Let's Rock!

I know it is hard to imagine, but my trip to K-Mart this afternoon has left me nostalgic.

There was the usual jumble of Jaclyn Smith dura-wear, "If you think I'm crazy you should meet my mother!" t-shirts, and dusty backyard gew gaws like the giant ceramic mushroom with the polka dot cap and a sign on its wee door stating "Gnome Sweet Gnome." The lines were long; the cashiers, apathetic. My Andy had a dark cloud forming over his sweet face, proving that there is madness enough in the world (or at least underground at Penn Station) to quake his usually unflappable demeanor.

Still, we were shopping for one of my Andy's cherished nieces, who turns 9 today. Her Jonas Brothers themed birthday party is tomorrow. I do not doubt she, her sister, and her cousins will dazzle us with an energetic performance on the karaoke machine. You oughtta see her dance moves! So although we do not know who the Jonas Brothers are, we know they are important. Our shopping expedition for these shining and gleaming young men led us to K-Mart.

We found backpacks and lunch "totes," notebooks, pencils, pencil cases, erasers, folders, and any other school supply that could be branded with a JB face or silhouette. All exhorted us to "Let's Rock!" My Andy expressed horror at the shiny marketing of cheese, but I mollified him with this thought: "9 year old girls love this shit."

And that is what made me nostalgic.

Ok, we had metal lunch boxes, not totes. Mine was The Peanuts with matching Thermos. My mother often put a note inside, sometimes just a giant smiley face. Let's just say, such a thing provided a needed boost during an often overwhelming time for me.

We went to Card Gallery for our gimcrackery: shiny pencils with light up hearts on the top, scented erasers that never really worked that well, and stickers! There were puffy stickers, rainbow stickers, fuzzy stickers, unicorn stickers, character stickers like Garfield and The Smurfs, and stickers of our musical idols (the "RIP Michael Jackson" buttons I saw today bore the same photo of the late entertainer from his album "Thriller," the source of photos for our MJ stickers back in the day). I got a sticker album to use for Show-and-Tell at school after I had some scary oral surgery in 1st grade. Ah, the power of colorful crap to cheer the child's soul.

The writer, filmmaker, and creator of the "human potential movement" entitled "The Artist's Way," Julia Cameron, encourages would be artists and blocked creatives (that is, all of us, in one way or another) to give ourselves a chance to play in our adult lives. She says, take a block of time you can manage once a week to pursue something fun even if it is just blowing bubbles in the park. Think the 5-and-dime scene from "Breakfast at Tiffany's," when Audrey Hepburn and George Peppard walk out with the funny masks (only, don't steal. It's a recession, yes, but that is why it is a 5-and-dime).

I can hear the grumbling now, but I think my mother's method is a highly adaptable one - make everything fun and playful. My ex-husband once famously intoned, "Your mother laughs at everything," a comment which, to this day, makes her laugh and laugh, so it's true. We should all be so lucky.

So...Bring home a sunflower for your kitchen because it is, by its very name, sunny. Color and draw with the kids. Buy a six pack of stickers. Send your best friend who moved to Manitoba 16 years ago a really funny card. Put a sticker on the envelope. Organize a ping-pong tourney. Eat a Willy Wonka Everlasting Gobstopper (and tell your kids about how you read the book long before Johnny Depp starred in the remake of the movie.)

Life is dusty and cluttered and often robed in polyester gear sold by grim-faced teenagers working the afternoon shift at a bargain department store. But that's no excuse. The Jonas Brothers are right: "Let's rock!"