It is Wednesday and I am
going to write for 15 minutes. . . I had thoughts in the car, listening on the
radio. Yes, today I am going to do it.
Sit down and write. I am.
My dear husband has
Wednesday afternoons handled. He
picks up all four of our offspring from their respective institutions of
learning and trundles them all off to circus arts classes at the Boulder Circus
Center. Then he feeds them junky American fast food on the way home (if I were
a good mother I would pack them a nutritious dinner the night before and leave
it in the fridge…but…sigh). I
guess the exercise offsets the fried chicken sandwiches.
So back to my point,
Wednesdays I can write. I will
come home, sit down and write. I
had thoughts - in the car - listening
to the radio. Two bright young
women were talking about the European Debit Crisis and I was feeling October
2008 déjà vu all over again. So I
will write.
I walk in the door and I
see that my blessed husband has cleaned the kitchen and folded last night’s
laundry. Still, my house starts
screaming at me: another load of laundry! Sort through that box of stuff! Bake
a few of those little somethings so you won’t be tempted to buy them at the
coffee shop tomorrow! You’ve not watered those plants in a while! The bathrooms
could use some attention! For the love of God woman – CLEAN SOMETHING!
But TODAY I WILL
WRITE! I had thoughts of my own,
about risk, in the car. The two
women were talking about how ratings of AAA were taken to be essentially
without risk and that this is the second time this has happened recently. The mortgage backed securities were
rated AAA, so were treasuries issued by Italy and Greece – AAA – risk
free. Yet…
I put a load in the
washer, mix up a yeast dough and let it stand in the warm oven and run upstairs
to write while the washer runs the first cycle and the bread rises. My husband and the children will be
home soon. Nothing is without
risk. They could get hit in the
head with juggling clubs, fall off their unicycles or eat tainted chicken and
cantaloupe. The washer could leak,
the bread could fail to rise, a meteor could crash into the planet and send us
all reeling into a dystopic nightmare.
As I kneed the bread I spin out possible futures: Greece and Germany
dance in a mirror, reversing roles in 1919 demands for reparations from the
Great War. Europe deftly shoots
itself in the foot, again.
The garage door opens
and my family is home:
“Mom! Mom! I was
juggling on a unicycle and I was swinging the poi but the they collided and
then I dropped them and I fell off but I’m all right then I went on the
bola-bola and tried the diablo but the string was too short so I could just
toss it but I didn’t quite catch it.
I did do a pinwheel though! Two of us on unicycles held hands and went
around in a circle and Quarto (the youngest, who is eight) was riding on the
teacher’s shoulders!”
Nothing is risk free.
Just ask Dr. Who
So this is why you posted on Facebook last week that you were watching too, too much Dr. Who? I remembered! Katie, I wish that you would write more because I love every word. You have such a voice that pings at all the right moments. Thanks for the every-woman-chuckle-or-is-it-sob?
ReplyDeleteI thought I had the only house that screamed! I wrote today amidst the screams of "Laundry, laundry...no, vacuum, vacuum!" It was difficult, but I wrote first then laundried and vacuumed it nearly to death. Thank you for speaking for all of us with screaming houses!
ReplyDeleteIt is so wonderful to know I'm not alone in the screaming house department :-) Thanks for the encouraging comments!
ReplyDelete