Routine Procedures

The other morning, a few minutes after the first cardinal had found its voice, I was dialing (yes, I still dial, even though I'm pushing buttons) the Journal-Star's circulation desk to ask where our newspaper was.

See, we have the world's greatest paper carrier, which is a thing of beauty for a household that wakes up much too early each day. In fact, as I type this--at 5:20 a.m. on a Saturday--I hear the familiar grumble of our carrier's car ambling slowly down our street. Soon, it will be followed by the lovely "thunk" of another novella delivered tidily to my front door.

After entering my mild complaint with the circulation operator, I decided, at first light, to look again for our paper, which I found this time, tucked into the corner of our front steps, rather than atop the "welcome" mat, where it usually is.

Is it possible that everyone is a bit obsessive compulsive, hungry for the routines that we've established for ourselves?

At least to some degree, the benefit of our routines depends upon how we take apart that word "routine." For some, it comes from the word "route," indicating the road map we use to move through our days and lives. At other times, though, the word seems more akin to "rut" than "route."

And we've all been stuck there before.

Most days, my routines are like well-worn blankets to me, offering me both comfort and familiarity. Yes, they can get a little threadbare, especially in the middle of a long, gray winter, which is usually when I pull out my proverbial sewing kit and reinforce the edges a bit. But it is worth the extra effort, given what a dependable routine offers me in return.

My propensity towards routine has always made me a little googly-eyed in the presence of a true adventurer. I can get a bit uncomfortable around these people, who seemingly move through the world on the wings of a hang glider or dangling precariously from a nylon cord threaded through a much-too-small carabiner. They make me feel small and boring.

What is it about glitz and glamour and gorgeous sunsets that can pop the air right out of routine's "o" and make the rest of us feel like we're in a rut?

I wonder, though, how I make those people feel. Is it possible that the splashy daredevil secretly hankers for the steadiness of my own life? Is it possible that, mid-air, they're simply looking for the perspective that I've already found on the ground, three thousand feet below them?

I suspect that, like the rest of us, the daredevil utters his or her own confessions and doubts in a hushed, vulnerable tone, behind the comfort of a velvet screen, looking not so much for answers as for a bit of acceptance.

Calling "Do Overs"

It seemed like a typical start to the school year. I came back armed with a handful of new pens and a couple of nearly-fashionable tops I'd picked up at Shopko. Every other adult, though, seemed to have come back transformed.

It's certainly not the first time that I've been out of the loop, but it was the first time in a long time that I wondered if the bus had left without me. And that's not such a bad thing for me to wonder.

Tough? Maybe. But definitely not bad.

More friends than I can count arrived at school this year in shiny, new bodies, made even lighter by their sure-footed self confidence. These lithe beings each came to this state from varying points of origin, some spurred by dire news from their doctors, others by the barks of a personal trainer.

Me? I have arrived at this point in my life mostly through vigilant inertia.

I've had the same haircut for about 40 years. I can stretch a container of blush through most pages of a desk calendar. And most of my new clothes are green or tan, so that they may slip virtually unnoticed into their new roles in my closet.

I think my particular form of vanity comes wrapped in the strange packaging of acting like I don't care. "Acting" is the key word here.

But I have sensed a quiet stirring within me in these last few days, and I am trying hard to pay attention. Whether or not I succeed depends, in large part, upon my willingness to quit acting and start doing, one day at a time.

Today, then, I will take an extra minute or two to do up my face extra fancy, the nearly-noticeable swaths of blush announcing to the rest of the world that I do, indeed, care. And I'm not afraid to show it.

Making Peace with the "S" Word

The Slut Walk.

It's a shocking name, especially for us plain-spoken Midwesterners. We don't much like to read words like this, especially in our local newspapers, much less ponder what such an event might do to our young people.

Yet, beyond its shocking title, the event's purpose is both practical and admirable. Surely, its founders proposed, we could ask better of men rather than simply demand that women change their clothes so that men may not attack them. As though men are not capable of controlling themselves.

Yes, I loathe--with every fiber of my cotton-briefed being--the tight tops and skimpy shorts that most retailers make available to girls today. And I was secretly delighted to find out last year that, on her first day of high school, my very own daughter was pulled aside and ordered to change into shorts that weren't so, well, short. It is good to have a backup band, especially when the lead singer's message is so easily discounted.

But there is another side to that coin. Our society should expect better of our young males, as well. As much as the bra-less mothers of the revolution preach about the evils of objectification, we also need someone representing the other bookend, passionately preaching to our young sons the wisdom of bodily control and respect for all.

So it was with a bit of pride that I read Eric's Facebook post yesterday, in which he listed participating in the Slut Walk as a part of his busy day. (Yes, he also went to a movie and pretended to be a Zombie, but those are not the things I'm focusing on right now, thank you).

I certainly did nothing in my parenting to raise this young man who can walk among women who are asking for better. He has always had this way of looking at the world, a way that is much more expansive and enlightened than my own bifocaled approach. I credit his teachers, his mind, his generation for fostering Eric's mindset in life.

As for the rest of us, for whom "slut" is either a bad memory or just an ugly, uncomfortable word? Maybe yesterday's Slut Walk is a wakeup call to us, a chance for us to find our rusty voices and put them to use for something that is larger than ourselves.

I, for one, could really use a focus that extends beyond the "me" of my world.

Making Lunch for My Daughter

This morning, just when I was threatening to make it all about me, Allison asked if I'd make her lunch. At first, I resisted, the tough-love mama just about to utter "no." And then, I decided what the heck.

What the heck, indeed.

To make something for someone else--even something as simple and dull as a school lunch--is a great way to start the day. The ignorant, occasional Buddhist in me emerged as I got lost in touching the bread, laying the slices side by side. I found myself surprisingly present as I slathered on the peanut butter and jelly, topping it with the second slice of honey wheat, cutting it carefully at an angle, to fancy it up a bit.

I felt real love as I tucked an oatmeal raisin cookie into its plastic sleeve, tucking bag into bag.

I hadn't anticipated getting so swept up in yet another sack lunch. Even as I type this, I still feel the buzz of joy that this simple act brought me this morning.

I'm so glad Allison asked, and that I gave the right answer.

Get Lost

When Eric's plane landed in Stockholm a month ago, he spent the next few hours utterly lost, truly a stranger in a strange land. His first Facebook post from Sweden, though, didn't stop with the "lost" part. It ended with him eventually finding his hostel.

It was that last sentence of his--the one in which he eventually figured things out--that kept me from fretting too much for him. Like my fretting would have done him any good any way.

I keep coming back to the idea of Eric working his way through being lost, and I've decided that getting lost may be the best way to start a vacation. Or a life. Or a day.

That's why I chose "Get Lost" as my motto for the school year. When I rolled it out to the students, I told them about Eric's experience in Sweden, but I also added that there are all kinds of ways to get lost.

I got lost in a half dozen books this summer, never once leaving my comfortable den. Knee deep in my Nordic noir, while I may have put the book aside for the afternoon, I often felt fuzzied and confused as I negotiated the chilly, murderous world of what I'd read with the steamy, sub-tropical climes of my backyard.

I got lost on the bike path, riding the same route at different times of day, taken aback by the different lighting, the different crowds, the different smells on that otherwise familiar path.

This summer, I got lost making new foods, observing new plants in the garden, discovering a family of screech owls, and moving my son into a dorm.

The beauty of getting lost is that a person sees the world differently and more deeply. Really, we should all get lost on a regular basis. Then, we could replace fear with wonder, learning to appreciate the fresh perspectives, the body come alive.

Sure, I may very well tell a student or two to "GET LOST!" this year and mean it in the most literal, hot-headed way. Mostly, though, I'm hoping my "get lost" nudges them into new territories, bumps them up against new people and perspectives, puts a new shine on their sometimes tired young lives.

I know that getting lost in Sweden already has served Eric well as he begins his new life in college. What's the worst that can happen, after all, when you've been a stranger in a strange land and have seen it through to a satisfying end?

School Days, School Daze

I used to be a bit of a wanderer. Take my big debut to May Morley Elementary School one fine May day in the mid '60s. Having just mastered whistling on my commutes to Merry Manor Preschool, I figured I was a shoo-in for the next big thing--elementary school.

Mrs. Marsh, however, thought that--like a fine wine--I could use another year to mellow. Apparently, she was bothered by my propensity to stand up and move around during her rousing explanation of how bathroom breaks worked at the elementary level.

Not much more than a wispy, pinched woman, Mrs. Marsh nonetheless held the cards to my future. And my card was not would not be pulled. At least that year.

By 1973, I would find myself hovering on the brink of junior high, haunted by undocumented rumors of hallway stabbings and sexual trysts too boggling even for my youngest-of-five mind.

Alas, despite those tawdry tales, I managed to make it through East Junior-Senior High Educational Complex without so much as a single sighting of some punk's blade, much less an R-rated close encounter of the sexual kind. Such rumors often end in this way--with a sigh and a tinge of disappointment.

Talk about a complex. . . .

Standing at the brink of my 21st year as a paid employee at East High ("junior" and "complex" having long been pried off the building's face), I think it's important that I recall both Mrs. Marsh and hallway stabbings. Both are reminders of the heightened state of concern that accompanies most kids to their new schools.

Tomorrow, about 300 kids will enter East's doors for the first time, most of them hoping not to see something that reads like a storyline from "CSI: Miami" or "Jersey Shore." They are scared to death by the prospect of getting lost. Most have been awakened in the middle of the night (much like myself, though for different reasons) by nightmares of unreliable locker combinations and towering, cranky senior athletes with a penchant for pranks.

If I forget the sweaty-lipped realities of these new students, I could slip into a hum-drum mentality that does little to soothe the savage freshman beast or light the upperclass fires.

No, it's important for me to push aside these ho-hum tendencies and, instead, view the beginning of the school year for what it really is--a beginning, not just another bleary-edged day in a long continuum that, eventually, leads towards a well-earned retirement.

To My Son

I woke up missing you this morning, even though I could hear your lean body shuffle atop the sheets of your bed.

I woke up missing you, even though I could hear your steady breathing, even though I could recall our late-night, mumbled conversation about the poetry slam at a local coffee shop.

I will miss you even more now, because, despite the last-place finish, you found such satisfaction and joy from it all.

. . .who would not love a person who enjoys the road more than the endpoint?

You are equal parts of integrity, honesty, curiosity. Some days, I fear you will see my ruse and turn your back on me.

Yes, I woke missing you today. But I will swallow that longing, hide it away so that you can be free to go and live your life, without lugging along my luggage, too.

I think that I will look for a portable piece of you to carry around in my pocket today, something to ease the ache a bit.