megfowler.com

Try this. From me to you.

I’ve written about you a lot.

I hope you don’t mind… it’s just how I tend to figure things out.

I mean, I guess I didn’t always know what I was talking about (and I still don’t), so I likely scuffed up your reputation now and again.

But I meant well. And mean well.

Thing is, I think you’re amazing. At the same time as I think you are confusing and elusive and complicated and problematic and incomprehensible and irresistible and irreplaceable and insane, I find that there’s nothing in the world I want more.

That’s sappy. I know.

But the feeling of finding you, of keeping you… even of losing you… is so hardwired into the function of my heart that the coming and going is like breathing.

I have fallen in love with so many things.

So many people. So many plans. So many hopes. And there’s always something I can reach for, no matter how many times you have slipped from my grasp.

Am I too optimistic? I don’t know. You’ve broken me more than once, so to take you on lightly seems like flying a kite into a hurricane.

But even when you hurt me, I don’t want to stop trying. I mean, I do. But I can’t.

Even when I’ve forgotten how you feel, I know my sense memory will recognize you again in a second.

Even when I am lacking trust and lacking faith and lacking the confidence in myself to give and receive you, I know you will remain until I figure it all out. And then some.

Even when you go, I know you’ll come back another way. No matter how long it takes.

Thank you for being my constant, even when you weren’t.

Thank you for being my test, even when I failed.

Thank you for being my challenge, even when I could not meet you.

Thank you for being my comfort, even when it was you I needed comfort from.

Thank you for being my future, even when I could barely make you out in the distance.

I will mess you up again.

But I believe, no matter what, that you are the truest map of my dreams and my days.

Whether I have the will to see that or not in the moment.

May I always have the will.

I love you back,

Meg

1. The discovery of actual science in Scientology.
2 Ralph Nader, POTUS.
3. Independent musicians discover shampoo
4. Heat rash: The New Tan
5. McDonalds and Starbucks compete for slogan: “Cheaper than gas!”
6. Baseball players without itchy parts
7. Blogging: Olympic Demonstration Sport Vancouver 2010
8. Tequila Altoids
9. Oprah Winfrey: “Don’t put my name on that one…”
10. Global Warming offset by overproduction of Ben and Jerry’s
11. You aren’t turning into your mom
12. Meg Fowler: “Oooh, this is too salty.”
13. Everyone looks good in skinny jeans
14. Spiders, clowns, butterflies, bees rendered extinct
15. Pope refers to nuns as “ma bitchez”

I know a song is good if I close my eyes and require the emotion hand to sing it. And potentially a rocky relationship with my husband and a biopic, but that seems like a lot of effort for karaoke.

I once made 200 children pretend to be popcorn in a roped off circle. It looked like someone had taken a punk concert and reduced it in a photocopier.

The smell of oranges makes me feel that something good is on the horizon. (Even if it’s just eating the orange. Which makes it sound like I have really low expectations. Or scurvy.)

When I was little, I used to swing on the swings as high as I could and sing the tagline to a 7-Up jingle just as I reached the airspace parallel to the top bar. I don’t remember the jingle at all. I just remember that it was 7-Up, and that I would close my eyes and pretend I was a bubble rising. No, I wasn’t left alone a lot, why do you ask?

You can tell that I’ve actually injured myself if I forget to swear. Or if I’m bleeding heavily, or if a part of my body is missing. But I digress.

Isn’t science fiction an oxymoron? I know, I know, it’s not really. But I love it when I say things like that and someone is like, “NO, IT’S FICTION BASED ON SCIENTIFIC CONCEPTS OR FANTASTICAL EXTENSIONS OF SCIENTIFIC IDEAS” and then I’m all like, “Nerd.”

Hand cream always makes me feel vaguely unsettled, like an emergency is going to arise where I need to hang on to the skids of the helicopter but I’m too emollient and WHEEEE! off I go to my death.

I love fruit that doesn’t get your hands all messy, like mandarin oranges. Sticky hands could result in disaster. Though handy for hanging off of helicopters.

I think Slinkys (Slinkies? I hate “y” ending words that you can’t turn into “ies” words because they are trademarked or just stubborn) are the perfect toy for someone like me. Coiled too tight? Tumbles down stairs? Tangles upon stretching? Yes.

What goes around does come around, but sometimes it hits me in the face on the way by and bounces backwards and comes around AGAIN. That sucks.

Remember: you have to CHOOSE. No “either”, “neither” or “both” or “depends.” Unless you have incontinence issues. Then you are welcome to your Depends ™.

Sun or shade?

Flip flop or Birkenstock?

Beach or lake?

California or Florida?

Lemonade or Iced tea?

Sunglasses or hat?

Grow your own garden, or head down to the farmer’s market on Saturdays?

Dinner on the patio, or brunch on the patio?

Reggae or Beach Boys?

Margarita or mojito?

Waterskis/wakeboard or mountain bike?

Take vacation or avoid tourists?

BBQ steaks or BBQ salmon?

Convertible or motorcycle?

Bike or skateboard?

Sailing or kayaking?

Take pictures of the fun, or take videos?

Coconut or mango?

Lie on the grass or lie on the sand?

Lounge chair or hammock?

Trampoline or… not?

Once there was a little fish named Meg.

She wasn’t actually that little. Actually, kind of round. But not too long, so still technically little.

What Meg wanted more than anything in the world was to have little fish fry. Not fried fish, mind you, because that would be weird, considering that she was a fish.

(In fact, just tonight Meg learned the name for baby fish, and it sounds about as suitable as calling baby pigs, “Bacon”.)

A couple years ago, Meg learned that she could not have fry of her own. This was tough, but she kept swimming and breathing as best she could through her gills and looking on the bright side. Which was up, since the sun reflects on the water.

And she knew she would be okay, eventually.

What she also knew is that she’d take someone else’s fry to be her fry.

Kind of like she used to at McDonald’s when she got the small size and wanted more and someone wasn’t looking.

But that isn’t really how adoption works.

That’s more kidnapping, and for that they put you in the Fish Gulag. Otherwise known as Petco.

Wait, where is this going?

Tonight, I watched Juno. Which everyone has been telling me to see, because a) apparently I am Juno-esque, save for my inability to bake buns in my home oven; and b) I would write a movie like this, left to my own devices. Apparently.

And it made me cry, of course, because it’s not just about Juno, but about Vanessa, who wanted to be a mom so badly… and then she was.

As I will be, one day.

Probably not by myself, because hello, I am too lazy for such things. Really. I’d get even less sleep and then walk fatally into a wall or something.

But I want it more than anything. And I believe I will be good at it. I don’t need to bake my own bun to love the warm bun-ness of it all.

Which is where the tears come from. Not out of sadness, but just knowing something good is coming and so why not blubber about it?

Because that’s what I do.

Or, you know… I can always just get some fries.

1. The smell of fresh bread in the oven.
2. The opening notes of “Let’s Stay Together”.
3. A branchful of tiny birds in our Bird Tree.
4. The spray of oils from an orange rind when you peel it away.
5. The sight of a zillion bouquets of flowers, waiting to be bought.
6. Baby smiles.
7. The perfect smartass comeback.
8. Seeing a friend twirl once she’s found the right dress after trying on 300 that made her feel less than pretty.
9. My parents on my cell phone, carrying on a conversation with one another and not me when they call me.
10. Our coffeemaker beeping to tell us the coffee is done.
11. The cheer after the minister announces the bride and groom.
12. Sunshine on our deck.
13. The first french fry.
14. Waking up and discovering I can sleep for three or more hours still.
15. Hearing the printer churn out a finished draft.
16. The burn of my burn-y lip gloss.
17. Stepping into the shower.
18. The smell of fresh soil and grass and rain on a Vancouver spring morning. Especially if the rain has STOPPED. Heh.
19. Pulling the outside off a roasted marshmallow.
20. People with the “crazy laugh”.
21. Scalp rubs.
22. Singing in the car. Loud.
23. The feel of beach sand between my toes.
24. “I love you.”
25. “I love you, too.”

When I leave my house in the morning, I usually take one last peek at myself in the mirror by the door to make sure that I haven’t left a velcro roller in (I have, twice), that there’s no toothpaste around my mouth (because foaming at the mouth is something people might not want you to do on transit) or that I haven’t neglected to put on clothing (because, you know, I get distracted.)

Sometimes that glance makes me cringe, because I notice some random, wiry gray hair sticking up from my head like a flag on the moon, or because my eyes look puffed out like Large Marge from the Pee Wee movie.

I always walk away, though, because what can you do? That’s how I look. Put on some music, and let’s go.

That cursory check is just about equal to the amount of time I’ve spent walking through my own head lately.

I pop in to make sure nothing has blown up or caught on fire, and then I head out again, secure in the knowledge things will hold for one more day, or one more week, or however long it takes me to notice blood running out one ear from the sheer pressure of thoughts piling up.

Now, you might laugh when I say that, given the reality that I am both a writer and a blogger. This must mean I have cornered the market on navel gazing and self-reflection and BLAH BLAH BLAH THE VOICE OF MY HEART. And you are welcome to. I know all this is madness on some level.

But I’m awfully good at wading around in my own head and splashing enough that you might think I’ve gone deeper.

“She’s soaked. She must have gone for a swim.”

Nope. Shallow end.

It’s easier that way.

Then again, completely not.

So I dove in just now and looked a little harder in the mirror (and any other metaphors I could possibly include to indicate I was paying attention to my insides for a sec.)

You know what?

It’s a bit rough in there.

I feel like I’ve been passive about a lot of things, selfish about a lot of things, ignorant about a lot of things, confused about a lot of things, wrong about a lot of things, and pessimistic about a lot of things.

Not the positive, jolly, Love Listing girl who comes back grinning like an inflatable clown punching bag, no sir.

Just weary. And a bit lame.

I could chalk it up to being sick, and the fact that I needed to stay on the surface to keep going. Because that lasted a hell of a long time, and isn’t over yet. But that’s no great excuse. All I had was pneumonia, not the Black Plague.

I could chalk it up to being busy, but eh. Busy is busy. I’m going to be busier someday, so I better learn to be a human being through it now.

But regardless of the why, I’ve been silent here, mostly.

Because this is a mirror.

And I was running by.

If I don’t like what I see, though, I need to DO something, not just walk away.

That doesn’t mean I want to stand there and stare into the core of my soul for hours. That’s not helpful to anyone. That doesn’t make life go forward. That doesn’t make me a better person.

It just makes me a lameass who is abundantly versed in my own lameassedness.

No, I’d rather be a lameass who looks long enough to see why, and then stops. And learns. And evolves. And gets on with it.

It’s a seconds-longer action, but it makes all the difference.

So I’ll try.

Today is my mom’s birthday.

She’s turning 58.

She would have no problem with me telling you that, too, since people regularly marvel at her age because she looks so young. “You couldn’t possibly have a 37 year old son! And a daughter who looks 22 but is actually 34!”

Okay, so they don’t really say that. The first part, yes. The second part is me lying to myself, as I am wont to do.

But she’s beautiful, and talented, and funny, and the kind of person people depend on when they can’t depend on anyone else.

She’s everyone’s friend.

Everyone’s mom.

Everyone’s sister.

Everyone’s wife. No, I’m kidding.

I always know my mom will be there for me if I need something, because that’s just the kind of person she is. We might not always see eye to eye, but I love that, too… it means we’re both passionate and strong and secure enough in our relationship to be honest.

I know I’m blessed, to say the least.

And that’s why today’s Love List is for my mom!

It will come in two parts: Things My Mom Loves and Things I Love About My Mom.

And while I know you can’t really chime in with things you love about my mom unless you know her (and feel free, if you do!), but you can say Happy Birthday and rock a love list of your own anywhere you like.

Remember… Fridays are for lovin’.

Things My Mom Loves

My dad
Sean and Carey
Meg
Everyone else
Kids
Dinner parties with people she loves
Decorating and design — and she’s genius at it
Wearing black
Chinese food. Actually, Chinese anything.
Making people look beautiful with her sewing/seamstressing/design gifts
The world’s most irritating cat
Beverages with an unnatural amount of ice
Vanilla Noel lotion
British sitcoms
White towels
Swimming
Mystery novels
Traveling, which she doesn’t get to do often enough
Yellow roses
The raspberry iced tea-lemonade combo
Painting, drawing, sketching. Also genius.
Knitting to stay awake during DVDs
Her watch and bracelet and earrings. Never leaves home without wearing all three.
Cannon Beach, OR
Lecturing her daughter HAHAHAHA
Giant purses that look more like suitcases
Google Image Search
Her knee wedge pillow
Water. She always says (in restaurants when waiters asked her what she wanted to drink), “Oh, water’s fine…” and then takes a sip of hers. Every. Single. Time.
Kooky, strappy heels
A well-made bed
Blistex, which cures everything, apparently
HGTV
Restoring pieces she finds at Goodwill — lamps, “objets”, whatever catches her eye
Motown
Flip flops (you wonder where I got it from? both my parents wear them — though my dad only on the beach or in downtime)
MY BLOG!

and….

Things I Love About My Mom

Her big, amazing heart
Her way with a room — she is the butterfly, the soul, the includer
How she cries at like, EVERYTHING meaningful
Her ability to see what people need, and provide it for them without making them ask or feel silly
Her faith
Her sense of adventure and mischief
That I can still shock her by swearing, but not really
Her nurturing ways. I don’t like having people around when I’m sick, but no one gets it right like my mama.
Her love for my dad
How she shouts on cell phones until my dad (who is in the car with her) and I (on the other end) tell her SHHHHH
Her love of Google Image Search
When she scratches my feet for me
Watching her with babies and kids
Her eye for the right way to set up a room
Her encyclopedic brain
Her GIANT OWL SUNGLASSES
Her inability to clap and sing at the same time
That she holds my hand when we sing hymns when I visit my dad’s church
Her laugh… especially when she’s going so hard she’s crying
Her giant eyes
Her grace
Her sarcasm — yeeeowch!
Her cooking — mmm!
Her ability to tell a story and cry or laugh as she goes on because she’s so in the moment
Her generosity
Her strength of conviction and character, even when we butt heads
That I know her well enough to make a list of things she loves, and to make a list of things I love about her.

I LOVE YOU MOMMY!