Sometimes you just need to put your truest feelings into song…
If you can’t see this video, click here.
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In other exciting video news…the videos from Austin’s Listen to Your Mother show are now online, along with the nine other U.S. cities. There is so much talent and goodness here! Pour yourself a cup of whatever, dive in and enjoy!
Visual proof that the road trip temporarily known as Hell on Wheels was well worth the effort once we arrived. All we had to do was give each kid his/her very own mountain.
(Click collage to enlarge.)
Happy End of Summer, y’all!!
I’m no public speaking pro. In fact, up until recently I would have preferred to get a colonoscopy in front of 3,000 people rather than speak in front of them. But sometimes life surprises you and you get to surprise it right back.
In May, one of my essays was selected as a Voice of the Year for the BlogHer 2012 conference, and I was asked to read it during the Community Keynote along with 14 other bloggers. What a thrill! The chosen essay, On Being Nine, is a mother-daughter story about harnessing the power of being nine. It’s one of my favorites, so the honor was especially sweet.
Leading up to the event, I told people that the piece was a gift to my daughter and my mother. This is very much true. But what I didn’t realize until afterward is that the Voices of the Year experience–sharing my story and voice with thousands of people–was also a gift to myself. And it was absolutely a gift I’ll never forget. I owe many people thanks.
Thank you to BlogHer for the opportunity and the virtual coaching. Thank you to my friends and family who cheered me on from near and far. Thank you to everyone who shared their own mother-daughter stories with me. (It’s pretty fantastic how many former 9-year-olds had grandiose nicknames like mine!) Thank you to the ENT doctor who tried his best to heal my laryngitis when I went completely mute two days before the conference. Thank you to everyone who said my extremely husky voice sounded cool. And finally, thank you to whoever was in charge of the Voices of the Year music. I absolutely LOVED walking out on stage to Johnny Cash! I fell into a burning ring of fire… I’m happy to report nobody went down in flames.
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Update: The videos are now online! You can view mine here. I was honored to share the stage with such incredible talent. All of the readers brought unforgettable stories, so I encourage you to spend some time watching their videos. I especially loved the hilarious pieces by Shari Simpson of Dusty Earth Mother and Neil Kramer of Citizen of the Month, plus the touching ones by Vikki Reich of Up Popped a Fox and Dresden Shumaker of Creating Motherhood.
If summer were one long road trip, we would have now reached the point when the kids start singing 999 Bottles of Beer on the Wall and I consider if we have enough bungie cords to hold them on the roof for at least a few minutes. It’s really just too hot for us to be in the car all together, you know?
Plenty of parents reach this point and hit the wall. They frantically start calling day camps in search of anything, anything new and fresh to entertain the troops. (Remember how you always wanted to learn more about sheep farming?)
They bribe babysitters to come home early from their exotic vacations. (Seriously, how much Europe can a 20-year-old really appreciate?)
Others join the exodus to higher ground in search of cooler weather, all the while praying that higher altitude means less oxygen, which means less insanity.
As the temperature rises and the calendar stands suspiciously still, others watch their convictions warp and melt like a CD left on the dashboard during a blistering afternoon. I am vulnerable to all these coping strategies, but this week I let my standards take the hit.
As a result, we have ruined countless meals with emergency snow cones. We have skipped the library and hit the bookstore because they have better air conditioning. We have watched a ridiculous amount of TV. We have purchased overpriced “indoor” toy weapons even though I banned these months ago. We have even considered amending the family rule that dictates No Naked Butts on the Couch because honestly, how can you argue when told it is too hot for underwear?
We are hanging in there. We will make our escape soon enough. Higher ground awaits! But for now, we are simply diving in, holding our breath and trying to keep our cool.
I never wanted a child. I always wanted children.
Siblings, confidantes, compadres, chums. Tattlers, teachers, accomplices, antagonists. Rivals, secret-keepers, scapegoats and partners-in-crime. Mentors and tormentors.
I wanted wagon pullers, swing pushers, fort builders and sand-castle destroyers. I wanted a full table, too many backpacks, and commas on our Christmas card.
I wanted a firstborn, a middle, a baby. I wanted to marvel at both the reliable and the shattered stereotypes. I wanted shifting alliances and third wheels. Teamwork and the circling of wagons.
For better or worse, I wanted individual players in the ultimate team sport. Sharing the same space, fighting for the same oxygen. Believe it or not, I wanted splash fights, inane arguments, thrown elbows in the hallway, imaginary Do Not Cross or Else! lines.
I wanted Your fault! Get out of my room! Gimme that back! No fair! Because I knew, if thoughtfully tended, these battles could give birth to the flip side: The impromptu hugs. The late night whispers. The collaborations and negotiations. The I’m sorry. That’s OK. Sure you can come inside my hideout.
I never anticipated how immense the task would be, but I even wanted the challenge of finding energy for each unique personality. I wanted to stretch and defy my expectations, again and again and again, about what children (my children) are supposedly like. I wanted to learn to see, truly see, the individual before me. To make every child feel heard though their hearts speak entirely different languages.
There are countless moments–flash floods of drama and aggravation–when I forget how much I longed for this gift of siblinghood. But desires this deep are not easily dismissed.
And it often takes just one sidelong look, one inside joke, one tender gesture, to bring me back to my dreams and watch them come alive right before my eyes.
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If you liked this post, consider giving me a vote in BlogHer’s Voices of the Year. Sibling Revelry is nominated in the Visuals category. My mother-daughter story, On Being Nine, is nominated in the Heart category. Thanks, y’all!
Hey y’all. How are ya? Raise your hand if you know who Tami Taylor is. Oh good. And if you know her, you love her, right? There’s really no other way.
When I meet women who don’t know Tami Taylor, I feel for them. I’m not sure how they are getting by in this world without her wisdom and grace. Hell, I can barely fathom what kind of wife and mother I will become now that I won’t see her every Friday night. Because y’all? Tami Taylor calls it like she sees it. She knows when to be tough and when to be tender. She welcomes people into her world even when it’s not convenient. She knows how to be heard without saying a word. And hello? She’s gorgeous, y’all.
Remember the episode where Coach caught Julie and Matt in bed together? Holy crap, right? The resulting conversation between Tami and Julie is permanently DVR’d on my brain for the day (Lord help me) when I might be in a similar situation with my kids.
And y’all, that was just one brilliant moment of hundreds, right?
So to help me channel Tami’s impeccable judgment during my personal moments of doubt, I’ve adopted a new mantra: WWTTD?
What do y’all think? Well I think the first thing Tami would do, y’all, is share the love. So, I have bumper stickers to share!
If you email me your address, I will happily send you a WWTTD? bumper sticker like the one on the back of my car. Why? Because Tami would, y’all. And all I ask in exchange is that you share the love, too…Leave me a comment or add my blog to your reader or send my blog to a friend or follow me on Twitter. Pretty easy, right? Tami would do it.
And one more treat: Check out this link of Tami uttering one of her favorite words, again and again. Y’all, it’s awesome!
(Also, don’t worry for a second that I’m going to send you any junk mail or sell this list to those annoying door-to-door magazine guys. I swear I don’t have time for any of that nonsense. Neither does Tami.)
It’s that time of year—time for the PeaceLoveGuac crew to unplug and unwind. Don’t worry, we will return soon with windblown hair and sandy suitcases. And just as I did during our winter break, I’m leaving you with a few suggested nuggets from the archives to keep you company while I’m gone.
Considering everything that has happened in my life over the last several months, the highlights I’m leaving here aren’t exactly bubbling over with joy…but they do give you an honest glimpse into where my head has been since December of last year.
Because I’m more of a glass-half-full kind of girl, I’ll start off with one of the most inspiring memories of springtime.
And here’s one of the brighter moments in a very dark winter that I’m still processing the best I can.
This piece of healing was inspired by a good sweat and an even better soundtrack. I’m happy to report that I’m still running strong despite the heat, and I’ve still got this album in heavy rotation. (I even got to see the awesomeness live in one of the best concerts of the decade. Aw yeah!)
The 504 words of this post were some of the hardest I’ve ever eeked out. And they attracted the most traffic I’ve seen in my 18 months of blogging.
I still can’t visit this post without crying, yet I find myself seeking it out about once a month.
One of my favorite photos of the year? It’s gotta be this one of my very first girl.
I like this shot too, but what I really want you to know is that its caption is more than just a catchy phrase to me. It’s a motto I try to live by every single day. It’s both an anchor and an inspiration. Because here’s the deal: The big picture is so powerful in helping us enjoy the small moments of our lives. And funny enough, the small moments are just as powerful in helping us see the big, big picture.
Chew on that for a while, drop me a note, and we’ll talk about it when I return.
Cheers,
Liz
The delicately beaded mother-of-the-bride dress, worn especially for me, stays.
The two others, still dangling tags and dashed hopes, stay as well. The hand-sewn rainbow sundress, thin and frayed from years on the beach, and the red and green zippered housecoat worn every Christmas morning, must remain too–though none of these will ever be worn again.
My mother’s shoes, sharing space with thousands of dollars worth of life-sustaining medical supplies, will be passed along with little nostalgia.
I will keep the once-purple college sweatshirt, now paint-splattered and faded to an almost gray. I will save an embroidered suede bag that looks carefree, even though that’s not a word I would have ever used to describe her.
Most everything else I pull from the racks and stack atop an old sheet spread across her bedroom floor. I gather the corners and knot them into a bundle as I did every year as a nomad college student. I repeat this for the skirts, the blouses, the sweaters, the dresses, the coats. My father retrieves bundle after bundle, beating a path from bedroom to garage until his truckbed is full.
The volume is staggering. I can tell that my mother stopped cleaning out her closet when she got sick, all those 30 years ago. Perhaps holding onto everything offered some normalcy as her world shifted so dramatically. If these items gave comfort then, they give only stinging sadness today.
I have done this final clean-out before. Years ago, on a tearful autumn weekend, I gave away every onesie and every burp cloth. I tossed all but one pair of tiny leather booties. I kept the homecoming outfit, the mini college jersey, the First Birthday attire. I shipped off every last bottle, blanket and board book with resignation.
There were to be no more babies. But then, a year and a half later, there was.
And from the moment his heart beat across the flickering screen, he was stunning and redemptive and completed our family in a way I had not dared to imagine.
But that memory is hardly like today. Today I sit in my mother’s mostly empty closet and realize that there will be no new memories, no surprises, no redemption. I realize that the only possible life coming from this closure will be my own rebirth as a daughter and mother.
I inhale deeply and exhale with slow and measured intention. This is women’s work, I know.
Even in a haze of grief, we mothers and daughters can steady ourselves. We approach these watershed tasks knowing full well that something, anything, can bring us to our knees in pain. We may ache longingly or regretfully. We may feel cheated and furious. We may feel utterly alone in the heaviness of the moment.
But then, we gather ourselves up. We quiet our minds and whisper gently to our hearts. We continue with the sifting, the deciding, the separating. Because despite the ache, we trust no one else to do this sorting for us.
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After 10 minutes of running, pointing and chattering, suddenly the extraordinary became ordinary and the ordinary became extraordinary.
Perhaps that is the point.
Happy Holidays from Peace, Love and Guacamole (and those who inspire it)!
We are settling in this week, taking things slower than normal…sleeping in a little later, drinking a little more coffee and making some magic happen.
As I’m sure you know, the magic part takes a lot of focus and mental energy, so PL&G is taking a little vacay so as to be in top magic-making form. We won’t be gone long. In the meantime, may I suggest a few must-reads from the archives?
This post is one of my all-time favorites. This one shows up in the search terms most often. And this one, thanks to Scary Mommy, garnered the most page views.
This story about Rascal makes me cry, this photo of Smiley makes me laugh, and this shot of Doodlebug makes me smile. I am especially proud of how this photo turned out.
Here is a scene I am hoping, but unlikely, to avoid during the school winter break. Oh, and for the love of Pete, this one too.
When I browse through the archives, my favorite category is Living the Dream, because it reminds me to step back and count everything wonderful in my life. And tallying up that long list makes me hope that anything magical that happens this week will feel like icing. Chocolate fudge icing, please.
Cheers to you and your loved ones!
Liz
