This last weekend, I officially became a member of MPBN, our local NPR station here in Maine. I have been listening to NPR forever ... in the car with my dad driving to school, in the kitchen cooking dinner with my mom, car trips to the mountains for my brothers' ski races. And my parents were always members ... I have years of listening to the membership drives on the radio, even watching them on public television when I was young. I distinctly remember the many NPR tote bags and other NPR paraphernalia we had around the house over the years.
No that I have a family and a home of my own, I have found myself drawn again to NPR for many of the same reasons as others: the news, the humor, the interest of the stories provided. There is also a sens of nostalgia mixed in there as well. Nearly every evening as the clock nears 5:00, I find myself in the kitchen preparing dinner, listening to NPR, the sounds of my two girls playing (or bickering depending on the day) in the other room. In the last several years, I lived in another country, married a man there, gave birth there far from my family, moved back to my home with my new family, started a business, had another baby, bought a home ... things that might scream YOU ARE A GROWN UP to the outside world but none of which really made me feel like I had taken that next step towards entering adulthood.
Chopping veggies in the kitchen of my home, the sounds of my kids mixed with the familiar voices of NPR soothes me at the end of the day. It brings me back to my childhood, a time in which I now idealize to be a time of few cares and worries, and for a few moments I feel relaxed and, yes, proud of the life I have created.
These moments are, of course, soon interrupted by wails of blame from the playroom, water boiling over on the stove or the ringing of the phone. This last weekend, however, I made the decision 30 years in the making and picked up the phone to become a new member of NPR.
I now eagerly await my "Wait, wait, Don't Tell Me" travel coffee mug which I will tote around town proudly ... my badge of adulthood.
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3 comments:
haha that's funny! I've been listening to NPR more frequently in the last year! It's strangely calming... And yes, it makes me feel like a grownup, which is weird since I usually feel like a kid most of the time!
Hi there, I found your site through Twitter. You are a follower of Energy, Spirit & Hope, my online web store!!! Here I am reading your blog and your from MAINE?!?! So am I!!! So hello fellow fair trade Mainer!! :)
Wow, Jenn, it is a small world! I didn't realize at all when I followed you on Twitter that you were a Mainer too! What a strange, techno crazy world we live in.
Thanks for reading and I'm sure we'll chat again soon!
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