We're all in this together

Sometimes (lately, very often), it feels like the world is just unfixable. There's so much wrong, so much injustice and corruption, and we just keep screwing over the only planet we've got. There's so much anger and hate and mistrust, and a lot of time that baffles me, because we all have so much more in common than we don't. We're all doing our best on this big spinning ball of rock. We make mistakes. Our lives are short. We love. If we're smart, we remember to say so.

I never got around to going to my mailbox yesterday, so I stopped this morning on the way to work. There was a lovely card from Stella that made my day. She thanked me for reaching out to let her know I was thinking of her, because I know what it's like to miss your mom, and she does, too. On my way home from work tonight, I stopped to get today's mail. There was a lovely card from Ian, thanking me for reaching out to make sure he knows I'm thinking of him during what I can only imagine being the hardest kind of loss. I walked in my front door thinking how lucky I am to have good humans in my life who take the time to send notes like that and then Lazlo (the much more reserved of my two cats) gave me two nose boops. (I went for three, but that was being greedy. He turned his head and walked away. Then sauntered into the kitchen and meowed in front of his food dish.)

The thing about all of these things is connection. Whether you're telling somebody you know what it's like to miss having a mom. Or sending random emojis by text just to keep in touch. Or sending a card to thank somebody for reaching into the dark and reminding you that you're not alone. Or rubbing your nose on someone's face to get more food. (That probably only works for cats.) It's our connections to each other that make our lives bearable.

We're all in this together and so much that's wrong in the world could be made a little better if we fought really hard to remember that.

"Try to leap / You shoud try to reach / Into highest air / You're almost there / As long as you know / We miss you"

 - Agent Fresco, "Eyes of a Cloud Catcher"

Dear Dad,

You would have been 75 on Sunday. (You never would have heard the end of the old man jokes then.) It's so hard to believe it's been four and a half years since I have heard you say my name in that way no one else does (lingering just a bit on the first A) or your cartoony laugh. I've been thinking of you a lot lately, of a way to honor your memory when we scatter your ashes this weekend. And I think maybe the best way is to honor the gifts you gave me.

I used to write Mom letters after she died, but I don't think I ever did that with you. Things between us were never as easy as they were between you and Danielle or Bonnie. Mom once said she thought it was because I reminded you so much of yourself, because I looked most like you and was "moody" like you. Maybe I was a moody (even broody) kid. I feel things deeply, and I don't think that's a bad thing. It's only bad when you try to keep it all locked up until you finally explode at whoever happens to be nearby. (Maybe I still do that once in a while, but I have worked really hard not to.)

You used to liken yourself to Peter Pan. People often comment on my "child-like wonder," and I happen to think it's one of my best qualities. So, thank you for that. Thank you for my diverse taste in music, too. (I do not thank you for my crappy sinuses. Not at all.)

I know a lot of things in your life were hard, and many things didn't turn out the way you wanted. But I also know that you did your best, and you never gave up. (Thank you for that, too.)

I miss you, Dad, and I hope with all my heart that you are at peace.

Hope and Wonder

I just started re-reading Carter Beats the Devil, which has been my favorite book for 17 years. (I hate doing math like that.) It's my favorite largely because of these two quotes, which ring a bell deep inside me every time I read them:

"Charles was unsure of what to do next -- he wanted more badly than ever to be taken over by genuine wonder."

and

"What I mean is, the world is an awful place, isn't it? Magic makes it less awful for a moment or two. ...If I can shake the world off a man's shoulders, I feel better."

I haven't written here in a while, for a lot of reasons, but I've been thinking about writing a Hope and Wonder post for almost as long. Hope and Wonder are the two things at the core of my being that sustain me when things are at their worst. That thing people have called strength? Confidence? Bravery? Nope. It's all Hope and Wonder. It's why I love the books and movies and sculptures that I do. Why some nights I just look up at the sky and marvel at the stars. (As Van Gogh put it: "For my part I know nothing with any certainty, but the sight of the stars makes me dream.")

A few months ago, I was telling my writing partner about an experience I'd had back in May. My friend Mary asked me if I wanted to go to see Robert Moody's last show as director of the Portland Symphony Orchestra, and I said I would. It was a good show and then there was a Q&A with him afterward. Toward the end, he was talking about how he'd thought he'd have two more shows, but then his dad died and so he had to miss the second-to-last one. And then he started talking about connection. It seemed interesting to me that all that was happening on the anniversary of my dad's death. In the car on the way home, I was listening to a mix of Icelandic bands and Agent Fresco's "Eyes of a Cloudcatcher" came on -- the lead singer, Arnor Dan, wrote it about his dad dying of cancer. I was by the farm where I pick up my CSA and the stars and moon were so bright and clear in the sky, and I just started crying -- not out of sadness or even catharsis, but just being moved by feeling that connectedness that Robert Moody had talked about. So, I went home and I wrote a little note to him saying all of that and that I was grateful to have had that experience and sent it to him c/o the PSO.

Em's response included this passage that I thought was so beautiful, I made a painting of it and sent it to her:

But. There's the moon, isn't there? And sometimes it's clear and bright and we're all made of the same molecules, so really, even when I feel awful, I'm the moon staring at the moon. I'm bright and clear. If just for a moment.

I am the moon. For Emily.

And there it is again, those bells that ring so deep inside. THAT is why I GISH.

This is my fourth year GISHing. This year, I took the week off. I'm not sure I accomplished more than I have in the years when I could only take a day off during the week, but I think being on vacation this week allowed me an opportunity to reflect more during the hunt.

I got to appreciate spending time with friends -- caroling on a beach in stupidly hot weather, getting full of glitter while jumping on a trampoline, getting awakened in the dark of morning to "Eye of the Tiger" and SO.MANY.GIGGLES, handing out water in even MORE stupidly hot weather, having a giggle fest with a large group of skater friends, meeting a former co-worker at the local library to teach her adorable kids about cost-benefit analysis, setting aside my GISH-work to sit on the floor and play with my friends' kids (and that moment when her daughter crawled into my lap and asked me to read to her!). And there were GISH-adjacent things, too: Sending an email to a friend of a friend, thanking him for doing his thankless job (and the nice reply I received); writing notes to tell people I love them and am thinking of them, and sending them off with fun stamps. The whole time, I couldn't help feeling so grateful that I know so many good, kind people who are willing to be silly with me. 

And that brings me to the part where the world is an awful place. It is. And we keep making the same mistakes over and over. There are *children* in concentration camps in the United States right now. The Rohingya people are being decimated this very moment. And those are just two of the starkest examples.

During a 100-day period in 1994, between 500,000 and a million Rwandans were murdered. One survivor (who took in six orphans from the genocide) inspired a fundraising effort for this year's GISH. In four days, my friends and family raised $1,000. THAT is magic. The world is still an awful place, but that kind of magic makes me feel better. It makes me hope that we can all choose to be better, to do better.

I have been running around all week, getting projects done around the house, completing GISH tasks, getting awakened at 4:30 in the morning.... I'm tired and achy and not at my best to return to work on Monday. So, I've scheduled a day of self-care tomorrow. As I was thinking about it, I thought "Self-Care Sunday" should be a thing. Maybe I'll make it a thing from now on. (It seems like a brilliant idea, given how crazy things are at work these days and the need for some extra fortification before any work week.)

So, here's my takeaway from this year's GISH: Just be as kind as you can be, to as many as you can be, including yourself. You'll be amazed at what it makes you feel. (Hope. And wonder.)

People like us (or why I cried when I heard the presidential election results)

I never met any of my great grandparents, but I heard stories about the ones on Mom’s side when I was growing up. It was only just before he died that my mom learned her father had been adopted. But it makes sense, given what I know of the people who raised him:

She was the daughter of immigrants from Germany. A dancer at the Hippodrome Theater and painter of landscapes and still lives. He came to the U.S. from Ireland as a child. Grew up to be a stunt jockey (think diving horses off platforms in Atlantic City) and an electrician. He became vice president of the International Alliance of Theatrical and Stage Employees.

They adopted four children who were in no way related to them, including my grandfather. His biological mother was a 14-year-old girl who worked as a housekeeper; her parents were from Sweden and Ireland.

The people who raised my grandfather also fostered other kids, took in stray dogs. During the Great Depression, they kept a pot of soup on the lawn for anyone who needed it.

And even though they died years before I was born, I learned so much from those stories as a kid. That you do what you can to help people. That art in its various forms is important. That we are stronger together and have to fight for what’s right.

We had big family dinners at my grandparents’ house for all the major holidays, but also just random Sundays throughout my childhood. The grownups were talking politics at one of these dinners when I was in elementary school. I asked what the difference was between Republicans and Democrats. Someone (I can’t remember who) explained it this way: “Republicans are rich people. Democrats are people like us.”

People like us: My grandpa followed in his father’s footsteps, becoming an electrician for the likes of the Ed Sullivan Show and CBS Evening News. He fought in the navy in World War II. Grandma, whose mother was the daughter of Italian immigrants and whose father came to the U.S. from Italy, worked in factories her whole adult life, from making bras and parts for spaceships to working an assembly line for a pharmaceutical company.

People like us: My parents met working in a book warehouse. He did two tours with the Air Force in Vietnam and had a degree to work as a mechanic on airplanes. He destroyed his body working in warehouses well past the age of retirement, being laid off from the last two companies when they closed their warehouses due to overseas competition. Mom got so injured from her days packing orders in warehouses that a government program paid for her to get a two-year degree in psychology. She wanted to help people and got a job working with people with intellectual and behavioral disabilities, helping them hold down jobs and be independent. But then a man slammed into the back of her car when she was driving me to school one morning and afterward she was declared totally and permanently disabled. She supported us on monthly social security checks and payments from a private disability company, a benefit from that job. (I am quite familiar with disconnection and foreclosure notices and know what it’s like to have nothing but ice cubes and wilted lettuce in the fridge. But we never lost the house, and I know I’m lucky to never have lived in a shelter or on the street.)

People like us: I’ve been working since I was 15 years-old. Every job I’ve ever taken has had some component of community service at its core. My first two years of college were completely subsidized by federal and state grants because we had such a low household income. I was the first person in my immediate family to get a bachelor’s degree, and I’m the only one with a master’s degree. I pursued degrees in writing, because it’s the passion at the core of my being, even though those degrees have done nothing to advance my career, and I still have about 15 years of student loan payments ahead of me.

People like us: I recognize that I’m more fortunate than many, less fortunate than some. When Mom got cancer, we were lucky she was already on disability and had Medicare to pay 80% of those insane medical bills. And when she died, we were even luckier that the health systems wrote off the bad debt, that my sisters and I weren’t saddled with paying those remaining costs. Mom left behind a house in need of some repair, a car, and a small life insurance policy that wouldn’t even pay out enough to have her cremated. Dad left even less behind when he died. But my grandparents managed to save a lot through the union and left us enough that I was able to buy my own home less than two months ago, that I have been able to visit Iceland three times in the past two years. It’s also been enough to allow me to be very generous with my charitable contributions for the past two years.

People like us: I have always believed that small acts of kindness and goodness matter. That they make a difference. I want to live in a world where everyone can feel safe to be who they are, where we help who we can when we can. I’ve benefited from others’ generosity and hard work, and I will keep doing my best to pay it forward.

I'm not much for speechifying, but if I were...

I'd start with thank you (please tell me I remembered to say thank you at some point between "I'm not much for speechifying" and "Let's have cake" tonight).

Thank you to everyone who came out to celebrate my tenth derbyversary (especially those who traveled quite far). To everyone who wanted to come and couldn't make it. To everyone who has played a part my derby life over the last decade.

Tonight, I got to sprint to FM Belfast's "Par Avion," which I have wanted to do since I first heard the song almost two years ago.

I got to skate around in a rainbow cape (because when someone gifts you a cape, you HAVE TO wear it...and maybe should never take it off).

I got to eat an incredible vegan cake that came decorated WITH A TUTU.

I got to skate with friends who don't always skate and friends who strapped on their skates for the first time in years because they wanted to celebrate with me.

I got to watch Cherry and Chickadee do interpretive dance to a song from Buffy the Vampire Slayer that I have always loved.
 
And I think I grinned the entire two hours. There were SO MANY hugs and beautiful, thoughtful cards and gifts. And I felt so incredibly loved. (Which I recognize as a blessing and a privilege.)

As I was cleaning up and putting things in my car, I accidentally released the balloons Renee (who was there at the start of my derby adventure) brought. I didn't realize until they were well out of my reach. So I stood there in the cold night air, just watching them float away. There was something truly beautiful in that quiet moment alone in the parking lot at Happy Wheels. It felt like letting go of stuff I hadn't even known I'd been carrying. All that was left was this profound sense of peace and joy. (And, let me tell you, there were times in this past decade that I thought I would never feel either of those things. I recognize that as a blessing and a privilege, too.)

This blessed, privileged, and very tired girl is going to bed feeling incredibly content. Let's do it again in another ten years!

A whole flood of epiphanies

I've been having all these epiphanies lately, and I'm seeing connections between them, so this is an attempt at figuring them out.

I did pretty well in school without putting a ton of effort into it. I could memorize things (dates, facts, formulas, grammar rules), and I was good at picking things up just by watching someone else do it (math, music, stuff on computers). I was pretty good at creative expression (art and especially writing). Where I had trouble was theory (this is why I hated science and didn't do as well in calculus as I had in algebra, geometry, and trig). It was especially problematic in college when I'd sit in classes like Intro to Cultural Studies and not understand anything I was reading or the professor was saying. I had similar trouble with the literary theory part of my MFA program. I just didn't get it. But I wanted to. I described it as "the big, gaping hole in my brain" – I'd keep trying to go around the hole and maybe eventually I'd find a bridge to get me to the other side.

I've always been an introvert, and generally people make me nervous. (In large groups, they make me downright anxious.) I am often literal in how I speak and how I interpret other people's speech, which can cause confusion and hilarity. (This is especially true when I speak facetiously and people who are used to my literality* don’t realize I’m joking.) I avoid small talk, because I think it's a waste of time – I'd rather have a real conversation or just enjoy the silence.

And then there's the lying thing. When I was a kid, I used to embellish the truth a lot. I don't know if that was part of the writer in me, a kid phase, or what. I almost never lie now. I hate how it feels. But it's not just obvious lies. It's also things like this: When I go to lunch, I've taken to saying, "I'll be back, pending Standard Disclaimers." The Standard Disclaimers being things like abduction by aliens, natural disasters, etc. Because I intend to come back after lunch, and it's most likely going to happen, but I can't say with 100% certainty that it will. And it feels like lying to just say, "I'll be back," when there is a chance – however minuscule – that I might not be. (I'm also terrible at lying anyway. Even a stranger can read the look on my face and know what I'm thinking most of the time.)

That doesn't mean I can't keep a secret. I'm actually really good at that. I'm good at telling partial or shallow truths to keep people from getting at the deeper ones without having to say anything untrue. (Maybe I'm part faerie.)

All of these things combined can lead to a lot of awkwardness, to the point where I've even wondered if I might fall somewhere on the Autism spectrum. A mentor I used to trust a lot once (while he was angry with me) said, "You suck at people stuff." While I recognize that he may not have completely meant it and that he was intentionally trying to hurt me, it stung because there was at least some ring of truth to it.

But I also know it wasn't the whole truth, because sometimes I am pretty good at people stuff. At the very least, I know there are people who love me in spite of my awkwardness.

A recent dinner with a friend who is completing her PsyD helped me realize that my squishy heart and my analytical brain just don't seem to connect all that much.

She was telling me about an exercise she had completed where people would be assigned an emotion and have to pantomime it to their group, who would have to identify the emotion based on body language alone. They weren't things like "happy" or "sad" but things like "shame" and "unworthy." I asked how in the world you would demonstrate those, and she showed me. I immediately felt the right emotion, but I don't think that I would have been able to actually name it if I'd been part of that exercise.

It had never occurred to me before that while I often experience emotions on a really deep level, I also often have no clue how to name them and explain them to people until I've had a really long time to sit and process them. I realized, though, that a mentor noticed it in my writing years ago. She called it "crucial scene avoidance." I was good at writing what happened, but I avoided the emotional impact/processing that came later.

I think it's because I'm good at compartmentalizing information and being objective about the things I see and experience vs. my emotional reaction to them. I think I feel like the emotions are mine (and mine to figure out) but the thoughts are things I'm willing to share (because they are less personal).

But that loops me back to the part where I want – I need – to understand things. Not things like how a computer works or engineering or medicine or politics or the stock market. Mostly people. I don't get why they say things and do things and how they feel, especially when it's not how I would react to the same thing. (Like, I feel reasonably sure I can predict how I will react to a problem I need to solve. I might get frustrated by the precipitating circumstances, but I will move past that to solve the problem in the most efficient way I can. I recognize that this is not how a lot of people function. I've worked with lots of people who can't get past the frustration part. Or they just expect someone else to swoop in and fix it for them. And I don't understand why we react so differently. Maybe we could work better together if I did.)

I think this is why I read so much – why I write – because it's all about trying to understand myself and others.

I saw my first therapist when I was in my mid-20s, and one of the things I struggled with the most at that time was that I felt like I wasn't a good person. It took so much effort, and I worked so hard, but I never felt like I was good enough. My therapist pointed out that if I was a bad person, I probably wouldn't put any effort into being good.

In the years since, I've wondered what any of that means anyway. Graham Greene turns the whole concept of good on its head in The Quiet American, where he shows that the innocent and the well-intended may sometimes cause more harm than the apathetic and malicious.

I've learned enough about myself to know that while I sometimes hurt people and cause harm, I do not have a malicious bone in my body. I care about trying to make the world a kinder, gentler place in whatever small ways I can (through my writing, through my actions toward the people in my life, through the choices I make about the products I consume and how I do that, through the work I do, and all the little projects I take on).

Last night I was thinking about the things I've done in the last year to be kinder to myself, to others, to the planet. The phrase that popped into my head when I thought about it was, "I want to live gently." But that didn't feel quite right. My life is full of color and noise and movement, and I (mostly) like it that way. When I thought about it some more, I came up with this: I want to interact with this planet and the beings on it as gently as possible.

But I guess it goes deeper, because it's also this: I want to understand them – and me – as much as I can.

And this, friends, is why I over-contextualize pretty much everything.


* Apparently, literalness is a word, but it just sounds clunkier than literality, so I'm using that instead. 

Why I'm going vegan after almost 27 years as an ovo-lacto vegetarian

I don’t know if all little kids do this, but when I was a tiny human, I would always ask what my food was made out of. If someone said, “Pork,” I’d press for the animal.

One night when I was in first grade, we had fish sticks for dinner. I started crying, thinking my meal could be made out of my goldfish’s cousin. “It’s a totally different type of fish!” my mom said. Didn’t matter. I never ate another fish stick.

It should have come as little to no surprise that I stopped eating all meat three years later. My grandparents had brought two live lobsters back from the Jersey shore and my mom had a friend boil them in the kitchen (she couldn’t bare to do it herself). I’d said I’d never eat meat again if she ate them, and I haven’t.

I was never particularly fond of meat anyway. Being a vegetarian never felt like a struggle for me (except maybe when eating out when I was a kid -- but things have come a long way since then).

I don’t think I ever wore anything with real fur (Mom didn’t like the idea of fur) and I stopped wearing leather around the time I stopped eating meat. I don’t buy products made by companies that test on animals (except in rare circumstances where I forget to check the label!)

But for the last quarter-century, I still ate eggs and dairy. I tried to buy local. Only cage-free eggs. Stuff like that. I rationalized that I depended too much on dairy products in my diet to give them up completely. That going full vegan would be too hard, that I wouldn’t know how to get all my nutrients, that it would be expensive.

But then I was presented with an opportunity to learn how to be a vegan in a sustainable, healthy way. And I’m doing it.

Some people have asked why. The answer is simple: Because it’s the right thing for me. I don’t have any medical conditions that would keep me from being a vegan. And while there may be some foods I’ll miss, I can’t say that that is more important to me than the suffering another being would have to endure for it.

Do I think my choice as a single human will have a particularly large impact? Maybe not. But that’s like saying you don’t want to vote because one person doesn’t matter.

Ultimately, we all have to have our own standards and decide what we can and can't live with. I can live with being a vegan, and I think I'll feel happier and more at peace as a result.

Luck and magic

The last five glitter bricks.

It's 3/3 and I like that synchronicity. It makes me think of luck and magic and possibility.

I recently wrote about making your own magic. It was a friend I met through derby who originally put the idea of glitter bricks in my head, and the vast majority of the ones I gifted to people have ended up in derby homes.

I'm hitting the road tomorrow to start my amazing birthday weekend, so this is probably going to be my last post about Maine Roller Derby's Capital Campaign. The goal is to raise $400,000 by 3/7 (the day after I turn 37 -- MORE synchronicity!) and we can only do that with help from lots and lots of people. You don't have to give a lot, but please consider giving something if you want to help sustain the personal, athletic, and professional development of women in southern Maine; maintain a supportive athletic community for LGBT and other athletes who face discrimination in other sporting ventures; and sustain roller skating, a physical activity that promotes healthy lifestyles in people of diverse backgrounds, in southern Maine.

Help us make magic happen. Read more about the Capital Campaign and make a tax-deductible donation online here.
 

Thankfulness

Back in 2013, View Grind'er and I agreed that we would post blogs every day for the month of November about things we were thankful for.

I wrote two separate posts about roller derby -- one on November 6 and another on November 10. Here they are together, with slight edits:

This one's so obvious, it feels like cheating to post it.

I am one of two (A-Block is the other) founding members of Maine Roller Derby who is still active with the league. I played for a couple of years, and for a thousand good reasons decided to become a ref a little more than five years ago.

Derby has given me so many things: A sport that turns me into a crazy super-fan (so I can finally understand what that's like). A way to physically push myself that has made me much more open to testing my limits and trying new things (see all the discussion about the Mountain Raid and wanting to do it again). An excuse to own and wear so many tutus. And the socks! But most of all, it's given me this collection of incredible humans.

One-third of my partners in awesome are people I met through derby. (Misadventure Canada was planned for me by someone I met once at a bout we reffed together; the partner in awesome for the trip was a fellow official; and during the trip, we met up with my derby wife.)

Ten out of the 26 red notebook conspirators and eight out of 13 postal ninja project participants are people I know from derby.

In June, I officiated the wedding of a friend who was a founding league member with me. Later this month, I'll go see Catching Fire -- just like we planned when we first learned the Hunger Games series was being made into movies -- with A-Block. In June, when the movie version of The Fault in Our Stars comes out, I'll have a whole group of derby people to go with me. (In fact, nearly every nerdfighter I know is someone from derby.)

Saturday, an old derby friend is going to make me up all pretty, and then I'm going to go to the Derby Lite party, where I will step out of my comfort zone by attending a ginormous party full of people and participating in my first cheerleader pyramid. Why? Because I adore this little community.

I'm thankful for all of them. For the people who cheer me on and make me feel like I can do anything. For the people who are in it with me and stick by me, whether it's a matter of staffing a bout or completing a crazy obstacle race on a mountain or making it through the challenges we set ourselves for this month. For the people who are so kind and thoughtful and willing to share their knowledge, their time, and to show thanks when I do the same.

I'm thankful for the derby wife I said I never wanted and the derby kid who calls me "Mom" (and the incredibly unexpected way it makes me feel when she says it).

I'm thankful for friends who have shown time and again that I can count on them to be there when I need them and to be up for having fun (even when my idea of fun is a little -- or even a lot -- strange).

***

It's 1:30 a.m. and I've been home from the Derby Lite birthday party for about an hour.

The party where I was honored to be voted Ms. Chutzpah, along with my classmate Dishy.

The party where I participated in my first ever cheerleader pyramid, which was even more fun than I expected.

The party where I had great conversations with people I really, truly like (not just polite pretending).

And even though it's possibly cheating to be writing about derby (again! and so soon!) and to call it a post for today when today is less than two hours old, I think it's shout-from-the-rooftops-important to say how much of an impact roller skating has had on my life.

And not just derby, but Derby Lite. I had no idea what I was getting into when I signed up for this fitness class. But it's such an incredible way to get myself in shape, keep myself healthy (especially for a girl who is predisposed to a MUCH higher risk of heart disease and diabetes). And the people! I have met so many incredible people from less than two years of Derby Lite. I've also gotten to keep in touch with people who used to be part of my regular derby world and left for one reason or another.

Tonight (well, I guess technically it's "this morning"), I'm going to sleep easy after a fabulous celebration with fabulous people. I can't think of anything better to celebrate in this blog today. And the best part? I've got Derby Lite class in 15 hours!

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Roller derby has been a huge part of my life for the last decade. My league is trying to buy the rink where I do most of my skating to preserve it as a place for people to skate for years to come. You can read more about the Capital Campaign and make a tax-deductible donation online (every little bit helps!) here.

There's a very short timeline to raise the money the league needs for the down payment. The deadline is 3/7, the day after I turn 37. I see some magic and luck in that. To help do my part, I'm going to write about the tremendous influence derby has had on my life until we hit the deadline.

Uncle Bob

Bob is not actually my uncle, but he may as well be. We met when I started working at the Times Herald-Record when I was 15. He was a veteran business reporter who made up songs in his spare time ("Momma Got Divorced on Christmas" was always my favorite), and I was a high school sophomore who didn't even have a learner's permit yet. My mom drove me the half-hour to and from work after school, where I would take down fire calls and get the price of eggs from a toll-free hotline and make photocopies and clip files and once in a while even do some research.

Babies born the day Bob and I met are not only older than I was when I met him, but recently old enough to legally drink. Weird.

This is Bob and the first picture he ever sold at a recent gallery show.

So, he's Uncle Bob and has been for many years now. He and his wife used to visit friends in Maine, and they would often visit me while they were in town. They came to one of my first scrimmage practices. They came to the game I skated in against the Hudson Valley Horrors. And since they moved to Maine a few years ago, Uncle Bob has been a fixture at our games. He comes to watch when I ref and when I sit at a score table holding up points. We once even got to watch a game together.

Uncle Bob is almost 80, and the folding chairs we rent for our games at Happy Wheels are not particularly comfortable. This past Christmas, I bought him a folding chair with a plush, padded seat. It is super soft and squishy. I bring it to all of our games now. People always laugh when they see me walking around with it, and then I explain. "It's for my Uncle Bob. He's almost 80 and he comes to almost all of our games, so he should at least get a comfy place to sit."

If my league can come up with the down payment to purchase Happy Wheels, I expect I'll be dragging that fluffy chair around for years to come. And I couldn't be happier about it.

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Roller derby has been a huge part of my life for the last decade. My league is trying to buy the rink where I do most of my skating before it goes out on the open market, because a regular buyer would likely repurpose the space. You can read more about the Capital Campaign and make a tax-deductible donation online (every little bit helps!) here.

There's a very short timeline to raise the money the league needs for the down payment. The deadline is 3/7, the day after I turn 37. I see some magic and luck in that. To help do my part, I'm going to write about the tremendous influence derby has had on my life until we hit the deadline.