Boo!

Tomorrow morning, for the umpty-umpth time, I will be the Halloween witch for the Christ’s Lutheran Nursery School classes. Every year, I need less costume, makeup and attitude adjustment to play this part. My annual shtick is to pretend to be a witch from somewhere else (Texas, Ireland), where the Halloween customs are comically different (the families give the trick or treaters pockets full of grits; everyone dresses like leprechauns and speaks Gaelic, etc.) The children take great delight in correcting me: “No, no, we don’t  DO that! We don’t give people our money when they open their doors to us! We don’t collect dirty laundry at every house!”  I enjoy these visits, but dread the holiday they presage.

You see, I never got into Halloween. I’m not a big candy eater, for one thing (except for Mounds bars. I buy big bags of these each October, ostensibly for the “kids,” but really I squirrel most of them away for me).  For another, my formative years were spent on the lower East Side of Manhattan, not the safest of places even in the 60s. “Trick or treat” involved our parents ferrying us up and down in the elevator for an hour or so, stopping at the apartments of elderly neighbors who gave us poorly-wrapped cookies and mushy apples, all of which went straight to the trash can as soon as we got home. So I have no fond memories of bonfires and pumpkin patches and neighborhood parties, far from it.

Thank you Aunt C!

When the kiddos were born, I braced myself for October 31st, knowing I would have to do my duty, traipse around town with my tiny ghosts and goblins, and purchase pounds of Snickers and Twix to parcel out to other friends’ tiny ghosts and goblins. And of course, my offspring all LOVED everything Halloween, anticipating the spooky fun for weeks. Our house decorations amounted to spider webs (the real ones, not store-bought!); our jack o’lantern was hastily carved immediately prior to our first night visitor. My creative sister C was responsible for some of our more successful flights of costume fancy: Sheridan’s lobster, Evan’s spaceman. Rose took the cake for most personally inventive: one year she was Olympian Kerri Strug on crutches (just Google Strug); once Rosie was the Declaration of Independence. Every year, I pretended to be charmed by the parade of doorbell-ringing scavengers “don’t take the whole basketful, kids! Kids! I mean it!” and thrilled by the bounty my children brought home (does anybody really eat malted milk balls?) And every year, I rejoiced when it was time to turn out the lights and go to bed.

Rosie and her candy jackpot

 Lest you think I’m a total killjoy, I adore Christmas and happily fuss at Thanksgiving. I’ve even done my Easter bit, with egg dyeing and such (one year we did Ukrainian pysanky—just Google it). But there is something about Fright Night that doesn’t sit well with me.  Let others revel in the dark side!  Boo to All Hallows Eve, I say!

Eye of the Beholder

Note the date--still not cashed in!

In my desk drawer there is a lovely gift certificate to a spa, courtesy of my kids. It’ll expire if I don’t watch out. I could use it for a facial, a massage, a mani-pedi, and I haven’t. So what’s stopping me?

In my bathroom there is:  toothbrush, face scrub, cold cream. My entire beauty routine!! I should probably be using anti-aging thises and thats, to trick Mother Nature and give me back a few years, but I don’t. So what’s the problem?

In my closet: a “gently used” pair of running shoes. And I do mean gently. I’ve gotten so out of shape that I huff and puff even bending down to tie the laces. So why aren’t I hitting the road?

I’ve thought about it a lot recently. I’d love to claim I have no personal vanity, but that’d be a huge whopper. Oh, I care how I look, all right…I just don’t want to put any effort into it. And to be totally honest, I have my physical appearance and my history of bipolar disorder inextricably intertwined in my head. You see, when I was at my worst I became completely obsessed with clothes and makeup. I got all dolled up to empty the trash, and took an inordinate amount of time primping before a trip to the grocery store.  I even wrote a poem about it, way back when:


MAKING UP

A small part of my old cosmetic collection

Looking at our household budget
Over the last year
It wouldn’t surprise me
If the item purchased most
Was lip gloss
For so many years
I was an actress
Makeup was part of my job
And every single time
I couldn’t wait
To scrub clean after the show
It felt like magic
Presto
Here is the girl again
The real girl
Under the layers of powder and paint                       
Now
I wake up
Naked
And so disappointed
My real girl isn’t in there anymore
Instead, I’m this--this
Same, sad, nasty, twisted thing
Damn
So
every day
I write a note
On my face
Help
In thick black mascara
Please save me
In pinkest blush
I’m dying here
In the brightest blue eye shadow
And everyday
I sign it
With a slick red lip gloss kiss
So far no one has answered
Maybe tomorrow
I’ll use green eye shadow instead

Luckily, shortly after that poem was written I got the psychiatric help I so desperately needed, and for the past several years I have been on a pretty even keel. But there has to be a happy medium, right? I can spruce up a bit without being Maybelline’s Most Valuable Customer.  And trying to look my best on the outside doesn’t mean I’m hiding something shattered inside.

So I think I’ll set my alarm a little earlier tomorrow morning, and try to go for a run.  I might even slap on a little foundation and yes, lip gloss too, before I leave for work. And it doesn’t matter who sees me. I’ll do this for myself. 

The ABCs of Us

Affirmation for Orchestra, the composition that got Sheridan an article in the Philadelphia Inquirer when he was 18.  Proud moment. 

Budapest: Julie’s latest stop on her backpacking trip. 10 countries by the time she’s through! How can Oreland possibly compare?

Julie and friends in Salzburg, Austria

“C”: our nickname for my sis Carolyn. Best sibling and best aunt ever.

Delmarva: My favorite creation of my favorite husband. Steve as Cinderella’s stepsister still makes me roar after 30 years.

Enough cereal: There never was when they were growing up. And I’d buy five boxes at a time! Now our household has shrunk appreciably. Why hasn’t my grocery bill?

Francium: At USNA, Evan studied the nuclear structure of the isotopes of this element. Where did his brain come from? To me, francium sounds like something yummy from France.

Evan physics award Naval Academy 2008

Giovanni McMenamin. Otis Spunkmyer:  When she was little, these were the names Rose chose for her future children. Why do I think there’s a chance those are still her names?

History: PJ plans to teach it. Steve reads mountains of it. I am doomed to repeat it.

Intrepid: My children. I am very trepid.

Joanie: Mom’s been gone 7 years. When I miss her, I turn on Dr. Phil at full volume. Brings her right back.

Kitchen: We have the world’s tiniest. Yet when everybody’s home that’s where we gather.

Lacrosse: PJ eats and sleeps it, plays it even in Germany. Refs kids’ games, hopes to coach. Oh, did I mention he enjoys lax?

PJ playing for the Marburg (Germany) Saints

Music directors: Sher and Ya-Jhu each play organ and direct the choir at a different Lutheran church. Sunday afternoon chats involve sermons and hymns to a humorous degree.

Nature: Everybody in the family but me LOVES nature. I love to hike from the car to my front door.

Only child: What I’m sure each kid once in a while wished to be. They now love being part of a big family. Yay!

Piano: an important part of our home. After dinner was always melodious; the kids would play so I wouldn’t make them do the dishes!

Quiet, too quiet. What our house is, after so many years as a five-ring circus.

Rabbits:  Julie’s Stoli and Stevie. We miss them, sorta. For our next pet, I vote pet rocks.

Sound: Rose’s world as an audio engineer. Her work life is full of words that baffle me. I finally learned what a Foley artist is (Rose is!)

Rose's album cover

Taxi service: Steve’s. Available 24/7. To Trenton train station. Out for milk on a rainy night. Thanks, honey!

Underway: What I’m glad Evan no longer is, now that his submarine days are behind him.

Vegetarian: Seyfried fail. Rosie tried being one. Julie did too. Sirloin steak keeps calling my name.

Wonder: I am filled with it. Wonder where my keys are. Wonder where my shoes are.

Xtremely: xcited that we’ll ALL be together for Christmas.

Yaj: My daughter-in-law, brightens our lives just by being her sweet, talented self!

The kids in Lewes

Zilch: What my family could do to make me happier than they already do.

We Are All Tattooed

I gotta tell you honestly, it took me awhile to get used to Rosie’s tattoo. I’d ridden with her through unusual

Rose's famous tattoo

hair colors and piercings of body parts I’d
always believed God never meant to have pierced (eyebrow, tongue). But this was different. This was permanent. Here's what Rose wrote for the NPR Studio 360 website feature "Occupational Ink":

In school for sound design and audio engineering, I had a professor who stressed the importance of "checking phantom power" (48 volts). To protect delicate microphones, he said, we would need to be careful about making sure the extra power supply was turned off before plugging them in. "If there's one thing you should tattoo on your arm, it's 'check +48V'"
So I did.
Now, living in New York, as an active engineer, my tattoo is a funny inside joke- and a reminder of how hard I've worked to realize my career dream.

These days, several years down the road, I don’t even notice her arm adornment; or if I do, I recognize it as a familiar feature of an appendage I’ve loved Rose’s whole life.
 
In Costa Rica this summer, the kids loved it when we painted their faces. Mariposa (butterfly).

Costa Rica face canvases

Corazon (heart).  Granted, we used washable paint, and it all disappeared at bathtime. But the children wanted us to paint statements on them in bright colors: this is who I am, this is what I care about. They ran around giggling, delighted with their temporary tattoos.

I very much enjoy reading, and hearing, Pastor Nadia Bolz-Weber. This Denver-based minister leads her flock at the House for All Sinners and Saints. Hers is a really fascinating Lutheran voice. She’s a former stand-up comic, and a recovering alcoholic. She loves the liturgy. Her congregation is inclusive to the max. To her, God lives and loves and suffers with us. And Nadia has tattoos. Lots of them, all over. Religious, many of them. Her body is etched with the symbols of her faith.  I wonder (not really, I know the answer): would I be so bold as to be inked? (nah, too chicken of course).  And yet…

And yet. I AM tattooed. We are all tattooed. From the minute we are born, with our downy new baby skin. We have birthmarks, and then freckles. The little touches that help make us all physically unique. Later, our skin bears the scars of sun and of time. Each laugh line, every wrinkle, is a tattoo, an irreversible marking on our bodies. Some of us try to stave off our tattoos with sunscreen, or with Botox, but eventually the marks appear anyway.

So, what do our life tattoos say about us? That we are not blank canvases but full, rich ones. So let us celebrate the message we have for the world, spelled out on our flesh: we are here, living fully every amazing day that we’ve been given. At any age, we are God’s works of art. Beautiful and beloved. Just look at us!

Toughest Day of the Year...

…for me, is today, September 30th. For you see, my mom Joanie died 7 years ago yesterday, and my darling sister Maureen died 32 years ago tomorrow. Today, I live in suspension between grieving for what had happened, and grieving for what was still to come. It’s an uncomfortable place to be.

I spent Mo’s last day on earth, totally oblivious. I awoke to an early AM phone call from sister Carolyn. There had been a car accident in Atlanta. C was heading to the hospital and would call soon. I prayed. Let her be OK. Please God. And then came the answer to my prayer: C calling back: “Elise, can you come home today?” I remember flying to Atlanta that afternoon, praying again—this time that I would die too. That prayer wasn’t answered the way I wanted either.

Mo on her last day

Every year on September 30th, I would focus on my Mo. I’d play Billy Joel (her favorite) and cry. I’d re-read the box of letters I have from her, the last only days before her death. And so the September 30ths passed, decades full of them.

Then came September, 2006. Mom was diagnosed with an ovarian tumor. The doctor told us it was terminal, but that she’d likely live for weeks. Mo’s anniversary was approaching. Mom announced abruptly that she would be in Heaven with Mo by October 1st. No one believed her. And yet… at 2:15 PM on September 29th, Joanie reunited with Mo at last.

I want to write about the miracles: the sorrowful email from the boy driving the car Mo’s last night, who tracked us down through a website. Mo’s appearances to my grandma (Grandma hadn’t been told Mo had died). The many times in the past 7 years that I have felt Mom’s presence as if she were just in the next room.

But I find that miracles in this day and age are a pretty hard sell. All well and good for you, people seem to say. It’s tough to swallow, though. And I totally understand, because that doubter was once me, too.

Just as we create our story, day by day and action by action, so I believe God creates us, not once but constantly. Joanie and Mo created beautiful stories. It was crushing to come to the end of them. But is it the end? I firmly believe it is not. Somewhere, maybe just out of sight, my mother and my sister live on, waiting for C and me to join them. I’d love to scribble my story fast and make that day come sooner, but I can’t. So on I live, in the blessed story that has grown to include five amazing children. I am so comforted by them. I can wait.

I look at the clock. 4:50 PM. Come on, September 30th! Be done for another year! Let me put my mourning in mothballs because otherwise I couldn’t bear it. And Mom? Mo? Watch over us, until we meet again.

Joanie

Stuff for Sale

Just got a call that I have been dreading. A neighbor’s son had contacted me weeks ago about a “project” he was working on. Could I give him a few minutes of my time? Certainly! I’m all for imparting some of my wisdom to the younger generation! I imagined a school assignment that required interviewing a person old enough to remember Herman’s Hermits (moi).

Nay! Turns out the lad has a different agenda. He’s out to sell me Cutco knives. I flinch, because I’ve been down that road many times before. My premiere foray into the world of razor sharp kitchen implements was a presentation by a young actor who was working for us, and still, surprisingly, falling short of making a decent living. So he shilled for Cutco. Next came the daughter of a woman I hadn’t seen, no joke, in 20 years. She, too, arrived on my doorstep with an assortment of cutlery. More recently, our dear young friend Hannah came a calling. She had a refreshing attitude: just let me cut some rope in your kitchen, blurt out my spiel, and we can all go back to our lives. Halfway through her Cutco speech, her cell phone rang. It was the offer of a better job! Hannah literally threw her knives in the bag and then and there called it a career.

For the record: my knives are old, and probably not as sharp as they could be (but then, neither am I). I am emotionally attached to each one of them—paring, chef’s, serrated—and have no intention of adding to my collection. But Cutco pays for every booking, even if nothing is sold, so why not listen to the kid?

My father was a furniture salesman, and not a very good one. He made a modest living selling Danish Modern sofas and tables to stores. We ended up furnishing our various homes with his samples, our living room adorned with chairs of black leather and chrome that you’d need a crowbar to get out of, and Rya rugs so thick that you wanted to mow them. I watched him come back from many a road trip, tired and defeated, and I vowed never to sell anything.

But here I am, selling myself at every turn. Buy my books! Book me as a speaker! I loathe this part of the business and wish I could hire someone to take my place. It gets really old. I wish I had a better product to offer. I lack the confidence to pound on doors, to cold-call, to do what I know it takes to successfully hawk wares. It’s a hard-knock life, being a salesman, and I applaud those brave enough to attempt it.

The Cutco Kid will be here any minute, showing me how his butcher knife saws through wood. I doubt I’ll buy, but I give him lots of credit for trying. I will sit, listening patiently, as I wish others had sat for my dad, long ago.

Tom Cunningham, salesman

Bumpy Landings

Over this past weekend, our family packed up, cleaned up, and left Lewes until next summer. After a two hour drive, we unpacked, cleaned up (how DO these houses manufacture dirt on their own while we’re away?) and settled back in Oreland for another year. It may have been a relatively short hop, but it was, as always, a bumpy landing.

Not that everything at the shore is peaches and cream. But there’s always the soul-soothing walk on

Four out of five--best we can do these days!

the beach to quiet racing brains and calm frazzled nerves.  The slower pace infects even the most ambitious among us, as the screened porch and afternoon naps beckon.  But as the last days tick inexorably by, we rev up to our usual frantic activity level, and we fret about what awaits us back in PA.

This September, the Seyfrieds are all about leave-takings: Rosie is off to Seattle for a visit this week; PJ just embarked on a semester in Marburg, Germany; Julie leaves Thursday for a 2 ½ month European backpacking trek which will take her from Italy to Finland, with several stops in between. Both Rose and Evan moved into new digs Sunday (Evan in DC celebrating the first time ever that he can afford to live without a roommate).

on the boardwalk, back in the day

We are NOT the masters of the smooth transition. When the kids were little, the first days in Delaware were tearful as they missed their rooms, their friends at home. Along about week two, they finally adjusted, and the next six weeks were happy indeed. Like clockwork, though, they fell apart when it was time to return to Oreland. Our heavy-laden trip back up Highway One (High chairs! Cribs! Playpens! Bikes! We would have benefited from a U-Haul just to transport the toys alone!)  was further burdened by the inconsolable weeping coming from the car seats in the back. Steve and I annually settled in for at least a week of nightmares and disorientation as we returned to a town without ocean breezes: “I miss mine beach! I miss mine boardwalk!” tiny PJ used to say, with deep emotion if not grammatical accuracy.

Today, Mom and Dad, too, experience bumpy landings. Steve returns to countless hours of booking shows, rehearsing, and preparing for his drama classes. My church schedule goes directly to insane, with so many things going on that I almost (but not quite) regret going away at all. It doesn’t help that it’s still really hot and we have no air conditioning (unlike the delightful AC in the Lewes condo); I easily sweat off the five pounds I’ve tried to lose all summer.

The only constant in life is change, right? Yes, but that’s not always good news for us creatures of habit. Nevertheless, our circumstances do change, often, and we must adjust.  And by and large, as Evan would say, “it’s all good.”

And so we come to the end of the runway, taxi for a bit, and prepare for takeoff again. Fasten your seat belts, everyone!

All I Could Never Be

There are some things I don’t miss about mothering my children. I was always such a bundle of nerves that every “first” terrified me. First night of sleeping all the way through?  She’ll never wake up!(even though she was months older hitting that milestone than my friends’ kids). First solid food? He’ll choke! (even though it’s fairly difficult to asphyxiate on runny rice cereal).  First walking? She’ll take a terrible fall! (even though she was only toddling three steps into my arms). And don’t get me started on first bike ride without training wheels! Agony! Even as I pretended to smile and cheer, inside I was jello. And old habits die hard. Just today, Sheridan took a swim in the very choppy bay waters and I didn’t take my eyes off him the whole time (and he’s—ahem—29 now).

Neurotic and panicky as I was, my five managed to get through their childhoods remarkably free of my quirks, and are all pretty darned adventurous now.  For example, last year Evan, Rose and Julie were on the Big Island of Hawaii together. In short order, Rose and Evan jumped off a cliff into the ocean; all three hiked a volcano, navigating rocks with oozing lava on them (they poked the orange

stuff with sticks, which immediately caught fire); they drove to the top of Mauna Kea at 2 AM on pitch dark and winding mountain roads to look at the spectacular display of stars. It would have been my Vacation from Hell, but they had a blast. 

All around me these days, my friends are becoming grandparents. One by one, Becky and Perrin and Sue and Janine and Mary Ellen are turning into “Nana,” “Granny," etc.  Someday it will be my turn, and while I can’t wait for the babies, I fervently hope I do not maintain my fever pitch of fear and worry about these precious children-to-be. 

I think of my Nana a lot down here at the shore.  Nana and her sister, my Aunt Rose, rented a cottage at Normandy Beach, NJ from Memorial Day to Labor Day every summer. As a treat, my sister Mo and I got to spend two weeks with them in early July. Nana loved us to distraction, but child care was definitely on her terms. On the sand, she plied us with a picnic hamper full of food—sandwiches, chips, cookies—and told us we had to wait 30 minutes to swim after eating. At the 29 minute mark, out would come more food. Took us quite awhile to catch on—she was really afraid to watch us in the ocean at all.

While I adored her, I don’t want to BE her. She, like my own mom, like me, was just too nervous. So what kind of Grandma do I want to be? Above all, cool and calm and serene. I want to rock my little ones, and soothe them, and reassure them that the world is a truly wonderful place.

Soooo….personality transplant, anyone?

No News Is...

“And that’s the way it is, Wednesday, May 9, 1973. This is Walter Cronkite, CBS News. Good night.”

“But the BIG story on Action News is (fill in the blank: house fire, overnight shooting, or car accident).”

Time was, I was a news junkie. No one could scoop me on happenings, around the block or around the world. I was a particular expert on pop culture. I loved the “feel good “stories, royal weddings and such, but also knew the rehab status of everyone from Elvis to Michael Jackson. I could hold my own when discussing the Middle East or dastardly doings on City Council.  We got the daily newspaper, which I devoured front to back. From acrimonious political campaigns to local cat ladies, from the space shuttle to space-y actors—I was virtually unstumpable.

At some point recently, the internet and cable TV, and the 24/7 barrage of data, overwhelmed me and I quit checking the news, cold turkey. I couldn’t begin to keep up with all the disgraced sports stars and toppled governments. Plus, it was all too depressing! I yearn for a simpler time, when the manageably-sized morning paper was flung onto your porch, and the avuncular network anchor told you what you needed to know every night at 6 PM.  Now, it has to be a pretty darned big story to get my attention…only disasters or scandals on an epic scale register on my info-meter. It’s all too, too much to process, at least for me. I figure, if it impacts me directly I’ll hear about it. Otherwise, ignorance is bliss!

My sole exception? NPR in the car. For some reason, I can handle the flow of events when chronicled on “All Things Considered” or “Morning Edition.”  And I ONLY listen in the car (perhaps because my alternatives are the classical station that plays mainly obscure works by the 19th century Alsatian composer Gustav Snortfelter, or rock with tons of commercials.) Catch me after a long road trip and I’ll tell you what’s happening, locally and globally. On my ridiculously brief daily trek to work, I’m lucky if I can get Shadow Traffic and the daily weather forecast before I arrive at the office. 

 So I am one of the poorly informed these days, and I hate it. I’m at least 2 presidents behind in Egypt, and I may be the only person on the planet who doesn’t know the name of Kate and William’s baby (I was pushing for Spike—was I right?) I take a deep breath and flip on the set, and am immediately turned off by all the SHOUTING (note to Fox and MSNBC alike: volume does not equal effectiveness).

Is there a kinder, gentler way to ease back in to following the news? Perhaps a return to the weekly Gazette circa 1776, complete with ye olde spelling? Nope, Pandora’s box is opened and there’s no going back. But I wonder, do today’s kids know more of our collective story—or less?

Free Write

Playpen member Casey's terrific novel!

I belong to a writer’s group at home. These accomplished women have been meeting for many years (I am a fairly recent addition), supporting one another in their writing careers. “Playpen” includes a former reporter for the Philadelphia Inquirer, a screen writer, several novelists and teachers, even a pair of writers who have published a book together. We meet monthly, and everyone brings news to share, as well as a helpful tip or two (website, new outlet for submissions, etc.) I find the group wonderfully affirming and inspiring.

In the summer at the beach, I often hit a pretty substantial writer’s block. Which makes no sense to me: here I am in a beautiful setting, with spare time I never have in Oreland, and I sit on the porch facing the dreaded blank page. This year, I decided to meet the problem head-on. I attended a “free write” hosted by the Rehoboth Beach Writer’s Guild. I had no idea what to expect, but hoped it would jump-start some creativity.

The event, attended by six people with their laptops, was a series of writing prompts given by the group’s leader. These prompts ranged from lines taken from poems, to New Yorker cartoons, to random words on slips of paper. Everyone had five minutes to write about each topic, then to read their work aloud. Wow, was that eye-opening! I discovered that, while I think of myself as a “fast” writer, I’m nowhere near speedy enough to come up with compelling material on the spot. My fellow attendees, all veterans of the free write, churned out paragraph after paragraph of really good stuff, some touching, some funny. I, on the other hand, wrote mostly drivel, and was embarrassed to share it at all (you could pass, and for one prompt I did—at that point I was tempted to pack up and go home, where at least I could be alone with my blank page.)

One of the writing prompts. My output was less than stellar.

 Will I go back next week? I’m not sure. It was a little discouraging, and I do a fine job of discouraging myself already. But it definitely took me out of my comfort zone, and I think that’s a good thing. I’ve never taken a writing course of any kind, and have decided that my “voice” is what it is—I’ll never write a thriller (the only one I’d scare is me) or a romance (I’m such a prude that I’d blush if my characters even kissed). I write, basically, one kind of thing: spiritual essays about my life, with (hopefully) some humor. My kids often urge me to try another genre (“something edgy” says Rose, predictably), but I’m afraid to stretch very far.  I’m so poor at challenging myself in general, whether it be trying a new sport, or really putting myself out there as a writer and speaker. If it’s hard, I shy away. And I know I miss so much.

So OK. I’ll try the free write again. I can only get better, right?