Walking Through the Woods (Blog #347)

Quotes from CoCo (Marcus)

"Miracles happen."

Pancakes for Breakfast (Blog #345)

4 Comments March 10, 2018 CoCo

I guess all children are often embarrassed by their parents, but sometimes I think my dad worked extra hard to make this generalization specifically true for me and my sister. In addition to trying to pawn my sister off on random hot waiters–like, please take pitty on my homely daughter and escort her to the drive-in–my dad, who’s always been a pretty big guy, used to walk around the house wearing only his terry-cloth sleep shorts. Bare-chested, he’d answer the door in these shorts, welcome my friends into our home in these shorts. I can still see the skin under his arms flapping as he’d wave his hands in the air. “Come right on in here!”

When I think about growing up, I don’t remember a time when Dad didn’t wear those sleep shorts around the house, especially in the evenings. They were dark blue, made from this fuzzy towel material, with an elastic band that stretched as Dad did. Quite literally, he wore them for years. With each wearing and each washing, the shorts wore progressively thinner, until they eventually wore out. You know how it goes with your favorite item of clothing. Sooner or later you have to say goodbye.

When I was a teenager, Dad’s terry-cloth shorts were at their thinnest. Truly, they were long past retirement age. They should have been put out to pasture when I was still in the single digits. But you know how people hang on to things. Anyway, I remember when my best friend, David, saw Dad in those shorts for the first time. He nearly came unglued from laughing so hard. He said, “What the hell is your dad wearing?”

Several weeks ago I asked my friends on Facebook, “What’s one movie that always makes you cry?” Y’all, I got a hundred suggestions, but the big winner was The Notebook. If you don’t know, The Notebook is about a man whose wife has Alzheimer’s. Every day he reads to her (from a notebook) the story of how they met and fell in love. In hearing their story, briefly, she comes back to him. She becomes lucid. But that’s how strong their love is. If only for a few minutes, it makes the impossible possible.

According to everyone I’ve ever talked to, The Notebook is a real tear-jerker, and if you haven’t seen it, I’m sure you can imagine why. Well, I watched it last night for the first time, and everyone was right. I was a mess. But I wasn’t a mess because of the couple’s beautiful, longterm relationship or the fact that the wife (Allie) often couldn’t remember her husband (Noah) or their children. Honestly, I don’t have a lot of experience with love stories that last or loving someone who slowly fades away. Rather, I was a mess during the scene in which Noah introduces Allie to his father for the first time.

First, let’s back up just a moment. Still a teenager, Noah works at the lumberyard. He’s poor. Allie, on the other hand, comes from old money. When her parents find out about Noah, they are somewhat gracious, but mostly furious. They don’t think Noah is good enough for their daughter, and they forbid her from seeing him again. However, when Noah’s father meets Allie, he welcomes her with open arms. He doesn’t ask her how much money she makes.

In the scene that still breaks me up to think about it, Noah and his father are sitting on their front porch, and Noah is reading poetry–Walt Whitman–to his father. Allie comes up, and Noah’s father takes control. He says, “You’re much prettier than Noah let on.” When Allie asks what Noah was reading, Noah’s father says, “I’m a Tennyson man, but Noah likes Whitman. When he was a child, he used to stutter, so I had him read poetry to me. Eventually the stuttering went away.” Frustrated that his dad has revealed something embarrassing about him, Noah raises his fist in the air and says, “Dad!” Then he looks at Allie and says, “I used to stammer.”

Noah’s dad says, “Stammer–stutter–what’s the difference?” Then he says, “How about we go inside and eat some breakfast. Allie, do you want some breakfast?” Noah says, “Dad, it’s ten at night.” Then Noah’s dad says, “Who cares? You can eat pancakes any damn time you want to–come on.”

Y’all, this scene took me completely by surprise. I was a wreck. Granted, it doesn’t take much these days, but I went back and watched the scene multiple times. As I’ve continued to think it, I know that it tears me up because Noah’s dad is my dad. Granted, he wasn’t wearing terry-cloth shorts in the movie, but he was just-enough embarrassing. At the same time, he was completely welcoming and non-judgmental. Noah may have been hesitant, but Allie was completely smitten, both with Noah and his family.

As I’ve gotten older, I’ve realized what a great example my parents and even some of my extended family have given me. My dad may have worn way-too-thin terry-cloth shorts, but he’s always had an open-door policy. In thirty-seven years, I can’t think of one person who has not been welcome around here. Girls, boys–gays, straights–it’s never mattered. And everyone loves my father. Despite any embarrassment I may have felt, my friends have always told me, “Your dad is so cool.”

When I was in my early twenties, when I first started teaching dance, I had a dance partner (Megan) who was six or seven years my junior. The first time I picked her up for a dance, her father, Wade, met me at their door in a pair of tiger-stripped boxers–and nothing else. Megan was running down the hall like someone in a slow-motion movie, trying to stop him. But before she got to the door, Wade and I were already laughing. I told him I wished I had a pair of boxers like his. I can still him saying, “Get in this house, young man.”

Over fifteen years later, Megan and I are still friends. A few years ago, Wade passed away, and I spoke at his funeral. I talked about his tiger-stripped boxers and his saying, “Get in this house.” In all the years that I knew him, that’s the way he always greeted me. Usually in his boxers, he’d say, “Get in this house.”

I guess I tell this story because just like my friends think my dad is cool, I think Wade was cool. I love the fact that he was completely himself and didn’t give a shit what anyone else thought about him. He used to flip people the bird and say, “Sit on it and spin.” My point is–by simply being himself, he communicated to me that it was okay to be myself. Silently he told me, “You don’t have to impress me. You don’t have to put on a show here.”

You don’t have to change a thing about yourself.

As I consider The Notebook and Noah and his father, as I consider Wade, I realize the gift my father, his terry-cloth shorts, and my family have given me. By having a come-as-you-are, open-door policy, they’ve shown me that love is all-encompassing. It’s not concerned with what you’re wearing or not wearing, and it doesn’t ask how much money you make per hour. Recently when I was feeling embarrassed about not being able to better support myself and be in a place of my own, my dad broke down in tears. (He blamed his emotion on his recent heart problems.) He said, “Honey, you’re ALWAYS welcome here.” I suppose this is what love does. Often disguising itself in a pair of terry-cloth shorts or tiger-stripped boxers, love stands at the front door and says, “You don’t have to change a thing about yourself to come inside.”

Quotes from CoCo (Marcus)

"When you’re authentic, your authenticity is enough. You don’t need to compare."

It’s SNOT the Holiday That Matters (Blog #270)

Quotes from CoCo (Marcus)

Getting comfortable in your own skin takes time.

Everyone Has Pus to Deal With (Blog #245)

Quotes from CoCo (Marcus)

No good story ever ends.

I Can Still Taste the Deviled Eggs (Blog #238)

1 Comment November 23, 2017 CoCo

It’s nice living back home for the holidays. Today is Thanksgiving, and this morning I could hear my parents up and about before I got out of bed. Having not quite figured out the power of technology, Dad was yelling into the phone as if it were a tin can with a string attached to the bottom. Mom was running up and down the hallway. Ten minutes after my alarm had gone off, she knocked on my door–time to get up. If it’d been any other day, I would have headed straight for the kitchen. Instead I took a shower and put on some clean clothes, intentionally starving myself in preparation for The Big Meal.

When I was a kid we used to pile in the car and spend Thanksgiving at Grandma and Grandpa’s. The adults would sit at one table, the kids would sit at another, and I can still taste the deviled eggs. Grandpa always made oyster dressing, Grandma made a mean pumpkin pie, and at least once it was all served up on paper plates with plastic forks. It made for easy cleanup, of course, but it was anything but fancy. If only I’d come out sooner, I could have insisted on china and proper flatware.

In the grand scheme of things, it’s a small regret.

I do think there’s something magical about the holidays, and I don’t just mean the deals on Black Friday. I think there’s literally something in the air. Even if there’s family drama, families get together and people try. Sometimes they fail miserably, of course, but at the very least, they eat together. More often than not, everyone is on their best behavior, the food is delicious, and no one’s in a hurry to leave. This is the magic I’m talking about–it’s like time slows down. Cars linger in the driveway, eating gets stretched out for hours, fathers fall asleep on couches.

This year my family opted for eating out, which–if you think about it–is a convenient way to celebrate the pilgrims without having having to clean the oven. Anyway, we piled as many people as we could into my car, Tom Collins, and pulled into the parking lot of Furr’s Fresh Buffet in Fort Smith at 2:23 PM. Y’all, there were so many people there was a line out the double doors. It took fifteen minutes just to make it inside, and then the lady behind the cash register said, “I’m going to need you to stand against the wall while you wait.” It was like she was herding cattle. I could have sworn I was at the state fair. The only thing missing was a sign that said, “Must be this tall to ride” in front of the salad bar.

It took a while, but our party of eight eventually got seated together. One by one we took to the crowded buffet lines, filling our plates with turkey, corn on the cob, and mashed potatoes, all warmed by high-powered heat lamps. Back at the table, my Aunt Tudie had a plate full of stuffing. My dad (her brother) said, “Why did you put ranch dressing on that?”

“Well shit,” she said, “I thought it was gravy.”

For over an hour we ate and visited, ate and visited. Our drink waiter–a guy–kept calling the women at our table “honey,” so I made the assumption that he was gay. Not really something you hear many straight men say in the south. (Right, sugar?) Anyway, I did a lot of people watching. Just in the time we were at the restaurant, there must have been hundreds of customers come and go. It was like every person in the tri-state area had come out for the mediocre pumpkin pie and endless refills of soft-serve ice cream. I kept thinking, Was NO ONE here willing to cook?

My Aunt Carla (my dad’s other sister) said, “I just want to know what I have to do to get on your blog.”

“Just take a selfie with me,” I said. “It’s really that simple.”

After The Big Meal, everyone else went their separate ways, and Mom, Dad, Aunt Tudie, and I came back to our house for coffee and pie. Y’all, this was the first dessert I’ve had in three weeks–so good. My insulin didn’t know what to do. Anyway, for a couple hours, Dad and Aunt Tudie talked, Mom surfed the internet, and I read a book in the oversized chair I’m about to pass out in now. (It’s four in the morning.) Then my aunt went home, and Mom and Dad and I binge-watched recorded episodes of Will and Grace for over two hours. Considering we’re all pretty much retired, this is something we could technically have done any day of the year. Still, since we did it on Thanksgiving, it felt special.

It’s not where you are, it’s whom you are there with.

Again, this is the magic I’m talking about, the way we slow down and spend time with each other. All my grandparents are gone now, and it’s funny–sometimes I don’t remember what their voices sounded like. But I remember Grandpa called everyone “children,” and Grandma kept her teeth on the bathroom counter just as much as she kept them in her mouth. Honestly, it doesn’t matter to me what kind of plates we ate on back then. Twenty years from now I won’t care whether we ate at home or went to a buffet this afternoon. I didn’t care this afternoon–we were together. What’s important is not where you are, but whom you are there with. This is what makes some days more special than others, the thing that makes time slow down, the thing that makes the taste of deviled eggs stay with you.

Quotes from CoCo (Marcus)

It's enough to sit in, and sometimes drag ass through, the mystery.

Gay Parties in 1981 (Blog #224)

Introduction

Well, hell. It’s 3:36 in the morning, and I’m just sitting down to blog. This is nothing new, of course, but blogging at this hour always comes as a surprise, since I always mean to start earlier. But for over six months I’ve also been meaning to reread Practical Intuition by Laura Day, and I finally started that project tonight. For the last few hours I’ve had the book open, hunched over it like the monster of Notre Dame. But now the book is closed, and I’m sitting here at the kitchen table slightly more upright and eating pineapple chunks out of a can. It’s a glorious life, I know, but someone’s got to live it.

Earlier today I had the idea that tonight’s blog needed to be presented in vignettes. I suppose that’s often how my writing works, but today’s the first time I’ve thought, Just give the highlights, even if they don’t clearly tie together. And not that I always pay attention to every thought I have, but my relationship with this blog has taught me to trust my hunches more, so I’m going to pay attention to the thought about vignettes and see where it leads us. So far, my internal sense of “this is what I should write about today” hasn’t let me down. My internal sense of “this would be a good person to date,” however, is a different matter altogether.

Scene One

Today I got up at 2:30 in the afternoon and ate my first meal about an hour later. Considering the recent time change and the fact that I don’t see much daylight to begin with, I’ve started feeling like I’m living in Alaska. (I’ve wanted to use that line for five days now.) Anyway, Virgos tend to worry about their health, so I’ve been concerned that I won’t get enough Vitamin D this winter and will develop Seasonal Affective Disorder, a medical condition related to depressed moods with the best abbreviation ever–SAD. With all this in mind, I took myself for a walk today at 4:15, the same time senior citizens have dinner at The Golden Corral and only an hour before the frickin’ sun went down.

Scene Two

Recently I started listening to a podcast called A Mother of a Murder, which is about the murder of Ruie Ann Park that took place here in Van Buren in 1981. My friend Anita Paddock wrote a book, Blind Rage, about the murder and is featured in the podcast. Anyway, the podcast is delicious and takes under two hours to listen to, and I finished it while walking today. My favorite line from the whole thing, referring to some of the murder suspects and said by an older man in a deeply southern accent, was, “They were gay and they were having gay parties.” I didn’t get the impression the gentleman thought this was a good thing, like something to be celebrated or attended, but I certainly did.

Just think of all the glitter.

Scene Three

As the podcast was ending, I looked up and saw a boy, a toddler, running–absolutely running–toward me, his arms spread out as if he were an airplane. His mother was behind him, by their house, and she tried to stop him from “bothering me.” But he just continued his long journey across their big front yard–thump, thump, thump–until he made it to me and the street. His little red head no higher than my knee, he flung both his arms around my left leg as if it were his best friend and said, “Hi!” Wrapping one of my arms around his back, I said, “Hi! You are so cute!” then continued walking. When I turned a corner two houses down, he waved and screamed, “Bye!”

My heart is still melting.

Scene Four

This evening I attended improv class and afterwards went to Starbucks and finished reading Rising Strong, the book by Brene Brown I blogged about yesterday. While sitting at a table trying to concentrate on the book, I kept getting distracted by the conversation at the table next to me, where sat a nineteen- year-old in the reserves and–from what I could gather–a potential mentor who wanted to know the kid’s views on money and whether or not he had a five-year plan. I thought, I’m thirty-seven and I don’t even know what I’m going to do tomorrow. Anyway, while this whole thing was going on, a total stranger asked if he could sit at my table until his friends arrived. I said, “You bet” and returned to my book, but as he sat down he reminded me of that kid running across the yard with his arms spread out, someone unafraid of asking for what they want.

Scene Five

The book I started rereading tonight is about how to use your intuition. The idea is that our inner wisdom is willing and able to communicate with us on all subjects if we would just slow down enough to listen, so each time you go through the book you get to ask three questions. Will I get married in the next year? What stocks should I invest in? Could I pick up extra cash as a drag queen? Whatever you’re curious about–sky’s the limit. When I worked through the exercises in the book five years ago, I wanted to know what profession I’d enter into after dancing. I dug out my answers from an old notebook tonight, and my intuition was obviously spot on and getting me ready, since the pages were littered with words like writer, author, and communication.

As I understand it, your intuition can answer questions about your past, present, and future (and anyone else’s) because a part of you is connected to everyone and everything else. As the mystics say, “We are one,” and, “There is no time and space.” Of course, it’s hard to wrap my head around these ideas, but I’m inclined to believe they’re true. One of the warm-up questions in the book tonight was, “Without thinking, what do you need most?” and my answer was, “A hug.” Later it asked, “Upon reflection, what do you need most?” and I answered, “Authentic connection.”

Conclusion

Only later while reviewing my answers about needing a hug and authentic connection did I remember about the little boy and the hug he gave me this afternoon. And whereas my first thought was, I guess I need more hugs, I later realized my inner wisdom was telling me that all my needs are met before I even ask for them. Now I realize I’ve spent so much time thinking about what could go wrong–what could happen if I don’t wake up in time to get enough sunlight–that I’ve often missed what is going right, including the sleeping in and worrying about Vitamin D that were necessary to get me walking by that boy’s front yard at just the right moment. So in the same way that he wrapped his arms around my leg, I’m starting to wrap my arms around this glorious life, this life that connects me vignette by vignette to toddlers running freely across front yards, strangers sitting down at tables in coffee shops, and even gay parties in 1981.