A Joyful Noise

Eight simple steps.  That's what the lady said we'd be learning last night at my inaugural foray into the  surprisingly athletic world of belly dancing.  I'm not usually one to correct people's math, but there is no way that there were only eight steps.  And they certainly weren't simple.

But this is my "Just Say Yes" summer,  so all those mashed-up moves and mixed-up numbers didn't matter in the end.  I was there to dance and that's what I would do, however badly.

The soundtrack to my summer has been one of joyful noise and I can't quite shake that happy tune from my head.  Opening myself up to the innocuous "whatever" has enriched and delighted and stretched me in ways both silly and significant.  From mid-morning movies to Chicago subway rides, cicada searches to belly dancing and late-night sky hunts, this season has been punctuated by moments seized.

Do something slightly out of your routine, though,  and you quickly discover an interesting mix of truth and misconception.  For instance, I have often told myself that I am open-minded and curious about my world.  And, to a certain extent, those things are true.  But I am also a stubborn creature of habit, a lover of early-to-bed routine and uncluttered schedules (or, better yet, no schedule whatsoever). Those ingrained habits sometimes speak louder than my own misconceived notions of self.

I know this because friends have a way of pointing out the obvious, which is why I have been getting a lot of ribbing lately.  Tease me long enough about staying up late or donning form-fitting gypsy clothes, though,  and the scales will eventually start falling from my eyes.

Tease away, I say!  This is my summer of joyful noise, after all, and your words tell me that "Just Say Yes" just may be the most perfect motto ever.

This simple mantra certainly has served me well, even if I'm still a lousy dancer.

I Feel the Earth(worms) Move Under My Feet

On a half dozen summer nights in our married life, Mark and I have sat on our front steps, heads bent low as we watch the ground undulate while earthworms turn the soil.  It is an amazing thing to see (and hear!) all that life churning underfoot.

Most of us would assume such flimsy creatures couldn't do that kind of hard work.

This morning, on my wet walk through Woods Park, I was again reminded of the fortitude of the earthworm. Lacking the grace and magnitude of the Sandhills Crane migration, it was still a sight to see--thousands upon thousands of worms wending their way across newly-sprung stream beds, making it nearly impossible not to step on them.  Some, swimming diligently through inches-deep pools, made me wonder how long an earthworm can hold its breath, and what it is inside of them that makes their will to live so strong.

I am usually a sucker for an earthworm stuck on a sidewalk, but it quickly became obvious to me this morning that it would take a village to nudge all of these creatures to higher, drier ground.  And, really, where is the drier ground these days?

Even Woods Park's resident Mallard couple seemed flummoxed by all that water, their usually grassy home now a pool of not-quite Olympic proportions.

This morning, it is as though the saturated earth has finally belched up its insides, no more room at the inn, thank you.  And all those subterranean residents are scrambling for their lives, dodging dog paws and soaked sneakers along the way, while the walkers curse the rains for their inconvenience.

The Mother Lode

I am 35 years younger than my mom.  I can't quite shake that fact, especially when I try to get up off the floor after a game of Yahtzee or wonder what on earth I should feed my family this week, and then try to imagine myself doing either of these things for another 35 years.  

Sometimes, I don't give my mom enough credit for those 35 years she has on me.  She has, after all, lived a lot more life than I have.  She has experienced things that I cannot yet fathom, including burying two children and outliving my father.  She has also survived Spam casseroles and Richard Nixon,  breast cancer and the Internet.   And she's done it in much classier style than I ever will.

These facts stand in stark contrast to the impatience I have felt towards my mom in the last few months.

While my mom shrinks physically, it seems that I am shrinking emotionally, right alongside her.  As her memory switches between lucidity and invisible ink, my siblings and I find ourselves being assigned new roles--cab driver, personal shopper, exhausted parent--despite our longing for revising our old roles again.  As Yogi Berra once said, though, nostalgia ain't what it used to be.  And fond memories aren't particularly helpful as my family navigates these new and difficult waters.

Really, what my mom could use from me right now is a good foot rub.  That used to be one of my unofficial roles as a Raglin child, rubbing my parents' feet.   As I close my eyes and imagine rubbing my 88-year-old mother's knobby, gnarled feet, a wave of compassion comes over me.  I press my imaginary thumb gently into the sole of her foot, working small circles around it, while the rest of my hand cradles her toes.

My heart slows and softens, just thinking about giving her a foot rub.  And--somehow--the mere thought of this simple, loving act makes more room in my heart for Sally Raglin, my mother of 53 years.  The woman who needs her kids a little more these days.  And--right now, at least--I think that I just might be up for the extra work.

Morning Has Broken

This morning, I dilly dallied in bed until nearly 6:15, comfortable with a single sheet on top of me and Finn stretched out at my feet.  Laying there, I was remembering the short battle Mark and I had had last night, the one in which I was ablaze with sweat, longing to turn on the air conditioner, which meant that we'd have to shut the windows.  I won.  But I realized this morning, as Mark had pointed out last night, that I had actually lost, because my longing for freon-tinged air had cut us off from everything that was outdoors.

What's a little sweat among beings, after all, if it means we remain connected?

I sought to rectify my last evening's mistake by heading straight out the door this morning, skipping even my daily constitution in return for early-morning wanderlust with dog on lead.  It was the right thing to do.  Which walking always seems to be.  Especially when done outdoors.

Walking has done more good for me than just about anything.  This simple, grounded, daily act of moving atop and through and next to everything that I happen to encounter has made my life both smaller and larger at the same time.  Rich in its purposelessness, it is a paradox that I am happy to have.

Maybe that's why I'm so quick to transition to "summer" mode each year--because I know that there are great rewards in waking up with no "to do" list, no papers to grade, no meetings to endure.  Summer, for me, then, is the calendrical equal of walking--a meandering season in which things just happen.  Or don't.  And I am deeply content to live with these question marks planted among the cherry tomatoes out back.

I realized the other day that, in all of my 53 years on this earth, only one has included an 8-to-5 summer of "proper" adult living.  It's probably not a coincidence that that year was the only one in which a pervasive heaviness sat upon my weary shoulders.

Like the 17-year cicadas that just now are shaking off the rich loam of their worn-out beds, I emerge giddy and bleary-eyed each summer morning to a world both changed and constant, a whirring song erupting from inside of me.  And walking is the act that shakes off my old shell, letting something new and shiny emerge in its place.

It is with relief, then, that I turn off the thermostat this morning, and raise the windows that locked me in last night, welcoming the outside in.

Saying "Uncle" and Liking It

Don't tell the kids, but I quit J.K. Rowling today.  I know, I know.  What kind of librarian am I? In my defense, though, it wasn't Harry Potter I walked away from.  No, it was all these petty, annoying people in  quaint Pagford, England.  My God, how I longed for a wand or a magic spell!

Almost 250 pages into "Casual Vacancy" and I still hadn't found a one of them I'd like to eat dinner with. Well, there was one--an impoverished, mouthy teenaged girl--but I could tell that hers was a doomed life.  And so, I walked, but not until I read the last chapter, at Mark's bidding.  Suffice it to say that I was right about the girl.

Maybe it's because it's called free time, but I find that I'm almost never willing to spend it with annoying people.  Or foul people.  Even though I can be both, and sometimes at the same time.  It's no surprise, then, that my judgment hasn't always been sterling.  In fact, there are times when I try really hard to like someone or something, because I know so many other people love that person or thing--but, ultimately, I just can't do it.

Take Woody Allen, for instance. I went through a long phase, in the mid 80s, of telling myself that I loved his films.  During those years, I giggled and harrumphed and chortled my snooty, pseudo-intellectual, urban-chic way through a dozen VHS tapes of his droll, New York stories.  Invariably, I ended up laughing louder than I should have, given my dark secret of finding most of them really just annoying.  Nowadays, when I see a mousy little man with thick, black glasses, I impulsively want to rip them off his face and tell him to get over himself.

I'm a slow learner, though, considering that here I am, 30 years later, still trying to talk myself into popular things.  Right now, for instance, I really want to like "Veep."  I mean, I have always thought Julia Louis-Dreyfus was funny, so you can imagine how excited I was to discover that "Veep" is now on Netflix!

Mark and I settled down on the couch the other night to dive into this series, already giggling before the intro had even finished.  Three thousand "f" words later, (it's a 30-minute show!), I found myself wondering if the script writers really wrote down all those "f" bombs or if they were just the result of lazy improvisation.  Either way, I'm having trouble talking myself into another "Veep" marathon.

Other people and things I want to like more than I do?  Maybe you should sit down.

•Tomatoes.  I'm from the Ronald Reagan camp when it comes to tomatoes, preferring mine in squeeze-bottle form, although I keep planting--and eating--them.

•Edamame.  The first clue that people are trying too hard to like them?  They've given them a new name.  My God, people.  They are SOYBEANS.  As in TVP!  And, while it's true I've got a bag of them in the freezer right now, it's also true that the bag is three years old.  And sealed.

•Apple Watches.  I haven't worn a watch since my parents brought me back one from Ireland in the early 70s.  And I can't read the type in a phonebook, so I don't know why I'd want a computer the size of a postage stamp.  Truth is, I still struggle with my cell phone.

•The "Hangover" Movies.  See "Veep."  All those bromances, really, leave me wishing our house had a shower, because they're so filthy.  Again, I'm wondering (and worrying) about the screenwriters. . . .

•And the list goes on:  sushi (texture issues), the last season of "Glee" (annoying teens living in a $4,000 New York apartment) martinis (gag!), Bob Dylan (really?),  Hillary Clinton (still trying), yoga (should try it again, I know), the writing structure of "Sarah's Key" (mix it up, girl!), liposuction (might be changing my mind on this one). . .

Really, I'm not a hater.  And I'm no Pollyanna, either.  Like everyone else, I just like what I like.  And occasionally I try to pretend I like other things, so that I can fit in a little more.  But, mostly, I just call "uncle" when it gets to be too much.

"Uncle."