Kinetic Energy

This morning I rolled out of bed and laced up my running shoes. It was a gorgeous, gorgeous morning for a lap around my neighborhood. Clear sky. The laundromat vented a hot smell of dyer sheets. Somebody's sprinkler-system kicked on -- the cold water nipped at my legs.

I'm an incurable morning-person. This has always been true. If there is a moment I'll feel peaceful, or well-assembled during any day it occurs before 9AM. I like being part of the hush of each morning as it falls, slowly, to the noise of moving things.

Years ago I studied poetry. Took a class where the instructor challenged us to understand the silence that preceded the text. The idea being that words rise out of some moment of acute pain, ecstasy, awe, anger, desire...without the acute sensation, the author has no reason to speak or write.

We used the same tools any poetry class would: scrutinizing the rhyme scheme, assonance, and imagery but for a completely different end-goal.

I was embarrassingly clumsy with the setting. Ask me (at nineteen) to kick into intellectual one-ups-man-ship and I was good to go. Similarly, I circular loop poetry to other poetry with the best of a freshman class. This professor, though, made a compelling case that the essential task of studying words is to understand the silence that precedes them. The notion blew my mind. It still does.

As I hit my stride this morning, I thought of that college classroom. My life now. How seldom I try to connect any past or present versions of myself. I smiled, thinking, the connection is murky water to explain without a significant re-write. Just then the sprinkler kicked on and I gasped at the sting of cold water.

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Personal Soundtrack: So Pure (Alanis Morisette)
Dinner Line-Up:Lemon-Garlic Risotto with Parmesean, Mushrooms, Pine Nuts, & Black Pepper

Introduction

Naomi attends a book club every Thursday evening. It's a group of second graders that sit around talking about books. Pretty cool.

Last night, we had introductions and each kid was asked to list five things about themselves. Here was Naomi's list:

1. My name is Naomi.
2. I don't have any brothers.
3. I don't have any sisters.
4. I don't even have any pets.
5. I have to clean my own room.

Invention-Suggestion Box

I must not have been looking when the summer weather toggled with its master on-off switch.

Spending the majority of my life in the Midwest, I'm no stranger to humidity. Since turning thirty I have also resolved to generally complain less about my life and circumstance. I'm hoping to mature into one of those suffer-in-silence types of people.

Trouble is, when you're good at silencing complaints nobody seems to recognize you're suffering. Overall the martyr role has only worked out marginally well for me thus far. I'll have to refine the long-suffering sigh to prompt respectful praise for my "silence." In the meantime I let out an involuntary groan as I read today's forecasted heat index of 114 degrees.

It's one of those summer days I fight the urge to crawl into my refrigerator's icebox and stay there until October. So, allow me to couch my gripes in the form of a money-making-invention-idea.

Might I suggest someone out there, somebody a whole lot handier than myself, invent an icebox big enough for a person to camp out in during days like this? The bare-box would be good and I'd be willing to pay for little extras like a computer, i-Pod, or pillowy cot so I could actually grab some restful sleep.

Just a thought.







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Currently Reading: Blessed Are the Cheesemakers by Sarah-Kate Lynch
Currently Watching: Original Star Trek Episodes
Recently Enjoyed: The Visitor (2007)
Anxiously Awaiting: Eureka (Season 3.5, I think)

Barbie Campaign

Years ago I remember Naomi’s voice from the backseat of my car. She wondered out loud whether we might purchase a Barbie doll? An innocent enough question. Naomi was, maybe, two or three years old. Somebody at daycare played Barbie a lot. Sooner or later I had assumed I’d face the Barbie question so I was ready. Nope, no Barbies at our house.

Why? Naomi asked.

Again, I was ready with a response: I don’t like Barbie. My mental road-map of this conversation, however, stopped there. I hadn’t anticipated the follow-up “Why?”

To put it bluntly, I choked on the question…then I lied. Like a Persian rug I lied. Made up the “Barbie isn’t very nice” argument on the fly. I told the most salacious series of mean-Barbie stories I could conjure. She doesn’t let other people drive her T-bird. She built the Barbie pool such that there is only room for one. Does Barbie have a job? How did she get that big, Barbie-dream-house if she doesn’t have a job? I hear she’s selfish. She screams and cries when opening birthday she dislikes.

I got on such a roll that Naomi chimed-in. She fabricated stories of Barbie pushing and shoving her friends, not sharing well with Ken or Skipper…I patted myself on the back. I thought of the future body-image issues we avoided by quashing my daughter’s desire to own a Barbie doll. And, after that moment in the car, I didn't think much about it.

Weeks later, though, the lead teacher at daycare pulled me into the hallway. She was concerned that Naomi had some unusual narratives regarding the other girl’s Barbie dolls. I blinked up my doe-eyes and mmm-hmmmed my way through these concerns. Thanked her for mentioning it. Then proceeded to high-five my kid on the way home. Promptly, though, I dialed back the Barbie smear campaign. Obviously, I had made my point.

Barbie still comes up in conversation around our house from time-to-time. Friends or playmates will still occasionally play with Barbie dolls. If asked Naomi joins in. Five years since muzzling my Barbie-slam-fest, however, my girl makes sure each Barbie character is gainfully employed and quite generous with sharing her things.

All-Access Bracelet

Four days into Summer Vacation. Naomi has hit the pool every single day. Sporting goggles, beach towels, and a ridiculously ambitious level of SPF protection we were among the mass of families attending the Cooper Y’s Outdoor Water World Grand Opening Pool Party.

Naomi marched right over to the teeny-bopper lifeguard, insisted on taking the swim test and was promptly awarded a red bracelet which serves as an all-access pass. It enables her to swim anywhere in the pool, and to utilize the water-slide at the deep end.

Poolside social dynamics, I was surprised to realize, are relatively intact from the days my brother and I would ride dirt-bikes over to Ballard Pool.

A gang of pretty girls sprawled on beach towels appearing unimpressed by everything. Underwater hand-stands were met by gasps and squeals of praise. A pair of teen-aged boys made terrific use of their snorkeling set. I think some narrative about submarines was at work there, but I’m not sure, they spent a lot of time sub-surface. Life-guards twirled their whistle strings. The war-paint white nose was missing. Maybe it’s too early in the year, maybe there are better sun screen products now.

Safety Check was met, universally, by kids groaning about the injustice of it all as they clamored out of the water. Naomi told me I could swim laps (I was “big enough”). She gangled over to spend Safety Check with some of her friends. Hadn't seen them since school let out last Thursday, you know. One of the girls noticed Naomi’s red bracelet.

"Oh, yeah, that." Naomi shrugged and held out her wrist, "You know, there's a lot that's happened this summer."