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While driving today, i overheard this conversation in the backseat:
Stella: Oliver, what did the cat say to the dog?
Oliver: Meoww!
S: What did the dog say to the cat?
O: Woof woof!
S: What did the cake say to the dog?
(longish pause)
O: (singing) Happy Birthday, dear Dog!
Oh, they make me laugh so much.
I inherited a great book this weekend: “Bird by Bird” by Anne Lamott. Maybe you’ve read her writing (which is great). In my past, when I’ve referred to inheriting things I’ve meant that someone handed something down to me, the way I inherited a collection of lace-collared floral fine-wale corduroy dresses that I wore as a young girl. Yikes. That happened when mom was trying to clear some space in the guest bedroom closet. This time I inherited a stack of great books because Uncle Bob died.
Eleven days ago things went from looking up to sudden-turn-for-the-worse, and ten days ago, Bob left his weakened body behind and, wide-eyed, went to Jesus. More on that later. Not later today, but later later. Today is just about the inherited book. Because when we were all together in Bob’s condo over the weekend, the morning after his memorial service we began to thumb through the bookshelves and CDs. It didn’t feel vulture-like, as I might have imagined, but almost tender. To find things just as he’d left them, and think, yeah, that’s Bob; the eclectic selection of music, the books on art and architecture, the orderly and organized closet, so obviously Bob.
I’ve only just begun reading the book and already Anne has kicked my tail a little, because it’s a book about writing and she’s saying that if you like writing and want to write, at some point ya gotta sit down and get to it. That’s the hard part for everyone. But Bob loved to write, and spoke of wanting to write more, of making time to write. He read my writing and spoke so encouragingly and uncle-ishly of it that his passing reminds me (among other things) that the things I keep wanting and meaning to do should be done. Like seizing the moment of inspiration before it has passed and telling the stories stockpiled in my soul, sharing the moments that strain forward in my memory. There is something about a glimpse of life’s brevity to crystallize vision, to remind us to live our days with purpose and passion. Which, i should add, my UBob did wonderfully.
Just when i thought i’d started to get over the debilitating and far-reaching condition known in the trenches as “mom brain,” i lost my cell phone. My only phone. My connection to the rest of the world. My source of sanity when i really really need a grown-up conversation and the non-grown-ups all around me are losing their cool.
Repeatedly, I called the phone from Brian’s, hoping to hear the ring and find it. I thought Oliver had taken it somewhere, so I asked him if he knew where Mommy’s phone is. “I take it to work,” he’d answered. Where is your work? I asked. “Ummm, over dere,” pointing. No phone dere.
It had been four days. Four long, and sometimes slightly panicked days. Then, when i’d almost given up hope and had begun dropping heavy hints to Brian that we should go phone shopping, there it was. In the seat of the jogging stroller, hidden under baby toys and a hat.
First step: finding phone. Next: recovering brain.
