Parrish Lane

Yesterday my flight was delayed out of Boston, and I missed my connection in Salt Lake. Like other tech-obsessed-but-not-sorry Americans, I quickly updated my Facebook status:

Missed my connection. When things like this happen, I open my eyes wider & look into more eyes & I wonder if my smile to them or theirs to me is what I'm supposed to get outta this disruption.

And so went the next few hours wondering what I would see.

From the plane, I was able to email a friend and she made me a reservation with a shuttle service so I could take a van home from the Salt Lake Airport. I’d been put on the next flight, but that would have had me in the airport for 5 hours and home at 6pm. This shuttle would have me home at 3pm. Like an infant needs swaddled, I needed home.

I boarded the van with a smattering of folks. There was a Polynesian BYU-Idaho student, a strawberry blond woman 4 months pregnant, a Mexican guy with a cowboy hat, an older couple named the Duffy’s with Australian accents, a guy whose family runs a farm in McCammon, and a kid heading to Jackson Hole for a ski competition. There were about 3 other passengers in the back of the van whose smiles I didn’t catch. The jolly old driver let us know we had to pick up another in Ogden with a broken leg.

As the van departed the airport, I promptly checked Facebook. I spend too much time there, but with my travel schedule of late, it keeps me connected to home. It’s been a lifeline at times. I’m reading two books presently, and considered visiting one of them during the drive. One is on improving your writing and one is about prayer. I wasn’t into self improvement at the moment and have already spent a lot of time “in prayer” this week so I stuck with my phone. 

At 22 minutes from our scheduled van departure, I happened  to glance up. There it was out the van window.  A larger-than-I-ever-recall freeway sign.

Parrish Ln 1/4  Mile

Breath audibly escaped me. My previously tense shoulders relaxed. My body went limp.

In our town this week Bill Parrish and his wife Ross and their sons Keegan and Liam died of carbon monoxide poisoning due to a faulty water heater. Their two other children, Jensen and Ian, were serving LDS missions at the time. I went to junior high and played volleyball with Bill’s sister Carri and I played volleyball in college with Bill’s other sister Kristi. Their mom Becky was smiling in the stands during many of my volleyball games growing up. It was her smile I saw in the van in that instant.

This mama who lost so much this week. This mama whose smile has been cruelly dislocated. I saw her. I felt her. And Carri. And Kristi. And all of many other Parrish family members while I sat in the van.

They’ve naturally been flitting through my mind since I heard of the tragedy, but for those moments during yesterday’s van ride, I gave them all my focus. As I’ve said before…I may not be much, but I am something.

The book on prayer that I’m reading is called “Help Thanks Wow” and it is by Anne Lamott. From the few pages I’ve read when I’m not dinking around on Facebook, the woman views prayer much like I do. And it’s a complicatedly simple view.

Our thoughts to God, a god, ourselves or the universe, whether formulated and thought out or visceral reactions…they are all a form of prayer. Anne Lamott classifies all of them as either pleas for help, expressions of thanks or simply a Wow—both good and bad "Wow's".

I’ve silently expressed all of these for the Parrish family and the hundreds of their friends who know them.  They have been a steadfast staple of Pocatello and Chubbuck for years. I’ve been in the bustling bagel shop of our hometown writing and I’ve seen dozens pass through in their Sunday best and wearing “Parrish 13” shirts. (For Keegan who played basketball at Highland.)

I haven’t been home for 24 hours and I’m going to a funeral. Then I’m going to go home and install a carbon monoxide detector.  And then I’m going to continue with whispers of Help, Thanks, and Wow for myself and the sweet Parrish Family.

 

Dear School District 25, I Love You

Dear School District 25,

I love you. You have had a terrible couple weeks, and I want you to know that I am here for you. It may sound futile, but what can I do? That’s not a throwing up of my arms with a rhetorical question. I am really asking: what can I do? You were there for me. I want to be there for you.

You’ve taught, consoled, mentored, and coached. You’ve fed, led, driven and listened. You’ve done so much of what you are supposed to and so much more when parents don’t. Or can’t. You did all that for me. Thank you.

I don’t have kids in your schools. I work full time in the private sector and have been out of town for weeks at a time, but there must be something I can do. There is always something I can do. I learned that from you, your teachers and my mom. You worked together. You leaned on each other to teach me that. Thank you.

When I hear news involving children and heartbreak, I wonder in an instant, “Do I know the family?”  As if my connection will lessen the tragedy. It might be a lesser tragedy for me, but it never is for you.  Because you, School District 25, know them. You and your teachers know almost all of the kids in our community and you are doing your darnedest to do right by them. Thank you.

People are angry at you for not doing enough in recent weeks. People are pointing fingers.  People are crying “bullying” so much that I fear bullying is becoming the wolf of this generation. People are looking for someone to blame to make sense of this senseless tragedy. I was looking too, and while I was searching for the genesis of blame in news articles and Facebook threads and the dialogue of rumor mills, I found one of the problems.

It was in a mirror.

I didn’t know her, but her pictures remind me of me. The stories I hear about her personality remind me of me. I wish I would have come out sooner. I wish I could show every GLBT kid in this town how wonderful life can be. It’s not going to be easy, but nothing is. I learned in your schools and on your athletic courts, that I can’t control other people. Not their minds or their actions. But, I can control how I react to them. We, individually and collectively, can control how we react. And we can influence. 

The depth of her struggle, though similar, was different than mine.Whether it was her unique accumulation of experiences or her lens,that darkness isn’t a kind I have ever seen. I can only imagine.  I have never been in your place either, so I can only imagine that, too. I imagine it’s tough. And these weeks have been some of your toughest.

You are an entity to many, but I know that you are people. Caring, kind, and hopeful people who are deflated, confused and angry right along with the rest of us. Even though you work with continuing budget cuts and increasing responsibilities, you work tirelessly and constantly to improve the lives of children right along with their test scores. Even when it feels like parents have stopped, you have never stopped working. Please don’t stop now. Please don’t give up.

None of us can give up. There is a pie chart of responsibility when someone so young commits suicide, and in a community our size, everyone gets a slice. While we are choking on our slices and our tears and our regrets, and looking in our mirrors, I want you to know that I love you. Please know that you are loved and appreciated, and if there is something I can do, tell me. I may not be much, but I am something. And I am something because of you, School District 25.

Marcey's Daycare

Have you found your gift yet? That unique trait or talent that’s a great conversation piece or party trick? Or something that simply makes people smile? We’ve all got something. Maybe you can do handstands, origami, jaw-dropping napkin-sketches, or quiet an infant with a soothing rendition of “Welcome to the Jungle.” My gift is birthdays. I remember birthdays.

It began in first grade when I sat by the cupcake bulletin board. My first grade teacher was an amazing artist, so all of her bulletin boards captivated my attention, but the cupcake calendar drew me in. Each month she redecorated the calendar to coincide with the season or a holiday and placed a paper cupcake with a student’s name on their birthday. I stared at them when I finished assignments early and let my imagination play with cupcake flavors and birthday daydreams.

Since then, when I learn of a person’s birthday, my mind identifies a first grade classmate and then branches out from there. Dates and people are filed in my mind with dizzying accuracy.  There are entries for celebrities, US Presidents, co-workers, former co-workers, kids I have coached, high school prom dates, their wives, and on and on.

I would be a better engineer if this information could escape and make room for technical substance, but it’s fun to surprise people by remembering them and their day. I’m pretty sure that none of my classmates have a birthday in February, but the lady who ran my daycare does. Marcey celebrates her birthday every February.

My mom left social work when she got married and helped my dad run their bar and restaurant in Lava Hot Springs. I had a bouncy swing in the bar, a walker in the kitchen, and I learned to play pool as soon as I could walk.  It was the 70’s and it was Lava. On the days that I wasn’t in the Lounge, it was easy for Mom to find childcare. She knew the whole town and was comfortable leaving me with a number of sitters young and old.

After my folks divorced, I got to go to daycare.  Mom and I moved to Pocatello and she researched all over town before finding one that met her standards and would pick up her little angel up from school. I started at Tammy’s Daycare in first grade. When I was in third grade, a lady named Marcey bought the facility. Mom was leery because she had done all this reconnaissance on Tammy, but didn’t know this new lady.  She and I soon learned that Marcey was a red-headed angel, just like me only taller.

Now that I am a middle-aged  woman (that hurts to see in print), I have many friends who are experiencing life changes necessitating daycare for their children. Some are transitioning from stay-at-home mom to the workforce. Some have gone through a separation and divorce. Some just need a darn break or want some socialization for their kids.  As they have mentioned their fears and misgivings to me, I had no idea of the guilt that moms face over daycare.

I somewhat cavalierly asked a slew of my mom friends to tell me about any “mother’s guilt” to see if daycare or having a career was a hot button for many. It was. As bullet points and confessions flooded in, I was stunned. I had a blast at Marcey’s Daycare, and even worked there during my teenage years. I am so glad that I got to go. Wait. I guess I should say “had to.” That’s just it. I had to. There was no other choice.

I have wondered if Mom felt this sweeping, unyielding guilt that many of my friends do. I doubt it. She did a great job raising me to feel guilty for all sorts of things, and she smugly admitted doing that on purpose, but I never got the sense that she carried guilt.  Why embrace guilt for something outside of your control? 

I still see Marcey all the time. We have lunch around our birthdays and when we met a couple weeks ago, there was hardly a lull in our conversation. Daycare may be daunting to many mothers, but for my mom and for me, it was a gift. And so was Marcey. 

Cupcakes, Cheers and Courage

Submitted to the Idaho State Journal on 2/4/2014.

I began this week basking in the afterglow of courage. On Monday morning, the weekend was a jubilant memory of personal triumph. The Friday before, it was a gauntlet. Courage is subjective, relative and abundant in our midst, and I’ve begun to see hints of its existence in nearly everyone.

An internal dialogue on courage began swirling in my head two weeks ago when I met local cake artist Paula Ames. She showed up at my office with a dozen of her coconut lime cupcakes just for me. She does this Tasty Tuesday promotion on her Facebook page where she asks fans for nominations of good in our community. Then she surprises people with some of the best darn cupcakes you can imagine and lets winners know that someone thinks they are wonderful.

Paula’s delivery and my friend’s nomination were sweet and I shared my thanks with both of them. I wanted to share my cupcakes with no one. 

Later that day, I texted Paula and asked if I could join her on a Tasty Tuesday delivery sometime in a cow suit. I asked if she would wear one with me. I assumed with our mutual acquaintance and the Tasty Tuesday nomination that Paula knew about my cow suit shenanigans. But she didn’t.  Our exchange was only briefly awkward.  Her skepticism transformed into courage as she shared her cow suit insecurities via text with this stranger who was by now devouring a third cupcake.

As our chat progressed, Paula surrendered to even more courage when she agreed to join me on a cow suit escapade, but with a caveat. Knowing that I would be in Boston, she agreed on a mutual adventure if I agreed to go to the Cheers bar, buy her a t-shirt and film myself singing the old TV show theme song, all in a cow suit. 

I do not sing in public. Ever. This is unprecedented. The element of being alone in one of America’s largest cities dressed as a cow was daunting, but really, it was the singing.

I worked off every one of those cupcakes as I pounded on the treadmill trying to convince myself I had the courage to do this. And by golly I did.

This Idaho cow girl left her hotel and boarded Boston’s subway desperate for some courage in a cow suit. I walked the Freedom Trail. People waved, mooed, and smiled at me and almost made me forget how scared I was. I stumbled upon and joined a march on the Capitol for climate change education. Marchers can be full of courage, and I was hoping I would catch some.

I continued on alone to Cheers through the Boston Commons Park. When I arrived I wasn’t alone for long. One of the hosts named Marcus donned my extra cow suit after I shared the story of my challenge. He was skeptical, but after he saw me simply sitting, smiling and sipping a cold one, he joined me.  There’s nothing to fear in being a steer. Well, actually, there might be.

When the manager cued the song, the whole bar sang with us. Two guys from Spain, a group from New Jersey, men, women and a couple of us in cow suits all had the same troubles carrying a tune and tracking lyrics. It was true about Cheers. I felt like I was in a time and place where everyone knows that people are all the same.  I wish Idaho would see that.

The present Idaho Human Rights Act prohibits discrimination in housing and employment based on age, disability, race, religion, and gender. For the last eight years supporters have asked the Idaho Legislature to hold a public hearing and ultimately add the words “sexual orientation and gender identity.”

Hours before courageous “Add the Words” protestors were getting arrested at the Boise Capitol, I was blogging about courage. I’m not sure I agree with the protestors’ actions prompting arrest, but I understand feeling like it’s the only move they’ve got. I applaud their peaceful courage and support their cause. Our cause.

If they have the courage to stand up and get arrested, I can at least continue to write in the first person. It’s getting easier, but it’s scary every single time.

I accepted a silly challenge that required a new kind of courage for me and I felt inexplicable pangs of guilt because many people need real courage for real things. Monday’s protests in Boise were about that reality.  Singing solo in a cow suit in a big city is one thing. Living and working is another. It shouldn’t take courage to live and work openly in this state, but it does. Add the Words, Idaho.

Fences

Published in the Idaho State Journal in November 2013.

October is gone. I spend September dreading it and November missing it. My heart is never finished mountain biking for the season and Pocatello’s City Creek trails were particularly grand this year.

While zipping down the trails, I want to stop the leaves from dying. I want to catch them mid-air and scoop them off the ground and put them back on their branches one by one. I fail to relish the colors and beauty in life’s cycle of the season because the dying in October distracts and saddens me.

Matthew Shepard died in October.

Fifteen years ago, the 21 year old University of Wyoming college student was tied to a fence and beaten on a Wyoming prairie. He died six days later. His death was classified as a hate crime although a new book alleges it was about drugs and not his sexual orientation. If that were even slightly the case, I don’t feel suddenly safer.

The motive behind the ensuing protests was clear in the “God Hates Fags” signs and shouts.
As my bike winds down our City Creek trail and I’m funneled to the trailhead, a buck and rail fence greets and guides me back to my truck. The fence was built around 2005 by members of Pocatello’s Rotary Clubs. The project also included leveling the road and parking lot to make the trail system more accessible and inviting. And it is.

I was on the Board for the Portneuf Greenway Foundation at the time, and we talked about this effort a lot before I got to see the completed work. I was so excited but when I got my first glimpse, my breath caught. It’s the kind of fence Matthew Shepard died on.

That beautiful hand-made structure and symbol of community had come to symbolize something else to me that October of 1998. Footage of a Laramie fence peppered media outlets constantly. The serene snapshot of yellowing flora beneath it and the cold blue Wyoming sky behind it let gays and lesbians know we should never trust the stillness and calm.

A few weeks ago on October 11 petitions were turned into City Hall to put the non-discrimination ordinance on the May ballot. So much for stillness and calm. With the council’s vote last June, it felt like bits of the fences that separate us were coming down.

Shortly after the petitions were turned in, I went to the showing of “Matt Shepard was a Friend of Mine” at the ISU theater. There was video of Matthew’s fence. And, my breath caught again. After the movie, a friend and I walked around the quad and talked about life, love and Matthew’s murder. It’s so dark so soon in October. And cold. I put my shiny, feminine hoop earrings in my coat pocket as we walked arm in arm in the glow of the campus lights.

I dislike the cold and dark, but if it were colder, there’d be fewer people out. If it were darker, the few that were out might not notice we were two women walking with no boundary between us. That want for darkness was more pronounced having just watched the documentary.

I found myself wishing for a tall, protective fence surrounding the quad so we could walk in safety.I constantly scanned our surroundings with keen eyes while we walked and I told her what it was like for me in 1998 when news broke. It’s still so vivid. Matthew was tortured so ruthlessly that authorities originally thought he had been burned. A jogger discovered him the next morning.

The image of his arms spread, his body limp, and his head hanging is a permanent part of my psyche. I doubt I am alone in that. I rarely am. I don’t know if I read that Matthew was found that way or if this figure settled in my mind after years of hearing the gospel stories of another Shepherd who died so similarly. Extended. Vulnerable. Undeserving and misunderstood.

Matthew’s death was a turning point in my life. After my mom’s seven years of near silence about my sexual orientation, she cried openly. She admitted she secretly cried often out of disappointment but now there was fear and concern. The fanatical demonstrations in addition to Matthew’s murder demonstrated that I needed her love and protection because the world sure wasn’t going to give it to me anytime soon. The world was interested in fences of division rather than fences for protection.

From my perspective, it’s hard to tell the difference between fences that are intended to merely divide or mercilessly crucify. And when the intent is the former, it’s only a short walk along the prairie to get to the latter. From my perspective, there is little difference. The continuing efforts surrounding fences leave me feeling defenseless.

Fifteen Days in January

Published in the Idaho State Journal in January 2014.

While so many of us have been in a whirl wind of Nutcrackers, wrapping paper, and top ten lists of 2013, the family of 13-year-old Jahi McMath are facing the withdrawal of their daughter from life support. The Northern California girl suffered complications following a tonsillectomy, and two doctors have ruled her brain dead. I have been following her case with interest and sadness.

Jahi’s lungs and heart continue to function artificially because of a ventilator. The machine maintains her breathing which sustains a heartbeat. Doctors assert that with no brain activity at all, the girl would be unable to breathe on her own.

On a dark January day when I was 27 years old, my mom was placed on a similar respiratory life support. I had been an adult for some time. I owned a house, a truck, established a career and could drink right out of the milk carton if I wanted. In all of my adultness, I was nowhere near mature enough to address the questions before me. Mom had no living will.

Jahi and my mom’s scenarios are different in two critical ways. First, Jahi is a minor and her parents are unequivocally in charge of decisions regarding her medical care. My heart is heavy for their impending loss and upcoming decisions which are compounded by their disagreement with doctors about her prognosis.

The second stark difference between my mother’s and Jahi’s hospitalization is that my mom wasn’t declared brain dead. Her lungs and heart were failing, but her brain activity on the monitors lit up the hospital room.  Winter inversions and air pollutants on top of her years of smoking culminated just after New Year’s Day in 2000 when this nightmare began.

A doctor asked me about a living will. He was understandably exasperated when I said that she did not have one. I asked Mom throughout her terminal illness to write one as well as a general will, but she cut me off and refused to discuss it past a few excuses.

She didn’t want to spend the money on attorney’s fees.  I was her only heir, so there shouldn’t be any questions. She was an atheist who didn’t believe in an afterlife so she wanted to be hooked up to any and every machine indefinitely. Her wonderful life on this earth was it and she wanted to extend it as long as possible. End of discussion.

Since Mom had been verbally clear with me about her wishes, I told her medical team that despite any of their professional opinions about the heartiness of her heart and lungs, there was no point in further conversation.

The doctors continued a regimen of breathing treatments, medicine and tweaking the ventilator settings while Mom remained unconscious in the ICU. I would visit her in the morning before work, at lunch and then I’d sit with her at night and watch TV.

On the fifteenth day when I walked into her room before work, she was sitting up and watching Good Morning, America. It scared the heck out of me. I thought for an instant I was going mad. I couldn’t possibly trust my eyes. She had a breathing mask on and cheerily turned and waved with an atrophied, misshapen hand.

Her voice was raspy because she’d had a tube in her throat for so long, but indeed her brain was churning. She told me I was going to be late for work and wanted an update on her Green Bay Packers and Chicago Bears.

My Decembers are flooded with birthday and Christmas gifts, but the best gift I ever received began that January. I got another entire year to the day with my mom after her fifteen days on life support. She gave me another present in the months that followed in a notarized living will.

There is no better time than the present to establish a living will, and making those decisions so your loved ones don’t have to is truly a gift. I had been skeptical of life support means and success before my mom’s experience, but those days persuaded me.   I have outlined in my living will that I can be on life support for no more than fifteen days.

The Truth About My Treetopper

Published in the Idaho State Journal in December 2013.

A friend of mine gleefully wrote that her family got a new tree topper this year. I smiled because her tone rang happy, but I was struck with a faint and brief tinge of sadness. Her family didn't already have a tree topper? How sad.

My Christmas tree topper is on the top ten list of things I'd rush to save in a fire. She'd be after my box turtle but before the high school photo albums when my hair looked like road kill.

Her name is Angel. Like a child who comes into a family knowing the family dog as an older sibling, I knew Angel.

My childhood visions are as crisp as these winter days. I remember staring up at her so high and close to the ceiling and worried she would fall. My mom told me over and over that her wings would save her. If I was still worried, though, I could stay by the tree and make sure she was safe. I should call up to her, "don't fall, Angel!"

So I did. I whispered it over and over while I slouched by the tree in my footsy pajamas. My most still moments of my childhood were during my silent watch under Angel by night. I prefer to characterize my mom as smart here rather than manipulative.

Angel is about 5 inches tall. She's wearing a form-fitting, elegant red velvet dress. It's a short sleeved, short dress that showcases Angel's flawless arms and legs. Her arms are outstretched with one hand open and the other with a pointed finger as if she's about to direct a chorus of other angels in joyful Christmas song. Her golden wings behind her reflect the tree's lights and give her a magical, colorful aura.

Angel’s plastic, molded hair is in a neat bun. Her rosy cheeks and genuine smile of her 1970's doll face are warm and innocent. She'd never be cast in a horror film.

Before Wonder Woman flew in on her invisible plane, I wanted to grow up and be Angel.

The truth is Angel might be Tinkerbell. Before some so-called-friends insisted I examine the resemblance, I'd never considered she was anyone other than beautiful Angel. These friends have said things like, "that's not a dress; it’s barely a cocktail napkin". They might as well have told me there is no Santa.

The truth is her outfit resembles a Vegas strip waitress uniform, only not quite as tasteful. Her belt to help hold her wings is a dingy, green rubber band probably from a December 1993 edition of the Idaho State Journal. Her wings hold bits of calcified hot glue on her back and two nails to keep them attached. They are cardboard more flimsy than a cereal box spray painted faux-classy gold. It’s likely lead-based.

Some people think Angel is ugly and tacky. They've called her a tart, a floozy, a bimbo, and a Jezebel in jest. I suppose if you didn't grow up with Angel, you might not see that same magic, beauty and innocence I do. I suppose your truths about Angel might be different than mine.

Contrary to the word's definition, sometimes truth depends on age, faith and the chance angels in an out of our lives. People honor many different truths this time of year, and for me, the key in defining, believing, and celebrating my truths unlocks my endeavors to appreciate others'. Roots of my holiday truths and traditions are found in Rudolph, Charlie Brown, the Grinch, the Nativity and my sweet tree topper, Angel.

Whatever people’s truths are this holiday season, I wish for a peace in the past, a joy in the present, and a hope in the future. ‘Tis the season after all.