Meredith Carson... Across the Pond and Back Again...

So...here are my thoughts on Glinda. As I prepared myself to step into her shoes again, I read all of the  "conspiracy theories" suggesting that Glinda was a power- hungry, manipulating bad witch. I love the theory, but I disagree.  Dorothy longs for adventure, to see new places, and to make true friends who understand her. My Glinda knows this, and therefore, sets her on a path to experience all of those things. The Wicked Witch of the West, although frightening, turns out to be an easy-to-defeat foe. (And Glinda is always keeping an eye on things and just a quick bubble trip away should Dorothy and her friends get in over their heads.) Dorothy must learn that she has power of her own and that even the scariest monsters have grave weaknesses. She comes to realize that the truest friends met along life's path may not look the way we expect them to look, but those unlikely companions hold our hands and stick by our sides through the darkest and most uncertain times. L...

A Muslim hipster, a vegetarian drag queen, a good ol' boy from out in the sticks of Randolph County, and a feminist who loves mystery novels all walk into an audition... No, it isn't the beginning of a tedious joke; its exactly the sort of thing that regularly happens when my local community theatre group holds auditions for shows. It's easy to gaze upon your smart phone and feel a bit of discriminating superiority as you read acid-tongued tweets about those "other people" who disagree with your political, social, and religious beliefs.  Viral memes which ridicule anyone who could possibly support idiotic candidates or policies are so easy and fun to share.  It is now simpler than ever to lump all of those ignorant buffoons together and dismiss them into the category of persons for whom nobody has time.  Sometimes I yearn for the pre-social media days when I didn't have to know that the nice lady I just met at the gym was a member of the Facebook group ...

Recently I have had this niggling desire to write.  It has been a niggling desire that I have hushed up with social media, Food Network, and Utz potato chips. If I am honest, I have been unmotivated to empower my writing self because I am afraid.  I am afraid that I do not have anything new or relevant to say.  Additionally I have realized that most of my obsessive thoughts spiral around my children, and, as they grow older, I do not feel as though I have permission to write publicly about their experiences.  Sharing an anecdote about the cute thing your three year old did at the park is completely different from venting about your fourteen year old’s friend drama.  (I was recently mortified when I read a blog in which a mother had written in detail about her daughter’s experience with puberty along with a self-congratulatory description of all the cute things she had done as a mother to make her daughter’s first period a “special celebration”.  Could you...

Here I am in the place I’ve longed to be for ten years.  I’m back.  It all feels rather surreal.  Thomas Wolfe had already warned me that I couldn’t ever really go home again.  I knew this.  I have never been this age, had these children at this point in time, or been the me who lives in this skin in this place before.  Everyone here has also grown and changed.   The roads have changed.  The barbecue, hushpuppies, and sweet tea, however, all seem to have remained constant.  Praise the Lord. I am elated to be back in North Carolina.  Yesterday I ate my lunch outside in the sunshine.  Folks up in Michigan are buried under a foot of snow and enduring sub-zero temps as I shut my eyes and feel the vitamin D being absorbed through my cheeks.  It is wonderful.  But I am impatient. I feel the burden of impatience when I wake in the morning.  I want to feel at home at home again.  Reinventing myself here sho...

There is something new in my life, friends: anxiety. Of course it isn't completely new. I have always been a worrier. But this past winter, after I declared a fragile victory over my customary seasonal depression, an extra-ordinary sort of anxiety took me on. Unlike depression which I have worn like a heavy cloak, anxiety seems to wear me. It inhabits me from the bottoms of my feet to the top of my scalp. It is prickly and uncomfortable. Unlike depression, once anxiety has it's hooks in, it will not allow me to hibernate or mentally check out. Anxiety is also much more difficult for me to write about. It feeds on my insecurities. It plays games with my ego. It fills me with doubt. It is circular and exhausting causing me to replay, second guess, and over analyze various moments from my day. I feel as though a foreign energy has invaded my mind. No matter how much I try to appease it with logic or calming affirmations, it riles me repeatedly. It insistently whispers that I ...

Over the Christmas holidays, my four year old brought home a wonderfully endearing, imperfect, asymmetrical, knobbly-looking stuffed bear that was given to her by her ingenious preschool teacher, Mrs. Carbary.  Lili's assignment was to name the bear, (no problem.  Sugarbear, of course) and to write in the bear's journal about his winter adventures.  One day as we sat at the kitchen table and I took dictation, this is what Lili had to say about Sugarbear's state of mind: I wondered if Sugarbear and I were kindred spirits because there are many winter days when I am hungry and every fiber of my being tells me I should eat chocolate and mashed potatoes and follow this action with a long nap.  I too am "made for summer...days" and tend to feel shivery, lethargic, and unimaginative during the cold, dark winter months. This year the cold months in Michigan have been exceptionally sharp and stinging, yet somehow I am doing okay.  After many difficult winters b...

We are now in the depths of winter.  I am maintaining my position perched well above Depression Valley with occasional visits to the Island of Aggravation and the Coasts of Over-stimulation.  'Tis the season. Christmas vacation always reminds me of how fragile my grip on psychological wellness is.  My circadian rhythms are thrown completely out of whack during the holidays. My senses are bombarded with flickering lights, unusual aromas, noisy chatter, and a clutter of new stuff. I also feel overwhelmed by the emotional needs of my ever present family.  To be clear most of them have not asked me to fully take on the burden their emotional needs, but I just cannot seem to help myself. I have felt particularly overstimulated and aggravated this week.  When my Monday morning exercise class (my last chance for group exercise before Friday) was canceled, I felt an emotion that reached far beyond frustration.   I f...

Back at the beginning of the fall, in anticipation of my undoubtedly imminent seasonal depression, I tried out a new antidepressant drug.   The medication that I used last year was just so-so and carried with it some unwanted side effects, so I started out with a very low dose of the new drug.  By the end of the first day I felt like I was wired on caffeine.   Toward the end of the second day I had developed a pounding headache which was exacerbated by the drug induced insomnia.   Clearly this new drug was not the miracle I was hoping for.   I returned the mostly unused bottle to the pharmacy for disposal and made up my mind that we all just needed to move to Colorado where life, I  imagine, must be perfect. Colorado was not a realistic quick fix, so I took a few deep breaths and decided not to panic.   I was not ready to let go of the deep contentment that had settled over me during the summer months.   I continually meditated on ...

Last night I was invited to help out with a "Birthday Bake Off" party hosted by my friend Allison for her daughter's twelfth birthday.  She claims she was inspired by a home baking challenge we had here at our house the night before school started.  (You can read about our Sweet Genius Baking Challenge HERE .)  But 'inspiring' is about the only thing for which I can take credit.  She hosted a glorious party in our church's big kitchen where eleven girls and one excited boy created twelve unique and beautiful cakes.  I teamed up with my nine-year-old daughter Sophia to create this simple and wonderful "Trip Down Lemon Lane" cake.   Allison created a fanciful and gratifying birthday party that her daughter Natalie will never forget.  All twelve kids got to take home a one-of-a-kind cake made by themselves to share with their families.  "Brilliant!" I declare. Last night's fun has sent the cogs and wheels in my h...

I have been once again whipped up into the vortex that is middle school.  The first time around I was a sixth grader myself.  I remember that I was completely panicked and self-conscious about how I looked but too tired to wake up early enough to ensure that I had brushed my hair and dressed myself in matching clothes each morning.  I was completely overwhelmed with the busyness of   my new schedule at Jamestown Middle School.    I was dumbstruck by the school lessons about atoms and molecules, communism and the Holocaust, and I was dazzled by the vast assortment of different kids whose approval I so desired. I spent the entirety of my sixth grade year simultaneously feeling both confused and excited; lost and found; idiotic and brilliant.   I experimented with fashion, with friends, with study habits, and with personal identities.   It was exhausting. Meredith, age 11 Rocking the Swatch watch, of course Finally, after many ye...

The night before school started I decided we needed one last creative hurrah at our house before the drudgery of homework and the dread of early morning alarm clocks set in.  Over the summer my two oldest girls and I had become obsessed with the show Sweet Genius on the Food Network.  This show is hosted by the creepy, quirky, and wonderful Chef Ron Ben-Israel.  The premise of the show: accomplished cake/sugar/candy artists are presented with strange mandatory ingredients (like caviar or fruit roll-ups) that must be used in the creation of a dessert that fits into a particular category such as candy, chocolate, or cake.  Contestants are also supplied with an "inspiration" (like disco or puppies) that must be represented in their final, delicious product. On September 2, 2013 we had a Sweet Genius inspired competition in our kitchen.  My kids, who are novice bakers, were allowed to use recipes as references.  They didn't have a ...

I sent this beautiful person off to middle school for the first time this week. She wasn't wearing the war paint when I hustled her onto the wrong bus at 7 am.  She was dressed in a pair of orange shorts and a t-shirt, an outfit she hadn't agonized over very much, by the looks of it.  She was nonchalant and relaxed, but as I watched the wrong bus carry her away into the darkness of the early morning, my insides seized up unexpectedly and I had the unnerving desire to chase after the bus screaming, "Come back, sweet girl!!"  What the hell happened? The overwhelming sense of worry that overtook me that morning was completely unexpected.  After realizing that the number on the bus that my daughter was riding was NOT the number of the bus she was supposed to be riding, I hurried home and called our public school transportation office.  The rather bored secretary confirmed that Emma would arrive at her own school after the high school kids ...

Last week my oldest daughter attended a poetry camp.  She was pretty private about all of the camp happenings during the course of the week and mentioned very nonchalantly on Wednesday that there would be a poetry reading on Friday.  "How exciting!" I thought.  I knew that I'd love to go and hear my girl recite a poem or two that she'd scratched out during the week, so I arrived with average expectations and left with puffy eyes and a bursting heart. I think that Emma Carson is a little bit special, and here are a couple of her poems for your enjoyment.  Hearing them read by my girl with cool confidence and captivating expression was almost more than this mama could handle. An Inspiration My dad is Christmas pancakes in August. My dad is a ghost-buster on Halloween. My dad brings you a rose at school on your birthday. My dad is unexpected. My dad knows everything but doesn’t boast. My dad is a teaser. My dad is heart-fully sorry that he teased you. My dad w...

Summer was a bit late to arrive this year.  When I last sat down to write, there was a bit of panic coursing through my fingers as they tapped on the keyboard.  I was suffocating under a blanket of doubt.  Would summer ever properly arrive?  I felt that I urgently needed to leave the country and possibly leave the state of Michigan permanently.  I didn't know if I could cope for one more day without the warm sun on my face. Shortly after I wrote about escaping back to Great Britain (a foolish retreat location for a sun seeker), summer finally did arrive, and ever since I have been happily drowning in it.  I cannot begin to describe how much better everything is during the warm, sunny, summer months for me.  I am still myself.  I do not suddenly have organized drawers or find myself cheerfully putting away fresh smelling stacks of folded laundry early each morning.   I am still an introvert who feels more than a bit...

I can remember the exact moment it hit me.   I was sitting on the rubbery play surface at our local outdoor playground on an unusually warm and sunny British afternoon.   My young children were playing some sort of imaginative game that required them to gather pebbles, dandelions, and blades of grass which they spun furiously in the gravity bowl while they chattered back and forth in high pitched voices with elfin British accents.   The sky was blue and a jolly red post box stood in my line of sight as I gazed across Llantrisant Road.   On the opposite side of the street, there were vibrant, verdant hills dotted with sheep and sluggish, grazing cattle. Right then the notion hit me like a stepped upon pitch fork hits a stooge between the eyes.   We would eventually move back to the USA, and, when we did, I would feel homesickness for Great Britain in the same way that I yearned for my American home while living abroad.   I would forever be torn betwe...