Feeling Forty: On Fashion

Enter, 40. Enter, The New Fashion Demographic. Or shall I say: the Old Fashion Demographic.

I look around at the new fashions parading Broadway Avenue in Seattle. I was never eternally hip, but I do recall noticing new fashions and choosing whether I wanted to partake of them or not. I look at the puffy elastic waisted minis now and realize - even I wanted to wear that, I should not.

Young fashion, at forty, suddenly no longer feels like a choice. Why? Because I would now not look fashionable. I would look like an aging woman, clinging to youth. Ouch.

Jeggings? Joke. Robin Hood boots + cuffed shorts? Uh, not for me thanks, pass. Now to stay younger-looking, I have to stick to flattering classics. And worse - clothes that are hip and appealing to my demographic. The Born in the 70s and Now Forty Demographic, say Helllllllllo! "Comfort over style, baby, Comfort over style."

Wind in My Hair, Now - Still.

The wild hairs, they disappear so slowly these days I barely notice. These days as a mother now for nearly five years. Five years of now mostly keeping the windows rolled up so I don't blast the sleeping baby in the back seat. Five years of turning the music down low so I can hear my son talking to me from the back seat. Where is that woman I knew so well twenty years ago? The one with the wind whipping through her hair, across her face, as she drives with the windows down, cool air and cool tunes thumping through the car's body, feelin' free.

She's kid wild now. Laughs with abandon at her four year old son's joke. Cranes up at the sky and the trees with her 10 month old baby in arms looking up too, sharing love for the blue and the green, the shape of the earth above us.

She's definitely kid wild now. This woman who once drove a motorcycle under a moving truck. The one who knew she'd have made a great EMT or stunt woman had it occured to her just a little bit sooner along the career path. Her risks now? The most fearless includes: a hand down the back pants of her baby's dipe, to check for - well, you know. Brave mama, indeed. Fearless lover of two.

Homebody Hardbody I am Not

I'm just not one of those folks who can exercise at home. Okay, I can't - and I don't want to. Part of the gift of exercise for me is - change of scene. Getting outside. Especially, now that I'm a parent - getting away. Sanity check. It's not all about the sweat (or the buns of steel, hah!).

Still, sometimes I wonder why I don't just carve out time to do an exercise video while Noah entertains himself. Rather than getting no exercise that day. Then I remember. He'd be interrupting me. He'd be in my space. It wouldn't give me what I need. Because exercise means clearing my head means: don't talk to me. Shhhhhhhh.

And just when I was about to lose my mind from a stretch of days with no break from the kids ~ when I felt this hot rage surge in my chest, caged animal feeling ~ I pleaded Ken my case and hopped my bike for a quick ride around Walker Creek. Found a trail I'd been curious to explore up at the Boy Scout Camp. Sunshine on the snow dusting the lowlands from last night cold rains. Soft tires digging into rocks and mud. The only sound my breath and my tires and the soft swish of my coat as my legs pedal me along.

This is what I need. Shhhhhhhhhh. Only my breath and my bike and my quiet.

Happy Birthday, Kiki

Four months old and wise as a sage. Katherine Isabella

Hardcore

I can do it. I can start the fire and keep it going and bring in the wood from outside and crank up the generator and re-set the well pump when the water's not working and keep my baby in dry cloth diapers and drop everything to nurse her when she's crying and keep my four year old fed and alive and (somewhat) happy.

And, for the most part, keep my nervous system and brain mostly even keel.

That it's green and fresh outside and that I can hear the creek rushing by helps. A lot.

Girl Gets Out for a Night, Packs Breast Pump but Leaves Mama Hat At Home

I live on Capitol Hill, so I've been "among people" regularly since Katherine was born four months ago. But I've yet to go to a fullblown event out on the town. Til Last Night.

"Krishna Das and Deva Premal are playing tomorrow at the Moore. I'd like to go, but I've been doing lots of fun stuff lately. Why don't you think about going?" says my husband in a fit of thoughtfulness.

Cramming one last nursing session in at 15 minutes to showtime. She blows it all down my back, on to my pants, splashing to a puddle on the couch. Change, or eat? Food, I need food. There I find myself, among the spiritually fashionable, wearing a plain old shirt with dried spit up on the left shoulder.

But, spit-up-free Kimberly and I made it. On time.

Survey the scene as we're seated. The sheer number of prayer-shawl-like scarves: overwhelming. And I could feel a part of myself wanting to make fun of the bamboo flute player, standing in his shiny gold shirt, tight pants and bare feet.

And the moment Deva opens her mouth for the first sound of the first part of "Ohm"... I am instantly grounded, instantly released from cynicism, instantly transported. Yes, to a higher realm, there I said it. Have a listen to one of her CDs. You'll know what I'm talking about.

"Won't you join us?" she says. All us of there invited to sing along. Her voice spreads golden honey. Shakti. Love. Swirling feminine divine. I think of my sweet girl baby at home. Tears pool in my eyes from the swell in my heart.

We sit in silence between each song. Like the fourth sound of "Om": a + u + m + Silence. An integral part of the sound Om. After a few sets, darkness on stage, then Deva in soft light, kneels on stage. "Time to get down," she says with a wry smile.

She invites us to chant Om Shanti Om - 108 times. She'll do the counting. Breath in. Go. Om Shanti Om Om Shanti Om Om Shanti Om Om Shanti Om. I'm working hard to keep up with the fast pace of the chant. Like on a run, I sip in air every fourth cycle. The tops of my ears start to tingle. I realize the secret of the mantra 108 times. It's another form of pranayama. Breath control. As you vibrate the hell out of your body. Quite literally.

I'm left fantasizing about waking up each morning to chant. Creating a community to join with me in chanting. Forget church. I've yet to find "my home" on Sundays. But Chanting? Yes. Chanting I think can be my church.

3-6-9 The Goose Drank Wine

The lyrics from a song I listened to in the 80s came flooding back to me last year - without remembering its name or singer - and I was compelled to teach the words to my son Noah. Because it's a catchy fun song. Seemingly childlike, and he loves singing it, but I sometimes think, hmmm, will someone call CPS? (I mostly think that when he belts out the song among strangers. And because no one in the U.S. seems to know this song, so he sounds a bit nutty).

But this song and I go way back, I have a relationship with it, and that overrules any silly etiquette that might be appropriate in this case.

Here's the song as I heard it in the 80s when I lived in Antwerp, Belgium. It was a hit song, Top of the Pops and all that:

Thanks to the Internet, I now know that it's called "The Clapping Song," originally recorded by Shirley Ellis in 1965:
No one in the U.S. seems to know what the hell I'm talking about when I sing this song. I guess it was only popular in 80s Europe and 1960s America when it was in the Top 10?