Vacating the Premises

Five summers ago, I was knee deep in planning an October trip to Italy that fall.  My planning--which I'd started at least a year before departure--was surprisingly elaborate for a person who imagines herself to be fairly flexible.  But I happily swam in all those details. From studying train tables to chasing down great rentals-by-owner,  I enjoyed the planning almost as much as I enjoyed the trip itself (okay, that's a lie, but it was lots of fun!).  So, I'm curious why it is that I have approached my upcoming UK trip--a trip whose kickoff is in a handful of days--with such a casual attitude.

I have no idea what changed between then and now.  Is it me?  Have I grown--gasp!--blase'?  Or maybe it is the lack of a language barrier on my upcoming trip (although I've been told that English in Edinburgh is no more understandable than Italian in Vernazza).  Another explanation is that I'm in "avoidance" mode, knowing that, if I go on this trip, I inevitably will return to a house teetering on change, since the two young adults living in this house are anxious to write the next, Woods Avenue-less chapters of their lives just weeks after I return.  My inclination is to side with the common-language explanation, because I never, ever want to be blase' about life, anymore than I want to get in the way of my children's futures.

Fortunately, yesterday--rainy, unscheduled, slow-as-taffy yesterday--was the perfect day to gleefully lose myself in the unglamorous details of my upcoming vacation.  My heart rate goes up when I eye the growing pile of vacation paraphernalia that has gathered across the room from me.  Is it weird that the sight of miniature bottles of shampoo, hand sanitizer and lotion gets me kind of jazzed?  Maybe I should have been a model-train enthusiast. . . .

And, really, why wouldn't I be a different person than I was five years ago?  More confident about international travel, less concerned about bringing only carry-ons, even a bit defiant about the TSA and its 3-ounce pat-down dance,  I'm no longer a slave to the unknown, certain that I can make it up as I go.  Or at least, pretend enough to get by.

Ultimately, then, I approach this trip with more confidence--and a rapidly dwindling savings account--knowing the UK holds myriad adventures, ale-tinged giggles, awe-inspired silences and a shockingly blank slate of promises that there is no such thing as wasted moments when you are exploring the larger world.

Bring it on!

Bon Voyage, Life as We Know It!

June 18, 2014.  Let the lies begin.

Tomorrow morning, as I head with old friends to the Ozarks, Allison will head to Costa Rica, for an 11-day adventure that includes kayaking and sea turtles, humidity and zip lines. The only thing our vacations will have in common is the humidity.

While it's true that I have no idea what's in store for me down in the Missouri hollers (Andy Williams is dead, after all), I have a thousand more questions about Allison's time away from home.  Will she get sick?  Find food she can eat?  Will others annoy her?  Will she hurt herself or be lonely?

Not that I'm voicing these questions to her.

And that's where the lying comes in.

I would sooner eat my hand than tell Allison of all the challenges that I suspect await her.  And, long after she's nudged the last sea turtle to water,  those challenges will just keep on coming for pretty much the rest of her life, picking up intensity in August when she moves to campus.

Does it make me a bad parent that I keep these things to myself?  Are Mark and I cruel for wanting her to stretch her wings and struggle a bit?  For not warning her ahead of time that things might get hairy?

Depending on the day, Mark and I can seem downright giddy as we anticipate this next chapter of Allison's life.  Like a young sea turtle angling its way to the waters, Allison is in charge of this new path she will make for herself and our job is to stand on the sidelines, occasionally shouting our encouragement as she manages all the challenges.  And we couldn't be happier for her to face them.

Along the way, I suspect Mark and I will lie--or at least withhold evidence--at an astounding rate, telling her she'll be fine, saying it's no big deal to travel between campuses, wishing her well as she figures out Calculus 106.  These are her mysteries and I'm not sure we'd do much good if we walked in front of her as she navigated them.

Enough, then, with providing Allison shelter.  Enough with walking beside her or helping her forge the path.  It's time for bald-faced lies, sideline cheers and a house suddenly void of a young woman's messes.

It's time for the next chapter.  For all of us.

Father Time

My dad,  Jim Raglin (second from right),  died in October 1993--about a year after Eric was born.  As far as timing goes,  it wasn't my dad's best move, although I believe he'd just run out of fight and did what he needed to do.

Who knows why I just Googled him--an act that would be utterly foreign to this savvy, pre-Internet journalist who happened to be my dad.   Maybe I was just looking for some proof that this funny, thoughtful, bridge-building man who'd greatly influenced me still mattered, despite having died nearly 21 years ago.

What I found, though, caught me off guard.  Here's an excerpt that popped up from a website when I did the search:

I could find little else about this man--a Vietnam vet--that would offer some explanation of his gratitude for my father.

I rather like the idea of my dad possessing some dust-laden secrets, even now, when his bones have become food for the plants--at least those plants that are still allowed to grow at the local Catholic cemetery (mea culpa--I could not help myself).  Yes, I'd really, really like to know who this guy is and how it was that my dad's "courage and conviction saved my life in the fall of 1977."  But, mostly, I'm glad to know that my dad--and his published words, I suspect--made a positive difference in this man's life.

In honor of Father's Day, I'd like to thank my dad for some of the best things he left behind for his family, even now, when so much time has passed since his death:

--Humor  is a gift as well as a bridge.  And it is also a great source of release when you just can't imagine how it is that you will face tomorrow.

-- Labels are silly.  Screw popular opinion and make friends with folks who don't share your skin color, your religion, your political party, your income.

--Do a few good things in secret, even though you know how important storytelling can be.

--Pay attention and give life a whirl, because there are a million stories out there that are worth hearing and telling and experiencing.

I may be a warts-and-all kind of gal, but I know that I am a better person, having lived for 31 years  under the influence of my fine and funny father, Jim Raglin.

Dad, here's hoping you've found all the great fishing holes and funny folks, wherever you may be right now.

It's Time for a Label-ectomy

I still can't believe that clothes come in size 0.  In my youth, no one wanted to be called a "zero," although there certainly were worse names.  Beyond the incomprehensible notion of someone other than a specter or wraith being a size zero, though--are the "zero" racks at Dillards just empty?--any single-digit clothing size seems a bit impractical to me.  Single digits conjure up images of infants and children, not child-bearing women with mama hips and fleshy breasts.

Yes, labels have their place in our lives ("may contain nuts," for instance, is a life-saving bit of information for someone who is allergic or considering a run for Congress).  But, beyond the practical, many labels have outlived their usefulness, or taken on new, sinister meanings.

Take former Nebraska senator Shirley Marsh, who died recently.  I've become so label saturated that I considered it an egregious, sloppy error when the local paper described her as a pro-choice Republican.  Well, it turns out that such people actually exist.  Or at least once existed, before labels became so inflexible and exclusive.

And the whole Eric Cantor defeat has left his colleagues--people who may actually have been willing to meet halfway on contentious issues like immigration--scrambling to outdo each other in their newly-forged "south-of-the-border"paranoia.  Tell me that labels aren't behind this latest hoopla. 


These days, we seem more content to let labels guide us than to actually step into the messy ring ourselves and wrangle a bit with all those competing, complex ideas, and everyone suffers in the aftermath.

What good are these political bookends without a few good books tucked between them?

I know, I know.  

What on earth does a size-14 female--a moderate Democrat who actually once voted for Dave Heineman (not proud of that at this particular moment)--have to offer to this conversation?  Well, first of all, there really doesn't seem to be a conversation on this particular topic, but, aside from that, I have nothing but my muddled, complicated, middle-aged humanity to offer up.

Back in the day, those labels might have been enough to earn me a place at the table.  Now, though, I suppose those same labels have relegated me to "inconsequential" status.

...not that anyone's sitting at the table anyway.

Getting the Lowdown

I've got some friends in low places these days, people for whom life is a wrenching challenge.  Their daily slogs are riddled with death and grief, illness, financial struggles and deep fear for the lives their children may face.  I suspect that, for many of these friends, the very idea of 8 hours of restful sleep is as fanciful as the belief that rubbing a lamp will bring them three wishes.

And still, they manage to get out of bed each morning.

Yeah, I know some exceptional people.

Granted, they are exceptional, in part, because of their willingness to find a way through each of these difficult days.  In the midst of it all, I am sure that they have their moments when they feel the bitter taste of envy for those whose days are marked by couch time and Netflix marathons.

But our lives--at their best--are not defined by bed sores and boredom--the beaten-down batting that fills a humdrum stretch of life lived on calm seas.  Ironically, the person each of us really is emerges at those times when our lives seem the most muddled.  It is in those difficult times when we find ourselves hoping that we can hang on long enough to come out the other end and appreciate our new, finely-defined edges of strength and hope and character.

Me?  I suppose I've finally become that cheerleader I long ago used to joke about becoming.  And my job these days is to get off the couch long enough to help nudge my friends' feet to the floor each morning.  From there, my friends once again face that Great Unknown, but maybe--just maybe--today will be the day when hope overtakes weariness, and calm seas once again seem like a real possibility.

Grand Illusions

When I was pregnant with Allison, I remember thinking that my previous experiences with Eric had made me a certified baby-birthing expert and would therefore see me through this new chapter.   It's an illusion that has stuck with me ever since, despite all the evidence put before me.  Evidence that, say, someone from Social Services could use to create a little job security.

The first illusion I recall is the one that convinced me I'd feel great throughout my pregnancy.  Compared to someone on a cross-country bike tour who'd just eaten a can of post-dated tuna?  Yeah, I suppose I did feel great.

And then, after Allison was born,  there was the belief  that I'd just sort of remember all the things I had learned during Eric's infantile stage (a stage that only temporarily reared its head again when he was a young teen).  To be fair, I did remember that cloth diapers required plastic pants (which is why Allison wore disposables).  Beyond that, though, I had no memory of when a little baby should begin solids, grow teeth, quit crying, start walking.

You can imagine my disappointment when I finally realized that none of the rules that Eric had so diligently set out for me seemed to hold any water when it came to his younger sister.  Either that, or I had simply forgotten where I had put all that good information.  If I could just locate that pile of wisdom, I'm pretty sure I'd also find my wallet that went missing two weeks ago. . . .

And now, with college looming for Allison, I am once again beaten over the head by the realization that "if 'x' then 'y' " is nothing more than some stupid, unreliable mathematical voodoo (yeah, you heard right, Leona!) that--like all math--is absolutely no help to me whatsoever.

Thanks a lot, Pythagoras!  May a thousand bed bugs breed like bunnies behind your knee caps.

I feel like the Last Comic Standing--only a lot less funny--as I make it up again and again and again, my life experiences offering no help whatsoever.  I suppose the one concession is that I'm not making it up on a stage filled with cameras, in front of an audience grown cynical and expectant, thanks to all those hilarious YouTube videos they watched this morning.

Yeah, I'm probably lucky that Social Services quits knocking when the kids turn 18. 

Invasion of the Body (& Mind) Snatchers

I remember being a teenager and watching "The Invasion of the Body Snatchers" in absolute horror (not surprising, considering I'm such a delicate creature).  I suffered paroxysms of pure fright watching the final scene, in which Donald Sutherland lifts his zombified finger towards his last human friend and lets out a guttural moan, calling her out to a certain death.

What on earth could make people want to have their bodies snatched, anyway?

A really good public-relations campaign, for one thing.

Somewhere along this p.r. campaign trail, we've been trained to mistake dis-traction (which pulls people away from something) for at-traction (which pulls people towards something).  Along the way, we've ended up giving ourselves over to things that don't really matter.  Wrapped up in the shiny, false sheen of necessity, even silly things can take on the feel of life-or-death.

"You have a TracFone?  Are you kidding me?!" 

"I only have 45 followers.  What's wrong with me?"

"Hang on.  Someone's texting me."

I'm starting to think that "smart phone" is code for "dumb, distracted user." 

This from a 2012 Pew Institute study:
•67% of cell owners find themselves checking their phone for messages, alerts, or calls — even when they don’t notice their phone ringing or vibrating.
•44% of cell owners have slept with their phone next to their bed because they wanted to make sure they didn’t miss any calls, text messages, or other updates during the night.
•29% of cell owners describe their cell phone as “something they can’t imagine living without.”

. . . and that study is two years old, nearly ancient in modern terms.

I may not know much (I own a TracFone, after all).  But I'm pretty sure about one thing:  If you want to snatch a body, you need to start with the mind.  

Donald Sutherland, I smell a sequel and I'm shaking in my shoes.


Click here to watch the final Scene of "INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS"