Tag Archives: reminiscing

10 Favorite Movies from My Teens

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Are there movies you could watch again and again … even though they are more appropriate for 14-year-olds? Maybe for you it’s High School Musical … or maybe you grew up Pretty in Pink?

All it took was one passing mention of one of these films and I was instantly transported to my own teenaged years. So just for fun, here are 10 of my favorite movies from when I was a teen [I turned 13 in 1995].

1. Camp Nowhere (1994) – Cute boys, four cliques brought together, innocent kisses, and life without parents. I’m pretty sure I could still watch this 18 times in a row. And my heart might still beat a little fast for 12-year-old Jonathan Jackson. Ha.

2. Now and Then (1995) – Four girlfriends in the 60s grow up a little bit and find out about themselves and friendships. I love the flash forwards to their adult selves, and I love the 60s soundtrack! I remember going to see this with my Sunday School class and gushing over Devon Sawa. As my sister said (very, very tired, on a road trip), “Sometimes you just need to see Devon Sawa’s booty.”

3. Casper (1995) – Yeah, I’m pretty sure this one was entirely to do with the 5 minutes Devon Sawa is Casper, the human version. And my 13-year-old self fumed with jealousy that Christina Ricci got to kiss him, again.

4. 10 Things I Hate About You (1999) – I’ve declared my love for this teen flick before. I’ve seen it a million times. It’s pretty darn funny. And the whole nerdy guy from 10 Things is the head elf in The Santa Clause is the dude from Numbers? Crazy.

5. She’s All That (1999) – As I “matured,” my love for Devon Sawa gave way to an intense love for Freddie Prinze, Jr. (Which also explains my prejudice against Sarah Michelle Gellar, his now-wife.) No, this movie is not really good. It’s your typical girl-takes-off-her-glasses-and-now-she’s-hot-and-guy-loves-her. But … Freddie!

6. Grease (1978) – I’m pretty sure Grease is part of every woman’s teenaged life since 1978. My husbands claims all the words to all the songs are implanted on the second X chromosome. What sleepover is complete without an off-key and window-shattering rendition of “Summer Nights”?

7. Drive Me Crazy (1999) – A little twist on the “one of them changes and now it’s OK” relationship, in this one girl tries to change guy to make her ex jealous. But it’s OK, because she figures out that she likes him for him at the end. I like Melissa Joan Hart and thought Adrian Grenier was adorable in this movie before he got famous on Entourage.

8. Down to You (2000) – More Freddie, more Julia Stiles. I love Julia Stiles. She was in a bunch of teen movies, but she really was and is a great actress. Other than that, I really have no defense for this one.

9. Cruel Intentions (1999) – Apparently 1999 was a HUGE year for teen flicks. Yeah, the premise of this movie is just flat-out awful. But I can’t say I didn’t watch it five or ten times. Besides, I liked being able to legitimately hate Sarah Michelle Gellar.

10. Drop Dead Gorgeous (1999) – I remember going to see this with my sister and some friends in the theater and thinking it was one of the stupidest movies I’d ever seen. And then I watched it again … and again … and suddenly it was flat-out hilarious. Kirsten Dunst was perfect in this black comedy set in Minnesota.

What movies do you still love from your teen years?

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Dogwood Dream

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Dogwood
source: kcolwell

On my favorite Christmas Eve, we had an ice storm.

I was in high school and woke to a world with no power, and my parents outside assessing the situation. I heard their voices through my window (signs of a house built in 1990?) and as I peered through, I nearly cried.

My beloved dogwood tree was bent to the earth, weeping with the ice crystals.

My first question to my parents was if my little dogwood would make it through the storm. I remember being criticized for caring about a tree when we had no power for the foreseeable future, no way to travel, no generator.

But at that moment all that seemed to matter was my tiny tree, which could be seen from my window and only mine. Its white blossoms felt hopeful each Spring. No matter the heat, the tree bloomed, the chinks in its petals setting it apart from all other trees.

This morning I walked across campus, breathing in the beauty of the dogwoods. We have pink, cream, and white ones, all gloriously blooming on our mini-mountain.

Have you heard the legend of the dogwood? It says that the cross of Christ  was made from a dogwood tree. After the crucifixion, God cursed the trees so they would not grow as large anymore.

The interpretation I read even said that pink dogwoods are pink because they are embarrassed at their part in the crucifixion.

dogwood blooms
source: circulating

A more solid connection is that believers saw the dogwood flower as a symbol of the cross: the notches in the petals symbolized where the nails were placed, and the small rust dots on the petals were like blood.

Already this morning I was counting the precious pink petals among my thousand gifts. With the further meaning, it makes my heart swell.

I may not have a dogwood outside my window right now – merely an amazing view of the Tennessee River – but it’s a future possibility as we may move around campus. As long as we live on campus, though, I’ll always have dogwoods nearby.

I’ll let their image imprint my mind and mingle with that of the cross. A perfect Easter gift, nature crying out in praise.

Help Settle the Painting Feud, or How Trading Spaces Warped My Mind

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My mom was obsessed with Trading Spaces.

Surely you remember the uber-famous, turn-of-the-century, decorating show on TLC? Two families would trade their homes for a week-end, each family given $1,000 and a decorator to help them re-do one room. Sprightly Paige Davis would pounce back and forth between houses, her bright smile encouraging homeowners as they glued feathers to the wall or hung a chair upside-down from the ceiling.

I imagine the homeowners prayed long in advance that they would not be given Hildi as a designer. This was one of her infamous room makeovers, where she stapled silk flowers on the bathroom wall.

Inspired, our house underwent several transformations during those early 2000s years. Our more-formal living room was the most Spaces-esque: eggplant-colored walls, a giant gilted mirror above the piano, a new couch with a dark green and purple floral pattern.

Our family room became beach-themed eventually, thanks to the large number of cruises my parents have taken.

My bedroom – at some point – was painted a golden yellow, including the ceiling, with Asian themed bedding and a Chinese lantern hanging in the corner.

It’s probably because of this history of redecoration that I cannot seem to understand my husband’s aversion to painting. It’s a simple thing, isn’t it? You move in somewhere, you paint it a color you like. When we moved into our first apartment, I insisted on painting our living room a trendy cranberry color. To this day, I still claim it’s the closest we’ve ever come to divorcing.

Mr. V seems to think my desire to paint is insane.

I think I’m normal.

I’d like to hear your two cents.

Battle Royale: Turning 30 with a Side of Gray Hair

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I’m a little in denial about the fact that I am going to be 30 at the end of May. I don’t know why: I have two kids, will have been married nearly 8 years, my husband is already 30 and many of my friends are. For some reason, 30 just seems incomprehensible.

I was always the youngest at work, youngest in our Sunday School classes, youngest everywhere. And now … I’m not. It’s OK. It just takes some getting used to.

With the event of raising a daughter who is 3 going on 15, and that whole almost-30 thing, I have sprouted quite a lot of a few gray hairs.

But there’s this thing.

My husband has all but forbid me to dye my hair.

There are very few things that he is super-opionated about when it comes to my appearance or what I do. He pretty much thinks I’m awesome, to my 10-year astonishment. But when we started dating, my hair was kind of purple.

Yeah.

Red
source: Emily Carlin

I’ve always wanted red hair, madly, deeply. I have green eyes and thought that I needed that red hair to match. I used to dye my hair a Natural Instincts shade that had the word mahogany in it, I think. (Semi-permanent color, praise be.)

I think right before we started dating I got a little too adventurous, and literally, my hair was more purple than red. To his credit, Mr. V never said anything about it until after we were married. And then he made his opinion known: he liked my hair in its unprocessed state and lived in fear that it might turn purple ever again.

So I’ve maybe had highlights in the last 7 1/2 years, but never dyed it. I like my dark brown color. It has a lot of natural highlights. But it’s also starting to gray here are there.

Want to take bets on how long it’ll be before I give in to the bottle? (Maybe I’ll even go mahogany for old times’ sake.) I’ll let you know the results of smackdown Love of My Life versus Feeling Old and Gray.

Poet

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Writing

My earliest memories of writing are poems.

My mother claims she was so proud of me when, at a very young age, I wrote a story that was slightly nonsensical but did have a beginning, middle, and end. But my first real memory of putting words together is sitting at our computer (in the 80s! My parents were on the ball!), typing up a poem I had written for my second-grade class.

In second grade, I went to a magnet elementary school and I had the most amazing teacher ever. She didn’t believe in homework. My creative spirit thrived in her classroom.

It was an assignment, that poem, and I recall it was about the wind flowing through a house. I’m certain I remember that much from rereading it many times; a copy exists in my scrapbook at my grandparents’ house.

Mom and Dad were so proud that we printed out many of those copies on dot-matrix reams, and relatives received the same faded-gray-ink on paper as Mrs. Hilliard.

In fourth grade, I tackled limericks. My wallpaper-bound book was the only piece of nonfiction in my class. A cross librarian helped me figure out the Dewey Decimal number for it while the rest of the students unshelved every book in the school library.

The limericks are pathetically awful, but my teacher – my most-beloved teacher of all time, Mrs. Titus – poured accolades on me for taking a chance.

I wrote many volumes of fiction during my childhood, including Hanson sagas and a series of stories about little girls named after flowers that I told and retold to my little sister in the car.

But these short poems are the firsts, the beginnings, the earliest times I was called “writer.” The etches on my heart speak poetry.

Before You Hit Publish: Write. Everything. Down. NOW!

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Before You Hit Publish

Many moons ago, I had this blog series called Before You Hit Publish. Honestly, it was meant to be a blog in itself; but when I got pregnant with David (April 2010), all motivation flew out the window. I still don’t trust that I could manage two blogs plus ParentLife. So for the time being, I’d like to return the series to Vanderbilt Wife. It became quite clear to me at Blissdom that helping bloggers become better writers is one of my passions. I hope you’ll read the new posts — and catch up on old ones by clicking on the image above if you haven’t read them.

Boarding Your Thought Train

When you are a writer, one image or one word can strike up a whole boatload of memories in you, just waiting to be unloaded on the page one by one.

If you’re anything like me, though, these triggers come at the most inopportune times. In the car. While you’re talking on the phone. More often than not, when you’re trying to drift to sleep.

It is so important to record enough words that you’ll remember the train of thought in the morning.

I had a post in drafts for literally months — possibly a year or more — that said something like, “Chrysanthemums in Thanksgiving Visitor / writing essay / lions.” I was so glad I grasped onto that thought when I finally had the chance to write it down.

On another scrap of paper, I have written, “Crying in seventh-grade choir // crying at Red Lobster in Chatt.” I haven’t written that yet, but it’s there. The act of writing down the thoughts, even if I can’t find the traces of my crazed cursive, helps cement them in my brain.

large moleskine
source: cutiepiecompany

So buy a notebook and carry it with you everywhere. (Or, you know, maybe you’re fancy and your smartphone can suffice. I don’t have one of those.) Scribble a few words while you’re at a red light. I’ve even written in the dark while half-asleep, hoping that in the morning I’ll be able to read my own writing and make sense.

Then on those days when you are absolutely blank and staring at the screen in front of you? You’ll recall your notebook, cling to one of those rushing trains, and click-clack it on to the virtual paper. It may go somewhere new, or start a whole series, or simply let you release that thought into the air and never mind it again.

Whatever comes, it’s content, practice, and writing. Now go write.

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Reading Like a Writer

Do you have any old journals or diaries laying around? Pick up one and read a few pages. Try not to shudder too much at how repulsive that guy you liked ended up being, or how pathetic it was how you chased after him and got your heart squished like a bad tomato. Instead, let a memory simmer. See where it takes you, and write something based on it.

If you don’t have an old journal, a very old blog post or even e-mail will do. Let me know in the comments what you come up with and a link if you decide to post about it.

Costumed

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My mother sewed a hula hoop into one of her old prom dresses from the dress-up box. (We had the lottery of all dress-ups: my mom has four sisters, and thus bridesmaids dresses from their 70s weddings.)

The dress was brown and foofy, and, with the hoop, I was convinced it was positively Civil War.

I declared myself Beth from Little Women. I don’t think I had ever made it farther than halfway through Little Women, so I didn’t know Beth’s fate … just that she was quiet, peaceful, loving. Of course I wanted to be bold, confident Jo, who would chop her hair off and was a self-anointed author. But still buried in shyness, I couldn’t even costume my desire. Beth was safe.

I didn’t foresee the issue of waddling up neighbors’ porches in a hula-hooped prom dress. I tripped. I bumped. I was embarrassed. I had to tell everyone who I was, and got quizzical looks in response.

Obviously not the Halloween costume, but around the same time.

It’s troubling to me how often I view myself as the clumsy, chubby, bucktoothed, bespectacled child I see in my mind’s eye there. (Thankfully, braces got rid of the buck teeth.) I may still be clumsy, chubby, and bespectacled. But I like to think I’ve gained confidence despite – and because of – those things!

I am not an 8-year-old in a new school, frightened. I am not a 12-year old, dreaming of thin while being mocked in the cold hallways. I am not sweet 16 and never kissed; I am not 18 and unsure what college will bring and if relationships will break or boomerang.

I am a 29-year-old woman, a wife, a mother of two precious children. I am a homemaker, a cook, a writer, an editor, a reader. I am a lover and pursuer of Jesus. I am what I always wanted to do and be.

So why do I – do we? – live in these awkward memories instead of forging ahead?

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31 Days of Reading Well: Day 24

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Revisiting the Past

Perhaps it’s just the writer in me, but certain words or phrases can trigger a memory so sharp I can practically feel it pierce the top layer of my skin.

Two years ago or so, I reread The Thanksgiving Visitor by Truman Capote, many, many years after reading it for a middle-school class. It almost seemed that some of the phrases were printed in bold, so familiar they seemed as they jumped off the page and started playing hopscotch in my brain.

Just a flash, I am in eighth-grade English with Mrs. Long and her gigantic bun atop her gray head. She wears housecoats and talks so slowly I can barely make it through the class. Compared to my seventh-grade English teacher, one of my top-three teachers of all time, she might as well be the Wicked Witch of the West. And she certainly doesn’t appreciate my writing enough.

I think I am clever for using the computer thesaurus to come up with the alliterative title “Polish Palaver” for a persuasive essay. I write about how girls shouldn’t venture so far from pinks and reds … and then find myself wearing dark purple nail polish quite often the next school year.

But oh, my essay on The Thanksgiving Visitor. It comes back with wild red circles and things crossed out. I didn’t put the right words in quotes. I wrote about Capote’s comparison of lions and chrysanthemums, but all the “roars” and “lions” were not quoted correctly. In her opinion.

I still don’t care for overused quotation marks.

What’s amazing to me is how much of the tale I could remember with all of those years in between readings. Capote captures his childhood eloquently with details that breathe. Those lions … Capote’s “friend” … his wild family … they are true enough and forceful enough to be carved into my mind, despite the baby brain and schedules and mania of adult life.

You won’t regret taking an hour to read this short story. Let me know what you think about it.

31daysbutton

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A Wave, A Cask, A Bubble of Insanity

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Walmart's "Action Alley" Display Signs Feature Value and Convenience on Popular Shopping Items

I remember turning into the aisle at Wal-Mart just to recall that I had forgotten the diaper bag.

It was the first time I had ever left the house alone with my tiny baby girl. I quickly found that a carseat takes up most of the space in a shopping cart.

My heart pounded just trying to get the fragile girl into the carseat, outfitted properly, in and out of the car. Would her feet be cold? Would she catch germs at Wal-Mart? Each inch of her precious body, so newly out of mine. I trembled from fear and the new bite of November.

It’s a flash in my mind: that moment when I realized I had everything — my purse, the baby, a shopping list — except that vital brown-and-pink bag with her toilette.

I’ve never scurried through a store quite so quickly, praying that nothing would be expelled from a tiny bottom.

Nothing did, and I was safe. But it didn’t take long to ride the wave of insecurity about my capability as a parent.

_________

She screams and fights and stomps one foot outside the door when I say, “… if you come out of that room.” The child who is praised as polite and sweet as sugar is nothing like the one I face alone in our home.

I hate tantrums.

I look inside, trying to squeeze out the place in my heart that is to blame for all of this. Why oh why? What did I do to make her like this, so vehemently anti-sleep? What could we change?

And why doesn’t anyone else ever talk about their kids doing this?

I feel isolated, alone, in a bubble filled with fake cries, screaming, requests for more water more food more bunnies more blankets.

And heaven help us all if we forget to put on her socks.

I wonder if someday this will all make sense. If I’ll ever be able to stand on my own parenting feet without feeling the need to beg advice from anyone who will listen. Does it improve as they age, little casks of spirit ripening to the perfect vintage dose of confidence?

I hope so.

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Class of 2004, Seven Years Later

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scrapbookpage

We were the ones who went to the Cellar and passed around a pint of Ben & Jerry’s Chunky Monkey, sang karaoke, listened to the band of the guy with the spikey hair.

We spent countless hours in each other’s rooms but this weekend had a difficult time remembering the names of roommates and mens’ dorms.

We dated each other, loved one another, played so many games of Euchre and Apples to Apples I couldn’t ever begin to imagine the numbers. We had 24-hour movie marathons with French onion dip and Fritos, chai tea and out-of-town guests.

robinsstatueatuniversityofrichmond

We had next-door on-campus apartments, a scary couch of death, Hamburger Helper in the tiny old kitchen, two beach houses, and a body-shaped dent in the wall.

_______

Me and my sweetie at the reception.

In August, Mr. V and I attended a wedding in Boston for one of our best friends from college. We joined up with my best friend Michelle, her fiance – one of our college gang, and another dear friend (both men lived with Mr. V our senior year, and Michelle and I lived next door).

We hadn’t seen the groom in two-and-a-half years, we didn’t even know how he met his bride, but it didn’t matter. He is our Sam, was one of the groomsmen in our wedding, and we needed to be there.

It’s been over seven years since we graduated from college; we’ve lived in two cities and are moving in our fourth home since that time. Seven years of marriage, death of Michelle’s mom, break-ups and get-togethers, several countries and even more states under our respective belts.

Post-college friendships are different. You don’t spend as much time together. You aren’t all removed from family and all former friends. You don’t spend time laying on green astroturf fields, staring at the stars, doing cartwheels, and sharing dreams. You don’t sing numerous duets with your best friend to Broadway songs (and always make her be the guy).

These people are etched so deeply in my heart I can’t unravel them from the rest of my heart’s joys and wants and passions. In an uncharacteristic sappy moment, I hugged the neck of my sweet Michelle, who is moving thousands of miles away, and told her, “My life is better because I met you.”

Maybe we do still sing Broadway songs together. Just not in the same way.

best girlfriends

Do you have songs, places, foods that define your college experience? I’d love to hear your reminiscing.
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