Confessions of a Lousy Housekeeper

            I have a confession to make.  I’m a lousy housekeeper.  I don’t scrub my floors very often.  I don’t scour the sinks nearly as often as they need it.  I don’t make my bed every day, don’t dust consistently, don’t do dishes if I still have clean dishes in the cupboard, and I haven’t swept under my bed in who-knows-how-long.  And I’m okay with all that.  I don’t need complete organization and cleanliness in order to be happy.  I can ignore a dusty piano and laundry piled by the washer. 

            Being a lousy housekeeper has some benefits you may never have considered.  For example, I have no idea what I might find under my bed.  It could be anything smallish and quiet.  The possibilities boggle the mind.

            I might find a novel I want to read, one that I picked up from the best-seller shelf at the bookstore and then dropped off my nightstand.  By now I’ve forgotten what book it was, but when I find it, I’ll have something new to read for the weekend.

            I might find an old wallet with $10 hidden in a back pocket.  With $10 I could take a friend out for ice cream or pay off a library fine.  I might find $20 to put in the piggy bank for the leather couch I want when the kids move out and the dogs die.  I won’t find more than that, but if I did, I could take my sister to dinner and have time to talk without anyone calling, “Mo-o-m!”

            I could find:

·         The left brown shoe I can’t find anywhere

·         A chew toy that will keep my Chihuahua occupied for thirty minutes

·         That amethyst pendant that fell off its chain so many years ago

·         A blue box from Tiffany’s that my husband hid for Christmas

·         A pair of socks the exact blue of the slacks I want to wear tomorrow that are impossible to match to anything

·         A quarter from the year my father was born

·         A monster, waiting for me to be scared of the dark again

·         Extra strings for my violin so I can play it again

·         A valentine from a high school sweetheart with whom I’ve lost touch over the years and which will remind me of things that didn’t suck about high school

·         The tiny shoes my boys wore when they were blessed as infants

·         Two D batteries, which I need for my flashlight that just quit working

·         A poster of Sean Connery—I think he’s the sexiest man alive

·         Heck, maybe Sean Connery himself if I’m really lucky

·         My husband’s blue pajama bottoms

·         A picture drawn by my granddaughter

·         Ticket stubs from a great date

If your house is spotless, you won’t find any of these things under your bed.  The only thing under your bed is a stray dust bunny, and where’s the fun in that?

For People Bursting with Style, and Totally Lacking Content

My English professor commented on one of my papers, "You asked me to share my writing with you, but I'm afraid you'd put me to shame."  Not true, incidentally.  My husband, an English teacher himself, says he spent so many years focusing on style that he has a hard time coming up with content. 
It's easy to write good essays for school because someone assigns the content.  A decent prompt can spark a truly brilliant piece of writing.  For those of you who fall into this category (Kerry, Aubrey, Mom, Leslie), I give you a selection of writing prompts.  Choose one, write two pages, proper MLA format, double spaced in 12 point font.  Send me your writing and, if I like it, I'll post it here for everyone to read.  (If I don't like it, I'll red-pen it and send it back.)  Happy writing!

Option 1)    Where do you hang out in your free time?  What do you do for fun?  Take a notebook with you and watch what goes on around you.  Who do you see?  What are they doing?  Do they notice your notebook, and how do they react to your note taking?  Choose one or two of the people you see, and describe what their life might be like.  Support your supposition with things you observe about them. 

Option 2)  What novel inspires you?  What character do you identify with?  What character do you admire?  What book have you read and reread and reread?  How has this novel influenced your thinking and the choices you make?  Reflect on who you might be if you had never read this novel.  Reflect on how you might have reacted to the situation in this novel.  This should be a reflection piece, not an analysis.

Option 3)  Think about the English and Writing classes you have taken.  Which teacher most inspired you?  Which teacher made you think about becoming an English teacher yourself?  Think about the first English class you taught.  How has your teaching style changed since then?  What have you learned about teaching and writing? 

Option 4)  You know that short story you've been kicking around in your head since college?  Write it already!

Pomp and Circumstance

This essay takes great advantage of literary license.  Any implication that my son was ever less than perfect in any way is a blatant fabrication based on my inability to tell a good story that is also true.

            I have travelled a long way to get here.  Private DJ graduates from the United States Army Basic Training at Fort Jackson, in South Carolina, this morning. Parents and wives fill the stands with chins high and chests puffed out.   We feel proud as peacocks today—our sons, daughters and husbands survived boot camp, arguably the toughest fitness camp in the country.  I feel especially proud: my son and I both survived his childhood and adolescence.

            DJ and I met a few hours after he was born.  He slept soundly, his tiny head squashed into a cone from a difficult birth.  He did not belong to me, but he grabbed my heart when he grabbed my necklace.  Even in his sleep, he had an iron grip indicative of an iron will, also known as a stubborn streak a mile wide.  Four years later, DJ became mine, and his iron will had grown teeth.

            An early childhood spent hungry and tired, hiding from an angry stepfather or locked in his bedroom, created a nasty temper based on fear and uncertainty.  Losing his dysfunctional birth family made him afraid of being thrown out again.  Nothing seems secure to a kid who knows Mom may not always be Mom.  All those developmental years of neglect and abuse left him immature and angry.  I took custody of this sad four-year-old and started the process of making him feel loved and secure in a scary world.

            I remember seeing signs he felt secure.  One day I asked him to do something, and he sassed back.  I do not remember what I asked or what he said, but I remember cheering at his smart mouth.  If he felt secure enough to be sassy, he felt secure that I would love him even if he made mistakes.  Just before his sixth birthday we went to court to finalize his adoption.  The judge asked him if he had any questions, and DJ said, “Yeah, can I bang your judge hammer?”  He sat comfortably in my lap, and he only wanted to bang things—so typical for little boys.  Hooray! He belonged to us and we belonged to him, no matter what.

            DJ learned anger management by watching his stepdad beat up his birth mom.  As he got older and bigger and stronger, his temper got proportionately bigger and stronger.  He had to learn to control his temper before he got too big for me to keep him from hurting himself or anyone else.  He learned to sit in a chair, gripping the edges of the seat until his knuckles turned white.  He kicked and screamed and swore, but he sat in the chair, controlling his body by the strength of his fists hooked under the seat.  More than one chair frame cracked or crumbled under his teenage strength while he learned emotional control.

            Prone to impulsive decisions and snap judgments, DJ sometimes found himself committed to things he had no intention of doing.  He came home one afternoon and said, “Mom, I’ve joined the Army.”  I did not believe him at first, but I looked into his eager, earnest, young face and knew he meant what he said.  My newly eighteen-year-old son legally signed a contract for the first time.   It may have been impulsive, but it bound him to military service.  My little boy would be all he could be.

            Basic training lasts twelve long weeks.  Soldiers do not call or email their families, and mine did not write real letters, either.  No one muttered obscenities or broke chairs for three months at my house.  A gallon of milk actually had time to sour in the refrigerator.  Swept floors stayed swept, and dishes stayed in the kitchen.  I missed my son, but I sure loved the peace!

            A military brass band marches onto the parade ground, and the crowd stills instantly.  We all crane our necks, watching for our own soldiers.  From around the corner, one thousand soldiers march together, wearing dress uniforms, stepping to the music in perfect time.  I have been to countless high school and college graduations, but no one does pomp and circumstance like the military.  DJ marches in Company D, second row, third from the left.  He never breaks formation, but I see a tiny grin in one corner of his mouth as he passes my seat.  I want to shout from the rooftops, do back handsprings along the parade route, and dance all the way back home.  My sad, scared, angry boy became this confident, happy young man.

Epilogue

            DJ left for Iraq just after basic training.  He served his country honorably, and came home at the end of his tour, safe and sound.  He told me he planned to go to New York, alone, for his twenty-first birthday.   I object, “You can’t go to New York by yourself!”  “Mom,” he laughed, “I went to Iraq and came home safe.”  Well, true, but he took a whole army with him to Iraq.

Born in the USA

I just finished a paper for my politcal science class--6 pages of opinion: Should the 14th Amendment to the Constitution be repealed?  Why or why not?

For those of you who forgot, the 14th Amendment grants citizenship to any baby born in the United States, regardless of parental nativity or citizenship status.  The controversy now is that babies born to illegal immigrants are citizens, giving their parents the right to live in the States.

In short, my answer is, "No."

Why?  Several reasons:
1) They're babies.  They deserve to be protected and sheltered.  Babies cannot speak for or advocate for themselves.  The law has always protected children, and should continue to do so.
2)  They're not hurting anybody.  I know, I know.  I hear all the hullaballoo about immigrants taking Americans' jobs.  Look around you.  How many non-English speaking people do you actually work with?  Do they do your job, or are they support staff?  Try not to get all emotional, and just look at what's really in front of your eyes.
3)  Babies should not be punished for the sins of their parents.  If God wishes to inflict punishment for original sin, He may do so (although I believe He has waived that privelege).  It is not up to human government to do so in His stead.
4)  Think of the time and expense to the American taxpayer of getting a constitutional amendment repealed.  Go read the Constitution, figure out how many man hours it's likely to take, and subtract anything good that might have been accomplished during that same time.  The cost is astronomical.

What did that take?  A page, maybe?  Stretching it out to six pages was dreadful.  Do not ask to read the paper I turned in.  It sucked.

Stones and Stories

           The cemetery in my city is very old.  The trees were barely twigs when city gardeners planted them, young, green and fragile.  Not all of them lived, but the surviving trees reach high into the sky, with branches perfectly angled for climbing and sitting and thinking.  In the afternoon sun, the shadows are odd, distorted shapes of trees melting and stretching in the summer heat, cooling a perfect carpet of green, lush lawn.  Even the veteran’s memorial is faded and scraped from generations of children climbing in and over and around it.  It is quiet and peaceful here, like a park.  But the stones would not be found in a park, and the stones are where the stories are.

            The stones are gray and white and tan.  An obelisk stands tall and straight here, an arched stone leans slightly there.  Newer stones lie flush with the ground.  Behind the path, very old stones stand together, chipped and cracked, their corners worn smooth and rounded. 

            The stones only give the smallest details—names and dates, sometimes relationships—but entire lives are in those sparse facts.  One very old stone is a love story; “John Owen, May 1800 – July 1890.  Martha Owen, August 1802 – February 1891.”  They were together all their lives, and even death didn’t separate them for long.  Another stone is a tragedy; “Baby Boy Widston, January 5, 1910. Baby Boy Widston, April 7, 1911. Carol Widston, August 23, 1912.”  Above those babies, “Alice Hope Widston, December 12, 1890 – August 23, 1912,” a mother who wanted babies, and lost babies, and lost her life for her youngest, a daughter, who died the day she was born.

Near the gardener’s shed, and old man sits in the grass.  His cane snuggles into the grass; it will be here a long time today.  The sun is warm and friendly on the man’s stooped shoulders, and the grass is soft and inviting.  He is talking softly to—to whom?  No one is beside him.  No one can hear him.  But the stone under his hand tells his story, too.  “Robert Taylor, April 14, 1925 - . Gretchen Taylor, June 17, 1926 – October 5, 2005.”  Robert is sitting on the grass carpet talking to his wife, just as he used to sit on the living room carpet when they were young and hoping to grow old together. 

            A stone angel child sits on a stone bench that is too big.  His chubby angel feet dangle, his small wings are folded flat against his back, and his chin rests on one dimpled stone hand.  In the shifting shadows, he sighs and blinks his eyes.  He watches over a flat stone; “Francesca Roncalli, April 30, 1987 – August 7, 1988.”  Francesca would like the angel, would touch the wings, pretending she could fly.

            In one corner is an empty space where there is no stone yet.  The smell of cut flowers is overwhelming, there are so many of them.  A rectangle of new grass puts down roots under the dying flowers.  Soon, someone (a mother? husband? daughter?) will choose a stone to rest at one end of the rectangle, and a new story will be added to the cemetery.  It will be a sad story.  All the stories here are sad at first, but healing comes in the telling.

            The sun stays up late in the summer, but it must sink sometime.  The shadows lengthen, and bleed together.  The air cools and the grass is too cold for comfort.  The old man struggles to his feet, and he and the cane limp across the lawn to an old sedan.  The flowers fade to grey in the dusk, their heads drooping, their scents carried off in the wind.  The tiny angel sits still, gray, forlorn, alone until the morning brings new visitors to touch the stones and read the stories.

People and Pickles

            We label all sorts of things around us.  We label our food so we know what it is.  We label our folders so we can keep track of important documents.  We label our pets so we can call them.  We even label each other.  Labeling helps us identify ourselves and each other (ie: the blue-eyed girl), identify where we all fit in society (ie: the middle class), and identify what accommodations we may need (ie: the myopic boy). 

            When we write grocery lists, we don’t just write “Food, Cleaners, Paper goods.”  We write specific labels, such as “Dill pickles, Bread, Dishsoap, Napkins.”  We give each other nicknames (some we call each other, some we use only when talking about each other), parents name their children, we make an effort to remember names when we meet new people.  And that’s all good.

            Sometimes labels can help identify a specific set of needs, such as the labels “developmentally delayed” or “deaf.”  Labels like these help professionals know which services might be needed and easily describe a specific set of characteristics a person may have.  A kid who needs extra help in school has to fit one of a certain group of labels to qualify for special education.

            The problem comes when we start to see labels as definers.  If we see a man in a wheelchair and think only “cerebral palsy,” we fail to see the brilliant cosmologist, author, and actor.  Stephen Hawking is not defined by his condition or his chair.  If we see a man in the Oval Office and think only “Black,” we fail to see the lawyer and politician who pulled himself up from a difficult childhood to become President of the United States.  Barak Obama is not defined by the color of his skin. 

            We must learn to be cautious of our own thinking.  We all have biases, we believe stereotypes, we make labels.  We must train ourselves to look past these things to see clearly and recognize the people behind the labels.

Fashion Commandments

            Most rules of fashion and style are living, flexible laws, subject to change with the economy (economy and hemlines rise and fall in concert), the weather, and the whims of the wearer.  Brown and black is the latest color combination to become acceptable, shocking women from earlier eras who would never pair black shoes with a brown bag.  Menswear and lace look trendy and feminine.  Sultry red lips before sundown?  leather shoes after dark? or even (gasp) white slacks after Labor Day (but never, ever white shoes after Labor Day!)?  It’s all possible if worn with confidence and flair.

            Some rules are more like commandments, however. They will never be repealed and never be amended.

1.      One must sometimes sacrifice comfort in the interest of style.  Ratty sneakers will never be appropriate in the city.  Sweatpants will never take the place of linen slacks.  Butts look better in high heels. (“What’s that?” you say.  “My butt doesn’t wear high heels.”  True, but high heels pull your muscles taut, throw your hips forward, and give you that delicious sway.  Put one foot directly in front of the other, take smaller steps, and learn to ignore the wolf whistles.)  Style will never be found in slouchy, sloppy, but-it’s-so-comfortable clothes.

2.      Speaking of slouchy, shoulders must never slouch, either.  No one is rich, thin, or beautiful enough to look good with hunched shoulders and dipped chin.  The eyes are truly the windows to the soul; if no one sees the eyes, no one sees the soul.  With no soul, any plastic mannequin can wear the clothes to equal effect.  Do not allow this to happen, do not be a plastic mannequin.

3.      The most ironclad rule of all, never to be broken, bent, fudged, or cheated: IT’S CALLED UNDERWEAR FOR A REASON.  It goes under clothes.  No one should ever see underwear.  Jeans that gap in the back when seated should be worn with long shirts that tuck in.  Bra straps should be tacked to shoulders of sleeveless tops.  If you belong to a certain religious organization that enforces a strict dress code by specially made underwear (you know who you are), sing “Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes” (you know the song, too) in the fitting room before you buy.  Show your religious convictions in your behavior, NOT by stray bits of lace peeking out of hemlines, necklines, or armholes.  Even so, underwear must be worn.  If the skirt is too tight to avoid panty lines, get a slip or ditch the skirt.

Commit to following these few commandments, and the rest of the rules can be safely ignored.  Happy shopping!