Summer Magic and Memorials

One of my favorite movies is Summer Magic, a Haley Mills Disney classic that hardly anyone has heard of, in other words totally typical of my favorites list.  At the end of the movie there's a big dance in the barn behind the house and each gentleman greets their date at the bottom of the beautiful wrapped staircase to escort them.  The girls parade down the stairs in their best dresses, giving their fellas ample time to appreciate the view.

Ever since I first watched Summer Magic I dreamed of living that scene.  Getting ready for a big night with the girls and each having their moment to shine down the staircase of a grand front entrance.  Growing up in a rancher and with best girl friend lived in homes that lacked such entries I never thought I could make it happen, that is until one of them moved to a grand-foyered home our senior year, just in time for prom.

Prom was an event to remember, that's for sure, which is quite a statement given I don't remember very much of the actual event.  It was the pre-show that really sticks in my mind:

There we were, 4 best friends getting ready for arguably the biggest night of our high school careers.  Steph stood in full make-up, a perfect French twist, pantyhose, heels and tears having realized she'd forgotten to bring her dress while either Cher or VA both made rumblings about the likely hood of us falling down the highly polished curved staircase in the vaulted ceiling foyer.  I, for once being the voice of reason, insisted that the more we focused on our mishaps and spoke of falling the more likely one of us would bite it.

One by one our dates arrived and soon I was left alone in VA's bedroom watching intently out the window for my date as seemingly endless minutes ticked by.  From downstairs I could hear laughter, idle chit chat and ponderings about whether or not I would get stood up.  Finally (only 15 minutes late) my date arrived and the butterflies in my stomach turned from fear to excitement.  VA's mom handed me the corsage I would present to Mike and between that, my stole, purse and skirt of my fabulous Jessica McClintock I rapidly discovered I had no hand left for the banister.

At this stage in the game an intelligent might pause, take a moment to consider a safer alternative, one that could be executed quickly and gracefully so as not to show the nearly 2 dozen people consisting of friends, dates, neighbors, family and parents of girls not even part of our prom group any cracks in the illusion of a cool and collected facade.  In high school cool and collected is crucial.  I, however, am not always an intelligent person and so I forged ahead without a safety net, thighs flexed to capacity to carry me as safely as possible down the polished wood.  I stared at those stairs as if they would jump out from under me.

Finally after seconds that felt like hours I reached the 3rd to last step and deemed it safe to look up to find my date in a sea of watching faces.  A decision that proved to be my undoing.  The moment I looked up my thighs revolted and my foot shot clean out from under me.  I landed on my backside so hard I bounced and found myself standing on the floor, having skipped the last two steps completely, with my stole now hanging over my head.  Embarrassed I rushed forward to present the corsage I had held onto dutifully only to find I mistook the form standing in front of me as I stared down the lens of a video camera, not my date.

Yup.  All on tape.

After prom came graduation where the pre-game chatter involved certainty that I would be the one to fall down the stairs.  Ha ha.

A few years later VA's parents had their foyer stairs carpeted for additional safety.  More for their daily use than because I fell that one time.  For Christmas that year I bought them something to mark the occasion...

This plaque lives on the side of the rise I fell off, just below the lip on the back side of the staircase that faces the dining room.  With any luck years and years and years down the road when a new family moves in that plaque will still live there, unnoticed and forgotten, left to live there indefinitely.  Or until some small child or an overzealous house cleaner finds it and wonders if there be a need to call in the TAPS team.

Hoofing It

I jogged last night.  Real, honest, premeditated jogging with intent to jog.

You may not believe it (or you are already rolling your "Well, DUH!" eyes at me) but this is an epic accomplishment in my world.  I've a long standing history of uncooperative joints that make activities with impact particularly difficult for me to stomach.  That and I just hate running. I admit I like the idea of activities that include the necessity of running (ToughMudder, Warrior Dash, surviving a zombie apocalypse) but generally speaking I'd rather have an un-sedated root planing courtesy of Dr. Giggles than have to perform the act of traveling faster than a speed walk in a linear direction for any length of time.

I know that running is a passion for a lot of people and this I have never, ever understood.  I supposed if I thought about it really hard I could whip up a short list of appealing points in its favor but my Do Not Like list chumps the pros substantially.  This aversion makes it particularly difficult to walk up to an old friend who has obviously lost some weight and is looking fantastic and find out that their secret is diet and not just exercise, but the running variety of exercise!  It sinks my heart.

This past weekend I saw such a friend and felt my stomach seize when I heard she'd started running.  Unlike others who found their way to the cult (that's right, I called it a cult, bunch of crazies...) she shared her introduction to it.  She and her husband would visit a track and she walked while he ran.  One day she thought she'd see what that whole craze was about and upped her pace to jog for a brief time.  She started sprinkling her walks with jogs here and there and now she looks incredible and can run for 3.5 miles.  This story flipped some kind of switch in my head.  Curiosity I understand.  The desire to try something new and exciting (dangerous) I also understand.

I spent that evening and the next visualizing myself running.  First slowly, just barely above speed walk pace and maybe for only 2-3 house lengths.  I could wear some spiffy workout clothes, feel all official and drag Clif along as he walked the dogs to be my company and traveling "home base" should I feel over my head.  Last night I turned my visualization into action and stepped out with a cheer leading squad of a husband and two completely distracted dogs to try something I never thought I'd do willingly.

I made it past the first house, then the second and then the third and kept going.  I made it down the block, around the bulb of the cul de sac and back across the street before stopping because my calves felt like they were going to snap in two.  Lately my calves have always stopped me well before my elevated heart rate and exercise induced asthma do.  I limped along with Clif for another block and a half then forced myself to slowly, steadily jog my way half a block back to our house.  I spent far more time jogging during our brief outing than I had expected I would be able to and I'm ready to try again.  Just don't tell my calves, I think they're ready to riot...

Twisted Sense

I have this habit of... well, it depends on who you ask.  If you ask me it's being truthful.  Others call it self deprecating humor and I'm sure there are plenty who think it's just a bid for attention.

In the last few years I've noticed sweeping changes in the great Who I Am.  In my grade school days I was never one of popular crowd, often teased, picked on, forgotten about and fantastically invisible.  Some of that was a product of my own perception but ingrained perception like that comes from somewhere solid, know what I mean?  As I got to the college years I had a dawning realization of having gained the title of Doormat (bred from an overwhelming desire to please and like everyone and have them like me in return), yet I found it nearly impossible to find the strength of character, the self value to change that status.

A few years ago my world rocked enough for me to put my foot down and grow a spine.  I had to unmake a difficult decision in, unfortunately, a very ungraceful way and I had made a friend who ultimately made me realize I wanted to be anything in the world but like her.  These two large events, combined with the beauty of growing up, drove me to change my fundamental operations in the choices I made, the people I associated with, the things I thought and said, how I treated others and most importantly how I treated myself.  At first I didn't have high hopes that I could actually change myself so drastically, it had been so hard in the past, but this time around I was surprised at how easy the changes were.

The biggest and, in my opinion, most notable change had to be in my self assurance and esteem.  I have struggled to evolve from a weak willed, insecure person to something better.  And I do mean struggle.  Yet, here I am today a much, MUCH happier, thankful, optimistic, peaceful and strong, though with it remains a bit of residue from the past.

A few months after I first started training capoeira I traveled with our instructor and some fellow students to New York to what I call our "sibling school".  We have no direct affiliation other than being from the same training style but geographically we're close-ish and travel back and forth to support each other.  I was very green and the workshop that was being given was geared toward slightly more experienced capoeiristas.  It was apparent in moments that I was bad apple of the bunch.  Being overweight and out of shape I often struggle in highly active environments.  Exercise induced asthma, terrible joints and unforgiving muscles compound my weight issues, but by gracious, I try!  I try as hard as I can until I struggle for air and my body screams and it is NOT a pretty thing.  My fellow capoeiristas at home are far more forgiving than they were up north and I realized if I had tried to learn capoeira -any-where else I never would have returned after the first class.  The New Yorkers were more intense, less forgiving and quite obviously made it known that I was That Girl, the one no one wants to get stuck training with.  Quite soon I shifted myself to the furthest corner of the room as I could, like a pariah, hoping no one would notice me and I could survive the rest of the workshop in silent efforts to keep myself from sobbing.  Naturally I was discovered by a graduated student who pulled me to the middle of the room, in front of the Masters, where I floundered in hot, red-skinned mortification for all to stare at.  For the first time since I'd made my great change my new foundation of self-assurance almost broke out from under me.

Before that trip, and certainly since then, I suppose I've made it an unintentional point to make sure the populace knows that I am not delusional.  My commentary is met with responses generally saying I'm silly and over exaggerating, but there's method to my madness:

1) At the very least to me it is truth.  I am overweight and out of shape and usually when I struggle in my physical activities it's because that is my fact.  Ex: the other night in training I took a foot to the arm, not in a painful way but enough for it to shake my balance.  Afterwards I thought about how I missed seeing her kick, I had been staring at her (upside down and between my legs) before I realized my backside is big enough to cause a sizable blind side.  I don't say that because I'm trying to have someone tell me, "No!  You look great!" or think I'm just being whiny, it's because I have a wide load!

2) Something about saying it out loud guilts me into trying to be better about doing something about it.  If I get angry enough at myself for struggling so much with the simplest things then maybe, just maybe I'll take bigger and better steps to fix it.  Believe it or not every time I acknowledge my wide-comings I have the desire to eat a salad and hit the gym.  I don't always follow through and DO those things but my track record is improving, albeit sloooooowly.

3) I want to beat someone else to the punchline.  This one stems the most of childhood years being picked on and tears over not understanding why or how to make it not hurt.  Someone telling me I'm fat would hurt, a LOT, even if it is true.  If I say it first if leaves less ammo for someone else to use.

What I can't figure out after all of this pondering and analyzing is whether my mechanism helps or hinders me.  I'm sure it's a little of both though it certainly feeds my strength to feel calling myself out leaves me firmly in control of the situation, and that, in some twisted sense makes me feel stronger.

Simple Daydreams

As I neared high school graduation I found myself spinning in questions about what my next life step would be.  College seemed inevitable yet inappropriate at the same time.  I had no idea what area of education I wanted to pursue that would feed into a desired career.  During my search for something that Felt Right I ended up in an army recruiter's office before being told in no uncertain terms if I found the need to sign up for a branch of the military it better be the Airforce (though I was more highly encouraged to not sign up for anything).  My parents understood something about me I tried to ignore back then: my love of my country was not at all in question but my physical, emotional and mental ability to cope with that kind of environment was.  My intentions were in the right place, my ability to deliver was askew.

Giving up on the idea of a stint in the military somehow gave way to a dream of moving to Scotland or Ireland for a year to live in the country and work on whatever farm would hire me.  I dreamed of sparse lodgings filled with necessities and a small fortune of books to pass the time, lively neighborhood pubs, rousing song and flying dancing feet, lush green hills rolling from my feet and days getting filthy on the farm.  I would have missed my family in painful ways but deep down I knew it'd only be for a year and the experience and education that came from it would be incredible.  I'm married and settled now so such a year is no longer anywhere in my future but I still day dream about it now and then.

Just this past week I stumbled across a new blog site and in classic OCD fashion I've been reading the entire thing from the very first post.  At first I thought that the main source of entertainment would come from the fantastic photography and irresistible coyote subject.  As I got into some of the meatier update posts, however, I was shocked to discover that the main draw of the site for me had become more about the woman writing it and the life she seemingly picked up one day.  I don't know anymore about the author of the site than what she shares in her posts but I feel like I can imagine her character; bold, confident, independent, ambitious, adventurous, motivating and inspiring.  Reading about her life in the wilds of Wyoming has sparked in me a dream I never could have imagined for myself.

Much like my year abroad this dream will never come to fruition but I've been enjoying the wishful thinking.  The author brings to life the image of a modern pioneer woman, shoes I've been pretending I could fit into.  Her existence is simple and basic to the point of having seasonal running water and a wood stove to bake bread.  Her farm seems to grow one animal at a time (cat --> coyote --> dog --> cow, a horse somewhere in the mix), as do her self sufficient capabilities.  Living off the land has a growing appeal to me as I've gotten older, peaked now by reading her seemingly effortless ability to become one with a beautiful land.  This post and this post in particular struck several notes with me and I was surprised at how moved I was by them and my desire to have experienced them first hand.

I love my life just as it is and wouldn't truly want to change it for anything in the world.  I feel, however, that I should be able to wonder what might or could have been if I'd gone down a different path.

Friday Groove

Today's offering actually has a story behind it.  Whether or not I'll get to that story in a timely fashion, well, who knows but I'm going to try!

In the meantime sample a song that seemed to pop up fatefully during plethora of some of my more shadowy moments (and try to ignore the fact that it's Christina >.<).

Friday Groove

Simply infectious.

Hallowed Hauntings

When I was in middle school my brother and his friend, Tommy, had this idea to build themselves a haunted yard for Halloween.  They collected and dried oodles of bamboo to construct a formidable wall to cover a wimpy chain link fence and used strategic landscaping and a white Christmas light lined plywood tunnel to funnel their victims, I mean, trick or treaters, along the side of the house.  At the end of the narrow side yard was a detached garage, in front of which was a hefty tree stump that held a cauldron of candy.  Tommy stood in a floor length cloak and creepy old man mask with a walking staff perfectly still right behind the cauldron.  You were too worried about him to pay attention to the stuffed body they had rigged to fall from the tree as you got close to the candy.  One year they simply let a noose hang empty over the bowl, swaying ominously in the breeze and let your imagination fill in the rest.

The front yard was riddled with white crosses made of scrap wood and quickly nailed together.  Donald drove his car up into the ditch in the yard and left the car doors open, hazards flashing.  Also flashing were enough strobe lights to stock a Disco and somewhere I believe I recall a fog machine.  Creepy music played and one year there was the not-so-smart idea of making a white body outline in the street with something more permanent than chalk.  If memory serves it looked like a crime scene on the driveway weeks into November.

When I was old enough to handle the creep factor (debatable, I still can't handle creep factor) my parents would drive me to trick or treat after I'd made my usual rounds in our neighborhood.  Donald and Tommy I think delighted in my arrival.  I squealed spectacularly and the fact that I was blood related meant all bets were off when it came to going for the Big Scream.  One year we packed my youth group up in the church van to visit the house and Tommy ended up chasing me squealing in panic down the entire street, into and through the van.

Around high school I was too old to go door to door, or more interested in playing with the big boys.  I got the invitation to join Donald and Tommy in their yard slinking and couldn't have been more excited.  I dressed in head-to-toe black,d borrowed a great skull mask and slinked my heart out.  My memories of being chased through this very yard by my ghoulish sibling came flooding back to me at the sight of a 4-year-old Superman peeking hesitantly through the tunnel I sat on the other side of like a spider waiting for prey.  He was too young for our antics, though and so I turned my glowing skull face and held my breath, hoping desperately to blend enough with the shadows that he wouldn't notice me.  Blending failed!  After seeing me sitting there in arms reach he decided the candy was SO not worth the trip through the tunnel.  I ended up taking my mask off and reaching out a hand to guide him the rest of the way down the lane to get his treat.  Tommy seemed to understand the unbridled fear in this poor super hero and maintained his statue-stance instead of going for the scream factor.

Years later I own a house and am determined to build the best haunted yard in the neighborhood.  It has been slow going, this year marks our fourth Halloween and our second without bells and whistles.  Two years ago we didn't even hand out candy, Clif instead having the unpleasant task of tending to me and my horrific bout of swine flu.  Last year we were on, though, and in the great tradition of yard slinking I donned all black and a spectacularly creepy skeletal mask and sat amongst our tombstones in a smothering fog from our smoke machine.  I would turn my head ever so slowly to watch the kids come up our driveway, only half of which even noticed my existence, much less that they were being watched.  They would greet Clif sitting on a cooler by the front door in my full-hooded Half Moon cloak with black mask and red glowing eyes warning the kiddies of dangers around the corner.  By the time they came off the porch I'd be crouching around our hedge bush, forcing them to walk right past me, allowing me to give chase.

One little observant girl spotted me half way up our drive and dug her heels into the black top.  Even her fathers encouraging nudges couldn't move Snow White and she backpedaled herself right back to the street, foregoing candy at our house.  The boys she was with were oblivious to our encounter and moved on to the next house without a second thought.  I felt bad for Snow White, she reminded me of Superman from years ago.  I got a good handful of candy out of our bowl and walked across the street to stand next to Snow White's mother while she waited for the kids to finish at the door.  I asked if I could give Snow her candy since she was obviously not up for working through her fear (a feeling I know oh so well) and mom obliged.  When Snow turned around and saw me standing there her dad REALLY had to give her a hand or she would not have budged from where she froze half way across the yard.  Still in my mask I made a show of covering my skeletal face and turning away, stretching my candy-filled hand out to her.  I wasn't looking so I'm not sure if she took the offering or her father took it on her behalf but as I strolled silently back to our house I couldn't stop grinning ear to ear at what I hoped would become as great of a story for her as it would be for me.

My philosophy is if you build it they will come.  Much like in my youth I am convinced that if we build our yard a little every year eventually the kids will start talking and we'll be the coolest house around at Halloween.  Sadly this year our decorations have been buried in the farthest corner of our storage room behind the meat of our bathroom renovation project.  On top of that Clif is taking classes on Mondays, including tonight, so he won't even be home to enjoy tormenting the neighborhood kids.  I'll spend my evening with Rocky Horror and The Great Pumpkin, day dreaming of ways to make up lost ground next year.

Happy Halloween!