January in August

I know this is a longer entry.  I know I'm going to almost need to think of this as a chapter in a much longer piece, because to put the whole of the weekend I'm writing about down is too much bigness  for the parameters of a blog.  And so this is the introduction.  The beginning of a weekend that helped me to rediscover and remember who I am at my core- not the mom, sister, teacher, CEO, wife, coach, etc., but the person beneath all of that.  

Sometimes when I look outside/I can see myself, looking in
And if it's dark out there where you are/I hate to think how long it's been  

I let the words flow out of my mouth, working on the inflection, the tone, and the meaning behind a lost love you haven't seen in a million years.  My higher voice blends with the rough one on the recording, and I remember that Nate wrote this song for some girl in Alaska, and the winter days with no sun.  

I'm keeping my eyes on the road as it curves with the hills, and at the final bend, Millsite Lake is visible through the trees.  They bow down, as in awe of the expanse of blue as the drivers who race over the flattened frogs and through the splatter of bugs on their windshields, cruising their way to Better Farm.

Whenever I hit the bend, I let out a breath I didn't know I'd been holding in.  It's the end of a long journey north, away from the go-go-go of schedules and the constant barrage of sensory onslaught by machines.  

It's the way the wind licks your lips in January/and it's all the songs we used to know

It's the way the sun breaks out from behind the clouds/melts my angel in the snow.

For the first time in my life, I'm alone as I do this.  I've done it as a passenger in my dad's brown Chevy Tahoe, sitting next to my sister, while my parents talked about how the lake was used for baths in the 70's, before they had functioning plumbing at the house.  I've done it as a wife, telling my husband about the first time I went cliff jumping for the umpteenth time, and how some local kid jumped from the top of a tree (a 45 foot drop, easily).  I've done it with my own children in the back seat, babbling away while we excitedly tell them we'll be at "Auntie Coley's farm" in just a few minutes.

This time, I'm solo, listening to January, a song by Crow's Landing that I'm going to be singing tomorrow, while piles of photos and frames line the trunk of my Suburu Forrester.  The pieces, wrapped in towels and linens I'm donating to the farm, are part of an exhibit I'm putting up in the barn-turned-gallery for a solo show.

I had spent the previous several weeks asking my sister to let me add artwork to the weekend's repetoire, and convincing my husband to let me sing backup for his band that hasn't existed since its hayday back in Los Angeles.  His lead singer and guitarist, Nate, was coming in from Michigan, where he's working for NASA and earning a PhD, a far cry from writing lyrics and music that make my nostalgic heart hurt when I'm singing along with them.  

You say looking back is the hardest part

And now I know that it's the truth

Maybe you don't think about us now

But I do

The house looms on the right, large and weather beaten.  There are people milling about, and a cacophony of chickens clucking as I turn into the driveway.  I open the door, and stretch my suntanned legs, happy that even years removed from playing, the shape is still there from the endless cycle of high school and college soccer.  At the same time, I'm quick to recognize that my body is angry at this sudden movement after hours of stagnating in the driver's seat.  It's the beginning of an epic weekend, Better Arts's annual Summer Festival of music, art, a pirate invasion, a bonfire, and a group of people that could only be assembled in the middle of nowhere in upstate New York.

"You're here!"

My sister, Nicole, struts out of the house, cutoff shorts betraying the massive number of mosquito bites on her legs.  Gangly arms embrace, laughter begins.  It's the start of a madcap of bonding exercises and personal responsibility.  We spend much of the afternoon racing off to her island on the lake before she heads out to dinner with friends.  As much as I love catching up with Nicole, listening to her regale me with tales of hatching chickens, and boats being towed by swimming interns, I relish my alone time.

It's the first I've had since I gave birth three years ago to my oldest daughter.  

There's a comfort to knowing that my family is having fun without me.  I love them, despite the fact that I'm  marveling at how awake my senses are with nothing to focus on but the sky (bright blue with perfect white clouds), the camera in my hands, and the sound of the wind in the tall grass.  I mentally check off how many frames I brought with me, how many old windows I can use from the "salvage" pile in the shed, and how many more photos I can print for the art projects to be displayed in the gallery later.   I whisper lyrics under my breath, my mind wandering to younger years, when I was on my own on a more regular basis.  I squint in the waning light.

Autumn brings such simple things/Summer always makes it right
Springtime thaws out all of the memories/frozen phantoms in the night

Flashes of fall as a teen, summers as a college kid fly through my mind.  I can see the shadows of the frozen phantoms- snow falling in my hair, Pink Floyd lyrics, warbled guitar notes.  I hum the melody as I pick up a paintbrush, and dip it into the creamy black tempera.  I pull a drop of paint down the pane of glass, thinking about the little instances in our lives, those moments that seem so inconsequential, yet alter the course of our history.  The decision to walk up to the boy playing lacrosse against a wall, the play you try out for, the city you move to, the friend you listen to instead of trusting yourself. Is there an existence out there where I made different choices, or someone else did, and I'm by myself, or waiting for a different person to arrive, have different kids at home?  Am I an artist, a writer, or something so completely different, I wouldn't recognize myself on the street?

I glance out the window, at the arms of the setting sun as they reach out to the trees and round bales of hay, lighting them on fire before turning them black in her wake.  Placing the paintbrush down, I reach for my phone, tapping the music note and scrolling for "January".

I guess everything is timing/And I know timing's everything.

I pick up a hammer, and pound the nails into the walls for my artwork, each stroke splitting the wood as I try to pound away the thoughts running rampant through my head as my brain chants remember...remember...reMEMber... and my voice belts with enough resonence to shake the beams over my head, jerking me between the present and the past, the real and the imaginary as the sun goes down, and the darkness takes over.

But I've been wasting all these hours.  
Wondering if- wondering if you remember me.  
Remember me...

(photo from http://betterfarm.blogspot.com/2013/08/the-skinny-on-last-saturdays-summerfest.html)

Better Grub Supper Club

An exercise in examining a story from someone else's point of view, using interviews and my imagination. Much of the dialogue is fabricated based on knowledge of the people involved, but the actions are relatively accurate, and the italics are based on an interview with my sister, Nicole Caldwell, a writer and the director of Better Farm/Better Arts.

            The view from Better Farm's kitchen window is of a wide-open field stretching out towards a hilltop. Trees create mountainous shadows, and the tops of bushes peek out over frost-filled grasses and a large manmade pond Nicole's father once gleefully referred to as the "mosquito breeding ground". The sun at this particular moment was beginning its dip over the backs of the silhouetted trees as a dozen people—roommates, artists-in-residence, and locals—made their own dips down Cottage Hill Road and into Better Farm's driveway.

            Better Farm is an artists' retreat and sustainability education center started in 1970 as a hippie commune. My Uncle Steve bought the property—a small 19th-century farmhouse, milkhouse, and falling-down barn seated on 125 acres—with insurance money paid out to him from a car accident in 1963 that left him paralyzed from the chest-down. His parents had been taking care of him in their suburban New Jersey home, and buying the acreage upstate was his way to be out on his own. He got his friends, cousins, and brothers on board with heading north for a summer, doubling the size of the house, and moving in to care for Steve's daily needs. It would be 30 years before the last of them would leave.

            The name for the place came from the “Better Theory”, a concept Steve and his friends came up with that basically says every moment presents us with a chance to grow as human beings. Instead of seeing something as negative, then, it's “better”: an opportunity to become more.
    

            After a great deal of shopping, bartering, and cultivating, Nicole was welcoming a cast of characters to the farm to commence Better Farm's First Better Grub Supper Club Thanksgiving Dinner, in much the spirit of Arlo Guthrie's beloved “Alice's Restaurant”. Nicole leaned into the oven to check on the main courses, taking care to baste the turkey and Tofurky in equal measure, a puff of steam rising out of the oven and enveloping her face in the scent of roasted bird, faux meat, stuffing, and onions. As she stood up, she couldn't help but think "world harmony begins when Tofurkeys and turkeys can roast side by side."

            I started spending a lot more time at the farm after Dad died, doing the 700-mile-round-trip Dad and I used to take, taking it now by myself or with friends. It was sort of like a pilgrimage for me; a way to get out of my head, reconnect with memories of my dad, and occupy the same space as Steve, who was this human being who was so much larger than life. Steve and I would have hours-long conversations about books, politics, birding, the environment; or sit around at the kitchen table all afternoon and do crossword puzzles. The farm became a place where I could relax and kind of reconnect to what was important.

            The summer before Uncle Steve died, my sister Kristen and I were up visiting for a weekend, and we all got on the topic of what would become of the farm should anything happen to Steve. There was some discussion of it being left to the group of us: Kris, our cousins Dan and Mike, and me. Kris squashed this, reminding Steve of Mike's nomadic lifestyle and Dan's penchant for the same; and her own love of the farm, but lack of time.  "Leave it to Nicole,” she told him. “We'll help her with what we can, but she's the one who will love it for you, and make it into something special."

            Nicole brushed a wavy lock of brown hair out of her eyes and thought back to her apartment in Brooklyn, the one she broke the lease on to move out to the country. It had a view of the gravel-covered flat roof below, and beyond that, a brick building with windows that gazed into neighboring apartments. The sounds of the traffic, the Kenyan restaurant below, police sirens, and barking dogs were loud there; while here in Redwood, population 584, there is the vague brush of the wind and the occasional ATV hum in the distance. Strains of The Grateful Dead's “Friend of the Devil” meandered out of the iPod on the counter and Jerry Garcia sang: "Didn't get to sleep last night 'til the morning came around/Set out runnin' but I take my time/A friend of the devil is a friend of mine."

            Steve's funeral was attended by men who openly wept through their beards, running their hands over shiny heads that once housed long, thick locks; and tribes of women who'd loved and worshiped Steve. Kristen read a poem comparing Steve to Woton, the god in the Wagnerian "Ring of the Nibelung" cycle who gives up his eye for wisdom. Ex-girlfriends and cousins read poems and told stories. I muscled through a eulogy of my own, which felt totally empty without the man himself there to hear it.

            Two months later I packed my bags, adopted a puppy, and headed north to begin cleaning out, renovating, and turning the dilapidated home into a green-living center, youth hostel, bed & breakfast, and artists' retreat. I rented one of the rooms out and took a couple odd jobs to make ends meet as I filed Better Farm's LLC status, while Kristen create a website. Planning commenced for summer programming, like workshops, internships, and artist residencies. I read books about gardening and staked out a plot of ground in the yard for our organic farm, learned to fire a gun, took up horseback riding, and became impervious to black flies and mosquitoes.

            In two days, Nicole would be leaving for a brief respite to New Jersey. She'd visit with her family in her mother's Victorian house in the affluent Northern New Jersey suburbs; a family gathering around a formal dining table covered in an antique tablecloth, china her mom has had for 40 years, and sterling silverware polished for special occasions.

            Behind her at the moment, though, sat a giant wooden table and two 12-foot church pews packed with the people living at Better Farm and a number of guests from town. There were mismatched glass plates, all in different shades of white, and silver eating utensils with different handles, collected over the years from the various miscreants who invaded the farm. The cups were a mixture of mason jars, and coffee mugs with dirty sayings and odd cartoons. A family friend, in talking about Steve at his funeral, said Steve became "an island around which humans float." Nicole was beginning to feel like the Better Farm house was fast-becoming that island in his absence.

            We started with the library, a 1600-square-foot room with floor-to-ceiling bookshelves on each wall. Every book had been read by Steve before being placed, in alphabetized order, by the hands of one of his caretakers. We removed them, rebuilt some of the shelves, dusted behind all the old volumes, and revealed decades' worth of fuzz, dog fur, and long-abandoned mice nests. You should have seen the books—everything from the Bible to Harry Potter, the Quaran to Dr. Zhivago, Dostoevsky, Oates, Rand, and Hawkings. It was unbelievable.

            Mike, Nicole's cousin, sported a beard reminiscent of Rip Van Winkle and sat at the table chatting with Chris, an Iowa transplant who'd fallen in love with farm living, and Bob, a truck driver from town. They were discussing the merits of eating a turkey while planning out a designer chicken coop for Henrietta, the chicken Nicole saved from becoming soup a few months earlier and the two chicks taken in to keep her company.

            "She's family, so she should have a nicer area to live in," Mike said, his stringy blond hair nodding as he moved his head in an affirmative motion.

            "Organically, she's the same as the bird in the oven. I don't see why we should be spending more than the turkey cost to house next year's dinner," Bob jumped in, his belly rumbling beneath his black Harley Davidson T-shirt at the thought.

            "She should at least be comfortable while she's fattening up," Chris stated, his own belly pooch bumping the edge of the table as he moved to rise off the pew.

            Nicole turned, her calloused hands covered by tropical fish-shaped potholders, and picked up the pot of potatoes rolling in the bubbling water. She began to pour the frothy white liquid through the strainer balanced in the sink. "We are not eating Henrietta," she said, blue eyes focused on the task at hand. "She's like a pet."

            "But by next year, she would be a rather delicious pet." Bob nodded, his eyes narrowing at Nicole's dog, a large mongrel she'd rescued the year before. "Kobi would eat her." Kobayashi Maru slapped her tail against the floor in agreement.

            "No. Kobi, you are not eating Henrietta," Nicole said, as the potatoes slid down the sides of the pot and into the colander, landing with squishy thwaps. Kobi opened her long snout and yawned, rolling onto her side. "And neither are you," she said, pointing the wooden spoon at Bob.

            "'Man is the only animal that can remain on friendly terms with the victims he intends to eat until he eats them.' Samuel Butler," Mike said to Bob, crossing his arms over his white T-shirt, stained yellow from sweat at the armpits.

            "If God didn't want us to eat meat, He wouldn't have made it so tasty,” Bob retorted. “A T-shirt in Alex Bay." Chris and Mike laughed.

            There were notes stuffed in some of the books, quotes from different philosophers, Emerson, Thoreau, even some Ginsberg and Bob Dylan. When I moved on to Steve's desk, it was like an explosion of paper. There were folders of notes he'd sent and received, an entire box of letters from my parents' travels in the 70's, and pieces of writing of Steve's, things he probably started and forgot about. In one drawer, I actually found a slip of paper on which Steve had scribbled his Philosophy.

"Crisis teaches you cool; pain teaches you pleasure; love teaches you loss. Every large and small and good and bad thing that comes at you has the potential to propel you forward into something better. All we have is now, and nothing else exists except that, so anything right now is always better than even one second before now. And now. And now. All you’ve got to do is climb aboard, hang on tight, and push yourself forward into the abyss. It’s a tricky theory to keep up with—try having “better” be the first thing out of your mouth next time you stub your toe or hear terrible news. But the truth is, Better works."

            "The dinner smells delicious Nicole," Chris said, his feet shuffling towards the smells wafting from the stove. He turned on the oven light, and salivated as he eyed the turkey. "Can I help with anything?"

            "How good of you to ask,” she answered sarcastically. “You can mash the potatoes. Use soy milk and margarine in half of it for the vegans.” She pulled out the masher and ingredients, her thin, toned arms miming as she spoke. Chris grabbed the overflowing colander and set to work.

            I always personally took the Better Theory to mean out of the bad, comes the good. What you do with your biggest hardships makes the most difference—ask anyone who's ever overcome in some way. Instilling that idea into the people at the farm, who come from all over the world to study green living and organic farming, or to work on their art, or to live more simply and communally, is one of the most exciting things I've ever been a part of. It's amazing what people are capable of when they really see everything as an opportunity; they just start to thrive when they get that concept.

            Mike got up and walked over to the pot of boiling string beans, legumes picked in September and frozen. He dipped in a ladle and liberated a couple, dropping them onto a plate, and checked them for doneness with his fingers. Finding them reasonably cooked, he popped one in his mouth and tossed the other to Kobi, who chomped down with a grateful crunch.

            "I have to say, I'm impressed with the harvest,” Mike said, still chewing. “When dad talked about the farming in the 70's, all he would say was that they couldn't grow potatoes bigger than golf balls because of the clay soil, and that nothing would really grow." He turned his attention to the cans of cranberry (the only thing not grown in or around Better Farm), and set about creating cylindrical art sculptures on the serving platter before bringing it over to the table.

            "Nicole started us on mulch gardening,” Chris declared proudly. “We make layers of compost, cardboard, dead leaves, and hay in the fall, and by spring there are inches and inches of healthy, black soil.” He got up and pulled a cast iron skilled down from an overhead hook. He turned on a burner, threw a pad of margarine into the pan, and melted it along with a few cloves of garlic. He threw the concoction into his lumpy mashed potatoes.

            Since we redid the kitchen, we try to do a big family dinner every night. We put in a wood-burning stove to generate heat, put tin ceiling tiles in the dining alcove, and replaced the rusted old stove with a stainless-steel restaurant quality one.. The biggest thing, though, was getting enough seating for any and all residents and guests. I remember driving 30 minutes to pick up the church pews after we found them on Craigslist for $40 a piece, and joking the whole drive back that if they didn't fit in the breakfast nook, we'd just have to set them up in the library and create our own religion.

            An hour later, they sat down to the feast. Grace was a hearty "Thanks to Steve and the good Lord above for the grub on the table, and the friends around it," and the clinking of plastic on glass. The poster-sized photo of Steve at age 13, standing a foot taller than his mother (Nicole's Granny) next to him, beamed down from the far wall, as if granting approval over the festivities.

            Most nights, the head of the table is empty, a result of a lack of chairs and everyone's preference to the pews. But there was a day not too long ago when the realization hit that its vacancy also serves as a tangible reminder of Steve's absence. That was his spot because of the wheelchair. I can still picture him, leaning on his bony elbow and sipping his water out of a straw stuck in a pitcher. He had these bright blue eyes, a wide smile, and this hoarse voice, gravely and lilting with joy.

            I think it's Passover when the religious set a place for Elijah, and leave a seat vacant in anticipation of his arrival. Elijah's visit is said to precede the Messiah, who will transform our world from its broken state to one where injustice is unknown, compassion is everywhere, and happiness fills our hearts. I can't help but think of Steve as our own personal version of the prophet: the one who guided us to this table, guided us to pick up where he left off, and create a better celebration of life and friendship. He would have enjoyed this version of now.

            And now. And now.

Grey Sneakers

A memory of being the new girl, being rejected for being who I am, and finally being accepted for the same.          

Grey Sneakers

            The asphalt was a dark grey ocean boiling up under my Nike Velcro sneakers.  I liked the way they looked---the light shoes dancing over the dark ground as I skipped over the smooth surface to the woodchip-surrounded tire playground.  It was the first day of first grade, and the playground seemed like a fairy tale kingdom, consisting of everything a six-year-old heart could desire- a jungle gym, big silver slide, black rubber swings, and the group of girls from my new first-grade class holding court while their queen, the perfect, blond-haired Jenny, decided which of them would have the honor of twirling her on the tire swing.

            Smoothing out my blue shirt, my finger caught on a strawberry jelly stain on the right side, the residual effect of my eagerness to finish lunch and get outside to play.  My pigtails bounced like Christmas present ribbons and my long, skinny legs skipped over the hopscotch squares as I approached the group. I knew one of the girls- a freckle-faced child named Ali who lived down the street from my new house.

            "Hi!" my voice squeaked.  "What are you playing?"

            Ali eagerly began to respond, "Lava monster.  Jen's ---"

            "You can't play," Jenny interrupted, a look of disdain pursing her perfect heart shaped lips.

            Ali and I both turned towards Jenny.  Ali immediately shrunk behind Adam, the only boy in the group (though with his long blond hair and precious blue eyes, he could be mistaken for a girl at first glance), as if to deflect the distaste oozing out of Jenny in my direction.

            "Why?" I asked, not really sure what to do, as the idea of being excluded had never occurred to me.  I didn't know it was possible, as all the group activities to this point in my life had consisted of everyone being involved.  From handing out Valentines, to playing duck duck goose, to going down the slide, everyone took a turn, and everyone got to play.  That's what sharing and caring was all about.

            "You can't play because--- you don't have pink shoes."  She leaned forward as she said it, and lowered her voice, as though speaking the words alone might be enough to upend all that was right in the world. 

            The other girls in the group immediately looked at my feet, and turned away in protest of the sight.  Their little blush-colored shoes, with their buckles and patent leather, their rainbows and white soles, turned with them, mocking me. Ali's little cherub shoulders curved down as she tried to reconcile deserting her new friend and keeping pace with her old one.

            "But… Adam's a boy.  He doesn't have pink shoes," I pointed out, thinking being a boy must be a much greater offense than the wrong tinted shoe leather.

            "Yes I do!" Adam sang gleefully, stepping forward and pointing his bubblegum colored toe like a ballerina.

            "See?  Adam is allowed to play." Jenny leapt off the tire in one fluid movement, her graceful exit indicating she was bored with this line of questioning.  "Come on, let's go to the swings," she commanded, and shot off like a blond mustang across the woodchips.  The others followed suit, a stampede of pink-shoed horses prancing away toward pushing and pumping.

            Ali turned last, and her green eyes only glanced up once from the ground, her brow wrinkling as she mouthed "sorry" and galloped off after the others.

            Shuffling from foot to foot, I felt the burning from the blacktop seeping through my body until my face turned red and my eyes welled up.  The tire, rotating with the ghosts of what might have been, mocked me with its giant empty "O" as I kicked at a rock in the mulch, and hastily retreated back toward the school.  There were still a lot of minutes left of recess, and I didn't want them to be spent watching people I couldn't play with.     

            Stupid sneakers.  Mom had bought them for me because I liked the Velcro strips and the way they made a crunching sound when they were sealed and opened.  Also, when I played outside with dad, hiding and seeking, practicing my hitting, and chasing worms as they wriggled in the ground, the stains didn't show up that much, which made mom happy, and made me happy too. 

            Stupid pink.  Stupid girls.  Stupid Adam and his stupid pink shoes.

            The brick building loomed over me, its giant marble "Girls" sign and its wall of classroom windows staring down at my tiny frame.  The other side by the gym had a matching "Boys" sign.  They were left over from the 1930's, when the boys were kept on one side and the girls on the other.  Beyond the blacktop ramp that connected the upper playground to the lower basketball court, the boys from class were getting a wiffle ball game going. Watching the Yankees with my dad always made me smile, so I started my descent, thinking that that watching ball might make me feel better. 

            My bottom plopped down on a long log that looked like a sideways telephone pole, and I was careful to avoid splinters by keeping my shorts between my skin and the wood.  Placing my feet in the grass, my legs stretched out so I could make rainbows in the dirt with my toes.  I yanked my socks up because the grass felt scratchy on my ankles, and picked up a twig to use to pop tar bubbles on the wood.  The pop pop sound made me smile, as did the little sucking noises they made when I pierced them, and was grateful to whoever spilled the tar when they were attaching the wood to the ground to make this bench. 

            On the other side of the log, the boys picked teams--- the tallest boys chosen first, leaving the smaller ones looking around a little fearfully at the prospect of being left behind.  They were eventually picked too, though, and they bounded over to their new teams with beaming smiles, the trepidation of the minute before forgotten over high fives.

           None of them seemed to care what the other boys had on their feet.  If anything, sneaker-wearing boys seems to be drafted higher, most likely because it's easier to run in sneakers than in smooth-bottomed dress shoes.  The sleek soles tend to slide on blacktop, and that's how you get skinned knees (this knowledge was gained from an experience the previous Easter involving chasing our dog down the driveway in footwear with a flat sole, and a buckle that ate into the bone of my ankle).

            The two groups huddled up once the picking was done, and they both looked over at me.  My head bent down as I tried to make myself as small and invisible as possible, in hopes that they wouldn't ask me to move, too.  The embarrassment of Queen Jenny's dismissal was enough for one recess.  The worst would be if they chased me, the way boys always chased girls in the tv shows. 

            The rainbows my toes had made were transforming into circles in the dirt now, courtesy of the tar on the edge of the twig in my hand.  My other hand was firmly planted in my mouth, my teeth biting down on the fingernails, when a little voice sounded over my head.

            "Hey," it said.  "Hey.  It's Kristen, right?"

            "Yea?" I answered, keeping my head down so my bangs covered my eyes in a thick black curtain.

            "Hey. I'm Nick,"he said, before reaching his one arm behind his head and scratching at his neck like the tag on his shirt was itchy.  "We wanted to know…" he gestured over to the group that was now watching us with rapt attention.

            I dared to look up at the chubby little boy with the bowl haircut standing in front of me, and started to get up, dropping my stick so that it made a little dust cloud when it hit the ground.  My feet turned away, prepping to outrun most of the boys if they needed to.  My mom said I was fast--- I'd won the shuttle race at my old school's field day--- so I knew she was right.

            "Well, we don't have enough for two even teams.  Um… do you know how to play wiffle ball?"

            My pulse quickened.  Dad had shown me how to play last year.  His demonstration had been memorable.  He'd gotten a little frustrated with my swinging and missing when he tossed the ball, so had taken the bat, saying "Here, this is how you hit."  He then threw the plastic orb in the sky before whacking it.  I watched it fly, a line drive moving with increasing velocity up, up until it smashed- straight through the living room window and mom's lace curtains, and onto the blue chair with the birds on it that was only for company. 

            My mom's voice yelling "KRISTEN!" out of the house was met by my dad looking at me sheepishly, and calling back, "Sorry Laur- that was me!"  We then both dissolved into giggles, and the lesson had continued, facing away from the house, until I could effectively hit the ball all the way past the swing set and into the back fence. 

            "Yea," I responded, allowing hope to creep in.

            "Well, do you want to play?"

            Over his shoulder, the group of boys stood around laughing and playing sword fight with the bats while Nick recruited me.  I wanted to hug him---wiffle ball?  That was so much better than swinging.  And with my sneakers, I could fly around the bases (a shoe, two hats, and a sweatshirt) if given the chance.

            "Yes!" Smiling, we ran off to the group.  The boys on my team immediately set to showing me how to make contact with the ball by tossing it into the big fat red bat, and saying "See?" a lot. Most of what they were telling me was stuff Dad had said too, but I let them show off anyway, enjoying the attention.  It was also fun because the girls had taken notice from up top, and were now moving toward the fence to get a better look.

            When my turn came, someone on the other team yelled, "Move in!  She can't hit.  She's a girl!"

            My team countered with encouragement.  "Just make contact," they reminded me, I set my feet like Dad had shown me, about a foot's length apart, and bent my knees like Don Mattingly, taking a couple of swings to get a feel for the air. 

            I don't remember how many pitches there were, or strikes or balls.  My memory is of the whack sound the bat made when it hit the ball square in the center, and the look on the left fielder's face when the ball sailed over him, and I started running.  I was around the bases before the ball was back in the infield, my team's sneakers bouncing on the pavement while they clapped their hands and jumped up and down.  Everyone gave me high fives, and we taunted the other team about getting beat by a girl.  My smile was huge as my little chest expanded with pride, and the huffing and puffing exhaustion of having run as fast as I could.   In my exile, I had become queen of a new land, a much more fun land, that could be ruled with my red plastic scepter.

            After the great sneaker incident, there was a feeling that I was the odd girl out, caught somewhere between tomboy land and pretty princess world.  Recess was never spent with the girls, but instead passed with me earning nicknames on the blacktop and grass fields, learning the ins and outs of soccer, football, and baseball.   Ballet was an epic failure, but mom got me into after-school girl activities to balance the sports, like Girl Scouts, sleepovers and birthday parties.  

            In the moment after my hit, though, I didn't think too much about the future.  When I looked up the hill that rose to kiss a chain link fence guarding the land of woodchips, I gleefully noted the perfect pink lips pursed between the links.  Despite our feet's differences, those lips would eventually whisper secrets in my ear, and Jenny's cheeks would be tear stained to match my own when her family moved in 6th grade, and she had to be the new girl.  Ali kept coming over for play dates, and eventually even joined me in playing sports with the boys (though she split time to allow for swinging and hair braiding).  She still has her "BE FRI" to match my "ST END" necklace piece, and gave a best friend of the bride speech at my wedding. 

            I wore cleats to the wedding, a tribute to the man who taught me how to hit, and a beautiful princess dress bought by the same woman who helped me acquire the grey sneakers with the super fast swoosh… and  I married a man that watches baseball and football with me, and only wins at wiffle ball in the backyard when I let him.