Bounce-Topia

Remember how for my birthday, Emily got us tickets to hear Queen Michelle? Well, this weekend was Emily's birthday, and coincidentally, Big Bounce America was in town for this weekend only.

In case you're unfamiliar, Big Bounce America is the biggest bouncy house in the world. (And no, they are not sponsoring this post, although if they wanted to do such a thing I wouldn't be mad about it.) Their website describes the experience as "10,000 square feet of full-on inflatable fun," marketed at "families, teenagers, and any adults who still remember how to find fun in bouncing and flapping around something big and inflatable."

Friends, I am here to tell you: it is not that hard. Fun is literally everywhere at a place like that.

I do have to mention that the entire three-day visit to COS was filled with hour-long sessions available only to kids and families, except for one precious hour Sunday evening reserved for adults 16+. We nabbed our tickets for that hour pronto, and Daniel decided to come too.

I did not take any pictures because who wants a phone in their pocket while springing, sliding, leaping, and bouncing with abandon. (The photo below is from the Big Bounce America website.) Please refer to this article for another photo of the magical place. 

https://thebigbounceamerica.com/experience/

Trust me when I say, it was a real-life utopia in there. There was no sadness, no disappointment, no heartache. There was only the pure, unadulterated bliss, camaraderie, and euphoria that comes from fully grown women and men engaging in a childhood dream.

Everybody basically became friends on sight: We interacted with strangers many times in the most jovial of manners, whether it was laughing mutually at our incredibly idiotic falls, or cheering each other on as we endeavored to do things like wrestle a giant inflatable dog or clamber awkwardly atop a huge inflatable cube. I watched a grown man take a running start to tackle an inflatable palm tree, which was flimsy, so he and the tree faceplanted immediately.

It was raining just a little when the hour started, but stopped within 15 minutes or so. That actually ended up being great, because the water made the whole thing feel like a slip-n-slide.

The whole place was bounceable, of course, but it was filled with lots of other activities too. There was a huge inflatable slide ending in a ball pit. There were inflatable basketball hoops and beach balls to dunk with. There were 3-foot-tall balls to roll around on. There was a Wipeout-esque room wherein people lined up to try to jump/climb on top of a huge inflatable cube and, if successful, then tried to climb from there on top of a second, larger cube behind it. This was where most people failed epically and fell off in a glorious display of clumsiness to general amusement. The best part about this is that none of it was judgmental. Everyone laughed hysterically at one another and at themselves, because literally nobody looked cool doing this, but no one cared.

Daniel and I raced each other on a short obstacle course-type thing. Picture two parallel courses comprised of a mini rock climbing wall and then a short slide down the other side, then the same thing again. Two little camel humps, basically. Daniel went whizzing stomach-style over both humps lightning fast, like a majestic porpoise. I struggled up the first wall and was going down the first hump as he was already crawling out the exit tunnel, victorious. I cannot possibly convey to you how funny this was. My most porpoise-like moment happened on our second try, when I attempted Daniel's strategy on the first hump, but didn't have enough momentum to get all the way over it, so I slid back down on my face in reverse.

There's really no point to this story except to try to document some of the joy. The three of us agreed that an hour spent in bouncy-house paradise was exactly what we all needed. I'm not advocating for escapism, but it was nice, for one hour, to be immersed in something completely counter to the horrific events we're experiencing.

Thanks for indulging my story, and consider this your reminder to connect with your inner child. They're in there somewhere, I promise.

The Brenneman Clan: Threads in the Tapestries of Families

The second family reunion of the summer (the first is here, in case you missed it) was a gathering of the Brenneman clan. This one took place just north of Colorado Springs, which was convenient and also allowed me to show the family around to some of my favorite places.

The Brennemans are my maternal grandmother's family: the seven children of Fred and Millie Page Brenneman and all their descendants.

On the first full day of the reunion, I led a group hike to Red Rock Canyon.

I didn't get a full count, but probably 30-40 people came along, which was more than half the group.

I was afraid it would rain on us, but it ended up being beautiful.

I love all the wildflowers this time of year.

That afternoon, another big group of us went to the Olympic Training Center. There were 25 of us, so we got our own private tour. Our tour guide was funny. (You can tell because even Isaac cracked a bit of a smile.)

When not out exploring the Springs, we were hanging out at our retreat center, The Hideaway. The big backyard was especially nice.

My frisbee-obsessed second cousin taught this game called Redemption, sort of a version of Monkey in the Middle.

And there was a Gaga court, so...

There was some board game-playing (but certainly not anything of Nussbaum proportions).

This game of chess was particularly cute.

There was some puzzling.

There was some artfully assembled food. (Side note: the vegetarian option was always incredible. Meat lovers, your loss.)

There was talent show hilarity.

And there was some planning for the next reunion.

Alongside the abundant quality time with loved ones, I did some introspecting, of course.

Only two of my four grandparents' families had regular reunions when I was growing up, so this is the extended family I know the best, but I don't think that's the only reason why I feel a strong kinship to the Brennemans. It's the family culture, too.

There's a joke about Brenneman arguments. These occur when two or more people are arguing, and they are actually in agreement about whatever the subject matter is, but they still manage to argue about it. Clarity of speech, exactness, and articulation matter to us.

Some other things run in the Brenneman family: Hazel eyes. Graduate degrees. Teaching. Traveling.

In my estimation, among the sixty-odd family members, we have dozens of graduate degrees, roughly 20 teachers and professors, and over 75 different countries visited. Even in the short window of a few days spent together, it's so easy to see that the core values of the Brennemans are education, travel, honesty, and forthrightness. All these values were wholly espoused by our shared ancestors -- Fred and Millie Brenneman, missionary doctors and teachers. And I see them all deeply ingrained in myself.

Little did Fred and Millie know that when they moved to India in the 1930s, where my grandmother was born, they were picking up cultural gems that their family would still be carrying eighty years later. Even now, when subsets of the Brennemans gather at a restaurant, it is often for Indian food. As a child, when I finished all the food on my plate, my grandmother would tell me I'd earned a shabash: Hindi for "well done."

I dearly value these times spent with family, because it lends such insight into the intricacies of my ancestral architecture. In observing the minutia of people's interactions with one another, I can see how the patterns coalesce into trends spanning generations. There are values passed down from one generation to the next, and there are habits and personality traits that are mirrored from one to another. And then there are the reactionary patterns, when one set of siblings have modeled their lives so as to break with a trait of the parents.

It reminds me of superhero comics and movies, because we love to hear their origin stories. But we all have origin stories of our own, too. For some, it may not be biological family so much as friends, adopted family, culture, or place. But we all have them: those spaces and stories which make up our very selves. They are the bedrock of our identity, and the sources may vary, but the essence is the same.

By studying my grandparents and their generation, I learn about myself. By soaking up stories of Fred and Millie's life together, I am steeped in the distinctive flavor of my family. By looking upward, I learn inward.

Michelle Obama and Some Related Thoughts

This is the tale of the magical time I got to see and hear Michelle LaVaughn Robinson Obama speaking and laughing and breathing and living life in the same room as myself.

The day was Tuesday, July 25. The place was Denver, Colorado. The event was a fancy-schmancy gala celebrating the 30th anniversary of the Women's Foundation of Colorado (WFCO). Although, it was held at the Pepsi Center (home stadium for the Denver Nuggets), so it wasn't that fancy.

My dear friend Emily works for Junior Achievement, and her boss is a member of WFCO and therefore had access to event tickets. Emily was invited to go and, thoughtful and generous like-minded person that she is, got me a ticket too as a birthday gift.

The thing started at 5:30 p.m., but we were in Denver by 2:45 due to sheer excitement, so we frittered away the rest of the afternoon eating sushi burritos (did you know that was a thing? So good) and walking around downtown, letting the walk signs at crosswalks dictate the path we took. Eventually we met up with the other Junior Achievement ladies and joined the parade of well-dressed women taking the Pepsi Center by storm. A few men too, but honestly who cares about them. At a time like that, I am all about the sisterhood.

The event started off with a plethora of speakers and presentations that were clearly intended to highlight the work of WFCO and inspire donations, but primarily served to intensify everyone's anxious excitement that was building up in anticipation of seeing our beloved lady.

During those introductory presentations, though, I did learn that this was Michelle's first public appearance since leaving the White House.

This was the first time that our lady Michelle has given any kind of public address in six months and she chose to spend it in Colorado. With us.

#RockyMountainLuck

Finally the big moment came, charmingly introduced by a group teenage girls participating in WFCO programs who each gave a few sentences of introduction in a different language: Arabic, Amharic, Mandarin, American Sign Language, Spanish, and more.

The opening of Demi Lovato's What's Wrong With Being Confident played over the speakers. Michelle walked out. All 8,500 of us jumped up to our feet. I started crying immediately. We cheered and waved and clapped and radiated energy for a long time. Eventually we sat down but the energy stayed.

Rather than a prepared speech, this was set up as a Q&A with Lauren Young Casteel, president and CEO of the Women's Foundation of Colorado and also a black woman. Though I love Michelle's prepared speeches something fierce, this was better. Everything she said was unrehearsed, and that made it feel so much more real, even conversational, despite the size of the room and the crowd.

No pictures or recording were allowed during Michelle's portion of the night, but you can see a few photos in this article:
http://www.denverpost.com/2017/07/25/michelle-obama-speech-womens-foundation-of-colorado-30th-anniversary-denver/

I didn't have many well-formed hopes or expectations going in, but whatever I did have was exceeded. I was profoundly touched by Michelle's wisdom, encouragement, and strength, which were evident not just in her words but beneath them too.

She openly discussed racism. (That's a big deal, as it's something the two Obamas really didn't do while in the White House. They've received some criticism for not doing so, but in my opinion, that silence is both a symptom and a cause of the current problem.) She named women's resilience and women's strength. She made us laugh. She made us all feel like friends. She soothed our weary souls, already battered from the past six/eight/twelve months.

Perhaps the most thought-provoking line of hers was, "We have to stop giving our power away." I'm still turning that over and over as I go through my days, and I have to say, I've found far too many examples already of women giving away our power. Think about it: Mommy Wars. Victim blaming. Silence. Workplace cultures.

At one point, Lauren quoted a friend of hers who recently said, "Nobody tells you that when you're breaking through the glass ceiling, the shards that fall on you are excruciating." A breath went through the room as we all absorbed this. I'm still turning that one over too.

I could go on, but mostly I want more spaces and more conversations like this. My rambling doesn't truly capture the way that night felt; we have to replicate it ourselves. A blog post isn't a good medium for two-way exchange, but I genuinely hope to have more conversation about this. Talk to me in person, or talk to your friends and sisters and communities. Keep creating those moments when we can be really honest about navigating life as women. Because as I'm coming to understand more and more, we aren't just hurt by our own experiences of trauma -- we are deeply wounded by the traumas of others. Part of being a woman is living with little tiny cuts day after day from the shards that fell on our sisters, that are still falling today.

Take care of yourself today, sisters, and know that wherever you are, Michelle Obama is fighting for you. And I am, too.