Category Archives: Yeah Write

Working Girl Me

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When I signed on to my computer that morning, an instant message popped up from my boss: “Please call me as soon as you get to your desk.”

He was not given to chitchat or small talk. We both worked remotely and when we communicated, it was via email or instant message. Before I could consider why he wanted to speak to me, my phone rang.

“This is going to be a difficult conversation,” he began.

Fifteen minutes later, I was unemployed.

It didn’t matter that I was being laid off because of a corporate restructuring at a foundering company or that my boss said he had pushed hard to keep management from eliminating my position.

I had lost my job and, along with it, a crucial chunk of my identity. What if I couldn’t get it back? I needed working girl me. She kept me sane. She was confident, self-assured. She paid the mortgage and car payment. She provided her family with health insurance. She showed her daughter the importance of working hard, being respected and standing on her own. She was the me I wanted to be.

I had willingly given her up once before to stay home with my young children. I thought I would be happy without her, that I would find the personal fulfillment I needed in being a mother. But it wasn’t enough. I wanted her back. Slowly, I worked her into my new life as a parent. I did some freelance writing and editing for a few years, and when my son started kindergarten I took a part-time job working from home.

She was back, and I was happy. We all were.

Then my husband lost his job. I was able to expand my position to full time, which helped, but it was still a frightening, stressful period for us financially. At the same time, it made us refocus on our family and our marriage, and it brought us closer. It also motivated my husband to start his own company as he had always wanted to do. Out of what he had perceived was failure came success. She, working girl me, helped make it possible.

And now she was gone.

How could I tell him? Could we get through this again, without her this time?

As I climbed the stairs to the master bedroom where my husband was dressing for work, I felt like a child coming home with a bad report card. I had failed, and there was nothing I could do to fix it. I was afraid of what he would think, what he would say, how he would see me — the me without her.

I saw the shock in his eyes, the fear, but he was there for me. It was his turn to be supportive, and he was.

“We’ll get through this,” he told me, as I cried into his T-shirt. “You’re good at what you do. You’ll find another job.”

I didn’t believe him. But she did.

read to be read at yeahwrite.me

Not for Just an Hour, Not for Just a Day

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I sat alone by the pool, listening to the mix tape he had handed me at Detroit Metro, right before I boarded the plane for Florida.

“They’re just some songs I like,” he had said, in his usual flippant tone. “It doesn’t mean anything.”

I listened to the tape anyway. Belinda Carlisle sang, “Never-ending love is what we’ve found,” but The Pogues countered with, “You took my dreams from me when I first found you.”

He was right, I thought. It doesn’t mean anything.

I turned off the Walkman and headed back to my family’s mobile home. As I walked the path I had taken so many times as a child, the streets, homes and palm trees seemed smaller than I remembered, almost miniature.

They hadn’t changed. But I had.

I had just graduated from college and was about to start my first full-time job. The weight of responsibility loomed, and I wanted, needed, to relax with my aunt and uncle, my second parents, the people who loved me unconditionally.

It wasn’t a typical spring break for a 21-year-old. My aunt and uncle were Michigan snowbirds who spent the colder months at their mobile home in Lake Seminole Resort, a retirement community in Pinellas. Instead of keg parties on the beach, I visited the local flea market with my uncle, played bingo with my aunt at the community hall and caught early-bird dinner specials with their retiree friends.

After dinner we would sit on their screened-in porch, and my uncle would tell stories about their early years together. They met at the dime store where my aunt worked in downtown Detroit. My uncle, who managed a theater nearby, was immediately smitten and kept trying to get her to go on a date. She finally agreed.

“I found a million-dollar baby in a five and ten cent store,” he sang, with a big grin. They had been married 50 years, but it was as if they had just met.

Toward the end of my visit, my aunt and uncle surprised me with a trip to the Salvador Dali Museum. I was a big Dali fan and had no idea my 70-year-old aunt even knew who he was.

As we drove to St. Petersburg, I remembered the other tape in my purse, Patsy Cline’s “Always,” which I had brought to share with my aunt.

My love for Patsy began when I was a young girl living with them. A family friend used to sing her songs at parties, and I knew my aunt would enjoy reminiscing to “Bill Bailey, Won’t You Please Come Home” and “Your Cheatin’ Heart.”

When she popped the cassette in the tape deck, my uncle took her hand in his and began to sing along to the title track:

“I’ll be loving you, always. With a love that’s true, always. When the things you plan, need a helping hand, I will understand, always…”

That’s what I want, I thought. I want it to mean something.

read to be read at yeahwrite.me

From Barry to The Bishop: One Groupie’s Journey

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If this one sounds familiar, it originally ran March 30, 2012. I’ve edited and reposted it for this week’s Yeah Write Summer Challenge.

Ohhhhhh, Mandy!

My first concert was Barry Manilow. It was 1978 and my college-age babysitter, Mary, took me to see him at Pine Knob Music Theatre in Clarkston, Michigan. I was 10 years old, apparently too young to know or care how uncool Barry is by most people’s standards. Even worse, I had a huge crush on him. I distinctly remember running down the hill on the lawn at Pine Knob singing, “I am stuck on Barry Manilow, but he ain’t stuck on me” (to the tune of the “I am stuck on Band-Aid” jingle, which I later learned Barry wrote).

While my love for Barry waned, at least slightly, my love for music never did. Through my sister, the disco queen, I became a huge Donna Summer fan. My brother, the rock-and-roller, balanced things out with some Hendrix and Zeppelin.

My brother is also responsible for my love of The Doors, which reached its height in my 20s. Apparently, it began much earlier, however. I’m told that my aunt and uncle took preschool-age me to church with them one Sunday and got a big surprise. When everyone stood up to sing a hymn, I burst into a resounding version of the chorus of “Light My Fire.”

Since I believe in full disclosure, I must also admit that I had a brief obsession with Shaun Cassidy, the Justin Bieber of the late 1970s. His poster was on my wall, and I played his eponymous first album relentlessly while singing along to his picture on the cover. I may cringe at the sound of a Bieber song today, but I can’t judge too harshly given my love for Shaun. Thankfully, my 10-year-old daughter has far more discerning taste in music. Her iPod is loaded with Adele, The Beatles and Death Cab for Cutie.

The musical accompaniment to my junior high and high school years was predominantly punk rock, new wave and alternative in nature, and my angst was only outweighed by the ridiculousness of my haircuts. I have a shoebox full of concert stubs from all those late nights in smoky clubs. Echo and the Bunnymen was one of my favorites. I showed my adoration by sporting the same hairdo as the lead singer. There was a lot of teasing and Aqua Net involved.

Fast forward to age 44: I’m married to a guy who loves music almost as much as I do, and we have two talented musicians for children. My husband plays bass, my daughter plays trumpet and piano, and my son, the musical phenom, plays guitar, alto saxophone, piano and ukulele.

My husband’s band, The Bishop, plays gigs regularly in and around our small town and in Chicago. Even though I’m a working mom who’s expected to behave maturely on a daily basis, I still get to indulge my groupie side one or twice a month.

It’s been a long journey from Barry to The Bishop. Thank you, Mr. Manilow, for lighting my fire (sorry, Mr. Morrison).

read to be read at yeahwrite.me

Memories of the Men Who Raised Me

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Aunt Thelma and Uncle Lincoln

As a child, I walked next to him with my tiny hand wrapped around his giant index finger. I listened to him chuckle softly at his own jokes. I ran to him when my aunt, the disciplinarian, scolded me, and I sobbed on his shoulder. He was my uncle, but he was also my second dad. He loved me unconditionally, as if I were his own daughter, and he showed me what a father should be.

I went to live with Uncle Lincoln and Aunt Thelma, my father’s older sister, shortly before my mother’s death. They were in their fifties and had already raised their own two children and numerous foster kids. Their decision to take on a toddler at that stage of their lives is just one example of the loving, nurturing, selfless people they both were.

Uncle Linc was my buddy growing up. I adored him. He walked me to the bus stop each morning with our collie, Chipper. I worked with him in his vegetable garden, planting row after row of sweet corn, cucumbers and leaf lettuce. I helped him feed and water our horse, Blue Betty. When a new Disney movie came out, he took me to the Westborn Theater, which he managed, and I sat happily in the back row munching on Raisinets.

When I was 11, my father remarried and I moved in with him and my stepmother. My dad was a stoic, distant man. I knew he loved me, but it was not easy for him to show it. My teen years with my stepmom were tough, and my dad was no Uncle Lincoln.

In my early ’20s, I spent a fair amount of time dating the wrong men. I found myself drawn to troubled, enigmatic types, guys like my dad. That changed when I moved to Chicago and met the rock star (not really, but he is in a band). Our first date lasted 24 hours, and I had never felt more at home with anyone. Within six weeks we were living together, and this year we’ll celebrate our 16th wedding anniversary.

What made him the right guy? After years of dating men like my father, I finally found an Uncle Lincoln. He laughs at his own jokes. He holds me together when I’m falling apart. He loves me unconditionally.

When I took the rock star home to meet my family, my father, a retired Detroit police officer, sat him down in the kitchen with a yellow legal pad and grilled him about his education, employment and family. When we went to visit Uncle Lincoln, he and my future husband sat outside in a couple of lawn chairs and had a casual, quiet conversation. I love both these memories. My two dads looking out for me and making sure I’d found a good guy.

It took time, distance and having my own family to repair my relationship with my dad. I had to become a parent to recognize what he had been through — World War II, being a police officer, losing his wife — and how it had affected him. Both my dads are gone now, and I miss them every day.

As I watch my own little girl unabashedly favor her father over me, it tickles me. I know she is bonding with the most important man in her life, and he is showing her what a father should be. He is her example. I hope she’ll find someone just like him some day, just like him and Uncle Lincoln.

read to be read at yeahwrite.me

Life in the Suburbs: Same As It Ever Was?

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"Once in a Lifetime," Talking Heads

I grew up in a bedroom community in suburban Detroit. It was filled with blue-collar families, modest ranch homes, pristine yards and, my younger self assumed, a lot of broken dreams.

As a 20-something whose dreams were firmly intact, I couldn’t wait to get out of there and see the world. My plan was to go to Chicago, work for the Tribune (this almost happened) and somehow wind up a music columnist for Rolling Stone (I have a subscription; does that count?). And no matter where my dreams took me, it would never, ever be back to the suburbs.

As a musical side note, I thought the Talking Heads song “Once in a Lifetime” was about someone waking up in the suburbs one day and wondering how he ended up there and if any of it really mattered. (For those unfamiliar, watch the video here.)

A few lines into the song, a bow-tied and bespectacled David Byrne asks, “Well, how did I get here?”

Well, Mr. Byrne, here I sit, pushing 45 and about to celebrate my 10th anniversary of suburban life, and sometimes I wonder the same thing.

Although I never did end up working for the Tribune (I was on a waitlist for an internship and got tired of waiting), I did find my way to Chicago. That’s where I met my husband — we’ll call him “the rock star” (he really is in a band, although you most likely have never heard of it). The rock star and I lived in apartments in Lincoln Park and then Bucktown in the early years of our relationship. We were married for about two years before thoughts of having children entered our heads, and life in the city suited us just fine.

When I got pregnant with our son — about five minutes after we decided to start trying and, yes, I realize how lucky we were — we decided to look for a house in the city. I was adamant about avoiding the suburbs and really wanted to give life in the city with kids a go.

Our shoestring budget led us to a bungalow in the far northwest neighborhood of Portage Park. We took the terrifying first car ride home from the hospital after our son was born to that house. (The ride home with our newborn daughter 22 months later was far less stressful since we were, of course, seasoned veterans by then.) It was our first home, and in many ways it is where my heart will always be.

Excuse me if I am having another Talking Heads moment here, but have you ever had a dream where you’re at home, but you’re actually in a place you’ve previously lived? Well, I always dreamed of being at home in the house where I grew up — my aunt and uncle’s house in Southfield, Michigan — until I moved to the Portage Park house. It’s where my life with my own little family began.

At some point, my stubborn refusal to “go suburban,” to be a “708-er,” gave way to wanting the best for our children. Both the rock star and I went to public schools, and we wanted the same experience for our kids. That couldn’t happen in the city neighborhood where we lived. We felt safe and loved our neighbors, but the public schools there were downright awful.

So we up and moved to the South Suburbs — away from everything I knew. Although the only place I had lived in Illinois was Chicago, the suburbs are the suburbs. It was strange yet familiar. And once I adjusted to people making eye contact at the grocery store and even smiling or saying hello (no, they were not going to try to mug me), it wasn’t so bad. It was slightly easier for the rock star. He grew up out here and knew the scene…at least better than I did.

Ten years later, we have a solid circle of friends and we are firmly rooted in our community. Our dreams aren’t broken, they’ve just been sidetracked a bit, and we’ve added new ones to the mix. I never knew I wanted to be a mother, and yet I wouldn’t change it for anything — not even that job at Rolling Stone magazine. And I’m guessing the rock star is pretty happy that the band he started with a few other suburban dads now gets regular gigs in Chicago. I know I am.

Despite having achieved a relative comfort level here in the ’burbs, we have every intention of moving back to the city once the kids go to college. Chicago, New York, San Francisco — we haven’t decided yet. But I’m pretty sure the kids we’ve dragged all over the country (and soon to Italy), won’t mind visiting us there. And we won’t mind visiting them wherever their dreams do or don’t take them.

And so, my fellow suburbanites and you city dwellers, what made you decide on the place where you live? Did you opt for the suburbs or were you able to make city living work for your family? I’d love to hear your story.

read to be read at yeahwrite.me