Small Towns Are Weird

    Growing up in a small town is weird. I can’t imagine I’m alone in this judgment. In some ways it’s wonderful, in that people always say it takes a village. I grew up riding in carpools to dance class and getting band-aids put on me when I fell off my bike in my neighbor’s driveway. But in some ways it’s disorienting, at least when you leave. What happens when you step out of the village, is that you realize it is a bubble, and perhaps your sparkling talents are like a lot of other people’s. Perhaps that grade point average is not that impressive (I’m talking about me, if you couldn’t tell). Perhaps that hometown hero's batting average is a lot like lots of other player’s averages (this one’s not me). And, perhaps that superlative didn’t mean that much after all. What happens when you leave is humbling and probably necessary. Your idea of success shifts, and you realize there are a lot of ways for people to shine that your small town didn’t begin to offer. At least, that’s what I realized.

    That’s a good thing, because I am a former elementary school teacher and current stay-at-home parent. I’m not humbly accepting any major accolades for my homemade waffles and PTO raffling. Most days, I remember that’s not where my value lies anyways.

    This was fresh on my mind when I read the boys the latest installation of Andrea Beaty’s Questioneers, Lila Greer, Teacher Of The Year. Illustrated by David Roberts, this picture book tells us the origin story of the student’s teacher, Ms. Lila Greer. We learn of her childhood spent in anxiety. We learn of a move to a new town that rocked her world. We learn of her kind teacher that scaffolded her assimilation to this school in a way that allowed her to make friends and absorb her life changes confidently.

    When the inferiority of being a former-small-town-gifted-student hits me, I have to remember Ms. Lila Greer. I have to remember that accolades are usually few and far between, and the most important things to me can be small and often unseen. The way Nathan and I raise our children, the ways I nurture my marriage, the ways I show up for my community. These are the ways I pay forward some of that weird, small-town love.

#andreabeaty

#lilagreer

#happyvalentinesday

Taking A Break

There are neighborhood kids everywhere, and it’s amazing. They are in our driveway, in our backyard, in our trees. These kids are running around with my boys, swinging foam swords and filling plastic cups with weird mud concoctions and making forts out of gnarled sticks. I peek out at them every once in a while to make sure that a scream wasn’t a cry and everyone’s okay – and they usually are. But last week I heard crying and yelling. I went outside to see what was going on, and two of the kids were upset after a tussle had gone wrong. Everyone was okay – one friend just didn’t stop when the other had enough. Nevertheless, the feelings got big really fast, and the tears fell and the words were snuffled as they explained to me what happened. We talked it out and they went off to play. I peeked out a few minutes later to see if the joy had returned and I saw one of the boys sitting off by himself. When I asked him how he was doing, he said, “I just need to take a break for a few minutes.”

I was really impressed that this little guy knew what he needed, that he could listen to his body so well. He probably knew he wouldn't have fun yet. He probably knew he wouldn’t make good decisions yet. He probably knew he needed a moment to process what happened.

This was fresh on my mind when I read Peter’s Chair by Ezra Jack Keats this week. In this book our beloved Peter, from The Snowy Day, just became a big brother and it’s not going well for him. His mom shushes him when his block tower crashes down and his dad is painting his old baby furniture pink. So Peter takes matters into his own hands, grabs his favorite blue chair, and runs away…to his front yard. There he realizes he no longer even fits in that little blue chair. He spends a little while outside in thought, and eventually goes back inside. When he does, ostensibly at peace, he asks his dad if he can help his dad paint the little blue chair pink for his sister.
I’m guilty of letting the world tell me that taking a break is being lazy or retreating from a problem. These two little boys, both real and fictional, reminded me that a break is sometimes just what I need to let the joy return.
#ezrajackkeats

Clinging To All The Things

Lately I haven’t been waking up early for my sacred “me-time” before the demands of the day begin. I haven’t restarted my weekly five-mile runs on the downtown waterfront in Manteo. I haven’t been writing in my office sunroom with the view of the water sparkling in the corner of my eye. Truth be told, in a lot of ways I don’t feel like I am who I was before I had cancer. While I’m not sure I’m supposed to, I can’t help but feel like when I emerged from cancer treatment last year, when I crossed the finish line from hell, I was so eager to get back to normal that I became overly regimented in all the wrong forms of normal. Perhaps, I was just clinging to all the things that made me feel in control of my life…if only I could keep my kitchen clean and keep the fridge stocked and keep the laundry folded, then…

This was on my mind last week when I began reading Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl this week. Inspired by the fantastic new Wonka movie, I decided to reread this childhood favorite of mine with Beckett. As I read the exposition of Charlie Bucket and his life of extreme poverty, the torture that was living next to a chocolate factory when all you had to eat was cabbage, and his dilapidated little house full of his four elderly grandparents that all oddly slept in that one bed, I was so struck by Grandpa Joe. He was tired and bedridden and, can you blame him, downtrodden, but when “Charlie, his beloved grandson, was in the room, he seemed in some marvelous way to grow quite young again. All this tiredness fell away from him, and he became as eager and excited as a young boy.” Nightly, Grandpa Joe would brighten their dreariness through stories of magic and joy and hope.

And I realized in that moment, that Roald Dahl perhaps had it right (forgive me for compartmentalizing all the ways he otherwise had it so very wrong) in the development of Grandpa Joe. Because, every day he stopped to remember the magic. In fact, he made it a priority. Later on in the book, Willy Wonka said, “In your wildest dreams you could not imagine the things that could happen to you.” Grandpa Joe reminded me to let those things back in.

#charlieandthechocolatefactory

Stepping Off The Rollercoaster

I feel like I just stepped off a rollercoaster. Heart racing from adrenaline, body tense from gripping the waist bar, feet fumbling from the impatient conveyor belt beneath me. Go ahead now, your turn is done, you can’t stay here. 

Ringing that cancer bell recently ranked as one of my best days, but also so unsettling. 

You’re just going to let me go? After all of that? I can’t, I still have my rollercoaster legs.

After ten all-consuming months of treatment, I realize we never really grasped a sense of normalcy. I was constantly moving into the next phase, one that brought new doctors, new demands on my time and body, and new limitations on my ability to participate in my life. We were constantly pivoting in some new, ungodly way. 

And now that it’s done, I don’t know what to do with myself. Do I scramble around and try to make up for ten months of unaccomplished chores? Do I try to reach out to some long-lost friends and see if I remember how to talk about normal people things? Do I try to get my crow pose back? What an exhausting headless chicken dance.

All of this was fresh on my mind when the boys and I read Swashby And The Sea last week. Written by Beth Ferry and illustrated by Juana Martinez-Neal, this picture book is about a reclusive sea captain named Swashby. Captain Swashby had a special relationship with the sea. It always gave him just what he needed when he needed it. So when ol’ Swashby retired, he settled in a quiet, isolated spot by the shore. One day a free-spirited little girl moved in next door, disrupting his solitude. Swashby put forth a hearty effort to maintain his quiet life, with grumpy messages in the sand and rejected invitations to tea, but the sea continued to interfere, finding ways to push the spirited little girl into Swashby’s life. The sea gave him what he needed…love and community.

Perhaps I need to take note from ol’ Swashby and stop the headless chicken dance. I need to let go and trust that eventually the chores will get done and the conversation will come back and my body will regain its strength. Like Swashby, I need to surrender to my own metaphorical sea, and trust that I’m going to get exactly what I truly need. 

What Are You Waiting For?

 

Three weeks ago, I woke up disappointed to see 7:45 a.m. on my watch. I was scheduled for surgery that day with a noon arrival to the hospital, the next step to achieve another dazzling check mark on my breast cancer treatment plan. My disappointment that morning came from the inhumane request to not eat or drink after midnight. Being thirty-five and the mom of two early-risers, 7:45 a.m. was the best I could do to sleep the morning away so I didn’t have to experience half-a-day of no coffee or food. The horror. 

Hours later, Nathan and I found ourselves at the hospital pre-op room, still awaiting the anesthesia that would at least take the consciousness out of my hellish waiting game for a Beyond burger and fries. Not to mention, of course, the arrival of pathology results and general anxiety about surgery.

True to form, the next thing I knew Nathan had me wrapped up in some mind-puzzle game that had me in tears laughing instead of snipping at him for chewing gum so close to my hospital bed. He cleverly took my mind off of my discomfort and anxiety, pivoting so effortlessly towards joy and fun.

This moment was fresh on my mind last week when the boys and I reread Mo Willems’ Waiting Is Not Easy!, a favorite of ours from the Piggie and Gerald series. In this award-winning classic, Piggie sends Gerald the elephant into a near-meltdown waiting for a surprise, which turns out to be the brilliant, Milky Way-decorated, starry night sky. Gerald is so pleased with his surprise, he coyly starts Piggie down a similar waiting game for the sunrise. 

My surgery morning was one of many episodes in the current season of excruciating waiting. But Piggie and Gerald (and Nathan) reminded me that, really, I’m always waiting for something. Whether it be the surprise of a starry night sky or the relief from a painful diagnosis, there is always something I’m preparing my body and mind to experience. The moments I’ve been waiting for come and go quickly but, if I pivot well, I will find the real living happens while I'm waiting with the people I love.

#mowillems 

Building Sandcastles

I have watched the entirety of Gilmore Girls this past month. I’ve done this before, but in the past it’s taken me much longer to conquer. It required zero effort on my part. Netflix didn’t even make me click for the next episode. I’ve had very good reasons to do nothing, and for many of those days, nothing was all I could do. The past month has included a bilateral mastectomy, multiple trips to the plastic surgeon for reconstruction, and two rounds of chemotherapy. 

There have also been days lately that doing nothing was all I could come up with to do. Days that I don’t know how to be a parent, or a partner, or a friend, or attempt any of the things that I love doing. While I’m not sure much is expected of me right now, I do know that most days I feel in a weird holding pattern. The reality is, of course, that this phase is not forever. The other reality is that this phase is still part of my life. My husband and his church are still churching away, growing and loving and serving. My boys are still making new friends, making mistakes, making plans. Most of my month was spent trying to figure out what I can do and fearing all the things that haven’t happened.

This hit me like a ton of bricks this week when I read the boys Jules vs. the Ocean by Jessie Sima. It’s about a little girl that spends the day at the beach attempting to build a big, fancy sand castle all by herself. Over and over again, the waves keep crashing her sand castles and stealing her sand pail. The ocean becomes this anthropomorphized enemy in her mind, out to get her and ruin her plans. Eventually, her sister comes back from surfing and tells her that the ocean isn’t doing this on purpose, it’s just what the ocean does. It happens to everyone. So Jules builds another sand castle, and the ocean takes it away again. Eventually, her mother affirms, it happens to everyone. Besides, the moon really controls the waves, anyway. 

Jules reminded me that I have to show my kids that we keep building sand castles anyways, even if they look a little different. So, here I sit at my computer, attempting to write. I’m still keeping an eye on those waves, though. Maybe even the moon, we’ll see.

#jessiesima

If You Give Me A Diagnosis

I used to joke with Nathan that trying to get pregnant combined some of my favorite things, the greatest of which is making schedules. 

This summer I was thrown a major curveball, making it difficult to make schedules or decisions. Back in late July, I went for an annual exam, and then a precautionary mammogram, and then a biopsy, and then a breast cancer diagnosis at thirty-four years-old. All of a sudden, my love of making schedules was turned on its head, forcing me to a state of surrender which doesn’t come easily for me.

My normal concerns like what to cook for dinner and how to wear out the boys after school turned into questions like whether to get a lumpectomy or a mastectomy and whether I should bother tweezing my eyebrows if I’m just going to lose them in a few months from chemo. My typical love of making plans turned into writing down every order my doctors give me. My normal color-coded planner turned into a giant shoulder shrug, My answer for what’s going to happen has become: “I think, probably, but I don’t really know.” 

This was fresh on my mind this week when we read Laura Numeroff’s classic If You Give A Mouse A Cookie. Numeroff’s serial book tells the tale of a boy that gives a mouse a cookie, which kicks off an unpredictable, chaotic odyssey in which the mouse then wants milk, and then a napkin, and then, and then, and then. The reader gets a silly sequence of events in which this little boy follows a mouse who is just making a series of in-the-moment decisions on life’s terms.

I wish my cancer diagnosis had brought me to a state of enlightenment, where I didn’t worry about things like my eyebrows or losing my boobs. It hasn’t. I'm sure I’ll get through surgery next week, and then following treatment, and then jump right back to fretting over just how organic my broccoli actually is and whether my freshly-grown-back-hair cooperates in the beach humidity. I hope one thing sticks, that when this daunting treatment plan is over I choose to show my kids that, like Mouse, we just make decisions on life’s terms. I’ll enjoy my metaphorical cookie today and be comfortable not knowing what will happen next.

#lauranumeroff

#breastcancer