Today I ran my third Color Run with some of my favorite people. It was in the parking lot of Dodger Stadium, and if you've ever been to a Dodger game, you will have no problem imagining there being enough room for a 5K course AND plenty of parking for the participants. We ran the exact same course last year, so this time I knew what to expect and was totally relaxed. And it truly was the happiest 5K on the planet, as they boldly claim at the Color Run. I had a great time and now that I'm a few hours removed, I realized that I learned a few things about myself today:
1. I am not a safe driver, apparently (wohoo! careering past the Staples Center!), when there is no traffic because it's 7 am on a Saturday. I think I just forgot for a minute who was in the car with me (i.e., not my kids, who enjoy simulated roller coasters wherever they occur in daily life), plus it's exciting to take the 110 on-ramp at freeway speed, since most of the time it's bumper to bumper and takes a good 35 minutes or more. Also, I don't notice the giant sign for the Dodger Stadium Exit until it's almost too late ("Mo! Where are we going, Mo?!" Thank you, third-row backseat drivers!).
2. It feels really good to laugh really hard. I think I've read somewhere that there is such a thing as laugh therapy, and I believe it. Probably some chemicals get released when you laugh so hard that you can't breathe. Either way, it helps elevate my emotional state.
3. I'm still self-conscious about dancing, even with good friends. I don't know what it is. I think I can't play team sports like basketball for the same reason. That's a whole other story, but the short answer is probably pride? I can't seem to get myself to really let loose.
4. I still like to sprint, and I can even be fast sometimes. My kids always beat me everywhere. I have been avoiding running long enough that I started to think I couldn't do it anymore.
5. I can still do a one-handed cartwheel without falling down. Sadly, there is no photographic evidence to substantiate this claim, but I do have several eye witnesses (said witnesses may or may not have tried to sabotage my landing with a banana peel at a later time).
6. True friendship means you can pat colored cornstarch off each other's backsides with impunity.
7. Sometimes, ordering McDonalds at a drive-thru is a party!
8. I am absolutely going to pay for this day tomorrow. (see #3 about avoiding running) Perhaps some Advil is in order.
A nice, hot shower and about 5 blue-snot sneezes later, I'm all clean and ready for a nap!--I mean, ready to face the day and be productive. Because I'm responsible and a mom.
Saturday, May 21, 2016
Friday, May 20, 2016
Why Parents Cry at Concerts
I always wondered why my parents would cry at my middle school and high school concerts. Listening to a recording of said concerts brings tears to my eyes, but probably not for the same reason. In high school our concert band started to sound passable, but still like a high school band, and yet I could always count on my dad welling up by the end of at least one piece.
When my oldest child had his first performance in kindergarten, I definitely welled up--and the performance itself wasn't exceptional. A bunch of 5- and 6-year-olds standing on stage, barely able to be heard over the recorded music that was playing (because kindergarteners can't carry a tune?) is hardly a moving performance from a musical standpoint. But it was my child singing, and he was so cute! I was not the only one in that room surreptitiously brushing tears from my eyes.
Yesterday I was in the kitchen scrambling eggs for a quick dinner before my oldest had a baseball game to get to (later we found out we were 35 minutes late, not 5, for said game). He came in, fresh from practicing bass guitar in his bedroom, balancing on one foot as he pulled his knee-high sock on, and said, "I feel that music excitement, you know, when you start playing in band and it actually sounds good?" and then went on to describe a part in a piece he's working on, and how cool it sounds when the low brass (he plays trombone) comes in "it sounds really rich and cool." He started singing his low brass part and I sang the melody (the trumpets' part).
Later on, at the game, my 7-year-old started dancing to the music the other team played between innings. You could tell he didn't have any plans for the movement, he was just moving because he had to--there was music playing. This is the same boy who sings no matter what he's doing. He watched another kid at the game playing Minecraft on a phone (younger siblings of little leaguers are dedicated fans), so they're basically cheek to cheek, and my little boy is just singing away (It surprised me that no one seemed to be bugged by the incessant singing--his siblings don't appreciate it.).
When I was driving home after the Tupperware party I went to after the game, I was listening to Vivaldi, a recording I've had since I was 12 or so--same Christmas I got my first Sony Discman--and I found it remarkable that sometimes music just resonates in your whole body. There's a visceral connection that happens, and for me, joy. I don't even have to be participating in producing the music to feel like I'm singing, that someone else's wordless performance from 20 years (or more) ago is an extension of my psyche somehow. Of course it's more visceral when you are close enough to it to actually feel the vibration of the sound waves in your core, either performing or just listening live. Some of my favorite memories from high school were the week or so before a concert when our separate band classes would finally get together in an evening rehearsal to put it all together, and I could hear (and feel) whole, rich chords with the low brass, and hear what the clarinets were doing against my flute part, hear what the percussionists were doing. All the voicing would be filled out, and it sounded amazing. And then we would perform and my mom and dad would cry.
I think there was a deeper feeling for at least my dad by then, beyond the fact that I was his child and so cute up on stage, which I am beginning to see now with my oldest being so into music. It was that I was appreciating for myself something that he appreciated so deeply. Before I got into music at school, he was my DJ, and I was exposed to the music he loved at a young age (e.g., Mozart, Vivaldi, Beethoven, Handel, Chopin, Lennon/McCartney). I learned to love them too, and to this day I can pick out recordings by the same conductors and artists he had, because I love them now too. I can recognize in my memory his joy when I would try to describe a "musical excitement" that I was feeling. And that, I am finding, is why (my) parents cry at concerts. It's not that the performances are exceptionally good, although some are, and that makes me cry too. It's the love and enthusiasm and fulfillment you share with your child. Some parents cry at sporting events, some at dance recitals or gymnastics meets or martial arts competitions. In my experience it was music.
When my oldest child had his first performance in kindergarten, I definitely welled up--and the performance itself wasn't exceptional. A bunch of 5- and 6-year-olds standing on stage, barely able to be heard over the recorded music that was playing (because kindergarteners can't carry a tune?) is hardly a moving performance from a musical standpoint. But it was my child singing, and he was so cute! I was not the only one in that room surreptitiously brushing tears from my eyes.
Yesterday I was in the kitchen scrambling eggs for a quick dinner before my oldest had a baseball game to get to (later we found out we were 35 minutes late, not 5, for said game). He came in, fresh from practicing bass guitar in his bedroom, balancing on one foot as he pulled his knee-high sock on, and said, "I feel that music excitement, you know, when you start playing in band and it actually sounds good?" and then went on to describe a part in a piece he's working on, and how cool it sounds when the low brass (he plays trombone) comes in "it sounds really rich and cool." He started singing his low brass part and I sang the melody (the trumpets' part).
Later on, at the game, my 7-year-old started dancing to the music the other team played between innings. You could tell he didn't have any plans for the movement, he was just moving because he had to--there was music playing. This is the same boy who sings no matter what he's doing. He watched another kid at the game playing Minecraft on a phone (younger siblings of little leaguers are dedicated fans), so they're basically cheek to cheek, and my little boy is just singing away (It surprised me that no one seemed to be bugged by the incessant singing--his siblings don't appreciate it.).
When I was driving home after the Tupperware party I went to after the game, I was listening to Vivaldi, a recording I've had since I was 12 or so--same Christmas I got my first Sony Discman--and I found it remarkable that sometimes music just resonates in your whole body. There's a visceral connection that happens, and for me, joy. I don't even have to be participating in producing the music to feel like I'm singing, that someone else's wordless performance from 20 years (or more) ago is an extension of my psyche somehow. Of course it's more visceral when you are close enough to it to actually feel the vibration of the sound waves in your core, either performing or just listening live. Some of my favorite memories from high school were the week or so before a concert when our separate band classes would finally get together in an evening rehearsal to put it all together, and I could hear (and feel) whole, rich chords with the low brass, and hear what the clarinets were doing against my flute part, hear what the percussionists were doing. All the voicing would be filled out, and it sounded amazing. And then we would perform and my mom and dad would cry.
I think there was a deeper feeling for at least my dad by then, beyond the fact that I was his child and so cute up on stage, which I am beginning to see now with my oldest being so into music. It was that I was appreciating for myself something that he appreciated so deeply. Before I got into music at school, he was my DJ, and I was exposed to the music he loved at a young age (e.g., Mozart, Vivaldi, Beethoven, Handel, Chopin, Lennon/McCartney). I learned to love them too, and to this day I can pick out recordings by the same conductors and artists he had, because I love them now too. I can recognize in my memory his joy when I would try to describe a "musical excitement" that I was feeling. And that, I am finding, is why (my) parents cry at concerts. It's not that the performances are exceptionally good, although some are, and that makes me cry too. It's the love and enthusiasm and fulfillment you share with your child. Some parents cry at sporting events, some at dance recitals or gymnastics meets or martial arts competitions. In my experience it was music.
Wednesday, May 18, 2016
lessons from disney movies
i was at the right age when disney movies started getting good again. i was 8 years old when i saw the little mermaid in theaters. or maybe 7. either way, it made a big impact on me. our family would go every summer to see the new disney movie for years, and my child mind learned a few lessons from these movies. since then, i've read a lot of negative things about disney movies, about what they teach to young children and it makes me a little sad. i learned some positive things from disney movies.
1. things are always better if you talk to your parents. i learned this from "the little mermaid." when ariel relies on herself or her friends, she ends up naked on a beach with no voice (and apparently no way to write?). when someone finally has the brilliant idea to have the sea king come help make things right and everything is out in the open, she emerges gloriously from the shallows in a sparkly dress. way better.
from "beauty and the beast" i learned a couple things:
2. sometimes good-looking guys are big jerks. i mean this is obvious. who was the real beast? gaston should have been locked up somewhere for what he did to belle and her father.
3. cool girls read a lot. the only person in the town who understood or appreciated belle besides her father was the bookseller. everyone else didn't think it was important or useful to read, apparently.
4. true love means someone else's life is more important to you than your own. there was a real relationship in "beauty and the beast." the beast became more selfless as his love for belle grew, and that's why it worked.
5. you'd save yourself a lot of trouble by keeping your promises. think about it. if aladdin had freed the genie when it was time to make his third wish, jafar wouldn't have been able to mess everything up.
6. when you have something important to say, just come out with it. he could have told jasmine on their flying carpet date that yes, he was the boy from the market and he was pretending to be a prince and he had a magic lamp and a genie. tension at least shared. she took it pretty well after he saved her from the hourglass at the end, and the fact that he used a wish from a genie in a magic lamp to come impress her is pretty cute. i want to see that movie, where jasmine is in on it.
7. you can't hide from who you are and your responsibilities forever. "lion king" has a lot of parallels to our journey here on the earth. we make mistakes and run away from them, do something distracting to make ourselves feel better, but eventually it catches up to us. and the only choice is to go back and make it right. and hey, it might solve the drought problem. :) one of our mantras when i was a kid was "remember who you are." my dad used to say that to us as we left the house, long before "lion king" came out. "lion king" may be one of the few items of popular culture where the protagonist comes around to the idea that it's better to follow the rules and find your place in the system rather than abandon it altogether. and maybe it would have come out that scar was behind it all if simba had run to his mother and told her everything that happened instead of running away to the desert. she would have figured it out and possibly banished him (scar). not that he wouldn't have schemed again and again, but still. it's amazing to me how they got satan's techniques so well: it's your fault, so you're not worthy to go home again, and your mother won't love you anymore. they're obvious lies, unless your own mind is already accusing you.
those were the big ones from my formative years. later on i wasn't so impressionable and the movies were less good--pocahontas, hercules, home on the range? "mulan" i still love, and it's all about being awesome, saving your father's life by risking your own, and finding out that you are able to take down an army by being smart. so that's obvious.
to be fair, here are some lasting subliminal lessons i also learned from disney movies:
1. at 16, i will be very grown-up and possibly marriageable.
2. at 16, i will (or must) have a waist too tiny to fit necessary organs; flowing hair down to my waist; thin, long legs; thin, beautiful arms; and a beautiful voice.
3. at 16, my first date will be magical, and with the man i'm going to marry.
4. my goodness will have the power to change any manner of boy into the kind of man i would marry.
that's a lot of pressure for my 16th birthday! i was a smidge disappointed when i turned 16 and i still had acne and my arms and legs and waist stayed the same (my hair was flowing but not down to my waist), but i still managed to date a little and marry someone who was already the kind of man i wanted to marry. i think i even eschewed most of these erroneous ideas by the time i left high school. my first date was not magical, i can't give up any organs for the sake of a tiny waist, and none of the boys i knew when i was 16 were mormon, so i had no real future plans for any of them. that didn't stop me from choosing unwisely for a boyfriend my freshman year of college, probably still holding onto the idea that my goodness would somehow cause the guy to change from immature to mature and from life-sucking to life-affirming, but luckily i was too boring or something anyway. :) but at least i had a baseline, and the difference was obvious when i met my husband.
in conclusion, i still love disney movies. i love the magic and the beauty and the fun. i love getting caught up in the fantasy for a while, and now i even keep my feet firmly planted on the ground when i do (i kind of don't think men ever get all swoony over women. but it's fun to imagine!). i think we have to be aware of the subconscious messages we get from all of the things we take into our brains, but there are lessons to be learned. stories can spawn great discussions about life and how things really work vs. how they play out in the story or how the protagonist perceives reality (my mother is really good at finding good lessons from questionable media. "wouldn't her life have been better if she'd had the gospel? she wouldn't have gone to that party in the first place!" we like to rewrite stories so the protagonist already has the morals he or she gains by making bad decisions in the first 20 minutes of a film. they usually last about 5 minutes in our versions. bo-ring!). sometimes characters in media actually start spouting truth, like family is really important, and there is true love in places other than romantic relationships, and "soul mates" really come down to choice and hard work, and i love it.
1. things are always better if you talk to your parents. i learned this from "the little mermaid." when ariel relies on herself or her friends, she ends up naked on a beach with no voice (and apparently no way to write?). when someone finally has the brilliant idea to have the sea king come help make things right and everything is out in the open, she emerges gloriously from the shallows in a sparkly dress. way better.
from "beauty and the beast" i learned a couple things:
2. sometimes good-looking guys are big jerks. i mean this is obvious. who was the real beast? gaston should have been locked up somewhere for what he did to belle and her father.
3. cool girls read a lot. the only person in the town who understood or appreciated belle besides her father was the bookseller. everyone else didn't think it was important or useful to read, apparently.
4. true love means someone else's life is more important to you than your own. there was a real relationship in "beauty and the beast." the beast became more selfless as his love for belle grew, and that's why it worked.
5. you'd save yourself a lot of trouble by keeping your promises. think about it. if aladdin had freed the genie when it was time to make his third wish, jafar wouldn't have been able to mess everything up.
6. when you have something important to say, just come out with it. he could have told jasmine on their flying carpet date that yes, he was the boy from the market and he was pretending to be a prince and he had a magic lamp and a genie. tension at least shared. she took it pretty well after he saved her from the hourglass at the end, and the fact that he used a wish from a genie in a magic lamp to come impress her is pretty cute. i want to see that movie, where jasmine is in on it.
7. you can't hide from who you are and your responsibilities forever. "lion king" has a lot of parallels to our journey here on the earth. we make mistakes and run away from them, do something distracting to make ourselves feel better, but eventually it catches up to us. and the only choice is to go back and make it right. and hey, it might solve the drought problem. :) one of our mantras when i was a kid was "remember who you are." my dad used to say that to us as we left the house, long before "lion king" came out. "lion king" may be one of the few items of popular culture where the protagonist comes around to the idea that it's better to follow the rules and find your place in the system rather than abandon it altogether. and maybe it would have come out that scar was behind it all if simba had run to his mother and told her everything that happened instead of running away to the desert. she would have figured it out and possibly banished him (scar). not that he wouldn't have schemed again and again, but still. it's amazing to me how they got satan's techniques so well: it's your fault, so you're not worthy to go home again, and your mother won't love you anymore. they're obvious lies, unless your own mind is already accusing you.
those were the big ones from my formative years. later on i wasn't so impressionable and the movies were less good--pocahontas, hercules, home on the range? "mulan" i still love, and it's all about being awesome, saving your father's life by risking your own, and finding out that you are able to take down an army by being smart. so that's obvious.
to be fair, here are some lasting subliminal lessons i also learned from disney movies:
1. at 16, i will be very grown-up and possibly marriageable.
2. at 16, i will (or must) have a waist too tiny to fit necessary organs; flowing hair down to my waist; thin, long legs; thin, beautiful arms; and a beautiful voice.
3. at 16, my first date will be magical, and with the man i'm going to marry.
4. my goodness will have the power to change any manner of boy into the kind of man i would marry.
that's a lot of pressure for my 16th birthday! i was a smidge disappointed when i turned 16 and i still had acne and my arms and legs and waist stayed the same (my hair was flowing but not down to my waist), but i still managed to date a little and marry someone who was already the kind of man i wanted to marry. i think i even eschewed most of these erroneous ideas by the time i left high school. my first date was not magical, i can't give up any organs for the sake of a tiny waist, and none of the boys i knew when i was 16 were mormon, so i had no real future plans for any of them. that didn't stop me from choosing unwisely for a boyfriend my freshman year of college, probably still holding onto the idea that my goodness would somehow cause the guy to change from immature to mature and from life-sucking to life-affirming, but luckily i was too boring or something anyway. :) but at least i had a baseline, and the difference was obvious when i met my husband.
in conclusion, i still love disney movies. i love the magic and the beauty and the fun. i love getting caught up in the fantasy for a while, and now i even keep my feet firmly planted on the ground when i do (i kind of don't think men ever get all swoony over women. but it's fun to imagine!). i think we have to be aware of the subconscious messages we get from all of the things we take into our brains, but there are lessons to be learned. stories can spawn great discussions about life and how things really work vs. how they play out in the story or how the protagonist perceives reality (my mother is really good at finding good lessons from questionable media. "wouldn't her life have been better if she'd had the gospel? she wouldn't have gone to that party in the first place!" we like to rewrite stories so the protagonist already has the morals he or she gains by making bad decisions in the first 20 minutes of a film. they usually last about 5 minutes in our versions. bo-ring!). sometimes characters in media actually start spouting truth, like family is really important, and there is true love in places other than romantic relationships, and "soul mates" really come down to choice and hard work, and i love it.
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