Growing Versions

Yesterday, I mentioned that I have not bothered to match my own socks for a long while.  Truly this has been a problem  for years. There have been spells when I have managed to get myself temporarily on track and, for a 2-3 week stretch, I match.  I still remember being mildly shocked to realize that people notice this sort of thing, when at my first professional job it became a running joke at my expense.  I simply did not (do not) pay attention to matching socks.    When it comes to my kids though, there is more angst involved.  I feel more responsibility to make sure they match.  However, I really feel like I'm working up hill most of the time.  The worn old joke about wondering why only single socks come out of the wash when a slew of pairs went in wears on me.  I am constantly tracking down mittens and socks and matching them up.  On really bad matching days, I literally contemplate sending kids with socks on their hand...

Torrance Community Dance Group performing to "Praise You" by Fat Boy Slim I can't help it. Each and every time I see a flash mob on youtube or anywhere, I burst into tears.  What is it about those daft moments set to music in airports, food courts and supermarkets?  They are designed to throw us off kilter.  It does not matter how ridiculous, in fact, the more ridiculous the better. The unexpected break into song and dance jolts me out of my insular, tunnel vision and invites me to have the lines between me and everyone else around me blurred.  The world is ruptured just for a moment.  I am split right open. One of these days, I am going to get up the courage to be part of one or even instigate one.  Have you ever been in one or witnessed one?  What was your experience?

My kids are continually coming up with Hallowe'en costume ideas.  And I do mean continually.  I never thought I'd be participating (however unwillingly) in serious Hallowe'en costume brainstorms more than once in the month of April, for example.  The list of possibilities is long and growing everyday. I cannot sew and I can barely tape straight so we are limited in what we can hobble together from the dress up box, second hand store and the grocery store. The possible contenders include: a lamp (a persistent contender), a drain pipe (what is that white tube hanging off the side of the house?), followed by a suggestion that I also be a drain pipe and then we could drain into each other (fun!), a witch's cat (with the proviso that I also be the witch), a scary faced ghost, a vampire, a happy ghost, a spooky ghost, spiderman(again), tiger (again),a spider. Even as a  young adult who was free to attend boozy dress up parties I had a hard time getting into it. ...

I am not so keen on edible art...so much work and planning and so much requirement for a steady hand and then, BAM...hacked up and eaten...(icing first of course). I am thrilled and awed when someone else can do it, I watch those cake decorating shows with a kind of reverence that I reserve for churches and intricate art. Yeah...so this kind of cake was never going to happen...by my hand. When an idea for decorating a cake takes hold...I go from the extravagant ideal to the plain do-able pretty darn fast.  However, I still have , on some level, for some crazy reason, a smidgen of pride in these matters and wish that I could impress with my cake decorating abilities.  If only I could pull off all of these ideas... Some part of me sighs, if I could, it would  be  a sign to the world that I am capable of so many amazing feats.  Alas, mustering all of my inner resources still results in "creative" results and I end up reckoning that the evidence will be ...

Beauty, sweet Love, is like the morning dew,   Whose short refresh upon the tender green  Cheers for a time, but till the sun doth show,  And straight 'tis gone as it had never been.  -Samuel Daniel I have been having a rough week in some ways.  All mundane self-imposed challenges, and with a little perspective, unnecessary and superficial ones.  I cried a couple of times when I witnessed my kids wrestle in different ways with some troubles in their lives. I wondered what is going on behind the scenes, even though most of what they experience is still relatively transparent, I wonder also about how hard it will be when I can't peek behind the curtains as much as I can now. I dropped a lot of little balls, I woke up feeling anxious, and I am not really sure why.  I had so many strands clutched in my hand that I could feel sliding out of my grasp.  What exactly am I worried about? Looking grumpy, being called out, losing gr...

I'm a piece of time too small to name.  -Crossing a Canyon, 54-40

We were watching one of my daughter's favourite shows yesterday when one of the characters proceeded to play charades.  He confessed, after none of the other characters could guess what he was doing, that he was a "snowman grinding coffee beans" (of course!) I spit out my coffee (and expelled it through my nose, if you must know) upon hearing this line.  It was so ridiculously funny.  I love unexpected belly laughs that contort my whole body. A surge of laughter that springs on me a new spurt of blood flow through the tips of me-- the outer edges of which can go months without a platelet-changing-of-the-guard. When was the last time you were taken off guard by a deep down laugh?