Dinosaur Delight

Dinosaur Delight

by | Oct 23, 2017 | Thoughts

It didn’t strike all at once. The dinosaur thing was kind of a slow burn; maybe you could call it an awakening. I’m not even all that interested in dinosaurs to be honest. The little I know about them comes from when my little brother was around three, and he cataloged them like an encyclopedia, pronouncing their long stumbly names like a miniature paleontologist.  He’d point his small finger at the picture book and methodically state them one by one:  stegosaurus, triceratops, ankylosaurus, archaeopteryx.  A toddler mouthful.

Fairly recently, I finally gave myself permission to take some risks and dust off interests and talents that I’d tucked away while my children grew.  I (like most of America) stumbled upon the Chewbacca Lady. This woman’s infectious laughter over discovering this mask lifted a fog I hadn’t even realized was there. It reminded me that I used to have fun; I used to be fun. When the kids were little, I had game. We’d deliberately go outside in the rain and splash in puddles until we were all covered in mud and our sides hurt from laughing.  I’d make up rhyming couplet clues for scavenger hunts all around the house with a surprise at the end. Instead of finger painting, I’d spread an old sheet on the kitchen floor and the kids painted with their feet, making rainbows with their toes.

Before that, I was the friend up for spontaneous shenanigans in college. Water guns, karaoke, hilarious skits and performances. Somewhere in the crush of responsibility and adulting, in the service of respectability or convention or simple emotional exhaustion at curve balls lobbed my way, I’d forgotten.  I’d forgotten how it felt to laugh until I couldn’t breathe, to listen to my music even if it wasn’t anybody else’s tune. Silliness and tomfoolery had been shushed.

Scrolling through random videos one day, I saw a giant inflatable T-Rex frolicking on a trampoline, his tiny arms flailing in the air. Something within screamed THIS. This ridiculous silliness looked F.U.N.  I announced it to my family:  Guys, this is what I want for my birthday. I replayed the video, pointing as T-Rex twisted in the air. For Mother’s Day. For Valentine’s or Easter.  I want this get-up. I’m not kidding. My husband and grown children were not amused. I saw their quick glances, which settled the matter once and for all.

Two days later the UPS truck pulled up out front, and I danced to the porch with a grin plastered across my face.  Pure glee.  Christmas in June. I broke open the box, pulled out the costume and yanked it on.

“Whatcha got there?” My husband approached cautiously, trying to gauge just how far his wife had unhinged.

Once it inflated the dog went wild. Apparently dogs are not evolutionarily equipped to deal with 65-million-year-old reincarnated dinosaurs. This is why I have always been a cat person.  A saber-toothed tiger would have pounced and carried me around like a limp mouse, but the dog just cowered under the table.  I  promptly went outside–with some difficulty, as I was now about 9 feet tall–to stalk the donkeys in our field. Surprisingly, small donkeys do not respond positively to carnivorous predators. Especially ones who laugh uncontrollably while attempting to run.

So began the Year of Rex. Every now and then, when the occasion warranted, Rex appeared:  waving a sparkler on July 4, reading dino stories in the children’s section at Barnes & Noble, playing Pokemon Go at the mall, riding a two-seater bike, rock climbing.  Rex went everywhere, playing in the fountains at a Florida mall and running from the waves at the beach. He failed miserably at making snow angels. The tiny arms were his fatal flaw.

 


Turns out a couple of guys have a thing called #trextuesday, and they release a video each week of T-Rexes doing random things. The Rexes even went on a European tour, riding in London cabs. People hardly batted an eye! My own family went to Italy earlier this year and practically made me sign a contract saying I would not let T. stow away in my suitcase. (They are easily embarrassed and clearly need some remedial lessons in how-to-have-fun-and-not-care-what-others-think, but each of us must walk our own path. I can only be a beacon on a hill.)

A few friends and family gave me wary looks at first. They asked, “Should we be worried?” “What’s with the dinosaur?”  I casually shrugged. “A mid-life crisis?” “Some weird role playing thing?”  Nope, just something to delight in.

On my dad’s last birthday while my mom was still with us, she slipped us five kids cans of Silly String when he wasn’t looking. While he opened presents in the living room, she crept up behind him and gave us the signal.  We let loose, neon pink and green foam spraying furiously, coating my father’s head and filling the room with laughter. I can still picture the surprise and disbelief on my father’s face. That was two days after Christmas. She’d just been diagnosed with the cancer that would take her 10 months later.

In the midst of that crushing news, with family all around, that Silly String gave us permission to laugh and remember that–despite it all–life still held delight. Even when–maybe especially when–finances, children, health, relationships refuse to be wrangled, we can choose to find delight, silliness, moments of sparkle.

The Rex has developed quite a following, and it’s sometimes been surprising. I’ve had more than one person kind of take me aside and whisper conspiratorially, “I love your TRex,” like it’s a big secret.  Glancing around in case some of their delight is showing. He’s served his purpose in my life, reminding me to fly my flag (and I’m not talking about those unfortunate upper arm flaps that move about on their own). Coincidentally, he last made an appearance around the time of the 2017 total eclipse, so it wouldn’t be the first time his species went extinct because of some wild astronomical event.

My family has made it clear Rex is not under any circumstances allowed to appear at any upcoming graduations or weddings (although, I ask you, who ELSE would have such a memorable ring bearer??).  I suppose such lines must be drawn.  Maybe it’s time for T to retire. Maybe his ship has sailed, and I’m ok with that.

Look what I saw the other day:   a rainbow balloon unicorn.  *stifled giggle*  Don’t tell my family.

Chill

Chill

by | Aug 28, 2017 | Thoughts

An Alabama university town like the one I happen to be in today is all business.  Herds of students laden with backpacks schlep to class, earbuds in, dodging traffic at crosswalks. The stadium parking attendant must have been NSA in a past life. No way was I parking there without written permission. My out of state license plate branded me as suspect from the get-go.  It’s just a parking space, dude.  Chill.

Here, summer is full-force. Summers in the south are not to be trifled with. Without the benefit of months of hard frost, we live side by side with mosquitoes, chiggers, and the insidious no-see-um’s that will unapologetically eat the flesh from your bones while you sit on your front porch.  My small son once rode a golf cart through a field for 15 minutes and came back with his entire body peppered with seed ticks so tiny we had to use a flashlight and magnifying glass to see them all.  Ever tried to tweeze 200 seed ticks off a hot, cranky, squirming toddler?  Good times, is all I’m saying.

Summers in Alabama ain’t playing.  Old men cut the grass in long sleeves because the sun isn’t particular about sprinkling melanomas far and wide. They wipe their necks with worn handkerchiefs and wave away the flies while the mower sends up clouds of red dust.  In church on Sundays, the ladies wave their paper funeral parlor fans in time with the preacher’s cadence, stirring the stuffy air perfumed with talcum powder and hair spray.  From the balcony it looks like a synchronized school of fish, their tails flicking to and fro. Summer Sundays in small-town churches have a funny way of reminding you where you’re ultimately headed–ashes to ashes, dust to dust–and how you most certainly better straighten up and fly right lest you end up anywhere near this hot.

In case you missed it, we had an eclipse last week.  We happened to be in the path of totality, which was quite a wonder to behold.  The moon blotted out the sun in the middle of the day.  Yes, yes, it was a bucket list spectacle, but it wasn’t all noble and educational:  people in the south were dancing in the street because for about thirty seconds we had some blessed shade.

As a kid in central Florida, summers were for bare feet and swimsuits, running through the sulfur-smelling sprinklers and drinking from the hose when we got thirsty. Weekends were spent on horseback, calves stuck to our horses’ flanks and hands full of mane. I’d come home with the creases in my wrists, elbows, and knees lined with black dirt, the tang of horse sweat and leather as sweet as the honeysuckle we’d pick to lick nectar from the stem.

At least once, our family would pile into the station wagon and head north to the Gulf Coast, where my grandparents lived before the condos, go-carts, and mini golf outfits modernized everything.  We were overheated and irritable, arguing over who had to sit on the hump and who hogged all the scupernongs from the last roadside stand we passed.  Round about Gainesville, in a little town called Fort White, we’d start to see piles of inner tubes along the highway and my dad would stop to lash several to the top of the car.  It seems God, having made the intolerable summers in the first place, had provided an oasis for weary travelers and sun-scorched southerners.  Itchetucknee Springs stays the same cool 70 degrees year-round, its crystal waters a tonic for the parched and perturbed. We lashed our tubes together and rode the current down the river, while a watermelon chilled in the cooler in the car.  It made us nicer to each other the remainder of the trip.

Once we reached Panama City, my grandparents endured no extravagances like air conditioning.  This is why southern coastal houses had sleeping porches, where you could escape the stifling indoors and retreat to the sticky and humid outside.  Summer gardens are in peak production in the south, and my grandmother canned everything that sprouted from the sandy soil.  An afternoon of canning peaches, tomatoes, okra, and pickles made the tiny formica kitchen steamy, the heat itself wafting out the screen door trying to find a cool spot.  There must have been some old video footage of us lugging jars from the shed to the furnace that was that kitchen.  I’m convinced that’s where the ludicrous idea of hot yoga originated.

It’s easy to get all out of sorts in the heat and traffic.  I was just in Atlanta rush hour a few days ago, and I’m sure my blood pressure jetted skyward several points.  Outrage is the emotion of the year and tempers seem to flare at every real or perceived injustice.  We foam at the mouth over politics, co-workers, and uncooperative toddlers or teens. When you add humidity-hair, sunburn, and swollen fingers to the mix, it gets ugly.  My phone actually turned itself off because it got too hot the other day.  Even the technology is rebelling!

I found an acceptable parking space in a nearby Starbucks, where as it turns out, a reminder appeared.  Near her grandmother, a sprite of a little girl sat swinging her legs. She was dressed in a filmy cotton-candy-colored tutu with jeweled Cinderella slippers because that’s what you wear on a Monday in August when you’re four.  She giggled and smiled and clack-clacked across the floor in those slippers to fetch a napkin for her grandma, and every head in Starbucks turned to smile at her.  She radiated delight.

What would happen if we traded our collective outrage for delight?  If despite the heat, traffic, and 1,000 every day annoyances, we found one small thing to delight in?  Maybe you don’t need to don a pink tutu, but eat your favorite flavor of popsicle, ride a bike, or belt out a song in your car.  Breathe.  Come in out of the heat, eat a home-grown tomato and a piece of chess pie and chill.