Tess Thompson's Blog, page 14

Lopez!

Lopez! We text one another off and on over the last few months.

Lopez! It sums up hope, joy, anticipation.

Natalie and Teri and Tess – best friends since the early nineties. Between us there are three divorces, four weddings, two children, too many plays to count and hours and hours of laughter. We knew each other when we were young and innocent. Now we’re middle-age and a little jaded, a lot wiser and gentler with ourselves. We’ve nurtured one another through deaths, difficult relationships, play openings, book launches. There is so much shared history we speak a language of our own. Natalie lives in Tampa now. Teri lives in Seattle proper. I’m out in the suburbs. There is too much time between visits. Three years ago we decided we needed an annual trip to Lopez every September. During a year of challenges, for all three of us, Lopez! was a beacon of hope, something to look forward to, a time that will sustain us until we meet again.

Traffic kept us from making the 4 o’clock ferry so we catch the 6 instead. We don’t care, we agree; no reason to stress about things out of our control, like traffic, for the next three days anyway. For now we can pretend we are free. Jobs are left behind. My children, after many machinations of schedules and events and details, are with their father for three nights instead of two. My latest manuscript with copious notes from my editor is left on my desk. It will be there when I return.

Sunday seems far away as we drive off the ferry onto Lopez Island.

The last of the daylight fades as we head towards our destination: The Tower House. I’m growing weary from the drive and hungry. We debate where to stop for food when we come upon, like a mirage in the desert, a general store, which also has a restaurant. Problem solved. Everything always goes our way when we’re together, we agree, as we make our first toast.

The Tower House is only miles away from our general store/restaurant. We find it easily despite my fear of deer running into the road. This house, we discover upon entering, is the nicest of the houses we’ve rented. The design and decor is modern yet decorated sparsely with antiques, used in creative ways. An antique sewing machine table acts as a television stand. A kitchen piece from the ’30’s is used as a decorative dressing table in one of the bedrooms. An old wood stove is the centerpiece of the front room. Shelves are filled with old books – a schoolbook from 1910, first edition classics, all in perfect condition and stacked gently and precisely in rows and stacks. And the tower part of the Tower House? It’s a small room with two red leather chairs and a small table with a lamp. Large windows look out onto the water and green meadows. A perfect writing room, Natalie and I agree. Downstairs, a library with a chaise. The perfect place to read, says Teri.

As I take in the details of the house, I wonder of its owner. She’s corresponded with Teri about logistics. “Don’t forget to close the gate because the deer get trapped inside the fenced yard and become frantic. I’ve left homemade cookies because I won’t be able to greet you.” I surmise from the careful nuances and care of the house that she loves this home, books, and antiques. A vegetable and herb garden suggests a woman who loves to cook. There are hints of children, too. Framed drawings, decorative glass pieces on the back door, one of which says, “I love you, Mom.” Over the kitchen counter is a large print of a photograph: four men standing in an industrial sized kitchen? Family, we ask one another.

But we won’t know. All we know is the story of one another. The details of our homes, photographs, pieces of art, vases, refrigerator magnets, stacks of books – we could tell you one another’s stories – when that photo was taken, who gave us the lamp by the window, the predictability of the paints we choose for our walls – because we’ve been friends for most of our adult lives. They know of my many mistakes, of the things that make me worried, of my talents and insufficiencies, of my deepest fears and biggest dreams. They were there the first time my heart was broken, for the births of my babies, on the other end of the phone when I told them of my greatest failure. They’ve helped me rebuild my life these last two years with their encouragement and understanding. We are friends. The real kind.

Now, I sit in the red chair in the tower. Mist lifts as I write. Soon sun will unveil the colors of this island. Blue water, yellow grasses, deep green firs will surround us during our morning hike. Rich knowing of one another that gives us our own language, our own haven of peace and laughter and love will sustain us in the months to come, as will the photos we take, the memories we make. Being known and loved despite the dark places in each of us is the reason we’re here, I think, as I listen to them talking and laughing in the room below me. In lives that are hard much of the time, friendship, love, feeling connected to other human beings gives us meaning and hope and even peace. It’s as good as it gets. In fact, it’s really good.

And now I must close. Memories to make.

Embracing the hash tag

I spent the early morning watching the sun come up over the Cascades and sipping coffee, feeling depleted and exhausted despite it only being Tuesday. Sometimes when I feel this way it helps to write out goals for the days and months to come. For any of you who know me well, I am focused and goal-oriented in a way that’s probably annoying to those around me but the cats don’t seem to care so I go with my natural instincts. In all seriousness, I find if I write it down, it will come.

Six years ago when I was writing RIVERSONG and taking care of two small children I had my daily goals or mantras – activities I was committed to doing every day -scribbled on a Post-it note which I hung on my computer as a physical reminder. I don’t know what happened to that Post-it note but I can remember the essence of those goals. They haven’t changed much all these years later.

So this morning I wrote them down again. For some reason, probably because I spend way too much time on social media trying to reach new readers, I converted them to hash tags. I know. I just felt your collective eye roll. It’s embarrassing that a woman who spends as much time as I trying to capture experience with words would find it appropriate to express something with what we used to call the pound sign and a short phrase that used to go inside a sentence. I get that this makes me slightly ridiculous, especially give my age. I resisted this whole hash tag phenomenon for years, trust me. As a lover of words I worry about how our younger generations are changing the language with text conversions and the like. But the hash tag thing is in my system and now I can’t stop. In conclusion, I’ve decided to embrace it as something fun and as a new way to conscisely sum up thoughts or experience on any given day on any given subject. #HashtagsAreFun

That said, I apologize in advance for what you’re about to read next.

Anyway, some of my goals are to write 2500 words a day of fiction, break a serious sweat with some form of exercise, drink 8 glasses of water a day, take my vitamins, get 10 thousand steps so my Fitbit lights up like a Christmas tree and to read at least 60 minutes a day. (I have a few others but they’re a little more on the serious side and subject for another post).

Here are my hashtags.

#ButtInSeat

#BreakASweat

#8Glasses

#Vitamins

#10PlusSteps

#amreading60

What are yours? Care to share? I’d love to hear them. But be forewarned, I’m known to steal (borrow) for fiction purposes. Don’t be surprised if one shows up in a book.

Regardless of your goals or if you put them in a hash tag, keep swimming, friends. We can do this. #JustKeepSwimming

The Bus Windows are Dark

The view from my Desk

“You are the burden of my generation

I sure do love you

But let’s get that straight” Paul Simon, That Was Your Mother

The Wednesday after Labor Day, I watch as Ella unlatches the gate and waves goodbye.

My oldest baby is off to sixth grade.

Blocks down the street she will board a school bus and head down the freeway to middle school. Twenty-five minutes away, I think, as I trudge up the stairs, fighting tears.

Emerson sits in the kitchen eating pancakes and strips of bacon. Is it my imagination or does she look delighted to be rid of her sister? “Come on,” I say. “Let’s watch from the window until her bus goes by.”

“I don’t know if she’ll like that,” says Emerson, with a wise raise of her eyebrows. “That’ll probably embarrass her.”

Too bad, I think. I just want one glimpse.

Minutes later, the bus passes. To my disappointment, the bus windows are dark. I cannot see inside. I don’t risk waving just in case she’s watching.

I’m embarrassing. I understand this.

Ella and I are at an impasse. This awful stage where she’s conversely disgusted by me one moment and childishly needy of my attention the next. The problem is, I never know which Ella she will be at any given moment. In the course of an hour she’s considerate and mature, asking how she can help me with dinner, and the next minute shouting that, “I’ve ruined her life”, as she runs upstairs and slams her bedroom door.

A list of her complaints goes something like this. She hates having divorced parents. She thinks I’ll never make enough money as a writer. She’s embarrassed when adults in our community tell her how much they like my books because it makes her feel invisible.

She hates my hair. “The way you flip it on the ends looks so weird, Mom. It looked so much better when you wore it straight.”

She thinks I always side with Emerson when they’re fighting. And my clothes? Too many horrors to catalogue. I take too many photographs of the cats. I should never, ever, go out of the house without make-up. I’m forgetful. She hates my ‘hillbilly’ music. I drive like an old lady.

Okay, I do take too many photos of the cats. But that’s another blog post.

I’m quite clear that this is all part of raising a tween girl. They’re irrational, emotional. They think everything their mothers do is wrong, embarrassing, ridiculous, square and on and on.

They’re all like this, my friends reassure me. She’ll be back.

And, please don’t get me wrong on this point. Ella is an amazing, bright, insightful, beautiful, sweet girl. I’m proud of her. I adore her. She and her sister are the loves of my life.

But this truth doesn’t really help me, unfortunately. We’re in a tough stage. It hurts when she looks at me like I’m a failure or criticizes my hair or asks if maybe I should consider getting a “real job”. That latter stings the most, as you might imagine, if you know anything about how hard I work to make a living as a writer, albeit a modest one.

She also criticizes me in front of my friends and tells them stories that make me look bad. Sometimes she tells stories or opinions about me that I’m amazed she thinks are even close to the truth. I guess from her eleven year old brain, they are.

I want to say, sometimes, “You know, other people like me. Other people think I’m interesting, not embarrassing.”

But I don’t, of course. We mothers suck it up. We go back to the kitchen and try to make a nutritious meal no one will eat.

I also understand this parenting gig is all about letting go. I know the ways in which she criticizes me are her way of distancing herself so that she can become independent. I know this is how it must be. But it hurts.

When she gets home from her first day of sixth grade, she starts to cry almost immediately. The bus was awful. Overcrowded and ‘bad, older kids’ in the back, talking about inappropriate things. She couldn’t sit with her friend. “I had to sit with boys, Mom, three to a seat.”

Over dinner, she tells me she wishes I’d gone with her to the bus stop. I’m shocked. I thought a mother escorting her sixth grade daughter was without question mortifying.

Scooping a bite of mashed potatoes into her mouth, she looks at me with that face that conveys what an utter disappointment I am.

“There were other parents of sixth graders with their kids,” she says.

“I thought you wouldn’t want me there.”

“Well, I did.”

See? Again, I can’t quite get it right. No matter how much I try to anticipate, to understand – insight into her little brain is as dark as the bus windows. I cannot see inside. The rest of the dinner I fight tears. This feeling – the one where you feel like the worst mother in the world because you read a situation wrong? Well, it’s a bad one. I seem to have it more often than not these days.

Regardless that this is a normal part of Ella’s maturation, I miss the little girl who adored me, the little girl who thought I was pretty and smart and who threw her arms around me when I picked her up from school. I long for the adult she’ll be, the mature woman that will look back and admire how I raised them on my own and refused to live a conventional life at the expense of my happiness, regardless of money.

Right now I’m in the thick of it. And I’m alone. And it’s hard. That’s just the truth.

For me, this is the most difficult stage of parenting thus far. Some of the other stages were pretty rough, including the sleep-deprived infant stage but I loved all of them. No matter how tired I was, I couldn’t stop kissing on my sweet little babies or smelling their little heads. I miss the days when every milestone was an indication that you were not an utter failure instead of this helpless and confused stage I’m currently muddling through.

No, I don’t love this stage. Not one iota. It’s thankless, relentless, frustrating.

Regardless, I love my little girl. I love my tween, no matter how much she tries to push me away. I know we’ll get through this. Someday I’ll tell her stories about it when she calls to complain about her tween. I’ll be gentle, I promise, just as my mother is when I call with my tales of woe.

Last night, after a couple of loads of laundry and dinner dishes and mopping the floor and all the other mother-tasks my friends and I do every night, I drag myself into the family room to watch a show with the girls. My eyes are itchy and tired. I can’t wait to fall into bed, knowing that tomorrow brings another school day and deadliness and bills to pay.

We watch a show with Emerson snuggled next to me on the couch. Ella is at the other end with a pillow in her lap.

After a few minutes, I laugh at something on the show – my loud, belly laugh when something really amuses me.

“I love it when you laugh like that, Mom. It makes me feel happy,” says Ella.

I look at her, surprised. She’s smiling at me like she likes me a little. Just a little. I can almost find the small girl she used to be.

Let this sustain you, I tell myself. It’s something. Something nice, no matter what tomorrow brings.

Tattoos on our Hearts

I was asked to give the guest speaker  address at my daughter’s swim team banquet last night. Although humbled and honored to be asked, I was scared to speak to such a large crowd and afraid to embarrass myself in front of my community. But fear is the opposite of love so I did it anyway. The speech is below.

***

I know you were all expecting Russell Wilson as our guest speaker but he was busy tonight so they asked me instead. I’m not really qualified to speak at a swim team banquet as I’m neither athletic nor a particularly great swimmer. I’m merely a writer. I spend my life trying to capture life’s moments with words, which to some of you may sound like an awful way to spend my days but it’s my particular calling, for better or worse.

Despite my love affair with words, I’m not a great public speaker. I’m way out of my comfort zone here and somewhat terrified, but my love for my daughter Ella and for this community is greater than my fear. So I’ll do my best, which is all we can ask of one another.

Regardless of my lack of athletic credentials, I’m a dreamer and a mother – perhaps these two things give me some authority to speak to you tonight.

I’ll start with the dreamer part. I’ve spent the last eight years building a writing career from nothing, just as we’re doing with our Tiger Shark team. I wrote my first novel eight years ago when Emerson was a baby. No one believed I could finish it, let alone get it published. And for sure no one thought I could make a living as a writer. But I did it. I do it. My seventh novel will release by the end of this year.

Why does this matter to you tonight? What does this have to do with swimming?

It comes down to this. I did what no one thought I could because I let my love for something outweigh my fears.

Love, my friends, is the opposite of fear.

Swimmers, the commitment it takes to keep swimming despite the rain and wind, the early morning practices, and whether you win or when you lose is what matters, not if you go home tonight with a medal or not. Doing something you love even if you’re not the best is what’s important.

Look around this room. It is filled with people who love you. People who do not care if you win or lose but only that you show up, that you give it your best, that you have your teammates backs and that you show respect to your coaches.

And this village sitting in this room tonight – this community of coaches, parents, grandparents that stand in the rain or the bright sun cheering for you?

We are here for you. No matter what.

Wherever you look, you will find one of us who will be there for you. We are your people. We are your community. You may be too young to understand all this now but the memories you make during these summer months will be some of your best. The friendships you forge on this team will enrich your lives in ways you cannot foresee. The adults willing to give of themselves will influence the wonderful people you will grow into.

So it’s beyond whether we win or lose. It’s about being part of something larger than ourselves.

And to all the parents and coaches in this room. We’re all in this together. As many of you know, I’m a single parent, so perhaps I feel even more keenly that we cannot parent alone and thank God we don’t have to. This village here is a collective force for good despite the darkness in the world that wants to teach our children to hate, to judge, to manipulate, to strive only for their own benefits.

Team, community, band of brothers and sisters – whatever you want to call it – is the most important gift we can give our children. A strong community where our children are safe and strong and nurtured and protected – this is to be honored and guarded and put above all else. And the way we do that is what we just did all summer. We’re doing it as we speak. It’s giving up so much of our precious time to volunteer at meets and get our children to practices and drive around town with orange paint on our cars. It matters, my friends, not what we say but what we do.

And as a group, we showed up. We got in the game. And I for one am so very grateful.

Because what we teach as a group –values of honor, integrity, fortitude, teamwork, will be tattooed on our childrens’ hearts when we are no longer there to nudge them into the right line, hold their towels, or kiss their wet heads.

Love, respect, honor, community, family, integrity, kindness, fortitude. God willing, these are tattooed on all our hearts tonight, visible by our actions as we continue forward tonight, tomorrow and all the days of our lives.

My Tiger Shark swimmers, I leave you with this:

Show up. Compete with yourself. Support your teammates. Respect your coaches. Be humble. Be grateful. Treat your competitors as brothers and sisters.

Work harder than you think you can. Tackle each practice, race, day without fear, without complaint. Do not let moments of defeat discourage you. Get all the way in the game. Do not let anyone tell you that you can’t do something.

And do what you love even if you’re not the best because all good things come to those who choose love over fear.

Never ever give up.

 

 

God Spent a Little Extra Time On You

On a Tuesday in July I stand at one end of the pool with a stopwatch timing heat after heat of my daughter’s swim meet. It’s my favorite volunteer position because I get to watch all our swimmers up close. This is my third summer as a TPC Tiger Shark mother so I’ve come to know many of the children well. I’ve watched them turn from five-year-olds who can barely make the length of the pool to big kids swimming with such skill I have trouble believing it’s even the same child as the summer before. Seeing the children improve is a great joy, whether we win or not.

But on this Tuesday in July, we win the meet.

Yes. We won a meet for the very first time. Up until now we’ve been a young team swimming against long established clubs. What started four summers ago with less than 40 children has now grown to over 140 swimmers.

And we finally won a meet! We’re ecstatic.

Why? How?

The answer isn’t really that complicated: our coaching staff, dedicated parents, children swimming their little hearts out each and every race, swimmers rising early in the morning for practice even though it’s summer vacation.

After the last race, I walk to my minivan with arms full of wet towels, remembering moments from the season that will remain long after the sun sets on the final competition. A little Tiger Shark, only five-years-old, making his crooked way across twenty-five meters of water as the crowd chanted his name. My own daughter beating her previous time by five seconds and the way her braces glinted in the sunlight when she grinned as wide as my heart felt. Coach Mike screaming and jumping up and down as one of our swimmers made it across the pool with only one breath. Watching one of my best friend’s eight-year-old daughter smoke every other girl in her heat with a Butterfly stroke that looked like something only an adult could do. The first time my daughter had the courage to do a flip turn in a race. Little Tiger Sharks holding hands as they prepared for a relay. Coach Kate waving her clipboard in the air when one of our relay teams won their race. Coach Kayla supervising tie-dying t-shirts as a teambuilding event. For the record, it’s not that easy to supervise 140 children and a half-dozen bottles of paint.

Yes, our coaches. That’s what I will remember most. They knew every single child by name, by stroke, by strengths and weaknesses and they gave their best selves to them in ways that cannot be quantified except in the way we know something deep in our hearts. Every time they ran up and down the side of the pool yelling encouragement to our children, each and every moment they cajoled and encouraged and talked parents off the proverbial diving board on the day before meets was a gift that had nothing to do with their job. They didn’t have to listen to our feedback and questions but they did anyway, all without rolling their eyes. This is just who they are. You can’t fake true passion and dedication. You can’t fake a giant heart.

Did they love to win a meet? Yes, but not more than they loved it when our children improved their individual times, whether or not they were in first place or last place in their races.

Our coaches. Special people.

Mike, Kate, Kayla. He’s a father of two in his thirties with a day job. The young women are college students, coaching during their summer breaks. They all share a passion for swimming and have spent a better part of their lives in the water perfecting their own skills. Now they give all that wisdom to our little people.

The question is – why? What is it that makes a person want to pass knowledge onto the next generation? What makes them so uniquely qualified to do so, not just from their knowledge but from a place of wisdom and compassion? I know God makes us all with special gifts and it’s our job to figure out how to combine our passions with our work. But in regards to our coaches the words of a pop song I don’t know the name of come to mind: “God seemed to have spent a little more time on you.” We all know that people who work with children and animals are actually a little better than the rest of us. It’s just the truth. And they make the world better by just being here.

Why does their coaching work matter so much to our children? You all know why but I’ll say it anyway. Because being on a team, being part of something larger than your own existence is an important foundation to maturity. Because using your body in a physical activity serves you well all the days of your life. Because being mentored by great coaches teaches you how to pay it forward someday. Because being part of a community makes you feel known, safe and loved.

For you sports lovers out there – I know you love your stats – so check out the Tiger Sharks scores from the last four summers of Midlake League Championships.

2011    10 points, 27th place

2012.   33 pts, 27th place

2013.   83 pts, 27th place

2014.   369 pts, 19th place

I’m not really a math person but I think it’s safe to say gaining 359 points in just four summers is pretty good no matter how you count it.

Go TPC Tiger Sharks. From one proud mama – you kids rocked it this season and I can’t wait to watch you next summer. And to our coaches – may God bless you all now and always. I am grateful.

 

 

Interview with Author2Author

I was honored to talk with Bill over at Author2Author today. Here is the audio if you’re interested in hearing our discussion about writing. Enjoy. He’s a great interviewer. I had a blast.

 

Scare Away the Dark

“ To sing, sing at the top of your voice,

Love without fear in your heart.

Feel, feel like you still have a choice

If we all light up we can scare away the dark.” ~ Passenger

We hear them when they are still blocks away. There are eight of them altogether: six 11-year-olds and two 8-year-olds. Ella’s best friend’s mother and I crouch in the bushes in front of my townhouse. When this gaggle of girls open the gate we jump out and spray them with silly string. They scream. We all laugh.

It’s the last day of elementary school for my oldest daughter and her friends. Next year they will head out on the bus to middle school.

Last week Ella asked if she could have them all over for a swim party and sleepover. I said yes because I have to say no to so many requests. This is something I can do, even on a budget.

They gather around my table for lunch. Trystan’s mother has brought sparking cider for the girls. I pull out the crystal champagne glasses I never use. They were wedding gifts. Like so many of the items in my kitchen, I remember exactly who gave them to us. The marriage ended but the gifts remain. I have plastic charms in all colors that stick to the glasses. The girls scramble to pick their favorite colors. I hide a smile. They think they’re grown up but I know they’re still children.

I make a giant bowl of pasta. The girls talk and talk, laugh and laugh. They’re loud, so very loud. And smart. We ask them where they want to go to college and what they want to study. They know already. I see their dreams reflected out of their clear, undaunted eyes.

Ella informed me last week that her group of friends are not the popular girls. I thought at the time – oh, this already? Popular? Cool? I have no use for these concepts now that I’m in my forties, but I remember what they mean. I can still feel the sting. Sixth grade can be summoned with a slight flicker of memory, like a match in the dark.

Roberta Roesberry was my best friend then. I discover her the first day of sixth grade in language arts class. She’s smart and funny and wears glasses over the kindest eyes I’ve ever seen. When she smiles at me I smile back. We discover we have much in common. She loves to read. She loves to learn new things. We both have older brothers we adore. I learn to spell her last name – not Rose but Roes. I go to her house for a sleepover and we listen to John Denver on cassette and eat candy – the kind you dip into with a popsicle stick and turns your mouth bright red. We laugh until our stomachs hurt. She gets me. I get her. We don’t care that we’re not ‘popular’ because we have each other. It breaks my heart when she has to move to Portland before we start 7th grade. But for that frightening period of time, she was enough to scare away the dark.

Now, on this last day of school 2014, I open sparkling cider and I pour my girl and her friends a glass. Before they eat, everyone makes a toast.

As I look around the table at their innocent faces, unlined, unscathed, I fill with fear for them. The world is dangerous. Streets are lined with bad people that could hurt them. There are dreams that won’t come to fruition. Disappointments will scar them and change them.

Just the bus ride to their new middle school – this alone is fraught with hazards. Boys, drugs, mean girls.

Their mothers will not be there to protect them. And we hate it. I know. But there’s nothing to be done.

So I toss my fears aside for now and try to give them a small bit of advice. Have one another’s backs, no boy is worth losing a friendship over, stick together.

My advice floats into the stratosphere, of course. The only way to learn how to maneuver in this world is to live. They have to make mistakes – feel pain and joy and everything in between. No one’s mother has ever been able to protect their child from the dark despite our best efforts. I know this. But still.

I want to tell them this.

Cling to one another in the crowded hallway, the loud bus, before a test, when someone offers you drugs. When you’re afraid, look for the others’ eyes. Bind together. Be fiercely protective of one another. There is power in community, in friendship, in love. These things will crowd out the dark. If we are to believe the poets, these things will actually scare away the dark.

The most enduring relationships in your life, except for your family, will be your female friends. Those relationships are some of the most meaningful, profound and beautiful experiences you will have in a life fraught with hardness, turmoil and uncertainty. A true friend will make you laugh and hold you when you cry. They are the first person you call when the door closes on your marriage, or you lose a job, or suffer the stings from mean girls (they come in grown-up variety too).

And when something wonderful happens? They will cheer for you. They will toast you. They will brag about you even when you’re not in the room. They will cry with joy when your babies are born. They’ll stand up for you at your second wedding. They will be your village. They will help scare away the dark.

But I’m silent for now. I pour another glass of cider in their glasses. I wash the dishes. I listen to their benign chatter.

I think of Roberta and all my girlfriends from every chapter of my life. I’m so grateful for them, whether I speak to them every day or not. I remember their eyes in the crowded hallways. It was enough to scare away the dark then. It’s enough to scare away the dark now.

 

 

 

Just Keep Swimming

Ella and I check the weather forecast first thing Thursday morning. It calls for rain. Of course, we agree, chuckling. After weeks of nice weather, it will rain for our first swim meet. Swimming competitively in the northwest? Expect rain. Bring a sleeping bag for warmth between events. Plan on a towel for each event because they won’t dry in the sun between events like most places.

But we don’t care. We’re excited. For me, the energy of the children and their parents is inspiring. For Ella, she loves to swim, to compete for a better time, to cheer for her friends – just the whole thing.  And there’s the baked potatoes the opposing team sells at the snack bar. Those are good too.

Ella’s practiced every night at 8 p.m. for weeks now. She’s not once complained. In fact, she’s surprised me by packing her swim bag with towels, cap and goggles without my instruction (i.e. nagging).

She hasn’t lost her goggles. It’s been three weeks. I’ll repeat that for emphasis. She hasn’t lost her goggles.

All milestones. My little girl is growing up. This is Ella at 11.

Before her first event, I stand at the edge of the pool, remembering. Ten years ago Ella was a chubby baby in my arms, just recently crawling, bald but with round, sapphire eyes that seemed to take up most of her face. I walked into the pool holding her tight for our first “Mommy and Me” swim class, expecting tears, kissing the top of her head that smelled like love and murmuring assurances. But when she felt the water, she wriggled, splashing with her hands and kicking her fat legs with such force she almost slipped from my arms. Then she laughed.

I looked at her face, shocked.

She was a serious baby. She’s a serious girl. An old soul, my friends say.

But in the water? She laughed. She grinned. She screamed in delight

This was a water baby. She could swim on her own by 2 years old. (And by on her own I mean with her mother hovering inches away with a pounding heart).

So it should not surprise me how passionate she is about swimming. The girl was born to be in the water. That said, she’s not a natural athlete. She doesn’t care for sports, either watching them or participating. But swimming – this she loves. And although she will never go to Olympics or probably even swim at the college level (watch her surprise me on this too) it doesn’t matter because she’s doing something she loves.

Our coaches emphasize competing against yourself and improving your individual time as opposed to worrying about what your teammates and opponents are doing. I love this.

I didn’t think Ella would be able to swim this year because of finances. But at the last minute an angel swept in and paid for the membership to the club and the team fees, which I wrote about several weeks ago.

When the news came of my friend’s gift to Ella, I told her, “Honor this gift by working hard and being grateful.” I thought this too, although I kept it to myself. Work harder than you think you can. Tackle it without fear, without complaint. Do not let moments of defeat, discourage you. Get all the way in the game.

I needn’t have said it. She knew. She knows.

Thursday afternoon we arrive with our arms full of towels, a sleeping bag for warmth, several books, a kindle, swim goggles and her cap. Emerson sets up Ella’s sleeping bag in an unexpected section of sun. “I want it to be warm for her, Mommy.”

Ella’s best friend is there too. This is her first swim meet and her mother is helping stage the swimmers so I’m making sure she’s in the right place at the right time. (For any of you who haven’t been involved in swim – parents are required to volunteer at almost every meet). I watch from the edge as Ella shouts encouragement to Trystan (TT, as I call her).

I tear up when TT leaps out of the pool, grinning. “I heard everyone cheering for me when I was swimming and it just made me smile,” she says to me as I hand her a towel.

“You did great,” I say.

“I know! I did awesome.”

Later, in one of the free style heats, a girl from the other team with physical challenges swims slowly and laboriously across the pool. Our coach reminds our swimmers to stay in the pool until everyone finishes in a show of good sportsmanship. Parents from both sides begin to cheer, shouting out encouragement to this sweet little girl swimming her heart out. When she reaches the end and puts her hands on the edge, the place explodes with cheers. I tear up again. When one of the parents from the other team lifts her out of the pool, I have to pull a tissue out of my jacket and put my sunglasses on to hide my emotion.

And right there, as I wipe my eyes, I know why all this matters. It’s the lessons beyond perfecting strokes and techniques that our children will take with them.

Show up. Work hard. Compete with yourself. Support your teammates. Respect your coaches. Be humble. Be grateful. Treat your competitors as brothers and sisters because ultimately we’re all connected. Do something you love even if you’re not the best because all good things will come from it. Choose to be part of something bigger than yourself because community, love, is what God made us for.

And this village – this community of coaches, parents, grandparents that stand in the rain cheering our own children and our neighbors’ children? We’re all in it together. We’re a collective force for good despite the darkness in the world that wants to teach our children to hate, to judge, to manipulate, to strive for only their own benefits. Despite the rain, we will not dim.

As we drive home, the windshield wipers keeping time with the radio, I think as I so often do about what it means to be a parent. Our job is to usher them into adulthood with core values that will remain when we are no longer there to nudge them into the right line, hold their towels, or kiss their wet heads.

Love, respect, honor, community, family, integrity, kindness, fortitude. God willing, these are tattooed on their hearts, visible by their actions as they move into their own lives. But as for now? I’m pretty sure I saw those words written in black sharpie on their wet skin under a sky the color of smoke.

And then, for me? A surprise. A miracle. My “River Valley Trilogy” climbed to the #7 Kindle Book while our little swimmers swam as hard as they could.

I’ve been swimming hard for a long time now. In the middle of the cold ocean I have many moments of fear and disappointment but I’m still swimming. The lessons we’re teaching our children? They’re tattooed on my heart too.

Do what you love, even if you’re not the best. Work harder than you think you can. Never give up.

Oh, and go Tiger Sharks!

 

The Silenced Bird

My great hope is to laugh as much as I cry; to get my work done and try to love somebody and have the courage to accept the love in return.  ~ Maya Angelou

I wake to the news of her passing. I’m not surprised. I knew she wasn’t well. I feared that at age 86 and in failing health, she lived on borrowed time. Regardless, I’m saddened.

A bird doesn’t sing because it has an answer, it sings because it has a song.

I move about my morning ritual with a heavy heart. We will no longer hear her song. Death silences.

I think of her spirit, her work, of how much she inspired and influenced me. I imagine her seeing the face of God for the first time. He must have cheered when he saw her, congratulating her on a life well-lived. How He must be celebrating her at this very moment, I think. I wonder if they looked back on her life together, reviewing all the moments she did not let hardship define her, or dwell on the injustices and pain of her past. Did they revisit all the ways she inspired others with the very way she loved, how she fought for justice, how she spoke out against oppression and hate? Did they sing together?

One isn’t necessarily born with courage, but one is born with potential. Without courage, we cannot practice any other virtue with consistency. We can’t be kind, true, merciful, generous, or honest.

Driving my girls to school, I glance at their young, beautiful faces in the rearview mirror. Above all else, Ms. Angelou was a great teacher. We will have her work to pass on to future generations. I’m cheered, thinking of this. My girls will have her work to read, to examine, to draw from, just as I have. This, I think, is what it means to leave a legacy behind. What it she’d chosen silence instead of song? There were so many reasons she might have. But instead she chose to use her voice, to be who God created her to be.

If you are always trying to be normal, you will never know how amazing you can be.

After my children are at school, I sit at my desk, opening the new manuscript to begin my daily work. But I stare at the blank page. I cannot hope to be half the artist she was. It’s daunting, this fact. But still, I have my own unique voice. I write with my heart, with love. I write the truth. She would tell me this, I know, if she were here, if she’d known me.

There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.

But still, thoughts of Ms. Angelou’s lessons distract me.

What will I leave behind? Do I live in such a way that teaches, inspires? Do I live with courage? Do I speak the truth in my work? Have I forgiven those who need forgiving? Do I laugh as much as I cry? Do I work hard enough?

Have I loved somebody and accepted that love in return?

Love recognizes no barriers. It jumps hurdles, leaps fences, penetrates walls to arrive at its destination full of hope.

Only God knows the answers to my questions. I know only that there is honor in trying, no matter what yesterday held, no matter the tragedies of my past, the difficulties of my present.

I can be changed by what happens to me. But I refuse to be reduced by it. 

My job here on earth is to be courageous, to forgive, to speak the truth and above all else to love.

We delight in the beauty of the butterfly, but rarely admit the changes it has gone through to achieve that beauty.

I can hope, too, that I’m better today than yesterday, better tomorrow than today. I can fight for insight and forgiveness and courage. I can love big and bold without fear of hurt or loss. I can sing my own unique song for as long as I’m here.

With this thought, I turn back to my work.

Nothing will work unless you do.

Rest in peace, our great teacher. Sing with the angels now. Perhaps if we are still, we might hear your voice in perfect pitch with God.

Listen to yourself and in that quietude you might hear the voice of God.

 

Guest Post – Author Will North – Love at First Sight?

I’m excited and honored to feature novelist Will North as a guest writer on my blog today. He examines the age old question: Does love at first sight really exist? I like to think it does but the men who’ve claimed they fell in love with me at first sight seemed to fall just as easily out of love, therefore rendering me  a non-believer, or at the very least, highly skeptical. Furthermore,  these men delivered the ‘out of love’ message via their smart phones, which is decidedly unromantic and without any ‘sight’ at all. Ah, but I digress…

I’ll say this on the subject. I still believe in love at first sight for other people (I’ve heard too many stories of it) and certainly for my characters. Will North believes in it  both in his own life and his characters’ lives. For all you romantics out there…you’ll love this.

Enjoy.

***

My friend Tess Thompson and I share one thing in common: we both write love stories for grownups. No, I’m not talking about “romance novels.” The covers of our books don’t feature scantily-clad women with big hair wilting into the muscular arms of some bare-chested hunk. Uh-uh. Our books are about people like us—like you—who wrestle with the complexities of love. And wear more clothes.

Over lunch the other day, Tess asked, “Do you believe in love at first sight?”

I smiled. She had no idea what a big door she’d just opened.

“No, really. I was just wondering,” she said, her eyes narrowing.

“Let me answer that with something I’ve learned from my fan mail,” I said. “Every once in a while I get an email from a reader who simply cannot accept that two people could fall madly, helplessly, joyously in love in the span of, say one week as they do in one of my books. And it breaks my heart, Tess. It’s happened to me twice.”

“Tell me.”

“Okay, but let me tell you about the first time with an excerpt from my novel, The Long Walk Home.  All I will tell you is that while the book is fiction, this scene is completely autobiographical. I’ve only changed the names.”

And so I began:

Alec and Gwynne met in the late-1970s, in New York—the city where he was born and raised. His friend Karen, whom he’d known since high school and who, it seemed to him, had been matchmaking for him ever since, had decided he spent too much time alone writing his books and announced one day that she had arranged a double date. Karen had met Gwynne while shopping at Bergdorf’s on Fifth Avenue, where Miss Davis, as she was known there, was assistant fashion director.

Well, he’d thought glumly, at least she’ll be well-dressed.

“You’ll like her,” Karen said. Then, employing yet another of her endless supply of non sequiturs, she added, “She’s tall.”

When the day came, he found himself standing, somewhat uncomfortably, in the designer lingerie department, which was just outside the fashion office. Karen had left him there while she went to find his date. Alec was idly thumbing through one of the racks, wondering how the prices for things so flimsy could be so breathtakingly high, when a slightly husky female voice behind him said, “Don’t you think those will be a little small for you?”

He turned to respond, tilting his head down to the place where women’s faces generally were, and found himself staring directly at the woman’s breasts. He raised his head slowly, his jaw dropping as he did so, until he was almost certain he was actually looking up into the woman’s warm hazel eyes. Uncharacteristically, he was speechless.

“Alec,” he heard Karen’s voice say, “meet Gwynne.”

Anticipating the usual question, she put her hands on her hips and said, “The answer is, six feet even. Six-three in heels.” Then she flashed him a smile bright as a supernova.

Still trying to recover, Alec blurted, “It’s just that I’ve never . . .”

“No, I don’t suppose you have,” she said, saving him. Then, opening a little window into herself, she leaned a little closer. He could smell her perfume—something musky and exotic—as she whispered, “Relax; it’s really nice to meet a tall man for a change, even a speechless one.”

Then she turned to Karen and said, “Are we having dinner or are we going to stand here and starve to death in the lingerie section?”

While Karen and Gwynne talked over the evening’s plan, Alec registered what his date was wearing: over a pair of tight black jeans, which he had trouble believing anyone made that long, she had tossed an old, award-bedecked Boy Scout shirt he later learned she’d found in a secondhand store on the Lower East Side. She’d sewn in dramatic shoulder pads and replaced the khaki buttons with red ones to match some of the award patches. The oversized shirt was cinched tight at her narrow waist with a thin red leather belt. Several of the top buttons were unbuttoned and she wore a modest black silk camisole edged with lace beneath. Wrapped several times around her swanlike neck and then draped carelessly over both shoulders was a long, black silk crepe scarf that echoed the jeans. Her heels matched the red belt. Her long, softly wavy, light-brown hair had reddish highlights and fell to her shoulders. She wore no jewelry, which, given her professional position, surprised him. The only makeup he could detect was a hint of color on her lips and possibly a blush that highlighted her cheekbones.

Later he would realize that the whole outfit was classic Gwynne: creative, mischievous, unpretentious, and yet—on her, at least—smashing. The fact that she could put things together in a way that looked fabulous but cost almost nothing drove the other women in the fashion office crazy and delighted Bergdorf’s president. He had plans for her.

Alec fell for Gwynne on the spot, in the lingerie department. He felt poleaxed. She did, too. A few weeks later, his mother asked, as mothers will, ‘Is she pretty?’ He thought about this for a moment and answered, “No, not pretty, Mom . . . striking. Beautiful in a handsome sort of way—the way Katharine Hepburn is beautiful.” What was captivating about Gwynne, what galvanized nearly everyone she met, was the joyful energy she radiated. She was luminescent.

“Wow. That actually happened?” Tess asked.

“Yup.”

“And it happened to you another time, too?”

“Uh-huh. But that’s another story. Now, why did you ask?”

 

Will North is the author of nineteen books, the last five novels.  You can learn more about him at www.willnorthonline.com or his Facebook page, Will North, Author.

More about Will…

Will North is the pseudonym, for fiction, of an international award-winning American nonfiction author who has also ghost-written books for Bill Clinton, Al Gore, several famous mountaineers, a team of dinosaur-hunters, and many others.  He came to fiction almost by accident, when an event in his own life led to a story, which led to a heralded debut novel: The Long Walk Home. A second novel, Water, Stone, Heart, soon followed. Both are set in the English countryside, where he has always felt most at home. His latest novel, Seasons’ End, is set on the island in Washington’s Puget Sound where he now lives with his wife, Susan, and their rescue dog, Baxter. In the coming months he returns to England, to the ancient and magical Celtic region of Cornwall, with Harm None, the first in a new series of murder mysteries featuring Detective Inspector Morgan Davies and Scene of Crimes Manager Calum West.