Category: Parenting

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Will There Be School Tomorrow? Cultivating Patience During a Polar Vortex

It has been a long winter in the midwest. I mean, given that we have Netflix and all, probably not as harrowing as, say, the long, cold winter that the Ingalls family faced in the Dakota Territory in 1880, but a long one nonetheless.

My children have missed five and a half days of school due to weather. Five. And a half. A feeling of restlessness has descended upon our home, the kind of restlessness that all midwesterners in January know, a restlessness born of grey skies and static cling, born of dry skin and chapped lips, born of socks that keep getting wet when you step in a piece of snow that has been trekked in and left upon the floor.

The first snow day, as always, was joyful. We knew the weather was coming, and we got the snow pants and mittens and hats and boots all lined up the night before the storm. The next morning, with snow covering the ground, we texted friends and hosted, in our yard, a neighborhood snowball fight. Kids came from all around. A few of them made snow angels. Others built a snowman. Our enterprising young neighbors across the street made a sled ramp on their front steps. It was about as Norman-Rockwell-magical as a person would have a right to hope for in 2019.

And then.

Snow Day #2. Okay. Not quite as exuberant as Snow Day #1, and maybe the kids should check Google classroom to see if they’re missing anything, and maybe I should check those work emails. But okay.

And then.

Snow Day #3. When Snow Day #3 arrived, it had been more than a month since Snow Day #2. I was feeling a bit overwhelmed with preparing my classes for the new semester at the community college where I teach, and I didn’t have it in me to organize a big neighborhood snow hoopla, but the kids and I spent the afternoon snuggled under a blanket drinking hot chocolate and watching the rebellion take on the AT-ATs in the great snow battle on Hoth, and what more could a person want, really, from a snow day?

And then. Snow Day #4.

And then #5.

By Day #5, I was getting rather desperate to get more work done. The kids were getting restless, too. In an effort to make myself buckle down, I organized something I called “let’s have one-room schoolhouse.” For two hours, the children and I sat at the dining room table, and they worked on doing extra reading and schoolwork while I worked on my classes. My youngest, ever a good sport, claimed to enjoy this and asked if we could do it again. Her older brothers? Not so much. That afternoon, when everyone seemed to be really getting twitchy after too much time indoors together, I declared that they should all go outside and play for at least 15 minutes. It was cold, sure—pretty darn cold—but they could bundle up, right? The pioneers used to stay outside for longer in worse weather, I figured, and they were fine. Right?

My children obliged. They bundled. They went outside. They sort of aimlessly walked around in the cold and half-played. But, as B.B. King once observed, the thrill [was] gone.

And then came another half. An early dismissal due to blowing winds.

And here’s the thing—the forecast says that for the next week, the weather is going to get worse. Daytime temps below zero kind of worse. And wind. And, hey, more snow.

Even as I type this blog, I am literally just waiting for the phone call to get the news for tomorrow’s inevitable cancellation. School, this semester, seems to be happening more in theory than in practice.

On social media, my friends debate: Should school have been cancelled? Maybe, maybe not. It’s always a tough call, and I do not envy superintendents for having to make it. I tend to err on the side of caution, but I realize I am lucky that I work at a job that also tends to cancel in bad weather, making those snow days at home a lot more manageable, save for the boredom and the twitchiness.

Meanwhile, we wait—something we aren’t too used to having to do in 2019. At a time when we can run much of our lives as we see fit from the press of a single button on our phone, winter in the Midwest reminds us that maybe we’re not in charge after all. We wait for the “school has been cancelled” phone messages, for the next storm to hit. Will it be as bad as predicted? Even better? Even worse? We wait for the boots to thaw, for the roads to get plowed, for the sun to shine. We adjust, we adapt. We make it work. We shovel the walks for our neighbors. We scrape the ice. We get seed catalogs in the mail and dream about baseball, and gardens, and bare feet, and we wait for spring.

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Ponies, Google, Ray Bradbury, and redefining effort in 2018

It’s hard to know, exactly, what this says about motherhood and about 2018— but this morning, I spent more than 10 minutes searching Google in an attempt to identify the name of a rather obscure My Little Pony.

I found it.

And finding it felt like victory.

In moments like these, I find myself thinking of the “Little House on the Prairie” books that I loved as a child. “Love” might not be a strong enough word. I read them and read them and read them again.

The Ingalls family didn’t grab the bottle of Log Cabin syrup and pour it on their frozen waffles. That log cabin wasn’t a logo. It was their home.

Who needs Nintendo? Or even Nerf? In “The Little House in the Big Woods,” Mary and Laura have fun playing catch with a pig bladder.

And those waffles weren’t frozen. They weren’t even waffles. They were flapjacks. Even the words were stronger. And in order to enjoy those flapjacks? They harvested the wheat. They made their own syrup. Their own syrup. Don’t even get me started with the churning and the butter. That bacon on the side, the item I shouldn’t eat because there is no room in my sedentary lifestyle to accommodate the calories? The Ingalls family butchered that hog in order to eat that bacon, thank you very much. They skimmed cracklings off of the fat. They knew what cracklings were.

And when the hog butchering was done? Laura and Mary played a lively game of catch with the pig bladder. The scene makes me imagine a side-by-side comparison of an eight-year old’s Christmas lists.

What I Want for Christmas: 1868 vs. 2018
1868
A new doll made out of an old corn cob
A shinier lunch pail
Vaccines
An inflated pig bladder

2018
A smart phone
An American Girl Doll, complete with her own Mars Habitat, Gourmet Kitchen, Groovy Bathroom, and Gymnastics Set
A Nintendo Switch

To be clear, I have no desire to go back to 1868, for a whole lot of reasons. I’m kind of partial to air conditioning and the right to vote, just to name a few. I am not suffering from the delusion that 1868 was better. Far from it. (Oh, really, so far from it). I just can’t help but wonder, sometimes, though, about what is happening to my sense of the word “effort” in these modern, high tech times. I don’t want to churn butter—though I do like the verb “churn” a lot. But I don’t want to confuse, you know, reaching for the tub of butter that I bought as being “hard work.”

In Ray Bradbury’s dystopian vision of a gadget-laden future in Fahrenheit 451, there is a scene where one of the characters, Mildred, is making herself breakfast. Except she isn’t making it, exactly. Bradbury writes, “Toast popped out of the silver toaster, was seized by a spidery metal hand that drenched it with butter.”

I don’t want to get to a point where I think I have to rely on some robot-hand to butter my toast.

Meanwhile, the Little Pony whose name I triumphantly found, after my exhaustive 10-minute phone search?

Mosely Orange. Also known, to his family, as “Uncle Orange.” He is from Manhattan. He is a sophisticated pony. I know this because the internet told me so.

I spent 10 whole minutes searching for the name of this pony. I mean, that’s a lot of minutes.

Here’s the really crazy part. If I owned one of those hockey-puck-internet-robot things, I could have, perhaps, even spared myself the labor-intensive 10-minute Google search. I could have just asked the device—spoken these words aloud to the ether: “Which My Little Pony is yellow with green hair and an orange cutie mark?” and a human-sounding voice probably could have given me the answer. And I would have been all the better for sparing myself that 10-minute search, I’m sure.

Those 10-minutes would be the greatest gift of all, right? The gift of time? There’s no telling what I could do with those 10 minutes. Climb a mountain, perhaps. Or at least find out what in the hell a crackling is.

 

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The Crockpot Blues: A Mother’s Lament

Oh, Crockpot. You are an enigma to me. A mirage of meal planning. A siren song of supper.

You might think the food in this Crockpot and its little companion looks delicious. But you would be wrong.

Why do you tempt me and tease me so?

I love the idea of you. I even like the food that you produce—very much. The problem? My kids do not.

This is their own fault, of course, for having such infuriatingly picking palettes. Probably mine, too. I mean, I’m the mom—it all circles back to being my fault, in one way or another, doesn’t it?

I was also a picky eater as a child. I didn’t really even embrace pizza until the later years of elementary school. I’m fairly certain I did not deliberately eat a slice of cheese until somewhere closer to college. I was, in short, ridiculous.

This photo, a good approximation of the nightmare plate of my youth, can be found online featuring the words “Getting your child to eat healthy food may be as easy as adding color.” Sure, it’s colorful. But did the writers of this caption not notice the suspicious crust? The these-aren’t-baby-carrots spears of asparagus? The saucy pea concoction covering it all? Nice try.

My greatest nemesis for the better part of the first two decades of my life: FOOD THAT TOUCHED. I liked my plate lean and mean. Bread goes here. Peas—if there must be peas—here. Never the two shall meet. I liked applesauce, but it always posed a challenge, as it had a way of sneaking its way across the plate to the other items’ neighborhoods. I liked a clean border. A clear perimeter. Applesauce—stay on your side. Do not even think about going over to visit that macaroni. Do. Not. Even. Think. About. It.

In retrospect, “picky” is probably being kind. To say I was “kind of a freak” about my food might be more apt. Today, I may be labeled with some sort of syndrome and given something soothing to comfort me. Instead, because it was the 70s, I ate a lot of plain bologna sandwiches and, when confronted with a plate of offensive and gelatinous items, remained vigilant.

Somewhere along the way, I figured it out. Cheese is good. So are lots of vegetables, even. So are lots of FOODS THAT TOUCH—lasagna, and cheese enchiladas, and omelets, and chile relleno, and huevos rancheros, just to name a few.

This. My children will eat this. Plain pasta, with butter. Two of my children will add Parmesan cheese. The other will not. And one of them, truth be told, isn’t super keen on the butter.

My children, sadly, have not yet seen the light. This means that virtually everything a Crockpot could produce will be rejected by them.

Still, I keep trying. Because I am busy. Because I am a working mom and because Crockpots offer the promise of mealtime sanity—that wonderful feeling of walking in the door and knowing that dinner is already made. And in one pot, no less!

Why do my children persist in their rejection?

Maybe, I think, I just have not found the right recipe. So, I search. Just this morning, I cozied up to Google and hunted for “Crockpot recipes for picky kids.”

The results? From esteemed, allegedly informed websites?

Recipes for Crockpot dinners that kids will love, the sites promised, for “creamy mushroom . . . [something]” (I don’t know the something, because I stopped reading after “creamy mushroom”) and for another dish that “tastes just like grandma’s chicken casserole.”

Creamy mushroom [something]? Grandma’s chicken casserole? Really? Who are the picky children these recipes have in mind? What do these hypothetical children not like? I mean, I know picky. I was (am?) picky. And you, hypothetical internet child who will happily eat creamy mushroom [something], are not picky.

I called off the search. Who am I kidding? Until I can find a Crockpot recipe that magically produces “chicken nuggets and a separate container of French fries” in a white McDonalds bag, the effort is probably futile. Oh, wait, come to think of it, my youngest doesn’t like French fries yet either. Ah, well, a mother can dream.

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When the world’s worst multitasker needs space

During the morning rush, as I pack lunches, sign neglected forms, twist hair into ponytails, and try to feed my children in 17 minutes or less, I find myself channeling the 1987 film Dirty Dancing. I don’t mean that I play “Wipe Out” whilst making sandwiches and learning to do the Pechanga, though that would be swell.

“Spaghetti arms!” In this scene from “Dirty Dancing,” Johnny Castle (Patrick Swayze) teaches “Baby” Houseman (Jennifer Grey) about the importance of personal space when dancing. My need for personal when making lunches is the Johnny Castle Principal of Cheese Sandwiches

No, I find myself quoting Johnny Castle when it comes to my personal space in the kitchen: “This is my dance space. This is your dance space. I don’t go into yours, you don’t go into mine.”

For a family of five, a morning routine is nothing if not a dance, five people all skating, sliding, and shoving their way around the most important room in the house: the kitchen.

And for me, until recently, mornings in the kitchen—specifically, making lunches in the morning—had been awful.

The actual task, of course, is simple. Get cheese out of fridge. Put cheese on bread. Cut sandwich in half and place in reusable, BPA-free, non-guilt-inducing container. Repeat. (The one upside of having picky eaters? Simple sandwiches).

So my problem wasn’t really making the lunches; my problem was being constantly interrupted, physically and mentally, while making them.

Now, I know there are people who work well in the middle of chaos. I am not those people.

On the sitcom WKRP, news director Les Nessman used tape to create a “wall” for himself in the office that he shared with others. He would make people knock at the “door” (dotted tape line) before entering. I haven’t added a line of tape to the kitchen floor. Yet.

I remember visiting the Chicago Mercantile Exchange and watching the crowded sea of people hollering and making hand signals on the trading floor. It was fascinating to watch—but the thought of being down there and trying to work? That seemed like a close neighbor to Dante’s Fifth Circle of Hell.

And if my difficulty with making lunches didn’t quite rise to Dante levels, it certainly felt like my very own trading pit. Like trying to rinse grapes and put them in a container while having a permission slip shoved in your face just as the NASDAQ falls and someone yells, “Sell 30 April at 142!” (Thank you Trading Places).

I was tired of such a simple gesture—making lunches—making me feel so irritable and anxious. There had to be a better way.

One of the good parts of getting to be . . . a-hem . . . a particular age is that you start to know who you really are, and what you need. And how to ask for it.

Me? I need space. Physical room to maneuver, quiet time to think. Space.

It was time to ask for it.

So, this year, on a particularly chaotic morning in our kitchen, I issued a decree. I looked at my fellow dancers, and I told them, “After 7 a.m.? When I’m making lunches? No coming into this space, and no asking me to do anything else or sign anything else until I’m done.”

I was standing between the kitchen sink and our small, butcher block island. I used my hands to demonstrate the invisible line: Everything on this side of the island? You. Everything on THIS side of the island? Me.

“Elbow room, elbow room . . . got to, got to get us some elbow room!” In hindsight, the cheerful and celebratory tone of this tune about Manifest Destiny from “Schoolhouse Rock” may be problematic. But it sure is catchy.

My children and my husband were pretty certain this decree seemed a little nuts and totally arbitrary, but they indulged me. And the most amazing thing happened, as if often does when a family has the good sense to indulge the mama—it worked.

I’m not saying our mornings are bliss. But bliss is boring and overrated anyway. Our mornings, though, are better.

My family and I have, as they say in mafia movies, an understanding.

The children stay on their side and eat breakfast. I stay on mine and make the lunches. Husband helps out by cleaning the kitchen before 7 a.m. then brilliantly stays out of the way.

While I make the lunches, we listen to music. We talk a little—but the pleasant sort of talk, not the “did you sign . . . ? Have you filled out . . . ? Where did my—, what time is—?” sorts of demands and questions that make me revert to air-traffic-controlling mode. I save those for after the lunches are made. One step, one task at a time. And it’s better.

Being a part of a family is not always easy. At its best, though, it allows us a safe space in which the people whom we care about the most accept our strange quirks and idiosyncrasies and love us just the same. I can’t multitask while making a cheese sandwich. I require an inordinate amount of personal and physical space. And I am prone to issuing decrees.

I am also, it turns out, inclined to create “we have an understanding” scenarios in my family, in which I am, apparently, the mob boss. Ah, well. If the cannoli fits.

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80s music: It’s Still Rock ‘n Roll to Me

There is a list tacked to the bulletin board in my kitchen with names of contemporary artists and bands that are probably fantastic. I say “probably” because I haven’t listened to them yet.

Our babysitter, Abby—it’s strange to use the word “babysitter” because she is more friend and family at this point—made the list for me about a month ago. Okay, maybe two.

“Have you listened to any of the music yet?” She recently asked.

“No,” I confessed. “I will. Soon. Soon!”

Soon? Why did I sound like I was being asked, around the first of April, if I had finished my taxes? Since when did listening to new music become a chore?

Music has been a passion of mine for as long as I can remember. It started with 45 records and an FM radio, progressing through boom boxes and mix tapes, all the way to CDs and playlists. I have camped out for concert tickets; spent three days in a muddy tent at several music festivals, sans running water, and living on oatmeal crème pies, just to see the likes of Bjork, Green Day, Hole, the Indigo Girls, Soundgarden, Weezer, Oasis, Pulp, Belly, The Dave Matthews Band, and the Cure. Instead of passionately pursuing a career or a calling with great zeal, I spent my early twenties accruing a stack of ticket stubs and concert t-shirts. With great zeal.

People filling up the stadium at Soldier Field, Chicago. June 2017, U2: The Joshua Tree reunion tour.

I always vowed that as I got older I would not become one of those people who only listens to music from their youth. I have spent much of my adult life teaching college students, and this has helped. Artists like Cat Power, Phish, Regina Spektor, and The Dropkick Murphys found their way to me mostly because of students.

It also helps to have that one friend who has remained fantastically plugged in to all things hip, who lives in a university town, and who sends you the occasional mix and playlist. You know this friend; she is the smart and artsy one with the most effortlessly cool glasses and the best shoes, the friend who can actually pull off the leopard-print haircalf flats (Julie of Wisconsin, I’m looking at you, and thanks again for The White Stripes and Neko Case). In recent years, Abby has helped, too. Or at least she has tried.

Where the Streets Have No Name.

This summer, though, I realized that despite my best intentions, all the “new” bands I listen to—Spoon, The Avett Brothers, Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeroes, Grace Potter and the Nocturnals, St. Vincent, Alabama Shakes—aren’t new anymore.

So I asked Abby for the list. She was happy to oblige. But I still haven’t listened to anything on it.

I did, however, attend two live shows this summer: U2’s The Joshua Tree anniversary tour and Billy Joel, performing his greatest hits. Both were fantastic. The fact that these were my two concert choices, though, only exacerbated my concern that I had let myself grow out of touch.

C’mon. It’s the piano man.

Sidebar: My husband and I like to play a game called “Have you ever heard of this band?” when we watch Saturday Night Live these days. Good times.

As I stood there listening to Billy Joel play “Still Rock and Roll to Me,” I thought of Abby’s list. I promise I’ll listen to it, I thought. I really will.

But. U2’s The Joshua Tree, for Pete’s sake. Billy Joel in center field at Wrigley at a grand piano singing “The Piano Man.”

These are good things in this world. Good then, good now.

Meanwhile, that list is still tacked to my bulletin board, still untouched. That’s okay. I’ll get to it. Soon.

Billy Joel—funny, irreverent, and as crazy-talented as ever—chatted with the audience casually all night and swatted flies with a flyswatter—made it seem like we were at small piano bar watching a private show. A handful of times, he let the audience choose between two songs when determining what to play next. A surprise highlight was the blistering “Sometimes a Fantasy,” but my personal favorite was the classic “Scenes from an Italian Restaurant.”

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A Letter to My Body Upon Its Unfortunate Betrayal

Dear My Body,

It has come to my attention recently that you have not been functioning and behaving in an optimal way. Let me be frank, Body. I’m not impressed. You’ve been slacking.

More specifically, we need to discuss my metabolism, and how it is changing. Many years ago, Body, we made an arrangement: All Things in Moderation = an Acceptable/Average-ish Shape and Size. I realize that this arrangement and my genetics may not have yielded a California beach bod, and more of a sweaters & jeans in the winter in Wisconsin physique. But I was okay with that. More or less.

However, these days, Body, you are not keeping your end of the bargain. What gives? Now when I indulge in the extra butter, or the cheese, or the occasional lager, these indulgences show up on my waistline. What do you have against butter, anyway, Body? Are you suggesting I should forgo butter the rest of my life and trade it in for sprinkles of that sad butter-like powder? It’s never gonna happen, Body. You have to take a stand sometimes in life, and this is mine. Butter.

Then there are the other issues, more evidence of your lousy attitude and negligence. There are the aches, Body. The pains. You seem to have mistaken me for someone old enough to have . . . oh, I can’t bring myself to say it (rhymes with “shmarthritis”). It’s not dignified. What is the point of owning cute shoes if I have to hobble in them? Hobbling is not a good look, Body. It does not scream “youthful vivaciousness.” You seem to be suggesting I am past the point of wearing cute shoes, Body. And I resent it.

I won’t even deign to talk about my eyesight. Okay, yes, my eyesight overall is still good, and I should be grateful. But the fine print, Body. The fine print. I would argue with you about what the fine print says, but I don’t know what it says because I can’t read it.

You get the idea.

To quote Miranda Priestly in The Devil Wears Prada, “Am I reaching for the stars here?” No. I think not. I am not asking to be Cher—though did you see her, Body, at the recent Billboard Awards, bespangled in next-to-nothing and rocking “If I Could Turn Back Time” at age 71? I mean, please. Her Body has its act together and would never be the recipient of such a memo.

This list should give you a good picture of my concerns, though make no mistake, the list is not complete. I look forward to your timely response and anticipate that you will remedy the situation.

Sincerely,

Me

 

Dear Me,

I am sorry you feel this way. Or, more to the point: You Ungrateful Twit.

 May I remind you: You have arms that work, legs that work, and eyes that see. You can hear. You can think.

 You have a body that was able to carry and give birth to three children. Maybe you need to pause for a good long while on that one. Not everyone who wants to is able to do so. In your better moments, when you are considerably less whiny, I know you know that. And this body, the one you are complaining about, has the privilege of raising them.

Also, I know you love butter. Fine. Love the butter. But hey, here’s an idea: How about some exercise? Butter + exercise is going to yield far more desirable results than butter + watching Netflix. Don’t blame me. I didn’t make the rules. Blame math.

 You think I’m slacking—are we supposed to pretend you have always treated me well? How about that time that you didn’t go to the dentist for three years? Or the eye doctor for, a-hem, eight?

 You do not even want me to bring up the ages of, say, 17-25. Those years will not be found filed under “Treat Your Body Like a Temple.” Time to zoom straight towards Grateful Humility and move on. Do not pass go, do not collect two hundred.

 What can I say? You’re getting older. Them’s the breaks.

 Enjoy the cheese if you want to. Have a lager, too. Your waistline might be thicker, but you can choose not to care.

Meanwhile, You want to keep that body you’re lucky to have working as well as it can, and your brain, too? First, hope for a big bucket of undeserved luck. Then there are the parts over which you have some control. Drink more water. Go for more walks. Get more sleep. This isn’t rocket science, my friend. And go to the dentist every year, for Pete’s sake.

 Sincerely,
Your Body

P.S. Regarding Cher—The rest of us Bodies do not understand, nor can we comprehend this phenomenon. We’ve had meetings. We’re working on it.

 

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On Dance Recitals, Backbends, and Epiphanies

Tucking laces into ballet slippers, fluffing tulle, fastening bobby pins. It’s all part of that familiar spring ritual: the dance recital.

My six-year old performed in her first-ever recital last week. As she lined up in a hallway against a row of lockers with her fellow dancers before taking the stage, I thought she might be nervous, and I offered to stay with her. Some of the other mothers were staying.

Instead, she motioned to me as if shooing away a fly.

Go, go, go, her fluttering hands told me. I’m fine.

 That’s my girl. “I do by-self” may not have been her first words, but they were close.

I returned to my seat and waited. I wasn’t nervous for her, exactly. I assumed she knew the dance reasonably well. And no matter what happened, or how well the group performed (or didn’t), the audience was likely going to be smitten with the sight of five and six-year old girls in sequins, tutus, buns, and ballet slippers performing against the backdrop of a starry night and bright crescent moon, skipping and jumping to a Disney tune about dreams.

The event, however, did bring back some not-entirely-pleasant memories from my own childhood. To simplify, the equation boils down to two fundamental truths:

1. I love dance

2. I can’t dance

In the writing courses I teach, we might talk about how this could be considered a paradox. It would certainly at least pass the Alanis Morissette definition of ironic.

I took dance for four years, from about the ages of 5 to 8, at a small studio on the edge of our subdivision. The whole place seemed exotic to me in a wonderfully interesting way.

Our dance teacher wore tights—a grown woman in tights! She usually wore black, too. She was not the warm and fuzzy type, but she was not unkind. She had a dark tan and a big laugh. Over time, my mind has ascribed to her traits I know were not real—a vision of her standing in her black leotard, elbow resting on the grand piano that stood in a corner of the room, with a cigarette and a cocktail—but they seem like they should have been.

I tried. I really did. But even from the start, it was pretty clear that I was not catching on to things as quickly as the other girls.

My attempts at ballet resembled the famous Abbott and Costello skit more than attempts at ballet should:

What was first position again? Wait? Is everybody moving on to second? Are we supposed to be on second? Why am I still on first?

 Still, I pressed on. Ballet. Tap. Finally, in third grade, I added tumbling.

I blame Nadia Comaneci. As one does. I had loved watching her performance in the Olympics. My friends, who were going to take the class, probably had something to do with it, too. Some of them had been doing running round-offs for ages, while I could barely manage a cartwheel. One of my friends could even do handsprings—if you’re an eight-year-old-girl, there’s always that one friend who can blow everyone away with her handsprings—a whole bunch of handsprings, actually. In a row.

Maybe if I took tumbling, I would catch up.

Alas, by the time our recital rolled around that spring, I was still miles away from a handspring. Even my cartwheel had remained stubbornly impervious to improvement.

Still, on the night of the big performance, I was optimistic. It was all going to come together at just the right time, like the scene in a movie, with a triumphant end.

I was wearing a periwinkle blue tumbling outfit with Olympic rings emblazoned around the collar, and I just loved it. My long hair was in braids that had been pinned up on top of my head—special occasion hair, to be certain. And I would be performing to “Tomorrow” from Annie. Tomorrow, for Pete’s sake!

The sun will come out, indeed!

Except it didn’t.

None of my passes on the mats, a series of slow and unsteady round-offs and front walkovers, were what I hoped they would be, though the audience clapped, I’m sure. The slightly nervous, well-meaning, kindly, “well at least that little girl up there with her fancy braids is trying” sort of applause that one gets when one is doggedly determined and visibly failing.

And then came the back walkover.

I was supposed to get myself in position by doing a backbend. That part I managed. Then, I was supposed to kick a leg up and over my head. The other leg would inevitably follow. I kicked. My leg went up, up, up . . . and back down. Nope. Didn’t make it.

Well that was embarrassing.

The audience was watching. My classmates—who had been flying and whirling past me in a blur of competency—were waiting to use the mat, lining up behind me.

That’s okay, I thought. I’ll try again.

I looked up at the bright stage lights, suspended so impossibly high above me. I was aware of the dark audience that watched beyond the stage, to my right.

Brave little Annie was singing her big brave song.

I just stick out my chin, and grin, and say . . .

Annie had moxie. She had pluck. She could do this. I had moxie. I had pluck. I could do it, too.

Except I couldn’t. My leg, it seemed, had not gotten the memo about the moxie.

Somewhere in that place, my back arched, my hands on the mat, my uncooperative leg stuck and suspended in midair, staring at the faces of my classmates waiting in line behind me (their exasperation plenty visible, though their faces were upside down)—it began to occur to me that I might not be the next Nadia Comaneci after all. I might not even be the next Annie.

I do not recall for certain how many attempts it took for me to get that leg over my head. Somewhere between 3 and 17 is a fair guess. Let’s just say it was three.

It may not have exactly been a moment of triumph, but I did take away a few valuable lessons that I have come to think of as “The Great Backbend Epiphany.”

First, like Kenny Rogers said, “You gotta know when to fold them.”

We get fed a lot of rah-rah “don’t quit!” advice in our lives. And often that is valuable. Certainly, it’s good to try. I’m a big fan of grit.

But once you’ve given it a good shot, and the thing that you are attempting is causing more pain than pleasure, it’s probably time to move on.

I want my children to know this.

Perhaps more importantly, I want my children to be able to recognize the difference between wanting to want something, and actually wanting it. Because there is a difference.

I realized after that recital that I had always liked the idea of being a dancer and the atmosphere of dance. But not the actual dancing. The world of dancing seemed beautiful and mysterious and enthralling. The actual dancing, however, caused me to feel little more than anxiety.

Life is short. Doesn’t it make sense to do things we actually enjoy? If someone had given eight-year-old me a list of choices of how I could spend my time, dancing would have been far down on that list. What would have topped it? Reading, watching movies, listening to music, writing, and drawing (pretty much the exact same list I would make today, as it turns out).

I have continued to appreciate dance through the years, in my own way—mostly by watching movies and reading books about dancers. In fact, I just finished the wonderful Astonish Me by Maggie Shipstead.

It was fun to attend a dance recital again, especially one that did not involve my having to attempt a back walkover.

I do not know how many years my daughter will take dance or if she will turn out to have any ability for it, or how much she will enjoy it. But I do know that she will, inevitably, have a few of her own backbend epiphanies throughout her life. I hope when the moment comes, she is able to face it with courage and wisdom. And a Broadway soundtrack never hurts.