So This is Christmas

As we are only four days from Christmas, I find that I will need to share some truths about Christmas.  Forgive the bulleted format, but we are only four days until Christmas and things must get done!

1.  If you don't send Christmas cards for years, you will receive fewer and fewer as the years go by.  I get it; I am not stamp-worthy and I can appreciate that.  But it is really boring to just get bills, ads, and neighborhood circulars in December.

2.  You will end up doing many things out of a sense of obligation rather than want.  It might be traveling, purchasing, baking, or wrapping.  Know this, embrace it, and don't bemoan it.  Just fall into it and do it.  Maybe you just want a Christmas at home in comfy pants and cookie plates.  That is our Christmas every year and I used to be so sad that there weren't more people to share it with.  It took me a lot of years to get past wanting a house full of people being merry and bright to see how very nice my Christmas pajama pants and a never-ending cookie plate shared with just a few can also be nice.

3.  Do the traditions you started when kids are small.  I made an advent calendar one year when I tried to be crafty.  It's a pain in the butt.  The trees are too small, it is hard to put things under them, and they fall over all the time.  I didn't do it the last few years and when the 17-year-old asked could we please, please do it this year, I hesitated.  The trees fall over, there's not enough room underneath them, and I am busy.  But, I did it.  And every day, they take turns seeing who gets what under the tree while the other watches and then laughs when that person gets a holiday Chapstick.  Let it be known that I put a holiday Chapstick in my major award box at school and that thing was a huge hit!

4.  You will be disappointed.  There is a lot of hype for Christmas starting when we are young and innocent and believe that a magic man and his reindeer bring everyone in the world gifts on the same night.  It is so hard to replicate that feeling of wonder and innocence when we are fighting people at Target for the last holiday Chapstick.

5.  People you love will disappoint you at Christmas.  People you don't know will disappoint you on Christmas.  They are just people and so are you and people are tired, or sad, or distracted, or didn't listen to your itemized gift list, or you get the really crappy gift in the white elephant exchange despite bringing a bottle of booze for yours.  All these things can and will happen.  Also, big deal.  You are an adult.  If you don't get what you want, go out the day after and get it.  Or stop and think if you really need it at all.

6.  Christmas brings out the best and worst in everyone.  I grew teary watching the news this morning where strangers paid off other stranger's layaway balances.  Sniff.  God bless us, every one!  I also wanted to throat punch an entire city when I ran errands the other day and almost got hit twice, shoved once, and largely ignored when needing help with an item.  Doesn't anyone work?  Why are all these people in the stores at 11am?  Bah humbug.

7.  If you are traveling, you will be delayed.  You will encounter rain, snow, ice, and things you cannot control. But, in the end, you will be in a house of merry and bright and your kids will be with cousins and you will hug people you might not get to hug again, and that makes the drive, the flight, the whatever along the way worth it.

8.  Finally, Christmas sometimes is just a day.  This year it is on a Tuesday.  Your Christmas might feel more like a Tuesday than a Christmas.  Some Christmases are like that.  It doesn't mean your heart won't grow three sizes next Friday though; warm Christmassy joy can happen year-round if you let it.

I hope it is not Scrooge-like to share these realistic truths about Christmas.  I love a lot of things about Christmas and could wax on about those, but I really think we should all face the truth about a day that is both very magical and very normal.  In our house, Bill will be home for ten days!  Magical!  The kids and I will also be here.  Normal.  Presents will be under a tree!  Magical.  Dog hair will be under furniture.  Normal.  We will laugh and play games and laugh some more.  Magical!  We will get on each other's nerves and no one will watch the movie they really want to watch. Normal.  Cookies for breakfast!  Normal.  Crunchy-fudge sandwiches for breakfast! Magical!  

May your own Christmas be both magical and normal and may you find enough warmth in your heart to let someone in during rush-hour traffic or ignore a slight, or simply be transported to childhood by some amazing smell coming from your kitchen.  For me, as soon as the melted peanut butter hits those Rice Krispies, and I smell my childhood in that bowl and watch as the kids take deep breaths and smell their childhood too, I'll know this is Christmas.  

Oh, yes.

Positively Ridiculous

This year, I set an intention before school started to try to be positive.  If you know me, this is going hard against the story of my life.  While I would never categorize myself a pessimist, I am, for sure, a hard-core realist.  So I am giving positivity a try and while I find I have to force myself into it and be very mindful about choosing it, I think I am doing a decent job of not being mired down in the negative or the sheer exhaustion that comes from life.  However, sometimes the ridiculousness that comes from choosing to work surrounded by teenagers really makes one exclaim all day long “This job is ridiculous!” and not in a positive way.

This was easily said as I frog-marched children who were doing state-mandated testing to lunch one day this week.  These are the poor kids who failed the test last year and are retaking it again and again and again.  There were about three adults and ten kids and we were marching along to make sure that the kids wouldn’t be talking about the test.  To ensure this, we were told that they were not allowed to talk at all.  Kids who had been trapped in a room for three hours taking a test that they probably wouldn’t pass this time either could not relax for twenty minutes and talk.  Ridiculous, right? 

Yesterday, the doorknob on my classroom door seemed loose.  I was nervous all day that it would break off and I would be trapped in a roomful of kids.  “Careful with the door,” I said every single time someone entered or exited the room.  Ridiculous.  The knob fell off today and a coworker and I taped up the locking mechanism and now it reminds me of a swinging Western door in a saloon as you just push on it to open it and I keep hearing “Howdy Pardner” as it opens.  Also ridiculous.  However, I don’t even have to try to be positive about this because I am!  It didn’t break off trapping me and a roomful of kids.  Hooray!  A ridiculous win!

Purple tape to match my room, naturally.

Also ridiculous that a student came back from the restroom with a Magnum condom and dropped it, purposely, on the floor next to another student.  Ridiculous that I had to say the words “Pick up that condom and throw it out.”  Even more ridiculous that I had to repeat that more than once and then explain that I had nothing against condoms, but I wasn’t picking it up and the cleaning lady wouldn’t be picking it up either.  So much condom talk ensued I then found myself saying “Stop talking about condoms.”  And a seventeen-year-old kid with a Magnum condom?  Whatever.  Ridiculous.

My last ridiculous thing for the day is the note I wrote in my grade book about a student’s assignment.  This student does very little work and doesn’t often show to the class, so while I had him here today I told him to write the letter he owed me.  Know that I am a kind and benevolent grader and will often take whatever kids turn in and make it work.  This was supposed to be a letter to his future spouse detailing what he wanted in a spouse, what he had to offer to this spouse, and how he envisions their life.  He wrote me Lil Uzi lyrics that start “Dear Mama”.  I knew they were lyrics because the entire thing rhymed and because I AM NOT DUMB!  I hate when they think I am dumb.  I entered a 0 for this assignment along with the note “submitted Lil Uzi lyrics for this assignment.”  Ridiculous!

This ridiculous day is competing hard against my wish to be positive. However, even as I type that, I am focusing on the positive:  I am positive there will be more ridiculousness tomorrow, I am positive I will still not have a doorknob and I am positive that a pair of pajama pants and a glass of wine never looked so good. 

     

Oh! The Waiting!

Right now, I am waiting on bread to bake.  Of all the waiting I have done recently, this might be the most pleasant.  I am wearing my pajama pants, drinking a cup of coffee, and the smell of baking bread permeates the kitchen.  This kind of waiting is pleasant; the kind I have been doing a lot of lately is anything but.

Busy teenagers who can’t drive require a lot of parental driving back and forth. Traffic in Austin is ridiculous at best and since we don’t live close to the school we all attend, sitting and waiting has become my competitive sport.  For example, yesterday on a day off of school, the girl had basketball practice from 3:30 – 5:30. She then wanted to eat dinner with friends at a restaurant near the school at 7. I weighed out the options of driving back and forth, back and forth and decided it was best to stay up near the school.  I met friends and got a manicure, then went to Starbucks and picked up coffee for the week and then sat in the school parking lot for thirty minutes, waiting.  We drove home, (she had to shower) I then took her to her Friendsgiving and this time, I went to Target to wait.  After that $45 minutes of walking around, I was still too early to pick her up.  The parking lot was too dark to sit in and wait, so I waited in the foyer of the restaurant.  Waiting.  Waiting. Waiting.  Waiting and thinking that I should have handed her a bottle of perfume earlier and wished her luck instead of taking her home to shower.

A friend recently posted that her life now revolves around the nap time of her one-year-old and I sighed nostalgically when I read that.  Ahhh, nap time.  Nap time and sweet-footed pajamas and small humans who think you rule the world.  Sigh.  Her post and my response to it makes me think that when I am old and the kids are out of the house, I might even miss these waiting-in-cars years.  I love my kids and I am glad they are involved in things and have friends, but this waiting is going to break me either financially or mentally.

Hallway waiting: much better for people watching.

The problem is that I am so very bad at waiting.  I can’t do anything but wait.  I can’t read, listen to a podcast, knit, well, I can’t knit ever; I just sit.  And wait.  And play mental games with myself that I always lose but can’t stop playing.  Like, if I get here five minutes early, maybe they will get out on time.  Or just a minute late.  Or is that girls’ basketball streaming out? No, boys’ and maybe I should wear my glasses all the time now.  Should I listen to Spotify or NPR? Neither, I should shut the car off and not waste gas.  But now I am cold.  Should I get out and walk around or stay in the car?  I am convinced I am getting arthritis in one hip from being bent into my driver’s seat so often.  I also like to play the “if they get out in the next five minutes, we can beat traffic game.”  Again, that is always a loss.  We never beat traffic.  Sometimes, I like to list all the things I still need to do when we do get home.  This makes the car even smaller, the wait even longer, and my nerves frazzled which is a great way to greet the children when they get in the car.  The need to peel away before their car door is even closed is very, very real.

I look around and see a lot of other parents in cars, waiting, and I start to wonder what they are doing to not be on the edge of losing their minds.  They seem to just be sitting there too, simply staring into space, staring into their phones, staring. If the squeal of tires is any indication, they are probably staring and itemizing the things they need to do when they get home too.  I wonder if it would be better if we all got out of our cars and stood awkwardly around and made small-talk while we wait? Stranger small-talk vs. endless waiting insanity.  I’ll probably never know the answer to that because I am not about to start knocking on people’s windows saying “Hi, I am Rebecca and I am tired of waiting.”  Pretty sure Texas is a right-to-carry state and I can’t see knocking on someone’s windows in the dark going well for me.

I guess that I will continue to sit, and to wait, and to teeter on the mental edge of stability and realize that like nap time, this phase will also pass.  Sweaty teens with stinky shoes gone just like the squishy toddlers with sticky hands.  In the meantime, if you need me, I’ll be in the parking lot at school waiting, staring into space, and mentally compartmentalizing all of my life’s good and bad decisions before finally peeling away.

People are People

If you are at all like me, you might find yourself growing more and more disgusted with the world and people.  It is hard to imagine that there is good in the world when we are told the bad morning, noon and night. I like to watch ABC World News Tonight with David Muir because while he reports on casualties, disasters, war and general insanity, he does it in such an earnest way, just brimming with integrity and concern, that I know he is disappointed in the world too.   He also ends each half hour with an uplifting little piece about “America Strong” or look at this show of human kindness.  He knows after twenty-nine minutes of bad that he better air one minute of good to get us to tomorrow. 

I know that in my own writings, I tend to work through the bad or the negative or what the heck is happening much more than joy, than happiness and the good I see.  However, on our recent trip to NYC, I had such a connection with three random strangers that I have to share it to show you the good out there; the commonality and the humanity that still exists.

The day we went to Battery Park and Wall Street, we took the subway. We were very proud of ourselves for embarking on this unknown and even survived the ride back with no AC and an angry homeless man.  When we got off the train and went to go upstairs, we noticed that there was a mob of people waiting on the stairs. We walked right by them because we just completed our first subway ride and knew things and knew we were smarter than these people gathering on the stairs.  Actually, they were much, much smarter.  It was pouring rain.  Streaming rain.  The skies opened and every drop of water in the universe fell on NYC.  Do we wait it out or run for it?  Oh, we ran for it.  Fast-walked for it.  We were soaked in seconds.  Hair plastered to our heads, feet squelching in wet sneakers with every step.  Miserably, uncomfortably wet and heading as fast as we could to our hotel.  I cradled our cell phones in a bag under my shirt thinking that if my stomach kept my kids safe for nine months, perhaps it could do the same for our technology.  We made it to the hotel and squeak-walked through the beautiful lobby crammed with a million people, water streaming behind us.  We ran into an open elevator, not caring who was in there or how crowded it could be. Funnily enough, there was another family of four in the elevator with us and they were as wet as we were. Their daughter lifted up and lowered a foot, squelch.  The son stared stonily ahead as water dripped from his nose.  The father plucked at his shirt that thwopmed away from his skin and said a bad word in German.  I thought about trying to speak to them with my high-school German, but decided that we had all suffered enough that day.  The mom and I locked eyes and laughed.  I laughed in English and she laughed in German and it was this wonderful, international moment of two families sharing a ridiculously wet elevator ride.  Here was this family from across the world experiencing the exact same thing as us.  Soaking wet clothes, chilled to the bone and laughter in an elevator.  It seems small, but that laughter has stayed with me. Laughter really is a language everyone understands.

The next time I felt a connection to a complete stranger was on our bus ride from NYC to Newark Airport to pick up our car.  I could not help thinking how much I would hate driving in NYC and then thinking how much more I would hate trying to drive a bus in NYC.  I drove a pick-up truck once and always parked a mile away from everything and tried as hard as I could to never have to put it in reverse. And here was our bus driver, smiling, chatty, telling us not to buy tickets in the store, that they would overcharge us. He asked us not to eat on his bus, we complied and he got us moving. I thought what a boring day he must have driving to and from the airport all day long. He provided a lot of commentary on our ride, not looking for a response, but just talking out loud.  When a man stepped in front of his bus, he remarked “Oh, there goes Superman.  Not afraid of this bus.  There he go.  There go Superman.”  I found him hilarious.  However, it was when he admonished a woman for eating that I really felt a connection.  He had asked her not to eat when she got on the bus, she said alright and ten minutes later was devouring some sort of tasty taco.  He locked eyes with her in his mirror and said “I asked you not to eat. All I ask is that you do not eat on my bus and here you are, eating on my bus.” She muttered she was sorry with a mouthful of taco and he kept on railing against eating on his bus. What really caught my attention was as he continued his rant against this woman he said “Aren’t we all grown?” Aren’t we all grown? Can’t he just explain the rules once and expect us to follow through? It made me think of the 17,000 times a day I ask kids to put their phones away or to do their work or just stop.  I am using this as my one and only classroom rule this year.

The last time I really knew what another person was feeling was in Virginia/West Virginia/Virginia as we were driving back.  (We crossed state lines about ten times, so I can’t definitively say where it was.). We drove by the Potomac River and it was gorgeous and rocky and moving fast and there were signs for white-water rafting and we commented that we should go white-water rafting.  And then we turned the corner and came upon this family of four standing on the side of the road, soaking wet and holding an inner tube. They were all standing as far away from each other as possible and as I looked at the mom with her rigidly set shoulders, her angry back and her pissed-off jaw, I knew how she felt. She was soaking wet, standing on the side of the road and looked like maybe white-water rafting was not as much fun as we thought it should be.  We commented on how I am often that angry mom and the kids and Bill laughed at how she was probably pissed that the snacks were all wet and she was just hungry and when we passed the truck carrying other tubers and tubes back we knew that someone in that family had not moved fast enough and they had just missed their ride back.  And I totally felt that mom’s anger at vacation things that should be fun but can be more work or that sometimes you just want to eat or go to the bathroom like a normal person. I felt that. I honestly cannot get that woman out of my head and have named her Wendy and have the start of a short-story about her brewing in my brain.  Hang tight Wendy, I got you.

Beautiful or disgusting?  We'll let Wendy tell.

I share these stories with you because these complete strangers reminded me that we are more alike than unalike (head nod to Maya Angelou).  We might hear more about the bad, but there are normal people and good still out there in our world.  We are all just people living our lives and trying our best and getting wet or frustrated or laughing out loud with strangers in an elevator, and that people and this life are a beautiful thing. 

New York State of Mind

It is funny to think that twenty years of my life I lived only 373 miles away from New York City and never once went there.  Until this month, I had only been to NYC once and it was for about two hours where I ate dinner with a friend and gawked at Times Square with all its lights and noise and people.  As we planned our trip, I was nervous thinking about the crowds, thinking about how overwhelming it would be and wondering if we would enjoy it.  I have to tell you, I loved it!  The crowds didn’t bother me, you grow used to the noise and there is so, so much to do!

Most of our plan was to see as much as we could see.  See the things!  We were here pictures!  We walked and saw Central Park, Times Square, Wall St., Madison Ave. Our hotel had a very central Manhattan location and was .5 miles from this, .7 from that.  I think it was built in the 1920’s at the height of Jazz and flappers and so very resplendent that I kept waiting for Jay Gatsby himself to walk through the lobby and say “Hey there, old sport.”  The room we stayed in was pretty small and nondescript other than amazing water pressure in the shower, but that lobby had it going on!

The two things that we saw that amazed me the most had to be the Statue of Liberty and the Metropolitan Museum of Art.  We took the subway to Battery Park and did not sign up for any guided tour of the Statue.  It was super- hot and I did not need to be part of the teeming masses trying to get in.  We could see her from shore!  I was moved, moved, to see her in person.  My grandfather came through Ellis Island from Sicily as a four-year-old and I kept picturing him seeing her and knowing he was almost to his new home.  Then I thought, no, he was four, so instead I pictured my great-grandmother probably dressed in a black shroudy thing and having spent the last few months down in steerage.  What a relief it must have been to for her to see that Statue and know they were almost there. America in the 1920’s was awash with immigrants from Southern Europe trying to find a better life and as a result was saying things like “Hey, no more swarthy immigrants!” (sound familiar?)  But not that statue.  She was saying welcome, we will have you, you are safe now.  And that she is still standing and still offering that hope to immigrants, well, I cried. And then we boarded the FREE Staten Island ferry that provided up close views and a very needed breeze and thought nothing could top this.  But, this is NYC, topping things it was it does best!

really need to figure out this sideways thing, but still beautiful!

The day we went to the Met, the boys opted out and just Sophie and I went. We walked two miles to get there and my girl powered ahead, she was so excited to see all the art. The Met was huge so we tried to plan what we could actually see and what we would be okay skipping. You go in and are awed by the sweet air conditioning and start looking at paintings and thinking, okay.  And then you get closer and see, Botticelli.  Alright.  Monet.  Renoir.  Van Gogh.  Well, we didn’t actually see Van Gogh, but he is there.  When Sophie mentioned we missed Van Gogh, I showed her a Van Gogh magnet in the museum store; she was not amused.  I have to tell you though it was Emanuel Leutze’s “Washington Crossing the Delaware” that made me take a step back and a breath in.  It is giant and takes up an entire wall and every single detail so expertly painted, you can feel how cold it was, how determined the men were.  I was rendered speechless and we know how rare a thing that is.

I did leave NYC convinced of a few things I think I should share with you and a few questions I still have that I am hoping a native NYCer can answer for me. 

1.      People in NYC must die at least 7 times a day.  They have no fear of moving vehicles and possess a complete disregard for what the crosswalk light tells them to do.

2.     Blocking the box is not only common, it is highly encouraged in order to move your car two inches forward and make the light ten lights from now.  Also, when someone cuts you off in traffic, the rule is lay on your horn for a solid ten seconds while pumping your brakes and inching up as close as you can to the offender.

3.     People in NYC are really nice.  Except for the man working in the subway station and to be fair, he works underground in a glass box and we did interrupt his private tete a tete with a woman subway worker to buy tickets.  Everyone keeps to themselves but is pretty friendly.  Especially when your son is making weird enough cooing noises to pigeons that these native NYers will look you in the eye and smile and think both you and your son are kind of weird.

4.     People in NYC have grown so accustomed to the people and noise around them that they no longer think anything of screaming all their conversations into their phones as they walk.  We overheard a very lively conversation in Little Italy and another in Central Park as a man was sexting, over Siri.  “Siri, I have no shirt on.”  He actually did have a shirt on and I will admit to slowing down to see where the rest of that text was going.

5.     People in NYC must be constantly dehydrated or wear Depends because bottles of water cost $4 each and there is nowhere to use a bathroom.  There are no public restrooms!  Where are the restrooms?!?  Even eating in a restaurant doesn’t guarantee they have a restroom you can use. 

6.     It is easy to be a vegetarian in NYC; Sophie had great eating choices the entire time.  Halal food and a vegan tent popped up right as Bill said “Well, it’s not like a vegetarian place is just going to pop up”. 

7.     Where do people in NYC buy gas?  I would never in a million years want to drive there, but people do and I never once saw a gas station.

8.     Does anyone grocery shop in NYC?  Is it all Instacart?  Can Instacart even deliver?  Those people should definitely be tipped heavily if there are fighting that traffic and running upstairs with your toilet paper.

I am so glad that we made this trip and so amazed by all the things we were able to see, but I definitely need to go back.  I want to see Central Park aflame in autumn splendor or in December when the city is dressed up for Christmas.  I want to see a Broadway show.  I want to eat in Little Italy.  There’s just so much more to see and do here!    I learned a lot about NYC on this trip and can’t wait to come back and experience more.  I know to purposefully dehydrate myself all day long, I know to walk when everyone else is walking and I definitely know we should fly there and back.