Let's Make Some Magic

So then I said to her, oh no you di'int and she was all whatever sucka, I di'id. And then I was all well you just don't even know...

This broadcast has been interrupted to bring you this special report:

It has come to my attention that there's a very real little girl that needs our help. Tara from Faith In Ambiguity and her husband Mike are raising money for a sick little girl and her family in their community who really, really need it. Read more details from Tara here.

Here's the thing. There are the bell ringers, there are the folks who send you the free address labels with the puppies and kittens and ask for a donation, around here there are people from every cause imaginable who come door to door, or who stop you on street corners. Everywhere, it seems, there are people or causes that want our time and our money. Most of them are valid. (Except I never did get my subscription to Garden & Gun that I ordered from that man who came to my door. I hope that he used my $40 well. I didn't really need the magazine, I just wanted to help out. Oh no you di'int! Girl, you a sucker! Hush. That program has been interrupted.) We all have our own stuff going on, I understand that. But this is something so simple, so tangible, so immediate and necessary. Take a minute and read Lidija's story and you decide.

I'm going to go all Sally Struthers on yo' ass now. (I apologize for that. I don't know where that keeps coming from.)
My chips and queso, if I get them on sale (and I always do) cost me about $5 and last me a few days. Depends on how hard I'm hitting them. So, that's my fun money. $5 every few days for my little gastronomic indulgence that I neither need, nor is it good for me. Here's the kicker, though: I can actually eat chips and queso. Lidija can't. She can't eat anything except one specialized formula that (of course) isn't covered by insurance. We can joke about overeating on the holidays and chocolate and all the ha ha funny funny stuff that gets trotted around the barnyard every holiday season or we can seriously think about a six year old who can't eat cookies. Send her your wine money, send her your coffee money, send her the change you found in your car floor and your cushions, just do something to help this family.

If you can't spare a dime (I know how this can be) then use your influence, spread the word. Make social media worth something more than mean jokes and hedgehog pictures. You probably know generous people who would jump at the chance. I don't know them, Tara doesn't know them, Lidija doesn't know them. You know them. Let's make some magic.

Act Now!

It's Not About the Wreath

OK, maybe it's a little about the wreath. It's glorious.

We cobbled this together last week with some things we found around the house. It hangs in my kitchen and reminds me of all that's fabulous.

It's a little bizarre, I suppose, that we had all of this stuff just lying around the house.

We walk in glitter, we dwell with painted plumes. 
The jingling of shiny bells grace our footsteps 
and disposable cookware is always handy. 

You know it made me think. You were expecting this. You know it's not about the wreath. Although it is a glorious wreath and one, I believe, should be left up year round. We shall see about that.

In the meantime, it's not about the wreath.

We do not, in fact, leave trails of glitter like fairy dust behind us when we walk. We leave mud and leaves and sometimes mysteriously bad smells behind us around here. We also leave doll clothes and Legos and socks and crumbs and yarn and tiny bits of paper. I sat on my couch the other day, knitting. I wondered rather suddenly Why does it smell like feet in here? I wondered this because, lest you gag and never visit me, it doesn't always smell like feet in here. Of course I did what any reasonable person would do and breathed through my mouth and went back to my knitting. Later I was vacuuming the couch (it happens) and removed the cushion to find no less than six pairs of dirty, smelly little monkey socks stuffed between the cushions. There was some blustering, perhaps some roaring This is disgusting! There was some scrambling and some apologizing and some whisking away of dirty socks - probably to be stuffed behind beds.

But it's not about the socks, either. Not really. (Although I can tell you, that afternoon it was all about the socks.) It's about this: life is messy and it sometimes stinks. Really, really stinks. It's so easy to walk around the chaos and see only the work to be done, only the clutter and disaster and to smell what is rancid. Sometimes you have to bellow about it and get stuff straightened up to your liking. Sometimes you have to stop and make a wreath from a disposable pie tin.

All that beautiful glittery fantastic stuff was already in our house. It was there all along. It wasn't all put together nicely, it wasn't even in the same rooms. Some of it was hidden in cupboards, some of it we pulled off of other things. Some of it we forgot we had. If I had grabbed what was immediately at hand, our wreath would have been made of smelly socks and half-eaten sandwiches, coffee grounds and leaves tracked in on shoes.

We had to look for what was beautiful. We had to make the effort. We had to see new uses for old things, we had to alter some of the things we had, we had to think hard about where we might find things to add to our creation. It was a collaborative effort, with each adding their own ideas, bringing their own bits of treasure to share.

The act of creation.
The act of collaboration.
The act of finding what is beautiful.
The act of bringing all that together in a greater whole.
These are sacred acts. They are acts that move mountains.

They are also the acts which decorate my kitchen on a budget.

But it's not about the wreath, is it?

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 6

A long time ago, while I was between lives, I worked at a large book retailer. For $6.00 an hour I could stand for eight hours and point breathless housewives to the giant shelf of Oprah Book Club books that they had just walked past in order to demand that they hadn't seen it anywhere. I also got to clean the restrooms.

One day, someone did something unspeakable to one of the restrooms and we were all back in the break room fighting about who would have to clean it up. A very cute boy with whom I had never had a shift before, finally sighed and said: "You all are useless. I'll just do it," and walked off with rubber gloves and a mop. I sat and watched him leave and wondered at this boy who would calmly step up to take responsibility for a vile and disgusting task that no one else would touch. I wondered at this boy as I watched him in the days to come, flirt with the middle-aged ladies who ran the office and make them blush. I watched him draw customers in conspiratorially to find the title of a book. I watched him dress up as Waldo from the Where's Waldo book series and entertain a room full of screaming children. I just watched for a while, though, remaining mute and trying to melt into the background.

I watched him save me a seat on a bench for my lunch break, with a cup of hot coffee waiting for me. I watched him dance to Birdhouse In Your Soul in a deserted parking lot in the middle of the night and tell me I was the only bee in his bonnet. I watched him ask my dad important philosophical questions and listen carefully to the answers. I watched him make my mom laugh. I watched him hand over money to my sister so she would quit the job where her boss sexually harassed her. I watched him while he drove us in midnight circles, listening to music and talking about all the world. I watched him introduce me to his friends and family. I watched him leave work to go and sit with his mom at the hospital when she had an emergency hysterectomy. I watched him take his little sister to dance lessons and pick her up again, turning the music up loud and laughing at her junior high silliness.

And then one day I watched him through a plate glass window after the store had closed, as he got down on one knee in the cold and showed me a picture of a ring.

I have watched this boy over the last fourteen and a half years grow into a man - become a husband, a father, a lawyer, a leader. I have watched him get up every day and shoulder responsibilities that the people around him have refused to do. I have watched him walk boldly into unspeakable messes and try to clean them up because it had to be done and no one else was willing. I have watched him work as many hours as were necessary to support us. I have watched him study long into the night for finals with a newborn baby on his shoulder. I have watched him take care, take action, take part, take responsibility. I have watched him bestow fatherly gentleness and affection that he has never received. I have watched him smile just for me. I have watched him dance, I have watched him cry, I have watched him survive, I have watched him live, I have watched him give and give and give.

I sat in a crowded room last night and watched him tell a group of people that his marriage is a tiny piece of the divine. I have watched this man over so many years and I hope for many more. I renew my vows every morning with such humbling gratitude that this man has let me watch him all these years and that he shares his magic with me. 

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.

Far To Go

Today is Wednesday. It is a rainy day in October, but above all, it is my birthday.
I am thirty-eight today.
I have a lot to do today; a lot of Wednesday things to do. This is how I love to spend my birthday. I love to walk around with the private knowledge that it is the anniversary of my birth and do things that I would do on any other day.

I putter and bake myself a birthday cake. My house smells like a bakery - warm and sweet with a side of coffee. I will share this cake this evening with two friends who also share my birthday. Happiness in triplicate, with cake. I putter and I clean and I take stock. I am here and I am healthy. I am happy and I am content. Those are two different things, and when they collide, there is magic.

There has always been magic. I have not always seen it so clearly. I see it today and that is enough. I saw it yesterday and some more yesterdays that I have forgotten to count. I hope I will still see it tomorrow, if there is a tomorrow for me. Life is long and it is short and it passes so slowly some days and then years slip away. I cannot get a grip on the slipperiness of time; so I stand here now, in the rain on my day and call it mine. I will taste it and smell it and wonder about it and I will be thankful for it. I will blow out the candles this evening and my only wish, as it has been for years, is that I live right now and find love in it.

The autumn wind chills and whips the leaves into a wet frenzy around me. I think of the frenzies of my life that come and go and remind myself to relinquish the illusion of control. I cannot any more stem the tides of good and bad that come in my life than hold the wind in my hands. I am free now to examine the purplish green leaves as they flutter past. I am free now to appreciate the warmth of my kitchen after the soaking, bone-chilling outside. I am free now to smell the wood smoke in the air and think of apples. I am not a victim of circumstance, but an active and acquiescent participant. I have lived enough of this life to know that things do change, that I can change if I want to, but I don't always need to. I look back down those thirty-eight years from now and see the pieces that have built this strange and wonderful life and I love them all.

Today is Wednesday, but I was born on a Thursday. Thursday's child has far to go. That's what the old rhyme tells me. I remember it every year and hold it close like the numbers 10 and 24, and the new number, 38. It reminds me how far I've come. It reminds me I've always got more to go. Today as I stand here with the rain and the warm cake and the day of mundane things to do in an extraordinary world, I remember to keep walking, one step and then another, taking the time to look around, switching directions when I need to. Nothing is assured, never perfect or painless. I don't want these things. I am Thursday's child and I'm busy wandering. I have far to go.

Embrace the Hotness

I started this whole funny post about femininity based in part on the really smart responses I received to my invitation to Stick Your Arm in My Washing Machine. I had an idea for a how-to manual entitled "How To Be Feminine Without Being A Douche" - the title was inspired by Tara's comment: "I can't think the word 'femininity' without ending up in a Summer's Eve commercial." It wasn't very funny and the discussion quickly devolved into odd specifics and personal preferences. The only thing very interesting about it was the title.

I have  my own long-winded definitions of femininity. I could write a dissertation with all of the research I've done over the years. But really, what it all boils down to is this:

My new cowboy boots. A birthday present to myself.
Embrace the hotness.

Yup. Take a long look. Not convinced? Perhaps you need another view.

Hey Mom! What did you do today?
I stood on a chair and took a picture of my new boots, of course.

Let us discuss my boots, shall we? They speak for themselves, really. They say I am tough and I am beautiful. I am sexy and a little bit threatening. I am practical and I go with everything - dresses and jeans and everything in between. They say I am bold and I am interesting. They say I got a wicked deal on the most awesome boots ever and I am going to wear them everywhere. They also say Be careful with me because I can just as easily kick you in the shins and step on your nuts as I can strut around being awesome and beautiful. And then there are the awesome socks, because everyone knows it's what's inside that counts. My socks are a mismatched, zig-zaggedy mess of imperfections and dirty spots and fun. My socks are crazy and I keep them close to me and they make me smile. Your socks look different, but that's all right too. That about sums it up, no?

Here's the deal: it's about embracing the hotness. We are all male and female, yin and yang, anima and animus, dark and light, good and evil, practical and stone cold crazy, ketchup and mustard. It's all in there inside those socks. We slide up and down the keys on this scale as circumstance dictates. Embracing the hotness is about owning it all. It's about honesty and authenticity. It's about rejecting the definitions that don't apply to you. It's about taking responsibility for who you are. It's about not being all drippy and vinegary.

Mostly, it's about my new boots. 

Embrace the hotness. The most confident girl in the room is the sexiest girl in the room.

In Need of a Clipboard

It would seem of vital importance today that I procure a clipboard.

This talisman of industry is exactly what would make my life complete. It speaks solidly of one who is in charge. Observe me writing things while standing up; perhaps even while walking.  Look at my important papers. They are too manifold for mere paperclips.

Every job I have ever had required a clipboard in some way. Except that one temp job at the bank. Clearly, it was Unimportant. My lack of clipboard would explain why I showed up kind of late in last night's clothes and stared out the window while writing angry poetry and dreadful prose. Clipboard-less, I could never answer the questions on the phones I picked up, only put them on hold for the people who had clipboards and then spill coffee in my keyboard. But all the others, those were clipboard-worthy jobs: there were cakes to decorate, equipment lists to check, diesel engine parts to bar code and package, attendance to take, progress notes to write, therapy group summaries to complete. Oh, there was that other job, too. The one where I worked for the postal service. There were no clipboards for me there. Only late-night hallucinations and buzzing fluorescent migraines. I had to ask the clipboard if I could go to the bathroom. But I digress.

I need a clipboard.

It will collect all of these fluttering bits of me and hold them to something solid. I can take inventory right now while I charge about, clicking the top of my pen. I can store the importance of things in a tidy stack in plain sight and tick off all the right boxes to draw a picture of subtle accomplishment.

When questioned I can look back through the notes, peeling back the layers to what's gone before and peer over the tops of my glasses at the charts and notes and squiggles and dots I've labeled "Meaningful" and find the answers there.

I, with my clipboard, will have the authority to check schedules, discern production and give myself permission. To tell myself when I need to show up and when I can get off.

I will have, at my fingertips, all that is Important. I will have a comprehensive list of all the equipment I need to function in this world. I will never forget my patience again. I will remember to pack that emergency box with safety pins and duct tape and gratitude in case I hit a snag.

It will give me preview of things to come: reminders of times to celebrate and to coat the world in sweetness, icing flowers and curly fancy writing. It will keep me looking forward, seeing the work ahead.

It will have simple directions for packaging the things that are hard, impossible and strange, greasy and for someone else. It will house the codes for sending those things away from me and to where they need to go.

I could record while I walk, the notes of small progressions. I opened my eyes and acknowledged the presence of another human being in the room. I attended Anger Management Group and participated in the discussion. I did not eat cigarette butts and throw up my lunch. I've borrowed these from clients, but they seem to be important progress to make for anyone, really. I could record these and see where I was static, where I grew, where I failed. I could code them all on a Leichert Scale and find a way to turn behavior into math. A simple equation wherein I add up the things that I do and subtract the things that I don't and have a definitive answer for my worth.

I think I need a clipboard. Then I would finally feel in charge of all this. I would show up early and smartly dressed. I would direct the people in my charge where to go with certainty and fortitude. I would feel prepared. I would hold the answers in my hands.

Tangled Fables: The House that Freud Built

Once upon a time there were three roommates. They lived in a damp and cave-like place that was filled with odd bits of furniture and mythical beasts. It was often cramped and chaotic, with dust on the shelves, floors that frequently moved like the deck of a ship at sea and the windows and doors had a habit of relocating unexpectedly. There were brilliant spots of sunlight, though and some pleasant comfy chairs, so they made an uneasy peace with their surroundings.

Ichabod Droolie was immature and whimsical. He wandered about the house, belching and scratching and telling scatological jokes. He shrieked and cackled at his own humor and casually upended trash bins and jewelry boxes and then rolled around in the debris. He was a tiresome roommate, but amusing. He had an odd sweetness about him that made him tolerable at times and was so blessedly naive, that the other two roommates liked to keep him around, in spite of the mess and the appalling behavior.

Egotha was generally easy going, or so she liked to think. She was the middle of this trio and could see things from both sides. She was a little bit messy, herself, but mostly meant well. She just wanted to mind her own business and get along. She liked to laugh, but sometimes would stop short and wonder if it was all right. She craved the sunny spots and soft, comfy chairs, but frequently acquiesced when her other, more vociferous roommates demanded them. She spent a lot of time trying to facilitate disagreements between Ichabod Droolie and her other roommate, who was, oddly enough, also called Egotha.

The other Egotha was ancient, almost primordial, a shriveled old prune and she wasn't much fun. She preferred not to be called Egotha Senior because she was sensitive about such things. "Call me Super Egotha," she insisted. Mostly because she deeply believed in her superiority to these other two slobs with whom she lived. Super Egotha was in a permanent state of aghast. She was fussy and fastidious, overly critical and strict; and although she would never admit it, her roommates thought she was tedious. She spent a lot of time and energy bossing the other two about, demanding they clean up their messes and stop laughing so much. She was a chore, but the other two tolerated her because she did help keep things tidier and they believed that in spite of her methods, she had their best interests at heart.

These three lived in a sort of detente, occupying the same space and trying not to get in each other's ways too much. Every now and then there were golden moments in which they three would catch themselves happily enjoying tea together and laughing like friends. But almost as soon as those moments came, the recognition of them would send them scurrying self-consciously behind their napkins. Except for Ichabod Droolie. He would rip a great billowing fart and laugh until the tears ran down his face, laughing all the harder as the other two gagged and choked on his fumes.

Ichabod's only employment was amusing himself. He played video games, ate cookies and left the crumbs around and even though he was really quite intelligent, he frittered away hours doing things like contemplating light switches and smelling his own armpits. Super Egotha had aspirations so wild they immobilized her. She wanted to save the world, buy them all a Coke and teach them to hold hands and sing. Because she could only fail at the impossible tasks she set for herself, she instead contented herself with endlessly wiping counters, folding clothes and vacuuming the ceiling. All the while, tut-tutting and sighing the deeply passive-aggressive sighs of one who felt so put-upon by her own constructions.

Egotha decided that somebody needed to pay the rent, so she set about to use her skills in a way that both mattered and amused her. She decided she would tell stories about the things that fascinated her and try to see if they fascinated other people. She was unsure about this decision but it had clung to her for so long that she wasn't sure it was wise to ignore it any more. So she set about gathering her tools and making a space in their cramped abode to do this very thing.

She sat down one day in a patch of sunlight and rolled a fresh sheet of paper into her typewriter and started to type. The words danced and splattered onto the page and she was feeling quite satisfied with the clackety ring of the keys and the words. Ichabod wandered in and looked over her shoulder, spilling his beer into her hair as he did so. "Boobies!" he bellowed, "You need to add more boobies! Funny!" Egotha giggled a bit, but shooed him away as he danced and hollered swear words and twisted her train of thought into a bungled heap. Egotha shook her now-sticky hair and began to focus once again. "I will think about funny," she assured Ichabod, "but let me think. Stop shouting in my ear." But alas, as she set to work again, all she could do was hear his ringing shout: "Boobies!" and giggle to herself.

Drawn by the distraction, Super Egotha stormed into the room and clobbered Ichabod with a feather duster, sending him whimpering to his room. She turned her attention to Egotha and started to read over her shoulder. Super Egotha's sighs got louder and louder and were combined with foot tapping and lip smacking until it was deafening. "You're wasting your time," she said. "Just who do you think you are? I just don't see the value in it. Isn't there something more useful you could be doing?" She kept up her nattering until Egotha, deflated and distracted couldn't bear it any more. "This is what I want to do! It isn't entirely useless! I have to at least try!" she shouted. Super Egotha rolled her eyes and huffed around. "Who cares what you want? Why do you inflict yourself on others so?" and then she wandered off to scrub the floor, muttering to herself as she went about starving children and self-indulgence and hand baskets and hell.

Near tears and fed up, Egotha packed away the typewriter for the day and went out for a walk. It was so claustrophobic sometimes, living with these roommates. But she couldn't leave them, not completely. She could only continue to make her peace and try to snatch some moments alone when they were otherwise occupied. Her only hope was to sometimes get in a belching contest with Ichabod and and laugh until it hurt; sometimes help with the cooking and cleaning and the saving of the world so Super Egotha would stop breathing down her neck; and sometimes demand their silence so that she could sit and write their story.

Half-Mast

We were driving somewhere a few weeks ago and I noticed all the flags were at half-mast. I asked the Chief Lou about it because he works for the U.S. government, you see, and he should know about such things. They probably sent it to him in a memo.

"I don't know," he said. [This is where your tax dollars go, my American friends. They help feed my family and they are not wasted on memos explaining half-masted flags.]

I may be a socialist, but I know that when the flags are flown at half-mast, someone of national importance has died. I know it wasn't a former president, because the Chief Lou gets the day off to attend their funerals. So I wrack my brains trying to remember who has died recently.

"It is because of Phyllis Diller?" I ask.

"Um, yes. It's because of Phyllis Diller," says the Chief Lou, "Pretty much everything is because of Phyllis Diller." [I think he maybe is being sarcastic, but you never know with him. He's got an awesome deadpan and he's also a bit of a closet conspiracy theorist.]

"Oh wait! It's because of the astronaut guy!" I suddenly remember. "That makes more sense."

"The 'astronaut guy'?! Would that 'astronaut guy' be Neil Armstrong? The first man to walk on the moon?" [Obviously, his conspiracy theories do not include the one that posits the moon landing was a complete cock-up. He's not a complete nut-bag.]

I try to explain that I said "astronaut guy" because whenever I go to say Neil Armstrong's name, I am gripped by this rapid succession of doubts: Is it Neil Armstrong? Not Lance Armstrong? No. That's the bike guy. Neil Diamond? No? Why not? I even accentuated my argument with my best Neil Diamond impersonation, singing this song. I think it's perfectly understandable how all that could get garbled up in my melon, what with the patriotism and stuff.

I noticed today that the flags are at half-mast again. This time even I know why. I don't have much to say about it except this:

If we are going to remember, let's remember how for a few fleeting days we forgot that we were Democrats and Republicans, we forgot that we were men or women, gay or straight, light or dark, rich or poor, Neil Armstrong or Neil Diamond, and we stopped and mourned together. We watched horrified and dumbstruck, heartbroken and scared. For a few hours we forgot our differences and even if we sustained no personal loss, we stepped into the shoes of those who did. We understood what it was like to be a friend, a parent, a spouse, a lover, an employee, a boss, a child, a person and the terror of not knowing if your loved ones are all right. We held hands and we cried with strangers; we hugged our families and reached out to our neighbors. For a few short days, we were united. Will it take another national tragedy for us to do that again? Don't we still want to know that our loved ones are all right? Don't we still understand that other people have loved ones that need to be all right, too?

I Dreamed of This

I am puttering. Putting things to rights after a weekend of ignoring most of everything except the people who live here. I am surrounded by piles of paper demanding attention, piles of clothes that must get clean, piles of dishes that need to be scrubbed and then refilled, piles of words that must be rearranged and sorted out and written again. I am tempted to groan. I am tempted to complain. Instead, I am drinking my coffee and thinking about my younger self. The one with larger jeans and smaller frame and longer, darker hair. The one who sat and looked half-starved at families in public places and snorted with derision to hide the aching want. The one who spoke of selling out and giving in and letting oneself go.

This younger me could not let herself go then. She was tightly wound and afraid the broken parts would fall out on the floor. An upturned purse with tampons, gum wrappers, empty pens and cigarette lighters splashed around for all to see or avert their eyes and gingerly step around. This younger me would never have given in to the soft places inside, the ones that lie curled and fetal around another sleeping body that is small and dependent and cries out in her sleep. This younger me mocked the selling out because she didn't understand that she had anything of value to trade for her dreams.

Today I give that younger me a hug. I reach back through time and space and tell her not to worry. It will all work out. I tell her that things will be hard and then lovely and then hard again and lovely still. I tell her that is just what it is like to live. I tell her that things will not go as she has planned, but they will be better than she ever dared imagine. I tell her to relax and enjoy the steps ahead.

She bristles and doesn't listen. She's not supposed to. She was supposed to ignore the advice of wiser souls and come smashing, whirling, prickly and hard through her path to get to here. She was supposed to test the very fiber of her body, her faith, her mind, her soul. She was supposed to dash herself against hard places to break open and see the soft light that was hiding inside. She was supposed to do that. She was supposed to etch these canyons and these valleys of scars so they would heal and overflow with the rushing joy that fills them now. She can't have known that the inundation would come and bring verdant life to the desolate places, that her harvest would be so bountiful that she had plenty to share with friends and strangers alike. But she'd secretly hoped.

This younger me looks up from that well of time. She winks and hunches down further around herself. To protect from the cold that seems to permeate the skin tightly wrapped around bones, to protect from the coming days of confusion and making one's way, to protect from herself and from the wishes she dares not make.

She glances at the piles of paper, clothes, dishes, and words.

She whispers quietly with breath of smoke and sadness:
Enjoy it for me then. This is the life you have dreamed of.

Digging Again: Bamboo and An Essay

The Chief Lou and I decided to put the "labor" back into Labor Day weekend and finish digging up the grove of bamboo that is taking over our yard. This has been a most counter-intuitive activity. I like plants. I like pretty plants. Bamboo is pretty. It sways and it is delicate and strong and it's a survivor. It is strange to feel an overwhelming need to eradicate a plant, but it threatens the structure of our house, so it must go.

I am in the final polishing, editing, sweating phase of writing an essay for submission. The topic of the essay is "Regret". The instructions were to explore a thing I did that I regret or would like to do over and write about what I learned about myself from it. This is a counter intuitive exercise for me. I don't believe in living with regret. I pay lip service to embracing one's mistakes and learning from them, not wasting a lot of energy wishing I could do them over. I look back over bad decisions I've made and see how they've worked together to bring me closer to who I am now. I like this philosophy. It's pretty and it works for me. This essay has been giving me fits. It hasn't been about the writing. I could write a bunch of pretty tripe and send it off, but then I would regret it for its dishonesty.

When digging bamboo, you start with what you see: the shoots, the canes, the above the ground pretty plants. You trim those down so you can see the real business of the bamboo. The roots don't go all that deep. You dig around the base and you start to see that the shoots are not alone. They are connected to strong, cane-like runners or rhizomes that spring from rock-like culms. They march in a steady, persistent line along the rhizomes, connected to each other beneath the surface of the soil. I wrote about this already. You just have to get in there and dig. There is no magic spray or pruning technique that stops them. Sheet metal doesn't really stop them. You just have to dig them out.

I spent far too long spinning my mental wheels about this essay. I wrote about this already. I received such great support, encouragement and gentle chiding from this lovely blog community that it shames me a little. Time to stop whining and get to work. I started with the surface. I picked an event that was truly painful to think about. It was something that happened a long time ago, but had its hooks in a lot of emotions for me. I attacked it from the surface. I wrote my 1500 words, relieved to have done it, and shared it with some trusted critics. They kindly read and gave it back and said "Good start." Time to get the shovel.

One of the amazing adaptive qualities of bamboo is that the culms harden with age. That's why it's good construction material. Even when cut, they secrete instantly a kind of sealing sap in the new wound to keep out infection and pests. It makes them strong, and prolific. They grow easily and with abandon. They are self-protecting, durable. If you block their growth in one direction, they will send out rhizomes in another with new shoots within days, reaching for the sun.

I rewrote the essay. One friend said "Tell me how it feels." Another said, "You are protecting yourself. You are justifying. Let the truly regrettable actions show." They were right, of course. That is why they are trusted critics. I rewrote again. Here is the difference between writing and life: in life we seal off and protect the wounded places, we find new ways to grow, we harden and it helps keep us strong. We cannot stay open, gaping wounds all the time or we would wilt. In writing, however, sometimes it's necessary to peel back the protective layers, cut open that wound again and seize it, rip it up before the protective sap begins to flow. But this is where writing intersects life for me: this process of writing and digging up the roots helps rid my life of the neglected offshoots of old injury that would eventually threaten the structure of my life.

We spent the day in the sun yesterday, laughing and acting like fools. We spent the day with crowbars as long as our legs, prying stubborn culms. We spent the day sweating and dirty and digging and pulling. We spent the day with our combined weights thrust against the handles of tools and only then barely having enough leverage to rip these ancient things loose from the soil. We wanted to quit. I hit my knee so hard with a rogue crowbar that my kneecap is black and looks dirty. I dropped my iPod down my pants and as it slithered cool against my leg, I feared I'd wet myself from the exertion. We drank lots of water, we collapsed in heaps. We prized and muscled and lifted with our backs instead of our legs. We slipped on rocks and fell. We made jokes and spoke in lines from movies. We let the kids wander in and out of the house, eating random things they found in the fridge. We got it done. It took hours of back breaking work, but it's done. Those rock-hard, ancient roots have been excavated. All of their tendrils and delicate shoots have been removed. They have been officially dealt with... we think.

So this essay. I've sent it to another trusted critic. I'm unsure about it still. I am a little sketchy about the outcome. But it is in a place of honesty now, with many of the protective layers stripped away. I have not changed my general philosophy about living without regret. I have, however, exhumed it and looked at it anew. I have examined what the pretty leaves and swaying canes on the surface have distracted me from. I have pulled out the ancient roots of things I no longer needed in my soil. I have exposed the neglect with which I have treated the topic.

Our bamboo was an artifact from another time. It was neglected and allowed to run amok. We bought it with the house and knew when we bought it that it would need to be dealt with. We have done the best we could with the tools we have (and some loaned us by the neighbor) to amend this neglect and protect our home from its far-reaching roots. It is with satisfaction that we can look at the freshly dug soil, the rocks out of place and the giant pile of disembodied roots. But we wait. The rains will come, life will go on, there may be some things we missed. Their shoots will pop up and surprise us, yards away from their source. We will see them and deal with them when they come, but for now, we are satisfied, we have accomplished the task at hand.

I will send off this essay that has plagued me so unnecessarily in a couple of weeks. I will be satisfied, I will be unsure, and I will wait. Life will come and go. I will live some more and hence, write some more. But the work I've done for now is finished. I will doubtless return to the subject, both in writing and in life. But now the worst of the work is done. I will sit and I will wait on the rain. I will see what springs up again.

Gratitude

The sky that twinkles. The bite of fall in the air. The people who read, encourage, comment. The way my transplanted hydrangea has shot out new leaves all over the place. The smell of little sweaty feet. The smell of yeast bread rising. The Phillies shirt from a friend that wears like a hug. The wonders of the internet, text-messaging, telephones and easy communication. The kind of difficult communication that makes us stop and think and wonder how we can do better. The kind of silent communication that comes in hugs and glances and a casual patting of my arm or playing with my hair. The health of my family. The answering of prayers. The spaces of light and openness. The consolation of friends. The common experience. The history of a love. The funny things you did when you were younger that make you giggle today when you need to remember that things are fun. The people who will call you and remind you of those things. The buoyancy of life. The hope. The faith. The possibilities. The small excitements that add up to general joy. The pain. The defeat. The opportunity to get up again. The love. Definitely the love. In all of this, love.

Please add more of your own. It will be a river. It has nothing to do with page views, number of comments, good writing, right or wrong, personal or universal. This is a tribute. To life, to gratitude, to connection. Deepest gratitude to Tara who reminded me today of why I really keep blogging.

On Being a Tool

If you sent me to my room and told me to get dressed and I walked out with pants on my head, you would think me either insane or five years old.

If you asked me to dust the blinds and I went in search of a circular saw, you would lock up the tools, myself included.

If you wanted me to make you some tasty guacamole and I reached for the bag of marshmallows to fold into the mashed avocado, you would likely gag and remove me from the kitchen.

I clearly could not be trusted.

These are not difficult things to grasp when one is not insane, nor five years old. There are times, places, tools, ingredients for success. Not name-in-lights-fame-and-fortune success, just simple get-up-and-live success.

How often do I walk around with my figurative pants on my head? How often do I make myself ridiculous by attempting to wear myself wrongside up? How often do I shatter and destroy something that only needs some gentle attention? How often do I serve up something completely unpalatable and expect people to just choke it down? I'm not sure of the exact answers to these questions. That's why I ask them.

We have these tools for living: love, humor, time, talent, loyalty, fear, doubt, sensitivity, drive, ambition, conscience. We have recipes, instruction manuals, purpose and utility. It should be simple. Use the screwdriver to twist things in, to hold them securely. Use the pants to cover up your bum. Use the garlic in just about everything. Use a damp sponge and mild detergent to get out that spot. Use your love to comfort and heal and build. Use your fear to spur you on. Use your conscience to guide your steps. Somehow, though, we sometimes find ourselves sitting on the floor with a potato masher in our hands and wondering why it won't draw a straight line and why there are all of these extra parts lying around. You've covered your love with fear and gotten righteous indignation all stuck in it. You've mortared your bricks of ambition with the grape jelly of doubt and somehow misplaced your talent.

Sometimes it feels like we've constructed these lives out of chicken wire and bubble gum. The wind howls through the holes and you stand up to shut the door and realize you've got your intentions stuck to your shoe and you go to light the fire with a spaghetti noodle and wonder why you feel so tired.

Somehow it holds, though. We muddle through. We choke down the marshmallow guacamole and realize that while it was a textural nightmare, at least the avocados were nice and ripe. My favorite jeans have almost more holes than seat, so when I put them on my head and play the fool, if I turn my head just right, I can see out of them and find my way. Sometimes the shattered places, while essentially unnecessary and uncalled for, let in a different light and some fresh air.

I clearly cannot be trusted, but yet I am. I am again and again and by all kinds of people. It is in this spot of grace where I make my messes, build my rickety structures of hope, I wallow and I bumble and I break. But sometimes, whether by luck or by concentration or by divine intervention, I grasp the hammer and hit the nail on the head. And while I congratulate myself, the people who love me quietly sweep up the debris.

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.

A Message From The King

Sometimes at night we can hear our neighbor behind us playing this song on the accordion and singing along. It is the kind of wonderful surreal thing that I love about this city.

Perhaps that's where both of my kids caught it.

I'm mopping brows and wrapping and bathing and administering Tylenol at the moment. I'll be back. Until then, enjoy this bit of magnificent jumpsuit madness.

Gnaw Thyself

A while back, Masked Mom reviewed the movie, Catfish. So intrigued was I that I immediately reserved it at the library. I won't go into the details of the movie, you'll just have to watch it, but at it's heart, it's about who we are versus how we represent ourselves. It also explores the idea of online socializing, online personae and how these things can become tricky. This is part one of the worm that has been gnawing at the back of my brain.

A while back I had a discussion with a fellow blogger in which I tried to explain that because of the nature of blogging, there is a potentially wide gulf for misunderstanding between blogger and reader. My writing style tends to be somewhat intense and lends a feeling of intimacy with the reader. I have been accused of being manipulative and duplicitous because of this, but that is not ever the intention. I mostly write pictures of things, I paint a thought I want to explore, I want to draw the reader into that thought and swim around in it for a while. People write for a number of reasons, in infinitely different styles. This style just happens to be mine. I like the interior view and I'm not a very good storyteller, so there you have it. This is part two of the worm. Chomp chomp.

I'm reading Jonathan Lethem's Ecstasy of Influence right now. The book explores the relationship of the writer to his own writing, to the writing of others, to the art, music, and presence of others, to the writer's world, both interior and exterior and how all of these things influence each other almost inexplicably. One of the most fascinating ideas that keeps recurring throughout the book is the notion of what Lethem calls his "public avatar". He writes novels, essays, and articles, many of which contain personal information about him, about his childhood, about his life. One could conceivably sit down and piece together a timeline of his life based on his published work. One could also know how intensely he felt about different events and people throughout that timeline. He does interviews on television, on the radio, and in print. In many of these interviews he answers personal questions about himself. All of this lends fans the idea that they "know" Lethem. His reaction to compiling this public/private information about himself, from himself, is interesting. It is a separate Lethem. It is the Lethem that readers know. It is not the man himself. This is the end of that brain worm that is now crapping out this halting essay.

Where, exactly, in this whole mess is the Self? How often do we presume knowledge of another person based on scant evidence? What if the evidence is copious but not complete? Would the evidence ever be complete? I can confidently say that my husband knows me better than anyone else. One of the things that I have adored about him from the start is that I can be fully "myself" around him. I have maybe two or three other friends with whom I feel the same. I have plenty of friends with whom I feel comfortable and amiable, but I spare them the full disclosure. I have someone I consider a dear friend, whom I have never actually met in person. I am completely open and candid on a variety of subjects in our written communication, but there again, is it complete? Is it possible to know someone without having ever spent time in their physical presence? There are people in my life with whom I spent way too much time in person, but never really got to know who they were. There are several men that I've dated that never, ever even had the tiniest idea who I was. All of these people, however, see me in different lights. Their assessments of my characteristics would overlap to some degree, but would each paint slightly skewed pictures. If this makes me duplicitous and manipulative, then so be it. But I don't think I would be alone in wearing those descriptors.

Perhaps the Self is the person we, and we alone, know? Fair enough. But do you know anyone who seems to be completely deluded about their Self? A talkative person who says "I'm shy." An intense and tightly wound person who tells you that they are easy going? Who has made the errant perception? You or your friend? Are they perhaps privy to interior information to which you have no access? On the other hand, I have known several people throughout my lifetime who spent a great deal of time and energy telling people how wonderful they were. This is a behavior I find off-putting and strange, but in almost every case, people believed them. "Oh, So-and-So? She's wonderful." I have nearly bitten off my tongue to keep from asking "Why?" Is it just that this sort of person is better at PR? Or are they really as wonderful as they tell everyone they are and I just can't see it? Maybe it's just me, but I find the greater the dissonance between my perception of a person and what they say they are, the less I like them. In these types of situations, is it I or they who don't know that Self?

Is this whole concept of Self further muddied by our assorted profiles and online accounts? Blogging is a relatively new means of communication. It's less personal than an email, longer than a status update, and virtually limitless in its reach and subject matter. We post the pictures on Facebook of the days when everyone's smiling. We list the preferences and hobbies that we want. We expose only the dirty secrets that we feel like exposing, some not at all. We use screen names, acronyms, nicknames, pseudonyms. We tell stories, divulge information, give the impression of intimacy, but there's a difference, isn't there? For one, I think it would be pretty boring to look in on people's every move. "Going to the can now, probably should bring a magazine." We paint with broad brushstrokes the pictures we want others to see: for some it's a constant string of dramas, a litany of woes; for others it's the opposite - everything's great, the children are adorable and I never sweat. For most of us, it's something in between. Does all of this add another layer to the Self that didn't exist ten years ago? Or is it just a digitized facet of something that was already there?

I have no definitive answers to any of these questions, in case you were wondering. They've just been composting back in the waste heap of my brain and I throw the worms on when they come up and they gnaw away, turning it over and over, hopefully into something more viable. If I had to hazard a guess, I would suppose that the true Self lies somewhere in the middle of the perception gap. That if we took all of these varying accounts and lay them one over the other like overheads on a projector (remember those) that the picture that emerged would probably surprise us all. Maybe most of all, my Self.


This was written for GBE2's topic this week: Self

Yesterday

I am supposed to be playing tag today. I don't feel like it. I will get to that tomorrow. But today I am not feeling witty and lighthearted.

Yesterday in my adopted home, this lush and vibrant city that I love, six people were shot and killed. It started yesterday morning when a man walked into a cafe where he was a regular and started shooting people. Then he continued downtown where he shot and killed a woman and stole her car. Police caught up with him across town and then he knelt down and shot himself. It took all day, while the rest of us went about our business, checking occasionally for updates and wondering what all this was about.

This has already started the political shouting match about gun control. I don't want to enter that fray. I have my own opinions about it, but they don't matter that much. I don't want to talk about guns. I want to talk about the finger that pulled the trigger. The mind that told that finger that was its only choice.

The shooter was known to be unstable and very depressed. His own brother said "We should have seen this coming." The other patrons at the cafe where he was a regular feared of him and for him. He was, by all accounts, an unhappy man. Ostracized and out of sorts. He felt on the fringe of things and the killings were of his perceived enemies. I do not blame the victims. I do not blame the people close to him. Ultimately, we are all responsible for our own actions. He took his unhappiness, his mental illness, his feeling of otherness and made a series of very bad choices. He could have done otherwise. I will judge and say he should have done otherwise. There are plenty of profoundly depressed people who do not choose to kill others. No, I do not blame the victims.

What I do is wonder. I wonder if he could have been helped. I wonder if any of the people who knew him had tried, to no avail. I don't know. I wonder that we live in a society that drives some people so far out of it that they are driven out of their minds. I wonder if it's not the other way around. Perhaps they are already out of their minds and do the driving out themselves? I wonder if this is a trend that will continue.

It is no secret our country is collectively unhappy. Our economy is floundering. There are deepening divides along economic, ideological, racial, sexual, spiritual and just about every other kind of lines. We are a people afraid and nervous. We feel like we have been cheated out of something and that someone must be to blame. Some blame the rich, some the poor, some the military, some the corporations. We are tripping through these divided lines, weary from navigating what might or might not offend. It all becomes so much noise in the background and we are left with a collective migraine. A low, constant buzzing, inescapable pain and over-sensitivity. We want it to stop and nothing seems to help. Someone must be responsible. Someone must be to blame. Are we blaming ourselves? Should we?

Photo courtesy of Morgue File

Humans are pack animals. Like wolves. We are made to coexist, look after one another. When a weak or broken pack member suffers, the whole pack suffers. Wolves are sometimes perceived as dangerous animals, but there is no recorded case of a healthy wolf ever killing someone. It is the lone wolf, the wolf that is disconnected from its support system, detached through illness or injury or starvation who attacks. Sometimes it seems as if we are becoming a society of lone wolves. Our connections to other people are becoming more intangible. Our support systems disintegrating. We brave the elements, the maelstrom of images and messages that rain down on us relentlessly telling us we are not enough, that other people have it better, do it better, feel better. The brambles of want and need snag at our pelts as we hurtle through the forest. The small and the weak and the old are left untended, barked at for feeling entitled, disenfranchised, ignored.

Human suffering is ugly. Sometimes it smells bad. Sometimes it's frightening. Sometimes it sits next to us in human form in a cafe and we move away, uncomfortable and unable to enjoy our lattes. We bottle our own suffering up and hide it away or we splash it about, obnoxious and off-putting while well-meaning people nod and smile, pat-pat, there-there, and go on about their business. We are so caught up in our rapids of busy-ness that to slow down and listen is to risk being swept away, drowning. So we holler a brief hello from our life boats and continue on. I am a socialist. I am a grass roots socialist. I believe that by helping the lowest rungs of our society - children, the homeless, the mentally ill, the elderly - we elevate the whole society. I know not everyone feels this way. I know what it is to be focused elsewhere, to be frightened, to be exhausted, to be discouraged. I know how it feels to get out of the life boat and wade upstream to reach out a hand and have it slapped away or have it accepted only to be left standing soaking wet while someone makes off with my raft without so much as a "how do you do." I don't know how it feels to go out for a cup of coffee and get shot. I don't know how it feels to want to rob another person of life.

When things like this happen, the instinct is to hide. To lock the doors and keep our loved ones close. To shut out the rest of the world and its ugliness and suffering. But sometimes I wonder how that is any different from what we do on any other day. I am a realist, too. I know there will always be people who become unhinged, make unconscionable choices, hurt and destroy. But I wonder. I wonder if we need more locks, more controls, more fear. Or if, perhaps, we would have fewer feel the need to vent and rage if we threw our doors open and listened. If we watched and we helped and we got involved. If we realized that regardless of the packaging, we are all just humans who suffer basically the same emotions, share basically the same needs, the same fears, the same desires. Would it hurt your feelings if someone crossed the street to avoid you? Would it wound you just a little bit if someone wrinkled their nose and walked away when you tried to strike up a conversation? What if you asked for help and people just flowed past, consciously avoiding eye contact? What if you were sick and your society determined that you did not deserve to be well?

None of this excuses the actions a desperate, sick man decided to take yesterday. None of this will bring back the lives of the people who were just out for a cup of coffee, getting into their cars, driving down the street. These innocent people who had unwittingly become enemies in one man's mind and suddenly lost their lives for it. None of this makes any of that all right. None of this will make a difference to any of those people now.

But that was yesterday. What about tomorrow?

What if we paid attention to the desperation of another human before he felt the need to pull out a gun. Would that make a difference?

Derailed

You should have seen my to-do list this morning. It was epic. It rhymed in spots and it was a monument to ambition. But then there was this house...

I know, you're tired of it. I'm tired of it. Derailed. Drop everything, jump and run, feed the Hooligan a hot dog in the car. He gets to sit and eat a giant hot dog and read Calvin and Hobbes instead of cleaning up his junk. Best day ever for him. That's OK, though. It's all OK.

It has to be.

I suppose that I could whine and complain a bit. Wah. Things didn't go as I'd planned today. Wah. I have the luxury of a flexible schedule. Wah. My husband wants to buy me a house. Wah.

Seriously. Starving kids. Not just in Africa, in my city. I'll keep my guffing on the down low.

So, my Love Train got derailed. There were checks to write and paperwork to gather and cuticles to bite and Hooligans to feed and one thing led to another and I was just now standing in my kitchen making Muddy Buddies feeling like perhaps there was something else I should be doing. Is there really ever anything better to do than make Muddy Buddies? I think not. Not in the grand scheme of things.

But then this song popped into my head:

And I was transported to Michigan Avenue in Chicago about ten years ago. We'd gone on a weekender with some dear friends of ours and we were, of course, shopping. This song burst out of one of the store fronts and Alain started it.

I know it was him because it was so surprising.

He was usually so proper and French and intellectual and he suddenly clapped his hands, raised them over his head and started to dance down Michigan Avenue... people all over the world... and then Edward scooped me up and we followed ... join hands... arms aloft, beckoning the Chief Lou, who executed just about the finest Water Sprinkler you've ever seen on a Saturday afternoon... start a Love Train.

We danced in our motley parade of four amid tourists, amid shoppers, amid families.
Just a few steps of exuberance down the street. Love train.

Thirty seconds on a sunny afternoon amid a weekend away with friends, amid the chaos of a time full of stress at work and school, amid a whole lifetime of memories.
Thirty seconds of pure abandon that will likely stick with me forever.

We all moved on from there. We finished our shopping, we went back home.
They moved to California and eventually split up.
We moved on to law school and children and on and on.

All of us are always moving on. That's the nature of things, isn't it?
I could whine and complain about that, too, I suppose.
But the idea of standing in my home, getting ready to move on again, making Muddy Buddies and suddenly feeling that train again.
This idea sustains me sometimes.

The idea that these golden moments come and go, like the flash of sunlight on a river.
The river keeps moving, but it carries the sunlight with it. I don't want to be a stick in the mud of this river. So I'll move with the currents, see where it takes me, bask in the sunlight when it comes.
 I'll get swept into a brief dance and then go back to work.
It's all part of the same thing.

This is my Love Train.
This moving, this chugging forward.
 The dancing, the holding hands.
The dropping everything and running.
The hot dog in the car and the Calvin and Hobbes.
The making of Muddy Buddies and the signing of large checks.
The memories and the future.

Let it ride, let it ride, let it ride, let it ride.

Some Light Housekeeping: Have Book, Will Travel

All right, my lovers. Remember when I said I was working on a project and some of you wrote wonderful things about your first loves and some others of you said you wanted to and I haven't heard from you yet? Well, I'm planning to do a whole link up deal on Monday (or let's call it Tuesday, shall we?) of next week, so you still have time if you wanna.

I have so very much enjoyed reading the posts people have sent me so far. I love a good love story. I love a sad love story. I love a gross love story too, sometimes. I am working on a project that is combining all of these things. Do you know anyone who has a love story to tell? One that you love to hear? Do you think they would like to be interviewed? Would you like to be interviewed? Let me know.

Check out the author's website here.

Speaking of love stories... Jane in Her Infinite Wisdom has been so kind as to share some love in the form of a book with me. Remember that, folks? Creative is a Verb. 


[This is a small digression: as this book has been lying about the house, jBird has been fascinated by it. She is also quite concerned that I am reading fallacious material when she's not supervising me. "Mom. Creative is not a verb." She knows this because she is studying it in second grade. So, either her teacher has misinformed her, or I have. Hmm. I have had to explain the notion behind the title and she grooves it; she really does. But this flexibility of rules is unsettling to her straightforward little soul.]

Anyway, the book came to Jane from Melanie at Is This The Middle, and Jane decided to turn it into a travelling bit of love. I have been the custodian of this fine book for far too long now and it's time for it to have a new home, to provide someone else some new inspiration. It's colorful and beautiful and chock-full of encouragement and gentle kicks in the pants.

Here's how we play: You leave me a comment here if you want a stab at the book. I will roll the dice and see who wins (this will be a totally random kind of thing like having a monkey draw a number out of a hat or something.) I'll let you know who the big winner is and send this book on its merry way. If you are the winner, you are under no obligation whatsoever to FedEx me chips and queso or new jeans. You only have to agree to send it on to another person when you are done. Sound like fun? Of course it does.

Also, if you should notice a distinct change in tone and feel around here this weekend, it's because I will be featuring a guest post by the lovely Tonya Vrba, who contacted me and said she'd like to guest post for me. Hers is an article about her view of the changing nature of relationships and what that does to traditional values. I thought that sort of  fit with the whole love thing we have going on here and goodness knows, I get tired of the sound of my own voice.

There are some things blooming with the spring, folks, and they are causing more than seasonal allergies. Drop your comments below, tell me about your day. Do you want to win a book? If you've already won one, you can comment anyway and tell me not to include you in the fun and games. Be well and adore your lives, folks.