The Middle-Aged Prom

I've hit one more milestone to remind me I'm no longer young -- the weddings I get invited to don't star my friends but the next generation -- their children, who, amazingly, are no longer children but full-fledged adults of the marrying age.  I remember the thrill of weddings in my twenties -- there I was, at a grown-up party, with all of my best friends, taking the first giant step into real adulthood.  But after I had paid for my tenth bridesmaid gown and danced to "Celebrate!" for the twentieth time (which, in fact, was always fun), I was out of money and energy to put into someone else's life -- I was ready to get off the wedding circuit.  Then, the cyclical clock of life stepped in and I got my wish.  For another twenty years or so, my friends and I lived our adult lives, married or not, with a wedding invitation arriving rarely -- a distant much younger cousin, a friend who had divorced and was trying it again. 

Now, in my mid-fifties, with a next generation growing up all around me, ready themselves to step up as adults, the weddings have returned.  Like swallows in the spring, they come with music, an excited buzz and a sense of hope.   I'm ready to be invited back to the party.

Last year was the first big one -- my niece Becky, the oldest grandchild in our family, walked down a sandy aisle on Singer Island in West Palm Beach, where she grew up, to marry her tall, muscular prince of a best friend, Jonathan.  

Next month I'm invited to one here in Maine -- my friend Barby's daughter Dalit will tie the knot at her dad's house in Harpswell.

And this past weekend I went to another, a black tie chi-chi affair on the Boston waterfront, although it doesn't quite fit the pattern.  Yes, Missy, and her new husband Eric, are of the younger generation, right around thirty -- I'm definitely old enough to be her mother.  But I'm only an acquaintance of her parents -- I, in fact, made the bride's guest list.  She's a great friend and West Palm Beach high school classmate  of my niece, the recently married Becky.  Over the years, I, and my two sisters, through trips we all made between Florida, Massachusetts and Maine, watched Becky and Missy grow up together. There were parties and meals out and dinner table conversations.  We dragged Missy's oversized suitcase "Gertrude" up the steps of my house in Maine and I went to see her perform as the lead in a Cape Cod playhouse performance of Sunday in the Park with George.  Eventually both she and Becky moved to Boston, a mile away from each other with my house almost exactly in between.  I was almost "one of the girls" for the couple of years we all overlapped.   

When her big day rolled around, Missy chose to include us in her wedding extravaganza -- all of us:  Becky's parents -- Lynn and Keith, along with my sister Nancy and her husband, and me.  It helped, obviously, that her father, the infamous Al Jerome, has a very thick wallet.  But I loved being included, mostly because it took me back to a long ago time -- I felt younger, yes (especially when the adorable -- if married -- 35 year old at our table took me for a spin on the dance floor -- woo-hoo!), but also filled with lightness and hope, just as I did watching my twenty-something friends marry so many years ago.

The five of us were like teenagers as we dressed for the wedding, trying on shoes to go with our floor length dresses, trading necklaces and earrings to achieve just the right look.  Standing on the steps of my sister Nancy's apartment, we took at least 25 pictures of us in our finery, as excited as if we were heading to the prom and just as likely to be late.  But we made it on time, danced and celebrated, thrilled to be a little older, sending off a young friend into the adult world of hope and love.

What's Really Real

Another long break from writing here, but with a good excuse -- the mom and the kid sent the dog up to the country (my brother's house in Bowdoinham), locked the house up tightly, grabbed "the dad" and headed off to Cambodia for two and a half weeks.  By all accounts, it was an amazing trip -- with minimal planning, we arrived ten years less two days after Kanha climbed into my arms for the very first time on the steps of her orphanage in Roteang, Cambodia in April 2002, we happily and easily overlapped for a week with the family who had adopted their daughter, Kim Srean, the very same morning, and we managed to experience the country more as friends who can only visit every few years, not the wealthy tourists we would be without having our flesh and blood Cambodian link, Kanha.  For the time we were there, I (and we) wrote mostly about the kid and her, and our, experiences in Cambodia -- you can see them, and many pictures, at www.facebook.com/KanhainCambodia2012.  It's a cliche, but it truly was the trip of a lifetime.

We arrived home a couple of weeks ago with that hard, cold clash with reality that only happens when your time away has felt very real itself and you loathe feeling the connection to that other world loosen as the house, the kid, the dog, and all of their many needs begin to reclaim you. Jet lag, of course, didn't help.  Having been eleven hours ahead of east coast time, I should have been sleeping all day and up all night, but truthfully, for the first two weeks I just didn't want to drag myself out of bed, at any time.  There were a lot of naps.  

But all those needs could not be ignored.  The house spoke first.  With heavy rains the first week we were back, a new leak sprung in the second floor door of our attached apartment.  Water rolled through the hall on the way to Kristin's (our tenant's) bedroom, made clear in the iPhone photo she produced early one morning.  Soaked through mats appeared on the front lawn and she pleaded with me, very very nicely, to get it fixed.  The dog came home from the country with a pound or two newly packed on -- which is a lot on a twenty pound puppy -- and no less penchant to chew.  The kid landed in Portland one evening at around 8 pm and was happily playing a lacrosse game with her Waynflete teammates less than 24 hours later, and I don't think she has stopped since.  (I am getting a new appreciation for the term "soccer mom" although in our case it's "soccer/basketball/lacrosse/whatever other sport I'm loving at this moment" mom.  And yes, I realize, I'm contributing to the problem... But that's for another day.)

I'm working on getting back to normal.  My newly found handyman arrives early this morning to evaluate the apartment's leak, Theo, much to his grumbling stomach's chagrin, is on a diet, and I'm taking advantage of the "soccer/etc. dad" in our family and letting him do a lot of the driving from game to practice to game to practice (even if it's a bit reluctantly).  

And I'm carrying the memories of the trip with me into my reality, here and now.  Seeing Kanha navigate the worlds of America and Cambodia so adeptly -- playing with the orphanage kids, learning how to weave in a family's home on Mekong Island, bargaining with the merchants in the Siem Reap Night Market, learning Khmer phrases from her penpal, while remaining the modern, jean-short wearing, shopping-obsessed, boundlessly energetic, American girl I know  -- did not surprise me but it amazed me:  in my eyes, my amazing daughter became more fully alive, even more beautifully real, no matter where she was, and is, in the world.  

Happy for the Presidential Hassle

Chip (Kanha's dad) didn't want to use the two tickets he bought (for $250 each...) because he didn't want to deal with the hassle -- the bumper to bumper traffic, the long lines, the jostling people.  So he gave away the tickets to see the President in the flesh, to Kanha and me.

He had it mostly right -- the traffic was slow getting over to Southern Maine Community College, we waited in line, on a sunny but briskly windy Maine March afternoon, for an hour and a half, we got jostled a lot by the 1699 other people crammed into the athletic center, all standing around on the basketball floor waiting to hear -- and see -- President Obama.  And Chip even missed a few of the not-so-pleasant details -- the coffee and hot chocolate promised while we shivered on line turned out to be water, or beer or wine you could pay for, each person's standing spot was awarded in order of arrival so if you, a short person -- read: 11 year old Kanha -- arrived just a few minutes after Jane Q. BasketballPlayer -- read: the 6 foot tall woman claiming the space just in front of us -- you were basically out-of-luck to be able to see much of anything.  Plus it was a short payoff for a lot of waiting -- a 30 minute stump speech (an exact repeat of what I heard reported from Burlington VT  as we drove home) out of a four hour outing.

the President in person

But for me it was worth it, and hopefully, one day at least, for Kanha too.  While driving to the event, I found myself ruminating to her that, even coming from a highly political Democratic family, I had never seen a President "in the flesh" while in office before.  (I did shake candidate Bill Clinton's hand when I was in graduate school at the Kennedy School although I realized I was hardly unique when I overheard 3 people in the Obama line, all from different groups of friends, recount their own stories of getting a "Bubba" handshake during his time in the presidential limelight.  Perhaps he really did personally shake the hand of everyone who voted for him in the New Hampshire primary...) 

I loved being in the same room as Barack Obama, albeit a very very large room -- our first African-American president, a man of brains and commitment (if a bit too strong of a penchant to compromise), a man I indeed would like to have a beer with AND feel reassured that he is leading our country.  

And I loved taking Kanha, loved knowing that, from then on, she could say she had been to see a President speak.  Never mind she got very tired and a bit bored, never mind she had to jump up or have me lift her a bit to actually see him, never mind she found it more fun to get her picture taken next to the Obama cardboard cut-out outside.  

Kanha with the President -- a sideways view

Having been born in a country where power hungry men, in the name of egalitarianism, had destroyed her ancestors, their land, and their way of life, she had had the chance to hear the words, in person, of a man who stands, in my opinion, fully and completely for exactly the opposite.  For both of us, I think it was worth the hassle.  

The Family Bed

You would think that a single woman of a certain (still very young) age who has her own house and her own room would also get her own bed. A nice, not too soft, not too hard, just right sized (a queen, of course) bed all to herself. To read in at any hour, to keep as clean (those freshly laundered sheets!) or messy (those yummy Oreo crumbs!) as desired, to sprawl across or to share (hopefully!) with a selected friend, to wake up in, to an angry alarm, or to sleep late in, to her body's content.  

But last night this woman's bed was not her own. First, at a little after 10, Theo arrived, pitter-pattering up the steep stairs to the Margie-Cave, wandering into my little bedroom, surveying the rumpled sheets, and, in one little hop, landing on top of the comforter, plastered against my (very warm, I guess) legs.  It only took a couple more minutes to hear another set of feet on the stairs -- this time, only two, a little heavier, a little slower, but around the corner they came.  And there was beautiful little Miss Kanha, nowhere near as sleepy-eyed as an 11 year old should be at 10:15 pm on a school night.  She pleaded a sniffly nose -- at least she had an excuse, which was more than could be said for the puppy.  Before I knew it, she had crawled over me, leaving only a few bruises and scratches, dragged the covers down on the far side of the bed, and snuggled in.  

OK, I know what you're thinking, and in fact, you're kind of right.  It's not such a bad picture -- who doesn't love other warm, breathing bodies that you love snuggling up next to you.  Certainly not me.  And it was just lovely, for about two or three minutes, that little cocoon we had all created together.  

But, then, Kanha fell asleep, on her back, with that cold, and the heavy breathing started -- I'm being nice, it was really a snore.  And it went on, and on.  By then I had realized I couldn't turn the light back on to read a couple more pages of my book, The Mindful Woman, because I really didn't want to take the risk of waking her up if she was really sick.  So my minuscule little 10 minutes of reading I covet every night disappeared into the thick air of her snores.

Finally I managed to fall asleep myself and all again was right with the world.  Until, of course, I woke up at 3 am to that familiar feeling of a moist brow and clammy sheets that only a fifty-something woman can relate to.  But this middle-of-the-night came with an added challenge -- my full-sized woman's body had been shoe-horned into one tiny wedge of the bed.  The adorable tween at my side was literally sleeping on my side of the bed, pushing me to the very edge.  And the dog had managed to stretch himself further over next to my feet -- no chance he was going to get left out of the bed party -- so that the only way for me to avoid going overboard was to hang on to the bed's sideboard.  I wanted to scream -- everyone, move over, this is my bed!  I wasn't feeling very mindful.

The Family Bed Minus Mom

But then I took a deep breath and looked at my charges.  Here was my family all comfy in one (not-so) big bed -- the sinewy young lady with the red streak in her just-cut hair, limbs splayed out, at peace, the puppy, on his back (and miraculously NOT snoring), four legs pointed straight up to the ceiling, snoozing away.  I could be tired perhaps but how could I be grumpy?  It sure felt like we were all exactly where we were supposed to be.  

The Death of Foom

Kanha -- aka Ya, a nickname a mother could never love -- got me my favorite Christmas present ever this year.  I know - because you sense I'm such a spiritual, non-materialistic type, because you know my favorite get-away in 2011 was a mother/daughter seminar at the Omega Institute in October involving tent cabins (brrrr), because you heard my previous favorite gift was a pipecleaner sculpture that forms the "letters" Y "heart" M-- you think the gift was emotional and a bit esoteric.  Perhaps a picture of her water skiing for the first time last summer or a pamphlet of poems she wrote as a third grader.

But you would be wrong.  It was, and is, an actual thing that she paid money -- her own money -- for.  A $50 spin-hair dryer.

The best Christmas present ever

A small item, advertised on TV, cheaply made, simple in idea and construction.  Ahh, but oh so life-changing for its recipient.  You see, when I was an adolescent, not too much older than Kanha is now, my hair had received its own private descriptor among my friends -- fooming.

fooming Marge

While I can no longer remember who originated the term or exactly why, I knew what it meant -- a levitation of every last one of my both wavy AND wiry -- doesn't that seem a little unfair? -- blondish-brown hairs that created their own independent atmosphere around my head.  Think of Silly String that spews wildly from a can, in a less outrageous color but far more electric.

I had this type of hair in a day before blow-dryers and curling irons, in an era the only solution for out-of-control frizz was to wrap sections of your hair in one direction all the way around your head, carefully secure i
them with bobby pins, and then wait for at least eight hours for the hair to fully dry,which I religiously did every weekend.  The resulting "do" was definitely less wild but fell unevenly on each side of my face, as if I had a hidden fork holding up one side of my hair.

Fork-lifted hair

Suffice it to say, it was not heading me for selection as Westwood High School's next prom queen.

While over the last 30+ years my "foom" has never disappeared, I have taken advantage of the plethora of drying, curling, and straightening appliances that have become available along with the conditioners, mousses, creams, and gels, and I've listened to the advice of at least a dozen hairdressers.  All have combined to help bring my hair somewhat under control.  But it has never had that soft shiny bounce, that insouciant flair that Westwood High's popular girls pulled off when they tossed their heads.

That is, not until last week.  The day after Christmas, Kanha and I gathered in my bathroom after I had taken a shower and my hair was a half-dry, messy conglomeration of brittle curls just waiting to plant themselves scalpside for the duration.  But, alas, we had our spin dryer.  She plugged it in, turned it on, pressed the button to begin the brush twirling and all of a sudden those crunchy, unlovable curls -- I can admit it now, now that they're gone -- were subsumed into submission, automatically gently stretching out as they wound around the brush, slowly transforming into that beautiful bouncy, still blondish brown (every girl of 50+ needs a little help...) wave I'd dreamed of for so long.  I just loved to watch my new little toy -- I didn't want Kanha to stop.  But eventually all my hair was dry and stop she did.  I shook my head like you used to see on those Breck commercials and my hair just bobbed softly into place.

Breck girl

Breck girl -- side view

I could have sworn I heard the sound of a balloon slowly losing air as my "foom" gasped its last breath.  I smiled, not even able to conjure one tiny tear for its demise.

Theo's Christmas Spirit

I'm thinking that dogs and Christmas don't fit well together.  Which seems wrong on first blush since Theo was essentially a Christmas present for Kanha last year, arriving on January 7th, the adorable ball of multi-colored fluff he was.  But Christmas went a lot better when he lived with us via photo, not in the fur and blood.  

You see, Theo is a chewer, always has been, and God forbid, always will be?  At least during his puppy and adolescent years that he appears to be mired in.  He started on the Christmas tree, an 8 foot tall decoration that took a heroic effort by Kanha and I just to get into its stand -- me trying to maneuver the too-fat trunk, her trying to hold the tree stand still, both of us completely out of sync.  When the tree finally landed with a thud in the hole, with a millimeter to spare on each side, I plopped down on a chair and decided decorating could wait for a day or two.  

A disappointing decision for Theo, it turned out, because he had to wait those couple of days before he got to munch on his first ornament.  He started on the easy ones -- the green paper 3D Christmas tree Kanha had taped together as a seven year old, the shiny red ball that crunched into pieces on the bare wood floor after one Theo-sized bite.  I remained in denial after those disasters but when I heard the brand new oversized designer ornament I had gotten at this year's Christmas tea bounce to the floor, I realized that Theo had misunderstood when Kanha and I told him we were going to get him a toy for Christmas -- he obviously thought his present was the tree itself.

Soon after, our tree became pantless, a term coined by a friend with a bit more experience in puppy-filled Christmases:  all the ornaments within a foot of the floor got a ride up a few branches.  But that didn't deter our darling dog.  Not only did he see the tree and its accoutrements his gift, he figured every gift, brightly wrapped, tightly tied, lying so comfortably in place on the tree's blanket, was for him too.  So he started picking them up in his teeth (he can get a lot in that oh-so-cute, puppy-sized mouth), carrying them around the house, leaving them in various spots.  When I came down from the second floor a couple of days ago and one of Kanha's gifts appeared entirely destroyed -- wrapping paper in strips, the box akimbo, the padding torn apart -- I surrendered and the tree had to too.  Fortunately the gift in that box -- a beautiful pair of star earrings from my sister Lynn  -- had survived the attack but our tree had to give up its presents.  I rewrapped the earrings and added them to the oversize basket stacked full of all the presents formerly resting under the tree.  The basket now sits on a table next to the tree with no chairs nearby lest Theo attempt to climb up to find his prey once again.

Our pantless Christmas tree

Life's a little duller for Theo right now -- he no longer seems so much in the Christmas spirit with so much less to chew.  But on Christmas, once we've started to open our presents, I'm sure he'll be happy again -- wrapping paper, ribbons, cards, tape, a true feast to behold.  You may hear him howling, Joy to the World, as he happily munches away. 

Storm Trooper Extraordinaire

It's been just over a year since Kanha and I arrived at our old red house on the corner with the white picket fence and, this weekend, we finally actually truly moved in. With the upstairs renovation finally finished, providing three new rooms of space in the Margie-cave, miraculously including empty closets and shelves just longing for a reason to be, it was time to carefully dismantle the precarious pyramids of clothes and computer cables and old magazines sprawled throughout the house, not to mention hauling one bed out the front door, another across the hall, and the fold-down couch up the stairs. Clearly I couldn't do this all by myself so I asked my sister Nancy to come up from Boston for a couple of days -- not for a Maine get-away of walks on Cape Elizabeth rocky beaches or meals out in the Old Port but to do some work.

Are you as lucky as me, or as blessed?  Do you know someone, anyone, who you can ask to help you with something that really isn't fun -- in this particular case, lifting heavy pieces of furniture up and down stairs and back and forth across the room to find their just right spot, browsing endless pieces of 5th grade artwork and very short stories to decide what to save, sorting rubber bands and hair bands, vacuuming and dusting and just plain cleaning up  -- and she will say yes, without hesitation, not out of obligation but simply out of love?  Moreover, said person is not just willing but is eminently qualified for the job:  muscles rarely seen on a gal of her age (the specific number I am declining to mention...), a slight lack of sentimentality necessary to quickly reduce the overwhelming piles of junk, a linear focus on getting the task at hand crossed off the list, a shared sense of humor, and an endless stream of interesting pop culture commentary from high brow -- reviews of the latest best-seller she's read -- to low -- who is going to win The Amazing Race this year??  I'm not foolish enough to care if it's chance or grace that brought her into my life, I know to just be grateful.

Bedroom Become Family Room -- Hurray!

So starting at noon on Friday, together we storm-trooped the house, room by room, with Kanha and her friend LZ avoiding the rooms we were in and Theo finding them the most comfortable place to be.  Within less than 36 hours we had recreated the home I had imagined from the first day I saw this place, minus a few pictures on the walls and a coffee table or two.  When we were finished and I was racing Nancy to catch the 5 o'clock bus back to the big city, I felt a sense of relief and renewal unexpected -- seemingly unwarranted -- for the size of our two-day accomplishment.  All we had done, really, was reorganize a few hundred square feet of floor space and put a bunch of boxes away.  But with the help of my wonderful loving sister, we had essentially restructured my life and, in so doing, laid out a direction for me to move toward.