Go Wildcats

The little Wildcat is heading back to school soon and the 'ol empty nest feeling is back. I talked to another mom in the same boat and she's going around with the "this time next week..." thoughts, too, proving that the second year is still hard. But, God, what a difference a year makes. Last August I had been crying for a year, noticing every "last" thing. This is the last football game, the last senior party, the last back-to-school night, the last trip to Target, the last slumber party (don't even ask me about Graduation). Tomorrow we're going to Tucson for the day to move Shana in to her first house. No more dorm room. No more security guards. No more RA to call (not that I ever did). She's going to be out there on her own for the first time. She put the cable bill in her name. She's working on a chore schedule with her housemates. She's packed up her room. The walls are bare. The moving truck is full.

Maybe I'll bring along some Kleenex just in case.

To Pee Or Not To Pee

I've been on a lot of road trips this summer and it's required me to actually give some thought to the morning drinking process. I like to down two or three big glasses of water first thing in the morning to get it over with, then I'll usually add a cup of tea and pretty soon after that something full of caffeine and aspartame to get me through the rest of the am. But things change when there's a few hours in a car coming up and I'm not in control. Time to slow down. When I'm with Shawn, I just pray that we get low on gas, since he can make it from here to the Pacific without pulling over. Last week I was set to drive to Hawley Lake with Shana's group and I didn't know what to expect, where we were going, when we were going to stop, plus I had some girl that I had never met tagging along with me. This required some planning. I didn't want to look like a lightweight, a wimp, embarrass my child and maybe lose the bus I was supposed to be following. So I didn't drink anything all morning and cruised into Pinetop just in time. But for my latest trip to San Diego, I was in charge of the transportation. Car loaded with people, full tank of gas, radar detector plugged in, flying down I-8. My rules: drink if you must, but we're not peeing 'til Yuma.

Kissy Face

Okay, don't laugh, but it's mine and Shawn's 27th anniversary of our first kiss. 8/13/82. August senior year started. Friday the 13th. Hard to forget. I got home so late that night I got grounded.

It was totally worth it.

Oh Boy

Shana's an only child and we've always taken some other kid with us when we travel, makes life easier for everybody. But up until now, that other kid has always been a girl. We just got back from five days in San Diego with Jordan, the BF. He's been around awhile. Technically two years. That's an entire inseparable senior year in high school, two summers, and the whole first year in college, two hours away from home. There have been dozens of movies and dinners over here, but never before a non-stop you're really a part of the family now experience. But the kid passed. Sorry, girls.

The Beach Buffer

Off to San Diego. Mom. Sister. Daughter. And so we all don't kill each other, the daughter's boyfriend, Jordan, the buffer.

Back-to-school

Can you feel it? I know it's still a million degrees out there, but it's Back-to-School time. Office Max is packed and the ghost town roads of Phoenix are filling up again. On my way to work this morning, I even got the flashing lights in the school zone. A little heads up. A reminder that Monday's the big day in the neighborhood. New backpacks, little lunch boxes, first day of school outfits. Flashing lights. Slow down. It all goes so fast.

Four days in the woods with a bunch of kids

I just spent four days trapped in the woods with a bunch of kids and I'll never be the same.

The whole gang, muddied from Capture The Flag
Warriors Maddie and Megan
Partners in crime Shana and Wade
Shana and Super Forth Year Kristin


I've been around Workshop for Youth and Families (www.orho.org) for a long time, probably since Shana was around 11. She started with the one-day workshops, then did one or two week- long summer programs for several years. For the past three years, she's been volunteering as a Peer Leader (over 300 hours a year!) and has committed to one more year. It's always been hard to explain what exactly "Workshop" is. Here's the official mission statement "To foster personal leadership and resiliency in youth and families that inspire positive growth and change," but that doesn't do it justice. I tagged along for the finale of the year, a retreat up north at Hawley Lake where all of their hard work and lessons learned over the year bubble up into an amazing experience of playing and bonding and challenging each other to go farther, cross the line, dig deep and be stronger in order to reach their goals. We followed ancient rituals and applied them to our own lives. We learned about what it means to be a family and how hard that is to find. I joined girls with colorful wildflowers in their hair as we walked into a meadow to join a circle of sisterhood and I heard teenage boys express their true emotions, overcoming any fear. I watched a fierce Capture the Flag game, complete with intense team pride and lots of mud and I was there when the forth year Peer Leaders said good bye in an incredibly moving ceremony (I'm a big cryer as it is, but this pushed me over the edge). These kids (along with the one-of-a-kind Dr. Franny and her Leadership Team) have made so many connections over the years in a thousand different ways and I was amazed how the entire group came back together again one more time before getting back on the bus to head home, taking a part of each other with them until they meet again.

The tutu is open!

Guru yogi, Mary, led the class in the sanctuary tonight. I love it in there, so dark, so peaceful. The walls are brick, curved round in places and the ceiling sort of curves in and out, too, sometimes not connecting to the edge, giving an ocean-wavy, jelly fish feeling. She stretched us out, opened us up and even taught us a new way to breathe that cools the body (sort of make a “straw” with your tongue and suck in the air, exhale through your nose – cool, right?) Mary did some long, slow restorative poses since it’s so hot out (but I’m not complaining) and I think I was asleep when I heard the bell chiming me back to life. Well, maybe not all the way back to life, since as I was backing out of my parking space I forgot which way to turn the steering wheel in order to make the car go to the left. I figured it out and made my way down beautiful Lincoln Road into a gorgeous pink and purple sunset, moon rising.

peace is not a relationship of nations.

it is a condition of mind

brought about by a serenity of soul.

lasting peace can come only

to peaceful people.

~jawaharlal nehru

Sweat Lodge - another oldie, but goodie

I just spent four days bonding in the woods with Shana and her Leadership Workshop gang. I'm still processing and trying to find the right words to capture the incredible experience (plus, a lot of it was very hush, hush, so I can't reveal any of the secrets), but my own old sweat lodge experience comes to mind.

Sweat Lodge

I signed up for a sweat lodge ceremony at a swanky spa, figuring that even with our great group discount, I should probably tear myself away from the lovely pool for a bit of enrichment. I thought a little pow-wow out in the desert with my sister and some of my book club friends would be a cinch anyway. Compared to the other rock climbing or boot camp activities, it sounded like even a pudgy out of shape 40-something might be able to handle it. I was wrong.

The sweat lodge wasn’t lodge-like at all, more like the size of a washing machine. We were supposed to squeeze ten of us in, like a bunch of big-haired clowns into a VW Bug. At least there was no big hair in our crowd. No make-up, no underwire push-up Wonder bras, no deodorant, jewelry, glasses or even a bobby pin was allowed. We learned in our pre-sweat lodge training the day before that a bobby pin might singe our skin. That should have been my clue to head back to the pool, but I didn’t. So, clad in our cotton clothes and cotton Scrunchis, we piled in to the tiny womb-like tee pee in the 100-degree Tucson desert and took our last real breath for a long time.

One of our guides was a Native American whose ancestors taught him the ancient rituals passed on during thousands of sweat lodge ceremonies, including requiring him to fast for seven days before leading us. The rest of us had fasted, too, sort of. We skipped lunch. We had also given up alcohol for 24 hours, maybe not a huge sacrifice, but for my book club, otherwise known as a drinking club with a reading problem, it was a big step. Our other guide was a white guy with a different, much more macho past, but equally perceptive and spiritual. With his encouragement, he somehow eased the second thoughts I was having as the white tarp closed and the bright, cloudless sky disappeared.

Thick steam and the smell of burning sage filled the space as our guides poured water over the hot stones. They described the significance of East, West, North and South and the debt we owe to our ancestors as well as to future generations. The whole Circle of Life theme continued as the sound of our voices starting circling around and one by one we expressed our intentions, regrets and gratitude. We did the A ho Mitakuye o’yasin chant as we listened to ancient beliefs as well as to our own more modern sad stories. I felt pretty guilty as the descriptions of broken relationships, abuse, illness, addiction and loss floated around me, leaving me little room to bitch about my own charmed life.

The ceremony continued as we all turned into one puddle of sweat and tears in order to somehow purify, cleanse and start over in the tiny suffocating fort. I started to just sit silently and skip my turns, thinking that the circle would move along faster and hopefully get me out of the unbearable heat more quickly. It became clear that the lesson from this torture was that I could learn more from listening rather than my usual me me me approach. As the others prayed and as the air became thicker and thicker, my own non-religious but spiritual self started praying, as well, to whatever God we atheists are supposed to pray, to help me, too.

I tried to move a little, bending over deep because it was easier to breathe down low. It was pitch black and I poked the tips of my fingers behind me under the heavy tarp to feel some real air. The only thing keeping me from racing out of there, besides the searing hot stones four inches from my face, was that I didn’t want to be the first one to give up, knowing that if just one person escaped that inferno, it would somehow break the trance. I kept praying to God to get me out of there, getting more and more desperate, promising anything - to save the world, volunteer, exercise every day, stop eating high fructose corn syrup, anything, to just get out of there.

Three hours after going in, the thick white flap was opened. The glaring sun was gone, replaced by a cool, dark night. We all sort of silently drifted out and stood still, disoriented. I walked through the quiet desert back to reality and joined the other half of my book club, the superficial spa pigs that turned down the sweat lodge opportunity for some not quite the same eucalyptus massage instead. I tried to explain how it was the most meaningful and physically exhausting experience in my life. I tried to describe all of my new lofty aspirations. They all just said that my skin looked great, like I had just had a really good facial. My not yet cured me me me persona kept at it and tried to pass on the beautiful chant we learned - A ho Mitakuye o’yasin. I said it a couple of times, then slowed down for this already two glasses ahead of me group. “A ho, okay? A ho Mita…” All I heard was, “Did you just say ho? Who you calling a ho?”

I gave up and said, “Pass the wine.”

The Book Club

One of the other moms in my daughter, Shana’s, first grade class collects friends like she collects husbands, so when she invited me to her book club, I didn’t quite know what to expect. I had just finished graduate school and was sick of reading stuff with ten page long bibliographies, so when I met the eclectic, wild bunch, I knew they were perfect for me. That first meeting seems like just yesterday, but Shana’s heading off to college next year, so it’s been like, what, eleven years? Eleven times twelve months is 132, so that’s 132 books and we’re still going strong.

We cover everything from light and fluffy beach books to classics, biographies, and even a few Oprah selections, each one perfectly scrapbooked by our leader who is so organized that she alphabetizes her warrantees. Whenever somebody asks me what I’m reading I always say, “Well, we’re reading…” before I can stop myself. This month it’s Eat, Pray, Love, which, by the way, is amazing. We’ve argued for hours over which book to pick, we’ve tried voting and one time we even let one person select all the books for an entire year. That’ll never happen again.

The group has evolved over time - losing a few divas and gaining some more. Some people just couldn’t hang on and deal with all of our drama. After a particularly vicious hissy fit at 3:00am a few years back, we almost split up into two groups, one serious and one social, but thank God that blew over. So once a month I still race out of the house and yell, “I’m going to book club,” to my husband, Shawn, and Shana. They know that it’s my “me” time. I know that it’s a support group, marriage therapy, parenting class and career counseling all wrapped up into one.

After we read the book The Red Tent, I announced that Shana had just had her first period, so we gave her a Red Tent party. We surrounded the poor kid on a dark night out in the desert and read her poems and stories and told her things we wished somebody had told us when we were growing up. She was totally embarrassed, but as I looked around I saw the village you hear about that it takes to raise a child. The book club is my village and I love that Shana has seen me run around with this group of intelligent, creative women all these years.

One of the book clubbers, who recently left her short, bald husband and now jokes about the adorable cowboy she found on Match.com, calls us a drinking club with a reading problem and it’s true, we do like to have a good time. There have been trips to Mexico, Las Vegas, birthday lunches, a sock hop, Happy Hours, limo rides, Christmas tea at the Ritz, slumber parties, and even a male stripper named Bo. The main event, though, regardless of the book, is our monthly gathering around somebody’s table, pages flipping, candles burning, wine flowing and a chance to finally breathe.

The books are now a lot less important than the readers. We’ve been through a lot and our lives rival some of the more complicated characters that we study. For every book we’ve read, we’ve lived a real-life marriage, divorce, birth, cancer, adoption, or bad haircut. We don’t always fit in. We don’t always like each other. But we’ve made a connection and woven together so much of our lives that we could fill our own book.