Extreme Makeovers: Cheaper than marriage counseling?

Someone once told me that if a couple could survive painting together, their marriage would survive anything.

True, that.

We’ve just spent most of our kids’ college savings on an Extreme Bedroom Makeover: Walker Edition. (Ha, ha, kids! Just kidding! Of course we didn’t, really. We don’t even have a college savings for you. Keep those grades up, smarties!)

We’ve spent the better part of three weeks re-arranging, re-assigning and re-decorating rooms for the kids. Now, the boy has a room of his own and the girls are shacked-up together. They look great. I’m talking Pinterest-worthy, people.

An interesting dynamic unfolds when people start decorating together, which is really just a microcosm of real life. In our case, one of us (okay, me) likes to think and ruminate on how things should be. The other (guess who?) hears me say out loud that I might like the idea of stripes, and has the entire room taped off and ready to paint before I can return from the other room with my color swatches.

You have to be careful what you say out loud around a man of action.

“Hold on a minute!” I said, when I happened upon my beloved, poised and ready to stripe the girls’ room in a Parisian Pink. “Dude, Parisian Pink was yesterday. I’m leaning toward Perfectly Pink now.”

He looked at me sadly, brush in hand, as though I was supposed to rush a decision like this. Hello?! These things take time. When I told him I may not even want to do stripes anymore, he seemed to have a small aneurysm.

I get him. He’s a do-er. Maddening as it is for a big-picture gal like me, his detail gets the job done. This is part of the delicate balance that we’ve learned to achieve.

And he gets me, too. I need to ruminate. I’m not just pondering where to put the new bookcase. I’m grieving the stack of board books that will no longer be on the shelf. I’m not just practicing serious Feng Shui with that gimormous van load of donations for Goodwill, I’m weepy that the little size 3T Osh Kosh Halloween sweatshirt, photographed on little Walkers at pumpkin patches all over middle Tennessee, has been relegated to the “give away” pile. It takes me a minute, y’all.

There is also a tricky equilibrium in how to decorate. What I mean by “tricky equilibrium” is I have to reign in my sarcasm—a lot—when other people like to have opinions about my decorating ideas. More than once, I’ve had to take a deep breath and remember it’s not ALL about me. Mostly is it, though. I’m the one pouring over Pinterest and practically getting slapped with a restraining order from Nate Berkus. No one else knows the delicate placement options of a chevron stripe. Well, do they?

I’m barely used to the idea that my husband has an opinion about home decor, but now the children are depositing their two cents. I get it: they live here, too. But do they have to have their own thoughts, ideas and preferences?

Oh, wait. Of course they do. That’s how we’re raising them: to be “independent thinkers” and “individuals” and “self-possessed people.” Damned good parenting. Now look what we’ve done! We’ve gone and taught them to think for themselves!

Now that we’re in the home stretch, everyone is very pleased with the results of their new rooms. My current challenge is letting them actually USE their rooms. I mean the new digs are so organized and pristine. Yesterday I almost cried to find a pair of dirty socks on a brand new hot pink rug. A pair of ill-placed Converse All-Stars gave me dry heaves.

Thinking ahead, I went to share a new idea with my man of action to find him putting the finishing touches on the final room. “I’ve been thinking,” I announced, which always yields a look of sheer terror on his handsome face. “Would this be a bad time to tell you how I think we could re-model the den to include another room?”

“Yes, it would.”

“Okay,” I said, content with keeping it to myself for a while, or at least until the paint dries.

That’s the beauty of ruminating. The idea will still be there when it’s time to do anything with it. And, thankfully, so will my man of action.

9/11 and coffee cake

On September 11, 2001, as the center of the universe lost its pulse for a minute, I baked an orange coffee cake.
   I was getting ready to go to Hana's house for our weekly lesson. Hana, my friend and student, was a young Muslim mother from Iraq and a refugee to the United States; I was her ESL teacher.
   Baking a cake was all I could think of to do. Frankly, it was the only thing I had all the ingredients to bake. (How do I offer some comfort, I wondered? Is there protocol for the world falling apart?) I pilfered around for orange peel. I pulled the cake from the oven--maybe a moment too soon. Oven off and towers down, I rushed to Hanna's. I never did find orange peel.
  We spent the remainder of the morning watching the news, side by side, on her couch. I want to remember us huddled together, holding on to one another--Christian and Muslim, American and Middle Easterner, mothers, sisters, daughters--but I think we probably just sat sort-of close to each other. Our young daughters were playing with toys. We shared a slice of coffee cake and Hana offered something to drink. We shared a lot more than that, too. She was afraid for her family in Iraq, who like so many, had suffered under Saddam Hussein. I wondered silently what it was like for her husband at work that day. I was struck by her gratitude to be in the U.S., despite the distance it put between she and her family left in Iraq. We mourned the losses unfolding in front of us.
   In the coming years I would remember Hanna and that morning spent on her sofa. When people talk about what they were doing when the towers fell, I remember, too. I think about how significant it is to me that, on a day that served to create division and ineffable pain, community happened--on the edge of a sofa, over a slice of orange coffee cake, while our very futures played together on the floor.

Adventures in Babysitting, circa 2012

The Walkers are on a quest for a new babysitter. Our beloved Rachael is off to college.

Rachael has been our official go-to girl for a few years now. For her 16^th birthday, my husband printed off and gave her Map Quest directions to our house. My oldest child gets some of her cute hand-me-downs. My youngest child thinks she’s as pretty as Barbie (in fact, she’s much prettier and far more real). The rest of us just think she’s cool. The thing about Rachael is that she’s just enough of a kid that my kids don’t realize their being supervised; but she’s just grown up enough to get all of my pop culture references.

We’re all a little sad to let her go.

Who will let the kids play games on her phone and watch too much Disney channel? Who will build forts in the den floor that the kids insist on leaving there for days? Who will let them wash her car with lots of soapy water, then let them slide off the hood into the grass? Oh, wait…NO ONE will do that. We have to draw the line somewhere. Epic night for the kids, though. It’s still talked about neighborhood-wide.

And how, oh, how will we manage date night without her?!

But I’m not one to procrastinate. Just kidding! Of course I am! I’ll avoid finding a new sitter as long as I can, possibly even texting Rachael’s college advisor with an emergency request for her to return home to help avoid a close call with WMD (Walkers Missing Date night).

And while I would love to keep Rachael around to maintain Most Favored Babysitter status, I know what waits for her.

I know she is about to embark of the time of her life. I know she is about to meet lifelong friends and have priceless experiences. I know she’s about to step out into that magical space between childhood and adulthood that will shape who she becomes. I know she’s about to challenge every belief her family holds dear and examine what she’ll keep and what she’ll let go.

I know she’ll head east in a few days, her trunk loaded down with all the stuff she thinks she will need, which I imagine to include some camouflage bibbed overalls, some rocking heels, a flat iron and a volleyball.

I know she’ll do great, and I want her to. I want her to shine her sweet, funny, smart light all over east Tennessee.

Incidentally, I had a brief conversation this morning with a potential new sitter. (Let’s not call her a “replacement.” As if.) This person is someone who already works with children, is capable and comes well-recommended.

So when I let her know of our next planned night out, she let me know she would think about it and get back to me.

What’s that, now? THINK about it?! Don’t you know who you’re dealing with here, sister? Not just anyone gets to watch the Walker kids. They’ve come to expect a certain quality in a sitter.

Sure, this new change will be all right. On paper, she fits the bill just fine. She’ll take care of our kids with expertise and vigilance.

But will she let them soap up her Honda?

Alfred Hitchcock said, “A good film is when the price of the dinner, the theatre admission and the babysitter were worth it.”

With Rachael, they always were.

To Do: Stop Obsessing On "To Do" List

Oh, those lazy, hazy crazy days of summer! They’re over, people.

School starts today, and that means one thing: my “To Do” List is, again, over the top.

Fueled by good intentions and crippling perfectionism, I, like most mothers, have an epic “To Do” list that Franklin Covey couldn’t tame.  It’s at its worst on the first day of school. While we want to use it as a guide—to bring order to that important first day—sometimes we expect too much from ourselves. Nothing gets a mother’s perfectionism stirred up like the first day of school. We all want to make the day go smoothly for our kids and start them off just right, but face it, we’re human.

That, my friends, is why I have constructed TWO “To Do” lists for your perusal. Perhaps we can manage to find ourselves somewhere in the middle.

First day of school “To Do” list (how we want it to be):

1.      Wake up at 5:00; Preheat griddle for homemade spelt pancakes; tap maple tree for syrup; go for a run before waking kids and hubby.

2.      Wake kids at 6:00 by singing original Good Morning Song composed during previous run; smile and kiss each sleepy head.

3.      Shower and change while kids are getting dressed and hubby is flipping pancakes; be amused that he’s wearing an apron; snap random candid pictures.

4.      Review last minute supply list for each child, being sure to include hand-written note in every organic, super-healthy lunch.

5.      Gather kids on front steps for official “first day of school” picture; remember to mail it to Pottery Barn Kids for cover photo contest.

6.      With 15 minutes to spare, gather everyone in the Odyssey and head to school; hand deliver homemade “first day teacher gifts” to each classroom.

7.      Blow kisses and marvel at those precious people you made.

And for the rest of us:

1.      Wake up at 5:45, hit snooze; wake in a panic at 7:25; run to fridge; curse like a sailor when it’s empty.

2.      Wake kids by screaming that school starts in 20 minutes. Hand them breakfast: half a bag of donuts and a 2-liter of Sprite.

3.      Pull on running shorts, bathing suit top and cowboy boots; tell hubby to pull the pillow off his head and find youngest child’s other shoe; curse again when the shoe is the only thing in the fridge; take batteries from TV remote and add to camera.

4.      Scrounge for school supplies; hand everyone seven sheets of wrinkled, college-ruled paper and a highlighter; pass out lunches: tuna on saltines and a baggie full of potato chip crumbs.

5.      Gather kids on front steps for official “first day of school” picture; insist that they smile, damn it, it’s the first day of school!

6.      With no time to spare, gather everyone in the Odyssey and head to school, screeching on two wheels into the parking lot, just as the Pledge of Allegiance begins; walk kids to class while reciting the Serenity Prayer.

     7.      Blow kisses and marvel at those precious people you made. (Because some things are the same, no matter what kind of "To Do" list you have.)

Have a great first day, friends. May your lists be checked in all the right places.

Why I'm NOT reading 50 Shades

 

This summer, you can’t throw a rock without hitting some sister pouring over a clandestine copy of the Fifty Shades of Gray trilogy. I get it. It’s all the rage. Christian Gray and what’s-her-name are all anybody talks about anymore. Poor Tom and Katie must feel so bad; barely anyone is even paying any attention at all to the demise of their marriage and Brad and Angie haven’t been mentioned for weeks. Even poor Bella and Edward, the tamer-but-just-as disturbing teenage version of Shades main characters, are being put on a shelf. It’s all about the Shades.

But I’m not reading it. Now, I anticipate a giant, collective, breathy gasp when I say that (or maybe that winded panting is from a whole slew of people having just read through chapter five and are just beside themselves about the latest pulsating curiosity of the protagonist's nether-regions.)

If you are the singular human left on the planet who hasn’t heard of Fifty Shades, here is, from what I’ve gathered, a basic run-down:  22-year-old virgin and college graduate Ana meets mid-twentyish billionaire Christian and is, at first, really turned on by his brooding gray eyes, unfriendly stand-offishness and complete lack of emotional availability. Later, despite her constant questioning that something isn’t right, notably her fear of being punished (and I do mean actually beaten) by Christian Gray she continues to sacrifice her good sense and judgment, her intuition, her own preferences and wants, and her will in order to achieve orgasm with a man who refuses to let her touch him and insists on “fucking hard” instead of “making love.” I know. Charming, huh? Well, we have to give him that one. I mean being tied up and flogged by a riding crop doesn’t necessarily conjure tender images of sweet love-making, does it?

Or does it? Maybe for you, it does. And if so, you go girl, I guess. But I don’t get it. I just can’t really understand that the sight of a huge “playroom” stocked with paraphernalia to facilitate rough sex wouldn’t send any self-possessed woman packing. Readers, such a room existed in fictional millionaire Martin Vanger’s basement in The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo and we hated him for it. Why is everyone in love with Christian Gray?

I know, I know. People keep reassuring me that it’s a love story. Fine, whatever. Ana saves Christian from the darkness of his past and, hopefully, goes on to be a soccer mom to his sexually-repressed little billionaire spawns who will no doubt be well-behaved, ’cause, "Damn! Have you seen that thing Dad beats Mom with?!" Six years from now, we will peek into the life of Ana Steele-Gray to find her musing about what gets her motor revved up, and hear something like this: “My inner goddess has been doing the running man all morning because Christian actually took out the garbage AND threw a load of whites in the dryer! But I better get to the grocery right after work, or it’s the belt for me!”

Now, the real reason I haven’t read the books is that I just cannot stomach the inner dialogue of a 22-year-old virgin and her companion, her “inner goddess.” I picture the marginally attractive Ana Steele with a teeny, tiny, tap-dancing libido deep inside her vagina just clambering to get out every time Christian’s angry, gray eyes look her way. There is enough hype online that I feel like I have the Cliffs Notes. I join the banter for this reason (other than to wallow in sarcasm): to ask the hard questions. Are we really okay with all this domination/submission business? Is this what women want, to be dominated by a controlling sex maniac? To give away their power? And finally, do people still say “Jeez” all that much anymore?

Not reading Fifty Shades has nothing to do with being prudish or frigid or morally opposed to a good steamy scene between two people, or for that matter, mind-blowing sex. As a writer and a lover, I adore a great love scene that sticks with readers, and have conjured some doosies in my own prose and marriage bed. I really, really do not wish to judge anyone who has read the book. Actually, while I was on the fence about reading it myself, I recommended it to my own mother, a decision that will effectively secure my seat at a therapist’s office for a long time. I simply wish to explore the phenomenon that throngs of women are identifying with a weaker-than-Bella Swan-Cullen female character and are practically giddy at the thought of being beaten into submission by the first adorable, brooding billionaire/sex offender that comes along.

It’s not that I didn’t want to read it. I tried. Kind of. Almost everyone I know is reading it. Every single woman I passed on the beach while on vacation was reading it. Based on the restocking needs at my local bookstore, the entire population of the tri-county area and their sneaky kids are reading it. But even if I could (and I can’t) get past a woman doing sexual things that hurt her, things that she isn’t even sure she wants to do, so that she can ensure a man’s pleasure at the expense of her own, the writing wasn’t great. It just wasn’t good writing, and that is an offense of another kind. A book that has sold over 10 million copies should be better written than Fifty Shades is.

Call me old-fashioned (not 16th century-sex-chamber-and-women-as-property-old-fashioned, just regular old-fashioned) but I like my men thoughtful, available, and capable of intimacy. I don’t sign contracts spelling out every detail of my physical care, nor do I spend time “in my head” second-guessing whether or not my actions—from food to friend choices—will anger my lover enough to beat me, the way Ana does repeatedly. That is abuse and should not be confused for a loving, mutual sex act between two adults.

I’ve known a lot of women who have suffered unspeakable abuse at the hands of men who wanted to control them, objectify them, use them, own them. Some of them went along with it for a long time to please their man. Who knew all they needed was a contract and a safe-word to make their complete submission a sexy and desirable thing? (No need for thinking here! No need to have your own needs and wants! Someone wants to spank me with a leather belt and have an orgasm over it, and it makes my “inner goddess” tingle, so I must be attractive and wanted in some way!)

I have friends who have read the book and absolutely love it, and I do not cast aspersions on the conditions of their sex lives, nor do I think everyone that reads it needs sex therapy asap. Reading therapy? Maybe. A literature class? Sure. But their sex lives are their business. Further, I see no problem with spicing things up, either. I just hope they’re reminding themselves that sex is not the greatest sign of love. Sex is a wonderful, fulfilling, beautiful, important thing—but it’s the sex that is the thing, not the girl.

E.L. James, is somewhere lighting up a cigarette every time she gets off (ha!) the phone with her accountant because her story is practically outselling the Bible. (Incidentally, the Bible has some pretty illicit stories, too. Check out that Old Testament. Yowza!) But here she is, in the literary world whether we like it or not.

Now let’s just see if we can get her change the name of her genitalia. Jeez.

Got Milk?

I love it when I get to talk about breastfeeding. It's my thing.

So imagine my delight when I saw the Time magazine cover released yesterday featuring nursing mother Jamie Lynne Grumet breastfeeding her almost-four-year-old son. The cover photo depicted a tank-top clad Grumet standing up and her son--standing in a chair--nursing. The image blew up on Facebook, Twitter and all kinds of parenting websites.

The cover story references Dr. William "Bill" Sears, and his wife Martha, who are widely considered to be the parents of Attachment Parenting. The couple (parents of eight) propelled the Attachment Parenting philosophy to fame about 20 years ago, making it, more or less, a household name and giving new parents different kinds of support and resources than the popular cry-it-out methods being endorsed at the time. Attachment Parenting, practiced by many parents including yours truly, supports a series of practices such as extended nursing, co-sleeping, baby-wearing and a few others. It's not rocket science. In fact, lots of people practice this style of parenting, or some version of it, without knowing it has an official name. (Other cultures--particularly eastern cultures--have done so for centuries and without the endorsement of the Sears library. I'm a big fan of the Sears library; I'm just saying.)

Best I can tell, the stir caused by Grumet's cover photo is a mixed bag. Are people up in arms about the fact that she's nursing a preschooler? Are they miffed by her display of public nursing? Are there judgements about her parenting-style in general? Is there real discussion going on, or just shock about the photo?

Far more brazen than the photo of Grumet, is the title which states, "Are You Mom Enough?" Is Time magazine kidding me? Using the word "enough" with a mother is like a bullet in her chest. We are constantly being told we aren't enough, and are being polarized about whether others are enough, less than or better than we are. Who are you, Time magazine, to judge what makes a mother "enough"? To judge mothers at all? (Further, there are plenty of mothers out there, near and far, who not only worry about being enough, but rather having enough. But that is a topic for another day...we'll get to that. Here, I refer largely to those of us fortunate enough to have access to clean water and health care. Our discussions are also limited to biological children. Two people very close to me are adopted by fabulous mothers for whom nursing was obviously not part of their process.)

I want to be clear about this. I am as passionate about breastfeeding as anything I can think of in the world. Nursing is, by far, one of the greatest acts I have chosen as a mother. It's been an act of service, an act of love and an act of labor. It has been hard work, tender exertion and a bonding, liberating, wonderful experience. I believe I have given my children countless benefits--physical and emotional--that have helped to shape them into the attached, healthy, lovely people they are...and are becoming.

But somehow that isn't translating out there where people are in a tizzy about this cover photo. The comments left by readers and oglers alike are no help at all, though are at once entertaining and outrageous. Is all the anger energy directed where it should be--at establishments like Time Magazine for sensationalizing a topic that, by and large, needs to be discussed more from some organic place of mutual care than polar extremes?

Listen, I spent 12 of the last 13 years lactating. I know about extremes, and Time magazine hasn't been beating down my door for an interview and a photo-op. So what? I nursed each of my kids until they were three and a half, until we had each one's "Goodbye To Milka" party complete with breast-shaped cakes with gum drops for nipples. Yep, we did that--and would do it again should I ever have the privilege of breastfeeding another one.

I nursed in public, too. That issue in particular seems to be one of the hot buttons surrounding breastfeeding, creating a need for nurse-ins all over the place and waging war on Facebook for disallowing nursing photos. Lactivists (breastfeeding advocates), stage nurse-ins at establishments where mothers have been asked not to nurse publicly. The idea that a nursing mother is discouraged from nursing her child wherever she happens to be is, quite simply, absurd. I was once asked by an employee of the Adler Planetarium in Chicago to take my 7-month-old from the theater because I was breastfeeding in the back row. The female employee noted that people might "feel uncomfortable" with me nursing my child, which was code for "I'm uncomfortable with you nursing, and even though at least two other buxom women in this theater are showing way more skin than you are, please leave immediately." I politely informed her that I planned to finish nursing where I was, as was my right according to Illinois legislation regarding such. Later I sent a letter to the board of directors voicing my concern that if Adler Planetarium was really proud of the scholarship they offered female students pursuing careers in science, they might consider a softer approach to this most fundamental issue and that I was pumping my little, future female scientist full of antibodies and wholesome lunch, and surely they could get behind that kind of science. (However, in fairness, I'll tell you that the Chicago Children's Museum offered a world-class nursing area so comfortable I almost checked out of our hotel, just to stay in that pleasant little room for a day or so.)

But I had to seek out great support to facilitate that kind of comfort with nursing. Thank God in heaven for a wonderful nurse named Jo who told me about Attachment Parenting and taught me about nursing. So helpful was Jo, Angel of My Early Nursing Experience, that FOUR MONTHS LATER, I was still popping in for visits to her, because that's how long it took me to finally "get" nursing. Four months. I went to great lengths. I pumped every night, even though my newborn was sleeping for hours at a time. I fed her at the breast, through a nipple shield, through a special bottle called a Haberman Feeder and all combinations in between. At long last, we finally got it with just the breast and it went swimmingly until she was three. The next two came along and nursed right off, though both mostly on my right side, so I'm lopsided evermore. It was worth every minute and it will be a deep grief to think that stage of my life is done.

I have long said, though, that if I could figure out a way to bridge the gap between moms who nurse, moms who don't and moms who combine the two, I would happily make a career of it. I believe it's possible to support, validate and encourage mothers in their experiences. I'm not suggesting it's easy, or tidy, just possible. I've worried a few times while writing this post that I would hurt some of the mothers I care most about by so passionately declaring my support of nursing. Yet, that's my truth, and inviting a real discussion around breastfeeding--sans any judgement of each other--seems a good idea. The stellar moms I associate with (really, I find myself in the company of some truly amazing women), include several who bottle-fed their babies. Some of the best mothers I've ever known (including my own) didn't nurse and I dare Time magazine, or anyone else, to judge the kind of mother they are based on that. I also don't think they judge me, and are glad I'm so passionate about nursing.

Can't that mutual respect be contagious somehow? Women working together could be so much more powerful than women being divisive.

If you can't get on board with that, well, tough titty.

We Are (Still) Nashville

  It's hard to believe that two years ago, we Nashvillians were wading through the flood that left us stunned. The city and her people took an enormous hit, though it barely made a blip in the national news.
  But we saw it. A few days after the flood, I wrote the following article, that was published in a Kentucky magazine. Two years later, I think it's good to remember.

Nashville Keeps Going
By Kristi Stephens Walker

I have always hated those stupid sayings about when the going gets tough. I don’t like the “tough gets going” part. I especially don’t like the “tough goes shopping” part that cutes it up. But after what I have witnessed over the last eight days, I would have to say that when the going gets tough, Nashville gets tougher.

I live in Nashville. Right now, no one goes anywhere without talking about the flood.  No one.  Further, no one wants to. It is on every mind, in every newspaper, on every news channel in Music City.

A little over a week ago, Nashville endured the worst flooding it has ever seen. FEMA estimates over 1.5 billion dollars in damages. At least 10 people died in Nashville, more in surrounding counties. Homes are lost, employees are displaced, historic landmarks are destroyed. Schools have just re-opened, after a week of crisis management. We are being asked to conserve water. 

But the people of the Volunteer State’s capitol city keep going.

Our beautiful symphony center, the Schermerhorn, is awash, along with its glorious grand piano.  The hallowed ground of the Grand Ole Opry, sacred space for so many of country music’s own, is severely damaged. Even Barnes and Noble Booksellers at Opry Mills mall, where I have worked part time as a barista making latte after latte, is laid bare by the flood of 2010, and the employees scattered among other stores in the region. They, like so many others, are grateful to be safe and doing the next right thing.

But the most remarkable thing about this flood, is how Nashvillians have organically begun to rebuild the community. As immediately as families were being evacuated from homes, churches were opening their doors to provide refuge and safety. Community centers and organizations were setting up information and distribution centers where folks can donate clothing, personal care and cleaning items needed by flood victims. Throngs of people are turning out to help neighbors—and even strangers—sort through rubble, provide lunch to other volunteers and generally pitch in.

Tonight, I looked over the Facebook posts of a friend who has suffered tremendous loss to her home. From the time she and her daughter were forced out by the rising water, her posts (including a mobile upload of a photo that showed water almost covering the stop sign on her street) gave updates on their safety and remarks of gratitude to caring friends and family. Remarkably, as her situation worsened, her gratitude increased, continually mentioning the “blessings” she has received. I want to think if FEMA was standing in my gutted living room assessing untold damage, I could have an attitude like that.

Still, we grieve, but we go on. We joke about not showering for days to conserve water. At the grocery store, I see fewer cell phone conversations and more real ones. Did you stay safe, people want to know? Did you have damage? There is real concern. On a broad scale, the entire community is going there, too. Schools are collecting toys and books for kids. Churches are feeding people, offering supplies and space as needed. Benefit concerts and telethons are raising money. Local businesses are giving discounts or portions of their proceeds to help out.

All in one fell swoop, it seems, while people were asking, “Where do we go?” the city of Nashville, TN was rallying with, “It’s go time.”

I can’t help but wonder what I would have wanted to save if I was forced from my home, after of course, my family members’ safety was ensured. I considered my beloved pictures and scrapbooks and my signed first edition of a Pat Conroy novel.  I thought of all the art projects my kids have made over the years and my husband’s trombone. What about my aunt Sue’s purple handkerchief  or my grandmother’s magazine rack—the one her father made her when she got married? None of my cute shoes made the cut, nor did any electronics, although, truth be told, I may try to grab my laptop, too. But really, if we had to go, would any of the stuff matter? In that moment of realization, that frightening awareness of leave-taking, would I care a whit about anything but my family and our safety? I doubt it.

So, all over Nashville tonight, mothers lie awake—on cots in church basements, on neighbors’ couches, in hotel beds—thinking of their shattered, lost wedding china, their soggy, ruined high school yearbooks, their children’s baby teeth and first haircuts—and they weep. We weep with them. But they keep going. Tomorrow they will get up and do the necessary work to contact FEMA, get phone service, track down deodorant, school uniforms, lunch.

And Nashville will keep going, too.  She is a strong, good city. She’s taken a beating these last several days, but if you listen closely, amid the busy hands and feet going in every direction, her music still plays.

  Nashville, I have seen you re-building, surviving, moving on after such a tough time. I saw the collective cringe that happened for months every time Lisa Patton said heavy rains were on the way. I high-tailed it over to Opry Mills the minute the doors opened, and remembered how it looked in May of 2010. I grieved the absence of Barnes and Noble. I remember everyone adding We Are Nashville to their profile pics and t-shirts in an effort to echo hockey blogger Patten Fuqua's true statement that became our city's rallying cry.
  And, gratefully, we are still, indeed, Nashville.