Ten years ago this October, I spent 10 days in Oklahoma City.
I was in an operating room witnessing my son’s birth.
After the first few tense, traumatic days — when it became clear that chances swung in our favor that we would take him home to Georgia — my husband flew home on Delta and I waited with Joe.
In Oklahoma City.
Until the intrastate adoption committee said we could also run to the airport and fly home.
I remember riding along some freeway, looking out across the vast, flat, stubby-tree landscape and seeing –
a monstrous, boiling cloud miles wide plowing through everything and everyone.
Of course, that day all was clear and bright. The tornado that swirled and churned was only in my imagination but I felt like it was as much a part of the landscape as the University of Oklahoma.
We had driven that day to Norman to kill time and poke around the OU football stadium.
For that is what I do when stressed to the max.
Go find something familiar like college football.
For when one thinks of Oklahoma, what jumps to mind?
The Sooners.
Well, the Sooners and tornadoes.
Tonight ten years later, I look at my Oklahoma Joe and am so very sad.
That was the year that my adorable cottage house would be perfect. The beds would be made every morning and dirty dishes never had time to rest in the kitchen sink.
I’d have a fabulous career. Law, international photographer, novelist. Something I would do fabulously well — effortlessly — making me independently wealthy.
Be married to an adorable man and have tons of adorable children who always kept their rooms clean. And though I showered them with everything imaginable, they would not become spoiled, self-centered brats — but turn into loving, altruistic self-actualized beings that floated through life.
I’ll stop now.
My head hurts.
Linking up with Finish the Sentence Friday and “When I was younger, I wanted to…”
When I was younger, I wanted to have my act together by age 37.
Growing up in the 60s, 70s and early 80s, the year 2000 was the mythical beacon.
The year I would turn 37 and surely have my act together.
Well, if you are halfway decent at math, you know by now, I’ve passed my pivotal age.
I’ve come to realize I’ll never have my act together but I’m okay with that.
Or maybe my definition of act together has changed. A lot.
My daughter is right there now. The dreaming stage. The stage when anything is possible.
I’m not cynical. Anything is possible with time, sacrifice, working hard, relationships.
It’s just time. There seemed so much of it 30 years ago.
There have moments — epiphanies — when I think “a ha” I need to do that this lifetime.
* Our family hiking the Grand Canyon together.
* Whale watching in Hawaii.
* The fam riding bikes in the Tuscan hills.
But those goals usually stay up in the heavens and never happen. Ever.
Linking up this week with Mama Kat’s Writing Workshop and the prompt 4.) Create a “May Bucket List”…what will you accomplish this month?
This May I hope to . . .
* Get my creaky triathlon butt moving again after a four year hiatus. Signed up for IronMay and will complete the 140 miles by May 31. Also will find money to sign up for the Tri to beat Cancer in August. That way there will be no turning back.
How I feel setting out on the bike.
* Go to my first blog conference. Bloggy Boot Camp in Charlotte this weekend. I’m looking forward to learning lots, meeting great folks and having a little time away from my dear ones. (There better not be any WSJ reporters lurking….)
* Write every day on my book. I already missed a day but have written 14 days. Let’s see if we can make it 30 days.
* Get some sun on my legs. PLEASE.
* Finish planting my garden. It’s pretty much done but I’m expecting some eggplant transplants I’ve ordered and going to replace some okra that looks pretty puny after this crazy heat we’ve had all of a sudden.
* Contact regional publications. I need to make the leap and have an article in a regional pub even if it means driving and knocking on some doors.
* Sleep.
I’ll stop there.
Need to save some time to keep the kids alive and the husband happy. If you know what I mean.
I posted a while back that I signed on for IronMay.
Those who accept the challenge complete the IronMan distance — 2.4 mile swim, 112 miles bike and 26.2 mile run — in a month. Or as many times as they can.
One hundred forty miles in 31 days.
I hope to do a triathlon this summer and the thinking was that this might get me on my bike.
It didn’t seem like that big of a deal. But I’m having trouble finding time to get on the bike.
I just checked the IronMay leader board and I am in the bottom third with 55.8 miles. Woo.
So 140 – 55.8 = I got to get on my bike more.
I did that today.
And it really was the perfect day.
I thought I’ll do a Vine recording on my bike then I realized if I tried to tape while riding I’d probably kill myself.
But never fear. I recorded something.
Swim, bike or run — what would be easiest for you to find time to do?
WARNING. This Vine short may induce vomiting. I filmed while straddling my bike in my clips. And I probably was breathing hard from my speedy ride.
A friend mentioned that she wished there had been a picture of the papaya.
Well, I did what any 21st post modern woman would do. I went to the nearby stream and made pigments from nature and painted a copy.
No silly. I googled it.
And here is what I found.
The Bride Frightened at Seeing Life Opened.
And then I found this one.
Pico de Gallo.
And as I was reading the commentary of this painting at the blog Feasting on Art
Once again I was struck by how a seemingly silly thought, sexual nature portrayed in open fruit had a much deeper meaning.
You see Frida Kahlo was unable to bear a child.
Barren.
That most horrible of biblical words.
I remember learning that she had a miscarriage. I guess she had a few of them.
The above mentioned post suggested that as her pain deepened over her infertility — her art represented the organs she prayed would function — like the way everyone organs on the planet seemed to.
Well. She probably didn’t pray since she was an atheist.
But everywhere she looked.
The dog got pregnant and gave birth. The maid cleaning her floor became pregnant and gave birth. Heck, the ancient mother of 12 two houses down, because pregnant again.
And gave birth to two beautiful, brown-eyed boys.
Yet Kahlo’s body failed her.
I might not get the papaya but I get that.
The canvas was her journal. The papaya her pain.
I don’t think I would paint papayas though. I’d have written about a woman in a novel who was running from a zombie.
I love chaperoning field trips but one thing never fails to surprise me when I get off the bus at some destination.
Chaperoning means keeping track of children.
As in make sure they don’t wander off. Make sure they behave. Make sure they get back on the bus alive.
A few weeks ago, I traveled with my son’s second grade class to the High Museum in Atlanta for a celebrated exhibition.
Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo were married Mexican artists. Rivera was Kahlo’s senior by many years and an internationally renown artist when they met. He is considered the greatest Mexican painter of the 2oth century. Kahlo was a self taught artist who began painting while recuperating from injuries sustained in a serious bus accident.
Now the High is a cool place. They made us swear blood oaths not to take pictures of the Rivera/Kahlo work. So later when I tried to take pictures else where in the museum, my four charges freaked out.
But I snapped away in spite of their shrieks that an officer of the High would carry me off to the museum pokey.
Now the exhibit itself was fascinating. We donned headsets and stood in front of the painting the voice described. There was an adult track and a child’s track.
I chose the adult track which in hindsight was a rookie-chaperone-of-second-graders-to-the-High mistake.
For they didn’t talk about the same pieces of art. The kids were running to the paintings they were hearing about and I was back trying to follow the adult track.
In the end, I skipped some of mine — because frankly I didn’t want to be the mom who lost a child.
Some of the art was more adult in nature.
I got that the nude figures were sensual — but it took the nice voice over headset person to point out the erotic nature of the splayed-open papaya sitting next to the rather large banana.
Frisky fruit. Who knew?
When we came upon a three-story exposed breast and I heard giggling from my charges, I quickly shuffled them on the the next painting of watermelons. Not sure what the watermelon represented but it was a lot less funny than a naked lady to a nine-year-old boy.
After viewing the exhibit we got to roam the floors of the High for about 20 minutes until lunch.
In case anyone turned up missing, I thought this one was a good shot to verify I had everyone with me at 12:05.
While we were eating our lunch, a youngster who wasn’t in my immediate group sidled up to me.
“Joe’s mom,” J. asked while putting the mouth of a milk carton to his lips.
“Yes, J.”
J. swallowed the milk.
“I don’t think it was appropriate that we saw some of those pictures.”
Dear goodness. I wasn’t even J.’s chaperone. I think all such sensitive questions need be answered by the individual child’s shepherd for the trip.
“Well, J. The human body has always been a subject of artists since people began drawing. It’s a object of beauty.”
J. looked me straight in the eye, took another sip and darted off to throw away his carton.
Okay my answer was pretty lame — the kid threw me a curve — but I said it so matter-of-fact that he must have thought there was nothing to be concerned about.
After all the human body is a work of art.
It’s those darn papayas that you’ve got to watch out for.
