serendipity

Eight

She has to be first, to go faster.

She runs ahead, realizes she's in front and runs back and grabs my hand. The only problem with being first is that there's no one to follow. Not that she would admit to following anyone.   She just doesn't know where she's going yet, exactly.

No matter, she's the second baby.

She needs to lead. 

As soon as she thinks she has it figured out, whatever "it" is, she has to do it better than everyone else. If she's not better she doesn't want to do it. 

No, you can't make her.

She's learning everything earlier than her sister did. Computers. Successful Parent Management Strategy. The Birds and the Bees (the kid gives lectures --  purely theoretical ones since boys are covered in cooties). 

She's got a hell of a temper. 

She knows how to throw a punch, how to pretend cry and how to get what she wants.  And when she doesn't get what she wants, she sulks.

She's pretty in this exotic smarty-girl way. When the light hits her face a certain way it's simply breathtaking.

What I notice most is her effect on others. After a few minutes with Hurricane Juju the grownups step back and shake their heads in awe. She's going to be a doozy of a teenager.

She's already a doozy of a girl.

 

Thirteen

Thirteen years ago today I gave birth to my first girl.

Now she's so big I can barely lift her off the ground.

That doesn't stop her from leaping into my arms.

And it doesn't stop me from catching her.

Forged

New marriages are very much like the rings we exchange: shiny, new, full of sparkle for the bright future ahead. With or without diamonds, made out of precious metals like platinum and gold, they shine with promise. As well they should.

Over time the rings tend to tarnish a bit, not unlike the marriage itself and not necessarily in a bad way. Patina, they call it, in jewelry circles. The layers of tint that come naturally with time, darkening and enriching the surface of the metal. Some people hate this coloration and scrub their rings clean the moment it appears. Others pay the jeweler to add it, artificially creating depth that hasn’t had time to occur.

Years of wear tests any marriage over time, with hundred of pop quizzes you never saw coming and more than a few finals for which you should have studied harder. And occasionally the anvil, upon which everything bends – or breaks.

No matter how strong the commitment, how passionate the love and fervent the determination to stay together, every marriage has a breaking point. Even if you never get there, you can sometimes see it on the distant horizon. The place beyond which, despite your best efforts, you just can’t hold it together.

It’s important to step back at this time, lest you stumble past the point of no return and onto a battlefield where no one ever wins…

On New Year’s Eve we celebrated our 25^th wedding anniversary. I didn’t want to make a big fuss about it, even though it was too big of a milestone to completely ignore. It took several months of thinking before I literally stumbled over the right marker. More accurately, I had dinner with it.

Rebecca is a friend and jewelry designer who somewhat unwittingly (being adorably young and unmarried), came up with the perfect metaphor for a marriage tested by time: A ring, forged out of steel and held together with a small piece of gold. She had just recently designed it and was wearing it at dinner.

Steel is not a traditional metal for modern-day jewelry making but is growing increasingly popular. It’s worn more often by punks and hipsters, the creative folks who hang out on jewelry-making’s jagged edge. It wouldn’t have been my first choice. Until I thought about it as a metaphor.

Steel doesn’t melt. I mean it does, but that’s not what makes it strong. What makes steel strong is when you heat it and then pound the shit out of it. I mean with a hammer. Think about knife making: Heat. Hammer. Cool. Polish. Heat again.

Sound familiar? Well it does to me.

Gold, by contrast, melts easily. It can take a beating, but it doesn’t ask for one and if you’re not careful, it can flake or shred on you, ultimately giving up its shape. Gold wants you to be good to it.

When I saw Rebecca’s ring I realized right away what I’d discovered: a symbol of a long and loving marriage, forged over time and held together by the perpetual breaking point.

For better or for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish; from this day forward until death do us part.

You Say You Want a Resolution

It's February 8th, do you know where your resolutions are?

They were here just a few days ago, look under the bed. Can you see them?

Check the kitchen, maybe they're taped to the refrigerator?

I know! They're written on the bathroom mirror (in lipstick)!

Go check now. I'll wait.

I can't tell you where your resolutions are, but I can tell you where a lot of other people's are not: they are not at the gym.

How do I know this? Well, I've been watching from my lofty, awkward, sweaty perches - the stepmill, the Arc Trainer, the AMT 100i (hello Lover) and I haven't seen any Resolutionists in days. Four weeks ago I had to come to the gym early and stalk my equipment. Two weeks ago I simply had to come early. Today I was right on time and the gym was nearly empty.

Where did all the newbies go?

Starting each January, and for approximately 25-35 days, there are new people wandering around my gym (yes, it's mine), eyeing the machines as if preparing for a round of Duck Duck Goose. Uncertain but willing, they want to do something, but what? Is that an elliptical? What are those cables for?  Oh good there's a treadmill, I think I can do that. 

Although I mock them now, I didn't mock them then. (Well if I did it was only a little, because it was kind of funny to watch them approach each machine as if it might attack them*). But I was also glad for them. Because they were there. Yes, they were clogging up the gym and slowing down my workout, but they were in the gym trying to start the new year off on the right foot. To get fit or strong, or thin, or my personal favorite, simply trying to look good naked. They had taken the first steps. They were present and they were dressed for action. They brought water bottles, iPods, headbands and lots of towels. They were wearing (and this is the biggest giveaway) brand-spankin' new sneakers.  They knew the resolution odds were stacked against them but they were trying anyway.

For about a month.

At which point they became a statistic.

And while this is all good for me, since newbies are kind of a pain at the gym and I really hate crowds, I do wish they'd change their minds for their own sakes. We Americans are getting collectively heavier every year and frankly we just can't afford it. Despite the advertiser's bullshit, no one is asking for America to be thin, just a little more healthy. We can manage that, can't we?

The fact that Sara Palin chooses dessert over health care as an American right while Michelle Obama plants vegetables at the White House, is a clear show of good versus evil. You already knew that Sara Palin is the devil, right?

Here is what I hate most about resolutions: there is this sense that once you fall of the resolution wagon, once you've officially broken your resolve, you're off the hook for a whole year. You'll try again next January. I hate resolutions because they draw a line in the sand and if you miss it, it's over. Which is the most ridiculous thing ever. No one is saying you should never eat dessert again. No one is even saying you have to like kale (although it is quite delicious, especially with bacon). There is no need to invoke extremes of any kind in order to win this game.

Taking care of oneself is the right thing to do any time of year. Like now. Now would be a great time for you to take better care of yourself. There are loads of benefits, not the least of which is that you're likely to live longer and have a better quality of life as you do it. Which is nice for me because I want you to live a nice long life (and it's so tedious to listen to you complain about all of your little aches and pains). And if you die early because your heart gave out, I'm gonna be pissed. 

So here's a tip: remember how crowded and awful it was at the gym? Well it's not like that now because the Resolutionists are gone. You'll have plenty of room.  And if that's not your thing, go for a run instead. Or a walk. Just try, try again.

But don't let jerks like me keep you from the gym. I promise that if I see you coming to the gym for longer than 30 days (no, you don't have to come every day), I'll smile a warm greeting and be nice. But no talking please, I hate chit chat at the gym.

 I'll even show you how those cables work.

 

*truth be told, there are some machines that might attack - the versa climber for example, is deceptively simple, soulless and cruel.

Parent Teacher Conferences - The Movie

The meetings take place in 10-minute intervals back to back. It is a virtual guarantee that no matter how well you schedule them you will have to run upstairs to the library for the first meeting and downstairs to the assistant principal's office for the second. Then a quick hop upstairs to the little closet office next to the library before you scamper down again, this time to the secret conference room tucked behind the director's office. You'll never find it in time. Rinse and repeat.

The idea is to get an update on her progress at school, understand her strengths and weaknesses so we can make adjustments at home to support her. We need clarity so we can create an action plan that will help improve the grades by the end of the year. Because the grades can always be improved.

"Your daughter is so wonderful. A joy to have in the classroom. She works very hard and she's serious about her study. She is very travailleuse." Did I mention that these meetings are in French? Well they are.

“Your daughter is moyenne, she needs to work harder on her homework. She forgot to hand it in three times this trimester!”

"Your daughter is very active in class, she loves to read aloud and always raises her hand."

"Your daughter is rather timid in class, she doesn't participate enough and should be more aggressive." 

"Your daughter's comprehension is at the top of her class. She is interpreting the nuances of Shakespeare beautifully."

"Your daughter's comprehension is below average, she needs to spend more time rereading her lessons before she comes to class."

"Her last essay was almost perfect."

"She's having problems with conjugation."

"She's a natural poet."

Ridiculous and unhelpful as it sounds, each opinion is correct from the limited and focused point of view of the teacher. My girl is performing at different levels with varying success for 10 different classes and all of those classes, except for English and US history are taught in French. French history, French geography, French science, French Latin, French Music, French Spanish, French math, etc. I can't even recognize the formula for French long division, so I am all awe and admiration for the girl who can do it. And she can.

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Back at the big picture, after burning 300 calories from sprinting and stair climbing, I don’t have perfect clarity yet. I know there is room for both pride and improvement and I can easily supply the pride part. Improvement will require planning and execution. My girl is holding her own and may turn out to be too smart for her own good. She has a spectacular memory which could interfere with her comprehension - it's faster to commit something to memory than to make sure she understands the nuance. And the sooner she's done with her homework the sooner she can get back to her Greek Mythology book.

Parent Teacher Conferences - The Game

The fun starts at home with the online scheduler. They will release the available appointment times at precisely 12 noon on Wednesday.

I have three alarms set to make sure I don't miss it. Don't laugh. Parent-teacher conference scheduling is, if not serious business, a highly competitive sport. At the stroke of noon I will be racing against every other seventh grade parent to group my 10 appointments within the same two-hour time frame. If I'm late, or if I screw it up, I'll get stuck meeting the math teacher at 8:30, then english at 9:10, french history at 9:20, american history at 11:40 and so on. The goal is to minimize the waiting time. The hanging around the hallway, ducking your kids and staring at other children's artwork time.

At noon I start hitting "refresh" until the scheduler reveals the playing field. Now you don't see it, now you do.

The teachers are color coded and the appointment slots are chronologically listed in 10-minute increments. It is virtually impossible to tell which teacher I am trying to schedule at any given time because the legend is at the very top of the page while the scheduler is in a frame at the bottom. If I waste time scrolling up I will lose key blocks of time.

Already, appointments are disappearing before my eyes. 

8:40am - Math - Click.

8:50am - English - Click.

9:00am - Science - Click.

Shit. The French History teacher is only available after 10:40am. With this schedule I'll have an hour+ downtime in the hallway.

Cancel.

Start over with fewer choices.

Eight minutes later, stressed out and slightly sweaty, I've got the meetings grouped into an hour and twenty minutes. Except for the French teacher. Nothing could be done about her, she's only available in the afternoon.

B+