Wallow in the Wonder
Embracing who you are at this very moment
My great, great — maybe even a third great should be in there — grandmother was one of the early settlers in Nebraska. In her obituary, she stated that she wanted to be buried back East, to escape the soot from the prairie fires and dust from the storms that seeped into every crack of her life and ruined both of her pretty dresses. Living in a sod hut in the middle of flat land, she had a canary, and a red sewing tomato to hold her sewing pins, as most women of the time did so they would have both company and some color in their often-colorless lives.
Her sister, by contrast, owned a newspaper and a hotel, way back when women were not allowed to do such things. As family legend goes, she could carry on a conversation while typing a column and looking out her second story window to comment on what the woman across the street was wearing. She also was known for her temper, and people often ducked to avoid china dishes and frying pans as they were slung out the front door. That may also explain the divorce — also unheard of at the time.
Way back then, when settlers set out from home, they rode in a wagon, knew they would never see most of their people again, and often made home where the last oxen died. One friend of mine said, “I never understood wanting to murder my family until our car broke down in the badlands.” She went on to add that she had a sick baby, was menstruating, and her husband was the one who insisted they take the scenic loop. She jokingly said, “if we had been pioneers doing this in a covered wagon, without a cell phone, I would have lit the wagon on fire and walked away to live with the snakes.”
This year, in a mad dash to live another Next, as you know I love to do, we moved into a second home outside of Phoenix for the winter. My placemats are red, my bedspread desert oranges, and my brother, who loves to take me on amazing hikes, lives right across the street. My daughter and her family will be here for a visit in a few days, and last weekend I fell madly in love with, of all things, NASCAR. Yes, they do go fast and turn left, but it is not at all boring. I apologize if you were a fan and I rolled my eyes when you told me about it previously.
I tell you this because every once in a while, when the world is wild, the pressures mounting and the pillow lumpy, we need to stop, even for a moment, and wallow in the absolute wonders of who we are, where we are, and what we get to do.
We live the life we live because of the women who went before us. The ones who broke the ground, bore the babies and kicked like hell to knock down the door into the boardrooms of this great land. They are the same ones who held the hands of aging aunties, took in the feeble parents and figured out that a TV dinner was better than no dinner at all. They did exactly what we do now, by figuring it out first.
We figure out how to pay the taxes on the land we inherited. We figure out how to be at our mom’s oncology appointment, and our daughters’ soccer game, and attend yet another Zoom meeting in 15 minutes. We plan, delegate, throw in the towel, and, when the stars align, we slide into a bubble bath with a glass of wine and a trashy novel. All because the women who walked before us created a path that we have turned into a superhighway. We figure it out because we can, even when we wish we didn’t have to.
Living in a new city, trying to build up my team-building business here (referrals welcome!) and navigate my husband’s new role as retiree, has given me pause and pleasure. It is actually pleasant not to have anywhere to go on a Saturday night. It is pleasant to figure out that I like yoga at 2 p.m., followed by my one meal of the day, and then another round of Zoom calls. It is pleasant to know that I will throw on a jacket for my morning walk, but not a hat, mittens, heated vest and handwarmers.
But it gives me pause to know I am selfishly leaving chores at home to my daughter who is busy with her own family and career. It gives me pause to know that time with my husband has to be a priority because 45 years has not been near enough time to have all the conversations or to see all of the things we want to see together. It gives me pause to think that even though we have cell phones and hormone therapy, sometimes women are still so lost, still so mad, that we light the wagon on fire and walk away.
It gives me pause to know that just like our great-great-great grandmothers, some of whom followed cultural norms, never rocking the boat, because that was their lot in life, lived right alongside the ones who burned their bras and fought tooth and nail for equality. The ones who came before us set the stage for us to be someone’s great-great-great grandmother. To fill the role of someone who shaped a family legacy, (for better or worse) who broke the norms (for better or worse), and created something for them to latch on to and say, “If they did that, I can do this.”
It seems like half of the world is trying to “return to the land” with backyard gardens, and the other half is perfectly content with food-like substances. Some of us are fighting mad, kicking over the wagons, and some of us are just sitting quietly, watching the dishes fly. Some of us are embracing Artificial Intelligence, (I can hardly wait to hear what my buddy Claude AI has for feedback when I feed this into my portal. I will tell him he can’t change a word; he will tell me grammar will always be a thing), and some of us are hoping that like the dust from prairie fires, AI will soon be a thing of the past.
I just hope that when you get a moment to sit on the patio, or soak in the tub, you know that who you are is who you are. You are living your moment. You might shine; you might not. You might be proud of every single thing you accomplished today, and you might not. But you are here. You are going to be someone’s legacy, and I think she will be pretty darn amazed that you did all that you do with just a basic old cell phone, antique Artificial Intelligence, and that you ate a red tomato from Brazil while you were dining in Montana.
Stop, if you will, just for a moment, and wallow in the wonder of who you are, and where you are. The scars, the accolades, the pains, the accomplishments. You, and you alone, are living this story, and even if all you do is go real fast and turn left, I am cheering for you, just as loudly as I can. You are someone’s “If she did that, I can do this.” Be proud of that legacy.
