Siren Song

Sometimes (usually in the middle of the night after my son has crawled into my bed and is snoring two centimetres away from my ear), I think about all the freedom I had before I became a parent. I remember the glorious mornings of sleeping in, the nights full of pillow talk with D; going for motorbike rides or spur-of-the-moment ski trips; salsa dancing at the club till the wee hours; eating wine and popcorn for supper and to hell with dishes. And random naps. Oh, how I miss random naps. It's pretty wild to think about how much life has changed in nine short years.

As I made the kids' beds this morning, bleary-eyed from yet another night of broken sleep, I surveyed the happy wreckage of their room. I uncovered a layer of toy tractors under my son Dylan's comforter, and fought to find my daughter's pillows beneath a landslide of stuffed animals. A princess crown, a pair of flippers, sixteen stray blocks and a kaleidoscope were stuffed under Dylan's bed. Under Jade's I found her precious pink piñata from her birthday party last May and three pairs of crumpled pyjamas. Sitting on the edge of my daughter's bed to untangle the inside-out arms and legs from her PJs, it struck me just how empty my life would be without her and her brother in it. Which, considering I never wanted children for most of my adult life, is saying something.

In my experience, life with two kids under the age of five vacillates wildly between predictable routine and utter chaos. Most days, it's all about the cuddles and giggles and teachable moments. And then there are the days I want to run screaming down the lane and beg the first motorist to please give me a ride to ANYWHERE OTHER THAN HERE. I don't know if that's typical for most parents, but it's my normal. My kids are bright, hilarious, challenging, willful creatures who teach me every day how to be a mum, in good times and in bad.

I'm lucky, because thanks to school and day care and Grandma Lowry, I get lots of me-time every week to do the typical hausfrau stuff and write a bit, which preserves my sometimes tenuous hold on sanity. I'm aware that this is not typical, as most parents don't get the type of breaks from parenting that I do, let alone the opportunity to take a two-week break to an exotic locale sans children.

A few ladies from my Mom's Group got together last night for supper at the local Chinese place. We were celebrating an early Chinese New Year (aka making up an excuse to get out of the house and drink wine), and our conversation bubbled and swirled around a whirlpool of topics, punctuated with splashes of laughter. The stream of talk came to rest, briefly, on the subject of my younger sister, Tanzi. She's teaching at an international school in Bali for the next year, living in a glorious house with marble floors and a pool, learning to drive a motorbike and having supper at the beach every night. It's not all paradise, but it's a lot more exotic an experience than life in the Bruce is for any of us Moms.

"You should totally go!" one friend said, eyebrows raised.

"Of course you should!" chimed in another. "What a perfect opportunity to travel!"

"Well, I couldn't really take the kids," I began.

"Duh, of course not," said the first friend. "Go by yourself! They have an awesome Grandma to take care of them, they'll be fine." (Clearly, my mother-in-law's reputation is well-known.)

"But I'd have to go at least two weeks," I explained. "It's a 24 hour trip just to get there. I couldn't leave the kids for two weeks."

"Oh, yes you could," they assured me. One girl stabbed her finger on the page of the magazine another Mom had brought featuring our Chinese horoscopes, which we'd been reading aloud to each other. "Look, it says right here in your horoscope: 'World Travel.' You have to go!"

There are lots of people who travel with their kids to other countries outside of North America. Several of the women in my Mom's group have done it. I see photos on Facebook of parents in amazing locations with their kids and marvel at the sheer courage and fortitude it takes to pack and load up children, sit with them for hours on a plane, then have adventures together without the comfort of home and familiarity of routine. I applaud folks who do it - I think travel is magical for adults and kids alike. And I applaud equally loudly for the parents who leave their kids in someone else's capable hands and go on a vacation unencumbered by diapers and strollers. For a few days, maybe a week, it would be heaven.

But two weeks? Overseas?

Without a career ladder to climb, or even a regular job to clock into, my main focus when the kids are home is being Mummy. And I like it. On the days when I'm not writing (or trying to write) or volunteering at the school or being a hausfrau, and my children are at home, I don't try to pay the bills or blog or do anything that requires a lot of my attention. Those days are theirs, and as much as possible, they have my undivided attention to play, read, build, paint, bake, bathe, have dance parties, frolic in the snow, whatever. As much as my 25 year old self would recoil in horror, I often feel that I'm at my best when I'm with Jady and Dyl. I'm getting pretty good at this mothering thing, most of the time, even when I'm doing the not-so-fun stuff like wiping bums and getting barfed on at 3 a.m. It's more of an art than a science, and hey, I was an Arts major!

Right now, I don't need two weeks off, which is ironic because there's been plenty of eye-rolling on my part when D tells me he can't afford to take time off work on a certain day or week. But now I get it. Bali would be cool; I just can't afford to take the two weeks off from my kids' lives right now. Their crazy little siren songs are too strong.

The morning poke

This morning, after shuffling Jade down the lane and onto the bus for the first time in three weeks, I did something sneaky. Once Dylan was absorbed in his BBC kids' show, I tiptoed outside and sat on the back stoop with a hot cup of coffee, flavoured with the last of the eggnog. The air smelled fresh and melty, instead of frigid and manure-y like it did last night. Breathing it in gave me more satisfaction than even that first sip of coffee. I watched a cloud of finches burst into the air and settle with a chorus of chirrups in the naked branches of our red maple. An irate blue jay soon scattered them, but they whooshed their way onto the black walnut tree instead in a cheerful, fluttering rush. I could hear a distant snow plow scraping its way along our road, but other than that and the chatter of finches, there was delicious stillness. Then faintly, I could hear a voice through the open kitchen window hollering the one word with the power to shatter any zen moment: "MUUUUUUUUMMMMMMMMYYYYYYYY!?"

It was five minutes of solitude at the most, in weather that's finally warm enough to pause in without six layers of protective clothing, but it was all I needed to give me the poke in the brain I've been waiting for: it's time to write again.

We've been housebound since Sunday, thanks to the "arctic vortex" that descended on most of our area over the past week, bringing nose-hair-freezing, bone-cracking temperatures and wind that slices through you like a samurai sword. You know it's bloody cold when a winter lovin' gal like me starts to shiver in her snow pants. And before the deep freeze, we had my sister and nephew's arrival from Australia to celebrate, the my other sister's arrival from balmy Bali, then a wave of sickness at Someday which postponed Christmas to Boxing Day. Throw in a few Lowry Christmas celebrations, travelling to and from my Dad's cabin, New Year's, one sister's departure and enough laundry to choke an industrial washing machine, and life was full to the brim of…well, life.

Not that I'm complaining, or making excuses. I just decided that it was time for a sabbatical from writing. After all the edits and drafts and proofreads and reorgs of my book, I'd had enough. When I played Candy Crush or pretended to be a kitty for sale for my daughter's enjoyment or sat on the couch and read a pile of books under D's disapproving eye, I was conscious of my blog and my notebook and my new purple pen staring at me balefully. "Yeah, you can wait," I told them, and refused to feel any guilt whatsoever. Instead of writing, I cooked soups and stews and baked biscotti and smartie cookies. The kids and I decorated the house to within an inch of its life. I hung out with my sisters and nephew, hurt my knee tobogganing, played "Coffee Monster" and tractors and Sneaky Snacky Squirrel with the kids, re-read three of my favourite Game of Thrones volumes and uploaded a squillion photos onto Facebook. I didn't read any blogs, I didn't write any blogs, and I didn't care. The nice thing about being a writer (to me, anyway) is that even when you're not physically putting stuff down on paper, you can write stories in your head until finally there's no room left and they have to burst out onto the page.

This morning's five minutes of gorgeous, snowy peace reminded me that it's probably time to end the sabbatical and get back on the ol' writing horse again. I'm ready now. I've had a good rest, a very full winter of joys and irritations and the ideas are starting to leak out of my ears. Hopefully you're all still interested in hanging out with me at the Someday Diaries again.

Pressing Issues

In honour of all the Christmas cookie photos being flaunted on Facebook these days, and because I'm making Smartie Cookies, which were my childhood favourite (except now I add rum), I thought I'd repost this one for you. Best read while you down copious amounts of coffee with Baileys while contemplating a ruined batch of cookies. (Originally published in 2009)

When I moved to the country, I left behind a couple of girlfriends with whom I’ve been pals for many years. We meet up every so often to drink, laugh, commiserate and rant together. We do not, however, bake together, and that's likely what has kept our friendship so stable.
You hear about women who congregate annually and form baking coalitions in someone's kitchen. Dough and hilarity ensue. Dozens of exotic cookies are baked and shared amongst the group, then everyone goes home to smugly fill their freezers to the brim with holiday baking.
In theory, this all sounds very Martha Stewart. It sounds like something a country woman, or at least a woman who recently moved to the country, should do, and our kitchen at Someday just begs to be socialized in. Bright and spacious, with lots of counter space, it’s the perfect place for a baking party. I can practically hear it whispering, "If you bake it, they will come.”

Sometimes I sigh and wish my sisters and city friends lived closer so we could have our own bake-bonding sessions. Then I attempt to make cookies or cupcakes and the burning smell snaps me back to reality: I would probably kill anyone who tried to share my kitchen. Although I come from a long line of amazing cooks, baking isn't my forte. I never learned the fine art of making pie crust from scratch or how to produce the giant pans of squares that are a staple here in Bruce County. And as my younger sister or D could tell you, I don’t play well with others in the kitchen. I’m bossy and not very forgiving when things go wrong.

My city girlfriends are not without a sense of humour. A few years ago, they gave me a cookie press for Christmas. They know about my baking dysfunction, but they also know I am addicted to sweets and still occasionally try to make stuff from scratch. This past December, the weather outside being frightful, I decided to give in, assume my position as a country woman and bake some Christmas cookies. Shortbread - that old Yuletide classic - seemed a logical choice, and I asked my mother-in-law to help. Shirley, quite simply, is a kitchen goddess. She stews, cans, preserves, roasts - she does it all. She is especially adept in the baking department, so I figured that with her help, I couldn't possibly screw up.

We sat down at her kitchen table to read and re-read the hallowed shortbread recipe that I’d weaseled out of a colleague. Every year, my colleague made dozens of delicate cookies and brought them into the office. Her cookies were incredible, the type of shortbread that melts in your mouth, pressed in beautiful designs and decorated with tiny candies. I loved them so much that she used to bring me a separate tin for my own personal consumption. When my friends gave me the cookie press, I begged my colleague for her recipe, which she relinquished after much coaxing. I had the press, I had the recipe, and I had Shirley. There would be no burning smell today.

Shirley and I unpacked the cookie press, took it apart, admired the different patterns. We measured the ingredients for the dough and mashed everything together with our hands. Things were going swimmingly until we jammed the dough into the press and attempted to mould our first cookie in the shape of a wreath. I clicked the trigger of the press and looked down at the cookie sheet. Nothing. I tried again. Still nothing. I let Shirley try. No cookie. I shook the press like it was a martini mixer, smacked it vigorously and tried again. Nada.
I could feel the curse words I’d promised myself I would not say bubbling to the surface, and forced them down. I was in my mother-in-law’s kitchen, and needed to remain calm. There couldn’t be any fits of cookie rage today. Shirley must have sensed I was about to pitch the stupid press through her screen door. She gently extricated it from my clenched fists and set it on the table. “Let’s read the instructions again,” she suggested.

Upon further examination, the instructions on the cookie-press box warned us not to use a cold cookie sheet (not a problem, as Shirley’s house is always a toasty 75 degrees), and not to use a non-stick surface. Well, who owns a cookie sheet these days that isn't non-stick? We looked at each other in disgust.

“What if we added a little water to the dough?” said Shirley after a few moments of silence in which I imagined running over the cookie press with Carman’s jeep. We added a little water, smushed the dough back into the press and voila! out came our first cookie. It looked like my fantasy about Carm’s jeep had come true. We changed the pattern to the tree and tried a few more. They looked like deflated, Charlie Brown Christmas trees. And so it went.

Three dozen pressed cookies and as many suppressed swear words later, I discovered that the oven wouldn't heat up. “That’s strange,” said my mother-in-law. “It worked today when I made the roast beef.” I was starting to think the cookie press was cursed.

When we finally did get the oven going and the cookies were baked, we sat down at the table with mugs of tea and sampled our handiwork. We made the appropriate "My, aren't these yummy!" noises, but the cookies tasted like warm butter mixed with sawdust.

Refusing to admit they were that bad, I pounced on D when he walked in the door. “Here, try this,” I said and forcibly shoved a cookie in his mouth. He chewed...and chewed...and chewed, then fled to the fridge for some milk. "Gahhh," he said after a mighty swallow, "not my favourite."

My mother-in-law politely declined my offer to share the cookies with me (“Oh no, you keep them, you’ll need them for your guests”), so I ended up with three dozen nasty shortbread cookies in my freezer that I indeed served to guests throughout the holiday season, accompanied by big cups of eggnog. The cookie press went back where it belonged, in the darkest corner of my least-used cupboard.

I was tempted to send tins to my girlfriends in the city, but wanting to preserve our friendship, I just told them all about my adventures in country woman baking and we had a good laugh. I think they’ll just give me a bottle of wine next Christmas, and maybe a box of store bought biscuits to go with it. My saint of a mother-in-law has promised to give me some recipes for squares, because they're supposed to be "foolproof." It's touching that she still has that much faith in me.

Hello my lovelies!

I'm here! Honest! I'm here, and happy and ready to start bloggin' again.

In case you didn't know, I've been completely and wholly absorbed in finishing the second draft of (gasp) my book. That's right, people. I wasn't just slacking off, eating bon-bons on the couch and drinking wine this whole time. Nope, I've been proofreading (ugh), editing (double ugh) and killing my darlings. Out of approximately 70 eager-to-be-told tales from Someday, I've whittled the collection down to 50. Have mercy, that was a sucky job. Even more painful a task was trying to organize them into some semblance of order. Anyway, it's done and it's now in the hands of my intrepid editor. Let's pray she doesn't use a lot of red pen.

So for those of you who still check in here to see if I'm alive, thanks! You rock! I'll be posting regularly again, promise.

And for those of you who care, my book should be available next year (she said while crossing her fingers and knocking on wood and promising the literary gods a sacrifice of several squirrels).

Can you believe it? Someday is finally around the corner!

Two days, one night

August 14th, 2013. Now, this is a beautiful morning.

The sun is already making my scalp tingle with heat, even though it’s only 9 a.m. A flirty breeze plays with my hair. The birds are in full, glorious concert. It’s everything an August morning should be, and I have the rare pleasure of having it all to myself, thanks to my friend Eva.

I’m sitting on a tiny deck attached to the south side of “The Farmhouse,” a place in Purple Valley that Eva rents every summer. It’s an old house that appears to have popped up like a mushroom in the middle of acres of unfenced farmland, and I am soaking up the sun, the solitude and a steaming cup of coffee all at once.

Eva herself was nowhere to be found this morning when I picked my way down the steep stairs from my bedroom to the kitchen . She must be on one of her walks, looking for blackberries or bears or both. My friend is a true disciple of nature. I’ve known her for years, but discovered a few things I didn’t know on our hike yesterday: she doesn’t use bug spray or sunscreen, doesn't say a word when hiking in 40 degree heat, swims in the melted icicle waters of Georgian bay and calls it “refreshing.” I think I admire her even more this morning than I already did.

To Eva, who lives in the city and whose neighbours are a stone’s throw on either side of her house, the Farmhouse in Purple Valley is pure heaven. Close to the water, the Bruce Trail and within range of mild-mannered small towns, the Farmhouse is all butterflies and birds and tall grass during the day. At night, coyotes play in the driveway, stars write bright messages across the sky and fireflies appear like iridescent popcorn in the pea fields. She and her partner and their daughter used to rent the house for a week or two every year; this summer, Eva came up for a week by herself and asked me to join her for a few days. I was honoured. I know how special her time is here, and how few opportunities she’s had to take time for herself over the past decade. I was also a little worried; I’d always wanted to explore the Bruce Trail, and Eva had promised that she’d take me for several treks while I was there...but could I hack it? I’ve never been much for heat, or strenuous exercise, let alone strenuous exercise in the heat. Eva would be a machine out in the woods; I was, at best, a wind-up toy.

“Does Eva have any idea how grouchy you get when it’s hot?” D had asked as I stuffed clothes into my backpack the night before I left for my adventure. I was sweating. It had been humid and sticky all week and my mood had not been pleasant.

“I don’t know,” I said, trying to mentally picture what the trail would look like and whether I should bring two pairs of pants in case I fell down a cliff and ripped one. I threw in my knee brace instead. “She loves the heat. It’ll be fine.”

D grinned. “This could be the end of a beautiful friendship, Sweaty Kim.”

I promised myself that no matter how hot and dehydrated and crotchety I felt, I would not complain about the heat. I would tough it out and make Eva proud. Better to be Sweaty Kim than Whiny Kim.

The Bruce Trail didn’t disappoint. It was fascinating - deep crevasses, steep lookouts, rocks that looked like fossilized lava, covered in ferns and wild ginger. It was a challenging hike in that I had to keep a sharp eye on the trail ahead, as there were a hundred ways to twist an ankle or pitch headfirst into patches of poison ivy. Rocks, roots and ruts abounded. When we stopped briefly to wipe perspiration out of our eyes and catch our breath, I noticed the peculiar stillness of the forest: sporadic birdcalls, no wind. The leaves didn’t rustle, the trees didn’t creak. There was only my panting breath, our voices and our footsteps making hollow thumps on the densely packed soil.

Since I loathe the heat and freak out at heights, the hike on the Bruce Trail was an accomplishment for me. I don’t often push myself physically, but with Eva as my guide and coach, I was able to hike for over four hours in humid weather over challenging terrain. Sometimes we talked about everything and nothing; sometimes were silent and companionable. To me, the measure of true friendship to see how long you can be quiet together without feeling the need to talk. Eva and I are true friends.

We finally turned around at about 4 p.m, trudged back to the car, and set off for another part of the trail to find Spirit Rock and go for a swim. I held my head near the open window like a dog, trying to catch a breeze and cool my tomato red face back into an acceptable colour. Because Eva is an amazing friend, she sensed that I needed a break before tackling the next leg of our hike. So we drove to a little ice cream shop in Wiarton. She ate cherry ice cream, I drank a giant mug of coffee, and we sat in oversized orange leather chairs and let the air conditioning chill the sweat on our backs. It was perfect.

On the trail to Spirit Rock, there was a fascinating ruin of an old Irish family’s stone mansion called The Corran. We loitered there for a bit, reading the historical signs, marvelling at the size of the place, eating blackberries and sniffing roses. “Time for a swim!” Eva announced and we got back on the trail. She had neglected to tell me that in order to reach her favourite swimming spot, we’d have to navigate a freaky spiral staircase made of clangy, unsteady steel flanking a rocky cliff.

“Oh yeah, you don’t like heights, do you?” Eva said with a wicked look in her eye. She knew the staircase would give me the heebie jeebies; Eva likes it when people face their fears head on. She sends me all sorts of spider and zombie themed stuff in the mail, ostensibly to help me “deal with my shit,” but mostly because she likes to imagine my reactions. The staircase to hell was no different, with the added bonus that she’d get to witness my reaction with her own eyes. So, with Eva grinning at me, I took a deep breath, realigned my backpack and forced my trembly legs down each step to the bottom.

To my dismay, the staircase opened onto a rocky, steep trail that could only be navigated by holding on for dear life to a series of metal railings bolted to the rock. I said a few bad words and Eva laughed at me, but it was worth the aching hips, the vertigo, and stabs of unadulterated panic. Because once we made it to the bottom, we were greeted by the glassy waters of Georgian bay, spread out before us like a vast mirror.

We stumbled over rocks to find Eva’s favourite spot, peeled off our sweaty clothes and swam in our underwear. The water was as still as the woods had been, clear as a window and cold enough to make me squeal. But oh, the relief of dunking my steamy head in the Bay, floating on my back with no sounds but my own breath and no sight but the cloudless summer sky overhead. Eva did laps back and forth while I paddled slowly in circles. Every few minutes, we’d swim into what Eva called “a cold spot” - places in the lake that felt as though a block of ice had just melted - and we joked that they were evil spots, cold hands of drowned sailors reaching to pull us under. Another thing about true friends: you have to find the same things amusing.

To my amusement, I noticed three kayakers in the distance. "I think they're headed our way," I said. Eva shrugged while treading water, which is no mean feat. Well, I'd just hiked a hot trail for many hours, so if a few strangers saw me in wet underwear, so be it. As they glided nearer, we saw they were three young men. We raised a hand in greeting, careful not to bob too far out of the water. As they passed, I caught a snip of their earnest-sounding conversation: it was about stocks or bonds or something to do with money.

"You're not talking about work are you?" I said, genuinely horrified. They stared at me. "Seriously, you guys. You shouldn't be talking about work on a beautiful day like this!" I couldn't help myself. There they were, on the still, blue, gorgeous waters of Georgian Bay, discussing business. The guy nearest to me twisted his mouth into a sour expression. His buddy smiled and they just shook their heads and kept paddling while Eva and I shook our heads in return.

We didn’t get back to the farmhouse until 8 p.m., didn’t eat supper until sunset. I drank white wine and ate sour cream chips while I made our evening meal: pasta with fresh tomatoes, basil and bocconcini. Eva drank root beer and concocted the most delicious Napa salad I’ve ever had. We both had seconds of everything, toasted our hike and swim. As her root beer clinked against my wine, I wanted to leap over the table and hug her, pull her close and tell her what a blessing her friendship was. But my legs were too stiff and I’d drunk a little too much wine and I didn’t want her to think I was weird. So I just smiled instead. She smiled back. I think she got what I wanted to say without me having to speak a word.

After supper we walked down the moonlit lane way, exclaiming with glee at the hundreds of tiny frogs that sprang out of our path as they headed for the swamps beyond the pine trees. Eva and I found Sirius and the Big Dipper, talked about bear encounters (hers, not mine), exchanged stories about my mother and her father, both dead now for many years. When I finally pleaded exhaustion, we went back to the house and Eva sat beside my bed and read me a creepy story about cannibal children in Kentucky. When’s the last time someone read to me? I wondered as she changed her voice for each character. I love this.

We said our goodnights, positioned our fans to make a breeze in the still, hot rooms, and I slept the kind of sleep only a day outside and a contented belly can give you. I woke up today feeling stiff and sore, hungry and desperately in need of coffee. Even with Eva nowhere in sight, I also felt blessed once again to have the gift of her friendship in my life.

The Write Stuff

Heyyyyy!

You may have noticed that I haven't been posting much lately. It's not because I don't want to; in fact, I've been writing endless blog entries in my head, most of which never get transferred to paper or laptop. Yeah, you're welcome. I just wanted you to know that I'm not being lazy and I haven't developed a hatred of blogging or writer's block or anything like that. In fact...I've been writing a book.

Really.

Want proof? Here:

I just printed out the first draft, which is pretty freaking cool, but also means I have pretty freaking crazy editing ahead of me now. The fun part was writing it all down; the scary part comes next.

I'm going to continue to blog as much as I can. It's just that I feel enormous obligation to my book, now that it's done, to work on getting it to a place where I feel it's ready to publish. So blogging, sadly, comes in at around fifth place in the I'll-get-around-to-it race, after kids and sleep and husband and my book.

Just wanted to let you know so you don't abandon Someday!

She Can Twerk If She Wants To

With apologies to Men Without Hats, this has been going through my head on endless repeat ever since watching Miley Cyrus’s performance at the VMA’s:

You can twerk if you want to
You can leave your friends behind
Cause your friends don’t twerk
And if they don’t twerk
Then they’re
No friends of mine...

So. The VMA’s. Miley. The resulting internet firestorm. Wow.

I don’t usually do the whole celebrity commentary thing on this blog, so pardon my foray into uncharted territory. I just feel the need to point out a few things to myself, in writing. Because ten seconds into Miley’s Gene-Simmons-meets-Madonna-meets-every-woman-in-a-Snoop-Dog-video performance, I was ready to climb aboard the slut-shaming bandwagon myself.

If I feel offended by something on TV, or upset, or irritated, or whatever, I usually stop watching it. I’m not sure why Miley’s performance had the magnetic pull of a car-crash, why I didn’t just grab the clicker and find something more conducive to a vegetative state. But no; I watched the whole twerk-tastic thing to its bizarre conclusion.

At first, I did the ol’ schadenfreude thing where you laugh and wince at the same time. I’m pretty sure I said something like, “Oh, Miley. No.” Then the parental thoughts kicked in: Billy Ray must be stabbing his couch with a pitchfork right about now. Finally, around the time Miley started to go all foam-finger on Robin Thicke, I started channelling my Baba as the words “Tsk tsk” came out of my mouth and I felt the urge to fake-spit on the floor. That’s when I realized I was about to tumble down a very steep, very bumpy hill of self-righteousness.

I turned the TV off. Sat there for a minute. And reminded myself of the following:

Miley, despite her cloying childhood name, is a woman. She’s twenty. No wonder her current on stage persona bears no resemblance to the innocent looking Disney drone we’ve all gotten used to. Who wants to be Hannah Banana or whatever she was forever? The Party in the USA has become a Blurred Line and the kid has become a woman. Women get to choose how to act, dress, speak and dance. They get to be daring, sexy, audacious, confident. They get to take risks, make mistakes, have regrets. Or not. I was still thinking of Miley as Billy Ray’s little girl, the squeaky-clean kid with a big voice, and that’s unfair: she’s a woman and who am I to judge her for embracing her sexuality in a big, public way? She makes her choices and she gets to deal with the consequences, be they internet trolls or record sales.

Since when is anything on the VMA’s supposed to be instructive, inspirational or proper? It’s MTV, for pete’s sake! It’s entertainment! I don’t categorize Miley’s three minutes as the artistic work of a singer or a musician; to me, she’s an entertainer, and whether I like the grindy moves or not, she certainly kept a million viewers entertained.

3. Blurred Lines is not a Miley song. It’s Robin Thick’s song, and what Miley did on the VMA stage was downright PG compared to what goes on in Thick’s boobtastic video. I laughed out loud when I read another writer’s comment that Miley had “twerked Thick into submission,” because that’s exactly what she did: she gyrated on and poked at him until he looked more bewildered than studly. I’d say she gave ol’ Mr. “You wanna hug me?” an uncomfortable dose of his own raunchy medicine.

4. But what about the children? The impressionable youth will think twerking and sexually objectifying oneself is cool! Well, some of them already do, and nothing Miley does or doesn’t do is going to change that. YouTube is full of sex and butt-wiggles and boobs already; Miley’s just tapping in to what’s already considered cool, as any shrewd commercial entertainer does. If my daughter wants to watch the VMAs when she gets older, I’ll watch it with her. Initiate a conversation about it afterward, preferably in the car, where she’s trapped and can’t escape me. Instead of worrying that my daughter is going to emulate Miley as a role model, hopefully I’ll have introduced her to several women who have made a difference in my own life. I’ll read to her about other twenty-year-olds who have changed the world. And I’ll certainly be pointing out the difference between entertainers and heroes, between sex in its commercial incarnation and sex in real life, between how men and women are judged for doing essentially the same thing.

So let Miley twerk if she wants to. Or change the channel. Your choice.