A Wrinkle in Time

Posted on by
Reply

“Mommy! Mommy!” Ava yelled from the bathroom. “I have a wrinkle!”

I assumed she was horrified—who wouldn’t be? But when she sprinted into my bedroom, I saw otherwise.

Her smile was so wide it almost touched her ears. She was pointing to her forehead, which was as smooth as untouched snow.

“Where?”

“Here!” She insisted, raising her eyebrows to the sky and causing the slightest undulation in her forehead.

“Oh, yeah. Look at that.”

She threw her head back and her arms up in the air as if she was tearing through the tape at the Boston Marathon. “Yes! Yes! I’m growing up!”

There were other signs. Like the fact that her size 6 pants morphed into capris overnight or that she instructed me not to send her Batman cup to school because that would be “so embarrassing.” But for some reason, this wrinkle—albeit forced—was the sign she was waiting for.

Before and After

I remember my first wrinkle. I was 22 and applying mascara when I saw it resting near the outside corner of my eye. I faked a smiled and watched the wrinkle deepen. When I relaxed my face again, the evidence remained—like a dead bird on the side of the road. I pressed and pulled on my skin as if trying to straighten an unmade bed. But the crow’s toe remained.

Over the years, the toe turned into a foot and spread like pinkeye. Two deep lines emerged running from the outside of my nose to the corners of my mouth. “Smile lines” I called them, because I’m so freakin’ happy. But I wasn’t happy. I was dying.

Or so it seemed.

Of course, parts of me were getting better. I was smarter, more confident, more fit and generally more satisfied with my life. But my wrinkles were a relentless reminder that gravity is a constant whereas collagen is not.

It's never too early for a moisturizing face mask

Rather than treat the problem, I ignored it. But like extra weight or a wardrobe consisting of Keds and stirrup pants, one day I woke up and saw my wrinkles for what they were: a physical manifestation of my life; the happy moments (eyes and mouth) and the not-so-happy moments (the Levolor blinds across my forehead and the trident between my eyebrows).

I don’t want to erase my memories, but I could do without these wrinkles. This year I invested in an age-fighting skin care system and I’m happy to report it’s helping. I even face-masked Ava one night since it’s never too early (for the record, 34 is too late). I wish my own mother had opted to slather me with a little Retin-A instead of Coppertone Oil, SPF 2.

But I can’t turn back time. I can only hope for advances in non-invasive procedures. For now, I’ll try to fight the inevitable pruning with balms and butters. And try to embrace the stripes that I’ve earned along the way and wear them as proudly as Ava does.

 

A Hair Affair

Posted on by
19

This is about hair. My hair. But allow me to begin with a parable.

I was going through my husband’s closet not too long ago and found his beloved USA pullover hanging there, awaiting the moment when 1995 would become retro-chic. I loved that pullover like I loved Bruce Willis. It was first-generation fleece—the kind Grandma uses to sew you a knock-off Snuggie. It had “USA” embroidered across the chest in big white letters, but the fleece was as flaming red as my husband’s Geo Tracker (yes, you read that right). I was always borrowing it because it smelled like Hugo Boss and Head & Shoulders. But like milk and “Party of Five,” most things have an expiration date. USA’s was past due.

“Honey, let it go,” I said, trying to pull USA from his grip.

“It’s Ralph Lauren!”

“It’s ugly.”

He considered this for a moment. Then held USA out in front of him and studied it. Then, suddenly, he saw the truth. He saw the light. He saw a sweatshirt my mother would kill to wear at the annual 4th of July party.

So what does a 90s pullover have to do with my hair? Hopefully nothing. But I’m going to let you be the judge of that.

See, I’ve been growing my hair out for over a year. And through this long, arduous process, I’ve gotten a little attached. I run my fingers through it constantly, I bathe it in Moroccan oil. I get it “trimmed” but never “cut.” But I’m worried that I’m turning into the Heidi Montag of hair and I won’t know when enough is enough. I’m worried that I’m wearing the USA pullover and no one has the decency to run interference.

Or maybe they have.

“Your hair—it’s so long.” I’ve heard it a lot lately. Not “beautiful.” Not “pretty.” It’s a statement of fact rather than quality. When you can’t ignore the elephant in the room, but you can’t say something nice, you simply state what is: “Now that’s a dress,” or “I see you colored your hair.”

So let me ask you this: is my hair too long? And how long is too long for a mom in her mid thirties? But let’s stay away from actual measurements because, one, I can’t measure, and two, I appear to have an extra vertebra or three in my neck. A 5” bob on the averaged-necked woman would look like a crew cut on me, so measurements don’t really translate. But where on the body does Kardashian glamour end and Crystal Gale kitsch begin? I look through magazines filled with long-locked women, their hair extending far past their shoulder blades. Then again, I also see adult onesies cut from zebra print.

And while I appreciate the spirit of “do whatever makes you happy,” that’s not the kind of advice I’m seeking. This isn’t about self-esteem; I feel good about myself with or without this much hair. I’m asking the equivalent of “ballet flats” or “platform heel,” “skinny” or “flared.” I’m asking because I don’t want to be the girl driving a Geo Tracker in 2011.

Is it the equivalent of an adult onesie?

Mommy on the Run

Posted on by
12

People run for two reasons: they’re either running for something or from something. Sometimes it’s a combination of the two.

I’m running to train for the Savannah Rock ‘n’ Roll half marathon. I’m in the last few weeks of my training program and so far so good. Well, mostly good. I’ve been experiencing bouts of the “runner’s trots” around mile six. Don’t let the name fool you—it’s not a technical term for a cool-down jog. On the contrary, the runner’s trots have me making mad dashes for cover in whatever form it make take: house, tree or—please forgive me God—headstone. But that’s another story, and probably one I won’t write about for fear of being arrested. Just know this: when you have the runner’s trots, nothing else matters. So stay clear.

The first two months of my training program I’d run on the treadmill watching “E! News” or old episodes of “Friends” turned up to Metallica-concert decibels. The few times I ventured outside, I’d shove earbuds into my brain and keep pace with Gwen Stefani’s lyrical assurance that I’m “F-ing Perfect.” But I wasn’t perfect. Far from it. My runs were crummy at best. Afterwards, I’d collapse into the car, cue up Adele to mourn my imperfect run, and drive home to my husband and child who greeted me as if they’d been abandoned because God forbid Mom disconnects for an hour—a greeting which was always followed by: “What’s for dinner?”

Of course, I wasn’t disconnecting. Not really. The noise in my ears was drowning out the noise in my head—the stuff I desperately needed to tend to.

“I don’t run with music,” my friend’s father told me. “It’s my time to think.”

Running without music sounded as ridiculous as running without a sports bra, and equally as painful. But if there’s one thing I know, it’s to listen to experienced runners; their race division isn’t called “Masters” for nothing. My friend’s dad wins races. He’s been running his whole life and he probably never gets the trots. I run in cycles. I lose interest. I burn out.

So I decide to heed his advice and put down my iPod. Turn of the TV. I go outside and I run 10 miles, five of which are through a cemetery that is literally dead quiet. It’s not easy. In fact, by the last mile it feels as if someone is hammering ice picks into my knees. But it’s quiet.

I hadn’t realized how loud my life had become. I wake to an alarm or my 5-year-old standing over me like a poltergeist begging to play Barbies at 5 AM. I fall asleep to “The Daily Show.” During the day I listen to my chatty daughter who thinks she speaks Spanish (she doesn’t) and a husband whose head is filled with useless trivia he’s desperate to share: “Did you know that early civilizations had no concept of zero?” No. And I’m little cooler because of it.

For the first few minutes of my quiet run I don’t think I can make it 500 yards let alone 13.1 miles. Then a mile goes by and my suffering gives way to thoughts about my upcoming race, work and even writing. Then I drift into thoughts about my goals, my family and my place in this world. I hear my breath and I feel my pace. Somewhere along the way I even decide to sign up for a marathon. And by the last mile I do nothing more than feel every muscle in my aching body cry as I slap the pavement with my size nines. For the first time in a long while, I feel present. In tune and in pain, but present nonetheless.

This time when I greet my family, I’m grateful for the chatter. I’m grateful for them. I may be physically running on empty, but I’m spiritually refueled.

Now I run from the noise. And I run for myself.

Picture Day

Posted on by
2

I don’t take good pictures. I’ve always been told I have a nice smile, but as soon as I sense a camera pointed in my direction, I turn all robotic. My mouth tenses, my eyes bug and I end up looking as if I’m being poked in the butt. I’ve tried all the tricks, like tilting my head, turning my chin down, applying Vaseline to my teeth. Nothing works. I’m like Bigfoot—the only good photo on record is a blurry one taken from a distance when I didn’t expect it.

My child sometimes shares my special gift, but only when it counts. And today is Picture Day at her school.

“Okay, smile!” I command her on our way out the door.

Cue the square-mouth, clenched-teeth, bug-eyed grin. She looks like a badger. A cute badger with a little beauty mark.

“Um, try to relax.”

Her face droops, her mouth and eyes leading the way. To my horror she even pulls her chin to her neck making her look as if she has a severe overbite.

“Okay, not that relaxed.”

She settles somewhere in between, which also isn’t pretty. But at least I’ll know what her mug shot will look like when she gets arrested at 3 AM in Hollywood after a 36-hour bender.

I give up and decide to focus my efforts elsewhere: on her hair. I have hair, but I know very little about hairstyling. I do know that a portrait with our usual go-to ponytail will make Ava look hairless. So I try a side ponytail to the left. Then to the right. Then I scrap it and go for some hair pulled up with a bow.  We drive to school and I stare at her in the rearview mirror wondering what the hell was I thinking.

I know it’s just a picture. I know she’s only five. But I also know that those dumb headshots float around in overstuffed drawers mixed with phonebooks, cap-less pens and foreign coins for years until one day you become famous and your one-time friend from sixth grade pulls out the class photo of you in a tie-dyed cat sweater, pink-foil lipstick and braces—which also happens to be the only proof that you once sported a perm—and sells it to E! for $1.2 million.

Who’s the crazy mom now, huh?

I adjust her collar, slick her eyebrows with spit and remind her to “be relaxed, just not too relaxed,” and send her own her way. She bops happily along oblivious to the fact that I want to chase her down and try hog-tying her into some pigtails. But it’s too late. My “Mommy Dearest” opportunity has passed. Now it’s up to the guy behind the counter, whom I’ll later learn had my child pose like a pinup and give a “sparkle smile!”

After school, she shows me her “sparkle smile.” It doesn’t sparkle. It doesn’t even flicker. A perfect combination of relaxed, but not too relaxed. It’s a straight-mouthed, deadpan look well suited for any terminator.

Oh well, . . . I’ll be back.

In case you didn't believe me...

The New PTA

Posted on by
12

My parents belonged to my elementary school’s PTA. Them and about five others. I don’t what they actually did at the PTA meetings because they were held behind the closed doors of the faculty lounge that reeked of stale coffee, cigarettes and boredom. Kids weren’t allowed; we were sent to roam the dark halls of our tiny school, vandalizing the bathrooms by tossing the gritty pink soap around like fairy dust. Eventually we’d find our way to the gym where we’d swing plastic beaded jump ropes around like a helicopter blades until it inevitably wrapped around someone’s neck.

Those were the good old days. Those were the days when PTA involvement meant something—namely that your child had a get-out-of-jail-free card.

I vandalized my fifth-grade classroom during a PTA meeting. I switched the contents of my fellow classmates’ desks. I powered the room with chalk dust. I may have even “borrowed” my teacher’s oversized Disneyland pencil—the kind so long, that the eraser end beat against your forehead as you wrote. I was called into the Principal’s office the next morning and I admitted everything. It was perhaps the greatest crime ever committed during my tenure at Sunnyland Elementary and I got off with a warning.

My dad built the playground. He hand carved the school’s sign. My mom owned and operated the cotton candy machine that was the highlight of the school’s annual Halloween party. Owning that machine was equivalent to having a Ferris wheel in your backyard.

My point is, I realized at a young age what the PTA really stood for: Protecting The Assets. So this year I promptly handed over $5 to Ava’s elementary school to secure my membership in a club that I thought would guarantee my pig-tailed asset special treatment.

Yeah, me and 1,400 other people.

“Were we supposed to dress up?” Ray lamented as we pulled into the school parking lot bustling with families looking as if they came directly from a SEARS portrait sitting.

Dress up? In 1982, all you had to do was show up.

Yes, times have changed. Today numerous letters and emails are sent home, inviting parents to the meeting. In the good ol’ days you invited only the people you liked and you did so by untraceable means: word-of-mouth. And now there’s an itinerary, a guest speaker, a Powerpoint presentation with clip art from Windows 95 and, worst of all, the use of parliamentary procedure. Nothing seems more out of place than parliamentary procedure conducted in an overcrowded gymnasium that looks and sounds like the mall softplay on a Furlough day. See, parents are “encouraged” to bring their children to the meeting, but their children are not encouraged to roam freely, set fires in garbage cans or stuff paper towels into the sink drains. Instead, children are encouraged to sit quietly in a roomful of their peers and endure sixty minutes of parentspeak.  Needless to say, only those placated by smart-phone technology succeed.

I took notes. I smiled and nodded attentively at the guest speaker hoping he would see me from the nosebleed section and later ask my name, write it down and pass it up the chain. The woman in front of me played on her phone. Some yelled at their children to give their phones back so they could play Angry Birds. Most talked amongst themselves. I wanted to revoke their membership rights then and there. I wanted to take back the PTA night—directly back to 1982.

Mostly I wanted to run to the closet and pull out a beaded jump rope and hang myself with it, but I’m sure like everything else those ropes have been replaced by better and safer cloth versions that feel warm and fuzzy around your neck. I don’t want warm and fuzzy. I want cutthroat.

PTA today is like Facebook. Anybody can join. This parental over-saturation only means one thing: my child is one of many. A pleb. A cog in the machine. A part of a—gasp!—democracy.

Where’s the favoritism? The bias? Is nepotism really dead?

No, in spite of what I’ve seen, I still believe it is alive and well. And it comes in the form of a cotton candy machine.

 

The Answer to the PTA Problem

 

“Car-Riders” Cluster

Posted on by
6

While our elementary-school children are still in the throes of gluing macaroni to paper and counting dried beans, cars line up two-by-two in “Car-Riders” to wait for the last bell of the day, which won’t happen for another 55 minutes. In that time, the children will master that day’s “sight words” and fill up on their share of paste while I stare mindlessly into the ass of the car in front of me with a bumper sticker that reads, “If you’re not the lead dog, the view doesn’t change.”

When Ava started kindergarten I had no idea that I’d be spending approximately 9,000 minutes waiting in my car. I hate waiting, and I’ve never been good at it. I clench my molars, breathe rapidly and scrunch my shoulders up to my ears. I know psychosis has set in when I start to do math equations (I’m an English major). The other mid-pack parents (parents in cars 30 through 60) look as anxious as I do, their hands gripping the wheel and their eyes darting wildly to anticipate the moves of the worst kind of parent: the illegal jumper/merger.

I don’t see waiting as an opportunity to slow down and enjoy feeling “present” in my day. I don’t want to be present while trapped in a car calculating the gallons of gas I’m burning up. I want to be present while lying by the pool with a dewy glass of sangria in my hand.

I cleaned my glove compartment on the first day. I organized my CDs on the second and my parking change on the third. By day four, I was so desperate for something to do, I strung together a necklace from the Cheerios stuck to the back of my seat. All I can really do is obsess about how stupid it is that I’m sitting in line—again.

The first day of school I got in line too late and was one of the last parents to pick up her kindergartner. I know because my daughter said so in between her sobs. So I vowed that I would do better, which means getting to Car-Riders before Ava’s friend, Gabrielle, is picked up. I’ve tried at least six different routes. I’ve tried the left line. I’ve tried the right. Her mom lives down the street, so I can see when she leaves. Inevitably, I’m always behind Gabrielle’s mom even when I leave five minutes before her.

I am a mutant. One of the X-Men. My power is the ability to pick the slowest line on the planet.

I will choose the shortest checkout line in Target and without fail the person in front of me will need to get a price, exchange a faulty item, or worst of all, write a check. You know the kind—the woman who waits until all her merchandise is rung up and then she acts surprised when she hears the total as if she wasn’t sure if she’d have to pay this time. She then digs for a pen in the pharmacy she calls a purse. But of course she doesn’t have ID, because in the past—where she is from—you didn’t need it. So unless you arrived at Target in a Delorean, step aside.

But she doesn’t. She appears before me in every line I ever stand in. Like she is stalking me from 1985.

Today was different, however. By some act of God (a lady with cash and exact change!), I found myself in the coveted position of car #15. I took a minute to survey the landscape from my new vantage point. The finish line was already within sight. There was no threat of jumpers or mergers. We were like thoroughbreds lined up in the stall just waiting for the gates to fly open. The other parents had content, Zen-like expressions on their faces.

Sure getting there early cost me an extra ten minutes, but not once did I calculate how that extra time would figure into the year’s total. Instead, I rolled down the window, turned off the car and began to write.

It felt like only seconds before I saw Ava walk out to the curb and wave to me. I guess that’s all I really wanted—to get my baby back in my arms. To know that she wasn’t put in the wrong car and shipped down to Florida. It’s not a bad system, but I also think a retina-scan is a reasonable means for identification. I need a photo ID to buy Sudafed, but all I need to pick my kid up from school is a piece of card stock with her name written with a Sharpie.

But being up front felt good. Like flying first-class and getting stuck on the tarmac. You don’t care because there’s an open bar. I imagined I was surrounded by parents who have it all figured out. They’re the ones who remember to cut the crust off the bread and put their kids in tennis shoes rather than ballet flats on gym day. Their children have spots reserved for them at Harvard or Yale. It feels good to be in the presence of greatness—so good that waiting suddenly doesn’t feel so bad.

Before Social Networking There was Sunnyland

Posted on by
11

Over the years I’ve learned a number of lessons when it comes to making new friends: My first impression of people is usually wrong and my husband’s is usually right, avoid drama queens at all cost and don’t trust a woman who doesn’t have old friends. If you’ve gone through life making and breaking friendships, there’s probably something deeply wrong with you. I’m not exactly sure what that thing may be. Maybe you get clingy and chase them off. Maybe you borrow their designer shoes and return them with scuffs. Maybe you cut off their head and hide their body under the stairs. Whatever it is, I don’t plan on waiting around to find out.

As we grow older, I think it becomes more and more important to nurture our oldest friendships—the ones from the single-digit days. These are the friends who held the other end of the jump rope. The ones who helped you chase down boys that you liked just so you could kick them in the balls. The ones who remember—all too vividly—your self-choreographed dance routine to publicly profess your love to a boy named “Jimmy”  (P.S. Jimmy didn’t love you back).

Which brings me to my friends from the Sunnyland Elementary days. Angie’s house was just across the freeway from mine. I can remember her telling me about the ghost that lived in her house (it did) and that she was going to name her first child “Mercedes.” We spent hours making home movies with a camcorder the size of a microwave and practicing to become high school cheerleaders (we didn’t). Somewhere around middle school Angie and I drifted apart and into different circles of friends but whenever I visit my hometown and bump into her, I feel somehow complete. Like I’ve come home to . . . myself.

We got together this past summer with another childhood friend, Mojan. Mojan was visiting from her new home in Israel. We had met in 4th grade when her family moved from California and became instant friends: long, lanky, studious girls who enjoyed their co-roles as teacher’s pet. I’ve always regarded Mojan as a better version of myself. Every word she speaks is articulate and thoughtful, while I stutter and laugh nervously, my eyes lolling around the room trying to find the right thing to say. She’s profoundly genuine and graceful. If I didn’t pass gas, slouch, or make fun of people so much, I imagine I’d be more like Mojan (alas, I’m not willing to make this compromise—or maybe I’m just not capable).

It had been over a decade since I’d seen Mojan. In that time she lived in various places around the world, got married and had two beautiful boys. But she hadn’t changed. Not really. When I hugged her I got a handful of her thick, curly hair—the kind of hair that could dry up a fountain like a super-sized chamois—and it transformed me back to a happily naïve, pig-tailed ten-year-old with teeth too big for my head. We had traveled so much distance in twelve years and yet there we were, standing in a place we never really left.

These earliest friends paved the way for my most cherished friendships that I fostered as a teenager. Today, my three best friends are present in my life in spite of being thousands of miles away. They are the kind of friends you call 24-hours after you’ve had your first baby and say, “I can’t do this,” and ten hours later, they’ve traveled 3,000 miles to come to my rescue. They’ve seen my ugly square-mouth cry. They’ve looked me in the eye and said, “I love you. And you’re being stupid.” And they’ve been right every time.

At 34, I’m not really looking for friends, yet I keep meeting women who challenge and inspire me; perhaps they are tomorrow’s “forever friends.” I credit those earliest friendships with all the subsequent lasting ones. Because when I’m with my oldest and bestest friends, I’m reunited with my best self. Sure we change houses, jobs and cities. We marry, maybe divorce and have children. But my childhood friends remind me that we don’t really change as much as we’d like to think. And maybe that’s okay.