Young Together

This weekend was the 25th reunion of the Richmond High School class of 1988. I'm tempted to joke that I was a prodigy who graduated at age 12, but 1) it's obvious that I was no prodigy and 2) I'm actually quite comfortable with being 25 years post graduation. I've now been out of school longer than I was in school, and I feel like I've finally learned some things. Being young was fun, but I was also so naive and insecure that it's a little bit painful. I think I'd rather be forty-something, not quite as agile or fresh-faced, but a little wiser and definitely more comfortable in my own skin.

I love my 1988 Richmond High School classmates. This, I've learned and come to appreciate, was an amazing class, is an amazing group of people. These are the friends with whom I can let much too much time pass between visits, but then we can sit down together and feel as if we're instantly reconnected, laughing and catching up over a meal just like it was a post-football game pizza at Noble Romans.

These are the friends who feel just the same. Even though we're clearly not the same. We've gained weight and lost weight, changed our hair (thank goodness! The '80's was not a good decade for hair) or lost our hair, had kids, agonized over kids, made decisions, faced disappointments, overcome adversity, battled demons. But with all that I can still talk to former classmates and think, "They are just the same!" Just the same in all the ways that matter. Still funny, still crazy, still smart, still talented, still kind, still the life-of-the-party, still quiet, still wise-beyond-years, still hopeful, still fearless.

These are the friends who knew me when. They know my stories. They knew me with braces and glasses, knew me skinny and excruciatingly shy, knew my crushes and my heartbreaks, knew my bad choices because they were right there making those bad choices with me. They know I have no sense of direction because they were with me the day I tried to drive to a party at Brookville Lake and ended up in Brookville, Ohio. They knew that Trent was all wrong for me because he was such a male chauvinist when he dated Erin, and they weren't afraid to tell me not to date him. (They were also the bridesmaids and honored guests at our wedding, and I hope will be there when we celebrate our 50th wedding anniversary.)

Even though we had RSVP'd and were in Richmond, ready for the party with a new dress, we didn't get to attend our reunion because of a family emergency. But they were the friends who were praying and offering support, meeting me and Paul for dinner - telling those stories and exclaiming how CUTE! Paul was even as he was licking the salt shaker and scamming quarters. (He was on his best behavior, girls, believe it or not.) These were the friends who stopped by before the reunion to make sure everything was OK, and who texted after to find out how things were, how they could help.

We were young together at the same time, in the same place. And that means so much.

Good in a Crisis

For the five years I was in college and grad school I worked as a lifeguard. I was trained in water rescue, CPR and first aid. Fortunately I never really had to put this extensive training to use. (Once I had to pull a panicky kid back to the wall, and once I waited with an over exerciser with low blood sugar while the Y manager got him an orange juice.) Really I was more of a watcher than a saver. Which is a good thing because it turns out I'm not very good in a crisis.

When Sam sliced her knee at our mission camp in Mexico I was first to respond to her scream. I had to mentally remind myself not to freak out and not to faint. But I couldn't think what else to do. So I hugged her and yelled, "Nurse! Someone get the nurse! What's her name...you know...the nurse." (I have known nurse Donna for years. But my brain just could not handle the complexities of not panicking with remembering names.) Fortunately Trent was quick to arrive, with Brad and Gary and Donna, and they took charge of bandaging and arranging transport and medical care. Someone brought me a chair so I could take charge of praying and trying not to pass out.

Yesterday, lunch with the extended family, serious medical crisis. (Not really my call to publish the details, which I realized only AFTER I'd posted much too much on Facebook. See, wasn't thinking.) Trent jumped into action. "Call 911!" I grabbed my phone and tried to remember how to use it. Phone app...where's the phone app! Keypad, I need the keypad. Isn't there an emergency phone button? Where is that? I finally managed to reach dispatch and communicate the pertinent details that we needed an ambulance at this address. Then the dispatcher was asking me all these questions like what happened and what's wrong and I'm all "I don't know! He's breathing, he has a pulse, but he's unconscious and struggling. That's why we need paramedics!" "But ma'am, is he choking?" "He's breathing. He can't choke and breathe. Can he?" I tried to remember from first aid. "Ma'am, check if he's choking." Dispatch and I were not connecting. Probably my fault. I was very busy trying to focus on her questions while figuring out what Trent was telling me while scooting Paul away from the drama.

Guess who is good in a crisis? Trent, yes, not surprising, but also Paul. Little man penned the dogs in the bathroom, waited by the front door, then led the way to the kitchen. He watched with interest while the paramedics worked, stayed calm, and held his questions until after the ambulance rolled away. By then, post crisis, I was back on my game and able to answer those questions calmly and to his satisfaction. He played several hours at the park while I chatted with high school friends and got text updates from Trent. (We were in town for our 25th reunion.) All his grumps and sass from the morning disappeared. He was in full-on helping mode. That night he asked if I was scared and sad, then he prayed. I'm blessed to have two men in my life who are good in a crisis.

Thanks to others of you who prayed. Prognosis is good.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

How to Clean Grout

I didn't plan this summer well. I waffled. I wanted quality time with Paul, but I also knew I'd have some weeks that I'd need to work. I couldn't decide what camps would be best for him - educational, YMCA, unstructured fun, VBS - so I put off making a decision. Then when I did make a decision on a combination of YMCA and the unstructured fun of Camp Hi-Ho with friends, several of the weeks I needed were already full. But I thought, "That's OK. That will give us some all day one-on-one time." Plus we had vacation and a few little weekend trips and our 25th high school reunion (which is TONIGHT).

This week here, week there, just go with the flow summer is not working for us. Some of you have kids who can do this, can wake up and enjoy whatever the day may bring. I have a child like this. This is the child who, when offered a chance to spend the summer in Germany with a family she didn't really know, traveling to a variety of places that they'd figure out as they went, said, "Where's my passport? Let's roll!"

My other child is not like this. My other child wants to know exactly what we're doing, when we're doing it, and if something comes up like we're meeting your friend at Pool B instead of Pool A will fuss and sass and pout until it's time to go leave Pool B, at which point he will decide this is the best thing ever and he is NOT going to leave. It's a control thing. I get it. But that doesn't make it any easier to deal with. Especially when he sasses himself right into the camp director's office and I have to pick him up early. (Getting sent to the principal's office is one thing, but seriously, suspended from CAMP? Come on, man!) So then I have to figure out how to love him and calm him and teach him how to treat others with respect even when he feels like the world is spinning off its axis.

I don't really have any good ideas on this. I have a lot more and better ideas when I counsel others how to parent their little cherubs than when I try to parent my own little cherub. Feeling like he's "in trouble" just harms his sense of attachment, taps his shame, makes him more dysregulated. So somehow I have to show him that I love him, that he's a great kid (deep down) and that he has the power to calm himself and treat others with respect.

Different kids need different things at different times to meet these needs. What's working for Paul right now is stripping away all privileges (bike, electronics, unsupervised play time) and spending lots of time with me doing chores. So I've been needing to clean the grout in my bathroom. Needing to do this for, like, six  years. But - ugh. Scrubbing grout requires a lot of time. Who has that kind of time? No one has that kind of time...except for someone who suddenly can't go to camp on Thursday.

So we scrub and talk and scrub and sing and scrub and practice kind words, practice yes ma'ams, practice listening. And somewhere between brown grout and cream grout he came to the realization that obeying camp counselors is a lot more fun than scrubbing grout with Mom. So on Friday he went back to camp and had a great day with his friends, a great day showing respect to the counselors.

And now we're at Grandma's for our 25th reunion, and he's bouncing around the house, sassing and grumping, and I'm wondering if Grandma's grout needs some cleaning.

This One Time I Sort of Became a Cook...

So, I don't have the gift of hospitality. I love having people over for dinner, really love it, but the idea and the implications of COOKING for those people (because when you invite someone over for dinner they sort of come with the expectation that there will be food for them to eat) completely stresses me out. The same for going to someone else's house for a potluck. Love, love going. Complete meltdown when it comes to trying to figure out what to bring. Even the idea of going to the store for chips wigs me out a little bit. There are just SO MANY POSSIBILITIES. Who am I to know whether the gathering would prefer kettle-cooked or Lays or something with artificial cheese?

As Glennon Melton said (www.momastery.com) - "I can do hard things; I cannot, apparently, do easy things."

Trent knew I wasn't a cook when he married me. I had carefully crafted a non-domestic persona. In our first year of marriage we were both in grad school. We lived on ramen noodles and brown sugar cinnamon Poptarts. This we could afford (admittedly Poptarts were a luxury, but family often gifted them to us for Christmas) and this, to me, was cooking.

When Sam came along I went through this organic, healthy food jag and cut out the Poptarts. The problem with organic healthy food is that it typically requires some assembly. Another problem is that children tend to want to eat on a regular basis. Like three or four times a day. EVERY DAY. It's just so draining. I'm pretty good with breakfast (hard boiled egg and fruit) and lunch (sandwich and fruit), but dinners smack me in the face. By five, six o'clock I'm tired and grumpy and the last thing I want to do is to figure out what will satisfy my family's ridiculous need to eat all the time.

So this summer I came across this blog: Easy Summer Freezer Meals. It's all about freeze-ahead meals that GO ON THE GRILL. I LOVE the grill because I cannot for the life of me figure out how to turn it on :) so Trent is in charge of grilling. Bam! Mix up some organic, healthy marinades; zip it in a bag with some organic, local meat; freeze; thaw when ready; hand off to Trent along with a few summer veggies to throw on with it. Perfection! (A problem does arise, however, when I forget to thaw enough in advance. This irritates Trent. This is the reason for the defrost feature on the microwave.)

And then I google searched Freezer Meal Recipes. Did you know there are a whole heckuva lot of meals that you can assemble in advance, freeze and then pop into the over or crockpot. A LOT!

So I did this you guys! It took me two days, five hours each day, gobbling up precious Paul-is-at-camp time, but I ended up with TWENTY-ONE meals. And several of the meals make enough food for leftovers. (I really love leftovers. It's weird, I know, but to me it feels like a freebie meal.)

And guess what? Last week it was my turn to bring food to small group, and I didn't freak out! Because I had Chicken Broccoli Alfredo in the freezer that I could dump into the crock pot and it was enough to serve ten adults plus kids! And guess what else? We're having a teacher potluck on Monday and the hostess asked me if I could bring a casserole or something, and I didn't even hyperventilate once time because I have a Chicken Taco Casserole in the freezer that I can dump into the crock pot to warm up. And it's really good. And serves a lot!

So I may never have the gift of hospitality and I may never quite master a roux or a reduction, but I have Spicy Pork Kabobs and Twice Baked Potatoes in the freezer, and that's all anyone really needs anyway.

The Gift, and Curse, of Fear

Admittedly I haven't been keeping a close eye on the news. I have a better understanding of what's happening on Cartoon Network than I do on CNN. I used to love to read the newspaper on the weekend, but last summer my subscription expired, and renewing it feels just too tiring to contemplate. So I have only a vague knowledge of the Zimmerman case. I know that witnesses were called and motives examined, and at the end of the day the jury found George Zimmerman not guilty by reason of self-defense.

I don't know what went down that rainy night in Florida. As my friend Kim blogged, only two people know exactly what happened that night. One of them is dead, and the other has a vested interest in staying out of jail. No one really knows if Zimmerman shot because he had prejudiced notions about black teenagers or if he shot as a means of saving himself from being head slammed. But I do know one key element that was present in the interaction from the moment Zimmerman spotted Trayvon Martin - FEAR.

Attachment psychologist Dr. Brian Post posits that we operate out of only two basic emotions - love and fear. Every other emotion, from generosity to rage, can be traced back to one or the other of these basic emotions. Anger management counseling often works to peel back to the emotions hidden below the anger, emotions that often have their root in fear.

When I worked for Child Protective Services, several coworkers and I attended a self-defense workshop. (We often visited homes in high-crime areas, you see, working with families who were often not especially happy to see us.) The instructor taught us useful maneuvers like the testicle twister and the eyeball gouge (practiced using grapes). He also taught about recognizing and respecting our instincts, being alert to our surroundings and our internal warning mechanisms, citing research from The Gift of Fear by Gavin de Becker. The author studies "the universal code of violence" and uses these tools to teach survival. I use this theory with elementary students when I teach abuse prevention workshops. If they feel uncomfortable or nervous or afraid in a situation or with a particular person, we talk about recognizing that "uh-oh feeling", getting out of dodge, going somewhere safe and talking to a trustworthy adult about what the heck they're feeling and why.

Fear has always been necessary to the survival of our species. In contrast to the rest of the top-of-the-food-chain animal world, we are relatively small and weak. We are also one of the few species who prey primarily on one another, making other humans especially dangerous.  We learn to categorize and stereotype as a means of self-preservation. Those with highly attuned fear receptors more easily avoid danger, and stay alive.

But this gift of fear also comes with a curse. It's very, very easy for the fear systems in our brains to get out of whack. Early trauma and neglect can send the brain's stress response into overdrive, making even innocuous or pleasurable situations (an upcoming vacation to the beach, perhaps) into a high-anxiety event. Even as adults traumatic events such as war, a car accident, physical violence, sexual abuse, divorce, the death of a loved one can sear into the brain, resulting in easily triggered and seemingly life threatening fear in situations that may (or may not) resemble the initial trauma.

This fear response extends even into events outside our personal realm. A news story about a child abduction two states over may cause a mom to, wisely, warn her child about stranger danger, but it may also cause that same mom to forbid her child from playing outside at all. Stories of crime perpetuated by black teenagers may trigger the fear that causes a neighborhood watchman to shoot an unarmed boy. Stories of police brutality against African-Americans may cause a black teen to physically confront a neighborhood watchman.

My son attended VBS this summer. The theme verse for the week was 2 Timothy 1:7 - For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind. It takes power and love and a sound mind to recognize when fear is a wise reaction to a real threat versus a curse that keeps us in bondage.

My sister visited Belize recently. (Which makes me ponder the root from which jealousy stems.) It was early evening, and she and her husband were hanging out across the street from the hotel. A police officer approached them. "You don't want to be here after dark," he warned them. The curse of fear would have terminated their vacation and put them on a plane back home with the belief that Belize City was a den of violence. The gift of fear allowed them to saunter back to the hotel before nightfall with a relaxing week of ocean paradise yet to enjoy.

Words

Living with an English language learner occasionally requires confusing discussions on the meanings of words and phrases. Paul had overheard us talking about game 7 of the Heat vs. Spurs a couple of weeks ago, and he wanted to watch. But "What's a championship?"

"It's the last game of the tournament to find out who's the winner."

"What's a tournament?"

"Like in Sam's softball, remember? When lots of teams played each other until two teams won all their games. Then those two teams played in the championship."

"But why is it championSHIP? Why is there a SHIP?"

Um...I don't know. Why is it championSHIP? I googled the origin of the word, but got nothing. So we're all now puzzled about the role of large oceangoing vessels in tournament play.

It's not always so innocuous. A couple of weeks ago Paul came home from playing with friends and asked, "What's a game rod?"

"A what? A game rod? Is it something you used to play the Wii?"

"No!" Paul still has a bit of an accent, and he gets frustrated with me when I don't quite understand what he's saying. "It's like a name or something! The big boys said it. Game Rod!"

I looked at Trent. He mouthed, "Gay wad." Oh. That.

"Gay can sometimes mean happy," Sam supplied helpfully.

"No." Paul didn't know what it meant, but he knew it hadn't been used in the context of sometimes meaning happy. He knew it had been used as an insult.

So I tried to explain what gay meant, on a seven year old level, and I tried to explain that the boys who had been using that expression were using it in a mean way, to hurt. And that wasn't okay. It's never okay to hurt with our words. But calling someone gay doesn't have to be hurtful if, in fact, that person is gay. But really it's best not to judge or comment upon anyone's sexuality. Gay or straight. Okay?

He raised those "Mama is crazy" eyebrows. "What's it mean again?"

This isn't a blog about the recent Supreme Court decision or the Boy Scouts. Others (Glennon Melton at Momastery and Kimberly Brubaker Bradley at One Blog Now) have seemingly climbed inside my head and written about those issues more eloquently than I. (And I tend to care less about "issues" and more about people, so when I think about those particular "issues", I think about people I know and love who have been touched directly and often hurt by those "issues" from other people I know and love who dig their foxhole and plan their attack on one side or the other. But I digress.)

This blog is about words. Because words matter. Whatever words we utter should be chosen with care for people will hear them and be influenced by them for good or for ill -- Buddha.

I haven't paid too much attention to the Paula Deen case. When I first heard the news about her racist jokes and language I wasn't surprised. But I was sad. I was sad that she didn't seem to understand why racist jokes are hurtful, why using the N-word was such a big deal (and again, others have written about this in more depth - (Kristen Howerton at Rage Against the Minivan and Kim Bradley, just this morning). Mostly I was sad about the day I would have to talk to my own son about the N-word, about racism, about growing up black in America, about growing up black in a white family who doesn't understand what it means to grow up black.

And I'm going to have to do a better job than I did with gay wad. Because I want him to know how special he is, how loved he is, how mean or ignorant words don't have power over him, how words can hurt but don't have to define. Death and life are in the power of the tongue -- Proverbs 18:21. I choose life.