You know how some memories from your childhood live so vividly in your mind, but with absolutely no context? Like you’re looking through a kaleidoscope with bright shapes, colors and memories bouncing about, surrounded by blackness? Fortunately, we can peer back in whenever we like and relive this moment again and again.
One of the stronger moments I have like that (again, with absolutely no context of year or age, I was maybe six or so) is of running around in my backyard. It was summer, the light fading into sherbet-colored pastels and I was jumping over my mom’s lavender hedge waiting for the fireflies to come out and play.
I had asked someone (my parents, maybe) to come run and chase me. Whoever it was said they would in a minute, but they were a little bit tired. We had just eaten dinner, too. There was time needed, as adults say, to let their dinners settle and relax.
I could not, for the life of me, understand this. The night was especially warm and there was running that absolutely, positively needed to be done. Didn’t they know how important this running was, how fun it was, or how great it felt? I satisfied myself with tearing around the lavender hedge again, totally content. And then I realized that one day I’d grow up too, and I’d be sitting at the table with a cup of coffee in my hand and tell someone like me, “In a minute. I’m a little bit tired. I’ve just eaten dinner. I just need to let my food settle and relax.”
It seems a little contrived and ridiculous that I’d have this revelation while in mid-jump over flowers on a summer evening of my childhood, but that’s how it happened. And I filed the moment away in my memory, somewhere between Bittersweet Moments and Unadulterated Joy.
It’s tough when you’re an adult to have these moments of Unadulterated Joy. You might even argue that the word “UN-ADULTerated” strictly forbids you from them. We’re all too much aware of the world around us to really sink into the bliss of the moment and bask in it. So when they do come along, and we truly enjoy them, they’re even more precious.
Like when over Thanksgiving leftovers, you accidentally teach your 2 ½-year old cousin that hippos make the sound “RAWR,” and she spends a good part of fifteen minutes pressing a tiny plastic hippo against your nose and rawring her little heart out.
Or when for no good reason other exhaustion, the thought of vomiting in front of a quaint Nordic pie shop in Wisconsin makes you giggle so hard that your eyes water from trying to keep from bursting at the seams.
Or even when while rinsing with mouthwash alone in your bathroom, your “vigorous swishing” gets a little too vigorous and you inadvertently squirt peppermint mouthwash out of the corner of your mouth, dowsing your mirror and wall with a hefty portion of the blue liquid and leaving you struggling to control your amusement until you give up and spit the rest out in a blast of side-splitting laughs.
I’ve been lucky to have quite a few of these total joy moments in the last few weeks. They may or may not survive in my memory in a context, and they very well may end up in that bright kaleidoscope where I think, "Remember that time..." But they’re little blessings—unplanned, unexpected and, most of all, unadulterated.
Wednesday, December 3, 2008
Keeping in Mind
Thursday, October 30, 2008
Scary Female Voldemort With Fluffy Bow in Hair For Ohio's 2nd Congressional District?
Okay, prepare yourself for a Harry Potter reference. Remember how Voldemort becomes less and less human in his evil attempts at immortality? This, I’m pretty sure, is why Jean Schmidt looks the way she does.
I suppose that after you violate basic Congressional rules by calling Marine veteran and congressman John Murtha a “coward” on your first day in Congress, lie about gifts received from lobbyists, falsify your college education, tell voters you’ve been endorsed by politicians and organizations that haven’t endorsed you, plagiarize guest columns... TWICE, admit you weren’t aware of the financial crisis ‘until a few weeks ago’ and then air ridiculous commercials about the “success we’ve enjoyed” due to your leadership, and finally, wage a three-month assault on the fictitious Chinese drilling off the American coast that you've apparently imagined and then blame everyone (Republican John Boehner, democrats, then the media) for your lies, it becomes easier and easier to let yourself sour with age, baseless vitriolic attacks and senseless politics.
Of course, like the Cincinnati Enquirer reported back in 1984, this wonderful woman was calling young Republicans “young Hitlers” and booing Elizabeth Dole at the Republican National Convention, so I guess maybe she’s been this stupid all along.
Anyway, I proudly checked my ballot box for Victoria Wulsin. It’s hard to imagine that anyone continues to elect Schmidt into office, and I assume that those who do so just don’t realize how this woman is seriously embarrassing our district. I would beg Republicans and Independents who don’t know the issues at hand in the 2nd Congressional District of Ohio either do some research on the atrocious behavior of this woman or just skip voting for their representative altogether.
On a personal note, I might not be so angered were it not for the fact that I personally visited Schmidt’s office in Washington, D.C. back in 2006 to request her support in Congress to end genocide in Darfur. Upon arriving and waiting for quite a long time, I was handed off to an aide, not much older than me, who condescendingly suggested that it was so wonderful I was attempting to be so involved in politics, deflected my serious questions, questioned my own knowledge and then (!) tried to connect with me about my hometown by naming streets in it.
Totally insulting, but exactly what I would expect from Jean Schmidt’s office.
Friday, July 18, 2008
It's here!
It's Megabus day. I'm taking the 3:30 bus from random corner in Chicago to random corner in Cincinnati--with one pit-stop at random corner in Indianapolis. I'm hoping John brought his camera so we can document the journey!
Friday, April 4, 2008
Your Burden to Bear
To me, this moment was as important as my first driver's license or passport. At age 11, I would have my own identification card--a weighty two-by-three inch piece of plastic marked with my own name and photo.
I stood in the steel-barred line, nervously adjusting my glasses, and considered removing them for my photo. Cold fluorescent light blanched my skin, and the unheated room seemed sterile with its white walls and concrete floors. Pounding against my rib cage, my heart struggled like a prisoner who wildly shakes iron bars to break free. I crossed my arms, certain that not even my spring jacket could hide this thumping betrayal of my nerves. A cold sweat broke out across my face, my glasses slid down my nose. I felt as if I was about to be processed rather than photographed.
"Are you excited?" my mom asked cheerfully.
I shrugged and nodded at the same time, pressing my chin against my chest and focusing my attention down at my feet. I pushed my toes up against the insides of my sneakers until they hurt, hoping that the pain might distract me from worrying about my glasses.
Ahead of me in line, older kids from the nearby high school were waiting for their turns too. They flashed bright teethy smiles at the camera and then waited as a bulky printer grinded and then sputtered their likenesses onto the card. One by one, they grabbed their cards when the machine finally spit them out, fanning them theatrically in the air to dry. After looking over one another's and laughing, they shoved the cards into their wallets and purses.
A purse. The thought hadn't even crossed my mind until now: I didn't have a purse. Where would I keep my new card?
As quickly as the problem had arose, its only solution dawned on me in a cold realization. I would have to buy a purse, of course. The "pretend" purses I had wouldn't do. Some girls in my fourth grade class already had real purses, anyway. Now, my time had come.
Suddenly, this card bore a much bigger burden than I had expected. The photographer called me forward, and I reeled, my future spinning before me:
When this photo snapped, the machine would cough up my own black-and-white image on a glossy canvas of plastic. Pressed into my hand, the card would demand a safe-keeping place. Hung about my shoulder, the purse would bear other responsibilities--more cards, dollar bills, and what else? I eyed my own mother's bulging purse as I pressed my feet into the two painted soles before the camera. What was in that thing? Was this overpacked fate mine as well? It seemed that within a few months time, I'd wear a diaper bag and push a stroller.
Why, God? I frantically thought as the flash went off. Why had I signed up for this card?
"Here you go!" smiled the photographer when the machine finished printing my destiny. "Have a great season!"
As my mom and I walked back to our Toyota station wagon, I carried my new weight in plastic, staring at my reflection and thinking quietly about my future.
"Do you want me to carry that for you?" my mom interrupted my thoughts.
"Oh!" I turned to her, surprised "You'll keep it for me?"
"Well, sure. You don't have to hold onto that," she said. "Just don't let me forget to give it to you when you and your friends go."
I looked back down at the card where my likeness stared wide-eyed back up at me:
CAITLIN G."Okay," I smiled, handing it over to her and thinking about another year free of my fate. "I won't forget."
PARAMOUNT'S KINGS ISLAND AMUSEMENT PARK
SEASON'S PASS 1996
Monday, March 24, 2008
More Le Gross
OK, I couldn't resist another post. Wonderfully in-the-know Anna C. shared this link with me--your state has an Easter egg, in case you're like me and didn't know about it.
And if you're like me, your state's egg is hideous. If not, consider yourself lucky. I noticed a couple beauties, like Rhode Island and Kansas. But really, Ohio takes the ugly cake no contest. More gchat commentary below.
me: up until now i never realized how much my state looks like a shorter, fatter version of africa!
