Thug on the bus? No.

There are violent protests in Cairo.

There is death in Benghazi.

There is one stupid movie that is probably a proxy motive.

There are extremist Christians and extremist Muslims playing their parts.

There is at least one U.S. presidential candidate commenting before facts unfold.

And there is a mother in Des Moines, Iowa, who is worried because her 13-year-old white boy plans to ride the city bus home from school today for the first time. 

She realizes that her worries are perfectly silly, and minuscule, but this is the thing. She's not worried he'll get lost. He's a master at bus routes. She worries because her son has moved into the scrubby teen boy age. His hair is long and covers much of his baby face. He wears undead t-shirts and clunky sneakers. He doesn't talk much, even if you hazard him a "hello." His own mother mostly doesn't know what he's thinking, let alone other passengers on the bus. She's worried that others will think he's a hooligan.

When Trayvon Martin was shot and killed in a Florida suburb while returning home with a bag of Skittles, I heard my friends-of-color talk about their fears for their own teenage sons, for how they might easily be mistaken for a thug. I saw the statistics that backed up this worry. (Statistics, by the way, that are on my side.) I'd never considered this fear before. But as my son grows older and loses his obvious adorability, as he fumbles to figure out how to chat casually with people around him, as he tries his hardest to appear bad-to-the-bone, as he seeks to sow his wild oats -- and yes, for him, taking public transportation is his version of freedom -- I worry. 

I worry because the world seems too quick to shoot accusations, and so slow to listen. So quick to hate, and so slow to listen. So quick to call a press conference and slow to . . . let's all say it together: listen.

My thoughts and prayers go out to all who were killed in Benghazi, including the ambassador and the staffers, and the Libyans who were injured while trying to protect them. And I urge all of us, including all candidates for political office, to get the facts.

I can't help but to offer kudos to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and President Obama for their spot-on handling of this delicate situation. My thoughts and prayers go to all public officials, citizens, and candidates.

If you happen to see a kid on the bus with death mask images on his t-shirt, don't worry, he's harmless. Like most everyone, he wants to go home.

With love, T

School Office Conundrum

One of her toddler dresses was the color of watermelon. Green and pink with white zig zag piping and black dots like seeds. It had a matching hat. I miss those cute little girl smock dresses my daughter used to wear. We pass through a department store children's section and I still long to buy another one today. She was cute then.

But you know what? She is fun now. As it turns out, the teen years offer as much innocence and inadvertent humor as the pre-school years when my girl would wonder about things such as, "Why are we going the right way?"

These days the funny material comes from her newest thing: working the principal's office during first hour in school. Answering the phones. Helping the secretaries. Filing paperwork. Coordinating students. Typical office stuff. My interest is surely self serving because I've done so much office work in the past 20 years or so. But still, she cracks me up with reports like:

"Mom, they gossip a lot in that office."

and

"Mom, people call crazy mad about the bus company and I have nothing to do with the bus company."

and

"Mom, we had to pass out student ID's this week and it was a madhouse."

and

"Mom, it took me a while to figure out how to transfer calls and I think I hung up on some people."

Sounds pretty normal to me. I have mixed feelings about her office work. On one hand I'm glad she can get the experience. On another, I hope she gets a dose of it then runs as fast as possible in the other direction. I'm reminded why I rarely answer my own phone anymore. My tenure of office work plum burned me out of answering phones, never knowing what the caller was going to say, always knowing that I had to figure out on the spot a way to answer even if there wasn't really an answer. You spin a response on the spot. Receptionist linguistic Olympics. I think I've really made it because I don't have to answer the phone in my current job. For my daughter it goes something like this.

Her: "Roosevelt High School, student speaking, how may I help you?"

Caller: "The bus is late! I want to talk to the principal!"

Her: "The principal is on another line with the bus company."

Caller: "The X@#!% bus is late, I want to talk to the principal now!"

Her: "The principal is on another line resolving the issue with the bus company right now. Can I put you into her voice mail?"

Caller: "The X@#!% bus is late, put me on with the principal!!!"

Her: "But if I put you through, the principal will have to discontinue her conversation with the bus company and thus, not resolve the issue, which is probably the very same issue you are calling about." (OK, she didn't really say that but just thought that response out loud to me.)

That was her first day answering the phones, also her first day of 11th grade.

The only problem is she answers phones during first period, which is the same period that I usually call the school to say that my kid will be late (most always because of me being late in getting her there). Do you see my conundrum? My kid is now the one answering the phone line you call when your kid is going to be late. And the reason your kid is late is because you had to pour another cup of coffee, feed the cats, change your shirt, sleep five more minutes, check Facebook, or whatever valid reason.

The other day my daughter told me that one of her classes was discussion non-verbal communication and political speeches. The teacher showed convention speeches of Paul Ryan and Bill Clinton. They observed the uses of hand gestures and eye contact. "Those guys like to point," she said. But towards the end she was loosing interest in the long speeches, she said.. She was falling asleep in class and apparently wasn't too impressed by Clinton's spellbinding command of relevant factoids. I admit to unabashedly watching every minute of the Democratic National Convention I could, like an idealistic big-eyed puppy who cuddles up close to the we're-all-in-this-together mentality.

Since my daughter and I were on the topic of convention speeches I mentioned that Iowan Zack Walls would be speaking. "He's the one who testified at the Iowa legislature about having two mom's," I said to my speech-analyzing daughter. "Remember, it went viral on You Tube."

She said Paul Ryan was charismatic and could really hold a crowd. "Paul Ryan talked about marriage a lot," she said.

And then it was a slow motion moment. You know, when you see something click. When the air shifts and the person you're with stops and thinks "wait a minute" in a cartoon bubble above her head.

"Wait a minute," she said, "What do they say about marriage?"

As in who can and who can't, who's legitimate and who's not, who's in and who's out. As in, she got to that glorious place beyond the non-verbal communication and wanted to explore the real communication. What are they all really saying? She knows and loves gay cheerleaders, got a good dose of anti gay bullying talk at the ELCA Youth Gathering, plus we watch Glee and have friends at church in committed relationships. So civil equality genuinely holds her interest.

I think in that moment, she realized that a single word can mean two things, depending on who says it and what their record is. Details matter. Marriage on prime time this week was way different than marriage on prime time last week. And I didn't even get a chance to chat with her how different again marriage is in the Bible. (Put it this way: definitely not one man, one woman.)

My lunch break was going long and I had to rush back to my office. I would've loved to continue the conversation because for that moment, she was into the discovery.

I remember another adorable toddler dress. It was light blue denim and had layers of ruffles. Like a denim wedding cake she wore with sneakers. The dress was play-in-the-dirt sturdy so she could rough around while still looking cute. She always was that blend of girly and its anti. A be-ribboned cheerleader who slobs around on weekends. She used to painstakingly dress up her Barbies and then methodically rip off their heads. Presently, we have a box full of decapitated dolls in the garage. We have a house full of dilapidated hair paraphernalia tucked in corners and drawers.

Who knows what children think or how they'll turn out? I have a lot of hopes, but really I have no idea. For now I'm simply enjoying the ride, grateful for every moment. These days when I need a little laugh all I have to ask is this: "So how was the office today?" I might get a some gossip, the transcript of a nutty phone conversation, or I might hear something like this:

"Mom, I like office work but I don't think I'll sign up next semester. I'm taking a class instead."

Huh? It took me decades to get to that place.

Thanks for coming over to the Charmer Blog. Wishing you all the very best. xoxo

Cheers, T

I Tweet Obama

Hey all,

I wanted to invite you to my "I Tweet Obama" Twitter event on Saturday, September 1, 2012, approximately 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. I'll be attending the rally at Living History Farms in Des Moines (dang, just down the street from home!) with my good buddy, Julie West. I'm still figuring out the hashtag to go with, so stay tuned. (Suggestions welcome.)

Follow me on Twitter: @terrimorkspeirs

Not in the Twitter world? No worries, if you take a look to the right of this blog screen you'll see that my twitter feeds into my blog. (I'm a nerd.) And I'll hook it into my Facebook too.

So we are off!

Obama skeptics, fact check me.

Obama supporters, retweet me.

Twitter masters, critique me.

Americans, join me.

In celebrating this awesome thing we call democracy.

Cheers!

T

Back to school: of notebooks and daydreams

Back to school shopping has evolved in our household.

This year we bought notebooks with a front cover image of One Direction, a British boy band consisting of five irresistible mop tops. Last year our notebooks featured Justin Bieber, if you’ve ever heard of him.

The year before that we purchased brooding notebooks with images of Edward Cullen, the impossibly beautiful vampire from the “Twilight” series. And before that, we brought home notebooks depicting the Jonas Brothers, a family pop trio of cuteness and hotness. I’m sure you remember them.

I recall my own school supplies of long ago with depictions of Barbie, the Partridge Family, and yes, the Bay City Rollers.

The themes of our school supply purchases are like a child’s daydream. A backpack full of budding discovery. A locker full of emerging hopes. And a shopping bag of full-blown marketing to parents, for those notebooks also hold the dreams of mothers like me.

No matter who is pictured on my kids’ notebooks I still want the same thing and maybe you do too: We want our kids to have it all.

But there’s more to our parental dreams.

click here to read more on Living Lutheran (thanks, Living Lutheran!). . .

Maybe parenting is like a sling shot.

Maybe parenting is like a sling shot.

You wind it up, pull it back, pull it, pull it tight, and then BOING you let it go soaring through thin air. No longer in your control. All the while you were winding you thought that was the hard part, only to find out that no, the hard part is letting go, the hard part is watching.

My pregnancies were spent in the subways of New York City. I worked full time because I thought I had to, although in hindsight I'm not sure I did. Bob and I were in the rare position of having cheap housing and low expenses while living in one of the most expensive cities in the world. I suppose I worked because I wanted to. I wanted to be important, and to be important you worked. Or so I believed. Truth be told, I'd simply  never not worked, although these days I'd sure like to give that a try.

My OB-GYN clinic was located equidistant between our home in Brooklyn and my office in Manhattan. I arranged that on purpose so I could take the subway to appointments and then get back on and head on into work, no matter how big my belly was. I'll tell you that the thousands of other people who shared my R-train route were generally very kind, always embarrassing me by offering me their seats if I was standing, grabbing on to a pole for balance. Being from the Midwest, I would have preferred that me and my fleshy beach ball go unnoticed, but that doesn't happen in the city. Same thing when my belly weight threw me off balance and I toppled like a weeble on the corner of 26th and Park Avenue South, in my navy blue maternity office-wear. I was hoping to quietly wobble upright unnoticed as the zillions of people around me marched like ants to their workplaces. But for one thing, the laws of physics wouldn't allow me up, and for another thing, those nasty New Yorker's simply came to my rescue and pulled me up. I headed to my my 8th floor desk space  with one of those classic knee scrapes a 3-year-old kid would get on a playground.

When my babies were three months old, respectively, I went back to work. I felt lucky because I knew many other women who had less time. Still, I should have stayed home longer, even a couple months longer, but that's another blog post. Of course the question hit me: what's the point of having kids if you're going to hand them off to someone else? I mostly brushed off these questions and a wise colleague advised me that kids need you more when they are teenagers, so work now and save up the career capital until later.

Even as I had questions, the most amazing childcare provider emerged. A new friend in Brooklyn, who like me, was from Minnesota. She understood perfectly the whole Midwest-to-East Coast dynamic. Plus, get this, she was a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist. Yes, my daycare provider was a practicing mental health counselor. Her skills constantly came in handy for all of us. She became first in a long line of people we've enlisted to care for our children. For the most part, it's all worked out surprisingly well. (I really don't know how anyone can say they do anything independently. It's metaphysically impossible.)

I no longer believe in so called "career capital" but my colleague was right. I feel like for the past 15 years all Bob and I've been doing is winding up the sling shot. We thought we were doing the hard part, but we were just pulling tight the energy so we can soon let it go, sending it into eternity. Everyday is less control, and loss of control is -- well, I don't know, isn't that a basis for mental breakdown? Hello parents of young children, you're all headed for inevitable insanity. No, I'm not saying that, but maybe to some degree I am. No, really, this is just how it is with me.

It has taking me 15 years to come face to face with parental loss of control, as our kids prepare for 11th and 8th grade, as my daughter learns to drive, as my son becomes more mysterious, as we are a few short years away from college and the (inhale) empty nest. My friends tell me the loss of control continues as children find partners, lose partners, have their own babies. "My son, the father" is an essay by Anne Lamott that I'll be using next Monday, in the first night of teaching my composition class at Des Moines Area Community College. Even now, witnessing my own kids taking care of younger kids is something I'm not fully prepared for.

My young niece is experiencing parental loss of control far too early as today she is being induced because her baby was diagnosed in utero with a terminal condition, anencephaly. She and her partner will lose their baby, who they've named Charlie King Ball, at birth, which will be within the next 12 hours or so.

Maybe parenting has to be like a sling shot, creating a force so strong we cannot contain it. Because if we could contain it, we would. And children, apparently, sadly, cannot be contained.

With love, T

Learning to fly. Learning to let go.

The Roosevelt High School cheerleaders, varsity and jr varsity.
Wish we could all see the fifth stunt group, to our left,
who apparently didn't fit into the frame.
It's fun to see the new girls learn to fly and the veteran girls teaching them.

There's something about this picture I really like.

I think it's all the reaching up. The pushing up. The stretching up. The looking up.

All the upward movement by the base juxtaposes with the flyers, who seem (understandably) rather tentative by comparison. Don't get me wrong, these flyers look awesome, but they're not on their toes like the back bases are. They're not looking upwards, like all their supporters are.

What the flyers are doing is looking out and revving up the audience -- while not letting on to their precarious situation. The flyers are totally dependent on a highly synchronized team to ensure their safe propulsion, trick, and landing.

The team moves perfectly together by counting. In this sport, precision is required otherwise a flyer gets dropped, and possibly seriously hurt. When a flyer falls to the floor, her trust in the base is broken. When trust goes down, the base can't get the flyer back up.

A reliable base who never allows the flyer to get hurt makes for a spectacular show.

I love all the symbolism in that. The teamwork, collaboration, and the idea that when someone succeeds we all do. Blah, blah, idealistic, blah. Imagine my son's hands making the motions of endless yacking, opening and closing his palms like clapping clams.

Girl child with one of her many cheer coaches,
and one of her many cheer awards. We are so very proud of her.

As you may know, I haven't been all that supportive of my daughter's cheerleading passion. I'm still not. But I am trying. This year I believe that great God almighty has taken pity upon this confused mother and made the English teacher the cheer coach. (How's that for grace?) That helps my state of wondering if cheerleading is the subject on which to spend so much time, energy, and money. Bob and I are doing back flips to finance the cheer habit and provide transportation, as girl child is now on three teams.

But what do I know? I'm lucky if I can get through any day without bloodshot, baggy eyes to meet my deadlines du jour. My goals often include recovery from sleeping with the most active subconscious in the world, which is not really sleeping. It's more like resting your brain on a bed of thumb tacks.

So when your kid finds her passion, something she loves to do, something she's good at, something she has access to, something others look to her for leadership -- you should raise yourself upwards and shout THANK YOU! to the heavens and earth. Even if you don't totally understand it. Even if it's not what you had envisioned for your child.

Right?

I'm trying, I really am. But honestly, I'm the most tired cheerleading mother you'll ever meet and I still have a hard time letting go of my preconceived notions of what passions my daughter should keep. You can imagine how giddy I was when my daugther informed me that this year she'll be the principal's assistant every day first period. (Mrs. Danielson and Girlchild kind of hit if off last year when Girlchild recruited the English teacher to be the new cheer coach. The Principal and my kid are thinking yay, a cheer coach. I'm thinking yay, a potential letter of reference for college applications.) My red eyes grew big with joy and all I could say was "I like! I like!" I think she did that intentionally so I'd lay off on my other concerns. It was a brilliant plan that worked perfectly.

Queue my son's clam-clapping hand motions to indicate yacking.

Still, if you want to join me in supporting all these upwardly mobile girls, find me every Friday night starting soon at the Roosevelt High School football games. I'll be the one cringing at the violent body contact on the field and reveling at the beautiful synchronicity on the sidelines. Then promptly going home to bed.

Thank for stopping by my blog. I wish you a wonderful weekend!

With love, T

The possibility of a bicycle booty call

Hello Snake Charmer Friends! Are you out there? Why would you be as I haven't written forever? Gosh, in the good old days of unemployment I was writing everyday. And you were all good enough to humor me and say nice things, or at least not say mean things.

About six months ago I decided to quit writing. I decided writing wasn't good for my mental health as it became yet another problem solving task clogging my brain. I graduated last December after a two-year fury of writing 100 pages for my book (book? what book?) in the nooks and crannies of my time. Right after graduation I pushed forward with 20 more pages and then just stopped. It's an effort to clear my mental clutter.

Some of you saw the picture I posted on facebook (against my better judgement) of my son at six months taking a bath in the kitchen sink among the dirty dishes. He was happy as a clam, pink and pudgy, smiling straight at the camera while sitting the suds. He totally didn't care about the chaos around him. I remember Bob and me feeling so tired that neither one of us could walk 20 feet to the bathroom to prepare his bath. Instead, we finished with supper (probably hot dogs or an equivalent dish), left the dirty dishes, and filled up one kitchen basin with soapy water for the baby. It was like a continuation of the long awaited dinner hour time together, and a procrastination of the much dreaded child bedtime hour.

Now that baby is 13-years-old, and metaphorically those dishes are still in the sink. A kid grows up no matter how distracted you are from mothering. You wish you could make more money, work less hours, travel to new places, get a full night's sleep, take dance lessons, read more books, look better, be cooler, and whatnot. Wishes are endless. Meanwhile all your kid does is grow up and grow away.

I can't remember the last time my boy smiled like he did in that picture with him in the kitchen sink. Wait, yes I can. Just last month he smiled. Bob and I have figured out the secret to get a teenage boy to smile. While bike riding we pull just ahead of him and then coordinate one, two, three to give him a synchronized booty call, lifting our behinds from the bike seat and wiggling to the glory of our son. Yes, a parental booty call in unison will make my 13-year-old smile big, just like in that sudsy picture of long ago. I'm pretty sure it's a smile of disgust, but we'll take it. I offer this parenting advise as a free gift to the world.

Unemployment hasn't been my personal issue for over three years now, so I don't know why I keep referring to it. (First paragraph, approximately four topics ago, in case this post is confusing to follow.) I guess it's just one of those deep-as-the-ocean experiences that you never forget. It all ended so badly, like a long overdue break-up with a horrible boyfriend. But the good thing about unemployment is it opens the door to a whole new group of friends who know exactly what you're talking about, unlike the people who secretly believe it will never happen to them. Shout out to all my friends who have ever lost a job! Love you!

Actually, the truth is I am writing and I'm writing a lot, in my new position of gainful employment. So I guess you could say I'm a professional writer. That's cool. I'll take that. It's not my own creative writing, but these are minor details. That will come when it's time. (I'm working on my capacity for zen wisdom.)

A couple months ago I was able to whittle out an essay from those lastly written pages from my poor little book project. A generous friend helped me edit it so I could submit it to a literary journal. I said it before and I'll say it again: I don't care if it gets rejected, which it probably will; it's a miracle that it got submitted at all.

The problem with not writing is that it has the opposite effect that I'm aiming for. I wish to clear my mental clutter so I quit writing, yet writing is the exact thing that clears my mental clutter. Kind of like a chicken and egg thing. Makes sense? Of course not, my thinking is cluttered.

For now, I've got a kid going to sailing camp, a kid who can cook, a kid who is learning archery, a kid who makes me laugh, a kid who is amazing with kids, a kid who wants to do international relations (ahem, I didn't influence that), a kid full of possibility, and a kid packed with opportunity. The incredible thing is this: these kids generally like me. Not a bad deal for a mother who has spent most of her mothering years feeling pretty much overworked, overbooked, and overwhelmed.

By now you, if you've made it this far in the post (thank you!), you are probably wishing I'd stick to my new policy of not writing. Still, I thank you for coming over to the Charmer blog and I wish you a lovely weekend full of possibility.

With love, T