A Cabin in the Woods For Your Teen

I am actually sleeping through the night now (well, 1 am til 6:30, two nights in a row no less!) so I am very late today on doing the blog update. Sorry about that to all six of my faithful subscribers.

But lately I have been comtemplating how nice it would be to go live in a Cabin in the Woods for a Week. Or to send an unruly teenager there. Not that I have one--yet--but the day is definitely coming.

I was watching the Olympics the other night and Apolo Onton Ohno, the famous speedskater and Dancing With The Stars Champion for those who don't follow pop culture much, was skating for yet another medal. He is now the MOST decorated US Winter Olympian and he is at his third and probably final Olympics. I remember when he was a raw kid 8 years ago in this very aggressive and sometimes brutal sport (short track skating, where anything can happen and people will deliberately knock you down on camera). He doesn't have as many golds as speed skaters Eric Heiden or Bonnie Blair but he has more MEDALS. At any rate, when he was 15 apparently he went through a rough time and did not want to speed skate any more. He was raised by a single dad, a Japanese immigrant who can't have had a lot of money. His dad drove him all over hell's half acre so this kid could compete at quality events. Well, at one event Apolo didn't try very hard and came in dead last. His dad was upset, not at his son's ranking but because he gave up and didn't do as well as he could have. He didn't do his personal best.

So his dad took Apolo to a cabin in the woods and left him there for a week, so Apolo could decide what to do with his life. Now as far as I know he left him food, shelter (heat or the ability to make a fire in a woodstove), water, and he had a phone so he could call his dad after a week. I don't think he had Internet or Cable or the I phone or the Wii or the many modern distractions that we now have. And I don't think he even had a television. I have no idea what Apolo did during the week alone--what would you do? Did he read? What books did he take? Did he fish? Did he masturbate? Who really knows? But at the end of the week Apolo had decided that he did indeed want to continue speed skating, he rededicated himself to his sport, and the rest is history.

My husband's response was, "when can I go?" In other words, when do I get to slow down for a week and think about what to do with the rest of my life? This is a thought that one has as one nears 50 in my case, or passes it as my husband has (and I guess the big 53rd or 54th birthday is coming up in April--I forget which). As you start to see your physical abilities dwindle you realize that there are things that you will never do (and maybe like me you don't care. As a friend once said, "I have no real desire to jump out of a perfectly good airplane!") But obviously as one ages, some doors open but many close. I am watching the figure skaters and I always wanted to get my kids involved in that sport, and I am finding out that it is certainly too late to make them into little Olympians now. Besides, Amelia hates the cold of the ice rink even though she likes skating. But I don't even take them skating very often. I can't do it any more because of my ankle and I get bored sitting there, and the last time they needed a lot of help and I couldn't really help them. Robert had to do it and his knees can't take it very well either. In other words, maybe we are really too old to be good parents! We can't do some of the stuff that the cool, fit younger parents can do.

A friend and her family were at the ice rink that day (I am sorry to say that this was LAST Christmas 2008, not this year, and that is actually the last time I went to an ice rink). She has a son who is in high school and is on an elite hockey team. He is very talented and has even been drafted into the minor leagues. I think the plan was for him to play for a few years and then go to college on scholarship (apparently most hockey players these days do this and are a little older when they hit college, which is not really a bad thing because they are a little more mature). Now this kid has always lived and breathed hockey. I've rarely seen him when he wasn't in uniform, or watching hockey, or even on in-line roller skates. I have supported a few of his fundraisers over the years and I have watched him grow up. His team just won the state championship and he is on his way to regionals.

But he may have played his last hockey game as soon as regionals are concluded. His parents aren't going due to other obligations and expenses. I know that they have put their hearts and souls into supporting him, driving him places, and paying for hockey. The dad was out of work for a while last year and is on a contract assignment now, and they almost had to move to Houston last spring. So it has not been an easy road for them. The two younger kids play hockey. I mean, hockey is really a very important force in their lives.

But the kid is not sure he wants to continue with hockey. I am not sure of his reasoning because I haven't talked with him and I really don't know him well. But I expect he is getting bored with it, or tired of it, or burned out on it. It's hard. You can get hurt. It can be dangerous. There are probably a lot of good things and bad things about it. It may be that being up there with a farm team or whatever they are called subjects you to certain temptations. Maybe he has a girlfriend he wants to follow to college. Maybe his friends are going to college and he doesn't want to wait and play hockey for a few years. I don't know what his reasons are and some of them may be good and legitimate. But nevertheless this has to be devastating to his parents. This kid has a real gift that he has developed and now he's about to throw that out the window. How will he feel in 15 or 20 years when he is one of us living in the burbs who could have been a great hockey player? Or maybe he won't be a great hockey player, but he will never know unless he tries, right? Or maybe there is something else he is supposed to do with his life. Maybe hockey has got him sidetracked and God has a plan for him that he has not been following. There's apparently a minor league baseball player who was getting ready to be moved up to the majors recently and decided to quit and become a priest. I'm not saying that this hockey player kid is supposed to be in the ministry, but who knows?

You know, we all have missed opportunities. Jobs that maybe we should have taken (or quit sooner). Boyfriends or girlfriends we maybe should have stayed with, or given a second chance. Or Dumped sooner. Or Not Married in the First Place. Maybe we should have tried harder to have children. Maybe we shouldn't have had children. Maybe we shouldn't have gotten drunk on that occasion and said those awful things to those people who never speak to us now because of our appalling behavior. Maybe we should have visited our families more often or tried to understand them better. Maybe we should have sent out more birthday cards on time (a big personal failing of mine--I like to make cards but I rarely get around to mailing them). Maybe we should have remembered those birth control pills and that we were on antibiotics (that's the lament of a friend of mine who has TWO sets of identical twin boys and guess how the second set was conceived???) Life throws us curveballs sometimes, and we don't always respond well. Maybe we should have spent more time with that person but we didn't know she/he was sick, dying, or that it was our last time on earth with them. Or we didn't want to believe it. We all have regrets. We say we don't. Maybe we should have joined that church or organization or activity sooner. Maybe we should have exercised more and eaten better food. Maybe we should have managed our healthcare better or taken better care of ourselves. Maybe we should have stood up for ourselves. Maybe we should have said "no" when asked to volunteer for something we knew we didn't possibly have time to do. Maybe we should have said "yes" and worked it into our already overloaded schedules. Maybe we should have seen the dentist before the teeth fell, literally, out of our heads (OK, this is definitely my lament this week, although I know WHY I didn't see the dentist earlier--combination of fear and insurance woes).

(Rob, if you are reading this and see any subject/verb agreement problems in the above paragraph, please email me. I tried but I'm kind of tired this morning). :)

So I don't want my friend's son to have regrets about giving up his burgeoning hockey career even though he may have good reasons for it. So I told her about the Cabin in the Woods. She thought it was a great idea. But she said the same thing as my husband, "When do I get to go???"

I moved to Dallas in 1986 after graduating from the University of Virginia School of Law. I had a very prestigious job lined up with Jones Day Reavis & Pogue, and they had given me a signing bonus to live off of for the summer so that I could study for and pass the bar exam. Now the wealthier kids took their bonuses and travelled but I used mine, and my graduation gift of money (three months' car payment), to live off of. (Boy, one of my big regrets is not blowing it all on a nice trip!!!) I had purchased a new Buick Electra in January 1986 on the strength of an offer letter and no payments were due until June, but I wasn't working until September. I had credit cards, I had a little money (but not much), I had a new color tv and a new microwave. I moved into an apartment. I didn't really know anyone out here or who to call, and I was scared to death for a while to drive in the city. But I had to go to Bar Review so I figured out how to get there, and I got there and took the class. I networked with other young lawyers in the same position. I studied. I went to the apartment swimming pool, which was filled with working class single people who liked to drink lots of beer on the weekend and play beach volleyball (not really my scene, in other words). In fact, one of the gals took me out to a nightclub once and looked through my closet and said with a Texas accent, "You really don't have no clubbin' clothes!!" I think she had to lend me something. Guess what, I still don't. Met a pipe fitter from Plano at a bar. He didn't call. Big loss. OK, he had muscles, but that's about all.

I went shopping for some work clothes and a new purse (not very much shopping--credit cards were already in a sad state from law school). I didn't go to any parties that I recall except those held at the apartment complex. I didn't go to bars except for the one incident above--didn't want to be out there alone and put myself in a potentially dangerous situation, like I had done the summer of 85 in Atlanta (went to parties by myself, drank too much, drove, hung out with lawyer-types who were doing drugs even though I didn't, things of that nature. Fortunately did not get arrested, in an accident, robbed, stoned, or date raped.)

So it was a mild summer, just me and my cat Buttercup, and my little apartment, and my bar review books and classes. I studied a lot. Three days before the bar exam I turned to Buttercup and remarked that she knew just about as much about Secured Transactions as I did by that date. (I spent a lot of my UCC/Secured Transactions class in law school in my new boyfriend's bed and got a C minus--in the class, not in bed, but it didn't matter because I already had my fancy new job). Of course the joke was on me because what class did I have to teach the Buyers at least four or five times while I worked in the JCPenney Legal Department? UCC (Uniform Commercial Code for those of you who did not go to law school, and the other part of the UCC class was, as I mentioned above, Secured Transactions. Article 9. Checks and secured transactions and stuff. Black Gold, Texas Tea. Oops, that was another class that I didn't have in law school and needed for the Texas bar, called Oil and Gas Law.) So yes, I taught UCC at JCPenney's, which meant that I actually had to LEARN the UCC law since I didn't bother for law school and only learned enough to get through the Bar Exam. I had the UCC Nutshell (sort of like Cliff's Notes for lawyers) in my office for YEARS and it probably is still in a box around here somewhere. What a joke--me teaching UCC. Professor Bergin would get a kick out of that, except that he wouldn't remember who the hell I was, since I was never there. Of course, he's retired or deceased by now, as are most of my college and a lot of my law school profs.

So my point is, when do I get to go to the Cabin in the Woods? Like Henry David Thoreau, whose name I hope I am spelling correctly, I want to go to the cabin so that I can learn to live Deliberately. I want some interior focus time. And I'm not going to spend it doing my finances like he did. I don't just want to blog, or meditate, or pray once a day. I want to discover who the hell I am and what am I doing with my life? What are my God-given talents? Am I using them? Am I being the best I can be? I try to get the Destination Imagination kids to focus on doing their personal best, not just winning. Destination Imagination competitions are largely subjective, like ice dancing. We can't always be first place. I am nortorious myself for always being third or fourth, not even second. If I were in the Olympics I would finish just out of the medals. I'm not a winner. I'm an also ran. And so are many of you out there because even though our culture worships and reveres the winners, many of us are damn good but we just aren't the valedictorian or the gold medalist. The margin for error is small and it takes a lot of time, patience, skill and luck to get on that podium. And some of us screw up or just don't quite make the grade.

One of my friends remarked that he doesn't watch a lot of tv because time is running out. There is not time left in his lifetime to do all that he wants to do. He's not that old (at least compared to me) but he's right. We don't know how much time we have. All we can do is make the most of the time that is left to us. I am attempting to quote Gandalf here in the LOTR movie, although knowing the script writers, someone else probably said this in the books. Please email me, all you Lord of the Rings fans, and let me know.

Professor Tolkien spent his whole life trying to write down his version of Middle Earth and never did finish the Simarillion. In fact, fortunately his son Christopher has devoted most of HIS life to preserving his father's legacy and publishing every scrap of Professor Tolkien's papers that can be used. He did finally publish the Simarrillion in the late 90's. I don't know Christopher Tolkien or his family and I have heard that some do not care for him but I admire him for devoting his life to the Tolkien legacy. It's almost like giving his father a second lifetime. My understanding is that Christopher has a son who is lined up to also help with the work, and that is one of the reasons why we continue to get new Tolkien material such as Children of Hurin even though I believe that Christopher himself is in his 80's. So, thank God for the Tolkien family, and if they don't like the movie, well, they weren't really consulted and didn't get all the money from it either, so who can blame them? Although I suspect they are rich enough by now from just the books--there's a whole shelf at Barnes & Noble, and you can even buy the translation of Sir Orfeo there.

My kids read the Father Christmas letters from Professor Tolkien (and I always cry at the end when he writes the last letter to his little girl Priscilla, because she's grown up and too old to be hanging up her stocking any more--oh dear, crying now!!!) Miranda wanted to know what happened to the kids, so I looked them up on the Internet. I believe that John and Michael are now deceased--John was a priest, and I don't remember about Michael although he was badly injured in the war, and Priscilla was a social worker. I think she is still alive but also retired. So it was really sad--the kids are not only grown up but two of them are gone and two of them are elderly. But there are other relatives to carry on the legacy. And I reminded Miranda that we all get too old one day to hang up our stockings, but we can carry on the legacy of Santa Claus by doing it for our children, our neices and nephews, our community. Still it makes me cry. They are just humoring me now with Santa Claus. I mean, they pretend like they believe and they think they should get wonderful letters like Professor Tolkien wrote, and they even asked a few years ago why they didn't get the wonderful drawings, and I just said that there were so many children now that Santa didn't have the time to do those great personal and lengthy letters and drawings. Some years Professor Tolkien didn't have time to do it either, but I don't have his writing talent and I certainly don't have his artistic talent. Plus Santa uses the PC these days to write those letters anyway. No one will ever want to publish mine--they aren't that good, and they certainly don't rise to the level of Professor Tolkien's letters. Even off the cuff he was ten times better than just about any other writer I know. Most of the latter chapters of LOTR were not even revised very much but simply sprang from his pen like Athena from Zeus' head, full grown.

Well, I hope I don't regret too many things I did or didn't do with my children. I certainly tried. That's part of what this staying at home is all about. But now that they are 10 and I am trying to get them prepared for the next 50 or so years of their lives, I am wondering when I get to go to the cabin in the woods. When I was there (in that little apartment in Dallas with nothing to do but study) I focused on becoming a lawyer, and I did it. I guess that is an achievement of sorts. Well, I was a good lawyer but I was not "partnership material"--not good enough at the client development (i.e. bringing in the business). I had the brains and the writing ability but I wasn't athletic or good looking like a cheerleader so I was definitely a B list lawyer. Went in house and gave up on law firm life (liked in house much better, by the way). Not the whole package. Not John Litchenstein, a successful lawyer from my high school graduating class (I had better grades in law school than he did though). John is a fine Criminal Defense lawyer in Roanoke, Virginia and I would highly recommend him to anyone needing his services, but he is a Total Package lawyer. Smart. Good looking. Well Connected. Athletic. And a Genuinely Nice Guy. Seriously. I really can't tell you anything that is wrong with him because I don't really know him well and haven't seen him for 30 years. But he is a Total Package person and some of us are just NOT. It's very difficult to be smart, good looking, athletic, well-connected and nice all at the same time. I don't know how he, or anyone else who is like this, does it. In fact, some of those Total Package Lawyers that I used to work with in the firms were real shits, but I don't believe that John L. is like that at all. Or at least I hope not, although I know he has to be tough sometimes in his position. Criminal Defense is not for the faint at heart. I have met very few people who are really all of those things that some of the Total Package People are-- deep down, maybe none of us are Total Package People but some of us are just better at Marketing.

And I no longer aspire to be a Total Package Person. I have enough on my plate. I am smart, my husband thinks I'm cute, and I think my kids like me (at least today). Sometimes I can get crabby and be a real bitch, but you know, that's a loaded term. Women who are strong and opinionated and get things done (and mow people over sometimes in doing them) are called bitches. Men who do this sort of thing are just called Aggressive, and it's usually considered a GOOD Thing. But for women, it can hold you back if you are a bitch, and it can hold you back if you are "too nice." So it's a no win situation, especially if you are a strong, smart, opinionated woman. Just keep your mouth shut. "Just Smile and Wave, Boys!" as the Penguins say in Madagascar. Hey, even the Penguins are male!!!! And the female hippo in Madagascar, well, she's just such a "lady" and she's all about flaunting herself sexually. She's one of those tough, hot black women (played by Jada Pinkett Smith, Will Smith's wife). Honestly, the Penguins, who are a tad bit psycotic (or at least they are called so in the script) are so much more interesting!

Just don't get me started on female vs. male characters in literature and the movies. Now that's a Tolkien discussion worth having!!! The truth is that the role models for girls are very conflicted and conflicting, and it's hard to know as a young girl where you fit in. Are you supposed to be strong, successful and intellectual or beautiful and manipulative of men? Hillary Clinton or Anna Nicole Smith? Well, even though I am not exactly her biggest fan I think I would definitely prefer being Hillary, even though her husband cheats on her. At least she's still alive and at least she has a clue. And my wonderful husband didn't even think Anna Nicole was that pretty, just pathetic. He certainly wouldn't have married her, but then he wasn't an old guy with lots of money, was he?

Pleasant Valley Mom, Thinking It's Time to Go Take Craft Supplies Back to Hobby Lobby and Try Not To Spend Any More Money There