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I wrote this eons ago and never finished.   Thought you might enjoy.  I will make it my aim to finish it in a timely fashion.  E.

P.S. ~ Forgive me for last night’s deprecation.

Now, the the story part two, part one:

We’re heading back from Florida and Silas needs a bath so bad that we look like negligent parents.  Aside from the oily coils of hair framing his face, the dirt streaked on his cheeks, and the stinky nature of his feet, he is also covered in bumps and scrapes and mosquito bites.   I suppose, though, that filth and fracture on a toddler are just marks of the fun that was had.  Belt notches, baby style. 

So, yeah, Silas had a hell of a time.  Maybe a better time than I did.

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Today I am void of anxiety and the words are seeming to flow better.  So, I finished the rough draft of my first page.

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The studio formerly known as “my yoga studio” which is certainly now someone else’s yoga studio has a cute little framed picture of a dancing bear above the toilet.  I don’t usually go for the dancing-bear-in-frame motif, but above this this particular teddy (one might have once referred to it as “my teddy”) are the words: Remember to use positive affirmations.  I am not a dork is not one of them. 

I always chuckled at this little ha-ha because “I am not a dork” is my kind of affirmation. Along with:  I am not a loser.  I am not a cow.  And, I am not destined to be another slug popped and gutted under the iron heel of mediocrity.

When I try on phrases such as: I am hip.  I am sexy.  I am both intelligent and talented and am a virtual giant of creativity.  I just sound like a fraud.

(Yeah, I should also try on the phrase “Even though I’m a language arts teacher, I don’t know a good goddamn about grammar.”  Yes, that explains the odd jumble of colons and periods and the lack of quotation marks or whatever.)

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About 30 minutes ago I commented to my husband about how, when I get home from work, I would like, just once, to be able to sit down on the back deck and relax. ‘Cause that just ain’t been happenin’ since I’ve become a workin’ mama.

So, in the spirit of all cosmic coincidences in which “you [might not] always get what you want… but, you get what you need”, I’d like to give a Hoo-Yah to toddlers heading to bed early and without a fuss, to patio furniture received for Mother’s Day, for Marigolds and a pumpkin patch that not only outlasted the drought but are vying to be prizewinners, and for cool, mild October temperatures and leaves just beginning to change. Oh yeah, and for Flying Dog Double Dog IPA. Ahhhhhh… A toast to my Calgon moment!

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Not so long ago I had very long hair. Down to my waist, in fact. Because I also owned a few pairs of Birkenstocks and wore the occasional long skirt, I was often accused of being a hippie. Generally, I took no notice. Yes, I recycle and tend a vegetable garden and enjoy camping in the out-of-doors, but I don’t really identify myself with the neo-hippie movement (if you can call it as such) or with the Rainbow People or with Dead-heads or Phish-heads or really any other kind of heads whatever they may be.

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To my wonderful husband Paul, I’m sorry. I had to…

Like many of my mama friends, I seem to have made a critical error in cognitive reasoning. While pregnant, I somehow believed that our lives would change but that our marriage would remain the same. Now, I’m not at all sure what that even means. It is a ludicrous statement and I should be ridiculed for thinking it.

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After writing the post “On Mothers and their Sons”, I felt invigorated. I was proud of the piece. I thought it was clever and funny and exposed a deep truth. At least a deep truth within my own experience.

So, I was shocked (and admittedly a little depressed) when some friends and family expressed concern about the post. Concern that it was, perhaps, “odd,” “perverted,” “lustful”. That it made the reader “uncomfortable.” That the thoughts and feelings expressed in the essay were “maybe things that people might think or feel but certainly wouldn’t talk about.”

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Last night, for the first time, Silas came home smelling like cheap perfume.

It’s strange how babies seem to absorb the scent of anything and anyone they touch. As if they hold some magic ability to absorb the very essence of things. Then, they go about pretending that they’re just beginning to learn how keep their limbs from spontaneously flailing about when really they know all of your secrets and the secrets of everything they touch and the secrets of the Universe and wherever it was that they really came from.

Silas’s sacred wisdom aside, he smelled like he’d been out on the prowl last night. At five months?!? Already!

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