Jeanette McGurk – Modern Creative Life

June 12, 2018

What I Am Not by Jeanette McGurk

I am NOT completely grown up.
By now, I thought I would be, less than a month from 50.
Is my room clean? My bed made, even after eating cookies and getting crumbs in it?
The dog, a better grown up, often takes care of the crumbs.

I am NOT without fault.
Oh, I would like to think “if all the people I voted for got elected”….but wait?
Did I vote Saturday in that local election?
Did I put cardboard in the regular trash?
Did I drive past the woman walking on the street in her bathrobe and walker?
I am not without fault.

I am NOT happy about weird skin bumps and spots and tags.
This, this part of aging I am not a fan of.
I was prepared for wrinkles. I can mostly deal with wild curly white hairs.
The ones my daughters love to pull and watch spring in different directions.
I am even okay with sagging….everywhere
But witchy bumpy skin, really gets on my nerves.

I am NOT a fly on the wall.
I am a Mom in a minivan.
I drive 5 kids home from school every day.
Today, they discussed what to call their clubhouse in the woods.
It is proudly made of sticks and grass and other found treasures.
Worthy of its name: The Society of the Pugalope.
(But it is a secret, so don’t tell anyone).

I am NOT a good driver.
Just ask my garage or my husband.

I am NOT a poet.
Sunday I sat in a room full of poets.
I need to throw out a line long enough to catch a whale
in my storytelling.
These folks, take a handful of words and
craft them into 90 seconds of bliss.

I am not a poet but I AM a lover of
miniature journeys.
Their intimacy.
Is there any map so clear to the heart?

About the Author: Jeanette McGurk

Jeanette McGurk is a Graphic Designer who entered the world of writing through advertising. She discovered writing a lot of truth with a little fluff is a lot more fun than the other way round. Now that she is no longer spending time making air conditioners, tile floors, IT and Botox sound sexy, she writes about the unglamorous yet wonderful moments of life for people like herself; in other words, anyone looking for interesting ways to put off cleaning and doing laundry.

She is a curmudgeon and doesn’t Twit or Instagram. She has heard the blog is dead but since she has finally figured out how to do it, that is the museum where you can locate her writings. http://jmcpb.blogspot.com/.

April 13, 2018

The Great Escape by Jeanette McGurk

In our house we live with a certain level of spontaneity. This is partially because of my personality type. “What? Leave now to see a band 3 hours from us? Hell yes!” And partially because of my husband’s job. We joke that he is the cleaner; the guy they bring in when everything else fails. Right now we are in Germany for 5 weeks because of a project that has gone off the rails. Riding off the rails was easier to manage when the kids were little.

As they get older, roots and responsibilities stretch themselves around our lives so that we can’t put home on pause anymore. If we leave, arrangements must be made for Moxie, our fat little tootsie roll of a dog and Mr Farkus, the king of grumpy geriatric cats.

I am a Girl Scout leader. A few Girl Scout meetings must be managed so 6th graders who are already losing some interest do not lose all interest. And then there is the bit about school. It is totally frowned upon for 4th and 6th graders to go gallivanting about Germany focused on schnitzel and sledding rather than the common core standard. In fact, it is easy to justify all the reasons why the girls and I should not be here.

It is expensive, impractical, disruptive, and a bit decadent to put every day life on hold to spend a month hanging out in one of my favorite cities. On the other side of the argument, my husband is here. He has been for weeks and weeks.

Not only is it important to rescue him before he goes completely feral, it is better for us as a family to be together.

When John is gone the kids sleep in my bed. He fusses that I have no boundaries but at 10 and 12, I figure at any moment they will be be over me. So, I forgo binge watching Black Mirror for Liv and Maddie. I start off with strict orders of no cookies in bed, only to succumb to cookies in bed which means crumbs in bed. Next it’s Moxie. She looks at us with her big brown eyes, and another rule flies out the window, it is now me, the kids, and a 25lb dog with a stink and snore problem.

All that is left to fill the ark is one very old, mean cat who hates the dog, but calls a truce. Farkus would never allow the dog to one up him. To be honest, when John travels I suspect he becomes more civilized and we are the ones who go feral.

So after some finagling with school and schedules, the kids and I wrap things up and head for Munich. One would think that 10 and 12 would be a great age to travel with children. They are older, wiser and can manage their stuff. All of this is true.

They have also fine tuned their skills on how to annoy one another, and more importantly, me. Before we even make it through security they are being surly and have started flinging insults. I am extra crabby because I have discovered the billions of miles and status my husband has on American does not apply to us. We only get to check 1 bag each. So, we are each carrying our normal bag plus 3 large duffels, two of which I have been kicking through the security line for 15 minutes. What I thought had been a lot of time has somehow dwindled down to less than an hour.

The security guy is adamant that my 12 year old remove her hat and clear her hair out of her face so he can compare her passport photo to real her. She shoots daggers at him from her narrowed eyes. “Yes,” I want to say, “that cute, sweet, looking girl in that photo is the same child a year ago. Welcome to the tween years.”

We finally make it through security. Next on the agenda; food. This is not our first rodeo. With 11 hours of flying ahead of us, we are going to get hungry. In fact, we are already hungry. We had left the fridge as empty as possible before leaving home for 5 weeks and had eaten some stale crackers, cheese and a lone apple before loading into the cab.

As much as we want to like the plane meal three hours from now, it will make our snack look gourmet. My first inclination is towards the Cantina Laredo 10 steps from our gate. The girls grimace. I have been burning them out on Mexican food for the last two weeks. It is the only thing I miss when we are in Europe, well, that and my mammoth washing machine and dryer. I try to go into Cantina Laredo when the Hostess stops me. “Sorry, we are not seating anyone, our computers are down.” I blink at her stunned. “Super” I say. The kids cheer.

I know what this means, pizza. Parenthood has given me an appreciation for wine and a loathing for pizza. Every class party, birthday party, Friday night, Saturday afternoon, seems to involve pizza. I don’t know how my kids can burn out on Mexican food and yet never tire of pizza.

It is one of life’s great mysteries.

We eat our pizza and despite my lack of enthusiasm, it actually hits the spot. With the hangrys dealt with, we are all much more pleasant.

Boarding starts almost immediately after arriving at the gate. Whatever I have forgotten to do, we are now committed. The door closes, the safety info starts and all the over-commitments, under commitments, concerns and stresses fade away. There is something about being on a plane, the lack of control that I find comforting.

I am fully aware how weird this is. Perhaps it is because I am so naturally disorganized.

I spend the two days before travel like a chicken with my head chopped off. Running around, accomplishing nothing. So when I sit down on the plane, I have at least managed myself and the kids to this point. The passports obviously weren’t left. Apparently no one tried to board with a multi-tool. The large threatening toothpaste had to hit the trash but the crackers Lauren apparently packed herself in my best tupperware were allowed through.

Yes the flight will be cramped and uncomfortable but someone else has to drive. I can sit, read, watch movies, all while being served tea, cokes or wine if I am so inclined. Whatever happens, I am not in charge and therefor, I can relax. It is the time where I transition my brain. This trip is both escape and homecoming. It isn’t that I don’t love being at home, I do. But the chance to explore other places is so delicious.

And to explore as a family is even better.

We skip from Heathrow to Munich. We snake through the lines to where the customs agent stands. “How long will you be in Munich?” “About a month.” “What brings you here?” “My husband is here working.” “Is he in the military?” “No.” He asks where he works. I give more answers. He looks at the kids, their bears. “Have a good trip.” “We will, we love Munich.”

He stamps our passports. Thunk thunk. Thunk thunk. Thunk thunk. There is the last formality of getting our luggage, which the girls manage all of. I smile, happy they are showing solid travel legs.

We round the corner and see the tall pale guy we are looking for. The one smiling at us through the sea of all the other tall pale guys. There are hugs and cheers and jumping. My kids are jumpers. We pile into the tiny European version of an SUV. Somehow all of us and all our stuff just manages to fit. We look out at the end of the day and the start of our visit.

Halloo Munchen, we are glad to be here.

About the Author: Jeanette McGurk

October 20, 2017

The Little Black Cloud by Jeanette McGurk

There has been a little black cloud hanging over my week.

Nothing terrible, I am not on life support, I didn’t get the unbearable news that I am highly allergic to chocolate, coffee or Moscow Mules. It was the impending doom of my youngest daughter’s ARD meeting.

If you are not acquainted with this term, it stands for Admittance, Review, and Dismissal. At the start of each year, we have an ARD meeting to discuss what services will be offered through the elementary school to my Learning Disabled daughter. It’s been three years since she was tested and the requirement is that she’ll need to be rested to see if she’s achieved her goals and can be dismissed or is she stays in the services.

There is absolutely no chance of dismissal. At 10 years years of age she barely reads on a 1st grade level.

When she was little, everyone had a helpful suggestion. “Have you tried flash cards? Sesame Street? Do you read to her? Do you have the magnetic letters? Have you tried Leap Frog?” “

“No!” I wanted to scream. “I take her outside and put tin foil on her head and hope that will get her little grey cells working.”

Of course I have done all of that, and more. My husband and I have spent thousands of dollars on every sure to get your kid reading strategy we could get our hands on. Alas, 5 years later, here we sit, $600 a month in tutoring, special programs at school, ADHD medication and still, we are only inching along.

It was easier when she was younger. The gap in her skill set wasn’t so blaring. The L’s she pronounced as w’s were cute, as was calling her back pack a pack pack. Now, I worry about her being bullied, not fitting in, and being made fun of.

We flitted through a wonderful summer of traveling and play-dates. Oblivious to all the nasty reminders of how off path we are academically. Until of course, the diagnosticians and resource room teachers start contacting me with forms I need to fill out for the ARD meeting. Drafts of 504 goals and accommodations she will be given to help her “succeed”.

I am a bit cynical when it comes to the meeting because I am CEO of my kid’s plan only on paper. The few times I have gone in asking for anything, the room has gone dark and cold. The principal and diagnostician sprout fangs from their plastic smiles. When their heads eventually stop spinning they announce with ferocity,

“She is getting all the speech allowed per student. 30 minutes twice a week.
She has been dismissed from OT, the teacher may want her to have access to the room, we say NOOOOOOooooo!
How dare you think we would test her for dyslexia, she is too low on intelligence to even test to see if she might be dyslexic or to see if that program would work.”

That last one is really what is up my craw.

I have been fighting for 3 years to get the school to test her for Dyslexia. I would be happy to test her outside the school, but my husband has been stubborn. We pay a hefty amount in property taxes for schools each year.

So limbo. Limbo because the school thinks my daughter does not have the brain power necessary to go through the dyslexia program and my husband doesn’t want to fork out $1000 for a test the school may not accept from an outside source.

And truth be told, I was willing to accept that she was better off being taught to read by the resource teacher.

However, practically every adult who interacts with my child, including the pediatric neurologist, tutor, and teachers believe she is not low on intelligence. These folks feel her problem is a processing challenge combined with a severe case of dyslexia. Apparently, if it is really a bad case, a child can text poorly across the board.

Which is exactly what my child has done in everything except problem solving and non-calculation math. On those two things, she does rather well.

So Thursday, my dark cloud and I headed into the ARD meeting. I am expected to play nice so as not to draw out the dark forces, and by Christmas be forced to move my child into a private school.

My daughter’s pediatric neurologist told me it was my number one job as her parent, to keep her self esteem up. What I had not realized, was how gloomy, cynical, and devoid of hope I had become about the whole situation.

For a week before the meeting, my attitude was just bad. I didn’t want to do anything. I was pitifully preparing to go in and be pummeled by people who without really knowing her had already giving up on my daughter. Believing she didn’t have enough brain power to get through 1st grade reading.

People who would not fight for her the way I was supposed to. People who were not there to be her hero, the way I am supposed to.

The problem was, by Thursday, kryptonite had robbed me of any superhero powers. I went in, defeated before I had even begun.

So, it was a great surprise for me to sit down at a table where the roles had reversed.

I was the dark shadow.

From every other person, I heard stories of what a joy my daughter is. How delightful she is to teach.

Her science teacher told me she looks out for her on the playground and sees her playing with one other little girl almost every day. A few days when my little peanut was alone, she asked, “are you okay?” And peanut said, “Yes, today I am in the mood to play by myself.” The next few days she was with a big group of kids. This wonderful teacher took it upon herself to make sure out of the eighty 4th graders running around like a kicked ant pile, that one little slip of a girl would not be alone in the mix.

The speech teacher commented how they had bonded over kid’s bop. The goals they are now working on go beyond the basic from year’s past to verb tenses and synonyms. Progress.

The new resource teacher said just that day they had leveled up. Progress.

This year she finally gets writing as well and this woman, this sweet woman, looked at me and said, “Don’t worry, we will get there. I have complete faith in your daughter.”

Now I am starting to blink back happy grateful tears. Darn brutal school florescent lighting.

Most shocking of all, the Principal had pulled in the dyslexia specialist without me asking, so they can start testing her next week. The diagnostician still thinks she is too low for it to do any good, but after basking in the glow of my daughter’s own private Justice League, I am not so sure.

They are there all day fighting for her. Lifting her up, getting her to that next step, and the next.

No one in that room had given up hope except for me. It won’t be easy, it will never be easy. But it isn’t hopeless either. In fact, much to my surprise, I left the meeting without the company of my little black cloud.

A loving breeze had blown it clear away.

About the Author: Jeanette McGurk

August 14, 2017

The Human Reset Button by Jeanette McGurk

I recently read an article in National Geographic titled “the next human”. It basically outlined the crazy advances in technology that are ready to redesign our genes, beat our hearts, and pick up the pace on our brains. It was one of those deep and thought provoking articles that had me wondering if a brain reboot would be included in the human master plan. Some sort of 30 second reload to refresh the brain.

Of all the advances discussed, that is the one I want.

A little button on the back of my head that I can push at around 3 am when my brain has hit overload, and thus I am wide awake worrying about all the things I forgot to do the day before. What could exciting accomplishments could prevail with a 30 second worry wipe when the brain hits sleep sabotage mode or productivity freeze?

I picture the same sort of magic that unsticks my laptop when I have opened, 60 windows worth of information I don’t want to close. The computer is smart enough to announce “not responding”. Until the Human Brain Reset Button is invented, the best reset I have found for “not responding” is an ancient one.

Several years ago, I met the most wonderful level-headed woman from the Midwest. She is the type of person who gets to appointments on time, keeps her fish tank crystal clear, and never gets below a quarter tank of gas. You get the picture: she is responsible and solid. Not at all the type of person you would expect to be a mindful meditation coach.

Yes, I had a pretty strong stereotype. Someone who jingles around barefoot in a swirly skirt, no bra, sitting on the floor in an inverted pretzel position, palms up, saying “ommmmmm”. Not that I think any of that is bad, it invokes a level of mysticism that has eluded me my entire life. For years I tried to juggle, be free enough to go braless in public and meditate but failed at all three. I am only a hippy want a be.

I think that is what made me fail over and over at meditating. I was expecting some floaty out of body experience. Ha! If only some higher power would take control and make it easy.

There is a reason my dependable friend meditates. It takes as much discipline as exercising the rest of your body. Attempting to clear your head of thought for just 20 minutes a day is hard. I would have given up by now had I not gone to her class once a month for over a year.

The class is where I discovered, it is okay that thoughts creep in.

Alone in my house, I would set the timer, and try to empty my head. But then I would start my to do list of everything I needed to do. My head would never get clear, I would give up. I was a complete failure at it. I might as well tear up my granola liberal card. What self respecting liberal minded individual can’t meditate?

In class I learned EVERYONE has trouble creating quiet with the little grey cells. The deal is you don’t give up.

I discovered that hearing the air come through the vents or feeling the breeze doesn’t have to be a distraction. It is the mind becoming clear enough to notice the very basic. I remember sitting in class on a pleasant evening. The window was open and a cool breeze caught the hairs on my arm, I would never have noticed this had I been rehashing a conversation in my head, my thoughts out of control, over analyzing.

Mindful meditation removes the extra, to reveal what is below all the thoughts floating around.

What are the benefits? For me, it is an ability to get out of my head more often and into what is actually going on.

The end of the school year is always really busy. This year was particularly bad for some reason. Two days after school was out, my niece came to stay with us. I was working frantically to finish a project that was consuming my every moment and feeling guilty because I was working instead of taking the girls to do some fun summer activity.

At that moment, I looked outside and saw them. They had taken sticks and wrapped crape paper streamers around the ends, they were swirling them through the air. It was absolutely beautiful. They were happy.

I could have sat at the table, having a conversation in my head that was completely wrong. But, I have meditated enough that I now have moments where I can actually step back from a moment and try to be mindful. Realizing I needed a reboot, I took a breath, looked up, and saw what was really going on.

It isn’t a magic button, but is magical to stop thinking and be part of life’s moments.

About the Author: Jeanette McGurk

March 31, 2017

Video Friday by Jeanette McGurk

In an odd coincidence, my daughter and I had a similar writing theme this month. She had to write a paper about a favorite ritual. I have been ridiculously indecisive about what ritual or routine I have wanted to write about for this issue of Modern Creative Life.

As I’ve gotten older, pondering these things takes on edges of nostalgia and love that feel overwhelming. That much emotion sometimes leads to the equivalent of writer’s freezy brain. Unfortunately it doesn’t go away as quickly as Slurpee freezy brain.

So, in desperation I went hunting for inspiration through my 5th grader. “Umm, so what ritual did you end up writing about for school? Easter with your cousins? Summer weekends at Grandma and Grandad’s? New Year’s Day cheese grits?” I ask.

“No,” she says, “I wrote about Video Fridays.”

I try to probe more, get specifics in her words but for her it is something we do every Friday. She and her sister love this small 30 minute activity more than almost any other treat I could offer up. And this started kind of as a fluke.

The last days of summer we tend to spend being really, really, lazy. I have been known to pull through the McDonald’s drive thru at 3pm in my pj’s, girls in the back in their pj’s, for dunch. Our afternoon version of brunch. We just combine lunch and dinner. Then around 6pm we have ice cream and hot chocolate chip cookies; custom made 4 at a time from the tube. On these days, when all the play, and crafts and swimming are spent, the days when the Texas August heat has beaten us down into our nice cool house cave, the girls binge on their favorite YouTube videos.

These binges are epoch.

Lauren can watch 3 hours non-stop of Cookie Crumble. A woman whose face we never see but who has lovely, well manicured finger-nails. One of her YouTube channel activities is opening 100’s, perhaps even thousands of mystery Shopkins. The latest craze in Kiddom is to buy mystery toy packs. My kids love them almost as much as Video Fridays and apparently, Lauren can watch someone with unlimited resources open one after another for hours on end.

For Helen, her favorite YouTube diet consists of people sampling different mods and playing Minecraft. She is a connoisseur and should you ask, she would recommend Pat and Jen as the best of the lot.

Does the previous two paragraphs seem foreign to you? It absolutely did to me. I realized one day that listening to my children talk about this stuff was like interacting with martians. Granted, perhaps if my husband and I were better parents, the kind who meticulously screen all the content going into their young brains, we would speak Minecraft lingo and Cookie crumble.

We are not those parents. We were 70’s kids.

We lit matches in the street. We climbed in houses being built during the early 80’s housing boom. We wandered for hours unsupervised on foot and on bikes without cell phones or bicycle helmets and survived. It is not in our DNA to super screen. But, we do like to communicate with our kids, and our kids, who are just starting to get an inkling that we are dorks, still like to hang out with us. In fact, I was being followed constantly through the kitchen while chopping onions or putting a roast in the oven, “Mom, mom, look at this video. It is hilarious.” You cannot learn YouTube martian lingo in these moments. I realized I needed a dedicated time to be immersed, undistracted.

“Girls,” I said, “why don’t we sit down after I get this in the oven. In fact, Fridays while dinner is cooking is a good time. We can all share a favorite video we have watched from the week.”

In that moment, a family ritual was born.

I had no idea what an instant sensation this idea was going to be. It has spent at least 20 weeks at the top of the charts. Any week we miss, we double up the next week. I cannot tell you how many times I have watched the “Puppy Monkey Baby” commercial in horror. The girls never tire of watching me cringe. In fact, a lot of the videos are cringe worthy but occasionally I will shout with glee over a particularly fun pumpkin carving Minecraft competition or the very cool movie theater mod someone created. It never gets old trying to mimic Cookie Crumble’s high pitch munchkin voice. In fact I think she uses some sort of machine to make her voice do that.

I, of course, torture the kids with inspirational TED talks and nature videos. All 5 minutes or less. After Helen’s first 35 minute Minecraft video we had to set time limits. So the whole thing is usually wrapped up in 20 minutes.

Seriously, it is only 20 minutes every Friday and yet, it is the ritual the kids talk about before bedtime Thursday night. It is what we discuss at Friday morning breakfast. It is brought up after school. It is what Helen chose to write about above all the other rituals we have so carefully crafted over the years.

Perhaps it is because in those few minutes every week, they know, I want to know what they find funny or interesting or intense or silly. I want to see their world, not to snoop or make sure they are not watching something they shouldn’t. It is a ritual set aside with no purpose other than letting my children know that their world matters to me.

Years from now, when they think back on Video Friday and they have a moment of emotional Freezy Brain, I hope that is what they remember. Well that and I hope they suddenly get the urge to look up Puppy Monkey Baby as adults and experience the cringe!

About the Author: Jeanette McGurk

February 16, 2017

Instant Mystic: Stirred, not shaken by Jeanette McGurk

Stealthy and luxurious.
The original super spy.
It creeps in unnoticed until it is everywhere,
thick,
quick sand of the air.

You see something,
an arm reaching out to take you within.
But it is only a tree branch.
A lonely blanket heavy with chill.

It feels deceivingly safe.
Right until CRASH!

Then it is gone.
No trace left behind.
Only the memory of a lover’s breath on the back of your neck.

About the Author: Jeanette McGurk

January 27, 2017

Enchantment and Magic with The Garden Women by Jeanette McGurk

Years ago, I worked for a company that sold oils and vinegars steeped in herbs and packaged in beautiful Italian bottles. We worked in a small space with concrete floors, a metal roof and metal sides. There was an industrial sized rolling door where deliveries came and went. This rolling door transformed our work-space from a drab florescent-lit room into a gateway where we could see miles into the hill country.

After a day of packing jalapenos into hot apple cider vinegar, corking, sealing, cleaning, packing 30 or 40 orders, double boxing each weighing in at 20 to 30 lbs, Margie would tell me to open the back wall, where we would sit, legs dangling off the steep concrete embankment and watch the sunset with our favorite poison d’jour. For Rena it was usually a Bloody Mary and a joint. Margie enjoyed Miller light with a shot of tequila timed at 30minute intervals and supplemented in between with a few Virginia Slims. At 24 I was poor and a lightweight so I tended to mooch a beer, a couple of hits off Rena’s joint and I was good.

This was not your typical career path job out of college. It was something better.

Two years earlier I had emerged from college ready to conquer the world. Instead, I ran smack dab into a recession and the Gulf War. I moved home, scoured the employment section of the newspaper and spent every Sunday night hanging out at Kinkos with my best friend.

We were renting time on desktop computers creating individualized cover letters to go with our rather green resumes. Back in those days we were hard pressed to fill a page, even double-spaced with a 12.5 type font. 26 years later, I think I still have a ream of Neenah Classic Laid 24lb in natural white floating around in the attic somewhere.

Ah, the joy of weekly rejection, the hours of tube tv spent watching scud missals lighting the desert night.

Somehow I stumbled into a pre-press job after a month or so. I learned a lot, particularly about working for someone who is 25, arrogant and set up in a printing business by parents who have won the lottery.

Seriously, his parents won the lottery.

They opted to buy him a print shop rather than send him to school. So, I found myself with a boss three years older than me who slept with every employee he could, fired anyone who did not feed his ego and who on occasion would follow me out to my car when I was off the clock to tell me what the fuck I had done wrong.

It didn’t take much arm twisting when my college boyfriend asked if I wanted to move down to San Marcos with him. He was working at a gas station in Wimberley while finishing his degree and told me his boss’ wife was looking for someone to design her a label.

Margie and I instantly hit it off. She was eleven years older than I, beautiful, smart and straight forward.

She had spent a lot of money to have a bunch of men at a San Antonio ad agency design a label for a gourmet vinegar she created. She told them exactly what she wanted and they designed something completely opposite. They proceeded to tell her this was for her own good. They knew her product better than she did. She paid, left, and never contacted them again.

I listened to what she wanted and then tried to turn her vision into reality. It is the magic moment in graphic design, the moment when your client says, “THAT!!! THAT is exactly what I was imagining.”

In that moment you have connected and brought to life the thing that was in their head.

It is glorious.

After that Margie offered me a job. It ended up being one of the best opportunities of my life. The money was terrible but I learned what it was like to work with someone who values your ideas.

The company was started in Margie’s kitchen. We did every single step of the process; making recipes, researching bottles, finding local fresh herbs and resourcing large quantities of vinegar. We took small baskets of our product to boutique stores in Wimberley, Fredericksburg, Gruene, Austin and San Antonio.

It grew.

Together we planned out a space that was built between a candle maker and a jewelry designer. I had a say in everything we did. I was never talked down to or belittled as I had been in the print shop. In this environment, I had a confidence never even experienced in college. Our products, completely designed by a 24 year old rookie, were sold in Harry & David, the Neiman Markus gift catalogue and the Texas Monthly gift catalog.

In most jobs, this would be where the enchantment ended, but Margie hired a staff of amazing women.

Most of the work was monotonous. It paid per bottle so we could know exactly what the cost was for every bottle produced.

What I found monotonous, retired women loved.

There were two ladies, both somewhere in their 60’s who could sit for a few hours or more talking, smoking and stuffing jalapenos into jars. The outside of the jalapeños had to show and there was a visual way of speckling the green with red so each bottle was a mini work of art.

Some days I packed orders, some days I was on the phone and some days I would sit and stuff with Dixie and Jeanie.

She also hired the most off the grid, interesting, true hippie I have ever known. This woman in her early 40’s could see a silver aura around me and told me once she had an orgasm during sex, she would advise her lovers to hurry and be done because she had no need for them after that. These things were mind blowing. You simply did not come across a lot of women talking about auras and orgasms in 1993.

Okay, let’s face it, that doesn’t happen often in Dallas in 2017.

This was much more than a place to work. It was a place to pour out the best parts of ourselves.

For Dixie, that was her cooking. She was from Shreveport and she could cast a spell on a pot and whatever went in, (usually something cheap and on sale), came out so delicious it would have moved Gordon Ramsey to tears. If Dixie was working we all feasted at lunch. If she stayed til close, she would dance a bit of zydeco around us on the loading dock, cigarette between her teeth, white hair not moving an inch.

In every way Dixie was spicy, Jeannie was not.

She had been married for 40 years to Harold, her honey. I don’t think we ever knew how many times Dixie had been married although I think at that time, she had a well-trained fella who might have lasted. These two were perfect work buddies.

They both loved to spin a tale, most of Jeannie’s were about her life with honey, most of Dixie’s were about dancing and raising hell. The great thing was, as much as each of them loved to talk, they loved to listen to the other. Probably more then the rest of us did. Of course we were still in our 20’s, and 30’s we could not yet appreciate the complete joy of sitting next to someone and just listening.

Although we did do a lot of listening.

This job was outfitted with hours of talk radio and we had a small tv on which many an Oprah and Heat of the Night was watched. It was even with these women that I watched the infamous OJ Simpson car chase. We spent hours and hours together watching the trial. We may have been the only 5 people in the country completely behind Marcia Clark.

Not a single one of us was perfect. I think everyone but Jeannie had spent a night spread out on two office chairs when things had not gone well at home. We had cried and laughed together, never feeling judged. We all knew what it was like to be bullied in a man’s world. We would have welcomed her into our fold with open arms; our mystic spot in the hill country where we were free to be ourselves.

In the years since I have probably heard it 50 or 60 times, “You know, how horrible women get when they all work together, it is awful.”

No, I honestly don’t know. My best bosses have always been women.

Sure, I have run into female personality types that I have not meshed with, just as with men.

But the time when my silver aura was the strongest and brightest, the time when my ideas were most nurtured from a seedling into brilliance was with the ladies of Cypress Valley Garden, in a small industrial building with a really big view.

About the Author: Jeanette McGurk

October 14, 2016

A New Adventure Begins by Jeanette McGurk

Summer has slipped away and I have had time to marinate on our 2500 mile adventure. Before we left, I read a beautiful article centered on how much a family learns about one another on a road trip. It advised parents not to tell their children what to look at out the window and allow the kids to discover their own joys on the other side of the glass. They will eavesdrop on their parents conversations and learn how the most influential adults in their lives behave when they are almost alone, their guard down after miles of travel.

I thought the article very wise and I fully intended to follow the directions with a bit of tweaking. I intended to be a better version of myself while young impressionable ears were listening.

All of this flew out the window at around mile 5.

In my defense, I have lived my entire life in Texas; big, but not scenic. I tell people all the time that Texans make the best travelers because we are basically in awe of everything: hills, trees, water, green grass versus brown. So, the minute we pull onto Pacific Coast Highway the temptation was too much. John and I both were.

“Girls! Look!!! Look!!! That is the Pacific Ocean.

WE are on one of the most famous roads in the world.

When the travel channel does the specials on the coolest, most scenic, most fun to drive drives, this road is on the list!

WE are on a destination road.

People from all over the planet come to California just to experience what we are experiencing!

Hey, what are you looking at? Your iPads?!?! Seriously, quit looking at your iPad!

Okay, just hand over the iPads and enjoy the damn scenery.”

So much for the better version of myself.

So much for letting them experience the trip their own way.

Our first night, we checked into a hotel outside Santa Barbara early enough to relax and head over to a local place called the Cliffs to view the sunset. It was beautiful. Except the kids wanted to run around after hours of being in the car forced to look at scenery.

This is not a big deal at home as you can run around a Texas beach for hours without fear anything more than black tar will cover your legs. The beaches are flat brown horrid things that we like to hide with drunken college students.

The beaches in California are way more attractive, but they are also more treacherous.

The kids could see the water, from the side of the cliff and didn’t seem to get the concept that things would go badly if they stopped paying attention and went over the side. Before the sun had completely set, John said “We are leaving. This is not relaxing. Get away from the edge and stop trying to coat yourselves in sand.”

The next day we all woke having transitioned into vacation mind set.

I am convinced it takes 24 hours to stop worrying about day to day life and start enjoying vacation. There is a level of anxiety you don’t even know is there until it evaporates.

We piled into the van, ready for a 1500 mile road trip. Our first stop: McDonald’s of course. Is there a more American way to start the Great American road trip? This was a top notch 5 star McDonald’s. There was a ping-pong table on the outside patio. This patio was nicer than ¾ of the patios I have encountered in Dallas.

For me, the Kodak moment came while waiting long excruciating minutes for the girls to go to the bathroom. I was standing in the middle of Mickey D’s scouring the plaques on the wall when I discovered I was standing on ground zero for the very first Egg McMuffin. Thank God for camera phones. I now have an image of the blue egg plaque sitting on my phone that I can whip out when talking exotic destinations.

“You have been to the Eiffel Tower? That is great! But have you been to THE McDonalds to first introduce the Egg McMuffin? I thought not.”

As you can see, the girls and I can become easily distracted.

What with peeing, Helen wanting pictures in front of the McDonald’s ping pong table, me fantasizing over interesting McMuffin conversations, it is enough to drive my poor husband insane. If I had a dollar for every time he said “WTF took you so long!!???” well we could retire and go on more trips.

So with John’s first WTF of the trip, we said good bye to Santa Barbara and went off in search of some forest and beach.

One of the benefits of a road trip, is setting your own itinerary. I must admit that ours was pretty aggressive: we had 8 days to get back to Texas.

The sensible thing to do would have been interstate 40 straight across desert country all the way home. Yeah, we didn’t do that.

Maybe if we were a family of scorpions that would have been the plan, but we have watched too many Nature Valley Granola commercials, we wanted lush vistas. So north we went. Up PCH to Pismo Beach where we lucked into a wonderfully empty beach with a parking spot, basically right by the bench that shows up on google maps.

Enthusiastically we raced down the wooden stairs, past the surfers, past the kayak class, we were all so excited I failed to notice Lauren in her iconic, I have to pee stance. (Surely someone else has seen a statue of this stance: butt out, legs crossed, and little hand going for the privates….)

Time to divide and conquer! Helen and John to the left, Lauren and I to the right. Fortunately a helpful surfer informed us that beach peeing was perfectly acceptable, we just needed to find a semi private spot, which we did, beside a pooping seagull.

I guess when you are eight there is no greater find than a “bathroom” that is apparently okay for girls, boys, and birds.

Being a fairly typical eight-year-old, Lauren is that she is always too busy to inform us she has to pee. On the up side, since we have so little notice, she has adapted to being able to go anywhere and she is done in like, 15 seconds flat. Seriously, she was faster than the seagull.

We start back down the beach towards Helen and John. I notice through the camera lenses that Helen is running pretty far out into the ocean. At the moment the water is a little past her knees, but then…CRASH! The wave almost covers her. She comes running out of the water like a sea monster is after her.

There is nothing like the shock of the Pacific Ocean. It beckons with its beauty and lulls you into a false sense that it is not going to be THAT cold. Then it whacks you full force.

It leaves me breathless. My feet even cramp. Helen was experiencing that moment on the other end of the beach. Apparently, being a beach novice, she had left her crocs too close to the water’s edge and a wave stole one. She was soaked to the bone but had successfully reclaimed her shoe.

She looked utterly stunned. “I had no idea I was that far in the deep end.”

We rushed back to the van, where Helen stripped and traveled the rest of the way to Purisima Creek Redwoods Open Space clad in her robe. It is one of my favorite images from the trip. (Preceded by John totally loosing it over having the van less than 24 hours and it forever tainted by sand.) I was trying to think why on earth we had only taken one beach vacation. And that would be it: my husband’s extreme hatred of sand.

Perfect time to head for big trees.

I had looked into Muir woods but everything I read advised against it on a holiday weekend. I scoured the area for other giant groves of redwoods. I found Purisima Creek. It looked perfect. It was right on our path, we could go from there to Half Moon Bay and on to San Francisco, all in one day. Done.

The only thing I had failed to realize was that we would be on a teeny tiny road, on the side of a mountain, with a giant drop off, for over an hour. That one hour took three years off of my life. I was sore for days from leaning to the left. Willing us not to go over the side of the mountain.

John may believe it was his driving but I am sure my leaning was just as critical to surviving such a horrible skinny steep road.

We reached the forest, Helen got dressed and off we went for a hike. Really, there is nothing like hiking in a forest. These were not spectacularly big redwoods but it didn’t matter. The air smelled rich and woody. It was pleasant without being cold or hot.

Best of all, there was a bathroom so no crouching behind the redwoods. We had a hike that was just long enough to work out the road kinks but not so long to tire us out. We climbed back into the van, happy, refreshed, and ready to go. And we did go.

Directly backward and smack dab into a car parked behind us.

There is nothing that will make a man go green like wrecking a car he has recently purchased. Especially when it happens the day after writing a very large check for said car. Everyone was fine, in fact, I hit things in my car so often that the kids hardly flinched.

I think they even commented as much.

The good news, it was just a scrape. We left a note for our victim, since they were off enjoying a nice hike, unaware someone had just smooshed their tail-light to smithereens.

Huge kudos to my green husband for dusting himself off and getting back behind the wheel, it is one of the great things about John, he deals with things head on and keeps going.

So, we continued on our journey, which to our amazement, seemed to become more and more beautiful the further north we went. Finally we reached San Francisco. It was only our second night but somehow it felt like more. Not more in a bad way.

It was two days made larger by seeing and feeling all the details.

Daily life sometimes misses that. Vacation doesn’t. It can reopen your eyes to all the millions of tiny moments.

You go to the ocean thinking you will remember it like a picture in a magazine but it is so much more. It is the smell, the vastness, the laughter of family, the taste of salt. I crawled into the slightly lumpy bed that night, snuggled up beside John and felt completely happy.

Content with the treasure already discovered, and all we would find on the rest of our journey.

About the Author: Jeanette McGurk

August 29, 2016

Preface to a New Adventure by Jeanette McGurk

Back in February my husband turned 50. He is in great shape thanks to a gene pool that is amazingly forgiving towards a bad diet and lack of exercise.

Still, fifty is fifty.

I remember looking at the middle age crazies from the safe distance of my 20’s thinking I would be totally above that nonsense. What I didn’t realize is that you aren’t crazy, you are in fact incredibly sane. It is more like the middle age count down. Suddenly the things you have been putting off, really can’t be put off any longer. You either go jump out of an airplane or take it off the bucket list. That happens to be one things I took off the bucket list. I chalk that up to middle age sanity.

So, with the time clock not so gently ticking, we decided to take the plunge.

As I am writing this, the summer is just beginning. John booked us flights to California, the recreational van capital of the world (thank you surfer dudes), and upon arrival, we will be the proud owners of a Mercedes sprinter van, the world’s most expensive, rolling, air-conditioned tent. We intend to take this blank canvas and turn it into our head quarters for North American adventures.

I use the term adventures loosely.

There will be no blogs of us repelling into the Grand Canyon or up El Capitan. No, we just want to see beautiful things with our kids. We are looking forward to getting tired of each other after hours together in the car. We crave life outside the classroom, boardroom and laundry room.

This is the road we are choosing to travel.

Sorry, I tried, I could not stop myself, honestly, I have about fifty corny road analogies but I decided to go with that one because life is a path. I want to spend some of it in the slow lane, taking in the scenery and eating s’mores.

OK. I promise to stop now.

Once we return and the children are back in school, I’ll let you know how it went. See you around the next bend.

Really, that is the last one….

About the Author: Jeanette McGurk

May 31, 2016

Polkas, PotLucks, and The Final Next by Jeanette McGurk

Mother’s Day Weekend, I went to a “Celebration of Life” ceremony for my Dad’s best friend Satish. We gathered at what used to be the Woman’s Museum at Fair Park in Dallas.

Fair Park is an anomaly in Dallas, where there is little love for anything with a bit of tarnish on it. Somehow though, Dallas developers have been slow to demolish this group of Art Deco buildings.

This particular building has a fascinating history, as most old buildings do. Before it was a failed Woman’s Museum, it served as an administration building. And before it was an administration building, it served the community as a coliseum for livestock auctions by day, and a music hall by night.

The front entrance has a nude female statue looking very much like the Venus De Milo, only she is rising from a cactus. Perhaps the rest of the world would find her tacky, yet both my mom and I loved her. Instantly.

It is certainly a place that feels like Satish, the man we have come to celebrate. He was definitely the Venus D’Milo blossoming from a cactus. As I think this, I feel his shimmering presence, my father’s best friend. I can see his face, crinkled in laughter.

And as we walk into the door, there he is greeting us from beyond the grave. There is a table filled with watches, watch faces, leather straps, larger clocks, all displayed in an old fashioned box with different compartments.

The little sign says, “Take One”.

I fondly remember Satish’s watch phase. He would buy ancient dead timepieces, nurse them back to life, re-swizel them and give them to friends. We show our wrist to the others around us, sharing his love with Satish Originals wrapped around our wrists.

We continue further inside and deliver offerings to the potluck room. My oldest happily denotes our hummus as vegetarian; she takes it upon herself to read the ingredients on the dip next to ours and proclaims it in need of a vegetarian sign as well.

After the all-important work of labeling, we follow the crowd into a large gathering room. Somewhere out of site is a projector flashing pictures of the family on a huge wall. It is good to see his happy face surrounded by family.

Time arrives for the formal part of the celebration and we’re ushered into a small auditorium. An eloquent man rises to speak, and with the ease of conductor, he directs us through a symphony of laughter and tears. He speaks of death as a gift of appreciation for the people we lose, a thought that strikes me as true though I’ve never considered it before.

It has been about two weeks since Satish has died and it is sinking in that I will never delight in one of his lively tales again. I mentally chastise my terrible memory, forbidding it to forget his voice, his laugh.

Before the presentation even started, a man tapped me on the shoulder and told me that as a 52 year old black man, he had been unable to find a job until Duke hired him. He proudly says this changed his life.

The man sitting next to him was younger and Indian. He seemed shy but in a rush, he spoke of how Satish mentored him, took him under his wing, and helped him on his life and career path.

A series of speakers take the podium…

A college friend touches on the brilliance of Satish, something I forget often because he was so wonderfully silly. All my Dad’s friends are brilliant, but Satish, he was special. He attended ITT, the MIT of India. Several of the men in the room attended ITT, but they all defer to Satish as the most brilliant: 53rd out of the 3000 accepted and he graduated 2nd in his class.

And yet, it was his humanity and love of people that stands out above the fact that he was google long before there was a google.

Another man comes to the podium, this man worked with him at Parkland hospital. He calls him Duke and shares several stories about the real difference Satish made in the lives of the people he came into contact with. Heads were nodding up agreement throughout the audience and he finishes with a quote from Maya Angelou:

“I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”

They play Bill Withers “Lean On Me”…

Most funerals share the stories of those from the best light, for Satish, it felt no one could full capture his light with mere words. I look at my father; he stares straight ahead. As tears roll down my face, I see he is holding them in. He reaches over and holds my daughter’s hand, as the young and old do, she comforts him.

The last speaker is Satish’s youngest daughter. She is amazing as she captures the warmth, humor, and wit of her father. She carries us through the journey of his life: the early days, his crazy jokes, his heart attack 12 years before…and the final hour of his life. I am in awe of her strength in this hour of loss.

We drift back to share a meal together as they play Man of the Hour by Pearl Jam.

I slip away to the bathroom and blow my nose and as I look in the mirror, I hope my fellow celebrants focus on the food and ignore me. All my makeup is gone and I look like a swollen turnip.

I fill my plate and sit down. It is amazing what good samosas’ and mint chutney can do for the soul.

The celebration ends with folk dancing. Satish and Carol met in a folk dancing class. Two kids from two different parts of the world embraced in their love of different cultures twirling in celebration of life. It is fitting that their goodbye would bookend their hello; and what a wonderful goodbye.

We gathered for food, dancing, remembrance, and love. I am profoundly grateful for the Satish time in my life. I slip a tiny watch face into my purse, devastated there won’t be more time with this man.

Back at the house, Mom and I plop on the couch, exhausted. We have a moment alone and we reflect on the ceremony. We talk about how good it was, but even with the cheer and happy funny memories it was hard.

Death is hard.

Then Mom says aloud the fear in the back on my head. Satish was 69. My Mom is 69. “I guess I am at the age where friends are going to die,” she says. Then my Mom starts to cry. I join her.

It is now out there in the open, just as scary as it was in my head. The inevitable “What’s Next” in our lives. Birth. Adolescence. Adulthood. Old Age. Death. And the tick, tick, ticking of the clock towards The Next for my parents.

Time is running out and I know, one day, in the not too distant future, they will be gone. I can’t say this to my Mom. I just can’t, so instead I say, “Mom, you were so right about having kids. They fill my heart.”

Moments later, the kids and my dad emerge from their walk to the pond for stale crackers from the pantry for the hungry fish. Mom and I quickly put death back on the back shelf of our minds, mostly hidden and as far from our daily thoughts as possible.

The next morning is Mother’s Day. We feel lighter with death hidden behind thoughts of flowers and breakfast in bed. Later in the morning, Mom and Helen go sit on the porch.

Surrounded by men of science – her father, my father, Satish – Helen is quite certain that the big bang happened without the aid of a creator. “Maybe there is a creator,” Mom offers. She asks a series of questions to prod Helen’s thought process. Who created the molecules that created the bang? How did something start if there was absolutely nothing to start it?

I see her ten-year old face contorted in the way it does when she is deciding whether or not to keep her own opinion or consider a new one.

Of course this whole set of hows and whats always makes my head hurt. I always go back to who created the creator.

Still, we are here. We exist somehow until we don’t. I have no idea what comes next. Lots of people feel certain they know but I never have.

I hope we have a next that somehow involves spirits no longer separated by bodies and picture us merging together. I am comforted by the thought of merging together with my grandparents, great grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, children and parents into some super spirit.

Who knows? Maybe all the love and light and one place caused the big bang, exploding into a new universe of life. It seems as plausible to me as any other theory.

Until that next comes for the people I love and for me, I am going to enjoy the now.

When the final next does come, I hope people will do the polka through their tears, eat some roast beast with horseradish sauce, and compare my living years to the Venus de Milo blooming out of a cactus.