Genevieve

end of an era, wrex hangs up her skates

June 7, 2018

This past weekend I traveled to the Seattle area with my parents and much of our immediate family to see our baby sister skate her final roller derby tournament. It was a great and wild time, a memory-making bonanza to say the least, and an emotional milestone too. The end of an era.

I’ll write soon about the funny stuff. Today, I want to commemorate Gen’s career. On Sunday as we drove to a late lunch just before her final bout, she indulged me in a casual interview. The weight and beauty of her answers blew me away.

Some Basic Facts About Roller Derby

Modern women’s roller derby began as a grassroots movement in Texas in early 2000 and continued to Arizona and the Los Angeles area shortly thereafter.
The sport is not yet a viable money-making industry like it aims to be, but it is also no longer the underground “fishnet subculture” that most people remember from the seventies. (Drinking and smoking before skating is no longer allowed, for example.)
(But there are sometimes barfights, not that I have any scandalous details.)
It’s a “pay to play” team sport and not a cheap one. Gen mentioned monthly dues of $50-$100, expensive skates ($600-$700 per pair, plus wheels), several hundred dollars more in miscellaneous gear, plus travel costs to participate in bouts and tournaments. These are rarely and then only barely offset by league funds.
It’s time-consuming, too. Weekly practices add up to 4-6 hours, plus mandatory volunteering, and lots of travel throughout the year. The women who participate are dedicated and passionate.
Juniors are girls ages 7-17. Women are 18+, though when Gen started the cut-off age was 21.
Some women stay on their skates well into their forties and fifties. The average age for active skating seems to be late-twenties through mid-thirties.
It’s sexy, but it’s not about sex. (I added that part because this is my blog.)

Gen’s Story

Gen’s first exposure to roller derby was in November 2009. She was a young woman, a self-sufficient, hard-working college grad, living alone in downtown Los Angeles. In an active phase of self-discovery, she walked around talking to people, making friends and seeing the world with her own eyes. One night she met some Los Angeles Derby Dolls in a bar. They invited her to an upcoming bout, and immediately upon witnessing the live event Gen thought, “I have to do THAT!”

Having played various sports all her life, including weightlifting, volleyball, basketball, T-ball, soccer, swimming, and lots of track and field, Gen was already a well-established athlete. But this sport had a new appeal. She liked that it was “faster and rougher than sports most girls got to play.” She was drawn to it, and she pursued it.

Her first tryout for LADD was January 2010, but she had unwittingly fitted her skates with outdoor wheels. The spongier, stickier material kept her from stopping fully on the indoor track, so she did not make the team. (I remember her acute disappointment at this time, as well as her determination to get it right. Looking back now, realizing how fresh the interest was for her then, puts into perspective what an impact that first exposure must have made.)

Gen took lessons to develop her basic skating skills (Derby por Vida), practiced for a few months, and replaced her wheels. In March 2010 she tried out again and made the “Fresh Meat” team! Two other women, Julia and Marit, made that same team, and the three of them would become lifelong friends.

Fresh Meat, 8 years later, after an exhilarating win on Saturday.

“Wreckonomic Stimulus, #787 Billion”

Always clever, often a little naughty, and a key ingredient to the sport’s entertainment value, skate names are just plain cool. Sometimes they are bestowed on a skater by her peers; other times she chooses an edgy moniker herself. Either way, the new identity is sacred. In my sister’s case, she chose her own name from a brainstormed list of 30 or 40 possibilities. The final choice is exceedingly clever and could not be more perfect for her.

“Wreckonomic Stimulus” is a nod to Gen’s finance-based education and profession in accounting, together with the recent history (at that time) of the 2007 stock market crash and subsequent and much-debated government bailout. Plus, wreck, for all the derby violence, ha! Her actual jersey number is #787 billion, to denote the amount of the bailout. And yes, when the announcers call her name they also provide her number and take the time to say the word “billion,” haha! So funny!

On some of her skate shorts is emblazoned the nickname WREX, which is her full skate name abbreviated to honor our Grandpa Rex. I wish I had been there to see his face when she told him! No doubt he loved that so much and gave a good belly laugh.

Derby Wife!

Once Gen and Julia (aka “Infinite Pest,” happy nod to the mythical David Foster Wallace tome, because Julia is the coolest bibliophile you’ll ever meet!) had been friends and teammates for a while, Gen decided to propose derby marriage. In derby, having a close and dedicated ally for all the work and travel and much needed moral support, for all the ups and downs, helps tremendously. Having a partner would be indispensable, I think. These women take “buddy system” to a whole new level.

Their engagement story is fun. Gen and Julia were at a bar watching a key baseball game (baseball is Julia’s favorite spectator sport). Gen chose a particularly adrenaline-soaked moment for her big ask, and Julia answered in the affirmative but with what amounted to a mildly annoyed brush-off. “Yeah, yeah… Ok, yes!”

Welcome to marriage, ladies, ha! A small deflation perhaps, but still a yes and a memory made, certainly still a tight bond.

Worth noting is that the very next day at a scrimmaging practice, Gen broke her ankle so badly it required surgery to install metal plates on her leg bones. Julia was there for her derby-wife-to-be in every conceivable way, and she has been there ever since, leading right up to this past weekend. She has become part our Dunaway family, too. We love her for loving our girl, and we love her for being herself.

At an emotional moment during the final bout on Sunday, I glanced to my right to smile at Julia and saw her crying stoically. And later I saw my parents clinging to her, too, and it made me ache with joy. (Julia are we sisters? Say yes.)

It is clear to anyone paying attention that Wrex and Pesty, though both now retired, will continue to be Derby Wives and best friends for many decades. Probably all of the decades. May we all manage to cultivate that kind of friendship.

Gen’s first bout as a new recruit would have been in October 2010, but for that injury. She would suffer another break again in April 2012, a bit higher on her ankle, requiring a second surgery. Both were traumatic and painful events, but she healed beautifully and seems to cope well with lingering pain.

After recovering from that first surgery, Gen was drafted to the LA Sirens, a home team of LA Derby Dolls. It was a cop-themed group who wore navy blue uniforms. I asked Gen about her favorite outfits through the years. She mentioned liking writing on her shorts but not so much wearing tights. “They hurt your knees when you kneel down.”

All Star!

Then in October 2014, Wrex was drafted to an All-Star team, the Los Angeles Ri-Ettes! (Ask me sometime how I realized the correct way to pronounce the team name.) This is a huge accomplishment, and I remember clearly hearing the news back then. Everyone here was freaking out with pride and excitement for her. The Ri-Ettes are a standout group of athletes, and she had come so far in so few years.

In 2017, Gen was named MVP of Battle on the Bank, the national championship tournament. Amazing, really, especially now to have seen firsthand what it is like on the banked track. Brutal, high energy, relentless isometric strength, precision control, and speed on top of it all.

This past weekend in Seattle, the Ri-Ettes secured their seventh consecutive win for Battle on the Bank. They were apparently so confident in their continued winning streak that they left the traveling trophy at home. That, I have to say, is badass.

During awards and announcements, when it was clear the trophy had been left back in LA, a man standing near me in the bleachers muttered not quietly, “Well that was cocky.” Ha!

Beyond the Bank

I asked Gen what derby has meant to her, knowing it’s much more than a chosen sport, but really a surrogate family. She was eager to share:

It’s awesome. On the whole, it’s an accepting group, (open to) all kinds of women. You make friends with women who you wouldn’t have met otherwise. And body positivity!”

Gen expounded on this a lot, on the inclusive nature of their female network. And you see it at the bouts: Bodies of all shapes and sizes, personalities exhibiting every possible beautiful aesthetic, everyone working and playing hard alongside each other. The women seem mostly un-self-conscious and sometimes deliciously arrogant. It’s a lot of fun to just be in that atmosphere. And Gen’s energy swelled as she shared her feelings. She described the last eight years, what she has learned and how derby has nourished her.

What is teaches you most? Be the woman YOU are. Not the one people tell you to be.

Amen, sister.

Saying Goodbye

Even the best life chapters eventually run their course. But Wrex’s decision to step away from derby seems to feel good for her. While satisfying in so many ways, the year-round time commitment had become too much. She is ready to focus more on her new job without feeling guilty, and she has some other new projects in mind, too. But she is hardly just dropping out.

In eight years she has experienced serious injuries and recovery, with everything that accompanies both. She has developed herself athletically form a young woman who bought the wrong wheels for her skates into the Most Valuable Player in the national arena, plus team co-captain and more. She is a prized and clearly well-respected player, loved by not just her own teammates but by everyone in the derby community at large. Seeing her in her element, listening to people cheer for her, and reading hundreds of comments from her friends and colleagues about the impact she has made, it all gives me chills.

Gen has cultivated friendships that already exceed the bounds of this sport where the women all first found each other.

She is going out on top of her game, with a full heart.

As our Sunday afternoon interview closed up, I asked my sister how she was feeling on the day of her last skating event. Peering through the rain-streaked windshield, she eased the rental car into the right-hand exit lane, shrugged her muscular shoulder and replied, “So far I’m just excited.” Her voice was energetic but calm. We were all on our way to eat a traditional pre-skate meal of Hawaiian BBQ.

They won that evening, by a thrilling landslide, and there was much screaming and crying. I can’t even describe it all.

Then on Wednesday, she posted a heartfelt retirement announcement on Facebook, and when she and I spoke on the phone a few hours later, I asked again how she was feeling. She was more emotional this time, understandably, with the weekend’s fanfare and adrenaline quieted. She acknowledged that derby will leave a hole in her life but quickly added that she feels lucky to still be close to so many of the women. And, thankfully, she was having no doubts about her decision, even in the midst of some sadness.

With her permission, I’m sharing a snippet of her beautifully written message:

I made several lifelong friends on this team and got to test my leadership skills. I also skated with the LA Ri-Ettes for 4 seasons, which included 4 successful trips to BOTB (Battle on the Bank, National Championships). This team pushed me to my absolute derby best and taught me what dedication looks like, what it can do, and what it can cost.

Roller derby helped me figure out who I am, what I’m capable of, what matters to me. I am so glad that I found it when I did.

What’s Next for our own Personal Wonder Woman?

She said she looking forward to more running (yay!!) and some travel with friends and family.

She might finally get some refreshing proper medical attention, too, ha! Apparently, when a skater sees a doctor for injuries or ailments, she is required to bring the doctor’s clearance before skating again, and that clearance is likely cumbersome if not actually difficult to obtain, so plenty of “little things” just get tolerated for long periods of time. They just rub some dirt on it and walk it off, you know? So let’s all send her some good, healthy vibes and hope that she sees a chiropractor and acupuncturist soon, plus maybe a masseuse. She has earned it!

Thank you, Wrex, my beautiful sister, for answering these questions and sharing your heart. Thank you for inviting us to this special weekend. You are amazing in every way, and I love you even more than the day you appeared in the back seat of the Subaru.

Friends, thanks for reading! Check in again soon for more stories from Seattle.

“You Guys She’s Jamming!!!”
~All of us screaming in the bleachers,
as she took the track
just before the last play
of her final bout.
XOXOXOXO

#dunawayderby2018 starts tomorrow!!

June 1, 2018

Tomorrow my parents are leading the lion’s share of their progeny on an adventure to witness something pretty special. Gen (also known as Viva Michelle, aka Wrex) is skating her final weekend with her beloved Los Angeles Derby Dolls. An accomplished and celebrated skater, an All-Star with the “Ri-Ettes” in fact, she is finally retiring, and I already have all the feels for her.

I remember when she first tried out, when she appeared in a television show, and when we watched her live on an internet feed.

She is so strong and confident, both in mind and body. It’s crazy how much I look up to her, although she is my “little” sister.

How fun to think about all the women she has mentored over time, as a Derby Doll, and how much more she might do after retirement.

Ahhhh Seattle!! I am so excited to be there!! To see her in the flesh with her teammates, kicking so much ass and doing what she does. And I am excited to spend some undivided time with my family, too. This should be pretty a pretty memorable few days.

Much more to say. But I have to “jam” up these quick posts once in a while or I will never blog. I promise to share more on Instagram, too. Please follow our crazy family adventure!!

#dunawayderby2018

“Jam” is a derby term.

We love you so much, Wrex!!
See you soon!
XOXOXOXO

browned butter pecan sandies

February 3, 2015

Do you need another cookie recipe? I have stumbled on a new favorite and would love to share it with you. This time it happened by first making a failed batch of an old stand by, and I’m not sorry. Here’s the story.

My sweet baby sister celebrated another birthday this month (Gen’s birth story according to me can be found right here) and I really wanted to send her some shortbread to nibble while she pretended we were having either coffee or Earl Gray tea or whatever she fancies. She lives way out west and has built a beautiful life there. I miss her so much, but anyway. xoxo

Shortbread. Though I make this all the time, for some reason the batch that day was overly dry and crumbly. It fell apart even before it was slipped into the oven, then after cooking it became even more fragile. There was no way that shipping it to Los Angeles would yield anything resembling a cookie. The birthday girl would wind up stirring crumbs into her tea and maybe walk away feeling quite unloved. Like a sad kangaroo.

Clearly the old stand by recipe needed more moisture or less dry stuff or something.

I started by knocking off 1/4 cup of the called-for flour. And browning the butter because I have the biggest kitchen crush right now on Joy. And let’s add pecans because our Grandma Stubbs always gave us Pecan Sandies and even though they were store-bought they were so good. Grandma made us feel loved, so surely this would do the trick for Gen’s birthday, right?

Ingredients:

1 cup flour
1/3 cup sugar
pinch sea salt
1 stick butter
1/2 cup pecans (chopped is nice)
dash or two cinnamon

Method:

Cook the stick of butter in a small skillet, allowing it to get frothy and golden brown. Stir in the pecans and cook them with a dash or two of cinnamon then remove from heat before the butter burns.

Meanwhile, combine the flour, sugar, and salt.

Pour the browned butter and pecans into the dry ingredients and stir with a wooden spoon. (Since there are no eggs in shortbread, I see no need to let the butter cool.) The mixture will be somewhat dense but also on the dry side, not sticky like normal cookie dough.

Form it into a ball and smash it flat onto a baking sheet, massaging it gently into a circle. (No need to grease or line the sheet. The butter in the recipe is plenty.)

Score the shaped dough with a serrated knife, but don’t cut quite to the bottom. You just need to perforate it. Finger-crimp the edges if you want to.

Bake at 350 degrees for ten or twelve minutes. Allow to cool.

Trace the perforate lines again with your knife, separating the cookies. Cool some more.

Eat exactly one cookie to make sure it’s delish (it will be) then package the rest of them sweetly and ship to your nearly perfect baby sister.

Okay, not nearly. She is totally perfect.

I hope you try this! It’s a quick and simple fix for when you’re craving shortbread. Excellent for tea time or with a late night glass of ice cold milk. Even better for baby sisters who amaze you with their fortitude, independence, and loving nature.

Happy Birthday Month Gen!
And Happy Baking Friends!
XOXOXOXO

Certified Bibliophile Spills Her Sassy Guts (1/2)

January 30, 2012

Perhaps you remember me prattling on from time to time about my very happy acquaintance with Julia Callahan. She is a close friend of my sister Guinevere and has become my friend too. Julia is a literary publicist out in Los Angeles. She has been overly generous with her time and expertise this past year, guiding our famous little book club through some voracious adventures, sharing ideas, listening, and encouraging us to flex our eyeballs more. Now this sweet derby girl has foolishly agreed to suffer an interview with yours truly.

You guys, Julia was even more forthcoming and interesting than I knew she would be. I have divided this beefy endeavor into two parts for safer, slower consumption. I dare you to read both parts and NOT find something to discuss with a good bookish friend. Enjoy!

********************

You must know that I want your job in the worst way, as do many of my friends. Please dispel the romantic images I have of being paid to read books and communicate with people. Please tell us a typical day in the life and what your job is really like.

Haha. Well, it is a pretty awesome job, and I do get paid to read books, but really, reading books is just part of what I do. In fact, I get paid to do everything else, I just have to read books if I’m going to promote them. I know it sounds hard. Basically, the thing that’s great about my job is it’s different every day. Some days I’m editing all day, some days I’m emailing people all day (usually media contacts), some days I’m just answering emails, and some days I’m booking author tours. Usually it’s a combination of all of those things. I’m lucky to have a flexible job so I come in between 8 and 11 and I go home between 6 and 9 pm. Depending on the day, I might have to go to an event in the evening, or maybe not. It’s different all the time. You can continue being jealous. It’s a pretty great job.

How did you prepare for this career, both academically and personally?

I’m a reader. I always have been (except for a brief period between sixth and ninth grade). I had a wonderful eighth grade history teacher named Mr. Sullivan who, among other things, taught me that history wasn’t just boring names and dates, that Elvis and The Beatles were history, that To Kill a Mockingbird was history, that James Dean was history. I came to the realization that what I loved most was the intersection between history and literature. I loved that when I read Dickens I got a picture of Victorian England, but also the fact that Dickens and the serial novels changed the way Victorian England looked; it changed the way people thought and acted. That intersection of life and art in the context of history was and still is just endlessly fascinating to me. So, when I went to UC Santa Cruz, I majored in history and literature.

After college I aimlessly worked in places that had nothing to do with anything I studied until I needed a second job and ended up working at a bookstore in West Hollywood called Book Soup on weekends. I was part time for a year or so and then the events coordinator, Tyson Cornell, took me on as his assistant. I was his assistant for four years. He left and started his own company called Rare Bird Lit and then hired me soon after.

I’m good with people and I’m an enthusiastic reader. The rest I learned on the fly. But luckily that came quickly.

You are exposed to a large number and a wide variety of people all the time. Can you identify an innate personal quality that tends to distinguish the published authors among the world’s numerous writers? Is there something they “have” that gets them printed?

I don’t know if there’s a certain personality trait. I find that the best authors are the best readers. I don’t believe someone can write without reading. I also think that the best authors are the hardest on themselves. If you’re a reader you know what good writing is and thus, you know when you have or have not achieved it.

You keep numerous and long lists of books for different audiences and purposes. Thank you for sharing those with me, by the way! Now. Let’s pretend Earth is planning to colonize another planet and you are in charge of filling a time capsule with literature. What ten books would you include?

Oh man! How long is this blog post? Okay, in no particular order, and excluding A LOT:

To Kill a Mockingbird
Shakespeare
Catch-22
On The Road
Infinite Jest
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius
Pride and Prejudice
Vanity Fair
Jane Eyre
East of Eden
Catcher in the Rye
The Sun Also Rises
One Hundred Years of Solitude
The Great Gatsby
Huckleberry Finn
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay
The God of Small Thing
Maus.

Also, like 1 million others, but this is off the top of my head and I figured you didn’t want a list of 250 books.

What different authors would you like to represent and why?

Michael Chabon is my favorite living author (his book, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay is my all-time favorite book), so working with him would be amazing. Every literary nerd’s wet dream is Thomas Pynchon. As far as more realistic, and this is kind of a cop out answer, but I’m a big fan of working with promising first time authors. It’s challenging for me as the publicist, but also very rewarding. When a first time author gets recognition for a great book and I’ve worked on it, it’s a source of immense pride, and I love to see what they go onto next.

Do your authors keep other jobs, too?

Some do, some don’t. It depends on how long they’ve been around and what job they had before they started writing. It’s extraordinarily hard to make a living as a writer, especially a novelist, so many of them have other things going on. A lot of them teach writing.

Do you write as well as read? We’d love to hear about that.

Yes and no. I used to write a lot, but I’ve realized that I really love editing more than writing. I like shaping narratives and giving feedback about what a piece of writing needs to make it soar. That being said, I do write a little bit. Mostly I write a blog-like email that goes to my family. It makes them feel like I see them more than I actually do. I write a lot of press releases, too.

In the scheme of things, what deficiency do you see in modern literature? What do we need more of, probably vampire romances?

There is such a dearth of vampire romances! We need more! I actually think that modern literature is in a really exciting time. There’s kind of a changing of the guard happening right now. The older male-dominated regime is fading out (people like Mailer, Vonnegut, Vidal, Roth, Updike, etc.). Roth and DeLillo are really the only guys left from that class. Now we’re getting this new class coming in, who were influenced by these great writers. People like Michael Chabon, Junot Diaz, Jeffrey Eugenides, Jonathan Franzen are doing such exciting stuff. And the women! Zadie Smith, Karen Russell, Aimee Bender, Amy Bloom….I could go on. I just can’t wait to see where this all goes.

As for deficiency, because I’m so good at answering the questions being asked, I think that more people need to discover these great authors. The biggest deficiency I see is book coverage in media. How can people know how wonderful White Teeth by Zadie Smith is when only a few media outlets are reviewing books? Books are covering such a wide variety of cultures and times and places that the only deficiency is there’s not enough time in the day.

You were so great to connect me with two brilliant authors, first Aimee Bender and now Adrienne Sharp. When I am rich and famous because of your talented publicizing, will you make me do unpaid interviews with dorky bloggers?

Yes. Absolutely.

In all seriousness, I believe that the more an author connects with their audience the better. Those are two wonderful and amazing women that I’ve had the honor and pleasure of working with, but they also both are people who appreciate and understand how important their audience and their fans are. And that makes them the smartest kind of author.

That begs a question, actually. Your firm is called “Rare Bird Lit.” Do you seek out unusual material; does it find you or what? And what makes a book “rare” by your standards?

Interesting question. Also, you’re reminding me that I need to ask my boss where that name comes from.

We like material that challenges us professionally. We’re independent booksellers at heart and we’re pretty snobby when it comes to literature, so it’s nice when we’re working with authors and books out of that wheelhouse. It presents challenges and we have to figure out who to connect with and how best to market those books to the right people.

Also, we like doing things that other people are scared to do. We throw crazy parties, we find interesting and original ways of marketing, and we’ll take on books that other people turn down, if we like the book and believe in it. So yeah, we’re a bit rare in that way. We’re also just kind of weird people. It makes life more fun.

As for what makes a book rare, I guess all books are rare in a way, but I like a book that surprises me. I like a book that doesn’t follow a trajectory that I can see coming from a mile away. It’s rare that a book catches me entirely off guard. Actually, lately, when I was reading The Marriage Plot by Jeffrey Eugenides, I was just thinking that there was no way he was going to end the book that I would like. And somehow, he pulled it off. The ending was perfect and caught me off guard. I love that.

********************

“That intersection of life and art
in the context of history was and still is
just endlessly fascinating to me.”
~Julia Callahan

Whew! Is your mind racing a bit with questions and answers of your own? Please leave comments. I’d love to hear your thoughts on Julia’s answers or your own answers to some of these questions. Lots of my friends are bookish, so spill it ladies. Spill it messy. And remember to come back tomorrow for part two.

Thank you for indulging us Julia!!

People are the Interesting.

Books are Necessary.

xoxoxo

Twenty Nine Years Ago Yesterday: Genevieve

January 24, 2012

When I was not quite nine years old, Mom was El Preggo with the third of my four younger siblings. It had been a cold, happy winter of family gatherings and more than the normal amount of living room furniture rearranging. A person could reasonably attribute most of this to Mom’s strong nesting instincts.

As I recall, Mom had been displaying signs of labor for most of the Christmas season, and by this week in January 1983 the family’s excitement level was not low. We were on happy little pins and needles. I was almost nine, so my sister Angela would have been four and a half and our little brother Joey not quite two. Philip would be born in another three years.

For some wonderful reason my parents decided to invite me to be part of the birth when it finally happened. Grandma Stubbs, who lived nearby, was all set to watch over the little ones and my parents’ friend Debbie and I were to be included in the hospital business. I was extremely happy about this plan, you guys. Anything to make me feel like one of the adults, you know?

I was asleep when Dad came in to rouse me, whispering excitedly, “Reezie, let’s go. Wake up. Your Mom’s having the baby.”

I could barely hear my Mom’s voice across the bare wood hallway and was listening acutely to my young parents shuffle quietly through the upstairs, not wanting to wake the little ones. I think Grandma had already made it to the house. I remember smelling her perfume when we walked downstairs.

Debbie was already there, too. She was a mid wife, but we were still headed to the hospital. We all found the bags that had been packed for a while. Dad helped Mom into the back seat of our cute little white Subaru wagon. She is petite and so she fit perfectly on the narrow bench seat. I sat on Debbie’s lap in the front passenger seat. Dad drove. Dad drove like I had never seen him drive before, nor have I since.

Now, listen. I know I am not the only person in the world

whose Dad is rarely nervous or emotional. but allow me to interject here

that this particular January night was one of the few times in life

when I have ever seen this man quite like this. Okay? Okay.

We lived no more than ten minutes from Baptist hospital in Oklahoma City, and with the absence of traffic in the wee hours of the morning, one might think it would be a breeze to get there in time.

One might think.

We drove north west on the Expressway, zooming through nonexistent traffic and slicing the dark with our happy little emergency. I sat on Debbie’s lap and did not say a word. In my mind I can remember her smell, too, and feel her long braid against my shoulder. Her lavender vinyl backpack was at our feet. Back then I thought Debbie was a wizened creature of the universe, older than I would ever be, but in truth she was just out of high school, not yet off to college in Vermont. She was wise then but very young. Perspective is a funny thing.

We all sat stiffly in our seats because of the cold and trembled from the adrenaline. I remember giggling with Debbie and feeling so grown up and special to be allowed this chance to welcome our new family member into the world. Seeing a sibling born is something that just cannot be duplicated.

“Joe, it’s time! It’s really, really time!” Mom was nearly shrieking. Now, in Dad’s defense, there had already been a few false starts that holiday season. Hard contractions were a fact of daily life since Christmas, so he knew it could be another false alarm. And besides, we lived minutes away from the hospital and he was already driving like a Duke boy.

Now, in Mom’s defense, she had already given birth naturally three times in her young life. She knew what she was talking about. From my front seat perspective that night, my money was on Mom.

“I know, we’re almost there! Hang on!” Dad was focused on the traffic lights, the stick shift, and his wife in the back seat. I cannot tell you with certainty that he was breathing.

“No, I’m not kidding! It’s really time, NOW!!!”

“Almost there, honey!”

“Joe, NOW! RIGHT NOW!! I mean it!”

Dad pulled off to the center median just shy of north May avenue and hurriedly parked the Subaru. He raced around the front of the car and to the passenger side and pulled open the back door. He arrived just in time to catch his baby as Mom pushed.

Just in time.

I will never for as long as I live forget the moment that Mom’s guttural yelling changed over to laughter. Have you ever heard this split second syllable before? Whatever pain and panic she was feeling as we drove was instantly and permanently forgotten, as labor pain often is. Her voice was suddenly all joy and love and peace, elation and celebration in the cold cargo light of the Subaru back seat!

Then we all started laughing, and Debbie and I hugged in the front seat. I remember staring at my beautiful Momma while twisted around, white chenille blanket slightly bloodied, tiny, messy screaming bundle on her hips. She was curling up to find her baby’s face and offered the most beautiful, most consuming smile I had ever seen.

“It’s a girl!!!” Dad said shakily.

Then I got a glimpse of the gross umbilical cord and turned back to face front.

I remember very little after that except arriving at the emergency room drive up doors. Dad escorted Mom with the baby and nurses into the cavernous mouth of the hospital, and Debbie and I were on our own for a while. I was only nine, after all, and very sleepy.

Being one of the first people to see my beautiful little sister Genevieve Michelle sort of gave me the idea that she was partly mine. Helping to cuddle, change diapers, and entertain tiny siblings is one thing; witnessing that first moment of air-sucking emergence into the world is quite another. It doesn’t hurt that she is perfectly adorable and loving in every way.

When I eventually returned to school

to share the good news,

I could not pronounce her name correctly.

So for a while my friends and teachers thought

she was named Guinevere.

Here’s Guinevere a few years later

on our back yard play set.

For many years the whole family

called her Viva Michelle, and Mom still does.

Here’s Viva Michelle holding my first born,

Jocelyn Marie, circa 1996.

I’ve always thought they look a lot alike, especially as babies.

They are chatting with our great grandfather Papa Joe,

who was among other things a beekeeper.

His wife was a writer.

I should tell you their story sometime.

Gen this Christmas, all grown up and beautiful.

She is a Derby Doll in Los Angeles,

so how perfect that Mom & Dad gave her this fishnet leg lamp!!

The whole room was laughing so hard!!

Yesterday was Viva Guinevere’s first twenty-ninth birthday, and as fate would have it her lifelong best girlfriend Erin delivered a healthy little baby girl right on time, though not in the back seat of a car. What a birthday gift! What a lovely full circle life draws sometimes. Erin & Darryl, we wish you many healthy, happy years with your daughter! Gen, I love you. I always have and I always will.

I believe deeply in the power of silent wishes and prayers, in specific blessings being honored because we speak them and ask them of the Right Source. Will you please join me in showering my little baby sister in whatever wonderful, specific little blessing you would like to see manifest in her life this year?

Sisters are Cute.
Umbilical Cords are Grody.
Happy Birthday Gen!!
xoxoxoxo

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