are you there, dog? It's me, kerensa

Friday, February 16, 2007 Halloween I am not sure of the exact appeal to Halloween. Perhaps it is the pagan in me, longing to come out. The girl who used to burn black candles and listen to eerie music. Really, the only religions that make even the slightest bit of sense to me are taoism and wicca, but I digress. Perhaps halloween is as exciting as it is because of the anonymity of costumes, the idea we can each metamorphise into another being. We grew up in a small town, atop a mountain, so the trick or treating was sparse and difficult. As young teenagers, my friends and I would traipse around the center of the mountain, hunting out the best goodies (full sized candybars) and I would stand by and disapprovingly watch as they "tricked" the less than generous houses. Back then, parents were trusting enough to send their strangely clad children out into the dark to knock on strangers doors. We would all heed the rules about no wrapperless candy, knowing that evil disgu...

There are tiny moments. They are sporadic. There is sometimes music beating time with the moments, and silence to mark the others. She feels a lifetime in a moment, a mere minute in a year. This is the glory of youth. James Dean and Marilyn Monroe, in black and white glory, line her walls- a tribute to a past she has not known, nor will she ever. She reads On the Road and fancies herself a female Kerouac, she watches obscure movies at her tiny theater off Rural Rd. and fancies herself an amateur Siskel, but really what she is is young. She closes her mouth in horror as her friends spin brodies off the Salt River Project, and in silence, watches the Phi Sigs play basketball out her window. She makes it to class when she can, and absorbs what she can, but really what she is is young. She meets a boy at a campus party. He is lanky, she is lonely. they strike up a conversation, as it goes. She wants to be anywhere but here, anyone but this, but it sticks, and she is. She studies, she forge...

There were times... many of them, that I questioned whether or not I was doing the right thing. The times when money was tight, bills were due, tires needed changing, or credit cards were high...I wondered if I had mistakenly taken the selfish route. I could have been "bringing in the bacon", along with a struggling Jake. I could've been putting in my nine to five, dressed in nylons and a chignon, alongside the majority of American women, earning my keep. But we saw her tiny face, pink and innocent, ready for everything the world was going to hand her, but so soft and needy, and there was no question that I would stay with her. She would not face it alone. There would be no daycare, no strangers, no missed moments. She would be one hundred percent mine. We gave up the idea of a house, of fancy cars, of restaurants and shopping sprees. And I spent each day, immersed in baby language and diapers, and meals for Jake. I took it for granted, knowing that as long as we were wil...