For lovers, for dreamers, and me

Nice thing about Fall is that there are a lot of days of mixed weather. Sunshine and rain at the same time is not uncommon as the seasons shift to the shroud of clouds. Once that boom lowers over the Pacific Northwest, it's down for about 7 or 8 months. The benefit of this multiple personality disorder weather is the occasional rainbow.

I was boarding the ferry boat to Seattle around 5 in the afternoon. The sun was shining but a group of clouds was eyeing my freshly ironed hair. Jerks. The clouds started sprinkling and predictably a rainbow formed over the Sound framing the water and the ferry perfectly.

I took a moment and tried hard to drink it in; tried to revel in the sight because it was beautiful and glorious. It may be the last rainbow I get to see this season before the cloud shroud becomes the usual sky.

What was less than beautiful and glorious were the dozens of people taking pictures of that moment.

iPhones & Androids all up facing the sky. There must have been a flood of posts to Instagram, Snapchat, Tumblr, Facebook, Imgur, Reddit... Dang, I think I probably could go on.

It was sad, really. What happened to just letting the day happen and being present for that?

My cousin's daughter just got married over the weekend. My mother uploaded a bunch of pictures to her Facebook account and I was grateful for them. So good to see the family. So sad I wasn't able to attend. But it reminded me of my own wedding and the accidental lesson I got in being present.

There are a million tiny things to remember when you're putting on a wedding. I am my parents' only daughter. This would be the only wedding they'd be a part of where they were the parents of the bride. A wedding is a big glitzy production; especially when it is for the only daughter. Ultimately, we were a bunch of amateurs trying to pull off the equivalent of the Academy Awards. The morning of the wedding, which was on the Fourth of July, I realized that I had forgotten to purchase a battery for my camera. Usually this wasn't a big deal. It took lithium batteries which last a long time. I had tons of film; this was 20 years ago, folks. But I had the bad luck of having the battery wear out that very morning.

My mother was furious with me. She had been counting on snapping pictures all day with my camera. The stores around the venues were all closed because of the national holiday. People were deployed to find a battery before the ceremony but all came up empty handed. What's a girl to do?

In the words of the Imagineers at Disney, I simply, "Let it Go!"

What resulted was us being in the moment completely. My parents got to the spend the day really being there and not trying to get the perfect candid shot. My new husband and I were not distracted with trying to document every moment. We had a professional photographer to take those shots anyway. He did a much better job of it than we ever could.

So in our lives now, I've got a phone with over 2,000 images on it. So many of them are pictures of beautiful vistas and breathtaking sunsets. But the thing is, if I'm lucky, there will be another rainbow to relish, another beach to breathe upon, another mountain to stare at in awe.

Instead of taking a picture, I'll strive to take it in -- relish the moment and simply breathe.

Siri vs. Iris

This morning my husband and I were lying in bed planning our day. Tonight we are catching a show at the Moore Theater in Seattle. We were trying to figure out what time we needed to leave to get some dinner and the show. We got out our phones to get directions to the theater. I have an Android -- Samsung Galaxy S4. It's not even the latest and greatest in the line. There have been at least two upgrades since this model. Nevertheless, I love this phone. I've no doubt the manufacturer will put in updates to mess with its functionality and twist my arm to upgrading, but for now, it's pretty great. My husband has the Apple iPhone 5.

I went first.

Me:  Where is the Moore Theater in Seattle?

Android:  Here is a map to the Moore Theater in Seattle.


He went second.

Him:  Where is the Moore Theater in Seattle?

Siri: I cannot find the Moore Theater in Seattle.

Him: Let's try again. Where is the Moore Theater in Seattle?

Siri:  There are no theaters in Seattle.

Him:  Siri, what the hell is wrong with you?

Siri: I apologize.


Me = smug.

Say what you really mean

I've been thinking about and talking about dress codes in middle school for a ridiculous amount of time now. I'm a little surprised at myself. Eh, sometimes I get obsessed about something and I just cannot let it drop.

It would be simplistic to say that it is only dress codes that are the problem. I think what dress regulations do is attempt to codify the social rules we already have in place. That is why they seem so scattered and condescending. That is why they're arbitrary. They are what you get when you try to define a thing by only saying what it is not.  As in, "You may not wear <insert arbitrarily deemed offensive article of clothing> at school."

But perhaps it better to really say what we mean as a society.

"We, as your elders, are made uncomfortable when we watch your budding sexuality as young women. If you dress in ways that celebrate your sexuality, we still want ways to punish and shame you for it under the guise of it being a dress code. We are telling ourselves that shaming you and punishing you are ways for us to protect you. We believe we are acting in your best interests by denying you instructional time, pointing out to the rest of your classmates that we think you are being slutty, and that you should be considered slutty by others; it is doing our part to label you and your reputation with your peers. We think we are protecting you by forcing modest clothing choices upon you. It is important for you to be indoctrinated with the belief that your clothing will protect you from unwanted sexual advances or attacks. By the word modest, we think you should not wear clothing that celebrates your female form, unless it is for an activity that promotes school spirit like cheerleading outfits or volleyball briefs. We choose to remain ignorant to the harm dress code infractions do to you and your schooling environment. The harms to you include lost instructional time, self doubt and shame, the simple physical discomfort of wearing other clothes over your outfit, and the ire your parents may feel towards you for having gotten dress coded. We would rather you avoid our gaze and think we as staff are doing nothing but judging your outfits. Because we are judging your outfits. We think it is more important to punish you than create and environment where you feel safe talking to us without our judging eyes upon you. Your education is not as important to us as is the education of the other students. And by other students, we mean the boys. Because you are distracting them with your bodies. We would never say that we resent you for being young and pretty, but it may have crossed our minds."

My peers, we have gotten too far away from being young and foolish; we have forgotten how stifling it was to live under arbitrary rules. My peers, please recognize that we are carrying some heavy baggage that steers us to foster rape culture. My peers, we need to rise above so that our daughters don't have their voices silenced and education stymied by something as trivial as a dress code.

Let them be.