Fashion Update… and the Unexpected Benefit

I don’t need to buy fashion magazines to find out the latest.  I have been on a college campus for more than 30 years.  If I want to find out the latest in women’s fashions all I have to do is look around. 

                The first three weekends of the school year is when the sororities at our campus hold “rush.”  During these weekends young women and sororities court (my word) one another until the right girl finds the right sorority and vise verse.  This is where I get my information about the latest fashion trends.  There was the year of the white sun dress, the year of the floral sun dress, the year of the strait, short skirt and the year of the full, short skirt, the strapless year and the halter year, and the year of the black dress… though, really, does the little black dress ever go out of style?

                So this year is that of the uneven hem.  Some of these dresses are subtle, with it being just a little shorter in the front than the back.   But some of them are more dramatic being a mini in the front and a maxi in the back (okay, I know, that really dates me, doesn’t it).  Some of the hemlines are symmetrical in that the shortest part of the skirt is in the middle of the front and the longest in the middle of the back.  But some are not symmetrical. 

                Don’t get me wrong, I think many of these dresses and skirts are really cute, though I haven’t rushed out to buy my own.  But I have thought of one unexpected benefit of this latest in fashion.... 

               Now is a great time to learn how to sew!   

              Just imagine how nice it would be to not worry about getting the hemline even all the way around the skirt.  If the person wanting to learn how to sew would just get started right now, they would be able to get some real practice in hemming a skirt before the trend goes back to being even all the way around!  So, if you have been thinking about learning how to sew, or even if you haven't, hurry up!  This is the time to

get started!

The Road Trip...Alone

One of my kids is riding his bicycle around the country to raise awareness about the issue of human trafficking.  He left 3 month ago and he has at least another month to go.  Most days he has been alone on his bicycle.  Many of those days he has ridden as much as 150 miles in the middle of nowhere with a loaded down bike, a cell phone and a GPS.  He has depended on the hospitality of people he has never met before, mostly church folk, who have put him up in their homes or in a nearby motel and fed him a couple of meals.  There is so much to this story… but this is about me.

At one point in his trip my husband and I met him.  We all attended our denomination’s national convention.  I normally go to this without my family.  I see my friends.  People know me for what I do.  This time was different.  I was my kid’s mom.   “That kid (ok, he’s 26) who is hanging out in the exhibit hall, talking with people about his mission, yeah, I’m his mom.”  That was a first, but not the only "first" on that trip.

After the convention my husband decided to ride for a week with our son.  We brought a tandem which they took and it was my job to drive home from Kansas City, KS, to our home with the bike that my son had been using and would continue to use after the stint with his dad was done.  The "first:"  I had never traveled that distance alone by car before.   My kid is riding his bike all over the country all by himself and I, in my mid-50s, had never driven 530 miles/9 hours alone in a car before.  

 I decided to split the trip up and maybe even do some sight-seeing along the way.  When I woke up the morning that I was to leave, I looked at the weather map and realized that my original route was going to lead me through thunder and lightning storms.  I don’t like lightning.  And the idea of driving in the flat prairie lands with a lightning rod on the top of my car (ok it was a bike, but same difference when it comes to lightning) multiplied the stress that I was already experiencing with the milestone of my lonely road trip.  I took a different route which brought me  to St. Charles, the first capitol of Missouri, where I decided to stop for the night.

Being the end of June, there was still about 3 hours of light left in the day when I arrived at the motel-with-the-roof-of-a-certain-color.  I checked in and went into my room to get settled and figure out what I wanted to do that night.  It was too late to go shopping in the cute historic downtown by the river, but I thought I could go exploring and find some unique place to eat dinner before settling down for the night in my room.  After looking at maps and brochures I figured out where to go and opened my motel room door to find three police cars with the corresponding number of police officers in the parking lot right outside of my door.  Ok, I didn’t think to worry about something like this!  I went back in my room and shut my door and took to spying out of my window.  Eventually, having heard no screams or anything worse, and noting that the police officers nearest my room were not pulling out their guns, I decided to bravely work my way to my car.  I got in and started my exploration.  I drove around and found all the places that I wanted to check out the next day.  Chickening out in regard to the unique place to eat dinner, I decided to go back to the room and eat the half sandwich left over from lunch, but first drove through Steak-n-Shake for a chocolate shake. 

When I got to back to the motel I wondered about the bicycle securely attached to the top of my car.  Would it be safe?  After all, we had already had "police action" in broad daylight.  Who knows what could happen in the middle of the night!  Now, I was sure that I could not get that bike down by myself.  I could go into the office and see if they would help me.  But then I would need to find someone to help me put it back up on the car the next morning.  I couldn’t find a place to park by my room.   I finally decided to park in the spot right outside the office where the person working the desk could watch it out of their window.  I went to my room, occasionally looking out my door, down the exterior hallway to my car.  Yes, the bike was still there.  Periodically during the night I prayed that the bike would be there the next morning.  It was.

After a nice walk around the still closed historic downtown, I found some coffee and began the rest of my trip home.  I learned all about President James Garfield thanks to be book on CD, and I made it home, all by myself, without incident.  My daughter got the bike off the roof of the car without my help and I could chalk up another first in my life. 

It's Only Eating!

                This morning I heard a story on the radio about a man who by studying teeth has been able to tell how long a Neanderthal was breastfed by mother-Neanderthal.  As interesting as this is, the real question is whether or not mother-Neanderthal was allowed to breastfeed her baby-Neanderthal in the mall.

                I am continually amazed at the commotion about breastfeeding in public!  Really?!?  It is the most natural thing that there is – ask any baby who does it.  It is just eating, folks, that’s all!  I find grown adults eating a greasy hamburger with one hand and a clump of salty French fries with the other and a mega-size diet coke with the other in the mall food court far more disgusting than a woman breastfeeding her baby on a bench next to the Gap.  What is not natural is for a woman who is fully equipped, experiencing let down when she hears her baby cry, fumbling around trying to find a bottle in the diaper bag to feed her baby.  Or having to go to the bathroom to nurse the baby, all because someone gets upset that her breast is not firmly in her bra cup and instead is in her baby’s mouth.  Remember, it’s eating, that’s all!  Would you want to eat in the bathroom at the Mall?  Actually, I found the Nordstrom bathroom a nice place to nurse my babies.  They had a wonderful, gently lit anteroom with a comfortable rocker, away from the hustle and bustle of the Mall.  I am sure that they put it in for the comfort of the mother and baby as opposed to the comfort of the one who is being offended by the woman FEEDING her baby in the way that God intended.  But even in the restrooms that are regularly cleaned, I don’t want to bring my mocha frappe, let alone eat a meal.  Why would I want to feed a little baby in there?

                When this subject comes up I am usually just really annoyed.  But if I think about it long enough, I become greatly offended.  Think about it.  It is the ultimate in objectifying a woman.  As Julia Roberts once said, “They’re only breasts!”  Okay, that may be a bad example as she was in bed with Hugh Grant at the time.  Thinking of breastfeeding in public as “indecent” is offensive.  I did it all the time, and probably most people didn’t know I was doing it.  I even did it in church!  (Not ever in the pulpit.  Now that would have been distracting – mostly for ME).  But even if a little skin shows while the process goes on, what is the big deal.  The walls of Abercrombie have pictures of bigger than life people who are practically naked!  (Which always intrigues me that they are trying to sell you clothes and they do it with pictures of naked people.  Maybe they are trying to coax the naked people to buy clothes?? …but I digress.) 

A breast has more functions than sexual arousal of people!  When we can only think of breasts sexually, we are on our way to thinking of women in a strictly sexual sense.  When we do that we limit the spheres where a woman can go.  We do that so that she can’t possibly arouse a man (who can go wherever and do whatever he chooses).  You think I am over-reacting.  Maybe I am.  But it was not that long ago in our own history when it was improper for a woman to show her calf in public (and I am not talking about an activity at the state fair).  It is not that far away that women are required to cover their entire body, except for their eyes and go out in public only when escorted by a male relative.   (There are still Christian versions of this dynamic as well).

Okay, you’re asking how I got from breastfeeding in the mall to burkas and beyond (that could be a name for…never mind).  It’s just that we have come a long way, (baby).  I was able to breastfeed in public more than 20 years ago.  I never fed my babies with a bottle (others did, when I was not around).   If I tried, my baby would look up at me and give me the, “You can do better than that” look.  Women before me fought long and hard so that I could have many freedoms including breastfeeding my baby in peace…or in the mall. 

So, let the poor, sleep-deprived woman FEED her baby in peace.  If it bothers you, just go buy a hamburger or go window shopping at Abercrombie.  Remember, it’s just eating.

Do Something Great But Be Safe!

When my kids were in elementary school and I was campus minister at USC, I had responsibilities on the denomination’s region staff.  My dear friend, colleague and fellow region staff person was responsible for raising support for missions among the American Baptist Churches of Los Angeles.  She would put on meetings quarterly at which she would invite representatives from each of the AB churches and then bring missionaries and people in ministries of outreach that the churches supported with their money designated for missions.  She would call me early in the week and tell me that I needed to be there to share about the campus ministry.  These meetings happened on Saturday mornings which was a day that I was home with the kids as my husband worked on that day.  So what that usually meant was that I would pack up the kids and hope that they could entertain themselves while I did my thing at the meeting.  But as it turned out, my friend had a way of making those meetings so interesting and exciting that my kids actually liked going!  Eventually, my friend decided that she would go to South Africa as a missionary and as we sent her off my kids started telling people that they were “going to be a missionary like Auntie M. Cecilia.”  For some time, my son, especially, said that when he grew up he was going to be a missionary.  When my kids said that, I was proud and excited.  I knew that they could grow out of that professional goal, but wow!  I have always counted various missionaries among the people that I really admire…my heroes!  To think that my own kid would grow up and do something incredible like that is everything a mom could want… until she really thinks about it.

What if he ends up in a dangerous place?  What if she gets sick and there is no place to go to a hospital?  What if he challenges the powers that be in the name of justice and people don’t like that?  What if she stands up for someone who is being abused and she gets abused as well?    Ok, I want my kids to do great things to make the world a better place…just as long as they are safe and well fed and have all their needs met.

A few months ago my son started talking about riding across the country on his bicycle right after graduation.  At first I thought he was joking—of course he was joking!!! What a crazy idea!!!  Before long I realized that he was serious.  My response was completely appropriate:  “Are you kidding?  You need to just get a job.  After all, you took enough  time to get through college.  You have student loans to pay.  You are not going to be able to be on our health insurance for much longer, and did I say you need to get a job??”  But he said he wanted to do it in order to raise awareness about the issue of human trafficking.  He wanted to go around and tell people and maybe even raise money to fight it.  I still said things like, “that is really nice, son, but… are you kidding?

When that didn’t work I switched into the next level of dealing with trying to control my children’s lives when they are not at all cooperating.  That next level is what I learned from my mother who no doubt learned it from her mother.  I switched into sarcasm.  Every time he made a comment about riding his bike across the country I responded with sarcasm.    

When that didn’t work…by the way, it never does, but it offers brief moments of instant gratification, but I finally realize that sarcasm is actually my transitional stage between denial and acceptance…so when that didn’t work I decided that since he was going to do this anyway, I should probably help him.  Brilliant, eh?  So I shocked him one day as we were riding in the car and I just out of the blue said to him, “If you are going to do this thing then you need to build a team of people to help you.”  And then I went through the list and in the process realized that I was sharing with him out of my experience of planning and networking.  I started to realize I was on the right track when he actually starting making contact with the people for his team. 

Little did I know at that time it would turn into what it has, something really big!  More than once my mother and my sisters have said to me, “Are you really going to let him do this?.... Alone?!?”  And I have to remind them that he will be 26 years old and that I really can’t stop him, so I have been trying to help him be safe and organized and supported.  For one thing, we are trying to work it out that he will be going from church to church.  That way I know that there will be good people waiting for him and if he doesn’t show up they will go look for him.

I still have the “mom moments,” when I just blurt out something that indicates that I am still scared and nervous that something will happen to my little boy while he is out trying to make the world a better place.  He just looks at me and rolls his eyes and I remind him that I can’t help it.  I can only hold the “mom” in for so long and then she just jumps out and says something.  But that’s what happens when you raise your kid on stories of heroes.  Or you talk at the dinner table and in the car about what is going on in the world and how somebody ought to do something about it.  What kind of ideas are they going to get when you introduce them to people who are actually out doing those kinds of things?  At the same time you have devoted your life to seeing that they are safe. 

What’s a mom to do, but pray… and say, “Go out and make the world a better place, but be safe!”

www.ridingagainsttraffic.org