Tag: ice skating

children, creative inspiration, family, ice skating, kids, parenting

A Bright Orange Day

Shari

Often, when I was in second grade arithmetic, I would look up from my endless worksheets designed to discourage and disinterest would-otherwise-have-become astrophysicists, to wonder at my teacher’s hair. These were the sixties, and the ultimate goal of hair styling was ‘big as you could get it.’ My teacher sported a swept up bun which increased her head size to a degree that I would have recognized as volume times mass squared if that simple math formula had been known to me yet. I often watched her droning on and thought how much it appeared that she was wearing the wasps’ nest my Dad had smoked out and then detached from under the eaves of our house.

The nest, a bulbous, silver grey creation that swarmed dangerously with insects, was a deceivingly stable structure, as big as cotton candy at a state fair, formed by the spit and labor of the insects and built to survive the elements for multiple seasons. Considering that the aptly named beehive hairstyles were achieved at beauty salons once in a blue moon and meant to last out the month, the construction goals were remarkably similar. Both were painstakingly built to last. The nest survived because of a network of hexagon paper shells, formed from spit and wood mulch, the hairstyle resisted gravitational pull with the clever use of ruthless teasing and enough aerosol shellac to make a bed sheet stand up in a heavy wind. And while only one was designed to house insects, the likely hood of entomological habitation in the hairstyle was not so farfetched. It might not have been wasps, but odds were good that something was living in there. I would watch Ms. Whatever-her-name-was take a pencil and carefully insert it deep into the foamy depths of her bouffant and then scratch furiously. I never saw anything crawl out of it, but my desk was near the back, so I might have missed it.

But times were changing and hairstyles were being dragged along. Women began to opt for the down-with-a-scooping-flip-at-the-bottom style. This involved setting the hair on huge, hollow rollers, and then sleeping in a sitting position or baking under a dryer until the polymer set. It required hours of self-imposed torture, all endured for the sake of appearing in public perfectly groomed. To allow anyone other than family or beauty shop operatives to see oneself mid-process was unthinkable.

So imagine the shrinking of my soul when my mom appeared in the doorway of my classroom wearing rollers the size of coffee cans held in place by aluminum clips in a neat row over and around her head, leaving her looking like a load of sewer pipes strapped down by what appeared to be a shrimping net.

As I slumped low, desperate to appear as incredulous as any of my classmates that some loser’s mother was shameless enough to show up in public worse than naked, she crossed to the teacher and whispered an apology. A quick exchange ensued and then, to my horror, I was identified as the unfortunate offspring of this brazen crazy lady and told to gather my things.

My face burning with red-hot shame and unable to meet the eyes of my brutally judgemental classmates, I got my books and coat and joined my mom at the door.

As we walked down the hall, I kept my eyes on the floor. We passed other teachers and even the principle on the way out and I knew that I would be forever branded as the girl with the indecent mother.

My mom said very little but she seemed pleased. I, on the other hand, could not have been more distressed if she had been walking me toward a firing squad.

Now that I’m a mom who has had the opportunity to embarrass my girls on numerous occasions, I have a different take. Over the years I have had to find varied and creative ways to strike fear into their innocent hearts in order to back up a, shall we call it a…behavioral adjustment.

And the worst thing I could ever threaten them with was public embarrassment. Not theirs, mine. I could threaten, yell, give time outs, devise punishments, but nothing ever worked as well as warning them I would do one of two things; sing or dance in public.

So the other day, when my oldest daughter and I were out having lunch and she showed me a little video she had taken of her boyfriend that morning, I had to smile. The two of them share a small house by the beach with three other guys, all of them surfers. Every morning the first one up quickly bikes or skateboards to one of the nearby beaches and gets a take on the wave conditions. Most days are what they call ‘yellow’, smooth, easy waves, but some days, some very special days, it’s orange.

Orange means waves, it means excitement, it means unexpected and unusual fun.

So when he came on my daughter’s little screen, the boyfriend was singing and dancing, “It’ an orange day! It’s an orange day!” as he went from room to room in the hall, knocking on doors. “Get up! It’s orrrraaaange!” and he did a little dance step on his way to reverse peel himself into gortex, or whatever it is they make those suits out of now.

And I thought, ‘How wonderful, an orange day.’ We all get them sometimes, though not often enough. An orange day could be one that brings an unexpected turn of events, weather that sings for a special event, or opportunities knocking on your bedroom door that weren’t even in the neighborhood the night before.

I’m not a surfer, I’ve done it a few times and liked it very much, but I grew up in Atlanta, far from the surging shore. It was unlikely enough that I became a competitive ice-skater. There was only one undersized rink in town until I was around 12, so everyday, up I would get up at four-thirty and go to the rink for a couple of hours before school to train, and every afternoon I was back, practicing falling, and sometimes learning to defy gravity myself for a few seconds. I loved it.

But since skating was not exactly a regular pastime in the heat and humidity of the deep south, we had only one teacher, and no champions to look up to. No Dorothy Hamils trained at my tiny patch of ice and no Nancy Kerrigans ate Milk Duds with me while the Zamboni smoothed the surface.

My childhood hero was Peggy Fleming, Not only was she the former Olympic champion, but she had these awesome TV specials that I watched with rapture, studying both her style and technique. A Peggy Fleming special was every holiday wrapped up in one for me.

So just imagine my amazement when my mom, saying very little, drove me to the rink in the middle of a school day where some of my fellow skate-o-philes were waiting, and then shocked me to my core when the door opened and in walked Peggy Fleming, in the Fleming flesh.

Turns out, she was in town with Ice Capades. She practiced everyday, never missed one, and since the show was at the stadium and the ice wasn’t in yet, she had gotten in touch with my little Igloo to arrange some private practice time. The owner had told my coach and my coach had chosen a small handful of her students to be there.

When she came in, we all burst into applause. Basically a shy woman, she looked completely taken aback, but she said hello politely and then went to change into her outfit and skates.

Needing to use the restroom, I went to the back and pushed open the door. There, seated on a bench, lacing up her skates, was Peggy Fleming, but not just an Olympic gold medalist I idolized, but an Olympic gold medalist who I idolized in her bra.

Her bra. I saw Peggy Fleming in her underwear.

Why she put on her skates before her top was a mystery to me, but I remember walking toward the mirror and smirking to myself, embarrassed but oddly thrilled to have seen the great woman in her skivvies. Later what I mostly remembered was how tiny she was, I didn’t find out until later that I was far too tall to be a skater, at nine, I wasn’t yet oversized.

But even though I was shorter, that was one of my most orange days. I went back to school and faced the taunts of my classmates about my mother’s steamroller hair curlers with Peggy Fleming’s autograph in my hand. When I displayed my golden prize, they were awed, cowed, and envious. Oh how I loved that feeling. A most orange feeling.

Not everyday will come in a strong hue, some of them will be murky and dull. There will be days of blue or rusty brown. I’ve even had more than my share of black ones, but that day still glows with the brilliance of a sunlit field of California poppies.

My mother embarrassed and thrilled me to such extremes in a single day that I leaned a life lesson.

Things aren’t always what they seem. Sometimes you have to stop everything and embrace the risk, and sometimes, wonderful things happen when you least expect it, and even when wearing curlers the size of redwood tree trunks in front of a prissy private school classroom, moms can be the coolest ever.

Maybe that’s the reason I still haven’t stopped trying to devise ways to embarrass my girls into living a fuller life.

I probably never will.

I will get up early some days, check the metaphoric surf conditions, find them exceptional, and run dancing from room to room singing, “It’s an orange day!”

And they will cringe first, and smile later.

Just like I did.

Shari, April 11, 2019

Entertainment, ice skating, italian men, kids, Life in General

My Many Talents.

Shari

 

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Oh, where to begin, when there are so many things at which I excel. I mean I don’t want to brag, but even a quick list would include such rarified skills as—loosing my keys, burning toast, saying the wrong thing at the right time, falling down, smacking into doors when I’m running with my reading glasses on, rendering myself legally blind and my familiar home nothing but a vibrating blur. Really the list goes on and on, I am truly, deeply, wonderously gifted at fucking up.

What can I say? I’m just blessed.

If they gave trophies for misplacing things, I’d need to build a room onto my house to keep them all. I’d have shelves full of little gold cups, one for each of the many times I locked my keys in the trunk. (I’d like to thank the Academy and triple A!) At both ends would be two big-ass gold figurines posed with both hands clutching an empty head which I would have received for those two, (yes two,) times I dropped my keys three miles back on a hike where I had stopped to do some stretches. (I wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for my agent, my lawyer, and my cat, Yaki!) But in pride of place would be a magnificent championship crystal bowl presented to me when I broke my key off in the ignition while I was driving, effectively rendering the car un-steerable. That last one would be engraved, “We thought it couldn’t be done.”

One of my best honed talents is finding the one single thing in any store, anywhere, in any country, that does not have a price on it. It can be at the Safeway in Sunland or the Vatican gift shop in Rome. Not only will I be drawn like a lemming to that one and only tag-less item among thousands, I will also find that there is a long line of people waiting to pay behind me who can be super annoyed when the checker picks up that intercom and announces to the general public—each and every one in a hurry—‘price check on four!’ I feel my face redden as I turn and smile weakly at the harassed mother next in line trying to contain three screaming toddlers. Behind her is the bank teller with five minutes to get back to his window holding nothing but a redbull and a pack of sushi. Rounding out the line nicely are four or five firefighters with a full cart of groceries wondering whether to ditch and run as their radios scream dispatches to emergencies. They look horrified, and these brave men and women don’t scare easily. Don’t I feel special.

The checker might as well have announced, “Stupid blonde with no consideration for anyone else with an unmarked item, aisle four!” if the glaring and snorting of the people around me is any indication. It’s usually at this time that I say something feeble to clear the static resentment from two dozen angry shoppers clinging thickly to me like dryer lint. I say, oh something like, “Don’t worry, it won’t take long to run my fifty-seven badly printed coupons and clear an out-of-state check. I’ll be out of your way in a half-hour or so.”

People seldom laugh, but at least it gives them the chance to see that things could get worse. I could have asked for a bulk discount.

At this point I always offer to simply not purchase the item, but this, apparently, is unacceptable in a country where the customer always comes first. I picked out that organic eggplant and damn it, they are going to sell it to me! There’s no turning back now baby! Never mind that three alarm fire at the day care center, the firemen can wait while some teenage-bagger with all the enthusiasm and perkiness of a dirt worm takes a round about, lingering saunter to the produce section to check the price, pausing to text a few friends while ordering a soy chai latte at the Starbuck’s counter before shuffling back to register four. By this time, I am watching carefully for other produce, specifically ripe tomatoes traveling through space in the general direction of my head.

“Really, please,” I whisper furiously, keeping my back tightly against the gum racks so no one can stick a plastic utensil from paper goods in it. “Just ring up the total without the eggplant, I don’t need it.” The desperate mom’s eyes cut to the checker, silently pleading with her to cut my lifeline, let the bitch go for the survival of the species, but to no avail. We can wait, the checker has decided, she doesn’t get off until five and she’s union, why should we be allowed to go on our merry way? There’s a profit at stake here! She will send me home with that purple vegetable, or I can damn well sleep on a cot in the frozen foods section until managers are notified, corporate offices are contacted, and a price per pound is fully negotiated with China or whatever scary place our food comes from these days.

So, there’s that. Another special skill I have perfected is leaving a sprinkler or a hose running. All night. Okay, it’s bad enough to waste all that water in a drought, but when the water for your home comes from a well, and there is a limited amount that can be pumped up into the holding tank per day, it’s a sliver more inconvenient. Once that tank is empty, it’s three days until it’s filled again. And during that time, we conserve like we have one canteen left to cross Death Valley. We don’t take proper showers, just quick rinses. We don’t wash clothes, or run the dishwasher. Dishes are cleaned with water bought by the gallon from a machine in front of Rite Aid, and there’s nothing much to do except sit around watching the lawn turn from golden brown to easy-lite kindling.

And falling, I’m really good at that. Part of this special talent is from my ice-skating days were I would fall countless times learning a new double jump or some other physical feat that humans aren’t supposed to do until eventually, on my six hundred and seventeenth try, I find myself still upright, moving backwards on one blade with a feeling of surprise. “I did it. Well, that wasn’t so hard,” my brain would say to my bruised butt and hips. “Those oven mitt-sized black, blue, yellow and green marks will go away in a few weeks. Of course, now it’s time to start learning the triple jump. I comfort myself by believing the lie that I look better in Technicolor.

One time in particular, at a big competition in Lake Placid, New York was super fun. Sometimes, when the seating of rinks are filled with twenty thousand people or so, the space warms up more than it should and the ice gets soft, leaving areas a few feet wide that are actually pools of melted ice water maybe a half inch deep. When you hit these at full speed, your blade sticks, your skate brakes hard, but your body, which was moving along so nicely,  enjoying the breeze, keeps right on going.

So I’m at the end of my routine, which is the equivalent of running a mile with tricks thrown in, and, breathing hard, I pick up speed for my big last jump. I turn, launch myself up and off, fly gracefully spinning through the air, land perfectly for one magnificent moment. Then my skate hits that soft patch and I fall flat on my back, sliding through the puddle, drenching my back with ice water that takes my breath away. The cold makes me sit up fast with both legs stuck straight out in front of me, I’m still sliding and turning, making little waves and ripples as I slide through the frigid pond, feeling the wet soak up through my outfit and tights, . It’s the end, you know, that part where I do a really fast spin and then strike a final pose and wait for the applause. But when the music crescendos in a furious conclusion, I’m on my ass, still sliding, still soaking wet, so I just threw my arms out and did the pose there in the frigid little swamp with the water lapping around my thighs and calves.

And twenty thousand people did applaud, but they laughed a lot louder.

And that’s the day I learned that I’m good at a few things I didn’t even have to work that hard on. I learned that being embarrassed doesn’t kill you. You don’t die. You wake up the next day and move on, slink back to the grocery store seeking unmarked items, spend three hours searching for your keys, and then trip over a single stair in Venice Italy, sprawling face first onto a palazzo filled with gracious, beautifully dressed Italians enjoying coffees and wine.

Those people have really nice shoes.

Go fall down, be silly, play the fool.Make ’em laugh.  It takes the pressure off of everyone else for a few minutes at least.

 

And that’s something worth being good at.

 

Shari, June 28th, 2016.

authors, creating character, creative inspiration, family, Life in General

The Waiting Room.

Shari
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I finished a draft of a new book and got it out to my agent this week, now he submits to publishers and we wait. This is always a strange limbo-time for me, when the book is picked up, I will go back to work on edits with the editor, about a six month process on and off. It’s time, I know, to start a new book.I’m not person who can not work or create constantly, but I don’t yet know what that story will be. Right now it’s a fleeting suggestion, a chalky outline, a wild bird without a cage. I think I see it! No, it’s flown too high. There it goes, disappearing into the thick tangle of my mental forest, where tangents shoot out in a thousand directions like tree branches, and vague concepts are still dripping with Spanish moss and the path is overgrown with ferns and lichen. I cannot sneak up on it. I cannot trap it, I can’t even see it clearly yet. No matter how hard I peer and strain, no binoculars will be able to pick that avian idea out  and watch it preen until it’s ready to show itself.

What I need is more patience, and I need it right now!!

So, I’m waiting, kind of. I’m waiting even as my brain works, sorting ideas, paying attention to the world around me, watching behaviours, feeling empathy, mixing traits into characters, mentally testing words and scenes.  I think of this time as an empty space that needs to be filled. We can fill that time and space with junk and busyness, or we can be zen and keep that brain space open with meditation and different creative endeavours. I try to do both, which is so me.

I have kids, husband and extended family, so a certain amount of my time will always go to their needs. I like that. I love to cook and care for my home, volunteer at school, and plant in the garden, and I’m grateful for a small bit of open time to do those things, but it’s so easy to  get overrun with a thousand errands and little activities, that pretty soon your are like a hoarder, with your ‘house’ filled with junk that isn’t of any value. Having a list of things to do, and getting some of them accomplished,  gives you purpose, of a sort. But writers, who regulate their own time must be vigilant! It’s far too easy to let your life be hijacked by those week-eaters, those endless tasks, those…we’ll call them mandatory or flippant activities. Some of them are must dos, some of them are fun, and some of them are great little goals, I don’t deny that, but they aren’t what we do.

Like most very active people, I suck at waiting. If I have to stand in line I recite back monologues, or entertain the people who are getting old near me. It gives new meaning to the phrase captive audience, they can laugh at my jokes or leave, which moves me closer to the postal worker. Either way, it’s a win! I have to fill that time and space with thought and laughter, or at least a few isometric butt tucks.

Then there’s that position that sends a thrill through us, when people lose that glazed, I hate my life expression, and perk right up. That, of course, is when you are NEXT. “I’m next!” you start shifting your feet, and feeling special, like a dog who hears the lid of the treat jar. You start salivating, I’m almost there! Sometimes I let someone else go ahead of me so I can still be next.

The best thing about waiting is finding an opportunity to explore. Whether you are exploring an idea, a space, a neighbourhood, or a period of time, there are always options for the curious. Which…I am.

That’s why this floor invited me to skate. Would I slide in my socks? Do I risk a jump or are the lighting fixtures too low? What can I do right  now with this space and time?

Anything you want. Dance, hum, make up a limerick, ask someone to tell you something about themselves, relate, share, but most of all…fill it, even if it’s with silence and stillness.

We’ve got this one life this time, never wait, BE.

I’ll be waiting for you!

Shari, June 4th, 2016.

Life in General

Building Writer’s Blocks.

Shari

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Quite often I am asked how to deal with writer’s block, and here is what I always say. 

I don’t believe in it. 

The fact is, you can always write something, it might not be a pulitzer prize winner or a smash bestseller, it might not even be anything very coherent, but you can write something, and everything leads to something else. 

I’ve been exceedingly fortunate in my life to have had a number of exceptional teachers. Ice skating, schooling, early creative writing, and acting. Ice skating taught me how to physically correct, that hard work brought results, and how to emotionally function with some kinds of fear. Schooling and writing taught me to think outside the box, to learn to love variety and wonder at words. Acting taught me about myself. The best acting teachers are, without always knowing it, actually parent substitutes and therapists who help you find the deepest triggers in yourself. 

Let’s start with skating. I’m working on a double axel. That is  jump where you take off from a forward ‘outisde’ edge, spin two and a half times in the air, and land on the opposite foot, backwards. Unless of course, you don’t make it all the way around. In that case, your right foot touches down, and instead of going backwards, you go sideways. 

I would go for months with a bruise on my right thigh the size of a frying pan. In skating, you have to analyze the physical results of your movements. If you tilt your head to the side in mid-air, your body will follow. A good coach will tell you to correct to the left, and low and behold, you remain up right, land on that right foot all the way around, and glide on into the next step. 

In my creative writing classes, you are given exercises to ‘think outside the box’ to use words for a sunset besides ‘red’, to describe the feeling rather than the fact, to delve deeper. 

In acting, the human spirit is engaged. Every memory, physical sensation, and emotional barrier is plowed, examined, and exposed. On top of that, you have all the technical information to take in and use. Trust is huge here. An acting coach who makes you feel unsafe is a bad one. I was lucky. 

And here’s the most important thing I ever learned…

How to learn. That, in itself, is the most liberating part of the whole process, and it never, ever, ever, ends. We do this in life, everyday, if we’re smart and attentive. 

Back to building those writer’s blocks. Your brain is the most complex thing in the known universe. The stats on bites per second are staggering, you have more neuro-connections firing simultaneously than there are stars in the milky way. 

I’m pretty sure you can come up with something. 

So look at where you are in your process. Need an idea for a book? Make a list, what do you love? What do you like to read? What moves you on a daily basis? What kind of person inspires or angers you? Don’t worry about the entire book outline, start with some scenes that might be interesting in it. Even just one. Can’t come up with a hero? Invent a side-kick, or a friend, and it will inform you about everything else. 

Maybe you have an idea for a book but the characters just won’t flesh out. Make up a daily schedule for them. What do they think when they get up in the morning? Have for breakfast? Do for fun? What was their worst day in 1st grade? Write a letter from them to another character in your story. You may not use any of this in the final result, but it will all go into what you know about the character and get those synapsis firing in your brain. 

Maybe you are stuck on the plot. Break it down, put each ‘scene’ or chapter on index cards with a short description. Or, for complex plots, work it backwards. Get your final result, murderer, crime, etc, and then create clues that will lead to it, but not give it away. Once again, give yourself options without judgment, you will throw most of them out, but so what? You’re writing. 

Books and stories come from a billion places, and you and your brilliant brain, have access to them all, open those doors, peek in. Some you will want to slam shut, others will show you something entirely new. 

Of course, the same is true for life. I once had a voice coach who told me, “When you have one of those days where you are unmotivated, just do something. take a walk, bake a cake, clean a closet, just start!” 

And of course, he was right. Motivation comes from within and without. If one isn’t working, pick the other. It’s like life. We might not want to run errands or do the dishes, but the more of the mundane we get done, the more we’re likely to get done overall. 

So put this away, open a new blank document and write this down. “My brain is a brilliant mass of stars, swirling eternal energy and possibilities.” Now go to one of those stars and take some time to look around. 

How’s that for a start to a short story? 

Happy Holidays, stay safe, love someone, and give yourself the gift of creating. 

Shari December 22, 2012

Life in General

Competition, Contests, and other Crap

Shari

ImageOkay, here’s my second blog of today, and it’s because of a request someone sent me, (No names!!) to write about competition in the workplace. 

First, let me be clear. I know nothing about ‘the workplace.’ Sadly, I’ve never had a ‘regular’ job. Never been a waitress or a teacher or an executive. I’ve only been an ice skater, a model, an actress and a writer. 

So I do know something about competition. I was raised with it. It screwed me up, big time. Let’s start with life, I was the second of four children, I don’t remember a time in my childhood that my mom didn’t have another kid who needed her attention. And what a group, between the four of us we sang opera, danced, skated, painted, were labeled ‘gifted,’ and on and on.There was only one way to stand out in that group of siblings, and that was to excel. If I wanted mom’s attention, I had to win something. 

And that takes us to ice skating. Here’s the deal. I would go train in other cities, sometimes countries, I would live with a group of other girls, they were my ‘friends.’ Until competition day, then what I wanted most was for them to fail, to fall down, to mess up, so that I could win. Tell me that’s not a twisted way to develop relationships. 

Yikes. Moving on to modeling. A sliver more room for support, I mean there could be more than one winner here, after all, but I still had to get that job over my ‘friends.’ I still judged myself constantly against others, and worse, I was judged, constantly not by my sense of humor or personality, but how I looked on the outside. 

Am I screwed up enough yet? Getting there. Now let’s move on to acting. I sit in a room full of women who look an awful lot like me, we weigh each other up, feel threatened if the casting director seems impressed by their reading, and hope against all hope that we, and not them, are the one who wins the part. 

Now I’m cooked. 

Then I began to do theatre, and the heavens opened, and the sun shone down, and I finally had allies. We had a common purpose, I could truly root for the other actors, I could understand that if they were better, I was better. 

Hallelujah! About friggen’ time. It only took me into my early twenties to get it. The next step was to stop competing with myself. That’s another several years of therapy, money well spent! Did I really need to hike eight miles until I puked? Or could I turn back at four? Why was it that if, in a single day, I wrote a chapter, read to kids at school, hiked, auditioned, cleaned the house and cooked a gourmet dinner, I still went to bed feeling that I hadn’t done enough? 

Competition. 

Now, it isn’t always a bad thing. I heard a saying recently that said you should compete with yourself because then you both win. That’s clever, but not true. What I have found is that the child inside that needs the attention, needs to be exceptional and special, that feels hurt without it inside, also needs a mom. 

Not my mom, she’s great actually. But if there are two people in me, then one of them needs to be the mom and comfort and love the other one, the child. Tell her that it’s okay, hug and rock her. 

It works. And guess what? We both win. 

As for the workplace? Well, all I can say about that is do your best, kick ass, expect the same effort from your peers, but encourage them too, comfort them, ask for their help, and take it when it’s offered. We are better together than we are apart. If you get the promotion, take somebody up with you. If they do, back them up and call in your favors. 

Unless you’re an ice skater. Then baby, you’re on your own. Embrace it, and get some friends who don’t skate. 

This is flippant, I know, but you try summing up one of your major life shapers in less than five hundred words. 

So compete away!! But celebrate too, your successes as well as others. And remember it’s what you are competing for that counts. The gold medal is great, but dying happy is the real goal here. 

That’s the measure of success.

So here’s to the winners. The ones who look back on their lives and say, “I wouldn’t have had it any other way.” 

Shari, December 8, 2012