Flying by the Seat of My Pants

At approximately 9:27 AM yesterday I discovered that my pants were unzipped.

In this life, 9:27 is well into my morning. I had showered and dressed (somewhat), made breakfast and packed lunches. I rode in a taxi with the family to school, kissed the husband good-bye, attended a meeting (which included people I had not met before), read two books to 25 fourth grade boys and girls, talked extensively with them about selecting a good biography and then got up and showed them where exactly to  find said biography (which included a good deal of walking around, up and down movements, and lots of Carol Merrill type gesturing), checked out the appropriate biographies (which involved sitting, thank God) and then, once the entire class left the library, only then did a discover that my pants were unzipped.

This discombobulated woman thing is sadly becoming part of my daily shtick, and I'd like to assign it a place in my 46 year old dossier but the truth is I've been this disheveled mess for years.

"Turn around!"
Immediately I whirled around to see my friend Heather, literally doubled over laughing. "No, turn around again!", she went crashing to the floor.

At the front door of the Laura Ashley store, where we both worked, in a huge suburban shopping mall, I stood with my short kilt tucked into the back of my dark tights. How long I had been wandering around that way we will never know. Thankfully I was 22, the damages far less severe than a similar mishap now.

When I was 32 I wore two different shoes to an early morning meeting, similar in style but markedly different colors. It wasn't until I crossed my legs, and then immediately switched rapidly back and forth to confirm, that I noticed the end of my legs did not match. Long pants can only do so much when one shoe is black and one shoe is red.

My sweaters have holes, my glasses are smudged, my intentions are good.

It's no accident that I surround myself with the kind of wonderful people who are not afraid to tell me to turn around and zip my pants. I fear I'm going to need even more of them as this life goes on.

Thankfully there are no pictures to accompany this post.

Making Copies, Keeping Friends

Five copies, all stashed in a box at the back of my closet, waiting to be mailed. They've moved at least six times; that I have found them, yet again, is a true wonder. I made the copies around 15 years, ago, in the supply room at UMB Bank on the Plaza, in Kansas City. Over lunch at my desk, likely steamed vegetable dumplings from Bo Lings, I read an article in Town and Country about five friends who took a hotel barge river cruise through France. Floating down the Burgundy Canal on the Fluer De Lys seemed idyllic, and completely possible; I was unmarried, without children, and working hard to be able to do things like float around in France. And so I made the copies, to send to my friends, thinking that maybe someday, possibly soon, we could take such a wonderful trip.

The articles never made it to the mail, the trip never happened. Our lives grew, jobs became careers; we became wives and mothers, architects and milliners, but not sailors. We live in three different states, the last time I was in the same room with all these women was when I got married. The idea of four days together, without agenda or distraction, is mesmerizing.

Certainly the Canal du Midi is lovely but I'd be content with a few days at the beach, or in a hotel room in Akron, Ohio. This might be the best birthday present in the world; check your mailbox ladies, it's not too late.

All Grown Up Now

The one on the right just graduated from eighth grade. He is taller, at least five inches, than I am, long and lanky and topped with a poof of blond hair. He was, just recently, voted Most Likely to Become President Someday. I have no trouble imaging this at all; he is bright, witty, charming, a snappy dancer and completely comfortable talking to anyone about anything. The first time we met he threw up all over me but has not once done so since, and I thank him for that. Yesterday he introduced my girls to his cool eighth grade friends as "the sisters he never had", as if I didn't love him enough already.

The one on the left no longer fits in those boots. She is tall and blond and just won, with her team, the state lacrosse championship. One night, very long ago, she woke me crying, not feeling well, and in the middle of the night I rocked her and found out just how lovely children could be. Once calm, I promptly put on her diaper, backwards, and, begrudgingly put her back to bed. She has always been the child most likely to roll with the punches, falling down and bouncing back up immediately. She is silly, articulate and fun. She leaves notes for her mom on Facebook that make me cry and has never shied away from adults, a quality I find amazing given her advanced years.

Their mothers are two of my best friends, the first to have children in my gaggle of dears. Two mothers I looked to, and modeled, when faced with this daunting task myself. And now their soon to be quasi adults make me a little less scared of the teenage years that lie in front of us. These two are nice people who love their moms, well done ladies.

Yours, Mine and Ours

My friend Heather's definition of family is as big as her heart. At forty she is a grandmother, step grandmother to you and me, but you will never hear her say that. The son of the daughter of her husband is as much her grandchild as any she could imagine. Her own family is a delightful mix of his and hers, this and that, but from Heather you hear "my sister, my brother", never once preceded by any descriptor making them any less than whole.

In my family we had steps, both my parents remarrying soon after their divorce. The brothers inherited on my father's side, all older, no commonalities, most lived out of town, steps. From my mother I got a step brother and two step sisters, three of the funniest people I have ever known, wonderful people all of them, and steps. And when my mother and their father divorced? Step siblings once removed is how we all described each other, although we remain friends to this day.

Thankfully for me Heather opens her generous heart to her friends as well, including all of us in her assembled family. As I create my own version of family, I take lessons from my dear friend who teaches me that the title is less important than the role, and family is what you make it, even if that makes you a scooter driving granny at forty.