Ignoramus Rex

I'm not going to lie.

When I gave birth to Eric 25 years ago, I didn't know squat about how to be a parent.

The earliest example of my ignorance?  I had no idea that, if I chose cloth diapers, I should probably have a supply of plastic pants to back up that decision. 

After our second day home from the hospital (and the fourth load of laundry), our neighbors, the Buckners,  were kind enough to point out the obvious to us.

Their advice came straight from The Graduate:  

"One word:  Plastics!"

My God!  Their information was revelatory to our young family!  I should probably write them into our will. . . .

And that was just the first realization that I was ill-prepared for the job.

You know what, though?  Those dadgummed kids--Eric Carlson Holt and his punk sister, Allison Shepard Holt--thrived in spite of all our ignorance.  And that is something I find great comfort in.

For a thousand different reasons, it's good to remind myself that people are resilient, that good often bubbles up from bad, that people find a way to thrive, in spite of it all.

Certainly, my own lovely children are proof that we are not defined by our parents.  Or our leaders.

So, today, I focus on the loveliness that is Eric and Allison Holt .  I pinch myself as I consider those funny, steady, sparkly souls and the way that they hold so much hope for a good future, despite the sputtering, damp start that both faced so many years ago.

They are my finest homework, even if I kind of cheated to get the answers.

Making Strides

A few weeks ago after school, I got a bad case of the giggles.  And by "bad" I mean "really good," of course.  A small group of us was reviewing our dancer names, devised by taking our first pet's name and adding it to the first street we lived on.   Yeah, it wasn't exactly curriculum-driven, but good lord, they were funny.

And that's when old Ginger Sunrise lost her cool and let loose a mighty snort.   It's also when my friend Helen said something that stuck with me.

"You haven't laughed that hard in a long time."  And she was right.  I hadn't.

Man, it felt good.

And it also felt . . . transformative.  As though I'd started to slough the strange skin of the past two years, all those months of death and disease.

It's nothing new, the idea that we can't see the forest through the trees.  But when I finally got to pull back a bit and enjoy the long view?  It was something to realize just how much of my vision I'd lost in the short term.

Looking back over the past two+ years, I think I did what I needed to do at the time.  I put my head down and worked my way through it--through Mary Kay's death and Andrea's death and Dick's death and my cancer diagnosis and then--the strangest feather in my cap--my mom's death. 

But I gotta say that I really like looking up again. 

This morning, when Finn and I headed to Holmes Lake, I secretly hoped that the Making Strides Against Breast Cancer Walk wouldn't be underway when we got there.  For some reason, I didn't want to wear pink and walk with others, even if they'd gone on some version of this journey that I'm on.

I just wanted to be with my dog and enjoy the scenery.

I don't know if I've arrived at my post-cancer "every day is a gift" stage, but I do know that I'm laughing more and loving more and, sometimes, even roaring more, when the circumstances require it.

And I know that I'm lighter.  Happier.  More me than I've been in awhile.

Making Strides, you might say.

Going to Pot

I'm a pretty simple person.  That's not a confession or an admission.  It's just a fact.  That's why I don't like to be busy or weighed down with needless things, like mascara or purses or motion-activated security lights. 

I understand that the world cares not a whit about my inclinations.  That's why, back in the fall of 1999, when I was standing in the Anderson Ford parking lot, I grudgingly made my peace with the fact that my "new" car (an early 90s Nissan Sentra) would have electric windows.  

". . . because every car has 'em," the salesman claimed.

Yeah, right. 

Pffft.

So, what in the name of all that is good and holy was I thinking last week, when I went onto Amazon (now referred to as "Damnazon") and bought myself a newfangled, highly computerized kitchen implement that would make Ron Popiel choke on a beautiful julienne fry?! And how on earth could a six-quart container need so much packaging?  

When I saw the box, which took up most of our living room, I poured myself a stiff drink and mumbled an apology to Mark, who, I'm sure, was calculating just how many guilt-free Ebay purchases this abomination would allow him to make. 

I poured myself another drink before I had the nerve to open the box.  It was like one of those Russian nesting dolls--box tucked inside box tucked inside box. . . .  Finally, our kitchen floor covered in cardboard and plastic and styrofoam, there it stood, the Instant Pot, taller than Finn by a hand.  And shinier, too.

My first mistake (actually, my second, if you are counting what I did on Damnazon--and you should) was picking up the literature.  Pages two and three were devoted to warnings--19 in all!  

It's possible I'd have poured a third drink, but the 19th warning was explicit--Put Down the Gin!

Three days and two-hours-on-Pinterest-that-I'll-never-get-back later, there's a pork butt and some ribs sitting in the fridge.  I still haven't touched the Instant Pot since cramming it into our cupboard, but this is all about the baby steps, people.  Or, more accurately, baby-back steps.  

Don't worry.  I'm off the gin.  It's clear that this thing will require a sober mind and kung-fu focus.  

Maybe I should have kept those boxes . . . . 

Flying the Friendly Skies

This image hardly looks like a Painted Lady butterfly.  That's because it isn't.  Not exactly.  It's actually a radar image of our lovely visitors as they flew over Denver earlier this week.

. . . all 70 miles of them!

A typical Painted Lady is 3" wide.  Feather to feather, it would take about 21,000 of them to stretch across a mile.  And in  a 70-mile stretch?  About a million and a half, if they flew one deep.  

A few weeks ago, I was flipping out over the 200 I counted in our garden.  During those lovely layover days,  I couldn't get home from school fast enough--how many would I find today?!  And now I'm asked to imagine hundreds of millions of them, all catching a ride on the same wind! 

Please tell me that some little boy was stretched out on his back in a Denver park, looking up into the sky, tracing doggies out of clouds, only to find a wild, beautiful dragon arching its way across his view.

There are so many incomprehensible things in the world these days.  Things that hurt the head and the heart.  Things that can keep us from looking up.

And then, there is this--millions and millions of half-ounce creatures flying a 4,500-mile journey over mountains, through rains, across oceans and and and . . . .

This is exactly what I needed right now.  Something beautiful and mysterious that I cannot possibly comprehend.