Author Archives: Elissa Timothy

Popcorn, Chocolate, and Candy

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Popcorn, chocolate, and candy.  Hansel and Gretel were attracted to a house in the forest made of all these treats, and made it inside where they found a witch who pounced on them and locked them in cages with the intention of turning them into slaves, and then, when she got bored of them, she would make them into sweets.

This story is about temptation and the result of subcumbing  to it.  The characters are children, who perhaps, if they existed in the real world, would not necessarily know what temptation is.  They are attracted to things that are sweet, and think that everything that looks like a candy color or the colors of the playset at the playground, are the most fun and the best colors in the world.  They would not know that there are “fifty shades of grey.”  Or, coming from an artist’s point of view, that there are as many ways to create grey as there are tubes of colors being sold at the store.

So, are the children themselves to blame, when they go towards the things that make them happy?  Would they be able to see the candy house in the forest and know that, inside, lurks evil of the type that changes lives forever?  Children only see as much as is shown to them.  And I do not doubt the reality of Hansel and Gretel’s story.  Candy is sweet, nice, and it seems, always available.  These are not character traits of something that can kill you.

It is the witch, who only wants to keep building her house, that is the criminal.  She has spent time creating the situation.  She has lured children, her prime victim, to a desolate place in the forest.  She enslaves them, possibly making them do the house work (in the house she is building), and then when they are exhausted, she makes them into sweets to hang on the walls of the house, to decorate it, and to declare achievements and claim.

The problem is that there is a prey and there is a hunter.  Both these parties have very little possibility to live out their lives, unless they work on it.  The hunter, like the witch, wants the things he or she has seen in dreams and in places where he or she cannot go.  So, living in the forest, the easiest thing is to create that surprise in the forest–a place of rest, interest, and seemingly endless happiness.

What are these things?  Are they items of greed?  Or are they birthstones, yet to be made into something that life can appreciate?  Why have the hunt inside a forest?  There is no reason for any of it….  Do the witch, or the children, deserve to live the lives they live?

Are these reasons enough?  Or do we have to keep trying until we get the issue, the reasons, and the methods right?  How much time, how much money, and what will be required to justify all of this?  Who on earth would want to risk their lives, or even risk dying, just to achieve a questionable future, as there is no absolute promise of a wonderful future.

A Lonely Boy With a Secret in the Woods

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He is  a lonely boy, with a secret in the woods.  He holds his iPod close, the music loud enough to be heard outside his ears and the plug of the headphones.  He is mesmerized by the sound, his sight is a blank stare–not capturing any human object–and not attracting an contact.

I wonder why his hair is so wild–the curls tangled and posing in wild ways.  He leans forward like it is easier.  If I were leaning in the way he is, I would be carrying a burden.

He is a beautiful, lonely boy.  The jeans he wears are a symbol of the comfort he feels, in the public train.

If he were to come across a dead bird–something of a chickadee–laying in the grass beneath a tree, he would think it were the most beautiful art, and immediately start to draw the picture of a chickadee, more beautiful dead, than alive.  He looks like he is a close friend of the reaper.  The man,  who, carries the scythe of harvest, and he looks like he can see if this grim reaper is coming for you next.  He smiles, his mouth set.  As if he heard my thought about him.  But he makes no reply, and returns his gaze to face the forward-moving train.

He is the American teenager.  The trouble of teenage emotions is explored by this boy.  No need to go and eat a hamburger with your friends for him, he will sit and create meaning for the no origin sadness or frustration that he feels.  His angst does not bother him.  His angst is the meaning of his life.  And he easily finds all the wailing guitars and drums to go with these lyrics that are sung by the rock gods who look exactly like him.

He paints his nails black, but has refrained from wearing the black eye shadow and the studded jackets and shoes that make the stage look filthy rich.  I wonder why he holds hi iPod so close?  He gets off the train at a stop before I have to go.  I am older than he is by at least a decade, and I wonder why, despite how much I know about him from sharing a short train ride, why I do not feel motherly or even like I would like to marry someone like that?  There is Billy Joe from Green Day, there is Billy Corgan of the Smashing Pumpkins, there is Gerard Way of My Chemical Romance, and of course, one of the Grandfathers of it all, there is Robert Smith of The Cure.  (I hesitate to mention Marilyn Manson, though).

So, why do I hesitate to make that one step of emotional commitment?  Perhaps, I am now just an older version of my eleven-year-old self?  Those teenagers that I loved and wanted to be, just do not hold me like I once held them.  I still see the beauty of their souls, but now, I do not see the dire danger that I felt they were in, or that they could introduce as an experience to a naive–and virgin–teenager.

I hope he will be alright.  There are thousands of teenagers just like him, just in this city.  I chastise myself, often, for thinking that they will grow out of this stage by themselves without any help or suggestion of love and assistance from anyone else.  But really, I do not really know what the answer to their trouble is….  To me, angst, is an invented emotion to just describe frustration and dissatisfaction.  Boys, and, girls, grow quickly through their teen years, and some of their emotions outgrow their experience.  This can become frustrating if nothing is as satisfying as it once was, and, however, there is nothing that is good enough to take the place, the hole, the void, the need, that has grown from being a teenager, with still, the emotions that were nurtured just before.

I wish someone he knew, would just sit and have a hamburger with him.  A Guidance counsellor, an ex-teacher, someone who has hamburger money.  I wish they would be able to laugh at all the wailing guitars and the drums and the lead singer of the band.  I wish homework were on his mind, instead of getting away from his parents.  I wish that the subway were less comforting, forcing him to go outside, beyond himself, towards someplace he doesn’t know.  I wish that he had the motivation to find a part-time job, so, it becomes easier to be close to the public by doing something constructive rather than just riding the rails of the subway.

Angst is the last thing anyone really wants on their mind.  But sometimes, reaching 18 years-old takes a road less travelled.  The things that happen on these roads are often unknown and unplanned for.  We experience things that we are not prepared to endure, which can lead to sudden changes or losses of all kinds.  i hope the lonely, beautiful, boy will find his way home, without too much difficulty.  I worry, but I am powerless.  I worry, but I am not a professional.  I worry, but I have no authority over the boy.  I do think, when I see this boy.  I do feel, when I see this boy.  I wonder, but I don’t really go further.  Is the situation not dire enough?  Is he just pretty enough to look at, that I don’t press the emergency button?

I guess we are all ants.  I am a worker ant, not a soldier ant.  And I think that this is why, we are filled with our roles, and why, we just don’t go beyond these prescribed roles.  I will pray.  And hope that tomorrow will be better for everyone!

The Art Gallery

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Portrait of a Lady with Lap Dog

Portrait of a Lady with Lap Dog

PabloPicassoSculpture0002

I was at the Art Gallery a few months ago, and I took my sketch book with me.  I stopped in front of a Rembrandt portrait and sat down on a portable stool.  I took out my pencil, and began, in the middle of the public, to sketch the painting.  It was not sculpture, and it had bright colors, but the combination was a muted result.  In any case, as I started to sketch, and as I finished it, in about ten minutes, I noticed that she did not have her nobility as in her painted portrait.  Maybe it was my mood that afternoon.  Maybe I felt overwhelmed and surrounded by regality, but my sketched portrait looked different.

There is an apprehension, completely opposite to her almost smugness, and comfort and confidence.  She wears heavy clothing, with many folds, and has a complex necklace, a bracelet, as well as a tiny dog that announces her nobility.  She is almost young… perhaps she is in her twenties, but the result of my pencil sketch, she is an old woman of forty.

I was by myself, and was not hurrying, or finding reasons to dally.  Even though I was not satisfied with my sketch, I did not feel defeat.  I got up, and began a dialogue with myself about the paintings I was passing.

I am very picky about what I like to sketch.  There were many paintings with the only interesting thing about them, their color.  Sometimes, the actual portrait or the colors of the landscape create a stiffness that I try not to copy into my sketch.  So, I ended up in a room full of paintings on the walls and four sculptures in the middle, in glass casing.

This time I took to the twentieth century.  A Pablo Picasso sculpture, just titled, “Head of a Woman” was one of the four sculptures.  It was in bronze, and played with light in a reflective manner.

Again, I sat down on my portable stool, and began a ten minute sketch.  This time, I only had light to help me understand.  It was not about personality, and it was not about status.  It was an abstract, conceptual idea of all women.  As I looked longer at it, I almost felt as if Picasso had successfully created a sexist and age-ist and racial derogatory statement.  The shapes in the head were sharp and angular, and it suggested a tallness, perhaps what a soldier would have, wearing a helmet and anticipating the entry into a battle on the field.

When I finished with it, neither sketch completely satisfied me.  I wanted to do something else….  But also, I had spent an hour already in the gallery.  I had to be at dinner reservation, also, downtown, in another hour.  So, I was in between hours, and I was feeling the pressure of the weight of time.  So, I made a deal with myself.  I wanted to be able to return to the Art Gallery, a tall artist, capable of doing art.  So, I decided to go to the special exhibitions of Contemporary Artists in one of the smaller exhibition rooms.  It was filled with paintings the size of the walls in the gallery.  Nothing like the paintings I had sketched.  They were filled with color, very neon, in several rooms, and also what could be considered rude, awkward, and dense.  I was glad I did go to this exhibition as it satisfied my need for Art to serve a public good and to do a public service.  As for the beauty of art as a reason in itself for existence, I still felt that this does not exist.  Irregardless, I am a fan of Art Galleries, and I will walk into a gallery for no reason other than to look at the work.

Official Welcome to Summer!

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The pavement was hot this afternoon, radiating heat from its black asphalt top, making the day very humid.  We were in suburbia where all roads are big, wide, and long.  The buildings lining the sides of the “highway-like” main streets were heated as well.  It was one large, integrated, oven.  I couldn’t wait to get out of the parking lot and into the air-conditioned mall, and coming out, I couldn’t wait to get into the car and turn on the energy-sucking air-conditioning as well.  What made this situation overbearing was the constant sunshine.  It is much pleasanter on a beach,  in this circumstance, as I would not be covered in clothes.  I would have the sunscreen, a good pair of sunglasses, and possibly a movable umbrella to park over top of my movable beach chair.  (And probably, I would get the chance to get drunk if I had bought something all-inclusive!)  In any case, today’s weather was a welcome start to the summer season.

I was thinking only good thoughts.  And, who wouldn’t if they had such nice weather?  The sales were on in the shops, and having my cell phone with me, made me relax because I wasn’t anxious about missing the links to all the work happening.

So, my mind also seems to speed in this good weather.  I think fast, sometimes, furious thoughts.  “Furious” as in fast with a tail of heat that is pleasant, blazing an idea or chasing a laugh.  It is easy to think from  one thing to another.  I could only laugh, all afternoon.  This made me a little looser with my pocketbook, and I let myself make many dollar sale purchases.

I looked forward to getting home, as I had this itch again.  This itch to put my ideas in to an essay, so that I have more than just a memory of sunshine and beaches.

The fun thing about the four seasons, is that we are willing to suffer a lot, in order to enjoy the best weather.  Even if the best weather is actually here for less than a quarter of the year.  We put all this tolerance, all this thought forward, all this endurance, into our hearts and minds, so that the best weather is truly as it is…  As it truly exists.  We have no dispute.

And back home, doing the usual things (outside it is still “unusually” hot and sunny… compared to just one week ago), doing the usual things also seems easier and more fun to do.  It is not, something that will take two hours….  It is something that will splish splash, and be all clean, again, with no idea where the time went!  So, I will do the laundry, and I will make an easy dinner on the grill.  Then we will oh so comfortably and oh so easily fall asleep tonight.  I know in the morning, because I got the activity and I didn’t stress out, and I was relaxed, with rest and confidence in the world, that I will be very well-rested.  I am looking forward to having times like these more often.  I am hoping that it is not just this time of year when I will have times like these.  I have hope.

The coming global warming trend does trouble me.  I worry that good things will be harder to find and that it will take more money to find any of it.  I am always afraid of the future, as what I have now is only sufficient for now, and not another fifty years.  I am part of a group of people where great change happened to us all very very quickly in a short span of time.  There is no prediction possible, time-wise, or product wise… or if there will even be success.  I am always in some sort of “school.”  It is a place I am familiar with, with experts, professionals, and peers.  We see each other often and we give ourselves projects, trying to get people interested in our ideas and creations.

So, now, I relax.  The good sunny weather is a Godsend.  It helps my mood, and it makes living the minutia of every day, something pleasant.  I play a little more in the sun.  I spend more time doing productive work, with more of a smile on my face. I feel this smile, as my heart is as light as the day is.  I remember to thank people more often, and I remember to appreciate the little things… the minutia. So, this is my official welcome to summer.   And, this year, I am looking toward a good year.  A year of feeling happy and successful.  Ola!

Gods, Actors, And Cannes

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The most beautiful thing about an actor is the way he looks into your soul, simply by turning his head and gazing into your eyes.  It is impossible to return the favor and we swoon as the movie continues.  We feel secure when the actor does this…. revealing the complete meaning of being alive.  Sometimes it is almost as if God is speaking, as if the messenger from heaven, wings unfurled and flight through the air to rush towards earth, is the breath of the one who creates.  Are we ever so lucky?  Do we ever get to see this extra-ordinary circumstance any more than once or twice in our life?  And, why do we pine so, just for these one or two circumstances?

I am willing to pay for a movie theatre experience, which can add up to one hundred dollars for our family when we do this outing….  I love that the size of the actor takes the whole wall.  I love that the music, the voices, the dialogue, fills the entire room.  I like the dimness, shared with all the audience.

Movie awards season has started again.  Cannes, France is the host of the Cannes Film Festival, and it is the premiere film fest in all the world.  It means something…  something good, to be there.  It is difficult for me to get any juiciness out of it…. I ravenously swallow all the information that I can find….  But, as always, as an outsider, I can only admire the red carpet poses and read the opinion of the local film critic.  I, too, have fallen in love with the great actors and the great leading men.  Who can forget Russell Crowe in Gladiator…  and of course, Brad Pitt in Fight Club or Seven….  Or more appropriately, in Troy or Mr. and Mrs. Smith?

These actors take over the screen, and screen by screen, they take over the world, making money fly.  I could watch several movies from Hollywood in one day…  And not be blind to everything by the end of it.  I could enjoy as if I gorget the horrible facts of reality.  But in the end, I always find the incredible efforts of these global names takes me away and I know I will live forever.

The wish for many gods to exist is not some barbaric pagan dream.  It is not about trying to ignore reality and hope for something that we can understand.  It is about seeing.  The look of a god.  The meaning of a god.  The wish come true of what God is.  It is about having and believing, because one God can only look like one thing….  Perhaps the greatest?  Perhaps the only?  Perhaps nothing like the way I am, the way I live, the way I think,  the way life is?  Why is there a God of everything when everything just cannot meet the standard that this One God is creator of?

What if the Greeks of ancient times, actually are right?  What is there are different dieties?  That let us say, each race, each  ethnicity, is led by a god?  That there is great importance to this each god?  That these gods are exactly perfect in who and what they are, in the role they have in creation, in nature, in life?

If we use the example of Hollywood, with all their screen gods and goddesses, it suddenly becomes possible and probably…  that a universe of many gods can exist.  I am not saying that one great God cannot create what it is that we have, I am saying that we do not have to rely and believe only in one God just because it makes sense that one God ca make reality make sense in every single case.  Many gods can come from the same point of view.  Many gods can still make one reality.  God and gods and existence is not about endeavoring beyond ability to create.  Things suddenly exploded, as in the Big Bang.  Things just interlace.  Things just rely and delegate and work together.  It does not necessarily gave to be a lonely universe…  a lonely planet.  Our desire for more, for relatedness, for company, for greater, for love, for familiar, for just plain old life, is the mirror of the being or beings that lead all of this creation.  They show the way time after time after time.  With each birth.  With each death.  And with each moment that we catch that glimpse of God.

So, I am looking at Cannes…. Looking to see what it is that that lonely planet of Hollywood and all the other planets of movies have created in their gathering for Cannes.  I am thinking that they try their best at Cannes.  That the movies are always greater there.  I wish I could join the crowd that has gatherer from around the world there.  They are gathered there to see each other and to see everyone.  They are there for a great party, once a year, because Cannes is the siren call for all greatness.

One day, in another life, I will get the chance to fly to Cannes.  I will remember here, where I am now, but I will be in the future.  I am looking forward to it.   A bientot, Cannes!

Her Fearful Symmetry

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The first time I saw beauty in the most fearful place, I held my gaze and could only turn away when I started to breathe again, my shallow breath only allowed in when my muscles around my chest and neck could work once again.  I took a deep swallow, and asked an odd question, “Why is there two of that girl?”

Identical people puzzle me.  They look like each other, and often tail each other closely, starting and finishing each other’s word to the complete agreement of each other.  They dress in the same dress, and for some reason become completely lost and awol when the other disappears.  They tail each other from the time they are born to the time they pass on.  They are completely famous without the fame.  In public, people recognize their existence, albeit, only from the point of view of being in the presence of two beautiful and exceptional people, but they are recognized.  It seems, twins, and being a twin, makes for interesting gossip and talk and fulfills the need in some people to have confirmation of the extra-ordinariness of life. The very bodily existence of twins is very strong and loud evidence of life.  It is confirmation without true proof as to what life is.  Is it a brain?  Is it the beauty of models’ bodies?  Is it the strength and accuracy of athlete’s muscles?  Is it our ability to talk?  Our ability to create fictions, and stories and plan for the future? Is it our ability to create and rate and fall in love?  Do we create love?  And if so, do we create life?  Is life and love a very spontaneous accident?  Or is there a scientific method and law as to how it all happens?

I am looking at a conversation that two people are having.  One of them keeps insisting that twins are better off than all other kinds of human beings.  To have a bond that never breaks because there is nothing that is the match of that bond….  no words, no actions, no ideas, no love…  This is a very deep thing to say and think!  That being a twin for life literally means neither will ever be alone, even if one passes on, or if they find someone to marry, the twins to each other are never truly alone.  They would share that love as well!

I imagine this situation, the one in the overheard conversation….  To say that if I am in trouble, that there will be someone who will be there to save me…..  This, too, is very deep…  Any girl would like to be in this situation!  To have security forever!  I imagine this situation, and I think, I would be very satisfied!  Perhaps, twins are better off than any other type of human being!

Unfortunately, I was not born a twin.  I am single, and I am this way for my entire life.  I have learned to live with this “difficulty” in a way that makes me more willing to try my luck and to try to make friends, even in an unlikely situation.  I am often in a lonely job, as writers tend to have to do their work in isolation, and in quiet, and in full concentration of brain work  so that they can hear their own thoughts.  Writing is messy, and if you don’t catch your thoughts and ideas quickly… they will fly off and disappear!  So, this is how I feel secure….  Hearing myself and editing myself and creating word-filled pages that work and feel like magic!

So, am I resigned to this life?  Well, of course.  There is nothing that  I would wish undone.  There is nothing that I would wish redone….  (Sometimes when I am angry, or feeling jealous, I do wish that my entire life were redone… but that is a situation that even twins cannot outwit.  Being angry and /or jealous is natural even if your twin is perfect evidence of what the situation is.)

So, here is my life.  Summer is just starting, and I am becoming very busy with all the plans that are floating around the house.  My husband wants this….  My kids want that….  And then, do we have time to visit grandma?  Will there be time enough to buy a season’s pass to the theme park?  And, are the kids ready to take on over night camp?

These are not necessarily easy decisions to make.  Being bad and getting slightly poor grades are not conducive to going out to play at the waterpark…  It is more likely that summer school will be the result and consequence of that!

Life is not easy….  As the anthem of my generation states, “Life is a mystery, and we must stand alone.”  It is tragically beautiful, and, I bet, this is one thing that twins do not understand!

Keeping Promise During Struggle

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The tall tree stands by the stand of the tall buildings.  It is a break in the street, apparent against the sky.  When the sun is shining, reflections of light create glare off glass and metal.  I am happy in this warm weather and think of the man I want to marry.  Everything seems perfect, and I hope everything is true.

Where can I get to where I want to go?

Remembering those early days when everything was just as hopeful as everything was just as hopeless.  We are married now, and those days still stay with me.  The freedom is in the marriage–the promise of the hope I had, and therefore the promise of happily ever after.

When struggling through the day, when work is working like a dog, and I am mindlessly keeping up, and I think of all the undone work I have to do once I leave the office, I truly do struggle.  I usually just take a deep breath, and literally, with stoic face and demeanor, soldier on into the evening until I can finally fall, exhausted, into sleep for seven hours.

Life is long, and sometimes, because there are so many things happening all the time, it can accommodate a full range of responses and results.  I am, by nature moved by these things, again and again.  I am beginning to find that knowing less when I was younger, truly was a blessing.  Now, when I look at these scenes, and these places, I find that mostly, I was wrong in assuming the way things were, was in fact the natural order of things.  I am jaded now.  Things will never again be as good and as perfect as when we were all at the beginning.

I am glad  that I was young when I fell in love with my husband and I am glad that me married young.  We have had many years filled with happiness.  We are still together and comfortable.  Now, even raising children and parenting them, is easy in this family.

The scene of buildings and trees is a common enough sight in this city.  When I see that moment, that moment, when everything was just as hopeless as well as just as hopeful, I am back to that first day, when I was hoping I was in true love.  With age, the judgement of good and evil, and middling, is much easier to make, and I find I am much more satisfied with just doing the same things over.  I find that a cup of coffee in the morning is satisfying enough to take me to the next morning.  No more one more latte for the afternoon….  I am not going to over-satisfy myself.

The on-coming summer season, is just as exciting this year, as it  was last year.  I am trying to remember where all my summer clothes are…  hidden in the drawers of cabinets and chests, and armoirs in the rooms of this house.  There’s also the closet, for things that must hang.  I am a bit of a peacock and love to match the frilly, colorful things all together.  The warm weather reminds me that often we will be out late into the evening and sometimes, as a treat, at the cottage, we will sit  by the lake and light a fire in the fire pit there, into the deep night.

Everything is filled, and everything is filling.  Every morning is a treat and every night is an easy rest.  I live from one moment to the next, filled with surprise form one surprise to the next.

The Reality of Mother’s Day

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We always hope things are real.  We tell ourselves that things are real.  That we wouldn’t be here if the things that happen are not real.

It is surreal that bodies are left here when a person dies and passes on.  It is surreal that people will use a gun to kill.  It is surreal that guns are manufactured when it is obvious people do not treat them as toys, but as a real way to kill people.

Why is life like this?  What do we consider is alive and what do we consider is worth living for?

From a scientist’s point of view, things that rely on each other, as in being in an eco-system, are things (organisms) that are alive.  As for the polar opposite, the solar system, not one thing in it (except earth) is actually alive.  It exists in a rhythmic, inanimate, and up to mathematical accuracy like many cogs working in a beautiful machine.

It seems the reality is that we do not only live for the best things in life.  Things  get in the way, and immediately, we return the supposed blow to our ego and esteem with an equal and greater blow.  What starts this continuous cycle?  And why do we rely on each other like this?

I was at a lunch meeting the other day, and even in the civilized and sophisticated office that I work in, we were all together eating lunch and uninhibitedly trading bits of gossip.  I mean, I can only brag about my children only oh so much before I look like I’m obsessed with them.

We had booked the day to both eat and also make use of our time to plan and discuss the issues for our next project.  Several times through the meeting, opinions of the ideas and possible creations that we wanted to make and deal with were brought up, and also, summarily batted down.  I do not doubt that some of the members of our team, had worked hard to try to make their ideas and plans the one that would fly.

I am not saying that this hasn’t happened to me, but it seems to just be the smaller version of the large-eco-system reality that we are surrounded by and live in.  Where some people will use threat and force to deal with a negative reception, others will keep a careful  diary of a “track record” and use this as leverage for job loss or being looked over for a promotion.  And, of course, there is just plain blows to the ego.  And how long and how many times can someone just sit through peers’ negative comments and bullying?

So, why is this reality? Are we helping to shape the world as it will be?  A century from now?  Are we encouraging merit?  Or, are we just encouraging the same old Earth that has been here millions of years, because, quite frankly, it just won’t change?

I am hoping there is something called “Evolution.”  It sounds to me like the answer to Earth’s burgeoning problems.  Charles Darwin studied animals, and found that they, even with their limited brain size, were capable of change and gain. Sure, they were nothing like human beings, but because they responded to changes in their environment, slowly, they were changing the next generation, if not changing their own very entrenched behaviors, at the moment they responded.  Soon, species of animals were created, and new breeds were found and the animal kingdom grew and flourished.

Human beings, being capable of planned thought, unfortunately, are not responding as positively to pressures and change.  We keep doing and keep thinking like all the generations previous to ours….  Well, why?  Because nothing at all has actually changed!

So, we, reading that our ancestors used swords to settle problems, we will us knives and guns to allay ours.  We will bully, because reading how well it works, we know how to do it and make it work ourselves.  Have you thought of a better way of doing things?  Even if I wanted to be a one-woman-band, and declare a brand new way of living, clean of blood, sweat and death, no one would actually listen.  I would be ostracized as a problem, and considered dealt with.

Mother’s Day is this weekend, and like everyone else, I love Mother’s Day, because I have a mother I love.  I would never bully my mother.  I would never call her bad names.  I will never stick her in a god-forsaken hole when she grows old and feeble, as I want to take care of her.  At least this is something that exists in a very real way.  We are all children, and therefore we all have mothers and fathers.  There reality of life is that we get tired of loving.  And the reality is that we become embroiled in wars instead.  It is a quick way to make life work and a quick way to make some money on it, without ties that bind in forever bondage.

The World of Paul Frank and Hamsters

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My mom likes my Paul Frank PJ’s.

My hamster is awake all night.  It bit me at the pet store before I decided to buy it–then I bought it.  Even though the teeth are sharp, the size of the tooth cause more pain than a needle at the doctor’s office.  The blood quickly beaded and I had to hold the bit incision, covering myself in blood.

My mom claims there were no cute things when she was a child, and she always say how lucky we are that there is so much softness and fun, as if childhood never ends.

Paul Frank is a monkey–mostly he is all head and mouth.  He is always laughing, sometimes eyes closed, sometimes eyes open.  His image is printed always or embroidered on something soft–Pajamas, backpacks, sweatshirts.  I always see Paul Frank on the adults who never grow up.

I am fully, tragically, in love with Paul Frank–I have no picture for you, but if you see him, by yourself–you’ll know it is him.  Mostly, I think  I laugh at the people who wear Paul Frank.  It is daring–and if you are a grandmother, then I think only your grandkids take you seriously.

Now, in our house, I am surrounded by monkeys and hamsters.  Even if I didn’t want Nibbles and Paul Frank here, my kids would’ve found some way to bring it all into the house.  I sometimes think my kids and their friends hanging out at our house, love the things they trade and share more than their parents.  They clean up after themselves very well when it is they are having a good day trading secrets and just looking cool in each other’s eyes.

I worry about situations like these.  I lose track what it is they are doing, and what it is that they own.  They have some money to spend now, and if my son doesn’t come and show me his convenience store purchases, I worry.  I still dress him….  He will be in the “perfect” store, and we will try on sizes until we get it right.

Surprisingly, I overheard my daughter talking with her friends in the backyard.  I just happened to walk by the open back door and heard her say that she thought I was cool.  It was one of the most gratifying days of my life.  She is still young, but she is very well-versed in things cool.  I will always think that she is cool.

Even when I begin to imagine all the things that could be made in my children’s lives, filling it all with fun, learning, and life, I sometimes scare myself.  What if they contract an incurable disease?  What if an accident were to happen, and they end up paralyzed for life?  They look so perfect now…  the things that they grow through are nothing like the disasters I have foreseen in others….  I’d be overjoyed if they could make it to adulthood without the most frightening failures of life happening to them.

So, now, back to the issues of monkeys and hamsters.  We share everything.  Everything in the house belongs to “our family.”  We try not to be strict and draconian.  They will grow into the stage where they will try to hide things….  and I do not encourage that age.  I want them to feel free enough to bring up those things that kids will sometimes hide.  So, yes, “our pet hamster,” named “Nibbles” in a communal naming spree, is shared.  We all take care of Nibbles, which allows me, my daughter, and their father into my son’s room to take care of Nibbles.  We ask permission, to “take Nibbles for a walk” and we will take turns cleaning the cage and refilling the food.

I get to look cool on my weekends with the kids.  My t-shirt with Paul Frank’s happy face recognizable instantly by my children, my mother, and, of course, my husband, who thinks it is just juvenile of me to keep Paul Frank around the house.

Right now, my daughter just finished planning a birthday party for Nibbles.  She drew a picture of it and showed it to me. It immediately went up on the fridge.  She has asked me, since then, when a good day is to have the party?  I don’t really know, but I do keep telling her, tomorrow.  She thinks I delay too long, and I think that the days pass by so quickly, that I’m afraid that I will forget them.

I don’t think there will ever be a day when we will take Paul Frank, or, hamsters, out of the house.  They have come in, and I think that they are staying for life.  For now, if the Dollar Store is not selling hamster-sized tea cups and balloons, we will have to keep delaying the birthday party.

Adventures In Wandering

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Have you ever wandered in locked areas?  Like at school, or in a mall?  The thrill of being somewhere that you have discovered despite the best efforts of security, is tingly, and travels along the spine, and the hair on my arms and on the back of my neck raise up and stand.

Even now, I have temptations to open closed doors…. Or to try the door handle to see if it has been locked.  I will peer in, to try to see who is in the room….  To see what the room looks like… if it is in fact the Stationary Room, from which I can take a pen or two, or even a stapler.

As I have “matured” in my adulthood, this habit of opening closed doors is getting silly to play.  I am recognized where I go, because where I go that is different, and new, and worthy of door-opening adventure, are often other offices, like the office I sit in to do my job.  When going with my children, I will abstain from blatantly just opening doors, but on occasion I have found excuses to open closed doors, even when they are watching.

Even now, the biggest adventure I have had, was when I was still young.  As I get older, I find that exciting adventures are more had if you get on a plan and travel to another country.  Where things, and almost everything, is just different.  Being in these foreign countries is like being in someone else’s building.  If not their exact home.  There is some thrill to it.  But even these expensive adult adventures do not compare with my greatest adventure, yet, in opening a locked door.

I was in school at the time.  There were hundreds of buildings on campus, and I probably had been in a handful of them.  There were maybe a hundred that I could see when I walked to get to class, but I didn’t have the time of the knowledge to walk into them.  And, when during the beginning of my semesters, I would walk yet, to another building, I sometimes may have tried a door or two, and about up to half the time, the door would be locked.

About halfway through school, I decided that the main libraries on campus were becoming boring.  They were always packed with students, and the sense that I was one of the number of students that only stuck to the main and tried thoroughfares was beginning to make me feel what I knew was happening….  I was a number.

So, in no systematic way, except through guesswork, I started to pick buildings, hoping that I could walk into an open door to a library that felt a little less cavernous for the the purpose of blocking sun, wind, and snow, from the students inside.  Near the south end of campus was a stone building three stories tall, and with two bell towers.  It was greyish brown stonework with narrow, slatted windows.  The word “KNOX” had been carved into the stonework above the main door.  I guessed it was the “Knox Building.”

Well, I had seen it several times at least without deciding to explore inside.   So, one afternoon, with one of my classes unexpectedly cancelled, I needed to find someplace quiet to be.  Not doing readings until after the professor has lectured us his opinion, is not the best way to learn material.  So, with my newfound promise to read, because I had been spared, I immediately thought of the Knox Building.

It was not very far.  The weather was overcast, but not too cool yet.  I went up the dozen steps up to the two arched doors and pulled…..  Yes, it did open.  Inside, it was dim, and the ceiling was high.  So, from this look, I knew the main floor was two stories high.  There were no electric lights, just rows and rows of column windows.  Slatted so that the surface of glass was not large.  The foyer was not too big to make me feel too small.  It felt roomy, and if it had been lighted, probably I would feel a welcome.  There was no one around, so, when I say I got that thrill, this was it.

I really had not idea how big the building was, and is, but I was not in a hurry.  On my left, once I took a good look, I could see through another couple of arched doors, which had slatted windows build into the middle.  It was familiar to me.  It was a chapel, very large, with tall arched ceilings reaching three stories, higher than the ceiling in the hallway.  No one was inside, and it was quiet, and I swore to myself I knew the smell of a church chapel.  I lingered only a few seconds, looking straight at the altar, then to the smaller alcoves on the left and right.  When I turned to come back out, to the right hand side of the main doorway, was a wall with a row of windows, and out the windows I could see a courtyard.  So, with no real choice, I turned to walk forward into the building, more.

By the time I had walked around the main floor, passing many doors, I was unable to find any secret or excitement.  The doors were locked, or obviously, there were stairways that led to the basement….  I was not tempted to do that.  I decided to go through the doors that led to the courtyard.

When I entered, only fifteen minutes into my adventure in the Knox Building, I was met with an empty place.  There were stone pathways, and greenery planted into the lawn and along the surrounding stone walls of the building.  It was quiet.  No pigeons.  A bright day, without the shining sun.  No rain.  And no sound.  It was an outdoor library!  Unfortunately, again,  I was not tempted to sit there and study.

So much for my experience.  I had enough of mousing around, and just went to one of the libraries I knew.  In the end I got in a good forty-five minutes of reading before my next class.  Adventures like these are getting fewer, but I keep remembering the adventures I have had.  I will remember the smell of was candles as the wax is still hot.  And the idea of a lit candle as the flame dances, because close to the flame, it is very warm….  Leading to hot.  Now, if I glance through my bookshelves at home, I remember the marathon readings I did, and, I am glad that now, I can take all the time I want, to finish a book that I am reading.