Four Letter Words
What would I say about today in one sentence? Or maybe a few. I’m not feeling concise, just tired.Skip has started hitting. It’s mostly for a reaction or to get something she wants like a chokey bottle cap or her sister’s toothbrush. It started last week. Her eyes are such a dark brown it’s hard to even make out her irises, but there is something new in them now; like she can suddenly see what she wants.The other day I was listening to Cheryl Strayed talk about scarcity. About how she believes it’s linked to racism and unrest and many of the world’s biggest problems. Picture that, God threw down a bunch of toys and food and homesteads and we’re all down here pulling it back and forth between one another like a bunch of toddlers. What’d ya know?
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The “F" word lives right under my tongue, so this next phase of having parroting-sponge-babies is going to be a real challenge for me. I’m already thinking about New Year’s Resolutions. Troublesome things I’d like a few more months with before I let them go, like taking the Lord’s name in vein. I figured I could start there. I told Scott I was going to try to switch to “Son of a Bitch” instead of "God Dammit" and then started wondering if this was somehow a slur against God, too. In any case, Scott wasn’t very impressed.Sorry, God.(Which Anne Lamott says is a prayer too.... )
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Remember every day when your mother would almost die making dinner? Collapse in a pile of Crispy French Onions while you tried to burn the house down with your siblings and the dog? No. No one remembers that, until it is them. Then they can’t forget it. Then they appreciate the person who singed their fingerprints off and fried their nerves for love. Thank you Mom.Hindsight is gracious.
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I went skateboarding with some friends the past few days. On Sunday, I slammed straight to my knees, forgetting I wasn’t wearing knee pads; Took the skin clean off of both of them and left two scrapes that would rival any third graders’. Of course, I’m bragging. I love falling and getting back up. Blood, like water, makes me feel animalistic. My teeth are out, grinning. You can almost taste that surge of life and danger that pulse inside of each: Blood and water.Scott and I went to Joshua Tree without the kids a few weeks ago. On the way out there I told him: “I need to get in some trouble!” to which he replied: “You’ve been handcuffed more than anyone I know”. The two circumstances he’s referring to were minor, mind you.Sometimes you have to strain so hard against that side of yourself. That ten year old who lives within you and waits, like a fox, for the teacher’s back to be turned.There is art in danger.There is art in healing, too.