Tendril morsels

She twirls her hair around her finger, brings it to her mouth and starts to chew nervously. Another tendril morsel, I call it.

She rolls her eyes.

I hate that.

But it's nothing compared to the voice she's been cultivating in the pressure-cooker that is middle school. It makes me think her friends lead her around by the nose.

I ask her to stop.

She breathes deeply and, for a few moments speaks in the voice I know and love. But soon the nasal twang returns as I try to wheedle out tidbits from her day.

With a string of one-word responses to my barrage of questions, she tells me what a drag I'm being.

“... Sure ...

“... Fine ...

“... Whatever ...

“... I dunno …”

No matter how I try, I can't extract a drop of information. It is clear I'm just an annoyance. I am the person who can no longer cook eggs properly. Or who forgets to buy celery. The person who should just drive her to dance class and disappear.

“Are we done here?”

Now it's my turn to breathe deeply as I release her.

There's no amount of cajoling that will unblock this dam. Information is hers to trickle. She has to work the controls, and I have to await the rise and fall of waterworks. Neither of us has much patience for the other's schedule.

It's hard to hold back. Hard to sit and watch cracks appear and puddles form. Hard to say nothing.

I do a lousy job of playing it cool.

I'm not sure why we can't be friends, but that's what the experts say is verboten. From her perspective, at least, I think I'm probably in no danger of losing that battle.

She doesn't even think we're on the same side.

That smarts a bit.

"You always stand up for people who hurt my feelings. You always take their side," she accuses. "It feels like you don't believe me."

That hurts.

It's not that I don't believe ... It's just that I know what we believe has a habit of tripping us up.

I haven't been able to explain it to her, though not for not trying. Unless one is running for an elected position, beliefs never get easier to convey.

"You have to trust me, I just know," makes about as much sense to her as "someday you'll understand," does to me.

Of course, I'm faking it.

I don't know for sure that she'll one day understand or that she'll understand it my way. I don't know that everything will be ok. I just keep my fingers crossed and stop myself from walking under ladders.

Ideas change. Authority shifts. Facts split apart and reform in all sorts of new shapes.

We struggle for a while, but then we adapt.

Last year I was cooking with olive oil and trying to lower fat intake and this year I'm wondering how I can find ethically produced lard and buying whole milk.

I'd be lying if I said I felt confident in any of my choices. All I have is hope that the good ones will balance out the bad ones.

Eventually, night will come and with it the close of another day. Maybe this night she will ask me to read her a story, for old-time's sake.

Maybe she will tell me her sadness.

I will listen.

And when she's through, I will tuck the sheets up under her chin and remove the tendril from her mouth.

She will sleep, and I will dream.

Layabout

I don't want to get up.

Snow has fallen. It's windy out. There is a sidewalk at the edge of our property – the edge nearest civilization – that needs clearing. (I don't say shoveling because the snowfall wasn't of any significance. It probably wouldn't have produced a snow day if school wasn't out for winter break.)

But I digress.

I hear cars outside now. There is a slushy sound of warming temperatures and rain as they pass. Sidewalk clear thyself.

My head hurts. Or I think my head hurts. Receding barometric pressure has filled the space in my sinuses with doubt.

If I get up, I know that first step will feel like an icicle stabbing me through the soles of my feet. I also know by the time I make the long and arduous trek to the bathroom -- a miserable seven or eight steps – the sensation will stop, and I'll feel a little more human.

I won't even remember my head had felt overfilled.

Oh, but it's warm under these blankets.

It's comfortable, too. Not too lush. Not too austere.

I'm glad I held my own in the great mattress debate of '07. My choice was impeccable. Just the right balance between soft and supportive, yet not enough of either to make a person dread the advent of morning. The pillow-topped one my husband wanted would have been too comfortable, which is why he saw the light of my brilliance at the sales desk. He doesn't usually sleep in.

The dog and one of the cats have called a truce in their ongoing skirmish and curl up with me. I know they are looking for warmth, not companionship.

The wind sails across the roof and beats at the windows for a bit before it retreats. The first time was startling, but then every so often it comes back, like an angry child. Insistent and loud, but unable to sustain that intensity for too long. I relax a little and try to welcome the sound as it mingles with the cartoon blaring from the television downstairs.

He doesn't need me yet. His sister is visiting friends, which means he has total and complete control over the television and remote. In addition to the anime army fighting forces of evil, I also hear the tinney screech of the step stool as he drags it from one part of the kitchen to the other. A cabinet opens. He's got a glass. A tap opens. He's filling the glass with water. A drawer rolls out. He's got a bowl. Another cabinet opens and soon the clink of tiny rocks. He's filling his bowl will cold cereal.

I won't hear the seal of the refrigerator being penetrated. Milk will only make his cereal soggy, and everything else in there is relatively healthy or needs a modicum of preparation.

I can sense my husband's jealousy from the shop, which is a thousand or so paces into the backyard. I don't feel too badly about this. My jobs allow me to work from bed on occasion. There is a book-sized computer warming my lap that is running a number of programs simultaneously. I can get things done in my pajamas. He could, too if he wore a few extra layers of them and didn't mind what civilized people say.

Of course, I can't stay here forever.

I can see smoke has stopped coming out of the chimney. The stove could use another log or two.

But more importantly, no one brought me coffee.

I suppose it's time to get up.

Faking and making

I wish we could all share in the sentiments of primary school Valentines.

When we are in primary school the beauty of its simplicity is wasted on us. Once we age past primary we might get caught up in the emotion of romantic love … mostly the complexity of it … and from there on in, the confusion or disappointment of the whole thing tends to leave a bad taste in our mouths.

Somewhere between this angst-y state of desire and whatever version of mature fulfillment we've settled into, we decide Valentine's Day is just some ridiculous notion cooked up by marketers to relieve us of our hard-earned cash.

So we dust our hands of it, darkly happy to be rid of its fakery.

That is … until our kids reach the age when paper hearts and printed confections are as exciting as the sunrise on a brand new day. Then, like it or not, our hands become soiled again in glitter and glue.

I know a lot of folks would like to see the tiny hearts of this holiday shrivel up and blow away. I'm sure at one time or another I was one of them. No thing is the same for any one of us, after all. Some of us can't be bothered, others are bothered beyond belief.

But it wasn't until I helped my kids make class-loads of valentines that I understood what I'd been missing all those years.

We'd selected a project that seemed easy enough: She'd draw pictures of each of her classmates using the class picture as a reference. Taking some advice from the internet, I drew the chins, necks and ears to make the sizes similar. She drew the hair, faces and wrote in the names.

It took us two days and a slew of do-overs until she was satisfied with the results.

In those two days we talked about each of her friends. What made them unique. What made them special.

She didn't like Isaac's nose on paper. So she erased it … made it better. More like the nose she was used to seeing on him.

Corrine's hair was all wrong. She wore it loose, not in pig tails. Erase, erase, erase. Sweep, sweep, sweep. Scratch, scratch, scratch. That's better.

She asked me how to spell "sweet" and "treat," and wondered if we could include some with the cards.

I nodded.

I could never have imagined this scene only a few years ago. I would have railed against the idea that children should be conduits-of trumped up emotion in all its lace-doily artifice. I would have wondered if maybe all this forced friendship wasn't the beginning of some soul-crushing lie.

We spend hours laboring over some sweet nothing that is destined to be tossed in the trash.

"What's the point?" We ask our selves. "It means nothing." Or maybe the opposite, it means too much.

We try to reason that we can't like everyone, so why should we pretend we can? Don't our problems as adults come from stuffing these feelings of discord so far down in our psyches that the pressure of it eventually threatens to blow a hole the size of a heart in our souls?

For whatever reason, we think this false holiday fosters the potential for dashed hopes and unrealistic dreams.

Wouldn't it be better to celebrate any one of the OTHER manufactured holidays that fall on February 14?

There would be no hard feelings over Clean Out Your Computer Day, League of Women Voters Day or Library Lovers Day. Who wouldn't go all in for National Ferris Wheel Day or Race Relations Day? Because, certainly, if there was no Valentine's Day no one would have to create a Quirky Alone Day, or National Call In Single Day.

Yet, instead of throwing Valentine's Day away, I find myself wishing we could boil it down to its purest form and bottle it.

Even if we have to pretend, liking each other seems so much better than the alternative.

Comfort, food

It was lunchtime, and the joint was hopping. We'd never been here before: A little eatery in a little town we were passing through as the dial on the clock struck belly-grumble. The warm, bacon-scented air was welcoming, and the rattle of plates playing against the tinkle of glasses provided soothing background music as we placed our orders.

But comfort food couldn't quell my anxiety as I stood there looking up at a set of colorful chalkboards trying to decide what would make our entourage happy.

I have to feed one husband who is on a diet and ignoring two of the basic four food groups; one child who wants her midday meal to consist of a cross-section of the entire menu; and finally, a child who has concocted an imaginary food group and refuses to eat anything that falls outside of it.

So, of course, I proceed to stammer a messy combination of breakfast fare and lunch-y requests as if I'd pulled a thousand threads from the menu's fabric. The woman at the register smiled at each of my “I'm-sorrys and Is-it-possible-to-gets ...” but made note of our out-of-town status as I handed over a credit card. “Keep this up and you won't be welcomed back,” she said with a laugh as she handed me a chicken-shaped table flag.

I hoped she was kidding. This place, with its brightly decorated walls and packed tables, looked like somewhere I'd like to frequent.

I grabbed some silverware and sat down at the table. My kids were already starting the Are-We-There-Yets of restaurant waiting.

“Is that ours?” one kid stage whispers as a server hoists a tray laden with plates and sidles past us. “Nope! Not us.” confirms the other. “Maybe ours will be next … Oh, I hope it IS next. I-hope-I-hope-I-hope,” both children will chant with closed eyes and crossed fingers as we continue our esurient vigil.

“I. Might. Die. Before. We. Eaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat.”

Had I been employing the proper parenting techniques all along, I though to myself, one sharp look from me would have been enough to quiet them.

Instead, I was rummaging through my bag looking for snacks or candies or crumbs to give their complaining mouths something to chew on. If I don't find anything, I'll have to resort to the nuclear option: The hiss of parental desperation in the form of a string of empty threats.

“If you don't stop thisssssssss whining right now …. we will never eat anything … anywhere …. ever again ...”

But then a minor miracle! Mid-threat, there came food from above (and presumably the kitchen). Plates loaded with the promise of overfull bellies were silently lowered to the table in age-ascending order. First the boy and his mystery meal, then the girl and her laborious samples, and finally for the parents (well let's just say the husband is the eldest in this food service scenario, shall we?) and our oh-so-similar orders. Of course, we waited to switch plates until after the server sauntered away.

The complaints of grumbling bellies are replaced by silence as they taste each item. I hold my breath waiting for an explosion of disagreeable sounds. More silence signals yet another minor miracle that is satisfaction.

I eat quickly, wondering how long it will last.

I know they're old enough to know how to behave in a public place, but that doesn't mean I trust they will. There's only so many quarters you can put in that meter before you reach the limit.

Bathroom visits seem to be the barometer. And so we started to get on our coats as the boy headed for his second turn in “Gents.”

I watch as the door closes and opens. And I follow him as he heads back to the table … but he stops at the wait station and talks to the server instead.

“I accidentally locked the bathroom door as I was leaving. Sorry, it was a mistake.”

An odd wave of pride washed over me. Had it been me at his age, I would have said nothing, grabbed my coat and told my parents we have to get out of here now! Not him.

He just wanted them to know the door needed to be unlocked.

For a moment, I thought I saw the same you're-not-welcome-back smile stretch over our server's face as she looked at me before rummaging in the silverware tray and extracting a butterknife. But a twinkle in her eye as she turned and headed to free the washroom for other patrons made me relax a little.

“Thanks for the heads up, little man. Come back and see us again, OK?”

Building blocks

Sometimes I imagine our house is almost fully supported by haphazard piles of second-hand books.



What we don't read -- and there are many -- we prop under wobbly tables or set in the place of draft dodgers.

 We've got everything from Aesops fables to Zadie Smith stashed in just about every nook and cranny.



As their pages await turning, their stacks grow to overtake the window frames, the side tables, and the benches by the door that also store our winter accessories -- all the hats, and the scarves, and the mittens -- which haven't seen much of our attention this year either.



I mean to read each and every one of these books, I really do, I just can't seem to get through all the words I haven't been compelled to read aloud.

The stories for adults -- which are stuffed to the spine with blight and wars and despair -- will have to yield to magic and mythical journeys and toys that slowly awaken to the pain that is love.



Sitting crooked legged at the edge of my son's bed, I could read forever. In my warm comfy sheets, I'll be fast asleep three pages in. Rereading the same passages night after night feels more like a fruitless endeavor than a guilty pleasure.



I've always read to my children. Way back before they could focus their eyes or support their own heads I would plop them down in my lap and tell them all about Velveteen Rabbits and Paper Bag Princesses. I could recite "Homemade Love" from memory, it was all good, good.



I suppose it shouldn't have surprised me that my children didn't disappear into the pages of stories once they had learned to read. But it did.



Hadn't the parenting golden rule -- the rule of thumb -- been to read to your kids? Talk to them like big people? Involve them in the world of words?



Of course this rule must have been written in stone because technology hadn't been invented yet. I can just see the rule-makers scratching their heads wondering how they could erase their giant slabs of outdated advice as they witness my zombified kid staring into the rarified eyes of his favorite "YouTuber."



How in the hobble-de-heck did watching other people play Minecraft on the Internet become an all-consuming amusement? (You might want to hold off on that answer, at least until I'm finished watching a series of cats being frightened by cucumbers.)



Perhaps that's what's been troubling me.



One distraction appears acceptable while the other seems intolerable ... And yet each has exactly the same likelihood of changing the world in the unpredictable way worlds undergo transformation.




Like the spot in the back of the waiting room that gets no cell service. It's the place where parents who are waiting for their kids to finish dancing, or jumping, or shooting at circles and arrows can watch. Or think. Or read from things made of dead trees. Or just tune out for an hour. It's always available, this spot. Everyone else is jockeying around the only other spot in the place that gets reception.

I'm not sure how it started, but I've found myself sitting in this dead spot more often. This week I brought a book. A kids' book, it's true, but a book nonetheless.



As I turned the pages something wonderful happened.



A story spilled out. And all around me, people noticed. They asked me what I was reading and I told them.



Oh, how they loved that one. Had I read any of the others by the same author?

Soon my own son, sweaty and exhausted from organized play, was standing next to me cooing over the volume in my hand.



"Oh I loved that one! We read it in school!



"Can I show you something" he asked excitedly.



I handed the book to him, and he flew through pages, landing on one in particular and cleared his throat.



He began to read ...

 And as the words came clear and fast, I could imagine all the books propping up my life finally falling down around me.



It felt like a breakthrough.

Sneezy, Dopey and Doc

I plunge a quarter-sized dollop of hand sanitizer into my palm.

The crowd goes wild.

He looked pale and thin with eyes of water-slicked glass. In our family these symptoms generally mean healthy with a touch of rhinovirus (the common variety) and an aversion to vegetables (of all varieties).

No fever. No Fatigue. No trouble breathing. Just a lingering cough and sniffles.

Of course, he'd been coughing all morning; one dry roar after another followed by lengthy rubbing of his nose onto a shirtsleeve. I remind him to use the crook of his arm to catch the sneezes as we mingled with the masses.

Of course, we have things to do. Places to be. Volunteerism forced upon us by the recreational league.

Buck up.

Yet every sternutation sent my gaze to the floor and my shoulders to the ceiling. What kind of mother brings her little bundle of typhoid into the world at large on the weekend? Doesn't she know she'll just spread his disease?

I sense the condemnation even though it's unspoken.

“Well … that's why I put him at the cash box instead of making hot dogs,” I said wryly to the person in my head who censors what words are allowed to escape my mouth. “Everyone knows money's filthy anyway ...” Lately, she's been tsk-ing a lot but letting none of my thoughts pass.

“Shhh. No need to be like that,” she hisses in my ear. “Let's just get through the day, shall we? You are doing the best you can. Repeat that.”

I may have no trouble listening to my inner voice, but I have a difficult time believing her sometimes.

It doesn't matter that the crowd is pulsating with a rhythm and harmony of phlegm. I only hear the nasal hum of the boy trailing after me as I work the concessions table at the school game. I feel a shocking desire to pretend he's not with me. And guilt.

I feel guilt.

Which turns out to be something my son will always help grind in like dirt at the knees:

“I've been coughing for a week,” he announced as if he had pulled a microphone and speaker from his pockets and switched it on. I cringed at the sound of it as it hits my ears.

“No, you haven't,” I respond with a loudspeaker voice of my own. “You came HOME from SCHOOL with this two days ago,” as if making the point we are at the place of likely origin will absolve me of any parental blame.

No time to lather and rinse, I plunge another coin-sized dollop of hand sanitizer into my palm and repeat.

I know … I know … He should be home in bed, warm in bed with hot soup and G-rated cinema. I should be feeding him citrus and feeling his forehead, asking him if he has enough blankets.

Eventually, that's where we'll be. Home, with our pets and TV.

Home, where tissue after tissue I hand him winds up scattered on the floor like discarded gardenias not yet past their prime. Each one wrinkled from rubbing against the nose as if to scratch an itch. One per sniffle. A new flower drops to the floor at regular intervals.

I will pick them up with the tips of two fingers and deposit them in plain brown paper bag – an inch-wide cuff folded at the top the way my mother use to do. I will wash my hands until they start to crack.

“You need to blow,” I will scold.

He will comply, half-heartedly, and start rubbing his nose again.

Of course, in the morning, when he looks at me with the puppy dog eyes and barks at me with a productive howl I will have second thoughts about sending him back into the mill …

These thoughts only last a minute. Just long enough for the beep of the thermometer.

“Sorry, kiddo: 98.6. You're going to school.”

Gearing up for 'Swinter'

It's snowing. Finally. A thin mist of flakes floating to earth, covering everything in a light gauze that looks like fresh cotton.

I love this weather! I love this …. and yet ...

I am torn between rejoicing and retrenching.

Oh, now we can ski! Oh, now we can ski. Perhaps it was just the idea of bundling against the cold that I had missed … not the packing of bags, the lugging of gear, or dealing with tempers. Somehow, I always manage to blot out those bits.

My shoulders hunch forward under my coat. Hands jammed in my pockets. Muscles tense against the chill, barely remembering the warmth from just a few days ago.

Once the air cuts at my skin, I start to shiver. No matter how many layers I add, I won't  get warm. Maybe not even until spring. I wish I could climb back into bed until the gopher gives the OK.

Where are my gloves? I swear I just saw them around here somewhere. I swear they are worse than socks at disappearing.

A blanket of white clings to the annuals, which have been stubbornly clinging to life waiting for winter.

Instead, we got "Swinter," a sloppy mix of seasons that also makes a mess of our emotions as well. We should hate this global phenomenon … but some parts of it seem helpful right now … at least in the short term. Sure, you might miss ice skating on frozen lakes, but you could use the savings on the heating bills.

I have to remind myself that polar bears are dying, and entire communities will soon be submerged.

The grass, freshly green -- the result of nitrogen gifted by a surprise January thunderstorm -- will not lay down for this more appropriate weather arrival. One more month of warmth and I feared I might have to dig out the mower.

I'm sure the fat robins, who haven't left for winter yet, don't mind. They can still pull up tasty things from the ground, which is far from frozen.

They're no more bothered by this layer of snow than I am. I will scrape ice off my windshield and slog through traffic, slowly creeping past motorists who are victims of first-snowfall skids.

I try not to gloat. I feel at one with the retirement crowd. I don't worry about being late these days, so I never feel compelled to meet the speed limit. Slowing down for snow is just in my nature.

Still, I wish it could have been a Snow Day. I know the kids wish so, too, even though I wonder what difference it makes? So they can watch videos of other kids doing things for the entire day and not just the two hours between dinner and bedtime.

It's probably for the best this snowfall waited until mid-day to make its arrival.

Instead, the kids are waiting to be picked up here, and transported there, as per usual.

I don't feel I have any right to complain. It's been mild enough that our bikes are still on the road and weekend long runs can be completed comfortably in shorts.

It's not as if I hadn't weathered umpteen winters before this one. Swinter will feel like a day at the beach.

Hurry up and wait

"This was supposed to be fun," said the disembodied voice in my head. The one that always needs interpreting, but no one ever seems to understand. Especially now that it sounds like it could use a hot tea with lemon to soothe the grating.

We were all together. Dressed up and clean … ish.

He shifted his weight and approached the desk. My husband smiled uneasily at the maitre di and gave our sir name.

Of course, we could wait in the bar until the rest of our party arrived. It would be a while.

After a childhood of waiting, he was finally in a position to be early. So he was taking an overfull advantage. He ordered a drink and asked the kids if they'd like sodas.

The boy didn't seem to mind, but she was prickly. It was apparent in the intractable way our daughter stood in the lounge -- her mouth tightly set, her eyes fixed at a point just shy of glazed over – a slight nudge could set her off. If he had been paying close attention, he might read the whole story in her body language ... from tragic beginning to decimating end.

A story as old as life itself, or so we are told, and yet it's something we've never experienced before. Not in so many words, anyway.

To tell it would seem like extracting the plot from a Tarantino film and wringing out all the gratuitous violence.

No matter how you tell it, the story won't make sense on the surface, and the narrator always runs the risk of losing her audience.

A story where the author doesn't always have the last word ...

But here goes:

It was her favorite place. This crowded restaurant. A family dinner in which we were also meeting friends. There would be children her age; children she liked. There would be food and theatrics and maybe even a hint of drama.

Just enough to be exciting, not enough to spoil the soup. And of course, there would likely be dessert.

Right now she'd rather be anywhere but here. She couldn't hide it.

Ask her a question? She'll answer in a whisper. Ask her to repeat herself and she'll say it again even quieter.

Cue record needle being dragged across vintage vinyl.

"What's wrong with her," my husband asks me since I am the translator whenever he finds himself in the inhospitable territory of Ticked-Off Tween.

Oh right. Seems illogical doesn't it?

Not really. I know what's wrong, but what I don't know is the right way to explain it. Do I cut the red wire or the blue wire?

It's a dangerous position to have between the volatile generations: translator. One indelicate word, one misinterpretation, and the whole place blows. I'd be sweating if it weren't so cold here by the door.

Instead, I close my eyes and clamp down on the nearest wire.

“You know how you hated it when your father was always late? … Hated it so much you made a vow that you would never be late to anything? A vow so important to you that you leave an hour early to a fifteen-minute commute?”

“Yes,” he answers with solid recognition and a dash of pride.

“Well … She feels the exact same way about being forty-five minutes early.”

And with a look of understanding, he showed me I had chosen wisely.

History might repeat itself, but eventually, we'd all be served.

Downtime

Downtime.

We all have it this time of year, don't we? That sudden deflation of spirit. The storm after the calm. The end of the year blues.

Christmas has come and gone, and though it may have brought with it all the joy a credit card can buy, it extracts a price we will struggle to pay for the rest of the year.

It never says goodbye. It just quietly slips away as we start to clean up its mess.

But it's a mess of our own making. And we know it.

With every poorly received gift, we are reminded.

We are reminded of these shortcomings each and every time our kids ignore new toys and opt instead to play their old familiar game of "I'm bored."

We can't help but point out the irony we could just as easily apply to ourselves.

As we worry about space, and how little we have of it now that an entire aisle of Target has been transported to our living rooms via the magic of the season and a few trips in the good ol' SUV.

“You don't even play with the things you have ...”

We don't want to admit it, but we know we have a tendency to sabotage the season. We compare it, maybe not to our neighbor's or our friends, but to our inflated expectations.

It's kind of sad how much we invest in this Ponzi scheme of a holiday, hoping the tangible will offer a bridge to the intangible on which we can cross some raging waterway safely.

It doesn't usually work that way.

But we all know the word usually is filled with hope and possibilities. "Usually" doesn't mean never. And as long as there is hope there should be effort. And where there is effort there should be reward.

But when there is no reward what is left?

Recrimination? Retribution?

Maybe.

Or maybe it's why we have a whole holiday dedicated to resolutions exactly one week after overindulging on this glut of good will.

This year will be different; we tell ourselves. This year we will perfect our traditions, and they will be more than satisfying. They will be sustaining.

The thing I think we forget is that no matter what happens, this year can be different. And it can be better ...

Even if we buy too much ...

Or eat too much ...

Or don't get exactly what we wanted ...

We don't have to lose 10 pounds ...

Or get a better job ...

Or become our best selves overnight ...

But we have to stop dwelling in those places.

We have to move on.

I suppose I learned just that this year when the best present in the world … the twelve-piece big-girl bed set was all wrong. Wrong color, wrong fabric, wrong style.

It wasn't until we returned it a few days after Christmas that I understood, getting it wrong might have been the best thing after all.

We got to be together, enjoying each other's company.

We walked. We talked.

Noticed smiles and smiled back.

All because I made a mistake.

So maybe we shouldn't worry so much about meeting expectations.

Or even playing by the rules.

Maybe we should just play through … even when the rules keeping changing and there's no way to win.

The rules are universal anyway:

Lose with grace.

Win with kindness.

Keep playing.

Downtime has a way of turning itself around especially when you're not paying it much attention.

Away games

We pass through the gauntlet of admissions and concessions sellers and into the gymnasium of a foreign school.

Sometimes there are bleachers to climb, sometimes there are chairs to unfold and set into rows. We try to arrive a little early. Often we arrive too early.

We don't know if we have the right place … or even whether we've selected the correct color of the reversible team jersey to be facing out.

I can never remember … Is white Home or Away?

In a few minutes, as teammates trickle in, it is apparent. Blue is Away. Quick! Turn the shirt inside out.

We hand over some cash, hold out our fists for a smear of ink that might have been a smiley face, and decided on a bottle of water and a bag of chips.

That was the easy part.

As our kid takes off toward the direction of the bench, we take our a place among the crowd. We look for familiar faces and find some. People make room.

The buzzers are always louder than I remember. I watch my kid cover his ears as the clock starts and his teammates hustle out onto the court. He waits his turn on the sideline, playing an imaginary game of some other sort in his mind. We just hold our breath and hope he'll be ready when the coach looks his way.

I always hated this game with its back and fourth. Swish. Back and fourth. Thundering herds of gangly players in the professional leagues making it look easy: two points adding up to the hundreds.

Not here.

Here I can't turn away. I have to remind myself to exhale and breathe anew.

Here on the court, the kids fight for everything. Timidly at first, perhaps. … They fight their own limbs and their ability to do two things at once. Look up. Dribble. Cut to the ball. Get open. Help them out. Every game there is progress.

I hold my breath as the turnovers happen. It's not easy watching your kid as they look lost.

The tension often gets the best of my partner in parenting. The tendency to armchair coach is hard to quell. He yells “Get a head of them, Blue” as if it were a cheer.

I jab him slightly with my elbow and he reels himself back.

This is supposed to be fun, win or lose.

But there are times it is decidedly not fun.

The times your team loses by a landslide.

Or when your kid's ears turn bright red after losing the ball to the other team.

And especially amid the times your team wins but your player is distraught because he never even laid hands on the ball during the game.

I often wonder why we put ourselves through this. I even say it aloud in the car on the way home ...

Is it for the moment of joy when another parent claps for your kid as they make a shot during practice. The belief that at some point it will all come together?

Maybe all the incremental moments of improvement you detect over time?

I wonder, do we do this because we worry that one day all the struggle will stop?

We may talk a big game about the trophies for everything, but it's the atrophy we all fear. These shiny metal and marble towers don't fool the children. They know when an award has been earned and when it hasn't.

One day, and maybe that day will be soon; the disappointment will be too great. The groans from teammates or the sidelines will be heavier than the weight of missing the shot.

On that day, your kid will stop trying.

And that will be the worst day of all. Though a part of you may be able to breathe again, another part of you will still be clenching its fists.

Giving shouldn't hurt

"That's it?" The boy was looking at me like I'd shorted him in his share of a chocolate bar.

I checked my watch. Six-thirty?

I tapped it twice and held it up to my ear. Still ticking alright. That can't be all; I said to myself.

We'd started just a half hour earlier.

"We're done? We just got here!"

"Here" being in a church on a Sunday night, sorting food for holiday deliveries to needy families. More than 1,600 according to the man with the clipboard, who was now thanking the large group of volunteers that had made short work of the evening's to-do list.

I'd assumed he was the minister, but I didn't want to temp fate by asking. Our family is so far from religious that I had secretly thought once we stepped through the doors to volunteer, the light from Religious would travel with the speed of a lightning bolt and strike us.

But it didn't.

Instead we were met by other people we know in the community - some heathens like ourselves and others more devout - and together we hauled sacks of food from one room to another. We sorted and separated. We checked dates and arranged each item by food group on tables that were already set up and waiting.

The system didn't take long to learn. Peanut butter goes here. Tuna fish goes over there. Pasta and sauce can share space in between.

"Where do I put this, mama?" asks my son, holding up a bag of "popcorn seeds." I point to a table in the far corner where all the snack foods have landed. He disappears and is back in a blink, this time with a stack of soups three cans high.

"I'm good. Don't need any help. I know where the soups are," he says as he zips past.

His sister, heading now into her last year of her tweens, tried to be cool with her ripped jeans, bedazzled top and colorful beanie perched on her head at a jaunty angle.

Her job, self-appointed, of course, was to second-guess every date of every item I had cleared and placed on the sorting table. "This says 2015 not 2016," she said in the booming voice she inherited from my side of the family.

Because, don't-ya-know, when you are old, people need to shout at you.

"It goes under here," she said slowly, as she bent down to toss the offending foodstuff on top of the pile of other non-perishables that had already died in the back of someone's kitchen cabinet.

Just looking at the growing pile stacked under the tables, I felt the dull ache of remorse.

How old was the stuffing mix I'd donated last month? I never even checked when I filled a bag. Multiply that bag by the many years we've lived here and watch my remorse grow ...

I start to feel a little sick.

Honestly, this was the most painful part of volunteering. Looking at the many donations that had been fresh when the artist currently known as Prince was just a symbol. And knowing some of those "gifts" might have been mine.

And then I think of that short-changed candy bar in my kid's tone of voice. ... A piece handed over between friends and loved ones might be sweet. But given to a stranger, it's not much of a treat.

Light bright

A war had broken out in the backseat, and there was still an hour of bumpy road ahead of us.

I pulled over and immediately the kids stopped arguing.

But I just sat there in a stupefied silence staring out the window.

 "Will you look at that," I said to my children, who were still trying to wrap their minds around the fact that I had finally "pulled this car over" after years of empty threats.

"Sorry mom ... " they said in unison as they waited for me to resume my usual toothless parenting and ease back into traffic.

"No, not that ... Look at that house ... It looks like it's been dipped in glitter!"

Again the car was silent.

“Isn't it bee-eeee-aaaaa-yooooouuuuu-teeee-full?”

"Alllllll-right .... " said my daughter using her most cloying Mom's-lost-her-mind drawl. "I guess that's kinda cool."

I blinked back tears.

"Kinda Cool? Kinda Cool?!? #%^&!!!!" … I sputtered out some more keyboard characters before I had to take a deep breath and accept I was alone in my enthusiasm.

No matter how I tried I wouldn't be able to articulate all I was feeling.

Even in my mind's eye, I couldn't fathom such an impressive projection. A single spotlight planted in the ground that sprayed pinpricks of colorful light everywhere.

Just poke it into the lawn, plug it in and push a button. Presto!

I'd never seen anything like it (since I watch Netflix and missed the AS SEEN ON TV infomercials) but I knew the moment I beheld this holiday attraction (AS SEEN ON A NEIGHBOR'S LAWN) it was a bit of magic that I would willingly plunk down either my firstborn or two payments of $19.95.

There would be no ladder to heft. No roof to scale. No half-lit string of icicle lights to drive a person mad as they searched for a single bad bulb.

And best of all, there will be no neighbors tsk-tsking that summer has come and gone, and our lights are still littering our eaves.

Pry the sucker up, pack it with the tree ornaments and dust your hands of the holidays.

Now everyone everywhere could be an honorary Griswold.

Turns out my $40 guess would have won me a trip to the showcase on The Price is Right, but the store clerk was playing Let's Make A Deal.

“I've sold a bunch of these, not a single one has been returned.”

Cha-ching.

Of course, I had to buy it.

Of course.

How could I turn away from a chance to tart up our front yard without risking a trip to the emergency room … or sucking up a year's worth of kilowatt hours while we count down twelve days.

This could be a game changer for the lazy and those of us who had been happenstance humbugs. With an all-weather extension cord, we too could revel inside our festive exteriors.

This starlight spotlight thing-y or-what-ever-they-call-it offers more than just tacky holiday illumination; it offers true democratization for the decorating disabled in a single – albeit potentially blinding – laser light beam.

We really WOULD be keeping up with the Joneses.

I could see it all unfold in a blaze of glory as I dragged my family out onto the lawn to witness this historic moment.

I pressed the button.

And to my utter amazement it worked.

And it was beautiful.

Dots of light danced around my house as if my retinas were detaching.

The kids oohed and ahhed with enthusiasm.

My husband even kissed the top of my head in a moment of solidarity.

This was a new beginning, alright.

“Next year, I'm getting another one!”

Here's hoping for many happy returns

The spirit of the season is upon us.

The Pomp is starting to play with dancing lights and decorated houses.

Holiday songs and the smell of snow are in the air.

We're almost there.

We just have to get through the Circumstance:

Shopping.

Long lines.

Short supplies.

Even shorter tempers.

The list of holiday stressors, perennially in need of trimming, seems to grow unchecked.

I used to love this time year. It always felt like a warm pocket filled with festive delights: Evergreens. Snow days. Dressed up trees. Small gifts for growing children. Even “Zuzu's petals.”

But somehow, time and deepening pockets makes me feel lost in all the wrapping paper.

That's what I tell myself, anyway, as I wander the aisles looking for the perfect something for cousin Elliott, or auntie Saya or Dappa John. I am disappointed to find the same old same old.

Decisions seem tangled up in thoughts I can't iron out, no matter how many gift guides I commit to memory.

Each year I feel myself transitioning more completely from the cool auntie who found the ideal gizmo for a toddler, to the crazy loon who knitted a full-sized pink bunny costume for a boy pushing the button on eleven.

I just can't keep up with technology.

Take Amazon planning to send drones bearing boxes of shoes to our backyard landing pads a mere 30 minutes after we place the order.

Well … that is if the FAA ever gives the A-OK.

I'm not sure I'll ever be ready.

I'd miss the store … or at least the friendly face of our mail carrier. And the idea of life without other humans seems totally unappealing, despite the current political hocus-pocus.

But if I must think about this holiday through the lens of consumerism, I'd prefer to imagine the true spirit of holiday shopping is sitting in an overstuffed, plaid lounge chair answering phones at a flagship outdoors outfitter named for a legume.

And now I can, thanks to my mother-in-law and a story she tells about being flabbergasted and just a little embarrassed when a store clerk whisked away her 15-year-old muck boots and replaced them – free of charge – with a brand new pair.

Fifteen years -- lifetime warrantee notwithstanding -- seemed to be a fitting age for any respectable footwear to go heels up.

But she was even more embarrassed to realize she'd forgotten to remove her new custom-made arch supports, which couldn't be found even the next day when she returned to the store to wade through all the unhappy returns.

However, when she unexpectedly received a check from Legume HQ for the cost of her lost lady arches, she was faced with yet another dilemma. She would never – literally or figuratively -- be able to buy another boot.

And for every person who hears that amazing tale, another tells similar story:

“I had a printed throw blanket from Bean's that I loved,” says another satisfied shopper. “But it got damaged. Ripped by the dog maybe? I don't remember exactly. Anyway ... I went back to find another one, and they were out. They searched stores across the Eastern seaboard, found one, shipped it to my house and didn't charge me a dime.”

I can't help but picture a grandmotherly woman answering the phone at customer service. A portly man in a red flannel shirt and a white beard listens to her end of the conversation as you explain the situation.

“What's this now? Your dog ate your throw blanket. Oh, you don't say … Why that's just a shame. …” she'll cluck.

He kindly offers advice, which she will shush because she's already ten steps ahead of him.

“What's happening, Martha? It's Christmas, for Pete's sake. Send them another throw blanket.”

“Now, papa, don't get yourself in a tizzy, we're taking care of this. Have yourself a nice cup of cocoa there, and stop droning on.”

Of course, these days receiving excellent customer service seems out of a bygone era if not an According to Hoyle miracle.

Sometimes I think that's all it takes to get back into the holiday spirit: A pleasant voice at the end of an 800 number and free shipping. No fairy dust required.