Nine: Someone you didn't want to let go, but just drifted
With the advent of social networking it seems that we never really get the option of letting go of anyone. It would seem that even people we haven't seen since we were 12 are always connected to us. In a way I like that, it gives me comfort to know that what I share is shared with these people and that we are never lost or forgotten. However, it also terrifies me...we are never lost or forgotten...even when we want to be, and we must go out of our way to be. We must purposefully sever the ties. So, when I read the above title with its "didn't want to let go, but just drifted" I thought, 'There isn't anybody in my life who just drifted.'
And, then I remembered...
There was this boy (it's always a boy, right!?) that I never dated, but spent a lot of time with. Actually, until I met Chris this was pretty much my MO--dating was for sissies who wanted their hearts broken, little did I realize...but, I'm jumping ahead.
This boy and I did everything together and people thought we were dating and we hung out at one another's houses and we hung out with one another's families and this boy and I were more than best friends and less than a married couple and swimming in dangerous waters that ended in a horrible yelling match disaster...except for...
...things didn't really end. You know we talked here and there for awhile, we said mean things to or about each other for awhile and then, well...
I guess, the thing is the person does just drift when you don't notice that they've cut you out of their social networking sphere until literally a year or two later when somebody says that this person got married and you go to look at the wedding pics and notice you aren't friends anymore and that the pics are blocked. I realized that this boy is definitely someone who drifted and I'm still trying to figure out if I didn't want to let him go.
And, all I can think is that are two sides to "When Harry Met Sally" and that sometimes Harry's ideas aren't so far off after all.
So, if you follow Jane Austen on Facebook (and, who doesn't!?) you'll know that they're doing a celebration of Pride and Prejudice. Yesterday's question was all about Charlotte Lucas:
So, Charlotte makes me want to throw up, but she also kind of makes me a little sad. I'm sad for her, for other women in her situation and, in turn, that makes me sad for all of women kind as Charlotte's thoughts, feelings and actions are not so far removed from women of today. She makes me want to throw up because every time I think of her my mind automatically next jumps to the dreadful Mr. Collins. No matter how we look at it, she is neither unlucky, nor unwise...and, she definitely isn't destined for misery. With all of our technological advances and with all of our gender equality there are still women who, much like Charlotte, are smart and, yet feel incomplete outside of marriage.
I do appreciate that Charlotte is the perfect foil for Elizabeth and while we can see the deep contrast between the two, we can also see how similar they are. We learn many lessons from her. We learn that we don't have to agree to be friends. We learn that it's OK to be practical. We learn that sometimes we must sacrifice ourselves to be happy. We learn that we must be truthful about this, and we learn that if we are truthful with others and ourselves we can pretty much have the courage to do most anything. Charlotte and Elizabeth both teach us that there's more than one way to approach marriage and love. They are both strong women who choose their own destinies. One is just comfortable enough in her own skin to not mind being a spinster and the other would rather do anything to be anything but.
A Trip to the Aquatic Center
Friendly diversion
in Winter; steamy chlorine,
little girl laughing. The Best Thing On Earth
Nothing beats a nap;
dazed head on pillow dreaming
of a gorgeous sleep. What I Hate About Laundry
Not the washing, nor
the drying, but the endless
folding afterwards.
My friend Becky, the same one who had the idea for the topic for my A to Z, had a wonderful topic for the letter 'M', however, I already had an 'M'...I've moved it to 'S'. Here's what she said would be a good topic:
"Music you really have liked throughout the last 15 years and ones you think you would want to share with Lila. Everytime I listen to my U2 I think of you. Maybe you could share a few songs that happened during certain times in your life and what challenges you overcame at that time, or what the song meant to you...Or your first song you and Chris both liked, as well as Lila's first song."
And, here are my thoughts...
I can chart my life by music. I didn't realize how nostalgic this made me until I got old enough to have life moments worth remembering. Benny Goodman, Cliff Richards and "The Grease" soundtrack remind of weekends at my grandparents house. "Dreams" by Fleetwood Mac reminds me of the moment I realized I loved this boy in high school; that song also reminds me of the huge fight we had that damaged our friendship. If I want to remember significant high school moments I just pop in the "Boomerang" soundtrack or listen to a little NKOTB or Ace of Base. Yesterday I was just talking about slow dancing to "November Rain". I can chart every moment of my college career by song; DC Talk and Jars of Clay, "The Reality Bites" soundtrack, Oasis, Tim McGraw, "Dare to Care" concerts and Mazzy Starr. I remember sitting in the living room of a house I shared with friends talking and listening to Sheryl Crow's, "If It Makes You Happy"...I remember this moment like it was yesterday...my cat Winnie is at my feet and the smell of a cake we just baked is wafting from the blue walled kitchen. I knew that Chris and I would get along just fine when we spent a night listening to music and talking about our memories we pretty much went through our own personal catalogs of music and events. I knew that our relationship was perfect, when we bought tickets for the opening U2 show in Chicago.
The thing is I think that every single moment of life is wonderful and marvelous. I think that they should not be forgotten.
It just makes sense that I would chart our lives with Lila in the same manner. For my personal baby-shower I made the following compilation for each guest. I wanted a list of songs that I enjoyed that were all about raising and loving little girls. We also had U2's "Vertigo Tour" DVD playing in the background.
Baby Girl CD
Sugar, Sugar The Archies
Gracie Ben Folds Five
She's Gotta Way Billy Joel
Where You Lead I Will Follow Carole King and Louise Gaffin
Never Grow Old The Cranberries
It Won't Be Like This for Long Darius Rucker
Sweet Child O' Mine Guns and Roses
Amazing Janelle
Intelligentactile 101 Jesca Hoop
Little Miss Magic Jimmy Buffet
There Goes My Life Kenny Chesney
Time of Your Life Little Steven
In My Daughter's Eyes Martina McBride
Seven Years Norah Jones
Songbird Oasis
Little Wonders Rob Thomas
Pretty Dress Rosie Thomas
My Little Girl Tim McGraw
Original of the Species U2
My Darling Wilco
The other day I came home from being away for the whole weekend, Chris and Lila were just vegging on the couch watching the waving PS3 screensaver listening to Pink Floyd. One time in the not to distant past, Chris came home and we were watching the videos and dancing around to:
"Dog Days" by Florence + the Machine
"1, 2, 3, 4" by Fiest
For the most part, however, on her own Lila has pretty chees-tastic taste...I can only assume that all 2 year-olds are like this and would prefer:
Elmo and India Arie singing the ABCs
"10 Little Numbers"...and, if you sing it "10 Little Indians" she will freak!
Chris and I are both lovers of music and from an early age we have instilled that love into our daughter.
At 7-months she would hum along to:
"From Where I'm Standing" by Schulyer Fisk in the movie I Am Reed Fish
Music she likes and will seek out
Pop music, every kid goes through this phase and I can jam out to Justin Bieber, "High School Musical" and Selena Gomez right along with her..."I love you like a love song, baby"...try getting that out of your head.
The first song she every sang the words to was:
"Rhythm of Love" by The Plain White Ts...we just call this the Ba-Ba Song
The thing is our musical taste have seeped into her everyday thoughts. I know that my kiddo will have no choice but to like U2 and Coldplay and Michael Jackson, just as I know that I have no choice about liking Elvis and Abba and Michael Jackson. This is the kind of music that I grew up with and I have wonderful memories associated with every song. I hope that when Lila Jane turns 35 she can say the same.
So, I'm going with some friends to the aforementioned cities in about 5 hours.
It will be my first trip without the tiny person since the tiny person came out of my body. I mean I went on trips before she existed and went on trips when she was nicely contained, but since she was born I have taken her everywhere I go. It's been fun and rewarding and challenging...I've liked it a lot.
I feel weird knowing that I am only packing for one on this excursion. I also feel weird knowing that if flight tickets didn't cost one katrillion dollars, we would have taken our usually trip to see our family in DC. Alas, it is cheaper for me to go to LV and LA and rent a car and stay in nice hotels and eat than it is for me to take the tiny tot East. Don't worry we're going on a long family trip in the summer...in the car (it will be our first), but for now it's me and my girls and the pool and gambling and the buffet and Hollywood sans the kiddo. I love Las Vegas, but have never been to LA...it's only 4 hrs. from LV in a car, and we'll have a car and I have friends there who I miss so...why not...
I feel sorry for my friends, as I'm sure all I'll be doing is sleeping and catching up on my reading!
I don’t know where to begin. I do not love my hometown…my love for my hometown is brimming over? The relationship I have with Mansfield, Missouri is a bittersweet one and I have just as many bad memories as I do good ones.
I liken my relationship to Mansfield to the relationship Rose Wilder Lane must have had with the town and maybe this is why I’ve always had an affinity for Rose. I love Rose Wilder Lane. I’m not sure the people of Mansfield do. She said their schools weren’t good enough, she didn't marry and settle down in the town, she was a divorced Libertarian come back to help her parents, but she did not join in with the town…instead she wrote about it. And, in the same manner as Harold Bell Wright in The Calling of Dan Matthews, her book of short stories Old Home Town ruffled the feathers of those in the town who knew the stories were about them. She eventually moved to Connecticut, where she had a barn for a library and staved off stories that she wrote the Little House books by adamantly proclaiming she helped with the editing and that is all. Many of her biographers say otherwise.
vintagepostcards.org
You see, we’re reading Our Town in my Sophomore English classes. Reading this play always makes me feel nostalgic for a Mansfield, Missouri that I’m not sure has existed during my life time. Growing up, we went to baseball and basketball games. When I was little we went to a place called Susy Qs and got orange soda floats and curly fries after we cheered for Mighty Mights football. My sisters and I would walk to the library, which was just down the road, and the librarian would know exactly what books we wanted to check out. We cruised the “Y”. When our friends passed away in accidents or of illness we went to their funerals. We knew everything about everyone. I remember thinking, “Wow, nothing happens in this town.” And, nothing did? I have learned that everything happened in that town. I've also learned that it’s those kids who love this play and cherish their home town of Lebanon, Missouri that have something on me, they’ve learned to love their hometown and at an early age they’ve learned to have ‘roots and wings’ too! (Thank you very much “Sweet Home Alabama”!)
It is because of this play, Our Town, (granted I didn’t make this effort until I was 25) that I listen to and look at my mother when she’s speaking, that I cherish the moments I have with my family and friends and it is because of this play that I try to inculcate in my students a love for a town that many of them don’t really like. And, it’s when we read this play that I begin to think about the town in which I live currently.
My life in Lebanon resembles the same bittersweet love I have for Mansfield. I have just as many good memories as bad, I long for a Lebanon that I’m not sure ever existed (a Lebanon that I see in postcards and books) and I have to take a deep breath and realize that while I consider many days here to be boring and useless...there really is soooooo much going on. There’s a great documentary called “Jo’s Town”, it encapsulates all that is beautiful about small towns, about America, about Lebanon and the gloriousness of living. It’s about a young lady from Lebanon, who played Rebecca Gibbs in the 1978 LHS production of Our Town, she died in a car accident during her senior year. To honor her memory, the cast, 20 years later, reproduces the play. It chronicles their lives since the play and shows how some people and things never change. A couple of my friends and I went to watch the documentary at Summer's Auditorium a few years ago, and it made us all cry, not because of the fact that this girl died in real life--we did not know her, but because this girl lived and continues to live in each of her friends. We don’t know how many lives we touch and who we change just because we are born.
According to Wilder, life just comes in three short acts, Daily Life, Love and Marriage, and Death and Eternity and, he says in The Woman of Andros, "Suddenly the hero saw that the living too are dead and that we can only be said to be alive in those moments when our hearts are conscious of our treasure". What is your treasure and how are you conscious of it?
Christopher and I in front of Wrink's Market at the beginning of our trip on the Mother Road with our friend (she's taking the picture). Historic Route 66 runs right through Lebanon, on Elm street.
Ok, so I've noticed that many blogs use 30 day challenges to talk about things that interest them (you know who I'm talking about Ashley--I'm especially loving the 30 pieces of clothes for 30 days...wow! and I'm not sure I'm ready to do the 30 days of truth, powerful stuff). I've also seen 30 Day photo challenge, 30 Days of Giving etc. and I thought, I wonder what challenges are out there that relate to my reading oriented blog, but can still tell you a little bit about me and I found this one (songs, after all, are words). So, every Wednesday will be devoted to...The 30 Day Song Challenge
Day One: Your Favorite Song
Asking me to tell you my favorite song is tantamount to asking me to tell you my favorite book. The question gets asked and like 100 float in my head immediately vying for the coveted #1 spot. But, because this is a challenge, I'm not going to do my usual cop-out of making a list of favorites in no particular order, which means this post is taking about 30 minutes longer than expected, and I may be late for school! Today I have chosen *drum roll, please* Original of the Species by U2.
It is, literally, the first song I thought of when I found out I was pregnant. I love it because I read somewhere that Bono wrote it for his eldest daughter (which I am the eldest of three...so, I loved this song before I knew I was going to have a daughter), I've also read that Bono wrote it for The Edge's only daughter (which makes it relate even more). I don't really care which of these stories is true. This song just strikes at the core of me, the foundation of who I am--woman/mother/girl/daughter/wife. I hear it and I laugh and cry because I am the girl in the song, my daughter is the girl in the song and I feel like every girl needs to know what this song is and what it is about; the perfection that is them. It is my favorite because I am a girl and this is one of those powerful 'girl love yourself' songs. I know all the words. My husband, some friends of ours, and I went to see U2 in Chicago (please note my blogger profile pic is from said concert). When the beginning chords started, it was a moment that felt like it was just my husband and I and we were singing along, at the time I was pregnant and was due in less than a month. I will never forget this, a perfect moment, holding hands with my husband and feeling, no, realizing, that my life had changed forever and nothing else mattered but this tiny little girl that hadn't been born yet.
I hope that my daughter feels even 1/2 of the power of this song. I sing it to her at night...it's her lullaby.
Feel free to join in by commenting below (I really do love comments, on fb or here), or doing this challenge on your own blog. And, thanks Ashley for inspiring me, again.
When I was a little kid I wanted to be an actress. By the time I was in high school, acting had taken a backseat to writing and writing had taken a backseat to teaching and teaching had morphed from teaching art to teaching English. Teaching English, by the way, encompasses loads of acting (ask me sometime about how I get students to read, at least some, of The Scarlet Letter, or about commanding an audience in meetings!), art (try fixing a bulletin board, mapping a scene or decorating a door) and writing (lesson plans, notes to parents/students/teachers/principals, worksheets, meeting notes, test et cetera).
Several years ago I used both my acting, drawing and writing skills to create a creative writing class. That class was lovely, we wrote short stories and poems and, well, a former student now friend, could tell you more because she still remembers all we did and that was at least 10 years ago...pretty exciting class, with pretty willing, clever and eager students.
One of the assignments was writing a scene from a screenplay. We used the best book Writing Screenplays That Sell (I no longer have this book because I lent it to someone, this was before I learned from Adler not to do that) to talk about types of screenplays, characters, settings and treatments. We watched The Karate Kid (the movie used in the book) and then we went about completing all the task necessary to write a screenplay (character development, setting map, etc.) and then, instead of writing a whole screenplay, we fleshed out one scene from our treatment.
You see, I love screenplays. I prefer to read screenplays before watching movies, I prefer to imagine who I'd cast (and, the possibilities are endless) in certain roles, where I'd film the setting (like a Director of Photography) and then I watch to see the treatment. My favorite screenplays are those by Kevin Smith, and I enjoyed reading Good Will Hunting, Trainspotting and various television scripts (tiny screenplays), The Glades comes to mind, as you can download the pilot episode free on the Nook.
Maybe I should have been a screenwriter, Lord knows there's not enough of those in the world, or a critic, again a profession that needs more people. *note dripping sarcasm* Hmmm...the more I think about it...I could have been a casting agent...they're like teachers, only really, really mean and without remorse.
Sigh, maybe for my next career...
I love recipes and I don’t care where they come from. I’ve found some of my best recipes online, sure, but I’ve also acquired recipes from magazines, books, church fundraisers, friends and their parents.
Some of my favorite recipes come from this really cool recipe box that I got at an estate sale. In this recipe box are notes and coupons dating as early as 1930. This lady cut out recipes from magazines, the backs of boxes and containers and collected them from friends (I know because she dated these recipes and wrote down the name of the person from whom she got the recipe). I’ve made several recipes from this box; one cup salad, peanut clutters with condensed milk and sour cream cake to name a few. It’s amazing to think that this woman’s family considered this box unimportant and sold it with a pile of other junk for about $5.
As I’ve been looking through my recipe books for something to make for New Year’s Eve, I’ve realized that I’m also a collector of recipe books. This all started when my friend was cleaning house and gave me a box of her old recipe books. In this collection were a set of Better Homes and Gardens cookbooks dating from 1967, our favorite to use is titled Favorite Ways with Chicken, Turkey, Duck and Game Birds. Its recipes detail using bone in chicken and the book tells how to cut up chicken (p35), how to have an elegant dinner; complete with menus (starting on p57) and “Wine Cooking and Serving Suggestions” (p63).
I’m also a sucker for the people on the Food Network and own many cookbooks from my favorite TV show hosts. Sure I know that you can get most of their recipes free online, but you don’t get cute informative introductions and sidebar comments online. Our favorite Paula Deen is The Lady and Sons Savannah Country Cookbook (I just got my sister a copy for Christmas, so she wouldn’t steal mine, since college she’s been stealing my cookbooks J), which we use soooo much some of the pages stick together, our favorites seem to come from the dessert pages like Better Than Sex? Yes! (not sure what we’ll call this cake when the tiny tot gets older--this lady calls it Heath Bar Cake). I also have every Rachel Ray recipe book. Our favorite is Rachel Ray 365: No Repeats A Year of Deliciously Different Dinners. I think it would be daring if we tried each of these meals all in one year, so far we just stick to the ones we like such as Mac-n-Cheddar with Broccoli.
A cookbook that I treasure (from the same lovely lady who brought me the box of cook books ) is from a now defunct bed and breakfast called Andy’s Catch and this book is full of delicious, wonderful breakfast and brunch foods (side note:I can eat B&G every day of the week and any time of day is the perfect time of day for breakfast) including breakfast casserole and breakfast pizza.
My latest find is a cook book I received from a friend for Christmas Are You Hungry Tonight? Elvis’ Favorite Recipes. I’ve already tried the infamous or should I say notorious Fried Peanut Butter sandwich and am looking forward to rockin’ the kitchen trying out all his favorite breakfast recipes. This book also has the recipe for his 6-tiered wedding cake and a meatloaf recipe I can't wait to try, as I have not met a meatloaf I didn't like. My favorite meatloaf recipe comes from Reader's Digest Kitchen Secrets (p237).
Well, gotta go whip myself up something to eat all this talk of food has made me hungry.
I’m looking forward to digging through all of these recipes for the perfect New Year’s Eve foods! If you have any suggestions feel free to send them my way.
