Perhaps one of my favorite Dorothy Parker quotes of all time. It's stuck in my head today for some odd reason I can't really put my finger on. Maybe it's the doing of things long put off; or the completion of new goals birthed in spontaneity. Whatever the cause, I think it's a good one to remind myself of frequently.
I'm feeling this resurgence and necessity to accomplish a lot these days. Maybe I was sick of the calm. In the past week, I've taught my son how to swim with some assistance from my 10 year old niece; I've written a complete introduction to a story (gasp!); I've become quite acquainted with the treadmill; and I start swimming daily (I forgot how quickly I tan, it's been so many years since I've had the luxury of a club to use -- I am positively brown).
Of course, those first two are certainly the stones in my June Crown. Watching my six-year-old- ever-so-slightly-developmentally-delayed-though-beyond-his-years-brilliant child learn to swim so quickly and, to boot, swim under water today was not unlike the day he took his first steps. Yes, I might have teared up in the pool -- stranger things have happened.
And tonight, as he finished reading "Elwood and the Witch" to me and I turned out his lights, he requested Kind of Blue, making sure to tell me he was playing the "saxophone like Coltrane." The fact that he can not only play Freddie Freeloader through his "nose horn" to scale but the fact that he can actually differentiate Coltrane from Davis on the CD completely turns me inside out. If he picks out Julian "Cannonball" Atterley on alto sax, I'm calling the press. Or in the very least, Columbia Records. He also reminded me of how good he did at the pool; so our days revolve around the sun, the water and jazz. All of which seem to being doing wonders for the lot of us.
These moments, well, they astound me. As a parent, which is quite literally the hardest job I've ever loved, these magical little victories and triumphs where everything seems right in the world are how I realign my focus. Three weeks into our move to Nashville, the demon of transition finally reared its ugly head on my unsuspecting child. I think, honestly, there might have been a moment where he looked at me, turned a side eye and silently asked, "so....we're staying here?"
That's worrisome. But it's normal and we roll with it like we do everything else. We look to the little things to sustain us. Luckily we have the summer to acclimate and a wealth of resources for the hurdles here that we didn't have in Raleigh. For one, I found a biomed doctor today that takes my insurance! (Ok, I should have added that, at the very least, as number 2 of my hoorah list above.) We also have a tour for a private school for kids with unique learning styles tomorrow. Granted, I'd probably have to give up my entire inheritance times ten to pay for it, but that's what financial aid was invented for.
As for the writing...it's nice to do something other than blog. Not to say that I don't enjoy sitting here late at night, Karen Elson singing in the background, the quiet of suburbia screaming from the sidewalk, and me pouring out my thoughts from the day on to a blank screen, but there's something quite vacant about it at times. Vacant in that I'm not writing a great poem, a passionate song, or the beginnings of an intriguing story, screenplay, or novel -- you know, all of those things I swore 100 times on my Shakespeare Norton Reader I would do. So when something comes to me, like this gothic intro I've got, the overpowering need to read and write comes out of the shadows.
Removing myself from the complacency of a monotone life certainly has sparked some inspiration and for that I am ridiculously thankful. So I hope to have more than just brain fodder to put out into the dear universe some time within the next year. Not a challenge, just a hope.
For everything, lots and lots of hope.
kvlm
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