Datebook: Thursday, August 24th ~ 2006

So here is the problem with being a mom and being the mom of someone who skates: We never feel we have done everything we can.

It is worry times two.

It is fretting to the second power.

The older the child/skater gets, the less you feel able to do as a mom.

You have found the best coaches, the best training facility, the best choreography, the best costumes, the best music—or at least, that was the intention.

Life is about compromise however, and sometimes you have to make adjustments for what is possible and what isn’t possible. Sometimes there is just no more bend in the Gumby stick of life.

For example, I could have been Mrs. Jimmy Buffett but I have an aversion to tequila. Some hurdles are just too high to get over. No one can “Waste Away in Diet Coke with Lemonville”.

So you sit and do the check off list of everything that should be done, has been done, will be done—and there is always this void that feels a bit like maybe you left the iron on when you go out. There is always the question of what “else” can I do to “help”.

Today I found a new source of enrichment.

This is not easy to talk about because I don’t know the proper name for all of the entities.

I have already mentioned how much my daughter and I “symbolically” hold on to good luck tokens. Even if we didn’t quite believe, we certainly wouldn’t bring on a storm of bad karma by not at least respecting the possibility.

Today I went to see a good “witch”, or person who “knows rituals to perform”.

This was not easy.

These people are not listed in the phone book, nor did I get a coupon in my Valu-pack mailer.

No, I overheard a conversation at a dinner party last year and I filed it away in my memory schema of “things I might need in the future”.

I can sense your skepticism here.

I feel a little of a “Mombo is losing it” vive. (I guess from this experience I have developed a bit more of the psychic power all moms possess).

Okay. So some would say, uh-oh, this is just another way to get in on the constant cash flow of skating parents.

Wrong!

Because this woman doesn’t charge anything nor does she accept donations.

I know. It is hard to believe. Even the waitress at a buffet restaurant expects 15 percent for bringing drinks and a stack of plates.

I went to this good luck guru’s work (at the local community college where she is a professor!). (I know, you were thinking Sandra Bullock and Nicole Kidman, and a little shop that sells lotions and soaps).

She told me EXACTLY what to do to bring good luck and support when my daughter skates in future competitions.

I have to burn two candles. (I can’t tell you the color because they need to be specific to your own needs). I have to look intently into the flames and “make my request known”. I must write an identified number on a piece of paper, sprinkle cinnamon on it, fold the paper, and keep it with me all day. Close to my heart.

Okay, so I am feeling a little bit better. I now have a plan of action instead of just sitting in the stands and sending a mental email to all deities and muses for help when I see her guards come off before she steps on the ice.

Of course, now I can be easily identified.

I will be the mom in the stands whose Marshalls/T. J. Maxx bra smells like French toast.

Mombo #9