Humans of Tennessee: Snow Day Edition

I know how ridiculous this outfit looks but it's actually a mosaic of all the places I have lived. Starting with the hat, which my old man calls a "stockin' cap,"--I bought this at a high school football game for, like, $4. I grew up in Cleveland, Ohio and my grandfathers, dad, some of my uncles went to this high school for boys. St. Ignatius is a real Cleveland institution, but I used to call it St. Ego-natius because every guy who went there thought he was God's gift to the girls at my all-girls high school. I'm pretty sure I was bitter because I was a super homely kid that no one ever invited to a dance. Anyway. The gray coat I bought at T.J. Maxx when I was pregnant with my son and my other winter coat no longer fit. I literally bought it, put it on, and stuffed the other one in the Goodwill bin on my way to pick up my daughter at daycare.The mis-matching gloves are from the rag bag in our family closet. I gave the matching ones to my kids who are off school today. My favorite part of this outfit is the Carhartt overalls, which my old man bought for me for my birthday at the Boot Box in Meadville, Pennsylvania. So many good memories in these overalls. I went to college in Meadville and this is where I first really fell in love with the outdoors. Many of my friends were environmental studies majors and they were always going backpacking or rockclimbing. One of these friends, Jeff, told me the first time I wore the Carhartts that they were a disgrace and I needed to drag them behind a truck and get them weathered. I still laugh about that because the next time I wore the Carhartts was on a camping trip with my boyfriend. We got utterly lost and had to sleep on the forest floor without a match between us. It was freezing and we could have lost limbs. But I married him anyway.

So then I looked up from the massage chair and I saw

This afternoon saw me with no office hours. A full 1.5 hour window with no claims on my time. Simple pleasure. My back had been hurting and because I am now a woman of a certain age, I am pretty much one ache away from walking with the Dowager Countess' cane unless I do beaucoup stretching or get a massage.

Choices.

I sought out one of those chair massage places in the mall where you don't need an appointment.

A very brawny woman, presumably Chinese, smiled when I pointed to the 22 minute chair massage on their menu of services. She led me behind two Asian screens to an area where there were several very weathered looking massage chairs. She put a paper towel over the face pillow with the doughnut hole in the middle. My back hurt so much; this was no time for luxury. She told me to sit down and she put my purse on the rung of the massage chair.

The massage began well. Knots were starting to unravel. I was entering the happy place, forgetting that if someone wanted to steal my purse from right under my nose, they could literally do so.

At about minute 15, things started to get really awkward. The pressure started to get strong and then fierce. The massage therapist was punching me. She was punching my backside. She was punching like if you wanted to hurt somebody.

Then it was over. And, honestly, I was feeling rejuvenated and all-around better.

Until I opened my eyes and saw my massage therapist. It was Yao Ming.

Or at least his Tennessee doppelganger.

It was a bizarre bait and switch and I have no idea how it was achieved. I was certain a female therapist had started off the treatment. I have no idea when Yao Ming took over or who did rear-punching treatment but later when I was watching Little Man's gymnastics class, my toosh felt incredibly sore.

I have an appointment for another massage later this month. There is sure to be one massage table. One door. One masseuse. It's going to be so boring. And by boring, I mean awesome.

The sugar maple trees that are changing (us)

There are some sugar maples not far from my kids' school that are changing. They're changing form and color and they are changing the little community in which we live.

I see our friends post on instagram how grateful they are to have these giving trees in which their kids can play in the leafpiles. They share snapshots of the trees, their tops starting to shed, suddenly looking immodest as if Autumn were the worst kind of closet-raider.

The sugar maple tree in itself has a lovely shape. Strong but elegant, the kind you want to capture in a silhouette and put on a wedding invitation.

I have a colleague who knows plantlife and he was the one told me the trees were the sugar maples. I am not very good with botany or ID-ing arbors. I am not typically observant of details--I am more intuitive, feeling the changing of seasons in my bones first and then with my eyes.  But it seems that everyone has been noticing these gorgeous sugar maples in front of the school. Men, women, children, the trees are the talk of the town.

I took my lunch break to capture these images. I've worked at places where taking a lunch anywhere other than in your cubicle was practically an act of civil disobedience. And if stomping around on school grounds to admire some sugar maples is wrong, then I don't want to be right.

I'm not about to go all The Lorax on you or make reference to #leafporn. I just want to share how this feels. I cannot remember the last time a community (e.g. a neighborhood, a school, a workplace, a family) was abuzz about something marvelous. Usually the trending topic, the Facebook feed is rife with scandal, controversy, shocking statistics. It's rare for our eyes to be collectively pointed to beauty.

I just want to be swept up in the autumnal adoration, especially because I can't remember the last time we were all rallying around the glory of leaves.

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I can't remember the last time the word on the street was, "Wow.

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