"What If's" for 2011

I keep looking at my Christmas tree.

I'm thinking about taking it down.

Three days post Christmas wouldn't constitute Grinchy in my book. I know some folks who've already packed the season up. Traditionally, I leave the needle dropping thing up till after the new year has begun. We get a real tree so I figure a six week display is a nice obituary for the pine whom gave his life for our yuletide pleasure.

Now, before I start getting the hairy eyeball and hate mail from the tree huggers let me assure them of this: Pine trees grow at an alarmingly fast rate. We have been cutting at the same Christmas tree farm for a decade now. I am always amazed by how quickly the trees come back. What was a "Charlie Brown tree" two years ago is a nice sized and well shaped tree-ette this year. Plus, the family which owns the centennial farm has been growing there for generations.  I feel good about supporting them and their contagious love for all things evergreen. That's my disclaimer.

I think my haste in dismantling the tree this year has to do with ushering in the new year with clean floors and a house back in order. I can be a wee bit neurotic about the tidiness of my environment and we put the tree in the dining room this year. That means the dining room table had to be swung around the other way. This in turn created a path from one side of the room to the other. Negotiating the narrow passageway with a basket of laundry amongst a couple of rambunctious boys, a cat that weaves her way around my ankles and an eighty-five pound chocolate lab has had me breathing deep and seeking peace. I was willing in the name of St.Nick but he's been and gone and so has my patience with the unusual chaos in my undersized home.

That's it. The tree must go.

Tomorrow.

Plenty of time to reorganize the house and ring in 2011 with a calming sense of all being right in my world.

Okay, the house will be right.

2011. Wow! Time flies when you're making babies and love and memories. Time flies when you're raising those babies and raising a little hell along the way too. The undisciplined daydreamer in me cannot help but ponder what the new year will bring...

Unexpected (but deeply appreciated) blessings, unwanted (but soul-strengthening) hardships and heartbreaks are undoubtedly on my destiny's agenda for me. I am willing, and welcome both. Not because I necessarily want them both but because I know that though I steer this ship I am but the navigator. Not the creator of the journey. I beseech the powers that be that tenderness and grace be mine as well. I know I will need both.

At some point in the past year a friend posted as her facebook status: "What if? What if the very best day of my life is yet to happen? What if I haven't met the person who will become my very best friend? What if?"

Yeah, what if?

On the days I contemplate that it could be the most bat shit awesome day of my life then realize it's just grocery shopping day it's really just me being an ass. A smart ass. The truth is I hope it truly is a bat shit awesome day. (Whatever that is. I just like the way it sounds.) I am a romantic idealist at heart and though I have plenty of days that the twins called "gloom" and "doom" come riding their creepy tricycles down the halls of my mind, for the most part my glass is always half full. So...what if?

What if? I...cut my hair? Grow it longer? color it purple? Learn to play the guitar my daddy gave me? Vacation by the ocean and let the waves lap at my feet? Finish my book and land an agent to rep it? Launch my new project and it's a smashing success? Learn to knit, with my toes? Grow Lavender and get a miniature goat? Say no to things that make me unhappy or compromise my integrity? Say yes to something completely frivolous? Wear white after Labor Day? What if? What if I make a new friend? What if I become a better friend? What if I finish the "unfinished business" I have hanging out there? What if  I partner up the skeletons in my closet and teach them to Tango? What if someone, somewhere is writing a song that will change my perspective on life? What if while I have my head in the clouds I run smack dab into one with a sliver lining?

The "what if's" are infinite. "Whatever." is a good response to those who just don't get it.

I love a good surprise and nothing is more surprising than what the future could possibly hold. Can't say, don't know, won't even venture a guess about what it will be. I am certain however that I'm ready. Eyes wide open, dreaming the whole way though it.

Happy new year folks. May your days and nights be blessed with abundance in all the ways you need it and may the spirit of "What if" fill your soul.







 

Too School For Cool

Every Friday I have lunch and then chaperone recess with my first born son and his fifth grade class.

It is a highlight of my week.

Every week.

Bearing witness to the growing and learning and learning and growing of these kids is so cool. The pre-pubescent mini-culture they have co-created is wildly chaotic yet still more democracy than "Lord of the Flies."

I have known most of the children, in each of the three fifth grade classrooms, since they began kindergarten together. Several of them I knew in preschool and a small handful have been together since pre-pre-school. Many of them remember when my oldest son was an only child and when his baby brother was born.
 
I'd say we know each other pretty well.

I know who throws away their vegetables and who eats them. I know who trades Doritos for Oreos. I know who picks the pepperoni off their pizza and who is most likely to send a packet of ketchup flying across the room. I know who eats like a beast and see who is taught table manners at home. Personal hygiene too. I know not to judge.

I know who chronically has recess detention for missing assignments. I know who's head of the class and the class clown too.

I know who likes to swing and who hangs out on the monkey bars.  I know who sidewalk chalks and who jump ropes and who is outgrowing all of the above. I know who has the most Silly Bandz and who's Team Edward and who's Team Jacob. I know who loves Justin Bieber and who is totally over Miss Hannah Montana. They all love Miley.

I know the boys to keep a hairy eyeball on so touch football doesn't get carried away. I know who is most likely to end up having to sit on the fence and who will tell on them first. I know who has cooties and who can sink a basketball.

I know who watches Kendra and listens to Snoop and who watched Dancing With the Stars. I know who has a cell phone and who texts my kid after his eight o'clock curfew.  I know that hasn't happened in a while. I know all the fifth grade bullies and beauties and who the girls think are turning into cuties. I know the puppy love romances and the mean girl dramas. I know the past and current wars and alliances. I know better than to comment on any of it.

I know it's not always rainbows and butterflies for some of these kids. Sometimes it's the hard times that move them along. I know it when I see it because I was it too.

I know who misses a father whose never been a daddy. I know who misses a man who was both and he went to heaven. I know whose dad, in front of her best friend, said she was his biggest mistake.

I know how blessed I am my official job description includes this Friday afternoon ritual. I know I am privileged. I know how much I truly dig these kids and though I don't know, I hope I make a small difference. I know a hug or a high five can't heal it all but I know how wishing for one feels. I know I am just a small part of the village I believe it takes to raise them. I know enough to ask myself, "What if it does make a difference?"

I know time flies when you're having fun and these kiddos go to the middle school wing next year. I know the day will come when my boy says, "Mom, you're not coming for lunch today are you?"

I know it will be too soon.

Big Ideas...

I considered beginning this post with an apology for my prolonged absence but then thought, nah. The fact of the matter is I have been working on something really big. Perhaps the single best idea I have ever had. That's saying a lot, or not much, dependent upon which of my "big ideas" one might reference.

Like the time I had a big idea about piercing my tongue. Uh, big idea alright. One big, fat, slobbering, slurring, swollen tongue later I almost choked (literally) as I verbally admitted that maybe, just maybe I'd gone too far. Not one of my brightest ideas but still qualifies as big  if for no other reason than the impressive size my tongue swelled to. Gene Simmons would have been envious.

Then there was the time I gave up my amazing flat in SF and left the country bound for three money making months in Japan with two huge, fucking suitcases.  The suitcases each had a leash they could be pulled by but I had to drag mine. I've never been known for being a light packer. Combine the weight and losing a wheel off one of them and I very quickly began hating them both. Someone in my entourage not so affectionatly refered to them as "my dogs" and I took it one step further and just called 'em bitches. This is only the first thing in a chain of events which makes giving up an amazing flat in the Haight one of the least  big and bright ideas I have ever had.

Now that I think about it this could make for an entire post all on it's own so maybe I shouldn't say more. I'm sure your dying to know. Right? Okay, picture this... seven American women with twenty-one pieces of luggage trying to sneak out of an apartment building (overlooking a pig farm) in the countryside of Japan because we believed we'd been sold to the Yakuza. Wanna hear more? Of course you do. You're gonna have to buy the book, when I finish writing it.

Point is, I have had an indeterminable number of big ideas that, in hindsight, turned out not so well. The latest incarnation of my genius is destined to fare much, much better and the great news is you can be a part of it. Audience participation time. Who wants to be first?

Settle down. No fighting. Everyone will get a turn with me. There's plenty of my genius to go around and it won't even have to be spread thin. I'm just not quite ready for the big reveal so hang tight and let the blog pot simmer a little longer.