Boston Roller Derby: I was not prepared

3 Things for which I was prepared when we went to see the Boston Roller Derby this past weekend: 1. I bought the Groupon. Wise move, Kendra. Where else can you buy a family four-pack of tickets for your hot li'l Saturday night for $32 (!?!) whilst supporting women in sports? I ask you.

2. I also knew about the clever name game of all the players, probably thanks to Whip It!. I have to say my favorite from the Wicked Pissahs was probably Anita Pierogi. Just yelling that name out in public. Comical and probably truthful. Anita Pierogi!! Because who doesn't need a Polish dumpling? Her appellation obviously appealed to my sensibilities. Daughter liked Tara N Tula, whose acquaintance we made after the bout (see below). If I were going to be a roller derby girl, I decided my name would be Betty Rumbles, as a nod to that ol' Flintstone wifey friend, Betty Rubbles, herself.

3. I was semi-prepared for the body positivity of roller derby in that I had already met the women in Chattanooga Roller Derby and they were all about girl power and the muscles and the inner strength. It was just awesome to see so many women of all different shapes and sizes able to compete with such ferocious intensity. There is a lot of teamwork involved, especially for the defensive blockers, and just watching them caused me to develop bruises all over my imagination. Like ouch, Scoob.

3 Things for which I wasn't prepared at the Derby: 1. There are honest-to-goodness craft booths at the derby. Imagine an ice rink with no ice but in the middle, a bunch of super strong women with adequate padding on rollerskates playing a dysfunctional game of ring-around-the-rosy. You picturing it? At the far end of the rink is a farmer's market but the only goods from the farm are the maple on the maple doughnuts. But around the doughnut table are all these little craft tables. Selling bits and bobs and other notions for dogs and ladies. I DIDN'T KNOW ETSY WOULD BE THERE. I was not prepared for all the merch. Also, there were a couple of great food trucks outside the rink, which is a welcome improvement over your usual sporting event concession fare. Next time I'll know before I go.

2. I was not prepared for the poor audio vibe. I don't know what was happening with the sound in the Simoni Rink but we could not hear anything from the announcer's table. I believe there was some hype music playing throughout, as well, but it was heard at a very low din. I was really hoping there would be some Jock Jams dialing us back to 1993, but we sort of had to make our own good vibrations in the bleachers with our fellow fans. That was my only critique for the event.

3. I was not prepared for how much Daughter would fall head-over-heels in love with Roller Derby, and if her heart was not fully committed by the end of the first bout, this encounter with Tara N Tula of the Harbor Horrors  pretty much etched it there in wet cement. We were both completely enamored of Tara N Tula who promptly told Daughter that she was so hungry after playing so hard that she was prepared to "eat all the pizza and hamburgers and tacos." J'adore!

We can't wait to go back to cheer at the championships in June. Thanks, Boston Roller Derby.

Can We Fat Talk?

Can you picture her? The girl in your same grade who constantly asked, "Do you think I look fat?" Maybe she was your best friend or the bane of your existence. Maybe she had the strong core of a ballerina or the strong calves of a star soccer player. Maybe she was rail thin or gorgeously curvy. The facts of her figure didn't matter. The resounding chorus of her being was the same, like a broken record, replaying the same few notes over and over. Am I fat Am I fat Does this make me look fat Do you think I look fat...

The chorus began to lose meaning, so diluted by its frequent play. The question became a rhetorical one that begged no answer. It was symptomatic of issues much deeper, but how to broach those?

***

I received an advance release copy of Rachel Simmons' Enough As She Is: How to Help Girls Move Beyond Impossible Standards of Success to Live Healthy, Happy, and Fulfilling Lives which just released in the last week. I've already delved into it and even though this book primarily offers guidance for parents of daughters, there is one chapter that has universal appeal for women.

The "Can We Fat Talk?" chapter is grounded in current research and offers a very sobering portrait of what a social media-saturated girlhood is like. I found myself highlighting and dog-earing just about every page. Simmons knows her stuff. But rather than simply painting a fearful portrait, the book also offers many helpful, actionable solutions for steering girls away from body shaming and toward a positive, holistic view of themselves at this moment in time.

In many ways, though, this chapter seems as though its audience could be any female readership. Fat Talk is a problem that begins in girlhood that we cannot seem to outgrow as women. Simmons writes that Fat Talk may feel like Friend Talk but it builds a bridge at the expense of putting down an individual. As women, too often we bond over one-upping (or one-downing?) each other on our body shaming. How many times have you been privy to two women gushing about how much they ate over the holidays or how lazy they were on a vacation? Maybe you were even participating in the conversation. It may have seemed innocuous, but is this the message we want to send girls? That the currency of true friendship is exchanged by putting one's physical self down?

***

Simmons visited my children's public school system earlier this year and her talk was very resonant, covering the same topics addressed in her book (bullying, social media, the pressure to be perfect).  She invited girls grades 2 and above to attend the talk. She was able to address the girls as well as their parents, speaking to both audiences in a way that was relevant but not preachy, funny but still heavy with the gravity of an important message. Many of the topics in Enough As She Is are geared toward parents guiding girls through the latter years of high school, but there is plenty relevant to parents of younger daughters. Moreover, so much of the message of modeling positivity and listening to our bodies and their unique needs is ageless, timeless.

Simmons' book is certainly a drink from the fire hydrant and I'm finding it may be a perennial go-to resource than a quickfire read. The complexity of issues and the depth of the research and guidance speak well to the complexity and depth of being female, though, and I would recommend it to anyone who is one or who cares about one.

It's a Wonderful Wife: What Mary Bailey is teaching me about how to live post-Sandy Hook

Five years ago on December 14, we heard and read of the horror that occurred at Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, Connecticut, We imagined the grief of these parents who had already wrapped Christmas presents for their children, these babies whom they would now have to bury. Their grief was beyond our fathoming, so monstrous and so paralyzing.

Anne Lamott writes about Sandy Hook in her book Stitches: A Handbook on Meaning, Hope and Repair, particularly how paralysis is not a place to stay on the heels of grief.  “You have to keep taking the next necessary stitch, and the next one, and the next. Without stitches, you just have rags. And we are not rags,” Lamott writes. “We live stitch by stitch, when we’re lucky. If you fixate on the whole shebang, you miss the stitching.”

A powerful epidemic of kindness ensued following Sandy Hook. NBC 's Ann Curry spurred us on to commit 20 acts of kindness. To include the women who died at the school, The 26 Acts of Kindness movement began with a roar. Donations of talent and treasure and teddy bears swelled not only around Newtown but into communities everywhere. The lightness and goodness did its damndest to drive out the darkness.

Five years later, we are numbed by the regularity of massacre on our soil. We are bereft of shock when another mass shooting occurs. Great sweeping acts of kindness may feel, well, a bit naive when the forces that are meant to protect our freedom from fear are, at best, crumbling, or at their very worst, seem to be the embodiment of evil.

In our impotence, many of us will turn to tropey holiday films as we do year after year. That old standby It's a Wonderful Life will remind us with the chiming of bells and angel wings of what matters.

On a recent reviewing of Frank Capra's classic, though, it occurred to me that the protagonist, George Bailey, is not the hero America needs at this moment. It's the First Lady of the Bailey Building and Loans: Mrs. Mary Bailey. George's mother tells him she is "someone who can help you find the answers." Maybe she can help America find some, too.

At first blush, Mary Bailey may appear to be one who settles, one who cannot dream beyond Bedford Falls. But Mary cultivates contentment in every circumstance. She doesn't get an epic honeymoon; she makes loans to fretful bank account holders with her wedding money. She fixes up a leaking, decrepit, old mansion; she calls it the bridal suite. She's complicit in this -- even seems to take joy in it all -- and we never see her utter an embittered word about it.

When our protagonist faces his dark night of the soul, it is Mary who leads the charge to save him and his bank. Stitching together a network of friends, she watches as each pours in his dollars and cents.

At the heart of all George's pain is a miserly banker named Mr. Potter whose crotchetiness is only transcended by his greed. Unlike George, Mary does not seem to waste a moment fuming at Potter. Mary's focus is on what's possible.

The last few years have been a dark night of the soul for our country.

I have frittered away much of this year reading incendiary Twitter threads and rolling my eyes at political frenemies. To what end? If I am to look to the model of Mary Bailey, then my focus needs to be set on what's possible.

The poignant beauty of Sandy Hook was a whole nation averting its eyes from the Terrible and Unfathomable and pivoting toward the Lovely and Generous. The indomitable spirit within each one of us has the power to spur something powerful again, by first fixing our eyes on a more redemptive future. We will believe that our disparate rags can become something of a shelter in this “drafty old barn,” to borrow a phrase from George speaking to the one and only Mary Bailey, as she asks, “What’s wrong?” while she fixes the salad. Mary, always fixing.