The STUFF Sisters
S. Sloane Simmons and Casey Simmons
Sisters and business partners sharing life's stuff....
On this, the last day before Autumn officially begins and my favorite season ends, I wanted to share a blog I wrote in August of 2007. I can still see the evening vividly, and the memories are overpowering.
On this, the last day before Autumn officially begins and my favorite season ends, I wanted to share a blog I wrote in August of 2007. I can still see the evening vividly, and the memories are overpowering.
Enjoy. Here it is.
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I attended my first friday night football game at my son’s new high school tonight.
I attended my first Friday night football game at my son’s new high school tonight. Football’s never really been “my sport”. It is a wee bit violent for me. When I attended high school way back in the early 80s, I tried to never miss a game. Our school shared a field with another high school, so even home games held the allure of a car ride, before and after I had my license.
I did not sit with my son at the BBQ before the game or at the game. He was off with his friends – new and old – and that made me infinitely happy. He’s building his life and his memories, and I’m merely the taxi driver. Fine by me. Truly.
The light came on again tonight that my son has done nothing but grow away from me since he was born. I should be sadder, or so I’m told. I’ve spent time and energy visiting this issue, and you can see one of those musings here. While sitting in the bleachers with my niece, I was reminded that – even after the lights came on and the world got a little darker tonight – my son knew exactly where to find me. If I’ve been doing my job correctly and have let him grow away from me, he’ll always know exactly where I am.
p.s. If the photo of the field lights I captured isn’t the stuff of a Lori Buntin painting, I don’t know what is.
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The beginning of the school year does not bring on the deep desire to sniff crayons or markers. It does not make me yearn for sweaters and boots. I don’t even want the cooler weather to drop down too soon. Around our house, it simply means Mama’s got the bug to move furniture.
Last year it was the excitement and sadness of converting the young man’s room from a bunk bed setup into a double-twin-bed lounging paradise. We got him some new furniture on this site. It was a day fraught with tears for what seemed like the true end to the “kid” room and therefore childhood. At least that’s what I manifested it into.
This year – two days before the first day of school – the golden child’s desk moved from the kitchen to the room we labeled years ago “the playroom” due to its housing all the games, the toys and the air hockey table. His desk had been in the kitchen since the second grade when he and I started sharing a computer. The computer and he faced the wall so I could easily see the screen from any vantage point in the kitchen. Not on my watch was he going to accidentally dance with porn! No way!
The domino effect of house re-arranging is that it gave me the opportunity to tweak a few more things that needed change. It just stands to reason that, if he and I are no longer sharing a computer and a desk, we should both get new digs. So this boy’s mama moved a desk into her dressing room, and all has been bliss. I am safely nestled into the second floor of the house with a window for taking in Hyde Park vistas and with seashells on the sill for moral support. Right now I’m loving the sleekness of the desk surface, but I know that will change.
My move from the epicenter – our kitchen – is providing me with much-needed clarity for the writing I’ve been yearning to do. I am able to leave the hubbub after dinner and enter a little silence – which I still love to have pierced by my baby boy as he attacks his mountain of homework.
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I have been checking in with my father almost every day since he was diagnosed with cancer late this spring. It seems like the least I can do. Sometimes we talk about cancer, sometimes we talk about work, sometimes we talk about movies, but mostly we talk about nothing in particular. And talking about nothing has been taking us at least 10 minutes almost every time we talk.
This is an impressive amount of time for me with a phone to my ear because talking on the phone is anathema to me. I’ve never been very good at it, and most of the time I can get a little short and just move quickly towards the hanging up part. I’m getting better, but I’m not cured. Yet.
A week or so ago, a friend of mine, Patti Dickinson, posted on her Facebook page an article in our local paper about the University of Missouri hiring a new person to help parents separate from their children as they enter the new world of living at college, or some such concept. I was disgusted that this was even a job that was needed at any university or college. There was much discussion on her page about how ridiculous this was, and I was in full agreement. Actually, I still am.
However, today something hit me. I have become a helicopter daughter. I am hovering around my father and checking in to make sure he is OK, adjusting and getting used to his new “environment”. I had become one of those dreaded people that can’t let their family out of their sight – or, in my case, hearing range.
At a time in my life when our son is entering his last four years of schooling before college and I am working hard at making sure he’s independent and capable and can troubleshoot some of his shortcomings, I am spending great amounts of time making sure my father is coping and is not overwhelmed by a bully he can’t even lay hands on directly.
Can I be a helicopter daughter while not being a helicopter parent? I think I can. We’ll see.
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Tomorrow morning my daughter will start first grade. Tonight she took her own shower, cleared her own plate, picked out her outfit for her first day of school, and even remembered to brush her teeth. I tucked her into bed with a book and her new kitten. After I kissed her goodnight, she said, “Mom, don’t forget to set my alarm.” I set her alarm and kissed her one last time and quietly left the room.
I then stood outside the door and let the tears fall.
I believe that I never truly understood the meaning of bittersweet until I had a child. Now I hope my life is filled with an endless amount of these moments.
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I have been coming to the beach in Florida on average once a year for 9 years. I’m lucky. I have firsthand knowledge of the healing powers of the surf and the sun. I can feel it on my skin and in my soul.
Hunting for shells is a part of life on the island we visit. It juts out from the southern tip of Tampa Bay and collects some real doozies from the Gulf of Mexico. I have the patience for looking for shells, and I find the work cathartic. But I’m not good at it. I have been laughed at for what I bring back and what I find beautiful, but it rolls off of me and I care little. Shelling is a private endeavor, and others need not really know too much.
I have excelled at acting like Madame Cousteau as my son – once little and now not so much – brings me his bounty from the sea. I ooh and ahh and am truly transfixed by his luck in the shallows and on the sand. (Many years ago, I saw a comic in The New Yorker of a young Jacques at the beach. It showed his mother in a beach chair absolutely surrounded by sea life, shells and rocks. The artist had her saying something sweet and alarmingly funny – I have forgotten it, but the image has stuck with me as my son has aged.) This past week, he has brought me miniature wonders and large treasures.
And yesterday – just yesterday! – I realized why I’m not the greatest shell collector. Well, not the greatest collector of perfect shells…why I am drawn to all the shells that are imperfect and broken and damaged. The realization had me looking up from the “shell dump” my son and I were digging in and looking toward the incredible sinking sun as I caught my breath. It had come catapulting through time to strike me straight in the heart.
When I was in the 4th grade, my parents moved us from Des Moines to Kansas City. It was a wee bit hard to join a class mid-year and fit in. Well, I didn’t actually fit in for several more years. I was not chosen for kickball or dodgeball teams. I was not waved over to join a group at a lunch table. I was not picked first for spelling bees or vocabulary teams. It was tough. I was the new kid.
It was well into my 5th grade year when I met the young woman who has remained my best friend to this day. And even then, when she fell in gym and broke her forearm, I was blamed by others because I was near her and fell at the same time. I felt like I was the odd duck and the 5th wheel. I just knew I was imperfect in my classmates’ eyes – broken in some way I could not see in the mirror – and it left me a bit damaged for several years.
This brings us back to the beach and the bounty I carry away and into my home. I have jars on a high shelf in a guest room that house my treasures. I used to be a bit more anal retentive, putting dates and locations on the inside of the lids, but now I mix and match my catches. I will occasionally bring a jar down and place it on my dresser for a few weeks so I can marvel at the different shapes. I can admit to liking the pristine pieces that look like they were purchased at a gift shop, but I mix them liberally with the majority of what I own – odd shells, barnacled shells, broken shells, cracked shells, tips and fragments.
Today I found the shells you see, in the surf up-island from our beach chairs. I dug them out of the sand and clear water, looked at them briefly, and silently told myself to throw them back. They were still been held together by membrane, and one side was barnacled and off-colored, but the other side was nearly perfect and barnacle free. I held it for over a minute while contemplating how these two halves could still be together in the rough and tumble of the sea. One was perfect and one was not. Then, because I knew tossing would damage them, I laid them back gently on the sand in the shallows and walked away.
Ten minutes later, my son joined me where I sat after I had left the flats, and he showed me his many amazing shells, one of which was the pair I had placed back in the sea.
Oui, Madame était très contente.
Special note: a “shell dump” is a phrase my sister Casey coined years ago to distinguish regular beach from a section that had a lot of shells collected in it at the last high tide.
Translation: Yes, Madame was very happy.
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I almost walked right into a grand tour down memory lane. Almost.
While our 14 year old son is off traipsing around Paris, I decided to travel right into the grand abyss that is his closet. It was packed to the gills with old costumes, rolled posters, too-small shoes, last year’s jeans, and his “keepsafe” boxes. That’s where I was almost stupid. Almost.
When he was young and still learning the finer points of the English language, he heard me mentioning his keepsake boxes. To be precise, what he heard – but not what I said – was KEEPSAFE boxes. He will still ask me to put things away in his keepsafe boxes. I have never corrected him, and I doubt I ever will. It’s just too precious to me, and there needs to be some thread to him that ties me to his babyhood.
Back to the closet. Right on top, in the uppermost keepsafe box, was the Little Lord Fauntleroy outfit I bought him in 1997 for my stepsister’s wedding. I went a little crazy in the weeks before the wedding and purchased this amazing ensemble at Saks Fifth Avenue. It’s a pima cotton placketed blouse and a navy blue velvet jumper with button closures. No tacky snaps here!! I finished it all off with white socks and leather Buster Brown ankle shoes. He was 8 months old, and that night his feet never touched the ground. He was held by many and pandered to all night. He was as happy all evening as he is in this picture.
In the box, right under this fashion statement, is the outfit we took him home from the hospital in. I can’t say what else is in that box – or the boxes it was resting on – because I stopped right there. I felt the big cry coming on, and I waltzed right around it. I went back to sorting and dusting and cleaning and ignored the memories waiting in those boxes.
I guess that, because I only have one child, I will not need to remind myself to not go cleaning out the closets of an almost high schooler while they are away. It is a treacherous and slippery slope if you are not properly prepared.
I should, however, remind myself that drying my eyes with the cotton rag in my hands that is coated in lemon Pledge and dust bunnies is almost stupid. Almost.
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I am on vacation. It is day two on the beach. And my incredible little girl presented me with the gift of a lifetime. I was hanging out in the waves and she was running, playing and creating in the sand. I often find her lost in her imagination, talking with herself, and building elaborate stories. So, today I assumed she was scripting a play all her own. An hour later, she came to the water’s edge and said, “Mom, come see what I made.”
This is what she presented to me.
There is no greater gift than knowing your child is happy.
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I don’t remember graduating from the 8th grade. I attended what used to be called junior high school. It was a 2 year program steeped in hormone control. The curriculum included the usual: math, English, science, home economics, gym, foreign language, etc. It also had its fair share of angst, peer pressure and love triangles. All of this was finished off with mood swings and tears – joy and sadness were indiscernable.
Now, all these years later, the center of my universe is graduating from the 8th grade. His 11 years at the same school ended with 3 years in middle school. He has had a fabulous time figuring his young self out in an atmosphere of care and concern. He’s been challenged educationally and emotionally. He has witnessed the best in his friends and the worst in himself. The reverse is true as well.
And I’m the one that can’t stop crying. Every day this week has had at least one event in it that is a “last” for either my son, me or our family. He’s not just leaving his friends, I’m leaving my friends. These are men and women – all parents! – that were standing there with me 11 years ago when we sent our 3-year-olds into what seemed like a huge adventure.
I’m crying for what seems like no apparrent reason. I’m clinging to girlfriends in parking lots. I’m re-visiting the past and watching time fly. I’m holding on to moments, hoping they never end.
Sounds like junior high all over again. This time, however, I have a steady boyfriend to hold hands with who says he’ll love me forever.
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Could someone please explain to me why Mother’s Day is in May? You know, that delightful month when every mother wants to rip her ever-loving hair out of her head and who mumbles as she falls into bed each night, “How many days until summer break?”
Yes, Mother’s Day is this weekend. It makes me think about what it is to be a mom. I love being a mom. I believe it is the best of who I am and my most noble job. I have always been a late bloomer, and I know now that I missed my calling to be a mother of six kids with a big house, too many pets, and a fantastic husband.
Instead, I am a mother of one little girl, one dog, and one store that I co-parent with my sister. And my life works…most days.
I am in the middle of a tough cycle. I have been doing the mama-shuffle hard and fast for a handful of weeks. And it is starting to grind on me.
After surviving weeks of work, parenting, some family needs, and personal strain, I marched into Art Fair weekend in Brookside this past Friday with a smile on my face – and bags under my eyes.
For weeks, I have turned myself and my daughter in every possible direction to try and keep moving forward. We have been bunking together most nights because, truthfully, I wanted to streamline the “exit plan” each morning. At 7:15 am when the alarm buzzes each morning, we hit the snooze button more and more until finally on Saturday we dragged our butts out of bed at 8:40 am – just in time for a 9:00 am “knock on the door” from MY mom to take my daughter to AIDS Walk to meet up with my sister and her family.
I was off to work. Sloane and I are deeply committed to both AIDS Walk and our store, and it was Art Fair weekend in Brookside, darn it. We had to divide and conquer and be both places at once.
So, while Sloane and Mom had my offspring and I was at work, it managed to get super-duper fab-u-lous-ly busy. By the time my daughter came to me after the Walk, I was turning in circles while we shuffled her suitcases and clothes to get her ready for her next big adventure – an overnight! On Sunday, she was joyful at the Paul Mesner Puppets with my mother’s girlfriend – season tickets must be used! – and played with them until I could get off work finally at 6:30 pm.
We two immediately hit Bo Ling’s to celebrate surviving the weekend and to spend some quality time together without me having to cook or clean. (I love their quiet booths at times like this.) We did it! We survived the past few weeks and the endless weekend…and it wasn’t too bad. Actually, it was pretty normal for most working families with kids.
But wait…now it is the beginning of the week again, and we are off like a shot from a cannon. Because this week we must manage school, work, soccer, voice lessons, birthday cocktails, gymnastics, Pilates, a luncheon, two meetings, a consulting gig and – stop, wait, what did I forget? Oh yeah, FEED THE DOG. And don’t forget teacher appreciation day and the butterfly garden planting at school and the two large brown bags for artwork to come home (because our counter tops aren’t stacked high enough with kindergarten art), and we must find time to read, brush our teeth, wash our bodies and…giggle.
We also have to rally as a family for me to go to Texas with my dad and stepmom to meet with a doctor at MD Anderson because last month my dad was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma.
So, my little girl is off to my sister’s house mid-week to bunk with her cousin (one of her favorite people on the planet) while her mother is gone.
Sloane and I both know we are not not much different from every other mother we know. We are all crazy-busy, we are all juggling too many balls in the air, we are all confused, tired, stressed, and a bit slap happy. And we sometimes find some balance in sharing our collective craziness. The week I laid out for you is so similar to countless mothers’ weeks that, frankly, I know I am not special or unique.
When you become a mother, you know you will have to learn how to be a good parent; you will have to study this new role in life and evolve to meet the challenges. What you don’t realize is that being a mother will teach you to be a better daughter, sister, friend, aunt, business owner, community leader, volunteer…and woman. And that you will not trade it in for anything in the world.
I will be coming home late Friday night just in time for off-the-wall Saturday – 2 birthday parties, gymnastics, Pilates class, soccer game – and Mother’s Day on Sunday.
I am grateful to my daughter for so many things. We will make plans for this Sunday. First we will sleep late in my bed with that grand dog of ours, and we won’t have to hit the snooze button even once. We will probably grab a bite at Bo Ling’s again and drop in to a couple of small stores to shop. Interestingly, STUFF will be one of them, because my daughter is the only person I know that loves our store more than me and her LaLa (Sloane). And we will take the dog on a walk and take a nap, if I have my way.
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