Tote Bag Trauma

First Day of Kindergarten

My day was already in high drama mode when I picked up the phone and heard: “Hi, this is Ruth from school.  Brett’s Kindergarten teacher.”  My face went flush.  It was 10:30.  I was sure my daughter had dropped the plate of cookies we’d made for the teacher lunch.  Had it taken a full two hours for the teacher to talk her down off the ledge?  She must be calling now for me to come pick her up.  It was my fault for letting her carry the plate, with her tote bag, through a door and up a staircase.  What was I thinking?  But she had insisted she could do it by herself.  If I don’t let her try to help when she wants to, how can I expect her to help other times?  I needed to let her try.  The plate was plastic, so what real harm could come?  I braced myself for the teacher’s questioning of why I had set up my child for such failure.  I prepared alternate responses in my head.

But, the call was not about a cookie disaster.  It was a heads-up before report cards to let me know that she thinks my daughter might need occupational therapy.

OT?  That’s what Mom did in the hospital after her knee surgery to make sure she could get to and from the bathroom on her own.  It’s how to use a stick to help pull up your socks.  It’s how to put away the groceries or set the table with the least amount of steps and neck strain.  Why would a perfectly healthy, never injured (though admittedly clumsy) six-year-old need OT?

First, the teacher said, there is the tip toe walking.  It just isn’t normal at this age and the tendons might be shortening.

I laughed, not because I don’t care about potentially shortening tendons, but because we’d already seen a specialist two years ago for this freakish behavior.  That was the height of the princess girly-girl phase of only wearing dresses, preferably pink with glitter and bows.  Tippie toes, I thought, were just another accessory like magic wands or tiaras.  Plus, she’s got great calf mussels.  But, my doctor insisted we have her examined by an orthopedist, so we did.

He took x-rays and did a series of skills tests.  After an hour or so, he came back into the room and laughed.  She was a perfectly healthy kid who just liked to walk on her toes.  “Let her,” he said.

Evidently, there is a phenomenon of kids like her who just prefer toe-walking.  They feel taller and it is fun.  It even has a name – tippietoeitis or something equally silly.  No worries, he assured us, commenting that parents today are too worried.  We walked out feeling like idiots – our daughter skipping on her tip toes past a room full of kids on crutches and in wheelchairs waiting to see their orthopedist who had just wasted an hour with us.

My laugh was misinterpreted by the teacher as a sign that I didn’t take my child’s health or development seriously.  I explained that I do take it seriously – too seriously I’ve been told by some – and that my laugh was just a reaction to the orthopedist’s laugh two years prior.  She didn’t seem amused.

She continued.  “It is not just the toes, but I do think you should consider seeing a new doctor.  It is also the handwriting, which we’ve talked about.”

Handwriting.  We had indeed already talked about the handwriting and the fact that my daughter can’t hold a pencil correctly.  I couldn’t hold a pencil the right way until the second grade, and I vividly remember being chastened by my teacher.  My husband still can’t hold a pencil right.  He grips it tight in a fist and uses the full range of motion his elbow allows to write.  We call him the caveman lawyer.  Still, his handwriting is much better than mine.  So, yes, we’ve talked about the handwriting.  The poor kid doesn’t stand a chance with parents like us.  How could she possibly know how to hold a pencil in Kindergarten?  So, I am thankful for this wonderful teacher’s concern and desire to teach her how to hold a pencil, despite her genetic shortcomings.

Still, tip toes and pencil grip, I just don’t see the need for OT.  Then (I hate it when there is a “then”), she said there is the daily battle of the tote bag.  I had noticed problems with the tote bag, but chalked it up to my kid being messy and easily distracted.  I didn’t know there was a daily and escalating battle with the tote bag brewing in the classroom.

When I pick up my daughter at the end of the day, the bag is overflowing — crammed full scraps and memories of a full and exciting day.  There are the elaborately folded love notes to her “boyfriend” who doesn’t seem to accept the notes.  There are sometimes rocks that she tells me are rare crystals discovered in the secret corner of the playground that only she knows about.  She wants to show her “boyfriend” this secret treasure but he is too busy playing Star Wars.  There is occasionally a torn piece of a flowered paper napkin or a shred of glittery ribbon that she has accepted as a symbol of friendship from one of the girls.   And, there are almost always smushed (sometimes soggy) goldfish or pretzels that have fallen out of the snack bag.  Her tote bag looks a lot like my car.

Yes, the tote bag is a mess.  My kid is usually in no better shape than the bag by the end of the day.  The perfectly coiffed pony tail we worked on earlier that morning has been ripped out to allow for a rock-n-roll freestyle look.  The pants are either falling off or hiked up high in classic nerd style.  And, there is generally marker or paint or mud on her hands and clothes.  She is a messy kid.  I was a messy kid.  My husband is still a messy kid.  We are a happy family of warthogs.

This family trait is not, however, considered charming or amusing at school.  It has, I am learning, become a source of frustration for my child.  She wants to be neat and normal, but she just can’t be.  She tries, the teacher tells me, and tries, but generally ends up in tears trying to cram all of her stuff into the bag.

I can’t get her a bigger bag because it is a school issued tote intended to prevent five and six year olds from developing back trouble from hauling oversized back packs around.  No, she needs to learn to deal with this bag, and I’m told an occupational therapist can help.

Still, I can’t help but wonder, do I really need a specialist to help with this?  Does my health insurance cover therapy for messy tote bag syndrome?  Can’t I teach her this kind of thing?  I’m already outsourcing the teaching of other critical life skills — she is in speech therapy.  I didn’t know it, but she can’t say “th” and her tongue slips through the teeth when she says “s” words.  I had no idea until she was evaluated at school.  I had always thought she was an articulate kid.  She talks and talks and talks to anyone about everything.  She sounds like an ordinary (and admittedly annoying) chatty six-year old to me.

I have to admit that the speech class is helping.  Now that I know what to listen for, I see that she had genuine difficulty and the practice exercises are making it better.  So, if I missed the speech defect, maybe I’ve been slack in overlooking the toe walking and messy tote bag syndromes too.  Maybe my kid is struggling to get through every day, and the tasseled hair is not the result of too much fun on the playground but rather comes from a vicious wrestling match with her tote bag.  Maybe we do need help.  It would be wrong to not give her the tools she needs to succeed.  Maybe this OT thing will open new doors for her and everything will get easier.  Maybe they can teach her to tie her shoes!

Still, I can’t help but think of the kids who really need OT.  There are probably lots of kids who really need help but don’t have insurance or money to pay.  So, the industry has probably recently redefined its market to include kids like mine who are fully covered by insurance and whose parents will gladly pay whatever it takes to help their kids, even if it is for silly things like tippietoeitis and messytotebagonia.

I won’t be suckered into this ridiculous rat race to have perfect kids.  I won’t.  My kid doesn’t need help.  We are probably just part of the key demographic targeted in some marketing plan for the national association of pediatric occupational therapists.  Some twenty-something MBA who doesn’t even like kids probably wrote a “strategic plan” that identifies teachers in affluent suburban schools as the key “gatekeepers” who can convince parents like me that their children need extra help today if they are going to succeed tomorrow.  Brett’s teacher, poor Mrs. H, is just a well-meaning victim in their devious plot.

I won’t buy into this.  I see it for what it is – a scam.  Kids aren’t perfect. They slur their words and spill their milk.  They trip and skin their knees.  And, they have messy tote bags.

My kid is fine.  She’s better than fine.  She is brilliant.  She is reading well above her grade level.  She remembers all kinds of facts about science and nature and teaches me something new every other day.  Yesterday she taught me that chiggers can kill people.  I keep meaning to look that up on the internet to see if it is true and, more importantly, to see if chiggers live here.

You can’t tell me these skills no longer matter.  Is a neat tote bag really a better measure of higher intelligence these days?   My kid is great the way she is.  I’m sure the doctor will tell me that when we go for the evaluation.

Confessions of a Target Mom

I am not a Soccer Mom.  At least I don’t consider myself to be one.  I am a Mom and my daughter did play soccer.  Well, she had a uniform, shin guards and cleats and she occasionally kicked a soccer ball if it came close to her.  She probably thinks I am a Soccer Mom. Still, I fight that label, even if I do drive a Volvo SUV.

If I must carry a label, then it should at least reflect something more consistent in my life and in the lives of women like me.  The sad thing is that the most appropriate label for me is “Target Mom”.

I love Target.  A lot of us do.  It isn’t just that we shop there or that we are particularly prolific shoppers.  We just like Target.  A lot.  (Did I really say “love” earlier?)

This unnatural and maybe unhealthy affinity for Target cuts across somewhat broad social and economic boundaries.  It is a common thread that exists between working and stay-at-home moms.  It is a subculture that seems harmless enough, but now that I realize I am part of it, I can’t stop thinking about why.

Every mom I know spends a lot of time at Target.  But so do a lot of moms I don’t know.  I see them there.  Some look like me.  But a lot don’t.  Moms from all different worlds, come together everyday in this sub-society.  Sometimes, we even make eye-contact.

I don’t mean to imply that all of today’s moms love Target, but there are a lot of us who do.  It might be interesting to look at who we are, why we all love Target and what that means – or could mean – in broader social terms.  Could we be an important political force?  Do our shopping habits impact the world (for better or for worse?), and if we changed them, could we change the world?

Ok, I am getting carried away here, but if Wal-Mart is taking over the world, maybe Target Moms can counter that in some way or another.  We could at least make sure we get more Targets!

I’ve thought about spending some time conducting an informal survey and talking to other Target Moms to see what we have in common, what we care about, and what, if anything, we’d be willing to do about it.  I’m marginally qualified to manage (but probably not to conduct) that kind of research project.  I’m at least as qualified for this as I was for the other things I did and actually got paid for.

Maybe this is my calling.  I’ve always wanted a calling.  Some people feel they are called on to explore the workings of our universe or the make-up of DNA.  Perhaps I am being called on to explore the social sciences related to shopping at big box stores – a universe unto itself.

Maybe I could use the information and experience to write a book or do something that will get me an appearance on the Today Show …or Ellen?  I don’t watch Ellen but my Mom who lives with me does and it seems funny.  I’m not the Oprah type, but maybe other Target Moms watch Oprah.  I really couldn’t turn her down if she called.  I need to lose 30 pounds before that happens.  Better go to Target to get some new exercise clothes!  Wait, when does her show end? Shit, too late.

 

I’m guessing that all of that research has probably already been done by Target and that is why they are so good at getting us to shop there.  Plus, I am afraid of what I might find out about myself.  What if Target Moms are monsters — mutant products of this competitive, consumption-driven society that I say I reject yet blindly buy into everyday.  What if we are hypocrites who think we care about the environment and human rights but aren’t willing to pay more than six bucks for a pair of flip-flops for those causes.  What if we are just suckers – hypnotized into buying crap we don’t need.

Perhaps I shouldn’t look too closely, or get too scientific.   Still, contemplating this is my new calling — or at least new task to add to my list of things to do at Target.

Why Target Moms and not Target People?

I am focusing my imaginary research on women.  I only use the term “mom” because we can use the kids as an excuse to go to Target more often than women without kids.  But men, they just don’t get it.  That is not to say they dislike Target.  They tolerate it because it is better than a mall and they figure it might save a buck, but they don’t get why we Target Moms spend so much time (and money) there.

Men don’t get it because they generally function on a single track.  My husband is a successful guy.  He is a smart lawyer who would be the best person to call as your “Life Line” if you ever end up on “Who Wants to be a Millionaire” or some high-stakes game of Trivial Pursuit.  He knows a lot and can do a lot of things.  He just can not do any two things at the same time.

Every weekend he makes a to-do list and goes down it item by item – never thinking how he could accomplish two things at the same time, never realizing that he could probably accomplish three out of five of them at Target.  If Target had a dry-cleaners and a nap room, he could probably go there to do everything he needs to on any given weekend.

Women however, (or at least Target Moms) are multi-tasking beasts.  Target is, by its very design, a haven for multi-tasking.  We can do it all (or a lot of it) at Target.  Of course, that isn’t always a good thing when you go thinking you need two things but buy at least three more.  On your way to pick up q-tips, you pick up a few candles to make your bathroom more spa-like.  It will never really be spa-like but the candles can’t hurt, right?

 

So Different, Yet So Alike

I’m white and live in a very white world.  I didn’t grow up that way.  Don’t get me wrong, I’m not like Michael Jackson or anything — I’ve always been white.  But, the community where I grew up was wonderfully diverse, so I grew up with black friends and Indian friends and all kinds of friends.  Where I live now is very white, so I need to spend time talking to Target Moms who look different than me.  I bet they aren’t that different than me because they seem to have a lot of the same stuff in their carts.

Despite the lack of ethnic diversity, I live in several divergent worlds – or at least divergent social circles.  They conflict in a lot of ways, but there is a common thread.  Clearly, that thread is Target.

My former career-driven existence was based in and around Washington, D.C. with long hours, lots of travel and little time for family.  I never made time for exercise or books or other things important to body and soul.  I did make time for Target.

Another of my worlds includes my long-time friends who live in Old Town Alexandria, Virginia, with its charming cobble stone streets and quaint shops in walking distance from the million-dollar townhomes with no closets.  It is yuppie heaven where successful young couples socialize with the next generation of old money aristocrats.  At a birthday party for a three-year old, I spotted not one, but two $1000-strollers.  What exactly does a $1000-stroller do that is so dramatically different from say the $200 variety?  Does it change the diapers for you?  Does it look that much cooler?

Moms at the party – the party that included painting and pizza and other stuff that any normal three-year-old would certainly smear onto Mommy’s outfit — wore Lilly Pulitzer skirts and Prada sandals.  I thought maybe if I’d kept working I too could have, would need to have, the $1000 stroller.  Maybe that is why all those Moms are so thin – maybe the stroller helped them burn more calories to and from the playground. I felt like an alien looking into a very different world.  It felt that way until I noticed what those women did with their kids’ dirty diapers.  They wrapped them up in those tell-tale white bags dotted with red concentric circles.  Those women all shop at Target too.

My current life is in the rural exurbs where we say we live in the country but most of us are suburbanites in exile.  There are pockets of wealth and of near poverty, but mostly it is a community of upper middle class families who might have tightened their belts a bit to buy a chunk of land or to let Mom stay home with the kids or to let someone leave the corporate world to pursue their artistic inclinations.  There is less expendable income here than in the world of $1000-strollers.  Kids wear hand-me-downs.  The moms wear brands that are either not distinguishable or at least not noticed.  We drive 30 minutes to go to Target.

My daughter goes to school in the nearby suburbs.  (Yes, I commute into the suburbs.  I never said I wasn’t crazy.)  When I am in the vicinity of my daughter’s school, I go to another Target.  It is different than my Target, but still the same.  It is busier and more ethnically diverse, but otherwise, just like my Target.  The slightly more upscale and slightly more diverse mixture of suburban moms stroll the aisles between other errands.  Little Sally in her tights rides in the cart for the hour after her ballet class ends but before Timmy gets out of Kindergarten.   One Mom told me that she had been to two different Targets that same day.

 

 

How We Love Target – Let us Count the Ways…

 

1) Growing Necessities

It seems simple.  You go to Target to run an errand – to get something you need.  But this unfolds into a smörgåsbord of shopping.  You go to get one thing, but are immediately reminded that you need to pick up a birthday card for your Mom or that new DVD your kid has been wanting to see, or bubbles (because it is spring and kids love bubbles).  You appreciate that Target helps you remember all these other things that you might need.

Target is better than your Day Runner calendar. There is probably a Target ap for my iphone that I have yet to discover.  Target helps you plan ahead.  That bright new spring display helps you remember that Easter is coming (at some point) and isn’t it great that you can get ahead of the rush by picking out nifty stuff (its so cheap, it would be stupid not to get it) for Easter baskets, or holiday stockings, or birthday parties, or summer luaus, because you think you might have a summer luau some day and you’d better get those palm tree margarita glasses now or they might not be there come August.

Do you know anyone who gets out for under $50? I can’t get out for under $100.  You go for shampoo and end up with new towels or a new formal dress for your daughter (in the catalogues it would cost you $75…at Target is under $20 and maybe you’ll get her picture taken in it even if she doesn’t have any real occasion to wear it otherwise).

2) The Best of the Good Old Days

Target is a place to shop, but it is also an escape.  It is a bright, colorful place that wraps us in nostalgia.  Memories of a happy childhood (maybe not yours, but someone’s happy childhood) appear in all shapes and forms.  Preppy plaid skorts, bean bag chairs, jewel-encrusted bell bottoms, art deco clocks – every generation’s icons reappear and help us escape to a better time, even if we aren’t sure why or if it really was better.

3) Keeping Up with the J-Los

At the same time we are running that important errand, we are also getting our “cool” fix because Target is an easy way for the suddenly aged and uncool to keep up with new trends.  If Target is knocking it off, it’s gotta’ be hot somewhere.  And, it is a lot cheaper than the trendy stores at the mall, so you can afford to take a risk and buy those gouchos, even if you swore you’d never wear them again after that humiliating experience in seventh grade.

4) The Thrill of the Hunt

While shopping isn’t sport to me, I do like to find a bargain.  It is some weird badge of honor when you get something for next to nothing.  There is a slight thrill in it at the time of purchase, but the real satisfaction comes later when you can’t help but tell people what a good deal it was.  “That pottery bowl is beautiful.”  “Thanks.  I got it for half price!”  Our mothers would have let their friends think they spent full price, but not us.  No, for Target Moms finding a good deal is the real measure of our success. We love Target because it makes us feel successful, even when we buy stuff we don’t need.

5) Anything for the Kids

Target also lets us say “yes” to our kids more often than we could otherwise.  And we like saying yes to our kids.  I know that isn’t always a good thing and that kids need limits.  But it is fun to not always have to say “no”.  Yes, you can have those Hello Kitty clogs because they only cost eight bucks and they are so adorable and I loved hello Kitty when I was 9 and even if you can’t walk in normal shoes without tripping, I’m sure those clogs will work great, and they are only eight bucks.

I am trying to teach my daughter that she can’t get everything she wants right when she wants it. We experiment with different ways of her “earning” spending money and then she has to make the tough decisions about what she really wants to spend that hard-earned money on.  She prefers to spend it at Target, and I don’t blame her.  She recently chose a Barbie that didn’t put her back more than $5.  I know my first Malibu Barbie cost me $5.49, and that was more than 30 years ago.  She is getting a much better deal than I did and she knows it.

I guess that really doesn’t have anything to do with Target, but rather with the fact that the people who make toys in China have not had a raise (or probably even a coffee break) in 25 years.  I’d like to think technology has made it possible for them to crank out toys more efficiently than they did in the 1970s, but I imagine there is a darker side to her cheap Barbie.

Fortunately, it is so bright and colorful in Target that my mind seldom goes to those dark places.  Instead I see a happy kid who likes getting things for cheap.  She just needs to learn not to brag about that when she proudly presents someone with a gift I got on sale.

The Night of the Radish (best served raw)

It was huge.  A four-legged jet-black monster with a purple tongue was standing less than six feet from me, chewing something, and staring at me like I was the one who didn’t belong in my own front yard.  He was right.

My first day as a stay-at-home mom was turning out to be almost as bizarre and foreign as my final business trip had been. While my daughter was napping, I went out to my car to unload boxes filled with keepsakes from the professional life I had left behind.  When I poked my head out of the trunk, I found myself face-to-face with an enormous cow.  Just two days earlier, I was at a power lunch at the Palm in Washington, D.C.   Now, instead of enjoying a fine filet with a Bordelaise sauce, I was spitting distance from 1,500-pound bovine with a death stare.

I dropped the box, ran into the house, slammed the door and burst into tears.  I called Animal Control.  I was certain they would have a cow-catching team, a bunch of guys in overalls hanging off the back of pick-up trucks wrangling rogue cattle, but the officer on the phone said they couldn’t do anything to help.  They only send the cow-wranglers if the animal is holding up traffic or immediately endangering someone’s life.  She encouraged me to call neighbors to see if anyone was missing their cow.

I didn’t know my neighbors.  I had seen some of them now and again, but the only one I had actually spoken to more than once was the Quaker grandmother who lived next door.  While she would occasionally shoot groundhogs from her back porch, she didn’t raise cattle.   Her only advice was to stay indoors.  So I was trapped in the house alone with my kid in a dangerous land where cows roam free and Quakers have guns.   Not exactly what I had planned.

I had come out of college working full-bore on a career in the world of politics, media and corporate public affairs.   I worked with the best and the brightest in the industry, logging ridiculous hours researching issues, drafting fact sheets and press releases and putting to paper strategies brainstormed by renowned communications gurus.  I travelled to exotic places like London, Moscow and Abu Dhabi, and not-so-exotic places like Chattanooga, TN and Paducah, KY.  I loved some of it but hated a lot of it.  I learned enough about how politics and the media really work to know that I didn’t want to spend my life working in either.   Still, it was a career and I was doing pretty well with it until I had a kid.

Everyone struggles with the going back to work/stay at home decision, but I really struggled.  I tried working from home once a week.  I tried the full-time nanny.  I tried driving instead of relying on public transportation.  I tried cutting back to part-time.  I tried changing my client portfolio.  I tried hard and I cried harder.

The final straw came for me a few months after 9-11.  I was sitting in an airport lounge having a beer with my boss waiting for a flight to Dubai (we would not let the terrorists win by keeping us from pursuing business in the Middle East!).  My husband called to tell me that our daughter had put together her first sentence: “Where’s my shoe?”  He was thrilled.

I was crushed.

The five days that passed between that moment and when I could hug my daughter were beyond surreal.  I had meetings with Emirati men dressed in traditional white dishdasha, who didn’t try to hide their discomfort with listening to advice from an American woman.  I visited the new flagship building of the then-booming United Arab Emirates – a high-rise luxury hotel built out into the Gulf to look like a sailing ship.  The lobby was literally lined with gold and rooms went for as much as $10,000 a night.  They touted it as a symbol of their business prowess.  I thought it was a stunning display of vapid wealth, but I soaked in the scene and gladly accepted the coffee table photo book as a souvenir.  I ate raw lamb (suggested by the client) and actually liked it.  It was better than the deep-fried baby birds presented to me on an earlier visit.  Maybe I was getting the hang of the place.

Working with the Dubai client was going to require being onsite four weeks at a time, so I fashioned a plan that involved bringing my daughter and nanny along to live part-time in the strange new world of sand, concrete, steel and glass.  We’d come home for two-week stints (Hi, hubby!) and rack up the frequent-flier miles.  My daughter would benefit from the worldly experience and I would advance my career.  It would be great.

Next stop, Orlando.  I was meeting up with colleagues to deliver an overly elaborate pitch to a different client who was clearly ready to ditch our firm for “fresh” ideas from a competing agency.  For reasons I still don’t understand, the meeting was held at Epcot Center.  The client had an exhibit there and they thought it might inspire greatness if we saw it first hand.  Too bad they didn’t bring us there before the pitch.  Seeing the big white golf ball (it probably isn’t a golf ball, but it looks like one) reminded me of the bizarre architecture I had just seen half way around the world.  I tried to convince myself that life for my daughter in Dubai might be just as fun as life at Disney.  I ducked into a gift shop to buy a Mickey Mouse plush toy to take home to my toddler, who I was sure would be reading before I saw her again.

On the flight home, I looked deep into Mickey’s big, shiny eyes and knew I couldn’t do it anymore.  I was so very far from finding the “balance” people talk about, and I had nowhere to turn for help.  Most of my friends hadn’t had kids yet, and there were very few mothers at my agency.  The successful women, if they were married at all, had married men twice their age with already grown children.  They were on the fast track and that meant skipping the whole annoyingly time-sucking childhood phase of being a mother.  I wasn’t cut out for the fast track and the road I was on was completely unpaved, so I took the nearest exit ramp and ran smack into that cow.

It almost sent me screaming back to work, but instead I set out to charter a new life on and around the playgrounds.  Conference calls were replaced by play dates and stress was no longer defined by meeting deadlines for demanding clients, but rather by enforcing naptimes for a cranky toddler.   Thankfully, I met an amazing group of women who helped me adjust to this new life.  They even invited me to join their book club.

Some of my new friends were “just moms” like me, but others were artists who had converted their garages or basements or barns into working studios where they could paint or throw clay or knit.  They taught classes, hosted workshops and sold their wares online.  Once their kids went to school full time, they flipped their productivity switches back to the “on” position and turned hobbies into fulfilling small businesses, pursuing their chosen careers with dedication and passion bolstered by the confidence, patience and wisdom that come with age.

I was a failure compared to them.  I didn’t make anything.  I never have made anything.  I did a lot.  I had a real job once.  I volunteered too much.  I was really busy.  Still, I had little to show for it and certainly nothing worth selling.   My productivity switch was burned out and rusted and probably trampled by that cow.

Even with my kid in school full-time, I could never see how to make the old job work, so I threw myself into volunteer projects and occasional freelance work.  I still felt like part of me was locked up, waiting to come back out.   To help maintain my sanity, I would occasionally sit down and jot off an essay about life’s absurdities.  It amused me and made me feel like I was a writer, but I rarely shared my work with anyone.  My articles were raw and rough and sometimes just silly.  Best they remained my little secret.

Then, I got an invitation for something called “The Night of the Radish.”  The book club had dissolved, but seeing a thriving art community blossom from its ranks, a few women decided to host a creative showcase to “share our reflections and artistic interpretations on a theme.”  The theme was a radish.  That’s how creative these people were.  They could make a radish interesting and fun, or at least use radishes as an excuse to drink wine together.  They even created an adorable illustrated logo for the night.

I wanted desperately to attend.  I hadn’t hung out with these women in far too long.  I have other great friends and have more fun than I should, but this group was different and I needed a dose of their humor and wonderfully quirky yet wise worldview.  But I didn’t have anything to share.  I wasn’t like them.  I didn’t make anything.  I never have made anything.  But the radish challenge inspired me to dig deep and try to find my inner artist.  While I don’t make things, maybe I could create something.  I did what I do.  I Googled.

Wow!  Radishes (derived from Latin Radix = root) can be beautiful.  They can be the round red things I pick out of salads, but they can also be long and white or even lavender.  There is a different kind of radish for every season.  Spring and summer radishes are the ones we all recognize.  They grow quickly, but they are generally small and not terribly interesting.  The winter varieties are far more exciting.  They have exotic names like the “Black Spanish” and the French “Gors Noir d’Hiver”.  They have dark, rough skin and “hot-flavored” flesh.  They can be big and round or pear-shaped and are very hearty.

Radishes are the garden metaphor for women.  When in our “winter” season, we may be bigger or pear-shaped, but we are still “hot” at our core and far superior to the premature spring and summer versions.

Yes, the radish was proving to be an inspiring muse.

There are several restaurants and cafes with “radish” in their name, including the “Weeping Radish” in the Outer Banks of North Carolina where I am pretty sure I had too much to drink in my summer season.  That was the same time that an alternative band called Radish broke out in Greenville.  I’m sure I would have loved them, but they never did make it big.

Radishes are rich in potassium and folic acid, and their greens are a good source of Vitamin C.  They help prevent cancer, treat liver disorders, improve digestion and help you maintain a healthy gallbladder.  Maybe I should stop picking them out of my salads. You can caramelize radishes with onions, but they will lose some of their nutritional punch if you cook them.  There are lots of recipes out there, and I’m sure my artsy-fartsy friends will have a smorgasbord of glorious dishes to sample at the party.  Yes, the fabulous art crowd can cook too.

So, while I can’t cook a radish, let alone sculpt or paint one, the challenge pushed me back to the keyboard to peck out this article and to revisit and rewrite several others that have been sitting, stagnant on my hard drive.  Maybe “The Night of the Radish” will embolden me to share some of them, knowing now that some things are best served raw.