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An Inspirational Inaugural Weekend

womensmarch

 

My heart, such a blue, bruised, tight little ball in survival mode on Friday, has been warmed, replenished, and reopened this weekend by the outpouring of women’s voices and women’s marches — not just in our own nation’s capital, but the whole world over. Seeing my sisters spilling out of their homes and into the annals of history has been a beautiful, beautiful thing.

Women have always been my heroes and my leaders. I come from a matriarchal family, where the women are strong and outspoken and they get the job done. My aunts and grandmother showed me – after sixteen years of living beneath the shadow of misogyny and the dominance of patriarchy in a cult cut straight out of the cloth of the caveman days – that women are a pretty, big deal. They showed me that we can speak up and we can speak out. And what we say matters. And how we feel matters. And what we need matters. My matriarchs taught me that we can and should stand up against injustice – alone or together. Either way, we are a force to be reckoned with. On Saturday, that force rose together in tsunami fashion – a storm surge that flooded the streets of cities across the globe with a moral mission to preserve and advance the rights of women and other minorities whose voices are being threatened, whose rights are on the chopping block. I am so proud to be a woman.

I always have been. I’ve never, ever wished I were a man. Being female is the greatest. I love almost everything about it. I love dressing up. I love smelling good. I love putting on make-up and curling my hair. I love soft, fuzzy sweaters and soft, fuzzy kittens. I love carrying babies –  both in my arms and in my belly. I love chocolate kisses and passionate kisses, Disney princesses and the princes that come with them (although my favorites are definitely the most recent ones – where the princesses orchestrate their own rescues and the princes play supporting roles). I love the color pink and big, white wedding gowns. I love rainbows and unicorns, peace signs and freshly baked cookies. All of these things fill me with warm fuzzies, as do romantic comedies and super bowl commercials. I get all the feels almost all the time. I don’t see that as a character flaw or a genetic glitch. Just because I’m soft, doesn’t mean I’m soft. And just because I’m soft-spoken doesn’t mean my voice can’t or shouldn’t be heard.

Yes, I embrace all my girly girl traits, but just because I love being a girl doesn’t mean I love everything that comes with the territory. Period cramps and labor pains bite. And glitter and leopard prints can go back to the ridiculous drawing board that first designed them. High heels hoover and handbags are too high priced. But the thing I hate most about being a woman is the disrespect and condescension that is served up from people – male and female alike — who refuse to recognize and appreciate a woman’s worth as equal to a man’s. Which leads me to my most-despised term in the English language: Ladylike. Them’s just fighting words.

But this weekend, we brought our fighting herds, which is what I choose to focus on during this oh-so-inspirational inaugural weekend. Yes, inspirational.  And no, not due to an orange man in a white house. Nope. The inspiration comes from the outpouring of support by and for Womanhood, the subject that has most profoundly shaped who I am today, how I live today, how I love today and even why I am today.

I use the word SUBJECT here with absolute intent and purpose. As an English teacher, I teach sentence structure and semantics. I know the importance of word order and connotation. In grammar, the subjects are in control of their sentences. They are the ones doing and the ones being. They own and they control. For centuries and centuries – for entire histories – the subjects that are doing the doing, the owning and the controlling, have been men.

Objects – direct objects, indirect objects,…SEX objects – they are not in control. They are not doing and they are not being. For centuries and centuries – for entire histories – women have been the objects that were owned and controlled. We were wives or mistresses or prostitutes. We were the objects of sentences written by a patriarchy.

But we women have made tremendous progress in rewriting our destinies. We are currently at the highest point in our grammatical and sexual evolution. Not all of us, but many of us, are the subjects of our own sentences. We own and are in control of our options. Our decisions. Our bodies. Our lives. Our selves.

And this weekend, we poured onto the streets to protect and advance our rights. Do not doubt us. Do not denigrate us. Do not sandbag us, or coddle us or condescend us. Do not fault us or foul us or fabricate lies about us. Do not undermine us. Do not underestimate us. Because, as Maya Angelou prophesied in her poetic call to action:

Out of the huts of history’s shame, we rise…

up from a past that’s rooted in pain, we rise…

we are the black ocean, leaping and wide,

welling and swelling, we bring in the tide.

I am living in a heart-wrenching time to be a woman, but it is also a heartwarming time to be a woman. Yesterday, as Gloria Steinem said, we saw the upside of the downside. We saw women by the millions taking to the streets in support of autonomy and equality. In DC, in Austin, in L.A.; in Atlanta and Nashville and Chicago and Nome. In Berlin and Rome and Sydney; in London and Dublin and Ipanema — and even the Antarctic peninsula — we rose up and we roared.  673 marches across the globe, we rose in a sister solidarity to connect continents, challenge conventions, and change policy. And it won’t end there. We will continue to rise for as long as there is terror and fear and injustice and inequality.

For as long as these evils exist, We Will Continue to Rise.

 

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Social Media Etiquette when Dealing with a Twin Mom at her Melting Point

I’ve raised daughters. Reared them into adulthood. They were a challenge, true. But I’m female; they’re female. We sort of had that thing going for us. So even as they grew and educated me in the care and keeping of them, the learning curve never felt that steep. Plus, I had them one at a time. So that was going for me, too. But twins  — and twin boys at that – I feel like this learning curve needs climbing gear complete with harnesses and carabiners.

And in all honesty, our friends and family kind of need a crash course in emotional support — particularly in terms of emergency management — for when the going gets tough. And believe me, it gets tough. Take today, for instance. Today is Day Four of what has turned into a Twintestinal Distress week. They stayed home again today. And I stayed home again today. And boy, has it been tough.

We’re all bored shitless.

Which is good, I guess, because I’ve had all the shit I can handle in the past half-a-week. I’ve changed more diapers and sheets, swabbed more butts and floors, and used more Lysol wipes than the community hospital did last year.

We are being held hostage in our own home by toddler boys’ digestive tracts. We are in dire need of some fresh air. Ours smells like retch and poo. And the boys are cranky with cabin fever. No. Cranky is an understatement. Godzilla in Tokyo was cranky. My boys are downright angry. And it could even be that they are hangry, since they’ve had nothing more substantial than a toast crust in four days. Every time they try, their gag reflexes kick in and their bowels run amok.

It’s times like these, when the perils of Twindom absolutely overcome me. It’s times like these when the poo hits the fan and I’m ready to rage against the latrine!  So what do I do? I vent to friends and family on Facebook. And what do they do? Well, the ones who get it, they give me support. And the ones who don’t, they give me clichés.

Which is why I’ve decided to pen this crash course in social media emergency management…

I’ve already established the crisis situation for you. Now let me give you a quick cry-for- help demonstration. Let’s say that as you peruse your Facebook news feed that you spy a post from a desperate  twin mom at her absolute wit’s end. Perhaps she has proclaimed her life is a festering cistern of agony and upchuck. IN ALL CAPS.  Or maybe it’s something less dramatic, but just as desperate. Something along the lines of:

I literally have not stepped foot outside my house in five days. I may go off the deep end.

You stop scrolling. You pause for a moment. As a friend, as a family member… what do you do?… what should you do? Should you like the status and end it there? Well, you can… but there is really nothing about that status to like. At all. But if you pity that poor, dispirited twin mom then don’t you think she at least deserves a crying face or a sweetly-placed heart? Give her some emoji love, for crying out loud — which is what she’s doing, believe me.

And if you want to go further, to try to preserve her sanity and your relationship with her, here are some Dos and Don’ts of the comment variety…

Do give her love and support. Tell her she can make it through. Tell her that the giant shit igloo that has formed over and around her diaper pail will soon melt into a memory – a foul-smelling, filthy, recycled memory – but a memory nonetheless. So tell her that.

Don’t tell her she’s paying for her raising. Because as she recalls, there weren’t two of her. Two versions of her squirting vast quantities of digestive detritus and retching saltine crackers simultaneously. All the while begging to be held and struggling to escape. Two. At the same time. So just hush it.

Do send her texts, and love… and groceries. When her family has been eating toast and applesauce for five days – not merely for the fact that it follows the BRAT rules for stomach flu (Bananas, Rice, Apple sauce and Toast) – but also because they have nothing else left in the house. Their cupboard is bare. And so are their bowels. And they could really go for some chicken soup. It’s good for the soul and the shits. So do do that. (But don’t doo doo. They’ve had enough of that…)

Don’t tell her it comes with the territory. It’s not her first rodeo. She knows the territory. It is, however, her first rodeo with twins and she’ll tell you, the rules of engagement are entirely different. Unless you have ever parented twins… especially twins purging their innards for seventy-two hours straight in a snow storm (well, maybe that’s an exaggeration. They live in the South. They had a snow flake), then don’t act like you’re the fucking Lewis & Clark of parenting territory. You’re not. So hush it.

Do tell her she’s doing a good job. Tell her that you know kids are hard because you’ve been there. And then tell her you’ve heard many, many, MANY rumors that twins are harder. Way harder. And that she is way beyond Wonder Woman to you. That she belongs in Marvel comics. Or is it DC? Shit. She has no fucking clue. Boys love super heroes.Just one more thing she has to study up on. That learning curve gets steeper and steeper. It’s never ending. But she can do it, you say. Because she is Way Beyond Wonder Woman. Tell her that.

Don’t try to lighten the mood by cracking jokes. Believe me, she is not amused. That’s not laughing you hear. It’s tears. And choking. She’s crying hysterically while drowning in an endless sea of projectile poo and vomit and sippy cups of ginger ale. So unless you can throw her a life line – or a kind line – Just. Hush. It.

 

 

 

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Snow Days and Stomach Flu: Happy Birthday, Daddy!

It was Mike’s birthday weekend. We had hoped to do dinner and a movie. We had  a sitter on reserve and everything.  But then Snowmageddon 2017 hit the greater Atlanta area with a hearty warni…

Source: Snow Days and Stomach Flu: Happy Birthday, Daddy!

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Snow Days and Stomach Flu: Happy Birthday, Daddy!

snowmageddon

It was Mike’s birthday weekend. We had hoped to do dinner and a movie. We had  a sitter on reserve and everything.  But then Snowmageddon 2017 hit the greater Atlanta area with a hearty warning from the forecasters and a half-hearted hiccup from the ensuing cold front. The result? A foamy upchuck of about an inch-and-a-half of the white stuff — and about a half-a-week of impassable back roads. Facebook became littered with pictures of empty bread aisles and sparse milk coolers, families “sledding” on laundry baskets and garbage can lids (not many folks in these parts have ever purchased an actual sled. The cost/benefit ratio just doesn’t pan out.), and Frosty and Olaf look-alikes flecked with mud and dried bermuda grass (an inch-and-a-half doesn’t really contribute to porcelain-skinned snowpeople).

None of the afore-mentioned photos could be found on our family’s Facebook pages. Instead, we were bundled up beneath blankets and bathrobes battling stomach bugs times two. (Because twins always make sure they double the pleasure and double the fun.)

There was no half-hearted hiccup involved in OUR upchuck. Nope. We had literal, bonafide, bile-filled, food-splattered, smelly stuff. As a result, our milk stayed on its shelf. And our bread – well, we did toast an insane amount of bread, which sadly, quite often sat neglected and slowly hardening on the boys’ Minion and ladybug plates. As far as snowmen, we’ve watched a lot of Frozen. Apparently, Elsa and Ana have a soothing effect on wayward tummies. The boys lay in listless lumps on our laps while Kristin Bell sang “Do You Want to Build A Snowman?” over and over and over, their eyes glazed and their foreheads hot, their appetites absent and their bellies cramped.

They looked wretched. So wretched, that at one point I called big sister the surgeon and Mike called his student’s mom the nurse practitioner. We were worried that the listlessness was bordering on lethargy – with Tate, in particular. He hadn’t said a word all day long. He wouldn’t sit up and he wouldn’t eat. Nor would he leave my side. I had to nap with him three times yesterday just to help him rest more comfortably — and so I could quickly supply the puke bucket in the event of an emergency. Finally, ‘round about three o’clock he strung a sentence together — a forceful “Mommy sleeps with Me” — and my fears subsided. But then new ones quickly took their place. I feared I had created a monster: a pint-sized, possessive sleep dictator with Mommyitis.

I’ve always heard it takes twenty-one days for an action to become a habit, but my youngest cleared that up for me post-haste. Turns out a toddler can develop a habit in a scant twenty-four-hours. Last night, he demanded, “Mommy sleep with ME” and “Daddy sleep with Parker.”

Thus sayeth the toddler.

And because his eyes were purple, sunken orbs of pitifulness, I acquiesced.  Probably a big mistake. Huge.  I have a feeling that breaking him of this habit is going to be about as easy as finding milk and bread in the South in a snow st…er, hiccup (or a substitute teacher in Bartow County on a sick day – but more on that in a moment).

So today is Day Three of our Snowmageddon and our Flumageddon. It’s Monday. Thankfully, school was cancelled, so no endless hours of sub shopping for me. As the snow and ice slowly melt, the boys slowly improve. They’re still sitting sedentary on our sofas, but they are actively surfing YouTube Kids on their iPads, searching for such riveting toddler favorites as Pez dispensers being dispensed and elevator rides being ridden. Dad is manning the pink plastic puke bucket, and I am penning my blog amidst toast runs and ginger ale refills. Periodically, the unmistakable sounds of poo percolating in a diaper interrupt the Frozen soundtrack. Yes, the vomiting has subsided, but the diapers are still piling up in drifts of unbearable stench. Hopefully the roads will thaw and the trash will run tomorrow – and the boys’ bowels will NOT.

Yes, the streets and the boys are improving, but we’re not out of the woods yet. Because in the South, snow days are about as unpredictable as a bout of the stomach flu. Things can look like they’ve improved on the surface. The sun is out. The coast is clear.  You’re cruising along nicely. Then, out of nowhere, those dark, twisty places rear their ugly underbelly and suddenly you’re careening out of control in a slippery riptide of hidden wretchedness.

But I’m confident we’re at the tail end of both… no pun intended.

PS… In between the boys’ bouts of intestinal distress, I did manage to bake up Mike’s favorite  birthday cake — carrot.  We had a twenty-minute window to celebrate before we were once again swabbing  floors and bottoms. Happy Birthday, my handsome husband. I wouldn’t want to do life or twindom — and all of the ensuing madcap mayhem and unbridled awesomeness — without you. ILY

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#SoulfoodSeoulfood

Our dishwasher has the longest cycle of any machine I’ve ever encountered. An elephant’s menstrual cycle is only slightly longer. It runs for 2 hours and 83 minutes.(The dishwasher, not the elephant.) Not kidding here. It seems unheard of. I’ve never been around one as dedicated and hard working. What makes this so incredibly irritating is that we can’t run the dishwasher unless the boys are asleep or absentee because they like to push buttons. All buttons. The ice and water buttons on the fridge (we had to put it on lock-down mode– I didn’t even know a fridge had such a thing!), the buttons on the oven, the buttons on the remote control, the buttons on their parents (every damn day), the buttons on their parents’ cell phones… the list goes on and on. You name it, they push it. So if we run the dishwasher while they’re awake, inevitably it gets stopped somewhere, mid-cycle. And they’re so stealthy about it that we never see or hear them do it.

We’ve tried for four days to run our dishwasher. Four. But, sadly, because we are the parents of twins who have decided that sleeping is overrated and shouldn’t necessarily be applicable to them  – well one twin in particular these days — we continuously forget to run said dish washer because our minds are M.I.A. So we currently have no dishes in our cabinets. None. Every dinner, salad, and dessert plate – even every coffee saucer (because we ate breakfast off of those this morning) — is dirty and festering in its own detritus waiting for us to run the load. And we just can’t seem to manage it.

Which makes the task at hand – preparing our New Year’s Day feast – rather difficult. I’ve been closely examining the contents of the dishwasher – sniffing glasses and squinting at fork tines – to determine whether or not I need to take forensic countermeasures with a brillo pad and hot water. I decided it was easier to just pull out the Vodka and pour myself a drink and let the alcohol kill the germs. Besides, I hadn’t properly rung in the New Year yet. Mike and I fell asleep last night before 10:30. Tate and his propensity for middle-of-the-night wake-up calls are beginning to take their toll.

But let’s talk about New Year’s Day in the South. It’s a beautiful conglomeration of country fare: black-eyed peas and collard greens, buttermilk cornbread and sweet tea. And I do it all. Well, except for the sweet tea. I told you already, I’m not a tea-totaler 😉 And I may be Southern, but I’m not Southern Baptist. So I threw back a couple of vodka tonics while I cranked up my veggies because I like my potatoes fermented. Not mashed. And not fried.

But it’s not all peas and greens and potato juice at our table on New Year’s Day. Remember, we’re a mixed marriage, so we’ve got ourselves a mixed menu.  Mike contributes his cultural heritage, too.  He makes his family’s duk guk. It sounds incredibly wrong — like something feculent at the bottom of a millpond. But it tastes incredibly right — like seventh heaven in a soup bowl, complete with seaweed and rice cakes. It’s my second-favorite thing my husband does for me… but I digress.

seoulfood

Now the boys won’t eat any of the above-mentioned goodness. And it’s not that they are the kind of kids who will only eat chicken nuggets and French fries (although they love those too.) They’ve been raised on multicultural menus their entire two-and-a-half years on this planet. Their favorite foods are Korean curry and chicken n dumplings. Sadly, though, they draw the line on vegetables of almost any variety, so beans and greens are entirely out of the question. And it saddens me, but while my mom and Mike and I feasted on soul food and Seoul food, the boys feasted on Cheez-its and the bacon reserved for crumbling atop the collards. Oh, and some random bites of cornbread. If tonight’s any indicator, I won’t be winning any mother of the year awards in 2017.

But I am winning. Even when I fail.

Even when the boys have minor (and major) meltdowns in Aisle 3 of the new Kroger — and then again in Aisles 8 and 12. (Which happened today while we were shopping for our duk guk and greens, by the way.) Even then, I am still winning. Because I have been given the opportunity to mother four exquisite, perfectly imperfect children who show me the secrets of the universe every single time that they smile. They bring me a joy that cannot be described nor contained.

So, yes, I am winning. Even when I fail. Even when I have minor (and major) meltdowns because I feel like I am inadequate. Like Mike deserves someone better. Someone younger and more energetic and maybe even more Asian who can truly appreciate his passion for all things Ramen and Star Wars and technological. Even then, I am still winning. Because when he wraps me in a big, warm hug and looks me squarely in the eyes, I know I am right where I belong. He is my destiny and I am his. Star Wars fanatic or not.seoultrain

Yes, I am winning. Even when I fail. Even when I have minor (and major) meltdowns because I feel like I can never be all that I should be as a teacher for my students. Hell, if I can’t even remember to run my own dishwasher, how in the blankety-blank am I supposed to properly impart kernels of truth and wisdom to the young minds of Bartow County? But I am still winning. Because even though I teach them about life and literature, they teach me so much more. About life and about living it. The wisdom of American youth should never be underestimated.

Yes, I am winning.

By the way, my first favorite thing my husband does for me is his curry. His thick, brown, spicy, Korean curry.  Happy New Year, ya filthy animals.

 

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Confessions of a Christmas Junkie

christmasboys

I love gingerbread. And hot buttered rum. And the Elf on the Shelf. And the Nutcracker ballet. And Christmas lights. And Christmas ornaments. And A Christmas Story. And THE Christmas Story. And… did I mention gingerbread?

I am a holiday junkie. I mean, I absolutely crave all things Christmas. Alas, I married a man who does not. He does crave egg nog — so there’s that. But I think that’s it for his tolerance of the season. He tolerates me, too — although he does roll his eyes at all my holiday hoopla. In his defense, I may have been known to overdo it just a tad. Clark W. Griswold and Martha Stewart are my inspirations.

The Christmas jonesing kicks into full gear on Thanksgiving night. That’s when I throw off all pretense of self-control and set my Christmas carol playlist on shuffle, where I keep it running loud and proud straight through New Year’s Eve. Carrie Underwood’s “O Holy Night” gets me all teary-eyed. Josh Groban’s “Ave Maria” makes me weep outright. But then, I run the entire emotional gamut. I get downright giddy over Mariah Carey’s “All I Want for Christmas Is You” and Julie Andrew’s “My Favorite Things,” too.

And speaking of MY favorite things, Christmas cards in the mailbox and my personalized, hand-knit stocking hanging on a peg on the fireplace are at the top of that list. As is gingerbread straight out of the oven. I know I’m repeating myself, but if I’m not mistaken, gingerbread was one of the precious gifts of the magi. There was gold, gingerbread and myrrh. Look it up 🙂 So it’s a seasonal necessity. (And this year, my sister introduced me to a Williams Sonoma mix that is the absolute definition of comfort and joy. We feed each other’s addictions.)

So yes, I love gingerbread and Christmas carols, but I think my favorite Christmas accoutrements are the ornaments. I’ve collected them for years and years and years. People who know me know I take my ornament selection VERY seriously. I will search half a year to track down the perfect one for each special person in my life. I’m an ornament snob, too, so that makes ornament purchasing even stickier. The medium doesn’t matter so much; the ornaments can be anything and from anywhere. I’ve found designer blown glass Betty Boops, Pottery Barn bottle brush squirrels, and Australian handcrafted felt angels. My criteria is ambiguous and esoteric. I just know when I know. And sometimes it takes months and months of Etsy surfing and brick and mortar navigating to find each family member’s certain special something. That’s where my Martha Stewart OCD kicks in. I admit I have a problem. That’s the first step, right? Only I don’t want to be cured.

I love the freakishly sentimental feelings that Christmas stirs in me. I know I can be over-the-top in a way that can be overwhelming to the uninitiated. Especially for someone who is used to quiet, single day, perfunctory family dinners and gift card exchanges. But me, I thrive on the chaos of the season – the gazillion get togethers, the flurry of family obligations, the weeks’ worth of baking and wassailing and all-around merry making. I become a paradoxically highly-charged, gooey lump of blubbering happiness.

Because my absolute favorite thing about the holidays as a mother is being with my babies. All four of them.  And this year, as in the past few years since the girls have been full-grown and on their own, that can be tricky. And it can require some creative calendaring, and come-hell-or-highwater maneuvering, to make it happen.

This year my crew is scattered far-and-wide, so out of necessity, we’ve sprinkled our celebrations generously (like powdered sugar on gingerbread) until they’ve coated a two-week span. First up, we traveled over the river and through four states to Caitlin’s house for a grand total of seven hundred and eighty-four miles. One way. A road trip of epic proportions when you have toddler twin boys. In case you haven’t heard, boys don’t like to sit still. But, according to federal regulations, sit still they MUST. Strapped into seats with harnesses at their chests and crotches. For seven-hundred-and-eighty-four miles. So that was fun.

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We knew from past experience that the drive might not go well. The last time we navigated the expressways – which are ironically named since there is nothing express about them when you’re packing twin toddlers – the boys were fifteen months old. We had to stop every two hours to let them run around for an hour or so. We felt like Odysseus trying to make it home to Ithaca. I’m pretty sure we entered a Calypso time warp at some point because our twelve-hour journey evolved into a twenty-three hour return trip. I vaguely recall standing in a moving vehicle hanging a boob up and over a car seat headrest at 1:30 AM so I could nurse a boy while he was strapped in because we didn’t want to stop YET AGAIN.

So we entered into this week’s journey to visit Caitlin — eldest daughter, biggest sister, superstar surgeon and all-around awesome human — with tremendous anticipation, but also with  tremendous trepidation. Thankfully, though, all our fears proved unfounded. This year, our road trip was SO much easier. This year, our round trip grand total (26 hours) was ALMOST equal to the return trip from last time… so I consider that a HUGE success.

christmascaycay

Plus, we had a fantastic time with our Cay Cay, who couldn’t come to us this year – or any year on residency thus far – because she was on 24-hour call. We filled our three days in Dallas with Vitruvian Christmas lights, winter landscaped model trains with super hero passengers, window shopping, real shopping, pasta and wine and gingerbread, and a dumpster dive by Mike, who went rummaging through an entire apartment complex’s rubbish in search of an inadvertently discarded paring knife. We love her super very much a lot, and wouldn’t have missed a second of it.

This weekend, we have a much quicker little jaunt up to Chattanooga planned in order to see Bethany and Baby Bentley and the crew and finish off our Christmas celebrations. It’s only a two-hour round trip trek, but it should prove monumental. We’ll be taking a ride on the Tennessee Railroad. Parker and Tate and Bentley and his big sis Braylen should love it. I can’t wait to see their faces and feel their excitement when that engine starts chugging. Modeled after The Polar Express, the kids will get some sort of chocolate drink and a sleigh bell. And rest assured, I’ll get some sort of misty eyed. Because that close up of that bell in the final scene of The Polar Express… just before Josh Groban begins to sing “Believe,” when the unseen narrator says his final lines… That scene gets me. It speaks to the driving force beneath my unbridled Christmas cravings and addictions…

“Seeing is believing… but sometimes the most real things in the world are the things we can’t see.”

Things like love.

Like the eye-rolling, eggnog-fueled love of a man who doesn’t get my holiday love affair, but still gets me. Who will drive to the ends of the earth – or at least the ends of the Southeast – to make my mama’s heart happy at Christmas time. Or at any time.

Like the fierce, full love of a mama for her babies. All of them. The ones full grown and on their own, and the ones still underfoot in footed pajamas.  A love that will always find a way – come hell or high water or four-state odysseys – to get to her offspring at Christmas time. Or any time.

And like the passionate love of a God who sent his only begotten son as a gift to the entire world at Christmas time. And all the time.

Yep. I am a Christmas Junkie. And I’m not giving it up anytime soon.

 

 

 

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A Tale of Two Mommies

Why does the world spawn so much violence? How is it that so many people house so much hatred in their hearts? I find it incomprehensible. It leaves me feeling overwhelmed and broken. Which is ridiculous when I consider the ones who literally are overwhelmed and broken.

I was planning on writing about all our Christmas plans for the upcoming week and the ensuing traditions that will unfold. But instead, watching the morning news and surfing my social media sites, I’m finding that such a blog post is entirely too saccharine, entirely too unpalatable amidst all the vitriol and violence technology has brought me this week.  The cyber bullying of a teenage boy; the terrorist attack in a Berlin Christmas market, the assassination of the Russian ambassador to Turkey, and, most heart-wrenching of all, the Aleppo refugees struggling to find safety and loved ones in a war-torn life.

I can’t even.

One of the first unfair, unjust developments of this holiday week hit me on Saturday morning when I became aware of the twitter tirade against our beloved Canes quarterback – a high school student and the top junior player in the nation. He’s just a kid, folks. And while he’s not, technically, still a babe in arms, he’s a baby with an arm and he should not have to brace himself against the nastiness spewing from computer screens and smart phones simply because he chose to go play football at a college that he believes will be the very best fit for his life and his future. Key word here: HIS.

Now I know he has the stature and statistics of a man. I know he’s the number one recruit for 2018. I know he’s been heavily touted and scouted since he came up from the eighth grade. I know he breaks records and slings laser beams. But in the end, he’s still just a kid. He loves sour patch kids and his baby sister. He can’t buy tobacco or drive after midnight. He should be dealing with group projects and impending Senioritis. NOT with cyber bullying on a global (or at least Southeastern Conference scale) just because he picked an ACC school.  He’s a KID, for goodness sake’s! Heck, he may even still believe in Santa Claus. And all of this hatred is being spewed over a GAME! A game designed to instill joy and an escape from reality on Friday nights or Saturday afternoons. My mother’s heart aches for him.

But if I’m being honest here, it aches the absolute most for his mama. Because when somebody attacks your baby – no matter how young or old – it tears a mama’s heart into brittle, jagged confetti. When my girls were growing up, I’d get all kinds of bent out of shape if anyone so much as looked at them sideways. I remember being ready to sucker punch a school bus bully when my baby girl was a kindergartner. I refrained. But I was ready. And just last year, an arrogant asshole of an attending said some hurtful things to my eldest, and I was ready to tear out his external carotid artery with my bare hands. But, again, I refrained. I don’t know how in the world I could refrain if there were basically thousands of ill-tempered SEC fans bad-mouthing my baby on social media for all the world to see. And it’s not limited to social media. Yesterday, while out and about town doing some Christmas shopping, my husband and I – proudly sporting our Canes championship shirts – had to listen to not one, but two negative nellies pontificate on our quarterback’s decision. I was thunderstruck. Really? Who are they to presume to know what’s best for him? All they had in their minds was what would benefit them and “their” team. (As if they truly had anything more than season tickets (maybe) and a college diploma (even more unlikely) and jersey purchases invested in those teams.) And that got me thinking — if WE had to listen to those zealous fans politic for their team, how many more have he and his poor family weathered over the last five days – and indeed the entire season? His mom’s grace is made of firmer stuff than mine, that’s for certain. I admire her poise and her polish. Her motherhood is paved on the high road, and I stand in awe.

So there’s that mama’s pain.For her, it’s been the best of times and the worst of times. But that mama’s pain pales in comparison to the anguish of the mama I saw on the nightly news this weekend. The mama who lost all her babies beneath the all-too-real onslaught of bombs and ensuing rubble in Aleppo. For her, it’s been the worst of the worst of the worst of times.

She was covered in dust, blood parting her swollen face like a Picasso portrait. She wandered aimlessly around a makeshift hospital crying in anguish. But still she finds the tenderness to comfort a toddler boy, hands and bare feet caked in chalk, forehead marked in blood. Both of them are marked in blood —  the blood of the scapegoat that their people have become. A people punished brutally for the sins of others who care nothing for them or their plight. This sweet toddler boy (a boy roughly the age of my own toddler boys) is devoid of tears, his pudgy face paralyzed. Almost. If you look closely, you’ll spy the tiniest, quivering lip. He bites it instantly. He’s learned early to hide the hurt. But the mother – the mother who is not his – she wails. Her tears trace through the dust and drip to the floor, a floor smattered and smeared with blood and grit. All of her babies, lost. All. And then, she’s joined by a young teenage boy (a boy roughly the age of our young quarterback), and he’s carrying his infant brother. A baby brother who did not survive. These three broken humans huddle together, searching for comfort that cannot possibly come. As the reporter proclaims, they are “exhausted beyond words by a life beyond description.”

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My mama’s heart agonizes for them. This Syrian mama, this mama whose pain is unreal to me. Cannot be fathomed by me. Pain that is the result of real weaponry, the result of deadly weaponry so far beyond the rantings and ravings of selfish cyber bullies that it seems ridiculous to discuss the two situations in the same blog. This young Syrian teen, this teen who, rather than throwing bombs into end zones, has been on the receiving end of bombs that have ended whole families. This precious toddler, who faces an existential lack and want and void that God-willing, our toddler boys will never, ever encounter. I cannot fathom the pain. My soul runs from the comprehension. It does not want to know. Does not want to understand. It would break me.

As a mother and an American, I feel guilty. Guilty for being so privileged by destiny that I live without such incomprehensible pain and loss. Guilty for uttering my previous, selfish, “God willing” statement. Guilty that I cannot do more than pledge a donation and remember these broken members of the human race in my prayers. Guilty that I am able to sit here, drafting this blog amidst my Christmas lights and wrapped presents, while making road trip preparations, drafting Christmas dinner grocery lists, and doing last-minute, on-line shopping. How can this world be simultaneously benign and oh-so-malignant?

A mother’s pain is a jagged, cutting pain. I have never felt pain like it before. And while I have felt a mother’s pain, I have never felt pain like either of these mothers’ currently feel – my football mama’s pain and our Aleppo mama’s pain. Both pains are torturous; but one is debilitating.

And I am helpless in the wake of their respective pains.

In this season where Christians celebrate a young virgin mother — a mother who also felt the pain of a world that turned against her son, a world that despised and destroyed him — I am saddened that we have not come very far and we have not learned very much. We are still doing terrible things to our sons. And to our daughters.To all fellow humans. We tear each other apart for our own selfish gains. And so often, we use God as the impetus. We destroy in the name of God the Father…  or the god of football. Which is the more ridiculous? I do not know.  I am disheartened.

But I am still hopeful. Because despite the fact that we are all inherently selfish, I know we are not all inherently cruel.

So I offer up words of kindness, words of prayer, and pledges of money and solidarity. It is all I know to do.

But I pray it will be enough. If enough of us do it.

 

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My Championship Scrapbook

Before the week’s over, I’ve decided I must try to put down in words just how profoundly moving this past Saturday and the championship game was. It’s an impossible task.  No matter what I write, I end up deleting and beginning again. Words fail me. Poetry was what it was, and what it needs to be. Accompanied with music. With secret notes and chords that only heartbeats can create – a community of them pounding and tripping together in a giant cacophony of joy and thanksgiving. That’s what I need.

But all I can provide is a collage of images — images spliced and woven and blended into snapshots of prose.

I’ll begin with the Send Off, the team spilling out of a decades-old field house built of brick and mortar — and hopes and dreams, faith and sacrifice, sweat/blood/tears, hard work and long hours — and onto three chartered buses headed for the Georgia Dome. The morning was cold — cold like Packers’ fan cold (at least in my temperate Southern soul, I feel like it was). Family and friends puffed misty breaths and wiped misty eyes as they saw their fellas off. A drone buzzed overhead. Blue lights flashed, sirens whooped and horns answered.

And our team rolled out of the drive and into their destiny.

Next, a caravan of coaches’ wives saddled up and snaked down I 75 in pursuit. And not just wives. Whole families of Canes, with uncles and cousins. Newborns wrapped in swaddles; toddlers strapped in car seats; in-laws riding shotgun. We stopped for a fast-food lunch and an impromptu hair painting session about five miles from our destination. Purple hair was chalked enthusiastically into brunette, blonde, and ebony locks, alike. We wives wear our war paint with a difference.

We arrived in a rush of purple and gold — the cold air driving us into the Dome in waves. Security stations clogged and cleared; corridors and vestibules clumped and pooled at restrooms and concession stands.

But once we finally found our way through the maze of masses, we spilled into a vast pulsing chamber, charged with the butterflies and beating hearts of teenage boys and full grown men. Above us, the webbed Dome with its striped steel arteries. Below us, the green field with its striped, segmented planes. This was the stage where truths are told. Where legends unfold.

I spied my husband in the visitor’s tunnel. Instantly, my belly felt fizzy and my eyes blurred with love and pride. I was so nervous I could puke.

Once the game was underway, though, I felt better. Kickoff calmed my jitters.

What followed was a three-hour exercise in purple and gold dominance. Touchdowns tumbled into our hands. Forced fumbles fell at our feet. Our opponents, known for their run game built on the shoulders of beast mode running backs, met a defensive front far stronger than any they’d encountered before, smashing their feeble attempts at smash-mouth football.  By the time the clock was run down and the championship sewn up, the scoreboard glowed 58-7.

“We did it.”

That was the text my husband sent me from the box. The text that caused my breath to snag and my heart to hiccup. I love that man. As in, super very much a lot. I didn’t know it was possible to love with a love like ours. And so, to know that this man’s wildest football dream had just come true. That it had just swept into our universe on a perfect storm of Hurricane proportions, left me breathless. Left me teary. Left me humbled.

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How did I ever get so lucky?

Heaven has been generous to us this year. Blessings abound in merry measure. Some have been spiritual abstractions — answered prayers that heal the soul and open the heart. Others have solidified into physical manifestations – like Dome appearances and championship trophies. All have been glorious.

Remember that secret chord of heartbeats I mentioned before — a whole community of them pounding and tripping together in a giant cacophony of joy and thanksgiving? Well, I hear there is a  secret chord, that David played and it pleased the Lord…

But you don’t really care for music, do ya?

Well it goes like this, the fourth and fifth, the minor fall and the major lift, the baffled wife composes hallelujah…

Hallelujah, Hallelujah, Hallelujah, Hallelujah.

 

 

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We Have The Wills

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This week feels surreal. Saturday, our team won their state title game in the Georgia Dome. Saturday, all the hard work and hard knocks of the 2016 football season paid off. Saturday, our wildest dreams as a football family came true.  I knew that today I would write about it. But now, as I stare at my computer screen, I don’t think it’s possible. I don’t think  I can get all the sights, the smells, the sounds, the feels into a mere blog. No, let me rephrase — I KNOW I can’t get all the sights, the smells, the sounds, the feels into a mere blog. It’s impossible. But I will try my utmost because our players and coaches and wives and families gave our utmost all season long, and I want to at least attempt to pay tribute to their sacrifices and their accomplishments…

And so… Saturday. Saturday, Cane Nation descended upon the Georgia Dome. A swirling vortex of players, coaches, families, and fans. A perfect storm spawned in tradition, solidified by teamwork, shouldered by sacrifice and driven by character. And that perfect storm ended in victory. And not because the Cartersville Purple Hurricanes are bigger or stronger than any other team they faced – on the contrary. The other teams were almost always the bigger and stronger in every match up. But this team is disciplined. They are driven. And they are full of “The Wills” — the “Willfulness” to keep going despite opposition, the “Willpower” to make it happen, and most important of all, the “Willingness” to be coached – to adjust, to learn, to give, to change, to grow.

Our coaches and players own The Wills. We put up 58 points in a title game. We held our opponent to 7. We forced six turnovers – five fumbles and an interception. We scored seven touchdowns – one on a glorious scoop and score. We’ve been at the grind for twenty-four weeks solid without a break since July. We ended it all with a perfect season. And we’ve gone 30-0 in two perfect seasons. That’s what having The Wills can do.

And it’s not just the coaches and players who have them. The wives own them, too. We adjust, we learn, we give, we change, we grow. I could point out all the traditional sacrifices – like the long, lonesome hours, the empty spots at the dinner table, the single-parenthood, the struggles with resentment — the generally known, but not necessarily understood, hardships of being a football wife. But instead, I will show a not-uncommon, but far-lesser-known (and decidedly far-greater) sacrifice that football wives often make that truly displays their willpower, willfulness, and willingness to be part of the team. This season, our coaching staff gained three new babies – with a fourth due to arrive in the next couple of weeks. These wives single-handedly took on the tender weeks and months of their infants’ new lives while daddy was on the field or at the field house six out of seven days a week. I don’t know that anyone, anywhere can possibly fathom the mental and physical endurance such a feat requires. That, my friends, is what having The Wills can do.

Now I’m not saying it was easy on the new daddies either. Far from it. It tore at their hearts and gnawed on their consciences. What I am saying is that football is one tough task master.  If you don’t have what it takes to weather its adversities, it will chew you up and it will spit you out. It’s the nature of the game. It’s full of tackles, sacks, dog piles, and dirty calls. And I’m talking the politics of the game here, not just the game.  It comes with hard knocks.

Case in point: Six years ago, in November, my husband, my affectionately coined “tall mug of caramel coaching macchiato,” was fired from his football job. Fired after giving his utmost to his players, his fellow coaches, and his school. He and his friend and head coach had pulled a losing program out of the trenches and finished strong with four solid wins. The program was on the very cusp of a turnaround. And they were fired.

Being fired bruised him. It cut him deep inside. It left him questioning his calling.

But Mike refused to stay down. He refused to come out of the game. He girded up his soul with courage and gumption, learning and gleaning from three different programs in six different years. He fought his way out of the dog pile and back to the top.  He disciplined himself. He adjusted. He learned, he gave, he changed, he grew. He found The Wills. And, the football gods have blessed him accordingly.

Six years ago my husband and his friend were fired. This year, my husband and his friend  BOTH won their respective state title bids: one in Minnesota; one in Georgia.

Football is a tough task master. It damn near breaks you before it  grants your rewards. But if you have the willfulness to endure, the willpower to push harder, and the willingness to learn then you WILL win. It’s only a matter of time. It’s the nature of the game.

And so it goes with life.

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