Okay teachers, I’m crawling across the mat with every last bit of effort trying to reach you so I can tag out. I just can’t anymore. You’ve got to take them back. I know what I said in May, all right. So don’t be that guy. You know, the one who crouches over the poor bastard who broke his leg in a skiing accident, who’s suffering from hypothermia, and says, “I thought you loved winter?” We all hate that guy. I do love summer. I love how alive and bright it is. I love that I could go outside naked if there weren’t laws against that and I didn’t have such deep-seated body issues. I love how I can feel warm to my core without having to hide in the bathtub for hours, cursing the Earth for tilting away from the Sun. I love that there is nothing looming over me or my kids. There are no tests to study for or projects to work on or books that have to get read. It is okay to simply exist for a while. You know, in theory. In reality, honestly, it’s mostly freaking noisy. I tried to have a plan this summer to keep the wretched creatures, I mean, darling angels engaged. I wanted a structure on which to hang lasting summer memories. For each of the twelve weeks of summer, I chose a book for us to read (or one we’ve already read) and came up with ideas for crafts, foods, photo booth props, and a field trip. It was all very exciting. Our first book was Awkward, a graphic novel by Svetlana Chmakova about art versus science and how they can come together to form a gestalt. Our craft was drawing comic strips. Our food was a barbecue because one was mentioned in the story. Our photo booth props were large black square outlines meant to look like the outline of a comic. Our field trip was to the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia, a science museum that happened to be hosting The Science Behind Pixar exhibit, which was about how science is an integral part of the art of computer animation. I mean, hello. You guys, I NAILED week one. Week two was Alice in Wonderland, by Lewis Carroll. And that’s where it turned to shit. Yes, I said week two. First of all, though, if you haven’t actually read Alice in Wonderland, and have only watched the movies, or read it when you were a kid, I’m telling you, revisit that book. There is a reason people keep going back to that story. As visually compelling as it is, the words are even more captivating. The week started off well. We did a picnic at my local thinking spot while I read the story to my kids. Even my youngest recognized that it was a treasurable moment. The weather was perfect, the view was sweeping, the story was interesting and funny, and we got to eat cookies. The next time I went to read to them, though, in our house, while folding laundry, they just weren’t into it. If I had to pinpoint an explanation as to why we all gave up on Camp Shuker it would be because it felt like more school work and we all really needed a break. Even fun things take effort and we just wanted to lay around and drool for a while. So we did. Then Pokémon Go happened. My youngest, Charlie, has been obsessed with Pokémon for years. And he’s only seven. That an app came out that would allow him to catch Pokémon after dreaming of doing just that for as long as he could remember is proof to me that magic exists. So out in the world we went. And went and went and went. That’s when I had the brilliant idea to backdoor Camp Shuker. I picked a book based on what we were doing, rather than the other way around. I even got the audiobook so I wouldn’t have to do any work. The book was Ready Player One by Ernest Cline, read by Wil Wheaton. It is about a guy trying to win an immersive, virtual reality video game. He spends all his time playing the game only to realize that real life is where the living happens. That’s right, I kind of Inceptioned their asses. I mean, it didn’t work. They’re all currently glued to their electronics as I write this. But, still. They got the message. Probably. We’re ready to get back to work is what I’m saying. We had a break. We lived it up as sloths. Now when we cruise by the school supply section at Target I’m not the only one who lingers. Last time, Charlie asked for a flash drive. “What do you need a flash drive for?” I asked. *sigh* “My data,” he said.
Teachers, I implore you. My seven year old has some data. I need you to help him with that. I'm done.
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I can not believe I’m going to say this, but, I’m ready for the school year to end. I know. I’m worried I was abducted by aliens and replaced with a cyborg, too. As someone who believes snow days are a personal affront to my sanity; as someone who responds to people who choose to homeschool their children with, “dear God, why would you do that to yourself?”; as someone who has considered instituting a ritual wherein I meet the first day of school bus wearing nothing but body paint and a smile while dousing my head with champagne and pounding on freedom drums; I, Heather Shuker, am looking forward to the last day of school. It’s not that I’m looking forward to the long days of summer, mind you. Much as I love me some warm weather and sunshine, when my children are home with me all day for weeks on end there is an ongoing and brutal electronics war that I invariably lose. This mostly consists of my own internal battle between trying to be a good parent and wanting some freaking peace. It goes something like this: ME: Sweet, precious, small people, because I want your brains to be nourished with the fruit of the natural world, please, spend your days outside soaking in the glories of nature. MY KIDS: It’s hot. ME: Darlings, I understand the weather can be uncomfortable, therefore, how about you improve your minds with thought provoking literature that transcends time. MY KIDS: How long do I have to read before I can go on electronics? ME: Dear ones, build your unity, interpersonal connectedness, and problem solving skills by playing board games or Legos with each other. MY KIDS: Will you play with us? ME: Hell no. Then, in an attempt to boldly follow the endless articles touting the importance of limiting screen time, I just take the electronics away and deal with the consequences.... After several days of whining, fighting, complaining, complete destruction of my house, nagging, and unquenchable hungers, I relent. Much like throwing steaks toward a pack of hungry wolves in an effort to keep them from annihilating you, I throw their electronics at them and run for cover. Now, I ask you, who has the Herculean strength to consistently choose “enrichment activities” over electronics all freaking summer? Well, good for those people. I’ve only got a few good fights in me a week. The rest of the time I just throw the guilt onto the pile of all of the other things that make me an imperfect parent. (It's not a small pile.) Why am I looking forward to the end of the school year, then, you ask? Well, for those of us who have less than perfect children (*gasp*! Am I allowed to admit that?) the school year can be a gruesomely long game of "oh god, what did he do now?" every time a teacher e-mails, calls, or sends home a note. Which isn’t to say I don’t love me some teachers. If any of you blessed angels are reading this, thank you one billion times for having the patience to teach my children and all of those other knucklehead children I see out in the world. (Not your children, dear reader, yours are perfect.) I am forever in your debt for teaching my kids to read and write and do math things. I know it’s not easy. I once tried to spend the summer improving my kids’ handwriting. I got the special paper. I looked up all these inspirational quotes for them to practice writing. I printed out letter forming guides. I even sat with them to work on my own handwriting. Well, you would think I was asking them to write their names in blood, Umbridge-style. There was wailing. There was crying in the streets. There was mass hysteria. Every single time I tried it, I ended up sending someone to his or her room and pencils were thrown by at least one of us. So, yeah, 180 days of trying to shove knowledge into these animals? Y’all deserve metals. But, I need a break. A break from homework, a break from catching the school bus, a break from lunch packing debris all over my kitchen every morning, a break from the relentless schedule of who needs to be where when, a break from worrying about grades, a break from the downpour of papers, and, most of all, a break from, "do you know what your kid did?". No, but I can't wait for you to tell me.
Just, everybody, SHH. Pause. Regroup. And, come fall, we can do it again with a clean slate and a fresh bottle of champagne. “Mom, what’s wrong with your website?” my son asked. I know, I haven’t posted in a while, between school and my current existential crisis I just haven’t felt inspired… Wait. “What do you mean what’s wrong with it?” I asked back. “It says your domain has expired.” he said. Pulled it up and he was right. My site was gone. In its place was Go Daddy asking me if I wanted to bid on it in auction. Cue full blown panic. I logged into my account and sure enough, the 5-year renewal was up in March. My site went down on St. Patrick’s Day. (Where was the luck of the Irish? Is a Leprechaun showing up at my door telling me to check my old Hotmail account’s junk box too much to ask?) My precious real estate on the internet evaporated because I didn’t update my e-mail address. Now, you might think, gee, Heather, how popular could heathershuker.com possibly be? Seems awfully specific. Well, as long-term readers might remember, there is a photographer in England named Heather Shuker. Ms. Shuker is a rather pleasant lady whose e-mails I’ve randomly received over the years. Because of the ongoing mixup, she had mentioned that she’d like the .com domain if I were ever to give it up. (She uses heathershuker.co.uk.) Did she get it? Did she get my site?! Oh, the horror! Well, obviously, she didn’t. I called Go Daddy, whined a lot, and they fixed it. Shew. You get real clarity about how much you care about something when you are at risk of losing it. (Even more when you actually lose it, but, I’ve already written about that.) And while this site might be an idle distraction for my visitors, for me, it is the embodiment of not giving up on being a writer or a potter. I’m getting older. I’m running out of time to do all the stuff I want to do. But, when I go to work, when I go to school, when I make dinner and do laundry and dishes and help my kids with homework, I can still say to myself, you might not write or throw as much as you’d like, but you still do it. You have a website and business cards so it must be true. But, is it? If I’m not making time to write or throw can I still claim those identities? I certainly would stop calling myself a runner if I didn’t strap on my shoes at least a couple of times every week. (Although, “run” is still a strong word to describe what I do.) I’m a firm believer in actions over words. Don’t tell me, show me. “Words are wind” as George RR Martin likes to say in Game of Thrones. (Yes, part of my problem has been sinking down that rabbit hole. Five books and you still aren't finished telling the story, George? Really?) Well, here I am. I’ve written something. (They can’t all be winners, you guys. Sometimes, a girl just needs to show up to prove she still means it.) Yes, I’m a writer. Yes, I’m a potter and a runner and a student and a nurse and a knitter. I’m also a mother to a boy who has my back. (Bless you, Hayden, for saving my domain!) I can’t do all those things at the same time, though. If I tried, everything would get really messy. (You know? Because of the clay? It is mad filthy, you guys.) Instead, I have to take them one at a time. I have to prioritize and negotiate and dig deep for motivation. Sometimes, showing up to work in clean scrubs is all I’ve got. But, I know from experience, if I keep throwing those balls in the air, even if I have to pick them all back up off the ground every once in a while, it’s worth it. It’s worth the fight. It’s worth the effort. It’s worth overcoming the sometimes overwhelming feeling of why bother? to define myself by getting shit done. Excuses, forgotten plans, unrealized goals are made of useless words. Pride is made of actions.
My mother had an idea for a book. It was how your world could change in the matter of a minute. She called it: The 60 Second Hurricane. When she described her idea to me, I knew exactly what she meant. I had experienced a couple of hurricanes already. They are those moments that feel as if someone reached into your life and flipped a switch, like a train switching tracks. The reality you were living changes almost instantly, and often permanently. I received a text at 5:27 a.m. on Tuesday, February 10th, 2015 from my sister telling me I needed to drive to a hospital in Virginia. I knew my mom had been admitted the day before with pneumonia in both of her lungs. My sister and I had thought some IV antibiotics and respiratory support was all she was going to need to get through this illness. After all, my mom had turned 66 just five days before and she was the picture of vitality. What was troubling, though, besides the early hour of the text, was that my sister isn’t one to panic. My sister is a nurse. She has worked exclusively in ICUs and ERs. She knows what sick looks like and she knows how to stay calm when the world around her is in chaos. So, when she says it’s time to get in the car, you know things are bad. And you get your ass in the car. My hurricane didn’t come, however, until I saw her face. I was on the highway, driving toward the hospital, and I looked down at my phone and saw that I had a missed FaceTime call from her. Curious, I FaceTimed her back. (Admittedly, it was a really stupid decision.) My first thought when I saw my sister’s face on the small screen was, she looks bad. “You look like shit,” I said. She didn’t snap back at me like she was supposed to, though. She looked away. My sister, who prides herself on being tough in the hardest of situations, couldn’t look me in the eyes. And that’s when the hurricane struck. I knew right then that I was about to lose my mom. Less than 24 hours later, after every last possible shred of hope was gone, I was standing at the end of my mother’s hospital bed, holding my sister’s hand as we watched a nurse remove life support. She turned off each of the IV pumps. She and a respiratory therapist removed the endotracheal tube. Within minutes, the impending doom that I had read across my sister’s face became a reality. We watched our mother die. I spent that day thinking I couldn’t imagine a worse pain. This had to be the most anguish a human being could experience. I felt like I was dying too. The following afternoon, I got another text. It was from my husband. Our 10 year-old son, Hayden, was just diagnosed with pneumonia. The same disease that just swept in and took my mother away was now squatting in my child's lungs. My imagination was revitalized. I found myself back in the car, again desperately hoping that the worst wouldn’t happen, only this time with the freshly acquired realization that sometimes it does. Honestly, I have no idea how I made it home. An infectious disease doctor recommended that all of my and my sister’s family take antibiotics to prevent the freight train infection that killed my mother from claiming another one of us. The pain of losing her was somehow tempered by the fear that things can always get worse. Between us, my sister and I have seven children. Valentine’s Day morning, the day of my mother's funeral service, instead of chocolate, I was handing out little pink shots of Augmentin. My sister and I were desperately trying to keep safe the precious branches that extend from us on the family tree, as we prepared to memorialize the branch that made us. And, thankfully, that storm passed us by.
I don’t know what my mother’s take on The 60 Second Hurricane would have been. I don’t know what conclusions she would have come to while writing a book she thought she still had plenty of time to write. But, for me, those hurricanes have brought the kind of clarity that is only possible when you have been knocked down. As you struggle to right yourself, you feel the push of all the people who love you, nudging you back into the light even if you’d rather spend more time in the darkness. And you realize that the endless words of comfort from everyone around you swirl together to send one cohesive message: You are loved. We are here for you. Please keep going. The best way I know to honor that message is to believe it. I am loved. I am supported. And here I am, still really sad, but, still going. I have made it through every major holiday. I have made it through my birthday. I have made it through her birthday. And now, I'll do it again. I'll take another trip around the sun without her, even if, sometimes, I don't want to. I am loved. I am supported. I will keep going. Thanks, again, for all the pushes. I turned 39 on my last birthday. I’m not exactly sure why we’re so hung up on ages since they represent exactly zero guarantee of how much time we have left, but, we are. *sigh* Forty is coming. There’s a scene in When Harry Met Sally where Sally is having a bit of a hysterical, existential crisis and says, “I”m going to be forty!” Harry asks, “When?” Sally cries, “Someday!” I saw that movie for the first time as a teenager but I still got the joke. Forty has long been a demonized age. It is celebrated with black balloons and cards that indicate you are now “over the hill”. (Which I'm totally guilty of perpetuating... with reckless abandon.) It is the tip over point into oldness which is, of course, the ultimate enemy. (Well, except for fatness. But, she and I are old buddies.) As the dreaded year approaches, I’m wondering where this doom and gloom came from. If your body really feels like it’s turning to crap at forty then you are either not taking very good care of it or your genes kind of suck. (And I'm truly sorry for you.) I finished my first 5k six days before my 39th birthday. I couldn’t do that when I was 29. Hell, I couldn’t do that when I was 19. And while we’re talking about running (okay, fine, that’s all I’ve talked about for months), being over the hill is a good thing when you run. At that moment, once you reach the crest of your last hill and think, “it’s all downhill from here;” THAT’S A GOOD THOUGHT! It’s a happy, I’m totally going to make it; I’ve gotten through the hardest part thought. Downhill comes with a surge of relief and accomplishment. Maybe we all need to take a closer look at how life was when we were on our way up the hill. I’m not saying my 20s and 30s were all bad, but they certainly weren’t easy. I was broke (and/or spending more than I made) for most of my 20s and I’ve spent the better part of my 30s dumping every drop of blood, sweat, tears and milk into turning babies into functional school aged children. (Can I get a Back-to-School hallelujah?) Well, some drops of bodily fluid were spent on becoming a nurse… You know what, lets go ahead and be done with that metaphor. Let's stick with hills. ASIDE: I almost didn’t become a nurse because of my fear of what my fellow humans might ooze on me. After being in it for a little while now, though, bodily fluids aren’t even close to the worst thing that can happen to you on a shift. You throw on some OR scrubs and go about your day. The worst part of your shift is when you or someone near you either yells or calmly commands, “Get the cart.” As in Code Cart. As in someone is having a very bad day. Being part of that is way worse than a little blood, sweat, tears, vomit, urine, stool, mucus, etc. being sprayed on the pajamas and/or shoes we wear to work. Anyway, raising kids is hard as hell and I would definitely characterize it as an uphill battle. Also, my eldest will become a teenager the month before I turn 40. From what I understand, that is the steepest, hilliest part of parenthood. So, from where I sit, being “over the hill” is a decade off. Although, people do seem to be catching on because the black balloons again come out for 50th birthdays. If you aren’t dead yet, you get a whole ‘nother black ballooned birthday celebration to remind you that you’re going to be one day. I say, whatever. You know what, bring on the black balloons. Black is slimming. Also, yoga pants are black and I enjoy both yoga and being comfortable. I also enjoy chocolate. Basically, fat people love black so piss off, ageists. I certainly don’t want to wish away my 40s (or the remaining months of my 30s) but I can’t say that I’m dreading the prospect of cruising downhill. Things like having all of my children out of the house, weddings, grandchildren, having my mortgage paid off, being able to take nicer, childless vacations, driving a convertible — these are all part of being over that hill. Where’s the bad part? Oh yeah, aging. Dying. I mean, I get it. Through my work, I’ve seen people aging poorly, and I get that there’s not a small amount of pain involved, for some more than others. But, like I say to all of my patients who tell me “don’t get old”: It beats the alternative. And, of course I’m going to die. We all are. As Ray Charles sang, “Ain’t none of us gonna get out of this alive.” My biggest fear of death isn't so much the death part as it is leaving my children before they are fully grown. And, if I’m being honest, I’ll be irritated if my time is up before I get to see Hawaii or Italy. (Or the Redwoods... Or Portland... Or Montana…) But, I’m otherwise okay with my inevitable departure. Dead is where my mom is and I miss her so terribly. Whether these next 11 months are my final ascent up the elusive hill, or whether I have another decade to go, I appreciate the chance. My someday is now. Struggling uphill or cruising downhill are both signs that I’m still here. I’m here with my kids and my family and my friends. I’m traveling and writing and throwing pottery and being silly at work with my nurse buddies and patients. I’m knitting and reading and hiking in my forest and, yes, I’m still running because it turns out I’m crazy.
My age is not a secret and it’s not something I feel ashamed of. Though, yes, I dye my hair. I’m also good friends with my tweezers — hey, I never said I was all that into looking old. But, being old? Bring it. Please. |
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