Turn to the Left

As many of you know, my only kiddo - a/k/a The Boy - leaves this week for college.  He’s psyched for it, and somehow his excitement seems to have translated into a penchant for dressing like Hunter S. Thompson:

I love it.

I love it, but I try not to say too much about it.  Parental endorsement of fashion is presumably the last thing an 18 year old kid wants.

Still, between you, me and the blogosphere, I love it just as I love seeing kids with pink or blue or green hair - and I love that there seem to be so many of them now.  I love seeing teens with fearless fashion sense and a creative, offbeat outlook on life.  I love that, at least in some corners of the world, our culture seems to be shifting in a way that allows young people to have fun expressing who they are.

As a teenager, I wanted desperately to let my freak flag fly.  My mother bought me khakis and Keds.  I bought combat boots and lace tights.  Trying to leave the house in my preferred attire was like trying to convince Sarah Palin that Hillary should be our next President.

Mom, horrified:  “You can’t leave the house like that!  You look like that crazy Madonna person.  What will your teachers think?”

Dad, stern:  “You’re ruining your life.  Do you want to be a degenerate?”

I thought this was kind of funny coming from a guy who was a fan of David Bowie and Lou Reed, but clearly what was acceptable in rock star fashion was not acceptable in suburbia.  What I didn’t get was why.  I just wanted to wear combat boots and lace tights.  Maybe occasionally use makeup to turn my massive eyebrows into something deliberately severe, a la Siouxie and the Banshees.  What did any of that have to do with my teachers?  Did I ever say anything about their horrific fashion sense?  Those polyester pant suits and orthopedic shoes seemed to me far more likely to carry one down the road to ruin than the occasional blue streak in my hair.

But damn, folks love to fixate on the superficial.

If I had a nickel for every time I was told to do the very opposite of what I wanted to do - of what felt natural to me - well, I’d have a shitload of nickels.  And for what?  I spent my youth fearful of exploring, constantly told to zip my lip, change my clothes, fix my hair, be mindful of what my teachers, my grandparents, the neighbors might think.  That limiting mindset stuck with me for far too long.  I am 40 years old and just now beginning to live the life I’ve always imagined.

It makes me gleefully happy to see so many young people encouraged to have fewer hang-ups and secrets, and more awesome, life-building experiences.

My words of wisdom?

Wear what you want to wear.

Say what you want to say.

Stop worrying about the superficial stuff and go do fabulous things.

Because our world gets better every time we stop worrying about what the neighbors might think…and just get off our asses and make the neighborhood a better place.

www.kcwilder50ways.com

Now give a listen to my new favorite groove: ‘Secrets’ by Mary Lambert.  If this earworm doesn’t make you smile, check your pulse.

Demons

I was shocked and saddened to hear of Robin Williams' death, an apparent suicide.

The trouble with celebrity is that it makes us feel we know people.

Complete strangers?  Somehow we feel we know them.  The omniscience of their work makes us feel a sense of familiarity, of kinship.

And then, because they are human - and because we don’t really know them - they do something that catches us utterly off-guard.

Robin Williams was the funny man.  He was Mork from Ork.  Peter Pan.  Mrs. Doubtfire.  His stand-up routines were foul-mouthed brilliance.  In many of the darker moments in my own life, he made me laugh when I wanted to cry.

I met my friend Cathy - Cat Woman, as I called her - in 1992.  We were neighbors at first, then roommates for a while.  Cat was an artist, musician, and general three-ring circus.  We rigged up her microphone and PA system for karaoke nights in our house.  We sang even if her dog Debbie was our only audience.  We had no money, so we crashed local art openings and wine tastings as an alternative to dinners out.  Cat ruined two of my blenders making paper.  She atoned with jewelry and hair clips she handmade for me.

When my son was born, Cat became his honorary aunt.  She taught him to play piano.  She painted his friends’ faces at his birthday parties.  Cat was a spitfire, and the kids loved her.  She was the life of any party.

She battled her demons, though.  For all the years I’d known her, we’d discussed this openly.  Cat was bipolar.  I suffered from depression.  We compared our afflictions, weighed the pros and cons of different treatments.  On a little road trip in 2007 - to see Gordon Lightfoot in New York (I know; don’t hate) - she seemed especially sure she’d beaten her demons.  I was glad.  Back in our hotel room after the concert, we watched Man of the Year.  Robin Williams starred as a political satirist who wins the Presidency thanks to a computer-voting glitch.  Cat dozed off just before the end of the film.  She was laughing one minute, sleeping the next.  Just like old times at the house we’d shared years earlier.

In November of 2009, Cat and I chatted on the phone for nearly two hours.  Her demons had returned earlier that year, and she’d moved away from New England to live with family.  I missed her, but she sounded good.  Better.   She promised to send her new mailing address for my Christmas card list.

It never came.

In time, my attempts to track down Cat’s address for my Christmas mailing list became something more fraught.  Her voice mail box was full.  Then there was a recording saying the line had been disconnected.  Email went unanswered.  I tried to remember her sisters’ married names.  I called our mutual friends and learned that no one else had heard from Cat in a while.  A sinking feeling grew in the pit of my stomach.

It was spring before I learned what had happened.  A mutual friend called, and the tone of his voice alone told me that Cat was gone.  I waited for the details: she’d killed herself in December.  On some level, I wasn’t surprised, yet I was literally brought to my knees.  One of my very best friends was gone.  There was no undoing this.

I thought, then, of all the times she’d called me in despair.  She’d let me talk her down from so many ledges over the years.

Why couldn’t she have let me talk her down from just one more?

I took a pickaxe and shovels to the front of my lawn.  I hacked and dug and crawled on my hands and knees.  In a strange whirl of sadness and anger, I made a garden where there was none.  I planted flowers for Cat and waited to feel better.  Eventually, I built a Little Free Library in her memory and anchored it in the garden, thinking how she would love something so grassroots and community-minded.

You know what I really wanted, though?

I wanted my friend back.

Ultimately, I realized that what my friend wanted was simply an end to her pain.  She wanted a better life, but she couldn’t find one in the skin she was in.  Whether she found peace in the end, I will never know.

What I know is this:

Cat was a bright, shining star.  She was blessed with talent and passion and kindness.

Much as it seems the celebrity Robin Williams was.

I didn’t know him.  Most likely, neither did you.  He wore different costumes, became different characters.  Maybe he was as uncomfortable in his own skin as my friend Cat was in hers.

Now, for his family and friends and those truly who knew the man behind all the guises and humor, the pain begins.  My prayers go out to them.

Rest in peace, Mr. Williams.

{And please, if you or someone you love is battling demons of their own, seek help.  And keep seeking help.  I’ve provided a link to the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention here, but there are plenty of other options.  Reach out.}

www.kcwilder50ways.com

Independence Day

We humans are funny about our independence.

Take a look around you right now, and you’ll realize we’re willing to accept a whole lot of baloney, just so long as we feel some sense - even an illusion - of control.  We in the United States have the right to speak freely, to vote, to choose between Starbucks and Dunkin’ Donuts.  This makes us happy - or content at the very least.  We grouse about this or that, but for the most part we keep our noses to the grindstone.  We ignore some glaring problems in our society.  We show up for our jobs, pay our bills, wash the car, walk the dog, coach the baseball team.

We are good.

But then, every so often, something shifts.  ‘Good’ becomes less of a priority.  We want better.

In 1775, there was no United States.  There was a little grouping of disparate colonies at the end of their proverbial rope with British rule.  No taxation without representation.  This tagline became a battle cry by July 4, 1776, and thirteen pathetic colonies took on the mighty Great Britain.

And won.

The intricacies of why and how have been explored in far too many volumes to compress into a blog post.  I won’t get into it here.  I’m a chick lit writer, not an historian.  But consider the bottom line: an underdog, feeling wronged, sought independence.

And won.

Pretty cool.  Worthy of celebration.  We in the USA celebrate July 4th now with barbecues and fireworks and an overabundance of red, white and blue.  We have parades and parties.  A day or two out of work and on the beach.

For the past ten years, I’ve spent Independence Day in Snug Harbor, a quaint little community that does its July Fourth celebration up big.  There’s a parade with everything from a plethora of town fire trucks to classic cars, a drill brigade wielding fishing poles, and homemade floats towed by golf carts and pickup trucks.

I started small, inviting a couple of friends over to join the festivities with me and my son at our little apartment by the sea.  Years later, when I married and had my own home in the area, the party grew.  My husband and I entertained an ever-expanding group of guests, and over time, the festivities took on a life of their own.  Most guests were awesome.  Some were not.  Some arrived days earlier than invited.  Others stayed far longer than we’d have liked.  There were too many dogs and kids and hungover adults for our small home, too much “togetherness” in the summer heat. The holiday that had been a fond tradition for me and my husband became a great big chore.  

You know, of course, what I began to crave…

Independence.

Freedom from the tyranny of being the hostess with the mostess, the Snug Harbor Martha Stewart.

I was living in Starbucks when what I really wanted was Dunkin.

I had the taxation, but no representation.

(Yeah, yeah.  Too far with the metaphor there?)

This year, I will pass the Fourth of July with so little fanfare I might not know it’s happening.  I’ve chosen to retreat to a writer’s space where I (with my loyal parti poodle writing assistant) will be the only resident for several days.  Right now I have the sense that spending time in solitude, reading and writing and breathing, is what I need.

It’s born of necessity, but it’s also a luxury, the freedom I have to choose this time and space for myself.  A luxury that, in many ways beyond the fact of a long weekend holiday, began in 1776, when our forefathers decided they just didn’t want to take Great Britain’s shit anymore.

None of us should take shit, from Great Britain or anyone else.

Truly, I will miss Snug Harbor’s Fourth of July celebration this year.  I’ll miss my friends.  I hope to come back to it next year, renewed and with a fresh approach, if only because there are few occasions that so perfectly fuse patriotism with excessive drinking and use of Super-Soakers, water balloons, and fireworks.

But for now, I welcome the change of scenery, the chance to look after myself, the opportunity to create and make progress on the path to something better.

I welcome Independence.

www.kcwilder50ways.com