This is Hole. She was number 14. Our sweeper. At Iowa. She played with her heart. And it was big. Now she is head coach...as in, the one in charge. For the Dartmouth Field Hockey team. She's been doing it for 12 years. Yes, I know. I haven't done anything for twelve straight years- except breath. And even that I sometimes suck at.
I saw her yesterday. Her team lost to the University of Vermont with 54 seconds left. I saw her pacing, not wanting to watch that last corner shot. I saw her down on one knee for ten minutes after the game talking to her team, debriefing. I saw her being someone....to them.
As I was walking out with Auggie, who luckily still holds my hand (even at school) I said, "I used to be one of them. I was good. I was better, actually." He smiled up at me...like I was joking.
And that's what it's been for me lately. "I used to be this." "I used to do this." "I was once that." I've lived in these phrases like a batch of old t-shirts. They say: division 1 athlete, teacher, scholar. And every time I say it I think to myself, "what is wrong with who you are today that you have to rely on telling everyone who you were then?"
******
Steve and Kate got married. Hitched. Tied the Knot. The Mothership is in disbelief that a) Dirty got married and b) that he married a woman as good as Kate. Dirty is vastly under-appreciated. What I love most about weddings, besides the free food and drinks, is that sometimes (to strangers) I get to pretend that I am someone I'm not.
When I was up to my ears in baby shit (seriously, washing it from their tiny bums, spraying it off cloth diapers into the toilet, and every other day washing dirty diapers in the washing machine with boiling hot water that I had to add to the mix) I always wanted to tell people (if they EVER asked me what I did for a living) that I was in the shit business. And then I pictured myself walking away and letting them come up with their own conclusions as to what my "shit business" entailed.
I've pictured myself lying about being a writer (one that got paid), a fiber artist (one that got paid), a forester (I own, okay well, lease-to-own a friggin' forest), a homesteader (like one that doesn't ever ever go to the grocery store), and a wall-tent bed and breakfast owner (someday). I've never lied about being any of these things, mostly because I don't think anyone has ever asked but even if they did, I'm sure I said "stay-at-home" mom. blah.
Well, these hoodlums, 5 of the 9 Mothership members, stood up next to Steve. Steve's brother is on the far left.
And these fine Harvard graduates stood up next to Kate.
And well, she's the gorgeous bride. And he's the Dirt.
And she's changing the world. And he's changing hers.
And he's on the stock exchange. And she's a dermatologist resident.
And I don't know who she is or what she does, but he's a super hero.
And she's a wedding planner in Manhattan. And besides being a grump, he's a 5th grade teacher.
And seriously, I don't know what he is. But he married someone who is someone.
And so did I.
At the reception, Paul Bunyan and I were talking to a couple from Vermont about their lives. He works (from what I could gather) out of the home and she, when we asked, didn't say anything. She couldn't come up with anything. Not even stay-at-home Mom, which she is. But how fun- seriously- could she have had if she said surgeon, gardener, garbage collector for that matter? How fun would it have been to have seen our faces? We gave her the perfect opportunity but I guess she didn't see the fun in lying, or more likely the need.
*****
My newest doula family is neat. How is that for trite? They're neat people. They do neat stuff. They have neat stuff. They wear neat stuff. C'mon you know what I mean. Well, their three year old was going to a super hero birthday party yesterday. So Mom gets out the bag of fabric in the basement and pulls out the good ol' sewing machine. She whips up this cool aqua cape with a yellow lightning bolt on the back. It was sweet. Zealand decides he is the kind of super hero that shoots lightning down to start fires to scare the villains away. She then decides to make the birthday boy a cape for his present. It was red with a big C on the back- "C" for Charlie. It was neat- seriously. Then she decides to make a cape for herself and for her husband and for the twin girls- they're all going to be super heroes for Halloween. Seriously.
*****
This was the last Mothership wedding. It's all over Rover. I'm sure they'll be some more weddings in our future- just not as crazy as they get when the Mothership gets together. And that's a good thing because Paul Bunyan and I could barely get out of bed Monday morning from all that dancing. On the way down to Newport on Thursday I finished knitting myself an alpaca capelet (as it's called) to go with this dress I designed. I'm not cool enough to sew, but the dress was a lot of fun- mostly because I made sure it had POCKETS! I'm excited to wear it again sometime, especially with my super hero cape. And now that I have the idea, I'm excited to see the expression on the person's face who asks me what I do for a living and I say, "I'm a super hero. I fly down and save the mother's who are about to go crazy from sleep deprivation and over exhaustion from having to feed the human beings they pushed out their vaginas or had ripped from their bellies." And then I fly away with my arms pointed to the sky, sparks coming out of the bottom of my dress, toes pointed to the ground. Mmm hhhmmm. That's right.
