The Tao of Martha: My Year of LIVING

by Jen Lancaster

  Anyway, I feel an odd little twist in my stomach, and today it’s not because of doughnut overload. I don’t understand why I’m edgy, because I’ve executed an outstanding version of a Living Halloween. This day has Martha’s stamp of approval all over it. I really put in the effort to make everything special and elegant. Given that my last go-round at a Martha-type event on the Fourth of July turned into a redneck, whitetrash, hee-haw hoedown, I raised the bar here exponentially. As I take in my surroundings, I’m confident in my creation and I wouldn’t change a thing.

  Yet I’m jittery all the same.

  My commitment to Halloween planning has given me a real sense of satisfaction and the kind of peace of mind I’ve been hoping to gain ever since I started this project in January. Once I came to terms with my initial misgivings and threw myself into the process, I’ve had the best time. In fact, when I was glittering my gourds last Saturday, I couldn’t stop saying, “This is so fun! I can’t believe how much I love this!”

  When I was decorating yesterday, I realized I was singing to myself. Badly, of course, but that’s not important. Breaking into song is my good-mood barometer, and I haven’t done it since we lost Maisy. This is so significant. A month ago, I honestly worried I’d never feel joy again. I couldn’t get through a day without crying. But here I am, moving on, letting happiness in without feeling guilty for it.

  Turns out I’ve not only embraced the Tao of Martha finally, but also the Tao of Maisy. This realization causes my anxiety to magically melt away, and I address my tray with renewed vigor.

  I merchandise the big bars in attractive rows and I group the treat bags together. I decide I’m going to let the kids decide if they want a full-sizer or, if they’d like to pick what’s behind curtain number two. (Personally, I’d go for the unknown. Could be a bag of candy; could be gold bullion!)

  As I survey the bounty, I hope I made the right choices. From what I understand, children need to be hermetically sealed in a bubble until the age of eighteen, so I’m concerned certain chocolate bars may be an issue. Joanna’s sister-in-law recently told me that in her kid’s pre-K class, there were four peanut allergies, one strawberry allergy, two gluten-frees due to issues with wheat, one corn allergy, and one lactose-intolerant child. This is out of fourteen total students! What do parents bring in for birthday treats? Pencils and stickers?

  “Is it okay that some of these candy bars have nuts?” I ask Fletch.

  “What do you mean? All the best chocolate bars contain nuts. Everyone knows that. See, you’ve got your Baby Ruths, your Snickers, your Paydays, plus Reese’s cups and Mars. Also, Butterfingers count because they use ground roasted peanuts. Candy bars with nuts are at the top of the sweet-based food chain. Fact.” He pauses thoughtfully and then makes a face. “Except for Almond Joy. Those are just wrong.”

  “Yeah,” I agree, though I’m not convinced. “But what if parents give us shit for passing out bars with nuts in them?”

  He shrugs. “Then I’ll suggest that they stop encouraging their children to take candy from strangers.”

  “Is that the Tao of Fletch?”

  He nods and goes back to his Facebook page on his iPad, waiting for everyone to comment on his hilarious pockets joke. Suspect he’ll be waiting awhile.

  Speaking of waiting…er, hello? It’s four fifteen p.m. and we’ve seen no one. Nary a ghost nor Power Ranger has even walked past the house, let alone come down the drive.

  Four twenty p.m.

  Nothing.

  Four thirty p.m.

  No one.

  Four thirty-five p.m.

  I open the front door and yell, “Kids? I have lots of candy! Please come ring my bell!”

  Fletch comments, “That didn’t sound menacing or creepy at all.”

  Four forty-five p.m.

  I’ll just have a little glass of wine while I wait.

  Four fifty p.m.

  Did I turn the porch lights on? I double-check. Yep, they’re on.

  Five p.m.

  Yo, yo, yo, where my trick-or-treaters at?

  Five-oh-five p.m.

  Maybe I’ll have a splash more wine. Possibly two splashes.

  Five fifteen p.m.

  “Yeah, you can top off my glass, Fletch. It’s not like I’m busy giving anyone candy.”

  Five thirty p.m.

  More wine. New bottle. More wine.

  Five thirty-five p.m.

  Spill my glass, prompting Fletch to exclaim, “Please don’t lick wine off the furniture.”

  Five forty p.m.

  I tweet: “COME AND GET YOUR DAMN CANFY BEFORE I AM TOO DRUNK.”

  Five forty-five p.m.

  It’s wine o’clock somewhere. But mostly here.

  Five fifty p.m.

  I tweet: “I am Linus in the GD pumpkin patch right now. Come get your stupid candy, you stupid kids. AUGH, I HATE YOU.”

  Six p.m.

  “Maybe all the neighbors have been busy with soccer practice and dinner and they’re just now getting to trick-or-treating,” Fletch suggests.

  Six-oh-five p.m.

  Then I’d better fill up before the onslaught.

  Six ten p.m.

  Onslaught? Onslaught? Anyone? Onslaught?

  Six fifteen p.m.

  How long does it take them to remove their cleats and eat some chicken fingers?

  Six twenty p.m.

  Yes, I will have more wine, thank you.

  Six thirty p.m.

  Am starting to see two Fletchers. One of them has his hands out of his pockets. Must be a Navy SEAL.

  Six forty-five p.m.

  “What are we doing for dinner?” Fletch asks. I respond by chucking a Milky Way at his head. He says nothing, opting instead to bring me more wine.

  Seven p.m.

  I open the door and shout, “I HAVE FULL-SIZE CANDY BARS, YOU LITTLE ASSHOLES! COME AND GET THEM RIGHT NOW SO YOU CAN HAVE YOUR MAGICAL MARTHA FUCKING MEMORIES AS AN ADULT.”

  Behind me, Fletch mumbles something about needing some pizza to sop up all my excess Halloween cheer.

  Seven ten p.m.

  I kind of forget what happens after this.

  Eleven forty-three p.m.

  I wake up in full poodle-skirt regalia, my cat-eye glasses tangled up in my high ponytail. I’m surrounded by snoozing dogs, an empty pizza box, and one very smug spouse.

  Fletch tells me that he had to keep me from accosting the pizza guy when he rang the bell a minute before the official trick-or-treat end time of eight p.m. Fletch sent him on his way with an extra-large tip and a couple of Snickers bars. I have no recollection of this, but I suspect he’s telling the truth. (Green Berets are notoriously honest.)

  I’m still a little groggy as I change out of my costume and don my pajamas while I reflect on the whole Halloween experience.

  I did it.

  I faced my enormous fear of Halloween and, with Martha’s guidance, I got through it.

  In fact, I got over it. I don’t despise Halloween anymore.

  I’m not sure I love it, but I’m no longer going to go all Jehovah’s Witness in the face of it.

  I began traditions this year that I’ll continue. Maybe I won’t ever wear my costume to the bank, but I sure as hell will glitter up some gourds. I’ll decorate my house. Maybe I’ll even host a party for my friends’ kids, because, damn it, someone needs to receive some full-size candy bars, even if they’re not my neighbors.

  In terms of personal contentment, I feel exponentially better about life at the end of October than I did at the beginning. Working on this project allowed me to focus on something other than missing Maisy, and proved to me that I can absolutely be happy again. I was able to strengthen bonds with Fletch. I started having fun so much so that I was able to share it with readers on social media.

  By embracing the Tao of Maisy, I was able to be awesome, give awesome, and get awesome back in return. I really believe that this project is working! And all it took was a little sparkle powder and a couple of doughn
uts.

  Perhaps Lincoln was a wee bit right when he said, “People are just as happy as they make up their minds to be.” So the Martha Tao tenet I’ve taken away from this experience is: Seize the opportunity to create new memories and traditions.

  Hey, Halloween?

  You and I are officially cool again. I’m putting you back on the buddy list. Maybe now I’ll even reconsider my feelings on Abraham Lincoln. (I don’t like that man. I must get to know him better.) We’ll see.

  But the one thing I can say for sure is that I am glittering the shit out of Christmas.

  LIVING, ZOMBIE STYLE

  As I’ve lived my year of Martha, I’ve been searching for an X factor, a project I could take on and make my own, pairing what I’ve gleaned from Martha’s Tao with my own sensibilities.

  A challenge without training wheels, if you will.

  Achievement is a cornerstone of what makes me happy, so I’ve been anxious to carve out my own niche. Of course, finding a domestic venture that Martha hasn’t already mastered—and secured the merchandising rights for—hasn’t been easy. Cooking? Pfft, covered. Cleaning? If it’s not included in the 744-page Homekeeping Handbook, then it doesn’t need to be done. Crafting? She’s glittered the whole DIY universe. Pets? Her dog’s been to Westminster; mine tosses his salad for sport. Entertaining? Oh, honey…bless my own heart.

  Martha’s ubiquity has been a boon, up until now. I want to plant my own flag in a tiny plot of uncharted territory.

  So what’s left?

  What could I do that she’d approve of, but hasn’t already covered extensively?

  As always, the answer lies in Fletch.

  A lifetime obsession with zombies and George Romero’s (Fill-in-the-Blank) of the Dead films have left Fletch one black helicopter shy of turning into a complete nut job.

  Bless his heart.

  It’s not that he believes we’re actually going to be overrun with flesh-devouring undead (or so he says). Rather, he’s always talking about our society becoming zombies in an allegorical sense. For example, Fletch hypothesizes that personal electronics are turning their users brain-dead. Like, every time we’d leave the house when we lived in the city, he’d point to hipsters wandering into the street because they were too busy texting about a new PBR-serving dive to look for oncoming vehicles. At Whole Foods he’d gesture toward moms so fixated on their iPhones that they didn’t see the homeless drifter chatting up their toddlers over by the almond butter.

  Fletch also harbors major concerns about CDC-type outbreaks that could occur if we were hit with biological warfare or some horribly virulent strain of flu, as seen in the movie Contagion. (Two enthusiastic thumbs up, BTW. Any film that offs insufferable Gwyneth Paltrow in the first ten minutes is aces with me.)

  Anyway, all of the above led him to start perusing army-surplus Web sites, snapping up items like military-issue sleeping bags. I argued that if the zombies were indeed coming, then I would rather they eat my brains while I slumber on my actual mattress inside my climate-conditioned home instead of a tent in the woods, but sometimes it’s easier not to argue.

  Fletch’s stockpile grew to include disaster-ready items like a short-wave radio and batteries and lanterns, which really didn’t seem like a terrible idea, given how often we used to lose power when we were unemployed and couldn’t pay our bills. (Sometimes the only thing standing between me and stark raving madness was the ability to read a book by the wan glow of a 4D LED light. God bless you, Coleman corporation. God bless.) I stayed out of his way while he happily prepared for the end of days, humming along in his tinfoil cap.

  So, like someone who lives with a chronic whistler or travels with the kind of person who feels compelled to read every billboard out loud, I eventually learned to tune out his Chicken Little–ing and all was well. Then we moved to the suburbs. Although everyone is decidedly much slower-moving up here (seriously, Lake Foresters, you’re deciding between soy or skim, not life and death…Pick up the pace already!), they compensate by paying attention, which I greatly appreciate.

  And Fletch’s zombie war obsession went dormant.

  Until he started watching The Walking Dead.

  Yeah, AMC.

  Thanks for that.

  He keeps telling me that I’d enjoy the show, but judging from all the screaming, shooting, and breaking glass I hear from my office every Sunday night, I’m pretty sure that’s the opposite of true.

  He’s also crazy in love with National Geographic’s Doomsday Preppers series, which has grudgingly become one of my favorites, too. I generally hate the people who’ve been featured, and if they’re who survives after an apocalypse, I’m going to dip my head in ranch dressing so the zombies will sup upon me first.

  As this is practically the one show on which we agree, we’ve seen every episode, often more than once. Each time we view, we find more reasons to mock the participants. Not all of them, mind you. Some of them are the kind of ex–Special Forces, hard-core, badass warriors whom I’d wish to have my back in a fight. Or how about the industrious old hippie who turned his postage stamp–size backyard into a massive vertical garden capable of sustaining not only his own family, but also a portion of the community with his magnificent eight-foot butternut squashes? LOVE HIM, particularly after having my own stupid garden go sideways this summer. Granted, I harbor a few concerns that his family seems inbred, but the man can grow a fine beefsteak tomato from seed, and that’s what’s important. I care far more about his ability to produce the means to make a proper BLT than I do about his relatives’ proclivities.

  There’s a particularly contemptible Texan prepper on the episode we’re presently watching, and we have to keep pausing to talk shit about her.

  “Her contingency plan is to hike thirty miles outside of the city to where her car is parked?” he says during a commercial break. “Wow, what could possibly go wrong in that scenario?”

  “Yeah,” I agree, “why wouldn’t she leave her car, say, twenty-seven miles closer? Houston’s not that big; there’s no reason to park so far away! And when you’re in the middle of roving bands of marauders and the onset of an apocalypse, wouldn’t you want something more between you and them than, say, a JanSport backpack? What are you going to fight them off with, your Trapper Keeper?”

  Fletch nods as he forwards past a commercial for a prepacked survival food that piques my interest. “Parading through the streets carrying all your worldly supplies seems like an invitation to be beaten and robbed. Or worse.”

  “Right? Also, maybe before you park thirty miles away, you should verify you can actually, you know, walk thirty miles.”

  Listen, I’m never, ever going to ridicule anyone’s weight or fitness level. Your body, your business. And as someone who’s jealous of everyone cruising through Costco on a Rascal, I’m well aware that I have zero right to pass judgment. (Personally, if my path to salvation hinges on thirty miles of road marching, then I’m going to be sitting right here with a whiskey sour and a TiVo full of fine, fine Mark Burnett programming. Come and get me, zombies/terrorists/aliens/etc.)

  All I’m saying about this woman is that if physical strength and endurance are the key components to your bug-out plan, you should do “some” training, as opposed to “none.”

  I decide to actively despise her only when I hear of the next step in her genius plan.

  “She’s going to show up at the Mexican border once she finishes the marathon to her car,” Fletch says.

  I nod. “Sounds like it, yes.”

  “And she’s confident the border guards will simply stand there with open arms, all, ‘Oh, apocalypse in the USA? So sorry. Come on in, friendly Northern Neighbor! You’re totally welcome to all our resources! Here, have a chimichanga, señorita! You must be tired after your long trek.’”

  “Pfft, I can’t get past the cat.”

  The linchpin of her increasingly ludicrous plan is to shoot her cat in the head before she leaves town once hell rains down. Because that’s way
more humane than allowing her cat to roam free and feast on the plentiful rat community spawned as a direct result of the apocalypse.

  Asshole.

  As the season progresses, we see one episode with a gal who calls herself the Martha Stewart of prepping, and she demonstrates how to make gourmet meals out of her hoarded cans of goods.

  Also? She has bouncy hair.

  Hmm.

  I was passively interested; now I’m actively so.

  Plus, having an emergency store of food that I could turn into tasty dinners doesn’t seem like the worst idea I ever heard.

  Seriously, cat execution, anyone?

  I do a little research, and I’ll be damned if the Domestic Diva herself hadn’t addressed basic emergency preparedness on a show in May of 2007.

  Again, hmm.

  At any point in time, I have false eyelashes and lash glue in my purse in case I suddenly have to appear on TV, so it’s not like I don’t appreciate the notion of planning for various contingencies. (No one has ever spontaneously asked me to be on TV, but when they do, I’ll be there with big, be-fringed Zooey Deschanel eyes.) What I’m saying is, I’ve put forth so much effort in lugging around day-to-day preparedness—dental floss! extra socks! spare string of pearls!—that I never really considered emergencies outside of not being properly accessorized.

  Mind you, I’m not worried about an actual zombie war, Fletch. Rather, my concerns are more pedestrian—tornadoes and blizzards, mainly. Maybe some high winds in the mix. I live in a particularly wooded community on a tree-heavy street. I can’t walk anywhere except to places with more trees, so it would make sense to be ready for what might happen in case the roads are blocked by felled limbs.

  I also want to be on top of it if a tsunami occurs on the other side of the globe and suddenly production is halted on important everyday items, like moisturizing color-care shampoo and the toilet paper with lotion in it. In fact, I’m still congratulating myself for having the foresight to stock up on o.b. ultra tampons before Johnson & Johnson’s inexplicable two-year supply interruption. (P.S. They’re back and for sale at Drugstore.com! Don’t be suckered into buying a box for seventy-nine bucks on eBay.)