long range forecast

I am disturbed to report that our local hardware store has a Christmas tree displayed in the front window. Approximate date of trimming was sometime last week, as in, before the jack-o-lanterns had been carved, much less the candy doled out and the trick or treaters dreaming of their sugarplum booty while tucked snug into their beds. Tis the season is of course code for how many days left to shop. But we all know that now, so no need to drum it in here, and if fall and Tom turkey and the pilgrim napkin rings are all getting the squeeze these days by it's Christmastime in the city wafting through Walmart, so be it. My thinking is that the faster everyone gets there (and by there I mean the finish line, which I think is somewhere near the top of the ladder, also possibly the top of the heap and said heap is mostly all that stuff we think we need to have a life) maybe from that place the view will be clearer.


As in, that there is just no way to see. Not really. I mean, you can guess, and maybe take stock, haul in the extra jugs of water in case the power goes out, load up a few cases of  Dinty Moore in case the road gets blocked, stuff a few bills under the mattress, and out in the garage hide the shotgun behind the Obama for Pres yard sign. We can sit down and plot the course: diploma jumping then a stopover at a career or two, maybe the Bay of Marriage, maybe smooth sailing on the seas of fortune and right on past the Cape of Fear and working hard and whateverittakes paying off in the big pay off. Of course, it is just as easy to glide overhead in daddy's Lear and watch the scrambling down yonder, all those little people like ants on a log in a vast and merciless sea, but either way, the outlook The Way it Is is the Way it Will Always Be, is a navigation tool used best by a ship for fools.


Recently I was part of a conversation that included the phrase have and have nots. Also, the assumption that this fact--that there are those of us and them over there and that what we see is what is, and will be. Which is an odd language, when you think about it, or pay attention to the stories, pilgrims as outcasts and coming to a new land, with new hopes, victims forging ahead and better because of. And I am sure why those ESL classes they give the refugees who land here are such a big hit: pear, pair, and pare notwithstanding, this is America after all, land of the free and the brave, Donald Trump and Oprah, Michael Jordan and American Idol. What they need to teach is them and us, and that there is no difference, despite the spelling. Because it is critical, and the only way to decipher the have and have not jargon. Which they will bump into and run up against and maybe hit their head on. 


Navigating is of course all about looking ahead and making sure where you are headed is not into the rocks or over the edge, but away from disaster. Some people call this common sense, or planning for the future. But once you understand the limited sight distance, that the future is not only impossible to lock onto, but despite the computer models et al, it never happens the way they tell us or as many inches or more inches than we could ever imagine or how we had it planned or the way we fear, much less the way we assume, then it gets easier. And clearer, as the fog of assumption wans and what we see is that in the black hole of fate--that weird magnetic twist that sends the smallest boat right where it needs to go as fast as it knocks the wealthiest and most secure amongst us plunging to the bottom from what was touted as the safest the best the biggest--is that there is one word for it after all, and that it means luck, hope, fate, destiny and destination all in one nice easy to remember package. Once you see it, the big hand sweeping, the little hand marking the iotas of our lives around and around, then have and have not land in a different tense, from past to present perfect. And from sea to shining sea, where there is nothing truer than change, which is of course, the only glimmer about the future we can ever hope to begin to see.

below

Most of the time when someone goes under they see things they've never seen before. Or, things they have forgotten about, or maybe: things in a whole new way. And you would think this is a good thing, or at least, that they might take a gander while they are down there, the surface seeming like some neverland, and make good use of the time. Say howdy to that long-lost love from the eighth grade, finally see just what happened to the favorite green shoe that left behind its strappy over-priced mate. Maybe take a good long look at the person they once were, or whatever else comes swirling by nicely backlit by that white light. Uh, no. Most of us kick and scream and if there was a way to truly know, we would feel ourselves crying our eyes out. And flailing abit, of course, there is always a bit of flailing, even for us pros, and even when it is not our first time, even when we think we saw it coming; which is really the only difference between the pros and the neophytes in this case, the pros usually get a smidgen of that teensy voice just before everything gets dark and that voice tell us in the same nano-second that we realize it, that our number is up.


But like I said, this all comes as a surprise to even the old hands. After all, nobody goes there because they plan to. And I am including the people who think I can just jump and it will be over. They have no clue, clearly. Firstly, there is more time than you think.  Lots and lots of time, once the flailing stops and once that teensy voice is the only thing you hear. Not only does everything sound different, but nothing looks the same.


I am pretty sure these days that I write because I see things in a different way and that if I just beam these little thoughts often enough or long enough, or get the knack of just the right pattern, somebody out there might flash a light back at me and I would know they get it. I have a ten year-old who does this, flashing his red ever-ready juiced flashlight into the dark sky, on and off, on and off, off the back deck when he is supposed to be in bed and sleeping. I myself as a child was big into beaming the oj carton-sized flashlight my dad owned, under my bed and onto one of the eggs from the kitchen fridge; maybe just enough warmth, the light sending its message through the cold shell, would be enough. 


The odd thing is that most of what I know, and by that I mean of course, what I see or have seen, or think I might see, has come from many times under the surface. And of course you can be in the middle of nowhere and the nowhere a vast desert, and you can go under. Or there in the comfort of your pink bedroom with the aqua shag carpet that was not the carpet you wanted, but was a remnant and on sale and your mom thought it would look just fine. The surface gives a shit about where you are and how you came to be there and how your hair looks and if you said it just right, and if you look good or bad or seriously odd during the flailing bit. The surface of course decides to call it flailing, and notices. Let me say this: under there, nobody gives a shit, least of all you, least of all the you that suddenly speaks through that teensy voice. Whatever voice that spoke to you before, your dad, the teacher from high school with the crooked glasses and bushy eyebrows, the ex, the boss, whoever, is gone. It is just you, and lots and lots of time, and the surface seems like many lifetimes ago.


Which is why you see things differently and things you had forgotten about and things you did not know you might ever see and what I hope, my gift to you, my trinket carried back from so many trips into the deep and no hope and no way, is that what you see is that life is a beautiful and rare thing. And that going under is itself a gift, a chance to see what you thought and to decide if it is true, or if you want that as your truth. Afterward, of course you will see things differently, and of course the surface seems glassy and like a mirror and reflects back to you exactly that which you beam toward it. 

end of story

The desire to know what happens next is why we have sequels. Also, the Aeneid. They were already onto it, and into it, back then, people heading out on the long journey, coming home to tell the tale. First there is the leaving: no story without a departure point or a moment when it all changed, the shoe suddenly on the other foot or dropping, the threshold stumbled over, the house sucked up and spun cattywampus and to somewhere else. Next the story line where we settle with the popcorn and whatever we left in the down! stay! position on the perimeter stays put until (and this is the olden days of course) the curtain rises and the lights come back on and we had no idea the old man beside us with the hacking (and in one scene annoying) cough was in fact a young lady of about twenty. And we all stand, begin shuffling for the paper cups and sometimes a last attempt at wiping our eyes so nobody will know we cried, actually cried, as if it was real life and truly, really, a sad thing and not just because Meg Ryan has had work done and whatever happened to that charming girl next door who got mail (and Tom Hanks on more than one occasion), who now looks like a poster child for heroin addiction. 


And I am a sucker for stories, truly, in every sense of the word, a sucker. As in, I believe them. As in, later I will think whatever happened between them after the wedding and maybe kids, oh yeah, probably kids, a small cottage in Maine and scrapbooks covered with dust because certainly, there would be many. I can walk in Trader Joe's and think oh Katniss at the sight of so much food, walk into the barn and look for the spiderweb that must certainly be in the corner and with some word I need to see. A story for me is real. Could have happened, maybe did, maybe will again, maybe even now as I write, maybe when I am sleeping five children are clambering onto a carpet with the phoenix and making sure they stay in the middle for the long ride. A story is not virga, falling from the sky long enough to think here comes the rain! or, it's snowing! yet never making it to the ground; to puddle up or thunder through the dry canyon, to settle onto the cedar branches or sift through a forest just beyond the wardrobe and a single lamp post. 


There is much debate over the book versus the movie and yes, a movie is never the book or the whole story, but then, neither is a book. Characters, the real characters, creep silently off the pages and if there is an opposite of virga, from the nothingness of the word on the page they magically distill into the somethingness of the person and the life, in my mind. 


Which is the reason for sequels. We want to know what happened next, more, did they ever and when she finally what did they all say. There is an innate desire I think to lift the lid and flip to the last page, vicariously see down the road and crane our necks over the edge, maybe row quicker to the next bend. We do want to know what and when and if we made the right, if the path leads where we thunk it would or hoped it might, despite. The sage, the bard, the soothsayer, palm reader, tarot deck shuffler, astrologer of freewill or not-so-free-will, the intuitive, and the crystal ball consultant are willing to help us. And we do go there, to the free horoscopes online and the nice old lady with the big hand painted on the plywood sign, the you have many powerful friends in the cookie. And you might be thinking oh here she goes I see where this is headed, life is an unfolding, no way around the bend, some clever river or water metaphor and how not until we go there for ourselves, and even then. 


Uh, maybe not. So maybe there is no going to see, no looking back upstream (okay I'll give you that one), no Illiad to show here it all is, muses mapped and gods and goddesses dutifully noted for the generations, that ever truly tells us what happened then, once and for all, The End, or in the old movie version, Fade to Black (nowadays just Fade Out, maybe too many film schools are in California, all that far out and way out and just being out there that somebody felt the need to groove up even the last dying thought on the reel.) 


But think of this, and not to get all Rod Serling here, but just a thought: a place where the characters just go on floating on the river atop that raft, Harry and his new epilogue family have Sunday lunch with Ron and Hermione, maybe Buckbeak in the backyard to entertain the kids, maybe Sisyphus let the ball just roll on down and stepped out of the way in the nick of time, maybe Forrest has a taco stand and serves it up. Which would also mean the creepy guys are still out there, the ones that got away thank god and we were happy to see go, relieved when the one hundred twenty running minutes crossed the finish line, when we could put it down and shove it through the little metal return slot at the library, Netflicks it right on out of our sight. 


So maybe what we want is not the endless loop or the reel that never ends, or Ground Hog day to be the way, or to see the scary ending and read how they never made it. Maybe we really want, not the sequel but a bit more, just enough and then the once and for all ending whambam thank you final curtain, a way to sum it up and let us decide for ourselves, maybe they did make it, maybe she figured it out a few pages later.


Which would mean certainly in our daily walking out the door the chapter is the thing, enough to know a life is its story and that as it plays out we aren't the only ones in the club, skipping ahead and maybe having to re-read the last few pages, maybe hoping no one will notice that embarrassing night page thirty-four, hoping by page forty a bit more is clearer, also by then Mr. or Mrs. Right, and somewhere around fifty the plot not only thickens but gets really really good and we want to do nothing else but be there, despite the what was she thinking and couldn't they see? and maybe when the last chapter begins there will be a small blurb, Nancy Pearl hinting, another on the way and we can relax and take in every last word knowing (and hoping, after all, job security for the author), maybe a few more.

the up and over

The up and over took a bit of planning. Rock-paper-scissors to decide which guides to lead the hike, which guides to take some of the boats downstream to Deer Creek and then hike back to Tapeats where it all started. We could, of course, have taken the straight shot downriver, pointed out the mouth of Tapeats Creek as we floated past or even pretended to the clients there was nothing there worth stopping for, and a few miles later pulled in at Deer Creek. Which was not a bad way to spend the day and sometimes, that was what we did. The up and over took more time and also, the planning. It also meant a nine mile walk for the folks who wanted to give it a go, along the creek and across it and in Spring easier said than done and a guide to wade across and set up a rope and haul it back over, so factor in numb feet. Then the tricky scramble, one very thin and crumbly ledge of siltstones, lots of tromping through sand and prickly pear forests (okay, knee-high but still, they are called prickly for a very good reason), and if time a side trip to Shaman's Gallery to see the wattle-and-daub door on the ancient granary; this only for brave free-climbers in the group (no thank you very much, one morning of sewing machine leg and looking down a two hundred foot free-fall and that last one hand and one toehold stretch as far as you can and whatever you do don't f-up move was enough for this river gal). Then the hard climbing. Up a steep, winding scree slope and just when the complaints begin to outnumber the oohs and ahhs a very big ooh and ahh at the first sighting of Tapeats Creek plunging from the limestone cliff. Maybe we can make it and onward, a dip in the creek and the odd coldness of mist at the base of the falls, the wet green smell of monkey flowers and watercress, looking out from a verdant, lush creekside surrounded by desert. Not a bad place to eat a salami and rye.


And that is the first half of the day, because by now the boats should be downriver and only one way: keep going. My favorite part, Surprise Valley, the surprise halfway across when a chain reaction of thoughts: hot as heck if it is the wrong time of year to be undertaking this expedition (anytime between spring and fall so most of the river season), dry, hot, never-ending trek, friggin really hot so this better be worth it, surprise! no water or shade and one long, winding trail, no end in sight.


Now if you spend anytime around a nine year-old you will know that the word surprise is synonymous with something good, which can be candy, slurpee, or trip to the neighborhood pool and on a really great full of surprises day, a spongebob ice cream afterward. But somewhere between the early days of hoping and believing is the expanse of ain't gonna happen, and that valley is where most of us adults spend our time trudging. And toiling. Back and forth, hoping, no surprises today or pleading, for godsakes, no more surprises! we, of the no news is good news.


But I loved Surprise Valley, more than the creek and more than what came at the end when the trail descended yet another mumbo-jumbo slope of rocks to yet another waterfall cascading out of the limestone, and the prettiest little valley of cottonwoods, to what we called the Deer Creek patio: a small basin of water big enough for five of your friends, fringed with pink willow roots and maidenhair fern, flowing out of that a sinuous curving grey creekbed, dippers flitting back and forth, and one last one-foot-at-a-time walk through a narrow slot canyon, above the unseen but loudly rushing water and the next (yet another) mouth-gaping waterfall. Oh, and the ancient handprints,  stenciled in limonite pigment onto the red stained limestone,  something so perfect it would have to be a set for a National Geo shoot.


Only it wasn't, but real, and something you would never forget, would go home and when the small square screen that is every day and the same thing always playing, a life stuck on re-wind, something you would think about. Despite the toe stubbing and a lost water bottle and the MIA shade, the toil, the looking ahead and wondering why and when. Somewhere midway across you stopped thinking better be worth it or what if it's not worth it or wrong choice, easier would have been better. Because of course just past midway there is that surprise of the not what you were expecting, not what you think you are wanting, and that is when it gets good; just after it seems never good again. But only if you look up and realize whoa I am a long long way and who knew it would be like this, or that there was anything like this, and isn't this why we came here in the first place, to have the same old same old replaced by something, even for a single moment, a different view, maybe not the view you'd expected, and not even there yet: a place just somewhere along the way, nothing special about it except your choice to go there, maybe even, a really tough place. Which is the surprising part, to be somewhere you never thought you might be and to see everything beautiful right then and there, on the long haul to getting somewhere, a place that starts out looking an awful lot like nowhere.

the first time to the deep end

When you are teaching someone to swim the thought is not drown; maybe a little treading water when it is the deep end, maybe how to push off the bottom and make it to the surface. I always loved diving for the pennies, but then, swimming was my thing pretty much from the get-go. Once you get the pool thing wired you realize how handy and also, lots of options. I never minded the ocean, the taste or the stinging in my eyes, not even the sand that would fill my bathing suit bottom after one too many tumble along the bottom. Where I grew up the water was warm, in the Gulf like a bath tub so that was a bit ick but on the Atlantic side better than sitting in the glaze of the sun coated in slime, slowly cooking. That was for the big girls and the old ladies straddled down in the beach chairs, their husbands asleep with their mouths open to the white sky, or pretending to read the newspaper while they looked out over the top of their sunglasses.


It would thrill me when my dad would swim, it was unexpected and as far as I can remember lasted until I was about seven. After that I don't remember either of my parents in the water or even my grandfather, who took me to the beach and would sit there watching while I tumbled or dug or hauled pailfuls of water to the dry, the smoke from his pipe curling up from under his straw hat.


We did the lake thing, in the mountains with the pebbly bottoms and the water suddenly breath-sucking cold, layers of warm and cold like a big clear, very dark cake. The lakes weirded me out, not knowing how deep or what's down there or what if I made it to the middle but no dock and then what. The ocean had that unknown something might get me thing too but there was enough to do on shore or if I wanted to go deep the waves made me feel safe.


Which might have something to do with how I ended up in that last career and big waves, waves that could crush a seven year-old or the seven year-old's playhouse, sweep her away and under and across the rocks, suck her through or hold her down. Moving water makes sense in my swimming-mind, my water-mind, whatever that may be, even water that in any other place on another day would have mothers screaming and dragging children to shore, surfers fist-punching the air and high five'ing and news cameras with something for the 6 o'clock. 


But that is just whitewater and specifically, the big ass type of whitewater I learned to row a boat on and swim through, when plan A got knocked on its keister and Plan B meant pretend you are Mark Spitz (no Michael Phelps yet) and swim for your life. There was no floating in the correct whitewater pose feet up and hands behind your head I'm just enjoying myself on this merry day in the month of May, the directions the customers had all heard somewhere or seen in a red cross safety film. Which would come as a surprise even after our pre-trip spiel and five days, that fifth wave in Hermit, the blinding flash was that my life I just saw in Granite, if the flag dropped and suddenly, Plan B.


Not that anybody drowned. Not when I was a guide there; the drownings happened somewhere else and once, to a guy I liked a great deal who was kayaking and another time, to a dear friend because of ego and stupidity and wrong place with the wrong people, and one of them my first husband. Which is the thing you know, somebody says they know or maybe, know better, they talk a good story, lots of pointing and waving of hands, maybe an offering to the river god, maybe they have been down before, maybe they will lead and you are supposed to follow. Which can be fine and sometimes the best way and sometimes, really the only way if you've never been there or are just learning: and haven't learned yet that the voice on shore is not the voice that you will hear, small in the back of your mind then maybe screaming, maybe quiet in that way that says I mean business and listen to me, louder than a shout. 


But it is what you think about, a thought tucked into the back of your mind when the water looks so nice and come on in and the current is just a small sweep, the tide is still edging out, and the child says come swim with me and there they are: heading for the deep because they are nine now and had all those YMCA swim instructors to toss them up and push them under, not you; oh, so not you, somebody else would get that job. And there they go not even looking back; like they know what they are doing, know what they are headed for and not even worried what might be down there. They can't see what you see, sitting there in the beach chair and worried if your stomach is too or maybe just for a while then back to the book. You see every one of the waves, the time in Jawbone and no ropes, the time in Lava and no hope whatsoever, how hard you had to and how long it seemed, how many strokes and all those mornings in high school back and forth, back and forth, the smell of chlorine in the shower, the look on their face when you opened your eyes, the look on their face the first time perfect strokes and breaths to the side; the first time to the deep end all alone.

a cup of texas tea

Do not quote me on this but I am pretty sure there is a law of physics that states for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. If that is not the case then by all means, disregard the rest of this post because that is where I am headed. My thought is this: for every Water World (sorry Mr. Costner) there is a The River (1938 FSA funded documentary written and directed by Pare Lorentz, the script went on to be nominated for a Pultizer prize in poetry). For every Monsanto there is a Wendell Berry, and if we are lucky (and we are) a Farmer John. For every Goldman Sachs a Beverley Hillsbilly who has no clue yet. For every Brookings Institute think tank big brain there is a child somewhere asking a question. For every Aimee Bender iron-headed boy with pumpkin-headed parents there is an Olive, a Katniss, a Lisbeth, and a real person looking for a character she can connect to. For every Fox news viewer there is a video gamer who only ever watches a computer screen and not to see what's happening over at the BBC newsdesk. For every Hutu there is a Hopi. For every plastic bottle filled from a tap and marketed as better or smarter water there is a cancer cell stretching its legs, spreading its wings; for every marketing smirk someone who doesn't buy it or a slum where it stacks up. 


Reactions yes. Predictable, I think that depends on where you stand; the oil platform out at sea has its viewpoint, but so does the ancient granary tucked in the cliff up Tapeat's Creek, the sleek marble hallway leading to the sleek and equally cold boardroom, the tiny handful of willow tendrils cupped into a nest, yet another. 


Our culture spends a lot of time trying to predict. We want to know in what sector and when the next bubble will rise and how to be closest in line to get on board. We want to be assured if we kneel and pray and pay the tithe then what, and forever. We want to know how high the water will rise (Fox news viewers exempt from this) and how fast we can sell the beach condo. We want to be able to mark our dayplanner with the precise and can-count-on-it to the minute date our child will be born and if that requires a chemical jumpstart called Pitocin, so be it; planning via prediction trumps one of the highest infant mortality rates of any developed nation and highest C-section rate of all nations. We want to know dammit and now and not just how many more miles.


Which is why analysts were invented. So they can tell us what next and how many to buy or sell or how big a bundle, all the seismically important things. 


Of course, when things are for show then what is the reaction: is it stronger because of the falsehood, will the bird flying over the movie backdrop find her way home or does she need the real canyon migration marker to find her way? Which brings another law to mind, making sow's purses out of pig's ears, but that would be the commodities market and in that case, holding one's pinky just so whilst one sips the tea (or drinks the kool-aid) might make people think oh yes and look what they are doing to fix but the compass on that one has gone all whicky-whacky and who knows which direction it really points.


If, as quantum physics asserts, we are creating the present reality, that energy is endless and boundless and both the sum of its parts as well as the mind counting the sheep, then all we need is a few good minds (and by good minds I do not mean university funded minds or think tank finger drummers, or agency oriented thinkers) and maybe a kindergarten class or two to set things straight and maybe keep the spinning happening on the axis; I don't think anybody on Wall street or down the road at the Hill has a friggin clue: please tell me why Dow Jones and the S & P, the Nasdaq can trump the nesting grebe, the spotted sandpiper, the kingfisher minding its kingfisher business?


The good news. According to the aforementioned law of physics then all these short-sighted thoughts must certainly be creating a much longer-ranged view. So thank you Mr. Newton for pointing out the way it is, thank you tea party-downers, thank you BP f-ups, muchos gracias to the global policy makers behind the curtain (where I am pretty sure the wicked witch's big sister has been hiding all along) and praise the lord to all the religions of the world that preach our way or the highway. Thanks for the fuel to get us somewhere else, the drive to change gears, the shift in the currents that is surely coming our way. 

water rolling underground

This is the story of a river. Many words ago I thought if I could write about it I would be there. Which of course is not true, and it did not work that way. Which I can see now, a few miles downriver and many pages under and beyond the bridge that brought me to be here waving from shore. When I was first on the river and young and had no idea really what I wanted, aside from a few easy goals (boyfriend, summer job anywhere but back home, a pair of those funky pre-Teva plastic fisherman's sandals the river guides wore and were called jellies) being there was not where I wanted either. But I had no clue or a where else or what else, and the guides were cute in a shaggy seventies cut-off blue jeans kind of way. Which was not my way at all. Which might have been part of the appeal, and definitely fit the blank wide open yonder anywhere but home.


Nobody tells you that first night when the ground is your bed. Nobody says someday you will look back, someday you will wish you had written down every word, remembered everything. Not even after a year or two and scaring the bejesus and one untimely and very long swim, and the guy who keeled over just at the top of Corksrew which was so not your best rapid and in those days two breaths and a zillion compressions, did jack shit to re-start his heart. There on the wet and slippery granite of a river and you would think why me and then with each breath you gave him why him and later that night, maybe this isn't the life for me. But it was and you did, and you went there into that life again and again, and with some wonderful and amazing people, and saw some wonderful and amazing things. And it is only now that you think was that my life and in the next breath-thought, because you can't think back then and also think here and now, when did it end?


But that was really a long time ago. I am tempted to write long long time ago but no sense rubbing salt into my own wound; the eternal (and best sung by David Byrne) question how did I get here is one thing. Realizing uh, I might want to look up and see old man river is rolling right on past, another. If I squint I can just catch the tail-end of a small boat as it rounds the bend, then gone. Somebody else's life now: the day beginning with birds (now that's a catchy title) as the day must (such prose!) it seems, because each day does (Hallmark aside, this is the stuff  of someone who might be looking a tad too far downriver). Another way to look at it I suppose is I have come full circle and am now critiquing my own writing. No sense waiting for that Book Review, they seem to be slow on the draw these days anyway.


Which makes sense, having sat down at my computer day three after returning from the hospital, baby in his burrito so he could not flail himself to bits and me sitting there wondering how the hell I would keep from flailing myself to bits. What I saw first was that I had gone from a gal who would bike for four hours to her favorite emerald green pool for a, yes, though at the time I did not think so (oh sad pitiful hindsight) skinny dip to becoming a mother. Whatever the heck that meant. A word that did not conjure hip yoga clothes and proud tanned belly or a strategically and artfully arranged cover pose, not yet. 


Evidently part of my escape route had much to do with my own mother, and despite a happy childhood or strike that, I was happy and a child and also, suffered, as children do. Even nice parents suck; ask their teenaged sons and daughters. So despite said childhood (and you should know if you must that I am all for putting one's inner child in a time out for an undetermined length of time, as in forever) maybe I suffered from a longstanding bout of arrested development. Not that I am a collector of dolls or beanie babies at age (not your beeswax) but for crying out loud, how long is this woman going to whine waa waa waa that she is no longer drifting down the stream? 


Note to self: buy some cute stickies when I have the extra cash and then write this down and stick it on my forehead. MUST MOVE ON.


Well dang, I sort of huh, maybe once, there was that time, and now we are ten. Or he is, the little bambino burrito is a whole enchilada kid now and what have I got to show for it? Maybe one too many helpings of cheese on those nachos and a serious need to row the days and weeks and a jiggly belly away (sooo not doing the walking-through-the-mall strollercize thing sohelpmegod.) But you know that is someone else's story, how hard life is chasing a toddler through Barney's in shoes no mother but (aside to agent if I had one: can I say this?) only a man would design. Which might be why wedges are back in style, now that motherhood is hip. Or was, like yesterday and I am not sure where Angelina is these days, recovering from one too many et al, just do not tell me on a river, she and Madonna, and Sarah Jessica telling tall tales of baby poo in various hues and getting their groove back.


Which oh yes I would so be there, only I did not. And you know if I had to do it again; well, let's just suppose. I would tell that gal it is going to be different, but (and here she would interrupt, after all I know myself better than anybody) that is okay. The river was different and look where it took you. Yes it is one thing to be in the spotlight Miss Canyon Guide and that ego immunity idol around your neck as if you, by virtue of sleeping on the ground and knowing a tricky knot or two, also, pretty good at keeping the tribe with plenty of fish, have somehow outwitted all the poor shmucks who had to pay to go down the river. Well baby the tribe has spoken and you are now and have been, an observer. A reminiscer, a recaller of the good ol days and way back when, and also, a looking back upstreamer. Which you know or should know by now, has a limited sight distance. 


Now where was I? Oh yes, ahem. Now hear this, in response to the aforementioned question, posed hypothetically and also, after having mentioned the unfortunate tummy situation, my answer is hereby known as: yes. I would if I had to do it again, every last looking-out-the-window moment of it, also, looking over at my son's mound of legos lying in wait for me to step on in the middle of the night when he needs a drink of water, and speaking of water, which of course reminds me where I came from and how I did get here, such a beautiful beautiful thing it was and is, and all the ways I keep managing to find it. Or maybe it was destiny (that last name thing after all) but either way, what a long strange trip it's been.