Dylan is a sensitive soul.
One night, when we called him in for dinner, he looked at the chicken and said, “I can’t eat that.”
“What do you mean you can’t eat it?” I said. I rarely cook, and having a “real” dinner – with meat and vegetables – was a fairly special thing.
“It’s a bird,” he said. “I’m not going to eat a bird.”
Given my own history as an occasional vegetarian, I knew exactly how he felt.
But like any good mom who’d just spent half an hour making dinner, I screeched at him. “You WILL eat it!”
He didn’t eat it. In fact, he declared himself to be a vegetarian for the rest of time.
Dylan takes L-Tyrosine for his ADHD, which works in conjunction with the intake of protein. Dylan needs more protein than most people, or his ADHD symptoms get worse. We learned this the hard way when he was young. We started giving him an egg for breakfast when he was barely old enough to say the word “cholesterol.”
He can still eat eggs, which are the most substantial source of protein in the world, other than meat. Dairy – which is awful for him – and nuts are the other two significant sources. Sure, spinach and kale provide some protein, too, in a good way. But they aren’t fast or easy – and Dylan rarely eats anything that is not fast and easy.
To put it into perspective, Dylan would need to eat four eggs to get the amount of protein he gets from one slab of meat. He would need to eat eight peanut butter sandwiches. And the amount of cashews he would need to put away … well, I can’t count them.
So I said, “You will eat meat.”
And he said, “No, I won’t.”
And that’s where we are now.
Dylan sings like an angel and, as such, was given a role in the school musical. He is the “Featured Male Singer,” which means he sings several solo songs, including the opening number.
“I can’t hit these notes,” Dylan told me in January. “The opening song is too high for me.”
“Let me hear you try,” I told him, knowing that Dylan has a very impressive range.
He actually squealed when he got to those notes. He tried again, starting in a lower range. But the lower version sounded worse than the squealing.
So we went to his voice coach, who worked with Dylan for a few minutes.
“It’s not a problem,” said the voice coach. “We’ll just have the pit orchestra play it in the key of G.”
The voice coach knows the band director at Dylan’s school. They’re old pals.
So I stopped worrying.
And two months went by.
Two weeks ago, Dylan started rehearsing the opening number – and it was being played in the incorrect key. It wasn’t the band playing – just the original song, and Dylan was supposed to sing along.
“I can’t sing it in this key,” he told the technical advisor – a burly man who really doesn’t know anything about music.
“Sing!” screamed the technical advisor, who is not known for being warm and fuzzy.
“But I’m not comfortable singing it in this key,” Dylan stammered.
“JUST SING!” bellowed the technical advisor.
“I can’t hit the notes,” Dylan said calmly.
“JUST SING THE SONG!”
Dylan did not sing the song. Eventually, the burly man stopped fuming, but will likely never forgive Dylan for his insubordination.
Then Dylan went to the choral director to discuss changing the song key – which is a blog for another day.
Dylan participated in a singing competition at his school called “RAM Idol.”
A play on American Idol, it featured 14 singers who each sang one song, and then the top four were selected to sing a second song. Of the final four, one winner is selected to win two hours of recording studio time.
Two years ago, Dylan came from the middle school and was one of the opening acts for the show. He chose a song he didn’t sing well, and the background music overpowered his voice. He didn’t move on stage, and sang haltingly. The middle schoolers didn’t compete. But it was a good experience for him.
“Don’t worry about winning,” I told him. “Don’t worry about anything. Just think about the music.”
“Okay,” Dylan said.
Dylan sat in the audience with us for the first few singers. One of them kept staring at the monitor, as if she’d forgotten the words.
I envisioned my son as a shy kid, standing motionless in front of the screen, not looking up.
“Don’t look at the monitor,” I whispered to him.
“I won’t,” Dylan said. I worried that he might forget the words, stumble and forget, and then he would need the monitor. Then I worried that he would be afraid to look at it, because I told him not to.
But I stopped giving advice. This was, after all, Dylan’s show.
Dylan sang seventh.
He walked out onto the stage and greeted the crowd to thunderous applause. Then, without ever knowing a monitor existed, he sang a powerhouse ballad so strongly, so beautifully, even his little brother got tears in his eyes.
He took command of the stage, not standing still for too long – but not moving so much that it destroyed the effect of the ballad. He made eye contact with the audience, didn’t even notice the monitor. The crowd hushed during the quiet parts, roared during the robust parts. Several times, girls screamed like they were watching The Beatles.
Dylan totally nailed it.
He was the only male singer in the final four contestants. For Dylan’s second song, he did a strong rock number, showing another side of himself entirely. And again, he totally nailed it.
It’s been several days since the competition, and I just sit and watch the videos over, and over, and over again.
We repotted our beloved orchid.
I say “beloved” because, quite literally, we love this plant.
Bill loves it because he just loves orchids. I am not a plant fan. In fact, I could never have another plant again as long as I live, and I would be perfectly content.
But this particular plant has sentimental value. When Bill and I first started dating – years and years and years ago – Bill bought this orchid for me. I remember him skipping around the corner with the pot under his arm, and this long, skinny stick with a flower on it nearly hitting him in the head.
Bill was very cute, carrying that plant.
So I kept the orchid, in my dark basement apartment. It survived. Eventually, I moved to a lighter basement apartment. Then Bill and I got married and moved into a tiny house, where the orchid really started to bloom.
I mean, it really started to bloom. As we got married and started having babies, the orchid went hog wild. Our cat died, and we got a fish, and the orchid bloomed and bloomed. We got a dog and the larger our family got, the larger that orchid got. We got three more fish, then five hermit crabs. And every few months, Bill would say, “I think that orchid is spiking again.”
If I straightened out the longest (current) spike, it would be almost four feet tall. It blooms constantly. The orchid is so big now, the repotting was more for our sanity than for the orchid’s health.
But when we repotted it, the orchid mix we used apparently had some gnat eggs in it.
So gnats started showing up in our house. In fact, so many gnats started showing up, we had to buy glue cards so that the new gnat population in our home would dissipate or, preferably, disappear altogether.
Did you know that a female gnat can lay 100 to 300 eggs? One gnat. We repotted this thing before Thanksgiving and New Year’s Day has come and gone. And we still have gnats. The cards are catching hundreds, and we still have gnats.
You can’t kill a gnat very easily, either, because you really can’t see them until they land in your food, or fly right past your eyes. One. At. A. Time. All. Day. Long.
So, since the orchid has – for me, anyway – symbolized my marriage, I am taking this as a sign. The gnats are, quite simply, a bothersome thing that has happened, while we were caring for our orchid – er, relationship.
And there are many bothersome things that happen, every day, in our relationship. I don’t live well with other people. I am very much a loner; Bill is very affectionate. I am bothered by nearly everything he does. I still love him, of course, but I wish he would do more things the way I want him to do them.
Some things are bothersome, but swatting at them does no good. I have to wait patiently until they fly away on their own.
Which, I believe, they will never, ever do.
So I was sick – totally bedridden with some sort of stomach flu – for three days.
During that time, Bill and Shane left for two days of Outdoor Education – the most fun a sixth grader can have and still call it school. Bill chaperoned. Dylan went to school and had play practice until well into the evening. Then he came home (well fed, thanks to my parents) and took care of our dog – and himself – even getting himself off to school in the morning, on time, with lunch in tow.
I am not happy to have been sick.
But I am happy that, even without me, my family is able to thrive.
This morning in the gym locker room, where most of my socializing is done, I overheard a woman talking about her garden.
“I don’t play favorites. Anything that is on my broccoli has to be killed. I kill everything.” She sounded proud.
I thought of all the little bugs, born in nature, trying to find something to eat.
“One guy said, ‘you just killed a monarch butterfly,'” she continued. “I didn’t care. They were caterpillars, you know? I killed a whole bunch of monarch butterflies, in the caterpillar stage. I say, if they wanted to live, they should have stayed off of my broccoli.”
Monarch butterflies are disappearing by the billions in this country, almost exclusively due to farms and pesticides. Less than a year ago, a campaign began to save the monarch butterfly from extinction. There are only about 30 million left.
“Well you want to nurture your garden,” said the broccoli gardener/murderer’s friend. “You have to use some pesticides.”
“Oh, I don’t use pesticides,” said the butterfly murderer. “I don’t want that stuff on my broccoli! I use scissors and cut them in half.”
At this point, I wanted to vomit. I wanted to scream at her. I wanted to ask her if she also supported banning Muslims from the country. But it was done, and there was nothing I could do to stop her from her killing spree.
Even if I’d said something, she wouldn’t have changed.
I did print out a copy of the article about the campaign to save the butterfly, and next time I see the woman, I will give it to her. After that, it’s her decision.
Then, to help the butterflies I can save, I bought some milkweed seeds for my own garden – which, thus far, consists only of two butterfly bushes and – now – some milkweed plants.
This week is big for 6th graders. The whole class is going to Outdoor Education – a two-and-a-half day excursion into the wilderness, with only bunk beds, shelter and an occasional meal (served by students) as classic comforts.
Shane is very excited.
I am very excited for Shane. But last night, cuddling with him before he went to sleep, I had to confess:
“I’m really going to miss you when you’re at Outdoor Ed,” I said.
“That’s nice,” he said. “I’ll probably be having too much fun to miss you.”
“That’s a good thing,” I said.
“And your emailing and writing blogs and social media…” he continued. “I won’t miss any of that.”
“You do see me on the computer a lot,” I told him. “But most of the time, it’s because I don’t have time to do anything on the computer until you are home.”
Then I realized: No. I’m actually on the computer all the time.
I volunteer at the high school with a woman who gave up her computer for three months. She used her phone to get texts, but otherwise just quit – cold turkey.
“And I was never bored for a minute,” she said. “I got so much done!”
I don’t think I could do it.
But I think I could be extra cautious to not be on the computer when Shane is home – at least, and especially, when he needs someone with whom to talk, play, or just be.
The time is flying by – and I don’t want to miss it because I was staring at an electronic box.
With Dylan auditioning for The Voice, we decided to make a weekend of it and spend the night in a hotel.
Shane loves hotels. When he was little, he wrote and illustrated his own book about going to California. According to his young brain, the characters flew on a plane and got special drinks! And then they stayed in a hotel and played board games. They saw the Grand Canyon (in California), and then they went home.
Shane enjoys vacations, and he’s definitely a fan of amusement parks, but really I think he’s just in it for the night at a hotel.
The audition was in Philadelphia, which isn’t far from home, so we had a late breakfast and left in the early afternoon.
We had to do the touristy Philly Cheesesteak challenge. Two take-out shops claim to have the best cheesesteaks in the world, so we had lunch at Pat’s and Geno’s. Three of us voted Pat’s as, hands down, our favorites. Shane voted for Geno’s, although he only had four bites of his sandwich. Mostly he liked the French fries with cheese.
Then we visited a few colleges – if you can call driving past a visit. Dylan decided he didn’t like the city much, and really didn’t want to go to college in the midst of all the tall buildings and dirty sidewalks. So we just drove around Philly and looked at the buildings.
And finally, we went to our hotel. We scouted the area to figure out where to go for the audition in the morning. We had dinner at a burger place next to our hotel. Shane and I visited the fitness center and looked at the pool. And then we went to bed.
In the morning, Dylan and I left super early for the audition, and Shane had breakfast with his dad, then went to the pool.
We were home less than an hour when Shane asked the inevitable question: “What was your favorite part of the trip?”
The question started emerging with episodes of Dora the Explorer, and never really stopped.
“Well,” I said. “I really enjoyed going to the fitness center with you. I liked the bikes with their own individual televisions. And I liked spending special time with you. But probably my favorite part was when all The Voice contestants were singing together while they were waiting to audition.”
“I didn’t do that part,” Shane said. “So my favorite part was probably the steaks.”
I laughed. “You liked picking which one you liked best?”
“Yeah,” he said.
Shane is incredibly picky about food, and normally prefers his steak and cheese to be separate from one another – and certainly not served on bread.
But now I know: taste tests are fun. We’ve done them at home for years. So now I plan to find one for him whenever and wherever I can.
On the morning of Dylan’s audition for The Voice, I woke up at 3:45. Our audition time was 7 a.m. and we knew we needed to arrive early. Dylan wanted to get up at 5:00, but I woke him at 4:45 and we headed out shortly thereafter.
The only people on the streets looked like us – bleary-eyed and swarming to the convention center. By 5:30, we were about 150th in line.
The female singer in line behind us smoked cigarettes, which seemed counterintuitive. So we struck up a conversation with the singer in front of us. When security sent friends and family home, a third of the people left. Only one adult was allowed to accompany a minor; that’s how I got in.
At 7 a.m., they started shuffling us into the convention center – hundreds and hundreds of Hollywood hopefuls. They searched and scanned us for weapons and contraband. They checked our IDs and wrapped paper bracelets around our wrists. Then finally, they took us into the holding room.
The holding room was a warehouse full of chairs, all facing front. Dylan and I sat down with in a group of about a hundred people waiting for the room to fill up – which, hours later, it did.
While we were waiting, a woman stood up – and started to sing. She had a gorgeous powerhouse voice, and when she finished singing, everyone applauded. Then another woman stood up. Another gorgeous powerhouse voice, and more applause. And another. And another. The smoker, from behind us in line, got up and sang – another gorgeous powerhouse voice. Dylan and I were wildly entertained.
Then a woman stood up a few rows behind us, and started singing All of Me by John Legend. A woman in front of us started to harmonize with her. Another woman stood up and started singing along with them.
Within a few seconds, the entire group of a hundred people had burst into song.
Everyone except me.
I was so overcome with emotion, I couldn’t have uttered a word. I’d been suddenly and miraculously transported into the midst of a choir of angels. I had only one thought: This must be like the music in Heaven.
After the first impromptu chorus, several group songs broke out. People pulled out guitars and played along. The singers sang for two hours.
Then the group was broken apart, and each gorgeous powerhouse voice went with a group of ten people to audition. I was allowed to sit behind the group and listen to those ten awesome auditions.
Dylan sang Friends in Low Places by Garth Brooks. He stunned us all with his own gorgeous, powerhouse voice.
None of the people I met, including Dylan, got a red card – meaning they didn’t go on to the next round of auditions. Of all those angelic voices, I have no idea how the judges decide. Our judge said he wasn’t allowed to give feedback, but suggested to the group that everyone should sing in front of strangers as often as possible.
So, next up, Dylan sings in front of his whole school.
What an adventure.
Dylan has been asking since the age of 9 to sing on American Idol or The Voice. He’s finally 15, which is old enough to audition – and American Idol is over, so we set him up with an audition for The Voice.
I suggested that he scan some YouTube videos from people who have already auditioned, so that he knew what to expect. I also suggested that he scour the fine print and see exactly what was needed to proceed.
I suggested this in November, when I made the appointment to audition. Dylan auditions this weekend – so he finally got around to doing all of it on Tuesday.
He has been practicing two songs for three months – and he learned that he should probably be more contemporary with his choices. He’s also been practicing two songs from two different genres, but he learned that he’s supposed to stick with only one genre.
So researching in November may have been a good idea.
Dylan also finally got around to doing the paperwork – which I printed out for him, since he was constitutionally incapable of doing it himself. The paperwork must be signed and handed in at his audition.
Without it, he’s not allowed to sing.
Basically, the paperwork consists of two pages of legal mumbo jumbo – and two additional pages for parental consent – that state, in no uncertain terms:
You (auditioner) need to devote every waking moment to us, and you have to do whatever we say the entire time. You have no rights whatsoever to change anything that is said or done, even if we make you look like a buffoon. You also can’t talk about what we do behind the scenes – to anyone, ever. And by signing this agreement, you agree to sign more documents later, all of which will be binding everywhere and until the end of time.
Dylan read this legalese and started rethinking his decision to audition.
I read the legalese and thought, yep. This is how it’s going to be.
Television is very little glamor, and a whole lot of money-making tomfoolery. And reality television is the worst of the worst.
We signed the document.
Then we all silently hoped Dylan would not be chosen to participate in The Voice.
