Maddy in the Music Store

Nineteen years ago, our family was avid American Idol viewers. We watched weekly, cheered for our favorites and subsequently followed their careers. 

We listened to the weekly broadcasts and mentally aligned ourselves with favorites. We were so invested that at one point, I wrote a story about the contestants for my then 7 year old daughter, who loved music and Idol. 

I based the story on a favorite book I read them, Tommy at the Grocery Store, where the child got lost in the store and everyone who found him confused him with a grocery item. Amazon informs me that I purchased this book in 2000. That's some serious history. 

All that aside, I am compelled to share my own tribute. It involved the 2005 contestants on AI, my daughter and her passions. She loved (s) music. I am sharing this because she just auditioned for a show and it all came back. 

I proudly present: (written by me, inspired by Bill Grossman and the 2005 season of AI competitors). 

Maddy at the Music Store

Mommy left poor Maddy sitting 
At the music store. 
With player pianos and shiny guitars, 
Mommy walked right out the door. 

Constantine walked in the store, 
And picked up the little girl. 
Thinking she was a microphone, 
He sang and gave a twirl. 

His voice didn't get any louder, 
He put his mouth right next to her ear. 
"This isn't a microphone, there is no cord, 
You've got a defective microphone here." 

"Hey Bo, what do you think?
This microphone's broken, I fear." 
Bo looked at Maddy and loudly proclaimed, 
"Silly guy, it's a guitar you have here!" 

Bo picked her up and turned her sideways, 
Strumming at her belly. 
Maddy giggled but didn't make music, 
And Bo made her laugh like a bowl of jelly. 

"Yo, Anwar, this guitar isn't working! 
Tell me what you see." 
Anwar took a look at Maddy and said, 
"Bo, It's a piano, listen when I play a key!" 

Anwar pressed Maddy's nose, 
And much to his surprise, 
No sounds came out, so he pressed her ear, 
Still no sound, pressing the eyes! 

Anthony ran in and looked at him asking, 
"What are you trying to do? 
That's not a piano, it's a tambourine!"
And grabbed her by her shoe. 

Anthony was tapping Maddy 
From her head down to her toe. 
"This tambourine's not working, guys, 
It simply has to go!" 

Nadia walked in the store ,
Looking at Anthony's confusion. 
"Anthony, what are you doing? 
Do you think that is some sort of musician?"

Nadia was with Mario, and asked him, 
"Hey, buddy, what do you think?
This doesn't look like an instrument, 
But rather some sort of drink."

Mario tipped Maddy over, 
Trying to take a sip. 
Nothing came out and he was confused, 
And put his hand to his hip. 

Just about then, Maddy's Mommy walked in, 
Smiling with great delight. 
"Oh Maddy, here you are... 
Let's get home while it's still light!"

She grabbed the little girl's hand
And walked across the floor.
Maddy turned around and waved, 
As she stepped out the door. 

Good luck to Maddy at the Music Store. You've got a lot more music in store for your future. 

With love... 

57 Channels and Nothin's On

(nah, that's not me, that's Bruce Springsteen)

Time for my quasi-annual birthday letter to myself and the other two of you, possibly three who read my rarely updated blog. 

Tomorrow, I turn 57. It's a prime number, as I noted when I turned 53, but that quip seems a bit tired to keep repeating. Optimists (and Amazon) will tell you every day is a prime one, and pessimists will say that means nothing is special. I'm somewhere in between. I hate admitting that my disposition has tempered as I got older. I just am not as optimistic. Maybe I'm finally realistic? Life deals a lot of cards and they aren't always ones you can play. I remember my grandmother played Canasta, and the cards more than filled her hands. Those cards she managed to play. Sometimes my cards feel like jokers. 

I didn't do my annual birthday post last year at 56. We were in the midst of moving again and closing out my mom's estate. We did do a nice getaway to the North Shore of Minnesota, taking advantage of the last weeks we still lived there. This past year brought us a world of change and for the first time in several years, I may not feel "prime" but I do feel settled. 

We moved back to our hometown last September and lived in an apartment until our condo was finished. I was really ungrateful and a bit horrible. I hated living in the apartment (though it was a lovely place - for anyone who wasn't me). I griped about how unsettled I felt, how I hated having things in boxes, and how I missed having a garden and a home. I look back at 56-year-old me and want to smack her. Yet she is still me. At least until tomorrow at 4:22 PM. 

Instead of smacking myself, I relented and admitted I didn't have the best grip on things and found myself a therapist. Many will find this admission a bit of over-sharing or admonish me for putting too much out there. However, I am a communicator and I also (according to my therapist) have a deep penchant for harmonizing. I am compelled to help others. It's in my DNA. If telling people I am in therapy takes some of the stigmas away, I am going to over-share. 

I have always said that birthdays are the only day someone can be "all about themselves". I'm approaching the "all about me" day and probably because of my DNA, I especially relish that because I actively try to spend time in self-reflection. However, I've learned that shouldn't just be once a year. I'm learning a lot this year. 

We are in a new home that we moved into in July. Most of the boxes are unpacked, at least physically. I am unpacking a lot more emotional things and that is going to take a long time. I've let go of a lot of things that I don't need, and I'm trying to do the same mentally. 

Cross-stitch I made several years ago

I still think I may finish my book about the empty nest that I so diligently started in 2016 when I turned 50, lost my father, had both children out of the house, and tried to figure out who the heck I was. Since then, we've moved 3 times, downsized, liquidated one parent's house, and seen jobs come and go. Turns out, I still don't have the answers. And maybe that is okay. 

In that time, I've also been trying to grow my business. That was inspired by my first trip to Europe in 2015. I remember my boss telling me that it would change my life forever. It has and as a result, I opened my own travel business in 2022,  Love Our World Travel. Here's a nod to Lee and his prophetic words. Thank you and yes, you told me so. 

Since moving back, I've rekindled important friendships and learned that distance is completely arbitrary when you truly care about each other. I've met up with friends I hadn't seen in over 30 years. How special! I have spent more time with people I've always loved and just needed to remember than I can imagine. It's been a wonderful year. 

Turns out, the only permanence is change. 

(that's not me either, that's The Alarm.) - who incidentally I met a few years back with my friend Don, when we upgraded our tickets for a meet and greet in 2019. 

Who would have imagined that I could reference two of my favorite bands in one blog post? Another nod to another friend, Amber, who used that tool in most of her blog posts. Gone too soon. We writers loved her. 

Yay me, yay 57. Maybe instead of "nothin's on" I prefer to say,  everything is on. 

Promises Kept

While I no longer blog on a regular basis, or even sporadically, I took the advice of a friend long ago who said, never give up control of your words or your spaces. I fill my time in a multitude of ways. I own a business, travel planning, Love Our World Travel, and I substitute teach.  Those two activities fill my time adequately. 

BUT, today, while teaching a group of precocious fourth graders, and discussing writing, I mentioned that I am a writer. The questions came at me rapid fire. The answers? 

*No, I've never written a book.
*No, you won't find me in a library.
*Yes, I am a writer, mostly non-fiction, without by-lines.
*Yes, you need to start every sentence with a capital letter. 
*First person is I, second person is you, third person is he/she/they. 

I explained that writers do lots of things with words, not always with a byline and not always fiction. I write content. I help websites. I do local news. They seemed to understand because they quickly shifted gears and asked if I ever wrote about my students. I do. Often. I hadn't anticipated that they would hold me to task. They are better than the best assignment editor. 

I started this over a month ago and am revisiting it today, because I must fulfill my promise before the school year is over. 

What can I possibly say about a group of young people who love to learn? I will say that they stand out in a way that excites and disappoints me. By that I mean, I don't always substitute teach for their particular class, and there are other classrooms in their building that astonish me. Not in good ways. 

I continue to be surprised when young people are uninterested in learning. It shocks me that they don't care. I don't know why they aren't interested in knowing more than they do at this young point of their lives. There are days I walk out of a school dejected and sad. There are days I cry. I know that my impact is pretty insignificant, I know that I spend a slice of a slice of their days with them, but I still wish I had a chance to light a fire. I wish I could tell them what a special time of their lives they are living. I wish I had a magic wand so that they knew that the world really is their oyster. The world is filled with possibility and it is theirs for the taking. 

I want them to see the world and hunger for it. I want them to know that it's a good place and they have a way to participate and maybe even make it a better place. I take a few hours a week and go and look into their world. I see the future. I want them to see themselves through my eyes. 

When I see an eager and excited young group of students, kids who want to know more and know that the world has the answers, I smile. They make me want to return. Again. And again. 

This is my love letter to Mrs. M's 4th grade class at BIS. 

You fill my heart. You are the reason I know the future is in good hands. Please keep learning and stay excited. There is so much to know and I believe in all of you. When I see an opportunity to spend time together with each other, I smile, because you're all so special. 

You're going to change our world. 

I love all of you. Now I kept my promise. The next promise is yours to keep. Go. 

Ghosts of Christmas Past

Sitting at my computer, trying to find the inspiration to wrap gifts and get in the holiday spirit, my mind is racing with thoughts. 

I cannot quite let go of the years when Christmas was purely about the kids, not the adults. The adults orchestrated the magic, but what happens when the magician no longer has an audience?

Instead of magic, how about a little time travel with a stroll down memory lane? I listen to a podcast called Pop Culture Preservation Society and they keep those Generation X memories alive. (highly recommend if you prefer to have an auditory stroll). But for today's blog post? It's all literary. 

Who remembers the Sears Gift Catalogues? Oh the page upon page of anything you could ever scroll past and all you had to do was fold the page to find it again. The toys, the clothes, the games, all my childhood dreams in one tidy book. 

In 1973, I decided the only thing I wanted was the Barbie 747. I have no idea why. I wasn't allowed to have Barbies. I never had been on a plane. But I was obsessed. All I needed was the 747 and a good dose of imagination. My cousin Krissy had Barbies and they would probably come visit if I had a 747, right? 

That's a piece of holiday memories. Spending time running around the house with the cousins who were close enough to our age to bond. She lived in Texas and I lived in Ohio, but she was only a few months older than me, so we were practically sisters. 

Another memory is the giant annual Christmas party my parents had while they were still married. Please know that this memory in no way indicates that I wish they had stayed together. They were better apart. But in the mid 70s, their parties rocked. Mom would create a theme and Dad would invite the guests. They got a babysitter to keep my brothers and I entertained upstairs while the party guests took over the main floor of our old farmhouse. As the preparations for the party ensued, we got to sample foods and treats that were rarely allowed in our house. Call it crazy, but I cannot think of Christmas without thinking about Sprite and ginger ale. We were never allowed soda/pop in our house. Crack open a can of Sprite or ginger ale and it feels like a party! 

I would be remiss if I didn't mention my two aunts. They bookended my dad's side of the family. Aunt Marlene was the eldest, Aunt Denise the youngest. We were blessed with nurturing and cool in one stroke. Aunt Marlene inspired how I would treat my future nieces and nephews because she just doted on all of us. Aunt Denise taught me to be a strong woman. She inspired me to get educated and to pursue life on my terms. If Aunt Marlene never knew how she inspired me, Aunt Denise will. 

Absent from this stroll down memory lane are my parents until now. This is the first year I am without either of them. Yet that tie to the past is unbroken. My father and mother gave me such a foundation. I separately and together love them. They are my roots. Plus, they bought me the Barbie 747. Something I never ever thought would happen. 

As we go forward, let's promise to honor the past, cherish the present, and look forward to the future. 

Who says you can't go home?

Nah, that's not me. That's Bon Jovi. 

I'm borrowing a technique from a writer friend of mine who was gone too soon. She always began and ended her blog posts with borrowed quotes. I always thought it a cool tie into pop culture, and so on. (Amber, you rocked). 

The past seven days have been a deep dive into my childhood. When Mama Green passed away in March, we began the exorcism of her years of hoarding. 

Mama was a lot of things, but nobody will ever accuse her of minimalism. If 1 was good, 20 were better. And in the piles were buried treasure. 

But I must digress to the home of my childhood. I grew up on an idyllic farm, about an hour away from Cleveland, OH. We had produce, livestock and open spaces. We had come from the city to the country, but our home remained a retreat. Friends and family would visit the farm. It remained idyllic, until it didn't. 

Today, following the absolute auction that we held to close out mom's estate, I went back to my childhood home to inventory the things left behind. 

There was a lot. In the piles of hoards that mom accumulated, the liquidators found themselves in a place of stopping. They sold and sold and sold, and still things were missed. 

Home I went. I walked again the property, thinking, "is this the last time?" as I have for the past 8 months. I really didn't shed many tears, though my heart was heavy. I cursed that "stuff" took over. 

I was there to inventory what was left. We have a few weeks to shed those things. Multiple articles tell us that "nobody wants this stuff" and yet, I think, it has a soul. It has history. 

I want to tell that story. 

Instead, I am left with shells of rooms and echoing memories. I walked the farm. I started to carry rubbish out of the basement to the dumpster, while quietly vowing, I just want to remember this place in a way that isn't gross. I want to look and see memories not piles of stuff. I'm a little raw today. But once I comforted the raw, I saw the yard where family laughed, where kids ran, and the house where love lived, however temporarily. 

I was home. I walked around the empty rooms and talked to mom. I talked to dad. I talked to my brothers and my grandparents. I talked to everyone who had a lovely memory there. I apologized to all the folks who didn't and I realized that a lot of things land a little tenderly. The inclination is to tell only good stories, but like anywhere, the stories aren't just good. 

In the end, I didn't go home. I only visited. Because in the end, "home is just another word for you."

Nah, that's not me, that's Billy Joel. 

Thank you everyone for being you. 

Embracing the Unknown and Imperfect

As 2021 comes to a close, I received news that two peers of mine, one from high school and one from college, had passed away. It hit me and my sense of invincibility like a gut punch. While it's been over 30 years, in my mind, we are all still those young people ready to take on the world. I have very specific memories of both of the people. 

I ran to my photo album, filled with touchstones from the past, back in the day when we metered out photos, as a roll of film only had 24 opportunities to capture the moment. That film was not to be squandered. I'd slowly fill a roll of film, patiently drop it at the Fotomat and pick it up a few days later, or when I was really impatient, I paid a premium to have my prints following day. Often, I would optimistically get double prints on the chance that a photo came out so good that I could share a copy with the others in the picture.

More often than not, they were pictures with eyes closed, stray hairs, or unflattering looks that today would be either airbrushed or deleted into oblivion. But for me, it was still a reminder of the time and place, and I diligently added those unflattering photos to my scrapbook, with captions, articles and other ways to preserve the memory. 

Those images are magical talismans with the ability to time travel. Unlike today, most of the moments were not chronicled with photos, but with stories, told from person to person until they became quasi-legends. Like a game of telephone, the word spread through the social circle. There were no hashtags or clever captions. There was no airbrushing or deleting. There simply was the ability to live in the moment and enjoy whatever it brought. 

In our stories and conversations, we relived those moments until they became perfectly imperfect and knowingly known. 

I resolve for the coming year and onward to embrace the moments of unknown and imperfection. We owe it to ourselves to live in the moment. I'm not going to share the unflattering photos I found, at least not on this public blog, but instead encourage anyone reading this to smile at the mental pictures you have of our peers. 

Gone too soon, MK and LL, who made our collective stories better by being part of them. 

Studio 54 closed

Since the day I announced myself  a writer, I have tried to gather my thoughts on paper, especially on my birthday. Birthdays are a big deal, not just my own, but also for anyone in my world. A birthday is the only day of the year that it is perfectly acceptable to be all about you. 

Today is my day. I'm going to practice what I preach and be all about me. If you're still reading, thank you for indulging me and following along. 

I am 55 today. I am just as close to 60 as I am to 50. Those mid-point birthdays always hit me mentally as I try to assess where I'm going, and where I thought I would be. My default (as a Virgo, just barely) is perfection and planning. I live to think ahead. I am punctual and I always have a plan along with two or three back ups. Rarely has life worked out the way I imagined or planned, yet I still find having a plan comforting. 

When I turned 15, we had just moved away from my childhood town to Florida. Turned out that my very first day of school at a new high school was also my birthday. I remember thinking that day how much I couldn't wait to get out of high school and be on with my life. I didn't know a soul and just wanted to be anywhere but trying to find my way around a building I didn't know. Yet, today, through the wonder of social media, I have gotten back in touch with the few friends I made during my two years there and I wonder why I was so scared. 

When I was 25, I was not quite a year into our marriage. I assessed my life with mixed emotions. I thought I would be well on my way to becoming a lawyer, yet I wasn't even close. However, I had a job I loved and was starting my life with a man I loved. Becoming a lawyer never happened, though at 27 I started to pursue my Master's Degree in Labor Law to move in that direction. Yesterday, my youngest child started her first day of classes at Law School. I am so proud and happy that I have a birds' eye view to her achievements. If I'm being honest, I suppose a piece of that pride is vicarious-- don't parents always want their kids to achieve what they never did? 

When I was 35, I was a stay-at-home mom, who couldn't see far enough past the world of toddlers and play dates to imagine a future where I'd be navigating my days without children. I had a solid group of neighborhood mom friends. Our children's social circles became ours. Today, I marvel at the adults those young people have become. Next month, we are attending a wedding of one of those kids and I cannot wait to hug everyone (COVID protocol permitting), and bask in what a good job we did.

Card from my cousin

When I was 45, I was really starting to struggle with the impending empty nest. As the parent of two teenagers, we had moved away from the safe haven of our toddler neighborhood. I was trying to be involved yet wanted also to have an identity that was mine, not as "so and so's mom". Though I knew I was coming to the end of an era, I still hadn't figured out what was next. I felt and still do that going back to school is not really what I want to do. I've discovered through years of volunteering a passion for non-profit work and a love of children. I continued to write and process my world in words. I blogged and found a modicum of success as a green living blogger. That experience helped launch my next 10 years. 

Today I am 55. I have found remarkable success in my ability to write. I have run PR campaigns for neighborhoods, I have spoken to city councils, I have traveled the globe, putting those experiences into words. But my life isn't just about what I achieve professionally. I have two children in their mid 20s taking the world by storm. I like to think I'm their #1 fan. 

If you read some of my earlier posts from this year, we recently relocated again. We are over 800 miles away from our hometown. If I toast with friends, it will be on video, not in person. The COVID pandemic prepared us somewhat. In fact, it set me up in such a way that the relocation didn't change my work. I still am writing for a company back in Ohio. 

As I reflect today on this mid-decade birthday, I see that 10 years can bring so many changes. Today, I'm going to create a word time capsule- what do I think will be true in 10 more years? 

When I am 65, I pray that we begin to take our planet seriously. Mother Nature is angry. We do not care for our earth and it's gross. We use, throw away, and use more. We spew chemicals and toxins into the water, the air, the soil, and our bodies. I hope we as a society become more thoughtful about the world we inhabit. I hope we work with instead of against Mother Nature. 

In the next 10 years, I hope that I have seen another continent. Maybe all of them. That's a 20 year goal. The world is huge. There is so much to see and I want to see it all. 

In the next 10 years, I hope to finally publish that book, Actually, I think that is more like a 1 year plan. I have been circling around my book for 5 years. Perhaps this is my accountability announcement. 

In the next 10 years, I hope we are are back in Ohio and retired. Retired from the rat race, but not from thinking and doing. I want to be that adventurous couple that enjoys everyone and everything that is around us. I want to spend more time with our children and whoever they bring into their lives, I want to spend more time with my bi-coastal best friends, "The Jackies". (I apparently only pick friends with the same name). I want to enjoy whatever elderly members of our family are left in 10 years. I hope many, but I am realistic. The elder generation has so much to share with us. I want to absorb as much as I can to pass along. 

But mostly, in 10 years, I want to just be a better version of me. I'm not as stressed at this midpoint decade as previously. I look forward to the future because just like a birthday, it's all mine.