Inheritance from my mother: The written word

If Minnesota Transplant readers ever wonder where I got the desire to write about all things interesting and inane, you don’t have to look much farther than my mother.

I helped an author publish her book to Amazon recently (read more about that exercise here), and it reminded me how grateful I am for my mother. The book I helped publish to Amazon is titled, “Letters From Mom: A Daughter’s Journal of Healing” and it’s about how the author, Joyce Kocinski, dealt with her grief after her mother’s death. The narrative includes several letters written by her mother.

The exercise prompted me to sift through my own manila file of “Letters From Mom.”

Most of them were written pre-Facebook in her neat, entirely readable left-handed cursive. Mom still hand-writes letters to me, but now she sends missives via Facebook email quite often, including today’s message: “We received about an inch of much needed rain last night. A wildfire burned roughly 70 acres up by Menahga this week. How’s the second novel coming?”

Mom writes about all kinds of minutia in a lovely way that polishes daily activities like gardening, decorating and visiting into precious artifacts. I aspire to that art of converting the mundane into the extraordinary in this daily blog.

I appreciate Mom’s deadpan delivery, too. She makes me laugh. Here are a few comedic gems from the handwritten letters in my file.:

“Curt is in Long Prairie running this afternoon. He said he ran fast in practice yesterday. We bought something for his diarrhea. I hope it clears it up, so we don’t have to go the doctor, but we will if it doesn’t (Kay!).

For your reference, Curt was my brother, and Kay, to whom this letter was also addressed because we were living together at the time and who apparently delayed seeing a doctor, is my sister.

Here’s a note Mom wrote after I told her I was going for a hot air balloon ride:

“I trust you didn’t fall out of the balloon. Here’s a sample of the wallpaper in the bathroom, too. I’m about 3/4 of the way done.”

Sometimes she even includes pictures:

Phyllis and I lay out Sunday, and I lay out Saturday alone. I have a pretty good tan and also a pretty bad sunburn in a couple of places [drawing]. That area wasn’t exposed to the sun before this summer, I suppose.

Here’s Mom telling me about her weekend. “Bob” is my dad, and “Mills” is New York Mills, a tiny town in Central Minnesota near where my parents live:

“Sunday, Bob, Gene, Kenny, Jerome, Howard, Mark and Jay went golfing at a golf course set up in Howard’s pasture by Mills. It has greens and everything, but also sheep turds. It doesn’t cost anything and isn’t a bit crowded except for the sheep.”

Mom, I treasure you!

Why being a stepmother is like ‘Survivor’

My Adored Stepson sent me a text and called me today to wish me happy Mothers Day.

I survived 40 years without giving Mother’s Day a second thought (other than to thank my own mother), so I’m still a little surprised — and pleased — when I’m thought of on Mother’s Day.

Best gift of all: My 18-year-old stepson, after living the past three years with his mother in Minnesota, is graduating this week and spending the summer with his father and me before he goes off to college.

Some mothers of teenagers, let alone nonbiological mothers, might be appalled by this turn of events, but I’m delighted. My Adored Stepson inherited many of the characteristics I like in my Beloved, so I enjoy his company and am considering time with him this summer to be a gift.

But stepping into the role of stepmother hasn’t always been easy. Sometimes, it has been … well … how do I say this … bang-my-head-against-a-wall, heartbreakingly difficult. Days like today, when I get to engage my stepson in a Mother’s Day conversation about his last day of work, tomorrow’s business class exam and ethics of $3 T-shirts made in Bangladesh make all those other, less satisfying moments worth it.

In honor of Mother’s Day and the season finale of the 26th season of “Survivor Caramoan: Fans vs. Favorites,” here’s a list of ways being a successful stepmother is like winning “Survivor”:

1. Outwit, outplay, outlast. If you can’t outwit and outplay a 13-year-old, you’ll never outlast one.

2. Do not be the leader. Leaders get voted out of “Survivor,” and bossy stepmothers are unlikable all the way around. I learned early on that I had no role as disciplinarian, and thank goodness, my Beloved was up to the task.

3. Don’t be a follower either. Children — biological or step — learn how to push their parents’ buttons. If you let them get to you, they win.

4. Be nice but don’t be too young, too pretty or too stupid. Having to compete for your spouse’s attention helps no one. Be yourself. Be sincere. Help with homework. Care.

5. Keep your emotions in check. Dawn’s crying jags on this season’s “Survivor” are a little too much. Yes, the actions of my stepchildren have made me cry. Crying is good sometimes. But not on camera or under the hot lights.

6. Being a good cook helps. If you can’t be a good cook, tend the fire. My tastes and my stepson’s tastes do not jive. Thankfully, my Beloved is a good cook. And I clean up after him well.

7. Lighten up. On “Survivor,” lunatics get voted out but people like to keep funnymen around. In the end, the comedians are often the “fan favorites.” In my step-dynamic, Caswell tells the jokes and I laugh at them. In the words of Martha Stewart, this is a very good thing.

8. Avoid lying. Blindsides make for good tribal councils, but blindsided contestants tend to hold grudges when it comes time for the final vote. That goes double for stepchildren.

9. Win immunity challenges at any cost! There have been a lot of challenges in this season’s survivor requiring contestants to stand, balance, hold on or hold their breath the longest (I found that challenge involving the metal grate and the rising tide really uncomfortable to watch, but Brenda didn’t panic and ultimately won). Similarly, sometimes the best tactic for a stepmother is hold on longer than she ever thought she could.

10. Don’t monopolize the challenges either. If you’re seen as huge threat, you’ll be voted off. Stepchildren don’t like threats to their security either.

Enjoy the “Survivor” finale tonight! And happy (step)Mother’s Day!

Here I am at the end of a tunnel, where there is light

Those who wait endlessly for news about a lost person do not do so in vain if they find hope and optimism in their struggle.

~ Pauline Boss

Among those books I’m letting go to the donation bin is a helpful little book called, “Ambiguous Loss: Learning to Live With Unresolved Grief” by Pauline Boss.

I picked it up three years ago when my Adored teenage stepson Caswell moved out of our house to live with his mother two states away. His absence broke my heart, and just finding a label for it — “ambiguous loss” — helped me cope a little. It took months to put the pieces back together, but eventually, the relationship with my Adored stepson improved, and our lives — separated though they were by two states — came to feel like a new normal.

Boss’s book offered some nuggets of advice, and as with many other losses, time helped, too. Sometimes one just has to persevere through hard times.

Now, my Adored is soon graduating from high school and talking about moving back to our house. Some parents of 18-year-olds might not like such news, but this turn of events thrills me. Caswell is here this week, spending his spring break with us. We restarted the jets in the hot tub three times tonight before we finished our deep conversation about relationships and the future. He takes after his father, my Beloved, and I find him interesting and pleasant to spend time with him.

Which teaches me all over again that life changes. Bad days happen. Bad times get better. Happy days are here again. Savor good times because they come to an end.

Boss’s book was necessary for a season in my life, but I can let it go now to help someone else.

“As long as there is optimism and hope, continuing to work on a relationship with someone who is slowly dying can be a kind of victory, as can continuing to work on … letting kids come back home after they leave, knowing they will leave again. … If we do it with optimism, there is no absurdity in perseverance.”

~ Pauline Boss

Trivial pursuits

“Where do wines get their names?”

“How do centuries work?”

“Is cotton or polyester better for underwear?”

I get such a kick out of being considered enough of an expert to be consulted on such matters of curiosity and import … one of the joys of being a stepmother.

When I can’t indulge my child, I indulge myself

Those of us without biological children have to cater to our inner child in ways parents never do.

Today, I browsed a dinosaur display, licked an ice cream cone and posed for a picture squished between my dog and my Beloved on the couch because my stepson is in town, and we were indulging him. Would I do these things without him?

Probably no.

Author Wendy McClure says as much in her book, “The Wilder Life: My Adventures in the Lost World of Little House on the Prairie,” in which she recounts visiting every Laura Ingalls Wilder museum from New York state to South Dakota:

“Watching the girls with their families made me think about something else, too. I knew my decision to make this trip was in some small way informed by the fact that Chris and I had decided not to have kids. In other words, I knew if I wanted to see these places, I’d have to go for myself; I wouldn’t ever be sharing the experience with a daughter, the way Little House fans often do.”

That quote is from barely a half page of description about her childlessness, but I know from experience the reasoning behind the decision to live such a lifestyle could fill a book. (For a complete review of McClure’s “The Wilder Life,” click here to be redirected to my writing blog.)

I’m thankful I don’t have to watch “Veggie Tales” or dine on the leftovers of Happy Meals, but I also don’t get to play with Barbies or live vicariously as a 4-year-old revels in the wonder of meeting Santa. If we childless people don’t make such decisions directly, we miss catching them randomly.

It makes me grateful for the opportunity to step-parent, though I missed some of the cutest experiences of children of single-digit ages.

That double-dipped ice cream cone with a teen-ager this afternoon sure was fun, though!

The season change sounds like ‘go, team go!’

The humidity is no longer 95 percent, and evening temps dip into the 50s, so taking a walk at the end of the day is no longer out of the question. It is, in fact, a delightful way to enjoy an August evening and maybe wax nostalgic.

I walked to a meeting of my book club this evening and left the ear buds behind. I was serenaded by chirping crickets and cooing birds.

Faintly, in the distance, I heard the autumn sound of a cheerleading squad practicing its cheers. Oh! That’s like the crunch of football players pounding each other on the gridiron — so distinctive of the season.

It seemed strange, to remember that soon, all the action on Friday nights will be under the lights.

When I first became a stepmother five years ago after years of childlessness, it was strange to be thrust back into the routine of school and sports that I remembered from my own school years. It took more than a year to get used to it.

Now, with Caswell living two states away, it’s strange not be caught up in the school routine. Even autumn at his house with his mother in Minnesota, this school year won’t be routine; he’s taking college courses during his senior year instead of enduring classes at the high school.

So it was pleasant to hear kids practicing cheerleading and to be reminded that the seasons change, predictably and comfortingly.

“To be interested in the changing seasons
is a happier state of mind than to be hopelessly
in love with spring.”

~ George Santayana

When I saw ‘how to make a car louder’ on the search history of my iPad, I should have known this was coming

Hanging around with an 18-year-old young man introduces me to a lot of concepts out of my comfort zone.

Like exhaust tips.

Yeah, I didn’t know what exhaust tips were either.

If you’re a motorhead, you’re rolling your eyes right now, but I’m not a motorhead. My stepson is though.

He’s the one who is earning money this summer changing people’s oil at Valvoline Instant Oil Change. And every spare cent from his paychecks is going into his car.

He took a few days off to visit us this weekend, and he made full advantage of his dad’s know-how and tools to improve his exhaust system.

Well, “improve” in his view.

It’s a lot louder, that’s for sure. “It’s insane,” he says, as I recorded a video on his phone for him to send to one of his Valvoline friends.

I’m interested in how my car sounds, too, but I’m usually looking for quieter, not louder, and when it starts popping when I rev it, it’s time to call the mechanic.

Not that I ever rev my engine.

In any case, the tinkering required new exhaust tips. Here’s Cas modeling them:

Caswell’s double EEs (two exhaust tips, silly!).

OK, exhaust tips are not a mansiere. This heretofore-unknown-to me-automobile accessory is the showy end of an auto’s exhaust system. On his car, they come in pairs.

They even look good in the rain.

They’re insane all right.

Tata-riffically off-base identification

About the time my Beloved should be getting an invitation in the mail to join AARP, a brochure titled with “Best Baby Registry” arrives.

Huh?

There are no babies or impeding babies in Minnesota Transplant’s household.

“Why did we get this?” I asked. “Is there something I should know?”

“Is there something I should know?!” he asked.

So we chalked it up to a major case of “junk” in junk mail.

Only it’s not some sort of errant coincidence.

Today, a magazine titled “Baby Talk” arrived in the mail, very clearly addressed to my Beloved. It’s got scintillating stories like “Stretch mark confidential,” “Bringing sexy back (after baby)” and “Tata-riffic: Who’s breastfeeding? Who’s not? And how you can be successful.”

This clearly is a periodical aimed at women.

Young women.

Young women who are gestating.

Or possibly already lactating.

And it arrived at my house.

Addressed to my husband.

(Seriously — “tata-riffic”? Do you think AARP uses “tata-anything” in its headlines?).

So, where did the staff at The Parenting Group (publishers of “Baby Talk”) get my husband’s name (and address!)?

It’s got to be one of two things.

Either The Parenting Group’s social media/online shopping mavens have gotten something very wrong.

Or one of his buddies is laughing his head off right now.

Boy turns 18; baker turns to Betty Crocker

All the world is birthday cake,
so take a piece, but not too much.

~ George Harrison

Guess who’s officially an adult today?

My stepson Caswell turns 18! He’s now entitled to vote, buy cigarettes, register with Selective Service, get a motorcycle license without taking a motorcycle-rider training course,  bear arms (some types anyway), own property, marry without parental consent and serve on a jury.

How better to celebrate this magic milestone than with cake!

I mentioned to my friend Jill that Cas was celebrating his birthday this week. Ever the mother (she has two boys) and consummate baker, she asked, “Are you making a cake?”

Eek. It never dawned on me to make a cake.

I hate cake, for one thing, so it’s not very high on my personal priority list. And I’m camping this week. Have you ever seen an oven in 1983 camper? And even when I have the best equipment, I haven’t had a lot of success with cakey cakes. Cheesecake? I’m good at cheesecake. Cakey cakes? Hardly.

A couple of years ago, I made a cake for my Beloved’s birthday and it was a disaster (read about it here).

“Do you think I should make a cake?” I asked Jill.

“What’s a birthday without cake?” she said like a baker who’s whipped out six dozen cookies for a Boy Scout outing with 8 hours notice. “How about cupcakes? You can borrow a pan from me, and I have a FUN da-Middles mix you can have. It’s like homemade Twinkies.”

So she set me up with a pan, celebration-themed cupcake liners and this foolproof mix. Bonus: The secret filling means no frosting required. The tagline, which is as perfect for this baker’s intentions as it is for this confection invention, is “It’s what’s inside that matters.”

The hardest part of the whole process was lighting the pilot light, it worked so slick! And FUN da-Middles are delicious (if you’re into cakey cakes).

Mm … creamy filling …

I get stepmother points (thanks to Jill and Betty), and Cas gets his cake and can eat it, too! Yay!

Happy birthday, sweet stepson.

Life’s biggest questions

Author Andrew Delbanco appeared on National Public Radio’s Diane Rehm show this morning, and I found the conversation to be interesting, especially in light of the fact that I’m stepmother to a high school senior who is pondering his next move.

Delbanco wrote “College: What It Was, Is and Should Be.”

The interview covered a lot of ground but here’s the best nugget. When Rehm asked “Why are the classics still important?” Delbanco listed a bunch questions the classics answer, and I loved his list because I think people wrestle with these questions every day:

“Because what one discovers by the study of the humanities — literature, history — is that with all the differences among cultures and all the differences in how we live now and how we lived 100 or 200 years ago, there are certain persistent human questions,” Delbanco said:

• How do I live an honorable life?
• How do I choose between conflicting loyalties?
• What’s the best way to come to terms with my mortality?
• What do I owe to my children, what do they owe to me?

“These are questions that have been debated and discussed by wise human beings for millennia and we short change our young people by closing them off from that conversation.”

“Conflicting loyalties” and “what do I owe to my children” — especially tough ones for us in middle age.

How do you answer those questions? And, if you’re college educated, how is that education helping you answer them?