Uncategorized

and just as easily carried away…

When a child is born, parents are as well. The parents — no matter how many books they’ve read or how many classes they’ve attended — are still just as new as the baby. Daddy may be awkward about holding his little girl, supporting her head; mommy might not be quick enough with her little automatic sprinkler’s diaper changes. Still, there are some things that come instinctively. Some things are simply given. The job of “parent” is really quite straightforward: protect the child.

That is where we start.

But as time goes by and the child grows up, the parent realizes there’s not enough bubble wrap in the world…

And then, one day, as quietly as a feather, the plain truth slips in: bubble wrap, an infinite supply, will do nothing to soften a blow to the heart.

Especially when you, the parent, let the strike slip.

* * *

Two days ago, as I was preparing dinner, our 4-year-old pulled a grimy feather from his pocket.

“Mommy, look what I got!”

“Oh, Sweetie, that’s dirty. Put it in the trash and go wash your hands for dinner.”

Whoa. Who said that? Me? The woman-once-girl who collected robins’ egg shells, nests, feathers, who played with toads and tried to nurse abandoned baby birds back to health, who once carried a tiny iridescent lonely dragonfly wing back to camp for bonus points in a scavenger hunt? How could that same person tell her son to throw out a feather because it was dirty?

Still. It was, and it was dinner time. I’d flinched but given it little more thought. That is, until I noticed my son curled up on the couch, lip quivering, eyes welling.

I knew immediately that I had played the hand wrong. I put down my dish rag from wiping off the table and ran over to give him a hug and apologize.

“Oh, Sweetie, I’m sorry. I know that feather was a treasure and that it was special. But, really, they need to stay outside. They can have a lot of germs on them, and I don’t want you to get sick from playing with them.” (What I didn’t say was, “I’m sorry, sweetie, your mother’s a borderline hypochondriac and doesn’t want you to catch some kind of avian flu…”)

He looked at me with his big eyes, still welling.

“But Mommy, I was going to give it to you. What am I going to give you now?”

Oh! Rip my heart out and stomp on it a few times!

I don’t remember exactly what came next besides tighter hugs and more apologies on my part. I physically ached and felt sick to my stomach. I had never seen my son so emotionally hurt.

And I had been the one to cause it.

I know this may have been the first time, but it definitely won’t be the last. Knowing this heartbreak is only one of many within his lifetime doesn’t make the incident any less painful. Even if he’s moved on– he’s on the quest for the perfect “special stone” to give me — I still feel that ache.

Bubble wrap can’t protect either of us from these growing pains; no band-aid will hide these bumps and bruises.

Here’s hoping the scars give him — and me — character.

Stuff

Julie
July 16, 2008
4 Comments

deep and guttural, diffused —a howl dampened by sagging clouds, chilled by some october's waning gibbous this is how I hate you(sometimes)though I tell myself and say otherwise. * * * Don't worry, everything's fine. 🙂

Read More

Uncategorized

Joy on a stick, in a puddle

Before summer jobs and two-month-short semesters, before “grown-up” commitments and working straight through from Memorial to Labor Day with the mere hiccup of Independence, there was a time of riding bikes past nightfall and playing “Ghost in the Graveyard” after that. There were Kool-Aid stands to man and dusty games of run-down. There were toads and lightning bugs to catch and creeks to stomp through. A day at the pool meant a stop at the candy stand too. And of course, summer meant banana popsicles.

It’s easy to get wrapped up in being an adult and to miss summertime altogether. We go from air-conditioned homes to air-conditioned cars to AC at work, the height of the mercury but a footnote of our small talk. If we take a summer vacation, it is typically eaten by travels, nothing like the long, sprawling summers of our grade-school years.

I was fortunate enough growing up that my mom chose to stay home with us, granting us kids the full summer experience, complete with, “If you’re so bored, I’ll GIVE you something to do!” Now as a mother myself, I sometimes worry that because of my working, my boys will miss out on the Norman Rockwell summers I remember. Like my husband and I, our boys have year-round, full-time schedules. Summer, to them, means hot, sweaty playtime at daycare with an occasional “water day.” I wonder if it wouldn’t be better to budget even tighter, to stay home with them, to give them what I had.

I wonder if they’re missing out.

Then, like yesterday, it rains.

They spent the dreary, stormy hours at daycare. By the time I picked them up, the clouds were breaking. By the time we got home, the pavement was dry. Save for one puddle.

Now, when it comes to puddles, a parent’s first instinct is typically to tell her child, “don’t.” And I did, at first. But then when the little one did anyhow, his face glowed with pure joy. In that moment I was as happy as my child. And he was having more fun than on Halloween and Christmas morning together — how could I deny him that for the silly sake of wet clothes?

Today was a beautiful day, and not too hot. After picking the kids up and eating a dinner of the four-year-old’s choosing (dinosaur chicken nuggets, Disney-shaped whole grain pasta leftovers, blackeyed peas), I joined the boys and some neighborhood kids on the front stoop for a dessert of banana popsicles. Once again, summer found me — this time in sticky grins.

I guess as the responsibilities pile on and vacations grow thin, joy reveals itself through moments — for me, most clearly through my children.

Uncategorized

Temptation on the Sixth Day

Here at the office, the monotony of the work lengthens the day, stretches it as if the tied to some archaic torture device, threatening to draw and quarter the hours. A good playlist can counter this, of course.

Well, for the first time since I started my fast, I was tempted to open my media player here at work. (Really, up til today, I had been busy enough and away from my computer enough that there was no point. That and the streaming radio at 1079thelink.com was pretty decent.) So I opened it to find the last played playlist: a mix of Jason Mraz, Jump Little Children , Jars of Clay, and Ari Hest. Rather than cull out the forbidden tunes, I figured it was time for something new altogether. So when I went to pick my ear-candy, I notice an “album” that I’d not listened to as a whole, and I figured it was about time.

Enter Billy Collins.

I have such respect for Billy C. His poetry is, at the same time, finely crafted and highly accessible. The poetry community should aspire to these traits, always and concurrently. By creating work that reveals the true beauty of “plain” language and thought, we all are given a flicker of the hope of creativity, maybe even enough of a spark to spur our own poet within.

I’ve read plenty of Billy Collins’ work, but there’s always something magical about hearing him, or really any fine poet, speak his own work. I took the 30+ tracks I had and made a playlist of only those. Wow. Good stuff.

If you’re not yet a fan, or if you are but never thought to look for his spoken work, do yourself a favor and download a few (or all) here.

And on the sixth day, Billy C. saved me from temptation.

Uncategorized

Conservatively, I speak

Some people are comfortable on the floor, be it a dance or a debate. Some like picking fights. Some simply aren’t afraid of being heard.

Then there are the rest of us. Those who, no matter how comfortable they might feel in their own skin, would rather die than have a spotlight on them. We’re the ones who would forget how to spell “the” at a spelling bee, the self-conscious stutterers, the stage-frightened, the wusses.

“Hi, I’m Julie, and I’m a chickenlittleshit.”

I fool some people, sometimes. Maybe even most people most of the time. For instance, I stutter sometimes. Not often, but enough to be self-conscious of it, enough that I hear it and know to take my time speaking to avoid it; I don’t think even my husband or mother has picked up on that. Also, I do pretty well at poetry readings. If I know and am comfortable with my material, I can “comfortably” speak in front of a crowd of thousands. I’ve done it. I was shaking, but my voice was steady.

However, I still avoid jumping into shark infested waters of public political or religious debate. Which is a shame. On some levels at least. No matter how adamantly I might oppose an opinion, I am more likely passively volunteer to be the attacked straw man than to be the vocal minority. Heck, I’m not even likely to be a member of the vocal majority.

So while I applaud and encourage the freedom of expression, I self-censor. I don’t bring up the fact that I don’t think Obama is a god, or that even though a close family member once admitted to thinking Hillary might be the Antichrist and another very Republican family member voted for Obama to thwart Hillary, I would rather have had Hillary as the democratic nominee than Obama. Nor do I mention that, given the options, I’ll vote for McCain when the time comes.

But then I think about how much of elections is about name recognition and general publicity. And I wonder what Jane Undecided might think as she surfs through cyberspace. The “Yes McCain Can” posts are a little less visible than those on the other guy. Mostly because new things, new people, changes are exciting. So people will talk and write about the new thing more, with more passion. What happens to the old guy? What about those who just might vote for him?

I’m asking these questions of myself as much as they’re rhetorical. A lot of this has to do with reconciling my own largely conservative — though not necessarily “Republican”– beliefs with the ballot I’ll cast in November. And with each ballot thereafter. I do this in hopes that maybe once I know better what I believe and how those beliefs translate into political ideology, maybe then I’ll be ready to voice them more freely, without fear of the inevitable cyber-smackdown.

*****

In other news, I wrote a poem today as promised; “Happen” (which may be retitled) can be read by logging into shakespearesmonkeys.com.