The Late Arrival

Going from a small Lutheran grade school to a much, much larger Lutheran high school would have been intimidating had not my best friend since kindergarten been by my side. We scheduled most of our classes together, developed crushes on the same guys and giggled. All the time. At everything and everyone. Especially the guys who were the object of our crushes. We had high hopes for successful auditions into extracurriculars like pompon squad and planned our strategies to a tee – what we’d wear, the routine we’d do and scheduled our auditions back to back. We’d go in front of the coaches and knock ‘em dead. One of us made the pompon squad; and the one wasn’t me. It was devastating to a fragile teen, and the truth is I’d probably shed a tear now if I was telling you about it over a glass of wine. I got over it, but the rejected freshman girl in me still pokes at me during job interviews, or whenever I hit the publish button on a post (like this one), or whenever I submit a piece...

I was walking the dog when I heard Heeeeyy girl…You’re looking goo-ooo- ood today! A car had slowed down next to me, just enough to keep pace as I walked. The driver’s eyes slowly laser-swept my body, beginning at my chest, ending at my thighs and slowly back up again. Then he drove off. At 13, I was still adjusting to my developing body. I was all breasts, a bubble butt and stick legs. My body was foreign, yet I was the same awkward, introverted girl who wanted nothing more than to be cool and feel like one of the 'pretty girls.' But this was unwanted attention from a stranger in a strange car. It was frightening. What if he went around the block and came back to kidnap me? Even though I was completely freaked out, I didn’t tell my mom about it when I got home. My immature brain thought it was my fault and that I must have done something to invite it. I felt dirty. Of course I know better now. I’ve learned over time that the catcalling guy in the car and countl...

"What'll you have?" "Beer's good." The fizz tickled. An hours-old "It's definitely you , not me " declaration and a final exit's relief echoes in my head. A job is life's filler. Not the other way 'round. Fizzes, tickles...taste like freedom.

It isn’t too often I take a page from Kim Kardashian (like never), but doggone it, she had a good idea: writing to her future self. Thanks for the find,  VProud ! So, with that in mind, I penned a letter to my ten years from now future self. Dear Rochelle, Geez, you’re so much smarter than the 46 year old me. Remember waiting for Divine Retribution or karma or whatever to take hold and intervene on people ten years ago? You peacefully released the cartoon anvil drop fantasy on folks who were all kinds of wrong. You realized it rains on the just and unjust; and your perceived slights are now mere shadows, if you can remember them at all. You allow a breathing room for your daughter and you to err and to be human. You abandoned the periodic, unsaid mental freakouts over the unexpected, unplanned, unarranged and imperfect. You live an honest and authentic life. Your daughter sees what you’ve been driving toward, and I’ve got a feeling she’ll ...

Mom! It’s graffiti! It’s art... on a shoe ! I have to try it on. Please...can I? It was my 12 year old’s first foray into heels. A big moment in our little lives. Working full-time when she was an infant had stolen other big-little moments from my camera’s eye -- the first time she rolled over, the first time she sat up unassisted...the first firsts. Newly, gladly and willfully unemployed for the first time in 15 years, I took a picture. The picture wasn’t as much of an attempt to catch up on lost firsts, but rather a net to capture a butterfly’s moment of the moment; because if history skips a generation and the math holds out, there are more years behind me than ahead. My mom died at 63. Her mom died at 47. I’m 46. I’ve checked all over my person for a stamped expiration date, from the flabby inside parts of my arms, to the backs of my knees and other parts of my anatomy that shall remain nameless here.  There is no such date. Yet, there is a poss...

Jump in, honey! I’m right here. Jamie’s voice echoed above the splashes in the indoor public pool where 3 year-old Georgia was taking swimming lessons. Pigtails on either side of her head created alien like bulges through her orange swim cap. She stood at the pool’s edge, stooped over...thinking, weighing the options...and not jumping. Can’t say I blame her. Ground is solid, secure; while water, no matter who’s standing in it waiting to catch you, isn’t. But solid isn’t truly solid if you think about it. Earthquakes happen and whole buildings tumble. Floods sweep villages away; and tornadoes and avalanches even use what’s solid to ground themselves and wreak havoc. Clinging to what’s solid can be a dangerous proposition - in nature and in your career. I imagine my daughter, stooped, overthinking, weighing her options, missing out on the fun she could’ve had, had she just jumped into her daddy’s waiting arms. The scene was my mirror. What I saw was myself clinging onto a ...

It was the day before Mother’s Day and I found myself at the store to pick up a few forgotten items. I didn't bother trying to be presentable and ended up at the store wearing a baseball cap, sweats and sans make-up. Pretty. Anyway, I hurried past the card aisle, anxious to get the stuff I needed and get out. Glancing up the aisle clogged with people searching for last minute Hallmark well wishes, something strange happened. Or didn't happen. For the first time in nearly thirty years since my mom’s been gone, my internal GPS didn't point me to that aisle. The divining rod in my head didn't lead me to search for a card for my mom. There was no back-to-reality jerk. No surprisingly/unsurprisingly painful reminder realization that, no -- there’s no need to buy her a card because she’s not here anymore. This is a good thing, I think, but I can’t tell you how I got to this place. There still isn't a day that passes without me thinking of mom, wondering what...

So what is your life’s purpose? It was a question posed in a moderated discussion thrown out to a small group of three. Up until that point, we had been responding to questions in ways we thought would make us stand out as individuals. Or at least I had been, truthfully. The question clogged my thinking and stopped me in my tracks. A s long as I could remember, I heard the perpetual question from my parents, well-meaning friends of my parents, teachers and guidance counselors: What do you want to be when you grow up? Then when I became an adult (seriously, am I really an adult?), my own voice grated in my mind even when it appeared like I had it altogether: What don’t I want to do? What I wanted to be as an adult had everything to do with career, money. What I didn’t want to do was a bar I’d set for making money in a said career. Neither had anything to do with purpose . But yet, there I was almost clocking in at the half-century mark with more years behind me than ahea...

The 1987 prom court was lined up in the hallway leading to the gym: gangly teenaged boys in rental tuxedos and girls whose heads and arms were adrift in seas of poofy frilly antebellum dresses. None of us knew who would be the first, second, third, fourth attendant or king or queen until it was announced on a stage in front of parents and other well-wishers. One by one, names were called and people disappeared through the sunlit hallway into a pitch black gymnasium where they’d ascend the stage and fidget nervously in a spotlight as woots, hollers and cameras clicked away. My nerves glitched up as each name was called. I don’t get it. This is only for the pretty people. I'm not pretty. I’m awkward, overweight and nerdy. Then another name. This is totally bad news... Then the last attendant's name was called, and it wasn't mine. I knew that meant the next name announced would be the person who was prom queen. Me? I whispered to the only person left...

My uncle was the best storyteller. He’d regale us with Sunday Dinner Stories of his Mama Sara and growing up in Tennessee. Sometimes, it’d just be pure fictional silliness, like the time his frenemy “Blue” had enough of his teasing and bashed his head in with a brick. He was a master of hyperbole and comedy. Somehow, we all ended up in stitches over his stitches. Other times, my great aunt, a Jehovah’s Witness, would join us after a Kingdom Hall Sunday meeting. Inevitably the doorbell would ring with Jehovah’s Witnesses witnessing. On my way to answering the door, I’d tell my mom “It’s Jehovah’s Witnesses” and just as I’d open the door, my mom would yell “Tell ‘em we got one already!” I’d die a slow embarrassing death looking into the innocent eyes of the witnesses while everyone at the table laughed. Including my great aunt. After dinner, we’d end up in the living room around the upright Mason piano adorned with our baby pictures and miscellaneous sheet music. My uncle plunked ou...

When I walked into the ladies room, I was greeted by oatmeal pasty thighs and blue veiny hands hitching up once-upon-a-time-white grandmaw panties. They were attached to a woman who didn't seem to care that the open stall door left her exposed to me. I was rolling into work an hour early, half awake, half bitter and in dire need of another ninety minutes of sleep. Maybe the potty training phase of my now 12 y/o girl is what left me unfazed: for about four months of my adult life, all I saw was panties, hineys and assorted potty poses; so I went on primping, preening and pretending that I was up for the song and dance act required for presenting my report at the monthly board meeting. Once she had everything hitched, gathered up and zipped up, she exited the open stall and approached. Excuse me, I know a lot of people don’t smoke anymore… I listened to her pitch and noticed her acid-etched face wasn't too many years younger than mine, and her eyes were bright-white-blu...

On a rare childless night, my husband was out running an errand, leaving me in solitude save for the Animal Planet's drone about people and their preposterous pets. A man somewhere in the British Isles who was a falconer and a classical guitarist was featured. He strummed exquisitely as the camera panned from his fingers to a majestic golden eagle perched just above his right shoulder. As the guitar playing faded, a voiceover narrated the eagle’s story. The bird, once a resident at a zoo, had been stolen and then hidden in a closet of the thieves who spirited him away. The eagle was kept in this closet until he was rescued and adopted by the falconer. Upon rescue, the eagle was alive, but had plucked himself nearly bald -- in fits of madness, I guess -- when he realized the fruitlessness of his escape attempts. The falconer nursed the eagle back to health and after a few months, the bird's plumage returned. The next step in rehabilitation was teaching the eagle flight a...