What’s That I Smell?

It’s hopeful. It’s exciting! It’s SO close… I can smell it more acutely every day. While I’m sitting at my computer on a spring morning, it creeps in through the open window. My children bring me their shoes and try to convince me that it’s already here. “Just wait a couple more weeks,” I tell them. “It’s almost here. It won’t be long now.”

It’s freedom, of course. Summer vacation.

In a couple more weeks, there will be no more due dates, no more tests or quizzes, no more papers to write, no more circular commutes through the county, and no more freaking out over writer’s block for three whole months. I have been thinking a lot lately about what I am going to do with all that extra time. I started making a mental list of all the things that need to be done that I have not gotten to since starting school last fall, and it is already overwhelming.

There is a house to be cleaned, and there are children to be played with. There are books to be read (for pleasure, for a change), and parks to be explored. Somewhere there is a corner of sandy beach with my name on it. For the first time in years, I feel like a little kid. I am reminded of a song that I used to sing at church when I was little:

Oh, what do you do in the summer-time, when all the world is green?

Do you fish in a stream, or lazily dream

on the banks as the clouds go by?

Is that what you do?

So do I!

There is so much fun to be had, and I am looking forward to every minute of it. What do YOU do in the summer-time?

Rediscovering Self

Earlier this week, as I was locked up in my bedroom doing homework (missing my family), I heard a sound downstairs that I have not heard since my pre-PNC days: music and dancing. As glad as I was that my husband and children were enjoying themselves, it was also a little sad. Prior to going back to school full-time, this was an activity that I enjoyed with the kids myself. My husband would fly off to whatever city needed his mad technical skills and leave me at home with all three boys. Since two of them are still toddlers and difficult to take anywhere, we would spend our evenings at home, sometimes turning on some music and jumping around. It was an easy way to burn off some of their energy without leaving the house.

While I was listening with envy to the happiness going on downstairs, it occurred to me how much I have forgotten about myself since starting school last fall. I realized that, except for the kids’ tunes in the car, I have almost completely stopped listening to music. This is huge for me because I used to be something of a musician. I was a band geek in high school, accompanied vocal students on the piano at Ball State, and I even sang in the choir at church. When I was younger, I used to enjoy going to concerts, theater productions, drum corps shows, and dances. Now it seems I would rather stay home and curl up with a book or hang out on Facebook.

Is this what happens when a person gets older? Do you just forget who you are in the process of taking care of others, or do you just add to the list of things that make you who you are?

Today I intend to try to remember some of what makes me ME. Since I must get more homework done, I intend to do it while listening to my own music for a change. Then when I sleep tonight, I will dream of the things I will do to get myself back during summer vacation.

Orphans and Villains

A couple months ago, my oldest son, Alex, came home from school with a form for me to fill out. It was a permission slip to stay after school to audition for the spring musical.  Having done some acting in the past myself, I was pleased that he seemed to be taking up an interest in the stage. It was even more exciting the next week when he came home from school with a part. He would be playing an orphan and one of Fagin’s boys in the musical Oliver. Three of my nieces also had parts, so it was something he could enjoy with his cousins.

The rehearsals over the next two months took him away from me more than I would like , but he was having fun. He was singing a lot more than usual around the house and coming home from rehearsals with all kinds of stories. I put together a decent costume for him by borrowing pants and browsing Goodwill. By the time production week came upon us, I could not wait for the whole thing to be behind us.

Then one of the cast members, one of my nieces, took the term “break a leg” a little too literally. If she had had a major part, it would have been disastrous for the musical. As it was, she was still able to make an appearance, being hauled on and off the stage by her dad.

Their performance last night was sweet. It was fun, sad, and fun again. The whole cast did a wonderful job. I am proud of my son for seeing this through, and as glad as I am that we are almost done, I hope it will not be the last time we see him on stage.

 

Chuckles

Few things entertain me more than my own children. Who needs HBO when your house is full of boys? Even watching THEM being entertained is entertaining. When I hear one of them laughing, I can not help but stop whatever I am doing just to listen and see what is making them so happy. (One never knows; it may need to be stopped!)

My oldest son, Alexander, is eleven years old. For almost eight years, he was an only child. He wanted so badly to have a baby brother or sister, and he asked God in his nightly prayers to send one soon. Sometimes he even sang those prayers opera-style. It was always amusing to be downstairs listening to his musical petitions emanating from his upstairs bedroom.

When Andreas finally arrived, Alex picked up his brotherly duties like a pro. One morning, he offered to play with the baby in his bedroom so that I could sleep a little longer. The most deafening silence from the next room woke me up, though, and I had to investigate. Looking into the room, I saw little Andy sitting up on the beige berber carpet wearing a gray and black bat costume in which Alex had dressed him. The confusion on his face begged intervention, but cry he did not. Alex was just buttoning the last button when I let out a little chuckle and startled him.

And then there were three. Our Jakob was a little surprise, born almost a year to the day after Andy was born. At age two, he still has a limited vocabulary, but he never fails to find ways to make me laugh. Usually, though, his own laughter gets me. His second favorite tv show (after Thomas & Friends) is ABC’s Wipeout. Can you guess why? People fall down! Every time someone wipes out, he laughs so hard that it becomes impossible not to laugh along with him.

A couple nights ago, I scanned all my 2011 Facebook posts and laughed again at all the crazy things my children had said or done that year. These little things have added such joy and fun to my life that I seldom feel the need to leave the house for entertainment.  My children provide LIVE shows whenever I need them.

Mindful Entertainment Wanted

American entertainment is constantly hitting new lows.  In fact, I am less and less surprised at how low the industry sinks.  It used to be said that comedy was the lowest form of entertainment, but other forms are gradually taking over that position.

I have always loathed reality tv.  When I first heard that term, I thought to myself, Seriously?  Who would want to watch reality?  We live it every day!  It’s BORING!  Then when I realized that what was being called “reality tv” was not depicting actual reality, I became even more confused.

The first season of “Survivor” was terribly disappointing for me.  Supposedly about being able to survive in the wild to win an enormous sum of money, it ended up only being about manipulating, back-stabbing, and lying your way through a game show.  Hurt as many people as you can, and you’ll be rewarded famously!  This was not my cup of tea.

It was even more appalling last Fall when my husband pulled up a show on Netflix for which people had built these colossal contraptions to shoot, throw, or catapult pumpkins in competition.  They were destroying food for entertainment.  They had poured much of their savings and time into building these mechanisms that hurled pumpkins just for the thrill of entertainment.  There may have been awards for the pumpkins farthest flung, but I could not bring myself to watch long enough to find out.  I conjured up in my mind the image of starving children in Africa, who would surely be horrified by such a thing.

Normally, I find better entertainment in books.  When “The Hunger Games” by Suzanne Collins came out and became popular, I looked into it.  I read somewhere (and I can’t remember where, which bugs me) that it was a series of books that were for people who were into reality tv.  A mental note to NOT read it was then chiseled into my brain.  But what could I do when my husband bought me the whole series for Christmas?  The books were a gift!  I resolved to give them a fair try.

Never have I felt so vindicated by a work of fiction!  Here, finally, was a work depicting (among other things) the ridiculousness of entertainment obsession and its consequences on society.  It caused me to think more about the various forms and their costs.  Do you realize how much money we spend on mindless entertainment?  Stupid movies about stupid people doing stupid things make millions of dollars in the theaters, and then the stars of those movies stand up and cry about world hunger, human rights violations, and other atrocities.  Do we care enough to re-direct those misspent dollars into solving the world’s problems?

Sadly, no.  People will continue to pour their money into meaningless sloth because it offers them a respite from the harsh realities of life, if only briefly.  I, too, rely on it as an escape from my own problems.  I have resolved, however, that I will only seek out entertainment that inspires me to be a better person and to do good wherever I can, and ignore the swill that clogs the airwaves.

So what have you viewed or read lately that inspired you?  How has it shaped or re-shaped your view of the world?