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Don’t just fly…

Published on by Mae @ RainydayinmayLeave a comment

When I was a little girl I was enamored by Dumbo. My mother loved this movie, and became a sobbing mess at the Baby Mine scene every single time she watched the VHS.

I too loved it, at first, because she loved it. I love it now for my own reasons, and admittedly I also tear up during the traumatizing melody. I know why this song pin-pricks my heart, and find myself wishing I knew why exactly that it affected hers so much…

She was not a mother, by nature.

What if, like Dumbo and Jumbo, we had lived in the Circus? What role would I play? What role would she?

She would love the animals, true. Anyone who knows her would say that immediately… However, she wouldn’t take care of them at all, really only coddle them for her own emotional fulfillment. That job wouldn’t do. No, I imagine her (though if I could ask her, she would disagree) as something between showgirl and clown. Clown Showgirl? Would that even be a thing? She would be the ever committed guys-girl, ensuing laughter with one outlandishly ridiculous performance after another. Once the night lights were dim, however, she would cast herself as a real guys-girl in other ways… Among the circus family she would be both the most loved and hated woman around.

I know this is all true.

At first I struggled to see myself…

Dirty, neglected child of a performer? Hiding with the animals, where I made friends and found solace? I imagine a childhood of days passing without seeing my mother, and seeing more her flashes of anger and belittling than the joy inducing woman seen by others, in the ring.

I know all of this is true, as well. Strip away the tent, the spotlights and the tigers and I can honestly say I have lived this childhood. A version of it, anyway.

I cannot think of Dumbo and circus life, imagining what role (within the circus) I might play, without considering my mother. It is an emotional DNA impossibility. That being said, one day the little girl would be a grown woman. She would stay with the circus long after her mother was gone because, in ways her mother never did, the girl valued family, even when family did not value her. She would care for the animals and love them as deeply as she could love anyone. She might fall madly in love with a behind the scenes designer and life would be hard, because- well, it is life- but also, circus life is hard, and this life was all she had ever known.

As time passed, she would give of herself, enabling other performers to be their very best. She would dive in and make herself needed, focussing on her ability to create, design and grow the gifts that this show could give to their audience. She would, eyes twinkling, find her most soul filling moments were when she secretly watched the children drink in the magic of human ability, animal and wonder unfolding before them.

Probably this girl would pass away in her sleep one day, an old woman, eternally unappreciated and alone. I’d like to think that it wouldn’t matter though, because she would carry the happiness she helped others find, and that she’d found joy in this too…

(Something nags at me that this post went too dark and too deep, considering it’s about a children’s movie. If you know Dumbo, and the story, it is a deep and often dark telling of so many hard to digest topics. Just like all escapes, we see only what we choose to. It is in the acceptance of the darkest parts that we find the ability to truly love ourselves completely, which is what we’re longing for others to do anyway, isn’t it?)

My birthday is on Thursday, and I will be front and center at the first local showing of Dumbo. I know it will be amazing and I cannot wait. This gift Disney has given to me, (let a girl pretend a little) is the perfect way to usher in a new life year.

Did you ever dream of joining the Circus?

What would you have done?

Are you anticipating this movie too? Here’s the trailer to hold our excitement for a few more days!

 

From Disney and visionary director Tim Burton, “Dumbo” expands on the beloved classic story where differences are celebrated, family is cherished and dreams take flight.   Circus owner Max Medici (Danny DeVito) enlists former star Holt Farrier (Colin Farrell) and his children Milly (Nico Parker) and Joe (Finley Hobbins) to care for a newborn elephant whose oversized ears make him a laughingstock in an already struggling circus. But when they discover that Dumbo can fly, the circus makes an incredible comeback, attracting persuasive entrepreneur V.A. Vandevere (Michael Keaton), who recruits the peculiar pachyderm for his newest, larger-than-life entertainment venture, Dreamland. Dumbo soars to new heights alongside a charming and spectacular aerial artist, Colette Marchant (Eva Green), until Holt learns that beneath its shiny veneer, Dreamland is full of dark secrets.  “Dumbo” soars into theaters on March 29.

 

Website: https://disney.com/dumbo

the leap…

Published on by Mae @ Rainydayinmay2 Comments

I wrote a big piece about the loss of Luke Perry and the more I read it, I just didn’t feel it was sharable… I’ll just say that it is a really sad loss.

I am wrapping up my New Mexico adventure. It has been one of those full circle things that will leave me deeply affected. When I was a small girl my grandfather had put a concrete patio on the front of their home. I took such pride in being able to jump off of it and land without falling. It was so big, and the soles of my feet would throb on impact but I knew my achievement was an amazing one. I was amazing.

I have seen the patio over the years, whenever I’d visit my New Mexico home. It was many, many years ago when I realized the patio is actually not very tall at all, and maybe I oversold that particular athletic ability. No matter how many years have passed though, the site of that patio always manages to resurrect those girlhood feelings. (I’m not kidding, Every. Single. Time.)

This small, dying town holds a variety of memories. Some happy, many not. This concrete patio was always a platform of safety for me. Swinging evening conversations with my grandmother, beneath a stunning desert sky; jars of golden tea warming in the sun; embraces and laughter when greeting visiting relatives, countless hours of adventure, imagination and childhood lay imprinted in the memory of this giant slab… Feet bare on the cold grey make me realize that this may be the only place I have ever stood that held only beautiful moments, and never dark ones.

I left the residence of this Burg when I was twelve. I fled the darkness of an unnatural childhood for solace and family in the Pacific Northwest. There is a deeply rooted grief over the loss of home, culture, people, friends, experiences, etc… (Grief can be a tricky thing because while it feels terrible, it is normal and unavoidable.) My grandmother’s Chrysler delivered me into the arms of complete strangers whom I would one day know as my parents. Those parents had two amazing little girls,(Joy and Jennie) answering the prayer I had prayed a hundred times a day for as long as I could remember, for sisters. Initially these girls were sisters in that foster family/generic/group-home way, but today, thirty years later, they are sisters. Period.

For a long time, in the beginning, I fell asleep longing for the blanket of the desert sky, for the warmth of familiarity, for my grandmother to call me sugar and for another moment on that patio. I clung to what it represented within my spirit, as the launch pad for my very first flirtation with confidence. I wanted to believe in myself, in my journey, in my future, the way that my grandfather’s concrete patio had enabled me to with jumping…

A few years ago my sister Joy, moved to New Mexico. On Saturday that beautiful sister of mine, and I, stood on that very patio, together. Life is funny sometimes. Many things have happened that I never thought I would see, but the full circle moment of that (which I only realized the amazingness of, as we were both standing there) was maybe the most profound and unexpected.

We never know what will happen. I doubt I jumped from the patio’s great height the very first time I stood atop its gleaming surface. Standing there, with Joy, atop my childhood mountain, wasn’t the last time my feet would find themselves grounded there. The patio may be symbolic of something safe and empowering for me, but the courage to toss fear aside and leap had nothing to do with the platform my feet had left. The love of the man who poured it, the consistency of the woman in the attached house, the provision of sisters and the hodge-podge, non-conventional family I have- those are the things that give me the courage to leap, then and now.

At 42 I still take risks, and one day they may feel as small as that jump does now. May this bit of my journey remind me to leap in confidence, with a smile spread wide upon my face…

(Don’t forget to get this month’s wallpaper, listen to this month’s playlist, catch up on the Love Series of the Collective Podcast and subscribe to my monthly newsletter so you get first access to those things and exclusive things I may not share here! ALSO- have you entered to win my Birthday giveaway!?!?!?!)

Showing up…

Published on by Mae @ Rainydayinmay2 Comments

 

A trip home, to New Mexico, was long over due. I moved to Idaho, and away from my family in 1988, when I was twelve. Even so, between then and 2003, a year never passed without me making a trip down. Then, life just happened. I don’t know how else to say it. Motherhood, work, living in the northern midwest, money… I managed a visit in 2006, because my grandmother passed away. I will be the first one to say that funerals being the reason, when you couldn’t manage when that person was alive is kind of the worst. I loved my grandmother dearly and truly had wanted to see her, logistically I didn’t know how to make it work.

Growing up, the family who lived next door really were my surrogate family. They had kids of their own, but I could have easily lived there. I talk quite a bit about it, in my book, but they were my soft, light-filled place to fall when my actual home was so dark. After I had moved into the visiting stage of my New Mexico residency, there was a lot of pressure put on me. My mom hated when I would spend time with anyone other than her, and my grandma was kind of the same. Any friendships I’d had from childhood were lost because life goes on, things happen, and my time in this little desert town was so controlled.

After ’06, I managed to make it down two more times- 2007 and 2010. The visits were costly to pull off, in all of the ways. The guilt and pressure that was always heaped on my shoulders, along with the actual travel expenses, made it an overwhelming endeavor. For the past eight years I have known I needed to make a trip down. First was to see my family but also, to see my next door “family”. With each visit, I would sneak over to their house by faking a nap or something. It was ridiculous how difficult it was. Once my youngest little bird had left the nest, I knew a trip down needed to be a priority. By then my mom was already up in Michigan, in a memory care facility. Though the point came when I had more family buried in the ground than alive, in the state, the desert still called to me. It came down to logistics every single time, and I hate it. As December wrapped up, I told my husband that 2019 WOULD hold a trip to New Mexico. It just had to…

What I hadn’t ever expected was that 6 weeks later I would be booking a flight because of a funeral. Another loved one in the ground… Here I am again, showing up for a funeral while it seemed too difficult to show up in life. I really do hate that.

This is the first time ever, in this dying southwest town, that I have felt the call to stay here. Not to leave my husband, but to be here more. To appreciate these mountain ranges, the abandoned buildings and all of the under the surface things that she has to offer. More than once I have questioned how possible it would be to be here more. (which, if I went almost nine years, I guess more could be anything less)

Time connecting with family has been all of the things one would expect- sad, emotional, heavy, bucket-filling, comical, grief filled (for all of the reasons you’d expect and a bunch you wouldn’t) but it has also reaffirmed my belief in the vitality of showing up. I spent a precious chunk of time with my next door “family”, and am already dreaming up my next desert trip.

I imagine we all have our own New Mexico Story– That thing we should do, and maybe even want to do, but it has carried so much heaviness in the path that it’s sometimes easier to just look the other way and let eight years pass… This month I’ve had to face a lot of things I hadn’t before- things about my own perceptions, childhood, darkness, etc… This month I am learning to show up, when it is needed. When my soul longs for it, it is my responsibility to pave the way. (with the exception of when I am literally not wanted, of course. Then they can just deal with it, and one day maybe they will show up at my funeral and question their own choices.) What is it that you need to pave the way for, making yourself more present and intentional?

Sunday mornings…

Published on by Mae @ Rainydayinmay2 Comments

As a young girl I would spend Saturday nights with my grandmother. She would microwave the Orville Redenbacher cheese popcorn for us to share, (My developed pallet preferred to pair the treat with a lovely Grape Crush soda) while we watched our shows on television. Saturday nights on NBC had a revolving lineup, but the two that stick out fairly consistently in my memory are Golden Girls and 227. We would laugh, but mostly I didn’t really get what was going on, while she found both programs quite comical. When nine o’clock chimed on her dining room clock, I would do one of two things- I would either stay with her and we would watch Hunter, (my grandmother LOVED Hunter!) or I would go into her bedroom and listen to the requests on the local radio station. I have always had a deep love of music, and this is why, when Hunter was over, my grandmother would change the channel to whichever one aired the 30 minute “recap” of the top music videos from the week. We would watch that, together, and then go to bed at ten thirty, like sensible folk because we had church the next morning.

That room was a significant location for my childhood, though I still don’t really understand why. There were days I played in there, dancing to the radio while admiring my “smooth moves and style” in her mirrored sliding closet doors. Sometimes I would sneak away to sit in front of her vanity mirror and pretend to smooth my hair with the gold antique brush decorating its surface, while staring at a photo of my mother from the time when I thought that she looked just like Elizabeth Montgomery, from Bewitched. Then there were moments, or days, (and some Saturday nights, even) when I was terrified to go into her room, afraid of whatever invisible monster awaited me. (Lastly, her bedroom was the setting for the only recurring nightmare I have ever had, and when I say recurring, I mean that the curse of this dream lasted years…)

I never knew when she woke in the morning, despite me sleeping in the twin bed opposite hers. She was always quick to drift to sleep, lulling me with the sound of her breathing. There were nights though, when I’d lay there and tell her random things which seemed only relevant in the dark. She was always patient, in those times, to answer questions and respond. She would never chide me, even though looking back I see that she was obviously tired. Once the room settled into quiet, I would pretend to make a phone call in my mind. I would ring God, up in heaven, and chat with him for a minute before asking that He put my grandfather on the line. Though it was in my imagination, my grandfather never said hello but I would talk to him anyway because I just knew that he was there. I needed to believe he could hear me. This was where all of my secrets went.

A few times, in my childhood years, my grandmother awoke from a nightmare of her own, around three in the morning. She would gasp and sit straight up, and this always startled me awake. She would encourage me to return to sleep after telling me that she’d dreamed she was falling off a cliff and woke herself up so she did not die. (Though a devout Christian, she was also a superstitious woman and this was a big one, though I wondered even then how we knew for sure that we would die if we landed, because obviously no one ever had.) Most Sunday mornings she was awake long before I would crawl out of the bed that once belonged to my grandfather, before cancer took him to the other end of that imaginary phone line. Usually I found her reading her Bible and praying. Once I was awake enough, she would butter hot Jiffy muffins and make me a hot cocoa with her Hot Shot machine. (which, if you didn’t know, was pretty much the Kuerig of the 80’s)

Between the time she’d spend with Jesus, quietly, at her dining room table, until we were filing into our small town church pew- everything was peaceful and routine. I loved those Saturday nights and Sunday mornings so deeply, though I wasn’t able to realize their immense value until they were a thing of the past.

Every once in a while I’ll see episodes of the Golden Girls on tv and I get it now, those countless things that were so funny. Honestly, I also cringe a little at the age I was when I watched it with my grandmother, while she painted my nails. The latter is my exact response when recalling some of the music videos we had seen as well… Samantha Fox, early Madonna… What must have been going through my Jesus loving grandmother’s mind as she quietly sat there, letting me love them?

On those Saturday nights, before it was time for our programs, I would blast the local radio station and imagine my own music videos in her drive way. I imagine that I was either a great source of entertainment for her neighbors, or they were sure I was severely special needs. At any rate, I was in my twenties before the reality that the entire street could have seen my hours of terrible dancing, smacked me like a dump truck. As embarrassing as that is, I am grateful that there, in her driveway, I was secure enough in my own skin, to just be me. Even more, I am grateful that she accepted it. She never teased me, she simply gave me that space to be free. I was too young to really grasp those things then, I didn’t even comprehend the darkness that was my childhood. Her patience for my odd-duck antics is amazing, plus I think she was probably grateful for the company. She had lived enough to know to cherish those fleeting moments, embarrassing dancing and all. (Also, during the week, other than her daily viewing of All My Children, she watched all of the Wheel of Fortune, Hee Haw, Gaither specials and Christian programming she could to arm her for the sinful Saturday Night scandals, or at least I imagine that is the reason because it makes sense, and it’s funny.)

Today I am traveling home, to the beautiful deserts of New Mexico. A beloved family member has passed away and I am going to be near family. Not only do I want to be there, but I need to. Though my grandmother’s home now belongs to my aunt, I need to sit in that kitchen on Sunday morning. I need to surround myself with the familiarity of family whose blood I share, but where I kinda-sorta don’t really belong. Even so, there, within the walls of what was once her house, something fits, and I need that. I need to drink in some desert sunsets and rememorize the mountain landscape which set the backdrop to my silly driveway escapades. I need to set flowers at each of my grandparents graves and be present in a world that will always be my home, though I have no lived there in a lifetime…

 

 

Melt…

Published on by Mae @ RainydayinmayLeave a comment

We recently heard the history of St. Valentine and honestly, I feel like this is the ultimate romantic story. How has this not inspired a major motion picture? How is this NOT a story I had heard, ever, in the history of all Valentine’s days, school parties, etc???

I have never been much of a Valentine’s Day lover. I see it as one of those marks towards the top of the long list that represents all of the things we use to tell us we aren’t good enough, are not truly loved, and design completely unrealistic expectations around. This aspect of reality has grown so much with the rise of social media, the idealization of grand gestures, and the obsession with mimicking the entertainment industry.

This is sounding more soapbox than I am intending…

Here’s the thing though, my husband doesn’t believe that he is capable of romance. He is confined by the restrictions of finances, opportunity, and all of the other real life things that prove how attainable a movie life is. I look back at his childhood and cannot fathom where this shaping of “romance” originated, but for twenty-five years the majority of what I hear is that he’s sorry he isn’t more romantic, or sorry that he can’t do more. The truth is, I have never been that girl who longed for the big Hollywood style romance. There are certain fresh flowers I love, and I’ll take being surprised by them any day, (or let’s be real, I’ll buy them myself too!) Beyond that though, the traditional sense of “romantic gestures” isn’t one I identify with. Don’t bring me chocolates, or candy of any kind… BUT, an occasional fancy cupcake might be nice.

My poor husband has never been able to grasp the personalization of an authentic romantic gesture. He has done them countless times, but would never “hashtag” them as romantic. Instead he’s waiting for the hand in hand stroll beside the Eiffel tower at sunset to see himself as romantic, while I’m over here kind of like “Meh, Paris…” Ha!

I wanted to share a few things here, that make up some of the most REAL romantic things I’ve ever heard of- and they happen to be things this man has done for me… (It isn’t for bragging purposes as much as to illustrate the very idea of a “romantic gesture” is personal. What gets my heart melting isn’t likely what works for you.)

  • We were young and stupid. We got engaged, and then broke up. Even then, before Youtube and flash mob proposals, he felt far too much pressure about the importance of that moment. He tried too hard, cloaked in too much pessimism about his abilities, that though I said yes- (I helped pick out the ring, so it was pretty much a formality anyway) the proposal itself was not the basis of a great story. As I mentioned though, we broke up… And then we found ourselves sitting in a pew of the church that I had grown up knowing I would one day get married in, and he held my hand. Then, he let go of my hand to draw my ring on the back of a “connection” card, and wrote a simple “check yes or no” beneath it. MELT…
  • Not long after we were married, drowning in medical debt (yep, I was a big contributor to the awesome stuff like debt, hospital stays and a solid string of health issues, pretty much from the get go.) he irrationally enlisted in the Air Force. The recruiter painted it as the best solution, (it was not) and so he jumped. This was pre-9/11, when there were far too many people enlisted and so Chw got sent home along with lots of others. The first night he was back, he sang the lyrics to our song (We were so on trend… Always, by Bon Jovi) as we slow danced in the dark. He’d been gone several really hard weeks, and he had spent an insane amount of (pre-birth-of-google) time writing out the lyrics and memorizing them. MELT…
  • Fast forward awhile. He’s working at a glass factory. During his lunches he had cut a glass heart out, for me. He bevelled the edges and then frosted the words I Love You into its surface. I have never been a kitschy, knick knack lover but that heart seared itself into mine. (which is good because we no longer have it.) When he gave me this beautiful gift with an equal mix of pride over his creation, fear that I would hate it and doom that it wasn’t good enough. Heartbreaking! But honestly, the most precious thing about this glass heard was that there was so much of himself within it. Seriously, I LOVED it. Major MELT…
  • Sometime later, he was helping a group of kids make homemade playdough, at my parents. He then took a bit of it and carved an amazing rose for me. I kept it for years, until it was so dry it crumbled. I loved that eerie blue flower more than anything he’s ever given me- glass heart aside. MELT…
  • One Christmas, money was really tight and gifts in general were pretty much a negative. In our garage, in stolen moments I never knew about, he made me an ornately carved wooden business card holder. I had a photography business at the time, and it was such a gesture of support. I love it still and it sits on my desk… MELT.
  • I’d had surgery. There was a tumor the size of a nerf football in my uterus. The doctor had taken it, along with an ovary. Once I’d woken up, in recovery, I was miserable. The pain was huge, and my heart was broken. I wanted to be a mother so badly, and if I hadn’t been able to do it with two working ovaries and a non-compromised uterus, how would I possibly do it after this? Shattered, (which felt like a life theme at my twenty-two years of age) and feeling so alone, they wheeled me into my hospital room. The second I caught sight of him there, waiting for me, I felt grounded in gravity, so stable and most importantly: SAFE. This was the very first time in the history of my entire life that I remember distinctly feeling safe. He’d brought me a little figurine that said “You are my sunshine”, and though it was cute and STILL sits on my nightstand (twenty years later), never far from where I lay my head, it is valuable to me because it tethers me to the most amazing moment I have ever had, thanks to my husband… MELT…

The most romantic things that this man has ever done, (and there are others… these are just the ones that come to mind right now) were when he allowed himself to just authentically be, without the pressure or lofty projections of someone/something else. This is true for all of us, I suspect. When we are our most authentic selves, is when we are our most beautiful… St. Valentine was a man, and this was simply his name. He signed a letter, before his death, “your Valentine.” Over 1500 years later the anniversary of his death is recognized as the most romantic day of the year, by the majority of the world. Remember that when the pressure and expectations presented by film, tv, novels and Instagram tell you what things should look like…