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...

I took the curtains off the sidelite windows yesterday, in preparation for our new storm door, and each time I pass it by, I am startled by how naked I suddenly feel. Our world has become one whose hatches are battened, toggles are buttoned and seams are sealed tight. Fifty years ago, it was customary to pop your head in your neighbor's door and let out a "yoohoo", and now the door has become deadlocked, barricaded and made of steel. I have mentioned before that I was raised on a mountain, where privacy was not only possible, but all too often the norm. In winter, the street was dark as pitch, because the inhabited homes were few and far between. My parents would go to sleep early, and I would be left in the quiet, longing for companionship and the noises of a suburb. Friends who lived below Taborton led, in my eyes, an easier life. They did not help split wood with a hatchet in November, or drag mattresses in front of the coal stove during power outages. When they wanted...

First Written Friday, February 16, 2007 So apparently, according to my mother, I am an odd duck. I used to look forward to the first day of school with fervor. The smells of new shoe leather, the classroom and supplies. The feel of your new first day dress, and perfect September air. Everything was new, and fresh, and full of promise. Which teachers were to become your destiny? The ones who drove you crazy with their stupidity, or the ones who picked your brain and tested your limits? Would your friends be in your class, or in your lunch? What about the guy you had a crush on? I want to tell my children they will have great teachers, and terrible ones. They will make some amazing friends who will bring them nostalgia in adulthood, and they will have some friends who cause me to inwardly cringe. They will have fabulous days, and atrocious days, but the good days will outnumber the bad. There will be a lot of learning experiences that will be invaluable to them for their entire ...

Like kids in a candy store, they are furiously digging their grubby paws through the clearance bins, in search of an item, any item, that would make this dig pay off. They eagerly examine scrapbook stickers and notepads (although the monogram P and V are all that are left), until they find something random and I agree to add it to my basket. We are there to buy supplies for their Halloween costumes, and before you get overly impressed with my superwoman skills, I must admit this is the first year I am attempting homemade costumes. When my sister and I were growing up, my mother was that aforementioned supermom. She made us gourmet meals on a tight budget, managed a full time teaching job and still managed to be the mom who dug out her sewing machine periodically. When the kids in 7th grade were all buying Skidz pants (atrociously ugly), she actually made me a pair so I could fit in (though I never wore them- because I was a perpetually embarrassed preteen) My handmade costumes ranged f...

They are immersed in a conversation only feet from where she sits, and it is a dialogue in her own language, but she is unable to comprehend. They are speaking of the depths of the latest foreign film they have seen, and of the new exhibit at the modern art museum. They speak of their trips overseas, and of obscure Indian Food restaurants, and of communes and underground music. She scrambles to pick up after one baby, who has littered the floor with a mosaic of rice and beans. Another child is showing her their bubble blowing abilities in soda. She searches her brain for a piece of titillating gossip, news or random trivia she could bring to this table, but she is at a loss. She could speak of the new way the babies say thank you, or of the upcoming school year. She could recite Stand By Me word for word, and give a recipe for macaroni and cheese she stole from Paula Deen. An invisible mirror is suddenly before her and she sees an overweight girl with hair that actually looks frayed al...