My Basketball Bliss

I’ve been hanging out at a lot of basketball games lately. I have a teenage son who’s good… make that really good at basketball and he’s a member of three different teams. What this means for me, is that I attend as many as six games a week.

Now I have to say that of all the sports I might possibly be required to sit through in the name of motherly love, basketball would be my game of choice for several reasons.

First, it’s played in doors.

This boy is my youngest, but not by far the first to express an interest in sports. For two years we spent many a freezing Saturday morning wrapped in blankets watching a bunch of little kids in brightly colored jersey’s and matching knee high socks run up and down the field chasing a black and white ball.

I am not a soccer fan. I don’t understand the game and I find it boring. Yes I know, half the world thinks the sun rises and sets on soccer and to them I apologize. The only pleasant experience I ever had with the game was during my senior year in high school when a good looking blond with well defined quadriceps inspired me to spend a few afternoons on the bleachers with my girlfriends watching his attractive physic run up and down the field.

After soccer it was karate. Which, if you don’t mind my saying so, is about as exciting as watching a room full of middle age women taking an aerobics class. Although we did get a nice selection of colored belts out of the experience. Colored karate belts have a multitude of uses, we discovered. You can tie a baby-sitter up so tight her parents have to come over to undo the knots. With a little imagination, you can rig your sister’s door so that it can’t be opened from the inside. (This is especially effective if she is already inside the room at the time.) And you can create a visually stimulating if somewhat destructive form of art when the belts are combined with a ceiling fan, and tennis shoes.

But I do like basketball. I think its fun to watch the boy’s race up and down the court, jumping and leaping around one another in an effort to get a ball into an overhead basket.

Second, I like the facts that the points add up fast.

As a young girl I grew up in Oakland, California home of the world famous Oakland A’s baseball team. My great-grandfather was a huge fan, and I remember being taken to one or two games when I was little. It was by far the most boring sport ever invented. (Even worse than karate). It seemed to take forever for either team to make a point and by the time they did, I had lost interest entirely.

Now of course, if you played your cards right you could pass the time eating peanuts, hot dogs and other junky baseball fare… that wasn’t too bad. And the organ was always entertaining to listen to. But the nuances of the game passed right over my head. They still do.

Third, I like having the opportunity to make lots of noise in support of my team without people looking at me like I’m a wierdo.

Before the basketball season began, my son chose to play volleyball. Another sport I’m not too fond of. I was actually beaten up in junior high for missing a ball lobbed in my general direction during a rousing game of volleyball in PE.

But what I really hate about the game is how one team has to screw up in order for the other team to make a point. So here are all these cute little junior high kids, focused and determined. Our team serves and the other side stands stone still watching the ball hit the court, waiting for someone to jump in and try to hit it back. Pure humiliation. I can’t very well start clapping and yelling “Way to Go” without feeling like I’m rubbing the failure into the other team like lemon juice on a paper cut.

Not so with basketball. I can yell and scream to my heart’s content and never feel bad about offending the other team.

The one thing about basketball I don’t understand it the fascination many of the coaches and parents have in badgering the referees. I’m no expert, but in the twenty or thirty games I’ve witnesses over the past few months, I have never seen a referee change a call. Not once. Even if the coach pulls him aside and accuses him of being half blind and with a personal vendetta against blue jersey’s. They make the call, they stick by it. Still there seems to be some impossible hope that if one yells loudly and obnoxiously enough, those guys in the black and white stripes will turn around and admit, “You are so right. What was I thinking? It wasn’t really a foul after-all. Thanks for pointing that out to me.”

So all in all, I gotta say, I love watching my son play basketball. And I thank my stars every day that he found his talent in dribbling and shooting. Just imagine if he’d wanted to do something horrible like crocodile wrestling…. or ice hockey. Yikes!

There is Magic in the Air

J. Scott Savage, author of the wonderful Farworld series of fantasy novels, uses the phrase “Find Your Magic” to encourage his young and old readers to find the special talents and abilities they have within them. Savage writes about worlds full of magic and intrigue. He may be one of those lucky individuals who believe that our own world is still full of magic.

Both my grandmothers were such individuals.

Grandma Martin believed that leprechaun still lived in the forest of Ireland, and fairies could be found hiding in a bed of nasturtiums if you knew where to look. Well into her eighties, my grandma declared her conviction in the reality of both Santa Clause and the Easter Bunny. And I spent long afternoons curled next to her as she read me poetry and told stories from her own youth.

My Grandma Martha, on the other hand, believed in the magic of nature. She could take me on long walks in the meadows where she lived and name the wild flowers we encountered on the trail. She knew of spots where sweet artesian water bubbled to the surface of the ground and you could press you face against the cool watercress and drink to your heart’s content. And it was through her direction that I found how to crawl down under the blackberry bushes to the large metal culvert below, and sit for hours listening to the water flow below my feet eating juicy berries till my stomach was full.

So, as a grandma myself, I have been trying to think of the magic in my own life that I can pass down to my grandchildren. And though I do have quite a vivid imagination and a love for the out of doors, I find that my magic tends to be more earthy and domestic.

I believe in alchemy. Perhaps I can’t turn lead into gold, but I can do something even greater. If I mix sugar, butter, milk and chocolate I can create a fudge that is so creamy your tongue will think it’s died and gone to heaven. And if I add some eggs, flour, baking soda and salt then stick it in the oven… the scent alone will gather my family together in the kitchen like a magic spell.

I believe in poltergeists; evil spirits who lurk in my house and cause mayhem and chaos while I sleep. For instance, I can clean my kitchen spotlessly before I go to bed, and by the time I get up the next morning, the sink is full of dirty dishes, the floor is covered with crumbs and an unexplained puddle of honey adorns one corner of the counter. Some might blame it on a house full of teenagers, but I know otherwise.

I believe in whitelighters, (beings made famous in the TV series Charmed) or guardian angels. These creatures help bring out the best in their charges and help them when they’re in trouble. Except I call them Mom and Dad.

I believe in ogres, invisible monsters that lurk in strange places, like say the drier, and eat huge quantities of unsuspecting clothing. The jeans your daughter has to wear to the party tonight or your husband’s best golfing shirt. But although the ogres will eat anything, by far their favorite treat is single socks, preferably new ones without holes.

I believe we live in a world that is crazy and unpredictable. Natural disasters can destroy the lives of thousands in the blink of an eye, and man-made violence is even worse. Life is fragile and peace is often fleeting. And as we reach our adult years, it becomes painfully clear how little control we actually have over the events that shape us. In a world such as this, I think a little magic can go a long way to enhancing our lives and the lives of those we love.

I think that’s the magic within me that I will be passing down.

If I Could Meet Myself For Lunch

“Today you are you, that is truer than true. There is no one alive who is youer than you”
—Dr. Suess

There is something about the end of a year that causes one to look to the past and try to find meaning in the time that’s already gone by. Perhaps it helps us prepare for the future, or reassures us that we have done more than breath, eat and sleep for the past twelve months.

The main problem I find when trying to analyze my own life, is that I’m doing it from the confines of my own head. This is certainly a biased angle, but it’s the only perspective I posses.

I wrote a book one time where the main character dies during the first chapter. I tried to imagine what it would look like to see yourself from the perspective of a detached spirit. Would I recognize myself from that angle? And would that slack muscle thing that comes after death, and causes the body to cave in slightly make identifying my lifeless corpse even more challenging?

Having never died, I can’t really say for sure, but I assumed that seeing yourself dead on the ground would be a somewhat surreal experience. And not one that I would be drawn to fantasize about. But what if I could meet myself alive, perhaps sit across the table at an Applebees, share an appetizer and make conversation. Now that would be an experience worth imagining indeed.

Would I see myself, the way I look in the mirror with those special light bulbs that make your skin glow like a twenty-year-old girl in love, or would the multiple layers of chin that I try not to notice each morning as I brush my hair, leap out like a crumpled paper bag around my neck?

I hope I’d like my smile or the way I try to look attentive when someone else is speaking. No doubt we would both laugh at the same funny stories, and that’s important. I once quit dating a young man because it took him nearly thirty seconds to get my jokes and another ten to come up with a polite laugh. It was like watching a TV show where the audio doesn’t match the video and the mouths move moments before the actual words come out. Timing is everything.

We’d talk about our mutual interests of course, our darling baby grandson and why See’s candy is the only chocolates worth eating. I’d hope I wouldn’t be too pushy with my opinions, and I might play devil’s advocate just to see how I respond when someone disagrees with me. Of course, I’d probably see right through that ploy, but still it would be fun to try.

Maybe we’d check out the handsome waiters, and reminisce about how young we use to be. Would I agree with myself that we still feel that young deep inside; deep deep where no one can see? And would we both cringe at that embarrassing thing we did when we were single and still chasing boys?

I hope I’d be polite, and even though I already know all my stories by heart, I’d listen to them again without interrupting and smile and nod at all the right places. I’d like myself more that way I’m sure. And I’d offer to pick up the bill, even though I know I would never allow myself to pay for me and we’d end up going dutch.

As I sat across from myself, could I offer honest constructive criticism of how I could be a better person, and would I be able to take it in the spirit it was meant? Or would I find it hard to be truthful about my weaknesses and get defensive when I brought it up?

When it was time to leave, I think I’d be sad about the separation, until I remembered that it’s me, and we’re always together. And then I would be glad to know I always have someone with me who totally understands how I feel.

So the next time I got too hard on myself or became internally abusive, I could remember what a great person I am and how much fun I am to be with, and I’d realize I need to treat myself with kindness and patience.

And that, my friends, is what it would be like if I met myself for lunch.

(–thanks Carrie!)

Count Your Many Blessings

Since my recent conversion to Facebook I have noticed an interesting trend. Many of my social networking friends have been spending the month listing all the things they are grateful for. This is an admirable exercise especially when you consider what a rough year this has been for many people around the globe. What’s more, there have been numerous studies that show the psychological benefits of taking time to count your blessings

So in that spirit, let me share some of the things I am thankful for this Thanksgiving season.

• I am thankful that sweeping the floor in my kitchen is so much like searching for hidden treasure. As my broom passes across the tile, I never know what exciting things will end up in the dust pan. A mismatched earring, a pen with the name of my credit union printed in gold across the side, thirty-seven cents in change, a half eaten bag of Cheetos, a slobbery tennis ball (we own a black lab) and a love letter, written in pink ink, that fell out of my son’s pocket. I need to appreciate this now, as some day I may simply be sweeping dirt and pet hair off my floor.


• I am thankful that I have a junior high school age daughter so that I can actually live the drama rather than just watching it on Soap Operas. And now thanks to Facebook I can also follow she and her friend’s mood swings as recorded on their profiles:
  
  
  
  • (3:30 pm) I am soooo happy!!!!
  
  
  • (3:52 pm) Why are boys soooo stupid????
  
  
  • (4:05 pm) I soooo hate life, I wish I never was born!!!!
  
  
  • (4:23 pm) He is soooo hot and I love him!!!!
  
  
  • (4:30 pm) Parents are soooo the worst!!!!
  
  
  
  


• I am thankful for the advent of cell phones that permit me to nag my children no matter how far away they might be. I’m also thankful that staying up late at night waiting for my curfew breaking teenagers to get home so I can chew them out is a thing of the past. Now, thanks to my cell phone, I can accuse, convict and render punishment while texting from the comfort of my own bed.


• I am thankful for grandchildren that allow me to be the good guy….FINALLY.


• I am thankful for all the cooks, waiters, busboys and dishwashers who have provided me with many effortless meals over the year. And for my darling children, who manage to make up for the ease and relaxation by destroying the house while I am gone.


• I am thankful for a husband who is proving you can lose weight after age forty-five and is trying really really hard not to nag me about it.


• I am thankful for a computer that can fill 98% of my basic social needs. It plays games with me and doesn’t mind if I cheat or quite when I’m losing. It allows me to socialize when I want to - even if that‘s four in the morning. It provides me with hours and hours of information to explore, videos of exotic places to visit and all the latest news on my favorite celebrities. But I’m not addicted to it, just because when it’s in the shop being fixed, I wander the house aimlessly while my fingers stab at invisible keys in front of me is no reason to think I can’t live without it.


• I’m thankful for compulsory education for children and teenagers and that the summer break lasts a little less than three months.


• I’m thankful for jean designers who make their pants larger than the size they have listed on the tag. It’s amazing how skinny a person can feel in jeans that keep sliding down your rear.

And finally

• I’m thankful that I was able to find a place in my over packed refrigerator to fit the frozen 20 plus pound turkey I bought on sale three weeks ago, so I don’t have to find out firsthand what happens when you try to roast a fully frozen bird.

Here’s wishing everyone a wonderful Thanksgiving.

Fifty Year of Marriage

Back in 1959 Fidel Castro’s army took over Cuba causing the then leader Fulgencio Baptista, to flee the country. The Soviet Union launched their first spacecraft Luna 1. Disney’s animated classic Sleeping Beauty debuted in theaters. Buddy Holly, Richie Valens and the Big Bopper, three major rock and roll stars were killed in a tragic airplane accident. Barbie made her first appearance in toy stores. President Eisenhower signed a bill creating statehood for Hawaii. And Richard Charles Savage and Vicki Dee Martin were married and sealed for time and all eternity in the Salt Lake City Temple.

In a day and age where half of all marriages end in divorce, Dick and Vicki have managed to keep their love and commitment to one another alive for fifty years. I should know, I’ve been there to see it first hand for nearly all of those years.

I am very fortunate to come from a long line of successful marriages. The year my husband and I were married my parents celebrated their twenty-five year anniversary and my grandparents their fiftieth. As I stood with my new husband at our reception, I could barely see more than a few months or a year into the future before it disappeared into a gray fog of incomprehension. Now, as we prepare to mark our own twenty-five years of married life, I have so much more appreciation for the work, sacrifice and commitment that is necessary to create a marriage with the staying power to last half a century.

In order to make their marriage work, my parents had to learn very early to put each other’s needs first. This can’t have been easy. My father’s strong will and stubborn streak came straight from his Irish immigrant grandparents. Qualities that were essential for success in many areas of his life could have been a recipe for disaster in his marriage. My mother too was a woman of confidence and tenacity. And occasionally they would find themselves on opposing sides of a dispute. Yet it was this same stubborn and tenacious quality that pushed them to solve and resolve marital problems and stay true and faithful to each other regardless of the circumstances.

My parents sacrificed a lot in order to bring children into the world and raise them. According to the USDA, the cost of raising a child to the age of eighteen years is approximately 208,000 which means that my parents spent over a million dollars to feed, clothe and educated two daughters and three sons. And that doesn’t count the emotional and physical drain that comes with five teenage/young adult children. And yet I never heard them complain about any lack of finances in our home or the economic compromises they chose to face.

As children we spent many summers camping. Those were occasions of wonder and exploration. As my father would pull out the tent and sleeping bags to pack in the car, the smell of pine sap and outdoors clinging to the fabric would excite emotions of joy and anticipation in all of my siblings. It wasn’t till years later that I learned why we camped so much. It was the least expensive way of vacationing with a large family.

Over the years I have watched the kindness and compassion my parents have shown one another. My mother spent countless hours keeping our home neat, my father’s clothing cleaned and pressed and supporting him as he worked many long hours at his job and then took college courses after work, ultimately graduating with a bachelor’s degree. Later when my mother’s health deteriorated, I watched my father take over these tasks, caring for her needs, keeping the house clean and staying informed on the latest theories and breakthrough’s related to her illness. I believe it is these countless acts of love that account for the framework that has supported their marriage for so many years.

Four of their children are married with strong families, and number five will be joining our ranks very soon. There have been no divorces among us, not to say that there haven’t been trials and challenges. But we have been taught firsthand how to choose our spouses wisely, work through our differences and never give up. A legacy we hope is being passed down to the next generation.

And so it is, with love and tremendous admiration that we celebrate my parents golden anniversary and the fifty years of joy, pain, selfless love and respect that goes along with it. Happy Anniversary Mom and Dad.

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

Okay, so it’s the week of Halloween and my thoughts have been drifting to all things ghoulish and scary. I’m not a big fan of fear that is induced my lots of blood and guts. You won’t see me anywhere near a slasher movie. But what I do enjoy is a good psychological thriller like Alfred Hitchcock’s classic Psycho. Nearly fifty years old, made in black and white, no special effects and I still can’t watch it when I’m alone in the house.

Another wonderfully frightening story is The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louise Stevenson. This novella has been made into countless movies and theater productions. It’s popularity due in part, I think, to how much many of us can relate to the idea of the split personality. The good and evil that constantly wage war within our own conscience.

In the story, a chemical substances was ingested by Dr. Jekyll that had the side effect of releasing Mr. Hyde, Jekyll’s evil alter ego. As a mother, I have often witnessed this unusual phenomenon in the life of my own children.
Take yesterday for example.

My twelve year old son stayed after school to try out for the school basketball team along with fifty other little boys. I had to sign a couple of papers at the office, but before I left, I took a peek into the gym.

Now those of you who are familiar with twelve and thirteen year old adolescent boys know that there is a huge range of height and weight associated with that age. Boys of every shape and size were running around the gym throwing dozens of basketballs at all the available nets. Scanning the crowd I finally spotted my son a few feet away, blocking a short blond boy who was trying to make a shot.

“Hey,” I yelled at the top of my lungs. “Good luck and don’t be nervous.”

He looked up, made eye contact for ten seconds then turned away without response.

“Whose that?” asked the short blond boy.

“No idea,” answered my son without another glance in my direction.

Evidently Hyde has taken over my sweet son’s body. Fortunately the transition is temporary. On the ride home he was back to Jekyll, responding politely to my questions and begging me to pick him up a combo meal at Wendy’s.

It’s the same with my fourteen-year-old daughter. Ninety-nine percent of the time she is great to get along with. She laughs at my jokes, willingly helps out with dinner and accompanies me to the grocery store (as long as I agree to buy her something.)
And then, it happens.

This afternoon I walked passed her open bedroom door where she and her friends were discussing the pros and cons of the uniforms that are required by their junior high.

“Well,” my daughter said, her voice dripping with distain. “If they made us wear those plaid skirts or navy jumpers, I would just tell my mother that I wouldn’t go. I am not a dress kind of girl.”

I smiled, peeked my head in the door and announced. “That’s right. She’s the only girl I know that will be wearing satin white jeans with beading on the ankles and a white T-shirt on her wedding day.”

I thought I was incredibly funny, but three pairs of eyes stared at me coldly.

Perhaps they hadn’t understood. “You know, she said she wasn’t the dress type,” I tried to explain. “And how everyone always wears dresses when they get married, but she would wear….”

This was a tough crowd. I could see that right away.

“Well, anyway,” I said, trying to save face. “Back to what you were talking about. I have laundry to do or something like that.”

As I slunk away from the door I heard my daughter whisper to her friends. “Just ignore her. I think it’s some menopause thing she’s going through.”

Hmmm, raising teenagers. Talk about a psychological thriller…. Maybe I have the makings for a classic.

Happy Halloween

Second Chances

We all live our lives from day to day assuming that when we go to bed each night, we will awake to another sun the next morning. We worry about paying our mortgages, fitting into our skinny jeans and whether the neighbors think we are still good people even though we let our front lawn get over-grown with dandelions all summer; every day ordinary worries that seem so important until something comes at us from out of the blue. Something so unexpected that it throws our whole world off kilter.

A large mass had been growing in my son-in-laws heart for weeks without anyone being aware of it. He had interviewed and been hired for a new job. He and my daughter were excited because it was closer to home with wonderful benefits. On the negative side, the pay would be lower to start off with and they had been stressing about how they could trim their budget to accommodate the lower salary and still keep her at home with their one-year-old baby son.

As the mass grew bigger it began triggering a series of small strokes in his brain, most going unnoticed. He developed flu likes symptoms and took to his bed. It wasn’t until a mini stroke occurred in a part of his brain that controlled short term memory that my daughter realized something was terribly wrong with her husband.

Doctors took tests and suggested various illnesses until a CT scan showed the frightening mass in a chamber of his heart and announced open heart surgery would be necessary.

I drove up the night before the operation so I could be there to care for my grandbaby when my daughter left at four the next morning for the hospital. She wanted to be there early to spend as much time as she could with her husband. The doctors had warned that if he survived the surgery at all it was very possible he could sustain life long brain damage. These might be the last few hours she'd have to be with the man she'd married.

The night was dark as I drove to their home that night, as were the feelings in my heart. How could my young twenty-three year old daughter survive this? Though we had many friends and family praying and supporting her, when push came to shove, she would be forced to deal with the outcome of this surgery in a very personal and solitary way. Like everyone else, I felt helpless. I was her mother, and I couldn’t fix this.

It’s a very strange position to be in, preparing for the possible death of a loved one. And stranger still, it’s not that unique. Every day, families sit in hospital rooms knowing the end for a loved one is near and trying to figure out how they will go on living without someone who has become so essential to their own personal happiness.

And it is in those dark and harrowing hours and days that the things that matter most become clear and indelibly imprinted on our brains. While other less imporant life issues fall from our minds like dead leaves in the autumn.

Thankfully, due to the skill of the doctors and the faith of so many people, my young son-in-law made it through the surgery with both his life and his mental facilities intact. An outcome that surprised many of the medical professionals who’d been working with him. There is still a long road to recovery and my daughter is still shouldering challenges beyond her years, but for now the worst is over.

This experience has reminded me again of the fragile nature of life. The fact that that though we may feel we are in control of our lives, our futures are not in our own hands. Life can change in the length of a breath, and people and things we count on can be taken suddenly from us like a magician ripping a cloth out from under a set table.

I wish this clarity of thought and appreciation of those things most important in my life would stay with me longer, but I know my own nature, and it won’t be too far in the future before I’m back to stressing about bills, calories and messes. Still every time I see my daughter's sweet family or watch her husband playing with my beautiful grandbaby, I will remember that his life, like all our lives, is a temporary gift, and maybe I will appreciate mine and the people in it just a little bit more.