light all the candles
Call Chuck tomorrow and demand he take real action and pass common sense gun legislation. 202-224-6542 Or call Marsha in Tennessee and rack up some vms asking how she lives with herself: 202-224-3344.
One of my kids is wearing a favorite sweater, not of hers, of mine. It’s bit cropped, gray and with little smiley faces all over it. In the kitchen, I hear plates hitting the table and I feel as if I should go in and help. I’ve been away. The smell of sizzling ribeye has reached me now and the sound is just as promising. I should go in and lay napkins on the table. I will eventually walk into the kitchen, set out the steak knives, the forks, the glasses, light the candles.
Now the child has threaded her legs under mine and crossed them at the ankles, cracking open a book she’s read twice already. “It feels nice to have finished something,” she said after turning to me, homework finished. Her pink sock-clad feet move back and forth under me as she reads. I think I have a little cold. I love my sweet, wild kids.
I listened to kids sing songs at talent show auditions acapella, stepping up to the empty mic stand in the middle of an empty stage, save a few of us grownups sitting behind tables with morning coffees half-full. Half-memorized lyrics, sung quietly but with soulful seriousness, eyes sometimes closed. Who am I to give notes? It was all wonderful. I love your kids.
I taught juggling skills using colorful scarves to a different group of kids, different ages, different learning styles, a shoes-off classroom with lots of flying gauzy fabric and slides across the floor onto a shaggy carpet. Many joyous leaps of hot pink, baby blue, light green, circling furiously, tossed to one another across space and time. One kid just reminding me over and over that the floppy piece of cardboard he was holding were his nunchucks. Yep, I said, Yep, those are awesome. Scarves suspended in midair, socked feet flying. I love being at school.
Laundry folded, dishes done. I love life. Tomorrow, we’ll all do it again.