Monumental Tooth

My last post was honest, difficult to write, depressing as all get-out and necessary. It can't remain as my home page, though. Why not?

Here's why not:

I dare you to look at this picture and not at least smile a little bit. Besides the hilarity, besides the casual arm flung around her little brother, look at my jBird's giant front tooth. That, my friends, is a monument.

It is a monument of tooth-bone to change, to growth, to shedding childish things, but not quite growing into the permanent things, either. I love that huge, solitary front tooth and sometimes I just want to touch it. My jBird is a patient girl, but she rarely indulges me in this. I don't blame her, but still. Look at that thing!

Her teeth will all eventually come in and straighten out (hopefully without a whole lot of orthodontic intervention) but for now, I secretly cherish this giant front tooth that is so awkward, so strange and out of place in her face, but a talisman of more big things to come. For now this is more beautiful to me than any movie-star-perfect smile in the world.

These two - with their life and their energy and their constant vibration - these two wear me out and they worry me and they drive me straight up a wall sometimes. But look at how they laugh. They lean into each other and laugh. With their messy hair and hand knit sweaters and heads full of nonsense and of course the giant tooth, they laugh. I can fume around and stew and boil about things that are so much bigger than they are, but you know what? These are the biggest people I know. They have virtually no control over their lives, they have very little say in the things of the world; they get told what to do, where to go, how to behave and to go and pick up all their Legos. Their mother is moody and somewhat unpredictable, she's intense and she's insane and she loves them with all her heart. And still they laugh. With eyes closed, without self-consciousness or guile - so hard, they laugh. This is their default mode.

And that monumental tooth. Well, you know how it is. It brings me to my knees and it makes me laugh, too. So hard. 

Day 10

I am grateful for Lysol. For a large hot water heater and not having to wash clothes (and bed linens, and towels, and more clothes) by beating them against a rock.

I am grateful for hand sanitizer. I am grateful for teaspoons full of water that finally stay down.

I am mostly grateful for a little boy who is finally sleeping peacefully in his bed.

Days 3 - 5

I have been absent from this space. But I have had so much for which to be grateful. So much it has drawn me away from dwelling on the things in my head; away from personal observations into the shared observations of special days with a family that fills my heart and breaks it open and fills it again.

This past weekend we have celebrated a little boy. A hooligan of sorts who has been making this planet a more spontaneous and joyful place for six years now.

He was my surprise baby. I thought he was a stomach bug, perhaps. I thought I was exhausted from moving to a new town, from raising an active and inquisitive toddler, from the miscarriage I'd had mere weeks before. I thought there was something wrong. When I finally went to the doctor because the symptoms were undeniably familiar, I discovered that there was absolutely nothing wrong. There was a tiny peanut, two months along, standing on its flipper legs and doing a little jig. I looked at the grainy picture full of snow and wondered at the tenacity of a little being who would come twice to see me. Who would hang out inside, ignored, disbelieved and dance.

This is the kernel, the essence of my Hooligan. He hangs out, content to live and talk and imagine in a world where everyone in the house is bigger than he is. Where people are busy with other things and he patiently follows them from room to room explaining the details of his latest creation, the game he's designing, the dream he had, asking questions about space, about eternity, about the flexibility of time. He walks in circles while he talks, to organize his thoughts. He dances from foot to foot while he stands. He jumps from space to space while he walks. He stops and grins and winks at me. He gives me a thumbs-up and finishes his sentence. He bounces merrily through a world that sometimes won't slow down and wait for him.

He is my surprising boy. He taught himself to walk while I was unpacking a house. He stored up all his words and expressed himself with sound effects until one day they all came tumbling out in complete sentences. He taught himself to read while no one was looking. He draws schematic diagrams of inventions that might actually work. He figures out his world by quietly building things and then demonstrating how to use them. He loves to run and laugh and make large messes.

He understands being the smallest person in the room, so his perpetual motion will slow and stop for a gentle word to a baby, a helping hand to a peer who lags behind. He is generous with praise and with gratitude, but he will brook no whining. He covers his ears and closes his eyes to shut out the noise of others' displeasure. "Just stop that and try," he will say, not unkindly. He reminds me not to yell. He holds my hand and hugs me. He does not understand meanness or smallness of spirit.

He is my Hooligan. He is always up to something. He was my surprise and he completed our family in a way we didn't know it needed to be done. He showed up and smiled at us and we all fell in love with his dark, mischievous eyes, the dimple in his chin, the smile that splits his face in half. He hugs with abandon, he kisses on the mouth, he pats arms and knees and shoulders while he speaks, and snuggles with sibilant S's. He gives us these connections, these simple reassurances that he is here, that he is real, that he is to be believed. And then he wanders off to the place inside his head that is full of tall buildings and space ships and mechanical devices, time travel, music and math equations of his own making and no one really knows what else.

I have spent these last few days in celebration of this strange and wonderful little boy who determined that he would live with us; that he would take his place and wait quietly for us to notice and that in the meantime, he would dance.

Sex, Drugs & Rock and Roll

Three conversations in my house over the last few weeks that prove I'm still rock and roll.

Sex:

jBird: Look, your Hobbes doll has a bladder!
Hooligan: What's a bladder?
jBird: It's that pouch thing that dangles behind a boy's penis.
Me: Um, that's not a bladder. Your bladder is an internal organ that holds your pee.
jBird: Then what is that pouch thing?
Me: Those are testicles.
Hooligan: I have testicles! Testicles!
jBird: But what are they for?
Me: They hold sperm.
jBird: And sperm is...
Me: Uh, sperm are little swimming cells that fertilize an egg to make a baby.
jBird: [considering this] Like I ate for breakfast?
Me: Sort of. That's a chicken egg. Human eggs are much smaller and we don't eat them for breakfast.
jBird: Well, Hobbes has testicles then.
Hooligan: Testicles!
Chief Lou: What are you guys talking about in there?!

Drugs:

Me: Turns out my headache was sinus. My ear hurts, too.
Chief Lou: Oh, did you take some Sudafed?
Me: Yes.
Chief Lou: Did it help?
Me: Well, yes and no. It decongested everything, but it did not help me to learn that ear congestion tastes different from sinus congestion when it drains.
Chief Lou: That's so hot.

Rock and Roll:

Me: There aren't any love songs about stay at home moms.
Chief Lou: I'm sorry. There aren't any love songs about mid-level government employees, either.
Me: I guess you're right.
Chief Lou: We're just not that interesting.
Me: But we're still remarkably good-looking. That has to count for something.


I really wouldn't trade all this nonsense for the world.

Crying on the Playground

It has been a while since I have stood in the middle of a playground and cried.

This is a half-truth.

I have stood in the middle of a playground and cried more often in the last 4 years than I did in probably my entire childhood. But it still catches me by surprise almost every time. I have also stood in an auditorium and cried, in a school cafeteria and cried, and in a classroom, and one time in the hallway.

It's embarrassing.

But not really.

I stood on the playground of the monkeys' new school yesterday afternoon in the brilliant, warm autumn sunlight and cried. I was wearing large sunglasses, so my tears were mostly hidden.

I watched 300 little people in lime green shirts walk in circles and I cried.

I cried because all last week I was grumbling about how our state is lame and under-funds our schools; about how the powers that be think that things like art and music and theater and classroom aides and vice principals are luxuries in education and we have to go, hat in hand, to ask for money for our schools several times a year. And yet, on this sunny Wednesday afternoon, dozens of parents took time out of their schedules to count laps, hand out stickers and pretzels and small cups of water, to cheer for little students and to dance to loud music. I cried because people who didn't have to, happily wrote checks to be given to teachers in grubby little crumpled envelopes so my kids could paint pictures and sing songs.

I cried because there were hundreds of kids walking with purpose in laps around the playground, collecting stickers for each lap as if it were the most important thing in the world. I cried because they were laughing and singing and clapping and skipping and happy to do it, full of pride for their school.

I cried because after searching the sea of constant motion, all in matching T-shirts, I saw my jBird. She's a cygnet on her way to a swan. She was walking alone with a goofy grin and an occasional shimmy to the music, her head tilted forward in determination and her little wings flapping. I missed her on her first few laps because I was looking for someone shorter, less mature, closer to the chubbiness of the baby she was than the long and lean and graceful young lady she's becoming. I cried because when she saw me, her pretense melted away and she came clopping over on suddenly larger feet and uneven teeth and breathless and said "I am having so much fun!" Because she asked me to walk with her and was still child enough to proudly hold my hand and giggle at my ridiculous jokes. Because she let go of my hand when I walked too slowly, telling me: "I need to do this."

I cried because my Hooligan cruised up with a friend in tow, their hands full of snacks and water, and told me they had 'Nilla Wafers. Because he is so very much himself, my slow and steady tortoise who stops for snacks whenever they're offered. Because he will happily participate in whatever is there and find a way to make it suit him. Because he is so small, but such a large presence there, whooping and singing and exclaiming about the food. Because he doesn't seem to care about anything but then saves important things up to tell me later. Because he wanted to sit in my lap and show me his stickers, but then realized he had to get up if he wanted to get more. Because he is still so much my baby, but goes mightily about his business.

I cried because while I watched the two of them holding hands and urging each other along, another mother, a stranger, told me they were sweet and I was lucky they were such good friends.

I cried for all of it. For the community and the generosity. For the absurdity and the silliness. For the determination and the spirit. For what is past and what is yet to come. For this fleeting moment on a weekday afternoon where I could be suspended in time for just a little while and watch them walk in circles. For the knowledge that they are really walking onward, heads tilted forward in determination, small wings flapping and growing stronger, ambling and charging and occasionally stopping for snacks.

I stood on the playground and cried.
It's embarrassing.
But not really.

Back To School

We here in Seattle are rugged individualists. We do not start school the day after Labor Day. No sir, we start two days after Labor Day. I secretly believe it is to give the parents an extra day to recover from attending Bumbershoot. Maybe it's to give everyone a chance to get back from their last ditch camping trip of the summer. Or maybe it's to give us this spare day between holiday and routine to speculate and ruminate and drive each other crazy.

My jBird has proclaimed herself the "luckiest girl in the world" because she gets a locker in her new school, because her mom bought her the tackiest shirt on Earth to wear for back to school because it was deemed "cool" by that fascinating eight-year-old rubric, and because she gets to ride the bus this year. The Hooligan is more quiet about his inner-workings, preferring instead to give involved descriptions of space machinery. But today he told me that "School is awesome because there are so many possibilities." They are ready to go. They've been counting down the days for a month now. Tomorrow is the day. Today is the day they will eat popcorn for breakfast and watch too much TV and wrestle with each other in great, giggling, tumbling chaos that spills into every room of the house and out in the yard. Today they will get on each other's nerves and holler and then hug. Today is summer. Tomorrow is not.

Tomorrow they will go and learn the geography of a new school. The odd chemistry of making new friends. The arithmetic of when to sit quietly, when to stand in line, when to run and play. The poetry of being on their own amid a crowd of friendly strangers. Tomorrow when they dress it will be for school. When they eat breakfast it will be with an eye toward getting them through the day. When they step out the door, it will be into the unknown. Tomorrow they are going back to school.

Tomorrow I am going back to school, too. I will have to learn the silences of my house. I will have to regain the trust that the things they've learned that are far more important than reading and writing will stick with them as they navigate their days. I will have to resign myself again to giving them away to others for what is the best part of their days. That I will only see them sleepy in the mornings, worn out in the afternoons, and recharging on the weekends for the next several months. I will have to remind myself that this is for a greater cause. I will have to remember how to go about my days without stepping on midday Legos, stopping to make lunch for three, listening to the non-stop narration of two little lives. I will re-learn how to paint by myself, write by myself, eat by myself, clean by myself, shop by myself, even go to the bathroom by myself without the inevitable urgent conversation through the door. I have a lot to learn.

I am glad to learn it, though. These small people given to my charge are ready, so ready, for this next step. Their little wings are wet with newness, their fawn legs are wobbly but strong. They are thrilled with learning, with stepping out, with independence, with challenge and with the chaos of all those new people to meet. They gobble with their senses and absorb new knowledge as if through their skin. Who would I be if I were to deny them that? If I kept them babies in my nest and squashed their first attempts at flight with my feathered, motherly ass? I talk big. I'm all bravery and centered and selfless in my speech. I'm terrified. I always am. I resolutely do not think of the worst possibilities and smile brightly and say "It will be so much fun!" And indeed, it will. For all of us. I crave a quiet cup of coffee, uninterrupted time to think. And yet I quake inside. Have I done enough to prepare them? Will they be all right?

Of course they will. It is they who have taught my wobbling fawn legs how to walk like a mother. It is they who have helped to unfurl the wings of my heart to soar higher than I ever thought imaginable. It is they who have prepared me for this. This incremental letting go. This watching two distinct people who carry a little bit of me in their DNA to walk around, to succeed, to go further bit by bit away. It is they who have taught me that I have no control, only love and fragments of my own experience to share with them. They will be fine. I will be fine. Tomorrow, school starts for all of us.

Today I will watch them play and enjoy this spare day.

She Has the Monopoly on Him

The Hooligan saved up some allowance money and was dead set on purchasing (his word, purchasing) the game of Monopoly. I have played a lot of Monopoly over the years. Sometimes with random and far-reaching consequences (another story for another time.) But I had no idea where the Hooligan had even heard of it. We tried to convince him in the store that it might be a little long and a little tricky for him. He's five.

"Um, yeah thanks, no. I will purchase Monopoly."

All-righty then. It seems to me, that's precisely the sort of mentality one needs to succeed at Monopoly. Needless to say, the last several days have concluded with a family Monopoly game. Like all good socialists, I lose every single time I play. The monkeys love this. They hand me one dollar bills out of pity as I mortgage my paltry holdings to try and pay the Luxury Tax.

The jBird is a real estate magnate, always. But she's generous. Can't pay your rent? She'll smile sweetly, give you a hug and then tell you to pay up. She will occasionally trade a property to boost your portfolio if she feels like it would be fairer if you could build some houses. But mostly she toes the line and calmly demands payment.

The Hooligan, on the other hand, is kind of like playing with a mad, drunken trust-fund baby. He howls if he has to go to jail: "I'm rich! I don't have to follow the rules!" He careens around the board buying properties at random and insisting on smelling the money whenever you pay him rent. He doesn't distribute his houses evenly, creating odd financial landmines all over the board. He always lands on "Free Parking", he always wins the beauty contest, his trust fund always matures, it's always his birthday and we always have to pay him $10 apiece. He cackles with glee, stores his money in an untidy heap in front of him and occasionally rolls in it. Can't pay your rent? He hollers "Give me all your money, sucker!" and then does what he calls "The Hooligan Shuffle" - a little song and dance routine that's half soft shoe, half end zone dance. The boy is insane. His stated goal in any game is the same: "I want to build all the hotels!"

Tonight's epic battle found the jBird and me almost immediately sporting barrels with suspenders. "I'm eating out of garbage cans!" she wailed. She is unaccustomed to the poor house as far as Monopoly goes. Meanwhile, the Hooligan was building "all the hotels" along two sides of the board. He hooted and hollered and danced and offered to let me be his servant when I couldn't pay his steep rent. But then it was jBird's turn. She landed on Park Place with a hotel and couldn't scrape together the cash. She made a big show of handing everything over and taking her thimble off the board. She came and giggled with me in the poor house and played assistant banker. She was fine.

The Hooligan, however, was not. His laughter got a little strained and he started wiping furiously at his eyes. His turn took him past "Go" and as he collected another $200, he started crying in earnest.

"I don't want this! I feel so bad!"
"Why do you feel bad? It's just how the game goes."
"Noooo! I feel terrible that jBird lost everything and it's no fun for me to be rich if she doesn't have anything!"
"It's OK, buddy. Look, Mama lost everything, too."
"But I feel so bad for jBird! She's my sister and she's eating out of garbage cans!"

We finally struck a deal with him to assuage the grief. jBird went and played on his "team" so that he could share his wealth with his sister and then he happily carried on completely stomping his father and me into the ground.

My Hooligan is a sweet kid, but he's a bit of a meathead. He never seems to be paying attention when I try to tell him things. He seems to shrug off just about everything. He's a hugger and a headbutter. He's my baby boy and I love him like only a mother could, but he doesn't have the more universal appeal that his sister does. He's not a networker or a people pleaser. He is, however, fiercely loyal to those he deems worthy. That list includes about five people and his sister tops it.

I have feared for years that he may be in the mob. I think these fears are well founded. When he was three he toddled up and asked me for a thousand dollars. When I asked him why he might need the money, he shrugged and said: "I need to go to North Chicago. Business." These fears have grown to include the mental image of visiting him in some strange mansion one day where live sharks swim in a moat around it and giraffes roam freely through the hallways. I have pictured him answering the door in a silk smoking jacket and nothing else, inviting us in for hot dogs and macaroni and cheese. My waking nightmare has swelled to include wild real estate deals made from jail and pants-less dance parties upon his release.

But I can rest a little easier knowing that if even half of my fears do realize, he'll always have his sister's back.


Author's note: I'm supposed to be writing about inspiration this month. I'm not sure anyone will find my Hooligan's antics inspiring, or even interesting, but when your days get long and you are sweating in places you didn't even know existed, you take inspiration where you can get it.

They Bob

They bob.
They wink and wave and smile, fall over and get back up again.
They sputter and shake like puppies, bewildered and offended at a sudden change of events.
But they bob.

They float back to the surface, reaching for the sun.
Their energy.
It's as if they draw it from the flailing of arms and legs.
Like solar powered perpetual motion machines.

They've drunk half the lake by now.
Falling, mouths wide open, laughing.
Bellies full of algae, sand, plankton, small fish?
But they bob.

There have been wild whoops.
The excitement of a few dollars' spending money, some ice cream, a penny on the ground.
There have been squeezed-so-hard-eyes-shut-in-the-effort hugs.
The gratitude of small gestures, the dawning realization of a world so much larger than themselves.
There have been sullen mutterings.
The little indignation of inconvenience required of them.
There have been torrents of tears.
The injuries of person, of heart, of feelings that come from being the smallest in the room, the ones with the least say in things.
There have been shouts, giggles, mad dancing, the maniacal laughter of using that last ounce of energy to just let go.
There have been tiny snores and snuffles in the night, small bodies seeking solace in something familiar, to lie like a spoon and be sheltered, safe in the soft warmth of their origins that they know like breathing, like food.
There have been explosions of every color: mean red, the indigo of loneliness, the violet hues of twilight come too soon, the verdant joy that rolls like hills and breathes life into its surroundings, the firecracker oranges of cackling mirth, the stormy blacks of despair, indecision, exhaustion, frustration, concession.

And still they bob.
These large and messy presences, bound so tightly into small, lean bodies.
These impossibly buoyant little souls of whom much is demanded.
They roll with the changing tides, slip under, stand up, sputter, smile and do it again.
They reach out, grasp each other's wrists and tug.
They tumble, collapsed into a heap of each other and come up fighting.
Fighting for air, for space, for solid footing, for a place in the sun.

Love seems an inadequate word for what happens inside me for them.
They grip my viscera with their grabbing little hands and eyelashes and that tilt of small chins, a wink, a sudden tear or smile. The curves in the backs of their little knees, their strong little shoulders, the moles on each of their cheeks, their breath, those dark and endless eyes.
They grip me and they pull me up, an aching lightness fills me up.
They take me with them.
And they bob.

Little Girl

Today is my dad's birthday. He would have been 66. I mark the day every year because it is almost impossible for me to forget dates. Unless they are happening in the future, and then it's almost impossible for me to remember them.

I resembled my dad physically when he was alive, and our personalities were very similar in a lot of important ways. The kind of ways that enabled us to enjoy an amiable relationship and not push each other's buttons too much. One time when I was getting in very bad trouble for some indiscretion in high school, he sent my mom out of the room and he said, "A father isn't supposed to have favorites, and I don't. But I think you and I understand each other, we think alike in some ways." I've always been his little girl.

My dad and me when I was a little girl.

I think about him every day. Before he died, I used to hear people say things like that and think "Oh, how morbid." It's because I didn't really understand. I didn't understand how you can miss someone, but not be sad all the time about it. For the first year after he died, I didn't understand how anyone could miss someone and not feel like they'd been punched in the stomach. For a year I saved up most of my tears all day and then cried them into the sink as I washed the dishes after dinner. I don't really do that any more.

I was thinking about his hands today. He had big, broad hands - full of scars. They were the hands of a much younger man. My sister said she would never marry someone who didn't have strong hands. She didn't either. The last time I saw him was in a hotel room in San Antonio, Texas. He was sick. He was waiting for open heart surgery. He was going to die. I think we both knew it, but we wouldn't say it. I sat with him on the bed and he held hands with my jBird. Her tiny white hand in his big brown one. Even sick, he was tanned from working in the yard. She sat and she petted the curly red hair on his arms. Sometimes he would slip and call her by my name. He sometimes had a hard time relating to me as an adult. I was always his little girl. It drove me nuts because I'm not a little girl.

"We never talked to you kids about dying," he said. "It's nothing to be afraid of."
"I know," I said.
"Papa, will you die?" jBird asked.
"Everybody dies, baby. It's part of life. It's why you live your life well today, so the dying is all right," he said. I'm not sure if he was talking to her or to me. I could only sit and listen. I had no words. I didn't want to lie or say something ridiculous and comforting.
"I want you to know I'm not afraid to die," he said. "I want you to know that whatever happens, it's all right. I should have talked to you more about this while you were a kid. Then you wouldn't be afraid."
"I'm not afraid," I said. "You did talk to us about this. It's just hard to know how to think about it until it happens. I'm OK. I want you to focus on getting better. You and Mom can move out West. You need to be near us."
"Yeah, Papa! You can come live with us!" jBird piped up.
He laughed. He always had a marvelous laugh. "I'd love that."

The Hooligan wasn't quite two yet and he was rolling around on the bed with my mom, showing how he could count backwards from 10. We watched them play for a while, because his big old pumpkin grin is somewhat irresistible. He looks so much like my dad. We didn't talk about this dying business any more. I sat and held his hand and I could almost believe that everything would be all right.

You know, everything is all right. He died. Three days after his surgery, just as the doctors said he was getting better. I'm not angry with them. They did their best. They were surprised and grief-stricken as well. But everything is all right. Sure, I miss him. I think of him every day. I think of him at milestones. I remember his birthday. I think of him today, his birthday. Tomorrow we go and get our new house inspected. It is our first house. We will be moving to someplace my dad has never seen. He would have been out of control with excitement. He would have driven me nuts. He would have had all sorts of advice about things I already know. He would have double checked that my husband knew what he was doing and it would have infuriated us. He would have had to have been restrained by my mother from coming immediately and painting every room and digging flower beds and fixing every loose screw in the place. He would have pestered my mom to look at the pictures of it over and over. I would have been irritable and flattered and I would have known that he was like a kid when he was excited about something and that he didn't really mean to intrude.

So I think of him especially today. I'm not very sad, though. I laugh at the silly things I remember about him. I laugh at how he would have been so excited to see this next step in my life. I wonder if where he is, he can. I don't wonder about it too much, though. Because he is where he is supposed to be and I am where I am supposed to be. And because he told me not to be afraid. Because I knew he was ready to go. Because he told me it's part of life. Because he told me to live the best I can now.  He told me everything would be all right. And I believed him. Because I've always been his little girl. And because I'm not a little girl.

Deli (En)Counters

Last week I decided that grocery shopping was entirely too proletariat or something and did other things. This week we have no food. And by no food, I mean a cupboard full of assorted impulse buys (This enchilada sauce comes in a pouch instead of a can! I must buy it! These granola bars are blue! Everyone will eat these!) and a refrigerator full of condiments and noodly green onions. So what's a girl to do, but go and hang out at the deli counter?

Seriously. I was at the deli counter at one of our local grocery stores, just waiting my turn. A man came up behind me and started waiting his turn, too. The Hooligan was reading the labels of everything in sight while hopping from foot to foot, stopping occasionally to tell me the rules of the intricate game he was playing with himself.

Deli Lady #1 came over and took my order and started to work on filling it.
Deli Lady #2 came over and surveyed the scene, looked at the man behind me and said: "Are you two together?"
Man behind me, without skipping a beat said "Not yet!"
Deli Lady #2 looked briefly confused while Deli Lady #1 and I exploded in the sort of laughter that comes from being taken completely by surprise by something witty.
Deli Lady #2 gets it and said "Oh, you're cute!"
Man behind me, again without skipping a beat, said: "I wish she'd think that!" while gesturing at me.

Folks, I am rarely speechless. I can almost always blurt something. I'm not promising that it would be particularly appropriate or witty, but rarely am I ever at a complete loss for words. But there, in the deli section of one of my favorite grocery stores, I stood as mute as the rotisserie chickens. To be in the face of such quick wit and just pure, delightful impishness just made my day.

Nobody ever hits on me anymore. I am not the girl who is easily flattered by unwanted attention. I have never been the girl to thrust my heaving bosoms at people and bat my eyelashes. I have almost always been the girl talking to herself in her head and assuming that no one can see her when she laughs at her own joke that she told herself or if she dances a little bit for no reason at all. I am the girl who has been raised to be respectful and kind to just about everyone regardless of gender, and flirting always seemed so insincere. I am also the girl who always assumed that if someone was staring in my direction, I either had a booger showing or they were staring at the person next to me. But still. Nobody ever hits on me anymore.

I'm not saying this delightful fellow was hitting on me, either. I suspect he was just amusing himself. But in so doing, he amused me and Deli Ladies Numbers One and Two. I suppose the feminist in me should get all uppity and how dare he degrade my status as a human person with breasts by making a lighthearted jest rooted in the fact that we were different genders. I suppose the gray-haired married woman in me should be offended. Did he not see my ring and the child who is clearly mine? I suppose the mother in me should be outraged, too. The nerve of some people to just joke about such things in front of children! How will I explain that to my child? Won't someone think of the children?!

I wasn't offended. I wasn't all simpering and flattered, either. I was terribly amused. It was just one of those wonderful, slightly off-color things that pass the time while you're waiting for your corn dog. It was a tiny connection with three other human beings where we could share surprised laughter during an otherwise boring and mundane activity. I love when people step out of the bounds of propriety and just say stuff. I grow so weary of treading around people's over-large toes and fearing that the joke might not be funny. I grow even wearier of my own out-sized toes.

There are real problems, real prejudices with malicious and callous implications. There are mean-spirited people who seek to tear down and belittle with their words, their humor. There was that one terrifying woman in the grocery store once who, when I politely moved aside and said "No, you go ahead," whisper-growled-hissed "Yes, Mother!" at me and almost made my son cry. There was me, irritable and needing to pee, who snapped at the woman behind me in line at Wendy's because she crowded my space. There are racists, sexists, size-ists, age-ists, bigots, loudmouths, lechers, losers, degraders, and douches everywhere. That sort of nonsense should not be taken lightly. But isn't that all the more reason to step back and enjoy a laugh with a stranger who took a risk and made a silly little joke in spite of the fact that I could have gone all Femi-Ninja on him? Hi-yah!

There are so many giant chips we could carry about on our shoulders. Sometimes we get so stooped and miserable and greasy because of them. It is terribly refreshing when Man About the Deli comes and offers some nice, cool Ranch dip to salve the saltiness and remind us that life is mostly delicious; we should enjoy it in all of its carcinogenic absurdity. Also, more importantly, that we should sometimes just get over ourselves and our over-thinking, over-sensitivity, over-compensation. To paraphrase everyone's favorite sexist villain, Sigmund Freud, sometimes a corn dog is just a corn dog.

Under Pressure

Thanks to the Hooligan, I listened to Under Pressure about thirty-six times in a row yesterday. Like all good hooligans, he is a huge fan of Queen. When we have to be in the car for a long time, he plays deejay for us. Well, actually it's more like he plays the repeat caller on an all-request radio show and I play deejay. We sing along and we dance at red lights and we repeat the same songs over and over because he likes to know when to snap in the right parts or to get all the lyrics down so that he can sing them at preschool or at church and astound people with both his singing ability and my lax parenting.

[Small digression: A while back, both of my monkeys memorized this version of Welcome To The Jungle and sang it whenever possible. The first time the Chief Lou heard their rendition, he almost went off the road from laughing so hard. It would seem, though, that some people do not find that as amusing as we do. In my defense, they have also memorized a great many hymns and sing those, too. That's a transcendent experience in and of itself - my little monkey angel choir of two - but it's not nearly as funny.]

Has there ever been a more sublime, fantastic, glitter-encrusted musical pairing than Freddy Mercury and David Bowie? I think not.  It's so sublime, in fact, that even Vanilla Ice couldn't ruin their song by co-opting its magnificent opening riff for his Ice Ice Baby.

[Another small digression: If you are one of the Ford Escort people, you cannot sit there with a straight face and tell me that there was not at least one summer that you loved that song.]

Regardless of how you feel about the music of either Freddy Mercury or David Bowie - not everyone can be a Hooligan -  you have to admit to a certain genius in both of their work. Perhaps more than the music itself, it is the genius that attracts me. Even if you don't like what you're hearing, from a creative perspective, you can sit back and think: Wow. Where did that come from? How did they think to create that? As these things happen when you are driving with a small Hooligan in a pouring rain, listening to Queen and contemplating creative genius, thoughts drift toward David Foster Wallace.

[tiny digression: you knew I was going there, didn't you?]

In his commencement address to Kenyon College's class of 2005, three years before he died, Wallace said this:

But if you've really learned how to think, how to pay attention, then you will know you have other options. It will be within your power to experience a crowded, loud, slow, consumer-hell-type situation as not only meaningful but sacred, on fire with the same force that lit the stars - compassion, love, the sub-surface unity of all things...[T]here are all different kinds of freedom, and the kind that is most precious you will not hear much talked about in the great outside world of winning and achieving and displaying. The really important kind of freedom involves attention, and awareness, and discipline, and effort, and being able truly to care about other people and to sacrifice for them, over and over, in myriad petty little unsexy ways, every day. That is real freedom. The alternative is unconsciousness, the default setting, the "rat race" - the constant gnawing sense of having had and lost some infinite thing.

I was reminded of this particular speech while Freddy Mercury and David Bowie sang this to me at least thirty-six times:

 'Cause love's such an old fashioned word. And love dares you to care for the people on the edge of the night. And love dares you to change our way of caring about ourselves.This is our last dance. This is our last chance. This is ourselves, under pressure.

These words, written by complicated men who lived complicated lives and died complicated deaths (except David Bowie who seems to have the same cosmic connections as Keith Richards) resonate. These were men of particular genius. Men who burned brightly and vividly and tapped into the deepest of the collective unconscious. They were men who were able to take that wild madness that inhabits us all and give it voice - through literature, through performance, through music, through words. It's a voice that frightens at times, confounds and disgusts, but also uplifts and understands. Ultimately, the life that they seemed to grasp in such elemental terms, got the better of them. But it would seem that at some point, they understood what lay at the bottom of it - that "same force that lit the stars", that "old fashioned word" - love. 


It is the currency of our time to be Under Pressure. Invisible forces from both without and within bear down on us from every direction. Whether it is controllable, or self-imposed, or situational, we all feel it. Sometimes the tendency is to lie down and allow ourselves to get smooshed, to give in to the irritability, the exhaustion, the "constant gnawing sense of having had and lost some infinite thing". But "this is our last dance." The beauty of our existence is the ability to choose, to take those dares that love offers, to accept that "real freedom" of remaining connected. To love. To love in whatever ways are present for us. To see our connection to the whole of humanity and realize our burdens, our pressures, are not ours alone. These two men, creative geniuses that they were, realized this - turned it into art, even - but ultimately failed to live it. Do we want to fall prey to the same fate? This is ourselves. Under pressure. What will we do with it?


The Hooligan mostly just likes a steady beat he can dance to, but maybe he was onto something when he made me listen to Under Pressure thrity-six times.


I wouldn't place Vanilla Ice in the pantheon of creative genius, but perhaps he was onto something when he told us over the top of Freddy and David's riff: "Stop. Collaborate. And listen."

As It Should Be

Photo credit: hotblack from morguefile.com

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I am going to the zoo today to visit my friend the jaguar. I will show her my new hat. I will eat popcorn with the Hooligan and tuck myself into a corner and write somewhere while he plays and plays and plays.

My writing will likely be disjointed, nonsensical in spots because I will have to look up and keep an eye on the Hooligan periodically. He will catch my eye, wink and give me a thumbs up and I will smile and think that there was never a more beautiful boy on this planet. And all of the mothers around me will be thinking similar thoughts about their own little hooligans and that is as it should be.

 As long as they think these similar thoughts quietly and don't interrupt my writing. But they almost never do. I pull out my notebook and my pen and I am given wide berth in the playgrounds of the city. That is as it should be.

It has been a noisy week, folks. So many different kinds of noise. I leave you with this reflection for the weekend.

"Keeping Quiet" by Pablo Neruda (translated by Alastair Reid)

Now we will count to twelve 
and we will all keep still.
For once on the face of the earth,
let's not speak in any language;
let's stop for one second,
and not move our arms so much.
It would be an exotic moment
without rush, without engines;
we would all be together
in a sudden strangeness.
Fisherman in the cold sea
would not harm whales
and the man gathering salt
would look at his hurt hands.
Those who prepare green wars,
wars with gas, wars with fire,
victories with no survivors,
would put on clean clothes
and walk about with their brothers
in the shade, doing nothing.
What I want should not be confused
with total inactivity.
Life is what it is about;
I want no truck with death.
If we were not so single-minded
about keeping our lives moving,
and for once could do nothing,
perhaps a huge silence
might interrupt this sadness
of never understanding ourselves
and of threatening ourselves with death.
Perhaps the earth can teach us
as when everything seems dead
and later proves to be alive.
Now I'll count up to twelve
and you keep quiet and I will go.

Tangled Small Talk: Existential Fish

Hoo boy. I'm exhausted. I have been unleashed on the unsuspecting general public today far more than I am generally comfortable with so of course, it's time for another installment of Tangled Small Talk.

This weekend is the world famous Seattle Edible Book Festival. I entered last year and resoundingly lost so of course, I will be entering again this year. My jBird is, too. It's a family nerd thing. She's had her idea for months and I had been wracking my brains to no avail when suddenly one day at the library, a book leaped out at me and made me giggle. So now I have my book. Shh. Top secret. More on that later. But all of this is why, when I was at the grocery store today, I decided to harass the fish monger.

Me: Um, hello. Can I buy a whole sole?
Fishmonger: [Blank, open-mouthed stare.]
Hooligan: I have a soul! Why do you want to buy a soul?!
Me: No, the fish.
Hooligan: Are we having fish for dinner?! I don't really like fish, you know. [begins playing hopscotch on the floor tiles and chanting] Step on a crack, break a sole's back!
Fishmonger: A whole sole? [gestures vaguely toward the giant stack of beautiful fillets of sole in the case.]
Me: Yes. A whole sole. Like the trout you have here, only a sole. [At this point, I can't stop saying "sole". I want to say it over and over without reason. I have spent the better part of the day talking to strangers in uncomfortably hot rooms and listening to Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds*. Which might have been a mistake before some impromptu sole shopping.]
Fishmonger: No. We don't sell whole soles.
Me: Oh. Well, do you know who might?
Fishmonger: [looking over his shoulder as if for the cameras or some other explanation for the woman and the hopscotching Hooligan who want to buy his soul] I don't know. I don't think you can get whole soles. I think they just come in fillets.
Me: [imagining these ghostly white fillets of sole flapping about like amoebas underwater. I'm shocked by this mental image and possibly sound a wee bit more confrontational than I intended] What do you mean? They come in fillets? Surely they're whole at some point. Like a fish. [I added a little flappy hand motion to illustrate my point.]

Monkfish. Now that's a big-ass fish. It would eat your sole.
photo courtesy fishingkites.co.nz

Fishmonger: [I kid you not, taking a wary step backward and clearly losing his composure.] Well, who buys a whole sole? That's a big-ass fish.
Me: [Because I can't seem to stop myself for love or money.] Like how big? Like Salmon big? Monkfish big? [I am also gesticulating wildly to show the variety of sizes among fish.]
Fishmonger: [Deep sigh.] I don't know. Big. We have the fillets. See the fillets? Hey Todd!
Todd: [Interrupts his shakedown of another store employee for her part of the store's March Madness pool.] Yeah, man?
Fishmonger: How big is a sole?
Todd and Another Store Employee stop and gape openly at me. I gape back. Hooligan continues hopscotching and talking to the lobsters in the tank.
Todd: Ummmm...
Fishmonger: No, like the fish. [He clearly understood the possibly existential undertones of his question.]
Hooligan: I don't want to eat fish for dinner. Can we get a lobster?
Todd: I don't think they're that big. Did you see the fillets?
Me: Well, that's what I thought. Isn't the fillet like its whole side? [In case anyone in the meat department didn't understand what a fillet was, I turn and demonstrate on my own side where the fillet would come from.]
Todd: Uh, yeah. I could probably special order a sole for you but it might take a while.
Me: Thanks, but I don't have a while. I need a sole by this weekend. [I realize exactly what this sounds like.] Come on, Hooligan, let's go find some vegetables I can knit with. Thank you for your help!

Alas, I will have to try again tomorrow and frighten another fishmonger by attempting to purchase his whole soul. All in the name of edible literary art. I'm sure this happens to everyone.


*There is heated debate in some circles about whether this song is about drugs or about the devil. Of course, as everyone knows all rock and roll songs are about drugs and the devil and sometimes sex. So it's really sort of a moot point. 

Feathering My Nest

There be geese on my horizon. I am wrestling with geese right now. They are flapping and honking and beaking  me. I love a good wrestle. One of us will emerge victorious and when the mud is washed off and the cuts and bruises are bandaged, I will display the fruit of those efforts here. Meanwhile, there are feathers everywhere. And there are things that come with Monday that preclude extended wrestling matches.

Here are some things from my weekend that I collected:

The feel and weight of bamboo and silk yarn in my fingers and across my hook. The drape and the sheen of the fabric they made together by the marvelously simple repetition. Hypnotic. Stitched into the whole experience is the knowledge that my mom will wear this sweater as she embarks on a brand new adventure, a life-long dream, and a courageous act of healing.

My jBird on my lap. So heavy, her head sticks up taller than mine, her boniness digs into me as she snuggles, her legs drape almost to the floor. But she sits and snuggles still. She turns the eyes toward me from an angle I've seen then since her birth. So dark and intense and thin veneers for everything under the surface. Her dimples and gums as she grins and closes her eyes, hugs and is happy.

The Chief Lou, who smiles and encourages and loves. I watched him flirt with the old ladies at church. I watched them twitter and giggle and clutch his arm in hilarity. He was telling them how much he liked my leather pants and my new haircut. He spreads ease to people in a way I find enviable, and I watched him, for a few short moments make a recent widow laugh uncontrollably and feel young and daring and fun again. My heart opens and opens and opens with love for him.

My Hooligan and his best friend sitting together, sharing books. She is a little younger, a little smaller and he knows it. Ever conscious, ever gentle, he shares and defers to her. They draw each other pictures and whisper secrets in each other's ears. They hold hands and pray. The Hooligan prays that "everyone who might get lost will find their way home" and I blink away tears. He tells her a secret and her laugh is explosive, surprisingly deep. In a fit of pure delight, he kisses her on the cheek and plays with her hair. He does this because this is how he expresses love to people that matter to him. An innocent, pure gesture of genuine affection for his friend.

A dear friend lolled about on the floor of my crowded living room with me. She saw my kitchen in disarray. She was close enough to the carpet to see the spots. It didn't matter and we talked of things that mattered. We talked like friends in comfort, silly, teasing, serious, wondering, blurting, madness. Three hours passed and I wondered why she thought it was time to go. Good friends are rare. Especially the kind that don't mind that your kitchen is a mess.

I picked apart a ball of fear in much the same way I do my beloved yarn. So tangled and claustrophobic at first, it's easier to just chuck it in the back of the closet and forget about it. It's not easier, though. I know this. I sat and unraveled, patiently, vigilantly. Strand by strand I sorted it out. I picked it apart and untangled the knots. I wound it into something useful and beautiful. The beauty of decision, of aligning and analyzing, of letting go and watching it whip too fast to see, round and round on my winder, turning it into something solid and manageable.

I will be back to speak of water fowl soon. In the meantime, read my inspiration most fowl: dbstevens at Kicking Corners has ruffled my mental feathers with this and this.

Short and Very, Very Sweet

This is the Hooligan a couple of summers ago. This little video clip is a happy place I go to when I need to remember that things are beautiful.

In case you can't understand his 3-year-old speech, he's saying:
"For the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, goodness, kindness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law."

This is for Marie at The (Not Always) Lazy W.

What Is

The sky was throwing a fit this morning. It was huffing around, throwing big fat tears every which way. This is March in this part of the country. It's a manic-depressive drama queen. One day bright and shiny and kind of warm, inviting everyone out of hibernation and into their yards; the next all storming or sulking or giving the cold shoulder. Sometimes all of that on the same day. It's a time of year for dressing in layers and then peeling them off, one by one, or adding them back on as the sky stalks around changing its mood. It is useless to get upset about it. There's no changing what is.

These are the thoughts that attend me like handmaidens this morning as the Hooligan and I get ready to go about our day. We safely deposited the jBird at school, where she will doubtless encounter many exciting things. She is always encountering exciting things. It is part of her nature to do that. The Hooligan and I have less exciting things in store for us today. But we are less exciting people, most of the time. Our excitement is the slow burn variety. The kind that quietly enjoys what there is to do. There are errands and necessities. There are things that must be done. It is useless to get upset about these things. There's no changing what is.

I spent a weekend disconnected from screens and sign-ins and electronically charged pastimes. In a quiet fit of rebellion I ignored this space and all that it entails. It was refreshing as rain. I spent time with friends that I can hug. I played and rested and read and reveled in the flesh and blood of my life. There comes a point where the ideas in my head grow stale, like so many leftovers in the fridge. I can almost always think of something to write. I cannot always think of something I need to write. There's a difference. Sometimes it's the equivalent of reheating some old soup I found and sniffed for freshness and joylessly consuming it because it's there and fuel is needed. Sometimes it's the discovery of odds and ends that come together in something new and exciting and delicious. But sometimes I pull the lids off of things and gag, leaving me no choice but to get out, out, out, away and seek new stores for my pantry shelves. It is useless to get upset about these things. There's no changing what is.

Outside, March is making up her mind. Will she storm and rage or will she coddle us with gentle breezes? Inside, I'm making up my lists. Lists of things to eat, things to do, things to dream, things to write. Will I be distracted and put off by the things that take doing to live this life? Or will I embrace them with purpose and simple appreciation? Sometimes I am like March - an alternately raging, storming, smiling drama queen. Sometimes I am like my jBird - a dancing flame, excited to lick up the world. Sometimes I am like my Hooligan - given to quiet obsessions and solitary delight, oblivious to the raging around me. Most of the time I am like me - a combustible combination of the three. It is useless to get upset about such things. There's no changing what is.

But there is preparation - the layers of protection we put on or remove as needed; there is perspective - the possibility of good in all things; and there is contemplation - the slow burn of intentional satisfaction, contentment, enjoyment. There's always acceptance of what is. 

Submission

That's a dirty word in American society, isn't it? I am independent. I am not submissive. I know my own mind and no one can tell me what to do. Right? Except for when we're not independent. Except for when we do what we're told. Except for when we frequently submit our wills to any number of things and people around us. It's how we stay on the road when we're driving, it's how we keep our jobs, it's how we stay in relationships, it's how we live.

If we didn't submit to the utilities services and pay our bills when they demand that we do, we would be without electricity or water or garbage removal (with the possible exception of Mark on his mountain.) If we didn't submit to our bosses and show up every day or when we're scheduled and do the job that is required of us, we would quickly be without a job. If we didn't occasionally submit to our loved ones, we would become bores and chores and probably find ourselves without said loved ones eventually.

I spent this afternoon watching eleven preschoolers, tired and cranky from a busy day at school and all hopped up on sugar, whine and grab and run and ignore their parents. There are any number of torturous hells I would have preferred to endure. There are any number of really fun things I could have been doing. I could have been taking a nap. But, I submitted. Because a little boy with brown eyes painstakingly made thirteen rocket ships out of Lifesavers and Hershey kisses and paper to give to these little miscreants and his teachers. Because my needs are important, but sometimes it is necessary to set them aside to watch little grubby hands carefully deliver love notes into decorated paper bags. So I find the joy in watching him navigate the bedlam that is a preschool party. I swallow the urge to tell someone else's kid to blow their nose. I, once again, sit on my hands so they do not reach out and pet a mom's fur coat. I smile and make appalling small talk and wipe the frosting out of my hair. I submit to this out of love, out of necessity, and in the service of something greater than my own comfort.

We all submit in one way or another. It is another kind of submission that occupies my thoughts tonight, though. It's the same word for a different kind of act, but it carries some of the same ideas. I have a submission. The big envelope with the scary words: "Attn: Editor" in the address. I have dutifully counted my words, checked, double checked, quintuple checked all of the necessary information I must include. I have edited and cut and pasted and read, re-read, re-re-read and edited again. There are any number of ways to torture myself. There are any number of really fun things I could be doing. I could certainly be taking a nap. But now I submit. Because the time for doing other things has passed. Because I have run out of excuses. There are any number of things I could be doing. But instead, I submit. And in this, like in all the other ways I submit in my life, I submit this out of love, out of necessity and in the service of something greater than my own comfort.

And now I will take a nap.

Low Budget Performance Art

The Hooligan, my quiet and contemplative child, has been talking pretty much non-stop since about 11:35 this morning. The jBird, my chatty one, has been curled up reading a book quietly since about the same time.
It's like some sort of Dada performance art piece: I enjoy it, I'm confused by it, and it's giving me a bit of a headache. My maternal instinct fears this inversion of personalities precedes a physical illness, but in the meantime...

The Hooligan, I do believe, has used up all of the words in the house for the day.

Wishing you all peace and love and creative juices and a restful weekend.

I Know All That

The Hooligan got into it a bit with a boy at his preschool last week. The Hooligan is, in fact, a hooligan. But he is a sweet and tender hooligan and he doesn't really fight much. Most of his shenanigans are of the self-directed, quietly making a gigantic mess or very bad decision variety. He's not an aggressive child, so I was a little surprised to hear he'd had a little tussle at school.

This is how the Hooligan told me about it:
"Hi Mom. Charley and I developed a friendship today."
"Oh really? How did that come about?"
"Well, first we argued and then we fought and then we hugged each other and made a nice friendship."

So we talked about it for a while and he seemed OK with the outcome. He had no idea what started it or why they were arguing, they just suddenly were. Then he said:
"You know, I am friends with Charley now, but he's really annoying."
"How so?"
"Well, he picks on my lunch and he sticks his tongue out at me all the time and he tells me that he can run faster than I can."
"So, what do you do about that?"
"Well, sometimes I just ask him to go away. Sometimes he doesn't listen when I ask him, so I sit there and pretend that I am being very quiet and still, but inside my head I am shouting so loud. Do you know what I mean?"

I know so well what he means that I cry. My Hooligan is my least expressive child. He'll tell you magnificent stories about spaceships and aliens and trains and ninjas that go on and on, but he doesn't often let on about what he's feeling. He's a lot like me that way.

Today was one of those days where I pretended to be very quiet and still, but inside my head... so much shouting. Some of it mine, some of it other people's, some of it justified, most of it not, all of it overwhelming.

So, I'm going to follow the advice I gave my Hooligan:

Ask it nicely to stop.
Play something different.
If that doesn't work, get help from an adult you trust.
Remember you can always tell someone about it before it gets too much.
Don't ever use your hands or feet to express your anger.

My Hooligan looked at me with his little 5-year-old eye-roll: " I know that, Mom. I know all that already. I'm just saying that sometimes it's hard to do what you should do."

I know, baby, I know.

Reflection

The Hooligan and I spent the day at the Seattle Art Museum, completely immersed in the staggering creativity of others. A 5-year-old is the best of art museum companions. They come with no preconceived notions, no conceit. They just see what they see and talk openly and frankly about it.

Jasper Johns' "Thermometer". It's a
painting AND a thermometer.

That man is so sad.
The title says 'Market', Mama. That looks like a crazy busy street stuffed with people. Where is the food?
Those lines make me jittery and jiggly.
Is this a Christmas painting? They used a lot of red and green.
Look! It's a painting and a thermometer! But the hot and the cold are all mixed up together.
When do we ride the escalators?
That mouse looks like a dream.

It's a cold and cleansing rain outside today, and inside cleansing came through being so small in the face of such a magnitude of art. And cleansing came through the world view of my small companion. As we read the placards and artist bios together, he didn't know the words that appeared in so many of them: refugee, famine, holocaust, depression, extinction, racism. It wasn't just that he couldn't read the words, he had no idea what they meant. All he saw before him was color, movement, materials, shapes, structure - the products of people who took their pain, their circumstance and turned it into art. Art that spans the world, that crosses time, culture, language to reach those small eyes and make a memory that will be jumbled with rain and escalators and the cheeseburger he had for lunch. In his honesty, his immediacy, he reminded me that regardless of its origins, there is beauty to be found.

I think of myself, pounding away at my laptop day after day. Isn't that what I'm after? Isn't that what we're all after? To take our world and turn it into a piece of ourselves that will somehow touch a piece of someone else? I make no pretense of falling in among the greats. I have no delusions of grandeur in that regard. There are days that this all seems such an exercise in vanity. But then I watch my small son absorb a work of art like a letter across time and interpret it into his psyche, I read kind comments "you put into words what I have been thinking", I read the words of dozens of faceless others and think "me too!". I wouldn't know what to do with any degree of fame, I'd spend my fortune on groceries. But the connection, the thread through words that sews us together and reflects ourselves back to us in a way we never thought to put it - there's such a wealth in that it transcends any material explanation.

I came across these words a while back. Three separate quotes, from three distinct voices in different contexts, different times, all saying the same things. And reflecting my thoughts far better than I ever could.

All that he had now was an idea - and it was like a belief in magic - that one day something would happen, an illumination would come to him, and he would be taken by a set of events to the place he should go. What he had to do was to hold himself in readiness, to recognize the moment.
- from Half a Life by V.S. Naipaul


I waited, more than anything else, waited for something momentous to happen. Keeping a firm grip on reality was of immense importance. My vision had to be clear so that when 'it' happened I would know. The momentous event would clear away the trivia and throw my life into proper perspective. As soon as it happened I would understand what was going on, and until then it was useless to try.
- from Stop Time by Frank Conroy


Of the way you did feel? Well, it was very simple. You said you had had from your earliest time, as the deepest thing within you, the sense of being kept for something rare and strange, possibly prodigious and terrible, that was sooner or later to happen to you.
- from The Beast in the Jungle by Henry James