The Age of Accountability

From the time I was a sunbeam doing jazz hands and spouting “Popcorn Popping on the Apricot Tree” at top of my irreverent little lungs, I have been taught that the age of accountability is eight years old. By that time you have hopefully outgrown the worst of childhood mischief, like stuffing your underwear full of dinner mints while your father pays at the register of a restaurant. You can still do stuff like that, but at eight years old your ‘Get Out of Jail Free’ card is gone and you must account for such actions. I never questioned this doctrine until I had an experience this summer that made me wonder. I know that sounds bold since I’m not a prophet, seer or revelator. On my best behavior I barely tip the scale as a mediocre member. I didn’t receive this insight through vision, I had this spiritual epiphany during a much more sacred event: A Triathlon.
In case you haven’t been bitten by the bug yet, you should know that triathlons are The Rage of the Middle-aged. When people hit mid-life they used to do the normal things like bleach their hair, drink heavily or have an affair. Those good ol’ days are gone. Now, for some reason, you hit thirty or forty-something and have an uncontrollable urge to simultaneously master three sport venues and pay good money to over-exert yourself wearing sparse spandex.
Two years ago in a freakish fit of overconfidence I succumbed and did a couple of sprint-length tri’s. I was already an avid biker, my daughter coached me through some swim stroke basics, and though I loathe running I figured I could put one foot in front of the other to complete the 5K. I didn’t set any records and avoided drowning despite the violently thrashing swimmer in front of me, but with my age scrawled in permanent marker on my calf I crossed the finish line alive. I admit, I was pretty proud of myself. I was also pretty sure I never wanted to train for a tri again. My bike and I are intimate and I had no desire to step out on it again. I resumed my usual exercise regime and let the leg marking fade into the sunset.
For two years now I’ve been perfectly content with my low-end athleticism. Then, this spring a good friend of mine called and said he wouldn’t be my friend any more if I didn’t sign up for a tri with him. He knew I had ‘tried’ before and he knows I don’t have very many friends, so he used this information against me and coerced me into dusting off my tria-tard.
Who knew I was still so susceptible to peer pressure? As I registered online I could hardly believe the wallet-gauging amount I was paying to engage in organized torture just to keep a friend I now hated more and more with every air-sucking lap. So, why did I decide to tri again? First of all, as a tri virgin my friend had decided to go for the Olympic length and I wanted to see him get his padded shorts kicked. (We’re really close friends.) Secondly, most of my days are filled with dishes, laundry, school principal meetings, etc. and every so often I feel a need to set down my mop and check my moxy levels.
My training regime was fairly loose: bike two days a week, swim two, run two, working up to full lengths. My friend emailed me a high-tech training spread sheet. Did I mention he is seriously over-achieverish? I emailed back, “Dude, you are into this way more than I am.” My goal: finish alive.
At 4:30 a.m. on the day of the tri my alarm went off and I immediately decided I could make it through life without friends. We pulled into the parking lot next to a sporty SUV that had the license plate “TRI CHICK” on it. (I warned you these things are becoming cult-like!) Unfortunately, I left my switch blade at home so I couldn’t slash her tires, but I imagined a target on the back of her perky blond head as she bounded toward registration. This tri differed from the others I had done in that the swim was open water in a reservoir. Luckily I had the smarts to practice an open water swim one time before the actual tri. It’s a good thing I did because I discovered something important: I’m afraid of open water swimming. A week before the tri I found myself in the middle of a reservoir floating on my back trying mentally to find my happy place to stop the hyperventilating. I had no idea how disorienting it is to not be able to see the bottom. Without the pool lane lines to keep my brain occupied it started entertaining itself with images of giant catfish latching onto my face or a dead body floating up through the murky abyss.
I tried to block out the trial run fiasco as I pulled on my rubber suffocation suit and stared out at the official buoy that seemed eons away. I joined the rest of my heat (suckers) in the water and when the horn blew I dove in hoping the dead body in the water wouldn’t be mine. Halfway to the buoy I was praying for a giant catfish to come and swallow me whole. I somehow managed my way around the lake, breezed through the bike (it’s my favorite), but about a mile into the run I hit the wall. In moments of great pain I become the most philosophical. Why am I doing this? Why are any of us doing this? What is it we are trying to prove? Through blurry vision I looked at the ages marked on the calves of those ahead of me and those who passed me, which were many, and the revelation occurred: The age of accountability is not eight years old. The age of accountability is 37, or 40, or 52, or whatever age it is that makes you have enough regret about life that makes you think that doing a triathlon will make it all better somehow. As you swim mind-numbing laps you think about all the wasted brain space occupied with memorized sit-com dialogs. As your rickety knees pound the pavement you think of landfills full of the empty Hostess boxes you’ve contributed. When you squish into clothes tighter than someone your age should ever wear in public you think of the degree you never finished, the business venture that failed, thoughtless words you uttered, failed relationships, unvisited islands, wayward children, deprived childhoods, pesticide toxins, global warming . . . on and on, etc. etc! And so we swim and bike and run and hope that across that finish line is a sense of accomplishment and empowerment to make peace with what we can’t change in the past.
So, I crossed the finish line. On the other side of it was my family, some friends, a drink of water and a cookie.
No regrets.

The Law of the Harvest: Reap & So What?

On this beautiful autumn day I gathered my children to go out to our garden and gather the last of our harvest bounty. As I picked plump tomatoes and conjured up new and exciting ways to disguise zucchini, one of my children asked, "Why do you make us work so hard to grow a bunch of food we don't even like?" Next year I'll see what line of seeds 'Hostess' has available.

'Julie & Julia' & Kari

I saw the movie "Julie & Julia" the other night. For those of you who have not seen it, it's the true story of a woman who is about to turn 30, working a Dilbert job feeling like she's hit a dead end because she has nothing to show for her life. Then, like the rest of us please-pluck-me-out-of-obscurity-via-my-clever-blog zealots, she decided to write her way out of her slump. She takes on the project of cooking the 500+ recipes in Julia Child's famous cookbook over the course of one year. She cooks and blogs, dresses a duck, kills her first lobster and almost loses her husband. During this story we also simultaneously follow Julia Child's story of becoming a cooking icon. Both of these women were looking for something meaningful to do with their lives. Both of these women struggle through a personal journey of finding themselves and somehow fumble into fame and fortune. They both had trials and triumphs, and they both had a fabulous, pioneering idea that set them apart from the pack.
I was both inspired and deflated. Inspired because I, too am a wannabe writer who wants my voice to resonate beyond the obscenities I yell into my pillow and this story offers proof that it does happen. Deflated because I realized I'm a creative cul-de-sac. I'm not a brilliant chef or a blogging mentor of a brilliant chef. I don't dream about vampire-human relationships or scribble ideas about wizard academies on napkins. I write about the hap-hazards of inept mothering. I'm just one of a bazillion Erma Bombeck copies trying to laugh my way through the ruination of human offspring. My last blog was almost four months ago. Why? Because, unlike Julie or Julia I have dependents who need life sustenance. Julie blew off her husband to cook and blog and it almost ended her marriage, but he's an adult who was behaving like a baby just because he wasn't getting any. I have real babies who need their mother because if Child Protective Services shows up and takes my kids away then I'll have nothing to write about. A twice-baked potato is better than no potato.
The movie did touch on Julia Child's anguish over being childless, which made me ache for her. Her husband was wealthy, her household was staffed and she was looking for something to do with herself and, boy, did she ever find it! Her recipes were her babies and they grew up and turned out beautifully. But, I'm sure she would have traded it all for motherhood.
I'm not Julie or Julia, and I would hardly trade being a mom for anything, but, like them, I am searching for some fulfillment all my own. So, on occasion (hopefully more often than quarterly) I'll neglect my household and keep writing. Who knows? Somewhere out in the cyber-universe there might be someone interested in knowing why I cried this morning when I turned on the TV to see my sister-in-law (mother of six boys) nominated on KSL News 'High Five' for voluntarily organizing a neighborhood carpool that safely and efficiently shuttles 60 kids to school. I cried because, while Super Mom accepted a day spa certificate for saintlike service she offers above and beyond the demands of a large family, I was administering fiber capsules and a mouth-puckering remedy to my daughter to purge a parasite out of her colon. Apparently, I'm the creator of mediocre ideas and kids who go out to the barn and lick our horses. Hey, it's no sufle, but it's what's cookin' up at my house today. Bon appetit!

Forever Young

At the breakfast table yesterday Scott got up off his chair and hopped up onto Jason's lap. Ivy said, "Scott, you're too big to sit on Dad's lap anymore." Scott smiled his sweet boyish smile and replied, "I'm trying to stay young for Mom and Dad." Thanks, baby!

Children's Songbook, Page 245

Oh, what do you do in the summertime, when all the kids are home?
Does your house take a hit, while kids lazily sit,
And you think you might lose your mind?
Is that what you do?
So do I!

Not to Mention

Yesterday we took the kids to the local art fair 'Summerfest.' We were browsing through an exhibit that contained artwork from a plein air painting contest sponsored as part of the fair. A painting with a ribbon next to it caught Scott's eye. He pointed at it and said, "How embarrassing. They gave this painting a 'Horrible Mention.'"

The Mother of All Holidays

Whoever decided Mother's Day should be on Sunday was not LDS. This is the one day a week when every family member has to be cleaned and dressed up better than usual and arrive somewhere all at the same time, preferably on time and be prepared to fulfill whatever collective callings/responsibilities you have for church that day. While other mothers are perusing around a chocolate fondue fountain at the local bistro's Mother's Day brunch buffet and using their gift cards to break the sabbath at the mall, we are slapping Sunbeams around while a raw roast sits in the crock pot we forgot to turn on back home.
And let us not forget the crown jewel of the day, the glowing tributes to motherhood in sacrament meeting, such as the one given in my ward today. A young man paid homage to his mother's sacrifice of giving him life with a dazzling description of his emergency c-section birth where he "got ripped from his mother's belly like gutting a fish." He then acknowledged his mother's many responsibilities with this lovely gem, "My mother is always running around like a head with its chicken cut off." I'm sure this fine young man meant for the fish guts and missing chicken to be some sort of gift of appreciation for his mom. I'm sure she sat in the audience with tears in her eyes, so proud that she raised a son with such vivid storytelling and memorable quote-making abilities.
So, Happy Mother's Day to all you mothers out there. Here's hoping you don't come home to a cold roast, that your chicken remains securely adhered and that you don't feel like a gutted fish on Mother's Day.