STEPPER was here

Wyatt and Daphne are 10 & 8!

2017-11-21T11:12:00.000-07:00

Wyatt and Daphne have always LOVED sharing a birthday.

Daphne brags that she was Wyatt's birthday gift.

They are best friends - a relationship that has been my absolute pleasure to watch from the first time Wyatt looked dubiously at that tiny dark-haired infant to last night and my last chance to say goodbye to and get a hug from my beautiful 7 & handsome 9 year old...

(...for they would change in the night - and become my 8 & 10 year olds).

0 & 2

1 & 3

2 & 4

3 & 5

4 & 6

5 & 7

6 & 8

7 & 9

And...this morning..I give you...

8 & 10!

This birthday is a big deal for both of them. Wyatt has entered double digits - and Daphne is 8, which is the age we are able to be baptised in the LDS church.

I'm so proud of both of them. It's hard - the evening before their birthdays. I hate saying goodbye to my 7 year old Daphne and my 9 year old Wyatt. But I assure them as I hug them maybe a little bit too tight - that I am very excited to meet 8 year old Daphne and 10 year old Wyatt!

So far, so good!

Here Comes the Shift

2017-09-12T12:31:00.001-06:00

October House, June '17

Life, man.

Life.

Isn't it interesting how the borders of the phases of our lives become clear only as we approach the overlap? And how we don't often see the full shape of the thing until the living of it is over and done?

I'm approaching the border. I can feel it like the charged hum of a force field. The closer I get, the more tingle in my bones. The deeper the ache in my heart, and the more insistent the leaping in my brain!

This last phase—the one we are almost leaving—was a heavy one. Now, seeing more clearly the shape of it, I can name it: Waiting. During Waiting, I went down into myself. Dormant. Hibernating. Alive, but mostly digesting. Dreaming. Making ready. I only recognized this when I felt myself start to wake up a couple of weeks back. Not fully awake and stretching, not yet. More like the flutter of eyelids - that cozy half-dreaming state where reality starts to crash in at the borders of the dreams, and things feel very surreal and slippery, but still safe. That deep gut anticipation, that subconscious knowing that Awake is near, but not yet. You're not fully here, yet.

And the next phase also has a name: October House. October House is one of the big ones - I feel it stone strong. October House is a core event in our lives. Like when Bill proposed, and the landscape of my soul settled into place. Like when those two blue lines appeared, and I half-noticed my trembling hands as I hit my knees to empty out my grateful soul to my Father who gave us this forever thing that we now were: Parents. Mother. Forever. Like the permanent change to our little dynamic when 3 became 4...then 5...then 6.

It seems strange to put a house on par with these events in my life. But it's not the house itself. It's what the house *is*. And I feel the same kind of permanent shift. This is a new beginning for our family that ultimately changes everything.

October House.

As big as New York was for us.

I don't know if it's the house itself. I don't know if it's who we'll know there. Neighbors, our ward family. I don't know if it's an opportunity that will come as a result that makes this change such a big one. I don't know. Doesn't matter. Because even though I don't know, I KNOW. You know?

Less than two weeks.

In less than two weeks, our lives change again.

October House.

Half of my Heart (Pt. 1)

2017-07-05T16:22:00.000-06:00

Bill's cousin's high school graduation announcement arrived in the mail. We ooh'd and ahh'd at how gorgeous she looked, how smart. How strange it felt that the smiling little girl who always tirelessly played with my babies at the annual family reunion was now this tall, womanly thing! She can't possibly be 10 years older when we obviously haven't aged a day, right? We stared at her picture and I felt the rush of the train thunder in my chest as time laid track after merciless track.

I have wanted to show off my beautiful Seattle to my children for years. Wyatt had been when he was a toddler, but now we had these four beautiful, adventure loving and AWARE humans who hadn't seen the splendor of the emerald city. They knew their mother's heart was constantly being pulled between Seattle and Manhattan. It was a part of me. It's where their father grew up. It was a part of our family culture.

"What if we went? Wouldn't it be fun and unexpected to just...show up?"

Bill smiled and gave a little laugh. He looked up from the picture at me. We were both grinning like joking fools, but our eyes said more. What if? and then Why not?

We would be in the Seattle, Washington area for a day and a half. Two days to get there, two days to get back, and only a long weekend to spare. But oh, we would FILL those 36 hours with GREEN and PACIFIC NORTHWEST AIR and SPACE NEEDLE! Bill made a list of our must-do's. We'd rank them in order of importance, and we'd work down the list as best we could, and anything we didn't get to...well, there would just have to be a next time. A longer next time. And soon.

The very non-negotiable top spot on our list was: visit with family. After that, at the top of the list I placed: Pike Place Market (oh, how I loved that magical place as a girl!), taking the kids to Grandpa Mac and Grandma Martha's graves. Bill's list contributions included a visit to the old house in Sammamish and a Wibleys Burger.

We would pass through Sammamish on our way in, so we decided to show the kids where dad grew up first thing.

"I can't believe how small everything feels," Bill said as we navigated the up-downs of hilly Sammamish.

I didn't know what he was talking about, though I did like the way he looked as he leaned into the dashboard to get the fullest view from the windshield. That little boy look. Bill is a rugged, hard working and capable man. Have you seen his beard and his arms? Swoon! But he's never afraid to let his inner child take the wheel now and again. It makes his eyes spark. I leaned into the dash, trying to match his angle. I peered out the window. Small differences, maybe. This was a green and growing place. But mostly it all looked the same to me.

"It's like...like everything feels condensed," Bill said.

"It doesn't look different to me," I said, and felt apology in my words. We turned up the steep hill leading to his old house, and I remembered him telling me what an epic hill that had been in his youth. Walking down it to go to school, and then having to truck back up again afterward. Navigating it as a new driver. I remembered what a beast it had been during the icy months of our courtship. I tried to see it again as little tussle-haired Bill would at Wyatt's age. Wyatt would be oblivious to the struggle of the nearby cars trying to navigate up or down that scary steep angle. He'd only have eyes for the adventure it meant.

"You are looking at it with your man eyes!" I said. Bill looked at me. "That's why it doesn't look different to me. I was already grown up and boring when I came here for the first time. You were a kid, here. Your kid eyes remember."

There was a familiar prick in my chest. I once again found myself heartbroken and desperately wanting to care for and protect that little boy inside this man that I love. To be there for him somehow during all he would go through far too young.

We stopped for a time at the old house. Bill insisted that it, too, looked smaller. I actually thought it might look a little bit bigger than I remembered. I had been so impressed that Bill's family of six...and then five...had beenin that three bedroom rambler together and had never moved. One house for his entire childhood! Imagine!

I pulled out my phone and took some creepy stalker pictures of the place, trying to look non-threatening to the neighbors who were gathered in a clump across the street, visiting. I wanted pictures of this man standing in front of this too-small house where he had been a boy. I wanted to make permanent a little piece of what was going on right now on our little world. Our children, being introduced to the place where their father had been their ages. All of their ages. And my husband. That man I am crazy about. Looking at this place of so much and too much and sometimes not enough. The man and the boy. Looking.

(...more from our trip, to be continued!)

Throwaway Hill

2017-03-01T20:55:00.002-07:00

Bill once suggested to me that there was no such thing as a wasted year.

That when you looked back with grime and fog free eyes, you could see growth. You could see where the seams slid together and where the bulges and fractures fit to make the pattern more—not less—complete.

I took comfort in the idea. What if there really was no standing still? What if that breathless feeling after the sudden loss of momentum was just an illusion; like a theme park ride. What if the changing—the real changing—could be taking place at a cellular level and was safely away from the naked eye?

What if the last twelve months of my life were not a throwaway year? And the idea that I would throw it away offended the cosmos on a very personal level, because HELLO! Major shift happening down in your atoms, thank you very much!

This is something I've learned but apparently will keep on learning: Hindsight has a very powerful focus lense.

(I picture my team in the heavens shaking their heads in affectionate exasperation at me, already prepping the next lesson in Hindsight. Ah, our Stepper! She's so cute when she doesn't realise she's being dense!)

Even so.

Even so, this last year has felt very much like that feeling I get in dreams, sometimes, where I know I can fly but I can't seem to take off. I can feel it so deeply in my bones—I can fly!—and my desire to push myself away from the earth and shake off gravity's hold on me is so deliciously intense I am CERTAIN if I could just get up enough speed, if I could just jump at the exact right time and at the right angle I would feel the air push beneath me like a wing and I would soar! So high, so fast tears would stream sideways along my cheeks and into my ears. My teeth would feel cold from laughing in the high air. I've FELT this before. I KNOW this part of me.

But in too many of my dreams, I run with abandon down the grassy hill only to crash into the trees in frustration and bewilderment. The sky is mine. I know I belong above these tangled trees, moving with the beating breaths of the wind, but I beat myself against the ground trying. Why can't I JUST. TAKE. OFF?!

And then the world shifts and suddenly I realize that all along, I was just standing at the top of the wrong hill. For a whole year - just on the wrong hill.

MY hill is over here. And on this hill...I can fly!

NOV 08, 2016 - History Has its Eyes on You

2016-11-08T14:29:00.001-07:00

I suppose today is historic, though to me today and everything leading up to today has been nothing but surreal.

I felt overwhelmed as soon as I left my car and began picking my way through groups of High School students to the front door of the high school I graduated from all those years ago. It felt weird to be back. It felt weird to be an "adult" among all of these perfect, hopeful teenagers - and it felt weird to see how invisible that made me to them. It felt weird to be walking toward this decision - having only a rough idea of how this was going to go down for me.

I took comfort in the anonymity of the crowd. I could stand in a line and think.

It both helped and made things infinitely worse to have Hamilton running through my head on repeat. Jefferson or Burr? Here comes the general! Rise up! I AM NOT THROWING AWAY MY SHOT!

But as the fuzzy edges of my surroundings grew sharper and the line moved forward, I realized that I was being an idiot. There was no anonymity in this crowd. These were my neighbors. My community. I was STANDING IN LINE NEXT TO my neighbor, and another neighbor jumped in line right behind me. Ahead, I could see another cluster of my people - my old YW advisor, my kid's primary teacher, etc. etc. We all started chatting - the nervous chatter of people who felt a bit startled by the familiarity and the complete unpredictability of what we were doing.

I start thinking about George Washington. That guy was something else. And I'm thinking - was he one of a kind? An impossible standard? Or are we just not looking hard enough?

Then SHE came and stood in line with us. I don't want to use names because this whole experience to me felt abrasively personal - and I don't feel I have the right.

But SHE is 18. Absolutely stunning. I love both of her parents (her whole family!) so much - and I've watched her on Sundays -- how she is with the Young Women. This girl is gold. And here she was, her very first election. This political situation is what she's had to wade through for her very first election.

I have never been a very political person. I care - but I don't rant or rally or attempt to reason. I vote my conscience and that's that. I never tell anyone who I vote for. I don't even tell my cute husband who I vote for. But considering HER and how she was following me into the fray as she mused about the ticker tape and the electronic ballot boxes...I was swept away again by such a strong tide of emotion.

This keeps happening this election.

I was swept into a feeling of complete desperation. I wanted to protect her - protect all of these high schoolers who surrounded our somber line in the hall of their school. We were on their turf, making decisions that affected them, and here she was...girl of gold I was desperate to prevent from tarnishing.

It's a mess, I wanted to say. It's a mess and I'm sorry! It's not supposed to be like this - candidates for presidency are supposed to stand for something. They're supposed to be unselfish and serving. Sacrificing and sincere. Human and flawed, yes, but better than this.

They're supposed to love this nation - in its own kind of young-adulthood - and want so desperately so many things for it. Not just things for themselves. There is supposed to be hope.

Today doesn't feel hopeful so much as it feels like we're all roping ourselves down, hoping the storm passes without causing too much permanent damage.

I know not everyone feels this way - for some today is thrilling and feels like the culmination of important work. For some today contains the hope of something bright.

But me?

I look at my awesome kids, and I think...we are on their turf. And I am woefully unable to keep the gold from tarnishing.

Once More With Feeling!

2016-06-21T22:53:00.001-06:00

Hi, My name is Stepper!

Yes, Stepper. 

It is unusual, thank you curious person.

Thank you, I like it, too complimentary person! 

Oh, you think it's weird, grimacing person? Well, that's allowed; though I think it's no weirder than many of them names you hear on them streets nowdays!

Stepper. Like the song. Like the exercise equipment. Like the mechanical doohickey.

Not Steffer (ugh!).

Not Deborah (???).

If you knew me when I was Stephanie, call me that! If you knew me when I was Sunni, call me that! I seriously love it! I love hearing my names from people who knew me during different times in my life. It makes me feel closer to you. 

My parents and my siblings (and certain other family members and close friends) get to call me whatever they want! They've earned that right because they know all the me's. 

It doesn't feel weird for them to call me any of my names. 

But if we've just met? And you do a double take because my name is WHAT now? I'm happy to repeat it for you, and pleased when you repeat it back to me to get it right - but please don't decide that you don't want to call me Stepper because it feels weird to you, so you're going to call me some cute variation on the theme because obviously I don't care if I'm going around being called random things. 

It's not random. 

It's my name. 

And I do care. 

Thank you and high five!

(Where did my nickname come from? I'm glad you asked! learn about it HERE.)

A Working List of the ABSOLUTE WORST Ways to be Woken Up

2016-06-09T13:26:00.002-06:00

IN THE MORNING

Your bony 8 year old launching himself (complete with sound effects) onto your bed and, consequently, your ankles.
ANYONE uttering the phrase: "Mom, can I play on your iPad?"
The sounds of the garbage truck...when I forgot to take out the garbage.
The sounds of something crash-breaking in the kitchen.
The sounds of kids arguing/fighting.
a fly/bee/mosquito buzzing near your head.
The realization that you are very late for the important thing you were going to wake up early for needling its way into your subconscious and slamming a book down in your brain.
ANYTHING when you were just getting to the good part of the dream.

ANY TIME

Your neighbor's pool party that carried into the wee hours, and the screams of delight are turned by your twisted sleeping brain into the horrified screams of your children.
The phone ringing
The apocalypse.

My Pregnant Climb into the McDonalds Play Structure

2016-06-07T21:34:00.002-06:00

A true story.

Once upon a time, I was expecting our Hattie with enormity. By that, I both mean that I was hugely excited, and also that I was huge.

I give you: exhibit A.

Bill had a work meeting in a far off land (Ogden), so the kids and I got up very early in the AM to drop him off at the train. So I decided as a fun impromptu treat to take the kids to McDonalds for breakfast and to let them play for a while.

We got there so early that there were no other children—but more than a few senior citizens—and so after their breakfast, the kids got to play alone on the play structure (what Bill calls the "big toy") for a good 20 minutes before more kids came. It was such a treat for me! A quiet play experience at McDonalds? Nirvana!

Finally, other kids did show up. But the kids that come in the morning are MUCH calmer and nicer than the lunch crowd, I've decided.

Henry decided in an impressive burst of courage that he wanted to go on The Big One. The large "two story" twisty slide that began at the top, bypassed the middle, and ended all the way back at ground level next to the shoe time-out. Wyatt kindly offered to show his brother how to make the climb. Henry followed him all the way to the top where he promptly dropped to his stomach, clung to the plastic, porous floor and was stuck.

Henry is afraid of heights. Like me.

When he got to the top, and he could look down and see how high up he was (Was that Mom way down there, peering up at him, the size of an ant?) and the big dark gaping O mouth of the slide, Henry got wise. There was no. Freaking. Way.

He hugged himself to the platform, his little fingers clinging through the little holes, and cried.

I was, if you recall, NOT the size of an ant. I was the size of a whale.

I tried sending both Wyatta nd Daphne up to help him, but Henry is nothing if not stubborn, and only shrieked louder for all their attempts.

There was even a nice older boy who saw our situation and offered to carry him down, but Henry screamed at him when he tried to approach. If you are a boy who is older, but still pretty young and you are met with a terrified and SCREAMING Henry, nobody blames you for backing slowly away. Henry's screams pack a mean punch.

The thing that made me screw up my face the most, however, were the other moms. There were a few of them, grouped together on the other side of the seating area. They watched me and sniggered. It wasn't the gentle laugh of understanding that often passes between mother to mother strangers when one of the children is causing the kind of trouble that is all to familiar to all mothers. The hang in there Mama, you've got this and we've all been there! laugh.

No, this was the self-righteous no kid of mine would ever create that gawd-awful sound, glad I'm not you type of laugh. No comaraderie. No apologetic glance. And, more to the point, NO HELP.

Finally, faced with no other option, I hauled my adult-sized pregnant-bellied self up the winding play structure, doing my best to ignore the now fully audible sniggering below me (in full view, I feared, of my currently unforgiving backside), and saved my son.

His little fingers only released their power grip on the platform when they darted toward me to cling around my neck. His wails turned to sobs. His face was red and his eyes were wild. His hair sweaty. Descending the play structure with my boy wrapped around my unyielding frame was no easy feat. By the time I made it back to my booth, I was exhausted, red faced and sweaty myself.

We sat there together for a time, holding each other. I spoke soft and low in his year, I've got you. Your'e okay. I get it, I don't like heights either. And his softening sobs unknowingly whispered to my heart, I've got you, too, Mom. Those moms over there might have thought you were ridiculous, but not me. Thank you for coming for me.

And it came to me then, one of those unsuspecting life lessons. I knew in that moment that no matter who was watching or laughing, and no matter what impossible obstacle; I would always be there for my kids if ever they found themselves a little bit stuck.

Just a Comma, Not a Full Stop

2016-06-06T21:31:00.002-06:00

I haven't quit.

100 days of blog posts. But, okay - perhaps not exactly consecutive days. Because here's what I've realized:

Sometimes, you gotta take your family to Zion National park and wander around the weird feather-brushed bubble rocks and marvel at the Three Patriarchs and throw rocks into the river while mom does her very very best to STOP imagining flash floods.

Sometimes you have to unplug.

Sometimes you decide to take a week for yourself after said unplugged time to just...mentally breathe. School is out. The kids are now officially ALL MINE for the summer.

I've been indulgent.

And when it came time for my evening posting...that little voice in my mind would say "not just yet" and I'd happily comply because it felt good. It felt right to just...hit the pause button.

But not the power.

So.

100 posts is the promise. And NEARLY every day, I think, is a do-able time-frame.

And away we go!

Tales from the Crib

2016-05-27T22:49:00.000-06:00

My Secret Minecraft Crush

2016-05-26T00:34:00.001-06:00

I've got a weird, inexplicable obsession with Minecraft.

Okay - I am late to the party or whatever. But Wy started to learn about it when he began going to public school CLEAR BACK (two years) in Kindergarten.

I'd heard about it before. My cousin's son dressed up as Steve for halloween one time. I was like, Oh, yeah, Minecraft. With the square people that carry around pickaxes, right?

But I wasn't interested.

In my defense, I also knew that ZOMBIES were somehow involved. And these green explody guys that always looked just really really MAD at you.

That sounded stressful. No thanks.

But - Wy started showing interest, and—ever the dutiful mother—I allowed him to choose a minecraft how-to type of book for his one pick during the book fair that year.

And I mentioned to the husband that we maybe oughta look into what this minecraft game thingy is because Wyatt was into it. What gaming platform is it on, anyway? Because I don't think I can handle my kindergartner playing on my super awesome MAC.

Enter iPad versions.

I sorta watched from the sidelines. Peeking over his shoulder as he and his siblings poured over the endless expanse of the Minecraft terrain. They were finding things and building things and...

and...

AND...

I realized like a 2x4 to the face that THIS MINECRAFT GAME WAS BASICALLY LEGOS MEETS OREGON TRAIL!

I could not GET on board with that fast enough.

Enter: Stepper purchases the bona fide version for her Mac.

And oh, I love it! It's so relaxing!!! And weirdly validating...I build these really cool estates for my adventurer with stables and gardens and...

...I've mentioned I really want a house of my own, right?

Anyway. I may or may not play Minecraft more than the kids.

And the suggestion of "lets have a minecraft party and all play in our worlds at the same time!" each Sunday may or may not always be made by me.

The kids might have had a minecraft themed birthday party last year wherein we made perler bead pickaxes and swords and creeper heads. I may have made a bunch more for the heck of it after the party was over.

I might actually get really annoyed when I'm deep into my world finding DIAMONDS among the lava pools and whatnot and I have to stop and ADULT because it's bedtime.

Stupid bedtime.

If you're shaking your head at me right now, may I remind you: I AM A NERD and have never professed to be otherwise, so really none of this should shock you. It's like you don't know me at all.

(Come over! We'll get to know each other, better. Maybe play a little Minecraft! You know. If it comes up.)

Dear Mere, I Fear My Spots Are Showing

2016-05-24T21:14:00.001-06:00

Dear Mere,

I have been thinking about you a lot, lately. You've been gone for a year, now. One year two weeks three days. It makes me happy to think of you, freed from your failing frame and all fiery and red, again. I imagine you look like the pictures of you I used to study, tucked away in photo books. You looked like a movie star in those photos! They were always in greys or sepias, but Grandpa told me so many stories of your auburn locks that I always only ever saw them in color. Warm auburn hair and cheeks rosy with all the thoughts that twinkled behind your eyes.

That boy next door.

I can see the front of your house where you and your bestie Naoma would park yourselves so you could get a look at that boy next door, and, more importantly, so that he could get a good look at you.

Grandpa really didn't stand a chance! Did he?!

I heard another story a few weeks back that made me wonder, again, about guardian angels. Which, naturally, made me think of you. I think you'd like nothing better than to have that job on the other side. Guarding your precious children, grandchildren, great grandchildren. I don't know how jobs get assigned on the other side, but I'm sure Grandpa would agree that if it wasn't your first assignment, you'd likely find a way to convince them!

I have wondered if - and like to imagine that - you are Hattie's guardian angel.

I know you died after she was born. You knew her (though in the failings of your well-worn mind, you always thought she was a boy. But she clung to you and smiled at all of your compliments on her handsomeness just the same. Funny how it didn't seem to matter to either of you, the particulars of gender or names - you were just absolutely in love with each other). But I imagine whomever was assigned to Hattie waved you over, showed you the ropes and said, "I've kept the bench warm for you" or something like.

I wonder this because every time I sing Hattie her lullabye, "Manhattan", I feel you. Maybe it was our shared love of music, or the way she watches me as I sing (a lot like the way you used to watch me every time I played the violin for you - quiet pleasure). But I sit on the edge of Daphne's bed and press my cheek to hers, and in that moment everything is calm and safe and love - just like your house. I sing my song, and I imagine you nodding in approval that I took my time. No rushing. No skipping verses. Let the song live. And Hattie doesn't rush me either. Just quiet patient pleasure, and the veil feels so very, very thin.

And Hattie is our little sunspot. She is happy to the point of it being remarkable. So it follows that you're hanging around, watching out for her safety, but also doing that thing you do that always made us all feel so safe and loved and capable of absolutely anything. That thing where you made me feel like I was the most amazing, talented and special person that ever lived. Hattie seems to have that calm assurance that the future is bright and soon there will be peeled apple slices or homemade spice cake with pinoche icing. Any minute now.

So I like to think your'e here, just here over my shoulder, brushing a strand of her golden locks away from her ear as I bend over to count those glorious long black eyelashes.

I like to imagine your smile as we sit in the church pew and Henry lies in my lap and asks me to trace his face, the way you used to do that I loved so much, taking extra time around the lips.

I like to think it's you calming her when hattie startles in the night but stops crying before we can get there.

At the same time...I wonder. If it's you...I can't help but wonder if you're hanging out with my little sunspot all the time if you've seen me. I wonder if you've seen me when I'm not a very good mom. When I lose my cool with a tantrum. Or give them cereal for dinner because I'm too tired and apathetic to create a meal. I wonder if you see me spend too long scrolling through Facebook and get up too soon from playing on the floor with my girls. I wonder if you see me get actually angry at other drivers when they make a bad call on the road. You always thought I was so sweet, such a good mom. I can't help but wonder if you'd be disappointed to see me at my day-to-day mediocre.

I don't play the violin you loved so well nearly as often as I'd like.

I don't paint with my kids...I cringe when they use sidewalk chalk because of the mess. We don't generally have well thought-out and crafty Family Home Evenings. We just did when we had them with you, because it was special. I give my kids suckers in the car. You always hated it when any of us would walk around with a sucker stick hanging from our mouths. What if we fell! I keep cutting my hair short, though I promise I still have red-head pride! I know you loved it long. And Mere, I drink WAY too much diet coke!

I'm just not amazing. Not the way you always made me believe I could be. Not yet - though I do try. So. I suppose that's something. I hope you are not too disappointed. Though, as far as guardian angel gigs go, you really couldn't do much better than Hattie. Because—as I'm sure you're aware!—that girl is HILARIOUS!

(But perhaps we could work together on her obsession with cats?)

Always,

--S

A Good Read

2016-05-23T21:49:00.000-06:00

Today, if I may, I'd like to refer you to an awesome story I've been thoroughly enjoying: A Rose Mary Stretch of the Imagination.

Get this.

It's the story of Watergate told from the perspective of Nixon's secretary, Rose Mary. Which is fascinating enough - but THEN you add the fact that it's being told via the title tracks from the Built to Spill album Keep it Like a Secret, and it's just a whole thing.

PLUS it's written by my cute husband, Bill.

Who is a wonderful storyteller.

He just published "track 9" (Temporarily Blind).

Collect them all!

1. The Plan
2. Center of the Universe
3. Carry the Zero
4. Sidewalk
5. Bad Light
6. Time Trap
7. Else
8. You Were Right
9. Temporarily Blind
10. Broken Chairs (coming soon!)

Meme for Thought...

2016-05-21T21:52:00.000-06:00

Just popping in briefly to say...

2016-05-20T20:00:00.000-06:00

...that sometimes...life goes as wonky as trying to fold a fitted sheet.

Sometimes you just gotta try to put the ends together and see if you can make it act square so it'll fit in the stupid cupboard.

As you were.

Pink

2016-05-19T20:42:00.001-06:00

Today I dyed my daughter's hair pink.

She's 6.

I never in a million years would have thought I'd EVER allow my young daughter to do something so...vain! So for-grown-ups!

But...

The thing is...

She totally rocks it.

It's subtle - just the underside of her nut-brown bob. You can't even see it unless she swishes her hair or pulls it up.

And it's doesn't feel vain. It feels...rock and roll.

And you know what? We both really needed to do it. We both needed just a little bit of abandon, today.

A little bit of who-cares.

A healthy dose of because-we-can.

And a good solid hour of Mom and Daughter time where we squealed over the vibrancy of the goop we were slathering onto her tresses, pulled faces at each other in the mirror, and watched Joanna and Chip Gaines make my dream come true for someone else.

I am kind of considering moving to Waco Texas just so I can ask them to do a fixer upper for me.

Sigh.

Maybe I need a little pink in my hair, too.

(cue Aerosmith)

My People

2016-05-18T23:21:00.004-06:00

The Other Stephanie

2016-05-17T23:50:00.001-06:00

When I tell you that when I was younger, I made a new friend and that almost as suddenly as she became my friend, she altogether stopped being my friend; and then I tell you this confusing thing happened when I was in Jr. High, you'll probably go, well, duh!

(And you'll probably also go nice sentence structure. NOT! Because we're all flashing back to Jr. High for the purposes of this story.)

We were both named Stephanie. Which is kind of how the conversation started. Or at least that's what I remember latching on to because I was pretty weirded out that Stephanie would approach me. Same name, but different as can be.

Picture The Other Stephanie. Soft blond hair always falling in perfect curls around her shoulders. Effortlessly cool style, pretty smile with (don't ask me how at this age!) perfectly straight, white teeth. Dark, thick eyelashes over clear blue eyes. A dimple that somehow made her seem older. Constantly being chatted up by the fellas.

Now picture me. Thick curly red hair with a mind of its own. Wardrobe style that sometimes approached cool (the hand-me-downs from my legitimately cool older sister) but most of the time was what I would later learn was called eclectic. Mouth of tin working on fixing my square-bite grin. Freckles for miles. Pretty much felt like "the fellas" were a completely different species.

I was a bonafide nerd, even back then (before that was cool). Looking back with the annoyingly awesome accuracy of retrospect, I can see that I was in fact a pretty cool kid. At the time, though, the idea of "cool" was very much what other people were. After all, in Jr. High, being different was the quickest way to get tagged for execution.

I was goofy. Stephanie was glorious. So when she approached me out of the blue to ask if I wanted to come hang out at her house, I sort of skipped over the deep sense of shock and confusion, and launched right into curious excitement.

We lived a few streets apart, and we saw each other every week on Sundays. Most of the time, the "cool kids" kept their church and school friends separate. I wasn't that sophisticated about compartmentalizing my life. Friends were friends. I had a small circle of really good ones. Church or school or running around the neighborhood, we'd just pick up where we left off with each other.

So when Stephanie invited me to her house, I figured I had somehow managed to bridge the church vs. state line. After all, she had never been mean to me. She wasn't like that. She had always just been indifferent.

We made plans, and I raced home after school to okay it with Mom, who was (huge relief!) happy to make the transportation arrangements.

Stephanie and I became inseparable. Laughing over the name thing became a running joke with us. We taught each other tricks on my neighbor's trampoline (I owe my knee-flip to her, and I taught her how to stare up at the sky and fall spread-eagle onto your back and pretend you were falling from space to get that tummy-flopping vertigo feeling). We hung out in her tree-house. We watched movies and compared notes on younger siblings and asked our moms for snacks.

I was filled with the thrill of the newness of this friendship, and how fast and how completely we got along with each other. She was not aloof at all! She was hilarious and friendly and a lot of fun to be around.

Then, after one week (an eternity in Jr. High time) it all ended. I called out to her in the hall of lockers before school started one morning, and she ignored me. I guessed she probably didn't hear me. So I walked right up to her to say hey, and to see if she wanted to go hiking around the foothills after school.

She was standing in a small group of people. Her other friends, who never really wanted much to do with me. I said, "Hi, Stephanie!" and then was launched head first into bizarro land. She looked right at me, face unreadable, and then turned and walked away. Her friends followed her, sniggering. One of them raised an eyebrow at me, as if to say, really? You think she'd talk to you? Gimme a break. I stood there staring after them as they walked away, heart pounding. I didn't even think to be insulted, I was just so grievously confused.

For a while, I was sure I was just missing something. I willed it to be some sort of game, or at worst, a misunderstanding. Maybe there had been some kind of miscommunication about arrangements to hang-out and I had missed it and she was mad at me. There had to be some explanation. In my experience, friendship didn't just turn on and off like a faucet. I was going to get to the bottom of it.

I tried approaching her a few times - again in the hall, one time in a class we shared. At recess. - I was met with the same blank-look-turn-away. Sometimes no acknowledgement at all.

So I wrote her a note. In the note, I told her that if I had done something to upset her, I was sorry. I would love a chance to redeem myself. I valued our friendship, I missed hanging out. I pulled my heart off my sleeve and stuffed it inside that envelope. I waited until I saw her at her locker, exchanging books for the next class. I thought if I tried to hand it to her, it would likely be ignored. So I waited until she closed her locker and turned to go, and I walked up to her, put my letter on the pile of books in her arms, and walked away. Maybe if I wasn't looking, she wouldn't just throw it away. Maybe she'd read it and see I was sorry for whatever and see that it was all a mistake and I'd get my own note slipped through the grate holes of my locker.

Days passed. Weeks. Eventually I stopped trying to say hi to her in the halls. Eventually, I stopped noticing where she sat at lunch, whether or not she was in class that day. Eventually, I accepted my post once again in the ranks of the obsolete.

It bothered me for a long time. I wasn't lonely, I had some really amazing people I got to call my friends. The sort of people who talked to you even when they were mad at you, and if you wrote them a note they'd write you one back.

It wasn't so much the ending of the friendship that bothered me. It was not knowing why.

It was easy to say it was because I wasn't popular and she was. But I had gotten to know her during that week of The Stephanies. She had opened up to me. That was real. And that's what bothered me so much about it. After all, in the beginning, she had approached me.

Years and years and years later, just needing to assign some sort of meaning to the story so it could have a proper ending and I could stop feeling so bewildered by it all, I decided that I had been a project. Probably a service project she needed to complete for her Young Women's values at church. I was a check mark next to "pick a person who you think is probably pretty pathetic and do service to them for one whole week."

Week over. Check.

The truth is, I'll never know what went down between me and the Other Stephanie. But that experience taught me something about my own vulnerability. And it shaped how I view and value friendship. I have had some truly remarkable friends in my life, and I think I may not have been able to fully grasp the miracle of a true, real friend if I hadn't experienced the other thing.

10 Fears

2016-05-16T22:26:00.002-06:00

My kids walking too close to the edge of anything high. If they get too close to the glass paned edge on the second level of the mall, my legs go all wobbly.
Bridges over water. Not the kind you walk over - those are cool. The ones you drive over. My mind immediately goes there.
Public Speaking when I don't have/am not allowed to use my notes. I can get up in front of a crowd as long as I have every word i'm going to say written down. Even if I don't use it! Take that away, and every single thing in my brain goes with it.
the slimy juices from uncooked chicken.
My kids choking.
Those fake-o "characters" on Times Square.
Being vastly and unjustly misunderstood.
Being invisible. Being just completely...unseen.
Sunburns.
At the end of my life, realizing I just "ended up." I didn't live deliberately, didn't take chances, didn't GO FOR IT. Instead, I just existed.

Bulletproof

2016-05-15T21:58:00.000-06:00

"I want to be bulletproof." I said.

Even as I said it, I wasn't 100% sure what it meant. I only knew it meant nothing could hurt me, and that was the end game I had in mind. I had set my life on a path that required a lot of vulnerability. And I was bone-weary of getting clobbered. The last attack had taken me out of the game for over a week (my head was still humming with how needlessly personal the attack had been as I sat in that giant leather chair). I needed to find that sweet spot between putting myself out there and not letting anyone get too close. That elusive line I was sure existed as a tightrope that—with practice—I would learn to walk with ease as the woman of steel.

Janey raised her eyebrow at me.

I was preparing mentally for her to ask me, "what do you mean by that?" so that I could launch into what I thought it meant, where I needed more exploring, what I wanted to accomplish. I'd show her I was ready to learn this next step, and like a good sensei, she'd show me the path.

Instead, she sat back in her chair and let her pen drop onto her notepad with a thwack.

"Oh, you don't want that."

I was taken aback. I felt my eyebrows stitch together perplexed and tried to ignore Defensive Stepper where she was eagerly raising her hand from the back of the room. Call on me! Call on ME! I know this one!

Something about the way Janey had flumped back into her seat had disarmed me. Suddenly, I wasn't in my therapist's office. I was having a conversation about an idea with a good friend. A friend who had already managed to untangle the phrase I had been grappling with for weeks—bulletproof—and knew well enough to know I didn't know what I was talking about.

"I don't?" I asked.

She shook her head, considering me. "Well, you could. But, the cost would be too high for you."

So...my suspicions were correct. Bullet proof was possible. I just really wanted it to be that easy. Some technique I could learn that would release me from the obligation of the messy parts of dealing with people. I wanted to actually learn how to really and truly not care what anyone thought! Oh, what a fine superpower that would be! What freedom!

But deep down, that super honest (sometimes annoying) part of me knew all that was total crap. Yes, for some people it might work (I bet Sociopaths are awesome at it!). But according to Janey, for me, specifically, the cost would be too high. I felt a harp-string pluck of affection for Janey reverberate through me. She's been my therapist for a couple of years now (off and on) so it's not surprising that she has come to know me so well. But I still get all warm and glowy when I feel that someone truly gets me.

"Alright," I said. "What cost?"

If I wasn't going to get to learn how to be bulletproof, I was definitely going to understand why not becoming bulletproof was a better idea. So help me!

And this, friends, is what launched me on my current quest to understand vulnerability.

Turns out I was mistaken. Vulnerability is not a weakness. It's not a chink in the armor. IT IS THE ARMOR!

It's the freaking armor, people.

(...to be continued...)

Spirit Animal

2016-05-14T21:00:00.001-06:00

Sometimes you pop into the charming toy store after dinner out with the family.

Sometimes you are browsing for birthday ideas for your almost 2 year old.

Sometimes you accidentally see this handsome fellow and accidentally fall totes in love with him.

Sometimes your husband grins adoringly at you while you launch into a very convincing arguments with yourself about why you super don't need this sloth; not the least of them being the fact that you are a *grown up woman*.

Sometimes your freakishly adorable husband sneaks off to buy the toy he picked out for Hattie's birthday and gets you the sloth because OF THE FUN.

(Looka dat face!)

(No, not that one. THAT one!)

Embarrassing admission...

2016-05-13T21:45:00.000-06:00

...by the time you read this, I will have completed all 9 seasons of the OFFICE, which I started watching because I was bored one day while I was folding laundry.

The first time I watched an episode, I absolutely hated it.

Now it's easily among my top 10.

I was startled the first time it made me cry.
I was fascinated by the curve that my disgust with Michael Scott took to land me firmly on the side of genuinely liking, caring for and rooting for him.
I was heartily invested in the relationship between Jim and Pam; but was so delighted by being equally emotionally invested in the relationship between Dwight and Angela.
It was alarming and hilarious how many of the caricatures in that show were recognizable people in my own life experiences!
And that scene when one of the camera men broke "the rule"??

And yes, I know they're not real people. I know that.

Except that they are.

This is why I am so in love with brilliant storytelling. And why I am so HAPPY to have been wrong wrong wrong about this show!

Turned it on to be distracted. Got majorly compelled.

I laughed. I cried...

I LEARNED SOMETHING!

So tell me. Am I the only one who gets overly emotionally invested in TV show stories? Which are your guilty pleasures? What's on your top 10?

3 - Of New Games, Old Players, and Sinking Ships

2016-05-12T20:52:00.001-06:00

My high school class graduated wearing the traditional cap-and-gown get up. I always thought it was funny that the shapeless robes were called gowns. Wearing a "gown" brings something entirely different to mind than reality of those weird fabric blobs of maroon paired with black squares on our heads.

I get the ancient symbolism, the tradition, la la la.

But standing in the indistinguishable crowd next to my best friend, I billowed out the skirts of my enormous "gown", and said, "You know...a girl could hide a lot of candy in here."

Kel grinned at me. "Contraband!"

And a plan was hatched. We would wear our graduation gowns tonight to the movie theater. We would hide as much candy as we could possibly carry beneath our robes and sneak it all in.

Titanic was riveting. And we felt as rebellious as Jack crossing that social class line. The ticket guy had even said to us as he ripped our stubs, "You guys aren't hiding anything under those robes are you?"

"What do you mean?"
"We're just a couple of nerds who thought it would be funny to wear our robes to the movie theater."
"Look at these faces. Screaming innocence at you!"
"Why, you want some?"

And, still buzzing over the epic grandiosity that was our first viewing of Titanic—King of the World and all—we forgot to respectfully hide our loot upon departure. As we passed the ticket guy again with our bags of bulk peachy-gummy-ohs and gummy frogs and Redvines and peanut butter M&M's, the ticket guy shot an accusing finger at us and said, "Ah-HAH! I knew it! You said you weren't hiding anything under those robes! You LIARS!"

I moved my filled hands guiltily behind my back and felt genuinely bad until I saw his face. His eyes were wild with discovery and he was grinning from ear to ear. So we shrugged our guilty shoulders and held out our wrists for cuffs.

"What can I say? We've graduated!" (Which would be the hilarious excuse for everything until it got old a few days later)
"We are terrible. Terrible people!"
"Yeah, sorry. You want some?"

And to be honest, I don't remember if he took any or not.

But as we left that theater, I remember feeling a little something awaken inside me.

We had in fact graduated.
The titanic had in fact sunk.
We had brought contraband candy into the theater, in the face of all it's warnings. We'd been sort of caught, and we sort of felt bad, but we were also sort of laughing about it.

It was a strange kind of induction to post High School life. A harmless way for the universe to tell us that hey - Life is more real, now. Crazy stuff does happen. Stuff sinks! Even really big, absolutely certain stuff can still sink. And it's okay to question the rules. And yeah, for most people, the friends they run with in High School aren't the same friends they run with in their, say, thirties. But sometimes? People manage to change together instead of change apart, and the friend who sneaks illegal gummy candy into the movie theater when you're 18 is the same friend who comes and hangs out with your sleeping kids at 10:00pm on a Monday night so that you can sneak off on a very overdue date to catch a show with your man.

Sometimes the first person you call when you're 18 is still the first person you call when you're 36.

Some stuff doesn't sink.

(And yes, I totally snuck my healthy popcorn in to the theater. OLD HABITS, YO!)

...2...

2016-05-11T19:02:00.001-06:00

Hattie slept in fitful spurts last night. We moved her from our bed to her bed and back and forth and back again. We stroked her fevered forehead and tried to soothe her raspy throat with cool juice and crossed our fingers that the grape flavored sticky stuff in the tiny syringe would make good on its promises.

It should not be allowed that babies can get colds. It's just too sad! Not to mention the misery it means for the rest of the clan.

Daphne crept in during the wee hours of the morning - worried for her sister and not used to having a room to herself. She asked if she could slide into the already crowded pile, and we all shifted over.

I've gotten really used to balancing on my side on the very edge of the bed.

So today, I woke bleary and achy and foggy. And I don't mind telling you, a tired mama Stepper has more in common with a landmine than not. I wished I could stay in bed.

I wished it would rain.

And all day, I wished I could find something noteworthy to write about for day two of my 100 day project. But it is simply this.

Sick babies + Sick mom = LONG Wednesday.

(head nod)

Carry on!

100 Days pt. 2

2016-05-10T11:02:00.001-06:00

It's time.

This is me, shaking the shoulders of the hibernating Blogging Stepper that has been curled up all warm and protected inside. I've held her close - protectively letting her sleep while I took care of a few things, but now it's time for her to wake up.

Because I can't go ONE MORE DAY tip-toeing breath-held past this part of me.

The part that writes.

I still feel the bluster of it all in my brain: the overwhelm of too much to say circling in leafy swirls with the fear of having nothing to say at all. But doggone it! Sometimes you just can't be bothered with technicalities like what might come out! You just gotta DO IT.

So here it goes. 100 days of blogging. And, come August 18th when I've got 100 posts behind me, maybe all my atrophy will be lean and long. Maybe I'll be re-awakened to why I love this platform, despite all the opinions out there about why blogging is self indulgent, antiquated and laaaaame. Maybe I'll re-find my blogging community.

Maybe!

But here's what I do know.

That hibernating Stepper Inside is NOT the same girl awake today as she was when she went to sleep all those months (years?) ago.

So.

Time to get re-aquainted.