But before all that, Here ye! Here ye! Here's a link to a wonderful piece written by one of my students in response to my last week's prompt: http://goodmenproject.com/featured-content/for-mothers-jvinc/
Lately I have been spending ridiculously. The other night I went into Whole Foods for some bananas and came out $50 later. What gets me is that there is some mindfulness around this mindless spending: there is the voice saying, "hey, what are you doing, there? You don't really need another pair of yoga pants and you know it. What are you going to do with that stapler? What exactly do you plan on stapling anyway? Oh, it's for Jude, is it? Well, then I guess it's okay!"
Not so bad, you say? Well, somehow that rationale landed Jude and I at strip mall pedicure place, wiling away Mama's petty cash and our precious homework and errands time. And in Edina, no less! (see evidence above).
But was it fun? A blast. Did the polish smudge? Of course. Do my toes look good in rockabilly blue? Hardly. But was it sweet fun? Yes. Was it worth it in memories to last a lifetime? Of course. I believe my child will have to wait quite a while, perhaps a lifetime of innocence, before he will be able to fully appreciate what it means to have three beautiful women so sensually, simultaneously, attend to his feet.
I have a memory that comes back every now and then every time I go through a binge of frivolous spending. In the height of my tweens, Dad, Ben, my best friend, Laura and I stopped at Gelson's Market on the way out of town for skiing up at Mammoth Mountain and while dad carefully mulled over the discount produce, Laura grabbed a handful of thick fashion magazines and proceeded to purchase them for the long ride North. When we got in the car and for months to come, Dad told and retold told the story to whoever would listen: "She picked up a dozen expensive magazines and thought nothing about buying them. I have never done something like that in my entire life and I don't think I ever could. Then, to top it all off, she bought a Smoothie that cost 5 dollars."
I believe he longed to throw money away every now and then, but Dad grew up in the depression, where the idea of frivolous spending never presented itself. Consequently, while he was incredibly generous to those in his life, personally, he had very few possessions and the ones he did, he cherished: his bike, his piano, his little kitschy mechanical flower pot that danced to "In the Mood," his Twins cap, his view of the ocean. More than anything, Dad loved the intimacy of the moment—whether it was with nature, people, music, the meal he was eating, "early bird" and otherwise, etc—very little got in between he and the moment. And while I've inherited this reverence for the moment, the easy and earnest joy of delighting in the way the light moves with the water, or rain's soft doorway, I have not inherited his minimalist spending practices. In fact, sometimes a reckless shopping spree feels a heck of a lot more intimate than the whims of nature (or people, for that matter).
I suppose in this way, I am Ma's child. And fun we had buying marzipan in France, I can tell you that! Eventually we made it to the Louvre... I think. But I cherish the memories we went tearing down the boutiques and markets purchasing le kistche!
Perhaps I didn't have any petty cash splurges with my dad. Perhaps there wasn't a lot of spontaneity or whimsy or frivolity to the time we spent together. But there was lingering and the ocean, and the long bike rides across vast landscapes without end. So what would Dad say if he could see me and Jude yucking it up like royalty in a nail salon on a sunny Monday afternoon in May?
I suppose if it made a good story, he'd be all for it. He might even forgive me the designer bike rack I picked up on a whim the next day. But the yoga pants? Forget it. Who needs special pants to do yoga?
What sort of frivolous spending or abstaining have you been up to lately? In memory?
