Tag journey

Cub scout camping fun and a book cover hint

caravanofcomposition 2 Comments
kayaks-e1534354128166.jpg

vans at sea

Look at us! We’re in boats and not tipping over or rowing into the swimming area! If you have no idea what I’m talking about, stop, go read Row, row, row your boat…, and then come back here to finish reading this post.

I’ll wait.

This past weekend was our third trip to cub scout summer camp and the first time boat-incident free. Yay us! The boys had a blast (oldest tagged along as Den Chief), the weather turned out much better than the Wednesday afternoon predictions that had me packing all the rain gear, and I walked over 32 miles in four days. It felt great to be in nature, to hang out with friends, and to watch my boys do the things they love.

Some of you may know that starting next month, girls will be allowed to join cub scouts  and in February will be able to join boy scouts (which, going forward will be known as BSA) and start on the path toward Eagle. At camp’s closing ceremony, the director mentioned how there will be girls at camp next year, and no matter how we feel about it, we need to accept the changes and support them in their journey.

I was active in girl scouts from first grade through high school. I quit because A) it became uncool to be in scouts and our troop shrank to practically zero members and B) there was no ultimate goal to achieve. (I learned later that you could become a “Lifetime Member” but that did not hold the same weight as earning Eagle.)

As the buzz became a reality in current scouting, I did a bit of research. There are 169 National scout organizations around the world, and only 11 are exclusively for boys. We were number 12 up until this year. When you look at the boys only countries, many of them restrict the behavior of women as well. Why do we need to keep scouts gender segregated? Boys and girls alike can enjoy all elements of scouting. I loved being a girl scout. Would I have joined the BSA if I could have and worked my way to Eagle? Probably. Am I excited about the changes? Yes. Do I think our country should have one scouting organization open to everyone, including transgender youth? YES!

Scouting sometimes gets a bad rep — for being exclusionary, for pushing a particular agenda, for other terrible things I don’t want to discuss on my blog. (Believe me, as someone actively involved in the organization, we do a lot to make sure stuff like that doesn’t happen on our watch.) But at its core it instills solid values, nurtures a child’s strengths and interests, and provides a place to make lifelong friendships. Often for both kids and parents, as is the case in our family.

When I set out to write my YA verse novel (WHICH WILL BE IN THE WORLD IN LESS THAN SIX MONTHS!!), I wanted my main character to be active in scouts. I gave him a moral dilemma and had him use the points of the scout law to figure out how to navigate through it. I’ll be revealing the book’s cover soon, and I’m excited that scouts plays a huge role in the design.

I don’t have a funny/embarrassing story for you this year. But I have a lot of wonderful memories that will never fade and mosquito bites which thankfully will. My boys found the sunglassed lifeguard from last year and invited him to sit at our table for every meal. We played. We laughed. We sang ridiculous songs at the tops of our lungs. We studied toads in mud puddles and celebrated accomplishments. We barely slept. I captured moments like this:

boys

brothers and best friends

It was awesome.

If at first you don’t succeed, set the bar lower

caravanofcomposition 4 Comments

Okay, that sounds a bit pessimistic. But hear me out. If you wanted to become a high jumper, you wouldn’t set the bar at a height impossible to clear, right? You’d start low and get really good at each level before moving up to the next. If you are learning a new skill, you’d start with the basics and then work yourself up to the more complicated elements. And maybe you’d fail a few times, or a few million times before you could do the thing you set out to do, and maybe that feeling of failure lights a fire under you and forces you to try harder.

But you know what else is super motivating? Success.

I have participated in Camp NaNoWriMo three times. It’s an online contest of sorts that grew out of NaNoWriMo, or National Novel Writing Month, where to win you must write 50k words in a month. Camp is more laid back (as camp should be). You set your own goals and have a cabin of fellow writers to cheer you on and make references to roasting marshmallows and making s’mores. It’s fun. It’s encouraging. The first time I participated, I agreed to join a large cabin – some writers I knew, some I didn’t. There were virtual crafts, write-ins, and shout outs on Twitter. At the time I was revising my second novel and thought two hours a day seemed a reasonable goal. But I started the month off on a road trip, clocked zero hours of revisions for the first few days, and rapidly became discouraged. There’s this great STATS feature, which tells you your daily progress, how much you should do to reach your goal, and if you continue at your current rate you will finish…. in 2020.

The second time around I was working on a new novel, and decided 10k was reasonable. It wasn’t. Our cabin had only three members, and we had some amazing discussions about plotting and staying confident in your work. I made more time to write, but the words weren’t flowing and again I felt discouraged by the ever distant finish rate.

Third time’s the charm. Between April and July, I worked to unclog the stuff that wasn’t working and brought the first chapter to my critique group. They loved it and told me to keep going.

Let me stop here for a second. I know some of my blog followers aren’t writers and they are probably skimming through this post because blah, blah, blah she’s carrying on about writing again. Look. Your words can make a difference in someone’s life: your child, spouse, co-worker, employee, friend. A stranger. Be kind. Encourage someone today. It might be the very thing they need to keep moving forward.

When I decided to join Camp NaNoWriMo this past month, I thought about my goal. I didn’t want it to be too high and get discouraged. July was busy, people. BUSY. But I didn’t want it to be too low and seem insignificant. I thought about what my friend Kate had said a while ago, about setting micro-goals. If I could sit down every day and write something, 100 words, I would keep moving forward on the story. I set my overall goal for the month at 4k, and did my best to write at least 100 words every day. I didn’t write every day (I missed about half), but when I did, it was always more than 100 words. Sometimes it was only a few more, sometimes a lot more.

So I set the bar lower, but at a reasonable, attainable height. And it worked. The project is at 12k and I’m excited to keep writing.

And it feels pretty good to see this:

camp win

Are you trying to accomplish something and feeling overwhelmed? Can you break it up into smaller, more manageable micro-goals? Find a way to earn success. To celebrate the mini victories and stay motivated.

You got this.

Passing on the torch… or not…

caravanofcomposition 5 Comments

I love to cook. Our household has its share of dietary challenges, which means a fair amount of time and effort is required for meal planning and prep. I’ve been a vegetarian for 26 years and recently eliminated dairy. Oldest prefers an “everything plain” diet and actively describes certain foods (grapes for example) as his “arch nemesis”. Youngest is anti-fake meat (he makes gagging sounds if tofu is presented on his plate), and he is weirdly specific about the things he likes.

Example: All sandwiches must contain pickles, lettuce, and ketchup. And caramelized onions if they are on hand. Not regular onions. Caramelized. Because one year we had a big batch of onions from the farm share and I decided to spend the 45 minutes of cooking time required to caramelize them. They were crazy delicious. Now if someone puts onions on a sandwich he will ask, “Are they caramelized?” like he’s some sort of snobby food critic.

It’s okay to occasionally lie to your children.

Thankfully hubs is happy to eat whatever he doesn’t have to cook, and will prepare meat for himself and the kiddos once in a while so that I don’t have to. In my perfect world, all four of us would be on a veg-based diet, but that is simply not reality. So we compromise. Or try to anyway.

Declaration: I will prepare the same rotation of kid-friendly meals if they agree to try something new once a week without saying, “EW. What’s that?” upon arrival at the dinner table.

It works.

Most nights.

Lately, things have gotten a bit complicated in the van household. Oldest is working toward his cooking merit badge for boy scouts. As part of the pre-requisites, he is required to plan, shop for, and cook ten meals. Three days worth of breakfast, lunch, and dinner, plus one dessert. As of Wednesday afternoon, he still has four meals left. He leaves for camp on Sunday.

I have been nagging reminding him for weeks.

Maybe I come on too strong in the kitchen. I like things a certain way and have been known to default into, “here, let me do that” instead of being patient with the boys. I can’t say I blame them for wanting to stay away. But cooking allows for a certain amount of creativity, and like writing, when I’m in the zone, I’m in the zone.

Do not disturb. Mommy’s washing kale leaves.

Seriously though, when he decided to work on the cooking badge, I was excited to pass along some of my tricks and ideas. Instead, the pile of cookbooks I offered sat lonely in a pile, and he hid in his room for hours, “researching cooking methods” instead of asking me for help. “Let’s go shopping!” I offered. Shrug. “Want to try making X?” Shrug. “Don’t go waiting until the last minute to get this done!” Skulk off to room for more “research”.

In retrospect, perhaps I should have had a more open-door policy in the kitchen when the boys were younger. They used to enjoy helping me, but my, “Not like that, like this” attitude is exhausting, I’m sure. I want to change, and am trying to. Last night youngest wanted to cut veggies and I let him, without hovering or criticizing. Of course when dinnertime came and I asked if he wanted to try what we made he responded with, “I just like to cut vegetables. Not eat them.”

This morning oldest made blueberry chocolate chip pancakes for his merit badge. And while his flipping skills need a bit of work and I was left to scrub the chocolate covered griddle, the food turned out tasty and it felt good to work side by side. Of course we’re still arguing about what’s left to be done and how he shouldn’t have procrastinated, but, well, at least he comes by that trait honestly.

I want my boys to have basic cooking skills, not just so they can earn the Eagle required merit badge, but so they can survive on their own and perhaps even learn to enjoy experimenting with food. To understand why I feel the way I do about cooking (FOOD=LOVE). And maybe someday impress their friend or partner with a giant plate of caramelized onions.

Then and now

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My high school reunion is this weekend. 25 years. A quarter of a century. A long, long time ago in a place right around the corner from where I now live. (Apparently you CAN go home again.)

Hubs and I had fun at my 20th. We drank, we mingled, some pranksters switched their senior photo name tags, and I had no idea who they were. It felt like high school 2.0. Not in the improved sense, more in the “everyone is behaving the way they did back then but now we’re in our 30’s” sense.

I’m no longer really friends with any of the people I hung out with in high school. My then-bestie graduated a year ahead of me and lives down in North Carolina. Several of my good friends were also in her class, and we’ve lost touch over the years. Others have either fallen off the grid or drifted into new adult circles. It’s strange how many people from our high school are still friends with each other. Not me. I shed that skin like a snake in spring and am happy to have a fresh set of friends who can’t tell embarrassing stories about me. Okay, they CAN tell them, but at least the stories happened recently and not before my prefrontal cortex had fully developed.

I’ve been thinking a lot about THEN VS. NOW. How much do we change, really? When are we our most authentic selves?

Last night our friends were over, and we sat out on the deck, listened to Barenaked Ladies, and laughed about the ridiculous things our children do. One friend and I reminisced about CFNY, a radio station out of Toronto that was THE radio station of my teen years. Back then I made a mix tape by listening patiently, pressing record when my favorite songs came on, and inevitably catching the DJ promo over the first few bars. (In case you’re wondering, yes, I do still own that mix tape and all my other mix tapes despite the fact that I no longer have the ability to listen to them thanks to my new tapedeck-less minivan. Pardon me while I weep a little.) Now, I can go to YouTube or library streaming and cue up my faves. I’m listening to The Lightening Seeds while I type this and feel transported to my angsty sixteen-year old self. “Don’t sell the dreams you should be keeping.” Yup.

crucible

circa 1992

There are days when I miss that version of myself. Young and free of wrinkles and adult responsibilities. Look at this girl. She is happy, in her element, ready to take on the world. I didn’t give a crap about what people thought about me. Okay, maybe I did. But I was in theater (this photo was taken backstage during our performance of The Crucible — I may have let being the lead get to my head) and loved being on stage. Loved the attention as long as it meant I got to be someone else.

I still do. Our babysitter came to expect strange costumes and makeup whenever she came over as we’ve been known to attend a themed event or two. Or ten.

What else has changed/not changed? Then: the majority of my wardrobe came from my brother’s closet (see jeans above) and the thrift store. Now: everything I’m wearing today came from a second hand clothing store and my shoes and purse were my mom’s. I’m not cheap (okay, maybe a little), but I’ve never put value in things. I’d rather spend my money on experiences and my time doing anything but shopping.

Then: I loved playing soccer. Now: I watch it. Tried to coach it. Desperately miss the days when I could run without my knees aching. Practice yoga instead.

Then: I felt safe with my group of friends, but never really fit the suburban mold. Now: Same. We came back here to raise our boys; it’s a great little town and I have good friends who I adore, but in my soul I know this is not where I belong. Where that is exactly, I’m not sure. Hopefully I have a few more decades to figure that out. In the meantime I try to take advantage of every opportunity to be my authentic self. The one who makes crude jokes and laughs too loud, who isn’t afraid to speak her mind or dance alone on the dance floor while singing off-key, who is fiercely loyal to the point of getting burned.

Then: I may have appeared confident on the surface, but I worried all the time. Still do. Only now I have the courage to push past the fear and anxiety and go after the things I want. 25 years has at least given me that, along with gray hairs I will be dyeing tomorrow just in time for the reunion. Hey, it’s still my authentic self. Just a bit more improved. Version 2.0.