Petey assists with card photography

Copyright 2007 Veronica McCabe Deschambault and V-Grrrl in the Middle. All rights reserved.

Life is Good!

Can I just say that one of the best things about living in King George County, Virginia, was the friends I made there? It all started with Michelle, who I met in the hospital when my son was born. He arrived seven weeks early, and her son was also born prematurely. We discovered not only did we share the challenges of being parents of preemies, but that we lived within a mile of each other in the same neighborhood! We were destined to be friends and so were our boys.

Michelle's warm personality and her love of entertaining drew her into an ever-widening circle of moms. Lucky me, I got to come along for the ride as she and some other enterprising women organized a playgroup and social network in our neighborhood. When the children were small, we took turns hosting weekly gatherings in our homes.

As our kids matured and headed off to school, the focus shifted from entertaining preschoolers to building closer ties among the moms, who began getting together once a month or so for a Girls Night Out in different people's homes. The group stuck together as members moved away and others joined, stay-at-home moms returned to work, and schedules got hectic as our kids embraced sports and extracurriculars. Often the ONLY time we'd see each other was at our Girls Nights Out.

One of the hardest aspects of moving to Belgium was leaving those relationships behind. Happily, my Home Grrrls have not forgotten me. For the second year in a row, they got together to celebrate my birthday. Heather hosted the first V-Grrrl fete last year with a Better-than-Sex theme. This year Michelle gathered the gang at her place for a tea party because I'm an avid tea drinker (and because she had an itch to break out her Grandma's china). :D

The Grrrls all bought gifts for me, packed them into an ENORMOUS wicker hamper, and shipped them to Belgium. E staggered up the stairs with this huge box last night, and I had the fun of digging into it as we received our first snow of the season here. There were gourmet teas, coffees, chocolates, cookies, and treats and lotions and books galore--everything a Grrrl needs to get through the gray days of February.

E-Grrrl, watching me as I unloaded the box said, "All I can say, Mom, is your friends TOTALLY spoil you!"

And they do.

Love y'all.

I'm one Lucky Grrrl.

February 7, 2007

Overheard at my house

(Trying to get in touch with my inner fit and healthy self, I’m sipping tea and reading a yoga magazine. Nine-year-old E-Grrrl is looking at it over my shoulder.)

E-Grrrl, pointing to a photo of a woman wearing a strappy, yoga top: “That shirt is really pretty, but” she adds with a sigh “it’s not really appropriate for someone YOUR age.” Wistful pause. “I’ve always wondered what you looked like when you were young.”

Eleven-year-old Mr. A chimes in: “I’ve seen pictures of her when she was younger and let me tell you, she looked A LOT better then.”

I resist the urge to tell him it's no coincidence that I’ve been aging in dog years since he was born. Instead I get in touch with my inner child and give him a nice pinch. There now, I feel like my MUCH YOUNGER self.

February 6, 2007

Copyright 2007 Veronica McCabe Deschambault and V-Grrrl in the Middle. All rights reserved.

Monday morning

True confessions: I neglected my children this weekend. I did not do my motherly duty. I took them out to lunch, to the mall, on a walk, and out to dinner. I bought them clothes, toys, and candy. I let them spend hours on the computer, laughed at their jokes, listened to their stories, and offered advice on their problems. What I didn’t do was nag, harass, yell, and threaten them. What the hell was I thinking?

Now it’s Monday morning and all the weekend’s good times have morphed into random acts of badness for me. Without my constant “encouragement,” no one cleaned up after themselves all weekend (except E). The kids didn’t even put away the laundry that I sorted, washed, dried, and folded for them, stacking it neatly in their his and hers laundry baskets to be transferred smoothly to their drawers. They ignored my requests to stash it away and now the baskets have been dug through and everything unfolded because “I have no socks/pants/shirts to wear in my drawer!!!!” Well, DUH!

And everything my son wore over the weekend? It was draped, sprawled, and balled up on various surfaces in his room. When I gathered it up, I realized how filthy the floor was beneath the drifts of clothes. Scattered over the dirt, dust, and cat litter are plastic beebees, suction cup darts, rubber bullets and an arsenal of Nerf guns. This isn’t a bedroom, it’s the secret hideout of a budding elementary school dictator. Do as he says or risk a foam pellet between the eyes!

Across the hall in my daughter’s room, everything is sweetness and light. A rainbow pastel net canopy drapes over her neatly made bed. On the floor is a sweet pink braided rug and her stuffed animals are lovingly displayed on her trunk. Her dresser is covered with enough hair accessories, jewelry, and kiddie makeup to beautify a stadium full of Hillary Duff fans. Look at this room and you’d never suspect its inhabitant is an even bigger slob than her brother.

This is because she has applied computer lessons in dragging and dropping to her home environment, i.e. all her stuff is dragged out of her room and dropped elsewhere. There are stuffed animals on my desk and on the living room floor; art supplies all over the kitchen; slippers in her brother’s room; dolls in the TV room; ponytail holders on every level; purses stacked on the windowsills; cards and game pieces scattered on the carpet; books on the sofa, floor, recliner, and kitchen table; and the contents of her backpack in the foyer. Her room is clean because she has re-located her messes to communal areas of the house believing that if your messes are spread far and wide, maybe no one will notice the depth and breadth of your nasty ways. She may go into politics one day.

And meanwhile because the washing machine didn’t chug all weekend, the hamper is overflowing again and E’s wrinkled dress shirts hang from the basement pipes, sending an SOS to the iron. On the main floor, my stamping stuff is all pulled out waiting for my next project, some of yesterday’s grocery shopping bags have yet to be emptied, and the bathrooms are whispering “Clean me” while V-Grrrl is whispering, “Save me!”

SAHM stands for stay-at-home mom? I don’t think so. SAHM really stands for stay-at-home MAID.

February 5, 2007

Copyright 2007 Veronica McCabe Deschambault and V-Grrrl in the Middle. All rights reserved.

Thanks Shirl Grrrl!

Shirl Grrrl, the woman who turned me on to stamping and card making, sent me a FABULOUS stamp set for my birthday. The Stampin' Up Carte Postale set has French flair and was the perfect compliment for my French script background stamp and Enchante' paper set.  Her package arrived on Friday night, and I couldn't wait to pull my inks and card stock out and get busy. While some people are capable of sophisticated, multi-layered designs, I'm not a card "artist."  I keep it simple and enjoy it as a craft. It's not overly embellished but I love this card. It's photographed against a sheet of designer paper.

(If anyone is interested in pursuing card-making or rubber stamping, e-mail me and I'll send you to Shirl Grrrl, Stamp Goddess. She can get you started.) 

February 4, 2007

Birthday joys and sorrows

Tuesday was my 45th birthday and I'd be lying if I said I didn't face it with some trepidation. It is always a day laden with emotion for me. Fortunately, I'm blessed with friends and family who remind me of all I have to celebrate in life, and I had a great day. The following post was originally a newspaper feature I wrote 10 years ago for The Free Lance-Star in Fredericksburg, Virginia. It was honored with an award from Virginia Press Women and remains one of my favorite pieces of writing.

I was born on a snowy day in January. My father loved to tell the story. A volunteer fireman, he was fighting a fire in the bitter cold the night before I was born.

As he stood in the eerie glow of the blaze, he was comforted by the thought of my pregnant mother cozy in the bed of their home. The image warmed him and gave him hope.

Shortly after he made it home and slipped his weary body into bed, my mother delivered the news he didn’t want to hear: “Honey, it’s time.”

In the darkness before dawn, they set off for the hospital in a raging winter storm. My father’s Ford could barely navigate the icy roads as it slid on the hills and turns. It was hard to tell if my mother was gasping from pain or fear or both.

Despite the drama, they made it to the hospital and a short time later I arrived: red-faced, red-haired, and crying.

January 30, 1962.

My sister immortalized the date. On my 13^th birthday, she gave me a 14-karat-gold oval locket, engraved on the front with two hearts and on the back with my name and the date.

It was an elegant and expensive gift for an awkward adolescent more at home in jeans and hiking boots than skirts and sweaters. I felt unworthy of it and yet secretly treasured my sister’s vision of me. Fourteen years my senior, she was also my godmother, tied to me by blood, spirit, and sacrament.

She would never fully comprehend the significance of her gift and of the date on the locket. Only seven years later, she died of cancer on my birthday.

January 30, 1982.

That evening my stricken family gathered in a circle around the kitchen table and ate my birthday cake in silence. Perhaps we were all thinking the same thing: “Heaven’s gate swings both ways.”

Each moment in eternity sees souls ascending and souls descending in a sacred dance. It seemed surreal to celebrate my birth and experience my sister’s death on the same day.

Three days later, I had plenty of time to reflect on the bittersweet nature of life’s rhythms as my mother, father and I battled a fierce winter storm on the way back from Louise’s funeral.

Were we sighing from pain or fear or both as we struggled home in the gray winter twilight?

A decade later, I buried my father in July and my mother in September of the same year. As fall turned into winter, my world grew smaller and darker, sadder and colder. I faced my first birthday without my parents with dread.

January 30, 1993.

My father wasn’t there to tell the dramatic story of my arrival. My mother would not bake a cake or sign a sentimental card. My sister had been dead for 11 long years. That birthday I felt so alone in the world: red-faced, red-eyed, and swollen with grief.

I clung to my gold locket as a talisman, a souvenir of the golden circle of my family. Two hearts—my mother and father, my sister and me—and the date that changed all our lives. January 30. My reminder that on any day, heaven’s gate swings both ways.

Two years later, my husband and I were ready to start our own family. I conferred with my doctor and was surprised when I calculated the optimum date for conception.

January 30, 1995.

It was snowing that night. I was wearing my gold locket and my mother’s wedding ring. Whiteness glimmered outside our frosted bedroom window, and in the heavens beyond the clouds, a gate silently swung open….

It’s been 45 years since my story began. During these long winter nights when wind and snow and memories press against the darkened windows, I cherish the company of my first born, my son, conceived 12 years ago on the date that Louise had carved in gold: January 30. A day of destiny.

January 31, 2007

Copyright 2007 Veronica McCabe Deschambault and V-Grrrl in the Middle. All rights reserved.

Kinky boots, ruby slippers, and the magic of shoes

Last night E and I watched the movie Kinky Boots, which is based on the true story of a traditional shoe factory in England that was on the brink of closing until it ventured into an unexpected niche market—making stiletto heels for drag queens.

The movie was very well done, mixing comedy and drama as the makers of wingtip oxford for respectable men move to creating quality red patent leather and snakeskin high-heels for men who enjoy dressing as flamboyant women.

To paraphrase the factory manager, “We’ve always made a certain type of shoe for a variety of men. Now we’ll be making a wide variety of shoes for a certain type of man”

In the process of telling the factory manager’s story, the film engages the viewer in thoughts on entrepreneurship, loyalty, family expectations, and the slippery slope of gender and sex roles.

The movie brought back memories of my years selling shoes in the Midwest, and my brief encounters with a transvestite who came in every so often looking for women’s pumps in Size 12.

We never had anything even close to his size, a message the store manager always delivered in a brisk authoritative voice that conveyed, “Don’t even ask, and please get the hell out of my store.”

It wasn’t until I saw Kinky Boots that I considered the drag queen’s point of view and how much courage it took to enter a family shoe store in Oklahoma and ask about getting a pair of red pumps in Size 12.

Then again, I’m not so sure the drag queen fully recognized he was pushing boundaries because he didn’t seem to be fully clued into social norms in general. I think he had some larger mental health problems and cross-dressing was probably the least of his issues. He was a fixture in the downtown area, sometimes appearing in drag, sometimes dressed as a man, always seemingly lost in his own world in a way that was disconcerting though not menacing.

During my years as a Shoe Selling Grrrl, I belonged to the Episcopal Church that was downtown and served on the altar guild. On certain Saturday nights, I went to the church to set up for the next day’s service. My role included polishing the silver chalice and paten, washing and ironing the altar linen, and shining the brass candlesticks, collection plates, vases, and other items used on the altar. It took an hour or two to get everything done, and I tried to do it all late on Saturday afternoons to avoid being alone in the church complex at night. It was a little creepy after dark.

I often chastised myself for being anxious about being alone in the church at night. What exactly was I afraid of? What made me shiver when the lights were out? Was it instinct? Intuition? Or a foreshadowing of what lay ahead?

Because one Saturday night someone did end up entering and robbing the church, but they didn’t take the valuable silver altar pieces or search for money. Instead they stole several chausables, the vestments the priest dons before celebrating Holy Eucharist. Those are the ones that resemble big ponchos and usually feature gold thread embroidery and other lavish embellishments.

Who would steal chausables? The very thought made my skin crawl. Was someone using them in punked out religious rites? Were there Satan worshippers in our small town in the Bible Belt? Did someone think this was funny?

Nope. As it turns out it was nothing that sinister, someone just thought they were the ultimate fashion accessories. You can guess who. Yes, the chausables were stolen by our friendly neighborhood cross-dresser. He was busted when the police spotted him pedaling his bike downtown wearing the richly decorated red chausable that was normally worn on the feast of Pentecost.

Apparently, the guy who was willing to risk censure by entering a family shoe store looking for sexy red pumps was unafraid to slip into a church closet on a Saturday night and check out the rich colors and high quality fabric used on the chausables. I’m willing to bet the appliquéd flame motif on the red one made him swoon with thoughts of being the first one sporting this hot new style on the street.

I never saw him dressed in his  "Sunday best,"  but I liked to visualize him in the chausable, pedaling nonchalantly around town.

Did its generous folds flapping in the wind behind him make him feel powerful, like Superman, the alien do-gooder who wore a red cape? Or maybe he felt powerful like a priest issuing absolution? Like those who harbor the power to love and to forgive? Like those who could have special ordered a pair of red shoes for a customer without asking questions or issuing judgements?

Power for good and evil is always in our grasp. 

And red shoes, be they patent leather boots or ruby slippers, have a power all their own, a magical way of transporting us into better versions of ourselves. Maybe the right pair of red shoes would have taken the town "weirdo" to a better place, a light-filled joyful space where he never had to worry about what others thought of him, a place where he could kick up his heels and enjoy his shoes in peace.  

January 30, 2007

Copyright 2007 Veronica McCabe Deschambault and V-Grrrl in the Middle. All rights reserved.

A bad taste in my mouth

Somewhere in the recesses of my subconscious someone planted a positive association with goat cheese, which is why I bought some this weekend at a church fundraiser.

I happily parted with my euros for the neat little tub of soft spreadable white cheese seasoned with bright green chives. I imagined gently swirling it on whole wheat crackers and eating it with the vegetable soup I’d made the day before.

E looked at me and said, “Ummm, I don’t like goat cheese.”

“Really?” I’m genuinely surprised.

“Yeah, it’s got a wild taste to it.”

I shrug my shoulders, undeterred. It looks so fresh and so delicious.

Oh, Gentle Readers, I was so, so wrong.

Later in the day, when I spread the goat cheese on a Triscuit, the initial splash of flavor was salty, creamy, and oniony—and then a millisecond later--WHAM! My tastebuds were bitch-slapped by the WILD THANG. Gah! Get that out of my mouth!

That cheese tasted like a petting zoo smells in the summer time—think musky, sweaty, goat balls.

"Bleah! Bleah! Bleah!" I bleated.

I was overwhelmed with an urge to wash my hands, brush my teeth, and pop an Altoid all at the same time.

I wished I could shake the taste off my tongue but it clung like Velcro to the fringe on a scarf.

The taste vividly brought back unpleasant memories of my brother’s brief foray into goat keeping and life on the farm with Fritz the Stinky He Goat. Once as I was approaching the house, Fritz wrapped his front legs around me and tried to mount me.

Y’all, I was about 13 when I  lost my innocence in the traumatic attempted goat rape. With Fritz butting his head into my back, I understood for the first time where the term “horny” came from and why lascivious men were called “old goats.”

And the origin of goat cheese?

I don’t even want to think about it.

January 28, 2007

Copyright 2007 Veronica McCabe Deschambault and V-Grrrl in the Middle. All rights reserved.

Signs of spring or global warming

January

Cherry trees, blushing pink with blossoms, withstanding the gale force winds that pounded Belgium more than a week ago

Yellow crocuses embracing the gray skies and ignoring the frost

Bulbs pushing green shoots through the mud

Snow flurries surrendering to rain...

Thoughts on grief

Losing our family cat, Amy, to cancer this week had me re-visiting the whole grieving process emotionally and intellectually. In my adult life, I've buried my sister, my parents, my father-in-law, two cats, and two dogs. It’s been quite a while since I lost a pet, and I was stunned by the depth of my grief and the physical sensation of it—the lump in my throat, the pain in my chest, the white-out feeling of exhaustion, the surreal sensation of time standing still or accelerating.

This week I cried until I couldn’t cry anymore. I let my shoulders shake and the sobs wrack my body. I grieved with an emotional abandon I seldom let myself experience. And when I collapsed into bed last night knowing Amy was gone, I felt as if my insides had been scoured clean. No, there wasn’t an end to sadness but there was peace, a lightening of spirit, a clean place to start living a changed life the next day.

It seems it is so much easier to grieve for a pet than it is for a person. From the first realization that something was wrong up until her last moments with us, I was unstinting with my emotion. I keened and cried, I  walked around pale-faced and red-eyed without self-consciousness.

I sat with Amy for hours. I made her comfortable. I memorized her face. And I said everything I felt compelled to say, everything I wanted her to know about how much I loved her, how much I would miss her, how it hurt to see her hurting, how I’d do whatever I could to make things better.   

Why is it so much harder to say the same things to the people we love? Why is it when serious illness claims a family member and we know death is inevitable or imminent, we swallow our words, put a lid on our emotions, and try so hard to keep our sh*t together? Do human relationships have to be so complicated or do we make them that way?

When someone we love is dying, a part of us wants to hold them in our arms and put loving words in their ears—but we can’t. We want to spill our tears onto their bedsides, but we don’t. We want to tell them what they’ve meant to us but our words disappear like tears in the shower. We fear burdening and exhausting our loved ones with our emotions and grief, and so we’re quiet.

We do the “right” things. We show up at the hospital or the home. We do what needs to be done. We try to express so much with so little. We hide a thousand unspoken words in small gestures and small talk. We want our presence and acts of kindness to say it all—and they DO say a lot. But do they say enough?

Maybe, just maybe, it would be better for the ones we’re losing and better for us if we could be freer expressing our love, concern, and loss in the moment rather than burying it like an artifact to be unearthed and analyzed later. Maybe if we really tried, we could overcome our reserve and be a bit more honest with ourselves and those we're closest to. Maybe if we succeed, then our swirling pain and emotions would be like sand that scours us clean, making room for good memories, a shining place to stow joy.

January 25, 2007 

Copyright 2007 Veronica McCabe Deschambault and V-Grrrl in the Middle. All rights reserved.