"I Do" is more about the heart than the law

Last week I wrote about my impending trip to Hollywood, complete with reflections on the road not taken.  This week, my suitcase is unpacked, my photos have been uploaded and the trip is but a sweet memory.

The purpose of the trip was to attend my friend Paul’s wedding.  I confess, I don’t go to weddings much anymore.  Most of my contemporaries have already married for the first, if not second, time.  I don’t know if its true about old dogs and new tricks, but it was heartening for me to see my friend find true love and commitment as he approaches the cusp of 50.

This was especially poignant because Paul was my first real college boyfriend.  Caught up in the heady excitement of my freshman year, I met Paul at just the right time.  We shared a love of movies and Journey music.  We annoyed our respective roommates because we were constantly together.  Christmas break felt like an eternity, but I still keep the letters and cards he sent to me while we were apart.  We made plans for the future, as only immature, 19-year-olds can do.  His was the first marriage proposal I ever received.  And though it was prefaced by the phrase, “…if we still feel this way about each other when we graduate from college…” it holds a special place in my memory still.

Alas, a future together was just not meant to be.  We broke up just before summer vacation and, though we stayed friends, we never resumed our romantic relationship.  We’ve remained in touch over the years, even when Paul relocated to the West Coast.  Now whenever we see each other, whether it’s in Los Angeles or when he returns to the Boston area for vacation, we pick up right where we left off, catching up on our families, our lives and the movies we’ve seen.  I’m happy to say that our musical tastes have evolved beyond Journey.

Some women might have a hard time watching a beloved ex-boyfriend marry someone else.  I sat in the church pew and watched the ceremony with tears in my eyes, but they were tears of happiness that my dear friend had finally found someone who makes him happy; someone who compliments him; someone who, in the words of Jerry Maguire, “completes” him.  And that person’s name is Matt.

I’ve used the word “wedding”, but to be completely accurate, it was a commitment ceremony I attended, because the state of California doesn’t recognize same-sex unions as legal.  It amazes me that New England is more progressive on this issue than California.  I can’t imagine how these two friends, who have been together in a monogamous relationship for ten years, could possibly threaten the institution of marriage.  I don’t believe if their commitment to each other were legal, that people would suddenly start marrying their dogs or their shrubbery or their mailboxes.  When I see them together I see a couple that loves and respects and supports each other, in good times and in bad.  When Paul’s mother fell ill last month, both he and Matt put their jobs and their wedding plans on hold, returning home to New Hampshire to stay by her bedside until she ultimately passed.  And when the two pledged to spend their lives together last weekend in the presence of friends and family, the love, admiration and respect they felt for each other enveloped everyone in the church.

I know there are many who won’t share my opinion on this subject, which is their prerogative.  Personally, in an age where half of all traditional marriages end in divorce, I think it’s selfish to try to prevent anyone from legally spending their lives together.  How many of us have been to weddings where we knew the bride and groom weren’t going to make it?  I think if anyone threatens the sanctity of marriage, it’s people like Kim Kardashian, who marry only for fame, money and ratings.  If I had to bet on anyone going the distance, I’d put my money on Paul and Matt. 

Good luck, old friend.  I wish you both many years of love and happiness.  May you always be there for each other, and may others recognize the love you share and afford it the respect it deserves. 

Best to Travel Well on the Road You're On

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Robert Frost wrote a poem entitled “The Road Not Taken”.  While I’ve never been much for deciphering the meanings of poems, this one is pretty much a no-brainer.  The poem begins with the statement,” Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, and sorry I could not travel both…”

Who hasn’t looked back at least once in their life and wondered about the road not taken?  Everyone reaches a fork in the road of life, and while both options may be equally enticing, we can only travel down one road at a time.  As I write this column, I am preparing for a trip to Hollywood, to attend a friend’s wedding.  This will be my fourth trip out to the West Coast, and although I always enjoy my visits there, I can’t help wondering about that particular road not taken.

I’ve always had a huge interest in the entertainment industry.  My parents encouraged my love of movies and television.  While other young girls planned their dream weddings, I planned my Oscar acceptance speech. In high school, my best friend’s father worked for NBC, and on several occasions procured tickets for us to see “Saturday Night Live”. My friend and I both attended Emerson College, where we majored in Mass Communications, hoping to pursue our own careers in the entertainment industry. 

During my senior year at Emerson, I participated in a school-sponsored trip to Hollywood over Christmas break.  This trip allowed students to meet Emerson alumni working in the business, get a backstage glimpse of the film and television industry, and hopefully make connections for the future.  It was exciting and exhausting.  My final semester at Emerson, I interned at a local television station, and was hired as an audience coordinator for their live talk show upon graduation.

That job led to another production job, which in turn led to yet another in the industry, this time at the company where I met my husband, a video editor.   By this time I had worked my way up from audience coordinator to office manager to producer/writer.  My husband and I settled here on the South Shore and had two children.  Hollywood only factored into my daily life in the pages of my subscription to “Entertainment Weekly”.

And so, as I embark on yet another trip west, I think about the road not taken.  What if I had contacted the alumni we met on our Hollywood trip back in 1985?  Would I have dared travel west to make a name for myself?  Would I be working for one of the hundreds of production companies or studios that populate Los Angeles?  Would I have eventually found myself standing at the podium of the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion or the Kodak Theater, thanking my parents for supporting my dream and dedicating my Oscar to them?  I’ll never know.

I’m okay with that.  If I had taken that road, I wouldn’t have met my husband.  Without him, my two amazing children wouldn’t exist.  I live close enough to my parents to visit them several times a year.  Living on the left coast, I might have only seen them once a year, if that. 

Had I taken the other road, I might be writing for some third rate sitcom or B-movie, instead of entertaining folks with stories of smug Christmas letters or accidentally brushing my teeth with antifungal cream.

And what about my faith?  Would I have found my faith if I had taken that other road?   I’d like to think that I would, but who knows?  I might be having my thetan levels audited by a senior member of the Church of Scientology instead.

Robert Frost ends his poem with “..two roads diverged in a wood and I—I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference.”  Is he convincing himself that he made the right choice or lamenting the road not taken?  Personally, I think it’s fine to occasionally ponder the untraveled fork as long as you don’t let it derail the journey you are on.  Rather, let it remind you of all the blessings you’ve received on the road you did choose.

Uncommon Scents Just Might Make Sense

Let the fundraising begin!

Even before the start of school, my high school freshman brought home his first fundraising packet to support his marching band.  Frankly, I was relieved when I saw that the band chose Yankee Candle as their first fundraiser.

As a parent of school-aged children for more than twelve years, I’ve seen a wide variety of fundraisers, from candy and cookie dough to pretzels and wrapping paper.  While I know that the Sally Foster wrap is a great moneymaker for the school, I have a hard time asking friends and family to shell out $10 for a roll of paper when the Christmas Tree Shop has perfectly nice paper for one third the price.  People point out that the Sally Foster paper is of a much higher quality.  All well and good, except it’s still going to be ripped off the present and thrown in the trash.  We can’t even recycle it at our transfer station; it needs to go into the pit with all the other items destined to spend eternity slumbering beneath a landfill.  When the company changed their fundraisers requiring people to purchase Sally Foster gift cards in increments of $10, it was time to kick Sally to the curb.

I feel much better about my son selling Yankee Candles.  They are a quality product, they come in a variety of scents, and even if you’re not a candle fanatic, chances are good that someone you know someone who is (my mother).  Looking through the catalog I also noticed hand soaps, air fresheners, and greeting cards (and wrapping paper, but let’s skip that page, shall we?)   At $25, the jar candles are a bit steep, but there are plenty of smaller items that sell for as little as $6. 

I remember my first Yankee candle.  When we purchased our house, our realtor gave us a Hazelnut Coffee candle as a housewarming gift.  The same candle had been burning in the home when we first visited it.  Not long after, I purchased another Yankee Candle called Buttercream Frosting.  It had a fantastic smell, but I kept craving cupcakes whenever I lit it. 

Speaking with my friend Maria last week, I asked if she’d be interested in purchasing a candle to support the band.  She agreed and asked me which food-related scents were available, since the fundraising catalog doesn’t offer all the smells found in the store.  I rattled off names such as Gingerbread, Apple Pumpkin, Sage & Citrus, and Vanilla Lime.  “Don’t you have one scented like onion rings?” she asked, causing me to crack up.  “How about Buffalo Chicken?” she continued.  Well, why not?  What’s better than walking into the house and smelling something delicious?  My kids can tell the minute they walk in the door whether we are having spaghetti or sausage soup for dinner.  What about those of us who prefer the smell of Garlic Bread to Christmas Cookie or Cranberry Chutney?

As we riffed through a number of possible choices, we naturally segued into all the potentially rejected scents that failed to make the catalog:  “Well-worn Uggs”; “Halitosis”; “Formaldehyde”; “Hockey Pads”; “Nursing Home”; and my personal favorite: “Aft”.

This started me thinking about another niche for Yankee Candle: scented candles designed to drive folks away.  Are your houseguests overstaying their welcome? Light up “Full Litter Box” and watch them pack within minutes.  Late night dinner guests not getting the hint that it’s time to go home?  Ignite “Quincy Low Tide” and watch ‘em run.  Book club always wants to meet at your house?  Spark up “Raw, Rancid Chicken Breast” and they won’t set foot in your living room again.  Just think of the money to be made. 

I’m guessing the folks at Yankee Candle won’t be calling me anytime soon to capitalize on my brilliant marketing schemes.  But for those of you who would like to purchase candles with more pedestrian scents such as Balsam & Cedar or Pumpkin Pie, you know where to reach me.

For Parents, a High School "How-To"

Just last week I was writing a column about getting your child ready for his first year of middle school.  I included some helpful tips passed down to me from other middle school mothers, such as abandoning tighty-whities in favor of boxer shorts, especially on days that include Phys. Ed. 

Oh wait.  That wasn’t last week.  That was four years ago.  It just felt like last week.

And now here I am, writing about preparing your child for his first day of high school.  Of course, it’s not my child that needs the preparation.  It’s me.  But I’m lucky to have several friends who have already blazed this trail, so I’m happy to share these helpful hints and tips to other high school “newbie” parents, like myself.

The first words of advice were under no circumstances should I embarrass my child on school property.  So apparently I can’t drop him off or pick him up in my pajamas.  I can’t yell his name across the parking lot when I pick him up.  Honking the horn is probably forbidden as well.  This summer I was picking up my son from a captain’s practice for soccer.  I was listening to that earworm song “Call Me Maybe” on my way to the school, but as I got closer to the field I turned the radio down so I wouldn’t embarrass my son.  At which point I drove my car straight into a curb.  Every kid at the field turned to look at me.  As my son walked to the car, shoulders slumped, I rolled down the window and asked if anyone else needed a ride.  No takers.  Classes haven’t even started yet and already I’m embarrassing my son on school property.

Another tip: Hugs and kisses when getting out of the car anywhere near school are forbidden.  This is a no brainer for me.  Though I’m pretty free with hugs and kisses, I can restrain myself from lavishing them on my high school son, as long as I can still dispense them freely to my sixth grader.  As of last year, my 11-year old was still waving to me from the school bus window, so that will have to suffice for public displays of affection.

Get used to driving.  A lot.  A few weeks ago it occurred to me that my older son would never take the bus again.  Since our school system doesn’t offer bussing for high school students (ridiculous, I know), it will be my job to get him to and from school each day.  Thankfully, I work from home, so I’m able to carpool with my neighbor, who works full time but is able to do the morning drop off.  At freshman orientation last week, I sat in a line of traffic, waiting to pick up my son and his friend.  As my car crawled forward, inches at a time, I realized that this is how I’ll spend my afternoons for the next seven years.  I just need to figure out how to avoid the curb.

Another tip: Do not drop off lunch money.  Apparently, it’s social suicide to be called down to the office to pick up lunch money or, God forbid, an actual lunch.  Better to starve than to endure the humiliation from a parent who wants to keep their child fed.  Thankfully our town has an online service that allows you to track your child’s lunch account and add funds as needed.  Better make a mental note to check that website daily.  I also think that this is the year that both children can start making their own lunches.  The two things I hate most about mornings is emptying the dishwasher and making lunches.  Let them have a crack at it.  As long as lunch isn’t made up entirely of chips, cookies and soda, they’re good.

The hardest part of sending my child off to high school is letting him find his own way.  In elementary school, parents are asked to be room mothers and chaperones and helpers.  In middle school, the request for parent participation tapers off.  It seems to be pretty much non-existent in high school.  And I guess that’s how it should be.  As my wise friend advises, “We all give our kids basic values and morals, now it's time for them to go and find out who they are and where they fit.“  I’m sure I’m not the only one who finds it hard to take that step back and let them navigate, sometimes painfully, their path to adulthood.   Watching them shift friendships or fail to make a sports team is heartbreaking.  But I know it’s all part of those “life lessons” that everyone has to learn at some point.

I’m pretty sure my freshman will do well and have a great year.  The best thing I can do is step back, encourage him, and offer support when needed.

And mind the curb.