childhood

Yesterday, my BFF posted in social media that she cut her own bangs. “Uh, oh,” I quipped in the comments. “How much wine was involved?” Then I remembered this post from back in 2016 and realized I was projecting my own deep, childhood based neurosis onto her well-adjusted, life-coachy self—and the only way I could think of to re-gain my self-respect was to finish half a pumpkin pie.

“Hi, my name is Janet, and I’m a serial bang cutter.”

Carry on,
xox

“It’s not a good idea to touch your hair when you are in transition. Or change your appearance at all for that matter.”
~ Me

I can offer this advice because I know it well—from personal experience.

The first time I used self mutilation, bang cutting as a soothing device was second or third grade, I can’t remember which, when I was unceremoniously transferred without any warning, from Miss Law’s classroom, which I adored because it was very progressive (she had us sit with our desks in a circle), to Sister Francis Ann’s dark and dreary classroom where the desks were aligned in eight, severe, ROWS.

That night I cut my own bangs. Badly. With plastic doll scissors. And although they were seven different levels of horrible I never admitted it. Until now.

I always seemed to get a bad haircut right about the time I was losing my front teeth or getting braces. Like I couldn’t just leave well enough alone.
What about you?

Was it bad timing?

One of the traumas of childhood?

Or a tragic coincidence?

I can’t be sure, but I have the pictures to prove it.

Due to the fact that pixie cuts were all the rage for little girls in the 1960’s, and that I wasn’t asked or consulted in any way because, well, because it was back in the days when kids didn’t get a vote and my mom chose my stylist and paid for my haircut, I decided to fly in the face of conventional thinking I followed the trend and wore my hair like a boy.

At first a toothless boy.

Then a little boy with teeth too large for his/her face to which the braces only added insult to injury.

Nothing says “Hey, I’m well-adjusted”,  like showing up to the first day of a new grade wearing braces, a uniform, and your dad’s haircut.

Damn…childhood. It’s no wonder we’re all so fucked up when it comes to transitions and change.

Make yourself look as bad as you possibly can—venture out into an awkward social situation—and then try to make new friends.

Which I’m pretty sure became a pattern for me.

I remember once, in the midst of a terribly painful break-up (not to be confused with all the other break-ups that were a laugh riot), drinking and dialing my hairdresser who was a friend. I needed to re-invent. Change my face, or my body, or my personality into something more desirable so that the next asshat would find me irresistible. So…we proceeded to spend the rest of the night smoking cigarettes, demolishing several bottles of two-buck-Chuck, cursing sexy bad boys and the women who f*ck them (us), and dying my blonde hair a hideous shade of blackish/purple. The color of an eggplant, maybe a plum, most definitely a gangrenous foot.

It was not pretty. As a matter of fact it was so far from pretty that to suggest that it was even in the vicinity is an affront to the word.

Then, without ever consulting a mirror, we both agreed (at least that has always been her side of the story), that the only thing that could make me look even cuter—were bangs.

The next day I wanted to die. No, seriously. I almost dropped dead at the sight of myself.
Not only did I have to venture out in public looking like Mo from the Three Stooges, I had an audition and I was sporting bangs. Bangs the color of a dead foot that sadly matched the rest of my hair—and as memories of the previous night came flooding back I remembered that that was the least of my problems.
I was single.
Again.
I was living a real catastrofuck.

This is my darling sister, with whom I lived at the time, and I’m sure we’re laughing at the eyebrows I had to draw on with a black pencil to match my hair. Gahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!

Even my mom, the one who had me pixie-cut, hated it. She actually cried and asked why I was deliberately defacing myself. Like I was cutting or something. She suggested that I “get some help” which is code for “Your life has seriously jumped the shark and by-the-way, if anyone asks, none of this is my fault.”

I didn’t need a shrink to tell me I sucked at transition. I had a bigger issue. Control. If something happened that I didn’t have any control over…watch out! Bangs were in my immediate future.

They still are.

If you know me, you know how many different colors and styles I’ve worn my hair over the years and if I trace it back, something emotional was always happening, some change or transition. Two parallel blenders into which I threw my life.

What could go wrong? I know what you’re thinking. You wish you had the phenomenal coping skills that I possess, good god woman, get a grip!

I just did it again recently. When I decided I was a writer, I also decided it was time to stop dying my hair and go gray!

So, that just goes to prove that although I’ve gotten a gazillion times better—old neurosis die hard .
I recognize what’s about to happen when I get wobbly and start fingering the scissors.

Bangs.

Then I go and hide them from myself.

I’ve also outgrown drinking and dialing my hairdresser and I try not to make huge changes in my appearance before an important event—although I have a big meeting at the end of the month and I’m not sure my hair is purple enough underneath…I’m serious.

The other day I tore a picture out of a magazine of a cute way to wear gray hair with…bangs.

I’m doomed.

What do you do under similar circumstances? Loose weight? Buy boobs? Grow a beard? (Yeah, me too)

Carry on,
xox

I didn’t expect to be beguiled. After all, it was barely 10 AM on a hectic Saturday morning filled with errands, but how could I ignore it?

He had to be almost forty. Lean and tan with the legs of a cyclist showing off under a pair of baggie, beige khakis. The flip-flops and Ray Ban’s attempted to shave a decade off that number but with more salt than pepper in his purposely disheveled bedhead…yeah, I’d have to say he was close to forty.

She was eleven.

I know this because I LOVE eleven-year-old girls! They are one of my favorite things on the planet—and she told me. But that came later.

They walked into the bustling nail salon holding hands, both wearing grins like of a pair of Cheshire cats as they finished a giggle that I presume had started in the car. They tried to put an end to it prematurely like you do an ice cream cone in an establishment that doesn’t allow food, but just like it does, the giggle melted and ran between her fingers as she attempted to stifle it with her hand.

Joy doesn’t often enter a building using the front door. It’s like…an anomaly.

Every head turned and we all stared because well—joy had replaced all of the oxygen.

“Can she get a mani-pedi?” He asked like a pro, his hand resting gently on top of her head.

“Sure, have her pick a color,” one of the women closest to the door replied.

Everyone else went back to their respective daydreams. Me? I was enchanted.

As the manicurist ran the water for her pedicure, our little eleven-year-old skip/bounced over to the wall where hundreds of bottles of polish are displayed. I watched her eyes scan all of the various colors like I used to discerningly pick from my giant box of Crayola crayons (the one with the built-in sharpener in the back).

He stood behind her, absentmindedly playing with her long brown hair as she showed him the colors under consideration, weighing in on each one.

“I don’t like that pink as much as the first one,” he said, and “Why don’t you save the neon orange for the summer?” Were a couple of the opinions he offered. He was thoughtful and PRESENT.

Clearly, he adored her.

Once she’d made that huge decision, (and we can all agree right here at the gravity of this right of passage, seeing that the wrong nail color can ruin your life, even if it’s only for a week or until you get home and take it off yourself, wasting $25 and a precious hour of time you can never get back) she plopped into the big chair and made herself comfortable.

I watched him adjust the seat for her, moving it forward so her skinny little legs could reach the roiling blue water of the built-in foot soaking tub.

“I’ll be back in a few minutes,” he said, feeling secure that the twenty or so women in the joint would look after his little girl. “I’m going right next door to CVS.” We all shook our collective heads, silently agreeing that it was okay to leave her, but only for a little while. She grabbed onto his fingers as his hand brushed her cheek. “Are we sure about the blue?” she asked him. She seemed to want him to stay longer.

He nodded and walked slowly toward the door, her eyes following his every step. “Daddy!” she yelled above the steady buzz of nail salon gossip, he swung around, “Bring me something?” They both made a fist bump followed by a high five kind of special hand gesture.

Oh, that’s where it starts, I thought.

Fifteen minutes later he returned with a bag of stuff out of which he pulled an Abba Zabba. And even though I thought it impossible—this old-school choice of treat endeared him to me even more.

I fucking LOVE Abba Zabbas.
And Eleven-year-old girls with their dads.
I love blue toenails.
And mani-pedi joy.
And being unexpectedly beguiled on a Saturday morning.

He came back inside after going out to use his cell phone as I was gathering my stuff to leave. He must have called his wife to ask her how much to tip because I saw him fold up a few bills and tuck them into the pocket of his daughter’s jean jacket.

“How old are you?” I asked as I walked by. “I’m eleven,” she replied cheerfully as she worked on her Abba Zabba. “You guys sure are sweet, “ I said, motioning toward her dad. Her face lit up with a big, nougat and peanut butter grin, “We sure are!” she replied without a self-conscious bone in her body.

Just imagine, I thought, with a father like this, what kind of woman this girl will grow up to become.

That thought and their joy stuck with me all day.

Carry on,
xox

This childhood memory came flooding back to me the other day and I felt compelled to share it. I’m curious to see what you hink.

I have a thing about promises. They make me uncomfortable mostly because they’re seldom kept.
I have a bad history with them so I try not to make them and I’m wary of the people who do.

I will never understand how someone can look you in the eye and make a promise they never intend to keep.
It’s a character flaw disguised as a talent. One that I’ve seen come in handy in politics, poker and adultery.

I can trace it back to my first broken promise which was one summer when my me, and my little sister and brother were kids.

The summers seemed hotter as a kid in the early 1960’s and although we were fortunate enough to have a house with central air which I realize as an adult was like being born with not only a silver spoon but the entire set of sterling silver flatware in your mouth; but…to balance that out we also had a frazzled mother who was perpetually locking us outside.

And not in a neglectful, call Child’s Services kind of way—more like the “get out of my hair—go outside and play” way.

But that wasn’t us. We weren’t cut out for suffering. God’s smart. He puts the altruistic, brave kids with tons of stamina in Africa. He sends all the weak sucks to Los Angeles, California.

So, needless to say, if anyone owned or had access to a real built-in swimming pool, well, we were on them like white on rice.

My dad, (who, as it turns out also had a very loose and one-sided relationship with promise keeping) had these two friends/employees, a set of identical twins named Bob and Ray. They were single young men in their early twenties who were young and ambitious. They had that “we’re good with kids” quality that was like catnip to the three of us.

So, they played with me, and rough-housed with my little brother and held my baby sister in their laps and just basically sucked up to their boss by paying attention to us when they came over for beer and a bar-b-que.

I’m sure they were exhausted when they left. I’ve been them. The single person at a family home who gets to entertain the young kids while the parents take advantage of that time to suck down a couple of cocktails and do the unthinkable—speak in full sentences to each other.

On one such occasion Bob or Ray, I can’t remember which (I hadn’t quite mastered telling them apart), mentioned something about a swimming pool. I think they were staying somewhere that had a pool or they knew someone who did. Anyway, if anyone says the words “swimming pool” in front of little kids (who are only several years removed from being fish) it triggers them like the secret code word in a bad spy movie. We kind of froze and our eyes spun around, and then the begging began.

“Can we come over and swim? Pleeeeeeease? Pretty pleeeeeease? With sugar on top?”

Completely unashamed, we crawled all over them like a couple of spider monkeys and begged until our throats were sore and no more sound came out. Looking back I’m sure that was fun for them.

Knowing the begging would only cease when my mom (who I’m certain secretly wore earplugs) would shoo us off to bed and in order to shut us up and gain back control of their adult evening, one of them, ( I think it was Bob. No. Maybe it was Ray) anyway, he caved and invited us to come and swim.

“You guys want to swim? Sure. Maybe on Monday.”

Well, we were little kids—we took this to. The. Bank.

This is the point in the story when I grab you by the chin and make you look me in the eye, and I say to you with all the sincerity I can muster, “Please do not EVER promise little kids that you will do anything—let alone take them swimming—if you have no intention of doing so. Because kids take you at your word. They take you seriously. We most certainly did.”

Monday! Monday! We were going to a real swimming pool. To swim. On Monday!! Yeah!!! Was our chant.

Finally, (in dog years time) Monday arrived and a miracle occurred. Our mom didn’t even have to encourage us to brush our teeth and get dressed because my brother, my little sister and I were in our bathing suits and ready to go by 8 am. But by mid-morning things turned vague. I remember it distinctly. That weird sinking feeling in my belly. Suddenly, my mom wasn’t really sure the swimming was happening THIS Monday.

“Wait. What?”

I can’t remember exactly how this next part came to pass but somehow we got Bob and Ray’s telephone number and before you could say Cannon Ball—I called them. Me. Little seven or eight-year-old me. And one of them answered. I think it was Ray but it was probably Bob saying he was Ray because he was about to break the hearts of three little kids.

“Oh not today, sweetie”, he said, “We’ll do it soon”, he promised. I could barely breathe, a wave of something I later learned to identify as disappointment washed over me.

“Okay”, I said, trying not to cry. “But when?”
“Soon”, he said and hung up.

Dial tone. Remember dial tone? It’s the soundtrack behind both a beginning and an end. Anticipation and sorrow.

That day is still so vivid to me. I was changed after that. Maybe some innocence was lost.
I know. Boo hoo, Some children know REAL disappointment. In Africa.
But this felt huge to us.

After lunch, we went outside to play and run through the sprinklers. I remember my mom, sensing our disappointment, giving us fudgesicles as a treat.

Chocolate and disappointment. Now I can trace the birth of this unbreakable partnership to that very day.

Carry on,
xox

Dear swing set lady,

Hello, I am the pre-school aged escape artist who lived in your neighborhood back in the 1960’s, you know, the one with the raging case of swing set envy.

Apparently, on afternoon walks with my mom I had spied what I determined to be the top of a beautiful red metal swing set in your backyard. Please forgive me, but I couldn’t wait the six months for Christmas when I had been promised to receive my very own swing set straight from the North Pole.

I was obsessed! I had even marked the page in the Sears catalog.

But sometimes a girl’s just gotta swing and I could get to yours without crossing any streets so…

Now, don’t feel sorry for me I got plenty of swinging done on our family excursions to Petit Park, but when you factor in my fearlessness, my ability to wander off and my insatiable need to swing—well, I just couldn’t be stopped.

Or at least that’s what I’ve heard over the years.

People discover their wanderlust in many different ways. Most of my friends found theirs in the gap year between high school and college. You have to understand wanderlust. It is fueled by curiosity and funded by courage. You could say mine followed the same path. It started with curiosity but since I’m pretty sure four-year-olds don’t possess courage per say, mine was fueled by envy.

And an insatiable need to swing.

Also, my profound lack of understanding of and general disdain for delayed gratification —an affliction which haunts me to this day!

So you can look at it this way swing set lady, my wanderlust kicked in when I decided to embark on my solitary field trip to your backyard.

I don’t know what got into me that day. Maybe we couldn’t go to the park, or I was shown on a calendar that Christmas was a shit-ton of days away but as the story goes: one minute I was there, the next I was not. Apparently, I was one of those shape shifting little kids and my thirty-pound, white haired self could disappear as quickly as a puff of smoke.

Now don’t think for one second that it was my mother’s fault. I hate it when you get judgy.

You know how it is! You must have been a mother, you had a freakin’ swing set in your backyard!
Raise your hand if you haven’t turned your head for one second to see if you have a chive in your teeth and the baby rolled off the changing table—or the couch—or the bed. Or your toddler wandered into the abyss that is Nordstroms.

I thought so.

Anyway, you have to admit, the fact that I knew my name and phone number at that age was impressive (EM 363-6932), and if you’d asked me I would have read you Green Eggs and Ham and any other Dr. Seuss book you owned. You have to admit—that’s some damn fine parenting.

Anyway, back to you. You were very nice to me while we waited for my mom to stop vomiting and come and pick me up. I remember she wasn’t mad at all! She was crying she was so happy to see me! I almost expected a parade on our walk home.

I guess I want to thank you, swing set lady; for being my childhood neighbor. Your kindness (I remember you giving me a cookie), and your ability to keep your wits about you and not freak out when you looked out your kitchen window one morning to see a strange little girl swinging, made me feel safe in my lust to wander and THAT has been an invaluable gift to me.

And thank you for talking to my mom because I never had to wait until December—I got a brand new swing set of my very own like, the next day.

xoxJanet

I’ve been thinking about the state of things lately because, well, they’re inescapable. Those darn things. And their twisty state.

What has been so curious to me are people’s reactions—my own included.

When I don’t stay high, as Michelle Obama in her infinite wisdom advised us all to do, and instead go low, like subterranean, send a search party, “where are your pants?” low—I am NOT my best self.

I know that’s shocking but it’s true!

After I find my way back into the vicinity of common sense, (no thanks to GPS, you useless piece of shit), I have begun to reflect on the familiarity of these feelings that have left me all feely and not in a good way.

I remember these feelings of acute frustration!
I remember this rage!
I remember feeling completely disempowered, gutted and left for dead.

Most of all I have the clearest sense of Deja Vu when “alternative facts” are used. That’s because we had a very similar parallel universe in my house when I was growing up.

Up was down.
Day was night.
Cats were fish.
Dogs had more value than actual human children.
And A’s on your report card were mandatory but being smart, or a “smart-ass”, (as it was called if you questioned ANYTHING) was discouraged and by discouraged I mean cause for punishment.

Sound familiar?

We kids coined the phrase “Koo-Koo talk” because, well, nothing our step-mother said ever made sense except to her, her dog, and occasionally our dad. She was a Kellyanne Conway doppelgänger, a decade younger than our father, a man who had ended up on the sad, lonely and desperate side of our parents 1970 divorce. When she came along with her platinum over-teased hair, thick black Carol Channing false eyelashes (not the good kind like I wear), and age inappropriate mini skirts, he was…let’s see…the word grateful comes to mind.

She hated kids and was nuts (maybe not in that order). And not charming or funny nuts. She didn’t wear silly hats or knit sweaters for hamsters. She was mean nuts. Infuriating nuts. She was a giant windbag of salty, mean nuts. And she was fluent in Koo-Koo talk or as we’re calling it all these decades later—alternative facts.

Or lies. Let’s all call them what they really are—lies.

I suspect that one of the reasons I get a bit twitchy when people lie is because of my childhood. And I also suspect the reason you all might be feeling like strung out wacko is for the same reason.

We’re all smart people whose stock has recently been devalued and we have finely tuned bullshit meters. Can you blame us?!

I don’t know about you, but when I go low I want them all to choke on their lying lies. I want karma to make a speedy round trip, like a boomerang thrown by Thor to dispense justice. I want heads to roll.

Then I pull back, find the stairs and make the long and arduous climb back up to the land where I’m in charge of how I feel.

That is what the Koo-Koo talking, mean-as-hell nut-job taught me four decades ago. That I can stay in the fight, pointing out all of the injustice and lies which just bounced off the Teflon bitch—or I can rise above it, intellect intact (because all that Koo-Koo talk kills brain cells), pick my battles and stay sane.

Because as we’ve all witnessed, you cannot reason with crazy. It will drive YOU crazy!

If you can relate—I advise you to try to do the same.

Carry on,
xox

I was not one of those little girls who was afraid of her own shadow. As a matter of fact, I was pretty fearless.

I suppose I realized this at a relatively early age due to the fact that I had a friend, Lisa who was terrified of everything.
The world was a dangerous and terrifying place to poor Lisa.

She was afraid of dogs, big or small. Even hot dogs.
She was afraid of loud construction equipment.
She was afraid of heights.

Luckily, we outgrow some of our childhood fears. I heard Lisa went on to be a rocket scientist. I’m serious. At like JPL or NASA! The biggest friady cat I’ve ever known is sending people out into the dark vacuum of space.

The irony of it makes me laugh. And there’s another reason for my nervous laughter. The only fear Lisa and I shared was our fear of the dark. Of ghosts grabbing our legs as we ran to our beds, and pulling us down into hell.

Our night-lights had night-lights.

At sleep-overs we woke each other up to stand watch for the boogie man while the other trembled in her eight-year-old skin, trying to pee in the dark. Have you ever tried to pee while terrified? It’s an acquired skill.

We bonded over our shared fear. We understood it. We investigated suspicious bumps in the night together. We checked under each other’s bed with flashlights. We checked and double checked the primo ghost hideout—the closet. We even turned our dolls around so their dead eyes wouldn’t spook us in the dark.

You wanna know something else ironic?
Here you have two little girls who were deathly afraid of ghosts and the dark — one sits people on a literal bomb and sends them out where no one can hear them scream, and one has conversations about death — with dead people.

That’s right. I don’t talk about it a lot, but I hear dead people. They talk to me. And I’m not scared. Isn’t that crazy?

I used to be. I used to be unwilling, uncooperative, confused and embarrassed but over time that changed.

Listen, if a ghost reached out from under my bed and grabbed my leg I’d most certainly lose my shit (and don’t think I haven’t warned them about that), but in general—I’m okay with the talking. It’s not spooky at all. I tell myself I’m performing a public service, I’m hearing all about how great it is to be dead and I’m writing about the subject (at their insistence).

One thing I know for sure: The dead people I’ve talked to are happy and witty and “better than fine.”  They are interested in what’s happening with those they loved and for the most part they are feisty as hell. They are tired of being portrayed as spooks and ghouls—and don’t get them started on zombies!

In ancient Greece there was a name for those who were able to communicate with the ones who had passed—Walkers between the Worlds. Many cultures call them shamans. My friend Orna, who does a very advanced form of palm reading, grabbed my hand within an hour of meeting me and pronounced that I had “The mark of the shaman”  just as she’d suspected.

So there’s that.

Walkers are able to straddle the realm where the deceased reside…and do laundry and grocery shopping and sit in traffic. It can screw with you—but it’s mostly wonderful. Hey, I’m not special. I’m told that if we want to, we can all do it.

So, on this Dia de Los Muertos, this Day of the Dead, I’d like to honor all of my disembodied friends. Once I allowed them, they have added immeasurably to my life. And removed forever any fear of death. And to my childhood friend Lisa, who, it seems, overcame at least one of her fears, and to all the brave souls she sends out into space. May they return safely.

And if by chance they do not, don’t you worry about them. They are better than fine.

Carry on,
xox

I’m someone who advocates taking a front row seat in your own life, however…

A friend sent this to me yesterday.

“I’m generally a positive person and I don’t believe in worrying about something that hasn’t happened. That makes no sense to me. Last night I went to a movie, for the first hour I lived in fear that someone would come in to do terrible things. I noted all the exits and although we were in the front row (which was not ideal for my mental state) I was ready to run or get down. To calm myself, I began wishing that some random person came up to this troubled person earlier in the day and said something kind that made him rethink how wonderful the world is and change his evil plan. Sometimes that is all it takes.

That’s a horrible way to live. No one should have to live in fear.”

I agree. No one should have to live in fear…or exacerbate it by sitting in the front row of a megaplex just inches away from a jumbo screen. That is cruel and abusive behavior and I’ve always believed there should be a front-row intervention. Seriously. Those people cannot actually want that level of sensory stimulation! It’s inhumane.

To my friend: The world is a wonderful place fifteen rows behind you. Trust me on this. If you suffer from anxiety for an hour, you should get up and leave. Or buy tickets for another time when you can get a proper seat.

Another friend called to tell me about a birthday party gone awry while I drove to pick up glitter for my magic wands (because I sit in the very last row, where the world truly IS a wonderful place.)

It went something like this: Her sister and several other birthday party moms were standing around a local park late last Saturday afternoon debating the GOP convention, terrorist threats, police killings, white dresses with puffy sleeves and self-tanning tragedies while watching a dozen twelve-year-old boys systematically destroy every inch of flora and fauna in the immediate vicinity—when the sound of rapid fire gunshots filled the air.

Four of the moms hit the deck. Two peed their pants. Literally.

Turns out the gunfire was only bubble pack from a pile of discarded gift wrapping. It was being stepped on by two of their sons who got in big, big, trouble.
Wait.  
We’ve all done that. Twisting or stomping on bubble packing is a twelve-years old’s right of passage. It’s up there with inhaling helium and singing Bohemian Rhapsody (although I’m sure the song choice has changed and that makes me sad because today’s twelve-year old’s will never know the sheer perfection of singing “Scaramouche, scaramouch, will you do the Fandango?” with lungs full of helium. It is a laugh like no other. Even though I was actually in high-school my first time, I will never forget it.)

Mistaking bubble wrap for gunfire would be funny if it weren’t so sad. Okay, it’s still a little funny.

Anyway, all this to say, everybody seems a bit edgy these days.

Fear has replaced oxygen in the air supply and we all just need to hold our breath chill.

Maybe we need less stimulation right now.
Less loud music and violent movies played at full volume.
Less front row.
Less talk of guns and terrorists and how we’re not safe in our country anymore.

I grew up as a kid practicing “duck and cover” drills which were a very clever way to dodge the effects of a nuclear bomb blast because as everyone knows, radiation doesn’t go under school desks. In the 1960’s the possibility of a nuclear war seemed imminent. The end of the world really WAS at hand and even at six years old we figured out how to cope—we still played at recess and swam and built a fort and went to the movies and waited for bubble wrap to be invented so we could pop it obnoxiously in each other faces. We had fun.

It’s gonna be okay you guys. There’s no need to be so scared. You have control over your environment and what you watch.

No one should have to live in fear. That’s a horrible way to live. And a terrible waste of time.

Carry on,
xox

The magic is back by popular demand!
And by popular demand, I mean all of the neighborhood daddies pushing babies in strollers who have both demanded, and by both I mean daddy and baby (and the occasional nana), who in no uncertain terms, some covered in goldfish orange-colored drool, have yelled loudly, and in unison, “Where are the magic wands?!”

Calm down everybody! (By the way, babies stained orange yelling about magic—is just adorable.)

I LOVE doing this for the kids, and the Agapanthus (the wands), which have bloomed late this year I’m sure due to the drought, LOVE being wands!

So… yesterday, in the early morning hours, I was forced to sneak up and down the streets around my house, darting in and out of the bushes to hide from cars, clippers in hand, cutting wands.

What I won’t do for a pail full of magic!

Magic is everywhere you guys. It’s the hummingbirds crowded around fragrant flowers in your garden, your babies first tooth, peach pie and an unexpected phone call from a dear friend.

Wands are just a small reminder every summer that we can abracadabra some magic right from our fingertips!

Have a joyful, magical holiday weekend!
xox

It’s not a good idea to touch your hair when you are in transition. Or change your appearance at all for that matter.

I can offer that advice because I know from personal experience.

The first time was second or third grade, I can’t remember which, when I was unceremoniously transferred without any warning from Miss Law’s classroom, which I adored because it was very progressive (she had us sit with our desks in a circle), to Sister Francis Ann’s dark and dreary classroom where the desks were all in ROWS.

That night I cut my own bangs. Badly. With plastic doll scissors. But I never admitted it. Until now.

I always seemed to get a bad haircut right about the time I was losing my front teeth or getting braces. Like I couldn’t just leave well enough alone.
What about you?

Was it bad timing?

One of the traumas of childhood?

Or a tragic coincidence?

I can’t be sure, but I have the pictures to prove it.

Due to the fact that pixie cuts were all the rage for little girls in the 1960’s, and that I wasn’t asked or consulted in any way because, well, because it was back in the days when kids didn’t get a vote and my mom chose my stylist and paid for my haircut, I decided to fly in the face of conventional thinking I followed the trend and wore my hair like a boy.

At first a toothless boy.

Then a little boy with teeth too large for his/her face to which the braces only added insult to injury.

Nothing says “Hey, I’m well adjusted”,  like showing up to the first day of a new grade wearing braces, a uniform, and your dad’s haircut.

Damn…childhood. It’s no wonder we’re all so fucked up when it comes to transitions and change.

Make yourself look as bad as you possibly can—venture out into an awkward social situation—and then try to make new friends.

Which I think became a pattern for me.

I remember once, in the midst of a terribly painful break-up (to be distinguished from all the other break-ups that were a laugh riot), drinking and dialing my hairdresser who was a friend. I needed to re-invent. So…we proceeded to spend the rest of the night smoking cigarettes, drinking two-buck-Chuck, cursing sexy bad boys and dying my blonde hair a hideous shade of eggplant purple/red/black/vomit.

Then we both agreed (at least that was her side of the story), that the only thing I needed to make me look even cuter—were bangs.

The next day I wanted to die. No, seriously. I wanted to drop dead at the sight of myself.
I had an audition and I was now sporting bangs. Bangs the color of eggplant vomit; that matched the rest of my hair; and that was the least of my problems.
I was single.
Again.
It was a real catastrofuck.

This is my darling sister, whom I lived with at the time, and I’m sure we’re laughing at the eyebrows I had to draw on with a black pencil to match my hair.

Even my mom, the one who had me pixie-cut, hated it. She actually cried and asked why I was deliberately defacing myself. Like I was cutting or something. She said I “needed help.”

I didn’t need a shrink to tell me I sucked at transition. I had a bigger issue. Control. If something happened that I didn’t have any control over…watch out! Bangs were in my immediate future.

They still are.

If you know me, you know how many different colors and styles I’ve worn my hair over the years and if I trace it back, something emotional was always happening, some change or transition, right around the time I did the big ones.

I just did it recently. When I decided I was a writer, I also decided it was time to stop dying my hair and go gray!

So, that just goes to prove that old neurosis die hard although I’ve gotten a gazillion times better.
I recognize what’s about to happen when I get wobbly and start fingering the scissors.

Bangs.

Then I go and hide them from myself.

I’ve also outgrown drinking and dialing my hairdresser and I try not to make huge changes in my appearance before an important event—although I have a big meeting at the end of the month and I’m not sure my hair is purple enough underneath…I’m serious.

The other day I tore a picture out of a magazine of a cute way to wear gray hair with…bangs.

I’m doomed.

What do you do under similar circumstances? Loose weight? Buy boobs? Grow a beard? (Yeah, me too)

Carry on,
xox

I love this post from last year. I sat with my dearly departed Dad, In a church. wtf? Actually, church has been calling me again this year, not to sit through a mass, just to sit — what’s up with that?
Tradition. Life, Death, Love. Maybe you guys can relate.
Love you!
xox

DEVOTION

de·vo·tion
dəˈvōSH(ə)n/
noun.
1.) Love, loyalty, or enthusiasm for a person, activity
synonyms: loyalty, faithfulness, fidelity, constancy, commitment, adherence,allegiance, dedication.

2.) Religious worship or observance.
synonyms: devoutness, piety, religiousness, spirituality, godliness, holiness, sanctity
“a life of devotion”

3.) Prayers or religious observances.

Devotion. What does that mean to me? What does it mean to you?

As a Catholic I thought I had an idea, but the edges have blurred and I’ve been left to define it for myself.

This is an interesting time of year.
It’s ripe with the energy of endings; and new beginnings.
Deaths and re-births —— figuratively and literally.

We can practice our devotion inside this energy of change with Easter, Passover, the full moon, eclipses, and all other assortments of ancient and new age cosmic rites of passage.

Take me for instance; I am sitting as I write this, in a pew, basking in the warm glow of stained glass, inside of St. John The Baptist De La Salle Catholic Church— the church I grew up in — the church of my youth.

The one where I whiled away hour after hour of my childhood.
Some in innocent devotion, kneeling with sweaty little girl hands piously folded together, fervently praying my little girl prayers and later, in a pre-pubescent stupor, stifling yawns during my eight years there in the late sixties, early seventies.

Now, I’ve gotta tell ya, this retired Catholic is finding it…surreal to be back here, and I have to make this snappy.

I could spontaneously combust if the powers-that-be realize that I’m here, or the light from that stained glass baby Jesus hits me just right.

All kidding aside, recently my Catholic roots have been calling me. Their siren’s song running lightly in the background of my life.

It all started when I began burning Frankincense incense in the mornings. I attempted subconsciously to counteract its effects by simultaneously playing a Buddhist chant, with mixed results — that smell to me, still to this day signals Lent.
Then I noticed, lo and behold it is exactly that time of year. Hmmmm…

That smell transports me back to Stations Of The Cross, a ritual of remembrance of the absolute worst day in the life of Jesus Christ.

As a little girl I loved rituals.
The smells, the cool, dimly lit ambiance, the notes played on the organ that resonated inside my chest and head, and the drone of the priest’s voice. They all conspired to “send me” to another place and time. (still do).

As I write this there is an actual organ rehearsal happening right this minute. Sending me…

Yet, even as that devout little girl I had a hard time wrapping my brain around commemorating the days leading up to someone’s horrible, torturous, barbaric death and THAT little kernel of doubt, that one right there, started my life as a seeker.

Devotion as religious observance.
I sat with my dearly departed father Friday in another church much closer to my home, (that now makes it twice in one week, a personal record as an adult).

We sat together devoutly, he with his invisible hand on my knee to keep me from bolting during Stations Of The Cross, the first one I’ve sat throughout since eighth grade. It was faster and much…dryer than I remembered.

And no fragrance of frankincense — a crushing disappointment.

Still, I sat with my dad on the tenth anniversary of his passing… in a church…during Lent. And only one of us made it out alive…barely.

I’ll tell anyone I did it for him, but truth be told, that experience was calling ME.

Devotion.  

To others?  To a practice?  To a cause? 

I think we can all relate to that.

How about…

Devotion as Love and loyalty, enthusiasm for a person or an activity.

To tradition.

To family , friends and matters of the heart.

To times past.

To ritual.

To the planet.

To sacred places; temples, sanctuaries, churches, nature, Sephora, the bakery.

To whatever sends you and floats your boat.

To kindness and courage.

To mala beads, crystals, chanting, yoga and meditation.

To ancient childhood memories resurfacing.

To triggers; Smells. Sounds. People.

I’m getting a bit misty-eyed over here.
It must be a combination of the lousy organ music (he just needs more practice), and the fact that my fifty-seven-year-old butt is currently seated on the same hard wooden bench that my innocently sweet, but always questioning, seven-year-old butt sat.

Devotion to change.
I used to believe that religion and spirituality were mutually exclusive.
One told you no, the other said… perhaps.

Call it old age, or just a general unclenching of the fists that happens naturally over time; but I’m finding myself more and more belonging to Team Meh where our motto is: “Well, that’s not my thing — but good for you!”

Devotion to Neutrality or I’m in a Switzerland State of Mind
Daily I struggle with judgment. I know, it’s just me.
I’m striving to be for more things than I’m against.

I feel like after this week I can move the Catholic religion to my neutral list. At last!

Some people hang out in groovy cafes and write.
I sit weeping in Catholic Churches.

Who knows what’s next?

Can you explain devotion? What are you devoted to, I’d love to know.

Happy Easter & Passover my loves,
Xox