Finding My Badass Self

by Sherry Stanfa-Stanley

  Among all the experiences in my life, this unplanned one may have topped the list as the most sublime and surreal. And by far, the most beautiful.

  While talking with a few of the Amish folks afterward, we learned that not only was it our first visit to this cavern, it was their first time too. Their singing was spontaneous. And the bagpiper? He wasn’t even with their group. It was pure serendipity that we all landed at that spot, on that day, at that exact time.

  As we left the park, my friends and I reflected upon how taking a chance, how following even a seemingly insignificant whim, can affect your life. If we hadn’t decided to take that trip to Hocking Hills, if we hadn’t dismissed our misgivings, and if we hadn’t headed down those treacherous stairs to explore that cave, we would have missed out on this fleeting life experience. And we agreed, this was one of the most amazing moments we’d ever experienced.

  Was it chance that led us down those slippery, rocky stairs that day? Or was it fate?

  All I knew was the familiar road we choose to travel, over and over again, may seem the safest and most comfortable. But we need to force ourselves to look beyond, above, and even far below that well-worn path.

  That is often where we discover the most remarkable music in the soundtrack of our life.

  Chapter 23:

  ROCKING IT AS A COLLEGE MASCOT

  Possessing no athletic ability whatsoever, along with a lackadaisical interest, had always hindered me as a sporting enthusiast. I figured I simply hadn’t found my personal athletic niche. Hitting the field as my college alma mater’s mascot, thirty years after I graduated, could be my final chance to find superstar glory.

  “Rocksy” was The University of Toledo Rockets’ female counterpart to UT’s original mascot, “Rocky the Rocket.” Not that Rocksy was any less of a big deal. The beloved Rocksy appeared at hundreds of campus and community events. She was selected each year through an arduous audition process, and her identity was kept top-secret.

  Through my superhuman journalistic skills, I managed to track down the real Rocksy. Maybe I was given special dispensation or perhaps she just needed a breather, but her consent proved once again that even the oddest requests in life may be granted—if we simply pose the question.

  The last time I’d engaged with the public while in costume was during a high school gig as a local mall’s Easter Bunny. It was a short-term but lucrative job, paying five dollars an hour, almost twice the minimum wage at the time. All went swimmingly, until a terrified toddler peed on me.

  I recalled this important detail as I arrived for my Rocksy debut at a UT soccer match. I’d engage with every youngster there, but I wouldn’t allow a single one to sit on my lap.

  The true Rocksy, whose identity I pledged across my Rocket-shaped heart to take to my grave, met me before the start of the match. I suited up in my costume: a midnight blue and gold belted dress with a wide skirt, tights, helmet mask, and clown-sized boots. I blew out a sigh of relief that this costume, designed for collegiate women, somehow managed to fit me. Meanwhile, Real Rocksy offered some coaching.

  Only a small handful of UT folks knew a switch had been made that day, and she warned me I had a reputation to maintain. Rocksy, she told me, was known to be sassy and a bit of a troublemaker. Huh. Didn’t seem too far a stretch from my normal reputation.

  I learned that Rocksy also had a sly, somewhat sexy signature saunter. I rehearsed a few prances in the hallway outside my changing room. Real Rocksy watched me before subtly suggesting I might need a bit more practice.

  Most crucial of all, she told me, was that I remain constantly in character. That detail proved to be one of the most challenging bits.

  First off, Rocksy was apparently mute. Poor girl was incapable of uttering a single word. This was not part of my standard modus operandi. At least not according to the teacher who reprimanded my chatty twelve-year-old self in front of my entire seventh-grade class with, “Miss Stanfa, for such a tiny person, you have the biggest mouth I’ve ever heard.”

  Throughout my entire Rocksy performance, I found myself forced to keep my mouth completely shut. Go ahead and smirk, Mrs. Mills, wherever you may be.

  An unseasonably hot autumn day added a whole new element to my ability to stay in character. That afternoon’s temperatures soared to one thousand degrees, with one hundred percent humidity. Approximately.

  By the time I jogged out the door, having morphed into my new blue and gold Power Ranger persona, I was already a hot mess under my costume. I sneaked away several times to pry my helmet mask loose and wipe the streaming sweat off my face.

  I didn’t allow the oppressive heat and humidity, or my incapacity to speak, to crush this opportunity to make my mark on NCAA mascot history.

  My always suffering sports-enthusiast father had often teased me, rightfully so, about my lack of sports knowledge. My ignorance about sports was so open-and-shut that he was fond of saying I didn’t even know “whether the ball was pumped or stuffed.” (Side note: A soccer ball is pumped. A golf ball is stuffed. See, Dad? There’s hope for me yet.)

  My lack of soccer know-how proved to be no true handicap that afternoon. I simply followed the cues. If the crowd on my side of the field cheered, then I cheered. I cheered silently, of course, but with great physical gusto, throwing my arms in the air, hopping, jumping, and dancing. And the crowd would hop, jump, and dance with me.

  Who would have guessed the power of my latent cheering skills?

  I mingled with dozens of UT fans and found myself greeted with hugs from all the children and even a few adults. I slapped lots of hands in high-fives and posed for pictures. Members of the Blue Crew, UT’s mysterious and masked spirit organization, welcomed me into their secret fold for the day and even loaned me their cowbell.

  I befriended a cute little dog, too, although I refused to let the nervous pooch sit on my lap. Not only was I pee-wary, but Real Rocksy had forewarned me that my costume wasn’t waterproof.

  In fact, it was a powerful rain storm that ultimately cut short the soccer match and my promising mascot career. When intermittent sprinkles finally swelled into a monsoon, I pranced past the crowd. I waved and blew kisses at the UT Rocket faithful as I dashed toward shelter, where I would return to my alter ego of a mild-mannered writer.

  Maybe I wasn’t totally objective, but I thought I rocked it that afternoon. I honed my cheerleading skills, helped lead the team on to two goals, and made new friends. I managed to entertain a large crowd while not uttering a single word, leading me to realize that I occasionally might be better off just keeping my mouth shut.

  My performance went so well, I felt certain Rocksy was one step closer to taking top-billing over her boy Rocky—with one small caveat and a couple missteps.

  As I tumbled in the hallway, thankfully out of sight from my new fans, I realized it was impossible to score a mascot’s sassy saunter when you’re a clumsy middle-aged woman wearing clown shoes.

  Being Rocksy was a trip, in more ways than one.

  Chapter 24:

  MUCH A DOO-DOO ABOUT NOTHING

  My doctor first suggested a colonoscopy when I turned fifty, but the advice was hard to digest. I disregarded it as a crappy idea. Two years later, The 52/52 Project gave me a kick in the ass. I decided to add this moving experience to my list. I’d get it behind me.

  Why did I wait so long to eliminate this burden? I’m guano get to that. I had a number of reasons, but the biggest one was Number Two.

  I hope I’m not being too cheeky.

  The afternoon before my scheduled appointment, the doctor’s office called to pull the plug. They found themselves in a pinch. My colonoscopy was cancelled, and nothing that night would be running as expected. I was shit out of luck.

  “Butt wait,” they said. “Fortunately, our schedule isn’t totally backed up.” Just two weeks later, I was squeezed in.

  I had been carrying a heavy load, and it was time to relieve myself of this duty.

  I’d been warned abo
ut the cleansing preparation, a detrimental downslide that would leave me on the skids. I eyed the prescription drink that would get things moving. I raised my glass. As I gulped it down, I joked, “Bottoms up!” Haha—what a gag!

  Considering what followed, the nasty-ass drink was only a drop in the bucket. The rest of the evening went right down the drain. It wasn’t a straight fifteen-hour stretch of gallops to the bathroom, more like occasional trots, since it came in spurts.

  Although I’d always loved a good party, tonight I was more of a party pooper. And this bash was a blowout.

  I stomached the events of that night, which continued into early morning, with a lot of grumbling. Why had I agreed to this when I knew deep down in my gut that it wasn’t likely to be a good run? I felt like a stool.

  The evening went down the crapper. Fortunately, I did not di-a-rrheal and ghastly death.

  The medical procedure itself proved to be pretty dope, thanks to a bit of Propofol (Michael Jackson’s drug of choice). I couldn’t beat it, so I simply turned the other cheek.

  Next thing I knew, I was awake, missing only a polyp that was nipped in the bud. The final test was eliminating the air that had been pumped into my stomach. I managed to pass this, too. Yay, me! My own horn wasn’t the only thing I tooted.

  At the tail-end, I had to say the experience was much a doo-doo about nothing. Several of my readers wrote that I encouraged them to get their asses in gear and schedule their own appointments: Perhaps I started a movement! (Wait, did that last sentence require a comma or a colon?)

  And, next time I am told I need a colonoscopy, I won’t be so quick to poo-poo the idea. In hindsight, compared to my big pile of new life experiences, this shit came easy.

  Chapter 25:

  HONK IF YOU PRETEND TO LIKE MIMES

  As I headed out to a busy shopping center, clad in full mime costume and makeup, my sister, DC, suggested I carry a sign reading, “Pretend to Honk If You Like Mimes.” Clever, sis, but when it came to silent street performers, most people I knew had nothing nice to say at all. A more appropriate sign might be, “Honk If You Pretend to Like Mimes.”

  I had never had an affinity for mimes either. They’d always struck me as strange, intrusive creatures who never told you what they were thinking. I steeled myself for feeling awkward, out-of-place, and unloved—much like adolescence.

  Popularity be damned, at least I knew I looked fabulous. My costume included a navy and white-striped Parisian boat shirt, red suspenders, white gloves, and a beret. And my face paint, applied by a talented family friend, Rachel, who was well-versed in stage makeup, rendered me nearly professional.

  But looking good wasn’t good enough. I would need to pull off a theatrical routine, acting out a series of stories told entirely through body motions. Being silent for the duration of my performance would be a real effort, considering the women in my family struggled to stay quiet for more than, say, two minutes. Sure, I had managed to remain silent during my Rocksy routine, but that performance had taken a secondary stage to a soccer match. As a street-side mime, I’d have to hold an audience all on my own.

  So I spent the previous evening in a hotel room, studying mime routines and tutorials on the Internet. I found over 270,000 Google hits for “mime skit.” At the time, one of the most popular pantomime trends appeared to be something called “twerking.” Apparently, that got a real rise out of an audience.

  I doubted I could pull off twerking. Besides, as I approached my venue—the popular outdoor shopping center of Kentucky’s Newport on the Levee—I knew I should focus on a more kid-friendly routine. Dozens of families wandered about, many headed to the Newport Aquarium. It was time to dive in, even if the humiliation killed me and left me sleeping with the fishes.

  I danced, mime-fashion, toward my first victims, a couple with their two young sons. They paused as they spied me. I stopped in my fancy-footed tracks, just as apprehensive as they were about my next move.

  I then realized this wasn’t just about taking on a weird lark of an experience; it was about succeeding at being funny and crazy and clever. If there was one thing I’d learned in the past several months, these new life experiences didn’t mean much if I didn’t give them my all. I wanted to master being a good mime, a skillful mime, a classy mime. Wait, a classy mime? Was that an oxymoron?

  I straightened and took a deep breath. I bent my arms, reached my palms out, and attempted the most famous mime skit of all, the illusion of being inside a box. It wasn’t much of a stretch: I suddenly felt trapped as hell. I could fail on the spot, and there would be no way out but skulking away. Silently, of course.

  The boys smiled. I felt a rush of adrenaline.

  Next, I pretended to eat an apple and pull out a worm. Although I’d studied this routine online, it was met with cocked heads, squinty eyes, and frowns from my audience. Clearly, this mime move was a ball of confusion.

  Ball of confusion? A new idea struck me. I improvised and pretended to toss a baseball at the older boy. He didn’t grasp the motion, so I pounded my invisible bat on an invisible home plate. His eyes lit up, and he pitched the pretend ball back. I swung and stumbled in circles.

  The boys laughed. Even their parents, who’d been observing with grim faces, grinned. My impromptu baseball swing was a hit.

  I relied heavily on the baseball sketch for the rest of my gig. It proved popular, as did my faux swimming in front of the aquarium entrance. Another routine that went over well was pulling string out of a person’s ears and using it as a jump rope. I proved way better at fake jump roping than I ever was at the real thing. While my grade school jump-rope skills never made me any fast friends on the playground, these kids were enchanted with watching me hop and trip over a pretend rope.

  The comments from the kids made my day. My favorite came from a little boy who turned to his mother, laughed, and said, “She’s sure having a hard time talking.” Oh, if he only knew how I struggled to not talk.

  My nearly ninety-minute routine exhausted me. Given the nonstop hopping and twirling and keeping my mouth shut, it proved a far more physical ordeal than I’d expected.

  The physical exertion wasn’t the biggest surprise. I was amazed by how much the children, and even many adults, enjoyed my performance. Dozens of people stopped to watch, and some went out of their way to veer across the plaza to interact with me.

  Oh, sure, a few adults brushed past me, trying to not make eye contact. I chased after them. A few children shrieked and hid behind their parents. I chased them, too. But my observing niece, Cori, rushed over and suggested I shouldn’t be quite so aggressive. Apparently, a stranger chasing small children is frowned upon.

  The greatest surprise of all was that I actually proved decent at this. Maybe my Rocksy appearance had given me just enough confidence as a silent, costumed crusader. Perhaps I simply embraced my weirdness. Or, maybe the passersby and I agreed in an unspoken understanding that, deep down, we’re all weird, really.

  My afternoon of miming served as a lifetime reminder that the craziest, most random ideas often prove to be the most memorable. Sometimes, experiences like those leave us smiling—and speechless.

  Chapter 26:

  BARING IT AT THE BEACH

  When visiting a nude beach, I figured a sunbather should bring along three things: plenty of sunscreen, an extra-large towel and, of course, her seventy-five-year-old mother.

  Sure, the last item seemed a wildcard. But, when each of my formerly fun sisters vetoed this side trip during our family vacation in south Florida, my mother hesitated only briefly.

  “Just be sure to mention we both kept our clothes on,” she said.

  “Um, maybe I didn’t clarify that,” I replied. “I’ll be going au naturel, too.”

  “Oh.” She pondered this. “Well, then please don’t sit near me. I saw you naked as a baby, and I don’t really care to anymore.”

  Huh. So, my mother recoiled at the idea of seeing her own daughter naked yet hardly flinched at the
thought of viewing dozens of strangers letting it all hang out? As I considered the scenario, I decided I wouldn’t wish to sit next to her on the beach if she were naked either.

  Apparently, awkward nudity is something best reserved for total strangers.

  We made the one-hour trek down to Haulover Beach, near Miami, on a windy, overcast afternoon. As we approached the warning sign on the beach that noted, “Attention: Beyond this point you may encounter nude bathers,” I reminded my mother about the rules of Nude Beach Social Etiquette that I’d researched on the Internet. The first was to keep your eyes on the other sunbathers’ faces and not on their other body parts.

  “Do not ogle or stare,” the website instructed. “Nude sunbathers expect eye contact if they choose to be spoken to.” Sound advice, although I was certain neither my mother nor I was eager to strike up a conversation face-to-face, or face-to-other-body-part, with anyone.

  Just a few feet within this legal and “special” area of the beach, we encountered a man—sans even a Speedo—walking in our direction. I had little trouble not ogling him since I was preoccupied with helping my unsteady mother negotiate, with her cane, across the mounds of sand.

  But we were immediately interrupted by his deep voice, prompting both of us to look up. “This sand is hard to walk on, isn’t it?” he said.

  My mom paused, leaning on her cane, and nodded. “Yes, it is,” she replied. She smiled at him. He smiled back. I grabbed her arm and pulled her away.

  We trudged about three feet farther before she leaned in and whispered to me. “Did you see how good I did? I made really good eye contact.”

  I snorted, calling bullshit. Neither of us had maintained full contact with the man’s two blue eyes. No matter how much we tried, how could we avoid his third eye, when it was right out there, only a few inches away?