning sheets that the owner, Kate Matsudaira, is sending out for each week in December so we can reflect on 2015 and look ahead to 2016. Now that I'm out of crisis mode, this is an ideal time to do that. When I started answering the following questions, the answers just poured out of me.

WHAT WAS THE BEST THING THAT HAPPENED IN THIS YEAR?

I started my new job working for my husband's company instead of teaching school. It was a huge adjustment--once I caught my breath, I realized that with the exception of a couple of years when I stayed home with C, I had been tied to the academic calendar for 35 years (yes, I'm old.) But it was worth it.

OF ALL YOUR WORK THIS YEAR, WHICH ACCOMPLISHMENT ARE YOU MOST PROUD OF?
While my work life was nice and family life is always rewarding, I'm most proud of myself for starting therapy again to dig myself out of my chronic depression and anxiety.

WHAT WERE YOU DOING WHEN YOU HAD THE MOST FUN?
Laughing with my family; spending time with our friend group; relaxing at home alone; tending to chores I didn't have time to do before; listening to audiobooks; reading blogs; writing.

DID YOU ACHIEVE ALL OF YOUR GOALS? WHY OR WHY NOT?
I don't know because I don't remember setting any. I was so desperate just to get out of my stressful job. I successfully did that, so I think I'd say I did okay.

WHAT ARE 5 THINGS THAT WENT WELL?
1. Beginning to work for Village Cupboards. I discovered I am good at office work and organization.

2. Relationships with my husband, kids, and parents. My kids especially are a source of so much laughter and joy in my life. I'm closer to my parents than I've been in my adult life so far. My husband and I had some conflicts but are coming through them with more empathy and closeness than before.

3. Blogging (even though I just started back blogging regularly in November). I have written some of the most powerful pieces I've ever written. My heart has broken...but broken open and my vulnerability has taken my writing to a whole new level. I love blogging because I can have a  tangible connection with readers and get their input.

4. Getting to know the parents of my kids' friends. I didn't have much time for that before, unless we already went to church together. They are neat people and I'm glad my circle has expanded.

5. Therapy. My therapist says she just holds up a "mirror" to me and I process everything out loud while she listens  and occasionally summarizes or asks questions when I (finally) get stuck. I've had some life-changing insights.

WHAT ARE 5 THINGS THAT COULD BE IMPROVED?
1. Obviously my chronic depression and anxiety is an ongoing area to target for improvement. Importantly, though, I'm realizing that it doesn't mean I'm a bad person for having these episodes.  They are symptoms of an illness I deal with and I am learning to trust myself to manage them instead of freaking out, "It's BACK! THE SKY IS FALLING!"

2. My relationship with my husband. Our time together as a couple usually gets put on the back burner, and we need to make time for each other.

3. Working regularly rather than blowing it off just because I can (and once could not). I need to embody being a business owner (since I am a 25% partner).

4. Making time to spend with friends. I have spent more time with groups of women but not very much one-on-one interaction.

5. Create opportunities for our family to do fun things together to make memories rather than stare at screens. (I've already got some ideas going for this one; tune in later, as I'm going to blog about it!)

6. (Which was not on the list, but I just realized I need it.) Exercise. I didn't stay consistent with any certain routine although there were stretches of time when I was a gym regular. I need to make it a routine I will actually do on a regular basis ("No duh, Sherlock," as my 10 year old son is fond of saying.) This means it has to be super easy and so convenient that my excuses are...well, inexcusable.

I started writing about my new exercise plan, which I actually love and have done 5 out of the last 6 days (I had a sinus headache on Sunday), but then I realized it needs a post of its own.

Because it's not like it's common to make plans to start exercising in the new year and then bail out. That's never gonna happen to me. *snort*

Thirteen

Dear Girl Child,

First of all, I feel compelled to emphasize that I am not normally sentimental. You know this, because you inherited this trait from me, along with an aversion to being touched strong boundaries about your personal space. I am the person who threw away 90% of the crap precious treasures you brought home from school/church/summer camp. I have ONE BOX of baby clothes for each child, and it's not a big box. One scrapbook album for each of your first years--and I worked HARD on those, dang it, because you did NOT inherit your artistic talent from me--and about 5 more for the whole family, and no more although I keep promising myself I'll use that app that makes it so easy. Like everyone else, Facebook is now our family album. It usually takes moms getting to the third child before reaching this level of unsentimentality. (Yes, that's a word. Because I say so, and you still take my word as law when it comes to the English language.)

I am also bad about taking pictures and videos. Now, though, I wish I had more (just LOOK at that greatness above this paragraph. But I have always been better with capturing memories with words than images, so this will have to do.

First, you should know that you were not only planned, you were AGONIZED over. By me, not your dad. He said we could have a baby whenever I wanted. (Smart man.) He was 27 and I was barely 22 when we got married. I could not imagine being allowed to care for a baby by ourselves. I felt I was still looking around for the grownup in charge and panicking when I realized it was supposed to be me. (Spoiler alert: sometimes I still feel this way.)

It took me five years to be ready.

Five years of being broke while your dad worked his tail off in various forms of physical labor and I went to college and became a middle school teacher (which let's be honest, probably definitely extended my timeline of wanting a baby). Five years of wondering if we would ever be able to own a house (I had this fixed idea of needing a YARD before we could procreate, and now I hardly ever venture out into it. Weird.) I started having baby fever but also fretting about being financially responsible. A good friend once said, "If you wait till you can afford a baby, you'll never have one." So true, but I didn't get it. Because I am an external processor, I had to talk this all out. Many times. Usually in bed around midnight.

Finally one night while I sat up in bed dithering out loud, the lump of blankets next to me your dad said, "I think you're being selfish."

What??? I thought I was being wise and thoughtful of the future because of course I had to be the PERFECT MOM bringing a PERFECT BABY into a PERFECT WORLD we had created.

AHAHAHAHAA! Excuse me while I gather myself after laughing that hard. I knew NOTHING.

I made him explain. He said, "I am not getting any younger and I don't want to be too old to play with a kid when we have one."

Now, you and I both know this would never be the case. He would've wrestled y'all on the floor if he'd been Abraham and I were Sarah; he's just a huge kid at heart. But he totally called me on my selfishness and made me realize that I was waiting for ME, not for him--and certainly not for our baby. Because I wanted to see myself as a perfect mom. He made me see that the perfect time to have a perfect baby was never going to happen.

Except...it totally did.

I can't explain how except...God, but once I meekly said, "Okay, I'll make an appointment with my doctor to see what I need to do to start trying," everything fell into place. A house we could afford magically fell into our lap. We stopped thinking about getting pregnant and...boom. Six weeks later, we were frantically remodeling our new/old house so we could move into it by the time our lease was up and I realized I miiiiight be pregnant.

There have never been a longer three minutes than the time we spent waiting to look at that pregnancy test. And there has never been a shorter amount of time between that discovering one is pregnant and quitting all remodeling duties. (Hey, that 1970s paint we were sanding off the walls had LEAD in it! I was probably saving you from having three arms or something! Your dad disagrees, but whatever, he didn't have to be pregnant for the next nine months.)

You made pregnancy so easy. I was only sick one time (On The Border, you are still dead to me). We decided not to find out your gender, much to Mawmaw Sher's dismay, since she was champing at the bit to buy adorable baby clothes. (As her post today admits, she secretly prayed for a baby girl with red hair. God apparently listens to grandmothers who have waited mostly patiently for five years for a grandbaby.) The doctor didn't have your sex written in the chart so she wouldn't accidentally say "he" or "she." She was so excited because almost no one chooses to be surprised in the delivery room these days. I still can't believe we waited. (To be honest, on my part it was mostly because I knew I didn't want to decorate a nursery twice and Classic Pooh would be gender-neutral. Gah, I was so sick of Pooh by the time your brother left babyhood.)

Anyway, you also made it easy on me by making it very clear when it was time to go to the hospital. I had been hoping my water would break because the otherwise basically useless childbirth class taught me that if your water breaks, you go to the hospital, do not stop, do not pass Go and most certainly do not collect $200. There was a couple in that class who were there preparing for the birth of their SECOND baby. I know, whaaaaatttt? They were so young and ignorant for the first child's impending arrival that she DIDN'T KNOW SHE WAS IN LABOR and had the baby at home by accident.

I cannot emphasize enough how much I DID NOT WANT that outcome. I had known since the age of about ten, when your Mawmaw told me I was born painlessly after a magical thing called an epidural that I wanted one when the time came.

Me + pain = NOPENOPENOPE.

But I had a certain amount of it after my water broke. I am sorry, I know this will gross you out when you hear it, but I didn't know exactly HOW MUCH water we were talking about. Not the modest cup or so I imagined. I sent your dad back into the house for a towel to protect the car seat "just in case" and he brought back a hand towel. Not sufficient, it turned out. I walked into the hospital with my dress dripping and the nurse joked about me messing up the floor.

It was all very funny but at least there was no question they would admit me because my water had broken. Well, it was funny from 2 a.m., when I arrived, until about 6 a.m., when I tired of walking the halls in a hospital gown, pushing an IV pole, to get my labor going. After that I lay in a bed and stared at a "focal point" the labor class had taught me to choose and thought, "This crap is getting REAL. I don't think I can DO this much longer."

Luckily, without me even asking, the doctor said I could get an epidural so they could speed my labor up, and I swear, I would've kissed the anesthesiologist if he'd still been in the room when the epidural kicked in. Things got much better after that. The next thing I remember, the doctor and nurse were so excited about seeing whether you were a boy or a girl. You were born, I listened for your healthy cry, they put you in my arms.

And there you were: 7 pounds 11 ounces, 19 1/2 inches long, blue eyes and strawberry blonde hair fuzz.

You were my perfect baby. And I had nothing to do with making anything perfect about you or for you. You were just perfect.

I don't mean you were not hard work (I'm still traumatized by the sleep deprivation you put me through.) I hope I have communicated over the past thirteen years that you are perfect just the way you are--that is, I mean that you are LOVED just the way you are, and that you will never have to earn my love in any way whatsoever. You guaranteed that the moment I surrendered to the idea of having a baby. That's why I was so scared, by the way. I was afraid of not having control. Well, motherhood is one long roller coaster ride of realizing over and over again that you have no control over all the things you fear the most. Actually, the one thing you fear the most is losing your child: to illness, accidents, death, or even estrangement. The thought of not seeing your face every day or at least hearing your voice scrunches my heart up until I think I might not be able to breathe. That started the day you lay in my arms, a baby burrito, and I realized, as the saying goes, that my heart would now forever walk around outside my body.

Out of all the girls in all the world, how did we get the very best one?

You have brought nothing but joy into our lives. (At least, that we remember. Your brother can thank his existence for our short-term memory loss.) You were bright-eyed and curious from Day One. I had never seen a week-old baby hold her head up so long; I swear it was so you could look around at people. You wanted to be held constantly but hated the front-facing carrier...and the baby swing...so I held you most of the time. Thank God you deigned to be placed in your bouncy seat for up to 15 minutes at a time--or 25 if I put on a Baby Einstein DVD--so I could gulp down lunch. Showering? Not possible till your dad got home. Some days he asked what I'd done that day and I had to think before answering, "I brushed my teeth." Oh yeah, and kept a human infant alive. Did I mention I'd never even BABYSAT a child under the age of 5 before you came into my world? I'm pretty freaking proud of myself for not accidentally sitting on you. We'd go to bed at night and I'd say, "Well, we kept her alive another day."

Until you woke up two hours later having the audacity to want to EAT, which, well, I am not proud of my attitude after about two weeks. Let's just say there's a reason God doesn't let children remember anything about their first year.

Sweet girl, your mama wants you to know I'd fight a lion or a bear or any man on God's green earth to protect you. I have tried my very hardest to nurture you but not allow my anxieties to limit you. When you fearlessly wanted to do something that scared me--like jump off the couch, climb the backyard fence, or attend kindergarten without me sitting beside you holding your hand all day--I closed my mouth that had been open to scream, "Nooooooo" in slow motion like on TV. I swallowed, put a big smile on my face, and said, "Sure you can!"

(There was this picture book called Little Quack that really helped. I channeled Mama Duck: "Come on, little duck," said Mama, "I know you can do it!" Good Lord, did I really just pull that dialogue out of my ancient withered brain?)

And the thing is, you have done it all. Everything I doubted turned out to be a lie. You proved every fear wrong. You fulfilled dreams I didn't know how to dream. You taught me how to parent you. I am only grateful that I had the sense to get out of your way when necessary.

I believe in you. As our favorite Doctor (Ten forever!) said about Rose Tyler:

"But if I believe in one thing... just one thing... I believe in her!"

And I believe in your dad, who convinced me to risk becoming an imperfect parent, which meant that I became fully human. I believe in the God who was merely waiting for me to take a leap of faith. Finally, I believe in the love that was born in me the moment I heard your speedy little heartbeat on that first doctor visit. My precious girl, I wouldn't trade anything on this planet for the last thirteen years I have been privileged to be your mother.

Now, in one week school will be out and I demand some mother-daughter time in which we will read Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince and talk about it, catch up with the Twelfth Doctor, practice with your newly-allowed makeup (I predict you are already better with it than I am, so please teach me your ways), agree about all the ways that seventh-grade boys are idiots, and just generally have a lazy old fun time in our pajamas together. I think you'll agree you owe me that much just from the story above.

With all my love,
Mom

My Adventure with Manicures

Let it be a lesson to me not to promise a second part to a story right away. Here is Part I.  I actually wrote this on October 19, so there is an update at the end.

All of that is to give some background to what I'm about to say. Until about five years ago I had never visited a nail salon. No, not even for my wedding.

I'll pause to let the beauty gurus get their breath back.

I really regret not having my nails done for my wedding, though. I've been a nail biter/cuticle picker since way back, and my nails look horrible in the pictures, which wouldn't be so bad except that I inexplicably chose a close-up of our hands for a full page in the album. When I see that picture, I don't see the rings it's supposed to showcase; I see my short, not-pretty-at all nails. At least I had put on some clear polish, but it didn't help much.

So why didn't I get a manicure or pedicure before my wedding? It wasn't money (which WAS the reason I didn't go to the nail salon in the years since). In 1997 I had more discretionary income than I've ever had: I had my first full-time job, no car payment, and I was living at home because I was getting married in six months. I was supposed to pay my parents an absurdly low amount of rent but most of the time they forgot to collect it. I did buy my own wedding dress to compensate (big whoop.)

I guess I just didn't have "get my nails done" on my radar. Probably a few people I knew did, but no one I was really close to. No one seemed surprised that I wasn't getting my heels sanded and fingers and toes painted, let alone that I didn't have a professional hairdresser or makeup artist working on me.

And yet! I felt as beautiful as a Disney princess on the big day. My cousin worked magic on my hair, and an ecstatic glow seems to substitute just fine for a professional makeup job. So my advice to young brides is: don't believe the hype. You don't HAVE to spend a ton of money on beautifying yourself. Although if you don't have a cousin who is amazing at fixing hair--not just their own hair, but YOUR hair--then do spend the money to go to a salon. And definitely get your nails done while you're there, if you think you're going to have a picture taken of your hands.

The point of all this is to say that I finally treated myself to a manicure. At forty years old, I am tired of having nails bitten down to the quick and bleeding cuticles. I thought, "Hey, if my nails look pretty, I might not bite them!"

It only took me 25 years to think of this solution.

A month ago I got a gel manicure when I went in for a pedicure, and I loved the results. I forgot to take a picture, but they were pretty. I got a peachy-nude color, but you could tell I'd had a manicure. And I did not bite my nails or yank off a hangnail EVEN ONCE. So my nails grew and I can TAP on things and scratching is amazing.

The gel manicure was very durable, too. A regular manicure would have chipped in about 10 seconds on me, because I'm used to scraping things up with my nails, etc. But the gel held up for almost three weeks.


Here is what the second gel manicure looked like (as of Oct. 19).

I got a whitish polish with a shimmer in it, although the shimmer doesn't show here. I felt very on-trend. Are whitish nails on-trend? I've seen some cool ladies wearing it, so it doesn't matter what the magazines say. I still love the gel and the filing and everything that makes my nails pretty. But this nail tech wasn't as good as the last one. On several nails there was too much polish, even though she kept using her own nails to try to remove excess on the edge. Then when they dried there is no removing that polish. It looked okay in the shop, plus I'm the kind of person who says something's fine because I don't want to hurt their feelings. But outside I saw that the nails weren't perfect the way they were before. If it happens again I will tell the tech to redo them. I promise.

But they are at least okay (the picture isn't great) and my nails are still unbitten.

UPDATE: I am having the polish taken off today, and not getting another manicure right now. It would be too hard on my budget to maintain them even every couple of weeks. I hate the way the polish looks when it's growing out but I haven't had time to go to the salon till today, and the gel polish really won't budge with regular nail polish remover. The current look isn't pretty.

Ugh, what is wrong with my hand? Look at that swollen-looking forefinger and those wrinkles! Forget it, I'm not retaking the picture, it took too long to take with one hand in the first place.

I also just looked up the potential problems with gel manicures according to my Internet doctor, Web MD. Yikes. Besides the whole skin cancer risk from the lights, I don't want my nails to peel off in layers.

And before anyone suggests that I just do an at-home manicure, let me just say that when I do that, it looks like a two-year-old did it.

Sigh. It was nice while it lasted. Thank goodness for pedicures.

Tales of a Former Tomboy

I've never been particularly "girly" in my style. Even as a toddler, when even babies were dressed up for church in frilly dresses with petticoats underneath that made the skirts stick out horizontally, my mom didn't dress me as "frou-frou" as other little girls (that's her phrase). She's said that my legs were so thin, they looked pitiful underneath those voluminous skirts. Someday maybe I'll borrow her photo albums and get to scanning. I have a lot of Throwback Thursdays to catch up on.

This should give you the idea. Doesn't it make you itchy?

For much of my childhood, I was a tomboy who practically lived outside. This is very difficult for me to believe now, but it's true. I rode my bike every day after school, made endless mud pies, and climbed every tree at my grandparents' house (our trees didn't have branches close enough to the ground for me to climb, much to my disappointment.) I did all these things while wearing skirts and culottes because a) that was our school uniform and b) our church at that time believed that women should wear only skirts and dresses. So no truly tomboyish clothes for me.

This is EXACTLY what they looked like, even the navy blue color. I find them hideous.

I had no problems pursuing my interests, though. My parents never told me not to get dirty or not to climb things because I was wearing a skirt (hence the culottes.) I always did like pretty clothes for dressing up, though. I am a romantic through and through, and what could be prettier than the Disney princesses' ball gowns? You can imagine how much I loved Ariel and Belle compared to the earlier princesses: a spunky redhead and a bookworm who ALSO wear ball gowns? My kind of girls! But that's another post for another day.

Okay, this post has gotten way too long. I'll finish the story tomorrow.

I'd like to hear from y'all. Are you "girly" or not? Has your style changed since you grew up, or do you have basically the same preferences you had as a girl?

Crazy?

Today I was teaching the poems of Emily Dickinson--one of my favorite poets--and I was prying answers out of them like pulling teeth leading a discussion about the following poem:

Much madness is divinest sense

To a discerning eye;

Much sense the starkest madness.

’T is the majority

In this, as all, prevails.

Assent, and you are sane;

Demur,—you ’re straightway dangerous,

And handled with a chain.

I explained that the first lines of the poem contain a paradox: a statement that appears impossible or contradictory at first, but contains a deeper truth. I We decided that the paradox here is that behavior that seems crazy can actually have a method to its madness, or come from a person who is ahead of his time. Human beings get very uncomfortable when one of their own deviates from the norm, however. It reminded me of an experience I had in college, so I shared it with the students, who at least were interested enough not to fall asleep (many of them do tend to drowse off when we're reading poetry).

I was taking a sociology class, and the assignment was to identify a social norm, violate it in public, and write up our observations of people's reactions. For example, there is a social norm not to make lengthy eye contact in an elevator, so you could stare at people in elevators and see how they react. (I'm guessing not well.) I wasn't up for that kind of awkwardness, so I decided to go to church barefoot. Completely barefoot--no socks or anything. We weren't allowed to explain what we were doing while the experiment was going on, not even if people asked directly, but afterward we were supposed to debrief them so they wouldn't be driven crazy by curiosity.

It turned out I had two basic kinds of reactions to describe. First, the four- and five-year-olds knew it wasn't normal for a grownup to have bare feet in church. And they didn't mind asking me straight out, "Why are you barefoot?" And, inevitably, the next question was, "Can we be barefoot too?" They didn't much mind that I was breaking the norm if they got to break it too.

As far as grownups, people who didn't know me just gave me weird looks, but you could see the wheels spinning in the brains of acquaintances who were trying to piece together why in the world I had nothing on my feet. "She seemed so normal the last time I saw her," they seemed to be thinking. Yet they didn't want to violate the norm of minding their own business by asking me directly like the kids did. Some people made up their own explanations, like "So did you hurt your foot?" But they knew that wasn't it either, because I didn't have on a brace or even a bandage. I would smile and change the subject, and you could tell it was bugging the daylights out of them.

My dad let me make an announcement after church as my professor had instructed, and oh, the relief that washed over the faces of those who had noticed my weirdness! It was a fun experience even for someone like me who doesn't like to venture into the "weird" end of the spectrum of human behavior. But I learned that I wanted to be more like the little kids, whose attitude was, "That's weird, but it looks fun--can I try it?"

Childhood Memories, Part II

Do any of y'all remember my first post about my childhood memories? I forgot I wrote Part II, so here it is!

1983: Mother finally gives in to Alison's begging and allows her to read Gone With the Wind. Alison reads it in one day, almost making herself sick. Wants to be Scarlett O'Hara.

1983-1987: Spends a LOT of time outside, riding her bike, exploring the "woods" behind their house, and even playing basketball. This marks the last time in her life she can be described as "outdoorsy" or "sporty."

1987: The boy next door, a good friend, is killed in a three-wheeler accident while Alison is at camp. Her parents don't tell her until she gets home after the funeral, which makes coming to terms with his death even more difficult.

1987-1995: Writes many first pages of awful historical romance novels ripped off of Jane Eyre and Gone With the Wind. Also bad poetry imitative of Emily Dickinson or T.S. Eliot.

1988: Gets braces off and, thanks to teen movies, expects every boy she knows to fall in love with her. This does not happen.

1988: Develops a massive crush on her 23-year-old volleyball coach. Devastated to learn he's engaged, but does not learn her lesson about crushing on totally unavailable/uninterested guys.

1988: Finally is allowed to listen to "light rock" station instead of just Christian music. The way is paved for a decade of bad musical taste that features the New Kids on the Block, Michael Bolton, and even Milli Vanilli.

1990: Father informs her that she needs to get a job because he had one at her age. Father has failed to take into account that she is below the legal age limit, but a yogurt shop in the mall hires her anyway.

1991: Takes driver's ed class, where driving instructor impatiently skips over the parallel parking part of the curriculum, grabbing the wheel and parking the car instead of teaching Alison how to do it. Yes, she's still bitter.

1991: Takes the driving test on her sixteenth birthday because it seems necessary to have her driver's license as soon as possible. Fails because she has no idea how to parallel park. Sets a personal record for "Birthday with Most Tears Shed."

1991: Learns how to parallel park and passes the driving test. Ironically, it turns out she doesn't really like to drive and (even twenty years later) will let anyone else drive whenever possible.

1992: Graduates from high school as valedictorian of her class. However, there are only six people in her graduating class, so that makes her accomplishment less impressive.

1992: Tells her father she's not sure she wants to go to college (because secretly the thought of being in classes with more than six people scares her). Father wisely does not overreact; instead he says fine, but she will need to get a full-time job. It takes approximately six seconds for Alison to decide she's going to college.

*End of childhood*

Childhood Memories, Part I

Recently I picked up my copy of Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life by Amy Krouse Rosenthal. It's one of my favorite books, full of little snippets of her experience. I decided to try to do my own version of one of the entries, titled "Childhood Memories." I wrote it in the third person, just like Amy wrote hers, and I tried to be as random yet specific as she was.


1975: Alison is born on July 10. Throughout her childhood she hears her mother talk about how Alison was due on July 4, but instead came six days late. Secretly Alison wished she had been born on the 4th, so she could have fireworks on her birthday.

1975: In November, Alison's father becomes pastor of a church and the family moves to Texas. The church has no money in the bank and they have to live in an apartment in the back of the church, but Alison doesn't seem to mind, judging from the smiley pictures of her in her red and white striped Christmas nightgown.

1976: The family buys a house that was previously owned by a divorced man with two large incontinent dogs, which is why they are able to afford it.

1976: Alison's first memory: lying in her crib soon after waking up and watching the sun stream in through the window. She notices a stuffed dog hanging on the edge of the crib and wants to reach it. She hears a voice as  a woman comes into the room. She doesn't have enough language to know that the woman is called Mama (although she recognizes the voice) or that the toy is called a dog. The dog becomes her favorite stuffed animal and is loved until it is threadbare.

1977: Begins preschool at Miss Scott's Preschool. In later life, remembers only two things from her three years there: the "Good Morning" song, and one instance of suddenly missing her mother (not on the first day of school) and putting her head down on her desk and crying inconsolably.

1978: Learns to read and from then on is rarely seen without a book nearby so she can start reading at a moment's notice.

1979: Alison's brother is born on June 19. Parents wisely reject Alison's suggestions to name him "Thompson" and "Sammy Liles, Jr." (both names of boys she has a crush on).

1979: Meets her cousin K. at her grandparents' house. K. is stealing butter out of the refrigerator and eating it. Alison thinks this girl is extremely strange.

1980: Begins first grade at school the church has started. Is the youngest child in the school and is treated like a pet by the older students. During a safety discussion, when the principal asks, "What do you do if you catch on fire?" embarrasses self by yelling out, "Stop, drop, and ROLL!" Confused and humiliated when everyone laughs. Mutters to self, "But I was RIGHT!"

1980: Meets L., who is one year younger, when their family joins the church and becomes best friends with her.

1980: Teaches self to write in cursive. Feels very grown-up.

1980: The church (and school) building burns one Saturday night. Wakes up to hear mother crying, on the phone, and wonders why they are not getting ready for Sunday School.


1981: L. begins first grade at the school. Second grade is harder than first, so Alison does not win all the awards for most work completed and highest average that she won the year before--L. wins them. Crawls under the table at the awards banquet and cries.

1981: Little brother won't get out of the way when Alison is swinging on the teeter-totter on her swing set; despite repeated warnings, he keeps walking closer. The metal seat of the teeter-totter strikes him in the forehead and he falls over. Although she knows she should feel guilty, Alison keeps thinking, "But I TOLD him not to come any closer!" Brother's head is fine. In fact, it is so hard he uses it as a weapon throughout their childhood.

1981: Feels compelled to learn to ride bike without training wheels when younger neighbor boy learns. Allowed to ride anywhere on the sidewalk on their block, which seemed (and turned out to be) perfectly safe.

1981: Church buys land and begins building. For most of the year, only sees father in the mornings when he takes her to school and when they bring dinner to him at the construction site (and church, of course). Has a wonderful time playing in the sand for the brick mortar and picking up metal circles punched out of the electrical boxes.

1981-1985: Wishes she could be Laura Ingalls Wilder. Plays for hours pretending to be living in a wagon and finding food. Dresses brother up in sunbonnet to be Carrie.Despite what he will later claim, he enjoys it.

1981-1985: Second favorite thing to pretend: school. Lines up her dolls and, when he will cooperate, her  brother. Manages to teach him the alphabet before he starts kindergarten.

1982-1990: Suffers from intermittent mocking by a boy named S., who is inescapable since there are so few students that they are together all the time. S. says such crushing (at the time) things as, "Alison has no common sense!" and pulls her hair and generally makes fun of anything she does. Mother suggests that he actually likes Alison, but that makes no sense to her. Prays, "God, I know I'm not supposed to hate anyone, but if I did, I would hate S.!"

1980-1988: The family doesn't have a television, because their denomination doesn't allow ministers to own them. Alison tries to keep up with TV references by paying attention when other kids talk about their favorite shows so she can pretend she knows what they're talking about. Enthralled when allowed to watch, mainly at L's house and when her family goes on vacation. Does not realize until adulthood how much better her childhood was for not being spent in front of the TV.

1983: The family buys a partially finished house in the country whose builder is going out of business. When the house is finished, they move in--on Alison's ninth birthday. Rather than feel cheated of a birthday party, she feels excited, as if the house is actually a birthday present for her.

                                                                                *
Okay, I can see this is going to get long, so that's a good place to stop for now--age 9, halfway to 18, at a major transition--I think of my childhood as split into two halves between those two houses. I have good memories of both.


This was fun and I hope not too boring for you! Soon I'll post Part II.

It's the Principle of the Thing

Part IV in the story of how I stopped adhering to the traditional Pentecostal lifestyle. Here are Part I, Part II, and Part III.

Sorry if I left you hanging with my announcement to Justin that I had been cutting my hair for years and that I apologized for keeping it a secret from him (and thereby potentially damaging his trust in me) but that I felt fine about trimming my hair. I gave some of my reasons why I had started to believe that God was not requiring me to follow those guidelines.

If the first big surprise of the night was that I'd blurted out my secret, the second surprise was that he wasn't angry with me. He thanked me for telling him and asked for some time to process it.

Later, Justin told me that his mind had been changing as well. (How like our God to work on two people at the same time, without either of them knowing about the other's journey!) He later told me that he thought, "I know Alison's love for God and her spirit has not changed. So obviously cutting her hair did not change her spiritual life--and therefore it must not be as important as we were taught." He shared these thoughts with me and we decided to study and seek God for ourselves rather than blindly following church traditions. We were still open to keeping any standards that we felt were appropriate for our family, if there was truly a Biblical basis for them rather than "we've always done it this way." At the same time, we were willing to accept other Christians who didn't have the same beliefs. Above all, we were determined not to be judgmental, sour believers who gave Christianity a bad reputation.

One of the first steps we took was to talk to our pastor--who happens to be my dad, but we have great respect for him as a pastor and not just as my father. After 34 years at the same church, he has a LOT of wisdom, which in my opinion he showed by allowing the people who didn't conform to the standards to continue attending our church despite the protests from long-term members who wanted everyone to look and behave alike. In all those years, Dad didn't preach about the standards (they were more of a social norm, an unspoken rule) and as people started to change, he simply didn't say anything and treated them just like the other church members. This meant that we lost quite a few people who thought our church was abandoning the truth. That was painful for my parents, but Dad didn't revert back to the old ways because, like us, he had come to believe that the standards were not essential to being a Christian or even a Pentecostal. Therefore, he encouraged us to pray and study for ourselves and he gave us a book written by a friend of his that allowed for a more moderate interpretation of the Scriptures the conservatives always trotted out as "proof" that God's will involved looking like you belong in the nineteenth century.

I won't provide an exegesis of the Scriptures we studied, but suffice it to say that Justin and I saw clearly what we believed those Scriptures to mean. We saw that the principle of the thing is what God is after, not specific items of clothing or hairstyles which can change over time and between cultures. Does God want people to be modest? I believe so. Do different people interpret modesty differently? Yes. I hope to teach my children that when they are showing certain parts of their bodies to get a reaction from the opposite sex, that's a problem. We have to internalize the principle of modesty and not wear things that make us feel immodest. I realize there is a lot to this topic that I haven't answered here, but if you're interested in discussing it, ask a question in the comments and I will answer you in another post to the best of my ability as long as you ask respectfully, even if you disagree. In fact, ask anything you'd like to know about these posts!

As for where we are now, we feel completely happy with our decision. I have long hair by most people's standards--to my shoulder blades--but it's that long because my husband and I like it that way, and every stylist I've had agrees that I should keep the length, with some layers to give it shape! Fixing my hair is so much easier now that I don't have to hide split ends. I wear subtle makeup and am pleased at how it defines my best features and gives natural color to my pale skin. I wear pants, shorts, sleeveless tops, and jewelry. By the way, pants are MORE modest than a skirt when you're caring for small children, especially if you should have to climb into a plastic tube at Chick-Fil-A to rescue a screaming child! As I said, I do feel I dress modestly, with camis under super-low necklines and skirts to the knee or right above. But that's just age appropriate, too! I am NOT interested in showing off my cellulite. Anyway, it's all a personal decision which I don't impose on others because I am DONE with trying to play God. It's amazing how much more freeing it feels to stop trying to be the Judge!

Of course, my in-laws don't feel the same way at ALL, which makes visiting for the holidays about as relaxing as a stroll through a Vietnamese minefield! But that's another story for another day.

Telling the Truth

Part III in the story of how I stopped adhering to the traditional Pentecostal lifestyle. Here are Part I and Part II.

We now skip ahead to 2004: I had been married for seven years and Miss Pink was two. I'd been sticking to the "standards" pretty closely, mostly because Justin was raised in a church that was even a little stricter than ours. I knew that my long hair and skirts were part of the reason he was willing to get serious about me, since his family expected him to marry someone who looked like every woman in their church.

It wasn't very hard to stop going to movies and wearing leggings (I wore them under my dad's button-down shirts, which billowed around me like sails. SO attractive.) But the whole time I was dating and married to Justin, I never stopped trimming my hair.

It was a dilemma, how much to cut off--enough to get rid of the worst of the split ends, but not enough to look like it had been cut. (I always curled it, wore it up or braided it, so the split ends ot lack thereof weren't as obvious as you might think, but Pentecostal women are very good at noticing when hair has been cut.) I didn't dare go to a stylist--I had heard horror stories of asking for an inch or two off, and ending up with hair around your ears. So that meant I had to cut my hair myself, pulling it over my shoulders and snipping off tiny bits that peeked out from underneath my comb. I doubt it was ever really even, but it made me feel better that my hair wasn't so scraggly. My husband never guessed.

Yet something had begun to bother me in 2004. Our church had been changing for the past few years. Plenty of people had openly discarded the standards, and--get this--they had not lost their spirituality. Their faith was still strong, they still prayed and worshipped and served others. If anything, they were more friendly and caring toward people who didn't attend church than the traditionalists, who tended to have only Pentecostal friends.

We had always been warned that if we looked like "the world" on the outside, then our hearts would turn away from God toward worldly desires. For traditional Pentecostals, Christianity was judged (and I do mean judged; judging came as naturally as breathing to us) by the way a person looked on the outside. Yet it was beginning to seem as if what was inside a person was far more important--the way Jesus had said. (Imagine that.)

I knew, however, that I couldn't make the leap without my husband. And I couldn't see him abandoning those beliefs. I was scared that he'd be angry with me if I said, "I'm cutting my hair and I don't want to stop." Thank goodness for a dear friend who knew about my journey, and who hinted ever so gently that it might not be good for my marriage to keep a secret like that. I didn't argue with her suggestion but did not make any plans to tell Justin.

However, my mouth apparently had its own plans. One night as we were driving home, somehow cutting hair was mentioned and Justin said, "You wouldn't do that, would you?"

My mouth must have been completely disconnected from my brain, which still did NOT want to tell, because it opened and said, "Actually, I have, and I've been doing it for a long time." Then I stared straight ahead at the garage door opening and wondered what was about to happen.

"Really?" he said. I was thankful to hear that his voice was not angry, only surprised.

Then I apologized to him. "I don't feel bad about cutting my hair," I said. "I don't think it was wrong. But I do think it was wrong to keep it a secret from you."

And...I think I have to leave the final part of the story--where we are now--for later.

The Red Chair

Part II in the story of how I stopped adhering to the traditional Pentecostal lifestyle of long skirts and long hair, etc. You can read Part I here.

I continued to live the traditional Pentecostal lifestyle after I graduated from high school, but discontent had begun to sneak in. Mainly, I didn't like looking so different from my fellow college students. I was already different in that I didn't live on campus, didn't belong to a sorority, and didn't drink, so having hair down to my butt and skirts down to my ankles made me feel like a total oddball. Still, I had no plans to rebel. That would have made me feel like an outcast in the only place I felt I belonged, and I didn't want to take that risk.

A pastor friend of my dad's recently wrote about his journey towards accepting a more "liberal" lifestyle, and this analogy made sense to me. He said that if you were taught from your earliest childhood that you would die if you sat in a red chair, you would almost certainly believe it. All through your school years, you would avoid red chairs. Sure, other people sit in red chairs and nothing happens to them, but how could you be sure you wouldn't be struck down? Better to be safe than sorry.

Then one day at work, your staff (who know nothing of your belief) decide to surprise you with a new desk chair. They make you close your eyes and lead you into the office, and have you sit down in the chair. You open your eyes and realize you're sitting in a forbidden red chair. Your heart pounds wildly--Oh no! I'm going to die, you think--and then you realize: It's just a chair, and a comfortable one at that. The information you had been taught your whole life was false. You timidly begin to accept the idea of living in a world where you can choose any chair you want, without fear.

My first experience of "sitting in the red chair" was in a movie theater. The first movie I saw in the theater was Ace Ventura, Pet Detective. (I KNOW. My boyfriend chose it.) I wasn't afraid God would smite me with actual lightning, but I was a little uneasy. However, I was smart enough to see the flaw in the logic that permitted renting a movie and condemned watching it in the theater--as if the size of the screen determined the size of the sin. (No one ever gave me a good reason for banning theaters. I suspect it had something to do with the make-out sessions teenagers were supposed to have during movies. But if we were forced to avoid places teenagers make out, no one would ever drive a car. To be consistent , the church leaders should have banned ALL movies along with TV, but they were out of touch, and by the time they noticed that their constituents were loading up on videos from Blockbuster, it was too late--even most preachers had VCR's, and I'm sure they weren't only watching the latest G-rated Disney cartoon.)

Even though the rules didn't make complete sense to me, I had still followed them all of my life. I didn't want to disappoint or embarrass my parents. And I didn't want to do anything to damage my relationship with God, either. That's why I prayed (silently, of course), "Lord, if this is wrong, make me feel guilty about it. I mean, REALLY guilty. And if it's wrong, then I won't do it again."

I still think I had the right attitude about it. If I was in fact guilty of violating any law except that of sophisticated taste in movies, I really did want to know so I could refrain from doing it. A movie was not as important to me as God. I still believe that. If I believed that God wanted me to give something up or start doing something, even if it meant being an oddball again, I would do it.

But on that day, God apparently had no problem with Jim Carrey. As I walked out of the theater, I searched my heart for guilt and found none. I felt...normal. I had sat down in a red chair and no harm had come to me.

Separated From the World

I have often wondered if I should write about my religious background and how it has changed in the past five years, and now that lots of people Beck expressed interest, I've decided to write about it. It may end up being too long for one post, but I'll try to give you the picture without too many extraneous details.

First, some background. I am a preacher's daughter--third-generation Pentecostal on my mother's side and fourth-generation on my father's. My dad, grandfather, and great-grandfather were all pastors, so that gives you an idea of how deeply rooted our family was in our denomination. When I was growing up, church was the center of our lives, not only for worship, but also for almost all of our recreation and entertainment, mostly because we weren't allowed to do so many other things that were "worldly." We also had a church-school, so of course I attended it. Therefore, I spent my youth in a very small, sheltered world in which it was possible to hold on to the beliefs that separated us from the secular world outside.

What were we allowed to do? It's easier to list all the things we weren't allowed to do: drink and smoke, of course; dance; curse; gamble; listen to secular music; swim with members of the opposite sex; go to the movies; and TV was frowned on by my grandparents' generation and still forbidden for ministers. Women were not supposed to cut our hair at all, wear pants or shorts or skirts above the knee, wear anything low-cut or sleeveless, wear makeup (fortunately when I reached puberty, my mom interpreted this rule as "no colored makeup," so I was allowed to wear foundation and powder over my pimples ) and no jewelry, except some churches allowed wedding rings. Men had it relatively easier: they were not to wear shorts or tank tops; and long hair and facial hair was frowned on.

These were the unspoken rules at our church. Some churches were much more strict. I know a woman whose former pastor banned bows in the girls' hair. Bows might have been an unfortunate fashion choice in the eighties, but were they really evil? Even at the time I thought that rule was silly. My parents once sat through a sermon titled "Five-Dollar Red Shoes" which were apparently too expensive and a dangerous color. And on and on--whatever a particular man (I almost hate to call them "ministers") was against, he railed against as sinful and many people were obedient. It was almost sinister, the amount of control these men wielded over their congregations.

As I got older, the rules began to relax--or, rather, we stretched them. My dad let us do some things on vacation, like watching TV or wearing a bathing suit in a motel pool, that we couldn't do at home. I now know that he was starting to feel ambivalent about the guidelines he had been raised to uphold, and he must have decided that what the church didn't know about would be okay for us to do.

Of course, that led to more hypocrisy--although we would have been shocked to hear ourselves called hypocrites. In reality we were trying to rebel, but for a long time it was a secret rebellion, because my parents were too afraid to openly proclaim that they didn't believe everything their denomination stood for. I don't really blame them. After all, their whole livelihood was at stake. But it wasn't that they cynically decided to espouse beliefs they didn't hold in order to keep a job. No, I think they genuinely didn't know what to believe, because they had been taught for their whole lives that if you maintained the "holiness standards" (that's what we called the rules), you were holy. And by contrast, if you didn't--if you trimmed your hair, or snuck into a movie theater, God wasn't going to be pleased with you. I never got the impression that God would cast me into Hell for wearing jeans, but he would be disappointed and upset and would punish me in some way that I was pretty sure I wouldn't like. (My view on this probably had to do with my father's discipline style, which worked well on me because I hated to be disapproved of. My dad would say, "Ali, I'm so disappointed in you," and I would dissolve in a puddle of remorse and wish he would just spank me. But other parents and pastors certainly did imply, or even mandate, that God was marking down all your transgressions and you were just about this close to getting on his last nerve, and then if the Second Coming was that night, you were getting Left Behind.)

Next installment: how I started to realize that maybe God didn't care as much about outward appearances as I'd been told.

Don't Know What You've Got Till It's Gone

Thinking about The Back Porch today—the one place I would say was my favorite restaurant until they closed it down. I still miss it and although I like a lot of different restaurants I’m not sure any of them is my favorite like that one was. There were two locations and we went to the second one more often. It was decorated with fake vines and flowers “growing” on lattices around the restaurant; the walls, or some of them, were painted with a mural of blue skies, rainbows, and flowers growing behind painted picket fences. The room where they served ice cream had those metal tables and chairs that you’d normally find on—you guessed it—a porch.

You walked up to the food serving area and helped yourself to the salad bar if you wanted salad. I always wanted one. Even as a kid I liked a good salad. The salad bar items were always fresh—no brown edges on the lettuce or mushy cantaloupe--and the glass plates were chilled. The cashier weighed your salad and if your guess was close enough, you won a free scoop of ice cream. I won a couple of times. (More about the ice cream later.)

The other food was excellent, too. My brother usually got the tortilla soup, with thin crispy strips of fried tortilla on top and lots of melted Jack cheese inside. Mom and I often chose the vegetable soup with the fresh-baked Zuni bread, which I can’t even describe properly except to say that it had cornmeal in it. I don’t bake bread, but I’d make an exception for that bread. They had pizza with great crust, too--I could go on but I'd make myself too hungry.

We didn’t get ice cream every time we went, but when we did, it was an Event. The ice cream was made on site, with the freshest ingredients. My mom’s favorite was the peaches and cream they had in the summer (why can’t I remember any of my dad’s favorites?) and my favorite was the Hershey chocolate. It was mild, not rich—so cool and creamy as it slid down my throat. I think that was the first place I ever had a (freshly made, of course) waffle cone. Heaven.

I went to college down the street from my favorite eating place. When I worked evenings in the library, I’d head to the Back Porch until I had to be back to campus, enjoying a quiet spot to read and a nice meal which was “not too expensive” (said in a Monty Python voice).

Almost a year after my college boyfriend broke up with me, he wanted to meet me for lunch. I don’t remember which one of us suggested The Back Porch, where we had gone many times together, but that’s where we ended up. I knew what was coming and what my answer would be. I refused to let him buy any food for me, claiming not to be hungry—as far as I know, the first time I’d ever sat in that restaurant without eating something. I stared into my soda and listened as he asked me to take him back, and then I told him no. “I’ve moved on,” I said. “I’m over you.” It was true. I was glad I hadn’t let him buy food for me. This way the place was still mine, and I could take it with me when we parted.

Stupidly, I didn’t go to The Back Porch very much after I graduated a couple of months later. I didn’t realize it wouldn’t always be there. I married, moved away, and the restaurant closed. I still miss it.

The More Things Change

The week before last (was it really that long ago?) we visited my extended family in Arkansas. My dad and his brother grew up in a small town in the Ozarks, but when they were teenagers, my grandfather took another church in a larger town. However, my grandparents retired to their hometown, and a few years after that, my uncle decided to open an optometry practice where he'd been raised. So for a while all of our family on my dad's side were conveniently located in one place (so much easier for the holidays!), although now as we"kids" get older, some scattering has occurred.

One of my cousins (I have four on this side) just finished optometry school and has become a partner in his dad's practice. He and his wife also decided to buy and renovate my late grandparents' house. This is not the house my dad and uncle grew up in--that was sold when they moved away as teenagers--but the house my grandparents bought when they moved back to retire. I have a few memories of the house they lived in before this one, but the bulk of the memories, the house I associate with visiting my grandparents, is the cream-colored brick house that sits solidly on the square that surrounds the town park.

While my husband worked on staining the new cabinets he'd built, I walked through the house, noticing all the things that are different and the ones that can't be changed. Like the layout of the house: it is all length, one room after another, across the wide lot. I used to think it was the biggest house in the world because it took a while to get through every room, even when we were running. When I ran through the living room, I always jumped to brush my hand against the crystal on the chandelier. So I remembered the layout perfectly, remembered what used to be in each room. That wasn't too hard to do because my grandmother hardly ever changed anything. I never remember them getting a new piece of furniture, for example. When I visited before Mamaw died, the guest bathroom even had the same peach-colored, plastic-wrapped cake of soap from the '80s on the back of the toilet.

All of that was gone now, of course. The house has been rewired, re-sheetrocked, and the carpet and linoleum have been pulled up to reveal beautiful oak floors. (The man who built the house owned a lumberyard, and all the wood is gorgeous.) Twenty years ago, my grandmother had (reluctantly) decided to redo the carpet and when the installer pulled up the old carpet and revealed the hardwood, he asked if she wanted to put the new carpet in after all. But since she'd already paid for the carpet, and the hardwood floors would have to be refinished, she told him to cover them up. Now the floors will be appreciated once again. Along with the new cabinets and bathroom fixtures, and the walls painted a soft green instead of plain white or dark-paneled, the house already hardly resembled its former self.

The biggest change I noticed, however, was outside the house. In the spring, a tornado ripped through the town, cutting a three-mile-wide swath of destruction as it went. Thankfully for my family, the house was untouched, but all of the trees around it were knocked down. There is a hole in the front yard at least six feet wide where the largest maple was uprooted. Then other trees I knew well have left gaping holes in my memory. One of them had an outstretched branch that was perfect for hanging upside down by my knees. Another let me get up on top of the shed, and (no one ever found this out, or I wouldn't have been allowed to do it), if I put a milk carton as a bottom step to reach up to the dogwood's branches, I could get on top of the house and survey the town from the rooftop, queen of all I surveyed.

And now those trees are gone. As my grandparents are gone, and my childhood with them.

It was hard to be sad for long, though, when my aunt took us to the swimming hole where we'd often gone as children. It's fed by a mountain spring, so the water is icy cold and so clear you can see straight down to the bottom. My father learned to swim there, and my grandfather also swam there as a boy. Papaw usually built a fire on the bank to cook fried potatoes to go with our fried chicken or hot dogs. No food has ever tasted better. We didn't do that--although a blackened circle showed someone else had recently--but ate sandwiches, strawberries, and cookies before letting the kids get back in the water.

Big Fork was almost exactly like I remembered it. It's a little shallower--my dad and uncle used to dive off some tall rocks (a "cliff" to me, at the time) into the deepest part, but now it's been filled in a little--to discourage diving, my aunt thought, although a teenage boy did dive off a lower rock on the bank, and he was fine. We paddled around in the water and waded up the creek. Tennis shoes are helpful since many of the rocks are slick with moss (I remembered tennis shoes for the kids but forgot mine). The girls found a small dead fish and had to be strongly persuaded to let it go downstream. The three-year-old boys, not surprisingly, threw a lot of rocks in the water. It was so hot that the cold water felt delicious. I was amazed that so little had changed, that it had not become overcrowded, with a parking lot and trash all around. (A Port-a-Potty would have been nice, though.)

As we drove away, I promised that we would come back next summer. It's comforting to know that my children have experienced part of our family's past, and that some things haven't changed.

When I Was Fifteen

The titles of these posts reminds me of the Frank Sinatra song that goes, "When I was seventeen, it was a very good year..." One of my friend's dads used to sing to us, "When I was eighty-two, it was a very good year; my arthritis was bad and my hip was replaced" or words to that effect. None of that happened when I was fifteen, but I managed to get more dramatic than when I was five and when I was ten. My lucky, lucky parents, who had to live with me when I lost the Love of My Life--or the boy who was the love of my life that month. Disclaimer: I actually have forgotten which boys I had crushes on which years, so I'm saying this is accurate plus or minus one year. Someday I might see if my mom still has my old diaries. I'm cringing just thinking about it.

Fifteen

Today at lunch L. looked at me and I almost died. I was just sitting there with my sandwich in my hand while the girls around me talked about things I couldn’t care less about, and I guess I was staring at the side of his face, the way his sideburn lines up exactly with the middle of his ear, and the scattering of freckles across his cheekbone. And the next thing I knew, he was looking back at me. I jumped like I’d been caught stealing and I hope I didn’t blush but I probably did. I immediately kept my eyes glued to my sandwich. If I’d just looked back for a second, smiled, and looked casually at someone else, it might not have been as obvious how I feel about him. But I think he knows anyway, even before today.

When did I start liking him? It wasn’t when I was dating his younger brother, who’s closer to my age, but who dumped me and started dating another girl that very night. Sure, L. was super nice to me after his brother did that; he told me his brother was “stupid” and I took that to mean he thinks I’m cute. So my feelings probably started there, and now I think L. is much better for me than his brother; even if his brother is somewhat better looking, he is not nearly as much of a gentleman as L, and that counts a lot with me.

But L. doesn’t ask me out, and I wonder if he’s still crazy about K. They only went out for a little while, but when she picked a different guy, L. took it hard. She IS the prettiest girl at our school, with her blond hair, big blue eyes, and perfect figure. All the guys want to go out with her and all the girls want to BE her. I don’t necessarily want to be blond, but she’s exactly the height I wish I was: 5’6”. I hate being short, especially since L. is tall. And I look nothing like her, so if she’s L’s only type, then I’m in trouble.

I know I shouldn’t have written that poem for him, because that was right about the time I really started to have feelings for him, and here he was asking me to write a poem about how he feels about her. I just used my imagination and the words came flowing out—okay, I used some of my feelings about him, too. I thought he would be impressed. And he was: so impressed he COPIED IT IN HIS HANDWRITING AND GAVE IT TO HER AND LET HER THINK HE WROTE IT.

She was impressed, too. Flattered. She didn’t get back together with him, but you could tell she liked having a poem written about her. How would she like it if she knew it wasn’t really about her at all?

He apologized later. I had to forgive him; I couldn’t help myself. But just because he felt sorry for me doesn’t mean that he suddenly realized how we are perfect for each other, like we would if this were a teenage movie. It’s more like Cyrano de Bergerac, the play I read once where a guy who has a gigantic nose falls in love with a girl named Roxane,* but she’s interested in the gorgeous guy who’s so dumb he can’t even talk to her. Cyrano writes the guy’s letters to her, and even hides in a bush to tell him what to say to win her heart. At the end of course, she realizes that she’s fallen in love with the man who could come up with those words to express his feelings, not the pretty face.

Which didn’t happen here. K. has the pretty face, and I am the guy with the giant nose. (Not literally, thank goodness, but I might as well, since L. isn’t interested in me.)

Maybe I should cry a while, or listen to “On My Own” from Les Miserables over and over again. I always cry when Eponine sings about loving Marius even though he barely knows she exists because he loves that sickly sweet Cosette, and then Eponine bravely dies on the barricade the next day. Then I’ll be in the right frame of mind to write some more poetry. It will be either inspired by T.S. Eliot or Emily Dickinson, because all my poems sound like one or the other. I like the Romantics too, but I can’t write like Keats or Shelley since they are so old-fashioned sounding.

As far as the rest of my life, it’s fine, I guess. My mom and dad are trying to be understanding about L and why I cry and cry whenever I realize all over again that he doesn’t like me. But they don’t get it. I bet they never felt about someone the way I feel about L. My feelings are a burning flame deep in my bones and I wish I could just burn into ashes; instead, I just burn endlessly like a torch in the arid desert air.

Hey, that’s pretty good—maybe I could use it in my poem. Why can’t we write poetry for English instead of diagramming sentences? There is no scope for imagination in diagramming sentences.**

*There’s a Steve Martin movie called Roxanne based on this play, which is by Edmond Rostand. But I hadn’t seen the movie, and I had read the play. I read everything, even my parents’ old college literature textbooks.

**Yes, I know I shamelessly stole this from L.M. Montgomery’s Anne of Green Gables. But my mother says I AM Anne, especially when I was fifteen. Plus, I am giving her credit, which is better than L. did with my poor little love poem.

When I Was Ten

Last week I started writing some posts about what was important to me at five, ten, fifteen, and so on. It has been so much fun to try to recover my experiences and perspective from those stages of my life so far. Here's the one when I was five. The only problem is that I don't know how much difference there is between my five- and ten-year-old voices. Eh, whatever. It's just a BLOG POST, Ali, not a freakin' doctoral dissertation.

Ten

My mom is a good mom to me because she bakes delicious cookies and cakes and she takes us to the library to get as many books as we want and she buys me clothes to wear when I am not in school because we have to wear uniforms in school.

My dad works really hard at the church but when he is home we have a great time. One of his favorite things to do is to have me and my brother take turns standing up on the fireplace hearth like it’s a stage and he tells us something to give a speech about. Get this, if we don’t know anything about it we have to act like we know even if we have to make stuff up! I had to do that about Zen Buddhism. I knew about Buddha but I said they had to say “Zen, zen, zen” when they pray and I don’t know if that’s right. My brother gets easier things to talk about because he is little. He was supposed to tell the story of Jonah and he said Jonah packed his toothbrush and his jammies, which is not in the Bible at all, but Mom and Dad laughed and laughed about it. Dad says this will help us be good extemporaneous speakers, but does that mean we will be good at making things up when we don’t know what to say? Is that what he does when he is preaching? I’ve never asked him.

I am in the sixth grade, if we had grades, which we don’t really because we just keep doing our own work, whatever level we’re on, and all the elementary kids are in the same room with the same teacher. If I was in public school I would be in a class with a bunch of kids doing all the same work. I’m kind of scared of public school because I’ve never been to one. School is still easy for me except math. I HATE math and sometimes I cry when I can’t get the answers right even though I have erased it over and over again. My teacher tells me I need to take my time and not try to rush through it and then I won’t make mistakes. I want to rush through it though, because I hate it so much. The rest of my work is okay and I do a lot of it. The principal says I am so far ahead that he will have to put me back onto my grade level with a different type of work, which doesn’t seem fair since I already did all of the work I'm supposed to. He says if he didn’t put me back, I would graduate when I am fourteen, which would be fine with me.

My best friend is Leann, who I have known since she was three and I was four. All of us girls like to play make-believe games at break time. We pretend we are characters on TV shows, which is not always easy for me to know what to do because I don’t have a TV, but Leann does and I can watch over there sometimes. Our favorite games to play are Remington Steele and Nancy Drew. (I know a lot about Nancy Drew because of the books.) I think I should get to be Nancy because she has “Titian” hair which I looked up and it means reddish blond, which is exactly the color of my hair. But the other girls all want a turn being Nancy and no one wants to be George because she is a tomboy with a boy’s name. I like recess but not P.E. because I am not any good at kickball or softball which is usually what we have to play.

Speaking of boys, there is one that I like. His name is Richard and he goes to church with me but not school. He is SO CUTE !!! I should not have written a note to my friend saying I liked him, because awful Stephen got the note and told Richard. I thought I would die!!! When I told my dad, he said I should remember not to put anything incriminating in writing, whatever that means. But then later Richard slipped me a note in a pink envelope he made himself and it said: “Do you still like me? Yes or no? P.S. Keep this letter a secret!” and he had underlined secret three times so I knew he was afraid Stephen would find out. And he put in a Garbage Pail Kids card, which shows a Statue of Liberty holding a bag of rotten garbage, which is not romantic at ALL, but I am not going to take that wrong because of the note. My first love note! I will keep it forever even when I am a grownup lady.*

*Promise kept. Observe:

When I Was Five

Yesterday Mr. Blue slept late (till 8:45! It was a miracle!) so I had some extra time to write. I pulled out a book called What If? Writing Exercises for Fiction Writers and started one of the exercises:

"Ask yourself, what did I care about when I was five, ten, fifteen, twenty, twenty-five, thirty, etc.? What do I care about now?"

As sometimes happens with seemingly random exercises, the idea took off as soon as I put my fingers on the keyboard. I chose to write in the first person, trying to use the mindset and "voice" I would have used at that age. Since I have always written about my life, and writing things down is how I remember them, I was able to recall quite a bit of what was important to me at those ages. I've already written the first two and will keep working on the next ones (admittedly, it will be harder to express my emotions as the years give you more complex issues to deal with.) Since I was long-winded even when I was five, I'll just post one at a time. Here goes!
* * *

I love my mommy and daddy and my baby brother. Although my brother is not as much fun to play with as I thought he would be because he doesn’t listen to me when I want him to sit still and play school with me. He doesn’t even want me to read books to him! But that’s okay because I can read books for myself. My favorite books are the Little House on the Prairie books. I wish I could ride on a covered wagon like Laura. But I do have a sunbonnet that Mama got me. I like to go outside and pretend that I live on the prairie. I collect nuts and make mud pies and fun stuff like that.

School is pretty fun too. My work is easy for me. I’m the littlest one in the whole school and I wish I had someone my exact age to play with but the bigger kids are nice to me even though when I say things they sometimes laugh and I don’t know why they’re laughing. I don’t like my teacher much though; she’s kind of mean and she doesn’t explain my math so I can understand it. I wet my pants one day because she took too long to find out what I needed. She felt bad and told me if I needed to go that bad, just to go ahead and go to the bathroom. I wish she had told me that before!

My daddy is a pastor so we go to church a lot. He’s the one who gets up in the pulpit and preaches and everyone has to sit there and listen. Sometimes he kind of yells but it’s not scary because my dad is not at all a scary type of person. I AM scared of the church when it’s dark inside. A teenage boy told me there’s a boogeyman in there and I can’t stop believing that even though Mama told me there isn’t. But then why do they talk about the Holy Ghost so much?

Oooh, cookies! Can I have one? Pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeease? Okay, you're my favorite bestest friend in the whole wide world!