Category Archives: Relationships

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Art, Time, and Love

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In the expansive mist of morning, when my soul takes time and room to breathe and stretch, I gaze around my room and wonder what I might do with myself.  My eyes light on the top shelf of a bookcase, where stands a handmade paper album.  Pages of rough texture wait to absorb something well-constructed, like a bed of rice made to nestle a complicated curry.  What poem or drawing or photograph would be worthy to lie in those lush furrows?  Surely nothing as lowly as what I would create.  Yet I long to put my time, my love, my hands to work, to make something.  I want to slowly blend my life into some material.  The satisfaction is exquisite.  I felt it once, birthing and raising children.  The medium responds, reacts, engages, resists.  It is not a work of power; it is a work of love.

I have begun to notice an impatient annoyance building up in me when I look at photography sites.  I am enamored of the images, but so often the captions leave me irritated.  I do want to know what I’m looking at and where it was found.  I don’t like the flavor of language that suggests violence.  “I captured”, “I shot”, “I took”, “I caught”.  Why not just say that you were there?  It was there.  You made a photograph of it at that place and in time.  Doesn’t that sound more respectful somehow?  It does to me.

I like art that shows that respect.  An artist is generous with time, patient, slow, allowing something to unfold, gently.  There is a generosity of presence in art.  An artist gives herself – body, consciousness, energy, and love – into a relationship with her work and medium.  That’s what feels so rich, pleasing and compelling in a well-made piece.   Whatever it is.  I am often so task-oriented that I don’t think of that.  I was taught to be efficient, neat and accurate.  In preparing a meal, for instance.   When I began cooking for Steve, he’d ask me about supper, and I’d tell him the steps I planned to take and ask for his input on decisions.  He’d respond with something like, “Just make it with love.”  I wasn’t sure what that meant.  I think I have a better idea now. 

I have a whole day and a whole chicken ahead of me.  I want to make something satisfying, not just in the end product, but in the relationship along the way.  I’ll let you know how that turns out.  Meanwhile, I’ll share these pictures from Horicon Marsh.  I didn’t take them.  I like to think I invited them, and they came willingly.

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Appreciating Milwaukee

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Here it is, March in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.  Some unknown and perhaps magical forces have transformed this place into a balmy paradise.  It is 81 degrees F outside, flowers are blooming, trees are sprouting leaves, and chipmunks are cavorting around the forest floor.  I am appreciating it.  Last year was a very different story.  We had a blizzard at the very end of January, and snow fell into April.  The last two months of snow in a winter that can sometimes take up half the year can be very trying on a person’s patience.  Especially if that person lived in California for 15 years and got rather attached to sunshine and greenery!  So, what is there to do in Milwaukee when the weather is nice?  So glad you asked!

Steve used to live on the East Side of Milwaukee, which is kind of an East San Francisco.  Well, a little bit, anyway.  There are lakefront parks, beautiful old buildings, college students from the University, and a smattering of the nature freak/hippie vibe.  On St. Patrick’s Day, we headed to his old neighborhood to take in some of this atmosphere, which was augmented by people parading about in green beads with plastic tumblers of beer, enjoying the unseasonably comfortable weather on a Saturday devoted to pub crawling.  It made people-watching that much more interesting. 

We ate a late afternoon meal at Beans & Barley, which features a deli and market as well as a vegan-friendly cafe with a huge selection of tea.  I had a grilled balsamic Portobello mushroom sandwich with red peppers and bleu cheese, accompanied by a fantastic curry potato salad and a bottle of New Glarus Spotted Cow beer.  Steve had a black bean burrito with some very spicy salsa, an entree that is approaching “landmark status” since its debut in 1979.  We shared a piece of their “killer chocolate cake” for dessert.

After I was satisfied that every bit of frosting had been thoroughly licked up, we headed over to the deli and market to take stock of their offerings.  It was there that I found this most delightful treasure: it’s an old cigarette vending machine that now provides the customer with a genuine work of art for the price of one token.  All of the Art-0-mat items are the size and shape of a pack of cigs, and decorated in a variety of different ways, by different artists.  Examples are installed on the front of the machine. 

Here is a close up of one example:

I simply love this idea!  I’ve never seen anything like it before.  It’s hip, it’s visual, it’s smoke-free.  These should be everywhere, supporting artists in every community. 

I’m feeling young, artsy, and energized.  We take a walk down to the lighthouse station.  I do a portrait of Steve that I think would look good on the back of a book he will write some day.

I’m having fun discovering something wonderful every day, no matter where I am.  This is how I want to keep myself well and happy for the rest of my life.  A few weeks ago, Wisconsin Public Radio’s Ben Merens did a show on wellness that featured an interview with a personal life coach named Colleen Hickman.  Steve likes to call into this radio station when the topic moves him, and he called in to add to this discussion.  He had two things to share.  First, he said that his partner (me!) was very good at appreciating things, and then he said that his contribution to our positive relationship is that he doesn’t think of life as a problem to be solved or a commodity to be evaluated.  It is something of which to be constantly aware, though.   After he hung up, Ms. Hickman says, “Steve is certainly one of the lights we have in the world.”  That makes me chuckle because it sounds so “media”, but I have to agree.  If you want to hear the broadcast, here’s the link; just scroll down to the Friday, March 2, 5:00pm broadcast and click the Windows Media Player or MP3 icon to the right.  Steve’s call is 17:30 into the program.

What a wonderful world!  Even in Wisconsin in March! 

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Honoring My Father

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George William Heigho II — born July 10, 1933, died March 19, 2010.

Today I want to honor my dad and tell you about how I eventually gave him something in return for all he’d given me.

My dad was the most influential person in my life until I was married.  He was the obvious authority in the family, very strict and powerful.  His power was sometimes expressed in angry outbursts like a deep bellow, more often in calculated punishments encased in logical rationalizations.  I knew he was to be obeyed.  I also knew he could be playful.  He loved to build with wooden blocks or sand.  Elaborate structures would spread across the living room floor or the cottage beach front, and my dad would be lying on his side adding finishing touches long after I’d lost interest.  He taught me verse after verse of silly songs with the most scholarly look on his face.  He took photographs with his Leica and set up slide shows with a projector and tripod screen after dinner when I really begged him.  He often grew frustrated with the mechanics of those contraptions, but I would wait hopefully that the show would go on forever.  It was magic to see myself and my family from my dad’s perspective.  He was such a mystery to me.  I thought he was God for a long time.  He certainly seemed smart enough to be.  He was a very devout Episcopalian, Harvard-educated, a professor and a technical writer for IBM.  He was an introvert, and loved the outdoors.  When he retired, he would go off for long hikes in the California hills by himself.  He also loved fine dining, opera, ballet, and museums.  He took us to fabulously educational places — Jamaica, Cozumel, Hawaii, and the National Parks.  He kept the dining room bookcase stacked with reference works and told us that it was unnecessary to argue in conversation over facts.

Camping in Alaska the summer after his senior year in High School: 1951.

My father was not skilled in communicating about emotions.  He was a very private person.  Raising four daughters through their teenaged years must have driven him somewhat mad.  Tears, insecurities, enthusiasms and the fodder of our adolescent dreams seemed to mystify him.  He would help me with my Trigonometry homework instead.

Playing with my dad, 1971.

I married a man of whom my father absolutely approved.  He walked me down the aisle quite proudly.  He feted my family and our guests at 4 baptisms when his grandchildren were born.  I finally felt that I had succeeded in gaining his blessing and trust.  Gradually, I began to work through the  more difficult aspects of our relationship.  He scared my young children with his style of discipline.  I asked him to refrain and allow me to do it my way.   He disowned my older sister for her choice of religion.  For 20 years, that was a subject delicately opened and re-opened during my visits.  I realized that there was still so much about this central figure in my life that I did not understand at all.

Grandpa George

In 2001, after the World Trade Center towers fell, I felt a great urgency to know my father better.  I walked into a Christian bookstore and picked up a book called Always Daddy’s Girl: Understanding Your Father’s Impact on Who You Are by H. Norman Wright.  One of the chapters contained a Father Interview that listed dozens of questions aimed at bringing out the father’s life history and the meaning he assigned to those events.  I decided to ask my father if he would answer some of these questions for me, by e-mail (since he lived more than 2,000 miles away).   Being a writer, this was not a difficult proposition for him to accept.  He decided how to break up the questions into his own groupings and sometimes re-phrase them completely to be more specific and understandable and dove in, essentially writing his own memoirs.   I was amazed, fascinated, deeply touched and profoundly grateful at the correspondence I received.  I printed each one and kept them.  So did my mother.  When I called on the telephone, each time he mentioned how grateful he was for my suggestion.  He and my mother shared many hours reminiscing and putting together the connections of events and feelings of years and years of his life.   On the phone, his repeated thanks began to be a bit eerie.  Gradually, he developed more symptoms of dementia.  His final years were spent in that wordless country we later identified as Alzheimer’s disease.

I could never have known at the time that the e-mails we exchanged would be the last record of my dad’s memory.  To have it preserved is a gift that is priceless to the entire family.  I finally learned something about the many deep wounds of his childhood, the interior life of his character development, his perception of my sister’s death at the age of 20 and his responsibility in the lives of his children.   My father is no longer “perfect”, “smart”, “strict” or any other concept or adjective that I could assign him.  He is simply the man, my father.  I accept him completely and love and respect him more holistically than I did when I knew him as a child.  That is the gift I want to give everyone.

I will close with this photo, taken in the summer of 2008 when my youngest daughter and I visited my father at the nursing home.  I had been widowed 6 months, had not yet met Steve, and was anticipating my father’s imminent passing.  My frozen smile and averted eyes are fascinating to me.  That I feel I must face a camera and record an image is somehow rational and irrational at the same time.  To honor life honestly is a difficult assignment.  I press on.

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Picnic

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Happy St. Patrick’s Day, all you Irish!  Especially you, MKM!  (My grandmother, Marian Keefe McFarland…at one time her family name was O’Keefe, I hear.  RIP)

After my Old World Wisconsin visit, we went into the Kettle Moraine State Forest to picnic, and found a spot at Paradise Springs.  Except for a group of excited girls walking the loop trail for a while, it was very quiet. Humanly quiet, that is.  We heard Sand Hill cranes and red squirrels and Spring peepers and an owl and chickadees and robins and red-winged blackbirds and cardinals and the bubbling sound from the running spring.  We made a fire from downed wood to grill our Italian sausage.  After supper, we walked around, and I took some pictures.

All around, things are looking greener.  Today we’re heading to the east side of Milwaukee to find a spot near Lake Michigan to sit and read aloud.  We’re working on Hermann Hesse’s Narcissus and Goldmund.  Steve wants to take me to a restaurant called “Beans and Barley” for lunch.  The temperature is supposed to reach 75 F, so there will probably be lots of people on the beach, I’m sure.  How are you spending this spring Saturday?

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A Day With My Friend

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“There’s a giant millipede in your apartment.  And one of the rooms is filled with water.”

Those were the first words out of Steve’s sleepy mouth this morning.  “Say, what?!”  He usually says whatever thing left over from his dreaming thoughts is still floating in his brain when he first wakes up.  He rolled over and closed his eyes again.  I thought about how every day with him is surprising and interesting and genuine.  I told him that I feel very fortunate to have had such a good friend during the past tumultuous 3 years.  I wonder how my grief and recovery would have been different without him.  Would I still be drinking tumblers of gin after work and crying myself to sleep in an empty house?  Would I be knocking on the doors of half-interested acquaintances looking for more attention, more love, more support, parading my needs pathetically about?  I don’t know.  I believe that I wouldn’t have tried half the things I did without Steve or gotten through the necessary bits quite so well.  Steve then asked me what I thought was our best “best friends” photo.  We agreed on these:

The first best friend "self-portrait" I shot of us, holding the camera at arm's length, like a teenager would do

One I took by accident while my camera dangled in my hand during a spontaneous kiss

Today, we’re heading over to Kettle Moraine State Forest where Old World Wisconsin, the living history museum, is located for our back-to-back job interviews.  Ever gone job hunting with your best friend?  I did once before, in college.  My friend had a summer job as a camp counselor, which I thought would be perfect for me.  I went up to interview there and didn’t get offered a job, but I did find a camp closer to home which hired me.  I love the feeling of adventure, the unknown, the “let’s just try this; I will if you will!” daring.   With a friend beside you, it’s a win-win situation no matter what happens.

So anyway, as my mother would say, “Enuff zis luff-making!”  Time to shower and be off!  Life is rich; friends are golden!

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Happy Centennial, Girl Scouts of America!

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On March 12, 1912, Juliette Low founded the Girl Scouts of America with a troop of 18 girls in Savannah, Georgia.   I became a Brownie Girl Scout on Jan. 21, 1970.  My mother was already a leader with one of my older sisters’ troops.  I stayed in Scouting through my senior year of High School, and then became a Daisy and Brownie leader when my youngest girls were in kindergarten and first grade.  Here is proof of my dedication to this fine organization: my fifth grade school picture.

School picture day just happened to be the same day that I had a meeting after school.  We were encouraged to wear our uniforms to meetings.  So, because I was an obedient child and followed the rules, I have this historic photo to prove that I was a bona fide Girl Scout at the age of 10.  I found it pretty embarrassing at the time, though, to be the only child in uniform for the class composite photo.  Ah well, there’s a nerd in every class.  Oh, this photo also supports the story I told about visiting Hawaii and being mistaken for a boy.  One could also have mistaken me for a chipmunk.

What was great about Girl Scouts?  Camping.  Singing silly songs.  Downhill skiing.  Climbing to the top of the Statue of Liberty in my uniform and platform shoes.  Sneaking out of my tent in the full moonlight and posing as a statue along a State Park road.  Skinny dipping.  Roasting marshmallows.  Learning a whole bunch of useful skills, like swimming and first aid.  Meeting other girls from all over the country at a national event and feeling accepted.  Gaining confidence in my capacity to learn and be responsible.

What will I always retain from Girl Scouts?  My love of the outdoors.  My ability to build a fire.  My enthusiasm for hiking up a mountain in the hot sun. My desire to be helpful and do good deeds.  Here’s proof from this decade:

Team Galasso at the Diabetes fund-raiser

So, Girl Scouts, how about a chorus of the old song:

Girl Scouts together that is our song
Winding the old trails, rocky and long
Learning our motto, living our creed
Girl Scouts together in every good deed.

Happy Birthday, Girls!!

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Lamb

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In some parts of the world, it’s lambing season.  I’ve seen some beautiful photos from bloggers in rural areas, and I want to share my “Lamb” story, too.

Steve and I went on a cross-country camping trip in the summer of 2009.  One of our primary destinations was Zion National Park in Utah.  We chose to camp in nearby Dixie National Forest.  The National Forest designation allows camping free of charge anywhere within the boundaries.  The land is also used for other things, which present something of a mystery to me.  Houses are built in National Forests.  ATV roads and logging operations also exist there.  The official motto on many National Forest signs is “Land of Many Uses”.  You’re never really sure what the land is being used for until you get there, drive around, and check it out.  This was my first experience traveling like this.  I was used to researching websites and making reservations with check-in and check-out times.  Steve assured me that traveling without plans is mostly safe and more of an adventure.  “Be open to what arises” was his Zen-like mantra. This trip would definitely shape our relationship, and I was excited about the possibilities.

After bumping down a narrow ATV road in Steve’s Toyota Camry, we discovered a nice spot in an aspen grove away from the big camper-trailers that had gathered in the valley for an off-road rally event.  We parked the car and began to look for level ground to set up the tent.  In the quiet of the woods, I heard a faint sound.  A bird with an unfamiliar song…rather like the sound of a bleating…goat?  “Did you hear that?”  I asked Steve.  Odd.  I picked up a roll of toilet paper and began to look for a likely tree to designate as my powder room.  Then I saw her.  At the base of an aspen, dirty white fur blended into the leaf cover and the white bark.  She let out a mournful cry.  “Maa-aa-aa!”  Oh, my goodness!  “Steve!”  She was skin and bones.  A dry umbilical cord hung from her belly.  Her long tail was caked with mud.  She rose and began walking away from us.  She was shaky and obviously hungry.  We started throwing out questions to each other.  What do we have here?  (I guessed a goat because sheep don’t have long tails. What did I know?)  Where is her mother?  She needs help.  What should we do?  Where can we take her?  How do we catch her?  How involved do we want to get?  Where is the ranger station?  How long would it take to get there?  It’s getting dark; should we set up camp and make dinner first?

We decided to catch her and drive her toward the ranger station, even though we knew it was closed.  I put on my leather fire gloves and picked her up.  She weighed almost nothing, but I wanted to be gentle and careful of her sharp hoofs.  We set off slowly toward the populated area of the forest and came upon a big, white pickup truck we thought might belong to a ranger.  It wasn’t a ranger, but a local who was able to tell us that we had a lamb and that there were free-ranging flocks in the forest.  We drove back to camp with this information, hopeful that we’d come upon a shepherd on horseback whom we’d seen earlier.  As we set up camp, the lamb stayed close.  We tried to feed her milk from a water bottle, but she just didn’t catch on.  She was bumping and nuzzling between my legs, looking to nurse.  I felt helpless not having the equipment she was seeking.  Steve wanted to allow her to sleep in the tent with us that night to keep warm.  I feel like an ogre now for saying ‘no’, but I was more “citified” back then.  She slept on a blanket just outside the tent with her back against its slope all night.  In the morning, we made breakfast, took pictures and figured out a plan.

Looking for milk in all the wrong places

The plastic bottle fails

So skinny

What am I going to do with you, huh?

Love me!

We decided to take a hike.  Perhaps we’d find the shepherd.  Perhaps Lamb would find her mother.  We set out with Lamb following for a bit, then she turned around and sat at the base of the tent again.  We went off toward the valley overlook.  Suddenly, I heard a clanking bell sound and the bleating of…SHEEP!  The flock was in the valley!  We raced back to camp, put Lamb in the car, and drove off to the valley.  I will never forget the image of Steve crossing the road with Lamb in his outstretched hands, little legs flailing.  It wasn’t so easy as just setting her down off the side of the road, though.  Oh, no!  She kept following ME!  I’d creep as close as I dared to the flock without scaring them further away, set her down and then turn and run toward Steve.  He was laughing his head off because bounding behind me with more energy than she actually had was the little Lamb, ears flapping, leaping over the tall grass.  Obviously, we had to use more stealth, more trickery.  I crept very carefully in toward some ewes, put Lamb beside me and stayed stock still.  Finally, she recognized her own kind and started moving toward them.  As she moved in, I moved back, until finally there was enough distance between us that she couldn’t see me.  She began pursuing the ewes, bleating and trying to nurse.  My last vision of her was rather sad.  She came up behind a ewe who turned and knocked her off her feet with an angry neck butt.  I saw Lamb’s white legs upended in the grass.  She hadn’t much strength left, but I hoped her persistence would get her some milk.  Or that the shepherd would show up soon.  I turned toward the car in earnest and forbid myself to look back.

Of course I’ll never know the exact outcome of our encounter with Lamb.  I am grateful for all that she taught us about being open to what arises, talking about how we want to behave toward others, and acting with compassion in the best way we can.  That little Lamb was instrumental in our formation in many ways, and I hope that we were able to help her.

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Solitude and Community

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Steve and I have scheduled a Summit for today.  This is what we call our periodic “relationship discussions” where we aim our canoes and talk about where we’re headed and what we want.  I tend to have a deer-in-the-headlight kind of reaction to certain phrases that have been used in these intense forums simply because I get over-anxious about coming up with a “right answer”.  One of those phrases is “on the same page”.  I hate it when Steve uses that expression, and I have forbid it from future talks. It makes me freeze up. “What does that mean?  Do I have to think the same way as you?  Do I have to be you?  I don’t know how to do that!”  So he now describes what he’s after in a different way.  Another question that is beginning to have the freeze effect is “What do you want?”  I am dangerously close to over-thinking that one, too, and getting defensive.  “What do I want when?  Now?  5 years from now?  What do I want about what?  I don’t know what I want!”  It was really helpful when he put it to me this way: “We have a really great relationship.  But we can always do better.  What are some areas where you want us to do better or differently than what we’re doing now?”  Suddenly, I began to have thoughts and ideas where before I would just draw a blank.

The first area on my brainstorm list was community.  I want to do better in this area.  We are both nurturing our inner lives very conscientiously and intentionally, and I really like that.  I also want to work intentionally on community.  This morning, I received notice of a new post by thousandfoldecho.  The quote by Orhan Pamuk described the formation of a writer’s inner life so well.  The blog author then turned that question over to musicians and asked, “What do you think of the musician’s paradox of needing both solitude and community?”  I think this is probably any human’s paradox.  We all benefit from both.  The work of finding that balance in your own life is what keeps my partner and me coming back together for Summit meetings.

So how do you go about building community, finding and developing relationships where you can be your true, honest self?  I am more conscious of being myself in every encounter now that I’m focusing on that.  I used to just slip into roles very easily without a thought.  That was the actress in me.  It was a way of life that was smooth and slippery, easy to glide by.  I would be who people wanted me to be.  Now, I’m trying to allow myself to be…myself.  Even with the grocery clerk.  And my broker’s secretary.  And my voice students.  This is a no-brainer to many people, and they wouldn’t know how to do anything else.  I think I got into “acting” very young and had some early encouragement that kept me there.  My inner life was so different.  Writing is a way for me to really exercise that inner self, bring it out of hiding without costuming it for a certain audience.  One writer whom I really admire is Annie Dillard.  I just finished An American Childhood and even had a dream about meeting her.  I love how she writes about her inner life and becoming aware of others.  But I’ll save that for another post.  For today, I’ll leave you with this photo.  I think watching waves roll into shore is a good background for musing about solitude and community.  I invite you to share your thoughts on the subject, too!

Lake Michigan again

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About Last Night…

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I skipped posting a blog entry yesterday.  We left town at 10:15 in the morning and drove to Chicago for a matinee at the Lyric Opera.  Then we went out to dinner with my newly legal daughter and didn’t return home until midnight.  That is my official factual excuse and reads kind of like the ones my mother used to write to my teachers in elementary school.  “Please excuse Priscilla’s absence from school yesterday.  She had stomach flu.”  The end.  Oh, but last night was wonderful.  I was aware of so much, and now I’m just not sure what to share, where to start, which story to begin.  If I had brought a camera with me, I might just present a series of abstracts and let you fill in the rest.  I didn’t bring a camera; I brought myself.  The data is in me, the images, the sensations, the concepts.  I am full and perhaps trying to stay that way.  If I leak a bit of the experience, will I lose it somehow?  If I try to distill the essence of the evening, will I vaporize much of what I so enjoyed?  Am I allowed to carry my life around like a secret?  Of course, I’m allowed.  The real question is, do I want to?  Why post and share and write and tell?  I sometimes hover between bursting like a pinata and hording like a dragon.  What do you do with the precious value of living?

Smile.  I’ll start with that.

Driving the Interstate with Steve, holding hands and laughing to Garrison Keillor’s radio broadcast “A Prairie Home Companion”.  Finding an alternate route on two-lane highways through the fields when we found the Interstate was closed in one section.  Settling in the upper balcony under a golden ceiling to listen to the virtuosity of a live performance of Baroque music.  Closing my eyes to the modern staging of Handel’s “Rinaldo” and imagining powdered wigs and candlelight.  Imagining what it would feel like to have those glorious high notes, trills, and runs burble out from my own mouth.  Watching my daughter talk about her life, noting her gestures, her warmth, her composure, marveling at her maturity.  Tasting truffle oil, mushrooms, garlic, Sangiovese, gnocchi, gelato – savoring and exclaiming pleasurably to one another in mid sentence.  Talking to the hostess about her Italian family, the recipes, the home country, the history.  Speaking words of love and support and appreciation to my daughter, noticing the shape of the space between us.  Riding home in the dark, so sleepy, so content.

“We can only be said to be alive in those moments when our hearts are conscious of our treasures.”
― Thornton Wilder

photo from the restaurant's website

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Celebrate Good Times, Come On!

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Today is my darling baby’s 21st birthday, which in the good ole U. S. of A. means that she can legally purchase and/or be served an alcoholic drink.   Whoo-hoo!  This becomes quite the rite of passage for many people.  It used to be that different states had different legal drinking ages.  Back in the 70s, Illinois had it at 21 and Wisconsin had it at 18, so lots of kids would drive over the border to drink and then drive home drunk.  Not something a mother wants to think about for too long.  In my family of origin, though, drinking was done at home.  The first (and only!) time I got sick from sampling alcohol, I was 10 years old.  My mother made a Greek dinner and my father let me taste Ouzo, retsina, and Metaxa.  I learned how much is too much pretty early.  I also learned that I could get much better alcohol at home than I could at a party with my peers.   For me, it is all about taste.  My father once educated my children at the dinner table by explaining how alcohol is a solvent that releases fragrance and enhances the taste of food.  What is the primary liquid in fine perfumes?  Alcohol.  The pairing of food and drink is a scientific discovery of pleasure.  Coming from my dad, that seemed to be the “right” approach, and I think it has served pretty well.  My kids grew up having tastes in increased measures and never became binge drinkers.  My baby had her first taste when she was baptized at two months old.  The priest dipped his finger in the communion wine and let her suck on it.  She was a full-fledged member from that day on.  Why not?

When I turned 21, I was engaged to be married.  My fiance took me out for a champagne brunch after church.  All through my 20s, I was having babies.  I never went to bars and hardly drank at all.  I have no cultural experience of “the bar scene”, and that amuses Steve no end these days.  I also missed all of the pop music scene from the 80s on.  I am a walking anachronism, it seems.  Oh, well.  I still think I know how to have fun.  I do drink and dance and sing…mostly with family.  Tonight, my kids are going out together to do Broadway karaoke at a gay bar.  Now, I could fit right in with that!  I worked for a children’s musical theater company for 7 years, and my kids were all involved.  We rock the Broadway tunes!  Sadly, though, Mom is not invited.  Not this time, but I hope in the near future.

And now, for the photo journal portion.  My family album reveals “Celebrations, Then & Now”:

It starts with my family of origin. My mom at the piano after serving us a gourmet meal and wine. This was typical. Pictured: my sisters, brother, and a niece. (photo: DKK)

Next: Me & Jim at a church talent show. Yes, a couple of hams with a couple of drinks in them, singing and dancing.

 

So, then what happens? We raise a bunch of talented kids who like to perform and dress up and drink like pirates!

See? It's a theme.

So then my baby gets the bug really bad, and she's really good! (and I can't get this to print any bigger, sorry!)

And she's absolutely fabulous and happy onstage!

And I am incredibly proud of her!

 

And sometimes, we get to play dress up and sing and dance together!

And now, she’s all growed up! (*sniff*)  You are fabulous, Miss Em!  Go rock the scene tonight, celebrate your life, your health, your talent, your livelihood, your friends & family, and the fact that you are here and surrounded by love!!  And I know you won’t forget, that love extends beyond visible boundaries.

Your daddy adores you!

And he now celebrates the remarkable lady you've become with a bigger smile than he could muster with his physical form!