I Need Yoga, or a Drink

I never really understood the Professor’s complaints about California until we moved away. He used to leave parties and say, “All people care about is the size of their butts and backyards.” I would roll my eyes, convinced that he just needed to have a drink and relax.

Of course, I got to the point where I would look around my neighborhood on trash and recycling day, sick to my stomach at all the waste bins lining the sidewalks. There was a time I got angry at the people driving huge SUVs, alone, to run their errands, burning fossil fuel, without a care in the world except how often they could run those suckers through the car wash. I would try to calm myself down by practicing the breathing I learned in yoga.

When that didn't work, I remember calling our friend and sage, Jon, in LA to complain about my anxiety. She pointed out that I wasn’t exactly riding my bicycle to the grocery store and I still shopped for crap at Target. I was buying plane tickets regularly, not innocent by any stretch. She encouraged me to get comfortable with my place on the spectrum and stop criticizing others. I wasn’t going to stop people from consuming so I had better just focus on my own footprint.

Living in Ithaca gave me a break from the stress of worrying about our planet for a while. In fact, I am probably the grossest consumer in the entire upstate New York region. I’m sure the artists, academics and Trustafarians aren’t impressed with us capitalists who earned our money the crude way. Only the families that have traded out urban living for the groovy rural college-town life truly understand my plight. The people who have arrived here through the ranks of art, academia or inheritance probably wonder how I can sleep at night.

My nerves are shot as I think about saying good-bye to all the incredible friends we have made, the nature and university we’ve enjoyed. Now I am the one grumbling as we leave parties, wondering about my own sensibilities. Sure I'm excited to get back to our friends and family and the beach, but I am giving up driving by local farm stands for a downtown that has a Maserati dealership on the corner. I think the Professor and I have finally arrived at a place where we realize it's not about us but up to us.

Loss, Flowers & Comfort

Last week my best friend’s father died from a stroke unexpectedly. She was there, miraculously in town visiting her family for Memorial Day weekend. In some ways I am sure that gave her solace. But there really is no peace when you lose someone so loved and cherished. Everyone who knew him, or knew of him, respected this man. He lived a life full of integrity and accomplishments.

His death is a loss not only to my friend, her family, and especially her mother, but also to many larger communities, including the field of marine biology. He was a humble, generous man, charming and funny, a highly regarded scientist, professor, musician, husband, father, grandfather and friend.

I imagined my friend’s mother’s home filled with flowers, like my mother’s was after my father’s death, so at first I didn’t send anything. Then it dawned on me that I was a product of a businessman’s family and that we express ourselves much differently than academics. Turns out I was correct—only her father’s doctor had sent a bouquet. Their friends and family were sending long, heartfelt e-mails, and setting up a student scholarship in her father’s name.

Finally I could be useful in the sea of pain I feared. I wrote a long e-mail and sent flowers. For some reason her mother wrote back to an old e-mail account that has been turned off for years. I would never have received her beautiful thank you note if Charming Baby hadn’t been screwing around with my computer over the weekend. My in-box was flooded with junk correspondence from the old e-mail address.

As I cursed sharing my Mac with a seven-year old, I weeded through it all before deleting anything because of my Type-A first-born neurotic tendencies. I now feel very blessed to have a busybody son and that I received 2,247 e-mails to go through.

I found my friend’s mom’s gracious words and a photo attachment. It humbled me that she took the time to photograph the flowers I sent and send it to me. She was able to illustrate for me how much she is going to miss him. “In 46 years we never ran out of things to share, even if it was just the fact that there was a steller jay in the bird feeder and the one who saw it wanted the other one to be able to see it too.”

Academic Regalia

We are having a perfectly lovely, long, lazy Memorial Day weekend.  The kids and I have been hiking and catching movies. We’ve been barbequing and swimming. The Professor walked in ceremonies with his graduating students on Saturday and Sunday. It is so hot and humid, even he was tempted to wear shorts under his black, heavy gown.  But both days he donned his dress pants.

“I think that’s the right thing to do, although no one would blame you for going naked underneath in this heat.”

“Yeah, I know, but I’d feel terrible if one of the old professors looked down and saw my bare ankles.”  There are some scholars here who have been teaching for decades and take the ceremonies very seriously.  Their regalia is so grand they rival even Dumbledore’s velvet robes.

As I drove to campus to drop him off for his second day of honor and torture, I saw some grads in sandals, no pants.  They looked silly.  They looked like boys who would rather be tapping a keg than participating in commencement.  I also saw plenty of young men in proper ankle-covering clothing and dress shoes.  They looked proud, like they had just accomplished something huge.

I know I am a sucker for pomp and circumstance.  It made me think about how when we watch the ceremonies honoring the military today, I won’t see our enlisted men and women wearing shorts or flip flops!  I don’t care how hot it is in Washington DC.  If you stop to think about the people that have dedicated their lives to the finest institutions in the world—our universities and our military--and the parents and kids that have sacrificed time, money, and even their lives, I think the least you can do is put some pants on.

Impersonating Someone Who Cares

We went hiking recently at one of the infamous Ithaca gorges.  As we came off the trail, our car was parked next to the only one in the lot surrounded by a bunch of teenagers.  They were drinking, showing off their underwear hanging out of their jeans, and arguing about who was going to drive.  I decided to make good use of everyone’s time.

I loaded my kids and dog into our car and then grabbed my registration and proof of insurance from the glove box.  I flashed it at the teenagers from a distance as I spoke really loudly.

“New York State Police.  I need to see some identification.”

They looked terrified, which is remarkable considering I was wearing Lululemon from head to toe.  All of the sudden they went from acting like little shits to picking up their empty beer cans and being really polite.

I looked directly at the wise guy behind the wheel, wearing his baseball cap sideways.

“Tell you what, if you can blow under a .08, I’ll forgive the fact that you’re a minor.”

He was mumbling and we both knew he wouldn’t be able to pull that off.  Thankfully the girl who had been bouncing around on his lap looked like she was sober, even if she was going to faint.

“Since I am off duty and have my kids with me, I will let you go if one of you can safely drive you all away from here.  Otherwise, I’m going to have to call this in.”

Do cops have iPhones?

After pretending to search my vehicle, I told them I didn't have a breathalyzer, and that all I was really concerned about was their, and everyone else on the road's, safety.  They seemed to regain color in their faces when they realized I was leaving.  I have no idea if I helped or not, but I saluted them as I drove off.

What does a 1,000 paper cranes look like?

In Japan, it is commonly said that folding 1,000 paper origami cranes makes a person's wish come true.

One of First Born Prince’s classmates folded 1,000 cranes and is now stringing them together.  She sent out a request to her community of friends and family to help her raise money for the people of Japan.  I couldn’t have been happier to whip out my checkbook to honor this creative, hard working, earnest attempt to do something beautiful and positive.

She probably doesn’t realize it, but not only is she doing something for Japan, she is helping herself and everyone who receives this humbling request.  It certainly turned my day around from flashes of annoyance and frustrations with petty problems to remembering all that is good and right with the world.

More than anything, I was given a chance to contribute to a worthwhile endeavor without having to suffer paper cuts.  If you are inspired, feel free to make a check out American Red Cross.

If you don’t do it for yourself, or Japan, do it for our own country—the tornado relief efforts are in full swing.  Giving, no matter how small, adds up through paper of all colors.

Bookish

“Mom!  It’s so unfair.”

“What’s that?"

“Just when we are moving back to San Diego, I am even more Ithaca-ish!”

“What do you mean, because you are wearing shorts and a t-shirt to school and it’s raining outside?”

“No, don’t you see this?”  He waves a knap sack around.

“Your back pack?”

“It’s a book bag!  I am totally into reading now!”

If you run into kids in Ithaca with down time, they typically are reading.  In doctors’ office waiting rooms, at sibling’s music lessons, at the airport.  In most other cities, the kids we know or see have iTouches or (yes, it’s true!) iPads they are pressing away on.  When we were at the airport in Florida last February, I noticed entire families had their heads bent over their hand helds.  I remember thinking I liked the days when kids fought with each other and moms had to embarrass themselves by yelling at them in public.

“Well, you can be the cool Ithaca kid and set a new trend in San Diego when we move back.”

“You mean carrying a book bag around?”

“Yeah, reading in your spare time.  It’s old school.  We’ll bring it back, like white t-shirts and Levi’s.”

He looked at me and just laughed as he lovingly nestled his new passion on his back.

Fairy Tale Blues

I just finished reading, “Fairy Tale Blues,” a story about a woman who took a six-month break from her marriage in order to save it.   It was a little cheesy, but hey, what do expect for a $1 in the sale bin at Borders?  Yawn. Don’t get me wrong, the woman was brave (sort of)—she walked out of the restaurant during their anniversary dinner celebration, got in her car, and drove off with no plan.  She ended up at the airport, and decided to just leave her ski-bum husband in Jackson Hole, Wyoming to go clear her head on the beaches of Florida.

She could do this because her sons were grown and already off to college, she had a great store manager to cover for her so she didn’t have to worry about her part in running their family sporting-goods store, and she was able to afford the airfare, and the hotel she subsequently checked herself into, and all the new clothes she had to buy when she got there because she hadn’t packed a thing…

That’s the part that really spoke to me.  I like to imagine myself in a CVS store in some strange town, picking out a new toothbrush.  Why this is so incredibly attractive to me begs to be examined.  Wouldn’t it be easier to just run out to the drug store and buy some new toiletries once in a while than leave my children and the man I have been with for twenty years wondering where on earth I went?  I think so.

That’s the thing about sabbaticals.  They aren’t easy to orchestrate.  Not everyone is in a position to take one. “Eat, Pray, Love” made me roll my eyes.  Please.  I kept thinking, “Who wouldn’t be a new woman after running around the globe, eating whatever the hell she wanted and sleeping with gorgeous foreigners?”

I think it’s safe to say we have all fantasized about taking off at one point or another.  If you haven’t, I’ll buy you lunch.  I have a friend who drove around with her packed suitcase in the trunk of her car for weeks but never actually went anywhere.  She just felt better knowing she had the option.  What’s tough is initiating change, of any kind.  Once you’re actually off and running, it gets easier and easier, until you can’t remember ever being afraid to go try something new.

Don’t worry, I am not thinking of leaving the Professor, First Born Prince, Charming Baby, Lucky Bastard even though he poops on my kitchen floor or Her Royal Majesty, although she did barf on the duvet cover I just washed and ironed myself!   We are wrapping up our sabbatical and now, as I am planning the move back to California, I need to steady myself for reentry.  Shopping for a new toothbrush sounds a lot more appealing right now.