Head in the Stars, Feet on the Ground

When I was a little girl, parents told me I could be whatever I wanted to be. And what I wanted to be, more than anything else, was a martyr. That's when they realized I'd spent too much time reading the "Lives of the Saints" book I was given at baptism.

Martyrdom gave way to wanting to be an astronaut. This was something I was extremely passionate about. I was born with my head in the stars. I remember being about four- it's when we lived in the countryside- and sitting in the driveway with my brother, John. We'd make up constellations- "that's the kite constellation!" "That's the teapot!". When I started elementary school, my parents put me in a s mall parochial school that practiced "Holistic Learning"- far beyond the rote and recall of traditional classes, we mixed learning to read with tales of the Greeks and Romans, mythology with mathematics, astronomy with history. By the second grade I could tell you all about the TRUE constellations and what their stories were, both Greek and the Roman counterpart (for what it's worth, I've always preferred the Greek to the Roman.). I can still walk outside and immediately find Orion, Scorpio, and the generalization of the Pliades.

That passion for the stars made me want to travel among them. Top Gun made me want to fly jets. So I figured I'd start my professional career in the military, flying fighter jets until I could fly the Shuttle. The Navy at that time didn't allow female pilots, so I looked to the Air Force. By the 8th grade, I had my ducks in a row: a writing relationship with Senator Bob Dole (since you have to have a recommendation), as well as my mom pulling strings with an old boyfriend who just HAPPENED to be an Admiral. I was involved in teh community, in clubs. I would go to the Air Force Academy, I would study aeronautical engineering, I would do my time in the service, and prepare my step to NASA. Someday, *I* would be the one in the stars.

But at fifteen we discovered my vision sucked, and I wouldn't be flying much of anything. Too easily I let myself be talked out of the stars... and found my TRUE love waiting for me- journalism. I love to write. I can write all day- letters, notes, lists, stories, poems. I love taking our magnetic fridge poetry and composing bits on the go:

Oh wretched corn flakes!
Without sugar your taste is
Resembling cardboard.

I went to KU and immersed myself in the J-school. I worked for the yearbook AND the paper my freshman year. I started getting really interested in advertising, combining my loves of layout and art with writing. I created an ad campaign geared toward the then fledgling Major League Baseball ("MLB: Back to Basics). I also met a boy and quit going to all of my classes but the J-school stuff. Apparently that's not okay, and I was asked, somewhat politely, to leave for a while and come back when I had my head on straight. I got my head on straight, but I also met my husband and married at 20. A series of events later, and I found myself with two kids, moving here there an everywhere, and a husband that was back in school. I had found photography, ran a successful business before an interstate move closed things down and the economy created a wall between re-start and success.

And here i am. My boys are both in school now, the oldest in 3rd grade, and the youngest in a half day pre-k program. As I sit here, with my coffee and bonbons, I wonder... is this it? Don't get me wrong, I ADORE what I do with my boys, and there is a satisfaction in managing the house... but I want something else- something more. I want to go back to school.

But for what? There's my hesitation. Do I follow my dreams or do I do the responsible thing? If I were following my dreams, I'd get my formal degree in photography, a minor in english, and look towards photojournalism. I look at National Geographic, Time, Newsweek.... and I breathe it in like oxygen, devour it like food for the starving.

But I'm a mother and a wife. I'm not 20 anymore, with the world at my feet. And that part of me tells me to be responsible. Look for something with staying power, where you can find a job no matter where you are. Health Care. I've always been interested in physiology, the body, science. I love to fall asleep to Discovery heatlh (much to my squeamish husband's chagrin... but come on! Nothing like a good brain surgery or facial reconstruction to fall asleep to!). Phlebotomy, radiology... no matter where we moved to I could find a j ob most likely. I can still take pictures on the weekends.

But not how I dream of.

DH is finishing school, and it's time for me to start making decisions. Do I let my heart lead? Or do I listen to my head?
The clock is ticking....

Ask not what your school can do for you, but how much overpriced, plastic crap you can sell for your school!

Apparently, I grew up in a charmed time and place. A time when it was okay for me to ride my bike the ten blocks to the Dairy queen and buy a Dilly Bar; a time when you knew you had to be good, even if your parents weren’t around, because chances were the neighbors were watching you (and not in a pervy way, either); a time when there were actually GOOD cartoons on the TV on Saturday mornings, but they ended at 11am (and really, the good ones were over by ten), so you went outside for the rest of the day.

A time when I didn’t have to sell plastic garbage to raise money for new playground equipment, or art supplies, or whatever.

Maybe I just got off lucky, but until I was in middle school I never had to sell a thing besides liquor at my dad’s store (HAHA! Kidding! Sort of). I wasn’t a Girl Scout, or a Bluebird, or a Campfire girl. I didn’t play on a sports team. And while I did go to a small parochial school, we were self sufficient insomuch as parents were expected to provide everything. I do mean everything. The school supply list for St. Mary’s vaguely resembled a stock count report for the local supply store. We went beyond a box of crayons and Big Chief tablet to “full set of tempera paints, five color” and “band-aids, multi size, two boxes”. I’d be willing to bet that they contemplated adding “toilet paper, your brand preference, four roll pack” to the list, but opted against it due to the sheer warfare that would occur between those rocking the Charmin and those suffering the booty indignation of store brand sandpaper.

What it all boils down to is that never in my early childhood years did I have to schlep from door to door with a box of candy bars or catalog of wrapping papers and cookie dough, begging my family and neighbors to help support the cause. And it would have been me out there- my parents wouldn’t have dreamed of selling for me. “Builds character,” my father would have said of me knocking on the door of the scary House on the Corner. “They won’t eat you.” (That’s because the people in the scary House on the Corner only ate PETS. Duh.) If I had intended on selling to my parents’ coworkers, it would have been my butt up there, walking from office to office, knocking on doors and saying “Excuse me, may I please ask you a question? Do you have enough wrapping paper and plastic kitsch in your life?”

Today, of course, everything has changed. Now schools fundraise from the time kids walk in the door until the week before school gets out. And if you don’t get enough from your school, you’ll surely be sitting pretty when your child’s football/soccer/baseball/softball/water polo team launches their semi-annual fundraiser…. To be followed, naturally, by every other extracurricular activity your child has ever even considered being a part of.

“Mom, I have to sell potpourri for the Turtle Scouts of America.”
“But you’re not a Turtle Scout.”
“Yeah, but I took a brochure at Back to School night, and now I owe them $4,483. Would you prefer the vanilla jasmine or the Rainy Day Blues?”

The worst really are the school fundraisers. They herd the entire school into the auditorium, piquing their excitement over the mid-day change in events. There, a perky pitchwoman tells the kids about how EXCITING it will be when their school gets their VERY OWN , and won’t that be GREAT? But the ONLY POSSIBLE WAY they can get their Important Item, is by raising money, and OBVIOUSLY, the BEST WAY to do that is by selling this overpriced crap! And for every $100 you raise ($10 of which will go to the school), you get your VERY OWN PRIZE worth approximately five cents!!!! And if you sell enough, you could ride in a LIMO to school (after dark, when no one is looking, obviously)!!!! By this time the kids are in an absolute frothing frenzy, and many lives are put at risk with the resulting stampede for their own special Packet O’ Junk. Later that afternoon, my son will walk confidently into the house, drop the catalogue on the table, and boldly pronounce “Without Sell-O-Rama fundraisers, our school wouldn’t have a leg to stand on. We’ve got to get out there and SELL SELL SELL!”

Naturally, in these troubled times we don’t allow kids to sell door to door, even in their own neighborhood. In fact, right on the front of the 47 pound fundraising packet (want to know why the rainforests are depleting? Blame fundraising.) it says, in bold, bold letters as if to imply you are not only stupid, but quite possibly a blind chimpanzee “WARNING: DO NOT ALLOW YOUR CHILD TO GO DOOR TO DOOR TO SELL. THIS IS A DANGEROUS PRACTICE AND COULD RESULT IN YOUR BELOVED OFFSPRING BEING EATEN BY THE PEOPLE IN THE SPOOKY HOUSE ON THE CORNER. DON’T SAY WE DIDN’T WARN YOU."

Instead, the kids are encouraged to sell to family members and friends and to “ask Mom and Dad to take the brochure into Work!!!!” So after you’ve called Grandma and Grandpa (who are trying to figure out the cookie dough conversion for their 401K in their retirement years), Aunt Cindy and Uncle Joe, it’s up to Mom and Dad to make up the slack. It’s clever, really. They know that if they directly ask the parents to do the selling we’d pelt them with last year’s leftover Macadamia Bars. So we end up lugging catalogues and forms to the office, only to find that everyone else is also hawking their own goods. So a barter system breaks out.

“If you’ll buy three Krunchie Bars to send Kaitlin to Science City, I’ll buy a pound of Chocolate Giggle Drops to send Jacob to the soccer Octofinals in Schenectady.”

“I’m already buying five Krunchie bars from Jim in Accounts. Do you have any Caramel Strudel Bars?”

In essence, it’s no different from buying your own kid’s stuff, but it makes us feel better because, in a roundabout way, we’re helping others. And it looks better on your kid’s order form to see fifteen names rather than just “Mom- 438 Krunchie Bars.”

I tried to circumvent the system one year by just asking if I could donate money. “The school will get more that way,” I reasoned to the shocked PTA rep. “I’d just rather give $25 off the bat and not have to fundraise, than have to sell $500 for the school to make $25.”

She looked me up and down, she in her fashionable jeans and sweater set, I in my fleece pants that, if deconstructed, could warm a small African village and not quite matching pull over. “I don’t understand. Do you not want to do the fundraiser?”
“No, not particularly. I’d rather just give you the money.”

“But the fundraiser is so much fun! And the kids get prizes!”

“I’ll take him to the dollar store. Or the county fair. But I’d rather just give you the money now.”

Good effort, no success. We ended up selling ten items so my son could get the Super Bouncy Ball…. Just like the one he paid fifty-cents for at Pizza Street.

Now my youngest son is fundraising too, for his preschool. Trash bags. I called the PTA president to make sure, and yes, they’re huge rolls of trash bags for $10. Industrial strength. Apparently this is a very, very popular fundraiser for the school.

I bet so. This is something you can use…. For all of those other fundraising packets.