Surrender, Dorothy

Echoed Back at Me

The school nurse called yesterday. The little angel tripped, she said, over what? We don't know. She hit her head. It's a little swollen, no, she's not crying.

I drove through icy rain to pick her up. We went to urgent care. The doctor had her move her jaw, felt her cheekbones, kind of laughed at me. I didn't care. I don't mess around with head injuries. Not on my Baby Duck.

We got home at two-something. Still lots of hours in the work day. I gave her Tylenol and a tall stack of books, hoping she'd sack out on the couch. Five minutes later she was at my elbow, wanting a snack, a fort, a trip to Disneyland.

I tried to set her up on the laptop to play games. I couldn't remember the password.

I took some very deep breaths.

Beloved left work early to beat the snow that began to fall around five-something and also to keep me from going insane. There was still work to be done.

Then the power went out while Beloved was pouring oil into the frying pan.

Then it came back on.

Then it went out again.

My laptop battery salvaged the email I'd spent hours on, but in the quickly falling light I decided to shut down and look for candles in case we were stuck like this for hours.

Because both cars were in the garage. And the garage door was down.

And it is powered by electricity.

Of which there was none.

Deep breaths.

I found a bunch of candles. I lit them. I considered what could be made for dinner that didn't require heat. Again I was surprised at how much light candles can provide if you have enough of them.

Outside, the electric company workers climbed around in my neighbor's yard as deer watched, silhouetted on the ridge.

Then it all powered back up, the candles suddenly insignificant against the countertop.

Beloved began cooking dinner. I returned to my work and found after thing after thing after thing happening all day that I had absolutely no mental energy for any of it anymore.

Around 10 p.m., school called. Another snow day.

Then, just now, I was trudging through my email when I saw a comment saying I'm being featured on Schmutzie's Five Star Friday.

It goes up, it goes down.

It goes up.

Pilot Lands Plane in Street, I Read, Anger Dislodges

Last night, a small plane landed on a highway outside Kansas City. On the radio this morning, I heard an interview with the pilot, who is a year older than I am. He sounded stunned. He was amazed he was alive -- his plane lost power at 2 a.m. on the way to Kansas City from St. Louis. He clipped a bridge and landed on the highway. He said he decided to just keep thinking, just keep breathing.

A bystander told him he should buy a lottery ticket. Immediately.

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Last night, I finished reading My Hollywood, a long and heavy novel by a writer I increasingly respected as I made my way through her book. She's well known, has won awards, and is impressively reviewed, but as I am useless in the name-recognition category, I had no idea who she was when I got the book. As I dug into her career, I realized she's been interviewed by everyone and fabulousity abounds. She's actually super intimidating, at least on paper.

And this was her first novel in ten years. The acknowledgements, which of course I read, indicated the book took a while to write.

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This week, someone in my 28-day meditation challenge emailed me to say a woman had posted who had just been the victim of an armed robbery. I went immediately to read her post. She wrote:

My colleagues and I were the victims of an armed robbery on Saturday and lost everything. I have been hesitating to make a post about it, as computer access has been limited, but truthfully I do not want to vicariously traumatize anyone in the challenge. It was really, really,  frightening and luckily no one was hurt. All I did was to remain constant with my breath and I believe we would have all been killed, had it not been for the calmness we maintained.

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At some point in the past 24 hours, my anger dislodged and floated away. I'm sure it'll be back again, but for now, it has passed. The idea of sitting down with my novel again doesn't inspire flame-throwing fantasies.

The plane, the book, the robbery. Not necessarily in that order.

 

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In other news: read my review of Mona Simpson's My Hollywood and my latest post on meditation.

A Big Family of Brave Women

This morning the little angel didn't want to go to school.

I searched my mind for something to give her.

"Sometimes," I said, "when I don't want to go somewhere, I pretend I have something with me."

"Like what?"

My hand became a spider crawling across her back.

"I have a spider," I said. "Do you?"

Her little hand formed a baby spider.

"Yes," she said. "I have one, too."

"Is it going to school with you?"

"Yes."

After school, in the car, she told me some girls had tried to make her move from her assigned seat on the bus.

"What did you do?"

"I told them 'no.' And I sat there, not saying anything."

"That is good. You shouldn't let the older girls push you around."

"Mommy, I remembered that I come from a big family of brave women."

And my friends, I nearly had to pull over.

"Yes, my love. Yes, you do."

"Mommy?"

"What?"

"My spider had fun at school today."