I will miss him

There's a lot they don't teach you at mothering school.

They don't teach you that wanting them to grow up to be productive, independent adults does not make it a bit easier when they take a job on the other side of the country.

When my son was 12 years old, I walked into his room. Probably to put some laundry away. I had to walk out quickly or explain why I was crying for no understandable reason. You see, I looked at him, and he was no longer a little boy. He wasn't grown up, but he had turned some corner. Even knowing this, half his life ago, it never occurred to me and they never told me in mothering school if you do a good enough job and like your kids, you just might want them to stay at home forever.

They do tell you you have to let your kids go. I know this. My mom was always so adamant that sons really need to be independent at 18, though daughters will always be there. She didn't get it quite right. My brother has only now moved out of her neighborhood, and I was the one who left home at 18!

Roots and Wings. You have to give them roots to feel firmly planted in a place, a philosophy, a religion, a family, a community, something that is grounded. You also have to give them wings to soar in their imagination, in travel, in new ideas, in education, in love and friendship, a sense of limitless possibilities.

So next week, my son heads off with all the worldly goods he can fit in his compact car to take a job in another beautiful place. His new job is in a field he is ready to leave, but he hopes the place, a national park, will offer more opportunities to use what he studied in college. That part I am really happy for! Actually, I'm happy for everything, the independence, the need to be his own person, to find that calling that makes him happy to get up in the morning.

I'll just miss him.

*Masters of Mothering Arts -- cuz it sure ain't a science!

There's a lot they don't teach you at mothering school. I'm pretty sure no one gets a Master's Degree, but it would be nice.

Think of it -- Graduate level courses, a practicum, internships, a required thesis paper on something you actually know in your bones; recognition you have done a good job; a set of letters that signify you have gone beyond the basics of feeding and clothing them; acknowedgment they have become exceptional people because of your great work, not in spite of it! Your Name, MMA.* Maybe even deference and the best table at hip restaurants.

Nancy Friday states in My Mother, My Self that children survive if they get good enough mothering. This was helpful to me. I figured I could be "good enough."

But I actually viewed myself as a really good, exceptional mother. You know, one of the best. I said that to my daughter while we were traveling last January. Her face . . . then her laugh . . . then her exclamation that I was joking wasn't I, made me revise my view of my mothering skills.

Interestingly enough, my feelings weren't hurt. I was just sorry that what I had taken for great mothering was not seen the same from her side of the (sometimes closed) door. I wanted her to have experienced me as an exceptional mom -- not for the accolades or great tables at fancy restaurants -- because I love her so much and wanted to give her my best.

But mothering is a dance. I love to waltz, my daughter is a tap dancer. My mom is a tap dancer, I never learned the steps. I know what would qualify as great mothering if it was directed toward me. If asked, I bet my daughter could say the same. (Actually when she was 13 she told me the kind of mother she would be. It didn't look a lot like me). What is considered wonderful by one daughter, is considered laughable by another!

This post started as a comment on my son leaving home. Obviously I got a bit off track. Tomorrow I will start my post the same way, "There's a lot they don't teach you at mothering school."

My Kind of Travel and It's Nice To Be Back Home

This post is partly about being home and party about travel. I think they are connected and related. They seemed so when I first wrote and then I read it again a day later and don't know.

Still I'm keeping what I wrote and just adding these two paragraphs in case some 'splaning is needed.

I am back home after being away for almost 2 weeks and it really is nice to be home. I did keep waking up last night wondering where I was and who was next to me though.

This was a trip where I stayed with a friend for half the trip and with my mom the second half. There was a lot of scheduling -- lots of friends to see and lots of people for my mom to show me off to! It was nice on the whole, but I spent all yesterday catching up on my sleep.

I think I like the kind of travel that is all about exploring a new place. Getting in the car and driving. Getting to 4, 5, or 6 pm (depending on the light) and looking around for a place to stay. I should add I do not like to spend much money on motels when I am traveling by myself. Really, what's the point? If I'm out antiquing all day, at night all I need is a place to sleep, a TV to keep me company and a good reading light. Pretty standard whatever the cost. Now that does open one up to some very odd accommodations!

I have stayed at a motel with glitter on the ceiling. Lots and lots of glitter amidst the stucco. The bedspreads were a satin-y fabric. It did not rent by the hour, but I wondered about its former life. I stayed a night and then moved to the local Best Western.

In Maine, before the season got going, I stayed in a little stand-alone cottage with a porch. I think it was $40 for the night. You couldn't reserve it ahead of time and you had to pay in cash, but all those things worked for me.

After the summer season, I discovered a one-bedroom condo on Lake Michigan that was cheap if you just walked in, no reservation. It had a kitchen, so I ate in. The balcony overlooking the lake was so wonderful I stayed an extra day just to play with paper, watercolor pencils and crayons.

I have just learned about an art weekend that is not too far to drive, and I am thinking about the possibilities. Yes I could fly. It might even be cheaper. But what funny, funky places would I miss if I just went from point A to point B?

Lemonaide

Susan over at Trout Towers has awarded me the "When Life Hands You Lemons" award. This really is an honor. Specially cuz she said I have a snarky sense of humor! From Susan that is high praise indeed! My daughter is the one with that sense of humor, so to be anything like YRR is very special.
Thank you Susan!

Here are the rules:

1. Post the logo on your blog.
2. Nominate at least 10 blogs that show great attitude or gratitude.
3. Link to the nominees within your blog post.
4. Notify the recipients of the award by commenting on their blog.
5. Share the love and link back to the person from whom you received your award.

These are the blogs I know and love, and nominate for this award:

Laggin's under the roof of a great house. Great attitude!
I love how she deals with motherhood, it's not always easy, and this woman deserves an award!
VanessaLeigh. Great gratitude!
Her appreciation for life and the joys thereof are so great. A very generous blogger.

I like this, a step by step. So, I've done 1, 2 (not so many, oh well), 3, I'm off to notify the recipients 4, and 5 it's always easy to share the love!

Have a great day all!

Comments

I really love it that people write comments on my weblogs. It just makes me feel happy. And connected. It's a good thing!

I have it set up that I get an email when a comment is posted. I like to email back saying thanks for your nice comment, or answer a Q, or say, hey I feel like that too, or some such. But I have noticed that when I hit "reply," the return email address, if it is an address, sometimes looks like this: noreply-comment@blogger.com with < > around it.

What does it mean? I have sent emails to that address. Or I thought I did. Have they been received? How sad to think I emailed a nice response, only to discover that noreply is the black hole of the internet! Is there a big bin in the blogosphere where all these replies, which are probably noreplies, go? Does anyone read them?

These are questions I really want the answer to.

Home

I don't live in California any longer. But I was born in Hollywood and grew up here. Whenever I visit, it still feels like home. My son flew in and out of LAX about a month ago and commented how sprawling it looked and too big.

LA is big. It has been ever since the 30's/40's when they stole the water rights from the Owens Valley. The choice was either be part of LA or find your own water. LA is a desert, water is very important. Hence, the sprawling nature! In college I drove from the west end of LA to the east -- it's 100 miles long! So flying in at night is amazing. The streets are laid out in a grid, the lights are twinkling and to me, it's familiar!

I also really like driving in Southern California. This morning I headed south from Orange County to San Diego County. I stopped in Carlsbad for lunch and to visit some antique shops. We lived there once. Then I kept going, keeping the Pacific on my right and as close to me as I could get. It is a beautiful drive. You go through such cool little towns like Del Mar, La Jolla, Leucadia, Encinitas, Mission Beach . . . pretty places with lots of people out in the sunshine on a Sunday.

I'm now staying at an old friend's place. Her daughter and mine became friends in pre-school and still talk on Facebook. I have plans to visit with other friends (they are taking days off work just to hang out with me -- how cool is that?). And when I'm not with friends, I'm gonna drive around and just feel at home.

Don't Upgrade My Rental Car, Please!

In the past 3 months I have had the occasion to rent cars twice. So what has happened is not even close to any statistical certainty . . . still it seems a pattern.

I always ask for economy or compact cars when renting. The difference between those two is the number of doors, not the size of the car. But otherwise, I like driving small cars. I learned to drive on a Volkswagon Beetle. I once owned a Honda -- y'know the car they first made with the modified motorcycle engine. It was about the size of a Mini-Cooper.

So, when in a new city or driving an unfamiliar car, as one does with a rental, I like it small. And I keep getting mid-size cars. The nice men at the rental counters seem to think they are doing me a GREAT favor by upgrading my car size. Really, they grin and say, "Oh I've got a great car for you."

In January, when we walked out to find our car we saw a Prius and got really excited, this was a treat -- small and great gas mileage. Sadly, the treat he had in mind was the Sebring in the next space. It felt like a boat to me. The guy at the counter was startled to see me back a few minutes later. It was after midnight, all the small cars were gone so after the Sebring he offered me an SUV, which on general principles was completely out. Next he offered me a van and that I took.

I know, I know, it may make no sense that I won't drive a mid-size car but I will drive a van. I can't explain it. I drive a van at home. It doesn't feel like a boat. Maybe it's that they are higher up?

This latest rental (yesterday) was just funny. Or awful. It depends on how you look at it. We arrived at LAX at 8:30 pm and at 10:30 pm we were driving out of the lot with an unrequested mid-size car. Honestly, it took a full hour just to get to the counter. The computers were down. Apparently this is a scheduled thing. On Saturday? At the beginning of other state's Spring Break? There were a lot of tired cranky kids and parents.

I tried to switch cars but didn't have the heart to wait another 45 minutes. Luckily, I wasn't staying in LA, so I drove south and this morning called the rental counter at the John Wayne Airport. If I got there within an hour, they were willing to exchange my car, no problem.

I think the next time I rent a car I am going to have to have a fit at the very start of the process. I'm not very good at fits, actually. Most of the time I have such good experiences travelling or getting my money back for tickets I can't use or other things running so smoothly. . . my daughter actually bragged to one of her friends that I was a whiz at this!

Maybe just a note in the car reservation form that says, NO UPGRADES, PLEASE! Give them to someone who really wants them!

Crowning Glory

I really need to get one of those small tape recorders, the kind you can operate and still drive a car safely. I have most of my best thoughts either in the car or in the shower. Do they make them waterproof?

The title of this post came to me while I was driving away from my hairdresser's. Writing while driving is a task I have never mastered, hence the tape recorder. And even tho my mom says if you forget it, it must not be important, I'm pretty sure that is not always true!

So, crowning glory. Where did that phrase come from. Wandering over to the internet to check out Bartlet's Quotations, Shakespeare, The Bible. . . Hmmm, and 30 minutes later I was not able to find the origin of the phrase. Perhaps if I had access to the OED . . .

So, the topic of this post is hair and the wonders of getting one's hair done. I used to have issues. Perhaps anyone who has had their dry hair cut with a razor would. Necessity (it's getting grey) and vanity (I don't want to be grey) have forced me to get on with it and now I regularly get my hair cut and colored professionally.

Today, my hairdresser did an exceptional job. The cut is great -- she got the bangs wispy and short enough, which is a good cuz if not I tend to cut them myself and I don't have any real skills. The color is fantastic. Actually she really out-did herself and that's saying something cuz she regularly does an amazing jov. I kind of danced out of the salon.

An actress friend of mine would travel though Los Angeles when going from one location to another, allowing time to visit the hairdresser. When another friend moved from NYC to Miami, it took her quite some time to find a new hairdresser. Her hairdresser regularly visited her in Florida to do wonders with her hair and mood! The first year I moved from west to east coasts, the person I missed most was my hairdresser. My actress friend has the most beautiful hair color. The NYC hairdresser did the bridesmaid's hair when my friend married, it was inspired, we all felt beautiful. And while I now miss my old friends more, it did take a whole bunch of bad cuts, color and perms to find the gem I visited today.

Perhaps in another post I will write about inner beauty, feminism and self image, things I care deeply about. But today, I just want to say how nice it is to have a really good hair day!

Playing Hooky

I am going on a trip soon and I really should be getting ready. In addition to packing what I will need, it seems that the prerequisite to any travel is to do all the laundry, clean the entire house as if Merry Maids had been there, and to either re-arrange the furniture, re-organize my clothes closet or re-shelve my books in a more pleasing order.

I have no idea why this seems imperative, but it always does. No wonder the idea of taking a trip puts me in a state somewhere between panic and Atilla the Hun. My family knows to give me a wide berth.

Add to this the fact that we have to get our taxes to the accountant (2 weeks ago would have been good) so they can be ready to send in for college financial aid and you get the idea that it has been a bit of a rough week. Is it only Tuesday?

So when the feeling of overwhelm hit me this morning, I did what any self respecting woman raised in LA would do -- I got in my car and drove! There's a Chili's restaurant and Michael's craft store next to each other and about an hour away and that's where I headed.

Driving always calms me. I loved our family Sunday drives when I was a kid. I got to lunch, ate while I read a book, then went shopping.


I'm a sucker for stuff on sale and here were some magic wands to wave about. They won't clean the house or take on the projects, but they sparkle and shine!

And Susan, even if you do find Lucy's wand, I think the pink one has her name on it!

The Kindness of Friends and Strangers

People in the blogosphere have been amazingly kind to me this past week!

One of my creative heros loves the same wonderful, quirky place I do. So I wrote him an email. I just wanted to tell him how much it meant to me and thank him for presenting the place in a way I hadn't thought of before. I had no expectation of a response. This is a guy who's amazingly busy. He sometimes gets 300+ comments on his blog for goodness sake! And what did he do, but write back a wonderful response! I'm still smiling!

There is a circle of ladies with beautiful blogs, ones I visit every day, who regularly reach out to each other to say a kind word, give encouragement, do artistic swaps, or make someone laugh! Sometimes it's in their blog and sometimes in their comments. I have so appreciated the notice taken of an art project I am involved in. It's not tons of folks commenting, but its enough.

A member of my church has started a new position. She wasn't sure she really wanted to do it, but we really needed her and she agreed. Today was her first day and she did a fabulous job. I told her so after the service and she had such a surprised tone in her voice, saying how everyone had been so kind.

We shouldn't be surprised at the kindness of friends and strangers. People are kind. They want to say nice things to others, they want to share kind words and pretty little trinkets. People want to reach out to others who share the same aethetics or world views. I heard on NPR that people who blog are actually happier because they feel a sense of connectiveness with other people.

Even as flawed a character as Blanche Dubois, stated, "I have always depended on the kindness of strangers. " It's not such a bad way to live. And if strangers can make one feel appreciated, think of how much we can make our friends feel loved. I may be on my way to turning this into an essay for This I Believe.

So be nice to strangers and even nicer to your friends. After all,". . . In the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make." (With a title like Tiny Dancer, I sorta had to use a lyrical quote, ya know?).

Wise Words From Glinda

Has anyone ever noticed how The Wizard of Oz is one of those perfect stories? It touches me so often. I love the books. I love the movie. I love the truths it tells about life and love and family. And I wish the Wizard, humbug or not, would give me a heart, brains, courage and a sense of home right where I am.

I struggle daily with my less than stellar ability to open a venue for selling stuff. It could be the antique shop in my barn. Or handmade items on Etsy. Or a combination at the flea market this summer.

I want to know why I don't. I want to blame someone. I want to stop blaming myself or stop wondering what is the block that keeps me stuck. It is very wise to remember resistence equals persistence. It probably would be wise to just get over myself! Still I don't have the answer.

This would be a good post to have the thundering hoards reading so they could all tell me what to do. They aren't. Maybe just as well. My mom used to call me Mistress Mary, quite contrary. But I think that's just cuz I wouldn't do what she wanted me to do. Would I do what commenters told me to do? I don't know.

Would it help if I asked for exactly what I wanted? Ok, here goes. I want the beautiful fairy godmother (she looks like Glinda the Good) to wave her magic wand and say in her beautiful voice, You have had the secret inside you all along. You don't need to go searching over the rainbow when all the love you need is right there where you are. There's no place like home, there's no place like home.