Middle-aged mom itching for her own spring break

By Debra-Lynn B. Hook

Bringing Up Mommy

Special to Tribune News Service 

When I was in college in Baton Rouge at Louisiana State University, spring break meant a road trip to New Orleans, where we indulged in too much sun, too much cheap white wine and a much-needed break from accounting and journalism.

When I was the parent of young children, spring break meant family road trips from northeast Ohio where we live, to warmer climes,, to see the Washington Monument or Grandma in Florida.

These days, spring break is me taking my 21-year-old son to the airport after which I go home and consider the muck. 

Muck is what constitutes early spring when you live on the tundra, more literally known as northeast Ohio, which is where I moved with my college-professor husband 22 springs ago, which is so close to Canada that we share geese.

Muck is mountains of wet leaves in the back yard that didn't get raked in the fall, and when I say mountains, I mean 100-year-old oaks molt back there. 

Muck is brown gunk in the gutters that will require someone steadier (younger) than me to climb the eight-foot-tall ladder, but it’s still calling my name. 

Muck is the mess inside the wheelbarrow where I gathered up all the garden decor from around the yard last fall and then forgot to put it away in the shed. 

Last I checked, the wheelbarrow and its contents looked like a bad piece of abstract art, a block of dirty ice now with things poking up that I no longer recognize, nor want to touch, much less wipe off and put out again.

Who’s complaining, I meditate. I love all seasons, except it’s a challenge when you grew up in the South where the grass is lush and green year-round, where you go from azaleas in full bloom to summer in about a week.

And now here comes “spring” break to add insult to injury, my savvy millennial son so smart as to find a way out of brown and gray, that is a $64 flight to sunny California to hang with a buddy who lives in LA, after which they will drive to Utah to hike with more buddies, then on to Montana where his sister lives where they will have more outdoor fun, earning them trips to the local brewery every night. 

All of which will put him back much more than a couple of tanks of gas and the cost of some craft brews.

My sister said, "Does this generation ever work?"

"They work to travel," I tell her, "and they know how to do it.”

So OK, I tell myself, if I can live through an Ohio winter, where I have actually come to value human hibernation, I can make use of a “spring” that’s not really spring, even if others are enjoying Jell-O shots in tiki bars at Daytona. 

I can bask in the quiet of the house made so by the absence of Benjie and our housemate, also a college student, who is in Houston training for spending the summer in Costa Rica where he will teach English as a second language. Geez, those millennials, do they ever sit still? 

I can consider that Benjie’s complicated spring-break trip, much of which includes driving in a car the size of a tennis shoe with five people, makes my throat clog with claustrophobia. 

I can be responsible and mindful, even making the best of the muck, seeing leaf-raking as a free aerobics class. Being outside gives me a chance to check on the crocuses. There’s something Zen about waiting for the crocus that are slow to poke their heads out lest they get slammed by a late-winter storm. Is that snow I see on the second day of spring? Why, yes, it is. Om.

I’m also eyeing that imminently drivable Kia Seoul sitting out there in the driveway.

The azaleas are in full bloom down South. My work is flexible. I love a road trip.

On Sunday, I got to the book store in the big city, Cleveland, a 45-minute drive from the little college town where I live, to see if that will take the edge off. I go to my favorite book store, then my favorite Indie theater where I see the movie, “Gloria Bell” about a divorced woman my age who decides she will not cave to stereotypes.

Thanks, Gloria Bell. I came home and got on Travelocity. Not sure where I’m going but I’m going somewhere, right after I do aerobics with the leaves.

 -Journalist Debra-Lynn B. Hook of Kent, Ohio, has been writing about family life since 1988 when she was pregnant with the first of her three children. E-mails are welcome at dlbhook@yahoo.com.

Middle-aged mom itching for her own spring break

By Debra-Lynn B. Hook

Bringing Up Mommy

Special to Tribune News Service 

When I was in college at Louisiana State University, spring break meant a road trip to New Orleans, where we indulged in too much sun, too much cheap white wine and a much-needed break from accounting and journalism.

When I was the parent of young children and living in northeast Ohio, spring break meant family trips to warmer climes with the kids, to see the Washington Monument or Grandma in Florida.

These days, spring break is me taking my 21-year-old son to the airport after which I go home and consider the muck. Muck is what constitutes early spring when you live on the tundra, more literally known as northeast Ohio, which is where I moved with my college-professor husband 22 springs ago, which is so close to Canada that we share geese.

Muck is mountains of wet leaves in the back yard that didn't get raked in the fall, and when I say mountains, I mean 100-year-old oaks molt back there. Muck is gunk in the gutters that will require someone steadier (younger) than me to climb the eight-foot-tall ladder, but it’s still calling my name. Muck is the mess inside the wheelbarrow where I gathered up all the garden decor from around the yard last fall and then forgot to put it away in the shed. 

Last I checked, the wheelbarrow and its contents looked like a bad piece of abstract art, a block of brown ice now with things poking up that I no longer recognize, nor want to touch, much less wipe off and put out again.

Who’s complaining, I meditate. I love all seasons, except it’s a challenge when you grew up in the South where the grass is lush and green year-round, where you go from azaleas in full bloom to summer in about a week.

And now here comes “spring” break to add insult to injury, my savvy millennial son so smart as to find a way out of brown and gray, that is a $64 flight to sunny California to hang with a buddy who lives in LA, after which they will drive to Utah to hike with more buddies, then on to Montana where his sister lives where they will have more outdoor fun, earning them trips to the local brewery every night. 

All of which will cost not much more than a couple of tanks of gas and some craft brews.

My sister said, "Does this generation ever work?"

"They work to travel," I tell her, "and they know how to do it.”

So OK, I tell myself, if I can live through an Ohio winter, where I have actually come to value human hibernation, I can make use of a “spring” that’s not really spring, even if others are enjoying Jell-O shots in tiki bars at Daytona. 

I can bask in the quiet of the house made so by the absence of Benjie and our housemate, also a college student, who is in Houston training for spending the summer in Costa Rica where he will teach English as a second language. Geez, those millennials, do they ever sit still? 

I can consider that Benjie’s complicated spring-break trip, much of which includes driving in a car the size of a tennis shoe with five people, makes my throat clog with claustrophobia. 

I can even make the best of the muck, seeing leaf-raking as a free aerobics class. Being outside gives me a chance to check on the crocuses. There’s something Zen about waiting for the crocus that are afraid to poke their heads out lest they get slammed by a late-winter storm. Is that snow I see on the second day of spring? Why, yes, it is. Om.

I’m also eyeing that imminently drivable Kia Seoul sitting out there in the driveway.

The azaleas are in full bloom down South. My work is flexible. I love a road trip.

This past weekend, I went into Cleveland, a 45-minute drive from the little college town where we live, to see if that would take the edge off. I went to my favorite book store, then my favorite Indie theater where I saw the movie, “Gloria Bell” about a woman my age who decides she will dance, no matter who gets in her way, even if she dances alone.

Thanks, Gloria Bell. I came home and got on Google maps. Not sure where I’m going but I’m going somewhere, right after I do aerobics with the leaves.

 -Journalist Debra-Lynn B. Hook of Kent, Ohio, has been writing about family life since 1988 when she was pregnant with the first of her three children. E-mails are welcome at dlbhook@yahoo.com.

Daring decades later to debunk catechism

A lot of things didn't make sense to me as a child growing up Catholic.

I was taught, for example, that babies are born full of so much bad juju that they can't be cleared to breathe until they are purified by a priest.

Original sin, they call it, the gift of Adam and Eve's DNA.

From an early age, I couldn't grasp that a tiny baby,  who's been floating around on a liquid pillow inside her mother,  is the evil one.

As an adult, after more years in therapy than not, during which I studied the anatomy of not only my soul, but that of my mother, my father, Jesus, Buddha, Krishna, Confucius, Mother Teresa, Rumi, Harriet Tubman, Betty Friedan, Carl Jung and the Pope, I dared to come to a different theory: that we are as untainted as we will ever be, before we gasp that first gulp of polluted Earth air.

It's not original sin we are born into. It is, instead, original perfection, which we spend our adult lives trying to return to.

We are all,  ultimately, human, with frailties, weaknesses and flaws.

But it’s not the devil or even the heritage of Adam and Eve that piles this on before we take a breath. 

        
It is man-and woman-made failings after we are born that move us into human suffering, or, if you must, “sin,” which in Hebrew simply means “away from God."

Some of these failings are unintentional and relatively benign, beginning with the common mistakes of our parents. Others constitute outright trauma.

Regardless, whether we are born in a refugee camp or Lori Loughlin’s Hallmark house, none of us escapes unscathed. Even our own children, who we vow we will never harm, become wounded.

No matter, and here’s the good news: If we have any measure of awareness and a seeking soul, if we can find our way to therapy, a good love relationship, yoga, meditation, a peyote ceremony or even a good church, we can catch and hold bigger and bigger glimpses of who we were before we became incarnate.

This can take decades, don’t I know.

But spending one’s life trying to remember and return to that state of being that constituted our real identity, that place of grace and purity when all was right, or at least right-er, with ourselves and the world, is not a bad purpose in life if you ask me.

And that's my truth.

Antonio! And a life-changing face

I was on the exercise bike at the gym and the litany of thoughts was circulating: “I hate the weather today.” “I don’t like that girl over there.” “I wish my body were (fill in the blank).” 

I looked up at one of the bank of TV screens flashing news, sports, culture and mayhem and I saw “NFL something something” and I thought “What now?” I saw the name “Antonio” on the screen; somebody named Antonio was going to be interviewed.

I was tired in that moment of seeing the yuck in everything, in  the weather, in people, in institutions and all of a sudden: “Wait a minute. I like the name ‘Antonio.’” 

Antonio’s face popped up and it was indeed likable, bright and beautiful and punctuated by a huge smile. 

In the midst of this bank of stupid TVs, in the midst of this dreary day, in the midst of this confusing life, was a beautiful face named Antonio. 

I decided in that moment that I could find the Antonio in everything. 

It’s important to put this in context, to note that this comes after years of self-reflection and life education, beginning with childhood that set me up to be an ever-cheery savior.

I had for many of my early years laid cheerful on top of everything. This was my job. If I was not happy, I was invisible. 

As a self-aware, thinking adult, then (in therapy), I came to realize, I needed to look deeply at what I had been hiding, the ugliness that is part of the human condition, the sadness inside myself, the dark side of the moon. 

This I did for years, in therapy and out.

But then at some point, just in these last couple of months, I’d gotten tired of this. I realize now it's because I was done with this phase.  I even quit traditional therapy, telling my therapist I was tired of seeing the dark, the sad and the fixable in everything.

This was a few weeks ago. I wasn’t sure what was to come next. 

Here is where I was sitting as I saw the face of Antonio. 

I tried this on for the rest of the day and then on into the week. I called Antonio into other places and moments, when I got a parking ticket or ran into somebody I didn’t have time to talk to at the store. 

I realized, just like that, instead of grumble, grumble, grumble, I could shift my day just by shifting my perspective.

This is not positive thinking.

Doesn’t make the ticket go away. I still have to figure out how to take care of myself in uncomfortable socials situations.

It is simply seeing something on top of. It is seeing light instead of dark as the umbrella. It is shifting the paradigm overlay. It is the lens through which I can choose to look.

Funny how this works: I have been much happier.

(Who is Antonio, by the way? I found out yesterday from a friend who used to live in Pittsburg that Antonio is likely Antonio Brown of the Steelers; she said he’d been in the news recently. “Oh please tell me he didn’t do something awful!” I moaned. Thankfully, it seems only that he is considering leaving the Steelers, and he's doing so respectfully.)

Sorry, Steelers, but thanks, Antonio!

And that's my truth.