Busy week. About to leap up and go back to church to work on the altar. And then rush across town to fix the fourteen year old’s sorrow about the Easter shoe question. ‘Is there any sorrow like my sorrow,’ she keeps asking, ‘that you made me get shoes I didn’t want?’
‘Oh my word,’ I repost, ‘you didn’t say you didn’t like them. You have to speak Out Loud. I’m not a mind reader!’
So I’ll run back and change them, if I have time. But who am I kidding, I don’t have time. Every day I don’t have time.
But I have taken a moment, here and there, to wish a happy birthday to my second teenager. I am completely creeped out that he is now thirteen. It was fine with Elphine. Made sense. Was the usual passing of time. Took it in stride. But a boy? A boy turning thirteen? I’ve always believed, because some astute person told me, that a thirteen year old boy sitting in a Latin class is The Lowest Life Form. And when I myself was 13, I did find the Other to be kind of a trial. But now there’s one living in my house. So I’m kind of freaked out. First day went ok, though. He ate his cake and sat in his new bean bag chair and played with his new iPod and seemed pretty content. Maybe that’s all that’s needed for us to get through the next decade. Nevertheless, I, his mother, will hover around in the background suppressing anxiety.
Also, would you believe it, I finished all the Miss Read books I had. So now I’m going to pick up Pilgrim’s Inn which has been sitting here calling to me for many a long day. And I also got in some much coveted snatches of Samantha Blythe’s Zines which are funny and charming. Can’t believe I didn’t even know what a Zine was and had to look it up several times. With each and every line, I think to myself ‘Samantha is my Spirit Artist.’ I really like the neurotic and funny brisk pace of her writing. It’s like she’s living in my head.
I wanted to read more books, but this wasn’t really the week. But maybe next week will be.
And now, I’m sorry to say, but I must go on to the next thing. Those flowers aren’t going to arrange themselves.
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