On This Day* - Carrying Matches

(From September 2013)

Teach us to always carry matches,

to light every candle we find.

They are key witnesses to the dark.

 
From here.

This post was originally written as a rant that I decided not to publish, and then this morning I read a poem over at thebeautiful due, and a reframing happened.

So I was at the rink today - we are the rink most days. After B's game, as I was waiting around for him to emerge from the dressing room, and reading a book, I noticed two little girls being very loud, at the open area just inside. I looked up, but they seemed to be shrieking in delight, so I let them continue.

And then one of them started hitting the other and I heard phrases like "if you want it harder, I can hit you harder" and then the toys and books that are there for kids to look at started getting thrown around. I had been standing there for several minutes and no other adult had come by. Every so often I looked at the knots of adults standing in the restaurant talking but none of them seemed to be paying any attention either.

I looked one of the little girls in the eye and said "You need to stop treating these things this way. If you can't play here nicely, perhaps you need to be somewhere else." She looked at me for a moment and then walked through the swinging doors to another open area, which also seemed to be strewn with toys and books.

The other little girl looked at me to see what I would do next. As kindly as I could, I asked "Where's your Mom?"

"Oh" she said cheerfully "Today is a not a day that we get to see our Mom." And then she rattled more details about visitation and such and I looked at her and the mess they'd both made and I said "Somebody needs to clean these books up. How about you pick up two and I'll pick up two and then we'll see how many are left?"

So we chatted as we worked and I wondered who she was there with and an older boy showed up, hovering on the periphery of our conversation, and I asked if he was their brother.

"Nope", he said, a little grumpily, and I asked if he knew them.

"Yes he does!" the little girl I was cleaning up with said, so I kept guessing. Uncle? cousin? friend? Dad? He cheered up at that guess and told me "We're all in foster care."

I stayed with them chatting until another child came running up to tell them they were going now, learning their names and ages and favourite colours.

Lighting matches.

Teach us always to carry matches.





(*On This Day denotes a post that got deleted when I accidentally deleted my old blog due to electronic incompetence.  When Facebook reminds me that I posted something that I want to re-read, I go fetch it from the many various cobbled together electronic rescue attempts, if I can find it, and re-post it here.)

Thursday Thirteen

(Remember back when people used to do that? Maybe they still do.  I don't read blogs a lot anymore.  Does anyone?)

(This post contains two neologisms.  If you identify them, I will mail you a lime green dish cloth that I knit myself.)

1. My dog is currently on bedrest.  Dogs do not understand or appreciate bedrest.

2.  I am currently the only person in my household in school, as everyone else has either a) been ensconced in a career for several decades and/or b) graduated from high school.

3. Last night I made up a word in my sleep, and for the rest of the night, my dreaming seems to have consisted of rehearsing the new word so I didn't forget it when I woke up.

4.  The word is MYSTRIM. It may or may not be a pre-existing word.  Dream Susan did not have a dictionary handy.

5.  It means ...well that's tricky.  It's a writing word.  If you have published 5 novels, and your fifth novel was (or will be - Dream Susan has no desire to be exclusionary) published in the same month (but not the same year - Dream Susan isn't looking for the impossible) as your first novel, you have written a MYSTRIM.

6.  Now go use that in a sentence.  (You can leave the sentence in the comments.  You would totally make my day.)

7.  I think that today's weather is nasty because it is bright and sunny and full of swirling fall and I have so much homework to do that I'm writing a nonsensical blog post in order to gird my (virtual mental) loins to tackle it.

8. One of my children has taken over the cooking in this house, at least the supper cooking, at least five days a week.

9.  I'm not telling you which child until I know whether or not I have permission to do so.

10.  Isn't it cute how I call people who are taller than I am and can legally vote "children"?

11.  The aforementioned self-appointed cook is a good cook.

12. I am going to write a whole different blog post about the most interesting course of my semester, because a) I love it and 2) I almost didn't take it.

13. Some of you may think that "a lot of homework" = "no fun", but HA.  I get to go read an article entitled "Demodystopias:  Prospects of Demographic Hell" by Andreu Domingo right this second.  And now you're all envious.

This is a test

Dear Blogger:

Please email me a copy of this post, just like you promised.

Susan

oh, so that's what it will take

I used to have a blog.  I blogged for many years, about domestic triumphs (like hiding dishes in the oven, forgetting about them, turning the oven on a few days later, and Melting Inedible Things, or How Long My Christmas Tree Has Been Up) and my little kids (who are now almost 22, and 18), my dog, my writing life ...

And then Life happened.  I developed a mental illness.  My husband went a few rounds with colon cancer.  I blogged a little, here and there, but the truth is that I was feeling a bit beat up, all in all, and then a few years ago, something happened that made it feel like the blog was no longer a safe space (yeah, I know.  A blog that the whole internet can read whenever they like with unlimited access somehow felt safe? Makes no sense, and yet it did.)  I'd think of something to post and then I just - couldn't.  I've often wondered what it would take to get me to post something again.

And then the old blog has disappeared, due to electronic incompetence on my part, and now there's this brand new space, this wide inviting open space just waiting for All The Words.  And here are some, and I'm going to post this, and then I'm going to write another post, and then we'll see what happens.

Welcome to my new space :)