Happy New Year Helen Reddy

Strangely, I can remember the summer of my tenth year as if it were yesterday. This is strange because I can remember yesterday as dimly as if it were 42 years ago. It was the summer of 72, the world was ripe with possibilities! My days were filled with swimming, participating in neighborhood talent shows (my go to talent was my back bend from a standing position, always a crowd pleaser), walks to The Meat Block for Mountain Dews and waiting for the ice cream man. My nights were reserved for the bounty of wonderful television of that era; The Odd Couple, The Brady Bunch, The Partridge Family, and occasionally the scandalous Love American Style. On the very best of summer nights I would enjoy The Sleepover. It warms my heart that although life has changed in a million different ways for my kids, The Sleepover is still the pinnacle for the 9-12 year old set.

One of the very best sleepover hosts was my friend Trina. Trina's Mom not only let Trina have sleepovers but she would take it a step further to the ultimate grand supreme, The Pajama Party! I can picture Trina's house so clearly. She lived in a split level, so exotic compared to my ho hum ranch. Trina's Mom was a widow. It was just Trina and her brother and her Mom. Somehow, this too made Trina's household exotic. I remember Trina's Mom as being funny and nice and somehow strong. She was a "Women's Libber". The song of that summer was "I am Woman" by Helen Reddy. I loved it and I loved Mrs. Tautz, they made me so proud of my ten year old womanhood! Oh the things we could do. We were strong and invincible and we were in numbers too big to ignore! While I wasn't exactly clear on what invincible meant I knew if Mrs. Tautz had it playing in her house then it was okay by me! At the ripe old age of ten I was a women's libber. It was the 70's I could be whatever I wanted to be. By the fall of that year I enjoyed a short lived  subscription to Ms. magazine. In the spring I stopped wearing my bra. I look back fondly on that summer and that season of American life.

 It is 2015 and thankfully, January is almost halfway gone. I say thankfully because my Facebook newsfeed, email, grocery store magazine section and even the nightly news will begin their slow retreat from The Lists. You know the lists I am talking about; The Five Foods You Should Stop Eating Now, The Ten Secrets of Youthful Skin, the Three Top Beauty Finds of 2015, the Four Keys to a Successful Cleanse and on and on. The lists are typically for women exclusively and more times than not are generated by women. I am exhausted and overwhelmed by them, mostly I am left feeling discouraged by them. I was just celebrating the New Year, minding my own business and then BAM! I find out that I am doing everything wrong! The wrong soap, moisturizer, diet, shampoo, make up, exercise; my life is a mess!

I'm not sure why I can remember the summer of 72 so clearly. The years that flank it are mostly mist covered. I am thankful for the memory as I review the lists of 2015. I am hopeful that the woman I was when I was ten will see me through another year in this new century and that she has informed the way I have parented my girls and my boys. That ten year old girl understood the possibilities beyond The Lists, she knew what was what and even at 10 she knew how to roar!