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Stefani Zellmer loves it when she wakes up, well-slept, before the baby does.
Stefani Zellmer is pouring herself a cup of coffee.
Stefani Zellmer is flipping through the latest issue of Esquire from back to front.
Stefani Zellmer is watching Sesame Street even though the kids aren’t up yet.
Stefani Zellmer is changing a diaper.
Stefani Zellmer is changing another diaper, different person.
Stefani Zellmer is curious how many pounds those two diapers weighed.
Stefani Zellmer is getting in the shower.
Stefani Zellmer is buttering her English muffin.
Stefani Zellmer just saw a teenager smoking a bowl while driving to school at 8:30 in the morning.
Stefani Zellmer is waiting for the elevator.
Stefani Zellmer is wondering if all this time she spends on Facebook is doing her any good.
Stefani Zellmer is on hold with Go Daddy.
Stefani Zellmer is talking to yet another person at Go Daddy.
Stefani Zellmer wishes she knew more about computers.
Stefani Zellmer can never figure out if the phrase is “all of a sudden” or “all the sudden.”
Stefani Zellmer is sitting on a stool beside the potty.
Stefani Zellmer is sitting on a stool beside the other potty.
Stefani Zellmer is still sitting on a stool beside the potty.
Stefani Zellmer is wondering if breast implants aren’t such a bad idea.
Stefani Zellmer is bending down to pick a sippy cup of milk off the floor.
Stefani Zellmer is realizing the voice for Boots the Monkey and the voice for Backpack are the same voice.
Stefani Zellmer is trying to dress a running target.
Stefani Zellmer is trying to brush the hair of a running target.
Stefani Zellmer is trying to put socks on a running target.
Stefani Zellmer is laughing at her daughter, who is laughing at herself.
Stefani Zellmer has to go now because she has to put her silly spazoid daughter to night night.
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
Guilt
I was doing a headstand in the living room when I fell over on top of my daughter.
What?
It’s not like I’m a professional head stander or anything. I’m just really into yoga right now.
She had a frying pan in her hand. The frying pan was full of some delicious imaginary eggs that she had cooked up for me in her play kitchen. Then suddenly the frying pan was full of her forehead as it came crashing down into it chased by the force of my own precarious body.
She cried. I held her. And in the end it was nothing a sippy cup of milk wouldn’t fix. I imagined a much bigger bruise would appear, but it became nothing more than a bad scrape.
The next day, I was trying to get my homemade macaroni and cheese dish ready to take to the potluck. The kids busied themselves with the metal rod that serves as the locking device on our sliding glass doors. The Lil’ Man pulls it up and tries to carry it somewhere random in the house as he does with everything else that isn’t bolted down. But this rod is bolted down. So it becomes a play thing/source of frustration for him that I was happy to see them preoccupy themselves with while I was stressing out the door. Then, he let it go on Z’s shin. A square metal rod that is probably the original one from 1973, when our house was built. There is nothing child safe about it. It didn’t cause any blood, but it left another visible scrape.
At the potluck, already multi-tasking, she was playing basketball in the front courtyard while holding a sippy cup of milk, and she slipped on the edge of the pavement, sending the bare skin of her knee down onto it.
In case you’ve lost count, that’s three scrapes in one weekend.
I heard her walk into the room behind me while I was doing the headstand. But I was unsuccessful in falling in the opposite direction.
I knew the metal rod in the door was not a toy, but I was too busy to tell them to play with something else.
I didn’t have to give her that sippy cup right then, while she was in the middle of playing ball. I thought she might be thirsty.
I wish I had thought otherwise.
I take the blame for all of her scrapes. Which don’t even hurt her anymore.
Not like they hurt me.
What?
It’s not like I’m a professional head stander or anything. I’m just really into yoga right now.
She had a frying pan in her hand. The frying pan was full of some delicious imaginary eggs that she had cooked up for me in her play kitchen. Then suddenly the frying pan was full of her forehead as it came crashing down into it chased by the force of my own precarious body.
She cried. I held her. And in the end it was nothing a sippy cup of milk wouldn’t fix. I imagined a much bigger bruise would appear, but it became nothing more than a bad scrape.
The next day, I was trying to get my homemade macaroni and cheese dish ready to take to the potluck. The kids busied themselves with the metal rod that serves as the locking device on our sliding glass doors. The Lil’ Man pulls it up and tries to carry it somewhere random in the house as he does with everything else that isn’t bolted down. But this rod is bolted down. So it becomes a play thing/source of frustration for him that I was happy to see them preoccupy themselves with while I was stressing out the door. Then, he let it go on Z’s shin. A square metal rod that is probably the original one from 1973, when our house was built. There is nothing child safe about it. It didn’t cause any blood, but it left another visible scrape.
At the potluck, already multi-tasking, she was playing basketball in the front courtyard while holding a sippy cup of milk, and she slipped on the edge of the pavement, sending the bare skin of her knee down onto it.
In case you’ve lost count, that’s three scrapes in one weekend.
I heard her walk into the room behind me while I was doing the headstand. But I was unsuccessful in falling in the opposite direction.
I knew the metal rod in the door was not a toy, but I was too busy to tell them to play with something else.
I didn’t have to give her that sippy cup right then, while she was in the middle of playing ball. I thought she might be thirsty.
I wish I had thought otherwise.
I take the blame for all of her scrapes. Which don’t even hurt her anymore.
Not like they hurt me.
Tuesday, January 13, 2009
Any resemblance to actual persons is coincidental
As I mentioned in this post, I used to write fiction. At the Tin House Writer's Conference, after copious amounts of wine to drown the nerves, I got up in front of a room full of intimidatingly talented peers and read this story.
I hope you enjoy it.
Four Color Click Pen
By Stefani Zellmer
There’s only one dude in our band and that’s one too many if you ask me. We let Marshall play bass for us because we felt sorry for him and because we get a kick out of his desperate attempts to lay each of us, in turn. Becky’s the one with the loud, long-winded, everyone-in-the-room-pay-attention-to-me stories, so naturally she’s the lead singer. She’s also studying to be an actress, but really she works in a dental office where she gets to surround herself with hot dentists who are unfortunately all gay.
Kelly plays lead guitar with her wiry arms. Her Mick Jaggar physique makes her more suitable to lead singer than Becky’s doughy one, but her personality prefers to hide behind her guitar, pensively plucking at chords. I’m the brooding, angst-inspired drummer. My easy irritability keeps the boyfriends in high turn around, but the beats passionate. We call ourselves Four Color Click Pen. My neighbors hate us.
Our day jobs only allow us to rehearse at night, when the other inhabitants of my Williamsburg loft building are trying to relax from their own day jobs. Marshall does publicity at a jazz label. Kelly’s a pastry chef at Magnolia Bakery on Bleecker Street in the West Village. I’m in advertising. Nobody really understands what I do, which is fine because I don’t have the patience to explain it. We practice at my loft because we can’t afford studio space and because I don’t own a car to lug my drums around.
I write most of our songs so the fact that they’re all about ungraspable love and laced with bitterness is no coincidence. If I were a journalist reviewing our band, I’d describe us as “melodic” and “raw,” because I enjoy an ironic juxtaposition of terms. I’d liken Becky’s voice to a human xylophone, which would then give me the idea to take up the xylophone so I could showcase my skills as an ambidextrous drummer slash xylophonist. The photos they’d run alongside the article wouldn’t be a band photo at all, but the posed black and white squares from our high school yearbook, Senior year, 1989. Under each of our photos would be our one listed activity, Marching Band. Not because any of us were actually in the marching band, but because the idea of it makes us giggle.
What everyone knows but nobody mentions is that Marshall is in love with me. If he weren’t such a compulsive liar and verbal showoff, two character flaws that repulse me, I might give him a chance. Because honestly he’s such a klutz he fumbles his way into charming. I nicknamed him “Slick,” which we chant in unison every time he kicks over a water glass (ten times a day).
Kelly’s day job as a pastry chef keeps us in sugar highs. As we’re getting into our 30s, it’s the only way we can manufacture enough energy to practice. Today we’re all a bit nervous because tonight we play our first public gig at The Living Room. Between the sound check and the show, we sit at Paladar across Orchard Street from the Living Room on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, shoveling chips and salsa into our mouths. Everyone’s sucking on Margaritas but me, because drinking and drumming do not mix.
We’ve known each other so long that we’ve run out of stories to impress each other. The only thing we really have left in common is our collective past, and like the family we’ve become, just because we’re linked doesn’t mean we necessarily like each other. We chomp loudly and let our glances fly around the room. Sometimes we puncture the silence with meaninglessness.
“Hey Rhonda, is your new boyfriend coming to the show?” Marshall says with a snide snicker implied in his tone.
“He’s not my boyfriend,” I say.
“But you want him to be,” Kelly says.
I love how everyone thinks they know me.
“Whatever,” I say.
“Chomp. Chomp. Chomp. Slurp. Slurp. Slurp,” we all say.
“You want to marry him and have, like, 10,000 of his babies,” Becky says.
“Becky,” I say, “how come you have to borrow your sense of humor from movie lines?”
“What movie was that from?” Marshall says.
“American Beauty,” Kelly says.
Our banter masks the impact of my insult. Becky doesn’t even notice I’ve called her witless. Her blonde hair seems to lighten a shade as we sit there. But I’ve successfully diverted the spotlight.
“I’ve never seen American Beauty,” Marshall says.
I instantly want to belittle him for not having seen an Oscar-winning film, but then I’m so mesmerized by this rare slip of honesty that I can’t even muster a clever comment. We slide back into speechlessness. We shovel and slurp and stare at the air.
Crossing Orchard Street on the way back to our gig, we must look like a gang of Jelly Beans. Because we’re Four Color Click Pen, we’re dressed accordingly. Becky’s wearing a shimmering red dress. Kelly’s wearing Kelly green pants and a Kelly green tank top with Kelly green Havaiana flip flops. Marshall’s wearing blue jeans and a plain blue t-shirt and I’m wearing black leather pants and a black muscle shirt. I look like a dyke. The boyfriend who is not my boyfriend adores this about me.
We weave ourselves train-like through the crowd at the bar, stopping every once in a while to hug a friend who is waiting to see us rock out. The fact that we have a lot of friends there makes us feel supported but pressured. We self-consciously imagine their high expectations. We anticipate them being stricken with disappointment if we suck.
Once we’ve kissed everyone’s cheeks, we make our way back stage where we sit on apple boxes and wait for Bill, the Living Room’s manager, to call us up on stage. When it will soon be too late to chicken out.
I inhale cigarettes and take note of the other’s relaxation techniques. Becky is doing some stand-up pilates or yoga moves, breathing in deeply the smoky air. Marshall is pacing and talking on his phone to someone he’s trying to pass off as a mysterious lover, but who I know is actually his brother in California. Kelly is doing shots with one of the cocktail waitresses she has a crush on. I think her name is Janice. Janice is precisely what she looks like.
Halfway through my third Parliament, Bill pokes his head around the curtain and nods us on. I slam my cigarette down on the ground and stomp on it with my comfortable-for-drumming Puma’s. I wonder if he’s in the audience, then I hate myself for wondering. We walk out on stage without a word. We know what we have to do.
The warmth from the lights hitting us calms me immediately. I sit down behind my drum kit and let the room settle before I launch us into “Mommy,” our first song. Becky lunges into her lines like she’s waited her life to sing them. My focal point is the light bouncing between her wisps of hair. The genius of a spotlight is that it blinds you from the audience. A room full of eyes tear into us and we can’t even feel it. In my peripheral vision, Marshall and Kelly strum away. Kelly’s body is fluid and smooth. Marshall is slick without irony. For the first time in my life, it seems, I don’t fuck up once. I feel like a crack of thunder. I know I’m just as unlikely to slay someone.
After the show, we walk the earth in glory. I bounce around the Living Room soaking up praise, trying to mask the eyes that are searching for him. Eventually I accept the fact that he didn’t show. I nod and pretend to listen to people’s chatter. In my head, I use his absence to write our next song.
I hope you enjoy it.
Four Color Click Pen
By Stefani Zellmer
There’s only one dude in our band and that’s one too many if you ask me. We let Marshall play bass for us because we felt sorry for him and because we get a kick out of his desperate attempts to lay each of us, in turn. Becky’s the one with the loud, long-winded, everyone-in-the-room-pay-attention-to-me stories, so naturally she’s the lead singer. She’s also studying to be an actress, but really she works in a dental office where she gets to surround herself with hot dentists who are unfortunately all gay.
Kelly plays lead guitar with her wiry arms. Her Mick Jaggar physique makes her more suitable to lead singer than Becky’s doughy one, but her personality prefers to hide behind her guitar, pensively plucking at chords. I’m the brooding, angst-inspired drummer. My easy irritability keeps the boyfriends in high turn around, but the beats passionate. We call ourselves Four Color Click Pen. My neighbors hate us.
Our day jobs only allow us to rehearse at night, when the other inhabitants of my Williamsburg loft building are trying to relax from their own day jobs. Marshall does publicity at a jazz label. Kelly’s a pastry chef at Magnolia Bakery on Bleecker Street in the West Village. I’m in advertising. Nobody really understands what I do, which is fine because I don’t have the patience to explain it. We practice at my loft because we can’t afford studio space and because I don’t own a car to lug my drums around.
I write most of our songs so the fact that they’re all about ungraspable love and laced with bitterness is no coincidence. If I were a journalist reviewing our band, I’d describe us as “melodic” and “raw,” because I enjoy an ironic juxtaposition of terms. I’d liken Becky’s voice to a human xylophone, which would then give me the idea to take up the xylophone so I could showcase my skills as an ambidextrous drummer slash xylophonist. The photos they’d run alongside the article wouldn’t be a band photo at all, but the posed black and white squares from our high school yearbook, Senior year, 1989. Under each of our photos would be our one listed activity, Marching Band. Not because any of us were actually in the marching band, but because the idea of it makes us giggle.
What everyone knows but nobody mentions is that Marshall is in love with me. If he weren’t such a compulsive liar and verbal showoff, two character flaws that repulse me, I might give him a chance. Because honestly he’s such a klutz he fumbles his way into charming. I nicknamed him “Slick,” which we chant in unison every time he kicks over a water glass (ten times a day).
Kelly’s day job as a pastry chef keeps us in sugar highs. As we’re getting into our 30s, it’s the only way we can manufacture enough energy to practice. Today we’re all a bit nervous because tonight we play our first public gig at The Living Room. Between the sound check and the show, we sit at Paladar across Orchard Street from the Living Room on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, shoveling chips and salsa into our mouths. Everyone’s sucking on Margaritas but me, because drinking and drumming do not mix.
We’ve known each other so long that we’ve run out of stories to impress each other. The only thing we really have left in common is our collective past, and like the family we’ve become, just because we’re linked doesn’t mean we necessarily like each other. We chomp loudly and let our glances fly around the room. Sometimes we puncture the silence with meaninglessness.
“Hey Rhonda, is your new boyfriend coming to the show?” Marshall says with a snide snicker implied in his tone.
“He’s not my boyfriend,” I say.
“But you want him to be,” Kelly says.
I love how everyone thinks they know me.
“Whatever,” I say.
“Chomp. Chomp. Chomp. Slurp. Slurp. Slurp,” we all say.
“You want to marry him and have, like, 10,000 of his babies,” Becky says.
“Becky,” I say, “how come you have to borrow your sense of humor from movie lines?”
“What movie was that from?” Marshall says.
“American Beauty,” Kelly says.
Our banter masks the impact of my insult. Becky doesn’t even notice I’ve called her witless. Her blonde hair seems to lighten a shade as we sit there. But I’ve successfully diverted the spotlight.
“I’ve never seen American Beauty,” Marshall says.
I instantly want to belittle him for not having seen an Oscar-winning film, but then I’m so mesmerized by this rare slip of honesty that I can’t even muster a clever comment. We slide back into speechlessness. We shovel and slurp and stare at the air.
Crossing Orchard Street on the way back to our gig, we must look like a gang of Jelly Beans. Because we’re Four Color Click Pen, we’re dressed accordingly. Becky’s wearing a shimmering red dress. Kelly’s wearing Kelly green pants and a Kelly green tank top with Kelly green Havaiana flip flops. Marshall’s wearing blue jeans and a plain blue t-shirt and I’m wearing black leather pants and a black muscle shirt. I look like a dyke. The boyfriend who is not my boyfriend adores this about me.
We weave ourselves train-like through the crowd at the bar, stopping every once in a while to hug a friend who is waiting to see us rock out. The fact that we have a lot of friends there makes us feel supported but pressured. We self-consciously imagine their high expectations. We anticipate them being stricken with disappointment if we suck.
Once we’ve kissed everyone’s cheeks, we make our way back stage where we sit on apple boxes and wait for Bill, the Living Room’s manager, to call us up on stage. When it will soon be too late to chicken out.
I inhale cigarettes and take note of the other’s relaxation techniques. Becky is doing some stand-up pilates or yoga moves, breathing in deeply the smoky air. Marshall is pacing and talking on his phone to someone he’s trying to pass off as a mysterious lover, but who I know is actually his brother in California. Kelly is doing shots with one of the cocktail waitresses she has a crush on. I think her name is Janice. Janice is precisely what she looks like.
Halfway through my third Parliament, Bill pokes his head around the curtain and nods us on. I slam my cigarette down on the ground and stomp on it with my comfortable-for-drumming Puma’s. I wonder if he’s in the audience, then I hate myself for wondering. We walk out on stage without a word. We know what we have to do.
The warmth from the lights hitting us calms me immediately. I sit down behind my drum kit and let the room settle before I launch us into “Mommy,” our first song. Becky lunges into her lines like she’s waited her life to sing them. My focal point is the light bouncing between her wisps of hair. The genius of a spotlight is that it blinds you from the audience. A room full of eyes tear into us and we can’t even feel it. In my peripheral vision, Marshall and Kelly strum away. Kelly’s body is fluid and smooth. Marshall is slick without irony. For the first time in my life, it seems, I don’t fuck up once. I feel like a crack of thunder. I know I’m just as unlikely to slay someone.
After the show, we walk the earth in glory. I bounce around the Living Room soaking up praise, trying to mask the eyes that are searching for him. Eventually I accept the fact that he didn’t show. I nod and pretend to listen to people’s chatter. In my head, I use his absence to write our next song.
Saturday, January 10, 2009
First Dance Class
You only have to read this post to know why today was one of the happiest days of my life.
I was a mix of emotions going in. And I had prepared myself for the worst: separation anxiety, paralyzing shyness, clinging to the wall, not participating, poop during class.
Well, none of those things happened.
Instead, my dream came true. She loved it as much as I hoped she would. As much as I always did.
Behold, the Ballerina.
I was a mix of emotions going in. And I had prepared myself for the worst: separation anxiety, paralyzing shyness, clinging to the wall, not participating, poop during class.
Well, none of those things happened.
Instead, my dream came true. She loved it as much as I hoped she would. As much as I always did.
Behold, the Ballerina.
Wednesday, January 7, 2009
Miles from Portland
I’m rarely taken aback by feelings of jealousy. But for some reason, last week when I walked into Barnes & Noble and saw her book prominently displayed just inside the front door, I was slapped in the face by a harsh reality check.
Four summers ago, we both attended a writing conference together in Portland, Oregon. We became fast friends amongst a group of kindred spirits who bonded that week over great writing, vodka and late-night arm wrestling matches.
We were all there because we were writers. Writers to the core. Writers ‘til death. We all wanted so badly to be published. To see our names in print. To stand at the lectern and watch heads nod their love of our recited words.
Since then she’s received an MFA in creative writing. Something I applied for, was rejected by, and talked myself into giving up on. It was for the best, I said to myself.
In those four years, I’ve gone to an additional writing conference and taken some private writing instruction and, while I was still in New York, worked diligently on my short stories and submitting them to publications.
Then I fell in love, got pregnant and remarried. In that order.
I kept a folder of rejection letters that kept getting fatter and fatter along with me.
I moved back to Texas, where I’m from. Where my parents live.
I had a girl then, a year and a half later, I had a boy.
I fell in love two more times.
I started writing some nonfiction here on my blog, where I collect my “practice essays.” But I haven’t written a good piece of fiction since I saw those two lines appear on the pee stick.
And I truly hadn’t missed it.
Until I saw her book on that display.
Until I thought back to that conference and remembered the passion I once had for writing fiction, the passion for words that has seemed dormant in me for four years now.
Has it really been four years?
My children are finally moving out of those helpless baby years and I see sleep in my future. So maybe now I can begin to focus again on me. On who I am. At my core. ‘Til death.
I thank Nami Mun for reminding me, with her smashing success of a book Miles from Nowhere. If you’re in Austin, come see her read at Book People next Tuesday.
I’ll be there cheering her on.
Four summers ago, we both attended a writing conference together in Portland, Oregon. We became fast friends amongst a group of kindred spirits who bonded that week over great writing, vodka and late-night arm wrestling matches.
We were all there because we were writers. Writers to the core. Writers ‘til death. We all wanted so badly to be published. To see our names in print. To stand at the lectern and watch heads nod their love of our recited words.
Since then she’s received an MFA in creative writing. Something I applied for, was rejected by, and talked myself into giving up on. It was for the best, I said to myself.
In those four years, I’ve gone to an additional writing conference and taken some private writing instruction and, while I was still in New York, worked diligently on my short stories and submitting them to publications.
Then I fell in love, got pregnant and remarried. In that order.
I kept a folder of rejection letters that kept getting fatter and fatter along with me.
I moved back to Texas, where I’m from. Where my parents live.
I had a girl then, a year and a half later, I had a boy.
I fell in love two more times.
I started writing some nonfiction here on my blog, where I collect my “practice essays.” But I haven’t written a good piece of fiction since I saw those two lines appear on the pee stick.
And I truly hadn’t missed it.
Until I saw her book on that display.
Until I thought back to that conference and remembered the passion I once had for writing fiction, the passion for words that has seemed dormant in me for four years now.
Has it really been four years?
My children are finally moving out of those helpless baby years and I see sleep in my future. So maybe now I can begin to focus again on me. On who I am. At my core. ‘Til death.
I thank Nami Mun for reminding me, with her smashing success of a book Miles from Nowhere. If you’re in Austin, come see her read at Book People next Tuesday.
I’ll be there cheering her on.
Tuesday, January 6, 2009
Maiden Voyage
CHRIS (my husband): You’re wearing jeans to go kayaking?
ME: What’s wrong with jeans?
CHRIS: How about shorts?
He’s wearing shorts, obviously.
ME: It might be cold out on the water.
The high today is 62.
CHRIS: (shrugs)
ME: I’ll bring some shorts.
CHRIS: Bring some shorts.
ME: We’ll figure it out. This is our maiden voyage.
CHRIS: (laughs)
My husband gave me a plethora of gifts for my birthday last week. First of all, he got up with the kids, allowing me to get a whopping ten hours of sleep on my birthday eve. I don’t think I’ve slept that long since I was 24. Needless to say, I got to spend the entire day feeling FANTASTIC.
At dinner (also fantastic), he brought out the gifts. Not only did the man get me a First Edition (Book Club Version) of To Kill A Mockingbird, my favorite book of all time, that he had seen at the City Wide Garage Sale six months ago before he pocketed the guy’s card, called him the next day, bought the book and then saved it for my birthday (swoon), but he also gave me a season pass to the kayaking club at the lake.
Hellllloooo?
Since we moved to Austin three years ago, I’ve been talking about how badly I want to start kayaking. We have a beautiful lake here, which actually looks more like a serene river, passing under some of our most popular bridges. Think turtles sunbathing on rocks. Think ducks swimming in a row. Think swans.
Up until he gave me that season pass, tucked into that rare edition of TKAM, I never knew he had any interest in joining me on the lake. But apparently the season pass was for both of us.
Today was our maiden voyage.
We got a double kayak. I sat up front and set the pace while he sat in back and matched my strokes, steering us along the shore so we could observe the turtles resting on intricately grown tree roots. Then he'd steer us back along the cliff so we could gaze up at the looming houses.
We weren't out on the water two minutes before I felt my soul slip back into my body. Before I was trying to remember a time I'd done something this relaxing with my husband. The answer may have been never.
In all my life, I don’t think I’ve ever been given a more perfect gift for my birthday.
ME: What’s wrong with jeans?
CHRIS: How about shorts?
He’s wearing shorts, obviously.
ME: It might be cold out on the water.
The high today is 62.
CHRIS: (shrugs)
ME: I’ll bring some shorts.
CHRIS: Bring some shorts.
ME: We’ll figure it out. This is our maiden voyage.
CHRIS: (laughs)
My husband gave me a plethora of gifts for my birthday last week. First of all, he got up with the kids, allowing me to get a whopping ten hours of sleep on my birthday eve. I don’t think I’ve slept that long since I was 24. Needless to say, I got to spend the entire day feeling FANTASTIC.
At dinner (also fantastic), he brought out the gifts. Not only did the man get me a First Edition (Book Club Version) of To Kill A Mockingbird, my favorite book of all time, that he had seen at the City Wide Garage Sale six months ago before he pocketed the guy’s card, called him the next day, bought the book and then saved it for my birthday (swoon), but he also gave me a season pass to the kayaking club at the lake.
Hellllloooo?
Since we moved to Austin three years ago, I’ve been talking about how badly I want to start kayaking. We have a beautiful lake here, which actually looks more like a serene river, passing under some of our most popular bridges. Think turtles sunbathing on rocks. Think ducks swimming in a row. Think swans.
Up until he gave me that season pass, tucked into that rare edition of TKAM, I never knew he had any interest in joining me on the lake. But apparently the season pass was for both of us.
Today was our maiden voyage.
We got a double kayak. I sat up front and set the pace while he sat in back and matched my strokes, steering us along the shore so we could observe the turtles resting on intricately grown tree roots. Then he'd steer us back along the cliff so we could gaze up at the looming houses.
We weren't out on the water two minutes before I felt my soul slip back into my body. Before I was trying to remember a time I'd done something this relaxing with my husband. The answer may have been never.
In all my life, I don’t think I’ve ever been given a more perfect gift for my birthday.
Friday, January 2, 2009
Happy Birthday to me
I was born 38 years ago today.
There have been many days, especially within the past three years, that I’ve really felt my body deteriorating. The pregnancies seemed to accelerate the aging process. My knees began to creak when I bent them. My skin slackened. My hair fell out.
Last year, when I turned 37, it was the first time I felt the years. It was the first time I felt OLD.
But for some reason I don’t feel that way this year. This year, I FEEL GOOD.
I look back at the 38 years I’ve lived and I see various lifetimes within them.
There was the lifetime of my childhood, which was generally a happy one.
The lifetime of my teenage years, which was generally a happy one for me, not so much for my mother.
The lifetime of college, where I took lessons in adulthood, although clearly not retaining all of the information.
The lifetime of my early 20s, where I learned for the first time that we don’t always get what we want exactly when we want it.
The lifetime of my first marriage, where I learned that love can be a breakable object if not placed in mature enough hands.
And the lifetime I’m living now, where I’m realizing the hard work and the overwhelming rewards of growing my own family.
The last three years have been busy, and I haven’t had much time to look at myself and feel good about who that person is. So that’s what I’m doing today. I’m taking care of my body because I plan to live a very long life. If you look at it that way, I’m only halfway there.
Today, I’m looking forward to all the lifetimes I have yet to live.
There have been many days, especially within the past three years, that I’ve really felt my body deteriorating. The pregnancies seemed to accelerate the aging process. My knees began to creak when I bent them. My skin slackened. My hair fell out.
Last year, when I turned 37, it was the first time I felt the years. It was the first time I felt OLD.
But for some reason I don’t feel that way this year. This year, I FEEL GOOD.
I look back at the 38 years I’ve lived and I see various lifetimes within them.
There was the lifetime of my childhood, which was generally a happy one.
The lifetime of my teenage years, which was generally a happy one for me, not so much for my mother.
The lifetime of college, where I took lessons in adulthood, although clearly not retaining all of the information.
The lifetime of my early 20s, where I learned for the first time that we don’t always get what we want exactly when we want it.
The lifetime of my first marriage, where I learned that love can be a breakable object if not placed in mature enough hands.
And the lifetime I’m living now, where I’m realizing the hard work and the overwhelming rewards of growing my own family.
The last three years have been busy, and I haven’t had much time to look at myself and feel good about who that person is. So that’s what I’m doing today. I’m taking care of my body because I plan to live a very long life. If you look at it that way, I’m only halfway there.
Today, I’m looking forward to all the lifetimes I have yet to live.
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