Take a Good Look

This is Jax. He's momentarily still as a statue here but don't let that fool you. He moves about like a giant wind up toy rotated two clicks past where the tiny white winder really should stop.

In every other moment besides the nanosecond of pause required for this shot, he repeatedly bumped and circled his tank-like body up against and around his owner's legs with a plucky kinetic energy. 

He's huge with a strength and size rather daunting to the average person; but at "just about" one year old, this male Great Dane is a big pink-hued albino baby. 

All of his weaving and darting coupled with the glare of the sun and my less than skillful ability to take photos on my ancient phone, made this picture nearly impossible but was able to snap and capture what I needed for this piece. (Thank you, God.)

And what I needed was a decent picture because I really need you to take a good look at him. 

A close and careful look. 

And when you do, you'll see that Jax was born without eyes. 

He was also born without the ability to hear a single sound.

Because hubs and I walk a lot, I've crossed the paths of hundreds of dogs but I can't say I've ever seen one quite like Jax. He is unusually special, like something you might see on 'The Dodo', an internet site for animal lovers.

I believe, as I do all the time, that Jax was placed before me for a purpose. Stumbling upon him and learning about his adoption as the most vulnerable newborn pup I'd ever personally heard of, once again gave me reason to renew my faith in humanity. Our random encounter offered me the blessing of a special chance to see all of the beauty within what initially might have presented as a hopeless situation. 

The beauties I saw were acceptance and safety and love. 

His owner is a kind soul, oozing sweetness like pumpkin stuffed French toast. Leading Jax gently but firmly on a soft, thick leash, she encouraged us to put our hands on him and without hesitating, hugged me tightly when I tearfully told her that he touched my heart. 

They are living their best lives together, galivanting on daily beach walks and interacting with strangers who, unless they pay close attention to where his peepers should be, might not even notice that there is something seriously flawed about that puppy face. 

Today, there were horses on the beach and, damn, didn't Jax know it? Sniffing the air and skittering about, he could sense them. There was a sharp farmy scent and a low thrumming vibration in the sand that I could feel in the soles of my feet as they approached us. Jax grew more animated, perhaps agitated, as they clomped closer. His owner soothed him, leaning into his body and petting his jittery back in long, slow strokes. 

Like so many of you, I also been struggling; but my unexpected and enchanting moments with Jax and his owner gave me a real lift. 

Someone with a big heart truly wanted this dog, despite being born with so many problems and needs, and she willingly provides him with unlimited love, safety, and acceptance. He lives a good and decent life, even when something big and powerful and unknown is approaching in the distance. 

Truthfully, we all have problems and needs...and serious flaws which most strangers fail to see unless they take a really good look. Maybe we can offer ourselves and each other more love, safety, and acceptance.

I wish you a good and decent life no matter what is approaching you. May we all feel loved, safe, and accepted. 

#mushroomtumbler

Sidewalks, Silence and Siding - the Stories

Complete strangers always tell me their stories.

I suppose you could say I have one of those faces or I remind someone of an old friend they once knew and felt comfortable with but honestly, I think it's because I just look people in the eye, smile, and stand around and listen. I try not to rush off in a hurry. I let people know that I'm holding space for them even though we've just met.

Last week I was approached by the woman who methodically and repeatedly, day after day, sweeps the common concrete and blacktop in front of her apartment complex; a large community that houses hundreds of people. She can't wait to tell me, after vigorously petting the min pin, that her mother had ten chihuahuas when she was a kid, all with names straight from the bible. She proceeds to recall the little buggers, squeezing her broom handle, wooden and worn, under one armpit for what is probably the first time in the last few hours. She counts off on her calloused, dusty fingertips...Abraham to Zebediah. 

I'm routinely blessed to interact with a cherubic mute man who breakfasts at Stewarts. If he wore a baseball uniform, he'd be a dead ringer for a differently-abled Don Zimmer. Although he's older, he has the smooth kewpie face of a perpetually astonished blue-eyed child that you've just surprised with a sheet cake and balloons on a morning he forgot was his birthday. Our Zim doppelganger wears effeminate sneakers, in a style your Memaw might call 'house shoes', but he balances their grandmotherly charm with an unexpected fistful of chunky silver skull rings and as he stands before me in his periwinkle soft soled slip-ons, I ask him questions to which he utters, urps and ughs while conducting an invisible orchestra; mammoth stainless steel biker jewelry shoved down every arthritic digit; a gleam in his glacier-colored globes which tells me he is an amazing orator despite not possessing a single recognizable word. 

But today, I got to chat with a new guy, a guy who is single-handedly re-siding his home, a building rather stately but in need of a facelift. 

We've probably walked by this house forty times in the last three months and bit by bit, the old beauty is being veneered a pleasant brownish gray, very much like the feathers of mourning doves.  

I get weirdly excited when a city house undergoes significant repair. I can't help but heap praise upon the flippers who are busy pouring sweat and love into a dilapidated home. Hubs sometimes leaves me be and circles the block with the min pin when I start yakking with the tile guy or hollering up to the roofing crew balanced precariously on slate like the chim chimeree stack sweepers of my youth. So, I was pleased when my love stood with me this morning and looked for whomever'd been busting his or her hump on the two story colonial. 

Like most days, there is an old van in the driveway. There is a paint splattered boombox playing classic Bryan Adams. I strain my neck to see who's responsible for the handiwork but there's never been anyone there to converse with...until today, that is. Today, Mr. Siding Man is there. 

Mr. Siding Man is probably somewhere around my age, though, admittedly, I am a very poor judge of that nowadays. My eyesight isn't as good as it used to be and though my sunglasses are prescription, they're old. Hubs points things out to me all the time and I peer skyward, rather Magoo-ish as I step off of curbs squinting and saying "Where? What am I looking at?"

But I can see that Mr. Siding Man has a short shock of perfectly silver hair and a build suggesting hard work and home cooked meals. 

We compliment him on a job well done thus far. He apologizes for the amount of time it is taking him. He is but a one man show and he likes things done right the first time. This would have been sufficient explanation for us, but as I cheerfully flatter his colorful choice of vinyl, he blurts out that he has recently had a variety of below the belt cancers, three rounds of chemotherapy, a prostate left back in the operating room and a bladder surgically crafted from his small intestines. He also mentions that siding work with a colostomy bag is about as uncomfortable as anything you can imagine. 

We stand, mouths agape, at the determination this man possesses. I start feeling that familiar heat coursing up the sheath of my spine whenever I am in the presence of someone who has more fortitude and backbone than I perhaps ever will. I want to shake his hand and tell him I am proud to know him, but I really don't know him and shaking hands has become such an overstep in this horribly awkward time; so, instead, I offer simple exclamatory statements suggesting awe and blessings that sound rote but what else can you say when presented with such information? He goes on to tell us that he has two new grandchildren and he is beyond thrilled to be in their lives. Hubs declares that grandkids are definitely something to be thankful for. Mr. Siding Man says this will probably be his last job so that he can spend more time with them. 

His last job. 

It is then that we realize he doesn't live at this house. He is working on this house. Someone hired this guy to start and complete what for some might be a one-man Sisyphean task but he's doing it...while jamming to Bob Seger's "Against the Wind" as his colon empties into a bag strapped to his abdomen. 

Think of that next time you have to mow the lawn or scour scrambled eggs off the stovetop, or watch Bubble Guppies for the hundredth time this week, or pick your in-laws up at the airport. Think of the dog-loving lady forever sweeping a driveway that can't possibly stay clean or the poetry of a wordless, slipper wearing bard, or the cancer conqueror on a ladder wearing his insides on his belt and dreaming of pushing two brand new littles in a double-seated stroller. 

And then, after you've done what you didn't want to do, breathe deep, go outside, throw the doors to your beating heart wide open, look your hometown in the eye, and marvel at the sweetness of how everyone starts telling you their stories. 

#mushroomtumbler

James Taylor, October Nights and Thrill Hill

It's that kind of a night.

The kind of October night that brings back bonfires, a borrowed jacket redolent of post-practice sweat and teen boy pheromones, and a long walk through the woods to our party spot, high up on the hill. 

Thrill Hill. That's what we all called it. Spoken of mostly in legendary terms now, it was our teen hangout and best place to be in the brisk fall darkness.  

Those were the days...when we left the house on a Friday evening and headed to the football game, back slapping and yelling ourselves hoarse before zipping up our coats and hiking far into the forest to drink out of clear plastic cups while either hanging onto our best friends or our best hook up.

Music. There were always tunes though, oddly, I never much thought about from where they came. Was it a car stereo? A boombox? There was no electricity at Thrill Hill so someone was willingly, for our collective entertainment, eating a whole lotta battery, whether automobile or D cell. 

Boston begged us not to look back. JT reminded us to shower the people. CSNY asked us to carry on. The Grateful Dead said being friends with the devil just might be acceptable. 

The beer might have been cheap. Who knew? Who cared? For a dollar you got all you wanted (and then some).

Lighters got passed around all night. Don't bring the one with the Navajo silver and turquoise cover that you "borrowed" from your brother's girlfriend 'cause you'll never see it again. There were cigarettes (menthol for the girls, so only bum one if you can handle their icy harshness), the occasional cigar (for which we were thankful as they really did keep the bugs away) and, always, the ropey diesel of marijuana. One sniff of pot transports me to that time like almost nothing else, except maybe the powdery notes of my old perfume or the sulfur stench of coppery downed leaves. 

I've heard marijuana called a 'gateway drug' but for us, back then, it seemed to provide only a gateway to mellow authenticity. For the socially shy, it made covert thoughts sharable. For the anxious and worried, it brought the feeling that every little thing's gonna be all right. For the brash and bold, it offered a more harmonious style of communicating. For the carefree and genial, it turned the regular world into a kaleidoscope of colors.

For me, it took away the chatter in my head that said I wasn't attractive enough and that my family was woefully unsettled. It offered me the chance to sit quietly next to a friend on a log, staring skyward at the navy greatness of this chasm, in which I was nothing more than a tiny quark. It gave me some peace. It prompted me to join the song circle, torsos intertwined, with no discernment as to where one arm started and another ended; belting out lyrics about rain and flying machines and "I always thought I'd see you baby, one more time, again". It offered me the lifelong gift of recognizing myself in everyone else. It made me sink into the shoulder of a friend I could trust while he walked me more than a mile to the safety of my front porch, light on, door unlocked.

The solidarity that my high school friends and I created in those moments, that brand of unity, is either formed in situations which are memorable and perfectly lovely or in situations while helping each other survive something perfectly awful. So, in our time, in the woods, warmed by the firelight, bathed in the smoky haze of our collective harmony, we took what was perfectly lovely and perfectly awful about our lives, our bodies, our grades, our homes, our adolescent mindsets and our oft-broken hearts and forged those emotions into torrid links of cadmium and tangelo; into chains of oriole-breasted red-orange fire that will never break.

Truly, never. 

So tonight as we walk and traipse by others' outdoor backyard burns and smell the grass that's now legal, the pungent combination takes me back to how we existed like a spirit family. A fraternity. All conjoined.

And I sigh so very gratefully for having been a part of it all. 

It's that kind of night, Glens Falls. 

Ain't it good to know? 

Ain't it good to know? 

Yeah, yeah. 

You've got a friend. 

#mushroomtumbler

My Perfect Ten for Sirius XM

Sirius XM is playing selected listeners' Perfect 10 lists on October 10 (10/10). 

I think the lists they choose will be spun on Classic Rewind. 

This might not be your cup of tea but it's mine so these are the songs/artists that I selected and submitted today for my Perfect 10.

 1. Soul Kitchen – The Doors

2. I Feel Free - Cream

3. You Keep Me Hangin’ On – Vanilla Fudge

4. Traveling Riverside Blues – Led Zeppelin

5. Let Me Roll It – Paul McCartney

6. Loving Cup – The Rolling Stones

7. Satisfaction Guaranteed – The Firm

8. Bell Bottom Blues – Derek and the Dominoes

9. To Love Somebody – The Bee Gees

10. Mandolin Wind – Rod Stewart

 

Every career assessment I ever took said I should have been a Medical Doctor and a DJ. 

Maybe I can realize one of those dreams with this list. 

#siriusxm

#mushroomtumbler

Not Drowning, Just Waving

 

I saw his companion first, left hand hidden behind her waist and right hand jostling a gigantic Styrofoam cup of gas station soda. She was shaking it repeatedly, like when your ice is melting and you want to blend the tasteless tap water with the underlayer of sweet syrupy Coke. 

But moments later I glanced again and saw that her hand continued to fling and flutter, long after the soda would have mixed with the ice dregs. 

Her other hand came out from the pocket of her black and gold hippie-style sundress, and it was jiggling and joggling, too. Bending to set the drink on the sand, they played invisible air tambourines and her long gray braid flopped down, obscuring what I saw later as unmoving and rather emotionless facial features. 

Her partner came into focus next. I don't know if they were married, or friends, or if she was some sort of helper, though based on what followed my best guess would be all three.

Shuffling behind a walker onto the beach, he stood shoeless and grimacing. It could have easily been the searing heat of the noontime Carolina sand beneath his crinkled toes but, more likely, it was his physical condition which led to his frowny scowl. 

I somehow intuited a sense of the general unfairness of life informing his pain. 

Walking was a herculean task and I found it both difficult and intriguing to watch. Other  beachgoers spied him and then begin busying themselves with their cell phones or grandchildren or Fritos, depending on what was nearby, in an effort to appear distracted by their own miserable lives.

I did the same for a minute, unfolding and folding the towel in my lap.  

I figured I should make Hubs aware, but he'd already shifted his weight to the balls of his feet in his beach chair, at the ready, primed to stand and assist as soon as the scowler's legs went out from under him. 

Steadying himself nicely next to a tall wooden pier pile, he left his walker in the soft, deep dirt near the dunes and exhaled measurably. His companion helped him remove his shirt and motioned silently, devoted and measured in her actions; lips firmly set in a steely, pale line.

He began to move toward the water. Stopping and flashing a wobbly thumbs up to us and to whomever else made eye contact, he traded the scowl for a look of determination and like a sea turtle making its maiden crawl, trekked toward the shore. Platinum-haired and ponytailed like his lady, the map of lines upon his face showed years of outdoor exposure without benefit of sunscreen or shade. 

His slow descent left all of us mesmerized. Alarming unsteadiness gave us cause for common glances and matching group-think. Those of us seated at the edges of his chancy corridor banded together wordlessly, believing we'd be up and helping within seconds. 

A long amble to the shoreline, he grasped at his body, all the while the inconsistency of his gate showed his hips were bone on bone. Hampered by the hot sandy surface, he hadn't gotten to the flat part where the coolness marks relief and the waves roll over your toes. 

But as he got closer, he started moving more quickly toward the water. She, with the salt shaker hands, traveled both next to and in front of him, silently using her body as a nudge for people to make room for the man. 

Groups parted. He got there. We breathed the air we'd been unaware we were holding. 

Onlookers next to the water popped the tops off their beverages and raised them congratulatorily in his direction. The determined look became a grin. But then, due to his frighteningly bad balance, or lack of good judgement, he fell...smack into the sea. SPLOOSH!

A rough wave day, he was pulled asunder and emerged five feet off shore, flapping and sputtering. It was a mad display of alternate dunking and emerging. He snapped his neck like a marlin on the line to flip his hair around so that he might see for a moment through rolling wild eyes before being pulled down again. 

He was the helpless marionette of Poseidon, a most sadistic puppeteer. 

Hubs and I looked to his companion, seated on the shore's edge, for clues. How do we respond? Was he waving or was he drowning? Resting stone faced, her eyes stayed with him while bobbed like a cork. Fishermen continued to cast giant baited hooks atop the pier, unaware of him directly below, their lines weighted with coal black sinkers shaped like arrowheads.

My fingers drummed the arms of my chair. I continued to look around at the people near me, most of whom seemed amused by the man's antics. Was he gleeful or was it panic? I couldn't tell. Was he smiling? Was he crying? 

Wait...was he smiling and crying?

A huge wave spat him onto the beach and he stumble-crawled, laughing, to his mate who helped put neon colored water shoes on his puckered feet. Together, they made their way back to the walker; easily a ten minute exercise. Two women offered their assistance but were shrugged off as he made slicing motions with his stick-thin arms, thanking them in a soprano voice, flogged by sand and water, not unlike a quick huff of helium.

I told Hubs that this would make a good blog post but I was quite delayed, trying to figure out how to sum up the story. Then after spending a week with people who are struggling in their own personal and physical ways, the image of the strength and then the surrender of this man kept coming back to me. 

Do I sit idle in my pain or do I go out on the crowded beach, despite the hurt and the hurdles and give the perfection-weary world of Facebook and filters something to be inspired by?

Cheers to those of you who choose to amble uncomfortably down the sand. 

Cheers to those of you who hurl yourself into the ocean. 

#mushroomtumbler

The Referee's Closet

My mom really wanted a downstairs bathroom.

When we bought our house in 1977, there was an unfinished half bath. Plumbed, but without fixtures of any sort, it held the promise of an additional washroom in our single lavatory home. It also held the promise of a monumental task for my father, not the handiest guy in the room, but Mom went ahead and bought wallpaper and cut and sponged it to perfection, fully anticipating a bifold door, new flooring, a toilet, a sink and items from the JCPenney catalog she had picked out and circled to hang on the walls. 

But the bathroom never happened.

You see, my dad was a hockey referee and our unfinished half bathroom, over time, became an equipment closet. 

Now, if you like hockey and you don't mind the pong of last season's Cooperalls wafting out at you as you are carrying your Orville Redenbacher popcorn and Stewart's ginger ale into the den to watch Fantasy Island on a Friday night, it's all good; but if you are my mom, a stinky door-less repository for hockey gadgetry, freshly wallpapered in gold and black Gibson Girls, was not exactly a palatable compromise. 

Our equipment room held pucks, sticks, skates (a.k.a "Tacks"), duffel bags, team jerseys, black polyester ref pants, black and white ref sweaters, extra skate laces, whistles, tape, pads, long johns, and after a few mishaps, a CCM helmet for Dad following one too many concussive discussions of "How did I get home?" repeated throughout the course of an evening.

My girl friends could have cared less about the closet and sauntered by it with their arms full of sleeping bags and Barbie styling heads, giggly and eager for nights of doll hair curling and baby pink lipstick application. With my guy friends, though, it gave me instant street cred to be able to show them what was in there.  

Easy to find due to its odiferousness, the neighborhood boys would tromp in and go straight to the bathroom/not bathroom. They'd touch the skate blades to see how sharp they were, they'd turn the pucks over to see if any were emblazoned with team logos, they'd squeeze the thin plastic water bottles, some still wet, with long, spitty, reedy straws. I hung back, but watched them, careful to be sure they didn't disturb anything that was off limits, but really nothing in that closet was. 

Mom didn't spend a ton of time in the den, despite the fact that she was able to decorate that particular room as she saw fit, with Cape Cod photos and carved wooden souvenirs of peg legged pirates and yellow slickered fishermen, probably because she had to walk by that damn un-bathroom every time she wanted to go watch TV.

One time during a forbidden high school party, a boy who'd never been to my house thought in his blind and drunken state that it actually was a bathroom. We caught him just in time to spin him around, in a retro move borrowed from pin the tail on the donkey, and push him out the back door and down the steps into the yard to york his guts out.

Penalty box for that dude...two minutes for tripping.

Later, when I went back and visited my childhood home as an adult, I saw that the good folks who bought the house from us finally finished that bathroom. It was powdery, and pastel hued and functional and I'm a hundred percent sure it adds immensely to the value of the place. 

But, it was the single room in the house I found unrecognizable. 

Good ol' change, though; yes, I suppose it can be good. Especially in this instance for those who don't fully appreciate the versatility (or fine scent of) of a hockey closet. 

Nowadays, and many moons later, when my husband works hard or exercises like a beast and sweats to the point of total funkiness, I don't mind at all, (though he prefers to shower it away as soon as possible). I try to explain that it's no bother. It's not a problem. 

 "You see dear", I explain, "to me, you smell like home".  

 

 #mushroomtumbler

Wrong

Are you wrong?

Wrong, not for taking everything so personally lately, but for beating yourself up because you feel what you feel?

Wrong, not for crying at the drop of a hat, but for hiding yourself behind the bathroom door while tears run down your cheeks?

Wrong, not for looking at everything you haven't done, but for feeling so much pressure to do all of it?

Wrong, not for standing up for yourself, but for thinking that maybe you shouldn't have?

Wrong, not for wanting to take a day off and go swimming in this heat, but for deciding you don't have time for that enjoyable activity in your life? 

I've decided I am indeed wrong. 

I AM Wrong, not for driving past my favorite house of all time like a stalker, but for never sending the homeowner a note asking her to give me the right of first refusal should she ever decide to sell it.

I AM Wrong, not for ordering the ice cream, but because I didn't savor it; too busy counting calories while I numbly ate it. 

I AM Wrong, not for feeling so lost and lonely after a recent death, but for attempting to put my grief on a timeline. 

I AM Wrong, not because my writing, my self care, my time spent exercising, and my time devoted to learning has been almost zero on the priority list lately, but because I have not faced my reflection in the mirror and kindly asked myself why.

W.R.O.N.G. - Ok, now flip that shit. 

Here is how I'm making WRONG acceptable, for me at least:  

Willing to 

Really listen to my voice

Openly and honestly and without ego. 

Nothing, including my old patterns, can make me feel a particular way unless I agree to it.

Growing pains at 50 are something to run to, not run from. 

#mushroomtumbler

Eulogy for Moo Moo

 

Most people I knew growing up had a Grandma. A Nana. A MeMaw or even an Oma, but I was the only girl in the crowd with a Moo Moo.

Grandmas bake for their grandkids. My Moo Moo baked 50 pies at Thanksgiving.

Nanas buy their grandkids presents. My Moo Moo bought me a Barbie Van and a navy pea coat so that I could honor my Grandpa while I stayed warm.

MeMaws have their grandkids on the weekend. My Moo Moo took me to camp for weeks at a time letting me run all over hell and creation; barefoot and dirty with a pocketful of quarters for the game room; no curfews because she knew I would learn more by setting my own.

Omas move to Florida. My Moo Moo lived within an hour and a half from me my whole life and when I was in college she was a only a 10 minute ride across the bridge where I’d come to do laundry, eat Sunday dinner, watch Murder She Wrote, and visit with all the people who routinely dropped in, everyone welcome, the door was never locked.

One of the most important and influential people in my life, I think of Moo’s legacy with me in two distinct parts. From birth to age 7, I had her to myself. Christian Armond Palombo wasn’t born until 1977 so I received all the attention and spoils that a first and only grandchild gets. I got all the Christmas mornings. I got the Judy Blume books. I even got her engagement ring, which I swiftly passed along to Lucas so that he could marry Chloe with a proper sparkle on her finger.

Once the rest of her grandkids came, I had to learn to share and things changed for me, but I always knew how much she loved me, right up to the end, because she stayed in touch like no other person in my life with the exception of my husband.

Moo Moo checked in on me constantly as a teenager despite the fact that she was caring full time for my Grandpa.

She came to every important function of mine. Every dance recital. Every birthday party. Every graduation. Every celebration. She made me feel noticed and important. That was one of her greatest gifts to us, she noticed people.

She eventually took on the challenge of AIDS/HIV education and advocacy. Now this was in the early 90s when those who’d contracted the virus were still stigmatized, shunned, and misunderstood. But Moo Moo volunteered in all kinds of places letting people know (a.) that she noticed and (b.) that she cared.

She was a surrogate parent to people who needed one. She brought Eugene, her special friend with the virus, to many of his daily medical appointments even though she was in her 70s and might rather have spent that time crocheting Moo blankets. She was proud to have helped so many with her volunteerism. She routinely asked all of us what we were doing to give back.

For those of you who don’t know, Moo Moo has been sick for a while. She had a blood disorder and suffered the effects of it for seven and a half years. It has not been easy for her nor for those closest to her. But every time I asked her how she was she said “Not too awful bad.” She wanted to live.

To honor Moo we can visit her grave, we can pray for her, we can tell stories among ourselves about her shenanigans and idiosyncrasies, but above all, we can try to live a life reflecting her values:

Here are a few ways:

Be generous when you can.

Notice people.

Root for the underdogs, the dark horses, and those at the back of the pack.

Offer the joyless and afflicted some hope.

Treat the dying with respect.

Dance with a butt wiggle.

Cheer loudly from the sidelines.

Keep the traditions.

Wave the flag.

Lift high the cross.

Say your prayers.

Make friends wherever you go.

Put aside material wants for other people’s needs.

Make room at the table.

Tell the old stories.

Don’t fear the mincemeat.

Keep in touch.

Never be too busy to spend 5 minutes with whomever is walking through your door.

Stop and smell the roses but don’t place so much importance on those roses that you fail to help the lonely, flea-bit cat in the alley way next to them.

Hers are tough shoes to fill.

It might take all of us to do it.

Thank you for coming today. She loved you all.

#mushroomtumbler

Silver

This past year has been rough on many romantic relationships.

Perhaps it was the copious and unprecedented amounts of time together huddled at home. Few opportunities to be social with others. Plenty of access to alcohol but zero access to the gym. Maybe it was sudden financial upheaval or unrelenting political banter; so much so that even those who tended to agree, began disagreeing. For some, it might have been the idea of our country crumbling underneath us while death skulked around every corner. 

A few of of our committed friends have faced one other in the tumult and said, "I'm done." 

We've been emotionally gutted like fish, enduring sickness, a loss of faith, foundations shaken to the core, as we pored over 24 hour news documenting lonely hospital bedsides and health care workers with expressions from mournful wails to defeated silences. It was hard leaving the house and walking by the empty and naked tennis courts, netless and chained on our way to several, (probably germ-filled), stores to find a squashed package of overpriced not-our-brand of toilet paper being stocked by a dog-tired but devoted employee who'd probably rather be home. It was enough to make us take an exhausted, sorry look at life and ask, "Is this where I want to die?" or "Is this who I want to live with when things get back to normal?"

Thankfully, for me and my husband, our answer is yes.

I want to squeeze his hand. I want to pet all the dogs as we walk and guess the prices of houses for sale. I want to peer into the discarded junk box on the side of the road while he gently pulls my arm to leave it. I want to make grocery lists with his steak and my tofu. I want to debate world events. I want to make sure we have the coffee he likes and linger for a moment over the perfect headprint on his pillowcase before changing the sheets.

He wants to wash my car. I want to wash his clothes. 

When he is done saving the world, he comes to me for healing. When I am tired of healing the world, I turn to him for saving. 

Like two sides of the same coin, we are forged in heat. We are silver.  

He is heads. Plowing through anything in life that presents a challenge, noble and wise, steadfast and strong. Sharp roman profile, he is our engine. 

I am tails. Observational, I hold situations and people and things for too long, my unremitting emotions smoothing them like stones in a raging river. Soft bottom, I am our caboose. 

If we are the Chinese lion, he's up front, dipping and diving in a swirl of fast moving color, while I am rushing to keep up but also simultaneously anchoring us; one simpatico movement of thrum and choreography.

He can accomplish twenty things to my single task but when his twenty are complete, he returns to me with his shoulders aching and his countenance nearly bested by the burdens of this life. It is then that I become the bird who turns to ash, loved ones kept safe under her wings in the fire.

When the one task I have been working on has spun me up, down and sideways like a seed on the wind, he plucks me out of the air and buries me deep in the soil of his stability so that I can live to grow another flower. 

The lockdown made him determined and manic. It made me pensive and worried. He ran. I stood like my feet were stuck in a bucket of cement. I helped him slow down. He helped me speed up. In our twenty fifth year together, we are emerging from the friction of our last trip around the sun, a silver anniversary celebration on the horizon. Corrosive-resistant, we dwell in the pocket of this life, tumbling around in the dark, spent and recirculated. 

Precious and priceless. 

Silver.

#mushroomtumbler

You're a Wet One, Mr. Grinch

We had a drenching rain this afternoon. A spectacular, thunderous, good for the earth deluge.

All of the soaking, however, overwhelms some of the sewer drains in the old streets of our town, especially at the larger four way stops, which tend to "pond" and become temporarily impassable. 

Strolling with the min pin by one of those underwater intersections this evening, Hubs and I enter the splash-happy realm of a gaggle of puddle loving kids, ranging between 5 and 10 years old. Three of them are doused in wetness, wearing rainboots in fancy colors - kumquat orange, tulip pink, and a sassy patterned pair with bright citrusy-hued circles. Child number 4 is mucky, soiled and barefoot and his feet, as he sprints and somersaults, grow dirtier by the second. 

It does my heart good to see these kids racing about and pretending to swim in the calf-deep water. They throw their hands in the air, playing what we immediately recognize as the rock/paper/scissor game. Apparently the loser amongst the foursome has to dart back across the street to check in with a small and patiently watching crowd of parents. These kids, full of life and joy, are 100 percent pure, unadulterated glee, with messy hands and scuzzy feet. They will surely eschew the foot pull. 

Have you seen the foot pull?

I stopped at Target to pick up a to-go order of pet food and coffee. It's safer for me to place Target orders at home and then claim them at the counter immediately inside the door. You might think the safety to which I am referring has to do with Covid, but no. In actuality, I am talking about the safety of my credit card. A quick two item pick up at Target without this courtesy can easily turn into an expensive cart full of nonessentials like individually wrapped organic almond butter pouches, ceramic cookware, sunscreen made from pulverized cornhusks, and seven dollar bottles of Mojito mix. 

Ridiculous, I know. 

Speaking of ridiculous, I noticed from the corner of my eye that someone was entering the rest room while I stood in the pickup line on my red, carefully placed 6 feet apart circle and that person was using her foot to unceremoniously yank the door open. 

Her foot. 

To yank. 

After being handed my single brown sack and avoiding the delicious bags of Sour Patch Kids placed so cleverly next to the register for our sugar-addicted convenience, I strolled over to the bathroom to see what people were doing over and over with their feet at this suddenly very busy ingress. What I observed as I got closer is that we no longer use our hands at Target to enter the rest room. Instead, we place a foot in something labeled a "foot pull" so that we avoid all tactile contact with said door. Covid safety signs placed just so remind us that this is for our own good. Our feet are part of our protection. 

I walk away hating how Covid has robbed us of our sense of touch. I hate that I am supposed to wipe every handle of every cart and avoid using cash because of its tendency toward germy grossness. I hate that I am now expected to use my foot to open a door. Heading to my car, I work to flip my thoughts and concede that maybe a foot pull might be of benefit to someone without arms. It's the only way I can spin the weirdness into something of good measure, necessary and useful in its newness. 

But here I am in the city hearing these kids singing their high pitched songs while slapping the corner light pole to bring out its hollow metallic clang; clomping and sloshing through Lake Macadam, hair plastered to their faces with the backs of their necks soiled and resembling the color of dingy fish scales in their slimy abandon, and my spirit soars.  

Screw the foot pull. 

Coming toward us, we see one of my favorite neighborhood moms tethering a damp, chubby cocker spaniel which is desperately pulling to gain close proximity to the min pin. Trailing behind is her youngest son, a pint-sized towhead wearing, despite it being June, a long sleeved red and green thermal shirt showcasing the original Grinch holding a Christmas star.

"He was ready for bed," she said. "But we got a call that his friends were playing in a huge puddle so of course we came right down."

Our Seuss fan's name is Augie. He quietly stoops down to pet the min pin's head even though his pals are less than 50 feet away doing the backstroke in the middle of the street. Sporting nylon shorts and stoplight yellow rubber clogs with little jibbitz placed randomly in the holes, I giggle and confess that I would dress exactly like him if I were five years old and making my way to the largest neighborhood puddle around. He smiles. Mom smiles. The cocker spaniel coughs and wheezes from having been held still while Augie spent a minute of sweetness with the min pin. We exchange goodbyes and part ways. 

Meandering through the streets, Hubs and I cannot avoid the water. My socks and sneakers absorb the gritty runoff. It's muggy and I squish but I do not complain. Several streets later and circling back, we spy Augie, his Mom and Chester the cocker spaniel once again. Augie's Grinchy pajama top is a soggy green ball wound tightly around Mom's hand and his bare little chest is puffed out like he's the Grand Marshal of a town-wide parade while he swings his arms, plunking his crocs down heavily upon the sidewalk and stopping beneath low hanging branches to shake them free of all their drops of water, providing a surprise makeshift shower for his family. His precious laugh shatters the quiet in the most beautiful way. It is a burst of cherubic amusement set against the placidity of dusk. Hubs grins and we squeeze hands.  

We know how lucky we are to have been part of this evening of dirty water and the troupe of kids who rightfully relished it. We love walking around and seeing such enjoyment in the simplest of things. Buoyed by something that feels like a combination of hope that we might collectively be getting back to normal, and a silly desire to find more places to bespatter our calves with the kicked-up mud of the place we love, we promenade down the back alley on our way home. 

Bring on the Target bathroom door so I can grab the damn handle. I am not afraid.  

#mushroomtumbler

Email Subscribers - Please Read

There are some of you who get an automatic delivery to your email accounts of my blog, Mushroom Tumbler. I appreciate your dedication and am truly honored and humbled.

Blogger, by Google, has alerted me that as of July 2021, they will no longer be offering this email service; therefore, I am here to tell you that the easiest way to find my blog is to add it to your browser "favorites" and you can pull it up whenever you like to check for new entries.

www.mushroomtumbler.blogspot.com.

The next easiest way (and one which will alert you to each new entry) is to "like" my Mushroom Tumbler Facebook page. 

Finally, if we are Facebook friends, I post my blogs there, too. You have to "like" those, also, or they will not populate to your feed, so please read, like, and comment in order to keep seeing them.

Thanks for being there! I can't do this alone. 

Moose Beard Mobiles and Preserved Possom Feet - A Wild Trip Down Taxidermy Lane

It occurred to me this morning that I do not know how to dress for a visit to the taxidermist. 

The taxidermist with whom I am slated to speak is named Sam and one of my childhood best friends (who happens to be a veterinarian, intrigued by my morning meeting, dead animal talk, and caffeine) is coming along as I join Sam for some obligatory java and a trip to a local 3 bay garage where the magic happens; and by "magic" I mean the inimitable artwork that has become the hallmark of Naturally Wild Taxidermy, recently landing here in Queensbury, fresh from Alaska, en route to its Fall 2021 final destination of North Creek, New York. 

Pulling on my jean shorts and ball cap, I picture a middle-aged guy knee deep in animal skins...you know, Sam the taxidermist from Alaska. Burly dude with a scraggly beard, right? Probably will order black coffee. Definitely gonna be wearing boots and a flannel. Really rough hands that smell like chemicals. Absolutely arriving in a pickup truck. But our Sam is actually "Samantha" who is sporting a sparkly diamond nose piercing, a clean black tshirt advertising her successful business, smooth soled running sneakers, beautiful jewelry, and who, stepping up to the coffee counter, confidently asks for a frothy coffee drink complete with a mountain of whipped cream. 

Well, I was right about the pickup, but not much else. 

Full disclosure, I knew Sam was a female. In preparation for today's sit down we exchanged blogs and brief niceties. I took a gander at a couple of her photos and was ready with some prepared questions but what I did not anticipate, what struck me as most sublime, and what was so pleasantly unexpected was not only how well a woman is flourishing, triumphing and carving out an incredible niche for herself in this field, but also our instant connection, driven in part by her warmth, cordial nature and effusiveness. Although her life's work is essentially working with and honoring the dead, she is very much alive.

Immediately in synch, the veterinarian and I grab an outdoor table and we sit with Sam on the street. Together we are a triangle of chatterboxes, completely unfazed by the clatter and bang of two separate buildings in extremely close proximity to us undergoing major construction. The irony of brownstones being gutted, sandblasted and, then ultimately expertly preserved all around us does not escape me and I thank the universe for this fine parallel as I smile and bring out my notebook. We begin to laugh, learn, and launch ourselves a veritable taxidermy hootenanny.

After admitting that she had her black coffee already (and me confessing to guiltily stereotyping taxidermists as drinkers of the thickest, crudest joe ), Sam first reports that the unofficial favorite beverage of taxidermists is Dr. Pepper, though really, any ridiculously overcaffeinated drink will do. Then, she begins to tell us the story of how she became one of the most highly regarded persons in her craft within the entire state of Alaska, what she is up to presently, and how she is looking ardently and eagerly toward the future. 

Samantha grew up in a hunting family, with an abiding love for the Adirondacks passed down by her father. At the ripe old age of six, on land which was leased to her family by International Paper Company, Sam and her dad would hole up in an Airstream trailer affectionately called "Twinkie", sustained by food affectionately prepared and packed by her mother. After switching leases and locations numerous times, the family eventually built a hunting camp which became the getaway of choice for Sam's father, a hard working, self-employed kitchen and bath businessman. Sam wistfully recalls the forays, a perennial favorite place to go. A video camera from dad was the first way she "shot" or "captured" animals, mostly deer, during pre-hunting seasons, but once she turned fourteen and was gripped by the enthusiasm associated with being legally able to enter the woods by herself with a license to pursue and harvest wild game, her hobby really started becoming more of an ingrained lifestyle pursuit. Her first time alone on a trail, with her father nearby but not at her side, Sam crossed paths with a large deer and found herself perfectly still, unwilling to draw back the bow. Wholly fascinated by how the creature stood, moved, and dwelled in its habitat, she let the buck forage and walk away. Because her father witnessed the intentional miss, the moment has become folklore in Sam's family, the story of Sam's first "hunt" told again and again. 

"All she wants to do is talk to the animals, " Sam chides, recalling the words of her family, and it's clear that her willingness and desire to observe and memorize the habits and manners of animals in nature is a seriously vital piece of the taxidermy puzzle. 

"People have a vision of what they want," she says. Listening intently to the hunters whose prize trophies she's artfully preserving and mounting and knowing precisely how to showcase the creature, distinctly as it appeared in nature, right down to the kind of rock or bush it was standing upon at impact, is only possible because she's been there. She's seen it. She bears witness to the wild. It's a part of her body and soul. 

I notice she has a wolf tattoo. The wolf is a shape shifter in the totem world and I sense that Sam has the ability to multidimensionally feel these situations from the hunter's perspective as well as the perspective of the animal. Coming home to write this after seeing her personal body art, I do a little research and learn that Native Americans wear wolf pelts when they are summoning strength. In doing so, they are called "skin walkers". To me the vision of Sam and wolves and the skins of animals swims in my brain like a symbiotic soup, a confluence of ideas, a packed blend of energy and rawness. It's like hearing the life story of an elder, but she's young; and for such a young person, Sam has charted quite a fascinating course. 

Her road from high school graduate to professional taxidermist presents sort of like a Candyland game board full of loopy roads and forests with twists and turns. She is a lifeguard with safety officer training, who begged for and received, in young adulthood, a one way ticket to Alaska where she:  resurrected a long-defunct Boy's and Girl's club (which still exists); worked in a women's prison; acted as a psychiatric treatment counselor; and did a stint in animal control before ultimately befriending a woman with an animal skin "rugging business" which inspired her.  Living in mainland Alaska where there happened to be a plethora of taxidermy businesses, she made the brave decision to pursue it professionally. 

The Artistic School of Taxidermy in Idaho is where she was schooled and trained in a unique unison of art and science. After an investment of $40,000.00, time, and careful study using her love for animals, her capable hands and her aesthetic talents and skills, she emerged with a discriminating eye, a keen ability to do the work, a shrewdness about the business aspect of it, and a few amazing mounts which, upon graduation, she packed in her car and toted to the Great Alaskan Sportsman's Show for display. 

She presented exceptionally and left the Show, returning to her Alaskan home with six month's worth of work and a belly full of anxiousness, sweating despite the cold and wondering if she could do it all...and do it really, really well.

Her first job was getting an alpaca tanned. Alongside the alpaca, she had a kalij bird mount that she'd agreed to do; a sort of pheasant from Hawaii. She finished both, and her clients were happy, but she admits to learning a ton more during those initially difficult processes. 

"I'm a beautician, a carpenter, a seamstress, and a sculptor," she counts off on her fingers. Later in our conversation, she adds the term "business woman". I supplement that list, in all sincerity, with "politician" and/or "mediator", since she dealt formerly with the Alaska Department of Fish and Game and currently with the NYS department of Environmental Conservation who check to see that her clients have proper tags for their animals in her possession and to whom she is a mandated reporter. She admits people have occasionally asked her to turn a blind eye to the "legality" of an animal they are bringing to her. It's upsetting and she describes it as the most controversial thing she has to contend with as a taxidermist. However, she assures us she is a rule follower to the 'enth degree and if someone has violated rules regarding the morals and guidelines of hunting animals, birds or fish, she will not hesitate to alert the proper authority. 

Another unique controversy she brings up, though not illegal, is the notion of "rogue taxidermy", which the veterinarian misunderstands as "road taxidermy" and pictures Sam scraping flattened carcasses off the highway. But rogue taxidermy isn't about road kill, rogue taxidermy is the unholy (my word, not Sam's) act of piecing together parts of different animals to create something not found in nature for the purpose of oddity. She also mentions the pop art phenomenon of taxidermizing mice and putting them in outfits, mounted to wood wearing bathing caps or holding miniature pocketbooks. Competitions are common and well attended for this unconventional style of taxidermy.  Quickly, upon seeing my reaction, she defends her fellow artists, noting that she respects each individual's need for expression and has no real beef with the idea of putting one animal's head on another animal's body with an altogether different tail or hanging mice on the wall dressed in mini bathrobes. I personally find it gross and say so. Sam bites her straw and bounces her foot up and down. I decide to move on to a lighter subject. 

We talk about unusual requests. For example, she was commissioned to build a moose beard mobile to hang over an Alaskan baby's crib. She tanned the moose but someone else put the mobile together. She was asked to preserve possum feet, which she did, for a keychain artist who thought they were a nice alternative to the more traditional rabbit's foot keychain of old. She gets asked about family pets a lot, which she politely declines to take on. Lastly, she was once asked to freeze dry a human digit for a bar owner in Alaska who wanted to use it in a too crazy to be true cocktail, presumably as a replacement for another freeze-dried digit that went missing from his bar. I had to look it up to be sure she wasn't kidding. 

She wasn't kidding. 

She didn't do it. 

 

Her biggest requests in Alaska were for caribou and bear; here in New York, it's deer, by far most popular, although she gets commissioned for fish taxidermy also. Limiting herself to five a year, fish replica is tedious work with every scale requiring hand painting, air brushing and shading. She can artfully plan the colorations in her mind with apparent ease but sitting down with them is terribly difficult work. 

Whereas old school taxidermy, gaining in heightened popularity particularly during the 18th century, but with the earliest known specimen being a 16th century crocodile, was real skulls and bones, straw, clay, newspaper, sawdust, and arsenic to repel bugs, new school taxidermy is death casts (plaster casts of parts of the animal), perfect measurements taken from the animals themselves, beautifully and professionally sculpted foam forms, flesh eating beetles (to get the skulls thoroughly cleaned), climate controlled work areas, freeze drying velvet (from antlers), and a clever balance of timelines and asking the right questions, like, "Do you want this bear to look like Winnie the Pooh or the meanest grizzly ever?" 

Silly old bear versus natural born killer is a pretty important distinction.

But you can rely on Sam to get it right, whether it's a mountain goat with a waterfall behind it or a buck with a son's memorial to his late father that'll make the toughest woodsman cry, reverently inscribed on the backside of the mount, she won't rest until it's done and done right.

"Right now, it's a 9 to 5 business, but come September, it's 24 hours a day, 7 days a week." She pauses. "By appointment only, of course." Sam and her husband are presently building a home and a shop on 156 acres in North Creek, along with completing all of the taxidermy jobs she started within the last year at her temporary Queensbury location. She's busy but I get the impression that's how she likes it. 

If all goes according to plan, their cleverly named "On the Rocks Ranch", which she notes is due to the many boulders and a few beverages of choice, will be in a solid enough state so that her Naturally Wild Taxidermy business can begin operating there during the fall of 2021. Her love of homesteading and raising her own food; with a hobby farm populated by chickens and goats makes her giddy with anticipation. "I really like the idea of sitting on the porch at the end of the day," she laughs. I imagine her holding a cocktail surrounded by nature. 

I also imagine a wolf nearby; a suitable helpmate, ready to howl at the blue corn moon.

  

You can visit Sam's website at https://naturallywildtaxidermy.com; she also has a Facebook page. All of the preceding photos above were taken with the veterinarian's and my cellphone, and I apologize that they are not stellar, professional quality. The photos below were taken, with permission, from Sam's website. 

#mushroomtumbler

Painful Piney Paroxysm

My pathological attachment to inanimate objects, like furniture and houses, is rather legendary in my household. Objects represent certain people and certain times and they can bring me great joy, great pain, or the kind of catharsis that comes from drowning in whatever emotion the object represents. I'm fairly sure all of my Havisham-esque tendencies began with a piece of my parent's bedroom set.

When I was a small child, I used to love to explore the wilderness that was the top of my mother's dresser. My parents had a pine bed, with matching nightstands and two pine dressers; arrangements of this sort immensely popular in the late 1960s. The glossy, dark quad possessed an aromatic arboraceousness which strongly emanated from it even though the wood hadn't held the form of a tree in quite some time. 

The "female" dresser was nine drawers long, far longer than me at the time. I loved running my hands over the slickery surface of it. Mom placed an antique dresser scarf on both her dresser and mine, each embroidered with care by someone who liked flowers and small stitches in pastel colors. Her ivory linen quietly underscored and strikingly juxtaposed a fancy lighted General Electric makeup mirror with a sliding plastic switch. When powered on, it showed what your face might look like in the bright broad daybreak of a scrambling sunlit metro or in the slinky soft swelter of a dusky dimlit disco. There were also Home and Office settings which alternately bathed the skin in pink and green luminosity. I'd put my little face up to the warmth of the bulbs and move the tab deliberately back and forth, casually conjuring a new me in each setting. 

Mom loved makeup and I'd open, inspect, smell and sample all of the cosmetics displayed at the ready. Avon products were especially hot back then, and in my mind I can picture both her A-branded treasures as though they were a 1977 beauty buffet, and me, always trying to decide which to savor first. 

She had eyeshadow in the boldest colors of amethyst purple and deep sea green. I used to sponge them on my lids but my seven year old hand was no match for their grown up glimmer, and I came out looking bruised instead of beautiful. 

She had the Avon Great Blush Frost Stick in a shimmering shade of dark pink, simply called "Rose". Application required a light touch and because my little fist couldn't grasp the toilet paper tube sized cylinder all that well, I'd ineptly paint it on in one of two ways, clown circles or Indian stripes, neither style truly suitable but both instantly glamorous, at least to me.

She had Maybelline eyeliners that she'd wear down to small stubs which I would eventually pocket as a pre-teen; shiny silver metal packaging surrounding a "Nautical Blue" pencil in a fat little scroll. I'd call my father on nights where I was invited to sleep over to friend's houses in the early 1980s and ask him to please deliver to me what I needed; and he knew that meant my sleeping bag, my toothbrush, and one of those castoff silver bullets. 

Mom's lip products included an array of Bonne Bell flavored balms, a tube of "Raspberry Ice" Avon satin lipstick and a "Candy Apple" pout maker of unknown origin. The red one tasted awful and although I was tortured by my craving for the color, I couldn't stomach its waxy, plasticine smack.

When Mary Kay parties became popular, Mom came home with a whole menagerie of baby pink-hued compacts and potions. I was dazzled by the social shopping haul and spent weeks studying and getting to know the MK brand as the new items were placed next to the old standards. There were smooth triplet eyeshadows in a case which sounded a satisfying snap upon opening and closing, a clear gloss with a wand that tasted like strawberries in champagne (which I'd realize later when I actually *had* strawberries in champagne) and lip colors which were applied with a tiny retractable paintbrush which seemed like the height of sophistication. In my 9th grade school photo, I'm confidently wearing all of it. 

Among all of her cosmetics, the dresser also held Mom's jewelry, a brass footed oval with red velvet lining hiding diminutive tiny treasures, and a couple of my crude attempts at plaster of paris pins which were horrid and would never be rightly tacked onto a wooly lapel. However, their place on the center stage of Mom's dresser was even better as far as I was concerned.

There was one picture that I recall, a windy snapshot of Mom and Dad at the ocean in Florida. Both of them sported khakis and navy blue sweatshirts in an era predating by decades, the trend of matchy and staged family beach photos. Dad had on sunglasses and a Yankees hat. Each was barefoot and smiling. I used to look at the picture and think we as a brood had the best thing going. Then, one day, I saw that Mom had used a brown marker on her hairline in the photo. It looked harsh and contrived and phony and I demanded to know what she had done. I remember that she said she didn't like the way the gust blew her hair off of her forehead. I didn't understand. I thought it was the most beautiful picture in the world. Later, the photo disappeared, and not long after that, Mom moved out.

Her dresser didn't immediately accompany her so I spent hours sitting in front of it, confused and lost. I repeatedly and ritualistically ran my teenaged hands over it, trying to summon that feeling of our mother daughter bond and childhood evenings at the makeup mirror. I opened and closed the drawers, something I wouldn't have done had she still been at home. Upon doing so, I found other things that had been left behind; like her retainer from high school, spiny and small like a pink and silver crab buried underneath the sand of my elementary school artwork and out of season clothing. 

When Mom came back for the dresser, my parents made sure I wasn't home but when I returned and saw the hole it had left in the bedroom, I noiselessly crouched down in the grand expanse of nothingness and, like a dog, desperately whiffed where it had been. As I knelt, stunned and seasick like I was on floorboards of a sinking vessel, I felt my skin peel back until my heart was exposed and it rolled out beside me. Seeing it there, next to the space it used to live in, I knew nothing would ever be the same.

And soon thereafter, the dresser was sold.

#mushroomtumbler

Mindful Script Flipping

When I wake to a gray, cold and windy day, even though the calendar clearly says Spring, I can grouse about things I can't control, or I can put on a hat and meet the morning head on in fuzzy warm layers that I have chosen for times like this. 

When I step on the bathroom scale, I can feel frustrated because the number isn't moving downward or I can be satisfied that I am not reacting to the number unhealthily by either starving or stuffing myself. 

When I walk past my childhood home, I can feel upset because my parents and I didn't get as many years there together as I might have dreamed of or I can hold warmth in my heart because it was such a wonderful place to grow up and I've been left a host of memories there are of the extraordinary variety.

When I notice all the laundry that has to be done, I can feel distressed by the amount of time this will take, or I can be contented by the fact that I have all the modern conveniences of really well made machines, a first floor laundry room in my home requiring only one trip up the stairs and the money to buy name brand detergent that smells fresh and clean. 

When I catch sight of the min pin sitting at the door expecting a walk, I can feel annoyed that my current task has been interrupted or I can be glad that I am ambulatory and healthy enough to walk as far as she wants without worrying about my knees or anything else that slows people my age.

When I look in the mirror and my teeth aren't piano key white, I can be down on myself for years of too much coffee, too much tea and not enough white strips, or I can be grateful that I still have all of them.  

When I glimpse ahead of me and see the very young mother pushing the stroller alongside her pregnant friend, both dressed in Daisy Duke shorts, high heels and multi-hued hair colors not found in nature, I can pass by in judgement or I can stop and coo at the baby, reinforcing all the blessings and love that brought her into the world. 

When it's time for a road trip I can feel anxious about all the driving ahead of us or I can feel blessed that we have somewhere fun to go.

When I listen Father Tom describe what I could be doing better as a Christian, I can feel guilty about needing to step up a bit or I can be thankful that I have another chance to do better. 

When I toss and turn half the night because of menopause or Lyme disease or generalized anxiety, I can feel cheated out of blissful rest or I can be mindful that there isn't something horribly, terribly wrong keeping me awake.

When I encounter people my age jogging down the street, I can feel resentful that I can no longer keep up or I can recall a time when I could and cheerfully admire my younger self. 

When I deliver meals to the elderly, I can focus on the dilapidated state of some of their houses, or I can celebrate their independence and wish them continued resilience. 

When I think about my bonus kids, with their physical and intellectual challenges, I can feel a profound sense of loss at not having what some people might call a normal family or I can fill my heart with compassion and understanding for what their mother deals with on a daily basis. 

When I hear a song that instantly brings tears, I can be embarrassed or melancholy, or I can know that my participation in and exposure to so much has left me with a richness of emotion I would never, ever trade.   

When my husband needs space to handle his thoughts or internal angst, I can feel selfish about wanting his attention or I can feel appreciative that I have a partner who feels so deeply.

When my parents and step parents can't do what they used to do because of age and infirm, I can feel despondent because I see how they struggle or I can celebrate the fact that they are here and I can still spend time with them. 

When I open our mail and see all the bills we pay, I can feel overwhelmed because I haven't contributed to our household income in 5 years or I can feel tenderness for my husband who works hard for us.

When I calculate how many years I probably have left on this big blue marble, I can feel angst about all that I haven't accomplished or I can breathe and relish my secure and beautiful life.

When I listen to the news, which tries to convince us that we are a nation divided and heading toward disaster, I can feel worried about what is to come, or I can meet my neighbor knowing that we are more alike than different and can make up our own minds about how we positively interact. 

When I stand in line at wakes and go through three hands full of Kleenex at funerals, I can be filled with sorrow and drink for days or I can do a better job at self soothing by remembering the good times; so fortunate to have experienced such a friendship.

Think the thoughts. 

Reframe. 

Reduce the damage.

Rework the negative.

Rejoice, 

temporarily. 

Fall. 

React with dismal pity and dreadful pathos. 

Get up. 

Try again.

#mushroomtumbler

Starfish

Walking on the beach early this morning, I found what, if I had held them all together, might've amounted to a fistful of starfish. 

They were washed ashore, scattered along the Atlantic coastline. I kept bending down to pick them up, finding that their little sand sifting legs had been bitten off.  One was dead. He was crispy and floated when I lobbed him back into the surf but the others were all alive: tawny, malleable and pulpous within in my palm. 

Squinting into the sun, I tried remembering where I'd read that starfish will grow their legs back if permitted to survive. Tossing them into the ocean as I walked along, I scanned for more. I enjoyed scouting for them, grabbing them, and throwing them in, a little starfish project for the day! I was  saving something (yay!) and was "making a difference to that one!" just like in the Chicken Soup for the Soul story which I'd read 20 some-odd years ago.

Later, I came back to the house and curiously Googled "what eats starfish?". I thought for sure it would be "seagulls" but the first answer was "sharks". 

Ugh.

So I tossed stumpy, defenseless starfish back into the ocean to drag themselves one legged across the sea floor with the sharks that liked to eat them? 

Great. 

Tumbling it around in my mushroom of a mind, the curious encounter with the starfish seems more and more like a message from the universe. It's sort of an analogy for life. When injured or defeated, do we throw ourselves back in the fray and bravely splash around, preparing to fight what is devouring us or do we stay limbless on the beach, knowing we are slowly perishing but feeling comfortable with the idea that least it's a warm, slow, certain sort of perish and not a surprise chompy one? 

Truth be told, I'm thinking I might be more of a slow perisher.  I fondly remember being a daredevil who flung herself asunder, emerging stronger for it, regenerating legs and handling adversity like a (sea) star but lately, I am less sure floating around in the foamy breakers of my life.

People see me and throw me back, thinking that I can handle the crashing waves, thinking that I can reconstruct my missing parts, but most days I am chum.

I don't want to be chum.

So if the first step to becoming less shark bait and more star-like is acknowledging this, then surely the second step must be to swim, even with only one functional leg, and take some chances. I decided to write this piece and chuck it out there even though it's not perfect and it probably won't get me a book deal and I won't be suddenly asked to write for my favorite nostalgia-based television show because of it, but at least I'm not lying on the beach dying a slow death because I am missing a few parts. In fact, I'm sort of growing accustomed to the idea that I am an imperfect half-legged starfish. At least that makes evolution possible for me. 

So, I am committing to blogging more regularly and flinging it out there, barnacles and all. 

And then, this afternoon, I saw a ten foot bull shark in 3 feet of water. Truly, I did; and where I joined the other folks around us pointing, afraid of the possible consequences, I really wanted that shark to circle back so I could look him dead in the eye and say, "Not today, buddy. I'm growing legs."

#mushroomtumbler