You've Changed

I have a few ideas for posts regarding the nuts and bolts of dealing with illness as a parent (and umm, human) that I want to post here. Even if you are not ill, you will have days and weeks of it, a period of postpartum convalescence,  or have friends facing longer term struggles- even ones we sometimes forget to give credit for like thyroid malfunction, depression/anxiety, IBS, etc. For your consideration, I present my first installation of Coping Chronicles ;)

First Up: You've Changed

Before I was sick, I was the kind of girl who could and would push through anything, the one making all the plans, the one with energy and ideas to spare. Not so much now. Changes like these greatly diminish one's capacity for coming up with grand, creative, new ways to run a household- adding to frustration with self and scene. Illness (along with babies, moves, death, accidents) is a huge disruptor. I think most of us crave comfort and order in the face of disruption, but when you are at the center of it, it can be nearly impossible to recreate the conditions of comfort and order you enjoyed before.

I feel it is important to note the above facts before launching in to "Easy Tips to Make It Seem Like Nothing Has Happened" or "How to Feed Your Family While Never Cooking." While it is very tempting to find a "new normal" as quickly as possible, I don't think that works. Friends and family will be ready to gush about all their great ideas for how you ought to now live, but they may be forgetting the important fact that you have, indeed, changed- no small thing to face. It's OK to need some time to just sit and stare at the new surroundings (and your new personal interior) before you begin to plan how you can get up and move along (not on). I read a great little book called Cereal for Dinner that I found extremely helpful, but more than the tips and tricks, it was the empathy and grace that I most craved and enjoyed in its pages. The first thing I want to convey as I seek to share some of our family's discoveries is that same empathy and grace. I wish I could say that stages of grief and the reintroduction of order happen on some kind of predictable schedule, but they don't. I can say that giving myself time for both, stumbling my way ahead, has been a necessity, and that the time required has been much longer than I expected.

I see a counselor weekly; doing so has been the best way for me to process the ways I and my circumstances have (and have not) changed. I can remember in the far off, misty past when I considered going to regular counseling appointments to be a sign of weakness and inadequacy (ugly opinion, but one I held nonetheless). Not so any longer. Although, at this time I do feel weak and inadequate, I also feel strong for being willing and able to admit that I need someone's help. Processing loss just feels weird because we were made for glory and order- painful illness and loss are contrary to our design. However, I of course believe that pain and change can be used to make us richer and more glorious. Working with a counselor has done much to improve my view of myself- NOT because she forces me to look for the bright side but because she has helped me to give myself credit for what I'm going through.

So, my first tips are these:

• Take the time you need to inventory what has been lost and what remains and the requisite time for mourning. Some of you may not be praying types. Even so, everyone should know that God has capacity to listen to our crying and even our angry shouts.
• Consider finding a counselor. Churches love to help pay for counseling fees, and many therapists have sliding payment scales for those with financial limitations. It may also help to simply identify one good friend who you believe has the capacity to give you time to process and listen well. Make sure this friend knows that you aren't coming to them for solutions, per se, but for empathy. Most close friends are able to identify patterns in our thinking, and those may be helpful for them to point out to you.

POTS Still Sucks

I love writing my happy little Texa-rina memoirs. I think part of my love for writing them is that they provide me a little vacation and are helping me to appreciate the parts of my life that were not tainted with POTS. I am on a mission to value the ballet experience I have too. Meanwhile, POTS is still wreaking havoc. Last week was one of my worst weeks in a while. I still have trouble seeing any rhyme or reason to the flares, but I do have some suspicions. Exercise is a tough trigger to have. On one hand, I'm getting so frustrated with my sedentary life, but on the other hand, activity makes me feel sick! I took the dog on an uphill walk for about 30 minutes that knocked me out for about 3 days. Lame. Lame. Lame!

I decided that I needed to just take time again to be sad. I really struggle to let myself mourn the losses POTS has brought to my door (mostly my youth, vigor, and dreams of being an active mom). I try to be thankful for what I have and feel like it's just unthankful to linger over the parts that suck. Not to mention, not everyone is ready and able to jump into the sadness with me- which I understand.

One thing that I have somewhat comfortably concluded in the last few weeks is this: I will feel terrible if I'm going to feel terrible. I cannot spend my life conserving energy just for the sake of not having flares of POTS. They come even if I do everything perfectly- whatever that means. I would rather spend my life as a series of bright bursts. Party! rest rest rest rest rest. Beach day! rest rest rest rest rest. Yard work! rest rest rest... It seems like a much more attractive plan than just being mildly well and extremely boring. Taking care of oneself means so much more than just putting your feet up and taking your vitamins. I have a soul to look after (and FAMILY), not just a sick body. Being sick is giving me the opportunity every day to decide who I really am and really want to be.

Independence

A few days ago, I walked into my room to find my kids playing with my laptop and Fountains of Wayne's “Radiation Vibe” playing from it. Of course, the children were reprimanded, but that song puts me in such a good mood that I didn't get too mad. That song reminds me of being 16 years old. When I was 16, everything was still possible. I was smart, hopeful, talented, and blessed with parents who were actually considering letting me pursue a ballet career instead of attending college.

My sixteenth year was my senior year of high school. I skipped the eighth grade as a homeschooler so that I could attend classes at a specialty math and science school run by our public school system in Amarillo, the Amarillo Area Center for Advanced Learning, or AACAL. I was still thinking I wanted to be a doctor then (cardiology, specifically). I made choices to impress and to attempt to live up to the potential I knew I had. I enjoyed making good grades and knew it was reasonable to expect academic success at whatever level I decided to reach. Ballet was my after school activity. At dance, I felt most challenged and felt the most pleasure, but I still didn't exactly understand how one would have a life in dance. So, I was going to be a doctor. I was a big dork at the magnet school. I was one or two years younger than the other kids and was the only homeschooler. I remember being teased for wearing my dad's old letter jacket which I thought was super cool. I was still loosing teeth (lost my last one my junior year... not. cool.) I managed to make friends, though. I love friendship. I have had so, so many wonderful friendships and find them to be my greatest sources of fun and energy. My AACAL friends were no different. We had a great time competing in medical spelling and biomedical debate at our Health Occupation Students of America competitions. I know, I know: dripping with cool.

Maybe it was to make up for all the extreme lameness I felt I was at AACAL or to try to become the big city kid I knew I really was somewhere inside, but the main things I learned at AACAL (probably an exaggeration!) was how to look like I was actually smoking a cigarette and how to casually drop a curse word or two. I never got in trouble for these activities, though I was nearly caught several times. It was easy to talk my way out being an ace student and the goody-two-shoes homeschooler that I was. After about 6 weeks of this silliness, though, I confessed all to my mother in a tell-all expose of my newfound bad-assery. I swore to never do it again, and I didn't. Though, I did drink half a wine cooler or two at some dancer parties a couple years later... shame shame. My little rebellious phase was great for me in one particular way: it gave me a way to stop and decide what I really wanted. I don't think my parents were too thrilled with AACAL in the end, so I had the option of choosing to go hardcore for dancing rather than medicine. By that point, I knew what I had to do if I was going to actually make good on what so many little girls tried to claim and become a ballerina when I grew up.

The classes and rehearsals that I wound up being committed to at the West Texas A&M Dance Department were a lot of work, but it felt like Heaven to me. I belonged! No one thought I was lame. In the dance ensemble, I was 3-5 years younger than everyone, but I was treated so sweetly, like a little pet, and with respect because I could keep up. I loved everyone so much. I still do. We had friendship like I have never experienced outside of dance. There's just something so bonding about changing together, sweating together, exhausting ourselves together and even trusting each other for our lives. One thing that I think has attracted me to childbirth and my current “job” as a doula is the closeness with other people. My relationships at the Lone Star Ballet, as we were called, were great too because there wasn't this huge element of competition that existed in every other context I experienced. We just wanted to dance together and get as great at it as possible. I have many wonderful, hilarious stories to tell from my days with the Lone Star Ballet.

For a year and half, my poor, poor family had to drive me back and forth to the university in Canyon, Texas twice a day on weekdays and once on Saturdays and Sundays. I especially loved when my dad would come pick me up at night. We didn't get to see each other very much because he worked a lot, and so did I. I loved trying to convince him to drive through a fast food place. Once, we each got about half way through our cheeseburgers and halfway back to Amarillo before we realized that they hadn't put any meat on them! Delicious. My poor little sister lived much of her life in the back seat of my mom's car waiting for me to get out of ballet.

But, then, the magical day arrived when I received my license. I looked absolutely beautiful in my license photograph- tan, wearing a cerulean blue scoop neck t-shirt, made-up with silver eyeliner that I got from my grandmother's make-up stash with lipstick, gloss, and more gloss. Even at the time I thought it was a good picture- how lucky is that? That license was the ticket to a new chapter in life. I kept the windows down in my red, Saturn station wagon and the radio up. I loved music. I was very in tune with what was happening in indie music and worked hard to learn the names of all the songs and bands I liked. We had two absolutely fantastic college radio stations, and I had them on at every possible second. When I did my school work in the mornings (alone), I would keep the clock-radio (that I still have) on my desk playing very quietly. If my mom came into check on me, I would reach for the eraser that I had strategically placed on the snooze button and turn it off. My goal was to get all my favorite songs recorded on my many mix-tapes.

Each day, I would blow through my school work as quickly as I could. “Yeah, yeah, yeah: math, history, science. I get it. Absorbed. Get me out of here.” It wasn't that I didn't like academics. I wanted to be smart and well-read, but I loved being with people and working on dancing so very much. I was red-blooded and alive in the studio. Around 11:40, it was finally time to get in my car and leave. That 20 minute drive was such a happy part of my day. I felt like myself. I wasn't a loser trying to fit in at the magnet school (even if my last tooth had finally grown in!). I wasn't trying to impress anyone. I was wearing lots and lots of lipstick and earrings because I loved them. I listened to my music loud and dreamed about all the dancing to come. Even the landscape became more and more interesting the closer I got to Canyon.

I have changed a lot from that 16 year old self, but she is still in here somewhere. She's the one that wants to throw parties. She's the one who still practices double attitude turns in the living room and checks to make sure I can still do the splits. She's the one who still loves Fountains of Wayne and is teaching the children to ask for Beck and Flaming Lips albums by name. She's the one who makes sure I've got my lipstick.

The Palo Duro Canyon and TEXAS

I live in the Pacific Northwest, Seattle, specifically. It is beautiful and has all the natural elements that little girls from the Texas Panhandle dream of: water, mountains, and trees- lots of them. My family and I took a drive to the tulip growing fields of the bulb farmers in Skagit Valley about an hour north of Seattle to see the shocking fields of colorful tulips in bloom. It's like the pictures of Holland on the gardening catalogs that came in the mail which I would use to plan my imaginary estate gardens when I was young. On the way there, I sank into the perspective of my childhood self. I love driving around my new state with my child eyes. All the evergreen trees on the side of the highway remind me of drives to the family cabin in the Colorado Rockies- promising a few days of water, mountains, trees.

The natural beauty of Seattle is the backdrop for man-made beauty in architecture. The city's tagline was dubbed “Metro-natural.” I love this perfect description. I dreamed of big buildings and busy streets full of people when I was a kid too. I remember being about 6 years old and thinking, “I don't think I want to live here.” I cannot put my finger on it, but I just didn't feel like I fit there in Amarillo. I'm not sure anyone would call Amarillo itself “beautiful,” and it's tallest buildings would be the shortest ones here. I haven't been there very much in the last decade or so, but I'm pretty sure that the streets are still not teaming with people. There is so much space available (due to the lack of water, mountains, and trees), that parking lots and roads can be absolutely huge. People drive everywhere. My Amarilloan friends would be quick I'm sure to tell me all the reasons I'm wrong not to adore Amarillo, and I'm not necessarily saying that I don't. It's charms are many, to be sure. 

In fact, there are a thousand things to love about the Texas Panhandle. Around the edge of Amarillo, the land is terraced and stepped. Desert plants like Yucca and Prickly Pear Cacti dot the landscape. Scrubby old Mesquite trees that could be a hundred years old look simultaneously perfect and out of place in the fields. Cattle stand and relax before being faced with their end. Some people swear that you can tell if there will be a storm coming by how the cows group together. The sky is in such plain view that to city people it would almost seem indecent- just showing it's whole self for everyone to ogle. I get frustrated in Seattle because for all the abundance of clouds, you can barely see them. Texan clouds are like sculptural blimps. I would stay outside too long for comfort when a storm was blowing up just to watch the how the cloud formations were changing- to watch and see if they'd start spinning. Oh, how I miss that weather! As a Pacific Northwesterner, with children who are native to the region, I appreciate the Texas landscape I grew up in more than ever.

Even when I was a girl, though, I loved the Palo Duro Canyon. The PDC boasts being the second largest canyon in the United States, the “Grand Canyon of Texas.” I've seen the Grand Canyon, and I can confidently say the Palo Duro lives up to it's monikers. The entrance to the canyon is about a 40 minute drive from Amarillo. We would go there for field trips, barbeques, and camping. It is a feast for the eyes and a treasure trove for any rock or fossil hound. On an off-trail hike with my dad, we once found a fossil the shape and size of a bull's horn. A professor sort told Dad that it's likely a sloth toe bone of some kind. My favorite fossils to find are seashells and even coral; imagining that place full of water makes me feel how small I and my place in time are. The Spanish Skirts are festively beautiful- hillsides made from striated dirt and clay in yellow, white, red, and purple. I slipped and fell on my rear more times than I can count when that clay was wet.

The other claim to fame for the Palo Duro Canyon is that it is home to the Pioneer Amphitheater and its resident production, TEXAS, a musical drama that tells the stories of early Texas Panhandle settlers, both farmers and cattlemen. I have no idea what the national impression is of TEXAS, but I do know that locally it is treasured. To me, it might as well have been The Lion King or Phantom of the Opera. I knew many of the performers because the show was mostly cast with members of the West Texas A&M dance, music, and theater departments with whom I performed The Nutcracker and took summer classes. Mr. Hess, my ballet teacher, was the Director. Lucky for me: my dad's band was the pre-show entertainment on the weekends. The Prairie Dogs are a group of buddies who play music together still for fun. I love each one of them like an uncle (or, as the case may be, like a dad).

On Saturday evenings, I would go down to the canyon with my dad and run amok with all the other little band kids who had managed to be brought along on a particular night. There was a small mesa that rose behind the gift shop and barbeque area that we could easily climb and enjoy. It was our wonderland. We named every nook and cranny. We knew every hidey-hole and bluff. We named all the different routes for going up or down. Being little Panhandle kids, we knew how to watch out for snakes and what to do if and when we found them. We would save our allowance money to buy trinkets, cap guns, and rock candy from the gift shop that smelled like all the cedar it contained. My favorite thing to do, though I wasn't bold enough to do it often, was to beg barbeque off the vendor who sold styrofoam plates loaded with deliciousness to the droves of geriatric visitors who came on tour busses. Slow smoked barbeque beef and sausage swimming in Texas-style barbeque sauce, potato salad, coleslaw, beans, thick white bread with preserved apricot topping, sliced sweet onions, and hamburger dill pickles. Sometimes when the line had died down and we knew how much food was left, Joey, the proprietor or one of his managers would let us get a 20-something ounce styrofoam cup and fill it with whatever we wanted. I have put away more potato salad than anyone I know. I'm sure of it. A while ago while my husband was working as a programmer for a website that makes restaurant recommendations, he and his friends began frequenting a new barbeque spot in Wallingford called RoRo. He told me about their “barbeque sundaes,” layered bowls containing barbequed meat, beans, slaw, and hamburger dill pickles. With such a thing on the menu, I figured the place was legit and must be run by a Texan. Thankfully, I was right. A rockabilly styled woman with tiny body and loud, Texan accented mouth is running a place filled with Texas memories. Every time I bite into my “sundae” I am transported to the canyon floor.

My other favorite pastime whilst at “the play TEXAS' was to star watch. Like a Hollywood tourist, I would camp out and wait to catch sight of either Mr. Hess or any of his dancers, my teachers from Dance Camp that I loved so much. These were the only professional dancers I knew about, and I could not wait to join them. Sometimes I would sneak up to the top of the amphitheater to watch the opening number of the show while my dad packed up equipment with the band and then ate their plates of barbeque that Joey had saved for them. I loved everything about what I was seeing, every time. I learned the choreography and would show it off to the dancers whenever I had a chance. I never did dance in TEXAS, something I hugely regret, but I never had the chance. In order to become a ballet dancer, I needed to be away during the summers when I was in highschool to try to be noticed by a professional ballet school. The TEXAS dancers, who by the time I was in highschool were my best friends, were always thrilled for me and encouraged me to go make it in the big time. Some of them went on to be dancers and performers all over the world. Some of them are still running TEXAS. These are the people who taught me how to entertain. Their faces are burned in my memory with expressions that could read all the way at the back of the house. My ballet life didn't allow for me to fully use my facial skills. Once for the Pacific Northwest Ballet School's annual School Performance, I was cast in a leading spot for the finale of the George Balanchine ballet, Who Cares? which is all set to Gershwin classics. To the energetic “I've Got Rhythm,” I gave lots of face while kicking and spinning. It was the most TEXAS moment I had, and I didn't even get reprimanded for being too silly.

My time spent down in the canyon hiking, laughing, and stuffing barbeque holds a place of high honor in my heart. I am so grateful to have stories from the canyon and TEXAS to tell. I miss tornadoes and snakes and fossils by the dozen. I long for the distant pound of the base drum and my dad's harmonica reaching me while I explored. These are the memories that make exotic stories for me to tell my children. They all begin, “Once, in the canyon...” I tell them as though I were on a stage keeping the attention of a huge audience. The rapt listening of my 4 and 6 year old boys is just as much a treasure to me. Now when I walk busy Seattle streets or wade through a soggy day at the playground, there is a little part of me that pridefully claims: “I'm not from around here.”

Elise

Elise

When I was a student at Hess School of Dance, there were no classes during the summer. We were strongly encouraged to attend the West Texas State University (WTAMU now) Dance Camp. I probably begged to be allowed to go. The first year I went I was 10 years old. I was the youngest student staying in the dorms. Most kids would commute because the little town of Canyon, TX that was home to the university was only about a 20 minute drive. Now, in Seattle, I drive about 20 minutes to go places everyday. It's so funny now to remember that drive to Canyon feeling like it took so long. The two week camp (I only stayed for one week) was run and taught by Dance Department majors, and it was a blast. We had classes in things that I did not often get to do: tap, jazz (real jazz... not the stuff Mr. Hess choreographed for us), musical theater, and the very exotic (to us) modern dance. I learned a lot, but mostly I learned that there were teachers and dancers in the world who were kind and encouraging. I learned that I really was crazy flexible because the teachers would always call it out. I wanted to make them happy and worked hard. I hope that everyone of them knows what a difference they made to all of us young “Hess Girls.”

I could not wait to stay in the dorms, but I was also terribly nervous. Going in to set myself up the first afternoon all my fears immediately dissipated when I laid eyes on Elise Carlton. She was a few years older than me, blue eyed and blond haired and only knew how to smile. I remember that she tucked me under her wing, assuring me and my parents that we would be together and that I would be fine. She was a star at the studio during the year. I first met her when I was 7 years old and performing in The Nutcracker for the first time. I was terribly nervous then, too, and Elise had the same effect: calming encouragement. That year, Elise was splitting the starring role of Clara with another girl named Tanny. I still had a Christmas ornament from each of those Claras this year when I pulled out the stuff to decorate. I tossed the one from Tanny (I just do NOT need that many reminders that Nutcracker is no longer a part of my life hanging all over my tree), but I kept the one from Elise. It's a wooden toy soldier whose arms and legs flail when the string is pulled. Her name and the year are written in Sharpie on the bottom.

Even at my very young age I could gather that some mommies gave lots of money to the ballet, some didn't, and some would have if they could. There was a definite presence of Texas socialites in the arts scene. Now, I'm not saying that the ONLY reason girls got to be Clara was because of money because in later years some of those rich girls were also my friends, were mostly kind, and were talented. I am saying that having your mother be active in the Guild and high up on the donation list weren't bad things. Perhaps my childhood impressions and recollections aren't right, but chances are they were more right than I knew. I do believe, though, that it was a rare thing for the child of a mom who was not in any obvious way connected and well-funded to receive the role of Clara. Elise fell into this category. She achieved a rare privilege, I believe, because she was a rare gem and everyone could see it. I hope never, ever to be disabused of this notion. She was beautiful, talented, but mostly had one of the best attitudes I've ever seen and pure kindness for days. She was a perfect Clara. I can still see her lovely little arabesque turn in the second act with her long blond, perfectly done sausage curls swinging out behind her. The blue of her bow complimenting her natural coloring perfectly. She was like a painting by Renoir or Cassat.

That summer at camp I got to know Elise even better. She was hilarious, and she had sharp wit and criticism for mean people which made her own kindness that much more obvious. She once burped the most awful burp I've ever experienced, and I will never forget it. The grossness made her human and so brave to be that unladylike without shame. I remember being in awe that she and her friends let me be a part of their crew. I ran into one of them this winter on a trip back to Amarillo. We said “hello,” and I learned that she was a 1^st grade teacher. Of course. She had always been nice to little kids. One of the other girls was another absolute beauty with thick blond hair and big blue eyes. I have a picture of her somewhere holding up a picture of Christie Brinkley on a magazine cover next to her own face, a dead ringer at age 13. I felt like such a fuzzy headed, gangly spazz next to them all.

As years went on at the studio, I passed up those girls dance-wise. By that time, I was going away for up to 6 weeks at a time to study ballet at some of the best schools in the country. I'm so grateful that Elise and her pals made me feel safe that first summer. If it had been a bad experience, who knows if I would have been able to do all the "camps" I did in the future. They were all into high school, and dance just became their extracurricular while I danced 7+ hours a day. I still had such a high regard for them, though. Their behavior was proof to me that attitude really was everything. That there was more to being successful than raw talent and hard work. Elise is still a reminder to me of the difference that confident kindness can make not just to one person but in an entire school of people. Her mother is friendly and hilarious too- motivation to be a great example for my kids. 

 After Elise graduated high school, she worked for the musical drama TEXAS down in the Palo Duro Canyon. She wasn't the star of the show- perhaps she was no longer interested in spending hours on dancing, but she was using her five-star smile as a member of the hospitality team. I saw her down there a few times and it was always such a joyful conversation. I remembered her in the awful, ruffle-necked, Little House style, pastel gingham checked dresses all the women on hospitality had to wear when I pulled out that ornament in December. My kids were playing with it. One son was being too rough with it and I snapped at him a bit too hard. I felt bad because he was just acting his age, so I took a moment to explain my strong reaction: “That ornament is really important to me! It reminds me of someone very special.” “Why?” my five year old asked. “She was special because she showed me how important it is to be sweet, and the ornament is important because she died.” Elise was killed in a dramatic car accident at age 19 when driving to TEXAS one night. A terrible, terrible loss.  

My Memories

I love reading memoirs. They are so interesting to me. Mostly, I like them because I think: "Now, here's someone like me. Someone who is ok with other people seeing inside her head." The difference, though, between me and the She's is this: they believe their experiences are worth writing down for others. I belittle my own experiences. I truly think I do this because I never reached my goal of becoming a soloist or prinicipal dancer in a ballet company. Heck, I never made the corps. In that world, clout is based on rank and success. Ballet-wise, I never had much success, so I've relegated myself to a corner where I tell myself that the things that happened to me don't matter. People want to hear about the lives of people who made it, right? I don't know. But, I have decided this: I want to write it all down anyway. So, here's my first little installment:

Tendue. Tendue. We love to do tendue.

Miss Sharon was my first ballet teacher. In my mind she has the face of the actress who played Corky on Murphy Brown. I do know that she talked in a baby voice that I loved and had a blonde, Shirley Temple-has-become-a-teenager kind of hairstyle. It was the eighties. Leg warmers abounded along with high cut legs on the leotards and shiny, very shiny, tights. I only have impressionistic memories of my first ballet classes. I was three years old. An age that I only now, as a mother realize is so young. Maybe it was even a ballet/tap combo? Or ballet/jazz? The memories all have a sweaty warmth to them and that smell that is unmistakable: shoe leather, foot odor, rosin, and people. It kind of smells like old books. I think the only other smell I love as much is the smell of my mom's hair when she would lean over to kiss me goodnight after coming home post-bedtime from a night out- the smell of Dior Poison, fajita's from Chili's, and second-hand cigarette's from the adjacent smoking section. I can't remember any details as clearly as I remember that smell from the studio.

I remember being excited about going. I do remember crying when my mom left, but I don't think it was on the first day. I also don't think it was the screaming, tantrum, shameful (to my mind) crying of the little girl who clung to her parent and refused to be comforted. My sadness was just a quiet little bit of fear at being separated and challenged to do something I didn't know how to do yet. It feels odd now to think of a time when I didn't yet know the vocabulary, when plie, relevee, and tendue were still Greek to me- or, rather, French. I now know many, many french verbs in active form. If we are ever stuck among French-only speaking people, I will sound very bossy as we try to make our way. The records that Miss Sharon would play were as crackling as a campfire. I remember the song: “Tendue. Tendue. We love to do tendue. See the way we relevee...”

I'm not sure that I remember my first recital, but I do have the sense memory of hugging my dad's neck as he carried me up some stairs to a different studio on a different day than usual. It was an upstairs studio, and there were cookies after. Mexican wedding cookies, I think, with all the powdered sugar. That must have been a recital- would have justified the cookies and fruit punch. I do remember one recital when (a few classes under my belt already; maybe I was 5 or 6) I had the distinct feeling that Mr. Bruce was counting on me to remember the dance and lead my fellow students through it. Looking back, it was a terrible, boring dance. A real phone-it-in job. I've taught enough creative movement and beginner level classes to know. The record skipped, or maybe the song was just the wrong version? Or played a bit too long? Not sure, but I do know that it did not go well. I could tell by the panic on Mr. Bruce's face that it was his problem, not mine. It was the first of many times that I felt the pressure to carry the show.

I remember that the teachers would always say to go home and practice. I did. I didn't know at the time that I was probably the only one, or maybe one of a couple, that did. I would practice a lot. I would stretch and run through the dances with my body and then just in my mind. I remember swinging on my backyard swingset and chanting/counting through the movements to my dances. We did a jazz dance to “Electric Youth” by Debbie Gibson; and, thanks to the home movie that was made, I still remember most of it and remember the chanting of the steps. I've had people be surprised by the fact that we dancers are speaking the movements in our heads while we dance. How else would we remember?

All those little courses at the Amarillo College gave me something vital to my future in dance: the sense that I loved to perform. I wasn't screaming and begging to be taken home. I felt early on that this was serious work. WE LOVE TO DO TENDUE. No messing around. People want to see some serious ballet performance. And I'm going to give it to them. As a firstborn child with a bent towards arrogance, I would not probably have kept on if I didn't think I was good at it. Miss Sharon, Lou Jean (like “Blue Jean,” she'd say), Mr. Bruce, I could tell that they were giving me more attention than others. They were impressed with my flexibility and attentiveness. I found my favorite thing at a tender age, and, thankfully, those teachers at Amarillo college made me believe I could do it.  

Canaan

Every time I round a corner in our new house it's like the first time all over again. I hope this, "ahhh, I live here!" feeling never goes away. Now before you start thinking that we must live in some mansion, know that we don't, but it doesn't matter because it feels that way to me! God had this spot in mind for us, and I know it because of how our home-purchase story unfolded. In a crazy, competitive market, we experienced neither crazy nor competition and got the place for slightly under market value. The only reasonable explanation is that God wanted us to live here (and provided us with an excellent agent!). It is a 5 star hotel compared to the fleabag we just left. Thankfully, fleas are one type of vermin we did not experience at the former address (Watson is the most thankful), but there were plenty of others. It is only now in this safe and serene shelter, that I realize how much stress the old house caused me every day. I started, but thanks to the backspace button you (and future me) don't need to endure a list of those stresses. Suffice to say: rats were a presence at the homebirth of one of my children, and termites once interrupted a family movie night by suddenly streaming into the room from under the carpet. The little hostess that lives inside me has emerged from the fall-out shelter I stuffed her in and is still dazzled and blinking in the sunshine of her new digs, squinting and filling her calendar with guests much faster than anyone with POTS should even think of doing.

I have been reminded again of how I need artistic outlet and opportunities to be creative to flourish. Coming into this space and being able to arrange furniture and hang pictures and curtains has been so refreshing. I've even taken up pirouetting in the living room again. The creative energy has been the only energy as the move was completely draining to my poor body, but boy has it felt great to feel that lose-track-of-time, get-lost-in-my-ideas type of enthusiasm again! It has been a long time. I suppose the artist who lives in me was in that basement shelter too, and she is reveling in the startling feeling of breeze on her skin while arranging flowers and placing posies that aren't being wasted to dress up a pig.

So, yes, I've been thinking of the promised land and how one day I will feel all these great rejuvenating feelings for eternity where there won't even be POTS. I can find out just what use he always had in mind when he gave me love for people, parties, posies and pirouettes (and even POTS). God never promised me a dream house, of course, but Canaan has been a picture of the loving, specific plans God makes for his people.

Most of us have a spiritual life's story punctuated by a few big "ah-ha" moments and many small ones. My big moments were mostly sad or hard, and I began to treasure the gritty challenge of finding God's work in my most difficult circumstances. I was sort of becoming a glutton for punishment. The side effect of that was the development of a belief that God only would give me lessons through pain and I began to expect things to go wrong for me. Then Ivo was born; and, even though the rats were there too, I felt for the first time true shock and overwhelming joy that God was teaching me through lavish gifts (the birth was a dream-come-true type experience for us natural birth junkies). What a wonderful Ah-Ha that was! God gives good gifts! Duh! It's not as though that was God's first big gift to me; it just was the first time I noticed spiritual growth in a time of fat rather than lean. I've been reflecting on that moment because this whole house thing feels the same way. I'm tempted to feel guilty about living in a beautiful, spacious home, and I am tempted to cringe and worry about what people think of me. Joy-robbing thoughts these are, and I have to quiet them. This is God's gift to us. It feels like the land of Canaan. And good news: it's not even inhabited by people I have to route out! That would just be very unnerving indeed. Our family challenge now is to not forget where this house came from: straight from the hand of God. Yes, we saved money. Yes, Brendan works hard. Yes, we lived in the decrepit house for a long time. But that's not how this house came to us. And, Lord! Don't let us run after other gods.