Posted on by jsmith

Sometimes I fall down.

What I mean is:  sometimes I fall down.  Hard.  On my face.  Or my knees.  Or my bum.

I think I fall down more than I should.  I mean, the only people who fall down on a regular basis are, generally speaking, toddlers and drunks.  Even elderly persons don’t fall as much as I do because after they fall once, they usually wise up and sit themselves down for a spell.  Not me.

When I fall down, I get right back up.  I have to.  Because when I fall down I am, invariably, running down a sidewalk on a busy street with countless cars zooming by.  So in the split-second between feeling my foot catch the pavement and watching that pavement come at me with a ruthless speed, I have a decision to make.  I can:

a)  remain in my fallen position on said sidewalk, rubbing said bum in a flagrant exhibition for drivers of said cars, or

b)  stand back up as fast as I can, thus shortening the length (but not disgrace) of  said flagrant exhibition.

Because I’m not a toddler or a drunk, and therefore have no cause to be lying face down on the side of the road, I’ve no choice but to go for option b.  And so when I’m pounding the pavement down Main Street and my Addidas-clad tippy-toe begins that imminent tippy-toeing that I’ve come to know and dread, I readily accept that the next three seconds of my life will be spent soaring over several sidewalk lines (Superman style), sliding into the pavement palms-first and, depending on the speed of my run, finishing up with a tuck-and-roll move of which, I don’t mind telling you, I’m pretty proud.

The only people who fall down on a regular basis are toddlers and drunks.

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Now, because I am a “runner” (loose term), I’ve always given myself something of a free pass when it comes to My Falling.  Sure, I may trip now and then when I’m out and about, but that’s only because

a)  I’m out and about!  Don’t I get some leeway just for getting off the couch?

and

b)  the pavement is loose and bumpy, which is not my fault and is what jumps up and grabs hold of my unsuspecting midair foot every time.  Geez.  With conditions like these, who wouldn’t fall?  (Oh wait:  everyone else.  Everyone else wouldn’t fall.)

After many a bruise-and-scratch, I’ve also decided that my inability to run around the block in a steady upright position is merely an extension of

a)  my vibrant athleticism (i.e., you can’t tame the beast)

and

b)  our town’s sorrily kept streets (they’re a death trap, I’m telling you.)

So when I have to walk through my front door with a hole in my spandex and a welt on my eye (again), and explain to my husband What Just Happened I can—and do—blame My Falling on My Running.  At least, I could.  Until now.

Because a few days ago, I fell down—hard, on my face, and my knees, and my bum—while crossing a parking lot.

Crossing a parking lot.  

And it gets better:  I fell down (hard/face/knees/bum) twenty feet in front of my husband and three children, thus giving them the live version of the Tuck-And-Roll which, up to this point, they’d only heard as legend.  We were leaving a truck stop on our way home from Portland, so the bonus was that three eighteen-wheelers were parked directly in front of My Fall, so three anonymous truck drivers were afforded the pleasure of watching me bite the gravel.

I’m still not sure exactly what happened, because I wasn’t running this time.  I was ever-so-lightly jogging—fast walking, really—to get out of the cold and into our car, but not enough to warrant the massive plunge that followed.  One moment I was a carefree mom beckoning my children to race me to the van, the next I was jackknifed over my—mysteriously upright and intact—32-ouncer.  (My husband said I “saved the soda” on instinct, which I would proudly claim, but this cup was full of water so I’m still not sure how it remained standing after the Great Crash.)  It was dark, but the lot was well lit, and when I looked up I saw that the trucks were warm and running which meant, of course, that they were likely occupied.  I couldn’t make out the faces of the drivers (tender mercies), but the impending noise from the brood behind was deafening.

“Mom, Mom!  Are you okay?”  (Muffled children’s laughter.)

“Hey Jen, are you alright?” (Muffled grown man’s laughter.)

“Yes, I’m fine.”  (Muffled groan.)  The crowd moved closer as I heaved myself up, then descended upon in me with an atrociously feigned concern.

“No, really, Mom, are you okay?  What happened?”  (Open laughter disguised as muffled.  They wanted me to hear it, I know they did.)

“I’m fine you guys!  I just fell.  I don’t know what happened.  There must have been a loose rock.”

“A loose rock?  Really?”  This from the pretending-not-to-be-laughing man.

“Yes, A LOOSE ROCK!  Look, there it is, right there—that’s what I tripped over!”  I reached down and picked up the pebble.  The laughing man wisely downshifted to a frown-smile.

“Oh, I see.  Yes, I’m sure that’s what made you fall.”

This nonsense continued as we made our way to the van, whereupon I plopped in the front seat while my kids kept distractedly quizzing me, hoping their lame interest would somehow guarantee them next week’s allowance.

“You sure you’re okay Mom?”  They were already cueing up Here Comes the Boom and didn’t give a flying rat’s fat if I was okay.  And I was not.  I had a scabbed knee, a bruised ego, and four family members who Didn’t Give A Rip.

“Stop asking me if I’m okay!  You know that I am and I KNOW YOU DON’T MEAN IT!  JUST STOP!”

The car fell silent for the next half hour—a blessed relief to all who were in it.  I slumped down in the passenger seat, musing over what had just taken place.  If I could fall when I was barely walking fast, who’s to say I couldn’t fall when I was barely walking slow?  Or walking at all?  With this turn of events, what was to keep me from falling out of my bed, my shower, my chair at a restaurant?

These questions plagued me while I rubbed my scab through the rapidly thinning knee of my jeans, which promised to sprout into a full-blown tear within a washing.   I moved my fingers over the injury in a slow wistful motion, like Aladdin to his lamp, waiting for a genie to appear.  And if he did show up, the first thing I’d ask for is a more coordinated lower body.

The second:  denim patches for my jeans.

And third?  A world in which wearing such patches would look cool.  (Okay, normal.)  Otherwise, these are my jeans, next time you see me.

Um, what was that I said about not being a toddler?

 

Posted on by jsmith

Really, why try?

Today my darling sister, bless her darling heart, sent me a link to Narrative Magazine‘s Fall Story Contest.  She’d received an email advertising the annual contest and thought I might be interested.

Interested?  Um, yes.  And flattered.  To send me such a link, I figured my (smarter and more competent) older sister must see me as somewhat qualified to enter.  And as you well know by now, I’m not above having my itchy ego scratched now and then.

My eager fingers clicked on the link and hovered over the keyboard, poised to shift from clicking to typing, anxious to launch the construction of what would surely be Narrative‘s Next Big Thing.  Okay, so I’d never actually heard of Narrative Magazine (stay-at-home-mom + small town + small bladder = I don’t get out much) but that wasn’t going to stop me from winning Whatever Contest they were running.  So what if I never enter contests and had absolutely no idea how to begin? I’d just had a long chat with some fellow moms about the importance of optimism and thus decided that my sister’s email was a serendipitous sign that I should write something—anything—and win, well, everything.  Or at least win something.  (Anything.)

Scrolling down the magazine’s home page, however, my bright-eyed anticipation quickly gave way to a sinking resignation.  A few clicks informed me that Previous Contest Winners included those who had been awarded the Pushcart Prize, the Atlantic Prize and, yes, the Pulitzer Prize.  Reading the individual bios was no less disheartening:  “Graduated with an MFA from Harvard,” “Finalist for the National Book Award,” and “Won the Nobel Prize in Literature” were among the honors shared by members of this publication’s exclusive contributors.  I stared blankly at the smudged screen, covered with Cheeto-flavored fingerprints (my son) and yellow post-it notes yelling “write something today!” (me.)  So much for optimism. Behind that screen lay the world of Real Writers, and out of respect for the order of the universe (and my own dignity) I should not, and would not, attempt entry.

We can talk about goal setting and positive thinking and “Outliers” all day long, but the truth is, there are some things that most of us will never achieve.  I’d put “winning the Nobel Prize for Literature”–along with tasting Olympic gold and performing at Carnegie Hall–pretty high up on that list.  Sorry friend, but it’s probably not gonna happen for either of us.  And though I’m pretty comfortable with the fact that I won’t be winning a Nobel (I had to come to terms with it at some point), reading that vast list of Other People’s vast accomplishments was a bit daunting.  Such brilliant people out there, doing such brilliant things.  So brilliant, in fact, that I hadn’t even heard of most of them.  And they were certainly never, ever going to hear of me.

So I sat back in my chair and let my mind wander.  Why, I wondered, knowing even our fiercest efforts will make but a slight dent on the world’s crust, do we continue to make them?  Whether it’s writing or painting or guitar playing or cake decorating, most of us will never meet Charlie Rose or see the inside of a Food Network studio.  Most of us, in fact, are kindasorta doomed to mediocrity from the start.  (No offense, Mediocrity.  You’ve been a loyal friend.)  So why do we do it?  Why do we put in the hours and dollars and brain pain necessary to get good at something, when we most likely will never get great at it?

ribbons-2-1389977-m

I was still asking this question at bedtime when, as usual, the answer showed up in a book I was reading.  I’ve been reading a novel (see next post for deets) about a man who enlists in the Civil War as a chaplain with noble aspirations of saving bodies and souls.  Just a few months later, however, his ideology crumbles as he realizes he has not only failed to help but has in fact hurt many of those he set out to serve.  Lying in his hospital bed bemoaning the tragic, unintended outcomes of his actions, his wife tells him this:

“You are not God.  You do not determine outcomes.  The outcome is not the point.”

“Then what,” he replies, “is the point?”

“The point is the effort.  That you, believing what you believed…acted upon it.  To believe, to act, and to have events confound you—I grant you, that is hard to bear.  But to believe, and not to act, or to act in a way that every fiber of your soul held was wrong—how can you not see?  That is what would have been reprehensible.”

This hit me hard.  The outcome is not the point.

My life’s work and your life’s work are a bit less dramatic than this poor hero’s, but the truth still holds.  The outcome—for him, for me, for you—is not the point.

The Nobel Prize and the Food Network and the recording contract are not the point.  Those are outcomes.

The word grinding and the kitchen mess and the strum, strum, strumming—day in and day out, when we don’t feel like it and no one else is watching—are the point.  The point is the effort.

The outcome is not the point. The point is the effort.

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That’s why we aim to excel when we know we probably won’t and we choose to compete when we know we’ll probably lose.  Because it feels so good to try.  Trying—especially trying hard—feels infinitely better than not trying at all.  Mediocrity may be a foregone conclusion, but we can have a lot of fun getting there.

Striving to achieve is like taking a deep breath before sailing off the high dive.  You may land in an ugly belly flop, but the three seconds leading up to it were glorious—full of vulnerability and hope and courage, the best that’s within us.  And it’s our effort that allows us to exercise those traits.  The outcome merely allows us to reflect on them.

So if you’re embarrassed about starting tennis lessons or taking a sculpting class or learning Mandarin because, well, you’re not really an athlete and you majored in accounting and you’ve never seen China and probably never will, I say:  go for it.  I say:  try.  Not because you will be great at it (though you may be), but because you will become great by trying.  Your vulnerability and hope and courage will flex their muscles as you do, and they will become stronger.  And so will you.

See, we were not put on this earth only to love and serve and obey and raise children.  We were put on this earth to learn and explore, to question and develop, to grow and keep growing and then grow some more.  We were put on this earth to try.  The point is the effort.

And as for me?  Well, I’m quite confident my name will soon be appearing on Narrative Magazine‘s impressive Contests page.  Perhaps not beneath the heading that says Winners, but certainly beneath the one that says Tried.

I’ll meet you there.

 

Posted on by jsmith

I should have been Latina.

So Halloween night, after the big church party and chili cookoff was over (I didn’t place, oKAY?), after the last trick-or-treater left and my own trick-or-treaters were finally asleep,  after the magic and the mystique and the makeup had worn thin, I closed my front door, took a deep breath, and decided to forego cleaning up my cluttered house and instead honor the remainder of this holiday by—naturally—watching Evita on Netflix.  Because next to garlic and a crucifix,  Antonio Banderas’ muscle-bound tango has got to be the most efficient (and delicious) way to stave off evil spirits.

With tired legs but the happy mother-heart that comes only with the end of Halloween, I plopped on the couch and asked my husband to join me.  He agreed, and was surprisingly accommodating when I suggested Evita.  Five minutes into the show, I looked over and understood why:  he was dead asleep on the couch, snoring softly to the march of a million Argentines shouting “Peron!”  It turned out to be a win-win, however, as the absence of his awareness allowed me full access—and unbridled devotion—to Antonio.

Oh, Antonio!  Antonio in a peasant shirt.  Antonio in a butcher’s apron.  Antonio in a (gulp) wifebeater.  Antonio, marching for his people, crying for his people, singing (most gorgeously) for his people.  Antonio, writhing and wrenching and sweating (most gorgeously) for his people.  But mostly—most importantly and above all else—was Antonio dancing for his people.  The tango, the rumba, the mambo; all done with the passion and ferver that only a Latin lovah can exude, and the most passionate of it done in the arms of his fiery blond female counterpart.  Blond, but still Latina.  Which got me thinking:

I should have been Latina.

I am blond (ish.)  I am fiery (high strung.)  I am definitely female.  And I am perfectly willing to throw myself in the wifebeater-ed arms of one sinewy, glistening Antonio Banderas.  Add to these the fact that I

  • like the sun
  • can roll my Rs effortlessly
  • make really good salsa in a blender (which I say counts)

and you see that, somewhere long ago and far away, a mix-up occurred and my Great Latin Spirit, trembling with excitement to enter a balmy bronzed body and cha-cha my way into this thing called Life, was somehow channeled into the long, quiet line on the other side of the room, over which hung a plain white wooden sign bearing, in reticent script, what was offered me instead:  DANISH.

I am Danish, through and through.  My mother’s family is Danish, my father’s family is Danish and dangit if, instead of marrying a Latin lovah to give my kids’ complexion a fighting chance, I didn’t marry a man who’s one hundred percent Swedish (i.e., Danish + IKEA.)  Stock up on the sunscreen, people.  No golden glow in this house.

Now just so we’re clear and my great-grandparents don’t get mad at me: I have nothing against my Danish heritage.  I mean, we do have fair skin, fair hair, and tinned butter cookies.  It’s just that, well, that seems to be all we have.  Oh wait—I forgot about the wooden shoes.  We do have wooden shoes.  Or is that Holland?  (I get all those cold countries mixed up.  Yellow braids, wooden shoes, lederhosen–it all lands somewhere in that general region north of wherever.)  And of course we also have minimalist decorating, clam chowder, and lots and lots of cyclists.

It’s not that Danish culture is so bad.  It’s that Latin culture is so good.  And before you go accusing me of ingratitude to my forebears who left their fisheries and braved the icy Atlantic to give me a better life, answer these questions and answer them truthfully.  Then judge me if you will.

Would you rather have:

  • Chipotle chili tamales or open-faced herring sandwiches?
  • Salsa or remoulade?  (What, you’ve never heard of remoulade?  Think green tartar sauce that Danes smother on everything.  I rest my case.)
  • Jennifer Lopez, Shakira, and Enrique Iglesias or Mette Lindberg and Rasmus Seebach?  (What, you’ve never heard of Rasmus Seebach?  I rest my case.)
  • Piñatas or “hide the thimble?”  (What, you’ve never heard of hide the…oh forget it.  I rest my case.)
  • One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez or Fairy Tales by Hans Christian Anderson?
  • Beaches or fjords?
  • Motorcycles or bicycles?
  • Muscles or spectacles?
  • Tawny or pasty?
  • Steamy or stone cold?
  • Dance shoes or Danskos?

And speaking of dance shoes:  At your daughter’s wedding, do you want this…

 

or this?

I rest my case.

It’s not that Danish culture is so bad. It’s that Latin culture is so good.

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