As You Wish

Some time ago, my dad made a promise to Carys. I can't remember exactly how or when it began, but Grandpa promised that someday he would sit down and introduce her to The Princess Bride. She has speculated wildly these last months - wondering how Andre the Giant could possibly factor in to a movie about a princess. (She learned about him during a WWE feature story, in case you were wondering. If you're wondering why she's into WWE, I can't even possibly speculate because I do not know. Ask her dad.)

Anyway. Carys has pressed me often for more information about this mysterious movie, intrigued by the artwork on the DVD that Dad gave her for Christmas. I've refused to tell her anything...I just told her that her Grandpa promised to watch it with her Someday, and she would have to wait until then. Well Someday finally came yesterday. And I had forgotten just how much I love that movie until we were all piled together in the family room watching it.

Every genre of literature is neatly packaged in that wonderful film - drama, comedy, satire, tragedy, poetry. I hope they never remake it, and we can forever associate the fantastic characters to the legends who portrayed them first. The movie is timeless. It came out in 1987 and my kids were still glued to the screen despite its lack of animation, digital enhancements or CGI elements. I don't know how much meaning they drew from it the first time around, but I'm sure we will be watching it again and again. I'm going to pull out every metaphor, every allusion that I can, and quote this movie over and over until they know it as well as I do.

Some of life's biggest lessons can be found there, along with some of the best one-liners of all time.

"People in masks cannot be trusted." If there is a bigger metaphor anywhere, I'd like to see it. Sometimes the toughest adversaries are the ones who come wearing the mask of friendship. How many times in our lives will we misread the intents of an acquaintance? How many times will we be fooled by appearances? Painful lessons, yes, but important ones.

"Inconceivable!" This is going to be my new go-to response whenever the kids ask me if they can do or have something.

"Hear this now. I will always come for you." If there's anything I want my children to know, it is this. Wherever they go, and whatever happens to them, if they need me, I will always come for them. My parents gave this gift to me; they rescued me from deep pools and shallow ones. They came, every time I called for them, and every achievement I ever made, every risk I ever took, every failure and every success was possible only through the security of that safety net.

"We are men of action. Lies do not become us." This. Just - this. Even when the truth is hard to hear, truth is still what develops our integrity and defines our character.

"This is true love - you think this happens every day?" It doesn't. It really doesn't. And sometimes you think you have it, and you don't. And sometimes, you don't recognize it when you do have it. A tricky thing, love. But when you find it for real, and you know it for real, hold on real hard.

"There's not a lot of money in revenge." I hope my kids develop a sense of pride and integrity that prevents them from ever seeking revenge for an injustice. I hope that I can model that always for them, and live an authentic life free from the desire to hurt when I have been hurt. It just begets more hurt, and there's no recovering from that terrible cycle.

"Rest well, and dream of large women." Okay, this isn't a life lesson. It's just the funniest thing ever to say to your 9 year old when you are tucking him in at night.

"Life is pain, Highness. Anyone who says differently is selling something." Oh yes, life is pain. Sometimes it hurts a little, sometimes it hurts a lot. I'm finding as I get older that the parts that hurt a lot are the parts I've come to value most. We learn the most from our biggest failures and heartaches; sometimes the heart aches with the loss of something so good, so wonderful, that the pain is a reminder of what we were able to experience, if only for a little while.

And, finally: "Death cannot stop true love. All it can do is delay it for a little while." True story.

Ask And Ye Shall Receive

It's true that you really have to be careful what you wish for. When Emma was very young, maybe 2 or 3, she was a little bit of a handful. Precocious, curious, fearless. Carys came shortly thereafter and complicated life even further...she was a master escape-artist, highly sensitive, emotional, and prone to meltdowns of gargantuan proportions. When I found out we would be having baby #3 a mere 10 months after baby #2 showed up, we might have panicked a little. As we adjusted our parenting game plan from a man-to-man to a zone defense, I am going to admit that I might have been praying fervently for a child that was going to be a little more predictable. I might have asked for obedience. I might have even asked for a rule-follower.

Well guess what? God listens. Because I got it. Cooper is a scientific, analytical, black and white little rule-follower. And it is driving me crazy.

Some examples: if you say off-handedly that you plan to leave for the store in ten minutes, that kid is dressed in his jacket and shoes and waiting by the front door in nine. Doesn't that sound awesome? Except that both girls (and even me, sometimes) don't function like that - we're usually ready in 15. And those six minutes that he is waiting by the door become eternally long and his mood begins to darken considerably. By the time I get there, he is CRABBY. I am learning to be less specific about timelines.

If I make one of those idle threats that parents sometimes make, like, "If you don't eat a good enough supper, there's no dessert tonight." I better prepare myself to follow through. If Cooper doesn't THINK he has eaten a 'good enough' supper, he will turn down dessert no matter what, because Mom said it, and he must comply. This is so maddening to me - I usually say these things because getting Carys to eat actual food is like trying to solve climate change. But Cooper takes it to heart, and he will flat refuse to put one bite of dessert in his mouth if he deems his commitment to supper as less than ideal. Even if I say later that he did, in fact, eat enough supper, he will say, "No, I didn't finish, so I shouldn't have dessert." I am learning to say what I mean and mean what I say.

This weekend we went up to Bloomington to watch Emma play basketball. Cooper was supremely difficult the entire weekend. At the hotel he remarked that he was really hungry. We wouldn't have time to go anywhere before Emma's first game so I offered to buy him a sandwich from the hotel lobby. He picked one out and on the way up to the desk I commented to Aaron that $11 was sure a lot for a sandwich. And that was it, he didn't want it anymore. Mom said it was too expensive. It took me almost fifteen minutes to persuade him to eat it, and we were almost late for Emma's game in the process.

Later, he asked for a few dollars to go get a slice of pizza. They were out of pizza. So he put the money back in my purse. Never mind that he was really hungry - he wouldn't buy anything else because he had told me he would buy pizza with it. I authorized pizza. If pizza is gone, we must therefore return the money. Who does that? Seriously, WHAT KID DOES THAT? When I found out about it, I persuaded him to come with me to get something else. He said, "maybe a smoothie?" Lo and behold - smoothies are gone as well. Crap. I tried again: "They have Gatorade...?" No. "Nachos...?" No. He chose to go without. And the hungrier he got, the crabbier he got, so that was super fun.

When we got to the gym the next morning, he asked right away if he could get a smoothie before they ran out. I said, "You bet." I gave each of the kids $4 and they stopped off at the concession stand to get one. We walked into the gym and sat down. Minutes tick by, and no Cooper. Finally, Carys comes running in to tell me that Cooper is refusing to enter the gym because there is a sign on the wall that says "NO FOOD OR DRINK IN THE GYM." Never mind that I am surrounded by people with nachos and pizza and hot dogs and Starbucks and even one lady that I'm pretty sure was drinking a whiskey/coke. Never mind that there are garbage cans all over the place expressly for the purpose of throwing away all the garbage that people are bringing into the gym. Cooper is standing dutifully outside the door, sipping a smoothie by himself. I walked over there to get him. He pointed to the sign and wouldn't move. I tried explaining, I tried persuading. I really wanted him to come sit down with his buddies near us and not be left alone like a parent-less vagabond, but that kid was not moving. Finally, I physically brought him into the gym and over to our seats. Where he proceeded to throw away the entire remains of a four-dollar smoothie because it was against the rules to have it.

This isn't an all-the-time thing, by the way. He's highly selective about where he applies this philosophy, and I'm beginning to think it might be centered on places where he feels he might elicit the biggest response from his mother. He has no problem skipping a homework assignment or two. (He claims he knows all the answers, so it doesn't matter if he actually does it or not.) He could not care less about how often he showers, whether his jeans have holes in them, or what time he needs to be in bed. He DOES care that his math tests are timed (why does it matter how FAST I can do them, as long as I can do them?)

I know that raising kids is no walk in the park, and I'm sure I'm in for some interesting years. Emma is probably doing too much, Carys is probably feeling too much, and I guess Cooper is probably thinking too much. My goal is to get through these next few years without drinking too much.

Present Over Perfect

I'm one of those few people in the world who is lucky enough to call my school administrator my friend. In the spirit of friendship, he offered this read to me, mentioning that it held great meaning for him and wanted to pass it on. This wonderful book, "Present Over Perfect" by Shauna Niequist, is a must-read for anyone who wants to "Leave Behind Frantic for a Simpler, More Soulful Way of Living."

I'm only half-way through it, and already feeling profoundly affected. I find myself writing page after page of reflection, applying bits and pieces of the wisdom within to my own life. This is one of those books that, while it doesn't fit me exactly to a tee, is full of little pieces of truth that is changing the way I look at the world, and the way I identify my place in it.

If you know me at all, you know I'm a "yes" person. I thrive on moving, constantly, and giving myself and my time to anyone who needs it. I'm not so great at giving to myself. When I do for myself, I feel selfish, and I feel like I'm letting people down. I invent ways I've let people down in my head, even when I haven't. When I'm using an afternoon off for myself instead of calling someone, or catching up, or planning some activity, I feel immensely guilty. I have long defined my value by what I can give to other people.

I think I might use this post as my litmus test for success: a year from now, I'm going to look back at the blog and see how far I've come on some of the goals I've decided to set for myself. The idea of saying "no" to the world and "yes" to ourselves is not a new one...but this book gives a little "how-to" plan that I seem to have been missing. It is difficult to give ourselves permission to turn down invitations for fear of disappointing people, but "to do this, though, you have to give even the people closest to you - maybe especially the people closest to you - realistic expectations for what you can give them. We disappoint people because we're limited. We have to accept the idea of our own limitations in order to accept the idea that we'll disappoint people. I have this much time, I have this much energy. I have this much relational capacity." That paragraph - that one - I have to photocopy it and glue it to my mirror.

So. We're always learning, aren't we? Thank you, Andy...it's exactly what I needed right now.

A Love Letter

In a year that has been difficult and sad, it hasn't been easy to find my cheerful positivity long enough to write anything of real substance. I'm careful not to fill up these pages with too much heartache; I think we'll all remember the tone of this year without too much of that. Our family keeps going, from silly moment to happy moment to crazy moment with a few somber pauses in between as we navigate the absence of the one who held us all together. Joy, the reckless and free kind, has been a little hard to come by, it's true. Mostly I just walk around having a pretend life while I wait for Mom to call.

But a couple weeks ago I found myself in one of those moments of magic; the kind where time stopped and I felt it again; glimpsed the fiery sunshine through the fog and clouds. How do I explain this without sounding ridiculous? I'm not sure I can. You're probably anticipating some major life changing event, right? Well, sort of. I went to a concert. But not JUST a concert.

I went to Church.

See, me and Church, we have this thing. We have this thing where he writes all the songs that tell my life story and then I get to find myself again in all the words. He tells me all about my life; who I was, who I am, who I am becoming. Nobody really gets this about me - except maybe my brother. My brother and Stevie, maybe. I think she probably gets it. But this music is more than music for me, and the concert was a literal return, at least for a few hours, to a carefree happiness I've been missing lately.

So this is my love letter to Church.

{You can laugh - go ahead - take a minute to fully appreciate my return the teenager I used to be and apparently still am, on some level.}

I met Eric Church in 2006 when my brother sent me a three word text: Sinners Like Me. I downloaded the first album promptly. John and I have this connection - I can't really explain it. We speak sparingly; there's no daily phone call or email. But we can sit next to each other in a room and have an entire conversation with each other in complete silence. We're built that way - two sides of a coin - and when he sends me a word or two over the phone, I know what he's telling me without asking. Music filled our childhood, and we both resonate with the same devotion to it, constantly sharing bits and pieces of anything that comes our way and means something to us. I didn't see anything truly profound in Two Pink Lines, which is as far as I got in that album before I got distracted by something else. So it was really in 2009 when Carolina came out that John sent me a link to Those I've Loved and then I was hooked.

Thus begins an eight year love affair with Church. He's so diverse; I'm on top of the world when I have a Drink in My Hand, and feeling like I might never leave the house again when I'm Holdin My Own. I am seventeen years old again during Springsteen and Talladega takes me right back to my best friends in college, remembering a particular road trip to Milwaukee.

So on one gorgeous January Saturday night, I made my way to Sioux Falls for his concert - the first time I've managed to secure tickets. To use one of Cooper's favorite expressions: it was epic. He had no opening act. He played two sets; 37 songs, 3 hours and 39 minutes. The average fan got to sing along to a popular hit about once every four or five songs. Those of us who really know him, though, were treated to deep cuts from every single album sandwiched in between the radio singles.

Music has such a way of pulling us backward into our memories...it was so good to feel lightness of being again, and remember some pieces of my past that I've been missing. It was so special for me, and I have to have a minute to explain just one more reason why. Aaron and I went to this concert together - this is worth noting because he is NOT a country music fan. But he went because this is one of those times where he gets me for real. I think being there under any other circumstance just wouldn't have been right. I wasn't there for the usual concert experience - I wasn't there to be loud and rowdy or to sing along at the top of my lungs. I felt positively reverential, and I wanted to FEEL that, the whole time. Anything else would have kept me from what I really wanted out of my first Church concert. If I couldn't be there with my brother, then Aaron is the next best thing, because he really gets me, and he knew, I think, what it was going to mean for me.

We were surrounded by a heavily intoxicated stadium crowd (South Dakota, remember.) It was loud and it was rowdy and there was a flannel shirt and boots memo that we must have missed. Aaron hates country music, but he loves me. And I know it because he didn't suggest even once that I take someone else with me. (There are plenty of times when I need my friends, and he's usually more than happy to send me off with one of them when he's not all that excited about my plans.) This time, though, he came with me. And then? Then he just let me be...no talking, no dancing, no drinking, even. He listened to the music, watched me have a 14-year-old fangirl moment when Church took the stage, made sure I had a Drink In My Hand at exactly the right time, and when Record Year came along and my heart seized up and stopped beating for three minutes and eleven seconds, he reached across my lap and took my hand. That song has me hard - it's Mom's song. I've never said that out loud - I've never told him that. I guess he just knows.

Between sets, I was texting John and Stevie, sharing heart emojis and song lyrics, and feeling like they were there with me, instead of in Nashville and Philly. I felt the thin golden threads of our connections stretching between us, and it made it feel even more special; like we three have this secret and not even one of the other 12,000 people there could possibly feel it like we feel it.

By the time we were headed home, I felt such a peace, such an exhilaration - it was a bucket-list concert, and I couldn't have asked for it to be any better. The next one will be icing on the cake, and THAT one will be a party.

I think I really needed that.

Now I can return to my very responsible, very busy, 42-year-old self. It should make the long weeks of basketball and gymnastics and play practice a lot more bearable until the sunshine comes back out and Spring finds her way back to Minnesota.

And just so I never forget, (as if!) but anyway, just in case...I'll just leave this right here. 💗

Dashing Through December

11 days, right? Here's our Countdown to Christmas:

Emma: Three school basketball games, four school basketball practices, one Orchestra concert, one Choir concert, two traveling basketball practices, one orthodontist appointment, one Secret Santa gift.

Carys: Four gymnastics practices, two gymnastics meets, two traveling basketball practices, one birthday party, one Holiday party, one Secret Santa gift.

Cooper: Two basketball practices, two Book Club meetings, one Holiday party, one Secret Santa gift

Mom: Two school ball practices, two school ball games, several homemade dinners, none of which shall be eaten at a reasonable time with more than three attendees at once, seventeen loads of laundry, eight dishwasher runs, a couple hundred miles, three tanks of gas, six more teaching days of barely controlled chaos, three lit tests, two essays (times 120 kids...do the math), one oil change, one holiday pot-luck, three dogs to feed/walk, one concession stand to supply with either food or labor, unspecified number of presents to wrap, six hours of general housework, and maybe an adult beverage on occasion in the quiet hours before bedtime to aid in the unwinding of my frayed and frazzled edges.

Dad: Nine days of working on the road until Christmas, with maybe a day or two off to check in and try to locate some members of the family, wherever they may be on any given day.

Grandpa: 11 days of on-call substitute driving, parenting, feeding, clothing, & homework checking.

Tis the season.

Love & Canadian Bacon

Well, you knew I wasn't going to let this election nightmare slide by without weighing in, right? I've been pondering this entry for a long while. I've been trying to let the extreme emotion in my heart subside a little, and make sure that I make statements out of thoughtful reflection, rather than react out of passion.

Every time I write something on these pages, I try to recall my purpose. Since this blog went public a couple of years ago, I realize that more people than just my own children are reading them. I think sometimes I might write for an unintended audience, so I have to remember that at the heart of all of this, I'm really just telling stories to my kids.

Every day I realize the value in what I started here. I'm missing my own mother's voice in my life and I would give my right arm right now for a few dozen pages of her words to pore over. I'm hoping to leave my kids lots more than that...so I have to remember my purpose. I'm not going to address the country, or my Facebook feed, or even the Pantsuit Nation that I was privileged to be a part of (secretly!) this year. That was a delicious piece of this election, and the PN was sometimes the only thing I allowed myself to read right before bed so I could actually sleep at night.

I'm talking right now just to my children. So if you're here, and want to keep reading, go ahead. You're invited. But I'm not talking to you, just so you know.

Emma, Carys, and Cooper, I know you will remember 2016. I know you will, because all the unimaginable things have become real life this year. We moved off of the country paradise. The brilliant sunshine that was your Grandmother extinguished this year. And our country divided herself along the sharpest boundaries I've seen in my 42 years of living. This election caused you to have political conversations in your own classrooms, among your own classmates, who at 9 and 10 and 12 years old really have no idea what they are talking about, yet are eager to repeat whatever they are hearing at home.

I'm so sorry that was your life experience this year. Life was hard enough, without having to put up with all the other stuff. Your mother is pretty blue, in a whole lot of metaphorical ways. She's traveled the world, lived in other cultures, studied politics and literature, and come to a pretty liberal view on lots of issues. I'm doing what I believe is the right thing to do, and trying to lead by example as you develop your own value system. I'm trying to teach you that others are more important than yourself; that service is the path to understanding. That cultures other than your own are valuable and part of the rich tapestry that makes this country beautiful.

I believe in social programs that elevate the living experience of every human living within our borders, whether they passed a citizenship test or not. I am an idealist, and I don't apologize for it. I'm not interested in trying to explain to people why I believe my "hard-earned money" should be used in part to help those who need it, through any social program that could use it. I don't need to explain it; I just FEEL it, and that's good enough. I'm hoping to send you out someday into the big world with confidence - hoping to inspire you to travel it, see it, live it and feel it yourself.

The world is so much bigger than the town where you live. So. Much. Bigger. So when you go out and live in it, I want to send you with values that will keep you safe and make you blissfully happy. Love others. Give to others. When you don't understand them, ask questions and listen. What you reap, personally, from those experiences will be worth so many more dollars than you ever spent to get there.

I don't know what is going to happen over these next four years. I feel - and I hope and pray that I am wrong - but I feel that our nation might be teetering on a very dangerous precipice. I would have felt more safe with leadership that used diplomacy rather than scare tactics. I would have felt more secure with leadership that used the language of love rather than the language of divisive rhetoric. I would have felt more at ease with leadership that celebrated diversity rather than shunned it. So I worry.

Please know this one thing: because you are white, you will likely enjoy a privilege that you cannot ever fully comprehend. It will be a privilege you are largely unaware of unless and until you live a different life in a foreign culture. That privilege alone could make a smoother path for you than the paths of the people of color in our beautiful world. Please, please, don't ever rest on that. Acknowledge it, but never rest easy in it. Your privilege colors your view, and you must work to see past the easy envelope of its arms. You must surround yourself with diversity, ask questions, listen, and be so careful not to minimize the experiences of those who grow up without that shield.

I would not fear a Donald Trump presidency if I heard him, just one time, comment on the value of people of color. If he would, just one time, denounce the acts of violence and intolerance that white people of privilege are visiting on their fellow countrymen of color. I thought about including some news articles here to underline my point, but honestly, they hurt my heart so much to read that I can't bear to link them. Just trust me when I tell you that right now people in this country are hurting each other emotionally and physically on a terrible level, and all in the name of politics. I'm waiting for our President-elect to address it, to denounce it, to reverse his position on minimizing people of color. So far, I haven't heard that. I don't care one iota about anything else; his economics or his foreign policy, or anything else. I care about his ability to include every person in this nation in the safety and security that our military fought so hard to earn for every person standing within our borders.

We're living in a scary time. I tried to talk to you throughout this election about what I felt was at stake: human rights. For me, it wasn't about Hillary's gender. It wasn't about a glass ceiling, or the establishment, or the good old boys club. It was about which candidate made every American feel like they were equally important to each other, and it was about making our country a safe refuge for those escaping persecution. To me, that is why we were founded in the first place, and to close our borders to people who need us is unthinkable.

But Donald Trump earned his presidency through the votes of people who think differently than me. It doesn't mean they are wrong. (By the way, that was a seriously painful sentence to write, because of course I think they are wrong. WRONG.) But I have to remember that the life they led put them where they are in their thinking. It is no less legitimate than the one I led. I am genuinely surprised, though,  at who some of them were...as my Facebook feed filled up with pro-Trump propaganda, I kept careful attention of who they were. It's helpful to know that, as I relate to people in real life. As hard as it was not to engage in the yuck, I really didn't. I walked away from a lot of ugly, and simply pressed the "like" button when I saw something that aligned with my views.

It's hard to love people when they are different from us, sometimes. But that's the real work - love them anyway. You must. Loving them anyway does two things: it keeps you true to your value system, and hopefully the side effect is that loving them inspires them to pass it on.

I was raking leaves the afternoon after the election, pondering the state of our Union, actually, when our neighbor came over to tell me a story. She tells me that when Cooper was hanging out at their house playing, the topic of politics came up. She shared this one-liner from good old Coop:

"I think if Donald Trump wins, we have to move to Canada. But I think that's a win-win, because of Canadian Bacon."

I'll have to remember to clarify with my little guy when I'm being sarcastic. I love the USA. I love her. I love her so much that I'll stay here and keep making her better, the only way I really can: loving and listening and learning. And hopefully, I'm setting a good example for three more little people to keep it going.

Oldies and Goodies

You don't have to know me long or well to know that I have an affinity for vintage, especially from the mid-century modern era. I don't know what it is about the 50's and 60's that draws me so close; I gravitate toward the furniture, the fashion, the colors, and just about anything else that reminds me of that era. My house is full of mid-century items, repurposed and re-used; they made things to last back then. The look made a comeback in recent years, and companies like Joybird are taking off. If I had a couple hundred thousand dollars laying around, I would be inclined to customize my entire house with furniture from that store.

It should then be no surprise that I pretty much lost my mind over my birthday present this year. My dad gave me the most exciting item that pretty much ever existed for me. Check this out:

Is that the most amazing thing you have ever seen? Crosley makes a record player that looks so mid-mod you would think I found it in the attic upstairs. The only feature that gives it away is the auxiliary jack that lets me plug in my phone and stream music through the player. (AS IF someone would feel the need to stream music when the best sound quality you've ever heard in your life is available to you through an np5 needle at 33rpms.) 

Maybe you're like my husband and thinking, "Um, that's a RECORD player. We don't even have any records." And that would have been true, if my awesomely amazing dad had not then produced part two: a set of my parents' old vinyls, the records I listened to ceaselessly in my childhood, still in their original jackets. As I thumbed through them - The Carpenters, The Four Seasons, Janis Joplin, Carole King, The Statler Brothers, The Beach Boys, Simon & Garfunkel - it was like being transported backwards to my childhood. I couldn't get it out of the box and set up fast enough. 

I've listened to each album several times through over the past few weeks. Each one does something different to me; each one reminds me of a house, a moment, an outfit, a friend - something - from my youth. Once I got through my parents' music, I found albums from my teen years: Olivia Newton John and Starship. I found the Thriller album, The Bangles and Madonna's True Blue. Some are scratched terribly, some are still in reasonably good listening condition. But even the scratched ones take me back - in my head I could anticipate each skip and rub; somehow it sounded weirdly normal. 

One night, I was sitting cross-legged on the living room floor, records spread all around me. As I moved from record to record, it struck me that a lot of my ideas about life and love were formed by listening to these old songs. Age and experience have changed how I interpret the words today versus age 9 when I didn't really understand what half of the songs actually meant. I think that maybe the draw to the past has more to do with a connection to innocence, to naivete, than anything else for me. Life was so much simpler when I could belt out tunes upstairs in my room and then hustle downstairs for supper, not a care in the world past whether my homework was done for the next day. Remember when your only real job was to do your homework? When you could wear whatever you want and someone else was in charge of your hair? Yeah, me too. Good times.

Dad even went an extra mile; buried among the oldies and goodies were two brand new vinyls. Chris Stapleton's Traveler, which may as well be dipped in platinum (it's THAT good) and Taylor Swift's Speak Now. That one's for my girls - we're gonna keep it on going, this appreciation for the good stuff.

I waited and waited to put Mom's Helen Reddy album on the player. I thumbed past it over and over, for no particular reason. Mom loved music - she loved it. I have so many memories of singing along to albums on cleaning days, doing the dishes, pretty much any chore that needed help getting done. We would sing The Carpenters and Dolly Parton and Anne Murray and I can hear her voice right now as I type this. But Helen Reddy - I don't know why, but that one was asking me to wait, so I waited. 

Last night I came home late from Musical rehearsals. The house was quiet, everyone was asleep. I sat downstairs in the family room, decompressing from the day and eating a very late supper of cereal and orange juice. I didn't feel like television, so I leaned over and opened the record player. I flipped through the albums and paused on Helen. I looked at the songlist: I Am Woman, Leave Me Alone, Delta Dawn, I Don't Know How to Love Him...all classics. I put on the record and listened to her telling me stories. It took me back to a farm house in Wells and I leaned back, eyes closed and felt calm and collected and at peace. 

Then song five came on - You And Me Against the World - a song my mother and I sang together, to each other, a hundred million times. Helen's daughter is on the track singing, and I used to just delight in that, when we would sing it together. I guess I know why I needed the right time and place to hear it. Mom was right there next to me, listening:

"You and me against the world

Sometimes it feels like you and me against the world

When all the others turn their backs and walk away

You can count on me to stay

And when one of us is gone

And one of us is left to carry on

Then remembering will have to do

Our memories alone will get us through

Think about the days of me and you

You and me against the world"

I love the old stuff. I love it. Best. Gift. Ever. 

One more thing - if anyone has a stack of old vinyls out there and you don't want them anymore, don't throw them away. Bring them over to my house, please!