Wrap your head with this material...

The problem with the book I’m reading isn’t the story. It’s the problem of my living. The rote nature of it. The sentences– simple declaratives, the tasks –things that get struck from a list, done and redone. Remember? See it? Life. Not merely written down like any other list of things not to be forgotten, but witnessed so never forgotten  even after memory failed to hit “record”,  because a day was witnessed at its onset. It’s the lack of feeling mornings, not the story of what happened. The lack of witnessing . Mornings, that time of awakening at the birth of the world to watch an egret’s legs in water, slender limbs glistening beneath a cool surface in a lagoon barely moved in the stillness of a day that has never happened before.  This day has never happened before. This day will only rise once,  And imminently. fleetingly.  But the lack of toes in water. The missed watching,  the waiting  for sunlight to crest and  for beak to breach.  T...

 Yesterday I went to the Post Office since I have to get all my mail there because of dumb mountain stuff. The bin of packages was blocking my mailbox and the postal worker asked if I needed her to move it. I said, "Yeah, sorry. But I am here to pick up that same backpack. How weird!" She was wearing a pomeranian in a backpack and it was seriously the very pack I had just come to check if had arrived. "Oh, I just  put that in a locker. Hold on. What's your last name?" "Mitch--" "--ell" she finished at the same time and laughed. "Mine's for a cat but I did get the same one." "Yup," she said handing me the package.

 Me standing in front of the high school admin assistant: It feels like there's something in my shoe. Me: Probably there is  something in my shoe. Me: (takes shoe off and checks) It is a tiny piece of dog food. Awesome, I love when I do something like this in front of another person. Admin Assistant: I'm surprised the dog didn't eat the shoe Me: Me too What I didn't say is that I'm surprised I walked around on a piece of dog food for the last 2 hours. Or am I?

At bedtime last night, my 10 year-old asked me to stay extra long in his room. He was teary and said he couldn't stop thinking about dying. He couldn't stop thinking that, at the end of his life, he'd feel like it had all gone by so fast that when he died it would all mean nothing. Can you imagine? 10 years old. Full existential crisis. So I held him and stayed extra long. I could tell you the things I said to him, and they were good and they helped. But the truth is, he's got a point. It's one that I don't subscribe to, but I do think his observations are astute and more well-reasoned than a 10-year-old should have to face. His view is a fair one albeit bleak. And the idea that he grapples with it definitely put a large crack in my heart last night.

 Monday I went to pick up our mail at the post office. The postal worker was blocking the path to my box with a giant blue roller bin of packages she was putting into the center aisle lockers so I joked, "if that's blocking the path to my box, does that mean I get a ride in it?" She popped up from behind it and smiled, rolling it out of my way. "I don't see why not," she joked back. I grabbed my mail then looked at the roller bin, looked at her, looked at the roller bin, and jumped on. She pushed me to the end of the aisle and stopped. I giggled away, running into someone I work with on the way to the line to retrieve packages. "Who says the post office can't be fun?"

 I used to always think the best thing I had to offer was fun. I'm a shitton of fun. During quarantine, I had students make sock puppets and do a lipsynch battle. I once let my kids sit on the roof of the car while I pulled up the driveway. I sing loud even at stoplights with the windows down. I am always thinking of games, texting funny pictures, saying weird stuff to make people laugh. I make myself happy nearly every day with silliness. But once when I said that was the best thing I have to offer, my husband disagreed. I didn't know what to make of it. I thought he was wrong. I was kinda mad actually. Why didn't he think the best thing about me was the best thing about me? Maybe he didn't get me.  But more than a year later, I don't think that's it at all. I'm not actually sure what he thinks it is and I'm still not sure if he's right. The fun part is pretty uniquely me and I really like it about myself. But maybe the fun part is the part that...