French braids and loving parents

Yes, this is a picture of the back of my head. It's the best I could do alone in my bedroom, both with the picture and with the braid. See, this past spring, I taught myself to French braid. At thirty-three years old. Better late than never, right? 

I've always had long hair, more so when I was younger but occasionally now as an adult I'll let it grow. I chopped it all off in June (well, I didn't, our favorite hair stylist Tony did) and I liked it. It felt nice not to have all that hair hanging around all summer. But then I started to miss it. Mostly I missed putting it into a ponytail and putting it up when I was working out. So I haven't had a haircut since June. And now...it's just barely long enough for this very messy braid. Tomorrow I'll visit Tony again, just for a trim and for him to thin it out. But I think I'm going long (-ish) again. 

So why does this deserve a blog? Because it brought back memories of a class my mom took me to when I was young. I think it was through the Rec Center, which is basically the city of Howell. When I was little, and maybe they still do, they'd put on classes and events that kids and adults could attend - basically community ed. We didn't do a lot of them but once in a while an event would spark interest and we'd take part. And I specifically remember one winter going with my mom to the local middle school for a class.

I remember arriving and noticing it was all women and girls. And all the girls had long hair. The class was about learning to French braid. My mom had brought me here to learn how to do it. I remember being excited at first but then I remember it not going so well. Needless to say, we never went back (it might have been a one-night deal, maybe my mom will comment if she remembers!) and I never had my hair French braided by my mom again. 

Instead, she spent hours putting my hair in tiny little regular braids so I'd wake up for school with the ever popular kinky look (until my other mother, Marilyn bought me a crimper!). She spent hours putting my hair in those spongy pink rollers so I'd wake up with really pretty curls, usually on Sunday mornings. She'd go through cases of detangler and spend hours combing through the mess that was my long hair. I still remember her saying she cried when I was very little and my dad brought me home from getting all my long hair cut off (that was the beginning of my little orphan Annie-curls stage) because she couldn't help me take care of it because she was very sick. 

I never realized until recently how much my mom actually did for me when it came time to getting me ready to go out into the world. I don't want to forget my dad in all of this either. He was always the one designated to take the pink curlers out of my hair when my mom was getting ready for church. And this was no easy task. After having rolled around on them in my bed for eight to ten hours, they were often matted together and more than once I remember yelling when he had to pull really hard.

I am often amazed at how we children become responsible, presentable, mature adults. And it's mostly due to our families: the people who took out the curlers, the people who made sure we were wearing underwear (I always had it on, Angela? well...), the people who put us in clean clothes and washed our faces when if left to our own devices, we never would do any of it alone.

I am blessed beyond anything I could ever imagine every single day by my family. By my parents who tell me all about their days and encourage me to tell them all about my days and regal me with tales new and old. By the childhood I had which allows me to be the adult I am today. By the love that I experience. See what conclusion braiding my hair brought me to? A reminder about how I was and am loved. Oh so loved. 

Giving thanks to the little ones

Last week was the beginning of yet another school year. This was something like my seventeenth year to be starting September in a public school. But this was only my second time to start the year in kindergarten and the first was when I was four, so it's a little different this go around.

I'm a learning consultant at a school in a neighboring city and I really like what I do. I work with the kids in a kindergarten classroom three hours of every school day. It gets me out of the house, and more importantly, out of my head for a good portion of every workday. For writers, I think sometimes there's nothing more valuable than living life in order to then write about life.

I've learned a lot about wee ones in my two weeks at school and I've learned some things about myself. I've figured out that maybe I really could try my hand at improv since I've been doing it every day in front of a very live(ly) audience. Not to put you on the spot or anything but can you recite the Pledge of Allegiance right now? While simultaneously teaching children their right from their left hand? While telling a child to stand up and another to be quiet and yet another to please stop crying? While watching to make sure the parents get the lunch card in the right container? While making sure no one runs away to find find mommy? While also thinking about how to fill the next five very very long minutes before the teacher comes back? And that's just in the first two minutes of the day.

I am constantly amazed by the teachers I work with. To do what they do, every day for way more hours than I am there, for years and years, takes a very special talent and skill set. To be perfectly at ease with food coloring and Karo syrup in front of little ones, to be just as comfortable conversing with parents as with toddlers. To be calm enough to go with the flow no matter what yet completely organized within an inch of their lives. It's a gift they have.

I'm having fun. I'm getting hugs and little hands weaved into mine every day. I'm getting to give and receive smiles, to wipe away tears, to laugh and to learn, to sing and to dance and to stretch and to sit on the floor. I'm getting to live life as only a five year old can, only thinking about the moment. Only thinking about the immediate future. And for that, for all kindergarten is giving me, I am so thankful.

Ten years ago...

I've been thinking all week about this day. How can you not? It's all over the news, the papers, everyone's talking about it and for the most part, I try to ignore the coverage. That's not unAmerican, really, it's anything but in my eyes.

Ten years ago today I was a grad student living with two other students in an apartment in Kalamazoo, Michigan. I didn't have Tuesday morning classes so I was home studying. I was alone but that didn't last long. By the end of the afternoon my apartment was full of friends. That's one thing I remember so well, how connected I felt after all of it happened. So close to others. We made tacos and ate together, watching television. We watched way too much television that September.

I remember an email I received shortly after the towers fell, from a cousin in Canada. She'd tried calling and couldn't get through to any of the family here in the states. So she emailed and said she was thinking of us and loved us all. I remember being more scared after getting that email than I was after learning what had happened. Someone couldn't call me, because of the attacks. It was hard to process that.

I remember driving to Office Max to tell my roommate what was going on, that her dad was being evacuated from a building in Chicago. I remember long hours on that brown couch in our living room. I remember classes being canceled and no one really noticing.

But even more so I remember what happened after that day.

We gathered at the Wesley Foundation on campus in droves; to pray, to worship, but mostly to try and make sense of it all. We had a wonderful pastor who not only counseled us but educated us, helping us to understand that this was not the act of a people of faith but an act of madmen. I will be forever grateful for learning the difference.

We talked about what had and was happening in our classes. I was teaching undergraduate communication at the time and I remember running into one of my favorite professors in the hall on September 12th, before classes started up again. We looked at each other and I asked him what to do, how to teach in this environment. He said he had no idea. For a moment, we were equals, we were colleagues who just needed to get through the day and get back to our families and our couches and our televisions.

And then something happened. The calendar turned a few pages and it was Saturday, just four short days later. And just as planned months before, my parents and some members of my extended family arrived in town. We toured campus, we went out to lunch, and then we watched a performance of "The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas" at Miller auditorium. And that was when I knew, despite everything that had transpired, and everything that was to come, somehow it would all be okay.

I still believe that today. Our country is at war, yes, but we've been at war for much of our history. Our country is as secure as the wonderful people who protect us can make it. I sleep in a bed at night, and though I do frequently hear helicopters in my lovely L.A. neighborhood, I don't hear fighting and bombing and I am not afraid for my life. I am thankful. I am thankful that I remember, that I can pray for our country's people and the people of the world, and I am thankful I can go out and live my life. And that is exactly what I will do today.

Hope and a haircut

Two years ago today I got a tearful phone call from my mom. From my mom who doesn't really cry, not much anyway. The call was to tell me that her best friend, my "other mother" had been diagnosed with colon cancer, that the cancer had spread throughout her body, and that the doctors were giving her two years to live. This was incomprehensible. This was simply something I didn't know how to process.

I had no idea what a world without Marilyn looked like. This is a woman who has been in my life since the day I was born. Who has been with us at all the big events and all the small moments. Who has been just as much a part of the creation of my life as anyone else. There was nothing to do at that moment, during that call, except pray and cry. We cried a lot that day.

But I'm not crying today. In fact, today I am celebrating -- I've been thinking of her all day long. I've been thinking about that day, two years ago, and how hopeless I felt. How hopeless we all felt. But today -- two years to the day, Marilyn is doing well. There's been chemo and clinical trials and so much I cannot even fathom. She's been so strong. And I've seen my mom be strong too and it's so encouraging to me. What people can go through. What they can survive.

This week Marilyn got a haircut, which was a pretty exciting day as I hear it. She had to get a haircut because her hair had grown back after the latest round of chemo. If a haircut isn't cause for hope, I don't know what is.

Here's to many, many more years...not just two!