Surrender, Dorothy

When the World Changes Your Name

The little angel wanted us to tape the royal wedding. So we did. When I came downstairs this morning, she was already dressed and glued to the set.

"Did you watch Princess Diana's wedding?" she asked.

"No."

"Why not?"

"Well, it was on at like four in the morning. And I really didn't care."

She narrowed her eyes, trying to gauge if I was joking.

Just then, Meredith Viera (wearing a ridiculous hat that appeared to be free-climbing the side of her head), mentioned "Princess Katherine."

So now she's gone from Kate to Katherine?

Just like Katie Holmes went from Katie to Kate when she married Tom Cruise?

As though maybe they weren't good enough the way they were?

It's one thing when you change your own name. It's a completely different thing when someone else changes your name for you.

Good luck, Princess Kate. You're going to need it.

What Was on the White Board

Remember when I wrote about the Santa/Easter Bunny/Tooth Fairy mess?

After the Easter weekend, I went into the little angel's playroom. Ma had drawn a picture of a bunny on the little angel's white board when she left. The next day, Ma's bunny was replaced with a headline, "Things I Believe In," and three pictures: Santa, the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy.

We've talked about whether or not she should believe in them several times since the kids at school told her they weren't real, and both Beloved and I keep turning the conversation into a question for her -- what do you think? Neither of us wants to lie to her, but neither of us sees the harm in a little magic in childhood.

But this picture -- this picture made me sad, a little. The clinging, the need to write it out, to validate something I know won't last much longer. Often I'm shocked that she's seven. Birth to three seemed to take ten years, but three to seven shot by in an instant. I just taught her about Santa, didn't I? Is it really time to let it go already? We were just getting good at it!

It may seem contradictory that I'm writing about letting it all go as she's drawing pictures of it on her white board, but I see the pictures as evidence of her internal struggle. Are they real? Aren't they real? Should I believe the other kids? Why are my parents being so wishy-washy about this?

And there's a big part of me that just wants to get it over, to tell her it's a lovely fairy tale, that yes, it's us, it's always been us. Who could love you more than us? Who takes more satisfaction in your joy than us?

But that's another message that loses its magic if you shoot it straight. She needs to figure it out on her own.

This morning, I went to take a picture of the white board. Three dirty tissues lay on the floor, and it was all wiped away.

What Comes Crashing Down When It Rains

I opened the door to see a slight man standing on my front step. "I was driving by," he said, gesturing to his truck, "and I noticed your trees could use thinning."

I stepped outside, noting the woodchipper hitched to the back, the phone number on the side. "How much?"

He threw out a number, too high. I called Beloved, master negotiator. A few minutes later, my husband sent me to the ATM for the final amount. "Hurry," he said. "It'll go faster than you think."

I laughed. Surely they couldn't trim three trees that fast? But when I looked outside, the man on the doorstep was already 20 feet in the air. Three huge limbs lay on the ground. I thought about how long it would take Beloved and I to cut down such limbs, to drag them away. They must've weighed as much as a man.

I got in the car.

By the time I got back, the little man had moved to the front. "How much off this one?" he asked.

"As much as you can," I said. "I keep worrying that one's going to smash my car."

My sister and the little angel and I went on an errand. We were gone maybe twenty minutes, and when I returned, the man and his truck were gone, the trees transformed -- gone were the tributaries of tiny branches and left were the strongest limbs.

I pulled up to the house and sat there, staring at the tree, thinking how much I longed to trim my life like that, strip it to its skeleton, slash and burn the dead branches that come crashing down every time it rains.

With all the clutter gone, I could finally see my house.