Sloane, Author at The STUFF Sisters

Sometime

Several years ago, we stayed home from Spring Break. Actually, our little family has seldom traveled at Spring Break in the 13+ years it has been an option. Time of year, maybe. Lack of funds, probably. It always sounds great, and I talk a lot about it after Christmas, but all the plans peter out as March arrives.

So that year, I spiced up our Kansas City staycation by looking at the list my son and I had been compiling on a notepad in the car of all the places about which I had said, over his lifetime spent in the back seat, “Yeah sweetie. That’s X. We’ll go there sometime,” or, “Oh. I’ve always loved that place. We’ll go there sometime,” and, “Wow. I used to take your Aunt Lindsay and Robin Parks there when they were little like you. I’ll take you there sometime.”

On that staycation we slept late, ate lunch at restaurants new and old, and visited places that we had never been with our son. Browne’s Deli, John Wornall Home, Kearney House Museum, Thomas Hart Benton Home Museum. We did it all. The list was depleted. My husband and I were able to work in fits and starts during that week, and, when the break was over, we all felt like we’d really been somewhere and seen lots of new things. Because we had.

Currently, our son is traveling in China with my husband’s family and we (my husband and me) are in our home alone – with the dog, of course – for three weeks. We both have loads of work to accomplish but have much more flexibility to get it all done without the pull towards wanting to be with our son. Given his busy teenage existence – work, volunteering and goofing off – our times as a threesome have little footing in his regimen this summer.

While he is gone we are having a “foodcation”. Our son has been gone for 6 days, and not one meal has been prepared in the home. I am not a breakfast eater, and lunch is easily acquired from the huge bowl of organic fruit in the kitchen and hurriedly stashed in my bag as I wing out the door for work.

But dinner is another matter. My husband and I had a list much like the “Sometime” list my son and I kept in the car. This list has been growing on my husband’s cell phone/electronic notepad and includes places new and old. We don’t really dine out all that much, and this has been a real treat. So far, mostly dinner. A few lunches.

One of our lunch adventure was to Werner’s in Mission. We sat outside and had a great conversation with one outstanding staff member who was working the grill. She spoke of the butcher and the sausage maker. She mentioned her work and how she hand ties sausages and does additional duty cooking them outside over the grill. She explained to me what the different sausages were on the grill and, in particular, why one was so darned pale. (That was the German bratwurst. It isn’t made from cured or smoked meat.) Inside, one woman behind the counter made our sandwiches from scratch on soft bread and another woman checked us out on an oldish cash register.

Tonight we are off to another restaurant with good friends. A place we haven’t been. An adventure.

Sometime is now.

Note: All photos above are from our time at Werner’s.

Natural State

Yesterday I re-entered my natural state. I woke up, left my pajamas on the hook, and took off into a world I love. The one where my swimsuit is the main mode of clothing.

Several weeks ago, my best friend texted and briefly stated that she had just encountered the smell of Coppertone and was transported back to our summers as pre-teens, teens, co-eds, working women, young mothers and working mothers. I have never known a summer without the brown bottle. And anything banana-flavored has never touched my skin. I don’t even like banana candy, although I like bananas.

My dermatologist and I look at my largest organ in depth every year. My addiction to the sun has lessened as my age has increased. However, my yearning to live full days in Lycra and spandex fully coated in Coppertone has not abated. Good thing we’re supposed to wear sunscreen in the shade.

I live my dream every summer vacation by waking much as I did yesterday: shedding my PJs for my swimsuit and then spending the day moving through activities lightly clothed. A worn-in Oxford cloth dress shirt with the arms rolled way up is my ultimate cover-up. In our little corner of Florida, this passes as more than acceptable for restaurant dining. I shower long after the sun has gone down and move swiftly back into my cotton sleepwear. Never a bra or panties in sight. Never a long sleeve, hem or button to fence me in. Although, I do admit to window shopping on my favorite 7 best websites to buy sheer and see through lingerie but only at night when I couldn’t sleep, in bed, waiting for sleep.

She took me to the pool yesterday, my best friend, for the first time this year. This may well be a record. So late in “the season” for my inaugural walk into cool water. I am grateful and happy for her invitation, and the lingering aroma of our amazing friendship was with us the whole time. In my pool bag. Just waiting for me to un-cap it and let the memories overwhelm me.

Every boat dock, sun deck, beach chair, over-sized towel and speedboat returned to me. Every sun hat, pair of sunglasses, T-shirt, flip-flop and tote roared at me. My newborn son seeing pool water three months after his birth. My Dad skiing behind our boat. My Mom judging our dives from the edge of our pool. My sister holding her breath and my hands while we attempted “butt bumpers” for the one millionth time.

All this in one little bottle.

p.s. I mean no disrespect to anyone who wears Banana Boat lotions or eats those delightful banana flavored Laffy Taffy.

coppertone girl — This is the little girl I grew up with.

Sisters Are The Best

We did not have the easiest of days yesterday, my sister and me. Mondays seldom feel like Mondays, but today was one. HR issues, packed meeting schedule, serious reminders that retail is a bear of a business, too many incoming phone calls. It was not the funnest day on record.

But it was a day where the sun shined and we were healthy. We didn’t smile much, and Monday will roll into Tuesday a little bit, but we are good. Fine. OK.

After the day was over and the store was closed, we went to a kick-off event for a charity we both adore. She left work in her car, and I left work in mine. She ran her child to an engagement, and I went a picked mine up. We met up again at the event and never stopped smiling and laughing.

We were smiling and laughing because she pulled a stunt only she could. She fingered the sale rack and came up with this wicking doozy.

And we all rolled with laughter. And we’ll roll right through the week, and I know that, when I do not feel like smiling, I will look at this picture and know all is well with the world.

Work is work and play is play. We blend it all the time, but that doesn’t mean every day is easy.

Seeing The Past

This past weekend, I traveled with my niece and her friend (and other members of my family) to an art festival in Salina, Kansas. These two young women were a laugh a minute.

This past weekend, I traveled with my niece and her friend (and other members of my family) to an art festival in Salina, Kansas. These two young women were a laugh a minute. Morning and night. Both super sharp and funny. How they can be witty at eight years old is a mystery, but they are. And they were holding their own with four adult women.

When I took this picture, I knew before I clicked the button that I was seeing the past in these two. My past. My past with my best friend. My wish for them was that, even if they weren’t to be each others best friend, they found one who loved them as much as they were loved. A friend that can keep secrets. One that knows when to laugh, when to cry, and when to sit quietly and listen.

I have mine. I met her when we were in 5th grade. We may have met in 4th, but the real fun began in 5th, and hasn’t stopped. There are secrets we will never tell, and there are stories that we do tell. We’ve spent time apart during college years, and we have lived in the same urban neighborhood for the past 20 years.

Fifth grade is more than a few years ago. Heck, it’s more like 38 years ago. Time does fly, but it has real wings when you have a best friend at your side.

Notes: I was at the Smoky Hill River Festival with the girls. Definitely worth the trip. Photo #2 was taken earlier this year at the opening of the Mosaic Project for AIDS Walk Kansas City.

Forever

One of the things I do that I love is volunteer at The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art. Tonight, my volunteer job had me asking people who were coming to see the new exhibit how long they had been members of the Friends of Art.

One of the things I do that I love is volunteer at The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art. I have vivid memories of the docents that brought paintings into our classroom in 5th grade at Bryant Elementary. My mind sees – and my nose still remembers – the smell of the school bus during our trips to The Nelson from way out in Waldo when we came “down” to see art with our junior high school art teacher.

Tonight, my volunteer job had me asking people who were coming to see the new exhibit, “Modern Mexico”, how long they had been members of the Friends of Art. I loved seeing the answers on their faces before their mouths issued a word. “I joined tonight,” she said with sparkling eyes. “Forever,” said the older gentleman, “I really don’t know. I was a member for a long time, and then I got sick, and now I am a member again.”

Their prize for answering me was that I christened them with a sticker that shared with the world their membership years. I then told them all what their membership does for the museum by keeping it free for the public and open year round. It helps bring art to the schools and bring the schools to the art. Heck, it even helps make free member events like tonight free.

Recently, a staff member at The Nelson told me my number. My years of membership at my museum stunned me a bit. I couldn’t possibly be as old as that number was big! So, tonight I chose two stickers for myself as I was leaving the museum. One is where I am, and one is where I am headed.

I think a quarter of a century sounds fantastic and the number twenty-five seems youthful. Just like me!

p.s. “Frida Kahlo, Diego Rivera and Masterpieces of Modern Mexico” will be at The Nelson-Atkins until August 18, 2013. Don’t miss it. The colors alone will blown you away. Find out more here.

Forever Haunted

I will forever be haunted by this photo of garment factory workers in Bangladesh. I had an early hand in their death.

I will forever be haunted by this photo of garment factory workers in Bangladesh.

I had an early hand in their death. Years ago I shopped for clothes for my young son and was always searching for the “cheap tee”. He ripped through them by using them – painting in them, playing in them, using them to their fullest. I can remember actually saying to a friend of mine while standing in a big box merchant, “How can they afford to sell these shirts for four dollars?”

Now I know they – we – can’t. The cost is too high, and these two people – and upwards of 1,000 others – paid the price I wasn’t willing to pay for expensive clothing.

My friend Missy stated it loud and clear at a charity event a few weeks ago when she was telling us all about the sponsors of the event and how we “vote with our dollars” and should “consider moving our money to the businesses who care about what we care about.”

Done.

Photo credit: Taslima Akhter, Bangladeshi photographer and activist. Retrieved from: lightbox.time.com.

My Walk with AIDS

On a Friday night over a week ago, I stood under a tent in a large urban park at a memorial service for no one in particular and for every one on this planet. I held the microphone in my hand and began. Began again. To tell my story of AIDS.

Friday night was a small candlelight ceremony for those who have been lost to HIV/AIDS in our community, and they were celebrated that evening by those under the tent. But I have lost no one. No one I can hold up a photo for. No one I can memorialize on a T-shirt, flag or banner.

I held that microphone as tightly as I hold my son. That was who I was fighting for, I said. Sixteen years ago, I held a newborn boy in my arms as I volunteered for the first time along the route of the AIDS Walk. Months before he was born, a friend had asked me to help. Standing in the grass on a spring morning sounded magical to me in my eighth month of pregnancy. When the day arrived, it was dreamlike. Me, my husband, my new son – all sporting little red ribbons and helping a band entertain walkers and enthusiastic runners in the sun.

Every year since, I have worked on the Walk and moved up through the volunteer ranks. Route helper, volunteer coordinator, project coordinator, special event committee person, steering committee member, Walk co-chair. Every year since that first one, I’ve had a little hand in mine or a little head in my eyesight on Walk day. My son has never missed a Walk and now joins me as a full-fledged committee member on one event. Walk day is a family reunion for all of us.

My story is short and simple. I desire deeply a world without AIDS for my son. For all sons and daughters and mothers and fathers. Sisters. Brothers. A world free of stigma and hate. Pointed fingers and whispered admonishments will be behind us. Every year I renew my commitment to making that world come to be.

This year I stood in the light rain as my son walked by me carrying a dated memorial flag representing the 25 years of the AIDS Walk. Three long blocks later, I looked up, and there was my niece sporting a flag of her own. This one held the name of someone who no longer walks. She carried it to its final place with the others in a circle of flags that every one of the 2,000+ walkers walked by. My tears were easily covered by Mother Nature’s water show.

They are my future and my chance to live in an AIDS free world. They’ve never known one.

I believe that they will.

Springtime Hello

My husband and I owned a home before the one we live in now. But to my father’s father, this is our first home. The other one was “nothing but air, really.” When we purchased the house we live in now, my grandfather practically rejoiced.

My husband and I owned a home before the one we live in now. But to my father’s father, this is our first home. The other one was “nothing but air, really.”

It was a condo in a converted warehouse downtown. The first such condos in Kansas City. We were practically pioneers! But to the midwestern farmer, a large space without bedroom walls four stories in the air isn’t something you own, is it? I called all of my grandparents when we closed on the condo because I was so proud. I owned something, and this, I felt, was something they could embrace with me.

Three of them did. One, not so much. He would call it “my apartment” while he and my Grandma Ginny made themselves comfortable on our sofa. I would smile and begin to tell him all about condo rules and association dues, beautification committees and other details. He looked at me with incredible blue eyes like I was speaking in tongues.

I moved on.

My grandmother loved the loft. She loved everything about her grandchildren, whether it involved property ownership or not. She clearly got the idea of how a loft was less work and less maintenance – snow removal, house painting, etc. – and I think it excited her a little. They had worked hard all of their lives on their home and properties. Our loft was a new concept, not only to them but to many Americans, and she sparkled while asking all about it and what we planned to do.

When we purchased the house we live in now – the one with the yard work, the roof repairs, the exterior paint jobs – my grandfather practically rejoiced. This he could understand. We owned the actual dirt our house stood on. It was built of wood and stone and brick and it was solid. The neighbors weren’t on top of us or below us. They were a secure distance away.

My grandmother couldn’t wait to see the house. She waited until all our “pretties” were in place – which means she gave us about two weeks to get settled – and then they arrived. I was so terribly excited because they had agreed to spend the night – something they had never done at the loft, although my grandmother had wanted to. The lack of interior walls threw my grandpa for a loop.

In the back of the pick-up truck, under a cotton sheet and inside an old pickle bucket, was a collection of sticks with small green leaves on them stuck in crumbly mud. It was fall when they arrived, so these sticks were moving towards being done with the growing season. They looked sad and a wee bit pathetic. Until earlier that day, it had been part of a larger bush near their home in mid-Missouri.

My grandfather hauled them out and walked with me around “the property” to find a place to plant “this bush”. I was intrigued because what I saw in the bucket looked like what we had spent most of a week tearing out of our plot. Junk. Detritus. Weeds.

It wasn’t any of that. It was what my grandmother called a “bridal wreath bush. You’ll see what I mean next spring.”

I trusted them both in their ability to grow things. They were farmers, for goodness’ sake. So, I let my grandfather pick a spot in the far end of the back yard up in a raised bed. It made him happy. A little bit of run-off and a good spot not to “gather up too much late afternoon sun.”

And it has stayed there for almost twenty years, only getting bigger and needing no maintenance. My grandparents are gone now, but every spring I go out and tell them hello. This year, like every spring in the past, they were delighted to see me, and they put on quite a show.

Voices in My Head

I attended a charity luncheon last week, and the main speaker – a graduate of the program we were there to raise money for – spoke of her life, her troubles and her achievements.

I attended a charity luncheon last week, and the main speaker – a graduate of the program we were there to raise money for – spoke of her life, her troubles and her achievements. A clear voice she remembers from her past, a grandmother, told her when she was young that she would never amount to anything. Ever.

I was breathless. I carry voices in my head from the women in my life. One grandmother, when life was too good or edging towards bad, would tell me, “It’s a rich full life.” Another grandmother, “Let’s get this done.” I can’t imagine my life without my family standing behind me. Perched there waiting to step in with help or preparing to step back in pride.

Less than a day after the luncheon, I was sitting at a breakfast to celebrate the leaps and bounds a local university has taken in accepting and embracing people in the LGBTQIA community. At this celebration, three young people told their stories of coming out to their families and their greater world.

Much like the woman from the day before, they stood there proud of their accomplishments but wracked with the pain of the voices they carry in their heads – of family and friends who have not been accepting of their life. An institution – and members of its staff – was clearly stepping in to fill a painful void. A void that four small years of learning or a five week empowerment program can’t completely fill.

These young people stood there alone at their microphones – placed arms’ lengths away from each other – and shared openly. It took every fiber in my body to stay in my seat half an auditorium away as they each reached a crescendo in the stories that left them speechless and upset. I wanted to be near them – right behind them and much closer than an arm’s length – to remind them silently that it is a rich, full life. That the norm is not for those you trust most to leave you or let you down.

I stayed in my seat, was joyously a part of the raucous standing ovation, and left the room wondering. Wondering if I was correct in my assessment of what the norm is for family behavior.

I will never know the answer to that. You are given one life full of challenges, loss, gifts, celebrations, pain and love. I doubt normal ever dips its foot into these waters.

p.s. My week ended at an amazing fundraising party for the KC CARE Clinic. The women in these photos are many of the voices that live in my head – from just that one night. I treasure every single one of them.

Point of Pride

For the last 14 years, I have volunteered on an outreach, education and fundraising project for AIDS Walk Kansas City. And for the past 10 years, STUFF has been a corporate sponsor along with amazing small companies and businesses in Kansas City of the Mosaic Project.

Mosaic Tile Project 2013 — Tiles at the First Friday event this year. April 5th was full of art!

This project is simple. High school students in school districts around Kansas City paint six-by-six inch ceramic tiles in the theme “A World Without AIDS” with glazes in an eleven-color palette. We ask that they watch a short video about the AIDS epidemic that ends with a step-by-step on how to paint a tile. Then, we hope their creativity will fly and that their small artwork will show us a world without AIDS.

The simplicity continues. The tiles are fired, cataloged and finally placed on display en mass during one of the busiest weekends of April, First Friday in Kansas City’s Crossroads District. Thousands of people converge upon this remarkable area of town to live, breath and consume art in its many forms.

2013 Mosaic Committee — This year’s volunteer army!

The simplicity ends in that it takes many, many hours of volunteer time to schlep these tiles all over town, coordinate delivery and retrieval with amazingly generous art teachers, number them, clear coat them, keypunch all the data, manage the two events – public and private – and, finally, inventory and pack it all up for next year.

Which is what I did yesterday with four members of our stunning committee. The generosity of the small businesses – like STUFF – that donate discounted or free tiles, glazes, bowls, labels, artwork, printing, etc., is not wasted. From year to year, if all the supplies are not consumed from the year before, we pack it up and store it for the next go round.

All Mosaic supplies packed up and inventoried. Ready for 2014.

I am so very proud of what we do. We hope young people will spend a few minutes thinking about their fragile health and the world around them and then show us – through art – what their world would be like without AIDS. Many take the time to tell us, in words, and we make sure this story travels with the tile to its collector through the label we adhere to its back. We do this with heavily discounted – but mostly free – supplies and volunteer labor. Then we sell these tiles and raise money for the 5,700 women, children and men living with HIV/AIDS in Kansas City.

It doesn’t get any better than that.

My dream for a world without AIDS is simple. That things like the Mosaic Project cease to be. That our energies will be placed differently because we have beaten this epidemic into the earth.

Until then, I will live in the art, creativity and community this project has enriched my life with. I am one of the lucky ones. It’s that simple.

p.s. The 2013 Mosaic tiles can be seen for the last time as a group (reduced in number due to sales at the April 5th event) at the 25th Annual AIDS Walk. April 27th in Theis Park. Right in front of The Nelson. Come and see them and take a great piece of art home to remind you what a glorious place a world without AIDS would be. Art lives!

In addition, my greatest thanks to the following companies and people for joining STUFF in supporting such an amazing outreach project: Dal-Tile, Scott Francis and The Art Lobby of The Chair Building, KC Metro Ceramic and Pottery Supply, Crane Yard Clay, Hoop Dog Studio and Fern Exposition and Events.