Tag: hooray

travel

role models

abby mumford

traveling gives you a fresh perspective on yourself, your likes, your dislikes, your neighborhood, your family, your friends, your habits, your life. basically, it will flip your notions upside down. the farther you travel away from home, the knowledge you learn will increase exponentially.*

i was in denver this past weekend. i had the good fortune to be able to swing a last minute visit, which meant i had two and a half days with my mom and maga (my grandmother). amidst the flights and food and christmas cards and conversations and quiet moments, i learned about these people i call my family.

for instance, there is MAGA. she is 89 years and 8 months old. what a trooper she is. she is dealing with the aches, pain, and confusion of getting older, but she manages to put a smile on her face and get out there in the world despite the fact that every morning she wakes up without jobo (my grandfather), she does so with a broken heart. her advanced age means she can’t continue the globe trotting ways of her youth, and so, she brings the globe to her. egypt and india are the only two places she and jobo never visited, so when the king tut exhibit set up shop in the denver art museum, she got tickets for herself and mom and me and we all walked like egyptians.

thanks, maga, for showing me how to retain my sassiness for 89+ years. and for showing me how to bring the world to my doorstep.

for instance, my DAD is a sly guy. he’s not upfront with his emotions, so you have to listen for his declarations of love. i’m glad i now know how to do that. this time, it took the form of him looking up my (ridiculously small windowed) connection in philly. he let me know which gate i’d be arriving at (B14) and which gate i had to get to (C18) in 15 minutes. (i originally had 40 whole minutes, but de-icing a plane + waiting while the pilots shoo a fly out of the cockpit cuts into that.) he gave me specific directions on how to get from one gate to the next (because i am amazingly adept at getting lost). he even emailed and texted me this information because he wasn’t sure which i’d get to first. (side note, i LOVE my smartphone.)

too bad i didn’t turn on my phone until after i landed in boston.

thanks, dad, for giving me a reason to practice letting someone take care of me. i’d kind of forgotten.

for instance, there is my MOM. i had the opportunity to witness my mother as a mother but not while mothering me, which (still with me?) means i was able to objectively watch and appreciate her parenting skills. observing her taking care of her mother was something phenomenal. i felt like i had put on a pair of super-scientific-x-ray-night-vision-high-tech-not-yet-created-but-probably-will-be-soon* goggles and instead of seeing bones or guts or body heat, i could see her patience, her intelligence, her frustration, her sense of humor, her nerves of steel, her love.

growing up, it’s hard to see your mother for all of her sacrifices because, well, you can’t see past yourself. (those teen years are tough on everyone involved.) and even now, it’s still a bit hard to see her objectively because she’s either doing something for me or for one of my siblings and i’m too close to view the situation with any clarity. but denver enlightened me. my mom’s relationship with her mother is (not so) surprisingly a lot like hers and mine. they laugh, bicker, listen, talk, direct, clash, roll their eyes, are grateful for one another. another key fact: they still possess the ability to embarrass each other.

for instance, maga came down wearing a silk scarf tied around her head to keep her ear warm. i thought she looked adorable, however mom couldn’t stop laughing at how maga looked like a babushka. later that night, we were all at the neighbors (maga was sans scarf) when my mom announces to the group, “do you have any grandsons? abby’s available.” yup. thanks, mom.

but you know what? if having them as my role models means i’m going to grow up to be like them, i am ready to grow up.

any day now…..

in the meantime, thank you, mom, for being there for these first (almost, but not quite yet) 30 years. i wouldn’t be who i am today without your guidance, your expectations, your love.

*so says me, the scientific expert.

feelings

the art of listening

abby mumford

people have been surprising me lately.

(not that it’s surprising that i am surprised because let’s be serious, i’m constantly startled by people popping up in my office door, by my roommate rounding the corner, by typing in wicked.com instead of wickedthemusical.com. (seriously, don’t do it.) and i am the worst at googling things, so if i can ever actually find the information i started out searching for, it’s a minor miracle.)

ok, my point.

sometimes i’m so busy listening to others that i forget others are doing the same. it catches me off guard when someone reveals they were listening to me or reading my blog or paying attention to my tweets.

it’s easy to tell who’s listening when you’re in a conversation and a person pulls up facts previously discussed or someone leaves a comment on a blog post or someone replies to an email or someone @ replies you on a tweet, but it’s hard to quantify who’s paying attention when you don’t have time for an in-depth conversation or they don’t leave comments or they aren’t on twitter or they forget to reply to an email or life just gets in the way, as it is wont to do.

so you have to LISTEN for the random snippets.

like when my mom sent me an incredibly generous letter.

like when my grandfather said he heard i was researching netbooks. and wanted to know why. (i figured it’s time to redefine my writing. i don’t want it to be just a hobby. it’s a job and i need to treat it as such. and thusly, i need portable technology. yeah, yeah, netbooks are going out of style. hey, i’m still conducting researching here. any suggestions?) (also, is anyone out there available to give me a scrivener 101 class? it’s supposed to be intuitive, but me and technology? we don’t click. i need an outsider to hold my hand and walk me through the process before i’ll let technology take me out on an unchaperoned date.)

like when my godmother mentioned she’s read my blog and is that ok because that’s not stalking me is it? (for the record, nope, not stalking. READ ON, cindy.)

like when my dad asked about my new sport, squash. i hadn’t talked about it except on my blog. perhaps he read it there or perhaps my mom or sisters read it and mentioned it to him, but whatever it was, he remembered and asked me about it.

like when kelly breakey wrote this post for me. or, to be specific, about me. i was merely tweeting about my obsession with the darren criss/glee version of katy perry’s TEENAGE DREAM, which you should watch by the way. here you go:

she watched the video and caught the fever. and dedicated a post to it. it may seem silly to others, but it feels nice to be thanked. sometimes it only takes a quick comment or a short video or a hug or a phone call to crack open a bad day and let the sunshine spill in. she says i did that for her, but she returned the favor tenfold by writing that post.

basically i just wanted to say THANKS EVERYONE for listening to me. it is the nicest thing you could do (well, maybe you could bake me some cookies and mail them to me. that’d be swell. chocolate chip, please.), but more importantly, thanks for giving me a reason to love listening to you.

(you in the general sense. and, of course, YOU, yes, you right there, in particular.)

feelings

teammates

abby mumford

i had some mind blowing experiences this week. and now that i’ve scraped the brains off the walls, i’m here to tell the tale.

experience #1. i had dinner with a grad school friend. her husband calls these dinners our “secret meetings” which makes us feel all kinds of sneaky and spy like, but in all reality, we’re just eating, drinking, giggling, gossiping, and talking writing. i don’t have many writerly friends that i can see IN PERSON on a regular basis and there’s something to be said about sharing a beer while lamenting the lack of character voices in our heads. (and that’s why we’re NOT spies. sometimes, we hear voices. it gets distracting when you’re trying to do recon.)

but the really amazing thing was that she handed over my MS. the one i’ve been working on since before, through, and after grad school. my first love. and also the one i was taking a break from. she’d had it since july, but to be fair, was going through some crazy times and life got in the way. i get it. my writing is not a priority of hers, but in this time when i still haven’t figured out the whole “how to get critique partners” thing, she’s all i’ve got. and it may have taken 4 months, but man, did she deliver. and we talked about my manuscript in-depth 3 different times over the course of the meal! i even got my pen out and started taking notes. i can’t tell you how refreshing that felt. she laid out the weakness and pumped up the strong points and suggested some ideas that got my brain aswirling. i left dinner on a writerly high i haven’t felt since grad school ended. and i left excited about my first love MS all over again. i felt like a real writer (for probably the third time in my life). i left there with attainable goals of what to fix and how to fix it. that was the most delicious part.

experience #2. i played squash again. of course i lost every single match, but my serve is consistently in and i am hitting some hot shots and most importantly, i am getting on the scoreboard. sure, i keep forgetting the ball doesn’t bounce and so i wind up in a tennis motion only to swing and hit air. (yeah, it’s as embarrassing as it sounds). but for only having played the game twice, for a total of 2 hours, my improvement is pretty rapid, i must say. so much so that i’m thinking about getting my own gear. (Santa, you listening?) this game is addicting. it’s refreshing. it’s exhilarating. it’s FAST. and it gives me an attainable goal. beat my coworker. that is the most delicious part.

but the thing i learned that splattered my brains across the walls?

i realized that i can’t do this alone.

you can’t play squash by yourself and you can’t write all by yourself. sure, i’m in charge of my own production (whether it’s returning a shot or writing a novel), but you need a teammate there to return the volley or spin you around and point you down the path towards THE END.

i’ve had teammates all my life, in the form of soccer and lacrosse and basketball and tennis teams and siblings and friends and cousins. why is it so shocking that i still need them?

probably because i’m a perfectionist and when i set my mind to do something, i know (read: i think) that the best way to get it done is to do it my way. but that isn’t always right and frankly, it gets lonely. i’m tired of that. i’m ready to accept any and all forms of help. whether it’s in the shape of a squash racket, manuscript critiques, or a RAH RAH YOU CAN DO IT from the sidelines.

phew.

epiphanies are exhausting.

(or maybe it’s just all that running around the squash court.)

feelings

trick or TREAT

abby mumford

given the fact that every single tooth in my mouth is a sweet tooth, i’m partial to the whole TREAT aspect of halloween.

i don’t care much for tricks.

so, with that in mind, here are a couple of treats from me to you. (well, specifically, they’re from my sister/BIL and brother/SIL to me, but i’m passing along the cuteness.)

may i present you with the ladybug…

and her cousins in the form of luigi, the TV with Super Mario Bros game on it, and mario.

and while i’m doling out the treats, here’s another one.

and the last one…this one courtesy of one carrie harris.

feelings

reason #32 to stay up past your bedtime

abby mumford

GUSTER.

they are one of those bands that blow you away EVERY SINGLE TIME you see them live. and i’ve seen them more times than i can count. they just have this charisma on stage that doesn’t translate to CD. they truly enjoy their fans and that, in turn, makes it even more fun to see them over and over.

and you know what makes a guster concert EVEN MORE FUN than usual? going with two friends, one of whom doesn’t know he’s going.

i’m normally a professional sekrit keeper. i never even let on that i know any information, let alone do the “i know something you don’t know” song and dance. and up until yesterday, this was no exception. in fact, the fall has been going so fast (seriously, we’re only 2 days away from november? huminah, what?) that the guster concert snuck up on me. (read: i forgot about it) but it worked out supremely well because i saw L&N last weekend, and that could have been prime sekrit slipping time.

but nope. N had no clue what L and i were planning. in fact, N didn’t even know i was joining in on the festivities until he saw my sweet ride (shocks. pegs. LUCKY.) driving into the parking lot. i was so excited (and admittedly, a bit hopped up on sugar free red bull) that as i waved hello, slid into the car and heard my phone’s google calendar event reminder, i grabbed my phone, waved it around, and yelled, “GUSTER CONCERT!!!!!!!”

*crickets chirping*

N grinned, but looked over at wifey L to see if he was allowed to know the details of tonight’s event. L sputtered, “but he didn’t know yet.”

oops.

and just like that, i was given the pink slip out of the professional ranks of sekrit keeping.

fortunately, we were now able to have N (a portland, ME local) drive us to a good restaurant and then find us street parking without us having to throw him off the scent. or having to have L drive and me navigate. (we all know what happens when i’m in charge of directions…) and fortunately, the release of the sekrit didn’t detonate any fireworks or tempers or contracts on my life. and seeing guster live (again) was as amazing as we were anticipating. those boys sure put in a lot of practice and it shows in the show. the lights. the sounds. the talking to the audience. brian singing the “50 states” song. the new songs. the old songs. it’s all genius.

i wanted to SHARE some guster with you, but i couldn’t find a proper video of them live (not that it would have done them any justice because a video of them live doesn’t equate to actually being in the same room with them), so instead, here’s a little acoustical lullabye.

you’re welcome.

and next time they’re at a venue near you, stock up on red bull, caffeine, and wave goodbye to your pillow. trust me, it’s worth the lost beauty sleep.

 

oops.