Bubkiss

I sat down to write something new today. Something fresh. Something unique. Appealing. Anything. What did I find? A bit of stale crust, smelly cheese, rotting apples... I could go on and on. But unfortunately, not with a fresh new thought. Funny how some days, my mind never stops. Others, nada. Bubkiss. Squat. (Well it seems the synonyms are running free.)

I can't stand the dry times. I sit and sit trying to will myself to write. Which, of course, only makes matters worse. The longer I sit, the worse I feel. The worse I feel, the slower the imagination. Vicious cycle. Terribly vicious cycle.

I guess it's time to get up and take a walk, go to the beach, the park... Whatever. Just away from the keyboard. Of course the moment I am away from the computer, no notebook in the car, then the ideas will come. And oh how they come....

That is an entirely different problem--when ideas flow freely with no way to catch them. See, I also suffer from a very poor memory. My amazingly detailed beginning to the next bestseller... gone. Lost somewhere between sleep and sleepiness. My fabulously witty memoir entry... gone. Interrupted by a sibling squabble. For some reason, once hatched, I cannot regain their essence. Oh, the basics are still there, but the wondrously lavish details and bits of sensory excitement, those vanish in the caverns of my mind. So many wonderful ideas lost in there. No wonder I have such amazing dreams....

Miraculous Conception?

The subtleties of the silent treatment are lost on my four-year-old. She may notice that mommy is not talking, heck she'll come right out and ask. "Mommy, why aren't you talking to me?" But she has absolutely no idea that I am remaining speechless because she refused to help me with the baby when I needed it. Payback? How does that complicated and juvenile, and all the while ADULT concept even enter her world?

The answer? It doesn't. Plain and simple. Yet it is completely logical to me, at the time. Why do we try to impose our adult standards and sensibilities on our children?

I must keep reminding myself that she is only four. She sees the world in a completely different way than I. And she is not the one who needs to change. I am. I cannot possibly expect her to keep her room clean on her own, or remember to brush her teeth every day, or understand why chocolate is not a dinner side dish. It is my job to help her along in her world until she is old enough to join mine. (Do I even want that? Most days I think her world is much better than mine.) It is my job to ease her in to my world, not expect the miraculous conception of an adult mind in a child's body.

And this is a task I plan to take a long time accomplishing! A very long time...

Childhood Memories

My little brother and I were ten years apart in age. Because of which, there were precious few years that we played together. Being kids of resource, we made good use of our imaginations. One afternoon, we played our favorite make-believe game.
"I am the inter-dimensional voyager. Only I can take you to your destination. What dimension would you like to visit today?" I asked my four-year old little brother.
"The candy road, I want to go to the candy road!" Brian squealed with excitement.
"Step into the inter-dimensional transport, non-stop to dimension five!" We crouched down behind our corner bush until we could no longer see the rest of the yard. "All out! First we must ask the King for permission. Oh, great King of Dimension Five," I bellowed, kneeling before our shade tree—which was almost in the exact center of our yard, "we request to journey through your lands."
Brian knelt beside me, his head also bowed.
"He said we have his permission, but we must not enter dimension six or ten."
"Six or ten? What's so special about six or ten? I bet that's where the good candy is! Hey! How come he only talks to you?" Brian asked with awe in his voice.
I wondered if he could actually see our giant shade tree—totally unsuited for climbing—as the portly, ruddy-cheeked emperor I described in fantastic detail, or was he simply playing along?
"Because I am the inter-dimensional voyager!" I replied with complete authority.
Either Brian accepted my answer as truth, or decided that it did not matter.


This is just one of my memories of my little brother and I. This is how I hope my children are. I hope they genuinely enjoy each other's company from childhood into adulthood. I am not naive enough to think that there won't be rough spots. I'm sure my mother can recall many a story of us not playing nice. However, those are not the memories I hold. I remember sticking up for my little brother when a bully tried to pick on him. I remember how cute he was as a child. I remember the good parts. Hopefully, my children will too....