on christmas day 2018 i did something i've never done in my more than fifty years of life -- i went to the gym.
being someone who is reasonably active and tries to be fit, it is kinda impressive that i have never-ever-ever been in a proper gym. there are a number of reasons for this, my concave chest probably topping the list, but if we picked at them, which i did that christmas afternoon, none of my reasons could be described as pride-inducing or even defendable (my 'friends' would tell you the same could be said of many of my convictions). and now i had a daughter that not only regularly worked-out at our neighborhood gym but also WORKED at that same gym and it was easily her favorite job of all to date. she had asked me join her numerous times and i always said the same thing in response, "thanks bay but i'm not a gym guy".
then here on christmas day, a day of family and togetherness, well after the morning mayhem and a few hours of lazing about, bella stood up amidst all the gift chaos and said she had to get ready to go to the gym. after she left the room i thought of her walking there alone, working out alone, walking home alone and it made me a bit sad. then i thought it might be nice if i joined her. this reaction came partly out of concern for her safety but also out of sympathy too - spending christmas day alone at a gym did not seem like the kind of christmas any parent wishes for a child. AND as a bonus i could see where she worked. AND i could experience a gym on what should be a pretty quiet day. AND spend some alone time with my girl (something that gets harder to do with every passing month). AND since she knew what she was doing, she could teach me what to do. benefits abound.
so i went to bella and asked if i could join her. after realizing i was serious, her face lit up. elated would be too strong of a description but not by a whole lot. she seemed very happy i would be joining her. i told her i'd go get dressed. after i turned she called after me.
BELLA
do you know what you're going to wear?
TROY
i guess my biking bibs because we'll do some cardio on the bikes right?
BELLA
uhh, well, people don't really wear biking bibs to the gym.
TROY
really? don't they ride the bikes?
BELLA
well yes, but they're doing lots of other stuff to -- not biking-bib stuff.
TROY
hmmm. well if we're going to bike at all i feel like i need my bibs.
BELLA
uh. ok. well, you gotta do you.
in the end i didn't wear my biking bibs and thankfully so. as bella told me, there weren't a whole lot of people at the gym in padded biking shorts with overall straps. funny that. but how big of a rock star is bella being willing to show up to HER gym and HER workplace with HER father wearing nothing but biking shorts. she is SUCH a BETTER person than i was at her age. and yes i know that if we spent three minutes picking at it, we'd all learn that she is a better person than i was yesterday. moving on.
so we went to the gym and i stepped through bella's workout with her. she had the double-duty of doing her own workout while also serving as my teacher. something i think she would be very good at (vid evidence below). i will say having someone that knows what they are doing is pretty helpful. and having that person be your daughter, is pretty awesome. you will likely not be surprised to know bella is like a full-on celebrity at this place as all the yoked-out, meat-backed regulars absolutely love her. so any self-consciousness i might have felt at being a gym newbie was dashed given the protection i got from bella's celebrity halo. though bella's status could not spare me the discomfort i felt personally during our workout when we had to pull the weights off after bella's reps so i could lift just the bar (and in some cases wish they had thinner, lighter bars).
as for my thoughts about it, i joined the gym the next day and asked bella to share her workout schedule with me. short version is anytime she is going to the gym and i am not working, i will go with her and do whatever workout she is doing (e.g. legs, chest, etc).
what people were saying about the bella-dad workout:
a neighbor and obvious gym-regular pulled me aside one day at the gym to say, "i gotta tell you troy, you and bella are absolutely adorable working out together."
on christmas day anthony asked marty where dad and bella were. when she told him they were at the gym, he said, "well, that doesn't feel very special." this was in response to us going out on christmas day, a day where none of us are usually more than fifteen feet from the fireplace.
and later in the day when i asked alex what he thought of me and bella going to the gym he said, "oh, you were gone?"
lastly, my personal trainer even takes video of your work so she can point out issues with your form. one sucky thing about it, aside from seeing i have to straighten my back more, is it also exposes that any adorability points i earned for working out with my daughter were lost each time we had to pull all the weights off after bella's turn so i could just use the bar.
this is a super small example of why the day countdown (Oct Gallery) matters as much as it does to me. because once bella leaves home, the family dynamic we have known since our family with children began is forever changed. and it is not about the giant factors like having an empty bed or one less dinner plate but these small daily moments that i will likely miss the most. these innocent interactions which most people seem to pay no mind are sort of thing i have most coveted and enjoyed watching. perhaps it is because i am an only child and never got to be part of such inter-play. unsure. but it is something i will miss dearly.
you know how when people take a picture they sometimes yell an instruction like "everyone smile" or "everyone be goofy"?
I think for this picture the instruction yelled was "everyone be their genuine selves".
i say this because i've never seen a picture that so perfectly captures the essence of these four people.
going around the circle.
Marty just bleeds natural and confident hap ...
growing up i remember goofing on my mom at how quickly she could get emotional at something. i have a crazy, vivid memory of a coke commercial that ran for awhile in the eighties that made her cry not just once but upon every viewing. it depicted a family adopting a little girl and then raising her, showing pivotal snippets of maturation (riding a bike, blowing out birthday candles, graduating hig...
Bella DeArmitt
Ms. Gray
African American Literature ACC
August 20 2018
The Impact of a Tradition
My family holds great value for traditions: Sunday mornings are reserved for cuddling in my parents' bed, winter breaks are spent holed up with our favorite action heroes--my family will take Jason Bourne and Lieutenant Ripley over the Grinch and Frosty the Snowman any yea ...
one of the larger parental debates between marty and i has revolved around bella and sex. marty's for it, and i'm against it. let me clarify that a bit. marty's open to that journey beginning in high school, and i think it has less to do with someone's age and more to do with their maturity or state of readiness if you will. marty's core argument, "what, you want to send your daughter to college w...
marty took bella shopping for prom dresses. here's what this looks like in most cases. you have a young, idealistic girl trying on dress after dress for the biggest night of the her life while the mother stands back, assessing things and ticking through the details she doesn't like about the dress (and in some cases the girl's body). in time the girl becomes vexed at the mother's judgement. the cl ...
bella came to me while i was working at my desk, and asked me if i'd read something for her. she handed me a piece of paper that said, "Please accept this as my two-week notice and December 15th, 2017 will be my last day. Thanks! Bella."
i asked what i was looking at. bella said it was her resignation notice. i asked how she intended to deliver it. by hand? over the phone? bella said she was going to text it to her boss.
this is one of those moments as a parent where you have to catch yourself. you do this by first taking a deep breath and then, following the resultant exhalation, by saying nothing. those first things that roll across your mind's conveyer belt aren't the winners you think they are. no matter how smart or appropriate or necessary they may sound in your head. what you're looking and waiting for during this quiet breath is the realization that the only reason your child doesn't know any better or different is because you, her parent, have not yet taught them the difference. i have found in the past that i have often fumbled these moments because they come (1) frequently and (2) at inopportune times, though if you asked me when an opportune time was, it would probably take me longer to find a time to i'd call convenient than it would to just show you what i need to show you.
so here i told bella there are better ways to do this. to this she said, "but mom said it was ok". to which i said, "you showed this to mom? and she said it was good?" yep and yep. breath and silence. when dealing with spousal disconnects, there's a whole other decision tree which i will simply describe as a higher level of math and leave it at that (for now). after my breath and silence (and spousal calculus) i said "mom and i are going to have to different approaches here. while yes, you could technically send this brief message AND you could technically send it as a text and no one may bat an eye in today's white-knuckled, fast-finger society there is a better way to leave a job and this is an opportune time to practice that better way."
i talked way longer than i needed to (but this is my way and my children may worry for me if i were ever brief, so i in part do it for them). but i talked at length about the value of not burning bridges and making an impression on people, even as you are parting ways, but in short it is always about conducting yourself with class and being respectful (even when there might be angst, which was not the case here). way back when i left the bank and posted my resignation, a few people commented on it to me. so i found it (here) and shared it with bella. using that as a template she produced the following:
Donya,
Please accept this letter as my official notice of resignation from Doughocracy, effective Saturday, December 16. Working at Doughocracy for the past nine months has been an honor and has brought me great joy. I am thankful that this served as my first, official job. I have learned so much about proper work etiquette, dealing with customers, and the food industry as a whole through my work at Doughocracy. Sadly, I have stumbled across a professional opportunity elsewhere that better aligns with my priorities and busy schedule.
I appreciate the opportunity and the growth that has come from this experience. I will remember Doughocracy with nothing but fond memories. I hope for the best for Doughocracy itself, as well as you. I fully plan on stopping by now and again to enjoy the best pizza in, not only The Delmar Loop, but in Saint Louis.
Thank you,
Bella DeArmitt
my girl, as she so often does, did me proud. and she has already been offered on open-invitation in the summer when she will have more time and they will have more need.
one thing my mom definitely worked hard to teach me was just because lots of people in a society may deem something ok and acceptable does not mean it is ok and acceptable. texting a one-line resignation to your boss to quit your first long-term job squarely lands in that bucket for me. bella and i both thank you mom.
bella came into the kitchen twirling in her dress before leaving for her homecoming dance. we had some people over at the house, namely alex's middle-school soccer team and a few of their parents. some of the adults were complimenting bella's dress and hair. a few of the boys may have future chiropractic issues for all the hidden craning of their necks to get a better look at alex's older sister. ...
you be doing too much. that is what a middle-school peer once told bella. it has become a house-staple that jokingly gets thrown out anytime anyone seems to be going above and beyond. you be doing too much. they be doing too much. a confusing part of its use is one can say it in a complimentary or derogatory fashion. when you hear it, you must listen for both the tone and context in each situation...
there is a boy in one of bella's classes that is missing a card or two from his deck of social graces. in the first few weeks of class bella caught him repeatedly staring at her and her table-mate. after a few weeks of these ongoing gazes, and on a day day where bella may have admittedly not have gotten a full night of sleep, she walked into class, watched this boy watch her walk to her desk, drop ...
Note: The top three pictures were taken within a few minutes of one another and represent a pretty typical summer morning in our household (granted alex isn't usually up that early but he was excited about this old iMac he resurrected from the basement earlier in the week). in the last picture, we were picking bella up from a leadership & service camp she attended where she met a boy she was pretty taken with (and is most likely responsible for her extra-giddy state in this pic). it is also worth noting that at the camp bella was known as "the awesome girl who knitted all the time". i'd say that sums her up pretty well.
now for the less obvious. it is a 5-speed manual transmission. yes, bella can drive a stick. i taught her when she was thirteen. i taught alex when he turned thirteen too. and when anthony turns, thirteen, i will teach him as well.
this year when parent-teacher conferences swung around, marty announced that she would miss dinner the next night. i followed up by asking the kids what we should do since we wouldn't have the dead weight around. bella immediately piped up asking what i meant because i was going to be gone too. i asked where i was going and bella said i was going to be meeting with her teachers because as mother announced it was parent-teacher conferences. mildly confused and glancing at marty for support i told bella that having a parent at your child's school (marty teaches where bella attends) carries the awesome perk of me not having to go to those meetings because we've got a for-real boots-on-the-ground resource in the building. bella's body sagged to one side and after a beat or two she said, "i work hard in my classes. that is my job. your job, a few times a year, is to go hear about how hard i'm working in my classes. that is how it works."
so i'm at parent-teacher conferences, my first ever at the high school and i spied marty doing her thing. over the years i have always felt for her on these evenings because they are wicked long days and i always hear about the salty and pissy parents as like with the students themselves, they are the ones that stick on your brain's wall like neon post-it notes. but when i saw it live i got the sense they held the event for marty. it was like a talking-gala where you got to wear a pretty dress for a rotating cast of strangers and talk all night. marty's dreamscape. worst possible environment imaginable to me. so now i feel no kinda sadness for marty who looked like true royalty and whose dance card was blurringly deep.
for me, i shouldered my core objective—hearing my daughter's teachers lavish her with praise and laughingly comment on her perpetual need to knit. one guy leaned in to me and said in a hushed voice, "i honestly think bella has done more good in the world by fifteen than i have in my whole life. i mean seriously. one day i asked her what she was knitting and she said 'hats for premature babies' and i was like 'hats for premature babies' are you kidding me.".
inbetween those gush-fests, i took in the tumultuous event and studied the organization of it all. my biggest question was why are some teachers so busy and others standing patiently by their clipboards amidst a sea of people. those teachers-in-waiting looked pretty exactly like me at every high school social event i ever attended. did that imply they were a good teacher or a bad teacher? i obviously didn't know the players well enough to do a proper assessment but it didn't curb my fascination in it all. and if i can use the only inside-baseball info i have, marty's table was hoppin' so i imagine there is at least one path that makes the good teachers a little more booked than others. i can kinda hear kids saying to their follks, "and you totally have to talk to mrs. walters because she is crazy ... and wears wild stockings ... and will say ANYTHING!".
marty told me about one of her last meetings of the night. the lady was reasonably miffed as she had to wait over an hour for her turn to speak with marty. thus the conversation began on the cool side. but marty, ever the pro, went about her task. in time the sleight seemed forgotten and their business was done. marty shook her hand, apologized for the wait and went to call her next name.
the following morning marty found a message in her inbox from this lady with a subject line of "conferences last night". marty saw that the school principal had been cc'd. minutes into this new day that followed a fourteen hour workday and not enough sleep, marty drew a breath and clicked on the message.
Mrs. Walter,
I just wanted to take a moment to sincerely thank you for my time with you last evening. Admittedly, I was growing a bit frustrated waiting 1.5 hours for my turn to speak with you, but as we started to talk, all of that quickly melted away.
I've been attending parent-teacher conferences for my daughter Evelyn since she was in preschool, and quite honestly, they've all been pretty much the same. She's a pleasure to have in class, she is doing great work, she participates in class, she truly cares for her fellow classmates. All of those things are wonderful to hear mind you, but my conference with you was different.
It started pretty typically with her current grade and that neither one of us had concerns about her coursework. But then you blew me away. You talked about noticing a time during the school year that Evelyn was a bit down, and not quite herself. I never thought I would hear something like that in a conference. Not in high school. And definitely not from her Biology teacher. I can't begin to convey to you how much that meant to me. You know who my child is. Not just by name, or what hour you have her, or where she sits in your classroom. And you CARE. Not only did you notice that something was off with her, you talked with her about it. You made sure that she had someone that she could turn to.
I asked Evelyn about it later that evening, and she told me that you continued to check in with her for the next few weeks. And she told me how much she appreciated that. I can't thank you enough for being the teacher that you are. That all high school children NEED to have in their lives. I'm so glad that I waited for my time with you. To hear the funny, personal story that you had to tell about my child. I could have spent an hour talking with you, but I wanted to be respectful of the family still waiting to talk with you.
My daughter is very blessed to have you as her teacher. This school is fortunate to have you. Thank you Mrs. Walter for truly looking out for my child and giving her an amazing education in life.
With gratitude and profound respect.
there are so many hidden gems in the world. professions you love. life-long friendships that keep unfolding. hope-inspiring children. new tantalizing experiences. unexpected kindnesses paid by strangers. these precious gems are everywhere really. they can be given and gotten with unreasonable frequency. this life can be just endlessly wondrous.
bella is sixteen. which means bella is driving. and not just driving but rockin' the driving. the above photo shows bella after her first wild drive which means her first driving out on the public roads and not in the large city park where she logged most of her early miles (the muny parking lot has probably taught more people to drive and park than any other blacktop within 500 miles).
a coed sleepover between a group of sophomore aged kids!!! i almost guffawed the first time she asked about it, and not to be a jerk but because i thought she was totally joking. thankfully i held it in long enough to see she was not. in the days following the request i asked several of my same-aged friends if they could imagine asking their ...
during last years trip to michigan, bella was heard to proclaim, loudly and exuberantly: I LOVE THIS PLACE. WHEN I"M HERE, I'M THE BEST VERSION OF MYSELF! during this year's travels, bella made similar proclamations, even anticipating them beforehand.
if you sat down and spent thirty focused minutes of your life on seriously contemplating what you want more than anything, wouldn't it be t ...
bella and i were on our first distance ride of the year. we were on a new route and found ourselves riding through a neighborhood that had some for-real mansions. we rode slowly and quietly taking in the size and makeup of each home.
TROY
it's so quiet out here. it's such a beautiful day and there's not a soul anywhere to be seen. it's almost like they're abandoned.
BELLA
they're probably busy yelling at their maids.
TROY
ha. good one. oh my god. look at that one.
BELLA
i hope they run an orphanage out of there.
when i was young and saw big houses like that, i remember wanting to one day live in one. i don't know why i thought that way. i also don't know why bella looks on these homes with the derision that she does. aside from exposing her healthier expectations and social sense, these monster homes also make the girl say the funniest things.
bella's school held its second dance of the year and instead of engaging in that awkward, premature pairing off, bella and a group of six friends went as a collective. before hand they all got gussied up and went to a group diner at a local pizza place. at school they discussed their plans to marty. she suggested they make a reservation given the weekend night and they might not be the only students from the school with the particular place in mind. they agreed that that was a great idea and looked the phone number up immediately (on one of their phones). then just before dialing, one of them asked, what do you say when you want to make a reservation. i am forever intrigued by watching people feel their way through what, to us old folks, are elementary tasks we routinely and effortlessly perform, i love the innocence of it. and i'm not saying i didn't fumble my way through many a life lesson because i did. you just forget about them in time and having kids lets you walk those steps again. and that is what marty did here, walked them through the act and language. then the boy called and got hit with a "oh, sorry we don't take reservations" which then exposes these elementary tasks as not so basic after all.
after getting that sorted out they started asking how much money they each should bring. when you're talking about young people who don't work yet, it's hard to casually tell them to just bring 20-30 dollars as not everyone has open access to money whenever they want. and, the last thing you want is six to eight fourteen year olds sitting at a table on a restaurants busiest night without enough money to cover a check let alone tip. marty and i talked this predicament over and she came up with the idea of stealthily covering the meal for the kids so that when they went to settle the bill, the waitress got to say, this has already been taken care of. marty managed to pull this off but when the waitress passed on the news, the kids with their small fistfuls of proudly acquired fives and tens, were not elated but instead a little dismayed. it turns out they were very excited to be covering their largish restaurant bill, their first largish restaurant bill, on their own. what is it they say about best laid plans?
but, here is where things take a turn and why marty and i really like this particular set of friends bella has recently started running with. after the waitress delivered the news and walked off, instead of stewing on the disappointment and letting it sour their night in any way, one of them said, "well, we can't buy OUR meal but that doesn't mean we can't buy A meal." so they looked around the busy restaurant and picked out a table they would buy a meal for. in the end they selected a woman eating alone with her two young children. when they waitress came back they pointed her out and said they wanted to buy her dinner but that the waitress/hosttess wasn't to tell the woman who did it.
and that is what they did. i won't get into how i would have reacted in a like situation but i can promise you that a fourteen year old troy would not have been buying some stranger dinner with what would have been perfectly good-arcade money.
bella believes in random acts of kindness. so much so that she occasionally, based on some regimen she follows, schedules a random act of kindness. over the christmas break this kindness was to bake a from-scratch apple pie to give to someone. she gave marty her shopping list and then with the proper ingredients in hand, bella made her pie. once done and somewhat cooled, bella donned her shoes and ...
