Family | BulgingButtons

March 8, 2014
by BulgingButtons 6 Comments

Hawai’i Revisited or Where Shall I Live?

This afternoon I came home to find the tv on public television. My son was in the other room playing a video game and my sweetheart was steaming the tile floor in the living room. It appeared that the dog was enjoying the show, though. I don’t blame her.

Our PBS station is doing one of their fund drives, and today they aired a beautiful show about Hawai’i. It was mainly just scenery with some Hawai’ian music and commentary from various authorities on different aspects of Hawai’i and Hawai’ian culture, such as historians, botanists, surfers, and so on. It was breath-taking.

The program took me right back to my winter vacation where I had the pleasure of visiting this paradise on earth. I loved it there. The climate, the scenery, the beaches, the people, all were incredible. I hope to go back someday.

The whole experience makes me think about why we live where we do. I live in the desert southwest. I wasn’t raised here. I was raised in a wonderful old rust belt city known for chicken wings and blizzards. It is a fantastic town and a great place to visit every summer. It does have a few issues, though, the snow being one of them.

Many years ago I decided that I didn’t want to live there anymore. I wanted to live in the sunshine. I wanted to live where people could make a living doing what they wanted to do without having to know twenty people to get a job. I wanted to live in a place where the economy was growing, not dying. Things change, including the economy, but I’ve never regretted my decision to leave my hometown.

I’ve been in my adopted state for over two decades, and I still love it, but I love Hawai’i too. Would I like to live there? I might. Yes, it’s pretty far from the rest of the world, but I imagine loved ones would make the effort to visit. Why wouldn’t they? Oh yes, the cost and distance. I like Texas too. I never spent much time there until I met my sweetheart, but since then we’ve been there three times, and each time I’ve liked it more. I could picture myself living there too, where the summers aren’t quite as harsh as they are here.

Still, this has become my home, and I really like it. My son was born here and his father and grandparents live here. I’m in no hurry to pull up stakes and start again elsewhere. I have friends here and a career. Still, maybe someday I’ll go somewhere else. I’m hardly a rolling stone, but I’m not rooted to one spot either.

March 3, 2014
by BulgingButtons 4 Comments

Stuck on Hope

My boy ten years ago.

I have this writing assignment that I have to do. It’s way overdue. In fact the course ended. Still, I want to do the assignment. My teacher is a friend and amazing writer herself. She has been overly patient with me. Maybe I need a swift kick in the rear to get it done. I WANT to get it done. I just can’t seem to do it.

I think I’m stuck on the prompt. The focus of the class is using the experience of parenthood as a framework for writing. The particular prompt I’m stuck on is “hope.” It seems too big. It seems too vague. How on earth do I even poke a stick at this one?

I imagine that the idea is to form some sort of concrete response to the prompt as it applies to my son. I tried this approach, but it seemed stilted and dishonest. Yes, I have lots of hopes for him, but they all came out as a kind of bland pablum. I couldn’t bring any passion to the piece. It worried me.

Am I a bad mother? Do I truly believe the things I wrote? Why wasn’t there any fire to the piece? It could have been written by any parent for any child. It didn’t seem connected to me or my son at all. In fact, it seemed as impersonal as a piece of trendy wall art picked up from the local craft store. You know the ones with the pithy sayings? Of course you do. You may even have them in your home. If you do, I’m sorry for not agreeing with your design aesthetic. Live, Laugh, Love. Yeah, right. If only it were that easy. Some days it just isn’t.

What it boils down to is this, I hope he knows, really knows deep in his core, that I love him and that I’ve always done the best I could for him. I hope he understands that although I mess up in a hundred different ways every single day, I believe that the choices I make are ones that will ultimately help him to be a successful person. I hope he figures out all the stupid stuff that life throws at him, and I hope he manages, somehow, to get his grades up so he has as many options for his future as possible. I hope he understands that he has options. Maybe that’s not personal enough, but it feels pretty personal to me.

I hope that boy grows to be a man that the boy can admire. I hope he remembers his worth and his sense of kindness and his playfulness. I hope he navigates acne and braces and learning to drive and making smart choices without too many permanent scars. I hope his life is rich and fulfilling. I hope he loves and is loved deeply. I know, it’s starting to sound sappy again. I can’t help it. I love that boy. I hope, no matter what comes his way, he always remembers that.

March 3, 2014
by BulgingButtons 12 Comments

Do You Wear Spanx?

I guess I really was in a good mood on Saturday while I was shopping with my mother. I must have been, because this particular question didn’t elicit the response in me that it might have at any other time.

Let me set the stage. I was in a lovely fitting room in a lovely department store. I was wearing a dress with a fantastic cut made from a gorgeous fabric. It was a dress designed to show off curves, and it did.

The problem is that I have curves in the wrong places. They talk about “apple” and “pear” shaped figures, but I’m more of a honeydew. I carry a lot of weight around my waist, and I’m about as big front to back as I am side to side.

So there I was in this really pretty dress, deciding how I felt about it, when mom comes up with, “do you wear Spanx?”

I laughed and told her that Spanx wasn’t going to make any difference for me. She went on to tell me how wonderful they were. Like I said, I must have been in a good mood, because not a word of sarcasm crossed my lips.

I could have told her that wearing Spanx for me, if they even came in my size (which I sincerely doubt), would be like placing a band-aid over stab wound. It would be like bailing out a ship with a teaspoon. It would be like building the great pyramids with lego bricks. It would be like harnessing up mice to pull a chariot. It would be like writing a novel using rubber stamps for each letter. It would be like digging a canal with a toothpick. Need I go on?

As always, I’m sure she meant well, but Spanx? Really? Oh well, I guess hope springs eternal.