My family has a way of taking a very normal, lightly sweetened procedure to a back room and emerging with something so fantastically strange that people struggle to believe it is real or maintain eye-contact. It's like a dog being taken in for a standard nail trimming and instead donning a funny wig and smelling intensely of peanut butter.
Take for instance school.
School is not an exciting or risque topic - it is not something that creeps up in bedroom talk or is well suited for smack talk. ("OH BABY... I'll give you a lesson plan... get over here and wipe my chalkboard..." nope) School is an accepted and common world-wide institution. No one squeals or accidentally farts when a little girl says, "Today I went to school." It is what people do: they go to school.
Now imagine a hypothetical man and woman having a moment of innovative brainstorming, "Okay, so there's SCHOOL - it's already set up and there are teachers and buildings and curriculum and funding... I KNOW! What if we rejected the entire institution and educated our children IN OUR HOME? WE can be the teachers! WE can be the PRINCIPAL! OUR BELIEFS can be the CURRICULUM! We'll call it, Crazy Town."
Sounds like a revolution right? Well, big shocker, those two people were my parents - always notorious for their rebellion (one of their nicknames early in their marriage was "Big G and CRAZnita", their famous phrase being "FUCK THE SYSTEM") - and the name soon changed from "Crazy Town" to "Homeschool" due to the input of some concerned friends and family.
Those of you who have wondered how on EARTH it is possible that all the Brice children are so brilliant now have a partial answer. (the rest of the answer? 100% pure divine favor... )
Another example: bathing suits. Normal right? You go to a pool, people are wearing them. Nothing to write home about. "Dear Mom, today was the wildest day of my entire life - I saw someone wearing a bathingsuit. Love, Henry." Nope.
Some people wear bathing suits from Target, some people wear shirts while they swim (WORD to my McClelland boys... I still have a creepy desire to see their nipples), and some people wear nothing in certain places in say, France. Now imagine the ingenuity and sheer courage of a family who decides to create their own article of clothing in which to swim. I have written about this before, but for those of you who are new to the concepts of my family's genius, I was the very proud owner and wearer of a Modesty Bathing Suit, an "MBS" if you will. This was the actual name of the article of clothing, and with it I was able to BOUND ahead of my peers in points of righteousness and purity. These points were often hard to come by for someone who was already nearly perfectly pure, so the chance to get such a fantastic lead was welcome.
The MBS was made of a thick lycra, and covered every part of my body between my elbows and my knees. It hung a bit loose so as not to qualify as "form fitting", and sported a flouncy skirt (to obscure my incredible pre-pubescent ass from view) and sleeves to draw attention to the detailing of the garment and away from my reed like form.
I was so proud of my MBS that I wore it proudly at summer camp the year I was 12 years old. Imagine it - 12 years old, about 80 pounds, and so modest I could have been mistaken as a walking sleeping bag. My sister Calen (9 years old) took her hand-made MBS with wide, grateful eyes from my Mom that summer as well, and when she arrived at her week of summer camp she high-fived her friend Jenna who handed her an extra bikini. "Thanks yo." Meanwhile, I strutted around the pool area like a peacock, utterly delighted to show the rest of the camp girls what whores they were.
Another example: nicknames. You probably have a few. One of mine was "Carebear" growing up - cute right? My cousin Dan was always called "Dan-Dan" - I still can't call him anything else (which is awkward because he is now a fantastically handsome 6'7 man with a wife and baby... "HEY DAN-DAN!")
My youngest brother Collin (the "baby" who looks strangely like a man) is currently a freshman in High School (yes, actual school.... "Crazy Town" got old after a few children) and has found new ways to carry on the family's tradition of Strangifying. Nicknames are his special area of expertise.
Collin is a magical child in that he not only is creative, but his creativity is perfectly suited to antagonize my Dad. I'm not sure what it is, but there is nothing in my life more satisfying than getting a rise out of Gary Wayne, or "Big G." To see his face wrinkle up and hear his exasperated words, "OH PUNKIN!?" And then to give him a huge smile and hope he still loves me (he does)... truly these moments are some of the best in my life.
Collin recently decided to give our parents nicknames. Sweet right? My Dad is "Papsmear" and my Mom is "Mammogram." Collin really does call them by these names, often and in public, and always with a tone of love and respect. Last time I talked to my brother I heard him ask, "Papsmear, can we go to Chick-fil-a?" My Dad answered him without acknowledging the nickname at all - a definite sign of my brothers victory (the ignoring is almost as satisfying as the "OH PUNKIN!?").
I get to see Mammogram in a few short days. I CANNOT WAIT for her to visit and see my life and my home and my new dance moves I've been preparing for her. She will be pretty hard to control (CRAZnita!! WOOP WOOP), but I have a few new tricks up my sleeve for women as wild as she. Different from my Dad, my Mom's response to most of her children's craziness is to laugh very loudly. She has an ability to laugh that I love so much I could patent it.
There is something comforting about my family's history of not doing things the normal way. Yes, I get many laughs and amazed looks when I tell about my childhood of homeschooling and my intensely conservative adolescent beliefs, but I am also able to laugh as hard as the people around me at myself because I know that every strange decision made by my family was made with love at the core. There is a safety in my family in this regard. "If you're crazy and you know it clap your hands", they know it - and they love it - and they can laugh and cry and clap their hands about it until the cows come home.
I find myself intensely grateful for my family as I look at my life lately and wonder "WHAT the FUCK." I find myself continuing to put the Brice mark on simple procedures, even though I had fantasies about it being out of my system. For instance: dating. I mean, really - it is a common procedure, accepted worldwide. Boy meets girl, connection, kiss, hanky panky, love, commitment, bla bla bla. So what do I decide? I decide FUCK the system. I decide I'll SKIP the whole dating thing and just get married when I am twenty. Brilliant.
Fast forward a few years and turns out dating probably would have been a good idea, to put it mildly, as in so mild that I can't even really taste anything in my mouth - is this an AIR COOKIE? I am now twenty seven, new to the world of dating and singleness, and seem to be continuing the trend of making normal procedures agonizingly complicated and strange.
I can't wait to see my Mom and let her see and hug and be in my crazy life. I can't wait to hear her laugh and feel her love and taste her cooking. AND, I can't wait to see her because I know that she can see me for who I am, for all the ways I seem unable to make life simple.
She will watch as I take a common and accepted worldwide procedure like "dating" and take it to the back room and emerge, not with a boyfriend, but with a fly fishing rod, a newly choreographed Tracy Chapman song and a random plane ticket to Paris, and she will laugh and hug me and clap her hands.
i adore you! you warm my heart and make me laugh as much as any person on the planet. oh how i wish i had a photo of you in your mbs to carry around in my wallet. i hope your time with your mom is divine. and i hope that you will record and promptly upload to youtube your dance moves to tracy chapman. otherwise, i will insist on my own private viewing in november. if ya'll want to go dancing, take your mammogram to the little red hen or century ballroom. my mom loved them both. clap. clap.
Posted by: shannon | October 25, 2009 at 10:31 AM
Oh Charis this is precious. I still have pride for how strange and different our family is. I too wore that modesty bathingsuit to camp one year.. got made fun of, and borrowed someone elses regular whore bathingsuit. I was weak. I love you.
Posted by: Kensey | October 26, 2009 at 07:43 AM
BTW.. these family memory blogs make me warm inside my heart.
Posted by: Kensey | October 26, 2009 at 07:45 AM
Shannon - I will prepare a montage of dance moves soon - hopefully the video will be called "Charis Brice, feat. CRAZnita!"
Sweet Kensey - you were not weak! You were tender and sweet and always more in tune with your heart than I, and totally lacking in the arrogance I was dipped in at birth. I love you.
Posted by: Charis | October 26, 2009 at 11:16 AM
As one of the aforementioned McClelland boys, I am scared...
... but I just gotta tell you, my son (Stephen's not quite 2) made up a name for my youngest brother - Dan Dan! If that name didn't get patented, then he doesn't owe you any royalties for using it.
And Phil has announced that he would henceforth like to be called Uncle Dil by Stephen (we're still working on that one).
Posted by: David McClelland | October 27, 2009 at 07:04 PM
Carebear, that was one of your best remembrances ever! I remember thinking that Mom could make a fortune with the Home Schooling clan if she would market those MBS's. But the MBS train left the station and we were left with bolts of bright, double knit material. Oh well. Have fun with your Mom next week. Dance like no one's watching! Papsmear
Posted by: DAD | October 31, 2009 at 10:16 AM
I laughed the entire time I read this post...something I haven't done enough of over the last few weeks...thanks, charis.
Posted by: Elana | November 03, 2009 at 06:29 PM