Lynn Rankin-Esquer's Blog, page 7

Kill, Hit, Sing

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Being married to a college coach I have had the chance to see some amazing athletes. I’ve had a front row seat to transcendent moments where talent, passion and effort intersect in a goosebump kind of performance.  It is fun to watch but beyond that it is inspiring because it reveals what is possible as a human being. It makes me believe we all have the ability to do something that well, make that kind of contribution to the world, if we only identify our talent and then work it relentlessly for years.  And if we are lucky, it will come together in a moment that makes all the hard work worth it. If we are lucky, it comes together in a moment of stunning perfection. A third national championship, a four home run night.

Finally settled in from our move from the east bay to Palo Alto, I look around and realize there are a lot of good sporting events happening within a mile of my house. I jump on the volleyball bandwagon and start watching the Stanford women’s team.  It doesn’t take an expert to recognize that this team is playing at a high level, like cruising-altitude-in-a-jet high level. They are so fun to watch, and the most fun of all is Kathryn Plummer. At 6’ 6” with a flowing long blond braid she would be hard to miss but it is the grace and power of her play that is most compelling. I’d hate to be on the other side of the net when Hentz gets another perfect set and Kathryn comes out of the backcourt, rising in the air, arm swinging into one of her lethal kill shots. I could watch that over and over. It is like the Khaleesi on her dragon – undefendable. She has a fearful grace that is power and elegance and fierce competitiveness poured into movement. Her fearful grace led the team to its third national championship in four years and anyone watching that final match knew they were witnessing a physicality as close to perfection as humans can get.

I watch a lot of baseball. I love it. I’ve seen so many exciting games, thrilling moments, crazy calls and comebacks. But until this past year I had never seen one player hit a home run every time he was at bat in a game. Andrew Daschbach is a big, strong, friendly guy, like a golden retriever in Paul Bunyan’s body. And like Paul Bunyan might have done had he played baseball, Andrew eviscerated pitchers in a game against Cal Poly on May 14, 2019. Not only did he hit four home runs in one game, he hit those home runs off four different pitchers. By the fourth time he was up to bat every single person in the stands was holding their breath. Would he do it? Would he manage it one last time? I snuck a look around to find his parents, over in a different section. If my heart was beating fast theirs must have been pounding out of their chests. He made contact but unlike his first three, it wasn’t immediately obvious if it would go out. We all watched, silent, hoping, willing that ball out of the park. After time seemed to stand still the ball cleared the right field fence and the crowd went wild. His teammates went wild. I’m sure his parents went wild, all the parents went wild. I’ve been around athletes for a long time now and I am aware of the years of practice that went into that night. The years of working out, conditioning, eating healthy, hours in batting cages and weight rooms. Of overcoming slumps and injuries and exhaustion and bad calls. Nothing is guaranteed, but on a night like that, all those years of work must feel worth it. We all can feel a sense of potential but how often does it become fully realized? A night like that is a rare chance to feel like the potential has been fully realized, it has been completely fulfilled. The ball soared off into the night, again and again and again, there was no way to improve on that. It was the best that could be done, by anyone, anywhere.

I watch Kathryn and Andrew and feel a hum of possibility in myself. What is it I have to offer the world? What interest and skill do I have to offer, what passion is worth years of my time? What moments might I rise to that level of performance?

Many of us might reach a moment that big, might have a transcendent moment, but in all likelihood, it will not be public. It will not be cheered by masses of people. It will not be broadcast on SportsCenter and Twitter. It doesn’t have to be any less meaningful for that.

Craig and Karen Coane have hosted a Christmas caroling party for 12 years. They have the perfect house for entertaining, open floor plan, cool back deck and back yard, a stunning kitchen. Everyone brings food, mostly crockpots of chili, every variation you can imagine. It is festive and fun and everyone is chatting and enjoying each other and then Craig tunes up his guitar and starts the caroling practice. People are slow to stop talking to each other but eventually we are all pulled in to the music. And then it is time to head out into the neighborhood.  I’ve noticed that over the years, more and more people forego the caroling part of the caroling party, lagging behind inside, enjoying the warmth and the food and the good conversation.  This year, it had rained on and off all day and it was dark and foggy outside. Their beautiful house felt even more cozy. Fewer people than usual headed out to sing.

Then Karen sent a messenger inside to remind people that this was a caroling party, after all. Someone grabbed the microphone and shamed everyone into heading out to sing. We love Craig so much that we all went. The first house or two had people welcoming us. Then we hit a run of houses with babies sleeping, the parents at the door wide eyed in their pleas for silence. And then some houses where no one answered the door. And then a couple more welcoming folks. We sang, chatted on the way to the next house, sang again. The fog gave an eerie look to the world, everything fuzzy, all sharp edges gone.

Then we got to a house we go to every year, one towards the end of the route. There is an old couple who live there, they are slow to open the door but the festive wreath and the porch lights signal they are home and we should wait. Eventually the door opens to reveal them in their robes, beaming and happy to see us.  This year when the door finally opened it was only the man. He told us that his wife had passed away in June. And then tears started to slide down his face.

The group went silent. The laughing and chatting that had accompanied the whole trip stopped. While the rest of us stood tongue-tied, Craig seamlessly shifted from gregarious to compassionate. In a soft voice he told the man he was so sorry to hear that. The man talked about how much they looked forward to the caroling. How much his wife had looked forward to it. And Craig offered more kind words, shifting the whole group into a supportive mood. And then we sang Silent Night. Everyone cried. Even the man as he sang along, his face crumpled in grief, tears streaming. Even the pack of sixteen-year-old boys who, surprisingly, were still along, still singing, seemingly forgetting for this one night that singing carols is uncool.

For the length of that song we were with that man in his grief. I’d like to think it offered him some company in his sadness, a lessening, for a second, of his profound loneliness. I loved every person in that group in that moment. It was a reminder of what life is really about, being truly present with each other in all the parts of life. I will never sing Silent Night again without thinking of that man and that night. I’m not sure I’ll ever sing it again without tears.

Craig has been a musician his whole life. He brings the music wherever he goes. He has a relentless cheery outlook. Without being the least pushy, he inspires people to enjoy life, to sing even if they have no great voice, to dance even with poor moves. Even people who don’t know him are pulled into his charisma, as evidenced by the bartender at the Field of Dreams in Manteca who said ‘you do you Boo!’ to him, as evidenced by the ski resort employee who sold him lift tickets and said, ‘here you go, Craig-a-licious.’

Although he is an accomplished musician, it wasn’t Craig’s skill with music that made this moment – it was his skill with people.  He inspired us to get out and sing which brought us to the very place we were most needed. And he responded with compassion and tenderness to a heartbroken man. He turned an awkward situation into a holy one.

Kathryn Plummer gave all of herself and got her moment. Andrew Daschbach gave all of himself and got his moment.  And Craig Coane did the same and gave us all a moment, singing with the grieving old man. On that damp and foggy night, my voice joining other voices felt as powerful as a Plummer kill, as soaring as a Daschbach home run.

For a beautiful moment, humanity’s potential fulfilled.

 

 

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An Object Lesson from José Altuve

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Having spent a significant amount of thoroughly enjoyable time watching college baseball this spring (my husband Dave coaches the Stanford team) you would think I might be taking a little time off from the sport this summer. Instead, I got home from the NCAA Super Regional at Mississippi State (Lessons From Starkville), did some laundry, and headed out on the 15U travel ball circuit with my son and his GamePrep 2022 team.  We’ve been to Phoenix, Stockton, San Francisco (that one was easy, living as we do in Palo Alto) and finally, Houston. And by Houston I mean that wide swath of Texas that in other parts of the country might qualify as a state all on its own. (I looked it up, it is the 8th most ‘expansive city’ in the US, it is over 1,000 square miles. The city itself.)

I cheerfully, naively, offered to be the parent traveling along with our son this summer, thinking I would have lots of time alone in hotel rooms to write, but somehow the time got all chopped up by getting to the field or getting the boys food or getting together with other parents, something I wanted to do because we are new to the team and I wanted to get to know them.  So I said ‘yes’ and ‘yes’ and ‘yes’ and ‘yes’ again until finally on day five I said ‘wait,’ which gave me the time to get to say ‘no.’ I told them I would drive myself to the game, and that I might be a little late. Claiming this block of time, widening it, took effort, like holding elevator doors open when they are trying to close.

So, there I was, sitting in a hotel room in Houston, my son packed off in someone else’s car to get to warmups. There I was, after watching everybody else in their arenas, finally standing on the edge of my arena.  It was quiet. It was a bit too cold but once the AC cycled off I knew it would feel just right. I had a glass of tea because tea helps almost anything.  Housekeeping had been in so it was relatively cleaned up, by which I mean the beds were made and we had clean towels but I was not about to touch the mound of teenage boy clothes strewn on his side of the room and neither was any sane housekeeper. I was staring out the window at cars streaming by on Route 10, another stream of cars parallel below them on the Frontage road that was practically a highway itself (very odd, this highway along a freeway concept they have in Houston, but I think it works). Beside the freeway there was a billboard that said ‘Get Buck Naked In Katy’ but I couldn’t see the fine print so I had no idea what that referred to. I made a mental note to check it out the next time I was on the freeway. I wasn’t about to get buck naked in Katy but I was curious about who was. It was a place to start, though, looking at freeways.

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I always imagined driving in Texas would be a matter of wide highways through dusty brown expanses, pickup trucks mixing with eighteen wheelers, plenty of space in between, wickedly hot sun blazing down on it all. Like Thelma and Louise minus Brad Pitt and the leap off the Grand Canyon. Peaceful-like. Instead, at least around Houston, it is like kayaking through six rivers, converging and splitting and merging back together again.  Every day the trip to the field (thirty miles away, in Houston everything seems to be thirty miles away) took us along several highways, four lane and seven lane freeways with exits all over the place, left side, middle, right side, split into EZTrac lanes and Exact Coins lanes and Cash Not Exact Coin lanes. Rush hour traffic filled with cars, pickups, eighteen wheelers and three separate times, two oversized trailers traveling caravan style with both sides of a double wide house lumbering along while the rest of traffic streamed around them.  Living in the San Francisco Bay area I’m no stranger to traffic but was still surprised that going out to dinner it took us an hour to go twenty miles, and the last four miles were half of that.

The freeway exchanges looked like a group of octopuses playing twister (and yes, I checked, the plural of octopus is octopuses).  ‘Exit right then stay to the left’ my GPS helpfully instructs me and the exit ramp went high in the air before it split dramatically left or right and I felt like my car was about to be launched into space if I didn’t brake properly, but not too fast because there were lots of cars right behind me.

[image error]This is a baby octopus – I was too busy navigating the more complicated ones to get a picture. Imagine this with three more exchanges on top and you get the idea.

So everyone there at Cy-Fair Sports complex in Cypress at the New Balance Future Stars tournament made their own pilgrimage.  We took planes and rental cars and arranged hotel rooms and trekked our 30 miles through octopus exchanges and put on our sunscreen and filled up our water bottles and made sure our sons had their 33 inch Victus and Marucci bat, worked-in glove, and the blue jersey with gray pants today.  And we sweated in the heat and checked Gamechanger for accurate scores.  Most parents at this tournament probably think their son is good enough to play in college, if not beyond.  The reality is that some players at this tournament will get college offers, and of those, some might actually be starters in college, and of those, some might actually get drafted, and of those, some might actually make it to the major leagues. It won’t be all of these boys. It might be one or two of them. It might be none.

This is unpopular news for the parents.

What makes all this effort worth it?

Is it the wins?

Is it the chance to get better?

Is it the pride of a great performance?

Is it the chance, no matter how small, to move on to the next level?

I kept thinking about this, wondering about the sanity of all of us parents out there in the dusty heat, inflated dreams of professional baseball, money hemorrhaging from our bank accounts. What is the point?

And then we went to an Astros game and I got my answer.

Minute Maid Park was very cool (literally and metaphorically) and walking in from the searing heat for a 1:00 Wednesday game I could fully appreciate the brilliance of putting a dome over a stadium in Texas. That place was packed and jumping with energy and it made me wonder if anyone in Houston has jobs or if they were playing hooky or if Astros fans are just so devoted they said what the heck, I’m going.

The Astros were playing the A’s and a couple of my husband Dave’s former players from his time at Cal, Marcus Semien and Mark Canha, play for the A’s. Watching someone you actually have met, someone you know stories about, makes the MLB seem more real.  And we know their stories. For example, Dave thought so highly of Mark Canha in college that he named an award after him, calling him a “program changer” for how intensely he played to win, worked hard, and willed his teammates into following his example.  And Marcus wasn’t just the shortstop who got them to the College World Series in Omaha but also a graceful, classy player who was beloved by his teammates. Dave always marveled at how close Marcus was to his family, especially his grandmother. It is hard not to like someone who so openly loves his grandmother. It was a thrill for my son to see guys he grew up watching as college players, people he knows as actual people, stepping onto a major league field. In person, not on TV, which makes more of a difference than you might think, the in-person-ness of it. It is a visceral experience, like when you are at a concert and you feel the music in vibrating in your chest.

Aside from rooting for individual success for Marcus and Mark we were cheering for the Astros for lots of reasons, not the least of which was manager AJ Hinch.  Dave was an assistant at Stanford when AJ was an All American catcher and a two time Pac-10 player of the year there and they have remained quite close over the years. We have followed AJ through his playing days in the major leagues to his managing days with the Diamondbacks, his GM days with the Padres, and now as a manager with the Astros where he not only rallied support for Houston in the days after the flood, but oh yeah, won a World Series.  AJ set us up with premier seats so we were up close to all the action (there are definitely some perks in being married to a baseball coach).

Watching baseball on TV is sometimes . . . not super exciting.  And maybe sometimes even watching baseball in person is not super exciting. It can be slow. And there are a lot of innings. And there are so many games in a season players aren’t always at peak energy for every single game. But at a major league game when the crowd is large and energized and the players are having fun and you are sitting close enough that the players aren’t a little speck, well, that can be a lot of fun.

And in this way, the Astros did not disappoint. The crowd was loud and animated, and the game was exciting with good offense, good defense, and a couple of lead changes. Not only did we get to see Justin Verlander pitch (and I got a kick out of watching the boys with us look around surreptitiously for Kate Upton, with no luck), we got to see the homerun train do its trip around the top of the stadium several times.

One of those train trips was on a José Altuve homerun and sitting that close we were able to feel the impact of Altuve’s joyous energy as he rounded third and hit home plate. I’ll tell you something, José Altuve is a guy who is bursting with the fun of the game. It pours out of him. It is contagious, infectious, thrilling.  It was like we were in the splash zone at Seaworld and got completely, happily, doused with his excitement. A ten year old hitting his first home run couldn’t look happier, and this was a midweek, afternoon game.

This is where I found my answer to why we put so much time and effort into baseball.

The joy.

[image error]Check out our seats! Any closer and we would have been part of the grounds crew.

Watching teams play, 15U or major league, it is clear not all of the players have that same level of joy, or have it all the time even if they have it sometimes. But when it is there, it is a privilege to be in its presence. It is so fun it becomes a shared joy. I felt lifted by Altuve’s joy, a little like I had hit the homerun.

This is my wish for my son, that he can get even close to the level of joy that Altuve plays with. That in a routine, midweek game, the game still brings such unrestrained fun. In a dusty small nowhere town or in a packed stadium it is still just about the joy of playing.

I’ve always loved Howard Thurman’s quote, “Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it.  Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.”

Altuve has found what brings him alive, it was abundantly clear. That is what I wish for my son. For my daughter. For me. For all of us. And if baseball stops making my son come alive, I hope he has the courage to quit and go find the thing that does.

But before he quits I also hope he tests himself. I hope he learns something about what sustained effort (aka the grind) can bring you. Most of all I hope he learns to find joy in the effort.  Not just the wins, not just the homeruns, but in the journey. Anyone who made it to the major leagues has lived the grind, and Altuve looks like he found a way to do that with the joy intact.  What a pure pleasure to watch someone who has figured that out. I hope my son learns that over time, when you don’t quit just because it is hard, you learn something about yourself. You learn you can trust yourself and there aren’t many better feelings than that. Which is to say, when you find yourself in the octopus, and you aren’t sure you are headed anywhere close to the right direction, you know something about yourself, you know you’ll adjust and keep driving until you get there.

Joy intact.

Lessons from Starkville

I grew up north of Pittsburgh, so, naturally, I’m a Steeler fan to the core. I may have been swaddled in a Terrible Towel in the hospital.  I went to graduate school in Chapel Hill so I’m a Tarheel basketball fan – no matter how many years it’s been since I lived there, the sky is still Carolina Blue to me.  I’ve watched teams win playoff games and Super Bowls and national championships. I was downtown Chapel Hill in the driving rain in 1993 celebrating their win.  I’ve been married to a college baseball coach for over twenty years so I’ve seen too many baseball games to count. And in all these years, I’ve never experienced anything quite like a Mississippi State baseball game.

I had the chance to go to Starkville, Mississippi in June of this year for the college baseball Super Regional between Stanford (my husband’s team) and Mississippi State.  Having lived in the south for seven years I had a few ideas about what to expect (good BBQ, friendly people, a summer humidity that makes every day a bad hair day).  And I found those things but so much more. And I learned a couple of things.

1. HailState fans really want to win.

2. HailState fans are friendly.

3. The combination of #1 and #2  is likely to produce a cognitive dissonance that your brain will never fully resolve the whole time you are there. They will blow out your ear drums cheering for their team while handing you a bowl of jumbalaya and a beer. They will genuinely hug you, praise your players, and thank you for your coaches while crushing your CWS dreams into a powder finer than the perfectly manicured baselines. They will shake your hands and walk you to the parking lot after you lose and you will hug them back and thank them and get in the car and be hit with the brutally sudden end of the season and wonder how you could have possibly been smiling just a minute ago.

Their fans embraced our players.  They made friends with the outfielders, giving them food, getting hats and selfies in return.

[image error]Kyle Stowers with some outfield fans

They reposted pictures of our team, promised to follow Stanford if we ended up winning the series.  HailState fans on Twitter vowed to come out to Palo Alto for games, a friendliness that was a marked contrast to some other teams.  Like in the Stanford Regional when an opponent on purpose bought tickets on the Stanford side and then, seemingly drunk (I’m going to give him the benefit of the doubt) let loose a stream of off-color taunts and heckling at such a volume that he was mercifully moved back with his tribe.  Before he was relocated (by the ever present, ever respectful but effective red coats) I heard him say he bought his tickets while drunk and thought it would be funny. He was big and loud and obscene and while it was entertaining for a while, it seemed inevitable that he’d either fight someone or be removed.  13,000 fans in Dudy Noble field and rivers of alcohol out in the Left Field Lounge and I didn’t hear one of those kind of guys (then again, once the game started it was hard to hear anything. Every pitch a cheer, every play applause, music and chants the whole game. )

4. There is a new concept for baseball fields and it involves tailgating terraces and LOFTS. It’s flagship is Dudy Noble Field, aka The Dude.

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I didn’t even know it was possible to have a stadium with lofts and tailgating terraces in the outfield.  Now that I have seen it, lived it, I wouldn’t mind bringing it home with me. Sunken Diamond is beautiful and elegant and I do so love watching home runs sail off into the trees but I wouldn’t mind seeing the home runs sail off into a haze of grill smoke either.

[image error]The Left Field Lounge – grills, smokers, furniture, coolers – it’s all here.
[image error]The sole purpose of these lofts is to watch baseball!

 

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I’ve never walked through security into a baseball game behind someone carrying a bag of charcoal.  Into the stadium.

I kinda think that if there is ever to actually be a Rapture, a spontaneous rising of thousands of people into the sky, it will happen at The Dude.  The energy of 13,000 people who love their team, love every one of their boys fiercely, is hard to imagine unless you are there. The chanting, the music, the wave, the cloud of smoke across the entire outfield, it is unrelenting.  It is never quiet there. It is a roar of joy and fun.  I felt like I was at a megachurch and Jake Mangum was the preacher.

5. Your visit is incomplete if you don’t get time with ‘Big E.’

Mississippi State was best exemplified for me not by Jake Mangum (a deserved hero, a kid who sounds so amazing we’d all like to have him as a son-in-law) but by Everett Kennard, aka ‘Big E.’  He drove our bus from the Memphis airport to Starkville and by the end of the drive we felt like we’d known him forever. It turns out he’s a Starkville native, drove for Mississippi State sports teams for years before starting his own bus company, and knows everything you’ll ever need to know about visiting Mississippi State.

Before we even made it to the hotel Big E had arranged for the team to go to The Little Dooey for dinner, an outstanding introduction to Starkville.

[image error]There’s a good chance you are about to eat excellent BBQ when you roll up on this out front of the restaurant.
[image error]The Little Dooey did not disappoint.

Big E is tall, strong looking, and chatty, like if Jack Reacher drove a bus and was friendly.  He was a tour guide, concierge, a historian (directed us to the Ulysses Grant Presidential Library, which was time well spent). Big E was ours for the duration, stayed at the hotel, ready to take the team anywhere at any time.  He shuttled a couple of us to the local airport to pick up rental cars, keeping the big bus and an SUV on site depending on the needs.

Big E seems to know and like everybody, and everybody knows and likes him. On the drive from Memphis he and Dave realized they have a common friend, former University of Arizona head coach Andy Lopez.  Big E texted Andy and within a minute Dave’s phone rang. Andy, excited for Dave to have a chance to hang with Big E.

Big E was more than the driver getting a team from one place to another. Big E embodied the hospitality, the warmth, the friendliness of Starkville. He made everyone comfortable and brought every bit of himself to the world through that job. What I learned from Big E is that the job doesn’t define you, you define the job.  He took a job and made it a calling and this made me realize we can take any task in front of us and bring our full self to it and give something to the world. As someone who spends more time in the stands than in the arena these days, someone who also drives everyone around to their arenas, I found this heartening.

You could do worse than to follow Big E on twitter @Dogbusdriver

[image error]Big E on a road trip to the Cape, visiting all his boys – here with Stanford’s Tim Tawa

 

6. There’s no place like home.

When it was all over, when the last out was recorded and the smoke started to clear from the outfield, the final handshakes and hugs exchanged, when the last hope of going to Omaha was gone, home started to look like the best place to be. When the bus pulled into the parking lot outside of the Sunken Diamond, sunny and unseasonably warm, it carried this particular group of players together for the last time (eight players graduated, a different combination of eight were drafted). The end of your college career is emotional enough, but this group seems especially close. Sunken Diamond has been their home, has been the place where they forged a brotherhood, and for all the fun in playing somewhere like Dudy Noble Field, in the end it is those relationships that will be the lasting legacy of their time on the Stanford baseball team. A team, like the military, like a family, has the chance to form deep connections from going through intense experiences together. You might not even like some of those people but you are forever bonded with them in your shared experiences. Only those other people can truly understand your experience because they had it too. My husband’s best friends are still the ones he won and lost with at the Sunken Diamond.  It is the thing he tries most to develop for his team, that brotherhood. Of course he wants to win too, but the brotherhood is both a means and an end in that process.

So we are home, and I feel grateful.  For the season I just witnessed, for all of the seasons to come.  For the players, the fans, the cool evenings, the extraordinary beauty of the Stanford campus and the stunning Sunken Diamond (not a lot of better places to play baseball, it is a jewel). Stanford is a special place and I, for one, am looking forward to showing it off and welcoming fans with the same level of hospitality as the Mississippi State fans. Palo Alto has a lot to offer, it is filled with great restaurants and beautiful hiking trails and lots of amazing people. Stanford is filled with smart people, kind people, charming people, and fans that love their team just as much as anyone in Starkville. People here have done incredible things. Come out and maybe I’ll tell you the full story about the time I was at my mentor’s house, chatting with his elderly neighbor only to discover he invented the laser.  Everyone out here has a “Stanford Story” and you’ll be well entertained if you ask them for it.

Thank you HailState fans, we’re here at Sunken Diamond, ready to return the hospitality.  Come find your own Stanford story.

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The Joy We Bring

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One of my best memories growing up was my mom’s yearly ritual of making raspberry jam.  The sweet, steamy smell in a kitchen scattered with stacks and stacks of flats of fresh raspberries, many huge pots bubbling at once.  The buckets of sugar that went into those pots! All the rows of canning jars with their two part lids, the screw around part and the round center.  Why did it have to be in two parts?

That jam had the most amazing taste, I could imagine I was Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm eating that jam. Like the raspberries grew right outside my window in a sunny patch of heaven. We would spread it on toast, with melted butter underneath and the butter and the jam would merge together in the tastiest salty-sweet combination.  Long before chefs started adding sea salt to caramel, the salty butter-raspberry jam combo hit all those taste buds in the most delectable way. It was like eating a sunny summer day and she froze a lot of the jam so we could have that feeling all winter long.

She’d be sweaty and harried by the end of the day (my memory is that it took all day, and it must have) but at the end there would be this whole regiment of neatly lined up jars of jam.  Loads of people got those as gifts and every one of them treasured the jam. In a time before eating sugar caused guilt it was a simply delicious experience, that jam.

Writing this makes me wonder what kind of memories I’ve given my kids.  I wonder what they will reach back and think of when someone asks what was great about their childhood?  What will they remember of me as a mom of young kids?

It won’t be raspberry jam or any of the other amazing things my mom baked (her peach pies were right up there with the jam).  I like to cook but I’m not much of a baker, which is surprising given the amount I like sweets.

Will it be the afternoons we sat on the little couch on the side of the kitchen and had “Bookies and Cookies” time? I wonder if they even remember that.

I’d like to think they will remember all the nights I sat reading to them, first in a rocking chair and then on their beds.  For years, every single night, even after they were skilled readers themselves.  Even the times I fell asleep while reading out loud. (How do you do that?  Fall asleep while words are still coming out of your mouth?)

Or the silly ‘Where’s My Spoon?’ game I made up, hiding a spoon in my sleeve or down the back of my pants only to make it magically appear.  They were in awe of me then.

Or how often I let a pack of wild kids destroy the house in an epic battle of Nerf guns, Nerf bullets everywhere (we just moved and Nerf bullets came out from under almost every piece of furniture all these years later).

Or will they remember the places I took them, like skiing, something their dad doesn’t do?  Or the beach, because I love the beach so much. I turn into relaxed mom at the beach.  Permissive mom. Go-ahead-and-be-dangerous mom.

Like the time we got into a huge pillow fight in the hotel in Half Moon Bay – and how I stood laughing and defiant on the bed, face flushed, arms swinging wildly, while they stared at me in amazed delight (and a little bit of fear, I think).

That was the same trip I let them play on the beach in the pouring rain, let them jump over and over off of dangerously high sand dunes, while they continuously glanced at me to be sure I was really permitting this.  Shrieking in excitement with each jump. And then sopping wet and cold we went for ice cream.  Ice cream. Instead of “let’s get dried off before you get pneumonia.”

It makes me sad to think their first thoughts of me as a mom won’t be the fun mom.  Probably not even their second or third thoughts. So maybe the Half Moon Bay experience will really stand out.

But it’s more likely they’ll remember the times I got absurdly angry.  Like when I found my son, maybe 3 and daughter, 4, crouched in the raised sand box peeing.  Both of them.  I dragged them inside and sat them each in a dining room chair, one in the dining room and one in the family room (somehow it seemed important to separate them) and shaking with rage I slammed down the open windows so no one would hear me yelling and call social services.  Then I stood between the two rooms and screamed back and forth, heart racing, voice vibrating in outrage.  I asked the four year old, why did you do that? YOU know better and she pointed towards the other room and said “because he did” and I turned and yelled at him and then her, back and forth, voice cracking in anger.  “Are you MONKEYS!? Do you think we live in a ZOO?  Why would you pee in the sandbox!???”

And they couldn’t stop laughing and I couldn’t calm myself down but even in that moment I knew they would laugh at this until the end of time.

It is an unpredictable thing, memory.

As parents we can exhaust ourselves doing everything we think they need and want, trying to give them morals and skills and good memories but we can’t really control what they will remember.  It seems unlikely it will be what we want them to remember.  And probably not what we spent the most money on.

My parents spent a lot of money on us, comparatively.  We went on nice trips, we had all the clothes we needed/wanted.  We had the newest Encyclopedia Britannicas, nice cars, piles of Christmas presents.

What do I best remember?

The raspberry jam.  The excitement of family arriving on Thanksgiving Day with the smell of the turkey in the oven from early in the morning.  Staying up late to watch HBO movies with my dad (Serial, with Martin Mull, we laughed so hard).  I remember my mom having a burping competition with my brother in the parking lot of a Cape May restaurant while my dad went in to see if they had a reservation for us.  My dad balancing me on a raft in the surf in Ocean City, over and over helping me catch and ride wives. Hosting parties to watch the Steelers while we all waved Terrible towels with amazing food in every single room (everyone wanted an invitation to our parties, in large part due to my mom’s extraordinary food).  Sitting around the dinner table in debate, my dad seeming willing to take any opposite side just to get us to think critically. Challenging us to open our minds and support our arguments with well-crafted questions.

It strikes me that the good memories that surface are the things my parents themselves cared about most.  The things that brought them joy.  My mom was (and is) a passionate cook and baker.  Her excitement and love for good food made these memories for me.  My dad was a skilled debater and loved a good movie (still does both).

In these days when it feels like we are checklist parents, when we are so continuously connected online so we see what every other parent is doing, it is only too easy to feel compelled to keep adding experiences for our kids.  I worry that we haven’t traveled enough with our kids, I worry that I haven’t taken them camping (actually I don’t worry about that, I hate camping), I wonder if we should have taken snorkel lessons together or done a train trip.

But then I think of my good memories growing up and how it was the stuff that my mom and dad each loved that made so many of my happy memories.

This is a huge relief to me, because I have my own passions, as does my husband.  Maybe what my kids will remember will have something to do with reading or writing or running, or Costco trips, or the joy of having a TV in every room, or mentoring, or maybe a little something about baseball (I’ll leave it a mystery who brought each of these passions, me or their dad, or maybe not such a mystery at that).

So maybe it isn’t about a checklist at all, maybe it is the joy we bring (which cannot be faked, or bought) that will leave the good memories.

And of course they will always have the shared memory of the joy of peeing in the sandbox.

 

 

Imagining Christine Blasey Ford

I’m imagining I’m Christine Blasey Ford.  It isn’t hard. I’m around the same age.  I have the same hair style in old photos. I went to college with hard partying boys.  I’m an east coaster who now lives in Palo Alto as a psychologist.  I have my own #metoo moments. I could be her, life blown apart, regretful.

Because I’m not her, I can imagine something else. I want to tell her this.  Your honesty, at such severe price to you, was NOT in vain.  It didn’t serve the purpose you thought it would, but I have a feeling it will live on in history serving a purpose all its own.  A clear, honest, forthright, completely believable, story of abuse that was told at great price to you in a way that served no advancement for any part of your life.  It stands as the truth even though it did not have the effect you hoped it would have.  It serves to tell abused people everywhere (men and women) that to stand and tell the truth, even in vain, is a more worthwhile endeavor than all the distraction and sleight of hand manipulations that those insular beltway types have talked themselves into believing is okay. You did the right thing and nothing and no misguided misanthrope career politician can take that away from you.  You calmly and collectedly told your truth and you have no idea how many of us believed you, identified with you, hoped your words would make the difference.

They didn’t in this situation, but in the end, maybe that is not the point (you, and we, SO hoped it would be the point. But it wasn’t).  History will show that your terrified willingness to stand up and tell the world what happened to you, and to tell it in such a credible, educated and informed way, is the thing that mattered to the women of the world.  Not your fault that those privilege addicted white men were blind to your truth. Not your fault that allegiance to their tribe twisted their brains into outrageously ridiculous rationalizations for supporting such a subpar nominee (if anyone wants to look into the research on tribe, it might help, ever so slightly, to explain this inexplicable behavior).

It was truth.

It IS truth.

Nothing can take that away from you.

Or us.

As you face a completely unraveled life, as you start to figure out how to recreate everything (we just moved and it almost undid our family – you are facing way more of a re-creation) please hold on to this fact.  You are now an unwilling, unlikely, reluctant heroine for so many of us.  You will never know the count.  Maybe when you wake in the night with your heart racing and your brain fighting against itself to come back to calm (we psychologists have it the worst – we feel like we know how we should do it but life sometimes hands us such a challenge that we can’t, so then we lie there adding even more fuel to the fire, castigating ourselves for not using all our knowledge to help ourselves) you can remember that there are so many of us out here grateful for your courage.  We are grateful that you stood there, in the spotlight, knowing the likely futility and backlash, but still willing to take the chance that it could make a difference. We are grateful that someone in that zoo that has become Washington, told a calm, clear truth, voice shaking but sure.

Sometimes the ones who really need to hear this kind of truth aren’t just the judges, the arbiters of the outside world, the voters-in of supreme court justices, but the uncertain, victimized, internal brains.  The voice inside our heads that say maybe we were wrong, maybe we were complicit, maybe we shouldn’t have gone to that party, drunk that beer, worn that shirt.  Maybe it turns out that we, all of us women who have been in your shoes or close to them, are really the ones who will benefit from your testimony.

Maybe your courage will help us come close to speaking the truth too, in our lives. With way less publicity and drama and consequence but, still, hard to do.

Your testimony was not in vain.  Your careful expression of truth was a model of dignified courage and will resonate in many, many lives for years to come.

The outcome is not the proof of truth. The speaking of the truth is the thing.  Those who could not hear it were, in my opinion, the victims. The people who could not bring themselves to face the clear and obvious truth you described are narrow and misguided and living in fear, which is its own victimhood. You, Dr. Ford, have risen above victimhood, because you told your truth and owned your life and everyone who has hid in shame for something someone else did wrong got it.

Thank you.

 

 

 

34 Ways I Have Succeeded as a Mother

Having posted 34 Ways I Have Failed as a Mother it only feels fair (to my kids and me) to recognize that there are many ways I’ve succeeded as a mother. This is perhaps even more important than acknowledging my failures because in the typhoon season called adolescence it is easy to forget all the years of things we have done well as parents, and things they have done well as kids.

For instance, both of my children have been successfully potty trained for a number of years now (I know! I’m impressive).  They have acquired language (lots of it! Some of it colorful), and know how to safely cross the street. They can put themselves to bed! (No long drawn out bedtime ritual, no popping back out of their rooms.) They know their own address, can find their way back home from all sorts of places, know how to unlock the front door (assuming they haven’t lost the keys, but even if they did they know how to access the lock box with the extra keys).  It may seem that I am padding my list with these items but they are important, imagine if they couldn’t do them!  Imagine still wiping their bottoms. The cost alone of buying star stickers for the potty reward chart all these years could be a tuition payment.

They can both roast a chicken Thomas Keller-style, make spaghetti sauce from scratch, grill a steak and stuff a turkey.  My daughter can make beef stroganoff, my son veal picatta.  They can clean a bathroom, clean their clothes, clean out the dishwasher, steam clean the carpet (I didn’t say they do these things willingly, or cheerfully but they know how).

My daughter can drive a car!  Sure, she had four lessons with a professional but most of the rest of the time it was me in that car with her teaching her when to slow down versus speed up at a yellow light (me and God, I prayed almost continuously but we got that job done).

My son can change a tire (I’m taking credit for this because I encouraged him to take Auto at school).  Years ago he and I assembled a Green Machine from a hundred parts so he knows how to follow directions and use tools.  He knows how to tolerate frustration because we spent an hour struggling to figure out why we couldn’t get the wheel on only to figure out we were doing it backwards (that also might have been when he picked up some of that colorful language, so I get to take credit even for that).

They know how to ask for help in a store, and from a teacher.  They each have done the family grocery shopping by themselves.  They can use debit cards and have savings accounts.  They know to save at least 10% of every bit of money that comes in and they know about compounding interest. They know another percentage is for sharing. They know I give money to homeless people because I’d rather be scammed once in a while than walk by someone in need.

They know to always stop at a kids’ lemonade stand, and always buy the Girl Scout cookies.  They know how to be kind to many people (not each other, the Arabs and the Israelis could learn how to prolong a conflict from these two).

Then there is an entire list of ways in which my kids are each succeeding as people independent of anything I (or their dad) have done.  My part in that success is just noticing what they are doing on their own and not screwing it up by trying to get my grubby hands on the controls.  My daughter has a wittiness that catches me by surprise so often, it is sophisticated and hysterical and can make me even laugh at myself. My son asks to go on walks with me and explains deep philosophical theories that just astound me.  They both are so creative and curious and every age has made them more fascinating to me.

Although there are many things my kids have each learned on their own, the list of things I taught them is long. Every single thing on my list took time and effort from me (and of course, my husband has his own list, I’m not a single parent, except for baseball season, then I’m most definitely a single parent).  If, like the scouts, I had a badge for everything I have taught them over the years my sash would be too heavy to wear. Thinking about this is helpful on the days where my failures are so robustly and continuously pointed out.  On the very worst day, when my meal is criticized and my movie selection derided and my need for glasses to read anything on my phone is met with contempt, I can watch one of them come out of the bathroom, the sound of a toilet flushing behind them, and congratulate myself on not being needed in that endeavor at all.

34 Ways I Have Failed as a Mother

Let’s be honest, there are more than 34 but the full summary would require several volumes. However, I can offer a snapshot of my failures, which fall into three categories:  Things I Forgot, Things I Did Wrong, and my favorite, My Basic Personal Flaws.  Lucky for me I have not one, but two kids who are very committed to helping me correct all these flaws.

Apparently, I forget… a lot.  I forget to keep their favorite clothes clean at all times, I forget to sign permission slips that I’ve never even seen, I forget to remind them to take PE clothes even though I will never master Even vs Odd days (oh how I love you, block schedule).  I forget that I’m not supposed to sing along to music in front of people. It’s been pointed out that I forget to season the meat, I forget I should learn how to cook ethnic food, I forget to buy good snacks.  In fact, I forget to have anything good to eat around here at all.

The trouble my forgetfulness causes is equaled only by the things I actually do wrong.  I have incensed my family by falling asleep during movies, failing to telepathically discover I am to buy 36 solo cups for today’s football dinner, by mistakenly purchasing the wrong student card for school events.  My lunches are apparently not tasty, no matter that it is challenging to make a lunch for two people who don’t eat sandwiches and prefer a hot lunch, but not the hot lunch provided by the school, those are disgusting.  It turns out that I talk too loudly into my car blue tooth speaker (I’ve been told you can hear it outside the car!).  I buy the wrong cereal and the wrong root beer.  My salmon selection is all wrong too, I have a knack for buying only the salmon that tastes fishy. I showed up too early for the JV football game. I spoke to my son in public. I pointed out a cute boy to my daughter.  Some of these border on the unforgiveable but I’m blessed to have children who have hearts big enough to still eat my boring meals and begrudgingly find a different shirt to wear when the favorite is dirty.  They’re the best.

And then there are the personal flaws.  I’m so grateful to have these pointed out so I can work on them!  Apparently I’m too restrictive, I worry too much, I have way too many rules (more than any other parent!), I am uptight.  I’ve been accused of being no fun, of not caring about my children, of not even knowing who they are.  It also turns out I care too much about hygiene, I have this weird obsession with chores, and I’m too preoccupied with being on time.  My eyesight is a continual annoyance (“you should just get Lasik surgery!  Stop always looking for a pair of glasses.”). Until I had children I didn’t even know that I don’t throw a ball well or that I run appallingly slow. All those years of dance class did not pay off, resulting as they did in embarrassing dance moves. Luckily my texting skills are such a source of entertainment.

I know I am a work in progress and I appreciate their moments of patience with me.  But I am proud of one thing, I did not fail at producing expressive kids.  Future spouses and bosses, you are welcome!

 

Hello Inconvenience

We are in a period of history in which the meaning of ‘truth’ is being cheapened, but really, the concept of truth has been a source of conflict since people could talk to each other. The world has been telling people who to be forever.  Tribes (family, schools, culture) tell you what to do to belong, what you should think and do and be.  What they tell you doesn’t always fit with what you know and it can be a lifelong struggle to let that truth out.

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The Gift of the Table

 

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Is it amazing how hard it is to get rid of a kitchen table.  A long ago Ikea purchase, it was not expensive to begin with.  It was well used enough that I painted the top to freshen it up – painted it with black chalk board paint in an uncharacteristic fit of whimsy. It turns out it doesn’t work in our new house.

And so begins the end of life journey of the table (and it’s been a journey!).

I tried to find an organization to donate it to, looked online for a group that would pick it up.  Found one, sent a picture, they gave me a quote of $250, which is more than the table cost new.

I called a couple other places, nothing easily arranged.

I finally realized I could fit it in the back of my SUV with all the seats down and drove it to Goodwill.

They didn’t want it.

They gave me address of a Salvation Army in San Jose.  Found the time to drive it there.

They didn’t want it.

I spent some time feeling a bit offended that the table we had used daily until now is so decrepit, no one else wants it.  Not even the places that take almost anything else.  They took my used pillows but not this table?

In for a dime, in for a dollar.  I was already half way to the dump so I drove the additional ten more miles with the table banging around in the back of my SUV.  I was tired of trying so hard to get rid of this table, I had a million other things to do.  But I wanted it gone.  So I end up on Guadalupe Mine Road and start winding up a hill.  And winding and up and winding and up.  Get to the top and wait in line of cars.

Waiting in line to get rid of stuff.  We are such an abundant country, we have so much stuff, that we have to wait in line and pay to get rid of it.

I am told it will cost me $55 to drop this table off.  It’s a deal.  The attendant hands me a new yellow safety vest, it’s required before you step out of your car.

So not only is it this challenging to get rid of something, it is also apparently dangerous.

He says, ‘you can recycle this, it’s all wood.  Go to the bottom of the hill, just follow the signs.’

I am relieved that it will be recycled.  I had been feeling guilty that it would just get added to the landfill, that something with life left in it will not get life. Guilty that our trash footprint might get bigger.

I pull away.

No signs.

Just dirt roads, winding around. No actual dump to be seen anywhere either.  Just hills and dusty roads.

I follow them clear to bottom.  Nothing here.

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I follow the road back up and down another hill.  Nothing there.

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I am laughing (while noticing how dusty my car is now, a definite car wash in our future).  What force of nature will not allow me to release this table?

I almost hit a family of deer.  Deer at the dump? What planet have I landed on?  This place is isolated and eerie and looks like a place you could dump a body, not a table.

I finally go back up the hill and find the recycling center (still no signs but the massive pile of wood remnants clues me in).

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I see a van with two men in it, also in spanking brand new neon vests.  I get out and say ‘this is recycling?’

They nod and gesture to the pile.

I unload the chairs first and set them by the pile.  One of the men runs over and picks it up.  “This is good!” he says.  I can tell he wants it, despite all the signs posted everywhere saying ‘No scavenging or dump privileges revoked.’ (Now there’s a punishment.)

Then he sees the table come out and gets even more excited.  I see him eyeing his van, it would definitely fit. He exchanges a look with his buddy.  They look around. We are the only people in sight. I secretly hope that they take the table and chairs and give them more life as a table and chairs, not just firewood.  I’m grateful someone still sees them as useful, feel proud for them after their humiliation at the hands of both Goodwill and the Salvation Army.

I give the guy the nod and he gives me the two fingered peace sign.

I drive away, hopeful that the exchange meant what I think it meant, that he will take the table and chairs.  And yet, the image of the table and chairs, still intact, next to a pile of nothing intact leaves me sad.

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I feel emotional and have to hunt around in my head to find out why.  I’ve been trying for weeks to get rid of that table.  I’ve driven that table too many miles already and want it gone. It doesn’t fit anywhere in our house and I’m anxious to get all the extra stuff out so that the house feels organized and clean and soothing.  There is so much extra stuff, too many books and boxes and bathroom supplies and Tupperware containers.  Our old life had too much in it.  I’m looking forward to simplifying and streamlining and hanging onto only the things we use and need.

But as I wind down the hill the pictures of our family at that table start floating by.  How I chose it for it’s exact fit in our old kitchen.  How I strapped booster seats to the chairs for the kids when they were little.  How I painted the top with black chalk board paint so they could draw on it. Watching them do homework on it, eating countless dinners on it.  There were squabbles across that table, and secrets told and manners learned (hopefully).  There was artwork composed and milkshakes spilled and board games played until their explosive ends (our family is competitive).

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That table represents a big chunk of our lives as a family, it was the place we circled around and fed our bodies and fed our souls.  And of course we have a table in the new house and of course we can do those things in other places, but it was this table that holds all the history.

And I just left it at the dump. It feels wrong, like I abandoned a family pet.

I resist the urge to turn around and go rescue it.  It’s time with us has passed.

But it stays with me, this melancholy that seems greater than the loss of a table.  In looking for the picture to go with the story I end up going through hundreds of pictures from when my kids were little and I end up pinned to my chair with an unnerving wistfulness.  I haven’t spent a lot of time looking backwards as a parent.  Too much focus on the demands of the now, too much worry about the near and far future.  But looking at these pictures of my little ones unsettles me.  Usually when I see old pictures of them I am so happy.  They are so cute!  Look at the 18 month old swinging a bat at the ball on a tee.  Look at the one year old smashing cake in her face.  But now, maybe it is the emotional upheaval of a move, maybe it is having two kids in high school, maybe it is menopausal hormones, but now the looking backwards is swamping me with nostalgia.

Two days later, I figure out why.

It is more regret than nostalgia.  More of a regret that I didn’t fully live each of those moments with my kids.  Oh sure, sometimes I did.  And I enjoyed them, no doubt.  But there were many times I was too consumed with taking care of them.  Consumed with their schedules and immunizations and play groups and sports sign ups and keeping them from running into the street.

If I could go back I would really relax into more of the moments. I would truly be present.  Clichéd but true, that living in the present moment is a richness beyond measure. I’m sad that I missed so many opportunities to just relax into those moments with them. Sit and watch them color instead of being glad they were entertained while I made dinner. Sit in the grass and watch them scrawling chalk designs on the driveway instead of cleaning the garage while I kept an eye on them (that one really gets me, that garage never got cleaned up!).  Give myself over to the moments more often.

The irony is not lost on me.  In this very moment, I’m doing it again, longing for the past instead of living in this moment.

And there are so many riches to this present. Watching movies together, walking/running together, laughing at dinner together. Riding in the car as my daughter drives. Really listening as my son tells me a story about school.

The gift of the table is that I am recommitted to living these moments. A lovely legacy given that these moments are with teenagers who are bringing their own hormonal contributions to the house (stomp!  door slam! sullen silence!).  But I want this!  I want all the intensity, I want to live the moments that are up but I also want to live the moments that are down.  Not desperately try to escape the lows but live them all together. Be present in more of the moments I have left in these last years before college takes them away.

So the table lives on as a reminder. And in my optimistic moments, I’m convinced those guys looked around, saw no one could see them, and in a blink loaded up the table and chairs before taking off in a cloud of dust. In my optimistic moments, I’m sure the table lives on.

 

 

Sails Sheeted Home

 

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Home  [hohm]

Noun:     any place of residence or refuge, a heavenly home

 Nautical Adverb:     into the position desired; perfectly or the greatest possible extent:  sails sheeted home

 

We are getting ready to move and it is making me think a lot about the meaning of “home.”  For 18 years we have had a wonderful life in this home, in this town.  This is where my children were born, this is the yard where they stumbled around learning to walk, that is the tree I hung a wiffle ball from so my son could take his first swings with a little plastic bat.  Here is the stepping stone they made with ‘jewel’ stones, the Japanese maple tree that has grown at the same rate they did, the one the plastic porpoise swing hung from when my daughter still allowed me to put a bow in her hair (I didn’t know yet that she is not the bow type).

This is the pool that went from floaties to floats to canon ball contests off the diving board, to “Mom can you just stay in the house while we’re out here?”

This is the house where sports started with soccer and t-ball and moved through basketball, baseball, softball, flag football, cross country, lacrosse, track.  I think the equipment from every single sports season is still in our garage, waiting for me to purge and redistribute it.

This is the house that welcomed two children, two dogs, a series of turtles, a disappearing crayfish. A blur of playdates, a whirl of book clubs, family BBQ’s, a carousel of babysitters.  Where we went from bubblegum flavored toothpaste to Scope. From Leapfrog to Playstation to Xbox 1.  From Pat the Bunny to The Hunger Games.

This is a house that was made into a home.

The feeling of home, it is so visceral, we feel it in our very bodies.  Home is the same thing as ease, as comfort.  Feeling ‘at home’ somewhere is the ultimate compliment. Where you can be your real self, not the curated one you show the world. Where you can relax your vigilance, that animal instinct to scan for danger, enough to rest, to sleep even.

When hard things happen, when the day is going badly, you just want to be home.  You go away and feel homesick, literally sick in your body to not have the familiar, the comfortable. After a brutal trip to Disneyland years ago (we all got so sick we renamed our room ‘the toxic cave’) all I wanted was to be home.  I literally knelt down and kissed our none-too-clean carpet when we finally made it back.

Home is where we make our mess, untidy ourselves.  Where the bra comes off, the sweats come on, the fuzzy blanket waits on the couch.  Where you can wake up with smelly breath and messy hair and still walk around.

Home is where Mom’s arms wait when you didn’t make the team.  Where Dad’s humor cuts away some of the sting of a breakup.  Where your dog nudges you with his snout for the ten thousandth time, ready for a pet on the head that turns out to soothe you even more than him.

Home is where the rituals happen, the repetitive actions that weave a group of people into a family.  Every year the red wreaths on the front door signal Christmas.  The pineapple cake with the cream cheese icing means it’s a birthday.  Every morning the smell of coffee and the ‘time to wake up’ whispered, then yelled, into bedrooms.  The calm and not so calm reminders to ‘put your stuff away.’  The ‘I love you’ to each as they exit every morning, regardless of the level of grumpiness.

All the things that say ‘a family lives here,’ in all its messiness and love.

Because home can be a crucible, too.  It is the hot arena where siblings battle and parents disagree and homework nightmares last deep into the night. Where hopefully the survival of the battle, the disagreement, the homework, ultimately prepares you for the outside world instead of weakening you.  Where you learn to forgive, over and over, because we feel most betrayed when the wound comes from inside the house.

So what does it mean to move?

Is it even possible to make a new place feel like home?

My son walked in our new place (we are lucky enough to have the new place to visit before we leave our current home) and said “I don’t like the smell here, it doesn’t smell like home.”

It didn’t smell bad, it just didn’t smell familiar.

I understood in an instant what he meant.

Every home has its own smell.  And the sense of smell is so linked to emotion, to memory.  When we were kids my brother used to take his comforter to our grandmother’s house and leave it so that it would absorb the smell of her house.  And he could then take it home and feel wrapped in my grandmother’s love, sleep with that smell all around him.

So I told my son, “I can make this homey.”  That once we cooked there and used our soaps and cleansers there and sprayed our hair products there and used our laundry detergent that it would start to smell like home. That once our favorite stuff was there, the books, the pictures, the Xbox, it would feel more familiar.

And that I know the other touches that make a house feel like a home.

Home is where someone paid attention to what you need and what you like. The bubblegum flavored toothpaste, the cupboard of school supplies with the exact kind of book cover your middle school requires, the original flavored goldfish. And where someone cared about the house itself. Had an eye for the accented throw pillows, the arrangement of candles on the dining room table, the whimsical cookie jar. The lavender pump hand soap, the bedside lamp placed to throw just the right light to read a book in bed.  The line of framed family photos up the staircase wall.  These are the details that bring a house to life because they come from someone caring.

I love this house, I love the memories that were made here, but I also know that while this house has been home, it is not the physical structure that made it home.  The love and fighting and forgiving and toothpaste preferences are what made it home, and we can take that show on the road.

We can make the new house a home, and we will.

 

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