Into Thin Air

For being a small, timid child, I never backed down from a challenge. Ride my tricycle down the forty-five degree slope of the street we lived on? Two missing teeth, skinned knees for days and a spanking later ( in that famous Sponge Bob French accent)? Challenge accepted.

Another hot, sunny afternoon,the neighborhood bully looked lonesome. I charged into his twisted world and spent an afternoon literally being tortured with lawn darts. He looked like he needed a friend, so I didn't think. I acted. Challenge accepted.

At the pool with friends who tried to drown me? I showed them. I spent the next six years learning how to swim, getting my life saving certificates and another two years teaching life guards. I would never almost drown again. Watery challenge accepted.

My older sister was a music prodigy. Not just good; amazing. She could play any instrument her music teacher tossed to her. She was a virtuoso in three or four different instruments. When I was old enough to choose an instrument, as that was the deal in our family. There was no, "I don't want to play an instrument," allowed. I also picked out a woodwind instrument and spent years trying to compete with her memory in school band leaders' minds. I was good. Just not Joanne good. But, I didn't quit, because, of course, it was a challenge.

For college, my sister pursued a Master's in music, and having grown tired of competing with the ghost of almost Beethoven, I chose to study Occupational therapy because of my background with teaching handicapped swim classes. College was not how I imagined it, however.

I was the odd one out. I didn't drink. I didn't smoke pot. I had never even kissed a boy, and at eighteen, my dorm mates thought that odd. Attending an all-girls school, it seemed a safe bet that I wouldn't have to worry about boys interfering with my education....wrong!

Every Saturday night, the college hosted men from area schools to mixers full of wine punch and beer... It was shocking to me, and generally, I stayed away, until one night my friends pushed me into joining them. A football player from Syracuse University showed an interest in me and my friends encouraged me to "get my first kiss."

That was a challenge. So, I invited this two-hundred and fifty pound line backer to my dorm room, with the door open, of course, until he slammed it shut, locked it and did what a two-hundred and fifty pound drunk college kid would do with a clueless girl, who hadn't the slightest idea that asking for a kiss would open the door to a forbidden place I wasn't supposed to go.

I got away. But the sting of that betrayal never left me. Then, the second betrayal came when a friend I'd confided in brought me to the college infirmary, insisting I tell the nurse. The nurse's words were burned into my memory and I can hear them now as clear as day: "You certainly don't want me to call your parents and tell them that you invited a man into your dorm room, do you? You might even be expelled."

That was it. That was the end of me wanting to be in college. I couldn't wait to leave there. My grades dropped. My behavior bordered on insanity, taking risks, drinking, having unprotected sex, and hitch hiking with friends. After returning to college after summer break, friends goaded me into entering a dance contest at a nearby club.

It was a challenge, and well, you know me well enough by now...

They made me up like a miniature Barbie hooker and drove me to the club, which was a strip club. Oh, my. That was the beginning of the end of college for me. Within three months, I had moved in with another dancer and left college without a backward glance.

For the next thirteen years I traveled alone from city to city, perfecting my dancing and shows. I loved to dance, so it seemed natural to me that I'd end up on stage. It wasn't the kind of stage I had imagined. But, dancing was dancing and I was free to travel, explore and meet new and dangerous people.

There were times that broke my heart. Relationships and family were not easy to hold on to in a world of constant travel. But, often, when things were at their worst, someone would step up and help me through the bad parts of my life. Always. There seemed to be an angel on my shoulder, sparing me from my foolish behavior and my eagerness to step off the ledge when there was nothing but air below.

When I was thirty-one, I decided one day that I'd had enough of dancing in clubs and was going to open a bakery. That was it. That was the challenge. So, I baked gingerbread houses in my apartment kitchen and sold them to patrons at the clubs where I danced. I never stopped to figure anything out. I just did it. I quit baking about three years ago, when the pandemic closed the doors to wedding receptions.

A man, who had been chasing me at the strip clubs, and annoying me for months, and who was my biggest cheerleader, told me he had never met anyone who could pull an idea out of thin air and make it happen, like I did. One day, he was sitting on the floor of my apartment, watching me put together gingerbread houses, when he got all soggy and sentimental, and asked, "Will you marry me?"

That was a challenge because he annoyed the heck out of me.

That was December of 1985. I stepped off that ledge and tumbled down through thin air, and today, November of 2025, We're still falling together, after two children and six grandchildren.

Challenge accepted.