Favorites

I am a teacher.  A teacher of the Arts, but, none the less, a teacher.
I am letting you in on a secret.  Teachers DO have favorites.
Gasp.
Know what else?  Everyone you work with or for... all of your life... will also have favorites.
The only thing is, many of them will deny the obvious.
It has happened.  A disgruntled dancer (or, more often, their mama), snarls "Just because she is not your FAVORITE, like so-and-so"... and I nod and agree.
This is fun for me.
Here is the deal.  I have ALOT of favorites.  My choosing of the favorites is not a choice.  It happens because The Favorites all have the same attributes.
They Practice.
They Pay Attention In Class.
They Are Respectful to me, themselves, and their fellow dancers.
They Practice.
They Mentor willingly.
They Attend Events WITHOUT grumbling.
Oh.  And... They Practice.

I am certain that the person who is one of my favorites is OFTEN a teacher's favorite.  Dance builds discipline.  That discipline carries over into other aspects of daily life.  It is a simple formula.

It should be noted... someone can start out as a NON fave and end up at the top of the list.  Guess how?  Yup.  They Practice.

Life is harsh.  Let your child learn to deal with it.  Let them learn from mistakes and grow from disappointments.  Cry with them.  Hold their hand for a minute.  And then, do NOT go to the teacher and ask WHY they are not a favorite.  Instead, encourage them to build the character traits needed to succeed and flourish at what they have chosen to do.

Oh. Wait.  Yes... CHOSEN to do.  I often tell my dancers that no one put a gun to their head and said they had to dance.  It was a choice.  Hopefully, it was their choice.  Learning something is rarely free.  Respect what effort and expense your parents put forth in order for you to learn something new and LEARN it.

A good teacher will help you learn.  A great teacher will MAKE you learn.

All through this hopefully long life, we have the chance to be a Favorite.  It doesn't end as adults.  Favorites help build the set in their child's play.  They make props for dance class.  They run the booster club for football.  They fluff the poms for cheerleaders.  They are present, they are active, they are supportive.  They are NOT interfering.

It is a thin line we all walk.  We say "be true to yourself"... but sometimes, that "self" is too selfish vs. selfless.  Being a Favorite should never be a job.  If we all tried to do our best, every classroom could be filled with Favorites.

That, my friends, would be my Favorite Ending.

Vanilla

I am a vanilla. 
Most of my friends are a chocolate.
No, it is not what you think.
It is about ice cream flavor preference.
I just want vanilla. French vanilla.  The good kind.  The kind with the specks of beans in it.  The kind that bursts with a flavor that makes me soooooooooooooooooooooooooo happy.
I think this means, elementarily, that I am a relatively simple person.
I like things basic.  Tasteful.  Clean.  Pure.
But, wait.
Maybe, what I really love about vanilla ice cream is the clean slate it offers.  To pour hot fudge on.  To add rainbow sprinkles to.  To top with heaps of marshmallow fluff and whipped cream and that one, perfectly stemmed red cherry.
It is like a page before me.  White, empty, waiting to be embellished and, hopefully, hungrily devoured.
Most of my good friends love chocolate ice cream.  Now, I LIKE chocolate ice cream.  I really like pistachio ice cream.  Or butter pecan.  Or coffee flavored.
I like ice cream.  Similarly, I like just about any book or article or movie.  I am that person who, once I begin reading or watching ANYTHING, no matter how drab it becomes, must finish it.  I will prop my eyelids open with tooth picks to accomplish this.  EVERYTHING must have an ending.
Why should ice cream be any different?  Two scoops?  Three?  Scrape the spoon on the bottom of the dish to be certain it is all devoured.  Finish it.
Give me a pure vanilla page.  Let me color it and fill it.  Let me share if you are my friend.  Let me finish what I start.  Let me be satisfied in the simple completeness of a beginning and an ending.
Is this something innate?  Is this something peculiar to me?  I believe it is just a basic, human need.  In today's world of technology and constant jumping from one activity to another, many endings are skipped. Much of life is left uncompleted.  All of our ice cream flavors are blended into one, over flavored heap of a messy sundae.
This weekend, I challenge you to try a scoop of vanilla.  With nothing on it.  And, oh, go ahead... lick that bowl clean!

Popscicles and Slushies

Popscicles and slushies.
I don't like them anymore.
Days of yore, they were soothing on hot days; flavor bursts of happiness on a too hot tongue; sticky sweetness that dripped down the wooden stick and deposited itself between your fingers.  Colors of joy and flavors of  choice.  Orange, cherry, grape...and my favorite: Blue raspberry.

Somewhere around my daughter's 4th surgery, the new definition of popscicles and slushies came to be.  They were first "food" after surgery.  Ideally, she, too wished for blue raspberry. As the anaesthesia wore off, the blue spittle of vomit changed the meaning of popscicles and slushies for me.
When Madi was about 8, I rushed to recovery to find a nurse chuckling above my daughter's bed.  "What is so funny?",  I demanded.  The nurse waved her arm across the room, as if to cast a magic spell.  "See these kids?  All of them whining, crying, wailing?  Your daughter wakes up, asks for you, and then tells me to start bringing Popsicles to the other kids who are crying.  She says it will make them feel better."
And why wouldn't it?  Comfort comes in the strangest forms.  A little frozen juice; some flavored ice; a soothing memory even in life's hardest moments.
I do not want popscicles or slushies anymore, but Madi does.  She does relate them to surgery, but not in a bad way.  They made her feel better.  They trigger different thoughts for me, now.  As the memories of her pain and sickness fade with time, maybe I will want a blue raspberry slushy one hot day.  Who can say?
There is a challenge here.  In life's most difficult times, can you find comfort?  In something familiar, something that settles your upset, something that you remember fondly?  I believe we all can, and this is one of life's unexpected gifts.  When pain comes; grief strikes; the world seems to end, there will be something that brings unexpected, and sometimes, unwelcome comfort.
If you cannot embrace it, simply coexist with it.  There is always the chance you might decide you want it around one day.

Making Amen-Ds

Hallelujah to the possibilities of Fixing Things.  Making Amen-Ds.  Do-overs.  Second chances. 
Whatever you wish to call it... it is a God send.
I cherish all those who have crossed my path.  Even those who have crossed me.  Back stabbed me.  Driven me to the edge and driven me to heart ache.
Each person has shared a part of their soul, their being and their essence.  Sharing is caring... however twisted that version may be.
Retrospect brings a certain healing for me.  Sometimes, it takes days.  Sometimes, it takes years.  Sometimes, that healing is so covered in band-aids and old bruises and pain that I do not even recognize it has healed- if even just a little bit.
I am, basically, a happy person.  But, alas, never believe that someone's smile is their FEELING.  That smile?  It is SHOWMANSHIP, taught by my Mama the dance teacher and ultimate actress.  "Never let them see they got you down".
My greatest problem with this theory is that I am also a CRIER.  Not a few genteel tears cascading romantically down my cheek kinda crier.  Nope.  Ugly, red-eyed, snot blowing, gut sob CRIER here.  I cry when I am really happy.  Really sad.  Really angry.  Really confused.  Do you sense a theme here?
In the moment, this trait gets in the way of my ability to express my true emotion.  It is disabling.
So.  God Bless the opportunity to make Amen-Ds.  For me, that is often via written word.  I love me some letter writing; email sending; facebook messaging.  Partly, because I function best if not face to face when apologizing or venting or explaining.  Mostly, because I need the chance to let my words dance.  That writing is like choreography.  I can choose my dancers; change the punctuation and flow of the tune; choose abrupt percussive words or lacey loose language to captivate and titillate.  I am, ultimately, in control.
If you are reading this, and have been on the receiving end of my attempt to make Amen-Ds, you most likely know me well enough to understand my tears.  To accept or decline my attempt at a makeup or a second, third or fourth chance.  You know that this blog post, too, is directed at You.  At all of You... who choose to move forward in this crazy world as a part of me.
Amen-D.

3, 2, 1 Contact

I am that person who creeps you out at the stop light by making eye contact with you.
I can't help myself.
I am always inserting myself into the car beside me, the truck across the way, the bus rolling under the swinging yellow light on a slightly windy afternoon.
Even in our little city, the chances I know anyone in the other vehicles is slim.  That old lady (q-tip head) slowly cranking the wheel in a left turn... is her arthritis bad today? Is she lost in thought of another car ride long ago, when her lover stroked her thigh... or to a time when singing children cajoled in the back seat?  That stern looking truck driver with the dark beard and darker eyes; is he wishing he was in a state where license plates were the same as his?  Is he lonely?  Or is home a lonelier place than the road?
Those young boys, with the loud bass beat rocking their car and cigarettes riding low on their lips... are they dreaming of being cool as they gun their engine and fist pump to the beat of the music?
The story teller in me has always played this game.
  On those occasions when I lock eyes with someone in a car near by, I wonder if they are making up the story of my life.  When they see me squinting through the sun streaked windshield, do they see me as a somewhat disheveled woman, mid-way or more through my ride on this earth.... do they know that my sadness has matched my glee?  That my love for those around me is fed by the love of those I have lost?  Can they picture me, young and wild with my sun-tanned arm out a rolled down window, long hair streaming in the wind, singing off key to a too loud FM station or cassette tape? 
3,2,1 Contact.  It is just the story of another life.

Almost Arrested

Almost Arrested.
Literally.... One hot summer night, I was celebrating a reunion night with my sorority sisters.  We had joyously "passed the loving cup around"... and around.  And around.
We wisely chose to walk downtown.
En route, we came across a large construction area and a line of bright orange cones.
The cheerleader in me was ecstatic.  Cartwheeling,  Herkey jumping and Dancing down the road as I collected orange cones as my makeshift megaphones.  All in good fun, until I was Almost Arrested.
The swirling color of lights and the voice of the officer caught me mid-cartwheel.  "Ma'm, you need to go back and return those cones, please".
Ummmm. Nooooooooooooo. I was headed downtown.  I was not much interested in succumbing to his request.  My sorority sisters urged me to heed his "advice".  I sassily refused.
For your information, an escort to the back seat of a cop car will quickly sober one up.  The cones were returned.  I did get downtown, just a bit later than anticipated.
Figuratively... we all have moments when we are "almost arrested".  When a deer crosses the path of our vehicle.  When we come to a screeching halt  at an intersection when someone else does not.  When your life passes before your eyes.
 For a bit, you listen to that voice in your head and heed what life is telling you.  Then, there you go... off on your normal path to personal destruction or construction.  (Whichever you choose to call it).
Being Almost Arrested did not stop me from cartwheeling through life.  I still jump high and I am still, definitely, on megaphone level most days.  Oh, and I am still sassy.

Be A Rocker

My Mom TOLD me what to do a great deal of the time.
She rarely gave ADVICE.
There is a difference.  What I am told, I rarely do.
What I am advised, I take under, well... advisement.
When I was a new Mom, my mother was an amazing and proud Grandma.
About day three of motherhood, she offered me the best advice I have ever been given.
She said there are a few basic rules to being a Mom, and if I followed them, everything else would be cake.
1.  If the baby cries, something is wrong.   She is hungry, has a wet diaper, or is over stimulated or overtired.
2.  Be a rocker.  Sit in that rocking chair and rock that baby.  When she is grouchy, when she is sick, when you are grouchy, when you are sick.  It is the time of your life you will never regret spending doing nothing else but rocking that baby.  Be a rocker.
To this day, I stand by these two mantras, and I share this advice with all new Moms (and Dads) that I meet.  I went out and bought Step Daughter, Cass and her fiance, Kyle, a glider rocker for their baby Kreighton because I simply could not imagine NOT rocking That Baby.

Madi once had a physical therapist who was VERY upset about the predominance of rocking chairs in my house.  There was one in the living room; one in the play room; one in the nursery; one in my bedroom.
She TOLD me that it had been proven that babies who were rocked were clingy and co-dependent as children and teens.
Wish she had been there when Madi told me, as she headed off to Kindergarten on the bus, that I was NOT allowed to follow her to school because she was NOT a baby.
At that moment, I was happier than ever that I had rocked my baby.

Mom is gone now.  The rockers are gone, too.  I have one in the Croghan house attic, waiting for the day that Madi can Be A Rocker.  I hope I can pick a night when the moon is bright and the stars hang like icing in the sky to share her grandma's advice.  I hope that she takes it.

Rock on...