I'd like to take a break from writing about boyfriends and aging vaginas to talk about parenting. In particular, I want to address the issue of how to father a daughter ... and how it inevitably leads to anxieties about boyfriends and aging vaginas.
Well, it doesn't have to. It could actually lead to no anxieties or issues whatsoever, if done with great love and care. So maybe we should start this discussion with how to steer clear of some of the potholes that could lead your little girl down some dark, otherwise avoidable paths.
#1 - Love her mother. The woman who will be your daughter's first female role model, like it or not, is her mother, and your relationship with her mother is going to set the tone for many, many, MANY of her future romantic relationships. If you're still lucky enough to be married to her mother, just love her with everything you have, and don't be afraid of PDAs. You want a man to come along one day who treats your daughter that way and nothing less than that, right? Then model that behavior for her, so she can recognize it when she sees it ... and more importantly, so she can spot it when it's absent.
#2 - Respect her mother. You'd think this would go hand-in-hand with loving her mother, but you'd be surprised at how many people say or do disrespectful things in private. This kind of talk might seem funny or a way of letting off some steam to you, but your daughter will first identify with you when she's little, then she'll identify with her mother once she's past her teens. If you're divorced and can't think of anything nice to say about your ex at present, then talk about how smart and beautiful you found her mother when you first met ... and milk it. If there weren't any good qualities (c'mon, everyone has something good in them!), then make some up! Mold your daughter into the image you want to see her someday, don't send her down a path of self-loathing. If you're still married, although this should go without saying, DO NOT sneak around on her mother ... especially do not be a repeat offender, while accusing her mother of jealousy. You do not want to see your adult daughter going from one lousy relationship to another, right? If your daughter forms the impression that women in general, or her mother in particular, are irrational, stupid, or otherwise incompetent, how do you think she's going to be able to stride confidently out into this world? Just remember this: if you undermine or belittle her mother's decisions, you were one of them. Let that sink in for a minute.
#3 - Adore your daughter. You don't like princesses? Too bad! Treat her like one anyway. You don't like ponies? Too bad! Buy her every toy pony you can and let her ride as many real ones as possible. When she's a teenager and you don't like her room a mess ... TOO BAD! Tell her that you love what she's done with the place anyway. She gets embarrassed when you try to hug her in public? TOO BAD! Hug her anyway. She will love you for it someday, even if she doesn't realize that in the moment she's trying to squirm away from you. Never ever ever tell her she's gaining weight, dressing weird, awkward, moody, or, heaven forbid, that she's "living her life all wrong." She's not you. She's a better version of you already, because she hasn't been all messed up in the head by anyone else yet. Don't you dare be the one to mess her up first! Along these same lines, never ever say any of these things to her mother either (see #2). You have the power to make or break your daughter's self-confidence ... this is your prime super power. Use it only for good.
#5 - Show interest. Encourage her to explore and try new things by being the sounding board to the things that interest her. What things does she dream about? Where does she want to go? What does she want to do? Who does she want to become? What boy does she have a crush on and why? Ask her to list his good qualities, even if that makes you squirm. If you take an interest, she'll open up and let you in even more, and hopefully come to you whenever she needs advice, rather than her dumb peers. This is especially important to her in regards to boys ... again, even if it makes you squirm. You are the oldest boy in your daughter's life, and you can give her insight in ways that her mother can't. This is your second super power. Use it only for good.
#6 - Be present! Do not, under any circumstances, abandon her. This includes emotional abandonment by just never being there for her when she needs you, as well as actually never being physically present for her. She may seem strong and unaffected by your influence, but trust me on this, she's far more delicate than you know. Basically, treat her blossoming personality like fragile cargo: HANDLE LIKE EGGS and DO NOT DROP. That doesn't mean she needs to be treated like a China doll; she just needs you to think before you act or speak.
If you ...dad-to-be or dad-to-she ... choose not to heed this list of suggestions, well ... that's okay, I suppose. Maybe you'll imbue her with just enough dysfunction to make her funny and interesting. And maybe she'll thank you publicly from the pages of her wildly successful book (or mildly successful blog).
Somehow my brain started rewriting a blog that I wrote exactly five years ago, but it didn't tell me that's what it was doing. No, instead it started cryptically like it always does ... waiting for me to finally catch up to the place it's leading me. It seemed to start last night.
First, it made me think about how I don't care about politics this election season, and instead would just prefer to write in "Tom Waits" on the ticket ... then I decided that a Tom Waits/Neil Young combo would be the most awesome White House ever ... then I decided I needed to Google "Waits Young" to find that picture of those two when Tom got inducted into the Music Hall of Fame ... then I found a picture of a young Tom Waits ... and then I had to post both of those pictures to Facebook, of course.
All of this made my brain dj start playing "Picture in a Frame" off of Mule Variations on repeat in my head ... which made me think of that first date video that I made with Dr. Jekyll Donkeybundle, also from nearly five years ago, and of how sweet that seemed at the time, but the camera does hide a different picture that is just outside of that "frame" ... all of which made me think of how I'd truly love to hold myself in this place of love where I'm at right now with Scott. Indefinitely.
(No, Scott doesn't have an awesome nickname just yet, although I have tried out "sexy pied piper" and "sexy vampire boyfriend" and "sexy helper monkey" (actually, I think he added the "sexy" part to each, but that doesn't make it any less true), but those are more like in-the-moment descriptors ... one that sticks will present itself soon, I'm sure of that.)
Where was I?
Oh yeah, so I was thinking of holding on, but that also brings up thoughts of letting go. Not letting go of Scott! Heavens, no! I was thinking of how I'd been letting go of the past, but there is always more to let go of ... which made me think about letting go in the past ... how and when and why I let go, and what I took away.
Then in a moment of pure inspired whimsy earlier today, while my brain dj was spinning Sesame Street's "Sing" (in particular, the lyrics, "Sing of happy, not sad. Sing of good things, not bad."), I posted another picture to Facebook that I thought was super sweet and reminded me of the same kind of gaze that I so love between Scott and I, regardless of however dissimilar to "reality" it is (we don't necessarily look like those two icons, nor did those two icons ever gaze at each other like that), only to be reminded that others nearby seeing the same image may see bitterness and sadness in what I only saw as sweetness and light.
Rather than find that curious, I understood fully, as I'd been there, too.
My brain was then immediately transported back to my reaction to the first time I saw Roberto Benigni's movie LIFE IS BEAUTIFUL ... and away went the brain blog ... switching from dj to writer just like that! And little pieces of that bygone time started floating back, while I attempted to focus on a complicated spreadsheet task at work.
It was early 1999, what would eventually become the last year of my first marriage. I was just barely holding on, thanks to a very rocky, emotional experience that began with my husband hiding a case of thyroid cancer from me, me getting him through it anyway, and none of that bringing us closer together like I'd always imagined something scary might finally do. It was also repeatedly being pointed out to me everywhere I went that perhaps our marriage was an empty shell ... that maybe there was more to a relationship than just getting through another day together.
I'd been putting off seeing LIFE IS BEAUTIFUL, mostly because he and I never agreed on any movies. Despite our first movie date being DELICATESSAN, suggesting he had an interest in foreign and/or artier fare, my husband refused to watch anything that didn't have a body count, once the relationship got rolling. As a result, we only went to a total of 9 films at the theater in the course of our seven years together. And I was a film major!
On the heels of a lot of stress and still waiting on the results of my husband's biopsy, I had decided that I wanted to see as many of the Oscar contenders as possible on the day of the show because I was tired. I was tired of not being true to myself. I was tired of feeling empty. I was tired of giving him and my children everything and not leaving anything left for myself. I was going to leave my kids with my mother, and I was going to see these movies, dammit! I had already seen one or two of the other contenders, and I was going to see three nominees on this day ... ending the triple feature marathon with the sappiest, darlingest one of the bunch: LIFE IS BEAUTIFUL.
For some reason, this time my usually reticent husband decided to go with me. Maybe he didn't believe I was actually going to be spending the day at the movies? Maybe he didn't want to get stuck with babysitting duty? Maybe he genuinely wanted to see those movies and spend time with me? I don't know, but there we were ... seeing three whole movies together ... one-third of our entire theater experience was being accumulated in just one day!
I no longer even recall the other two movies that day, but I do remember being in awe of Benigni's film at the time ... of its charm and its sweetness. Something else struck me: the fact that Benigni truly loved his real-life wife, whom he cast to play his character's wife in the film. The way he looked at her resonated volumes through the camera lens ... so much so, it made me make an audible shudder-sigh sound when I witnessed it. I mean, as unconventional looking as he is, who wouldn't want to have their beloved gaze at them the way he gazes at her?
It was making me long for that look, that feeling. It made me realize that not only had I never received that look from the man who was sitting to my left in all of our history together, not even after the births of our children, but I had also never been able to gaze upon him in that awesome manner. It just wasn't there for us.
For years, I unfairly mentally compared him to a couple of boys I'd carried torches for since high school ... ideals that even the real boys couldn't live up to ... and he constantly reminded me that he still had a crush on a girl he'd only had a couple of dates with before he met me. She didn't give him a chance before she moved away, but he always felt a strong bond to her, and he went looking for that bond in several other women as the years passed, having not found it in me, I suppose. (She drew robots for him, I was told. I could draw robots, too, but he never seemed to see that ability in me.)
I began to squirm and shake a bit, while watching Benigni and his wife on the screen. Had I cheated myself out of the chance to be with someone who'd see only me, like he saw his wife. Had I prevented my husband from finding that robot-drawing girl, and finally feeling everything he'd wanted to feel with someone? I was watching a movie, but it felt more real than the empty life of lies I was living.
That's when it happened.
It got to the part of the movie where his character's wife, who is not Jewish, chooses to get on the train to be taken away to the concentration camp because her life means nothing, if her Jewish husband and son are gone. She was willing to die for them, rather than live without them.
I began to sob. Not just sob ... I was wailing. I had to muffle myself as best as I could, since we were not the only people in the theater, but otherwise, I could not hold back the waterfall of emotions that was pouring out of me.
Let me say this: up to that point, save for when Bambi's mom was shot, I'd almost never shed but a tear or two in any movie. Nothing had prepared me for this.
I continued shaking and sobbing through the rest of the movie, leaving my shirt literally soaked with tears, snot hanging like silky veils from my nostrils, and nothing but a sleeve with which to wipe my nose. I heard nearby patrons exasperatedly saying, "She's STILL crying?" And yet, I couldn't stop.
When the movie was over, I still could not compose myself. I sobbed through the credits, while my husband was completely flummoxed. I was embarrassed that I was going to have to manage a walk of shame through the lobby and parking lot, while still shaking and sobbing, shirt soaked and snot hanging. And I did just that.
I continued to cry for another two hours after the film was over! I was sobbing to the point that I was coughing and nearly throwing up. I thought I might not be able to stop or ever catch my breath. I wondered if anyone had died of dehydration from crying. I pictured that on my death certificate, and my children in therapy years later because of it, which just made me cry more! Man, had I built up a lot of resistance to keeping the good stuff from flowing in! But boy howdy, was the bad ever stuff flowing out of me!
I can't remember how it finally stopped, but I think I may have simply ran out of tears. The well that I had been filling for all those years with all of my sadness had run dry.
Not wanting to anger or upset my cancer-stricken husband, of course, I told him that I had been overcome with how beautiful I found that movie, which caused all of those emotions to pour out of me ... but the reality was that I knew something had to change. The lights were finally on, someone was finally home, and she was lonelier than she'd ever been in her entire life ... even being raised as an only child hadn't prepared her for the depths of this kind of loneliness.
I later took my mother to see this very same movie, expecting her to have buckets of tears, expecting myself to revisit those same tears. Instead, nothing like that happened at all. My mom sniffled a little, as did I, but no waterfalls or snot streamers in the slightest. That's when I realized it really did have to do with the person with whom I'd seen the movie ... with whom I'd chosen to have a life and children ... with whom I'd thought would one day be my best friend and my most treasured possession. There was no way that I could die without him, when I was already dead inside with him.
It's amazing how a film, or a song, or a book, or a piece of art can tug at the deepest part of your heart, pull out the one or two loosest strings, and unravel your whole world.
In the weirdest form of irony, however, when I wrote that previous October 2007 blog, I was exactly two months away from meeting the man who would offer himself up as the contrast with which I would clarify myself to who I am today. And in that tumultuous roller coaster of an 18-month relationship together, I would learn more about what I wanted ... in a relationship, and in myself ... than I'd ever learned even in my marriage.
That roller coaster relationship began with a song ... the song that I referenced in 2007 blog ... with the phrase, "I'm going to love you 'til the wheels come off ... oh yeah." And oh yeah, the wheels came off.
That relationship also ended with a story ... a story in a book ... a book that had already been recommended to me at the time of that blog post, but that I refused to pick up for another two years ... until I was at a lost enough place and needing a lighthouse to show me another way home. Coincidentally, that book had been written by a woman who had once interviewed Tom Waits.
I'm no longer saddened by any of these endings or misdirected attempts at grasping for love, however. They've clarified my choices to the place where I am today. A place that got me to create an imaginary relationship with a vibrational version of a guy with whom I could share that fantastically beautiful gaze experience. All I had to do was hold myself there, and there we were.
And today, when I sit and wonder how I can hold on to this sweet and marvelous resonance with a real version of that vibrational boyfriend -- a version who surprises, delights, and melts me in ways that leaves me weak in the knees, that even I could not conjure with my very active imagination -- I have the contrast of those past misguided attempts as trail markers, keeping me from heading in directions that I do not wish to go, or do, or feel again ... all under my control. And I have the imaginary, vibrational version to show me that I've always had this power to hold myself here all along, and I could have shared that with any of those past "mistakes" ... or with anyone else before now ... but it's just extra nice that this particular man makes it so easy for me to resonate with the happy me, the fuller me.
Maybe this brain meandering isn't quite done yet. Maybe this blog will, like others before it, uncover more layers of understanding as time progresses and as I catch up to the place my lovely inner dj keeps trying to lead me. I do know for sure, however, that I can hold on to this feeling and hold this gaze for as long as I choose to do so. And I can hold on to knowing that everything is always working out for me.
Stuck on repeat in my head tonight is yet another Mule Variation...
A month ago, I was nervously sitting in the midst of an awkward situation, the all-encompassing power of which left me not knowing how to act anymore. I was on a first date.
"Don't be familiar..."
Not only was it a first date, it felt like the first first date I'd ever gone on ... making me forget how things are supposed to go on a date, even after years and years of practice. In comparison, those other first dates now remind me of all the times that I diligently practiced for my first piano recital as a kid, but that never prepared me for the actual moment of sitting down to a piano on a stage.*
Sure, there was a huge build up to this date. Previously, casual acquaintances were assuming he was my boyfriend or husband, while closer friends were demanding that something be done about that "palpable" thing between us during an all-day/all-night Yacht Rock concert ... a "thing" that neither of us had even addressed yet, mind you, because we were so incredibly shy around each other.
Aside from that first all day adventure in awkward town, we had also spent the whole day before this date together with other friends present, sometimes uncomfortably sandwiched into a visual nerd feast called Dragon*Con. Still, we never managed to do more than shyly sit next to each other while sipping out of a rum-filled bucket and occasionally make eye contact so potent with chemistry, I had to break my gaze away quickly for fear of lustfully licking his face.**
So here we were spending the day together ... alone ... terrified, yet riveted. What could happen, we probably sort of knew, but we probably were both afraid of instant combustion or something.
I knew we were going to need some "liquid courage" after I'd posted this image to my Facebook page a few weeks earlier, and he "liked" it:
True story.
We started our date excursion by hopping into Mothra and promptly getting lost on the way to hunting down a liquor store. His jealous GPS lady voice actually tried to run us into a wall, and then when that didn't work, she tried to send us in the complete opposite direction of the store. Somehow we found it, despite her attempts at killing us, and about an hour into our date we were returning to our starting point, because we'd forgotten some much needed beach chairs in the trunk of his car.
But THEN we were off at last! First stop, a Caribbean Jerk Festival (they're actually very nice people, those Caribbeans). Seemed like a quirky way to get some chow, and it really was. We spotted pineapple drinks and paid way too much to drink non-alcoholic smoothies out of them, but ... PINEAPPLES! Suddenly, we weren't just on a date ... we were like the Howells on GILLIGAN'S ISLAND! They also added to our awkwardness, as we randomly dropped pieces of decorative fruit and got stickier and stickier by the minute holding them. But PINEAPPLES!
Did the Howells drink out of pineapples, or just bamboo cups?
When it came time to choose what to eat, we had a veritable cornucopia to choose from ... if you had like 20 cornucopias all serving basically the same foods in just slightly different ways. I, of course, chose the thing that took the longest to make and was the most awkward to eat: a whole, huge fish ... head on, eyes still in it ... which I had to figure out how to eat with a plastic fork that would have bent if pushed through Jell-O.
I managed to get some on my fork at least a couple of times, and awkwardly offered some to my date. To my secret delight, he took the bite right off my fork, like we were already being all coupley ... even through the gathering swarm of gnats! It was adorable ... two nervously awkward, middle-aged white folks having a first date at an all-black festival, eating unfamiliar foods while surrounded by swarms of gnats and getting blasted with digital-laser enhanced reggae music playing across an open football field.
And that was just the beginning!
By the time we made it to the Drive Invasion (bands all day, movies and camping out all night at the drive-in), we were still nervous, but I think we'd both just accepted this as the new norm. We spent the rest of the day walking and chatting and trying to get pictures of people riding mini and/or double versions of things, like a baby Grave Digger or a welded one-on-top-of-the-other double bicycle. We also witnessed what was possibly the most amazing karaoke rendition of "Purple Rain" I have ever witnessed, and I saw Prince perform that live during the Purple Rain tour! This version was far more beardy than Prince's, however.
If you squint, you can see tiny, background us there in someone else's pic.
As it got dark, we decided to break out the liquid courage (vodka, straight; chased with whatever fruity cider I had been drinking) and beach chairs, along with grabbing some concession stand grub: corndogs (no sexual references were made, but plenty were thought ... by me) and more nachos than anyone should ever try to consume. We discussed movie points here and there, but we really spent the evening telling tales from our lives up to that point, and a lot of laughing.
When I got up to go to the bathroom sometime after Midnight, I came back to find him needing to go, which he did, and our beach chairs suspiciously several inches closer to each other. I laughed, because I'd been turning and moving mine closer by degrees all evening, but you would have needed time-lapse photography to see it move. This was a bold move on his part. Or maybe he didn't realize how obvious he'd been about closing the gap. I moved mine even closer then.
We still sat watching the movies and talking, and someone was periodically lighting off fireworks behind us, to which I would "WOOO!" really loud in appreciation, regardless of the fact that no one else was making a sound. That might've been the vodka.
It wasn't until the 4th movie ... a full 15 hours into our date ... that something changed. He put his arm on the back of my chair! Just rested it there, like it was casual, even though I'm sure it wasn't. And I sat there hoping and hoping he'd put it around me ... which he finally did, and to which I was so stunned that my wishing had worked, I forgot that I should be doing something. A voice shouted in my head, "LEAN INTO HIM, FREAK!" Actually, it didn't call me a freak, but it was a thought that came in loud and clear, so I leaned in.
I'm not sure how long we sat there cuddled up like that, probably not that long, but it seemed like forever, when he or I or both at the same moment made the cuddle an actual hug, and the actual hug became an actual first kiss. Talk about fireworks and woo! On the record of all of my first kisses, and as awkward as our lead up was, that kiss was perfection and the top of the charts. I was floored by how it felt like I was kissing myself, every move matched ... not a trace of awkwardness to be found between us there.
Also, as soon as that kiss happened, I knew the clothes would be coming off ... it was just that good. And they did. We spent the rest of the evening until sun up in the back of my little Mothra, doing things that I cannot write about here (**in my enthusiasm, I did indeed lick his face, just like I knew I would; he giggled), while listening to a cd of Wire's Pink Flag + Extras. There were moments, while staring into each others eyes, where I could feel every emotion possible, and the positive energy of something so fantastic it took my breath away. The world around us dissolved.
We felt incredible ... like teenagers ... until we tried to get our clothes back on and get out of the car several hours later. Then we felt like middle-aged people who don't practice yoga and should never try to play marathon Twister in a tiny space. But we had giant grins on our faces even through the stiffness and pain!
When asked later how the date went by one of the friends who'd been trying to push us to go for all that "palpable" energy, I replied:
"There were fireworks!
Also, we did it. :)"
As adolescent as my reply was, I was in deep. The thing had taken over, and I haven't let it stop. This has been the most fantastic, easy, nerdy, delightful, sexy ride I have ever been on, and I don't see it stopping any time soon ... nor do I want it do anything but keep going and going. I get excited at just the thought of where such potent, positive energy will take me. Correction: where it will take us!
Earlier today, I received a text message that made me make a tiny, audible squeal at work when I read it:
"One month ago at this time I
was drinking from a pineapple
with a girl I had a sizable crush
on. I was excited and nervous."
As fun as that first date was, every moment since gets better than the last. It's like I placed an order (I did!) and got exactly what I wanted. And I would not trade a single, awkward lead-up moment (and there are many more than I've written here), as each makes our story all the more endearing and adorkable.
I have made it my habit over the years to not name names in this blog ... not even first names whenever I can help it. I'm going to end that here and tell you his name is Scott. I may still refer to him as "my boyfriend" in the future -- or possibly a pet name, if one sticks -- but since this is a different experience from all the rest, he deserves a credit! And maybe a medal or a trophy or a ribbon. Something for making it so easy for me to be a happy, happy girl.
---
*And what did I play at that first piano recital? A number one hit on the radio in 1981 was chosen by my teacher, who only cared that I'd heard it before, not whether or not I liked it (I didn't). I remember nervously sitting down at that stage piano, feeling like I was about to throw up, knowing this was more for the adults than for me, so I better make it good ... taking a deep breath, and then the song just flowing from my fingers almost without effort. When it was all over, a parent said to me backstage, "I like your version better than the original, and I love that song! You played that like you truly felt it!"
My recital version of this song was much less beardy than the original, however.
I don't know that I really felt it back then, but after I received
that sweet text memory earlier today, this blog started writing itself
inside my head, along with a loop of these lyrics stuck on repeat in
there, too...
"Baby, you left me defenseless.
I've only got one plea.
Lock me away inside of your love.
I'm guilty of love in the first degree."
And in making sure I had the lyrics correct just now, I discovered the title to this blog that had been eluding me the whole time I've been writing ... it's the title to the album that "Love in the First Degree" was on, and it made me grin from ear to ear. Thanks again for the giggle, you kooky, crazy universe, you!
