Ordinary Life

The toy store looked like a cuckoo clock from the outside and from the narrow doorway, as we entered single-file, it appeared we had found Gepetto’s workshop.  Brightly colored wooden letters, puppets on strings and puppets on springs gave the impression that the tiny cottage overflowed with hand crafted novelties, but we saw soon enough that all manner of fun diversions made up the walls of the place. There were toys from other countries, wind up toys, trendy toys and toys from days gone by.  I have always been in love with toys.  I visited each bustling room and lingered over all of the toys left out to try.  I was trying to remember how to start Jacob’s Ladder when  I heard an exclamation and saw that I was being stabbed in the heart with a knife.  It didn’t hurt, it was just  a plastic, blade-retracting toy knife.  And my husband was just playing, after all.  Wasn’t he? 

Two decades should be long enough to know someone, at least a little bit. Two decades should qualify as long-suffering enough, too. I am not sure if I’ve ‘run a good race’ or ‘fought a good fight’ I only know I am tired of running and fighting. A finish line - one drawn in shifting sands- has been crossed. There are no winners here. Dim hope; miraculous restoration. Of course, but oh-so-very dim. We tried it already, I went all in. You call it your biggest mistake, I’m not sure it will stick again. Remember that post-it note analogy? That was a fair and accurate warning. For a long, long time - too long, my dear-  I’ve been living by this law you wrote: Prove me wrong, or I’m right. Withheld pearls makes for suspicious swine. But I am trampled every time. “You live a secret, double life. You’re a fraud.  No longer my wife.” As you wish. Today, I repent my my intentional duplicity, lay down my brush for silver lining . You be you, no gloss added. The windows and doors are open,...

You cannot bring yourself to say “My imagination took off when that guy complemented your eyes.” Instead you say “You’d have to have his brain injury to be interested in you.”  “I’m sorry, I was wrong” is just something you can’t do. In my early childcare days, my favorite little boy to teach would toddle up and bite the back of my leg to let me know he wanted to be picked up.   And it worked.  I swooped him up every time.   He loved to be high in my arms, zoom around like an airplane and just be held close.    Should I find, some twenty years later, that Christopher is still biting people to get their attention, it would no doubt be as a news feature or column in the police blotter.  Christopher is not a cat, he should have outgrown biting and there are at least three of four better ways to initiate conversation that I am aware of.  Perhaps it is the way you learned to be picked up, held close, but it is time to stop biting me now. You are not a ...