This Friday, I’m heading to New York City to visit two friends I grew up with. After four days in the city, I’m going to visit my grandma for two days in Cape Cod and then I’m heading to Boston for three days to visit family and friends. It’s going to be a jam-packed vacation!
I haven’t been home in the summer since I moved to Florida three years ago, so I’m looking forward to experiencing the Northeast without having to worry about the snow that usually falls when I visit at Christmastime. And I haven’t been to New York City for five or six years.
My mom, dad and I used to go together every other summer. Mom loved going around Christmastime and seeing the Christmas Spectacular at Radio City Music Hall. And she always had to stop for lunch at Tom’s Restaurant, aka “the Seinfeld restaurant.” When Mom died, Dad kept taking me to NYC to keep the tradition alive. The trips gave us a good excuse to have some quality father-daughter time and share memories of Mom. No doubt, I’ll think of her while I’m there.
Since I haven’t been there in a while, I asked my Facebook friends for recommendations of places to go. I like putting together lists of places to visit, as I did upon returning from my three-month stay in Dallas a couple of summers ago. Here are some of the places my friends recommended:
Bookstores
The Strand (love books, so definitely going here!)
I’ll always remember the day Dad taught me how to ride “a big girl’s bike.” He tried to prepare me after he took the training wheels off my fluorescent pink Huffy bicycle, which I had decorated with stickers and streamers.
“You might lose your balance, Mallary. You have to ride slowly. But you can do it.”
On two wheels, I biked around the driveway for a few minutes, wobbling and trying not to fall.
“There you go, you got it.”
Then I headed out of the driveway and biked up the small incline at the end of my street. Dad power-walked alongside me, telling me to stop at the top.
“We just took your training wheels off, Mal. You can’t go down that hill,” he said, sounding doubtful. That probably wasn’t the best thing for him to say. When someone tells me I can’t do something, I want to prove to them that I can.
Determined, I took off down the Arch Street hill, concentrating hard and hoping I wouldn’t fall. “Mallary!” my dad yelled, running after me, a hint of frustration in his voice. At the end of the hill I put my feet down, my sneakers sliding across the pavement, and stopped. Dad’s nervousness turned into disbelief. “You did it!” he said.
I was reminded of this memory last year while zip-lining in Costa Rica. I’m afraid of heights, so the thought of being attached to a cable and flying above a canopy of trees scared me. But my friends encouraged me, so I decided to be brave and do it. I ended up loving the experience and was grateful I didn’t stay behind and watch my friends have fun without me.
I used to do this whenever friends and family went on roller coasters. A couple of weeks ago, though, I decided I didn’t want to wait behind any longer. While visiting my cousins in Magic Kingdom I went on my first roller coaster — Space Mountain. It’s not the biggest roller coaster in the world, but it’s a coaster nonetheless! I screamed during most of the ride and held on so tightly my arms were sore the next day. Now I want to go on another one.
Parasailing over Clearwater Beach.
Last weekend I faced another fear: parasailing. As expected, I was tempted to back out once I got on the boat and saw how high up I would be, but I reassured myself I could do it. I held on tightly and closed my eyes until we were almost all the way up, trying not to remind myself of the parasailing accidents I’ve heard about throughout the years.
When we were nearly 800 feet above the water, I opened my eyes to see birds flying below and miles of open water. I was struck by how quiet and peaceful it was up there, and by how small I felt. I didn’t want it to end.
Zip-lining, parasailing and going on a roller coaster are my modern day equivalents of taking off the training wheels. In facing some of my fears, I realized I had nothing to be afraid of but a lot to gain — namely, confidence in myself and a little adventure in life. This isn’t to say I’m going to start skydiving and bungee jumping anytime soon, but it’s a reminder that sometimes our greatest fears can turn into some of our most enjoyable experiences. Sometimes, even when we’re afraid of falling, we just have to hold on tight and hope we’ll be alright.
As much as I’d like to think I’m someone who cooks regularly, I’m not. I want to get better at cooking, though, and take the time to make myself healthy meals. After a long day at work I usually just throw together a salad, heat up a veggie burger or make an open-faced rice cake sandwich with tomatoes, hummus and cottage cheese. (Don’t laugh — it’s actually better than it sounds!)
I figure that if I set a reasonable goal of cooking one meal for myself each week, then maybe I can ease myself into a more regular cooking schedule and start to feel more comfortable around food. Sometimes the best way to accomplish a goal like this is to let others know about it and ask for their ideas and encouragement.
So, I’ve put together a list of recipes from Smitten Kitchen (my favorite cooking blog) and Martha Rose Shulman’s “Recipes for Health” series on nytimes.com. Each week for the next month I’ll cook at least one of these meals and write a related blog post. I’ll include pictures of the final product and let you know what the experience was like and how the meal turned out. It’s always easier to cook when you have people to cook for, so maybe I’ll invite some friends to eat with me and sample the meals I make.
If there are other relatively easy-to-make vegetarian meals that you think I should add to the list, let me know!
Me having fun at a recent cupcake-making party I hosted.
Last month, my best friend from home got me a cupcake-making book for my birthday, along with some matching cupcake napkins. I had seen the book, “Hello Cupcake!” several times before but had never bought it. I wondered if I’d ever have an occasion to make such elaborate cupcakes and figured I’d just get some recipes online. But having the actual book and sharing it with others is so much better.
This is what happens when you invite friends to your apartment to make cupcakes. 🙂
I posted a Facebook update about the book, saying I was tempted to have a cupcake-making party. Mention “cupcake” on Facebook and you’ll get lots of responses. Mention it in real life and you’ll see a lot of wide-eyed eyes and ooing and ahhing. Based on the positive responses I got, I decided to host a cupcake-making party in place of the usual get-togethers that I have every month with the craft club I’m in.
An adorable owl, made with Oreo cookies.
I bought a variety of toppings — Reese’s pieces, butterscotch morsels, vanilla morsels, M&Ms and more. And I bought ingredients for “sunflower cupcakes” — the seemingly simplest cupcakes to make from the book. (Many are elaborate and require a visit to a baking store.)
Sunflower cupcakes
I baked the cupcakes the night before so that when friends from the craft club came, they could just focus on decorating them. We made the sunflower cupcakes with yellow frosting, Oreos and a red M&M with chocolate frosting for the ladybug on top. We also made owl cupcakes, lion cupcakes and caterpillar cupcakes. Naturally, they were all delicious.
While looking through old photos recently, I came across one of my dad reading to me when I was a baby. He and my mom always read to me because they knew it helped me fall asleep faster and also because they wanted me to be well-read. When I was a baby, I used to try to reach for the newspaper whenever Mom and Dad read it. So sometimes they put the paper in my crib and I’d “read” it (aka sit on it and get covered in ink.) I’m not sure what they were thinking in doing this, but I often joke that this is why I became a journalist.
When I was 3 or 4, I used to memorize the stories that my parents and grandma read to me and then I’d “read” them out loud. I remember my grandma saying one time, “You can’t read, Mallary!” I responded, “Oh yes I can!”
Of everyone in my family, Dad read to me the most. This picture I posted above reminds me of what a great father he is and of how lucky I am to have him. It also reminds me of a great story I read in The New York Times a couple of months ago about a father who read to his daughter throughout her childhood and into her college years. The night I came across it, I read it out loud to my dad on the phone. Even though he lives in Massachusetts and I live in Florida, we still find ways to share father-daughter moments like this. I appreciate every one I can get.
Me and mom in Disney World in 1988. I was 3 years old at the time.
Not long ago, I rediscovered a tape of me and my mom singing together. We had made up the song together the night before Mother’s Day when I was about 7 or 8, and I recorded it on my Fisher Price tape player. Now at age 25 I treasure the song. It’s the only recording I have of my mom, who passed away from breast cancer when I was 11.
Rather than just letting the tape sit in my dresser drawer, I re-recorded the audio, made an MP3 version of it in iTunes and uploaded it to my blog using Podomatic. The song will no doubt make you laugh, and some of the lyrics won’t make any sense at all. But that’s what makes it so fun to listen to.
You can play the song below and read a related essay I wrote to help put the lyrics in context. I’ve included the song lyrics at the end of this post. As always, I welcome your feedback.
I hated going to bed as a little girl. Dad worked days and Mom worked nights, so she wasn’t usually there to kiss me goodnight. That changed when she was diagnosed with breast cancer. She became too sick to go to work, so we started to spend as much time as we could together in the evenings. Going to bed got even harder.
Though Mom called me her “little girl,” I wanted to be a big girl. I’d curl up on the couch with her and we’d watch all the “grown-up shows” that made me the envy of my 8-year-old friends — “90210,” “Married with Children,” “In Living Color,” and yes, even “Melrose Place.”
Dad would pay bills or read his car magazines for a while and then get up to make us a snack. Jiffy Pop popcorn. Frozen green grapes. Mocha almond chip ice cream with chocolate sprinkles.
“Mallary, it’s time to go to bed,” Mom would say after we had finished eating.
Here I am pretending to be asleep on the living room couch.
I found multiple excuses to stay by her side.
“But Mom, I’m not tired.”
“But Mom, just 5 more minutes.”
“But Mommy, I don’t want to say goodnight.”
Really, I didn’t want to say goodbye.
Everyone tried to protect me and tell me Mom would be OK. But I still worried that one day I’d wake up and she’d be gone. So I tried to stay awake to savor every moment I could.
The day Mom died, all I wanted to do was go to bed. The hospice workers and family friends were gone by 7:30 p.m., leaving me and Dad in a house that no longer seemed like home. He turned on the TV just in time for the start of “America’s Funniest Home Videos.” Canned laughter ensued. As an 11-year-old, I wondered how people could be happy when it seemed the whole world should be sad.
Skipping snack time, I went to bed feeling empty. I pulled the covers over my head and stared into the darkness, hoping I’d wake up to find that what had happened that night was nothing but a bad dream. In denial, I pretended things were fine and told myself not to cry.
“Erase it from my mind, erase it from my mind,” I whispered, scratching my head and repeating a refrain that I often said when something bad happened. I didn’t know that, years later, everything I had temporarily erased would leave such a lasting mark.
Me and Dad.
“Do you want to talk, Mal?” Dad asked.
“No. I just want to be alone.”
Dad turned off the light. I peered out from under the covers, hoping he’d still be there. He kissed me on the forehead and stayed by my bed in silence.
When you’re 11 and your mom dies, you fear you’ll forget her. So you hold onto everything that is hers and look for ways to keep her memory alive. You write stories about her. You ask family members for details about her life. You dig up old home videos and tapes that help you make better sense of the woman she was — and the woman you may or may not want to become.
Recently, I stumbled across a tape of me singing with my mom. The night before Mother’s Day when I was 7 or 8 years old, I had asked Mom if we could have a singalong — partly because I wanted an excuse to stay up with her, but also because I wanted to play with my new, oh-so-cool Fisher Price tape recorder. It was the kind of toy that could make any little girl think she were good enough for Broadway.
I don’t remember what I told Mom, but it was probably something to the effect of, “So we’re going to make up a song together, OK? And I’m going to sing and then give you the mic and then you’re going to sing and we’ll take turns!” It’s hardly a surprise that I sang about not wanting to go to bed.
“Ohhhh I don’t want to go to bed! But it’s a school night you can see … I’ll see you on Mother’s Day, today is a very nice day and today I think I’ll be a movie star, wait and see.”
Listening to the song now, 17 years later, makes me think of Mom and smile.
Fisher Price tape recorder. Classic.
So many of the memories I have of her are from when she was sick. I can hear the mean kids at school say, “Look! Mallary’s mom has no hair!” I can hear Mom calling for Dad’s help when she was too weak to get off the couch on her own. I can hear her crying the night she found out that the cancer had spread to her brain.
It’s harder for me to remember what Mom sounded like when she’d dance with a broom and sing her favorite songs while cleaning the house, or when she’d come to the front door and yell, “Mallaryyyyy. Come inside, hunny. Dinner’s ready!”
The tape helps me remember. It lets me replace the deafening silence of her death with the comforting sound of her voice: “Goodnight sweet Mallary, go to bed. I love you very much.”
I still wish Mom were here to tell me to go to bed. Every night I tell myself I need to go to bed early, but I hardly ever heed my own advice. My dad and I talk about our night-owl tendencies from time to time, admitting that we wish we could go back to a time when “staying up late” meant going to bed at 8:30 p.m. Sometimes, we say, we wish Mom were here to tell us goodnight. And yet we’ve learned that sometimes, you have to settle for good enough.
Mom used to read to me to help me fall asleep.
So I listen to the tape to hear Mom’s voice and to remind myself that she would want me to take better care of myself by getting more rest. She’d want me to keep developing my voice, too — as a writer, as a young woman and as someone who unabashedly sings while in her apartment and her car. This past weekend as I was driving over the Howard Frankland bridge to Tampa, I flipped through the radio stations and stopped on “Love Shack” — one of Mom’s favorites. I belted it out and thought of me and her singing our favorite part together.
“Bang, bang, bang on the door, baby. You’re what? Tin roof … rusted!”
The next song I heard was Sarah McLachlan’s “I Will Remember You,” which Mom dedicated to me before she died. I could feel the goosebumps forming. The song, which I hadn’t heard in months, often comes on the radio when I’m thinking about Mom or when I’m having a hard time. She’s always been good at sending me signs. Driving over the water, my hair blowing in the wind, I sang the message she wanted me to take away from the song:
“I will remember you. Will you remember me? Don’t let your life pass you by. Weep not for the memories.”
Sometimes I still weep, and that’s ok. I’ve gotten to the point where I can also laugh — when I think of Mom bobbing her head to “Love Shack” or when I hear her singing our mother-daughter song. These memories remind me that even though my mom’s not here anymore, she’s still very much a part of my life. The older I get, the more I realize I’ll always be mommy’s little girl.
********
Here are the lyrics:
Me and Mom all dolled up. Note the pink puffy sleeves and the silver flats.
Me: You can tell I told you that a million times, but I tried to tell you the right reason why, ‘cuz here’s my mother and she’ll sing tonight. And here she is, we’re watching “In Living Color” Tonight. Here she is …
Mom: Well I’m waiting for Dad to get out of the shower so we can have some coffee together. Then we’ll relax and read the paper and we’ll talk about today’s news. So I’ll say goodnight to Mallary, Mallary, she has to go to bed. I love her so dearly, yes I do indeed, Mallary it’s time to go to bed.
Me: Ohhhh I don’t want to go to bed! But it’s a school night you can see, so all my mothers and dads will not compare to me. Cuz I’ll see you on Mother’s Day, today is a very nice day and today I think I’ll be a movie star, wait and see. And here’s my mom and she’ll sing to you this song. I don’t know what it is but I think it’s a good song. Here’s my mom.
Mom: Goodnight sweet baby, I’ll tell you a story before you go to bed. I love you so dearly I hate to see you away from me. But I’ll sing this song to you. Goodnight sweet Mallary go to bed, I love you very much. See you tomorrow. Have a nice dream.
Me: Then I’ll see you tomorrow and then we’ll have breakfast eggs and an English muffin. Tonight I had two snacks and I had good snacks too. We’re recording this song and it is a long song too. But it’s good, you knew, that that’s true, today is a nice day out, you know. You know, I tried to pull my pants up by my shirt so I could get cooled down. You know, by my shirt. And I had a pink shirt on, I tricked my dad by going in on this song. Well, here’s my mom, you can tell that’s true, here she is you don’t know what she’s gonna do. Oh ma, come on!
Mom: I’ll sing her song again, I’ll have to say goodnight to you. Goodnight and sweet dreams, I’ll end this song. Goodnight to you and God above.
Me: This is the last song and I’ll be singing it. And it is almost time to go to bed. That you can see is why I’m ahead. I hadn’t brushed my teeth yet but I will now. So bye, bye, bye for now.
Throughout the past few weeks I’ve gotten to cover some fun stories — about the new AP Stylebook, emerging trends at news startups, Helen Thomas’ White House briefing room seat and more. I’m happiest at work when I’m interviewing people and writing stories, so it’s been good for me to find time to carve out opportunities to report. Here are some of my most recent stories from the past couple of weeks:
When I got an e-mail from Urban Outfitters yesterday, I didn’t bother to open it. I was still turned off by an Urban Outfitters shirt that my friend brought to my attention earlier this week. The shirt says “Eat Less” and is modeled by a skinny girl who looks like she could stand to eat more.
One of my friends said the “Eat Less” shirt is mocking skinny hipsters and isn’t meant to be taken literally. Even if that is the case, the shirt still sends the wrong message. Impressionable young girls already have enough places to go for “thinspiration“; they don’t need a shirt to reinforce what they’re already telling themselves to do every day. Eat less and you’ll be skinnier, prettier and more popular with the guys. Eat less and you’ll feel better about yourself. Eat less and you’ll be the envy of all the girls.
Yes, too many Americans are obese, but that doesn’t mean large retailers should market apparel that oversimplifies the issue or makes people feel even more paranoid about their looks. Some girls who have experienced eating issues and seen the shirt agree. In response to a “Deal Divas” blog post about the shirt, a commentor named Kate wrote:
“When I saw this linked on Tumblr, it really cut me pretty deep. I love Urban Outfitters, and it really disturbed me to see a store I like reinforce my bad habits. I mean, it’s not just offensive to overweight people, but people like me who are on the verge (or deep in the middle) of an eating disorder? I’m having a hard enough time trying to convince myself that yes, it IS okay to eat!”
No doubt, the shirt could be offensive to people of all shapes and sizes. Urban Outfitters has some cute clothes and accessories, and I occasionally buy merchandise from there. But for now I’m turned off by the store and the message it’s sending. It’s safe to say I don’t plan to buy the store’s clothes, or heed its unsolicited nutritional advice, anytime soon.
It’s a little surreal to think that, as of today, I’ve been living in Florida for three years. I came to Florida with the intention of staying here one year as part of my fellowship at The Poynter Institute. Then, life happened.
My fellowship turned into a job that I love. When I think about where I am in life right now, at age 25, I realize that I’m in a good place. I’m getting to write a lot at work, and I feel as though I’m still being challenged to grow not just as a journalist but as a person. I’ve gotten better at forming and articulating my opinions, speaking up in meetings and disagreeing appropriately. There’s still a lot more I want to do and more that I want to learn, but all in due time.
My social life in Florida is going pretty well, too. I’ve made some great friends here in Florida, most of whom are journalists. We’re between the ages of 21 and 40, and yet despite the wide age range, we share many of the same interests and passions. As far as my living situation is concerned, I have an apartment that is just my style and that feels like home.
I’m happy, but I still have days when I freak out about the future. I want to live in a big city. I want to meet a guy. I want to get married. I want kids. I need to go to grad school. I need to figure out my next steps. I want, I need, I want, I need …
Slowwww down. I had to remind myself to do this last weekend when I turned 25 and started thinking about all that I still want to do in life. I’ve always thought 25 seemed old, even though I know it’s not. Up until I was in my mid-teens, I pictured myself being married with two or three kids, owning a house in the suburbs of Boston or New York City and working as a “famous journalist” by age 25. But alas, life doesn’t always work out as planned, or as society suggests it should. Sure, I can now rent a car, but I can’t say I’m in my “early 20s” anymore. I have to say I’m in my “mid-20s” — a change that’s not all that significant but that still makes me feel older.
I’ve been thinking more lately about why the idea of getting older can seem so unsettling. There’s the practical issue of not wanting your health to falter, but it’s often more complicated than that. Growing up has always scared me. After my mom died when I was 11, I tried to stay a kid for as long as I could. I braided my hair in pigtails, I wore kids’ clothes into my teenage years and I tried to stay the same weight I was when my mom passed away.
By trying to halt my growth, I was hiding from the reality that my mom had died. I was afraid that as time passed, I would forget more and more about my mom. I figured people would stop caring for me as I got older because they’d figure I was old enough to take care of myself. But 13 years have passed and I haven’t forgotten Mom. I still have vivid memories of her, and I still have people who care for me, even though I live 1,400 miles away from my family.
I don’t think we ever lose the desire to be loved and cared for, no matter how old we are. When we don’t find that sense of comfort we’re longing for, we look for other ways to fill the void and gain control. We fall for artificial substitutes like food or material goods, or we try to stop time. The reality that you can’t control the future — or other people’s role in it — makes aging scarier. And yet, that inability to control what lies ahead presents us with the opportunity to see the beauty in serendipity and in letting go.
I’m learning to slow down and not worry about the uncertainty of the future. I can criticize myself for not having it all “figured out” at age 25, or I can recognize what I’ve accomplished and what I’m lucky enough to have — a job, friends, and a place I can call home here in Florida. I may be a quarter of a century old, but that means I still have another three-quarters of my life to live. And for that, I’m grateful.
Here I am, dancing with friends in my living room during the 25th birthday party I threw for myself.
I’m going to write a longer post this week about the experience of turning 25, but for now I’m just posting this picture from my 25th birthday celebration. I got the greatest gift I could have asked for that night: genuine fun with friends. That’s reason enough to want to dance!
Word on the Street 