Last weekend I had the pleasure of accompanying my brother's family to the Oregon State Fair. This was a new experience for me in that it was much larger than the other fairs I'm used to attending. The paths were paved. The people were relatively clean. The familiar childhood fair scents of diesel gas from the rides mingled with the sweat of weathered carnies gave way to delicious aromas from the food booths and late summer wind.Growing up, I would begin to feel the excited butterflies start to flutter around late June in anticipation of the third week in July when the quiet fairgrounds in Fowlerville would burst to life with vendors, rides, food booths, games, church lady bake sales, and animal exhibitions. It was important to remember to wear close-toed shoes and socks to avoid the cow bullets and poky sun-burnt hay that was strewn throughout the grounds. Carnies who bore a striking, disconcerting resemblance to One Day at a Time's Schneider milled about in search of their next beer, cigarette dangling precariously next their last well-worn tooth. Their broken grins couldn't shake my enthusiasm for the homemade potato chips and freshly squeezed lemonade I was determined to enjoy first thing. I'll always be grateful to Bill Carr for showing me that if you press your straw just right against the bottom of the cup and tilt it just so, you'll be sure to scoop up a lump of sugar that couldn't be convinced to dissolve with the rest of its kin. Mom would give us our allowance for the day and find her position in the bingo tent where each game was a quarter, whether you played one card, or set up sixteen in the shape of an H below your four trolls (multiples of your cards were your best luck, you know) and two dachshund figurines that were sure to help the player rake in the bucks, provided one dachshund faced east and the other was on its hind legs to "reach for the stars." Mom relied on no charms of the sort, but did well through sheer perseverance. She would sit there for hours at a time while we tested gravity on the rides and dared the giant hogs to look us in the eyes. She would sit through slow calls of B8 and O72 to get her golden numbers that formed postage stamps or an X on her cards. Eventually the house had to give it up. She knew the odds and rather than goosing her luck with trinkets and superstitions, she wrestled her winnings using old-fashioned mathematics and time.Armed with these experiences, I took a step back to a different time with my brother last weekend where we could be little kids sharing a sweet treat, but this time we also shared it with his little ones. The way their eyes lit up when a horse reared back, or when we took a gondola ride over the fair was well worth the admission. Next time we go, I'll have to show them the lemonade trick. It's a doozy.
My fiance's 15-year-old daughter comes to stay with him when school lets out and she stays until it's time to go back to school, so he gets her about 8-10 weeks out of each year. I get along fantastically with J's daughter, whom I've dubbed Pixie because that's exactly what she looks like. She even went so far as to voluntarily accompany me on a 5K walk for a local non-profit. I think one of the reasons we get along so swimmingly is that, well, we're both weird. Weird in the sense that different drummers march to our beats, and that is a good thing. She's fifteen without all the fifteeniness. She's respectful, smart, quiet, funny, and very shy. She can appreciate a powerful quote, the Bob Saget Roast, and recognize a cool artsy picture all on the same day. These are qualities I look for in a good person. Her mom and dad have already done all of the hard work and I get to reap the benefits of having a small pixie who's fun to hang out with and who likes to eat what I cook. Not once did she make an ill-informed choice that needed correction while she was here, so discipline isn't really an issue for us.
When he and I got serious and then agreed that marriage wouldn't be a bad idea, it dawned on me that I will be her stepmother. To me, the image of a stepmother is a mean and obnoxious bastard person whose only goal is to make her stepchildren's lives miserable and virtually unlivable. I think of Sigourney Weaver's horrible harridan of a queen in the live action, gothic "Snow White" who would eat babies for lunch if they weren't so noisy and full of crunch. That's just not my bag.
I like kids. I do. The cool ones are unintentionally hilarious and curious and creative and they put words together in orders I've never heard before, but should have. I have three nieces and three nephews in my blood family. In my friend family, I have 17 kids who call me Aunt Sheila and mean it. I love them all very much, especially the fact that I can play with them and have all the good parts without any of the worry and late nights and angst about their college education. Yes yes, I realize there's nothing more fulfilling than having a child, and I'll "understand when I have one of my own". I can't tell you how many times I've heard that from glowing mommies and daddies. I know they mean it sincerely without any intent of condescension. I know it's true. I just don't care to hear it again even one more time. Not one more cloyingly heartfelt time.
Being a full-time Aunt, I feel pretty well prepared for this life of a stepmother. I'm an indirect influence and I'm really quite fine with that. That is, at the beginning of the summer when we're looking forward to her.
But.
Yesterday, we spent over 18 hours in a car to meet her stepdad halfway, say goodbye, and come back home to a house void of pixies. We were so busy with the drive and customs (she lives in Canada) and food and rest stops that we didn't have much time to dwell on the fact that she's gone for another ten months. And I can't tell you how much that sucks. If this is the kind of sadness one feels merely as an indirect influence, then take me off the short list for the direct job. I've seen what the leaving does to her blood parent, and while I may be prepared for Aunthood, and even Stepmotherhood, right now Motherhood sounds about as pleasurable as punching a sleeping bear in the face.
